Flying was, to put it bluntly, exhausting.

I was about a half-hour away from home, ironically near where Callisto and I had been planning to train before Sif’s interruption. I was considerably deeper in the forest this time and had left the girls behind while I learned how to fly.

I was right, some form of kinesis helped to keep me aloft, dramatically increased the strength of my pinions, and focused into the tips of my primaries when I slashed them through something. The energy drain was very minor, and it suggested that I had some sort of aura that extended along my body since it only worked when I was touching something. When I was trapped in the gem, I imagine that the aura extended to where my normal body would be, which was why it felt like I could act at a minor distance.

Now, I was capable of exerting enough strength to actually lift a car. When I punched a tree, my hand was protected and I took a huge chunk out of it, and when I used a primary to slash at a three-foot-thick broken-off stump, it sliced through it like it was smoke. The extreme energy drain, while I was trapped, was likely the result of being trapped and using it outside of my body.

When I wasn’t reinforcing my wings, they were fairly soft. The front edges of my primaries were still sharp, but they were like paper cuts without will reinforcing them. The problem was my new lats, under my pectorals, were not strong yet. Simply beating to get me into the air was exhausting, and I had to drift back down and rest several times in order to get my regeneration to heal up. It was coming along, however, and soon I was staying aloft for twenty minutes at a stretch before having to return to earth and regenerate.

The kinesis was amazingly useful. It allowed me to exert strength that didn’t seem to have any action-reaction with the ground. It helped me stay aloft, but it also allowed me to do incredible feats of strength without burying my feet in the ground or knocking myself backward. It seemed like a force multiplier rather than having its own strength, and when I was exercising my new wings, their strength grew enormously. I flexed my wing and buffeted the stump with a surface rather than the forward edge of my primaries, and the force was enough to rip the damned thing right out of the ground and send it flying nearly 50 feet before it skidded to a halt.

I was strong, and getting stronger, and the best part was that it only became superhuman when I focused on it. That was very important, because I had plans involving Lauren soon, and didn’t want to risk tearing her apart. Almost as important, now that I had isolated the factor giving me extreme strength, I should be able to get a good workout using somewhat normal weights, instead of being restricted to meta-strength sets. I couldn’t wait to show Jim.

I was in my armor, with my goggles and top hat but minus my coat. It would take about a week to arrive, and my aura seemed to give me at least some protection from the wind since my flight hadn’t actually disturbed the hat. I wondered if this was a little like what Aquantis used when she was swimming in the water and planned on trying it out next time I saw her, hopefully in the Pacific.

I tried a daring maneuver, straightening out my wings to glide while I lifted up my wrist and texted her. “I can fly! New form. Cannot wait to see you and your new boyfriend.” It had after all been a couple of days.

Her response came in seconds, “No boyfriend unless you count a 30-foot whale following me around. Cute guy, his dick’s almost as big as yours.”

I sent back, “Now I am intimidated. See you soon?”

Her reply was, “Tomorrow? Got helpers. Deployed strainers okay and saved a bunch of animals. Spill contained, now it’s up to the coast guard to finish clean-up. Would love to see you tonight, but I would be useless. Been working three days straight, utterly exhausted. Did you fuck her brains out? I was serious about pics, I could use something to entertain myself with.”

I panicked a little as I lost focus and came crashing to the ground. I rolled my wings around me and dropped almost 50 feet to bounce across the ground. I was a little beaten, but not nearly as bad as I had expected. I was neither as strong nor as tremendously tough as in my Hyde form, but I had to wonder if the aura extended in that form? If so, Hyde had suddenly become vastly more dangerous, if I could concentrate enough to use it.

“Are you okay?” Vectress yelled. She was in costume, and had brought me here, and was keeping her eyes open as I flitted around. I was not nearly as fast as Callisto was while flying, but I could understand why I considered myself class C. with my wingspan and strength I could probably turn a city block into hamburger in mere minutes since my wings could cut through solid stone and maybe even steel.

