by J. B. Garner
"We can forgive our own. After all, what soldier at one point doesn't question his orders?" the one-man army continued. "But you, Indomitable, you and your gang of criminals, have had every chance to be part of the inner circle, to do the right thing, to follow an honorable commander. Still, you refuse at every turn."
One sweep of a comically oversized hand swatted down a few Crusaders from the sky but the elastic teen was swarmed by four Pushed each projecting a different raw element of nature: fire, earth, wind, and water. I figured most of that couldn't hurt her too badly, but the fire...
I grabbed Armored Thug #1 and spun once on my heels, throwing him like a track and field hammer at the fiery Pushed as Polymer let out a shriek of pain. It was a spot-on throw, bowling both of them aside and taking out an immediate threat, but I was left wide open, a fact communicated to me by the hard impact of a kick to the small of my back.
"Well, the offers are over. I have been fully authorized to take you and your rebellious band down through any means necessary." There was an unmistakable glee in the man's voice. I think he was getting off on this. "Order will be restored. Order will be maintained!"
I staggered from the kick and turned just in time to see another lightning-fast foot follow it. Some Pushed in an Asian dragon-themed motif was my designated sparring partner at the moment. Unfortunately, whatever martial arts skill was slammed into his head by the Whiteout seemed to leave out one of the basic rules that even I, in my very limited self-defense training, knew. Kicks are impractical at best and a lethal mistake at worst.
Matching my attacker's reflexes with my own accelerated speed, I blocked the incoming kick easily and took advantage of the opening it provided, stepping into the arc of the high kick to drive my left hand hard into his crotch. One down, thousands to go. Sure enough, as soon as he fell away shrieking, I was tackled by another two costumed Crusaders and driven to the ground. I had the distinct thought that this could be going better.
The one that had wound up straddling my chest, about to bash my head in with two steel hands, took a preemptive punch to the face as he was about to swing. Much to his shock, his steely skin didn't save him as I broke his jaw in one clean strike. Tackler #2, though, had a solid grab of my foot with one scaly hand (he had six of them) and picked me up by the ankle, by my bad leg of course. I was about to have a painful date with the asphalt when Mr. Scaly suddenly froze.
In fact, almost everyone froze. Even Battalion's amplified braying ceased. The only sound other than Twister's blowing wind (something I was strangely overjoyed to hear) was a continual chant in Latin. No, it wasn't a chant. It was prayer. Distinct and continual. Everyone, Crusader, rebel, or teammate, had the distinct look of someone either totally at peace or totally stoned, depending on how you thought of it. Mr. Scaly even put me very gently back onto the ground and let go.
Fray Justicia was not more than ten yards away, the crowds having parted slightly around him. He was on his knees and fervently praying. I wasn't one to put stock in miracles, but I couldn't process this in any other way. He was praying for peace, no doubt, and he was getting it. Even I couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of calm, but I certainly still had a deep desire to punch Battalion's face in.
The problem was that this was, at best, a holding action. The friar wouldn't keep praying if he didn't need to and we couldn't leave him.
Could we? Or maybe that was the point the whole time.
"Battalion!" I shouted above the prayers. "We're leaving. No more fighting."
"I-" The effort to try to resist what was going on in his brain was obvious as Battalion replied. "I can't force you to stop but" - his teeth were clenched hard, I could tell - "there will be a reckoning. There already is one."
I ignored that last implied threat as the Crusaders began to check on their wounded as the battered-but-standing forms of Twister, Mind's Eye, and Frost caught up to Polymer and me. Even under the full-face mask, I could see the sweat rolling down Justicia's neck. It might be some kind of miracle, but whatever source it was coming from was charging a high price.
"Let's go. Now. Fast."
We were all carried aloft again and on our way to our rendez-vous point (hopefully still secret and safe) in moments. Once more I was ferried along by Mind's Eye, this time with an even more stylish bit of transport in the form of a sewer cap. Not that it was much comfort, leaving the friar behind. He had been willing to lay himself on the line and be captured with not even a thought to his own safety, just to get us free.
