by Tom Harem
"Leave me alone! I'm okay. I'm fine. It's just a few wounds." He kept telling me as he writhed and put his hand in the bottom corner of his belly, struggling to get out of the jeep.
"You're still the same fool. What do you think you were doing? You've put everyone at risk and on top of that, you've put yourself at risk."
"Of course, you had to come with the same old crap. Don't worry about me. I'll take care of this. I didn't need anyone's help to drill the beast, did I?"
"And what did you get out of it? The beast is out of control. We can't predict how it will act and we can't stay here. I doubt we have done enough to stop it, not even setting aside the lasers that can slice us at any time. We were lucky earlier, we may not be next time."
"Don't think we're going to work together." Keno told me, "I'll handle this all by myself. Why don’t you just leave like dad did?"
For the first time, I freaked out. I gave him a slap that made his face turn and led him to put his hand on the right side of his face looking at me as if he wanted to retribute.
"Stop being a child. We don't have time for that. We have to work together. It's our city and our mother on the line. Do you really want to risk that on the tiniest possibility of being the hero?"
"Okay, then. Just this time." He said to me, "Just because the teachers are always saying that I have to learn to be a team player. I don't know why. They're all worse than me, and only slow me down."
"You really don't resemble Mom or Dad at all." I said, "Vic, do you have a plan?"
"Maybe. The most important thing now is to stop the lasers. I doubt that freezing them will work. Maybe chop them off?"
"Yeah, cutting them off sounds like a good idea. Keno, why didn't you just cut them off?"
"I didn't remember, okay? I was too distracted trying not to get thrown overboard."
"Okay, well... How do we get him up there?" I asked and looked at the three girls, as beautiful as ever, even covered by a thin gray layer and some bloody scrapes.
There was something strange about Elisa. She was looking at the blood on the jeep seats, but she was doing it as if she had never seen that dark red goo. She had one hand on the open door and the other on the jeep's hood. I didn't think she had heard my heated argument with my brother. I didn't think she was aware of anything but the blood flowing into the back seats. By the time I got close to her, the rest of them had already noticed her spirit absence.
"Elisa, are you okay?" I asked her but I didn't get an answer.
The beast was recovering. It had two perforated legs, an unfolded back, and yet it was working. Maybe he had a survival mechanism, a backup generator, something that kept him afloat. Standing there, looking at it, I wondered if we had done the right thing by accepting the mission that a rank A group might have chosen.
I laid my hand on her shoulder and as soon as I did, she snuck out through the open space between the door and my body and twisted my arm.
"What are you doing, Elisa? It's me!" I yelled at her until she woke up.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I don't know what the fuck got into me. It was like I was back to the day I hurt that Hunter we saw." She said, "I heard everything. You want to put your brother near the lasers, right? I can do it."
"How?" Vic asked her, looking at me. Her eyes screamed, "What's going on?"
"Fewer questions, more action. Keno, that's your name, right?" She asked my brother, who replied with a brief nod, "Get ready. The rest of you, back off."
I wanted to ask her if everything was okay except, she didn't look like her. I didn't know how to explain it, but I had a strange and itchy feeling in my body that urged me to be careful. We all walked away except for Keno, who was only two steps behind her.
"Elisa's acting weird." Maggie said, "She's like I was that time I lost control."
"You think so? She seems to be just a little shaken up after seeing the other Hunter." Vic said, "What do you think, James?"
"I have no idea, but I don't think everything's okay either."
"Now what?" Maggie asked.
"Let's see what she does." I replied, "Elisa, you better hurry" I added as I watched the beast crawl across the floor using the force of two left feet.
"After this, I won't have any energy left." She answered me and stretched her arm keeping her palm up.
Unlike the previous times what came out of her hand were not ice particles but thick, malleable blocks that molded themselves until they shaped and merged with one another. First, a head arose with sharp and protruding jaws that were beyond the usual, and only then did the body assumed a shape, expanding for a few meters until part of the ice lost thickness and developed into two crystal wings. He had two square squeezed eyes, no tail, and definitely didn't blow fire. The air around us froze as soon as the ice stopped writhing. The dragon fluttered its wings and cold windy blasts blew down the street.
"What's this?" Maggie asked, pulling away.
"This is the glove's potential. Did you really believe it wouldn't do any more than just that?" Elisa answered her and released an evil laugh, "in time you'll learn to control and create whatever you want. Unfortunately, it wastes all the energy you have in your body. It depends on what you create." She added and snapped her fingers.
“Why didn’t you do that against the you-know-who?” Maggie asked her.
“I couldn’t even stop him or freeze him. It wouldn’t really make a difference. But now, it might just work.” She replied.
The ice dragon hovered over the ground and waited for Keno to climb onto his back.
"You don't have to be afraid. He's not going to break." Elisa told him and sat on the floor, "Damn, I can't even feel my hand." She said, pulling the glove out and putting it on the floor.
"I wasn't afraid. That's weak. I just don't know who you are and if I can trust you." He answered her before he mounted the dragon.
