Raine VS The End of the World (59 page)

“What the hell is that?” Raine all but screamed.

“No… I can’t believe it… she actually built it. In one of our save-the-world scenarios, we dabbled with an orchestrated alien invasion. Let’s get out of here!”

Lily tried to fly away, but one of her leg boosters failed and she came sputtering down.

Raine slammed her feet and jumped over Lily to shield her from the incoming barrage, but her Exo Knight took serious damage. These were no ordinary bullets.

“Y-you saved my life.” Lily was stunned, in part because she’d been protected in a similar manner once before, but mostly since she might have lacked the courage to do the same for Raine, had their roles been reversed.

The display showed that the Knight had reserves left for just one Annihilator blast. Raine pulled the turnkey for the super-weapon and placed her hands out before her, readying it.

The dragon’s polarizing scales reflected the beam into one of the
Spire’s
marble buttresses. Raine scooped up Lily and leapt ahead of the falling debris.

“How do we stop it?” she asked, intensely focused.

“Try missiles!”

Raine took aim as the metal monster circled back around. The missiles armed, then locked on… but when she hit the triggers, an alarm sounded out.

“No!” she yelled. “Launcher’s jammed!”

“Raine, pick me up.”

The girl hesitated.

“Don’t think! Just do it!”

She placed Lily gently on the
Galahad’s
shoulder. The Ptero suit’s glider wings retracted.

“Okay, now get above it.”

With a gulp, Raine bent her knees and shot straight into the air.

Activating the electromagnetic hold on her leg enhancers, Lily clambered up onto the missile launch chamber on the Knight’s back. She unlocked the pod and carefully extracted the twelve-foot-long warhead.

“Give me a clean shot!” Lily screamed, positioning herself atop the suit’s wide head.

Raine hovered above the giant metal beast, tilting forward ever so slightly, waiting for her enemy to gain altitude in an ascending spiral. At last, it lunged at them.

With a fierce cry, Lily’s enhanced arms tossed her missile at the dragon’s mouth. But the beast was too fast. It shifted at the last minute and the missile connected with its armored backside, blowing off a part of its tail, sending the dragon crashing straight into the mechanized suit, and pinning them up against the
Spire
with a fierce slam.

The giant spewed unbearably scorching fire as it thrashed back and forth. Raine felt like she was being barbecued alive inside the domed chest cockpit.

“Grab its jaws!” barked Lily, but Raine had already clamped them shut.

“Missile armed! Take it, Lillian!”

Lily promptly yanked out the rocket as the beast lashed back and forth, but couldn’t get a clean shot without killing Raine. The silver serpent’s body superheated, turning a bright red. Soon it would weld the Knight’s hands to its jaws.

“When I say now, you toss it up high and activate your wings!” Raine cried. “Quick!”

“What are you doing?”

“The future depends on you. There’s no way I’m letting you get hurt!”

Raine directed the metal monster’s snout into the tower where it spewed flames like bile.

“Now!”

In one swift motion, Lily reluctantly tossed the missile into the air. With her free hand, Raine gently yanked the time traveler off her back. She flung her outwards, away from the blitz.

Lily’s glider wings and one good jet kept her from spiraling to her death. She spun out and around and caught in an apple tree like a wayward kite.

“Forgive me, Lily!”

With a fierce war cry of her own, Raine spread the beast’s maw open, endured the fire, and then snapped the fuel tube loose, killing the flames in time to grab the spinning missile in mid-air and shove it down the dragon’s throat.

Scorched, beaten, and scarred, Lily watched helplessly in stunned silence as the metal dragon and Raine were trapped eternal in the light of a thousand suns, and then were no more.

What little remained of the combatants fell to the ground in smoldering shards.

Lily yelled and screamed; she dropped from the tree and beat the ground with her fists.

Raine was gone… her dearest Raine… whom she had promised never to lose… someone caused this. Someone was going to pay for her death.

Lorelei was waiting. The time had come for retribution.

“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”
– Sun Tzu

Queen Lorelei stood looking over the ramparts like an eagle witnessing a forest fire. She tied her hair into a ponytail and practiced her judo, which she usually did thrice a week.

The view from the top was now not so wonderful, she reflected, as the impending sunset colored her
Eden
in glimmering gold and blood red.

Smoke rose from the broken city far below. Major intersections were stacked with piles of bodies. The gunshots, explosions, and dueling airship armadas made for a view that was absolutely heartbreaking.

The world she’d toiled relentlessly for two hundred human years to build was now falling apart in shambles.

Looking down over the marble banister past the protruding Network antennas, she tried to estimate the total number of casualties. Without her calculation plug-ins, or a visor connected to the Network, it was impossible.

She hung her head, waiting for the harbinger of either her death, or complete success. Oh, she could do it: travel back in time and stop this from ever occurring. But that would mean more fatalities, and there would be no running from her demons forever. The answer was in the wind, which swayed the tower and its protruding Network antennas like a sole dandelion seed growing atop a windswept cemetery.

