263 Apocalyptic Invasion
263 Apocalyptic Invasion
[POV: Chad/Tempest]
I couldn’t even get a day off.
The city had turned into a madhouse overnight. Cultists were everywhere, fires were spreading across districts, and emergency channels had collapsed into static. The eclipse hanging over the sky didn’t exactly help morale either.
After throwing on my suit, I got straight to work.
Wind spiraled around my legs as I burst forward with superspeed, my aerokinesis keeping me balanced as I launched into the middle of a cluster of armed cultists. One of them swung a machete while another raised some kind of jury-rigged energy weapon.
They never got the chance.
I redirected the air pressure beneath their feet, tripping three of them at once before slamming another into a brick wall with a gust.
“Tempest!” someone shouted nearby.
A group of civilians hiding behind a wrecked bus stared as I disarmed two more cultists in a blur of movement.
“Did you see that?” one of them yelled. “It’s Tempest! He’s here!”
Another person pumped a fist in the air.
“Kick their asses!”
The cheering was nice, but the situation sucked.
The cultists were heavily armed, and quite a few of them clearly had powers. Under normal circumstances I would have solved the problem permanently and moved on, but things weren’t that simple anymore.
Killing people while wearing the title of GDF leader set a precedent.
I needed to issue the order before anyone crossed that line.
Unfortunately, the cultists seemed to know exactly who I was.
My smartwatch refused to connect to anything, the signal jammed so thoroughly it might as well have been dead weight. Meanwhile, more and more lunatics kept popping out of alleys trying to stab me, shoot me, or explode near me.
Being the top figure in the GDF sounded prestigious on paper.
In reality, the title meant absolutely nothing in a situation like this.
Spoiler had played me like a violin when she stepped aside and pushed me into the leadership seat. At the time she claimed it was the best strategic move.
Right now I suspected she just wanted the headaches to be my problem.
I skidded to a stop in front of a group of terrified civilians clustered near a storefront.
“Alright, listen up!” I shouted while deflecting a thrown knife with a gust of wind. “Everyone head down that street and into the underground station! Barricade the entrance and stay out of sight!”
One of them pointed nervously.
“W-what about the attackers?”
“Hide first,” I said. “Heroics later.”
A rock projectile screamed toward my head.
I twisted sideways, letting it pass by before launching myself upward with a burst of aerokinesis. Mid-air, I flicked several small metal beads from my sleeve.
Each one struck a cultist’s joint with surgical precision.
Knees buckled.
Elbows locked.
Three attackers collapsed instantly, immobilized without needing to spill blood.
I dropped back down and finished the sequence with a flying drop-kick that sent another fanatic crashing into a pile of crates.
The civilians behind me erupted into cheers.
“You’re amazing!”
“Tempest, over here!”
One of them actually ran up holding a piece of paper.
“Can I get your autograph?”
I reached out automatically.
The pen in his hand suddenly became a knife.
Before he could stab me, another figure appeared behind him.
Spoiler grabbed his wrist and twisted it brutally before planting a punch straight into his jaw. The man collapsed instantly.
She wore her usual visor, her hatchet already in her other hand.
“Got any comms?” I asked quickly.
“No,” she replied while scanning the street. “But I’ve got clones scattered across the area and a few operating in other city-states.”
Her voice was tight.
“It’s bad. Something is sabotaging communication lines between the city-states. I’ll have my clones focus on finding the source.”
She chopped her hatchet sideways into a cultist who tried to rush us from an alley.
“Tempest,” she added while pulling the weapon free, “stop holding back. These people are hostile to the bone.”
“Yeah, easy for you to say.”
We started running together down the street while clearing attackers along the way.
“I’m worried about the younger capes,” I said. “A lot of them followed Griffin’s example. They’re still bright-eyed enough to believe heroes shouldn’t kill anyone.”
A glob of something sticky flew toward me.
I dodged sideways as it splattered against a wall, then another glob followed with uncanny accuracy.
