Rebellion (Zero Series)

by Huth, Jacob

  I stood up in front of the spikers and said, “Everybody please listen. We came here to free you so you could help us take our city back. We are the Insurgency. Join us and help stop the tyranny.”

  “We are all with you,” Nova said. There were sounds of agreement from the other spikers.

  “We need to get out of here. Everyone follow me. I know a way out,” Synapse said.

  “That will not be necessary,” said a voice over an intercom, “I have someone who would like to meet all of you.” The box at the end of the room began to rumble. The front panel fell off and revealed a terrifying sight. A large man who was a wall of muscle stood inside the box still unconscious. He was wearing black pants, a black t shirt and combat boots. His head was shaved bald and his face was adorned with surgical scars and marks. It was almost as if nothing on him was natural anymore. Kraken massacred his body altering it to integrate the gene spikes. His eyes popped open and revealed yellow irises in mechanical eyes.

  “Meet Armageddon and prepare to be obliterated,” the voice on the intercom said.

  He stretched his head and neck and caused the bones and joints to crack. Energy pulsed up and down his arms as he stepped out of the box. The amount of power stuffed into that one man was mind boggling. He looked around and locked his gaze on the spikers. A grin crept across his face exposing his teeth which appeared to be made of metal. A red flame like energy started to emanate from behind his teeth. I started putting the pieces together and realized that he was about to attack.

  “Run!” I screamed pushing people out of the way with my power. He opened his mouth and fired a beam of red fire from within it.

  “Zero! I can get them out of here!” Synapse yelled.

  “Take this!” I yelled running over to her while avoiding Armageddon’s blasts. I handed her the case containing the healing serum.

  “What about you?” she yelled over the explosions.

  “I need you to take this in case something happens to me. Frost and Flare need to be cured. Tell Jet that I love her,” I said. I launched myself through the air toward the spot that Quartz; Nova and Vine were taking cover. I landed next to Vine and indented the concrete floor with the impact.

  “What do we do?” Nova yelled.

  “We need to distract him until the spikers can escape,” I yelled back.

  “It would probably be better if we just wing it. You spent some time in the Pit and I was in a tube until you freed me,” Vine yelled. The explosions were deafening and continued to rattle the room. I tensed up to spring across the room when the explosions stopped. I peeked over the debris and saw Armageddon’s arms turning into some kind of metal. It started at his fingertips and spread up to his shoulders. His hands turned into spikes and began to stretch. They resembled whips but moved like serpents with minds of their own. They stretched after us and we scattered. Synapse hurried the spikers out of the room and closed the door behind her. Quartz leapt from behind a destroyed cryo tube and pulled concrete casing up around Armageddon. Vine shot a long root from the sleeve of his armor and wrapped it around the concrete. He continued to force more root out of the seed in his sleeve. Nova began to project nuclear energy in the form of fireballs from his chest and hands. I launched myself into the air and increased the pressure on Armageddon. I tried to crush him under the intense pressure but he threw his arms up and destroyed the concrete around him as well as Vine’s roots. He grabbed the roots off the ground and swung Vine around by them. He hurled Vine into a wall and caused part of it to crumble around him. The bolts Nova was hurling at him were rolling off of him like he was a large rock in a small stream.

  Armageddon began to chuckle as he put his arms out to the side and started glowing green. In no time flat, his nails began to grow into talons and scales formed on his skin like a lizard. Horns emerged from his forehead and his teeth became long and razor sharp. Wings grew from his back and his transformation into a heinous dragon-like creature was complete. His mouth opened and shot red fire that burned at an unthinkable temperature. He took flight and continued to spew fire. Vine managed to get out of the hole in the wall and regain his footing. He loaded seeds into his wrists and shot some sort of poisonous thorns at Armageddon. Only about a third of the thorns penetrated his skin while the rest were burnt up by the fire. Nova continued to project energy while Quartz hurled sharpened pieces of stone at Armageddon. He was taking hits but kept shaking them off. I was starting to panic. We were some of the more powerful spikers and we couldn’t even slow Armageddon down. If we failed, he would surely make it to the city and decimate any resistance.

  “What do we do?!” Quartz yelled.

  “We need to fall back!” Nova yelled. Armageddon stopped moving and began to transform again. His legs formed into one long tail that ran into his torso. His arms became that of a tiger and he sprouted spikes on his back. He crashed to the ground with the loss of his wings but he remained unfazed.

  “Now! Go!” Nova yelled taking off toward a small service hatch. Quartz, Vine and I followed after him. He blasted the grate covering the entrance and slid into the vent. One by one we took running slides into the vent after him. I was the last to slide and I quickly realized that Armageddon had stuck his head into the vent. He shot fire in after us. I felt the intense heat beginning to singe my hair. I used a gravity blast to propel us faster. I crashed into the other three as we plummeted down a vent leading God knows where.

  We eventually spilled into some sort of large boiler room filled with large furnaces and catwalks. My head was spinning from being knocked around so much. Vine sat up and groaned in pain. A thorn had pierced his hand directly through his palm. He pressed gingerly around the thorn.

