by Jamie Hawke
“That’s the thing,” Drew replied, his voice sounding itchy. “We made it back, but… only to go deeper.”
I sat up, frowning. “You’re going back to face those things?”
“We… have to.”
“That’s enough,” someone was whispering from his side.
“Drew,” I said, my voice stern, “why are you going back in there? What’s deeper?”
A long silence followed, Charm sharing a worried look with me, and then Andromida said, “By Oram, just tell him. I’m sure any brother of yours is a big boy and can handle it.”
“Our father,” Drew said. “That, and Lamb. We think they’re both down there, or… over there. Whatever “there” is.”
That was information I hadn’t been expecting.
“Which means it’s time for me to ask,” Andromida said, “what business do you have at the pyramids?”
“We’re going to take down Ranger,” I replied without a moment’s hesitation. “We believe the pyramids are the key. It’s where he got his powers, and where so much of this started. It’s where we’ll finish it.”
“Fucking A,” Drew said.
“I’d also hoped there’d be clues regarding our dad, considering this is where the powers were taken from so many.” I leaned back sighing. “But if you have a credible reason to believe he’s in the Nihilist world, at least that helps us focus our expectations.”
“While we travel into enemy territory to find Dad and other Tier One supers, you deal with the threat here and, ultimately, Ranger. It all ties together.”
“Which side got the short straw?” Charm asked, looking puzzled. “I’m guessing you guys, Drew. Sorry, sucks to be you. That place was creeeeepy.”
Drew and Navani laughed, but it was an uncomfortable laugh, matching the expressions on my ladies’ faces. Everyone knew it would be dangerous.
“Your journey won’t be a cakewalk,” Andromida said. “Keep that in mind, Charm, so you don’t get yourself hurt.”
“Ahhh, does the scary blue lady care about me now?” Charm said, leaning into the comms as if that would be seductive.
“And your mission, Andromida?” I asked.
“We can work together on this, as I have to find someone… someone who might play a role in your goal of taking down Ranger. From there, though, I’m afraid our paths will go their separate ways. I have reason to find a way to the Milky Way galaxy, to the planet you call Abaddon.”
“Shut up,” I said, unable to believe what she’d just said.
“When I’ve had my revenge, but only then,” Andromida replied. Had she just joked—could you call it that?
“How exactly would coming here help?” Twitch asked.
“The powers… after I deal with the person I’m here for, the best bet I have is that I will be able to uncover some of my old powers, maybe merge them with another’s to create a portal.”
“To this Abaddon place?” Gale asked, whistling and leaning back. “Won’t work.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Portals like that only work when another place for returning has been set up,” Gale explained.
“Except for in our case,” Andromida corrected her, “there already was one. It’s just been closed.”
“And you want to reopen it,” Twitch said. “But my guess is you’d need to know where it is, to be able to see through the fabric of space and, possibly, time.”
“It’s not an easy task,” Andromida said, her voice cold, lacking emotion.
“It won’t be so bad, now that you have us,” Twitch said, grinning almost as wide as Charm in her excitement. “I can help you with that.”
“How?”
“I have my ways.” Twitch opened a pink screen, scrolling through it so that a map was displayed along with images that looked like small portals. Only we could see it, but it got the reaction from our group she’d been expecting—we were impressed, as always.
“You’d… do that?” Andromida asked.
“Let’s just say we owe you one,” Twitch said. “For back at the prison ship.”
“I’d say we have ourselves a team then,” Andromida said, and I almost thought I could hear a sense of excitement in her voice. “From one brother to the next.”
This time she actually laughed! I couldn’t believe it, but this revenge-crazed blue lady had a humorous side to her. While the comment about going from Drew to me raised an eyebrow from Charm, I had to admit I was excited at having Andromida fight on our side again.
10
Approaching the area the folks at the Citadel had sent over for our maps, I was reminded what a great opportunity it had been to be able to catch up with my brother. We’d been able to chat a bit longer, but they were on their way now and Navani had apparently figured out the last piece of the puzzle they needed. We’d said our farewells, hopefully only for now, and disconnected.
It was weird, knowing that the two of us were the supposed offspring of Tier One supers—beings that were tantamount to gods in this galaxy. That the two of us were flying off in different directions to take on the deadliest threats known was almost too insane to comprehend, so I let that thought vanish as quickly as it came. Baby steps were the key to surviving here. One step at a time.
All my life I’d looked up to my brother, been jealous of his abilities and strength. One time I’d even tried to go out with him and his friends to play some football in the snow. No pads, just a group of guys tackling each other and having fun. But not me. I learned real fast that day that I was a piece of meat there to get pounded and tenderized before they ate me up.
So knowing that I was almost twenty levels higher than Drew put a cocky grin on my face.
Though, when I saw what we were flying into, that grin faded fast. Not only was there what looked like a meteor storm, but also shimmers of light and areas of extreme darkness.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Twitch said under her breath.
“What is it?” Gale asked.
Twitch didn’t respond, but hit the comms to address Andromida. “You knew this was here?”
