Reece held the nightcore in his hands. Gunfire rang out all around him while large explosions wracked the battlefield, throwing dozens of zombies into the air and raining rotten flesh down upon them all. Looking around, he saw that Angel and the rest of the new arrivals were backing up Ciera, Cyrene, and Naeva, shooting any enemy combatant that came within range. Bullets whizzed everywhere and the air was filled with the smoke of guns and charred flesh alike.

Above them, the Phoenix streaked into the sky, turning to strafe gargoyles and other undead beasts alike. The way the jet handled, Reece could tell that Pasha was at the controls. Hank and Dmitri had to be using the guns, shooting down creatures left and right and saving many of the remaining sphinxes from the undead. They had bought him some time to activate the device, and he wasn’t about to disappoint them.

Not wasting another moment, Reece took the device and twisted it as if he’d done it a thousand times before. It just felt natural. The lever was now free to move. Then he pulled down on it, gave it a half-turn, and removed it. When he looked at the smaller device in his hand, he realized it was a key. A key that had been fused into the lock of the nightcore for a millennium. It hadn’t been designed that way, and Reece wondered what had transpired to have left it in such a state. And now, the commander wanted to destroy the key and render the Nightcore, or Regenesis Orb, forever locked.

Now that he knew what it was, Reece shrugged the thoughts off and reinserted the key into its lock, giving it a half-turn in the other direction. The key clicked and then moved by itself, screwing into the orb until it disappeared entirely. Reece felt his hands slowly pushed away from the spherical device by an unseen force. The nightcore slowly began spinning in the air, held aloft by the same force. An ominous boom emanated from the nightcore as the two halves of the outer shell slowly separated and began spinning against each other. Bright blue light began to emanate from every crack in the device. It lit up the battlefield, bathing it in a blue glow.

“No!” screamed Abel Hargrove from twenty meters away, still battling with Reece’s companions. He might have been overpowered if he didn’t have dread wolves, behemoths, or golems of flesh and bone backing him up. As it was, they were evenly matched.

Hargrove had heard the boom and seen the glow, and it had distracted him long enough to seek out the orb and witness its blossoming. Neither Karina nor Aika wasted a thought on the nightcore, trusting in Reece to get the job done. Instead, using the moment of distraction, Aika jumped up and swept her readied katana through a behemoth’s neck while Karina plunged the entire blade of her spear straight through two of the fleshy monsters surrounding her. Masika and Nephi used their powerful bodies to punch straight through a pair of golems made of pure bone. Meanwhile, Nisha and Rik took down another behemoth.

With Hargrove distracted, his companions would make short work of the rest of the megalomaniac’s forces. Now that the nightcore had been unlocked, Reece knew what to do. Gritting his teeth, his eyes fell upon Hargrove, his stare burrowing past the man’s face and into his mind.

“Hargrove…!” yelled Reece, his attention focused on his old commander. “I want a rematch.”

Instead of responding, Hargrove attempted to force his will upon Reece. Reece blocked the attack through force of will without bringing up the battlespace. Hargrove’s eyes grew wide with fear at the unexpected rebuke of his seemingly unstoppable power.

“My turn,” growled Reece under his breath, and he lashed out with his mind at the commander, all his rage and the nightcore backing him up as it continually released blue mana energy.

The battlespace opened before him, much grander than he had ever seen it before. The power within the orb was pouring forth and supercharging everything in an ever-expanding area, including him and his abilities. It was probably supercharging the commander’s abilities as well.

That’s when Reece realized the commander had no abilities left that could be supercharged. It only took Reece a moment to put it all together, what had happened. Inanna had taken away her boon from the commander. He was no longer an Inanna-din. He was just an ancient vampire now. Yeah…just…

Reece gritted his teeth and got to work, erecting a barrier around himself while creating a grenade, visualizing it to look like the nightcore. Tossing the masked device, the spiritual embodiment of Abel Hargrove stood confused by its appearance for a moment too long and caught the explosion in the face, blowing him back and to the ground.

