It looked somewhat like a mummy. Scabbed, burned skin showed through some of the black wrappings, whose ends fluttered in the breeze dramatically. Two claw-like projections, likely made of Mishion, extended from his wrists, where black bandaged fingers manipulated controls. Though he had no fangs, Anthony had to guess this was Black Fang.
“They have a copy of the machine?” Anthony asked himself in surprise, then with a sickening feeling in his gut, he thought of the cold, calculating mind of that rubber man. Anthony couldn’t quite remember his name but he was sure that the thing had planned in case Anthony got away with the machine, Night Stealer must have been preparing a copy.
“What do we do?” Alia asked, leaning heavily on the table. With some surprise, Anthony realized that a steadily swelling number of guild officers in the room were all looking at him. The chief had probably run off somewhere to hide, so he wasn’t giving any orders. Not that they would have taken his word that the chief’s crimes were still circulating despite the change in altitude.
Anthony pointed out the window at Black Fang, “I need several agents to come with me.” The building was now more than fifty feet in the air, slowly rotating. “We need to get down there and stop that man. We need to take control of the panel or get him to set the building down.”
“Yes, sir!” several said at once.
Anthony turned to Alia, “I need you to work on evacuating the building! Get everyone down by jet pack if you have to, which you might if we get any higher. Choose who you need for your team, the other agents, and I should be able to get down by magnetic tether.”
Alia snapped a smart salute with mocking severity, before calling out names to follow her. Anthony glanced at Tiberius, “Any chance I can get my armor back?”
Tiberius nodded, “The armory. We’ll go ahead. You follow when you are ready, we can’t lose a moment!”
Anthony sprinted off towards the armory, distracting himself from his panic by trying to think about how the box might be lifting the building into the air, it must have something to do with irzium’s un-studied space bending properties, that or it was some kind of ‘reverse gravity’ which Anthony couldn’t think how that was done.
Suiting up quickly (and taking a jet pack just in case), Anthony ran to the nearest window and kicked it out of its frame. He fired a tether to the roof and climbed up. He was on the highest side of this new floating island, taking off over Cypostello. Black Fang was opposite, near the lower end of the tilted building. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see Tiberius or any of the agents.
Anthony took off down the roof, mostly slipping and sliding until he reached the other side of the area of ground that came up with the guild building. Black Fang stood below laughing, maybe, it was hard to tell with the distance and the bandages. Anthony took off and headed down, noticing the building was almost a hundred feet in the air. It didn’t make sense that he hadn’t dropped it if his goal was to destroy the guild; he wasn’t doing it very fast. Something black whooshed past his head. Anthony whipped around barely in time to register Dark Feather plowing straight for him. Anthony tried to dodge, but Dark Feather’s clawed foot smacked into his back, sending him off balance and spinning away.
Anthony managed to pull up and away before Dark Feather caught up to him again. Though his jet pack was faster, Dark Feather was lighter and more maneuverable. Once again, something nagged at Anthony’s mind, but he ignored it to dodge Dark Feather’s next blow. He pulled out his energy gun and fired off a volley at Dark Feather, who had to dodge before finding his own gun.
“This has to stop, Dark Feather!” Anthony called out, dropping in the air to miss Dark Feather’s next shot.
“And why is that?” Dark Feather’s cold voice asked.
Anthony wove between rocky foundation pieces under the uprooted building, returning fire at Dark Feather, who raced to keep up with him. He doubled back over Dark Feather and fired a direct hit at his back. Dark Feather dropped with a shout and came to rest swerving up on the edge of the guild building.
Anthony landed a ways away, gun ready, “I get why you guys want to destroy the guild. If I had to guess, I’d say you are all victims of guild hypocrisy. Where the guild itself was doing illegal experiments on you, but destroying all of Cypostello won’t help that, it will make you even more of the villains.”
“And how did you guess we wanted to destroy Cypostello?” Dark Feather asked, going into a crouch.
“The high energy cores in this building are the only thing strong enough to pierce the dome, and you guys are lifting this place pretty high if you just meant to drop it to kill everyone, and this one building wouldn’t destroy the entire guild. There are guild facilities throughout the whole city.”
“Yes,” Dark Feather snarled, “this whole city is riddled with the rot of the guild, we must purge it completely no matter the cost of human life.”
Dark Feather launched himself into the air and swooped around Anthony, who tipped himself back off the edge, falling through empty air and flipping out of Dark Feather’s gun range. He fired up, blasting off the tip of Dark Feather’s wing. To Anthony’s surprise, no wires or mechanical pieces stuck out, just sleek black feathers. Everything fell into place.
“You’re related to the founder!” Anthony said, swerving around another attack in mid-air, “That is how you can fly. The wings are actual wings, just covered with a light coating of Mishion as he did to his.”
Dark Feather snarled, “How, oh, so clever of you! Yes. I am the true direct descendant of your founder, as evidenced by my deformation! It is I, not that worthless chief, who is heir to his power! But instead, I am an outcast! Freak! Monster! The boy whose own mother found him hideous. The first to ever have received the proper genes from my ‘benevolent ancestor’.”
“So why destroy his legacy?”
