Glenn Rollins—Lancer—stumbled as he pushed away from his work bench. Laid out in front of him were the parts and pieces of the so-called suppression collar collected from the victims of interdimensional abduction. He had spent the last thirty six hours in furious study and he had reached the limits of his endurance. 

‘It doesn’t make sense.’ He grumbled to himself. The disassembled collar didn’t have any distinct parts, just a narrow strip of leather with varying bands of metal. Both were etched with indecipherable patterns, and he was thankful that he had two copies of the collar for comparison. The patterns were identical to the last squiggle and definitely not random despite the fact that the metal bands and the leather weren’t identical.

Clearly, it was the patterns that made the thing work, he just didn’t know how but…

He moved a silvery strip of metal under a light and held up a magnifying glass. He compared the etchings from the one he made to the source material and hummed in satisfaction. He pointedly didn’t glance at the small pile of discarded strips that he’d have to melt down later, to reclaim the metals. A credible effort, but he needed to take his mandated twenty-minute nap before he crashed completely. 

He staggered towards the cot at the corner of his laboratory, popped a sleeping aid into his mouth and washed it down with a nutrient slurry. His head had barely hit the pillow before he was out. 

Twenty minutes later, he woke with a jolt as his wake up alarm beeped. He rolled off the cot, drank down the shot of coffee he prepared beforehand, and he was ready for another couple of hours of research and work. 

…not that he intended to use the collars as they were intended—that is, to hold and subdue Altered Humans. No, these things were too conditional. If he could make use of the bindings into his lance, and apply its power when he fought with it, that would be much better. 

Formulas, ideas, visions, crossed his mind. A product of his Alteration. He was a gadgeteer, a class of Altered power that allowed him to envision and create items: tools of power and versatile use. Unlike the fliers, the blasters, and the brutes and whatnot, whose powers expressed directly, he had to create gadgets that took time and resources. But that was also his strength. It may take time, but if he had it, he could create anything. 

His career had already spanned a decade, and with the quick change in the laws, he was still unused to calling himself a cape. Gods, he didn’t even wear a cape. He had powered armour and a variable staff that could turn into any kind of weapon he needed. No, he still thought of himself as an Altered Human under the employ of the Protectorate. 

Well, times have changed and they had a greater mandate to keep civilians safe from Altered Human criminals, and apparently from extradimensional invaders. Daemons…they weren’t exactly unknown. There were records of incursions as far back as the dawn of the Altered some thirty-five years ago. 

Troubling things, daemons. Curiosity drove Glenn to check the local records. Spotty incursions spread out throughout the past decade. Most such incursions consisted of a handful of small species…

He frowned when he checked the records. Most didn’t have pictures of the corpses and daemons were nearly impossible to keep in captivity. They either died as a result of the capture, or died in captivity, despite being sedated or otherwise restrained. Most samples were barely bigger than a third of a pace across, and they came in varied shapes. When dead, the corpse disintegrated into denatured dust and even under a microscope, nothing really distinguished it from anything else. 

The two who reported the larger daemons, Regalia and Harakin, in contrast to historical examples, state that the daemons were either large crimson-furred apes, six-limbed lizards that were bigger than horses, or tiny five-tentacled things that reportedly took over someone’s nervous system. The last one was the most troubling considering they were barely two inches across, and like others of their kind, they disintegrated to dust once dead, hence, nearly impossible to study. 

Although…perhaps he could set the sensors to detect the strange energies that the daemons always emitted. There was no reason to do so before since incursions weren’t all that common, but if that woman was right… 

He grunted as he added that to his tasklist, then continued his study of suppression collars. Daemons really weren’t the problem. These things worked against Altered Humans and they will likely work against enemy empowered soldiers as well. He just had to adjust the usage so that it could be used on anything other than a helpless captive. Even if the suppression only lasted a couple of seconds, that was enough to give an edge. 

He cycled through twenty-minute naps and two hours research half a dozen more times before he was forced to go down for four hours of REM sleep. He woke up still groggy and surly, but the schedule worked best with his Alteration. Already, his mind was filled with ideas and connections. 

He was about to continue to his workshop when his visor lit up with an alert. 

Hostile incursion. District seven. 

Glenn was already putting on his armour and he became Lancer. His weapon was the omnistaff, overengineered to be whatever he needed in the field. The one thing that gave him overt power. Only he could wield it to its true potential, though others he designated would be able to use its basic versions. He felt it connect to his mind, through the neural lacing implanted on his skull. He moved towards the garage to his steed. A lance couldn’t be used to its utmost unmounted after all. Not that he had a horse, actually. Instead he used a modern conveyance: a hovercycle. He linked to it with his mind, too, as he needed both hands to operate his weapon and shield. 

He was out of the Protectorate HQ within a couple of minutes.

“Lancer, inbound.” 

