Reflecting Equation - 13. The Chosen Wars

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 were few on the streets to see us leave under cover of night. Those we passed left us alone 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 had dealt with made me undeniably happy. Being with my family and friends had completely 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 do 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 of - 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 wonderful radiance faded, 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, and now there was no sign of any of it. It was like it had never happened.

“Time check?” I asked.

The Executioner answered even as he was running scans on his phone. “It’s only been twelve hours on Earth since we left.”

“There’s only three of them. How much damage could they possibly achieve in that time?” asked Solaris.

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 bad nothing has grown there since.” He smiled a little at Solaris’s stupor. “Humans call it the Sahara Desert. Atlanteans knew it as the 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 regrouped, the Executioner made a noise of surprise. At the same time, he stared at the information displayed on the phone screen. We crowded around him, and he held the phone up for us to all see the screen.

“We really have to upgrade these things will holo tech,” Omega muttered.

The Executioner’s eyes lit up, and he quickly said, “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 her 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 guardians with cobalt sitting back in an armchair like it was thrown. He was the tiniest smirk on his face. My face.

“Greetings people of earth,” said Cobalt with a friendly tone, but there was something likely in his eyes. “My name is Cobalt, and these are my companions Reese and Axel. As of right now, we are new rulers of Earth. I know. Shocker! This regime change can go either 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 would lay waste to everything you seek to protect. Tick-tock.”

The video stopped.

I opened and closed my mouth, shocked. “That psychotic motherfucker.”

Halo shook his head and murmured, “this is worse than I thought.”

“No wonder no one is outside. They’re 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 they’ve had morale broken.”

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

I crack my knuckles and looked my friends in the eyes and said, “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 to transverse the distance to the marks 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. It was one of the city’s oldest and prestigious hotels, currently housing our targets.

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

“The guest that didn’t get out and the staff, most likely,” The Executioner said.

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 and said viciously, “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. “We could theoretically do a controlled explosion to just the top floor. It would incinerate anybody 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 for something to go 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 winces from our faces.

“So, are we waiting until the cover of night 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 looked at them and made sure there was a determination to see this plan carried out. “We are in agreement?”

“Yes, Prince.”

A grim smile tugged my lips. “On my mark.”

We moved as one. Those looking up, if there were people on the street, would only see five black flashes darting through the air. We burst through the windows of the top floor of hotel Montesquieu. My feet touched down on the carpet, and I rolled to bled momentum, then I jumped to my feet and a crouch. I didn’t get a moment to survey the room before cobalt shouted a warning to his friends. Red fire suddenly poured from his mouth in an immolating blast.

Omega stepped forward, fists clenched, and the flames met a telekinetic barrier. I flicked my fingers, and fire turned into butterflies that flew back toward our enemies in a swarm 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, along with anything not nailed down, including the swarm of butterflies, were thrown away as if a mighty windstorm blew through the room.

Cobalt cupped his hands next to his cheek and screamed, “Dark Judgement!”

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

My stomach lurched as I was sent tumbling through the air, racing increasingly toward the ground. Training instinctively kicked even as I gathered wind beneath my heels, slowing my fall until I touched the ground in a light landing 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, a muted radiance next to the shining white wings pinned to Halo’s back flapping powerfully behind them. He touched down next to me, wings disappearing 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 red light bathed the world and buildings shook violently as air pressure painfully increased. 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 back behind an overturned city bus as 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 Forever21 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, it’s 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, allowing silvery light to gather around them, bright, reflective like liquid mercury. I held my breath. “I’m the Champion of Soul, 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.

There was a sound like the howling of wolves backed by the roaring of a pride of lions.

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 extinguished the hurricane of hellfire. 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 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 abilities that he was close to perfecting before the fall of Atlantis. Seeing it now threatened to loose a cascade of memories that I fought off.

A flare at the corner of my eye caught my attention to see Solaris was running 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 dawn 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 sending 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 head on. A piercing whistle made me spin around on my heel 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 blade of light, there was a shriek of protesting metal, a flash of sparks, and then a crashed.

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 payroll, aren’t you? He paid you to laugh at that.”

“Laugh at this,” Axel growled.

The clone made a gesture with his hand and a visible pulse of pure force blasted 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 potent senses. The kind of precision that took needed fine control that often escaped me.

“You’re outnumbered. Surrender, I won’t ask again.”

