Hammer eyed her boomhammer.

  The dark metal surface of its large head leaked blue light from the power source through a spiderweb of cracks that seemed to be growing.

  One hit and she had already broken it.

  Still— she regarded the crimson smears on the hammer and on the crater in the asphalt.

  She had turned the poor eidolon into a red and black pancake.

  Perhaps, she was looking at it the wrong way.

  One hit and broken sounded bad, but one hit and one dead eidolon sounded good?

  “Hey, guys, I killed the eidolon, but I think I broke this fancy hammer.”

  She was new to working with these people.

  Goddamn Americans! Good damn demigod!

  Speedy bastard had taken her all the way into the northern portion of Lake Michigan.

  She and water didn’t mix.

  She sank.

  By the time she had walked out of there the battle had been over.

  They had won thanks to Relentless flying out of the sky and taking out all the rabbit people.

  But, they had minutes to rape, murder and cannibalize the people under her protection.

  Caleb was dead.

  Most of the leadership was dead.

  So many had died and they had died hard.

  There hadn’t seemed a point in staying and rebuilding.

  And damn the Americans if they thought she and hers would ever go back under that yoke.

  Fuck them!

  They showed her who they were, who they had always been.

  They just changed their genocide methods from smallpox infected blankets and bullets to demigods from other worlds and cannibal rapist rabbit people.

  “My readings say it’s only partially broken, Hammer.” The high-pitched voice belonged to a girl.

  Hammer didn’t remember the kid’s name despite the brief introduction before she had headed out.

  “Two, maybe three more hits… er… two to be safe.”

  “Good enough for me.”

  She had an idea.

  The huge golden crab mech looked crackable.

  “Wonder what the meat looks like.”

  “Please repeat, Hammer?”

  “Nuthin, just craving some seafood.”

  She hadn’t had a good boil since moving.

  “Hey, uh… kid. Gonna try the crab.”

  “Wait! There’s already a plan!”

  Hammer watched the weird masked motorcycle guy zoom across the parking lot faster than she could follow without her fancy helmet display thing.

  The blue-clad guy dodged magic blasts from the crabs many gems or crystals.

  The engine sounded almost like those jets the Americans had used to occasionally drop bombs and missiles on her old home city.

  The crab’s scorpion tail spat a jet of that acid stuff across the guy’s path, but he just jumped over it.

  A glowing rope appeared in his hand as he weaved through the crab’s pillar-sized legs.

  He completed a complete circuit through all of them faster than she could blink twice.

  “Yeah… don’t think that plan’s gonna work.”

  The motorcycle engine roared and smoke billowed from the tires as it strained to pull the glowing rope tight.

  A loud crack, like a whip on steroids filled the air as it snapped.

  Off the motorcycle guy went— right up the side of the main building rather than smashing into the magic shield.

  “Cool trick. Aight, my turn.”

  “Wait— Hammer—”

  Nice kid, a bit shrill, but that was normal for a rookie in her first big fight.

  Hammer leapt higher and faster than ever before thanks to the thrusters in her fancy new armor.

  She had been an idiot for refusing Cruces’ offer all these years.

  Man, the price hadn’t even been that bad for all the fancy gear.

  If only she had then maybe she wouldn’t have been taken out of the fight by that demigod.

  She could’ve—

  “Forget it,” she muttered.

  Couldn’t change the past.

  That was what her therapist kept telling her.

  No point in replaying it when she slept and when she was awake.

  She gained good height, enough to see the roofs of the tallest buildings in the compound.

  Harpies swooped in and hit her with spells and feathers.

  Bitches!

  How did her micromissiles work again?

  “Mark targets.”

  Red outlined the harpy she was looking at.

  Oh, yeah!

  She looked at each harpy.

  “Fire missiles.”

  There.

  That’d give them something else to worry about.

  She had a crab to crack open.

  “Hammer!”

  The chirping in her ear was getting a little annoying.

  She didn’t know how to silence it or even if that was possible, so she just ignored the kid.

  She aimed herself and fired her armor’s thrusters.

  Hammer and boomhammer hit the top of the mecha crab’s golden shell.

  Or rather, the latter did.

  Magic protections shattered at her thunderous blow.

