Chapter 48

JUST ADD HANDS

“Are you okay?”

Julia startled, then glanced at Raelene. “What?”

Raelene didn’t take her eyes off her tablet. “I asked if you’re okay. I know I’m not very good at understanding interpersonal relationships, but you have been having episodes where you stare off into the distance ever since we tried to arrest your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Julia said just shy of shouting, turning red when Cash laughed from where he was standing with Draven.

She sighed. “He’s not. I mean, he was once, but that was years ago. Things are different now. I believe what he said, but I’m still struggling to accept that he’s gone full supervillain. He wanted to be a hero more than anyone else I knew, you know?”

“It is a common goal.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Julia said. “But with him it was easy to believe he’d pull it off. He always saw everything. Understood the problems, the reasons for them… and the solutions just came to him.”

She turned to Raelene with a thoughtful look. “Kinda like you, now that I think about it.”

“He has autism, too?” Raelene asked, still not looking up.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “He just has a weird brain or something. In a good way. Not that you have it in a bad way.”

Raelene met her eyes briefly, then glanced back down at her tablet. “We are going to fight them again. What if you have to hurt him?”

“I’m sure he’ll understand,” Julia said. She checked to make sure Maximilian was out of earshot, then lowered her voice anyway. “Besides, wouldn’t it be cool if we actually got to fight some serious villains without having to worry that they’re going to kill everyone if we mess up?”

“What if he has to hurt you?”

She paused at that.

“We have a location,” Raelene said, raising her voice for the others. “They’re at the facility near the center of the city.”

Maximilian nodded and reached out a hand toward the empty side of the rooftop. With a twist of the wrist, a massive red form slowly took shape. Dark red scales rippled out of nothingness, overlapping and outlining the dragon being summoned.

Julia floated her way across the rooftop to where Maximilian was standing. “Why the red?”

“Speed is our priority now,” he said, not looking away. “The facility they chose is mostly underground, with no way to bring a dragon to the fight unless we destroy the building.”

Julia frowned. It wasn’t the explanation that bothered her, but the way he’d said it. The look on his face, and the tension in his posture.

“You’re worried,” she whispered low enough that the others wouldn’t overhear.

Maximilian glanced at her. Then nodded, his mouth set into a line. “I don’t enjoy walking into a trap. The facility is deep underground, with long hallways and reinforced research rooms that will block sight lines. Raelene already had to give up her combat suit and other tech for this, but now she’ll be forced to fight in close as well.”

Julia glanced across the rooftop to where the others were performing last checks.

“Alexander can counter my chains,” Maximilian continued, “and who knows what other preparations he’ll make. You said he was devious.”

She blushed. “I… said a lot of things. Some of them unfair. I’d just learned he was a supervillain, and a killer on top of that.”

With a pulse of energy, the lithe red dragon finished phasing into reality. It reared back, neck reaching for the sky, and let out a roar before settling back down.

Maximilian shrugged. “We would likely have needed to eliminate some of Pandora’s crew, too. And it’s not like our hands are bloodless,” he said. “Regardless, that’s why I need you to take him out when the fight starts.”

“What? I—I thought I’d be dealing with Sheridan,” she whispered.

“No,” Maximilian said, meeting her eyes. “With Alexander out of the fight, I can handle the others alone if necessary. Sheridan would be dangerous in a prolonged fight without my chains or my dragon, but I can slow her down with my barriers. You need to use that time to remove Alexander from the fight. Understood?”

Julia closed her eyes.

Stolen novel; please report.

“I understand.”

Annie’s breathing was labored as she circled. The big man grinned through the blood running from his forehead, not at all bothered by the dozens of shallow cuts across his chest and arms. His durability wasn’t even close to Flashpoint’s, evidenced by how she’d made him bleed plenty, but he wasn’t slowing down. If anything, he looked more alive with each slash.

He lunged. The floor cracked under his weight, stone tiles splintering as his fist carved past her cheek. She twisted, rolling under his arm and slashing at his ribs. Her blade-arm skimmed flesh, leaving only another shallow line as he reflexively adjusted the distance to avoid the attack..

The fight had stretched across the lobby from one brutal engagement to the next. Walls were cracked from his fist or her face in equal measure. Missed stomps and axe kicks had left small craters.

He swung overhead, telegraphing the maneuver like an amateur though the force behind the blow was too absurd to mock. She ducked low, then flipped clear of his reach, twisting again and driving a blade across his shoulder in the process as his fist smashed the ground.

