“Bow,” the boy said, glancing up at Destiny. “He has the Ichor!”

  “Sorry, what?” she replied.

  He looked like he was about to lash out at her, but I stepped forward and motioned everyone up. “Stop this, it’s okay. I…” My gaze followed the boy’s, as he was now staring with fascination at my wrist tattoo—the essence that Lamb had given me. I saw why, too—it had taken on a metallic gleam, as if I’d had black metal tattooed into my skin.

  “What do you mean by Ichor?” I asked.

  “You… don’t know?”

  “Imagine I’m clueless.”

  “A gift of the gods….”

  “It was,” the large man next to him said. “Before they deserted us.”

  “This?” I looked from my wrist to them, and was surprised to see them both give me a slight bow.

  The large man said, “Those creatures were like gods to us, until one day something happened that corrupted the same power that gave them strength. Instead of gods, they were like demons… ‘Flickers,’ we called them, and as they destroyed everyone in their path, all we could do was run, hide… and do our best to survive.”

  “Somehow it didn’t transform you,” the boy said, eyeing me with awe. “Which means… there’s hope. Hope for all of us.”

  “There are more of you?” I asked.

  He nodded, finally lifting his shirt to help slow the blood. “There are.”

  “Renth, no,” the man said, but the boy held up a hand.

  “You saw how he took the darkness from that flicker—he’s our only hope!”

  I gulped, for the first time understanding what it could mean to be a hero. Not just a hero, but a superhero. If there was a chance to save these people, I was in.

  “She won’t like this,” one of the women said. “Remember, no outsiders!”

  “She will understand that one of her own has returned.”

  “Who?” Destiny asked.

  “Our leader,” the boy replied. “A woman who goes by the name of Landra.”

  Something about that name sounded familiar, but from where? One of my dad’s stories? The question was, had she been on the side of good or evil? We would have to find out.

  “Take me to her.”

  I turned to Destiny and held out a hand to her. We were going to meet this woman they mentioned, the leader of the survivors, and I was going to do everything in my power—whatever the hell that meant!—to help these people. If we could get showers and maybe a moment alone to enjoy each other’s company somewhere along the way, all the better.

  Destiny took my hand and together we stood tall as I said, “We’re going to save this planet of yours.”

  CHAPTER 26: BREAKER

  The Citadel

  After escaping through the portals and going to the one place we knew we would have our best chance of survival—the Citadel. After arriving, we all hunkered down in our room and took turns with healers and buffers working their powers on us. None of us knew if Ragnor had a way of following us through or if he would push the attack, so we were on edge and set Citadel security on the alert.

  I couldn’t believe this shit. Kai was still out there, somewhere, and I had suffered my first defeat. What a disgrace!

  “This is so fucked up,” Death Girl said, standing at the edge of the room with a dim glow on her skull.

  “We… actually… retreated…” Muerta looked at me with disbelief, then slowly shook her head.

  “Ragnor was kicking our ass,” I countered. “I saw Charm losing, then the copies of the rest of us appearing… and knew we needed a new plan.”

  “Not me,” Aegriss said.

  “What?”

  “You said ‘copies of the rest of us,’ but they didn’t make a copy of me, so…”

  I considered this, then turned to Death Girl and Muerta. “What happened with you all?”

  “Before you called us out of there for retreat, we were pushing back against the rest of the forces coming through that portal,” Muerta replied.

  “More forces?”

  Andromida grunted. “A whole fucking army—mostly scaly aliens twice our size. They didn’t seem to have anything special about them in terms of powers, but their armor and firepower were definitely a threat.”

  “The Felegons,” Leticia said, standing in the shadows of a corner. Her dark ways sent a shiver up my spine.

  Death Girl pushed herself from the wall and went to the door. “I’ve dealt with them before, but it wasn’t easy.”

  “And you’re going to help us deal with them again?”

  “I have to check in with my team, but if this all works out, I certainly wouldn’t mind it. Considering the trouble they caused, I’d say we owe them a swift kick in the ass.”

