Laila shouldered her rifle as she stepped up to fetch Daxton and Kenny, where she stopped and put her hands on her hips, canting them to one side as she grinned. “Aw, ain’t that cute…” She said, regarding the scene of both Kenny and Daxton asleep in the silence of one of the alcove benches, faux-snow-dusted and surrounded by the glimmering walls made to look like a cool, crystalline cave under a spotlight above their heads. Daxton was laid out on his back, legs curled up so he could fit on the bench, his head in Kenny’s lap and his hat on the ground nearby. Kenny had dipped his head back against the back rest of the bench and was soundly asleep, seated upright. Looking on, Laila had found Samantha and Quincey, and the three of them took a little delight in seeing the two normally very rough and tumble boys in something gentler for a change.
Laila fished her PET out of the pocket of her work suit and held it out straight to snap a picture of the two of them. She withdrew it and checked the image for quality, deciding it good enough to keep for herself and send to Quincey for later. She then switched applications and held her PET up close to her mouth.
“COCK-A-DOODLE DOO!” She yelled, her voice amplified like a megaphone through her PET, startling the boys into wide-eyed alertness. Kenny bolted upright and Daxton flailed before he tumbled off the bench and onto the ground where he kicked up a bunch of snow-like powder. Laila couldn’t contain her laugher, and even Samantha and Quincey had a giggle at the two of them.
“Damnit Laila!” Kenny groused, getting up quickly to lunge at her and try to take her PET from her, “C’mere, I’ll throw that thing onto the track!”
Laila just held the device high above her head, while using her other hand to hold Kenny down, creating a disparity of height between them spanning a few feet that Kenny never hoped to reach. “Ahahaha!” Laila laughed at him, not with him. “The look on yer faces! Y’coulda swore Daxton had eyes for a second! It was like, ‘buh!’” Laila made a face mocking the two of them.
“The trains are here,” Quincey said, “It’s time to go.”
“Already, huh?” Daxton brushed himself off and tugged his hat back down over his head.
“S’been like two hours!” Laila said. She pushed down on Kenny, ignoring his constant efforts to rough her up. “Sun’s gone down!”
“Indeed, we travel by night to our last bastion,” Samantha sighed wistfully, “It shouldn’t take long at all. I hope you’re ready to go.”
“Little hungry, but I guess I can eat when we get there,” Daxton answered, “Let’s go.”
Samantha walked with them from the alcoves to the station where the trains had indeed gathered – six of them in all, in fact. The four tracks normally all went to various places, each denoted by a colour to differentiate which line someone may have wanted to get on. Harbington had an almost sleepy tram system, still like any that the other dome cities had, but not as widely used. It was never a large tourist destination. Most of the time, people either lived there or just didn’t, and visitors were rare. Every track was changed to lead to Locksmouth, denoted by orange lights. The trains were crowded into the station front to back and citizens were piling on. It was busy, and it was obvious just by looking in the windows that people were squeezing together to make as much room as possible for others to get on. Elders and children could sit, everyone else stood holding on to the bars fixed into the cars for support.
While not a terribly populated dome, Harbington’s few-hundred citizens took up almost enough space to fill every train front to back. The one designated for the injured civilians among them was given the most space they could muster, leaving the doctors and the patients room to work in and be comfortable during the trip. Samantha stopped by that very same train and turned to the others. “I’ll be joining this train, to tend to the injured, with Mhend’s help of course. We will more than be able to handle that, and that leaves you four to protect the other trains.”
Kenny looked back, checking with himself. “There’s still five trains though!” He said, “There aren’t enough of us to watch them all!”
Laila crossed her arms. “That big fella and them Eos goons are gonna watch the last train,” She said, “With all their weapons n’ such.” The irony of having a rifle of her own strapped to her back seemed to escape her.
“That sounds like a bad idea.” Daxton said.
“Eos doesn’t even listen to Garrison anymore anyway,” Kenny pointed out, “They’ve been working with the police since Epheral showed up here at the mall.”
“We don’t really have a choice…” Quincey said, “The police will be there too, right?”
“On every train,” Samantha nodded, “They’re going to be scattered throughout.”
“What about the inked people?” Quincey asked.
“Likewise spread out,” Samantha answered, “That way if Epheral does come for them, they’re not all in one place to get trounced.”
The Harbington teens looked uncertain. “That’s… not very favourable.” Daxton said.
Samantha could only shrug with another sigh, no doubt at her pack leader’s method of planning such things. “None of this is, but it shouldn’t take very long at all, and Natalie is ready and waiting for us in Locksmouth so we can begin transferring everyone to a shelter. We should be able to run things quickly if not smoothly.”
“Excuse me.” An officer interjected into their conversation politely, but insistently. He waited only for the slightest eye contact before continuing, “We feel it’s best if you all take these and stay in touch.” The chimp in blue held out his hands, in which were as many earpieces as he could carry on his own. The teens just looked at them for a moment, their minds catching up with the implications of the reveal. Once they caught on, they took an earpiece each and began clipping them in, allowing them to affix themselves into their various-shaped ear canals. Even if PETs could be used as a decent hands-free communications device, the listener devices would ensure that no message went unheard. The officer who handed them out used his own PET to adjust them until each teen had a balance where ambient noise got through just as it would have had they no earpieces at all, but communications tests still came through loud and clear.
The officer took his leave once that was settled. “Gosh,” Quincey said, “Are we really expecting this much trouble?”
“This really ought to be standard procedure with things like Epheral,” Kenny said, “Even if nothing happens, it’s better to have and not need than to need and not have.”
“I guess that’s true.” Quincey fussed putting her earpiece in, unable to get it to clip into her ear just right. She struggled, but Daxton soon stepped in to take over for her, gently fastening it to her ear.
He kept his voice low. “You doing alright?”
“I’ll be okay,” Quincey blushed, “I’m just nervous. I just wish Epheral would go away, or just not have come in the first place.”
“Hey, you don’t have to fight her.” Daxton said, “Just leave it to me.”
Quincey shook her head. “No,” She said, “E-Even if… I really wish I didn’t have to, I will. Everyone’s expecting me to.”
“What?” Leila butted in, leaning over the two of them, “People are really pilin’ up on you?”
Quincey addressed the group, pushing her index fingers together, pressing her fingertips against one another. “Well, yeah,” She said, “Haven’t you noticed? B-Back when we had that meet on Skyships of Conquest, and people h-have been, well… Talking? To me? They keep asking me what’s going to happen, like I’d know, because I’m bonded with Duplex. They want a hero like Natalie to save them…”
Sam tapped her lip thoughtfully. “Oh, Quincey, it’s alright. You don’t have to be like Natalie to be of help to everyone; you’ve already done an awful lot.” The little bat stepped forward, taking Quincey’s hands into her own to comfort the girl, or at least ensure that she maintained eye-contact despite being so nervous. “I’m not like Natalie, but I’ve proven to be a very valuable addition to our team. I’ve come to surprise even myself at just how helpful I can be when I’m so little like our fearless leader. Just… be yourself. Everything will work out in the end.”
“Besides,” Daxton shrugged, “We can be every bit the heroes Natalie can be, easy! No offense to Natalie or anything. She’s great and stuff, but she’s just one girl. There’s four of us, and Sam. We’ve got a solid team right here! We got me on offense, and Kenny on, uh, offense. Laila on… offense.”
He paused and puckered his lips in thought.
“We could really use your support!” He said.
“What your beau is so eloquently trying to say, Quincey,” Sam said, “Is that you’re not alone.”
Daxton wrapped Quincey up in a hug, dropping his chin onto her shoulder to press in close. “Yeah,” He said, “That.”
“I’m just trying to think of what it means to, well… be that.” Quincey smiled a little, giving Daxton a kiss on the side of his head.
Kenny seemed to be mulling the idea over. “Natalie tried to explain it to us, in that Natalie kind of way.” He thought back to their discussion that took place that morning, and he pieced it together with the events that unfolded and his own dealings with Polaris and how those had been laid out. “I know I sound like a broken record, but we have a responsibility; not just to take care of our own business and own up to our mistakes, but to everyone else in the dome.”
“Yeah, because we’re stronger.” Daxton nodded, keeping one arm around Quincey’s shoulders, “The weakest one of us is still stronger than anyone else, right? Heck, with Lumina, I’m certain I can take Garrison one-on-one easily. And he was supposed to be, what, the quintessential human soldier of a century ago? The only other people I’ve met that are that strong are, well, you guys.” He turned his attention to Sam, who nodded.
“Inklings do enhance your physical capabilities,” She said, “Mhend has spent so much time experimenting with the effects of Inkling bonding with their hosts, she’s told me quite a bit about them. The simplest way we could describe it is… a scale. With your average person being the lowest end of that scale and super-humans being the highest, an Elite Inkling can take the capabilities of your average studious individual and raise them to a level more befitting of an athlete or a track runner. Your endurance, stamina, and strength all get ‘bumped up’ to something higher.”
“So, Carrie being built like a brick house…” Kenny led on.
“… Means that, when Inked, she has the capabilities beyond any well-trained soldier, yes. Polaris can move a PeTra with his magnetism powers – Arus can move it with her hands.”
“Kenny was a cheerleader, Laila’s a farmer, I work out all the time…” Daxton went through his pack, and finally fell to Quincey. “And you, are a lot stronger than I think we’ve ever given you credit for.”
Laila snickered. “She’s haulin’ a couple hundred pounds of pig like a pack mule all day,” She said, “That’s gotta account for somethin’.”
Quincey blushed.
“Yeah, but she bruises like a peach.” Kenny added.
Quincey frowned.
The lemming boy crossed his arms and reflected on that. “Anyway, it means that since we’re stronger than everyone else, we have a duty to protect them. Well, really, we have a choice. Either we can use those powers for the greater good, or we can be that dick in Locksmouth.”
“I trust you are referring to Cedric,” Samantha narrowed her eyes at Kenny, “Correct?”
They all practically grimaced at the mere mention of Cedric’s name.
Laila blinked in realization. “Oh, wow, that means we can’t just… not, huh?”
Daxton scoffed at the notion. “What, just stand by and do nothing? That’s worse than nothing.”
“That’s easy for you to say, ya’ll been beatin’ on fellas like an ornery bull since the day I first laid eyes on you,” Laila said, “What about those of us who, y’know, don’t?”
