Lucas Ryan Versus: The Hive (The Lucas Ryan Versus Series) (18 page)

“You filthy, dirt monkey!” General Love cursed, as he came smashing down into the ground again. He reached for a mangle police car on his right side, ripping it in two pieces as he pulled it from the floor. He shrieked and waved it above his crooked head, ready to crush Olivia and I like two tiny cockroaches.

Sophia ran up behind us with long rippling strands of blue energy snapping from her hands. She flicked her hands and the fierce blue whips responded with a loud electric clap. They danced along the floor filling my arms with saluting hairs. Her eyes were still filled with fear, but her posture was strong and fearless. She twirled the strands into the air, immediately finding the General’s neck. Each one tightly wrapping around his throat, melting into the crackled flesh. He let go of the police car halve and it crashed to the ground only feet from us. The vehicle’s siren squealed out for a split-second, as if warning us of its destruction.

“Back off, General!” Sophia warned. She gritted her teeth together and pulled tighter on her power whips. General Love tried to pull backwards, but found he was locked in place. All eight of his legs fought the strength of Sophia’s whips trying to keep himself upright, but it was no use. Black fire spilled from his mouth, scorching the air around him.

“I should have ate you when I had the chance, little girl!” General Love tried to threaten Sophia. She cringed from his disturbing remark.

“Ignore him, Sophia,” I encouraged. She took a deep breath and yanked with all her might on the sizzling whips, sending the General into the ground, head first. His two front legs broke on impact.

“That’s it, Soph! You’re doing it!” I cheered, hysterically.

“Holy moly, I am!” she said, overjoyed.

“Lucas, help her finish him. Hurry!” Olivia said, from over my shoulder. I looked down and slid the ring onto my finger and smiled. I made a fist that had already started filling with light.

“You wanted your weapon, General...now, you’re going to get it.” I placed my other hand over my fist, cupping as much light inside of it as possible. Gold and purple waves of energy began expanding in all directions, slipping through all my fingers. Slowly, I walked up to the writhing body of the General.

Tilting his horned head toward me in a warning, he promised, “I’ll kill you all!”

Stopping inches from his face I opened my hands to reveal a new mirrored orb. It was the size of a golfball and had the number
13
painted across it. The number glistened in a deep red glow. General Love fell still as he realized what I was holding.

“Not if I kill you first,” I smiled. Swiftly, I buried the magic sphere into his upper forehead, just between both demonic horns. Twisting the top of the orb as I let go, the number on its shiny surface started counting down.

13...12...11...10...

“Nooooo!” General Love strained, his body covering itself in a violent seizure. His alien spider legs clawed at everything to escape.

9...8...7...6...

“Run, get out of here!” I shouted to everyone. Olivia grabbed her sister and pulled her backwards. The flaming blue whips snapped back into the palms of Sophia’s hands. The two sisters ran as fast as they could. Taylor scooped up the twins in a gentle tackle, hoisting them over his broad shoulders. Morgan on his right and Roland on his left. All three of my friends bounced out of the destroyed gymnasium with Olivia and Sophia only seconds behind them. I couldn’t see Dax and Felicity, but I didn’t really care. Hopefully, they had both escaped this madness minutes ago. The General grumbled from the floor, trying to stand up on broken arms and legs.

“No matter how many deaths that I die, I will never forget this, Mr. Ryan! I will come back for you. You will suffer,” he began to laugh. The small orb continued its countdown.

5...4...3...

“This is not the end!” General Love swore.

With a wink I turned to run, but one of his many tentacles swept my legs out from under me and I slammed face first into the floor. It knocked the wind out of me and cut my lip and eyebrow open. I didn’t even try to get up knowing I had run out of time.

2...1...0... BOOM!

The explosion started from inside the General’s bloody temple with a prickly sucking sound before pushing its fires outward, in a blinding orange and red blast. The force of it swept me from the ground and spun me through the burning air. I screamed until everything fell black.

As my limp body embedded itself into the old wooden bleachers of the gym, my ribs shattered and my head split open. I fell to the floor in a heap of broken flesh, devastated.

“Oh, no...” Taylor wilted from the gym’s doorway. He ran for my lifeless body, conquering the obstacle course of debris just to get to me.

“Hold on, Luc...”

LEVEL 26:
In The End

The dust had only begun to settle when my hearing returned to me. I still wasn’t completely conscious, but I could at least hear all the commotion around me. Taylor was close to me and growing more and more upset. He gently rolled me to my back, carefully steadying my head and neck. I groaned a little and he let out a large puff of air in relief.

“Lucas? Can you hear me?” he asked, weary. I could only let out another agonizing moan. It was enough to attract a new delivery of annoyance, courtesy of my school nemesis.

