by S. L. Dunn
“What the hell?” Hoff whispered as the dust slowly settled back to the ground. He let the car he was holding fall with a jangle to his feet, the windows shattering.
A young man was standing in front of the motionless mob. The avenue was cracked in a wide crater around the mysterious young man’s feet. Hoff blinked several times at the strikingly familiar sight. He was looking at one of his own. It was a Primus of obvious Royal descent clad in flawless Imperial First Class armor that glinted in the sunlight. A long threadbare crimson cloak shifted slowly in the cool breeze behind the strange young man, and underneath the shadow of the cloak’s hood, a pair of sharp eyes bore into him with cold fury. The Lord General stared at the face of a ghost, an apparition of an unspeakable event long forgotten. Darien silently descended, landing beside Hoff and examining their mysterious guest, who was decked in Imperial First Class armor, uncertainly. Hoff and Darien embraced an undimmed vision of the grandeur of Sejero champions of old, befitting the very depictions on Sejeroreich’s War Hall. The newcomer’s expression was murderous, and his fists were clenched as he smoldered with rage.
A phantom. An exile. As ever before, Gravitas Nerol stood alone.
The people on the street sensed the sudden uncertainty, perhaps even fear, in the monstrous faces of the mammoth god-destructors. The enmity between the lone young man and the two giants was palpable, the power of their standoff emitting an electric charge. Men and women, complete strangers, looked from one another to the pair of giants to the surreal young man with feeble misunderstanding. Then, one by one, they began to move behind the cloaked man that had descended from the sky, or was it from the heavens? Just as they could perceive the danger of the giants, they knew—somehow, someway, in some visceral sense they could tell: this one was on their side.
This god was here to protect them, and for the first time in history, humans rallied helplessly behind a higher being—they rallied behind the last son of house Nerol.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Gravitas
For a long moment it seemed as though time stood still as the intense standoff persisted. From the bewildered bystanders to Gravitas to the two giants, all characters seemed unwilling to break the profuse silence. In their immoral clamor, the depraved hyenas had awoken the sleeping lion, and now he stood before them. At the head of countless scared faces, Gravitas Nerol waited for the two Imperial First Class soldiers to break the hush.
The two giants looked back at him, standing shoulder to shoulder, each with an equally mystified expression. The mangled Jeep that had been thrown was crackling and sizzling on the sidewalk, emitting an acrid stench of melting plastic and upholstery. In the corner of his vision Gravitas was aware of a helicopter thumping over the trees of the park and recording every second of the standoff, the sound of its presence barely perceptible over the roar of the panicking masses in the streets and avenues.
At last the slightly larger of the two behemoths stepped forward, his leg the girth of a tree trunk. Gravitas could see from the insignias on his armor that he was high ranking, not an average grunt of the Imperial First Class ranks.
“Do you remember me?” the giant soldier asked, his voice baritone and harsh.
Gravitas looked at him with repulsion. Over the years he had almost willed himself to believe the soldiers of the Imperial Army were not as monstrous as his memory would have him believe. He let out a frustrated and pained sigh, and for the first time in many years he spoke his native tongue.
“Yes. I recognize you, General Hoff.” Gravitas spoke slowly, and drew his gaze to the other, younger, giant. “I don’t know you.”
The closer soldier nodded his grotesquely thick neck and placed a hand against his broad chest. “It’s Lord General Hoff, now. This is Royal Guard Krell Darien. I must say I was not expecting to see you again . . . Nerol.”
To this, the other warrior, Darien, looked from Gravitas back to Hoff with an incredulous expression. “This is the Nerol warrior? How?”
“Quiet. Stay on your guard, he is no ally,” the Lord General growled, not taking his eyes off Gravitas. “What are you doing here, Nerol?”
Gravitas raised his arms to his sides, and his crimson cloak shifted in the cool air. “This is my home, and you have come unwelcomed.”
“Anthem is your home,” Hoff called back. “Your people need the help of a soldier such as yourself in this dark hour, assuming you are even half as powerful as you were on Orion. Come, we must speak with you.”
