Chapter 31

NO ALLIES HERE

Alexander was barely two steps from reaching his target. Mercy was healing, but even with her incredible power, she clearly couldn’t repair spinal and internal damage with a casual thought.

Auggy kept sending precise blasts of energy into the crowd, clearing the last few still standing in the way.

Alexander stood over Mercy, raised a crackling tonfa, and drove it toward her throat.

A skeletal hand caught it before it landed. He froze, stunned at the appearance of the skeleton standing before him, completely unfazed by the electricity surging through it.

And on its skeletal face was something that made little sense:

Rage.

It stepped closer and, with the force of a charging bull, backhanded him across the chest. His armor groaned under the blow. Something cracked as he hurtled across the street.

He smashed through a storefront, crashing into shelves that buckled beneath him. His vision darkened. Unconsciousness beckoned, but he fought back and with one last thought commanded the hovercars.

Full speed.

Augustus watched Alexander shoot past after being struck, alarmed by the skeleton’s sudden burst of strength. He kept blasting.

Ice had proven useful at pinning them down. Freezing skeletons to the ground bought crucial seconds while they struggled to break free. Bolts of fire to the skull forced them to reassemble, the only real weak point he’d identified. But they still reformed quickly, bones snapping back into place within moments.

When he’d seen Alexander’s electricity drop skeletons instantly, leaving them to reform slowly, he’d thought to do the same. Clearly, something was different about his own conjured lightning. Using it to whip away their skulls or legs was effective, but it didn’t slow their return.

Something to ponder later.

Two hovercars barreled into view, plowing through skeletons as they raced toward Mercy; who was already rising, her stomach wound sealing with obscene speed.

Less than thirty seconds to recover from a mortal wound? What a gift squandered on a butcher!

Skeletons shattered as the vehicles tore through them.

Then the enhanced skeleton stepped in front of Mercy, towering over her like a bone-plated sentinel and throwing its arms out to stop the vehicles. They slammed into its hands. Metal crumpled, bones cracked, but the vehicles gave first. Both flipped, collided midair, then crashed down, destroying more skeletons before coming to a halt.

Auggy slashed his wand in a sharp arc, unleashing a spinning disk of compressed wind. It caught the enhanced skeleton off guard, decapitating it in a single strike.

The body crumpled into dust, with nothing to reform.

A cry of pain carried from the museum rooftop, the third member of the monsters they were hunting, hidden from Auggy’s view.

But he knew someone else who could make use of the discovery.

Talia’s heart was racing.

Annie and Pandora had already drawn blood, but Annie’s power let her shrug off minor wounds, and she was holding her own. Alexander and Auggy had looked about ready to finish things too. She knew Alexander well enough by now. For all his inexperience, he wouldn’t hesitate to ram a weapon down the psychopath’s throat and fry her inside-out the moment the opportunity presented itself.

But then that one skeleton had twisted unnaturally, caught his strike, and hurled him across the street with terrifying ease.

She’d lost focus for a moment, tracking him. He’d disappeared into a storefront out of her line of sight.

Then the hovercars plowed into the skeletons, while Auggy obliterated the enhanced one.

And then the cry of pain.

Her scope snapped to the rooftop of the museum.

There.

Middle-aged, disheveled brown hair, and glasses. So ordinary looking.

But she knew. This was the third member. He leaned over the parapet, gazing down at Mercy with…

Adoration.

Disgust twisted her stomach. They’re all insane.

She adjusted her aim until his face was centered in her crosshairs. Exhale. Hold.

She squeezed the trigger. A bolt of energy split the air.

Strings—thousands of them—lashed from his arms, intercepting the shot. They burst and burned away, but the man remained untouched. His head whipped toward her, eyes wide with shock and fear.

An automatic defense.

She tracked him as he sprinted across the rooftop, flicked her rifle to burst-fire, and squeezed again and again. Strings erupted from his back now, shielding every angle. Even shots that would have missed were blocked. He stumbled and cried out with each one destroyed, but it protected him all the same.

Then he vanished, ducking into a rooftop access door.

She bit back a curse.

Before she could turn back to the fight, motion in the distance caught her eye. She swung her scope toward it.

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Annie was done with this game of chase. Especially because the bitch kept calling out—

“Here, kitty, kitty!”

More explosive candy arced toward her as she tried closing the distance. Hardening her resolve, she morphed one arm into a wide scoop and charged. Catching the bombs, she flicked them back through the air from where they came.

Pandora’s manic giggling turned to panic as she scrambled to dodge. The explosions ripped through the air; the shockwave caught Pandora and sent her sliding across the blackened and cratered facade that led to the museum.

Annie sprinted and leapt, claws extending from her boots in raptor-like talons.

Her Combat Lock screamed a warning. She twisted midair, metal rippling to reinforce her arm just in time to block a slashing blade of wind. The strike still tore deep, hurling her down the steps in a bruising tumble.

Through the chaos, she spotted a man strutting from the museum. Draped in hanging flesh and with a bundle of rolled paintings tucked under one arm.

Annie staggered upright, body aching but still ready to charge back up.

“Guys!” Talia’s voice cut through their implants. “Incoming heroes!”

An explosion in the center of the street destroyed dozens of skeletons in a blast of debris. The dust cleared, revealing Iron Nadya kneeling at the center of a crater; both arms were still bandaged.

Another hero descended on jets of fire from a bulky powered suit. A third blinked onto the rooftop behind Talia, staff pressed to her neck. Two more roared in on bikes, tires screeching as they blocked opposite ends of the street.

