Chapter 25- Getting Out of Dodge

Matt raised his arms in the same manner he had back near the sixth gate. Again, full, transparent humans seemed to pull themselves from out of his flesh and launch themselves at the fiends. Once hit by the spirits Matt launched, the fiends would convulse on the ground and die. Once the spirits had made contact with a fiend, they would fly around and disappear into Matt again.

This attack kept the fiends at bay for some time. However, they eventually got close. Drake, for some reason reluctant to raise his rifle earlier, whipped it out and shot the nearest fiend in the jaw, sending it spinning away.

Matt had stopped firing off the spirit-things to attack now and had begun to fight in a completely different form now. As the fiends approached him from every angle, human limbs would shoot out and attack the fiends, sometimes pulling human torsos with them as the arm extended outward. Matt himself was holding one of his spinning blue spheres in each hand and using them to cut the fiends to pieces as if he were using a chainsaw. Whenever a fiend tried to attack him, the wall of faces sprouted up and defended Matt.

Pretty soon Drake got lost in the chaos. He lost track of everyone, and ended up fighting for his life. Despite the addition of Matt and Ashley, there were still enough fiends to cause an incredible amount of trouble. Fiends were coming from every direction- Drake could hardly keep track of them. And they were armed with all sorts of bizarre makeshift weapons. For all Drake knew, he could have been in a bar fight where anything went.

A feind came running at him, and empty glass bottle in its raised hand. Drake turned to meet the new threat, and was just bringing his rifle about as the fiend brought the bottle down toward Drake's head. Drake managed to get the rifle into a position where it blocked the blow, but then the bottle shattered, spraying glass into Drake's eyes.

"Gah!" Drake said. He was blinded. He couldn't see a thing. He was going to die. It can't end like this! He thought.

And then he heard the fiends all around him die. Then he heard a voice in his ear, kind and caring.

"Are you okay?" It asked.

"I… I can't see." He said.

"Here." He felt a pressure on his eyes as the person placed their hand over them. Drake heard another fiend die. Then there was an odd sensation in his eyes that he couldn't began to explain, but when the person removed their hand and he opened his eyes, he could see. Ashley was standing next to him, her clothes bloodstained and her hand glowing faintly.

"Thanks…" Drake said.

"Don't thank me yet, we're not out of this." She said, her foot lashing out and completely separating a fiend's upper half from its lower. "Let's get out of here and get back to the others. We'll be stronger together."

Drake saw motion over Ashley's shoulder. "Look out!" He said. He was too late. A fiend with a bow had drawn and fired in the time he had seen it, and by the time he had shouted the warning the arrow was already halfway to them. It caught Ashley in the right side, between her ribs. She staggered backwards from the pain. Drake, annoyed at himself because it had been him that had caused this, emptied what was left of his clip into the fiend's stomach, killing it and then some.

Fiends were still swarming about everywhere. Drake locked in a new clip, but before he could fire a single shot, an incredibly loud and deadly voice stopped him. Matt was speaking, running at the clump of fiends.

"IT'S OVER." He said, and made a horizontal gesture as if trying to cut the air with the index and middle fingers on his right hand. The gesture left a huge white streak in the air, even larger than the arc his fingers had created. Three fiends were instantly cut in half, as if by an invisible blade. Matt continued to swing his fingers around like swords, sometimes making huge slashes, sometimes simply jabbing forward. Each motion left a huge white streak in the air, and each stroke rent fiends into various degrees of pieces. Pretty soon their wasn't a fiend in one piece.

"How do you do that?" Drake asked.

"Remember how I was cursed by all those spirits back in Egypt? When they did that curse, each and every one of them took up residence in the shell I call my body. By utilizing large amounts of energy, I can manipulate the spirits in my body to perform certain tasks, such as fight for me, go out and spy for me, and help me feel the essence of other people's souls. As I am, I really cannot say "I," I should really be saying "We," because we are truly one being. I can manipulate them as if they were Evil Matt or Good Matt."