“Some of them won’t cross that line without an order,” I continued. “If killing becomes necessary, it needs to come directly from me.”
Spoiler glanced sideways.
“You want the responsibility.”
“I need the responsibility,” I replied.
A strange croaking laugh echoed behind us.
I turned to see a frog-like cape bounding across rooftops with an odd-shaped sniper rifle slung over his shoulder. His tongue flicked out, launching those sticky projectiles with disturbing accuracy.
“You asked for it,” I muttered.
I flicked several more beads behind me as we ran.
They struck nearby CCTV cameras one after another, quietly disabling every surveillance angle along the street. No need for the public to see what happened next. I phased through the ground momentarily, slipping beneath the pavement before reappearing on the side of a nearby building.
Climbing the wall was easy with aerokinetic support.
When the frogman leaped onto the rooftop above me, I launched myself upward and appeared behind him.
“I’ll try to be gentle,” I said.
The wind blade flashed once.
His legs separated from his body.
Blood sprayed across the rooftop as he collapsed, screaming but still very much alive.
I landed on the opposite edge of the building, kicked off, and launched myself back into the street.
Spoiler was already halfway down the next block.
Her boots were clearly enhanced because each step propelled her forward with ridiculous force. Gadgets dangled from her belt while she ran, ready for whatever the cultists threw at us next.
I accelerated to catch up with her.
The city was burning, communications were down, and the sky had gone dark.
Apparently saving the world didn’t come with weekends.
…
..
.
[POV: Two-D]
“This is supposed to be my darn day off,” I muttered while sprinting down the corridor, “but they just had to show up today, didn’t they?”
Seriously, how was a pretty gal like me supposed to get a boyfriend if the universe kept dumping apocalypses on my schedule? Between cultists, dimensional monsters, and office overtime, my dating life had the survival rate of a snowman in a volcano.
I flattened myself against the wall.
My body collapsed into two dimensions like a sticker and slid across the surface before popping back out at the opposite end of the hallway. The moment my feet touched the ground, I peeled an AK-47 off my jacket.
Not a normal one.
A sticker.
I slapped the flat weapon into three dimensions and immediately opened fire down the hall.
The hallway was already a slaughterhouse.
Phasecrash was doing most of the damage.
She blasted through the corridor like a missile, using phase-warp to accelerate through cultists at terrifying speeds. Bodies slammed into walls as she tore through them, leaving streaks of blood across the floors and ceiling.
The woman looked absolutely feral.
“Bring it on!” she screamed while shoulder-checking a cultist hard enough to fold him in half. “Come on! I’ve got two years of unpaid vacation rage!”
I had heard the story earlier. Apparently she had been planning a real vacation this time. Weeks of travel, portal tickets saved up from work, beaches, cocktails, the whole thing.
Then the apocalypse happened again.
I stepped over a body and lowered my rifle.
“Clear,” I called.
Silver appeared in the hallway a second later.
She was carrying Little King in her arms.
The building trembled violently, dust falling from the ceiling. Through a shattered window down the corridor I caught sight of Keegan flying through the air before smashing into another building across the street.
A massive roided-out monstrosity barreled after him.
Phasecrash didn’t hesitate.
She shot out the window and joined the fight outside like she was jumping into a swimming pool.
I turned to Silver.
“We’re heading to the roof, ma’am.”
She nodded and followed right behind me.
Honestly, I still hadn’t processed how weird the situation was. My superior had suddenly appeared and ordered me to protect her and the kid. Yeah, I get it was my job, but I thought this was kind of reckless. No? The next thing I knew, Phasecrash and Keegan were outside committing industrial-scale violence while I played babysitter.
Silver’s voice cut through my thoughts.
“They’re after Ron,” she said urgently. “We need to hurry. I can feel multiple powerful presences closing in and they are all hostile.”
Gunfire erupted from the floor above us.
Several cultist gunners leaned over the railing and started spraying bullets down the stairwell.
Silver grabbed my arm and yanked me sideways just as the rounds shredded the wall.
One bullet still clipped my shoulder.
