Washington, D.C., November 2056
The world blurred.
Or slowed.
It all depended on how he wanted to perceive it.
One thing that never changed was that he had all the time in the world to act and react.
Ekraiades.
The demigod son of Ekra ran through dirty streets on a primitive world filled with ugly buildings made of inferior materials that looked like they’d be lucky to last more than a handful of generations.
Even these primitive humans’ most impressive structures wouldn’t last more than a blink of an eye to his kind without regular maintenance.
Glass shattered easily.
Metal rusted.
Barely a whiff of enchantments.
Primitive humans, primitive world. No better than a latrine.
And that big black smug bastard with his ugly helmet hadn’t let him have much fun with the primitives.
Just because this shit heap was a Terminus World.
What a waste of time and effort.
If it was up to Ekraiades, he’d just let chaos reign for a few hundred years.
Run wild, have his fun and worry about claiming territory when the fires had died and the blood had dried.
Incidentally, he smelled both in sudden explosions as he ran around the capital city of the supposedly most powerful nation on this world.
A lot of sudden blood and fire.
Ahead of schedule, if he wasn’t mistaken.
Suiteonemiades threw orders around like a true god, when they were no different.
Sure, Suiteonem was greater than Ekra, but what did that matter to their children.
They were all cousins.
Even if that black bastard was supposedly a thousand years old.
Which, Ekraiades didn’t believe.
A millennia was a long time.
Even for a demigod.
Golden sparkles trailed in his wake as he blurred around the city.
The screams started to reach his ears.
The roars and snarls.
The hungry gibbering of the rabbit people.
He shivered.
He had seen some bad things over his nearly 300 years and those white-furred abominations had clawed and fucked their way into his personal top 5.
If his so-called leader had released those things then—
He heard them before he saw the enormous daggers descending.
Engines whined from above the dark clouds as they sliced through to start the real war.
He grinned.
“Finally!”
Golden portals suddenly opened, brightening the night to disgorge flights of harpies and other flying monsters to meet the skyships.
Keen eyes spotted a handful of his mother’s eidolons scattered throughout the masses.
They’d use the rest as a screen from behind which they could unleash his mother’s borrowed power to strike the blows that would matter.
“Tch.”
They might have had her wings—
Weak.
They were weak.
Only borrowed.
He was of her blood.
Her power was his power.
Besides, they were slow compared to him.
Everything and everyone was.
And he didn’t need wings to take to the sky anyways.
A deep voice boomed in his ear gem.
“Prepare yourselves, cousins.”
The black bastard.
Useless words.
Ekraiades wasn’t some young rook with his mother’s milk still on his lips.
Nearly 300 years.
More battles and wars than the entire nation they’d turned into a vassal.
“Reveal yourselves and their most powerful will come.”
He ground his teeth.
For some reason, he hadn’t received the honor of glorious single combat.
“For the honor of our mothers and fathers. For the Gods.”
His grudging reply was lost beneath the more strident and arrogant ones.
“Ekraiades.”
“I need no reminders. I know what I’m to do.”
“I know. I’m just reminding you to keep one eye on the sky. You’re fast, but you’re not the fastest… at least on this world.”
He could almost see the black bastard’s boulder-sized shoulders shrug.
He bit back a retort.
Just like Suiteonemiades to try to cut him down once again.
Their short association had been filled with such sniping.
Clearly, the son of Suiteonem was threatened by him.
He wasn’t faster?
None of the evidence they had gathered indicated that.
Furthermore, Ekraiades didn’t worry about surroundings like he did, which was pointless.
Ekraiades eyed the buildings.
Cheap and so, so breakable.
No true loss.
As for the people?
Primitives.
Weak and low leveled.
Wholly unimpressive.
Better to cull like they did whenever a blight fell upon the herds and flocks of his home world and import new stock from better sources.
Well… he did have a rather broad remit to sow chaos in the city after he took care of his list.
People to capture.
Hostages.
