by Jamie Hawke
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Shimmer stood behind them, looking equally perplexed. Twitch was standing to her right, frowning. Could this be a bad thing?
“I—I don’t understand,” Charm stammered.
Hadrian stepped forward. “It’s time.”
Charm was still looking at him, bewildered, but then her eyes changed to blue. She blinked, then gasped, sucking in a deep breath as if she’d just emerged from nearly drowning.
She looked at Laurel, her hand going to her mouth in a similar way, then threw her arms around the woman. Standing there like that, her eyes rose to meet mine, and she pulled back, looking around at all of us.
“Holy hell.” She stumbled away until her back hit the wall. “All this time…”
“What?” I asked.
She shook her head. “It’s a… a long story.”
Laurel stepped over, taking her hand. “You were so brave.”
“Brave?” Shimmer asked. “I mean, she is, but I’m as confused as Breaker.”
“I was never meant to go to prison,” Charm said, voice shaky. “I volunteered… to intercept attempts by the enemy to get to the likes of Metallica and others who were on that ship. To essentially do… what we did.”
“You succeeded,” Hadrian said. “It was a long shot, but you did it.”
“With some help.” Charm gestured my way. “I mean, I still can’t believe it, but… all that time, I was waiting, basically bait?”
“Not bait, because they didn’t know you were there of your own free will. More like an undercover agent waiting to make the call, to act when the time came.”
“She gave up her life… for this?” Gale asked, as they all looked at Charm with mixed awe and confusion.
“It wasn’t like that,” Charm said.
“It was exactly like that,” Laurel chimed in. “She helped save the school by going against her sister, then sacrificed her freedom to get to this point.”
Charm looked woozy, so I stepped over and put an arm around her for support. She clung to me, as if letting go would mean floating off into a bubble of confusion.
“But…” I shook my head, not understanding. “Supralines, the stories you told us…?”
“Half-truths, some full,” Charm said. “Mostly because I didn’t have the full truth in my head anyway.”
“And the full truth was?” Twitch asked, for some reason looking more annoyed than the rest of us.
“It’s a long story,” Charm replied.
“One she can tell you on your way to Earth, since that’s the mission you’ve chosen,” Hadrian interjected. He nodded to my brother. “But first, Drew will take you out to see the enemy, so you know what you’re dealing with.”
As if on cue, Drew entered. He turned to me and smiled. “Brothers, on a mission together at last.”
I nodded, still distracted by the whole Threed situation and also slightly curious about Charm and Laurel, but then said, “Lead the way,” expecting to go out to another ship or something.
“This is it,” he replied, and Hadrian stepped aside as my mother did her thing and metal warped out of the floor. As it did so, the metal opened up and another of those golden pyramids appeared. “We have three of the Per-Neters, but the enemy still has the other three. When this is over, we hope to have remedied that. The Shadow Mystic will be a huge help, if you can find her.”
“And if not?” I asked.
He frowned. “It’ll be… more costly.”
Lives, he meant, communicating the message that we simply couldn’t fail. That thought really scared me.
I nodded, showing I was ready, but Drew grinned and turned to the door. “My team’s here. We’re ready.”
A glance back showed some of the ladies I’d met when I last encountered him, although there were also some others I didn’t recognize. The woman with blue glowing eyes was Navani, if I remembered correctly, and the one who looked like an angel was Sacrada. There was one that looked like a demon, but unlike Erupa, her horns were short and her skin looked normal aside from some glowing tattoos. Speaking of tattoos… Now that I was able to actually get a good view of Threed, she had a very interesting look about her. Her outfit showed off her full legs and arms, pink tattoos exposed on her shoulders and upper thighs. I’d noticed the pink hair earlier, but now saw that it was shaved on the sides, with the part on top hanging over. She looked a bit… different, especially with her blue and red mismatched eyes. She couldn’t meet my gaze, and I didn’t blame her.
Accompanying them was Lamb and a woman with cat ears and a cat tail. At first, I looked from her to Charm, wondering if there was a connection there, but Charm’s confusion showed otherwise.
