by Lee, TD
“Meteor! We can use your earth powers here!” Adele calls out.
Drake finishes defeating a super person by punching them all the way down a city street before he flies to us. He looks at Ainia and motions his hand to the ground and makes a casing surround Ainia’s body.
“Everyone, together!” Adele yells out loud.
Dom and Shiko move towards us. Shiko reverts back to his puppy for while Drake makes the ground shake a bit and creates a dome made out of concrete to temporarily protect us from the attackers outside. There’s a lot of loud pounding and other indistinguishable noises hitting the dome. Drake creates several flames around the dome just so we can see each other.
“We’ll have to hurry, this dome isn’t going to hold for too long,” Drake says.
Ainia is struggling to get out of the earth confinement that Drake put her in. She’s gritting her teeth and making a weird growling sound trying to get out.
“Does anyone have a spare of the mind blocking earbuds?” Adele asks, pointing to her ears.
“Yeah,” Dom says, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the familiar box.
“Perfect,” Adele says grabbing the box and quickly placing the earbuds in Ainia’s ears.
Ainia’s eyes and entire body relax as soon as the earbuds enter her. It takes her a moment to fully regain herself as she looks around us, “Everyone. What’s happening?” She looks down and sees that she’s completely encased in concrete. “Why am I concrete burrito?”
Drake releases her by returning the concrete back to the ground the best he can. She stretches and notices the sword in her hand and she tosses it aside.
“You were being mind controlled, do not take those earbuds off unless you would like to be mind controlled again. Do you remember anything?” Adele asks.
Ainia shakes her head. “No, not really. Everything is just a bit fuzzy to me now. All I remember was being yelled at by Blind Justice and bunch of them, then just moving through the HERO HQ for a bit and now this.”
“I see, so there is not a lot of information we can use to our advantage then,” Adele sighs.
“So what’s the goal then?” Dom asks, “We have to put an end to this, otherwise the city is going to be destroyed.”
“Do you have the data drive Dom?” Adele asks.
Dom reaches in her back pocket and pulls out the data drive. She hands it to Adele who looks at it carefully and handles it just as gently.
“We have to get this data drive to the Seeker, it is our only way to stop this mass mind control,” Adele says, “I have no doubts that King is using the Seeker as we speak right now to cause such an incredible feat of mind controlling so many people all at once at varying areas of the city, quite possibly the world.”
“That would make sense, if he’s at the Seeker then we need to get him off of it,” Dom responds.
“Does anyone know where the Seeker is even located?” Drake asks.
“I mean, it has to be somewhere inside the HQ doesn’t it?” Ainia replies, “But I’ve never seen it myself.”
Vesper snaps his fingers and writes out with his shadow:
I know where it is! ~(˘▾˘~)In the time that I’ve been here just to do some scouting, I managed to find the door that goes to the Seeker. It’s way below ground, definitely not anywhere people can get to easily. We’d have to take the elevator down just to get to it. (｡◕‿‿◕｡)
“Alright, so we’d just have to get in there. Easier said than done,” Ainia says.
“Yeah, we’d have to clear the people out here first enough to have someone be able to go in, and even then there might be people in there waiting to attack us too,” Dom agrees.
“As long as we can get someone in there,” Adele murmurs. Her eyes wander then stop on me. “Ridley, it’s on you.” She extends her hand with the data drive out to me.
“Wh-what?” I question, “Me? Why me? I’m the worst person to try to get the data drive to the Seeker!” I’m not lying, I really am the worst person to do it. I have no way to protect myself.
“No, you can do it,” Adele says, she forces the data drive into my hands. “I’ am too obvious of a target, so I can act as a distraction. Dom and Vesper can help protect me if needed. Ainia and Drake can help you out. If Kirika were here right now, then she would be able to help out. I hope she is okay.”
“B-but I…” I mutter.
“Ridley, this really isn’t the time for you to start doubting yourself. You can do this,” Drake says.
