Omega Zero

by Kurtis Eckstein

  I was shocked to hear that, because I had thought I’d seen him give it his all before. But apparently there was more he could do. I recalled the blast of energy coming from him, feeling like I was standing next to a supernova. He had turned up his explosion slowly, and most of it had traveled upwards like a tower of fire. But if that explosion had happened all at once, horizontally? Maybe he really could destroy everything for miles.

  However, it was too bad they didn’t know the military had already written Ava off. That much was obvious based on their conversation. She was an invaluable asset, which meant she was also an immeasurable threat as an enemy. Enough so that it apparently wasn’t worth waiting to see if she had been given instructions beyond trying to have me killed. They couldn’t risk not knowing what she had been told to do or not do. And there was no guarantee that his hold would be over after he died.

  Which meant if they didn’t kill her while they knew her exact location, then they might never be able to do so in the event it was revealed she was truly an enemy now.

  Really, I doubted even I could stop Ava if she decided to go on a killing spree. Certainly, she would have a difficult time ending my life, but I suspected there wasn’t much I could do to her in her shadow form.

  Blair spoke up again quietly. “If no one has seen your ace,” she wondered hesitantly. “Then how do you know? Did you go out into the wilderness to experiment?”

  Zayden was completely silent.

  After a while, I assumed he wasn’t going to respond, and it looked like Blair made that assumption too. However, then he spoke up again. “It’s why I got thrown in prison to begin with.” He paused. “The only reason my little brother is alive is because he was staying at a friend’s house ten miles away.” He scoffed then. “And before you ask, no it wasn’t on purpose. I just lost control because I was young.”

  Shit. No wonder he was so messed up. I assumed he must have killed his parents, along with their neighbors. Part of me wanted to feel bad for him, but I knew that’s probably why he kept that fact to himself usually – he didn’t want anyone’s sympathy. Another part of me was just thankful I had never touched his blood, since that’s an accident I would never recover from – not if Trinity was in the crossfire.

  “Oh,” Blair replied simply. She then cleared her throat. “Since you shared, I’ll share as well. My bio-dad left my mother when I was born, thinking she let a lion screw her.”

  Zayden laughed. “What an idiot. That’s not even possible. Even if she had and somehow managed to survive, a kid wouldn’t have come from it.”

  Surprisingly, Blair didn’t take offense to his amusement, possibly because she was used to people laughing at the absurdity. She glanced my way again as she continued. “Yeah. My mother blamed me for him leaving though, so she got rid of me. Dropped me off at a church, which thought I was possessed, prompting them to drop me off with the police when they couldn’t get rid of the supposed demon. The cops then got the military involved because they didn’t know what to make of me.”

  “What happens to people like you anyway?” he wondered. “I just got put in jail until they let me on the team.”

  Blair paused. “Umm, one of the other girls once told me that where we grew up was like a psych hospital. I’ve never been to one, so I wouldn’t know. But she had been to a few before she got on the military’s radar, due to the unusual things that would happen around her.” She paused. “But I had my own room, and we had soldiers who taught classes, running a strict schedule every day. We got to watch movies every Friday and Saturday night, which was nice. But most nights we pretty much had a schedule to follow until evening hygiene and bedtime.”

  “Sounds just like prison,” Zayden commented. “Although I’m sure where you were was nicer.”

  Blair didn’t respond, causing them to fall silent again.

  As I ran in the dark, matching my target’s speed now a good distance away from the highway, I began wishing I had enough blood to spare to attack him now. I just wanted to end this. Certainly, it would cause a scene given the other traffic, but I didn’t really care anymore. If I could just end him now, then I could be done for good. I could finally go back to Trinity and Liz. But the problem was, I also couldn’t let Zayden know that I was in pursuit, and I definitely couldn’t let him see that Ava was alive.

