“Mother, wake up!” Galatea’s voice pierced my mind, dragging a small part of it into a vague wakefulness. I was feeling as if I was thinking through thick, viscous liquid, my thoughts slow, unfocused and blurry.

“Mother, you need to see this!” she insisted and on the periphery of my mind, on the border between our shared domain and her electronic mind, I could vaguely make out commands sent to the nanites within my body, my drifting mind vaguely comprehending that she was forcing my body into action, raising my heart-rate, making my adrenal-glands work overtime, doing everything she could to make my body respond.

Forcibly booted up, I focused on the images she was transmitting and the earlier commands became redundant, the images were quite sufficient to send me into a fight-or-flight mode. The buildings I was seeing were familiar and the location-tags identifying the cameras the images were taken from confirmed that the scene I was seeing was indeed occurring on Accord Island, namely on the main plaza of the administrative area.

Normally, that plaza was filled with people milling about, quite a few taking pictures of the only tourist-destination on Accord Island, the Monument of the Accord, a large statue commemorating the cooperation between Humans, specifically between Powered and Unpowered of all Nations.

But where the norm was a busting atmosphere, there now was chaos, some people running away from the plaza while others curiously approached the weird, sickly-ochre distortion wobbling in the air near the centre. And that distortion was what made me sick to my stomach, I had seen a similar distortion before, right before the video-feed from my drones cut out, years ago, when the Scourge had attacked New Brunsburg. That distortion was a precursor of a Scourge-den, a portal to wherever they came from and it would only take moments before the Plaza would be flooded with monsterous Scourge.

Liberally outsourcing mental processes into the shared processing-space between Galatea and myself, I pushed my tired mind into action, forcing a connection between myself and Technica’s network, using the access she had established to allow me control of my robots in her bunker. From there, I was able to force myself past the electronic barriers she had set-up for the secure conference-room. My intimate knowledge of her thought-processes and procedures allowed me to gain access, even though I normally should not have it.

“Technica, there is an emergency!” I transmitted my voice through a peripheral speaker I noticed in her network, not certain what it normally did. Amongst the linked systems was also a microphone, which I appropriated, turning up the gain so I would be able to hear.

“Secure conference, eh?” Fey’s familiar, somewhat amused, voice asked, likely directed at Technica. There were also other voices, letting out sounds of surprise or accusation.

“What is going on, Metis?” Technica’s voice was hard, demanding answers, reminding me of the mission to rescue Sophia.

“Scourge-Incursion on Accord Plaza.” I simply replied, finding and appropriating a video-screen, redirecting the scenes Galatea had shown me.

Before any of them could respond, the microphone picked up the wailing of emergency claxons, triggered by Galatea to inform everyone on the Island that there was a major problem. Sadly, as there was no signal for ‘Scourge Incursion’ she had triggered all alerts she could access, causing utter pandemonium.

“This is most serious.” a gentle, cultured voice announced. “We need to deal with it, now.”

“Metis, can you run communication and overwatch?” Technica asked, changing a few permissions in the security-systems and I gained access to every Guild-Communicator, exposing me to utter chaos. The pandemonium of claxons told everyone that something was wrong, but not what actually was going on.

Asserting control, I switched off most of the claxons, leaving only the disaster-claxon running and linked together the different communicators so that they were all running within a singular, mental framework. The people could still talk to each other, but they would all hear my voice, overriding their transmissions.

“This is Metis, by authority of the Guild Council, I am assuming command over the situation.” I announced, the override silencing the chaos, if only for a moment. Before anyone could speak up, I continued, not letting anyone get a word in.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Scourge-incursion in progress, centred around Accord Plaza. Available personnel, please report name and ability, to establish combat-teams.” I ordered, quickly getting responses, even as some demanded more information. Splitting my awareness had never been as useful, allowing me to pay attention to the various inquiries and start a roster of available Powered. The situation was helped, when directly after my announcement, Technica confirmed it, using the very same override as I had, directing everyone to follow my orders.

