I pushed down a command of my powers and let my human guise drop. My otherworldly guise spread forth from my glowing white eyes. The dark purple hue of my suit made more pronounce by my changing skin tone. I flexed my hands and squared my shoulders.

I backed away, leaning more towards the right as Patricia split left. Our parting caused a moment of indecision to flash through the Shifter’s dulled mind. His gaze flicked to follow the Technomancer and for some reason his decision angered me immensely.

I charged his massive flank as he took a great lumbering step towards Patricia. The Technomancer stared firmly and resolutely at the Shifter as she sped up to try and draw his attention away from me.

I wasn’t entirely sure what my intentions were. I couldn’t exactly punch him in his meaty back, and could only imagine at how heavy he was. Certainly heavy enough that I couldn’t levitate him.

Yet my Telekinetic powers took on that strange quality again. Sending me wave, after wave of inquiries. Suddenly I was before the Shifters left flank, my hand clenched in a fist, reeling backwards to strike at the beastly powered.

The starry-purple aura around my body changed, shifted. It was a subtle motion, but the aura of my power flexed and undulated around my body. Just before my fist struck and smashed into the Shifters flank. My Telekinetic power’s seeped into my skin.

My whole being tingled from head to toe. Then my fist slammed into the Shifter’s lower back along his left side. A miniature shockwave of force erupted from the impact of my strike. The Shifter grunted heavily and stumbled off-balance. A large fist shaped impression was embedded on the Shifters back.

I was so stunned by what had happened that my pause gave the angry Shifter enough time to recover. He twisted and send a massive backhand sailing my way.

I snapped both hands out and caught the arm mid swing with my powers.

But the starry-purple aura flaring around my body was incredibly thin. Whatever I had done had all but depleted my powers. Sweat broke out on my brow as I clenched my teeth against the weight and power of the grotesque Shifter.

“Eli!” I heard Patricia call out in alarm a second before the Shifter planted his other giant meaty fist square in my chest.

I flew backwards as air exploded out of my lungs. My chest bloomed with fiery pain. I crashed through a shoddy-hut ass and back first.

My head clipped a rough metal beam supporting the hut and I when down within the shanty house. I coughed and stumbled onto my hands and knees, throwing off broken shards of metal covering my back.

The movement caused an intense flare of pain to course down through my back lower and coccyx. As anyone who has ever badly hurt or fallen on their tailbone can describe. The dull aching pain almost made me collapse… and shit myself.

I took a deep shaky breath and stood up quickly. My back making the pain known the entire way to standing. I looked ahead and saw that the Shifter was still wobbling after Patricia. The Technomancer stayed far out of his range, sending blast after bolt of plasma towards his head. This made him stop regularly to shield his head protectively.

I shook off the dust, grime, and dirt from my jumpsuit and frowned in concentration. My powers were becoming more and more difficult to master. The range and variety of things I could do were numerous. Yet hampered by my own imagination and zero knowledge of my limits.

Then there was the inquiry phase my powers were going through. As if there was some sort of sentience behind my Telekinesis powers. I didn’t know how to describe it, or understand it. It was both a new worrying and exciting aspect to my powers.

Maybe it was a side-effect like my Projection-form was thought to be.

In that case could I use it to my advantage. I was new to my power, and was getting tired of fumbling through the dark only to gain so little. At least until I stub my toe, or smack my shin.

I summoned my power.

It came sluggishly to me, the thin aura enveloping my body rolled mercurially around. I drew my thoughts into a single focused thought. Then I projected that thought at my powers and felt… something happen. An… acceptance of the request I’d made.

I felt my power actually pause to consider. The aura flaring around me slowed to a crawl. Then a single word bloomed in my mind from out of nowhere.

Force. Or more aptly put, Telekinetic Force. The purest form of Telekinesis. Not as diverse as the wider range of my powers. Put sheer power usually trumps most obstacles. I called up my Telekinetic force bullet. Shaped the ball of force between my hands. I send another thought through my power.

I needed a way to change the opacity of my Telekinesis, so that my friends could see them coming. An instance later, the ball of force swirling in my hands changed to a opalescent purple. My hands began to shake, and I clenched my teeth as I condensed the ball of force down to a diameter of four inches.

