The Void of Mist and Thunder (The 13th Reality #4) (42 page)

But movement was impossible for any of them. Tick finally curled up into a ball and quit trying to fight something he couldn’t change. He bounced up and down, wincing each time he slammed into Jane or Chu, hating the feel of chins and elbows and feet digging into his flesh and bones. The temptation to unleash his Chi’karda was overpowering, but he held back, realizing that flying around in a bubble was better than getting separated and lost, each of them swept away by the brutal winds.

The shiny orange bubble of Chi’karda hit the ground and rolled. Grunts and shouts and barks of pain filled the air as Tick closed his eyes and squeezed his arms and legs into an even tighter ball. The bouncing finally settled, and everything stopped moving. Tick, filled with nausea, looked up to see that not much was different from before. The orange sheen of the bubble was still around them, the swirling mist of the Void raging on the other side. His first thought was that maybe a particularly strong gust had caught them from underneath to throw them through the air like that.

He saw Chu crawling toward his silver cube. Jane was trying to stand up, obviously woozy, her robe in disarray and revealing her scarred hands and arms.

“We need to move,” she said in a hoarse voice that Tick barely heard. “The Void is going to keep trying to stop us. We need to move! Now!”

Tick nodded. Chu picked up his precious device. Jane pointed, making Tick wonder how in the world she could possibly know which way they’d been walking before. But he had no better ideas. They picked up where they’d left off and started moving.

They’d taken maybe ten steps when the ground exploded upward, throwing them all in different directions. The bubble vanished for good.

Benson winked away as soon as his army of machines showed up. Paul couldn’t blame him. What good would one human do when you had the kind of technological might Reginald Chu had at his disposal? The metallic machines—some boxy, some round—littered the flattened fields in front of Paul, and each one of them looked ready to kill. The only ones he recognized were the Metaspides, spherical, with long legs and nasty weapons. They had attacked him twice before; they weren’t very nice.

The other machines out there were new to Paul, but just as vicious-looking. A big, boxy robot on wheels with two arms that resembled bulldozers but had fists of steel with nasty spikes on the end. Hovering, disk-shaped metal plates that were several feet across and came to a razor-thin edge along the outer circle.

In the long pause that seemed to float through the air like an air-bound virus between when Benson winked away and when the inevitable battle would begin, Paul could see labels on the closest machines. All of Chu’s inventions were marked, starting way back with the Gnat Rats.

The bulldozer-robot was called a Denter. And the flying saucer weapons were Ranters. The phrase “Manufactured by Chu Industries” was printed on every machine.

Beautiful,
Paul thought.
Just beautiful.
Like fighting a massive storm called the Void of Mist and Thunder from the Fourth Dimension wasn’t going to be a big enough challenge for the Realitants.

The moment felt like an eternity but couldn’t have been longer than twenty seconds.

Sofia finally broke the silence. “How did it all come to this? The smallest army ever caught between two impossible enemies.”

Paul had never heard such sadness in her voice. That’s what hit him with a rush of fear—the realization that they were probably about to die. Not seeing all the machines in front of him. Not hearing all of the terrible sounds of the Void behind him. If Sofia was feeling hopeless, they must be in bad shape.

Paul shot a glance back at the Fifth Army. They seemed confused, milling about as if deciding which front to fight first. There was a commotion on the far side, but it was hard to see over the tall bodies of the soldiers. It all added up to equal one major downer.

“We just have to fight,” he finally said. “That’s all we can do. Fight until we either win or die. Until Tick does whatever he’s going to do. Maybe Rutger will find us some more people. But all we can do—me and you—is fight.”

Sofia looked at him with something like awe, which swelled his chest up with pride. She even had the beginnings of a tear in one of her eyes.

“One of these days, I’m going to realize just how much I like you,” she said. “Maybe once you’re old enough to quit making fart jokes.”

He smiled, a ridiculous thing to do when you were about to die. But he did it anyway. “That’s a deal right there. I’m gonna hold you to it.”

She smiled back.

The machines of Chu Industries started whirring and chirping and revving, a chorus of awful sounds. Then they all moved at once.