After that dodging stunt, her nano-bots’ CPU, now low on power and burdened with an overload of new units, ran in combat mode only. The machine-brain had been silenced from filtering the flow of her thoughts, allowing a floodgate of pent-up musings to resurface. Lorelei considered her legacy in ways she never had before. Philosophizing was her last recourse from these escalating musings on mortality.

If I win,
she thought,
I’ll bend the rules one final time. Leap back to yesterday and leave myself a chess piece in my cloak’s inside pouch.

Lorelei’s hand trembled as she reached for her pocket, before withdrawing at the last second.

No. It’s not worth it. Not worth another universe. Not worth the guilt, and the agony.

She ignored the voice that told her she simply feared the truth, and peeked over at the
Raven
, invisible, camouflaged in the corner, engine on standby mode, guns at the ready, her nearly depleted fuel cells and power converter inside, locked in cold storage. They were her way out. Her last bargain. Even though it didn’t need to be.

Is this really what you want, Lorelei? Must it end this way?

A promise is a promise. Today, one of us will finally be set free.

At long last, the low hum of the elevator nearing struck Lorelei’s sensitive eardrums.

Lily had arrived.

The doors split open, revealing the twenty-year-old Sky Admiral with a mad look in her eyes. She brandished a salvaged rail gun that probably weighed as much as she did. That meant that she was definitely using an enhanced metal spinal column, Lorelei reflected. It would be her greatest weakness.

“You’re going down, Lorelei! You killed them both?”

“I’m not the one who put them in a position to die. You’ve no one to blame but yourself.”

“Okay, where’s the
Raven
? I know it’s up here.”

“Its whereabouts are none of your business.”

Lily pointed to the southern corner, and then fired a shot at the ground by her clone’s feet, toasting a tunnel the width of a tennis ball through the
Spire
.

“Take off the cloaking. Disarm the weapons. Turn off the engine. Then remove your Holo-Lens and wrist unit and throw ‘em over to me. Now.”

“Very good.” Lorelei smirked, hands in the air, and did as she was told. Lily caught the devices and entered a few commands. The DNA scan chirped positive.

“I’m giving out orders for yours and my airships to stand down and await the victor. Do you approve?”

“Completely.”

“This is it for your twisted empire,” Lily barked, pocketing the computer and Holo unit. “I hope you’ve had your fun.”

Lorelei unclasped her royal cloak, which flew away in the high winds, and flexed in her skintight battle suit.

“You’re not really going to shoot me,” she replied. “It isn’t sportsmanlike. Not to mention, I have a code in my head you might want to know, unless you’re eager to have the power converter blow up in your face.”

“Then it’s feet and fists.”

“All the better to kill you with, my dear.”

“No tricks. I won’t use my leg jets if you swear you’ve got no concealed weapons.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.” Lorelei’s smile caught the sun’s sparkle.

“I didn't plan all this so I could come up here to terminate you,” Lily said, circling her clone. “I just wanted my stuff back, but you’ve made it very personal.”

“Aw, shucks. I never knew Hansel and Gretel meant so much to you. Or were they more like your new Mommy and Daddy? Do they read you bedtime stories? How about I read yours at their funeral. Little Lily Lost, about the most relentless mass murderer in all history, who killed entire universes, and wiped out every member of her family in countless different ways.”

That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The embers that burned in Lily’s eyes turned to full-blown fire.

“How do you want to settle this?” screamed Lily, unable to hear any more. “Because I’m about to end you right now!”

She tossed the rail-gun off the
Spire
and charged Lorelei with relentless attacks, pummeling her older, if no less agile, body.

Lorelei deflected her kicks, flipping Lily on her side more than once. The younger one twisted herself back up and wore her clone down, blow by blow. But Lorelei didn’t seem to be physically tiring. The madness in her eyes was boring deep into Lily’s, putting her on edge.

Lily closed the distance, using her smaller reach as an advantage. Her knuckles felt good against Lorelei’s terrifying, nanite-shielded face, reflecting the darkest of her own emotions.

But the woman’s rage drove her too far. She didn’t know when to stop. Lorelei simply laughed as, in the middle of being punched, she suddenly used her opponent’s momentum against her, spun her around on her side, and kicked her hard in the middle of her spine.

Lily landed in a heap of pain. She concentrated hard on repairing her back; her own nano-machines scrambled to do so.

“Why do you even try?” Lorelei responded. “I can see you have doubts about your resolve. Give up on your mission.”

“Oh, I’m just getting started! My mission begins with your end!”

Lillian jumped up and uppercut Lorelei, sending her staggering. She backed away, redirecting her little sister’s incoming attacks.

Lorelei tripped Lily, and then elbowed her in the upper back.

Lily screamed as she rolled away on the floor and limped back to her feet. Lorelei put up her dukes in the stance of a drunken boxer, like she had in their fateful first fight.

But this time, Lily was prepared. Disciplined. She pulled no punches, blocked with her limb enhancements, and knocked Lorelei onto the edge of the banister.

Satisfied at having driven her opponent to absolute rage, Lorelei erupted into a fit of chaotic laughter. She opened up her defenses and let Lily pummel on her until she was nearly out of breath.