I flicked my gaze up to see Patricia engage her thrusters as she leapt onto the roof of a hut. Blasts of plasma erupting from the palm of her hands.

The Shifters back was turned completely to me now.

Then I pulled my trembling hands apart, stretching the ball force. My left hand out before me, as my right drew back. I stretch the condense orb of force until it was nothing but a slither within my grasp, a ruler’s lance of Telekinetic force.

“Patricia!” I shouted, and almost lost my concentration. The Technomancer looked my way and paused at the sight of me. Then she saw what hovered within my grip and understood. Electricity crackled along her arms as she thrusted her hands down. Arcs of electricity shot from the tips of her fingers and arched towards the Shifter.

His monstrous body jolted as the electrical blue arc past through him, and he began to spasm. Yet his fist still rose up to smash down on my beautiful companion.

Before his fist could connect, Patricia leapt off the huts roof and flung herself to the ground in a series of agile rolls. She stumbled back onto her feet and readied herself. Her back now turned to me. The Shifter snarled angrily and roar some garbled unintelligible nonsense I couldn’t understand.

Then I breathed a sigh of relief as the Shifter turned to face us. I let go of my Telekinetic lance and it sped away from me. Faster than a blink it shot the across the distance, blazed a near miss by Patricia’s head and punched through the Shifter abdomen.

The bulky monster of a man grunted as he jolted backwards like someone had punched weakly him in the gut. He took a step towards Patricia, his stretched face plastered in annoyance. His single coherent eye went wide a second before frothy blood spewed from his contorted mouth.

He stumbled a step forward, his muscular arms faltering as they struggled weakly to carry his weight. Then he stumbled again, and again. A loud hissing wheeze gasped out from his contorted mouth and he shook once, before falling forward on the ground unmoving.

The ground rocked with his heavy impact and I froze. My mind whirling with the realisation that I had just killed someone.

Yes, he had been a bad guy, at least from my perspective. He wanted to hurt my friends and we had stopped him. I knew death was a possibility. Yet realising this death was my own doing gave me pause.

I reflected on myself quietly as I made my way out of the ruined hut.

“It’s never easy the first time,” Patricia said quietly to me, as I came to stand beside her.

“Is he…” I trailed off, unsure whether to voice my question. How the answer said aloud would change me.

“Dead? Yes, he is. Don’t worry though, it gets easier,” the Technomancer said with a disgusted grimace.

“I’m not sure that a good thing,” I replied and swallowed thickly.

“It’s not,” she shook her head and placed her gauntleted hands on her hips. “But remember why we’re here, and why you did this.”

The memory of my nightmare slammed into me with such a force that I rocked back on my heels. The world broken asunder by a flaming trident. The dead blaming me for their deaths, and their ruin, and for the death of those to come.

“Elias?” I shook my head and wiped my face.

“I’m good. Let’s go find the others.”

~*~*~*~

We found Ophelia healing Karen as we rounded a corner. The petite blonde Stormcaster lay unconscious, her body seeming like one large bruise.

“Is she okay?” I asked hurriedly skidding to a halt beside the angelic woman. Ophelia nodded gravely, as her hands slowly moved across the massive purple bruise on Karen’s torso.

“They’re all dealt with I take it?” Ophelia asked us and I nodded in reply.

“Yeah. The ugly-ass Shifter was the last one … I hope,” I sighed.

“It’s likely, some other Unbound asshole is on the way,” Patricia commented. “Now that we know their leader is a Diviner, that complicates our movements.”

“Still, it makes you wonder,” I replied and trailed off, as Karen’s chest rose heavily. The Stormcaster sucked in a great gulp of air. Her eyes blearily blinked open as the divine light of Ophelia’s healing powers evaporated into tiny sparkling motes.

“Makes you wonder what?” Patricia nudged me gently, and I broke my concerned gaze away from Karen.

“Well, why not send the Elemental Devotee after us instead of these assholes. I don’t mean to be insulting to us. But he would’ve faired far better against us alone than a single Shifter and a bunch of goons.”

