Lex took to the sky, guiding my three disks to shear through any Fliers that appeared. Amos’ pigeons flew support, but mostly served as spotters for Lex.

Lacy used her illusions to protect the soldiers manning the barricades, causing the demons that did make it past the gunfire to miss their targets or lose track of the soldiers entirely.

Byron kept his buffs cycling on us, while Frank kept an eye out for any red threads angling toward our team from Craig’s direction.

Jerome followed me as I circled around the barricade from the far left. The machine gun fire was too thick for us to charge straight into the demons, so we decided to attack from the flank. Lacy supported by discreetly forming illusions to direct the soldiers’ fire away from the group we were about to tackle.

Craig was visible in the distance, shielded by his hulking demon and the humvee still clutched in its hands. The occasional rifle shot rang out, but all of the big demons now had cars as shields, reducing Bobby’s effectiveness.

Jerome and I crouched out of sight, him in his full black armor, me encased in Red.

“I’m gonna go straight for him.” He was a normally inscrutable man, and the helmet didn’t help. “Can you distract them long enough for me to strike?”

His voice echoed through the helm with an eerie tone.

“Yes. Just make it count.”

I nodded and held out my hand.

“Good luck.”

His red visor peered down at it for a moment, then looked up.

“Same.” Then he reached out and gave me a firm shake.

I raced around the edge of the pack, staying low enough to mostly stay behind the trail of abandoned cars. When I was almost directly behind the tail-end of the pack, I signaled to Jerome with a wave.

He stood up to his full height, his flying armor bot circling around him as he leaped atop a car. A pistol appeared in his hand and he fired a shot that took out one of the hound demons.

“I’m over here!” he shouted. Then he leaped down and waded into the pack.

Claws and teeth bounced off his armor and he wheeled around in a circle, laying bullets into whichever demon came into his path. Still, he was surrounded on all sides and I could see he would be overwhelmed soon. A demon leaped onto his back, while another latched onto his leg and tried to drag him to the ground.

I sent Lex an urgent thought, passing an image of Jerome in trouble. But I couldn’t worry about that now—Craig was our primary target. I took off at a run, racing past unaware demons with a maxed-out Agility. Before they even registered my presence, I was gone.

There were only thirty meters between Craig and I when a rippling shout echoed from Jerome. I glanced over to see all the nearby demons fleeing from him in abject terror and he shot them in the back as they ran.

Turning my attention back to Craig, I prepared to cycle my mass back up to give my strike as much weight as I could. His back was to me, his hulking demon beginning to wade toward Jerome to put an end to the threat.

At the ten meter mark, I leaped as high as I could, angling my Red-katana at his back. Three simultaneous disks fired out at the same time. My mass shot up to the max in mid-air, affecting my trajectory, but not enough to pull me off target.

I was gonna spear Craig through the back with a thousand pounds behind the thrust and three Friction-enhanced disks for good measure.

The hulking demon pivoted on a dime, dropping the humvee shield in an instant while its left hand intercepted the disks and its right hand reached out to catch me. I had a split second to react, but there was nothing in my arsenal to change my path fast enough to avoid that hand. In my spiritual senses, I felt the three disks try to chew through the demon’s hand, but an intense pressure ground them into nothing and the connection was lost.

A moment before impact, Red shifted, pulling the katana back and reinforcing my limbs to brace. We collided a second later, smashing with a terrible force into that massive hand.

It caught all thousand pounds of me like a softball pitch, its fingers wrapping so tight around me I could barely breathe. I tried to leverage my enhanced Strength to break free, but the demon’s grip was immovable. No matter how much I pushed, the pressure only increased.

Red tried to help, pushing out, forming spikes to stab, creating a wedge to give me a lever. But nothing worked.

The demon was an order of magnitude stronger and we had drastically miscalculated.

Then, the killing pressure eased, the demon’s fingers relaxing ever so slightly. A small gap opened and I wormed through its palm to peer out. The grip wasn’t so loose that I could escape, but it also wasn’t squeezing my body into paste anymore either.

When I poked my head out into daylight, Craig was standing before me, perched on its shoulder, a triumphant smile on his face.

“A little birdie told me something interesting today,” the smug prick said.

