Point being, the enemy would be there in a little over ninety minutes.
Lia said, “Nervous?”
I snorted, “I feel sorry for them.”
Lia giggled.
I shrugged, “A little, of course, just like right before every fight. I’m doing my best to focus and calm my mind. You?”
Lia nodded, “Any plans tonight?”
I snickered, and Ella giggled.
“Plans?”
Lia grinned, “Sure, celebration plans. For after we kick their ass. How about that Italian place on Pine?”
“Taste of Italy? I’m in.”
It was probably a little silly making plans right before a huge battle. The biggest battle America had ever seen perhaps, at least on her own shores, but there was something bemusing about it.
The regret on my uncle’s face as we teleported out flashed in my mind, but I pushed it out before it grabbed a hold of my thoughts. There could be a million different reasons for that look, and I wasn’t going to play a litany of what if tragedies in my head.
Still, I might punch my uncle in the face next time I saw him, for not controlling his facial expressions better if he was going to keep something from the rest of us.
Ella interjected, “Pacelli’s has live music and dancing, and the food is just as good.”
Lia grinned, “I vote for Ella’s idea over mine.”
I laughed, “Fine.”
Time dragged, but I kept my mind from lingering on the coming battle too much. Still, I couldn’t help some random thoughts, and I’d never been more worried for my team. We risked our lives every day, every time we fought a supervillain, but this was different.
Four on five, it was all skill and training, with maybe a little luck, but in a battle of fifty against two hundred, random chance and luck had a bigger part in things. There’d be less rhyme and reason, on who died, and who survived. Even if we did win, our teams may not come out intact, and whole cities would lose their protection for a time.
No matter what happened, win or lose, war was a senseless tragedy, and I felt a growing frustrated anger at the stupidity of it. If I’d had the opportunity, then I’d kill the man behind it all without even blinking. The one who hungered for world conquest.
It was what it was, and the time before the battle was running down.
Aura said, “The others are in.”
“In what?” I asked.
Aura clarified, “Pacelli’s.”
I giggled despite myself, and Lia and Ella outright laughed.
Chapter Seventeen
The explosions out at sea were startling, and we could see the fiery flashes lighting up the sky long before we could make out the supers approaching.
Aura briefed us, “Minimally effective. The explosions and forces involved are enough to take down an average bruiser or energy wielder in a direct hit, but most of the missiles are being shot down by the latter. Of course, they still have two more lines for them to get through. The smaller patriot missiles will be a lot more numerous.”
“Three balls, Aura,” I prompted, and three of those tungsten balls teleported in. My mind gripped them, and they hovered over my head. I got a few strange looks from the other squads, but I ignored them.
The sky lit up again, and after the explosions died down, Aura reported, “Slightly more effective, but not what we were hoping for. It suggests that they trained extensively for this kind of defensive attack during an invasion, more indirect proof of Dragonfire’s intentions.”
“The United Nations?”
Aura said, “Still arguing.”
Of course, they were.
The enemy came into sight then, and at such a large distance they looked like a swarm of locusts across the whole horizon. Of course, we’d only be facing a small part of that line. My heart lurched in my chest and started to race as adrenaline surged in my veins. Just a few moments later several hundred blasts of energy raced up into the sky, and the sky above them filled with fire.
“Fuel airbursts?”
The few fuel airburst weapons that got through answered my question a second later, as much larger billowing fire blasts exploded in their midst, some of the enemy fell into the ocean, but not nearly enough of them. The old military weapons had taken their shot at it, and we were the last line of defense before they’d roll across the country.
Aura reported a couple of seconds later.
“The odds are down to just over three to one. We’d projected getting half of them, but we got a quarter of them.”
I nodded, and steeled myself, focused my mind in the moment. Thoughts of life and death had no place in my mind, just like in a normal fight with a supervillain, there was only the moment and the task at hand. A part of me knew that wasn’t quite right, that only rare supervillain fights were life and death, and that me myself focusing on killing the enemy was unique and out of place in that mental space.
But I’d practiced those mental states and meditations all my life, and it mostly stuck regardless of the true circumstances. I felt the surge of adrenaline and my anxiety with every pounding beat of my heart, but I also felt an unnatural calm as I went through those mental gymnastics.
I also took the news about the weapons with a grain of salt. They’d cut the numbers down by a quarter, but it was no doubt the least powerful among them. I’ll admit it was a struggle to focus, not because of the fear, but because of death. So much death, because some idiot wanted to rule the world. I’d just taken my first life three days ago, and I was about to do so again and again, but it was either that or die.
As the enemy got closer, the large gaps in their lines were easier to make out, as the ones to the left and right adjusted and flew straight towards the groups around us. The forty-eight of us would be facing just over a hundred and fifty, better than two hundred but still harsh odds.
When they were about two miles away from shore, I could make out about half of them were shielded, glowing with disparate colors that suggested fire, lightning, water, pure energy, and more exotic energy types. They were all in red super-suits with black and gold accents as expected.
