Setrákus Ra grows. In the space of a few seconds, he goes from an eight-foot-tall behemoth to a twenty-foot-tall giant who completely towers over me. The thing is, his armor grows with him, and that just makes those gaps at his joints look like bigger targets.
Now, I only have to avoid getting crushed to death. No big deal.
I can’t run from him anymore. He can cover way too much ground. I turn to face him as he comes barreling in, trying to stay light on the balls of my feet. My plan is to dodge his strike, maybe run under his legs and slice out the back of his knees.
Setrákus Ra’s fist is the size of a cinder block. It sails down at me. I’m not sure I can make this dodge.
I don’t have to. At the last second, Setrákus Ra recoils and grabs at his face, howling in pain. A lion with the head of an eagle, razor-sharp claws and beautiful feathered wings just flew by and slashed the hell out of him. A griffin. A griffin just came to my rescue.
Bernie Kosar. God bless BK.
Setrákus Ra wheels around to face the Chimæra, who’s a much closer match to him in size. Bernie Kosar roars and slashes at Setrákus Ra with his talons. Strong as he is, Setrákus Ra is stronger. He clenches BK’s talon in one hand, then pulls him forward, wrestling him into a headlock. Bernie Kosar yelps, obviously in pain. With a feral yell, as much animal as Bernie Kosar if not more so, Setrákus Ra tries to snap the Chimæra’s neck.
I don’t let that happen. With all my might, I jam the sword into the soft tissue at the back of Setrákus Ra’s knee. It slides in easily and he howls with pain, loses his grip on BK and stumbles forward. The sword gets yanked right out of my grasp. He kicks backwards and even though I try to dive out of the way, his big boot glances against my side. I can feel ribs break as a result.
“Get him, BK!” I scream as I land hard in the dirt.
Bernie Kosar’s about to pounce when a sharp gasp from behind us catches our attention.
Ella sits up. She takes in another breath that sounds raw and painful. Her eyes are mostly back to normal, except there are still sparks of Loric energy popping out from the corners. That black goop continues to ooze from her nose and she spits some out of her mouth.
Setrákus Ra pulls the sword from the back of his leg like it’s a thorn. The weapon looks comically small in his huge hand. He hurls it towards Bernie Kosar, propelling it with his telekinesis. BK manages to dart out of the way at the last second, but the blade still carves a bloody gash in his side. He’s hurt and his powerful griffin form begins to revert back to normal. BK whips his head back and forth, snarling, fighting to maintain his form and stay in the battle.
“Granddaughter!” Setrákus Ra bellows, his voice thunderous in his huge form. He limps towards Ella. He actually sounds relieved. “I’m coming for you.”
In response, Ella pukes more black soup into the dirt. She’s out of it. However, whatever crap Setrákus Ra injected into her, it sure seems like her body is rejecting it now. I can’t let him get hold of her again.
“Bernie Kosar!” I shout. “Get her out of here!”
The wounded Chimæra glances at me with his sharp eagle eyes, but doesn’t hesitate. He swoops towards Ella just ahead of Setrákus Ra, gently scoops her up in his talons and flies her towards the jungle.
“No!” Setrákus Ra screams. “She’s mine!”
Setrákus Ra gives chase. He pulls at Bernie Kosar with his telekinesis, managing to slow the Chimæra down. Setrákus Ra almost has him when a jackhammer-sized icicle flies down from the crater’s rim, gouging the side of Setrákus Ra’s face and ripping off a piece of his ear.
Marina. She stands at the crater’s edge, already developing another wicked ice projectile to hurl at Setrákus Ra. Next to her, Adam is on his feet. He stomps and a teeth-clattering wave of seismic energy rolls down the side of the crater, loose bricks and broken ship parts descending with it. If I wasn’t already on the ground, the seismic blast would’ve put me there. Setrákus Ra, with his already wounded legs, goes down hard. Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I think he shrinks a little bit when he’s knocked off his feet. We’ve messed with his concentration enough that he’s struggling to maintain all his Legacies. I try to use my telekinesis to fling some debris at him, but I’m still too close.
