Chapter 58 - Brushes With Death

  The sound as I struck the shield was like the Earth breaking in half. The boom was so loud my ears rang, so loud I felt the shockwave spreading from the point of impact. The pain was incredible as my fists slammed into the shield, so intense I was sure I'd shattered bones, but I couldn't let that stop me. Impacting the shield had already slowed me more than I had expected.

  For a moment I simply fell from the sky, instead of flying down. But then I was able to kick my flight back in again, adding more speed as I finished my final arcing descent into the top of the tower. Just like before, crashing into the orb atop the tower released a massive magical explosion, but this time I was ready for it. My flight path drove me into the top of the orb at a slight angle and set me exiting it from the bottom opposite side. This tower blew apart when I hit it, just like the others had, but because I was prepared for the blast it propelled me away from the exploding tower in a more controlled manner. I kept my wits about me, and managed to fly clear.

  Exhausted and injured, I settled to the ground at the far side of the park, to see what I'd wrought.

  My hands were a mess. Both fists were bleeding freely, and I saw white bone gleaming at me through the gaping wounds in my knuckles. The sight made me blanch and almost made me lose what little I'd eaten that morning. My Regeneration power was already hard at work repairing the damage, but it was going to take time.

  On the plus side, most of the enemy troops were in way worse shape than me. The four Karabos nearest to the tower were simply gone. There was no trace they'd ever existed. Rubble from the shattered tower had been thrown fifty feet in every direction. The Karabos who’d been attacking Alex's position weren't spared, either. Some were dead, while others were badly injured. Even those who had been furthest away lay on the ground, stunned.

  I picked myself back up and took to the air again, flying the short distance to where Alex was waiting. Unlike the Karabos, he was fine, waving to me from beside the little shack, apparently untouched by the carnage around him. He was already going about looting some of the enemy dead for their crystals.

  The building had seen better days. One whole side was crushed in when a chunk of the tower smashed through it. But he'd managed to get himself behind cover in time.

  "Castle, that wasn't the plan," Alex told me as I sat down beside him.

  "I tried to follow the plan. The plan didn't work, so I had to improvise,"

  "What did we just talk about?" Alex shook his head. "Never mind. You got the job done, and for now, that's what matters most. Are you alright?"

  He was eyeing my hands, which still looked like I'd shoved them into a meat grinder or something. I opened and closed them very slowly. The pain was still intense, but it was already a little less than it had been at first.

  "No, but I will be. My Regeneration is already starting to help." I answered.

  "Good enough," Alex replied. "So, what's next?"

  It was my turn to shake my head. I sat down on the roof next to him, feeling more wrung out than I had in a long time. "I don't know. Want me to fly us back to where MacGregor and the others are waiting?"

  "That makes sense," Alex replied. Then he stopped looking at me, staring off into the east instead. "Wait, what the hell is that...?"

  I turned to see what he was talking about, and my jaw just dropped open. What the hell, indeed?

  Thornbill hadn't been lying when he said they were only sending their lighter troops against us. When I launched my attack against their first tower, they must have had a way to signal for reinforcements. What was coming at us, marching down the street from the harbor, was like something out of Lovecraft's worst nightmares.

  The first thing I saw was the giant crab. You couldn't miss it. This wasn't like the other giant crabs. Those were the size of tanks. This one? It had to be the other crabs’ great-grandfather, or something, because it was more like the size of a baseball diamond. It scuttled up the street sideways, unable to fit width-wise. Sitting atop the thing were a dozen of the toughest, meanest Karabos I had seen so far. Most of them were tier four and five. One particularly large Karabos was tier six. I figured that one was the leader. Take him down, and maybe we ended this invasion altogether.

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  The monstrous crab itself was even higher at tier seven.

  Ahead of them came a host of the smaller crabs, at least a dozen of the things, each with two Karabos warriors riding atop it. Columns of dismounted Karabos walked alongside and even under the giant crabs, hundreds of them. These weren't the weaker troops we'd been facing so far, either. None of these Karabos were weaker than tier two, and most were tier three.

  "This is it," Alex said. "This is their end game. They're pulling out all the stops. We beat this push, we win."

