Chapter 217

The Convergence of Wills, Pt. 6

Alexander caught an infected superhero by the face.

The man had come in fast from his left, dagger leading, eyes blazing red. Alexander slid sideways through the air, letting the blade pass beneath his arm, and his cybernetic hand closed around the man’s skull before momentum could carry him past.

Electrokinesis discharged. A full-powered bolt tore through his palm and into the man’s head. The body convulsed, went rigid, then limp. Alexander released him without watching him fall, already turning. Trying to spot the telltale signs of the Lost Prophet’s reemergence.

Annie tore across the battlefield, pursuing her next target. Blood painted the front of her Spinosaurus form, all the way up her neck and the underside of her jaw. Her MetaMetal scales dripped with it.

That was six times now. Six times they’d killed the vampire, and six times he’d torn his way free of someone else. The pattern was always the same. A body would seize, the head would snap back, and then the nightmare would begin pulling itself out of another throat.

Droney managed all of his drones, spread out across the grounds. They weren’t capable of fighting Tier 2 superhumans head-on without Animachina empowering them, and Droney knew it. Instead, they harassed the enemies. Slashing across an exposed forearm as a turned guard swung at Julia. Carving a line down the back of a knee while Hjordis held the target’s attention from above. Darting in from blind spots, landing cuts that crippled or slowed, then pulling away before retaliation came.

They were insignificant individually. But collectively, they became a maddening swarm of metal insects.

Alexander’s senses swept outward desperately, hunting for the signature collapse that preceded the Lost Prophet’s return. Every bioelectrical signal on the grounds resolved in sharp detail. Defenders. Survivors. Infected. Including the ones wrapped in Maximilian’s chains.

He climbed higher, gaining altitude for a wider view.

The terrace was unrecognizable. The neat rows of chairs were scattered wreckage. The podium where he’d stood minutes ago was shattered. Blood stained the white marble in wide, overlapping arcs. Bodies lay where they’d fallen.

Despite the carnage, the center of the palace grounds had held, thanks to Augustus’s quick thinking. He’d portaled the vampire outside of Maximilian’s barrier, saving the people trapped inside with it.

The Northern Shield floated at the heart of the defenses now, spear in hand, with roughly thirty remaining survivors pressed together in a tight group below him. Each civilian shimmered faintly, wrapped in a personal barrier that pulsed with a steady light. The man’s Will radiated outward like a secondary shield, and nothing with red eyes had gotten within twenty meters of him.

His spear flashed again. A beam of white-hot energy lancing from the tip and punching through an infected guard’s chest. The attack was short-range, but devastating. The Northern Shield didn’t watch his opponent fall, already turning to track the next target.

Among the survivors, two identical men stood back to back, wielding chairs as weapons. The Nakamura twins were calm, but alert, their heads moving in perfect unison as they tracked opposite ends of the battlefield.

Further above, Hjordis banked hard, flaming wings carving a trail of fire across the sky. Her greatsword sliced through the midsection of an enemy superhuman, sending both halves tumbling in different directions.

She didn’t have time to slow; another was already racing up at her from below.

Julia intercepted the infected before it reached her friend, driving a fist into its spine with enough force to fold it in half, sending it cratering into the terrace below.

Maximilian’s chains were everywhere. Dozens of them threaded through the wreckage, wrapped around infected civilians and infected superhumans alike. He was holding them down rather than killing them.

The Dragon Lord himself stood near the edge of a surviving cluster, hands raised, orchestrating his chains as they snaked across the battlefield. But the strain was beginning to show in the set of his jaw, and the sweat tracking down his temple.

Alexander understood the man’s reluctance, even if he didn’t share it. But a choice would have to be made. And soon.

Because the problem was no longer the guests and security turning. It was the constant stream of bodies pouring onto the grounds, climbing and flying over the palace fences. More and more infected were coming from the city, and Dubai had perhaps the highest concentration of superhumans in the world.

