by David Burke
Jay sensed movement behind him and then saw a buxom beauty who glistened as though she was made of liquid metal land down in the midst of the enemies. That could only be Morgan with a power like that. Clinging onto her back was a pale skinned, raven-haired girl that he didn’t know very well. He knew her name was Eden and a little bit about what she liked in an intimate setting but that was about it.
He watched with amazement as her skin began to glow brighter and brighter and the crawlers within twenty feet of her all began to pause and then drop to the ground, inert. She must have been draining the energy out of them because she began to scream as she glowed bright and brighter till it was hard to look at her.
A second later, Zuri ran up behind Eden. She placed her hand on the glowing girl’s back and immediately the screaming stopped and the glow began to pump into Zuri’s hand and run up her back. She then extended her other hand and a massive column of intense white-hot fire burst forth scorching and even melting a dozen more of the creatures.
The coordination and ferocity with which they fought made Jay’s heart swell with pride. He was so happy to call these young women part of his team. Less than a year ago, many of them had nothing more serious going on than deciding what color shoes to wear out. Now they were fighting for their lives, but more than that. They were united together and focused on supporting one another.
Still it wasn’t enough. The green beams broke down matter. They disrupted cellular structure and caused excruciating pain. Some of the girls like Bella and Morgan could take a few shots before crumpling over in pain. Everywhere the blasts hit, even on Morgan’s metallic body, he saw a black decay spreading out in a spider web pattern.
The others had to dodge to stand any chance of staying alive but the enemies just kept swarming towards them and it was inevitable that some of them would be struck. The first to fall was Taylor as she was taken in the gut by a thin green beam of energy. Her B.O.B. suit combined with the extensive refining were all that saved her life. Even with those though she screamed out in agony and fell over shaking as her body fought to maintain its form.
The battle so far had only taken seconds but it was starting to feel like an eternity. Jay commanded telepathically, “Jessie’s pod, pull back. Take your wounded to the healers.”
Then as Hanna grabbed Jessie’s still-trembling form, Jay focused his thought on spreading the construct as broadly as possible to shield them. He wanted to take the fight to the enemy but it was more important that he protect those around him. These women who struggled so hard but were still looking to him to save them.
In front of his shield a series of blasts slammed into the climbers as an electric bolt arced from one to the other down a line, blasting metal and scorching organic parts alike. A quick glance showed him Olivia hovering in the air. Except it wasn’t Olivia. She was a living electrical storm swirling back and forth in the general form of a human female. Bolt after bolt burst forth from her body.
Jay once again felt pride as he knew this was Meikiyo’s team entering the fray. And they were making themselves known with real style. Each of the green beams were diffused and sent off course, burning into the building walls or ceiling as Aurora used her ability to manipulate light at all wavelengths. She might not be able to deal with them directly but was able to make sure they didn’t hurt any of her team.
And what a team it was. As soon as the lightning storm died down, Faith teleported herself and four others into what had been empty space between Jay’s barrier and the enemy just a moment before. Ellie threw up a series of telekinetic shields in front of them. They might not stop the disruption rays but that was what Aurora was for. Next to Faith stood Renee on one side with Clara and Jade on the other side.
A number of the broken crawlers suddenly stood up and Jay’s heart jumped. There was no way those creatures should have been able to withstand the hell that Olivia had put them through. But his alarm was premature as it was soon clear that Renee’s power to control inanimate objects was responsible. The scorched husks scurried into battle against their drone brethren and while they were eventually ripped apart it gave the next phase of their attack time to form up.
Jade pushed a green slime-like substance out of her body in great globs which Clara caught and started to spin faster and faster around them. The bright lime-colored secretion was so corrosive that it could dissolve even most metals in seconds. But now it was spinning faster than a buzz saw as Clara worked her ability to move things in a rotation around her.
The acid was forced into three spinning rings and then unleashed upon the remaining crawlers. The sheer speed cut into their armor and deposited the caustic substance which began to turn the organic components into mush almost before the whirling saw of acid had pierced the armor of the drone next to it.
Again the coordination was magnificent. Jay knew how hard Meikiyo must have drilled with her pod to get them working like this. All of them had reason to be proud. This second wave of the counter attack brought the influx of new crawlers coming through the shattered remains of the wall to a crawl, but they still continued to come.
A moment later all of Meikiyo’s pod fell back and Jay saw rather than felt, since his shield protected him, the dust swirling and then the creatures starting to be blown back. That must mean that their resident Aeromancer, Willow, had made her appearance. She was as free a spirit in her long flowing skirt as the element that she controlled. Winds beyond hurricane force pushed the creatures back, but the attack wasn’t over.
After all what goes better with air, than fire. Great jets of flame were fed into the air stream and in turn were stoked to greater intensity by the channeled oxygen. The combination of the powers was so great that it blew the entire rest of the wall out and Jay was only glad that the building was sturdy so the roof didn’t collapse on them.
