There was a flash, a moment of elation so strong it nearly crushed me, and then everything went just a little wrong.
First off, it was sweltering. And not just the kind of heat someone would expect in a normal summer. It felt like I’d been dumped inside an oven. If there hadn’t been a clear blue sky above my head, I would have died on the hill that Sally accidentally teleported us to the center of the Earth. It shouldn’t have been allowed to be that hot. I remembered that we were still nearing the end of summer in the United States, which narrowed down where we could have been. I only knew we landed in the States because of where cars were parked on the road.
Something was definitely wrong.
There should have been people everywhere, but there weren’t any around. Red, white, and blue decorations lined the buildings. Little American flags were sticking out of cups, free for the taking. I frowned at all the decorations. Independence Day had long passed, and Memorial Day wasn’t anywhere near being in sight, so I had no idea what the celebration was for. Worst of all, there wasn’t a single soul I could find. It was like that day when I fought the mech.
“What the hell is wrong with Earth!?” Magnus yelled, trying to fan himself through his suit, but to no avail. “This city is a nightmare. Who would live here? Ethan, with all due respect, your people have lost their minds.”
All the pjulsen wore a sort of formfitting bodysuit with helmets to hide their identities, so there was no cooling themselves off. To be honest, they looked like the lamest and least intimidating biker gang in the world. Anyone who saw them would have thought they were doing some kind of bad cosplay. They were still my goofy biker gang.
A lightbulb went off in my head and I pulled out my phone. Reception! I had a real connection to the world again, and all the things I wanted to do ran through my mind. I wanted to call every person in my contacts to tell them I was okay. Instead, I took a deep breath and tried to reprioritize what needed to be done at that moment. I pulled up a map application and let it use my location. It landed all of us in Glendale, Arizona, just northwest of Phoenix. No wonder I was basically on fire. Humans simply weren’t meant to live in or around Phoenix.
“You picked one of the hottest major cities on the planet, so good work there.” I had the luxury of pulling my shirt away from my body in an attempt to cool myself off. Nothing short of an ice bath was going to do that trick. “I don’t know much about the area, but I know Phoenix is a huge city, so there should be people out and about this close by. It’s still the middle of the day.”
“This isn’t where the Sphere was?” Sally asked. She pulled up her teleportation device and started fiddling with it. I could picture her frown underneath her helmet.
“Not even close. It was in the mountains, and it was cold. We’re in a valley and, well, you guys can feel the weather.” I paused, trying to remember anything from my geography class back in high school. “I think Arizona does have some mountains. Ones cold enough to match where the Sphere was aren’t anywhere near here.”
“I set it to teleport us to the strongest active energy signature. If it’s not the Sphere, then what-”
She was cut off by a tower of blue fire that raced toward the sky. It was a couple blocks away, but its heat washed over me, burning my lungs. I had been wrong when I thought we were in an oven before. The heat blanketing my body seemed to evaporate my sweat as it formed on my skin. I was stupid to think that we couldn’t end up in the situation we did. The timing—everything, really—was terribly unlucky.
I took off in a full sprint to where the column of fire came from. There was shouting from behind me to slow down and to be careful. Those weren’t options available to me. If McLeod was there, that explained why there weren’t any people around in a big city. They were either hiding, or worse, and I said a silent prayer that it was the former.
I rounded the corner and I almost wished I had stayed back on Clamor. McLeod, and all his overwhelming power, stood with his back facing me. Next to him was Heather, the person on the planet who wanted me dead the most, with two people dangling helplessly in huge hands made of stone that she had created. They were alive, coated in cuts and bruises with fear in their eyes. One was a teenage girl, maybe Julio’s age, and someone who looked an awful lot like her dad.
I didn’t wait for her to repeat what happened with the lady on the news when I was just a scared kid. Okay, I was still a scared kid. I was just a scared kid who had his shit a little more together than he did on that day.