I nodded and got to my feet. A few bruises, since a 50-foot drop at 200 miles an hour was a serious impact, but no broken bones. “Yeah, I seem to be okay, I was uhh… distracted by my phone.” I waved a hand at the weird organic structure around my left wrist.

She nodded, “Just the fact that you can use your phone is kind of amazing. A lot of metas have to use their bodies to control their flight or are locked into certain positions while flying. Was it important?”

I grinned, having an evil idea. “Yes, it was very important, girl. It was my girlfriend, Aquantis. She is very lonely and busy and wishes I were there. She likes both men and women, and I would like to give her a gift to keep her happy and busy tonight. Tomorrow we will be heading to Detroit to meet her, but for tonight, I would like to give her something new and special.”

I held up my wrist and turned on its short film function. “Now, I want you to pull down your top and show Aquantis what you have to offer.”

She nodded, without hesitation, and started pulling down her top, the stretchy fabric allowing her to expose herself readily. I had expected her to be shy about it, but in moments she had exposed her lovely breasts to me. I let my hand move into the shot to gently brush her nipples so they stood up firm and ready, and while she was blushing fiercely beneath her mask, she understood where I was going. “Aquantis is very beautiful, master. I met her once before in Chicago, and if Master would allow me, I would enjoy very much licking her until she comes while master takes me from behind.”

The short 15-second strip ended, and I grinned at Vectress, helping her readjust her uniform after I had taken a moment to rub my palm over her breasts. “That was absolutely perfect. Better than I expected. I didn’t think you were into girls?”

She shook her head, “I am not, but if that means that you would take me, I would do anything with my mouth you desire. I wasn’t lying either, she is absurdly beautiful, and I was jealous of her when I met her, but now I am not.”

I smiled a little, wrapping my arms around her and sending a message, “Not yet, but this is what I have to work with.” I attached the video file before sending it to her. “You aren’t jealous? Why not?”

She smiled at me wickedly, “Because she is only my master’s girlfriend. I am his slave.”

I chuckled again, confidently. “I suppose that makes sense, girl. Are you ready to go?”

“Go?” She asked worriedly, “But you just crashed! I mean, My master is feeling good enough to carry me? I shall trust him with my safety…” She squeaked as I opened my wings and with a powerful flap, carried her into the air, my arms around her.

I was feeling far better. Calmer. I would get to see Aquantis tomorrow, and tonight I planned on doing evil things to poor Lauren with a can of whipped cream and some frozen strawberries. It was weird, I had thought of her as my worst enemy, but now, I wasn’t just horny, I really seriously cared about her. I was also seriously considering her ‘uncle’ and how hard it would be to hide a body.

I wondered, as I held her in my arms and we started pushing through the sky, amid her excited gasps, if it would be possible to adopt Toby? I loved the little guy to pieces and even wondered if it would be possible to give him a little niece. This was pretty damned uncharacteristic of me, but for the first time in years, the lovely girl in my arms was making me feel less disconnected from humanity.

Even when I was working at the home workshop I had felt… apart from everyone. Aquantis was wonderful and sexy, and we enjoyed each other thoroughly, but she was a creature of the ocean, and felt connected to it, and was nearly as weird as I was. I would happily kill to protect her, but I wasn’t seriously thinking of a future, maybe a family, with her as the centerpiece. I understood entirely what Baldwin had meant by her being a free spirit, one I would not lock down even if I could. Aquantis was mine, but Lauren was mine. She was becoming as much a part of me as my own hand.

In the few short weeks we had spent together I was finally understanding what the word love meant, and it was a hell of a thing. I was keeping my concentration perfectly, holding her while she giggled at the glory of flying. It was amazing, feeling nothing around you but air, the ultimate sense of rightness being free of the Earth, truly glorious and shared with someone.

