“Go,” Twitch said, eyeing me. “We need quick access to and from Tokyo. We can put those things down fast.”

  “There’s no group of superheroes in Japan?” Andromida asked, already stepping forward to create the portal.

  Twitch checked her system, then said, “I’m seeing several registered with the Citadel, but they’re being pushed back, mostly around… here.” She pulled up a map with labels, and I saw a location I recognized from one of our short-lived vacations—Akihabara!

  “In and out, strike force style,” Twitch said, nodding my way.

  “I’m going to need you both to save my son,” Breaker said. “Be quick. Don’t hold back.”

  “You got it,” I said, hating that I was leaving at all but knowing that if anyone had a chance of dealing with this threat quickly, it was Twitch and me.

  We went through the portal to find ourselves in the middle of a smoke-filled city with neon lights and toys scattered across the pavement. Briefcases littered the street around more than one salaryman’s body. No sign of the enemy at first, but someone was crying.

  “I’ll check it out, you scan,” I said, and shot up into the air with tails flailing and light streaming from me.

  “Could be a trap.”

  “Always.”

  I flew above the lower buildings, tall skyscrapers still looming overhead, and spotted a balcony with a restaurant on the rooftop of one of the nearby buildings. There, curled up under one of the tables, was a young boy, crying.

  Not a trap, but a sign of where the trouble was—past the boy were two oni, as evidenced by the red skin and horns. They seemed to have someone with them. Maybe the boy’s parents?

  With a growl of annoyance, I threw myself through the window. Glass flew in around me and pierced oni skin as I tackled the closer of the two. My tails concealed my next moves, so when the other oni recovered from the glass to find my fist in her neck, she never saw it coming.

  “Who—who are you?” the human on the floor asked. She was a Japanese woman with a hand pointed my way, burning claws extending.

  “Charm of the Breaker’s Berserkers.”

  Her eyes went wide, her power subsiding. “I—I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve heard of us, good. Where are the rest? Of the supers, I mean.”

  “They’ve been collecting us, keeping us locked in one of the building’s back storage closets.”

  “Show me the way, but first—get that boy to safety.”

  She nodded, and I went out to help the boy up. When he wouldn’t move, I flew down and retrieved one of the many toys on the ground, thrown from the explosion but not destroyed. It was some sort of mecha bot action figure. Flying back up, I held it out to his mom and said, “Maybe this’ll help.”

  It worked! The boy looked up, wiped away a tear, and even smiled. His mother took him in his arms, then pointed.

  “The one there, across from the shopping center with the kaiju statue out front.”

  I spun and saw Twitch already heading in that direction, so gave this woman my thanks and added, “Be ready to fight. We’ll set the others free and help even the scale, but then we’ve gotta bounce.”

  “Bounce?”

  I growled, annoyed that people on Earth still hadn’t all learned to speak the same language or always have translators activated.

  “Leave,” I explained. “Off to the Citadel. Just… be ready.”

  “Wakatta,” she mumbled, then took her son to what must have been his dad.

  My descent to Twitch was rapid, and I explained what I’d learned.

  “Then it makes sense what I’m seeing—a strong line of guards waiting for us. This is the ambush.”

  “But we’re still going in, right?”

  Twitch grinned and shot me a playful glance. “Of course.”

  Her screens popped up and she took a defensive stance, then began to manipulate code as if she were the conductor of a symphony. Buildings shifted and the floor opened up, and then the fight was on.

  Before we were able to completely open up the path, however, one of the oni came ploughing out of the buildings, cement exploding in its wake. This one was a mean mofo, with bulging muscles and a thick beard of blue that flew in the wind off to each side. He wore a white loincloth-looking thing in the Japanese style of fundoshi. In his hands, he held a spear that he thrust out with such force that the wind threw us back. When he pulled forward, that wind hit again but this time to draw us into the path of his spear.

