by Jamie Hawke
My screen was even popping up, reading their powers to me. One there with the ability to move matter, one with shields, one that could read minds and was now likely telling Goros we were approaching, fast.
Good. Let him know we were coming. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on him.
19
The thing was, we were ready to go but still had too much ground to cover. Damn. I started thinking about huge-ass eagles carrying us or something, wondering what our options were, when I glanced over at Threed. She winked at me—a habit of hers that she did too often—and I realized how easy it was.
“We’re going to need copies of Sacrada again,” I said.
“Hey, if she’s not putting out, her copies won’t either,” Threed replied.
Sacrada grunted. “What for?”
“Think you can carry someone?” I asked. “I mean, you’re damn powerful, but will the wings support it.”
“Of course,” she replied, and then her eyes went to me, Navani, and Threed. “Oh, of course!”
Threed caught on now, as did Navani, and soon we were standing each with our own Sacrada, ready to take to the skies.
“You freak out up there, I might drop you,” Sacrada warned. “Just… don’t freak out. Stay calm in my arms. You’re going to have to be the weapon because I can’t use my powers without the use of my hands.”
“Roger that,” I replied, and the others agreed they would be good.
“Okay. Loverboy, you’re with me,” she glared. “I don’t want you getting all gropy with a replica and me not knowing about it. At least this way, you do that, I let you fall.”
“I’m not some perv trying to grope a feel,” I pointed out. “Nothing here has been without full consent and, in fact, Navani’s the one who propositioned me.”
“Right, well… my point remains.”
“Let’s get on with it, while Drew still has our powers,” Navani suggested. “And before we’re all slaughtered.”
The others agreed, so the three Sacradas grabbed hold of us from behind, under the arms, and took off, shooting into the air. She was strong, I could feel that, but worried she wouldn’t be able to hold us up there like that forever.
Other supers flew out to meet us, but the Sacradas did a great job of dodging, and whatever they couldn’t dodge, Navani was able to throw up shields against. Her Sacrada kept to the back so that they could get a good view, with Threed in the middle to stay guarded. If she got hurt or even distracted, her attention would falter, and the replicas would go bye-bye.
Which meant I was on point. With the fire powers of Sacrada, I was quite all right with that. I threw out blasts of fire as if I’d been born to do just that. When a super tried to hit me with a series of blades, I burned off his ugly face. Another came at us with wings one minute, no wings the next, thanks to yours truly.
And then that damn super with the clouds and the ice was approaching.
“We need to get there faster!” Navani shouted.
“Get us the damn spaceship and maybe we would be,” Sacrada shouted back.
“Except, then we would’ve broken the stupid rules of this game,” I pointed out, though I wasn’t sure if they heard me. The point had been that he could kill Sakurai whenever he wanted to but was using her as leverage so that we’d play along. I had to wonder, if we got too close, would he just kill her anyway.
Another idea struck me. Damn, I was on a roll.
“Throw me at her,” I said, indicating the crazy storm super.
“What?” Sacrada asked. “All that sexing made you lose your mind?”
“Not if I can steal her powers,” I said. “If she thinks I’m coming in for an attack, she’ll blast me. Then… you get the idea.”
“And what if, one day, you get hit by powers that you can’t absorb, and they leave you dead?”
“I’m going to bet on that never happening,” I replied. “Because if it does, I’m dead anyway so I won’t care. In the meantime, I can be a superhero.”
“In the meantime, you can be a crazy son of a bitch,” she said but swooped up while yelling for the others to continue with the plan. The storm super came for us, following Sacrada’s lead, and then Sacrada spun, wings gleaming in the sunlight, and tossed me.
It’s a strange feeling, knowing you can’t fly and being tossed through the air at a murderous supervillain.
But I started blasting with my fire, threw up a couple shields to protect against her ice spears, and then her blast of freezing air came at me. This is what I was waiting for—no shields, no solar bursts to try and counteract it. I spread my limbs and took it like a man.
DAMN, it was cold. Like dipping your balls into a bucket of ice-cold water, only that horrible feeling of your balls leaping up into your stomach was all over, and I wanted to piss myself just for the memory of what it felt like to be warm.
It lasted a second, and then it was gone.
In its place, was a sensation like I’d just chewed the strongest winterfresh gum ever, coursing through my limbs. When I threw it back at her, I found out that, no, not all supers are immune to their own powers. She froze and then started to fall.
Meanwhile, clouds had formed around me, winds gusting and whistling, and I pushed myself on after Sacrada, who was whooping in a very uncharacteristic way, shouting about how awesome it was, what I’d just done.
If there was ever a panty dropping move for her, it seemed I’d just done it.
So we converged on the fortress, Sacrada throwing fire and chaos, me with my newfound ability to barrage them with ice spears and freezing gusts of wind. The first group of supers didn’t stand a chance, and when I saw Sakurai on the pedestal, Goros turning to make eye contact with me, I knew he had no intention of letting her live.
That’s why, with no thought my own safety and ignoring the fact that I could lose these powers at any moment, as soon as the effect of my sex-party boost wore off, I dove straight for him throwing a barrage of everything I had. Fire, ice, wind, storm clouds, and when he lifted his hands to end Sakurai, I was already there, slamming my fist into his arm with a green explosion of acid gas that left him stumbling back, coughing and growling in pain.
