The Hade War

by Luke Carlisle

  Back inside the Skyborn building Vincent Kennedy had taken his seat again.

  “Now… told you I would share. The unfortunate souls inside my bulwark fortress have either lost their lives or will lose their lives. Let’s all take a moment to remember them fondly.”

  Kennedy dropped his head as if he was praying for a single second before raising it again. “Ok. So, what is it I want, I hear you all say? Well, I wasn’t exactly planning on any of this happening until everything was sitting perfectly, but when does that ever happen eh? I’m going to be in control of the city, then the country, then the world… starting tonight. Those of you who are fortunate enough to be outside my walls would be best to leave immediately. I can only imagine that the police… army… freaking navy seals are already making moves to attack, which is fine. I have no problem killing them too. What I really welcome though…” Kennedy sat forward. The camera slowly began to zoom out revealing that he was not alone in the room. He was sitting in the middle seat of a tiered auditorium. Surrounding him were men and women with all kinds of super powers, disfigurements and unearthly features.

  “What I really want… is for your band of merry men to come knocking. You know who I mean. The ones you made criminals. The ones who hide in plain sight, afraid to use their gifting.”

  The small band of super powered began to grow uncomfortable in Ronan’s apartment, each one of them looking out the window at the devastation in the city, still listening to the chilling taunt.

  “Come and get me.” With that the horde of evil surrounding him roared in unison, howling and screaming at the camera. Kennedy stretched his hands outwards as if to introduce them as they showed their act of intimidation.

  “Now… release the hounds!” Kennedy commanded.

  On the ground level the doors to the Skyborn building suddenly swung open and hundreds of vile creatures and super powered men, women and monsters raced into the streets. The people had nowhere to run. Even if they made it to the five block radius, they were still trapped inside the wall of light and death.

  The wave of terror that came running out of the building washed over the police and public like a wave on the beach. No one stood a chance. Every police and army personal opened fire but the monsters and terrorists kept coming, tearing their way through the crowds. No one was spared. Lasers, blades, bullets, claws and chains hacked and slashed their way from the Skyborn to the edge of the bulwark.

  Around the world the news feed went dead. The carnage was not something that should be aired. Police and army men on the outside of the giant dome shot and smashed it with everything they had but it was utterly futile. The bulwark, courtesy of Jessen, was seemingly impenetrable.

  Metalcore dragged Warstone only several stories high in the air as fast as he could fly towards the Skyborn Building. As soon as the news feed went dead Ronan only had to look in Daniel’s direction for their to be immediate communication and understanding. Ronan grabbed his helmet from the corner of his apartment then running up to the roof they jumped off the edge and soared. This was no time for subtlety. The curtain had been lifted. The war of the super powered had begun. They weren’t the only ones who revealed themselves to the public. Men and women of all powers and talents had seen the news and were racing, flying, driving towards the Skyborn. A scaled lizard like women crawled out of a manhole and slithered her way towards the destruction. One of the news camera men put down his camera and burst out of his clothes, growing five times as tall as he was before and ripped from head to toe in muscle. He wore a tight, white jump suit under his normal clothes which expanded with his body. He charged towards the bulwark.

  In the sky several small figures could be seen far away in all directions, getting bigger as they approached and landing on all sides of the laser wall. As more and more super powered beings arrived on the scene, the crowds and police panicked all the more. The killing was still going on inside the bulwark and they were afraid the same was about to happen outside.

  Metalcore and Warstone arrived at the main hub of police and crowd activity on the north side of the bulwark. Without delay Warstone lifted a fallen lamppost and swung it with all of his might against the shining, glistening wall. The lamppost shattered and exploded into dust and smoke. A police car had been wrecked under falling rubble nearby. Warstone ran to it and slowly lifted it over his head. Stones and dust poured off of the top of it as he walked with it towards the wall. Suddenly a gunshot rang out from nowhere and glanced off his back. Still holding the car above his head he turned to see a police man holding his gun out and trembling. He squeezed his trigger again and another bullet bounced off the wrestler’s chest.

