by Brett Baker
“Splitting our forces makes sense” Chatham replied. “Any suggestions on how we should split them?”
“It seems to me that we have two groups that are used to fighting together, but not used to fighting with members of the other group” Watanabe replied. “Maybe now is not the time to try to rectify that. I suggest Lexi, Rin and I cover one site, while Chatham, you and your team cover the other.”
“Makes sense” Chatham replied. “Alright, I’m on board with that. How about we take SummitTech? Watanabe, you and your daughters take the dam. Weill will monitor, and the minute the horde makes its move, the other team will move to get onsite, and offer support.“
Watanabe nodded in agreement.
“Alright, let’s get geared up and move out.” Chatham called out.
“This way” Weill said as he approached Watanabe and the girls. “We have some equipment for you.”
They followed Weill to an equipment rack downstairs. He took a small metallic ball that he held between his thumb and forefinger and handed it to Watanabe.
“This is a portable teleport pad, or teleporter as we call them,” Weill began. “It’s pretty simple. Throw it down on the ground step into the light. I have one for each of you” he finished, handing one to Rin and then one to Lexi.
“And this” Weill continued, holding out a small metallic egg-shaped device, “is a hydrosilicate grenade. Press the button on the top to arm it and throw.
Lexi and Watanabe took a pair of grenades each. Rin declined. “Is there anything else you need?”
“I think we’re good, Lieutenant,” Lexi replied.
“Alright” Weill replied. “I’ll be watching if you need anything. Good luck!”
Together, Rin, Lexi, and Watanabe headed out from the safehouse taking the I-train northwest until they reached the northeastern corner of Northbrook, where the dam stood. The dam stood impassive to their presence like a vast uncaring wall holding back the ravenous tide of the overflow channel. Were the dam to break, most of the Northbrook would be flooded, and the loss in life could be staggering.
Climbing the steps, the girls followed Watanabe up to the top of the dam, and they waited… and waited… and waited.
After a few hours, a hologram of Weill appeared nearby. “I heard from Chatham and his team. They are in position at SummitTech. So far nothing out of the ordinary there either. Just keeping you in the loop.”
“Thanks” Lexi said with a wide smile. Weill smiled back at her, and this exchange was not lost on Watanabe. “We appreciate you keeping us up to date,” he said.
“Yes sir!” Weill said, suddenly nodding very formally to Watanabe as if he had forgotten that Lexi’s father had been there next to her this whole time.
Watanabe shook his head as the hologram of Weill disappeared.
Rin closed her eyes and listened, trying to ascertain what was going to happen. The music was building very slowly toward something. It didn’t take long for Rin to figure that it was probably going to crescendo to a blustery battle theme.
“It sounds like something will be happening soon” Rin said.
“What do you hear?” Watanabe asked.
“The theme is building slowly.” Rin replied. “It’s the kind of build you hear that climaxes with one of those loud blaring fighting songs.”
“Then we’re on the right track” Watanabe said, thoughtfully cupping his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “The only question is where will they strike?”
They waited on in silence for what seemed like an eternity after that, each occupied with their own thoughts.
As Lexi thought about Weill, and Watanabe thought about Lexi thinking about Weill, Rin continued to listen and as she heard the crescendo building and gaining momentum, her mind wandered. Six months ago, she and Lexi were ordinary girls, who grew up without a father. Now after being abducted from her school; after waking up in a tube and discovering that they had been experimented on and had acquired psionic abilities, after meeting the father that they had never known and confronting the man responsible for their kidnapping and the experiments that had been performed on them they were in the midst of the adventure she had dreamed all her life of having. So why did it somehow feel to her like it had taken a left turn and was heading down the road to disaster?
No matter how hard she tried, Rin couldn’t put her finger on it. She didn’t know when this feeling first arrived, but she was aware that it had been lurking in the back of her psyche at least since they returned from Elysium.
She didn’t know what was going to happen, but she just couldn’t shake this feeling, and she found that just as unsettling as the feeling itself.