  The shockwave cleared the air and blew away the harpies that had tried one last ditch effort to stop her.

  Blue light shined from the finger-sized cracks in the boomhammer’s over-sized head.

  Two or three more hits with it, huh?

  That probably meant a standard style hit and not one with the additional force of her shooting from a great height with thrusters.

  So… one… or two?

  She had crated the golden shell beneath her size 26 custom boots.

  Well, she had always been a doer rather than a thinker.

  She raised the boomhammer and slammed it down two-handed.

  The shell cracked further, but it appeared to be really thick.

  She still hadn’t revealed its juicy meat.

  “Hey, uh, kid… how close is this thing to blowing up?”

  The shrill voice made her cringe.

  The kid was hyperventilating, but she managed to rally.

  “It’s going to blow up at any moment! You have to get away from it, now!”

  “Yeah, okay, that’ll work. Hey, tell everyone to clear out of the, uh, blast whatever.”

  She leapt with the superhuman strength in her legs and her thrusters.

  Harpies tried again, but a couple of those crazy fuckers in their fighter jet suit things swept by faster than she could follow.

  There was a bunch of lights and tiny explosions and no more harpies.

  Only thing left was her and the glow from fighter jet guys’ thrusters growing smaller in the dark distance.

  She didn’t wait for confirmation from the kid.

  Her new allies were really good about staying coordinated with their teamwork.

  Kinda like hooping on the court when each person was so in sync it was almost like they were sharing the same brain or something weird like that.

  She hung in the sky for a moment before she hurled the boomhammer down.

  Ha!

  She smiled.

  She was like that Thor guy from the old movies.

  The boomhammer struck the crab’s golden shell.

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  Right where she had aimed.

  Dead center on her crater.

  Blue light lit up the night for a moment as her faceplate darkened.

  The advanced gear was really nice.

  The mecha crab wobbled and slammed on its belly before rising.

  “Un-fucking-believable. What does a bitch have to do to put a fool down—”

  She laughed.

  The thick shell was cracked open.

  Enough that she could see people freaking out inside.

  “Hey, kid, I’m fittin’ to get some crab meat. Tell the other hitters to keep their distance.”

  It wouldn’t balance the scales on what she owed these people for taking hers in with no questions nor payments asked, but she figured a mecha crab was a decent start.

  Might even be able to use it right now if they didn’t damage it too badly.

  She engaged her thrusters and dived into the hole, clipping her big ass boots on a jagged edge.

  Damn fine armor barely got scratched.

  “Hold up, fools! Who you be?” She glared down at the panicking crew.

  Americans.

  That’s what they looked like.

  A bunch of white people.

  A couple that looked Hispanic, maybe mixed.

  A few more Asians.

  And even a brother.

  She shook her head like a disappointed auntie at the latter.

  Still, maybe she shouldn’t be quick to judge.

  “Aight! Listen up! Y’all can surrender and live! I ain’t like you fools, always killing anyone that don’t wanna get drafted and turned into a half animal thing! So, hands off the controls and keep ‘em up!”

  Part of her really wanted them to go for the guns and weapons at their sides.

  The blood of her people cried out for payback.

  Motherfuckers had sent a demigod and cannibal rapist rabbit people after them!

  They deserved whatever she decided to give them.

  Too bad Cruces was still as soft as Charmin about taking prisoners and shit.

  “Traitor!” The old white guy in the center chair snapped. “We will not surrender! Surrender or die!”

  She grinned as weapons came out of their holsters and sheaths.

  “Motherfuckin’ fools! Y’all trippin’! I ain’t about being merciful or shit! You don’t wanna die? Then keep your hands up and your heads down!”

  “Hammer! You have to take prisoners!” The kid chirped like she needed a potion fix.

  Well?

  She tried.

  Even the brother drew on her.

  Shit!

  They all did.

  Guns, wands, fingers.

  Short blades.

  And, ironically, one warhammer.

  “Repel boarders!” the old white guy said. “She dies or you die! Rage of Patriots!”

  Aww… shit…

  Hammer sighed.

  Okay.

  So, it was a Skill.

  Probably a bunch.

  She figured the old guy was the captain of the sh— uh— crab.

  Had them command-type Skills to make the crew do what he wanted.

  The American military was big on those to keep their conscripts in line from what she had seen and heard over the years.