I conjured up a Shimmer-Spear and hurled it, not taking the time to aim it properly. Heather heard it just in time to dodge the worst of it. A deep slash appeared on her left hip, cutting right through her black pants. Blood dripped to the ground, and when she realized who I was, her face went red with anger. My time gone did little to take the edge of the hatred she felt for me. The rock hands behind her broke apart, leaving the girl and her dad to scramble away to safety. Or as much safety as they could reasonably find with the two people who just held them captive.
“My, my. You took the chance I gave you at life and you squander it like this?” McLeod jabbed his sword into the ground—through the asphalt—and leaned on it, looking thoroughly unimpressed. “Still, you’ve gotten stronger. That much I can tell from a glance. I won’t be able to protect you from her this time, my boy.”
“I didn’t ask for it the first time!” I readied my armor, darting my eyes between the two of them. I trusted McLeod to leave my fight with Heather a one-on-one affair. If it was only that I had to worry about, I would have felt a little better. He might not have been the type to interfere in my fight, but I doubted he was the type to leave innocent people alone when I was dealing with Heather.
“But you’d take it again in a heartbeat.” He pulled his sword from the ground and a bead of sweat rolled down my face. I blamed it on the heat, both naturally occurring and from the bastard in front of me. “I’ll give you one final chance, boy. I know you’re powerful, and you know we cannot be matched. A home and great fortune await you on the winning side, son.”
“Eat shit, you psychotic bastard. I’d die before becoming one of you.” I sent a javelin his way that he effortlessly destroyed with a slash of his sword. It wasn’t about landing a hit on him. It was about sending a message.
“Very well, you made your choice. You’ll perish like the rest of the dogs of this world.” He turned his back to me once again, not getting too far before a bolt of lightning whizzed past his blond hair. Turning slowly, his eyes narrowed on Sven’s form as he ran up next to me. “Excellent, that makes the trip to this wasteland city worth something.”
Is he McLeod? Sven asked in my head.
Yeah, he’s monstrously powerful, I thought to him, appreciative of the private line of communication Magnus allowed us to have. I regretted not doing much with my idea to use our shared memories to help with training. It was sure a great time to have a little more insight and expertise on how to tap into my Anomaly.
Look, I have to ask you to do something for me. Not wanting to give either Heather or McLeod an opening, I didn’t glance his way. If we can just force them out, we’ll be fine. I need you to keep the damage to people and buildings to a minimum, okay? This country is my home, and we don’t need it to become a bloodbath. If you see a chance to kill him, take it, but there are at least two innocent people nearby. Nothing can happen to them.
Hear you loud and clear.
Then he took off toward McLeod, sword drawn and buzzing with lightning. McLeod’s face lit up with joy at the idea of facing a worthy opponent. His claymore burned blue with intense fire and power filled the air when the two blades clashed. It felt like two gods had just started a duel, and I had the entire city of Glendale to keep out of it. Somehow, I didn’t feel like I’d be a hero in the Arizona desert like I had been on Clamor.
Heather and I circled each other in the street, waiting for the other to make the first move. She covered her body in rocks, creating a protective armor around her. Her dark, sunken eyes never lost a flicker of the hatred they held for me. If she hadn’t been pure evil, I would have felt bad about taking her brother away from her. No matter how much I didn’t like killing anyone, if there had been anyone who had deserved it...
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“I won’t just kill you. I’ll break all of your limbs, and when I find that precious sister you adore so much, I’ll do the same to her in front of you.” I was sure she was going to start foaming at the mouth. She looked completely unhinged. “Both of you will die broken, in agony, and in regret of the choice you made.”
“Your brother was a sociopath and a monster! He tried to torture me, and he would have killed a little girl. You’re both a family of lunatics and he’s better off buried in that cave!”
That was enough talking for Heather. She tried to end the fight in an instant by sending a spike into my chest from below. I stepped back, but when my left foot tapped the ground, it turned to sand. I nearly broke my ankle stumbling backward out of that. When I regained my balance, I looked up to see a three-story building falling over to make my acquaintance.