I heard the phone on my wrist going off twice as we flew back to the house, instead of portalling back. There was a small chance that a neighbor would see us land, but I barely cared. I grinned as I imagined Aquantis’ response to the short video, and when we landed behind the house I folded and disappeared the wings, setting her down gently on the ground with a huge smile on her face, “Thank you master.” She murmured, “That was beyond wonderful.”

The first message was from Aquantis. “OMG! I am so playing this when I get home. My hand is going to cramp! I cannot wait to see you, and her, tomorrow!”

The second message was, from all people, Sif. I was a bit shocked, but I owed her big time. Her message said “Meet at big HQ in AC. Ruptures went active. Need you for medical support and maybe the big guy. Need Vectress for field evacuations and incoming. ASAP.”

I popped off a message to Aquantis that said, “Ruptures active. Maybe not tomorrow. Fighting in Siberia. I am a big boy now, gotta help.” To which she replied, “Be safe! We have plans!”

Aquantis would be useless in Siberia and she knew it. She would be literally a fish out of the water, and with no direct assault powers, she would just be another body with a gun. Some of the tougher class D’s would probably be going, since they were tough enough to survive and even though they wouldn’t have a huge impact, like Sif, their sheer fighting skills one-on-one would be helpful.

There would also be plenty of class E’s like I was previously and Vectress was now, but they would be staying away from the front lines. They would be support, evac, and medical. I started grabbing every potion I could find, as well as activating some new ones. I had some new tricks up my sleeve, and once I distributed most of the potions I would be almost useless as support, I planned on getting directly in the front line.

Hyde would be useful, and powerful, but he was very much a one-at-a-time type fellow. I refreshed my rum supply. I would be ready to use that form if I needed it, but without the ability to behave tactically or follow orders, I might be as much of a hindrance as a help. In this form, though, my fifty-foot razor-sharp wings, phenomenal strength, ability to resist or recover from damage, and quick ability to navigate the battlefield could be extremely useful. Add to that the assortment of poisonous and acid gas flasks, firebombs, sticky bombs, and my now-proven ability to melt something the size of an Oni, and I was ready to lend a hand.

This was not the battle Windfall was worried about, but it was serious enough. If the Kaiju escaped, millions of people could die. She would stay and keep an eye on Toby, while we headed to AC to pick people up. She said she could do a bit of influencing from here, but not a whole lot, and I offered her my box of classic jewelry if she needed sacrifices. She accepted gratefully, and as we were about to leave I heard a loud screeching skid coming from the front of the house.

I stepped outside and saw a car, one of those Tauruses that the government people drive, with a gigantic man stepping out in grey tights with an applique bomb on the front.

He was wearing a mask, but I recognized the build. “Gillcrest?” I asked as he stepped out of the car.

He shook his head. “Don’t do that. That’s Illegal. Name’s Explosive Joe. I am really glad I caught you guys before you left. The last two breaches have been bad ones, and I am going to help this time. I cannot go into a breach to fetch the core, but I always miss them because I am too far out. I want to go with you this time.”

“I thought that the rifts were not the DMA’s problem?” I asked him, and he snorted.

“I’m human, ain’t I?” He asked, “I am also a class C devastator. Just because I work for the government doesn’t mean I want to see millions of people get eaten. My bombs work very well, and I can rip apart hundreds of them to help the big guys fight the Kaiju bosses, and maybe put a hurting on them too since they can’t be that much harder to blow than a bridge or building.”

I looked at Vectress, still dressed in her uniform, as was I. “Vectress?” I asked, letting Joe know her super name. “Can you handle one more?”

She nodded, “No problem. I can keep the portals open long enough for a dozen people if I want, but it’s going to take four solid portals to get to Siberia, not to mention the one to Atlantic City. I am going to be a bit wiped when we get there.”

I nodded and sent Sif a message, “Me and Explosive Joe incoming. Get your people ready. Vectress is taking us to Siberia.”

In a second I had the reply, “Perfect! The porters are run ragged. Can she handle 6 more including me?”

I sent a “Yes, incoming.”

