Reflecting Equation
By: Tony
Email: Batmanhater@aol.com

 

[ Chapter Eleven ]

 

***

 

The procession that left the city of Atlantis was considerably smaller than the one that had entered it. Upon these quiet streets walked the Chosen, with Nathan and King Oriens at our side. It had been nine days since our arrival, and there was few on the streets to see us leave under cover of night. Those we passed left us to depart in peace. I felt rested and more at ease than I had in a long time. Being in Atlantis had soothed all the burdens and stress life recently dealt. I was undeniably happy. Here with my family and friends had utterly put my soul at ease.

 

King Oriens lead us into Peace Pavilion. We made our way near the pond that was just off the paved walkway of the sprawling public plaza. "Have you all said your goodbyes?" the King asked, looking at my friends and they all smiled, their expressions saying it all. I wasn't the only one who was feeling reinvigorated.

 

"We're going to win this," I promised, and a glance showed the Chosen shared my determination. "Our chosen duty is to protect humanity, and we won't lose."

 

The smile King Oriens wore was warm and proud. "May all our faith be your strength." He held out a hand to Halo and touched his fingertips to my brother's temple. "The mantle of the king is yours now. The Imperial Scepter is your birthright. When all hope is lost, its light will guide you through the darkest of times."

 

I took another look at the city around us, my home. Halo wrapped his fingers around my wrist and squeezed once before dropping it. King Oriens lifted his hand in farewell as Halo held his staff aloft. From the holy talisman spilled a silver light that washed over us. When the blinding radiance cleared so did the sight of Atlantis, and in its place was the steel and concrete of down Centennial.

 

"Home sweet home," Solaris muttered.

 

The Executioner stared at the buildings with narrowed eyes. "Something's not right."

 

Omega followed his gaze. "It's quiet."

It was true. The silence was eerie. There were no signs of people, and the voidwalkers hideous forms were nowhere in sight. I didn't like this. It was broad daylight here on Earth, and there should be signs of life instead of this haunting emptiness. When we left Centennial there had been destruction everywhere we looked. Now there was no sign of any of it. It was like it never happened.

 

"Time check," I said.

 

The Executioner answered even as he was running scans on his phone. "It's only been roughly twelve hours on Earth since we left."

 

"There's only three of them. How much damage could the evil dicks possibly achieve in that time?" Solaris wondered.

 

Halo gave him a flat look. "I once watched your past incarnations tear through a class 5 extradimensional incursion in under two hours. You scorched the earth so badly nothing has grown there since." He smiled a little at Solaris's stupor. "Humans call it the Sahara Desert. Atlanteans knew it as the Antari Jungle."

 

Well, you learn something new every day.

 

"We don't have time for this. We need to get off the street." There was a reason no one was in sight, and I didn't want to find out. "I don't like being out in broad daylight like this."

 

Omega pointed to a nearby pharmacy on the corner. "There."

 

The store was empty when we broke inside. We spread out to make sure there weren't any surprises lurking for us. When we were regrouped, the Executioner made a noise of surprise while he stared at the information displayed on the phone screen. We crowded around him to all see the screen.

 

"We really have to upgrade these things with holo tech," Omega muttered.

 

The Executioner's eyes lit up. "It wouldn't even take much. I'm thinking we replace the core processor with a polyhedra crystal for faster than light data storage and patch the circuits with patterns of hologrammic -"

 

I snapped my fingers in front of his face. "Focus!"

 

The Executioner blushed and scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. "Sorry about that." He smiled a little when Solaris bumped their shoulders together. "So I found something. There's a message being broadcast on all networks across the world."

 

Solaris exhaled noisily. "I have a feeling this is going to suck."

 

I hated to admit it, but I agreed.

 

The screen went black for a moment and then lit up with the view of a lavish living room. It looked like something from the inside of a royal palace. Seated upon the extravagant furniture in various positions were our clones. Axel and Reese were staring stoically like evil henchmen with Cobalt sitting back in an armchair like it was a throne. He wore the tiniest smirk on his face. My face.

 

"Greetings people of Earth," Cobalt said with a friendly tone, but there was something unpleasant in his eyes. "My name is Cobalt, and these are my buddies Reese and Axel. As of right now, we are the new rulers of Earth. I know. Shocker! This regime change can either go peacefully, or it can go ugly. When this message stops broadcasting on all frequencies and networks, the world's governments will have 48 hours to surrender to our authority. Honestly, I expect a bit of chaos and for there to be a fight." He smiled then and spread his arms invitingly. "And I welcome you to try to stop us. They will write songs to your annihilation, and we'll lay waste to everything you seek to protect. Tick-tock."

 

The video stopped.

 

I opened and closed my mouth, trying to find words. "That psychotic motherfucker."

 

Halo shook his head and murmured, "This is worse than I thought."

 

"No wonder no one is outside. The assholes must be using Centennial as a foothold before they wage war and conquer the rest of the planet." Omega rubbed his chin in thought, brow furrowed. "Strategically they'll go after the bigger nations first, the US, UK and EU, the Chinese and Australian governments; and then once they've fallen the smaller countries will submit after their morale is broken."

 

Halo nodded. "If you thought of it then that means Axel has had the same plan."

 

I cracked my knuckles and looked at my friends in the eyes. "We don't have a lot of time. Let's do what we came here to do."

 

"The one upside about having clones is their biological life signs are identical to ours." The Executioner smiled victoriously at a map displayed on the screen. On it was three dots in red. "Bingo. I have their location."

 

Omega clapped him on the back. "Way to go. Of course, they're too cocky to mask their presence."

 

"That entire video proved they've never heard of subtle," I tacked on.

 

Halo studied the map. "They're only about a quarter of a mile north of here."

 

I squared my shoulders and ordered, "It's go time. Move out, Chosen."

 

We stuck to the shadows while traveling the distance to the dots registered on the map. I was not even a little surprised that the location led to the entertainment district of downtown. We landed on the roof of a building across from the Hotel Montesquieu. It was a fifty-two-story, pale bricked structure, certified as one of the city's oldest and prestigious buildings, and was currently housing our targets.

 

Omega studied the hotel with narrowed eyes. "I can sense over two dozen minds in the building."

 

"The guests that didn't get out and the staff, most likely," the Executioner muttered.

 

Solaris frowned. "Now which floor are the bastards on?"

 

We exchanged gazes and said at once, "The penthouse."

 

Solaris smacked his fist into his palm. "I say we blow the motherfucker up."

 

"Civilian casualties," Halo said in between fake coughs, grinning sweetly at Solaris's glower.

 

The Executioner hmmed under his breath. "Theoretically we could do a controlled explosion to just the top floor. It would incinerate only anyone in the penthouse suites."

 

That had the potential to come back and bite us in the ass. I was a scholar of Hollywood blockbusters after all. I shook my head. "I don't like it. The chances of something going wrong is too high."

 

"It'll be just our luck they'll detect the thermal energy and redirect the detonation to the lower floors." Omega pointed out, drawing a few grimaces from our faces.

 

"Are we waiting until nightfall, then go in?" Halo asked.

 

I shook my head. "No, we hit him hard and fast."

 

"That's what I'm talking about!" Solaris smirked. "They won't even see us coming."

 

I studied their resolve, and it mirrored my own to see this plan carried out. "We're in agreement in?"

 

"Yes, Prince."

 

A grim smile tugged at my lips. "On my mark."

 

We moved as one. I imagined those looking up if there were people on the street that is would only see five black flashes darting through the sky. We burst through the windows of the top floor of Hotel Montesquieu. My feet touched down on carpet briefly before I rolled forward to decrease my momentum, then I jumped to my feet in a crouch. I didn't get a moment to survey the room before Cobalt shouted a warning to his friends, and suddenly, red fire poured from his mouth in an immolating blast.

 

Omega stepped forward, fists clenched and the flames met a telekinetic barrier. I flicked my fingers, turning the blast into a swarm of butterflies which flew toward our enemies in a cloud that masked us from sight. Axel clapped his hands, and with a mighty boom of thunder, a wave of pure force lashed out. Furniture, wall decor, and anything not nailed down, including the swarm of butterflies were thrown away as if a mighty windstorm savaged through the room.

 

Cobalt cupped his hands next to his cheek and screamed, "Dark Judgment!"

 

The entire room began crackling as black lightning jumped across every surface, rapidly vaporizing everything in its path. The elemental attack slammed home into Omega's shield dumping its energy against the barrier until there was a terrifying explosion of noise. The power behind the attack threw us back out the windows we crashed through.

 

My stomach lurched as I tumbled through the air, careening toward the ground like a meteor. Instinctively training kicked in, making me right my body and gather wind beneath my heels, slowing my fall until I touched the ground to land on the balls of my feet. Omega landed a moment after me with his cape billowing out from flight. Solaris appeared in a flare of golden light and even still it was a muted radiance next to the shining white wings pinned to Halo's back, flapping powerfully behind them as he touched down on my left. The wings disappeared even as the Executioner stuck a three-point superhero landing that cracked the asphalt beneath his feet.

 

He glared at the top of the building with a fierce scowl. "That was unpleasant."

 

Without warning, scorching dark indigo light bathed the world and buildings shook violently as air pressure increased exponentially. Without a word, we split up in different directions to seek cover. It was lucky we did so because a shimmery force roared around us, knocking me over an overturned city bus while the ground around us was bathed in ethereal fire.

 

Hellfire was heavy stuff that nobody sane would touch. It smelled like sulfur and brimstone and was turbocharged fire drawn straight from the pits of damnation. Reece walked through reddish flame and was the mirror image of the Champion of Soul, except he was wearing that white Forever 21 motorcycle jacket. He looked like an asshole.

 

"You have some balls tackling us head-on," Reece said. The flamestorm intensified around him, his face twisted with an ugly smirk. "I'm almost impressed."

 

The Executioner appeared from behind a building's corner, where he took safety. There was a look of disgust on his as he faced his double. "To wield the mantle of soul is the ability to govern sacred energy, the power of the human spirit to reach unattainable heights."

 

Reece scoffed. "It's also the force to reach new lows." The fire around him swirled and became thicker, a miniature tornado spinning slowly around him, with his gray eyes the only visible part of flesh. "I knocked on Hell's door, and the devil answered."

 

The Executioner shook his head. "You spawned before I discovered, or like rediscovered, this revelation." He held his hands up, and silvery light swirled around his palms, bright and reflective like liquid mercury. I held my breath. "I'm the Champion of Soul, the soldier of life and death. You went beyond the underworld for power, and now you will face judgment by the fires of life."

 

There was a flash of light.

 

Immediately followed by the roaring of a pride of lions.

 

And suddenly a shaft of blinding silver-white light sprang from the cracked street below the fire cyclone surrounding Reece. It shone like the first twinkling of stars in the night sky, thundering louder than a waterfall, and its power made my arm hair stand on end. Then from the light erupted a massive silvery simulacrum of Ryan's fist. The Executioner stretched his hand out, and the enormous hand mimicked the movement, gripping the doppelganger in its floating grip and extinguishing the hurricane of hellfire with a loud hiss. Reece struggled, and the hand squeezed him tight.

 

At the sight of that enormous hand shining like molten starlight, a memory hit me, and I murmured, "Soulfire."

 

It was the antithesis of hellfire, and its power was from the user's own being, everything that made them whole. It was an ability that bordered the Power Creation. This was a power that touched the realm of demigods. It was one of Aurek's advanced skills that he was close to perfecting before the fall of Atlantis. Seeing it now threatened to loose a cascade of memories that I managed to push away.

 

A flare at the corner of my eye made me turn to see Solaris run down the road at full sprint. I had a feeling what was about to transpire, hastily throwing up a shield as Solaris' leap took him over a dozen feet off the ground. His body lit up like the first rays of morning and he turned into a lance of yellowish light wreathed with corkscrewing helixes of gold-white plasma. The living solar flare smashed into Reece like a comet, dispersing the hand and launching them several blocks away. The Executioner raced after them with his glowing fists like a man on a mission.

 

I jumped up to give chase when annoying laughter echoed through the air. From the sky descended Cobalt, walking on air like a staircase, with Axel floating beside him with his arms crossed and expression pissed off. I squared my shoulders and faced him. A shouted warning made me duck in time to see Omega with his sword in hand, a blinding white seven-foot blade. A sedan was flying toward us like a comet, and when it met the sword of light, there was a shriek of protesting metal, a flash of sparks, and then a crash.

 

His mighty weapon had sheared the car in half neatly as if it had been paper instead of steel. The severed ends glowed white hot. "Oathkeeper, this sword was named," Omega said, staring coldly at our doppelgangers. "It was forged to honor my promise to always protect my prince and country."

 

Cobalt rolled his eyes. "Oh, God. Here we go." He looked bored. "Are you about to do one of your for love and justice speeches? Wrap it up, Sailor Moon."

 

Axel snorted. "Okay, that one was funny."

 

I made a face. "Was it really, though?" I gave him a look of pity. "You're on the payroll, aren't you? He paid you to laugh at that."

 

"Laugh at this," Axel growled.

 

The clone made a gesture with his hand, sending a visible pulse of pure force cutting through the air. I raised my arms, calling forth a barrier when Halo appeared before me, his body rippled out beneath a veil of illusion. He thumped his staff against the ground, then there was a whoosh of air and Axel's attack fell apart into nothing. I hadn't sensed the concealment. Halo had been invisible to even my keen senses. The kind of precision that took needed subtle control that often escaped me. Slick stuff.

 

"You're outnumbered. Surrender, I won't ask again."

 

They stared at my brother, warily. "Earth-born Angel," Cobalt whispered softly.

 

I frowned in confusion before remembering the clones spawned before Heaven's Trumpet, Kevin's reveal as Gaius, and his resurrection as the fifth Chosen. With the chameleon wards weaved into our armor, of course, they didn't recognize Halo as Kevin. To them, he was a powerful new foe that they didn't have the measure of. I held back a smile. This was good. The power of surprise was on our side, for once.

 

Axel cocked his head. "Ready for another round of banishment?"

 

"I promise you that won't work again," Halo said. "Countermeasures are in place."

 

Cobalt narrowed his eyes. "And if you try that little escape teleportation maneuver again, I will hunt you down and gut you."

 

I giggled.

 

Everybody looked at me. I blinked, confused. "Wait. Are you not doing a bit?"

 

"Drop him," Cobalt ordered Axel, without taking his eyes off me.

 

Omega held Oathkeeper in a two-handed grip and put himself between the clones and Kevin and myself, his expression dark. I gave my head a quick nod. If it came down to it, Adam could hold his own against his double. A fight between psychics was not only physical but a mental one as well. Adam wasn't at Admerion's level, but neither was his clone; after spending days training with the eldest psychics living in Atlantis, I was confident Adam had the edge in this fight.

 

"Go," I said in a quiet voice.

