Chapter 235

“Must you always be so dramatic, Rooke?” Maximilian asked.

“Yes.” Alexander grinned. “It’s both part of my charm and a coping mechanism for copious amounts of stress.”

Julia rolled her eyes.

He snapped his fingers. “That reminds me. Both of your parents picked a fight with Pinnacle.”

That got a response. And not just from Julia and Maximilian, who were both staring intently at him. Everyone else on the terrace, even Khalida and Valerie, who’d been pointedly ignoring his theatrics, was now paying attention.

“My mom?” Julia asked.

Alexander nodded. “It was in the intel packet ONI provided. Apparently, the three of them leveled a mile-wide stretch of the Saint Elias Mountains between Canada and Alaska.”

“Is she okay?”

“Sorry, that came out wrong. She’s fine. Everything’s fine.” He paused. “I mean, the mountain isn’t fine. You should see the satellite images. I don’t know what your parents are made of, but I wasn’t kidding when I said they leveled the place.”

Maximilian crossed his arms. “And my father?”

“Also fine. The report says all three of them walked away from the fight, though they didn’t have any details about what or why or how it all went down.”

Valerie tilted her head to look over sunglasses that served no purpose on Mars. “It’s a wonder none of them are dead. Why on earth would your parents be fighting Pinnacle?”

Maximilian shrugged. “No idea. My father might be one of the most powerful superhumans in existence, but not even his ego is great enough to think he truly stands a chance against Pinnacle.”

Valerie raised an eyebrow. “Obviously. That’s why he took the unyielding matriarch of the Delvane clan with him.” She turned her gaze on Julia. “While we’re on the topic, Miss Delvane, it is a pleasure to meet you. You are every bit as impressive as I imagined, though I was so very surprised to sense the connection between you and our favorite troublemaker over there.”

She glanced at Alexander.

Alexander raised an eyebrow. “Nice try, but it’s probably the worst-kept secret here. Literally everyone knows.”

“I didn’t know,” Sindre said.

Hjordis glared at her brother. “I told you all about it when I got back from the Nexus! Don’t you listen to anything I say?”

“I listen to everything you say. That’s why I ended up on Mars. I also tune out the gossip, which just so happens to be ninety percent of what comes out of your mouth.”

Hjordis laughed. “Seems like coming to Mars did you some good. You actually made a real joke.”

Sindre pushed his glasses up slightly. “I wasn’t joking.”

Hjordis’s grinning face morphed into a glare.

Before she could say anything else, Damien turned around. “Is everyone ready?”

Alexander nodded along with the others.

Talia stepped up beside Alexander. “I have a question, King. When you teleport the city, how confident are you that you can return it to its precise location?”

“He’s very confident, darling,” Valerie said.

Damien raised a hand before she could say more. “Without assistance, I am not at all confident. Which is why I shall exploit a limitation in my ability.”

“Which is?” Talia asked.

“I cannot relocate land to any location occupied by sapient life. We have hundreds of personnel standing along the border of where Dubai was, essentially ensuring I can only place it exactly where it belongs.”

Alexander frowned. “I think you and I have different ideas of what that word means. You’ll get it very close with that method, but it won’t be exact.”

“True. My words were imprecise.” Damien shrugged. “Unfortunately, that is the best I can do. My hope is that, barring misalignment of any underground tunnels, pipes, and cables running out of the city, everything else will be… close enough to be functionally exact. Mind you, the damage was already done. Proper alignment would just make repairs easier.”

Khalida sighed. “If that is the best I can hope for, so be it. Let’s begin.”

Damien nodded. Closed his eyes. Relaxed his shoulders. Then his Will unfurled across the terrace like a wave breaking gently against a shore. Queen, Titanic, and the Doorman’s Wills melded into his as if they were a natural part of King himself.

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Then Alexander felt it. The same invitation as before, open and patient. But where the first time had carried a hint of desperation and much urgency, this was measured. Controlled. A door held wide by a man who knew exactly what he was asking for and trusted those around him to answer.

Alexander let his Will flow outward to meet it. But patiently, this time. Watching. He wanted to feel it all happen, to better understand.

The others followed. He felt Maximilian’s collective gather first, sharp and disciplined, as the Throne of Scales fell in behind the Dragon Lord like soldiers forming ranks.

Julia’s Will included. He knew it was an act of solidarity rather than anything personal. The instinctive joining of her Will to his back at the conference had already conveyed everything.

Then Sindre and Hjordis, wrapped around each other in that same protective pairing he remembered, surged upward to join.

His own came easier than he expected. Augustus’s Will joined his without hesitation. Annie’s crashed in with characteristic enthusiasm. Talia’s slotted into place with surgical precision. Gabriel’s was already there before he noticed the change.

