by K Alexis
Suddenly, warm hands, arms and legs wrapped around him from behind. They gradually became colder and colder until he could no longer move. And although he could hear the sizzle of his knife melting the ice he was encased in, it seemed to be insufficient to break him free.
Junko sauntered into his field of view and smacked him across the face. "That's for all the complements I had to give you so you'd do your job." She backhanded him. "That's for every time you questioned me on a mission." Leaning in, she caressed his cheek. "That's for making me happy once, even if you never realized it."
She swiveled away from him. "What to do? What to do? I've dreamt of this day for a long time. My family will finally be rid of the Azra Curse. We'll be restored to our original position as the Attack-hand of Leviathan."
"Shouldn't you kill me?" Agra asked.
Junko whirled around. "I've waited a decade for this. I wanted to handcuff you to a bed and stab you in the middle of sex. But you never agreed to the kinkier role-plays I suggested. It was never latex with you, always frills. Goddamn vanilla pirate. That's why I believe the tides must have heard my suffering and granted me my wish in the best way possible." She ambled over to Agra and began to push the ice block he was in. Eventually, he had been rotated around and was staring at the battles outside of the shield.
"We're going to watch your friends die," she said, placing her arm on top of the frozen slab. "And then I'm going to record torturing you and sell it on the imagination black-market."
Agra peered out at the scene unfolding before him. Out of the five administrators, four still remained—with two attacking Steh. Somehow, despite the blood pooling at the base of the inventor's legs, he kept on fighting. Agra knew Steh had constantly been grafting some type of metal onto his skeleton whenever they had earned a little extra cash, but Agra had never believed it would have been this durable.
Moving on from Steh, he searched for Tath and noticed her engaged in a close-range battle with another administrator. They both looked exhausted, as did the Grinner running toward the golem and away from Mea. If his group had just had one more fighter at the beginning, they might have had a chance.
"You could still join us." Agra pitched, hoping that despite his ex's bluster and Jetta's certainty, Junko still had some repressed feelings for him. "We could—"
She punched the back of his head. "The moon and its rabbit amour, why can't you get it? I fucking hate you. You don't know my favorite novel or song. You've never asked. You fucked me, left me and thought we were in a relationship." She smacked his head once more. "I don't even like satin bras, asshole. Tath does. I'm a latex girl."
Agra craned his neck and stared at the chained Navigator above him to avoid watching his friends losing. Junko was not lying; he had never asked about her interests. But when had there been time for them to talk about those things? When he was not on a mission, Tath had always needed him for something. Had she been less important than his girlfriend in another country? He had never cheated on Junko and stayed loyal to her until he had been certain she was manipulating him. Was that not being a good boyfriend? And absolutely, if he had stolen additional time from the gods, he would have cared more about Junko's life and hobbies. He was positive he would have.
The Navigator, Danielle, flicked her hair and partially revealed her face. She seemed so familiar. Agra was certain he had seen her somewhere before, somewhere recent too. Yet, he was also positive he would remember a person so burned and marked. Perhaps, he thought, he had seen a picture of her before she had sustained the splotches and discoloration on her skin. He tried to imagine her without the scars.
Thirty-one: The Name
TATH WHEEZED RAGGEDLY. The administrator opposite her looked like she felt. Red marks and cuts lined its white clothes. An especially vicious one marred the left side of its neck.
Out the corner of her vision, she could see Steh attempting to stand, his cards barely holding off the two administrators assaulting him. His movements were slow and his right arm hung limply. When he evaded, he often slid across the blood pooled on the ground.
Her administrator seemed to notice her lack of focus and used the reprieve to teleport away. Tath re-conjured her bow and tried to inhale any good luck left in the room. Stringing her last arrow, a regular one, she followed the augmented fighter as it blinked in and out of the chamber. Exhaling, she released and watched as the arrow found its mark: the administrator's throat. The elite guard of the Grinners fell to the ground, clawing at the shaft and unable to scream.
"That's for you Lara," Tath said. "That's for you."