She put a portal in Midair, and I took her hand. When she stepped through a portal she was either last or she had to be holding on to whoever was last. Explosive Joe gave the wavery hole a look, and then stepped through, and the two of us followed him.

Sif and 5 other people were waiting for us in the parking lot where Vectress deposited us. Surprisingly enough, it included both Speedburn and Miss Katonic, Technomancer, and one other man I didn’t recognize, as well as… Antonia? Dressed in an exercise suit, Polyprovantus armor, and wearing a grey bandana over her face with eyeholes. It took me a moment, but the smell was unmistakable. I stepped towards her, and to her surprise, gave her a hug. “Thank you,” I said quietly. I owed her too, but that didn’t stop me from analyzing her.

Antonia Melina Andropolis (Deflector)

Metahuman 22%, class C(B)

Aspects: body, kinetic, metal

Power: 154

Conditions: Currently reducing menses. Next menses, 18 days

Projected lifespan: 120 years barring mishap. Current age: 26

healthy, resolved, worried, excited, aroused

Powers: Kinetic strength boost. Kinetic resistance. Kinetic deflection

no current abnormal infections

She hugged me back, a little shyly. “Call me Deflector.” she stated, and then smiled, “I made class C, and got my deflection. You seem to have changed too, you got… bigger. Where the hell did the wings come from?”

I chuckled, “Oh, a little emergency happened, and this is the new form to deal with it. Hyde is just a little too uncontrolled for this sort of thing, but I can fly, slice, and I am tougher than ever. Plus I have my bombs. I guess technically I am class C now too.”

I picked up Vectress and held her in my arms, handing a backpack full of potions to Technomancer. “I take it you are support? Make sure that medical gets those. Vectress will be a little too wiped when we get there to do anything about it. Sif, is there a support camp for her to recover?”

Sif nodded, “Yeah, and that close to the rifts her energy will come back very quickly. If you can use your portals for evac, someone at the camp will show you what needs to be done.” She said to Vectress, “Most of the support is class D or lower. Are you going to be there, Alchemyst?”

I shook my head, “No, most of what I can do for support is there in my bag. I have a few left on me, but I can fly now, I plan on doing a bunch of bombing, and I am class C now, you saw me. I am going to the front line.”

Sif looked at Joe, “You are that bomb guy that blew up Macy’s right? How far can you toss them?”

He sighed, “About 50 feet, more or less. I can make them bigger than I can throw them, and I am mostly immune, so I will probably be close to the front too.”

“How much do you weigh, Joe?”

“About 210.” He replied to me.

I nodded, “Once I scout, figure out how the fliers work, and drop my ordnance, I will come back and take you for a fly. Can you make them and drop them?” I had been worried he had increased density, but that stump had weighed damn near 800 pounds. He wouldn’t be much of a problem.

He grinned, “You bet your ass. Strafing runs, motherfucker!”

Technomancer would be launching drones, both the explosive and scouting kinds. Speedburn would be helping to protect the support camp and Miss Katonic? She had ways of making them believe that their allies were their worst enemies. It was line of sight, but it still smelled suspiciously like a mental power.

The big guy was called TerraNova and usually worked for City Planning. He was a class D, but could quickly erect stone walls and planned to help reinforce the camp and use walls to help funnel the eaters into convenient killing lanes.

Sif nodded, “There will already be Russian Military and closer heroes there. Once we get in, we will find out where a primary melee unit is and join it. We have evac, so if you get hit hard enough to go down, yell like hell for a medic. We will try to get to you as soon as possible. The Eaters detect heat, not sound, so if you are alive, screaming won’t make things worse.”

I handed out small bottles containing six pills each to the front liners. I had three left over, but I hadn’t known how many people Sif had lined up. “Once we get there, each of you takes one! It’s a buff and will give you D rank regeneration, doubled energy growth and will cause injuries to stabilize and start healing at an insane rate. I am not giving it to support, because it will make you horny enough to fuck a goat. If you aren’t in combat, you won’t care and you will find something or someone to screw, only adrenaline cancels the effect. It lasts 12 hours and then you will crash like you’ve been working a week without sleep.”

