by G. X. Knight
I couldn’t have been asleep long when I felt someone kicking at my foot.
“Wakey, wakey!” A familiar woman’s voice said.
I jumped with a start as my first sight was a woman’s ridiculously tall, but sexy, stiletto. I traced the leg up its super long length and continued up the curvaceous body until I met eyes with Meg, the wench from the expo. She was with the guy whose Cyborg brother I dropped from the waterfall. They were both packing heat, including some kind of new spike gun that made a zapping sound every time she taunted me with a button push. Guess my Kryptonite secret was out.
“It’s funny.” She said, “I find you how I left you … asleep on your ass.”
I stood and grinned, “It’s funny,” I replied mocking, “You’re still slutty and smell like overly used skank. Guess we’re both walking down memory lane tonight.”
She slapped me. Sway and Kata sniggered. They and Largo were near the path that led away from the gate. They were being held at gunpoint by two particularly emo Street Vipers. The girls and Largo wore confident grins. I was not feeling it. Maybe it was their poker face? My poker face morphed into something a little angrier. They picked the wrong night.
“Open it.” Meg said pointing to the gate. “My people have the village. They will burn it down, and kill everyone. Then you will have the unfortunate pleasure of watching your friends be turned into the abomination that you should have become.”
I sneered, “How’s Cade?” I asked. “Are you two still a couple now that his face is backward? You don’t strike me as a through-thick-and-thin type.” I made an obvious look toward her butt, “Well, maybe through thick.”
Meg cocked the spike gun, and made it spark like that firework show from the other night. She was fuming. Her brotherless compatriot pushed me toward the doors. I turned with a fist, but the guards next to Largo and the girls raised their guns and prepared to fire.
I thought about the kid, and what he had done to save me, and to keep that thing in there caged. I couldn’t just let it out. He would have died for nothing if I did. He was willing to sacrifice himself to save others. Could I do the same? Perhaps I could, but could I stand by and watch my friends get butchered? I stared at each of them. Kata and her pink dress watched me with kind and confident eyes. Largo stood with his arms crossed, chest out. He nodded in approval of my defiance. Sway rolled her eyes and smiled with an “it’s going to be fine” nod.
Time seemed to stop. For a brief second I was in my own little world. I looked skyward, thought about the kid’s last words to me, and for my new life that had come via the hands of so many, I simply whispered the words, “Thank You.”
A switch flipped in my mind. The Dragonstones burned bright. The energy pulsed through my body, and my already impressive Amalgam parts moved me with speed I almost couldn’t fathom. I rolled and was in front of my friends. The guards pulled the triggers. I stuck out my forearms one above the other, and from them I projected green energy shields that ricocheted the bullets away from us. The guards went to reload, but I was already knocking them out before their hands could find new clips.
Meg and her partner fired spikes at me. I dodged one, and blocked the other with the round shield I projected from my left arm. Kata and Sway already had the downed guard’s guns as I disarmed Meg and her buddy of the electrical spike weapons. I left the girls and Largo to hold them captive, so I could rampage an unholy terror across the Street Vipers waiting below. I ran fast, hit hard, and destroyed every piece of equipment they brought. Those who fired met my shield. Those who resisted met my fist. Those who were smart ran away. Within minutes they had scattered, and I had all their cars, bikes, and trucks trashed and smoldering down at the bottom of the South ravine. They would not be returning to Falor again.
After I had cleared the village, I returned up to the gate where Meg and her friend were still waiting. She was over near the black gate wearing a look of complete hatred and fear. Sway looked impressed, and Largo gave me a “that’s-my-boy” handshake.
I was going to let them go. I moved closer to Meg to start the I-win banter, but she backed up against the door to get away from me. I guess I might have freaked her out a little. Understandable, I was awesome. Then, I saw something with my Cyborg vision that made me stop dead in my tracks. I was now freaked out. The girls and Largo must have recognized the horror on my face, because they backed away when I motioned for them to get to the trail. Down at Meg’s feet the piece of the shadow-thing that had been cut off when the doors closed on it seemed to come out of the ground, and latch itself onto Meg’s foot. She didn’t feel it, and cussed at me when I told her to stop moving away.
“Stop!” I ordered again.
She sneered and screamed, “NO!” But it was too late.
The thing crawled up her leg, body, and entered her eyes. She dropped to her knees as her skin began to pale as if she were dead. Her flesh cracked and then turned to some kind of scale. She made not a sound as horns grew from her elbows, and bat-like wings snapped outward from new bones that exploded off her back. Her hands morphed into claws, her teeth pointed into a razored trap, and her eyes turned as blinding as the sun while her hair ignited into actual fire that crackled on her head without burning her.
