Washington, D.C., November 2056

  Madalena punched and swiped her one hand through the heavy gray fog in her way.

  She took step after step forward, but instead of hitting the blast door separating her from her cousin and that shit demigod she found nothing.

  Time had gotten weird.

  It felt like… well… it felt like those long ago months when she had been trapped in the gray by a monster.

  This time it was her nephew’s doing.

  A hand grabbed her shoulder and she almost turned and swung.

  Captain Butcher cursed.

  The ranger’s eyes were wide and her nostrils flared.

  Ah!

  Madalena remembered.

  The ranger captain had also been there. She knew what the nightmare of the gray had been like.

  Except this time Madalena didn’t feel the ever present malice and infinite hunger.

  What did she feel?

  Frustration?

  At her.

  Because she wouldn’t turn around and leave like she was supposed to do so that she could keep living.

  If you don’t care about yourself, then do it for me, cause I care about you.

  “Boy? Stop this right now!” she snarled. “You’re being very bad! You need my help!”

  The gray remained silent.

  “He’s telling me to get you out of here, but we all know that’s not happening.” Captain Butcher gave her a sardonic smile.

  “You hear that, Boy! We’re not leaving you! So—”

  I can’t do this and worry about you coming in here to die. Please. If that’s not enough, then think about the Mist Spekters. Remember, they’re escorting people taken from the Manila. Like you, survivors of the gray. I don’t want any of you to survive that only to die down here because some shit wants me for something. They’ll need your help to get out of this bunker. If that’s not enough, then think about how the quicker you get out of here the quicker you can maybe reach my dad. The walls of this place are blocking him. Listen, I need to concentrate. I know you’ll pick the right choice. Love you, Auntie.

  “Boy? Boy!”

  She raged at the gray, punching the wisps futilely while running forward, but never moving away from Captain Butcher, who remained standing still with an expression that could’ve been carved out of marble.

  Madalena paused and took deep breaths.

  She forgot that the ranger captain had seen her entire team killed by the demigod.

  The demigod that her little cousin was now locked in mortal combat with.

  “He’s right,” Captain Butcher said. “I hate it, but he’s right. We’re wasting time, ours and his. And we’re wasting his energy on this… stuff.” She waved her hand through the gray.

  Madalena deflated.

  The long imprisonment had taken its toll on her mind and body, though more on the former.

  Freedom and the chance for payback had surged her adrenaline and since she was superhuman it would last much longer.

  Long enough to cut through the bunker, get her cousin’s attention and charge right back down.

  They could all stomp the demigod then.

  As a family, as nature intended.

  “I’m not slowing down or stopping. I’m punching through everything and everyone in the way.”

  The ranger captain matched Madalena’s scowl with a frown.

  “Soldiers and fighters only?”

  “What?”

  “This alien place is beneath bunkers.”

  “Yeah, I got that. I’m the one that’s been imprisoned here for—”

  So long and yet she couldn’t quite focus on the number.

  That foul crown the demigod had used to study her memories muddled things.

  The ranger captain forged ahead.

  “Emergency bunkers for the Americans. Intel says it’ll mostly be the elites.”

  “So? I’ll be quicker. I don’t care how high level these soldiers are.”

  “Civilian elites.”

  Madalena cursed.

  The last thing she wanted was to run over a mother and her child.

  “Lots of families. And protection, obviously. Those you can smash.”

  “It doesn’t change anything. I have superior reaction times. And children won’t be running around in the tunnels. I bet they’re all in their rooms.”

  “God willing.”

  “So, are you ready?”

  Captain Butcher shrugged, shouldering her recoilless rifle.

  “I’m not going to be able to keep up. Best I can do is put a few in any soldier you miss. And leave the Mist Spekters to me. Once we get out of this,” she indicated the gray and, maybe, the strange, dark-colored metallic floor and walls, “I’ll link up with the Mist Spekters on the comms. Coordinate so they can get out of your way. You get out. Get in touch with Cal and we comeback to help Goldenspoon.”

  Madalena gave the ranger captain a flat look.

  Their ranger names would never not be a stupid idea.

  The variable quality in the assigned names was clearly unfair.

  “Let’s go.”

  Madalena sprinted, leaving the gray and Captain Butcher behind.

  Expansive tunnels of alien make gave way to more familiar flat gray of bare concrete and harsh over-head lighting.

  She barely registered the signs of battle that she used as tracking signs.

  Those brass and bronze automatons that she had a long time to get used to laid in scatter pieces.

  The work of the Mist Spekters?

