[Warbinger Returns Arc]

Chapter 06

The Blasted Road

With his Micro-Grenade Shotgun slung over his shoulder, Geoff pushed open the door to the roof. Bright early-morning light washed over him with a refreshing breeze. It carried that weird sour smell he kept picking up when anything from Oval was nearby.

His eyes adjusted to the light, and the sinister form of Warbinger tangled around the Unity Building came into view. The tear in the sky was gone. The pale silhouette of Oval was the only backdrop to Warbinger’s mass of nearly black tentacles. The persistent chittering in the air—Warbinger’s laughter—brought goosebumps to his skin. He tried to choke down his fear.

Lamet appeared from thin air next to him, falling out of nowhere and landing gracefully without a sound. When this was all done, he would have to ask her how she did that. The other purens were supporting the Presidential Pillars, and there were plenty more than the three he had met in the restroom below.

Lamet pulled her hair together and tied it into a loose bun. “He has seen us.” she said, her voice uneasy. Warbinger leaned off the building. His long human-like torso showed the clear outline of a rib cage beneath the dark flesh. Just above that rib cage a maw opened, revealing rows of teeth so black that Geoff realised the flesh of the monster was closer to purple. It bit the Unity Building with a slam of its face and tore a massive bite out of the side. Dust and rubble crashed into the street.

Geoff wondered how much damage the building could take before it fell. He hoped the unity it represented could endure at least as much.

“Run!” Lamet warned, sprinting across the rooftop. Geoff tore his attention away from the monster and followed her without hesitation.

The tentacles on Warbinger’s side rolled together into a sinewy limb that it used to reach out and grab one of the nearby buildings, while its maw morphed into a cone that slowly panned towards them.

“We are not fast enough.” Lamet said, sliding to a stop. “Stand behind me!” She held her hand up and braced herself as something shot out of Warbinger's slimy, protruding mouth and hurtled towards them like a row of bullets. The first mass of concrete collided with the stairwell that they'd taken to the roof, demolishing it and leaving only a collapsing hole where the door had been.

Geoff darted behind her and watched the second projectile strike before the dust had finished rising, obliterating an enormous air conditioning unit. More masses of concrete from the Unity Building carved open the mall rooftop in a path straight to them.

Lamet swung out her left leg and shifted her right leg back. She swung her arm, catching a corner of the building and deflecting it into the roof with a crash that knocked her off balance. She fell to her hands and knees. Another block was coming towards them. He aimed his shotgun and fired. It lobbed a grenade with a powerful thunk that forced his arm back and the concrete exploded into tiny shards that rained down harmlessly across the rooftop.

He followed her as she stood up and continued running. The final two projectiles flew overhead and missed the mall entirely. He tried not to think about what damage they would do wherever they landed.

The roof shook and Geoff couldn’t resist looking back. Everything from where they had stopped to where the stairwell had been was crumbling into a single massive hole.

“Can you fly?” Lamet asked.

“Wh–what?” he stammered.

She stopped near the edge of the roof where it overlooked a shorter building below, long and flat. In Warbinger’s direction. He came to an ungraceful stop beside her but she didn’t wait for a better answer or clarify her meaning. She took his elbow. One moment they were on the mall, then he briefly had the sensation of falling and they were landing gently on the next roof. She released his elbow as she continued to run.

Warbinger aimed his conical mouth up at something else and fired another mass of concrete with a loud squelch. It soared over the rooftops until it met a flash of light in the air and detonated, while the flash continued through, curving up at the tip of its path to strike the monster in its sinewy arm. The bang of Longhorn’s rifle followed a split second later. Blood and flesh exploded from the impact and painted the nearby buildings.

“As I said before,” Lamet shouted over her shoulder, “I do not expect such damage to last.” She stopped as the building ended and stepped onto the edge. Her hand stretched out to him impatiently.

Warbinger shrieked, a sound that shook the earth and blurred his vision. The air took on a rotted and sour taste. He endured it with a hand over his ear and kept running to catch up with Lamet. The quake knocked her off balance and she tumbled from the wall. Before he reached the edge he saw her appear suddenly on the other side as calmly as though she had just stepped across. Well, he thought, I guess I’m jumping. He sprinted straight to the edge and leaped.

His momentum carried him easily across the gap, but he still felt a bud of panic as the ground far below rushed by. He rolled as he landed and rose to his feet to find Lamet already sprinting away. He sighed, hoping he would get a moment to catch his breath. Their job was to approach Warbinger and hope they could hold its attention but Lamet was faster than him.

Having seen him make a rooftop leap alone, Lamet didn’t bother to wait at the end of the roof and simply popped across.

