Angel caught flashes of his teammates through the burning cloud around them. All he could make out of the Buried God was a looming shadow in the distance. And then, as quickly as they had entered, he shot out into open air.

The foot of the Buried God was only a few seconds away from them. He was dimly aware of his companions charging alongside him as he leaned back, killing his acceleration to avoid driving straight into the monster.

They all pulled up alongside the monster’s foot. Angel chanced a glance back at the city and grimaced. Every single cannon was a smoking mess of rubble, and the fires the guards had started were already starting to fade.

Screams, gunshots, and the clash of metal on metal still rang out through the early morning. Shadows danced in the hazy cloud of sand they’d just emerged from, and bolts of scorching blue and white light occasionally leapt out from with in it, striking ineffectively at the Buried God.

“Let’s go,” Angel said, tearing his gaze away. “Who knows how much time we have until the Reawakening can mobilize.”

“What’s the plan once we get in there?” Silver asked as Angel fired a grappling hook up at the monster’s leg.

“Same as last time, I think,” Angel replied. “You and Lilian go deal with saving as many people as you can from the Buried God. We need it shut down as fast as possible, and I might fail. I’ll go with the girls and try to destroy its core.”

He paused as a chilling thought struck him. “Wait, Alison, how are you going to get up?”

Tilly smirked and walked up to the Buried God. Her huge gauntlets let out a hiss of steam as she reached out. Several thunks rang out as pistons fired and her fingers punched into the Buried God. Alison bear hugged Tilly from the back.

“We already planned that out,” Tilly said. “You don’t have to think of everything yourself.”

“I just hope you can move quickly,” Angel said, letting out a sigh of relief. “Let’s go, then.”

He fired the grappling hook and reactivated his board. The barb bit metal and he shot off, swinging around and up toward the Buried God’s chest. His board hummed, struggling to keep him connected to the huge monster’s surface as he ripped the barb free and fired again.

Beneath him, Silver skated up the Buried God like a deranged dune goat, digging his blades into the buried god’s sides like they were climbing picks. Lilian and the girls were the slowest, but they made surprisingly decent progress for the gear they had.

Angel fell into a rhythm as he climbed. He refused to let himself look down or back at the smoldering city. The sounds of war far below him had long since faded, but the serene silence was almost worse.

He made the final swing into the hangar and dropped into a roll. A spell clicked into place by the time he was back on his feet, nearly looking down a Magitech gun barrel as a guard spun to look at him. He threw himself backward, off the Buried God, instants before the weapon fired.

It narrowly missed him as Angel twisted and shot his grappling hook back into the Buried God’s flesh, gritting his teeth at the sudden jerky stop to his fall. He swung himself back over the edge and ripped the hook free, firing a bolt of lightning from his hand before he landed.

The spell struck the clone in the shoulder, sending him spinning to the side. Three other guards that Angel had previously missed all aimed their weapons at him, activating glowing red shields around themselves.

Angel dove behind a ship, avoiding a series of energy blasts, and a new spell clicked into his arm. He pressed his palm to the floor and a wave of frost ripped out, passing underneath several of the guards.

He darted out from his hiding spot, catching a bolt to the shoulder, and struck the nearest guard with all his force using his metal hand. Steam burst from the back of his shoulder as his punch popped the shield like a bubble and struck the man in his chin, shattering bones with a sickening crack.

Angel grabbed the clone’s body, using it as a shield to take several shots, then hurled him at his former companions. Two of them slipped on the ice as they tried to avoid the man and fell to the ground, while the final one managed to dive to safety behind a chopper.

The fallen guards scrambled to get their feet out under them, but their shoes lacked the purchase to stand on the icy ground. Angel kicked the nearest man’s gun away and drove his fist down, shattering the red shield and slamming his head into the floor.

His companion managed to get his gun and start to raise it. Silver’s blade shimmered through the air. It carved through the tip of the gun but bounced off the edge of the glowing shield harmlessly.

Angel struck the shield, smashing it, and hurled the guard over the side of the Buried God. He turned as Silver dropped the severed head of the final guard, who had been hiding behind a ship.

“You missed one,” Angel said, breathing heavily.

“The angle wasn’t right. You just climbed too quickly,” Silver replied, looking over the edge of the hangar. “We’ve still got a few minutes before Lilian and the girls catch us. Tilly is using her skates to move faster, but it’s not nearly as efficient as we were.”

“We can’t afford to wait,” Angel said, glancing down the hall at the far end of the hangar that led deeper into the Buried God. “Mind almost certainly knows we’re here now. Lilian is with them, we’ll have to trust they can make their move.”

“That wasn’t the plan.”

“Silver, I’m not very good at making plans!” Angel snapped, starting toward the hall. A guard stepped out and started to raise his weapon. A bolt of lightning leapt from Angel’s palm, knocking the gun to the side. Angel darted forward, slamming him into the wall and shattering his protective field in the process.

“I hunt for old shit in catacombs,” Angel continued, letting the man’s body crumple to the ground. “Not whatever the hell this is! We don’t have time for this. Plan has to change. Go. Try not to die, or I swear I’ll tell the lamest stories about you.”

Silver smirked and his skates revved on. “Good luck. The same goes for you. How long until the whole thing blows?”

“Fifteen minutes,” Angel replied. “That’s the longest I can buy you. Get off by then, no matter what.”

“Fuck, this is going to give me nightmares,” Angel muttered, kneeling beside the guard he’d just killed. Blood was pooling rapidly around the man’s head. Angel dipped his hand into the blood, then wrote the number fifteen as large as he could on the wall.

He turned back to Silver, but the former bandit had already set back off. Angel wiped his hand off, then hopped onto his own artifact and shot down the hall, mentally thanking whoever had created the Buried Gods for using the same layout on each one.