“I am the Dragoness, Corona.” She growled. “You will free the rest of my people from this lauded prison, Keeper.”
Meg’s Viper friend quivered beside her. The Dragoness would have none of the weakness. She grabbed him by his head, squeezed until a crunching sound turned my stomach, and then tossed his limp body over the same waterfall his brother had been sucked into the day before. She was strong, and I was scared. I gave Largo the wave to leave, but they stayed close as he shook his head, “No.”
There are times in life when you speak as though someone else moves your lips for you. Sometimes the puppeteer is cruel or incompetent. There are times, however, when he seems to know exactly what to say.
“I am the heir of Thantosa your jailor, and by his memory, I will not.”
She jerked a little when I said the name, Thantosa. She must have known it well.
I stared her in the eye. She didn’t like it. I imagine there was almost nobody who could have held eye contact as she had stars for eyeballs. Anybody who looked into her eyes for too long would go blind. Guess I found another reason to be thankful. I moved closer, and she shook with hate.
“You will!” She ordered.
“I will not!” I yelled.
A beam leapt from her eyes, and hit mine. It felt like a storm wind blowing against the door to a house. It knocked with a thump, but I felt completely safe. The beam bounced away harmlessly. She screamed again. I don’t think that was an attack so much as it was her trying to do to me whatever she had done to poor Meg. I took another defiant step forward.
“Who are you?” She howled in bloodcurdling anger.
I pulled from my pocket a piece of paper I had made for Maeve. I had already given the others theirs. On it was the answer to her question. An answer that had been too long overdue, to them, and especially to myself.
Largo held his, and yelled at her. The answer caused her to rattle with a jolt of pain as he joined me in standing against her, “He is a Thantosa!”
Kata came up beside us next. Her platinum and pink hair tossed about in the wind, “He is an Infinite hailing from a long and distinguished bloodline!” The Dragoness shrieked. She really hated that.
Finally, Sway joined, and as the beast backed away, she yelled, “He is named after two great men who gave their lives seeing things like you destroyed. He walks in the memory of his ancestors, he lives by the sacrifices of the selfless, and he stands against you in the company of family. His name is Scion Hades Thantosa, and if you know what’s good for you Bitch, you’ll run!”
There was something about the new name that carried power against Corona. Clearly it wasn’t powerful enough to drive the thing from Meg, but it shivered, spat, and flailed as Sway screamed my new Amalgam name at the top of he
r lungs. Corona panicked and took flight through the crushing waterfall as if it were a mere trickle from a leaky sink.
She howled to the moon and screamed, “The line of our jailor will be broken. This I swear!”
“Big words for someone on the run,” Sway screamed back. “Why don’t you stay and fight?”
“Run ... Stay and fight … Make up your mind.” Kata said flippantly to Sway as if nothing had just happened. Just as quickly as they were all having a moment, it had passed, and things were status quo again. Without another word, Kata headed back down the hill once Corona disappeared.
Sway huffed and followed her still talking smack to herself.
Personally I was glad to see Corona go. No doubt I would see her again.
Largo and I just kind of stood there for a moment. Neither of us really knew what to say. Since it wasn’t a standoff I spoke first. “I’m hungry.”
Largo smiled with a head tilt that sometimes reminded me of a look my dad would get, “Come on, Scion¸ I’ll grill you some cheeseburgers.”
FOREVER
The next morning we prepared to leave. Largo and the girls offered to take me back via the experimental Skip thing they had cooked up. I had something else I had to do.
That afternoon I said goodbye to the Falor villagers. There was only one whom I had gotten close with, but they were all amazingly kind and wonderful. I had two requests when they asked how they could repay me. First they handed over the shard that had killed my namesake. Nobody else was going to die using that thing. I ground it into powder and put in the silver cylinder which had been granted to me as the second part of my payment. -In it, rest the kid’s ashes.
I slung the wrapping that contained Maeve’s blade over MY shoulder. I strapped the cylinder onto the back of the seat, and I said goodbye to everyone, as I made good with the agreement to let him have a ride on Clutch. I drove around the Falor countryside for the better part of a day before I finally buried the kid and his Dragonstone shard beneath a large rock in the middle of a wide open field. There I inscribed:
HERE LIES THE INFINITE SCION
THE LAST AND GREATEST OF THE NOBLE HADES FAMILY.
