The shouts of Vanguard filled the streets, and suddenly he could see why. The Hunter had flown into battle. The Vanguard. Civic Protection had ceased fire, and people shouted as they saw James fly overhead. Something had changed in him, in everything. Every one noticed, everyone could tell.
James flew fast, and suddenly he was at the front line of the battle. He landed in front of Khaleel and Savannah, nearly twenty meters from the line of tanks that was advancing. The ground cracked beneath him from his impact. They noticed he was no longer using his wings to fly. He also no longer had the Hunter disguise over his face. James held up one arm, signaling Civic Protection to halt. Confused, the tanks slowed for a moment before they continued their advancement.
Savannah stood up once again, and pulled up her own weapon. Her face held fear, but also hope. She stood next to James. Khaleel stood beside her. Suddenly people began running up, and standing behind them. In seconds the street was filled with people standing beside and behind James.
The soldiers of Civic Protection had confused looks on their faces, but one officer among them began shouting orders. All the tanks rotated their barrels, aiming at James. All the soldiers also aimed their rifles at him. There was a pause for just a moment. James simply stood there with his arm held out.
Someone yelled fire, and all the tanks began firing on him. About a meter before the shells reached James, they hit an invisible wall. The impact on this invisible wall created such a concussion force that the concrete street and asphalt below began to tear up, cracking and breaking apart. James held up both arms, blocking the shells and rounds as they flew forward into his invisible barrier.
He lowered his silver eyes at the tanks, and shot a blast at them. The concrete tore beneath them, and the nearest tanks flew backwards into the air from his own concussive force. James followed the momentum of his attack by leaping forward. He put all his power into his fist and slammed it into the top of a tank. He felt the metal rupture, and the tank lowed a foot and a half closer to the ground.
He leaped forward, tearing through the next tank. He used his telekinetic powers and tore a path way through the tanks. They flew through the air with his telekinetic blasts. Fire and explosions became more prevalent on the Civic Protection side of the barrier. He moved so fast it took only five minutes for him to level nearly all the tanks in the barrier. There were cheers behind him as resistance soldiers began to move forward into Old District. James stopped Khaleel to speak to him, taking his shoulder with his arm.
“The path should be clear till you reach the wall,” James said to Khaleel. "There you’ll have more soldiers to deal with.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?” Khaleel asked. James shook his head.
“I have to take care of Michael,” James said. “I have to finish what I started or this whole fight will have been for nothing.” Khaleel nodded, and stepped back a little. James stepped back, and people instinctively stepped back from him. The was a short pause as James seemed to be gathering strength and energy. He then shot upwards, flying towards the clouds in the sky.
Christina was further away from the front lines, with Alicia by her side. But she had seen James tear through the Civic Protection barricade. A lot of people had. Now he was flying upward in the sky. She felt a tear in her eye as she witnessed him. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen.
William and Sean stood next to her, protecting both her and Alicia. They smiled as they saw him shooting upward into the sky.
“Up flies the Vanguard,” William said, “the last soldier sent to battle for the soul of humanity.” His words were poetic, and Christina had chills as she saw James flying. Most of the resistance had stopped, and were watching him fly upward.
Dante sat at the ledge of a broken window in the capital. Callahan was lying nearby, dead. Dante had found the man that way; apparently, Callahan had committed suicide with a small pistol.
Dante now was holding the wound on his stomach with towel, and holding a cigarette in his mouth. He’d been watching the battle from afar. He was now watching James fly into the sky. He chuckled a little to himself.
“Now the real fight begins,” Dante said aloud to no one in particular.
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James flew into the lower clouds, seeing the sky approach him. It suddenly seemed much more like a ceiling, and as he approached it he could tell it was. It was a holographic ceiling. He realized the reason the sky was always dim was because there just hadn’t been enough power to make it look fully lit, not with everything else for which Michael had needed to divert energy.
