The B-1945 would have to be scrapped when it was done with its current task. Thousands of the machines were crawling over the remains of Wayfaire looking for survivors. The engines of the ship he had taken out had been a mix of fission, fusion, and something approaching the plasma systems he used on his own BFOs.
It continued mindlessly pulling rubble and irradiated scrap from the location Bob had estimated War would end up as a result of being caught out of cover by the detonation. Its sensors suggested there was a living being somewhere beneath this wrecked structure and the only person Bob could imagine surviving the blast on the surface was War. Or possibly Liberty. If it was Liberty then the photokinetic beam, the one that had sliced Belisarius’ vessel into chunks, would be firing again and disposing of this drone chassis would become a moot point.
A half ton slab of rubble was tossed aside casually and the drone heard a rumble from deeper in the crater. It sounded like swearing and had a male voice. The beam didn’t stand down, it remained trained and ready to take out this site at the slightest hint of a ruse.
More rubble was scooped aside and a hand was revealed. It spasmed briefly, clenching and unclenching into a fist. With a roar, War threw the rest of the rubble off himself, dragging himself to his feet with a curse. The drone was thrown back as well, landing in a clatter to one side of the crater and quickly scrambling back to its feet.
“Where is she?” War gasped. He was filthy. His armour was scuffed and burned, his skin had blistered and was peeling, hanging off in long strips. None of this seemed to bother the man as he turned a red-eyed gaze on the drone.
“Mindscar got away,” said the drone.
“Fuck that bitch! Where is Liberty? Where is my friend?” snarled the fat man.
“God knows! She vanished before the explosion. If she went through the portals she might have survived. The blast travelled through the portals as well and devastated every fucking place on the network so if she hung around the other side she’ll have been fried! All our work on fortifications just got irradiated, every major population centre! Millions of people just died, you fat prick!” snapped the machine.
War rounded on the drone and shot forward, snatching it up in one hand and shaking it back and forth roughly.
“She’s still in the team so she survived. If she was sent after me she’ll be going after the others as well! I’m the only one who stands a chance against her! Maybe Magic but I don’t know… If she kills the rest of us I won’t stand a chance either!” War threw the drone aside, dashing it apart on the stones surrounding them and rose into the air on his golden cloud. He shot away to the now free-floating portals that had formed the Monarch’s Way. he paused for a moment before zipping through a portal leading to South America.
***
“Well that’s messed up. Do you think he picked the right way?” asked Ryn from deep underground.
“Don’t know. Don’t care. The Monarchs can look after themselves. What are you seeing through the fires?” said a flying drone curtly. The girl shuddered and took a deep breath.
“The major sites are doing worse than the smaller settlements. If they’ve got multiple portals then they have multiple burn lines. It’s like someone took a giant branding iron and smashed it into the earth! Places with only one or two portals are doing a lot better. By various definitions of better,” the girl said bitterly. “They’ve got long burns reaching nearly a kilometre from their versions of Blue Street but out to the sides is ok. There’s lots of scared survivors though. What''s the word on radiation poisoning?”
“They’ll need to move and fast. I’m sending down transports to the most populated sites. Give it half an hour and we can begin airlifting them out,” replied Bob sadly.
“Where the hell are we going to put them?” demanded Bolf. “Humans need that sense of home. Losing that will result in severe emotional responses.”
“Especially as the ‘attack’ came from something they thought was safe. We need to get John to shut down large parts of the portal network. Some people think it was him! I’m firefighting astroturf accounts spreading that version of events but it’s still getting out there!” Bob grouched.
“Where are the people going to go Bob?” demanded Andrea in a tone she rarely used.
“Mars? Bob World? I’m digging tunnels to let us get access to the surface outside the irradiated zone and I’ll bring them in that way. Where do they end up going in the end? I guess it’s up to them to an extent.”
“What can we do to help?” asked Claire. “I can deal with radiation poisoning.”
“Lots of people can, kid. The issue is the fucking numbers! How many million people can you heal per day? Every day they aren’t healed more and more will die.” snapped the drone. Claire blanched.
“Is it really that bad?” she asked quietly.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“It’s worse.” Bob’s voice was flat and cold.
“How much worse?” groaned Kev as he struggled to sit up. Claire rushed to his side and helped prop him upright. She ran a quick check to make sure he was physically ok. There wasn’t much she could do about the mental wounds.
“As bad as you can imagine,” said Bob flatly.
“God damn it’s quiet! Almost all the voices are far away now. Christ, where did they all go?” Kev asked quietly as he rose to his feet.
“Wherever any of us go when we die,” said Simon bitterly.
“There’s some survivors. I’ll tag them on my map so you can guide rescue efforts to them,” Kev said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Thanks. Diverting drones now,” said Bob mechanically.
“Is she still here?” asked Sally quietly.
“Who?” Kev replied.
“Liberty. And Mindscar I guess. Why couldn’t she take us over?” Sally gushed.
“I protect the team from psychic attacks. Liberty isn’t still in range, Mindscar is immune to me so could be anywhere,” Kev said.
“We need to nuke Belisarius and hunt that bitch down!” snarled Jane, the stone beneath her beginning to glow brighter.
