Gina woke to the sound of a pot being banged loudly with a spoon.
"Ugh." Ro covered her ears under her blankets. "Go away."
"Ro," Gina shook her, "Ro that's the breakfast call. Today is the day that we face the-" she was going to say the fate of the world but that sounded too frightening. "That we face the alien creature. If we lose today Ro, our world changes for everyone. We may no longer exist anymore." She shivered at the thought. Nonexistence. The word struck fear into her heart.
Ro groaned and pushed Gina away, interrupting her shaking. "Stop shoving me, I'm up I'm up..." her eyelids fluttered," ...already." She promptly started snoring again.
"Ro! Come on!" Gina said, as she tugged on her new breeches and vest over her other underthings and tried not to feel bare. She would need all the mobility she could get to fight the creature. She put on the boots last; enjoying the feeling of the material against her skin.
If Ro can do wear this, so can I.
She slid her knife into her boot. The nanogenes should protect her, but just in case she always carried one. She had tried not to be so reliant on the nanogenes since the accident with Amryn.
She stood up and pushed the flap to the front of the tent out of the way. The morning sun had risen over the treetops, and the grass was still wet with dew from the night before. It would have been a beautiful morning if the day wasn't so somber, and Gina's mind hadn't been so preoccupied.
Today, she thought with shock. This is actually happening. A battle. The last thing I may ever do is defend earth on this very ground.
Ro stepped out of the tent, pulling her boot on as she went, almost tumbling forward.
"Thinking again, my friend? That's a sure sign of trouble."
The teasing lightened Gina's somber mood.
"Me thinking is just fine. It's you that I worry about."
"I assure you my powers of cognition are just fine," Ro said.
"That's what I was afraid of," Gina tsked. "we don't want you to strain yourself before the fight."
Ro punched her in the arm.
"Healergizer."
"Stealk."
Ro punched her again.
"Ro!" Gina laughed. "I'm going to have a bruise!"
Gina covered her arm with her hands, giving Ro a pointed look.
"Don't give me that face. You and I both know that you deserved that."
It seemed strange to be playing on a day such as this one, but Gina needed it. She didn't want to become so consumed by her worry at the wait for the battle that she couldn't do what needed to be done when it arrived.
They walked up to the tent where breakfast was being served, eating quickly and following one of the many frantic scientists hurrying around with tight looks to the most pinpointed area of immersion for the creature.
"This spot right here," he pointed to an area that was marked, "Is our best bet for where the Fu'nas will come to the ground. We have moved everything back, but we anticipate a battle, and out equipment will most likely be damaged to some extent." He looked tense and gruff. "The battle will be here if our calculations are right. Today is the day of awakening. Be ready."
They gathered as a team by the marking and gathered weapons and power as the other Lia'unnians moved supplies away. If they failed today...
"We are the world's last hope," Amryn whispered, seeming anxious. "I would normally try and lighten the mood with a joke... But I just can't find it in me to say anything."
They nodded together and went back to silence.
Quill spoke first, "We need a strategy. A formal one. We discussed tactics back at Woodside, but we never agreed on anything."
Woodside feels like it happened years ago instead of days, Gina thought to herself.
"How about grab and stab?" Ro suggested, flicking a bug off of her pants.
"Perhaps something a little more detailed...." he said with a small smile.
"What if Gina uses her enhanced abilities to channel Quill's power?" Amryn asked.
"That could work. Gina and I would subdue the creature's will while you and Ro could sneak in and finish it off. Vienn said during one of the briefings that the scales of this creature are massive and almost unbreakable. Maybe Gina can amp Ro's strength to the max and then Ro can go at the scales with speed from Amryn?"
"I like it. Me and Amryn hacking and bashing. Sounds good to me." Ro shot Gina a devilish grin. "Healergizer here finally has a use."
"I've always had a use!" Gina called back. "Besides, this mission relies on me. You should be trying to stay on my good side."
