The Star Warriors

by C. S. Cooper

  “Was that your Victor form?” asked Xiaolang breathlessly.

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” said a guilty Nathan. “You able to walk?”

  Xiaolang gingerly released his hand from Nathan’s shoulder and nodded silently.

  “Any particular reason you did that?” he asked.

  “I think I just figured out how to kill these things for good,” said Nathan with a grin.

  Chapter 22: Shaula’s Lair

  At first, the people of Sydney thought terrorists had attacked. Indeed, that’s what the news reported, along with fuzzy video of a fire at the top of the Centrepoint Tower. The feed had been live, and within minutes of the explosion, the Internet was alight with word of an eight-eyed golden monster ransacking the Sydney business district.

  Reports soon came in of six people doing battle with the monster. They all looked like superheroes in their various costumes, which would have earned them laughs had people not been running for their lives. Most wondered whether the barista had mixed LSD into their morning soy lattés.

  At least, that was the impression to be gleaned from the Twitter feed at Regiment headquarters. Bravo chuckled at that as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  “They’re fighting?” asked a voice.

  Bravo turned to see Franklin at the entrance to the control room. The man had a concerned but hopeful expression. Bravo nodded and turned back to the main screen with a sigh.

  Franklin approached Spirit, a little unsure about how to deal with the man who had flirted with his daughter. But there were more pressing matters. They both gazed at the control room screen. They saw Sakura and Maka working to fend off a creature.

  “My baby girl is winning,” whispered Spirit, tears of pride rolling down his face.

  “As is mine,” said Franklin.

  Eriol, meanwhile, moved to Bravo’s side and said, “Not a bad idea to team them up, aye?”

  Bravo glared at the Scotsman. Unwilling to debate, he sighed, “This is going to get way worse before it gets better.”

  * * *

  At the Kinomoto house, a pot was boiling over on the stove. Touya and Yukito were too distracted by the news to notice. In Sakura’s bedroom, a mouthful of chewed cookie fell from Kero’s mouth, all over the laptop keyboard, as the flying plush toy watched the live feed.

  * * *

  The Warrawul dormitory was dead quiet, save for the noise trickling from the television in the common room. At the front of the crowd of students sat Klein, Jessie, and Paul, their jaws ajar with amazement and their eyes wide with worry. But each of them felt pride for their friend, fighting the good fight.

  * * *

  Death City was in an uproar when word got out that Shaula was attacking another city.

  The Reaper chuckled as he gazed at his mirror, showing the action around Centrepoint Tower as it happened.

  Kiddo writhed on the floor about the ruined symmetry of the tower, which reduced Patty to giggles and infuriated Liz.

  Tsubaki wondered if she was the only one concerned about the civilian casualties, while Black-Star moaned, “Why didn’t they invite me? I’m a God, me damn it!”

  * * *

  Tao Wu hopped off the back of the pick-up truck. He waved the driver away as he started toward town. He glanced around the streets, knowing that the Alchemic Regiment was keeping tabs on him. He didn’t mind – he deserved the suspicion. But that didn’t stop him from being curious as to their vantage point.

  He stopped, startled by the sudden crowd of people outside an electronics store. He looked over the shoulders of the amazed people and saw one of the television screens. A newsfeed showed shots of a battleground in the middle of Sydney. Golden giants eerily familiar to the boy snarled at the camera.

  Then he saw the bright lance that occasionally haunted his dreams.

  With a grin, he thought, Go for it, Nathan!

  * * *

  A hidden facility lay beneath the Alexandria Kalinin Memorial Aged-Care Home. Within that secret Regiment facility, Shu Wu huffed after another hour of physiotherapy. The nurse shouldered her to a chair and let her rest.

  After a minute of panting, Shu looked over her shoulder and saw the nurses crowded around a television. She saw the battleground of Sydney. Homunculi clones – certain to have been perfected from Doctor Butterfly’s work – smashed and rampaged through the city.