His radio buzzed in his bag—which had been emptied of almost everything else for portability—and he answered it without slowing down. “Are you close, Geoff?” Deilitus asked. There was pause as a rocket thrust through the air above, burning hotly towards the blasted arm of Warbinger.

Thin strands extended from the severed flesh on the adjacent building, seeking reunion with the torn shoulder that reached for it. Deilitus’s rocket struck the building and detonated in a white-hot blast that forced Geoff to turn his eyes away. Falling rubble loudly beat the surrounding buildings. Heavy clouds of smoke and dust partially obscured the monster, but it didn’t prevent Longhorn from finding her mark. Another one of her upward-curving Gazelle shots struck and sprayed black blood through the smoke.

Geoff leaped across the next gap between roofs.

“Julielle and Barker are half way with the armoured workshop.” Deilitus continued. “You and Lamet need to be able to draw its attention or Barker can’t deploy his Husky Tantrum safely.”

He couldn’t respond to Deilitus. The next roof was higher up and Lamet—by her absence—seemed confident that he would get up on his own. A flash whizzed by in his peripherals as he ran but his eyes were on the fire escape across the next gap. The bang of Longhorn’s gun followed.

Geoff jumped across to the fire escape and caught the side. His bag swung around, threatening his balance.

“Geoff?”came Deilitus’s voice through the radio.

He held the dark metal railing with one arm and grabbed his bag with the other to stop its motion. It was a quick climb up—today was making him glad he stayed in shape, even if it was really only for his wife’s sake these days. When he pulled himself over the edge to the roof he answered Deilitus’s call.

“We’re almost there.” he said. This roof was as flat and square as the rest and Lamet was already waiting for him at the other side. Over to his right he could make out the armoured workshop the size of a small house that Julielle used to put together various munitions on the field. It rolled slowly on tremendous treads.

“I can see—it’s coming!” he shouted into the microphone even as he let it go to dangle from its coiled cable.

A tentacle extended from the clouds of smoke and stretched across the city to engulf the workshop. The monster’s reach far exceeded what they’d thought, if it could grab them from ten blocks away. It pulled ineffectually at the workshop, labouring to drag it across the concrete.

Lamet extended her hand to him and he swung his own down. When their hands connected, the two of them appeared on a new rooftop where Warbinger’s pulsing limb hung just overhead and curled down to where the armoured workshop was immobilised in the street. As Geoff swung up the MGS, Deilitus emerged from an alley. Her headscarf now included a dark face covering that would shield her eyes from the sparks. Her rocket launcher hung over her back. In her hands was her custom Martyrsmith 200-round sparkling rocket minigun. That minigun had earned a name from the Resistance. A name she kept using affectionately. She could cut the goddamn moon in half with that thing.

Geoff bit his lip. “Deilitus will clear the workshop.” he told Lamet frantically. “We need to get out of here before she does.”

The SRM began to spin. The mechanical whirring sound pulled him into the past. His eyes still saw the woman in the street, but his ears heard the Battle for the Final Cross. He heard the bullets that filled the air in every direction, the screams of those too unlucky or unable to flee. And Deilitus was impossible to approach. He shook off the memory.

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She walked forward with confidence, her SRM whirring to life. She touched something on the side, and the sound became sharper, like a rapidly spinning saw blade. Sparks erupted from the sides in a great vertical whirl of lights before her.

“Don’t look,” he said. “Don’t look at it.” He faced the concrete rooftop, but he hoped Lamet was listening. The sight brought back memories of Deilitus wielding that weapon against the Resistance. With the sound and the sight, the image of the past was complete.

Images of how she calmly walked the streets, behind that whirling shower of sparks. She lit explosives from it and tossed them into nearby buildings. The Resistance had a rule that you never engaged Deilitus, not if she was wielding Moonbane.

Lamet pulled his arm and he stumbled back into the present. Before he could orient himself they were on a different rooftop. Now he could see the monstrous form of Warbinger to his right, much closer than he ever wanted to be. It was slowly making its way down the Unity Building while its arm stretched through the smoke.

A spread of rockets zipped through the air. Most of them planted themselves in Warbinger’s limb, leaving a wake of fluttering sparks in the air. The creature groaned with displeasure. Others skirted past and found the main body, while a remaining few spun out into the city or hit the Unity building. There was a quiet moment of panic before they all detonated at once. The air filled with flame and the monster reared back, roaring with agony. He slapped Lamet’s hand and they appeared somewhere at a safer range, but the view before him was fire and black spray, shrouded by billowing smoke and raining stone.