  She regarded the old man.

  Didn’t look impressive.

  All wrinkled and bald.

  Bunch a scars on his face said he got his hands dirty.

  Deffo the captain, though.

  He was sitting in the biggest chair in the middle of the bridge like in those TV shows and movies.

  Bullets and spells bounced off her fancy armor.

  Some of the latter activated the automatic shield according to the stuff in her faceplate.

  She still didn’t know how that worked.

  Probably, should’ve paid more attention when they had given her the rundown.

  She cursed.

  That captain’s Skill wasn’t going to let any of these fools surrender even if they wanted to judging by the way their faces resembled rabid animals.

  There was that reddish haze coming off them too.

  Poor bastards—

  Unless?

  She pulled the warhammer out of the guy’s grip whacking her with it.

  Accidentally broke his hand, but whatever.

  She hurled it at old white guy in his big chair.

  He sneered up at her as the hammer broke on a magic shield.

  Dang… she hated surprise magic shields.

  She leapt.

  The shield shattered under her.

  She leaned forward so that the old captain could see her dark face.

  The metallic shine always freaked them out.

  She wanted him to die scared.

  Just like her people.

  Her armored fist drove the smug look turned into terror out the back of his head and into the back of his chair.

  “Damn…” she regarded the fist-shaped dent in the bronze-colored metal. “They can pound that out… probably.”

  The rest of the crew stopped fighting as the captain’s Skill died with him.

  Soldiers came through a door in the rear.

  She hurled the captain’s body, knocking them down so that she could hop over and crush their armored chests with a few light stomps.

  They had guns and they were aiming, so that was a legit combat action.

  Not against the rules.

  As for the crew?

  “I ain’t gonna tell y’all twice. Surrender or—”

  “Shut up, you ni—”

  She leapt over and crushed the young man’s head like an empty soda can.

  “We bleed red, white and blue!” another young man blasted her in the face with a fireball.

  Might as well have been a sparkler.

  She put her fist through his face.

  “No blue,” she examined her gory fist. “A lot red and a little bit of white, but that’s teeth and they ain’t liquid. Anyone else feeling brave and loyal?”

  That did it.

  Weapons hit the floor and hands reached for the ceiling.

  “Someone shut this thing down.”

  No one moved.

  “I’m fittin’ to bust another face if one of y’all don’t start moving snappy and turn this crabzilla thing off.”

  “That’s not how it works,” one of the crew, a young Asian guy, said.

  “Shut up, traitor!”

  “You shut up, Jaydan! I only signed up so my sisters could stay in the civilian side!”

  She pointed at the young Asian guy.

  She liked to think she could tell Asians apart. At least Japanese and Chinese.

  The kid didn’t look like either.

  “Aight. Everyone, but you, keep your mouths shut or I’ll do it permanently. Kid, I can see that none of you are working the controls. So, why is this thing still moving and shooting?”

  She could see that through the various screens and projections at the different bridge stations.

  “The gunnery pods are mostly independent of everything else. And there’s two other auxiliary control stations.”

  “So, take back control. Then shut it down.”

  “Can’t. The captain locked it down when you, uh…” he eyed the hole in shell, “did that.”

  “Fuck it. You, Jaydan— dumbass name.” She grabbed him by the throat. “You radio the rest of your crab crew and tell ‘em I’m gonna snap your neck if they don’t stop everything.”

  “Wait!” a white girl cried. “They won’t! Even if you kill us all! It’s standard protocol!”

  “What a buncha, fucksticks!” She scanned the bridge.

  There were railings, looked bronze, but that was probably paint.

  No way they were made out of anything weaker than steel at a minimum.

  Probably even used some bullshit metal like the Threnium she was wearing.

  Great stuff, by the way.

  She supposed she could at least try to use the railings as makeshift restraints since none of the bridge crew were carrying cuffs and they could probably escape restraints made out of their belts, laces and clothes.

  “O.M.G! Hammer, you’re so awesome!” The kid chirped in her ear. “A team’s inbound on you. They’ll secure the bridge and help you secure the rest of Crabzilla!”

  “Uh… thanks… make sure Cruces knows I got it for him.”

  Jaydan was turning blue, so she let him go.

