Hector watched Captain Devin execute opponents in an act of defiance. Somehow, even witnessing the actual events, he still could not imagine the calm, calculating cyborg becoming a murderous terminator capable of a suicidal last charge. How bad did things have to be for this to make sense to a man like that?

  A quick assessment of his forces revealed just how desperate they were. Captain Devin was gone, exploded into fragments. Ajax may have a chance of surviving, but if so it was exceedingly small given the grotesque nature of his injuries. Conflagration remained useless. Piercing huddled beneath Riley of all people, who was taking injury to protect a man she could not stand to be around. Darius was hopping about and returning attacks with cables too weak to matter. Isabel and Esther were blocking everything they could and dodging anything that got past their externalities.

  Even with just three enemies remaining, they were in trouble. If any of the wounded returned to the other side, it would speed up the end. The voice of Cruiser Erin in his ear was a relief when it came, someone who might know how to salvage the disaster befalling his friends.

  “Lord Dragonbane, I am unable to approach the battle. You will need to escape in your transit sphere. We are near the world of Eden and can reach there in approximately one week. Are you able to find that world?”

  “I can.” This was not the advice he wanted to hear. “I don’t know if I can hold them off long enough for us to escape, though. We might not all fit into my transit sphere, either.”

  A rumble came then from the ground. “Raise your sphere, Hector. I will hold them back.”

  The Titan, looking like ground beef come to life, rose up on broken legs.

  “Ajax, you can’t go out like this,” he argued.

  “Only thing I have left to live for is taking back Aes. Saving you is how I do that. Thank you for being who you are, Hector. Now toss me at the bastards.”

  Hector intended to refuse the request, but Darius overheard their conversation. One of Hector’s friends unceremoniously chucked another of his friends to his death. Ajax spread his arms wide, his massive reach impressive, and seized the final two members of Lord Malcolm’s retinue. The Titan could not hurt them, but he had no trouble pulling them tight to his chest and dragging them down to the ground.

  Though it pained him, Hector wasted no time. His sphere rose into existence as Lord Malcolm went crazy, whipping with renewed frenzy. Hector took one of the blows directly on his aura and collapsed to his knees in pain. He managed to keep expanding his sphere even as he screamed. The Lord hissed at him. “Your aura aperture gave way a little that time. You dare call yourself a Lord when your soul anchors are so weak? I could kill you in an instant with my next strike!”

  Rather than end his life, Lord Malcolm swung his cables at Hector’s sphere. Which he hardly noticed. Any strength his aura lacked, his sturdy externality had in plenty. Malcolm swung harder and harder at the expanding sphere, irate that it was withstanding his attacks. The Lord no doubt assumed he could stop them from entering the sphere at any time.

  When his sphere was its full size, Hector nodded at Darius and dropped his realm’s influence. Both Darius and Riley fired a chaos bolt. Neither of them could ever hope to hurt the Lord, but they did push him back and block his visibility. When he attempted to return fire, all he did was shower them with cosmic energy. Everyone was squeezing into Hector’s sphere by that point.

  He irised the weld shut as fast as he could, but they still had to drop low to avoid a cable inserted at the last moment. Hector pushed his conceptual weight into his externality and managed to sever the cable. Then he started to exit that world. From without, his sphere was slammed with chaos bolts. They barely affected him, but there was a flashing effect on the interior surface that forced them to squint.

  “We’re in the primordial,” Hector announced once they had escaped.

  No one responded. What was there to say? They’d lost Ajax and Captain Devin. All of them were wounded. The illusion that they could avoid their pursuers for the entire year was shattered. They were separated from Cruiser Erin, who was their home as well as their ally.

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  Hector sat with his numbness as he navigated the primordial. Grief would no doubt find him once he had time to settle into the new reality. Ajax following his brother Nestor into death would hurt. Captain Devin, for all the time spent together, had never been a true part of their group. He’d been an aloof advisor and trusted comrade, but never a friend. The cyborg always kept a professional distance during interactions. Maybe that was to avoid people feeling too sad in this kind of situation.