 

There was a streak of color then Omega was gone. Psi-blade rang on psi-blade, and I saw Axel only barely managed to raise his own blade to parry Omega's devastating blow. Where the weapons of light met the air hummed, and a roiling power shook the earth. A shining aura ignited around their dueling forms, tangible waves of raw psionic energy that resonated violently and covered their bodies in a swirling globe. The power levitated them into the air as their battle transcended into the Astral Plane, where their psychic spirits mirrored the physical actions in the material world. Their song was crackling power and a clash of swords.

 

At the same moment, Cobalt snapped his arms forward, and terrible, smothering darkness came slamming down upon me. Of course, he would attack the moment my full attention wasn't on him, but I was expecting that. I expected nothing less of him.

 

As the darkness came in, I lifted my hand to pour forth my will and a crystal blue sphere formed around my brother and me with a snap. Sparks rained down upon us in a cascade as the opposing energies clashed. This was a battle of power as much as one of will. The insidious darkness flowed upon us and over us like a river. My eyes widened as little by little, my shield began growing smaller. Now only a foot of distance separated my skin from the barrier walls.

 

My brother's voice rang out like a silver trumpet, calling, "Begone shadows of the Undying Realm! Flee before hallowed light!"

 

Halo held his staff high, and from its top, a blinding white fire shattered the darkness around us it as if it had been a dry and dusty eggshell.

 

Cobalt was coming along in the darkness wake, fireballs in hand, but as the shadows fled, he hissed and halted, skidding along the asphalt to bleed his momentum.

 

He cocked his head, appraising Halo cautiously. "Neat trick."

 

"Enough, doppelgänger!" Halo thundered, and his voice rang from the autumn sky. "Enough!"

 

The sheer volume and force in his voice were staggering. I found myself standing closer to him so that I wouldn't be swept up in his power.

 

"Why should I surrender? I have just as much of a right to my destiny if any of you."

 

"Clone, are you not a Summers?" Halo's voice dropped to something almost like a plea. "You have a family that will take you in."

 

"Halo," I growled, low, between clenched teeth. "What are you doing?"

 

"Forgiving him," he answered me, just as quietly. "Cobalt Summers," He said, his tone kind, directed back toward the frozen clone. "Look at yourself. Look at your fury. Look at your pain. Look where they have led you. There is no way you will walk away from this alive."

 

From where he was rooted in place, Cobalt looked up at Halo, I saw something I had never seen on his face before.

 

Tiredness. Stress. Doubt.

 

"You're a protector, Cobalt," Halo said softly. "This descent into the ugliness of destruction and bloodlust. You've hurt and endangered the same people you were put on this planet to protect."

 

Cobalt did not move.

 

I gathered a pulsing orb of condensed antihydrogen in the palm of my hand. If Cobalt took one step, I would annihilate him.

 

Halo lowered his staff, the wrathful fire of the holy talisman becoming something less fierce, less hot. "It's never too late for redemption. Atonement is the path open to you. To right the wrongs of your actions. I understand that being what you are caused you some confusion and anger. Still, I know who you are."

 

"Is that what you're doing now?" Cobalt said in a flat tone, deliberately measured. "Offering to redeem me?"

"I know what awaits you in the afterlife if you continue on this path. I want to save you and the others like you."

 

Cobalt narrowed his eyes. "So you're the angel sent to Earth, to what? Forgive us."

 

"Offer revelation," Halo said. "For a chance at a better path. For a chance to be who you were meant to be." Halo's voice kept its steady, quiet cadence. "I know you too well to ever give up on you. Please. Let me help you."

 

Cobalt's shoulders slumped then he lowered his head.

 

I held my breath, and for a long moment, I thought Halo was going to pull it off.

 

Then Cobalt shook his head and let out a wild and uncontrollable laugh. He squared his shoulders again, and as he did, his body seemed to grow taller. At first, I thought it was a trick of the eye, but he was definitely inches taller, his hair lengthened to gently curl around his ears. It was incredible. He was burning magic to advance his power level. I didn't even know that was possible. The fact that his organs weren't bursting was a testament to his abnormal genetics. I would have thrown a parade.

 

"Touched by an Angel," Cobalt said, contempt in his tone. He looked older now, closer to Emrys' age than mine. "You think we've lost our way. We do this because we're better than them. The strong will always rule over the weak there's nothing unnatural about that. It's the way the world works."

 

"You think this makes you strong, conquering humans? You don't have to do this," Halo said, his voice almost begging.

 

Cobalt laughed, and it was an ugly, grating sound. "I don't think it makes us strong. I know it does."

 

Halo shook his head. "Proving your strength against weaker opponents is meaningless." He held my double with a steady gaze. "So be it then. I meant it when I said, you were a Summers. That family would have opened their arms to you. But it's Autumn. And you and your friends will fall like leaves."

 

Cobalt snapped his fingers.

 

The world turned into hell.

 

There was no warning as the ground exploded beneath our feet, belching geysers of lava. A tidal wave of molten rock washed out in the streets of the city. Skyscrapers burned and cracked as the unfathomable heat of the lava transferred into their structures and melted clean through, destroying anything in its path.

 

I was already airborne, my shield shimmering as flecks of lava fell against it. Halo twisted in midair and floated high above my own position, chanting something under his breath, while sweeping his staff left and right. The waves of liquid death stopped its slog, supercooling into hardened rock, inert.

 

A black lightning bolt suddenly pierced the sky fifty meters beyond where the lava flow stopped, coalescing into the figure of Cobalt, now wearing heavy golden armor with a flowing blue cape and a winged crown that looked like something from Lord of the Rings. It wasn't fair to call him my double anymore since he had unnaturally advanced his age by overloading his cells. He now looked like a man in his twenties. Shoulder length blond hair drifted in the breeze as he floated above the field of battle, surveying the ruined city with dark blue eyes and a cocky smile.

 

"Look what you made me do." Cobalt shook his head as if the destruction saddened him. "This would've made a killer little vacation spot. Oh well, we'll have to put the slave camps somewhere after all."

 

I rolled my eyes. "You look like a dick."

 

I was stalling. The banter offered me time to gather my thoughts. Okay, so shit was definitely about to hit the fan. I hadn't planned for that anime power up. Not even Goku would've seen that coming.

 

As far as plans went, my old one was out the window. I don't know how much stronger Cobalt was now. I still had Halo, so I wasn't totally outgunned here. So priority strategy was to wear him down and figure out what exactly he was capable of.

 

"I'm going to have to agree." Halo descended closer to Cobalt's position. "What cosplayer's wardrobe did you crawl out of? You look like a Youtubber on the way to Comic-Con."

 

The quip drew Cobalt's attention from me. I seized the opportunity immediately. A massive arrow ripped away from my hand as I mimed firing a bow, releasing the store of negatively charged protons and it tore through the sixty-meter distance in under a second. Cobalt's eyes widened as the crackling blue attack was upon him within the space of a breath, allowing for barely enough time to draw upon his well of power to deflect its potential around and away from his person.

 

"You little shit," Cobalt sneered, looking at us with something ferocious pooling into his eyes, even as my positron arrow struck the financial towers behind him.

 

Centennial's tallest skyscrapers were gone in the blink of an eye, replaced by an angry, incandescent ball of fire clawing its way into the sky some fifty kilometers out. I had visited the buildings on a class trip in elementary school. The thought was random and drove home how close to the heart the stakes were.

 

My eyes widened.

 

Fuck me.

 

I didn't account for the aftereffects of that blast. A gale force swept through downtown as a wavefront of compressed air, flattening weaker structures outright and blowing out windows. Halo struck in the momentary distraction.

 

A narrow silver beam suddenly leaped from his staff, carving into Cobalt like construction paper, and ripping him to shreds. His body literally exploded into a cacophony of doves that flocked into the cloudy sky as the illusion destabilized. I was watching the doves' flight trajectory and only just barely sensed the two massive arms swipe at the air where I once hovered.

 

I sailed back out of reach as the gigantic arms, sprouting up out of the magma covered ground, reoriented and came at me once again even as I readied my attack. I swept my hands hard to the left unleashing a rippling crescent burst. The shadowy pulse cut through the arms like a guillotine. That was too easy.

 

Something burning hot slammed into my head and stars exploded behind my eyelids. Disorientated, I fell through the air, and my body screamed in pain when I landed on a rooftop below.

 

I cracked open my eyes to see Cobalt fighting Halo in the sky, where I once occupied. I touched the side of my head, feeling the singed hair there with a wince. It was a miracle whatever attack didn't blow through the armor's damage absorption capacitors. Cobalt made a move with his hand that I recognized.

 

"Halo, nullify the-"

 

I didn't finish the warning before my brother's entire body froze in high altitude as gravity turned against him. Silver fire burned around Halo's fist and then gathered around his staff, eyes boring into his captor's with a promise of pain.

 

"Sit boy!" Cobalt spat.

 

Halo fell like a meteorite. His body shattered apart into motes of light right before cratering into the earth with enough force to kill an average human on impact. All my senses screamed danger, and I swept my hand up as an impossibly gigantic shark, like something from a fairytale, lunged at me from a whirlpool conjured at my heels. Its enormous jaws were incinerated by the pure magical beam released from my palm. I jumped back as it flopped heavily over the edge of the roof.

 

I didn't take my eyes off Cobalt. "So you're still trying to drag this out, huh?"

 

The ground began violently shaking, then a great crack split the earth, spilling silver light as massive chunks of stone jutted up six feet high. Amongst the rocks, Halo was revealed, standing tall on one of the upright spires as the tremors came to an end. His clothes didn't have a speck of dirt on them. He glared at up at my double.

 

Where there had once been even ground, there was now a craggy field of rocks. The landscape had turned into a hard to navigate terrain reminiscent of a war zone. I looked around the rough, jagged ground with a keen eye. I could work with this.

 

Two bolts of hyper-dense water fell on Halo's position. He jumped down into the pit of rocks as the bolts detonated on impact to freeze the spire completely. Cobalt was relentless. His laughter echoed in the quarry as Halo darted between the stones launching attacks with lightning speed. Halo ducked under lances of energy, blocked jets of fire with a translucent shield, and evaded chains of solidified black ice. The clone moved so swiftly that Halo couldn't retaliate without missing him by a mile. It was textbook guerilla warfare.

 

I wasn't a spectator, however.

 

Magic workings that needed a delicate touch weren't my thing. I much preferred the brute force approach, but I had been practicing in Atlantis and relearning Emrys' skills. I intertwined telluric energy and channeled natural electromagnetic forces within the ground, simultaneously manipulating air currents, then gave a mental heave. The magnetic field I was manipulating generated an antigravity effect that lifted sheets of rocks, buildings, cars, and whatever else within the radius. Then it was payback time.

 

It was Cobalt's turn to come under bombardment as I sent every piece of floating debris hurling at his position. He might as well be in the middle of a meteor shower as tons of stone and metal rocketed at him. Silvery orbs shining like twin stars were thrown from Halo's position and into the pit in a storm of devastation. Cobalt weaved around the orbs until they detonated against the chunk of a building, deflecting the other objects and outright vaporizing anything coming too close. Halo lifted his staff delivering pale lightning and evaporating the shield Cobalt summoned, but it only barely singed his hair in the release.

 

The clone lifted his hand when the attack refocused and redoubled. The esoteric lightning struck a gleaming metallic dagger and was redirected harmlessly into the ground, like a lightning rod. Cobalt kissed the blade before hurling it upward at his attacker.

 

Midflight it became a hundred needle thin, purple bolts. They ablated off the energy barrier I called up to protect my brother, like bullets; however, the shield wasn't a complete sphere, and it couldn't stand against the vaporous mist forming under Halo's feet. His eyes widened as ice crawled up his ankles and he muttered a curse. He jumped away from the cloud before it could freeze him solid. Powerful he may be, but Cobalt wasn't omniscient. And small mercies, because he didn't see the power boiling within my grasp like molten starlight. With a gesture, it burned through the air at roughly the speed of light.

 

Cobalt muttered a word and brought his hands together in a clap, and the ghostly image of a gigantic white rhinoceros appeared. Its mouth opened and swallowed the attack without fanfare and then from its opened jaws roared a torrent of blue flame.

 

I curled my fingers and super compressed hard water streaked out to meet the elemental fire. The attacks collided with a hiss creating a cloud of superheated steam that covered the battlefield in a thick cloud of mist, rendering everything in a haze. I blew out a long breath, and the wind kicked up in a strong gale to rapidly clear the smoke.

 

A flash of dark blue eyes was all I saw before a hand wrapped around my throat in a run leap. The momentum carried me back and over the edge of the building. Even in freefall, his grip didn't let up and felt like he was crushing my windpipe. I could not breathe and my scream was a choking cry when my back slammed into a rock spire with all the speed from the fall behind it. White spots flared in my vision as the unbearable pain threatened to knock me into unconsciousness. Cobalt's fingers dug in until he lifted me up until my toes scraped the dirt.

 

"If I'm going to kill you, I want it to be with my own bare hands," Cobalt murmured, leaning in so close our lips were scant centimeters apart. "This isn't a movie. I'm going to rule this planet, and you're going to be six feet under."

 

A blinding white light flashed between us, and holy power blazed forth like a beam searing right through Cobalt's right bicep like warm butter. He stumbled back with a cry to clutch at the bloody wound even as I stumbled a safe distance away to recover.

 

Halo appeared on my side, eyes sweeping over my injuries with concern. "You okay?"

 

"Never better," I panted.

 

My throat felt like sandpaper when I tried to swallow. Anything more than a raised voice was going to hurt like a bitch. Even then it was going to be hard to vocalize spells if words were all I needed—it wasn't. As long as there was a will, there was a way, and these days, I didn't need to announce my attacks so much.

 

Cobalt was upon us just as I jabbed two fingers into the dirt and the already scarred earth split into a wide trench as I flooded the minor fractures in the soil with a spike of magical energy, rupturing their bonds with violent force. My double weaved in between the plums of fire belching from the crag, simultaneously transmogrifying the stone spires and debris rushing at him at high speeds into terrifying projectiles of deep crimson. The heat-seeking napalm numbered a dozen as they accelerated toward our position.

 

In one smooth wave of Halo's staff, the napalm was intercepted by a large slab of rock that grew from the ground like a tree. The resulting explosion sent anything not rooted into the earth flying back as the area was bathed in an intense wavefront of compressed air. We were forced to improvise countermeasures before we found ourselves totally crushed. We were people of mass destruction. It was never more apparent when witnessing our attacks have the same fallout as nukes.

 

The smoke didn't clear before Cobalt was on the move raining fatal fire into the smoky pit of death. Dark eyes gleamed almost gleefully as lances of cold blue sliced through the acrid smoke. The lances carved up the ground as he dragged the beams wide, focus bright in his eyes.

 

He thankfully couldn't see us so I used our lack of visibility to weave my magic. The black smoke gave a sudden pulsation and its billowy form smoothed into a roughly humanoid giant of a creature that was over thirty meters tall with jade eyes filled with life and hatred and darkness. It took up just about all the space in the area that was a little over fifty meters in circumference.

 

Jade light crackled around my fingertips and Cobalt grinned at the sight. "I remember when we thought of this technique." He sighed wistfully, "Memories."

 

"And you'll remember when I kick your ass with it," I said in a rasp, throat killing me with each spoken word.

