Bullets flew like torrential rainfall, coming from seemingly everywhere in the dark underbelly of Indus. Dozens of macabre silhouettes of a man in a cowboy hat flashed with each muzzle flair, blinking into existence all across the tunnels within. Bullets swarmed them and it was all HUE and EUE could do not to die as soon as they reached the ground.

  Apex blew back hundreds of bullets with a Sonic Wave, then pushed back into a tight group with his fellow HUE members. Steve threw eight thick, tall walls of clay ahead of him, allowing his allies to regroup and catch their breaths.

  “This is insane!” Rudy threw portals on each of Steve’s walls, allowing him to control the flow of projectiles trying to break them down. “How many are there?”

  “As far as I can tell, he’s been getting stronger. Every time I see him, it’s more clones,” Hannah said.

  “And they all have telekinesis!?”

  “How do we know which one is the real one?” Steve asked.

  “I can figure this out!” Magnus said confidently. “Just give me some time!”

  Digging into his top hat, Magnus pulled out a kaleidoscope and started spinning its ever-changing shapes and colors in front of his eye. Apex frowned at him.

  “Give him a chance,” Hannah assured the group. “He’s pulled through before.”

  Steve nodded, beefing up their defences. Apex looked out, trying to get a scope of things.

  The Underground was a long, widened cave, meticulously dug out into the earth below like a subway station at the beginning stages of construction. There was scaffolding built into the earth, leading Apex to believe that some sort of Awakened mole-man who could excavate at large scales made the Underground.

  Maybe that was why they were called “The Underground.” It wasn’t just about their hideout. Their mole-man—perhaps their leader—made multiple pockets below earth. It could also explain a way for them to sneak in and out of places unseen. Escape underground and collapse the entry to prevent pursuit.

  Upon entering, they were shot at by dozens of Pete the Plenties, each of them armed with four guns, two in hand and two of them floating in the air. To their credit, EUE reacted just as quickly as HUE. Through Chanter’s screams, Atomic downsizing incoming bullets, and Flo flying people to safety behind Steve’s barriers, they proved worthy allies.

  Steve took the worst of the assault, two open bullet wounds piercing through his clay armor on his shoulder and leg. And now they were pinned, and Pete was the only enemy they could see. His several copies acted as the front lines, and more powers rained down on the area from behind the many Petes.

  Something about Steve getting injured caused Apex more strife than simply the wounds themselves. Rudy was giving him a look that he refused to return.

  “Can someone make a bomb?” Steve asked.

  “And risk having this whole place collapse on us?” Rudy asked, shifting a portal and redirecting a bullet through the corner of his eye.

  “Not us. But maybe we can cut our losses and dump this whole place on the Petes. Jump out through a Rudy portal and nuke it.”

  “That would kill everyone down here,” Apex said. “We don’t know if they have hostages.”

  “They have one hostage. A police officer,” Magnus said, his eye still closed on the kaleidoscope.

  The others looked at him, but he offered no further explanation, twisting the tube and murmuring to himself.

  “What do we do?” Chanter yelled.

  “I like the bomb idea.” Predator grabbed a fistful of dirt from under him and packed it into a tight orb. Willing energy into it, the dirt formed a black orb in his palm radiating death, and offered it gently to Steve. Immediately, Steve cocooned it in a ball of clay.

  “We’re not actually going to use that, are we?” Atomic asked, inching away from it.

  “I’ll get EUE out if they’re crazy enough to try,” Flo assured her.

  Apex pulled their attention with a tiny Point of Interest, flicking eyes to him as he stood tall. “No one’s using any bombs. Follow my lead. I’ll draw them to me with a power, keeping all their eyes on me. Chanter, use Rudy’s portals to get close ranged shots on them. Hannah, I want you to hang back and snipe from here, using air to keep the bullets from striking you. Steve, you keep up the walls and hold the rear with an escape if we need out, but I want your spears launching out front. Anyone have the strength to throw clay spears?”

  “I’ll handle them,” Predator said confidently.

  “Great. Kill the Petes. All of them. Too many to take him quietly. Then we can try to pin the others down.” Apex rolled up his sleeves, forearms flaring with bright energy.

  “He’s sending guns,” Magnus said, eye scrunching over the kaleidoscope in concern.

  “Who is? Where?” Atomic asked.

  “Pete! They’re sneaking over the walls now!” Magnus said, pointing with a straight, confident arm while his gaze remained exclusively on his colored glass.

  Just as he indicated, the barrel of a floating gun peeked out and fired. Predator dashed out an arm, and the projectile disintegrated before it could get closer. More guns poked over different angles of the wall and Apex summoned them with Point of Interest. The barrels pointed to him for only a moment before turning back to others in the group.

  As the guns went off, Apex blasted himself into the air with a Sonic Wave, catching and discarding bullets as they approached, using a mix of Dexterity and Goldshine. Even as he soared in front of the guns, he knew something was deeply wrong.