“I escaped last time, but didn’t have the full picture.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning no, but I knew the legends, and knew there were abnormalities.”
“What is it?” Gale asked, and this time I was leaning in, paying very close attention.
“From what I can see,” Twitch replied, checking her screens fervently, “and it’s not certain… some form of altered portals. Like those the people from… where was it? Hadrian’s type, anyway. The ones they’d make.”
“Hadrian?” I asked, recalling that name. “The Elder with the Citadel?”
Gale nodded. “Or, he was. As they all were.”
“So these are related, but disturbed somehow?” I asked, on the verge of being very lost.
“Like I said,” Twitch stood now, motioning for Gale to take the controls. “I’m not sure and my screens aren’t really able to read them. Imagine code that’s been turned to letters when it should be numbers. This is going to take my full concentration.” She turned to me and frowned. “Oh, yeah, and yours. Using your newer skills… nothing?”
I had spaced on the fact that I could use screens to a degree, too, though not always the same as her. Pulling mine up and using the troubleshooter skill, I saw what she was referring to, but worse than that, things were sideways and blurred. If I hadn’t just heard it from her, I probably would’ve assumed it was code I didn’t know yet. The troubleshooter skill wasn’t doing shit, though.
“Nothing,” I said, confused. “Except…” The display was starting to show a silvery path twisting and winding ahead. “Are you all seeing that? The path?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Charm said, then whispered to Shimmer, “Must be drugs.”
“I’m not on drugs,” I countered. “Do you even have drugs up here?”
“No, of course not. Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Charm stared at me innocently.
Raincheck on that conversation.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” I said, tapping Gale on the shoulder so I could take the controls. “I think this is showing me a safe route. Or, as safe as can be. I’ll keep this up. Twitch, do your thing… the rest of you pray.”
“Pray?” Charm asked.
“Yeah, you know, on your knees, hands folded, head—”
“Is this sexual?” she asked.
“He means like to a god,” Gale said, standing and shaking her head at Charm’s ability to make everything sexual. “It’s something they used to do on Earth.”
“In instances like this, still do,” I corrected her, now at the controls. “Andromida, you’ll need to follow me. Stay hot on my tail.”
“He likes it like that,” Charm said, not even deserving a glance from me. At that moment, I needed to stay focused.
“Let’s, um…” Shimmer led Charm away. “Maybe find ourselves some distraction while we leave our lives in their hands.”
“Oooh, everyone, Shimmer’s hitting on me!” Charm called over her shoulder, and then they were gone.
“You’re sure you’ve got this?” Twitch asked me.
“We’ll just have to find out.”
The closer we got, the wilder the ride. At first it was all about the terror—was that huge ass rock about to hit us? Why were those red wavy lines shooting out from that bunch of crazy swirling colors? My silver guiding light was doing its job, though, or else it was a huge coincidence. Twitch and Gale were strapped in, breaths heavy with a couple of yelps here and there when more collisions were narrowly avoided.
A sudden jolt pulled us off course, and Twitch had her screens up, making adjustments.
“Tell me what you need!” she shouted.
“It’s not letting me pull left,” I grunted, struggling to adjust the controls and do my troubleshooter skill at the same time. “Offset the rear right engines, with—”
A burst sent us back on course, slightly too far, and an asteroid chipped our shield, sending a shimmering hexagon of blue light across our display but otherwise doing no harm.
“Got it,” she said, correcting the push so that I was back on course.
“Andromida?” I called out.
“On your tail, as you like it,” her voice came back, crackling. “But do try not to get sucked into any of those black holes or portal-things, got it?”
“Fucking A,” I replied, pushing the ship onward.
It was easy to see how ships never made it out of this, how it would be the most disastrous of situations without supers like Twitch and me. Then again, I was starting to think there were many situations where my team would be able to kick ass where others couldn’t. We were a new superhero squad, in a sense, and that got my juices flowing.
Finally we were through and I let out a loud “Whoop!” and pumped my fist in the air. We hurtled down toward the largest viewable planet without any doubts that we’d found the right place. Andromida’s ship now came around our side, taking the lead.
At least for this part, she likely knew where she was going. Only problem was, when I pulled up my scan ability, there weren’t nearly as many supers as I’d expected. The ones that were there were showing up as blurs, but nothing clear—certainly no stats or other information.
“This place… it’s not right.”
“No shit,” Gale said.
Twitch leaned over me and hit the comms to say, “Guide us down, Andromida. Everyone prepare for landing.” Then, after a moment she added, “You seeing this?” as her hand went to my forearm but her eyes stared straight ahead.
I turned back to the screen and didn’t know what she was talking about, at first. Then something moved. It was slight, and then more. There was a huge pyramid, but it was expanding outward, changing its shape.
“Scanning it,” Twitch said, and the others returned then, taking their seats. After a few moments of silence, she gasped. “This isn’t a pyramid, or not in the typical sense.”
“Meaning what?” I asked.
“It’s more like some sort of machine.”
We all stared, watching as it continued to shift, and then an opening appeared, followed by several more, and turrets emerged.
