The Machine God

Chapter 313

Alexander looked down at his suit, then back up at Gravimax. “I don’t suppose you’d give me a minute to put my armor on?”

“No.”

Gravimax dove.

Alexander twisted to the side as a massive fist tore through the space where his head had been. A burst of Metallokinesis hauled him backward just in time to avoid Gravimax’s follow-up knee.

Gravimax accelerated, closing the distance fast, and struck again.

Alexander threw his cybernetic arm up, catching the blow. The impact jarred all the way up the metal and into his shoulder, rattling his teeth. Gravimax flowed immediately into another punch, forcing Alexander to duck. The blow swept through the air, close enough that he felt the breeze whistle through his hair.

Then they separated for a moment, circling each other in the air above the street.

Alexander studied the man carefully. Gravimax was using his power to fly and guide his movements, but the punches themselves were clean. There was no gravitational force behind them. Just the raw, physical power of a Tier 2 superhuman and a professional fighter.

Alexander glanced at the drones hovering all around them, then back at Gravimax. He left them where they were for now.

Gravimax closed the distance again. He threw a sharp jab that Alexander was barely able to dodge. He followed up with a low kick to the right leg, but Alexander pulsed Metallokinesis, slipping out of reach. A hooking elbow followed, forcing Alexander to block with his right arm, the impact still causing his arm to go numb for a moment.

Alexander struck back. A straight right that Gravimax weaved past. A left cross with the cybernetic that the bigger man simply leaned away from, reading the attack before the arm was halfway extended.

They traded blows as they drifted down the street, each exchange driving them further from where Annie flew across the sky, dodging projectiles and flashes of power, MetaMetal catching and reflecting the last rays of sunset.

Alexander settled into a rhythm, both mental threads locked in. Gravimax fought like a professional, without wasted motions. He used each attack to set up the next. Every shift in position closed a gap in his defenses or set up a threat. Even his feet kept moving, despite being in the air, the habit so ingrained that gravity manipulation mimicked footwork rather than replacing it completely.

Hyperawareness and Electrokinesis gave him everything. The tightening through Gravimax’s back. The flex at his hips. A slight shift in balance that preceded a kick. Where his eyes looked. Bioelectrical signals firing through Gravimax’s nervous system with each strike.

For the first few exchanges, Alexander had an edge. He read the jab before it fired, already moving to evade. He caught the timing on a brutal hook, pivoting around it. Dropped under a heavy kick which missed by mere millimeters.

Then Gravimax’s motions tightened. The superhero’s Will surfaced, and Electrokinesis could no longer read the man’s bioelectrical activity. The next jab came without any warning. No shoulder tense. No aerial weight repositioning. The fist closed the distance no faster than any of the previous attacks, and still it landed.

It caught him on the chin.

Alexander’s head snapped back. The world smeared like watercolors for a fraction of a second, and his recently reset nose reminded him of the problem with a sharp, nauseating spike of pain that radiated up his sinuses and behind his eyes.

Metallokinesis wobbled and his altitude dipped a foot before he caught himself.

Gravimax was already following up. A heavy kick swung toward Alexander’s right side, and he barely got his arm down in time. The shin connected with his forearm, and the force behind it drove Alexander sideways through the air.

He used it to create distance, dropping toward the street, blinking until his vision steadied. His chin throbbed. His nose felt like it had been broken a second time, though he knew it was just the first break reminding him it was still fresh. Both pains competed with the deep ache spreading through his right arm.

Alexander frowned.

He quickly replayed the fight while the superhero raced after him.

Nearly every successful block was with his right forearm. Body shots. Kicks. Elbow strikes. Every significant hit, ignoring the nose and chin, had targeted the same side of his body.

And just now, when Gravimax had rattled his brain and could have followed up anywhere, he’d done it again.

Alexander clenched his right fist, and he could feel the weakness in his arm.

“Took you long enough to notice,” Gravimax said.

Alexander leveled out a few feet above the sidewalk, then spun and flicked a finger. Metallokinesis surged. Metal screeched as one of the streetlights suddenly twisted, then slapped Gravimax across the street.

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The superhero smashed through solid brick, disappearing into the darkened interior of an abandoned store.

Alexander shook out his right arm, gently clenching and unclenching his fingers. The bruising was already deep enough that each flex sent a dull thread of pain up to his shoulder.

Gravimax grabbed the brick wall and pulled himself back through the hole, waving dust away from his face. He met Alexander’s gaze and raised an eyebrow. A red imprint across one side of his face was the only indication that he’d been hit at all.

Alexander shrugged. “Of course you’re a better hand-to-hand fighter. I’m a tech geek.” He held up his swelling right arm and grinned. “So, does this count as your pound of flesh?”

Gravimax cracked his neck to one side. Then the other. “Not even close.”

