Sara took up a position on the shaped wall. She held her blaster in her hand. She planned to put as many red rods as she could in anything that got close to the makeshift bunker. Nick stood to her right, rifle barrel poking over the wall. He peered through the scope at the enemy occasionally to see what was going on.

“They’re working up the nerve to come in and get us,” said Nick. “They’re keeping pace with the opening from what I can tell.”

“Probably waiting on something they think can take us out, something bigger than what we have already dealt with,” said Sara.

“That’s fine,” said Nick. “Delay works for us. As long as they don’t attack, we can keep sending people across the line.”

Sara nodded. She looked around. They were colorful group standing their grim vigil.

Nasser and Sheira stood at the back, waiting to command something into being. They talked in whispers, maybe discussing if they could find each other when they went back to the living world.

Wayne and Bob had taken a spot near the central wall where the stone had been forced to join. The goal was to help repel boarders if they got close enough to try to climb the stone.

Tyler and Tosh had taken a spot on the other side. They would be facing anything smart enough to just get in the way as the bump of stone swung around in its orbit. Ryan stood with them, checking his knife as he waited.

Seek was helping the freelancers who couldn’t fight, or didn’t have the right abilities, or both, over the line into the Tower’s domain. Blobs of light signaled that some of their army of misfits were going home.

Cameron and Dis, and more that Sara didn’t know had places on what could be called gunner’s seats. Their job was to pick off any of the enemy in the distance. She knew that Cameron was just as good a shot as their leader, and didn’t doubt Dis could hit anything standing still.

Once the enemy got too close, they would have to withdraw to the mouth of the opening to keep up the fight. Bob, or Sheira, would close the stone up behind them as the group retreated.

The statue of Superman stood in the center of the group. He scanned the distance, frowning.

“They’re on the move,” said Nick. “Everybody get ready.”

He waved his hand in a circle to signal his people to pull their weapons to ready, and take aim. The clacking of machining work drifted to Sara as she leveled the blaster at the blocks of buildings across from the spinning wall.

Anything coming across that open space deserved the lighting of fire they got.

“Contact!,” shouted Tyler. “They’re trying to block our path.”

“Light them up,” called Nick. “We can’t let them get close enough to overrun us.”

Tracers, and energy fire, from the freelancers reached out and touched the horde rushing along the wall. The gate slid toward them so they didn’t have to rush that fast. The wave of bodies blew apart under the combined attack.

“They’re chasing us, Nick,” said Sara. She fired her blaster at some of the smaller ones.

“Of course, they are,” said Nick. He started shooting at targets rushing in from the air. “They’re trying to pincer us. We’re essentially stationary.”

“We’re moving,” said Sara.

“We’re moving in a giant circle,” said Nick. He paused to blast a roach/rat/imp

combination in the face. “Take some, and go home to your mother! Like I was saying, we’re moving in a giant circle. All they have to do is wait for us to hit their blockade. But they also want to come in from behind and try to split our forces.”

Sara used the pig to slice across the front line. She didn’t know how many she killed, but one ran away on fire. It exploded in a blast of ichor across the line a few seconds later.

Superman flew out and stopped something that looked like a plane and a pteradon at the same time. He shoved it into the horde at full power. That disrupted the lines long enough for the shooters to take a break.

“Hey, guys,” said an unfamiliar voice from inside the bunker. “Seek, said to tell you that we’ve pushed through most of the wounded. All that is left are nonshooters, and noncombat powers.”

“Thanks,” said Nick. “Tell them to hurry up. I don’t know how long we’re going to be able to hold this line.”

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“On it,” said the messenger.

“Incoming!,” shouted someone. A ball of fire dropped down from the city.

Nick looked through his scope. He made a face.

“Shoot where I shoot!,” he ordered.

All the riflemen and blasters dumped firepower on a roof three blocks in. Sara didn’t know what she was using the pig on, but just followed everyone else’s example. An explosion lit the perpetual night. It looked like the building blew apart, but she wasn’t sure.

Superman blew the fire ball out and caught the chunk of rock that remained. He flung it back at the front lines.

Concentrated fire ate at the rock around the defenders. Someone on the dark side had decided to move their own riflemen up to deal with their enemy. One beam punched through Sara and dropped her to the ground. She sat and waited for the dog to do its job, and get her back in the fight.

Nasser raised his hands. He said something. A ring of glowing blades formed between the bunker and the Dark. He waited for the inevitable as the Dark fired at the defenders again.

The beams hit the center of ring. Dragon fire erupted from the ring, reaching for the attackers. The reflected attacks also touched others close to the blasters. Holes in the horde’s lines opened up to be filled by more of the monsters.