I shrugged, “If you find front-liners that are flagging or injured, only let them take one. Two of them will make your heart explode.” I handed out the spares to the supports, “You guys, do not take them yourself! If a front liner comes in injured, check to make sure they haven’t taken one, give them one, then send them packing before they take it, or they are likely to stick around and try to find a way to fill your time and orifices. It’s not a rape drug or anything like that, but it does increase your sex drive enormously. I call it the last hurrah pill.”

Vectress poked me, “Master?” She asked, earning a surprised look from the twins, who were close enough to hear.

I grinned at her, “I was only going to offer you one if you begged me, but yeah, I sort of had you in mind when I made them. A 12-hour marathon that couldn’t hurt you and then sleep like a baby. I probably could have made something better for a fight, but this is what I had available and had the ingredients for.”

Sif looked a little irritably at me, “Did you make them for me too?” She asked.

I shook my head, “Are you kidding? You probably are already stronger than me, maybe. I made them for myself. I had plans to wear you out so much that you would never forget me, and come back on your hands and knees begging for more, of your own free will.”

She laughed! “That could happen.” She teased, “For a Son of Horus you aren’t half bad.”

“A son of Horus?” I asked, was this what I was wondering about what the hell I was?

She shrugged, “The wings imply that, but you could also be a coatl, or even something very different. Unlike you, Scions do not know other Pantheons at a glance, but it fits. I mean, otherwise, you could be a son of Isis or Maat, but that is impossible.”

“Why is that impossible?” I asked.

She smiled as Vectress opened up the portal, “Because the children of Goddesses are not heroes or scions, they are gods.”

***

We were going through the last portal, and Vectress was on her last legs. She smiled at me tiredly as we stepped through.

There were a lot of people here. I had expected a frozen wasteland, but it was a pleasant enough sixty degrees. Sif had given Vectress a map, and she had delivered the portal just to the south of a large number of tents. I quickly strode over and deposited Vectress in one of the tents, with a young man dressed in military fatigues. He spoke to me in, I assume, Russian, but I didn’t speak the language. She was laid down on a bed, but she seemed to be recovering quickly.

I leaned forward and kissed her on the lips, and she kissed me back somewhat feverishly. “Come back.” She whispered, and I grinned at her, “What reason could I possibly have not to?”

“I saw Sif taking her last Hurrah pill.” She stuck out her tongue at me and added, “Master.”

I chuckled, “I am not. I was teasing Sif. The last Hurrah pills don’t actually work on me. I already have regeneration and recovery, and I am horny constantly already. What it really does is just make a bunch of people draw almost even with me.”

She raised an eyebrow and sat up, “Seriously? You are horny every minute of every day?”

I nodded, lifted my hand, and brushed it across her nipple under the skintight suit. “If we weren’t in such a hurry to fight, I’d probably be bending you over the bed this second. Lucky you, I have learned to control it, but the more metas are around, the harder it hits. I just hope none of the others save their pills to take home to their non-meta wives, they are going to be disappointed when it temporarily shuts them down due to the lack of pheromones.”

She giggled, “Oh wow, that is evil. Okay, you go fight. I am going to stay here and be thinking about you bending me over the bed, Master.”

I grinned and kissed her again, and then slipped out of the tent, watching as TerraNova started raising stone walls around the encampment.

I made sure I noted where Joe was running towards the line as I opened my wings and flew over the running group. Sif was running as well, and I held out my hands, “Catch!” I yelled. Sif immediately reached up without even seeing me, and I caught her hand with my left, but it took Joe a moment before he lifted his own and I hauled both of them into the sky. Antonia was already among a group of metas on a hummer headed towards the action, and I finally saw what we were running towards.