“Well you don’t have to, but if you’re gonna, then you better catch up quick.” Daxton put a hand on his hip, releasing his girlfriend and shifting his weight from one foot to the next. “Kenny’s kind of a fighter, but Polaris was supposedly some big warrior. Inklings can help, believe it or not.”
Quincey winced. The words Duplex would likely use to describe itself did not fall into the “warrior” category. “Failure” sprung to mind more readily.
Laila huffed. “I’unno what the heck mine’s all about other than hijackin’ bodies.”
“What, haven’t you talked to it yet?” Kenny asked.
Laila stared at him blankly. “How’n the heck do I do that?”
The ping of the station PA system caught their attention. The announcement declared that the final boarding call for all trains outbound to Locksmouth Dome was being issued. There was no time left to waste.
“Well?” Samantha looked gently into Quincey’s eyes, “What will you do, dear?”
Quincey sniffed, balling her hands into fists and staring determinedly back at Sam. “I’m going to try,” She said, “I promised I would do that much.”
She softened, knitting up her eyebrows. “E-Even if I am terrified.”
“Twenty minutes on a train packed with an entire dome’s residence,” Sam said, “Why, if you can manage that, I’d go so far as to call you a bona fide hero.”
Unsure of whether Samantha was teasing her or not, Quincey just smiled and stuck out through the potential bitter sarcasm from the little bat. Samantha stepped forward toward the train housing the injured, and she stepped up into the doors, looking back simply for a moment to wave at the group before she stepped inside, and they closed behind her. With their own tasks looming, the four Harbington teens split up and took the remaining four cars, leaving Garrison and Eos to handle the last. With the trains taking two tracks, they were set to depart double-file, three pairs of two. Garrison had taken the second car at the front, adjacent to Samantha’s charge.
Quincey stepped onto the train and the doors closed suddenly behind her, barely giving her time to get her curled tail through. She jumped forward a little with her hands protectively cupped over her rear. She gave the doors a bitter look, and then looked around the car. True to what had been said, the car was more packed than she had ever seen a train in Harbington. Where there were normally many seats available to passengers on a normal day, she was hard pressed to find one now and several passengers were standing. As if that weren’t uncomfortable enough, there wasn’t a pair of eyes that weren’t watching her. Even the couple of Eos soldiers, still in their black combat fatigues and still holding their very illegal weaponry, went unnoticed compared to her.
“Quincey!” Edward rose from a seat in the crowd, and Eddie rose higher behind him as he too stood to his full height. Her boyfriend’s dads slipped their way through the crowds, two people taking their freed-up seats only seconds after they left them. They approached Quincey, Edward still with his swollen, bruised eye and Eddie looking ragged as ever, and they just gave her assuring, fatherly smiles. They were like her second and third dads, after all. They stepped off to the side, safely among the passengers with her. Eddie took her left hand, and Edward held her right, and they stood with her in paternal solidarity. She was surprised, but they seemed anything but.
Looking out through the windows and into those of the train next to them, Quincey could see Daxton there. Eddie and Edward lifted Quincey’s arms as they waved, holding her hands up above her to make a sort of gesture. Daxton noticed them and grinned, waving back. Quincey was embarrassed quite thoroughly, just adding to her nerves.
“Laila, I got your parents and sister in my train.” Daxton said over the earpiece.
“Neat,” Laila answered, “Walter’s raisin’ a fuss in here. He wanted to ride with Quincey.”
Quincey withdrew her hand from Beaver-Dad’s and pressed on her earpiece to activate it. “I’m safe with Edward and Eddie, so tell him I’m fine.”
“Annnd my dad’s stalking me still,” Kenny said, “I think he thinks I don’t notice him. I’m gonna let him believe that for… wait, no, nevermind.”
Quincey was beginning to feel underdressed for how important and official everything started to feel. Armed guards and evacuation efforts really did a lot to make Epheral’s coming feel like a real crisis. The whole thing stank of being a situation her generation never had any clue how to respond to.
“Hey, who invented the Round Table?” Kenny asked over the earpiece. Quincey furrowed her brow.
“King Arthur?” She answered, “It was his knights who…”
Kenny’s stifled snickering was barely contained on his end. “Sir Cumference!”
Quincey winced, visibly panged by the sting of such bad word-play. Groans from Daxton and Laila were heard over the communicator as well. Kenny just laughed, a gleeful, malicious sort of laugh. At least he didn’t seem to feel too daunted by the situation… then again, she only ever heard him making bad jokes when things were at their most dire. It was a coping mechanism, and Quincey would have kicked herself for taking so long to notice.
“Would you brats stop cluttering comms?”
Quincey was surprised to hear Garrison’s voice over the communicator; then she got over her surprise and just felt sour.
“It’s hard keeping an eye out with you all chirping in my ear!” He scolded them, “Radio silence for the rest of the mission. No distractions. You might be super kids, but I don’t want to be killed by whatever the hell those things are because you’re all screwing around! Smarten up!”
The teens were shaken by Garrison’s outburst over the communicator, and though many of them had numerous choice words for him, they all stowed it. Daxton was white-knuckled in his physical efforts to restrain himself.
“Sour grapes.” Samantha quipped to the response of bitter silence that resonated over the communicators.
With chatter over communications lines to instruct each train, the grav-skiffs beneath every one of them kicked on in succession. The sleek bullet-shaped transports lifted from the ground, and they aligned their sensors with the track lighting, setting them at the optimal height for disembark. The process was smooth; the passengers barely felt that their tiny metal cars were being lifted into place, and with each one being verbally confirmed by the engineers that all systems were green, the trains moved smoothly along their beaconed path. The passengers could hardly contain their chatter, the trains becoming a buzzing of activity as they departed from the underground Harbington station and began their ascent into the air. They fell silent again in moments, as many watched slack-jawed as their destroyed homes got smaller and smaller the higher they got. New prana batteries, the crystalline, meteor-like manifestations of raw lifeforce power, fell into the city like shooting stars that crashed into the streets below to begin birthing more of Epheral’s army.
Many of Harbington’s people pressed close to the glass windows, beholding the scene with morbid awe. The dome seemed so much darker then. The lush, green fields of farmland were swallowed by the dark of night and made pitch black. Many lights around the more urbanized areas of the dome had been knocked out, leaving only pockets of illumination to paint a scene. Epheral’s monsters roamed the dome, and they were clearly visible even in the blackness. A feeling that what they couldn’t see was more comforting than what they could settled over the people. The trains rose far above the scene, distancing the passengers inside from the confusing, horrible image of their dome being eaten by that otherworldly monster.
“The end of the world…” Laila spoke in awe over the communicator as she pressed her hand to the window, barely able to see the silhouette of her farm’s hanging garden facilities.
“It’s not the end of the world,” Garrison dismissed her, “Don’t be so dramatic.”
“Yeah, I mean, the world already ended once and we all became animals, right?” Daxton dryly remarked, “No big deal.”
Quincey took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “So many ways the world could end,” She said, “Some believed humanity would ascend to another plane, others saw floods and pestilence…”
Garrison scoffed. “This seems more like Ragnarok to me. Bunch of Gods fighting it out and the rest of us get to suffer for it.” There was no end to his bitter disdain for the Inklings in his voice. Quincey would note that he was quite right about the myth, but it was obvious by his tone that his saying so was meant to be nothing less than scathing blame.
“Well, I’m no God,” Daxton said, “But I’ll smite your teeth in if you keep running your mouth.”
“I don’t intend on going quietly into the night.” Garrison responded, “There are more humans than there are you.”
“And we intend to ensure that it stays that way,” Sam remarked, “Right now, arguing and blaming does neither us nor them any benefit.”
“Yuh-huh,” Laila added, “That’s her polite way of tellin’ ya’ll to shut yer mouths.”
“Let’s just focus on staring out the windows at a black sky for twenty minutes, alright?” Kenny finally dropped the discussion, the others agreeing silently and turning their attentions to the outside as the trains, two by two, exited the dome’s protective barrier. They passed through the almost invisible shield keeping their little ecosystem contained, embarking into the night sky dotted by rail buoys and a small track of coloured lights. Beneath them was little more than thick forest and overgrowth – the same untamed wilderness Quincey once walked. She had always been able to see the inter-dome skyway lights whenever she looked up on those dark nights. It was odd to be trailing the same path all over again, only many, many more feet up and much, much faster.
Garrison wasn’t entirely wrong. How easy would that trip have been if Quincey had been able to really use Duplex’s powers? If Kenny, Daxton, and Laila all had their Inkling powers as well, it would have been a snap to get to Locksmouth. With Sylph, Laila could have flown there herself at speeds faster than the trains could even go. Quincey wanted to flex her fingers and try and feel the difference in herself. She settled for curling her toes in her boots. She was puzzled to think that she didn’t feel different at all. Yes, her outlook on things may have changed, but she didn’t feel like an unstoppable powerhouse of extra-dimensional might, such as Garrison seemed to regard her and her pack as. She was the same as ever, and yet…
It was impossible to fathom. Quincey had gone so long thinking nothing of herself that she had no capability of picturing herself in the reality she stood in. The others seemed to barely even consider it. They were always extraordinary in one way or another, and they eased into their powers so naturally. Quincey had literally scraped together bits and pieces of hers, and even with all her effort Tranquil and Dormence hadn’t really merged. Their fragments were still forced together, like slamming in pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that didn’t really fit. She could get them stuck, but to really make them whole didn’t seem possible. Would she be stronger if she did? Would it matter? Would anything make her feel less afraid for everyone around her?
When did someone become so strong that they never questioned their ability? In all the old comics she had read, how was it that Jacent kept his composure all the time? Even Natalie seemed comfortable just going off-the-cuff, as if she had something to fall back on if things got bad.
Was the whole point just to lie to herself? To make her believe that everything would be okay? She did see the same broken Harbington everyone else did, didn’t she?
And yet…
All Quincey had to do was turn her head to see them. Children and adults alike. They looked at her so hopeful, so expecting of her now. She’d been mobbed by so many kids in just the past weekend, all wanting to know the same thing: could she save them? As if the answer were so simple as just to say yes. There were too many variables, too much she couldn’t prepare for... and even if she could, there was no guarantee she would be strong enough to face it when the time came.
She turned her head away from the stares of the mashed-in crowd. She squeezed Edward and Eddie’s hands and took deep breaths to try and calm herself. All the frantic mind-racing was going to make her cry, and she fought that with every ounce of strength she could muster.
