Now, Earth
Hanna skirted around to the north side of the foundry. Her armor clanked and jingled. She wasn’t really dressed for stealth. Fortunately, Remy was making so much noise it wasn’t going to be a problem.
It was difficult to wrap her head around the amount of power Remy had at his disposal. He was throwing around so much heavy metal that the clamor surpassed what the foundry would’ve been doing had it still been in operation.
The cultists forces had spread out and tried to take cover behind the heavy machinery.
Hanna heard spells going off and occasional gunfire. The distinctive sound of the blue beam ripping through the air was unmistakable. It almost reminded her of a really loud zipper.
So far the cultists were doing what she expected. Namely, they were trying to spread out to hit Remy from multiple direction. Her plan was to take out small groups by hitting them from behind then moving on to the next batch in an unpredictable pattern.
She opted for the sword and board combo. She kept her great sword strapped tightly to her back. The weight wasn’t an issue. She had passive skills that boosted a few of her physical attributes beyond her baseline.
She crouched low behind a huge industrial press when she spotted a handful of cultists creeping through the narrow aisle between pallets stacked with materials at about neck high.
She waited until the cultists crept closer to her position.
Hanna burst into action like an Olympic sprinter exploding out of the blocks.
She crossed the twenty feet before the cultists reacted.
She slammed her round shield into the lead cultist.
The man was about her size. He had no chance.
Hanna sent him flying back into the rest.
She lunged forward and thrust her sword into one cultist’s neck.
The woman fell back gurgling, her hands around the red faucet at her neck.
Hanna stomped her boot down on the first man’s knee. An audible crack was followed by his screams. She silenced them by thrusting down into his chest.
It was stupid of them to not wear any armor at all. Why would they do such a thing? She didn’t know, nor care. She’d take all the advantages that presented themselves.
The cultist at the back of the line jumped up on top of the pallet to Hanna’s left. He pulled his hoodie open to reveal a bare chest.
Hanna was too experienced to be taken off guard. She brought her shield up.
Dozens of impacts rocked her shield arm back. The thick wood and thin metal covering held up.
Hanna peaked over the rim of her shield.
What the fuck? she thought. That’s new.
The cultist’s chest was covered in what looked like tiny holes. They were bloodless.
“Fire Spray!”
Hanna shifted her shield just as another cultist conjured a wide spray of flames from an outstretched hand.
The flames licked around the edges of her shield and heated the metal. It was uncomfortable, but tolerable, at least for a short time.
Hanna charged into the flames.
The cultist’s spell winked out as she lost her concentration.
Hanna thrust her sword out.
The cultist put her hands up in desperation.
Hanna’s blade pierced right through and continued into the woman’s chest. She pulled the blade back and shifted to the right just in time to block the spine-shooting cultist’s next barrage.
It appeared that the man needed a few seconds in between barrages.
Blood dripped down Hanna’s blade.
Hanna spotted movement from out of the corner of her eye. She ducked her head behind her shield. Something skipped off the side of her shield and something struck her hard in the back of her head.
The impact clanged against the metal of her helmet and pitched her forward.
Never stop moving. Hanna repeated the mantra in her head.
She charged forward. She didn’t know what had hit her, but she processed the options quickly. A ranged attack, meant that she wanted to be in close.
She had a split-second to register her target.
It was a big man. His right arm looked weird, as in not remotely human.
Hanna didn’t have time to ponder the question. She crashed into the man shield first.
The spines sticking out of her shield pierced through the man’s shirt. His face twisted in what looked like pain.
She moved ruthlessly. She stabbed her sword into the man’s stomach and ripped it out through the man’s left side, her right.
The man swung his right arm at Hanna.
It whipped around her shield and something clanged in the middle of her back. The armor blunted the damage, but not the pain.
Hanna threw a knee up in between the man’s legs.
No reaction.
The strange right arm whipped around again.
“Quick Cut!”
Hanna’s blade slashed out. Her technique and skill was such that they matched the Skills of lesser fighters. Those men and women relied on Skills to perform techniques to the perfection they were capable of. When Hanna used a Skill she was beyond perfection.
