GodMode

by O. K. Mills

  As they opened a large set of double doors, they found themselves in an area so large that it could comfortably house several airplanes.

  “Underground hangar,” Heather said.

  Spade nodded, slightly frustrated.

  “We’ll find her,” Heather reassured him.

  “We’re walking in circles, Heather. Unless Bear can give us her location, we might never find her.”

  Spade activated his radio to try Bear once more.

  “Bear, what’s your 20? Do you read me? Over.”

  They listened hopefully for anything. The reply they received, however, was silence. Then, a door opened to reveal a man to whom they need not be introduced.

  He carried a Sig Sauer handgun in his left hand and a large serrated blade in his right. He walked casually toward them, while they searched the area for other mercenaries who might be hiding in the hangar.

  “This is a private party. No one is hiding in the shadows preparing to spring out of the darkness. Besides, even if they were, I think you’d just kill them all as you have every other person here. My name is Marshall Pike.”

  Heather and Spade stayed silent, their weapons at the ready.

  Pike smiled.

  “I don’t normally introduce myself to my adversaries, but the two of you have earned my admiration. The fact that you are alive at all is a testament to your warrior spirit. If we could, I would prefer to settle this matter with weapons more inclined to our particular ilk.”

  “Not very good with a gun, Mr. Pike?” Heather asked.

  Pike simply smiled and gave her a wink before turning his attention to Spade.

  “What about you, sir? Care to introduce yourself?”

  “My name is Jaysiel Spade. You killed my father,” Spade replied with venom in his voice.

  “I’ve killed a lot of men who were fathers, which one was yours?”

  Spade glared at Pike before replying, “Earlier at the safe house.”

  “That guy was your father? Oh, this could not be more perfect.”

  Spade’s hand trembled with rage as he aimed his Desert Eagle at Marshall Pike. He stood there frozen for several moments before finally lowering the weapon back to his side.

  Pike nodded admirably.

  “I appreciate your restraint. Your warrior spirit demands that we settle this with quiet weapons. Are we each agreed to this, then?”

  “Can we please just shoot this mother—”

  Spade held up his hand to stop Heather and dropped his Desert Eagle to the ground to kick it far out of reach.

  Doing the same with his Sig Sauer, Pike flipped his blade into a knife fighter’s grip.

  Heather sighed and tossed her gun to the ground, but in a very reachable distance. She drew her blades and placed them with their handles pointing forward.

  Spade unsheathed his twin swords and readied himself.

  They stood silently for a while, each knowing that one or more of them would probably not live far beyond this moment.

  And they were fine with that.

  Pike let out a guttural scream. It was on.

  Heather blocked a flurry of speedy knife strikes from Pike. He seemed faster than he had been in their previous encounter—perhaps because he wasn’t split in his focus.

  CRACK!

  Spade unleashed a powerful kick to the rib area of Pike, who buckled and fell to the ground in pain. Spade continued the assault with two more kicks. He followed up with a downward thrust of one of his swords.

  Pike rolled hard to his left away from Spade and quickly hurled a knife at him. Spade crossed his sword to deflect it, then kicked the blade out of everyone’s reach.

  Heather saw rage in Spade’s eyes. The problem with rage was that it ran hot, was undisciplined and could lull you into a false sense of security. She could see it in Spade’s approach to Pike. Overconfident and angry, he looked like a man determined to avenge his dead father, not the lethal human weapon she had observed up to this point.

  Pike also recognized it as he rolled to his feet, holding his side. Spade swung his right sword clumsily and Pike caught his wrist.

  TWIST—SNAP!

  “ARRGH!” Spade yelled as he pulled away from Pike. Pain fired through his forearm like a cannon, as he feared that his wrist might be broken. Pike rushed him, but a devastating sidekick from Heather intercepted him. She followed with a spinning heel kick; however, Pike caught her foot and snapped her ankle.