She wasn’t a hero, but she couldn’t tell them that. They were putting their hopes in her and the others, but surely, they had to know she was really just a scared cry-baby who was afraid to get hurt; even if she’d come that far.
All she could do was try, and she knew she wasn’t going to be very good at it.
“Oh please, please, please let nothing happen!” Quincey shut her eyes tight and whispered to herself, “Please!”
The train car was suddenly rocked, lurching to one side sharply to throw almost everyone inside to the ground. Eddie and Edward caught themselves with their free hands on the window and managed to hold Quincey aloft just enough to keep her on her feet. The lights inside flickered and the passengers clearly and loudly voiced their fright. “Oh no! They’re coming!” Someone shouted, beginning the rolling wave of hysteria throughout the train that rose in pitch until some of the less brave were just screaming in terror. Eddie had to release Quincey’s hand to turn around and try to keep everyone calm.
Whatever it was, it must have done the same thing to Daxton’s train, shoving it aside, crashing it into hers. Quincey and many of the passengers were jerked the other way and thrown onto the floor, the sound of the impact thunderous and followed by the crying of young, scared kids.
“Neeeeeugh…” Quincey whined, “Whyyyy?”
-
--
-
Daxton stumbled and fell. He tried to catch himself, but missed, the pole he swiped at instead sliding dead center between his arms where he banged his head off it. He jerked back, cringing in pain, shaking his head to scatter the stars he was seeing. Something hit the train, enough to slam it against the other train beside it. It righted itself smoothly back on course, gentle enough that he wouldn’t have noticed it move back into place at all. Still, something shook the metal cars, rattling them around like cans on a string. The people on board with him were panicking of course. It wasn’t every day your express trip to Locksmouth was tossed around in the wind.
“Quit your whining you bunch’a babies!” Jimmy Rhet strode by Daxton, holding his hands up to shout over the frightened passengers. All he was really doing was adding his voice to the mess, trying to yell everyone down and get them calm. His methods were lacking. “Quit screaming, you animals!”
Daxton wiggled his nose, pawing at it to see if it was seriously hurt. It throbbed, but was about as straight as it ever was. Not broken, at least. He turned and peered out the window into the night sky. The lights that cast down from the train’s undercarriage bathed the passing trees below in a pale light, making their autumn colours appear almost bleached and gray. The night sky was clouded, and so there were no stars or moon to light the way. The dark didn’t matter much however when the burning white, roiling outline of the prana dragon passed Daxton’s sight. It seemed to lock eyes with him a moment – at least, as much as anyone could with him – and then it reared back to dart away with a mighty push of its wings to propel it forward and out of sight, disappearing somewhere in the trees.
“We got trouble!” Daxton shouted, so that everyone in the train car could hear him along with everyone on the communication line.
“How am I not surprised?” Kenny wryly retorted, “Where is she?”
“Dragon. Last I saw it, nine o’clock.” Daxton said, turning to almost run into a crowd that had no idea where it was going. “Whoa! Hey, don’t push!”
“I’m not getting a visual back here!” Garrison reported, “Anyone else?!”
“Keep your eyes peeled!” Samantha said, “Don’t let her sneak up on us!”
“Eyes peeled, ha.” Daxton huffed, pushing past some of the citizens. He leapt to the other side of the train, but he couldn’t see much more past the inside of Quincey’s train. He was briefly distracted by an Eos grunt not looking the right way, so he grabbed the guy and turned him toward the window. “Eyes out there! If you see anything, blast it!”
The Eos soldiers scrambled to take something resembling a tactical formation, standing at the windows and looking out in every direction, even in toward the adjacent train in case anything went wrong. Daxton grit his teeth, grinding them together as he peered out again into the dark.
“Whoa, whoa, it’s right out front!” Kenny shouted over the communicator, “SLOW DOWN! FULL STOP!”
The trains halted, the simple force of gravity pushing backward to give them immediate resistance. This threw everyone, every passenger suddenly jerked forward from the sudden stop. People tumbled to the floor like tipped dominos, Samantha finding herself flattened beneath a couple doctors. Her shrill squeak through the communicator made everyone on the line wince. Some people slammed into the walls, others tumbled uncomfortably over seats, but one way or another they all ended up on the floor.
“Incoming!” Kenny shouted.
Quincey’s train car was slammed. Hard. It fell as the weight of one of Epheral’s prana batteries crashed into the roof of it. The train quickly put on the power to right itself, compensating for the added weight of the prana chunk that dented the roof. No sooner had it leveled out however did things start spawning from it. In globbing bursts, monsters of all shapes and sizes burst forth like some bizarre fantasy summoning gone horribly right.
“Everybody! Get down and out of the way!! On the floor, now!” Garrison roared over the commotion, barking his orders in a near deafening volume that wouldn’t be ignored. The kids followed his lead and shouted at everyone to get down out of view of the windows if they could help it – which they couldn’t, as there were far too many people for there to be enough room to press in and away from the glass. Screeching harpies began swarming the trains, and other manner of monsters were thumping around on the rooftops of the cars. It was difficult to hear them over the screaming of the passengers, but not too difficult for Daxton, whose ears pricked up right away to even the slightest sound those creatures made.
“Call your targets! CALL THEM GOD DAMNIT!” Garrison barked, his voice drowned out by the sounds of shattering glass and rampaging rifle fire. Daxton got up on his feet only for the window to his right to shatter inward as the massive charcoal bulk of a lizardman warrior crashed through, landing heavily on its large feet and immediately swinging a blade at him. People around him scattered as he stumbled back, dinging the back of his head off another pole.
“Gah, damn it!” Daxton hissed, momentarily stunned – but not long enough to not notice that blade trying to come across his face. He dropped to the floor, listening for the clatter of blade against steel pole, then he jumped up, crashing his head into the lizardman’s maw to knock him away. The humanoid monster retreated and moved to ready its sword and shield, but Daxton didn’t give it the time. He swept in, pushed the shield out of position, and punched the thing square in the chest with all the power he had.
By himself, Daxton just jolted the creature back. He inked over quickly and let Lumina deliver his follow-up right hook, which hit much truer. Normally the increase in power would have resulted in one busted-up lizardman, but Daxton was quick to note how his fist just left a small fracture point where it connected with the left side of the charcoal reptilian’s face. It was stronger than before somehow! It blindly swung back at Lumina, who turned to meet its arm, grabbing it and pulling it to spin the creature around and trade places with it. One good, flat kick delivered, and Lumina had shoved the into the pole. She ended it with a briefly charge laser-blast from her hand, the force of it blasting the creature apart.
“Daxton!!” Quincey cried. Lumina turned her attention to Quincey’s train car to see her through the windows getting swarmed by smaller, bat-like winged creatures. They clawed at her with their little talons as she threw her hands up and desperately tried to bat them away. Lumina quickly held out her finger, peering down her arm and using her thumb as a sight to line up a laser-shot that blasted through the windows, into Quincey’s car, and blasted the bats. They scattered as a couple of them broke, freeing Quincey who immediately took off further along the car, pushing between passengers as she did. “Thanks!” She said, though she sounded horrified.
To their credit, the Eos soldiers were doing their job. More monsters crashed into the train, winged ones like those that were attacking Quincey. A couple of them were shot clear out of the air, broken into pieces by the strong-force projectiles fired from Eos’ weapons. It gave Daxton enough time to weave into the fray and take out what remained as they tormented the passengers, who all but threw themselves onto the floor when they were attacked. Some stood and fought – Jimmy, most noticeably, threw wild, flailing punches at anything weird that came his way.
“Dang nabbit!” Laila shouted, “Varmints! They’re everywhere!”
“Unhand them, you devil!” Sam likewise shouted at her own assailants. The commotion was easy enough to drown out in Daxton’s ears. Lumina just continued onward, pushing past people to head toward the back door of the car. She only stopped when that door was torn from its hinges and thrown away like cardboard, a massive black creature dropping into the opening. A toad, giant, but low to the ground, inflated its neck and opened its maw with a croak to lash out its tongue. People squeezed out of the way, and Lumina found its tongue wrapped around her leg. It pulled her to the floor as it reeled her back, dragging her through the car at frightening speed. Innocents were barreled over by the Inkling’s body as she was dragged in presumably to be eaten.
A boot came down and stepped on the tongue, pinning it down and stopping Lumina in her tracks. She looked up, and Abigail’s lazy ruby eyes flashed with amusement back down at her. She twisted her rubber boot’s thick heel down, crunching the toad’s tongue, making the creature croak in labored agony. With her momentum stopped and the path cleared, Lumina sat up and fired a volley of blasts into the creature, slamming it back into the door of the second car, and breaking it apart.
“Heeey, not bad, huh?” Abigail threw out her arms, her floppy maroon sleeves flapping about in the gusts that came in through the windows. Lumina smiled as she stood up, about to respond when a harpy crashed in through the window in its entirety. Larger than some big bat and much more cumbersome, it flapped and flailed, desperately screeching to find room or footing in the train car. Its wings buffeted passengers in its efforts, and it soon perched itself on Abigail’s head. The creature’s talons dug in, then it yanked back. Abigail’s head came off with a clean pop, and the jellyfish girl looked dumbfounded.
“Whoa, help? Little help?” She asked, her body pawing and grabbing at her neck stump in confusion. Abigail stood frustratingly in Lumina’s way, and she had to shove the beheaded body aside just to have a chance to get at her.
Too little too late, the charcoal birdwoman ripped away, flying back out the window with Abigail’s head clutched firmly in its talons.
“Gah!” Lumina shouted, “Laila, I have one overboard! Abigail’s head just got snatched up! A flying bird woman has her!”
Laila pinned a goblin to a seat with one of her long legs, the small creature having absolutely no hope of ever bridging the distance between its stumpy little body and her long limbs. It flailed and screamed in that hoarse, crackling goblin sort of way; until she blew its head off with her rifle.
“I got yer six!” She said, “That’s right, ain’t it? For army talk?”
“Ten-four!” Garrison groused.
“Great!” Laila said, quickly moving to the door of the train and grabbing hold of it to force it open manually. The mechanism fought her, but she soon pried it ajar, able to peer out over the edge to the distant ground below. A fall from that height would be instant death for anyone. With that in mind, she inked over. The palest powder blue skin sheathed her form, sky blue eyes peering out over the darkened night. With her ponytail flapping in the wind, Sylph leapt out, rifle in hand. She fell a short way before the wind kicked up under her, sending her soaring high above the trains. “YEEEEHAW!” She shouted, allowing the force to carry her up into the air, throwing her body up and over the trains in a vault.