“If I can’t have it,” Dark Feather growled, “no one will!”
Dark Feather charged him, flying straight down. Anthony crashed into him and spun them through the air. Dark Feather let out a grunt of pain as they fell. Anthony grabbed his gun, but Dark Feather hit aside, he pinned Dark Feather’s wings in, and they continued to plummet.
“You’re going to get us both killed!” Dark Feather yelled.
“Hopefully just you!” Anthony muttered. Thrusting himself up just as the upside-down Dark Feather crashed into the ground. Anthony alighted slowly on the ground, breathing heavily, jet pack smoking. Up ahead, he could see Tiberius and the agents fighting Shadow Eater and Night Stealer to get to Black Fang. Anthony clambered to his feet slowly. He could see them ahead, and he could also see the guild headquarters rising into the air and towards the dome.
He jumped forward to join the fray. Night Stealer knew he was no match for the guild agents. Instead, he hid behind his companion and threw, sometimes knives, sometimes what appeared to be explosives. Just as Anthony arrived, a man beside him took a metal disk to the chest and fell over with a grunt. Moments later, the explosion tossed him away in a flare of light.
Shadow Eater was a different story, the hulking, menacing form of a brute, he clobbered any guild agents in his way. Tiberius and the other fired volleys of energy into him, but he didn’t seem to care. A black cloth cowl covered his face, and only his mouth, a gaping hole with a tongue like a worm half inside, showed.
Anthony fired a tether around Shadow Eater’s ankles and pulled. The mighty monster started to tip, but righted himself by snapping the cords with his foot. His fists with stubby pale fingers stuck out of a tattered black cloak and pants, bashing everything near him. Anthony saw an opening and dodged past the fray. Night Stealer turned to stop him, but it was too late. With a triumphant shout of victory, Anthony fired up his gauntlet and plowed into Black Fang, who let out a shot and tried to defend himself with his curved prosthetic projections, but ultimately failed. Anthony grabbed the box and tried to figure out the controls while using his jetpack to get away. Shadow Eater noticed him bounding up as Night Stealer followed. The guild agents used this opportunity of distraction to tackle Shadow Eater. While Anthony shot away, crashing into the ground behind shrubs a dozen yards off and ditching the jet pack.
Just as Anthony found a button on the panel that he thought would stop the increase in height, something blew into his head. He spun away, dropping the box. The blow was mightier than anything he’d ever felt. He came up gasping, turning to face Death Grim.
The rubber man was just as expressionless as usual, but not as fingerless. Where the rubber circles had been on his arms, long blades stuck out, having ripped through the casing to break free into the air as ten knives.
“And so this is where it ends!” Death Grim croaked, his rasping mechanical voice coming out like rust itself.
Anthony saw the box behind him and inched towards it. Death Grim didn’t seem to notice; he stalked forward. Anthony fought to stay calm and hoped that one of the other agents would come, but they probably thought he was safer than them. He was farther from the primary battle and possessed the remote. Anthony swallowed and ran over his weapons in his mind, inching back slowly. “So I know why most of you are doing this. Dark Feather is angry at his ancestor, the guild mutated Night Stealer and Shadow Eater, and I guess Black Fang looks like he was burned, probably by mismanagement of chemicals by the guild.”
“And?” Death Grim asked, and he seemed to bask in Anthony’s fear.
“…But what is your beef? Did they pull your skin off?”
“I hate not the guild but all of humanity. There was only one human I loved, my brother. He was the only thing I ever loved in this world. He was the only man to see me not as what I look like but as who I was, but they murdered him, destroyed his very memory. I will destroy all of humanity from now on. Those fools who worked for me shall die too when we breach the dome; no one could survive. I told them I would protect them and showed them how I would, but I will not, for I hate every human to my core.”
“But what about you?” Anthony asked. His hand brushed the edge of the box, and his AI scrawled a new message across his face plate, Two minutes until dome breach!
“I can survive in space, I can survive anywhere! It is my curse that I was that much stronger than he! I carried his body through the depths, knowing that it was too late to save him, but unable to die myself.”
Anthony’s hand connected with the box, and he found the button and pressed it. The guild building shuddered to a halt, and a cheer went up from all the guild agents scattered around the area.
Death Grim looked up for a moment, still expressionless, but with anger in his posture and every muscle. Anthony took advantage of this opportunity to leap forward on Death Grim. He activated his gloves and plowed into his opponent. Death Grim didn’t flinch. He stood like a tower in a gale: the fist had no effect.
Anthony took a step back in surprise. Death Grim shuffled forward unafraid. Anthony muttered to his AI to turn it to full power and attacked again. Death Grim didn’t even bend. Then, like forking lightning, he shot out, piercing through the seams of Anthony’s Mishion armor and into flesh. He tore out again, pulling a scream from Anthony with it.
He lifted Anthony easily and tossed him down again. He grabbed the controls himself in his clawed hands and continued his ascent. Anthony pulled himself up, and Death Grim ignored him, as if he didn’t think he could do any damage and would die in less than two minutes anyway.
