United as One

by Pittacus Lore

The cage stops compressing when BK is squished down to beagle form. BK tries to go smaller and sneak between the bars, but the whole thing instantly seals up like a cocoon. I can’t see him anymore. BK floats in a solid bubble of ooze just above the lake’s surface.

  At least, from the sound of it, Setrákus Ra doesn’t plan to kill him right away.

  Can’t say the same about the rest of us.

  As I scramble to my feet, Setrákus Ra lands a few yards away. He holds out his hands like a saint in a stained glass window. My lips curl in disgust.

  “Like insects before a giant,” he says. “So do you children quail before a god.”

  “You’re no god,” I reply, tossing a fireball at him that he simply absorbs.

  He snorts. “You Loric, so pious even at the end. The thing you worship, the Entity that now hides beneath the earth, it is nothing more than a resource. Like ore, like water. You pray to a river while I create dams. You rely on the whims of nature while my intellect shapes galaxies. Do you not see now what my work, my progress, has the power to create?”

  “I see a lonely old asshole living in a fucking cave!” shouts Nine as he launches in from the side.

  Nine throws a haymaker that Setrákus Ra easily ducks under. As Nine stumbles and tries to regain his balance, Setrákus Ra grabs him by the hair and yanks him backwards. Setrákus Ra’s hand is flat, the edge gleaming like the blade of a sword. He swings in a chopping motion for Nine’s neck.

  I yank Nine to me with my telekinesis before Setrákus Ra can cut off his head. He’s left with a handful of Nine’s hair, ripped right out of his head.

  The speed. The invulnerability. Twisting his body into whatever sick shapes he can imagine. It’s crazy to think I was once intimidated by Setrákus Ra when all he could do was change sizes and cancel out our Legacies.

  This monster before me is so much worse.

  “Ideas?” Nine says to me.

  “Flank him,” I reply, and we spread out.

  Nine holds up my dagger. “May I?”

  “Be my guest.”

  We’re trying to put on a show of confidence, but I can tell Nine’s shaken by Setrákus Ra’s display of power. We’re in trouble.

  With a wolfish smile, Setrákus Ra starts to advance on us. Before he gets too close, he’s peppered by a volley of icicles from the ledge above. He’s a pincushion, the ice shards stabbing up and down his back.

  “All you’ve made is pain and suffering!” Marina yells down at him. “All those bodies up there! For what? So you could craft these hideous powers?”

  Setrákus Ra chuckles. “Oh no, my dear. Lorien is stingy with its gifts. The pitiful sparks that hide within all of you are mere drops in the bucket. I needed to tap directly into the source to create what you see down here.” He runs a hand vainly across his own cheek. “Draining those others was merely a trial run of one of my new Augmentations. They died in service to glorious progress.”

  “You’re mad!” Marina counters. “For all your supposed genius, you’ve never created anything as beautiful as Lorien did!”

  A sudden wave of heat radiates from Setrákus Ra, and the icicles melt right out of him. Then he spins around to face Marina, his appearance changing. His skin darkens to a caramel color, and his head sprouts a mop of curly dark hair.

  “Haven’t I?” he asks. His face, his voice—he’s taken on the shape of Eight.

  Marina recoils in horror as he starts to float up to her.

  “Didn’t I promise to reunite you with your love?” Setrákus Ra asks, his eyes filled with malice Eight’s never held in life. “That could still be yours, dear Marina. . . .”

  Using my stone-vision, I turn his lower half into solid granite and connect that to the cavern floor so Setrákus Ra is now a stalagmite rising up from the rocks. He looks down at himself—Eight’s appearance abandoned, his own younger self returned—and makes a face.

  “Primitive,” he growls.

  Primitive or not, it slows him down. Nine charges in, runs up my rock formation and takes a swipe at Setrákus Ra with my Voron dagger. Stuck in place, Setrákus Ra can’t dodge, and Nine cleaves off a huge chunk of his face. For a moment, I think I see blood. But then the Mogadorian sludge fills in the wound, smooths it over, and his face is back to normal.

  Still, he was hurt. We can find ways to hurt him.