  Perhaps his most advantageous ability, Third Eye, wasn’t working. They’d taken on hundreds of rounds of bullets, but Apex was alerted to only one or two, and they seemed to be strays. His power only warned him of attacks intended for him, and he hadn’t told anyone about it before, so the Underground shouldn’t have known how to get around it.

  Did Sami figure it out through Power Sense? No, even if he did, he would know to have discretion. Especially after the Dawson streaming fiasco.

  But there was a second possibility.

  They were targeting someone specific.

  Knowing the storied history behind Pete the Plenty and Hannah, Apex made a snap decision. “Steve! Boost the protection around Hannah! I think Pete’s trying to take her from a distance!”

  ***

  “Got it!” Steve said, granting Hannah a thin layer of flexible clay armor.

  “I’m going to get out front! Hannah, follow behind only once we can cut down all this gunfire.” Apex twisted in the air and blasted over the walls with a Sonic Wave.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Hannah kept the area lit in a blue glow as Apex took his illuminating Goldshine with him.

  A surge of power coursed through Steve, extending his control over the clay, allowing him to shape it from further away with newfound precision and ease. The way Predator hovered around all the heroes, he guessed he had some sort of enhancing power that was assisting those in the vicinity. With it fueling his mind, he could mend the walls, keep his armor tight, and form spears next to Predator all at once.

  The sound of gunfire was a relentless storm above them, but Steve’s thoughts hung on Naomi; her image burned into his mind, despite the chaos. Desperately, he wanted to know she was safe. Secure. Alive. His blood running down his arm and leg was nothing compared to the pain he imagined she felt. Locked in the prison of her rapidly emaciating flesh.

  This battle was his chance to at last get even with the Underground for all their previous attacks on HUE and its members. It kept him focused, but every moment to breathe was shared with a fleeting image of Naomi’s thin body. He needed to get back, just to finish the marriage. The thought of a wedding, with its beautiful ceremony and the sense of community and support, was the most compelling way he could think of to demonstrate to her that she was loved and valued. Naomi thought so little of herself in her condition.

  “I found him!” Magnus said, lifting the kaleidoscope from his face. “That way. Pretty far back, beyond eighteen clones. His hat’s tilted forward just a smidge further than the others, like he’s trying to hide his eyes in a sea of his faces.”

  Magnus looked at the odd stares he received.

  “What? Too magical to believe?”

  “Your face!” Chanter said loudly. “Your eye’s all colorful!”

  “What?”

  Magnus’s left eye had changed to a kaleidoscope display with a pupil in its center. Tiny trapezoidal colors bounced around inside, ever-changing. Squinting, he shook his head, not understanding.

  “We can talk about it later,” Flo said, floating above. “Apex made a hole in the wall of Petes. We should move before he fills it back in.”

  “Right!” Hannah stood, but a hand of cold, wet clay gently restrained her. “Steve, I gotta move.”

  Steve gave her a hard stare, blood staining his clay armor. Naomi wouldn’t die today, and neither would anyone else. He was determined only to return with good news.

  “Hannah, he’s after you,” Steve reminded her. “You can stay back in safety. I’ll protect you. We have EUE. We can count on them.”

  “That’s right!” Predator said confidently. “I can charge out there. Flo and Chanter can back me up, and Atomic can remain here for support.” EUE saluted their leader, immediately on board.

  “And you’ll have us,” Rudy said, indicating to himself and the magic-eyed Magnus, looking more serious than Steve had ever seen him. “We don’t need to risk your life for this.”

  “I’m going out there.” Hannah tore the clay hand off with a potshot of blue energy. “I’ve been trying to clear Indus of this guy for weeks! Don’t think I’m gonna hang back when I can be helping.”

  Clones of Pete crawled over the walls like demented creatures, holding out guns just in time to be shot down by roars from Chanter and quick, precise shots from Hannah.

  “I can handle him!”

  “She knows him better than any of us,” Magnus assured him.

  Steve pursed his lips, then nodded. “Be careful.”

  Flo soared down and grabbed Predator and Chanter, carrying them like they were as light as a grocery bag. Nodding to Atomic, she flew above the protective dirt barriers and screamed along with Chanter and Predator in a war cry. Hannah ran up with the assistance of Air conjured at her back. Hoping for the best, Steve looked expectantly at Rudy.

  “Aren’t you going too?”

  “I don’t work great in unfamiliar spaces, I need to know where the portals go in and out,” Rudy said. “Your walls work perfectly for that. Check this out!”

  Pulling one of Steve’s clay spears, he opened a portal on a wall nearest him and chucked it with his full body at a Pete that appeared on the other end, pelting him in the face. As the stunned cowboy raised a gun to retaliate, the portal closed.

  “Point taken. Keep us safe while I figure if we can get a quick way out once we’re done here.”

  “I already have a way out,” Rudy waved a hand and revealed a portal that spat out into the darkness above ground. Closing it, he shrugged. “I assumed you knew we were prepared for a quick escape.”

  “A lot’s happened in a little time.”

  Carefully, Steve placed the bomb on the ground and had it swallowed by the earth, deep enough that it wouldn’t go off from a stray bullet while he formed a plan. Hopefully, he could find a way up that would leave room for him to detonate the device without hurting HUE or EUE still inside. A strong enough explosion would cause the whole place to cave in and stop future operations. But first there was the need to get the heroes out alive.

  “Just like we saw privy in the portal, boys!” Pete suddenly laughed at the top of the wall. “Target’s here, and almost on his lonesome!”

  “Who are they after?” Atomic raised her hands nervously.

  Steve’s brain fired a mile a millisecond. Of the three men in the protection of the walls, Pete was only familiar with Magnus. The magician was a wild card, and the clones wanted him out of the equation. Throwing a mountain of clay above them to shield from an oncoming swarm of seven Petes, they were placed in the midnight darkness of a clay cage. Surprisingly, Magnus’s kaleidoscope eye provided light like a weak flashlight.

  Half-blind, Steve snapped to Rudy. “Out! Now! Take Magnus and Atomic. I’m right behind you!”

  Rudy shot into action, his body bending under a bullet that snuck through the clay and tossing a portal onto the floor. A clone shoved himself through the clay and dove for Steve, only to be smacked aside by a sturdy magician wand extended five feet. As the clone crumpled, Rudy grabbed Magnus and fell back into the portal, popping out the other end. From seemingly nowhere, a chicken appeared and dove through the portal to safety.

  Another Pete grabbed Steve from behind, pinning his arms to his side.

  Atomic hesitated at the lip of the portal, looking up at Steve. As he thrashed to throw Pete off him. Another Pete rapidly approached.

  Pressing her lips firm, Atomic leaped forward to assist. Only for a massive hand of clay to shoot out of the nearest wall and slap her through the open portal. Even constrained, Steve breathed in relief. The Underground was thwarted by his hands at least once. They’d won two battles, but he got one. Their target, whoever it was, made a clean getaway.

  Cocooning himself into a tight clay shield everywhere but his eyes, Steve fired hundreds of fists of clay, clearing the area of the incoming enemies and inching his way forward to the open portal. After the rapid attack, only one Pete remained behind his walls. He fired all four guns, but every bullet grazed the area around his shoulder. Nothing serious. Sliding clay between them from random angles, Steve forced all four of his guns away.

  Laughing, Pete raced forward unarmed and lunged. Steve blasted a spear of clay through his shoulder, tearing it clean off, but the clone didn’t even react to the loss, raising his other arm and striking. Wincing, Steve felt a stabbing sensation in his shoulder and was shocked to realize that Pete may have had more than just long distance weapons.

  Having had enough of the nuisance, Steve strained to crush the Pete between two walls of clay and launch himself out of the portal in the safety of his clay cocoon.

  Nothing happened.

  Blinking, Steve pushed his Awakening further, trying to get it to see the urgency of the situation. Clay needed to move. Now!

  Still nothing.

  In fact, the sensation of clay around him had completely disappeared. With a sharp, frustrated intake of breath, Steve blinked, a sudden realization hitting him with the force of a punch to the face. He was blind in the Underground’s darkness, lacking anyone with an Awakening that could illuminate the area and the world outside the portal still suffering from the power outage. But the stabbing pain in his shoulder was very precise. Too tiny to be a blade.

  A syringe? With the Antiserum?

  Light cracked through the cocoon as a Pete pulled clay away from Steve’s face. Watching with keen eyes, Pete held a lighter up, examining calmly. Struggling, Steve found his cocoon was now his casket, locking him in place. A gun rose to his face.

  “Looks like we got our man,” Pete chuckled to other Petes behind him.

  Steve blinked in shock. Why would he be their target? Was this a game Pete was playing to throw off their understanding of who was targeted? No, it was just the two of them. There would be no reason for games.

  Confusion swallowing him, the gun’s hammer pulled back as Steve struggled in the firm trappings of clay he couldn’t control. He was going to die.

  But somehow he found himself smiling. There was an irony that he would go before Naomi. More than he would have ever admitted, he imagined a scene in which he would return successfully from the Underground, only to find that Naomi was already gone. And he already knew Naomi planned for that to be the case. Although Naomi was usually a meticulous planner, with detailed files and contingency plans, this situation was going completely outside her expectations. Something she and Steve would share in understanding.

  Three Pete’s tipped their hats in deference. “You fought well, Steve. See ya later rather than sooner.”

  Blinking in understanding, Steve picked up the Underground knew him by name. For some reason he couldn’t piece together fast enough, he was their target. But he still had faith in his friends as the trigger was being pulled.

  “I get the feeling I’ll be seeing you soon.” Steve smiled confidently down the barrel of the gun.

  And the bullet was fired.

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