Our Contest

by Phillip Murrell

  “We’re trying,” Seal Pup responds. “Abel went to speak to Mother and told us to wait until he got back. He’s trying to get a truce for you.”

  Julie watches a pair of Malignant attackers fall dead from an unseen force. It must be Greg. He’s now invisible and using his power to shoot and move. The sound of his weapon is also gone. He has the perfect sniper concealment. Unfortunately, his aim is often off.

  “His plan isn’t working. The Malignant are using powers against us now, and pretty soon they’re going to win. You need to get your asses over her now and to hell with Abel. He’ll forgive us,” Julie argues.

  “It’s not that easy. Votary, Flaimeson, and Caliber are keeping us at bay. Stitch isn’t willing to do anything without Abel’s approval. I don’t think Karmic, Nijigen, Thumbnail, and I can take them and then get over there,” Seal Pup answers.

  “Dan should have told you about a certain time limit.”

  “He did. Thumbnail’s pushing hard for you guys. We know that we have about fifteen minutes until the world explodes around us. Abel will be back. You hold out and—”

  Julie is no longer listening to Seal Pup. She hears Gallery’s scream and looks to see what’s happening. She sees the remnants of Patrick. She has to call it remnants because a Malignant uses a unique power.

  The Malignant woman takes a deep breath and blows. Somehow the power tears Patrick apart at the atomic level. He blows away like individual grains of sand. Julie likens it to a child blowing the spores off a dandelion.

  Julie sighs as she puts the phone back to her ear.

  “Your hesitation just cost Paddy his life. He’s dead,” she flatly states.

  Julie hears curses and outrage. She has to remove the phone from her ear. Soon, Knight Terror makes the choice for her. He transforms into a tank-like walker and the phone becomes a part of a rocket launcher. Knight Terror fires down the hallway. He shines massive floodlights to blind the advancing Malignant.

  Julie looks to her left just in time to dodge a spear thrust at her belly. Melissa fires her shotgun and takes the man’s head off. The body falls backwards and sticks to the floor when the owner’s comfort suit contacts it. As she wipes her forehead Julie sees the sight that she’s been missing. Dante’s smoke trail barrels through the corridor.

  “Down!” Julie screams as she dives away.

  It looks like her warning was heeded. Her Templars move. Dante clears the enemy from their path, along with all the spent brass, ownerless swords, floating body parts, and blobs of illuminating chemicals. As Dante travels away to complete another circuit of the hallways, Julie sees something that turns her stomach. Lying in the intersection near Knight Terror’s lights is a leg with a chocolate brown comfort suit on it. The Malignant wear orange. Melissa voices what Julie already knows.

  “Dante killed Greg!”

  Julie sees more pieces of the invisible Templar who just became a victim of fratricide. Dante continues down the hall and gives the surviving Templars a moment to breathe as more Malignant marines retreat and regroup. If the past assaults are any indication, they have five minutes tops until they fight for their lives again.

  “Oh God!” Melissa whines. “None of us are going to make it.”

  “Calm the hell down!” Knight Terror shouts. “Shit just happens. We can’t change it.”

  Knight Terror reverts to Power and ravenously devours three power bars inside of thirty seconds. The wrappers add to the collective junk pile floating in the halls. He washes it all down with an energy drink. Julie takes a sip from her own water bottle. She understands that Power is about to run out of his figurative ammunition. That will make things impossible for them.

  “How are you guys doing?” Julie shouts to Gallery from her end.

  Gallery doesn’t respond. Julie can tell she’s on her knees and crying. If she doesn’t get it together soon, they’re all going to die.

  “Collapse it back to here!” Julie yells.

  She can tell that James understands and is attempting to get Gallery and Dale to follow him. Dale raises his carbine and fires back down the hall. James tries to pull Gallery to her feet. He gets her up, but the woman pushes him off and blasts solar energy from both hands.

  Julie squints and partially turns away as the hallway fills with more elemental attacks. Gallery’s body begins to burn bright orange as her passive defense protects her from the attacks that she simply ignores in her grief.

