Bong!Something creaks, then groans. The whole palace trembles. I grab onto the wall to steady myself. A thunderous marching sound makes me look down. Over to the right, the golden road stretches from the columned front. The five-story high palace doors have opened, and row upon row of soldiers are marching out in perfect formation: huge Alphas in golden suits like their king’s.
They march down the road to where it widens, then halt. Rank by rank, they launch their hovergear and take to the sky, zooming up to join their king.
Yes!
I punch the top of the turret wall. I want to be up there with them. I want to be ready to fight.
Aurus stands tall and proud, his feet planted on air. This is what he was born to do. The greatest Alpha, the High King of Ulfaria. Born to rule. Born to lead.
The bellies of the black ships open with a horrible creaking noise. The sulfuric odor pours out from them, making me gag. And something darts from one of the ships. Then more things—black, buzzing, shiny, in armored suits of their own.
The Chitin ships have their own warriors. And the enemy can also fly.
One buzzes overhead and I duck, even though it’s hundreds of yards above me. It has beady black eyes, a horrible sort of mandible—it looks like a praying mantis, only jumbo sized. Human sized. Alpha sized.
The Chitin are some sort of bug. Huge, horrible, Alpha-sized alien bugs.
My skin crawls just looking at them. They’re pouring from their ships in black swarms—hundreds upon hundreds, then thousands upon thousands of them.
And Aurus is just hanging out in midair, acting as if this is all normal. As the plague of Chitin swarms forward, he raises his hands higher, and flames shoot out of his gloves.
The Chitin make some sort of clicking sound—it’s disgusting, and echoed a millionfold by their brethren. Sky cockroaches.
The Alpha soldiers blast forward in their flying suits, attacking the bugs with their built-in flame-throwers. Rank upon golden rank zooms in a triangular formation, cutting through the Chitin swarm.
Fire crackles. Smoking bugs fall from the sky. But there are so many Chitin, and so few Ulfarri warriors. They’re just small flecks of gold in a seething black sky.
I need to help. I can’t just stand here and watch. This may not be my planet, but… Fuck it. Itismy planet. I may not be totally happy here, but I don’t want it overrun by creepy alien bugs.
I need a weapon.
I run to the guardhouse wall. Where’s the stupid button? Maybe there’s another suit of armor I can use, or at least pry the gun away from.
I smack the wall’s smooth surface. How did Emma figure this shit out?
Somehow, I press the right spot and another section of the wall opens. This time, a huge gun unfolds out of its hidden compartment.
Fuck yeah!
“Omega,” someone shouts. It’s a robed figure on the stairs. A Beta—one of the servants, his pale turquoise skin blanched with distress. “You should not be here! You must go down to safety!”
“We need to help them” I scream back.
“You cannot fight,” the Beta fusses. “You are an Omega.”
“I’m not just an Omega.” I say. “I’m a badass.” I push the gun with a grunt and shout over my shoulder, “Help me, or get out of the fucking way!”
The Beta tries to argue, but when he sees I’m going to drag this gun over to the turreted wall’s edge, he gives up. He marches to the guardhouse and pushes another hidden button. A whole array of guns rises from the ground, perfectly aligned to shoot over the wall.
A laugh barks out of me. “Fuck yeah!”
I run up to one, and look for a way to aim.
There’s a boom, and all the guns fire. I raise my hands to cover my ears before I realize the blast is already over.
The Beta looks smug. “Firebombs. They are robotically controlled. They will lock on to the Chitin, and take them out.”
“But you can’t just fire indiscriminately. There are Alphas out there. And the king.”