The cultist’s right arm moved faster than humanly possible.
Hanna’s blade cut it in half.
The cultist grunted.
Hanna swung her blade through his neck.
She spun around and threw her shield.
She was no Captain America, but it was good enough.
Her shield swept the spine cultist off his feet just as he was about to launch another barrage from the strange holes in his chest.
The barrage flew harmlessly over Hanna’s head.
She dashed forward and stabbed the cultist through the eye.
Hanna was done. She took stock of the aftermath as she always did in this situation.
The cultists had revealed more strange and deadly abilities.
She added shooting spines out of their chests and what looked like a tentacle arm to coral or shell-like growths as armor to the list.
Hanna winced. Her shield arm hurt. Blood leaked through her sleeve close to the elbow. It was above her bracer. One of the spines must’ve partially gone through her shield. She took a moment to splash some alcohol on the small wound and bandaged it up.
She moved out, grabbing her shield on the way to look for another group to take out.
----------------------------------------
Remy used his magnetic power to help him lift a huge iron crucible from its housing. It wasn’t the weight, that he could handle fine. It was the unwieldy size and shape.
He hurled the crucible at a group of cultists hiding behind some kind of industrial machine he didn’t recognize.
The iron cannonball crashed right through the machine and the cultists, before rolling right through the wall and continuing outside.
The pain from the power usage stung something in his chest. Almost like heartburn, but like dying.
Remy saw the smears on the floor.
There was definitely no going back now.
His hands were bloody.
A fireball exploded against his armor-covered chest. He held his breath and waited for the flames to dissipate. He had learned from the first time.
There was going to be a lot more blood added to his conscience before this was over.
Remy ducked a blue beam as it ripped inches over his head. He felt the heat through his helmet.
The blue beam guy was up in the scaffolding.
Remy almost used his power to rip the metal walkway out from under the guy, but he caught himself in time. Instead, he charged toward a group of cultists.
They hammered him with gunfire, spells and other projectiles.
Remy felt it all through his armor, but powered through.
He crashed through the middle of the cultists like a bowling ball. He wasn’t used to fighting up close, so he overran the cultists position and slammed into an industrial grinder. The machine teetered then fell over from the violent impact.
Remy turned and was greeted by a flash of light that made everything spin. It was like spinning yourself around your forehead, while planted on a baseball bat.
He stumbled from a heavy blow that knocked him back on top of the downed machine. The impacts actually hurt. He wasn’t able to disperse most of the force over his armor before it got through to his body.
The cultist that had hit him was an average looking woman. She raised a sledgehammer over her head in a two-handed grip and brought it down on Remy’s chest.
The impact rang out through the foundry.
This time Remy had been able to disperse the force.
Remy grabbed the hammer near the head before the woman could pull it back.
She must’ve had enhanced strength to wield a heavy weapon and knock Remy into the air despite hundreds of pounds of steel armor.
It paled in comparison to Remy’s strength. He threw the hammer and the woman aside to land dozens of feet in the distance. He didn’t see where she landed, but with all the machinery in the building her chances of avoiding a deadly impact weren’t high.
More blood on his hands.
The cultists hesitated.
Remy rushed into their midst. He punched out with steel-clad fists. He still held back. He didn’t put all his power into the blows.
As it turned out it didn’t matter. Even at fifty percent power each hit was a killer when the target didn’t have some kind of defensive ability or spell.
Remy tried to ignore the way ribs shattered like toothpicks under his fists. The way his speed and strength made a person’s face cave in like an overripe fruit. He tried not to look as the contents of their heads dribbled out like fruity pulp.
Remy felt sick to his stomach and it had nothing to do with the effects of that bright flash or whatever unknown force had been plaguing him ever since the ambush near the bay.
He swallowed the bile back down and kept hitting.
A cultist shot him in the face.
Remy flinched, but the pellets plinked harmlessly off his helmet. The mesh he had created proved impenetrable.
The cultist kept firing.
Remy covered his face with an arm as he plowed into the cultist.
The woman ragdolled through the air like she had been struck by a car on the freeway.
It wasn’t far from the truth.
Remy destroyed every cultist that he got within reach. They tried to keep their distance, but he was just too fast. He could jump dozens of feet in a single bound.
The cultists attacked with esoteric abilities. He couldn’t tell if they were magic or like him, innate super powers.
A man’s hand and arm unfurled into flesh-colored tentacles. His palm opened to reveal a snapping beak.
It reminded Remy of a squid. It surprised him for a moment, which was enough for the cultist to wrap the tentacles around Remy’s head.
The cultist pulled and Remy stumbled a few steps forward before he got his footing.
The strain was clear on the cultist’s face.
Remy was immovable. He grabbed the tentacles and ripped them apart.
The cultist cried out.
Remy pulled him forward and crushed him with one punch.
The blue beam struck Remy in the back. The heat spiked. It went from uncomfortable to dangerous in a split-second.
Remy dived to the side.
The beam tried to follow, but was too slow before it winked out.
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Remy shifted the metal on his back to jettison the superheated section and even out the coverage.
The pain was like fingernails lightly scratching his heart.
Remy peaked up at the scaffolding from behind the cover of another massive, iron crucible. The blue beam guy was nowhere in sight. No doubt relocating for a better angle.
Things were quiet, which was a surprise. He scanned the area. No cultists, at least live ones.
The bile came with the thought. He fought it down and took deep breaths.
The weight of what he had done pressed down on him. It mingled with the dread that kept returning in his mind. Like shadowy hands reaching out for him from all directions.
He tried to push it back. He focused on the reasons he was doing this.
Family.
Protect them.
That was all. That was enough.
The building panic lessened. Not gone, but still simmering below the surface.
The sounds fighting breached the fog in his thoughts.
Hanna.
He checked the scaffolding above him one last time. It looked clear.
Remy ran to the sounds.
Dogs barked in the distance.
----------------------------------------
Hanna parried one spear thrust down to her left, smoothly switched her grip to the blade of her greatsword to deflect an axe to her other side with the pommel.
She stepped into the axe wielding cultists and punch the man in the face. Her steel gauntlet shattered his nose. She relished the sound and feel of it.
Hanna loved showing people why you always wore a helmet.
She stomped down on the spear shaft.
The cultist let go rather than see it break.
A stupid mistake.
Hanna stabbed him in the stomach.
She loved teaching people that losing your weapon was a bad idea. You’d think that didn’t need explanation, but one would be surprised by how often people tended to lose their grips when she fought them.
Hanna ducked behind a conveyor belt to avoid a set of small, glowing orbs.
She already missed her shield, but it had been ripped away by a cultist that actually had a hand like a lobster claw. Not polydactyly, but an actual hard-shelled claw, sharp and scaled up to human proportions.
Unfortunately for the cultist, she didn’t have lobster shell armor. Her flesh parted easily enough under Hanna’s blade.
Hanna had lost her longsword to another cultist.
The man had something that looked very close to a giant clam shell in his stomach. When Hanna had stabbed him the clam snapped shut and snatched the blade from her hand.
She had slashed his head right off his body with her greatsword.
And people thought it was weird that she carried both swords.
More Magic Missiles chased Hanna as she ran to the other end of the conveyor belt.
She turned left past a bunch of shelves and was shoulder checked by another cultist.
The man’s hand transformed right before her eyes.
It made her sick on a deeper level than watching a human hand turn into a strange, toothed sword. It looked like something she had seen at the aquarium in the past. A sword-like blade, with sharp, triangular teeth down both edges. Perhaps the most disturbing part was that the ‘teeth’ were an ivory-white color, like human teeth.
There was a sense of wrongness she couldn’t explain just being in the cultist’s presence as the magic or ability transformed his hand into a weapon.
It abruptly vanished when the transformation was completed.
Hanna scrambled to her feet and parried the cultist’s wide swing.
The teeth screamed against the steel of her greatsword as he dragged his organic, probably, blade against it.
Sparks flew.
Hanna saw chips in her edge. It made her mad.
The cultist sneered.
That made her furious.
She had practiced European martial arts since she was a teen. The boys and men always looked down on her. Even when she made herself as strong as possible. Even when she trained until she drilled the techniques into muscle memory. They had always downplayed her abilities. The patronization ground against her, but she used it to improve. To wipe the smug looks off their faces.
The cultist cut at her head in wide arc.
Hanna shifted her head back just enough. She could tell from the length of the man’s handblade and the rotation of his shoulder that he had pulled the swing too much.
Hanna had already reset her stance from the first parry. Her blade was poised to strike.
She moved with efficiency and purpose.
Her blade sang out as it slashed diagonally from right to left, down across the cultist’s open chest.
Perhaps an inch of the blade tip parted through clothing and skin. Just the right amount to deal a deadly wound, but not too much that it’d get caught and slowed in physical material, cloth, skin, flesh.
The cultist fell away with a spray of blood.
Hanna was glad that it was red. At least it still looked like human blood. She didn’t know how she’d handle seeing something else when she cut another person.
The cultist fell to the floor.
Hanna didn’t take any chances. She stabbed him in the back, where his heart should be.
A man cleared his throat.
Hanna spun around with a slash.
Remy parried it aside with a metal-clad fist. He made it look easy.
Superhumans were such bullshit.
“You left this,” Remy held out Hanna’s longsword, hilt first. “Had to pry it out of the clam shell in a guy’s stomach.”
“Add that to the list of things you never expected to say.” Hanna took the sword and wiped the blade before sliding it into its sheath. She eyed the blood on Remy’s armor. “There were a few cultists back there. I’m assuming you took care of them?”
“Yeah,” Remy said flatly.
“Permanently?”
Remy gave her a curt nod.
“Is that all of them then?”
“No idea, they might’ve gotten smart and decided to run away after I killed my twentieth person,” Remy said bitterly. “Just that guy shooting blue beams left. Probably. He’s up in the scaffolding somewhere. I lost sight of him.”
A blue beam lanced through the shelf above their heads. It brought the whole thing down.
Remy pushed out with his magnetic powers despite the pain it cost him to keep the debris from falling down on their heads.
“Can you get up there?” Hanna pointed.
“Yeah?”
“The north side of the building is a bunch of offices. Three floors worth. Push him that way. There’s only one staircase. I’ll cut him off,” Hanna said.
“Okay.”
Another blue beam lanced from above.
Remy shot some of the smaller bits of debris up to give them cover as they split off to their objectives.
Remy ran back the way he came and used a magnetically-assisted leap to get up to the scaffolding, three stories up. He flew right through the railing and almost overshot his target. A quick pull with a magnetic field pulled his feet down to the metal catwalk.
“Damn it, hurts so much,” Remy spat.
He ripped part of the railing that he had broken through and hurled it at the blue beam guy.
The railing helicoptered at the guy’s head, but he burned it down with a blue beam.
Remy gave chase as the blue beam guy ran toward the offices.
Hanna was waiting at the stairs.
The blue beam guy ducked into what turned out to be a large conference room.
Remy ran right through a couple of walls and offices to cut the guy off. He ducked under a blue beam.
Hanna barged through the half-open door, her greatsword ready.
“Wait!” Remy used his magnetic powers to pull sprinkler pipes from the ceiling. He lengthened them into metal cables with an expression of his will. Then wrapped them around around the blue beam guy’s wrists and pulled them apart. The blue glow in the guy’s eyes and hands winked out.
“For what?” Hanna snapped, but stayed her hand. “If you don’t want to… then I’ll do it.”
Remy held up a hand toward Hanna. “He can’t fire without his hands together, in line with his eyes… probably.”
“And?”
“Doesn’t it occur to you that this is a good opportunity to find some answers?”
Hanna narrowed her eyes. “I thought we were giving up on finding the women?”