  “Are you serious?!” Warstone shouted as he threw the car at the bulwark. It exploded into dust. No damage was done to the wall.

  “I’m on your side douche bag!” Warstone yelled at the police man. Metalcore ignored the confrontation and approached the bulwark slowly, wary of it spitting out some kind of force blast against him. Only several feet away he stopped and leaned in. Examining the shimmering wall of light. He bent down and picked up a small piece of rubble. He tossed it at the wall and it turned into a puff of dust. Turning, Metalcore made his way back to where Warstone was confronting the police man. Several more cops had arrived, all with guns pointing at Ronan.

  “For the last time, we’re not all bad guys. Now you can either help us or get out of our way. Either way we’re getting through to those people!” Warstone commanded.

  Metalcore took out his pad, scribbled on it and handed it to the wrestler.

  “No we’re not. That’s Jessen’s force blast,” he wrote

  “What do you mean?” Warstone asked, looking back at the bulwark.

  “He’s doing this somehow. I recognise the energy. It’s coming from him. We’re not getting through that.”

  “Shit.”

  “We need to get to PATMOS now.”

  “Agreed.”

  Suddenly there was a violent rumble like an earthquake. The police men turned and pointed their guns in every direction, thinking it was some kind of attack. Turning, Metalcore and Warstone stood in horror at what they saw. The bulwark was moving.

  “Is that thing…” Warstone stopped mid sentence. The nearest buildings slowly began to crumble at the edges as the bulwark crawled it’s way outward in all directions. Through the translucent energy wall they could see the same thing happening on the far sides too. It was growing. Warstone turned to the policemen.

  “Fall back!” he yelled.

  They didn’t need to be told twice. Everyone around the entire circumference wall began running for their lives as it spread it’s destruction inch by inch, swallowing up more and more of the city. As the super powered ran Warstone turned to his companion.

  “PATMOS now!”

  Metalcore began to fly and lifted Warstone off the ground. Sailing into the air he made his way back to Ronan’s apartment building. Ronan didn’t argue. After several minutes they reached the apartment window and flew close enough for Warstone to bang on the glass. Everyone inside ran to the window, relieved to see their friends were ok. Using exaggerated movements with his head, Metalcore nodded at Elaine then raised his chin rapidly to signal to the roof. Elaine nodded and ran back from the window as her brother hefted the wrestler upwards to the roof. It took Elaine a moment to arrive which Daniel was grateful for. It gave him a moment to catch his breath and get a second wind. Suddenly the fire escape door burst open as Elaine came running towards them.

  “What happened?!” she asked

  “That thing, the wall, its expanding outwards now.” Ronan explained.

  “Oh my word!” Elaine exclaimed. “We were listening to the news. The army, navy, airforce… they’re all here! They’ve thousands of troops on their way to the Skyborn! Every cop, fireman, security guard, anyone with a bat in New Belfast is rushing to help. Troops are coming up from Bangor and all the surrounding cities. Everyone’s being called in!”

  Almost as if planned th
e sky roared with low flying fighter aircraft and helicopters. The air above the city was alive with machinery. The three super powered ran to the edge of the roof to look down towards the Skyborn building.

  “That will do no good!” Ronan declared as missiles began firing. At first only a small handful were deployed. They hit the bulwark without leaving so much as a burn mark. More missiles were fired. Ronan watched, almost hopeful that Daniel would be wrong. Same result. Eventually every war machine in the sky, dozens and dozens of fighter jets and helicopters were unleashing all kinds of hell on the wall to no avail.

  Out of no where and earth shattering bang echoed throughout every corner of the city. A huge force blast exploded from the bulwark outward on ground level cutting away everything in its path. Around the diameter of the wall hundreds of emergency personal fell to ashes. The three on the roof shielded their eyes from the blast. Buildings collapsed all around the ever growing forcefield that protected the Skyborn building in it’s centre. Sirens wailed all over the city.