Monsters actually reached the bunker and started trying to climb up the wall to get at the front line. Tosh and Wayne started going to work then. They had waited patiently for this. No matter how much the others were doing, face to face fighting was always bound to happen just because of the numbers involved.

Dead bodies dropped off the bunker. Some had broken bones like twisted necks. Some were just splashes of ichor blown back on their fellow boarders by a huge fist. Then spears jumped out of the rock and stabbed through some of the raiders before retracting and letting the bodies drop in front of the rushing bump on the spinning wall.

Sara used her laser eyes close up as she holstered the blaster. The next phase of the fight would require her sword. She pulled the blade as she looked at her targets and set them on fire.

“Get ready to fall back!,” ordered Nick. “Get ready to blow the outer covering!”

The riflemen and Nasser and Sheira backed away from the combat. That left the rearguard to deal with the monsters trying to crawl over, or dig through, the protective wall. Sara provided cover for Nick as he shot without aiming. Finally only Sara, Wayne, Tosh, the Superman statue, and Bob remained in front of the hole in the wall.

“Blow the covering!,” shouted Nick. He was halfway to the second position inside the inner wall now.

Bob grabbed every individual atom of the bunker’s walls. He formed the wall into millions of stationary bullets. Then he pushed out, accelerating those bullets to the limit of his power. That was enough to clear the space around the opening.

“It’s too bad we can’t just close this up,” he said. “That would save us some time.”

“We’re leaving it for them to defend from other freelancers,” reminded Wayne.

“Better start heading back before they try to rush again.”

“At least they can’t shoot at us unless they’re right in front of us now,” said Bob. He glided along the floor to where the second squad had formed up with the riflemen as their backup.

Sara nodded at the destruction they had caused. She bet no one had done what they had. The Dark had always had the numbers. They had never run into an army of freelancers that could bulldoze them out of the way.

Sara touched the Superman on the arm to attract his attention. Wayne and Tosh watched the massive door, and moved back as they moved back.

“I don’t know if you’ll still be moving around after I’m gone,” said Sara. “I wanted you to have this.”

She gave him the rat. He looked down on it with a frown.

“Other freelancers are going to need help if they make it this far,” said Sara. “This is what I used to bring you to life. It makes statues alive. If I take it across the line, I think you will be a statue again, but this is a job that I think you would be good at for as long as you can do it. And when you get tired of it, you can use the rat to become a statue again.”

“This is a big job,” said the statue. “It’s a lot of work. I think you’re right. I think this is a job for Superman.”

Sara smiled.

“Thanks, Sara,” said Superman, putting the rat up his sleeve. “Good luck getting home.”

“We just have to hold until the others are through,” said Sara. “We can do that.”

They walked past the second squad. She didn’t know them. Nick had sorted them out based on their weapons. He lined them up with an eye on full coverage. Nasser and the first squad stood ready behind them.

“This has been something,” said Wayne. “I never thought the end of my adventure would be like this.”

“You didn’t?,” asked Sara.

“I thought I would be sneaking across the line from the way things had gone before I met you,” said Wayne. “Boy, I was wrong.”

“Thanks for your help,” said Sara. “It feels good to know I did something great for once.”

“You won’t remember this on the other side,” said Wayne. “No one does according to the doctors.”

“That’s fine,” said Sara. “No one remembers everything.”

“Here they come!,” shouted Nick. “Ready!”

The engines of the Second Squad’s weapons spun up. The other end of the tunnel filled with Dark monsters. The relentless things surged forward.

Nick raised his own rifle to a ready position.

When the Dark reached the halfway point between the second position and the hole in the wall, the individuals had become a wave with pinpoints of red light inside it.

“Fire!,” shouted Nick.

The Second Squad filled the tunnel with the outpouring of their weapons. Blue ichor and screams answered the firestorm as the gunners moved their long guns back and forth like fire hoses.

Nick waited to shoot. He shook his head after ten seconds. He raised a hand to tell the gunners to seize fire. They wouldn’t be able to hear him over their weapons churning the air into smoke.

“Slow withdraw down to the third position,” said Nick. “We’ll wait for them to come at us there.”

The two squads backed away from the opening, covering each other as one group moved, then the other. Sara and Wayne stayed near the front in case they were needed.

The statue of Superman took flight and soared out of the tunnel.

“Where’s he going?,” asked Tyler.

“He’s staying behind to help people if the rat doesn’t cut off when I leave,” said Sara. “Hopefully, he’ll be able to help others make it to a gate. The Dark isn’t going to stop just because we set some of it on fire.”

“I wish we could set it all on fire,” said Tyler.