“Don’t worry,” Drew said. “We’ll have time for everyone to get acquainted.”
“I’m going with them,” Laurel told Hadrian. He nodded, not arguing.
I wasn’t sure what this meant for us, as it still wasn’t clear what the nature of her relationship had been with Charm, but it was very clear that everything was getting very complicated, very fast.
Seeing we were ready, Hadrian motioned us to the floating pyramid, or Per-Neter, as my brother called it. He went to the doorway with my parents, the ladies moving aside to give them space. Apparently, they already knew of the legends of these three Tier One supers and showed them proper deference. A strange concept, considering two of the three were my parents.
“Stay alert.” My mother offered me a supportive smile as she and my father left.
The pyramid was glowing brighter. I held up my hands. “Hold up. Am I the only one totally losing my shit with all of this?”
Twitch laughed. “Good, I was starting to wonder if it was just me.”
“We were there.” Drew glanced at the light nervously. “Trust me, it’s a steep learning curve but we’re on a rapid trajectory. You’ll have it all figured out in no time.”
“You all know each other?” Laurel asked. “I mean, of course the brothers, but the rest…?”
“Some of us met briefly.” Twitch nodded in respect to Navani.
“Great. And… everyone here thought Charm was a supervillain until a few minutes ago?”
I chuckled nervously. “We… Well, it never truly fit.”
“Thanks,” Charm said, then turned to Drew. She jumped when she saw his team. “Oh, shit. Sorry—I’m… I’m just a bit overwhelmed, didn’t see you all come in.” She gave a couple of them hugs, then clapped my brother on the shoulder. I’d almost forgotten that she’d shared a little adventure with them.
“Everything’s okay?” Drew asked.
She nodded. “Well enough, considering I just remembered having my memories altered and sacrificing five years of my life to this fucking war. What’ya say we finish it and move on?”
Drew laughed. “Finally, a plan I can say I wholeheartedly agree with. And since we’re out of time anyway, prepare yourselves.”
“What do you mea—” I started, but the light from the Per-Neter shot out, engulfing the room. Like our experience getting here, we were transported to suddenly appear on what looked like a ship, with all of us standing exactly as we had been, but now with one shocked Nihilist staring directly at me from the back of the room.
4
The Nihilist let out a yelp and turned to run, but before it could go anywhere Drew ran past me, grinning. “You know how this part goes, no?”
I grinned, watching my brother charge into action. Yeah, we’d been through a bit of this at the fortress where we’d been reunited with Charm after the Nihilists had stolen her. Seeing him like this put a new feeling into me, one I wasn’t used to—competition.
“Let’s not let him have all the fun,” I told Gale, who was standing beside me. As I moved, I assigned my skill points and amped up my paladin badassery. First, I activated my new paladin armor. And yes, it was every bit as badass as I thought it might be. This was one of the paladin transformations I’d gone through with my last upgrades and Twitch’s recod
ing of my skills. Plus, the adapted version from having slept with Andromida.
As soon as I activated it, my armor bulked out in what felt like a sort of mech-exoskeleton but looked more like a gleaming suit of white and gold paladin armor. I shot out Heavenly Blasts as I charged up next to my brother, and he laughed.
“Still a fucking nerd, huh?”
“Always,” I replied. He had no idea how much of a nerd I was.
One of my blasts caught the Nihilist from behind, knocking it to the ground. Drew leaped, coming down hard with a punch that splattered the Nihilist’s brain.
“Here, they’re just like us,” he said.
“Even though they’re in our galaxy on another plane of sorts?”
He nodded. “Yes, because the Per-Neter allowed us to access the same plane.”
“So, they’re fucked.”
He stood, motioning me on as our team caught up and prepared for more. “Not exactly, because in groups they’re still pretty badass, and we’re not only facing their kind here.” He signaled us to move quietly as we advanced up the next hall. “If you’d seen what I’ve seen out there, you’d know. They’ve got some nasty monstrosities on their side, I can tell you that.”
