A Tale from the Dark Dimension

Chapter 16: Justin

The first thing on his mind was getting Carson to safety. He knew he wouldn't be able to fight these things by himself, so he grabbed Carson and ran him to his car.

"What the hell are those things?" Carson asked, clearly freaked out by the ensuing conflict.

"Look, I've faced these things before. Get in your car and go. We're gonna handle this," Justin reassured him. Carson wasted no time getting into his car to head back home . Justin turned to face the tear in their universe. The creatures that Zhabiv called Devils poured out of the portal. God they had to find a better name for them. He bolted off for the portal, punching any of the Devils he could find right in their heads. After blazing through about a dozen of them, he looked back to face them again, but upon turning around he saw they laid motionless on the ground. "I took them out with one punch? Must be how fast I'm hitting them," he thought to himself. He ran through them all, trying to take out every one that he could.

They just kept coming and coming, an endless wave growing stronger with every number., and he was taking out less and less. His stamina was running out, and he found himself stopping to take breaks to breathe more often. Justin couldn't keep this up for long. He was running out of time. Where was everyone? Did they get the alert that something was happening here? He couldn't take the time to call them due to the sheer amount of them coming through. His clothes were starting to burn from how fast he was going.

As if God had heard him and answered his prayers, a yellow portal opened in front of him and an axe was thrown out of it, cutting through them with ease as Cade stepped out of the portal. The axe came back to him as Gale, Cole, and Frost followed him out of the portal. Cole sprinted at the creatures, sinking his teeth into them. Whatever it was that he was doing, it seemed to be working on them. Gale and Frost summoned their powers, Gale choosing to fire off intense blasts of heat by sending it through his revolver, whereas Frost made two dagger-like objects made of pure ice, slashing through them easily.

"Sorry we're so late. You did well on your own. Let us take it from here," Cade did, extending his hand to help him up. Justin took it and stood up, trying to catch his breath.

"I'm not just gonna sit here and do nothing. Let me help you," Justin bargained. Cade just nodded and they both turned to face the battle ahead of them. What was the point of this? This assault made no sense. It just seemed to be provoking something. The Overlord wasn't even here to back them up, so Justin didn't think it was the start to an invasion just yet. It made no sense. Maybe that was the point. Maybe all he wanted was chaos. Justin had no idea. All he knew was he wanted to survive the battle.

It began to take a toll on him. His lungs burned and his legs ached. He didn't know how long he could keep fighting. He had to ditch his jacket because it kept catching fire when he ran at a certain speed. The lakefront was destroyed. Ice and flames littered the ground, and non human bodies covered the grass and floated in the lake, but they still kept coming. At that point Alpha had deployed troops and VTOLs and they had contained the whole street.

"Frost, use your ice to block up the hole," Cade suggested. He wasted no time running through the creatures, slashing them when they came near him. Finally he got to the hole and made a giant ice wall, blocking them all in their realm. As soon as the wall was finished, however, the hole closed, as if it were never there in the first place. The final few that remained were cleaned up by Cade, cutting through them effortlessly.

"Alright Sam wants us to report back to base. The rest of them are gonna handle cleaning up and taking care of the injured here. Let's go," Cade told them, opening a portal for them to leave. They all followed him, each of them wondering why they attacked there out of all places.

They hopped through the portal and it led straight to the command center where Sam was inspecting a location on the holo map. "Ah, there you are. Judging from the map there haven't been any dimensional anomalies anywhere else in the world. It seems as though that was just a test. I believe he wanted to see what we were capable of before he decided to attack," Sam informed them.

"Maybe now he learned not to mess with us," Gale said, acting tough.

"No. He was sizing us up so he knows not to underestimate us." Cade replied.

"Hey, Cole, what the hell were you doing out there?" Justin whispered to the man beside him.

"Oh I was draining them of their souls which killed him," Cole said.

"Jeez, remind me not to make you mad," Justin said in reply. Cole smiled at that.

"Okay, we don't know when the next assault will be, but if they're as bad as that one, we're gonna need everyone fully ready. And as much as I wish I could give her more time, Xavier needs to be out there. Justin, can you convince her to at least try to find out what her powers are?" Sam asked him.

"Yeah I'll try. But I can't make any promises that she'll listen," he told them before deciding to exit the room. The double doors slid open and he made his way down the hallway to her room. He knocked lightly on the door and it swung open, her meeting him on the other side.

"Hey, what's up?" she asked. She tried to seem cheerful, but he could tell something was wrong. For starters, her eyes were red and slightly puffy, most likely from crying. She rested her arm on the door and from the look of her forearm, they had light scratch marks.

"Are you okay?" Justin asked.

"Yeah. I'm fine," she responded quickly. He knew it wasn't the case but he didn't want to push anything.

"You heard about the attack at the lakefront?" he asked instead.

"Yeah are y'all okay?" she asked back.

"Oh yeah we're fine. Sam told us that the next time something like that happens, we need everyone on board. Including you. So I wanted to help you figure out what power you had," he explained.

"Thank you, but I actually already figured it out."

"You did?"

"Yeah," she said. She raised her left hand, and a black glow came from it. Immediately, a pen that was on her nightstand flew into her hand. "I can move things with my mind," she said.

"Damn. That's really cool," Justin replied.

"And don't worry, the next time something happens, I'm going to be there with you guys," she said, smiling what seemed to be a genuine smile.