Alliance (12 page)

The fall is abrupt, and before I can
recover, the other lizard humanoids are around me, grabbing and
biting at me with their sharp claws and teeth. It does not hurt me
at all, but I doubt it will be long before they tear me apart like
tin.

So I activate the electrical barrier
inside me. As soon as the barrier shoots out from my body, many of
the lizard humanoids cry out in pain and retreat or, in a few
cases, fall unconscious onto the floor, causing some of their
fellow lizard humanoids to trip over them. Those who aren't close
enough to be harmed by my barrier still retreat to a safer
distance, watching me with intelligent reptilian eyes as if looking
for an opening in which to strike.

But I do not give them the opening they
are looking for. Instead, I hop to my feet and, still keeping the
barrier active, run toward the Portal, forcing the other lizard
humanoids around me to scatter to avoid being electrocuted. That
means that these lizard humanoids are much smarter than I
originally thought, which makes me wonder briefly again what they
are.

A fiery
wooshing
sound is followed
by flames appearing in my path, a continuous stream of fire
breathed by one of the lizard humanoids. I skid to a stop because
my sensors indicate that the fire is too hot for me to go through
without sustaining severe damage to my exterior and interior.

I raise my hand to unleash my finger
lightning bolts at the lizard humanoids, but before I can do so,
more flames erupt behind me. A second later, even more flames
appear to my left and to my right, effectively trapping me inside a
box of fire.

Sensors indicate that all of these flames
are too hot for me to try to run through. And because of the fire
in my optics, I cannot easily locate the creators of the fire,
especially with the flames drawing in ever closer and closer to me,
giving me less room in which to maneuver.

But this is not an impossible situation. I
activate my boosters and soar into the air once again, safely
escaping the flames, although as soon as I do so, more of those
lizard humanoids leap through the air toward me, howling with
rage.

This time, however, I twist out of their
way, allowing the lizard humanoids to fly past me. I then head for
the Portal, from which lizard humanoids are still pouring, although
there seem to be less and less because I see fewer and fewer of
these lizard humanoids coming through the Portal.

Then I hear a cry of pain and look over my
shoulder. Back toward the line of Foundation agents holding back
the monsters, one of the agents is stabbed in the chest by one of
the lizard humanoids, causing him to fall down, which creates an
opening in the line that the other agents try to fill, although
they are already so thinly spread out that they fail to do so. The
lizard humanoids break through, separating the two sides as the
lizard creatures make for the doors to the rest of the base while
the surviving agents fight harder than ever to keep the lizard
humanoids back.

But I still focus on the Portal. I cannot
allow myself to be distracted by anything less important, even if
it is more urgent.

Soon I land on the platform on which the
Portal is built. A lizard humanoid pokes its head through the
Portal before I punch it in the face, sending the monster tumbling
back to where it comes from. I hear the lizard humanoids behind me
coming to stop me, which means I do not have much time to figure
out how to shut off this Portal.

According to the mobile Database records,
Delanian Portals are powered by a built-in, continuously active
power crystal that absorbs skyras energy from the environment
around it. That means I need to locate the power crystal to shut it
off, but at the moment I do not have the time to do so.

Instead, I rush at the Portal and slam my
shoulder into its ring. The Portal shudders under the impact, but
still remains standing and active, although I intend to correct
that by pushing against the Portal as hard as I can.

Straining against the Portal, I check my
power level to ensure that I am still at optimal levels. I am at
79%, which is still good, although unless I put all of my energy
into pushing against this Portal, I may not be able to knock it
down from its foundations.

Hence, I divert all remaining energy into
my arms, legs, and shoulders, which causes my electrical barrier to
shut off, but that is fine because I do not need it at the moment.
As long as I am strong enough to shove this Portal down, I will be
all right.

Then I hear the lizard humanoids behind me
and I look over my shoulder. The lizard humanoids are climbing the
steps toward me, their claws drawn and their teeth bared. But I do
not have any energy left to deal with them because the rest of my
energy is diverted into putting all of my strength into pushing
this Portal over.

Rather than tear at me with their claws,
however, the lizard humanoids stop as they surround me. Scanners
indicate that their body temperatures are rising rapidly, which
means they are going to unleash their fiery breaths on me again.
And considering how high their temperatures are rising, I know I
will be melted into slag if I do not move before they breathe their
fire on me.

But I must continue to put all of my
strength into knocking down this Portal. If I succeed in that
objective, then the fall might shatter its power crystal, which
will force it to shut off even if its Xeeonite counterpart on the
other side is still active.

Yet if I continue to push and shove, the
lizard humanoids will melt me into slag, which means I must move
now if I want to avoid that fate.

Thus, I divert all of my energy into the
boosters on the bottom of my feet and immediately go flying into
the air. As I soar upwards, the lizard humanoids unleash their
collective fire breaths on the spot of the Portal that I had been
pushing against.

As I hover in the air, I watch as the
flames—which are so hot I barely believe the temperature readings
my scanners show me—cover the part of the Portal I had been shoving
against. The flames are loud and noisy, but at least they are
nowhere near me.

The lizard humanoids must realize I am no
longer there, because they soon cut off their fire breaths and look
up at me. They appear to be trying to figure out how to get me, but
that does not matter to me because I now see the full damage that
their fire breaths have caused to the Portal.

Their fire was so hot that it had burned
straight through the Portal's ring. The Portal itself blinks in and
out of existence several times, but I now see an excellent
opportunity to destroy not only the Portal, but these lizard
humanoids as well.

I soar around the Portal and reach its
backside, while the lizard humanoids that have attempted to turn me
into slag follow my progress with their strangely intelligent eyes.
Using both hands, I grab the top of the Portal's ring and shove it
forward as hard as I can, using my boosters to give me extra
momentum.

