Chapter 315 - Here Be Dragons

Chapter 315

Here Be Dragons

Alexander landed on the clifftop, high above where the mansion nestled against the cliff face, boots crushing grass beneath him. The wind was stronger up here, carrying the scents of the Mediterranean along with the smell of herbs and fruits that grew wild across the island.

Julia sat near the edge facing out across the sea, leaning back on her hands. She didn’t turn around.

“He emerges,” she said.

Alexander winced. “I know. I’m sorry. There’s just so much work to get done before…” He gestured helplessly. “Everything.”

“It’s been two and a half days, Alex.”

“I slept in between.”

She turned and gave him that look. The one that said she was skeptical, but wasn’t going to press the issue.

He had slept. Three hours after returning from New York, another two hours the following night, then three more last night. It counted. But that was probably not the argument to make right now.

He sat down beside her, and they watched in silence as people began arriving on the beach far below.

The truth was that the past sixty hours had been some of the most productive he’d had in months. The Goliath equipment specs had slotted into his existing designs easier than expected. Part of that was because of how universal everything was, but part of it was because his original designs had been created with upgrades in mind.

He just hadn’t realized before now how spot on his intuitive guesswork was. Maybe that was just part of being superhuman, and having intellectual capabilities that went so far beyond what it was to be human.

The growth in attributes had been gradual enough that it was hard to see some of the differences. Of course, it was easy to test the physical changes. He could punch through concrete and dent steel. With his fleshy hand. Which had finally healed from whatever internal damage Gravimax had done to him during their friendly spar.

The technique had got him thinking though. He’d intentionally pushed himself into fighting more close-combat during his time in the wizard reality. It was the only way to accelerate the growth of his physical attributes and push them toward Tier 3. And during the fight with Flashpoint, he’d done something similar by using Electrokinesis to bypass the man’s Constitution. At the time, the technique had been part instinct, part innovation, but now that he’d experienced something similar himself, it was obvious to him that it should be incorporated into his fighting style.

Something to practice. Maybe on Annie.

Alexander cycled Electrokinesis into his Core. Current flooded outward through his nervous system, and his senses expanded in response.

Down below, a crowd had formed. Annie sat on a rock near the waterline. Augustus stood beside her, flat cap shading his face, arms crossed.

While he watched, Talia and Jasmine wandered across to join them.

Nearby, the rest waited in small groups. Frank and Helena, who he’d barely seen since returning, partly because he’d been stuck in the workshop, but also because the pair had been almost religiously training in the Beastworld with most of the others who were down on the beach.

Gilly and Felix. Carmen and the crew, though Ryan was once again absent, likely aboard Sleipnir. Then there were Zane and Zara and Allie, along with Ash and the surviving Whitmore kids.

Not all of the rescued Whitmore children had been able to stomach the training. He didn’t blame them, and from what he’d heard, Augustus and Annie had found them other work at the Fort. But it meant that, unlike everyone else who’d gathered, they no longer had access to the island and its innermost secrets.

Julia sat up, then reached out and took his hand.

Alexander gave her hand a squeeze and shifted over. His gaze tracked upward to the stars of the show.

Caroline Delvane hung motionless in the air above the water. Like Julia, her Flight power did exactly one thing, and it did it so much better than anyone else who traversed the skies with improvised solutions.

Like Metallokinesis, or Augustus’s magic, or Annie’s MetaMetal.

Or even a living, breathing, yet somehow conjured dragon.

In the sky opposite the Tier 3, Skar'Vathos beat his wings with deep, broad strokes that sent gusts of wind rippling across the surface of the water below. The dragon’s scales caught the light with even the smallest movements, reflecting flashes of red in every direction.

And standing on the dragon’s back, arms folded behind him, perfectly at ease despite the motion beneath his feet or the prospect of doing combat with the woman opposite him, was Maximilian de Castillo.

The Dragon Lord.

“Do you think he has a chance?” Alexander asked.

Julia shook her head. “Not even a little.”

He nodded. “What about when it’s my turn?”

Julia turned to look at him, her piercing blue eyes meeting his gaze. “You’re more likely to surprise my mother, with one trick or another, but the moment she gets bored, it’s over. Unlike Max, who can take on a dragon’s physical and physiological traits at Will, you’re entirely reliant on your machines for protection.” She turned her attention back to the aerial stand-off. “But you are far more mobile and versatile than he is.”

Stolen from NovelPhoenix, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Oof. I’m wounded.” Alexander held his cybernetic hand to his chest. “As my girlfriend, aren’t you supposed to be all supportive and tell me how great I am?”

Julia laughed. “My bad.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Of course, dear. You’re going to kick my mother’s ass.”

Alexander grinned. “That’s more like it.”

“My mother, who even Pinnacle could barely injure.”

His grin slipped. “Totally uncalled for. That was an unjust two-on-one. Your mother and Max’s father jumped the poor guy while he was out for a casual stroll. I hear, from very reliable orbital satellites, that Pinnacle wasn’t even wearing armor.”

Julia scoffed. “Like that guy of all people even needs it.”

“What do you think his power is?”

