by Jason Luthor
There’s a sudden explosion that rings through the room, the noise filtering in from outside. When the shockwave hits, the screen bursts into static as the lights around the room flicker in an out. Yousef just grits his teeth as golden energy starts to pour out of his body, his hand starting to glow so bright that it's hard to look at. “Bring me the girl!” he screams. A second later, one of the guards is walking over to us.
Mandy looks at me, her face twisting up with fear. “Tommy! Tommy, no!” As the guard’s right on top of us, I push myself onto my legs. I practically ram my whole body into him, but he’s in full body armor. I manage to knock him back a little, but he just comes down on the back of my head with the butt of his rifle. It sends me to the floor, the whole world spinning around me as I’m trying to get back onto my feet. In my ears, I can still hear Mandy’s voice screaming for me, even as I can see Yousef sweeping her into his arms and putting his palm to her head. A second later, I feel myself getting pulled onto my feet and faced toward the door, the cold end of a rifle barrel placed against the back of my skull. Next to me, even the doc’s being held at gunpoint, with all of us facing the doorway as the fortress continues to shake with explosions. The noises are getting louder and louder, until they sound like they’re right outside the entry. And that’s when everything gets dead quiet for just a second, except for the sound of footsteps right outside the room.
It's not possible to describe what dead silence sounds like. It’s just . . . an absence, like something missing. That’s what it feels like as we’re standing there. Like something’s missing. Something’s wrong. There’s something that should be there but isn’t. And that’s when a burning white light starts to dance underneath the doorway. I don’t know when it happens. To be absolutely, completely honest . . . I don’t see it when it happens. All I know is that one moment, I’m staring at a closed door. And the next moment? That door’s sliding across the ground, and I’m looking at Jackie, standing at the opposite end of the room from us and dripping with white fire that’s flowing off of her body.
Yousef growls. “Stop right there, Dark Angel. Do you hear me? Are you listening?”
Jackie takes a deep breath as she lowers her head, silver light dancing in her eyes. “Yousef, all you do is lie and tear people down. I’m tired of listening to you. You’re . . . toxic.”
“Do you really think I care what you think about me? Do you understand the situation in front of you? If you take just one step further, one of these people will die.” That’s when I see that golden color around him growing even more powerful. “Maybe the doctor. Maybe your friend, Tommy. Or maybe you want it to be the girl? I hope you understand that if you move, you will have blood on your hands.”
“No, I won’t. It’s over, Yousef.”
I don’t even see when it happens. I’m just staring at her one second, standing there like some living fire . . . and then she’s not there. Between one breath and another, I realize the guards behind me aren’t standing there anymore, either. They’re on the ground, unconscious. The wall to the side of us cracks, and it takes a second for the sound to catch up. I don’t hear actually the wall cracking until after I see Jackie there, her teeth clenched together, and her fists caught in Yousef’s palms. Her hands are trapped in his, and between the two of them, golden and white light is burning into reality. His fists are shaking as she tries to rip herself free.
“This is the best you could do, then,” he spits at her. “This the might of the Dark Angel!”
“No,” she says back to him. “That’s what’s wrong with you. You never see what others are capable of. That’s why you’ve understood what my best is.”
I’m staring at them one second, and another, the entire wall blows out. There’s just an explosion as the two of them rip through the room and back into the battlefield, the both of them spiraling through the air and plunging from stories up until they hit the ground far below us. My eyes shoot from Mandy to Doctor Watson, but all he does is motion to the giant hole in the wall. By the time we’re standing there, looking down on the field, Jackie and Yousef are already staring each other down. Golden light is flowing out of him, and white light is seeping into the air around her.
