“You were right, Val.” Lori sat down at my dining room table. “He did choose Thanksgiving to make his move.”
Again, my home was apparently the best place to have a meeting. On top of the annoyance of feeling like I had to prepare my place for a gathering, we had more people the second time around. Chloe, Charlie, Magnus, Sven, Gus, and even Sally joined us on top of the rest of my human friends. While we had our doomsday meeting, Megan and Ryan were hiding away in her room playing video games, so it was nice knowing there were a couple of people not completely freaking the hell out in my home. Well, since Ryan wasn’t huge on video games, he could have been freaking out playing games with her for all I knew.
Charlie had been able to heal the worst of the damage done to Ryan’s arm. Despite her best efforts, she had been drained herself from being overworked, so his recovery hadn’t been going as smoothly as mine had. He didn’t need any aggressive physical therapy, which was great given he was only six years old. The poor kid did need something to help regaining some coordination and stability, which led to Lori taking him under her wing. Her sewing, tailoring, clothes-making, whatever she did wing. I expected him to reject the idea of making clothes being a six-year-old boy and all, thinking it’d be girly and give him cooties or something, but he took to it right away. She brought him over to play with Megan after a rehab session they had.
“I don’t even remember who suggested it would be New York he attacked, but it looks like that was right too,” I added. I handed out steaming hot chocolate to everyone there, trying to lighten the mood with a warm drink on our cool morning. A few people drank from the mugs, but not many. I tried not to feel annoyed that my effort went to waste. In fairness, we did have bigger things to worry about than some hot chocolate.
Lori put her phone on the table and looped the video so we could watch the video as many times as we needed. She leaned back in her chair, looking at the ceiling, lost in thought. She gnawed on her bottom lip and frowned.
McLeod was sitting at a wooden table in what appeared to be a log cabin. He wore his cloak that did little to hide his massive frame. He looked pleased and had a jovial smile on his face like he didn’t have a care in the world. The only visible imperfection on him was a tiny scar from the wound I gave him. Probably kept that as a reminder of how much he wanted me dead. Screw him, we could both have scars reminding us of each other. It was a small, petty victory that reminded me wasn't completely untouchable.
“Hello, my brothers and sisters. It has been some time since I’ve last visited you all. While there have been minor delays in my conquest, I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be visiting New York City tomorrow. On this great day, where we give thanks to our loved ones and enjoy each other’s company over a grand banquet of food, I will fully usher in a new world for all of us by taking this country’s greatest city as my own. By now, your allegiances have been formed, so you will not be spared if you have not joined us yet. Remember, my brothers and sisters, transcend and rise above.”
When he ended the video, it felt like he was somehow staring right at me in the last frame of the recording. What a dickhead.
“I hate the way he talks,” I said. “Why can’t he just speak like a normal person? Why does everything have to be so flowery and pretentious?”
“He was that way since I first met him,” Val confirmed. “But remember, we can use the same pride that makes him speak that way against him. He has to be seen destroying these places. It has to be him doing it. He might have another person along, but the focus always has to be on him.”
“That’s why I talked with Lizzy and we both wanted to bring everyone over here,” Lori said, taking her phone back. She pulled out a small sack and carefully handed each person—excluding Chloe—two marble-sized orbs that were glowing purple. Rebecca was the only one of us who got three of the orbs. “As some of you may know, these are teleportation stones. You crush these and you’ll be taken to where you’re thinking about, the place you thought about last, or the closest spot to it. These are extremely hard to get, so be very careful with them.”
“Wow, these are something,” Magnus said. It took me a few seconds to realize he linked our minds and only I could understand him.
“Yeah, these saved us when I first realized I had powers. They’re harder to get now that things are a little more hectic, so listen to Lori when she says to be careful with them.”
I saw Val blush and look down, recalling how she’d teleported herself out of the Tomb when we’d first met. I wasn’t sure why she felt embarrassed. If she hadn’t done that, we likely would have died down there, and depending on her mental state after the fact, she might not have realized the illusion that had been used to fool her for so much of her life.
“The effort spent making more of these for the aliens could have been put toward something useful.” Alex put his two orbs away and shook his head.
“Alex, I’d like to remind you that you’re in my home,” I said. “Lori and Lizzy may have called the meeting, but this does not happen here if I don’t want it to happen. You may not like them, and that’s your beef that I will not interfere with. That said, you will show them respect and courtesy while they’re here. They’re our allies, and we need as many of those as we can get.”
Alex just narrowed his eyes at me and I shrugged. I wasn’t going to let him drive a rift between us when we were just a day away from needing to face down against McLeod. If he wanted to be all pissy when the pjulsen finished their business and went back home, then that was his business to handle at that time. It wasn’t his business to handle when we needed everyone on the same page and as focused as possible.
“You are a valued part of this team, and I consider you a friend, so I won’t tell you to leave when we have so much on the line to worry about.” I took a deep, annoyed breath. “I will make you behave if you cause trouble in my home again.”