In moments he crossed over the threshold, flying past thousands of holographic projectors. He flew up next through the machinery, which was built throughout the dome. It was darker, and most of the lighting was blue tinted. He began dodging more beams of metal, and he noticed the glowing in his mind’s eye. Two others. Wolfgang and Damaine were flying through the metal skeletal structure of the dome, heading him off. He let himself glow through the mind’s eye while examining them.
They definitely looked different. Not just through the mind’s eye, but physically. They both had xenos of their own coursing through their veins, making them stronger. James continued to navigate through the beams of metal until he finally found the hub. He landed nearly twenty yards from the piece of machinery. The area around the hub was devoid of machinery; instead, it was a clear area with a floor covered in metal tiles. The hub itself was a sight to behold.
It was enormous, looking to weigh several tons. This hub connected to the control room, which was somewhere else in the dome. It was as Dante said, a giant stasis chamber. The hub was a spherical orb, floating a few feet in the air, with dozens of tubing and wires streaming out of it from all sides. There was a slow electronic hum that emanated from the machine.
Both Wolfgang and Damaine landed themselves in front of the hub. Wolfgang grinned at James darkly, a predatory gaze in his eyes. Damaine stared at James with coldness in her own eyes.
“We knew you’d come,” Wolfgang said as he stood straight up. The man looked even fiercer than before. His body was enclosed in the organic metal armor, with layers of plates that made James’s appearance seem conservative. James couldn’t help but notice that Wolfgang’s scar across his face was gone.
Damaine looked just as vicious, but she emphasized her shapely appearance more. She also made her metal armor have no overlapping plates or seams. It gave the appearance that her body was made of a dark organic metal, or covered in a skintight cloth made of the same metal. Both she and Wolfgang had their fingers ending in sharp claws.
“Of course I’d come, you know why I’m here,” James said.
“Yes, you’re here to stop the scrambler," Wolfgang said, “and we’re here to stop you.” Wolfgang made a fist and held it up, squeezing it as tight as possible. “I had no idea the strength I could have access until now. You thought I was strong before, but now we can truly destroy you.”
“And then what?”
“And then I can stand on Father’s right side, serving him as the overseer over all humanity.” Wolfgang pulled the sword from the sheath on his back. He activated it on the hilt. The blade began glowing blue, filled with plasma energy. Damaine followed Wolfgang’s lead, pulling her own sword and activating it.
They still needed their unique weapons to defeat him, despite all the power they’ve obtained. He smiled as he braced himself for combat.
“Before we begin,” Wolfgang said, “I want to ask you one thing.” James looked at him questioningly as Wolfgang continued, “With all you’ve seen, all you’ve experienced, are they worth it? The humans. Are they really worth this fight?”
This question set James aback for a moment. His mind immediately turned to his father, giving his life for the city. He then thought of Alicia, and then Christina. He remembered Christina’s face when she first learned he was alive. The same glow in her eyes when he gav
e her the ring earlier that morning. So many images and memories flashed through his head in that moment, all related to her.
“Worth fighting for," James said as he stood in position for battle, “worth dying for.”
“I hope so,” Wolfgang said. Both he and Damaine shouted as they charged him. They both held a telekinetic force in front of them as they ran towards him, linking their powers. James closed his eyes, feeling them come with his mind’s eye. Suddenly as their telekinetic force was about to reach him, his eyes opened. He sent his own defensive wave into their force.
The metal tiles shook and warped as the two invisible forces met. James held his own as Wolfgang and Damaine both stopped running and tried to maintain their own power. James held them for only a moment, and then pushed with all his might. He drew the two short blades that had once belonged to Lucien, activating them at the hilts. He rushed Wolfgang and Damaine, his blades meeting their own.
Surprise was on both their faces. They obviously hadn’t expected him to have those weapons. As powerful as they were, he thought, they only use the mind’s eye for strength. They ignore so many other aspects of it. He tried to figure out how to use that, for he only had ten minutes to destroy that hub.
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Khaleel was near the front of the large mass of people that was the resistance army. Since James Vanguard had broken Civic Protection’s line in Old District, they’d been able to advance in a very short amount of time. In very little time they had reached the edge of Old District. They were met with almost no resistance in Old District, and he’d begun to wonder where Civic Protection was when he, along with the rest of the army, were suddenly stopped.