  If push came to shove, I didn’t trust that Zayden would keep his mouth shut about Ava having survived the bombing. He only really seemed to care about himself, which meant it was better if he didn’t know. So, for now, I just needed to wait until I had an opportunity.

  Or did I?

  If I could just get close enough, maybe I could pop his tire with my blood. That alone might be enough to kill him, or at least get his car to roll off the road to render him unconscious.

  I figured it was worth a try, so I began running faster.

  “Wait!” Blair unexpectedly exclaimed in the car, prompting Zayden to glance at her in surprise.

  “What?!” Zayden responded urgently.

  I slowed down a little, knowing she was talking to me – and it was more than just because she called out right when I began to take action. I didn’t fully know how to describe it, but somehow it felt like we were in sync with each other. At least now she knew for a fact I could hear her, since I had responded to her outburst.

  She continued carefully, as if she knew I didn’t want Zayden to know I was there in the darkness. Maybe it was because she knew we had been told to abort the mission, and we were actively disobeying by being here right now. It was hard to say, but I definitely felt like there was an understanding between us.

  Like we were…well, synced.

  “Err, sorry. I just had a thought. Why don’t we just shoot up his car now? We have a couple of machine guns.”

  Zayden scoffed, sounding annoyed now. “Seriously? Were you not paying attention when they told us to wait to see if he led us to where he’s been hiding out?”

  “Sorry,” she replied, bonking the top of her head with her thin tan hand. “I guess I forgot. It’s because he might be working with others, right? And this is our only chance to possibly kill his accomplices too…”

  “Are you kidding me right now?” Zayden snapped.

  She immediately crossed her arms over her chest, sinking back into her seat. “No need to be rude,” she retorted.

  “I don’t work well with stupid,” he commented. “Stop being such an airhead. You’re actually alright to be around when you’re not acting like an idiot.”

  Blair humphed, but didn’t respond. Instead, she whispered almost inaudibly to me. “Wait for me. I don’t want to face him alone.”

  I hadn’t planned on her help, but now that I considered it, this wasn’t the time to be arrogant. Even as powerful as I was, I had no idea how easy or difficult this fight might be. It might be over in an instant, or it might be surprisingly harder than I anticipated. Even impossible, if he managed to snag me under his control too. Either way, this wasn’t the time to take chances, especially not when I was so low on blood. I had acquired Blair’s left demonic eye, but I wasn’t confident that I had her exact powers. Most of what I had gained seemed to be a lesser version of the original, and part of me wondered if I had only recently become capable of transforming into a beast because of the combined DNA I had acquired from both Zane and Blair.

  If Blair could keep him paralyzed for me, then I could do the rest. Our chances of succeeding were much higher if we worked together, and it was obvious she was willing to keep Zayden in the dark for our sake. I could trust her.

  I knew I could trust her, because I felt like that train of thought I just had was partly hers, as if our general thoughts were synchronized. Not like I was reading her mind, but like there was just some kind of understanding between us. We were on the same page, even though we had communicated little directly. The rest was inferred. Understood. Synced.

  I humphed as well, in response to her, a loud audible snort coming out of my muzzle, my legs
endlessly cycling underneath me. Unlike how Zane usually looked, my head was too warped – too beastly, rendering me incapable of speech right now. Although, it made me wonder if I could be more selective of my transformation, if I could make my face more humanoid without losing the benefits of my bestial body.

  I wasn’t about to try right now though. I couldn’t afford to risk losing ground to experiment – this inhuman body was my only mode of transportation at the moment – and I didn’t need to talk to Blair anyway. My actions said enough. I stopped attempting to overtake our target, instead staying in line with the vehicle carrying my two comrades.

  “Thank you,” Blair whispered, her head facing straight forward, but her orange and red eyes focused intently on me towards her side.

  “What?” Zayden asked.

  “Just talking to myself,” Blair replied.

  I snorted at her again as a nonverbal ‘you’re welcome.’

  “Everything alright?” Ava whispered right up against my pointy ear due to the wind.