Ro "hmphed" nonchalantly, and went back to sitting.
They waited for hours until the sun had already reached its peak and started its descent. The air was cooler, and the shadows were setting in over the treetops. They waited in silence for the moment.
"We're getting readings! The creature is below us! Directly under this area. Everyone, get back! Brace yourselves."
Gina and Quill hurriedly hid behind the nearest tent as Ro and Amryn raced the other way.
"Wait-" Gina called after them. This was bad. She was already shaking from anticipation, and now their team was separated. They needed to be together for their strategy.
"I'll run in first and power up Ro," Gina decided, talking out loud. "And then I'll come back for you Quill. I know it's going to be dangerous getting over to her now, but I have to try. She needs power to break through the scales."
I just hope it's enough. We haven't had very long to plan.
Quill's lips thinned in concern. "Gina, you have to take care of yourself. This team needs you... I need you. Promise me you won't put yourself at risk unnecessarily."
Gina took Quill's face in her hands. "I'll stay safe," she whispered. Then before she could think better of it she raised herself on tiptoe and gently pressed her lips to his. She pulled away to get ready for the battle, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back into him. "Gina," he smiled. "Let me kiss you properly."
He tugged her to him and his lips found hers for the second time. The kiss was soft and warm. Everything Gina had imagined.
She ended the kiss and gave him a hug.
"No matter what happens today, know that I love you," she said.
He kissed her hands. "I love you too."
The ground beneath them began to toss and roll, throwing them around violently, as well as the other scientist's equipment.
This is it, she thought. She got ready to run to Ro.
The Fu'nas shot from the ground with an earth-shattering roar; the trees shook and the ground quaked beneath her feet. All around her was chaos; tents in a wild array, things flung from the ground; all uprooted as the monstrous beast tore them to shreds.
His claws ripped through the soil, slicing everything in his path. Gina wore a grim look. This was their moment.
She ran out into the clearing with Quill following close behind. She spotted Ro on the other side.
"Ro! Over here!"
Ro lifted her head and ran toward Gina, and Gina sent out her energy into Ro once she was in range.
"You're good," she told Ro, out of breath.
The creature roared.
"Team," she yelled over the destruction, people were running around a fire that had started somewhere and the sounds were intense, "Today we fight as our world's heroes. Whether we live or die, we die knowing we tried to save these people. For our home! For the Earth!"
Her battle cry echoed in the small land that they stood on, sitting in that moment like the lingering tremor of a seabird.
"To battle!" Ro yelled, and the others took up the words as they raced forward towards the wildly thrashing creature. It emerged fully from the ground, and turned its giant black eyes to face them. Hate filled the black pools; the sort of hate that only happens after centuries of festering despair and destruction.
This creature is purely evil, Gina thought, pushing away at the terror creeping in, the reality sinking into her bones.
Gina spun to the side as she saw a streak of green and shielded Quill with a nanoshield as the Fu'nas lashed at him with its tail. Quill started to concentrate on the energy in the creature; Gina could see wisps of the powerful black will of the creature floating in tendrils around its scaled face. She had a feeling that it wouldn't be easily controlled. The black reminded her of the depths of a pit, an inky blackness that consumed. She and Quill would need to join to try and subdue it.
"Quill, over here! Take my hand!" Her voice was growing hoarse from yelling over the chaos around her, but she continued to cry his name as she ran towards him. She shielded Ro from an attack along the way. Quill met her in the middle.
"Stick with the plan," she said. "We work together to crush its will and force it to lie down, then Ro and Amryn take it out."
He nodded tersely, holding out his hand. She grasped it as hard as she could; giving him as many nanogenes as possible.
She felt the flow of his nanogenes and hers meeting and merging; becoming one. She could see the blobs of will floating over the heads of the scientists, and more clearly the infinite black of the Fu'nas.
She lifted her hand with his, fingers clasped tightly to Quill's. Their combined wills hit the creature and it swayed a little.