  However, it didn’t escaped her notice that some of the automatons had their weapon arms thrust in other automatons’ chests. As if they had turned on each other.

  She didn’t know how, but she decided that her cousin probably had something to do with it.

  Sounds of battle reached her as the signs on the walls blurred, like she was running as fast as a car could drive.

  It was helpful of the Americans to provide directions.

  Mist filled the tunnel.

  Cool on the exposed parts of her skin where the demigod had torn pieces of her armor.

  Freezing judging by the light layer of frost on the walls.

  They fought, firing spells and bullets from behind walls of ice.

  The chamber appeared to be an intersection of four tunnels.

  American soldiers held the center behind barricades with a mounted machine gun.

  She clocked Galen.

  He was the only one she recognized out of the Mist Spekters.

  She clocked her fellow survivors of the gray from Manila all the away at the back as she sprinted past them.

  Bullets and spells hit her like hot rain drops.

  Unpleasant, but that was all.

  A big American Soldier with heavy armor, carrying a thick, door-like shield stepped to the tunnel’s opening and activated a taunt Skill with a vulgar shout.

  Fine by her.

  She didn’t fight it.

  “Freedom’s Bastion.”

  A faint flag appeared behind the soldier. Red and white stripes. Stars in a blue square. An eagle cried.

  She leapt, flying like a missile, punching over the shield.

  Fist cracked into full-faced helmet.

  The impact of a speeding truck concentrated in her small fist.

  The soldier’s Skill worked against him. It held him in place long enough for Madalena to crush her fist through his face.

  The flag vanished. The eagle fell silent.

  “Light her up!”

  She kicked the door shield into the machine gun emplacement, crushing the weapon and the men behind it.

  The dead soldier was stuck on her fist, so she used his heavily-armored bulk to bludgeon the others.

  Cold mist shot forward, engulfing her like an octopus’s tentacles.

  Shapes flitted around her.

  She thought she saw blades flash.

  The Mist Spekters had it handled, so she moved forward. Only stopping long enough to pick up the bloodied shield.

  The next defensive position fired at her on sight.

  A long tunnel was nothing to her sprinting speed.

  She crashed through them behind the battered shield, stopping only long enough to bash and stomp the wounded soldiers.

  The shield lasted through another two defensive positions.

  Blood, piss and shit.

  The scents of battle never failed to disgust.

  She really missed a proper helmet. One with filters and a full environmental seal.

  Running through harshly lit tunnels.

  Then tunnels with dim red light.

  The monotony of bare concrete only broken up by the signs and the fighting, killing and dying.

  Shoulder slam to crush ribs and pulp organs.

  Take a three round burst to the face.

  Beat to death with their own guns.

  One hit, sometimes two or three for the fighters with durability Skills.

  Magical fire. Magical acid. Magical ice.

  Flesh scorched, melted, ruptured, but only skin deep.

  Superhumans were made tougher.

  Snarling beast lunged with teeth, whirling with claws.

  The devastated cries of a pet owner as Madalena splattered the over-sized cat against the wall.

  Run, run, run.

  Kill, kill, kill.

  Until she ran out of tunnels.

  Ran out of American soldiers.

  One last chamber.

  A giant blast door, round like a wheel, thicker than a bank vault door.

  Defenses aimed the wrong way.

  She had been too fast for them to get them turned around.

  Soldiers roared with rage.

  They screamed in terror.

  Hybrids cut and bit, drawing blood.

  Death, death, death.

  Blood shed by the pint.

  Enough to fill many buckets over and over.

  Cutting claws struck cat-quick at her eyes.

  Not quick enough.

  She rolled under, punching beneath the hybrid’s furry arm.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The big woman doubled over.

  Kept her liver in the same place.

  Knee to the chin sent her flying.

  The crack had sounded like a gunshot.

  A fallen heap a few dozen feet away didn’t move.

  Furious violence.

  As brutal as it was fast.

  Madalena stood alone.

  The only sounds she could hear were the thumping in her chest and the crimson trickles running down from every part of her body.

  How much time had passed?

  Minutes?

  At most?

  The bunker complex was deep and expansive.

  She had run through many tunnels, long ones.

  Fought multiple times.

  Less than an hour seemed certain.

  But, even ten minutes seemed much too long to leave Boy alone with a demigod.

  She didn’t wait for the massive door’s mechanism to automatically open it.

  Didn’t have the time to search the dead soldiers for the key.

  It squealed in protest, but gave up when her superhuman strength proved merciless.

  Then, she was out beneath the night sky.

  Explosions lit up the cold dark like fireworks.

  A sickly green glow back-lighted a cluster of tall buildings in the distance.