For a moment, she could see the scene from above. A large prana battery had clearly embedded itself into the top of Quincey’s train car. Monsters poured out of it, scuttling along the top to loop down and get into the windows. More spread out to the other trains. It seemed they were having trouble getting into Quincey’s car though, being knocked back out by a rebound as Quincey’s duplicates created a barrier. In the distance, the massive and menacing form of the dragon circled the trains. Sylph’s eyes flicked about, until she managed to spy one of the pitch-black creatures carrying something small, blue, and if her guess was right, annoying. “Hey now!” She shouted, “Drop that jelly!”
The air gathered behind her, and shot her like a bullet toward the harpy. The prana beast turned to see her coming, and in its bid to prepare itself, it released Abigail’s head.
“Whoa, whoa, nooooooo!” Abigail cried as her head fell.
Sylph paused, hovering in the air. “I didn’t mean it literally ya dingus!” She shouted, before changing course to soar down and intercept Abigail’s descent. More creatures moved to stop her – harpies, pterodactyls, bats, anything that had a pair of wings and knew how to use them, by the looks of it. Sylph didn’t hesitate a moment, the air around her creating a slipstream in her wake, her form whistling through the air. She twirled, spinning as she weaved around everything that tried to get in her way, darting around them like slaloms. She spun back to fire at a few, clipping a bat’s wing and knocking the head right off one of the harpies, but she opted to leave them all behind. Instead, she angled her body straight down, and pushed herself down toward he ground at blistering speed.
“Ahhhh… ah… whew… this is exhausting.” Abigail huffed, trying to turn her head to see the trains but only managing to send her tentacles into a spin. “Bruhruhruh! Noah-oah-oooo!”
Sylph zipped down past Abigail, and then swept up under her, coming at just such an angle as to snatch her up without too harshly stopping her momentum. Her jelly-like flesh wobbled when she was snatched up, and she widened her normally lazy eyes to blink a few times. Sylph grinned, floating there with Abigail in her hands. “Don’t worry, I got’chya!” She said.
Abigail groaned, unsure if she could throw up if she were just a head. “Please drop me.”
“Heheh! Nope!” Sylph rucked Abigail’s head on her arm like a sports ball, holding her firmly in place, “Today I get t’be the big hero!”
“Dying doesn’t seem so bad.” Abigail huffed.
“Alright Babby Abby, hold on tight!” Sylph said.
“Don’t.” She pouted, “And hold on with what, exactly?”
Sylph turned back toward the trains, only to see the massive form of the prana dragon, white flames billowing from its jaws, spearheading right down at her. “Y’might wanna figure that out!” She shouted, before turning tail and blasting off through the air, the dragon roaring after her, firing off its prana breath just behind her. Abigail honest-to-goodness shrieked, the tentacles on her head wrapping around Sylph’s arm and latching on.
“Dragon.” Abigail exasperated.
“I know!” Sylph shot back, diving down under the tree line. It took all her focus not to hit any branches as they whipped by at speeds so fast, most wouldn’t have had a moment to register them. She dipped and twirled, gracefully avoiding each one. Behind her by several yards, the massive black form of the dragon crashed into the trees behind her, caring little for their impacts as it tore right through them in a shower of dry leaves and splintered wood.
Abigail managed to look back. “Dragon.”
“Abby! I know!” Sylph shouted, looking back to see the white flames billowing in the dragon’s gullet as it opened its maw wide to breathe it out in a prana blast. Somewhere deep inside, Sylph could see Epheral’s menacing grin flickering in the flames, and could hear her laughter. Sylph let herself drop like a stone, the blast of prana going right over her head and blasting trees out of the way. Abigail felt her throat try to escape at the sudden inertia of the drop, and she gagged and heaved when Sylph came back up. She shot up straight into the air, busting through the trees as they fell with a rumble to the ground. Then, she blasted backward, over the dragon’s head, hoping to out-maneuver it with the sudden U-turn. She managed to get some distance as it had to circle its bulky body around.
Sylph turned back upright and took off, giving the trains a wide berth. “BLT, this is Gentle Breeze. Abby’s fine. I GOT A BIG OL’ DRAGON FEASTIN’ FOR MY KEISTER!”
Quincey grunted, shoving the big, bulky frame of a prana golem out of the window, sending it falling through the air to no doubt crash into a million pieces on the ground miles below. Another Quincey batted away a bat further down the train, shoving it likewise out into the air. Quinceys lined the train windows as far as they could find space among the passengers. They were pushing, shoving, and knocking away whatever creatures tried to get inside. “H-Hold on, Laila!” Quincey said, “Daxton, we have to—OAWH!”
The entire car suddenly lurched back, sagging heavily toward the back of the train. Quincey was thrown to the floor, and based on the alarming sounds coming from beneathher, the gravity skiffs weren’t kicking back in to put it back right. The car very slowly sunk, angling back more and more, until Quincey’s clones began losing their footing and tumbling across the ground like round porcine balls, only being stopped when other copies reached out to catch them. The metal frame creaked, and over the communicator, Eos soldiers screamed in her ear.
“We’re going down!” They shouted, “Gravity just cut off! We’re falling!”
“Ah!” Quincey screamed, “That’s me! My train!”
Lumina’s body was thrown through one of the windows, held firmly by the strong arms of a burly prana cyclops. She hung back, her head stuck out so she could see and confirm that the back car of Quincey’s train was, in fact, falling. It was barely being held aloft by the connection it had to the first car, and it seemed to be weighed down. Try as it might, the power couldn’t compensate, and the entire thing was slowly falling. “Shit,” She hissed, “Kenny! You have to do something!” She then fired lasers back in at the creature holding her, and threw herself back into the train to keep up the fight.
One of the doors opened on Kenny’s train, and Polaris was seemingly tossed out, sent tumbling down the side of the metal bullet. He slapped his hand down onto the metal siding to stop himself, confused passengers peering at the soles of his feet as he stood sideways on the train. He brushed off his shoulder and straightened his cowl prim and proper, before glaring at the elven swordsman who came after him, rushing down the side of the train to clash blades. He narrowed his eyes, then darted forward, getting down as low as his small body would allow and knocking the prana elf’s foot so that it stepped on the glass and slipped. Polaris kept his feet gracefully planted on the small metal gaps between the windows.
He cut the other leg off the elven beast and let its body fall away. “I’m on it,” He said, twirling his gladius in a flourish, “Worry not, milady, your hero comes.”
Passengers gasped as he let himself fall off the side of the train, his feet seemingly attracted to the metal underbelly of the transport, where he landed. He stood, upside down beneath the thing, where the orange light of the buoys bathed him in sequential glow. Peering out toward the back car of Quincey’s train, he could see monsters. Small charcoal gremlins gleefully tore apart the metal mechanisms, smashing them and denting them into being nonfunctional. Others were doing the same all down the underside of the cars, and when they finally took notice of him, they screamed at him and came running like dogs on all fours, claws brandished when they leapt.
“Oop,” Polaris said, “Quincey darling, I’ve run into a spot of trouble. I trust you can hang in there for a while longer, can’t you?”
“Kenny, I swear I’m gonna…!” Lumina growled over the earpiece.
“Keep your hat on.” Polaris grinned, leaping forward into the fray. Rushed by a gaggle of little gremlins, he ducked and weaved between them. His blade cut surgically through them, cleaving his path straight through them rather than around. The grace in which he moved, the practiced leaps and flips, were seemingly pulled along by the ferocity of his blade. It crushed more than it cut, barreling through the prana constructs with the bulk of its metal blade, magnetically forced at greater strengths through the air. The sharp edge of the blade may have begun to dull, but it served its purpose, almost cutting as an afterthought.
Quincey opened the back door of her car, and then the front door of the next. Inside, terrified passengers had fallen, many of them cluttered near the back as the back-end of the car fell deeper into the sky. There was a clear gap between the cars, one Quincey’s foot nearly stepped into. She squealed and grabbed the edges of the door, keeping herself just barely from plummeting to the world below… and her impact compensation trick with Duplex wasn’t going to save her from that high up!
“Ohhhh my god…” Quincey panted, almost hyperventilating. She fanned her teary face with one hand and kept her grip with the other.
“Quincey!” Harley shouted from inside the falling car, “Help!!”
“Harley!” Quincey snapped to attention. She snorted and forced herself to blink away her tears. Stepping forward, she reached out with her hand. “Hurry!” She said, “You need to get off that car!”
People scrambled to get to the front, the first grabbing hold of Quincey’s hand. She pulled them into the car, and then reached for the next. At first people all rushed together, but after several moments of stepping on one another and failing to make any headway, they began to climb and crawl one at a time. They shook and cried, so afraid that Quincey couldn’t let her fear show. She did her best to keep a lid on it, helping one person after another pile into the front car.
The metal creaked beneath her feet. The connector warped and bent under the strain of trying to hold all the dead weight of the back car. Parts broke with a distinct, loud “PINK!” sound. Perhaps some kind of support flew off, but all rather suddenly, the back car dropped, swinging down to hang sheer and vertical off the back-end of the first. Poor Mrs. Procsman, half way through her trip to the next car, found the floor gone beneath her feet, and she fell back into a small pile of the remaining passengers now all crammed into the back. Quincey screamed, her heart jumping into her throat… but when it became clear that the entire car hadn’t simply broken off, she felt some small relief.
Dispatching the last of the foes under the train, Polaris ran and leapt, traveling in an arc from the underside of the trains around the side to land on top of Quincey’s car. Behind him, the prana battery thrummed with power. He sheathed his sword on his back and dropped to his knees, using his powers and both hands to grab hold of the back car and heave. “HRRRRRGH!” He yelled, feeling like all the veins behind his eyelids were fit to burst as he pulled the train car up again. Slowly, gradually, it rose to level out.
He looked back briefly to watch as more foes spawned from that blasted battery. The monster that spawned took the shape of a chesty rodent woman – a shape Kenny distinctly recognized as his mother. “Not this shit again.” Polaris groused through the exertion of holding up the entire back-end of the train. “Mom, I swear, you get any closer to me and I’ll kill you again!”
People scrambled up the train again in a panic, rushing to get into the front car before they had the floor fall out from under them once more. Quincey tried to maintain order, but that had long since gone. They pushed and shoved one another, throwing elbows if they had to just to get out before the others. Quincey took whoever could make it, but many were stepped on and left behind. “Stop!” She shouted, “Please, you need to work together!”
