Defenders of Shadow and Light: Ghost Thief

by Jason Levine

  He slowed down as he approached the clearing, Still, Murray found that he wasn’t slowing down fast enough. He twisted and turned his body until he was facing in the opposite direction. His pack was now slowing him down more, but he still left the clearing before he stopped. Slowly, Murray moved forward until he was back in the clearing. He de-ghosted, retracted his mask, and refilled his pack’s tank.

  Murray repeated this for the next few hours. Eventually, he figured out how to move fast and slow down quickly. He even started zigzagging through piles at high speed. As the sun began to set, Murray tried performing some tricks. He twirled around, did a few loop de loops, and tested how long it would take him to stop from various speeds. He might have nearly no friction as a ghost, but there was still some present. It just took much longer than normal.

  On his last run of the day, Murray looked at the setting sun and wondered exactly how high he could go as a ghost. After refilling his tank, he shot straight up. He lifted high up in the air, leaving the junkyard behind.

  Looking back at the ground, Murray fought down a sense of panic over how high he was going. He spiraled up into the air; feeling freer than he had ever felt before. There was no sense of gravity or of air rushing by him–just the sight of the ever shrinking landscape below him. A flock of pigeons flew past him and Murray kept up with them for awhile. He reached out to touch one and then another, laughing as his hand passed through them. The pigeons didn’t appear to share his sense of humor, scattering as they spotted him. Murray felt that he could stay up here all day. Vibrations coming from his clasp snapped him out of his reverie.

  “Why did it do that?” Murray thought to himself. “Is something wrong?”

  Murray realized how high and far he had gone. He looked around for the junkyard and spotted it far below him. The clasp vibrated again, this time for longer than it had before. A warning. How much time had it been? It couldn’t have been fifteen minutes already. Could it? But if he ran out of air so high up… Murray didn’t feel like testing what would happen if he did. He shifted so that he was headed straight down towards the junkyard. Had he been doing this power dive while solid, no doubt he would have felt the wind rushing by him. Instead, there was an eerie silence as the junkyard grew closer and closer.

  Another vibration from the clasp.

  Murray changed his aim to get to the center clearing. Realizing he was coming in too fast, he spun himself around. Despite the day’s practice, Murray still slowed to a stop with his legs in the ground up to his knees. Slowly, he rose back up to be level with the ground and pressed the top button, guessing correctly that it would turn off the thrust.

  “Quick!” Sean commanded, “De-ghost.”

  The two looked worried about something. At first, Murray figured that they had been concerned over his little joy ride. However, Ruth wasn’t looking at him. She was looking all around them. And, were her fists glowing?

  Murray pushed the watch button again and he felt his body regain its previous mass. He stumbled a bit as he dropped two inches to the ground. Murray pressed the button to turn off the air and then refilled his tank.

  “Sorry about that. I got a little carried away.”

  “I’ll say,” Ruth said. “You led them right to us!”

  “Them. Them who?” Murray said, confused. He reached to press the button to retract his mask but then thought better of it. If someone or something were coming that worried Ruth, the ability to ghost could be very useful.

  “Not everyone was born of the light like us,” Sean explained. “There are those who use their gifts for dark purposes. Two of them have just breached the gates.”

  “How did I lead them here?” Murray asked.

  “There’s a protective field around here that keeps others from detecting us using our powers.”

  Murray could have slapped himself. “And I flew above it, didn’t I?”

  Murray noticed the movement in the junk piles and felt the ground rumble. A flood of robots rushed forward on all sides of them. They ran through the paths and climbed over the large piles of electronic waste–racing at top speed towards whatever was making the noise. Another sound, like metal being crushed or torn, led Murray to doubt that the robots had much chance against their foe.

  “You two need to get out of here now!” Sean shouted.

  “What about you?” Murray asked.

  “I’ll be fine.” He opened the door to the shack and stepped inside. “I’ll have a robot guide you to a safe exit.”

  With that, Sean closed the shack’s door. The entire shack sunk into the ground. A nearby pile lifted a few inches in the air, green jets below it glowing brightly. The pile hovered over to where the shack had been and deposited itself down. Apart from the robots charging forward, there was no sign that Sean had ever been there.