When they reached a mile out, they started to slow down, as a handful of them started to take potshots at us and we all flew in a dodging and random weave. Most energy wielders couldn’t reach that far, including myself. A couple on our side were able to return fire, including one of the speedsters on the ground who shot incandescent bolts of yellow energy.
Ella was shielding of course, both her and Gabriel, and the two of us followed her weaving dodge from behind.
One of ours were taken out before they even closed in range, two of theirs were hit as well, but glancing blows that hurt them badly but didn’t kill them or even take them out of the fight. Then at a half mile… all hell broke loose.
It was horrific, the exchange of energy as the sky itself seemed to light on fire. One hundred energy wielders, twenty-five of ours, and seventy-five of theirs, all attacking at once. That’s when that luck I’d mentioned came it. I was just as likely to randomly run into a fireball as I dodged another attack as to find safe space.
My three balls raced out. The first one slammed into a lightning wielder and exploded out of his back tearing a wide hole in his chest, the second one hit hard enough to slam the fire wielder into the ocean, and the third one was deflected by shields. The balls would be rather ineffective against a bruiser, or at least no more effective than a super punch, but under their shields, energy wielders had the toughness of a normal human.
I was bounce teleporting to make it hard for the enemy to target me, but not all that far, and I was keeping my eyes on Lia to support her. Lightning hit me and coruscated around my shields, I changed the air and guided the electricity to one of the enemy bruisers. It didn’t take him out, but it shocked him enough that Lia finished the job a moment later.
Then our sides crashed together, figuratively speaking for the energy supers who were dodging and volleying at each other from the close ra
nge of several hundred feet, and quite literally for the bruisers who met in the middle of us.
It was insane. The tactics I’d learned for superhero battles were absolutely worthless, as people around me and on the enemy side kept dying. They’d dodge fire only to run into an energy blast. It was a total mess and I focused on the battle and ignored the element of fickle luck involved.
I’d either live, or I’d die. It just bothered me that if I lived, it would be more than skill, training, and practice that made it so.
I just focused on my orbs, the enemy, and teleporting every half second to frustrate the enemy’s aim. I’d taken down at least six by then with my orbs, while discovering at least three I couldn’t take in that way. I also had an eye on Lia, and for the first time used my other deadly option.
An average bruiser or better could easily absorb a similarly powered TK punch, the size of a fist. But take all that momentum energy and condense it down to a single mono-molecular line, and that changed things in a big way. Something I’d thought of before, even mentioned in these pages, but never used before.
Lia was fighting with one of their bruisers, and she was tough, not on the top of the scale but definitely above average and a standout in the bruiser class of super. She was about to finish him off by snapping his neck, when another enemy bruiser dove at her back.
My mind lashed out protectively.
The most horrifying thing was how easy it was. How easy it was for me to kill any non-energy wielder. I couldn’t even miss, and my power was invisible and couldn’t be seen coming. Telekinesis was more like having as many arms and hands that I could concentrate on at once, rather than a visible energy I just threw like a fire or other energy wielder that could be dodged.
Lia didn’t even notice, as she snapped the other super’s neck and dropped him on the uncaring shore, that behind her a diving enemy soldier just lost his head. Literally, as my power sliced through his neck easier than tearing a piece of paper into two pieces with my hands.
I felt bile in my throat, but I swallowed it down.
The three enemy energy supers I hadn’t been able to take down had been the most effective in taking down our energy wielders. One of them hit Ella’s shield rather hard, and he focused on her and Gabriel as they returned their own energy and lightning. I’d seen, peripherally, that same asshole take down six of our energy wielders one at a time, safely behind his incredibly powerful shield.
I wasn’t about to watch it happen again, not with my people.
“Three rods, now.”
The three rods like the balls were three inches in diameter. They were just a lot more mass being a column instead of a relatively small sphere. They weighed almost a hundred pounds, as opposed to ten or so.
The rods teleported in, and I gripped them with my mind, and sent all three at the same asshole like spears. A sonic boom in triple went off when they were halfway across, and the energy of impact was far more powerful with the rod than a ball, and there were three of them.
It still hadn’t been enough, all three rods were deflected, but it did rattle him badly. The follow up shot by Ella, Gabriel, and the bright yellow gold energy wielder on the ground finally broke through his shields and took him down. I wasn’t sure why our speedster had switched targets, perhaps he’d been paying attention to one of the enemy’s most effective supers as well, and he saw an opportunity that shouldn’t be wasted.
I couldn’t possibly ever regret saving Ella and Gabriel from that monster, they were my team. But between that, keeping track of my three balls in the air, and teleporting every half second my mind was only capable of doing so much at a time. Adding in the three rods to take out that asshole had been one thing too many for my mind to juggle.
Which is why what I saw next put a lump in my throat, and I expelled a sound of wounded disbelief from my throat. I’d only let her out of my sight for a second or two, but when my eyes fell back on Lia to watch her back, it was already too late. Just like me with the energy wielder, the enemy must’ve singled out Lia as one of our most dangerous bruisers in the air, and they worked as a team to take her down.