“Fuck me, Craig. You’re not about to villain monologue right now, are you? Why don’t you let me go, or I’ll reset the day and kill your ass for good.”

It was a bluff obviously, but one that he had no way of disproving. It should have at least given him pause and me time to figure a way out of this mess.

Instead, the corner of his lip turned up in a smirk and my heart fluttered.

“That’s what my little birdie told me. You’re out of resets, aren’t you?”

I kept my expression completely neutral, utilizing every ounce of control I had not to give him any tell.

“It makes sense when you think about it. All of my memories—memories you gave me, by the way—demonstrate that your reach is limited to around a day.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

A shout drew his eye away from me and I looked over to see Jerome doing his best to wade through the demons to get me. But the fleeing packs that had been affected by his Intimidation Shout whirled on a dime and renewed the attack. He became quagmired in bodies as they launched themselves at him.

Craig turned back to me, pursing his lips in mocking commiseration.

“You haven’t reset in over a week,” he continued. “Meaning, either you’re out or you can’t. Knowing you, you probably wasted them all trying to save a handful of people, when you could have used them to make a real difference.”

“Is that what you think?” I was desperate, grasping for anything to stall for time. I shook my head in disappointment. “Saving lives is a waste? Nikki was one of those people I saved, Craig. Do you even care? Did you ever?”

He sighed, then shrugged casually.

“We’re past the point of lying to each other, aren’t we? I think you have a pretty good idea of what I do and don’t care about.”

I nodded agreement. “Yeah, I do. I just wanted to hear you say it. But you can’t, can you? You’ve worn a mask your entire life and you’re terrified to show your true self. Even that smug smile on your face is an act, isn’t it?”

Just a few more moments. Keep talking, you arrogant prick.

“Oh, no, Dirk. The pleasure I’m feeling right now is very much real.” He sighed heavily. “In fact, I’m going to miss you, if I’m being honest. Though you were an idiot, you were a powerful idiot.” He waffled his head back and forth. “Maybe not a worthy foe, but certainly a challenge.” He looked away, indicating the horde of demons and the State Capitol building in the distance. “Now, I’ll inherit the United States and with that power behind me, nothing will stop my rise—”

I took that moment to strike. Three disks shot out from my newly recharged diskslinger, angling down and through a gap in the demon’s grip. They arced low, then shifted up to charge at Craig from three different angles.

The demon reacted instantly, its free hand smashing two of the disks and sending the third careening off. But in that moment that its hand was occupied, Lex dove down from where he had been circling high above.

His beak raked across Craig’s face and the man shrieked in fear as he toppled off the demon’s shoulder. The grip around my body loosened entirely as it reached up to swat at Lex. I fell to the street below and immediately boosted my Agility.

As much as it pained me, I had to flee. The reality of the demon’s strength and speed was such that, even with Craig distracted from Lex’s attack and his fall to the ground, I’d never be able to finish him off before the demon reacted.

So I ran. It stabbed at my pride, but I fucking ran.

I split my attention and looked through Lex’s eyes. Thankfully, he had managed to dive and then get out of range. As he peered down at the horde, I spotted Craig through his eyes. He was dusting himself off, holding his other hand to his cheek. But other than that, he seemed completely unharmed. The hulking demon reached down and popped him back onto its shoulder.

As I ran, I spotted Jerome also breaking free, running back toward the State Capitol building. We linked up and he dropped his helmet to look at me as we ran.

“Fuck can we do?” he growled.

I couldn’t answer him—didn’t have one to give—so I just shook my head.

Then, something Kurian had said to me days ago popped into my mind out of nowhere.

“Are you prepared to sacrifice a piece of yourself to end this threat?”

He had said that, then immediately deflected when Captain Dickens arrived. For some reason, I’d considered his statement as some abstract Yoda-ism, in the vein of ‘do or do not, there is no try.’ But now that I considered his statement, I wondered if he had been speaking literally.

“I need to get to a safe zone,” I suddenly said to Jerome.

He looked at me with narrowed eyes as we ran.

“Why?” he grunted.

“I think Kurian has the answer on how to beat Craig.”

He nodded and I felt relieved that he didn’t question my intentions or call me a coward. He’d seen me wade into danger enough to know better, but it still made me feel good that I had enough respect from him to give me the benefit of the doubt.

We made it back to the others and Lex flew over to join us.

