Though individually they might not match my power, their mere presence was disconcerting.

  And then, to up the stakes, a third copy sprung out of thin air, her fist connecting with me before I could fully process her appearance. She seemed to be an intermediate version of me, with a count of five tails. The shock of seeing her, coupled with the sudden punch, rattled me further.

  I found myself in the center of a rapidly tightening circle, my mirrored adversaries closing in with identical predator grins. Ragnor stood slightly back, that infuriating smirk never leaving his face. A spike of dread coiled in my stomach, a feeling I hadn’t experienced in a while.

  “Let’s dance,” said the three-tailed version of me with a grin that was more like a snarl. The eight-tailed Charm leveled a serious gaze in my direction, and the five-tailed one simply tightened her fists.

  And then, they were on me.

  The younger, three-tailed me darted in first, aiming a high kick at my face. I twisted away, only to be greeted by a ferocious right hook from the five-tailed copy. I grunted, tasting iron as my lip split. Before I could regain my footing, the eight-tailed version hammered into me with a full-body tackle, sending me sprawling on the ground.

  I was quick to recover, rolling to my feet, but they were faster. They struck like a storm, their attacks a seamless, coordinated onslaught. I was no stranger to combat, but fighting against myself? It was disorienting, unnerving. I knew my moves before I made them, and so did they. They were relentless, and it wasn’t long before I felt the first hint of fatigue creep into my limbs.

  “Having trouble keeping up?” Ragnor taunted from the sidelines, his laughter ringing hollow in my ears.

  Despite the circumstances, a grim smile spread across my face. Yes, they were kicking my ass! Looking around I saw that even Breaker, Aegriss, and Twitch were being pushed back as versions of themselves showed up and joined the fight against us!

  But for now, I had to admit, the enemy was winning.

  As more and more of their attacks landed, I started to wonder what had happened. How had the mighty Breaker’s Berserkers found ourselves on the losing side of a fight? I knew we were suffering, but it still hit me like a sack of bricks to the face when Breaker shouted, “Retreat!”

  I backed off to spot three cultists dragging off Flintlock. As I approached, he managed to break the grip of one cultist, then break that one’s face. The other two surged forward, one with a glowing collar that she put around his neck.

  Instantly, the eagle part of him was gone and he was pure man. The fuck? Did the enemy have something that canceled out powers? If so, even more reason to retreat. I intervened and tore into the first of the two cultists before hitting the second with a purple charm and sending her off to attack her companions to cause a distraction while we fled.

  “Stick with me,” I told Flintlock, using my light claws to break the collar free.

  “I wouldn’t dream of going anywhere else,” he replied with a hearty laugh, then called upon his eagle friend to him. Together, we ran.

  For the first time in a very long time, the Breaker’s Berserkers had met their match. We weren’t going to surrender and this retreat would surely be to gather our strength and come back with a vengeance, but for the moment it was completely disheartening.

  And to make matters worse, we were no closer to actually finding Kai. My only hope was that one of the supers fleeing with us had heard something or had some way of finding answers, because otherwise I feared we would be too late.

  CHAPTER 25: KAI

  Unknown Planet

  A putrid stench tickled my nostrils and I had to wonder if it was me or my surroundings. How long had we been on this damned planet? Destiny and I had taken turns on watch that first night and moved from building to building whenever we caught sight of those damned super zombies, or what we had taken to calling “sombies.”

  At least so far we hadn’t been infected or killed. Staying alive was a win, but that didn’t mean we were without complaint. Not being able to shower and having a hard time finding food and water was getting to me.

  More than once, we had raised the idea of teleporting back to her planet, but either I talked her out of it or vice-versa. I still held onto the hope that we would find survivors on this world, people who could tell us what had happened. Destiny had no intent of returning to her world. When her people had turned against her and forced the assault on Earth and my family, that had been her last straw.

  So we remained, in spite of the danger.

  On a somber day with a sun hidden behind a haze that gave the sky a silver glow, we made a break for a part of the fallen city that looked promising. We had spotted it from a higher vantage point when we’d thought moving up through the floors of a building might be a good idea. It had been in terms of getting away from the sombies, but we didn’t find any food or water—running or otherwise.

  Crouching next to Destiny, I indicated the crude map I’d drawn with paper and a pen I’d found in the building. From up there the way had seemed easily enough, but back on the ground knowing sombies could show up at any minute, I was less confident.

  “Through that alley,” I said.

  “Let me see.” She leaned over to check the map, compared, and nodded. “Yeah, I guess, but…” Her stomach rumbled. “If this isn’t it, I’m going to have to eat you. Stench and all.”

  “Hey now.” At least that answered the question of where some of that putrid smell was coming from.

  She winked. “Don’t worry, I’m certainly no Red Moon Flower at the moment myself.”

  “Red Moon…?”

  “Ah, a flower that blooms only during the red moon and gives off the most pleasant aroma. You get the idea.”

  I nodded, thinking I wouldn’t care if she stunk or not, if I could just bury my face in her neck and feel her flesh against mine. But I’d learned to largely push those thoughts away—for now, at least.