Alexander groaned. He’d said the exact same thing to Agatha a couple hours earlier, and then gone on to spend more credits than anyone could ever possibly need. Hopefully he’d sounded way cooler when he said it.

But at least the next few minutes were going to be fun.

Gravimax took a step forward.

Alexander released his Will.

His Domain erupted outward. The pressure rolled across the street in a wave, cracking windows in the storefronts on either side, scattering debris across the road, and dispersing the dust cloud still drifting around the wrecked building.

Metal groaned and sparks of lightning danced through the air.

Gravimax faltered mid-stride. His expression shifted, perhaps reassessing the Machine God. Then his eyes narrowed and his jaw set. He took another step forward, leaning into the pressure as he went.

Alexander reached out and clenched his cybernetic fist. Metallokinesis surged outward and the building behind Gravimax groaned, a deep structural sound that began in the foundations and raced up through the walls as concrete cracked and support beams twisted.

Gravimax turned to look up.

The building collapsed. Brick, concrete, and steel came down on him in a cascade of dust and noise, and Gravimax disappeared beneath the avalanche.

Before the debris had finished settling, Alexander reached for every piece of rebar threaded through concrete, every metal beam and bracket buried in the rubble. And within his Domain, all metal obeyed. It shifted and threaded through the pile like roots through soil, snaking through the debris until they found flesh.

Then it struck, binding Gravimax’s arms and legs. The larger steel beams tore free of the pile, only to twist and tighten around the wreckage, compressing all of it down on the buried superhero.

For a moment, nothing else moved.

Alexander stared at the pile.

“Now,” he muttered, “let’s see how good you are when we play my way.”

The wreckage vibrated.

Alexander felt it through Metallokinesis before he saw it. All of the metal threaded throughout or wrapping around the pile began to strain outward. It groaned as something inside pushed against the force trying to hold it in place.

He relaxed his hold over the metal, instead reaching for something further down the street.

The wreckage exploded, sending brick and concrete and twisted metal erupting in a violent sphere of destruction.

Only for it to stop. Debris hung frozen in the air a few meters from the epicenter for a single heartbeat, before Gravimax released it, allowing it to rain down across the street.

Gravimax reached over and peeled away the last remaining piece of rebar still wrapped around his arm, and tossed it aside.

He glared at Alexander. “What game are you—”

A minibus smashed into the superhero.

Alexander laughed. “This is just how I like to do things.”

The bus ground to a halt.

Gravimax shoved it aside. He crouched, then launched himself toward Alexander, shattering the sidewalk and sending a shockwave echoing down the street.

Alexander flicked a finger, sending another parked vehicle racing toward the superhero.

Gravimax reached out, and the front of the vehicle came to an instant stop while Metallokinesis kept pushing. Metal screamed, and the car crumpled from front to back between the opposing forces.

Metallokinesis pulsed, throwing Alexander to the right.

Gravity hauled him to the left.

The two forces met somewhere in the middle, and Alexander barely moved at all.

Gravimax’s arm caught him across the midsection. The impact folded him around the arm, driving the air from his lungs, and then Gravimax had him. One massive hand clamped around the back of his neck, and the street fell away as the superhero carried him upward.

Alexander gasped for air, but Gravimax was already spinning. The city whirled around him.

Sky, buildings, street, sky, buildings, street.

Gravimax released him.

Alexander hurtled toward the ground, tumbling head over ass. Metallokinesis fought to arrest the momentum, but the throw had gravity behind it. Real and superpowered.

He grinned. The superhero knew how to fight dirty after all.

Then he hit the street. The road cratered beneath him. Asphalt rippled outward in a wave, splitting apart as chunks of the street surface sprayed into the air. A crack echoed off the surrounding buildings, sharp as a gunshot, and Alexander felt something give in his right side.

The pain arrived a fraction of a second later, but he shunted that into his second mental thread, and instead focused on breathing. Electrokinesis surged into his Core, then outward all across his body. Electrical impulses fired, muscles flexed, and his lungs finally expanded, sucking in air as they went.

Then he raised both hands and unleashed two lightning bolts into the sky.

Gravimax’s eyes widened, but it was too late. The superhero had raced down after him, probably intending a nasty follow-up. Both bolts struck. One in the face, the other in the shoulder. His body seized up as lightning coursed through him.

A burst of Metallokinesis flipped Alexander sideways up and out of the crater just in time.

Gravimax crashed face-first into the crater, causing the road to heave again as more asphalt sprayed into the air.

Alexander lay on the road for a moment, coughing, while he waited for the noise and dust to settle.

Once it did, he turned his head to the side.

“How about now?” Alexander called down into the crater. “I’m having fun, but if we keep going, you’re going to have to pay so much for repairs.”

It was silent for a few moments. Then he heard Gravimax cough quietly.

“Fuck you, Rooke.”

Alexander choked out a laugh.