She threw her quiver down and attempted to sprint toward Steh. If the healing spell from last night was still working, it was doing a poor job of its task. Sharp pain shot through her left leg each time it touched the floor, and it was difficult for her to bend her knees so she could maintain a natural sprinting rhythm. She gritted her teeth and focused on each footfall, one following the other. "Hang the fuck on," she yelled. "I'm almost there."
Steh looked at her and smiled. His momentary lapse allowed an administrator to lunge and sink its sword into his stomach. The blade went right through the inventor's body, its tip peeking out the other side of him.
"NOT ON MY FUCKING LIFE," Tath screamed. "I'm not losing you again. Come on, fuckers; fight me. FIGHT ME!"
As the administrator withdrew its weapon, Steh collapsed—reaching for one of his circling cards. He managed to get a thumb and finger on it, pulling the device with him. "Heh," Tath heard him mumble. "Mea, all you had to do was wait." He tapped the card's screen, and a portal opened in front of Tath. She dived into it.
Like everything of Steh's, the storage space was well organized. Each section—from weapons to requests to books to fetishes—was labeled appropriately. Tath did not need to pause to find her armory nor did she have to think about what she required, a rapid-firing crossbow and three quivers of arrows. Steh had already stacked them neatly in her emergency section. Fifteen steps later, she had entered and exited their magical storehouse and was pelting bolts at the two administrators stabbing Steh.
"Where are the fucking stars?" she yelled at the inventor. "You said the stars will take us home. You can't die, shithead. We can't die today. It's impossible." She loaded an explosive arrow into the bow and fired it directly at one of the Grinners. It caught the administrator in the chest and exploded—ripping its limbs from its torso and spraying its appendages against the pillars. Steh and the other one skidded across the ground.
"I am Telia," she bellowed, loading another round into her bow. "I am the daughter of death's architect. I am the princess of annihilation … and you fuckers are mine."
"Don't overdo it," Steh coughed.
Tath fired at the remaining administrator, missing as it teleported toward her.
* * *
MEA DODGED THE golem's double-fisted, overhead smash, and heard it land against one of the pillars instead. The support-administrator dashed in and stabbed at her stomach, but Mea summoned a void portal and consumed her attacker's knife and a part of its forearm. With a snap of her fingers, she narrowed the gateway and locked the augmented Grinner in its position.
Mea refocused her attention on the golem and swung an uppercut at him, but he stepped back and she hit air. In a gravelly reverb, he stated, "Pitiful." The golem reached toward the murkiness that represented the ceiling and made a spiral motion with an index finger. "You are no more interesting than the terrans, Navigator."
Mea felt a vortex surround and lift her, and the administrator, off the ground. The Chill Serpent, absent until now, immediately curled into her stomach. Mea floated higher and higher as the golem stomped off in the direction of Tath.
Looking at the gloom above her, she could see it had formed a spiral and was sucking everything into it. Its event horizon was so dense she could not peer through its veil and determine their eventual destination. Mea assumed from the finality of the golem's parting words that their terminus was not a library filled with
interesting tomes.
Flicking her fingers, Mea endeavored to remember the correct order for an environmental protection spell. Barely a decade ago, she had been able to cast every void incantation with a single thought and would have needed nothing as inelegant as her hands. Now, her lack of practice had led to her requiring props like a street-corner fortuneteller.
After attempting several combinations and watching them splutter into nothing, Mea wondered if this was how Steh felt constantly—the outcome almost within grasp but never quite reachable. The fifth time, and ten inches from the glittering whirlpool, she performed the spell correctly. A purple aura darted across her body until it covered her like a second skin.
Gravity took over and she fell back to earth as the administrator disappeared into the never-ending spiral. "Tath," Mea yelled out as soon as she hit the ground. "Tath! The golem's coming."
"I know," her lover replied. "He's taken three bolts to the fucking chest. A little fucking help. Steh won't cast a single goddamn spell."