“What happened?” Lacy asked, noting our worried expressions.

“That demon under Craig’s control is too strong,” I said. “It had me dead to rights. Lex saved me.”

Lex alighted on my shoulder.

“It’s an Alpha,” he explained. “Its strength is around that of a mid-level Adept. But it shouldn’t have been that strong. Null has augmented it.” He fluttered his wings in agitation. “I’m sorry, Dirk. I should have warned you. I knew Null was going off book, but I didn’t suspect that…”

“Don’t beat yourself, Lex. We had to try no matter what. But now that we know we can’t beat it in the open field…we need to try from another angle.”

“What angle, mate? That thing’s tougher than me nana’s dead foot.”

I looked at Lacy, chewing my lip as I considered what I planned to do.

“What is it, Dirk?”

“I need to get back to Kurian. You remember what he said? About me sacrificing something to beat Craig?”

She narrowed her eyes and looked away. “Sorta…”

I threw my hands up. “It’s my only lead, Lace. The only other option…is to run.”

She pursed her lips and nodded. “What do you need from us?”

I took a moment to marvel at how far we’d come. The others were nodding or watching me intently, waiting for my orders. Despite the jokes about me not being their leader, it seemed I’d finally earned their respect.

“We need to stall while I find the nearest safe zone. Kurian could have the key, but it’s not gonna matter much if Craig assassinates the governor and the president.” I looked up the stairs leading to the State Capitol, then down to the rows of soldiers manning the makeshift barricade as they fired into the wave. “I’m expecting the military to bring out the big guns any moment. Helicopters, rockets, the works. If Lex and the pigeons can keep the air clear, Bobby can also keep whittling down the big ones from the roof. And I…I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“What’re we wastin’ time for? Move yer ass, ya cunt.”

I nodded, turning to go, then paused. When I turned back around, Lacy was staring at me with confusion in her eyes. Reaching out, I pulled her in tight, pressing my lips to hers as my hands slid up to her face. She tensed at first, then relaxed as our lips pressed, her hand sliding around my waist.

“You be fucking careful,” I whispered.

She winked, a smile touching her lips for the briefest moment.

“Get this fucker.”

I nodded, then turned and ran. As I did, I fired off my disks and gave them over to Lex. He took to the air and I turned my attention back to running. My mass was cycled low giving my steps a lightness that made me feel like a gazelle. Instead of running away from the wave of demons, I took the steps down to the nearest soldiers and called out.

“Where’s the nearest safe zone!”

They were all facing the horde, but this was the last line of men and they weren’t firing yet; their buddies were ahead of them, still holding the forward positions.

A few of them glanced my direction, expressions of fear, annoyance, and contempt intermingling.

“Get back inside, sir!” one of them yelled, pointing back up the stairs. “That’s the safest place for civilians!”

“I’m not a civilian!” I had to yell back to be heard. “Just tell me where the nearest safe zone is!”

He scowled but didn’t argue. With a nod, he indicated toward the demons.

“Five hundred yards thatta way. Like I said, safest place—”

“What bearing!”

His brow furrowed. “About forty-five degrees, roughly north east—Hey!”

He was shouting after me as I ran past him and leaped the barrier. But I moved so fast I was nearly past the second line before most of them even realized I was there.

The third line of soldiers were in the thick of it, firing nearly non-stop into the hound demons and their two-legged counterparts. Most of the big ones were still a hundred feet back, but were only a minute or two away with their pace.

Angling left, I went around the soldiers to avoid their line of fire and skirted the horde. I had a rough internal map of the area from past visits and knew where five hundred yards north east was…sort of. The demons on the edge saw me running and growled a challenge, but I moved too fast for them to catch me.

When I was right about where I expected the safe zone to be, I began scanning the nearby buildings for amber force fields. There were a series of restaurants and a couple hotels nearby and I scanned each of them to no avail.

Just as I was about to move one block over, I saw the faintest edge of a shimmering wall on a second story terrace of the nearby hotel. I turned and angled for it, making the leap to the terrace with a single jump.

And right there in front of me was that telltale amber sheen.

It had only taken me a few minutes to get here. My team should still be fine.

I could only pray Kurian’s strategy was something actionable, otherwise…

Well, otherwise, we were fucked.