Pain exploded through my arm.
“Fuck,” I hissed. “That hurts.”
Blood seeped through my sleeve.
“These guys even have better nullification tech than the SRC,” I muttered through clenched teeth. “What the hell is happening to this world?”
Silver stopped suddenly.
“I will hold them off,” she said.
She pushed Ron toward me.
“Take him.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but she beat me to it.
“I am a psychic construct,” she said calmly. “I won’t die. As long as Nicole lives, I live.”
Before I could argue further, she vanished.
Silver reappeared halfway up the stairwell and immediately began carving a path through the gunners with brutal efficiency.
I held Little King tightly against my chest.
Then I flattened again.
My body folded into two dimensions and slid along the stairwell wall like a moving shadow before snapping back into three dimensions near the rooftop exit.
The rooftop was empty.
Or at least it looked empty.
I ducked behind an air vent and reached into my pocket.
Inside was an experimental pill.
Temporary power enhancement.
I swallowed it.
A strange warmth spread through my body as the effect kicked in. I wrapped my arms around Ron and activated the borrowed ability.
We vanished.
Complete invisibility.
Unless someone had strong psychic detection, nobody would be able to see us. The Company’s long-standing paranoia toward psychics meant there weren’t many around who could bypass that trick.
For a moment everything was quiet.
Then the phone tucked into Ron’s blanket started vibrating.
I carefully lifted it to my ear.
A man’s voice crackled through the speaker.
“This is GDF extraction pilot Delta-Three. I have orders to retrieve you from the rooftop. Confirm visual and prepare for pickup.”
Relief washed over me.
Finally.
But the relief lasted about two seconds.
The pilot suddenly started shouting.
“Mayday! Mayday! Something just—”
The transmission dissolved into screaming and static.
I looked up just in time to see the helicopter spinning out of control.
The GDF logo was clearly visible as it spiraled downward and smashed into a nearby building in a burst of flames.
“W-what?” I whispered.
A voice answered behind me.
“I am more surprised if I have to be honest.”
I spun around.
An old man stood a few meters away.
White lab coat.
Calm expression.
He looked completely out of place standing on the rooftop like that.
My stomach dropped.
“How can you see me?” I asked.
He tilted his head slightly.
“I find it more curious that you can perceive me.”
I blinked.
Everything around us had stopped moving.
The smoke from the helicopter hung frozen in the air. The distant explosions had become silent statues of flame.
The world had paused.
The old man studied me with mild curiosity.
“You are an unfortunate witness,” he said calmly. “I must admit the Entity is quite impressive. To deduce my real goals so quickly. Yet, I win again. A race against time will always be on my favor.”
He pulled a handgun from his lab coat.
Before I could move, he aimed it at my head.
A powerful nullification round fired.
The bullet struck my skull.
My last coherent thought before everything went dark was simple.
Well.
That was some unbelievably bad luck.
…
..
.
[POV: Hover]
I had been minding my own business.
That was the ridiculous part.
Shadow and I had been tracking a Cult of the End asset through the city when the entire world decided to explode into chaos. Sirens, riots, emergency broadcasts, capes flying everywhere. It felt less like an operation and more like someone had kicked over an anthill the size of a continent.
I hovered above a rooftop and glanced again at the replay on my wrist display, showing Eclipse not even bothering on wearing a mask. Just him casually appearing inside a hijacked broadcast before murdering the cameraman and the speaker like he was swatting flies.
I sighed and tilted sideways midair as a bullet whizzed past my ear.
“Yeah, great timing,” I muttered.
I pulled back the string of my bow.
The weapon hummed faintly, its alien runes glowing along the limbs. I released the shot and a telekinetic arrow screamed through the air before slamming into a cultist across the street.
The impact launched the man into a wall.
I wasn’t some legendary cape.
Just a flyer with a mercenary background and a decent body count.
Most of my killing power came from this bow picked up in that weird medieval world. Eclipse deigned to give me the bow to improve my performance. The thing practically did half the work for me.
I fired again.
