Chapter 110

ENTROPY RISING

Alexander watched as Annie struggled to her feet. The ritual circle churned with unstable energy. Black smoke writhed across the dome’s surface.

She stood there for a moment, swaying slightly. Then her posture shifted. Straightened. She mouthed something. Her metal body rippled, and Alexander watched as the silvery surface flowed to smoky black. The same quality as the death energy filling the dome.

Annie turned toward the next cultist. Her blade arm extended as she launched at him, closing the distance fast. The cultist didn’t even turn. Still chanting. Still maintaining the ritual.

Her blade carved through his neck. His body fell into a heap. The head rolled several feet away.

The dome rippled violently. Power pulsed outward in chaotic waves. At the center, five meters above the ground, the floating woman’s expression shifted. Her rapturous concentration cracked. Her brow furrowed deeper.

Annie was already moving toward the fourth cultist. The dark sheen on her metal caught the dim light as she reduced her density, building speed across the blood-slick stone.

Then something gave.

The dome shuddered. At the center of the ritual circle, the floating woman’s eyes snapped open. Her face twisted with rage.

She screamed.

Power burst from her in a rippling wave. Not the passive death field from before. This was an attack. The blast rolled outward in all directions, slamming into Annie, into the three remaining cultists, into the bound bodies lying around the circle.

Annie went down hard. So did the cultists. All of them hit at roughly the same time, tumbling across the ground.

Alexander didn’t hesitate.

He launched forward, Metallokinesis carrying him toward the failing barrier. The dome flickered, sections vanishing and reforming as he closed the distance. A hundred meters. Eighty. The woman floated there, dark energy gathering around her shoulders, snaking down her arms toward her hands. She turned toward where Annie lay struggling to get up.

The dome collapsed completely. One moment it was there, flickering and unstable. The next it simply ceased to exist.

Fifty meters. Forty. Thirty.

Alexander thrust both gauntleted hands toward the cultist leader. Electrokinesis poured into them at maximum output, the charge building to its limit. He activated them with a thought.

Lightning erupted from both gauntlets. The bolts crossed the space between in an instant, striking the woman in the chest and shoulder. She screamed as the impact spun her around, hurling her away from Annie and across the plaza.

He pulled up at the center of the ritual circle.

Through his bond with Droney, Alexander fed his intent. The soul-bonded drone translated it instantly, coordinating the others. Two peeled off toward each of the three cultists still struggling to rise. Annie’s glitter-drone and four others shot ahead, converging on her position.

The drones shifted mid-flight. Shield-blades deployed from their frames as they began to spin. The cultists tried to dodge. One attempted to channel an attack. Another turned to run.

It didn’t matter. The spinning blades cut into them before they could mount any real defense. Three bodies dropped.

Around Annie, the protective drones deployed their own shield-blades, rotating in formation to block any attacks. Her glitter-drone floated close, keeping watch.

Alexander flew the rest of the way and landed next to her, assessing her condition.

Annie was pushing herself up onto one knee, metal body still showing that smoky sheen. She’d recovered about as quickly as the cultists had. Her newly adapted metal had protected her from the worst of the blast.

He reached out a hand.

Annie took it with a grin. “I came up with—”

Another cry rang out, followed by words Alexander couldn’t understand. He looked over at where the old cultist had landed.

The woman was getting back up.

She’d taken a full-power lightning strike to the chest. Most people would be unconscious or dead. She stood, gray hair wild around her face, energy still writhing around her shoulders and down her arms. Robes burned away where the lightning had struck her. Burned flesh proved the attack had done some damage. Just not enough to put her down completely.

The real fight was about to begin.

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Alexander pulled Annie to her feet. “Your new technique. Resists their entropic energy?”

“Doesn’t even hurt now,” Annie said, grinning.

He nodded. “Then you’ve got point. Can you handle it?”

Annie puffed her chest out. Instead of answering, she began transforming.

Alexander pulsed Metallokinesis, lifting himself into the air and floating sideways. He needed to buy her some time.

Across the plaza, the woman watched them. Her eyes widened at the transformation. She started rising, lifting herself off the ground using some technique Alexander couldn’t identify.

He watched her ascent. The movement was clumsy, uncontrolled. She didn’t fly anywhere near as smoothly as he did. He wondered idly if she was having a similar problem to what he’d faced learning to fly.

Alexander went on the attack before she could gain more height.

Through Droney, he commanded every drone except Annie’s glitter-drone. They zipped toward her without formation, converging on the woman from all directions. Shield-blades deployed as they accelerated.

The woman tracked them as they closed in. She continued rising, then slapped her hands together and began chanting. A sphere of power burst outward from her position, expanding rapidly.