Another dozen of the crawlers were melted into sludge and the stone of the wall became super-heated and was pelted into another dozen. But as the wall was blown out another swarm of crawlers was revealed clambering all over three twelve-foot-high humanoid forms that must have been at least eight feet wide. They didn’t look very mobile but their thick armor and bullet-shaped heads reminded him of the old comic book character, Juggernaut.
Jay heard Meikiyo’s voice in his head as she called out, “Maximum shield, wall shaped.”
His trust in her was implicit so he didn’t even think to ask why she wanted him to do that but instead threw up the largest construct wall that he could manage and pumped it to level four, maximizing its strength and pushing an incredible amount of PSI energy into it.
An instant later he saw why. Meikiyo in her flaming form leapt into the air next to Willow. She was so beautiful it almost hurt his heart to look at her. She was fully his fire goddess now. Together she and Willow began to spin in the air and a massive ball of fire which went from a bright orange, to an ash-colored white and then a pale blue that burned so hot he almost thought he could feel the heat through his shield.
It was then that he realized that he actually could, but not because of any defect in his barrier but rather because so much heat was being transferred into the ground that waves of heat were coming up on his side of the wall. With a thought he forced the wall down into the ground through the floor of the building to try to cut off some of the transferal.
Meanwhile the blue flame was pushed even further and a brilliant violet flame flashed and then exploded out. It was an inferno worthy of hell and delivered death to the crawlers. So hungry were the purple flames that they liquefied the powerful alloys of the Forlorn in a great flash as the firestorm kept expanding. The half of the building that was unoccupied was turned to magma and then melted away as the storm exploded out.
When Jay opened his eyes again after closing them to protect his vision he saw Meikiyo and Willow fall to the ground. Both were completely naked, the heat having been too much even for the B.O.B. suits that they wore under their clothing.
Worse though, was the fact that
all three of the juggernauts remained standing. Their metal armor was running in spots but they continued to move forward. Their bodies creaked as they continued on as unstoppable forces.
Again before Jay could drop his barrier and react another team hit the three from the side. So perfect was their timing that they must have been waiting to clean up anything that survived Meikiyo’s attack. Jay rushed to scoop up Meikiyo’s and Willow’s still forms and in a blaze of speed deposited them with the healers before heading out to the battle.
Uremi and Kayla were lashing out at the giant monsters but with little effect. Jay watched in horror as Kayla was caught in one of the creatures’ hands. He knew that she was about to be ripped in half and he didn’t think she would survive this time. Inside he screamed, “No not again.”
He stepped forward faster than even his speed would allow. So fast that he skipped back a second and brought his PSI blade down with all the fury he could muster to sever the arm before its outstretched hand could crush the spear wielder.
Jay shouted out telepathically, “You can’t melee with these things. They will kill you.”
Fortunately they seemed to take his advice because Uremi swooped down and grabbed Kayla under her arms. Jay breathed a sigh of relief. Now he could focus on the monsters in front of him.
The three juggernauts all began to form up around him when suddenly the one to the right of him was hit by something that flashed past. The impact staggered it back and dented its armor but didn’t deter it.
A quick glance showed him that Charlotte and Madison had engaged that one. The extra-mass arrows might not be sufficient to bring the creature down but Jay was determined to make the most of the distraction. His PSI blade went to work against the juggernaut in front of him while he tried to keep moving so as not to get stuck between it and the one to his left.
That concern was taken off the table though as Jay saw Trina rush forward and blast her deadly purplish energy into the back of the third juggernaut. The strange energy must have affected it enough to cause it to turn away from Jay.
He couldn’t entirely focus on her though because he needed to work at cutting up the thing in front of him. It was far more resilient than anything that he had encountered. When a shoulder cannon raised up out of its armor he only had an instant to see a flash of green.
If the crawlers had been firing finger-thick beams of the deadly green energy, this cannon was more like six inches in diameter. The beam hit Jay’s energy and he could feel a slow but steady drain on his energy, but it wasn’t anything to worry about. His PSI still regenerated faster than this drain.
The other juggernauts likewise raised their cannons and started blasting at their attackers. In the case of Charlotte and Madison, they were far enough away to dodge. Jay sent them a command to leave these monsters to him. Even as he did so, he delivered a pair of slashes which took the cannon and then the head off of the creature he was facing. It had taken a great deal of effort to cut through that armor but it was still possible.
His eyes went wide though as he saw Trina take a blast from the cannon right into her midsection. She wasn’t wearing armor, just a t-shirt and shorts, for whatever reason. He expected to see her shrivel up before he could even reach her. Even the damage-resistant types like Jessie had been severely injured after only a few blasts from the crawlers and this was more like a fire hydrant versus a straw for the amount of energy being put out.
