Chapter 111

TEAMWORK

Felix pressed his paw against Yuki’s shoulder, white light flowing from his small cat form into her body. The entropic corruption fought back, black veins spreading beneath her skin where the cultist’s attack had struck. He pushed harder, channeling more power into the healing.

The corruption slowed. Stopped. Then began to recede.

But Yuki remained unconscious. The damage had been too severe. She was alive, but out of the fight.

Felix glanced around the weakened flank. Two other crew members lay nearby, similarly unconscious. One of the aliens he’d convinced to join sat propped against a barrier, breathing but unresponsive.

Beyond the defensive positions, mind-controlled humans continued their advance. Hundreds had been stunned, dropped by non-lethal rounds, but more kept coming from the city. They’d pushed almost to their defenses now, a wave of empty-eyed bodies shuffling forward in perfect sync.

Augustus was on the opposite side of the line. His voice carried across the defensive line, directing shield placements, coordinating the defense.

Movement caught Felix’s attention.

A cultist burst around the barrier’s edge, robes flapping. His eyes locked onto Yuki’s unconscious form.

Felix leapt.

He hit the cultist’s face with all four paws extended, claws out. The man screamed, stumbling backward as Felix scratched and tore. Blood welled where claws raked across flesh.

The cultist grabbed Felix with both hands and flung him away.

Felix twisted mid-air. His form rippled, expanding rapidly.

He landed as an elephant.

The ground shook under his weight. Felix towered over the cultist, who had frozen mid-step, staring up at the massive creature that had materialized where a cat had been moments before.

The cultist backed away. His hands came up, black energy gathering between his palms.

Strong enough to do damage. Bulky enough to take the cultists’ attacks and keep going. But, more importantly, big enough to be noticed even at the other end of the defenses.

A translucent shield snapped into place around Felix. Then a second layer materialized beneath it. Augustus had seen him.

He considered wielding Alexander’s copied power, Metallokinesis, but hesitated. The barriers protected the defenders. The weapons were in constant use. He wasn’t practiced enough to wield it safely without disrupting either.

So Felix charged.

His bulk crashed forward. The first cultist tried to dodge. Felix’s trunk swung out, catching him across the chest and sending him flying into the barrier with a sickening crunch.

More cultists were rushing ahead of the mind-controlled wave now that they’d gotten close. They scattered as the elephant bore down on them. Felix stomped one into the dirt. Caught another with his trunk, hurling the robed figure aside.

Entropic blasts struck his shields from multiple directions. Black energy splashed across the outer layer.

The first shield broke.

Felix knew from watching Augustus work that the outer layer was the more powerful one. The inner echo held less strength.

He shifted instantly.

The transformation took about a second. Elephant mass compressed down, reforming into the shape of a golden retriever. The second shield layer, sized for an elephant, broke apart as entropic energy ate through it a moment later. Drops of the corrupting power fell like rain.

Felix danced between them, paws quick on the blood-slick ground.

A cultist had turned to run. Felix lunged, catching the back of his knee with his jaws. The man went down with a cry.

Felix clamped down harder, holding him in place. Then he reached for the power bound to this form.

A power he didn’t want to use. Didn’t want to remember.

The cultist’s scream turned inhuman. Pain multiplied tenfold. The bite transformed into agony that whited out thought, that stripped away everything except the sensation of teeth tearing through flesh and tendon. The cultist thrashed, trying to escape.

Felix held firm until the man’s eyes rolled back and he went limp.

Then Felix turned his attention outward.

He spread Aesthesiarch outward in a wave, touching every cultist within range. Fear instilled in them by the elephant form, witnessing their fellow cultist screaming in agony, multiplied into terror. Primal, overwhelming fear that bypassed reason and thought. The kind of fear that made prey animals bolt without looking back.

The cultists broke.

They shoved through the mind-controlled civilians, screaming as they fled back toward the city. Some trampled the very people they’d been using as shields. Others simply ran, robes flapping behind them.

Felix shifted back down to cat form. The transformation was fluid now after months of practice. His paws hit the ground and he realized how far he’d pushed from the barriers. The mind-controlled civilians were still advancing mechanically, filling the gap where the cultists had been.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

He sprinted back, weaving between the barriers.

Talia moved past him in the opposite direction, rifle across her back, heading to reinforce the weakened flank. Dan, the ship’s cook, followed close behind her. Krrsh’s multiple limbs clicked against stone as the alien brought up the rear, carrying a barrier-plate, which he slammed into place.

“Good work, Felix,” Talia said as they passed, her voice calm despite the chaos.

Warmth spread through him at the acknowledgment.

Felix pushed harder, past both physical and mental exhaustion, racing back to where Yuki lay unconscious.

***

Talia reached the weakened flank, Dan and Krrsh following close behind her. The mind-controlled civilians pressed forward mechanically, cultists using them as shields while channeling attacks from behind the human wall.

She’d left her position for one reason: the civilians were dropping dead. Not from stun rounds. And not just from cultist attacks. They simply collapsed mid-step, one after another, as if something was draining them from within.

Talia’s mind processed it. It wasn’t systematic, but it was widespread and speeding up. She concluded it must either be caused by the ritual or connected directly to the entropic magic being used.

