Judgement (The Twelve) (57 page)

Closing his eyes he absorbed everything without even a flinch. Sling threw his missile but it wasn’t aimed at Pries
t.

Chris
,
like
Anvil, had instinctively ducked
as they moved behind Priest giant frame
and that saved his life. The steel ball glanced from his skull instead of crushing it. But it still knocked him to the ground senseless. Coffee raised a fist in glorious rapture, convinced Chris was dead.
Anvil ran over to see how badly hurt his son was, ignoring Coffee completely.

Bulls Eye
shouted to Sling who was about to hurl another ball at the prone and defenceless Chris
, “Sling try me on for size!”

Sling did just that, faster than the eye could follow he loaded and shot a steel ball directly at Bulls Eye who drew his right hand weapon and fired. The bullet struck the steel ball in mid air!

“Try harder!” Bulls Eye shouted, spinning the gun back into its holster.
Sling drew another leather slingshot and with one whirling in each hand, sent two steel balls hur
t
ling towards Bulls eye
. His guns appeared in his hands like magic, both firing at the same time from the hip. Miraculously he hit both steel balls at the same time. One was flattened in mid air, the other was deflected sideways.

Coffee was just about to attack both Anvil and Chris. The deflected steel ball struck Coffee a glancing blow to her extended left elbow, shattering the bone. She screamed in pain, causing Sling to involuntarily glance towards her. Bulls Eye fired again aiming for Slings eyes. He struck true! Sling fell over backwards to splash down in the mud and rain.

Bulls Eye looked down at the body, “Was worth killing.”

“Venom” Coffee screeched.

Venom rose
suddenly
from the ground,
his body totally fitting in with the colours and shades of the dirt and grass.
He stood crouched, claws extended, no mor
e than five feet from Heartless.
Heartless
had his back to him. The others where looking around for this fresh call to attack but they where to late to prevent his attack.

He struck out at heartless, but
at the last second,
Huntress
caught the movement out of the corner of her white eyes
, “
Heartless
Behind you!”

Heartless spun and brought up his clawed
blade
. Venom struck the steel with a clang
. Quick as lightning he brought
up
his other
metallic hand and
blocked the second
blow with ease. But Venom had another surprise in store, he spat snake Venom! Heartless
instinctively
brought his
hand
up to
protect
his face and
as he did so
Venom
dived down onto
one knee, spun with the other leg outstretched and took Heartlesses feet from under him. Spinning
upright,
Venom came back to his feet,
leaned
over
and
stabbed
his talons
into Heartless
es chest
.

“My claws are like my fangsssssssssssss, poisoned.” He hissed.

Huntress could only look on
helplessly
as Heartless closed his eyes
, shuddered
and stopped moving.
Venom drew back his hands for another blow but found Slash blocking his way. “Try me snake man!”

It was
Screech
’
s turn, she
let forth a
n ear splitting
scream, sending a tunnel of super
sonic
air directly towards Bulls Eye
who only just managed to
dive out of the way
of the blast. He
drew his right hand gun and fired off three quick rounds but each round was flattened
as they hit the wave in mid air.

Cougar and Panther moved with the speed of big cats, hitting the ground hands first before bounding forward on rear feet devoid of shoes or socks. Mouths opened unnaturally wide, rev
ealing fanged mouths. Both started to make mincemeat out of Jennings people. Slash heard the humans screaming and risked a glance to see what was happening. Venom tried another attack but quick as a flash Slash blocked the blow
with his Bowie knife
, opening up a five inch gash along the monsters right shoulder
and upper arm. As Venom reeled, Slash leapt into the air, kicking the creature hard in the chest. Venom tumbled onto his back, allowing Slash time to check out Panther and Coug
a
r.

His hands
flashed to sheathed knives and two blades where in the air a fraction of a second later. C
ougar twisted in mid air avoiding the spinning blade. Panther tried the same trick in the opposite direction but the knife struck him high in the right arm. Loosing momentum and balance, he hit the ground hard with his good shoulder and the left side of his face.