  “And you?” Muerta asked, turning to that corner and Leticia.

  Leticia’s eyes caught a glint of light as they moved to her, then me. Something was going on in that mind of hers, but I couldn’t tell what. A glance at Laurel showed she wasn’t doing a great job of reading the woman.

  “I am a monster,” Leticia finally said. “Those people, all those supers who were having their powers stollen… they need someone to help them find their way.”

  “And that would be you?” Flintlock asked. “Because if you need help, we have some justice I’d like to impart to those fuckers who put me in a box.” His eagle screeched in agreement.

  “I might be able to help with that, but I will have to check with the team,” Death Girl said.

  Putting my hands together, I took a deep breath. “Great. We have a team started that would lead the resistance, while me and mine will continue our search for Kai.” At a glance from the others, I held up a hand and added, “Yes, and of course to stop Ragnor.”

  “Just to be clear,” Shimmer held up a hand, counting down on her fingers, “we’re going up against the Felegons, Nihilists, cult-people, and Ragnor, not to mention any and all other supervillains who might have joined the enemy by now. Wonderful.”

  Gale nodded thoughtfully. “It was… a bit much.”

  “Breaker was right to call the retreat,” Aegriss noted, coming over to put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Thanks,” I replied, my hand on hers.

  “There was no doubt about it being the right call,” Twitch said. “I was analyzing the other versions of us and some were damn powerful. Apparently, Ragnor already has this item we thought he was after. What’d you call it?”

  “The Cosmic Connector,” Death Girl replied. “He shouldn’t have been able to obtain it this fast, but—”

  “He used the compass,” Flintlock interjected.

  I turned to where he sat in the corner, eyeing each of us with fascination. Clearly this man had seen his fair share of oddities, but my group was something else to behold.

  “Which compass, and… what?” Gale asked.

  “The Lost Pirates,” he added. “Ragnor was giving them grief, last thing I knew, and then I’m in that strange box and you all are rescuing me. So my guess, if you’re saying he got it too quickly and somehow the timeline doesn’t add up—he got the compass from Frank of the Lost Pirates, the one that controls time. And if so, we’re in serious shit.”

  “Except to use it on something like this, interdimensional…” Twitch shrugged. “Might have used up its powers, if it’s the device I’m thinking of.”

  “You’re aware of this compass?” Shimmer asked.

  “There are many special devices out there. I spent some downtime with Hadrian trying to document them, and the compass was one that caught my attention. Imagine being able to go back and fix your biggest mistake.”

  “Like making sure I never fell for Plague,” Muerta said, a shudder running through her.

  “Or me never sending Shimmer’s planet through a black hole,” Twitch added.

  Shimmer gave her a nod, but then added, “Except those changes could have ramifications through time. There could be a timeline where our team never forms.”

  “Possibly leading to domination by the Supreme Leader,” I noted, agreeing with Shimmer. “This compass is dangerous.”

  Twitch nodded, eyeing me. “Maybe not anymore. As I was saying, Frank of the Lost Pirates had a bond with it, one that helped keep it in one piece. But without him, if Ragnor leveraged it to find the Cosmic Connector, it would either be destroyed or its powers very much diminished.”

  “Regardless, he has the Cosmic Connector now and is using it against us,” I said. “What I want to know is, did he die to get it as Death Girl mentioned was necessary?”

  “Him… or someone else,” Twitch said, eyes narrowed.

  We all considered that, but it was Flintlock to break the ice. “All this is wonderful and all, but… after being sapped for so long in the metal sarcophagus, is there a way I could get a bite to eat and a comfortable bed?”

  “Shit, sorry,” I said, going to the door and holding it open.

  Andromida stepped up next to me, taking the door. “I can take him. I want to see if I can find my half-sisters and check in on them, anyway.”