  One robot broke off and beeped at Ruth. It was slightly shorter than the other robots and had a small limp as it moved about.

  “Looks like this is our guide,” Murray said as it skittered off in the opposite direction of the other robots before pausing to wait for them to catch up.

  Ruth and Murray raced after the little robot, through the twists and turns off the junkyard.

  “Did you notice that?” Ruth asked Murray as they turned right at a stack of toaster ovens.

  “Notice what?”

  “There aren’t any more robots heading towards whomever is in here.”

  Murray looked around. Sure enough, the only robot he saw was the one they were following out. The sounds of battle had ceased as well.

  “We should be nearing the exit,” Ruth said.

  “Will your friend be all right?” Murray asked. He felt guilty for leading these people to Sean and Ruth, though he didn’t know why he felt this way. After all, it wasn’t like Sean told him “Don’t go too high or super-powered enemies will rip us all to shreds.”

  “He’ll be fine. This is only one of his hideouts. I’ve never seen them all, but from my understanding, he’s got at least a dozen other setups like this in cities all over the country. He’ll hang around long enough to make sure we make it out and then he’ll leave.”

  They reached the front gate of the junkyard. The robot looked nervously around. Murray wondered if robots could get nervous. One of the gates had been ripped off of its hinges. It lay at least fifty feet beyond the entrance. The other gate was bent as if it were made of tin foil.

  Ruth glanced beyond the gates and motioned for Murray to follow. He looked back and saw their guide-robot disappear into the piles of junk.

  “One second,” Murray whispered.

  Searching a nearby junk pile, Murray found a foot long section of old pipe that had been cut to a sharp point–likely the remnant of some previous project of Sean’s. He held it in his hands. This should make a serviceable weapon in case they needed to fight.

  “We should be fine if we can get to the subway,” Ruth whispered to Murray at they exited the junkyard.

  “Too bad you won’t make it,” came a voice from behind them.

  Chapter Nine: Edge and Brawn Attack

  The voice sent shivers down Murray’s spine. It sounded less human and more like someone managed to form words by scratching two sheets of metal together. Chalk screeching on a chalkboard had nothing on this person.

  Ruth and Murray spun around to face their pursuer. The man–if you could call him that–stood about six feet tall and wore a dark gray suit. His silver hair had two jagged streaks of black racing across it. The sleeves of his jacket were ripped off by his shoulders. His bare arms slowly changed from a light brown to a shiny silver. That wasn’t even his weirdest feature, though. That prize was claimed by his hands, or lack thereof. Where his hands should have been, were two very long and very sharp blades.

  Murray held his sharpened pipe fragment in front of him. Somehow, he didn’t like his chances against this guy’s obviously powerful sword-arms. Still, he pushed down any panic he felt and forced himself to look at the man looming over them.
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  Their opponent looked at Murray and laughed, bringing one of his sword-arms up to his face.

  “You can’t be serious. Put that thing away before you embarrass yourself any more.”

  “Stay behind me,” Murray said to Ruth, holding the knife in front of him.

  Murray felt the hairs on his neck stand up on end. The distinctive scent of burning filled his nostrils. Suddenly, a bright reddish-yellow beam of light raced by Murray and slammed into their would-be attacker. He went flying back and crashed into a light pole. It bent at the impact site, threatening to snap in two.

  Murray looked back at the source of the beam. Behind him, Ruth stood with her hands clenched into fists. Balls of energy twice as big as her fists crackled in the air. Air swirled around her, lifting her red hair high so that it looked like her entire head was aflame.

  “Ouch,” said the man as he got to his feet. “Your girlfriend there’s got quite the punch. Luckily, my friend knows how to take punches like that.”

  The man’s left sword arm rippled until it looked like it was made of liquid metal. The blade separated into five segments which solidified into five fingers. His knife-hand had turned into a normal, albeit still metal hand. He brought his fingers up to his mouth and let out a loud, long, and very shrill whistle. Murray dropped his pipe and cupped his hands over his ears. As he dropped to his knees, he saw Ruth was doing the same–the energy surrounding her having dissipated.

