Highway Gas Station, Rural Romania
August 7, 1994, 0030 Hours
I blinked as I rolled up to the bright fluorescent lights of the gas station, a... not exactly welcome change from the unlit night on the highway, but a change nonetheless. There was a big van parked up next to the pumps, but some open parking spaces on the side of the building.
"Stay with the car," I told Eve as I stepped out. "We need gas anyway, I've got money for it in the glove box. I'll be back in 5, I just gotta pee... maybe see if they've got any good snacks inside."
I didn't stay long enough to see how she responded. Hopefully, she could work out how a gas pump worked: she picked up on things pretty quickly like that.
"Oh, and uhh..." I called back, already ten steps out, "if you hear trouble, feel free to come running!"
Could never be too careful, after all.
The station wasn't a typical one for this region. It was one of the standard western franchise ones that had sprung up like weeds all over this part of Europe in the last few years, and thus the attached convenience store was doubtlessly full of energy drinks and packaged snacks just waiting to be commandeered with the power of my latest credit card. I wondered what Eve would think of Surge?
All that could wait though, I had business to attend to first. I nodded to the dead-faced attendant half-collapsed over his counter and headed for the restrooms at the back...
――
A relieving minute later,I decided to take a quick look in the mirror before I left. I hadn't really had time to see how I looked earlier tonight, but... it was bad. My slightly-grayed hair had been returned to its original black shade by way of scorching, and a thin layer of... what, soot? Dirt? Something black, anyway, sat all over my face, save for two large circles over my eyes where my welding goggles were... hang on, hadn't I also been wearing a dust mask? Whatever, it wasn't like I had much facial hair to protect from scorching anyway, I could never keep more than a 5 o'clock shadow before something blew it off.
I took a few minutes to try to clean myself up as best I could before giving myself a second look-over. Dull blue-gray eyes stared back at me, heavy dark rings under them, and the already weathered, gaunt look of my face made me look more like a hobo in a lab coat than a PhD-holding scientist.
Or perhaps maybe a bit like some low-rent Doc Brown parody. Christ, wasn't that a guy to aspire after. A crazy loon who'd stolen Plutonium from international terrorists to turn a crappy stainless steel shitbox into a time machine... but was I really any less crazy riding around with a 200 year old cyborg and the ghost of Nikolai Tesla in my head while being chased by wizards?
I shook myself. This wasn't the time for literal self-reflection. I was about as clean as I was going to get in a gas station bathroom, I needed to leave before I had an existential crisis.
As I pushed open the door, I was caught by something I didn't expect through the crack. Three looming men in suits, scanning the back of the store for something. Instinctively, my hand dropped to my waist, still there... but what if they weren't here to kill me.
I looked at the men again... and as one of them turned to face the door, I recognized him.
The man from Istanbul. Images played through my head of the scene six months ago, of people dead on the ground or crying in pain while rubble tumbled and fires burned... and he stalked the rubble looking for me, his hands clutching the same massive hammer as now, though now without the shattered remains of―
Time went slow as adrenaline rushed through me, my right shoulder slammed into the door as my left hand went for the Deagle. I stepped through the doorway with the thing already half-drawn, round sliding into the chamber, and they were already bursting into motion. I squeezed the trigger, and―
BANG
I had long since learned that these people were mostly bulletproof when I saw one ignore an entire clip of 9mm in Miami. But everything had a limit to what it could handle. And the .50 Action Express round exiting the chamber on my Wizard Repellent? It was that limit.
I watched as that limit cut through the air at a low angle... and into the pants-leg of one of the Enforcers. Just above the kneecap. That was supposed to be dead in the chest!
The gunshot rang out through the store, quickly followed by a yell of pain from the Enforcer as he crumpled to the side. Injured, perhaps crippled depending on how much of the energy of that shot was eaten by his magic, but he was still standing, and he definitely wasn't dead.
But in a few seconds, I probably would be.
I twisted my gun. It was futile probably, but I was at least going to go out fighting. The guy on the right started to lunge, a wicked-looking machete-like blade in his hand and ready to carve me like a Thanksgiving turkey. I braced for the inevitable and-
CRASH
A white-gloved fist tore through the outside wall to the machete guy's right, quickly followed by a similarly white-clad arm, and a head covered in ruby red hair, mouth open in a yell of rage that somehow drowned out the smashing of masonry as Eve tore through the concrete wall like tissue paper.
Before the man could even react, Eve's outstretched hand had grabbed him by the back of his head, and with her entire upper body she threw him down, hand driving behind him as she slammed him face-first into the tile floor.