  Without warning Metalcore put his arms around his sister and the wrestler and jumped off the side of the building. He bolted across the sky towards the sea as if a supernatural strength gave him a new energy.

  “We have to help them!” Elaine shouted as the trio flew towards the sea.

  “There’s nothing we can do against that! The rest will be helping as best they can. We need help of our own,” Ronan answered.

  “PATMOS?” Elaine shouted so as to be heard.

  Ronan nodded. “Manning.”

  It didn’t take long to get to the coast but PATMOS was still several miles away out at sea. Aware that the prison was heavily guarded, Metalcore flew high into the air so as to put as much distance vertically between them and the miles of bridges far below them. They struggled to see, but it was clear that there was a lot of activity on the bridge. Vehicles could be seen travelling towards the city at great speed.

  “Some of the guards must have been called in to help.” Elaine shouted over the wind.

  Without warning the last of the seven checkpoints, the last of the seven gates of hell, collapsed into the sea. The sixth followed suit, collapsing as if under it’s own weight into the water. The fifth followed, then the fourth.

  “They’re blowing the bridge! Those are controlled explosions!” Ronan yelled.

  The remaining three gates of hell sank into the water leaving no escape on foot or vehicle from the prison. After another minute they were close to directly above the prison and Metalcore began to descend.

  “Freefall, Daniel!” Elaine yelled.

  Relaxing his super power, Daniel let himself drop uncontrolled through the air. Elaine suddenly stiffened and turned blue. Her body was now a harden block of ice and spreading out from beneath her feet a blue surface began to form. The three began to slide rapidly down the ice slide that Elaine was laying out in front of them only one or two feet in front of them. As they rapidly approached the building Warstone reached out and pushed the siblings behind him as they slid toward the giant outer wall. Turning his back on the prison he pulled them into a protecting embrace and waited.

  “Now!” Elaine yelled and Ronan stiffened up, dropping his chin into his chest as the three invaders crashed through the wall into the prison courtyard. Brick and stone flew in all directions and Elaine began laying out a path of ice in front of them again, this time in an upward direction to slow them down. As they rose up the slide several stories Metalcore grabbed hold of them again and began to float then slowly make his way back to the ground.

  The three of them stood back to back, waiting for an attack from the guards, an alarm, anything. They stood for several moments, heads twitching and turning in all directions waiting to be surrounded. Nothing. There was no movements. No sound. Confused, they relaxed and began to spread outward from their protective triangle, each one surveying the scene around them.

  “I… where is everyone?” Elaine asked.

  The courtyard stretched for several hundred yards. Warstone began walking quickly in one direction, the siblings following behind. Warstone pointed to the ground along the inside of the wall.

  “What do those lines look like to you?” he asked them

  “Parking spaces.” Elaine answered.

  “Exactly. Those vehicles we saw on the bridge, how many do you think there were?”

  “I dunno. A lot though.”

  “Yeah it was a hell of a lot. I think they deserted the prison entirely.”

  Warstone turned and began walking towards the main entrance to the prison from the courtyard. Without a word the others followed. They approached a black metal door. It was the standard size of any door in any house but it was obvious from this side that it was heavily reinforced. Warstone approached it and tapped on the metal to get a feel for the density. It was solid iron. Taking several steps back Ronan psyched himself up to charge. Elaine stepped in and placed her hand on the door. Slowly the blue ice spread from her hand across the door. Ronan watched with a disapproving look on his face until she finished.

  “Could have done it without the help yunno,” he said.

  “Nah you couldn’t,” she denied and Metalcore shook his head to agree with his sister. Warstone sighed and instead of charging, strode casually towards the door and gave it a simple punch. Most of the metal shattered into several large pieces and the wrestler walked on through, the rest still clinging on to the hinges. The three entered a long, dark hallway that led down to another iron door.