Though why the powerful ones would care about such weak—
A loud explosion shook the sky and threw him off stride for a split-second.
Twice he had gone around the city’s outer boundary.
Rain in different colors had started to fall.
Mostly red.
Some burned.
Monster blood.
He ran around those with ease.
They dropped so slowly.
One of the dark gray skyships was on fire.
The explosion he had heard.
He’d much rather run up there amidst that chaos, but he had orders.
He blurred up and down the city streets.
His targets had already left their homes.
The convoy was small.
A few of those ugly blocks on wheels.
Belching filth and rattling as though hammered together by a clumsy child.
These people’s best engineered works paled in comparison to the artistry and function of what he was used to seeing on even the meanest of the pantheon worlds.
“Primitives…”
He slowed and ducked around a corner of a building.
Rough brick.
Peeling signs.
Dirt and grime everywhere he looked.
The convoy roared past him as he vibrated his body passing through the wall.
He re-emerged a moment later.
“Adequate work.” He eyed the robot horse.
Perhaps it would make a good prize for his children to fight over… the mediocre ones.
He blurred again.
The world slowed, then stopped.
The convoy appeared as though sealed in amber.
He ran down a parallel street to cut it off.
Another example of poor artisanship stood at its head.
The golem was a squat, ugly thing.
Dark armor plates.
Ugly guns strapped and bolted on to it without regard of the aesthetics.
Feet clad in treads that tore up the street.
He wanted to laugh and cry.
Was it because the material the primitives used for their roads were weak? Or was it because they couldn’t make proper treads like civilized people? All brutish force.
At least they had rubber wheels for their vehicles.
He allowed his perceptions to return closer to baseline.
He wanted to see how they fought.
Minutes felt like an eternity, but he forced himself to watch.
The convoy picked up a high-level, for this world, earth mage, who added his strength to theirs as they fought off monsters and the white-furred.
Ekraiades blurred out of the way of stray projectiles and the odd monster that lumbered his way.
The convoy took damage.
Took losses.
People killed by spines shot through vehicle windows or ripped away by the white-furred before the defenders could stop them.
The golem’s armor was rent and sundered, forcing the controller to open the torso so she could see.
Foolish.
Everyone knew that the best way to control golems if one didn’t give them a facsimile of intelligence was from a distance.
Failing that, the Stone Lords had the right idea.
Only the squeamish protested against putting the controller’s brain inside the golem.
It was a perfectly honorable role for orphans that would’ve otherwise been useless drains on society.
“Hmmm…”
He had a great eye.
Part of his godly heritage and the magic that allowed him to exist at impossibly high speeds.
The pilot was wearing sleek armor.
It hinted at a pleasing shape.
His orders hadn’t outright forbidden it.
And he was still angry about the whole thing.
Anger wasn’t always good in battle.
One had to see things with clear eyes and mind.
The clarity after release would be useful.
One couldn’t deny that.
He’d have to be quick.
Seconds at most.
Fortunately, objective seconds could be subjective minutes or more for him.
Unfortunate for the young woman.
She didn’t appear to have the durability to handle his pace.
He could’ve scanned her Skills with a spell to find out for certain, but didn’t bother.
It was the young woman’s fault.
Basic human woman didn’t belong in war.
All they were good for were their three wet, warm holes.
Maybe he’d ask her her name first.
She could be part of his history.
A small footnote.
As for the rest of the convoy?
There were only a few names on his list that were must captures.
The traitorous congresswoman for one and she was still safe in the lead bus.
As for the rangers pretending to be Mist Spekters?
Suiteonemiades hadn’t specified individuals.
All he need was to grab at least 50% of them alive.
He licked his lips and blurred around the corner.
The convoy stood frozen.
The golem’s weapons fire moved with all the speed of a geriatric snail.
Blood splatter hung in the air like flowers in bloom.
Monsters and white-furred frozen in the throes of death.
The whites of a primitive human’s eyes shined like the moon as he desperately clung to the back of a vehicle in a desperate bid to keep from falling into the clutches of white-furred claws hungrily pulling at his legs.