And before I can really keep track of it, the two of them launch at each other and hit with so much power that the ground beneath me rumbles. I tumble forward, my hand grabbing at the wall to brace myself as I stare at the two of them, their fists flying at each other so fast that I can’t see where one punch starts and another one ends. Staring at them, watching the energy exploding from the two of them . . . I just feel out of my weight class. I catch glimpses, like when Yousef connects and sends Jackie flying back with so much force that her feet dig through the ground. But then she’s right back at him, a trail of white fire behind her as she hits him with so much power that, even though he blocks it, it sends him tumbling backward. She’s moving fast enough that Yousef can’t completely dodge her. Now, he’s actually having to get his fists up to protect himself while she hammers at him.
It’s not just the speed that’s scary. No, what’s really scary is seeing the battleground around them tearing apart. If reality was a sheet of paper, it would be like seeing someone punching holes in it with a pen. White and golden portals of light shred through reality, like windows into Pocket Space bursting apart every time their fists connect. But every punch, every punch that I can see, somehow Yousef either brushes it away or blocks it entirely. After adapting to her speed, it doesn’t look like it matters how fast Jackie’s fists fly, because Yousef moves just as fast. And it keeps going, and going, the speed increasing to the point that I’m not sure I can even say I’m witnessing what’s happening. It’s more like I’m registering the aftermath of the punches.
This is what I think I see. Their fists connect. I know that, because I feel . . . heat, from the energy they’re giving off. The two of their fists connect with each other, and an explosion of golden and white light exploding through the air. And then Jackie screams. It’s that same, otherworldly scream I’ve heard from her before, the one that sounds like it’s halfway between human and something else. She screams, and then she moves so fast that my eyes are racing to keep up. Before I can even understand what happened, before Yousef can understand what happened, we see it. She connects, hard, finally moving with enough speed that not even he was able to get out of the way in time. Her fist clocks his jaw clean enough that we see blood fly from his mouth, but he only looks slightly staggered. He twists back toward her to return the punch. But her . . . it looks like she’s in front of him at the same time that she looks like she’s on the other side of the battlefield.
“What the hell’s happening?” I ask the doc.
“It’s . . . complicated. To use the illustration of a computer, it’s the same as if you were to view the same image in two windows. Our side of reality is referencing Jackie’s position at multiple points while she moves through Pocket Space.”
He doesn’t say anything else because that’s when we see Yousef opens his hand, that glowing beam of light collecting in his palm and threatening to fire across the field. Right then, the second before it fires off, Jackie’s got her hands wrapped up with his. Her fingers clamp down with his just as that golden beam of his explodes from his hand, but she doesn’t flinch. She just stands there, holding tight to his hand and letting the energy tear into her arm. And even from where I’m standing, I can see the skin and muscle in her hand ripping away, only to be almost instantly replaced, like the Creep in her body is so supercharged that her healing factor is running in overdrive. When the beam finally stops, Jackie lets go, and then it’s just the two of them staring each other down from inches apart.
One second I’m looking at where the two of them should be, and the next second, her and Yousef are battling again, their fists flying at a pace that no normal human should be able to maintain. Faster, and faster, the two of them oddly quiet for how intense things are getting, like they need to focus completely on beatin
g each other. And then, with their hands moving at unbelievable speeds, there’s a slip. There’s just one moment when Yousef’s eyes go wide, and then there’s Jackie’s fist, buried in his stomach almost up to her wrist. This time it rocks him even harder than the last punch, and he doubles over, spit and blood flying from his mouth. It’s almost like the world stands still when she finally breaks through his defenses with the cleanest punch I’ve ever seen her land, the golden light around him vanishing as he goes flying backward, his feet digging through the earth as Jackie flies backward like a white hot comet.
And then there she is, hovering in the air for a split second as she pushes her palms forward. What’s behind her is what’s scary, eleven Pocket Space windows opening up at her back, their glowing white energy emptying out like some divine light. What’s strange is the way they’re positioned, like this descending tree or a massive glyph glowing at her back. The doc takes a step back, his fingers tapping at his mouth. “That’s what happened then. She’s begun to ascend the Tree of Life.”
