Posted by spiffy presents a special tie-in to Messenger's epic: on July 22, 2001 at 18:14:48:
The Abandoned Legion: Giving Up
Blood doesn’t fall from the sky every day. It’s a little bit unnerving. Blood
isn’t a pleasant substance, even in small quantities. When it falls from the
sky, it’s everywhere. You can’t get away from it. Everywhere you turn,
everywhere you go, there’s blood.
The stench is indescribable. I’ve had a
fair amount of exposure to blood. When you punch someone in the face, the blood
from their broken nose almost unavoidably ends up on your knuckles. The metallic
odour sticks in your nose forever. This is infinitely worse. It doesn’t need to
linger in your nose, because every time you breathe in, you get a fresh whiff of
it. I have tissues shoved up both of my nostrils, just so I can breathe without
gagging. It helps a little bit. Now the world smells like dry, bloody
paper.
The stuff stains like hell, too. You need to really work at it to get
it out. With this much of it, pretty much everyone caught outside can write off
their clothes. Their hair is gonna be even worse. I wonder if there’ll be any
strain on the city water supply if every single citizen goes home and has an
hour-long shower at the same time.
I got lucky, kind of. I was in a bus stop
when the rain started. I say “kind of” because, despite the fact that I haven’t
actually been covered in blood, I’m surrounded by the stuff on all sides. The
clear plastic walls have gone red. It’s gross.
On the bright side, Blood
Services is having a field day. Apparently the stuff is human blood. Pure,
untainted. Type O, even. They’ve got sterilized containers in every open space
they can find, collecting the stuff. They won’t need to ask for donations for
years.
Of course, even as a bright side, that’s still not so hot. It means
that it’s not just blood falling from the sky. It’s human blood.
That’s
downright creepy.
There’re a few people in here with me. They’re staring at
my shield as if that’s the weird thing, not the bloody downpour outside.
They’re pretty sure they know who I am, but not sure enough to ask about it. I’m
happy to leave it that way. There’s a lady that was lucky enough to have an
umbrella. She’s clean and dry. I think her umbrella used to be blue, but it’s
hard to tell. She’s pretty and she’s scared. She needs a knight in shining
armour to come rescue her from this hell. If I see one, I’ll let him know.
My
bus comes, but I wave for it to keep going. I’m in no hurry to get home, and I
really don’t want to step outside, even for a few seconds. I’ve got a nice coat
on. Did I mention that blood stains?
It’s probably just as well that the
Volvo (sorry- Abandoned Mobile) got blown up. This’d be murder on the
paint.
“Has anybody got a cell?” I ask. They were already looking at me, but
now their eyes widen and they really start to look at me, like I’m a
person and not just some kind of exhibit. No one answers. I try again. “A cell
phone? Any of you?”
A middle-aged guy that’s starting to let his belly go
reaches into his jacket and pulls one out. He hands it to me with a sheepish
grin. I thank him and he keeps looking at me like he expects a superhero to say
something else, something more inspiring I guess. I turn away and dial.
“Lair
Legion headquarters. All of our phone lines are currently occupied. After the
tone, please state the nature of your emergency and we will respond at our
soonest convenience.”
I didn’t really expect them to answer. Everyone in
Parodiopolis probably had the same idea as me- call the heroes to figure out
what the hell is going on. Either that or Troia’s doing her nails and can’t be
bothered to pick up the phone.
I break the silence for a second time. “Has
anybody got a beer?” I was only partly joking. None of them laugh. They only
shake their heads slowly. I guess the smell is getting to them.
Outside, past
the sound of spattering blood, I vaguely hear heavy footsteps. More people
running for the shelter of the bus stop, probably. It’s pretty crowded already,
but we could make room. As long as they don’t touch me. Like I said, this is a
nice coat.
At least it’s not raining frogs this time. Those little bastards
hurt. And John liked them so much that we had to keep a few. Hope they’re
not cursed or anything.
I don’t notice that the running footsteps have
stopped, or that no newcomers have arrived in the shelter, until I hear a crash
and angry yelling coming from outside.
