Chapter 292 - Crazy Lineup (Patreon)

Chapter 292

Crazy Lineup

Alexander wove through the canyon at cruise speed, keeping low.

The mountains were familiar. He’d flown these same passes almost a month ago, racing between the trees like a lunatic while testing powers that had just been through a major overhaul. That had been the fun part. The less fun part had been flying back the other way with two warships and the creepiest wizard ever chasing him through the mountains.

The trees were thicker down here than he remembered. Dense conifers clinging to the slopes, their canopy broken only where the rock was too steep for roots to hold. Less snow, too. The season had turned while he’d been busy kickstarting a secret revolution.

He kept beneath them where he could.

Droney flew at his side, navigating independently, its hovertech humming at a frequency that blended with the wind through the branches. The little drone wasn’t racing ahead or punching through anything. No satisfied beeps. No cloud assaults. It knew what was coming.

Both of them did.

Alexander held his presence tight. Domain restrained. Electrokinesis cycling through his Core. No bioelectrical sweeps. No Metallokinesis reaching ahead to hunt for threats. He was flying on his eyes and Droney’s sensors alone, keeping his signature as close to invisible as a Tier 2 Divine could manage.

The rationale was simple. The last time he’d approached the fortress, he’d come through the mountains. They’d expect him to change tactics. Come from the clouds, maybe. Hit them from the air where his speed advantage mattered most.

So he’d do the same thing twice. Because nobody ever expected that. It was stupid.

He’d considered the sky approach. Spent a few minutes thinking about a high-altitude dive, punching through their formation at maximum speed before they could react. It was a good plan. 

Dramatic. Villainous, even.

Then he’d seen the monstrosity.

Even from fifty kilometers out, the thing had been visible. A floating palace of white stone and gold hanging in the sky above the mountain fortress like someone had parked a cathedral in the atmosphere. It dwarfed the warships circling beneath it, which were dots in comparison. In fact, it dwarfed everything he’d ever seen planet-side. There were only three things he’d come across that were larger. Astra Omnia. Prime Orbital. And the Nexus. Space stations, all.

His first thought had been to figure out a way to borrow it.

His second thought had been that it obviously belonged to the Empress. Who was, at minimum, as strong as an Exalted. Which meant she was probably at least as strong as him, though he was banking on her being Tier 3 and with the magic to back it up.

Just to be on the safe side, he’d shelved the joyride. Unless an opportunity presented itself, of course.

Alexander banked around a rock face and dropped into a narrow valley. The fortress was close now. A few minutes out at maximum speed. He slowed, drifting to a stop under a cluster of pines that clung to the valley wall. Droney settled beside him, visor angled upward.

“Time to see what we’re working with.”

Alexander reached into the ring and dumped the surveillance drone’s subunits into the air around him. Forty-nine angular drones, each one a faceted pyramid the size of his fist, hovering in a loose cloud.

He turned his cybernetic hand over, palm up. Metallokinesis seized them all at once and held them there, building, the pressure humming through the air.

Then he raised his hand.

The subunits shot upward through the canopy like a volley of bullets, punching through branches and scattering pine needles in their wake. They broke into the open sky and scattered, racing for the clouds in every direction.

He was probably going to lose some of them. Maybe all of them, depending on how good the Empire had gotten at tracking things without magical signatures in the past month.

Alexander tucked his hands behind his head and leaned back, floating in the air. Droney drifted beside him.

Minutes later, the feeds lit up. Forty-nine streams of visual data, filtered through Droney’s processing, collapsed into a composite picture that flowed directly into his mind.

He whistled. “Artensah has been a busy, busy wizard bee.”

The fortress he remembered had been a compact rectangle of dark metal walls and flat rooftops, sitting on a rocky outcrop. He’d rescued Minlah, torn through the ceiling, returned to fight Keda, and eventually killed Flashpoint in the courtyard.

What the feeds showed him now was four times that size. The original structure sat at the center, but the perimeter had expanded outward in every direction with new walls and towers. The ceiling had been rebuilt and reinforced, the rooftop now layered with something other than metal. It looked like concrete. Just with glowing magical formations built into it. Guards patrolled it in pairs. More stood at regular intervals along the outer walls, and the base of the outcrop had been swallowed by additional fortifications that hadn’t existed a month ago.

Droney beeped.

“When you’re right, you’re right. They have to know by now I can tear through that fortress like it’s made of paper, which means it’s probably enchanted or hexed or whatever with everything they can think of.”

In the airspace above the fortress, seven warships held formation. Their running lights traced slow patrol routes through the gray sky, overlapping arcs that kept every approach vector covered. They were the same as the three he’d crashed into the steppe.

Alexander wasn’t impressed. Three warships or seven, the number didn’t matter. The only question worth asking was how many archmages were aboard each one, and whether their combined Wills and magical defenses could resist his Domain long enough to matter.

And that question would be answered soon. Droney’s countdown timer pinged ten minutes.