“I want to know where they’re keeping them.” Remy stared at the blue beam guy, who glared in a mixture of fear and defiance. “Alright, man. Almost two years ago your fishmen kidnapped a lot of women and girls from Sacramento. Where are you keeping them?”
The blue beam guy spat in Remy’s face. It splattered against his helmet. “I’m not saying shit. They said you’d lie to justify your actions.”
“The fuck he on about?” Hanna snapped.
“Yeah.” Remy was confused. “What are you on about?”
The blue beam guy, kid really, Remy just noticed that he had a baby face on a tall and lanky body, kept his mouth shut.
“Talk or I start slicing,” Hanna threatened with her blade.
The blue beam kid’s eyes widened. Sweat poured down his face in buckets.
“They’re the ones lying. Your cult started everything. They came to our community pretending to be official representatives of San Francisco. Then they summoned a fishman through a blood sacrifice in secret. After that, fishmen went up the river and attacked people simply enjoying the day in Old Sac.”
“Eating fish and chips, dole whip and ice cream,” Hanna’s voice was light, but her eyes were dark and the tip of of greatsword moved a bit closer to the blue beam kid’s throat. “Just a nice day to hang out and stroll along the river.”
“They took them,” Remy continued, “then over the past couple of years fishmen have been attacking our community. Come on, man. You’re on the side of a creepy cult with actual fishmen that kidnapped women and girls. Is that really where you want to be?”
The blue beam kid shook his head. “No. You’re the one lying. They said you would. You attack us with your powers. You want to make things bad again.”
“This is pointless. He’s brainwashed, possibly by magic or worse,” Hanna narrowed her eyes. “How about that, kid? You got fish larva in your brain? Or maybe you’ve got a fishy hand up your a—”
“Enough!” Remy said. “Not helpful. Look, just answer the question and we’ll leave you here. I promise. We just want to get those women and girls back.”
“I’m not saying shit to you monsters!” the blue beam kid spat. “The scions are too strong. They’re right. You’re getting desperate. How’s that feel? Big badass with your superpowers thinking you can just make us fall in line. Well, this is America and we fuck tyrants up like punk bitches!”
“Bro, what’re you fifteen? You were like five when the spires showed up. I almost hate to break this to you, but America hasn’t been a thing for almost a decade.” Hanna shook her head.
“Truth.”
A woman’s voice caused Remy and Hanna to turn their heads.
“The two of you are actually telling the truth.”
The speaker was an athletic woman of Asian descent. Remy couldn’t tell specifically. He was ashamed to admit that he always had trouble. She was in jeans and a tank top. No visible weapons or armor. Not a good sign. Doubly so that she stepped in through the hole Remy had made without apparent concern.
“Oh good. Then you can tell us where they are and we’ll be out of your hair,” Hanna said.
“Hapa?”
“Yeah, so?”
The woman shrugged. “A ton of people died. I just think it’s nice to see a fellow sister, even if it’s just half.”
The ceiling collapsed. The dust and rubble revealed a big man standing up from a crouch in what looked like a deliberate pose.
“Really, you actually did the three-point landing?” the woman snorted.
“What do you think you’re doing, Rino?” the young man was blond, blue-eyed, square jawed, broad-shouldered. Captain America in the flesh.
“What the fuck, Chance! What happened to no names?”
“Yeah, man. That’s just bad opsec,” Remy said.
“Shut the fuck up, manlet!”
Remy raised a brow. “What?”
“He’s saying your small,” Hanna remarked.
“I’m only slightly below average,” Remy said.
“You’re done here,” Chance growled. “You come along easy and you don’t get beat down.”
“Hold on!” Rino said. “They aren’t lying.”
“You’re wrong.”
“My nose and ears don’t lie. I’ve proved this already. When they say the scions took their people, then that’s what happened,” Rino said.
Two more people a man and woman walked in through the open door.
“Yeah. I’d like to hear more about this,” the tall, blonde woman said.
The dark-haired, fair-skinned young man beside her was shorter. He didn’t say anything. He simply glared at Remy with baleful eyes.
