by Zack Archer
Aurora set the trap bottle down on the ground. “He can’t kill us,” I said.
“He certainly seems to be trying,” Kree replied.
I pointed to the trap bottle. “That contains the antimatter. It’s the one thing that he needs to destroy the Caul. If he tries to destroy us, he’ll destroy himself.”
“What do we do?” Kree asked.
“We use it against him,” I replied. “We use it to draw him out and then we find a way to destroy him.”
“Easier said than done, Quincy,” Aurora said, pulling her rocket launcher around to inspect the two rockets that remained in its firing tube.
“Give Kree the bottle,” I said.
Aurora’s face fell. “You can’t be serious.”
“It’s the only way.”
“I don’t want the bottle,” Kree said.
“You’re just going to run out into the open and draw the Harbinger off,” I said.
Kree’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
“Trust me.”
“But then he’ll try to capture me,” Kree replied.
“We’ll ambush him before that happens.”
Aurora registered this as the sounds of the bad guys grew closer. The ground was shuddering and there was a change in the quality of the air. It was colder, much colder, which meant the Harbinger was drawing near.
Aurora set her jaw and then handed the trap bottle to Kree.
I signaled for her to move laterally, out into the open street.
A look of recognition washed over Aurora. She could tell by my hand gestures that I intended for us to link up, as we’d done before, and generate an enormous blast of energy to knock the Harbinger back on his heels.
It was time to create what Aurora had called a starquake.
Kree dodged out into the open and I took Aurora’s hand and we picked our way up onto the top of the mountain of refuse, still partially concealed by a mass of girders that had fallen to the ground.
The Harbinger and two monsters, the bird and the lobster beast, were visible down below us, several thousand yards away. I searched for the third monster, but it was nowhere to be seen. It didn’t really matter anyway as the other beasts were laying waste to everything that lay before them.
The Harbinger hadn’t noticed us yet. He was too busy staring at Kree and the trap bottle. Aurora grabbed my hand and the resulting contact showered the ground with sparks.
Just as before, a powerful pulse of energy locked us in place, and then Aurora torqued us sideways and we unleashed a bolt of blue lightning.
The air seemed to catch fire as the lightning from the starquake flew forward stretching from the ground to the sky.
It blasted into the Harbinger’s chest with a pulse of light that was as white as a summer cloud. The villain appeared to absorb the blast, but the impact nevertheless knocked him off his feet. His enormous body spiraled through the air and past the two monsters before smashing through what remained of his fortress, bringing it down to the ground.
We cheered, and that’s when I noticed it.
A blur of movement at our flanks.
With a sinking feeling, I realized what had happened to the third monster.
In all the excitement, it had crept up behind us.
Before I could turn to confront it, the thing opened its mouth and sprang at me.
78
The crocodile monster snapped at me, its mighty jaws ratcheting down as I shoved Aurora out of the way, barely missing being a snack for the great beast. Tumbling to the right, I slid down the edge of the rubble pile and came up on the balls of my feet.
Fingers going wide, I squared up on the monster and flung my arms wide.
Like a pitcher, I hurled balls of plasma at the crocodile monster, doing great damage to it. The thing roared in anger as streamers of skin and tissue peeled off its belly. Its tone turned plaintive and it drew back as I felt the time was right to finish it off.
I plunged back up the rubble pile and brought both hands around, ready to finish it off, when it swung its segmented tail, striking me in the chest.
My world spun a few times as I sailed back through the air, landing hard enough to steal the air from my lungs.
Fast as a reflex, the beast moved toward me, kicking up plumes of dust that clouded the air and obscured visibility.
Elbowing myself up, I caught sight of a silhouette rising out of the murk.
The crocodile monster was rearing up over me, its obsidian eyes widening along with its oversized mouth, the monstrosity preparing to swallow me whole when—
An object shot through the crocodile’s skull, making a sound like a cannon blast.
Looking to my right, I saw Atlas, his hand still extended. He’d done it. He’d literally punched a hole through the crocodile’s head!
The monster sputtered, gore running from the wound in great abundance, sheeting the ground.
With a terrific, whining moan, the creature rose up a final time and then began collapsing in stages before flopping on its side and expiring twenty feet away from me.
Atlas’s fist snapped back and I saw him and the other Shadow Catchers raising their hands and cheering.
I stood and thumped my chest, pivoting to Aurora and Kree who were gesturing toward the other end of the street.
They were pointing at the Harbinger who was rising from the shell of his keep.
The big bastard was unharmed and looked pissed as all get out.
His face was a mask of unhinged anger.
He picked up hunks of his broken fortress and started bombarding us with them as the other two monsters went on the attack.
Aurora and I fired back at the monsters, but one of them kicked a structural girder, sending it corkscrewing toward us.
“WATCH OUT!” I screamed, but Kree didn’t turn in time.
She managed to fling the trap bottle back to Aurora in the instant before she was struck in the back by the girder.
My screams were drowned out by the howls of the Harbinger and the other monsters. I danced between their incoming fire as Aurora and the others covered me.
I dropped to the ground near Kree and, with much effort, shoved the girder away. She was lying on her side, wheezing. Her color was bad and I could see that the girder had left a nasty gash in her lower back. A small fountain of red seeped from the wound which didn’t appear to be life-threatening.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“There’s no reason to be sorry,” I said, holding her wrist. “You probably saved all of us.”
“Just…leave me,” she said.
“Never,” I replied.
I picked her up, carrying her back across the field of fire. I set her down before Liberty and Splinter who quickly assessed her, confirming that the wound hadn’t impacted anything vital.
“She’ll live, but we need to get her to shelter,” Liberty said.
Liberty carried her off toward one of the city’s few remaining undamaged buildings, a blocky structure that lay at the other end of the street.
I moved back next to Aurora and we commenced firing on the Harbinger and other monsters.
“We’re losing the fight!” I shouted.
She glanced at me. “Really?! I hadn’t noticed what with all of us getting our asses kicked and whatnot!”
We strafed the bad guys with heavy fire, but the Harbinger seemed to gain power with every step. He deflected our blasts and shot bolts of frozen energy at us that dug craters in the street and sent shards of the road whizzing through the air.
Kaptain Khaos and Lyric were both wounded by the detritus of the explosions. His neck and her cheek were ripped wide by jagged pieces of metal.
Atlas covered our rear, throwing a punch at the bird monster that whipped its wings around, causing the big man’s fist to ricochet back and nearly take off my head.
“Fall back,” Atlas said. “Fall back.
We were running on empty.
We were losing the fight, and the bad guys
knew it.
Still, we fought back.
We didn’t have a choice.
Lyric, though wounded, unleashed her sonic bullets, and Splinter fired splinters and his fiery sap at the approaching creatures while Aurora and I continued to rain fire and brimstone on them. The Harbinger concocted a shield that we couldn’t breach, so we turned and ran.
Down the street we flew, Aurora safeguarding the trap bottle as we headed toward the building where Liberty had taken Kree.
I could see the wending blood trail on the ground left by Kree and the anger welled up inside of me.
Signaling back to the others, I ducked under a tangle of debris into a space that was shrouded by dust and smoke from the fighting.
Two forms wavered out in front of me.
I assumed it was Liberty and Kree.
I waved my hands, but the two forms didn’t wave back.
Stumbling to a stop, I realized there were three figures in front of me, not two.
The forms materialized to reveal Big Dread, The Showstopper, and Dolly Dagger.
Their hands were raised, their eyes were as wide as saucers, and they looked ready to do battle.
79
Big Dread, who hovered a few inches off the ground, swooped down toward me. She looked up, met my eyes, and cocked an eyebrow. “The game is over, Quincy.”
“Nothing’s over yet!” Atlas thundered, arriving with the others who adopted defensive postures.
We slowly circled each other, everyone supremely on edge, arms raised, ready to strike at a moment’s notice.
I was the first one to lower my hands.
“Don’t do it, Quincy,” Splinter said. “You can’t trust the bastards.”
“We’ve got bigger problems,” I replied. “We’ve literally got a fucking giant who’s trying to kill all of us.”
“I’ll take my chances with the Harbinger,” Splinter replied. “I’m not afraid of dying. Hell, the way I see it, it’s a godsdamned occupational hazard.”
“Stand the fuck down, barkskins,” Atlas said.
Splinter grunted and I swapped a look with him. “We need to come together. We were all double-crossed and now we’re facing a common enemy.”
Lyric’s eyebrows were high. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we need to do the impossible. We need to join forces.”
Splinter and Lyric snorted and laughed at this. “It’s the only way,” I continued. “Whether we rise or fall, it’s going to be together. There’s no way around that. The time for fighting each other is over.”
Atlas looked warily at Big Dread. “What say?”
Big Dread pursed her plump lips. “I say…what do we get in return?”
“Our thanks,” I said.
She spat on the ground.
“And forgiveness,” I added. “The slate will be wiped clean.”
Aurora fumed, growling under her breath, but I silenced her with a look.
“You’ll also get an agreement from us,” Atlas said, lowering his hands. “A promise to find a new way forward.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” The Showstopper asked.
“It means we lay down our arms,” Atlas replied. “We find a way to live together.”
The ground shook.
Dust filled the air.
The Harbinger was close.
“We don’t have much time,” I said. “Either we fight together, or we die together. It’s time to choose.”
Big Dread sneered but traded looks with The Showstopper and Dolly Dagger who slowly nodded.
“We will fight with you,” she said. “We will destroy the Harbinger and those that fight with him, and then we can discuss the future.”
“You can’t seriously be considering this,” Splinter said.
“What choice do we have?” I asked.
Splinter looked at me and opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He fumed, but nodded, the look on his face letting me know that he knew this was as good a deal as we were going to get given the situation.
“Let’s go,” Atlas said.
We turned, fanning out and moving across the rubble-strewn streets toward the Harbinger and the remaining two monsters who were rolling across the city, flattening buildings, searching for the trap bottle.
I made sure to keep as far away as I could from The Showstopper. I’d taken down two of his family members, and I didn’t want to be the one to shatter the uneasy alliance. I ran with Aurora on my left, keeping pace while staying between her and Big Dread out to my right.
We moved in a crouch, down over a trench that had been carved in the street by the fighting. I slowed and watched a tempest of light build around Big Dread who fired bolts of molten metal at the approaching villains.
The metal ripped through the bird monster as the Harbinger engineered a protective field to shield him and the beasts. Everyone, including Aurora and I, opened fire on the protective shield, letting loose with a withering sweep of plasma balls, conventional bullets, and explosives.
The Harbinger’s protective field held and soon he was encased in a spiral of light. He cast the protective field aside and strode down the street, alight with electricity.
He jumped into the air and came down with a thud, birthing a mushroom cloud of dust and smoke that brought visibility down to a few feet as the two monsters approached, squealing, hurling sections of buildings at us.
“I’ve had enough of their bullshit,” Kaptain Khaos said. “Less lip and more grip!”
He raised his arms, steam rising from his ears. The monsters plodded forward and he brought his arms down, triggering a tremor that collapsed a building atop them.
Our cheers quickly faded when the beasts shrugged off the detritus of the building, yammering in pain, redoubling their efforts to reach us.
“Good job!” Big Dread shouted. “Now you’ve made them even angrier!”
“My bad!” Kaptain Khaos yelled back.
Tendon-like appendages shot out of the lobster beast, rocketing forward. Some of them speared into nearby objects.
“TAKE EVASIVE ACTION!” Kaptain Khaos screamed.
We ran in different directions and I soon found myself chugging alongside Big Dread as the birdlike monster flapped its wings, flying toward us. The avian leviathan sliced by overhead as Big Dread grabbed my arms and yanked me to the ground.
I rolled over and pressed myself low to the ground as she did the same. It was the strangest feeling in the world to be inches away from someone who was trying to kill me only a few hours before. She cast a wary gaze in my direction and we looked at each other with mutual irritation.
“I should’ve let the bird take your head off,” she hissed.
“Are you still holding onto the anger?”
Her eyes enlarged. “Don’t fuck with me, boy.”
“That’s Quincy or Night Fire, Enya!”
We watched the bird fly a sortie around the far end of the city and then head back toward us.
“I think one of us needs to distract it and the other one shoot it down,” I said.
“You need to know that this isn’t going to end it,” she said, holding up a piece of rock from a fallen building and crushing it between her fingers.
“What?”
She turned to me. “This…temporary truce. What exists between your people and my people.”
“Can’t we all just get along?”
A dark smiled played at the corner of her mouth. “There’s too much history between us.”
“History’s meant to be rewritten.”
“Give me the antimatter and I’ll end all of this,” she said.
“I can’t do that.”
She took this and flung me a look of contempt. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Quincy, but when this is over, I will continue to have a strong desire to kill you.”
“You can certainly try.”
Before she could respond, the bird wailed and dropped low like a bomber cruising in to release its payload.
When the flying fiend had approached to within five hundred feet of me, it banked and I knew my moment was at hand. It had exposed its stomach and so I rose and sucked a breath through my teeth.
I took several halting steps and then brought my hands together as my body quaked. A torrent of pure energy leaped from my fingertips in the form of a spear that I slung into the air. The spear accelerated and punched into the monstrous bird’s underside.
A bloodcurdling shriek issued from the bird as it convulsed, the spear ripping a hole in its flesh which geysered red.
The monster was instantly crippled as it cut through the air, its wings faltering.
In obvious agony, the bird fell to the ground, landing with such force that I felt the earsplitting percussion from where I was standing.
From my vantage point, I could see the monstrosity gouging a crater ten feet deep into the city streets, kicking up a great plume of dust that obscured visibility. The bird made an eerie sound, like a million snakes hissing all at once. It tried to push itself up, but the damage had been done.
It rose once, faltered, then toppled to the ground in stages and didn’t move again.
The dust dissipated and I searched for Big Dread, but couldn’t see her.
The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention and I whipped around to see her. She was standing behind me, hovering a few inches off the ground. Red fire danced at the end of her fingers.
For a second she looked capable of almost anything, and then she nodded and the fire vanished and she beckoned me to follow her.
Against the drum-like beat of my heart, I followed after Big Dread, thundering over the city’s broken streets, taking in the apocalyptic scenery up ahead.
The Harbinger was going psycho all over the city, spewing ropes of icy-blue energy that blasted apart whatever buildings remained intact.
While this was happening, the two other monsters, the lobster and crocodile creatures, were doing their part to maul Fiasco Heights mercilessly.