The riot of colors from spells and Skills as they vainly fought gruesome death as it encroached from all around them.
Finally!
A little artistry.
He took a fraction of a moment to fix the tableau in his memory to enjoy later.
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Then it was time.
Ekraiades surged up the street.
He was within two strides of the golem and his target when twin trails of burning air shot down from the sky, forcing him to swerve.
The demigod’s heart suddenly sped up.
He was watching the whole time?
No!
Impossible!
He’s not faster than me!
Ekraiades tried again and again to reach the young woman. From multiple directions, angles and elevations.
Each time burning air lanced out from above the clouds in his path.
More than a hundred times in less than a minute.
He gave up on the golem controller and tried for one of the others.
Failure heaped upon failure.
He skimmed past the convoy.
A few arm length’s away, yet he didn’t reach for it because the twin trails of fire blocked him like a curtain and he wasn’t willing to test his durability against it. Not for Suiteonemiades orders.
He peeled away, slipping between red rain drops as he abandoned the convoy.
He risked a glance at the sky.
Time slowed for him.
Not for the fire.
He saw the flash.
Two bright, burning orbs, like tiny stars twinkling above the clouds. Like the sun at the heart of this system.
The heat licked at his heels as he ran.
Lefts, rights.
90% angles in violation of inertia and momentum.
He lost the heat, but only momentarily as it always found him again.
Even vibrating through buildings only bought him just a bit more time.
Anger grew.
He was being made a fool of by a primitive less than a third his age.
Very well, he thought, you don’t like excessive destruction? You don’t like your people hurt? That’s what you told the eidolons.
He located a large enough group of said people.
Primitives belonging to this nation.
Allies.
Vassals.
“I accept the gift of your lives. They will be spent to further the goals of your Gods.”
They huddled inside a squat building.
Many tiny dwellings inside one short, square structure.
Barricaded.
Men and women fought to keep their children safe against the monsters and white-furred trying to break in.
It would’ve already been breached if not for the monsters and white-furred also fighting each other.
So much bloodlust permeated the air.
“Let me show you what I can do!” he projected his voice into the sky.
Not that he needed to.
The burning gaze up there would’ve heard a whisper.
Ekraiades put on a burst of speed.
He ran through the monsters and white-furred, turning them into chunky mist.
He allowed the physical effects of his speed to explode into the environment.
The boom sent a great cloud blooming.
Windows shattered.
Barricaded doors exploded, showering primitives.
Those closest didn’t feel the jagged splinters.
They were already dead.
Internal organs pulped by the shockwave.
He blurred inside.
Drawing back the physical effects with his godly power.
His passing didn’t even rustle the red-soaked hair of the woman a centimeter away.
He slowed to a stop in the building’s basement.
Ancient, rusty pipes leaked water and steam.
The dankness offended him.
As did the cramp space.
The stench of fear and primitives was everywhere.
He almost thought it seeped into his skin, but that was impossible. His divine power protected him from such pollution.
Huddled children stared at him with wide eyes.
He smiled.
They returned it.
The benefits of the farce Suiteonemiades had forced him into.
They recognized him for his many heroic deeds.
In person or through their primitive televisions.
“Are you here to save us?”
A young woman with an ugly gun eyed him hopefully.
Decently shaped.
Tempting, but—
His eyes flicked to the ceiling.
“You wouldn’t want anything to happen to these children, would you?” he whispered.
No answering fire.
“Children!” he smiled. A demigod’s smile. Charming, dashing, powerful. “Yes! I shall save you!”
They froze as he sped up.
An eternity to think.
It was ironic, but he didn’t have an eternity.
That black bastard’s special ritual was breakable.
He had stressed that.
Pointed out that he expected it to be broken at some point. Within hours. Possibly, even less.
Ekraiades hadn’t worried much about it.
He had figured he could simply outrun any negative consequences, such as one of those giant rods falling on the city.