Civic Protection was lined in the most massive force he’d ever seen. They were layered in front of the wall, in a quarter mile stretch. Gunships hovered in the air, preparing to attack. Tanks sat in staggered formations, stationary and waiting for orders to fire.
Khaleel moved into the open space, into the open fields where the cabbage was grown. People began to follow him, Savannah at his side and everyone else at his back. He heard a loudspeaker coming from one of the soldiers ahead. The soldier was urging for them to turn back, that they were outnumbered and outgunned. Khaleel made sure his weapon was loaded, and continued to move.
Soon most of the resistance was spilling into the fields, headed to the paved concrete that led to the wall. It was quiet; people were walking silently towards the soldiers. Khaleel turned for a moment and looked over what he could see of the resistance. There were a thousands of people. It wasn’t going to be enough though; he could see that. Civic Protection still outnumbered them and had better weapons.
“What do we do?” Savannah whispered to him. He could hear the fear in her voice. He began to speak when he heard something else. It sounded like marching. Like a crowd marching. He turned, looking in the direction of the sound.
It was a crowd too large to count. Citizens of Dirge were all marching for the walls. There was no longer just the resistance fighting Civic Protection, but all the people had finally stood up. People were shouting, cheering. Civic Protection stood their ground as the fields became full of people. In a matter of minutes, there were people as far as the eye could see.
They all stood, facing off with Civic Protection. Khaleel stood quietly. Savannah looked at him. "What do we do now? If we charge them, Civic Protection will fire on everyone. Practically the entire city is out here, or at least everyone that can be.” She was right. There were elderly men and women, children, teenagers. So many people. Some were in more tattered clothes, others were in nicer garments. They were all standing together now.
“We wait,” Khaleel said. "I’m sure James expected this. Now all of this, everything, relies on him.” The crowd had become quiet, as if his words had been heard by all.
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James parried another blow from Wolfgang’s sword, also ducking as Damaine tried a swing meant to decapitate him with her own sword. As he ducked, he fell to the ground and sent a telekinetic wave all around him. The metal tiles ripped further, revealing skeletal beams and wiring underneath.
Wolfgang and Damaine jumped back a few steps, catching their balance. James threw his blade at Wolfgang, whipping it around on the chain that came out of the palm of his xeno arm. He used his telekinesis to guide the blade towards his targets. Damaine blocked his attack with her sword, but James whipped it around to get her from the other side. She ducked, and James changed the direction of the blade on the chain, whipping it onto the floor. He let his telekinetic power course through the chain and the blade, causing them to become extensions of himself. The blade and chain hit the floor hard, causing an unnaturally hard impact.
The metal tiles tore around them, and Wolfgang and Damaine both got to their feet and leaped out of the way as the floors around them began to collapse. They climbed onto the ceiling. James pursued them, latching onto the ceiling upside down and swinging his blade by the chain at Damaine. The blade brushed past her shoulder, slicing her with blue sparks flying all around.
She dropped to the ground, startled. Wolfgang yelled as he jumped at James, climbing through the metal rafters at him. James jumped around him at the last moment, and let the chain wrap around Wolfgang’s waist. He then used the other’s momentum, swinging him downward onto the floor. The metal tiles rang out in strain as Wolfgang landed on a piece of the flooring that hadn’t collapsed.
James dropped in front of them a few meters. Wolfgang and Damaine were still between him and the spherical hub. James gripped the blade that wasn’t attached to the chain, squeezing the hilt hard. He suddenly threw it at Wolfgang with the telekinetic force behind it. Wolfgang barely dodged the blade, dropping to one side. The wake of turbulent air from the blade caused him to fall off balance for a moment.
“I don’t understand,” Wolfgang said, “how are you so much stronger?” He and Damaine ran at James, holding their swords high in the air at him. James moved quickly to one side, dodging Damaine’s blade and elbowing her in the side of the head. He then held his other blade up, meeting Wolfgang’s. They held for a moment, staring at each other.
