Chapter 221

The Convergence of Wills, Pt. 10

The moment the portal closed behind Alexander, every infected across the palace grounds stopped fighting.

Talia watched it happen from the terrace, katana raised, mid-strike against an infected guard who had been trying to claw past her toward the civilians behind her. The man froze, ignoring the blade now buried in his ribs. Then his head snapped northwest. His body followed, legs driving him forward without regard for the blade as it slipped free. He sprinted away from her, completely ignoring her existence.

All of them did. Every red-eyed figure on the grounds turned northwest and ran. Some flew. Some climbed walls to get above the obstacles and launch themselves toward the city. Within seconds, the palace grounds were clear of threats for the first time since the press conference.

Talia didn’t need her Mind Palace or Cognitive Resonance to know they were chasing the Lost Prophet.

“Everyone to the palace,” Raelene’s voice cut across the comms. “Organize the civilians. Carry anyone who can’t walk. Move fast.”

Talia sheathed her katana and turned to help. Some of the remaining civilians were in poor shape. The cold and the thin air had been at work since they arrived. The superhumans were managing, but several of the older civilians had gone pale, their breathing shallow and labored. One woman was being supported between two others, barely conscious.

Annie scooped up an elderly man who’d been sitting against a shattered barrier, too weak to stand. Mirror helped another, moving carefully.

Droney buzzed overhead, the drone swarm spreading into a loose escort formation around the group as they moved toward the palace.

Talia felt it before she saw it. Fifty meters before they would have reached the palace, the faintest distortion appeared in the air ahead. Cognitive Resonance linked what she saw with what she already knew. Mind Palace processed it instantly.

Spatial displacement. Nothing like Augustus’s portals. Not like the Doorman’s doorways.

No. They were System gateways. Smaller, but unmistakable.

“Ambush!” she shouted, drawing her katana and slashing in a single motion. Will flowed into the enchanted blade, and a crescent of energy tore through the air toward the portals forming ahead of them.

Behind them, three more portals opened. Three to the left. Three to the right.

They were surrounded.

Two figures stepped through each portal simultaneously. Twenty-four in total. Red and black armor, sleek and form-fitting, unlike anything Talia had ever seen. Personal energy shields shimmered around each one, faint but visible.

Her blade wave crashed against the six separate shields and splashed apart like water against rock. They didn’t even flinch.

Instead, one of each pair lifted a dish-shaped device and aimed it at the crowd.

Talia felt the suppression hit like a wall of silence inside her skull. Her Mind Palace shattered. Cognitive Resonance went dead. The constant flow of information from her powers cut to nothing, leaving her with only her eyes, her ears, and her training.

Around her, the effect was devastating.

Cash had already been accelerating, blurring toward the nearest pair with a shout. The suppression field caught him mid-stride. His speed died abruptly. Momentum carried him forward, legs tangling as the power that kept him upright at velocity vanished. He crashed to the ground, bounced several times, and finally slid across the grass, tumbling to a stop at the attackers’ feet.

Draven’s invisibility shattered, revealing him standing directly in front of Raelene, one hand already pushing her sideways as the second pair of attackers raised heavy, wide-barreled weapons and fired.

“Move!” he snapped.

Nets erupted from the barrels, trailing thin cables that crackled with energy. They expanded mid-flight, spinning into wide circles that wrapped around their targets and immediately began constricting.

Draven took the net meant for Raelene. It wrapped around him, cables tightening, pulling his arms to his sides. He hit the ground hard and didn’t get back up, the net constricting around him.

Cash, still sprawled on the ground, caught a net across his back. Mirror went down next, a net wrapping around her torso and legs.

Two ESA superhumans who’d charged forward were caught simultaneously, nets entangling them mid-leap.

Talia cut the net aimed at her in half. The enchanted blade passed through the cables without resistance, the two halves falling to the ground. The suppression field had killed her powers, but the katana didn’t care. It was real, even if it had to be manifested using System magic. And despite her own cognitive gifts, she had worked hard nearly every day of her life. It couldn’t take the thousands of hours of training she’d put in.

Another net fired at Annie. It wrapped around her arms and torso, cables tightening.

“Assimilate,” Annie snarled through clenched teeth.

MetaMetal shouldn’t have worked. The suppression field was pressing against every superhuman in range. But Annie’s power didn’t resist the field. It ate it. Talia saw the MetaMetal ripple across Annie’s body as it absorbed the suppression energy, adapted to it, and surged outward. The net shredded apart as her arms became blades.

One of the attackers turned a dish toward Titanic while their partner fired a net at the same time.

The net hit something unseen. A full meter from Titanic’s body, it caught on a sphere of invisible force. The big man hadn’t moved. Hadn’t flinched. King still hung unconscious over his shoulder.

Titanic grunted.

The net shot backward, reversing course as if launched from a cannon. It hit the attacker who’d fired it, wrapping around his torso and tightening before he could react. The suppression-field weapon exploded in the other attacker’s hands.