Its working! Gina thought.
Her thoughts cleared and a single mindedness took its place.
"Submit!" Gina and Quill called as one voice, mentally straining, trying to bend the creature to their wills.
The black flickered but came back.
"Submit!" They called again, watching the blackness squirm a little before regaining its earlier form.
Spoke too soon, didn't you? The pessimist snidely remarked.
Hush! Gina told it.
"Submit!" She yelled in an explosive roar, and pushed mentally as hard as she could. The black shriveled back some. It was damaged now; only about half its original size.
The creature screamed and went to the ground. The world around her shook.
Oh no. Bad bad bad. Ro will think that-
"No! Ro wait!" Gina waved her arms in wild motions overhead in a desperate attempt to catch the red head's attention. "Stop! It's not done yet!"
Ro couldn't hear her over the creature's screeching cries. "I've got you now," Ro said, catching on to Amryn as he ran full speed at the creature. She launched herself at the scales and struck the blade in her hands down into the crevice around the scale as far as it would go. The sword made a whooshing sound as it arced through the air. It struck home.
The scale jostled on its point a little, but it didn't come off. The pit's of the eyes darkened. It tried to roll over on top of Ro and Amryn, swishing hugely on its scaled hind legs and
Ro leaped out of the way just in time. But Amryn wasn't so lucky.
He tied to speed away but before he could start running the Fu'nas' side crashed into his back, sending him sprawling in the dirt. He didn't move.
Amryn! She thought, horrified. She was too hoarse to yell any more.
Keep calm. Deep breaths. You can heal him.
Quill yelled in anger beside her, and she could feel his will try again against the weakened black mass over the creature. He damaged it a little further.
With a sharp intake of breath, Gina noticed that the black was healing itself. They didn't have very long before it would be whole again, and she and Quill had already taxed some of their reserves. They needed something big.
A giant tail swung like a bludgeon and knocked Ro over. She fell down and didn't get up either. She seemed to wither before Gina's eyes, growing paler and smaller. Her arm was bent at an odd angle, and her head seemed to be bleeding badly.
I have to heal them. Gina tugged Quill after her as she dodged attacks from the creature. It seemed to be temporarily distracted by the fires lit on the tents, the flickering light reflecting on its glassy black eyes.
"Get Amryn and meet me by Ro! Go now!" She said as loudly as her voice would allow. "I'm going to try and save them."
Quill took off at a furious pace, scooping Amryn up like he was a paperweight. Amryn's hand hung limply from outside of the arms Quill wrapped around him. He ran back to Gina, setting AMryn down.
She grabbed all of their hands. Quill and Ro and Amryn. She pumped them with her nanogenes, and then whispered, "Give me your genes."
Ro squeezed her hand weakly and Quill nodded. Amryn didn't move his head in acknowledgment but he twitched a bit and that was all Gina needed.
She opened herself to reception and felt their different colored nanogenes enter her. She felt alive in a way she had never felt before: like a vibrant rainbow was living inside her, dazzling and bright and powerful. She realized it was energy. Beyond anything she had ever experienced.
Her eyes began to glow with the different genes: Quill's blue swirling with Ro's red and Amryn's green. She had never seen Amryn's nanogenes before, but they felt wild and growing. They beamed with a green life-filled glow.
Her purple connected it all.
Her dress rippled and the air around her crackled like it was electricity. Her hair spun in a whipping spiral force around her head. She threw her head back and flew up into the air with the super-enhanced agility and leg power she had borrowed. Her friends hung in the air next to her, limbs and figures bending back into place and color returning to their completions as Gina's healing magic engulfed them in powerful surges of nanohealing energy.
"You shall not take this world," Gina's voice carried with the strength of all four of their voices, all of their tones merging into one combined voice. Her words projected over the entire plain, her tone deep and rumbling. "We are its protectors, foul beast. None shall destroy us! We. Are. The. Enhanced!" She screamed the last words, her eyes a blazing white, and flew toward him as fast as the wind. Air whipped behind her and the energy formed a massive bolt in her hand. The others, now healed, were in fighting stances in flight behind her.