The dragon took off. The dust rose and generated tiny waves of dirt ahead of us. He dodged the lasers easily. He was agile and stealthy even though he looked like he could shatter if someone pressed two fingers on each side firmly. He landed on the beast's back, nailing his three sharp ice fingers paws into the metal, and waited for Keno to jump out before taking off once more.
We didn't move. We watched the whole situation; the beast dragging on like a slug, my brother bending his legs, taking one step at a time, moving closer to the lasers.
My phone started to buzz. I ignored it.
"Do you think he'll make it?" Vic asked me.
"Yes. As stubborn as he is, he's as good as I am." I answered her.
My brother reached the beast's head, pulled out his sharp knuckles and started with the right-side laser. He used his handguns like an ax, scraping the steel, slicing them off slowly.
As he did so, the ice dragon burst across the air, cooling the temperature, sometimes landing and pulling out parts of the beast.
"How come you've never shown us this before?" Maggie asked her.
"It was never necessary. As I said, it takes all my energy. A dragon is hard to create." Elisa said, "There's something else. Something I didn't tell you about that day."
"What else are you hiding from us?!" Maggie asked her, "No more secrets!" She screamed.
"Damn, okay. I didn't spread explosives around the place. I used ice birds to do it. I never felt comfortable doing them again. But... now... It was different. I felt it was a way of making up for what I did before." She added.
I sighed before I answered her, "You should have told us about this! At least about the glove's potential. We could've started training all that potential by now! Saving more people, killing more beasts. Fuck, Elisa, we're a team. When are you going to act like you want to be here?"
"And I do! I'm here, for all of you! I, uh... I like you!" She finally got it off her chest, "this is... pretend I didn't say anything. Look, your brother ripped out the first laser." Elisa said, and pointed at him.
"This conversation isn’t over,” I told her before I looked at the
beast again. One of the lasers was mid-air and my brother was running to the other side. The metallic structure landed on the ground and cratered there in front of one of the beast's legs. Not even seconds later the beast stepped on it and smashed it to pieces until there was nothing left.
My heart was pounding loudly fearing that my brother would fall. Not that I'd ever tell him how much I cared about him but didn't need to either. We both knew that. Instead, we showed it by competing against each other in our own way, by being each other's biggest rival. It had always been that way. The sweat dripped down and glued the clothes to my body and to the blood spilling from my elbows and knees. My brother must have been suffering the same agony as me, but he also avoided showing it. It was severe pain as if lots of needles stung us at the same time. The sound of the metal scraping on the lasers sounded muffled throughout the broken street; the piled-up debris of the destroyed buildings and the heavy and cloudy air that buzzed in our ears. It took a few minutes for the structure to collapse and have the same fate as the other. It, too, was stepped on until there was only dust left.
"Now what?" Maggie asked, "We don't have to worry about lasers anymore, but the beast is still huge."
"You're going to burn it from the inside." Elisa said, "We could have done this straight away, but this is better. Use your glove. Raise firebirds and send them to the gap in the beast's back."
"Why didn't you send me instead of him?" Maggie asked, eyes half open and the jaw clamped.
"Didn't you hear me?" Elisa asked, "So you have to try. You don't have to worry about getting hit by lasers."
"Did you just say that you like us, that you're here, and now you're operating without even consulting us?" Maggie counter-attacked, orange sparks jumping out of the glove.
"Control your anger, Maggie. Focus. Think of the shape you want your fire to have. Let the energy flow through your body." Elisa insisted, "Your glove is even more powerful than mine. The possibilities are endless."
Maggie's hand trembled as a fireball grew, the flames whipping the air and the sparks adorning the floor with bright red. She closed her eyes and the flames began to develop in different ways; first a square, then two arrows and finally it became a fireball again. Sweat ran down her forehead and cheeks.
"Focus." Elisa repeated, "You can do it."
"I'm trying!" Maggie yelled at her and the ball swelled up.
"She's going to lose control again!" Vic said, "We have to stop her."
"No! She can do it. She just needs to focus." Elisa answered and looked at me like she was asking for permission.
"She... Maggie can do it. I believe her." I said, "Take a deep breath. Focus on what you want. Think about what's at stake, the people you can save."
She closed her eyes hard enough for the corners of her eyebrows to bend. The fireball floated over the ground until it hovered meters away from us. Gradually, a beak was formed, and red threads began to expand backward. But within a few seconds, the shape was gone. Maggie started coughing and apologized.
"I can't. I'm sorry" she said, bending her head, as my brother wandered along the beast's back until he found a place to jump overboard.
This time he walked slowly, pausing to look back, with his head curved and covered by the hood.
"Maggie, look at me." Elisa said to him, "Think about how much you can get back at your father if you get this. Let that feeling flow through your body. Don't hold it back."
Maggie closed her hand, clenched her fist and as soon as she opened it, a flame chain spun around her. It worked like a lash, elasticizing in front of Maggie, squirming until it had the shape of a flaming bird. But it didn't stop there. A second bird emerged from the flames that jut out of the original. Both hovered in the air, starlit red wings and with the rest of the body light red except for the orange beak.
"You're doing it. Focus. Imagine the birds flying to the back of the beast." Elisa told her, her eyes glowing as she saw the birds blazing the air as they flew up.
