The Burning One had little interest in subtlety. A wide circle of snow melted around it as it walked down the empty road, evaporating into steam in seconds from the heat radiating off of the eight-foot-tall hulk of molten iron.
Two red-hot circles on the surface of the monstrosity’s ‘head’ scanned the notice on an old highway sign that proclaimed the region to be under the control of the Servants of Reckoning. Talons of steel emerged from the bulky fingers of the right hand, raking across the spray-painted metal rectangle. The aluminum liquefied in an instant and dripped onto the dry dirt beneath it, forming a dozen new hissing columns of steam.
Hearing far more powerful than any natural animal focused itself to laser precision, picking out the whirr of rotors and roar of engines miles away. The Burning One’s pace quickened, breaking into an impossibly fast sprint.
The outlying suburbs and two blocks of the town’s inner urban sprawl, roughly five and a half miles, were torn through in about three minutes, leaving a thin trail of smashed wood and concrete in the Burning One’s wake. It silently scanned the streets of the dead city. Abandoned cars were pushed to the side of the road. The Servants were here.
Legs of iron planted themselves in the damp tarmac, spreading out like the base of two trees. The frozen earth pulsed with energy as the Burning One searched for any sign of heat nearby.
Its sensing was interrupted by the sound of a squadron of fighter jets roaring overhead. The Burning One barely had time to pull itself out of the road before the first salvo of the Servants’ assault landed.
Heat-seeking missiles struck the road around the Burning One. Dirty yellow gas erupted from the canisters within the missiles, blanketing the nearest dozen city blocks around the approaching Huntsmen’s quarry.
The last of the jets dropped a fridge-sized metal rectangle from its underside, which plummeted onto the balcony of an apartment half a block away from the Burning One, vanishing into the yellow miasma. A dozen hatches opened on the dark green surface of the device, revealing an array of monstrously large speakers.
A deafening squeal rocked through half the city, blaring out from the enormous speaker system. The Burning One put its hands over where its ears would be on its boiling-hot armored mound of a head. Struggling to focus through the noise, it leapt fifty feet into the air onto the side of a derelict clock tower, the tallest building it could see through the haze of gas, and clambered to the top, leaving a trail of molten brick in its wake.
The gas was slightly thinner this high up, but the piercing white noise was no quieter. The Burning One clung to the top of the clock tower, scanning the almost pitch-black horizon for what it knew would be the next phase of the assault. It found nothing.
The fighter jets unleashed another volley of guided missiles on their second pass overhead, unseen and unheard by the Burning One. One of the missiles struck the mass of glowing metal in the back, its payload of anti-tank explosives hurling the Burning One from the expanding cloud of rubble that had once been the top half of the clock tower.
The Burning One fell back into the depths of the gas cloud, the rear half of its metal shell blasted from its back. The remaining sections of liquid metal tightened around the Burning One’s frame, preventing any of the gas from making its way underneath.
The Burning One staggered towards a car by the side of the road and sank a fist into the rust-covered hood making the entire car begin to glow red and droop like melting chocolate. The gas was beginning to be whipped into a familiar vortex of chaotic motion, so the Burning One worked fast. A stream of metal was pulled from the car and ran up the Burning One’s arm and shoulder before finally coalescing onto its back and closing the armor’s interior from the world.
While the Burning One worked, it heard the white noise shut off, revealing the sound of dozens of rotors spinning all around it. Massive twin-rotor Chinooks had surrounded it on all sides, disgorging Huntsmen from large holes cut into their sides. Well over a hundred gas mask-clad hunters slid down ropes into the omnipresent gas, ready to confront the Burning One. Most carried RPGs and bandoliers of anti-tank grenades.
The Burning One stepped away from the cannibalized car and raised its newly-replenished arms, fingers sharpened into talons.
–
Mark heard the sound of helicopter rotors in the distance. Knowing his and his group’s luck, Torch had decided to fly up and finish them off in person. “Alright, we’ve run out of time.”
“Agreed,” said Quet. “Like we practiced?”
“Exactly,” replied Mark.
Quet nodded. She ripped the last page out of her spiral notebook, revealing that one side was covered top to bottom in a vague pattern of geometric, rectangular shapes. She placed the side of the page with writing against the lock of the door to the holding cell, then flicked the other side with her off hand.
The paper disintegrated in a flash of light and flame, heating the metal that it touched enough to make the lock (and a decent chunk of the rest of the door) melt onto the floor, where it cooled back down to room temperature in a little under the second.