“All my life I’ve struggled to be the strongest,” Wolfgang said, “and then you come. In a month you’ve become this powerful? It’s not right. In fact, it doesn’t matter now. In a few short minutes the machine will activate, and everyone will drop on the ground in a catatonic state.” James smiled at him with fierce determination.
“Do you want to know why I’m so strong?” James said. Wolfgang looked at him questioningly. James stood up straight and held the short blade in front of him, the blue light playing across the reflective metal on his body. “Protecting the ones I love makes me strong.” Wolfgang and Damaine both sneered at him incredulously.
“There’s something else you should know,” James said with a smile. "The hub is about to explode.” Both of them turned around, and saw the blade that James had thrown earlier was stuck in the large metal orb. James had squeezed the hilt to the point that it had cracked the power cell inside. The destabilized power cell would explode in a few seconds.
James leaped at Wolfgang, grabbing the man in a headlock and throwing him into Damaine. They both flew onto the metal floor. James then ran to the nearest hole in the tiles and dove through it. Suddenly the hilt of the blade exploded, creating molten metal on the side of the hub as well as a small cavity. There was a quiet pause as the interior of the hub was exposed to air. Sparks and flames started coming from the sphere, at first at the open cavity, then to the rest of the hub as the fluid from a fusion cell began to leak out. It created a chain reaction, spreading throughout all the active nodes in the scrambler, all over the dome. Wolfgang and Damaine watched in disbelief as they became surrounded by fire in a manner of seconds.
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Khaleel stood silently. The crowd had been quiet for several minutes. Everyone was waiting for the first shot to be fired. All the soldiers of C
ivic Protection stared at them silently, standing in formation to protect the wall. They understood that if they began firing, they would be firing upon an entire city of citizens, not just the resistance.
Khaleel was about to say something when he heard an explosion. It was louder than anything he’d ever heard. He turned as everyone else did to see what had happened. There was a quiet gasp of shock. Many of the soldiers of Civic Protection saw as well, dropping their rifles in shock.
Over the city, it looked as if a section of the sky had exploded. It had burst into flame. There were other smaller explosions that created a web of fire across the sky, and the clouds and sky itself began to flicker, as if it were shorting out. Fire and debris seemed to fall from no where, coming from above. Khaleel suddenly understood why James had to show them, for they wouldn’t have believed it if he’d just told them. The sky wasn’t real.
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The flames had enveloped James as he flew through the metal. He finally escaped, opening his wings and flying downward through the sky beneath the dome. The scrambler was destroyed. He sighed relief as he floated to a halt in the air. His wings morphed back into his coat as he remained in the air. Suddenly there were two streaks of smoke and flame as Wolfgang and Damaine exited the fires above. James had the realization that they could also fly.
Wolfgang had created silver bird wings on his back, metallic feathers whipping around in the air. Damaine had followed his example, forming wings of her own. They hovered for a moment in the air, seething at James. The xenos enabled them to fly like James. James felt like staying quiet, but he let his smile speak for him.
“This is far from over,” Wolfgang shouted, and darted through the air towards him. James pulled his blade up just in time, parrying the other’s sword blow as Damaine flew at them, and James dropped himself through the air. He allowed gravity to take hold, and he fell downward. The other two dove after him, pursuing with their glowing blue swords. James suddenly stopped in the air, floating and catching them off-guard mid-air. He shot a telekinetic blast at them, knocking both of them off balance. He threw his blade at Wolfgang, which tore through the other’s wing. It caused Wolfgang to lose his balance for a moment more, and James had him hooked with the blade and chain. James pulled hard on the chain, causing them to propel towards each other. At the last moment James filled his fist with strength, and swung a left hook into Wolfgang’s jaw. The impact caused them both to bounce back away from each other. James pulled his blade and chain back, the chain being pulled back inside his xeno arm. He gripped the blade with his hand as he gave himself speed.
City of Twilight Part III: The New Dawn (The Vanguard Chronicles Book 3) Page 12