“No,” Gravitas shook his head definitively. “This is my home, and these are my people. And you are correct, they do need the help of a soldier such as myself. The troubles of my vile native race are not my concern. I am ashamed of my connection to you. Nothing more.”
The Lord General was obviously holding back anger as he reached his hands out imploringly. “Emperor Faris has been murdered. His son Vengelis Epsilon wears the Blood Ring now. I suspect he will pardon you of the charges made against you by his father if you come with us willingly.”
“Faris is dead?” Gravitas repeated. “Good. My only wish is that it could have been by my hand. I don’t know his son, but I would imagine he is hiding in true Epsilon form on the throne in Sejeroreich and letting others bloody their hands in his name.”
“My, don’t we have nerve.” Hoff shook his head, his expression unreadable. “No, Nerol, the high Epsilon is not in Sejeroreich. It might interest you to know that he is here on Filgaia. As such, I entreat you to not act imprudently here.”
Gravitas felt his heart rate quicken as this truth crashed over him. If the Epsilon Emperor was on Earth, there were surely hundreds and hundreds of soldiers with him. Gravitas swallowed hard, recognizing at once that his fight would not be a winning one. It would now simply be a matter of how many he could kill before exhaustion set in. He tried not to give in to desperation or panic as he clenched his fists.
“I will be sure to assassinate him for this disgusting treachery.”
Darien suddenly joined the conversation, his deep hearty laughter echoing off the buildings around them. Yet as he laughed, Hoff remained steady, never blinking his attention away from Gravitas. Gravitas examined each of their body language, hoping one of them would surrender something to indicate which of them was more powerful.
“You think you can defeat Vengelis Epsilon?” Darien called out with amusement.
“Think? No. I’m quite certain of it.”
“Well, you may get your chance to challenge him. He’s in this city as we speak.”
Upon hearing this, Gravitas immediately turned to the mob of people cowering behind him, careful not to take his eyes off the two giants, and roared out in English, his voice barely carrying over the tumult of the surrounds. “Get out of the city! Now! Swim if you have to!”
The mob did not need telling twice.
As though his words had the effect of a starting whistle, bedlam erupted around the three otherworldly warriors. Men and women scattered. As people rushed by him, Gravitas saw that some were clutching the hands of petrified children and pulling them practically off the ground as they fled the bizarre standoff and joined the thundering stampede of an exodus. He tried to phase out his surroundings, to focus on his actions; he could not allow himself to consider how much Ryan Craig’s world would never be the same—at this moment these people needed Gravitas Nerol. Hoff smirked cynically at Gravitas as the plaintive horror rose to a deafening pitch around them, as if the terror was proving some sort of point he was trying to make.
Gravitas narrowed his gaze dangerously at the giant Lord General. He knew the mindset of these soldiers. They saw this display of fear only as a pathetic weakness. The evacuation around them was due to a lack of resolve, the lack of will to fight as mere cowardice despite their incomparable superiority, even the carrying of children was scorned as a coddling indulgence to these deluded minds. The two soldiers before him had likely never been the recipients of a kind act in their entire lives, never been shown the keystones of mo
rality, fortitude, and respect. Since birth these giants had been used and manipulated by those more powerful to be mere blunt instruments—unthinking weapons of war. Despite the awareness that it was not entirely their own fault, Gravitas realized he truly hated them for their ignorance. He also realized Hoff would not be the first Lord General to fall before him.
If the emperor himself was indeed in the city, it did not bode well for his chances. The emperor never came along on extraction operations. What possible reason would he have to come all the way here? Gravitas shook the thought from his mind. It did not matter. The new emperor would fall unceremoniously alongside his brutish ranks, or Gravitas would die seeing it attempted. Gravitas calmly untied the knot to his cloak and let it fall to the pavement. This was about saving these people, but as his cloak shifted to rest against the ground, Gravitas knew it was also about revenge. He was finished with words. As the cloak fell from his shoulders and revealed the ornate glimmering Imperial First Class armor he had been given when he was sixteen, he cast aside the cautious intellectuality of Ryan Craig and allowed the raw adrenaline, the sheer competitiveness, and the absolute fury of his warrior side to spill through him.