She shrugged. “Nobody knows. One popular theory is that his power is to match and exceed the physical strength, endurance, and speed of whoever his opponent is. They call it Mirror Superiority. Another is that he can copy powers, and that he copied the First. Mother’s powers mimic hers, but everyone knows the First was the strongest.” She paused. “A darker take is that not only did he copy the First’s powers, but that doing so weakened her enough to be killed.”

Alexander frowned. He didn’t think either of those theories made sense. His instincts told him that a Divine who empowered and uplifted all of humanity couldn’t possibly possess a core power which copied or matched others.

It had to be far more than that.

“She’s the reason San Jose was renamed to Argentum, right?”

Julia nodded. “Everyone calls her the First, but it was well known that she wanted to be called Lady Silver. After she died, they wanted to honor her memory. She was the first successful serum recipient, and San Jose was her home.”

“Who killed her?”

Julia glanced at him. “I’m surprised you don’t know this, even with your dual memories.”

Alexander ran his cybernetic fingers through his hair. “I’ve given up trying to unjumble all the memories.”

“The answer is that nobody knows. People reported seeing flashes of light in the air, and then suddenly the First fell from the sky, crashing into the middle of a busy street. Dead.” She paused. “If anyone out there knows anything more than that, they’re keeping it to themselves.”

Alexander was about to respond when he sensed a shift in the air. “They’re starting.”

Together, they turned their attention back to where the Matriarch and the Dragon Lord faced off in the sky above.

Dozens of small, square barriers appeared all around Caroline. Spear-tipped chains erupted from each of the conjured surfaces, shooting toward Caroline from every direction.

She shifted in the air slightly, both hands snapping out to grab the first two as they reached her. Then she spun, whipping the chains in every direction, causing them to collide with the others, and sending those chains crashing into yet more.

Skar'Vathos leaned forward, powerful wings beating, and raced across the sky, circling around Caroline whose head turned to track the dragon while she continued casually deflecting Maximilian’s continued assault.

The dragon’s head snapped toward Caroline, and a jet of fire erupted from its open maw, swallowing her and the chains, before destroying Maximilian’s own barriers.

Behind the cover of the dragonfire blocking Caroline’s line of sight, Maximilian conjured five times as many new barriers, forming a disconnected sphere around her. Chains burst from every surface, but instead of directly targeting the woman at the center, still swallowed by the fire, they twisted and snaked around her.

Skar'Vathos’s jaws snapped shut, and the breath attack came to an end, revealing Caroline at the center.

She stood there in the air looking completely unharmed, one hand outstretched. She’d only bothered to block the fire from reaching her face, and the rest of her—flesh, costume, and hair—appeared untouched despite bathing in dragonfire.

Even from this distance, Alexander, with his enhanced sight, saw her eyes widen through the shrinking gaps between the conjured energy barriers and the chains already wrapping around her, forming a metal cocoon.

Maximilian brought both hands together, and the entire construct collapsed inward, swallowing Caroline inside.

“That’s not going to work,” Julia muttered beside Alexander.

Alexander was inclined to agree.

Maximilian apparently did too, having conjured more barriers and more chains, each one already stabbing toward the center of the crushing mass.

A shockwave rippled outward, and a fraction of a second later, the barriers and chains pressing down around Caroline exploded in every direction, dissipating as they went. Before she could react, the spear-tipped chains of Maximilian’s follow up attack arrived.

Metal pierced Caroline’s suit.

And was deflected by the superhuman flesh beneath.

Caroline blurred, and a second shockwave rang out, scattering the chains in its wake. Maximilian threw out a hand, conjuring half a dozen barriers between him and where she’d been an instant ago, only for each barrier to shatter into pieces the moment they appeared.

Skar'Vathos lashed out, razor-like claws sweeping through the air.

Caroline spun, sending out a kick of her own.

Scaled foot met superhuman boot, and a third shockwave rang out. Skar'Vathos roared in pain as the impact sent the dragon tumbling backward through the air, Maximilian still attached to its back.

Caroline wasn’t done. She put on a burst of speed, racing around the falling dragon, sparing a single backhand to knock the lashing tail aside, then threw a single punch.

The blow caught Maximilian in the side of the jaw, causing his head to whip around. The force of the strike carried down through his body, shattering the small barriers holding him to Skar'Vathos’s back, and the Dragon Lord rocketed across the sky, before plummeting toward the water below.

Julia squeezed his hand hard. “I think he’s going to use it…”

Alexander didn’t so much as glance at her. He didn’t want to miss a single moment of the fight. “Use what?”

Before she could respond, Maximilian let out a roar. The sound echoing off the cliffs below didn’t sound remotely human. Golden scales erupted all across his body as his fingers elongated, nails stretching into claws. His boots exploded, the leather shredding as his feet transformed in much the same way.

The air stilled for a moment, then abruptly rushed toward Maximilian as though being sucked in to fill a void in space.

The Dragon Lord’s Will burst free, and the air exploded outward, back the way it came. Several of the onlookers down on the beach collapsed under the pressure.

Alexander’s own Will rose almost unbidden as a sudden sense of danger washed over him. He immediately reined it in, only releasing enough to protect himself and Julia. Not that she needed it, her own Will already permeating the space she inhabited.

Wings burst from Maximilian’s back, completing the draconic transformation. Even Caroline hesitated at the sight of the golden-scaled humanoid before her.

Maximilian took advantage of the moment.

“Dragon’s Domain.”