*******
Black energy erupted atop the vacant warehouse across from the dam. A man with long black hair, and dressed in black blast armor appeared. Kneeling down on the rooftop, he made a quick gesture, and a burning eye of black energies appeared above his head, as others like him also appeared from separate rifts similar to the one he had stepped through.
“They’re here” the man said as he spotted Watanabe, Rin and Lexi atop the dam, waiting.
“Who?” a tall man in black flowing garments asked as he strode out to stand beside the first man who’d cast the scrying spell.
“I don’t know, Maybe defenders from Elysium. One hooded man in a longcoat and two girls who appear to be wearing school uniforms.”
The man in the robes crossed his arms as he considered. “One man and two girls sitting atop the Northbrook Dam this late at night? They certainly do seem to be lying in wait. But it doesn’t matter. We must have panic! We must have chaos! Without it we will not have the mana necessary to summon the Devourer, and we will be stuck on this primitive backwater shadow earth!”
“Her Majesty is not forgiving of those who fail to achieve their mission” another man said in a forlorn tone as he emerged to stand on the other side of the man in the flowing robes.
The man in the robes turned and slapped him across the face with the back of his hand.
“Be grateful that slap is the only blow you receive for speaking ill of Her Majesty!” he roared in anger. “Had you spoken such words in Pandaemonium you would have been executed for treason, you fool!”
“Forgive me Master!” the man begged, dropping to his knees, and bowing and scraping at the ground.
“Watanabe!” the first man whispered, his eyes widening as he recognized the fugitive.
“What?” the man in the crown asked.
“It’s Watanabe!” the first man replied, looking back with the assistance of his scrying spell to where Watanabe sat, having just pulled back his hood. “Her Majesty’s fled consort!”
A predatory grin spread across the face of the man in the robes. “Send word to Her Majesty” he ordered, “Watanabe has been found! I will summon the horde! We have a new objective! We will focus our attack on capturing the consort. And when we return him to Her Majesty she will make us all rich men!”
*******
Rin listened as the building crescendo grew dark and dissonant. She knew something was wrong. She stood looking across the plaza as thousands of hordlings came swarming out from behind the vacant warehouse across the street.
“What is it?” Lexi asked.
“They’re here!” Watanabe replied, spotting the horde himself as they came pouring into the plaza.
Watanabe and Rin got to their feet, then Watanabe spread his hands out, and their feet lifted off the ground. Rin and Lexi both flailed about, struggling to keep their balance as Watanabe gently lowered the trio down to the plaza opposite the charging horde.
“Oh boy!” Weill said in an overwhelmed tone as a he appeared as a hologram standing a few feet behind them. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this big a group of hordlings. I’m radioing Chatham and his team for backup. Expect them here shortly!”
The horde suddenly came to a stop a short distance from the three of them, and a man in black flowing garments came hovering from out of the horde’s m
idst to stand before them.
“Greetings, consort!” the man in the crown said with a wide smile and a flourish.
“Who the hell are you?” Lexi asked, summoning her hammer.
“The Hordemaster,” Watanabe answered.
“Indeed” the man in the robes replied. “I am Lord Morbane, of the Court of Pandaemonium, and you are Watanabe, the man who fled Her Majesty’s loving embrace.” Then suddenly, Lord Morbane’s eyes grew wide as they fell on Rin and Lexi. “Wait… you can’t be… How are you both here!?”
Lexi lowered her hammer and looked at the hordemaster like he was crazy. “What are you talking about?”
“She was slain in Elysium…” Lord Morbane said, pointing at Rin “By you no less” he finished, turning his attention to Lexi. “You must be doppelgangers; other-dimensional duplicates… yes that would explain it!”
“What do you want?” Watanabe asked, trying to steer the conversation back on course.
‘You, of course,” Lord Morbane responded. “Although I believe Her Majesty would take great pleasure in meeting the both of you as well” he continued, turning his attention to Rin and Lexi, “as would Princess Milaina.”