  “Just run!” Julie shouts as she watches Gallery’s power flicker from overuse.

  Her warning comes too late. James runs back, but Dale only runs half the distance. He stops when Gallery screams. A volley of spinning buzzsaws separates both of Gallery’s arms from her body. The limbs, cut free at the elbows, float behind her. Bright red blood squirts from the stumps and forms spheres as Gallery drops to her knees. She screams, and a final blast of solar energy fills the hallway from the direction of the attack. Dale grabs Gallery around the waist and drags her back to the collapsed position with Julie. Gallery screams the whole way.

  “We need tourniquets,” Julie says. “One for each arm.”

  A crawling vine along the side of the hallways wraps itself around her ankles and yanks. Julie grabs the edge of the hallway and fights against the pull of the vine.

  “Help her,” Julie says through gritted teeth.

  Dale transforms into a combination chimpanzee and spider. He pushes out silk, then uses his nimble finger and toes to tie tourniquets simultaneously around both injured arms. Gallery is unconscious from blood loss while this happens.

  Melissa points at Julie with one hand and the vine with the other. Julie hears the shout of a confused Malignant officer. She immediately realizes she has precious moments to end his life. Julie uses the vine that was around her leg to find the previous owner and ensnare him. Her understanding of this new power is surprisingly intuitive. She must kill the Malignant who could potentially understand her plan with a simple question. Julie controls the plant life and yanks the man toward her. She relishes in the confusion on his face moments before a giant Venus Flytrap devours him. Julie feels slightly at a loss because her augmentation will never be hers again. Fortunately, getting Enterprise soldiers to ask dumb questions was easy for her, and she knows how to use the powers of most augments. Not that it will matter for long.

  “Thanks for the assist, Mel,” Julie says.

  “No problem. Is she going to be alright?”

  Melissa points at the unconscious Gallery.

  “Only if help comes soon,” Julie answers.

  Vape desperately tries to keep up with Guntho and Vlad as they race through the intersecting corridors of the Womb. Along the way they’re joined by marines carrying short swords and spears. Vape constantly hits walls and other people. Guntho seems to know the ship like the back of her hand and Vlad can simply see in the dark, but Vape is not so blessed.

  “Shit,” Vape complains as he hits his shin on some random obstacle in his pitch-black path. “Wait a damn second.”

  Vape feels someone grab his hand.

  “Like a little child,” Vlad complains as he tugs Vape by the wrist. “We’re almost there.”

  Vape strains to hear the frantic battle nearing them. Explosions ring, then shouting, followed by more gunfire.

  “How can they still have guns?” Vape asks.

  “None of this makes sense,” Vlad answers.

  The three stop at the perimeter controlled by a Malignant officer. Several wounded marines are tended to by the medics identified by an emblem of a woman protecting a young child.

  “I am Commander Guntho. Who is responsible here?”

  “I am responsible, Commander Guntho. I am Major Wintraroar.”

  “Describe the scenario, Major,” Guntho says.

  Wintraroar clears his throat. “Ma’am, we are not certain how many Gudz are down there, bu
t they are well positioned. My sprinters have regarded them with ISH firearms. Without our armor, they are quite effective. They also have QT69 proximity mines supporting some of their positions. I sent sappers, but they equaled failure. We have had to resort to augmentation-based attacks.”

  Vape watches as Guntho takes the update.

  “What else?” she asks.

  “Their augmentations are superior to ours. We are fortunate there are less than a dozen.”

  “Have they taken any casualties?” Vlad asks.

  Guntho gives him a stare that Vape assumes means displeasure. It’s hard to tell in the dark; however, some glow sticks are scattered around to offer minimal light.

  “The question has merit,” Guntho says to Wintraroar.

  “We hypothesize they have lost two or three.”

  “That is all?” Guntho asks. “How many Malignant are celebrating presently?”

  “Commander Guntho, I do not have an accurate estimate. I believe it to be well past one hundred by now.”

  “That is sub-optimal, Major Wintraroar. How could you be so easily bested?”

  “As I stated, they fight with powers and firearms. They refused the honorable battle that requires blades.”

  “It is back!” a marine shouts. “Take cover!”

  Vape is surprised, but he feels his body shoved to the side by Vlad as Wintraroar clears Guntho from the path of a dark cloud monster. The various debris floating in the hallway is swept away and lost to the void that is the nightmarish, black smoke. Vape hears the screams of dismembered marines caught in its path. It’s unnatural and terrifying.

  “What was that?” Guntho demands.

  “One of the Gudz,” Wintraroar responds. “We do not comprehend the ability, but anything inside of the smoke’s path is reduced to limbs. He is the main reason we equal failure. Our blades do not affect him.”

  “Prepare to charge!” the sergeant who gave the warning orders. “Lead with abilities. We will equal success and victory on this occasion!”

  “For Mother!” all around Vape cheer.

  He belatedly lifts his own arm in support of the Malignant matriarch.

  “My ISH and I will aid in this charge,” Guntho announces.

  ISH? What the hell? Vape thinks. I should have joined the Templars. I could be winning this thing right now.

  “Optimal,” Wintraroar says. “We appreciate fodder who can allow my sprinters a better chance to regard and assess.”

  “Move, ISH,” the sergeant screams.

  Vape feels a hand push him in the back and force him forward. He watches as Vlad draws his kilij. He appears to look forward to the opportunity.

  Vape and Vlad move down the hallway as the screams of the wounded scattered along the way beg for assistance. The sergeant has his medics move them back as they are identified. The sergeant indicates for them to halt. He holds up a hand, and a small crystal forms in his palm. The Malignant sergeant tosses the augmented crystal down the hall. It explodes after a few seconds. Vape thinks he hears screaming, then shots ring down the halls at him. They pass through his gaseous body and slam into the corporal standing behind him. The woman gurgles blood as she falls to the floor.

  “Shit!” Vape shouts as he dives unnecessarily for cover.

  “Dale, are you good?” Vape hears a woman shout.

  “I’ve got this,” a weak sounding man responds.

  Vape listens as the sound of something sliding across the floor grows louder. He wishes he could see. Vape quickly changes that wish. He hears the Malignant sergeant scream as some large animal slams into them. Vape turns gaseous, and his senses heighten in the realm.

  He sees clearly, for the brief time he can hold his breath, as an animal that looks like a giant anaconda with the head of a great white shark devours the sergeant. The snake shark coils around another man, then bites his head off. Vlad dodges and swings his blade at the monster. He cuts a long gash in the snake portion just to the rear of the shark head. The monster roars. It reveals itself to be one of the augments as it transforms into a spotted rhinoceros with a cheetah’s tail. The new beast, with a thick hide, rears and kicks at nearby marines as the horn gores people too slow to move out of the way. The speed of the beast is not proportional to its size. It nimbly evades the attacks of simple marines.

  Vlad isn’t one of these people. He masterfully weaves around the augment’s attacks and stabs deep into its neck. The kilij is stuck as the monster reverts again. Vlad has the blade yanked from his hands. Vape watches with slight amusement as the attacker becomes a giant clam. This form doesn’t move. Vape suspects the augment is injured. The surviving Malignant stand and surround it. Vlad is surprised when he realizes that Guntho is not among the survivors. Her body lies below a flattened tar smear near where the snake monster transformed into a rhino monster. Vape doesn’t know what exactly did her in, but he’s actually relieved.

  Vape watches as the marines stab at the shell with their short swords. They bounce harmlessly off it.

  “Help them,” Vlad orders.

  Vape sighs. There’s always someone telling him what to do. Vape takes a deep breath and dives onto the shell. He feels his acidic form peel away the seams of the clam. When Vape’s figurative lungs burn, he reverts to human form. The marines stab their blades into the clam and pry it open. Inside they see the shell of a desert tortoise. Vape laughs at the absurdity of this substitute pearl. A large marine with the rare Malignant war hammer approaches the reptile. With a single mighty swing, he shatters the tortoise shell. He has to quickly jump back as the tortoise clam combo becomes a battered man. The attacker is clearly dead, but Vape does a quick count. Only he, Vlad, and four other marines are left. That means a single attacker, possibly wounded, just slaughtered twenty men and women. Vape hopes the Gudz survivors are the weaker ones and not stronger than this soul.

  “What now?” Vape asks.

  “We wait,” Vlad answers. “You, get more of your people to reinforce us.”

  The Malignant private addressed by Vlad obeys without question. Vape is just relieved that they can wait in the relative safety of the dark instead of moving closer to what is obviously certain death.

  The screaming from down the hall stops. Julie listens for Dale’s heavy footsteps, but only hears Malignant chatter instead.

  “Shit,” Julie curses. “I think they just got Dale.”

  “Oh, God,” Mary Lee complains. “Why aren’t the other Templars here yet?”

  Julie glances at her pocket watch. Julie isn’t positive when it happened, but it’s broken from close quarters fighting. Julie figures the hour is about up.

  “They aren’t coming,” Knight Terror says. “The hour is nearly up, and they aren’t here. Maybe the Malignant shot them out of the sky.”

  Julie puts an end to the whimpering she hears.

  “It doesn’t change our mission,” she says. “We hold this position until we die or the fight is over.”

  “Shit! Zombies!” James shouts.

  Julie turns her head and watches as James fires into the heads of the bodies around them. Something, rather, someone is making the bodies slowly rise and swing swords at them. The attacks are lazy, but Julie knows it’ll distract them as Malignant close in on their position.

  Julie creates thorny vines and wraps them around the heads of the nearest dozen zombies. She forces them to contract and spill the brains from the creatures. Unfortunately, they’re technically not zombies, so head trauma does nothing more than make them more horrifying. Julie looks back toward where the last group of marines attacked from.

  “Look for the guy doing this,” Julie whispers to Melissa as the other Templars hack limbs from those they’ve already killed.

  None of the other Templars focus on the oozy portal opening on the floor behind them. A single Malignant marine crawls out of the black substance and draws
her short sword. She sneaks up on Melissa.

  “Mel, look out!” Knight Terror screams.

  He’s too busy with the reanimated bodies to help, but the warning does turn Julie’s head. She fires the last two rounds from her current drum of ammunition to scare the marine and make her dive for cover.

  “Her, now!” Julie shouts.

  Melissa clearly knows exactly what she needs to do and transfers powers between Julie and the marine. Julie draws a knife and throws it into the throat of the confused Malignant. The woman grips the blade but stays on her feet. Julie walks up to her and yanks the weapon out of her throat. This opens the flow of blood, and the woman dies quickly, obviously confused by her augmentation failing her.

  “How many grenades do we have left?” Julie asks.

  “Four or five,” James answers.

  “Give them all to me.”

  The fragmentation grenades are passed to Julie.

  “I’ll be right back,” she says.

  Julie uses her new ability to form a portal beneath her. She slips through it. A few explosions later and Julie appears again. The reanimated foes all fall to the floor, once again lifeless.

  “That was dope, girl,” Knight Terror praises.

  “I like this one,” Julie admits.

  The screams of hundreds of Malignant surround the Templars. Each aims a weapon down a different path and fires. Bodies fall, but the screams grow louder.

  “They really mean it this time,” Mary Lee says.

  “Girl, you need to back my white ass up,” Knight Terror says to her.

  Mary Lee grabs Knight Terror and boosts his ability. Julie watches as Knight Terror forms what can only be called a battle station that fills the intersection. Weapons of all types rage. The sound of charging Malignant are drowned out.

  Julie watches as a marine transforms into a swarm of killer bees and flies toward Knight Terror. He redirects a large flamethrower at them. Bees burn, until eventually they become a burning human body. It slams onto the floor and trips up the people behind it. Tazdeve assault cannons end them. Power transforms his arms into powerful laser cannons. Green beams illuminate the hallway. Julie sees the endless swarm of Malignant attackers as they approach; the glow from Power’s attack lights the way. The beams bisect all who come in contact with them. Julie watches one especially agile Malignant who seems to always move out of the way.