Anthony looked around for something—anything to use as a weapon against this monster. In a flash, he grabbed his jet pack off the ground and tossed it heavily into the air. Death Grim glanced back, but not soon enough. Anthony thought he could almost see surprise for a moment on the blank rubber face as he punched his fist into the bulky machine and sent it flying with insane speed straight into Death Grim and exploding with heat and fire.
The monster barely shifted his stance as the explosion drove him several feet, but he dropped the box, his rubber skin shredded into pieces across his whole body. And Anthony got a good look at what was underneath. Wires ran the length across metal tubes and a skeleton of near black. He was a robot. His skeleton was stronger than any bone or metal or concrete forged from some mix of Mishion and irzium.
His red glowing eyes focused on Anthony as the AI frantically shot out more text one minute before the dome breach!
“You are the lifeless man.” Anthony spoke it quietly with dread filling him, “the only robot ever to gain consciousness, the mechanical being with a contempt for all the lesser life forms like humans and everything they make. All but one, Deadbolt.”
Death Grim sneered in an ever-so-mechanical way, “Yes, good deduction, young guild agent. When they killed Deadbolt, they tore out my soul. Any good will and love I had died with him, and so I am left an empty shell ready to murder.”
Night Stealer ran up, knocking aside the tall shrubs on this side of the guild campus, which concealed the two of them. He grinned malevolently at Anthony, “This is where it ends, right here, right now!”
Anthony gestured at Death Grim, “Listen, Night Stealer. He isn’t what he seems! He is the lifeless man.”
Night Stealer cackled, “As I guessed! You can never beat us now, we have the most powerful creature ever to grace Cypostello on our side.”
“Destroy him,” Death Grim rasped, turning back to the controls. Night Stealer stood ready, a grin on his masked face.
“I’m going to enjoy this.”
Anthony backed up, “Listen Night Stealer, you don’t understand he is going to turn on you!”
“Sure, sure,” Night Stealer muttered, pulling out a knife.
Anthony swallowed, then stood still, “Thearen.”
Night Stealer wavered, “What?”
“I know it is you, Thearen. Do you remember me?”
“I care not for the guild!”
“It is me, Anthony. I looked up to you. You were my idol, the reason I joined the guild, and look what they have done to you.”
“The guild has ruined me! I have been brought low by them.”
“No, Thearen. Look what they have done to you, the Dark Band, you were a hero, what you look like and what your disabilities are don’t change that. They have brought you low.”
“No, no, no,” Night Stealer said, shaking his head, “this is the guild’s fault; all of my problems will the destruction of the guild will solve all our problems.”
Anthony continued softly and carefully, “You can be that hero again, Thearen. You can. I know you have it in you.”
Night Stealer’s grimy face began to run with sweat or maybe tears, “No! I have become what I was always destined to be! You are just trying to trick me, gain my trust become my friend so you can betray me again.”
Anthony knelt in front of Night Stealer, pulling his helmet off. “The choice is yours, Thearen. What are you going to do?”
Night Stealer let out a moan. Anthony saw Death Grim in the distance, orchestrating destruction; there was no way to stop that monster.
Thearen bowed his head dejectedly and stepped away. Anthony could see through the mask. Through the bitter anger and the scarred-up pale skin, he saw Thearen looking back at him.
Anthony fell back, exhausted, his whole body hurting. He saw as Thearen faced Death Grim and aimed his knife straight where he knew it would do the most damage. As he always did, somehow, Death Grim knew to turn. He saw the blade coming at him, handle over knife. He could have reached out and plucked the blade from the air, but he saw to his surprise that it was Thearen throwing the knife. The shock of one of his own turning on him slowed his processors just enough.
The blade buried itself deep into the mechanical chest. Death Grim struggled briefly and finally tipped backward, dropping the box. Thearen was on it in a flash, and even as bright lights spread across the dome, showing its stress lines as the building collided with its energy field, only moments remained before disaster. There was no time; nothing would be fast enough. Only one option was left. Thearen drove his knife straight through the controls, which fritzed and sparked the same as the twitching mechanical shell that had been the lifeless man, the thing full of grief and anger.
The guild headquarters faltered, pulsing up with every spark of the control box and falling slowly the rest of the time. Then, with one final shock, the control box went dead, and the guild headquarters dropped like a stone crashing into the cleared area and sending a wave of dust and smoke out in a shock wave.
Anthony stood carefully, his every joint was screaming from Death Grim’s pounding. Thearen and he walked back towards the impact zone, emergency vehicles and guild members rushed to and fro. Shadow Eater was sprawled across the grass with medics around him. Strangely enough, though his DNA was unrecognizable, his fingerprints matched him to guild agent Harnen.
“Is there anything you can do for him?” Anthony asked, looking at the hideous prone shape.
The medic shrugged, “Possibly, but it is unlikely he’ll ever be the same.”
Tiberius, standing off to the side, pulled out a small pistol and pointed it at Thearen. “That one! He’s Night Stealer, we were looking for him, but he got away!”
Officers looked up and hurried over. There was smoke and fire, but Cypostello would survive, grow, and thrive. Thearen stepped back, alarmed, but Anthony kept his hand on his shoulder.
“No,” Anthony said, stepping to protect his friend. “This is Thearen, he is a hero.”