Then the fluttering sparks exploded and turned the air into an inferno that roasted the still-falling flesh and stone. Geoff and Lamet ducked away from the searing heat of the shockwave, unbearable even so many blocks away. There was a terrible finality to that weapon. The force of its blast put out or suffocated all flames, and burned every scrap of debris out of the air leaving it clear and quiet. Only a few pitiful wisps of smoke puffed out of the ruined buildings. There was nothing in the air but a weak wheeze from Warbinger.

The radio buzzed and Deilitus’s voice came through. “Wow,” she said in a shaky tone. Even she must have forgotten Moonbane’s power after so long.

Barker came on next. “The workshop is undamaged, thanks to whatever those purens did. It looked bad for a moment but I don’t think it actually touched us.”

“It feels like the surface of the sun in here…” Julielle complained. “I think we’ll actually roast alive. Thanks for having our back, Deilitus.”

“I’m almost in position with, uh… “ Toy Guy’s voice trailed off.

Lamet’s deep blue eyes gave him a look that was part fear and part determination. All they had to do was shoot. And keep shooting. He hefted his MGS. Another Martyrsmith weapon, and some powerful ammunition he stole from Julielle back in the day.

“Those wounds will not last, if the tales are written with truth.” Lamet said. He followed her eyes to the smouldering ruin that had been the monster’s limb.

Before Geoff could respond, the quiet whisper of Longhorn’s voice sounded from the radio. “Rhino.”

A projectile sailed through the air, its wake a rampaging wind that buffetted them to their knees. Warbinger’s head disappeared with a sound like a gong as the round struck its face, leaving a circular hole between the interloper’s shoulders.

Warbinger’s black grip clawed gashes in the tower as it lost purchase and slid down. The walls of the Unity Building crumbled and the monster plummeted to the ground. Geoff and Lamet travelled two more rooftops over for a better angle on the monster as it lay there wriggling like a mound of black squids piled as high as a five-storey building.

“The weapons of your people are obscene.” Lamet whimpered with trembling hands.

Geoff nodded agreement. The little he had seen of them a decade ago was too much. “Do they scare you as much as they scare me?” He kept his gun trained on Warbinger’s pile.

“Yes,” she admitted. “The worst part is that for as horrific as they are, they will still not be enough. You could wash Warbinger away in white flame so hot that not even ashes remained, and he would still regenerate.”

“You said that before.” Geoff frowned. “That’s why they brought Julielle’s ultimate weapon; it’ll do exactly what you said. We’ll see if it’s enough.” He still couldn’t believe they were considering that weapon now. He was grateful Rick wouldn’t have to see it.

Warbinger coiled its tentacles together. It’s squishy flesh tightened and a distinct arm formed amid the writhing mass. Fingers and a hand formed at the end, flat against the street. It began to push itself up. Geoff braced the barrel of his micro-grenade shotgun with a hand over the top and pulled the trigger. It made a clean thunk sound, deceptively quiet for how the barrel fought against his hand with recoil.

“Ah, the sound of freedom.” Geoff said, as he watched a round fly down the street and blast a bleeding hole in Warbinger’s new elbow. Its arm cracked and broke off. The monster slammed back to the ground, and for a moment it was silent except the thud of the severed forearm hitting the street.

Then the eyes opened and Geoff stumbled backward, feeling like he’d been struck. He had forgotten the eyes. There were too many to count, bright purple irises and dilated black pupils staring directly at him. Was it because he was so close? At least the plan was working, then.

“It is as we feared.” Lamet said. Geoff noticed she was beginning to breathe more heavily. She was feeling the toll of so much rapid movement. “Warbinger was at rest, likely tired after the effort of freeing himself. Now… now he is alert, and he longs to spread torment and suffering.”

Geoff pulled the trigger again. Then again. He fired his micro-grenades and counted twenty rounds. They blasted Warbinger’s eyes apart and sprayed black goo over the base of the Unity Building.

A dark tentacle rose into the air above the rising cloud of dust, ten storeys high. Lamet dashed in front of Geoff and swung her arm as the tentacle snapped to the ground like a whip and tore the building in half. Just centimetres to his right, everything was crushed to dust. The ground beneath him cracked and gave in to his weight. As he fell, they were suddenly standing on the street. Geoff flinched at Warbinger staring at them with glowing eyes from beyond the veil of dust.

He nodded to Lamet and they sprinted for an alley. Wherever you are, Rick, I hope you’re safer than I am. Geoff wasn’t eager to expose himself in the next street, but he had to. Keep it’s attention, those were his orders. He had Lamet to protect him and as soon as the Husky Tantrum was deployed, Julielle would help keep eyes off it with her armoured workshop.

He just hoped he’d still be alive.