Cougar
flew eighteen feet through the air and
hit Slash full on knocking him off his feet
. Cougar
tumbled
past him, quickly regained his feet and dived
back
onto Slash, both there b
odies locked in mortal combat.

Panth
er rolled, climbed to his feet and
yanked free the blade. Throwing it aside
, the blade clanged off a piece of broken concrete protruding from the rumble. Panther
decided to help kill Slash, and
started
to run over
to join his brother, ignoring Patch as nothing more than a useless girl.

Big mistake, Patch grasped the hilt of her fathers sword and
slashed horizontally a
s Panther passed her
at speed, he stumbled to a stop with patch facing the opposite direction, blade extended before her.

Behind her
Chris
allowed Anvil and Huntress to help him to his feet. He was bleeding from a scalp wound, dazed but otherwise unhurt. Without thinking he
threw a
small
ball of
chain lightning
directly at Coffee which she
just managed to
deflect. The
chain lightning
,
hit
the Cherry Picker,
bl
o
w
ing it
to flaming shards.

Coffee directed her own
un-injured
hand down and to her left. An underground sewer burst up through the soil
, a gusher of foul smelling liquid exploded skywards,
“Leach!” She ordered.

From out of the
stinking mess came The Dark One called Leach,
he
saw Anvil and sent a huge glob of compressed shit in the shape of a fist hurling towards
him
. But Anvil just smiled, held out his hand and
spun
the hammer
like a whirling propeller. The shit shaped fist hit the weapon and burst apart
. Anvil now held his weapon at the ready.
“Shits hit the fan!” he joked.

Priest smiled at Anvils joke and was about to say something when
Retch
who was
waiting until Priest was distracted, c
harged Priest. Like two gigantic Rhino’s they struck. Both bounced violently away but with Retch spewing cockroaches from his mouth.
Thousands
swarmed towards Priest who was
thrown violently off his feet, struck a concrete block, shattered it and rolled through the mud to halt up against an old rusting axle.
Priest
reached behind him, grabbed the axle, pulled it free from the rubble and brought it down
crushing hundreds
of bugs. It gave him the time to
start rolling across the mud
, crush
ing
hundreds more, but still they came, swarming over him. Priest protected his face as he started to feel thousands of tiny bites tearing at his exposed flesh but Speed suddenly appeared. His feet and hands a
blur
as he flattered nearly every single one.
Priest absorbed each blow with a grunt.

Finally he shouted, “Enough thank you!” and lumbered to his feet
.

Speed
nodded to Priest then took off
like a guided missile
,
fl
ying
at Retch, but Retch like Priest was an unmoveable object. Although winded by the impact, he just staggered back one small step. The same couldn’t be said for Spe
ed, who rebounded back, whizzing
past Priest
.
H
e landed hard and slide along the ground on his back
and fell
into
the hole made where Priest had pulled free the heavy axle.

Priest decided on another tactic and kicked Retch were it hurts.
Retches eyes crossed as he clutched his testicles, groaned once before toppling over onto his side.

Leech
rode
a wave of
razor sharp excrement
towards Anvil but veered away at the last moment
when Anvil raised his hammer to strike,
“Damn that weapon!” he blubbered.
“
Wish it not real but belong in mythology.
”

Chris risked a sideways glance with his father, “What mythology?”

Anvil
raised an eyebrow and managed a smile, “There’s a little bit of truth in
every
legend.”

Chris
took in the mighty double headed war hammer and the penny dropped
, “Great
,
now my fathers Thor!”

Jennings
watched as the strange cat like human who had just killed three of his people, slid to a halt as the one eyed
girl’s
massive Japanese looking
samurai sword seemed to cut straight through his body. With a cat like screech,
blood burst from his mouth as the top of his head suddenly slid off at a diagonal angle away from the rest of his surprised looking face.