Adele nods her head and agrees with Drake, "You need to have more faith in yourself. You are more capable than you think you are."
"B-but I-I'm just a nobody. No one special," I say.
"Stop it with that," Drake says. "You've done more than you think. And you can do this kid. I know it’s a lot of pressure, but don’t let it get to you too much.”
“As much as it has to suck to have such a big responsibility on you, Adele’s right, you’re the best option to get that thing to the Seeker. You’re less of a target than the rest of us. You can probably slip by the super people that are being mind controlled. You are the best option,” Dom adds.
“You’ll have us to help you, it’s not like you’re alone in this,” Ainia says.
Everyone is pep talking me. This is such a weird moment for me. I’m not used to being the one that’s aprt of the action, just someone watching. “O-okay, okay I’ll try my best.”
“You will have to. There are no do-overs,” Adele speaks sternly.
“R-right,” I murmur.
The walls of the dome start cracking. The super people outside are really trying their best to get in here.
“Let’s try to clear out as many of the people out here the best we can, so Ridley has a safer way of getting in,” Drake says, readying himself to take the dome down.
“Stay close Ridley,” Dom suggests.
“Before we get to the battle, Ainia I have something for you,” Adele says, looking over at Ainia.
“Wow, a present? And it’s not even my birthday,” Ainia remarks.
Adele looks at Vesper, he reaches into his jacket and out comes a sheathed sword. Attached to the end of the handle of the sword is a long tassle that is wrapping the handle. Ainia’s eyes are wide as she grabs a hold of the sheath and blade.
“H-how did you get this?” Ainia asks.
“There were many things I needed Vesper to do while I was here. One of them was retrieving your old sword. They had it locked up so I sent Vesper to retrieve it,” Adele explains. There’s a smile on her face as she looks at Ainia. “We will all need your true strength now.”
“R-right!” Ainia agrees. She’s hugging the sheath tightly while kneeling on the ground. She’s whispering something to it that I can’t really hear. And are those tears starting to come out of her eyes?
“Get ready everyone!” Drake warns. He makes the dome fly open by sending chunks of debris fly out in all sorts of directions, hitting the super people that were trying to break the dome open.
Everyone starts to fan out, Shiko even evolves to the form it had before. The fighting starts again, but this time it seems like everyone has so much more resolve. They’re fighting with a lot more confidence. The only one not in the fray of battle, that is fully capable of fighting, is Ainia.
A group of super people start coming towards us. “Now Ainia!” Adele orders loudly.
Ainia stands, stalwart and proud, the first time I've ever seen her like this before. With a proud, commanding voice, she exclaims, "Come now. Soar, Aurai!" She unsheathes her sword and a powerful gust of wind almost lifts me off my feet. If it weren’t for Adele, I might have flown off. The sword she's holding shines in the flames that have encompassed the nearby area, almost glowing a fluorescent green. The blade is a strange shape as it has a curve to it, but near the hilt are large circles and holes. The tip of the blade is hooked. Attached to the handle is a long tassel that was initially winding around the handle. There’s a powerful wind that flows f
rom the sword, there’s a slight humming sound in the wind.
Ainia stabs the sword in the ground, creating an even stronger gust of wind that blows the super people coming to attack us away. Her wind powers seem to really be manifesting as she’s creating large tornadoes that are catching the super people inside. To combo with it, Drake shoots a flame at the tornadoes creating a horribly hot fiery tornado, which might be a bit much since I don’t think they’re trying to kill the super people.
With this sword, Ainia is moving a lot faster than she normally does. She’s more agile than she already was too. It’s like she’s one with the sword. Sometimes she’ll take the tassel and start swinging the sword with that which gives her more range. Her wind power or so strong that it feels like every single swing of her sword would send me flying. She seems so comfortable wielding this sword than she has with the umbrella. It’s almost like she’s a completely different person.