  Before Shu could break down, she saw the four mechanical limbs of the Spartan Valkyrie. With an excited gleam in her eyes, she bellowed, “Kick their arses, Astrid!”

  * * *

  Masaki Kinomoto stood in the study of his home, completely aghast at the television. At first, he thought his eyes were deceiving him. But with every frame, he came to realise that it really was his granddaughter, flying through the air.

  “You weren’t joking, Touya,” he said.

  * * *

  In a mansion in Canberra, Ariadne sat between her mother and father. Their hands gripped each other’s, while their eyes took in every frame of Nathan, fighting with monsters in the middle of Sydney.

  “So, this is what he does instead of study,” said Henry, his tone deadpan but his smile elated.

  * * *

  Meiling dropped her phone at the sight of her Twitter feed. She raced into the living room of her penthouse in downtown Hong Kong, and switched on the television. Her mother and father entered the room, and they sat down to watch the breaking news of a monster attack in Sydney.

  Feiwang nervously turned to his stoic wife and asked, “Is this what you foretold?”

  “Not quite,” replied Yelan, her stoic face hiding the nauseating cocktail of fear and excitement in her gut.

  * * *

  In an underground bunker, a tall, pale man sneered at the television feed. His eyes narrowed through the holes of his butterfly mask.

  “Grant, you damned hypocrite,” snarled Papillon.

  * * *

  Tomoyo’s phone overflowed with messages from concerned friends, all of whom were watching the same news feed. But the girl and her mother could hardly be concerned with their electronics. Their eyes were glued to the screen, which displayed images streamed straight from Australia.

  Only one thing gave poor Tomoyo any relief: Sakura was wearing her costume – including all the cameras hidden therein!

  * * *

  A flash of energy reverberated through the aether, and dinged against Maka’s soul. She looked away from her freshest kill toward the place she’d sensed the fluctuating signature. The sensation came a second time, far stronger and clearer than before.

  Astrid swooped in and cleaved through a minion vectoring for Maka’s back.

  “Maka, what’s the matter?” she asked breathlessly.

  “I think I’ve found Shaula,” said Maka, pointing to the ground beneath a building across from Centrepoint. She reached out once more, and clearly detected the Witch’s unique stink. “Yep, I’ve definitely got her,” she said confidently.

  Nathan’s voice blared over the radio, “Guys! I think I know how to kill these things all together.”

  “What is it?” asked Astrid.

  “It involves going Victor,” said Nathan, a little sheepish. “I tried it on a big guy just then. I got really close to the spine. I felt like there was a core or something that was linking me to the others.”

  Xiaolang’s voice butted in, “The others around it started to lose their energy when he did it.”

  Sakura landed nearby, a confused look on her exhausted face. She tapped her earpiece and said, “That didn’t happen over here.”

  “These things were fine all around us,” said Soul.

  “Then we might need to go bigger,” said Maka. “Nathan, try it on a behemoth.”

  Nathan chuckled, “Good idea. But I’ll need a hand getting to the spine.”

  Maka and Astrid exchanged glances and ideas without speaking. It was Soul who finally spoke up and said, “Skippy, Bruce, and the Cheerleader get the behemoth then. Spartan, Maka, and I’ll go
after Shaula.” Maka glanced at Sakura, who nodded confidently. She sprouted wings and flew down the street.

  Maka led the way into the department store, under which she was sure Shaula was hiding. The place was infested with minions, who gurgled and shrieked as Astrid and Maka cut them down. Astrid carved a path under Maka’s direction, until they broke into the underground.

  “She’s near,” murmured Maka, crinkling her nose at the stench of Shaula Gorgon. She glanced down the passages, and picked the path to their left.

  “You sure, Maka?” asked Soul.

  “Positive,” said Maka. “And so help me, Soul, if you say only fools’re positive, I’ll hurt you.”

  “Whatever you say, fool,” retorted Soul.

  Maka rolled her eyes and glanced at Astrid, who wore an odd expression. When Maka asked, Astrid just said, “Nothing. It’s just really bizarre watching this from the outside.”

