The entrances to Macy's weren't just surrounded by zombies. They were buried underneath them. The horde pressed against the doors like a tidal wave of inhumanity, climbing over each other in piles two and three men deep. They clawed at the glass, desperate to break through and do their master's bidding. On the other side, the front lines of the tiger's army pushed back against the horde with equal force. Beckett and Ryan led the civilians to the fourth floor food court, then Ryan jogged the perimeter of the first floor, watching the tenuous tug-of-war between both sides.
Ryan then joined back up with his friends in the center aisle of the makeup department. "Those doors aren't going to hold for long under all that stress," he told them.
The group jumped at the sounds of breaking glass, immediately assuming that one of their barricades had finally given way. Beckett was looking up, though, instead of around her...a motion that caught the group's attention immediately. "I think that glass broke on the second floor," she told them.
Beckett raced up the escalator, Castle hot on her heels. She crossed the floor carefully, scanning the area in case a zombie climbed over his cohorts or worse, the wizard had used the zombie distraction to get into the store. When Beckett got within sight of the windows, though, she discovered she had no need to worry.
A small group of soldiers had taken mannequins and smashed through the windows overlooking Herald Square. They then jumped into the windows, letting out an explosive, roaring battle cry before leaping into the fray.
On the first floor, the soldiers looked up in response to their brothers' call to battle, then turned to Esposito for guidance.
"Leave only enough to secure the doors," Esposito ordered, "the rest of you...upstairs."
Fifty men on the front lines stayed behind, fighting twice as hard to protect those trapped inside the store. The rest of the army sprinted up the escalators and across the store to follow their spirit-brothers out the window to the battle below, nearly plowing over Beckett in the process.
Ryan and Esposito helped their friend up from her spot where she had fallen, then the trio stopped to look out at the scene below them. It seemed like they were watching a massive five-against-one training session...if it wasn't for the life vs. undeath air surrounding the combatants. None of them had had any idea what the army of the prophecy would look like. The last thing they expected was to see a supernatural army composed of a thousand angry New Yorkers. Every member of the tiger's army was outnumbered at least five to one...yet they were not only holding their own in the fight, but the tide was quickly turning in their favor.
The first wave of soldiers pulled the pile of zombies away from the doors of the store, hurtling each of them into unconsciousness with the strength and speed the tiger's gift had given them. This freed up their spirit-brothers to join them outside.
The rest of the zombies continued to back away from Macy's, their prey apparently forgotten. Their more urgent priority had become staying upright in the face of the power that was now opposing them.
Ryan noticed the concern edged with jealousy in the expression on his partner's face. "So...General Esposito," he teased his partner, "care to join your men on the battlefield?"
A devilish smile crawled across Esposito's face as, without responding, he took his own leap out the window. Esposito was an automatic target for the horde, though, almost immediately overwhelmed by the snarling, drooling, mass of humanity surrounding him when he hit the ground. He punched and kicked at the circle of bodies surrounding him, hoping against all rational hope that he could get out from under this mess that he had gotten himself into. The horde latched onto his limbs as he punched, and Esposito could feel the pop in his shoulder blades as the zombie mob stretched his arms to the limits of what his body allowed. He gritted his teeth, idly wondering whether he was going to feel his arms get pulled out of their sockets before he felt the first bite of teeth digging into his flesh.
Neither happened. Esposito collapsed to his knees as one arm was forcibly released, then the other. He looked up from that prone position to see Ryan and Beckett leading three of his men in pushing the attacking horde away from him. Beckett then turned back to her friend and offered a hand to help him up. "More battle than you could handle, 'General'?" she teased.
Esposito rolled his eyes even as he allowed his friends to pull him to a standing position. "Just wait until the next time we're sparring..." he grumbled.
Ryan allowed himself just a flash of a genuine smile before swinging around to punch the zombie barreling down behind them.
Castle watched the battle below him, feeling paralyzed, powerless and frustrated. He knew he couldn't make the jump from the second story window under his own power, but when every inch of Herald Square was covered with bodies in some state of consciousness, he had no safe place to blink down to. Castle watched Esposito go down in horror, then in relief as Ryan and Beckett rescued his friend and brought him back into the fight.
Was this it? he thought. The battle had turned in their favor, but only from overwhelming defeat to barely breaking even. For every two zombies the army brought down, two by-standers were turned and attacked. Could the tiger's army withstand the onslaught?
One of the soldiers jumped back up to Castle's viewpoint on the second floor and spoke to him with the voice of the tiger. Why are you still here, Sìfāng?
"I...I don't know how to help," Castle replied.
A picture rose in Castle's mind. The wizard they were fighting was walking away from Herald Square, heading uptown among a crowd of his minions.
I will take care of my own, Sìfāng. Focus on finding and defeating *him*, and this battle will end.
The wave of zombies didn't retreat using the 34th street route that their creator had brought them down. It was Ryan who first realized the wizard's next intended destination for his army. The detective sprinted down Broadway, hoping that both his friends and the tiger's army would hear him. "They're being herded to Times Square! Head them off!"
Castle followed the tiger's advice and focused on finding the other wizard. He found himself behind the tiny NYPD precinct in Times Square. Castle quickly checked both sides of the One Times Square building, finding the wizard at the head of a tidal wave of chaos coming up Broadway. Cars were stopped on both sides of 42nd street, ignoring the traffic lights to gawk at the 'parade' of violence in front of them. Even in the mass of humanity surrounding him, though, Castle's focus was only on his opponent. His voice was laced with power as he declared, "This needs to end, wizard!"