And again.
My fingers were bleeding from the constant draw, but I ignored it. The quiver on my back shimmered every few seconds as the arrows teleported back after each shot, ready to be fired again.
I leaped from one rooftop to another, hovering briefly in midair before landing in a crouch and firing three more arrows in quick succession.
Cultists dropped across the street.
In the distance, Dragoness was absolutely demolishing a plaza.
Flames poured from her mouth in a roaring stream, engulfing a cluster of cultists that Shadow and I had spent the last ten minutes clearing out earlier.
I pushed off the rooftop again, floating upward as I scanned for targets.
“I might be GDF now,” I muttered while lining up another shot, “but I was a killer long before that.”
My arrow punched straight through a cultist trying to climb a fire escape. A shadow suddenly stretched across the rooftop beside me.
Shadow stepped out of it like someone walking through a doorway.
“I found it,” he said quickly.
“Found what?”
He pointed across several blocks.
“The source of the blackout and the comms jamming. It’s coming from a single building.”
“Get ahead of me and do whatever you can,” I ordered, deciding on a course of action. “I’ll follow immediately. I’ll get Dragoness.”
Before I could respond, he was already melting back into the darkness.
I spun midair and flew toward Dragoness.
She was currently stomping through the plaza like an angry dragon, flames licking across the pavement while cultists scattered.
“Hey!” I shouted while flying above her. “Dragoness, new target. You see that building—”
I didn’t even finish the sentence.
She had already turned and blasted it with fire.
The entire structure was swallowed in flame for a moment before the fire split around an invisible barrier surrounding the building.
Dragoness charged forward and punched the barrier with enough force to crack the pavement beneath her feet.
The barrier held.
A tiny piece of Shadow formed on my shoulder like a black smudge.
“The place is almost empty,” he reported quickly. “Except a technopath. I can’t get to her. The space is too tight for me to squeeze through.”
“I’ll handle it,” I said immediately.
I looked down at Dragoness.
“Make an opening for me.”
She glanced up at me, flames still curling around her teeth.
“Cover me.”
She leaned her head back and released a shrill roar as fire gathered in her throat. The air around her glowed white-hot as she charged a focused blast.
Cultists started pouring into the street around the building.
I began firing.
Arrow after arrow streaked downward, dropping cultists as they tried to swarm Dragoness. Some wore casual clothes, others wore the hooded robes of the Cult of the End in different colors like they were attending some insane fashion show.
Dragoness unleashed the blast.
A concentrated beam of fire slammed into the barrier.
The shield cracked.
I kicked off a floating arrow beneath my feet like a platform and launched myself forward. The window shattered as I crashed through it, rolling across the floor before coming up with my bow drawn.
Mechanical constructs made from mismatched machine parts lunged at me immediately.
“Shit.”
Shadow exploded upward from my own shadow and sliced through them in a blur of darkness.
“Up!” he snapped. “I’ll cover your rear.”
I ran up the stairs.
Every floor had enemies.
I fired arrows at every hostile I saw while climbing, each shot precise and lethal. Bodies dropped behind me while Shadow handled anything that got too close. Through a window I saw the barrier outside sealing itself again like liquid glass knitting together.
Great.
That meant whatever was powering it was still active.
I kicked open the final door and stepped into a strange laboratory room.
Glass jars lined the walls.
Brains floated inside them.
Dozens.
In the center of the room sat a small chair surrounded by machinery.
A little girl was sitting there. She couldn’t have been older than two. Her body glowed faintly while tubes and cables connected her to the surrounding computers and equipment.
The air hummed with strange energy.
I slowly raised my bow.
My arrow pointed straight at her.
If Shadow’s intel was correct, she was the one jamming communications and shutting down power across the city, which meant she was a strategic target.
My fingers tightened slightly on the string.
“I swear,” I muttered quietly, staring at the glowing toddler wired into a machine like a battery, “I gotta have the worst luck in the entire damn GDF.”
I kept the arrow trained on her while my mind raced.
“Now what?”