  “Wanna see your head from the outside?” snarled a voice behind them. A tall homunculus emerged from the shadows and pounced on Maka. Astrid countered an attack from another homunculus coming from the other direction. She diverted the thrusts of his knife and ran him through with her blades. She then stabbed the other homunculus through the head before it could bite Maka’s head off.

  Astrid pulled Maka to her feet.

  “You okay?” asked Soul.

  “Fine, just not used to dealing with homunculi,” said Maka.

  “Also, too busy looking for Witches,” said Astrid. Then she eyed the passage through which the homunculi had come. “Speaking of which …”

  Maka held out her hand and sensed Shaula’s signature from the dark passage. She led the way, Astrid close behind and sniffing for homunculi like a bloodhound. A faint glow trickled through the blackness, and it grew brighter as they neared a corner.

  They found themselves in an abandoned sewer shaft, a remnant of an old structure long since demolished. A tangle of pipes plunged into the room from the concrete slab above. They hummed as they funnelled glimmering blue energy into a core in the centre of the chamber. Within the glass core, they could see the two halves of the Silver Key, coiled around each other in a double helix that pulsated as if alive.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” murmured a voice that made Maka’s hair stand with rage. Soul’s scythe form shuddered. Astrid flexed her mechanical limbs.

  A leather-clad woman skulked from behind the core. Her neck-length purple hair glistened in the blue light. Her red-cyan eyes radiated triumphant, righteous anger.

  “Shaula Gorgon, I presume?” muttered Astrid as she cocked her four blades.

  “Screw pleasantries,” snarled Maka. Her eyes fixed on the core, and she brought Soul’s blade against it. They struck the glass casing hard, but their blow made no dent.

  “Too bad, sugar,” said Shaula sassily. “Your scythe boy would have better luck penetrating your hoo-hoo than that glass.”

  “Then we’ll just take you out,” bellowed Astrid. She and Maka lunged forward and brought their blades against Shaula’s body. The Witch leaned backward, as if doing the limbo, and artfully dodged the honed edges of Soul’s scythe and the Valkyrie Skirt. She swivelled in mid-air. She parried the butt of Soul’s handle with her elbow and stopped Astrid’s blades with a shield of black light. The magical shield glimmered bright purple as Astrid struck it multiple times.

  With a shrill yawp, Maka brought Soul’s blade around for an uppercut. Shaula darted out of Astrid’s path and blocked Maka’s blow with her shield, causing it to glow brighter. But Maka had more up her sleeve. She brought her head forward, crushing Shaula’s nose with her forehead and bruising her jaw with a clenched fist. She hooked Soul’s blade against Shaula’s midsection, and hurled the Witch against the wall with savage force.

  Shaula slumped on the concrete floor, seemingly beaten. Maka didn’t feel like gloating. Neither did Soul. Their soul wavelengths matched perfectly, and they charged forward as one, Soul’s blade at the ready to cleave the Witch’s head in two. At the last nanosecond, Shaula’s hand appeared between them, her palm sprayed. Her magical shield flashed with bright purple.

  “Tseghai!12” growled the Witch.

  With a high-pitched crash, a bolt of black lightning enthralled Soul and Maka’s bodies. They flew away from Shaula and smashed against the core. With a chuckle, Shaula floated onto her feet.

  “Suck it, bitch!” she bellowed.

  Astrid scrambled to her feet and charged forward with an immense war cry. She slashed and swiped at Shaula, only to glance against her magic shield. The barrier, directed by the Witch’s palm, glowed brighter and brighter as she nonchalantly parried and blocked Astrid’s every attack.

  “Seriously, are Alchemic Warriors this stupid?” she asked over Astrid’s continued shouts and lunges. Astrid came at her with a frontal assault, and the Witch harrumphed, “I guess they are.” She held out her palm.

  Astrid deactivated her Arms Alchemy before impacting Shaula’s charged shield. Her momentum carried her within reach of the Witch, and she grabbed Shaula’s outstretched arm and twisted it behind her back.

