by Jim Moens
Megan was barely able to jump out of the way of the Empress’ blast. She scrambled to her feet.
“You’re already dead!” the Empress shouted as she raised her hand for another blast.
“Yet here I am,” Megan yelled back. She spread her arms. “Come get me, bitch!”
Doug heard Megan’s challenge to the Empress just as he slammed his sword into the side of Volitor's head. Sparks flew as Volitor reeled back.
The Empress drew her hand into a claw and blasted another purple beam at Megan, who leapt out of the way. The Empress let loose with another blast, barely missing Megan’s foot as she again scrambled away.
Doug quickly stepped to the left to avoid the end of Volitor’s blade. He stepped forward and was able to strike at the back of Volitor’s helmet. A crack appeared in the shiny red metal. Doug stepped back and swung again. Volitor managed to stagger a few steps forward and turn around.
Megan quickly stood and looked up at the Empress, floating twenty feet above her. She wasn’t certain how many more bolts of the deadly energy she could dodge.
Time for more decisive action.
Doug shot out a sidekick at Volitor’s midsection. The armored beast staggered back a step. Doug swung right at the neck. Volitor fell to his knees. Doug spun his sword around and struck his nemesis in the neck. Volitor’s helmet split apart as he pitched forward.
Megan shifted the position of her hand around the hilt of her katana. Only one shot at this.
“Come closer,” she shouted at the Empress. “I want to see your face when I kill you.”
The Empress cocked her head and smiled. Her hands began to charge with lightning as she lowered to mere feet above Megan. Megan drew her arm back and threw her sword like a spear. The sword went through the center of the Empress’ chest and she dropped like a stone to the arena floor.
Doug pulled away what remained of Volitor’s helmet. The face he saw, while in repose, was pallid and gaunt… a tired, sad little man with a bushy, dark mustache. The mouth was drawn back, revealing uneven and yellowing teeth. He looked familiar to Doug somehow.
Megan yanked her katana from the center of the Empress’ chest and shook the blood from it. She glanced at the Empress’ face, now in silent repose, then strode over to Doug, staring down at Volitor’s now unmoving form. The face looked familiar to her too.
“That’s Dean,” she almost whispered. “I’m sure of it.”
Doug looked at her quizzically.
“Dean,” she said, more emphatically. “He’s the one that killed Ayala.”
Doug looked down at the young/ old face again. He had only seen a couple of photos of Dean over the years, but he had to agree with Megan.
“So now what?” Doug said.
Megan only offered a bemused shrug in response.
He turned to see the others walking cautiously towards Megan and himself.
They heard a faint, wheezing gasp from The Empress. Doug and Megan went to her and kneeled down to hear.
“He’s… he’s gone…” the Empress began. “Gone… to finish the job.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
She coughed, spraying blood onto Megan’s arm.
“Gross,” Megan said as she quickly withdrew her arm.
“So that’s it?” Carl said, as the others gathered behind Doug and Megan. “We won?”
“No,” Megan said. “I’m still here.”
“You…” The Empress managed to croak out. “you’ll all... die.”
Doug leaned in closer. “What the fuck did I ever do to you, you bitch from hell? What did my sister ever do to you? Or my daughter?”
“Your family… destroyed mine.”
“Bullshit.”
Megan grabbed his shoulder. “Doug, don’t bother.”
“My drunk-ass great, great… great uncle killed your sister.” Doug said. “I’m sorry about that. I really am, but it’s not our fault. Don’t punish us!”
She managed a smile in her waning moment. “I… don’t… care…”
And with that, Doug heard her last breath leave her body. He stood and stared down at her for a moment. “So I think now we should--” he started to say.
The Empress’ body began to shake. Doug thought for a moment that she was going to reanimate until small bolts of power started coming off her body, not unlike the energy she was throwing at her sister moments ago. He and Megan scrambled away as quickly as they could.
The ground began to bubble beneath them, as if it was boiling water.
“Now what?” Megan said, scanning the arena.
