Alliance (23 page)

The thing is trying to push me down toward
the pit, so I flip around without any warning or hesitation. The
abrupt flip causes the invisible thing to let go, followed by a
startled shout that sounds like Kalcan.

“
I hear you, Kalcan,” I
call out as I turn around and look in the direction I think that
the arctic vampire fell in. “Your invisibility does not fool
me.”

There is no answer, although I hear the
sound of large wings flapping around, though they sound slightly
metallic for some reason. Based on the sounds of the flapping
wings, I guess that Kalcan is flying away from me. He has a little
skyras energy as well; barely enough to sense, but enough for me to
track his movements accurately.

I aim my fingertips and fire two electric
bolts. The bolts strike the invisible Kalcan in the back, causing
him to let out an oddly metallic roar in pain. He still does not
appear, however, which means I will have to find a way to force him
to show himself.

So I fly after him, following my scanners'
skyras energy sensors. While Kalcan is a fast flier, my boosters
allow me to fly even faster than he, and soon I am above the
invisible vampire.

I try to punch him, but Kalcan spins out
of the way and then body slams me. The blow—which feels like
getting slammed by a falling boulder—sends me tumbling backwards
through the air, although I manage to regain my control and balance
quickly.

Shaking my head, I hear Kalcan's wings
swooping through the air toward me. I aim my fingertips in his
direction, but he is so fast that he is upon me before I can fire.
He punches me with his fist, a blow that causes me to lose my
balance and send me plummeting to the pit below us.

But I recover before I fall into the pit
itself and go flying again, though I fly away from the invisible
Kalcan in order to give myself a moment to think and plan. Sensors
indicate that Kalcan is coming at me once more, although this time
I am not going to let him hit me again.

When my sensors indicate that Kalcan is
only a few dozen yards from me, I fly up abruptly. Kalcan, who is
going too fast to stop, ends up flying underneath me, but just as
he does, I cut off my boosters and land on his back, quickly
grabbing his shoulders to keep from falling off.

Strangely, my sensors indicate that
Kalcan's skin is metallic, not organic, although he might be
wearing some kind of armor to protect himself. In any case, that
does not change what I am about to do.

With my feet on Kalcan's back, I activate
my boosters, but not enough to send me flying. Instead, I make them
powerful enough to cause the flames shooting out to burn my
enemy.

Yet rather than hear the boiling or
burning of skin under my feet, I hear the scorching of metal,
followed by that strange metallic scream again. Kalcan's
invisibility flickers; no, not Kalcan's, but some strange robot I
have never seen before.

It is visible only for a moment, but in
that moment, I see that it looks like a robotic vampire, with large
metal wings and metallic skin. It most definitely does not look
like armor.

Then it becomes invisible again and jerks
to a stop. This sends me flying over its head, but I send more
power to my boosters, allowing me to boost away safely from the
robotic vampire as far from its reach as possible.

As I boost away from it, I wonder where
this thing comes from and where the real Kalcan is. Why did Kalcan
send this machine to fight me? Why not fight me himself?

Righting in midair, I prepare to resume my
fight in the sky with the robotic vampire when the answers to those
two questions occur to me immediately.

I look in the direction of the crane,
where Palos is. I see Palos still melting away the foundation of
the massive crane with her fire ring, which she seems to be having
some progress with, as I can see she has already melted a great
chunk of the foundation.

But then, from out of the shadows behind
her, Kalcan emerges, his teeth bared and his claws at the ready.
Palos does not appear to notice or hear Kalcan approaching behind
her.

“
Palos!” I shout, not
caring that this might attract the attention of the workers to her
position. “Kalcan is behind you!”

Palos starts when she hears me shout, but
at the same time Kalcan grabs her by the shoulders from behind and
throws her to the ground. Palos tries to get up almost
immediately—which suggests a resilience I have not noticed in her
before—but Kalcan is upon her again, only this time he grabs her
hands and squeezes them inside his own.