The fact that burning eyes up there had demonstrated the ability to track him when moving at speed changed things.
Perhaps, he was fast— fast enough to keep up.
Not faster, definitely not that.
Never that.
The ritual limited the man to distant eyes fire.
No ritual and things became more physical.
And, as much as it galled him, Ekraiades had to concede that realm to the man.
Hand to hand combat was not a winning proposition.
Could he vibrate through an invulnerable target?
Shields, magic or otherwise, had stopped him before.
But not all.
And it wasn’t always about strength.
Composition mattered.
The smaller the gap between their molecules the harder it was for him to get through.
As for someone’s or something’s flesh, scales, chitin and so on?
He wasn’t one to take foolish risks and vibrate his hand through a chest or head without a lot of intel or assurances that he could do it without injuring himself.
He had learned that lesson as a young demigod.
Regrowing fingers hadn’t been a pleasant experience.
His tutors had made sure of that to hammer the lesson into him like a rail spike.
Long minutes passed.
Then an hour ticked over.
The children continued to eye him expectantly, but it was enough to smile at them to shut up any questions.
The sounds of battle had filtered down through the open door at the top of the stairs the entire time.
Tick, tick, tick.
Patience was one of his virtues.
A necessity for one that lived life faster than his surroundings.
He could’ve waited all night behind his young hostages.
Would’ve done it happily.
He felt it before he heard it.
Almost like the sound of breaking glass.
But that was a bit reductive.
Too mundane.
If he had to put it into words… well… it was more like one of his mother’s temples. Specifically, the stained glass covering its entire surface shattering all at once from the sudden wailing of thousands. Supplicants, worshipers, so on and so forth.
His eyes widened.
Truth be told he hadn’t fully believed Suiteonemiades when the black bastard had said that they hid behind a barrier made from the pain and suffering of souls.
That—
That was a bit dark, even for Ekraiades.
Hesitation cost one in battle.
He should’ve grabbed a child or two as soon as he felt the breaking in his godly senses.
Instead, the sky shattered. The building jolted.
He raced toward the children only to slam into a body harder than adamantine metal.
He sped up.
The world froze.
The children stared unblinking.
The man did not.
Black-hair cut short. Handsome enough… for a primitive native.
Brown skin. Unmarred. Youthful. Not one would expect to see in one that spent most of his time in one fight after another.
Black clothing. Skin-tight. Completely mundane. Not an enchantment to be seen through Ekraiades’ godly vision.
He held up a finger before digging into a small pouch of holding, one of many around his waist.
Debris from the hole in the ceiling hung suspended in midair, falling at the speed of those old snails.
“Impressive entrance, but you’ve doomed those children. You might be able to approach my speeds, but you can’t do it without leaving your surroundings untouched. This decrepit building is seconds from collapsing on their heads and I’m certain you can’t protect all of them. If you want to save them, then I propose a barg—”
“Shh.” The man pulled two things from the pouch. A stone and a silvery disc the size of basic human palm.
Ekraiades didn’t waste any time as the man flicked the disc to ceiling and the stone to the floor.
The latter glowed.
Portal magic.
He knew the feel of it.
He was out of the building before the portal was the size of a coin.
One last glance showed the building still standing.
The work of the former.
His mind worked quickly.
It’d take precious time for the portal to open and the man to get the kids through it.
Seconds were an eternity and everything they knew about the man said that he wouldn’t leave those kids until they were all through.
Plenty of time for him to fulfill his main objectives now that the man was occupied.
Wait—
Did he even need to follow Suiteonemiades’ orders?
The black bastard hadn’t given them all the information about the ritual barrier.
If it was down…
Ekraiades changed his mind in an instant.
Let the other demigods face the brunt of this world’s most powerful natives.
Mother had said that he was to preserve his life in the event that the others lost theirs.
He didn’t know for sure that Suiteonemiades was dead, but it seemed to him that he would simply be following his God’s word by rapidly exiting the area. Perhaps to the other side of the world to wait and see.