  She shouted as loud as she could in her head for her cousin to come save his son before it was too late.

  Silence.

  She couldn’t wait, but she couldn’t leave.

  All she could do was keep yelling silently until he heard.

  A familiar touch.

  Relief at first.

  Then?

  Horror when her cousin asked her a question.

  Despite what they called him, Tezuka Haruo was tiny as far as kaiju went.

  He could see over a two-story house, not a hundred-story sky scraper.

  Old America’s capital was interesting to him in an intellectual sense.

  A lot dirtier and smaller than Tokyo from the short minutes he had to take in the sights after he had walked through the portal.

  He thought, charitably, that perhaps it had been diminished much greater than his home had been by the spires’ degradation of humanity.

  Regardless, such idle thoughts had no place occupying his mind on the cusp of deadly battle.

  Not that he cared about his survival.

  Death would be one form of release and with the glowing girl in her armor trailing after him a good distance away with those superscience radiation collectors hovering in her general vicinity he no longer had to worry about the radioactive explosion from his body ruining the environment and killing people.

  “Um, excuse me? Mr. Tezuka? You’re sure you won’t attack me when you, um, transform?” Glowy said over the comms.

  He was certain that wasn’t her real name, but it mattered not. He wasn’t unfamiliar with people adopting names more fitting for the life of violence their kind were forced into.

  “Yes.”

  “Um… okay…”

  Was she not briefed properly?

  That didn’t seem like Cal.

  He had been assured that he wouldn’t have to worry about the girl’s safety. He had assumed that she was like him. Skilled through training and experience.

  Instead, she sounded like this might’ve been her first real battle.

  As good as Cal’s mindscape training simulations were, he didn’t believe they could substitute for the real thing.

  It was one thing to be certain that one wouldn’t be killed or maimed compared to the unknown fate that awaited the two of them in the dark city.

  “My transformation is not one of the mind. I remain in control at all times.”

  If only he had to deal with an altered state of thinking instead of a potential violent nuclear meltdown and explosion.

  Even at his lower levels of exertion there was a real danger from radiation leakage.

  “You’re nervous?”

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I mean, be nervous, that’s normal. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m nervous. Always before every battle. Even during… especially during.”

  “Oh? You don’t have to be this time. I’m not good at fighting, but I know I can absorb the radiation you throw off for sure!”

  “That’s why I even agreed to do this in the first place.”

  “You can count on me, Mr. Tezuka!”

  Was he that old?

  Upon brief reflection, yes, yes he was that old.

  Even if his body didn’t feel it his mind and soul did.

  “Then you can count on me in return.”

  They walked in silence.

  He didn’t know the specifics of how Cal was certain that all he had to do was reach a location to begin his fight with a demigod.

  Logic dictated that the demigod would be waiting for him to be unlikely.

  Unless?

  No.

  He dismissed the idea that Cal had simply scheduled it with the demigod.

  Whatever the case, he saw the demigod waiting in the shadow of several very tall buildings, though they were short, stunted and ugly things compared to the gleaming towers of his home.

  “Keep your distance, Glowy. There are no civilians in the immediate area, so you have more space to allow the radiation to spread before absorbing it.”

  “Copy. I guess Cal was right. Weird, but better than if there were people around here.”

  “I will try to keep the battle from roaming. Be warned, I will likely destroy my ear piece and will be unable to communicate with you or Sparky.”

  “Yup. We simmed for that. Don’t worry. We’ll work around you.”

  Her voice quivered and he heard an audible gulp.

  “Good. Stay safe and keep your distance. Don’t risk yourself for my sake under any circumstances.”

  Death was the second most desirable outcome, after all.

  “You got it, Mr. Tezuka. Break her leg!”

  “Err… yes.”

  He strode down the empty street and began to transform.

  Street lights flickered as he walked past them.

  Bright explosions and streaks of spellfire filled the night sky. Darkness briefly driven away to reveal a man slowly turning into a monster.

  Clothing tore as muscles swelled.

  Skin hardened into dark, leathery armor tough enough to ignore bullets and blades.

  Spiky fins pushed from his spine, running all the way down the long, reptilian tale that slowly emerged.

  Fingers and toes lengthened and thickened. Wicked claws pushed bloody fingernails out as they emerged.

  Hair fell away as his face grew into a blunt muzzle filled with sharp teeth.

  Words became harder, but he tried anyways.

  “We… don’t… fight. Surrender… or… leave.”

  The demigod grinned up at him with shining gold eyes.

  She was stunningly gorgeous with long, golden hair that shined like the metal as it wafted in the non-existent wind.