Before I could even think, the man was gone. No, exploded. Shards of bone fired everywhere like shrapnel as body met ground at speed. For a moment there was a haze around him, like half-formed magic trying to save its master, and then it shattered. He was gone, the floor beneath breaking open into a shallow crater underneath Eve's fist.
Eve looked up at the two Enforcers from her crouched position, shrouded eyes assessing them for a split second as they did the same.
There was no time for speech, only action. In the time it would have taken me to get my gun pointed at them, both Enforcers pushed their bodies in ways that they shouldn't have been able to, catapulting themselves backwards across the store to get away from the white-clad incarnation of death that had just turned their buddy's upper body into a bloody crater. The shelves behind them were thrown aside like they weighed nothing as the two men backed to the other side of the store in a split-second, clearing the shop floor into an impromptu arena strewn with snack foods. Eve took up a defensive stance in front of me, and stared down the men on the opposite side of the store.
Time snapped back to normal as the adrenaline spike slipped, and I gasped in air after nearly 10 seconds of not breathing.
The station attendant, only just now realizing what had just happened, screamed something in panicked Romanian and began scrambling for the door.
Across the room, the Enforcer I had shot hissed in pain. "Slippery bastard got me on the knee!"
"A bloodsucker?!" the Istanbul Guy snarled. "How did a slimy sunnovabitch like you get a Dead Apostle backing you up!?"
I didn't recognize a word of what he was talking about, and from the looks neither did Eve.
"You'll pay for what you did to Cainnaei, you bastard!" the Enforcer with the hole in his leg spat. Must be referring to the smashed-open body pooling blood into the crater by Eve's feet.
"P-payback f-for Istanbul!" I stammered, my eyes darting around the room as I tried to get to grips with the entire situation.
The Istanbul Enforcer laughed. "Oh, oh really now Doctor? Payback? I suppose you're still angry over what I did to that little protege of yours?" He hefted his hammer for emphasis.
He scrambled backwards trying to get away, a hand raised uselessly to defend himself as the hammer went up, and then―
Shouldn't have let him
― I shook myself out of it. I couldn't mourn the dead here.
"Well don't worry," the murderer continued, "I can make sure you both join him in hell soon enough. Your bloodsucker friend there might have caught Cainnai without his barrier ready, but you can bet that you won't be lucky twice."
"...Will see." Eve growled.
"Oh, the bloodsucker talks!" The Enforcer laughed again. "But not well! What, don't tell me you shanghaied a Neophyte into this, Doctor! That would be two kids you put underneath Shattering Justice in a single year!"
"S-shattering Justice? The hammer? You named that f-fucking thing?" I probed. The bastard seemed to love the sound of his own voice, so I might as well let him talk while I slowly made my way for the hole in the wall without turning my gun away from the Men In Black across the room.
"Ah, you insult my family so Doctor!" The Enforcer took mock offense, "To not know the name of Shattering Justice, the pride and heritage of the Dayloth clan! A Mystic Code on par with even the Noble Phantasms those overgrown familiars keep crowing about. When I activate its power to smash your skull in with the force of an oncoming train, if anything you should be thankful to die to a weapon so out of your league in the hands of the legendary Maxim Dayloth!"
I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. From the hole, two figures outside. The bastard was stalling for time while his buddies flanked us.
"Eve! Contact Right!" I shouted, squeezing the trigger for a second time as I leveled my gun at the bravado-spewing fucker across the room.
BANG
Dead-center mass. He barely flinched.
"Reinforcement. To think even the lowliest of spells could render you harmless. Pathet-"
BANG
Red blossomed against his side and he snarled in pain. Wounded, but not down. And I only had 4 shots left for at least that many Enforcers.
"BASTARD! I'LL MAKE IT PAINFUL FOR THAT!" Dayloth screamed, pulling his hammer back behind his side, and swinging-
Szzzzzhhht-THOOM
The hammer accelerated, catapulting itself forwards like some sort of spring-launched mechanism, and towing its wielder with it as he closed the distance and-
CLANG
Eve jerked backwards, the sheer force of the blow knocking her back even as she deflected it upwards off the metal bands on her wrists, sending the hammer smashing clean through the ceiling. The Enforcer holding it flipped over it to stand on the roof above.
"YOU'RE ONLY DELAYING THE INEVITABLE, CARMILLA!" he bellowed from above. Carmilla... wait, did he think Eve was a vampire? Were vampires real?!
Nonetheless, I swung my sights to the right to catch sight of the second set of Enforcer goons. One figure standing half-obscured by the wall to the right, his hand glowing with some sort of holographic magic somethingorother. A second figure stepped out from behind the wall to the left with a blade in hand ready to close the distance. A third figure was kneeling a ways back with a large, tube-like...