Blaster fire comes from the Anubis aimed at Marina and Adam, but it’s answered in kind by Mark and Sarah as the two of them race along the edge of the crater. Between their cover fire and the broken rocks of the Sanctuary, we’ve actually inadvertently managed to cut Setrákus Ra off from the rest of his forces.
At a glance, I see Mark is bleeding from a cut on the top of his head and Sarah has some pretty nasty blaster burns up and down one arm. Otherwise, they look just fine.
They look better, in fact, than Setrákus Ra. His face slashed, ear missing, legs carved up. He struggles onto his knees.
We’ve got him. We’ve really got him.
Marina slings another icicle towards Setrákus Ra. He thrusts a fist forward and shatters it in midair.
“I am not dying at the hands of children,” he rumbles. But you know what? He doesn’t sound so sure.
Sore as all hell and wheezing, I push myself back to my feet and sprint towards the opposite side of the crater from Marina and Adam. If we can stay separated then there’s no way Setrákus Ra can catch us all in the radius of his Legacy-canceling field. We can bombard him from a distance.
Mark and Sarah see me coming, even though they’re exchanging fire with the Mogs. They stop running along the edge of the crater about halfway between me and Marina and Adam’s position. I see them exchange a few words, and then Sarah doubles back towards me while Mark presses on toward the others.
“You look like you could use a hand!” Sarah says, coming a few steps into the crater to help me the rest of the way up.
“Thanks. You all right?”
“Hanging in,” she replies. I can tell she’s trying not to look at the blistered burns on her arm.
I’ve got a much better visual of our situation from up here. The Mogs still holding position in front of the Anubis are surprisingly few. The others must have killed a whole lot of them while I was fighting Setrákus Ra. Even while I’m watching, Mark dusts one of them with a head shot. There’s only a handful left.
Setrákus Ra doesn’t have any reinforcements.
He isn’t going down easy, though. The Mogadorian overlord, still way oversized, clambers up the side of the crater towards Marina and Adam. With his wounded legs, he has to scramble up on his hands. Smartly, the others don’t let him get close. Adam keeps unleashing seismic currents that cause Setrákus Ra to stumble backwards. Meanwhile, Marina alternates between freezing the ground beneath his feet and hurling chunks of ice at him. Setrákus Ra is able to absorb most of her volleys with his armor, but it has to be taking a toll. He isn’t talking smack anymore. Instead, the Mogadorian leader is looking kind of desperate.
“You covering me?” I ask Sarah.
“You know it.”
I nod and shout across the crater to Marina and Adam. “This is it! Throw everything you’ve got at him!”
I sense the ground shake as Adam amps up his earthquake and Marina redoubles her ice-chucking. Sarah and Mark keep firing steadily at the Mogs on the Anubis’s walkway, killing some and keeping the others at bay. I reach up, concentrating on the weather above, and start conjuring the biggest storm I can manage. The atmosphere around us gets heavy and humid as I pull the clouds low, even with the hovering Anubis. Pretty soon, the warship is wreathed in thickening fog.
“Whoa,” I hear Sarah say. It’s not every day you see storm clouds gathering so close to the ground.
Before I can finish, I hear a metallic tearing sound. Setrákus Ra’s given up on climbing out of the crater and getting at Marina and Adam. He was overconfident and bloodthirsty before. Now, he’s acting smart. With his telekinesis, he tears what’s left of his pipeline loose from the Anubis. The massive piece of machinery floats in the air for a second before he hurls it
at the others.
“Look out!” Mark screams. He and Adam dive one way, Marina dives the other. The pipeline crashes to the ground in between them. None of them are hurt, but without them peppering him with Legacies, Setrákus Ra is able to start climbing out of the crater, his huge strides covering a lot of ground.
It’s my turn to keep him down there.
I twist my hands through the air, conducting the weather. The wind picks up, whipping around debris and dirt. My face gets stung by little rocks and my eyes burn from the dust. I power through. I’m creating a tornado, right on top of Setrákus Ra.
“Die, you son of a—!”
My back explodes in pain. A blaster shot, right between the shoulder blades. I fall forward onto my hands and knees, almost tumbling into the crater. My concentration is shot along with me, the wind immediately beginning to die down.
“Six!” Sarah cries out. She grabs me around the waist and together we roll behind a pile of rubble, just ahead of more blaster fire.
