Chapter 53

RIVALS, NOT ENEMIES

The agreement held, though the two teams kept their distance from each other.

Alexander found it strange, the shape of trust in a moment like this. Enemies who had seen enough to keep their word. People who might hunt him tomorrow, yet would not break faith today. He allowed the thought to settle and turned toward the bodies.

Two fallen knights lay near the curb, armor cracked and blackened. He crouched beside the first and reached out with Metallokinesis. Buckles clicked. Studded straps slithered free. Greaves slid from calves. Gauntlets slipped off hands. The chest plate rose last, sticky with blood beneath. The helmet floated over from where it had fallen. He pulled the longsword and sheath over as well.

It didn’t look very special to him.

“Auggy,” he said.

Augustus flicked his wand at the wall. “STORAGE CLOSET.”

Alexander floated the gear inside, dropping it unceremoniously into a corner.

Annie shuffled over. “You’re a grave robber now, on top of being a supervillain,” she said. “Truly a man of culture.”

“Raelene said their armor was special,” Alexander said. “I can’t sense anything, but I am not passing up free magic equipment.”

Annie thumbed toward Augustus. “Let’s ask our resident magic man.”

Augustus shrugged.

The second knight yielded his gear in the same way. Alexander added it all to the pile, then Augustus released the technique.

The timer dropped below three minutes.

Alexander glanced across the street and found Maximilian watching him. They stepped forward at the same time and met at the center of the street.

“My grand plan did not include a multiversal invasion,” Alexander said.

A hint of amusement flashed across Maximilian’s face, gone in an instant. “No. I imagine your plans rarely include such world-shaking events.”

“This does not change anything,” Maximilian continued, voice even. “You are still wanted supervillains. And I still intend to bring Grimnir to justice.”

“We might be about to walk back into a world that is not the same as when we left,” Alexander said. “Justice may look very different at the end of that timer.”

Maximilian inclined his head. “Perhaps. We will see.” He turned to go, then paused and looked back. “Were there ever explosives in the building?”

Alexander laughed. “Only if you count Annie’s explosive personality.”

He turned back toward his team before Maxmilian could decide whether to be annoyed or relieved.

Julia flew by overhead and dropped down, landing a few paces in front of him. She looked better than she had a minute ago, but her suit showed where the fresh scars would be. She stood there for a moment, then spoke.

“About your arm,” she said. “I am sorry.” Her gaze flicked to the building. “And thank you for not doing to Raelene what you did to those soldiers. When I saw that, I figured you could have done the same to her. But you didn’t.”

Alexander gave her a small, tired smile but did not answer that part. “And I’m sorry about your eyes.”

The apology seemed to hit a nerve. Julia blinked hard, then swore and started rubbing at her face again. “You had to remind me.”

He laughed. “Hold still.”

She grumbled but obeyed. He lifted his hand to her face and gently pulled the fine metal dust, grain by grain, from the corners of her eyes, gathering flecks from lashes and under eyelids. The particles drew together into a small ball that spun in place. He snapped his fingers and dispersed it into nothing.

Julia blinked a few more times. “Thanks.”

“Hm... Let’s call it even.”

She stared at him for a long moment, then nodded, before lifting and floating back toward her team.

Turning back to him as she drifted away, she smiled. “I hope you find the evidence you’re looking for, Alex. Maybe one day we’ll even get to fight on the same side for real.”

Behind her, Raelene was giving him another death glare.

He waved. Oh well, can’t win them all.

Returning to his team, Alexander found them standing close, their masks off now that the immediate danger had passed. The countdown was still visible, glowing faintly at the edge of his vision. One minute remained.

Talia glanced up as he approached. “I’ll need time to go through the files we pulled,” she said. Her voice was calm, but her eyes carried the sharp focus of someone already sorting through priorities. “A day, maybe. Two at most if there is extra encryption other than the director’s passkey.”

“That’s fine,” Alexander said. “We need time to dig into this System. Whatever it is. We need to know how much of what it said is real, and what other changes it brought.”

Augustus smoothed down his jacket, for once looking a bit out of sorts. He nodded. “I’ll reach out to a few friends, ones I still trust. Maybe they’ll have some insight.”

They all turned to Annie. She blinked, glanced between them, and fidgeted with the smooth slice in her mask. “Uh.” Her eyes darted away. “I’ve got… psychic corgi research to catch up on.”

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Alexander raised an eyebrow. Talia sighed, though the smile gave her away. Augustus chuckled softly.

Annie crossed her arms, defensive. “Hey, it’s important! They had a System descend on the corgi’s world, too. And then he…”

Alexander allowed the buzzing sound to distract him from Annie’s rambling. It was increasing, though rather than coming from the gateway, it felt as though it were filling the entire space around them.

“Ten seconds,” Talia warned, interrupting his thoughts.

The countdown glowed at the edge of his vision, numbers burning down in steady rhythm. Nine. Eight. Seven.

Grimnir stood ready. Talia clutched her rifle tight to her shoulder, eyes locked on the street ahead. Annie’s arms rippled as metal replaced her upper body. Augustus rolled his wrist once, wand leveled at the ground.

Alexander pulled his drone in tight, circling overhead. The pieces of the broken ones floated behind him. He leaned closer to Augustus, speaking low. “Short-range portals if necessary.”

Augustus gave a sharp nod.

Three. Two. One.

Reality popped. That was the only word Alexander could think to describe it. The buzzing noise in his ear became a sudden pressure. A flicker rippled across his vision. Then the dead silence and empty streets were gone.

Reality returned.

