Hero Rising

by Shane Hegarty

  “Come on,” said Scarlett.

  “You can do it,” said Greyson.

  It sparked again. Fizzled. Died.

  Scarlett and Greyson sagged, disappointed.

  Finn sighed with relief.

  The crystal popped, flamed.

  A gateway opened.

  It was small, unstable, but very real.

  Scarlett and Greyson gasped with wonder and delight, and actually high-fived each other, Scarlett’s thick glove soft against Greyson’s hand.

  Leaning forward to see what might come out, Finn knocked against the vending machine with his shoulder. It burst into life, its claw moving while speakers blasted out a chunk of the Smoofy theme tune.

  “Who’s got hovering hooves and a healing horn?

  “Smoofy! That’s who.

  “Whose pal is a porcupine with tickly thorns?

  “Smoofy! That’s who.”

  Scarlett looked up instantly. She edged forward, away from the gateway to see what might have caused the noise. Finn ducked down, heart hammering, his back to the machine, making himself as small as possible and hoping she’d just go away. If she found him now, he’d have to run. He’d done enough of that for one day. For one lifetime.

  “What is it?” Greyson asked her.

  “I don’t know,” said Scarlett. “You sure there was no one around?”

  The gateway closed, its light going out instantly, not even a smudge left to drift across the park.

  “Look at this,” Greyson called to his colleague.

  Scarlett stopped searching for the source of the commotion, returned to see what Greyson had called her for. Finn heard her go, peeked around the machine to see what was happening. The scientists were down on their hunkers, examining something on the ground. Dust. Prints.

  Something had come through, sneaked in while they were distracted by the song.

  “Uh-oh,” said Greyson. “Did a Legend just come in here?”

  Yes, Finn screamed silently.

  “Should we look for it?” Scarlett wondered.

  “What if it’s dangerous?” asked Greyson.

  Finn had to restrain himself from getting involved. Look at the drag marks between the paw prints. It’s only small and slow. It’s probably nothing more than a Basilisk. It’ll be very close.

  “There,” exclaimed Greyson, pointing at the gap between the ground and the Magic Flying Manatees.

  A Basilisk stared back with the full force of its not very powerful paralysing glare.

  Finn checked around, this time looking not just for assistants, but for bones too. He was relieved that nothing appeared to have jumped out of the ground. No bones. No rising skeletons.

  Quietly, he snapped with his camera. All useful evidence of this crazy and dangerous experiment.

  “Why’s it looking at us funny?” asked Greyson.

  “Does it bite?” asked Scarlett. “We should alert Lucien.”

  “They’ll already know. The gateway will have set off their alarms,” said Greyson. “But we should trap it ourselves if possible.”

  “Trap it?” said Scarlett. “With what?”

  “This,” said Greyson, picking up an orange traffic cone from nearby. He shuffled gingerly towards the Legend, cone in his outstretched hand.

  The Basilisk stared at him, the lone feather on its skull shaking with fury. Or fear.

  Greyson dropped the cone over it. Scarlett picked up a couple of rocks and plonked them on the square rim of the cone for extra weight. The scientists then stood back to assess their handiwork, relieved that the Legend didn’t seem to be making an effort to escape. Or attack. Or do anything other than, presumably, stare at the dark inside of a plastic cone.

  “Well, that was fun,” said Greyson.

  “We’ll be famous Legend Hunters yet,” said Scarlett.

  “Those Legends aren’t so tough after all,” concluded Greyson, grinning.

  Finn wasn’t watching them, though. Nor was he watching the orange cone to see if the Basilisk might slip free. Instead, he had noticed something else. Something he wasn’t sure had been there a few seconds ago.

  On the slope between the path and the rides was an imposing, rectangular flower bed, spelling out the letters of SMOOFYLAND in roses. A white, pocked object was sticking up among the stems.

  It flopped down, leaning against some bright pink flowers.

  A thigh bone, it looked like.

  Scarlett and Greyson high-fived each other again at the adventure they were having, utterly oblivious to the fact they’d just invited the Bone Creature into the world.

