Now, Manila
Shards of glass plinked harmlessly off Hanna’s armor. She stood like a statue.
The others had preemptively overturned tables for cover and had avoided most of the damage.
There was a loud curse.
“I told you to get down, Mouthy!” Hardhat said.
Hanna’s attention was focused entirely on the action outside on the street.
Eron brawled with the shades of his extended family.
Punches and kicks that sounded like gunshots boomed. While a rainbow of colors flashed through the thin fog. There were so many different varieties of forcefields being generated. The beauty of it struck her. It was like watching a light show. Until she remembered what was at stake.
“What do we do?” Hanna whispered.
“The old guy was saying that the fog thing is probably pretty vulnerable right now. Could be a trap, but if it isn’t we can head over there and kill it, while they’re doing the Royal Rumble out there,” Rino said.
“Reminds me of my family reunions… miss those things,” Boy said from behind a table.
Those within earshot of the stocky, middle-aged man eyed him dubiously.
“We’re too slow. This fight won’t last the time it’ll take us to cover the distance to the senate building,” Sgt. Butcher said. “Except for you, Rino.”
“I’ll need to pace myself and save my energy for the fight, but I could probably do the ten miles there in twenty to thirty minutes,” Rino said.
“We’ll need everyone. We don’t even know what we’ll face there,” Hanna said.
“He’s probably got the best idea on that,” Sgt. Butcher gestured toward Eron.
“Can’t get away from them though,” Rino grunted.
A rusted wreck of a car suddenly came flying toward the restaurant.
Curses and screams filled the space as people scrambled to the bar at the rear.
Hanna drew her sword in a flash, cutting upward in one motion.
The effort proved unnecessary.
The car careened to side and tumbled out of sight down the street.
Eron stood in front of the ruined restaurant front.
His face was a mass of bruises. A nasty cut over a brow dripped a curtain of blood down the side of his face. His shirt was torn. More cuts and bruises covered his body and arms.
He gave Hanna a quick nod.
A forcefield shaped like a sparkling pink rope lassoed around his neck and yanked him back into the melee.
“Eron can do it,” Hanna came to a decision. “He can get to the entity in minutes and he just might have the strength to put it down. We’ll need to give him the chance to get away from this. Rino, you can follow after him, help in whatever way you can.”
“I’m not leaving you guys,” Rino bared her teeth in a snarl as she began to take her clothes off.
Hanna freed her Threnosh-made round shield from its shoulder strap and slid it over her gauntlet. “Volunteers only,” she limbered her sword wrist. “If you don’t want to fight this battle then you can cram onto the bus. I won’t judge you.”
“The Quest?” Hardhat said.
“It’d be a big contribution on our part if we give Eron the chance to get free and clear,” Aims checked his revolvers.
“Make no mistake. Fighting those shades will be the toughest thing we’ve done on this whole trip. Their strength, durability and those forcefields,” Doran shook his head. “I can’t order you to stay and fight them when I know our chances at winning, let alone survival… volunteers only,” he echoed Hanna as he regarded his spears.
“God, you guys give the worst speeches. Where’s the inspiration? The fired up-ness?” Jake sighed. “Good thing it doesn’t matter to me. I came here to face an impossible challenge. If I can’t get strong enough to deal with that,” he gestured toward the ferocious melee on the street, “then there’s no point in surviving to make it back home. How am I going to face the scions and the Deep Azure?”
The spear unit exchanged glances before Marci stepped forward. “We’re in, sir. All of us.”
Doran regarded his much diminished unit. His back straightened and he nodded. “Form up!” He turned to the rest. “We’ll give you a line to fire from for as long as we can.”
Rino completed her full transformation and howled before breaking through what was left of the front window frames in a blur. She hit a shade with his back to her and sank her claws into his torso. The man had superhuman strength. He resisted and slowly began to pry her long finger out of his chest. She ended that by biting down on his neck, savaging him and turning him back into fog.
“Time to go,” Hanna dashed out after the Weredog.