  Two could play this game. I also could control the wind. I spun and created a burst that slammed into his, and the shockwave knocked his spear clean out of his hand. He growled and more of his brothers and sisters rose up to meet us, followed by the Hujiling we had seen in the video. As they attacked with spears and elemental attacks, the Hujiling observed us and our fighting techniques.

  “I’ll hold them off! Get us access to the other supers!” I lunged for the closest oni. It swiped at me with one of those long spears, this one with a large blade on one side, while behind me another attacked with fire.

  My ability to teleport—one of my more recent additions—helped me to get to the other side and face both at once instead of being forced to fight on two fronts. A string of Japanese curses came from the nearest oni as I pushed the attack, claws tearing into them but my charm breaths seemingly having no effect.

  That was a first.

  Fighting them the old-fashioned way seemed to work well enough, though. I dropped these two, but when one came at me with skin that hardened to stone each time I struck, I realized I needed to change things up.

  “Twitch, we getting close?” I asked, noticing more walls and floors shifting, but a burst of white light cut off my view of her before misting into a glowing fog.

  I needed to fight my way toward her to make sure she could work unhindered. Except, when I tried to teleport, the white fog blocked me. That stone-skinned oni charged over, each step shaking the ground, so I came up with an idea I hadn’t tried before—instead of teleporting myself, I applied the power to him and sent him to the top of one of the skyscrapers.

  His charge didn’t stop, and he went right over the edge. A beat later, he smashed a large hole into the cement and didn’t come up again.

  “Impressive,” a voice said from the fog. The form of the Hujiling appeared momentarily within and then vanished.

  “Down here!” Twitch called out from beyond the fog.

  “How do I know it’s not a trap? What’s my favorite dessert?”

  “Oh, come on!” A clanging sounded, followed by, “Carrot cake! But really, it’s the frosting on Breaker’s cock!”

  “You know me too well.”

  I charged in, laughing. After all, I’d known it was her. I just enjoyed the idea of her imagining me licking frosting off of our man. The thought of it was now on my mind as well, and I was more ready than ever to end this little side quest. This city had been when we’d visited, from nerding out over the toys from movies and shows Breaker was obsessed with to watching the local people going about their day and finding fun restaurants to eat at. But none of that worked out when these stupid oni and their Hujiling observer were in the way.

  Speaking of the Hujiling, I saw her again, and this time managed to catch her. By the tail, no less! If you know anything about me, you know that having my tail pulled is bound to piss me off (unless it’s at the right time in the bedroom). So I wasn’t surprised in the least when she spun on me with a snarl, then lunged back to try and tackle me.

  We were a blur of strikes—move quickly to dodge, come back for an attack, then dodge again. She seemed to be testing me, and likewise I was seeing what she was capable of. Impressive to say the least, especially if this fog was her doing.

  “Get out of there!” Twitch shouted after we clashed for the fourth time.

  I spun and saw her just past the fog, but the distraction cost me and I took claws to the thigh before retaliating and head-butting the Hujiling.

  “I can handle this bitch!” I shot back, catching the Hujiling with a punch.

  “Just… listen to me! Get out!”

  With one more strike—a kick to the Hujiling’s gut—I leaped and cleared the fog. Turning back, I saw that she was coming after me, only to hit the edge of the fog like it was a wall and go stumbling back.

  Twitch had managed to solidify the fog, at least temporarily, and motioned me to continue on with a nod of her head. “She’s locked in. Go!”

  I charged down the stairs to the supers and pounded right into an energy wall, which, upon impact, revealed a group of Japanese supers hidden behind it! That must have been where Twitch got the idea for her little trap above. The full power of my assault shifted to bringing down that energy wall, and again I found I couldn’t teleport. Whatever power the enemy was using had me worried, but that didn’t slow me down.

  Finally, the wall flickered. Three more strikes, and I was almost there.

  “I’ve got them!” I shouted, and the wall vanished, Twitch grinning on the other side of it.