“I would be following them if I were you. Run and hide like these pathetic fools. I’ve beaten sons of Royalty before. Skinny, small, like you are,” the Royal Guard Darien called. The giant began to pull out a ship remote from within his armor, perhaps to call for reinforcements.
This, Gravitas could not allow.
Without a trace of warning Gravitas erupted toward him with dizzying swiftness. Before Darien could even flinch, Gravitas buried his fist into the giant’s face with a connection that reverberated through the city like a crack of resounding thunder. The Royal Guard launched backward as though he had been shot out of a cannon, tumbling and flipping down the length of the avenue. The ship remote fell clattering to the pavement and the screen shattered at Gravitas’s feet.
Gravitas Nerol turned to the Lord General of the Imperial Army.
“You don’t want to do this. There is too much you need to hear, Nerol!” Hoff warned, talking fast. “Sejeroreich lays in ruin!”
“And now so does Chicago because of you!” Gravitas said, “And this city is doomed too if I don’t intervene, is it not?”
“You don’t understand!” Hoff spat.
“Stop talking and fight an equal for once, coward.”
“Coward?” Hoff screamed, his face turning beat red. “Bronson Vikkor was my mentor you little snake! I’m going to enjoy beating you to death in his honor.”
“You’re soft from preying on the weak,” Gravitas said with cold fury. “Come. Try to rival a fellow predator.”
The general gnashed his teeth in ugly rage and rushed with a blistering fierceness toward him, his footfalls shaking the pavement. At the same moment Gravitas saw in his peripheral vision a recovered Darien barreling up the avenue toward him and casting cars out of his way with huge crashing impacts, blood running in a thick stream from where his fist had connected with the giant’s cheek.
Better their attention on him than the city, but Gravitas was all too aware of the many years since his last actual spar. He was sure to be rusty. In the split second of their approach, Gravitas exploded into the air, the force driving downward from his legs making spiderweb cracks in the pavement around the intersection. He soared upward into the brilliant cerulean sky, the two soldiers hounding in his immediate wake.
Higher and higher Gravitas drew them away from the streets and people, until far below the very island of Manhattan had shrunk to the size of his hand. As they drew near, Hoff accelerated past Darien, twisting his midsection and cocking his right arm to launch a wild punch. Gravitas steadied himself, floating alone against the outline of the sky. His mind transported his consciousness to a day long since past, and he felt once more as if he were with Master Tolland on Mount Karlsbad. Hoff’s speed was genuinely impressive for his size, and the swing was powerful enough to inflict serious damage. Gravitas remained absolutely still as the giant charged him. The enormously bulky fist was a hundredth of a second from his face when Gravitas’s body snapped into a swift dodge. Hoff’s fist met nothing but air, and his momentum caused him to shoot straight past Gravitas.
Darien was close behind, also pulling his arm into a punch. With a piercing crack Gravitas shot toward him. He launched a knee soundly into Darien’s gut, stopping the giant in his tracks and brutally taking the wind out of him.
Gravitas reached out and wrapped his fingers around the Royal Guard’s thick neck and squeezed, exploding forward and thrusting Darien back-first toward the city far below. The wind whistled in their ears as they plummeted toward the ground. The city whirled in his vision as Gravitas spun round and round, seemingly with the intention of impaling the goliath’s back on the narrow spire of one of the tall buildings. Darien tried desperately to free himself from the grip of the livid fighter on top of him, but Gravitas’s grasp was as unyielding as his rage.
Gravitas was holding him responsible for a lifetime of pent up anger and frustration.
As the two plunged toward the city, Hoff caught up with them and skillfully wrapped his huge arms around Gravitas’s head in a chokehold. This only added to their aerodynamic instability, and the three Sejero warriors flipped and rotated in a free fall, limbs and bodies tangled and interlocked in excruciating positions. Hoff’s rocklike bicep, the size of a trophy winning pumpkin, flexed forcefully into Gravitas’s exposed neck between his collarbone and chin, pressing into his bare windpipe and jugular. In immediate panic, Gravitas realized the mistake of his anger. He would be unconscious within moments.
