Talon offered a weak smile as a gesture of thanks. Once Gunsmith left the cafeteria to complete his part of the mission, Talon faced the large hole Cache and the Codex had created.
“You’re gonna say what I don’t want you to say, aren’t you?” asked Ink.
Talon took a deep breath and her wings sprouted. “Let’s go, we’ve got a job to do.”
“Friggin’ called it…”
***
Shift ran into the workshop where she saw Cassie frantically banging away on her keyboard. She walked up to the young genius, looking over her shoulder at the screen. There were multiple camera feeds of the battle raging, with Chronos and Cache joined by Talon and Ink in their fight against the Codex.
“How’d it get loose?” asked Shift.
“We don’t know,” said Cassie. “Maybe if we survive this, we can answer that question.”
“Cassie!”
Shift and Cassie both turned as Gunsmith entered the room, carrying Sharkskin in his arms. Shift ran over to Gunsmith and he gently laid her husband on the ground. She rubbed the fin-like protrusion on the top of his head.
“What happened to him?”
“The Codex.” Gunsmith approached Cassie. “We need to evacuate the Icarus. Notify your safehouses, tell them they’re going to be expecting company. Once you figure out which ones can take people, you program those coordinates into the jump-ships.”
“On it.”
Gunsmith let Cassie get to work on her mission and he returned to Sharkskin and Shift, kneeling beside them. Shift’s yellow eyes were glassy and when she blinked, tears started to roll down her cheeks.
“For some reason, I feel like this is all my fault,” she said.
“Don’t be insane.” Gunsmith placed a comforting hand on her back. “There’s nothing you could’ve done. The Codex is one tough customer, okay?”
She sniffed and nodded. “Right. So what do we know about it? Can we stop it?”
Gunsmith sighed. “I have no earthly idea.”
“But we have to try.” Shift was about to stand when Gunsmith took hold of her arm. She looked down at him, confused. “What?”
“There’s something else. When I was fighting it, the Codex took on Zenith’s form.”
Shift’s expression became slack. “You don’t think he’s still in there, do you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was just a reflex or maybe it was a trick to throw me off my game.”
“Or maybe he really is alive in there.”
Gunsmith grabbed her by the shoulders. “We can’t take that risk. Maybe that thing was once our friend, but it’s not anymore. We have to be hard as stone, understand? No matter what it looks like, no matter what it does, you treat it as a hostile. Just because it can look like Zenith doesn’t mean it is Zenith.”
Shift gave a sigh. “You don’t think it’s possible, do you?”
“I wish Zenith still was alive somewhere inside the Codex. But even if that were true, the stakes are too great. Now if you can’t face that thing, then I’ll understand. You stay here, take care of your husband, and help Cassie with the evacuation.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m gonna make sure the jump-ships are prepped and ready to go, then I’ll broadcast some messages on Cerberus frequencies to keep them distracted from our people.”
Gunsmith stood and gave both Shift and Sharkskin a final look and a smile. Then he left the workshop. Shift focused on her husband, trying to wake him. Despite what Gunsmith told her, she still got the sense that she was responsible for Koji’s current state. She couldn’t explain how or why. All she knew was that she was part of the reason to share the blame.
“H-hey…”
The voice was weak, almost like a whisper. Shift turned to her husband and saw his eyes slowly opening. He looked up at her and smiled a wide, toothy grin. Or as much of one as he could manage.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Like I kidnapped Liam Neeson’s daughter.”
Shift snickered and helped him sit up. “You know that reference is horribly out of date.”
“What do you want from me, I just got my ass kicked.” He groaned as he moved, testing out his limbs to make sure they weren’t broken. “So what now? Did I miss it all?”
“The others are fighting the Codex.”
“Then come on, we gotta get back into it!”
“Wait.” Shift held his arm and explained what Gunsmith told her about Zenith. Once she finished, she added, “If we join this fight, we could be a liability to the rest of the team.”