Instead though he witnessed as her body seemed to absorb the destructive ray. Her skin began to crack and the normal caramel color took on a darker and darker tone, but she was holding it together, even continuing to walk closer to the monster.
Jay got a precognitive warning that saved him as he had been too focused on Trina. Behind him the juggernaut that Charlotte’s arrows had dented and banged up and just moved in and tried to put its hands on him. He spun around and drove forward.
Coming up under it, he then picked it up entirely off the ground. It might have weighed two or three tons but with his strength maxed out it was as light as a toy. Carrying it, he raced forward putting some distance between it and the others. The monster struggled back against him. It slammed its hands into Jay with the force of many sledgehammers, but he was too driven to let it get to him. The only time he cried out in pain was when one of its hands ripped open his B.O.B. armor and tore a good chunk out of his shoulder.
That wasn’t enough to stop him though and he simply redoubled his speed. It had felt like an eternity but had actually only taken three seconds. Then he slammed the Forlorn monstrosity into the side of the cliff near their training area and then turned to leave it stuck in the rock. There was no doubt that the creature would free itself, likely very quickly, but by then he would be back to the battle and helping Trina.
When he got back, she was much closer to it. The green beam from the juggernaut was tearing into her but at the same time, she had managed to blast its entire chest plate off. The armor looked decayed and more like it had been eaten open rather than blasted off by an energy attack. Inside was the emaciated form of a human or what had once been a human woman.
Jay moved to intervene but it didn’t end up being necessary. The purple and black energy coursing off of Trina’s hands shriveled the flesh that it struck just like the enemy weapons but even faster. Soon there was nothing left but a crumbling skeleton and the creature fell over.
Chapter 11- Cutting the Line
Trina collapsed a second after the juggernaut did, but Jay was fast enough to catch her in his arms. He lifted her up and felt how gaunt she was. This had to be a side effect of whatever the power did to her. When he looked at her face, her eye sockets were hollow like she had no eyeballs. Her cheeks were sunken in and her mouth opened as she croaked out two words before passing out, “I hunger.”
Jay rushed her limp form to the healers. “Can you do anything for her?”
Huong, Kenzie, and Zuri all looked on in horror. Huong started to say, “I… don’t know. Never seen anything like that. But she is still alive?”
“Yes, I can sense her.”
Sora pushed through the group of onlookers. “Out of the way.”
When she dropped to her knees next to Trina, she groaned. “Oh boss, you really overdid it this time.”
Jay asked, “You’ve seen her like this before?”
“Yes, it happens whenever she overdoes it with her power. Wait, who am I kidding? It has never been half this bad. I don’t know if I can bring her back. I’m already trying to restore her flesh but her power is raging inside of her and consuming any energy that I put into her,” Sora answered. The sound of fear grew in her voice with each word.
“So what do we do?” Jay asked. Behind him he heard Amelia and Mia starting to direct people away, trying to clear some space for them. Then he realized that maybe Daphne could help.
“What about Daphne? Can she boost you?” Jay asked Sora.
“She’s been helping with the healing all morning. Uh… I guess we can try but not sure that is what is missing here,” Sora answered doubtfully.
“What then?” Huong asked from next to Jay.
“It isn’t like she needs healing, it is like the energy inside her body has all gone negative and she is in the red. We need to restore a proper balance in her energy before her body can even accept the healing,” Sora replied.
“That sorta makes sense with what I am detecting in her. What about you, Jay?” Huong asked.
“I can’t detect PSI patterns like Alexis but it does match what my scans seem to indicate. What about if more of us try healing her. Since our fusion several of us have a healing power now. I’ve got a higher PSI pool, I could try it,” Jay said.
“Maybe,” Huong murmured.
Ava set her hand on one of his arms. “It doesn’t work like that, Master. No amount of healing from the outside is going to fix what is broken inside her. I’m sure you already checked her channels. Now that I can combine Huong’s healing power and my ability to evaluate t
echnology, I can see that they are ruptured and her core is producing something. Not PSI for sure. Maybe negative PSI.”
Mia set her hand on his other arm. “Jay, I know you want to save everyone. You can’t. She fought for all of us. We have to respect that much, but that doesn’t mean you can save her.”
“We have to do something for her. The boss has fought so hard for all of us. Back in our cluster she is the only reason we made it through. I know she can be a bitch, but she really does care. Jay, you have to do something,” Uremi pled.
“Yeah, she was the only one besides you who could stand up to those things,” Kayla added.
Jay looked around helplessly. His feelings about Trina were a jumble. There was the Trina of his life on Earth, then the Trina who challenged him and his wives, and finally there was the Trina who he had come to realize cared very much about saving the human race. She might have a rough exterior, albeit one that was easy on the eyes, but she did care. Maybe cared too much as she was willing to do almost anything to save humanity.