“We don’t know where his base is!” snapped Bob in frustration.
“I do. It’s under Fort Worth. He’s got half a million hostages above him to stop us using orbital weapons,” said Kev.
“Less than that now,” Bob replied angrily. “They had three portals. I’ve got strike teams ready to go. In half an hour he’ll be crawling in B-3000s.”
“He has countermeasures,” said Kev. “I pulled it from Liberty’s mind. She paid him a visit in his nest and guessed he could detonate… something, a device or power system that would wipe out a goodly part of North America.”
“What an arsehole. I should have wiped that prick out years ago. He was always stealing my shit, you know? Ripping off my systems and never paying for them,” grumbled Bob.
“I don’t think your royalties are at the top of anyone’s list of problems right now,” said Ryn bitterly.
“It showed his character. War went to South America but I’m not seeing anything kicking off. Do you think he fucked up and went the wrong way?” asked Bob.
***
War had rushed to Frost. He’d messaged her and the rest of the team, steering clear of teamchat because Liberty was still in the group. They hadn’t kicked her out so that they could at least confirm she was still alive somewhere. They couldn’t relax until she was dead or preferably freed from Mindscar’s control. The Monarchs had all gone onto high alert, moving to places they were confident they could fight and stand a faint chance of winning.
Frost had rushed through portals to get to the very southern tip of South America as soon as War had reached out to her. It had been a toss up between her and Death. Magic was a mad, crafty bastard. None of them knew what he was truly capable of. Of the two most vulnerable members of the Monarchs, War had moved to protect his female colleague. Was it some deep seated sexism? Perhaps. He had weighed the odds and concluded Frost was the one who would most need his help.
Frost had frozen the austere and barren islands that tipped the continent she had taken over, coating them in metres of ice. It wouldn’t stop Liberty by any stretch of the imagination. It wouldn’t even slow her down but it gave Frost several advantages. She could perceive disturbances to her ice like a spider could feel its web twitch. She could also pull strength from the presence of so much frozen water and use it as pre-made weapons material.
War shot south, moving faster than she’d ever seen him manage. She was touched on some level. He truly did care for her. His golden cloud came to a stop a few metres from her and he spun to scan back along the route he had travelled.
“You look like shit,” said Frost, glittering eyes mimicking War’s search pattern.
“I got nuked,” he grumbled. “Any sign of her?”
“You know I wouldn’t spot her before she attacked and I haven’t created a new icecap as I died so she hasn’t attacked,” Frost said with a smirk.
“Shit. Which of us did her controller sick her on?” War rumbled.
“Not me. Thanks for coming but I think I’m ok. What about Life?”
“He can’t be killed by Liberty. She can knock him about for decades but he won’t die. Magic might be able to manage it but not Lib.”
“So we need to go pay Death a visit,” said Frost firmly. “It’ll be good to see the miserable bastard again.”
“We?” War raised an eyebrow at her.
“I’m not letting your bulky ass out of my sight until we either kill Mindscar or capture Liberty,” Frost said. “I’m not doing the whole ‘oh hey, let’s split up, that always works out well’ bullshit.”
“Fine. We need to move to Asia. How are you with radiation? You’ll have caught a dose moving here. We need Life to patch you up before you get more exposure,” said War.
“I’m fine. I can use my elemental body to ignore that shit. Life would be handy though. An unkillable tank is always useful, even if they’re fuck all use for fighting someone like Lib,” said Frost as her body became translucent glass.
“Let’s go,” growled War. He sent a message to Life but Life refused. He had been in Berlin and was busy cleansing people of radiation sickness before they were loaded onto Bob’s bizarre spaceships and shipped back to the furthest outskirts of Wayfaire.
“Life is busy. It’s just us.”
“What about Magic? Never mind. He’s up to some crazy shit on his own isn’t he?” asked Frost.
“Yep.”
The pair flew north to the nearest portal. The twin burn marks stretching from either side creating a two kilometre line across the jungle and hills made it easy to locate their destination. Frost kept up her elemental body as they flew briefly through the portals floating above Wayfaire. They emerged to the south of Beijing, the stub of the Wasps tower-hive floated on the horizon in the east.
Death had made his home to the south of the old wasp hive, burrowing into and expanding the tunnel network the monsters had made. The pair moved forward, Frost on a cushion of glittering air and War on his golden cloud.
They headed towards the Necropolis. The land below them was dead. The surges coming through the portals here had done the least damage of them all. No normal humans lived in this area, only undead constructs and the occasional very stealthy monster. The Necropolis itself was a dull black structure composed of what Death would refer to as “unused resources”. Arching ribs of blackened bone, strung with tatters of rotting flesh marked the above surface section of Death’s palace. The twisting paths below the surface were as unknown to Frost and War as they were to everyone else on Earth.
“Too slow,” came a whisper as something flashed past them heading back towards the portal. Frost was struck in the chest and thrown backwards. She stabilised herself and looked down at the contents of her arms before screaming in rage. Death’s head fell from her hands at the same moment the Necropolis shifted and all the undeath below began to writhe as the salvaged corpses of Megavespids, lesser monsters and humans began to flow together.