“What does it matter if the scions took people?” Chance barked. “We are at war!”
“You’re in the dark aren’t you?” Remy said.
“A cult lies… who’d have thought,” Hanna smirked.
“Fuck this,” Chance advanced.
“Hold the fuck up!” Rino moved in front of him.
Remy blinked. She was fast.
“I’ve got problems with this,” Rino continued.
“Me too,” the blond-haired woman piped.
“Kidnapping women isn’t a good look,” Rino said.
The blond-haired woman nodded.
Chance threw his hands up. “What the hell is this? Mutiny? Fine, this doesn’t make sense. Why would the scions take people?”
“I’ve seen fishmen, but I’ve never seen fishwomen. Have you?” Hanna twisted the blade.
It was a dark thought. They had discussed the possibility before, but Remy didn’t like to think about it.
Chance narrowed his eyes. “Our orders are clear. We take him in. Are you going to be a problem?”
Rino bared her teeth at Chance, who did the same.
Tense seconds passed before Rino backed away.
She looked at Remy. “You’re not lying, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to throw down on your behalf.”
“Not expecting that. It’d be good if you’d tell me where they’re keeping our people,” Remy said.
“I have no idea. Didn’t even know they were. Seems like I’m not in the know as much as I thought I was,” Rino said. She walked to the hole in the wall. “You coming with?”
The blond-haired woman didn’t hesitate.
There were two less people in the room.
Remy used the term loosely. He included himself in the calculation.
The big man, Chance, was almost as fast as the woman, Rino. He dashed in and threw a punch at Remy’s head.
He caught the fist in his smaller hand and stopped it cold.
Chance’s eyes widened.
Remy punched him in the chest and sent him flying through the conference room wall.
The other young man growled and leapt at Hanna. She spun to one side and slashed the man across the back with her greatsword.
The young man changed, shifted. His clothes tore as his body grew in size. Black, wiry fur sprouted all over his body. His head elongated into a muzzle filled with sharp teeth. The wound on his back disappeared.
“Shit! I knew it!” Hanna said.
Remy had the same suspicions. He tapped into his magnetic power. He did two things. He used the metal pipes in the ceiling and floor to restrain the weredog in tight coils. “Get out of here.” He ripped the floor out from under Hanna’s feet, two levels down, and dropped her to the ground floor. The cult only wanted him.
The black-furred weredog struggled. Then shifted from its bipedal, monstrous form into a giant, Scottish Terrier.
It looked surreal, but that was par for the course in a spires world.
Remy was caught watching.
The big, white weredog barreled into him like a car. It slammed him through the conference room wall and into the office on the other side of the hallway.
The bear-sized weredog, Chance, batted Remy down with a plate-sized paw.
Metal squealed as Chance bit down on Remy’s thigh. The pressure was immense, but Remy strengthened the metal enough that the teeth couldn’t penetrate. Though the effort caused a spike of pain to run through his chest.
Chance shook Remy like a hunk of meat before flinging him back into the hallway, where the other weredog clamped down on Remy’s arm.
Chance followed and bit down on the same leg for another taste.
The weredogs were like wolves tearing into an unfortunate deer.
The snarls, the snapping teeth, the slobber. Remy nearly panicked from the terrifying experience. He blindly punched out and hit something soft.
A weredog yelped as the pressure on Remy’s leg disappeared.
Remy punched the other weredog off.
“Hey, asshole!”
Remy scrambled to his feet.
The blue beam kid held his hands shoulder-width apart in front of him. A blue glow emanated from his eyes and flowed into the growing field of energy in between his hands.
Remy threw his hands over his face.
The blue beam kid jerked his hands up and demolished the ceiling above Remy’s head.
The debris fell harmlessly on his armored head and shoulders.
Remy looked up into the darkening sky.
A nauseating symbol hung in the sky like an ethereal banner.
His eyelids grew heavy and his body suddenly felt weak. He tried to fight it. Tried to make his way to the stairs.
Remy lost.
Darkness claimed him.