By the time the Guild Councillors had made their way out of Technica’s lair, the Scourge Portal had fully opened and the first hounds had ripped apart the civilians that had been curious what the weird phenomenon was. A small part of me was sad about the loss of life, but there was simply no processing power to spare for empathy. The Powered on Accord Island, and even the relatively sparse security-force had reported back, the second group severely understaffed due to the holidays. If some ninety-five percent of the population was not in residence, a large number of security-personnel took their annual leave, too.

The roster in my head was looking somewhat promising, but there was a distinct lack of numbers. Regardless, I had to work with what was available, forming combat-groups around the different Councillors, in order to maximise their abilities. Grouping together multiple Powered Bricks was only useful if I had a mission that required such a specific power-set, generally, a mix of Powers would be more suitable, and giving a Councillor, the strongest Powered in their field, the ability to bring all their Power to bear was vital.

Time was against us, as more and more hounds poured out of the Portal, followed by Shepherds. As I was forming the combat-groups, I also added a warning that all communication could be suddenly disrupted, a known ability of the Scourge. So far, it had not happened, but there was no guarantee that it would remain that way.

The biggest problem was, as so often, limited information. There was no intelligence on the Scourge’s objective, nor what it would take for us to shut down their portal. The objectives on our side were obvious: limit civilian casualties, contain the incursion, shut down the portal, destroy all present Scourge.

For that, I set up three primary combat-groups, containing a majority of Powered around Tailong, Technica and Bidzill. Technica and Tailong got most of the durable Powered, simply because they lacked durability but had plenty of firepower, Technica’s plasma-beams and Tailong’s fire-control giving them more than enough destructive options. On the other hand, Bidzill had nothing but his own physical strength and while he was strong enough to juggle tanks and durable enough to shrug off getting hit by one, he only reached as far as he could grab. Or throw something.

For Technica, with the largest group around her, it meant clearing the Plaza, while the other two groups were sent after the advancing Scourge.

Fyedor was given a different priority, he was assigned the Unpowered security-personnel and tasked to keep the civilians calm. The morality of using a powerful Psychic for crowd control was questionable but in this case, needs must. For a Psychic of his ability,turning the panicked, fleeing crowd into a docile herd that followed the direction of the security personnel was child’s play, leaving the Powered to do the killing.

Lastly, Fey was given the responsibility to analyse the portal, working together with Technica. While I was reasonably certain that the portal was not technological in nature, there might be some advanced technology on the other end. Either way, it needed to go and those two had the best chance to make that happen.

The first clash between Powered and Scourge set the tone, in a variety of ways. The calm, composed looking Gentleman, dressed in a flowing, white robe was surrounded with white fire, the air above him distorting from the heat when he first laid eyes on the attacking hounds. Moments later, the fire lashed out, streaming plumes of plasma arcing out, vaporising the Scourge. There was nothing left of their forms, but the surroundings were mostly unaffected - if one ignored the still glowing concrete beneath their position.

While the Powered I had sent with him kept his flanks secured, he slowly advanced, a fiery serpent coiling forward, through the streets, annihilating one Scourge after the other.

Similarly, Bidzill showed his strength, his powerful legs propelling him at near supersonic speeds, yet, he somehow managed to stop right after going through the Scourge he had aimed at. I had thought him slow, maybe almost cumbersome, but the images I was seeing showed me just how wrong I had been. The power to juggle tanks, applied to an object of roughly human mass, led to tremendous acceleration.

Similarly, Technica and Fey were making good headway. Their abilities were not as impressive but neither hounds nor the individual Shepherds they ran into posed any kind of resistance.

Sadly, when I was looking at the Plaza, it did not look like the Scourge incursion would be small, there were hundreds of Shepherds in the Plaza and the Portal had increased in size by orders of magnitude, growing large enough to engulf and destroy the iconic monument.

As a part of me was wondering why I still had a connection, something massive emerged from the portal. It was a chariot drawn by the largest four Scourge-Hounds I had ever seen. But neither the chariot, nor the hounds held my attention, the only thing I could focus on was the massive, inhumanely beautiful figure riding it. Even looking through the cameras, being half a world away, her presence sent shivers down my spine.