Ice spears surrounded him, some were broken apart by his lightning, but he was shivering, and I could tell I’d had an impact. He looked around, realizing we’d made it farther than he ever thought possible and that he’d suffered from hubris to the point that he had no guards.
It was him and me.
So he ran.
“Coward!” I shouted but hesitated. Sacrada flew up behind me and said, “Go, I’ll rescue my sister.”
With a nod of thanks, I flew after the motherfucker. He was charging down passages, filling his surroundings with that green lighting that sent walls and ceilings crumbling down on me, but my power from Navani still allowed me to throw up shields, so I was safe. At a hole in the floor, he leaped down, hit a passage two down, and rolled out of sight. I followed, throwing a blast of ice. An oomph sounded from below, and I imagined he’d slipped and fell, but by the time I was there, he had vanished.
The sounds of fighting nearby told me the others were still at it, but our victory here wouldn’t be as sweet if we didn’t catch Goros.
It was only when I attempted to fly another time that I realized my powers were fading. It wasn’t that I couldn’t fly, yet, but that it was more of a gentle shove than the catapult of power it had been moments before.
And then he was there, leering at me, and he struck—only, it wasn’t just him. Three supers appeared at his side, the Nihilists. At that moment all I could do was panic, and I felt my mind going black. One of the Nihilists threw out black shadows and hit me, and it was like I was somewhere else entirely. For that moment I was in a strange world, only it was the same one, and those Nihilists were tall, alien forms without robes or any blackness. We were in their world, and instead of controlling me, I had absorbed their power, gone over to their dimension.
They were looking at me ne
rvously, realizing that I shouldn’t be there, confused. For my part, I wasn’t going to sit around doing nothing. It was take the hill or die trying for me. Can’t shoot it, how’s the saying go? Shoot it some more, or something like that.
So I tried powers. Nothing. I tried my blaster—it wasn’t there… I was nude! Apparently Lamb, or her essence-enhanced biotech suit, couldn’t travel over to their dimension with me. Oh, well, I’d do this the old-fashioned way. Fight naked, like the gods of Ancient Greece. See, I studied military history, so I knew that much. Or at least, how the paintings liked to portray them.
Charging forward, dick swaying in the wind, I pulled back my fist, then let it fly.
BAM! The first of these creatures took it right in the face, his head spinning and his spine cracking. At least I was still me and could hit like a man. The other two pulled back in horror, totally confused about what was happening, and when I grabbed the next one and head-butted him, his head caved in, leaving him an instant corpse.
The third gave me one look and vanished.
Like that, I was back in my clothes, back in our dimension, staring at Goros. He looked back at me with wide eyes, a trembling lower lip.
“You… how…?” he asked. “Impossible!”
“Tell me who they are,” I demanded. “Or what.”
“There’s no way you saw them in their true form. I… I don’t understand.”
I stepped toward him, noticing a green spark come from my hand. It seemed I’d been hit by him during that encounter, and still had some of his power left.
“Last chance,” I said, grabbing hold of him and pulling back my fist. When he saw the sparks, he muttered something about giving his life for the cause and drew a blade from his belt. That, I couldn’t absorb. I could be impaled by it, yes, but no to absorbing its energy for my own benefit.
So I blasted him. Energy pulled from all around me, coursing through him, sending him flying back and against the wall. It continued to stream at him, slamming him over and over, but he shot back too, refusing to die so easily. Lines of green electricity were darting off, hitting walls, ceiling, and floor. With a thrust of my hands, I pulled harder, and the blast exploded, walls falling in, and the whole place caved in around us.
For a moment, I was pulled back into the other dimension, if that’s what it was, and there was Lamb, staring at me in confusion.
“You discovered it,” she said in awe. “None of us were able, but you… discovered it.”
“I’m not following,” I said. A glance down showed I was floating, nude again, and she was actually there, in the flesh.
“I crossed over,” she said. “It was part of the sacrifice, but not the others. We didn’t know I’d end up here, all we know is that the invaders, Ranger and his forces—this is where they get their real energy. And they have a fleet, too, whoever these creatures are. We were unable to harm them in our dimension, but here… maybe.”
“Where are you?” I asked.
Her eyes roamed over me, and she smiled. “You’ll do well, on your mission. And when it’s over, maybe you can come find me?”
She started to fade, or so I thought at first, but then realized I was fading. “Lamb! Where?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I spotted you the first time, was able to pull you back… but I think it’s used the last of my reserves. At the ship, hurry. I might be gone before you return, stuck here forever unless you can find me.”
“How?” I shouted. “How?!”
But no answer came.
I wasn’t there anymore, but thrust through the air, flying. No, falling! I was above the collapsed fortress, the jagged, broken rocks threatening to kill me when I landed. Sacrada swooped in, snatching me up, and she held me tight, not from behind, but in an embrace. We spun in the air, her wings flapping, and then she tilted her head, looked at me with those big, golden eyes, and said, “Thank you.”