“What? Doc, what’re you saying?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, we watch as those windows fully open and their light starts to pour into Jackie. The fires trail down her arms and empty out in an avalanche of energy that explodes forward and just tears the fortress grounds apart. It’s like watching some gigantic laser beam cutting the world in half, and it’s all focused on Yousef. In one last split second, I see him throw his arms forward and a golden light explode around him as he’s consumed in a fire that just eats through his defenses.
And then, there he is, tumbling backward and screaming as he somehow catapults onto his feet. His shoulders are sagging and the last of his shirt burns away in white fire, his golden arm up and darting through the air as he tries to track Jackie down. But then, all at once, there she is again, at a dozen places along the battlefield, either rushing at Yousef from the air or burning along the ground, and it’s clear he doesn’t know where to aim for. The thing is, it just takes that one moment of hesitation, and then she’s in front of him. Before we can blink, her hand is in Yousef’s gut as an explosion of white fire explodes from her palm. It’s so powerful that it sends her reeling backward, but the blast absolutely tears Yousef’s body apart in an energy wave that nobody at that range would be fast enough to dodge. For once, and when it mattered most, he wasn’t fast enough.
Smoke and rubble rise up into the air, and that’s when the speed of what happened catches up to me. Jackie sent Yousef crumbling into the building, and when we look down, his body looks like a rag doll on the ground. I can only watch as she grabs him by the throat and lifts him into the air, lifting him back into the office where we’re standing before pinning him against the wall. Yousef’s clawing at her wrist, his fingers digging into her hand as she stands there, holding him still. “You think you’ve won?” he spits out. “You think this is the end?”
“I’m not listening to you anymore, Yousef.”
“Then don’t,” he fires back, his golden arm reaching out, his palm open. Energy forms between his fingers as he points his hand at her head. “I don’t think even you could survive a shot from up this close. Not if I take your head.”
“Do you really want to bet that you can shoot me? Do you think you’ll be fast enough?”
“No, not if you’re expecting it. But were you expecting this?” His wrist flicks to the right, and that beam of energy fires out. I don’t realize what’s happening until the beam fires to the side of me. For all of a split second, I really think he’s aiming to kill me, until I see it blast Mandy in the chest. The impact throws her back and sends her screaming to the floor, smoke burning off of her as a black, searing burn forms over her body. Jackie’s face glances to the side when she hears her crying, her teeth clenching at the sound, and that’s the opening Yousef needs. He flicks his hand back towards Jackie and fires, the full beam of energy blasting Jackie square in the face. His palm’s only inches from her when he fires, and she goes rocketing backward, her face burned away instantly and mangled beyond recognition. It’s sizzling as she hits the floor with a thud, burned down to just a little muscle seared against her skull.
It’s too much for me to really understand. I can barely process any of it as I drop to Mandy’s side, watching as she struggles to breathe. Her fingers are wrapping around me as she sucks in hard, fighting for air. I just scream, “You’re a monster, Yousef!”
“I’m the monster?” he barks through his sore throat, his fingers massaging at the red marks around his throat. He’s still fighting for air as he talks. “You . . . see, what Jackie was doing out there, and call me the monster? Imagine what would have happened if she’d ever lost control with a power like that. I saved us. Me! This dog needed to be put down before it destroyed the world.”
“A dog? You think you’re better because you get your power through technology instead of the Creep?”
“It guarantees I won’t ever turn into something like her. A monster.”
“Yousef, Mandy’s . . .” I look down at her, watching her eyes rolling into the back of her head as her breathing gets shallow. “Only monsters hurt children like this.” I don’t even try looking at him again. He certainly doesn’t say anything else, and I’m too busy cradling Mandy as she cries. Against the wall, Doc Watson is staring down at Jackie’s body. He practically looks like he’s not breathing, either. Me . . . I just hold Mandy while she struggles for air, her tears burning into my chest. For a second, I look at Jackie, but it’s too much. Her face is just . . . All I can think is, that’s not her. That’s not Jackie. I can’t even recognize her anymore. That’s just how bad her face is. I can feel my chest aching as I sit feet away from her, fighting to make sense of what just happened.