 

"That's it," Cobalt murmured. "Make me beg for it."

 

The smoke given form was an avatar, and when I swung my fist, the giant's arm followed my movements. Cobalt leaped over the appendage so it smashed into vacant ground with a quake we felt in the soles of our feet. The resulting crater was nothing to sneeze at.

 

If Cobalt was worried, it didn't show. The giant went into attack mode as it copied my moves with devastating effect, and it was visibly noted that its strength was far proportionally greater than that of my own due to its size. It dealt out enormous amounts of damage to the landscape as the clone evaded the blows, but all that was needed was one good strike. One mistake would turn Cobalt into paste, which I was counting on.

 

"Are you trying to miss me on purpose?" Cobalt asked with a laugh, as he neatly jumped away from the foot that demolished the spot he just stood in.

 

I gritted my teeth. "Stay still, you'll get my answer."

 

I kicked out with my foot for emphasis, watching the avatar respond in kind. The giant's left leg flashed out, and Cobalt evaded the kick with ease doing a neat little cartwheel out of the attack zone, merely showing off at this point. His cockiness was something Halo wisely exploited. Thunder crackled loudly enough to shake the air, then a white lightning bolt suddenly pierced the sky. The arrogant bastard saw it coming a mile away. The purifying lightning poured into the empty spot where he was once stood.

 

The initial dodge left his body turned at an angle where he didn't see the second leg of the double roundhouse kick sweep in until it was too late.

 

Cobalt had less than two seconds from seeing death accelerate forward to hastily improvise a defense. The azure shield flared blindingly bright taking a brunt of the attack, but it didn't stop the remainder of the force from lashing into him and sending him careening back into the side of a turned over armored truck, hard. The collision hit with enough power to send a crunching boom of sound echoing through the air.

 

"He's anticipating our attacks," Halo said, watching the spot where Cobalt landed.

 

I nodded. "Cobalt knows our training."

 

My brother's lips thinned. "Then let's bring the rain."

 

Divine and mystical power were unleashed upon the streets, burning the air apart where Cobalt impacted, and the laws of natural order were unmade by arcane and heavenly might. The elements were turned into weapons of mass destruction. The wind became crescent blades of devastating energy, the Earth was a writhing abomination launching crystalline ice shards that flash froze anything on contact, and whole sections of buildings simply ceased as a white firestorm immolated anything it touched.

 

We took stock of the destroyed landscape that looked like the battle zone it had turned into. Off in the distance, I could hear the sounds of the melee going on between the other Chosen and Reece. I didn't approve of going full out like this in the middle of the city. It would be entirely too easy to turn this entire county into a crater. There was no way of knowing the number of civilians within the blast zone. Their deaths would be on our hands. I couldn't live with that.

 

Growling came from the mound of rubble, and the avatar reflected my defensive stance as dirty, blood-streaked hair was seen first amidst the dust and debris. Cobalt emerged with enough cuts and scraps to ensure he was a bleeding mess. His blue eyes were narrowed into two glowing slits.

 

"You've managed to piss me off," Cobalt said, blood trickled down his mouth. "Game time."

 

At his side was that dagger from earlier. His hand was wrapped tight around its dark handle. There was something dangerous about it, almost achingly familiar. It was terrible and old, something more awful than I could name, and it was ruin made into a blade. That knife couldn't be what I suspected. There was no—

 

The air above the avatar wavered revealing Cobalt appearing from under a veil four meters above the giant's right shoulder. Halo and I moved to counter, but the clone already held the knife in its downward stroke. Realistically, I knew there was no way that a dagger could ever do any damage however negligible to my avatar. Yet if my hunch was correct, this knife was an artifact of significant power.

 

Cobalt proved my theory as he fell into the giant with the force of altitude, piercing the knife through the avatar's right shoulder, down through its chest, straight through the torso and clearing the body at its left hip. Cobalt impacted the ground lightly on the balls of his feet in a slight crouch with the knife held out before him.

 

Blue electricity danced within the gash that bisected the giant almost clean in two. It stumbled forward independent from my own movement and then fell straight back, hitting the ground with enough force to carve a deep trench in its wake as it skidded backward over a dozen meters.

 

Cobalt let out a feral snarl and launched a ruby red bolt at the downed giant. It struck at frightening speed and the release of magical energy lit the sky, vaporizing the fallen giant outright in a wash of red light.

 

"The Child Emperor's bodkin," I murmured, naming the deceptively small knife for what it was. I then surveyed the remains of my avatar with a dispassionate stare.

 

"Recognize the power in my hands," Cobalt said calmly as he stared into my eyes. "You've been dicking around on Earth when there are countless stashes of old loot all around this galaxy."

 

Halo growled. He looked disgusted as he too recognized the blade. "Cursed treasure is no bounty."

 

That knife was making me reassess my strategy. I hadn't counted on Cobalt holding an artifact so significant on his person. It wasn't so much what the knife was. Like Caliburn or Gungnir of legends, the weapon was connected to something powerful. I frowned. Well, it was either go big or get our ass handed to us.

 

"I didn't want to have to do this," I sighed. It was an ace in the hole I was saving for when my back was against the wall, but the knife changed things. "Halo could wipe the floor with you, but the collateral damage would be too much and honestly, he's conserving his strength. We have bigger fish to fry than your sociopath ass."

 

The descent of Entropy was on the horizon.

 

I lost a valuable source of power when my pendant turned out to be the Key of Time and Space. It joined with the other Keys and unlocked Heaven's Trumpet. What we eventually learned was the artifact wasn't lost. It was a part of Halo's staff. Its power was one with his now. It took practice and coaching from Oriens' but we discovered I could still tap into that power with Halo's guidance. It was apart of something greater. Thus the strain of maintaining it was worse, and I couldn't wield it for long.

 

Halo said a greater prayer under his breath and his staff began to hum with power.

 

I clenched my teeth as burning energy pulsed just underneath my skin. My hair blew upward in a fierce gust of air, with visible currents of wind blowing around my legs until it covered my body in a controlled cyclone. Pale blue and silver streams of energy crackled around my body as the wind built up so much power that it turned me into a living turbine. I lifted my hand flat revealing the harnessed currents of temporal energy.

 

The sudden influx of power needed an outlet, or it would cook me inside out. The only reason why I hadn't instantly fainted from the stress was that Halo held back the flood of raw power ready to drown me. The whirling temporal blade flew from my hand, and for a moment it seemed like maybe it harmlessly dissipated, but the sound of buildings shattering echoed far into the distance for miles like an omen. I stared coldly at my opponent across the ruined street.

 

"You wanted a piece of me, didn't you? Here I come."

 

The battlefield turned into ground zero.   

 

There was a roar of wind and a terrible earthquake that rocked the streets as cold temporal fire gathered before me in a lance, rushing toward the clone, and digging a trench coated in ice and frost as it sped forth. Streams of darkness and light screamed from Cobalt's knife to meet the onrushing flame, the power of entropic destruction and chronomancy consumed each other in a crack like thunder and a roiling sense of incomprehensible wrongness, leaving reddish cracks spider-webbing out across the air from the contact.

 

The warring energies actually fractured space. It was the kind of damage I had hoping to avoid.

 

An iridescent turquoise ball freed itself from the knife's blade in the Cobalt's grip with violent force, its very launch potential blasting a trench across the crag ridden earth. Wind gathered beneath my heels so that I leaped clear over the ball of annihilation.

 

Cobalt met me in altitude, twisting his body to deliver a punch to my face and kick in the ribs with brick-breaking force behind them. The combo knocked the air from my lungs and drove me into the ground. Cobalt used the kickoff to backflip through the air and land on his feet.

 

"Last words?" Cobalt asked sweetly.

 

I mustered a smile that was Cobalt's only warning before I stormed forth. Temporal blades of severing wind sliced in, putting the clone on the defensive as they crisscrossed the air as intersecting ropes of lethal chrono energy.

 

"Get out of my way," I growled, glaring at the abomination wearing my face.

 

The lines of temporal wind moved independently and suddenly became ropes of violet flame fueled by the heart of time itself. Cobalt was an acrobat of aerial maneuvers as the flaming web threatened to tear him to pieces and decay his remains in one blow. It began raining as a dark cloud blanketed the sun.

 

Getting a second of breathing room, Cobalt sneered. "You're a magical prodigy, but you won't ever be a chrono mage."

 

The raindrops changed pitch, almost like crystal shrieking, and water hardened into sharp icicles with dagger-sharp points. I already had a bulk of my power extended to chronomancy when the projectiles poured in. An improvised shield formed over my head as I ducked for cover under a slab of rock. I gestured to Halo to stay back as I felt him gathering strength. I needed him in reserve. He was protected under a barrier of silver light, lips moving in constant prayer as he threaded his power into me.

 

"Hiding, really?" Cobalt said quite cheerfully, given the situation.

 

He pointed the knife at my hiding place, and the rain concentrated on the spot. Innumerable icicles slammed against the improvised defense and ice solidified into a thick dome at an alarming rate, trapping me inside. The rain stopped. It was over as soon as it began leaving the half sphere with its sharply jutting spikes and me as its prisoner.

 

Cobalt inspected the ice cage with an expression of supreme satisfaction. "I just outdid myself."

 

He touched a finger to the glass-like surface then he cocked his head to listen. Cobalt's eyes widened before he jumped back. At the peak of his leap, the crystal exploded nailing him straight on with a wavefront of high pressure and sending him careening wildly away like a ragdoll.

 

I stood in the snowfall of falling ice flakes, taking in lungfuls of air with my body still shaking from the chill of the cage. Cobalt got back to his feet and sprang at me with the knife. The weapon with its deceptively small blade begged for my blood. I could feel its malicious intent as I dodged the clone's strikes. I didn't even want to think about what the blade would do if it landed a solid cut. I had my suspicions, but there was no way in Hell I was testing them out.

 

A meter long blade of super thick ice streaked in on my blind side. The temporal energy sped up my perception by a factor of ten, and I knocked it off course from piercing me clean through the torso, but its molecularly sharp edge raked my right side above my hip like a buzz saw.

 

"Bitch." I fought the urge to drop to my knees and curl up.

 

The knife whipped in to carve my face up and I fell backward to avoid the swipe. I snarled and gestured with my hand shifting the airflow around Cobalt into nearly invisible coils of razor wire, shooting outward in an explosion while catching the clone like an eviscerating net. The slant at which the wall of high pressured air slammed into him was just under the knees, catching Cobalt flat footed and knocking him off balance. He rode the coils into the ground at their highest strength. The serrated trap cut into the soil violently as the brunt of the attack impacted, forcing Cobalt into the earth with heart-stopping force.

 

"You assholes have no idea what you started," I said coldly. "The Chosen Wars seal would've been fine if you all fucked off to another galaxy and left us in peace."

 

It started as a low chuckle, turned into a rolling laugh, and then blossomed into an overblown cackle that was stereotypical of a villain in every dark fairytale. My eyes widened as Cobalt's knife swiped through the jagged grid of temporal energy that trapped him.

 

"You stand there like a low budget Harry Potter and have the nerve to lecture me," Cobalt hissed, eyes glowing like liquid fire.

 

If the comment was any indication of his mood, then the next sequence of events confirmed it. Cobalt lurched forward, closing the distance at high speed while charging a sphere of subzero ice. He launched the attack forcing my evasion left, where Cobalt's fist met my face making me see stars for an instant.

 

The clone flowed into a combination tagging my torso with a blur of strikes that brought me to my knees. Cobalt lifted his long leg up high and dropped it down into a bone-crushing ax kick that broke my shoulder and slammed me to the ground on my face. Pain was all I knew shredding whatever concentration I had left. The whispers of energy drained from my limp fingers.

 

Cobalt bent and lifted my head up by the hair. He blurred in and out of focus as agony threatened to consume me. "You got some lucky hits in. I'll give you that. I'll have to copy some of those techniques you picked up."

The doppelganger released my hair, and I fell to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. Cobalt shook his head at my broken body, then his eyes narrowed at the sudden silence. The other battles that were going on simultaneously were now quiet. If Cobalt were watching, he would have seen the energy jumping between my shaking fingers. A spiral of cold air snapped into place and lifted me up in the currents until I was standing, exploding in a violent gale that consumed me. Cobalt spun around, and his shock was apparent.

 

"Your mistake was lack of teamwork," I said, steel in my eyes, while the high-velocity winds whipped around me and decimated anything within a sixty-meter circumference. Iron and stone debris rapidly aged with rust and decay as the temporal energy went wild. "We are Chosen, and we're stronger together."

 

Axel's suddenly body fell from the sky exploding into the ground in a splatter of green slime. Omega hovered in the air, victorious, with his hand extended. Cobalt found he couldn't move within the Champion of Miracles telekinetic grip. His eyes narrowed with concentration, and somehow he took a step forward but halted in pain when whips of energized light lashed out to wrap around his legs. Solaris harshly jerked the ends of the whips and Cobalt fell to his knees.

 

A noise that sounded like a shotgun resonated in the air followed by the Executioner leaping airborne above our heads. He threw his black iron ax at the peak of his jump. It cut through the sky like a frisbee. Cobalt narrowed his eyes and spat a word, but Halo was suddenly there at his back to slam his hands upon my clone's temples. I could feel his spell break apart as divine power tore apart his working.

 

The ax struck home in his torso, slicing clean through armor, skin, and organs. He gave a choking scream and tipped over, coughing up mouthfuls of dark almost black blood. The Chosen assembled and stood over the clone. I traded a look with the Executioner, silently asking a question. His nod confirmed his clone was long dead. So this was it. We did it. The taste of victory was bittersweet, knowing what was coming.

 

"I..still...won," Cobalt said in between wet coughs. His teeth were stained with blood. "You'll never... you'll never find it."

 

He wasn't grandstanding. Suddenly I knew it. It all came to me in a sick flash.

 

"You rigged it to go off," I muttered. "Some type of timer or automatic failsafe."

 

Things were looking suddenly fucked.

 

"Die Hard protocol," Halo stared at the rubble, thinking fast. "Reece and Axel probably built it, so it's engineered with Atlantean tech. I'm thinking an enhanced nuke."

 

Solaris' head spun to stare at him. "Did you just say nuke?"

 

I ignored him. "But the question is where, isn't it? It could be hidden anywhere, in any city."

 

"Mmmm," Halo rubbed his chin, assessing the theory. "Probably somewhere with a high population for max casualties."

 

"I agree," I said, then winced. It felt like a stone was sinking in my stomach. "It's what I would do if I were suddenly an evil dick."

 

Nobody moved. It was apparent that we weren't out of the woods yet.

 

"Are you saying a nuclear bomb is about to explode?" Omega asked. He looked paler than he should have.

 

The laugh Cobalt let out was weak, but somehow managed to sound mirthful. "...You killed the only two people... who knew... where it was."

 

Something tugged at me, calling my senses to a strange sensation best described as a tap on the shoulder. I reached out to it, and the air above our heads swirled as an image took shape. It wavered in form, like a bad connection, and I gasped in recognition. The dark tanned skin and light eyes belonged to Desmond Villani. My mother's coworker beheld us with a grim smile.

