Subterranean (18 page)

“Rolan, wait!” Flynn threw up his hands. “I’m your friend! I just want to help you!”

“Ha! Help?!” He released one hand off his weapon and waved it over the city as if presenting evidence in a trial. “I believe you have done enough, my
friend
.”

“Listen to me!” Flynn pleaded. “I can help you stop them! I can get everything back to the way it was!”

“The way it was?!” Rolan scoffed. “Look at the city! That is no longer a possibility!”

“Only if you believe it isn’t!” His words gave Rolan a pause. “Together we can drive out the Ravagers and start anew!” Rolan’s consideration filled him with a glimmer of hope. “You, me, and Vale like it’s been from the start… We can save your planet, and then save mine.” Flynn slowly lowered his hands and then nodded his head. “But you’re going to have to put your weapon down.”

Rolan stood still as a statue with his rifle trained on Flynn, his face obvious of someone who had retreated into their thoughts. It looked as though he was convinced; all the muscles in his body relaxed and he started to lower his weapon, but midway through he took aim again and drew a sharp breath. “Where is Tural?!” He shouted.

“He’s… uh...” Flynn turned to Vale and gave a nervous look. “He’s...”

Rolan’s eyes gaped in astonishment, and then quickly flared in anger. “You killed him!” His fingers clenched around the trigger and he fired off a bolt at Flynn and Vale, barely missing them before they dove into cover. “Why did I ever save you from the surface?!” He fired off a round at Flynn and Vale with each step, keeping them suppressed behind a scarred rock as he moved in closer. “I should have let you die!”

Flynn trembled with fear as he pulled his energy pistol out, frantically seeking for a way out of his predicament. “Don’t do this, Rolan!”

“Silence, traitor!” He fired again, shaving an inch off the rock Flynn hid behind.

“This way!” Vale punctuated her shout to Flynn with a wave. “Come!”

Flynn nodded and blindly shot off a couple rounds at Rolan, enough to make him stop and take cover, and then darted across to Vale, shooting along the way to keep his attacker immobile. “Which way?!”

“Follow!” Vale and Flynn sprinted down the stairs towards the city, where the flickering glow of the burning metropolis was almost completely snuffed out by the cloud of dense black smoke enshrouding the buildings and streets.

“You will not escape justice so easily, human!” Rolan hopped to his feet and chased after them, his steps crashing down with the fury of a being consumed by hate. “Why do you aid this traitor, Vale?! How could you betray the ones you love for this Ravager agent?!”

The ensuing chase took them through burning buildings and destroyed streets. Flynn and Vale ran past collapsing structures, hopped over fallen support beams, climbed over rubble, treaded through fallen citizens and soldiers, and slid down the slopes of bare frameworks, all the while Rolan was right behind them, keeping up without breaking a sweat. Stopping to catch their breath atop a pile of wreckage, they spun around and shot at him, but he easily evaded the attack and returned fire, sending them once again behind the safety of cover.

“Where are we going?!” Flynn asked Vale, closing his eyes and bracing his face with each shot of his weapon.

“I do not know!” She said without looking.

“What?! You don’t know?!”

“I believed one of us would have devised a solution by now!”

“Ugh… Great!” Flynn stopped to search for an answer, the glimmer in his expression returning when he came upon one. “Wait a minute! I have an idea!”

“Good, now let us execute your idea!” One of Rolan’s energy blasts nearly hit Vale, knocking her on her back. “Preferably now!”

“Follow me!” Flynn leapt up and jumped off the wreckage, trying to roll when he hit the ground to help break his fall, but failing miserably and landing on his back instead. “Oh, that’s not as easy as it looks…”

“Get up!” Vale hit the ground rolling and pulled him up by his arm. “Go!”

He charged forward with all the energy he had, stomping on the former glory of the Subterranean city that now lay strewn about on the ground. Rounding a corner down one of the streets, he hit the brakes and froze at an unnerving sight: a dozen Ravager soldiers led by an officer clad in spiked armor turned around to witness his entrance onto the scene. It took only a moment before the spiked Ravager cried out in his guttural language an order of attack, and a wall of plasma careened towards Flynn, sending him lunging behind yet another scrap of cover.

“Whoa!” The crackling bolts energy flew over his head like a thousand wasps and struck everything behind him, igniting all in flames. “Vale, look out!”

She rounded the corner and jumped back, startled at his warning. The deadly blasts of energy all barely missed her as she navigated the suicidal path towards Flynn’s cover. Flynn reached for his pistol to give the Ravagers something to worry about, but it was gone from his holster; only his knife remained.

“Damn it!” He hopped up and ran towards Vale, colliding with her and bringing them both to the ground.

“What are you doing?!” She yelled over the zipping of energy through the air above them.

“What am I doing?! What are
you
doing?!” Flynn shouted back, amazed she actually tried to run through a hail of weapons fire. Suddenly, they both looked at each other and then called out.

“Rolan!” He appeared at the end of the street and was nearly struck by the shower of energy bolts, but managed to backpedal out of the way in time.

“Was this your plan?!” Vale rolled off of Flynn and began to crawl towards cover.

“Not really!” He looked around for a weapon, but it was hard to tell one thing from another in the menagerie of city ruins across the ground. “I need a weapon!”

“Ask them!” Vale pointed at the squad of Ravagers still firing upon them. “They have plenty!”

Then, silencing all the gunfire was the sound of something crashing through the windows of a building down the street. Flynn looked up and saw a great beast leaping from the third story of a building adjacent to the Ravagers, its body covered entirely in thick scraps of silver armor that glinted in the light of nearby flames. With a tremendous boom, it crashed down onto the Ravager squad and roared an ear-splitting declaration of dominance, shattering all remaining windows in the area.

“What the hell’s going on?!” Flynn watched the beast summarily dispatch each Ravager with little effort, humbling the frightening invaders as they went flying into the air, ending up bloody messes on the walls. “Is that the hukka?!”

Vale was quiet for a moment before responding. “…Yes, it is!”

“I thought you said you wanted it for scientific experimentation!”

“This
is
the scientific experimentation!”

“You’re using them for war?!” He had a hint of disgust in his voice.

“Did you believe we planned to use them on a mushroom farm?!” She retorted sarcastically.

“Well, I won’t look a gift hukka in the mouth!” He rose to his feet and slid to cover, poking his head over to watch the event unfold.

“No,” Vale landed next to him, “you should not look the beast in its mouth! Or its eyes…”

“What?” Flynn looked at her confused and then shook his head rapidly. “Nevermind!”

With all of the Ravagers dead, the hukka stood victoriously over the blockade and howled into the air. Its body heaved up and down with each great breath it took, calming its animalistic rage over time as the flow of blood normalized. Suddenly, it snapped its head in interest as it caught the scent of something familiar, something it recognized as an old threat.

Great
, Flynn thought, slumping back down behind the warped piece of metal where he hid. It approached with its head low, body compressed, ready to pounce, concentrating entirely on Flynn and Vale as it flanked the cover.

“Do not move, Flynn.” Vale whispered in his ear.

“I wasn’t planning on it…” He said, inching closer to her. “I hate you for putting armor on that thing…”

“It saved us.” She replied.

“Like someone saves their dinner!” It growled at his agitated whisper, baring its wicked teeth and letting the saliva fall from its lips.

“Flynn,” she wrapped an arm around his and pulled him close, “be silent.”

He nodded, trying to focus completely on his breathing. From beyond the twisted metal skyline across the street, the sound of something else battering the ground shook the caves. It startled the beast and made its hairs stand up on end. They all looked about, searching for the noise that came ever closer. When Flynn saw something moving in one of the buildings, he gripped onto Vale’s leg, hoping she would look up to notice it, too.

A great slithering mass that resembled a giant snake glided throughout the buildings, fully enveloping them with its tendrils that stabbed through windows and walls. In a sudden seizure of movement, it broke free of the cage it had ensconced itself in and decimated the building to bits, flinging forth large heaps of metal and a shower of deadly shard-like projectiles. In an instant, the hukka howled in terror and charged off to some unknown location, safe from the massive tendrils.

“What the hell is that thing?!” Flynn stood in awe at the gargantuan tentacles flopping around and swinging into buildings, causing immense destruction with each collision.

“I do not know!” Vale climbed to her feet, awestruck by the sight.

“It must be the thing I saw out in the desert!”

“It is very large!”

“Yeah, I noticed!” He shouted, frightened by its sheer size.

Vale’s eyes turned to Flynn, begging him for instruction. “What should we do?!”

With a single flick of one of its great tentacles, the creature tore a chunk of debris off a building and hurled it at them with incredible force. “Lookout!” Flynn launched himself at Vale, taking them out of the path of the metal wrecking ball seconds before impact. “RUN!” He rocketed to his feet with Vale and they dashed through the street, dodging the falling remains of nearby buildings along the way.

“We need to get out of here!” Vale yelled, pacing next to Flynn.

He turned his head to her and strained to answer through his wheezing breaths. “I’m working on it!” At the end of the street, they stopped and scanned the carnage around them for an escape they could take advantage of.

“This way!” Vale shouted with a finger and began to move.

“Wait!” Flynn spotted the natural rock bridge in the distance and immediately his plan fell back into place. “Over here!” He waved a hand at Vale; she froze and looked in both directions, a thousand considerations flying through her mind, but in the end, she relented and rejoined Flynn.

“Go!” The threatening noises of an angry monster behind them compounded their fears as they noticed smaller green tendrils slithering swiftly along the walls in pursuit. “It is chasing us!”

“Don’t worry, we’ll be okay!” They left the maze of the metropolis streets and spilled out onto the outskirts of the city, where it was considerably darker. “There!” He pointed to the natural bridge of rock. “Follow me!”

“That was close!” They crossed over and made it to the other side, taking a moment to catch their breath in the apparent safety of the outskirts. The relatively peaceful surroundings comforted them, and Vale’s eyes softened when she recognized the area.