Simply tearing through the fort and escaping was a possibility. There was no doubt the rest of Grimnir, along with any allies they’d convinced to join them, were going to step through the moment the gateway opened.

He grinned at the thought. They were going to be so pissed. Then he frowned. Mostly at him, but only after they were done beating up the Empire’s forces here. Hopefully. He couldn’t quite shake the idea that Annie might just give it to him in the middle of the fight.

A flash of light erupted from one of the warships. A turret discharge, bright enough to flare across the feed before a subunit went dark. Another feed died a second later. Fire from a different ship, the angle suggesting the turrets were operating independently, each one tracking its own target.

The warships broke formation. They spiraled outward from the fortress in a coordinated expansion, turrets firing rapidly, beams of light lancing through the clouds. Feed after feed winked out. Thirty-seven. Thirty-two. Twenty-eight.

Alexander sent a command with Technopathy. The surviving subunits pushed their hovertech hard, and raced toward the nearest warships. A handful angled upward, climbing for the palace.

Twenty-one. Seventeen.

His eyes widened as a point of light began to grow on the palace’s underside. A formation of runes appeared, circling and spreading outward as the point became the size of a car.

It fired, and the beam scattered into over a dozen different beams that snaked down through the clouds, each one targeting a drone.

An instant later, the remaining feeds went white. Then dark.

Alexander sighed and stretched his legs out, still floating on his back beneath the canopy. “Well, that proves it. They’ve definitely upped their game.”

Droney beeped. Concern.

“Relax.” He laced his fingers behind his head. “If they detect me, we’ll just have to start the party without the others. It’s only five minutes.”

Droney beeped again. The bond carried a correction and a whole lot of skepticism.

Alexander grinned. “Okay, six minutes and twenty-two seconds if you want to be precise about it. And how dare you? I am not hoping that they find us so I get to play before the others show up.” He paused. “I just won’t be all torn up about it if they do.”

***

Annie stood ten meters back from the sealed gateway, clenching and unclenching her fists. MetaMetal rippled up and down her arms in restless waves she’d stopped trying to control.

She glanced right. 

Julia’s mother stood closest to her, in the center, wearing a fitted white combat suit, with her dark hair pulled into a tight bun. Even after weeks of relentless training, it was hard not to stare. Caroline Delvane didn’t have a superhero name. The Matriarch of one of the most powerful superhuman families on Earth didn’t need one. Annie had grown up watching clips of her on the holos and had arguments with friends about whether anyone besides Pinnacle could actually take her in a fair fight.

And the Matriarch had actually fought Pinnacle and walked away, even if it had been a two-on-one.

Then she’d met her. Shook her hand. Got beaten unconscious and suffered broken bones from her famous hands on a daily basis for weeks. 

Annie shivered at the memory. Her body remembered the training despite everything she’d done to forget it. MetaMetal Adaptation was supposed to protect her from harm by phasing her bits and pieces to safety, and replacing them with liquid metal. Somehow, Caroline’s hits didn’t care about that.

She had no idea who had convinced her to be here or how, but whoever had pulled it off was definitely awesome. She couldn’t wait to see her in action.

Not that it was likely they needed her.

Annie leaned forward to look past Caroline. Julia stood next to her mother, arms crossed, her own white combat suit pristine, with a blue mantle hanging behind her. Ice crystals sparkled around her, drifting toward the floor before disappearing.

Beyond Julia was Maximilian in his black and gold uniform with his perfect hair. His eyes were closed, arms clasped behind his back.

The red dragon standing behind Maximilian shifted slightly, turning one large, reptilian eye in her direction. After a moment, it huffed, snorting a small stream of smoke from its nostrils, and it turned its attention back to the gateway.

She was definitely going to ask Maximilian if she could fight his dragon later.

Annie glanced left. And up. Way up.

Titanic stood there looking like a boulder adorned in heavy plate armor. His arms were folded across his chest, and the air around him shimmered slightly.

None of them knew what the man’s powers were, but they all knew he was strong. The Royals had been too busy to send anyone else, but she wasn’t going to complain.

Except maybe about how the giant hadn’t said a single word the entire day.

It was a crazy lineup, with way too many people and powers to figure out a real strategy, but Augustus and Talia’s plan was simple. Send the most unkillable people through first in one blitzing wave.

Maximilian was the odd one out. Augustus had said something about barriers and angles of attack and containment zones and blah blah blah. She’d stopped listening after learning she was going through in the first wave.

A hand landed on her shoulder. She looked back.

Augustus stared down at her with a gentle smile. The old man had his suit and armor on, with his wand already conjured to hand. His spellbook floated in front of him, pages turning.

Behind him stood everyone else. Talia. Gilly. Felix. Gabe. Carmen. Some of the crew. Cash. Draven. Raelene. Mirror. A new guy she didn’t recognize. Most were paired up, or standing in small clusters. Talia had called them designated units or something at the meeting. Even further back, the Triple S mercenaries had established a semi-circle of metal barriers and turrets.

“You ready?” Augustus asked.