Shadow Warriors began to ascend from the dirt. Five. Then ten. Then ten more.
“How many do you think?” Doug said, scanning the advancing Shadows.
“Twenty. Thirty.” Megan swung her sword around, and stood in the ready position. “Maybe more. And more are coming.”
“First opportunity,” Doug said, “we go get Frankie and Rebecca and get the hell out of here.”
Megan nodded to Doug then turned to the rest of them. “Guys, we’ll do everything we can to keep them from getting to you. If things go bad, just do your best to protect yourselves.”
“I can fight,” Carl said. “I’ve had training.”
“You’re the next line of defense, then,” Doug said to Carl. He glanced down to a sword on the ground, left by one of the defeated Imperial Guardsmen. Carl took the hint and picked it up.
“You ready, little brother?” Megan said.
Doug picked up a sword of his own. “Nope. But, fight…”
“...or die,” Megan finished.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“We’re not gonna make it, are we?” Kevin said to his friends.
“Probably not,” Nick said.
“Just think,” Tommy said.
Nick, Carl, and Kevin were suddenly rapt with attention. Tommy rarely spoke, and when he did, it was generally quite important and/ or profound.
“Just think of your favorite hero,” he continued.
“I feel like positive thinking isn’t really the way to go here,” Nick said.
“Disagree,” Tommy replied. He reached the pocket of his artfully shabby thrift store jacket and withdrew four cards. He passed them out to his friends.
“Wizard Wars?” Kevin said, looking the card over.
Tommy smiled. “Remember what the lady said?”
“These are Shadow Warriors,” Doug said. “They’re basically grunts. Not hard to beat one-on-one. There’s just a whole hell of a lot of them.”
“Let me guess,” Megan said. “They ascended from the very depths of hell itself.”
“No.” Doug cleared his throat. “I made them up.”
It dawned on Nick what Tommy was getting at. “She said ‘what’s not real can be’, right?”
They all held Transform cards.
“So think…” Tommy said.
Megan dove into the Shadows like a whirlwind, first taking down two of them with a single swipe of one sword.
“You what?”
Doug sliced through a Shadow. “Damon plucked them from my mind.”
The Transform card began to shimmer and glow in Nick’s hand. Suddenly he was bathed in an explosion of light. As the light dissipated, he saw Doug glance back as he ran his katana through a Shadow Warrior. Nick then realized that he was holding a sawed-off shotgun and had two pistols at his waist. He felt his chin. Stubble that wasn’t there before.
“I’m Vigilante,” he said as much to himself as anyone else.
He looked next to him. Kevin was in the sleek, tech-infused, gray and white garb of Nano Man. He was also inexplicably buff and several inches taller than he was before. Kevin looked at Nick and grinned.
“‘Sup, Nano Man,” Nick said.
“‘Sup, Vigilante,” Kevin replied.
Carl stood to the left of Nick. He was clad in colorful coveralls and a straw hat.
“And you are…?” Nick asked him.
“I… I think I’m Ca
ndy Farmer.” He paused. “From ‘Candy Farm’?”
“I told you to stop playing those Facebook games,” Nick said with a grin. “So where’s Tommy?”
The answer came as an animal’s roar from behind them. The three of them turned to see a lion nod towards the three of them.
“Not from a game,” came Tommy’s voice. “Lions are just badass.”
“Damn right,” Carl said. “So I guess you’re… Lion Man?”
Lion Man stood, and walked towards them, standing like a human on his back legs.
“Lion Man it is,” he said, then let out another roar.
“What just happened?” Megan shouted to Doug.
Doug decapitated another Shadow and it disappeared in a cloud of dark smoke. “We have help,” he said, and ran through a Shadow with his sword.
Nick cocked his gun. “So let’s do this.” He fired off a blast into one Shadow that blew it back into several others, knocking them all to the ground.
Tommy leaped forward with a roar, right into three Shadows that were advancing on Megan. He took them all to the ground at once and went to work with his claws and teeth. Carl ran forward and swept a Shadow off its feet with his Candy Cane staff.