  I did my best to intentionally nod, but otherwise didn’t respond.

  The time had finally come anyway. The white vehicle was taking an exit – an empty one, with no buildings in sight for miles. Zayden slowed down, possibly so the guy didn’t realize right away that he was being followed. However, even before he made it to the exit, our target sped up considerably, flooring his car as he raced away from the interstate.

  Not having to follow the roads, I shot to my right at an angle to easily keep up with him. I just wanted to make sure he didn’t get away in the event Zayden wasn’t able to catch up. But Zayden did keep up once he exited, his vehicle likely invisible to human eyes due to his headlights being off. We chased after him for what felt like another thirty minutes before an outcropping of buildings came in sight, surrounded by a tall chain-link fence.

  I knew exactly what it was the moment I saw it – a military base.

  Shit, if he was really heading there, then that meant his group was hiding out literally right underneath the military’s noses. An entire base full of soldiers under this man’s control, harboring the enemy in plain sight.

  Zayden was quick on the uptake too, cursing before picking up a radio to report what I had realized.

  The response was somehow both shocking and unsurprising at the same time.

  ‘Everyone on that base should be considered an enemy.’

  And there were people on the base too – as I reached out, they began popping up on my internal radar, along with two metahumans. Neither of them seemed overly threatening, at least, not until I realized my target was talking on a phone as well.

  Or rather, he was laughing. The bastard was laughing.

  I focused my hearing, catching a surprisingly charming voice, so charming that I almost wanted to believe he was a good guy despite my knowledge otherwise.

  “No need,” he replied to the previous question I hadn’t caught. “I stole a car. I’m already almost back. Only a few minutes away now.”

  “Oh,” a guy’s voice replied. “Sorry boss. I wish I could jump more frequently.”

  “Nothing to be done about it,” he replied. “Although, unfortunately, I didn’t accomplish my goal. I met a third party there, a woman who was with the military, on a mission to track us down actually. Apparently, they have a powerful Grimoire capable of finding people – Jordyn Kirkwood. We’ll have to use our own gal to track their guy down to bring him over to our side – too risky to leave him in their hands. Somehow he knew I was going to be showing up at that reception.”

  Several realizations hit me all at once. For one, the reason this guy had appeared out of nowhere was because the metahuman he was speaking with must have some kind of teleportation ability that had limitations on how often he used it. Second, they had different terminology for metahumans. Although, I wasn’t sure if a Grimoire was what they called all metahumans or just a classification, like beast and blood-drinker. And finally, I realized he must not have asked Ava about Jordyn’s gender, just assuming it was a guy based on her name. That wouldn’t help protect her though, since they seemed to have a way to find people too.

  The person on the other line spoke up again. “And what about the military woman?” he asked.

  The bastard chuckled a second time. “She’ll be a fun addition to the group too. I’ll tell you more about her when I get there. We’ll definitely need Sarah to work her magic though, because she was not happy about the instructions I gave her.”

  “What do you think Sarah will turn her into?” the other guy wondered. “Another sister? Or maybe a mother?”

  “Hard to say,” he replied. “Whatever will make her commit to us without me having to try to dictate every decision she could possibly make. Sarah will be able to sense which perception will enlighten her to the fullest. I have to admit though, I could see her being a dedicated momma.”

  I growled uncontrollably at their conversation, prompting Ava to ask if I was alright, but I ignored her. I was pissed, because they were talking about more than just mind control now. They had a metahuman who could fully brainwash too – at least, I assumed that’s what it was, based on what had happened to Liz when an ability user made her believe her captor was actually her brother. That had been bad enough, but this combination was beyond dangerous.

