Green light flooded the stairwell, blazing so brilliantly that it illuminated every shadow.
"Gwen, I'll draw them away first. You find Ben while they're focused on me!"
XLR8's sharp, buzzing voice cut through the air. Before the knights could converge on their position, he extended his scissor-like claws and slashed at the stairs behind them in a blur of motion.
SHRRRK! SHRRRK! SHRRRK!
Those razor-sharp claws carved through the stone steps like butter, tearing away a massive section of the stairway and sending debris tumbling into the darkness below. The gap wouldn't stop trained Forever Knights for long, but it would slow them down.
"There! I saw a green flash from that direction!"
"According to our intel, when the child uses his alien technology watch, it produces that exact light signature!"
The knights had spotted him. Dozens of armored figures converged on the stairwell entrance, weapons raised and murder in their eyes. The promise of alien technology, and the Eternal Knight's favor, drove them forward like wolves scenting blood.
"Gwen, hold on tight. Don't let go!"
XLR8 wrapped one arm around his cousin and channeled every ounce of speed the Wind God Leg could grant him. His already blinding velocity doubled, then tripled.
WHOOOOSH!
A gust of wind tore through the third floor corridor. The Forever Knights advancing toward the stairs felt something rush past them, a phantom force that sent them staggering sideways, armor clanking as they crashed into walls and each other.
On the polished stone floor, a trail of smoking footprints marked the path of something impossibly fast.
Half a second later.
XLR8 materialized at the far corner of the third floor, gently setting Gwen down. His visor retracted, revealing the intense focus in his green eyes.
"Gwen, I'm going to pull every knight in this building toward me. Finding Ben is on you now."
"Got it." Gwen nodded firmly, one hand gripping the Charm of Luck at her throat. "Don't worry, I'll find that idiot."
Whoosh!
XLR8 took a steadying breath and shot back toward the stairwell at maximum velocity.
Another half-second passed.
He reappeared at the top of the damaged stairs, standing directly in front of the assembled knights without a trace of fear. His visor slid back down over his face as he regarded the small army before him.
"Looking for me?"
XLR8 raised one clawed hand and beckoned them forward with a single, taunting gesture.
"GET HIM!"
"Whoever captures this brat earns a commendation from the Eternal Knight himself!"
"That alien tech will be mine, don't even think about taking it!"
The Forever Knights surged forward as one. Their discipline shattered in the face of promised rewards, each man fighting to be first to reach their target.
XLR8 had dealt with this kind of attitude before.
People always underestimated him. The sleek, almost fragile-looking Kineceleran form never inspired the same fear as Four Arms' bulk or Diamondhead's crystalline armor. They saw a skinny speedster and assumed he was all flash, no substance.
They were about to learn otherwise.
This time, however, the numbers were genuinely concerning. Fifteen, maybe twenty knights were charging him simultaneously, a concentrated assault that would be dangerous even for his speed.
XLR8 lowered into a combat stance, every muscle coiled like a spring.
Time to go all out.
His visor's display flickered to life, enhancing his already superhuman perception. In that moment, everything around him began to slow.
The knights' movements became glacial. Their charging footsteps stretched into eternities between each impact. Sweat beading on their foreheads hung suspended in mid-air. Every twitch of their weapons, every shift of their weight, every opening in their defenses, all of it laid bare before his accelerated consciousness.
When you could move faster than thought itself, the world became a frozen tableau waiting to be rearranged.
"Wind God Leg!"
XLR8 released a low growl and launched into motion.
His right leg became a blur. Then both legs. Then he was everywhere at once, a storm of blue afterimages weaving between the frozen knights with surgical precision.
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
Each strike found its mark with perfect accuracy. The gap between helmet and gorget. The back of the knee where armor plates met. The vulnerable point beneath the arm where even the finest protection couldn't fully cover.
Speed was power.
Every kick carried the accumulated momentum of his velocity, transforming what should have been glancing blows into devastating impacts.
"GAHH!"
"WHAT THE, ?!"
Time snapped back to normal.
The dozen knights who had been charging forward suddenly lifted off their feet as if struck by invisible cannonballs. Their bodies flew backward in unison, crashing into the corridor walls with bone-rattling force.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
They collapsed in groaning heaps, clutching abdomens, nursing shattered kneecaps, or simply lying motionless where they'd fallen. The sections of armor that had taken direct hits now sported fist-sized dents, testament to the force behind each blow.
Without that protection, they'd have been pulped.
"Wind God Leg, Third Form: Torrential Rain and Gale."
XLR8 exhaled slowly, his body still frozen in the final pose of his flying kick. He tucked into a roll as gravity reclaimed him, hands catching the floor to absorb his momentum, and sprang back to his feet in one fluid motion.
Every enemy in front of him was down.
None of them would be getting up anytime soon.
"Upstairs! I heard fighting upstairs!"
"Converge on the third floor, that alien creature is here!"
"Remember the Eternal Knight's orders! His transformation has a time limit!"
More knights rushed toward the third floor from below, their voices echoing through the fortress. They weren't bothering to hide their strategy anymore, they wanted XLR8 to hear.
They wanted him afraid.
XLR8 quickly assessed the situation. Based on the footsteps, at least twenty more knights were ascending from the lower levels. If he used another Torrential Rain and Gale at full power, he'd drain his stamina dangerously fast. Running out of energy in the middle of a rescue operation wasn't an option.
I'm not here to win every fight, he reminded himself. I'm here to buy Gwen time.
The real mission was saving Ben. Everything else was secondary.
WHOOSH!
XLR8 launched himself toward the oncoming reinforcements. The moment the knights cleared the damaged section of stairway and reached the third floor corridor, they found themselves facing a light-blue streak rocketing directly at them.
Then past them.
Then down the stairs.
"He went back down!"
"Don't let him escape! Block the exits!"
"He can't run forever, his watch will time out eventually!"
The knights reversed course, abandoning the third floor to chase the speeding alien toward the ground level.
Exactly as planned.
What none of them realized was that the blur they'd seen wasn't actually XLR8 anymore. He'd accelerated to such extreme speeds that he'd left an afterimage behind, a phantom of blue light that seemed to descend the stairs while his real body doubled back.
In the space between heartbeats, XLR8 had smashed through a window at the end of the corridor, used his momentum to swing around the building's exterior, and launched himself back through another window onto the same floor.
Now he crouched in a shadowed alcove, breathing hard, surrounded by broken glass.
The knights pursuing his decoy were three floors below and getting farther away every second.
"Gwen's somewhere on this floor," he muttered, scanning the corridor. "I need to find her before they realize they've been had."
Seven or eight doors lined this section of the hallway. Most were unmarked, but one stood out immediately.
A metal placard had been bolted to its surface:
RESTRICTED ACCESSTRESPASSERS WILL BE EXECUTED
XLR8 felt a cold smile spread across his face beneath the visor.
Found you.
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