Kevin stared at his hand, marvelling the nanoparticles pulsing underneath his glove.
“Dude!” Nick cried as he blasted another Shadow. “Get in the game!”
“Right,” Kevin muttered to himself, “get in the game.”
:>nano.control//engage
://cognitive.integration.markix.v.244869
://interface.on
://operational
://proceed
Kevin extended his nano-enhanced arm to five feet, then eight feet, then ten feet in length. He grabbed a Shadow by the neck that was sneaking up on Doug. He tossed the Shadow into the stone wall and it disappeared in a puff of smoke on impact.
Tommy stood back to back with Megan, taking out Shadows as quickly as they came after him. Doug glanced over to them as he ducked below a Shadow’s punch.
“Process of elimination,” he said to the bipedal human/ lion hybrid standing next to his sister. “You’re Tommy?”
Tommy roared in assent. Doug nodded in approval.
A group of Shadows ran at Carl. His first instinct was to back away. Instead, he reached in the front pocket of his overalls and withdrew some butterscotch discs. He tossed them at the creatures. The discs exploded on contact with the advancing Shadows.
Carl dug deep into his pockets to see what else he could find. Red cinnamon candies. They looked to be the kind that were spicy hot. Worth a try. He tossed a few at a couple of Shadows. They burst into flame on contact and the Shadows immediately dissipated.
“Doug!” Megan shouted. “I have an opening!”
Doug kicked a Shadow out of his way. Sure enough, Megan had a clear path to the door that Rebecca and Frankie went through with the guards.
“Go get ‘em!” Doug shouted back. “They’re probably in the cells on the second floor!”
Megan made a beeline for the door. Doug hoped his memory of the castle’s layout was still accurate.
Kevin’ hand transformed into a mallet. He extended his arm into the middle of the melee. He slammed into one Shadow, instantly destroying it.
Carl noticed that Doug was suddenly engaged with two Shadows, barely holding his own. He tossed a piece of bubble gum at one of them, coating it in a pink sticky substance, rendering it virtually immobile. Doug was then easily able to dispatch them both.
“Thanks, Candy… dude,” Doug said.
Nick blasted another Shadow off its feet. He suddenly realized that he hadn’t needed to stop to reload, even once. “Infinite ammo…” he said to himself. “Hell yeah!”
Megan vaulted up the circular stone stairs inside the palace tower.
“Frankie!” she shouted. “Where are you? FRANKIE!!”
She alighted on the second floor. Her skin prickled as she turned a corner. She bent back on instinct and just missed getting impaled by a spear. An Imperial Guardsman stepped out of the shadows, a crooked smile on his face as he slowly approached Megan.
Maybe yelling for Frankie wasn’t the best idea she ever had.
The ground began to shake, ever-so-slightly at first. The shake became a rhythmic pounding.
The pounding became a shower of stone and dust as a giant, almost the height of a three story building, lumbered through the wall. It threw its head back and roared.
Carl looked back at Kevin. “This is all you, my man.”
Kevin stared up at the rampaging giant.
“Butterscotch disc grenades just ain’t gonna cut it,” Carl continued.
“Uh huh.” Kevin closed his eyes.
//:size.magnify
//:sizefactor.x.5
//:processing
//:
//:
//:
//:size.magnify>engage
Kevin opened his eyes. He noticed that he suddenly towered over Carl.
“Get him, brother,” Carl said as he swung his candy cane staff into another Shadow.
Kevin was now taller than his own house.
“Kick ass, dude!” Nick shouted, and Tommy chimed in with another roar. The giant grunted in confusion and took a step back as Kevin suddenly stood even with it.
“Hi,” Kevin said to the giant. “You need to leave or… or I’m going to kick your ass.”
The giant looked at him curiously.
Now what?, Kevin thought.
The Guardsman dropped his spear and drew his sword. It was rough hewn and seemed to Megan to be nearly as long as she was tall. She drew her own sword. Effectively a pea shooter against the Guardsman’s blade. Megan realized this wouldn’t be a contest of technique, or strength, or speed. Strategy was suddenly the order of the day.