  The less said about her lack of clothing beyond a gauzy dress the better since he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted by long-buried urges stirring from their prison.

  “Enoione, daughter of Enoi, Sex God!” she laughed.

  The sound reminded him of the wind chimes blowing through his grandparents’ summer home in the mountains.

  A memory long-buried out of the shame of what he had become somehow brought to the surface.

  He had been prepared for this, so he did as he had practiced with Cal’s help and slackened his grip on the chains around his anger.

  A deep rumbled like the earth moving emanated from his chest as he continued to grow.

  “What… funny?”

  “Oh? Nothing.” She smiled lightly as if they were flirting and not preparing to do battle. “A silly little joke meant just for me. For, you see, my father hates being called that.”

  “No… respect.”

  She shrugged.

  “The other Gods do dislike how lenient and forgiving he is to me and my unnumbered half-brothers, sisters and others. But, he can’t help himself. Love in all its forms is in his domain. And is there anything greater than a father’s love?” She manifested a gleaming golden helm in her hands. “I, however, have decided to direct my passion toward a different domain at this time.” She placed the helm on her head and manifested a spear nearly twice her already impressive height.

  The weapon took the appearance of a gnarled tree branch. Alive with green leaves and bright flowers sprouting randomly along its length and insects crawling, fluttering and even tiny birds winging around it and the demigod, chirping loving songs into her ears.

  He stared down the wickedly barbed blade of wood as she pointed it up at him.

  “I am a hunter of great beasts. And you are a great beast. Rejoice! For you are worthy of a place in my trophy mansion!”

  “Not… beast.”

  The full-faced helm hid her face completely behind the facade of a snarling animal.

  One he didn’t recognize.

  Still, he could hear her smirk in her response.

  “You look and sound like one to me. Prepare yourself, great Earth beast! For here I come!”

  The rest of her golden armor formed around her body as she charged with a single bound.

  The golden missile stabbed her living spear into the thick meat of his shoulder, right through thick, leathery skin that shrugged off bullets.

  It would’ve been his heart, but he was a lot faster than he looked for his size.

  He grabbed the shaft and twisted, swinging his other arm out in a sweeping strike.

  The demigod ducked the clawed tree trunk and pulled, then abandoned her spear when her strength proved inadequate.

  Tail cracked like a whip as he continued the spin.

  The living spear vanished from his shoulder meat.

  One second it was wriggling its way deeper. The next it was gone.

  Stinging pain peppered his back through the gaps between the larger plates of his natural armor.

  As he completed the turn he was greeted by the demigod wielding a strange looking gun. Like a giant potato or rock with glowing lines and spikes jutting from its upper portion. The entire thing covered her arm almost up to her elbow.

  She jiggled the spiky potato gun.

  A ridiculous act that would’ve made him laugh if not for the sudden explosion of heat and pain in his back.

  The blast pushed him forward right into a burning gold blade tearing into his gut.

  She was fast.

  He hadn’t seen her switch weapons.

  Saw no signs of the weird gun on the ground.

  He grabbed for her head and her sword arm, but she danced away, abandoning her weapon again.

  It vanished before he could pull it out himself, leaving a thin hole that leaked radioactive blood and radiation.

  He attacked, pouncing forward more like a tiger than a giant, bipedal reptile.

  Faster than he looked, but still slower than the demigod, who traced a graceful arc just around his sweeping claw strikes that carved deep gouges into the street.

  The fight fell into that rhythm.

  He, the huge bear, only ever just a little too slow to catch her, the quick dog nipping at his tail.

  However, despite appearances he was far from mindless, far from savagery.

  Everything he did was calculated to keep the demigod focused on him and not Glowy, who followed at a distance with her ability to absorb the radiation he emanated and channel it into the floating devices.

  He hadn’t cared to get all the details on how they turned the radiation into energy that was then beamed up to the one of a kind skyship. Hadn’t asked what they were planning to do with all that energy.

  For her part, the demigod didn’t glance in Glowy’s direction once.

  He doubted that she hadn’t noticed their watcher, but for whatever reason the demigod didn’t seem to care that a glowing green young woman was standing in the distance.

  He guessed the demigod was probably used to weird sights considering she was over a century old and had been to multiple worlds according to Cal’s intel.

  She fought with that experience on display, moving better than any other opponent he had face before. Each action or reaction was with purpose. Nothing was wasted.

  He kicked a car at her like a bullet.

  She bisected it with a whip-like sword that she used to wrap one half before it could fly past her.

  A swing and a flick sent it shooting back at him.