They stared at my brother warily. “Earth-born Angel,” Cobalt murmured.

I frowned in confusion before remembering the clones spawned before Heaven’s Trumpet, Kevin’s reveal as Gaius, and resurrection as the fifth Chosen. The chameleon wards woven 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 neat little escape teleportation 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 strongest 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 and Omega was gone. Psi-blade rang on psi-blade, and I saw Axel only barely managed to raise his blade to parry Omega’s devastating blow. Where the blades 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, covering their bodies in a swirling globe. The power carried 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 fumbled his arms forward and terrible, smothering darkness came slamming down upon me. It was not surprising that he would attack during a moment when my full attention wasn’t upon him, but I have been expecting that. I expected nothing less of him.

I lifted my hand and poured forth my will, conjuring crystal blue spheres to form around my brother and me with a snap. Sparks rain down upon us and a cascade as the of the energies warred. This was a battle of power as much as a battles of will. The insidious darkness flowed upon us and over us like a river. My eyes widened as little by little my shield began to grow smaller. Now only a foot of distance separated my skin from the barrier’s walls.

Kevin’s voice rang out like a silver trumpet, calling, “Begone shadows of the Undying Realm! Flee before hallowed light!”

Halo held his staff of lost and from its top or a blinding white fire that 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 staggered me. I found myself standing closer to him so that I wouldn’t be swept away in his power.

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

“Clone, are not you are 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 gentle, 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 and I saw something never seen on his face before.

Weariness. Strain. Uncertainty.

“You’re a protector, Cobalt,” Halo said quietly. “This journey into the darkness of greed and ambition. You have destroyed and threatened the very 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 he 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 not too late. Everything that is happened can be cannot be undone. But you can atone. Redemption is here if you want and if you work for it. I understand that being what you are caused you some confusion and anger. Still, I know who you are.”

“Is that what you believe this is?” Cobalt said in a flat tone, slow and measured. “My chance at redemption?

“It’s not about a belief,” Halo said. “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 here 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.” Heather’s voice stayed steady, quiet, and sincere. “I know you too well to ever give up on you. Please. Let me help you.”

Cobalt shuddered and dropped his eyes.

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 low and quiet 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 that he was burning magic to advance his power level. I didn’t even know it was possible. The fact that his organs weren’t bursting was a testament to his abnormal genetics.

“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 week. 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 tone almost pleading.

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. 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, spewing geysers of lava. A tidal wave of molten rock washed out in the streets of the city. Skyscrapers burned and shattered 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 air and floated high above my position, chanting something under his breath, while sweeping his staff left and right. The waves of liquid death stopped its ascent, supercooling into hardened rock, inert.

A black lightning bolt pierced the sky fifty meters beyond where the lava flow stopped, coalescing into the figure of Cobalt. He was now wearing bulky golden armor with a flowing blue cape with 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 smirked, shaking 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 gave me time to pull my thoughts together. 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 he was now. I still had Halo, so I wasn’t totally outgunned. My only shot here was to wear him down and figure out what exactly he was capable of.

“Okay, I’m going to have to agree,” Halo said. He descended closer to Cobalt’s position. “What cosplayer’s wardrobe did you crawl out of?”

The quip drew Cobalt’s attention from me. A massive arrow ripped away from my hand as I mimed firing a bow, releasing the store of negatively charged protons and tearing through the sixty meter space in under a second. Cobalt’s eyes widened as the crackling blue attack was upon him within the space of a breath. He barely had 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 upon Halo and I with something dark pooling into his eyes, even as my proton 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 my heart the current stakes were.

Fuck me.

My eyes widened. I didn’t account for the aftereffects of that blast. A gale force swept through downtown as a wave front of compressed air, flattening weaker structures outright and blowing out windows. Halo struck in the momentary distraction caused by the explosion of glass.

A narrow silver beam suddenly leaped from his staff, carving into Cobalt like tissue paper, and ripping him to shreds. His body 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 swiped 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 arms hard to the left, and a rippling crescent burst outward. The shadowy pulse cut through the arms like a guillotine. That was too easy.

Something burning hot slammed into my head, sending stars exploding 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 air, 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 damage absorption capacitors. Halo 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 and promising 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. 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 monstrous jaws was 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 shaking violently, then a great crack split the earth, spilling silver light through the cracks as massive chunks of stone jutted up six feet high. Amongst the rocks revealed Halo, standing 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 held in hand his staff, glaring at up at my double.