  “Thanks. And if you see Drew, tell him we might need all the help we can get.” Turning to Flintlock and his eagle, I grinned. “And thanks to the both of you. Without your help, we might not all be here today.”

  “No sweat, my man,” Flintlock said, then held out a fist.

  I bumped it, and he looked at me with confusion but didn’t correct me. Whatever he meant for me to do with that fist was beyond me, and before I had a chance to ask the two were gone.

  “I’ll go with them,” Leticia chimed in. “After my near-death experience, I could use some rejuvenation. I need my powers to hope to have a chance of saving any of those supers. That portal you opened…?”

  She had turned to Andromida for those last words and a hint of a smile on those purple lips told me they had succeeded in at least getting some of the trapped supers out of there.

  “I didn’t have much time to think and portals aren’t easy,” Andromida said. “I believe we’ll find them at Supralines. Hopefully the staff of the school will know how to help them and not take it as an invasion.”

  “Good job,” Charm said, impressed.

  “Leticia and Flintlock, that’ll be your first step and easy to access via the Citadel portals,” Twitch added.

  “We’ll brief the others, then find our nourishment,” Leticia said. “When that’s done, this superhero school will be our first step.”

  After those two left, Twitch turned back to me. “That said, we haven’t saved everyone from those sarcophagi.”

  “We won’t leave them,” I promised.

  “And going back will, it seems, only lead to our assess being handed to us,” Gale pointed out. “So we have a plan? Rally the troops of the Citadel and go to war?”

  “Considering our method of reaching that Cult of the Fox planet, I don’t know that we’d be able,” I admitted. I looked around for other ideas, but all I found was a bunch of blank stares.

  “I’ve been going through the data I managed to download from their systems,” Aegriss said. “Much of it was corrupted and the rest had protections in place, but I’ve been applying various hacking techniques, and think I have something…”

  “What is it?”

  “Information on the supers. Status on their powers, how much of their power is left. Shit, some have been drained completely, others only partially.”

  I nodded, knowing that it if this worked anything like how my mom’s powers had been stolen, they would have their powers back eventually.

  “We might be able to use that, to narrow down where the enemy was mostly taking these supers from,” Twitch added. “My guess is, this might give us more answers than we’d think.”

  “Perfect, but for now, I need to find my group,” Death Girl said, and with a hint of the woman she’d once been showing translucent over her skull, she eyed us in our states of caressing and undress. “Funny. I’d always assumed our group was unique in that regard. Multiple lovers and all that.”

  “Many of us supers are simply too damned attractive to not enjoy the flesh in this way,” Charm replied, then bent over to take one of Twitch’s nipples in her mouth for emphasis.

  Twitch let out a moan, arching her back, then added, “Plus, we’re not prudes like most of those Earthers.”

  “Hey now,” I said defensively while Gale yanked off my pants and took my erect cock in her hand.

  “Point proven,” Twitch said with a chuckle at the sight of me trying to cover myself so that Death Girl wouldn’t see.

  “Yup, such a prude,” Death Girl said, and her translucent face smiled before fading back to the skull as she turned and headed out.

  The door shut behind her, and I moved my hands away to allow Gale to lick the tip of my cock. On the one hand, I was worried and stressed about how to deal with the situation at hand, but on the other, there was no better release of anxiety than a nice blowjob or a good fuck.

  “No reason to be shy,” Shimmer said, coming up behind me and helping to remove my shirt. She took hers off next as she added, “And if you really didn’t want her to see your cock, you could have just used your illusion powers, or are those no longer active? Because if not, I can help with that.”

  “Why don’t you power me up, just in case,” I replied, then turned back and kissed her, a warm tingling flooding through me as Gale took my cock fully in her mouth.

  I looked up to see Harp and Laurel caressing each other while watching, their smiles and the way Harp licked her lips turning me on. Gale gripped my balls and ran her tongue in circles, pleasure taking over and forcing me to lean back, eyes closed and warmth tingling through my abs and up to my chest.