“Is he dead?” Felicity asked, from over Taylor’s shoulder. It startled him for a moment and he whipped around ready to strike. Felicity flinched from his defensive posture and filled with anger, crossing her arms in a pitiful pout. Taylor shook his head annoyed and aggravated.

“No, he’s still breathing. I think he’s coming out of it, a little,” he said. Felicity noticed something flickering on the floor next to me. She quietly knelt down and picked up the thirteenth ring. It was warm and inviting and soothed her inner insecurities. She backed up against the nearest wall, never taking her eyes from its exotic beauty.

“Lucas, come back...you can do it...” Taylor pleaded under his breath. A single tear found its way onto his cheek, making him furious and he scratched it away with a fist.

“Tay?” I asked, in a slurred mumble.

“Hey, tough guy, you’re gonna make it,” Taylor said, calming himself.

Trying not to move too much, I asked, “And the other guy?”

“General Love is gone...just a stain on the floor,” he said, relieved. I turned my head just enough to see the scorched floor. All that was left of the General was the burnt floor and fluttering pieces of ash.

“Good. Next time, you get to save the world...” I coughed, with a sad smile. He let out a huge laugh and waved for the others to come over. Olivia and Sophia ran up first, followed by Roland and Morgan. Olivia teared up when she saw how much damage I had sustained, but she was happy I was still alive. Sophia was crying hard and fell down to me, placing her arms around me. I didn’t want to tell her how much it hurt when she did it, so I held my breath and tried to smile. A small pool of blood emerged from under my head, sliding out in a loose circle. Olivia’s face washed over in panic.

“Sophia, you have to calm down now, Lucas needs you,” Olivia said, as calm as possible. She pointed to the new blood running out from the base of my skull.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, worried. Taylor looked horrified again, filling me with fear. I tried to sit up, but found I couldn’t move anything from my chest down to my toes. The light in the room started to fade again.

“Oh, no...he’s bleeding out. He doesn’t have much time!” Roland said, holding his head in disbelief. Morgan looked past me and the terrible scene. At first I thought it was because of the blood pouring from me. She always had a hard time with blood, but as she pointed a shaking finger to the other side of the room, I knew things were about to get even worse.

Taylor stood up, mortified, “It’s not possible!”

Across the room the stain of ash started spinning in a slow circle, speeding up as it grew in size. The miniature funnel cloud filled with red and glowing flecks of energy. The floor rumbled softly, warning us all that the battle was not done yet.

“No!” Taylor cursed! The resurrecting twister of energy formed into a small pile of boiling blackness and then a large mound. Liquid fire erupted from the top like a baby volcano. Slender fingers crawled from the flames, followed by a decayed hand full of spikes. The hand grew into a full arm and then split into two arms that slid upward before bending with a pair of loud snaps. The grotesque arms smashed themselves into the floor with a thick crash.

“I...want...those...rings!” an evil and broken voice gurgled from the blistering mound in the floor. Steaming black tar overflowed from the gaping hole, sliding down to the ground and reaching for anything in its path. General Love’s smoky head slid from the oozing liquid. Two green eyes with red pupils opened up and scanned the room. It only took him a second to find my paralyzed body and shocked friends. His haunting eyes curved at their sides in an obvious smile.

“There you are, Mr. Ryan!” he echoed through the room. Giant shoulders pulled from the blackness, still on fire. Long reptilian legs followed, perching his shadow over us all. Four bloodstained wings cut from his back, slapping each other with bone-crunching force. They covered themselves in green energy with the sickening smell of sulfur and death. Acid-like foam dripped from his eyes, melting into the ground all around him. He shook his head violently like an overgrown dog just after a bath. Corrosive chunks splattered everywhere.

Taylor searched the large war ravaged gym for anything he could use to stop the General. His eyes locked onto the wall just behind us. An emergency ax, framed in a red box managed to survive the destruction of the earlier battle. He ran to it, jerking it from its holster and ran toward the General.

“Leave us alone!” he hollered, with complete hate. General Love’s hovering head spit fiery ash in a blunt laugh of anticipation.

“Bring it, boy!” General Love taunted, with one long finger.

Olivia forced her eyes away from the General and grabbed her sister by the face.

“Soph, use the rings to heal Lucas! I know the rings can do it. I know you can do it...” she caressed Sophia’s cheeks, trying to comfort her. “Hurry, we have no time left.”

Sophia wiped her streaming tears away from her face, quickly trying to settle herself and focus. The band around her neck and wrists had already started to gleam with yellow light. The rings followed and filled with an even brighter light. Felicity watched closely, hiding her stolen prize in her hands. She cupped them tightly so no light could escape.