It works. The Portal—weakened by the
flames from the lizard humanoids—teeters and totters before falling
forward. As it falls, the Portal within immediately shuts off,
turning it into a powerless and unusually large stone ring.

The lizard humanoids attempt to flee, and
a few of them succeed, but most of them are crushed by the falling
Portal, which lands on them with a
boom
. Not only that, but
the impact causes the Portal to shatter into pieces, which creates
a much louder crashing sound than I expected.

But I am satisfied with this, because the
Portal has been shut off entirely now. Its Xeeonite counterpart is
probably still active, but without this one to connect it, it is
essentially useless without proper repairs.

The fall of the Portal is loud enough to
cause many of the lizard humanoids and Foundation agents to stop
the fighting and look at my handiwork. The lizard humanoids appear
stunned by what I did, while the Foundation agents recover quickly
from their initial surprise and begin hacking away at the closest
lizard humanoids, killing a few before the lizard humanoids snap
out of their shock and resume their fight with the agents.

Hovering in the air, I check my power
levels briefly again. My systems indicate that I am at 77% now,
despite all of the power I have used. That is more than enough
power for me to aid the Foundation agents in killing off the rest
of these lizard humanoids.

I soar down to the floor and land
gracefully. As soon as my feet touch the floor, four of the lizard
humanoids surround me. Scanners indicate they are angrier than ever
now, with their body temperatures rising with their anger
levels.

Nonetheless, I fire a finger lightning
bolt at the one in front of me, striking it in the chest and
forcing it to stagger back. Its brothers jump on me, but as soon as
they do, I activate my electrical barrier, shocking them in midair
and causing them to fall to the floor stunned.

Then I look around and notice how much
more viciously the Foundation agents are fighting against the
lizard humanoids. Konoa, for example, beheads one of the creatures
and then kicks another in the face, while the agent fighting next
to him tackles another humanoid to the floor and stabs it
repeatedly in the throat. The destruction of the Portal must have
boosted their morale, but I do not have time to stand here and
think about this, because there are still many of these lizard
humanoids trying to kill us and I must do what I can to help stop
them.

Just as I take another step forward to aid
the nearest agents, the doors to the room burst open, slamming into
the lizard humanoids that are trying to break through it. Not even
one second later, more Foundation agents pour through the doors, at
least three dozen in all, carrying weapons of all sorts, and those
that do not have any weapons have skyras rings glowing on their
fingers.

The unexpected appearance of so many
agents at once does not, however, surprise the lizard humanoids at
all. Instead, they turn their attention from the few agents already
in here and move to meet the reinforcements, although I can tell
even now that they are unlikely to succeed.

As I watch, the reinforcements stab and
slash at the lizard humanoids, dividing the creatures from each
other and using magic to finish them off. Nacina, for example,
beheads one of the lizard humanoids with her dead gray sword, while
the witch Rina snaps her fingers and freezes another lizard
humanoid inside a huge block of ice before Rozan smashes it with a
hammer he carries.

While I still want to help, it becomes
plain to me that any help I can render is unnecessary. This battle
started with the agents outnumbered, but with the Portal now
closed—and with it, any hope of the lizard humanoids of receiving
back-up destroyed—the Foundation agents appear more than capable of
finishing off the remaining lizard humanoids by themselves.

Therefore, I decide to take this
opportunity to study the stunned ones around me, which are so still
that they look dead, although my sensors indicate that they are
still breathing. Ignoring the terrified and angry cries of the
humanoid lizards and the swearing and magical blasts from the
agents, I bend over the nearest stunned lizard humanoid and examine
its body.

Studying your enemy in the middle of
battle like this may seem foolhardy, but I wish to collect as much
information on these creatures as possible so I can share it with
my fellow J bots when I return to Xeeo. Besides, the Foundation is
keeping the still-living lizard humanoids distracted, so I doubt
any of them will attempt to attack me while I study this stunned
one.

As carefully as possible, I scrap off a
part of this lizard humanoid's skin and run it through my systems.
Ordinarily, my scanners are used in the occasional detective work,
such as when I am examining evidence at a crime scene, but they can
scan just about anything and tell me what it is, regardless of
whether it has anything to do with a crime scene I am investigating
or not.

Scan complete. According to the skin
sample I scanned, these creatures do indeed have Grand Lizard and
human DNA in them. While these creatures are most definitely unique
in that regard, this confirms my theory that these creatures are
the result of gene-splicing, a science still in its infancy in
Xeeo, but which is rapidly becoming popular due to its possible
uses in the medical field.

That does not explain, however, how
Reunification created these creatures. From what I have read about
gene-splicing, it is still far too new of a science for anything
even remotely this complicated to be created. That Reunification
has made so many of these lizard humanoids means that they must
possess scientific knowledge and understanding that even Xeeo's
brightest do not. If so, that makes Reunification even more
dangerous than I thou—

The eyes of the lizard humanoid, the one I
have been studying, open without warning. My own optics register
that in less than a second, but before I can react, the lizard
humanoid stabs me directly in the chest with one of its claws.

This time, the lizard humanoid's claw
pierces my chest and tears through some of my inner-circuitry. My
systems immediately begin working to find out what the damage is,
but I have no time to waste waiting for what it finds, because the
lizard humanoid is still tearing at my interior.

I shoot my twin eye beams at the lizard
humanoid's face. The beams strike it in the face, burrowing through
its forehead and into its brain. The lizard humanoid does not even
cry out in pain before its head falls limply to the side and its
body becomes still.

I grab its claw that is still embedded in
my chest and gently remove it. The claw did not stab very far into
my chest, but it is enough that I cannot simply ignore it. Perhaps
I can have Konoa repair it, because despite his lack of
certification, he seems unusually knowledgeable about repairing J
bots.