I had no time to dodge. I crouched low to the ground and created a dome-shaped shield over me. I needed four months of training with Sven to have made my shield strong enough to withstand a building being dropped on top of me, which was a tall task, yet I felt oddly confident. My shield didn’t like the impact. It threatened to buckle under the rubble. Before that happened, I pushed through with my barrier to leave the rubble unharmed.
Heather only glared at me like she couldn’t believe I had the nerve to survive that. Some sweat was forming on her brow. The heat would only benefit someone like McLeod. Everyone else was going to get gassed quickly, or maybe even pass out from heatstroke. There was another way for me to win this without trying to out-muscle the girl. I hoped there was no one in the buildings near me. If I lost, it wouldn’t have mattered much anyway. They’d all die regardless.
“You’re going to need more than that to kill me,” I said, kicking away a piece of rubble. “You know, I should give you more credit. Eric would have needed a lot more. Can you believe how that loser kicked the bucket? I mean, I couldn’t even control my power back them. I hit him in a panic and his chest just caved in like it was nothing. How did that idiot end up under someone powerful like McLeod anyway?”
Heather’s eyes lit up with fresh rage when I said his name. Stones flew at me from every direction. I dodged the ones that came at me through the air. The small, pointed rocks whistled past my head as they went by. When spikes popped up from the ground, they sent me into the air with panic in my chest. I was still able to land on my feet, the spikes not damaging my armor in any noticeable way. One glance at Heather said they were quickly wearing the girl out. She was panting and her chest heaved with each labored breath, her control over her armor letting the chest piece expand and contract with her breathing.
“Tell me, why did you even keep that idiot around? Seriously, you have so much raw power and that guy was just a walking parlor trick. I’m strong like you.” I shook my head in disappointment. “Want to know the difference between us? My sister is cool and is capable of, you know, doing things. She isn’t some monkey who just brags and talks trash until she’s dead in a hole. Maybe that’s why she’s been successful in her life. Some people are all bark and no bite until their last breath.”
I didn’t even know what I was saying at that point. I certainly didn’t have any real point to make. It’s not like Heather cared that her brother was an evil bastard. If she cared, she wouldn’t have joined up with an evil bastard herself. I was just trying to mention his death over and over to get her off her game. She was clearly nuts and powerful. That was a dangerous combination, but it was a double-edged sword. I knew she had to kill me as gruesomely as she could imagine. The creepy lady was putting so much into her attacks, way more than I would be, that it was wearing her down faster than she realized.
With tears streaming down her face, she screamed, a mixture of a war cry and an agonized shriek of grief of someone unable to move on from their loss. Hands of stone appeared next to me, and I timed my drop to the ground just right to avoid being crushed. Even my growing confidence in my armor had its limits. My armor wasn’t going to help with the fissure that opened up in the road beneath me. On my left, the ground was upturned and was rolling at me, curving in on itself like a wave getting ready to turn me into an Ethan burrito.
Her combination of attacks didn’t even make sense. Why try to drop me into the ground with a huge crack, then roll me up using the road? She was just flinging her powers at me in a poor attempt to make anything stick. Since we were in the desert, plant life was a little lacking in the middle of the city, taking one thing I had to worry about out of the equation. It was all attempts at impalement or crushing. I lazily sent a few javelins at her, making her take more energy to block them away with stones. I only sent a handful, since I did have to be careful not to get crushed by her.
I was burning up under the desert sun, dancing to avoid the ground that wanted nothing more than to land one good strike on me. Sweat coated the back and underarm areas of my shirt. Everything was moving so fast that I was spared the dread of having to smell myself within my own armor. That just told me that Heather had to be faring much worse. When I dared to peel my eyes off the ground trying to kill me, I saw I was right on the money.
Already not a woman who looked to be in great health, she looked like she was about to keel over. Her pale skin was nearly translucent under the harsh sunlight. Her black hair was stringy, sticking to her sweat-soaked forehead. She hunched over with that sweat pouring down her face. Her stone armor cracked and fell away, revealing a soaked shirt that clung messily to her chest and shoulders. Stunned, she looked down, unable to believe her armor was falling away.
