“What the hell is going on here?!” the warden demanded in a booming voice.

  “S-sir!” one of the men shouted. “It’s that new prisoner, sir! He’s escaped!”

  “WHAT?!”

  The warden stared at the holographic screen that displayed Alex breaking through his prison bars. He turned white as a sheet. Then his entire face, all the way down past his neck, turned bright red.

  Growling, he flipped several switches on one of the consoles. On the monitors, every jail cell opened up.

  “W-what are you doing, Warden?!” one of the officers squawked in surprise.

  “Give me that intercom,” he demanded, nabbing the device from the hands of one of the other guards. He put it to his mouth and began shouting. “Listen up, degenerates! We’re going to be playing a new game. Anyone who can dispose of the boy called Alexander will win a free trip out of this place!”

  As the head warden shouted into the commlink, claiming that whoever killed Alex would be allowed to go free, the security guards whispered to each other behind the warden’s back.

  “He does realize that there’s no way he can make good on his promise, doesn’t he?”

  The others all shrugged.

  “Didn’t think so…”

  9

  “Listen up, degenerates! We’re going to be playing a new game. Anyone who can dispose of the boy called Alexander will win a free trip out of this place!”

  Alex knew he was in trouble when all of the jail cells opened, and figures emerged from within. The loud shout that rang out over the speakers merely reinforced that fact. Each prisoner that exited a jail cell was covered in muscles. They towered over him. Like Alex, they were wearing a prisoner’s uniform. Unlike Alex, there was a deranged gleam in their eyes, as if their minds had broken a long time ago.

  “Dis is the kid, right?” one of the men asked. He was massive, at least two times larger than Alex. He was bald, and his head was shaped like an olive. It was also a lot smaller than the rest of his body.

  “I think so,” another said, his prisoner clothes hanging off his lanky frame like an old person’s skin.

  “Then what are we waiting for?! Let’s kill this little shit!”

  “Yeah!”

  “And here I was hoping he’d become my bitch. Oh, well.”

  Four men charged at him, but Alex stood his ground and summoned his aura. He channeled all of the power into his fist. Then he drew his fist back, threw a punch, and released all of the pent-up energy that he’d stored.

  A massive wave of condensed silvery-blue energy was launched forward. The energy wave took on the form of a fist, which plowed into the men charging at him. They didn’t stand a chance. The wave hit them like a shuttle breaking the sound barrier. While two of them crashed into a jail cell, denting the metal bars, the other two were thrown off the side.

  Alex rushed up to the side as the two fell, grasping the railing and looking down. The two had already disappeared within the depths of the prison.

  Did they survive the fall? Can anyone survive a fall like that?

  Alex didn’t know. He also knew that now wasn’t the time to feel concerned for criminals. Gabrielle was still in the clutches of MacArt, and if he didn’t do something to rescue her, then she would be taken away, her mind and body broken. He didn’t want that to happen.

  There was also the small matter of Mars being destroyed if he let Gabrielle get kidnapped, but he tried not to think about that.

  Several more prisoners came out of the woodworks. Alex looked ahead and behind him. They were on either side, pincering him in. Each one was large and bulky, and more than a few made him think of space sumo wrestlers he’d seen on TV.

  “Hey, dat’s da one, ain’t he?”

  “He is!”

  “Let’s kill the bastard!”

  “I want my freedoooommmm!!!”

  Like the rolling particle clouds of an ion storm, they surged forward. Alex knew he wouldn’t be able to defeat them all. He still didn’t have a handle on his powers, and he was still tired.

  He looked around. Time seemed to slow. The rust covered railing separated him from a long drop. Above and below were more walkways. Several meters off was a staircase, but there was no way he’d be able to reach it, not when there were so many people blocking his path.

  There’s no time to think!