“Hang on, Lucas. I’ll make you better, I promise,” Sophia said, with a dry stutter. I tried to smile, but failed. She placed her luminous hands on my chest, filling my shirt with warm light. Her tiny fingers trembled along the fabric of my shirt. Thin, almost invisible strings of electricity peppered my pours and the feeling returned to my toes and then legs. The blood stopped pooling from under my head and my sight cleared in an instant. I could see the determined scowl on Sophia’s face. She looked so much like her older sister, Olivia. The thought filled me with excited hope and I let my eyes pull to Olivia, who was kneeling next to her sister.

Olivia mouthed the word, “Hello.”

I smiled up to her, “Hi.”

Sophia crinkled her nose and pressed her hands harder into my body, “Not now, you two...jeez!”

From the corner of my eye, I caught Taylor standing tall, ax in hand, cocked and ready to strike. He twirled the tool once in his hands and threatened the General.

“You can’t have Lucas! I’ll die before I let you have him!”

General Love roared loud enough to hurt my ears.

“You
will
die! And so will Mr. Ryan...and the sisters...and the twins...and this worthless rock you call Earth! I won’t stop until you are all dead! All gone!” General Love declared. The ear crushing volume of his promise stunned us all.

“Ugh...” Sophia cried, and placed her head on my chest, trying to hide from the pain of the General’s words. Olivia placed her hands over her ears, turning from the painful sound waves. As she turned she noticed Felicity also covering the sides of her head, but with a flashing ring of light around one of her fingers. As the cerebral attack faded, Olivia pounced on Felicity.

“Where’d you get that ring?” Olivia’s anger was absolute. Felicity flailed backwards, clutching the ring tighter.

“Lucas dropped it and I picked it up! It’s mine now!” she said, defiantly. Olivia pushed closer.

“Give it to me! Lucas needs it back! Hand it over, Evilicity!” Olivia waited with her hand open.

Felicity frowned and shook her head, no, “No, he had his chance and he blew it!”

“Are you crazy? Please!” Olivia begged.

“I’ll end this! I’ll end this for good!” Felicity stomped her feet, shaking her messy curls.

“What do you mean?”

“It starts with one...just one wish...” Felicity exhaled.

General Love screamed again and Taylor pulled his ax back, ready for his first swing. Without missing a beat, Felicity jumped into action, flying over my body. I could actually read the brand of her sneakers as she soared over me, running for the General. She hit the floor with her fist pointed in front of her like a jousting competition and her eyes tightly pulled shut.

“Get back, Felicity! Now!” Taylor warned, as she ran up behind him. She ignored his warning and walked forward.

“No! I’m tired of all this nonsense! I want to go home! I want this to be over with!” she cried in a fit. Taylor reached for her shoulder, but she smacked it away in a desperate fit.

“I wish this never happened! I wish everything was back to normal!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “General, I wish you had never been born!”

The General fell backwards in shock and pain from her words. I tried to sit up, but found myself locked in place under Sophia’s thin frame. The rings and bands along her flickered furiously with blinding white light. Felicity’s ring mimicked every flash. The room started to shake and rumble as our surroundings began to fix themselves. All the dirt and debris flew out the top of the open building. The structure of the gymnasium rose up, filling in with new support beams and fresh walls. Glass flew back in place and sealed itself as if they were just installed. Fresh paint and decorations washed over the walls, hiding any sign of our time bending battle.

“Oh my...what did you do, Felicity?” I called out. She stared at the gymnasium as it started to resemble the way it looked before. White electric pulses washed over the whole floor of the gym, stopping at General Love’s position for a moment, before covering him in energy.

“This can’t be!” General Love growled. His massive claws scratched at the white light as it spun around his body, outlining each and every nook of his torso. He spun in place as if he were being attacked by invisible bees.

“It can’t end now! Not like this!” he bellowed. His legs had already started to buckle in on themselves and his fiery wings turned to smoke and mist. He groaned in agony as each arm faded into nothing. Next, his torso imploded into silvery white dust, followed by his shoulders and neck.

Finally, his devilish head shrank down to a tiny spec of dark shadow and with a crisp pop, it disappeared, leaving nothing but the sparklingly air where he used to be. Taylor looked at me in amazement. His face had a goofy smile pasted across it as he turned to me, but it too suddenly faded. His eyes filled with shock as he watched the white light crawl over me and Sophia.

“Lucas?” he said, in an exhausted whisper. I wanted to answer him but couldn’t as the light made the words cold and heavy. Sophia’s grasp welded to me like steel as the power overcame her too. Prickly strands of energy traced the lines of our bodies in an instant, and in a bright flash we became ghostlike shadows. Another moment passed and we became nothing. Olivia reached out for us in utter despair. She tried to scream but couldn’t.

Stumbling up to Olivia and Taylor, Felicity choked on her words, “Lucas...” The same threads of white energy slid from the single ring around her index finger, crawling along her arm and then chest and neck. In a quick flicker she disappeared too. Taylor gasped, dropping the ax to the floor in a thud.

“No!” Olivia finally crumbled, and fell to her knees in tears.