Catching Hell Part One: Journey

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Catching Hell Part One: Journey Page 29

by Marc Watson


  Sharp’s first thought was an attack, but no one followed up the assault. Next he thought it was a malfunction, but no heavy weapons were carried in his post. Nothing on board would have ignited like that.

  Lost in the confusion, he approached the wreckage and tried to ascertain what had happened. It was as he stood there staring that his entourage approached him quietly from behind.

  Boroha Sharp had been alive for centuries. He had worked hard to master the Power as early in life as he could. The eternal message of Allen Kokuou was loud and clear at the time of his birth. Embrace the Power and heal the world. One of his bodyguards couldn’t move a hair’s width without him knowing, and by the time he was almost in reach, he whirled about and with a skill that took ages to master, succeeded in cleaving each one down in a blur of motions an untrained eye would never have discerned. Each sentry was in multiple pieces in almost the time it took for them to process the information that their target was moving and they should attempt a counterattack.

  Then, systematically, each surrounding artificial intelligence in the area turned their attention to Sharp with one clear command.

  Boroha Sharp had been used. He should have known better.

  Each soldier charged him. Those with firearms had them up and began blazing away with any number of particle rifles, hand weapons, and whatever else they had at their disposal. Wave after wave rushed forward, attempting to shoot, grab, and generally harm the target of their new orders.

  But this was no scared boy or harmless townsperson. This was an Embracer of the Power, and in a sudden blind flurry, that Power was unleashed with frightening effectiveness.

  Short swords at the ready before the first malicious trigger was pulled, the natural awesomeness of the Power was summoned like a protective shield around Sharp, dispersing and deflecting anything that would harm him. He ran back to a tree line in the distance, the Power coursing through him and the blades he carried, aiding him forward at inhuman speed, slicing down any that got in his way with quick and astonishing effectiveness.

  The trees gave him a relatively solid level of protection to his back while he dealt with the legions that came at him head-on. The years of practice gave him great focus very quickly. He likely could have summoned the Power even without his trusted weapons, but in a situation like this, he much preferred to have them in hand.

  He cut across the empty space between him and the coming horde in a half-circle. Waves of energy resembling millions of blue electrical sparks bonded together by some unseen force emanated from the tips of the weapons. In an instant the Power spread out, cutting down each robot just as easily as his weapons did alone, and before many had time to process the event, they were destroyed. A battlefield of twisted silver bodies fell while the sounds of servos grinding and limbs clashing together filled the air.

  Sharp had no time to admire his work. The piles of debris only slowed down the next wave, and this one was more than useless foot soldiers. Now the heavy arms and advanced thinking machines called Heralds were approaching, and although individually they were no match for him, massed in the hundreds they were a threat. The only reassuring fact was that they couldn’t kill him. They could do some serious damage, even crippling, but he would live. He had already injected the cure for the Herald’s neural inhibitor drug, so there was no worry there, but if they did manage to incapacitate him, they would likely take him right to Izuku.

  He crashed into the trees behind him, running and dodging as best he could in the dense brush. The forces behind him had no such obstructions as they used the heavy weapon tanks and half-tracks to simply mow through. The nimble and intelligent Heralds were ahead of the pack and could move as quickly as Sharp. After only a few moments, the first few began outpacing him, reaching out with Ark 1s and firing randomly in his direction.

  He realized they weren’t aiming for him, but ahead and around him, causing small, popping explosions that crashed trees and threw up dirt. They didn’t want to hit him. They just wanted to slow him down.

  He opted for the offensive, coming to a stop in an area with older growth trees that were tall and widely spaced. One by one he attacked the things, each issuing the standard, inhuman scream as he did so.

  He fired waves of the powerful sparks at the enemy, slicing them down with ease as the big guns approached in the distance. All around him, silver streaks told him the enemy was massing, attempting to flank him and close the vice. The time for the next level was at hand.

  He drove one of the short swords into the ground and unleashed what he could of his considerable talent into the effort. Blue energy coursed out in forceful waves like ripples in a pond. Just as a lightning rod sent energy into the ground, the Power flowed outward from the point of the sword’s impact in a circular spreading spider web, obliterating every target like they had stepped on hot lava that melted and eroded each one. All around him the screams sounded and were silenced as the Power pulsed outward. Even units hiding in the trees couldn’t escape as the blue energy ran through the large trunks and dropped the ambushers to the ground.

  With only a minimum of effort on his part, the attack ceased. Soon he could no longer hear any more approaching, and he turned his attention to what he should do next.

  For an Embracer like himself, it was just that simple.

  Was it Izuku who had done this? That seemed the most likely, but as he had just hatched his plan to turn Izuku’s laziness against him, he didn’t know what had triggered this assault. The likeliest answer was that Izuku had planned it all along and had waited for the mission to be complete.

  If all Izuku could do now was throw lifeless bots at him, he might make it out of this in one piece, though he doubted Izuku was so short sighted.

  An insight that was, naturally, completely correct.

  Before he could leave, the dappled silhouette came into the woods, following the path where the destroyed vehicles were littered. How anything had escaped Sharp’s Power was a mystery.

