by Jamie Hawke
“Muerta!” Andromida shouted, and shot out after her, explosions going off all around her as she shot across the square.
It was almost beautiful. The blue light and snow falling, glistening in bursts from the explosions of electricity from Sam’s sword and bursts of metal ripping out from nearby buildings to join Andromida’s tunnel.
For a moment I could imagine Andromida tearing Muerta to shreds, but it didn’t happen that way. The Muerta we’d faced before wasn’t like this one. This Muerta met her head-on, turning the metal against her, making it flash gold and then explode, the inside of that tunnel bursting into flames. Andromida fell back, slamming into the square. Those same red hands I’d seen emerge from her tunnels to pull away other unsuspecting souls now emerged to grab her. She was screaming, clawing her way toward me as I ran for her. They had her flesh, tearing gashes… they had her, even, pulling her into the ground.
Fuck! Taking my Heavenly Vengeance and hitting everything I could around me, their life forces and powers flew out of them like the wind, gushing into me and Andromida. As each bit hit her, forming waves of black and purple now, she emerged from the ground, fighting off those red hands... but then she was up and staring at me with black eyes, and I noticed everything around me was dark, too.
What was happening to me? I wondered, but already a voice in the back of my head told me the answer—too much power used, too much corruption.
Like Andromida had been when I first met her, I felt consumed by a desire for destruction, to kill all in my path. She was now lashing into enemies and friendlies alike, sending them to explode upon each other—much like Muerta, I noted in my panic and loss of self. And then I was joining in. Where before I’d been able to form a beam of light out of my Heavenly Blasts, now long black claws made of an unholy light grew out of my arms. I charged, swiping and stabbing and tearing apart anything I could.
I was focused on the enemy supers who were now charging down as Muerta watched, but there were others too, I was vaguely aware, others who were in my way.
“Stop this!” a voice shouted, and Charm was at my side, shoving me backwards, her tails glowing like her hands.
“Out of my way!” I charged her with my shoulder, slamming her aside as a Nihilist appeared, touching a man in a uniform in a way that sent them off, to another world, or maybe simply dead. In my state, though, I found I could hurt the fucker! Maybe it was something to do with this dark power, being halfway here and halfway with them, but my blades tore into the being and left it for dead.
Charm appeared at my left now, attacking a super who apparently breathed fire. She dove out of the way and came back in, claws of light tearing out his throat so that fire spewed forth more like magma. He burned himself to death as we continued on.
“Something’s wrong with you,” Charm shouted. “You’re not—I mean, this isn’t you!”
“Your point?” a voice shouted. It sounded like mine but didn’t make sense.
Again, she moved into my path. “You went too far.”
I turned on Charm, hand raised as if to attack her, and then she was on me, her glowing hands touching me, a white breath emerging from her mouth but also seeming to flow from her hands as they touched me, and her tails as they wrapped around me.
All the darkness faded. As I blinked I saw Muerta moving past her, other supervillains and those Dex creatures and more with her, floating. No, not floating I realized, but descending on what looked like a ramp of golden light.
In the sky behind them stood a woman in flowing white and gold robes, hands held out, wisps of light and dark flowing around her. Four shapes were with her, for that’s all I could see them as—floating, moving, amorphous shapes, one on each corner of her if she were standing on a square.
This had to be Asterisk. She had shown up after all.
“Charm, can you do to Andromida what you did to me?” I prepared myself, trying to figure out what attack I would use, instantly dropping all sense of the cursed powers I’d obtained from Andromida’s tainted quest for revenge.
Charm glanced from me back to Muerta. “And you?”
“I’m going to do my damn best to hold them off until you two join us.”
Before even waiting for confirmation, I was off, charging over to where Gale and Twitch had just turned toward Muerta, pushing their way to the middle ground where Sam was raising hell. Harp and Laurel were fighting to get to Charm from the other side of the square. Harp was in the air, using her voice to send other flying foes to the ground, including the Dex creatures. Laurel pulled roots from deep beneath the ground, using them to lash onto the enemy and latch them to the ground, choking them. Shimmer was with Aegriss, making large illusions of mechs and more to give the appearance of an army much more numerous than we actually had on our side, but the enemy was growing wise to it.