I felt Rebecca tense up next to me and Lori looked uncomfortable herself, fidgeting awkwardly in her seat. I didn’t want it to break out into some macho, tough-guy nonsense, especially not in my own home. I was simply over the games and immaturity when they were the last things we needed. There was a man who could destroy cities with his sword. That was a bigger threat over the pjulsen who helped get me back to Earth.
“Right, let’s move on,” Lori said in a hurry to avoid the confrontation from escalating. “Like Ethan said, they’ll be helping us. We each have two so we can get to New York and go to any other place we need to. Hopefully, that’s right back here when everything is said and done, but if he has other people attacking other cities, we’ll need people to respond to those attacks. If we have to use them to get to Chicago or something, these are our backup plan to put up some defense. We can arrange a way back after we take care of business.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. For me, it was just going to be nice to not have to worry about another long car ride. We didn’t have to bring anything back. Our homes—ideally—weren’t going to be destroyed while we were away fighting. We just needed to end the threat and come home.
“I think he’ll bring at least one other person along,” Val chipped in. “Heather is a certainty. She wants Ethan dead more than McLeod does.”
“I thought he didn’t like it when people helped him?” Lizzy asked. She scratched at the scar on her nose. “Isn’t his whole thing he has to be the one that’s doing the work?”
Val tilted her head back. “Yes, mostly. His pride is his biggest weakness, but he isn’t so stupid he’d try to beat all of us alone. There is a line between arrogance and foolishness that he tries to walk. It’s difficult for me to predict exactly what he’ll try to do and how he’ll handle it. If we showed up to fight him with ten people, he knows it’d be difficult to win. Heather is strong but unreliable, so I’d expect at least one more person. I just don’t know who it’d be.”
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“Let’s count on four and hope for two, yeah?” Lori asked Lizzy, who nodded in response. “Alex, I know we just put you on Lizzy’s team, but we agreed it’d be best for you and Val to fight McLeod together.”
They both looked at each other and nodded, a silent understanding passing between two of our heaviest hitters. Val added, “You should be my support. I’ll have armor, so it’ll be safer for me to fight him directly than it would be if you tried. We don’t want to get in each other’s way either.”
Alex clenched his jaw, unhappy with the idea of playing support. Still, he didn’t fight back or press the issue. “Fine, we’ll do it your way.”
“Don’t be upset, big guy.” Lizzy slapped him on the back. “Even with your Anomaly, you’re not blocking more than a few attacks at best. Let her take the worst of the beatings and you come in when you see an opening. If you don’t, it’ll be a lot more than your ego that gets bruised.”
“That’s going to be a lot of what we have to do.” Lori looked dejected. I imagined she had been spending a lot of time trying to brainstorm ideas with Lizzy, and none of them had come out as a perfect plan. “Since we don’t know exactly what we’re going into, a lot of this is going to be us winging it with people we haven’t spent much time fighting together with. Ethan, you’ll need to take care of Heather. I don’t expect her to stop unless you’re dead. As a friend who loves you a lot and as a leader who doesn’t need to deal with her shit in a fight, please don’t let yourself die.”
“Can do, boss.” I gave a little salute. “I don’t intend to lose to her. What do you want me to do after?”
“Help out with McLeod if you can. If there are any civilians in danger or a building about to fall, take care of that first. If you’re fighting McLeod, just wait for an opening. We can’t let him take anyone down.” Lori turned her attention to Rebecca. “You have three teleportation stones. One of them is to get let you get to McLeod so you can take away his power. Only use it if we can’t incapacitate or kill him, okay? If you use it at the wrong time, you'll lose the element of surprise, and you put yourself in direct danger without an Anomaly to stand up to his strength. You took away someone’s Anomaly when he attacked us in New York, so we have to assume he’ll be careful to avoid you if he spots you. Even if he doesn’t attack you, you could end up in the crossfire.”
“Where will you want me?” she asked.
“Hide where you can. Inside a shop, an alley away from any fights, behind a car, or anything like that. Stay low to the ground and try to stay safe. Remember, Heather can topple buildings, so you won’t want to be up high somewhere and you’ll need to be aware of what structures you’re hiding near. Ethan should be able to keep you safer dealing with her than if you were near McLeod, so try and stay away from that battle. I know it’ll be hard to watch him get hurt, but you need to keep your attention on McLeod to take away his powers. He is the threat and you can guarantee we can stop him.”
Rebecca glanced nervously at me, and I gave her a thumbs-up. That didn’t do much to calm her nerves. For the sake of team morale, she nodded anyway. “Okay, just focus on McLeod and stay out of trouble. I think I can do that.”
“Val, Alex, Ethan, Rosie, Braden, and Sven are the only people we want to do any fighting since their Anomalies are the best suited for it. If there are three people, try to help someone out by making everyone two-on-one. If there are four, Lizzy and I will try to help keep an eye out on you, but you may have to make your own snap decision on who to engage with.”