“Maybe,” Patricia allowed and gazed off into the distance, deep in thought. I shuffled closer to the other two women on the ground. Ophelia helped Karen to sit up and leaned the Stormcaster’s back against her side.

“How’re feeling?” I asked the blonde gently, taking her hand in mine.

“Like I got hit by a car,” Karen croaked dryly.

“At least the car wasn’t pink,” I muttered dryly.

“What does that mean?” she asked me tersely, her vibrant blue eyes narrowing at me as I smiled in return.

“You gonna sit there all day, or can you move?” I asked instead of replying.

“I can move. Just need to catch my breath and call Braken,” she said.

“Probably be best if you kept Braken out,” I suggested to her.

“I’m not recalling Braken, I’m calling him to me,” she explained a little annoyed at me. I shrugged and stood up as the Stormcaster’s hand was enveloped by a blue-white glow and her eyes flashed like twin lightning bolts.

A small dirty hut exploded outwards as Braken, a slivery lightning blur shot through it and slowly hover before Karen’s outstretched hand.

Ophelia helped her stand, and the blonde used her spear for balance.

“I think… I think I’ve got it,” Patricia murmured and nodded to herself. Her tightly braided raven hair bounced behind her head with the motion.

“Care to fill us in?” Karen grunted, and spat on the ground with a grimace.

“Well. What if the Unbound send here to attack us, are actually only meant to delay us instead.”

“Okay,” I started, “I could see that being plausible—”

“I haven’t finished,” Patricia raised her hand cutting me off. “What if the Unbound learned that the ASP society has your mom. That we’re here to free her. The Unbound, for all we know could be attacking the ASP even as we speak. Or at least trying to kidnap your mom away from them.”

“Then she’ll be their trump card in manipulating you,” Ophelia surmised and turned to stare concernedly at me.

“Like I said, it’s plausible,” I mumbled after considering it over. “But then why the attack on the De-Sub sector border then?”

Somehow, I felt like the assault by the SBPI on the border was more important than we realised.

“I don’t know about that. And I doubt anyone will tell us either,” the Technomancer shook her head.

“How far away are we from the old manufacturing plants?” I asked her after a moment of walking. We moved away from the area we’d been fighting in. Loud pops registered and cracked through the air in the distance.

“About an hour or two of walking. This section of the Plateau isn’t big, it just… occupied by a lot of garbage.” True to her words, we reached the centre of the shanty-town an hour later. A circular wall of trash rose fifteen feet into the air before us. Scruffy kids ran about the place, shifting through the junk for thin lengths of coppery wire, and other general materials.

“Let’s climb up and get a good vantage point,” I suggested and helped Ophelia, still with her wings on display, up the trash mound. She smiled shyly at me before casting her eyes about the place. A few of the kids had stopped to gawked at us, as a few others ran away with their findings.

“How long has it been since you last went outside like this?” I asked her quietly, and helped pull her up atop an old yellow stained fridge. A child’s drawing of a family clung wetly to the fridges surface.

“Out enjoying myself, or out on a mission?” She asked, raising a delicate eyebrow at me. Her wings tightly folded against her back.

“Either… both…” I shrugged.

“Well, for the former. I think it was seven or eight months ago. We visited Ziila city. They have a small park there, and at night Devlin, and Karen watched for any SPBI patrols as I flew throughout the park.” She smiled softly as she spoke. I took her hand as we navigated a few more feet up the mound.

“What’s this Devlin like anyway?” I asked her. She grinned at my sudden interest.

“She’s… quirky. Her summoning power come with a risk and price. So every now and then she would take off and do whatever she could to repay them. Sometimes she would be gone for a few days, other times, years would go by without seeing her. Then one day she’d popped up unannounced.”

“Sounds like you two are close,” I commented seeing the top of the mound coming into view. Behind us and out to our left, Patricia and Karen were faring poorly with the unsteady footing.

“We are. She can be a tad bit extreme at times. Trust me,” the angelic woman smiled at me coyly. “You’ll understand once you meet her.”

“If you say so,” I said dully, unsure how to take her words.

We reached the top of the trash mound and I gasped as I almost lost my footing at the sight. The centre of the mound sloped inwards to a fifty-foot wide hole. Small bits of trash dislodged by my stumbling tumbled down the inner slope and fell into the void.

