“You! You stole my power, little girl,” she hissed, and clanked her blades together, causing the energy to break apart. “Now I will steal something from you.”
Her tentacles came out behind her like wings, and that’s what drew my attention, but I realized too late that it was a distraction. As I readied myself to fend off the tentacle strike that never came, she flung those two blades so deadly fast I didn’t even realize they were thrown until I heard Master Aki’s strangled cry behind me.
It was like time stopped. I spun in seemingly slow motion as Dawn charged forward, blowing an arc of fire to keep the queen breeder back. Master Aki had a blade in his throat and another in his stomach; he was staring at me, wide-eyed. Blood gushed from his neck wound as he slunk to the ground.
“Noooo!” A guttural cry left my lips as the power I’d brought up flooded to the surface. I should have brought Ronnie; she could maybe have patched him up. The power within me shook my arms as I held a hand over his bleeding throat.
I wept over the man who had been like a father to me. “Hang on. Dawn will fly you home.”
He looked up into my eyes and smiled. “No, child…” His voice was weak, and as the grief crashed into me, wave after wave, the ground started to shake. I don’t know how I knew, but it was my anger causing the earth to shake.
“It was always to be… this way. End the Dream Wars. Be happy. I love…y—” He didn’t finish his sentence before the breath left his mouth and he…was gone.
Grief and rage whirred within me like a blender. I popped onto my feet with both blades drawn.
That evil bitch was about to get cut into a thousand pieces. I spun to see her holding Dawn in midair, trying to pluck off her wings.
Without a sound, I crept across the desert-like floor and slipped behind one of the bone piles that hadn’t yet been blown up, then I burst from my hiding place and came at her from behind in full fucking ninja attack mode.
Her back was turned to me where she was preoccupied with torturing Dawn. I leapt and came down with both of my blades, simultaneously hacking her tentacles off. All four of them hit the ground with a thud; black blood spurted from the stumps at her back. A high-pitched scream rose across the space and she spun, shock on her face. I was done talking. From here on out I was going to dismantle her limb from limb, going in for an attack, then out for rest, then back in, just as Master Aki had taught me.
Without warning, some type of shockwave pushed off from her body and slammed into me, but I clenched my muscles as my feet skidded on the rough dirt surface. I held that bitch’s gaze as I grit my jaw together. The shock and grief of losing master Aki had turned me into a monster. I felt nothing. I was unhinged completely.
‘I can’t help you. She’s frozen me,’ Dawn called out into my mind. She sounded far away.
‘When you get free, fly back to the others and don’t look back. I can’t lose anyone else,’I told her.
Using all of my energy, I pushed, and the next energy shockwave she’d sent for me shattered like glass as a shockwave of my own burst forward. It was so strong it knocked the queen breeder back three feet and blew Dawn even farther.
My eyes flicked to Master Aki’s dead form lying in a pool of his own blood. Nothing about me felt human anymore. With a battle cry, I leapt and flew twenty feet, knocking the queen down and straddling her. Her razor-sharp nails clamped down into my hips as she tried to remove me, but I pinned her with my thighs. She was trying to enter my mind. I felt her pushing at it, trying to inflict pain, but my mind was a steel trap.
I swung my katana across her neck just as she lifted her pelvis, trying to buck me off. I could barely feel the pain at my hips, though I did feel the sticky cold trickle of blood. She bucked a second time and I hit the ground, but in the same instant I rolled over just as she was climbing on top of me. Blood spurted from her neck wound, but before my eyes… it stitched together, regenerating like the giants did when they lost an arm. I knew then that the only way to kill her would be to blow her up. I had one grenade in my pocket. In order to ensure she didn’t run away from the blast, I’d have to hold it to the back of her damn neck.
She was still on top of me. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to live anymore. Not in a world where Master Aki was dead. A sob formed in my throat and I dropped my Katanas, unable to fight with them in this short distance. I slipped my hand into my cargo pocket.
The breeder’s hands wrapped around my throat. “Humans are so fragile. Without air, they just poof.” She grinned, dripping saliva onto my cheek.
I wrapped my fingers around the grenade and inserted my middle finger into the pin. I would miss Damien, Maxine, Ronnie, Brisk, Nox, everyone. Sweet Jeremy too. I felt bad for letting everyone down, but this would at least help them bring down the Dream War one day. I was just about to pull out the pin when a shadow passed over the breeder’s face. Looking up, I spotted Damien riding Rodger. He had a rocket launcher gun held firmly in both hands. Seeing him here flushed a healthy dose of fear through my veins, and also chased away some of my grief, helping me think more clearly.
I could not let her hurt my Damien. Before she completely cut of my air supply and made my ability to fight her off impossible, I used every ounce of strength I had and bucked her up and off me with one snap of my pelvis. With the gap I’d created, I drew my knees in, planted my boots onto her stomach, and with one final burst of energy, I snapped my legs up and sent her flying just as Damien launched a rocket at her head.
My body stayed pinned to the ground as the rocket hit her neck and exploded. I had to fight the urge not to close my eyes. I wanted to see that head fly. When her head severed from her body, a crack reverberated throughout the planet and the sky… fractured. One second it was a gloomy green nighttime sky, and the next lines of Earth’s blue sky bled in with columns of light that flooded over the ground.
I stood, taking no chances, and pulled my pin from the grenade I’d been holding. I chucked it right onto her stomach before walking away. I wasn’t about to have her head rejoin her body or any crazy Hollywood shit like that. As the explosion went off, Damien dismounted Rodger and ran for me. Dawn hadn’t flown for home like I’d asked her, but she’d clearly called for help. For some reason I felt so ashamed. When Damien went to hold me, I shrugged him away, tears lining my eyes.
I ran to Master Aki and fell onto his body, sobbing. Now that the threat was over, I was going to allow myself to mourn properly.
“I’m so sorry,” Damien said, “but we can’t stay. Breeders are inbound.” He checked something on his wrist.
“Fuck the breeders!” I shouted, clutching Master Aki’s limp form, hating the way his eyes looked vacantly at the now-cracked sky.
Damien bent and scooped Master Aki up into his arms, causing me to sob louder. I followed him as he set my old friend on Rodger’s back and told him to fly him home. Everything was slow motion, I was so numb. How was this really happening?
Next, he grabbed me, and I fought him a little at first, as we climbed onto Dawn. When we took to the skies and Damien started to rub my back in small circles like my mother would when I was younger, I lost it. Full sobs racked my body as I carried the weight of my most cherished friend’s death with me. I never should have allowed him to come. He all but told me he would die and I let it happen! I should have been faster, should have protected him when the breeder threw the knives…
I was vaguely aware of Damien slipping a helmet onto my head, clicking the strap under my chin. Then he tilted my face up to look at him. “Kit, I’m so damn sorry about Master Aki. When this is all over, we will mourn him together.” His crystalline blue eyes cut right through me. “But right now I need your help. The world needs you. We have to finish this.”
I whimpered, wanting to stay in that numb place I was lost in.