Mea forced herself up and heard the sound of a grenade-arrow explode. The bulk of the golem blocked her view of Tath, but he was almost at his target. Mea began to run. A cloud of green smoke erupted around the monster but did not slow him down.
Mea was bounding now, traversing ten feet at a time, but the room seemed to grow longer with each step. She felt stuck on one of those rich people's running machines that never went anywhere. The chamber appeared to have gone deathly quiet with only the sound of her rapidly beating heart filling her ears.
* * *
"HERE IT COMES," Junko said. "Watch closely."
Agra glimpsed the golem nearing Tath and Steh, but he had no interest in succumbing to his ex's mental game. "Danielle," he whispered. "You called her 'Danielle.'"
Junko seemed to ignore him and commented on the fight, "That's going to hurt."
Agra noted the golem was within an arm's reach of Tath. The monster was saying something to her. From his vantage point, it looked as if it was praising her.
Agra shoved his feelings of rage, incompetence, sadness and hope as deep as he could. He had to remember where he had heard "Danielle" before. He stared at the woman's face. Maybe he was thinking about her wrong. Maybe he should search his memory for women he had seen burned rather than those he had thought were beautiful because there were less of them to choose from. The most vivid memory, of course, was when he had been fifteen and watched as the Pickpocket King had used a flame knife to punish Agra's lookout for her double-dealing. And then there was the woman who had objected to the Grinner Parliament's policy of compulsory cohabitation by lighting herself on fire. He could not help himself and chuckled about how he was struggling to remember something under stress. If Jetta had been here, she could have given him the answer in a …
"Don't I feel stupid?" he said, remembering precisely who the Navigator was. "You're Danielle Heather," he said. "What was the rest of it? Marcont H … Heralar."
Jetta yanked the tiny bit of hair he had. "What did you say?" she yelled, panic in her voice.
"I said: 'Danielle Heather Marcont Heralar.' That's the Navigator's name."
Junko stabbed him in the neck.
* * *
MEA HAD CLOSED part of the gap between her and the golem, and she was within earshot of him. She watched as the golem paused in front of Tath.
"You are a warrior," he said to Tath. "You, out of all of them, deserve a worthy death." He reached down and picked her up with one hand, holding her flailing form as if she was no more than an unruly child. Tath swung her crossbow at his face, slashed with her magic knife, and kicked with all her might. None of her actions seemed to hurt the golem or make him wince. Instead, he calmly punched her head. Tath's eye closest to the attack twitched and seemed unable to open.
Mea was one bound away, so she leapt into the air and morphed her fists into pure void energy. She had almost completed her jump-slam when the golem punched Tath again. Mea heard a loud crack emanate from her lover's neck, and Tath's head lolled to the side. It no longer moved as if anyone was controlling it. The demon, monster, force of darkness tossed Tath's corpse away as if it was a defective toy.
The golem's disinterest allowed Mea's attack to land square on his back. He groaned, and the chamber around them pulsed in and out. Mea did not wait for him to pivot; she dashed around the beast and lifted Steh off the ground. The Starfire screamed as she threw him over her shoulder. With her free hand, she shot void shards at the golem.
"Steh, listen to me," Mea said while running. "You have to go critical."
"No," he slurred. "Not for Tath. Not for you."
"You have to kill them. They murdered her." Mea felt tears run down her cheeks; she did not brush them off. "I'll stop you from destroying the world, I promise. You just have to burn long enough to avenge Tath. I'll let you have your freedom afterwards. I'll never bother you again."
"I'd rather you killed me," he said.
Mea threw him onto the ground. Somehow, she had headed for the shield and gotten within two steps of it. On the other side she could see Agra frozen in a block of ice with a knife stuck out of his neck. He was still alive but fading fast. Mea searched for the Navigator, but Danielle was gone. The manacles and shackles lay on the ground as if she had performed a cheap magician's disappearing trick and vanished into thin air.
Mea stomped down on Steh's leg. "You call yourself a Starfire?" she shouted at him. "Prove it."
"Leave me alone," Steh mumbled back.
