“Not again.” Gaius looked below at the streaks heading directly toward him.

He didn’t know what they were. This Earth was not the one he’d left behind all those centuries ago, so he did what any good leader did, he looked to the subject matter experts. Everyone in the group was younger than him, some a lot younger, but there was still more than one reaction to the things streaking up toward him.

One group coalesced together and formed a flying phalanx. The ones with shields interlocked in the front to put a wall between them and what was flying toward them. To Gaius, they looked vaguely like the bazooka rounds the Legion used, but they didn’t move the same way.

The second group of soldiers scattered, but some of the streaks chased them. As they grew closer he could tell they looked like long, metal tubes belching fire and smoke.

“Missiles!” The youngest among the legionaries screamed and flew in every direction.

For a second, Gaius was torn between what to do. Strength in numbers was logical, but without knowing the enemy’s capabilities it could lead to greater casualties. With that in mind, scattering and then reconsolidating felt like the better decision.

The fact the remnant of his airborne forces were flying directly at the things didn’t help, but there wasn’t any time to yell orders. Gaius changed directions quickly and dived.

It didn’t make any difference. He avoided the missile aimed for him. It passed several feet away, but it still exploded. Fire and searing metal engulfed his body, and he roared with pain. The concussive force of the explosion knocked the throne from his back and sent him tumbling through the air. He couldn’t tell what was up and what was down as pain lanced through his injured side. Some fire and shrapnel had made it through into his flesh. His healing took over, but it took several critical seconds to clear his head.

He inhaled sharply and flared his wings to either side. One tugged uncomfortably, almost to the point of breaking, but it held, and the spinning stopped. He immediately scanned the area for more threats and saw a second volley on its way, but it was targeting the other airborne soldiers.

The flying phalanx had shattered on impact. The shields helped deflect the shrapnel, but the fire and concussive blast ripped through the closely packed formation. From the looks of it, only a few seemed to be dead, and their lifeless, flaming bodies were plummeting toward the ground. The rest were doing exactly what Gaius did, trying to get their bearings.

“Everyone, on the ground!” he roared before another wave could cripple them even further.

Now, everyone scattered and dove for the shelter of the ground.

Gaius looked all around, but he couldn’t see the golden light of his former Lord’s source of power.

He made the mistake of hovering in place for a few seconds too long.

The first bullet’s hammered into him before he saw the tracer rounds. They didn’t penetrate his armor, but he wasn’t braced for the impact, so the force of multiple hits bashed him across the sky.

“General!” A battered squad of four legionnaires surrounded him with shields raised and the hammering stopped.

“Get to the ground and eliminate the threat!” Gaius temper flared and his power made his body swell. He was going to kill the pesky humans who pecked at him like annoying bugs.

He pushed himself and the soldiers towards the nearest humans. Two of the legionnaires led the way why he continued to build his power. The legionnaires held their shields and deflected most of the incoming rounds. A few found their marks and the legionnaires cried out in pain as blood splashed backward onto Gaius, but he didn’t care. If they started to falter he pushed them forward. Rage fueled him toward his goal.

That goal was a prepared position manned by a squad of scrambling soldiers. Gaius vaguely recognized the .50 caliber machine gun surrounded by a ring of sandbags, and the guns the soldiers were wielding were similar to what skirmishers in the Legion were armed with.

He landed hard, cratering the asphalt, and pushed the two now-injured legionnaires into position to block the incoming fire. His whole body was straining with power now. “Go around,” he commanded the other two. They leapt into the air, deflecting bullets with their shields, and drew some fire from Gaius and the two wounded men.

The big machine gun went from firing three-to-five-round bursts to unleashing an unending torrent of metal as Gaius drew closer. He held the two legionnaires in front of them. When they tried to retreat after taking multiple hits, he grabbed them by the back of their breastplates and pushed them forward. They died screaming as he used them as sacrificial shields. When he was close enough to the enemy position, he slid one body close to his chest to cover the damage in his armor, and tossed the other straight into the group of humans. His dead legionnaire hit the emplacement like an artillery shell. Sandbags burst and tossed clumps of sand into the air as the dead legionnaire plowed through them. The human soldiers were bowled over. Most were killed outright when the dead legionnaire hit them with enough velocity and mass to shatter their spines, while others were only crippled with broken limbs. The big gun fell silent with no one to man it. The only thing left was steam wafting off the barrel of the hot weapon.