 

"I'm glad to see all of you again. One last time," he said.

 

Killian looked like he was a moment away from ripping apart the projection. "Who are you? We're kind of on a time crunch here, Zordon."

 

"Sorry, does this help?" Desmond said. His face changed subtlety, with his cheekbones going higher, the ridge of his nose lengthening, the line of his jaw turned sharper, and his eyes deepened into green. It took only a second before we recoiled as we were now looking at Nathaniel's face. The image of our advisor stared down at us.

 

The Executioner put the pieces together before the rest of us. "You're Nathaniel's clone!"

 

Omega's eyes widened. "The cloning gel hit him, too. I just thought it was inactive."

 

"Your clones programming took advantage of your dual identities and overwrote all your moral inhibitions. The programming failed when it came to me. I made peace with my identity long ago. My mission in life is to serve and guide you."

 

I was touched. Even in the face of such odds, our surrogate father was still trying to protect us. "That's why you got close to my mom and worked with her? To watch over me?"

 

He nodded. "And it was the best source of information about the Chosen I could find." I could now see the strain in his eyes, and he appeared forlorn. "I've kept tabs on the clones, and they never knew I existed. Right now the bomb is currently in my possession, and I'm going to get rid of it before it goes off. Call it my last duty as your guardian from the shadows."

 

My heart lurched. "Where are you?" I demanded. "We can help!"

 

"I'm sorry, but this is goodbye."

 

The projection winked out. We didn't get a moment to ponder the escalating situation when there was an explosion in the sky. It was so high in the atmosphere that it only registered as a flickering of angry red and white light. My hands covered my mouth in shock. He must've flown the bomb up into the upper stratosphere, the quickest and safest place to avoid any fallout.

 

"Mother... Fucker..." Cobalt gasped.

 

Then he died.

 

I stared at Cobalt's body, numb with shock. "We won."

 

The beginnings of a faint smile formed on Solaris' face. "Fuck me. We actually pulled it off."

 

It felt like it took years getting to this point, for this victory. The triumph, however, felt hollow because of what it meant and what awaited us. But here and now I want to celebrate this success more than anything. I threw my arms around Omega's neck and kissed him with everything that I was. His arms wrapped tight around me, pulling me impossibly closer. It felt something close to bliss. I wish that I could stay like this forever. From the corner of my eye, I saw the Executioner and Solaris caught up in their own joyful moment.

 

Halo abruptly hissed, "Guys!"

 

I tensed and regretfully left Omega's embrace. It wasn't often that I saw my brother panic. And if Kevin was worried about something, then I was probably going to be terrified. "What's wrong?"

 

His pupils were blown wide with fear. "You don't sense that?" he asked, and his voice came out too fast, words tripping over themselves. "To the east."

 

Close my eyes, I turned my entire senses eastward. I didn't even have to concentrate, it was there blazing across the whole of creation like a giant neon sign. It was Power with a capital P, and it was ramping up like a reactor. The force felt familiar, clean and pure in a way that reminded me of antiseptic soap or bleach. There was something cleansing about it. It was simply divine.

 

"That can't be right," I said, trading a startled look with Halo.

 

The Executioner tapped at the phone in his hands with a deep frown. "It's exponentially increasing in strength and whatever this power is it has a similar frequency to Halo's." He read another result and looked up, reporting, "It's coming from London, near the Thames River."

 

I nodded at my brother. "Halo, beam us over."

 

We could go by Solaris's bubble, or I could've transported us, but both options would've been slower, and I had the feeling we were running out of time. Halo's silver light washed over us, changing our surroundings in the blink of an eye as he moved us smoothly through time and space. We found the new area deserted, small favors. All major cities must be under curfew with Cobalt and the Power Rangers declaration of war still playing on the airwaves.

 

It was night here and we didn't have to search the streets for the terrifying power. I always wanted to visit London, but not like this. Hovering above the Thames in billowing robes of pale cream were a dozen angels. Their wings were fully expanded and they resembled every biblical tale of avenging angels. They hovered there in the sky with a globular mass of what looked like liquid metal writhing in the center of their loose formation.

 

"Raise your hands if this is what you expected to see," Solaris said.

 

The great flapping of wings above our heads startled us into defensive stances. Celeste was resplendent in a gown of silver mail and her gossamer butterfly wings shimmered even in the dark of night. The sadness on her face didn't detract from her otherworldly beauty. She looked at us and then away from the glare on Kevin's face. The Champion of Balance apparently knew what was going on and he didn't like it. At all.

 

"What do you think you're doing?" Halo demanded. "The Freeze is taboo. If you do this the universe itself will retaliate!"

 

The Executioner studied the Voice of They Above All, warily. "What is he talking about?"

 

"My brothers and I are here to oversee the freezing of the Earth," Celeste said, and she sounded honestly regretful. "An eternity in ice is this planet's future. It's the only way to keep Entropy imprisoned."

 

I felt blindsided. This was a betrayal I never predicted. "What? You would just consign us into oblivion without giving us a chance to fight back!"

 

"You can't do this," Omega pleaded.

 

Halo glared. "He's right. You all literally can't do this. Heaven agreed to the Pact, along with the Greater Old Ones, Archon Consciousness, and the Primordials. The freezing violates the Pact, and it's stitched into creation, Celeste. Doing this will wipe you from existence."

 

Celeste frowned. "Perhaps you are too used to this life. You have become weak in your mortal form." She gestured to the city. "If Entropy is freed it won't be just this planet that falls, he will wipe out all of creation. The mortal planes, Heaven and Hell, the Dreamlands, all of it."

 

I shook my head. "It's true, we can't compare billions here to all sentient life in creation." I pointed at her. "But freezing Earth will only postpone the confrontation. The Dread Barriers are broken. Entropy will escape. Give us a chance!"

 

"We fought Entropy with fear and ignorance, never before had we faced an enemy with powers to rival our own," Halo argued. "It's already proven we can't lock him up forever. At least now we will fight with experienced warriors and power we're young enough to use recklessly to win."

 

From behind me, Solaris leaned into my shoulder and whispered, "Dude! He just really shaded us."

 

"Enough," Celeste said, cutting her hand through the air. "Time is too few for last words. I'm sorry."

 

I understood that this was an act of desperation and hopelessness, but it wasn't the way. As long as we still drew breath, there was a chance. It may be small, but we're still in his fight, and we were going to give it our all or die trying. It was a fair assumption that Celeste and her little ragtag harp crew here were the only ones behind Earth's imprisonment; otherwise the entire angelic might of the Silver City would be gathered here. They must be a renegade group then if what Halo said about this being outlawed was accurate. I liked Celeste but if this was how she wanted to play it then so be it. I was going to show her what a Chosen really was.

 

I looked at my friends with a grim frown. "Chosen, fire on my mark."

 

We lifted our hands toward the angels in the sky and that twisting blob of death, now the size of a bus, growing under their power.

 

"Mark!" I shouted.

 

Three things happened at once.

 

In half a second over two dozen pulses with a half-megaton of celestial energy speared the twilight, dispensing beams of white-hot death.

 

The rolling mass of silver dropped from the sky like an asteroid.

 

There was a sickening crack as the limbs of the angels twisted at unnatural angels, their faces frozen in silent screams of horror, like abnormal wax statues.

 

Their entire forms bleached of color. It was like they were photo negative of themselves, then they were simply gone. Dust to dust. It happened between one blink, and the next, and our attacks continued on their paths; only without a target, disappearing into the twilight. There wasn't time to deal with whatever the hell that was. The universe had apparently handled that problem. Now we were left to deal with what had been a silvery twisting mass, that upon contact with the Thames had flash frozen the entire river. The ice looked four inches thick, and it was spreading. Fast.

 

Solaris stepped forward, his hands alive with fire. "I got this," he said, sending bolts of plasma arcing into the ice covering both banks of the river.

 

The incinerating attacks met the ice and fizzled out into nothing. "That's not possible," Omega whispered, clutching a heavy hand on my shoulder.

 

Then I saw it, Omega projected an image into our minds. The had already made its way into some of the buildings, spread quickly by the river. I could see a policeman in a parking lot exit his vehicle, unaware the ice had begun to cover the ground. The instant his boot hit... he froze. Ice jumped onto him like iron onto a magnet.

 

More and more images started to come, and Omega quickly broke the telepathic connection.

 

"Okay," Solaris said faintly. Fear was at the edges of his eyes. "Let's get a game plan going."

 

The ice was crawling at a meter a second now, forcing us to retreat further downrange. Halo stared at the growing frost spreading along the ground. "I'm the game plan," he said, holding his staff aloft. "I'm the Champion of Balance. I rule over karma and judgment. I can leverage that power to annihilate the ice, but..." He looked back at us with a grimace. "I won't have much strength to fight Entropy with."

 

I swore under my breath and turned to the Executioner, who was scanning the anomaly. We were almost a mile out from the ice, and that distance was narrowing.

 

"Ryan, can we destroy the ice ourselves?"

 

"I don't think it's possible." The Executioner looked spooked by the readings he was picking up on his phone. "It's organic and has an adaptive ability that I've never seen before. Our power is useless against it." His eyes widened as he found the data to back up our last Hail Mary. "Halo commands divine energy, which is what it's made from. But he needs to one-shot this. If even one crystal survives it will adapt to his power and make it useless to counter, then it will spread again."

 

"Got it." Halo squared his shoulders, then tilted his chin up. He looked like Prince Gaius. I put my trust in him and also prayed to whoever was listening to help us out. "Divine Reckoning!"

 

Light was not supposed to be so loud, but everyone on Earth heard it. The bright, white wave washed out from Halo like a flood, splashing into everyone it touched as traveled the globe faster than light. The Earth itself trembled and cracked at the seams as Halo's mighty singular act of holy purification sought to undo fate.

 

The light touched the ice that had begun overtaking whole city blocks, freezing even the living in an eternal prison, and where the light reached the ice was shattered into nothingness. Vaporizing in a cleansing pulse that flowed along the horizon.

 

The harshest of winters must end eventually. Even the darkest of nights had to give away to day.

 

It was a new dawn.

 

Halo staggered when the light vanished as quickly as it washed over us. I was immediately at his side, holding him up with an arm over his shoulders.

 

"Hey there, easy does it," I murmured.

 

He looked winded and his eyes were half-lidded, but he nodded and said weakly, "I tipped the scales of fate to destroy the ice."

 

"Save your strength," I consoled him, then chanced a worried look Omega.

 

Solaris shook his head. "We have to change plans if you're not the big gun. There's no way you can get the drop on Entropy like this."

 

I felt a prickling in my shoulders. I looked around the deserted streets we stood in and eyed the dark corners of the buildings. It felt eerie being out in the open like this. We needed to bunker down and come up with a new play because it was suddenly looking like we were running in circles.

 

"It's one thing after another. The clones destroying the fae realm, Centennial, then the angels greater good murder plan." I said, listing off every skirmish with growing dread. Something was off.

 

"All which we won," Solaris pointed out.

 

"Halo's tapped out, isn't he?" Omega said tiredly. He looked at me and I could he was following the thread of logic. "We didn't really win. Entropy is still coming. And the angels lost their lives for an unsuccessful mission."

 

"Or a trap," The Executioner said.

 

Nobody moved. The bigger picture was coming together. We were a small piece on a board.

 

A myriad of emotions warred across Halo's face. "I'm weakened, and now we're out of time." It took a moment to register the mounting fear in his eyes. He was drowning in it. "We hope to save the world, but we'll have to save ourselves first."

 

I couldn't even lay into him for that kind of defeatist talk, because that was when the calamity began.

 

A tall being in tattered black clothing appeared at the bank of the Thames. His skin was blood red and looked like every picture of fire and brimstone, and was the devil made flesh, with a pair great, thick dark horns protruding from his brow and ending in sharp points. Yellow eyes with dark reptile-like pupils beheld us, and I was shaking. The terror was so absolute, so all-encompassing, that it was almost like calm, not suspicion, but the absolute certainty that we were all about to die.

 

Entropy spoke.

 

"I have been where you are. To lose after coming so far, yet still striving to fight. It can be humbling. After spinning in circles for so long, hoping to break the wheel; you have come at last to witness your greatest failure. The death of the universe... Me."

 

His voice was a deep baritone, measured, and there was a weight to it as if he was a titan talking to down to us from his cloud-strewn citadel. I let out a slow breath and looked upon our doom. The end was here.

 

The Executioner gave me an apologetic glance, then he moved. The sound was explosive. His footsteps shook the ground because that was what the high-speed technique was called Thunderstep. I couldn't even trace his movements until he was inside Entropy's guard, battering that massive, muscular torso bared by his open robe. Entropy stepped backward, avoiding the right cross to his chin and grabbed the leg coming in for a screaming roundhouse that would've taken the head off a lesser being. The seven-foot tall being poured into the opening and hammered the Executioner's gut with two hard punches. Ryan gave a choking cry, coughing up blood, and struggled weakly in the monster's iron grip.

 

"Ryan!" Solaris screamed.

 

The sky blazed with our gathered might and Entropy, gripping Ryan by his throat, stared at the energy roiling at our fingertips, and said, "Don't."

 

"Let him go!" I ordered. Solaris was next to me, shaking with worry and so much fury.

 

"You imagine your king of demons in my form. A primal fear originating from your universe's brush with destruction eons ago," Entropy said. "The trauma of it is rooted in humanity's racial memory. Now tell me, am I all you feared?"

 

"Drop him," Solaris said coldly.

 

"Ah, the lover," Entropy said. "You want to fight me so desperately. I will indulge you. Do your worst."

 

Entropy dropped his shoulder and slammed the Executioner into the ground with a sickening, boneless smack. The Champion of Soul still had some fight in him, because he surged upward but Entropy's fist slammed into his face with a chilling crack. I had witnessed the Executioner rip boulders apart with his bare hands and Entropy's punch might as well be as dense as dwarf star matter with the way Ryan's head snapped back.

 

He fell motionless to the ground.

 

Solaris' body burst into twinkling motes of light, then appeared again tumbling through the air behind Entropy's back. Swirling streams of white-yellow plasma gathered around him as he fell from altitude with purpose.

 

I muttered a word and the Executioner slid across the ground to our position. Omega immediately laid hands upon him to heal his injuries.

 

A solid beam carved a trough through the earth as Entropy sidestepped the opening attack, only to be caught dead on with a bolt of white destruction. It detonated against his massive chest, and he stepped backward as Solaris followed the volley with a combination punch battering into his face.

 

I clenched my fists and dirt constructs, mirroring my hands, burst from the ground to grab Entropy's ankles. He shook off the golems like toys, then evaded Solaris' next strike that detonated into a small crater at his heels. Entropy finally brought up his hand and slapped Solaris into the ground with a smooth, unhurried backhand motion. The gesture was almost casual.