“So we do nothing? Hell with that.” Sharkskin struggled to stand. “This is our home, we gotta do whatever’s necessary to defend it. I don’t care if it’s Cerberus or the Red Fist or Kotharians. We’re part of this.”
Shift looked at Cassie, who was still busy with the communications. Then back at her husband. “I know what you want to do. But this evacuation’s important. Those people are counting on us to get them to safety.”
He grumbled. “Yeah, you’re right. Okay, we get them to safety, then we get back to the fight.”
She smiled. “Deal.”
CHAPTER 8
By the time Pulse and the Analyst had reached the site of the battle in the training room, virtually the entire team had joined in. Cache had taken the lead on the offensive. With his energy absorption, he was invulnerable to a lot of the Codex’s attacks and was able to redirect that energy in a variety of ways.
The Codex’s arm morphed into a tentacle that wrapped around Cache’s body. Cache pulled at it with glowing hands, trying to use a combination of increasing his strength and blasting it with his power reserves. Neither appeared to be very effective against the Codex.
Talon circled around behind the Codex and flew up, dragging her claws against its back. The wounds she inflicted quickly reformed, almost as if they had never been there to begin with. A rock-like armor appeared around the Codex’s body and he spun, slamming Cache into Talon and throwing them both against the wall.
On the ground, Tuwa channeled emerald waves in the Codex’s direction. She focused her vibrations, trying to tear the Codex in two. It was capable of resistance and a mouth formed on its featureless face, a mouth from which it issued a powerful blast of sonic energy. One that forced Tuwa to her knees, grasping at her ears in pain.
Ethereal, green creatures pounced on the Codex. Ink summoned every animal she had tattooed on her body, sending them after the killing machine. The Codex responded in kind, its body morphing into some sort of hybrid of multiple animals. Something that was like a cross between a wolf and a shark and it went to work on Ink’s creation.
With each one the Codex slew, Ink felt a stabbing pain run through her body. Like a part of her was torn away. She was having trouble keeping up the assault, but it did provide her teammates the opportunity to move in for another attack.
Chronos hovered on his glider, unleashing energy blasts from his staff. And now the Analyst joined the fight as well. His body transformed into the monster that was the result of Azarov’s experiments on the Khagan. His body grew in size and his nails transformed into long, razor-sharp claws that he used to try and impale the Codex.
But the Codex had more than a few tricks up its sleeve. It grappled with the Analyst, and once its hands were in place, the Analyst felt his entire body burning up—literally.
Flames completely engulfed the human/special hybrid. The Analyst screamed as he fell to his knees, the fire covering every inch of him. The Codex turned from the Analyst, ready for another challenge.
The Analyst suddenly found difficulty breathing but as a result, so did the flames. The lack of oxygen quickly killed them off and the Analyst lay on the ground—alive, although badly burned. He managed to weakly look up and saw a middle-aged woman dressed from head to toe in white.
“Z-Zephyr?”
“Thank your friend, Cassie,” said Zephyr. “Fortunately, she didn’t agree with your conclusion th
at I wouldn’t want to see this thing destroyed.”
Zephyr generated a wind pocket beneath her legs and flew at the Codex, hurling projectiles made of compressed air at it. They impaled the Codex, and drew its attention towards her. The Codex snapped its arm out and a tentacle wrapped around Zephyr’s body. She tried to push against it, but then felt a weakness overcome her. As the Analyst was powerless to watch, Zephyr aged rapidly right before his eyes, quickly becoming an old woman. Then even older until she was near-death.
The Codex dropped her as he was torn in half. Pulse had finally joined in the fight, using his control over electromagnetic waves to strike back at the robot. Every time the Codex attempted to take aim at Pulse, its appendages were thrown off, causing its blasts to fire wildly around the training room.
Even split down the center, the Codex still fought back with all its might. A black portal formed beneath the Codex and it fell right through it. Pulse jumped in the portal after, using his powers to latch onto the Codex.