I expected to hear it clang but instead I heard nothing of the sort.

“What the hell!” I exclaimed regaining my balance with Ophelia’s help.

“Wow. Been a long time since I’ve seen one of the these on the Plateau’s surface,” a voice said from behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see Patricia offering Karen a hand, after seeing what caught our interest.

“You know what this is?” I asked her in disbelief. A literal pit to hell? I half expected the thing out of my nightmare to rise out of the hole.

“Yeah. It’s an old oil-well. There likely used to be a facility to pump and store right here but it’s obviously gone now.”

“I don’t understand,” I muttered shaking my head.

“Nowadays, most Diatrite drilling and refineries are done in the Keldasen Ocean. Before when the Plateau’s were newly constructed. Sights like these were dotted all over the place. We’d drilled deep down into the oceans depths for mineral and fuel deposits. Eventually we drained most of them. Now the drilling is done either in private, allocated, underground areas or in the ocean.”

“Damn,” I said in wonder. “It’s rather… big… isn’t it?”

The Technomancer simply shrugged unbothered by the sight, or my question. Instead she moved her gaze out across from us.

“There it is,” she announced pointing her finger straight ahead. I followed the direction and saw the arch of a faded sign and entrance. Behind which were several large decrepit buildings. I could just about make out a sign with a faded and chipped ‘T’ enamelled across it.

“Finally,” I sighed. Just then I caught sight of several men and women rushing up the mound behind us. My eyes locked with a woman’s just as her body erupted with fu. Her mouth and jaw elongated out into a muzzle.

Then another, a man snarled as spikey quills grew from every inch on his body. Leaving only his eyes, nose, and mouth free.

A man at their front ran towards the base of the mound and slammed his closed fists down. A rolling quake ran through the unsteady pile beneath our collective feet and I gasped.

“We’ve got company!” I shouted and just managed to dodge as a quill zipped past my face.

“Thank you, captain obvious— Holy-shit-motherfucker!” Karen spat, but lost her footing and began to slide down the inner slope towards the ominous gaping hole. She began to submerge with the cascading torrents of trash.

“Help Patricia,” Ophelia stopped me from stumbling after Karen. “I’ll take care of Karen.” I nodded at her firm command as her wings snapped into full view.

She launched herself up into a spiral. Several quills shot past me once again and I ducked low. They arched upwards to follow Ophelia’s spiralling form as she twisted gracefully through the air.

“Patricia, kill that fucking quaker!” I ordered, just as she send a shot of plasma at the Shifter leaping up the mound.

“I’ll try,” she grunted.

I summoned my Telekinetic powers, coated several sharp and pointy instruments within the pile around me, and levitated them into the air.

“Not the only one who can fling shit around,” I growled and whipped my hands forwards. The pieces of trash shot at the quill launcher just after he released a barrage up at the angelic-woman.

I snapped my focus away from him, and pushed my hand upwards catching the majority of the quills with my Telekinetic grip. Yet a single quill blitz through. I watched as it carved across the Ophelia wing as she dove. In the quill’s wake was a bloody furrow. Several white feathers trailed behind her.

I heard Ophelia curse, yet she remained on course as she dived for Karen. I was about to whipped around and blast the quill-launcher with a force bullet when a furred beast tackled me in a lunge.

I stumbled backwards and yelped in pain, as several sharp something’s nicked against my back and head. The Shifter dug her claws into my jumpsuit and bared her fanged muzzle at me in a growl.

I didn’t hesitate.

I chopped both of my power enveloped hands into the meat of her chest and split her half. Blood and gore washed over me in a spray, and I gasped.

Swallowing down my bile I pushed the shifting body parts off me and stumbled to my feet. The fur on the Shifter receded back to reveal her human form.

“God damnit,” I hissed angrily at myself. I had to remember my goal. This was to save my mom, and if the path there had to be paved in blood to see her safe.

Then blood it was going to be.

This novel is the work of Rhys Thomas. If you are reading this and it has not been published by Rhys Thomas, then this work has been stolen. Please report this to Amazon and me at email: [email protected]