“Reggie!” Anya shouted. Her mental link and desire for the serpentine elemental would be enough to summon it to her, but she wanted to be sure. Reggie flew out from behind a ruined hotel, his feathers and scales dark with steaming alien blood, but he appeared unhurt. Anya spared a moment to pet him, then transferred some of her own great swell of heat to him. Reggie grew to the length of a bus and thickness of a human torso almost at once.

“I need you to help me slow this thing down. Just hurt it however you can!” Anya said and Reggie soared straight at Big Al, using his wind to whip up fat swirling gouts of fire along the alien’s body.

“We’re here!” Li Qiu’s face appeared next to Chell’s in a separate window.

“All right! Here’s the idea: I’m gonna shove Big Al into the ocean, away from the city as much as I can. Li Qiu will hit it with the Mori Cannon and Gary will hit it with an anti-matter bomb,” Anya said. She fired a powerful fire blast at the tube man, and caused it to retreat once more into the stadium’s shell. If its pattern kept up, it was just healing again, and ever faster. She flew straight at the stadium and used as much gravitational force and strength as she could summon to slow Big Al’s progress.

“How? You’re not very good at pushing it,” Li Qiu replied. Anya saw her soar overhead on a sleek cycle-like craft.

“Volcano,” Anya grunted. “Look, I don’t have time to go through the whole thing. I already went over it with Renn and he agrees. Can you or somebody else get down here and slow this guy down?”

Jiro landed on the beach nearby with a heavy thud that sent a wall of sand into the air. He charged headlong at Big Al and straight punched one of its legs off, then began beating it with the severed limb. A square-jawed Asian man in classic superhero tights and a bright blue cape, the host Anya knew only as KoreaMan, seized one of Big Al’s claws and began pulling it backwards.

Anya flew away from Big Al as they, Samaira, Galtero, and Brody slowed the colossal alien down as best they could. She landed on the ground and felt the warmth of the volcano beneath her feet. It was a miles-long network of pure liquid heat and she could draw on it and the bright tropical sun above with ease. The light and the heat revived her fully, and she brought up the comm window of everybody in the area, along with Gary back in the Mojave.

“Here’s the deal: we’re pushing this thing back and then turning it to atoms,” she said.

“If you got a plan than isn’t just shooting it over and over, I’m all for it,” Galtero said.

“Anybody with muscle get to the beach and slow this bastard down. Anybody with speed or minions or something, evacuate the area of the map I’m going to have Felix mark in a minute. Pan, you stay where you’re at and keep watching Riley. I’m gonna need you for this.”

“Me?” Pan squeaked.

“Relax. No fighting, just need you to move some stuff,” Anya said. “Gary, can your bots emit any kind of force field or anything?”

“The Exterminators have personal shields, but its only around themselves. I have some more defense bots I can send your way, though. It’ll take a few minutes though,” Gary said.

“Do it. I don’t know if we have that much time but send them anyway,” Anya said. “Felix, mark the area on the map Renn and I were talking about. Who’s on evac duty?”

“I’ll organize it,” Renn said. “You focus on that volcano. Mona! Summon as many undead as you can and start hauling the people out of the danger zones. Where are Harrison, Francis, and Kan?”

“On their way. Maybe five minutes out last I checked,” Mona said.

“I’ll join you with the evacuation. Chell, Kemuel, and Li Qiu, your help would be appreciated. If one of you can contact Cooper and give him the info, that would help.”

“I got it!” Brody said.

“Map data sent!” Felix said. They had marked a narrow cone-shaped area that started at a volcano several miles north-west of the city and stretched all the way down to the beach and Big Al.

“That is…a lot of ground to cover,” Kemuel said. “I’m fast, but it will not be easy, maybe not even possible.”

“Do what you can!” Samaira said. “We’re holding Alpha for now!”

“I will clear the area on the beach and the first ten blocks past it. Mona, you get the next two miles. Kemuel, you get the area closest to the volcano since its the longest stretch of area but the least populated. It’s a jungle around the volcano, after all. Everybody else clear everything in-between,” Renn said.

