Chương 198: Red Handed

"Plan." Alexander spat the word out between dodging a sniper shot that turned an empowered drone into shrapnel and rolling sideways to avoid the biomorph's diving attack.

"Cross calls this a blind fisherman's trap. The operation was set in motion months ago with his kidnapping. But the target only became clear a few weeks ago, when the American Regional Director stepped in to implement a directive." That had to be why Augustus hadn't joined him yet. He'd somehow recovered Gabriel Cross during the operation. Another bolt cracked through the air. Another drone spun away, then exploded.

He reached out with Technopathy, pulling more drones from Talia's control, before empowering them and adding them to his defense. Their numbers were dwindling.

"It's us, Alex. We're the target." She paused.

"There's only one way out. You have to take out the kid." Alexander almost faltered. His flight stuttered, Metallokinesis flickering for a moment as his concentration broke.

"Fuck you, Talia," he growled.

"I have a better idea. Auggy and Annie and Felix drop in on those three and end it." A shot punched through the space where Alexander's head had been a heartbeat earlier. Talia took it in stride.

"We knew you'd say that. The woman is Marie-Pierre. She can fold space. You can't get out while she's maintaining the lockdown. According to Cross, the teenager is her guardian. His power is to protect another person, transferring all harm dealt to them onto himself instead." Which meant they couldn't hurt Pierre without hurting the kid. And they couldn't leave without going through Pierre. The horizon was sealed. The sky was sealed. And Augustus's portals were useless.

Alexander dove hard, throwing a bolt of lightning from his cybernetic arm at the biomorph as he launched upward to meet him. It caught him full in the face. The impact stunned him and he hit the ground hard, bouncing and rolling across the sand in a tangle of wings and limbs before righting himself and launching back into the air. Charcoal skin smoking. Barely even slowed. He banked hard, pulling behind a column of smoke rising from the burning camp. It bought him some concealment from the sniper.

He used the time to think.

"The sniper is a STEPs assassin. Codename Pierce." Talia's voice was rushed but flat. Delivering the worst news in the calmest possible tone.

"Peak Tier 2. His power is penetration. Augustus cannot show himself. His shields won't hold. Annie is wounded. Blind in one eye. Felix is—""No. Fuck. I get it." Alexander burst out of the smoke column, immediately pulling metal and burning wreckage from across the camp into the air, holding it between him and the sniper. The debris formed a rough wall of cover that he dragged alongside him as he flew. It was crude, but it proved effective enough as the next shot whizzed by, missing him and his drones by meters.

Augustus cut in.

"Alex, it gets worse. Cross says that on the other side of that archway is a full superhuman black ops hit squad. The only reason they're not here, according to Gabe, is that the Sheikha and her people should be detaining them. Temporarily. The Throne of Scales should be involved too, if some of his emails worked." A pause.

"He's not sure. He says he threw a lot of shit at the future wall." The biomorph arced through the air from his vulnerable side, teeth bared, fingers now curling like sharp talons, stretching for him. Alexander rolled, seized a few drones, and propelled them with as much force as he could muster. He took a page from Talia's playbook and targeted the wing spar. Empowered and accelerated to extreme speeds, the shield-blades carved into the bone, breaking it in two places. He dropped like a bird with one wing.

Alexander climbed, putting distance between them as the man's body probably already began to evolve again. Through a gap in his defensive array, he caught a glimpse of the archway. Still open on the slope. Right behind the three superheroes. And on the other side of that archway, apparently, were Julia and Maximilian.

"Augustus. Jules and Max. Is Cross certain they're there?" The silence that followed stretched painfully. Already the biomorph was flying hard, gaining altitude, continuing his pursuit. His wings gleamed, freshly repaired.

"Cross thinks so. But he also said something about the future being an ugly, hairy neighbour in lingerie." Another pause.

"He added that it's almost guaranteed if they were in Dubai." Alexander grinned. And not with amusement.

"I've got an idea."

"Alex—" Talia started. He ignored her, pulling up his System contact list. The interface bloomed in his mind, both too familiar now and too useful. He found the two names he was looking for. Made the call. It rang. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Julia answered immediately. Maximilian, a second later.

"Alex? What's going on?" she asked.

"Jules. Max. I need you to step through that arch. Right now. And seal it behind you so nobody else can follow."

"What?" Julia said.

"Alexander, if you think we're just going to—""Please." The word cut through both question and protest alike. One syllable with no strategy behind it. No manipulation. Just Alexander, bleeding and exhausted and trapped inside a box in the sky, asking two people he trusted for help. The silence lasted only moments.

"We're coming," Julia said. Alexander rolled in the air as he rose, examining the biomorph for a few heartbeats. The rage on the man's face punctuated each aggressive flap of his wings. If it had just been Alexander here, without having to worry about friends on the ground, prisoners hidden behind the ridgeline, he could easily have outpaced the biomorph in the air. Still, he'd run out of ways to try to kill the guy.