As he ran into the street Lamet stayed between him and the monster. He could see her blue hair out of the corner of his eye but he was afraid to look that way and see Warbinger. Like some part of him believed that he was safe from it if he didn’t look.

A tentacle came down ahead of him and smashed the road to bits. He swung his shotgun up and fired two rounds into it, blowing chunks of flesh into the air with the debris. It came towards him with a swiftness he wouldn’t have bet on seeing from a creature that size. He dove to the street and rolled as it passed above him and demolished the vacant shops lining the road. Glass from the wide windows exploded into the street.

It pulsed and rippled as more snaking tendrils joined it. It formed into an enormous arm as it broke free of the rubble and scattered debris into the road. Geoff ran, but the hand came down on top of him. An invisible force conjured by Lamet halted it mere centimetres from his head, but Lamet stumbled as if she truly felt the blow. The force of the hand pushing on whatever magic Lamet cast caused the concrete beneath their feet to be pulverised into sand even as he watched.

The hand rose back into the air. There was no remaining sign of the damage his last two shots had done to it. It arched over into the next street and the sound of groaning wood and swishing leaves filled the air. The ground rumbled as it tore a tree out of the ground and hauled it over their heads. The wide blue-green canopy shrouded them in shade until the dark hand released the tree and it plummeted towards them. Lament’s hand shot straight upward and a blade of ice appeared to slice the tree in two. The halves crashed into the road just a metre from their feet.

Warbinger’s hand pulled back and reached up to the Unity Building. Its fingers crashed through the windows and curled shut as leverage to drag its entire form to its feet.

Geoff groaned. Warbinger stood enormously tall on two legs, over half the height of the Unity Building. The thing must have been twenty storeys tall or more. He was beginning to think it was getting larger. It flexed its two arms, testing the muscles it had formed. Its body closely resembled a human—or puren, he supposed. But it had eyes for skin, and its head was one massive eye with no neck covered in long flicking tendrils that resembled hair. That eye faced him. Most of them did, but some were distracted by something else.

He heard the sound of it first. A long howl that slowly rose in pitch. The sound echoed through the streets and for a moment Geoff actually believed they might win. He fired another six shots. Standing up, Warbinger was barely in range, but they arced down into its legs and punched them full of holes that knocked it off balance. The monster’s colossal hand tore apart the Unity’s walls as it scrambled for balance.

Barker’s voice came through the radio as the loud howl in the distance reached its proper pitch. “Husky Tantrum is a go. Keep that thing off of me alright?”

“That’s why we’re here.” Deilitus said.

“Rhino.” Longhorn warned quietly.

Geoff walked closer. His gun thunked as he loosed two more rounds. Warbinger’s shin exploded and it fell halfway to the street before the massive eye spun around to glare at him. All at once the leg regenerated like a thousand snakes coiling together and the body snapped back up. Every eye regarded him with a cold stare. He will regenerate from any wound, Lamet had said. He cannot be killed. Geoff’s heart pounded.

Another of Longhorn’s rhino shots destroyed its head before it could turn its eyes to see it coming, filling the streets with a stampeding gust and leaving a gaping hole between its shoulders. Geoff took a few more steps, Lamet at his side shielding them from the spray of black blood with her magic. Six more shots into Warbinger’s legs brought it to its knees. The flesh where its head had been tore and the body dangled in frayed halves. It vibrated as if trying uselessly to scream.

Finally the high pitched yowls came, following dazzling white streaks through the air. They embedded themselves into Warbingers body and ripped him to tiny bits in a storm of explosions that seemed to never end. Lamet took them back to the rooftops, clear of the rising dust clouds. She was breathing raggedly now. These spells were wearing her down.

The Unity Building succumbed to its damage and collapsed, bending a third of the way up and crumbling like a dry sandcastle. Any noise it made was drowned out by the thousand rounds of the Husky Tantrum. Barker refused to let up; he fired every round into the obscuring dust. Deilitus filled the cloud with sparkling fire from her Moonbane for good measure. Geoff fired the last six shots from his magazine, and Lamet had to protect them again as the inferno engulfed every street nearby, by taking them farther away.

“I can’t see what you guys did up there but, uh…” Toy Guy sounded nervous through the radio. “If it doesn't work, the Final Cross is armed. But please don’t blow me up.”

The black silhouette of Warbinger’s humanoid form rose again within the veil of dust and ash. Geoff swallowed his spit as tears formed in his eyes. All the deaths ten years ago, the destruction of Northwest Hometoll City… They fought the horrible Battle for the Final Cross… all to avoid anyone setting off the damn thing. And now they would have to use it.

Live on, Rick, I don’t think I’m walking out of this one.