They emerged from the other end of the portal, crashing down into the hangar where jump-ships were taking off all around them and Gunsmith, Sharkskin, and Shift were helping people escape. Pulse looked up and saw the portal close, then felt a hard, rock-covered fist strike his chest and send him flying across the room, his back slamming against the wall.
With Pulse’s control disrupted, the Codex was able to knit its body back together and it looked around the hangar at the Icarus passengers rushing to escape. Both its arms morphed into large cannons and it took aim at one of the jump-ships.
Blasts from Gunsmith’s weapons threw off the Codex’s aim. It turned its attention to Vanguard’s sole human member. Then it was struck from the side by Sharkskin, who circled around and snuck up on him.
The Codex landed near a small, one-man ship. His arms snaked out, wrapping around the craft and raising it above his head. The Codex hurled it at the three Vanguardians.
“Oh god…this isn’t gonna be good…” Shift took a deep breath and her body suddenly grew nearly three times as large. She was able to catch the plane in her hands and prevent it from harming anyone else in the hangar. But even at this size, the craft’s weight was heavy and she had to struggle to lower it without dropping it.
Sharkskin and Gunsmith charged at the Codex, giving Shift the time she needed to recover. She rarely tried using her powers in a fashion like that, due to the immense strain it put on her body. Even now, every inch of her was screaming out in pain. Shift couldn’t keep it going for much longer and her body forced her to change, shrinking down back to her default form. She felt dizzy and her vision was blurred, as if she was about to pass out.
She looked across the room and saw Pulse lying on the ground. Shift tried to stand and began to stumble, so she stayed low to the ground as she moved across, occasionally relying on her hands to aid her as she crossed the distance to him.
“You still alive?” she asked.
Pulse coughed, then nodded. “Think it cracked a rib. But yeah, I’ll survive. Y’know, assuming we don’t all die today.”
“You created the EMP at the Garden, do you think that will work again?”
“Khagan said it wouldn’t work on this guy. And even if it did, it’d also mean shutting down the Icarus. We’d drop like a rock.”
“What if we distracted him? Got him out of the Icarus? Then would it work?” Shift looked at the open hangar doors.
Pulse followed her gaze and was starting to guess at her plan. He looked back at her. “If it even works, you know it’ll probably only stun him. He’d come back, even more pissed off than before.”
“That’s a risk we have to take.” Shift stood, bracing a hand against the wall to aid her. Once she was on her feet, she reached a hand for Pulse and helped him up.
“What’s this distraction you’ve got planned?” he asked.
“I’m gonna talk to him. Then you pull him out of the hangar and once you’re at a safe distance, do your thing.”
“I usually need some time to recover after creating an EMP. How are you gonna stop me from falling to my death?”
“Don’t worry about that. Now get ready.”
Pulse nodded and Shift approached the Codex. He’d just thrown Sharkskin into Gunsmith and now stalked closer to Vanguard’s metamorph. The face morphed, forming a hole with a glowing, red light building in the center. But Shift didn’t look bothered by it in the least, didn’t even try to defend herself. Instead, she just looked up at the creature and said one word.
“Zenith.”
The power signature started to die down. The Codex’s face returned to his default setting and he tilted his head to the side, studying the special. Zenith…the name was familiar. And this woman—this girl—she was familiar, too.
Memories suddenly flashed. Of flight training sessions. Of educational lessons. He knew her as Erin. She was his friend. She was his—
She was his target.
The energy built up again and the Codex was ready to strike when Shift called out, “Now!”
Pulse flew past the Codex, using his powers to pull the being with him. They shot out of the hangar doors like a rocket, flying out into the middle of the sky. Shift ran after them, wings sprouting from her back and pursuing them.
Pulse’s magnetic tether yanked the Codex closer. He resisted the pull, Pulse could already sense that. But he had to get it out far enough, then release the energy he’d been building up while Shift distracted the Codex.
They reached what Pulse thought—or hoped—was a minimum safe distance. He pulled himself closer to the Codex and placed his hands on his enemy’s head. Pulse’s eyes crackled with raw, electromagnetic energy. He screamed as the energy extended outwards, creating a sphere of light around them.