-THANKFUL TO HAVE KNOWN HIM
* * *
The salty breeze of the Harbor House was so refreshing. As I came up the stairs of the pier that led to the house I noticed a rather large yacht had anchored up to the dock. It was odd that we had visitors, so I hurried to my room, dropped off my things, along with Maeve’s sword, and rushed around to see what was happening. I was excited. Not just because we had company, but because I would get to hear my girlfriend speak my new name for the very first time. It sounded like an odd thing, but it was the wind at my back and beat in my heart all the way home.
It was down on the girls’ floor where I found a team of people carrying things away. To my disbelief, they were coming from Maeve’s room. The final “mover” took the last of her belongings from a now-empty space. Kata greeted me with tears welling in her eyes, but I had total Maeve-inspired tunnel vision, again. I walked past her, and said nothing as I followed the last of the yacht toadies outside. Kata called out my name. It was nice to hear it when she said “Scion, wait,” but there was only one voice I was interested in hearing.
Outside, at the yacht, a large burly man with a woolen beard as red as Maeve’s hair stood on the dock and directed everyone to hurry using a booming voice that shook the very wood beneath my feet. They bowed and did as he instructed as though there were a whip in his hand, and any wrong movement or misstep would cause him to brandish his volatile ire in their sniveling directions.
I ignored him, walked past, and called out, “Maeve?”
His paw of a hand landed on my jacket and yanked me back before I could board his boat. I looked at him, took off my glasses, and leered, “Get your hand off of me.”
Someone from his crew gasped. The Red Bear thought I was amusing. He lumbered a sarcastic laugh, “I was hoping to be done before ye got home, Machine.”
There’s only one type of person who could look at me with the type of disgust that dripped from his every expression. Not even Corona, Cade, Drake, Meg, and the others on the laundry list of enemies I was building, could muster up the offense to pull off that sneer. There was no introduction necessary. This was Maeve’s father.
“As I understand it,” He pulled his hand away, “Ye’re new to this world, so I will forgive yer insolence this time, but do not test me, Machine, or I swear ye will not find ye-self well.”
His accent was even thicker than Maeve’s. It was hard to believe that someone as sweet as her could come from someone so detestable. He was singlehandedly the most arrogant ass I had ever met. Considering Drake Arkman was on the list, that was saying something.
“I want to see her.” I told him, “You’ll let me on board willingly, or I’ll go anyway, and then when I’m done, I’ll see YE pretty boat scattered across the bottom of the ocean.”
He laughed again, and leaned into my face. The smell of whiskey and fish burned in my nose, “I like yer spirit, Machine. I can see why she thinks she likes ye. But do not think that because ye have stood against those pretentious Street Viper thugs that ye could last against the might of the Celts and my Kingdom. I’d turn ye into a toaster and mount ye in my kitchen, before ye could say ‘scrap metal.’”
I took a step back and balled up a fist. Just then I heard Largo yell, “SCION!”
I stopped and turned. Largo looked worried. He shook his head for me to stop. It was all I could do to obey, but I did.
“I apologize, Lord Valera.” Largo said, “I had hoped to catch him as soon as he got home. This kind of misunderstanding won’t happen again.”
Lord Valera bellowed a victorious “Ho-Ho” that would rival Santa’s, “Largo’s knows his place. See that ye learn it too, Machine.”
He got on the giant yacht. It pulled its anchor and slid back away. I felt as if someone had just flipped the volume switch of Life to off. I turned a questioning gaze to Largo. He looked as if he were choking back his own tearful misgivings. He said nothing more. He just left me there.
I fell to my knees as the yacht all-but disappeared over the horizon. The setting sun dulled into a pale yellow in front of the ship’s shrinking shadow until both ship and sun were gone. I sat there until the first handful of stars hovered overhead. I ignored everything, even Sway’s booted footsteps. She sat down beside me, put a hand on my back, and placed a letter in my hand. It was addressed to me, and written in Maeve’s handwriting. On the envelope words in silver ink sparkled:
Scion H. Thantosa -- Forever
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
G.X. Knight: He is a single father from Montgomery, Alabama. If he were a Musketeer, he’d be Porthos (The Oliver Platt version). If he were a Power Ranger, he most definitely would be the very first green one (Play Dragonzord tune now). And if he were to pick only one superhero to spend a day at the amusement park with, it would be Iron Man (Stark’s paying). He enjoys showing his son who’s boss in Halo (the Sprinting Assassin forever rules!), he loves all types of music (please get back together, N*SYNC), and he hopes to one day live the Jimmy Buffett life of margaritas (Vodka/Red Bull) and cheeseburgers out on the white sand beaches of Gulf Shores. If you see him out-and-about you will know it’s him because he’ll likely be singing these wrong words:
“Did you ever know that I’m your hero? I’m everything you would like to be!”