  Before the prisoners could reach him, Alex leapt onto the rail, channeled his aura to his feet, and then released the energy as he jumped. The air stung his eyes as he was catapulted into the air like a projectile fired from a gun. He didn’t know how high his jump took him, but he reached out his hand, grabbed onto the railing, and pulled himself up.

  Another prisoner was waiting for him. He was muscular like the others, with bulging triceps and pecs that were larger than Alex’s head. Long black hair and a five o’clock shadow lent him a bedraggled appearance. Bloodshot eyes carried a hint of insanity as they stared down at Alex like he was a helpless animal.

  “You thought you could escape by coming up here. However, little did you know that I, the greatest criminal to have ever existed, was waiting for you. Now lament, for you are going to be killed so that I can win my—GYYYAAAA!”

  A loud, piercing wail bounced along the walls as Alex, unable to listen to this man anymore, kicked him in the nutsack. As the man grabbed his balls, Alex grabbed his prisoner’s jumpsuit. He hauled the man off his feet and tossed him into the prisoners who’d been trying to run up the stairs.

  Several loud crunches!, crashes!, and bangs! reverberated all around him as everyone fell back down. Alex didn’t look back to see what had happened. He needed to keep moving.

  Mars Penitentiary was a high-security prison built deep underground. It had two levels. The low security prison and the high security prison.

  The low security prison was where people who committed minor infractions went. A drunken brawl, a shuttle crash, minor cases of theft and petty vandalism. Most people only stayed there for a night before being taken back to Mars City via shuttle.

  The high security prison was below the low security prison, and it was the place where hardened criminals who’d committed atrocious crimes went; grand theft autos, murder, rape, drug smuggling, and slave trading. Because the prisoners there were so violent, the high security prison had been cordoned off by a series of checkpoints that could only be opened from the other side.

  Alex would have to break through those checkpoints if he wanted to be free.

  As he leapt from railing to railing, Alex realized that he must have been near the bottom—that, or this place simply had more levels than he’d suspected.

  It seemed like the higher Alex went, the less prisoners there were. Shouts reached him from down below. A glance down revealed that the other prisoners were trying to follow him.

  Because he was glancing down, Alex almost missed the figure looming above him. If it hadn’t been for the shadow they cast, he probably would have.

  He looked up. There was a tall man holding a metal bar, which he was clearly going to use to bash Alex’s head in.

  Reacting on instinct, Alex grabbed the guard rail and used it to swing underneath the man, flying between the prisoner’s legs. The metal bar smacked the rail, a loud gong! blasting in his ears, making him wince.

  He gritted his teeth and ignored the ringing of his eardrums. The other man was worse off anyway. His body shook from the reverberations that the missed attack had caused. His arms must have gone numb. Alex was going to use that to his advantage.

  Scrambling to his feet, Alex created a tightly packed ball of condensed Aura of Creation between his hands. The sphere crackled. Wisps of silvery blue energy wafted from it like gaseous fumes from a star. His opponent didn’t even have time to turn around before Alex shoved the sphere into his back.

  What happened after was… unexpected.

  Alex wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting to happen, but it wasn’t the man being blasted off his feet, sent sailing to the other side of the prison, and slamming into the bars of a jail cell. The bars dented from the force they were hit with. The man, clearly unconscious, fell to the floor in a heap of limbs.

  “Well,” Alex started, “that wasn’t my intention, but this works fine, too.”

  10

  Inside of the security room, the warden and his officers were staring at the screens, flabbergasted.

  “W-what the hell is this kid?!”

  “There’s no way he can be human!”

  The warden gawked at the screen with the others. That Alex kid was leaping—no, flying from rail to rail, and he was beating the crap out of every other prisoner who came near him. How was this possible? These people were nearly five times bigger than him! And then there was that strange blue energy that he was using. What the hell was that?!

  “He’s almost reached the first checkpoint!”

  “What do we do?!”

  “I want my mommy!!!”

  The warden realized something right then. It was up to him to fix this situation. He needed to take charge, lead his men, and deal with this threat.