As I ran, I glanced back to see a Dex reach her, and only because of Aegriss did it miss with its strike. She had thrown herself into its path, the Dex’s blade slicing through her flesh. She screamed but then retaliated, pushing out her arms to call on nearby turrets and enemy mechs, hacking into them as she’d done with the friendlies earlier, now barraging the Dex with bullets.
I reached Twitch and watched as she made wings of light appear from her back and said, “I’ve got this,” rising into the air to meet Muerta with a shout like Harp’s but that had a different effect, wherein the enemy was hit with an EMP for powers. Holy shit was that awesome. I saw Muerta and her entourage suddenly look worried, dropping to the ground as Gale rose to meet them with bolts of ice spears and blasts of electricity.
A glance back showed another Dex had arrived and, as Shimmer got knocked to the ground, another sword strike took Aegriss.
Twitch seemed to be handling this situation just fine, circling her opponents from above, sending down barrage after barrage of focused EMPs and even hitting them with blasts of crippling electricity. I slammed my hand to the ground and was instantly beside Aegriss, rising out of the cement to hit the Dex with a punch—which of course went right through it as it darted back.
But I had my old skills equipped, so I went with Heavenly Light, healing Shimmer and myself. The light hit the Dex and it let out a screeching sound as it fell back. A glance at Aegriss showed the light wasn’t doing a damn thing for her other than maybe a recharge.
“Hang in there,” I told her, pulling my tempest energy and focusing as more Dex and supers moved in toward us. Others converged on Twitch and Gale, where to my surprise Muerta was up again. When Twitch tried her voice attack again, a wave of Asterisk’s hand from where she hovered above everyone sent it back at her. Twitch faltered, light wings fading. She fell, Gale swooping in to catch her and blast lightning at the same time, but the lightning just shot right back at her, knocking her and Twitch to the ground beside Sam.
My blast hit the enemy nearby, though some of the Dex darted around, avoiding it, before charging in at me like death multiplied. Harp was trying to get to us. Laurel was searching, shouting, “Where’s Charm?” I spotted her in the midst of a fight on the other side of the square with a supervillain who was pulling stone golems from the cathedral.
“We need a fucking miracle,” I said, and attacked again, only to nearly lose my head to a Dex—an arm caught the blade, and I turned to see Aegriss staring at me with desperate, love-filled eyes. Before either of us could act, another Dex was there, cutting into her, and another, and then another while Shimmer shouted, flinging illusions about as if that would do a damn thing. One moment we were there. Then Shimmer’s illusory dragons rose to fight off the Dex, and now it was like we were in a volcano, and large asteroids were pounding down on us, but the Dex had gotten wise to her ways. It was like their eyes could just see in another way, look right through the illusions. The only reason Shimmer and I weren’t cut down in that instant was that Andromida had managed to recover and came for us, shield up—but the shield couldn’t protect Aegriss. The enemy was too close, so that they were engulfed by it, inside
our defense.
“There’s nothing you can do,” Andromida said, pulling us back, but I refused, once again hitting the ground and coming back up next to Aegriss—or trying, but the shield wouldn’t let me in. I could see the enemy inside with Aegriss but I couldn’t get in to save her.
“Get rid of it!” I shouted, feeling thuds of swords hitting me too, then a barrage of shots from Refurbished. Sam was taking down her fair share, too busy to get to us.
“If I did, you wouldn’t make it!” Andromida countered. “We have to regroup, get to cover!”
“Not without her,” I replied, suddenly hit by an explosion and sent flying backwards.