Rino’s explosive entrance had drawn eyes from a number of shades on the periphery of the melee centered on Eron.
One of them caught Hanna’s movement. The shade sent a shower of glowing blue dagger-shaped forcefields shooting out of her hands.
Hanna brought her shield up and kept running.
The daggers shattered against the Threnosh-made shield and armor.
The Swordswoman continued her charge, ignoring everything except her target. She nearly reached Eron when a flash of movement had her ducking behind her shield.
The superstrong punch was oddly muted in both sound and impact.
Hanna thrust her blade and felt it push through the shade’s stomach with some resistance. She withdrew her blade, took two steps toward Eron struggling with his swarming relatives and unleashed her Skill. “Ten-fold Cuts.” Her blade whirled in a blur as she cut it through the air.
An instant later the cuts appeared on the shades’ bodies. Thin lines of blood for the toughest ones. While others had entire limbs fall to the ground as their blood sprayed out like water from a fire hose.
Eron took the opening and lay about him with punches that Hanna couldn’t follow.
“Go! Finish this! We’ll keep them off your back for as long as we can!”
Eron didn’t hesitate. He leapt up into the sky and disappeared over the buildings.
The old man, the one she had heard Eron call Tito Carlos, was the quickest to recover. He gathered his legs under him and leapt.
Only to be struck out of the air by a bright arc of blue-white lightning. He crashed through the side of a building and out of sight.
“Hanna! Get your ass back here!” Jake called out from behind the line of spears and shields just outside the restaurant.
She knew that wasn’t going to be possible. She had risked it all to give Eron an opening. Now, she faced the consequences of that choice.
She was in the middle of a group of superpowered shades.
“Taunts, now!” Doran banged the haft of his spear against his shield.
The spears roared as one. A few of the shades turned away with visible effort. The majority of them focused on the spear unit and the others behind the line.
The former looked toward the direction Eron had gone in. They were going to give chase.
Hanna couldn’t let that happen. “Rino! We can’t let them leave!” She hoped the Weredog would listen.
It was out of her hands. The only thing she could do now was to fight.
----------------------------------------
Phillip rushed out the back door into the alley to see people boarding the bus in a mad scramble. The Watch was busy trying to keep things orderly while keeping an eye on the encroaching fog.
He saw a light glowing inside the bus.
“That’s going to be a problem,” he said as he handed the unconscious Lilah over to the closest available pair of arms that looked strong enough to bear her.
“Um… what?” Trevor accepted Lilah with wide eyes.
“Keep her safe. She’s the one keeping that up,” he pointed at the light.
“It’s not covering the entire bus,” Demi said.
“Out of our hands,” Phillip shrugged before he rushed back into the building. He ran into a small group of terrified kids trailed by Cherry in the stairwell.
The slight-framed aswang carried a little girl in one arm, while Dr. Rufo was on her shoulder like a bag of rice.
Phillip could see that Cherry wasn’t burdened in the slightest. It was a good reminder that she wasn’t a normal human.
“Is he—”
“Alive,” Cherry said curtly. “Took a nasty hit to the head, but I don’t think he’s in immediate danger.”
Phillip gently took Dr. Rufo off her shoulder and hurried the kids out to the waiting bus.
The kids boarded quickly.
Phillip followed and placed Dr. Rufo into an empty seat before exiting.
“Where’s Eron?”
“He jumped out the hole in the wall. I thin—”
The rest of what Cherry said was drowned out by a massive boom that shook everything and sent shards of glass falling from above.
Phillip, Madalena and Demi rushed to provide cover to the other members of the Watch still outside the bus.
“What was that?” Demi.
“You have to go,” Phillip said. He recognized the sound of a superstrong punch landing. He had doled out plenty over the years.
“That’s everyone, aside from the people you brought. Do you want to cram more people in?” Madalena said.
Demi regarded her for a moment before shaking her head. “They made their choices.”
“I’ll help you get the bus out of the alley,” Phillip said.
Madalena nodded at that and went to the back of the bus to fulfill her role as the engine.
The booms were coming more rapidly now. It was like being front row for a fireworks show.
Phillip was filled with a sense of urgency as he pulled alongside Madalena.
As soon as the bus was clear Phillip ran back into the restaurant and found it empty.
At the same time, just as Madalena was getting the bus rolling a shout from inside stopped her.
“What? We have to move!” Madalena scowled.
Demi and a few other members of the Watch filed out.
The only ones among those that came from outside the fog that remained on board were those too injured or still unconscious.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“We can’t leave them while they fight,” Demi said.
“Okay… good luck,” Madalena grunted as she dug her feet into the asphalt to get the bus rolling again.
She pushed the crazy people out of her mind as she left them behind.
“Brave,” Cherry remarked from her perch on the roof.
“Please don’t bother me. I need you to be ready for attacks,” Madalena said through grit teeth.
“We’ve got most of the people inside covered by the ward’s light. The only ones that have to worry about attack are me, you and the unlucky few in the back. Are you sure you don’t want it shifted closer so that you’re covered by it as well?”
“No!”
“You’re our carabao. If something happens to you we’re stuck.”
“That’s what you’re here for. Keep the shades off my back and we’re fine.”
Cherry mimed cracking a whip with a smirk and a glint in her eyes.
Under Madalena’s powerful legs the sounds of battle receded.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
The sanctuary that had kept them safe for so long was soon an indistinct shape in the swirling gray. Without the light of Lilah’s sigils it had become just another dead building.
Demi and the Watch rounded its corner. The bus route had put them on the opposite end of the long block from Cherry’s restaurant.
She zoomed in with her helmet’s enhanced visual capability and saw a fierce and desperate fight.
The spears had formed a line with their backs to the restaurant. Just behind them. Spellcasters and shooters fired, while other melee fighters defended both flanks.
Spells and Skills were pitted against superpowers and the former looked to be losing.
Remy’s relatives where too strong. Maybe if there hadn’t been dozens of them.
Even, Hanna and Rino, their strongest fighters were in trouble. The latter fought with tooth and claw as she used her quickness to dart around the street. Striking then moving away without stopping. It was the only thing that kept her from being swarmed. Unlike the former, who desperately cut and thrust with her blade, while blocking punches, kicks and forcefield attacks with her shield. Trusting in it and her armor to keep her alive.
It didn’t look like a winning position to Demi’s eyes.
As she watched a shade knocked Hanna to the ground with a dropkick to her back.
The other shades saw their chance and pounced.
Demi lost sight of Hanna.
She squeezed a burst of projectiles from her recoilless rifles at the scrum. Her accurate fire struck home to varying effect.
Some bounced off flesh, while most penetrated.
She saw blood fly as a few shades drop and disappear into the fog.
She kept firing until a large, flat teal-colored pane of light cut off her firing lane.
Demi cursed.
“I’ll get closer so I can start throwing, Watch Captain,” Trevor volunteered.
“Negative.” Demi knew that would leave the young man easy pickings to the strong and fast shades. “We move as a group. Max, can you put up a thorn wall in front of that forcefield?”
“Sorry. I’m not at a hundred percent. Maybe if we were in a forest there’d be more for me to draw from,” Max said.
Demi couldn’t fault the one-armed man. The fact that he was here and not on the bus was already more than she could’ve asked.
They had to do something or Hanna was dead.
It was at that desperate moment that Hanna saw Phillip emerge out of the restaurant.
The muscular man leapt over the spears and the shades fighting to get past them to land in the middle of the pile of shades surrounding Hanna.
Phillip tried to think of them as shades rather than familiar faces of his and his wife’s extended family. He had to. He couldn’t do otherwise when he killed them all over again by bashing their faces into pulp with his fists.
The space he had cleared allowed him to grabbed Hanna and jump back behind the line of spears. He wasted no time in leaping back into the fray.
He drove the shades back from the spears.
None of them could cope with his greater strength and durability.
Their punches barely moved him and their forcefield weapons could only cut his armor and clothing. His skin proved tougher.
Victory was at hand.
Until it wasn’t.
The air was driven from Phillips lungs by a hit that shook everything in a hundred foot radius.
He turned only to catch a head-rattling uppercut to the chin that snapped his head back.
“I warned you,” Tito Carlos said.
The next thing Phillip knew was the sensation of flight.
The time he spent in the air was similar to one of his superjumps.
Just like those gravity eventually reasserted itself. He crashed through a roof and several floors before coming to a stop.
Tito Carlos and a handful of others landed a short distance from him.
“Your friends have given your son a chance. There’s only one guardian left. We need to put you down before we can go do what we have to,” Tito Carlos said.
Phillip spat blood. “Why? This is your chance to be free. Just do nothing or walk slowly.”
“You still don’t understand? There is no choice in this matter. No amount of willpower that can overcome our true purpose,” Tito Carlos said without emotion. “You are the physically strongest one here. I’m the closest to you, but I’m still a lot weaker. However, I used to be an amateur boxer and together,” he spread his arms wide to encompass the other four flanking him, “we can take you.”
“I’m really sorry, Phillip,” the old woman standing next to Tito Carlos finally spoke.
“Rosalita?” Phillip peered at his cousin. “I can’t really fault any of you,” he regarded his relatives with sadness.
“C’mon, Philly Boy,” Tito Carlos beckoned.
Phillip brought his fists up and charged.
----------------------------------------
Rino clawed at the teal-colored pane. Her claw marks vanished an instant after she had left them.
The old woman on the other side of grit her teeth. “Go. I can keep this monster contained. Take care of the rest.”
“Are you sure, Tita Lu?” the young woman at her side said.
Lu had her hands thrust out. A visualization aid that allowed her to will her flat forcefields into existence. She had managed to trap the tall, lean, fur-covered beast of muscle, teeth and claws against the side of building with three large panels. She did her best to ignore the torn bodies at the beast’s feet. Doing this was made easier by the way they were already turning back into mist. Her relatives had died many months ago, just as she had.
“Yes, Karlee,” Lu said. “Now, go, do what you must… what we all must.”
Karlee nodded sadly. She and the two other shades at Lu’s side hurried off to join the greater battle.
“You’ll stay in there until we’ve killed the rest of your group. Then we’ll do the same to you.”
Rino continued to slash at the forcefields.
“Do you think as the human you were? Or have you lost yourself to this form’s instincts? I know that’s what happens to the unfortunate people with the Aswang Class. Is it the same for you?”
A snarl sent bloody saliva splattering across the glowing teal pane.
“It appears so. When I was still alive I would’ve liked to pick your brain. I had hopes of finding ways to help those who’d been cursed with monstrous Classes. The fact that you fight on the side of normal people…” Lu sighed. “Well… it’s unfortunate for many that any hopes for that ends here.”
“Talk… much… quiet…” Rino said in a guttural rumble.
“You—” Lu’s eyes widened.
Rino howled as she let the red haze cloud her vision. Her claws shined, reflecting the teal glow from Lu’s forcefields. Her long, muscular arms moved in a blur as she slashed in frenzy.
Beads of sweat formed on Lu’s forehead. Her face twisted into a grimace. Blood dripped from her nostrils. A trickle at first, then a steady stream.
The claw marks in Lu’s forcefield didn’t vanish this time.
“Hold The Line!” Doran roared.
The Skill boosted the flagging spear line. Their bodies and gear grew stronger while it lasted. Enough to overcome their superpowered opponents?
No.
All Doran did was give them a few more minutes.
He was in the thick of it. Right in the middle of his formation. If this was to be his last battle then he was going to spend it shoulder to shoulder with his spears.
“Penetrating Thrust.”
Doran’s spear point pierced right through a young man’s Kevlar motorcycle jacket, but slowed as it hit the flesh beneath the clothing. He grit his teeth and gave it his all.