They just wouldn’t listen. The entire process became dreadfully slow.
PEW! A blast from Sam’s air pistol shattered a bat-like creature, which Mhend lamented having to share space with something so vile and wretched. Having been left with only a small outfitting of Eos grunts to help her protect an entire train, the little Ink-bat darted from car to car, back and forth, taking out whatever she could and helping Eos remove what she couldn’t do herself. Panting heavily, she turned, stiffly holding the weapon out and blasting another much larger creature, knocking the prana wolfman over onto his backside. Grunting, she stood over the creature, planted her mechanical foot on its chest, and then activated the piston. Her leg shot out like a press, her heel digging through the brittle prana to the floor; a clear-cut hole. The beast shattered, and she turned to see the doctors gawking at her wide-eyed.
“H… Haven’t you ever seen a girl with a mechanical leg before?” She huffed, giving a tired, demure wink. “Quincey, are you alright? Someone needs to get to that crystal that is creating these things, now. If this is allowed to continue, I won’t be able to protect these people much longer. I’m no Jacent, darlings.”
“I’m trying!” Quincey shouted back.
On top, Polaris was breathing heavily. The train car sagged down with a sad groan of twisting metal as his powers laxed for a moment. He puffed out his cheeks and redoubled his efforts, heaving up physically to lift the train car with his magnetism again. His body shook like gelatin with the effort, and he afforded himself a look back at the creature stalking behind him. That thing taking the form of Kenny’s mother had morphed into something more hideous, her one arm enlarged to disfigurement, her fingers twisted into some elongated claw made for raking and rending flesh. It dragged its massive claws over the top of the train, making the metal squeal at a pitch. Polaris shot his attention back to his task, closing his eyes tight. “Speed it up in there, would you?! I’m gonna die out here!”
The monster skulked closer, close enough to raise its claws high. When it came crashing down, Polaris’ sword blocked the blow, controlled likewise by his powers. “Rrrahhh!” he shouted, the blade pushing the monstrous prana construct away. It barely stumbled, swinging again to meet Polaris’ sword as it floated through the air, fighting without the physical manipulations of its owner. The separated effort weakened Polaris’ ability to operate significantly. The train car dropped, pulling him down onto his belly on the roof of the first.
Inside the car, Harley reached for Quincey’s hand, having barely fought her way to the front. When Polaris gave out, the car dropped, and Harley fell. The girl screamed, but was caught by her father, Vernon. Her mother, Sophie, stood behind Quincey, holding her hand out as well. “Harley, honey, it’s okay!” She called, “You can do it, it’s alright! Try again!”
“Come on, kiddo.” Vernon perched his daughter back up on the sheer incline of the train’s floor. He pushed up at her underside, urging her forward. “One more time.”
“Papa!” She cried, “I can’t!” She clawed at the floor, her fingertips sliding along the rubber lining the center.
“Yes, you can,” Vernon grunted, pushing her up, “That girl’s waiting for you. Get going!”
“Hn… H-Hnn!” Harley wept as she pushed her feet against the floor, reaching and grabbing at the seats to use as hand-holds for leverage. Vernon helped her along, carefully placing his feet to keep himself anchored, legs spread almost too far to keep them hooked against the seating’s attached legs.
“Harley, come on!” Quincey said, “You’re doing s-so good!”
“I’m scared! I wanna go home!” Harley clung on to one of the affixed poles, her father helping her lift her feet up to keep going. “I just want to go home…!”
“We’re going to go home,” Vernon said, “You, me, and your mother. I’ll get you lemon tarts. You like those, right?”
Harley looked at her father, struggling to nod through her tears.
“Then you have to keep going, sweetie.” Vernon insisted, calm as could be considering the circumstance. “Don’t stop.”
Harley sucked up a deep breath and held it, grunting as she pulled herself up away from her father. She climbed gradually, one foot over the next, one hand over the next, fighting gravity the whole way. She looked up, straight at Quincey, desperately gripping whatever she could to get even a little bit further. Her legs felt like jelly, her hands felt cold and sweaty. She climbed at a click, her father climbing along behind her. Quincey held out her hand desperately when Harley neared, stretching as far as her grip could allow without her falling. Their fingers touched for a moment, and then with a hop, Harley threw herself at Quincey.
Quincey caught her hand and pulled mightily to lift her up into the safety of the first train car. Harley’s little legs dangled, but she lit up with such excitement. Looking down at Vernon, she kicked her feet. “I made it! I made it Papa! I made it!”
“You did!” Vernon called, “I’m so proud of you!”
Harley stepped off into her mother’s arms. Sophie held her tight, and yelled to her husband. “Vernon, hurry!”
Quincey held out her hand, and Vernon picked up the pace to follow his daughter. As an opossum, he was a good climber, but things being as tense as they were, he found it difficult to concentrate on his footing. His feet slipped out more than once, but he was quick to correct his mistake. The train car was swaying, bouncing, rocking a bit… something was going on up there, making it even more difficult to carry on.
“Papa, please!” Harley yelled.
“I’m coming, sweetie!” Vernon grunted.
The monster’s claws raked over Polaris’ back, leaving burning white slashes behind. Polaris cried out in pain. The car dropped. Hard.
There was maybe a moment where the car hung vertical again, and the slowly warping metal screeched to give way. Vernon looked down at his dilemma, then up at his family. “It’s going to be fine.” He said.
Then it broke.
“PAPA!” Harley screamed.
“NO!” Quincey screamed right with her.
Vernon felt the air rush up from under him, sweeping around him as his body took gravity’s natural course. The car fell completely out from under him, and he found himself falling through the air as the train car plummeted to the ground below in a crude display of his coming fate. He never took his icy blue eyes off his wife and daughter, swiping uselessly at the air to try and reach them, but they were getting smaller and smaller as he got further away. His legs came up, and he was falling backward, his body drifting back at the whims of the air. He didn’t see his family anymore, he didn’t see the train or any monsters. He saw the Earth. Lush, green trees, burbling brooks, the autumn reds and golds. The world below looked so small from up there. Really, it was him who was small. A speck in the sky, falling to the end.
He felt shocked. He felt afraid. His mortality was coming at him at terminal velocity. There was no living through that.
“Hnnh!”
Hands grabbed him, and he snapped back. His back arched and cracked uncomfortably, but did not break. His savior cried as their arms snapped taut as well, and they swung in the air, dangling like a thread. Vernon was stunned, forced to let out the breath he had been holding. He confusedly shook his head, and then got the mind to lift it. His savior’s hands swirled with yellow and blue unnaturally. One of her eyes was yellow, the other was blue. She hovered there, holding him tightly by his jumpsuit, that crummy gray, drab janitor uniform he wore. No, she didn’t hover, she didn’t fly… she seemed to stretch. The same swirling lava lamp of blue and yellow extended from the front car all the way down to him.
Upon closer inspection, she didn’t stretch…
It was a daisy chain of Inked pig girls, vaguely connected to one another by hands and feet.
“… H’oh!” Vernon shouted, high pitched, “Oh god!”
“I’ve… I’ve got you!” Duplex said, “W… We’ve got you!”
“Help! Please!” Vernon squeaked.
Duplex struggled. All up the chain, she grunted, groaned, strained, and even cried. At the very beginning, one copy of her did its best to hold on and anchor them to the car. She slipped, planting her feet more firmly and squealing with the effort. Harley gasped, wresting herself from her mother’s hands to throw her arms around Duplex and try and hold her steady. They both slipped. Sophie held on to her daughter, who held on to Duplex, who held on to Vernon.
“O-Oh!” Sophie’s feet slipped across the floor, the back of the car sagging under the weight hanging off the back. “Oh no!”
“Hang on!” Edward dropped behind Sophie and wrapped his arms around her waist. Eddie grabbed hold of his husband and held on tight.
One by one, people took hold, extending the chain all the way to the front end of the car. They threw themselves into the work without so much as a thought, many not even knowing what was on the end of the line. One only needed to see everyone pitching in, and they were compelled.
The prana form of Kenny’s mother fell not far from Vernon, flailing through the air it plummeted to the ground. “Ah! Oh! Wha…!” Vernon flailed a little, frightfully. Duplex struggled to hold on to him, pulling him in closer to wrap her arms around him proper.
“Just… close your eyes! Okay?!” She shouted.
Vernon nodded at her, and then shut his eyes as tight as he could. With a deep breath, Duplex retracted its copies starting with the closest to the door. Each Inked pig was drawn backward, pulling Vernon up as they did. The citizens of Harbington pulled to keep the Inkling pig in place, each rebound of one almost-two-hundred-pound pig bouncing back into the other shaking them all. Vernon was pulled up, and up, and up, until finally he was swung forward, where he landed on top of a rather cushiony body. Opening his eyes, he stared down at Duplex, who served as a pillow for his tumble back onto the solid ground of the train.
His lips fumbled for the words. “You… saved my life!”
“I saved your life!” Duplex seemed as surprised as he, and she laughed. Vernon, too, laughed in almost hysterical excitement.
“I could have died!” Vernon cackled.
“You could have died!” Duplex likewise laughed.
“But I didn’t! You saved me!” Vernon beamed.
“I…” Duplex settled, realization stricken across her features. “I…? No… we?”
“PAPA!” Harley tackled her father and snuggled him as if she intended to kill him with kindness. The tender moment was broken when the train car lurched into motion, the engineers opting to carry on their path despite the attack. Getting to Locksmouth was priority one, even if they had to fight the whole way there.
“There’s something out there!” Garrison shouted over the communicator, “I can’t get a lead on it, it’s too fast! What the… INCOMING! HRGH!”
Static followed, and the sounds of a struggle and gunshots came after that.
“Hey what’s going on over there?” Lumina asked.
“FUCK YOU!” Garrison screamed, “OVER MY DEAD BODY! NGH!”
“Your body? Hm… That’s a good idea.”
“Is that Epheral?” Lumina asked, “Epheral! Come pick on someone your own size!”
“AAAGH!” Garrison cried in pain that gurgled near the end.
“You bitch.” Polaris growled.
“Garrison?!” Duplex shouted over the communicator, “Are you okay?!”
“Hnnnaarrrgh! Grk!” Garrison bellowed in agony, the sounds to follow only being described as wet snaps and meaty grinding.