  As Nine comes around for another pass, I push out with my telekinesis. I put pressure on the armor that Setrákus Ra wears, crushing it, compacting it, hoping to tighten it around his guts. I sense Marina add her strength to mine, and soon we’re squeezing the armor like a tin can.

  Bellowing, Setrákus Ra rips the armor loose and tosses it aside. He’s bare-chested now. Right over his heart, in the spot where Six impaled him, there’s a throbbing mass of the black ooze, like a spider at the center of its web.

  The stuff isn’t concentrated like that on any other part of his body. That has to be where he’s deriving all this power from.

  Nine! Instead of speaking, this time I use my telepathy. I don’t want Setrákus Ra to know we’ve figured him out. Go for the heart!

  Duh, he thinks back.

  Setrákus Ra kicks free of the rocks I built around his legs like they were nothing more than pebbles. As soon as he’s free, I activate my stone-vision and trip him up again. At the same time, Marina assails him with another vicious barrage of ice. He swats the frozen daggers away, growling, distracted.

  “This grows tiresome,” he says.

  And then Nine is on him, leading with the Voron dagger, powering out of a crouch, thrusting forwards with all he’s worth.

  Stabbing Setrákus Ra right through the heart.

  Nine buries the blade to the hilt. Its tip pokes out through Setrákus Ra’s back.

  Setrákus Ra looks down at the weapon.

  He smiles.

  “Is this a children’s story?” he asks, sounding amused. “I have spent centuries perfecting my work. And you think . . . what? That there is a weak point?”

  He takes a deep breath, and the blade, along with Nine’s hand still on the hilt, is sucked fully into the black mass on his chest. Setrákus Ra looks towards Marina.

  “Behold, a demonstration.”

  Nine screams. His arm first turns blue, like the circulation’s been cut off, then gray and withered and finally as black as the ooze. The muscles melt, his skin sags off his bones. It’s like watching time-lapse photography of his arm decomposing.

  Setrákus Ra again stomps free of the stone I placed around his legs and kicks Nine in the chest. Nine flies backwards.

  His arm stays with Setrákus Ra. It hangs from his chest for a moment, and then it’s like the ooze begins to digest the limb, breaking it down, drawing it into Setrákus Ra. When the process is over, the arm is fully absorbed. Nine lies on the ground, clutching the empty space where his arm used to be. Marina leaps down, wide-eyed.

  “Oh God, oh God,” she mumbles, groping at the spot on Nine’s shoulder. There’s no blood; the flesh is dried and dead. Still, she activates her healing Legacy and tries . . . tries something.

  Setrákus Ra advances on them, wetting his lips.

  I fly forward—stone-vision, a bombardment of ice, a blast of fire—try to slow him down.

  I’m not strong enough.

  He grabs my head, palms my face and slams me down to the stone floor.

  “You will be last, Pittacus,” he says.

  Blood streams into my eyes. Woozy, dazed, I struggle to my knees as Setrákus Ra stalks towards my friends.

  We can’t win this.

  Marina throws up her hands, and a wall of solid ice separates her and Nine from Setrákus Ra. The Mogadorian sighs, annoyed, and punches straight through it.

  While this happens, I reach out with my telepathy. Search for Adam’s mind. In the heat of battle, it didn’t occur to me until now that Six never showed up. Maybe she went back to the warship with Adam for some reason, I allow myself to briefly hope.

  Nothing. I can’t find Adam’
s mind.

  Or Six.

  Split seconds pass telepathically, but it feels like an eternity of searching. Finally, I manage to make contact with Ella, still floating above the mountain in our warship. The anxiety radiating from her mind is palpable as soon as we connect. She anticipates my questions.

  Adam . . . Adam fell into a chasm with Phiri Dun-Ra, Ella tells me. And Six, she’s hurt bad. I think she’s unconscious.

  Damn it.

  I switch from Ella’s mind to Sam’s. I can sense him up there, pacing back and forth, watching the darkened entrance of the Mogadorian base through the warship windows.

  Sam. I make an effort to keep my thoughts calm and collected. Like my friends aren’t dying. Like I’m not losing this war.

  I need you to do something for me.

  John? His mind practically leaps towards mine. Our entire conversation takes place in the space of one of his nervous strides, his foot hovering above the floor of the bridge. What’s happening? Ella won’t say.

  I need you to do something for me.