“I’m coming to you, Pan!” Anya said.

“I’m ready! I think!” Pan said. Anya soared away towards Pan, and hoped the little pangolin was strong enough to do what she needed.

——————————————————

“Make walls and move Earth? That’s it?” Pan asked moments later. He and Riley were in the middle of a small plaza, surrounded by alien guts and blood. Riley was leaning against a palm tree, sweating and panting. The sleek gun Gary had given him glowed menacingly and smoke drifted from its barrel.

“Big walls and a lot of very hot earth,” Anya said. “And across a big area. Can you show me your stats and skills data?”

“Sure!” Pan said and brought up his host status menu, and the sub-menu that laid out all his relevant information. She glanced it over, and saw he hadn’t changed much of anything except for the actual numbers.

“Your Earth Dominion’s at 35. That might be enough. Can you recharge it somehow, like I can with heat?” Anya asked.

“As long as I’m rooted somewhere, I’m pretty good!” Pan said. Anya had Felix bring up her map and show Pan the area she needed walled off.

“Can you do this? The higher and thicker the walls, the better, but they need to be extra strong in the city area,” Anya said.

“That’s a lot of space,” Pan said. “I can do it! I’ll get started right now!”

“Thank you Pan. Be careful!” Anya said as the pangolin dove into the ground and burrowed away under the street faster than a car could drive on top of it.

“Little guy be okay, ya think?” Riley asked.

“Hope so. If he can’t do it, I have a back-up idea or two,” Anya said.

“All right, well I’m gonna get the hell outta here now that the small fry are——” Riley started to say when a noise made both him and Anya look over their shoulders.

The other hosts were still only managing to slow Big Al down, and it was creeping inexorably closer. The tube man shot up out of the stadium again and towered over the city. There was little to no warning as it fired its concussive beam this time, straight down.

Anya couldn’t even swear in surprise as the beam shot down at her, Riley, and the city blocks around them. She raised a shield of light around herself and Riley, saw the agent raise his own forcefield as she grabbed him with her left hand, spun, and leapt away from the beam with him just as it struck.

If it had been a direct hit, Anya didn’t know how her Regeneration would handle it, or if it even would. As it was, the beam blasted through her shield, her reinforced arm, her Kinetic Absorption, and sheared off most of her right side. The explosion that emitted from the impact point was enough to turn the buildings in the area to rubble in a second and throw Anya high into the air.

She had a glimpse of Jiro yanking on the tube man’s “head” to force its mouth away, but she was tumbling too much, and it took her a few seconds to wield gravity and stabilize herself and Riley.

Her arm below the elbow was gone, and it looked like something had taken a bite out of her right side between her armpit and her waist. A wave of dizziness overcame her, from shock or the pain itself, she didn’t know, but she had enough presence of mind to enhance her Regeneration with light to speed it up and put her back together within a few seconds. Her armor was still gone, but not very much of it. A simple thing to fix with a little RAC and some time in Gary’s lab was all——

“Fuck! Dammit!” Riley said beside her as they both landed roughly. Riley’s side was bleeding, the side of his shirt torn to reveal an extremely bruised chest beneath. “My ribs!”

“Shit, okay, hang on. This might hurt,” Anya said and flew Riley out of the area she had marked for Pan to seal in, and several blocks away to a rooftop. He swore with pain and Anya felt blood from his side splash onto her. He collapsed into a slumped sitting position against the roof. He winced and clutched at his side.

“Hang on, I got this,” Anya said and withdrew one of the spare medi-gel guns she kept in her pouches. She sprayed the foaming green gel over Riley’s side and the agent sighed with relief.

“Damn that feels okay,” he said. “Pain-killers?”

“Yeah some kind of numbing agent. It’ll stop the bleeding too. You okay?” she asked.

“Hell no. I got like, all my ribs cracked or broken. But you do your thing.”

“Samaira can——”

“She’s holding that monster back. Doc Immonen can patch me up after this is over and I’ll get a medal or somethin’. You pull this volcano stunt off, I owe you donuts and coffee.”

