The Breeding Prize - Aya Morningstar Page 0,9

and suddenly he’s no longer human. He looks like a man that was dipped in gold, his skin is even gleaming as if he were polished or waxed. He’s completely naked, and he’s even bigger between the legs than the little goblin aliens. They’ve sent the most virile men to claim the fertile prize, apparently.

“I am Philos,” the gold-skinned alien says, “the fertile prize is mine.”

The nanoswarm is moving back toward Philos. The purple alien backs up just as the Philos throws the entire half cheese steak in his mouth and swallows it down.

Just as the purple alien brings the full fury of the swarm down onto Philos, he raises his golden fist, and it grows.

His fist becomes the size of a small car, and he opens his hand and grabs almost the entire swarm into his palm. He balls his hand up into a fist, and it sounds like thousands of beetles crunching all at once. The distinct smell of fried circuits fills the air.

The purple alien tries to bring the few remaining pieces of his swarm back to defend himself, but Philos crushes his car-sized fist down, splattering the purple alien like a bug.

Four

Raiska

I pluck her off the ground with one my good arm and throw her over my shoulder again.

I run.

There’s no shame in running to protect her. I would stay and fight if I weren’t so badly injured. If I weren’t outnumbered.

Maybe Philos will fight the little ones, or maybe they’ll work together to take her from me. All I know is that I need to reach the portal. I need to heal before I can fight again.

Protecting my little human is all that matters, and I will run if I have to in order to keep her safe.

I take a second to turn around and throw my six-dimensional scythe.

Philos tries to dodge, but his fist is so large that he’s sluggish, and my scythe cuts into him. A finger the size of a man falls off his hand, and he roars in pain.

I summon the scythe back into my grip, and then I tuck it back up into the higher dimensions. I can’t afford to hold it as I run, especially with only one good arm, and my little human hoisted over my shoulder.

I duck into the stairwell of the parking garage. I rush down the stairs rather than taking the elevator.

Annabelle jostles on my shoulder, and I hold her even tighter to protect her.

I find the vehicle from earlier. The ugly purple one.

My orb is already calibrated for this vehicle, and I summon it to unlock and start the car before we are even inside. I rip the door off, and throw it onto the concrete. I set Annabelle onto the passenger seat, then I leap into the driver seat and set the throttle device to “D,” which Annabelle taught me stands for “Driving.”

I press the acceleration button with my foot, and we take off.

“Safety harness, little human!” I shout.

I watch her fumble with it from the corner of my eye. There’s no longer any door on her side of the vehicle, and I can’t afford having the centrifugal force throw her from the vehicle while I perform necessary evasive maneuvers.

There’s a red-and-yellow gate blocking our escape, and I drive right into it. It’s small and thin, and it doesn’t look at all massive enough to stop a human car. It scrapes against the glass shield of the car’s cockpit, and then it scrapes all across the ceiling of the vehicle’s hull, but we go right under it and are soon driving onto the main street of this area of the city.

In the primitive mirror which allows me to look backward without turning my head around, I spot a shimmer of gold.

I hit the “driving” button with my feet even harder, and the vehicle’s engine roars.

We blast out onto the road.

“You’re driving the wrong way!” she shouts.

No. The portal is definitely to the East, and I have a very strong sense of the cardinal directions.

I drive quickly, which is difficult, as all the other vehicles are sounding some kind of loud alarms at me. They are all trying to drive into me.

“It’s a one-way road, Raiska!”

I see. I am driving against the flow of traffic.

I swerve quite adeptly, and I only scrape against a few cars in the process. When I scrape against the side of a rather large vehicle, the mirror on the left side of my car is ripped off entirely.

Soon I