  Anything!

  Use your Legacy. Command the ship to destroy the mountain.

  . . . What?

  Images flash to the forefront of Sam’s mind. He and I walking through the halls of Paradise High School. Nine grabbing him in a loose headlock. Most prominently, he and Six standing on a breathtaking mountaintop somewhere, gazing out at a crystal clear ocean.

  It’s the only way to stop him, Sam. He’s strong, but we can trap him down here!

  No! I won’t! Not while you’re all still in there!

  All this telepathy happens at the speed of thought as I get to my feet, as Setrákus Ra crosses towards Marina and Nine. I’m out of time, though—he’s there; I need to act.

  “Get up, Nine, come on,” Marina pleads, still trying to heal the dead flesh on his shoulder.

  Holding Sam in my mind, letting him see what I see, I fly towards Setrákus Ra, hoping to buy Marina some more time.

  He anticipates me. Backhands me with a force that cracks my jaw and sends me crashing to the cave floor, skittering through the broken shards of Marina’s ice wall.

  Nine is still on the ground, moaning and shaking, probably going into shock. Marina presses both her hands to his stump. Our healing Legacies don’t regrow limbs, though. There’s nothing we can do.

  Setrákus Ra grabs Marina by the hair and yanks her off her feet. She thrashes, raking her hand across his face. She hits the exact spot that Nine sliced with the Voron blade just a minute ago.

  Setrákus Ra drops her, recoils and clutches at his cheek.

  That part of his face slips off, the black oil holding it together receding into his body.

  Marina and I make eye contact.

  What did you do? My thought hits her mind with urgency.

  Healing! she replies. I was still using my healing!

  I remember New York City, right before the invasion. Secretary of Defense Sanderson and the black ooze running through his veins. It took minutes and it was exhausting, but I was able to burn that gunk out from inside his body by using my healing.

  We can kill Setrákus Ra. We just have to make him Loric again. We have to expel these Augmentations and destroy what’s left of the man.

  Marina’s already got the idea. As Setrákus Ra recovers, she flashes forward, hand extended in his direction.

  Setrákus Ra sidesteps. He catches her by the elbow and twists, wrenching Marina’s arm behind her back and dislocating her shoulder. Then he slashes her face with his claws, opening up four deep scratches diagonally across her face. Meanwhile, his own sick visage has already been restored by the ooze.

  I fly into Setrákus Ra before he can finish off Marina. I wrap my legs around his chest and grab him on either side of his head, pumping as much of my healing energy into him as I can. At the same time, I muster as much force as I can and fly us across the cavern, hoping that keeping him away from his vat will weaken him further. I can feel the Augmentations inside him, the oil writhing in every part of his body. There’s more of that inside him than there is man. It’s like I’m trying to beat back a tidal wave.

  Still, I have to try. This is the only way it ends.

  Setrákus Ra screams as I force healing into him. But quickly, he fights back. He bites down on my shoulder, his mouth hideously huge, teeth sharpened, and tears off a chunk of flesh.

  “John!” Marina shouts. Her one arm hanging limp at her side, blood streaming down her face, she races forwards to help.

  Spikes of hardened ooze thrust forth from Setrákus Ra’s body. One goes through my leg, another my side, another my shoulder. I’m not even sure if he’s controlling this or if it’s a reaction brought on by my healing, like the ooze is trying to escape. Either way, now we’re pinned together. Another spike nearly makes it to Marina’s eye before she skids to a stop a few feet away.

  I redirect some of my healing to my own wounds. Try to close them as fast as Setrákus Ra can make them while still beating back the vileness that’s spread throughout him.

  As my healing Legacy drives it from Setrákus Ra’s body, the ooze coalesces around us in battering tendrils. Marina can’t even get close anymore.

  “Go!” I yell at her. “Take Nine and get out of here!”

  “I’m not leaving you!”

  “Six is in the caverns up there; she needs healing,” I tell her, gritting my teeth against the pain. “Please—gah—please, Marina—GO!”

  Marina looks at me, tears in her eyes. I can barely see her anymore through the mess of ooze thrashing around me. I see her look up doubtfully at the spiraling pathway that leads back to the surface, then down at Nine.

  With a groan, Nine touches Marina’s leg. He shudders.

