Kaia crashed through a wall, and into a shelf loaded with chemicals. Vials and jars fell onto her, shattering, contents spilling across her head and face. A hissing sound followed as her face burned, smoke issuing from it.
Lucas advanced toward her, eyes glowing.
“You said you’d understand if I lied!” Kaia shrieked. “You said you’d understand! So why won’t you understand that I was trying to help you! I was trying to save all of you!”
“I’m not angry that you lied, Kaia,” Lucas said softly, continuing his advance toward her. “I’m not even angry that you were involved in the disappearances, no, see, I’m angry that you came after my family. I lost someone recently, and you came for what I had left. I can’t forgive that!”
Kaia snarled angrily. “Then die!”
She seized a jar from the shelf and shoved it in Lucas’s direction, sending its content spilling toward him. Lucas darted out of the way in a blur, reappearing in front of Kaia and seizing her by the head. He slammed her head into the shelf again, then hurled her across the lab.
She crashed into a table and sent it flying.
“Blood’s worn off, hasn’t it?” Lucas asked, advancing toward her again. “Right about now, you’re experiencing what it feels like when Jin’s blood starts to wear off from your system. You’re feeling the exhaustion. The soreness. The disorientation. The beatings you’ve taken, pain you were able to ignore. You can’t ignore it anymore, can you?”
Slowly, Kaia got back to her feet. She swayed from left to right but kept her eyes trained on Lucas. There was a hunger in them. A madness.
“Do you not love me anymore?” she asked, a tear rolling out of one eye.
She charged at Lucas, took a swipe at his face. Lucas ducked beneath the strike and sent a fist crashing into her stomach. Kaia went stumbling backward.
“You’re crazy,” Lucas said. “Whatever Bridge did to you, whatever he’s had you do…it’s twisted you, Kaia.”
“NO!” She screamed, and went charging again.
Lucas held up his fists, ready to put an end to it.
“YOU WANT TO FIGHT ME BECAUSE OF THEM?!” She screeched as she unleashed a flurry of attacks, forcing Lucas onto the defensive. “THEM? You’re calling them family! Where are they right now?! You think they care about you like you care about them! They’re not your family, you have no family!
“They don’t care about you. Jon put himself on the line to save the failure of a captain he just met. Chloe? Ran into danger to protect that freak Pandoran. But you? They never run to save you. Because they don’t care. You’re just another soldier, another weapon. Nothing about you means anything. You think your anger is righteous? All your talk about hating lies and betrayals…and you haven’t even seen the one happening right under your nose, have you? They’re all betraying you, turning their backs on you. You’re the one they’ll forget.”
Lucas faltered for a moment, and a blow from Kaia caught him in the face, sent him staggering to the side. Another blow connected, knocking him against an empty pod. Kaia came again, throwing another fist.
This time, Lucas caught it. He growled, raising his head slightly and meeting her eyes. “Got anything else to say? I’d like you to get it all off your chest before I rip your heart out.”
He slammed his head into hers.
***
Nightman staggered backward, having only just managed to avoid a fist from one of the Helmets aimed straight for his head. He stumbled into a cart of fruits then rolled out of the way hastily as another Helmet came at him.
Frantically, he aimed his pistol at the Helmet, using his index to alter a dial on the side of the pistol. The Helmet came charging again.
Nightman fired. An ion blast exploded from the pistol, slamming into the Helmet and sending the kid hurtling through the air, crashing into the wall of a building before dropping to the ground.
Andre was at the kid in an instant, stooping to pull the helmet right off of the boy’s head. He glanced in Nightman’s direction. “Your gun could have done that this entire time?”
“I’m trying not to hurt them,” Nightman responded, as he got back to his feet.
“Well, hurt them,” Andre said. He spun around then to face a Helmet that had leaped at him off the side of a building. His fist shot through the air, caught the Helmet in the face and sent the kid crashing into a dumpster. He looked back to Nightman. “They can take it.”
“Right.” Nightman nodded, then turned to find Aiden pinned to the ground by two Helmets who clawed at him simultaneously.
He aimed the pistol at them and fired again.
***
Bridge’s mansion was completely unguarded. There were no other soldiers in there, which was understandable since they might have been dealing with the chaos outside. But there were also no Helmets in the mansion, no security measures, nothing at all to stop them from finding him or even to slow them down.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
That made Chloe worried.
She got even more worried when they finally found Bridge, not in his library but in a room deep in the mansion that’d been mostly stripped bare except for a single seat in front, placed atop a platform as if to resemble a throne.
“Throne of leather and wood,” Jon said when they walked in. “That’s cute. Very contemporary.”
“Ah, Jonathan,” Bridge grinned in his seat. “You look in good shape. And Chloe, I’m glad you could make it.” He rose to his feet. “Also, just to straighten things out, this isn’t a throne room, no, I wouldn’t resort to something so juvenile. This, my friends, is a stage. And looks like you’re audience I’m here to perform for today.”
“Call off the Helmets,” Jon growled.
“Helmets. Ah yes, Kaia did tell me you’d taken to calling the Newbreed that. Unimaginative, if you ask me. An advancement in human evolution and you’ve labeled them something so dull.”