"But wouldn't they not listen to you? I mean, you did kill them." Flynn said.

"While that is true, they don't want me to die because they want my suffering to be longer, or they forgave me and want to make up for cursing me. But, as I said, it takes a lot of energy for me to do it, that's why you've never seen me do it before. But now that I'm not really alive, there is no limit to how much energy I have, so I can do it easily now. I can fire them like projectiles, spawn extra human parts from my body like this…" Suddenly, five more arms were sticking out of Matt's shoulder, and Drake recoiled. "…kinda creepy huh?" The arms retracted. "And then they will protect me should something try to hurt me, that's what the wall of faces is for."

"You've never even shown that to me." Ashley said. Despite the arrow in her side, she looked unfazed. "How long have you been able to use it?"

"I figured it out while I was training. I was trying to move some fire for something and I instead shot a spirit out. I never have used it much, even at my peak, except against the strongest enemies or largest hordes. And shouldn't you remove that pretty soon?"

"It's stuck between my ribs." She said. "And I can't get it loose without breaking off the arrowhead."

"Sounds painful." Keith commented.

"It is." She assured him. Matt stepped over next to her and seized the shaft of the arrow. He then gave one good yank, easily removing the arrow from her side. She gave a shout of pain. "Tell me when you're going to do that! I think you chipped one of my ribs." She placed her hand on the open wound on her side. Her hand glowed green, and when she removed it the wound was gone. Matt lazily snapped the arrow in half between his fingers.

"It's better than if we left if there." He said. "Oh, yes, and one more thing. I can use the spirits in my body to enhance my strength to a sum equivalent to the total physical strength of all the souls in my body. That's why I can shove my fist through these fiends, in case you were wondering. The same sort of thing applies to my speed and how fast my body heals.."

"What exactly does that mean?" Drake asked.

"Example: If I by myself can bench 250 lbs., and I can, that is the normal output of my muscles. However, I can force my muscles to exert more force because of the souls. Let's assume, for the purpose of this example, that all the souls in my body, while they were alive, could bench 75lbs. There are 1,238 souls in my body. Therefore, while using the souls in my body to enhance my strength, I can bench up to 93,100 lbs. of weight."

"That's ridiculous strength." Flynn said.

"Now I know how you managed to pick up that huge fiend earlier." Drake muttered.

Matt smiled. "Yeah, that was a bad idea. You see, doing that increases the strain on my muscles to such levels that they began to teat themselves apart. Of course, now that I'm not alive, there is nothing restraining how much I can use that strength. And I assure you, it's even greater than the example I just gave you."

"Don't go overboard soldier." MacArthur said.

"Of course not, sir." Matt said. "Let's get going. Helen is getting restless." He turned on his heels and marched out of the room. Everyone quickly followed.

"At least now we know who we're looking for." Keith said. "William Maquine… I knew he hated us, but I didn't think he would go this overboard."

"That was funny, how he got so mad at Matt that he revealed his identity." Flynn said.

"Yeah, in direct violation of Overlord principles. Someone hasn't done his homework." Matt said.

"Again I ask, what are these Overlord principles?" Drake said.

"There used to be a list online that essentially documented every mistake an evil Overlord could make and offering a solution. For example, one of the statements was, 'I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them,' you know, the mistakes that the bad guys in movies usually make. Be revealing his identity and his purpose, he violated these principles. Such errors are usually why world-takeover attempts fail. Hm." They had already made it to the gate. "That was quick."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Drake asked.

"It is, but it feels suspicious." Brooklyn said. "Like those stairs last year at the end that we shouldn't have gone down, remember?"

"Yeah."

Matt placed his hand on the gate. "No, this is it. It must be the lack of fiends that makes it seem like that. Well then, go on." He gestured for them to go through the gate. Again, Drake was first through and he landed in total darkness. Before long, everyone had joined them, and they set off again in Matt's light.

"Where did we leave Helen?" Flynn said. "I was in such as rush to stop these guys that I lost track of where we were."