Polaris cleaved his way through a prana golem, its top half sliding at an angle to detach from its legs and fall in half, a clean cut. When it hit the train, it shattered. Polaris tossed his blade, and sent it sailing like a missile through the air, puncturing the prana battery on the top of the train in a swift and decisive movement. The power within fluctuated, seemingly drawing in on itself, then rushing out in an explosion that rocked the trains, nearly taking all of them down and out of the sky. They rattled and rocked, some nearly rolling, but they righted themselves. Quincey’s now one-car train sagged heavily, the weight all on one part, causing it to lag a little.
“I’m coming for you next!” Polaris cried, turning to head toward Garrison’s train. He stopped in his tracks, met by the sight of Sylph just then failing to outpace the prana dragon. It launched its prana breath at her, and it struck her in the back, sending her into a tailspin. She crashed onto the top of the train, Abigail’s head tumbling out of her grasp. Polaris moved instead to help her, seeing the craggy white fissures of Epheral’s lingering, burning power spread across her back.
“Ngh…!” Sylph pushed herself to her hands and knees.
“You’re hurt,” Polaris said, “Again, I might add. Hello Sylph. Long time no see.”
Sylph cracked Polaris a grin. “What are you… upset?”
“Upset? Me? No, no, I just thought you were dead, that’s all.” Polaris said, “Gobbled up by Queen Bitch herself. Why would I be upset about something so trivial?!”
“Well, we’ve got bigger problems, I reckon.” Syph said, wincing as the dragon flew overhead, kicking up enough of a gust that Abigail’s head tumbled almost off the side of the roof. It was only by Sylph kicking up a counter-gust to throw her back on that she avoided falling off again.
“Buh…” Abigail groused, “This sucks.”
Lumina pulled herself up onto the top of the train, grunting as she struggled to get up the entire way. Once on top, she got her wobbly footing, and then carefully tip-toed across the trains to join Sylph and Polaris. “Well it’s about time you brought that thing back here,” She said, “I almost thought I wasn’t going to get to destroy it.”
“It’s going to take everything we’ve got to take that thing down!” Duplex spoke, stepping to the open door of the train to gaze out across the sky at the dragon. It was circling around for another pass, the white blazing flames bellowing in its maw. No doubt it was intending to attack the trains directly.
“Well then,” Polaris helped Sylph to her feet, then clapped his hands clean. “Let’s give her everything we’ve got.”
“First, we gotta stop that thing!” Sylph winced, but she managed to pick herself up and float above the trains. “Allow me!”
Sylph blasted off toward the beast, nearly blowing Lumina and Polaris off the train as she soared across the sky, a screeching Jetstream following behind her. She bore headlong toward the dragon, meeting not far from the trains, in clear view of the passengers who now crowded up against the windows to watch and see what would happen. Sylph clicked her tongue, counting out the seconds in her mind, watching the dragon’s movements closely. One little crook of its head, a lift, and that’s all she needed. She sped forth, then ducked aside, whipping around the beast, beginning to orbit it.
A thunderous boom could be heard for miles, so much air force behind her that whatever windows remained on the train were rattled and cracked. The dragon was caught in a backdraft that swept up under its wings violently and jerked it back. The air whipped around it, hot on Sylph’s heels as she spun around and around, creating a vortex of raw gale force. The dragon blasted at her with its breath, but the wall of force created by the natural element blocked it off, spraying it uselessly around the creature. It flapped its wings, its body being turned and twisted, unable to make itself right again.
“Alright,” Polaris said, brandishing his blade, “I can work with that.”
“Wait!” Duplex said, “Can I… Can I see that?”
She held her hand up from the door. Polaris gazed at her, puzzled, but he surrendered the blade to her. She carefully took it, minding the blade as she held it in both her hands, studying the weapon, every nick and scratch in it that hadn’t been there before, its weight and fine edge. She ran her hands over it, savoring every detail, so that when she gripped it, she pulled out the inky replica of another, identical sword. That ink seemed to solidify, becoming unyielding steel. Polaris watched this in a wonderment. Duplex gestured with the blade at the vortex, and Polaris gazed out… then he grinned.
He gave Duplex a simple nod, and Duplex began throwing swords out of the train. She copied one, then another, and another, and another. Polaris picked up each one with his powers. The replica metal had the same magnetic properties as regular metal, seemingly no difference at all. He tossed them into the vortex one after another, the steel edges getting picked up immediately by the wind to spiral around. They whipped around haphazardly, cutting across the body of the dragon, which roared in pain.
Twelve blades in all spun like shrapnel inside the cyclone, Sylph ducking out of it to leave it to its work, continuing to manipulate it from the outside. The dragon shot prana flame into the sky, the thundering roar it bellowed nothing short of pure rage. While it remained trapped, Lumina held out her fingers like a gun. She tilted her head to take aim, and then fired small lasers into the vortex. The lasers struck the polished steel of the blades and bounced off, becoming a twisted web of laser light beams that bounced and ricocheted off the swords, passing from one to the next. If one were to blink, they may have missed a pass. Chunks were chiseled off the dragon’s charcoal prana body, carving away toward the prana battery that rested at its core.
Polaris flicked his wrist, drawing his sword out of Duplex’s hands and into his. He flourished his blade and flicked it up, gazing at his reflection in the surface. “Now it’s time I show you what knights do to dragons.”
Polaris leapt off the train, and driven by his sword, he soared toward the laser-filled shrapnel tornado. Lumina held out her hands, directing the beams of laser light away from Polaris as he plunged into the swirling storm. The light collected around the blades, infusing them with a glow of hot energy. Polaris shred across the dragon’s face, and then tossed his sword away. He swept around and picked up another, the white-hot blade drawing him back across its body again, cleaving cleanly into it. That blade burst, the light and form dissipating from it in time for him to get the next. He zipped back and forth, striking the dragon again and again, clipping its wings, cutting off its talons, blinding its eyes, and slicing its tail.
Pieces fell off it like a Homeshare turkey. Harbington’s citizens watched in gape-mouthed awe as Polaris carved his way from one sword to the next in brilliant, dazzling streaks of light. The dragon looked less like a dragon and more like a vandalized ice sculpture after twelve strikes, with its cuts, gashes, and lacerations burning bright. The vortex kept the creature helplessly trapped, Sylph landing on the roof of the train and fading, returning into Laila’s body. Lumina held Laila steady, Abigail’s head under her other arm as Polaris threw himself up into the eye of the storm, turning to face the agonized dragon as he reached up and caught his original blade.
“Hey, Epheral!” He shouted.
The dragon glowered at him with intense, burning eyes.
“Remember this next time you take a stab at us!”
Polaris let himself drop, taking his blade in both hands and holding it up above his head. He cried out in glory as he crashed into the dragon’s throat, burying his sword in and riding it down the mythical terror’s front. It opened it up like a sinkhole, the prana battery inside cracking, fracturing, and bursting with unstable power. The dragon jerked and flailed, its body lashing about as explosions rocked it from inside. Having delivered the final blow, Polaris withdrew. The vortex faded away, and he affixed his feet firmly to the roof of the metal train. There, he watched, along with everyone else, as Epheral’s dragon exploded into a million pieces. It erupted like a dying star. Shards of solid, material prana battered the train like hail as the sky lit up like fireworks.
Duplex grabbed hold of one of the poles and let herself fall to her knees, her legs feeling like jelly. She retreated into her host, and Quincey clutched her chest to feel her pounding heart. She was started by the loudest sound she thought she had ever heard.
Cheering.
Everyone in Harbington was screaming their head off about what they just did. Quincey nearly jumped out of her skin, and the others remained seated on the roof of the train, peering down and around for the source of the sound. Polaris and Lumina took their well-earned rest as well, and Daxton grinned as big as he possibly could. He turned, stepped down, and hung in front of the door, kicking his feet to get him inside. He landed, and he reached down to take Quincey’s hand and help her stand up. She did, shakily, and held close to him.
It seemed as if he wanted to say something, and one by one the people settled down to let him speak.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” He announced, “This has been a complimentary dishing of justice! Provided by your Harbington Heroes!”
The train went crazy again, Harley jumped the two of them, hugging Quincey harder than she had ever been hugged. Daxton’s fathers swept him off his feet, and more kids jumped Quincey to dogpile on her in their excitement, all expressing their wonder and amazement and their thank-you’s all at the same time. Quincey’s head spun, while Daxton soaked it all up, shouting along with the crowd to keep them excited.
Kenny sat on top of the train with Laila, the two of them exhaustedly catching their breath. Laila held up Abigail’s head, leaning against Kenny and pressing her other hand against her chest. “Alas, poor Kenny, I reckon we sweat over that acres more n’ they did!”
Kenny tugged his hood back and let out a long, winded sigh. “Yeah, well,” He said, “Let ‘em have it. I’m good.”
“I hate you.” Abigail groused at Laila.
Laila bat her eyes at Abigail’s sour expression. “Ya’ll’re welcome.”
Abigail stared at her, completely straight-faced. “Seriously.”
“This is all very well and good, that was very impressive,” Samantha cut in over the communications, “But what happened to that Garrison fellow?”
Kenny bolted upright. “Ah shit.” He said, jumping to his feet and hurrying to check Garrison’s train.
-
--
-
“Gone? Whaddya mean he’s gone?”
Garrison’s charge had pulled into Locksmouth with all the other trains. The doors opened on some, others got to get off through the holes where the doors used to be. They were met by the Locksmouth PD, and Natalie, and several helpful Locksmouth citizens. All were there to bring the Harbington people to a shelter, squaring off a number of their public venues for space and beds, like the hospital, and many of their unused private residences that had gone empty until then.
When they checked Garrison’s train, he wasn’t there.
“T-That thing came in, th-that woman… monster… thing!” An Eos grunt explained the situation. The armadillo man shook in his boots, pale as if he’d seen death itself. Blood had dried on the side of his face, and given that he had no visible cuts or marks, it likely wasn’t his. “T-Th… The one that killed everybody at the m-mall. She c-came and she… I don’t know!”
Natalie completely forewent being nice, already soured toward Eos and their activities. It was hard enough even letting them step foot into Locksmouth, because Murphy was all over them in a hot second. Natalie made her see the situation, siding with Eos to get them into safety along with everyone else, but it didn’t stop Murphy from taking their weapons away. They had all agreed to give them up, not even one making a fuss to the contrary. Still, Natalie’s patience for them had worn thin. She instead insisted quite harshly. “And what?” She asked, “What did she do?”