“Megan?” came a female voice.
Megan looked past the huge Guardsman to see Rebecca standing behind a set of bars, with Frankie next to her. The Guardsman grunted in challenge.
“Step back,” Megan said. “Way back.”
Wordlessly, Rebecca and Frankie stepped back into the shadows. Megan spun her sword and smiled. The Guardsman thrust his sword at her. Megan spun away off to the side of the Guardsman, to where she was situated directly in front of the cell. She stood, unmoving, her sword at the ready. The Guardsman thrust his sword forward again. Megan dodged. The sword clattered against the bars. She slammed her own sword down against the Guardsman’s, trapping it against the cell bars. Megan leaped up and extended her leg into a side kick that knocked the Guardsman off his feet. She grabbed his sword and brandished it at him.
“Keys,” she ordered.
The Guardsman shook his head.
“Fine.”
Megan reached down and punched the Guardsman square in the temple. He was out like a light. She retrieved the set of keys from his belt. Rebecca and Frankie stepped forward as Megan unlocked the cell door.
“The bigger they are, the harder they fall, right?” she said with a grin.
Then an armored figure stepped out of the shadows behind Rebecca and Frankie.
The giant gave out a guttural growl and leaned forward. A glance down at its balled fists told Kevin that the time for conversation had passed.
“Kev!” Carl shouted. “Cross, then uppercut!”
Kevin drew a breath. He suddenly remembered that he hadn’t been in any kind of physical altercation since the third grade.
“CROSS THEN UPPERCUT!!”
And he had lost. Badly.
“CROSS!!” Carl yelled.
Which is why he had Carl teach him some boxing moves. The cross to the giant’s jaw sent the creature reeling. The uppercut lifted the giant off its feet and onto its back. The impact took out a good number of Shadows and brought up a cloud of dust as thick as smoke.
Carl waved up to Kevin. “YEAH! You got him, dude!”
Doug swung his sword and took out two more of the Shadows. Nick blasted another.
That was it.
‘We won?” Doug said as he looked about. “We won!”
“Damn right we did,” Nick said.
Tommy let loose with a deafening, triumphant roar.
Carl laughed. “We came, we saw, we kicked--”
Four figures came walking their way through the dust. Nick raised his shotgun. Doug gripped the hilt of his sword. Carl reached into his pocket for another butterscotch bomb.
“Relax,” Megan said. “It’s us.”
Frankie ran for Doug and hugged him, holding on for dear life.
Rebecca looked up at giant nanoMan Kevin, then locked eyes with stubbly, badass Nick.
“I feel like I missed something,” she said.
Laurel looked about. “You got that right.”
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Doug said. “Where’s your little buddy?”
“He was trying to help me out of the wreckage. When I saw some Guardsmen coming, I sent him away.”
“He was a good little guy,” Doug said.
“He was.” Laurel’s armor was scorched, dented, and missing in places. “Anyway, I don’t think I’ll be able to jet pack us out of here. Sorry. But…”
Doug looked at her expectantly.
“I have a message for you,” she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mark Hacker stepped into Hester’s Value Mart, location number 0126, just prior to 1pm. He walked by the checkout lanes, all of them humming along at an acceptable pace, with a bright burble of voices in the background. So far, so good. He strode through women’s wear and saw a young team member sorting through a rack of shirts. She looked bemused and maybe a bit haggard. A couple of the tables of folded shirts already looked to be in a mild state of disarray.
“I’d be willing to bet that Julie is the only one on duty right now.”
Mark turned, startled by the voice behind him.
Shirley Patton smiled. “She’s usually much better at keeping up the tables, though.”
Karen found her quick lunch trip to Hester’s, ostensibly to grab some paper towels and a jar of peanut butter, turn into a clearance shopping mini-extravaganza. Curtains, perfect for the bedroom. Seventy percent off. A pack of notebooks. Fifty percent off.