She stepped out from behind the barrier, extending her hand to the side.

Her fingers closed around a hilt that materialized from thin air. She pulled, and the blade followed. Elegant curved steel, the weapon she’d earned by being the first to complete the Solo Combat Challenge.

The System called it ‘The Chivalric Blade’ and had bound it to her Manifest Resonance, allowing her to summon it anywhere, anytime.

The irony wasn’t lost on her. In the safety of her own mind, she’d mocked the knights and priests of that reality for their cultural rigidity. Only their swords and armor enchanted, as if nothing else could channel their powers properly. And the System had rewarded her with a sword that focused her combined abilities better than anything else she could imagine.

Almost as if it were punishing her for the thought.

It came with a second feature, though, making it worth the insult.

Talia stepped forward, focusing her Will. She swung.

The blade wave erupted from her strike, cutting through the air with devastating precision. It carved into a cultist before he could react, dropping him instantly.

Two more cultists emerged from behind the civilians, hands already gathering black energy. The entropic blasts launched toward her simultaneously.

Talia stepped again, into the attacks, her blade moving in a smooth arc.

She’d already understood how the entropy-powered attacks worked; they fed on living matter and energy. The attacks consumed both flesh and Augustus’s shields with equal ease. The ablative armor barriers were another matter, and though the attacks harmed them too, the damage done was considerably less once the power ran its course.

More energy, more consumption. Less energy, less consumption.

She imagined the blade’s edge canceling entropic energy. Being devoid of energy. Saw it in her mind, and made it real for a brief instant.

“Manifestation.”

The sword cut through both blasts. The dark energy touched her blade and simply ceased to exist, fizzling into nothing like smoke meeting a strong wind.

Dan stared from behind the barrier. “What the...”

“Focus,” Talia said calmly, already tracking the next threat. “They’re regrouping.”

But her own attention returned to the dying civilians. The pattern of deaths was increasing, though the occurrences were randomly dispersed.

She needed to see what was happening.

“Realm of the Mind.”

Time appeared to freeze for Talia.

She pushed the technique as hard as she could, directing it over the cultists and mindless civilians instead of in a perfect dome around herself. Her expanded Mind Palace swept outward. Her mastery of the technique had grown considerably since the first use. She targeted only the civilians, allowing the power to pass harmlessly over the cultists and her allies. The cultists would resist her power, and her allies would increase the drain on her power tremendously.

Even then, the strain hit immediately. Her vision swam. Her legs trembled. Holding this much space, this many minds, was like trying to grip water with both hands while someone kept adding more.

But she could see it now.

Pulsing black and red threads ran from each civilian, stretching upward into the sky. They continued beyond her sight, reaching all the way back into the city.

Cognitive Resonance activated automatically, analyzing what she was seeing. The threads were feeding life force somewhere. Draining them slowly. The mindlessness wasn’t a side effect. It was part of the process. Keeping them docile while they died.

Talia dropped into a low stance, positioning the sword as though sheathed. Every muscle in her body screamed at her to release the technique, but she held on. She just needed a few moments more.

Her eyes closed. She focused. Imagined cutting the threads. She exhaled.

A memory surfaced. Alexander, sitting across from her after the battle where they’d gained their new powers. He’d asked carefully, trying in his way not to insult her with his bluntness, why she’d chosen Faith Enchanting. Why not the more straightforward Cultivator’s Core? He didn’t imagine her as a believer, he’d said.

She’d smiled at that. Told him that she did believe. In people. In righting wrongs. In him, in Annie, in Augustus. Even in some of the friends they’d made among the aliens.

Most of all, she had faith in herself.

Talia saw the blade cutting the threads clearly in her Mind Palace. Made it real.

“Manifestation.”

She drew. The motion was smooth despite the strain. The Chivalric Blade swung in a wide arc.

The blade wave manifested inside her mind realm. Massive. Far larger than any she’d produced before. It swept through the space, carving into the threads.

Hundreds snapped. The severed ends dissolved like mist.

But there were too many. Her attack couldn’t reach them all.

The realm collapsed.

Talia gasped, vision going dark at the edges. Her knee hit the dirt hard. The sword point dug into the ground, the only thing keeping her upright.

Across the battlefield, civilians dropped, unconscious, and suddenly revealed dozens of cultists. Weapons barked across their defensive line as the team took advantage of the moment.

Everything hurt. She’d pushed too hard, used too many techniques at once. Her mind felt scraped raw.

A cultist stepped forward, emerging from behind a still-standing civilian. His hands were already turning black, energy gathering between his palms.

He loomed over her.

A shot rang out.

The cultist’s head snapped to the side. He crumpled.

Talia turned. Dan stood, rifle aimed over the barrier, white-knuckled but resolute despite the fear in his eyes.

She pulled herself up and stumbled back behind cover, giving Dan a look of gratitude.

Looking across the defensive line, she saw Augustus striding forward encased in one of his own shields, no longer focused on protecting the barriers and personnel. With the cultists finally in the open, the man had decided to go on the attack.

Bolts of fire tore across the battlefield, striking down cultist after cultist with the ease of a man who’d been using his drone for targeting practice.

Cries of victory rang out from the others still sighting over the barrier, taking shots at those not along Augustus’s warpath.

The battle was coming to a close.