She could hear the golem coming, so she picked up Steh's other foot and snapped his ankle. "Fight me," she demanded. "Don't you hate me? I tried to kill you. I wanted you dead. I wanted you out of my life so I could have sex with fictional characters. I wanted you to die alone and without friends so I could be celebrated among the stars. Doesn't that make you angry?"
"No."
Mea felt the golem punch her head. The force of the hit travelled all throughout her body and made her teeth chatter. She collapsed onto her knees, her fingers still shaking.
She grabbed Steh and slammed him onto the ground while summoning a void shield behind her. "This is how you die, you pathetic shitbag. You'll go to the forever unloved, undeserving and unworthy."
"But the galaxy will live," he replied, closing his eyes.
Mea felt her body turn as cold as the liquid nitrogen she had once held in her hands. She knew what she was about to do, and she knew the Cold Serpent was desperate to stop her. She plunged her fist into Steh's chest and poured void energy into where she guessed the Punch was.
* * *
AGRA WANTED TO scream and cry and curl up into a ball and ask for his parents, but he could not. Mea was murdering Steh, again. After all the chances they had given her, she had betrayed their trust in the end. He had to stop her, and he only had one move left. The same one he had used successfully on Danielle.
Even though he could not pronounce the words correctly, could barely move his lips and everything was beginning to spin, he had to try. "Meagh Louis …" he began to mumble.
* * *
AS MEA HAD expected, her void magic disrupted the Punch's gateway-enchantment, which controlled the flow of magical energy between the user and its source. With no limiters to constrain the force of the universe, beautiful threads of silver shot out from Steh's body. Mea withdrew her hand and watched as each beam began to grow thicker and thicker until the area around her was perfectly white. Mea waited, her fist ready to deliver a killing blow once she was certain Tath's butcher had been burned into oblivion.
Rather than the screams of the administrators and golem she was expecting, Mea heard Agra say, "Meagh Louise Allant Tristan." The words seemed to act as a cosmic signal, and the entire chamber transformed into hundreds of lines of differing colors. An invisible cord yanked her toward a tiny black dot on the horizon.
Scanning behind her to check if someone else had managed to kill Steh and save the Milky Way, she watched as the colored threads in the light tunnel we
re devoured by Steh's silver ones. A cold heat emanated from the Starfire's rays; a heat she could feel was catching up. The rope tightened its grip on her wrist and increased its speed while the cords in front of her flashed from color spectrum to spectrum. They acted similar to strobes in a nightclub, changing from green to yellow to purple, except there were more hues and many tints humans could not see with their paltry optical ability.
Mea was almost at the black dot, but Steh's fire had caught up and was lapping at her feet. As her boots melted, she screamed and shivered while the flames simultaneously made her feel too hot and too cold.
A calloused hand with over a dozen plastic bracelets packed near the wrist grasped her by the arm and yanked her through the black point. Mea tumbled onto a woolen carpet and heard a book snap closed.
"Well, didn't my shift take a tumble," a woman said. Her accent existed somewhere between an Australian's nonchalance and a Californian's airiness. "I caught me a Navigator, and not even a hunky one."
Mea forced one eye open to see if she could make out the speaker, but the world was blurry and she could not move. Rather than overexert herself, Mea concentrated on listening to her savior. She heard the sound of a fountain pen scratch something onto parchment.
"I bet you got a supply pack too. Ah, here it is."
Mea's backpack appeared in front of her. She felt the woman grab her by the collar and pull her along the ground. "I can walk," Mea mumbled.
The woman dropped her. "Well, go on," she said. "Up you get."
Mea attempted to stand, but whatever the Starfire flames had done to her were much more serious than she had anticipated. She found herself unable to roll over. And when she tried to push off the floor with her shoulders, she felt dizzy.
"Yeah, like, don't do that, vag-pal," the woman advised. "The Library of Obliv' takes some getting used to. It's all the death and genocide in the foam." The woman laughed and grabbed Mea's collar again. "Death and genocide," she repeated. "That's a good one." She pulled Mea along while rapping: