Judgement (The Twelve) (30 page)

The Dark twins, Panther and cougar sprang like cats into the fight.
From afar,
Bulls Eyes
long gun boomed twice in rapid succession
hitting both Panther and Cougar in mid air. They fell back, rolling across the grass
,
hissing and screaming like wounded cats.
The huge rounds had caused massive injuries to both that would have instantly killed
normal people but not these monsters, who writhed across the ground, spitting and cursing loudly.

Edge
,
visibly in
jured from The Chosen Ones blow,
moved slower but still fast enough to appear like a blur as he
r
ushed Slash.
But he was
still
slower and as a result
Slash
managed to get off one
short bladed
throwing knife before Edge struck.
The knife
hit
Edge in the
stomach.  Crying out in pain and rage,
Edge
brought his sword downwards towards Slashes neck. Slash jerked free
a long bladed knife from his thigh holster and just managed to deflect the killing blow but the
sword
still
cut deep into Slashes right shoulder, smashing the collar bone. But
the magic sawn into his leather jacket
,
slowed the blades stroke so
instead of slicing him in two, the blade slid off his shoulder, taking with it a chunk of flesh.
Edge ignored the throwing knife protruding from his guts.

Priest was moving forward like a runaway tank, his feet digging deep furrows in the grass. Retch had simply plucked the arrows from his body as if they where nothing more than
dress makers pins but smoke and insects boiled out of each wound.

Priest bellowed like an elephant, “Retch you fat bastard of a fallen Monk. Shrug this off.”

The earth shook under the colossal impact of those two gigantic bodies. Retch wasn’t ready and the blow smashed him back through the wall of an ice cream hut.
Ice creams of a dozen varieties flew skywards.

Priest reeled
,
grabbing one from the air, “Ah rockets my favourite!”

He
steadied himself
and prepared to squash
the downed Retch but at that moment Screech locked onto him, “Leave him alo
oooooooooooo
n
e
!” Her voice became a scream like nothing anyone could stand
!
E
ven The Chosen One covered her ears
and turned away.
A
vis
i
ble wave of
shimmering
sound
waves
struck Priest and actually pushed him backwards. Bracing himself, his feet
ploughed
deep furrows in the ground as
he was forced away from Retch. B
lood poured from his eyes and ears.
The ice cream flew off the stick in his hand.
Finally she drew breath and before she could scream again. A massive arc of electricity hit her square on, setting fire to her habit and knocking her flat on her back.

Hot Cross was at priests side, “You alright?”

Priest struggling to see
, pointed to one ear and shook his head, “Can’t hear you.” He shouted.

Heartless circled Claws, his pincher snapping towards her neck. She ducked and slashed him across the forehead. Heartless staggered back, temporally blinded by his own blood.

Over
in
the lake,
Chris exploded
up
out of
the water
like a missile
and without
conscious thought
,
str
eaked
across the surface to
wards
the shore
, rage displayed on his face
.
Leech loomed up in front of him driving Chris back under the water. It was shallow so Chris was only half submerged when he slapped the water hard. Flames and steam exploded outwards away from him
as the water boiled
. Leech seeing the fire ran for his life, only managing to get to solid ground with a split second to spare. Chris stood there up to his knees, dripping water.
A cloud of smoke was rolling towards him. Had something caught fire? Then at the last minute he realised it was Ghost.

The thing engulfed him, instantly cutting him off from the air. Chris tried to suck in oxygen when he heard Judgement whisper in his mind,
‘breath her
in’

So instead of trying to breath
in
normal
air,
Chris
started to suck Ghost into his lungs. He felt like being sick as the stench entered his body. Yet he took breath after breath.

He heard a female voice faintly cry out, “No!”

He’d taken in all he could stand and exhaled loudly, e
xpelling the
smoke that was
trapped within him
in a fit of hacking coughs.
Ghost
reeled away, her black smoke filled body now resembling a
white fog
. Chris breathed in fresh air and savoured the taste.
Ghost screamed in pain.
Chris
could actually see her trying to pull parts of
the white fog
away from
the rest of her body,
but it blended in with the dark smoke. Still screaming
, Ghost fled like an old runaway locomotive streaming black sooty smoke.

The Chosen One
sent a wave of black light that temporally blinded Anvil, enough for her to try
once more to attack Chris, raising her gaze she directed a thought of pure heart stopping hatred against him. For a second she took him unawares an
d he felt the pain in his chest as her will power closed around his heart like a constricting fist. ‘
Gather yourself
!’
Judgment
ordered urgently
.

Chris heard the words and concentrating with all his might
,
pushed back
,
blocking her advance.
“No more!”
’
he shouted.

When Chris spoke his voice was
filled with thunder and lightning
. Judgement had blended completely with him,
“
No more
!” Chris
roared
again. The water parted before him and the ground trembled and shook
as he started to stride towards her.

Edge appeared at her side, his blade flashing as he deflected
one of
Bulls Eyes bullets.” This is not going well.”

Anvil
had retrieve
d
his massive weapon
and his sight
, “This was never supposed to be the place, only a meeting between Judgement and
Edge
.”

Coffee snarled, “
You
put Edge before me! He shall pay for that.”

Claws took this moment to join in the fight
again
, leaping straight for Heartless. Her fanged mouth aimed for his throat but
even though he was temporally blinded with his own crimson blood. A sixth sense made
Heartless br
ing
up his clawed metal
hand and
not expecting him to attack, Claws was taken by surprise as he
casually
battered her
aside. Claws spun across the ground like a rolled up spider, finally coming back to her feet and prepared to charge once again.

Bulls Eyes weapon boomed again and this time Coffee snatched the bullet out of thin air, directly in front of her face, “You dare!” She raged.

With one single thought, Bulls Eye was lifted off the
hill
top he was laying prone upon, nearly
three hundred yards away and smashed back down hard, knocking him senseless. His rifle extended before him took the brunt of her rage. It split open like a banana as the chambered round exploded and the telescopic sights shattered.
Bulls Eye managed to raise his head
just
enough to look at the smouldering mess that once was his pride and joy
and mutter
,
“Damn it!”
before passing out.

Cougar and Panther
although wounded, were healed enough to charge
directly at Huntress. Speed took off like a missile, lifted Panther clean off his feet and together they smashed through a side window on the zoo building eighty yards away.

The thing called Venom and the
one
called
Claws
rushed in to attack Heartless but at that moment a huge shadow fell over them
both
.

“Try me I like a damn good fight!” It was Rage.

His massive fists hissed through the air, first one way then the next. Venom was smashed back into the bushes without ever getting into the fight. However Rages other blow passed over Claws head as she ducked and returned the blow with one of her own.

Claws s
lash
ed
open wide furrows in Rages chest,
he
just grunted once and
snarled,
“Good hit
, n
ow my turn.”

He pretended to throw a right hook, she ducked again but he met her with a left uppercut that lifted her completely off her feet. Even from where he was standing Chris heard her neck snap.

“NO!” Edge yelled. Chris noticed something else in his voice that no one else did. ‘
How strange
!’ He thought.

The world tilted under Chris’s feet as Coffee wove a strange pattern in the air. Claws never hit the ground, instead suddenly vanished with a loud pop only to re-appear next to Edge who held her upright. The Chosen One reached out and touched Claws neck and with another crack of bones, the injury healed but not without a painful scream coming from Claws mouth.