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

Two bolts of hyperdense 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 pit 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 quickly that Halo couldn’t retaliate without missing him by a mile. It was textbook guerilla warfare.

I wasn’t a spectator.

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 weaved telluric energy and channeled natural electromagnetic forces within the ground. The currents of the air simultaneously 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 not nailed down into the air. 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 and pale lightning converged, evaporating the shield Cobalt summoned and barely singed his hair in the release.

The clone lifted his hand when the attack refocused and redoubled. The supernatural lightning struck a gleaming metallic dagger and was redirected harmlessly into the ground. 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 cloud 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 massive white direwolf 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 commanding super compressed hard water 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 at a sprint. The momentum carried me back and over the edge of the building. Even in freefall, his grip didn’t let up. It felt like he was crushing my windpipe. I couldn’t 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. I hit so hard, white spots flared in my vision as my back felt like it was crushed on impact. Cobalt’s fingers dug in and he lifted me up until my toes scraped the ground.

“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 burst forth like a beam that passed 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.

“You okay?” Halo said, appearing my side.

“Never better.” I rubbed at my throat.

It 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 vocalize my attacks so much.

Cobalt was upon us just as I jabbed two fingers into the dirt. 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, transmogrifying the stone spires and debris rushing at him at high speeds into terrifying orbs of deep crimson. The heat seeking napalm numbered a dozen and simultaneously accelerated toward our position.

In one smooth wave of Halo’s staff, the napalm was intercepted by a gigantic slab of rock that grew from the ground like a tree. The resulting explosion sent anything not rooted into the earth flying backwawrd as the area was bathed in an intense wave front of compressed air. We were forced to improvise countermeasures before we found ourselves outright flattened. We were people of mass destruction, and it was never more apparent as our attacks had the same fallout as nukes.

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

He thankfully couldn’t see us and I abused his lack of visibility to weave my magic. The black smoke gave a sudden pulsation and its billowy form smoothed into a roughly human shape 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 clearing that was a little over sixty meters in circumference.

Jade light crackled around my fingers 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 first,the giant’s arm followed my movements. Cobalt leaped over the appendage and it slammed into the ground with a quake we felt in the soles of our feet. The resulting crater was nothing to sneeze at.

If Cobalt was worried, she didn’t show it. 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 colossal 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 him 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 she just stood in.

I gritted my teeth. “Stay still and you’ll get my answer.”

I kicked out with my foot for emphasis and the avatar responded 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, simply showing off at this point. His cockiness was something Halo exploited mercilessly. Thunder crackled loudly enough to shake the air and a white lightning bolt suddenly pierced the sky. The arrogant bastard saw it coming a mile away and the purifying lightning was poured into the empty earth where he was previously stood.

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

Cobalt had less than two seconds from seeing his death accelerate forward to hastily improvise a defense. The azure shield flared blindingly bright, taking a brunt of the attack. Still, 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 an echoing crunching boom through the air.

“He’s anticipating our attacks,” Halo said, watching the spot where Cobalt landed.

I nodded. “He 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 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 like going out like this in the middle of the city. It would be entirely too easy to turn this entire area 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 forest and the avatar reflected my defensive stance as blond-red hair was seen first amidst the dust and rubble woods. Cobalt emerged with enough cuts and scraps to ensure he was a bleeding mess. His blue eyes 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 wrapped around its dark handle, and there was something dangerous about it now. 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 thought it was. There was no—

The air above the avatar wavered as Cobalt came out 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 was proving my theory correct 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 bisecting the giant almost clean in two. It stumbled forward a bit independently of its mistress’ movement. It 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 him at the speed of light 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 truly was. I then surveyed the remains of my avatar with a dispassionate stare.

“Recognize the power in my hands,” Cobalt said, his voice calm 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 powerful on his person. It wasn’t so much what the knife was. Like Caliburn or Gungnir of legends, the knife 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 had been 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 coming.