  The whistling stopped and Murray struggled to his feet, grabbing his pipe-weapon as he did so. The loud noise had robbed him of his hearing for a short while, but he could still feel. The ground was vibrating more and more. Something big was coming towards them. Two big hands appeared at the top of the twenty four tall wall. They tried to lift up the rest of the body, but were clearly having trouble.

  The hands retreated and, just as Murray’s hearing returned, he heard a loud booming sound. A crack appeared in the wall from the base to the top. A second loud thud expanded the cracks more. A third crack sent bricks flying outward, leaving a large hole and a dust cloud that obscured the creature that had just broken through a brick wall with three punches.

  “Not good,” Murray whispered to Ruth as the dust settled.

  “How rude of me,” the sword-man said as he approached his partner. “I haven’t introduced ourselves. My name’s Edge. My big friend here is Brawn.”

  Brawn certainly lived up to his name. While Edge looked tall on his own, he looked like a mere child compared to Brawn’s nearly nine foot frame. Brawn’s muscles seemed stacked upon more muscles. His head would have been large on a normal human’s frame, but seemed almost ridiculously small for his size. He wore a torn white shirt and gray sweatpants that were obviously custom made. His head, arms, and feet–which were bare as they seemed too big for any shoes and socks–were covered in curly blond hair.

  “You’re going to come with us, now,” Edge said.

  “I don’t think so,” Ruth growled. She pushed her hands forward and two more beams of energy shot out. Brawn stepped into the path of the beams. They hit him directly in his chest and he slid backwards by a few inches. Then, he began pushing forward against the force of Ruth’s energy.

  Ruth grimaced as she increased the power of her beams. The air started cackling around her as her beams increased in width. Brawn steadily advanced on the two giving no indication that he even felt what Ruth was hitting him with.

  “We need to get out of here,” Murray yelled over the roar of Ruth’s energy.

  “No! I can do this,” Ruth yelled back through her gritted teeth.

  Brawn closed in on them, his torn shirt ripping away from the force of Ruth’s blast. When he was ten feet away, Brawn raised his hands high in the air and gripped them together into a fist. Murray estimated that it was around the size of his head. Brawn slammed his fists down on the pavement. The ground shook with the impact, throwing Ruth and Murray off balance. Ruth’s aim went wide and a chunk of brick wall eight feet to Brawn’s right was blown away. Ruth’s energy beams shut off and she collapsed to the ground.

  Murray ran to her side and grabbed her arm.

  “Move! Now!”

  “Don’t think I can,” Ruth panted. “Too tired.”

  “Be tired later,” Murray said pulling her to her feet. “Or else we’ll be flattened.”

  Ruth dropped to her knees as Brawn advanced.

  “We can’t beat this guy head on,” Murray said, his brain working overtime.

  “Wait,” Murray said, grabbing Ruth’s purse. “The collar.”

  Murray removed the dampener collar that Thomas had given them earlier.

  “Will this work on them as well as us?”

  “Don’t know. They get their powers from a different source. Even if it did work, though, you usually need the whole set for it to be effective. I don’t think anything I have would even fit that guy.”

  Brawn started stomping towards them.

  “It’s worth a shot,” Murray said.

  He had a crazy idea. He wasn’t sure it would work, but didn’t see any other choice. It was a Hail Mary play to get them out of there. He handed Ruth her bag back, gripped the collar tightly, and ran at Brawn while yelling.

  The sudden advance of his opponent startled Brawn enough to make him pause. Obviously, few people ever ran AT him. Not that Murray could blame them. Every fiber of his being screamed for him to run away from these guys. Halfway to Brawn, Murray pressed the button on his suit to activate his airflow. As he got within striking distance–and as Brawn realized he could just swat Murray away–Murray pressed his watch button.