“Can I borrow this?” I ask, pointing
at the umbrella. The pretty lady nods her head and I poke mine out the door. A
stream of blood oozes down from the edge of the umbrella and makes a revolting
little ‘splat’ noise as it hits the ground. I look around. Off to the right,
there’s a mass of businessmen. Even though I can’t see their victim, I know what
they’re doing. Gang beatings are hard to disguise.
I lean back inside and
take off my coat, placing it carefully on top of my shield.
“I’ll be right
back,” I inform everybody. Carefully positioning myself underneath the umbrella,
I stride towards the angry mob. “Guys, just because the world’s gone psycho
doesn’t mean that you have to.” They don’t listen. Angry mobs tend to be fairly
focussed. I grab the nearest man’s shoulder and roughly yank him backwards. He
swings blindly at me with his briefcase. I tear it from his grasp and swing my
arm. It strikes the side of his face, levelling him. I discard the briefcase and
turn to the unconscious man’s buddies.
They’ve noticed me.
There’s only
ten left. This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.
One of them makes the
mistake of rushing me alone. I elbow him in the cheek then straighten my arm to
slam the back of my fist into the back of his head. The rest are smarter. All
nine of them come towards me at once. Note that I said smarter. Attacking
me in a group still isn’t that great of an idea.
One of them has a nice
looking suit on. If it wasn’t covered in blood, I might have even offered to buy
it from him. It used to be dark grey. I like it.
A fist pounds into my
stomach. Another flies past my ear as I duck to the side. A foot impacts on the
back of my knee. Now my adrenaline is really pumping.
The next thrown punch
ends up clasped in my free palm. I pull him forward and take him down with a
knee to the chin. He loses a tooth along with his consciousness. I can’t manage
to feel sorry for him. I reverse the momentum of my leg to thrust backwards,
catching another attacker in the gut with my heel. I spin around and hit him
again with the side of my foot, driving his doubled over body into the guy next
to him. I don’t pause. There’s no time to pause. Instead, I crouch down and
brace myself with one arm, whirling my body with two outstretched legs. Three
men fall. Their heads create a crimson splash on the pavement.
This leaves me
in an awkward position, unbalanced in an awkward crouch while still holding an
umbrella over my head. It’s time to be creative.
As yet another guy rushes
me, I grab his belt buckle and pull. He’s dragged to the ground and I burst into
the air. I throw the umbrella above me and catch the next man with two fists
before flipping over him, dropping feet-first onto the guy with the nice suit
and catching the umbrella as he smashed into the road.
This leaves one. I
smirk at him and smash his nose with my right fist. He looks kind of surprised
as he slumps over.
And then it’s over. I’m left standing awkwardly with an
umbrella, surrounded by motionless bodies and a whimpering victim. I step over
to him and offer him a hand. Then I notice the reason for their assault. The guy
was carrying a sign that read “The End is Here.”
“Next time you feel like
stating the obvious, do it in the comfort of your own home,” I advised him. He
nodded and stumbled over to the bus shelter, trying and failing to shield
himself from the bloody rain with his arms. I resign myself to dragging
unconscious bodies over to the nearby shops so that they’d be sheltered by the
overhangs. I didn’t want them to get bloodier than they already were.
When I
finally return to the bus shelter, nothing has changed. Everyone’s still looking
at me. I hand the umbrella back to the pretty lady.
“You’re… that Cap guy,
right?” she ventures. I hide a smile.
“Yeah, I’m that guy.”
I check myself
for blood. My shoes are ruined. The pants should probably go, too. My right palm
is completely covered. And there’s a little bit on my knuckles.
A lot of people consider blood to be the most essential part of human beings.
Blood is what sustains us. It gives us life. Without blood, not a single one of
us would be alive (except for maybe Pete- I don’t think he has blood anymore).
Basically, we are blood.
Living beings are truly blessed. We have
blood flowing through us, all day, every day. It should make us feel pretty
unique, huh?
Not anymore. It’s flowing pretty much everywhere. So much for
being unique.
There are riots taking place outside. There are swarms of
vermin everywhere, insects, rodents, supervillains. None of them are within
walking distance, though. And I have no car, and no flying sea monkey. So I’m
babysitting.
