by Kipjo Ewers
Badly damaged, it attempted to follow through its prime directive to defend the prison by grabbing her. She tore it’s right arm off, followed by its head, taking the last bit of fight out of it. She tossed the arm but paused to examined the head.
“New model.” She shook her head. “Same old junk.”
She casually chucked it to the floor as well. With her arms folded behind her, she strolled back to the occupied prison cells. Ghoul and Nachzehrer each lowered their head to her disapproving glare.
She shook her head with a motherly huff before tearing open each of the prison cells with one bare hand. The Ghoul was the first to exit, while Nachzehrer took a minute to come out fashioning her torn prison garb into a skimpy makeshift bikini top and bottom.
Their obvious leader did not wait for her, heading for the tank that held the Draugr. With a powerful energy blast from her hand she created a sizable hole in the tank shaking the facility. The thick gelatin liquid spilled out onto the floor bringing the floating cell crashing violently to the bottom of the tank. She used her eyebeams to cut through the dark metal fortified cell like it was a thick frozen cheese cake.
It was all the monster needed to smash through his prison. The burn marks on his body from her eyebeams healed as he now towered over her. Without hesitation he dropped to one knee bowing his head in servitude. She pat the top of his long brown mane skull and motioned for him to rise.
“Back out the way you came, huh, boss?” Ghoul asked.
“Do I look like the type to walk?” She glared at him.
She raised her hand forcing everyone, except for the Draugr, to run for cover.
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Up top at base level Abe carried Maxine’s android body following Erica to the central command. She placed her hand on the hand imprinting panel activating the manual override system in order to open the doors.
“You can put me down Sergeant,” a rebooted Maxine responded, “detecting Angie and Jennifer also affected by the EMP rebooting. Doozers will reboot on five minutes, all other systems in ten.”
“Maxine, where the hell’s everyone else?” Rogers barked.
“They’re all enroute here,” she responded. “They should be…”
She paused as her eyes went wide, which brought a sickening amount of dread to both Eric and Abe.
“Detecting a massive power buildup coming from the Purgatory prison,” Maxine informed.
“Hit the deck!” Abe screamed.
He grabbed Erica, pulling her to the floor wrapping his arms around her to shield her just as an energy blast the width of a train with the force and heat on the level of the sun tore through the facility engulfing everything in its path. The blast was so powerful it cut a path back up to the surface ripping through the destroyed hanger.
It also set off a chain reaction of explosions, bringing down solid rock and structures.
Rogers got to his feet and picked Erica up checking to see if she was all right. Maxine also knocked off her feet from the blast was up before them.
“Maxine, any casualties?” Rogers yelled.
“Negative,” she reported. “Everyone is still alive. Angie is with Adrian and Oliver, while Jennifer is with Rosann. Shall I…”
“Stay your ass here, and watch Erica,” he commanded. “I’m going out to get them.”
A shaken Erica grabbed his arm before he left.
“Come back with them,” she ordered.
He nodded as he ran through the doors diving into the black smoke and fire that now filled the base.
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Rosann stumbled around in the middle of hell. Coughing and hacking from the suffocating smoke, she followed Jennifer leading her to the central command while trying to avoid four alarm blazes. The fire control system kicked in working overtime as it sprayed a form of foam in an attempt to kill the fires that had erupted about the base.
“How much further?” she coughed.
“We’re almost there,” Jennifer confirmed.
The dread that Erica and Rogers had before the blast passed onto Rosann as the sound of booming footsteps forced her to back up.
Out of the smoke, that could have killed an elephant, emerged the sadistic Draugr looking to kill something. And now the monster stood before her.
With full knowledge of what the monster was capable of, a terrified Rosann stood her ground despite her fear. Summoning up courage she ran her hand across her fossil bone bracer and transformed into a human hybrid version of a Kodiak bear matching the Draugr size for size.
She bellowed a roar brandishing her claws challenging him.
Jennifer also prepared to fight by Rosann’s side went into combat mode. Her back opened up allowing her to reach and pull out two hi-tech hilts made for samurai swords. Another section of her back opened up producing the blades which she attached the hilts drawing out two razor sharp swords. They both squared off flanking the monster ready to attack.
In an instant, Jennifer’s eyes went wide like Maxine’s before she defended an attacked against a dual metal pipe wielding Ghoul using them like escrima sticks, leaving Rosann to fight the Draugr alone.
The Draugr with a savage grin roared back and went on the attack going for Rosann first. She was able to evade him knowing that despite her increase in strength he was far more powerful than her and could tear her apart within his grasp.
