thebusnovel Chapter 252 - Gateway Dealing
Chapter 252 - Gateway Dealing
Chapter 252
Gateway DealingAugustus dealt the cards with practiced hands.
They sat in a loose circle on the rooftop, using a flattened piece of cardboard as a table. Alexander had collected the chips earlier. Pebbles from the stairwell for low value. Bent screws and nails for medium. Ball bearings from one of his pouches for high.
Annie had complained about the chip system. She’d complained about the cards. She’d complained about the rooftop, the cold, the waiting, and the fact that her ball bearings kept rolling off the cardboard.
Mostly, though, she complained about losing.
“This is rigged,” Annie said, staring at her cards. “I’ve had garbage every single hand.”
“Poker isn’t rigged,” Talia said, sorting her chips into neat piles. “You’re just bad at it.”
“I’m not bad at it. The cards hate me.”
“Fold, then,” Alexander said.
Annie glared at him over her cards. “No.”
Alexander glanced at his own hand again. Seven of hearts, eight of spades. The flop had given him a six, an eight, and a nine. A pair of eights and an open-ended straight draw. Playable, but not strong.
Talia checked.
Annie glared at her cards. “Check. Because apparently that’s what the cards want me to do.”
Alexander tossed two ball bearings onto the cardboard. “Bet.”
Augustus studied his cards, then the board, then Alexander. Whatever he saw made him shake his head. He folded.
Talia matched the bet without looking up from her stacks.
Annie threw her cards down. “Fold. Again. This is stupid.”
The turn came. Jack of clubs. No help. Talia checked.
Alexander checked behind her.
The river. Ten of diamonds.
Alexander kept his face still. That filled his straight.
Talia checked.
Alexander pushed two more ball bearings forward.
Talia examined Alexander’s face. Then she pushed her cards toward Augustus. “Fold. You made your straight.”
He stared at her. “How’d you know?”
She smiled. “Your eyes tracked the cards in order from lowest to highest on the flop.”
Alexander collected his winnings and added them to his pile while Annie stared at the growing stack like it had personally wronged her.
“That sounds like cheating,” he said.
“Shall I play without looking next time?”
Alexander chuckled.
“We should just go down there and beat them all up,” Annie said suddenly, jerking her chin toward the parapet.
“The guild down there are good people, even if Flashpoint is staying with them,” Talia said. “And we’re trying to appear less like villains.”
“But we totally are villains!”
Augustus gathered the cards and began shuffling. “Didn’t you always want to be a hero? Think of this as your chance to start fresh.”
“Being a hero is boring.” Annie stretched her legs. “Nobody told me being good involved this much sitting around.”
“You get used to it. Most of my military service was sitting around,” Augustus said, bridging the deck. “The exciting parts are the ones you’d rather skip.”
Annie groaned and let her head fall back against the parapet.
Alexander let them talk while he counted his chips. He was ahead by a comfortable margin. Augustus and Talia were roughly even, trading the same screws and bearings back and forth for the past hour. Annie was nearly cleaned out for the third time, down to a handful of pebbles and a single bent nail.
Augustus finished shuffling and started dealing again.
“Hey.” Annie’s voice had changed. “Hang on.”
Alexander looked up. Annie had risen to her knees, chin hooked over the parapet, staring out over the city.
“Guys.” She turned back to them. “Something’s happening at the gateway.”
Augustus reached beside him and picked up the binoculars. He lifted them to his eyes, adjusted the focus, then handed them to Talia.
Alexander didn’t need them. His awareness slipped into one of the drones perched near the roofline. Its optics tightened, magnification climbing until the gateway filled his vision.
Two figures stepped through.
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At the same moment, two new signatures bloomed into existence in his senses. Both roughly Tier 2 in signature. Both controlled. They walked a few steps clear of the gateway, then stopped and waited.
Wizards.
It was Alexander’s first time seeing them in person. They wore uniforms in mirrored colors, one white with black accents, the other black with white. Staffs rested in their hands, each adorned with small symbols that swung from the head like charms. Pouches and containers lined their belts. A spellbook floated open in front of each of them, pages turning without wind.
“My turn,” Annie whispered. “My turn, my turn.”
Talia handed over the binoculars.
Alexander let the drone’s optics sharpen further. “Well. That answers where this gateway connects.”
Annie went still behind the binoculars. “Wait. Didn’t they make a deal with them on the Nexus? No fighting, right?”
“The agreement was between the Nexus and the Empire of Stars,” Talia said. “Earth wasn’t involved.”
Annie lowered the binoculars enough to stare at her. “That feels like a pretty big detail.”
“It is.”
Alexander felt one of the signatures he’d been tracking shift suddenly.
His frown deepened. “Flashpoint is on the move.”
Annie lifted the binoculars again. “Toward them?”
“Yes.” He paused, tracking the signature as it shifted through the guild compound. “And I think he just went out a window.”
Annie blinked. “Huh? Why?”
“Only reason I ever used a window was to hide that I was going somewhere,” Augustus said.
All three of them turned to look at him.
He glanced between them. “What? I was young once.”
A flare of light rose from the guild compound.
Alexander’s attention snapped back to the city. Flame climbed into the air, bright enough to stain the dead windows orange. At first glance it looked like a fireball. Then it moved.
Flashpoint streaked across Baton Rouge, a burning figure wrapped in white-orange flame, cape snapping behind him as he cut over the scorched streets toward the gateway.
The two wizards turned in perfect sync to watch him approach.
Neither ran. Neither raised a staff. Their spellbooks floated open in front of them, pages turning in the heated wind.
“Perfect,” Annie said. “Let’s jump him.”
Talia lowered the binoculars. “Wait.”
Annie looked at her. “What?”
“They aren’t preparing to fight.”
Alexander watched through the drone. Talia was right. The wizards stood calmly, staffs held at rest, robes stirring around their legs.
“We wait,” Alexander said. “I want to see what happens.”
Annie groaned but didn’t argue.
He checked the guild compound again. Five signatures remained inside. None of them had reacted.
Interesting.
Flashpoint reached the gateway and came to a stop above the wizards, flame streaming around him in slow, controlled coils. Then he lowered himself to the ground until he stood in front of them.
He wore full armor. The same armor he’d worn the day he declared Alexander, Annie, Talia, and Augustus were villains. Black and crimson composite, gold-trimmed pauldrons, a long red cape hemmed in gold. Crimson flames marked the sides of his black helmet, and the black eyepatch still covered the eye Annie had stabbed out.
Even through drone optics, even from a distance, he looked exactly like what AEGIS had sold to the world. A shining hero standing between humanity and everything that wanted to destroy it.
They spoke.
Alexander couldn’t hear the words, but the shape of the exchange was clear enough. Flashpoint pointed toward the guild compound. The two wizards followed the gesture, then nodded in unison.
One of them reached into a pouch at his belt and handed Flashpoint something small.
Annie leaned forward. “What was that?”
“I don’t know.”
The object vanished into Flashpoint’s hand.
Light flashed around the wizards. Symbols flared along their staffs, then beneath their feet. Both rose from the ground at the same time. Their spellbooks floated ahead of them as they turned toward the guild compound and flew across the city.
Annie gasped. “Oh shit. Did he just sell them out?”
Augustus glanced at her. “Weren’t you advocating beating them up thirty seconds ago?”
“Beating them up and watching them get ambushed by wizards are completely different things.” Annie pushed herself to her feet. “We have to help them.”
Alexander kept his attention on Flashpoint as the wizards rose higher over the dead streets.
“She’s right.”
Annie blinked. “Obviously I am.”
The two wizards continued toward the guild compound, moving with steady, controlled flight. Slow compared to Flashpoint. Fast enough that the people below would have very little warning, if they even detected them.
“Auggy,” Alexander said. “Portal.”
Augustus was already moving. His wand appeared in his hand, and he began drawing a slow circle in the air.
Alexander reached into his spatial ring and pulled out Talia’s hoverbike. Metal flashed into existence over the rooftop, then settled beside her with a soft thump.
Talia crossed to it and swung one leg over. The engine woke with a low hum.
Then Flashpoint turned back toward the gateway.
Alexander’s gaze snapped back to him.
Flashpoint stepped through. The moment he crossed, his signature vanished from Alexander’s senses.
“Shit,” Alexander said. “Flashpoint just went through.”
Annie turned to him. “We can get him later. We need to help the others.”
Electrokinesis flooded his body. Both mental threads turned the problem over from different angles and reached the same answer.
“You do.”
Talia turned to him. “You’re not coming.”
Annie turned too. Augustus paused for half a beat, wand still tracing the portal circle, then continued.
“I can’t pass up this chance,” Alexander said. “Who knows what he’s doing over there, or where he goes next.”
Annie crossed her arms. “What if you can’t get back?”
“Our Beastworld gateway works both ways since we moved it. They just used this one in both directions.” Alexander glanced toward where Flashpoint had disappeared. “And if I’m wrong, I’ll deal with that problem after I’ve dealt with him.”
None of them looked happy about that.
He sighed. “I’m sorry. None of you have the flight speed to keep up yet. Flashpoint is fast, and he already has a head start.” He looked toward the wizards, still flying for the guild compound. “And Annie’s right. We should help the heroes down there.”
Augustus nodded without looking away from the portal forming in front of his wand. “Go on. We’ll take care of things here.” Then he turned and met Alexander’s gaze. “But we’re coming after you the moment we’re done. So you better not take too long.”
Alexander grinned. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He passed Annie and rested a hand on her shoulder for a moment. Her jaw was tight. He understood. She was tired of being left behind when things mattered.
Understanding didn’t change the math.
“Good luck with the wizards.”
Talia gave him a sharp nod. “Good hunting.”
Annie snorted. “Punch the flaming asshole in the other eye for me.”
“Just for you.”
Alexander lifted off the rooftop, pulling the OACS helmet over his head as the seals locked into place. Droney drifted closer, tucking tight against his shoulder. Then he launched toward the gateway.
The rooftop cracked beneath the force of his departure, and thunder rolled across the dead city around him.