Iron Nadya rose, eyes flicking from Mercy to Annie, then up to Pandora and the man standing beside her on the steps.

The suited hero hovered, external speakers booming. “All villains! Cease activity and surrender immediately!”

The man draped in flesh laughed. “You think you can bring the Ripper in with a single demand?” he said, voice calm and melodic.

Pandora hurled a fistful of candy skyward. “TRICK OR TREAT, asshole!”

They detonated midair, driving the armored hero back under a barrage of rainbow-colored flak.

That was the spark.

Iron Nadya launched like a missile straight past Annie, crashing through skeletons. She seized Mercy by the face and slammed her into the steps. Stone fractured as Mercy’s spine snapped and her skull cracked, before her body went limp.

Then Nadya leaped upward. “METEOR!” she roared, then instantly changed directions and plummeted back down.

Ripper and Pandora dove aside as she cratered the ground again. Dust and shrapnel sprayed in every direction. A candy bomb burst against her face, but she barely flinched. She swatted Ripper’s wind blades aside and charged Pandora.

Annie stared with wide-eyed awe. Meteor is so much cooler when she’s not trying to crush me with it!

Iron Nadya had always been one of her favorites, a living legend. She’d watched hundreds of clips of her in action.

And now I get to fight alongside her!

Annie broke into a sprint to the top of the stairs, angling to flank Pandora—

—and got caught completely off-guard as Nadya pivoted.

She swept Annie’s legs with a spinning maneuver and hammered her sternum with a piston-like punch that launched her back down the stairs. She smashed through several skeletons before crashing to the ground and skidding halfway across the street.

Nadya didn’t spare her a glance, already turning back to hunt Pandora.

Sliding to a stop, her body convulsed as she struggled to breathe. Pain screamed through every inch of her chest.

At last, her muscles relaxed enough to take in a single, desperate breath. Gasping, she rolled onto her back and flopped out her arms.

Talia didn’t move.

The staff rested deliberately on her right shoulder, at the base of her neck. She could feel the faint metallic chill of the alloy even through her suit.

“I said, don’t move,” the man behind her warned. His voice was calm and professional.

She kept her breathing steady, eye still in the scope. The battle on the street below was a blur of motion. Flashes of power followed by broken bodies or rubble. It was no longer her concern, though.

Her concern was five feet behind her.

“You’re under arrest,” he said. “Put your hands—”

She moved.

Her fist snapped up, knocking the staff away from her neck. She rolled low, hand snapping for the nearest weapon.

Shotgun.

That’ll do.

She came up on one knee and fired. Scattered plasma slammed into his breastplate with a crack, but he was already gone before the worst of the damage could take hold. He appeared to her right, a zigzagging blur as he closed the distance.

The staff swung down. She blocked with the shotgun. Metal groaned and bent, pain lancing through her wrists.

She angled the gun, letting the weight slide to the side, and dove again; she came up with the grenade launcher.

She slid onto one knee, and aimed.

He blinked again.

Predictable.

She twisted, firing where he reappeared mid-turn. The round streaked towards his chest. His staff blurred faster than her eyes could follow, deflecting it aside. The blast shook the rooftop with smoke and debris.

She didn’t pause. She hurled the launcher at his head and snatched up the katana. The staff swung down for her head again. She barely caught it with the sheathed blade, the weight of the blow driving her knee painfully into the rooftop.

She drew while holding the block, slashing low for his knees.

He blinked again, this time reappearing several feet back and favoring the leg she’d very nearly taken from him.

Talia rose to her full height slowly. She let the sheath fall, katana lifted in both hands; one foot forward, blade angled overhead. Her form was perfect.

A line of blood ran down the blade’s edge before dripping to the ground.

The hero adjusted his grip on the staff. Both of them had come to the same conclusion; their opponent was dangerous.

And there would be no easy win.

Alexander pulled himself from the collapsed shelving with a groan.

Dust clung to him. His ears rang. Blood trickled from his mouth. He’d blacked out for only a few moments, and yet the fight had clearly moved on without him.

He stepped carefully through the wreckage, glass crunching beneath his boots. Shelves lay splintered. He climbed through the shattered storefront and into the street.

Everything had changed.

Auggy stood ahead of him, guarding the store Alexander had just stepped out of. His wand flicked through spell after spell. Fire, ice, and bursts of force blocked the rain of energy from above.

Overhead, a hero in powered armor banked through the air, thrusters blazing.

And then there were the bikes. Two of them sliced toward Auggy, engines screaming as they tried to take him in a pincer maneuver.

Alexander stepped forward angrily, but forced himself to remain sharp and focused. He reached deep into the two roaring motorbikes, felt for their controls and whispered a command through Technopathy.

Emergency brake. Front wheels only.

The effect was immediate. Both bikes pitched forward violently, flipping end over end. Riders flew; one crashed into a burning hovercar, the other into a stone wall with a crunch.

He exhaled, stretching his awareness wide across the battlefield. He skimmed over the details, cataloguing movement, electrical signals, sounds, and the three different factions locked together in shared chaos.

First things first.

He reached into the airborne hero’s armor and found the propulsion systems; pressure regulators, fuel injectors. Stabilizers.

Shut down. Right side only.

The jets sputtered. The hero wobbled, then fell into a tailspin before crashing into the street shoulder-first. They skidded across the road before smashing through a florist's storefront, sending glass and petals flying everywhere.

Alexander stepped up beside Augustus. “Go help Annie,” he said, voice low. “I’ll deal with these three.”