Chloe and Jon moved apart, going on either side of Bridge, preparing to flank him. They approached slowly, eyes trained on him.
“Call them off,” Chloe repeated. “Do that and we won’t have to kill you. We’ll let you answer for your crimes in front of the Council.”
“Do not irritate me, child.” Bridge’s voice turned cold. “The Council? You believe them the innocents in all of this? You believe them worthy of judgement?”
“We believe you’re crazy.”
“The ones who dare to push the limits almost always are,” Bridge acknowledged. “In any case, the Helmets are not mine to call off. Their orders are preset, transmitted to their helmets and besides, it’s not much of a problem, you’ve got friends outside currently contending with the threat they pose.”
“You wanted them to slow us down. It didn’t work.”
“Slow you down?” Bridge repeated, eyes going a little wide. “Oh my dear, no no no…what’s going on out there isn’t for you at all. Like I said, this is a stage. It’s a show. And what better way to alert the world to a glorious performance than via word of mouth? Rave reviews?”
“You’re sick,” Jon spat.
“I think you’ve insinuated that already. Don’t be repetitive. It bores me.” Bridge held his hands beneath his back and walked off the platform, straight toward them. “I’m ready whenever you guys are, by the way. Sooner this is done, the better. I expect I’ll have other company soon.”
As he approached them, Chloe saw the veins. Black and red, etched against the back of his left palm, pulsing slightly and spreading.
Whatever it was he’d done with Jin’s blood, he’d already put it in his system.
Chloe clenched her fists firmly, planting her feet firmly against the ground. Jon growled and leaned forward, readying himself to strike.
“Good.” Bridge nodded. “You’re ready. Let the show begin.”
Chloe and Jon charged simultaneously, bursting forward and leaving gusts of wind in their wake. They arrived in front of Bridge at the same time and sent powerful fists forth.
Bridge raised his hands, caught both strikes in his palm without flinching or budging an inch.
Chloe’s eyes went wide at once.
Bridge snorted. He squeezed their fists firmly and then spun around. He swung Chloe across the room, and slammed Jon hard against the ground before smashing a foot into him, launching him through the air like a projectile.
Jon slammed into a wall and dropped to the floor. Chloe flipped through the air, managed to dig her hands into the ground and bring herself to a stop. As soon as she’d stopped, Bridge was right in front of her, seizing her by the throat just as she straightened to her feet.
She reacted immediately, not with a punch but by jabbing fingers straight into his eyes. Bridge roared in frustration, let go of her at once, stumbling backward.
Chloe shot forward, slammed a fist into his face, followed up with a string of consecutive strikes and then leaped backward just as Bridge adjusted and made to retaliate.
Bridge looked at her, eyes reddened now. He snarled furiously and darted toward her. He was halfway to her when Jon slammed into him from the side, crashing a fist into Bridge’s face, knocking him off course.
Jin’s blood and the boost it provided to their speed and reactions was all that kept them in the fight over the next few minutes. Chloe and Jon avoided attack after attack from Bridge, experiencing one too many close brushes, while attempting to land hits of their own. They darted around and swapped positions often in a bid to disorient him or tire him out, but the effect appeared to be the opposite.
Bridge only got more focused and much stronger as the fight went on, the veins Chloe had seen on his left hand gone as far as his neck now, his eyes a botched red. And yet they kept going, pushing and pressing for the opening, desperate to find one before the effect of Jin’s blood would start to wear.
And then, all of a sudden, without either of them needing to do much, Bridge started to act oddly during the fight. He swung one wild punch that swung harmlessly past Jon’s face then grunted oddly, his other hand darting to the back of his neck and scratching furiously for a moment.
Then he recovered and charged at them. He’d only gone forward a few feet when he growled and dropped to one knee. He spat blood from his mouth, hand flying over his stomach.
Jon and Chloe stopped, exchanging confused looks.
Bridge let out an agonized roar and spat more blood. This time, there were teeth accompanying it. He looked up and straight at them, revealing the veins that had now gone across half of his face, spreading into his eyes.
The veins pulsed intensely and bulged and his skin bubbled in places.
Confused and mouths dropped in horror, Jon and Chloe watched as a dark transformation took over Bridge. Color rapidly faded from his skin as the veins spread entirely. His muscles started to bulge and enlarge, his skin hardening, turning scaly. His finger nails extended into curved claws.
He snarled furiously and spit flew from his mouth. Replacing the teeth that had fallen out were razor sharp teeth and a set of fangs. Bridge growled and pounded a hand against his face, as if attempting to halt whatever was happening.
It was no good.
The next phase of the transformation looked the most gruesome. Spikes jutted out of his skin, tearing through flesh and bone, sending blood everywhere as they emerged. The spikes ran along the length of his arm, up to his shoulders, thick and sharp and frightening looking. They continued along his spine, and ran all the way down to his waist.
Bridge remained on the ground, grunting and breathing heavily while it looked like his bones were moving around, shifting, resetting themselves. And then the transformation was over.
Slowly, Bridge rose to his feet, now a seven-and-a-half-foot tall monstrosity with eyes red as blood glowing at Chloe and Jon. He unleashed a powerful roar, the kind that rattled the entire building and forced the two of them into shielding their ears.
Then he attacked.