  “Mother—!” Heather roared. She fell to the ground and slid away. Still hurt from the earlier strikes to his torso, Pike held his side as he spat out blood. He was obviously bleeding internally, and his ribs were likely broken.

  Spade held his wrist as he bit his lip in pain. Heather hobbled to her feet and limped over next to Spade. They all circled each other for a few moments—

  Spade having dropped both swords, Heather holding her knives, and Pike weaponless like Spade.

  THWACK!

  Heather spun hard and connected a back elbow flush to Pike’s jaw. Spade moved in fast and struck him equally hard with a tiger mouth strike to the throat. Pike stumbled backwards holding his neck but recovered enough to score a European uppercut to Heather’s nose. It was so devastating that the blood flew back over her head and sprinkled her hair.

  WHAP, CRACK!

  Pike caught Heather again with a serious left to her now blood-red nose and a nasty back-fist to her right cheek that spun her 180 degrees. He dodged a swing from Spade before shoving him hard to the left and out of the way.

  Pike eyed Heather and delivered an elbow to Heather’s back that brought her to her knees. He checked for Spade, who was lying on the ground trying to gather himself, before placing his hands around her neck to snap it.

  WHOOSH, SHUNK!

  Pike wailed as he felt the edge of a knife dig deep into his shoulder. Pike angrily tossed Heather to the ground and walked over to Spade who was lying on his side supporting his weight with his good hand.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be right back,” Pike jested to Heather.

  Managing to get up, Spade beckoned for Pike to come to him.

  CRACK!

  Spade caught Pike’s jaw with a quick punch. With the blade still in his back, Pike stumbled slightly and swung at Spade to retaliate. Spade ducked, grabbed Pike behind the head with his good hand and delivered six repeated knee strikes.

  Dazed, Pike stumbled around, blood oozing down both of his nostrils. A spinning heel kick split Pike’s lip sent him crashing to the ground, which drove the knife protruding from his back even deeper.

  Savoring every step, Spade walked slowly over to Marshall Pike. He slammed his knee into Pike’s neck, grabbed a fist full of hair, and raised his fist up over his head before locking eyes with his opponent. Pike smiled admirably at Spade.

  “Best fight of my life, sir. See you in hell.”

  SNAP!

  Pike twisted in anguish as Spade snapped his neck like a twig. The hangar fell eerily quiet.

  “Let’s get Brynn and get the hell out of here,” Spade said to Heather.

  16: Beautiful Destruction

  “Spade ... this is Bear … do you read?”

  Spade stopped in his tracks as his com-link suddenly sprang to life. Heather, who had been limping in stride with Spade, grinned widely upon hearing Bear.

  “Bear, you don’t how good it is to hear your voice. What happened to you? We’ve been trying to reach you.”

  “I’ve been shot and electrocuted. Stragglers from the Humvee attack earlier had an EMP that knocked out the suit.”

  Spade’s smiled faded.

  “All that stuff they tell you about the third rail in the subway? It’s all true; I electrocuted myself trying to repower it the suit,” Bear laughed, his voice prominently faint.

  “Once we’re done here, we’ll come to get you.”

  “Don’t worry about me; just get Brynn out of there. From the looks of my map I see a lot fewer heat signatures. You two have been active,” said Bear.
>
  “That’s one way of putting it,” replied Heather.

  “She’s on your floor, down the hall to your left. She’s surrounded though. Anyone who isn’t already dead is probably in that room.”

  “We’ll blow the door. Brynn will heal up, and we get her out of there.” Heather explained.

  “Negative, Heather. If Silas has been siphoning Brynn’s abilities, you could potentially kill her with an explosive,” Bear replied.

  “Looks like we do this the hard way,” said Spade, as he removed a flash grenade from his utility belt. Heather loaded her bow and followed after him.