The man held up his hands. “I dunno! She took some of her and just…” He had to stop and swallow, to keep from retching. “She just… shoved it into him.”
“She stole his body.” Kenny supplied, crossing his arms in calm, calculating thought. “We all heard it over the comm, it was obvious. She said, ‘your body, good idea,’ and then all the noises started. If she took some of herself…”
“Her core.” Natalie finished the thought, turning to regard Kenny. She seemed almost unfazed by the revelation too, as if it made perfect sense. “She crammed it into Garrison and, what? Took him over?”
“I guess? He flipped out and… and he threw himself out of the train. He fell, but we didn’t see him when we looked out.” The man nodded his head quickly, willing to believe the insanity the kids were chattering on about. He’d seen enough in one day to know better than to question it.
Kenny ground his teeth. “The question is why.”
“I’ll tell you why,” Natalie turned from him and made her way back into the thick of the crowds that had gathered at the station. “She thinks she can use him to get into Canvas. It’s where she wants to go, after all. If what Quincey said is right, then it makes sense. If humans can shield Inklings from the Bleed in our world, maybe merging with a human can help her fake it until she makes it.”
Kenny kept pace with her, practically bouncing on his feet as he kept stride next to her. “But she’s not an Inkling, she’s just a core.”
“Epheral can, like… I don’t know, just figure this stuff out.” Natalie rubbed her forehead, tipping her hat up with the motion. She tugged the beak of it firmly back down afterward. “She practically is prana, she figures out how Inklings use it to do different things, and then does it herself. It’s why she can use your powers, and Jacent’s powers, and Quincey’s powers, and now she’s…”
“Trying to bond with a human.” Kenny stalled, blinking his eyes.
Natalie nodded. “To protect herself the next time she tries to break into Canvas.”
“That was all just a distraction!” Kenny clapped his hands upon his head and pulled at his fur, “She knew we’d think she’d attack the trains! She threw monsters at us and slipped in the back door!”
“I heard you guys killed a freaking dragon though!” Natalie stopped in her stride, turning to face Kenny. She couldn’t contain her almost childlike excitement at the idea. “I wish I’d seen it! I mean, she obviously threw everything at you, so you couldn’t help but be distracted.”
Just beyond Natalie, the thickest part of the crowds had amassed around Kenny’s packmates. Quincey, Laila, and Daxton were still getting cheered on by Harbington’s citizens as heroes for having helped slay that dragon. Daxton, of course, was just lapping it up. Quincey was timid, mousey in the face of it all. She looked like she wanted to just dart away. She probably wanted to find somewhere quiet to finally calm her nerves before she had a breakdown. Kenny peered past Natalie and frowned. “Yeah, it was great,” He responded grumpily, “Now everyone’s going nuts about it!”
“Yeesh, better than what we get around here. We’ve saved Locksmouth a couple times now, even Anchorsway once, and now even Harbington, and people still give us the side-eye around here.” Natalie sighed, crossing her arms and watching the three of them bask in the adoration of their fellow Harbington folk. “And to think, almost a month ago us Inklings were the worst thing since vintage sci-fi fashion.”
“I don’t care for it.” Kenny sighed, closing his eyes and trying not to frown any harder, lest he cramp his cheeks. “They wouldn’t be so crazy about it if they knew half the history behind, well… me, and Polaris.”
Natalie turned her head, her dreads whipping with the motion. “What they don’t know won’t hurt you. Here, let’s pull your friends out of there. We’ve got to get our butts to Canvas before Epheral shows up. The second she sets foot in that place, she’s going to start eating up the castle like… a… bunch of cookies. Or something.”
“Good one.” Kenny droned. He yawned when Natalie turned away. Night had been going on for a while, he was starting to feel tired simply by the sheer virtue of staying up late. He rubbed his eye a little and followed along.
Many of the people who stuck around were children ignoring the behests of their parents to get moving to the shelter. They willingly and blatantly ignored their scolding of danger and late bedtimes to instead get more time in with the new local heroes on the block. There couldn’t have been any of them older than thirteen hanging around, all pushing in close to ask their questions and just bask in the presence of the Inkling-bound teens. They stood starry-eyed in amazement and worship.
“Light Dog, Plural Pig, and the Flying Giraffe!” A young feline boy hugged up to his hamster friend, both of them staring wide-eyed at Laila, who clenched her eyes shut upon hearing those monikers they had shared with her. She looked as if she’d just bit into a lemon, but she shook it out and opened her eyes again to give the boys a sweet, forced smile. “Well… Bless yer little hearts…” She said through her teeth. Those names were awful.
The boys giddily shook each other, squealing and laughing, so proud of themselves. The hamster boy – a little thing with bold brown eyes and a creamy orange coat, smiled big up through his blonde bangs. “You’re the hottest one!” He said, cheeks immediately flushing scarlet as he then tried to rip himself away. Laila raised a brow at the boy – he couldn’t have been older than eleven or twelve. Cute as he was, something in it seemed twisted by disingenuous over-inflation of opinion brought on by the fact that she helped literally save their lives. She leaned down and pat the boy on his head – her tiny top gave him a flash of her under-bosom, unintentional in this instance.
“Well ya’ll’re mighty kind, cowboy.” She said, then standing up as the boys got too excited to stay. They just ran off screaming. Laila shook her head, crossing her arms. She turned her attention to Quincey, whom Harley was holding quite insistently by the hands to pull her down closer to eye-level, so she could gush about how wonderful the pig was. Gone was her usual timid, meek personality. It was replaced by young energy that just couldn’t be contained. Maybe she was still riding an adrenaline high.
“I can’t thank you enough times! I! Can’t!” Harley spoke almost breathlessly. Her wide-eyed amazement was so out of character for her, but Quincey’s responding look of discomfort was proper. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“H-Harley, please, it’s… fine!” Quincey pulled her hands away from Harleys and clapped them down on the shrew’s shoulders, as if to keep her from bouncing away. “It’s okay, you don’t have to thank me so much!”
“I love you.” Harley blurted out, her face burning gradually more and more red. “A-All of you, you’re the best.”
Quincey gasped. “O… Oh! Um…! We… love you too…?” She cringed, unsure of how to respond to something so… intensely bold as that.
Natalie strode in as smoothly as she could, throwing her arms around Quincey from behind and almost hanging off her as she peeked around at Harley. “I saw her first,” She teased, her little tail wagging about, “I need to steal her for a bit, would you mind?”
Harley gasped. She stared mouth agape at Natalie for a minute, then she puffed out her cheeks and glared. She took Quincey’s arm and held it tight, refusing to let her go. Natalie was surprised at the reaction, not expecting her playful jibe to be so passionately rejected. “Hey!” She said, “I’m serious, we have hero things to do!”
Quincey just stood awkwardly, her wrist trapped between Harley’s breasts. “U-Uh…”
“Alright, come on, she’s my girlfriend…” Daxton stepped in, taking hold of Quincey’s other arm and pulling her toward him much, much more insistently than the other two girls, pulling Quincey, Harley, and Natalie toward him so he could wrap his arms possessively around the pudgy pig. Quincey fell into his chest and blinked in confusion. Natalie and Harley let her go, Harley more begrudging than any.
“Well, then… I hope that you do that… good!” Harley stuttered, running back to her parents, flushed with embarrassment. Vernon and Sophie had been standing in a semi-circle around the outside of the crowds with the other parents who had been waiting for their kids to finally get tired of all the yelling and come back. They ushered her along, waving to Quincey one last time before they guided their little girl toward the waiting police cars, ready to go to their shelter. Be that a hotel or the hospital, no one was forthcoming with the information, but at least she was safe. Quincey could breathe easy knowing that.
Daxton looked down at Quincey and grinned, then he turned his attention to the crowd and flicked a wrist at them. “Alright, get outta here!” He playfully chastised them, “Get to bed, or you’ll never grow up big and strong like us!”
The kids groaned and complained, but gradually they departed. Quincey breathed a tired sigh, overwhelmed by the attention. Daxton just chucked, and gave her a hug. “Kids, am I right?” He said, grinning.
Quincey pat Daxton on the chest, then turned her attention to Natalie. “What’s going on?” She asked, “What do you need?”
Joined by Kenny at last, Natalie looked at them all. They looked tired, some more than others. The night was dragging on toward the early hours of the following morning. She felt tired as well, her body never going to be able to adjust to how often hero duties kept her burning the midnight oil. “We need to get the gang together,” She said, “We’ve got a big problem.”
-
--
-
Max was the last to arrive. Though the boy was roused from his slumber, he could have cartwheeled through the door to join the others. He bound into the living room and leapt up onto the back of the sofa to perch there, bobbing his backside up and down as he bounced in place, like a coiled spring ready to unleash kinetic fury all around the room with a bounce.
Kelvalde’s apartment was once again their staging room, as he was the only person they knew of who would put up with their all-nighter strategizing and chatter. The parents could sleep, if they were able, while their kids all gathered in the den and began hatching schemes for counter-measures against Epheral’s inevitable attack. It wasn’t a question of if she would attack Canvas, but when. The eleven of them situated themselves where they could on the sofa and in the recliners, some having to sit on the floor in the ornate sitting room, while Kelvalde himself was busy providing them with wake-me-up tea and offering his two cents wherever he felt it necessary. The husky glided around his home like a ghost filling up mugs with steaming hot beverage that the kids sipped on; some of them doing so despite the taste of it, which they couldn’t shake no matter how much milk or sugar they asked for.
Natalie paced around the room, her boots thunking on the hard floor. In her camo top and hat, she looked every bit the army girl – all she was missing were some dog tags to put that look in a nice little bow. She tried not to appear ragged, but she was going on an entire day without changing her clothes and just as long without any sleep, longer still since she’d slept in the comfort of her own bed. She examined her likewise tired and exhausted comrades, though she noted that Jacent was unshaken. He looked neither tired nor beat up, but something in the way his shoulders slouched as he sat cross-legged on the rug, meditating over possibilities, gave him away. Even he was starting to feel it.
“Epheral has a tendency to attack on multiple fronts,” She said, “She’s done it a whole bunch of times now. Now that everyone’s in Locksmouth though, her efforts have to be more centered. We don’t have to divide our attention three ways.”
