Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera
Read Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera Online
Authors: Kelly Meding
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Chapter Two: Portland, Oregon Fifteen years later
Chapter Eleven: Medical Ward II
Chapter Twelve: MetaHuman Control
Chapter Fifteen: Demolition II
Chapter Sixteen: Dahlia Perkins
Chapter Eighteen: Medical Ward III
Chapter Twenty-One: Exploration
Chapter Twenty-Three: Missteps
Chapter Twenty-Four: Channel Nine
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Medical Ward IV
Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Blue Tower
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Marcus Spence
Chapter Thirty-One: Regroup II
Chapter Thirty-Two: Alicia Monroe
Chapter Thirty-Three: Vanished
Chapter Thirty-Four: Specter 2
Chapter Two: Sunset and Laurel
Chapter Thirteen: Mallory’s Table
Chapter Sixteen: Comprehension
Chapter Nineteen: Coming Clean
Chapter Twenty-Two: Boiling Point
Chapter Twenty-Three: Century City
Chapter Twenty-Four: Changeling
Chapter Twenty-Five: Revelations
Chapter Twenty-Six: Home Invasions
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Chessboard
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Checkmate
Chapter Three: Rangers HQ, Sixteen Years Ago
Chapter Five: Manhattan Island Penitentiary
Chapter Fourteen: Crisis Point
Chapter Eighteen: High Pressure System
Chapter Twenty-One: Rangers Redux
Chapter Twenty-Two: Apocalypse Now
Chapter Twenty-Three: Assistance Plan
Chapter Twenty-Four: Sacrifice
Chapter Twenty-Five: Family Ties
Chapter Ten: Positional Awareness
Chapter Eleven: Community Cards
Chapter Fifteen: Dead Man’s Hand
Chapter Nineteen: Dark Tunnel Bluff
Chapter Twenty-One: Freeroll Hand
Chapter Twenty-Two: Raised Stakes
Chapter Twenty-Three: Raw Business
Praise for Kelly Meding and the Dreg City novels
“A fast-paced adventure.”
—Charlaine Harris, #1
New York Times
bestselling author
“Gritty, imaginative, and a terrific read.”
—Patricia Briggs, #1
New York Times
bestselling author
“Action-packed, edgy, and thrilling…. You won’t want to miss this one.”
—Jeaniene Frost,
New York Times
bestselling author
“A phenomenal story… utterly addictive.”
—Jackie Kessler, critically acclaimed author
“Thrilling…. Especially impressive are her worldbuilding skills.”
—Romantic Times
“[An] excellent series.”
—Bitten By Books
“Will keep you on the edge of your seat.”
—Book Lovers Inc.
For all the girls who ever closed their eyes
and dreamed of being a superhero.
T
his book is the culmination of more than sixteen years of work—from the first inkling of an idea to the final product in your hands. A lot of people touched this manuscript over the years, and I’ll probably forget to thank someone, but here goes.
Mega-hugs to my fabulous agent, Jonathan Lyons, for believing in a trunked manuscript and helping me smack it into submission shape. More hugs and chocolate to my editor, Jennifer Heddle, for falling in love with my take on super-heroes and making this book even better than I imagined.
To the amazing peeps who read this book in its various stages: there have been a lot of you, but especially to Melissa, Sassy, and Nancy. You three were troopers. A special thank-you to Jeaniene Frost for seeing something special in my query and first pages, and for offering some amazing advice to a novice.
And even though they don’t know me, thank you to Marv Wolfman and George Pèrez for creating a comic book series that captured the imagination of a preteen and launched her obsession with superheroes. This book wouldn’t exist without your Teen Titans.
Finally, thanks to my dad for having that copy of
The New Teen Titans
#9 in your box of comics, and for letting me swipe it.
Central Park
T
he bronze man’s head was melting. It oozed fat splats of liquid metal and swirled down the front of his old-fashioned suit jacket to puddle at his feet. Some of it hit the bronze duck below him, adding layers of new metal that mutated it into a nightmarish goose. The molten metal cooled and hardened as it hit the sidewalk. Mayhem’s heat blasts were concentrated above the statue, and metal needs a constant heat source to stay liquid. I learned that in class.
Gage had told me the statue was of a once-famous man who wrote stories for kids. I don’t know for sure, but if Gage says so, it must be true. He’s in charge while the adults are fighting for all of our lives, and he kept us quiet and hidden. For a while.
Until Mayhem found our hiding place.
“We have to run for it,” Gage said.
I didn’t want to run. We’d been running for hours, from the southernmost point of Central Park to where we were now. I don’t know how many blocks, but a lot, and it was raining, too—light, chilly rain and heavy, splattering rain.
Sometimes it stopped and just blew cold wind; then Ethan would use his Tempest powers to try to redirect it so we didn’t freeze.
Hours of it, and I was exhausted. We all were. Each time the Banes gained ground and pushed the last of the grown-up Rangers north, we kids ran ahead and took cover. We were there to fight if we had to, but the grown-ups didn’t want us to—not until absolutely necessary. At fifteen, Gage was the oldest; I’m the youngest at ten-almost-eleven. He says we’re the last line of defense for the city of New York.
We’re the last line of defense for the rest of the country.
And we’re just a bunch of kids.
Mayhem kept blasting.
Ethan stepped out from the shelter of the stone wall, all wiry and red-haired and cocky thirteen. He raised his hands to the sky. A blast of wind shot away from him and swirled toward Mayhem. She was a good hundred yards away, across a cement hole that had once been a lake or something, near a statue of a bronze girl on a mushroom. The statue was losing shape, turning into goo from her being so close to it.