He considered grabbing some explosives from his ring and stuffing them, fist first, into the biomorph's gaping maw. Instead, he seized several pieces of metal from the mass of floating debris, subtly repositioning them as he climbed higher into the sky. Another drone burst apart, a lucky shot from the sniper finding a target through the mess. As the biomorph slipped into position, Alexander clasped both hands together.

Metallokinesis poured out of him, his own flight slowing for a moment as he focused his intent through his power. Shaped it. And sent dozens of metal sheets and pipes and anything remotely useful tearing through the air, crashing into his target. He squeezed, Willing the metal to bend and fold, wrapping around the man instead of simply crashing into him. The man fought back, panic crossing his face as he realized Alexander's plan. Taloned fingers clawing and scraping as his wings buckled under the assault.

Heat from an energy bolt grazed his leg. Before he could respond, he sensed the subtle influence of Talia's commands slip into his drones, repositioning them so they better covered his back. He felt another drone go offline, but he ignored it. Couldn't afford the loss of focus for even a moment. Below, more and more material stripped away from the defensive field, joining and becoming part of the slowly closing metal sphere. The biomorph shoved his face into a gap, teeth gleaming under the moonlight.

Sharp talons followed, trying to peel apart the gap as he roared, rage-filled but impotent and unable to stop the final piece of metal slapping into place and sealing it completely. Seconds later, on the slope below, two figures stepped through the archway. Pierre turned toward them. Even from this distance, Alexander could make out the shift in her posture. The sniper reacted first. He rolled onto his back, swinging the heavy rifle toward the new threat.

The barrel came up, and he fired at Maximilian from twenty feet away. Barriers snapped into existence between the muzzle and Maximilian's chest. Layers of shimmering force that materialized in the instant between the trigger pull and the impact. Three walls of translucent light, each one capable of stopping attacks from a superhuman combatant. The shot punched through the first. Through the second. Through the third. And into Maximilian's chest. He staggered backward. One step. Two.

His hand went to the wound as more barriers snapped into existence in every direction around him. The sniper was already switching targets, rifle swinging toward the second threat. Julia moved. One moment she was beside Maximilian. The next she was standing over the sniper, her fist already descending. The impact drove the man into the sand with a sound like a thunderclap, the ground beneath him cratering from the force. Sand blew outward in a ring.

The rifle flew from his hands and tumbled end over end across the slope. Before he could react, Julia kneeled on his back and wrapped an arm around his neck. He didn't struggle after that. Maximilian swept his other hand out toward the archway. Chains burst out of the sand, wrapping themselves around it until the light from the other side blinked out, hidden beneath layers of metal. Nothing else would follow through the portal.

Alexander allowed himself a deep breath and let it out, then took off across the night sky again. His new ball followed in his wake. A few seconds later, he landed just over the ridgeline where Augustus, Talia, and Felix waited with a fourth person. A disheveled man with dirty brown hair, who looked as if he'd been starved and tortured for months. He probably had been. Haunted but piercing eyes turned to him, and the man smiled.

"Hello, old friend. I'm glad you came." The smile fell from his face. Tears formed, then slipped free, running down his cheeks.

"I wasn't sure you would. Everyone else… everyone… they all changed. It kept changing. I—I—they—" Gabriel Cross's eyes rolled up into the back of his head, and he toppled forward. Alexander watched it happen, too confused to react, as the man face-planted in the sand. He met Augustus's gaze. Then he shrugged.

"I've never met this man in my life." Silence. He cleared his throat.

"Did we save them all?" Augustus flicked his wand in Gabriel's direction, and half a dozen ethereal hands appeared. They grabbed the unconscious man, lifting him from the ground.

"Yes," he said.

"The mission was a success." Alexander nodded, then turned to Annie. Her right eye was ruined, bits hanging from the socket.

"Ouch. That looks painful." She glared at him.

"No kidding? I hadn't noticed." He smiled. Turned to Felix, who was sitting next to Annie in golden retriever form.

"How you holding up?" Felix wagged his tail.

"Minor injuries. Mostly self-inflicted." Before Alexander could compare wounds, Talia interrupted.

"You've got incoming. Looks like Pierre surrendered, but now Maximilian is heading your way." The sound of wings beating reached his ears, just before a red dragon burst over the ridgeline, scattering dust in every direction. Annie cursed, covering her eye. The others shielded their faces. Alexander waited until the dragon landed before turning around.

"Max! Thanks for the rescue." The Dragon Lord looked down at them for a few seconds, then stepped down, barriers appearing as he descended.

"Rooke. We need to talk." He stepped onto the sand, not sounding happy at all.

"This… is going to complicate things. You've broken your arbitration agreement with the ESA. You were fighting AEGIS superheroes over a burning camp with hundreds dead. What were you even doing out here?" Alexander reached out to the holo drones holding the illusion around the trailers and deactivated it. It took a moment before Maximilian understood what he was seeing, a look of shock spreading across his usually stoic face.

"We were doing the right thing, Max. Even if we had our own reasons for it." Alexander met his gaze.

"The real question is why AEGIS superhumans were involved in kidnapping, don't you think?"