“Get your wallet ready!” Anya said and then shot into the sky. “Felix, how many points have I gotten since the fighting started?”

“Five!” Felix said.

Anya was about to wonder how she had gotten so many points today, but then realized Reggie had been sent out while she battled Big Al and had likely contributed to the deaths of multiple aliens and their spawns, in addition to her own direct contributions, plus whatever other parameters the menu had for assigning points. After the three levels she’d gotten in their first ambush and the five she had gotten fighting the train near the Bahamas, that put her at level 63. She’d spent the other points already, but the five from today’s fight were a surprise.

“What happens if I put five points in Battle Aura?” she asked.

“You’d increase it to level 6, and the effective time from five seconds to just over two-and-a-half minutes! You'd also increase power output from an additional +75% to +100%! Cooldown time with your current regeneration skill combined with light enhancement would have you back on your feet in about thirty-six hours. Unless somebody like Samaira or Immonen heals you,” Felix said.

Anya looked up at Big Al. Galtero and Jiro had blown the tube man’s eyes out but they were healing faster than the hosts could damage them and firing lasers even as they healed up. One of its flailing arms slapped Brody out of the sky and the shark tumbled down before KoreaMan caught him and Samaira healed him. They were flagging in their efforts.

“Do it. All five in Battle Aura. If we don’t wrap this up soon it’s just going to keep healing up faster than we can damage it and then we’re through. It won’t matter if I’m out thirty-six seconds or thirty-six hours,” Anya said.

“Are all the people out of the blast zone?” Anya asked over the comms.

“Not yet, but Harrison, Francis, and Kan are here now. Harrison’s infernal friends are helping, to the distress of the people they’re evacuating,” Renn said.

“They can be scared or be dead!” Harrison snapped.

“Just get them out!” Anya said. “Gary, what about those defense bots and their force fields?”

“Thirty seconds,” Gary said. “You want me to line them up along Pan’s walls?”

“Yes. Reinforce them as best you can and curve them over the top if possible, like a tunnel,” she said. “Pan?”

No sooner had Anya asked then thick chunks of black volcanic stone and brown earth rose out of the ground. They rose in thick, lengthy segments of at least a block or more and twenty feet thick in some places. They crashed through abandoned buildings as they jutted up five stories and higher. The walls lead straight down to the beach and Big Al.

“Li Qiu, how’s your Mori Cannon?” Anya asked.

“Ready! Also——”

“Zoya is heeeereeee!” a maniacally cheerful voice crowed over the comms. A new window opened to show a young-ish, dark-haired Russian women with wide, wild eyes and smudges of dirt or soot across her face. “I am hearing you all have need of big explosions so I am here!”

“Just make sure you don’t blow up the city,” Anya said.

“My aim is much better!” Zoya said.

“I’ve got some Exterminators in route with modified anti-matter bombs,” Gary added.

“Whatever you’re going to do, you need to do it!” Samaira said. “Even with the ocean to draw on, I’ve only go so much aether I can wield! Brody’s pretty hurt, and the others are slowing down!”

“NO! KILL!” Jiro added.

“Pan, we’re doing this. Just move as much of the hot earth at Big Al as you can, as fast as you can, and keep it inside your walls, okay?” Anya asked.

“I-I’ll try!” Pan said.

“Don’ be a fuckin’ bitch aboud id,” Brody slurred over the comms. “Yer a tough lil’ fuckhead.”

“Right! I’m a tough fuckhead! I’ll do it!” Pan said.

“Aaaah, ya goofy shit,” Brody said and laughed drunkenly.

“Area’s clear of civvies!” Mona said.

“Blast it with everything you have as soon as its clear of the city,” Anya said. “Bastard’s gonna pay.”

She flew up into the air and shot herself towards the volcano, several miles north-east of Honolulu. She felt its heat and power even from up in the sky and took a deep breath. She landed on the northern rim of the tip of the volcano and let its inner fire surge into her as she faced the distant city.

