Six angels leaped onto Chine, sinking their teeth into his scales. The dragon roared as he rolled over, trying to crush the angels under his weight.
Alex saw Chine in pain and ran to his side, sliding across the meteor, hacking through the legs of the angels in her way as she went. She was so close. Then she felt a cold hand clutch the back of her neck, and she was flying through the air before she realized it.
The wind went out of Alex when she hit the meteor. Her vision went blurry for a moment before she was able to pick herself up. She grabbed her scythe and took in the scene before her.
They were being overrun. Angels were pouring over Chine like ants over a dead body. The same with Jim, who was firing every gun he had, his head poking out of the cockpit, his face slathered in blood and viscera.
This was it. This was Alex’s last stand.
Two jets of fire scorched the meteor, burning through the angels attacking Chine and Jim. Alex looked up to see where they had come from.
Brath, Gill, and Jollies were racing toward her, firing everything they had at the angels, bats, and bees overwhelming Jim and Alex. “You thought we were going to let you have all the fun?” Brath shouted as Furi unleashed another torrent of fire.
The rest of Team Boundless burned through the angels blocking the meteor’s opening. There was just enough space for Alex and Jim to storm the meteor.
There was so much Alex wanted to say to the rest of the team. There wasn’t time for it, though. Instead, she smiled and saluted them. Then she climbed back onto Chine and took off, Jim following closely behind.
Chapter Seven
Once Alex and Jim passed into the meteor, everything changed. The temperature rose drastically. Neither of them could hear anything from outside the meteor, despite being only a few feet from the opening.
If Alex’d had more time, she would have stepped in and out of the meteor to see if this was all in her mind, but that didn’t matter right now. Hopefully, the meteor wouldn’t exist for very long anyway.
As Alex and Jim flew through the interior tunnel, Alex weighed their likelihood of success. The plan had been Roy’s and Toppinir’s. She had no idea what their odds of success had been. They must have been fairly high, though. Both men had been willing to bet their lives on it.
But what if something went wrong? The meteor had grown since Roy and Toppinir had initially planned to blow it up. Or was it an illusion?
Alex didn’t know what was real anymore. What she had seen outside as she and Jim were closing in on the meteor had left a lot of questions. Chine had said it was some kind of psychic projection. That meant it wasn’t real, right?
None of those questions were bringing Alex or Jim any closer to what they were looking for—the core of the meteor. There was something powering the object, and they needed to find where it was and destroy it.
Alex pulled up her HUD visor and peered through it. She was looking for a source of energy, anything giving off a power or heat signal. There was nothing. As far as she could tell, the meteor was all one temperature.
The only thing Alex had to go on was the brief glimpse she’d had of the interior when she was looking through Manny’s eyes. For the first time in a while, Alex wished Manny had come along for the ride. He would have hated this, though.
A pang of regret stabbed Alex in the chest. She pushed it down. Thinking about how much she was going to miss that floating mass of eyeballs wasn’t going to help anyone. Still, it hurt to think about it.
Alex and Jim flew out of the tunnel into a vast, empty space. It was difficult to imagine this place was in the meteor, considering how large it was.
The walls were lined with holes. It would be easy enough for Chine and Jim’s mech to fit through them. The problem was that Alex had no idea where they went. Each tunnel was a shot in the dark.
Jim poked his head out of his cockpit before climbing out of his mech and sitting on top of it. “You know what’s really weird?” he asked. “I haven’t seen one monster since we got here. Do you think the meteor sent all its forces out when we attacked it?”
Alex shook her head. That seemed too good to be true, but the other option was terrifying. If all those angels hadn’t been the majority of the meteor’s forces, how many could be hiding and waiting for them?
Jim shrugged before getting back into his mech. “Either way, we should probably be careful. Getting ambushed in this creepy-ass place sounds horrifying. So, which one do you want to start with?”
Alex looked around the room, trying to figure out which tunnel to choose. “You know, maybe they weren’t expecting us to get in,” she mused. “That was a pretty crazy fight out there, and it’s not like there’s any surveillance equipment around. Maybe we’re a surprise.”
“I’d be surprised if the magical meteor floating in the sky and distorting reality had to rely on cameras to know we were present.”
“Good point. We should get moving in case there are more of these creepy things in here. How about that one?” Alex asked, pointing to the largest tunnel near the ground.
“Works for me.”
Jim and Alex descended into the room. When they landed, both of them gasped.
The floor was covered in a mix of eggs and plants. The plants had bulbous purple sacs with a stem reaching up to the ceiling. They were roughly three feet tall and gave off a disgustingly sweet smell.
There were thousands of them clustered tightly
