“Where’s Leroy, where’s
Mary?” Asked a kid they had just been rescued, while pulling on Mase’s
sleeve, to get an answer.
“Cavalier!” Screamed a thunderous voice.
The
Ghostbuster army people all turned to look east, where a lone figure
stood next to the school bus. Kneeling next to him was Leroy Jenkins
and little Mary, hands tied behind their backs.
“I am calling you
out.” Ghost Starr unsheathed his sword slowly. “Face me now, or these
two die.” He positioned himself behind Leroy, the black sword was
glowing red.
Electrobolt sniped him then, to hit him square in the
face. Ghost Starr flew backwards and slid on the ground a few meters,
smoke rising from him. The Ghostbuster army cheered and some of them
started to moved forward, to help Leroy and girl. But Ghost Starr
got back up, brushing dust away from his chest, and looked straight
at the Electrobolt from the distance. He pointed his sword at him,
and a fiery red bolt of energy streaked the night across the street
and hit the blaster. Electrobolt was hit square in the chest, the
impact sent him flying backwards, where he landed limply, blood oozing
from the wound.
Ghost Starr then walked back to Leroy and plunged
his broad sword through his back, the blade came out in the front,
fiery red.
“NO!” Screamed Cavalier who had taken a single step forward,
helpless to change what had just happened.
Ghost Starr removed the
sword from Leroy, who fell dead on his side, while little Mary was
screaming and crying, terrified.
“This is your last chance Cavalier,
face me now, or she dies.” The thunderous voice said, as he came to
stand behind the small child. “I challenge thee!” He then screamed
to the scrapper.
Cavalier stood there silently, square jaw tensed
and fists clenched. He unsheathed the long sword, old and true, and
stepped forward, to stand on the top of a car that was part of the
barricade.
“Chromium Man, you’re in charge. Do not come for me, if
I fall.” Cavalier advanced alone from the barricade, while everyone
else stood rooted in place, for fear that if they moved, the girl
would die.
“The mighty Cavalier, somehow, I thought you would be smaller.”
Spoke softly the handsome demon, dark blade in his hand pointing to
the ground, where the tip was melting the asphalt with a hissing sound.
“Let her go now, or by all that I hold dear, you will suffer.” Answered
the squared jaw scrapper, blade half raised towards Ghost Starr, not
yet challenging him. “What do you want from us?”
“Nothing.” He replied
with his velvet voice, smiling gently while his eyes looked down on
the child, who was terrified and shaking. “I wanted to meet you, face
to face, James Steele
“Well, you found me, now let her go.” He had
gone to great lengths, during his time in Paragon city, to keep his
real name secret and hidden. That this, this abomination knew it,
surprised him greatly.
“We were expecting you, this morning in Orebanga,
not Mr. Starr. I wanted to meet you, to understand the fascination
my master has with you. And frankly, I don’t see it, Mr. Starr was
a far better vessel than you could’ve ever been.” Ghost Starr then
told the story of how the recruits and the leader of Apocalypse were
captured today, how they were tortured, fleshed and burned, how they
screamed in agony at each moment, while his master basked in their
suffering.
“Turbo is… dead?” Asked Cavalier incredulously, not believing
for one second the only man to beat him in a fair fight, could be
dead. He shook his head in disbelief, waving away the doubts that
had crept in his mind. It answered so many questions all of a sudden,
the magical spikes that were recorded this morning, emanating from
Orebanga, the mysterious disappearance of the Knight’s recruits, along
with his boss, without a trace. But it couldn’t be, even the best
planned Malta assassination attempt had failed against Turbo Starr.
“You lie.”
“Then where is he? Where is your most vaunted leader, as
the bell tolls, nowhere to be found. He is dead, and soon, all of
you will be.” He raised his sword from the tip down position that
it was, and brought it up sideways, the sweeping motion cut Mary’s
head clean through.
Cavalier felt the wind knock out of him, as if
he had just been punched in the stomach, his knees gave up, and his
sword fell limp from his hand, resounding on the asphalt next to him.
A huge uproar of anger came from the barricade, screams and yells
of the heroes reached them. Ghost Starr super jumped backwards, landing
on a building about three hundred yards away. Pointing his sword towards
Cavalier, he said :
“Next time we meet, you die. This place belongs
to me, and all that’s in it, is mine to kill.” He jumped away again,
just in time so as to not get hit by the coming salvo from the blasters.
The building where he had stood took the brunt of the attack, and
most of the last floor crumbled and fell to the ground. Rising from
below the street level, the Ghost army appeared ahead, charging for
the barricade once more. Mase Lokrin, who had finally made it close
enough to teleport someone, brought Cavalier back towards safety.
Cavalier let out a long scream of pain and torment, tears were flowing
from his eyes, both fists clenched, he roared at the heavens. He had
failed her, failed miserably.
“Wake up traveller, the time is now.”