With that, she kissed me. Her lips were like honey if it were alive, like melted brown sugar. Every moment with my lips pressed against hers was a lifetime of bliss so that when she pulled her lips away, I felt lost without them.
“My sister is safe,” she said. “I owe that to you.”
“And… Goros?” I asked, turning to look down at the fallen fortress.
“Navani was scanning and hasn’t seen any sign of him. You were gone too, for a few minutes. I was looking for you, I couldn’t accept it. And then suddenly you were there, falling from the sky.” She gave me a curious look. “Care to tell me about it?”
“Maybe later,” I said. “I’m still trying to understand it myself.”
She nodded, then flew us to the ground where Navani, Threed, and Sakurai waited.
We had just landed, when Goros pushed his way out of the fallen stones, glaring at me, screaming. “I know, master. It won’t happen. He won’t destroy everything we’ve built. You can count on me…”
He came at me, that knife still clutched in his hand. The others moved to interfere, but I held up a hand.
“No, I’m taking care of this asshole my way. The Marine Corps way.”
He came at me with the knife in a straight thrust, and my old MCMAP training kicked in. I stepped into it, hitting the inside of his wrist with one hand and the outside with the other so that the blade went flying. Next, I wrapped his arm up and around, putting him in an armbar.
“Surrender,” I said.
“Go eat shit,” he spat out, pulling his own arm out of its socket as he swung at me with his other hand.
This time I simply stepped back and gave him a roundhouse kick to the face, and as he was already bent over, I barely had to lift my leg past hip level to do so. It sent him sprawling onto his back, and before he could get up I had him in a chokehold, using his cloak like a gi to choke one side of his neck, my knuckles pressed against the other.
“For the last time,” I said, but he was already trying to strike me, so I leaned in and applied pressure, not letting go until he stopped flailing about.
“Is he… dead?” Navani asked.
“Unconscious, but he’ll have a hell of a headache when he wakes,” I said. “We’re going to want to take him prisoner and get whatever intel we can. He knows something, related to the ones you called the Nihilists.
They all looked at me with confusion, all but Nivani. She had a knowing look in her eyes and nodded.
“We have a holding cell,” she said. “It can at least last until we find an allied post to leave him in a brig somewhere. He’ll talk, or he’ll rot. Well, either way, he’ll probably rot.”
“Good,” I said, and then walked over to Sakurai. “We never had a chance to really get to know each other. I’m Drew.”
She looked at me with dazed eyes and then fainted. Sacrada caught her, holding her close.
“She needs rest,” Sacrada said. “Let’s get her to the ship.”
“Lamb,” Navani said. Nothing happened. “Lamb, please bring the ship.”
Again, no response. My mind flashed back to the image of Lamb in the other dimension, and what she’d said.
“Lamb might not be able to respond,” I said, really not wanting to explain how I knew this.
“I’m… still here…” A faint voice said, and then the ship arrived, flying low. “Hurry.”
We all shared a look of confusion, then did our best to quickly board the ship.
Once we were on board, we made our way to the deck, and I called, “Lamb?”
Her voice replied, though her image didn’t show. “I’m too weak,” she said. “It’s time… My essence will remain, in a sense. You will have the A.I. for the ship, the best A.I. out there, and you can refer to her as Lamb. In a way, it is sort of me. Likewise the suits. They’ll still work as they have. But… it’s my time.”
“You never answered my question,” I said.
Everyone looked at me with confusion.
“The Citadel,” Lamb said. “The only answer I have is that, somehow, the power of the citadel might
be the answer.”
Navani nodded and told the others we’d explain when the time was right.
“I have good news, though,” Lamb said. “Check the images, you’ll see. For now… farewell.”
“Goodbye, Lamb,” I said, and the others gave their farewells, also.
Navani stepped up to the control panel and pulled up the images. There was my brother, holding hands with some women and jumping into what looked like a black hole. Only, there seemed to be people there, a city even. There was another image, one of the ship exploding, and another… of a woman in blue, staring out from a window. In the window, I could see the reflection of the exploding spaceship.
“A shuttle,” Navani said. “She made it. Our sister.”
“And my brother?” I asked.
“Quite possibly in the same place we’ll find Lamb,” Navani said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “It’s all guesswork from here, but… we’ll find him. And her. We’ll make this right.”
I put my hand on hers and looked around at the women with me. Strong, powerful, damn fine women. I couldn’t ask for a better team.
20
Once the initial shock of the battle passed, and as we flew away from that planet to begin the next stage of our journey, we gathered in the mess hall. The ship sailed through space as we discussed the adventure, took a moment of silence for Lamb and the other Elders, and then ate a celebratory feast for the victory over Goros.
He hadn’t given us anything to go on regarding the Nihilists and the other dimension yet, but Navani assured me she had her ways. I was famished and stuffed food into my face. Everyone appeared to be enjoying themselves, but Navani seemed lost in the stars.
“Ranger is still out there,” she said, noticing my questioning look.
I nodded in understanding. “That, and now we know there’s more to him than we thought.”
“Even the Elders who sacrificed themselves, Xin and the others… they didn’t know about this other realm or dimension. Whatever’s going on here, I’d say it’s going to blow our minds.”