“Nice…one,” Hargrove spat out along with a mouthful of blood and teeth. Grimacing, he miraculously rose back up from what should have been a fatal blow.

Reece realized the commander must have some defensive skills that he hadn’t learned yet. Otherwise, this fight would have already been over. Reece tucked the new lesson away and continued the battle, creating twin pistols that he used to unload on the man. Hargrove manifested a mini-gun which he used to sling enough lead at Reece to coat the Nixon memorial. Over and over, Reece avoided his former commander’s attacks. Unfortunately, he was having trouble scoring another major hit of his own. If he wanted to end this quickly, he needed to start thinking outside the box.

“Karina, Aika, I need your help,” whispered Reece, focusing on the idea for a new kind of weapon.

Before him, figments of Karina and Aika appeared, Karina wielding her spear but with a blade of fiery energy, compliments of Reece’s imagination. Aika’s katanas were both blazing with white light, electricity sizzling around them. Aika twirled them in a defensive posture between Reece and Hargrove. The phantom girls wasted no time rushing the commander. Attacking with lightning swords and a fiery spear, they forced him on the defensive. Using their distraction, Reece created a pit trap lined with poisoned spikes behind the man. Once complete, Reece made the earth reach up to grab at Hargrove from below, trapping his feet. He then attempted to force him into the pit trap.

“Enough,” hollered Hargrove, frustration evident in his voice. He ripped his feet free from the earth and quickly zipped around the two phantom girls.

The former commander laughed out loud in triumph. “You fool. You can’t create two simulacrums and maintain them for this long. You’ve drained your energy to nothing. I’m surprised they’ve lasted as long as they have. You must’ve come far in your development, but that ends here and now.”

“We’ll see,” replied Reece, stepping back.

Focusing intensely, Reece erected a barrier between himself and the commander. Once it materialized and blocked the commander’s view of him, Reece teleported to the other side of the battlespace. That put the phantoms, Karina and Aika, between him and Hargrove yet again. They turned and resumed their attacks on Hargrove.

“If you’re enjoying that,” added Reece, indicating his two phantoms. “You’re going to love this.”

Suddenly, the battlespace was filled with Reece’s companions, or rather, phantoms of his companions. Angel, Naeva, Ciera, Bjorn, Taela, Aspen, Sora, Thato, Thomas, Pasha, and everyone else that Reece could think of appeared ready to battle. They were all the people who deserved a little bit of payback on the man that ripped their world apart. It didn’t matter if they were alive or dead. The phantoms wasted no time in enacting their revenge. Hargrove moved with the speed of an ancient vampire, but even he couldn’t dodge every sword thrust, gouging claw, shotgun blast, lancing spear, or bullet directed toward him.

Wounded and battered as he was, Hargrove still managed to make his way across the battlespace. Coughing up blood, he looked at Reece with hate and awe. “Impossible… I will…” With one last grunt, Hargrove lunged at Reece, his clawed hand going for Reece’s exposed throat with almost impossible speed.

“No, you lose,” replied Reece, his hand coming up even faster than Hargrove’s movements. Holding the figment of the first saber he had crafted years before aboard the Zhengzhou, he jabbed it up under Hargrove’s jaw, the crude but deadly blade cutting through the man’s lying mouth, narcissistic brain and finally exiting in a splash of blood from the top of Abel Hargrove’s thick skull.

Twisting the saber, Reece pulled it free from the man’s head. Hargrove dropped to his knees, his mouth working to form words. “How…?” was all he managed before he toppled over.

“This is a battlespace of the mind,” answered Reece. “I can be as fast and strong as I can imagine, and I simply imagined that I was faster and stronger than you.”

A bloody gurgle from the former commander turned into a laugh. “You can’t kill me, Reece. I’ve been around for thousands of years. I’m inevitable.”

