When the first screams began, they reached only the fringes of his mind. He was too engrossed in his ever-growing ultra-combo, to let in external stimuli, but he was eventually disturbed by the sense of movement behind him. The skin on his neck prickled.
He made King perform a German suplex for the win, and then span around. What he saw surprised him. As he had suspected, some kind of creature had come through the gate and emerged into the shopping mall, but it wasn’t a little green man. It was something more akin to the fiends that Dante faced in Devil May Cry. It was a smouldering abomination. And it was killing people.
Outside the Body Shop chain store, an old man in a winter Kimono beat at the creature with his wooden cane. The creature spun on him and slashed his wrinkled throat open with a claw like it was swatting a mosquito. The old man flopped to the floor, gargling on his own blood.
It angered Takao. He had little time for the older generation—especially those who still hung on to the past and wore Kimonos outside of ceremonial occasions—but he strongly believed that everyone had a duty to take care of the elderly. This old man had faced the nightmarish creature, while everybody else had run. It was wrong. It was ignoble.
Takao felt his fists clench and realised his palms were sweating. His palms often got wet when he was on a joystick marathon, but this was something different. This was adrenaline. The kind of feeling you only got in a real-life fight. It was exciting.
More of the creatures spilled through the gate, leaping over the old man’s body. The crowd continued to flee, shaming themselves as they turned their backs on their murderers and fell face down on the floor as they were attacked. They needed to fight. Where was the indomitable spirit that Japan prided itself on? It had obviously only resided in the old man.
And inside of Takao.
He spun around and saw that the only person inside the toy store was the owner. The fat man was cowering behind a ten foot statue of Sonic the Hedgehog.
“Debu!” he shouted at the man. Fatso. “We need to fight.”
“What?” the man said, as if Takao was crazy. “We need to hide. Those are monsters out there.”
“Yes, monsters. Will we let monsters kill us all? No, we are Japanese. We will send them back to their pits. Come on.”
“No.”
“Debu! Then, I need a weapon. I will save your worthless life. I will be your hero.”
The man was wide-eyed and barely listening, but he did give an answer. “At the back of the store. Take whatever you want.”
Takao nodded. “I thank you.”
He raced to the back of the store, the adrenaline in his bloodstream making him feel like Mario on a Power Star trip. He was so alive. What met him at the back of the store left him with a wide grin on his face.
The dai-katana was as tall as he was, but he knew the tempered steel would be light as a feather—fragile as a tree branch. He knew how to use it. A youth in Japan was born with a deep respect for the sacred tool of the Samurai, and he had practised often as a child with a blunted blade given to him by his father, a lowly dock worker.
He took the sword down with both hands and pulled it from its sheath. It caught the light and glinted with supernatural perfection. It was a thing of exquisite beauty, forged to bring instant and clean death.
The screams outside continued.
Takao left the back of the store, and by the time he reached the front, the demons had multiplied and one was already inside with him. It was stalking the fat proprietor, forcing him back against an old Sega Rally booth.
The debu looked at Takao and pleaded. “Help me, boy.”
Takao lifted the sword so that it rested horizontally away from his side. He narrowed his eyes. “I am no boy. I am Takao Tenta.”
He ran across the store, dodging between display racks—and purposely kicking over the Hello Kitty stand that had replaced the Pokemon one that had stood for years—and within seconds he was only feet away from the demon.
It turned and looked at him; hissed with a mangled tongue and blackened lips. The creature was from some fiery hell, but he was going straight back there. He brought the sword down in a diagonal arc. The sudden blur of steel seemed to miss the creature completely, and it continued coming, but then it stopped and seemed confused.
Takao stood still, unafraid.
A slight slithering sound, and then the left half of the demon came away from the right. Both slabs of grotesque flesh slapped on the ground.
The debu got down on his knees and laced his hands together like a Christian prayer. He was crying as he thanked Takao profusely.
Takao batted away the man’s hands. “You shame yourself, debu. Join the fight or die without honour.”
He left the debu on his knees and hurried outside into the shopping mall. The only people remaining were now left with no choice but to fight. The demons had them in their clutches. They kicked and punched, but none were warriors and none were armed. A young woman, with her black hair dyed a Western blonde was swinging an armful of shopping bags at two demons trying to take her down. Her fight was hopeless, but her spirit was bright. Takao ran to her aid.
With the sword trailing behind him like a silver tail, Takao dove over a sushi cart and then swung around a signpost. The demons had just disarmed the young woman of her bags when he appeared behind them. Again, the sacred weapon seemed to dance and shimmer in the air as he drew a dozen invisible shapes. He stepped back a second later and examined his work.
The demons sprayed blood like a pair of geysers as their bodies came apart at the seams. Blood spattered the young woman’s face, but it was still easy to see how beautiful she was. A princess if ever there was one.
Takao grabbed her and pulled her into his arms. “Stick with me and you will be safe.”
She nodded, almost swooned.
He kept her behind him as he did what no one else was willing to: he headed into battle.
Two dozen demons lay directly in his path, some busy with victims, some free and heading right for him. He cut them all apart with ease, the sword becoming more and more a part of his arm. In his mind, he tore down the enemy with the same skills he used in the arcades. His reactions, his skill of seeing an enemy’s moves before he did… It was no different.
A demon leapt at Takao. He ducked and lifted his sword over his head. The demon came back down to earth in two pieces.
The fallen Gundam suit was just up ahead, still lying against the escalators; it made a perfect runway. Takao leapt up onto its giant feet and sprinted up its legs. When he reached the torso, he dove sideways and came down right in front of the gate. Before he landed, he drove his sword directly down into the skull of a demon. It lodged so deeply, he could barely get it back, and was forced to stand on the corpse while he yanked at the hilt.
All around him, demons closed in, but he lopped off their arms and heads before any could get close enough to even breathe on him. Before long he was a king, surrounded by the bodies of his fallen enemies. His princess cowered behind the Gundam statue, but she knew she was safe. Her hero would protect her.
A child’s stuffed toy lay beneath his boot, covered in blood and lacking its owner. It was Cloud Strife, a fluffy Buster sword sewn to the back of his purple suit. Covered in blood, Takao felt the Final Fantasy hero was a kindred spirit. They had both faced hell and survived.
Angry and ready for more, Takao stood before the gate and waited for new foes to come forth. The translucent centre of the gate shimmered and plopped, like an icy ball launched forth from Ryu’s fingertips. Hadoken.
Something else was emerging from the gate.
Takao wiped the blood from his hands onto his shirt. He gripped the sword tightly in front of him, determined never to be parted with it. He was Ronin, a lone Samurai concerned only with protecting the innocent.
What came through the gate was no lowly demon like the ones that lay dismembered at his feet. What came through the gate was a giant, taller even than the fallen Gundam statue. It looked dow
n at Takao with utter hatred and murder in its unholy eyes.
But Takao did not run. “Fighting you will bring out my true strength,” he whispered. Then he narrowed his eyes and ran towards his enemy.
Monty
Mumbai
Being late for work was a paradox in Mumbai—it was at once entirely understandable, yet completely unforgivable. With so many Western firms looking for cheap, unskilled labour, and so many Indians looking for employment, you could be replaced in an afternoon. Yet, trying to get anywhere on the capital’s streets was a nightmare. If it were not the battling traffic—carts, bikes, cars, and rickshaws—it was the cows. One cow could claim an entire road as its own if it wanted. A hundred vehicles would have no choice but to wait while a unconcerned bovine strolled across the main thoroughfare. That was what was happening right now.
Monty didn’t own a car, but even on his bicycle it was slow going. He dodged into gaps wherever possible, but there were a dozen more cyclists doing the same. The drivers of cars hated the cyclists and did whatever they could to nudge out and block them. Mumbai was a city under stress. It wanted so much to be important, but was not yet ready to join the New Yorks and Londons of the world. It needed to learn to cope with being busy.
It didn’t help that one of the strange gates had risen on the edge of town. The Indian government had declared it a holy sight after the Sikh population had claimed it would soon spawn the warriors of their past to help fix the ills of the present. It was currently an encampment of tents, pilgrim buses, and food carts—a festival in earnest.
Monty was Hindu, so the last thing he believed was that a bunch of old, dead Sikhs were about to visit, but he did think that the gate was from the other world. What Gods would come through it, he did not know. Maybe Shiva, to destroy the world. Looking at the teeming streets and garbage-stuffed gutters, Monty wasn’t so sure that would be a bad idea.
He hated his job selling mobile phone insurance to rich westerners. They were always so rude to him. He was just doing a job, so why did they call him paki and other racist words—just because of his accent? The fact that Pakistan was another country entirely seemed not to bother these people. Of course, some of them were very friendly and would discuss the cricket with him, or tell him what it was like in their town, but most people were angry that he had called them. It was a hard job to do, but even so, he needed the money. That was why it would not do to be late. Without his job at the call centre, he would join the masses of unemployed, and that was no life to live. Many of his friends had joined gangs, and now murdered and robbed people for whatever meagre possessions they had. As much as he hated his job, he would hate having to do that even more.
“Come on!” he shouted at the skinny, brown cow fifteen yards ahead. He was met by frowns from the open car windows on either side of him. He respected cows as much as any Hindu, but sometimes you just have to get a move on.
He edged his bicycle into a gap behind a bus, and then placed his foot up on the curb. The scent of a nearby snack bar made his mouth water. They were mixing up soup and ladling it out with bread to the morning commuters sitting outside. Monty was so certain that his job would be lost by the time he ever got to his building that he almost considered tossing his bike into the gutter and having some of the delicious-smelling broth; but Saira would never forgive him. With the baby on the way, he could not give in to impulse. He would have to take his telling off from his British born boss and beg to keep his job.
There was a lot of angry honking up ahead, but Monty could not see through the fumes enough to peer down the road. So he leant over the curb and caught the attention of a man in a suit. “Hey, my friend. What is happening down the road?”
The man shrugged. He was holding a cup of piping coffee and looked like he was ready to take a sip. “Don’t know, don’t care.”
Monty frowned. “Oh, fuck you too, my friend.”
He caught the attention of somebody else, a boy wearing an Indian Cricket Team shirt. “Hello, son, do you know what all the honking is about?”
The boy shrugged as well, but at least he was polite. “I don’t know, sir. I believe it might have something to do with the gate.”
“But the gate is outside the city.”
He nodded. “Yes sir, but something has happened. It opened up and something came through.”
Monty shuddered. “”How do you know that?”
The boy held up his mobile phone. “I get news updates. It said there’s a major incident happening at the Sikh camp right now.”
Monty looked ahead and saw that several cars and bikes were breaking off and trying to turn around. Their radios had obviously informed them of the events up ahead.
The first thing Monty thought was that this might just provide the perfect excuse for his lateness. The second was that he was heading right in the direction of whatever major incident was happening at the edge of the city.
Should he turn back?
What was he heading into?
Before he had chance to decide, there was an explosion in the distance. At almost the exact same time, several helicopters swooped overhead. They looked like they belonged to the Indian Air Force. They were jungle green, and had guns hanging off stubby pairs of wings.
The traffic up ahead snarled up. Cars barged into one another as they tried to turn into side streets or reverse. The bus in front of Monty began to back up.
“Hey, hey, I am here!”
Monty leapt onto the sidewalk, and just managed to drag his bicycle out of the way of the bus’s large back tyres in time to save it from being crushed. The bus rammed into a battered Mercedes and the driver got out to shout about it.
There was a side street a little further ahead, so Monty hopped back up on his bike and pedalled for it. It was perilous riding on the path, but no more so than being amongst the grinding traffic that was continuing to turn on itself. At one point he almost collided with a stack of orange crates outside a grocers, but he skidded his back tyre and managed to miss it.
When he saw the cow up ahead, he shook his head and laughed. The entire road was full of panicking people, but the cow still strolled along as if nothing was happening. Even when the gunfire started.
It wasn’t just the distant machine guns of the helicopters that Monty heard; it was the antique war pistols that often passed hands in the local bars that made noise too. They sounded like fireworks every time one was fired.
Monty took the side street, and was dismayed to find it as chaotic as the main road he was leaving. A police car was parked up on the curb, with a pair of police officers trying to maintain order. Their white-gloved hands were raised in the air, but nobody was listening.
Monty pulled his bike up next to them. “What is going on?”
One of the officers, a Sikh in a turban, gave an answer. “We’re under attack. The Sikh encampment has been attacked by something. The army are moving in. People are being told to evacuate, but there’s no way to get them all out of the city.”
“It’s going to be a nightmare,” Monty agreed. “What are you doing here?”
“Very little. We’re to help redirect traffic to the north of the city, but there’s just no way. You should get out of here, sir. There’s going to be a lot of damage.”
Monty nodded. “Good luck.”
The officer had already turned away to join his partner, who was arguing with the driver of a van. The old man was leaning out of his window and pointing his finger. The officer had lost his cool and was batting the finger out of his face.
Monty got back on his pedals and continued down the sidewalk. He was heading towards the outskirts of the city now, and after a few hundred metres the pavement deteriorated into stony dirt. He changed gear and ignored the mild burning in his calves. The gunfire continued in the distance, and the only traffic he saw was heading away. Something bad was happening, and he had to get away too. He needed to get home to Saira. She and the baby could not be left in danger.
He intended to g
et on the next street heading north, as currently he was heading east, towards the Sikh encampment. The feeling that something was going to jump out at him at any moment made his tummy froth. But nothing did jump out.
The eateries and snack bars disappeared as he passed into an industrial section of the city. There were employees milling outside the various units, too nervous of losing their jobs to leave, but also too unnerved to concentrate on their tasks. The explosion had halted the city, but the gunfire was what truly frightened everyone. Mumbai might not be pretty, but it was peaceful compared to other cities in this part of the world. He wondered if the ISA had attacked, sick of India’s constant fraternisation with the West and opposition to Pakistan. The thought made him feel sick. He did not want his son or daughter growing up in a climate of fear.
He kept on peddling, trying to find a street to take him north. He finally found one a hundred metres ahead, just past a lumberyard. His feet bore down on the pedals and he picked up speed.
The blow to his face came from nowhere and tossed him straight off his bike. He hit the dirt hard and clutched at his face. His vision swam with stars and he felt blood coming from his nose. He moaned, rolled back and forth, then yelped as unkind hands dragged him to his feet.
“What happened? I can’t see. My nose is broken.”
“And so will be your knees if you don’t hand over everything you have.”
Monty pulled his hands away from his face and saw the blurry images of several men. He was surrounded. “W-who are you?”
“You want to die, man? You give us what you got. This isn’t your part of town, and you made a big mistake coming here.”
Monty looked down at his shirt and trousers, and then up at the topless men that stood before him. He moaned. “You’re Dawar boys?”
“I won’t tell you again, man. Give us your wallet and your watch.”
Hell On Earth Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 30