  When it stepped into the old growth clearing, the answer became perfectly clear. Sharp could now see that he had been slated to die all along.

  Before him stood another robotic creation, but not like the others. Instead of silver, this one was black, with a mother-of-pearl shimmer coming from wherever the sun touched it through the trees. It stood like the others, with tall legs and a body similar to a normal human, complete with the arms, neck, and head. The head was more lifelike than the Heralds, which had no real face to speak of other than eye slits. This one had a fully operational mouth, with spinning blue eyes like its inferior, lower-grade relatives.

  In its hand was what something Boroha Sharp instantly feared. A broadsword with ornate images etched into the blade from tip to hilt, the handle wrapped in soft leather.

  If the weapon had a name, he did not know it. He assumed it did. Ones like this always did. He didn’t know its previous owners or who had made it, but once his eyes took it in completely, he saw it, and what he saw was very unsettling.

  Sharp was old. Very old. But, there were older and more powerful Embracers out there throughout history. One of these unseen faces of history had created this weapon, and that person was older and more powerful than Boroha Sharp was this day. How it had got the weapon was not his concern. What concerned him was that it wasn’t just the sword that spoke to him. It seemed to be the whole damn machine. Izuku had done it. The rumors were true.

  This was Eleotherios Duo #0901, and before it came at him with its weapon of Power at the ready, Sharp had two thoughts. First: just how powerful was Izuku that he could complete this monster? And second: how glad he was that he sent those four off with weapons in hand and a plan in their heads. Should this confrontation go as he anticipated it would, that small act of indifferent defiance would likely be his last gift to the world.

  When their swords clashed and the machine was able to overpower him after only the briefest of skirmishes, he knew his assumption on the outcome would be correct.

  Cha
pter 19

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  The Dragon Awakens

  Crystal knew that she didn’t need to do much to break down Aryu’s preconceived notions of the Power, reminding him that technology getting out of hand had destroyed the world twice, the Power only once (“That’s fifty percent less!” she giggled demurely), and of all the Power Embracers in history. One crazy man wasn’t quite enough to label the whole collection of people with these abilities.

  The only things really holding back Aryu’s mind on the subject were his fear of the beast named Nixon Ash and the simple fact that, despite some dealings with it on a very abstract level, Aryu still was terrified of the Power. A deep part of him believed that mankind simply wasn’t made to hold that kind of ability.

  “Is the Power Divine?” Aryu asked.

  Crystal shook her head. “No, not really. Science and divinity are so close to one another it’s frightening. The Power is deeper than that. Faith has always sprung from the Power, not the other way around. Look at Sho and I. Science enfeebled us, not faith.”

  “And Nixon?”

  “Nixon is an extreme who proves the rule. A person born entirely of the Power. Science can’t take away his Power because he is the Power. There’s nothing human about him to take the Power from in the first place. He is a creation of ‘God’, but he’s just the most perfect example of the pinnacle of science.”

  Aryu flustered. “So he’s not a creation of God?”

  Crystal grinned devilishly. “Well, that’s a question of your faith.”

  Aryu wasn’t amused. “I have no faith.”

  Crystal was ready for the answer. “Then you have no God, old or new, and Nixon is the result of an unbelievably powerful Embracer creating an actual living creature eons ago. He is one of the ultimate culminations of all of Earth’s sciences.”

  “And what if I said I believed in the true God?” Aryu asked, smirking back at her.

  Crystal shrugged. “Well, then I’d tell you that he’s an Angel and you’d believe me.”

  Aryu wasn’t sure if it was fact or Crystal’s bitterness at Ryu veiled behind an impishly cute exterior that had come up with that answer. One tends to lose faith when directly betrayed by a god, be they old or new. A thought occurred to Aryu.

  “Is he the only one of his kind? Are there others like him?”

  Crystal faltered slightly, but just enough for Aryu to catch it. After a pause, she finally responded. “There are others, but you’ll never have to worry about them.” Aryu tried to press her for more, but she expertly brought the topic back to him.

  Crystal worked with him until the appointed time, but even she could see he needed what all skeptics needed: proof. Since both she and her son were lacking the talents at this moment, it would be difficult to break that all-important mental barrier without some kind of tangible visual display of just what, if given the time and resources, a human is capable of. Her father had faced this dilemma many times; trying to always find a way to convince someone it was possible, and in many cases necessary, without showing them.

  The barrier in him remained. Until proof was shown (or he pushed himself over that last hurdle just as she had as a child), Aryu was taken as far as she could get him.

  “Remember, Aryu,” she said, “it is there, inside of you. Inside everyone and everything. You will see it, and you will be amazed.”

  Once the big metal bird began to noticeably slow and descend, the lessons were all but forgotten as they began to execute the plan the four had devised.

  Sho and Nixon wasted no time. The moment they felt the telltale change in altitude and velocity, they were on their feet with sword and shield in hand.

  The door that held them was a sad collection of hard metal and electronic locks that to them were more like tinfoil. Nixon slipped his sword into the crack along the edge of the door above the handle and just let it fall, severing the weak attempts to seal them in as he did so.