  “Well then, lets see,” Warstone declared as he began to charge. Winding up his arm he launched himself at the door and hit it with all of his might. The door severely dented, but didn’t break. Warstone hit it twice more and the metal broke apart. Pushing against it he cleared open the broken door for the others to pass through.

  “Told you,” he jeered at Elaine.

  “Pfft.” She rolled her eyes, unimpressed. “Took you three hits.”

  “I’m gonna slap your sister,” Warstone told Metalcore who just shrugged as he walked through the doorway.

  The trio entered a large office. Grim grey cabinets lined the walls of the faded green painted room. In the middle of the office computers were still running on their desks. Cups of coffee were still full or only half drunk but no life was to be found.

  “They’re all gone,” Elaine stated.

  “They must have all been called to the Skyborn,” Metalcore wrote on his pad. The others read it then looked at each other.

  “So… what about the prisoners?” Elaine asked. “Are they… I mean, I’m assuming they’re… still here?”

  Warstone made his way into a separate smaller office, separated by large panels of glass from the main room.

  “Guys. In here,” he called to the siblings who came quickly.

  On the only desk in the room sat a large computer which had a control console on the screen.

  “It looks like we can control things from here. Maybe doors,” Warstone stated.

  “Yeah it looks like it. There, click there.” Elaine pointed to a tab on the screen that said ‘Inmates.’

  Warstone clicked on it and the trio were amazed at the size of the list they were looking at. Over four thousand super powered men and women were being held prisoner in PATMOS.

  “There’s no way all these guys got out on in those vehicles,” Ronan stated. “I think they’ve been abandoned here.”

  The prisoners weren’t named but numbered. Beside each number there was a brief description of their powers and their cell number. Beside that was the command to unlock the cell door.

  “Look there, great! We can unlocked individual doors,” Elaine declared.

  “Yeah but how do we know which ones are Manning and Greyfall? There’s dozens and dozens of people with super strength and quite a lot of guys without powers listed here too. It could be any of them. They are just listed as numbers,” Ronan sounded defeated.

  He continued to scroll down the list of names as Metalcore scribbled on
his pad, holding it out for the others to read.

  “We have to free them all,” he wrote.

  “Are you crazy?!” Warstone exclaimed. “These are the worst of the worst criminals in here!”

  “And a lot of innocents who simply got locked away for having powers. They have power dampeners in place. They don’t pose us any threat.” Metalcore wrote.

  “Yeah but they can still kill each other!” Elaine pointed out.

  “They have been left here alone to die in their cells. We can let them out. If we don’t free them then we are every bit as guilty of killing them as the prison guards are.”

  Ronan sighed and thumped the desk with his fists.

  “Damn it!” he yelled, looking up at Elaine. He sought her opinion. “Elaine?”

  Elaine looked out through the glass into the next office as if seeking an answer.

  “If we leave them and do nothing… then we’re as good as mass murderers,” she finally answered. “Let them go. Let them decide what to do with their freedom.”

  “They’ll either starve or get swallowed up by that dome if it makes it this far,” Metalcore wrote.

  Ronan sighed.

  “You’re right. They blew the bridge. They’re not planning on returning any time soon, if at all.” Ronan moved the computer mouse to hover over an emergency release all button.

  “Sure?” he asked.

  Metalcore and Elaine nodded without saying a word. Ronan clicked the button. The screen flashed red. Red warning lights inside the room suddenly lit up. The screen read ‘Release all. Confirm.’ Ronan clicked on yes. Behind them on the wall to small black boxes with small red lights on top began to flash. The screen read ‘Push emergency release keys.’

  Ronan stood up and walked to the closest box. It was sealed to the wall with a small key hole on it’s front covering. Metalcore walked to the other and tried to pull the covering off to no avail.

  “We don’t have time to look for the keys.” Ronan declared as he grabbed the front cover with one hand and ripped it off. A flashing red button was attached to the wall behind. Ronan did the same to the other box and returned to his own.