She stuck to moving in and out of his swings swiping and clawing at him with her thick dagger like nails.
Her plans were thwarted as her razor sharp nails cracked and chipped again his super dense skin.
The android and EVO duo held their own again the Viking powerhouse and the speedster until Rosann was clipped by a powerful backhand sending her into a tailspin. She hit the floor hard, saved from any additional injury from her dense bear physiology. She slowly reverted back to her human form in her unconscious state.
Jennifer, seeing Rosann down, went to run to her side, but a faster moving Ghoul blocked her path laying into her with powerful strikes from the dark metal forged pipes he wielded forcing her to defend herself.
She ran defensive battle scenarios in nanoseconds calculating how to get past the murderous speedster to protect Rosann from the beast now standing over her. None of them had a survival rate over five percent for Rosann. Rosann’s survival rate became lower as Nachzehrer attempted to blindside Jennifer with her own pipe swinging for her skull.
Jennifer’s 360 degree vision and sensors helped her barely duck the head-removing swing only to take a chest full of pipe from a faster moving Ghoul. She tumble rolled backwards with the hit to avoid further damage and to get some distance between her and her attackers. Unfortunately, it also put additional distance between her and Rosann, dropping her survival rate to zero.
The Draugr, in his own world, prepared to stomp down Rosann’s skull like it was a grape. A powerful bluish-white electrical blast from Oliver’s electrical plasma form staggered him. Bellowing a battle cry he struck the Draugr with a powerful plasma ion blast burning a hole into his chest while propelling him several yards through a destroyed structure.
He did the same to Nachzehrer knocking her into the wreckage of the Tornado, while an armored Adrian ran to his sister’s side with Angie to check on her.
“She has a severe concussion and a cracked collar bone.” Angie quickly scanned her. “We have to get her out of here now.”
Oliver wrapped up his one man mop up by showing Ghoul that the speed of lightning was always faster than sound. He charged and strafed at a rattled Ghoul witnessing his teams fall clobbering him with an energy charged right cross. He did not have time to scream from the electricity leaving fourth degree burns on the side of his face as the jolting hit fired him across the base into the obliterated mess hall.
“Get to the central command,” he yelled at Adrian. “I’ll buy
you some time!”
Another sliver of blessing came their way as the power came back on within the base. Relief came over Oliver as the Sergeant finally appeared with a rifle in tow finding them. It was quickly dashed away as he witnessed his oncoming death.
He saw her before he did. Charging out of the smoke she prepared to tear Abe apart in a matter of seconds. For a split second his plasma form turned from a bluish-white to a blinding deep blue.
With will and adrenaline pushing him, his new form allowed him to get to her before she got to Rogers, blindsiding her with a powerful flying shoulder charge that even she could not see or block.
The energy charged strike detonated like a micro supernova tearing through the base, knocking everyone off their feet while sending the mystery woman tearing through the other side of the base.
Adrian, Angie, and Jennifer all huddled together on the ground to cover a badly-injured Rosann from the explosion.
A groaning, yet still alive, Abe caught in the middle of the blast fought to his feet. Smoke wafted from his body from first degree burns that quickly healed via his regenerative abilities. Through his blurry vision that slowly cleared up, Oliver, still crackling in his blue and white electrical plasma form, stood defensively facing the direction he believed he knocked their powerful intruder.
“She’s not dead.” Oliver glanced his way.
“Then let’s get the hell out…”Abe commanded.
“It’s too late. I can feel her, she’s coming,” Oliver shot back, “you guys got to run now! I’ll buy us sometime!”
Abe was about to admonish Oliver, ordering him to screw the heroics and get his ass in gear with the rest of them, until he heard the rumbling starting to get closer.
“Go Sergeant! Go!” Oliver frantically screamed. “I’ll be right behind you! Go!”
Rogers reluctantly nodded as he motioned to Adrian, who was cradling his sister in his arms, to start running. Both men reluctantly turned back giving their team member one final hard look before running to the central command with the android sisters following.
Oliver stood trembling, not just because he felt the pain from his possible fractured arm which was caused while knocking the female powerhouse across the base, but because fear was swimming around in his gut. His chances of walking away from this were greatly against him, but he had to hold the line for his team to escape and survive to fight another day.
As he predicted, she returned in a matter of seconds. He wasted no words as he focused drawing power from the base again to reach his deep blue hue form again. Her obnoxious smile unsettled him as he unleashed a barrage of streaming bolts at her.
She covered up, weathering through heat ten times hotter than the sun, before bolting. Oliver’s hat trick was unsuccessful the second time around. Not only was his most powerful shots ineffective against her, she was terrifyingly faster than him.