The spear plunged into the young man’s stomach.
A look of surprise flashed across the young man’s face. He spit blood in Doran’s face as he raised a fist and brought it down on the haft of Doran’s spear.
It took three blows before the wood broke thanks to Doran’s Skill.
“I’m supposed to be bulletproof,” the young man said as he pulled his fist back.
Doran blocked a jarring punch with his shield. The wood cracked and splintered, but held.
“You’ve got some good Skills,” the young man grunted. “Makes this closer than it should be.” He grabbed the top of Doran’s shield and pulled it down so he could look Doran in the eyes. “In the end you’ll end up just like us.”
A jet of air blew past Doran’s ear and the young man’s head rocked back.
When he brought it forward again their was an angry red mark on his forehead rapidly growing into a welt.
Bulletproof.
Doran had an idea.
He quickly drew his pistol and pushed the barrel right against one of the young man’s eyes. He squeezed the trigger before the young man could react.
Bloody gore splattered across Doran’s vision.
The young man fell back and pulled Doran out of the spear line.
Doran ended up on top of the body as it slowly returned to the fog.
Pain slashed across his back despite the steel armor he wore.
He rolled to his back and blocked a flash of light.
The top of his shield was sheared off by a woman with sharp-edged forcefields running along her arms and extending past her fists like a short blade.
“Sergeant!” Marci broke formation. “Lunging Thrust!” She extended her six foot long spear with perfect form to cover the distance.
The woman turned and parried Marci’s weapon to one side with a forcefield-covered arm.
Doran took the opportunity to kick the woman’s legs and sweep her to the ground. He scrambled to his feet and squeezed off several rounds in the woman’s direction.
“Behind y—”
The warning saved him, at least for the moment.
He turned and raised his damaged shield.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t in the formation anymore.
The blow shattered the shield, his arm and sent him rag-dolling down the street.
“Holy shit!” Rebekah said. “That chick just drop-kicked him.”
The Watch had taken cover at the other end of the street. They had ducked down behind several abandoned cars. The shades hadn’t attacked them yet. Whether that was because they had escaped notice or weren’t worth the attention at the moment didn’t matter. All it meant was that they’d get the first shots for free.
“When I give the go, lay down cover fire,” Demi ordered. “Give Doran a chance to get back or someone to go get him.”
“I’ve only got enough ammo for one,” Rebekah warned.
Demi gave a curt nod.
Ammunition was low for nearly all of them.
“Everyone, empty your mags. Aim for the ones without forcefields covering them.” Demi waited a few seconds for her people to pick their targets. “Fire!”
“Suppressing Fire,” Rebekah opened up with her submachine gun.
It was like being at a fireworks show.
Some bullets found their targets. They bounced of skin and forcefields. Only a few shades went down permanently, but it gave the spear line and the others a momentary breather as some shades sought cover behind their more impervious fellows.
Demi’s own weapon was comparatively as quiet as a mouse in a cat house, yet she streamed more projectiles down the street than the rest of her people combined.
“Trevor!” she barked even as she sent projectiles into the coverage gaps of one forcefield-armored shade. The targeting aids provide by her helmet made it almost easy.
“Yeah, Watch Captain?”
“You’ve got a few more balls left,” she pointed toward Rino. “I want you to get her out of that.”
“I’ve got balls, Sir!” Trevor saluted. He pulled a baseball out of the backpack he had dropped to the ground. He rushed out from cover and took a moment to assess his target. In this case the old woman with her hands up, struggling to maintain the teal-colored forcefields that kept Rino from fighting.
The distance was exactly 233 feet to Trevor’s eyes.
Skills gave him that accuracy.
When it came to throwing small, round objects his Class made him deadly.
Trevor kicked his leg up in a perfect wind up. “Cutter.” The baseball left his hand and streaked down the street, trailing gray mist in its wake. It was much faster than the record from the days when human limits had been defined.
The ball skimmed across the side of the old woman’s face.