More accurately, Pete is babysitting. I’m watching TV while John
finds new and exciting ways to mess around with Pete’s body. Right now, he’s
pulling on his pinky. It’s stretched all the way from the kitchen to the doorway
of the TV room. I try not to notice, because it’s kind of spooky.
The news is
on. It always is during crises, and there’s a crisis pretty much every
afternoon. So the anchors get a lot of air time. A minute ago, they had an
expert talking about the source of the blood rain. An expert on what, I’m not
sure. There’s not exactly a field of scientific study on the subject. They’d be
better off calling Sorceress or one of her parents- they probably know what’s
going on.
That was a minute ago. Now they’ve got the good stuff. Real,
honest-to-goodness superheroes saving people the way they do best. No matter how
often they show our superheroic antics, they keep getting ratings. People can be
stupid.
Actually, what I just said isn’t true. People can be stupid, that’s
for sure. But it’s not our superheroic antics they like watching. It’s
theirs. That other team. The Lair Legion.
The news right now is
showing Fin Fang Foom swooping down on a mob of rioters. He’s in his true form,
a hugeass dragon. The mob suddenly feels less in the mood to riot and more in
the mood to move quietly to their homes. The hero flies off to another crisis.
No time for interviews, sorry. I’ve never actually had the opportunity to say
that. They never want to interview me. What I wouldn’t give for a simple
“Hunter Victorious! How do you feel about increasing mob activity in
GMY?”
Next up they have CrazySugarFreakBoy!, looking as cheerful and neon as
ever. His uniform seems to repel the blood. I should ask him where he got it and
if it comes in more conservative shades. He just finished wrapping up a stranded
Skree warrior, who had decided that the rain was a good cover for a killing
spree, in silly string and bops him in the face with a yo-yo for all of
America’s viewing audience to see. Then, with a friendly wave for the camera, he
bounds off to rescue more innocents in distress.
The next one really gets me.
Hatman and Sorceress working together to herd a crowd of people to shelter in
compliance with the Lair Legion’s order to clear the streets. She didn’t get any
press when she was on our team. All she had to do to get some was ditch us and
join them. Simple as that. I shut off the TV right after a sickeningly beautiful
shot of Whitney and her man clasping each other’s hands and rocketing off to the
next part of their assignment.
Why them and not us? What have they got that’s
so much more appealing than us?
I walk over to the window and in the time it
takes to cross the room, I have my answer.
They’re the best and the brightest
(and Nats- I’m not really sure how that happened) that the world has to offer.
They’re gods and mythological beasts and brilliant detectives and
straight-laced, clean-cut, all-American heroes. They’re everything that we
aren’t.
We’ve got Cap, a guy with a shield and chain mail who sits around and
watches TV for most of the day. We’ve got Cobra, whose trademark weapon is a
banana and who somehow still manages to pull off a terrifying image. There’s
Banjooooo, who would be a great addition to the team, publicity-wise, if he
didn’t spend half his time ruling that undersea kingdom of his. And… Pete. Right
now, a giggling five year old has both arms stuck up to the elbows in Pete’s
stomach. Enough said.
In other words, we have nothing. No heroes. No
equipment. No car. At least we have a headquarters. With a paint job, it would
even look kind of passable.
I stop thinking for a while and just stare out
the window. The lawn is red. I’m not actually sure if this will be good for the
grass or not. I’ll find out in a few days, if the world’s still around in a few
days.
Blood is falling from the sky. This is insane.
Blood is essential.
It’s the most crucial part of Man’s body. Man is blood.
It’s raining
men.
Hallelujah.
“Cobra! Oh my God! I’m your biggest fan!”
As if this day wasn’t shitty
enough already. My heel connects with another looter’s forehead, and he seems to
enjoy the experience a lot less than I do. Good. His two friends that are
rushing me from behind suddenly get much happier as a pair of syringes plunge
into their respective arms. They float to the floor with serene faces.
“Crap,
that was great! You didn’t even take a hit!”
A cheerleader is just what I
need. Off to the side, I can hear Banjooooo chuckling at my expense. I manage to
send a crippling glare in his direction as I twist my body to avoid a knife
thrust and send the attacker’s head through a computer screen.