  For a split second, Murray saw Brawn’s huge fist coming down towards his head and was worried that he wouldn’t be able to ghost. At the last second, however, Murray went intangible. Brawn’s fist passed right through Murray and slammed the pavement. Murray activated his jet pack and circled around Brawn. An enemy that couldn’t be hit confused the big guy. Apparently, Brawn wasn’t blessed with brains to match his great strength. He chased Murray away from Ruth and back towards Edge.

  Murray saw a metal blade pass right through him.

  “Tickles,” Murray said.

  This was a total lie. Murray didn’t actually feel anything, but it sounded confident and right now, the more confident he was, the more off their game these guys would be. He just needed one opening to make his move.

  He got it when Brawn slammed his fist into–and then through–Murray. The huge mass of balled fingers slammed into Edge who flew backwards into the brick wall. Murray heard a crunch and Edge bounced off the wall, fell onto the ground, and stopped moving. Even Brawn took notice as he rushed to his friend’s side. Edge let out a low groan to signal that he was alive.

  Murray silently came up from behind Brawn and de-ghosted. He quickly clamped the collar around Brawn’s ankle. It might have been designed to fit a normal human’s neck, but it was still a tight fit on the giant’s leg. Murray turned on the collar and ghosted again before Brawn could grab him.

  Brawn spun around and struck where Murray was, hitting only pavement. As the collar activated, Brawn roared in pain and his leg started twisting and shrinking. Brawn hopped on one leg as his other leg turned into a normal sized human leg. Losing his balance as he hopped, Brawn collapsed to the ground–right on top of Edge.

  Murray raced over to and de-ghosted next to Ruth, making sure his tank was filled with air in case he had to ghost again. She seemed to have regained some of her strength, though it still looked like she was going to sleep for twenty hours just as soon as she had a chance. The two of them made a run for it. Murray glanced back in time to see Brawn kick off the now-too-large-for-his-normal-sized-ankle collar.

  “Get off me you oaf!” Edge yelled. “They’re getting a-mmmffff!!!!!!”

  His last words were obscured as Brawn writhed in pain on top of Edge. Brawn’s leg twisted and grew back to “normal” size–well, normal for Brawn anyway. Murray didn’t want to wait around to see how long it would tak
e before Brawn and Edge caught up to them, but he wasn’t optimistic that they could make it to a subway station in time.

  Suddenly, a lime green minivan screeched up to them, spinning into a U-turn and briefly going onto two wheels. The side door opened up and a familiar voice shouted “Get in!”

  Ruth and Murray climbed in and closed the door behind them. Thomas looked back at them from the driver’s seat.

  “I thought you might need some help.”

  “How?” Murray asked as he retracted his mask and buckled his seat belt.

  “Explain later,” Ruth shouted looking behind them. Brawn was trying to help Edge up while Edge swiped at him with a metal hand. It was clear that they would restart their pursuit soon. “Just drive!”

  Thomas floored the gas. The minivan’s tires squealed and it took off down the road. Murray glanced behind them. Brawn and Edge were running after them. Edge was falling behind–obviously out of breath after Brawn sat on him.

  “The big guy’s not slowing down!” Murray exclaimed.

  Sure enough, Brawn was keeping pace with the van and slowly narrowed the gap.

  “Can you make this thing go faster?” Murray asked.

  “We’re already at the top speed,” Thomas replied. “That guy sure is persistent. I wonder how well he corners. Hold on.”

  Murray and Ruth gripped their seats and Thomas turned down a side road. The van raised up onto two wheels–threatening to topple over. Brawn followed close behind them, reaching out an oversized arm to grab hold of his prey. Momentum carried him forward, though. As Brawn struggled to change his direction, he tumbled end over end and smashed into a storefront.

  “That won’t stop him for long,” Thomas cautioned, turning down the next street. He swerved from street to street. The traffic was light as dusk descended, but he still needed to move between cars. Their speed was dropping fast.

  “We need to ditch the van,” Murray said.

  “No way,” Ruth argued.

  “This van is pretty–distinctive,” Murray said. “Look, those guys don’t look like they’ll give up easily. All it’ll take is one wrong turn and we could run right back into them. Our best bet is to blend in to escape capture.”