  Unlike her, his only option was to block it with his arms.

  Pain wrapped around one tree-trunk sized thigh.

  The whip-like sword glowed with intense heat.

  Hot enough to melt metal.

  Uncomfortable, but not enough to melt his skin.

  He hurled the battered car half.

  She slid underneath like a graceful dancer, head arched back, into a handstand rising into a kick that shot under his jaw like a shot out of a tank’s main gun.

  Felt exactly like the last time he had taken one of those to the face.

  The impact drove his lower teeth into his upper lip.

  Maybe, Asuka-san was right about getting a custom mouth guard after all.

  If he could even get one made that could withstand the radioactive heat that emerged with every breath he took.

  Then again, a mouth guard would get destroyed the first time he breathed on an opponent anyways.

  That would’ve ended the fight, but he didn’t want to melt the demigod unless there was no other way.

  A gleaming hammer strike buckled the side of his knee before he could recover from the kick.

  Powerful hands pulled his head down into a leaping knee.

  He struck out instinctively, catching her around the chest more from luck than intent.

  Haruo sprinted with the demigod held out in front of him like a battering ram.

  She cut at his hand and wrist with crimson daggers that seemed to writhe like serpents.

  Angry red fingers spread under his dark, leathery skin, creeping up toward his elbow like crooked fingers.

  If they were trouble he didn’t feel them yet.

  Thus, he slammed into the side of what the American’s thought was a skyscraper. Or, rather, he slammed the demigod.

  He plowed through several blocks and many buildings before the demigod managed to free herself by shooting golden beams of light from her eyes into his.

  A mistake, for she had opened her helmet to do so.

  His radiation had been building hot enough to spontaneously ignite every object in his vicinity.

  Plants, cars and even a giant donut on top of a donut shop across the street from where he stood inside the burning cavern he had made of a bank.

  The demigod’s fair face paled, taking on a sickly hue before she re-sealed her helmet.

  Even that short exposure had been enough.

  The battle’s rhythm shifted.

  No longer was she the graceful hunter, nimbly dancing just out of the way of his attacks.

  He battered her armor with punches from hands bigger than her head.

  She cut, stabbed and shot.

  But, he only healed and grew stronger as the nuclear heart inside him ramped up while she grew weaker with his poison in her.

  A tail slap crated the street with her underneath.

  She surged violently up with a sword-like chainsaw eating into his gut.

  “Die, beast!”

  “No.”

  He grasped her armored wrist and twisted, earning a cry.

  Her weapon made a mess of his skin, but its bulky construction didn’t allow the teeth to cut more than skin deep. From the feel of it, he doubted that it had even gotten more than a few centimeters into the muscle.

  “Surrender,” he growled.

  The demigod scrambled back with one hand flopping uselessly.

  She grabbed a power pole with her working hand and ripped it out of the ground.

  He braced himself and took the hit on his arm without budging as jagged splinters showered him like rain.

  He charged like an angry bull.

  She moved downright sluggishly compared to earlier as she failed to roll out of the way.

  Windows and walls burst in her wake as he sent her spinning like a ball through several buildings until she emerged on the street.

  He was right behind her, collapsing buildings with his massive bulk and impossible speed.

  A semi-truck couldn’t have done as much damage, nor as quickly.

  The demigod rose, battered, but unbeaten.

  An ornate gun in one hand.

  The orb bullets hit him with twisting gravity fields the size of a man’s head that ripped chunks of flesh out of him.

  Luckily, nothing vital was hit.

  So, he reached her and ripped the weapon free.

  Palming her head he whipped her into the street as if he was trying to put out a fire.

  “I—”

  He heard her voice.

  No longer like music, but the familiar sound of the desperate and the defeated.

  “Yesss?”

  “Yield. I yield.”

  “Your… word.”

  “I swear on my father’s name.” She spoke through labored breaths. “I will take no further action as long as I am treated with the respect I’m due.”

  He nodded and signaled Glowy with a wave and a thumb’s up since he had burned his comms device near the start of the long fight.

  The demigod coughed.

  “Radioactive poison. I’ve experienced this before, but never so potent. What manner of beast are you that you can contain this?”

  “Not… beast… human.”

  She laughed weakly.

  “Only to yourself.”

  Haruo had nothing further to say to his defeated prisoner.

  He wanted to power down and return to his true form, but didn’t trust Enoione to keep her word.

  Patience, he reminded himself.

  Glowy would have already signaled the skyship.

  They would drop the necessary restraints for the demigod.

  Then he would be able to stop being the part of himself that he hated more than anything.