  Another set of hands found my chest and I knew it was Aegriss, her excitement hitting me with a double pleasure that made me nearly cum right there. Soon the whole group was in on it and before I knew it Gale had thrown me back, straddled me, and I was unleashing inside of her and nearly shouting out it felt so great.

  A knock sounded on the door, so I grabbed my boxer briefs and threw them on as I stumbled over. Hadrian stood there with the Shadow Mystic, Sam, at his side. The two looked flustered, Hadrian with his scarred face and Sam not in the robes and battle gear she usually wore. Today she simply wore the robes of an Elder of the Citadel. Sam shook her head and muttered something, likely to the strange alien creature that had merged with her some time back, Dex. Its shadow wavered on the ground next to hers.

  “What’d you do?” Hadrian asked, the tone of his voice more accusatory than I would have expected.

  “Sorry?”

  “You should be.” He stormed in, pushing past me and then groaning at the sight of the nudity in the room. “By Oram, put on some damned clothes. We have work to get done.”

  Sam stepped in and scanned the room with a hint of a smile on her face.

  “Don’t encourage them,” Hadrian chided her.

  “Not my style, but… I’m intrigued.”

  “Come join us sometime,” Charm said with a shrug, not bothering to hide her perfect tits as she stood and returned the smile. “Even if you just want to watch—I’d say a good half the team or so are into that.”

  Sam laughed. “That’s the type of humor I needed to get my mind off the hell that is coming our way.”

  “Can someone please explain?” I asked. “There’s more hell I need to be aware of?”

  “We were close to victory,” Hadrian turned to face me, eyes not leaving mine in spite of the still-exposed breasts and more in the room, “but it was clearly a diversion, because suddenly we started getting notified from all over—not just in the Oram System—that attacks are incoming, many led by those like her,” he nodded to Charm, “and they’re proving victorious in nearly every case.”

  “The kitsunes are on the attack?” I asked.

  “Or it could be the Hujiling,” Charm said. She turned to Hadrian. “I have yet to brief you on that.”

  He shook his head, averting his eyes and then even turning his back on them. That made sense, especially when considering that Andromida was his daughter—but she had been the first to start dressing, I noted with a glance her way.

  “This isn’t about other kitsune, and it’s not the Hujiling,” Hadrian said with a bit of a growl. “You let him get the Cosmic Connector!”

  “No, he already had it, if that’s what it was,” I said.

  “That’s right,” Charm added. “When we met him, he had armor that adapted and created the copies.”

  Hadrian put a hand to his brow, mumbling, then walked to the door. “Then this is worse than we thought. Sam, see that they and all the other groups are ready. Call upon the pirates, even the Protector. I want to start retaking planets and systems ASAP, then prepare a strike force to make a move against the enemy. It’s not going to be easy.”

  “It never is,” Sam replied.

  “But we find a way,” Charm added, and then stretched up on her tiptoes as if daring Sam to not enjoy the sight.

  This time, considering the topic of conversation and her orders, she didn’t smile. Instead she simply gave us a nod and said, “Again… get dressed. We will all gather on the flight deck in one hour—that should give everyone enough time to shit and shower, and me enough time to notify the others and pull them in. We have one hell of a battle in front of us.”

  Was I supposed to feel bad that I was still very much focused on the fact that we hadn’t found Kai? That thought weighed me down, but Laurel came over to my side and ran a hand over my shoulder as she stared into my eyes and said, “This might be the path to finding him, you know?”

  “It could be.”

  Doubt weighed heavily on me at the moment. It wasn’t until we were on our way out to the flight deck to meet Sam and the others that hope found its way back to me. Lamb came jogging over to me with an expression of mixed worry and excitement.

  “Breaker, I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” she said.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “It’s my niece, Landra,” Lamb said. “I understand you met her once?”

  “I…” My mind flashed with images of fighting someone named Tarantula, and then meeting a young woman who had said she was Lamb’s niece. “Actually, yes. I remember. Whatever happened to her?”