Of course, who knew how long that freedom would last? We were given a head-start, nothing more. I hated it. I hated not being in control of the situation. Right as things seemed to be turning around, once more, things were falling to pieces. My mouth felt dry and I had the sudden desire to have my medicine cabinet full of pharmacological wonders right here with me.
"We're compromised."
The sudden break of radio silence was jarring enough. The message was worse, delivered by Rachel Choi herself.
"They're breaching the building now. We're going full torch." That meant they were going to quite literally burn the place down, destroy any information that could be used against us. "Good luck, people."
And then, there was static.
Chapter 16 Daring
"We must go to their aid," Frost shouted above the wind.
"What in Sam's Hill are you talking about?" Twister said with Polymer bouncing around in his cyclone. Apparently however his powers worked, the tornado sweeping around him didn't mess with his hearing. His question was answered with a glance from Mind's Eye.
"No, that is not the plan. I have informed our other allies here of what is transpiring and I must insist if we are to have any chance of success, we must stay the course." As much as I didn't want anyone rooting around inside my brain, I always felt like the odd one out in these mental conferences.
"I hate to say it...damn me to Hell for it...but Eye is right," I shouted, shooting a glance back the way we came. I swear I could already start to see the horde of Battalion's troops coming out from the shadow of the warehouses we had left them among. "It's the meeting spot or bust!"
The dragonwoman snarled, an animalistic sound that set my teeth on edge. Regardless, she banked and gave a hard flap of her silver wings in the right direction. Mind's Eye focused her incalculable mental prowess to fall into Frost's wake and my sewer-lid transport followed, picking up speed. It was now truly a race. If we couldn't get off the grid and under cover before they found us again, there was no way we could pull off another escape like that. Not alone.
Down we dove, forcing me to hold on with all my strength, into the concrete canyons of the heart of Atlanta. Once more, Twister's winds kicked up a smokescreen of dust and street debris, sending what few pedestrians that were milling about the early evening streets scuttling for cover. The lack of an immediate visual was in our favor but no doubt the Crusaders had eyes everywhere of one kind or another. Still, there was a shot at winning this. We only had two blocks to go and then it was down and, hopefully, safety.
It had made perfect sense when Duane had proposed it. There was, after all, a ready-made base down there in the city sewers. Once used by Ian Mackenzie and his Humans for God terrorists, its previous occupants were all dead and no one outside of our team and a few members of the Atlanta police's PART team had the slightest inkling of its location, yet alone its existence.
True, with their stint in those mind-warping helmets, there was no guarantee the topic of that sanctuary hadn't come up but it seemed unlikely. Meds and Eye certainly didn't remember being forced to talk about it. It didn't matter anyway; it was there or nothing.
As we shot around the last corner, I could hear the whine of engines behind us, gaining. Maybe a few of their fastest fliers were coming close but it still looked like we would make it. Well, that is until four more of those armored cars tore down one of the side streets ahead and skidded to a halt, practically on top of our destination.
; "How the hell -" I started to complain, then shook my head. "Who cares? We punch through, lose them in the tunnels." I hoped I sounded brave for the others, especially Polymer, but I had a pretty good idea we were screwed.
"I will dispatch the right most car," Frost said and angled her draconic frame into a tight arrow, accelerating her dive. Twister just pointed to the left and swept that direction and up as the Mighty Polymer folded herself into an improbably spherical shape, growing in mass. Tearing my eyes away from the shrieking unreality of it, I grit my teeth.
"Throw me parallel to the ground when we get close, Mind!" The cars were disgorging more Battalions. "I'll keep the copies busy; you get car duty." I made sure my grip was tight. Not only was this sewer lid my transport, it would need to be my weapon. My 'ride' was mere inches from the roadway when its trajectory flattened to be perfectly straight and then lurched forward, propelled by sheer mental force.
