Alien Pursuit

The silver spacecraft was struck once again by the spherical aircraft hot on its tail. Black smoke had begun to rise from its left rear wing. The ship lost its balance, and for a novice who had not even gotten a pilot's license, Kara was already doing everything she could just to keep the thing airborne.

Meanwhile, the aircraft were still rapidly closing in. They were more than twice as fast as their ship. At this rate, they had no chance of reaching the portal.

Unless someone did something.

"Open the hatch," Jay suddenly said to Kara. "I'll hold them off."

"You're crazy." Kara shook her head. "The radiation has severely weakened our powers. Never mind whether you still have enough strength to take those aircraft down—we don't even know how much longer you can fly."

"So the plan is for us to sit on this ship and wait to be shot down, then get captured again?" Jay shot back.

Kara gritted her teeth, unable to argue. She knew Jay was right. If they kept flying like this, they had no chance of surviving. Once the ship was shot down, she and Jay might still be able to escape, but these weakened people would have no chance at all.

"This is the only way." Jay looked her straight in the eyes. "Open the hatch. I'll catch up with you later. I promise."

After hesitating for a long while, Kara let out a soft sigh and pressed the button to open the door. The hatch descended with a low hum, and the violent airflow from their high-speed flight rushed madly into the cabin, sending Jay's bright cape fluttering behind him like a flag.

Mr. Reynolds forced his way out of the crowd and pressed a hand on his shoulder, as if he wanted to say something but could not. Jay smiled. "Don't worry, dad. I'll finish this quickly and catch up to you. When we get back, you, mom, and I will throw a real celebration party."

Mr. Reynolds's eyes filled with bitterness. For a moment, he could not speak, only gently patting his son's shoulder. Though he had always known this boy possessed extraordinary abilities, deep down he had always thought of him as a child. Only today did he suddenly realize that his son had long since reached the time to spread his wings and soar.

"Make sure you come back, kid."

Jay nodded firmly, then turned and fearlessly faced the raging wind and the six aircraft. He took a deep breath, silently praying that he still had the strength to fly, then leaped out of the hatch, leaving everyone with a dashing silhouette of a fluttering cape.

A person had to look cool at least once in their life, right? In his previous life, he had often fantasized about having a self-sacrificing, heroic moment like a movie protagonist. He had thought it would be incredibly cool and eye-catching, perhaps even earn him some girls' screams. But now that he finally had such an opportunity, that feeling had completely vanished.

So this kind of heroism was nothing more than carrying a heavy burden on his back, with more than a dozen lives resting on his shoulders—including his beloved father's. Being a hero did not feel cool at all. He was doing it only because he was the only one who could, so he had no choice but to go.

The closest aircraft was less than ten meters from the spacecraft's tail. At these speeds, that was an extremely dangerous distance. The alien in the cockpit shouted something unintelligible, and the spherical aircraft suddenly accelerated, blasting out two dragon-like trails of flame as it lunged for the ship ahead.

Just as it was about to succeed, a blue afterimage darted into its field of vision like a weasel. The alien let out a startled cry, unable to see what had happened before the side of the cabin took a heavy blow. Cracks spread across the windshield on the spherical aircraft's side wing with a BANG, and the craft instantly lost balance, smashing like a hard-kicked soccer ball into a building dozens of meters away.

Jay streaked between several aircraft, his fist throbbing faintly. The good news was that he could still fly for now, and not slowly; the bad news was that his fists no longer seemed strong enough to punch straight through the shells of these aircraft. That meant he could not simply rip them apart with his bare hands.

Three aircraft were successfully drawn to him, twisting through the air to chase after him. But two still stubbornly pursued Kara's ship, continuing to rake it with blue laser fire.

This was not the result Jay wanted. He abruptly dropped in altitude, drawing the three aircraft down after him. Their rain-like laser fire swept across the streets below, setting off magnificent bursts of flame one after another and sending alien pedestrians fleeing in panic. Using the firelight as cover, Jay shot upward at an extreme angle, then turned once more as if walking dogs, brushing past the three aircraft through the gaps between them and racing after the other two.

The alien pilots in the three aircraft shouted furiously, but they had no choice but to turn around and chase him again. They desperately poured a barrage of azure fire at Jay, but he was too small, weaving freely through the barrage without a scratch. Jay suddenly accelerated, a ring of milky-white vapor bursting around him as his body shot forward like a blue bullet. Braving the scorching exhaust flames from the spherical craft, he grabbed its tail fins tightly with both hands. His arms tensed abruptly, forcibly wrenching it off course. The pilot cried out in panic, only to discover that the craft had completely slipped out of control and was hurtling straight toward its companion. The two spherical ships exploded into a dazzling fireball in midair, leaving only burning wreckage tumbling down from the blast.

The remaining pilots cursed loudly, but had no choice but to temporarily lock onto the flying kid as their target. Jay made a ninety-degree turn and led them into the busy downtown district. At last, Kara's ship shook off its pursuers.

Only then did everyone aboard the ship finally let out a breath of relief. Someone asked softly, "Is he Superman? Did he come back to save us?"

"No." Kara stared resolutely through the windshield ahead. "But he's someone striving to become one."

The entrance to the garbage station's pipeline was already right before them—the tunnel leading home. Kara pressed a button and retracted the wings on both sides of the ship so it could barely squeeze into the narrow passage. She loudly warned everyone to hold on, then accelerated once more. The spacecraft shook violently, its hull scraping against the outer walls of the pipe with a piercing hum. Like a cannonball fired from a barrel, it plunged into the seemingly endless tunnel.