These looters
are bloody stupid. They didn’t have a truck or a van, or even a freaking wagon.
If you’re going to rob a Radio Shack, at least do it when you can steal more
than one or two things. They’re so stupid, in fact, that between Banjooooo and I
we’ve managed to knock out or subdue at least a dozen of them in the past two
minutes. There’s only one guy left, but there’s a problem. He just pulled out a
gun, and he’s aiming it at me.
I could dodge it easily. I could fall
backwards, under the bullet, or dive towards him, letting the bullet fly past as
I tackle him to the ground. But my biggest fan, the cashier, is standing right
behind me. If I don’t take the bullet, he does. Banjooooo’s too far away to do
anything. My banana gun isn’t.
Before I finish the thought, it’s in my hand.
Before I’ve taken aim, the trigger is halfway pulled. The gun levels, the bullet
screams out, and it tears into the other shooter’s shoulder just as he pulls his
trigger. It throws his aim off, but not quite enough.
I don’t move as his
bullet rips into my left thigh, embedding itself in layers of muscle. I don’t
wince. I don’t scream. I shoot again, hitting the back of his right hand. The
gun falls as he shrieks. Banjooooo bashes him into a wall before I can get
another shot off. It’s just as well. This one was aimed at his heart, and sea
monkeys seem to have a problem with that kind of thing.
The cashier is
speechless as I turn to look at him. His nametag reads “Hi! My name is Laurence,
and I’d be glad to help you!” My leg screams at me with pain. I shut it
out.
“Secure these guys with anything you have handy then try to call the
police and an ambulance,” I instruct, then hoist myself up on the counter and
sit down heavily. A knife slides into my palm and I slice through the swiftly
reddening patch on the leg of my uniform. It peels back to reveal a wound,
pumping blood into the open air. It seems almost odd to see blood coming from a
body after watching it tumble from the sky for so long. I retrieve a pair of
tweezers from my pouch and plunge it past my skin, seeking out the metallic
intruder. Laurence gulps as he sees the shiny instrument disappear into my leg,
then quickly turns back to duct taping a looter’s wrists together.
With a
sharp yank, the bullet comes free. I wipe it off and slide it into another
pouch. It pings against the other projectiles in my collection, everything from
arrowheads to deactivated explosive darts. They only have two things in common-
they’re all offensive weapons, and I dug them all out of my own body.
“Do you
need any help with that?” Laurence offers as I dab my bloody thigh with
disinfectant. I give him a look and he doesn’t offer to help anymore. He just
watches. “Um…” I can practically see him gathering the courage to say whatever
he’s going to say next. “Can I, uh, have your autograph?”
That’s a new
one.
“What?” I grunt, momentarily pausing.
“I’m seriously your biggest
fan. I have all your newspaper clippings and news footage and t-shirts…” he says
all that in one breath and has to stop while he takes another. I have t-shirts?
“Oh my God! Look at this!” His hands dart to his crotch and he begins to unzip
his fly.
“Here we go,” I sigh as he pulls his pants down to his knees. Then
the breath catches in my throat. His boxers are covered with pictures of me,
leaping forward with my banana gun in hand.
“So, uh… can I have your
autograph?” A moment later he pulls his pants up, looking a bit
embarrassed.
“Where the hell did you get those?” I pull some gauze from my
belt and begin wrapping it tightly around my thigh.
“The Cobra fan club
printed these off for all the members,” he announced proudly, then frowned. “I
hope you don’t mind.”
I don’t give any sign that I heard him. Cobra fan
club?
“We have over fifty members, and it’s growing all the time. Oh! They’ll
kill me if I don’t ask this… are you leader of the Abandoned Legion?”
I raise
an eyebrow at him. “I don’t think so,” I reply. He seems taken
aback.
“What?”
“We don’t have a leader, as far as I know.”
“Oh…” He
stands silently for a while as I finish tending to my leg, and still says
nothing as I gingerly step to the floor. The leg supports me. Banjooooo gives me
a concerned look and I gesture that I’m ready to leave. We head to the door, but
then I pause and turn.
“Have you got a pen?” I ask, almost casually. He hands
me one in a split second, along with a piece of note paper. I scribble my name
on it. Cobra. It looks strange. I don’t think I’ve ever signed anything with my
code name before.