  “Just . . . just like we practiced,” he says deliriously, transferring his Legacies to her.

  I remember that. Capture the Flag in Chicago. Nine’s team won because he gifted Marina his antigravity Legacy.

  Marina scoops Nine up with her working arm. She’s got his strength too. With one last look at me, she runs straight up the wall, leaping over the ledges as she sprints for the surface.

  Via my telepathy, Sam has witnessed this whole thing. He feels what I’m feeling. The ebb and flow of pain, the tearing throughout my body.

  Sam. The others are coming out. Will you do it now, Sam?

  John . . . His sadness flows into me, worse than all the pain.

  He’ll do it. I know he will.

  I turn off my telepathy. Focus only on healing. I let all the Loric energy stored inside of me cascade forth.

  I pray it’s enough.

  I am face-to-face with Setrákus Ra. The two of us locked together. My healing continues to pour into him, and, with every second, his young face melts away, the oil driven back. His pale skin returns, his bulbous bald head, the sunken cheeks, the vivid purple scar. He snarls at me. He spits in my face. Headbutts me.

  In his black eyes, for the first time, I see doubt.

  “I’m going to kill you,” he snarls, his breath hot and wretched against my face.

  I know this is true. I’m going to die down here. Tangled together with my worst enemy. Healing him, even as he tears me apart.

  “You . . .” A bubble of blood pops when I try to speak. “You’ll die first.”

  A tendril of his ooze, razor sharp and ice-cold, slashes across my abdomen. Opens me up.

  I push warm, healing energy into him. Watch as his face turns gray and wrinkled. A centuries-old man.

  The ooze coalesces around my legs. Crushes them like a vice, my bones snapping like twigs.

  More healing. A little bit for my body—just enough to keep me going—the rest for him.

  A chunk of hardened ooze falls away from him and turns to dust on the cavern floor. Setrákus Ra bellows.

  He rips into my rib cage. His claws dig through my flesh, saw through bone. He’s trying to dig out my heart.

  Hold on, John.

  I let him shred me. Focus on the warm glo
w. I could melt away in that glow. . . .

  “Do you . . . do you really think you can outlast me?” he sneers. A black vein bursts on his forehead.

  “I’ve done it all these years, what’s a few more minutes?”

  “You were always a fool, Pittacus.”

  “I’m not Pittacus Lore,” I say through gritted teeth. “I am Number Four. I’m the one who kills you.”

  A tremor. The entire cavern complex shakes. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a vivid flash of red light.

  The bombardment has begun.

  Thank you, Sam.

  Just keep him here. Bury him down here, with all his horrible experiments.

  The withered, hideous face before me laughs maniacally.

  I close my eyes.

  Picture Sarah. She holds up a camera, snaps a photo and smiles at me.

  I let my Legacies pour out of me. All of them.

  Until there’s nothing left.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CONSCIOUSNESS COMES BACK SLOWLY. THE CAVERN floor vibrates under my face, a rumble louder than thunder shaking the entire complex. I come dangerously close to the edge of the chasm that Adam and Phiri fell down. With a groan, I roll away from the gap, onto my back, and try to sit up.

  “Ugh . . .”

  My mouth tastes of blood. Every breath feels like I’m rolling around on broken glass. The mountain shakes again, and rock-dust falls from the ceiling. I close my eyes to avoid the stinging debris. Maybe, I think, I’ll keep them closed a little longer.

  Six! You stay awake! You get up!

  Ella, her voice coming through a megaphone directly into my brain, so loud that it makes my head ache.

  “I’m up, I’m up,” I reply out loud as I struggle into a sitting position. It hurts to bend like that, and I have to stifle a cry. “What’s happening?”

  We’re going to bring down the mountain, Ella replies. Sam’s chipping away at it, but we’re not unleashing the main cannon until you’re out.

  “Guess I better get up then,” I grunt, and struggle to my feet.

  So Sam’s been forced to play the role Adam was meant for—if everything goes wrong, blow the whole thing up. Adam . . . I just couldn’t get to him in time. I peek over the edge of the chasm but see nothing but jagged rocks and shadows. Something along the edge catches my eye, though. A thick blood trail that wasn’t there before that stretches from the control room to the chasm.