Chapter 67

A Glimpse of Rutger

Sato barely had time to assess the situation. On one side of his army, a horde of machines were about to attack with technology far beyond a few Shurrics and the other meager weapons the Fifth had at the ready. And on the other—on
his
side—at least a hundred gray soldiers were marching toward him, their mouths already beginning to open up. The abyss inside matched the fiery sockets of their eyes. Pure flame and heat.

They had no time to wallow in despair or wish for better days. It was fight or die.

“Attack!” he yelled, as loud as he possibly could. “Slam them with Shurrics before they can fight back!”

A series of thumping concussions rocked the world as every one of his nearby soldiers started firing. Sato felt a quick burst of pride at seeing a dozen or so of the Void creatures obliterated into wispy trails of mist. But more came.

And beams of brilliant fire shot out of their mouths, like a volley of arrows, streaming up toward the sky then back down toward the Fifth Army.

“Take cover!” Sato shouted, but the screams had already begun.

Master George was in the middle of the fray, wondering desperately why in the name of all that was good and green on the earth he’d decided to pretend to be a soldier. He could barely hold the Shurric in his arms, and he didn’t know what to do. He stood there, looking to Mothball and Sally for direction. He’d do whatever they did.

The sky was suddenly lit up with streams of fire, coming from the direction of the Void. The sounds of revved up machinery came from the other side, where that nasty ogre Chu had sent some of his inventions. But for what purpose, George had no idea. What in the dickens was going on?

“Whichaway should we be a-fightin’?” Sally asked.

“I’m a bit bamboozled, I am,” was Mothball’s reply. “Paul and Sofia are back there.” She nodded toward where Chu’s attack was starting. “I reckon we best go that way.”

The two of them charged behind other soldiers, bringing up their weapons to take aim. Master George followed, fighting the temptation to wink himself straight out of there.

Come on, Rutger,
he thought to himself.
Don’t fail me now. After all these years, don’t fail me now.

Tick’s body bounced, something he didn’t think was possible for a human body to do. But he did. With the protection of Jane’s Chi’karda bubble gone, he’d flown through the air when the ground erupted from below, then landed fifty feet away and bounced. At least twice. He rolled to a stop, dazed and bruised. The winds were fierce and hard and loud around him, lightning flashing everywhere, the sounds deafening. All was a gray blur; he might as well have been blind.

He got to his knees, then tried to stand up, but the gusts ripped at his body and made him fall again. Back to his knees, he squinted his eyes against the wind. He looked in every direction, saw nothing but the mist and fog of the Void swirling and churning like boiling water.

“Jane!” he screamed, though the sound was caught up and whisked away before even his own ears heard it. “Chu!”

He tensed his leg muscles and tried to stand up once more. He’d just gotten his balance when the surface below him exploded outward again, throwing his body forward. After flipping and flailing, he bounced and rolled again. Every inch of him hurt.

Chi’karda. He needed to use his Chi’karda.

Power filled him at the thought, consumed his insides with alternating waves of hot and cold. Orange sparkles mixed in with the gray that filled his vision. With a thought, he replicated Jane’s protective bubble of air. It formed around him and cut off the wind and a lot of the sound. But there were thumps that he felt through the ground. Those eruptions were happening all over the place. And it dawned on Tick what was happening.

The Void didn’t want them to find its core, its heart, or whatever represented its essence. The Void was trying to protect itself.

Filled with the raging power of Chi’karda, Tick went in search of Jane and Chu.

Paul tried not to fall apart inside as utter chaos ruled around him. Metaspides cut across the ground with their spindly legs and jumped on top of soldiers, who had to fight with all four limbs to keep from getting hurt. The Denter machines stomped around, shaking the ground beneath them, swinging those massive, spiked arms at anything that moved. The Ranters spun and flew through the air, trying to cut a path to victory.

But the soldiers of the Fifth weren’t giving up. Not by a long shot. They fired their Shurrics and threw their Ragers and tossed their Squeezer grenades at the creations of Chu Industries. They battled with their arms and legs when their other weapons failed. It was an all-out war, and Paul found what little bravery he could and did his part.