Everyone is fighting hard. Vesper is being sneaky by diving into shadows and reemerging to blindside his opponents. Under his jacket, it seems like there’s just a large assortment of weapons at his disposal that he just keeps taking out. He’s really strong too since he’s able to take a super person of a rather large size and throw them into a pile of rubble down the street.
Dom is still kicking ass. Even when there’s multiple people ganging up on her, she somehow manages a way to fend them all off without losing momentum. Each punch or kick or whatever she did looked like it hurt and I’m glad that I’m her ally here rather than a foe. She readies her robotic leg and even fires a rocket at a statue that explodes and creates some debris that traps some of the super people.
Drake is in the air blasting fire at any of the airborne super people. A super person throws a thunderbolt at Drake, who barely dodges it. He retaliates by grabbing them and chucking them into the ground and trapping them into the earth itself. At a couple of other super people, he launches a chunk of concrete that he’ll set on fire at them which proves to look very painful. It’s interesting seeing him use his earth powers more, even though he said he’s not as good with it.
And of course there’s Shiko, using his three heads to the best of his ability. One moment, one head is breathing fire, the next the same one is spitting out some sort of purple gas. Shiko’s musculature is more prominent now too, so whenever he swipes with his claws, anyone caught by him will be sent flying.
Even though everyone is fighting with so much more confidence, they’re all getting tired. Drake gets slammed with a wall of water and light and crashes to the ground. Dom gets thrown violently. Shiko sustains a powerful punch to his rib. Everyone returns to us to regroup.
“There’s so many of them. It’s like all of the teams are here,” Drake says, doing his best to continue fighting with his earth and fire powers at a distance.
“No kidding, it’s like a never-ending battle of constant reinforcements,” Dom agrees.
A familiar singing voice that almost matches the same song I’m listening to through the earbuds We all look up and we find Kirika descending down from the sky in her Spectral Singer outfit. Two long spears are in her hands, ready for combat. With her singing though, some of the supers around us seem to be coming back to their senses, but they’re in a daze.
When Kirika lands, her eyes glow a rather pleasant purple. Her singing voice continues even though her mouth is no longer moving to sing. She greets us, “Sorry I took so long, I had to take care of those at my agency first. They’re all around the city playing the song in hopes to help alleviate the mind control epidemic.”
“Good, I am glad you are here,” Adele says with a smile.
“I must say however, the song right now is not as powerful as the ones in our earbuds. Having to continuously sing while using my Hag powers seemed to have weakened the effect of the song,” Kirika remarks.
“Then we have to make what we can do count while we still can,” Drake replies.
“Alright, everyone. We have to get Ridley in the HERO HQ and down to the Seeker. That’s our main goal. Let’s try to make a way for Ridley!”
“Let’s go!”
Everyone turns and braces themselves for the fight of their life.
“Shiko! You must evolve one more time!” Adele orders.
Shiko’s heads all stretch upward toward the sky as a harmonious howl fills the air, echoing loudly to the bright moon. Shiko glows brightly again and starts growing larger than the many of the buildings that once stood. All along Shiko’s spine and extending to the top of each of his heads is a flaming trail extended bone. His tail is fashioned into more of a pitchfork than a standard tail. Flames flow around each of his paws. Bones act as armor around Shiko’s body. Shiko howls again, but the howl is more guttural and a bit demonic sounding. His musculature has further increased, creating a very intimidating monster that I didn’t know Shiko could really be. I’m so glad Shiko’s our good boy.
Shiko charges for the mechs that match his size and he starts fighting them. His heads biting and attacking different limbs. He uses his paws to slam and slash at any mechs that attack him. Sure he’ll get carried and thrown a bit, but he recovers and continues to persist. Any spot that Shiko steps on leaves a trail of flames and scorch marks.
“This is our moment, Shiko will take care of the mechs, but we have to take care of the people on the ground,” Adele says.
“On it!” Drake says, propelling himself forward. He makes a beeline for the door of the HERO HQ, along the way he raises a wall of concrete that divides us with some of the super people that couldn’t jump or climb over before the walls got too tall.