  Colonel Norris laughed when he saw the reaction of the remaining mercenaries as they realized that Pike was dead. Arata was trying to calm them down, but was also becoming increasingly skittish himself. Who knew how Damien Silas was going to react to this news? He also noticed something that the others in the room had missed.

  Brynn’s eyes had just blinked open.

  Confusion covered her exhausted face, as she tried to get her bearings. Colonel Norris made eye contact with her, and she smiled. Unfortunately for them, however, Arata caught the tail end of the exchange.

  Arata slapped Brynn hard across her face and screamed at her in Japanese. Colonel Norris tried to leap off the table he was lying on, only to be humbled by the chains that snapped him back in place. Arata walked over to him and grabbed him by the throat.

  “Tell your team to stand down now or the girl dies!”

  “You won’t kill her. Silas will kill us all if you do!”

  Arata grabbed his gun, climbed on the table and knelt on the colonel’s chest. Placing the weapon in Colonel Norris’ mouth, he cocked back the hammer.

  CRASH!

  The door to the lab swung open, a disorienting flash grenade immediately followed. All the mercenaries closed their eyes shut and held their ears closed. Spade and Heather entered and got to work.

  PAP! SLICE! PAP PAP! CHUCK! SNAP!

  When they had completed their business, all of the mercenaries were lying dead at their feet. Arata, who had fallen off the table, sat on the ground rubbing his eyes. When the smoke finally cleared, the first thing he saw was Spade’s Desert Eagle pointed directly at him.

  Arata fell dead to the ground, ironically enough on top of a roll of the very plastic he had so often wrapped others in when they were killed. Spade holstered his weapon and ran over to Brynn, giving her an enormous hug. She hugged him back, as tears coursed down her face.

  “It’s going to be okay, sweetie. I’m here. We’re getting you out of here, okay?”

  Wiping her tears, Brynn nodded with a sniffle.

  Heather limped over to a glass filled with bloody water and several recently pulled teeth. She looked over at Colonel Norris, who smiled his toothless smile at her.

  “That’s attractive,” Heather deadpanned.

  Spade picked Brynn up with both of his arms. He grimaced in pain as her weight rested on his injured wrist. Noticing the locks on Colonel Norris’ wrists and ankles, Spade asked, “Who has the key?”

  “He should,” Colonel Norris said as he pointed to the dead Japanese man at his feet. “He’s the one who chained me to this table.”

  Heather dug into the man’s pockets until she produced a key to the padlocks. Once the Colonel was free, he repeatedly stomped Arata in the face. Then, he gathered himself and proceeded to the exit.

  “You’re forgetting your teeth, sir,” Heather chuckled.

  “Damien Silas is still in this facility. We need to find him and extract him. That was the mission.” Colonel Norris barked.

  “This was the mission; this child in my arms, colonel. We’re getting out of here,” Spade replied.

  “Son, if you think that I am going to tell the President of the United States that we did not get Damien Silas, but we did get a nine-year-old g—ACK.”

  Before they knew it, the colonel was choking to death and hovering in mid-air. Slithering into the lab from the darkened hallway was none other than Damien Silas.

  Spade held Brynn more tightly in his arms. Heather had already loaded her bow and took aim at the man responsible for everything that had happened today. Silas stood with his arm extended to hold Colonel Norris in place like a puppet.

  He made a gesture.

  WHAM!

  Colonel Norris was flung into the left lab wall and dropped without ceremony to the floor below, with a bone-shattering thud. His blood left a crimson trail down the brushed aluminum and slowly oozed into a sizeable puddle around his head.

  Silas studied his opponents carefully.

  “Put the child down,” Silas said to Spade.

  “I’d sooner die,” Spade replied.

  “I certainly have no plans to thwart you in that regard,” Silas responded, lowering his hands to his sides, “I already have most of her power, and I can still have Mr. Arata extract it from her dead corpse if I wish.”

  “You mean him?” Spade asked with a nod toward the very dead body of Arata. Seeing his longtime friend lying on a roll of plastic, Silas glared at Spade.