Horan raised a fist and pointed it towards Quet. She blinked at the gesture. “Wh–? O–Oh, right.” She did her part of the fist pump.
Mark pushed what remained of the cell door open and stepped out. “I saw the guard guy put–”
“DeShawn,” corrected Horan.
“–Whatever, he put our stuff in the first door on the left from here. Let’s get it all and bounce.”
The room that had served as a vault for the trio’s ‘stuff’ was apparently an armory, though it had long since been picked clean of its original contents.
Mark found his gas mask, backpack, knife and chrome, rolling pin-shaped gun in one of the lockers, sticking all four in various places on his person. Quet found a foot locker full of her glyph-covered pebbles, then sighed with relief as she dumped the entire contents into her pockets, whispering promises to sort them back into place. Horan found an analog watch and a half-empty bottle of eyeliner, shrugged, and pocketed them so that they lay next to a single glyph-covered pebble.
Quet stepped away from the foot locker and took a deep breath. With a quiet fwip, she grew an extra foot in height and her eyes were engulfed with green light. She stretched her arms and sighed. “Man, staying human like that starts to feel really weird after a few days.” She glanced at Horan, who performed the same transformation as her. “You know what I’m talking about? That, like, pins-and-needles feeling in your head?”
Horan shrugged. “Guess I’m a little too inoculated for that, I spent most of my time as a human when I was a kid, so may–”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Something slammed into the wall from the outside in the room across the hall from them. Mark instantly tensed and hunkered down slightly. “…Maybe we can discuss your weird sensations when we’re a safe distance from the army of people with guns, yeah?”
“Sure, right, but…” Horan followed Mark out of the armory, but kept his eye trained on the room that the sound come from. “…what was that?”
“Again, worry about it later.” Mark pulled Horan towards the direction indicated by an emergency exit sign mounted on the wall, with Quet closely behind both of them.
After about thirty seconds of trying to locate the emergency exit while the sound of helicopters grew ever louder, the three were stopped in their tracks when the wall in front of them exploded inwards, showering the hallway in rubble.
Yellow gas swirled through the hole in the brickwork and rapidly approached the three. Before the first few wisps of gas could make contact, Horan quickly splayed his arms out and a wall of wind swept the gas back to a safe distance.
From somewhere outside, Mark heard the surprisingly distinct noise of a dozen grenades being detonated at once. “…I don’t think it’s Torch that’s been making all that noise.”
Horan swallowed and nodded. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that more gas was flowing in from broken windows, quickly blocking off all exits from the hallway that they were in. He spun around and twirled his hands, making the wall of wind wrap around and encase him, Mark and Quet in a dome of swirling air.
Through the yellow mist outside, Quet heard a fuel tank detonate and saw the indistinct silhouette of a flaming helicopter crashing into an office building. “Is… Is it worth a shot?”
Horan nodded. “We should go after her. Odds are, we won’t get another shot.
Mark noticed Quet and Horan look expectantly at him. He shrugged awkwardly and nodded at Horan. “She’s an idiot, but something’s gonna happen that’ll make us wish she was there. Besides, you’re our ride out of here, so I guess we go where you want. But we still need to be careful if we wanna try, it’s a warzone ou–”
A person-sized chunk of the road, which had seemingly been ripped out of the ground, sailed through the hole in the wall and smashed through the next three walls it made contact with. Horan struggled to maintain control of his wind-dome and Quet instinctively drew her hands up to her chest.
“…It’s a warzone out there,” finished Mark.
Quet peered through the wind-dome and the mist while the three of them slowly made their way towards the emergency exit once more, unwilling to chance the new opening in front of them. She looked at four finger-sized dents in the middle of the tarmac chunk’s flat side, arranged like the holes in a bowling ball. “It’s her, alright…”
–
The Burning One ran vertically up the side of a three-story apartment complex, leaving massive footprints of half-melted brickwork in its wake. The attack helicopter that had made the mistake of hovering directly above the complex attempted to fly out of the way, but a tree trunk-sized arm wrapped around its tail. In one swift movement, the helicopter was yanked out of place and thrown to the ground, erupting amongst a cluster of Huntsmen with a series of munitions detonations.
The Burning One landed back on the ground, cracking the pavement in a circle around it. Over the constant, swelling noise of more and more helicopters approaching from all sides, it heard dozens of feet pound against the ground as a dozen Huntsmen formed a blockade in front of it.
