The Machine God

Chapter 292

Crazy Lineup

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

The mountains were familiar. He’d flown through these same canyons almost a month ago. Back then, he’d been racing between trees like a madman while testing powers that had just gone through a major overhaul.

That had been the fun part.

Less fun was racing back the other way with two warships and the creepiest wizard ever chasing after him.

Between then and now, the season had turned. He hadn’t really noticed it because he’d been busy kickstarting a secret nomadic revolution.

Droney flew at his side, hovertech humming at a frequency that blended with the wind whistling in his ears. The little drone wasn’t taking the opportunity, while they were flying relatively slow, to enjoy itself. There was no punching through branches, sending snow dusting everywhere. No beeps of excitement.

Droney knew what was coming as well as he did.

Alexander held his presence tight, Will and Domain restrained. Electrokinesis cycled through his Core while Metallokinesis carried him forward, but none of his powers ranged ahead, checking for bioelectrical signatures of the presence of metal.

They continued on with just his eyes and Droney’s sensors alone, keeping their signature as close to invisible as a Tier 2 Divine could manage.

The reason was simple. When he’d first met Artensah, he’d approached the fortress through the mountains. And he believed they’d expect him to change tactics. Perhaps come from the clouds, maybe, striking from the air where his speed advantage would give him the greatest edge.

So he was doing the same thing twice instead. Nobody would ever anticipate that.

Because it was stupid.

The sky approach was a sound idea, and he’d spent some time considering just how fun a high-altitude dive would be, especially followed by punching through their formation at maximum speed.

It would be dramatic. Villainous, even.

But then he’d seen the monstrosity, even from fifty kilometers out. A floating palace of white and gold stone hung in the sky above the mountain fortress, looking too much like someone had just parked their cathedral on a whim. It dwarfed the warships circling beneath it, which appeared as dots in comparison.

The palace dwarfed everything he’d ever seen planet-side. In fact, he could only think of three structures bigger than it, and all three were space stations. Astra Omnia, Prime Orbital, and the Nexus.

His first thought had been to come up with a way to borrow it. His second thought countered the first by pointing out it obviously belonged to the Empress, who, at minimum, was as strong as her Exalted. And he was banking on her being Tier 3, with the magic to back it up.

So he erred on the side of sane, and gave up on 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.

With one mental thread, he seized them all with Metallokinesis, locking them in place, while the other began layering waves meant to accelerate them.

Then he flicked his cybernetic hand into the air and they all shot upward, punching through the canopy like a shotgun blast. Broken branches, pine needles, and snow showered down around him while the drones raced higher into the sky.

The moment they hit the clouds, they scattered, heading toward the other side of the mountain.

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, but he’d kept them for precisely this moment.

Alexander tucked his hands behind his head and leaned back, floating in the air, Droney beside him. Minutes later, the feeds lit up as forty-nine streams of visual data, filtered through Droney, collapsed into a composite image that flowed directly into his mind.

He whistled. “Artensah has been a busy little wizarding 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 a hole in the ceiling, returned to fight Keda, and eventually killed Flashpoint in the courtyard.

Now, the fortress was easily four times larger. The original structure was recognizable at the center, but the ceiling had been rebuilt and reinforced. The rooftop appeared to be layered with something other than metal. Perhaps concrete, just with glowing magical formations carved into it.

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Soldiers patrolled the grounds outside the fortress, while others stood guard along the outer walls.

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 those enchantments or hexes or whatever are probably packed with everything they can think of.”

Above the fortress, the seven warships he’d spotted earlier held formation. They were positioned such that their broadsides created overlapping arcs, covering every possible approach vector.

Alexander wasn’t impressed. They were the same as the three he’d crashed into the steppe, and three warships or seven didn’t make a difference. The only question worth asking was how many archmages were aboard each one, and whether their combined Wills and magical defenses could hold back his Domain long enough to change the outcome.

And that was a question which would be answered soon.

Droney’s countdown timer reached ten minutes.

There was no doubt in his mind that the rest of Grimnir, along with any allies they could recruit, were going to cross through the gateway the moment it opened, and all hell would break loose.

He grinned. They were going to be so angry, mostly at him, though that would come only after they were done defeating the Empire.

Hopefully.

He couldn’t quite shake the idea that Annie might decide to just give it to him in the middle of the battle.

One of the warships fired, and a drone feed went dark. Another died a second later, after taking fire from a different ship.

Then the warships broke formation, spiraling outward from the fortress in a coordinated pattern, turrets firing rapidly. Beams of light lanced through the clouds, and 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.

Alexander’s eyes widened as a formation of runes appeared, circling beneath the palace. Light gathered within, growing rapidly until it was bigger than a car.

Then it fired, the light scattering into a dozen separate beams, each one snaking down into the clouds, targeting a drone.

A moment later, the surviving feeds flashed white, then went offline.

He sighed and stretched his legs out, still reclining in the air beneath the canopy.

“Well, that proves it. They’ve upped their game.”

Droney beeped. Concern.

Alexander laced his fingers behind his head. “Relax. If they find us, we’ll just start the party early. The others will only be five minutes behind.”

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

“Okay, six minutes and twenty-two seconds if we’re being precise.” He grinned. “And how dare you? I am not hoping we get found early, so that we get to play for a bit before the others arrive.”

He paused.

“I just won’t be disappointed 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.

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