The shooting didn’t come from the Anubis. It came from the jungle.
“Protect the Beloved Leader!” screams Phiri Dun-Ra as she sprints into view, spraying blaster fire. She leads a small contingent of Mog warriors. They must have gone into the jungle, found and freed the trueborn and come around behind us. Seeing reinforcements, the Mogs on the Anubis get bolder. All of a sudden, we’re caught in a cross fire. Sarah tries to shoot back, but the blaster fire is too intense. She hunkers down next to me.
“Six, what do we do?”
I poke my head out just in time to see Setrákus Ra reach the top of the crater. He’s got Adam’s sword again and is using it almost like a cane.
Marina is right in his path.
“Marina! Get out of there!” I scream. She can’t hear me. I see it all play out.
Marina thrusts her hands forward, expecting ice to jut out in Setrákus Ra’s direction. Nothing happens. Her Legacies are turned off. Setrákus Ra raises a hand in the air and, even though she struggles, Marina’s plucked up from the ground. He’s got her in his telekinesis.
“Oh God,” Sarah says. “Oh no.”
Setrákus Ra slams her down against the ground. Picks her up. Slams her down again. I watch as Marina’s body goes limp. Each time, he raises her almost twenty feet in the air, then sends her plummeting back down to the hard ground. Over and over.
It’s Mark who saves her. He darts around the smashed-up pipeline and shoots Setrákus Ra right in the side of the face, scorching the bloody hole where his ear used to be. The Mogadorian screams in rage and new pain, then returns fire by sending Marina’s body hurtling in Mark’s direction. They collide and both of them go crashing to the ground. Mark’s still moving, though. He gets his arms around Marina and tries to pick her up.
Even at this distance, she looks broken.
I haven’t felt a new scar burn into my ankle. Not yet. She’s still alive.
Adam runs over to Mark and together they grab Marina’s body. Dodging blaster fire, they retreat into the jungle.
Phiri Dun-Ra and the other Mogs have reached Setrákus Ra. They surround him on all sides, although he refuses any help, viciously caving in the skull of one Mog bold enough to touch him. They escort him up the ramp. He’s almost back into the Anubis.
“Damn it, no,” I hiss, forcing myself to stand up despite the searing pain across my back.
“Six!” Sarah grabs for me. “Stop! It’s over!”
I don’t accept that. We were so damn close. He can’t just keep getting away like this.
I can still kill him. We can still win.
I step out from cover and throw my hands into the air, making the wind kick up again. Bricks from the Sanctuary, twisted metal from the exploded Skimmers, sharp chunks of glass—all of it swirls together in a deadly funnel. Phiri and her Mogs shoot at me. I feel a blaster burn light up my thigh, another on my shoulder. It doesn’t stop me.
“This is suicide!” Sarah yells in my ear. She’s at my side, returning fire on the Mogs.
“Get back,” I tell her. “Run for the jungle.”
“I’m not leaving you!” she replies, again trying to grab me. I shrug her off.
Setrákus Ra reaches the top of the ramp. I scream and push forward with all my might, combining my weather Legacy with a wild burst of telekinesis, throwing everything my whipping winds have picked up at Setrákus Ra.
Two of the surviving Mogs get dusted immediately, smashed by my bombardment of debris. Phiri Dun-Ra shrinks back, shielding her face. But, in the doorway to the Anubis, Setrákus Ra stands tall. He turns towards me, stones and shrapnel bouncing off his armor, and pushes back. His own telekinesis slams up against mine.
Objects fly in every direction. From the corner of my eye, I see Sarah’s blaster get ripped right out of her hands. The dislodged windshield of a Skimmer slices into the ground next to me like a guillotine blade. I’m hit—over and over again—by things I can’t even identify. Still, I stand my ground, heels digging into the dirt. I keep pushing.
It happens.
A metal pole with a Loralite symbol carved into it, a piece of Setrákus Ra’s destroyed pipeline, flies through the air. The end is sharp. Serrated.
It plunges right into Setrákus Ra’s chest. I watch him double over, stumble back from the impact. I can see Phiri Dun-Ra scream.
The force from his telekinesis dies down. I feel him weaken.
I did it.
Tears stream down my cheeks.