Voyager
rose up, reminded right away that pain was part of living. The pounding
that came from his rib cage told him some were still tender and fragile,
and his head ached again. He felt antsy and pressed for time, a ball
of anger was rooted in his stomach. Jade Rade was looking at him from
across the fire, keeping the watch while the others slept. She had
been watching him sleep for some time now, and couldn’t help but wonder
what nightmares visited him, to make him so fidgety when his eyes
were closed.
“I have to go, now.” Said the old man, while slowly getting
up, feeling every motion a thousand times, so much the pain was present.
“You are in no condition to go anywhere, and besides, where would
you go?” Asked the beautiful defender, somewhat taken aback by the
fact that he could stand up. She had made sure to heal him just enough
to keep him alive, and by hero standards, he shouldn’t be able to
sit, let alone stand. What sort of a man was he, to be able to sustain
that much pain, and yet find it in himself to keep going.
“Home.”
Voyager started a slow walk towards the cave exit, each step a difficult
process. He coughed painfully and blood came to his lips. “Either
you make for a lousy defender, or you just don’t want to heal me,
either way doesn’t matter, I don’t need your help.”
“It’s a choice
old man, better that you are weak and wounded, than fully functional
and deadly. Besides, by keeping you this way, I am maintaining the
peace around here. If you wanna go, then go, but don’t expect me to
take your wounds away.” Jade stood up, and came to stand next to him
by the entrance. “What is so important, that you need to go back to
earth, they will hunt you down and kill you, if you go there. You
are probably the most sought after trophy any supergroup wants to
hang in their display case.”
“I… I hear a voice when I sleep, and
she’s telling me to go back home, that all depends on my presence.”
He smiled with derision after saying that, knowing full well that
only a mad man hear voices, and furthermore, only a committed mad
man listens to them. “And I can’t help it, I am drawn there like a
magnet.”
“Well you can dream on all you want old man, the Crey transponders
grafted to our bodies, will warn the army we are coming well before
we make it there. And maybe you’ve been away too long, but the shield
has to be down for us to enter the base, and after that we would have
to reach the portal without getting shot a thousand times. There’s
no way back to earth, this is where we live, and where we will all
die.” Jade looked in the distance, squinting her eyes to see better,
the orange sky towards the Chantry looked tinted with grey, as if
smog was there.
“My transponder is broken, has been for a long time,
and I know how to deactivate yours too.” Voyager looked at Jade, hoping
this bargaining chip would be enough of an incentive to get a full
heal from her.
“What’s that?” She pointed towards the grey cloud that
was becoming less of a cloud, and more of a black dotted horizon.
Voyager looked where she pointed, then looked down on the rocky floor,
letting a long breath out.
“The way home.” He said, then looked at
her again. “The Rularuu want the dimension for themselves, Jade, That’s
what they’ve been after all along. They don’t care for earth or us,
they want us out of here, and want the portal closed forever. We are
the invaders here, we are the enemy. The host is coming Jade, and
it will be our chance to go back home, or be stuck here forever. Don’t
you get it girl, out here, we are the bad guys.”
“I don’t believe
you, even a first year hero knows the Rularuu is the enemy and has
to be hunted down and pushed back.” Jade shook her head, this guy
was nuts and a half.
“It’s what we are told, Jade, not what is real.
I spent almost a year in their care, talked with them, exchanged points
of views, debated philosophies and beliefs. They are definitely not
thinking the same way we are, but we do share one thing in common,
we can tell when we are being invaded.” Voyager stepped out of the
cave, and started to cough again, which brought him down on his knee,
spitting blood. Jade moved forward and infused him with a partial
heal, to ease the pain, and soothe his burning lungs.
“How… How do
you deactivate the transponder?” She asked him.
“Fulcrum shifting
an army does it. It brings in so much power that the damned thing
fuses out. I found that out quite by mistake, about a year ago, when
the Nemesis army came to track me down out here. Only one draw back
to the whole process, when I take in that much power, I have to let
the energy out, I go supernova.” Memories of him and Brahma Bullseye
fighting a Nemesis battalion near Firebase Zulu flashed in his mind.
“The process nearly kills me, and can kill anyone standing not close
enough when I do it.”
Jade Rade knew of the fulcrum shift power, a
terrible attack by any standards. It multiplies the damage output
of all the people present in a certain area, while draining all the
enemy present of theirs. She swallowed hard, picturing the insane
amount of energies an army could bring to a shifter, picturing the
ensuing explosion if one wasn’t close enough to be safe.
“Talk to
your crew Jade, we have less than an hour to move, the host is the
key to our freedom. If you decide to come with me, be ready for the
fight of your lives, if not, be stuck here forever. The Rulaaru comes
to shut the portal down, and anyone left behind after they do, is
fair game. I don’t intend to be here when that happens, and neither
should you.” Voyager slowly sat down on a rock by the entrance, keeping
his fiery red eyes on the coming army. God protects the fools and
the ignorant, he prayed he was one or the other.