"Somewhere past that one three-way crossroads." MacArthur said. "Not too far from there, but from this side it's hard to tell where that is."

"No worries." Matt said, his mismatched eyes roving. "We'll find it. It's doubtful that, in all the excitement, they bothered removing her body." He took a step forward, then stopped, his blood-red eye widening. "There's something here."

"Is it big or something?" Flynn asked.

"Not really. But I didn't expect to encounter anything around here, since it does take some time for them to regenerate. It's probably a shadow, though, which is kind of annoying, since it takes a lot of hits to actually kill one. Usually they just regenerate themselves if something tears them apart."

"So what's the fastest way past it?" Keith asked.

"Don't tear at it. Use a blunt weapon and hit it as hard as possible." Matt said. "I'll take care of this." His left foot slid out in front of him, and he crouched down on his right leg. He extended his arms over their respective leg, palms up, and stood there, eyes looking past his left arm. "It's coming…"

The black form of the shadow slid around the corner and saw them almost instantly. Its yellow mouth opened into an evil cackle until it noticed Matt. And by then, it was too late.

Matt leapt forward from his stance and stabbed the shadow using the index and middle fingers on each hand. In a quick motion he spun and stabbed it twice more in the same way, then he spun again and continued to deal stabbing blows. He continued this pattern three more times, except that each set of blows was longer and faster. Drake lost count of how many shots he got in after the second set. Matt dealt one final blow, and the shadow vanished as if blown by the wind.

"There." Matt said. "It's gone."

"Copy." Brooklyn said.

"If it works… do it."

"Sure… copy."

Matt shook his head, smiling a little, and gestured them forward.

They found Helen's body about twenty yards from where Matt killed the shadow. It was slumped up against a wall near a bloody area. Matt walked over to it, crouched down besides it, and placed two fingers on the body's shoulder.

"Go." He whispered, and a blue aura traveled down his arm toward the body. Helen twitched once, and slowly opened her eyes.

"I'm alive, right?" she said weakly.

"That's right." Matt said. "You've had it rough." He helped her to her feet. "But I think you owe someone an apology, and it isn't me. I've felt your regret myself, so you don't need to apologize to me." Helen looked over the group.

"Who is… oh!" She noticed Ashley standing at the right end of the group. "You're down here!"

"Yes." Ashley said. "I am. I wanted to help them, so I came."

"And got caught, I heard." Helen said. "You're worth as much as I am, except without all the bitterness and snide remarks."

"Which makes her just a little bit better than you." Drake said.

Helen nodded. "It's true. I was a jerk to you, and I feel sorry for it. My actions have been… detestable. I could understand why you would want to leave me somewhere for dead, the way I've acted. But I ask you not to. I'll stop. I realize that Matt isn't as bad as I though he was, even if he did kill all those people…"

"Unintentionally." Matt said.

"Yes, that's part of the reason why my actions were unjustified." She said. "I am truly sorry for being such an ass all this time. It wasn't my place." Helen moved to Ashley. "I have to apologize to you individually, because I was very insensitive about a touchy subject at an inappropriate time."

"It's okay." Ashley said. "I've had people say many worse things to me."

"Yeah, like the one time you completely failed on that one mission about three years ago and that guy said-" Brooklyn started. He never got to finish because Ashley punched him hard enough in the mouth to lift him off his feet and send him rolling down the hall.

"Don't remind me of that!" She said. Brooklyn groaned in pain as he struggled to get to his feet. "Oh, are you okay?" Ashley ran to his side and helped him to his feet. Everyone looked at Matt, struggling not to laugh at the irony of what Ashley had done. Matt smiled in a funny way and shrugged.

"It's good to have you back, Professor." Drake said.

"It's good to be back." Helen said. "I hope I never act like I did again."

"You won't." Matt said. "Now let's go. We need to get out of here before the mastermind actually does send every fiend at his command after us. I'd be the only one to make it out, and I would hate that."