I lost a significant 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. 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 gritted my teeth as 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 currents 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 Halo was holding back the floor of raw power. The whirling temporal blade flew from my hand. For a moment, it seemed like maybe it harmlessly dissipated but then 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? Well, 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 carving 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 maddening sense of incomprehensible wrongness. It left 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 Cobal’s grip with violent force, its very launch potential blasting a trench across the crag ridden earth. Wind gathered beneath my heels and I leapt 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, and that was Cobalt’s only warning before I stormed forth. Temporal blades of severing wind sliced in, putting the clone on full defense 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 fires of time itself. Lea was an acrobat of aerial maneuvers as the flaming web threatened to tear her to pieces and decay her remains in one blow. It began to ran 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 tone, 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 he I felt him gathering power. 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 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. Something made him stop and he cocked hist head, listening. Cobalt’s eyes widened and he leapt back. At the peak of his jump the crystal exploded nailing him straight on with a wave front of high pressure, and sending him careening wildly away like a ragdoll.

I stood in the snowfall of falling ice flakes, taking in deep lungful of air, 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 dense 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 her right side above my hip like a buzz saw.

“Bitch,” I growled, fighting 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 so 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 the Andromeda Galaxy and left us in peace.”

It started as a low chuckle, turned into a rolling laugh, and then blossomed into a full blown 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 keeping him trapped.

“You low budget Harry Potter 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 blue ball of super dense ice. He launched the attack at me 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 the wizard to me knees. Cobalt lifted his long leg up high into the air and dropped it down into a bone-crushing axe kick that broke my shoulder and slammed me to the ground on my face. Pain was all I knew and concentrating was gone. The whispers of energy drained from my limp fingers.

Cobalt bent and lifted my head up by the hair. My eyes were unfocused as I swam lost in a world of pain. “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. Cobalt shook his head at my broken body; then, his eyes narrowed at the sudden silence. The other battles that been going on simultaneously were now quiet. If Cobalt was 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 and exploding in a violent gale that consumed me. Cobalt spun around, and his shock was apparent at the sight.

“Your mistake was lack of teamwork,” I said, looking up at him with steel in my eyes, while the high velocity winds whipped around me and decimated anything within a sixty meter circumference. Steel and stone rapidly aged with rust and decay as the temporal energy went wild. “We are Chosen. We’re stronger together.”

Axel’s body fell from the sky and exploded into the ground in a splatter of green slime. Omega hovered in the air, victorious, and his hand extended out. Cobalt found he couldn’t move within the Champion of Miracles telekinetic grip. His eyes narrowed with concentration as 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 echoed in the air and suddenly the Executioner was 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 shattered his working.

The ax struck home in his torso that sliced 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 told me 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 red 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. Mutually assured destruction.

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

Things were looking 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? How do you even know that?”

I looked him in the eyes. “It’s what I would do.”

The Executioner swore under his breath then said, “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 was 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… were it was.”

Something tugged at me, calling my senses to a foreign sensation best described as a tap on the shoulder. I reached out to it, and the air above our heads flickered as an image took shape. It wavered in form until, 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, pal.”

“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 and 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 looked sad. “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 and we didn’t get a moment to ponder the escalating situation when that 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. I covered my mouth with mine, shocked. 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. My body was 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 years to get to this point, for this victory. The triumph felt hollow because of what this meant and waited for us. But here now I want to celebrate this victory 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 a lot like bliss. I wish that I could stay like this forever. From the corner of my eye see the Executioner and Solaris caught up in their own joyful moment.

Halo suddenly hissed and said, “Guys!”

I tensed and regretfully left Omega’s embrace. My brother’s voice was panicked. There were few things on Earth that scare him. “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.”

Closing my eyes, I turned my entire being toward the east. I didn’t even have to concentrate. It was there blazing across the whole of creation like a giant neon sign. It was ramping up like a reactor. The power felt familiar, clean and pure in the way to remind me of antiseptic soap or bleach. There was something purifying about it. It was divine.

“That can’t be right,” I said, trading a startled look with Halo.

The Executioner was reading, tapping at the phone in his face with a deep frown. “It’s exponentially increasing in strength, and whatever this power is, it has a similar frequency to Halo’s energy pattern.” 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.”

They could come 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 and our surroundings changed in the blink of an eye as he moved us smoothly through time and space. We found it deserted, small favors. All major cities still must be under curfews 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. Hovering above the Thames in robes of pale cream were a dozen angels. Their wings were fully expanded and together looked like every tale of avenging angels in folklore. They hovered there in the sky with a globular mass of what looked like liquid mercury 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 were shining in the dark of night. The sadness on her face didn’t detract from her otherworldly beauty. She looked at us and then looked 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.