Will lifted his nose and summoned Bloodhound. The trail appeared as a line of red in his vision, curving down the street, stopping at a building, and continuing again.

“I’ve got it,” he said, his voice thick. “Stay close.”

Of course they’d stay close. Why else would they be here if not to follow him? He started half-jogging down the street, his cheeks flushed red. Behind him, over a dozen others followed.

They were an elite team. A special one, according to Agent Wells. Their leader was Benny, a bullish Canadian man with an axe, and those in his team were all hard-eyed. Special. Killers.

Agent Wells’s orders overrode his hesitation, and he kept jogging and following the trail. They ran past a restaurant he had taken his girlfriend to once. A bank he had driven by a dozen times. Memories flitted in, but he had eyes only for the red line that curved and bent haphazardly.

When they neared the outskirts of town, a worm of fear had wriggled into his gut. Why were they so far out? Why was the city so quiet? Why had the trail suddenly gone straight after that gas station?

A large hand landed on his shoulder and made him jump. “We close?”

Will looked up at Benny. “I think so.”

“Good, good. Continue.”

Will nodded and started jogging. That man was bad. He pitied the poor bastards he was tracking. Whatever they had done to cross the ARA certainly wasn’t worth their lives.

He stopped eventually at a building. It was a small diner, the sort of building you looked over like it was a part of the landscape. He nodded to Benny, and the man and his team ran inside after a barked command.

Will waited for the screams with eyes closed. Nothing. Benny exited the house, red creeping into his thick neck.

“Nobody there. Get in there and find the scent. Now.”

Will’s complaint died at the man’s look, and he ran inside, tracing the red line to a table and the open window beside it. From there, the trail headed back towards the city. They followed. His fear, once a small, nagging thing, had blossomed into a skin-deep chill. He knew there was something odd at play here. Something strange. His mind demanded he continue.

When they stepped onto a clear street, he knew he was right. Cars had been pushed against buildings to cover alleys and side streets. All that was left was a wide, empty lane. Heads swivelled left to right. The trail rose and climbed into the air. Will’s gaze followed, confused.

The first thing he felt was the wind. It blew across his back, heavy. Then came the snap of wings. A roar. Then finally a crash as a hulking suit of armor landed beside him, its weight snapping the man beside him at the waist. Dozens more crashes followed.

A large spear rammed into Will’s stomach, shredding the light armor he had on. He felt it only dimly. It was an ember. Then a raging fire. He slumped to his knees. His stomach. Blackness descended.

Aesen’s steel boot came down on the human’s head. It cracked, mush and blood seeping from the crater in his skull. He moved forward, his mind linked with his shield-brothers already. His spear flicked out and caused a wide-shouldered man to look his way and miss the sword that separated his jaw from his face.

His shield linked with his brother’s, a steel-clad named Os. Their shields rammed forward, the iron call of the advance ringing in their heads. Their blades licked out from their shields, injuring and crippling and killing the poor humans.

Then a sound came from behind, and his helmet turned to face the new disturbance. It was more humans. They pursued a daemon who held a dark-skinned human women in its arms. The monster leapt into the air, twisted to avoid a burst of energy, and swung around a building with a shot web, disappearing from view.

Then the humans charged at him and his shield-brothers, whose blades were now stained with their comrades’ life. Aesen broke from his shield brother and turned about, lifting his shield. He was too late. A spear of roaring red light slammed into his visor.

Layla dropped her hands, the red light of her Evolution dying. The armored monster dropped. She raised her voice, biting back at the tremble that threatened to creep into it.

“Kill those fucking things!” She raised her hands again and fired a Mana Spear.

Agent Hill had to be recovered. That was Jessica’s order, but Layla had a son at home. She wasn’t dying here, not for someone else.

While those under command rushed forward, she slowly crept back. A headache stabbed at her temples with every shot of red light, and when she was far enough away, she quit firing them at all. Then she turned and ran.

The beat of wings caused her to slow and whip her head around. Above the sea of battling men and armored monsters, a pack of horse-sized dragons swept down. Lightning leapt from their mouths and hit the armored monsters.

Layla stopped completely, blinking spots from her eyes. Had the monsters helped them? Then she froze. Many of her men no longer stood, their burned corpses limp, unmoving. The steel monsters marched among them, steel blades reaping whatever life was left among them.

Her throat dried as her mind processed the image. The monsters weren’t armored. They were armor. The steel conducted the electricity, and-

Heavy talons wrapped around her and ripped her from her feet. She felt a moment of weightlessness, then pain. Her son’s smile flashed through her eyes. She screamed, tugging an arm free from a talon at the cost of her skin. Her hand raised up, a Mana Spear forming around her fingers. Then the talons let go.

She spun through the air, too fast. Too fast. Too fast. Black.

Tyn snorted at the poor man-thing, watching it splatter across the walk-road with faint amusement. The man-thing known as Grey had been right. This was good. Fun.

A beat of wings lifted the wyvern above the street’s tall buildings, and he looked out over the city. More man-things were on their way. Lots of them. All headed towards the battle, to the trap. The spider-things- daemons, Grey called them- flicked between buildings and brought the man-things on, their blade-arms stained with their blood.

Tyn’s eyes flicked back to its thunder. They were fine, climbing back to roost along the rooftops that lined the trap. It snorted. It wanted to taste a man-thing.

A crackling grew in its throat, and then a snap of lightning rained down on a group of man-things. Tyn followed close behind, levelling its dive out at the last moment to land among them. A snap of its jaws ripped an arm free. It spat it out. Disgusting.