The two enemy bruisers had her by the legs and were flying apart and effectively holding her still, a third one she’d probably just killed was still falling for the ocean’s surface. My mind lashed out, and both bruisers died in a split second as their heads were separated from their shoulders.
But it was too late, I’d been too late. They’d managed to hold her still for too long, and simultaneous to my strike Lia’s body was cut in half right before my eyes as one of their energy wielders sent a purple pulse of power through her.
Lia was gone, and for just a split second my mind froze as it refused to accept the proof before my eyes. Tears blurred my vision and my heart skipped in my chest. I’d known her since kindergarten, we’d been best friends since the second grade, when she’d found out my mother was Lady Aegis and I wanted to follow in her footsteps. She’d been my best friend for life, and my partner.
It all flashed through my mind, every moment we’d shared, and every dream and plan for the future we’d shared.
Coldness closed in, a tightly contained and focused rage. Up to that point I’d been focusing on the energy wielders, because bruisers were left to the bruisers, but we of course supported them if they got in over their heads. Point being, the energy wielders could only be handled by energy wielders safely, unless a bruiser had a weapon that could break through their shields.
After that moment, I didn’t think tactically at all. I also had no partner, which in the end just made me deadlier as I could focus on being purely offensive. They’d regret what they’d done. Of course, in that moment I didn’t have those thoughts. I didn’t think it through at all. I just wanted them all dead. If I was hit by a random blast and killed, so be it, but I didn’t worry about it past continuing to teleport all over the place at least twice a second.
Living wasn’t my focus.
Every time I teleported, three energy wielders were hit by the balls, and three bruisers lost their heads. Not every ball killed, but half did, and it often weakened their shields so badly one of our energy wielders finished them off.
It was about the fifth teleport, when I’d killed fifteen of their bruisers in two point five seconds, that the enemy focused on taking me down with a vengeance. Each time I teleported out, fire, red and purple energy, white energy, water blades, and even bruisers flashed through the spot I just vacated, even as three more of their bruisers fell to the ocean in two pieces.
Every teleport out, just a split second before overwhelming attacks could hit me.
Ironically, despite my beliefs and respect for life, I was a much better killer, than I’d ever been at taking a supervillain alive. The bruisers were like wheat to me, and I was wielding a sickle. In the moment, I was also thrilled they were all trying to kill me and pissed off, because that meant more people on my side weren’t being attacked.
Five seconds later, another thirty bruisers became fish food, and fifteen energy wielders had holes in their bodies where their hearts used to be. Twenty seconds after that, the battle was all but over, as fifteen of our original twenty-five energy wielders, including Ella and Gabriel, finished off the last of the three energy wielders that were too tough for me kill alone.
In the end, we’d killed a little over a hundred and fifty invading supers, and of the forty-eight we’d started with we had twenty-five left. Amazing, but still horrific. We’d lost over half our force, including Lia. Ten energy wielders, and fifteen of our bruisers had fallen.
I felt a wave of grief hit me like a tsunami, but the rage that rose to drown that sorrow hardened me, and I looked up and down the coast. My three balls hit my stomach so that I could take them along, then I teleport skipped to the south ignoring Ella’s shout to stop. At three hops a second, it took me three seconds to travel the two-mile distance, then I was once more drowning in the blood of the enemy.
The enemy had all but won when
I arrived, but I turned the tide quickly as I bounced above, below, and behind the enemy, taking heads, and explosively driving the balls into the energy wielders. Aura was saying something to me, but I couldn’t really make it out, and I wasn’t sure if I cared as I slaughtered my way through fifty bruisers and twenty-five energy wielders in less than thirty seconds, then started to jump south again to the next group.
Taking down supervillains was hard, but with my power killing was easy. I felt ice in my veins, nothing else mattered but the rhythm of teleport, kill, teleport, kill, until they were all gone. Then off to the next group.
Then the next.
Then the next.
Then the next.
I lost track of time, and I honestly couldn’t understand how I was still alive, outside of the fact I was never in place long enough for an energy wielder to draw power, aim, and release. That said, I thought I’d have had the dumb luck to jump in front of a random shot, but I never did.
Each fight was more desperate than the last, the thirty seconds I took at each site to demolish the enemy and change the odds meant that there were many more dead on our side before I arrived at the next grouping. I think I was insane, for a good part of that. Broken, angry, lost, but extremely deadly.
The eleventh, twelfth? I didn’t know. I was thinking maybe twice that, but it wouldn’t be for days until I learned I’d turned the tide in thirty-two more battles that day. The next group I jumped to, there were about fifteen on our side left, but they were all glowing with a golden light. It was jarring, familiar somehow, and it slowly leaked into my awareness when a golden light surrounded me. I just stopped, and stared, as my mother made me look like an absolute amateur. Every energy wielder on the enemy side that shot one of ours, was shot a split second later with the same energy, only magnified about twenty-five times which cut them in half.
Wraith: Origins of Supers: Book Three Page 13