 

I lashed out with a rain of pure annihilation. Entropy took the barrage of killing beams head-on. They fell against him like raindrops and turned the ground into smoldering ashes. Solaris hopped up, attempting to thrust a combination kick into the thing, only to watch Entropy sidestep the blow strike, then dart in passed his guard. The tips of Entropy's fingers stabbed into Solaris' stomach in one smooth motion, until his entire fist was buried inside.

 

"No!" I shouted.

 

Halo grabbed my hand tightly and held me in place. "Wait. Look."

 

Solaris stood, whole and unmarred, covered in white-hot liquid fire like a humanoid sun. He jumped away when Entropy stepped toward him, retreating away to a safe distance. The fire washed away and the line in his shoulders visibly relaxed when he saw Omega kneeling over his boyfriend.

 

The Executioner's breathing was shallow, but even, and blood coated his entire lower face. The femur bone in his left leg protruded from the skin, pearly white amongst exposed tendons. It was really fucking bad, but it was better than being dead. Solaris returned his stare to Entropy and his expression was wary now, but no less resolute.

 

"You're beginning to see how hopeless this is. Even in my prison, I steered destiny toward this moment." Entropy looked up into the overcast sky, closing his eyes, somewhat content. He looked back at us with dark, penetrating eyes.

 

Halo tapped my wrist and I saw his fingers tighten around his staff. I just needed to buy us some time. We weren't wholly screwed yet. Stalling until Halo regained his strength was a tall order, but we were out of options.

 

"What is this all for?" I shook my head. "I don't understand why the universe deserves to die."

 

Entropy stared at me with an unwavering gaze, then said, "This universe has a group of beings called They Above All. In another universe exists a similar group and eons ago a calculation was made that a neighbor universe existing in their multiverse would collide with theirs, destroying both."

 

"That kind of prediction can't be precise," Halo argued. "To pinpoint an external annihilation event so far in a universe's existence isn't possible. The multiverse is vast. You don't even know if our universe is the one theorized in the collision, do you?"

 

"And that is why all other universes within this multiverse must be wiped out."

 

There was a stubborn frown on Halo's face now. "What about the Grid? The barrier that separates the universes."

 

"It will somehow be overcome." Entropy sounded so sure of his conviction. "We don't know how, but it is what was predicted."

 

I couldn't keep the incredibility out of my voice. "I'm sorry, you're attempting to kill us all just on the off chance that one day our universe just might, maybe, collide with yours?"

 

"All potential threats have to be eliminated," Entropy said in that heavy tone that sounded like pure dread.

 

"Tell me," I demanded, anger leaking into my voice. "How many universes have you killed?"

 

Entropy didn't answer.

 

I shook my head. "You owe us this."

 

"Owe?" Entropy asked. "I owe you knowing but death. However, the answer is seventeen. Yours will be the eighteenth." He sighed, and there was a long moment before he finally said, "I take no joy in this. I even admire your predecessors for trapping me. They only prolonged the inevitable."

 

Talking was good. Talking was better than killing.

 

I soldiered on. "You have to see this is insane. You're going to be fighting this battle forever in countless universes."

 

"Your First Gods created you to protect your universe. Mine empowered me to destroy others," Entropy said simply.

 

Halo laughed suddenly. It lacked mirth. "We never asked, and you never said. You just appeared and started wiping out entire star systems."

 

Entropy appraised him. "I hold no grudge for the part you played." There was a faint note of respect in his voice. "I remember you. You were a fearsome sight. You faced me down as cut through your squadron at the singing waterfalls of Theta Norvos."

 

"And I remember wondering if you bleed." A look of righteous fury burned in Halo's eyes.

 

"You're welcome to summon your flaming sword once more," Entropy invited him. The skin pulled tight on his face when he smiled, displaying the sharp edges of his bones. "You can try and find out."

 

We weren't ready yet. Omega was still tending to the Executioner and he looked better now, lucid but nowhere near combat ready. Well, everyone knows I had a smart mouth on me.

 

"You know he doesn't have access to his angelic power." I held him Entropy under a steady gaze. "You've been watching and masterminding behind the scenes this entire time, after all."

 

Entropy tipped his head. "The Dread Barriers were troublesome, but no prison is foolproof. My reach could be felt throughout history."

 

"There has to be a better way. We can find a way to save your universe."

 

"Save your breath, brother," Halo said quietly. "He has his marching orders. He's had eons to come up with a better solution, and like it or not, it's our universe's death that he's come up with."

 

"You see now," Entropy said evenly. "I know you think I'm ruthless, but I am saving lives."

 

I narrowed my eyes. "At the cost of trillions!"

 

"It is better this way."

 

"You're insane," I muttered.

 

"Life isn't fair." Entropy flexed his hands, causing the thick veins to jump out along his deep red skin. "You who have lost a parent early, in both lives, know this better than most."

 

It felt like getting hit by a car. I froze. Not from fear this time. "What did you say?" I asked softly.

 

"Casualties of my manipulations." He looked at me without remorse. "You should be grateful. That loss shaped and made you into the leader you are."

 

There was a ringing in my ears. It was like a bomb had gone off. I felt off-balance like I had gotten knocked around and stood back upright. Memories of my mother from my last life flashed in my mind. Soft memories of a woman with a gentle smile and warm eyes raced behind my eyes. Queen Lilandra. Tears pricked my eyes as I thought of my dad. The one in this life with his strong hands and easy laughter. His hugs I missed most of all.

 

I hadn't realized I took a step forward until Halo's hand gripping my wrist stopped me.

 

"Chad," he said warningly, eyes pleading. "Don't."

 

My heart was pounding and cracking slowly like glass. The grief and loss felt fresh, hitting me all over again. I looked at him and said, my voice breaking, "He killed my dad."

 

That was all the warning Entropy had before I struck.

 

A small typhoon was birthed into existence in a crescendo of incredible green light. Waves of magical power poured forth as I dispersed blazing meteors that descended from on high, burning the aether apart with their presence.

 

There was a deafening explosion as Entropy punched through the falling meteors like snowflakes. Lightning fell against his red skin as he stood the brunt of hurricane-force winds that blasted across his position. The ground shook as crystalline lava bathed him in a fiery spray. It was one natural disaster after another back by the terrifying power that I called forth, splintering the ground and burning the air itself.

 

Nothing seemed to stick on him. He merely battered aside deadly blue rays, stomped out geysers of sentient black flame, and sidestepped blades of vacuum energy from zero space.

 

I wasn't alone.

 

Supercharged plasma rain down upon him in a shower. Solaris did something with his hands that collected the plasma that fell around Entropy's feet into a boiling pit of incineration. Entropy stood in the middle of the field of devastation like I was a warm summer's day, while the world around him burned.

 

Entropy looked at me through the storm and smiled.

 

It pissed me off.

 

"Fuck you!" I shouted, then began the spell I crafted in Atlantis.

 

The air around us wavered subtly as the Chosen shielded the area. They must have an inkling what I was about to do. England was the perfect place to cast this spell. I cupped my hands and raised them skyward.

 

"A resting crown, a sleeping king, seven towers, spinning wheels, flying on fluttering wings of jade, carve a shooting star into the sky."

 

The legend of King Arthur with his city of Camelot and band of faithful knights was legendary. It was told in many forms and people grew up believing in the tale, especially here where remnants of that halcyon kingdom remained. There was power in that. I harnessed that faith, calling it forth with magic, and binding it with my will.

 

Above us appeared a glowing, golden greatsword as tall as Big Ben that rose in the distance. It made the air vibrate in anticipation. It was majestic, it was glory, it was Excalibur.

 

I glared at the murderer of my parents, in this life and the last. "Go to hell." I brought my hands down as if the sword hilt was in my hands. "Arthur's Decree!"

 

Excalibur came down, shaking the air with its passing, and Entropy didn't move. The force of the strike was enough to reduce him to fine mist. The destroyer of universes caught the massive, otherworldly blade by the edge, creating a trench as the momentum behind the blow sent him skidding backward.

 

"Just die already!" Somebody wailed, fearful and high. Killian.

 

I didn't have anything left to pour into the attack. Entropy stopped the blade cold and with a grunt heaved it back along its trajectory. It broke the shield like a rock thrown through a window. The greatsword was launched into the sky reminiscent of a rocket where it shattered into countless golden flakes.

 

They fell down upon the city in a dreamlike wash of color. I closed my eyes as the flakes touched my skin and disappeared like tears in rain. It felt a lot like failure.

 

"What did you gain?" Entropy's deep voice echoed in the still of the air. "For what it is worth. You have my respect, Prince."

 

Then all I knew was intense pain. Somehow Entropy had closed the distance between us between one blink and the next. I didn't even see the blows hammering into my rib cage, but could feel the bones bend and crack sickeningly. I couldn't breathe. The pain was so sudden that I didn't even notice I was being lifted off my feet.

 

Entropy held me above his head with both of his arms like a trophy. I could feel his large hands grip onto my body, and I struggled weakly, sensing something terrible was about to happen. I was suddenly brought down with my back slamming into his massive knee. A board of wood would break from such action, and my back was no different. There was an unbearable pressure upon my spine and fire exploded through my nerves, then I was tossed carelessly to the ground where I bounced once and then rolled to a stop.

 

There was an explosion that made my ears ring.

 

I blinked back tears to see a crater in front of me where Entropy once stood. It was like someone had taken a giant scoop and torn out a section of the earth. Then Omega was there and gently cradling my face with his hand. I groaned sort of deliriously, tasting blood in my mouth. My legs were numb.

 

"Shit shit shit," Omega muttered, touching his hands to my body. "It's going to be okay. I promise."

 

I looked into Omega's distressed face and tried not to panic. "I..." I started coughing on blood. "I can't feel my legs."

 

My vision was going gray at the edges so I had to focus hard to see Halo and Entropy facing each other across ten paces of rubble. I tried to put the sequence of events together, but my thoughts were foggy. Adam must have torn out the ground with his power, launching Entropy away to give us some breathing room. Halo then diverted his attention in a followup action.

 

"Heaven's Trumpet was created because of you," Halo said quietly. "I suppose I always knew one day it would come to this."

 

Entropy took a long at the desolate battlefield, and then Halo, dark eyes gleaming. "Then let there be a reckoning."

 

"I'll drag you outside of time itself before I let you hurt my brother again."

 

"Sentiment," Entropy shook his head. "I would pull you with me if only to watch the look on your face when I find a way back and slaughter him.

 

"Then, we go together. It'll be a millennia before you escape." Halo faced him without fear, lifted his staff and whispered, "Pillars of dawn and dusk, shine forth the path of nowhere."

 

Entropy started to smile.

 

"Gates of Eternity!"

 

From the lowest valley to the tallest mountain peak, there came a rumbling noise, like the sound of a series of tumblers unlocking. Between them appeared the shape of a pair truly massive double doors reaching eight stories high. Upon the gray doors sitting in the heavy framework were etched strange symbols of glyphs and pictographs, similar to constellations. Slowly, they began to open, emitting a dismal dark purple light.

 

"You have my thanks," Entropy said.

 

Halo frowned. "What?"

 

Entropy launched himself at Halo. It was like a lion leaping upon a gazelle. It happened in a flash he had both of Halo's wrists in the grip of his own large hand. Halo struggled wildly; he bent at the waist and kicked Entropy in the stomach then braced his legs against his chest to push free, grunting with the effort. Entropy barely seemed to notice. Then he squeezed the hand that gripped Halo's wrists, and they bent and broke, bones breaking the skin and his staff fell from now limp hands. I tried to move to help him, but Omega held me down, moving his hands from my ribs to my back now.

 

Entropy leaned in very close and said, voice carrying, "Congratulations, you just help me destroy this universe."

 

Blinding yellow beams from Solaris splattered against Entropy's back, and the monster ignored them. Halo didn't cry out from the pain. He pulled his wrists to his chest and stared up with squinting eyes. "No, that's..."

 

"There are only three ways to destroy the universe." He chuckled deeply. "One is to destroy all the Prime Points." He bent down and picked up Halo's staff. "But that takes years, and I'm already running behind schedule. Next, you can try and wait for Armageddon." He looked at the doorway that was halfway open now. "You more than anyone knows how that can be averted."

 

The gate was opened now, and beyond it, outside the ordered universe, we looked upon the ethereal lighted void beyond space and time. There, swirling dark clouds brimmed with endless lightning, amongst sheer dark cliffs that fell into forever, where entropic eddies of glowing ooze writhed.

 

I could feel my toes now. I grabbed Adam's cape and tugged it roughly, yanking him down until we were face-to-face and growled, "Stop him. Now."

 

"But the easiest way you will find." Entropy beheld the gate in satisfaction and said without taking his eyes from it. "Is to rupture time."

 

Then with both hands, he twisted and snapped Halo's staff in two.

 

All Hell broke loose.

 

There was an ear-piercing noise the likes of which I have never heard before. It was unnatural and madness, a single note that could only really be described as disharmony. The light emitted from within the gate turned green and black. The doors vibrated in its heavy framework then was sucked into the green and black light shining within, disappearing into that gaping maw, along with the framework. Free of its structure the jagged scar in the air hung there on the otherwise blue horizon.

 

"Entropy!"

 

Omega soared toward the being, bringing the glowing blade of his sword to bear. Midflight, he gripped it in two hands and brought it down for a lethal strike upon the thing's horned skull, but Entropy spun on a heel and snatched the blade with one hand catching Omega around the throat with the other.

 

He held Omega with a dark look. "Pitful."

 

Without another word, Entropy tossed him through the tear in time.

 

I stopped breathing. Everything felt like it was happening too fast. It didn't seem real. My mind had become a broken copy of itself, nothing made sense; the knowledge kept falling apart when I tried making sense of it. Something unspeakable had happened, but it hurt to try and make sense of it. Somehow the world as I knew it was no longer there. I wanted to give into the hungering darkness at the edges of my vision and never wake up.

 

The board was clear, and all that was left was its King.

 

Checkmate.

 

We lost.

 

I wondered how Ryan and Killian were doing, but I couldn't grasp the strength to search them out through the destruction. My brother, with his broken wrists, met my eyes. Two princes of Atlantis, wrecked, on the ground and beaten. What a sight we made.

 

This must be what the angels felt during the Last Great War. Victory was a longshot dream against an enemy that shrugged off attacks like a mild breeze. I was exhausted and tapped out. I suppose that was his plan all along. I hated it when they were smart, but he had been planning this moment before we were even born. Eons of preparation, of circles within circles, and now the final act was playing out.

 

A thunderous boom resonated in the air.

 

A red streak shot forth from the sky like a bolt of lightning onto Entropy.

 

Entropy and the bolt of light struck the ground like a hammer. I fell over off balance as the earth splintered and cracked where the destroyer landed.

 

I slowly recovered and managed to shakily stand with a grunt of pain. A shattered riverbank greeted me. The area around the Thames was nothing more than a cratered trench with the water diverted into like a lake. The remnants of the bridges and buildings of the surrounding cityscape were little more than ruins.

 

Omega stood at the edge of the crater, wearing a pristine white cape that fluttered in the breeze. His armor was similarly colored and adorned with scarlet red piping at the edge of his collar, boots and cuffs.