“Thank you so much! Everyone’s gonna be so jealous!”
I
nod, and then add, “By the way, lose the boxers.”
“Aw, how come?” he asks
plaintively.
“There’s better ways to get my face close to your dick.”
If
my hair swishes tantalizingly against my shoulders as I turn around, and if my
hips sway a bit as I walk away, it’s completely accidental.
“That was mean,”
Banjooooo informs me as we fly off.
“It really was,” I grin. I’m still
grinning when there’s a shattering roar beneath us and the building we just left
vanishes in a fiery explosion.
The reports just started, and I find myself praying that it’s some kind of
sci-fi movie promotion. A gimmick or a hoax, anything at all as long as it’s not
really happening.
The city is exploding. Houses, buildings, entire city
blocks are being engulfed in flame. People are dying. Hundreds, if not
thousands, of people. And I’m helpless to stop it. Even if we still had a car,
even if we had high-profile members, we’d still be helpless. How do you stop
something like this? Random explosions, all over the city. Emergency services
are paralysed. There’s nothing anyone can do.
I put the television on mute so
that John won’t hear what’s going on. The less he knows, the better. And maybe,
if Pete keeps him entertained, he won’t even notice the distant boom of people
exploding. Innocent people. Maybe his mother.
Some hero you are, Hunter
Victorious. The biggest crisis this city has ever known and you can’t do a thing
about it.
I walk to the window and look out, seeking GothaMetropolans with my
eyes. I can imagine the panic they’re feeling. Will it be this building next?
Will it be me? Will it be my house and my family? My friends? Is it safer on the
street, or should I stay here?
A lot of them are probably praying for the
heroes to save them, for Donar to swoop down and smite the villain responsible,
or for Dancer to snatch them from an edifice about to explode. But the heroes
have their hands full. And I don’t know how to help.
I feel a rumble, and it
seems much more intense than the others I’ve felt up to this point. A whine
starts to build. I glance around, wondering from what direction it’s
coming.
Then I realise it’s coming from directly under my feet. Then I
realise that the whole fire station is shaking.
Suddenly it hits me. Just
because this is a hero headquarters, just because we’re supposed to be the
saviours doesn’t mean that we’re safe. This realisation hits just before the
floorboards in the hall are thrown into the air and pillars of fire spurt out
from underneath.
“Pete!” I scream, and whatever else I was going to say is
lost in the overpowering roar that surrounds us. I see Pete wrapping himself in
a gluey dome around the terrified John before he’s lost from my sight behind a
wall of flame. The kitchen explodes in an inferno that reaches up through the
ceiling, destroying the bedrooms above. I watch in horrified, frozen fascination
as the path of destruction speeds towards me. The wall disintegrates into shards
of wood and plaster. The couch bursts and flaming stuffing flies in all
directions. The television screen shatters. I leap out the window, sending glass
hurtling to the ground in front of me, even as the floor underneath my feet
erupts. I hit the lawn at a sprint, but the explosion travels faster than
anything I can muster. I’m lifted from the ground and tossed angrily into the
air. Something strikes my head and the sights and sounds of chaos abruptly
disappear.
I wake up a while later and find that moving hurts like hell. I
look across my body and notice that a bone is sticking out of my leg. I decide
not to look at my body anymore. The alternate view is almost as bad, though. Our
headquarters wasn’t the biggest or the most impressive or even the cleanest, but
it was ours. And I guess it still is, what’s left of it. We’re the proud owners
of a charred half-block. Included in the package are massive chunks of debris,
half of a refrigerator, and what looks suspiciously like my bed sticking
vertically out of the ground. No equipment, no car… and, suddenly, no HQ.
I
can’t stop tears from flowing down my cheeks, whether from sorrow or pain I’m
not sure.
I don’t know how long it is that I lie there, listening to
explosions as they rock the landscape. They stop eventually, and there are a few
moments of silence. I dare to think that it’s over, that the crisis has ended
and that the ambulance will come to help me soon. And then, as a crimson clawed
hand bursts through the ground next to me, I discover that it’s far from
over.