Gaius advanced on the two remaining humans. One tried to beg but was choking on his own blood, so Gaius gave him a swift death by impalement. The sword went through the man and into the asphalt, but with his enhanced strength Gaius was able to yank it back out. The second man didn’t die easy. He pulled his sidearm and unloaded the whole clip into his chest. It sparked off the Infernal Iron without doing any damage. Gaius grinned behind his helmet. The human had courage.

“Fu…Fu…Fuck you!” The man struggled to get the final insult out before Gaius picked up the man, crushed his skull, and tossed his body through a nearby window.

He could still see a twitching foot sticking out of the wreckage as he assessed the scene.

“Rally to me!” His powerful roar, full of Infernal power, echoed through the city.

His legionnaires immediately responded. Many descended from the sky while other sprinted through the streets toward their General’s call. He stood waiting for them with his foot on top of the broken sandbag pile and dead humans strewn around him.

“These weaklings are nothing compared to us.” He instilled courage in his remaining legionnaires as he kicked over a body. “Find the throne! Do whatever it takes! Eliminate all obstacles. We must have it if we are to see Lord Seere’s kingdom live on!”

A ragged cheer went up from the battered soldiers. They’d fought through Hell, dodged giant beasts, and evaded those clever missiles. They were tired, half-broken, had lost their kingdom and many of their friends in the last few hours. Lesser men would have just lay down and died.

Gaius reassured his own faith in their destiny. Their Lord might be dead, but Gaius sure as hell wasn’t going down without a fight, and that meant taking as many humans, angels, or whatever else this world could throw at him before he fell.

The engagement had been short, but it had taken its toll. The power expended would never return, more was needed for healing, and their depleted numbers promised that Gaius’ defiance wouldn’t last long against a serious attack. All of that didn’t matter. He intended to use what time was left wisely.

He tried to remember where he lost the throne and divided up his soldiers to search in grid squares. They would search in groups even though it would take longer. The humans were going to respond, and the legionnaires needed to be able to fight effectively. Now that they were out of the sky, and away from the missiles, they would fare better in small units. A legionnaire was still faster, stronger, and more experienced than a human soldier. Their armor would defend against simple bullets. Only something with more firepower would be able to take them down.

Gaius picked up the large machine gun and its long belt of ammo. He could wield it one handed, but the trigger wasn’t the same design as the simpler rifles his men were collecting from the dead humans.

He channeled a trickle of power and the large barrel levitated into the air. The belt of large bullets floated out to the side and he aimed down the barrel’s sight to a point at the end of the street. He grasped the trigger at the rear of the weapon and gave it an experimental squeeze. A few rounds burst from the barrel with a heavy THUMP…THUMP…THUMP sound, and a car at the end of the street rocked back and forth from the impact.

Gaius smiled and let the weapon fall back so it was only supported by his own raw strength. It would allow him to engage the humans more effectively while only using a fraction of his strength.

He looked around to a small honor guard of his best equipped troops that still stood with him. They’d taken control of the human weapons, and had their swords, spears, and bows secured.

“We’ll start over there.” He pointed to the vicinity around where he believed the throne to be. “We need to move quick or else…” his order was cut off by the sound of multiple explosions.

He automatically looked into the sky where fire was spreading everywhere as missile after missile struck a large figure coming through the golden Rip. A brief glance told him it wasn’t the giant creature from the Veil. There was no way something that large would fit through the Rip…but a flying serpent would.

Gaius kept a calm expression on his face while he watched missiles detonate, and hoped for the best.

On the crown of the large beasts head stood the armored woman with spiked gauntlets. She smashed them together and the shockwave prematurely detonated most of the incoming ordinance. The few that made it through, she slapped aside casually so her steed and the small army of skeletal warriors were unharmed.

As Gaius watched the fight another BOOM shook the air and he caught motion out of the corner of his eye. His power allowed him to track the two flying metal aircraft making a wide turn around the city and lining up an attack run on the serpent. More missiles streak from under their wings and dashed across the night sky toward the armored woman, followed by the low, staccato rumbling of heavy caliber rounds fired from the planes’ guns.

The humans might not be coming after him after all. They had bigger problems at the moment, and that was fine by him.

Gaius needed to find the throne. The longer he could search unimpeded, the better the chance he could secure a foothold on this world.