“Here we go. Get ready to push, Pan!” Anya said and reached down, down into the volcano, into the veins of the earth and made the heat grow, expanded it, infused it with light and a sudden violent outward burst of gravity.

The volcano and the ground around it shook and rumbled ominously, and then the explosion Anya had caused began to grow. It surged up, up, faster. She pushed the immense surge of raw geological power up with more subterranean explosions of fire and rapidly bursting gravity. She forced it away from her, down toward Honolulu, with a mighty push of gravity, light shields, and a hard pull of fire and heat.

The side of the volcano exploded.

The entire side of the mountain, the miles of rock and jungle, burst up and out in a cataclysm of molten rock. The sound of it burst Anya’s eardrums and turned her deaf before her Regeneration repaired the damage. She didn’t even notice as she focused everything she had on forcing the titanic explosion, bigger than a nuclear bomb, down into the funnel Pan had created.

Hundreds of robots appeared in the air around her and along Pan’s wall and projected wide shields of soft green light that crackled to contain the blast.

Anya moved with it, flying down and riding the head of the explosion like an archangel atop an apocalyptic horse, charging for hell itself. She created more explosions and gravity bursts beneath the ground, following the great sources of magma along their natural earthen rivers, and each one multiplied the effect of the volcano’s initial blast and added to it, until she felt the storm of smoke and fiery fury start to waver under her control.

The lava itself was charging and flowing ahead at an absurd pace, no doubt aided by Pan somewhere. Anya used Flame Dominion to push it forward even more, Light Dominion to strengthen it and the armageddon she rode, and Gravity Dominion to force it into a tighter space and increase the force of all of it as it strained against the confines.

She was losing control. It was too much. Her energy was doing all right, but the sheer amount of power beneath and around her was starting to rattle her grasp on it. She was just at the edge of Honolulu itself now, barreling toward the beach, Big Al straight ahead.

And she was going to miss.

She felt it as much as she did the wind in her face and the storm of death and destruction with her.

It was seconds from going beyond her ability to control, to blowing out past the confines of Pan’s walls and spreading across the city.

Anya closed her eyes and found the “switch,” inside her, between her two hearts.

“One more push, Pan!” she said.

“I——I can…doooo iiiit,” Pan gasped over the line.

Anya flicked the switch of her Battle Aura.

“Get clear!” Samaira said and she and the other hosts holding back Big Al scattered.

Anya clenched her fists and she felt like she might actually be holding the reins of Doomsday itself. She lit up, a miniature sun going nova, and threw everything she had into the cascade of destruction at her feet as she rode it forward.

“Tube men are stupid!” Anya bellowed as she and the volcano blast rocketed forward at blinding speed and crashed into Big Al’s stadium body with the unforgiving force of an angry god. Anya punched it right in the center, and then shoved the geological monster at her command in another burst of cataclysmic violence.

The wall of the stadium cracked and shattered, top to bottom, and she laughed maniacally as Big Al was thrown back onto its rear legs, like a monstrous turtle being flipped onto its back. Anya kept pushing, kept the heat of the explosion coming, the lava sizzling into the ocean below her, trapping and then melting and snapping Big Al’s legs off.

“Get clear now!” Li Qiu shouted.

“Anya! Dammit, kid!” Gary said and interrupted the raucous euphoria she felt as she continued to slam Big Al out past the coast line and over the deeper blues of the Pacific. She realized she had slammed her foreblades into the underside of the stadium and was lifting Big Al out of the water and flying him, with the volcanic eruption, further and further away.

She’d been enjoying herself too much to hear the others.

“That’s far enough, Anya!” Samaira added.

“Lucky you, asshole!” Anya said and kicked Big Al with maelstrom force. She directed the waning eruption at the alien and down into the ocean, then soared back toward Honolulu as fast as she could. She realized she should’ve probably had Felix doing some kind of countdown for her.

“Felix! How much time do I have left before Aura crash?” she asked.

“Twenty seconds!” Felix said. Anya put on another burst of speed, lowering herself out of the sky, then cutting her speed to a slow glide a few stories above the water as the beach approached.