At last, Lillian let her clone collapse on her knees. She put pressure on the small of Lorelei’s back. If Lily so desired, she could execute a mortal blow.

“It’s over, Lorrie,” she said. “You might want to give me that code now.”

“No. It’s not over.”

Lily pressed down on her clone’s lower leg. She searched for the fibula, and shattered it with a powerful stomp.

But Lorelei dealt with the pain. She lay on the floor, the fight taken out of her.

“Now it’s officially over. I say so. Lorelei, I don’t want to hurt you anymore. This is the same thing that happened with Lacie.”

Lorelei smiled. Her sis was given a good death.

“Then don’t. Don’t hurt me anymore. Just go back to your floating fortress and die. Or, better yet, why don’t we die together?”

“Neither of us has to perish today,” Lily said, backing away from Lorelei to give her some space. Her behavior was suddenly very strange. “You’re not yourself, Lorrie.”

“I’m not giving you that code… until you mortally wound me,” Lorelei said, forcing her body up one more time. She willed hundreds of millions of the active nano-machines within her bloodstream to support her leg bone, and walked over to a sighing Lily.

“Why do you always have to do things the hard way?”

“I don’t know what you hope to accomplish. You’ll be doing this same song and dance for all eternity, mother.”

“Call me what you wish, but I considered you my friend, not my daughter. And I will succeed.”

She stood firm as Lorelei found her footing and advanced towards her.

Lorelei dodged every punch, and deflected every kick. With metal-infused fists, she pushed Lily ever so slowly to the edge of the arena.

“You succeeded only in fooling yourself by weakening us. The others saw it too. They knew your deceit, your distrust towards us.”

“Those were my mistakes, and I am sorry.”

At last, Lily pulled back, baiting Lorelei into a powerful kick. She attempted to deflect it, but it was a feint. The real blow came from the opposite leg – her broken one. Lily took a sharp metallic shin to the cheek and spun into a defensive stance, back to the wall.

Lorelei spat as she slammed Lillian against the marble. “How can you be right and Lacie and I wrong? We are all parts of you. And you murdered her in cold blood to suit your own beliefs.”

In the midst of Lorelei’s next rout, Lily yanked her into a powerful headbutt.

“You killed Lucy! And don’t pretend you haven’t been trying to find and kill me all these years, too!”

Lorelei’s elbow missed Lily’s face and connected with her neck. Both combatants disengaged to regain their composure. Lorelei touched the spot of blood on her forehead, and then glared at Lily with disgust.

“Lucy only died because she was protecting you out of some warped sense of duty!” She gestured toward her vast city. “Look at that and tell me you see something worth saving. Your people and ‘bots against mine. How utterly useless. You know that in just a few years, this will all be meaningless and you’ll have to hit the reset button once more. All alone, you’ll spend months planning your next attempt, and these mindless animals will just let you down! Again! Ignoring whatever potential they possess, they are as helpless as dogs in the savannah. They will forever choose the path of least resistance.”

Lily massaged her strained neck. “There is always hope, Lorelei. Through your lies, threats, and mind control, you’ve warped humanity into believing itself helpless and weak. Our advanced consciousness sets us apart from animals, and thus we are bound by higher laws and responsibilities. But since choosing your own path, you have done nothing with your actions but abandon hope for the future.”

“Your quest is a joke, Lily! You stand alone!”

“All the more reason for me to uphold my convictions. It was never really about the Split Universe theory for you, Lorelei. Admit it. You were just on a power trip.”

“How dare you tell me what my own priorities are!”

“Just be honest with me, Lorrie! Be honest with yourself! That’s all I want!”

Lorelei pulled a concealed revolver from her boot and shot at Lily.

Just like my dream
. The thought flashed through Lillian’s mind as she flexed her toes– her boot’s working jet propelled her to the side.

She rebounded off the floor, whirled, aimed her heel towards Lorelei, and squeezed her big toe. Flames shot forth, searing Lorelei’s hand, and then her face; a second bullet left the chamber and scraped Lily’s shoulder.

Lily howled in pain. A third round caught her in the thigh. Enraged, she supported herself with her hands and kicked out at Lorelei once more, intensifying her flames and burning the firearm from her hands.

The Queen fell flailing, screaming in fear and agony, her ponytail having caught fire. Lily forced her onto the floor and kicked away the gun. She stomped out the fire just before it burned Lorelei’s scalp.

She was a charred, broken mess. Lorelei gasped for breath in the high altitude.

Lily’s stomach turned at the scene, but her hands trembled with adrenaline shakes. She was terrified to come face to face with the part of herself that took enjoyment in this. A wave of empathy flooded over her to counter the bloodlust.

“Give me the code, Lorrie,” Lily commanded. “Please.”

“No…” she began, and tried to stand. But Lily shot her searing jet a few inches from Lorelei’s face, startling the World Leader. With her other boot, Lily pressed against her torso, then hovered above it. Its residual heat was warping her combat suit. It was over.

Lorelei exhaled slowly in acknowledgment.

So this is to be my end. It’s… not as bad as I expected, Lacie.