  “Alert all of the officers stationed here that they’re to make for the checkpoint! They must guard it with their lives! The use of lethal firearms is permitted!”

  Even if this brat was using some strange power, there was no way he could defeat an entire force of armed guards…

  Right?

  11

  The first checkpoint was a large set of durasteel doors—blast doors. These types of doors were often used in spaceships. Their purpose wasn’t necessarily to be a door, but rather, to seal off damaged sections of the ship. This kept the rest of the ship from being subjected to the vacuum of space. Since blast doors were made with the idea of sealing off spaces in mind, they were built to withstand harsh punishment.

  In other words, breaking through it was impossible with anything less than a high-powered beam weapon or a particle cannon.

  Alex didn’t think he had the power necessary to break through it with his Aura of Creation, and he still refused to use his other power, the red one that was tied to Voice Number One. Still, it wasn’t like everything needed to be solved with violence. He was a genius inventor, after all.

  The blast door was sectioned off by a walkway that separated it from the rest of the high-security prison. Alex spun around, formed another giant energy sword in his hand, and slashed apart the walkway. A loud scree! erupted as metal was shredded like Mr. Grater ripping Gabrielle’s clothes asunder. The walkway warped, wobbled, and then fell, its position unable to be maintained now that it didn’t have the benefit of being connected to both sides.

  That should keep any prisoners that make it this far from coming further. Now to deal with that blast door.

  There was an access panel next to the blast door. Often used by droids when emergency access to the door’s security control was necessary, they were a built-in safety on the off-chance that the door was malfunctioning.

  Alex used his multi-purpose tool to unscrew the access panel. He set the durasteel grating against the wall, and then went to work.

  Built with a series of circuits, nodes, and wires, the security panel’s operating system was made with a numerical sequence-based code. To access the blast door, one needed to enter the correct code.

  Droids normally plugged themselves into the panel and hacked it. Alex was not a droid, so he needed to use his multi-purpose tool’s decoder to hack into the panel and access the blast doors.

  He could have simply busted the door by crossing wires, but he wanted to close it once he finished. He didn’t think anyone could follow him since the walkway had been destroyed. Still, it was better to be prudent than to let a bunch of murderous criminals escape.

  Ping! The door slid open. Alex stood up and walked through the doorway—

  “There he is, men! Fire!”

  —where he was met with a hail of blaster fire.

  Alex shut his eyes and raised his hands, as if doing so would somehow shield him from the incoming storm of deadly projectiles. He waited for the feeling of his flesh being burnt, waited for holes to be blasted through his body, waited and waited and waited.

  Nothing happened.

  Opening his eyes, Alex wondered if he was seeing things. There was a large blue barrier in front of him. Oval in shape and slightly opaque, it blocked the blaster fire with ease. Blaster bolts hit it and fizzled out as if contact with the barrier negated them.

  I see, so the Aura of Creation can also be used to make shields.

  Alex wasn’t expecting an answer, but he received one anyway.

  “Indeed it is. You didn’t think an Angelisian’s power simply allowed one to make weapons, did you? An Angelisian’s power is that of creation. Weapons, shields… honestly, the application of this power is nearly limitless. I myself feel like we’ve only scratched the surface of what you can do with this power.”

  Huh… that’s really useful.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Che,” Voice Number One scoffed. “Creating shit’s nowhere near as useful as my power.”

  “It is far more useful than your power.”

  “Is not.”

  “Is too.”

  “Is not.”

  “Is too.”

  “Is—”

  Stop that right now!

  After verbally berating the voice, Alex returned his attention to the larger problem at hand—the people who were shooting at him.

  “Keep firing, men! Keep firing!”

  The storm of blaster bolts seemed to increase. Alex winced. He could actually feel the drain on his energy. It was like all of his strength was slowly being sucked out of him by a vacuum. His knees trembled, his arms shook, and his mind became sluggish. If this kept up…

  I’ll be done for.