She screamed as the sphere cut across her eyes like a blade. Her forcefields winked out and Rino leapt at her.
“Nice job.” Demi said.
“Uh, thanks,” Trevor said. He wanted to look away as Rino savaged the old woman, but he couldn’t.
“She’ll distract them. We’ll use that opportunity to join the others,” Demi said. She needed to get closer so that her best Skill could be used on everyone.
Layering their Skills was their only chance to survive, let alone win.
The Watch hustled down the street while Rino finished tearing the old woman to pieces.
Her vision was a red haze. It was difficult to recognize prey from friend. Fortunate for the latter that they were separated from her by dozens of the former.
She ripped out the spines of two forcefield wielders before the others reacted.
One man lassoed a sparkling pink rope around her wrists.
Two other shades rushed over and grabbed the rope with the man.
Rino strained supernaturally powerful muscles, but was defeated by the combined might of two superstrong shades.
They yanked her off her feet. Then whipped her high up into the air to crack her down against the street.
Several shades rushed the downed Rino. They kicked and stomped her into the asphalt.
Her ability to heal was pushed to the limit, then broken, like her bones.
She howled with fury.
Pain was a long gone friend thanks to the red haze.
She snapped and caught a leg in her mouth.
Dagger-like teeth pierced supertough skin.
She bit down.
Bone crunched and snapped.
The shade, a young woman, screamed like an animal as her relatives kicked Rino’s head.
“Sarge, Rino is in trouble, possibly dead,” Aims said between two shots from his revolvers. He cursed as one merely ricocheted off a shade’s forehead.
“Do you have a shot?” Sgt. Butcher said.
“Negative.”
“If the doggy’s in trouble, what the fuck can any of us do?” Mouthy muttered. “Cleave!” A horizontal cut with her machete encompassed the three shades charging their flank and drove them back.
Forcefields and tough skin limited the damage, but gave Hardhat the time to drive them farther back with her shotgun.
“Running low!” Hardhat called out.
“Don’t tell them that,” Mouthy hissed.
“I want a taunt on them!” Sgt. Butcher pointed at the three shades. The world spun for a moment, but she grit her teeth and pushed past it. She wasn’t fit for the battlefield, but there was no way she would let her squad fight without her. “Rino needs help if anyone can do anything now’s the time!” she called out to the others.
Kristian stepped forward and banged his shield. “Hey, attack me!”
“You need to work on that,” Mouthy said.
The three shades focused their attention on the muscular man.
Sgt. Butcher shot one in the chest, but the peach colored forcefield over the man’s chest blocked the bullet. She aimed the next one higher.
The shade dropped with a bloody hole in his throat and slowly disappeared.
The other two attacked Kristian.
“Shield Bash!”
He met the shade’s fist.
A sound like thunder echoed.
Bones broke for both.
“Desperate Hack!”
His axe flashed without technique, but strengthened by the Skill, it sunk deep into the shade’s chest.
The remaining shade punched Kristian in the chest with her small, delicate-looking fist.
He went flying back.
The crack of his ribs was audible over the sounds of battle.
Ambrose leapt over Kristian’s tumbling body and engaged the shade.
Hardhat cursed. “Is he—”
“Alive, but out.” Rai had rushed over and proceeded to drag Kristian back to the front of the restaurant.
“You’re like our last fucking magic user… do something!” Mouthy said.
“I can’t. The fog’s… eaten… all the spirits that might’ve been here,” Rai said.
“Spirits, ghosts, shades, shit, seems like all the same Jesus-fucked things to me.”
Mouthy’s words struck something in Rai. He had been useless ever since they had arrived in the city. He had accepted this as fact since he relied on spirits to cast his magic.
What if there had been spirits, of a sort, all around him the entire time?
Rai sat down on the ground, cross-legged and closed his eyes.
“The fuck? You can’t meditate in the middle of a fight!” Mouthy spat.
Rai didn’t hear her. He didn’t hear anything. He felt the threads and pulled.