  “Or maybe I’ve got you.”

  “Look at you, trying to be cute.” Spinning from her to the Japanese supers, I motioned for them to follow and shouted, “Defend your people! Fight!”

  The woman from earlier was there, her fiery claws at the ready, and as the others charged out with me and followed Twitch, I lingered back with her to ask, “The boy, he’s okay?”

  “He’s great. Actually, that’s him.” She indicated a figure that looked like a mini-kaiju charging at two oni. The kaiju clutched the toy I’d given the boy. “He only needed his confidence back.”

  “Well, that’s fucking awesome.”

  I charged into the fight to find blue-skinned oni summoning a wave that crashed over us. Twitch managed to part it, and it hit the buildings nearby instead. Another tried to bring down crackling lightning, which would have had me worried had we not faced plenty of supers with such powers in the past.

  A crack of lightning set the Hujiling free from her fog prison, and she came springing out at us. Her growl caused white fog to slither forth and create a barrier back in place around the supers as they emerged.

  Twitch hit her with a side kick and then motioned for the supers to escape as she pointed at me with one of her screens flashing brightly.

  “Hold it open!” she said. “I just gave you a boost that should counteract the energy barrier!”

  Sure enough, when I jumped in front of the barrier and attacked, not only did it recede, but each strike against it seemed to be hurting the Hujiling. I used all my strength to hold that energy barrier open. The Hujiling was certainly powerful, but not powerful enough to stop us. With my final strike against it, she collapsed to one knee, blood seeping from her nose.

  I was glad to see superhero after superhero charge out, meeting the wave of enemies in combat. Better still when Twitch assigned them that same boost she had given me so that they, too, would be able to fight back against the Hujiling and her skills.

  “Thank you,” one of them said with a deep bow, then turned to join the fight.

  Twitch gave me a proud nod and I returned it with a thumbs up. Victory! Our fight to protect Earth was a success. We would never stop protecting Breaker’s home world, but for now we had to return to the group to rescue Kai.

  “On me,” Twitch said, leading the way and using her reality hacking skills to trap oni in the cement. The only way for them to escape that was to teleport back to their own world, which most of them did. The most stubborn struggled, only to have their asses handed to them by the recently released heroes.

  As we returned to our portal entry point, leaving our new superhero friends to deal with the remaining oni, the white fox leaped out at me and froze, eyes darting across mine. Finally, when she must have decided she wasn’t powerful enough to take me out on her own, she snarled and stepped back and out of our way.

  “This isn’t over, kitsune,” she said. “And someday soon, we will have our match and you will be found wanting.”

  “And you are?” I asked.

  “Diadra, chief assassin of the Crimson Lotus Clan of the great Hujilings.”

  “Well, Diadra—I can just kick your ass and get it over with, but if you prefer to wait so that we can both savor that taste when it finally comes, fine by me.”

  She gave me one last snarl, then stepped back and vanished from view, as if escaping through an invisible portal.

  Twitch looked at me with alarm. “It’s a distraction. They’re trying to keep us focused on Earth instead of finding a way to retrieve Kai.”

  “But why?” I asked.

  “Some sort of connection to the cult, or whoever’s controlling them,” Twitch replied. “Regardless, we need to get to Breaker and the others ASAP.”

  “Agreed,” I said, and we headed back to find the portal and make our way to the Citadel.

  CHAPTER 17: BREAKER

  The Citadel

  My patience was growing thin, but as far as any of us could figure, heading to the Citadel was our best bet. If anyone would have additional information on Ragnor or ways of tracking him down, it would be Hadrian and the Elders of the Citadel.

  The home base of the superheroes that saw to the safety of the Oram System—and now expanded beyond—should have been my home. Still, considering that I was technically an Elder who hadn’t exactly been spending his days there, I wondered what sort of reception we’d receive this time around.