  “Lucky fuckers.” She regarded the bodies near the door. “Y’all deserve that.”

  “Oh, shi— that almost got my balls! Where the fuck did that shit come from? Holy shit! What the fuck was that?”

  “Cut the chatter, Red 13. Form up on me.” Red 1 sounded calm as always.

  Despite the fact that what looked like an artillery shell had just buzzed right through their four person diamond and splashed against the anti-artillery shield that covered their entire base compound casino-hotel.

  That had never failed to make him smile.

  The idea that their base used to be a cheap hotel-casino combo.

  Red 5 gave a mental salute to the people turning the shield on for every shell of the erratic bombardment.

  They couldn’t keep it on all the time.

  “Keep your distance. The shells are dropping heavier now. We don’t want to get a faceful of artillery or shield,” Red 1 said.

  The human fighter jet project was a niche one.

  Its genesis rose from the need for a cheaper and quicker to produce air combat platform compared to the skyfury.

  Some said manned platforms weren’t necessary since they could just rely on drones.

  Problem was that drone control wasn’t infallible.

  There had been enough situations where the enemy or a random monster had been able to disrupt or outright kill their ability to control their drones.

  That wasn’t even accounting the techno-organic monsters that could seize control of the drones and even assimilate them.

  A second shell screamed out of the sky to smash into the shield.

  The first one had spread some kind of smoking liquid.

  This one turned into a giant flame that—

  “Yo, like I said. What. The. Fuck,” Red 13 said.

  “I believe I’m seeing arms and legs on that giant… flame… thing,” Red 2 said.

  They were right.

  The fireball had arms and legs and it was punching and stomping on top of the shield like an angry toddler the size of a house.

  Red 5 traced the trajectory of the two shells to the north.

  “Red Leader, those shots came from a new place.” He passed the data along.

  Before those two shots the artillery bombardment had been coming from a few kilometers to the east where some of the initial golden portals had opened.

  That bombardment had slowed to a trickle, which meant that they had been mostly dealt with.

  “Command, we’ve detected a new artillery group. North. Estimate in the vicinity of Pasadena City College Encounter Challenge,” Red 1 said.

  “Copy, Red 1. Standby for orders.”

  Red Squadron cruised around the perimeter of the battle above their base, waiting in reserve while a ranger skyship, a skyfury, interceptor Threnosh and Rogue Squadron fought harpy wings and flying monsters of so many types.

  “I thought my gramps was joking about the flying spaghetti monster and, yet, there’s one up there,” Red 13 said.

  “Jesus! It does look like spaghetti from this far away,” Red 2 said.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t think that’s marinara sauce it’s spraying around. It’s actually melting the skyship’s armor,” Red 13 said. “Do you think they’ll let me share a picture with my gramps? I’m kinda worried now that his prayers might get answered.”

  “Save it for later,” Red 1 said.

  “Red 1. They are protected from satellite cams and scrying spells. We need your squadron to get visual on targets and get us their coordinates.”

  “Acknowledged. Red Squadron is going hunting.”

  “Good hunting.”

  “Damn. Just bombard that whole area,” Red 13 said.

  “And risk turning the challenge into a spawn zone and trigger a horde mode?” Red 2 scoffed. “We’ve already got more than enough monsters coming in from everywhere else without adding that.”

  “Meh… it’s not like the monsters there are that strong,” Red 13 said.

  Lightning flashed and thunder crashed.

  Rain began to fall.

  “Aww… fuck!” Red 13 snapped. “Sorry, guys, that’s on me.”

  As part of their training they had been drilled on the potential threats one could find in the skies.

  Red 5 recognized the lightning and thunder from videos and the life-like scenarios in the Danger Complexes simulators.

  “All aerial assets be advised. Multiple thunderbirds inbound on our position. I repeat, multiple thunderbirds are inbound. Fall back to the Sabrerayna or to base.”

  “Does that include us?” Red 1 said.

  “Negative. Proceed on mission.”

  “Awesome!” Red 13 laughed. “Extra danger means extra rewards. You guys got the Quest, right?”

  “Worry about that later. We have a mission to complete. Form up on me. Diamond. Vertical stagger. We stay low and fast. We’re too small for the thunderbirds to notice. Not with the skyship up there.”