  “Are you alright?” I asked hurrying over to him.

  “It could be a lot worse. Trust me,” he said ripping the thorn from his hand. Blood spilled from the hole that remained. “At least I get a souvenir,” he said holding his hand up and looking through the hole.

  “That looks bad,” Quartz said walking over to us.

  “I have a backup plan in case something like this happened,” said Vine. He pulled out a seed and placed it inside the hole. He took a deep breath and blew gently on the seed. It sprouted into wooden bonelike slats.

  “That’s incredible,” Quartz said crouching down.

  “I’ve been honing my techniques for years. I knew something like this would happen eventually,” he said. Green plant material filled in where his muscles and tendons would be and yellowish leafy plants grew in as his skin.

  “Won’t having plants in your hand weaken it?” Quartz asked.

  “No, I’ve learned to transmute plant material that’s integrated with my body. I can turn it into human biological matter,” Vine replied.

  “I wish I could do that with my earth manipulating,” she said.

  “If we can get out of here then we can help you hone your power. You should see some of the stuff this guy has done,” Vine said tilting his head toward me.

  “You’re Zero right?” she asked me.

  “I am. Do you want to join us?” I asked.

  “Of course. I’ll do anything I can to help,” she replied.

  “What about you Nova?” I asked loudly. There was no response. I stood up and looked around. I was horrified to see Nova standing with a blade coming through his chest. Blood gurgled out of his mouth as he fell to his knees revealing Armageddon standing behind him. He pulled the blade out of Nova and I saw that his hand had morphed into the sword. It pulsated and changed back into his normal hand. Nova’s lifeless body fell flat on the ground as Armageddon chuckled evilly. I felt a rage building up inside me.

  “You think you fools stand a chance against me?” Armageddon said. It was the first time I heard his voice and the unnatural tone was etched into my brain forever.

  “You two need to go now. The rebellion depends on numbers and they’ll need you two to help lead. I have to destroy this monstrosity,” I said to Vine and Quartz.

  “I can�
�t leave you here. Jet would never forgive me,” Vine said.

  “Jet knew that there was a good chance I wouldn’t be back. This has to happen. Go now!” I barked. Quartz pulled Vine’s arm reluctantly despite his objections. Once they were out of the chamber I turned my gaze back to Armageddon.

  “It doesn’t matter that they left. I will kill you and then I will kill them. You have only prolonged their suffering,” Armageddon said changing his hand back into a blade.

  “I am going to end you,” I said. I clenched my fist and focused my power. I could feel it charging up inside me and cracking the ground around me. We ran towards each other at a great speed and collided in front of a furnace. My fist connected with his right shoulder and his blade sliced right through my armor. The blade was so sharp. It must have been made by some absurd element thought up by Kraken if it was strong enough to cut through my special armor. He crashed into the furnace while I was tossed into a pile of coal. My armor was tattered and cut to pieces as if it were mere cloth. I ripped it off my body and stood shirtless. The light of the furnace shone of the sweat on my body. My skin was dirty from landing in the coal pile. I moved forward a few steps and quickly tried to formulate a plan. My eyes moved quickly looking for something to help me stop this monster. I couldn’t help but think of Jet and about the possibility of not coming back washed over me.

  “She is very beautiful,” Armageddon said snidely.

  “What did you say?” I barked.

  “Jet. I can read your thoughts and see what you are thinking. Maybe once I finish you off and take all of those rebellion fools out, I can keep Jet for myself,” he said.

  Something inside me snapped. All I could see was red as I thought of Armageddon going anywhere near Jet. I started pulling furnaces down on top of Armageddon from all around the room. Fire sparked out and the heat grew intense as I crushed the metal furnaces around his body. My hands shook furiously as I pressed the gravity down on him. A blast of energy came from under the furnaces and created a hole in the top of them. He sprung out of the shell and rolled on the ground. He stood up and cracked his neck causing ashes to fall off of his head.

  I launched myself at him and began punching him at a blinding speed. I put as much force behind each punch as I could. His head jerked in different directions as I struck. He hurled punches back at me. Each blow felt like a meteorite striking me at full speed from the atmosphere, but I knew I couldn’t give in. We each had become punching bags for the other person.

  “Enough!” he finally yelled. He became transparent and leapt backwards. I hunched over and tried to regain my breath. His body had lacerations and bruises all over it. He turned his head to the side and spit blood from his mouth. “You are a formidable opponent. You know that only one of us will walk from this building alive,” he said.

  “I know. It has to be me. I have people that depend on me,” I said.