 

Omega looked back at me, his eyes glowing like twin stars. "Hey."

 

It seemed like a dream. If so, I didn't want to wake up. "Adam?"

 

"I saw planets emerge and collapse, empires wither into dust," he said softly, turning to watch as Entropy floated up out of the crater, water dripping down his body with an assessing expression on his face. "I walked out of time, to the very end of existence, and stared back. I understand now."

 

Distracted by the sheer mind-blowing revelation, I asked faintly, "Understand what?"

 

"Everything."

 

Entropy's eyes widened and for the first time, uncertainty crossed his face. "You've reached the Omega Point."

 

Space behind Entropy bent outward, and I barely caught sight of space far behind Omega bending inward, then there was a sudden vague pressure of air molecules snapping with shocking force, and reality warped in a flash of white light.

 

The city of London was replaced by a field of purple grass, and looming above was an enormous red sun turning the sky shades of crimson. Entropy and Omega faced off in the same positions on the alien world. Solaris, Halo and the Executioner were beside me now, and we immediately closed in together.

 

Halo studied the surroundings with a thoughtful face. "We're on Ambrosia? But that's in the Borson Galaxy."

 

"The energy it would take to teleport us all astronomical," the Executioner muttered.

 

Omega smiled, not taking his eyes off Entropy. "I can even see you're curious." He began. "I'll keep it as simple as possible. I perfectly calculated the mass of the space in front of me and behind me, and then performed a really advanced math equation to set the mass behind me much higher, and set the mass of the space in front of me into outright negative terms."

 

"Negative... mass?" Halo tried to wrap his head around the idea.

 

"The mass difference allows a continuous movement to ride a wave of collapsing space at two or three times the speed of light at the lower end, and hundreds of billions at the higher." Omega continued. "What's really ridiculous about this is that there's no real energy expenditure involved-" He laughed a little. "Algorithmic imaging is little more than a compilation of mathematical equations so advanced they have a tangible effect on reality itself. Of course, there's a slight problem with that." Omega brought his thumb and index finger close together, but not quite touching. "Namely, rewriting reality with math has hellish effects on causality, so I have to actually pump power into physical canceling laws to convince the conversation of energy to look the other way. The entire process from start to finish only took a minuscule fraction of a second."

 

Entropy didn't look impressed. He crossed his arms and shook his head. "With your new knowledge, then you see exactly how futile this is."

 

Omega's shining eyes narrowed. "The extrasensory ability I possess tells me more than you know. I can count the number of blades of grass on an island on the far side of this planet. And looking at you with that same powers tells me your skin is made up several layers, getting exponentially denser as you get deeper. Harder than aluminum alloy, but flexible and has some type of nullification component in the cells. You were designed, someone created you."

 

"Shut up," Entropy said, hands tightening into fists.

 

Omega continued. "It would take fifty trillion atmospheres of pressure to overblow your null ability in your skin and damage you." He shook his head. "No wonder you can shrug off attacks."

 

Entropy apparently had enough. He rocketed toward Omega with an ominous growl. His hulking body visibly warped. It wasn't a trick of an eye. A swirling point of dark black light pulled him backward, dragging him and all of the space behind him, toward the single point.

 

"A directed singularity," the Executioner whispered, entranced.

 

I did a double take. "Like a black hole?"

 

Entropy did some type of flip in the air that sent him barreling into the ground. He dug his hands into the earth, holding on as the singularity seemingly amplified. A savage wind blew through the field, and yet we seemed to be protected. Omega watched Entropy with a speculative gleam in his eyes. The singularity faded from existence, and Entropy quickly jumped to his feet.

 

A semi-visible hexagonal gridlock shield covered our position, then Omega stared at us and said calmly, "Prepare for antimatter explosion backlash."

 

There was a split second before a titanic beam of energy was unleashed, and then everything exploded.

 

I've been through many explosions before. This was something even more violent. It left a bloodshot afterimage on my retinas. The ground wouldn't stop shaking. It felt like the planet was about to crack open to its core. Fire and thick clouds of gray dust were everywhere. I hardly recognized the devastating plain the fields had become. The first thing I noticed the mountains in the far distance were outright vaporized, turned to subatomic dust, by the apocalyptic deluge of energy that thankfully was held at bay by the incredibly efficient defense Omega managed to form around us before the blast.

 

"What the fu-" Solaris trailed off, staring.

 

We all did.

 

Impossible as it was Entropy had survived the cataclysmic attack that was even now breaking the planet apart around us. The outer layer of his skin was simply gone. Muscle tissue was exposed, oozing a tarlike ichor resembling blood, and the bones of his arms glowed red hot, from where they crossed in a defensive position in front of his face. Behind him the ground was a vast canyon that was so deep I couldn't see the bottom, continuing on miles into the horizon, the destructive shockwave was still spreading across the planet.

 

Entropy lowered his arms. Most of his face was a gore of melted skin and one his eyes had boiled within its socket, leaking thick mucus down his mess of a cheek. I shared a stunned look with Halo and something like hope was clear in his eyes.

 

"This doesn't matter," Entropy spoke, his voice was hoarse but full of promise. "The rupture in time will rip reality apart. Your universe is doomed."

 

"Then let's end this." Omega brought up his hand, fingers clenched. "Be destroyed by the very universes you've killed. Behold the Grid! The fabric of pure energy that separates all universes."

 

It wasn't a beam or ray of anything of the likes. The very fabric of space was torn apart inside of Entropy. Tight lines of blinding white light appeared crisscrossing Entropy's entire body like a net, thin fiery blades of silent destruction. I turned away as the light intensified, brighter than the sun by several orders of magnitude.

 

When I opened my eyes, our surroundings had changed again. We were back in London and Entropy's neatly bisected body was falling to the ground. And in the air, the rupture in time was now a large hole in the sky the size of a city bus. It was unnatural and my senses screamed danger and to run as fast as I could.

 

"I don't suppose anyone has a plan for that?" I asked weakly.

 

Halo frowned heavily. "It's going to spread across all of time, cracking the past and the could've been future, and when that happens, we won't have ever existed."

 

"Unless I seal the breach," Omega said.

 

"Remind me to stupidly kiss you when we're not all about to never have existed," I said and then narrowed my eyes suspiciously. "This isn't going to involve some heroic sacrifice, is it?"

 

"Nothing so drastic."

 

He smiled at me, that sweet smile that I loved, and it was positively radiating with his shining eyes piercing me with their otherworldly brightness. Omega gestured at the broken pieces of Halo's staff that lay where they fell, which seemed like a lifetime ago, and they shot up into the air to obediently hover before him.

 

"The gears of quantum physics has been broken. Time is an unforgiving force and hates to be meddled with," Omega said, tracing symbols into the air. It was an equation, I realized. Only one so complicated that I couldn't begin to make sense of it. The numbers and symbols hung in the air, blazing white fire. "It can be appeased with sufficient actions."

 

The glowing algorithm suddenly merged with the broken pieces of Halo's staff. Flowing into a new shape like it was being reforged, and I suppose it was. It became a six-foot-tall spear, pale as milk glass topped by three gleaming prongs of adamant.

 

"Vigilance is the Spear of Eternity and the Swaying Way to Peace," Omega proclaimed, grabbing the new weapon with both hands and thrusting it toward the crack in time and space, that was our doom. "The Omega Point was not mine to reach in this lifetime. I took the promised future, and now I give it back because Time is owed."

 

A terrific wave of power surged upwards, leaving us untouched and the portal trembled.

 

And then, high above Centennial, a fantastical image of time itself being healed was witnessed: fate was rewoven, gears turned once more. The temporal imbalance was repaired by the promised power of humanity's future. The rupture sealed as the seems of the hole in the fabric of cosmos fused together, wholly anew. The dark clouds above were torn asunder by the backlash, spiraling off in all directions, bathing the city in dazzling sunlight.

 

We stared.

 

The power tapered off, and Omega fell to his knees, utterly spent. We rushed to his side, and several city blocks lay in wrecks all around us.

 

"Adam!"

 

He smiled into our faces, slightly dazed, but it was genuine. "I feel all floaty inside," he muttered, then tugged a piece of my hair above my ear. "Gorgeous."

 

His eyes were normal again. I couldn't help but laugh. It felt like the first real one in years. "Someone needs a nap."

 

The Executioner clapped him on the shoulder, beaming. "He deserves it."

 

"Anyone want pizza?" Solaris asked, perking up. He looked positively giddy. "I'm buying."

 

My eyes lit up. "Not going to lie I could eat an entire buffet right now."

 

Halo's eyes were wet, and he sent me a trembling smile. I reached over and squeezed his hand. This meant a lot to him, maybe more than all of us. The being that had slaughtered many of his friends and loved ones was dead. The universe was going to survive, and it was due in part to the sacrifices of all the ones who came before us.

 

I wrapped one arm around my brother, and the other went around my boyfriend. Solaris and the Executioner were on Omega's other side, supporting him. I grinned and said, "Let's go home."

 

***

 

We settled on pizza, in Italy.

 

Then we all ended up crashing together at Nathaniel's place. None of us wanted to go home. Not yet. Our houses were still empty because of the evacuation, and people were still either in shelters or had entirely left town. Some of those people, like my family, were in the Dreamlands for sanctuary until we brought them home.

 

I slept like a baby, falling into easy dreams filled with laughter and sunshine. All my worries and burdens had been laid to rest. It was like I could finally breathe again. I woke up before anyone else. The others were arranged in various positions around the living room, sleeping where they fell after our impromptu celebration.

 

I untucked myself from Adam's side, lifting his arm and getting up from the lounge we laid on. He frowned in his sleep just a little and I kissed away those lines until they went smooth and his body pliant. I stood up and tiptoed toward the large bay windows, grinning at Kevin sprawled on the floor below the couch Killian and Ryan were cuddled on.

 

A glance at the grandfather clock confirmed it was late afternoon. We had been sleeping for a little over twelve hours. I looked out the window upon the green lawn and the clear sky. Minutes later, a pair of arms wrapped around me from behind, and a familiar weight pressed against my back.

 

Lips touched my ear and Adam's warm voice whispered, "I got lonely."

 

"I figured you were going to sleep all day, rock star," I replied, unable to resist my lips from tugging into a beaming smile. I was so freaking happy. It was ridiculous. "I thought we agreed you were going to take it easy."

 

Adam hummed under his breath. "Are you trying to get rid of me?"

 

"You've figured out my dastardly plan," I murmured.

 

He placed a tiny kiss against the pulse point of my throat. "Oh yeah, do I get a prize?"

 

"You guys do realize we're here and can obviously hear you?"

 

I glanced around Adam to see Kevin, sitting in an armchair and wrapped in a blanket, with a highly amused expression. "What point are you trying to make?"

 

Killian yawned, lifting his head from Ryan's shoulder. "He means to get a room, perverts."

 

Adam made a show of looking around. "Is that not what this is?"

Ryan sat up on the couch and maneuvered Killian, so his boyfriend's head now lay in his lap. "I assume that means you're better. No lingering effects from the Omega Point?"

 

"Aside from this?" Adam tugged a lock of snow white hair above his right temple.

 

Killian shrugged. "You're gay. Everyone will just think you dyed it."

 

"Tactful," Kevin muttered.

 

I rolled my eyes. "I think it makes you look dashing."

 

"Just like Rogue from X-Men," Ryan pointed out.

 

"I knew you were a fan," I said triumphantly.

 

Adam snorted, then squeezed my waist before letting go. He leaned back against the windowsill and said, "It's just hair. I don't feel anything but a loss." His eyes, no longer those twin stars of fire and ice, looked distant, and melancholy slipping into his voice. "I saw entire worlds born and die all in the same moment, every war ever fought, every calamity, every high and low. I stood at the edge of the universe and wept. The whole of reality was in the palm of my hands." He frowned, staring down at his fingers. "Now it's all gone. All that knowledge and incredible beauty. And I would give it up all over again in a heartbeat."

 

Kevin rubbed his lip, gaze thoughtful. "So that's humanity's future."

 

"A billion little moments, in millions of years, and the stars will shake."

 

I glanced at Adam. "So, you saw the future?"

 

"No," he said. "Time isn't linear. The present is still happening and so the future is still changing, constantly in motion, nothing is set in stone except the past."

 

"Fascinating," Ryan said. He carded his fingers through Killian's hair, drawing a smile of contempt from him.

 

Killian turned into Ryan's hand and mused aloud, "It's crazy to think about, but I think we're done."

 

"As much as I hate to agree with Killian," I grunted and grinned at his exaggerated glower. "He has a point. We pretty much punched every hole in our big bad villain card."

 

Kevin shook his head with a little, wondrous smile. "Peace. I wonder what's that like?"

 

"Sounds like a dream," Ryan sighed.

 

I tugged at Adam's wrist a little. "Looks like you might get to enjoy your senior year without worries."

 

"Oh yay," Adam deadpanned. "Finals, essays and prom."

 

Killian sat up and pointed at him. "Don't knock prom. I have it all planned out, and we're taking pics beforehand for social media. I already have a camera and makeup team booked."

 

We all stared at him.

 

"What?" He asked, cocking his head. "If just one of those posts goes viral we're probably getting booked on a talk show. We're gay teenagers going to prom, folks will eat that up. Who knows what type of sponsorships we can swing from that social media currency."

 

Kevin snorted and Adam shook his head, chuckling.

 

"Okay, now that makes sense." I met Ryan's exasperated stare and admitted, "I almost thought near death made your man sentimental."

 

Ryan raised an eyebrow. "Don't let him fool you. He has a heart drawn around the date on his calendar."

 

Killian rounded on him. "You know I can sue for defamation, right?"

 

"Anyway," Kevin interrupted, smiling at Killian sweetly when the glare was turned onto him. "What are we going to do about the fallout with the Power Rangers?"

 

I grimaced. "The masses probably still think Cobalt's countdown is in effect. Maybe we should do an iOS press release and upload it to IG like all the celebrities do?"

 

This time they all stared at me.

 

Adam cleared his throat. "I vote we don't say anything. Once they see that nothing has happened past the deadline, they will move on and call off the terror alerts."

 

"That's not a bad call," Ryan agreed.

 

Killian shrugged. "It's not like they've needed our assurance before. The authorities will just make up some bogus excuse like they always do, and everything will go back to normal."

 

He had a point. There had been numerous occasions where humanity faced extinction only with being saved by us at the last minute. Even in the face of such catastrophes, they still managed to explain the trauma of it away with some rational explanation. It was mind-boggling the way the human mind tended to cope with such insurmountable odds.

 

It was decided to call a break for now. We spent way too long worrying about the fate of the world. Now we all just wanted to take time for ourselves. I immediately grabbed Adam's hand and made our way outside. It was the middle of autumn, but the weather hadn't turned yet, this was southern California after all. The lake nestled on the west side of the house was a quiet place, and where I often came to think. We strolled along the path holding hands and basking at the quiet moment.

 

"I thought I lost you earlier," I said quietly. I just barely managed to keep my voice from shaking. "The shock didn't even hit me, because I thought I was joining you next. You saved all of us."