Oliver found himself once again in the grip of another woman, and the motherly aura he felt from Sophia was nowhere in the woman with the eerie yellow glowing eyes. She creeped him out as she appeared to be checking him out.
“My… you’re cute,” she savagely grinned.
“And you’re an ugly ass…” he uttered.
The pressure she applied to his throat silenced him, sending him into a gagging fit.
“Please baby, that’s the anger and adrenaline talking,” she scoffed. “I know I look hot.”
“If you’re going to kill me,” he said, “then… do it.”
“Kill the tough talk, handsome.” She narrowed her eyes. “No one is anxious to die… especially you.”
Her free hand began to crackle and snap as the power within her seeped from her pores, forming a ball of energy within her hand. She aimed it in the direction the rest of the Regulators fled to.
“No,” Oliver groaned, struggling. “What are you doing? No!”
“Proving a point,” she smirked.
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Erica spun around to the opening of the central command doors. Rogers stormed in with Adrian holding his sister and the android twins.
“Where’s Oliver?” she frantically looked around.
“Buying us time,” Rogers said.
“What?” she yelled back. “You left him?”
“He stayed so we could live!” he shot back. “Did you reach Dennison?”
“We had to do some rerouting after that last blast,” Erica reported, “we’re attempting to connect now!”
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Thousands of miles away, Sophia was in cruise mode two miles off from her island. Her little joy flight had expelled the anger and frustration within her after her encounter with her younger sister, Gemma.
Her thoughts right now were on Kimberly and spending the rest of the day with her. She’d break the news to her over dinner about how happy and excited her grandmother was to find out about her and that she would be seeing her grandparents for the first time tomorrow as well as spending the weekend with them.
She began making plans in her head to take her back to the states to do some shopping early tomorrow, so she would have some presentable clothing that she could pick out herself.
“Excuse me, Ms. Dennison.” Vincent came in through her earpiece breaking her train of thought. “Ms. Champion is hailing you. It appears to be urgent.”
“Put her on,” she answered.
“Sophia!” Erica screamed.
Her distressed voice rattled her, forcing her out of midflight. She regained her bearings and came to an instant hover in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
“What is it? What’s going on?” she asked frantically.
“Tell me you have some long lost sister with your exact powers!” she yelled into the earpiece.
Her words brought a gruesome shiver to her entire body.
“No… I do not,” she answered nervously.
“Then you need to get here fast!” she shrieked, “because there is a white clone of you tearing the Ranch apart! She also broke out…”
“Another massive power buildup,” Maxine announced, “trajectory is aimed in our direction!”
“Drop us, Maxine! Drop us now!” Erica screamed.
Abe did not have the chance to ask what she meant by drop as the entire central command went into a freefall descent. Seconds after it dropped, Oliver screamed as he watched the woman once again unleash a powerful Earth-shaking blast that ripped through the base atomizing everything in its path including the main door to the central command. Had it still been there everything and everyone within it would have been vaporized to less than ash.
A thunderous booming sound shot through the earpiece causing Sophia to jolt. The line became silent.
“Erica? Erica!” she frantically screamed.
She exploded across the sky flying at supersonic speeds in the direction of the Ranch. The nausea of fear pushed her to fly even faster as she raced to California. She prayed Lady Tech was wrong. She prayed that the dead had not risen.
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The elevator converted central command continued to plummet down the cylindrical shaft as everyone human and non-human clung onto something to prevent from hitting the roof. Adrian, still in a transformed metal state, held onto his sister, while Angie, stooped down, magnetically locked her feet into the floor holding onto him.
“Nearing two mile mark in twenty seconds. Preparing to slow down,” Maxine reported. “I am also detecting falling rock debris within shaft.”
The electro-magnetic stabilizers located on the four sides became brakes, slowing the drop of the central command down the cylindrical shaft. Falling boulders and rubble caught up to it violently slamming against the roof. The center violently shook as tons of debris piled up on the top of the roof compromising its descent.
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“Electro-magnetic stabilizer one is no longer functioning,” Maxine relayed. “Stabilizer three functioning at twenty percent. Please brace for possible impact.”
The central command slammed violently into the ground jolting everyone. Their troubles were not over as they hit the floor covering their heads. Parts of the shaft along with boulders, rock, and dirt rained down in the tons burying the central command. Everything went black for a second before the red emergency lights booted up.
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Back up top, Oliver continued to groan and struggle in the grip of the blonde dreadlocked woman as the three formally captured members of the Zombie Nation surrounded him.