“How the hell is it controlling this many?” Anya asked as she tried to cocoon the civilians in bands of light to restrain them from hurting themselves. She was keeping hundreds, perhaps thousands of people down as gently but firmly as she could. They were still struggling, still hurting themselves to break free. She had also tried turning the heat up around a few peoples’ heads just enough to make them pass out, but with her attention so diverted by everything else going on and her power so high, it was a risky gambit to not just ignite their skulls and she didn’t want to test her luck.

“It isn’t!” Renn said. “It just cranked their aggression up, like flipping a switch and then holding it down. They’re technically not under control, just…very angry. At us. I’m trying to calm them down but it’s the tug-of-war thing again. If I pull too hard in one direction, Omega may just yank them back and fray their minds utterly.”

“Are you saying we cannot help these people recover?” Li Qiu asked. She had deployed a number of devices that acted as repelling fields, or ensnared the people. Her own personal powers seemed oddly limited, Anya noticed, and all were almost entirely reliant on machines, but none of them seemed as effective as Gary's.

“No, if we kill Omega, its pressure on their switch will lift and they should be fine. But it’s set up a barrier, making the psychic trail dead-end ,” Renn said. Anya noticed he hadn’t multiplied himself. He was likely using all of his concentration to psychically hold hundreds of civilians physically in place while also protecting all of them from being messed with psychically, and tracking Omega.

“I can keep summoning for a while, my weakest lads are more than enough to keep the rabble at bay,” Mona said, but she frowned as she did. “The problem is these idiots seem desperate to kill themselves.”

There was a rush of wind and Kemuel appeared beside Anya.

“Bad news,” he said. “Jets are taking off from Heathrow.”

“Why are——” Anya said and then almost screamed. “Oh my god are they going to try and crash into us?”

“Oh god, oh god,” Chell said. She was covered in sweat, and her body shook as she tried to keep the civilians from harming themselves while she assisted Renn.

“You have air and wind powers, right? Can’t you do something?” Mona snapped at Kemuel.

“I’ve been lowering the air pressure around hundreds to get them to pass out while also removing the air from the tires of every car I see. I did the same for every plane at the airport but there were some that had already taken off. I could just knock them out of the sky, but that would potentially kill everybody on board. I could try forcing them away but still in the air, but that also has some risks.”

“Shit!” Anya said. “Felix, call Gary!”

“What’s up kiddo?” Gary asked a second later and Anya explained as quickly as she could.

“We’re not in any direct danger so long as Renn and Chell keep the psychic defenses up but people are getting hurt and dying and it’s about to get a lot worse!”

“None of my bots are really specced for non-lethal pacification,” Gary said. “And obviously I can’t make more right now. I’ll see what I can whip up, something to force the autopilot on those planes into a holding pattern. It’ll take a few minutes to build it and get it over there, though.”

“Just do it!” Anya said.

“Do they need more hosts?” Somebody asked in the background.

“No!” Renn snapped. “I’m at my limit right now and if another host shows up there’s a chance they could turn aggressive.”

“A chance?” Gary asked. “It’s not certain?”

“No. I think if Omega really wanted that and was capable of that sort of thing at range, it would’ve done so already. I don’t know why it hasn’t, but now isn’t the time to experiment. Just focus on keeping everybody else outside of the city,” Renn said.

“No shit. All right, kid, help is on the way,” Gary said and hung up.

Anya grunted as she extended her control to dozens more people and held them all in place. She had a few glue bombs from when she had fought the train left over and tossed them far away into the ground. The bombs burst and expelled a wide spray of extra thick, sticky glop that cemented people to the ground. Anya knew they would probably break their legs, maybe try to chew them off, but it would slow them down and they’d hopefully live and make a full recovery once this was over and Yai or Immonen arrived.

Anya heard the plane before she saw it as a distant gray speck in the sky. There were five of them, all the really big commercial airliners that held hundreds of people each. She had no doubt that even if every one of those planes hit her head-on that she could survive the impact and the explosion. All of the hosts would survive.

But the whole of Trafalgar Square and the now thousands of people in it, and hundreds of thousands more pouring in, would burn alive or be blasted apart by the explosions. Anya could just shoot the planes out of the sky, but that would still be thousands dead. If it came down to it, she could just use Gravity Dominion to hold them in place and lower them down.

That would mean releasing her hold on the hundreds and hundreds of people she was currently keeping from self-injury and potential death.

It’s my best option, Anya thought, Or Kemuel trying to hold them up until Gary’s drones can arrive. She would only have to hold the planes until Gary’s autopilot help arrived, and then she could turn her attention to the immediate crowd again. As she looked around at the crowd, at the sea of enraged, fury-blinded faces surrounding her and the other hosts, she had to wonder why.

Why was Omega doing this? Even if it had an entire military force aimed at them, the hosts would win. A million civilians armed with nothing but cars, commercial airliners, makeshift weapons, and their own fists posed no more threat to Anya than a grumpy baby.

This wasn’t going to kill them, and Omega had to know that.

Is it just doing this to mess with us? To be a damned sadist? Anya thought.

“Chell!” Renn said. “I need you to take full control over our psychic defense for a few seconds.”

“I can’t…I don’t know if I can do that!” Chell replied.

“I need you to. I have to focus to break through this wall Omega set up to block its trail or we’re never going to make any progress.”

“You’re going to——” Mona started to say before Renn cut her off.

“Yes. Only as long as I need to. I should be fine after,” he said.

“It’ll be a problem if you’re not,” Mona said.

“Chell can do it,” Anya said and gave the young woman a pat on the shoulder.

“Right, I’ll do it,” Chell said.

“Be ready in five seconds,” Renn said. “Four, three, two, one, go!”

Chell shut her eyes and grit her teeth. Anya hadn’t even been aware of Renn’s protective psychic barrier before, it had been so subtle. However Chell’s was not as deft, and was far more obvious. Anya felt pressure on her head, and an intrusive presence in her mind, as if somebody were speaking over her own thoughts.

Renn became still, but his edges blurred and shimmered as he looked straight up. All at once, every one of the civilians surrounding them let out a scream and Anya winced. Renn fell to one knee and Mona knelt beside him. The shimmering blur around the edges of his figure faded and he returned to normal, but Anya could see him panting beneath his long white coat.

“H-help!” Chell said. She had gone completely pale, and as soon as she said the word, her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed. Blood leaked out of her nostrils and both ears and the corners of her eyes as she fell to the ground with a thud.

“Chell!” Anya said. The pressure on her thoughts faded for a moment and then came back ten times worse. The Crown of Isolation encircling her skull heated up and Anya smelled frying circuitry from it.

“Renn!” Mona shouted. “Come on!”

The pressure on Anya’s thoughts increased again and she felt something actively trying to worm its way into her head. Then it retreated and she was once again alone with her own thoughts. Renn was still down on one knee, but his hands were raised up.

“It’s okay, we’re good,” Renn said. Anya threw off the now burned out Crown of Isolation. Maybe Omega wasn't actively going after hosts, but it sure wasn't ignoring them either. If Gary or anybody else on the mainland had come directly, they might have joined the mob to disastrous effect.

“Where is it?” Anya demanded as she picked Chell up. Her heartbeat was erratic, and her temperature was dropping.

“On a satellite, straight above us,” Renn panted. Li Qiu withdrew a comically oversized long rifle from somewhere inside of her gray cloak. The cloak was nowhere near large enough to conceal the gigantic weapon, and Anya assumed it functioned in much the same way as her watch, acting as a pocket dimension much larger on the inside than out. Li Qiu made some adjustments to the rifle, then aimed it to the heavens and began to scan the skies.

“I see it,” she said, and fired. The rifle roared and the recoil from the shot was enough to create a blowback of air that blew across Trafalgar Square. A beam of light streaked into the heavens and vanished. There was a twinkle of distant light a few seconds later, then nothing.

The citizens of London continued their mad rush at the hosts, and the distant planes were drawing nearer.

“They’re still coming!” Anya said.

“It blocked it,” Li Qiu said.

“What? Isn’t that your big Mori Cannon thing?” Mona asked.

“Yes but I’ve had to dial the power down a little to compensate for the range,” Li Qiu said. “And it won’t be ready to fire again for three minutes.”

“Dammit!” Anya said then brought Gary up on her comms. “What’s the deal with those autopilot things you’re working on?”

“Not done,” Gary replied. He looked up at somebody off-screen. “I said I don’t care what he took a picture of give me his damn cell-phone right now! I need the parts!”

“I’ll let you work,” Anya said and hung up. “Li Qiu, does your scope still work?”

“Uh, yes, of course,” she said.

“Renn, can you keep me covered regardless of distance?” Anya asked.

“Yes, for a little while, especially if you’re just going straight above me.”

“Straight above?” Mona asked then pointed up. “You’re gonna fly up there?”

“Yes,” Anya said. “We might not have five more minutes before those planes decide to crash land on us. Li Qiu, I need you to point me in the general direction while Felix pings and we can get a bead on it.”

“It’s in space. Can you even survive that?” Li Qiu asked. Anya thought of her bonuses from the Cosmic Warden class and nodded.

“Oh yeah, I’ll be fine, at least for a little while. And if not, well…” she shrugged.

“Go,” Renn said. “Li Qiu, adjust your rifle for maximum output or whatever as a back-up.”

“That will take more time to charge,” she said.

“Just do it, and throw out more of those protective silver discs. If Anya’s leaving, she’s not going to be able to hold back a lot of these people anymore.”

“Just keep an eye on Chell!” Anya said. “Reggie!”

Her elemental appeared in a flash of fire and a gust of wind. Anya sent him a mental image of the winged serpent circling around the other hosts and sending out strong enough wind to keep the civilians pushed back, but not strong enough to cause serious harm. Reggie nodded and began to fly around the hosts.

Anya took a deep breath and blasted herself up into the sky as quickly as she could. She put everything she had into repelling herself away from the ground. London was little else but a gray smudge behind her within seconds.

“A little to your right,” Li Qiu said over comms.

“Felix, start pinging, as wide as you can,” Anya said.

“You got it!” Felix said.

“A few degrees to the left,” Li Qiu said, though she was becoming harder to hear as the air thinned.

“Switch to text,” Anya said as her ears popped. “Felix, give me any kind of visual marker for where Li Qiu is talking about.”

Anya didn’t hear an auditory response from Felix, but he appeared beside her and gave an enthusiastic thumbs up. Her menu screen opened in front of her displaying Li Qiu’s text.

The blue of the sky faded away to dark indigo, and then black. She found it harder to breathe, but not impossible. In fact, she felt a little stronger than before, then a lot stronger as the atmosphere faded around her completely. Anya surrounded herself with a field of light and found that helped with her breathing, strengthening her lungs and regeneration to do more with whatever oxygen she already had inside of her or that she had encased within the light from Earth.

Felix pointed ahead and a flashing circle appeared on her menu screen. There was a white speck far away, and Anya flew straight at it. The speck grew and revealed itself to be a satellite. There was something red perched on the white metal of the orbiting piece of tech, no bigger than a few feet tall. Anya fired a powerful lance of light-infused heat at it. The infused fire didn’t appear bothered by the lack of oxygen in the silent void, and was stronger than ever.

Her blast ricocheted off a hexagon of pale pink light and shot away into the infinite blackness. Anya growled and flew closer, heedless of whatever Omega might do. She had to rely on Renn, and she had to wrap this up before it was too late for the millions of people below.

She flew to a stop just shy of the satellite and Alien Omega.

Compared to Alpha, Omega looked like a joke.

It was shaped like an old-fashioned gumball machine: a glass orb on top of a red metallic base. There were some tiny insectile legs poking out from underneath the base of the machine, and the glass orb held a huge brain and a single eye instead of candy. The eye turned to look at Anya, and she had a sense of satisfaction coming from it. The hexagonal shield stayed in front of it, directed at the earth miles below, even as Anya moved to the side.

She landed on the satellite next to Omega, mere feet from it, her hands glowing with golden fire. She expected it to attack, to move its shield, but it only looked at her and waited.

It designed itself for this, just this. All its energy directed at a single shield pointed at Earth and psychic energy. No other defense, no other attacks, just those two things, Anya thought. Her face twisted in fury at the alien and she raised her gauntleted fist, and brought it down on the glass orb.

She smashed through it with absurd ease, pulped the brain beneath, crushed the metallic base, and blew a hole through the satellite. She followed this up with an explosion that was visible from the ground below and stretched across the heavens in a veil of glittering gold flames.

Her menu appeared in front of her with a text from Felix.

FELIX: Alien signal lost! Data stream intercepted! You got fifteen levels for that!

Below this, another series of texts:

RENN: The people stopped, all unconscious.

MONA: Fuckin nice

GARY: Sending autopilot drones to the planes

RENN: Yai is on route to help Chell, are you okay?

LI QIU: Thank you.

Anya looked at the chunks of the satellite and Alien Omega around her.

The last alien was dead.

All Anya could think about was the satisfied, calm way Omega had stared at her, the sense of confidence it had emitted from its huge brain seconds before she had destroyed it. Anya shoved the wreckage of the satellite down to Earth with Gravity Dominion so it would burn up, along with the scattered, crushed and charred remains of Omega.

She followed the burning wreckage down.