  She leaned forward to have a look up and down the street ahead, then motioned forward. Damn, that only sent my mind further into the gutter, seeing her ass sticking up in my direction. We had ditched the rest of our gear, only keeping bare essentials like the gauntlets for comms and the other gadgets within. Destiny also wore a belt with her pistol and blade, along with thigh guards.

  I checked as well and confirmed that we were in the clear. We sprinted across, heads swiveling, and at the last second a sombie appeared to my right.

  “One over there,” I hissed, indicating the direction.

  According to my map, we only had to round this building and then we would find the store, based on the broken billboard we had seen from above. For all we knew it would be destroyed or completely looted, but our next bet would be to try and leave town and find other signs of civilization on this planet. I was hoping to avoid that route.

  Feeling brave, I motioned her on. “Go, I’ll distract it.”

  She frowned, then laughed. “Shut up, we’ll—”

  A muttering sounded. We turned to see a sombie flicker into existence right next to us. This one was a woman who must have been in her fifties, the dark gunk in her hair dripping down into her eyes, the lines of her skin peeling open with the black liquid showing beneath, and when she smiled—yes, she fucking smiled—her teeth were covered in it.

  “Shit,” I said, and push-kicked with all I had!

  Only, my leg met empty air as the sombie flickered and came up behind me! Destiny was quick to react and pulled me out of the way with one hand in mine, the other drawing her pistol and firing. The shot hit and pushed the sombie back, but it grinned that wicked grin again and stared at us with those black eyes.

  “Fuck this,” I said and yanked on Destiny, sprinting as fast as I could with her in tow. We turned the corner and nearly ran right into one of those inactive hover crafts, but that gave us cover to dodge around.

  “She’s not following,” Destiny said, pulling me to a stop on the other side.

  I pointed ahead to the billboard and the store beneath, which, sure enough, appeared to have food inside, at least based on the signs. During that chaos and as my mind kept repeating “We’re gonna die, we’re gonna die, we’re gonna die,” I at least had time to process that there were aspects of this world not so different than mine.

  “Wait…” Destiny crouched, looking around. She lowered her visor and the lights of her eyes glowed, then she mumbled, “FUCK!” and leaped for me, pulling me close to her and up onto the hover craft. It must have had a rubber base, because when the ground lit up with flashing electricity, none of it reached us. Something hissed, and then more hisses sounded.

  I lifted my head to see three of those sombies had been closer than I realized on the other side, but were now retreating out of sight.

  “Wha…?”

  “We’re not alone.” Destiny still had her arms around me, and I’d love to be all manly and claim I got up and kicked everyone’s asses within the area, but hell, I hadn’t been in these situations before and honestly would have laid there in shock for another hour if she’d let me. Instead, she got me up and we ran for the food again.

  “How do you know they won’t fry us?” I asked, running with high knees as if I’d be able to somehow fly off of the ground if needed.

  “They didn’t activate for us, only for the sombies.”

  Maybe she was right. It made sense, anyway.

  And soon we were at the doors, throwing them open and running inside, and nothing else mattered—because yes, there was food. Boxes of canned goods, some dried meats, and to my relief, water stored in long tubes!

  Destiny was able to do a quick scan on the items and water, and when she retracted her visor to reveal glistening eyes and smiled my way, I knew we were good. Neither of us gave two shits about the sombies or whoever had saved our asses with the electrified ground, we were too busy drinking water and stuffing this junk into our faces.

  Or we were until we saw the young boy staring at us. He stood just on the other side of another set of doors, glaring, and when I met his gaze he slowly shook his head.

  With one hand he pointed, then shouted in a muffled voice through the doors, “That’s our food! Stop!”

  I was surprised to see that he looked very human, but then realized that the sombies did too, and if this was Lamb’s world, that made sense. Unlike Feruz, she didn’t look like a cat, and she didn’t have blue skin and horns like Europa or antennae like Laurel. My dad had explained how many of the worlds were populated by humans who had gone out to colonize the universe many years back, but that idea still didn’t register with me. Plus, if Lamb’s people had this ability to manipulate others’ powers, I wasn’t sure they could be human.

  “Destiny,” I hissed, and nodded at the boy. She was already looking, though, and slowly put down the piece of what looked like dried fruit in her hand. Likely so that she could draw her pistol if needed.

  “Who are you with, boy?” she asked, taking a step toward him.

  The doors slid open and the boy strolled out, a large man moving into view behind him. A creaking from our right made me spin my head, and I saw two more figures in that direction—older women, maybe in their sixties. None of these people had the goo on them, at least from what I could tell.

  “You’re survivors?” I asked.

  “That’s right,” the boy said, eyeing us up and down. “Question is, who the hell are you two?”

  “And what’s up with the fox ears?” the large man asked.

  “Just decorative,” Destiny replied, now holding out her hands to show we weren’t trouble. I did the same.

  “Thing is, you’re eating our food without permission,” the boy said, shaking his head again. “Around here, that comes with a punishment.”

  I stepped forward, chest out and head high. The guy was maybe two or three years my junior, and I wasn’t about to let him talk to us that way. “We needed food and water, so calm the fuck down.”