Holy shit that was a fucking rocket launcher!
Three targets. Four bullets. Slight margin for error. Priority was the guy with the rocket. The gun came up, and―
BANG
BANG
BANG
Three shots. Shit. I only meant to hit him twice. The first round hit him in the gut, did nothing. Second round hit him in the chest, jerked him back. Third round connected straight through his neck. The weakened magic would have still saved him if it had hit anywhere else, but any amount of bullet in your neck is fatal.
The dead man clutched at the hole in his neck as he collapsed. I had one bullet left and four things that needed killing. Shit.
The magic-man's hand flashed, and a burst of neon light fired off like a missile.
"EVE! ON YOUR RIGHT!" I shouted.
Eve whirled, just in time for the blast to hit her dead in the face.
There was a burst of light, and of heat... and a crack of thunder. I expected to see something horrible, but instead...
The blast struck Eve, and then... then it got absorbed, pulled into her like a water droplet getting absorbed into a puddle, tiny rivulets of electricity crackling across her body from the point of impact.
"What the fuck?" I heard the magic-man mutter.
Eve locked eyes with him, and the weird pylons she had sticking out of her ears opened... unfolded? Turned into something kind of like a TV aerial with little arcs of lightning jumping between every part of them.
"Hah. More." Eve growled, and began to glow, and a roar came out of her.
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHH!" She bellowed.
I could feel my hair standing on end, but... it wasn't because of fear. I could feel static in the air. I could see debris around the store begin to move as arcs of electricity jumped off... or onto Eve from every direction. It was... shit, it was just like back at the warehouse, what was she doing?
The lights began to flicker, and then with an electrical crack, every light in the building cut out at once as lightning converged on Eve from every angle, creating a ball of glowing light around her that faded...
To reveal Eve standing there, dress seemingly repaired to its former glory(?), wind swirling around her as she glowed with electrical power.
Had... had she just eaten all the power in the building to power up? How the hell did that even work!?
"COME ON!" she shouted at the two men in front of her.
I could see both of them hesitate, one glancing back towards the rocket... but they steeled themselves, and the one with the sword rushed in, swinging it overhead at an impassive Eve, and―
CLANG
Eve's hand snapped up to catch the sword. Her fingers stopped the blade like it had just met a steel I-beam, and without hesitation she wrapped her hand around the blade, even as the Enforcer's eyes widened.
"Nice. Knife." She snarled, and then her hand twisted.
TWANG
How do you even describe the sound of metal getting snapped in half like that? Not pleasant, certainly, but the blade end of the Enforcer's sword went one way, while the hilt end went the other, and both were thrown well clear of his hands. The man didn't even have a chance to react to that, as Eve reared back an electrically-charged fist, and drove it forwards like an oncoming train. I saw his arms snap up to block it at the last second, but as it connected his entire body bowed, and then he went flying.
CRACK-THOOM
The body tumbled as it arced over the parking lot, slamming into the ground with a wet thud... and barely a second after it started moving again. How the fuck had he survived that!?
I didn't have long to contemplate though, because the follow-through of Eve's strike had taken her through the hole and out of the building... which was apparently just what the roof-bound hammer-wielding Dayloth was waiting for.
THOOM
The hammer came down like the fist of an angry god, rocketing down from the top of the building and... right into Eve's exposed upper back. There was a distortion at the point of impact, and then Eve accelerated. One second she was standing there, the next she was just... propelled forwards. Catapulted out into the night.
I watched her get almost 20 feet before she realized what was happening, then she stamped her feet down into the earth, and with a sound like a rockslide she broke her speed using the ground itself, digging two deep furrows in the concrete where her feet had gone.
Dayloth, on the other hand, was standing right in front of me, back turned. I wasn't the priority right now. Still, I could see him breathing heavily, panting almost as his shoulders bobbed with the motion. Swinging that hammer was hell on him it seemed.
"No trick like that is going to be enough to save you here Carmilla!" He shouted breathlessly, "I told you, you got one of us while we weren't ready, but now that we've got our defenses up, you're going to have to try a lot harder than a couple punches to put us down!"
He swung the hammer laterally again, and―
THOOM
Rocketed forwards on its momentum towards the distant Eve. Eve, for her part, saw the attack coming, and jumped to the side to allow the hammer-wielding braggart to fly on his merry way... but the point of that move wasn't to spear the enemy with a charge, it was just to get in close quick. Dayloth twisted in the air, and slammed the hammer down over his head―
THOOM
―bringing himself to a halt and creating a radial shockwave as the ground underneath him cratered at the impact. Now it was him looking up at Eve with malicious intent. As he pulled himself to his feet, he lunged at her with the hammer and dived into melee.