“Next order of business is what kind of power everyone wants,” Lizzy said. “After literal months going by without anything, I was finally able to get some of the makeup I use for my Anomaly shipped out to me. That means I can give everyone here an extra power to use, or I can help enhance what you have. Keep in mind that I can only do what I can realistically visualize and conceptualize in my brain, and there is a limit to the power it gives on top of that.”
Rosie nodded. “Yep! Y’all can’t cheat to get a second Anomaly that lets you touch someone, and they turn to dust in the wind. Our gal is strong. She’s not that strong.”
“Exactly, and even if I could do that, I recommend something that everyone is familiar with.” Lizzy crossed her arms over her chest. “If you get a new power, and you don’t know how to control it or use it effectively, you can make the situation worse. Please stick with something that’s a general utility or something that you’re a hundred percent sure you can have complete control over. Another thing I’d like everyone to keep in mind is that I haven’t used my Anomaly on this many people. I can’t even guarantee that I’ll be strong enough to let you use the power you want. Seriously, don’t ask for something and bet your life on it. You’ll need to rely on your skills and training above anything I can offer.”
She handed out some notecards and a pen for us to write down our ideas. No one spoke. Everyone just tried to brainstorm and write down reasonable powers they thought would help more than hurt. I thought back to how she gave me the “gift” of being able to access my own Anomaly easily. It certainly sped up my training time, but I wasn’t sure by how much. My body hadn’t quite been ready for it either since I had to be rushed to the hospital wing the same day she used her power on me. A repeat of that couldn’t happen.
When I felt like I had anything I could choose, I couldn’t think of anything. If it wasn’t such a pressing situation, I might have found the whole thing a little funny. I knew there was a limit on it, Lizzy just said so herself, but I couldn’t think of what I wanted most for the upcoming fight. It couldn’t interfere with my own power unless I wanted to run the risk of getting my ass handed to me and letting down everyone who needed me, which I didn’t. With a huff, I just decided on some minor healing to keep me in better shape if my armor was broken. It was practical, there was nothing about the power I could imagine interfering with my own innate Anomaly, and it was one I didn’t have to actively think about using in the middle of battle. With my own Anomaly taking plenty of brainpower to use effectively, I didn’t need more thinking getting in the way.
It took a few minutes for all the cards to be handed over to Lizzy. She went through them, nodding at each one. Nothing on her face told us she couldn’t do it, letting some of the tension in the room dissipate. More than just getting tools to help us survive, I was a little excited to see Lizzy’s Anomaly used. Since it was useless for direct combat she was involved in and she couldn’t use it on herself, I never really got the chance to see what she could truly do.
“Now that I’ve talked your ear off, does anyone have any questions?” Lori asked. “You can always ask anything before the action starts. You all have my number for a reason. With us running out of time, if there was something that wasn’t clear, let us know as soon as possible.”
People started mumbling and chatting among themselves, but no one had any direct questions to ask her. Everything seemed straightforward enough. All we had to do was fight who we were supposed to fight, be on the lookout for openings, and watch everyone’s backs. And all we had to do was not die. All we had to do was defeat a man who destroyed an entire city with a sword while defending one of the world’s most important cities. Right, easy enough.
Still, even with the goal clear as day, there was a palpable feeling of stress and anxiety caused by what we were going up against. Shelly, who hadn’t said a word herself, had her hands folded together with her forehead resting against them. Hardly the look a leader would have to inspire confidence in her people, but she was in good company. I wasn’t going to tell her to hide how scared or upset she must have been feeling. She had family lives being risked on top of the lives of everyone she considered a friend.
I got up and got two of the brownies Rebecca had baked for everyone. Sitting next to Shelly, I slid one over to her on a paper plate. She looked up, a little surprised. I must have snapped her out of some depressing thoughts. My older sister relaxed some when she saw me eating, though she totally saw through the calm, stoic mask I’d put on. If anyone was going to see right through that, it was her.
“You know, we were getting ready to eat brownies like these in front of Mom and Dad’s graves when this whole thing started.” I finished mine in a couple of quick bites. I didn’t trust my stomach to not give in to nerves if I tried to savor it, so right down the hatch it went. “Pretty weird how everything can change in just a few months, yeah?”
“You have to come back, okay?” Shelly grabbed my hand with a tight grip, afraid to let go. She looked over to Rebecca and did the same thing. “Both of you. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost one of you now.”
To her, I had already died once. Like Rebecca with Rose, I don’t think Shelly ever really moved on from that, even with me being back home. Three months without the only blood family she had left wasn’t something she could make peace with so soon despite everything turning out okay. She had made some progress moving forward, so I understood why it couldn’t happen again to her. The look on her face screamed that she wouldn’t be able to move forward a second time with a more permanent result.
“I promise. I’ll bring your brother home.” Rebecca looked at my sister with such conviction that it got me a little amped up.
I had to fight a smattering of goosebumps that threatened to run up my arms. We weren’t going to just survive. We were going to win handily.