Silence fell over the two groups. Three people with some active powers still standing against twenty-plus armored operatives with technology that had neutralized almost everyone else in seconds.

Overhead, Alexander’s drones spread out, illuminating the attackers but not immediately counterattacking.

For a few seconds, it became a standoff.

Then the leader of the attackers stepped forward. His armor was identical to the others except for a thin gold band across the helmet’s visor. His voice carried, amplified and disguised by his suit.

“Grab the Nakamura brothers. Take Talia Kim and Raelene West as well.” A pause. “That will bring the Machine God and the Dragon Lord to us. Kill anyone who gets in the way.”

“The fuck you will!” Annie shouted.

She launched toward the nearest enemy.

More figures rushed through the portals. A second wave. These carried energy weapons the likes of which Talia had never seen. They fanned out in pairs, each moving toward specific targets.

Four went straight for the Nakamura twins, who stood together near the center of the group, calm eyes tracking the approaching operatives.

Others angled toward Raelene, now exposed and unprotected without Draven.

Energy bolts cracked across the space. An ESA superhuman who stepped into the path of the operatives heading for the twins took a blast to the chest and went down. A civilian who tried to pull one of the brothers away was shot in the leg. Screams erupted from the crowd, and suddenly everybody was trying to survive instead of help.

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Talia carved through two operatives in three strokes, the Will-infused katana slicing through the shields. One drone, shield-blades extended, crashed ineffectively against another, unable to penetrate the energy barriers.

Annie was a blur of MetaMetal and fury, her body shifting and reforming as she engaged the small army coming through three separate portals all by herself. They poured energy weapons’ fire into her, but she took each hit without slowing, while each one she hit stayed down.

More kept coming through the portals.

Titanic reached out with one massive hand, wrapped it around an operative’s helmet, and squeezed. The helmet crumpled. The head inside followed. He let the body drop, already stepping toward the next. He backhanded the air, and two more went flying, blood spraying from their mouths.

But they couldn’t be everywhere.

The operatives reached the Nakamura brothers. Suppression collars snapped around their necks with barely a fight. The twins’ calm expressions faltered simultaneously, their shared connection severing in an instant. One brother reached for the other, eyes wide, mouth opening in a shout that came out as a gasp.

The operatives struck both with the butts of their weapons, then began dragging them away.

Another threw Raelene over their shoulder and turned back toward the portals. She kicked and elbowed, beating against her abductor.

Dozens of drones descended. But Droney didn’t target the attackers and their shields. Instead, they went after the devices generating the suppression fields. Shield-blades sparked against the advanced weapons, while others crashed bodily into the dishes without regard.

Drones erupted with sound and glitter. Others detonated, exploding at point-blank range, as Droney tested in real time for any solution.

Several of the overlapping suppression fields failed.

Enough that Draven was able to reactivate his powers, phasing through the net as he rose to one knee. He drew a blade and hurled it.

It found its mark, passing through the personal shield of the man carrying Raelene as if it didn’t exist.

Then it phased back. Inside his body.

Raelene’s abductor took a step. Stumbled. Fell to one knee. Then face-planted, still.

Talia was already moving, her katana rising to strike.

She didn’t need to.

The man’s hand stopped inches from Raelene’s shoulder. He looked up slowly as a shadow fell over him.

Titanic stood there, King still draped across one shoulder. Then he threw a punch. His fist never made contact. The operative’s body bent around an invisible sphere of force, torso folding in ways a spine shouldn’t allow. He hung there for a heartbeat, strangely deformed.

The body launched backward through the air and disappeared into one of the portals.

A shout from across the battlefield drew Talia’s attention. The operatives dragging the Nakamura brothers stepped through a portal and disappeared. At the same time, their leader turned without a word and stepped through his own portal.

The remaining operatives fell back in disciplined pairs, covering each other’s retreat, dragging some of the wounded with them.

Then the portals vanished.

Silence settled over the palace grounds. The kind that came after violence, heavy with the smell of burned ozone and blood.

Talia knelt beside one of the dead operatives and studied the armor. It was the most advanced technology she had ever seen, and she wished Alexander was here to examine it.

Because it was already dissolving. The armor softened, then liquefied, eating into the body beneath. Flesh and metal becoming the same grey slurry, pooling across the grass. The weapons went as well.

Despite the smell, Talia watched every moment. Her Mind Palace was back, and she captured it all. Every material. Every reaction. Every second of the dissolution.

Alexander would want to know every detail.

***

“I’ll do it,” Maximilian said. “It’s only fair.”

Alexander cocked his head and looked at the Dragon Lord.

They were both standing atop a rocky outcropping, dark green lichen and moss underfoot, and the expansive Martian desert spreading in every direction.

In front of them, the Lost Prophet waited inside the barrier formed of two half-spheres generated by the wedge-shaped drones.