It was a contest more of agility than of power: a single hit from Eve would send him flying, and a single hit from Dayloth would do much the same to her. As such, both combatants were forced to duck and weave around one another as they fought, crackling barks of electricity from Eve's punches and that bellowing sound like the sneeze of God coming from every swing with the hammer rang out into the night as the world around them melted away into a blur.
... But there were still three other Enforcers. I had one bullet left. It could maybe kill one who was already injured, if I was lucky. I had two spare mags in the car, which was maybe 10 feet down the side of the building from where I was now. I could still see the one that Eve had punched into space out in the field on the far side of the parking lot where he had landed, but where were the other two?
The one who I'd shot, back inside the building... he was gone. A trail of blood and the door of the station swinging open said that he'd gone out front. Not sneaking up on me at least.
The other one though... he was outside. He was running for where the guy I had shot in the neck had fallen. Checking on his friend? Maybe I had been a bit too hasty to write him off as dead, but―no, he was after the fucking rocket launcher!
Was he intending to blow up his buddy with the hammer too? Would a rocket even kill Eve? I didn't know, I didn't intend to find out. He wasn't injured, I knew that much, a single .50AE wouldn't be enough to put him down...
I bolted for the car, an idea forming in my head as I threw the door open and grabbed for the ignition.
The engine roared to life as I gripped the wheel with one hand, gun still in the other as I threw the car into reverse and floored it. Tires screeched as I swung the Mustang backwards, lining myself up with the pair of Enforcers on the ground across the parking lot as I smashed the clutch back into first and stamped the gas.
There was a long peel of tires as I quickly revved up as quickly as I could in the little space I had, engine howling as I accelerated straight towards the hunched-over Enforcer going for the launcher.
THUMP
Getting hit by a car and getting hit by a bullet are far different things. A bullet is small, its energy compacted into one single point. Excellent for penetration, for killing. But a car? A car is huge, massive, literally, and while it's energy is spread over a much wider point of contact, there's a lot more of it. Hitting him like this wouldn't kill him...
But it did send him and the launcher skidding across the asphalt. God knows what a collision like that did to my bumper, but I didn't have time to care right now. He'd tumbled towards the station, that was good, I could use the wall to make sure he didn't lose any momentum on the next hit.
I backed up, revved again, and swung myself to ram into his sorry ass from the side, propelling him straight into the concrete wall of the station with the front of my car.
THUMP
The car followed his path more gently, trapping him between the engine block and the concrete wall I had just pinned him against. Just where I wanted him.
Leaning out the door, I leveled my gun at him, dead at his immobilized chest. I had to hope his magic had been run down enough for this to get through...
BANG
The last shot rang out... and the Enforcer slumped against the hood, a long, ugly trench going along the top of his head. It had gone through... but it had deflected upwards like tank armor. He was dead sure, but still, Jesus.
I pulled the car back, swinging it back towards the rest of the lot and letting the corpse slump down to the ground as I reached across the console, fumbling in the glove box for my spare mags. Chances are I was going to need all 14 of those bullets to finish this.
Seven rounds from the most powerful handgun in the world, a gun that hit so hard they had said that nothing living justified carrying it, that could shoot through practically anything short of a tank... and I had only managed to kill two. And only with lucky shots more than anything else, while they were only half-prepared to handle me, and wearing fucking suits.
It was a miracle I had survived this long.
While all this had unfolded, the fight between Eve and Dayloth had continued, thundering punches and hammer swings still forming the symphony of combat. Eve was mostly on the defensive: the hammer steadily forcing her back towards the highway as she ducked out of every swing as he advanced. It was... weird. Eve's fists were certainly more agile than a hammer, but... the hammer seemed to move strangely. More strangely than I had first realized. Every time he swung it, it would... warp at the end of its arc, sort of like it was wrapping around the edge of a flat map representing a sphere and ending up back at the other side. The movement made no sense, it was like the universe had already decided the hammer needed to be back in the ready position, and was just half-assing how it got there. What the fuck was that thing?!
However the hell it was doing that, it meant that the hammer was way faster than it should be, being instantly ready to swing again after every single arc. There basically was no opening, no point where the hammer wasn't swinging. The only way to strike was to reach around it and through a part of its arc it had already passed through... the fact that Eve was even managing to do that at all was a testament to her ability.
But ability alone wouldn't be enough to win something like this.
I leveled my gun at the brawl. They were both moving fast, maybe even faster than the bullet I was about to fire. I wasn't a crack shot, I wasn't even a good one, even at nearly point-blank range I could barely aim the fucking handcannon I was hauling around... but I really needed not to miss, just this once.
