“Well?” Ethan asked as he waited for Walter to share.

  The man chuckled, “We use Alice.”

  “Hmm?” she asked, looking up from her book with a confused expression on her face.

  Walter turned to her, “You can pull people into your Sanctuary.” He glanced at Ethan, “Our generation of Imbued is very creative with powers compared to past Imbued. We are finding gaps and flaws in The Entity’s system framework. And instead of patching the gaps, The Entity is choosing to let the workarounds persist.” He tapped his temple, “My Curator has confirmed this.”

  I, too, can confirm this, Nobilis added in Ethan’s mind

  “In other words,” Walter said, “We can do things past Imbued cannot. Like Alice sucking people into her Sanctuary against their will.” He turned to look at her.

  She interrupted, “But Radiance said that FMG is immovable. That means I can’t move him.”

  “We need to at least try before we do my other plan,” Walter stated. “Getting him to somewhere isolated is important to reduce collateral damage.”

  Alice sighed and stood up, planting her foot on the coffee table, “Then pull the ankle monitor off.”

  Walter produced a key and unlocked the cuff. “Radiance, you been to a desert or somewhere like it before?”

  “I have. Heaven’s Gate,” Ethan opened the portal to the dark site he had brought Treya to when he first manifested powers. “Come on, Alice.”

  Alice closed her eyes, and her body was covered with a sheen of watercolors that spiraled and swirled around each other before they faded.

  Walter laughed, “Fucking MJOLNIR Power Armor?”

  Alice nodded as she walked to the edge of the portal, “I needed something protective, and I read this great novel called The Fall of Reach when I was younger by Eric Nylund. Great book. Really underrated.”

  Ethan smirked as he remembered doing LAN parties with his buddies way back when the game associated with the franchise was released, “Can you pull out some badass weapon?”

  She let out a grunt of frustration, “Not something that is non-physical or non-energy based.”

  Walter shook his head, “We are just going to try having you pull him to the desert, then into Wonderland. You should be able to leave him in your Sanctuary, Alice, effectively trapping him.” He shrugged, “And if it doesn’t work, then we know we have to come up with something else.”

  Alice nodded and walked through the portal with Ethan a step behind, “I’m keeping the portal open,” Ethan stated.

  “Just use your x-ray vision thing and yoink him!” Walter said through the open portal.

  Alice walked a few dozen feet into the desert, “Nice and open.” She turned around and looked at Ethan, “I’m going to have the rabbit here, just in case.” She snapped her fingers, and Ethan saw the earth crack next to her as something heavy stood adjacent.

  Right. I need to use Sight beyond Light for the x-ray vision. Ethan activated the Ability with a thought and looked back to Los Angeles, seeing through everything physical. The dozens upon dozens of Souls would take some time to sort through. Or…I can try and overlay Piercing Gaze on top, which restricts to only Imbued and their effects. He tried it, and to his delight thousands of those Souls in his vision vanished. He could only see the changed appearance of the Souls of Imbued. All types of designs, patterns, and hues. How do I figure out which one is him? He thought.

  Good question, Nobilis replied. Look for one that is colored as his skin was, perhaps?

  Ethan focused for a few moments until he found a floating sphere that matched that description. Now, deactivate Piercing Gaze. The silhouettes of people returned but were still indistinct and hazy. However, he recognized the huge, bulky figure’s outline. “Got him,” he said. “Ready?” he asked Alice.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” she replied.

  “Rescue,” Ethan said as he activated the Ability, focusing on FMG.

  Nothing happened.

  “Can’t move him,” Ethan confirmed as he let Sight beyond Light fade.

  Walter spoke through the portal and Ethan followed his voice to re-enter the Imbued Initiative. “Damn,” the scientist muttered. “Completely immovable. Then my backup plan. We use sound waves.” He went to the stairs leading to the workshop, and Ethan’s vision returned as Alice stepped through the portal to follow the man.

  The trio went downstairs as Walter continued, “I can whip up a sonic gun easily. The issue is to do the damage we need it to do; it needs a lot of juice. Like, directly plugging it into the city’s power grid.”

  “Or,” Alice said as she tapped the armor’s chassis, “Make it mountable on this thing. Micro-fusion reactor.”

  Walter nodded sagely, “That can work.” He looked to Ethan, “Radiance, thoughts?”

  “I don’t have any way to hurt him,” Ethan replied. “I might be able to hold him down with Chains of Light.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Physical and energy immunity – and Holy counts as energy. Irritating, Nobilis stated. It is as if FMG is a full counter to your power source.

  I’ve got allies, Ethan thought back to his Curator. Even if he is a counter to me, he can’t counter everything we can throw at him.

  Walter spoke, “I can do that Alice. Just give me…an hour? And you need to stay here, given your Ability’s limitations.”

  Alice turned to Ethan to clarify, “Equipment is me-only.”

  “A sensible enough limitation,” Ethan replied. “I hope that Cheat Code has a similar limitation.”

  “Most likely,” Walter replied with a grunt from his work bench. “Give me the hour. In the meantime, you should do some scouting. Go upstairs and use the computer on the left side labeled drone command. You can enter coordinates, and it will auto-pilot. Then, use the joystick to move the camera.”

  Ethan headed upstairs and did just that, sitting at the console and typing in the street address as he saw one of the several screens dedicated to drone cameras abruptly move, as the drone lifted off from the building and raced over the LA skyline. It took a few minutes, but eventually the drone arrived at the coordinates, and Ethan used Piercing Gaze, which worked through the camera to his delight, to find the building with FMG inside. Deactivating Piercing Gaze, he began to move the camera around and adjusted the drone coordinates to get a full overview.

