Chapter 221
The Convergence of Wills, Pt. 10The 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.