I breathed in―
BANG
―and fired. The bullet careened across the lot, only for its trajectory to be intercepted by the back of an evading Dayloth. Dayloth howled as the round punched into the small of his back. Looked like all the exertion of swinging that damn thing around like that had weakened his magic protections too, that round had gone in significantly more than the first one... but it wasn't enough to stop him.
He whirled towards me.
"YOU LITTLE FUCK!" He roared. His hammer came up, and―
CRACK-THOOM
―left the only opening Eve needed. Her lightning-charged fist hit him square in the jaw, knocking it loose and sending shockwaves across his face as his body trailed behind him, and he went flying.
He hit the ground and bounced, skidding under the lights of the gas pumps and breaking his momentum in the grill of the black van parked there...
And then he started to get up.
That motherfucker just got smacked around like a Looney Tunes sketch! How fucking tough was he!?
He was standing almost drunkenly, his footing unsure and his breathing ragged. Blood from his wounds dribbled off him, and his jaw hung broken, leaving him looking a damn sight like a zombie straight out of a horror movie... but he still had fight left in him.
"Bastharr!" He slurred, "Futthin cheetah bastharr! Dieee!"
His hammer came up again, but this time it wasn't like he was going to swing it. The head was pointed forwards at Eve, like he was using the thing as a pointer rather than a weapon. The head began to glow, lines almost like circuitry running across it... and then it reached out towards Eve, creating this... almost invisible tunnel of force in the air, maybe a foot wide. Then it began to pull.
I could see Eve stumble, and then brace herself against the pull. Even as her feet smashed the asphalt open, she was still being dragged forwards by the invisible force, carving furrows through the road as she went.
Shit. I... I needed to do something. If he pulled her in like that he could smash her into next week with that thing even like this! But what the fuck could I do? All the stupid Deagle had managed to do was piss him off! What the fuck could I do to even phase a monster like this―
Sitting there on the asphalt, practically begging to be used, there was a rocket launcher.
Nothing is immune to explosives.
I scrambled for it, Eve's valiant efforts to resist the pull giving me the precious seconds I needed to grab the thing. It was heavy... I wasn't exactly familiar with rocket launchers, but it looked like someone had done some weird modifications to it as well. It felt warm to the touch.
I'd never used one of these myself, but I'd seen them... in movies. Still, shoulder it, aim it, pull the trigger. Simple enough, right?
"EVE!" I shouted, "JUMP CLEAR!"
She looked back for a second in confusion, eyes widening as she saw the massive tube resting on my shoulder. She shifted her weight, ready to jump the second the pull cut off.
I fired.
The rocket that came out of the tube looked weird. I didn't get much time to see, but it looked almost like it had some sort of magic circle inscribed across it. I didn't get any longer to see though, because that thing zoomed off fast, spiraling on a skee-jawed low angle, going wide of the van and the maniac in front of it... and slamming dead into the ground right between the pumps.
It was only at that moment that I realized just how stupid it was to fire a rocket launcher into the middle of a gas station.
I threw myself to the side as hard as I could, hoping to get the concrete wall between me and what was about to happen as the rocket detonated―
BOOM
The world erupted into fire. Literally. The rocket broke open the underground tank beneath the gas station and ignited all its entire contents at once. More than ten thousand liters of flaming gasoline exploded through the concrete like a volcano, the fireball launching the black van like a toy and devouring the man in front of it in an instant as the burning wind roared. The twisted wreck of the canopy over the pumps was snapped in half and thrown into the air in four charred and burning pieces like papers in the wind. I went deaf. I had to have gone deaf after a sound like that. I could feel it in my bones as burning debris flew.
I lay there on my back, behind that concrete wall, barely able to breathe, my ears ringing and my vision full of stars. If one of those Enforcers was still moving... I'd be an easy target.
Everything hurt. I... I was pretty sure I had narrowly managed to escape the blast itself, but just being behind a wall didn't mean I was safe. The shockwave alone had felt like a punch to the everything.
...Eve. Where was Eve?
I tried to look from my laying position, but I couldn't do much more than loll my head to the side, turning away from the towering inferno that had become of the front end of the station towards the night sky to the other side.
...I could see something in the air. Something white... a piece of debris? No... there was other debris over there. It didn't look like that. I blinked, then squinted...
A woman in white, wreathed in flame, the fire within burning brighter than the fire without.
Eve's jump took her well into the field behind the station. She had made it far clearer than I had. Thank God.