  The bone lay there among the flowers. A sliver of skeleton resting in the fading light of the day, as if it was just getting some air.

  The scientists whooped.

  Maybe this was as far as the Bone Creature would get, thought Finn. Maybe it was busy ripping apart the Infested Side while Finn held the only way of stopping it. The Legends hadn’t tracked him down and grabbed it from him yet, so their fears about losing the signal must have been realised.

  He peered at the flower bed more carefully. Was that another bone beneath the blooms?

  Scarlett and Greyson were oblivious to this occurrence and were too busy watching a shuffling traffic cone, inside of which was an increasingly panicked Basilisk.

  “Needs another cone,” said Scarlett.

  Greyson reached for one, added it on top of the first, but it only sat at an awkward angle while the pile moved more slowly now.

  “The others better be here soon to capture this thing properly,” said Scarlett, looking around for any arriving colleagues.

  While they were distracted, Finn tucked the desiccated Gantrua under his arm and crept further along this higher path, tracking bones where they had pushed up through the grass of the slope. At each small flower bed, the bones grew more numerous.

  And where the Smoofyland arrangement was in full bloom, Finn saw his first skull, upside down at the S, displaying the hole where a spine had once been. The spine itself was wrapped around the Y. Like all the other bones so far, they were unmoving.

  This must be it, thought Finn. Bones, but no Bone Creature. A close call.

  He looked back to where Scarlett and Greyson stood, saw them assessing the state of the walking traffic cones. They fished out another home-made crystal.

  Finn stood up from his position, in plain view, ready to warn them not to do it.

  It was too late.

  The crystal sparked, a gateway opened. Small but fizzing.

  Scarlett and Greyson looked at each other to see who was going to lift the Basilisk and chuck it back in. Scarlett sighed and, using her gloved hand to cover the bottom of the traffic cone, lifted the whole thing – Basilisk rattling away inside – and flung it in through the gateway. The portal closed almost immediately after that, leaving behind the grinning scientists.

  Content with their day’s work, Greyson actually smacked his hands together for a job well done.

  Finn could see the true results, though. He saw that the bones were being called into action. Across the SMOOFYLAND flower bed they slid, shook, one hovering in the air. A couple of bones joined together. Found more.

  Bones were rising through the earth everywhere Finn looked. Moving. Meeting.

  Across the park, beyond a small purple pond, a lone park cleaner stopped, bemused at the sight of what might have been a bone, but surely couldn’t be. He swept it up into a tray. The bone hopped out again. He swept it in again. The bone jumped out again.

  A foot joined it. The cleaner dropped his brush and ran away jabbering.

  Finn had no time now. He could see the formation of the Bone Creature happening before his eyes. It was slow, a little shaky, almost like a new-born calf finding its feet, but Finn had seen this before. He knew what would happen once the creature was released into the world. He’d seen its colossal size and power. He needed to get to it, to thrust the charm into it before it had time to do any damage.

  “For someone with t
he ability to move between worlds,” said Lucien’s voice behind him, “you proved remarkably easy to track down.”

  Finn turned to see Lucien at the front of a small souvenir shop, his head framed by a rainbow. Lucien was accompanied by several other assistants, once again pointing Desiccators. Why weren’t they shooting? Finn realised it was because he was holding Gantrua. They still wanted him, and they’d be mashed up together if Finn was desiccated now.

  “Something terrible is about to happen, Lucien,” Finn said. “You have to let me stop it.”

  “We have to stop you,” replied Lucien, “before you do any more damage.”

  Finn looked at what he held. “Listen to me,” Finn said. “Look at the bones over there, all over this place. They’re moving. They’re going to become a Legend that you will not be able to stop.”

  Lucien looked in the direction of the rollercoaster, the carpet of bones surely obvious to him now. He squinted, perhaps unsure what he was looking at.

  “And now you’ve released it, it will keep coming back,” said Finn. “It’ll destroy as much of this world as it can, for as long as it is free.”