The hall was dark, the walls etched with patterns that glowed in spots, clearly not anything like the ships from back home or those of the Citadel. I had to wonder if it was all related to the supra tech we’d become familiar with.
Before I could ask, however, the hallway gave out to a descending ramp where, in the middle of three pillars, a group of tall, mechanical-looking men turned to face us. They were basically cyborgs, but with blue and green skin in the areas not replaced with metal.
“Shit.”
“They’re cannon fodder,” Drew explained, stepping aside for Sakurai, the one with the demon horns and glowing face tattoos, to take the lead here. “We call them the Refurbished.”
“Because they’re made from corpses,” Threed added with a cackle as she darted forward to join the fight. “Watch this!”
Sakurai had drawn a sword, slicing it around and creating a dragon of light that almost acted like a whip and seemed to have a slight amount of its own will, tearing through bodies like a laser blast.
Meanwhile, Threed was on one, hitting it with green blasts from her fists, but then rolled off and pointed. “See? Poison doesn’t do shit. Because they’re basically dead. Fucking refurbished.”
“Fucking nasty,” Gale said, and then blasted the now-green glowing one next to Threed with an ice spear. The ice slammed into its head, smashing it into the pillar behind and creating sparks that made the ship shake.
“Oh, and don’t hit those,” Navani added. “Power source.”
“Now she tells me.” Gale shrugged.
“Let’s clear the room,” said Sacrada, the one with folded-up wings and an angelic look about her. The way her eyes glowed gold as she activated her powers kind of freaked me out, reminding me a bit too much of Ranger and Muerta. I remembered learning that many supers took on similar powers to each other, and like classes in a role-playing game they shared some techniques and capabilities. I wondered briefly whether maybe the golden eyes were a clue in that regard.
She frowned my way, then sent out a golden ring of light from her head, like a halo that expanded outward through the nearby walls.
“Four more in the next room,” Sacrada announced after a moment, while Sakurai cut down the last two Refurbished with strikes that severed their heads.
“You want the next ones?” Drew asked me.
“Mostly lethal strikes to heads or decapitation?” I asked, and he nodded. “We can handle that.”
I nodded to Gale and Shimmer, since Gale had her projectiles and Shimmer had her big fucking gun, or BFG. We charged in first, only vaguely aware of the fact that Sacrada was calling after us about more incoming due to the noise and power interruption.
My Heavenly Blast took one of the Refurbished in the head, one of Gale’s projectiles did the same, and then Shimmer opened up with her BFG, destroying the last two.
“My man.” Drew had followed behind us and now clapped me on the shoulder. “And team, of course.”
Gale scoffed. “Fucking right.”
Shimmer looked at me and laughed. “Sorry, just—didn’t see the armor with everyone else in the way back there.”
“This is badass, grade-A paladin armor,” I replied.
“I hope you all knew what a nerd my baby brother was before you hopped in the sack with him,” Drew said teasingly.
Before I could think of a counter, Shimmer replied, “Oh, we know and love it.”
“The perfect matches, then,” Drew laughed. He turned back to Navani, who was scanning the walls with her eyes glowing bright blue. “How close?”
“Two rooms over, moving in fast. And they have a worm.” She stopped, her eyes returning to a light glow, which seemed to be their natural state.
“Let’s ambush these motherfuckers,” Threed urged, smiling wide.
“Sure, but let Breaker and team do the heavy lifting here,” Drew reminded her. “This is for them, after all.”
“Aw, thanks,” I replied. “Making up for all those Christmas presents you forgot to send?”
“Fuck, that’s cold. I actually feel bad now.” He winked. “Just get out there and show me what you’re made of. Worms are rare—they’re going to try to sap your powers, but don’t respond well to bursts of light or shields. Your team can deal?”
“Watch us.” I nodded to Shimmer. “You got the light?”
“Sure, just… warn me, okay?”
“When they get here?”
She shook her head. “When the real pissing contest starts, so I can jump clear and avoid splatter.”