Charm was there though, catching me. She breathed her green breath into me so that suddenly I was alert, and everything seemed to move a bit slower around us, our strategy clear. The others were pushing our way in retreat. Aegriss was kneeling on the ground with the shield gone. And then the Dex creatures were in retreat, abandoning their assault on her, some crumpled in their robes, dead. Harp was landing, having descended to her. Judging by the strange disorientation that hit me, I assumed her voice power had been what got rid of those death-like terrors. If so, we’d have to remember that.
It was a heartbreaking sight though, enough to make my legs freeze as my ladies pulled at me to retreat. Aegriss was sitting there, legs folded in front of her and one arm completely missing, other injuries all over her. For the first time, I saw the robotics within, and for the first time I didn’t see them at all—not really, because I knew she was one of us, one of our teammates.
And if I’d ever learned anything from my brother, it was that nobody gets left behind. As I charged over, a sight caught me by surprise.
There was Muerta—no longer hiding, no longer waiting to see what happened next. She was charging straight for me, a flutter of gold and light streaming out behind her, propelling her forward at great speed.
Apparently, our moment had come at last.
21
The first move I made was not to meet Muerta, though, but to get Aegriss up, help Harp move her out of the way, and then shout to the others to protect her.
“I don’t… need…” Aegriss started to protest, but as she nearly collapsed, a spark came from her broken arm and she looked at me, crestfallen.
“Shh, none of that.” I kissed her gently. “I’m going to take care of you, but first I have to kill this bitch.”
Every ounce of me wanted to stay there with her, to hold her until we found a way to make her whole again. But with the speed at which Muerta was incoming, I knew I needed to act fast if I was to have any hope of keeping her and her army off of my gals.
A quick scan showed that the army of Refurbished had beaten back the Russian military, and that there wasn’t much hope for us here. Then again, we’d beaten the Tortured, and we’d done a damn fine job of holding our own this long.
“Get out of here!” a voice shouted. I saw Gale and Twitch trying to fight through a horde of Dex and others but getting pushed back, even with the powers Twitch had adopted from the others. Sam spun with her sword and collapsed to one knee, again shouting, “Go!”
I shot out blasts at enemies and watched Sam recover and push through another wave. Together, we were unstoppable. It made sense that Hadrian had once worked with her, even been at the point of declaring her an Elder. She was certainly proving herself out here.
A shout sounded and then screeching metal, a blue light exploding into the sky. I turned back toward Sam. Instead of finding her standing tall and fending off the whole army as I’d expected, I found a sight that was gut-wrenching. There, in the middle of Red Square, Muerta was taking on three of my team as they formed a defensive position around a fallen form. Twitch, Gale, and Andromida were shouting. Only then did I hear the voice through the comms, Twitch saying that they’d gotten Sam, that she was down.
When I stepped closer, seeing the armor and the purplish-black robes fluttering, I finally processed it all. If we’d led the Shadow Mystic to her death, the one being supposedly capable of exiling these alien bastards from our side of the universe, we were royally fucked.
I started in that direction, intending to attack Muerta, but she suddenly changed course and flew at me after leaving a golden glow on Sam. I abandoned my move against Muerta, instead traveling through the ground to get closer to Sam and heal her while Twitch countered Muerta’s explosive power. Gale and Andromida had both continued attacking Muerta, pushing her back.
The bitch knew my weakness would be any one of these women, so I needed to take her out immediately. I lunged for her, using my travel power again to come up behind her, grabbing her by the back of her collar and yanking. The gold and black light hit. I felt a burning sensation crawling over me, but I pushed through the pain and got her on the ground.
She struggled and sent exploding pockets of air above me, but I pulled her close, applying a chokehold. As this distance, she couldn’t hurt me without hurting herself, but of course, a woman like her would never sacrifice herself. Others, sure, but never herself.
With my paladin skills I pulled on Redemption, draining the life force from her equal to the amount of damage she was causing me. That’s how this stuff worked, at least in games. Sure enough, no darkness taking hold. She was still struggling, but in ways she was limp, like a worm trying to squirm out of a vice.
I held her tight in spite of her struggles, shaking my head. “Surrender, Muerta. It’s the only way.”