It was a strange thing Maximilian had said, but the meaning was obvious. Even if he didn’t understand why the man had offered to carry the burden.

Alexander shook his head. “I already killed one. It’s best if I do it.”

Maximilian turned to him with an unreadable look on his face. “It won’t be the first time I’ve unintentionally taken an innocent life, Alex,” he said softly. “If we’re wrong, I mean.”

The confession gave him pause. It was even more unexpected. He didn’t ask, though.

Instead, he looked at the Lost Prophet. Still bound, Alexander and Maximilian combining their Wills to maintain both the magical and physical bindings on a Tier 3 superhuman.

A Divine. One of the Eight. A peer, in a twisted sort of way, if all the world’s seers and masters of divination were to be believed.

“We’ll do it together,” Alexander said at last. “Because if we’re wrong, we can’t stop killing him until it’s done. No matter the cost.”

Maximilian exhaled slowly. But he didn’t disagree.

With a single thought, the drones disabled the shield emitters and backed away from the prisoner.

The three superhumans stared at each other for a long moment.

“If you let me go now, I’ll consider us even.” The Lost Prophet smiled. “I couldn’t have done it without you, after all.”

Alexander ignored him. “We should suppress his Will as much as we can, just in case.”

“Agreed.”

The Lost Prophet’s smile faded. “Let me go. Otherwise, when I return, I swear I will carve your loved ones from the inside out while you watch,” he snarled. “And those who believe in you? I will add them to my flock. And they will hunt you tirelessly, forcing you to kill them one after the other until the two of you become so intimate with the depths of your failure that you’ll beg me to stop.”

Alexander pressed his Will down upon the humanoid blood-form. Metallokinesis tightened the chains for good measure, applying a second form of pressure. He felt Maximilian’s own Will surge in response, merging with his own, before crashing down on their shared enemy.

The Lost Prophet began to struggle. Shouting. Cursing.

Alexander tuned him out. He raised both hands slowly, aiming them dead center. Both the cybernetic arm and the gauntlet were fully charged. Electrokinesis surged from his soul, washing through the Core, and then flooded down both arms.

Electricity danced across both surfaces.

“Ready?” he asked.

A dozen chains burst free of the rocks, snaking upward until the sharpened tips angled down, pointing at the Lost Prophet.

“Yes,” Maximilian said, voice steady.

Alexander took a deep breath. Made a brief, simple wish to the universe that they weren’t wrong. A universe he thought was cold and uncaring. He just figured it couldn’t hurt to try.

“On three.”

Maximilian nodded.

Alexander counted down.

The Lost Prophet continued to shout and struggle, his Will bursting outward erratically while his blood rippled and spiked, but went nowhere.

“Three.”

“Two.”

“One.”

Maximilian’s chains lunged forward, piercing the blood-body of the Lost Prophet at the same time two bolts of lightning burst from Alexander’s palms.

The Lost Prophet screeched. His blood boiled and steamed. Droplets sprayed into the air.

With a second flex of power, Maximilian’s binding chains tightened, the metal links crushing, then slicing into the compressed blood.

Then it went silent. The blood fell, no longer cohesive, and splashed across the rocky ground, painting the lichen and moss red.

Like the rest of the desert.

For a single heartbeat, there was nothing. No movement. Even the wind seemed absent.

Then something hit Alexander with the force of a train. Something he hadn’t felt since the day he died. Except this wasn’t physical. It was inside. Deep, deep inside.

He doubled over, grasping his chest.

Beside him, Maximilian was doing the same.

They both dropped to their knees, gasping as something washed through them.

And just as suddenly as it started, it was over.

Alexander forced himself to breathe, trying to fill empty lungs with thin Martian air. But he wasn’t idle. His other mental thread reached out with powered senses, searching for the threat Hyperawareness had missed.

And found nothing.

Everything was still. The blood was already soaking into the sand. Other than Maximilian and himself, nothing moved.

Alexander pushed himself to his feet and stumbled. He felt strange, equilibrium all wrong. His vision warped, forcing him to close his eyes.

Then he saw them.

Threads. Fine, golden gossamer threads reaching toward him. He’d seen them earlier, during the convergence of their Wills. Felt his power reaching back. Hundreds of them.

There were thousands now. Tens of thousands, at least. Maybe even hundreds of thousands.

And beside him, through eyes closed and Will bare, Maximilian glowed.

Alexander’s eyes snapped open, finding Maximilian standing there, looking back.

The Dragon Lord’s eyes were alight, golden-red flames dancing within.

From the look on his face, he assumed his own were doing the same.

They stared at each other for several heartbeats.

“Did we just…” Alexander trailed off. He wasn’t even sure what he really meant.

Maximilian apparently understood. “I think we did,” he whispered.

That wasn’t the answer he was hoping for. Because if Maximilian was right, they now knew why the Divines would wage war against each other. Why there might never be peace among them.

“Fuck,” they both said at the same time.

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