  The alarms sounded before he was even halfway. Either by his actions or that of Aryu and Crystal he didn’t know or care. The plan was in effect, and they all had to see it through to the end.

  One mighty kick was all that was needed to cause the door to swing open with a bang and the two inside to emerge, ready for an attack, screaming madly as their battle-ready eyes scanned for the enemy. There was nothing but a wide empty hallway lined with doors, without a guard to be found anywhere. Only the bleat of the alarm that seemed to summon no one. The confidence of their enemy was staggering.

  Nixon was instantly suspicious. No one was so stupid as to assume they didn’t have a plan. This was just a trap.

  Across from them, one of the many doors that lined the area swung open and Aryu stepped out, Shi Kaze in the lead. Crystal, despite her current condition and lack of armament, pushed Aryu aside at once and led the way out the door.

  “Not much for greetings, are they?” Crystal said, looking around. Aryu appeared ready for an ambush from all sides, but Crystal only looked bored and listless, as if this was all just a large waste of her valuable time.

  “So it’d seem,” replied Nixon over the alarm, a part of him upset at the lack of any physical confrontation. The brief skirmish with Sho had been all he’d seen since he had awoken, and that was nowhere near enough to satisfy the battle hunger one such as him possessed.

  “What do you think it means?” Aryu asked, still jittery. The surroundings of cold metal and blinking buttons and switches were still putting him in an uncomfortable place, even after all he’d seen. He was not one who would so easily forget the deep-rooted fears he harbored about machines and technology, but at least he didn’t vomit or pass out. That was a hassle Nixon didn’t want to deal with.

  In the end, he just shrugged. “Yer guess is as good as any, Aryu. I doubt we’re so low a priority after all tha' destruction they caused jus' t’ get us, but I expected at least one guard. No point in wonderin’ the ‘why’. Let’s just be done with this.”

  Nixon and his still-intact Divine powers in the lead, Sho and his unbreakable shield bringing up the rear, they followed the hallway until it branched at a ‘T’ intersection. “Which way ya figure, Crystal?”

  As the most important part of this plan, she pointed them left, searching for wherever the central command was located (assuming it had one. These things were self-sufficient enough to control a plane like this without one.).

  Once they turned again and entered a large cargo bay in the heart of the plane, luck took one of its frequent turns for the worse. Multitudes of robotic autonomous eyes turned to where they entered. They had entered a cargo bay full of dozens of troops.

  “Protect Crystal!” Nixon yelled as he brought up the shimmering sword he carried and began cleaving his way through the masses like a man possessed.

  “Aryu, follow his lead!” Sho shouted to him as he came around his diminutive mother and brought his shield into a defensive position. Aryu was about to argue, but one look from the intense eyes of the forest-keeper and he knew enough not to. Fear gave way to adrenalin as he followed in step behind Nixon, the mighty Shi Kaze clenched tightly in his fist. There wasn’t a Herald in sight, but these common robotic foot soldiers would have to serve the purpose.

  “For Tan Torna Qu-ay!” he screamed as he began slashing with what little educated movements he could muster, a modicum of his revenge finally at hand.

  He never doubted the power of the blade in his hands. The light-as-air ninjato sword began slashing through each enemy in range effortlessly. The machines relied strictly on their numbers, as any errant pistol blast could cause a serious problem. The numbers game and superior strength (at least over Aryu) were their weapons of choice, but as Aryu rushed through the crowd in Nixon’s sizeable wake, he had the strong belief his side still held the advantage.

  How much he had retained from the heavy training at Nixon’s hands astonished him as the lessons transferred themselves into his movements seamlessly. Thrusts, feints, and counterattack
s ran through him like a seasoned pro, each motion bringing down more and more of the enemy. The sound of metal grinding together and piling on to the ground was everywhere. Although the group had anticipated this encounter to some degree, the variables in their plan relied on working quickly.

  To his right, amidst the crowd of rushing, flailing silver bodies, another group of soldiers broke off and began moving towards Sho and Crystal. Aryu cried out to Nixon as best he could to tell him, wondering if they should help or continue as planned. After a moment, Nixon brought his massive sword about, taking at least six with him. “Bah, it’s only twelve or so, he can handle twice tha' even without the Power!”

  Aryu wasn’t so sure. All it took was one to breach Sho and make it to his mother. They only had the shield for defense, and although impressive with its border of jagged teeth, Aryu doubted it could be used against such a numerous and aggressive enemy.

  As he beat down all that came at him, body still tense and loving every dispatching, Aryu watched as the wonder of Sho’s miraculous weapon came to light. Before they reached the two, Sho readied his weapon in front of him and began a steady and repetitive clenching of the fist that carried it.

  Through some unseen workings, Aryu watched the shield remain stationary, but the blades that bordered it began to rotate like clockwork, gaining in speed until they were a whirling saw blade when the first robotic set of hands were at them. Careful to keep the spinning weapon of both offence and defense at a distance, Sho began sweeping his arm back and forth, leveling out the shield and easily shredding the robots to pieces. In only a matter of a few strokes, all who broke off and attacked them were nothing more than broken metal on the ground, the shield back to its ready position, waiting for another group to be foolish.

 

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