 

The pad of Adam's thumb traced the back of my hand. "Everything in my life in hindsight feels like it was leading up to that."

 

I looked out over the lake waters. "We were each gifted a particular skill set. It's not outside the realm of possibility that the First Gods knew from the very beginning we would fight Entropy."

 

Adam shook his head and then said wryly, "And now, after all that, the most life-changing thing I have to look forward to is seeing what college I get into."

 

"The savior of the universe and future theater major. This is the gay agenda," I proclaimed, poking him in the side.

 

He grabbed my fingers, and I didn't even see him move. The next thing I knew he was tickling me under my arms and I screamed like a final girl in a slasher film. Adam was some kind of tickling ninja. He only released me when I licked the side of his face like that one Pokemon with the fat tongue.

 

Adam wiped out his face, trying to look stern, but his grin gave him away. "Real mature, baby girl."

 

"I'm just trying to match your energy." I batted my eyelashes at him.

 

We couldn't help but burst into laughter. Adam's face sobered, and he looked at me with such fondness that it made my own laughter die off. He reached out and laid his fingers on my left cheek, gentle and featherlight. He looked at me like I was the only person in the world.

 

"I'm really going to miss you next year."

 

It felt like someone reached inside my chest and squeezed my heart with a humongous hand. "You have a boyfriend I can teleport in you confide at supersonic speeds. California to New York, piece of cake."

 

"Still," he replied, biting his lower lip. "The next four years without you by my side every day, I won't ever get used to."

 

I tapped him on the nose, smiling at him warm and sure. "Four years of being a part compared to the rest of our lives together is nothing. We've already bonded soul to soul, practically married by Atlantis customs."

 

Adam grinned rather ruefully, scratching the back of his neck. He was giving the full force of his puppy eyes, all with floppy hair hanging into his face adorably, and I wanted to just kiss him and not stop until we were both dizzy.

 

"Then I suppose it's up to me to study hard for our future."

 

"I like the sound of that," I said softly, barely able to speak through the bursting feeling building between my lungs.

 

Imagining the future with Adam and my friends, growing up and living full lives was a secret dream of mine. It was the future denied to Emrys, and I wanted it fulfilled more than anything. After everything and how far we have come, it felt like a reward. We deserved peace.

 

I gave in to the urge, tipping forward and then we were kissing. His lips were smooth and warm against mine. There was a hot rush in my chest, spreading out into my limbs, rolling down my fingertips where they're wrapped around Adam's arms like they were the only thing tethering me to the earth. I felt hot all over, breathless.

 

I moved back when Adam tried to deepen the kiss, meeting his eyes. I wanted more and was ready to have it all right here and now. Adam's face was flushed, his hair was sticking up in all directions and his eyes were dark with arousal. A slow smile was aimed at me as if he knew exactly where my thoughts were taking me. Then he pulled me back in, softly, slowly, taking his time to open my mouth, sliding his tongue over every inch of my lips.

 

Adam suddenly froze, clenching the fabric of my shirt into his fingers. "Something's wrong," he said faintly.

 

Before I could question it, a loud electronic siren broke us apart.

 

We were panting from the heat of it all and the surprise of interruption. Adam looked adorably bewildered to not be kissing anymore, pulling out his phone from his pocket at the same time as me. There was an emergency alert notification displayed. We traded looks as something like dread began to sink into my veins, dousing any arousal like winter ice.

 

Before I could review the notification, Kevin appeared in a flash of silver light and momentary sound of fluttering wings. He sighed, rubbing a hand over his too pale face. He looked upset and more than that, defeated.

 

I immediately felt so goddam tired and knew, without a doubt, something terrible had happened. "What's going on?"

 

Kevin shook his head and just said, "You have to see."

 

He made a gesture and that divine power rolled over us and spirited us into the Command room in the outpost below the mansion. The first thing I noticed was the screen above the central console. It didn't make sense at first. It was showing a view of large white structures that slowly gained familiarity the more I stared until it made sense. My knees shook and I gripped onto the console. It was the Eiffel Tower that I recognized first. The famous landmark was covered in a thick layer of ice. Only glimpses of wrought-iron gray and the general shape were visible underneath the cover.

 

"How?" I asked shakily.

 

I felt my bones turn to lead and I looked beside me at Ryan and Killian. They held hands and their expressions was an echo of my own feelings. Mounting horror and fear warred until I felt my entire body begin to combust with it.

 

Ryan reached over and pressed a button the console. The screen split into three revealing the iconic Berlin skyline, along with London, and both of the cities were frozen like Paris. He sighed heavily, wearily, like the sun was never coming out again.

 

"It's faster this time and spreading rapidly across Europe," Ryan said softly. "It's jumped into the Atlantic ocean and will reach North and South America within the day. We're talking around twenty-four hours or less until the Earth is fully frozen."

 

Kevin growled low in his throat. "This is Entropy's doing. I just know it. It's just like him to have the last laugh."

"It's possible." Adam clenched his fists and stared thoughtfully at the ground. "His outermost skin was denser than neutronium, and only grew more hyperdense toward his inner layers. At his core, he was so heavy that he should've fallen through the planet. I calced his durability at 10^55 joules."

 

Ryan's dismay made him stumble. "That's the GBE of the entire Milky Way Galaxy. The gravitation alone should have-"

 

"Dumb it down," I said patiently. The idea I was getting was looking horrible.

 

Adam was still staring at the ground, thinking. "Entropy's mass was spread across multiple dimensions at once, whatever his core was made of allowed his body to warp physics; the core was essentially a doorway to project the mass." Adam spread his hands out, miming a globular object. "We're talking about a spiral galaxy worth of matter to reach the very center of his body. It's why I used the Grid. It severed him in every dimension. That's the backstory, now my theory is Entropy could've taken a piece of the ice before Halo destroyed it."

 

Killian frowned. "But wouldn't it just have frozen him?"

 

"Not with how hyperdense he was," Adam shook his head. "If he shunted some of that ice into another dimension, then it would mature without any prying eyes. It was probably a plan B if he had to leave Earth to finish destroying the remaining Prime Points."

 

I closed my eyes as the realization hit me. "And with Entropy dead, the ice was free to leave whatever dimension the asshole locked it in."

 

Kevin nodded grimly. "And now we're all left with his last fuck you."

 

Killian looked at Kevin with hope blazing in his eyes. "But you can stop it again, right? You did it before."

 

Kevin was quiet for a long time. Then, finally, he shook his head. "That particular skill used Earth's karma to obliterate the ice. I can't do it again. The planet's fate is sealed."

 

My shoulders slumped. "So this is the end, then?" I asked, low and exhausted.

 

I swallowed. It felt like someone had taken cold water and filled my entire body with it. Sorrow was a feeling of unmanageable despair. I couldn't handle looking at my friends right now, seeing their faces etched with grief, and yet, on the other hand, I needed to show a brave front. If not for me then for them, because it's what I did.

 

"Maybe it's not the end," Adam said.

 

I reached out and took his hand, squeezing it. It was a lifeline that I so desperately needed right now. "What do you mean?"

 

Adam and Kevin locked eyes, and my boyfriend spoke one word, "Avalon."

 

"How do you even know about that project?" Kevin looked at him with wide, startled eyes. Then he grimaced and shook his head. "It doesn't matter. The Lords in Shadow burned all Atlantean assets in this solar system during the Fall."

 

Adam tapped his head, a spark of something like building confidence in his tone. "It was a classified project, but at the Omega Point, all of the past was mine to see. And when I returned to Earth, I sensed an installation on the Moon."

 

"But how?" Disbelief was thick in Kevin's voice.

 

"The entire thing was taken out of the phase with reality, rotated ninety-one degrees from our point of relative index. A trick taken from the faeries. It's how the fae survived the Lords in Shadow, and so did Avalon. They never detected the spatial shift."

 

I tugged Adam's hand and gave him a pointed look. "Clue us in. It sounds like there's a way to stop this, after all?"

 

Kevin shook his head. "Nothing can stop it."

 

Ryan frowned. "Then what's on the Moon that can help?"

 

They traded glances again, and it was Adam that said, "Sanctuary."

 

"Avalon was a project planned by our father, a sister city to Atlantis. It was going to be a marvel that eclipsed our capital city. He intended it as a principality ruled by you and me until I came of age to take the Imperial Throne on Atlantis. Construction was stopped when the war started to get worse."

 

Killian lifted his head and stared. "Complete or not, are you saying there's an Atlantean city on the moon? Even after all this time."

 

"That's exactly what they're saying," I answered him, then looked at Adam and my brother, searching, questioning. "You're talking about an exodus. You want us to leave Earth."

 

It was a sobering thought. One that was only explored in science fiction in dystopian themes of humanity reaching for the stars after Earth was left with dwindling resources. The shock of my announcement made Killian gasp and look to Ryan, who was already no doubt following Adam and Kevin's line of thought.

 

"Logistically we couldn't take everyone," he said aloud, glancing at Killian sadly. "No city has the kind of infrastructure to support the billions on Earth."

 

I didn't want to start thinking in those type of terms yet. "Can we go to Avalon first and check out how this place has held up after 15,000 years. There's no use planning anything yet."

 

"We can't just pop up," Kevin said. "Avalon is armed to the teeth. We're talking particle cannons, anti-proton weapons, isomagnetic disintegrators. Its defenses can take out an Orion-class battlecruiser with ease and lay waste to an entire armada."

 

"So we need a key or something?" Killian speculated.

 

The answer came to me because I had known it all along. "Remember what King Oriens said when he gave you the Imperial Scepter, Kevin?"

 

"When all hope is lost," Kevin quoted. He put his hands together like he was praying. "Its light will guide you through the darkest of times."

 

From between his palms shined a light and from it appeared the elaborate silver and jeweled rod that was the chief emblem of our royal house. It was ancient, easily the oldest thing on this side of the world and forged in the first age of our long-gone empire.

 

Kevin grinned a little shakily at me and shrugged. "Let's hope the old emergency passcodes are still active."

 

"Or we're all dead," Killian muttered.

 

It was a dark thought, but he was right. I glanced at the map of the world on the screen. With every passing second, we were losing more land mass to the ice. Whatever we found on the Moon had to be better than being eternally frozen.

 

Kevin ran a finger down the center of the scepter. "Upsilon-Upsilon-Theta-Break-Seven."

 

"Activation codes recognized, Prince Gaius Cor." The disembodied voice spoke.

 

"Open the way to Avalon."

 

"Subspace search for external Avalon network link. Successfully opened data port. Connection with Avalon command core established. Awaiting final unlock authorization."

 

"Omicron-Gamma-Tau-Nine." Kevin took a deep, calming breath. "Light in Darkness. We show the way."

 

"Access granted to Avalon. Prepare for translocation."

 

We crowded close, as Kevin said, "Execute."

 

Rainbow colored light filled my vision and my feet lift off the ground. The world was torn away, and I barely held back a scream. It was insane, terrible, speed beyond speed, all of space was spread out before me and stars in my sight and all gone in an instant. We catapulted through the vastness of space, nowhere and everywhere, planet spinning off into the audience void.

 

The Moon appeared with its lifeless gray surface rushing up to us, or we rushed up to it. We descended upon it like meteors. There was a flare from the scepter that I realized for the first time had been flying ahead of us as if piloting.

 

And from the surface of the Moon was a similar flash and the whole of space rippled.

 

I ended up stumbling on a shiny platform momentarily surprised at finding a solid footing once more. I gulped down a desperate breath. I vaguely registered the others having similar moments to orient themselves. Here, here for 15,000 year old transportation. I calmed myself to look up to witness a vast smoky sky glittering with far too many stars.

 

Earth.

 

The faded crescent hung above the horizon, its predominately blue features a stark contrast against the cloudy sky. There was atmosphere here, replicator tech, a little kernel of knowledge told me. I dragged my eyes away from the heavens and beheld a skyline, the likes of which took my breath away.

 

The crystal skyscrapers caressing the sky were like none I had ever seen before. Atlantis had been a city of metal with its tritium towers and sharp ultra-modern angles. Avalon stretched out underneath the stars, crystal monoliths climbing a kilometer into the sky. Starlight refracted throughout their opaline structures. Numerous winding sky bridges connecting buildings, stretched across crystal blue lakes and many green parks, interspersed among the city.

 

"It's incredible," I murmured, staring entranced at an aurora borealis effect that haloed a rocky mountain range in the distance.

 

We stood upon the roof of one of the crystal monoliths. Below our feet was a circle filled with delicately carved stars, symbols and Atlantean letters in glittering gold circled the border bidding welcome to travelers. So we arrived on some of receiving observatory, I wondered. It was a nice touch and afforded a view of what looked like a majority of the sprawling city. If Atlantis structures leaned more toward science fiction, then Avalon's architecture was its counterpart in fantasy.

 

Ryan kept shaking his head as if he couldn't believe his eyes. "I thought this city was incomplete."

 

"It's supposed to be," Kevin said, confused. He and Adam were just as shocked as us. "Father halted construction and pulled back all personnel to our holdings when the outer territories were besieged."

 

"That would be because of me."

 

We spun around and faced a handsome man with brown skin and thick wavy dark hair. He wore an official looking uniform. It was a pants and tunic combination in beige, with lavender belt and cuffs and a high collar that was the style before the Fall.

 

I narrowed my eyes. "Who are you?"

"I'm Patroclus." He bowed. "I've taken the liberty of downloading the data archive of the Atlantis command AI in terran outpost, designated Sigma Tor. I know of the reincarnation event, and have an understanding of the current situation, Your Grace."

 

Kevin was visibly startled at the name. "That's not possible. Patroclus oversaw the Atlantis Science Academy. You should be long dead."

"If I were flesh and blood, Your Grace," Patroclus said, dark eyes amused. "I was activated during the Fall. Your father's backup plan, if all other lights went out. My prime directive as custodian of Avalon is to perform maintenance and improvements of the city in anticipation of Atlanteans arrival while attempting to find a solution to enemy threats. I'm the consciousness of Patroclus and of an artificial intelligence."

 

Adam stepped forward. "You're a VI," he said, nodding his head, "A virtual intelligence has spent the last 15,000 years not only finishing construction but improving on it. This is beyond what I imagined."

 

"If you would please step on the Farpoint relay," Patroclus said, gesturing to a red metallic platform nearby.

 

I raised an eyebrow. "Where are we going?"

 

He pointed in the distance toward a massive crystal dome sitting prominently at the city's core. It glittered like a diamond and there was dancing blue-white light reflecting from its surface that was positively mesmerizing. Four towers were arranged around it at cardinal points.

 

"Nova Reach sits at the center of One Senate Square and is the seat of governance of Avalon," Patroclus said. "And for what you plan to do it is also a place of power."

 

Kevin eyed him speculatively. "Of course, you saw the footage in the Command outpost. You know what we're planning."

 

He nodded solemnly and gestured at the platform again. "And I know we're under pressing time constraints."