  “That sounds like a threat.”

  “It’s not a threat,” said Finn, frustrated. “It’s a warning. I can stop it. There’s a charm that Gantrua was wearing. See it? It’s the only way to stop the Bone Creature.”

  “More threats.”

  “I understand that you don’t trust me,” Finn said. “No matter what I do, you’ll find a reason to destroy me. When that thing comes through, though, you’re going to need me to deal with it. And I’ll still do that, despite everything. Because I know what the right thing to do is. I’ve always done the right thing, even if it hasn’t always looked like it. So, here’s my promise. Once I stop the thing coming through into this world, you can do what you want with me.”

  “Why don’t we just do it now?” asked Lucien.

  “Because you would have done it already, if you really wanted to,” Finn said. He held up Gantrua, gripped tight with both hands. “I think you wonder if maybe I’m telling the truth, if the charm in here really is the answer to whatever is coming through, and you don’t want to risk shooting me in case it is.”

  Lucien rubbed his head. Adjusted his glasses at his ears, considered this proposition. “You’re right,” he admitted.

  From behind Finn, Greyson’s hands reached in and grabbed Gantrua from him, tossing it high for Lucien to catch.

  While Finn was distracted, Scarlett grabbed the camera from him and threw that to Lucien too.

  Lucien held Gantrua tight, crushed the camera under his foot, looked around at those holding Desiccators.

  “Fire,” he ordered.

  “Lucien!” a voice interrupted. A girl’s voice. “Lucien! Over here.”

  Lucien raised a hand to halt the Desiccation just as the weapons were wheezing into life, and sought out the source of the voice.

  “Lucien!” shouted a boy.

  Elektra and Tiberius were sprinting through the park, past the Smoofycopters, around the Prickles the Porcupine Tunnel of Tickles.

  “Lucien!” they shouted, because they were the kind of kids who called their father by his name instead of “Dad” just out of badness. “Look!”

  They ran.

  Straight for the huge purple sparkly rollercoaster.

  Finn considered running while Lucien was distracted, but he wouldn’t get far. He calculated the likelihood of his getting the Gatemaker out of his jacket in time to press it against the air, open a portal and escape before someone desiccated him. He didn’t fancy his chances of doing that either.

  Looking like his last remaining hairs might pop out from his tensing scalp, Lucien shouted down at his children. “Elektra. Tiberius. What are you doing here?”

  “Having fun,” shouted Elektra, belting past the Smoofy Swings.

  “Why aren’t Estravon and Emmie with you?” Lucien asked.

  “Lucien,” said Finn, “it’s not too late. Please. Give me Gantrua and I can stop the Bone Creature.”

  “Get out of here now,” said Lucien to his children. “It’s dangerous.”

  Elektra stopped, looked at the ground, kicked at something. “This place is all bony,” she said.

  “The floor is moving,” squealed Tiberius.

  “Excellent!” squealed Elektra. “Look, a funhouse!” she announced, spying Smoofy’s Happy House of Rainbows.

  Stepping on bones as they went, Lucien’s kids dashed straight for the funhouse squatting in the centre of the park, a two-storey purple rectangle with swirling rainbow murals outside.

  “Tiberius, Elektra,” Lucien called after them, but they didn’t hear, or just ignored him. Where they had stood, bones were shifting, massing.

  “Something terrible is coming through,” Finn told Lucien urgently. “We’ve no time. Give me Gantrua. You’ve got to understand: he’s the only thing that can stop it.”

  Lucien did not betray any particular panic. If anything, he now appeared interested, thoughtful, as if keen to see what might happen next. Finn suddenly understood the full extent of Lucien’s ambitions, of his madness.

  “You wanted this to happen,” Finn said, wonder in his voice. “You’ve been opening gateways because you wanted a war. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt.”

  Lucien walked to him, slowly, and spoke darkly into Finn’s ear. “We were born to fight Legends, not sit behind desks. We were meant to live in a world of chaos, not order. War, not peace. We should have had all these things. We will have them. Why should you have all the fun?”