“Get us all cloaked!” Gale shouted, and immediately Shimmer was on it, Twitch preparing shields and more as the barrage of bullets tore through the air. They didn’t know where we were now as we practiced evasive maneuvers, but they were filling the air with shots regardless.
Supers emerged too, several flying—no, not supers, I saw, but flying Nihilists. They were coming at us, shadows shooting out and slicing through the air. “Keep us out of sight,” Twitch shouted, as shots hit one of the shields to our left, causing it to become visible. All attacks converged on that spot and we tore straight down, glad to see Andromida do the same.
Only, before she hit the ground she appeared, leaping out of her ship! I nearly yelped but watched in awe as the now-deserted craft went careening into the pyramid below to take out one of the turrets. She floated there, robes floating around her and one hand up and running through her hair as she assessed her targets, and then chaos broke out.
Each movement of hers was like the hand of God smiting her enemies. She would spin and thrust and metal from ships would slice back into themselves, or split and send inhabitants falling to their deaths. She took out supers and we did too, firing at them as Gale worked her lightning from within. I couldn’t use my tempest, as I didn’t know how to make it work without blowing up the ship, but I was helping with shields as Twitch shifted to amping up Andromida’s stats.
A super appeared behind her, reaching with golden hands, but she spun and thrust out her own hands so that the nearest two ships suddenly slammed in to crush this guy. As if that wasn’t enough—or who knows, maybe it wasn’t—she then spun around and a hint of red took over her eyes… behind her, red hands appeared as the super tried to break free. They had him. The ships were spinning, creating a darkness, and then he was gone within. Both ships stopped moving, then fell.
Shots hit us, taking out our shields so that we were visible again, as we joined her in the attack.
Andromida’s face loomed large on our display, the look of determination clear in her eyes. She spun around and came at us, and then she was doing that thing I’d seen her do when I first encountered her—she moved fast, blue tracing her from her robes and becoming a barrier of light. Shots bounced off of it, attacks from supers were absorbed. Finally, she came to a stop in the middle of it all, looked up and actually smiled at us, and then she blew. The blue light around us shot out, taking down waves of the enemy and the surrounding turrets.
For a second, we sat there not knowing what to do.
“Shimmer!” Twitch called out as she snapped out of it.
“Right,” Shimmer replied, and we were all cloaked again, Andromida floating down to the rear of the pyramids.
Landing while cloaked was smart, as more supers were taking to the sky in confusion. It would only be a matter of time before they found us. Especially with the amount of powers they had at their disposal, if this whole power-stealing operation was for real.
Andromida approached, floating with arms held out, ready for an attack. When none immediately came, she turned to us and nodded. Her outfit wasn’t that of the prison ship anymore, but one much more sensual. Robes fluttered from her sides in a way that reminded me of the hanging drapes of a Moroccan restaurant. Her hair now smooth, she was like a sophisticated goddess and had a less scary look about her. Something felt off, though, confusing.
“We meet again.”
It hit me then, what felt wrong. “Hold on. When I saw you just now you were on the ship, arms bloodied… I could’ve sworn the blue was gone.”
A flicker passed over her eyes, and for a second it was like someone else staring out at me before she said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I knew what I saw, but for now decided not to go down that rabbit hol
e. Was she hiding something? Maybe she’d thought her quest for revenge was over, and this was somehow connected. I had no idea, but damn, was my curiosity piqued.
“We can catch up over a fire and s’mores later,” Twitch said, indicating the massive pyramid before us. “Right now, we need to get to work.”
“The last one had some sort of entry secret,” I said, analyzing the pyramid, trying to figure out how we’d get into this one.
“We might have to put that on hold,” Shimmer said, already working to throw up illusions.
Following her line of sight, I saw why. A group of supers were to our left, coming our way. Judging by the bursts of fire and more already being fired at us, it was safe to assume they wanted a fight.
11
Supervillains charged at us and we at them, but it quickly became apparent this lot wasn’t entirely prepared for us. It seemed they were new to their powers. One of them came at me with a body that burst into flames, but sputtered out twice before reaching me. I side-stepped and he walked right into a blast of icy wind from Gale, leaving his power gone. He tried to shoot a ball of flame a second later, but the wind tossed him aside.
“They sent the babies after us?” Charm said with a laugh. “I feel kinda bad hurting them!”
A large super turned on her then, shouting and trying to pummel her with what I assumed was extra strength, but she dodged under him and came up with her foxy claws digging into his sides. Climbing over him, she ignored his attempted swings and quickly had his throat opened.
He collapsed to the ground and she rolled, ready for her next victim.
“You’re smiling,” I pointed out, hitting two with my lightning chain. “Thought you felt bad.”
“I changed my mind. It’s too much fun to not enjoy it.”
“You’re twisted.
Andromida wasn’t playing around, already taking out a handful of these punks. It was going well, too, until one of those near the back came forward and when Gale sent lightning at him, it seemed to hit an invisible wall and bounce right back at her. She was able to counter it in a way that threw her back as lighting crashed together, but at least she was alive.