But . . . then there’s this . . . slick sound. Muscle, flesh, and blood. I turn to look at Jackie again, and that’s when I see it, the skin crawling its ways down over her face again. I can actually see as muscle grows back around her skull and her skin wraps its way back around her face. It all happens in seconds, her eyes reshaping and her lips forming again. Like she didn’t just take a blast to the face. Yousef sees it too, his eyes looking crazed as he takes a step back. Jackie struggles for a second as she sits there on the floor, her arms wobbling underneath her as she pushes herself back onto her feet, her body hanging limp as she barely manages to get back onto her legs.
Her eyes shoot over to me and Mandy, her eyes searching me as she comes to an understanding of the situation. I’m covered in Mandy’s blood, and when she sees it, the silver light passes through her eyes again. She screams, and when I say she screams, I mean it feels like the walls are shaking and the vibrations are about to shatter my bones. Her face snaps around to Yousef, and she flies at him, knocking him against the wall. He bounces from hitting it so hard, flying forward and right into Jackie. She catches him by that golden arm of his and rips, metal and wires flying into the air as she tears his mechanical arm right out of the joint where it attaches. It must hurt, because Yousef’s scream sounds like a man whose just lost a real arm. A second later, Jackie’s got him by the throat again and held in the air. This time though, she cocks her arm back, and I see something I’d hoped I’d never see again. I watch the skin and muscle around her fingers pull away as her claws burst from her arm. She’s heaving as her hand tightens around his throat, and she looks like she’s about one second from disemboweling the general.
“Do it then!” he growls between choking breaths. “Finish it! It was always going to come to this. You know it was always going to come to this. You are the killer I know you to be. Be what you are, Dark Angel. Let the monster free. Show it to the world.”
There’s a long moment when the room fills with her screaming again, but the scary part is how much inhuman than human it sounds. Her clawed hand stretches out and those long claws of her grow sharper and longer, distending. But it’s her jaws, stretching and distorting. Like a Creeper’s. It looks even worse than the time she lost control in front of me
, during those days we stayed at the fort together. Jackie’s shaking as she holds him, her fingers closing tighter around his throat until it sounds like he’s choking to death, his protests gurgling out of his mouth. The claws around his throat dig into his skin, until there’s blood dripping down his collar and trailing down his chest.
“Jackie.” I hear a faint whisper and look down. Mandy’s fighting just to get words out. “Mikey. Think about Mikey.” Jackie’s chest is rising and falling as she stares at Yousef, her clawed hand hesitating as she stands there. She looks ready to kill him, at least as ready as I’ve ever seen her. But then she takes a long, deep breath, and I see white fire starting to flicker off her fingers as they shrink back to normal. Her features soften again, and her eyes narrow as she stands there. It almost looks like she wants to cry. I can see her jaws shrinking back to normal and her claws narrowing back into fingers, until it’s the Jackie that I know who’s standing there again.
“You killed Mike,” she says through shuddering words. “You killed your own father and sister. You’re responsible for the deaths of thousands of brave soldiers who fought for you because they thought you had their best interests at heart. You framed the militia of Central Freedom to get us into a war with the Sha’b. Maybe I’m not as human as I used to be, Yousef, but today and for the rest of my life, I’m Jackie Coleman. That means something. It means I’m not like you. I will not murder you in cold blood, because the only monster in this room is the one who sent thousands to die for no reason at all. They deserve justice, not just revenge. They certainly don’t need me killing you so I can take their revenge for them. No. Their families, Yousef, deserve justice. And they’ll get it, when you stand trial in Central Freedom. So the people can decide what happens to you. All I know is that I won’t be the one to kill you.”