We all start running for the doors. There’s still quite a bit of super people that managed to to be within walls that Drake created. Luckily, Dom, Vesper, Ainia, and Vesper are here to help us fend them off so we’re not overrun. There’s really loud pounding that hit the walls, of course they’re trying to break the walls down. There are some super people that fly above the walls or even climb above them. This is going to be a lot harder than it initially seemed.
Dom punches a super in the face and even uses the same person to throw at another just to follow up with a powerful tackle. It looks brutal. Ainia uses her wind powers at anyone that tries to get us from above, but if anyone actually got close she would use her sword. Kirika displays her agility as she not only is really competent in fighting with her spears, the way she’s pole vaulting and stabbing the wall to help her move around is really fascinating to watch. Kirika carefully uses the length of her spear to attack the super people coming at us, rather than the actual pointed ends. Kirika is using something I’ve never actually seen her do before, she created a clone made of her own shadow that’s just as physically powerful as she is. Vesper is being the trickster he normally is as he dives into the shadow of the wall and pounces on super people from the shadows. Vesper can even have his body be halfway out of a shadow just so he can quickly retreat when a super person tries to attack him. Drake, being out primary aerial defense, tries to fend off all of the super people trying to ascend above the walls, but of course there are several that slip through since he can’t take care of everyone. With everyone’s combined efforts, we manage to make it to the steps of the HERO HQ.
Just when we thought we’re able to make it in, I feel something grabbing and hold my legs in place. Looking down I see vines quickly running up my legs. Looking at Adele, the same is happening to her same with Dom who is struggling to get out of them. Ainia attempts to cut us free, but a whip wraps around her sword arm as a large tongue is holding her body in place. Drake tries to help us by trying to incinerate the vines, he got close until several steel beams fly at him and lock him in place so he can’t move as he drops to the ground near us. Even Vesper, who would normally hide in a shadow has his entire lower body frozen in place by ice. How did all of that happen so quickly? Several metallic tentacles come flying for Kirika, she deflects them with her spear, but they continue to go after her by multiplying and separating. Once
a single tentacle reaches her, an electric shock renders her to the ground as she shakes violently. I can tell she’s still getting shocked as there’s a crackling sound each time her body shakes.
“Damn!” Dom mumbles, fighting to get lose.
“How did we all manage to get caught in some sort of binding?” Ainia asks, struggling to get her sword arm free.
The shocks get louder on Kirika. She looks like she’s in so much pain with how she’s shaking.
“Kirika!” I call out to her. Shit! The vines are crawling up my body quick, but I still try to use what autonomy of my body I have to try to help Kirika since she’s continuously being shocked.
Kirka screams loudly. There’s a weird shift in the air. It’s almost as if everything is eerily silent. No one’s moving or speaking. Looking around, the super people I can see have completely stopped trying to attack us. With the next moment all of them start descending to the floor. They look like they’re struggling to stand up, some even are pushing against some invisible thing in the air above them. Even where Shiko is, the mechs have stopped moving. All of Shiko’s three heads look around in confusion, unsure as to what to do.
“Are you controlling them?” Dom asks.
Kirika slowly pushes herself up off the ground. “N-no. No, that’s not what this is,” Kirika answers, straining with her words.
“It appears that you are binding them in place with some sort of reality manipulation?” Adele questions, taking her hands to the vines and snapping what she can so she can free herself quicker. I follow her actions.
“Y-yes. I’m using my Hag powers to buy us some time,” Kirika says, “but I can hear each of their thoughts right now. They’re all in anguish, struggling to be free from the mind control. It hurts!”
“How long can you keep this up Kirika?” Adele asks.
Kirika struggles to speak, her body is completely frozen in place, “N-not for long!”
“Then we’ll have to take advantage of this as much as we can,” Ainia says. Now that her sword arm is free to move, she removes herself from the large tongue that was holding her to slice the vines binding me, Adele, and Dom.