He supposed he should perform some of his orders on his way out just in case.
He could blame the fog of war on any misunderstandings in the event that the black bastard survived the Psionic Prime.
Ekraiades ran.
Chaos and blood were his only objectives now.
A golden blur streaked across the dark city streets.
Monsters and people turned into chunky mist in the wake of his passing.
White-furred in the throes of ravaging their victims died instantly.
He vibrated, shaking off the blood, gore and other unmentionable things.
The golden sheen around him kept his perfection unmarred.
Neither his golden hair and fair skin, nor his exquisite armor and clothing were touched. Not even the relic sandals on his feet bore any traces of the filth he ran through.
Godly senses zeroed in on his original targets.
The convoy had managed to clear the city and was driving east down one of those ugly, gray roads filled with detritus and holes, not at all like the gleaming roads in the cities of the Gods that mattered even the tiniest bit.
A grin split his lips.
They had an hour on him and they still weren’t safe from his grasp.
He could’ve given them another hour and it wouldn’t have made much of difference.
Eager fantasies about what he would do to them when he caught up made him careless of his surroundings.
Not that it was usually a problem when everything around him moved in slow motion.
Slow.
The specific problem.
His body slowed.
Frost began to coat his body.
No.
That wasn’t quite right.
He had seen this a few times before.
The movement of the molecules in his surroundings slowed to a complete halt.
“The black bastard was right. May the Gods curse him.”
He had lost a bet. He had been certain that ridiculously self-named cold one wasn’t coming.
“Better him than me.”
He surged away from the expanding aura that had already frozen a wide swathe of several building-filled streets.
Adras’ son would smash the cold one… eventually.
The slight detour almost cost him.
A blast of heat struck in front of his feet, turning the street into a volcano in miniature.
Molten bits bounced off him, brightening the dark with golden flashes.
A curse slipped from his lips.
Fast.
Faster than he had expected.
Too fast?
No.
He wouldn’t allow that thought to materialize and sink its talons into his psyche.
To lose confidence was to lose the battle.
Many tutors had beaten that into him from the first day he had been taken from his adoptive family to begin the training to serve his mother.
He cut left suddenly.
Straight into the side of a building.
He vibrated through the walls.
This time he allowed the vibration to enter the structure.
People.
Still as statues.
Eyes wide.
Mothers and fathers huddled around children.
Mothers, fathers and children clutching weapons.
He didn’t bother running around them.
The structure and everything in it exploded in his wake.
Dust, debris and wetter things bloomed into the sky.
To distract and to taunt.
He knew that a simple, mundane cloud wouldn’t hide him from the man’s superior senses.
“Keep chasing me and I’ll keep killing them!” he crowed to the sky.
Twin beams of heat scorched his heels.
A closer call than earlier.
The golden forcefield around his body flared at the near impact.
Not even a direct hit.
How much power did the man have?
“You’re weak! I’ve gotten worse from false sun gods across a dozen lesser pantheons! If you can’t do better than that you’ll barely give me a sunburn! At least give me a blister or something, like—”
A sudden boom caught him by surprise, knocking him off his stride and into the side of the building.
The cacophony of shattered windows and collapsed buildings almost drowned out the angry voice in his ear.
“Idiot. This part of the city emptied out at the beginning of all this.”
A hand crushed the side of his face as it drove the other side into the ground.
“I don’t have to worry about people. Which means I don’t have to watch where and how fast I move.”
The man exploded forward, plowing the street with Ekraiades’ face.
Ouch.
He felt it even with the protection of his divine gifts.
Truth be told the crushing hand behind his head was a bigger concern.
He sensed that given enough time all those protections would fail.
So, he vibrated.
Desperation born of the desire to avoid a crushed skull and brain.
Such things were healable under the right circumstances.
None of which existed in the current situation.
He slipped the man’s grasp and rolled as the man zoomed ahead.
Ekraiades came up sprinting in the other direction.