  Around Elektra and Tiberius the bones began to lift, to coalesce.

  “You have no idea what you’ve unleashed,” Finn said.

  Lucien finally saw it. A twitch of a bone. The creep of a few more.

  On the ground, hip bones joined with leg bones. Legs joined with shoulders. Spines ran into feet.

  “Well, that is …” Lucien started to say, but did not complete the thought, simply craning for a better look as if not yet believing it. Or not yet wanting to believe it.

  He seemed trapped between his need to save his children and his dangerous desire to see the chaos he had so desired burst into the world.

  The bones began to flow, to lift faster into the air. That made Lucien’s mind up.

  “Tiberius, Elektra, get over here,” he shouted. “Now!”

  It was too late. Around them, bones took shape, quickly assembling until a loose and enormous skeletal figure, the height of a house, towered over everyone.

  Elektra and Tiberius screamed, and Finn couldn’t tell if it was with delight or fear.

  The Bone Creature’s face was a mass of hips and shoulder blades. Its teeth were a line of ribs. It opened its mouth and let out a spray of dirt and the flecks of ancient cloth long since buried with the owners of those bones. This must have been its attempt at a roar. Yet no noise came. No air either, only the smell of soil and severed roots.

  And in the moments as it loomed over them, stretched to its full height, the late sun flashing through its ribcage, all that could be heard were clods of dirt splatting on the ground, the breeze whistling through bones.

  The Gashadokuro, the Bone Creature, had risen.

  The assistants stood frozen, as if waiting to see what might happen next. Or for someone to tell them what they should do.

  A pigeon landed on the Bone Creature’s shoulder, pecked a couple of times, flew away again.

  Lucien spoke beneath his breath. “Oh my …”

  With a force that sent a tremor through the whole park, the Bone Creature smashed down on the flower bed, punching the MOOF out of SMOOFYLAND.

  Then it lifted its other makeshift fist and swung it at the humans.

  As if jolted from a daydream, Lucien and the assistants jumped away, scattered immediately, ducking from the splinters of bone raining down on them.

  Finn dodged between the creature’s legs as an assistant fired his Desiccator, and the blue fiery blob hit the G
ashadokuro at its right elbow – but where it sucked a section of bone down into an ivory ball, the bones simply rearranged themselves around the damage, reassembling even as the other arm swung down, clobbering the souvenir shop behind them, sweeping through its facade like it was no more than a line of dominoes. The crash of brick, canvas and toys pushed dust into the air all around, smacking Finn with a shock wave, knocking him sideways.

  Coughing, he got up and ran from the scene towards the clearer air and open space of the theme park, ducked down low behind a stall and watched.

  The Bone Creature marched through the cloud of dust, one foot pushing against the slope of rubble where the gift shop had been only moments before. It had eyeholes, or at least roughly shaped gaps in its semblance of a skull where eyes might have sat. But there were no eyes. Yet it appeared to examine the scene, searching for victims.

  All was still, except for the tumble of pulverised brick and the twinkling song of an electronic toy trapped within.

  And the assistants were nowhere to be seen. Lucien too. All buried, Finn assumed.

  The dust was thick in the air. Finn suppressed a cough, clasped his hands across his mouth and nose to stop himself breathing in.

  Then the Bone Creature heard something, away to Finn’s left, and moved through the newly created gloom towards it, its torso and head above the rubble cloud.

  Finn heard the noise too. It was Elektra and Tiberius.

  She was screaming at some sort of excitement in the funhouse, pressing buttons that lit up disco lights inside.

  Tiberius was shouting with gusto, “Best theme park ever!”

  Finn was closer to them than he was to wherever Lucien lay beneath that rubble. He could try and dig his way through to get the charm, but if he did that it would be too late to run and help the kids. There was no time to think about it. Finn didn’t even realise his legs were moving until he felt himself running.

  He sprinted for Elektra and Tiberius, straight into the path of the Bone Creature.