The skies erupt with a brilliant army of angelic figures. The ground
erupts with a grotesque army of demons. And in the middle stands the remains of
GothaMetropolis York. A worm-like demon looms over me, grinning down at me with
what passes for a mouth. I close my eyes and hope that it kills me rather than
sucking my soul away or something even worse.
When I don’t feel teeth
puncturing my throat or tendrils tearing through my heart, I get confused and
open my eyes. The worm demon lies in two pieces nearby at the feet of an
armoured man. His armour makes him look strangely like an ant.
I grin weakly
at the irony. The Insectoids have come to my rescue.
I can’t hear anything
past the roar of demons and angels and explosions and screams, but I can imagine
the shriek unleashed by one of the beasts as a termite drenches it with acid and
its features melt into nothingness. To my right, an ant is decapitated by a
wickedly barbed tail, whose owner is fatally shocked by a bee. The sky is filled
with angels smiting demons and being smote in return. It’s an almost biblical
scene, and I would think I was dreaming if not for the occasional Insectoid fly,
coordinating the battle from far above. Nearby, a spider wraps his metallic
tendrils around the body of a devilish canine and squeezes. The demon dies and
the spider follows when another creature tears his body in half. The bottom half
lands across my chest.
A frog hops over the dead man’s legs and settles
itself underneath my chin. I’m almost positive that I’m not dreaming.
I
suddenly remember that I haven’t seen Pete since the explosion. My head twists
frantically from side to side. I focus gratefully on a big ball of whiteness
contrasting against the blood-red battlefield. A demon bats playfully at the
ball of glue that is Pete with deadly, foot-long claws. A termite darts towards
him, dissolving the claws with a burst of acid then aiming the spray at the
thing’s face. Pete is safe.
Directly to my side stands an enormous, reptilian
figure. He stands ten feet tall with arms and legs the width of telephone poles.
His tail whips from side to side in glee as he slowly crushes the life out of a
struggling ant. Before I know what I’m doing, my injured body is edging towards
the demon and my arm is reaching out. I grab its tail and concentrate with all
my might. The tail slowly becomes transparent, an effect that travels across the
demon’s body. I’ve transmutated its skin into glass. The ant flexes and the
demon shatters, releasing a torrent of greyish innards that spatter all over the
reddened ground. The Insectoid waves at me in gratitude. I respond by blacking
out.
It’s not your fault.
I know.
You couldn’t have known the building would
explode.
I know!
You can’t save everyone.
I
know!!
It’s not your fault.
The demon invasion was almost a
welcome distraction. My biggest fan… Laurence… might be dead, but a lot of them
would be joining him. The first one to burst out of the ground by my feet got a
nasty surprise when my gun greeted it. It only took three bullets to kill the
bastard. I’ve run out of bullets since then, but that won’t stop me.
I
discovered the hard way that my poisons don’t work on demonic bodies when I
inserted a syringe and was rewarded with a backhand that sent me flying. The
satanic creature looked confused as it examined the foreign object sticking out
of its arm, but tore it out after a moment and came after me. It looked even
more confused when a knife slid through its throat and another into its
chest.
Half a block away, Banjooooo cuts a swath through the demon horde with
his enormous feet. His skin has grown diamond-hard scales against which claws
and talons spark, but do little else. He doesn’t seem to have the same qualms
about killing demons as he does about humans. Thank God.
Enormous arms wrap
around me from behind, pinning mine to my sides. I turn my head to see a horned
face grimacing at me, its mouth opening wide to reveal a barbed tongue. It
releases one of my arms to grasp the top of my head and twists it so that I’m
facing forward. I feel the tongue dart out and begin caressing my ear. Either it
wants to suck my brain out, or this is foreplay. I find myself hoping for the
former.
It made a mistake in releasing my arm. A quick movement slices the
tongue free of the demon’s body, and another slams the knife deep in its face. A
second attacker is moving towards me. I duck down and flip the first’s body over
my head. Its horns penetrate deep into its fellow’s chest.
There’s a flash
behind me and I spin around. A blackened demon lays smoking on the ground. As an
angel soars over my head, I realise that I was just saved by a lightening bolt.
I never believed in angels. It’s a good thing I was wrong.