  "And all we have to do is beat...all of that," I said.

  "Yeah... That could take some doing. That's more than the two of us are going to be able to handle by ourselves." Alex said. He glanced in at my hands again. "Are you going to be able to carry me with your hands messed up like that?"

  I tried and failed to clench my hands into a tight fist, and shook my head. With a grimace. "No. Not yet, anyway. A few more minutes, maybe?"

  "I don't think we have a few more minutes. I'll have to jump down from here myself and try to hike my way back, I guess."

  Before I could protest that that was a stupid idea, Thornbill flew over and landed on the rooftop beside us. He bowed deeply to me, then nodded to Alex. Thornbill gestured at my injured hands with one of his own, then turned back to Alex, opened his beak, and tried to speak again.

  "I. Fly."

  The Peristera reached both hands out toward Alex, and I quickly figured out what he was trying to say. "He's offering to take you back himself."

  "I figured that out, thanks," Alex replied. "Usually, I'm averse to accepting rides from relative strangers. But under the circumstances, I think this time I need to make an exception."

  He nodded to Thornbill, who stepped forward and grasped Alex with firm hands. Moments later, we were all airborne again, toward the rally point where Maggie, MacGregor, and the rest were waiting for news.

  We were bringing back both good news and bad. We had accomplished the mission. The towers were destroyed. But that was clearly not going to be enough to stop the Karabos invasion.

  The shakes kicked in a few seconds after we took off.

  It started in my hands, and for a second I thought it was just part of the healing process, something the Regeneration power was doing. But that didn’t feel right. I’d been injured before, and the power just healed me without much fuss.

  As the tremors spread to the rest of my body and a wave of dread and anxiety washed over me, I realized this had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with human psychology.

  I’d thought I was invulnerable, or the next best thing to it. I was almost impossible to injure and I healed insanely fast. Put those two things together and I was a tough nut to crack.

  In spite of that, I’d almost died from a tier one Lightning Bolt, and then almost died again by smashing into a magical shield. It was jarring. I wanted to use the word ‘shocking,’ but figured I wasn’t old enough to be making dad jokes yet.

  I kept flying, moving forward and focusing on my breathing while I thought about everything I’d experienced lately. I hadn’t wanted any of this. When the Event hit, I’d just done my best to survive and keep the kids alive until I could get them home again. It was when I went after Amanda’s body that I truly took my first voluntary step into the new world. Instead of staying at home and hiding out, I’d gone back underground again. It hadn’t been the smart move, but I still thought it was the right one.

  Right or wrong, that was what set me moving on the course I’d followed ever since. Going back for Amanda was the moment that changed my stars. I’d met Alex, thanks to that trip, which led me to fight the ants, and it was with Alex that I’d run into the initial thrust of the Karabos invasion.

  Through all of that, I’d just kept moving forward, always doing my best to help out where I could. Doing the ‘next right thing’ had become my everyday, but maybe it was time to begin thinking ahead, too? Because if this was the world, now—if we weren’t going back to what used to be anytime soon? Then it was time for me to figure out what my place in this new world was going to look like.

  Maybe that meant not rushing head-first into every danger I came across.

  I chewed on that a few moments as we flew back to the others…and then discarded the idea.

  Yeah, maybe charging in to face danger was going to get me in trouble again. Might even get me killed, eventually. I’d just had two close brushes, and the pain from the most recent was a constant reminder that I wasn’t unstoppable, just really tough.

  It was a memory of the look on Emmy’s face when she called me ‘her superhero’ that clinched it, though. I didn’t actually buy the idea that people like Alex and I were ‘superheroes,’ mind. But Emmy did. And I couldn’t think about that word without also remembering the old line about how ‘with great power comes great responsibility.’

  I had great power, thanks to the Event and the choices I’d made since.

  In my mind, that meant I had a great responsibility, too.

  I could shirk that role. I could run away from trouble, and look out only for myself. But that wasn’t the person I thought I was, and it definitely wasn’t the sort of person I wanted to be.

  Instead, I’d be the hero Emmy needed, super or otherwise.

  I flew onward, and the shakes faded away.