I did it.
Phiri Dun-Ra and the others drag Setrákus Ra onto the Anubis. The door slams shut behind him. The ramp retracts.
I fall onto my knees. He’s dead. He has to be dead. It has to have been worth it.
Sarah wraps her arms around me.
“Get up, Six,” she says, her voice strained. She coughs, sucks in a breath. She’s hurt. We both are. “We have to go!”
I place my hand on top of Sarah’s and turn us invisible. This way, I don’t have to see the blood.
So much blood. Too much.
I hope it was worth it.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
I MADE A LOT OF PROMISES BACK IN THE Elders’ Chamber. I told those new Garde that I’d lead them, that we’d help them train, that together we could save their world. It was pretty amazing, seeing them all there. Yeah, some of them looked scared, a few of them completely confused, and a couple even appeared downright angry to be roped into this. But most of the others . . . they looked ready. Nervous, yeah, but ready and willing to step up and join the fight.
Now, to keep those promises, I just have to survive one seriously pissed-off Mogasaur.
The second that I’m back in my body, I feel a hot gust of the beast’s stinky breath as it roars. It’s right behind us. I’ve still got an arm around Sam from when I grabbed him before we all briefly fainted. He’s got his wits back too, so we stumble against each other but manage to get it together and run.
“Nice speech!” Sam shouts in my ear. “Are we going to die now?”
“Hell no,” I reply.
The gathering of the Garde isn’t the only thing that stuck with me from Ella’s dream space. I’m still dwelling on watching Pittacus Lore in action. Ximic, that’s what Loridas called Pittacus Lore’s copycat Legacy. And then there was my brief meeting with Henri.
Visualize, he said. Visualize and remember.
Agent Walker pauses from screaming into her satellite phone to eyeball us. She seems just as confused by our awakening as she must have been with our sudden collapse a couple of seconds ago.
“What the hell’s happening?” she yells.
“Don’t worry about it! Get your people to cover!” I yell, waving my arms.
“How are we supposed to fight that thing?” Sam asks, glancing over his shoulder.
“I don’t know,” I reply grimly.
“We hit it a lot,” Nine barks.
Walker and most of the agents use the Statue of Liberty for cover. I’m not sure how much g
ood that’s going to do considering the Mogasaur is almost as large as the statue. One of the agents, I didn’t catch his name, trips up in his panic as the behemoth bounds forward. It moves like a gorilla, keeping its weight on its front fists, its clawed back feet churning up furrows of cement as they scrabble for purchase. Lucky for us, the newborn monster is still getting used to walking.
That doesn’t save the fallen agent, though. I try to yank him backwards with my telekinesis, but I’m not quick enough. The Mogasaur brings one of its closed fists down and crushes the poor guy. I don’t even think the beast notices. Its eyes, each of them dotted with what I’m sure is a stolen Loric pendant, are locked onto us.
It’s only a matter of time before it catches us. Suddenly, I find myself thinking about the first night I met Six, back in Paradise. It was also the first time I’d taken on a piken, although it wasn’t anywhere near as big as this behemoth. Six used her invisibility to get us out of a lot of jams that night. I remember the way she grabbed my hand. I remember the dizzying feeling of being able to see through my own body.
Remember. Visualize.
“John?” Sam screams as we run. “JOHN?”
“What’s wrong?” I yell back, head on a swivel.
“You—” He’s staring at me and almost trips over his own feet. “You just disappeared.”
I didn’t disappear, I realize. I turned invisible.
“Holy shit, I can do it,” I say out loud.
“Do what?” Nine asks.
I don’t answer. My mind races. I just used Six’s invisibility Legacy, if only briefly. It just clicked, like remembering a name that you thought you’d forgotten. I could make us invisible. We could escape. But that would mean abandoning Walker and her people.
All this power, right at my fingertips, always just out of reach. And now—what can I do with it? I need time to practice, to figure things out, to train.
What Legacies can I crack in the next couple of minutes that will help us defeat this monster?
Agent Walker and her group empty their guns into the beast. The bullets are all swallowed by the thing’s thick hide, no more effective than my fireball was earlier. Nothing but a swarm of gnats to the Mogasaur. It ignores the agents completely, coming for us.