  It was a High School. Cerritos was on the side of the building. The parking lot was full of muscle cars and shipping containers, laid out in a painstaking fashion where the different makes and models were all lined up in clusters. Vehicles were being moved into and out of the shipping containers, along with huge crates.

  Flashes of light caught his attention, and he moved the drone around the building to the back of what must have been the gymnasium. He could see dozens of men, firing guns down a makeshift shooting range into a pile of dirt that was a backstop. They have a lot of weapons, he thought. He didn’t know half of the makes and models, but they weren’t just using simple pistols – they had rifles.

  Walter’s voice came over the earpiece, “What you got?” he asked. Ethan informed him of everything he had seen so far. The man clicked his tongue in annoyance, “Damn, so he figured out how to get his next shipment in. Must have an Imbued working with him to get around the blockades for non-city services, or the city has a lot of people being paid off to facilitate shipments. I’d bet it’s more likely that Cheat Code is helping him in some way, given they seem to have had a relationship prior to becoming Imbued.”

  Ethan grit his teeth at the mention of that name, and held back a curse. “We’ll end up fighting a lot of them, then,” Ethan stated.

  “Yeah, but Alice’s armor will keep her safe, and I would bet your barrier thing is going to prevent most small-arms fire.”

  Ethan had a devilish idea pop into his head. He looked at one of the crates of weapons, Rescue. The box vanished from the camera’s POV with a flash of white, and then a thud resonated next to Ethan as the box of weapons appeared. “How long is it going to take for your sonic weapon?” he asked.

  “Forty-five minutes,” Walter replied over the comms.

  Ethan began maneuvering the drone around the High School campus, using Rescue on every firearm he could see. He kept going until he was tapped out of energy, and by the time that had happened, the entire room was littered with guns and ammunition – either loose or still in storage crates.

  Walter and Alice came up the stairs and Walter’s eyes practically bulged out of his skull, “Where’d all this come from?” he asked.

  Ethan chuckled as he watched the men on the ground panicking, “I just confiscated some weapons, is all.” He stood up, “Give me a bit for my energy to refill, and we can take the fight to FMG. There’s no guns left, so it should just be FMG and whatever melee weapons they bring to bear.”

  Alice gave a thumbs up, and that’s when Ethan saw the tube jutting out from the spine of her suit. “We got the cannon ready. It takes time to charge up, and we’ll need to keep FMG still within a sixty foot range for maximum efficacy.”

  Ethan nodded and sat on the couch as Walter tip-toed around guns and ammunition. “Energy first…and then we take the fight to him.”

  Walter sat down opposite Ethan, “Want me to bring in the others? Tyra isn’t going to be very useful, but the Bolt Twins can be on crowd control. Bim Jim might be able to help. He’s got super strength and durability – might be able to hold FMG still with raw muscle if your Chains of Light doesn’t work.”

  “Yeah,” Ethan replied. “Let’s bring in anyone who wants to help.”

  The hour passed quickly as the other Imbued arrived. The Bolts got there first, and were filled in on the plan. Both had new suits on – skintight costumes that looked very supple, with fully enclosed helmets that were not as bulky as their motorcyle ones.

  Big Jim had no costume, and he walked through the doors with a sense of charisma and machismo that practically exuded an aura of manliness. The man was wearing jeans, military boots, a tank top that was white, and had a pair of sunglasses on.

  Tyra also arrived, and she had a costume on as well. One that was similar to the Bolt Twins’ in design, but was a deep green instead.

  Ethan shot a questioning look at Walter, “Matching costumes?” he asked.

  “Everyone at the Imbued Initiative that wants to join is going to get the same outfit, if they want it,” Walter replied with a smile. “I made them bulletproof to small arms fire – still leaves bruises, though. Cut and stab resistant as well.”

  Ethan stood up and rolled his shoulders back, “Right. Game plan. We’ll warp in right outside the main gym doors. Bolts, you both are going to make sure no civilians are near, and deal with the fodder.”

  Red Bolt spoke while Blue Bolt signed, “Got it. Once the perimeter is clear, we’ll pop in and see how we can help.”

  Tyra raised her hand, “What am I going to be doing?”

  Walter sighed, “Honestly, not sure what you can do here. FMG is immune to physical and energy damage; and I’m pretty sure that everything you can do falls under the physical category.”

  She frowned, “I need to be able to do something to help! I want to be a hero, too!”

  An idea popped into Ethan’s head, “Why don’t you cause a big distraction? We can have you try and lure away as much of FMG’s forces as possible by having you show up on the north side of his territory. Just do some big, armored dino and wreak havoc.”

  Tyra’s voice lit up with joy, and Ethan assumed her face did, too, under the helmet. “Sounds good!”

  She turned to leave, but Ethan put a hand on her shoulder. “Let me. Heaven’s Gate.” He opened a portal in mid-air above the High School. “Flying dino until you’re on the north side of his territory.”

  She saluted and then her body shifted form. She turned into something that looked similar to a crane that was about the size of a starling. She flapped through the portal and Ethan let it shut.

  Walter went to the drone controls and began manipulating dozens of them at once, his fingers dancing across the controls and the joysticks. “Once we see some activity and people pulled away, we go in.”

  Big Jim walked up behind Ethan and tapped his shoulder, “A word,” he rumbled.

  Ethan nodded and faced him, “What’s up?”

  “The goal is to keep FMG pinned down for that cannon, right?” Ethan nodded, and Big Jim continued, “Then let me take the lead and you be ready to pull me out and heal me up, okay? If you die, we lose our get out of near-death-free card.”

  “Fair enough,” Ethan replied as he completely understood the wisdom of the man’s words. I get to be support again, he thought.

  Ah, your holy power has plenty of Abilities to augment others…