Cars lined the street. Alexander remembered some of them from when they’d arrived. Police barriers cordoned off both ends of the road, flashing red and blue lights. Crowds of gawking civilians pressed up against them, held in check by uniformed officers. Overhead, at least half a dozen police and news hovercars hovered low, cameras already trained on them.

And superheroes. At least five of them. Hyperawareness alerted him immediately, though the sensations from his powers were confusing. Technopathy wasn't picking up any implants, just the general tech around him.

Something’s off.

He reached out with his other senses instead, feeling for the subtle, yet telltale signs of electrical activity and metal, then focused in on the cluster that fell in a blur of speed. Six.

Iron Nadya. She hit the street with surprising restraint, her boots cracking concrete instead of shattering it for once.

Augustus already had a portal spun up, its surface rippling with an opaque darkness of its own. Alexander lifted a hand slightly. “Hold. But start a long-range one in case they give us time.”

Augustus complied, splitting his focus to maintain the short-range portal steady while spinning up a second one.

Annie leaned in close, voice a whisper. “What’s the plan, Alex?”

Before he could answer, Nadya stopped a safe distance away. Five other heroes arrayed themselves at her flanks. Their colors were too bright, and their armor too pristine. Alexander didn’t need to know them to recognize the type. Trust-fund kids in capes, the sort who thought playing hero was a weekend hobby.

The shortest of them stuck out his chest and shouted, “It’s Grimnir and the Throne of Scales! Let’s go; we can take Grimnir together!”

Nadya didn’t move. Her gaze shifted from Grimnir to where the Throne of Scales had formed up. Maximilian’s dragon, conjured a minute earlier, loomed over the street, its emerald scales catching sunlight as his team climbed onto its back.

Maximilian raised his voice. “Considering the…” He stumbled, searching for the words. “... multiversal invasion, we agreed to terms with Grimnir to address the threat. We will not be assisting in any efforts to capture them at this time.”

He mounted the dragon’s neck, then turned his eyes to Alexander. A quiet, almost begrudging nod passed between them. Julia gave him a quick smile before settling in next to Raelene.

The puffed-up young man sputtered, watching the dragon take flight. “We don’t need them! Together we can handle a bunch of newbie villains.”

Iron Nadya ignored him, studying Grimnir for a long moment. Her gaze lingered on Alexander, then shifted to Annie, judging them. Then she straightened and spoke loudly enough for all to hear.

“An unknown entity has usurped the STEPS bounty system. Until an official announcement is made, I cannot confirm the validity of any ongoing bounties. As such…” Her tone was clipped and formal. “I am off duty.”

She gave them a nod. One that felt suspiciously like respect. Then she turned and walked away.

The puffed-up hero’s voice cracked. “You can’t just walk away. My father will have you fired for this!”

Nadya didn’t even look back.

He spun toward his team instead, face red. “We’ll do it ourselves. Come on!”

The long-range portal bloomed open at Augustus’s side. Annie, followed by Talia and Augustus, stepped through.

Alexander glanced at the approaching heroes, weighing the option of swatting them aside or frying their toys. In the end, he just felt tired.

“Not worth it.”

He stepped through the portal, leaving the idiots shouting bravado at the empty street.

The team stood together in the armory at Augustus’s estate.

They’d made a hurried trip to Astra Omnia to get their wounds treated by the same healer, who, understandably, wasn’t very pleased to see them. The offer of a twenty-five percent tip had assuaged the man’s hurt feelings.

When they returned home, the team gathered in the most secure part of the building for a debrief and to discuss the messages they had all received, along with some very interesting, individual notifications.

They stood surrounded by the racks of weapons and armor in silence for a moment.

Annie broke it first. She planted her hands on her hips, eyes narrowing. “Repeat that.”

Alexander rubbed a hand over his face, shoulders sinking. “The implants are gone.”

Shock rippled through the group. Annie’s expression twisted.

“What do you mean gone?” Annie demanded. “Like broken gone? Or you-can’t-sense-them-because-they're-gone gone?”

Alexander met her eyes. “Gone, Annie. I can’t sense them at all. Not the implants, not the metal housings. Nothing. It’s like we never had them.”

Talia leaned forward, her brow furrowed. “But… then why do we still have all these notifications and our statuses?” She focused for an instant, eyes flicking to the corner of her vision where her interface would be. “It’s still there.”

“That’s just the first of the questions people want answers to,” Alexander said. “While we were on Astra Omnia, I pulled information from the networks there. Enough to piece together some of what’s happening. This System... It’s taken over several things, not just the bounty program.”

Annie looked to Augustus, who only shrugged.

Alexander continued. “The news is repeating the same thing, though they’re keeping it light. People with the implants suffered agonizing pain, but no lasting damage. And everyone has access to a status sheet now. It’s causing a lot of panic.”

“Yay for us,” Annie said, deadpan, rubbing the back of her neck at the memory of the pain. “I just love being special.”

Talia crossed her arms tightly. “What sort of panic?”

“The mundane versus superhuman divide has boiled over again,” Alexander said. He sighed. “Mobs outside the major corporation headquarters. Protests around the world against AEGIS and GOLD. Local government offices. There are several major riots ongoing, too. People are calling it the end of the world. Some say it's an attack on their freedoms, that the corpos or the government are tracking everyone now. Others are demanding to know why there was no warning about whatever it was.”

He let them process it all in silence.

“Let’s refocus. How does this affect our plans?” Augustus asked, maintaining his usual calm despite the world-shaking revelations.

Alexander considered the question. “For now, it doesn’t,” he said finally. “Let’s handle any attributes that are ready for ascension, then regroup to share our new status information. After that, we take a day or two as planned.”

“I’m good with that,” Talia said. “Because all of my stats are ready for ascension.”