The first three drones reached her before the sphere fully formed. Their spinning blades bit deep, cutting into her arms and shoulders, almost reaching bone. Blood sprayed.

The sphere expanded further. The three drones that had cut her tried to escape the growing field. They didn’t make it. They stuttered in the air. Then dropped, batteries completely drained.

Alexander commanded the remaining drones back, to form up around him instead. She was tougher than he’d hoped, but about what he’d expected. Mundane equipment simply wasn’t enough against superhumans.

Electrokinesis hummed. He thrust his hands forward and activated both gauntlets. Lightning lanced out, striking the sphere. The bolts passed through the semi-transparent barrier and hit the woman dead center.

Then fizzled to nothing.

Alexander frowned.

Below him, Annie charged. The Spinosaurus form covered ground fast, powerful legs propelling her. She leaped, density shifting to launch her impossibly high into the air.

Her jaws closed around the woman mid-flight.

They crashed into the side of the building. The wall exploded into a cloud of dust and debris. Both of them disappeared into the structure’s interior.

Alexander flew after them, following the sounds of combat inside. A shout of pain echoed from within the broken structure. Then, a heartbeat later, Annie’s guttural roar followed.

He cleared the dust and concrete debris.

Annie was rolling around the floor, struggling to right herself in her Spinosaurus form. The flesh of her inner mouth had rotted away, chunks sloughing off her snout. Raw tissue showed where the entropic energy had eaten away at her.

The cultist leaned against the wall. Her robes hung in tatters, torn and punctured. Blood ran from multiple wounds across her arms and torso. One arm dangled uselessly at her side.

Her shield was down.

Alexander’s gauntlets still weren’t ready. He reached out to Droney instead, commanding the remaining eleven drones to attack. They shot into the building from behind him, converging on the injured woman.

The woman snarled. She thrust her good hand at the oncoming drones, fingers curled into claws.

Her attack erupted in a cone. Seven drones dropped instantly, batteries drained before they could reach her. The remaining five scattered, dodging around the edges of the blast as they continued their attack runs.

Her expression shifted to something triumphant.

Alexander struck back.

Metallokinesis seized the seven dead drones scattered across the floor. He hurled them at her with everything he had. Metal cannonballs accelerating to lethal speeds.

The cultist’s eyes widened. She raised her good arm to shield her face.

The first drone slammed into her shoulder. The second caught her in the ribs. The third smashed through the wall behind her, cracks spreading in every direction. More followed in rapid succession, each impact driving her harder against the concrete.

The final drone hit her square in the chest.

She crashed through the wall and disappeared.

Alexander held position, not immediately giving chase. Getting caught in close quarters by another blast would end badly for him. He glanced at Annie.

She was back on her feet. Where flesh had rotted away from her snout and mouth, smooth metal had taken its place. Not phasing between the two. Actually replacing the missing tissue.

Her power use was evolving mid-combat.

The cultist’s voice rang out from the next room. Words in a language Alexander didn’t recognize.

Entropic power erupted from the hole. Not a sphere this time. Tendrils. They whipped around in the air indiscriminately, tearing into concrete and rebar.

Alexander’s eyes widened. Her previous attacks had targeted living things or energy. This was different. The tendrils ate through stone and metal as easily as flesh. One caught a drone that had been pursuing through the gap. The tendril ripped through it like paper, destroying it instantly.

The tendrils grew longer. Thicker. The building around them began to crack. Structural supports gave way as the foundations were destroyed. The floor shuddered.

He threw himself backward with Metallokinesis, shooting out through the hole they’d entered.

Annie charged after him. She leaped down to the ground below, landing hard and rolling back to her feet, then spun to face the building.

The upper floors fell inward with a thunderous crash. The building collapsed in on itself, sending a massive cloud of dust rolling across the plaza.

Annie paced back and forth in her Spinosaurus form, metal claws clicking against stone. Her tail swished with each turn.

Alexander hovered in place above the plaza, taking stock. Droney floated near his shoulder. Annie’s glitter-drone held position over her. Three other drones formed up around him in a loose triangle.

Five left. Not ideal.

His gauntlets hummed softly. Recharged and ready. That was something at least.

The dust cloud continued to roll across the courtyard, thinning but still obscuring the collapsed building. Nothing moved. Concrete slabs lay at odd angles. Rebar jutted out like broken bones.

Alexander watched.

Then something shifted.

Through the settling dust, black tendrils burst upward from the rubble. They writhed in the air, longer than before. Thicker. More of them than he’d seen inside the building.

Alexander’s jaw tightened.

The fight wasn’t over yet.