The fact that I
didn’t notice an attacker sneaking up on me makes me take notice of what’s going
on for the first time. Thousands upon thousands of demons are doing battle with
thousands upon thousands of angels. And I have the utter gall to consider myself
a worthy adversary in this war. Me- a woman armed with an empty gun, useless
syringes, some knives and some acrobatic abilities. As distasteful as it is, a
retreat is in order.
I spot a nearby alleyway that seems to be empty. I jump,
planting both knives in the back of a startled demon and flipping myself over
it. The blades pull loose with a “schluk” and I introduce myself to another
hell-beast with both feet, knocking it flat. A third falls with my knife planted
in its eye, and I roll into the shadows of the alley. I snap a new knife free of
my belt to replace the one I’d abandoned and crouch, waiting for a new attack
that never comes. The demons seem quite content to battle their arch-nemeses
from heaven rather than go looking for more trouble.
I allow myself a deep
breath. A few moments’ recuperation and I should be able to pick off demons on
the fringe of the battleground.
A cry from deeper within the alley makes me
spin around. I make out the silhouette of a huge figure with horns jutting out
in all directions plunging a claw downwards. There’s a wet sound. There aren’t
any more cries.
I step closer and the demon turns to welcome me, exposing its
victim. Splayed out on the ground is an average-looking woman, perhaps twenty
years old. She’s unremarkable except for the gory hole in her chest where her
heart used to be. The demon grins toothily at me. His lips are stained red. He
says a few words in a raspy language and takes a step in my direction. I take
another look at the murdered innocent and lose all semblance of
control.
Without realising it, I’m sprinting down the alley. My feet leave
the ground and my hand is raised high above my head. I kick out with my good
leg, pounding his head to the side. A spray of spittle gushes from his lips as
my knife plunges into his neck.
His hand shoots out and claws tear into my
stomach. I laugh and pierce the other side of his neck with the second blade. He
roars and flings me away with impossibly powerful arms. I slide across the
pavement and grunt in pain as the skin on my back burns with friction. I get up,
wipe blood from my brow, and smile.
The last thing the demon expected was for
me to charge him a second time. I plant both knives in the center of his chest
and wrench them downwards. I’m covered in a shower of blood as I pound the
knives into his body again and again.
Banjooooo finds me five minutes later,
panting as I stand wearily over the corpse. “Cobra, are you okay? Is that your
blood?” He stops dead as he sees the body of the woman. “Oh God…” Then I move
aside to let him see my handiwork on the demon. He rushes away to
vomit.
Violence makes monsters of us all. The trick is to unleash that
monster on the right victim.
The bus shelter had been serving us well as a defensive position until a
demonic hand shattered the wall and, incidentally, the skull of one of the men I
was trying to protect. It was about then that I decided we had to find a new
hideout.
And that’s why we’re sprinting across the street instead of sitting
quietly at the bus stop, minding our own business and occasionally ogling the
pretty lady when we think she’s not looking.
A man falls, losing his footing
on the sticky dried blood that covers the road. Instantly a demon has pounced on
him, tearing through his jacket careless of the man’s screams. I slam my shield
into the thing’s head and something snaps. I guess it’s the neck, or whatever
passes for a neck. Regardless, it falls and doesn’t get up. I help the man to
his feet and we catch up with the rest of the group, who has reached the
opposite sidewalk and is being attacked by an enormous insect. I never get a
break.
I grab onto one of the monstrosity’s pincers and pull myself up onto
its back, where I busily chop at its wings with the edge of my shield. It
unleashes an unholy shriek and whips its back end upwards, flipping me to the
pavement. Its claws snap down at me, missing my face by inches as I edge quickly
backwards. I bump against a large chunk of concrete that had been thrown from
the explosion of a building a few blocks away. It’s a good size.
A few
moments later, the bug is squashed against the pavement with a large chunk of
concrete on its back.
I kick down the door to a deli and herd them all in-
six in total. It’s only when I get inside that I realise kicking the door down
may not have been the best way to hide ourselves. I prop it up in the doorway as
well as I can. There’re already some people inside, mostly employees with the
occasional cowering passer-by. I pull out my wallet and slap a five down on the
counter.