The moment the Burning One’s hulking silhouette appeared through the gas, the leading Huntsman in the impromptu firing line waved the order to fire. The four Huntsmen who possessed RPGs aimed over the heads of the seven Huntsmen who formed the front line of the formation, then all loosed their payloads on the silhouette at once. Four anti-tank warheads pierced through the gas at very nearly the speed of sound, all on a collision course towards their prey.
The Burning One sank into the ground, vanishing into the cracked tarmac as the warheads sailed over its head. A split second later, it pulled itself out of the ground among the Huntsmen and brought them all to the ground in a flurry of swipes of its monstrous, metallic arms.
The Burning One felt through the earth and tarmac, sensing mines being laid down on the road two blocks away. Another attempt at baiting it into exposing itself. It squeezed a fist, and the pavement underneath the mines heated up enough to trigger a premature detonation, taking half a dozen more Huntsmen with them.
A team of Huntsmen disembarked from a helicopter in front of the Burning One, carrying sniper rifles. Their satchels were marked to indicate explosive ammunition. The Burning One stared at the Huntsmen. Dozens of hands made from red-hot tarmac emerged from the ground beneath them, wrapped their hands around their ankles, and pulled them down into the pavement like it was quicksand.
The helicopter rose and tried to escape. The Burning One grabbed a motorcycle on the sidewalk and threw it. No more helicopter.
Footfalls against the ground a block away. More Huntsmen, repositioning. The Burning One felt the structure of the building next to the Huntsmen, melted a load-bearing section of wall. Fifty tons of brick fell on the Huntsmen.
A bullet winging the side of the Burning One’s molten head. It turned and saw a Huntsman pointing its smoking sidearm at it. A lunge, a swipe, and the Huntsman was dashed against a lamp post.
More Huntsmen around the corner. The Burning One ran straight through the building between it and them. The Huntsmen turned and faced it. Buckshot hitting its armor of liquid metal, falling to the ground. The Huntsmen stood resolute, ready to fire again. One readied a grenade.
The Burning One leapt at the formation. Most turned and ran when the first Huntsman was ripped in half. None made it far.
Rotors above. A helicopter preparing to drop a bomb. A lamp post ripped out of the ground and thrown upwards. Two halves of a helicopter, falling to the ground in flames.
Kill them.
An attempt at a mass assault. Dozens of Huntsmen forming up and preparing a unified volley. Flares launched into the sky, visible through the gas as a beacon for friend and foe alike. Bait.
Running and leaping over rooftops, approaching the nexus of prey. Helicopters attempting to blow it to the ground, firing missile after missile. Some smart pilots. Others who got in the way.
One final leap, soaring towards unprepared Servants. Landing in their midst.
It’s what you’re good for.
Muffled cries of surprise and terror.
Heat.
Shotgun blasts from all sides.
Metal.
Talons of molten steel, ripping through cloth and flesh.
Vengeance.
Explosions from grenades and rockets, ineffective against armor hardened by dozens of fearful gazes.
Blood.
Blood.
Left.
The Burning One looked to its left. Emerging from the depths of the yellow gas were three familiar figures encased in a dome of swirling, clear air. Aside from them and itself, they were alone in the intersection.
The sound of helicopter rotors was gone. The Forty-Ninth Search-and-Destroy cadre had withdrawn several minutes prior, the transport helicopters had simply not dared to attempt to evacuate the Huntsmen from the bloodbath that the Burning One had begun and ended.
The green-eyed one in the skirt stared at the massive figure of the Burning One, wincing from the heat radiating off of it. “…Waia?”
The metal shell around Waia sloughed off and pooled at her feet, hardening back into solid form and rooting Waia in place up to her knees.
The bags under Waia’s glowing orange eyes had begun to visibly darken. Strands of waist-length black hair were plastered across her sweat-covered face. At some point, a knife had punctured a hole in the shoulder of her jet-black leather jacket and the T-shirt underneath, though the skin seemed unmarred.
Waia stared silently at the three people in front of her for a long time. The three said nothing in turn. Mark stole a glance at what remained of several dozen Huntsmen scattered around them, only a few of which were visible through the gas outside Horan’s dome.
Eventually, Waia stepped out of the puddle of molten metal around her and slowly approached the three others. She noticed that a thin strand of linen was draped over her shoulder. She did not currently have the focus to make the decision to take it off.
Mark, Quet and Horan continued waiting for Waia to say something. After another while of her scanning the people in front of her, she finally managed to open her mouth and croak out a short sentence. “…Are you real?”