She raced toward it with her energy bolt. It struck the creature with a resounding crack that deafened her ears. Then she gave everyone Quill's blue nanogenes, feeling like it was waves of the ocean rolling out of her. Blue and warm and everything good, with hints of salty sadness in their depths.
The nanogenes must take on the personality of the person. So if Quill's blue represents a solid personality what does purple mean?
Ro looked at hers, her eyes glowing the same color of their normal blue. Her voice rumbled the same way Gina's had. "I see the will, Gina. Let's finish this."
They all as one unit moved their minds out to subdue the creature's will. It struggled, but it was no match for their combined power.
"Shrah!" The creature gave a last deadly cry, desperately clawing at the ground to flee away. Gina gripped its throat with her hand.
She felt the nanogenes fuse and turn her hand hot with white heat. She dug her fingers into the scales and they came out. The black will of the Fu'nas died. Then the creature itself began to shake and dissolve before her eyes, blazing blue, green, red, purple, then finally, all was still. The silence after a storm.
Lia'unnians cheered down below Gina's feet, and the shout was raised all the way to the nearby town where there was weeping and rejoicing. They didn't know what it was that had been so frightening and turned the sky so dark, but Dorchester was a superstitious place and they could feel the evil presence leave. Few would ever know the real story of the heroes of Earth in its greatest peril. But the legends lived on.
The Lia'unnians sang what must have been a victory song, as Gina stood, still stunned by the battle.
Lift your voice as one to the hills
Those mighty mountains that gleam
As sun spills over our hearts remember
The price of this victory
The men who were lost and the ones that were saved
The cowardice of some and the others who were brave
We know in our hearts that this day we have slain
The evil that has walked these many plains
The haunting melody hung in Gina's ears as she felt herself becoming heavier. The power was leaving her.
Gina gave the nanogenes back to her friends, dropping herself and them to the ground. The energy left her in a startling drain, gone in what felt little more than an instant. She felt so tired. More tired than she had ever been before. Dark circles formed beneath her eyes, and her skin grew grey. She was bone-weary.
Gina fell in a heap on the ground, sagging beneath the weight of the strong gravity that once again gripped her in its unrelenting hands.
She lifted a hand to the blurry figure over her. It was Vienn.
"Who..." She groaned weakly, "who needs healing still? How... how many injured?"
"Rest Gina. There will be time later."
She grasped his wrist. "How many?"
"One," he said. "When the fire exploded in the cook room, Tan'reos died. He was long in his years, and had talked much about wanting an honorable death. He had his wish. We will celebrate the life that he had and not mourn him as we would a youngling."
She tightened her grip on his arm. "Take care of... Ro and Amryn. Injured."
She fell back to the ground, her hand falling from him. She felt the nanogenes in her system try to fix her but they were depleted and small. She closed her eyes and blocked out the world.
She felt Quill's fingers brush across her skin.
"She'll survive this, won't she Vienn?" He demanded.
"The energy drained Gina severely... I don't know if she can-" Quill cut him off.
"She isn't going to die," he said, picking her up in his strong arms, holding her to his chest. "She isn't. Not after all of this. Not when I can finally tell her I love her."
He made his way to the healing tent, marching through everything that got in his way.
"Not here, not now," he whispered in her ear, stroking her face. "Don't leave me. You can fight this, Gina. You're strong. Fight for me."
He loves me, Gina thought absorbing his words through her fog, wishing she could tell him she loved him. She wanted so many things: to kiss him, to hold him, to spend her life with him. Her love swelled in her chest like warm honey. She felt like an enormous smile would be on her face if she could move her face.
As Quill carried her, she slowly lost consciousness of the world, slipping instead into pleasant dreams of them kissing.