“Have you got anything that doesn’t need cooking?”
The man behind
the desk fetches a package of beef jerky and hands it to me. I chew on it. I
notice a bunch of other people following my lead. It’s amazing how hungry you
can get after a couple of hours of pure terror.
I settle down at the front of
the store. A demon’s head bounces off the window in front of me, creating a tiny
crack. Its headless body is draped over a fire hydrant a few feet away. The view
from this deli is just delightful.
My fingers thoughtlessly tap against the
metal of my shield while I watch the action intently. There’s no clear winner
emerging. For every demon crushed by the hooves of the angels’ mounts, one of
the pure white warriors is dragged to the ground and torn to bloody pieces.
There’s a clear loser, however. The city. The buildings that are still standing
are barely doing so. Entire walls are missing from where demons and angels have
been thrown through them. At least half the windows in sight are shattered. Even
the undamaged edifices are completely drenched with blood. And the street won’t
be fit for driving for several months.
A small demon with toothed mouths on
the palms of its hands knocks down the door, probably smelling the fresh human
meat inside. I step in front of it, but the little bugger moves faster than I
thought possible. It grabs on to my hip and the fangs bite deep into my flesh. I
force my shield down on its head and push it to the floor. I kept pushing until
I hear a crack and the demon stops struggling. I kick the body out into the
street, where it’s immediately set upon by fellow demons that strip the meat
from its bones, licking the blood clean from those.
My hip hurts. But I’ll
live.
A hand touches my shoulder. I don’t turn to look. Any lapse in
concentration could send demonic claws through my spine. “Are you alright?” a
woman’s voice asks. It’s the pretty lady. She sounds concerned. She should be
worrying about her own safety, not mine.
“I’ll be fine. Stay at the back,” I
say sharply.
“Because it’s much safer there.” Her tone is intensely
sarcastic. “I’ve seen these things smash through walls. What’s stopping them
from doing the same here?”
“Me,” I say with a lot more confidence than I
thought I could muster.
She doesn’t say anything to that for a few seconds.
“Thank you,” she finally murmurs. I’m kind of taken off guard.
“Don’t be
thanking me. Thank me when you’re still alive, after this is all over.”
“I
might be dead then. I’d rather thank you when I can. There probably won’t be
much chance for me to do that when I’m dead, or when you’re dead.”
“I’m just
doing my job.”
“If your job is to try to save my life, then I think I’m
entitled to thank you for doing that. Just accept it.”
I’m quiet for a while.
“You’re welcome,” I finally murmur.
“See, that wasn’t so hard.”
“The guy
that died back in the bus shelter probably isn’t quite so thankful,” I add
bitterly.
“That isn’t your fault,” she chastises me, sounding almost angry.
“And if you hadn’t been there, we’d all be dead too. All of us, not just ‘the
guy.’”
I shrug. “Maybe. Give it time, you might all be dead yet. Excuse me
for a sec.” I spin towards the approaching demon with my right leg outstretched.
The impact snaps its neck. I put the door back up.
“How do you do that?” she
asks.
“Years of practice.”
“Not the kick, I don’t care how you do the
kick. But aren’t you tired? How do you keep this pace up?”
“Because if I
don’t, I die. And you die. And those people back there, they die too.” I sound
frustrated, or angry, or maybe just exhausted. “Plus, if I give up, the bad guy-
whoever’s causing this-… they win. And someone that hurts this many people
doesn’t deserve to win.”
“And who does deserve to win?”
“You do,” I
reply instantly. “The people behind us do. And the guy that died in the bus
shelter. All you people that don’t go looking for trouble.” There’s a scream
outside. Someone’s yelling for help. I move towards the door. “Hey, there’s some
trouble. I’m gonna go see if I can track it down.”
“Wait!” Her voice is
panicked. “What happens if a monster comes in here?”
I pause, then turn to
her and hand her my shield. “Hit it with this. And if you lose this, hit it with
something else. And if that doesn’t work, run the hell away. But whatever you
do, don’t give up.”
I walk away from the beautiful woman and into the streets
overrun with monstrosities. I hope somebody fixes this mess before my stupidity
kills me.