And then with a massive flash, the power faded. Pulse released his grip on the Codex and he fell like a rock straight into the ocean below. Pulse hung in the air for another moment before he began to plummet himself. He saw the ocean growing closer and closer…
He stopped falling. There was a pull and he started to rise. Pulse looked over his shoulder to see that Shift had grabbed ahold of him, morphing a set of wings to enable her to catch him before he fell. The two of them flew back towards the Icarus.
CHAPTER 9
The Analyst played back the footage from Vanguard’s battle with the Codex, watching it for the umpteenth time, fast-forwarding through. The Codex went through several levels, destroying a lot in the process.
“Do we have any casualties?” he asked.
“Zephyr,” said Tuwa. “Whatever the Codex did to her…that rapid aging thing…it killed her.”
“And our people?”
“The evacuation was successful, at least,” said Jim. “Cassie and the others all managed to escape. We should start hearing from safehouses within the hour or so.”
“Should we call them back?” asked Reina.
“Not yet,” said the Analyst. “The Codex is still out there and while Mr. Sawyer’s EMP proved to be effective, it was still only a temporary measure. The Codex will be back and it’s safe to assume he has ways of tracking the Icarus now that he’s been onboard.”
“We should strike first,” said Koji. “He fell in the ocean, I can dive in after him.”
“What about Zenith?” asked Vicky. “You saw what happened on that footage. He stopped when Mom said Zenith’s name. Maybe he is still alive, somewhere inside.”
“No, it won’t work again,” said Erin.
“But—”
“It was a remnant, but really nothing more than that,” said Erin. “I was able to distract him temporarily but you saw it yourself. After that moment, he was ready to kill me again.”
“So we can’t reason with this thing, we can’t destroy it, it can adapt to almost anything we throw at it, and it probably knows how to find us,” said Glenn. “Do the words ‘smoke ’em if you got ’em’ mean anything to you all?”
“We’re not giving up.” Alex leaned against the wall
, his arms folded. “We still got Lucent fitted with an inhibitor, maybe we can use him against the Codex?”
“I think that’s a bad idea,” said Jim. “Lucent’s too unpredictable.”
Alex jerked a thumb in Glenn’s direction. “The new guy can control him, though.”
“Yeah, and it almost killed me when I tried,” said Glenn.
“What about the Analyst’s psychic powers?” asked Alex.
“The same issue I have with reading Mr. Sawyer’s mind also applies to Mr. Gibson. It’s why we had to keep him locked up all those years ago when the Khagan used him to power the teleforce cannon.”
“There’s also the chance we might need Pulse to power another EMP. Can’t do that while he’s also controlling Lucent,” said Jim.
“So what do we do?” asked Reina. “We can’t kill him, we can’t shut him down, how are we supposed to stop this thing?”
“Tachyons.”
All the heads in the room turned towards Chronos. He’d been standing in a corner of the room, quietly listening as everyone discussed the options. And when he said that one word, the room became as silent as the grave.
“The Khagan was right,” Chronos added. “The tachyons are the only way to get rid of the Codex.”
“Hold on.” Tuwa rose from her seat. “Cassie told us what would happen if the Khagan’s crazy plan went through. We put our lives on the line to stop him. And now you want to do the exact same thing?”
Chronos shook his head. “No, not exactly the same thing. Look, the issue with the Khagan’s plan was he was going to use Lucent as the carrier for the tachyon generator. Have him absorb the particles and channel them into the Codex, right? But there’s no regulator that way, and it could lead to catastrophic results.”
“Right, the timequake,” said Koji. “So what do you suggest?”
“I can do it,” said Chronos. “I’ve incorporated the tachyon generator into my armor. With the chronal emitter, I can control the tachyons in such a way that it might be possible to trap the Codex in a temporal loop.”
Vanguard: Season Four: A Superhero Adventure Page 19