The hovercycle wasn’t a flying machine, not really. The repulsor lifts only allowed it to rise a pace, at most, above the road. Potholes, speedbumps, and low barricades didn’t hamper it, and it was small enough gaps in the terrain weren’t a concern. The cycle could jump fifty pace gaps as long as it moved at a brisk fifty longstrides an hour, which was far from its top speed, and when he needed to make a statement, he could go thrice as fast easily. 

He wasn’t the only inbound hero, and he wasn’t the fastest by any means. District seven was in the southwest, where most of the midlevel residences were located. His visor revealed a heat map and he frowned. It encompassed an entire block of apartment buildings. A quick thought accessed the city records. Aqua Luna Manors One to Four, ranging from twelve to fifteen storeys high, each floor above ground contained eight to ten condos. The four buildings were arrayed around a courtyard which made the block hollow, essentially. He ‘d wager the incursion was centred around there. 

“Lancer, update?” Valorian called in.

The woman was classified as a flying brick, tough and strong, and of course, able to fly. The specifics of how her Altered power worked was kept classified, of course, just as his own was obscured with misdirecting words in the Protectorate records. He knew she had a skin tight forcefield that pretty much allowed her to fly, and also gave her tactile telekinesis. 

Many Altered had direct power expressions, unlike his type. True, his power forced his to prepare and make things, but the limits of his gear was higher than any direct power expression. It still took time and resources though. He wasn’t envious. 

“Two minutes out. What do you see?” Lancer replied. 

“I’m still a few seconds out…there. I’m above the site. Oh.”

“What?”

“There is conflict in progress. Groups of four or more red monkey daemons are systematically demolishing the buildings.”

“The residents?” 

“Trapped.” 

“Fark.”

“Indubitably,” Valorian growled. “I’m engaging.” 

“Wait!” 

“Too late!” the obstinate woman crowed.

“Tsk!” Lancer clicked his tongue in annoyance but could do nothing other than accelerate beyond the city’s speed limits. His hovercycle popped out flashing lights and a siren rang from speakers hidden within the chassis. He was already in the part of the city that was less frequented by tourists and gamblers, and it being the middle of the day, an hour before the lunch rush, meant that the streets were relatively clear and the pavement was filled with pedestrians. The weather was also scorching, though he barely felt it in his climate controlled suit. 

Crunch! Boom!

He heard twin noises, from his earpiece and from up ahead. Valorian’s fists could strike with enough force to create shockwaves that could break windows if she was careless. He was quite envious of the fact that she could shape that shockwave to her benefit with her telekinetic forcefields rather than cause collateral damage. Though only if it occurred to her. Valorian was just past her teen years, after all. 

“What’s happening?!” He demanded, but the frustrating woman refused to talk. Not while she was laying the beatdown. Valorian was too strong and if she didn’t hold back against human criminals, they were just as likely to become red stains on the ground or walls as anything else. These daemons were acceptable targets and any they also cleaned up after themselves when they died. 

“Hahaaah!” 

“Farking woman…” Lancer grumbled though he took care to mute his microphone. 

A minute later he reached the site. Sounds of battle continued, and there was a thick plume of black smoke that rose from Manor Two. He heard firefighter sirens, identifiable by the different pitch compared to law enforcement. There was plenty of the latter too, but his systems detected that they weren’t all headed this way. 

Alert. Multiple incursions detected.

His visor automatically pinned several locations on his map, and the next nearest one to his location was some three longstrides away. 

“Lancer to Protectorate Teams A, B, and D. Proceed to points…” He rattled out the district coordinates and hopefully the others could cover for his absence. Each team consisted of a veteran Altered: veteran cape, and about two or three rookies, though not all of the latter were younglings. No, about half of the rookies were his age or older, but had spent most of their Altered Human career in hiding. That or their power wasn’t all that potent…

He shook the discriminatory thoughts out of his head as he spotted the first couple of daemons. Red monkeys was the correct description and he found himself agreeing with how Regalia called them. Crimson Apes. Each one was two to three paces tall and broader than a man by half. 

He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t slow. His omnistaff found its way to his hands and he activated his primary weapon. An energizing laser fired along the haft and exited the tip. A containment magnetic field activated and forced a spike. Air ionized from the laser and created superheated plasma, coloured a deep purple from the focusing lenses. The plasma blade pierced the foremost Crimson Ape. 

The magnetic field shattered against resistant fur, but the plasma splashed against the beast anyway. The kinetic force imparted by his hovercycle threw the ape away, while the inertial compensators of both his armour and his ride negated the impact on his end. Not quite what he expected to happen, but the strike and the burning plasma carved through the thing’s torso anyway. 

He easily avoided the thing’s allies and he readied himself for another charge. At the same time, turrets popped out of his hovercycle’s chassis and targeting reticules formed along his visor. A moment later, plasma bolts fired from the turrets and struck faces and eyes. The first two were struck before they could react, but the others managed to defend. 

So.

Tougher than expected, but that was fine. The harder the fight the greater the glory. 

Lancer didn’t notice his feral grin, but even if he did, he was sure to look good on the recordings his drones took of the fight anyway. 

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep