Cherry Blossom Girls Box Set

by Harmon Cooper

  Ken’s eyes were closed, parts of his face had been caved in, his skin white and bloated, strips of his hair missing. He’d been tortured to death.

  “No, Mr. Caldwell, you are the one who is sick. None of this would have happened had you not intervened. But now you have blood on your hands. And not just Ken’s blood, but the blood of countless other victims – other supers.”

  “Other supers?”

  Veronique and Dorian stood in front of me now, Stella to Dorian’s right and Michelle to my left. No glances were exchanged; all were gearing up for the moment Mother’s team attacked.

  Augustin, Chloe, Danielle, and Victoria’s postures indicated they were ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.

  “Yes, other supers,” said Mother. “Did you really think your attack in New Mexico today wouldn’t take innocent lives?”

  I swallowed hard.

  “I’m guessing you didn’t know that Ingrid and Fiona were being held at that facility.” Mother glared at me. “Both killed in the attack.”

  Stella gasped. “Killed?” she looked at me, not sure how she should interpret what Mother had just said.

  “That’s right, Stella, dear; due to poor planning, they killed your friends. Don’t believe me? Let’s ask Adam.”

  Adam, the young psychic who’d betrayed us, appeared out of nowhere. Danielle was really that fast.

  Unlike Dorian, who left a small spark of purple energy when she disappeared and reappeared, Danielle left no trace. She’d simply been standing there, then she was still standing there and yet something had changed; that thing was Adam.

  Mother placed her hands on the young psychic’s shoulder. The little fucker was also wearing a black mil-spec outfit. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he stared at us with a hint of smugness on his face.

  “Adam!” Michelle cried out.

  His only response to her was a cocky nod.

  “You see, Adam would have been there too,” Mother said. “But we had preparations to make for today’s little meeting. And really, Veronique, Dorian, and Grace, I would have expected better of you three. How could you not know this was a setup?”

  I watched Veronique move her hand to the fanny pack on her waist. It was a slight gesture, and even if one was watching from up close, it would have seemed as she as if she was just placing her hand on her upper thigh.

  “We killed –” Stella stopped and turned to me. “No, this was your idea. And Dorian’s. Maybe Grace’s too. Doesn’t matter. It was your idea – you guys killed them. You killed them!”

  “Eek!” Michelle cried, seeing the vibrational energy move around Stella’s body.

  “She’s lying,” Grace said. Still invisible, I assumed she was to my right, not far from Stella. “You can’t believe these lies, Stella.”

  “They’re not lies!” Something flared behind Stella’s eyes, and having seen this before, I glanced from Mother back to Stella.

  “Dorian, banish her now!” I shouted.

  There was a burst of purple, and both Dorian and Stella disappeared. Dorian reappeared ten seconds later, a troubled look on her face.

  Mother shook her head. Her brown hair was in a bun, and a light breeze whipped up wisps of loose hair around her face. “Well, I suppose it would make sense taking her away from here, rather than having to fight her as well,” she said with a cruel smile. “But you are down one member now, and at least one of your members is all but useless – sorry, Michelle.”

  “Don’t listen to her,” I told Michelle quickly, who was huffing now, trying to handle the wave of emotion rolling through her. “Stella is safe, right Dorian?”

  “Something like that,” Dorian said and lifted her paintbrush to her mouth.

  “Do as planned,” I whispered, and before Mother could say anything else, Veronique loosed several of her circular saws.

  Paintbrush in mouth, Dorian did the same with her charged frag pouches.

  Danielle flew backward – Grace’s opening attack – but reappeared in her original place within seconds.

  Victoria charged forward but didn’t revert to her full metal form. Dorian’s hand landed on Veronique’s shoulder, teleporting them to Victoria’s left, where she left Veronique, disappeared again, and reappeared in front of me, casting a large ball of purple energy.

  From her new vantage point, Veronique sucked back all the metal she’d already tossed out, as well as other pieces in her vicinity. The bits of metal cut through enemy lines, all of whom saved themselves by hitting the deck, blocking the onslaught, or teleporting away.

  Augustin was the first on his feet, and just as he was about to throw a fireball at Veronique, he was dragged down to the ground and hurtled across the open space.

  Michelle appeared back at my side. “I’m not weak,” she said, before zipping away again.

  Michelle did that? I thought, as more possibilities of how she could use her power came to me.

  The others kept to the plan, the only problem being that Stella was supposed to take on Chloe, who had already started to pummel our side with flashes of light.

  I knew I wasn’t going to be able to dodge them, and I could feel Grace next to me, protecting both of us with a telekinetic shield that stopped Chloe’s attack.

  “You need to take out Danielle!” I reminded her.

  Done, she thought back to me.

  Danielle started screaming, loud enough to stop all the fighting so everyone could turn to see what she was screaming about.

  Even Mother seemed surprised.

  The teleporter was striking the ground now, consumed by nightmares, and as she did so, she made the mistake of teleporting a portion of her hand into the hardened soil.

  I hadn’t considered the possibility of this happening before, but seeing it play out before me – and seeing it happen so quickly – made me gasp when I saw her pull back with a severed limb.

  Danielle looked at us and cried out. Mother dropped next to her, placed a hand on her head, and then she was gone, forced to teleport by the big bad witch.

  One down, I thought to Grace.

  Chloe continued to hit us with waves of energy until a spark of purple appeared behind her, and both were gone in an instant, only Dorian returning.

  “Veronique!” Michelle stopped running for just a moment to toss her backpack filled with metal scraps into the air, which started to spin above the battlefield, metal spraying out as if it were light reflecting off a disco ball.

  Adam, who’d been hanging out to Mother’s right, locked eyes with me. I could hear his voice trying to make its presence known in my mind.

  You are mine, Gideon, his voice hissed. Mine!

  You can go fuck yourself, Adam!

  You will lose this fight.

  And you will never lose your virginity. Fuck you!

  Victoria, who had been blocking the shards of metal with her hardened skin, finally cast her arm to the side and started changing. She was taken over by rage now, not thinking through the problem with turning to steel near Veronique.

  The moment her form solidified, Veronique used her powers to lift Victoria into the air and slammed her against the ground once, twice, three times, four …

  The first few slams didn’t do much damage, but by the fifth or sixth, there was a crater in the ground, and Victoria looked like she had passed out.

  Veronique flung her arms wide and sent Victoria barreling toward Chloe and Mother. The steel woman hit the ground, tumbling and kicking up dirt and debris as she rolled toward her companions, eventually smacking into an invisible barrier.

  Two helicopters appeared on the horizon.

  I gritted my teeth as a presence pried at the front of my psyche as if trying to rip through and press its razor-sharp form inside my skull.

  You are mine! Adam’s voice rang out in my head.

  I resisted, and by the time I’d fallen to one knee, Grace had taken over.

  I will now show you true power, Adam.

  Adam jammed his fingers int
o his eye sockets, blood streaming down his cheeks. He cried out in pain, and one of his eyes actually popped out of its socket and dangled there for a moment before he finally passed out.

  “Grace!” I cried as I felt a screaming start up in my skull. I recognized Mother’s excruciating mental scream almost immediately.

  Hold on, Gideon! Grace’s voice, a beacon of light if there ever was one, ricocheted across the inside of my skull.

  Wings of white energy formed in the air.

  I was down on both knees now, hands over my head as I tried to physically stop Mother’s brain scream. I knew something had changed when the sound subsided, when everyone with a dog left in the fight turned and saw an invisible force of charged white energy, almost as if an angel had appeared.

  Grace’s form was still translucent, but almost in the way someone gets shocked in a cartoon, the energy radiating over her body allowed for all of us to see her skeleton, and a thin outline of her actual body.

  And it wasn’t Grace’s Ultron form I saw; it was the form I’d seen only once, back in Connecticut – a thin, girlish body, not at all like the voluptuous form Grace normally took.

  She’s protecting us.

  A wall of ice formed around Victoria’s fallen body.

  Augustin was back in the fight now, shooting a Volkswagen Beetle-sized fireball in my direction, which would have hit us if it hadn’t been for Dorian appearing next to me and teleporting me to safety.

  “Banish Mother!” I said when she dropped me off beside Veronique.

  Dorian nodded and was gone again.

  “Are you okay?” Michelle asked. I turned to her, and she was gone again.

  “I’m fine!” I called out anyway.

  I could still hear Mother’s power at the back of my skull. Whatever Grace was doing had mostly nullified the psychic banshee attack, but I didn’t know how long she could hold out.

  A determined look on her face, Veronique moved toward Mother, her hands charging red.

  If Mother was feeling any type of pressure because we were winning, her face didn’t show it. She was smiling, almost proudly, like she was happy to see that her offspring were capable of such power.

  A flick from Mother’s hand caused a wave of force to sweep Veronique off her feet. The metal-draining vampire was blown back thirty feet, tumbling into a heap of dry grass and parched earth.

  My hopes were lifted when a flash of purple took shape behind Mother, but the elated feeling in my chest was instantly crushed when Dorian stopped dead in her tracks, her hand still locked on Mother’s shoulder.

  Mother had Dorian now, her hand around the teleporter’s neck, lifting her a foot off the ground. There was no struggling; Dorian’s arms were limp at her sides, her hair partially covering her face now.

  Dorian disappeared, leaving behind a purple poof of energy. For a brief moment, I had the false sense that she had somehow escaped, that she had freed herself from Mother’s grasp.

  The hand that landed on my shoulder said otherwise.

  I felt a shift in my stomach and suddenly, I found myself falling, cracking my left hip painfully against the hard ground.

  “What the …”

  I pushed myself up and glanced around, trying to figure out where I was.

  There was nothing for miles on the horizon, just some hills overhead, and a lazy wind whipping up dust. I was in some type of crater; possibly a lake that had been drained or dried up years ago.

  Dorian had banished me.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Trailer

  The setting sun caused a circular corona of light to pass near my pane of vision. Because of the sun’s position, I couldn’t quite see where I was going; I could only cover my brow with my hand and get a basic idea of the layout of the land.

  My phone was shattered, a casualty of falling onto my hip. Not that I would have gotten reception here anyway, but at least it would have given me something to use.

  As it stood, all I had was the lipstick-sized hard drive, the GPS-killing key, body armor, a cool-looking helmet, and a roll of cash.

  I wasn’t panicked yet, thanks to the adrenaline. I had the feeling Dorian would return for me, however baseless that feeling was.

  I hadn’t walked very far from where I’d appeared; I didn’t want to leave the area just in case she returned. The problem was, she either banished me because she’d been taken over by Mother, or she banished me to save my crazy, half-superpowered ass.

  And I didn’t know which one it was.

  Some jostling to the left caught my attention. The area was covered by the shade of a deep red hill, but I noticed the outline of a fallen form: a woman, her hair in a large Dutch braid.

  “Stella!”

  I knelt in front of her to find that she was still breathing. As I sat her up, her chin fell forward, her shoulders slouched.

  “Can you walk?” I asked, stupidly.

  Did Dorian drop her on her head or something? But Stella should be able to block something like that.

  I was elated to find someone else, despite the fact that we could be in any desert anywhere, and civilization could be hundreds of miles away.

  I really had no idea.

  I tried to look for landmarks on the horizon, but again, the sun was making it difficult, and I couldn’t tell any similarity between the soil here and the soil back at the warehouse.

  “Stella, if you can hear me, just give me some sign.”

  Holding her shoulders, I waited for her to make some type of movement to tell me she was cognizant.

  Nothing came.

  It was still warm out, and I realized my brow was covered in sweat. We would need water sooner than later, and there wasn’t any here, that was for fucking sure. I recalled that Dorian had the ability to teleport empathically, to someone she was associated with. Which meant I didn’t need to stay in this area; we could look for some sign of civilization.

  Who knew? People live in all sorts of places. With that in mind, I lifted Stella over my shoulder.

  I knew shit-all about surviving in the wilderness. Unfortunately, the Connecticut school system didn’t have ‘wilderness survival’ as a course you could take, nor was it an elective at Southern Connecticut University. (Although it should be!)

  But I figured if I followed the sun, I’d at least be heading west, which would get me somewhere. It would be easy to follow the sun because it looked like it’d be setting for another two hours or so.

  So with Stella over my shoulder, I started off.

  I don’t know how long I walked, but rather than think about the burden of her weight, or the fact that I was growing increasingly dehydrated and hungry, I thought instead of how my life had come to this point.

  Grace had shown up out of nowhere on my doorstep, then Veronique had come for us and joined us, with Dorian repeating the pattern shortly afterward.

  And all that was before the Super Teens came along. There had been good times; the sex and the laughs and the sheer joy of the adventure. There had also been bad times, and we’d done some things I was far from proud of.

  Getting to know each other, growing closer, existing outside of societal norms – these were the things that made it interesting.

  “Keep going,” I told myself after walking close to an hour. I didn’t know where the stamina was coming from, but I wasn’t asking questions. “Just keep going,” I whispered, hearing the strain in my voice.

  This philosophy was how I ended up imprisoned in Austin, how I ended up meeting the Super Teens, how two of them ended up dying.

  Just. Keep. Going.

  A wave of sadness rolled over me.

  The sadness was like a sticker burr, connected to everything I touched, everything I’d been part of since meeting Grace. From the exploitation of people we’d encountered, to not being able to save those I cared about from imminent death – Dr. Ken Kim, Ingrid, Fiona – and for all I knew, one of the other CBGs could be gone by now.

  I had no idea how the battle was going. If St
ella and I were still in Nevada, we were far enough away that I couldn’t hear any of the commotion. No helicopters, no explosions, no cries for help.

  Nothing. Stuck in the middle of BFE.

  My knees were hurting, my thighs on fire, my shoulder aching.

  I pressed on.

  I was the weakest link, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from getting Stella to safety. I didn’t care if my legs fell off or I died of starvation. The story was going to end with me saving someone, actually being helpful for once!

  Fueled by my desire to be of some assistance, I pressed forward. Up a hill we went, the burn on my thighs like nothing I've ever felt before. Stella was light, I remembered that from her base stats, but carrying anyone over a long distance would make one's muscles sore.

  Rather than think about that, I thought about the battle … the many battles I’d been privy to.

  If you asked me weeks ago, I would have assumed that the first battle you take part in was like losing your virginity. No other fight would replace the strangeness of it all, the feeling of a new experience, the sheer spectacle.

  If you asked me now, I’d slap the shit out of you. One never got used to fighting; the only thing that changed was how the fear was managed and understood, how it was comprehended in the moment.

  You preachy asshole, I thought and felt a smirk form on my face.

  But this was who I am, someone who overanalyzed things and tried to come up with pithy quotes to make myself sound smarter. I knew that, and maybe every now and then I actually succeeded, but most times, my inner monologues were pathetic at best, self-aggrandizing at worst.

  Focus, Writer Gideon, I thought to myself.

  I counted my steps.

  One, two …

  This proved to be mind-numbing, but at least it worked for a little bit. It was getting darker, but I refused to rest.

  “Almost there,” I told Stella, no idea where ‘there’ was.

  We moved up another hill, down the other side, and just as we were about to reach the apex of the next hill, I saw a light in the distance.

  I looked again, hoping it wasn’t some type of evening mirage. I started moving toward it, stopped, debated whether to continue on the same path I was headed, and made the final decision to at least investigate it.