“Anti-Matter bomb activated,” Gary said.

“Firing Mori cannon!” Li Qiu said.

“BOOOMMBAAAAAA!” Zoya screamed.

Anya didn’t bother to look back at the trio of blasts behind her. Everything lit up in front, turning it all white in a flash, and then darkening. The sound behind her was deafening, a quick succession of three air-shattering kabooms.

“Signal vanished!” Felix said. “You did it!”

“Incoming tsunami from the blasts!” Samaira said. “I got it!”

“I’m containing the remaining eruptions with the defense bots,” Gary said. “Pan, can you do something about the aftershocks?”

“Yeah, I can calm them down,” Pan panted.

“We did it!” Anya shouted as she soared over the shoreline. “We fucking——”

“Time’s up!” Felix said.

Anya face-planted in the sand and skidded forward, making a shallow, straight trough in the beach with her nose and chin before she came to a halt several yards later.

“Yaaaaaay,” Anya cheered around a mouthful of sand.

“Anya! Oh god, are you okay?” Samaira said as she landed with Chandrali nearby.

“Mmmffiiine,” Anya said and spat out some sand. It was up her nose, in her ears, down in her armor, basically everywhere. “Aura crasshhhh. Water okay?”

“Water? Oh, the tsunami from the blasts. Yes, I spread it out. That’s about all I had left in me,” Samaira said as she and Chandrali approached. Samaira crouched down and Chandrali gave her a cursory sniff. There was a flap of wings and and sudden bright red spike of concern in Anya’s mind. Reggie, now back to his normal size, curled around her and spread his wings in a protective circle and hissed at Chandrali, who only snorted back.

“Is okay Reggie,” Anya drawled. “M’fine.”

The serpent lowered its guard but remained with her. Samaira approached and put her glowing blue hands on Anya’s back.

“It’s not much, but hopefully it’ll be enough to get your heat absorption going again,” Samaira said.

“The volcano is..s-stable aga…again,” Pan panted over the comms.

“I’m proud of ya, runt,” Brody said. “We’re gonna change your call sign to Tough Fuckhead.”

“Really?” Pan asked, a note of pride in his voice.

“No,” Anya, Samaira, and Gary said at once. Cooper landed on the beach nearby with Brody, KoreaMan, Jiro, Chell, and Kemuel.

“Not everybody has as much appreciation for colorful nicknames as us, mate,” Cooper said.

"It's not a very cute nickname," Chell said.

"Nah, it's badass, which is better!" Brody said and pumped his fist.

"Badass!" Jiro echoed, then said something is rapid Japanese.

“I can’t believe it,” Kemuel said and ran a hand through his white dreads. “We really did it. Big Al, dead. I only wish Alvita could see it.”

“It’s not the end, but it’s a damn big step forward,” Gary said. “If this doesn’t get MacDougal to crack a smile, nothing will.”

“Speaking of MacDougal, where’s Riley?” Samaira asked.

“There,” Anya said and flopped her arm towards the city with a wince. “Roof. Take me, show you.”

“Okay just make sure Reggie doesn’t snap at me,” Samaira said.

“Good snakey,” Anya muttered as she continued to spit out sand. Chandrali helped Anya onto her back and Samaira climbed on behind to hold her in place as they rose into the sky. Anya gave basic directions and soon lead them to where Riley was waiting.

He was still slouched against the side of the roof, looking out to sea.

“Rileeeeey!” Anya said. “You owe me donuts and coffee! Maple bars and over-priced lattes for days.”

Riley didn’t respond.

“Agent Riley?” Samaira asked as Chandrali landed on the roof and she dismounted the big cat.

Riley didn’t respond.

“Oh no,” Samaira said and knelt next to him. She touched his neck and Anya’s throat tightened as she slumped forward on Chandrali.

There was no heat coming from Riley.

There was no pulsing heart, no hot blood flowing.

He was cold.

Riley was dead.

ARC 01.Invasion//VOLUME 04. Hunters & Hunted//END