Reece watched in horror as all the commander’s wounds healed, blood sealing the wounds closed. That’s when the idea struck, and he created another new weapon. Even as the commander regained his footing, something new latched onto his leg. It was a leech over seven centimeters long. The commander grabbed the slimy thing and ripped it off. Then a half dozen more latched on to different parts of his body.

“Let’s see how inevitable you are when all of your lifeblood has been sucked out,” replied Reece, creating even more of the bloodsuckers.

As Hargrove tore those free, Reece added vampire bats to the mix. Soon his former commander was covered in leeches and bats, each sucking him dry. He fought ferociously using his vampiric speed. Reece just kept attacking him with more and more of the creatures. Each one took its drop or two of blood. It wasn’t much, but it was adding up. Hargrove’s growls of anger and frustration were soon replaced with screams. Hargrove’s speed and strength started to ebb. The commander’s screams gave way to pitiful whimpers. After that, it was over for the man. The tiny creatures swarmed his body and sucked it dry until it was nothing more than a desiccated husk. Reece almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“Burn in the eternal fires of Hades, asshole,” spat Reece as the last glimmer of life left Hargrove’s eyes.

Then Hargrove’s manifested body disappeared from the battlespace in an explosion of light. Looking around, he saw that the phantoms were all still there, looking at Reece expectantly. “Rest,” he commanded. One by one, they nodded and winked out of existence, a note of intelligence in the eyes of those already dead. Reece found that oddly comforting. Then he was thrust into Hargrove’s real body.

“I have him,” stated Reece as Hargrove, having won the mental bout.

Looking around, he saw that the current battle was almost over. The undead in the immediate vicinity had all been dispatched. A blue glow emanated from the nightcore, bathing the entire area. In addition, energy pulsed regularly from the floating orb, sending a wave of bluish energy across the land. Karina pulled her spear from the eye socket of a behemoth she had just impaled and leaped down to stand in front of him/Hargrove. She had a half-smile while he looked at her through Hargrove’s eyes.

“What do you want us to do with him?” she asked.

“Very well,” replied Karina. “Allow me.” With a long-practiced move, she raised her massive spear. Then, with all her might, she brought it back down. The spear cleanly sliced Abel Hargrove’s body into two mirrored pieces. Reece found himself back in his own body again.

He looked on as Aika walked up to the mess that was Hargrove and tossed a small incendiary device into the pile of gore. “This is for Thato and all the other lives you destroyed. May Kali play with your soul for the rest of eternity.”

Angel, Naeva, and the Beckers gathered around their former space station commander while his remains went up in flames. Stephanie sneered before spitting into the mess. “Good riddance, asshat.”

Angel gave her a quizzical look. “Asshat?”

Stephanie shrugged before cracking a smile. Her smile turned into a chuckle. Soon the whole group was laughing and crying together. “Hey, I’m exhausted. I can’t believe we survived all that,” said Stephanie, looking her body over, “such as we are.”

“It isn’t over yet. We still have the battle to finish, and then we can begin healing, all of us,” said Reece, looking pointedly at the Beckers during his last three words.

While the last embers of Abel Hargrove’s body burned out, Reece had a chance to survey his surroundings. His companions had managed to decimate the undead in the area during his mental battle with Hargrove. Things seemed to be going well. Looking farther into the distance, his heart sank.

Abel Hargrove was dead, but the battle was far from over. The nightcore continually released blue mana energy in waves, but they passed harmlessly through the oncoming horde of undead. The mana Reece released into the world didn’t seem to be helping. There were still countless undead monsters virtually manufactured for Hargrove’s armies. The various abominations were made over several decades and were now on their way to kill them all. Whether the creatures were following Hargrove’s last command or an instinct of their own didn’t matter. They were coming regardless.

Those monsters, coupled with the ‘naturally occurring’ zombies and other things created by the plague’s spread, were still an enormous threat to them and the world. The swarm of murderous undead covered the ground and filled the sky. This was looking more like a last stand every second. At least Hargrove was finally dead. Reece smiled at that while he prepared himself to meet his fate.