The Fate of Ten

“It’s tearing me apart!” Daniela screams.

“Agh, I know! I feel it too!” I reply, holding the sides of my head like my cranium might split apart.

Meanwhile, Five, pure velocity and white-hot heat, flies himself right into one of the Hunter’s eyes. There’s a sick puckering sound and the monster screams louder than ever. A moment later, a hole explodes through the back of its head and out comes Five. He holds something aloft. It must be one of the Loric pendants.

“Holy shit,” Sam says. “That was nasty, but it worked.”

The Hunter just took a human bullet through the brain. I bet he feels pretty similar to the way Daniela and I do right now. It doesn’t topple over dead like I hope. Instead, it just gets angrier. It flings itself towards Five, who zips away quickly. Still clinging to the beast but now getting the idea of how to really hurt it, Nine starts climbing up towards its remaining eyes.

That’s when the Black Hawks arrive. They bombard the Hunter with missile strikes that only annoy the monster further. While I appreciate the help, their weapons aren’t going to hurt this thing. There’s a good chance those pilots are just going to get themselves killed or hit Nine and Five by accident.

The Hunter thrashes around, smashing through the plaza, and nearly backhanding one of the choppers out of the sky. It makes it extremely hard for Five to line up another strike at the creature’s eyes.

When the Hunter tilts its head back and roars, the powerful gust of bad breath is enough to blow Nine right off the monster’s face. He flies away from the Hunter’s body and plummets the hundred or so feet back towards the concrete ground. I try to reach out with my telekinesis, but the distance is too far and my head is pounding so much that I can’t focus.

Five swoops down, flames extinguished. Instead of going in for another strike, Five catches Nine by the wrist in midair. He lowers him gently to the ground. In response, Nine punches him right in the face. Because of course he does.

The chopper pilots are coming in for another pass. Grounded now, Five and Nine are right in the Hunter’s path. Things are going south in a hurry.

“If you guys are going to do something, now is the time!” Sam yells.

I don’t know what to do. I can feel this Legacy I copied from Daniela building up inside of me, but I have no idea what it does or how to use it. I’m flailing here. All I’ve got is a splitting headache. There has to be more to it.

With an anguished cry, Daniela springs to her feet. She shoves both of us aside and screams.

“I have to let it out!”

Daniela opens her eyes and a concentrated beam of silver energy shoots towards the Hunter. At first, she’s completely out of control, the energy beam seeming painfully large as it rips through her head, and zigzagging all over the monster’s body. But, after a few seconds, Daniela gets a grip. The beam becomes narrower and more focused.

The result is better than I could’ve hoped.

The Hunter makes a confused yelping sound as it looks down at itself and finds its massive body turning into stone.

As soon as I see Daniela do it, I realize that I can do it too. I focus on the weight behind my eyes—like a boulder, aching to roll down a hill—and shove it out. My vision takes on a silvery tint as the beam flows from my eyes. It’s difficult at first, I have to control it with my eyes, so it’s not easy to be precise, but I get the hang of it pretty quickly. So does Daniela. Soon, we’re painting streaks of stone up and down the confused monster’s towering frame.

The Hunter tries to lumber forward to get at Nine and Five, but its legs aren’t working anymore. They’re solid blocks of rock.

It’s over a few seconds later. Towering next to the Statue of Liberty is a grayish tombstone of the most formidable Mogadorian creation I’ve ever seen, its hideous features forever frozen in a mask of confused rage. Nine and Five stare up at the thing, too confused to even fight each other. The helicopters circle around it, obviously detecting that the beast is no longer a threat and merely an eyesore.

“Ow,” Daniela responds, and leans against me for support. “That did not feel good at all.”

I rub my own face. “No kidding.”

“That was amazing!” Sam shouts. “You’re like Medusa.”

“That is not going to be my superhero code name,” Daniela responds sharply. “Ugh.”

“And you’re like—like—” Sam’s too excited to even say it.

“Like Pittacus,” I finish for him.

“Holy shit, yes! This is big. Do you realize how big this is?”

“It’s big.”

“Kinda stealing my new Legacy thunder here,” Daniela grumbles.

I shake my head and laugh, actually feeling relief for the first time in days. Nine walks towards the monster monument, hands on his hips, and knocks on the stone. While he does that, Five slinks back to the rest of us. I notice that he’s hung the Loric pendant ripped out of the monster’s skull around his own neck. I wonder if that’s his original pendant that he gave up or had taken by Setrákus Ra, or if it belongs to one of the dead Garde. I don’t press the issue right now. He holds out his hands.

“Well, I tried,” he says. “You can tie me back up if you want.”

I exchange a quick look with Sam. I know Five just helped us and I know he said he could’ve broken those ropes if he needed to, but I still feel more comfortable with him tied up. He’s a loose cannon and a murderer. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to really trust him.