“Death is the only way.”
She gave it one last burst of energy, trying to take us both out I assumed as veins showed in her cheeks and all over, bursting out in gold. She was going to explode right here! Fuck that. I activated Heavenly Light, and sure enough it ‘healed’ her, stopping her from exploding… but a moment later she convulsed in pain, screaming so loud that I actually fell back in shock, losing my grip on her.
She struggled to fight off the convulsions and take advantage of being free, but wound up curled up in a ball, grunting in pain. When she managed to get hold of herself, she turned to me while still lying there.
“End it,” Muerta growled. “You’ve taken everything else from me… just… end it.”
She stared up at me, the gold in her eyes fading until there was only a dull yellow. The half-mask on her face was slightly loose, revealing something I certainly hadn’t expected—more metal, but in an android sense. This wasn’t a mask –it was her.
“You—you’re one,” I said, and glanced back at Aegriss. “All this time…”
Muerta scoffed. “What? An android? There are a lot of us out there. Why should it surprise you? But no… I’m closer to the Refurbished than android, really. Either way, does it fucking matter? End. It.”
I stared down at her, shaking my head. “I didn’t take shit away from you. You did that to yourself.”
She snarled, pushing herself to lunge at me with one more burst of gold in her eyes—and I pulled on my tempest ability while also activating Heavenly Light. The combo was what I was hoping for, focusing on the hacking part of me that was still in the system, still connected through Aegriss.
I essentially shut Muerta off, at the same time getting glimpses as if I was downloading part of her into me—a day at a lake, hand-in-hand with Plague. Laughing, kissing… sleeping in each other’s arms. A moment when they’d been attacked, when a super had nearly killed her, left her for dead in a cave… and someone had found her. Asterisk.
The vision vanished and I was staring into this woman’s face, now devoid of life. Her suffering was over.
I dropped her there on the ground and turned, jogging back over to Harp and Aegriss.
“Keep them off of us,” I said to Harp, indicating a new wave of Dex coming our way.
“With pleasure,” Harp replied through her machine, and then she was up and charging, a lone, winged woman against all of them.
I wrapped an arm around Aegriss’s waist, sparing one last glance back at the dead, hollow eyes of Muerta,
and then froze. They weren’t dead, but they weren’t glowing anymore. Apparently I’d taken the robotic side of her but left whatever human part of her remained. She was glaring, pushing herself up.
Fuck.
“I… have an… idea,” Aegriss said. “We take her alive. A prisoner.”
“How exac—”
“Trust me.” She took a step, then said, “Throw me at her.”
“What?”
“Just… do it.”
Muerta was standing now, taking a step toward us. It was go time. One thing I’d learned in all of these battles was that I had to trust these women to do what they were doing, and Aegriss was no different. I took a deep breath, nodded, and lunged with Aegriss in my arms. She went flying through the air, slamming into Muerta. Before Muerta could even process what was happening, wires and cables moved out from Aegriss, wrapping around the woman’s body, imprisoning her in metal.
“Andromida!” I shouted. The blue lady turned, saw what had happened, and said, “On it!” She charged over, pulling on the metal that was Aegriss, and followed us down the next street, dodging into the first alley for cover. A moment later Twitch was with us, putting a shield around them so it was like a sort of protective cocoon. One that Muerta, try as she might, couldn’t escape from.
I might have beaten her in the first place, but my team had defeated her.
“Where’s Sam?” I asked Twitch.
“Too much,” Twitch replied, out of breath.
Just then, Shimmer and Gale came running over, eyes wide. Gale looked at me, shook her head, and lowered it. “We’re falling back.”
“You stopped Muerta,” Shimmer said, seeing the strange cocoon of light. “The job’s half over.”
“And that somehow sounds good enough for any of you?” I turned, looking at the fighting still going on in the sky and watching as one lone fighter went careening past our field of vision in a ball of fire. “We have friends out there. Allies. We’ll find a way.”