“I’ll die before that happens!” Watanabe shot back.
“A pity,” Lord Morbane replied as a wicked smile spread across his face. “However, if you will not come willingly, then I am left with no choice but to take you by force.”
VI
Lord Morbane hovered across from them, grinning like a wolf. Behind him, thousands of hordlings stamped, growled, barked, roared, and howled in anticipation of the blood that was going to be spilled.
Rin listened as the great celestial chorus grew quiet, mirroring the moment of anticipation before the bedlam that was sure to follow.
Then raising his hand, Lord Morbane placed his thumb and middle finger together, and snapped, and it began.
The swarm surged forth toward them, biting and thrashing and tearing. Rin leapt up into the air, flipping over the first one. She came down both feet first onto the head of the second hordling, using her telekinesis to drive it jaw-first into the ground. With a mighty swing of her hammer, Lexi brought telekinetic punishment to four hordlings at once. Meanwhile, Watanabe grabbed a hordling that leapt toward him and telekinetically modulated the molecules in his arm so that it passed into the creature. He grabbed it from the inside and ripped it in half. Another leapt up onto his back, biting the back of his neck. Watanabe reached up and grabbed it pulling it off his back, and slamming it down to the ground before stomping on it with the aid of his telekinesis.
Then as if in a moment of sudden and extreme clarity, everything slowed around Rin and as the horde continued swarming in on all sides, she became oddly aware of her surroundings as never before. It was as if she could taste the desperation in the air, and smell the feral frenzied cries of the horde. The fighting continued in a ballet of violence and death. Rin danced in the horde’s midst, pivoting, stepping, and striking with a flurry of telekinetic blows that pummeled the hordlings before her. Their whimpering cries hung in the air as more came chomping, barking, and tearing.
And behind the torrent of hordlings, Lord Morbane hovered, his ravenous smile growing into laughter as his dark eyes burned with lust for his newfound power, status, and fame. Oh the respect that the court would show him when he returned victorious: the man who captured the fugitive consort after almost 15 years on the run. The man who captured he who had evaded traps that even Her Majesty herself had devised. How great would his fame be? How great would his status be? Perhaps Her Majesty might even make him the second ruler of the kingdom… perhaps he might even replace the man he captured as the new royal consort.
Then there came a light behind him. Lord Morbane turned, spotting five silhouettes that stepped through a portal of blue white light.
And as they emerged, Chatham and his team spied Lord Morbane, and his horde as they swarmed all around Watanabe and the girls, and much to their surprise, they found that the trio had already carved their way through a good portion of the horde’s ranks.
“Sweet mother of God!” Blythe declared in disbelief as her eyes spied the scene.
“Come on!” Chatham replied, pulling his hydrosilicate cannon from behind his back. Chatham’s eyes were fixed on Lord Morbane, who hovered across from them, his hands crackling with black lightning. “Let’s not keep them waiting any longer.”
Blythe, Garret, Hastings, and Thackeray all charged toward the horde. They fired their hydrosilicate cannons as Chatham hung back, turning his attention to Lord Morbane.
“Come!” Lord Morbane beckoned to him. “Come, and taste my fury!”
“Should we help?” one of the men in Lord Morbane’s entourage asked from their spot on the roof of the warehouse across the street as they watched Chatham charge in and start after the Hordemaster with a series of martial arts attacks.
“You know his orders,” the caster with the scrying spell replied. “We stay out of it unless it starts to look like he will be captured or killed.”
“Watanabe and those two girls are looking like they could give the horde a real fight. Look at how much they have already thinned the herd,” Another said. “This could go bad very quickly. We should be ready to intervene.”
Lexi swung her hammer, striking one of the hordlings, and sending it flying. Pivoting, she carried her blow through, angling her hammer to bring it up overhead, and then crashing down on top of another one splattering it against the ground. Another hordling struck her in the hamstring from behind with its razor-sharp talons. Lexi cried out, her leg buckling underneath her, as she fell onto one knee.