  The man and woman in front of him had managed to do what he did not think was possible. They had infiltrated his heavily fortified facility and made it to Brynn. If he were going to bring the world to its knees, then he needed to make an example of these two.

  Heather fired her bow at Silas, but he stopped the arrow in mid-flight before it could hit him. Heather was already loading her bow again.

  CRASH!

  Diving hard to her left, Heather barely avoided the recovery bed Silas had flung at her with nothing more than his mind. She landed awkwardly on her injured ankle and collapsed in a heap.

  Spade stood frozen in place. He wanted to attack Silas, but feared for Brynn, as he continued holding her tightly to his chest. His eyes went to Heather.

  “Go!” Heather yelled to Spade.

  Spotting him getting ready to move, Silas gestured to the laboratory doors to telekinetically seal them shut.

  CRACK!

  Spade used the distraction to deliver a face-shattering knee strike to Silas that split Silas’ nose wide open. He could feel Brynn’s heart beat pounding in rhythm with his own as she clutched tightly to his chest. No sooner than the blood began pouring forth from Silas, did his new restorative powers take over and heal him in a handful of seconds.

  A spinning heel kick to the bottom of his jaw sent Silas buckling and falling to one knee. Spade’s eyes went to Brynn as he nearly dropped her executing the move. Anger fueling him, Spade rushed over in hopes of finishing his opponent, but Silas telekinetically pushed the air in front of Spade and sent him flying backwards into the opposite wall.

  SLAM!

  Spade felt the totality of his body crunch under the impact of ramming into a brushed aluminum barricade. His body went limp as he fell towards the floor. He managed to spin his body to keep Brynn from hitting the floor, as his back took the brunt of the punishment.

  WHAP! POW! CRACK!

  Heather connected three times with venomous attacks to Silas’ face. On the fourth strike, however, Silas stopped her fist in mid-swing. As hard as she tried Heather could not move. A flick of Silas’ wrist and Heather rose from the ground like a leaf being carried by the wind. She dangled in the air for several terror-filled moments before he slammed her head first to the floor and listened with pleasure as she shrieked with an agony she had not previously known.

  Silas now turned to Spade who remained on his back with Brynn clutched tightly in his arms. Silas mentally lifted Spade with ease from the floor and held him in place. He looked like an orchestra conductor as he telekinetically separated Brynn from Spade’s grasp, placing her gently to the floor without ever taking his eyes off of his enemy.

  SNAP! CRACK!

  Spade howled in anguish as Silas telekinetically broke the major bones in both of his legs and each of his arms. Then, he sent Spade crashing in misery to the far wall a second time. Brynn’s eyes went wide as her friend collapsed to the floor and
folded like an accordion. Spade looked over apologetically at Brynn and said, “I’m … sorry,” as pain rolled down his cheeks.

  Brynn held him, tears filling her own eyes as her sorrow became rage. She glared at Silas, who paused mid-stride upon seeing the child’s anger. She walked over to Silas. Wanting desperately to stop her, Spade did the only thing that he hadn’t actually attempted yet. He prayed.

  Much shorter, Brynn James looked up at Damien Silas, the tyrant of a man that had killed everyone who mattered to her: her friends, her foster mother, Spade’s father, and now he was about to kill the only person left that she could call family.

  As they stood before each other, it was almost comedic. Silas, who was well over six feet tall in stature, towered impressively over the significantly smaller Brynn. Silas chuckled and folded his arms before posing a question.

  “And what, exactly do you think you are going to do?”

  “Leave … us … alone.”

  It happened without warning. The child, with whom Spade hadn’t heard so much as a whisper unexpectedly opened her mouth and spoke.

  The sound of her voice was a mix of ecstasy and agony. It was a thunderstorm trapped inside of a warm stream. It was yin wrapped in yang, pleasure giving birth to sorrow; it was beautiful destruction.