The wizard stopped, doubled over with an arrogant laughter that echoed through the area. "Who's going to stop me? You? No one has stopped me so far!"
Castle's eyes flashed blue with fury, his rage overruling any other thought or emotion. A ball of blazing orange fire condensed in his hand. "We'll see about that," he spat out quietly as he flung the fireball at his enemy.
The wizard's shield flashed a blazing red as he deflected Castle's fireball to explode into the concrete side of a nearby building. He looked...impressed. "Hmmm. I am surprised. That was far more than I could have expected...from an infant. Which will make your valiant death all the more tragic." The wizard countered Castle's fireball with a fireball of his own.
Castle caught the wizard's fireball and flung it back at him. While the wizard's shield deflected any damage he would have received from his own magic, the kinetic power of the impact sent him flying back into his slaves, who backed away from their master in fear even as a small handful cushioned his fall and helped him back to his feet. "And so the battle begins..." declared Castle.
Ryan caught up with Castle, keeping his distance as his friend traded blows with the enemy wizard. Beckett followed closely behind Esposito, who found his partner in the crowd at 43rd street, trying to enlist the help of the uniforms and control the growing crowd. It wasn't hard to see why Ryan was having trouble. Eyes widening slowly in bewildered amazement, Esposito gasped out, "They think this is a *show*, don't they? Some kind of street performance?"
Ryan nodded. "At least they've kept their distance so far."
"Thank God for small favors," commented Beckett. "How's Castle doing?"
"Holding his own. Thing is...every time Castle gets a hit on the other guy, one of the zombies goes back to normal."
Esposito's eyes widened at that revelation. "Seriously, bro?" When Ryan nodded, Esposito declared, "Then let's make sure Castle can get as many hits as possible."
They took up positions surrounding their wizard: Ryan on his right, Esposito on his left and Beckett behind him. Castle noticed his friends almost instinctively, shielding them with only the barest thought given to the task. The three detectives fought fiercely; taking down any opponent (human or not) that crossed their path.
Castle hardly noticed them. His focus was on one thing and one thing only: bringing his enemy to his knees, bit by painful bit. When Castle threw a bolt of pure energy at the wizard, his shield deflected it into the lights of 42nd Street, shorting them out. The wizard then threw a white-hot fireball at Castle, who deflected the ball harmlessly into a high arc that landed in the Hudson River. The two wizards traded blow after blow, sometimes absorbing the energy into their shields, sometimes deflecting the blows into the air, surrounding lights and billboards. Castle watched every deflected blow carefully, 'wishing' away any shot that could hurt the masses of people he sensed were still surrounding them.
The enemy wizard fell to the ground, collapsing as his energy left him. The amount of raw power the 'infant' had under his control left the wizard speechless. And his allies...each seemed to be formidable warriors on their own, but the army they had at their command was a force that he knew he would be unable to conquer. The wizard was starting to understand that this battle was going to be his last.
So, in one final act of desperation, the wizard called up his last remaining energy and vanished in retreat. He was dumped unceremoniously on the steps of the TKTS building. Unable to stand, the wizard crawled down the stairs to fall prostrate at the feet of a young asian man sitting at the bottom level. "Master, I have failed you," the wizard choked out in a voice that was part whisper and part sob. "I wanted to give you this world...but it is protected."
The young man's dark eyes were serene; his response was quiet. "Where is your staff, my son?"
"At the top of the staircase, master."
The young man sighed...a sound that was louder than it should have been and full of barely contained annoyance. Without saying another word he climbed the staircase. He picked up the staff, watching with a sense of smug satisfaction as the dragon turned from silver to gold in his presence. The dragon master returned to ground level to take care of his apprentice. "You did your best, my child."
The wizard wept with gratefulness at the compliment. "Thank you, master."
"Unfortunately, that just shows me how weak and incompetent you truly are."
The dragon master drove the staff through the back of his apprentice and deep into the concrete, skewering the older man through the heart. He then pulled out the staff with a grunt and walked through the crowd to face this world's 'protectors'.
The people surrounding the TKTS booth backed away from the body in horror, trying to avoid the growing pool of blood. At that end of Times Square, there was no question in anyone's mind that this was a very dangerous, very *real* situation.
It was only then that people started to scream.
Castle turned around, scanning the area for his missing enemy. Sensing nothing of value, he asked his friends, "Anyone see where he went?"
Beckett's attention was drawn immediately to a flash of light on the other side of Times Square. Her sight focused on the source of the light...the gold dragon atop the wizard's staff. She then noticed that the hand holding that staff belonged to a much younger man. Beckett watched in horror as the staff went through the back of someone on the ground, and drew her gun almost by reflex, calling out as loud as she could muster, "NYPD! FREEZE!" She then took off toward the TKTS booth.
The sight of Beckett's gun broke the entertainment haze of the crowd surrounding them. They took off, running in all directions...including *toward* the zombies, who took full advantage. The few remaining zombies jumped at the chance to attack fresh meat, biting anyone unfortunate enough to flee within their grasp. The tiger's army, though, made short work of the newly turned zombies, knocking them out before they had any chance to understand what had happened to them.
The rest of the team followed Beckett's lead, using every gift they had to make sure they didn't lose her among the stampede. It felt like everyone within a mile of them had started running for their lives.
With one exception. A lone woman stood motionless in the chaos, paralyzed with fear. Out of the corner of his eye, Ryan noticed the stillness among the chaos. He stopped dead in his tracks when he *recognized* who the woman was. The only person whose safety was more important to him than protecting his city, his friends, or even his partner.
His wife.