――
I don't know how long I was laying there exactly, just... breathing. I certainly should have been more concerned about falling debris taking my head off, or the fire spreading over from the burning gasoline that had been launched everywhere. But... for some stupid reason I just didn't care. Shock, probably... but one thought kept playing through my head during all of this.
Where the hell was Tesla?
"Teslaaaa..." I groaned, "where the fuck were you in that?"
『Apologies Master, I was attempting to gauge you and the lady's performance in combat. I must say, you performed very admirably.』
"I nearly diiiieed." I groaned. If I hadn't, I'd probably be trying to punch the damn ghost's face clean off right now... but explosions do take it out of you like that.
『No, objectively you did not. Had any of those cretins stood a real chance of harming you or Eve, I would have materialized and made right of the situation. The closest you came to death was as a direct consequence of your own actions trying to defeat those men.』
...why was he like this? Why would anyone act like that? He was... eccentric, sure but... but he had left me to die, hadn't he?
"That said," a much more physical Tesla said from behind me, "now that the fighting is over, I am more than willing to help you get things in order. Come on, my diagnosis suggests there's nothing broken, let's get you standing."
I felt a pair of hands grab me by the armpits, and I was hoisted up off the ground, leaving me dangling on unsteady legs.
"Come on, you're going to need to take your own weight here. You're fine, walk it off."
Shakily, I put weight down on my legs. I wobbled a bit, but... I could stand.
"Your car is fine, by the way." Tesla elaborated. "Had the entire building between it and the explosion with where you parked it."
...I hadn't even thought about the car.
"Eve," I muttered. "Where's Eve? I saw her jump clear..."
"Here." A feminine voice said from a ways behind me.
I turned, and there she was. Standing tall next to the still-running Mustang, one arm propped against its roof, hair still over her eyes, and a worried frown on her mouth. She looked... impossibly clean for someone who just barely escaped getting caught in an explosion. Nothing burned, nothing torn... how?
"Burned the last of... charge against blast." She explained, "No more... zap left here."
She tapped one of her ear-pylons. Sure enough, it had closed back up like before the fight. Like none of it had ever happened.
"Lucky..." I groaned, my breathing heavy. "You gotta... teach me how to shrug off explosions like that... sometime."
She smiled sadly. "Love to..."
"But you probably can't... Yeah... figures." I panted, "So... what about... the other two?"
"Two?" She looked confused.
Tesla just pointed out in the direction of the one Eve had punched without looking. I followed his gesture, and... Oh.
The guy... wasn't going to be a problem. It looked like Dayloth's hammer had gotten thrown free of the explosion, and had just happened to slam straight into his friend, smashing him in two and embedding itself in a shallow crater, where it still sat grip-up, smoking. That was either incredibly lucky, or fate just being downright evil depending on how you looked at it.
Eve looked at the hammer curiously.
"Can I... take?" She asked.
I shrugged. "You think that asshole's going to be using it?"
She looked towards the still-burning inferno at the front of the station, then shrugged slightly and jumped the 40-something feet to the hammer in a quick hop.
I was never going to get used to people doing that.
"So... you mind tracking down the other one, Mr. Helpful?" I said, staring dead-eyed at Tesla expectantly. "We need to figure out how they found us."
"Very well, with a wound like that he couldn't have gotten far."
He promptly kicked off, flying over the ruined station and the smoke pillar above it like it was nothing and vanishing behind the building. For my part, I just hobbled my way over to the Mustang, and took a look at the old boy. He'd been through a lot with me, and while Tesla might think he was fine, well, I wasn't the most inclined to just take his word for it.
I'd left the keys in the ignition when I'd gone for the rocket launcher, and my Deagle sitting on the passenger seat... safety off.
I winced, and picked the gun up and carefully re-engaged the safety, and then cleared it and ejected the mag for good measure. I was lucky the thing hadn't misfired when I'd tossed it aside like that. Both the gun and mag went back in the glove box for now.
I just sat there in the driver's seat for a moment, listening to the engine run. Sounded fine, I'd had to jerk the poor boy around an awful lot in all that, ran him into a wall too, even if there was a piece-of-shit Association goon to break the impact... I deliberately averted my eyes from that particular scene. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off it was only a matter of time until the reality of killing at least two men, watching one get pulped before me, and seeing one get devoured by a fireball set in.
I looked over to where Eve was out in the field. As I watched, she gripped the hammer firmly in one hand, and gave it a tug. It came free easily, little sparks of lightning playing over it as she held it up over her head like it was Excalibur.
What had that guy called it? Shattering Justice? Ironic name for something used by a murderous contract-killing goon. Pride of his family or something? Crawling away as the hammer came down and―
Yeah. Better in her hands than his.