As they descended spinning and falling through the air, Gravitas desperately lifted one of his squeezing hands from Darien’s neck and formed a fist. He swung upward blindly at Hoff’s face, but the enormous arm around his neck prevented full extension of his strikes. He could not find his target as black dots began to fill his field of vision. He quickly changed strategy and began to maddeningly strike elbow after elbow into the general’s exposed ribcage, all the while still clutching Darien by the throat and pushing him downward with his left arm. At first the elbow strikes did not weaken Hoff’s iron grip, but after six or seven lethal blows Gravitas heard a number of Hoff’s ribs crack loudly. Hoff roared in pain and released his hold. As the enormous Lord General rolled off Gravitas, Hoff reached out and tried to savagely claw at Gravitas’s face. It worked, and his huge fingers palmed Gravitas’s jaw and pulled him away from Darien.
The three quickly recovered and halted in space, falling into readied positions. They were not in the high atmosphere above the city anymore, and the tall roofs reached upward, not far below their hovering feet. The sounds of the streets rose to greet them.
“So, I guess even one-on-one duels have fallen to the wayside nowadays,” Gravitas said through heavy breaths. “Honorless bastards.”
To his surprise, Darien—without a semblance of a verbal comeback—charged him this time, thrusting a kick at Gravitas’s midsection. Gravitas spun out of the way, turning just in time to duck below another one of Hoff’s incoming fists. By nothing but sheer practiced reflex, Gravitas lowered his shoulder and flexed his arm tightly against his side, blocking another monstrous blindside kick from Darien. Though the properly sustained kick inflicted no injury to him, Gravitas was punted in a soaring arc across the sky of the city from the rocking blow. To Gravitas’s surprise, he soared straight past the thrashing rotors of a helicopter. From the open side door, the black lens of a camera along with a cameraman and pilot watched the aerial brawl in vacant disbelief.
“Get out of here!” Gravitas roared to the helicopter as the two giants tore after him.
Gravitas watched Hoff veer from his direct path and fly straight through the spinning rotors, surely just to anger him. The narrow steel shattered against the Lord General’s body, and Gravitas held up a forearm as long blades of shrapnel shot out in every direction. The helicopter fell from the sky, twirling
and spinning out of control toward crowded streets.
Gravitas darted down after it, but Darien got in his way. The giant lost his senses and launched a furious and uncontrolled punch at Gravitas’s face. Gravitas took advantage. He dodged his head to the right, and Darien’s right fist passed just above his left shoulder. Gravitas then turned his body, jutting his own right shoulder upward into Darien’s armpit. In the same movement, Gravitas reached out and grasped Darien’s extended arm. In one swift downward yank, Gravitas twisted Darien’s arm so that his huge palm faced upward, and brought it down forcefully against his own slender shoulder. The giant’s elbow hyperextended viciously. Ligaments and tendons stretched and tore apart; the bones connecting at his elbow separated with a loud pop. Darien’s face took on the sick pallor of a child that has fallen from the top of the jungle gym, and he let out a terrible expulsion of air. He was in too much pain to cry out or scream. The Royal Guard simply fell in shock toward the city, his right arm flopping limply.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Hoff screamed as he stared at his falling comrade in disbelief.
Gravitas said nothing. Instead, he silently watched Darien fall, taking careful note of where the giant was going to land in the maze of skyscrapers. He would finish him off after he was through with the Lord General. Below them, the crashed helicopter smoldered in an intersection.
Hoff panted for breath as he watched Gravitas. His enormous shoulders were held at a tender angle, and he was failing to hide winces from the several broken ribs on his right side. He made a grunting noise as he pressed a hand against his ribs. “You really think you can defeat us?”
“You’re already defeated,” Gravitas called, still watching Darien plummet between two rows of buildings.
“I’ll tear you apart!” Hoff snapped.
Gravitas turned to him humorlessly. “Then do it.”
The Lord General clenched his fists in an obvious attempt to swallow the incapacitating pain in his side and his growing panic. He did not try to reach for his remote to call for help, which Gravitas guessed was the result of his pride. Instead, Hoff lunged toward Gravitas. Their arms met and they grappled violently with one another, pushing back and forth, to and fro, across the brilliant blue skies over the spires and gravel rooftops.