Mere feet before I plowed right into the chest of a Battalion copy, I yanked up with my arms and shoved with my legs, fighting the forces of momentum to change the angle of the lid itself. It was insane but I somehow managed to shift the impact from edge-on to striking the poor unreal bastard with the flat of the lid. First I hit him, then he hit one of the armored cars. If it had been a real person...
Thankfully, instead of the meaty squish of a body under the metal rim, there was only a strange flare of light as the copy absorbed the majority of the impact from the blow. Even so, as I fell to the ground, still clutching the sewer lid, I could feel the aches and pains of the jarring landing shudder through my bones. I bit it down and scurried to my feet.
The others had timed their runs to match mine. Leading with a blast of icy dragon's breath and culminating in the impact of draconic claws and muscle to steel, Frost had already torn through from one side of an armored car to the other. Twister dealt with his situation by flinging a large, round bomb of a rubber teenager straight down, flattening the offending vehicle.
Of course, there were two cars and more Battalions than I could count still in our way. As I came to my feet, I swung the sewer lid in a wide arc, muscles screaming from the exertion, flattening the two closest to me. I may have had nothing to fear from them, but they still presented a delay from getting down below ground and every second was precious.
The sound of locked wheels screeching on asphalt echoed behind me as Mind's Eye shoved the other transports aside while I busied myself slamming my crude weapon upside the head of another clone. I assumed the other Battalions were shocked when their weapons, as unreal as they were, had no effect when they opened up full auto on me but there was no time to appreciate their confusion. Beside me, there was a cry to take cover as the amorphous blob of Polymer reformed into a rubbery humanoid shape and flung the remains of the flattened vehicle end-over-end with the same ease I could roll a bowling ball. To the right, there came more sounds of rending steel and concentrated weapons fire. It looked like we were going to pull this out of the fire after all.
Hovering above us, Twister widened his personal tornado like a ring, swirling from a concentrated storm to a huge protective circle. The cars swept aside, Mind's Eye shot past me over head as I exchanged the weighty sewer lid, depositing it straight in the gut of a clone, with a nice piece of metal tubing blown free from one of the smashed cars. There was the distinct sound of scraping metal and I swore I could already smell the faint dankness of the sewer behind me.
"Go on!" I shouted as loud as I could manage. "I can hold them for a few moments."
"Indy's right, move it on out now, kid!"
I was too busy with my own end of the affair to make sure Polymer followed the lawman's directions but I assumed the lack of flying cars meant she had. One last cone of sub-zero temperatures blasted out, clearing away part of the rabble, before I heard the flap of powerful wings. Frost was on her way down now. I just needed to buy a few more moments.
As I needlessly ducked a swing from an intangible rifle butt, I caught a glint of light overhead and instinct made me suddenly push off from my crouch. There was the unmistakable report of a powerful sniper rifle and the place where I had once stood had a gouge torn out of it. Risking a glance up as I rolled behind a piece of debris, I caught sight of Battalion, the original I imagined, riding some sort of flying platform, like those experimental Army designs they threw out as being too unsafe. Apparently this one had the kinks worked out.
The troubling part was that, unlike his doubles and unlike the one time before I had come against him, the rifle in Battalion's hands, now zeroing in uncannily on me, was no Pushtech toy. It was, to my eyes, scarily real. It wouldn't even take a direct hit to put me down. The ballistic shock from such a huge caliber was more than enough to make even a graze potentially dangerous. Any real hit and it was over, even if I lived through it.
"So my copies can't touch you," he said, his voice amplified by whatever internal speaker his combat suit had. "I don't need 'em. I know this will take you down." I had cover, sure, but if he had even the slightest idea of my location, it wouldn't matter. That monstrosity of a gun could probably shoot through schools. "I know where you're running to, what hole you want to slither down, and there's a good twenty feet between you and it. You have two choices: give up or try your luck. Which is it?"
He had me, dead to rights. No matter how fast I was, it would only be pure luck if I made that run intact. If I tried to wait him out or reposition, there was a good chance I would be Swiss cheese behind this chunk of car, assuming his more real cronies decided to dally. Even if Battalion somehow didn't take me down in the first two shots, he would flood this place with Crusaders in moments. Rational Irene noted this would be a good time to surrender, live to fight another day. I considered listening to her.