“Two ways are still more than one way!” Max added, perched above Carrie, Erwin, and Quincey. Erwin was scrunched into a narrow tube of a ferret by the girls on either side of him, and Max’s hands pushing down on his head weren’t helping. Max’s eyes rolled in opposite directions to illustrate the complexity of the problem they faced in their newfound foe.
Natalie nodded at him. “True,” She said, “And we can’t leave either of them unguarded, so we have to split into two groups; one to take on Canvas and one to stay here.”
The kids bobbed their heads, nodding sleepily. Kenny sat on the arm of the sofa, arms crossed, looking around the room with a characteristic frown. He fixed his gaze on Natalie last, a huffy glare shot her way. “Alright, if nobody else is going to say it? What we need is sleep.” He said, “And food.”
Natalie looked at him as if he were being a wet blanket, something he seemed all too comfortable to be doing. When she looked around to judge her pack’s reactions and those of the others, they seemed to be unanimously in agreement with Kenny, however. Samantha, who sat on her knees with her body leaned mostly into Jacent’s, seemed barely awake. She used the red-head’s bicep as something of a firm pillow, her eyes closed. Her normally well-kept hair looked very ready for bed, and her dress had more wrinkles than she would have ever normally allowed. Several of the others had only just been woken up to gather, and even Natalie had to admit that the gross feeling at the pit of her stomach would probably have been solved by a good sleep. Kenny was right, and there was nothing she could do to change that.
Natalie rubbed her eyes. “You’d think this was part of her plan.”
There was frustration in her voice. Jacent opened his eyes and met hers to assuage her. “You don’t need to worry about the city,” Jacent said, “As I cannot enter Canvas, my role is to stay here. I can look after things.”
Natalie’s form inked over as Echelon for only a moment before the Inkling stepped forward, leaving her host’s body behind. She parted with a wobble in her gelatinous body, and then turned to address Natalie promptly. “We Inklings can take care of Canvas,” She said, “Some of you will have to go without our help for a while, but we’ll leave some behind to assist.”
Echelon studied the gathered group for a moment. “Though, if it’s alright with them, I would like to take our newest additions with us. I want them to get familiar with Castle Blackwolf, and it will give me some time to get familiar with them in turn.”
She looked squarely at Daxton, Quincey, Kenny and Laila, expecting their compliance. The four Harbington teens exchanged brief looks to gather their affirmation before nodding their heads. “I guess that makes sense,” Kenny said, “So you want to take our Inklings for a while?”
“I promise to give them right back when we’re done,” Echelon held up her hand in assurance, “They haven’t been with their hosts as long as we have, so I can’t hold them apart from you for as long anyway. They’ll be back before you know it.”
“Okay, Echelon.” Quincey said.
“But we can’t skimp on the Canvas front,” Natalie interjected, “In fact, the second Epheral shows up there, we’ll need everyone to fight her off. She controls prana, which is exactly what Castle Blackwolf is made out of. We’ll have to hit her with everything we have right away if we wanna stand a chance against that. The more bodies over there, the better.”
A sullen silence fell over the room as they considered what might happen upon Epheral’s all but assured arrival. There was no telling what her power could bring to the table in Canvas. With an attack on Locksmouth just as likely, they couldn’t possibly guess how many forces they might need to ensure the human’s homes weren’t destroyed for the sake of Canvas, and vice versa.
“You know what I miss? School. I miss school.” Daxton grinned, scratching his jaw.
Natalie sighed. “Well, who’s Inklings should stay behind? I’m thinking at least one from Team Rough and one from Team Reference.”
Carrie raised her hand. “I think Arus should stay, and maybe Mhend in case anyone gets hurt.”
“So Phactys and Koralo will join everyone else in Canvas,” Natalie counted on her fingers to keep track of how many people were going to which place, “And so Arus and Mhend are here, with Jacent of course.”
“And while I stand watch, the rest of you can get some much-needed food and sleep.” Jacent readily took on his role, “I am not so tired that I won’t be able to get through a single night. If Epheral comes, it will be noticeable. If we have the police keep us on alert, we should know the moment an attack is made.”
Natalie gave Jacent a nod. “I’ll be going to Canvas with Echelon then.”
Carrie shook her head, standing from the sofa. Max immediately jumped into her spot the moment she stood. “Oh no you don’t,” She said, “You’re going to bed. You’re exhausted and hangry.”
Natalie gave her girlfriend an annoyed look. “I’m not that tired,” She argued, “And I’m not hangry.”
Carrie calmly approached Natalie and gripped the wolf’s shoulders, looking her in the eye. “Yes, you are. You always get so grouchy when you’re hungry. You’ve been up all day and all night getting everything ready for those people from Harbington, you need to have a nap at least.”
Natalie lifted Carrie’s hands off her shoulders, holding them as she lowered them. “Carebear, I am fine.”
“No, you’re not.” Carrie smugly smirked.
Natalie argued. “Yes, I am!”
“We don’t care.” Kenny cut in so bluntly that it stopped the girls from bickering back and forth right away.
Quincey took the momentary silence as her time to add her thoughts. She sighed, and she rubbed her tummy. “I’m starving,” She whined, “It’s been so long since I ate anything…”
Laila snorted, cutting short a brief snore when her head dipped back in the arm chair where she sat. She blinked her eyes a few times and shook her head. “Uh, what?”
“I think we’re going to get something to eat and then rest.” Quincey concluded with an apologetic look to Natalie.
“I need rest, darlings.” Samantha sighed, “I’ve done so much already…”
“I can stay up for a while if I’m needed.” Erwin offered.
“Me too!” Max pumped his fist into the air.
Carrie looked at him and shook her head. “No, you’re going to bed too, mister.”
Dejected, Max frowned. “Aw, c’mon! Why?!”
Kelvalde pat Jacent on the shoulder. “And I will keep you company while the others sleep. Just let me take a moment to powder my nose and get pretty for our night out.” He grinned and winked, and then stepped off with the tea tray to get ready.
Jacent smiled painfully. “I can hardly wait.”
Natalie looked around the room, a canine girl trying to catch all the decisions being made without her input as if she were trying and failing to catch a ball in her mouth. “Well, then…! Hmph!” She pouted, releasing Carrie’s hands and walking away with a sassy, proud, clearly upset stride. “Well come on then Max, Sam, I guess we’re going to go to bed! We’re going to get in on a big cuddle pile and fall asleep in the same bed.”
“Aw, don’t be like that!” Carrie laughed, crossing her arms in a pose that told her girlfriend that she wasn’t going to change her mind, no matter how huffy she got.
“Yeah,” Natalie added, “And we might get real close and rub on each other without Carrie.”
Carrie palmed her forehead. “I told you, you’re hangry.”
Natalie blew a raspberry at her girlfriend as she gathered Max and Sam up one in each arm, dragging them along toward the door. She stopped and turned back to regard Echelon, the playful nature of her faux argument with Carrie stricken from her face. “You guys keep in touch,” She said, “If anything happens, we’ll come running.”
Echelon smiled, genuine. “And to you as well. Have a good, long sleep, Natalie. You’ve earned it.”
“I’ll feel like that’s true once this monster’s off my planet.” Natalie grimly smiled, and then marched out of Kelvalde’s apartment with Sam and max in tow. The comparatively small reptile and bat could only flail and wobble as they tried to keep pace with their leader. With them gone, Carrie approached Erwin, who readily stood to join her. They left discussing their plans of surveillance. Jacent was the last to stand, the young man stretching his arms and working out a wrinkle in his Captain Comet suit.
Jacent only noticed the remaining kids staring at him after a few moments. He blinked at them. “And so… what will you do?”
“Um…” Quincey bunched up her shoulders in a shrug. “A pizza?”
“Ugh, yes.” Daxton stood up and threw himself over Quincey’s lap, flopping onto his belly over the couch.
Laila had dozed off again, the gurgling beginnings of her snoring escaping her mouth. Kenny regarded her for a moment, then clutched his stomach. “Yeah, full disclosure? I could demolish a pizza right now…”
“I mean, I’d be all for going out and doing the whole Look For Epheral thing, but I haven’t eaten, like, all day.” Daxton added.
Jacent looked surprised. “Oh! Don’t worry about that. I know better than most that fighting a foe on an empty stomach leads only to failure.” He paused, eying them thoughtfully. “Besides, Inklings or no, you’ve gone through a lot today. Your home…”
Their thoughts drifted to that sinking feeling as they left Harbington, seeing Epheral burning it away, not even having the decency to leave its dark, empty husk alone. Quincey fidgeted nervously.
“Ah,” Daxton waved a hand, “That’s just a temporary thing. It’ll still be there when we get back.”
“Probably.” Kenny morosely supplied.
Jacent crossed his muscular arms. “While I admire your never-ending optimism, Daxton… do not wall yourself off from the unpleasant possibilities. Denying the reality of the situation only makes you, well…”
“Blinded. Yeah.” Daxton caught him.
Jacent cleared his throat.
Kelvalde slid out from the hallway across the flooring in his bare feet. The husky had barely dressed himself, having only thrown on a bomber jacket for warmth, giving him an antiquated look. Though the leather was thick and lined on the inside with wool, the sheer exposure of Kelvalde’s chest and the low dip of his pants exposing almost all his hips made any argument of function over form moot. He combed his fingers through his steel-blue mane and flicked his hair with a flair, tapping his cane on the floor. “Darling, I am ready. Let us away, into the night.”
Jacent’s eyes flicked up and down the husky’s body, taking him in uncertainly. “… Right. Let’s go.”
Kelvalde let Jacent stride past, watching him go with a smug little smile. “Alright children, you know the drill,” He spoke to the Harbington kids, “Sleep wherever you fall down and don’t make a mess. Mi casa es su casa.”
Kenny gave him a look as if he’d been talking in alien tongue. “Whatever that means.”
Kelvalde winked, clicked his tongue, then turned on his heel and passed through the door. He whistled and twirled his cane about in one hand as he left. The door closed, leaving the teens with Echelon, who had just been waiting patiently for that very moment. It felt like she was the last in a long, extensive line of inconveniences, and even she felt a little dismayed on their behalf. “Before I leave you for the evening,” She said, “I’ll just need you to come with me for a moment.”
They gathered themselves up, with Kenny nudging Laila awake. The giraffe snorted and shot up, springing from her seat alert and ready. They left for the mirror in Kelvalde’s bedroom while Quincey tried to explain to a curious Daxton what Canvas was like in roughly human terms. Unsurprisingly, he found it difficult to picture seeing himself from the outside like he was in a picture book.
