“I’ll murder you!!!” Ember screeched, shaking Alexa. A hundred off-color ghostly arms reached out towards the villain.
“Stop. Cooperate. NOW.” The Equalizer pressed her railgun against Ember’s head, her finger on the trigger.
Ember growled as a response, her avatars retreating.
“I do believe it's in our best interests to work together, hero.” Alexa said. “How would you get back if you kill me, hrmmmm?”
“Fffffffinggg fineeee!” Martin’s sister hissed, letting go of Alexa. A perimeter of ghosts formed a constantly moving circle, a river of green and blue flickers around the group of humans.
“That’s the spirit! You can always murderize me later! We’ll be bestest friends till then!” Alexa hugged Ember with half an arm, the other still handcuffed to the hero.
“Hey, Resonance. If the space elevators and the orbital rings fell from the sky, then how is the town of Saint Mary still intact?” Cottie asked, trying to distract the extremely agitated hero from Alexa’s antics.
“What? Uhm.” Ember looked at the Equalizer. “SCA-designed catastrophe-barrier, fusion-reactor powered shields activate in every town or city downtown with a big enough population during an emergency situation. We’re always ready for villains and their dumb-ass acid hail or piranha-tornado bullshit. The shields must have held while the world burned, but even they eventually failed from what I can see.
“Ah yes. A shield for every hero’s Earth-based residence. Gotta protect them precious heroes.” Alexa grinned.
“Alexa, would you do me a favor and please stop agitating my sister?” Martin said. “Guys, we have to move, NOW. I’ve blinded my shard, so it won’t report back.”
Ember looked at Martin. “You know things,” She stuttered. “How do you know all of these things? What shard? ...Wait. Your eyes are glowing silver… Are you awake?!”
Martin nodded back at her.
"WHAT?!" Ember gasped.
“You wanted this did you not?” Martin asked.
“I.. uh…” She uttered. “I wanted you to be a hero, sure... but not now! You’re too young, damn it!”
“Complain about it bloody later, okay?” Martin growled. “Take the handcuffs off Alexa, it will interfere with our escape!”
Ember blinked.
“For fuck's sake! COTTIE! Shoot the handcuffs! NOW!” Martin snapped at the Equalizer. Unlike the others he could feel the swiftly approaching doom coming from the sky.
Cottie aimed the railgun at the handcuffs and fired, shattering the links before Ember even made a move for the keys.
“Run! Run! NOW! OUT OF THE BUILDING!” Martin grabbed Alexa’s hand and pulled her towards the nearest hole in the wall that had the least skinwalkers present in the area.
“Aww! My little hero’s all grown up and bossing people around. How lovely!” Alexa smiled.
----------------------------------------
Just as the quartet of humans rushed out of the decrepit building, gargantuan limbs emerged from the storm clouds overhead, smashing into the remnants of the school, pulverizing the gymnasium in a detonation of ancient rubble, sending shrapnel fragments all around.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Several brick and steel pieces flew right into the group. They froze in mid air before they sliced through any of them, caught by several of Ember’s avatars. She paled as she saw the multi-elbowed arms through the eyes of her ghosts.
“What the fuck are those arm things?!” Ember cried, for the first time in her life truly afraid of death. “I can’t stop something that big with my avatars!”
“That’s the hands of the builders,” Martin said.
“They sure ain't doing no building right now. More... eehh… demolishers than anything,” Alexa added.
Cottie, switching something on her gun so that it wouldn't disrupt Ember’s avatars, turned to the side and fired Eva into the darkness. The railgun lit up the street ruins with a flash, cutting through a three-meter sized skinwalker that was in the process of advancing towards them. The beast toppled over, punched back by the supersonic bullet. It started to howl as it fell, despite not having a mouth, instead somehow rubbing together its joints to produce the horrid sound. Others joined in, announcing themselves.
“Shut up! Will you all shut up!” Martin yelled, realizing that even if he now knew what the skinwalkers were, he couldn’t do anything about them, couldn’t stop the tide of monsters heading towards them. His power was only able to control the little shard in his head, it didn't seem to apply to any of the other abominations. “We are not prey!”
Cottie fired again, flinging another skinwalker backwards.
“They’re coming! There’s too many of them and they won’t listen!” Martin turned to Alexa. “What do I do?!”
“Hrmm? Oh, I dunno.” Alexa shrugged.
“Come on! You always have an answer! You planned this all!”
“Did I, really?” Alexa bit her lip, seemingly pouting. “Give me like five minutes to think it over, k?”
“We don’t have five minutes! They’re coming!” Martin yelped, his voice drowned by Cottie’s repeating gunfire.
“Hrm. Promise to bring them a million cows wrapped up with nice red gift bows if they don’t slaughter us now?” Alexa suggested, not sounding too sure of her idea. “Maybe green bows? Ask them what their favorite color is!”
A ring of endless Ember-shaped ghosts rushed all around the four teenagers, looking like a half-sphere of constantly shifting aurora borealis. From the vantage point of the skinwalkers it looked like a sphere of brilliant light that was somehow constantly knocking them away, keeping them away from their prey.
Hero Resonance never had to push herself so much in her entire life. Two years as an Academy novitiate and a few months as a licensed hero did nothing to prepare her for this awful nightmare. Being an agent was about hiding in plain sight and infiltration, not about using brute strength to the point of exhaustion. She wasn’t a tank!
Sure, there were fighting simulations at the Hero Academy such as being shot by tennis balls, bullets and lasers from all directions but this… this was nothing like that. This was far more challenging than trying to stop incoming machine gun fire. These long-limbed monstrosities were seemingly invincible, varied in shape, speed, could stretch at will and just kept on increasing in numbers like cockroaches.
She might have done something more if she was dressed in her power armor, but she was wearing gym clothes of all the things! She expected to mentally dismantle a 14 year old supervillain with no known physical powers and possibly counsel or influence a retired super gym teacher to pull him out of whatever depression he was going through, not fight a thousand unkillable monsters amidst the post-apocalyptic ruins of Saint Mary!
The Equalizer’s terrifying gun punched holes in the monsters, but did not put them down. They simply shrugged, slowly stood up and attacked again, holes and all. It was as if these damned things had no blood, no vital organs to damage.
Ember was beginning to break down, she never had to face so many powerful enemies all at once, coming from every direction. Her power couldn't kill, couldn't end these monsters! She broke their limbs and they simply used other limbs or switched joints! These things felt no pain, had no fear of her! She was only able to fling them away. Soon enough each new action, each new ghostly copy started to take something from her, chipping at her resolve, draining her strength.
The carousel of a thousand Embers started to flicker.
Just three minutes of this unending hell left her panting, her face dripping with sweat, her eyes blood-shot red and covered in bursting capillaries. By the fourth minute she started to weep softly, knowing that she was about to break, but unable to stop. She had to defend her brother from these things!
She had to survive! She graduated at the top of her class, she was always the strongest, the most capable and felt that she was an invincible, all-powerful Goddess within her circle of five meters space! She was a genius who was going to lead the Superstate one day!
The dead city of monsters had shattered this illusion of personal might, reducing her to a mere terrified, desperate, mortal girl.
“I can’t do this anymore! I can’t keep this up! There’s too many! I’m sorry!” She cried, swaying and nearly falling over.
Cottie stepped over to Ember, and held her up. The sky limbs had finished their demolition of the gymnasium, turning towards the group.