  His eyes went wide, as if he’d never been spoken to like that.

  “We’re not here to cause trouble,” Destiny interjected.

  “You brought the Flickers in our direction,” the boy said. “If that’s not trouble, I don’t know what is.”

  “Flickers?” I asked. “Oh, because they kind of… flicker.”

  The boy gave me a “Duh” look, then motioned to us, “Bring them in the back for questioning. We don’t need their screams to draw in more Flickers.”

  The large man and two women moved in, but Destiny drew her pistol and I lifted my fists, ready for a fight.

  “Nobody’s doing a damned thing,” Destiny said, aiming at the boy’s head. “Any of you touch us, the boy dies.”

  “And what exactly is that little thing going to do?” the boy asked with a laugh, but he was clearly nervous.

  “This here is called a gun where I’m from,” Destiny replied. “Maybe you all have different types of weapons here, but trust me… it does the job.”

  Taking my cue, I grabbed some of the water sticks and food. “We’ll need supplies, but can go on our way.”

  “Ask them,” Destiny hissed.

  “What?”

  “We might not meet any other survivors—so…?”

  I sighed, turning to protest the idea of asking these jackasses anything because they clearly weren’t in a helpful mood, but that’s when I saw a fifth one—a man in his thirties and wearing long robes—come leaping down from above.

  “Watch out!” I shouted and leaped into his path to stop him from hitting Destiny. Instead, he slammed into me and the two of us went to the floor, my head and shoulder slamming into a shelf wall.

  Others must have moved in at that instant, because a shot from Destiny’s gun went off and someone yelped, followed by a scream.

  “Off!” Destiny shouted, her foot hitting the man’s face as I bucked and pushed him away. He rolled and took a defensive stance while the screaming continued and the boy came charging at me.

  “Stupid gogmorrers!” he shouted, which sounded like gibberish but was clearly a curse.

  I turned and grabbed a can of food and let it fly at him. The can hit him square on the nose. He fell back, but then came up with blood streaming down his face.

  He looked irate. The large man was just coming up behind him when both turned to look past me and the man shouted, “Flickers in the building! To stations!”

  “Wha…?” I spun and saw they weren’t making it up—one sombie or flicker was in, at least two more visible behind it.

  “On it,” one of the women said, and she ran to the wall, slamming a button that lit up the ground outside. That sent the outer two sombies away, but the third flickered in and was on me.

  I flailed, but this time the bastard—one that had been a man in his late twenties before becoming this creature—had me with both arms, black tendrils moving out from its fingers to my skin.

  “Kai!” Destiny shouted, pistol up but unable to get a shot as the sombie spun me around and pulled me in close.

  Darkness came at me, but I felt a tingling on my wrist, and then it wasn’t that the creature was attacking me anymore, but more like I was siphoning the darkness away from it.

  One second I’d thought for sure I was going to die, the next I was in charge and draining him of his curse.

  More and more of the energy funneled into me, and I couldn’t begin to explain it, but I was rising into the air, gripping the man, strengthened as I absorbed increasingly more of the darkness.

  The man who had been a sombie collapsed at my feet, dead, no sign of the dark gunk on him at all.

  Instead, it was coursing through me, circling my arms and moving as if it was one with me. I lifted a hand and watched as it moved with my fingers. A change was coming over me, that much was certain. But I couldn’t tell what, not yet.

  With a surge of power coursing through my body, a taste of this change came my way as a vision! In my mind’s eye I watched Destiny tear open a portal and felt the strange power surge through my entire being. Someone, or something was pursuing us, but I unleashed all of the extra energy I had and it burst outward like exploding electricity that no creature would be able to withstand. I felt it in my fingertips, my eyes, my mouth, and then through every bit of my being.

  Would this be my future? Some hint of a power I would come to possess? By Oram, I fucking hoped so.

  Finally, when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, the energy pulled into me and was gone from sight… the vision over, for now.

  “Shit…” Destiny said, staring at me with wide eyes. “What… what the hell was that?”

  “I don’t know,” I started, except even as the words came out of my mouth a screen appeared at the side of my vision along with an image of me, a circle of darkness covering my chest and spreading out to my limbs, and along the way were bits that lit up. The words, “Level Two” appeared, and then a stat table that told me that my strength, stamina, and agility had each gone up by two points, something called “source” activated, and that I had a skill point.

  My mind was saying, “Holy shit,” but at the same time I couldn’t believe what was happening. Somehow, this darkness that I’d absorbed from the sombie had activated my ability to use powers and level up.

  I wasn’t exactly sure how to use the power or the skill point yet, but this was what I’d been longing for, what my dad had told me about all those years. How many nights had I stayed up staring at the stars and longing for my powers to activate, only for it to never happen?

  Now it had, and I was dumbstruck.

  “Kai?” Destiny stepped close, waving a hand in front of my face.

  I snapped out of it, turning to see that the rest of them were gathered around and staring at me with awe.

  One of the women had been shot in the arm and the boy had blood still seeping from his nose, but they all stared at me and then, as I looked back, they bowed!

  Destiny looked around at them bowing and gave me a shrug.