Keno was only a few steps away from returning to us. The symbol of the academy was covered by a faint dust layer. Of the golden-tailed eagle, only the yellow lines and part of the black eye remained. The trousers had ripped wherein the blood flowed, both on the outside and on the inside, until red threads ran down the trousers and colored them with a wine shade.
"It seemed to me that you had risen from ranks very quickly. Now I know why" Keno told me, "they do all the work for you, don't they?"
"Make sure you mind your own business. Don't forget you're still at the academy. How the hell did you get out of there without being caught?"
"They haven't figured out the secret exit yet. I'll be back in a few hours and tell them I was in a bad mood. No problem." He said, as the birds went over the beast's head and began to descend diagonally, "I've never seen anything like it. I didn't even know it was possible. If I had known, I would have chosen to wear a glove."
"You're too unstable for that. You don't know what can happen if you're not careful." I told him, remembering what happened to Maggie.
"I can control myself. I've been taking anger management lessons, okay?" Keno told me. He slid his fingers across his face until he wiped the whole area around his eyes, "So is this going to work or not?"
"I'm trying," Maggie said, her hand and knees trembling, her eyes still closed, puffing between her half-open lips.
I got near her and held her other hand. She opened her eyes and kept her gaze on mine and, for a moment, I could swear that there was a flame behind her green eyes.
A row of explosions traveled along the beast's back. It all imploded from the inside outward, the flames consuming it until mountains of fire arose before us and folded the metal until the grey was scorched. The beast didn't take another step. She fell flat on the ground and merged with him. The peaks in the tar metastasized as the liquid steel spread down the street. From the beast's body remained little more than the legs and the head.
"Did this really work?" Vic asked, surprised, just like the rest of us.
"Apparently." I said, "I knew you could do it, Maggie." I said and kissed her cheek.
"You're getting emotional," my brother said and laughed.
"Liking someone isn't a weakness, you know?" I told him and looked at the three girls in front of me, "they help me be better and, as you can see, they're stronger than most Hunters."
"They're tough as hell. On the other hand, you... I never understood why the hell you picked that gun."
"It was the same gun our father used. I grew up watching him use it. You know he was one of the best Hunters of his time, right?"
"He was... then he went crazy."
"Keno! You don't know anything."
"Is that a lie?"
"Maybe more than you can possibly think of. Not that it matters now." I answered him. I took a deep breath before continuing, "Vic, collect the experience points and call a pickup truck. Elisa makes sure Maggie's okay. Keno, go back to the academy."
"I want to visit Mom first. Then I'll go. I doubt they'll miss me. I locked the door. Anything I say I didn't want to be disturbed." He answered and slid his hand through his curly hair. The thick strands of hair moved backward and within seconds had returned to the same place.
"I've already called a Pickup and collected the points," Vic said. The Hunter APP rocked as soon as it collected them.
"Congratulations! You have defeated a level 7 monster. 175 experience points have been given to each, as well as 300 hunter points. Do you want to continue as a team?"
"She's fine." Elisa said, "A little tired but I pointed out that it was normal."
"Yes...yes...tired" Maggie replied, panting, with her back leaning forward and her hands on her knees, "I did it! What matters... It's just that I did it, right? One day I'll make dragons."
"Don't push it. We have time for that." I said, "You better get some rest now."
I walked a few feet away from them and pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. I had four missed calls from my mom
. I called her and we talked for a few minutes. She told me that she saw the beast burning and I made a summary of what had happened avoiding telling her how willing Keno was to take the risk. It was the last thing she needed, and, in the end, she would still be mad at me for letting him commit such madness. I agreed with her that we would stop by the house and have a snack before returning to the Hunters' building.
I went back to the group. We were all tired, bleeding and with feeble knees, still trembling after all.
"Somebody's going to have to wash the car." I said, "But for now, let's hurry up. My mother... Our, she's waiting for us. Don't tell her what you did. You know how she gets if she knows."
"I never thought of telling her." Keno told me, "Go ahead. I'll be right there."
"Where are you going now?" I asked him, "I hope you're not going to get into any more trouble."
"There's someone I need to talk to before I go back to the academy." He told me and turned his back on us.
"By the way, how did you get here?"
"I brought one of the academy bikes."
"You mean... One of the motorcycles that only teachers are allowed to use outside of class?"
"I don't think you're the best person to talk about it. Aren't you the one who ran off with one for a whole weekend? Do you really think they wouldn't tell me that story?" Keno said, still on his back.
"He's got you now. And if I remember correctly, you stole the bike for a more selfish reason than he did." Vic interceded.
"It was a good weekend at least." I said, "I miss those days."
"Well, have fun remembering old times. I'm going to get going. Tell Mom I'll show up." Keno said and vanished in the opposite side of the beast.
There was no sign of the children or any of the adults anymore.
Chapter XIII
We got in the jeep. This time Elisa sat next to Maggie and Vic by my side. We were forced to use the white napkins, where the men of the former city had wrapped the fruit, to clean what we could from the blood that had seeped through the seats to the ground and to the back of the jeep.