by Tim Marquitz
An explosion at his back made Jax hunker down. Once he was sure nothing was coming his way, he spun around on his knees to see a smoldering crater on the far side of the courtyard. Four of his men were littered around it, torn to pieces.
He glanced up at the wall where they’d been positioned to see a chunk of the battlement missing. Two more of his men stood there with eyes wide, staring down at their fallen companions.
“Fight now, mourn later,” he shouted into the radio, spurring them back to their duty. “Now’s not the time.”
He hated being the asshole, but if they let more of the bugs get past them, soon, they’d all be dead, and there’d be no one left to mourn any of them.
The men turned around and reengaged the swarming bugs, taking down another one, and Jax muttered his approval across the comm.
“How’s that project coming?” he asked, directing the question to Conor, choosing to be vague in case the warks had tapped into their channel.
“‘Bout halfway, but your mutt is getting tired,” Conor came back. “He’s belching smoke and slowing down.”
“He’ll make it,” Jax assured, putting way more confidence into his voice than he felt.
It’d better.
Bugs still strafing, gunfire roaring all around him, Jax turned his attention to the warmancer. The old man still grinned, though, unless Jax was imagining it, a bit of the sheen had worn off it. He focused in on the warmancer, knowing damn well Grainge was doing the same to him.
So, he flipped the warmancer off, chuckling at the snarl that washed across Grainge’s face and the stiffening of his posture.
“You never much did like defiance of your superiority, did you, asshole?” he aimed at Grainge, again knowing the man couldn’t hear him.
Then he smiled, realizing he could fix that.
“Give me your radio,” he told Riley.
His man shrugged and passed it over without question. Jax closed his eyes and examined the radio as it pulsed in his hand. All the mechanics were already in place for what he wanted to do. He only needed a power source to amplify it.
Fortunately, his power would work just fine.
The radio shifted, changing shape and extending, Jax using pieces of the battlement to modify the radio and turn it into what was, effectively, a loudspeaker.
He raised it to his mouth and shouted, “Hey, Grainge! Been a long time since I cracked that jaw of yours. You looking to get knocked out again?” His voice echoed across the plain.
“Sure, let’s rile up the guy holding all the firepower,” Riley muttered, shaking his head. “We ain’t got enough problems, boss?”
“What? Like he’s gonna kill us any more painfully because I talked shit to him?” Jax laughed. “Keep an eye on those damn bugs, and let me deal with the warmancer.”
Riley gave a flaccid thumbs-up and turned back to the skies.
“I should have known it was you raiding our compounds, Jackson,” Grainge called out over the distance, his voice magnified. “It was sloppy and foolish, much like your service to Warkold was. All it took was to throw out a whiff of bait to draw you in to your death. Now, I’ll get the chance to do what I should have done rather than exile you and end your pathetic existence.”
Jax shrugged. “We’re not dead yet, and given that we’ve shut down your suits, your rogs, and are now stifling your little bugs, I bet you’re starting to question your decisions here, not to mention your competence.” He gestured toward the wark commanders clustered around him. “I know they are.”
Grainge spun about, glaring at his officers and waving them to action before snapping his head back to glare at Jax. The swarming drones peeled off, swinging back toward the wark forces.
“Gotcha, you arrogant bastard,” Jax said.
“Oh, yeah,” Riley sighed. “You got him all right. He’s only sending his entire army in to crush us now instead of the bugs. Excellent tactics, boss.”
Jax stared out across the plain as the wark army advanced, the assault vehicles racing forward to take the lead. A grim satisfaction filled him at the sight.
He tossed Riley’s morphed radio to the side and snatched his own off his belt. “Where we at, Conor?”
“Getting there,” Conor replied. “Your pet’s dying on us, but he’s going to make it, looks like. Barely.”
Jax sighed, grateful to hear it. “I’m sending the others to join you, so don’t shoot them when you hear rooting behind you.”
“That sounds an awful lot like you’re not coming with them,” Conor commented. “Got something better to do?”
“Better is subjective,” Jax clarified. “Just keep following the dog until he reaches his target, then give him some space. He’ll reverse and start backfilling once he’s down the way a bit.”
“What’s the plan after that?”
“You wait until the time is right, then you start running and don’t stop until you’re deep in the Barrens.”
“Not to be selfish, but I’m not in the mood to get shot today. There’s an army of warks waiting on us still,” Conor said. “How are we going to know when to break out and go?”
“Not for much longer,” Jax told him, chuckling. “And don’t worry, you’ll know.”
Conor sighed across the comm. “Could you be anymore vague?”
“Probably. Just worry about getting the men home safe. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Whatever you say, Jax. Guess I’ll see you on the other side,” Conor told him, the radio going silent.
Jax turned to Riley and the men on the wall. They all stared at him with narrowed, uncertain eyes.
“Rally everyone and go join Conor and the others,” Jax ordered. When Riley didn’t immediately react, Jax shook his head and motioned to the stairwell. “Better hurry before the mutt reaches the end of its programming and starts filling that hole. He hasn’t got enough sense to wait for you.”
“He’s not the only one lacking sense,” Riley grunted. He stuck his hand out, and Jax took it, giving it a firm shake.