Something Alexander had considered a good thing at first. Now, he was no longer sure.

Raelene’s voice rang out over the comms channel the two guilds had set up in haste.

“Annie, reinforce the southern perimeter. Julia, take east. Augustus, stop teleporting the civilians into the palace. They have an outbreak inside. They’re getting overwhelmed. Send some of the ESA supers to support instead.”

The channel hummed with confirmations.

“I can’t sense the vamp anywhere,” Alexander said.

Raelene shouted. “Alex! Behind!”

Alexander spun, gauntlet rising to meet the new threat.

A hand caught his gauntlet as two powerful bioelectric signatures registered to his senses, the men stepping through a doorway floating in the air.

The man holding his gauntlet wore silver and black armor with a diamond embossed over the left breast. He was broad and weathered, with deep brown eyes that swept the battlefield. Behind him was the biggest man Alexander had ever seen, still rising to his full height having been forced to duck through the exit. The surrounding air seemed to compress under the weight of his presence.

The doorway snapped shut.

The older man released Alexander’s wrist. “Apologies, Machine God. It appears the Doorman triangulated our exit using your card.” The pair stood calmly in the air, perfectly still, no sign of a power operating to keep them aloft though clearly there had to be. “I am King, and this is Titanic. We are here to fulfill the conditions of our alliance.”

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Hyperawareness drew his attention halfway through the introduction, but Julia was moving so fast she blurred even to his senses. A concussive blast of air followed as Titanic caught her fist in his own palm with a grunt, the force driving him backward a few meters. Then a second explosion sent Julia tumbling away, though she quickly righted herself.

“It’s okay!” Alexander called out. “It’s the Royals.”

Julia shook her hand out a few times, flexing and unflexing her fingers. “Sorry. Didn’t recognize you.”

Titanic dipped his chin. And grunted.

Then Julia turned and raced away to intercept another wave of infected crossing the grounds toward them.

“Where do you need us?” King asked.

Alexander swept the battlefield. Little had changed, other than more infected arriving from the city. He met King’s gaze and shrugged.

“I have no idea what you can do, and I have no idea where the vamp is, but the infection is spreading out there in the city. Can you do anything about either?”

An invisible wave of power erupted from the old man, passing over Alexander harmlessly.

King nodded. “I believe I can, though I must ask you to intercede on my behalf with Sheikha Khalida afterwards. She will not be happy.” He frowned. “It is likely to incapacitate me, too. Titanic will guard me, but I trust you will assist should it be required.”

“I’m certain that Khalida will forgive you for anything that helps us stop the vampire or protects her people.” Alexander flashed a smile. “Bonus points for both.”

“We shall see.” King returned the smile. “Please ask the others not to resist me. In fact, it would help if they combined their Wills with mine and… thought positive thoughts about what I am about to do.”

Alexander’s eyes narrowed. There was a hint of amusement on King’s face. It felt like he was about to be on the wrong end of a prank.

But he didn’t have any other ideas. He reached out to Droney, and through it activated the speakers in all the other drones.

“I need everyone to…” He hesitated. “UH. Think positive thoughts about King and what he’s about to do to help us stop the vampire! I am not accepting questions at this time. Because I have no answers.” He glanced at the wave of infected reinforcements racing toward them. “Also, hurry and combine your Wills with his. Somehow.”

Lots of people turned to look up at where he and King hung in the air.

Several protests rang out across the comms channel.

Maximilian was the loudest. “Alex! You’re asking us to place a lot of trust in—”

Raelene’s voice cut over the top of it, silencing the chatter. “Do it.”

Cash sputtered. “What? Seriously Rae?”

“Yes.”

Her reply hung there in the silence.

“Do as she says,” Maximilian said a moment later.

Alexander looked down at Grimnir. They were each locked in combat, and not one of them had even acknowledged his words, but he already knew they were doing it.

Whatever ‘it’ was.