To hell with that. If I was going to die, I was going to die trying. Taking a deep breath, I shifted into a runner's crouch, tensing for the sprint ahead.
That was when I heard it. The unforgettable, inimitable sound of a mechanized bow going off echoed out across the intersection. The projectile it fired must have hit something because that mighty twang was followed immediately by the sound of tearing metal and the dying whine of an engine.
Battalion's cry of alarm followed that dying engine as I broke cover. His flying platform had sprouted a steel shafted crossbow bolt of impressive size and, despite his best efforts, he was going to crash. The one-man army ditched and rolled, hitting the ground hard but clear from the catastrophic landing of his vehicle. His confused gaze followed my own, down the path of the bolt's flight.
Standing on top of a parked car, nocking another bolt as he drew a bead, was the Argent Archer. Well, the man at the very least, from his Errol Flynn goatee to a crude version of his signature crossbow. His powered Pushtech armor, though, was gone, probably wrecked during our final battle with the Crusaders. Instead, his wiry frame was covered by what I could only describe as hobo gear, cobbled together clothing and improvised protective armor. It didn't matter what he was dressed in. He was here.
"You! It can't be -"
The second bolt tore the rifle out of Battalion's hands. Not one to miss out on the fun, I blindsided the soldier with a heavy right cross. Spitting out a tooth, Battalion replied in kind, only to have his strike deflected away, collecting nothing but a kidney punch for his troubles.
"Oh ho, my former ally, it is none other! 'Twould seem I am not a moment too soon." Archer spun and fired off two more bolts in succession, each exploding into billowing clouds of white smoke. "Milady Indomitable, could you be so kind as to finish your evening's entertainment? That smoke shall not mask our movements long."
I would never have considered being so rude as to not grant a gentleman's honest request. A hard backhand to the bridge of the nose stunned the disarmed Army and a hard uppercut to his jaw either knocked him flat out or just so silly he wouldn't be an issue. As he fell, Battalion's remaining doppelgangers blipped out of existence in a flash of light.
"Archer, I -" The words wa
nted to spill out as we ran side-by-side for the torn-open sewer entrance, but he cut me off with a grin.
"Likewise, milady, I am most certain." Despite the Pushed shell around his mundane features, Archer's face had traces of the same sorts of lines and stress I, we all, had picked up over these last weeks. I wasn't even sure I wanted to hear his story. Either way, it wasn't the right place or time.
We both dove down into the dark tunnels, the sounds of pursuit still close enough for concern. Now, though, we had darkness and the confusion of the sewers themselves on our side. In utter silence outside of our feet on wet stone, Archer and I plunged onward.
Chapter 17 Five
"I think we're in the clear," I opined as we continued to make our way through the dark. Though we both had lights, Archer agreed with me that it was just asking for us to be found. Without even a hint of pursuit through the dank Atlanta sewers for a good ten minutes now, my paranoia was finally starting to lessen.
"I concur, milady," the ex-Crusader said. "Mayhap we can light the rest of our way? Not that I wouldst seek to hasten our trip more than necessary, what with our long separation, but still, time may be of the essence."
"Well, I'll say that I've heard of worse lines," I smirked as I rummaged out my headlamp from my gear bag. "Though, to be totally fair, I have missed you." My light flared to life, just as Archer flicked on a lamp at the business end of his crossbow.
"And I you. All of you." Archer's lips pressed into a tight frown. "In only the past few days had I learned of the Five's plight and your own freedom." Our pace quickened and I was glad to note that we hadn't gotten ourselves lost in our flight through darkness.
"About that, how did you get free? How did you find us out there?" Despite my happiness to have another friend on our side, I just couldn't let it go with no explanation despite my initial hesitance to know. There was always the chance that something was wrong, something that would bite us all on the ass. With no way to know if Rachel and Duane were safe, I couldn't take any more chances.