It started to flap into the air, but a pain tore through his left wing. Then its side. It snapped at the armored man-thing, missed, felt a sharp blade slip between its ribs. Lightning flared, cracked. A shield of light protected the man, while his sword ripped through Tyn.

Blood. Death. Pain. Tyn’s limbs went weak beneath him. Killed by man-things. He was only glad he’d be too dead to hear the mocking.

Lee ripped his sword Eclipse free from the wyrm. His shield Sol faded from his wrist. A smile pulled at his lips. He was like a superhero. No, he was a superhero. Starlight, savior of humanity. Yeah, that sounded great.

“Lee, take point, I hear combat ahead.”

“Of course, ma’am.” Lee sprinted to the front of the group, clapping a few of his fellows on the back and murmuring words of encouragement. They were an unit, a team. He’d bleed for them, and they’d do the same.

They rounded a corner and met a melee. Everything was gnashing bits of steel, flares of energy, cracks of guns. A woman wreathed in pulsing energy ballooned to the height of three men and smashed through a steel soldier. One of the spider things they had chased emerged from a shadow, pierced a balding man through the throat, and disappeared again.

Lee raised a hand. “Starlight!” His roar only scratched the chaos, but within his general area, small balls of light sparked into existence.

He focused on one and emerged in its place, Sol taking a blow meant for a bloodied woman. Eclipse took a chunk from the steel soldier’s helmet, stabbed through its chest. Then he was gone, taking the blade of night in two hands and cleaving through monsters in a wide circle several yards away.

Pain. Something sharp in his back. He turned, flared Sol’s light, and swiped Eclipse through empty air. Stumbled. His teeth grounded together. A breath, and he was somewhere else, a blade that seemed liquid whipping towards his head. Another jump.

This time the area was relatively clear, and Lee pressed a hand to the small of his back, his head swivelling about. Sol blocked a streak of lightning that come from another drake above. He hurled Eclipse into its wing, gritting his teeth when the wound on his back pulled. A thought crafted Eclipse in his hand once more.

A sound then. Dozens of cracks, lightning blinding him. Sol wrapped his body. When he blinked the spots from his eyes, he saw smoking corpses, most of them human. The steel soldiers- some of whom smoked faintly- retreated in the brief pause, killing those who managed to stand in their way.

Lee roared at them. Cursed them. Cowards, starting a fight they couldn’t win. Monsters, killing men and women who didn’t deserve it. Villains, ripping real life from their planet and replacing it with hell.

A rumbling stopped him from pursuing. It shook the ground, and he had only a brief moment to jump to another star when the cars that blocked the alleyways exploded outward. Bodies were crushed. Some agents died. Other forces who were just now arriving were bowled over.

Behind the cars came hulking creatures of stone. Golems. They charged, flattening bone and skin into… Nothing. Legs were left shredded, chests caved, heads smashed.

Lee jumped farther away, dropped to his knees. Tears welled up. Then vomit. He spilled his sick across cracked pavement, then heaved again, threw up more. He coughed once, twice. Everybody was dead. Dying. Murdered. Butchered.

Then he arrived. He stood at the head of a group of steel soldiers, his hands behind his back. His face hardly twitched at the carnage, the remains of his own unremarkable. Armor, swirling with silver and blue like the suits of armor behind him, clad his figure. A curved, cutting tip topped his polearm.

Him. Lee stumbled to his feet, Eclipse clutched in a white-knuckled grip. The carnage laid between them, a sea of the slain. Sol blossomed around his arm, an aegis of sun. Breath ripped from his chest, icy cool.

One jump brought him between stone giants. Another brought him close. His heart raged against his chest. Not close enough. The last jump showed him brown eyes, entirely unafraid. A flash of silver light condensed around the man’s brow.

Eclipse speared forward. A shield turned it aside, leaving a great gash in it. Steel drove into his thigh. Hard, unforgiving hands shoved him down.

“Take his hands,” the man said, and Lee’s hands were taken.

Pitiful whimpers escaped. Tears. Pain, so much pain, and his rage? Righteous and buried. Forgotten. Quivering fear patted the dirt of its grave with the shovel.

“High mobility. Good defense, particularly resistant to energy attacks. Excellent offense. I would’ve liked you.” The man sighed. “Oh, well.”

The spear never moved, but a dagger buried itself in Lee’s right eye, snapping his head back.

Grey left the dagger and stepped over the man’s body, his honor guard following close behind. That eliminated some of the teams near Jessica’s hideout, enough to keep the numbers relatively equal. The ones farther away were mostly former Hunters and Guild members, and their loyalty was much less secure.

She was preparing a trap for him. Evolutions allowed for too much variation to accurately predict anything, but he knew she had a mind control ability, a buffing ability, and a cursing ability. Of the three, the first and the latter seemed the most likely culprits. He guessed the latter.

He was too dangerous to keep as a puppet, and he had done too much to do anything but suffer. He estimated it was about a seventy-percent chance she had a last ditch effort to curse him into a state that left him catatonic or crippled.

Not that he would make it easy. A thought summoned a stack of folded cloaks fashioned from the same cloth. He wrapped one about himself, while his soldiers grabbed the others, hiding decoys within his small army.

His eyes flicked over the mixed units. The wyverns were his light cavalry, named so for their mobility. The golems represented the heavy cavalry. The daemons and the Steel Legion were light and heavy infantry respectively, and the mutant creatures of the daemon Dungeon served well as fodder. It was a good balance, though the wyverns had disobeyed several of his orders to pursue reckless fights. The golems… They were simple, too much so.

He dismissed the problems. They could wait.

Jessica was preparing a gambit. A queen’s gambit. How could he answer with anything other than checkmate?