  Yet there we were, stepping out from the portal doors and onto the metallic-black station with its domes in front of us and the ships overhead. Beyond the protective energy field that kept this place habitable, endless space gave me that same sense of awe it had the first time I’d come here years ago.

  We spent the better half of an hour looking for them, first in the dome and then the rooms. Nobody knew where Hadrian was, or for that matter any of the Tier One supers were! Soon a flash of pink caught my attention and I spun to see Charm and Twitch running over.

  “I’m glad we didn’t miss you,” Twitch said, and Charm looked out of breath, covered with scratches and worse that were healing.

  “Looks like you found some action,” Muerta said, fists clenched. “We need to go back there and teach someone a lesson?”

  “Hopefully not,” Charm replied, “but I have a feeling it’s not the last we’ve seen of the Hujiling.”

  Laurel took a deep breath, hand to her chest.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I’ve heard of them,” Laurel answered. “Shape shifters, often taking the form of the fox, kinda like Charm but different. If they’re working with the enemy, well… that’s one more hurdle, and a large one.”

  “To be clear, we kicked their asses, and their oni friends,” Charm said. “But the way their main warrior threatened me at the end left me feeling uneasy.”

  “That’s because their type are highly adaptable,” Laurel explained. “They might have lost to you now, but when you next meet, her body and mind will have had time to process the moves you used and the strategy you leveraged against them, and throw back at you a counter attack unlike anything you’ve ever seen.”

  “Sounds like you’ve encountered their kind before?” Harp asked.

  “As a teen, when they attacked and took the lives of my parents.”

  Shit, this just got personal. As some of the team muttered that they were horrified to hear this, I wondered what this meant for our fight ahead. Not just the fox cult and this Ragnor character and those Nihilists who traveled with him, but now we were up against real-life oni and a group of Hujiling shape shifters?

  I shot Andromida a desperate look, and she tried to look strong but was clearly dealing with her own dark thoughts.

  Twitch noticed this and cleared her throat before saying, “We left the matter in competent hands. They needed a push in the right direction, but should be able to handle it now. Any luck on finding a way to get to Kai?”

  “Not even luck on finding Hadrian,” I said, anger boiling up in me again at the amount of time we had wasted.

  “Did you check the Citadel’s system?”

  I wanted to kick myself. With a quick shake of my head, I turned and pulled up the Citadel’s holo-display. “Status,” I asked, and grinned at the holo-display that popped up in front of us with its nanodrone tech.

  “A state of peace locally, but key teams are in position,” it replied, then I swiped a screen and found that even Hadrian wasn’t present.

  “You’ve gotta be shitting me,” Gale said, shaking her head at the screen. “We came all the way here and he ain’t even around? Screen, where’s he at?”

  “He currently leads an army of supers in an assault against Nihilist sub-base 2-Alpha. In the Phosphemous System.” Star maps popped up, but I didn’t need to see all that.

  “Why weren’t we notified?” I asked.

  I frowned, running a hand through my hair. “There was no way those on the Citadel should have known about my path, but I learned long ago to not be surprised when it comes to Hadrian.”

  “Can’t we just take one of these portals to that stupid world?” Charm asked. “That’s how I did it before. I get that Andromida’s powers have been blocked from getting there or something, but…”

  Andromida was facing the portal arches that she had helped her father Hadrian set up for easier access. With the portals in place, superhero teams had access to many locations throughout the systems that allowed them to respond rapidly when trouble arose.

  “He’s out in the Tranchal System, but… Twitch, a little assist?”

  “I got you,” Twitch replied.

  She stepped up next to Andromida and made her reality-bending code screens appear. As she worked, she explained, “We should be able to set up a call of sorts through the portal, instead of having to go through. Save us some time.”

  “Okay, we couldn’t have just done that before and saved ourselves a trip here?” Gale asked, glancing over her shoulder. She had her own reasons for feeling out of place up here, but all that drama was in the past.

  “Art takes time to perfect,” Twitch replied, then stepped back and motioned. “Abracadabra.”