Palos screams in pain, and then Kalcan
lets go. Even from my position in the sky, I can see that Palos's
fingers have been broken and bent out of shape. Most of her skyras
rings have been shattered, with their remaining bits cutting into
her fingers, causing them to bleed.

“
Palos!” I shout again.
“No!”

Kalcan stands above Palos again, flexing
his powerful claws, and he picks her up. Palos kicks him in the
abdomen, but Kalcan barely notices. He flashes his fangs, as if he
is already imagining how Palos's blood will taste in his mouth.

I turn and zoom toward them, but then my
sensors pick up the robotic vampire's skyras aura to my side. It
slams into me abruptly, sending me spiraling through the sky
uncontrollably. I manage to regain my balance, but as soon as I do,
I hear Palos scream.

Once more, I look down toward the base of
the crane. Kalcan is digging his teeth into Palos's neck, a look of
pure bliss on his features, while Palos screams and kicks at him
harder than ever.

I fire my eye lasers at Kalcan, despite
knowing that I am nowhere near close enough to hit him. My lasers,
however, are intercepted by the robotic vampire, which briefly
becomes visible again when my lasers hit it.

When the robotic vampire returns to
invisibility, I can see Palos and Kalcan again. Kalcan tosses Palos
to the ground. She does not move. Her neck is bloody and has two
holes in it. While she is too far away for my scanners to detect, I
can already tell that she is dead.

My scanners pick up the robotic vampire
coming at me again. It is coming at me too fast to dodge, but I do
not need to. I will end this fight now.

I fire another finger lightning bolt at
the invisible machine. Sensors indicate the robotic vampire ducks
to avoid the lightning bolt and changes tactics in response to my
assault. Rather than come at me directly, it is going under me,
like a shark attacking prey on the surface of the ocean.

My next course of action is logical: I cut
off my boosters and fall toward the invisible machine. I still
cannot see it, but my picture perfect memory has given me an idea
of where its head is, which is all I need to know.

In less than a minute, the invisible
machine slams into my gut. The impact rattles my sensors for a
second before they reboot. The machine is holding me with its claws
and I can hear it trying to tear me apart with its teeth.

But rather than let it do that, I activate
my electrical barrier, which causes the machine to make another
metallic roar. For a brief instant, the machine is visible again
and now I can see its head more clearly, which resembles Kalcan's
head, albeit with red eyes and a much larger mouth.

That is fine by me, because I shove my arm
directly into its open mouth, between its upper and lower fangs,
and shoot a finger lightning bolt into its body.

The resulting explosion sends me flying
away from the creature, although I activate my boosters in time to
catch myself before I can fall. As for the robotic vampire, it is
no longer invisible; it is now a flaming ball of smoking metal that
is falling into the pit below us. It soon vanishes from sight into
the darkness.

Scanners indicate that my body suffers
little negative effects from the explosion, although my right arm
is inoperable thanks to taking the brunt of the blast and my armor
is blackened in many areas. Nonetheless, all systems appear
operational, including my boosters.

“
Machine!” a familiar
voice roars behind me.

I turn in time to see Kalcan flying up to
me. He stops three dozen and a half feet from me, his wings beating
against the air rapidly as he glares at me. His lips are even
redder than before, so fresh that they glisten even without the
light of the sun shining.

He wipes some of the blood off his lips
and licks it off his finger before saying, “Looks like you
destroyed my one and only Replica. Not that I am terribly
surprised, seeing as it is experimental Xeeonite tech, but I admit
to being impressed by the way you did it. Our technicians assured
me that my Replica was completely invulnerable to most weapons,
although I see they did not put much effort into making its
interior as strong as its exterior.”

“
How did you know Palos
and I were going to come back here?” I ask.

Kalcan chuckles. “Easy. Palos is a
Foundation agent, which means she is supposed to fight us and try
to stop the Mission at every opportunity. As for you, I know how
duty-bound you J bots are, so I surmised that you would return to
arrest me as well. Having said that, however, I did not expect you
to try to destroy the crane, although good try nonetheless.”