  “Then earn it,” he said. We sprung toward each other, blood spilling from our bodies, fists cocked and ready to strike. Our fists met with such force that a shockwave was expelled. It crushed through the building shaking the foundation and exposing all of the weak points. The walls started to rumble and break apart. Alarms blared throughout the whole facility signaling evacuation. I looked around at the destruction that was occurring not even thinking that he would continue the battle. I felt a metal cord wrap around my neck and lift me into the air. I managed to turn my head enough to see that he had morphed his hand into a metal cable. I felt the breath being squeezed from my body as the fiery inferno of wreckage collapsed around us. An evil grin crept across his face and his eyes glowed red. I knew that he was charging to shoot a beam of concentrated energy from them. I felt the crushing shame of failure starting to overwhelm me. Visions of Armageddon standing on a pile of corpses in the middle of Marsh City, visions of Hades executing all of my friends and acquaintances in a firing squad flooded my mind. The most intense rage I had ever felt washed over me and exploded from me. I felt a strange sensation. A black hole ripped open behind Armageddon and began disintegrating everything it touched as it expanded. It looked exactly the same as when I had been poisoned in the woods. The more I strained, the larger it grew and the more it engulfed. Armageddon looked behind him to see the singularity nearly upon him. He started disintegrating from the back forward. His skin was first to go, exposing his muscles and bones. He let out the most horrible scream as his body disappeared quicker and quicker. I felt my body starting to break apart from the pull. The building and all of the material around us was being pulled in as well. The cord loosened from my throat and I pushed myself away. Armageddon completely disappeared into the vortex taking stone, metal and burning coal with him. I allowed the vortex to close and fell to my knees. Part of my skin disintegrated on my chest and arms. I sat in the crater where Tartarus stood and felt the warmth of the rising sun wash over my body. I felt unconsciousness overtake me. I lay down on my back in the dirt. Armageddon was gone. We had our army. All that was left take down Hades.

  Chapter 9: All Out War

  I opened my eyes and looked to the sky. It was cloudy out and rain was beginning to fall. Small drops fell sporadically sprinkling the ground, wetting the dirt. I sat up slowly and looked down at the spot on my chest where the singularity had torn some of my skin away. It had healed while I was asleep but there was still a roundish scar where the injury was. My body was still sore from the battle and I struggled to stand up. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to use my power to fly back. I was still too worn out and I didn’t know if I’d even be able to make it back to Sanctum, let alone the city. Each step I took felt like I’d just run a mile. The rain felt good on my sweaty back. I wondered how many people had made it out of Tartarus before I destroyed it. The alarm had sounded for a while before I brought the place down. I know that there were probably some people inside who didn’t deserve to be hurt but the probability that Armageddon and I would leave anyone unharmed in our aftermath was very low.

  The highway I was walking along had cracks throughout it that were most likely caused by the tremors from the original terror attack with the gravity machine. The ground was steaming from the rain hitting the hot pavement. I often wanted to go back in time to see what the world was like before the gravity machine. We had books and passed down stories but I wanted to see it for myself. This horrendous looking world wasn’t natural. A lot of the landscape was barren with no foliage. I wondered if I could work with Vine to try to replace some of the plant life. That was a plan for another day though. I had to focus on just getting back safely. The day passed as I limped along like a zombie. I tried to figure out where I was when I realized that the rain had completely stopped and night had fallen. The clouds had dissipated and revealed the bright revealing light of the moon. I needed desperately to sit down and rest. Right off the road, I found a spot to lie down. I just wanted to sleep and try to regain some strength. I gathered some broken boards and miscellaneous wooden debris and built a small fire. I sprawled out on the ground a couple feet away from the flames and closed my eyes. All I could think about was Jet and what she was doing. I wondered if Synapse made it back with the healing serum to help Frost and Flare. I wondered if they assumed that I was dead. I wondered how Jet felt not knowing my fate. I slipped into sleep and felt a calm relaxation set in on my body.

  I slept heavier that night that any other night of my life to that point. I was awoken by snarling around me. Surrounding me was a pack of large wolf and coyote hybrids. There were a lot of animal mutations and hybrids roaming the wilds. There were some that scientists had no explanation for. These coyote wolves were common in our region, though. People took to calling them shredders. Their claws and teeth had serious shredding abilities and they were incredibly fierce and willing to attack unprovoked. I slowly pushed myself into a crouching position as to not trigger an attack. I didn’t know if my power had returned yet. I hoped desperately that I had some of my energy back because if I was still drained, I was going to fall victim t
o the shredders. I closed my eyes and tried to visualize my power. I felt my fingers crushing into the ground which immediately made me crack a small smile. I knew that there was some power in me and I could at least put up a fight. I separated a sharp chunk of rock from the ground and hurled it into the eye of one of the shredders. It howled in pain and fell lifelessly to the ground. The other two sprung at me and I jumped into a back flip vaulting myself over them. I landed behind them and raised my hands. I threw them downward, slamming force on top of them, pushing them into the ground. There were a series of crunches and yelps. I ran the other way not waiting to find out if they were actually dead. I slowed to a walk after what seemed like miles. I noticed a road blockade with two armed soldiers standing outside of a truck about two hundred feet away from me. I squinted to try to make out if they were Kraken. I noticed that each soldier was wearing a black armband with a white “I” painted on them. A wave of relief washed over me once it finally clicked that they were friendlies. I approached the two soldiers and said, “Excuse me.”

  Both soldiers turned and pointed their rifles toward me. One of the soldiers’ eyes widened when he realized who I was. “Zero! We thought you were dead,” said the taller soldier.

  “Not yet,” I said back, “Would you happen to have some water?”