She did... something, and the hammer started to light up. Those circuit-like lights running across its' surface as it began to glow, little rivulets of lightning arcing across it and her, and-
CRACK-THOOM
It was a clear night. I could see the stars. That... that could happen, right? I was pretty sure that I'd heard of clear-sky lightning, but...
... No, no it hadn't been called down. More like fired from the hammer, using the weapon as a projector... it was more like one of Tesla's coils than anything mystical, right? Was still a damn imposing sight to see though.
With a hop, she cleared the distance back to me with a grin on her face like a kid who just got promised ice cream.
"Works!"
"Yeah... it does. So uhh... that thing can fire lightning?" I asked.
She shook her head. "My lightning, through it. Not from it."
Ahh, that made sense... right?
"So... what, you're using it as a channel for your electricity?"
"Eee-lect..." She rolled the word over before grinning in realization and pointing to me, "Yes! Electricity! I do Electricity through it!"
Simple enough.
"You know..." I let my voice run ahead of my brain again, "you're definitely the single most fascinating thing I've ever seen. You're amazing, like an entire scientific revolution in one..."
Oh, that was a really stupid thing to say, that came off so wrong and―Why was she blushing?
"Thank you." She said quietly.
...If that was a compliment by her standards, then what was―ight. Victor Frankenstein. Remembered only as a lumbering freak called 'Frankenstein's Monster'.
Goddamnit I really hoped that that shitty line wasn't one of the only genuine compliments she'd gotten. That would just make it even worse. I had to make it up to her somehow...
"So uhh..." I said, looking over to the hole in the side of the convenience store, "About those snacks..."
――
Surprisingly, we actually managed to reclaim a pretty good haul of assorted convenience store food, canned drinks, and even some hot dogs without getting caught in a secondary gas explosion, or burned alive, or choking on smoke (the hole in the ceiling probably helped with that one). On one hand you could call me a fool for risking my life for convenience store food... on the other hand I had more than a month's worth of convenient food for free. Who was the fool now?
I looked between the pile of food and Eve― who had a half-eaten soft pretzel dangling from her mouth like a dog, still chewing on it.
"So," I clasped my hands, "uhh... see anything you like?"
She looked down for a moment, scanning over the pile of stolen salvaged goods for a moment, before something caught her eye.
She wolfed down the remains of the pretzel like a starving dog as she snatched a... familiar neon can from the pile.
Oh no.
"Surge... like electricity?" she asked.
I didn't have the heart to warn her off it. As I watched, she cracked the can open, and brought it up to her mouth.
Okay, there were two ways this ended. Either she hated it and thought it tasted like battery acid...
"Mmmm!"
Or worse, she actually liked it.
When I saw her tilt her head back to down the entire contents of the can like it was a shot glass, I knew that God had left us.
She crushed the can with hardly a twitch, and as it fell to the ground I could see the smile on her face. Never had something so cute been so full of malevolent intent.
"More!" she shouted.
Indeed, God was dead. If we had not killed him, then the engine of destruction in front of me likely soon would. I could only watch in horror as she began rooting through the pile of loot for more of those vile neon cans.
――
I was given a merciful reprieve from the newborn sugar demon by the timely return of Tesla, descending like a saving angel from on high, with the last Enforcer thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
"Here you are Master, one wounded Enforcer, mostly still conscious. I found him trying to limp away along the highway. Lucky for us, he's not a fast limper."
Tesla dropped the man on the ground without further fanfare. Worryingly, he didn't even try to get up. His breath was coming ragged, and blood was still oozing from the wound on his leg.
"Why'd you leave him bleeding!? I asked.
"I may be a man of many talents, but medical training is not among them," Tesla answered.
"Stupid!" Eve interjected. "Not hard! Let me!"
It was like a switch had been flipped in her head the second she realized the man was bleeding out. Everything she had been preoccupied with was dropped instantly as she quickly rifled through our supplies for simple medical supplies, and promptly set about treating the man's wound.
For a woman who could barely remember English and had hair over her eyes, she was a surprisingly good doctor, steady and quick hands, not even a moment's hesitation to stain her gloves red up to the elbows in the blood of a stranger. It seemed simple at first, just a quick tourniquet to stop the bleeding, sure it wouldn't get the bullet out of his knee but it would at least keep him alive... but Eve quickly grew worried, and the bleeding slowed, but didn't stop.
"You hit his... big leg artery, can't remember name. Did my best to stop the bleeding, but wounds like this kill easy. He lost lots of blood before I could treat him. Still might die." Eve explained.
"Then it would be best to question him now before we risk losing him," Tesla advised.