Carmen’s was new, quieter, softer even, but steady.

Surprising. Carmen and the crew were only there to experience the moment, if they could even sense it happening. The ability to wield her Will already was unexpected. The rest of the crew were nothing more than a soft buzz of existence behind him, which was more in line with his expectations.

The four leaders found each other. Alexander, Maximilian, Sindre, and Damien. Their Wills didn’t merge the way they had during the battle, when everything had been thrown together in a desperate rush. This time it was deliberate. A controlled pooling of strength, each of them maintaining their own identity while lending their weight to a shared purpose.

There were more threads now. Alexander could feel the difference. Golden filaments reached toward all of them from every direction, far denser than the fragile gossamer he remembered from the conference, but only because there were so many overlapping that the individual threads grew indistinct the closer they were to each would-be Divine.

His own had grown considerably. Maximilian’s had too. Even Sindre carried more than he’d had that day, though he still had far fewer than the rest.

But it was the threads reaching for Damien that drew his attention.

They came from across the planet. From the millions of people sheltering inside Dubai’s buildings and the Martian domes, who knew what was about to happen. The threads drifted toward King in gentle waves, carrying something Alexander could only describe as a quiet wishfulness. Hope without demand. Trust without expectation. The collective exhale of a city that wanted to go home and believed the man standing on the broken terrace could take them there.

It was nothing like the desperate surge that had fueled the first teleportation. That had been raw and chaotic, power grabbed in fistfuls because there was no time for anything else. This was a river finding its course. Smooth and unhurried, gathering strength from every tributary without rushing any of them.

Damien opened his eyes. They burned gold.

He raised his hands, brought them together, and clapped once.

“Forced Relocation.”

The world blinked.

***

The camera found her standing at the edge of what could only be described as a wound in the earth.

“This is Priya Sharma, reporting live from the outskirts of what was, until recently, the city of Dubai.”

She spoke with the measured energy of someone who had rehearsed calm professionalism over a personality that barely contained her bubbly energy.

“I’m standing at the perimeter of the displacement zone, where, as you can see behind me, hundreds, maybe even thousands of people are positioned at regular intervals along the border.”

She stepped to the side, allowing the camera a clear view. The people stretched into the distance, tiny figures growing smaller until they vanished into the heat haze. Between them, the ground simply stopped. A clean, unnatural edge where rock and sand and infrastructure ended and a vast depression began. A crater that wasn’t a crater, because nothing had exploded. Everything had simply been removed.

“We have been told, on very good authority, that the city will be returned to this location at any moment. Details remain scarce about how, or by whom, but our sources within the Emirates government are confident.”

She paused, straightening slightly. The shift was subtle, her tone dropping half a register.

“As many of you know, the attacks that swept the globe over the past two days, now confirmed to be the work of a single individual, began during the joint press conference held right here in Dubai. What you may not know is that the man responsible has been identified. Executor Jacobs, the head of GOLD and AEGIS, the very organizations entrusted with managing superhuman threats worldwide, was, according to multiple intelligence sources, the Vampire of Panama.”

She let that sit for a beat.

“The attack began in Dubai, but spread to every major city on Earth within moments.” Another beat. “Thankfully, according to our sources, the Dragon Lord and the Machine God, working together, were able to overcome what many are now calling the single greatest superhuman threat this planet has ever faced.”

Her fingers pressed to her earpiece. She stopped mid-breath, eyes snapping to the camera.

“I’m being told that we should expect Dubai’s return at any moment. Let’s watch.”

She turned. The camera panned past her to the empty depression.

It was silent, other than the wind racing across the sand.

Five seconds. Ten. Twenty. Priya glanced over her shoulder at the camera, a worried crease forming between her brows.

Then the air rippled.

Reality shimmered. The ripple spread outward from above the depression, racing outward in every direction. Wind erupted from nowhere, whipping Priya’s hair across her face. She threw an arm up, shielding her eyes, and the camera shook as the operator braced against the sudden gust.

Then, between one frame and the next, Dubai was there.

Towers and spires and glass and concrete, filling the void as if they’d never left. The skyline reassembled itself in a single instant. No flash of light. No thunderclap. Just absence, and then a sudden presence.

Priya spun to face the camera. Her hair was a disaster, her eyes were wide, and a huge grin split her face.

“And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen! Dubai is back!” She pressed a hand to her chest, caught her breath, and recomposed herself with visible effort. “It is yet to be seen how the city’s residents have fared during their time on Mars, but rest assured, we will have answers for you shortly.” She straightened her blazer and lifted her chin.

“This is Priya Sharma for GTNN, reporting live from the border of the great city of Dubai, right where it belongs, once again. Signing off.”