I laughed. “Drew and I aren’t like that.”
“Well, we never were before because I was always more badass,” Drew countered. “Now that you have that armor on, I don’t know. Oh, and did I tell you I met a team out there who called themselves Arthur and the Knights?”
Between his compliment and going nerd-talk on me, I was almost too distracted when the first of the enemies stormed into the hall opposite us. Twitch had her screen up and made a shield as a shot came at us, purple light that exploded on the shield and nullified it, but then Shimmer lifted her hands and shouted, causing the enemy to pull back, shouting in rage.
“What the hell was that?” Sakurai asked.
“Illusion of light,” Charm explained from behind me.
“Shit, the worm is to the right,” Navani called out. Sacrada stepped forward to get it, but Shimmer spun and knelt, already throwing out more illusions. The light illusion actually showed in the reflections, which was discombobulating, but even worse was the stringy creature that fell from the wall when the false light hit. It wasn’t so much a worm as a mechanical centipede, but who was I to argue.
“Hit, score!” Threed punched the air and turned for a high five from Charm.
Charm shrugged and high-fived her gingerly. “Can we fight them now?”
“Go for it,” Drew answered—and then the wall behind the worm fell open.
“Shit, Blocker!” Navani shouted as one of the half-spider people emerged, its lower spider body as large as the hood of a car, and its upper body that of a very ripped man, nude but for the crystals that seemed to grow from his skin.
“All hands!” Drew shouted, and the tone of his voice wasn’t playful anymore.
Honestly, I was looking forward to the challenge, instead of a simple training mission. Drew and his team had automatically turned to target this newcomer. Their projectile attacks—a blast from Sacrada and the dragon light from Sakurai—fell short, fading as the spider-thing’s crystals glowed, so I diverted my attack to the left, where the other attackers were past the shield now, recovering from having been nearly blinded.
“Get around him,” the cat woman shouted, leaping from the walls and then pouncing at the blocker, while Navani worked to throw up shields and block t
he other attacks from hitting us. I turned and charged, blasting at what I saw now was one Nihilist and two Refurbished. Charm was close by, moving at almost the same speed so that we crashed into the first two at the same time, even working to slam their heads together. Next, I changed my hand shape to try the Heavenly Blast in a different way and was glad to see it form a bit of a repeated short blast—so fast that it almost looked solid and was kind of like a lightsaber. Nerd me was fucking loving it, even if another weapon would’ve been more befitting my paladin look.
I swung and cut right through the arm of one of the Refurbished. The next Refurbished shot at Gale before an ice spear took it in the neck, sending it back into the Nihilist. A purple ball of light hit me, but my paladin armor flashed and the strike evaporated. My status bar popped up to show that the armor was now at eighty-five percent. Not bad! The armor could apparently take a few hits. But better not to let that happen too often.
Ducking from another attack, I jammed what I decided to call my Heavenly Saber into the Refurbished bastard’s skull, dropping it before turning again to the Nihilist.
I pushed forward, dodging as Gale made another strike at the next Refurbished before she, too, went for the Nihilist, distracting it so that I was able to sneak past and slam my saber into the back of its head.
It collapsed. I moved on, darting around a corner and then turning right, to find that I’d managed to flank the other enemy group. Except, to my annoyance, my saber faded. Apparently, it now needed its recharge.
Gale was there again with a blast of ice. I tried my light, but the saber had also used up my ability to shoot. Fine, I had other powers. I was almost tempted to drain their life force as I’d done before, but worried I’d lose control, I thought better of it. Instead, I rolled and shot, and made impact! The blast hit the Blocker in the back of the neck, sending it sprawling forward, choking on its own blood. Fuck yeah!
Only, then another one of the Refurbished had me. Its grip around my leg was impressive as it picked me up and tossed me into a wall. I pummeled into it and my armor shattered, falling off around me like an energy shield when depleted. To my relief, it hadn’t actually affected my normal Lamb-gifted suit, so I wasn’t lying there buck-naked.