“Oh, and don’t shoot Brand…unless you absolutely have to,” Jax added with a laugh.
“I make no promises,” Riley replied as Jax pulled his hand away. “Whatever you’re up to, boss, be smart about it.”
Jax only nodded, and though Riley paused, unwilling to leave, he gave in after a long moment and chased after the other soldiers who’d already rushed down the stairs. Even if he had no idea what Jax was planning, Riley knew damn well he wouldn’t be changing his mind. So, he didn’t try.
Outside, the army closed on the outpost, the armored vehicles racing ahead of the foot soldiers in order to take up tactical positions in preparation for the coming assault.
“Fucking idiots.” Once a member of the Warkold military, Jax could only shake his head at their rigid need to follow protocol.
Though they’d surprised him with their arrival, breaking norms to set the trap, they’d slipped back on-script ever since they’d formed up. Whatever spark of imagination they’d tapped into to sneak up on Jax and his men, they’d since left it behind.
That’d always been Grainge’s problem with Jax. He never did things the way the warmancer wanted him to. He colored outside of the lines more often than not, but that wasn’t something Grainge tolerated. Everything was by the book, rigid adherence to tradition and ritual. A soldier followed orders, simple as that. Do as you’re told, nothing more.
But that wasn’t Jax; not when he’d been ordered to murder children, and certainly not now.
Committed to his course, Jax checked that his pistol was in its holster still, and went down the stairwell and across the courtyard. He made his way to the front gate of the outpost, constructed of two massive, reinforced steel doors, and examined them. He used his powers to unlock and ease the doors open, manipulating their hydraulics, all while reaching out to make sure his men had done what he told them.
He followed the subtle flicker of their gear, sensing it ping back from beneath the earth, glad
they’d chosen to heed his orders and not try and be heroes.
“Only room for one.” He grinned wryly at his hypocrisy, neither Conor or Riley there to comment on it.
And with no more reason to delay, Jax stepped into the entryway and made his presence known. The wark vehicles came about, turrets whirring into place and taking aim.
Jax drew in a deep breath and let it out with a barking laugh.
If the warks in their weaponized vehicles thought him crazy, he didn’t know, but he had no doubt they would in a moment.
He reached out and grabbed the tangled mass of steel and armored suits and sent it careening toward the warks, using the slight decline of the terrain to his advantage. It bounced across the plain, building momentum. It rolled at an angle to block the enemy’s line of sight, if only for a few scant seconds.
It would be enough.
The wadded mess of wall and mushed corpses crashed into the first row of wark vehicles, crushing the first of them and driving it into the one beside it before rolling over both and seeking out the next.
Gunfire exploded, desperate to tear down the author of their current drama, but the trundling debris slowed their reactions, blocked their shots.
Jax ripped the massive outpost doors from their hinges and drew them together in front of him. He hissed at their weight, his powers holding them aloft by sheer force of will, but he needn’t do it long.
He barreled forward, doors wedged together and held in place like the shield of a mythological giant striding over the earth. Rounds clattered off the doors as he raced across the plain, right to where the wark soldiers had conveniently parked their vehicles not more than a dozen yards outside of the outpost.
Jax felt the crumpled ball of steel and flesh taking fire from the heavier weapons of the wark army, and he released it to find its fate.
Not more than a moment later, he was among the clustered wreckage left behind by it, broken and toppled vehicles to the left and right of him. He slammed his guardian doors down into the earth before him, propping them up with dirt and determination to buy him a few more moments of time.
Jax felt the flittering wisps of the warmancer’s senses washing over him, but Grainge didn’t engage. “Fucker has no idea,” Jax laughed, bringing his power to bear, eyes narrowed so he could concentrate yet ensure none of the warks snuck up on him.
His power spilled from him, latching onto the broken and flailing vehicles all around him. He seized control of them, peeling them apart and pulling their component pieces to him. Wark soldiers spilled from within, dumped on their asses in the dirt, stunned and terrified. They scrambled to retreat as Jax drew more and more of their equipment to him.
Gunfire continued to resound all around, but bunched up as tight as they were, the other armored vehicle operators were hesitant to unleash their bigger weapons for fear of hitting their fellow soldiers. And by the time their commanders issued the orders to do exactly that, it was too late.
All around Jax, the seeds of his insanity were planted.
The altered steel frames of the vehicles wrapped about him, cocooning him inside as more and more of his subverted goods flew to him, reinforcing the structure and expanding it.
He heard men screaming and shouting, the constant rattle of weapons fire clanging against his armored hull and his shield, but none of it came close to impacting him.
Jax roared as his plan came together. His senses registered each and every piece of gear that joined with him, merging to become a part of the larger whole, something greater.
As the last of the pieces took their place, Jax rose up inside, and the beast rose with him.
All jagged edges and sharp lines, what Jax had drawn together could only be considered an abomination, a basilisk of monstrous proportion.
Its head was four sharpened triangles woven to jut out in the four compass directions, a smaller point angled upward. Crafted from the hulls of the armored vehicles, its torso stretched fifteen feet high, yet nearly twice that in width. Three turrets dotted the front of the mechanical beast, two more at its back, barrels pointed straight outward.