He pushed out and found chaos, as his Will clashed with dozens of others fighting for control. When another person’s Will, their desire to shape reality, pushed against his, he instinctively shoved back. That in turn forced his Will into a contest with several others, none of whom were willing to give way to the others.

Until one did. Talia’s Will found his dominating aura, and folded its Perfection into his Ambition. It happened so quickly he almost thought he’d imagined it. Until a second Will followed. Annie’s. Then Augustus’s.

As each one joined their Will to his, he felt the implicit trust. Felt his own Will grow more heavy upon the world.

He realized then that they had never once felt their Wills conflict. They had lived, fought, and bled together, and yet, not once had they found their goals in anything but alignment.

Julia’s flowed into his next, naturally, carrying with it a sense of warmth.

Then more from the palace. Felix. Gilly. Even Gabriel. Then, more tentatively, Khalida’s. They’d heard the call even from that far away.

Alexander closed his eyes, trying to understand what was happening. Something flowed from deep within him, not unlike the feeling of his powers being wielded, but it was far more subtle. It slipped across the connection, offering itself freely to those who had joined the growing convergence of Will.

Then the storm that was his collective Will crashed against the wall that was Maximilian’s. Neither gave way in the face of the other. The Dragon Lord’s collective was as vast as his own, carrying with it the weight of those who’d joined him.

There were flashes and impressions of personality as they brushed against each other. Raelene’s razor focus. The restless energy that suffused Cash. Stillness, that could only be Draven. A quiet presence he recognized as Mirror. Then there were others he didn’t understand, but he knew instinctively they were the survivors, civilians, though their Wills felt like grass in the wind compared to those of the superhumans.

He reached further and found three smaller pairings. Hjordis and the Northern Shield, their Wills intertwined, wrapping around each other protectively, probing against the two larger collectives without surrender.

The Nakamura twins blended so completely that Alexander couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. It was more like a single Will wearing two faces.

Finally, King and Titanic. Stable and patient, but neither pushing nor pulling. They simply waited, open and accepting, feeling like a door held wide in invitation.

Alexander held onto the sensations. Marveled at them. Then saw beyond them, to something else.

Golden threads. Almost imperceptible and impossibly fine, reached for their Wills from every direction. They drifted toward Maximilian. Toward the Northern Shield. Even toward himself.

And again, he knew intuitively they represented people. They came from across the city. Across the country. Perhaps even from around the world. They weren’t being drawn to them by command or coercion, but by something he couldn’t name.

A pulse from below drew his focus. He frowned, eyes still closed, and saw the disruption. More threads. Just as fine as the golden ones, but darker and even harder to see. They were pulsing.

And reaching for—

Alexander’s eyes snapped open. The battlefield had barely moved. What had felt like minutes of introspection, drowning in new sensations, had been nothing more than a second or two at most. His gaze swept the crowd below, trying to identify the anomaly, but there was nothing there.

The fight continued. Civilians huddled under the Northern Shield’s protection. Hjordis flew across the sky, sword burning. Annie and Julia guarded south and east, while the others protected the other directions.

Infected closed in from all around them.

Hyperawareness caught it. A faint ripple, tracing from the outer edges of the blood pooling across the marble plaza.

“He’s in the blood!” Alexander shouted, his voice still streaming from every drone. Then he spun toward King and ‘pushed’ his Will behind whatever the man was doing, trusting blindly that he could do something with it.

At the same time, he felt the other collectives do the same. The combined Will of dozens of superheroes converged into a single point.

Into a single person.

King’s head snapped backward with a gasp. Golden light burst from his eyes. Then he threw his arms out, and brought his hands together in a single, loud clap.

“Land Claim.”

Power ripped free of the King of Diamonds. Alexander felt the drain of whatever he was doing through his own soul as energy poured outward from the plaza at the speed of light.

Below, the pooled blood of hundreds of dead surged upward, reaching for Alexander, for King, for others.

King clapped his hands again.

“Forced Relocation.”

Reality blinked. Then it tore.

And Dubai vanished from the face of the Earth.

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