Frustration clawed at her. His arms were too long. His strength was too much. Every clash reminded her how small she was in comparison.

A memory of Alexander’s voice surfaced: “Keep it simple, Scrappy.”

She stretched her arms wide, transforming them into long scythe-like blades, elongated into narrow edges. Her metal skin began to shimmer as heat bled into it.

The brute smirked. “What’s this? Glow-in-the-dark midget?”

Annie bared her teeth. “Come closer and find out.”

He did. With a lunge, he clamped a hand around her forearm, ready to hurl her into a wall, only to lose his smirk. Heat seared into him, skin blistering in seconds. He roared, jerking back as if she were molten iron.

She darted in, slicing at his thigh. The blade bit deep, a breath from his groin and drawing a bellow of pain. He answered with a kick that hit like a battering ram. She decreased her density before crashing into the wall hard enough to crater it, dust and fragments raining around her.

Before she could reset, he was already there, impossibly fast for his size. His hand clamped around her throat, squeezing as he hauled her off the ground. He ignored the sizzling coming from his grip.

She laughed. “You can’t choke metal.”

Confusion flickered in his eyes, before noticing the metal creeping back, fading from her arms as if she was running dry. His grin returned.

“Little midget ain’t so tough. Looks like you’re almost done.”

Annie’s grin widened.

“NUTCRACKER.”

Both of her now-dense metal legs snapped up. Her heels smashed into his chin with a sickening crack that whipped his head back, teeth snapping together and breaking under the blow.

His grip faltered, dropping her to the ground before falling onto his back.

She planted her hands on her hips and towered over him. “Who’s the midget now, huh?”

He mumbled something and tried to rise. Annie squeaked, then punched him in the face repeatedly until he stopped moving.

“Yeah! That’s what I thought,” she said, panting.

Annie turned to check on Augustus’s fight, only to be met with a confusing sight. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she wandered over to him, watching as he slowly conjured a portal.

He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Annie, are you okay?”

“Mhmm…” she said, distracted. “So what’s happening here?”

Augustus’s opponent had transformed into a scary-looking snake-lady, but was now pinned to the wall by dozens of spectral hands.

One of them was even holding her mouth shut.

Augustus replied without pausing his conjuration. “Oh, right. Annie, this is Basilia. Basilia, this is Annie.”

Basilia struggled against the hands holding her to the wall, her words smothered into a muffled cry.

Annie glared at Augustus. “I wasn’t asking for an introduction!”

He shrugged. “She keeps conjuring snakes. And, as you can see, she turned into a snake-lady, too. My elemental attacks had little effect on her scales, so I tried grabbing her tail, which was surprisingly effective, and we just went from there. I just added a hand everywhere she summoned a snake from.”

The portal snapped into place.

“Now I’m sending her across the city,” Augustus concluded.

The spectral hands carried Basilia through the portal before vanishing.

“I really need to develop some combat techniques,” Augustus said with a grimace, following Annie to the elevators.

Annie grunted. “You and me both. That guy used my face to scrape paint off the wall for a while there.”

Augustus chuckled, then activated his implant’s comms. “Alex, we’re all done up here. On our way down.”

“Glad to hear it,” Alexander replied. “Can you go on a bit of a treasure hunt on your way down? Send me anything metal. Quantity over quality. Look for a kitchen or something.”

Augustus exchanged a look with Annie. “Okay. Send me a drone feed so I know where I’m sending it.”

A moment later, he received a livestream of where Alexander and Talia were waiting. What had been a pristine hallway and shielded research rooms was now ground zero for whatever Alexander was cooking up. Windows were smashed, tables and chairs haphazardly tossed into the corridors, walls broken down.

“Guess we’re going on an adventure first,” Annie said with a laugh, then hit all the buttons in the elevator. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

[SYSTEM STATUS UPDATE]

Initialization Stage: 100% complete.

[PRIMARY REALITY INDEX: EARTH_1]

Evaluating pre-launch priorities…

Bounty system… Acquiring… Complete.

Paradigm-tracking implants… Calculating optimal solution… Complete.

Incentive systems… Implementing… Complete.

Preparing multiversal incursion events… Calculating… Complete.

ALERT: Two events modified to maximize mitigation strategies.

Evaluating for compliance within governing boundaries… Accepted.

Phase 1 Launch: 7 minutes, 21 seconds.

All outcomes remain within acceptable parameters.

Continue the Dream.

Waiting…

Waiting……

Waiting………