Its legs were stumps, a number of the vehicles melded together and turned into a wide base with six sets of treads, all mobile, allowing Jax’s construction to wheel about and charge in any direction with a thought.
Its arms were the only thing that registered as rational about the creation. Much like human limbs, they were articulated at the joints, though they extended farther than any man’s might. Hands with two fingers and a thumb sprouted at the ends of the arms, able to grasp and clutch.
And Jax fully intended to do just that.
The gunfire slowed, the wark army awed by his transformation, Jax turned his power on the doors he’d dropped moments before. They split in half, and Jax stomped over to them. Bubbles of steel welled on the door on the left, and he pressed his forearm against it, welding the door to his limb and shaping into a proper shield.
The second slab of steel narrowed and thinned, folding in on itself over and over and over until it formed a rudimentary sword, its blade forged in a way that offered tribute to the great sword makers who’d come long before the world ended and made way for warks and their kind.
A wash of energy flowed over him then, the warmancer reaching out to seize control, but Jax held the figurative higher ground. In direct contact with the mechanoid he’d surrounded himself with, Grainge could try all he liked, but he’d never pry control from Jax. The beast was as much a part of him now as his own flesh and blood.
Only death would separate the two.
“Speaking of death…”
Shield up, sword at the ready, Jax willed his creation forward. The treads dug deep, and he shot forward. He caught up to the retreating warks soon after.
Their screams rang out for only seconds before the great beast rolled over them, grinding them into the earth and leaving spattered trails behind.
Cognizant of his goal, Jax angled his creation toward the westernmost side of the wark lines, racing toward them at a breakneck pace, fearless ensconced inside the armored hulk.
The soldiers scattered before him, but their flight wasn’t enough. He had to be sure they were broken before the warmancer could find some way to exert his power over Jax.
He swept his shield arm out, crashing into the fleeing men, smashing skulls and bones, and flinging their crippled, broken bodies aside. His sword slashed back and forth, the basic motions hardly graceful, but it made up for it in sheer brutality.
With nothing to hide behind or blunt the impact of the great blade, the warks were cleaved through with every blow. Crimson fonts exploded all around, the sky turning a hazy red as blood rained down upon the shrieking soldiers as he ran them down and butchered them.
Within moments, the entire left flank of the wark army had collapsed, either routed or destroyed, left to rot on the field.
It was only then that Jax realized he had lost track of Grainge.
The warmancer announced himself with a bone-shattering blow to the back of Jax’s creation.
He roared as pain filtered through to his senses, setting fire to his nerves. His monstrosity stumbled forward, the treads catching it and keeping it from toppling over in Jax’s loss of concentration, but only barely.
“You think me simple, Jackson, but look at me now!” the warmancer shouted.
Jax gathered himself and settled his senses, picking out the warmancer poised behind him. His stomach dropped, and he felt sick.
“Fuck!” was all he could say.
Grainge had surprised him, after all.
Standing there, like nothing Jax had seen before, was the warmancer. As had Jax, he stripped his army of everything he needed to create his own monstrosity, yet, it was nothing like Jax’s.
Where Jax’s inherent humanity had reigned, separating flesh from steel as he’d crafted his creation, the warmancer had no such compunctions.
The beast he’d created flowed with the corpses of wark soldiers.
A massive, circular frame made up the majority of the mechanoid, and Grainge stared out from behind a great, singular eye that sat the center of it. All along its length, like cancerous skin growths, jutted limbs, torsos, heads, and various viscera Jax couldn’t identify, twisted as it was.
So fresh was the warmancer’s creation that many of the men had yet to die, eyes wide and mouths gaped to scream, yet no sound issued forth. Blood ran along the frame of the construct, mixing with other unidentifiable fluids that colored it all a rusty brown.
Jax gasped, unable to draw breath as he took in the horror.
Grainge just laughed and charged, the six gangly arms he’s attached to his creation flailing, a whirlwind of steel pummeling Jax. He was struck blow after blow and driven back, each impact driving a jagged spike of agony through his skull as he fought to keep his construction whole.
He lashed out with the shield, but two arms clasped its edge and ripped it from his arm, casting it aside, along with his monstrosity’s hand. Jax stumbled, but he knew he needed to buy his men time if there was any hope for them to escape and survive.
A downward slash of his sword cleaved through one of Grainge’s arms and sent it flying, and Jax felt a rush of hope hitching a ride on adrenaline.
The feeling died a moment later when four arms seized his own and yanked his creation off balance, slamming it onto its back.
The world rattled around him, every bone creaking inside him at the impact. His head spun, eyes unable to focus. That’s when the warmancer peeled his sword from Jax’s grasping, surrogate hand and held it in triumph above his head.
Grainge laughed, the voice echoing through his monstrosity, amplified and unsettling. “Perhaps I learned something from your insolence, after all,” he gloated. “You’ve shown me a potential I’d never imagined, and I thank you for that, though I’m certain it wasn’t what you intended. Still, this confrontation ends the only way it ever could,” he said, spinning the sword around so that the point was angled toward Jax’s creation. “Farewell, Jackson. The end has come for you.”