There was a gigantic inky hole, nearly a hundred feet high, surrounded by smaller holes in space itself. Creatures were pouring out of the smaller holes, and there were brightly colored figures fighting them. Special effects of dozens of hues filled the air as groups of the smaller monsters were destroyed, electricity, fire, ice storms, whirlwinds, you name it.

The monsters, though, were horrible. Thousands, tens of thousands, of weird humanoids with wet greenish skin, their backs covered by what looked like nests of worms, each with a sharp lamprey-like mouth at the end. Piles of eels that lashed out and tried to grab people, ten-foot-tall raptorlike dinosaurs with tentacles instead of eyes, giants that looked like deformed medusas with nests of snakelike lampreys instead of hair and long grasping tendrils instead of fingers, and an enormous, 40-foot long snake with a mouth full of worms instead of a tongue.

And those were the most pleasant and describable of the beasts. They looked like things too disgusting for even Lovecraft’s worst nightmares. A giant walking stick that was so covered in tendrils and eels that its legs were barely discernible was getting shot at by a tiny figure flying around it with twin blue lights cutting along its sides, and I realized that the tiny figure was a full-sized hero, Commander Freedom, cutting away at the squirmy covering with laser eyes that were normally strong enough to slice through an armored car in a heartbeat. It was having little effect on the beast, though, but enough to keep its attention.

A cloud of nasty flopping winged snakes flew towards me, and I dropped one of my bombs. I was disappointed by the fact that while the blast itself seemed to rip a few of the creatures to pieces, the spreading sheet of burning napalm from the center seemed to have little effect. These creatures were heat resistant! That would explain why Commander Freedom’s heat-laser eyes were having so little effect.

I knew that the horde of smaller creatures were incredibly dangerous, and I dropped a sticky bomb on top of a cluster that was attacking a half dozen costumed heroes. One of them was using electrical blasts, that skipped from creature to creature, but it seemed to be having almost as little effect as the flames.

The sticky bomb exploded in shreds of pinkish goo over a huge area, the goo sticking the creatures together as well as locking them to the ground, and I shot upward as I saw a glowing rainbow-swirling orb fall into the crowd, that was trying to get away.

I knew that orb! That sonofabitch was here! Somewhere? I had seen it. Where the hell was he? The orb utterly wrecked my crowd control, which made no sense unless it was intentional.

I couldn’t kill him here, or now, and almost lost my flight as my concentration shifted. He was apparently important to the battle, even though he had just wasted my sticky bomb by killing all the creatures caught in it instead of focusing on the ones that were still free and ravaging among the other heroes. Stupid fucker. Didn’t he ever play an MMO? When stuff has been crowd-controlled, you pay attention to what’s free!

I shot towards the Kaiju that the Commander was fighting. He needed an opening, so I swept my wings out to full extension and ran along the side facing away from him. The creature screamed and thrashed toward me, as its entire side opened up under my razor-edged wing, exposing steaming internals as a shower of disgusting wormy bit peeled away.

I was feeling pretty good about myself, but then doubled my attention and clamped down. Feeling good about myself nearly always ended up with me in a cage, a box, or a ring somewhere. Commander Freedom lashed past me, grinning slightly as he passed, and literally dived head-first into the slash I had made. He was a reasonably handsome fellow, well-muscled and brown-haired, clean-cut save for a goatee, and wore a uniform that was white on one side, blue on the other, and had strips of red down the sides with white stars on them. Definitely an all-American hero.

I wanted to get back to pick up Joe, but three more of the gigantic creatures started peeling out of the enormous hole. Three more? There were only supposed to be one or two of these per battle! I unloaded my remaining arsenal of sticky bombs in a wide radius as the Kaiju that the Commander had flown inside started staggering. After a moment, the Commander flew out in a huge splash of gory entrails, right out of the same cut I had slashed, and the creature toppled over, crushing hundreds of the very same creatures I had been sticking. Miraculously the lucky SOB wasn’t even messy.

There had to be some kind of rule that the crowd-controlled monsters were always the first ones to die.