  It was infuriating that they could make Ava do things against her will, but they might even be able to make her want to defend and fight for them? Not to mention, there was no way a man responsible for bombing a tenth of the world had any morals. I didn’t even want to think about the potential incestual roleplaying this asshole might do with Ava, never mind what he might already do with the women he had captured over to his side, this Sarah person included. It was nice to want to believe that he was somehow a murderous saint, who had some kind of limit to his immoral behavior, but the two just didn’t go together in my head. A person who would murder so many innocent people likely didn’t have a boundary he wouldn’t cross.

  He was like the perfect cult leader, controlling anyone he wanted and converting them to his side via a proxy under his influence.

  The idea made me sick, and those thoughts curdled my blood, making me almost lose my rational thoughts entirely. I was dangerously close to losing my human self in this form, dangerously close to becoming a true monster – a horror like none other, ready to destroy this atrocity and everything associated with it.

  The man disconnected the call as he slowed down and turned off the road to pull through the gated fence. It was monitored at the front with soldiers – who were supposed to be our military’s men, welcoming the enemy like he was a good friend.

  I zipped along the fence further into the darkness, not intending to use the front gate, as Zayden took their car off-road to park.

  Blair already knew what she had to do. This was supposed to be a solo mission for her, since she might be the only one immune to this guy’s influence. Which meant she jumped out of the vehicle with a machine gun and bolted in my direction far off in the distance.

  And Zayden was the backup – if she failed, then his job was to nuke the whole place with his superpower. Honestly, I wasn’t sure why they didn’t just bomb the place like they had done our car. But then again, this place was large enough that it would take a lot of missiles to burn the whole thing to the ground, whereas Zayden could self-reportedly hit it all at once like a small nuclear bomb, just without the devastating aftereffects of radiation.

  I didn’t wait for Blair right away though. I was still concerned about Zayden possibly picking up on us with his night-vision goggles, even if Ava and I weren’t recognizable right now as the people he knew. If he did manage to catch a glimpse of us, then he might think we were a single large wolf with a deformed back rather than suspect the truth.

  I heard Blair speak to me under her breath again once she was a fair distance away from Zayden, begging me to wait for her. I finally began shifting my body back into a more humanoid shape to reassure her that I was wait
ing, and then quickly warned Ava to stay in her shadow form.

  “I’m desperately hungry right now,” I whispered urgently when Ava began shifting back to normal. “It’s safer for you to stay as you are.” I then tried to crack a smile unsuccessfully. “Not to mention, you don’t want to ruin your dress. Feral will be pissed.”

  Blair heard me in the distance. “Oh please,” she scoffed, speaking under her breath as she silently ran faster than the average car. “I don’t give a damn about that right now. They told us Shadow had been hit with a mind control ability. Just how bad is it?”

  “It could be worse,” I admitted, before quickly explaining to Ava that I was talking to Blair. She seemed surprised that we could hear each other so far away, but didn’t question it, especially not since I still wasn’t fully human again. I knew my face was normal, but I was still covered in black fur, and my ears felt huge.

  Once Blair had jumped the fence – something no normal person could even dream of – we finally regrouped behind a building to formulate a plan.

  “There are three metahumans here,” I explained quickly. “I’m pretty sure one has some kind of teleportation ability, so we need to act fast before our target escapes. He drove into a hanger and one of the metahumans is heading his way now to meet up with him. We don’t have much time.”

  “I’ll take out the second one,” Ava whispered, though surprisingly her attention wasn’t directed towards me. She was focused on Blair. Her next words revealed why – her restrictions were still in full effect – she couldn’t make a reference to the bastard when speaking directly to me. “After you paralyze your target, I’ll make my move.”

  “And I’ll make my move as well,” I inserted, looking at Blair too. “You stun him, and I’ll do the rest.” Blair nodded in agreement, prompting me to continue. “Let’s go.”

  Ava immediately dropped into the ground while I took off to make my way over to the hanger, Blair hot on my heels. There were a few soldiers patrolling, but nothing major – it was fairly easy to avoid them altogether as we slipped along buildings and dashed across open spaces when I was sure no one would see.