With his mind, Watanabe struck at entire groups of hordlings, sending them flying.
Rin dodged attacks from all around her. Her body was in overdrive, instinctively avoiding blow after blow after blow. She was hemmed in on all sides with no escape, but with her precognitive reflexes she was in no danger of being hit… until her body tired.
Blythe, Garret, Hastings, and Thackeray stood in a single line, fanning the hydrosilicate spray across a wide swath of hordelings, turning them to statues of stone.
Garret broke from the line, leaping forward and kicking at Lord Morbane as Chatham circled around behind. The hordemaster twisted his torso to dodge the blow, lashing out to throw a bolt of black lightning at him. Garret leapt aside, avoiding the blow. But Lord Morbane was ready for the dodge, and kicked him in the face, knocking him onto his back.
Seeing this, Blythe turned her hydrosilcate cannon on the Hordemaster, spraying his hands and forearms. A hardened shell formed over his hands, and the lightning in them died out.
“We have to step in!” one of Lord Morbane’s entourage said. “He won’t be able to defend himself if we don’t!” the members of the entourage all looked at each other and nodded. Then, with a flash of black light, they all vanished off the rooftop.
The entourage teleported all around the hordemaster. Grabbing him, they all vanished in a flash of black light, and were gone.
Immediately, the horde began to disappear as well, scattering as they fled in all directions.
They stood, looking from one to another as Watanabe helped Lexi to her feet, and Blythe helped Sergeant Garret up. Garret held his throbbing jaw.
“How is your leg?” Watanabe asked Lexi.
her face was a mask of control as she fought the burning pain in the back of her leg but she couldn’t hold back hot tears that were more from frustration than the pain itself. In answer to Watanabe’s question, she reached down behind her, and then held up her blood-covered fingers.
“Alright” Watanabe replied, “We’re going to get you back to the safehouse. Watanabe took out his teleporter and threw it down. Then putting his arm around Lexi he assisted her as she limped through the portal and back to the safehouse as the others followed.
Weill met them as they came through. “Well nobody died. I would call this a good day.”
“She took a wound in the back
of her leg” Watanabe said.
“I’ll patch her up” Weill offered stepping forward.
“You will do no such thing” Watanabe protested, stepping back and backing Lexi away with him.
“Take it easy, Watanabe,” Chatham interjected as he stepped between them. “Weill is trained as a field medic. It’s one of the many duties he performs for this team. Besides, he knows that if he pulls any funny business with your daughter he’ll have to answer to me.”
Chatham’s growling threat couldn’t be any more clear.
“Will you people shut up and let him fix my leg?” Lexi snapped through tears and gritted teeth, “It really hurts!”
“This way. We have an emergency cot, and medical supplies set up over here,” Weill said, putting his arm around Lexi’s shoulders and leading her as she limped off.
“Sorry about my father” Lexi said awkwardly as she sat down on the cot.
“It’s okay” Weill replied. “He’s just looking out for you. Sorry about Chatham.”
“No big deal” Lexi offered with a shrug. Now that Watanabe and Chatham had made such a big deal about the two of them Weill felt very distant. Even though he was right next to her, it felt like he was talking to her from across a massive divide.
“So let me see your leg” Weill said. Lexi laid back on the cot, and then turned over.
“Yeah the wound is pretty deep, but it looks like it’s clean. Some regen foam should fix this.
Weill dug through a cabinet and pulled out a can, and shook it. Then, he popped the cap off, and sprayed a white foam onto the wound on the back of Lexi’s leg. It fizzed and bubbled, and within a few moments, the wound was gone.
“All better?” Weill asked.
“Amazing!” Lexi replied, turning back over and sitting up. “What is that stuff?”
“A medical product we have on Eternal Earth. Regen uses nanotech to repair damaged tissue and flesh, literally knitting it back togeth…”