  The blaster fire dwindled, and then ceased. The officers had run out of ammo. Alex knew that this was his chance.

  Before they could recover, Alex opened his D-space and pulled out a smoke grenade—at least, he thought it was a smoke grenade. It produced smoke when he threw it on the ground, but then everyone started choking before they fell unconscious. Eyes rolled into the back of heads, bodies crumpled like broken robots, and several of them spasmed before going still.

  “Hmm…” Alex pondered this. “I must have used the wrong chemicals to create smoke. I wonder why it didn’t affect me?” He pondered this some more, and then decided that he didn’t care. “Oh, well. Time to head out.”

  12

  “Warden! He’s breached the first checkpoint!” one of the security officers shouted.

  The warden growled and lifted a large, hairy arm, which he pointed accusingly at the figure on the holographic monitor. “Activate the war droids! Let’s see how he handles our most powerful weapons!”

  13

  After passing the first checkpoint, Alex entered an elevator at the end of the hall. Soft music played all around him. It was surprisingly calming. He didn’t think this style of music would be playing inside of a prison.

  “Maybe they play this kind of music to help the officers relax?” suggested Voice Number Two.

  “Che. If they wanted to relax, they should just screw each other’s brains out,” said Voice Number Two.

  “Must you always be so crass?”

  “Must you always be such a prude?”

  If you two keep arguing, I’m going to block you.

  “My apologies.”

  “Whatever.”

  The voices fell silent, and Alex sighed. He really was beginning to wonder about his mental stability. Did anyone else hear voices inside their head like this? Did anyone else talk to those voices? He didn’t think so.

  The elevator stopped, and the doors opened. Alex would have stepped out, but standing right in front the door were several droids. They were bipedal, human in shape, with bullet-shaped heads and glowing red eyes. Their bodies were painted in the same colors as a police uniform.

  Each of them was carrying a plasma rifle.

  “Well, shit,” Alex cursed.

  The droids opened fire. Alex raised his hands and a silvery blue barrier sprang up. The plasma struck the barrier, splattering against it like ooze, then ate into the shield, forcing him to reinforce it with more energy. He grimaced as his energy shields wavered. It seemed plasma was harder to shield against than blasters.

  When the droids stopped firing, Alex willed the energy to expand. The blue shield flew forward. It slammed against the droids, sending them crashing to the ground. He then recalled the barrier and created a sword.

  He felt like a character in a hack and slash game as he charged forward.

  14

  “He’s destroying all of our war droids, Warden!” an officer screeched.

  “That boy is a monster! He’s going to kill us all!”

  “Run for it!”

  “SAVE ME, EEERRREEENNNNN!!!”

  Chaos descended upon the room. All of the officers were running around in circles. The warden stood in the center of this chaos, shaking, though whether that was from rage or fear, not even he knew.

  “Silence, all of you!” he shouted, trying to calm his subordinates. It didn’t work. They continued to run around, no matter how loud he shouted.

  Then, as if karma was coming to bite him in the ass, a loud explosion rocked the entire prison.

  “What the hell was that?!” he demanded to know.

  One of his subordinates, the same one who’d been commenting on the boy’s progress as he demolished their security, looked at another monitor. “Sir, it looks like our hangar bay gates have just been destroyed!”

  “WHAT?!”

  Like a bird of prey, it descended, a blue and white police shuttle. A holoscreen appeared in the air, revealing the shuttle up close. It also allowed them a view of the people inside. He didn’t recognize three of them, the two girls with blond hair and the other girl with dark hair, but he knew at least one of those people. It was Darrick, who often piloted Commander Karen to this prison.

  “Warden, the shuttle is hailing us!”

  Before he could tell them not to respond, a crisp voice spoke up from a speaker system. “This is Caridna Tepes. I’ve come to rescue a young man named Alexander S. Ryker. If you don’t want to have your asses kicked, then don’t try to stop us. That is all.”