 

Right now, I was not in the mood to second guess every motive. At the end of the day, the VI was right. We were short on time. So we allowed Patroclus to input the destination on the control pillar and we were whisked away in a stream of light. The teleportation field cleared and we were in alcove nestled at the and of a brightly lit hallway with walls that reminded me of the interior of the Imperium Tower in Atlantis.

 

"Is this Nova Reach?" Ryan asked, observing the corridor.

 

The corridor went off in both directions, and ahead of us was a closed door with a hand size control panel. I studied the tiled walls, curiously then shrugged.

 

"I don't know. I expected something grander."

 

A faint streamer of light flickered into existence through the open space taking the shape of Patroclus. "We are approximately half a kilometer below Nova Reach in the auxiliary command section." His dark eyes regarded us with a measure of mirth at our visible surprise. "The main control room is meant to be operated with a full staff of at least thirteen. The secondary systems here can be staffed by minimal personnel."

 

"After you," Kevin said, gesturing.

 

Patroclus stepped forward and the door hissed momentarily, as space beyond was depressurized, sliding open with an accompanying breeze.

 

"You, of course, are granted full access to Avalon's systems," Patroclus said conversationally, continuing on into another the hall that had opened up while guiding us with quick steps. "The infrastructure was completed using a combination of drones, molecular construction arrays, and a majority of the buildings were grown."

 

"Grow buildings..." Adam picked through his general overview. "The... crystal structures?"

 

The VI simply nodded, not having bothered to stop his forward progress or even turn around, which I appreciated. We were on the clock here. The longer we took, the more people were being trapped in a frozen prison. Ryan, of course, jumped right into the specifics. "And how have you been powering Avalon? If we proceed, energy consumption will increase."

 

"Avalon was intended to be the next step in Atlantean civilization. Our engineering team created a pocket dimension around a protostar near the galactic rim." Avalon stopped to face us when we came to another door. "We opened a micro wormhole into that dimension directly into the heart of the star, and using an artificial quantum foam, as a safety measure, solar energy is collected."

 

Kevin frowned. "I vividly remember the project being abandoned. I thought you were using Helos Reactors because the simulations kept failing."

 

"I completed the project two thousand years after the Fall." Patroclus smiled wanly at the ground even as the door of ahead of him opened. "I had a lot of free time."

 

By the expressions on Ryan and Adam's faces, I'm guessing this was a big deal. "How much power are we talking here?"

 

"An output of one hundred solar units," Patroclus explained. Seeing my expression, he clarified, "Which would be two terawatts using human terminology."

 

Adam stared at me and said, "The total power usage of humans worldwide is sixteen terawatts for an entire year."

 

I blanched. "So plenty of power for a new population."

 

"Quite," Patroclus confirmed as he stepped up to another door.

 

This time there was a flicker of data transfer in his eyes, letters and numbers racing across his irises. When he blinked quickly, the stream ended and the door opened, and we stepped into a new set of corridors; these vastly different from the last. Our new environment was a more curved, organic corridor glowing with metallic blue. The surface of the walls seemed to radiate their own light. Like the previous corridors, however, there was little in the way of real activity.

 

"How many people can we move here?" Kevin asked.

 

"Avalon was always meant for a large population," Patroclus said, continuing deeper into the new hall that began to curve to the right. "We can accommodate a little over ten million people."

 

"Ten million?" I stared, but my question was lost in the immediate fire round of questions the others assaulted the VI with.

 

We barely noticed our journey had taken us to a single room with an array of darkened panels and a large podium with a flat surface central to the interior. Kevin shook his head in wonder, still looking gobsmacked by the sheer number reported, strode past Killian and Ryan confronting the Vi. He continued on until he faced the podium directly, placing his hand upon its flat surface and causing the opaque panels on its side to light up a deep blue for a moment before brightening to light the room.

 

"Royal override, Gaius Cor, Prince of Atlantis. Visual assist mode," he ordered, and the panels blinked to life, each projecting holographic displays into the open air. We watched the holograms flicker with graphics and Atlantean script until Gaius spoke again. "Citywide status."

 

The flowing Atlantean script vanished across all nine panels and was replaced by various pictographs. Wordlessly we split up as our attention was each caught by a separate hologram. I spotted Ryan admiring the visage of a multi-colored framework spacecraft conjured before him. He reached into the frame of the ship, at it to magnify the internal structure. It reminded me of the tech in those MCU movies with Tony Stark.

 

"Is that the Valorescent?" I asked, peering around him for a better view; though the ship was now large enough to take up almost half the air airspace around us.

 

"King Oriens' flagship." Ryan nodded, continuing his manipulation of the wireframe hologram, spinning it around on its axis to view it from a better angle. Block Atlantean script flowed from the points he touched, technical data that I surprisingly understood. "It looks like it was dry docked for upgrades... The armament was replaced by high energy particle cannons, and the reactors were upgraded to YMIR modules, whatever that is."

 

"It's a generator that allows macromolecules with a special structure to tap into virtual particles for energy."

 

I looked at Patroclus for a long minute. "You've been busy."

 

The hologram shrugged. "I needed a hobby."

 

"A hobby that managed to somehow build infrastructure to comfortably support ten million people." Adam was intently studying a holo-schematic of the city, swiping through it to view different sectors at speed I couldn't keep up with. "His numbers are good."

 

Killian nodded. "We obviously will never have a power problem. The matter converters can synthesize food, and there's more than enough shelter that people can live comfortably." He looked over at me, and there was determination there in his eyes. "I say we go ahead."

 

"We will be protected too. The defenses are impregnable," Ryan offered. He closed his eyes, then nodded once. "I'm in."

 

An intense look of concentration inhabited Kevin's face. He was staring at a rotating holo, contemplating the string of script rolling beneath the view of what looked like several galaxies conjured into the open air before him. The spiral shape of our own Milky Way galaxy was familiar, and I was sure that the one hovering near his shoulder was the Andromeda galaxy.

 

"Kevin?" I approached him from behind and softly touched a hand to his shoulder. "What is this?"

 

"Hope," he replied, continuing to study the script that I realized was numbers. Some type of algorithm, maybe.

 

Patroclus hovered at Kevin's other side, observing the rotating galaxies with a sharp eye. "Interesting."

 

"Servants of life angels once were," Kevin muttered. "There are arts to draw on those ancient oaths when the stars come round again to the right positions in the cycle of eternity."

 

I studied the set of his features carefully. "A weakness?"

 

He nodded. "Every being on earth is born with a spark, an imperishable flame that even ice can't extinguish." Kevin looked at us, one by one. "It may be frozen, but the energy of that flame will never go out. "In time, we can use our power and the cycle of the stars to awaken that light, all at once."

 

I finally understood. "A harmonic convergence." I shook my head. A celestial event that was a product of certain planets and stars aligning just right. It was rare and once had given birth to entire divine pantheons. "The last time was even before Atlantis."

 

"Most energy...celestial, spiritual, divine..." Adam thought aloud, assessing the logic in the theory. "They'll all be in harmony on that day. The ice will be susceptible."

 

The script stopped flickering, settling on a final sequence. It was a long string of numbers that was a day, according to Atlantean reckoning. The others crowded close and we observed the number, each knowing what it meant. It would take years.

 

Centuries.

 

"Good thing Atlanteans live long lives," I said into the quiet, then faced my friends. "We owe it to everyone who is trapped. Even if we have to wait a thousand years."

 

Adam squeezed my shoulder. "Until the end of time itself."

 

"We made a promise," Ryan said.

 

Killian nodded. "In our last life, this one or the next. We'll be there."

 

Kevin smiled fondly, bumping his shoulder against mine. "Together. Always."

 

"Okay, then." My heart was pounding in my chest and I smiled with fierce determination. "Let's save the day one more time."

 

We moved to the consoles and with Patroclus' help began bringing secondary systems online and powering up an entire city for occupation. We ran the diagnostics and inventory to account for the population drawing on resources that had never before been consumed en masse. We didn't have all day, but I didn't want to begin until I knew we weren't condemning people to the lunar version of the Titanic. I trusted Patroclus, but the VI had been alone here for 15,000 years. I was not about to risk innocent lives in case his memory was fragmented.

 

After running through the data with a fine tooth comb, there was nothing left to do but proceed. I squared my shoulders and nodded to Patroclus. He closed his eyes, and the constellations depicted on the floor began to span, the central podium retracted into the floor in a series of mechanical noises. Four metal rings arose 10 paces away from each other in a loose circle. They fit into position within the foundation with a solid click. It was complete.

 

Then we moved into position and each Chosen stepped into their assigned ring. I went to the center of the formation. I met Adam's eyes, smiling softly and there was so much I wanted to say. I was sad for the future we wished and hoped and planned for wasn't meant to be. Adam met my eyes, and the reassurance in his gaze chased away those thoughts, sending me unwavering support that I held close. I closed my eyes and said goodbye to Chad Summers. My clothes shifted, replaced by a formal midnight blue suit, with silver lacing and a white belt and cape that flowed over my shoulders. I could feel the circlet settle around my brow.

 

Prince Emrys was returned.

 

I didn't open my eyes, but I knew the others carried out similar transformations. What we were about to do we needed to tap our Atlantean selves. I reached for the bright spark inside that I associated with magic and it surged through me, waiting. I opened up my celestial bindings and link to magic, feeling the energy crackling through my veins like electricity.

 

All around me, I felt other energies besides my magic. The others tapped into their bindings and the primal forces of the universe roiled through the room. The rings set into the floor began to vibrate as they came online, channeling power to the towers circling the dome of Nova Reach above us. I hoped they didn't blow up from how much energy we were channeling through their crystalline structures.

 

I slowly gathered all that frightening power that crackled through the air. Working with overwhelming amounts of energy was what I was gifted at, and I weaved it together, until its sum was greater than its parts, transforming it, remaking it. I knitted it together into a spell of such magnitude that it transcended into something unspeakably beautiful, something cosmic.

 

The towers above resonated as one, opening a breach in the lunar spatial pocket and allowing the power to enter the planular domain of real space. Two billion people were frozen in ice.

 

Two billion.

 

The number was rising. After all, there was no haven.

 

Sanctuary wasn't to be found on Earth. The planet's fate was sealed and its people were sentenced to imprisonment through no fault of their own. It was a divine act that couldn't be undone for countless years yet, but it was not to be everyone's fate. There was no way I could save the remaining population.

 

For some, there was hope.

 

Like called to like. Those with Atlantean blood heard the voice in the darkness first. My voice called out to them. Harkening to those descendants who were the survivors of Atlantis' fall all those years ago. My voice was full of hope, compassion and light.

 

"Don't despair," I whispered in their minds, bolstered by Adam's telepathy. "It will be many years before Earth is freed, but there is a home for you on Avalon. I will never leave my people behind. And if you think of your loved ones they will be safe, too, I will protect you all."

 

Countless numbers of people looked up and rejoiced because they knew of their origins, as fables and tales passed through families, and those who knew nothing of their legacy looked toward the sky in wonder. The power of soul, Ryan's power, found the connections of families and friends that tied spirits together and I embraced them, as many people as possible, letting Killian's light judge and severe the links to those who had darkness in their hearts or impure thoughts.

 

The cosmic spell swept the whole of the world faster than the speed of light, racing against the spread of ice as it swept through Europe and part of Asia, gaining a foothold on the east coast of both North and South America. For every billion people the ice took, I gathered millions. As if sensing opposition, the speed of the ice increased exponentially.

 

It spread through the whole of Brazil in seconds. Faster and faster, it expanded. The cosmic force strained against my willpower, making the Earth tremble with its might, and I did not yield. The Pacific Ocean froze. Australia froze. It continued on until the majority of the world was encompassed. Those I gathered moved through space and time ferried by Kevin's power, even as the Earth left behind rapidly locked in frozen slumber.

 

Then I let go of all that cosmic power.

 

I opened my eyes and for a long, dizzying moment I was entirely disoriented. Then Adam slid his hand into mine and his smile was like an anchor, grounding me. The other hand cupped my cheek and tilted my face to press a kiss against my temple.

 

"We did it," Adam beamed, practically glowing with happiness. "I can feel them."

 

Patroclus must have activated the arrays because holoimages swirled up around us. Dozens of screens showed different sections of the city, but they were all of similar sights. People were cheering, laughing in relief, hugging their neighbors in a shared combination of joy and liberation that united them. To face the light after coming close to the dark was an exuberant feeling.

 

Killian clutched tightly to Ryan and looked at us with a shaky, but happy smile. "Over ten million souls. No turning back now."

 

"We saved them all," Kevin said. There was a noticeable cadence in his voice that was nobler. "Now we have to guide them."

 

Ryan grinned tiredly but looked immensely pleased. "And a king to lead us."

 

I beamed at my brother and nodded. "Later, I suppose we need to have a coronation. It's a long time coming." I looked at the holoscreens, feeling a thrill shoot through me at all the visible joy. "But crowns can wait. I imagine it's going to be pretty crazy for a while."

 

And that was better than the alternative.

 

I would take chaos over cold silence any day. It was going to take a lot of work, but I was willing and ready to do whatever it takes to make sure everyone was settled. I made a promise. All of our training, every triumph, and even our losses had prepared us for this. Our childhood days died when the Earth froze. So many people depended on us now, but I knew that as long as we stood together, we would get through this. The sun may have set on Earth for now, but it had risen on Avalon and one day, many centuries from now, we would bring the dawn to Earth again. With the universe saved from its ancient enemy, well, we had nothing but time.

 

There were no other people I would rather spend it with.

 

[ End. ]

 

 

 

Author's Notes

So an ending, finally. I always meant to finish this story, and it hasn't ever sat right with me that it went unfinished for so long. It was initially supposed to be posted as three separate chapters, but after this long, I felt terrible about splitting it up and decided to just post it as one long 25k chapter. So with that being said, the Chosen saga is finished. Thank you so much for sticking with the ride so far. I promise I read all your emails over the years, and this is for all of you who read the story multiple times and sent me questions about finishing. You are amazing. I'll probably come back at some point and add the vignettes, and some folks have read them on other sites, but it will be cool to have them here in one place. I revised some parts of the series on gayauthors.org, but it's way too hard to do similar changes on Nifty.

 

Entropy; What they fought was only a projection of his total mass. Mostly any injury he had thus far was only cosmetic since his total mass was spread across multiple dimensions, and it's why the Angels lost. The concept of a multi-dimensional enemy was foreign. Even throwing him into the sun, given with how hyperdense he is, would either put it out or burn off his outer layers before he found a way to escape.

 

The Omega Point; Basically a theory that speculates that basically humanity will unite and become one with the universe and will be able to perceive everything in existence in a weird united synergy and will be basically superintelligent lifeforms.

 

Avalon; Located in Mare Serenitatis and out of phase with reality. It was meant to be the blueprint for future Atlantean cities in newly annexed star systems to the empire. King Oriens plan B was for it to be a retreat to rally to if the war worsened, no one predicted Atlantis complete annihilation.

 

Errata;

-Hope Through Overwhelming Firepower by Border42 was the source of the Algorithmic imaging and is fanfic of Diebuster.

-Happy Pride Month

 

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