Yes.
Any thoughts of close combat had been dashed from his head.
He spat broken bits and golden blood.
Running a tongue across his teeth strongly suggested that it wasn’t all from the road.
The man had caught him.
Which was fine, since he wasn’t running at top speed.
There was no way that would’ve happened otherwise.
The blow to his confidence required redress, not that he would’ve admitted it to anyone.
The man had made him feel weak, lesser and there was no better way to get rid of that feeling than to impose his superiority on someone else.
Monsters and white-furred barely counted.
They couldn’t truly understand what it meant to be dominated.
Most of the people at ground level, like the ones he had already turned into distractions were weak, non-fighters, women and children. The rest were allied fighters.
He couldn’t very well take his ire out on them.
That was a step too far.
They were vassals after all and he figured they were more useful to him fighting the enemy.
Which left…
His eyes darted to the sky once more.
“Rangers.”
Golden orbs narrowed.
Perfect.
He ran upward.
On a steep road of air flashing gold with every step.
The weak, those who could barely see him as a blur, saw a sudden explosion of bloody mist and high-tech power armor. They registered the laser-like line of gold leading down to the street after.
The next to erupt was an enormous wyvern and the winged abomination it grappled with.
The former’s crew were ejected by the rider’s Skill, but that didn’t save them as the streak of gold dealt them the same fate.
Ekraiades laughed.
His entire form was drenched in red.
Movement stole his mirth.
The only other one moving in the same world of frozen statues he was.
“Why don’t you come closer?” he taunted with a bow even as his legs pumped.
The man could only glare.
Not impotently.
Twin lances of solar fire scorched a hair’s width off the side of his face.
That had been close.
So, the golden runner continued to run, dodging beams of the sun’s wrath while killing anyone and anything that he got close enough to touch.
His one slight regret was that sometimes the harpies got in his way.
Well… they were vassals and they served with honor.
He made a note to relay that to their commander after the battle was won.
One of the great dagger-shaped skyships loomed ahead.
Magic and mundane weapons filled the air in front of him.
Even the streaks of magic light moved slow enough for him to simply lean or duck under as he approached.
“This will be a good distraction.”
Something to keep the man occupied long enough for Ekraiades to catch the congresswoman’s convoy.
Hostages where no longer a concern since from what he was picking up with his divine senses Suiteonemiades was in trouble, but he had been humiliated and the congresswoman and that golem controller would serve him well.
As for the rest?
They would die at his hands.
Added to his ever-growing legend.
The skyship ceased all fire. They knew it was futile.
He put on a burst of speed and promptly bounced off the skyship’s shield.
Free fall lasted a fraction of a second.
Long enough for the man to fly within reach.
Ekraiades slipped his head to the side, just avoiding a fist that would’ve smashed his face in.
He spun his hands to impossible speeds in a split-second, sending tornado-like winds to lash the flying man out of—
“Gods—”
The man cut through like a—
Gold light flashed.
His ears rang.
The fist had glanced off.
His golden forcefield cracked, but held.
He ran.
Straight up.
The skyship’s underbelly loomed.
All had practically frozen.
A bright and bloody tableau of projectiles and magic creeping through the air like honey dripped on a winter’s day and statues of primitive humans and their strange gray allies battling wing-armed women and bound monsters.
Well… all except two.
He knew where the man was without having to look.
“Too slow,” he smirked.
This time the skyship’s shield didn’t stop him.
Having divined its essence, he vibrated through with barely a hitch in his stride.
The man was forced to stop suddenly lest he strike the skyship’s shield and cause damage to his allies.
It took an instant for Ekraiades to pass through the skyship’s dark gray skin.
Another few seconds and he emerged from its top, near the bridge covered in more gore.
The skyship listed a moment before pointing its sharp nose to the ground and descending like a dagger for a downed enemies throat.
“Me or them?”
He didn’t wait for the man’s answer before taking off westward.
The convoy and the clarity of release it would provided awaited.