“
You murdered Palos,” I
say. “That is a crime punishable by up to a century in prison for
vampires and a death sentence for any other species, according to
both Xeeonite and Delanian laws on this matter.”

“
Laws,” Kalcan sneers.
“You think Reunification cares about the law? We are above the law.
Our Mission is holy and must be achieved no matter how many foolish
witches—or robots—we must kill to do it.”

“
No one is above the
law,” I say. “Not even we J bots are exempt from its
binding.”

“
I don't care,” says
Kalcan. He bares his fangs. “You may not have any blood for me to
suck, but that does not mean I cannot still turn you into scrap
metal, especially when you are damaged from my Replica's
explosion.”

Kalcan vanishes before I can even react.
In fact, when he vanishes, I cannot even sense him with my sensors.
This does not make any sense, as it implies that Kalcan has no
skyras energy. But if that is the case, then how is he able to
accomplish so many of his magical feats?

All I know is that I must finish what
Palos started. I have no time to waste fighting Kalcan. The base of
the crane appears to have been melted enough that I can topple it
myself, if I put enough effort into it.

So I divert all of my extra energy to my
boosters and immediately go flying toward the crane. I go so fast
that, even though the workers are shooting at me again, none of
them even come close to hitting me. I hear Kalcan screaming at me
from behind me, but I do not slow down to let him catch up.

In one minute I land on the ground. Power
level is at 50% now, which is more than enough for me to do what I
need to do next.

I glance at Palos's corpse briefly, which
is surrounded by the broken rings, but do not dwell on it. Instead,
I aim my good arm at the work she has already done, which is the
melted base of the crane, and divert all energy to my left arm.
Power flows through it as I charge for my most powerful finger
lightning bolt yet.

I hear more screaming and look over my
shoulder. The dwarfish workers are running toward me with their
guns, while Kalcan is flying toward me as fast as he is able to
flap his wings. I calculate that I have only three seconds before
the workers get within shooting range and four before Kalcan
arrives.

So I turn my attention back to the base of
the crane and fire a finger lightning bolt at its base. This
lightning bolt, however, is more like a lightning explosion than a
bolt, because it causes an explosion that is only slightly smaller
than the one caused by the Replica. The explosion throws me back
onto the ground next to Palos's corpse.

Shaking my head, I look up in time to see
the crane teetering back and forth, creaking loudly all the while
before it finally falls to the side. It lands directly on the
office building, which must have had some sort of flammable fuel in
it because it causes another explosion that temporarily blocks out
all other sounds in my audio receptors.

The destruction of the office building
distracts the dwarves running toward me, making them go to put out
the fires that have started because of it. They might also be going
to look for any survivors, but that doesn't matter because I will
be long gone by the time they put out the flames and rescue any
survivors.

But then I realize that Kalcan is still
coming at me. He does not look even slightly fazed by the explosion
of the office building or the falling of the crane, although the
murderous anger in his eyes is obvious even from a distance.

Rising to my feet, I check my power level
again. That last blast from me took out a large chunk of my power:
I am now at 35%. Enough to help me fly away, but not enough to help
me fight and defeat Kalcan.

When I get to my feet, Kalcan lands
opposite me and, before I can activate my boosters and escape,
lashes out with a punch so fast my optics do not even pick it up.
The blow crunches against my lower jaw, sending me staggering
backward as Kalcan advances on me.

“
You … stupid … robot,”
Kalcan hisses, the anger in his voice barely restrained. “You have
gotten in Reunification's way one too many times now. I am done
holding back. I will tear you apart into so many tiny pieces that
even the best Xeeonite mechanic will be unable to put you back
together.”

This time, I think there may be some truth
to his threat. I am too weak and damaged to fight him. I barely
defeated his Replica, and that is when I was not damaged badly and
had more than half energy. Any fight between him and me will
inevitably end in his victory and my destruction.