The rest of the rocks cracked as well, the same sort of creature slithering from the green afterbirth as the first began to swell, its soft skin growing harder until, still growing faster than naturally possible, its tendrils and its skin developed a rock-like look as its arms stretched out, claws ripping from its fingertips.
Boundless regrouped around Alex and Vardis, who was still in the grip of terror. “Vardis, what in the nine realms are those?” Brath shouted.
“Elder kin,” Vardis muttered. “Experiments of the gods from my realm. They… We must leave now. Otherwise, we are doomed.”
Alex couldn’t believe what was happening. “What are you talking about, ‘leave?’ We came here for the weapon!”
“If we leave before they notice us, they’ll be contained to the sphere. The weapon will be lost, but at least no one else will be able to retrieve it.”
Alex didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t sure if Vardis was right about anyone else being able to get the weapon.
And if the Dark One could get his hands on it, there was a chance he could use it against them. No, it was too risky. “Boundless, are you with me?” she shouted.
The team answered yes without hesitation.
“Good. We’re going for that weapon. If it means cutting those things down, so be it.”
Vardis stepped in front of Alex, panicked, waving his hands. “No, you don’t understand! These things are the stuff of gods! They’ll rip you apart!”
Alex had Chine gently push Vardis out of the way. “Our mission is to get the weapon.” Then she leaned forward, sending the dragon racing at the first creature as it turned its tendrilled head toward Boundless.
It rose into the sky, stretching out its long, craggy body. The thing moved as if it had no concept of gravity or perhaps even movement, contorting in bizarre ways as the rest of the monsters floated into the air.
For a second, Alex had the naïve idea that they wouldn’t attack. However, once the kin stretched out its hand, Alex felt stupid for entertaining the thought.
It was hard to tell what it was doing at first. Its vaguely humanoid hands made some sort of gesture, then a beam of green light shot out at Alex.
Alex leaned hard to the right, yanking on her anchor, barely managing to pull Chine out of the way. She hadn’t been expecting such a delay. On Middang3ard, that attack would have been nothing. She was really going to have to pay attention to what was going on.
Before she could formulate her next move, the creature was before her, its tendrils swirling as it looked into Alex’s eyes.
Her terror was immediate. It was a fear Alex had only experienced one other time, in the depths of the meteor. It was enough to suck the warmth out of her body. But it hadn’t broken her the last time. It wasn’t going to break her now. “Two to a kin,” Alex growled into her comm. “Vardis, you’re with me.”
Alex pulled her scythe from her anchor. She brought it down on the monster, whose body shifted out of reality for a second. When it phased back in, its rocky body wrapped around Chine, dragging him to the ground. Alex disengaged the gravity on her boots, jumped to the kin’s head, and slashed at it.
The blade of her scythe hit the creature and it pulled back, releasing the dragon. It stared at Alex for a few seconds as if surprised that anything would dare to attack it. Then Alex felt the terror again. This time, she realized she wasn’t afraid; the terror was radiating from it.
Jim and Jollies had linked up. Jollies was flying around the kin’s body, trying to shock it with Amber’s electrical jolts, but its skin seemed to be made of stone. There was no effect. Jim was sending flames at it but to no effect.
Brath and Gill weren’t faring any better. Furi had tackled the kin to the ground, while Gill was trying to use Timber’s rock elemental powers to cover it in stones thrown up from the moon’s surface. When the stones touched the creature, it phased out, then popped back in, the stones now part of its growing body.
Alex watched as her opponent doubled back, its body shifting in and out of reality. Its tendrils waved wildly like the hands of one driven mad, grasping for some meaning for their insanity.
Alex needed to figure out effective tactics fast. Otherwise, this fight was going to be over before it began.
Chapter Nine
The three kin took to the air. There was no warning before they detached from the dragonriders and floated up toward the stars, hovering ominously above. “What are they doing?” Alex shouted at Vardis.
The alien, who still hadn’t gotten himself together, stared up. “I have no idea,” he muttered.
Great, Alex thought. The only way she was going to ensure Boundless came out of this alive was to stop relying on Vardis. He was useless in this situation he had created. “Boundless, figure out what you have aboard your dragons to take these things out. There’s no way we were sent up here defenseless.”
Alex looked at her dragon anchor, scrolling through the augments that had been attached to Chine. None of them looked familiar, and she couldn’t tell what most of them did off the top of her head. All but one—she recognized an augment attached to Chine’s left arm. It was a gravity well.
Above, the creatures were charging some kind of weapon. An energy beam was brightening in the middle of the circle they had formed as if they were summoning it into existence. Alex wasn’t going to wait for that to happen. She also wasn’t going to storm into the fight without giving her team a heads up on what she was thinking about doing.
She readied the gravity well, interested to