  The multiverse was an insane place. Their greatest struggle since departing Terra had been with other humans. Who wanted him dead for bragging rights. Or maybe it was outrage at a title others granted him. That wasn’t any better of a reason.

  His mind replayed the spectacle of Lord Malcolm recreating his body from nothing. Finally he understood what made the Twin Touch Technique – learned by Volithur as the twin touch game – so valuable for prospective Lords. The ability to see that reality floated atop a layer of chaos constrained through resonance gave them the tools they needed to manifest flesh and blood from nothing. So long as their body aperture remained intact, growing a new body required only a few seconds of concerted effort.

  That was the potential denied to him. The ache from his aura aperture, which almost detached at the lash of a Lord’s cable, was what he got from ignorance and stubbornness. Running around like a fool while questing may have been necessary for him to grasp his insight, but it cost him dearly. He never expected to be so fragile before someone a single level above him.

  It wasn’t just a single level, though. It was Lord versus non-Lord.

  “We must go to Maya. I need to restore.” Conflagration’s imperious tone rang out in the darkness of Hector’s sphere.

  “Fuck you,” Piercing snapped. The crude response reflected Hector’s own opinion.

  Esther brought the mood down with a question. “Where are we going?”

  “Cruiser Erin arranged to meet us on Eden.”

  With a degree of cultural sensitivity Hector admired, Esther inquired about what they could expect: “I have heard the cultures of Eden do not care for cities.”

  “I haven’t visited more than a tiny bit of Eden. Based on what I have seen, their villages are comfortable. All the life energy means they have abundant food. You’ll learn for yourself soon. We’re almost… oh. They’ve got a couple of rifts. Do we need a break? I can emerge somewhere quiet.”

  “Go kill monsters,” Piercing said. “Me and Conflagration can cheer you on from the sidelines.”

  “People are going to die if we don’t protect them,” Riley said. “Alfar aren’t warriors.”

  Esther finalized the decision. “We’re the Lord Dragonbane’s retinue, are we not?”

  “Right into the action, then.” Hector navigated next to the largest open rift. His sphere opened to reveal a night sky whose stars were concealed by miasmic haze. A rare vertical rift oozed monster-spawning miasma, looking like a red pupil staring at them. The rolling hills in every direction were covered by a vast city integrated into the surrounding nature. Terraces covered by gardens. Cute little houses with live grass roofs. Winding paths. Ponds and wood patches everywhere.

  They were between a stone retaining wall and a slow-moving stream that smelled of death. Hector flexed his realm and the air fluoresced. The polluted stream was more stubborn, but it took on a gentle glow after a few moments. “You two should be safe here.”

  Piercing looked down at the fragment of a sword he was still carrying. He seemed to realize for the first time that his weapon no longer had any value and tossed it aside. “See you in a bit.”

  Hector and his four Xian subordinates flew directly to the rift, bypassing small skirmishes between quarterstaff wielding humans and monsters of various forms. He chose to set down two body lengths from his target. The red wound in reality, leaking gray substance that degraded into dark miasma, rippled as his resonance caused distortions to bubble up.

  Darius and Riley began firing their chaos bolts while Esther’s blade rotated around them. Isabel paced back and forth with her spear held ready. Hector put everything else out of his mind as he focused on his present purpose. He intended to close this rift as fast as possible, then begin mopping up the monsters ravaging the city.

  And of course, restore energy while he was at it. No matter what kind of day it had been, he still needed energy to train his realm, domain, and aura. There were only nine months to go before he was due to report for duty on Aes. He wanted to be at the peak in every way by then.

  A streak of silver caught Hector’s attention. He cast his gaze over the landscape, trying to see where it had come from. There was no immediate repeat, so he began to suspect that he’d imagined it. He hadn’t slept in three months, nor even made use of the One Minute Nap Technique. On occasion he had unusual visual experiences.

  Suddenly two women blinked into existence among their group. Everyone in Hector’s retinue, already on a hair trigger, spun to deal with the threat. It was a close thing, but no one attacked what were clearly fellow humans.

  The dark-skinned young woman snapped her fingers and pointed at Hector. “Booyah! The System owes me a free Skill upgrade!”