That was when I struck. I hit her almost as hard as I could in the head with the flat side of a Shimmer-Sword, sending her flying in an unconscious heap against an old brick building. The area around me looked like a bomb went off, but I didn’t see any blood, human remains, or anything else that would indicate anyone died in the mess. With Sven being left alone with McLeod, I didn’t have the time to check for anyone who may have been caught up in our little fight.
When I found him, he was in surprisingly bad shape. He had cuts and burn marks on his body while McLeod was completely uninjured. My heart sank, knowing that the guy who thrashed me around like I was nothing hadn’t even scratched the biggest threat Earth had ever faced. I could tell just how much Sven had been holding back. When he kicked my ass, he was loose and calm. I gave him the instructions not to overdo it to keep the city safe. I was so stupid.
“Ethan, I-” Whatever he was going to tell me got drowned out in the roar of fire. A torrent of blue hit Sven in the chest, sending him at least a dozen feet behind me. His sword clattered to the ground, the lightning flickering off it for a few seconds before it turned back into a normal weapon.
“I do not know how you communicated with that one, but I do not like having my time wasted,” McLeod growled, pointing his sword at me. The scar on my left arm felt like it was burning all over again, telling me I needed to get out of there. “If he’s not going to fight me at full strength, then I have no need for him here.”
McLeod slashed his sword in my direction, sending a crescent wave of blue fire speeding toward me. I put my arms up in front of my face to block it, and even though I did just that, the heat was almost unbearable. Forget being shoved into an oven, I was being shoved into the core of the Sun. Each breath I took burned my throat. The armor on my arms was burned away, leaving red skin and singed hair behind. It felt like a bad sunburn, amplified by what the actual Sun and McLeod’s persistent heat were doing to me.
I needed to buy some time, and I had another stupid idea. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be as stupid as me telling someone to hold back against the single greatest threat on Earth. I created a hand around Sven’s sword and brought it to my grasp. Instantly, the weapon glowed a familiar purple and pink. He said it had a unique reaction to anyone who held it, and I had no idea how to use the thing. I didn’t know a thing about swords period. The most I would have been able to do was tell someone I thought it looked nice. I wasn’t sure how I got it to break and segment. I sort of willed it to happen, and the weapon responded to my command.
McLeod narrowed his eyes at the trick. When I sent the whip-blade at him, he simply moved his head to the side. That was when my Shimmer created a razor-sharp edge on each segment, effectively increasing their width by nearly double. My attack left a long, deep cut on his cheek. Red blood stained his beard and dripped to the scorching road below. It might have been the first time I saw something distinctly human from McLeod.
I wouldn’t learn it until later on, but that was the first time that anyone had been able to injure McLeod in a fight. The first recognized time, anyway. It was all dumb luck and desperation, and something I wouldn’t dare apologize for. Sometimes it was better to be lucky than good. I finally understood why my high school’s football coach said that in an interview after winning some huge game.
He lifted his hand to the wound on his cheek while the blade returned to its normal form in my hand. I wanted to attack again, but I wasn’t going to get that kind of luck a second time. If I tried, he was set to burn down the entire city. I had to be careful with all my attacks, my defenses, and my decisions.
“Enjoy your short-lived victory today, boy,” he spat. He whipped his hand down, leaving a small splatter of blood on the hot sidewalk next to him. “You’ve earned a great honor. Prepare yourself, because I will destroy you in front of everyone you know, love, and cherish. I will show the weak people of this planet that you’re nothing but an ant to be crushed underfoot.”
He walked past me to go where Heather’s body was still unmoving in the sun. He picked her up effortlessly with one arm and put her over his shoulder. Without looking back at me once, he continued to walk away.
“Hey, wait!” I yelled, sending two spears at him. He sidestepped one and grabbed the other. Blue fire ran up my creation until it was nothing but sparkling dust in the hot breeze.
“Do not rush to die, boy. We’ll see each other again soon enough. Take the tale of your victory home. Share it with all who will listen. Celebrate this win with them. Give them hope and a silver lining, because Dii Consentes will be there to shatter them.”
I didn’t have the nerve to follow him after that.