It was cold. The man was a hired thug and an attempted murderer, sure. An attempted murderer of me even, but... as I approached him I felt a bit of a pit in my stomach.
"Eve, can you get him back in touch with reality?" I asked.
"Sure," she answered, and promptly slapped the man across the face.
I was about to question the effectiveness of her techniques when the man actually started to stir.
"Whutthell..." He muttered, looking up at us.
I saw his eyes adjust for a moment, a quick look between me and Eve, a moment to process... and then realization.
"Just kill me now... save us both the time," he muttered. "A candyass like you... couldn't get information out of a preschooler."
"What, not going to tell us how many more hundreds of Enforcers you fascists have hunting me like the last Jew in Europe with your last breath?" I quipped. It was a stupid, provocative statement, but...
"Hundreds? ...You? Hahhhh," the Enforcer growled. "We weren't even... looking for you. Not... really. We saw your stupid car... blazing down the highway and... decided to make a detour."
Sometimes, being stupid and provacative got you exactly what you wanted.
"Really? You had the guy who's been hunting me for the last two years and cornered me in the middle of nowhere by coincidence?" I asked.
"Idioth..." The Enforcer slurred, "Massccsim had... a whole lisss... in the vannn... of plasses we werrr... suppose ta... chheck ouut."
The blood loss was mounting, even I could tell that much. He wasn't going to make it. I watched as his eyes widened in a last-moment realization.
"Whhait... Ffuukuh." He moaned... and with that his head slumped to the side, and he went still.
I... I'd watched people die before. But... it was one thing to see someone go quickly, even if it was violent and painful. This was something else. I couldn't help but feel a pit in my stomach as Eve closed the dead man's eyes.
"So," an unphased Tesla spoke up from behind, "they had a list of locations to visit in their vehicle, did they? Well... I do believe you both saw the vehicle get thrown free from the explosion, if I might plot a trajectory..."
Tesla squinted at the flaming pyre on the building's front, and then traced a long arc through the air with his finger, before pointing out to the treeline a ways to the building's rear.
"Ah, it should be somewhere over there," he concluded. "Shall we go see if our interrogation has borne worthwhile fruit?"
I looked to the fresh corpse laying on the ground, then to the still-burning inferno then to the remains of the other Enforcers.
They were hired thugs, attempted if not outright murderers, they had quite litterally come here to kill me... but...
His head slumped to the side, and he went still.
I... it would be wrong to just leave them here to rot, right?
"Check it out yourself, Tesla. I... we'll deal with the bodies. And then we're getting out of here before something worse happens with that fire."
"Very well Master, I suppose it is in our best interest to leave sooner rather than later." Tesla acquiesced, before promptly flying off towards the treeline.
I turned to Eve, trying my best to ignore the body in front of us.
"Do you think you can... I don't know, throw them into the fire or something?" I asked, "It's not much of a funeral pyre, but—"
Eve didn't even hesitate, grabbing the body by the arms she swung it in a hammer throw, and sent it flying into the inferno, where it vanished without a trace. She looked at me with an expression like 'what were you expecting?'.
"Alright... how about I get the car ready and you get rid of the others?" I asked, already on my way towards the Mustang.
Eve sighed, but accepted my deal. Between the two of us, there was exactly one with superhuman strength, and one with a driver's license. It wasn't exactly unfair to work to our respective strengths, right?
――
A few minutes later we were departing the gas station, the towering inferno we... I had created slowly vanishing into the distance.
As it turned out, while it had been thrown a good distance, the Enforcers' van had survived almost miraculously intact... by which I mean that it was only mostly melted into charred and mangled sludge, and was only burning a little bit when Tesla found it. Which meant that the interior was partially salvageable, including the glove box containing the list of locations the Enforcer had mentioned.
It was about nine items long, scrawled in messy handwriting and with just under half the entries struck through in a way that made it a bitch to figure out what they actually said. But the remainder were clear. Addresses, directions, location names. It was a hit list. For what... well, we couldn't quite be sure, but to be frank whatever the Association had loosed their attack dogs on, it couldn't hurt for us to beat them to the punch. At the very least, it was a better plan than wandering the countryside just hoping to run across something magical to take notes on.
The closest location on the list was a castle apparently nestled in the middle of the Carpathians, on the border of Transylvania. Either homey or prime real estate for a horror movie, depending on how you looked at it. I could figure out which it was when we got there.
In the meantime, we had a road trip...
A road trip for which I was distinctly low on gas. Right.
Goddamnit.
A/N: And after way, way too many words of setting things up, we have our first action scene. I hope you all enjoy Eve punching motherfuckers into space and Masters being... mildly capable of handling himself. Only mildly though.