  “Stupid is a stupid does, bitch,” she whispered into Shaula’s ear. Then she threw the Witch against the wall.

  The small of Shaula’s back impacted the palm of her hand. The pent-up energy in her shield suddenly unfurled onto her, shooting her across the room and headfirst into the opposite wall. The Witch hit the ground, motionless.

  Astrid pulled some cable-ties out of her pocket and restrained the Witch, and then raced to where Maka and Soul lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. She gently slapped them awake. Maka looked to be concussed, and staggered as she stood. Soul gingerly moved his sore joints, but his head was clear enough to notice Shaula’s motionless form.

  “She won’t be coming to for a while,” said Astrid with a satisfied grin.

  “Let’s kill her now,” grunted Maka.

  “Wait,” said Astrid, eying the core. “I don’t know whether she has some kind of lock on it. We kill her, we could lose the ability to shut this thing down.”

  The trio glanced at the device. They moved around it, studying any distinguishing feature they could see. Maka noticed a tablet computer hooked to the device, and she tapped a widget to bring up the control screen.

  “Looks like they’d accrued enough souls to activate the thing,” said Maka, a bad taste in her mouth considering the people who had died.

  “Why didn’t she do it, then?” asked Soul.

  Maka studied the read outs closer. “It only has enough energy to go back twenty years. If they wanted to do more, like wipe out DWMA or the Regiment, they’d have to go back even further.”

  Soul noted the energy gauge on the screen and said, “They ain’t gettin’ any more souls, it looks. Means we won, right?”

  “Not until we shut this thing down,” said Astrid. She glanced at Shaula, who was still out cold. Then she turned back to Maka and asked, “Is there a shutdown command?” Maka didn’t respond. Astrid called her name, but Maka was fixated on the console.

  “Maka, what is it?” asked Soul nervously.

  “Twenty years,” Maka whispered. “This is good for twenty years of time travel.”

  “Wait, Maka, what are you thinking?” asked Soul. He tried to pull her from the terminal, but Maka shoved him off.

  “I can go and save Mama!” she yelled. “I can go back in time and warn her about the cancer before it gets too bad to treat. And I can go and stop Papa from cheating!”

  “You can’t! Think of the people who died to charge that thing,” retorted Soul. “You think your Mom will like it that she lives because of a mass murder.”

  “I can warn her about Shaula too!” replied Maka. “Hell, I can kill Shaula back in the past before any of this. If it works, none of those people will have died.”

  Soul grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.

  “I can’t let you do this,” he pleaded. “You’d be no different from her. It’s not right.”

 
Maka gritted her teeth. She pushed him away and barked, “I have a chance to fix the wrongs in my life, and I won’t let it slip away!” She lunged for the terminal, only to be lifted out of reach. She turned and saw Astrid’s mechanical limbs, having hooked under her jacket. She struggled futilely in Astrid’s grasp.

  “The dead are dead,” said Astrid, her gaze fixed on Maka’s red-rimmed green eyes. “And no matter how bad you want to change it, you’ll screw up so much more trying.” She hooked her finger under Maka’s chin and forced eye contact. “Believe me, I know what it’s like,” she enunciated.

  By then, Shaula had started to stir. She looked over at the trio and giggled weakly. Though blood drizzled down her head, she found the energy to grin manically.

  “A tempting idea,” she murmured. The trio glanced at her. “I wonder whether man has ever wished to go back to the very beginning, just so he could walk around paradise with a naked woman again.” The three rolled their eyes. Shaula went on, “But the program is in place. Moonface cannot be stopped. Once enough souls are collected, the Ultimate Gate shall open, and you will not even be a memory.”

  As if she’d jinxed her luck, the apparatus started to shudder. At first, they thought the device had activated. Astrid checked the gauge and noticed the reading falling. The whine of the core faltered and started to decline. Shaula’s eyes shifted between the core and the feeding conduits above. Her grin turned to panic, and then to dismay.