A few minutes earlier...
Kyle:
I pulled Bart by the hand, tearing through the trees, passing by Xao, his pulse cannon humming gently as I rushed past.
I pulled Bart with me behind a tree, hiding us from the camp. "Bart..." I said. "You're gonna have to trust me. There are these big black things... like humans with no eyes or noses and-"
"Creepy as hell?" Bartholomew interrupted.
"So you know," I said with a nod. "The mimics and leprechauns are in that camp, but those things, hunters, are in these woods. Our friends can easily deal with a bunch of ambling creatures like those mimics."
"That what those freaks were?" Bart asked. I nodded. "I tried to attack one, they're not weak."
"Hunters are way stronger. Indirect fire won't do much to them. Mimics will be tossed around like dolls, but hunters would be able to stand their ground. I think they can see and hear, but not the same ways as humans, which means the same tricks may not work on them."
"Your new friend uses illusions doesn't she?"
"How'd you know she was new?"
"New to me," Bart said frankly.
"Right. I need you to keep an eye out for hunters. If you see one, throw something at it, get its attention."
"Are you crazy?"
I gave a half-smile. "Maybe a little, but the point is, I can kill them. I just need them to focus on us instead of our friends." I looked over my shoulder. "There's a cliff overlooking the camp, up there," I pointed to it, risking disrupting the tree's silhouette that was hiding us. I pulled my hand down. "We have to work our way to it."
"Where's the funny girl... I mean Jessica. Did you get your deal?"
"We have to get a ship from those monsters for the deal. I have to find a weakness on it when it comes down. I don't have Jessie's ability to just blast it. You'll have to help me with the monsters... course... I guess you could just run away. None of this is your concern, I wouldn't blame you." I hung my head. I hadn't thought of that, but Bart had no reason to stay with us to fight. "You're scared right?" He nodded. I sighed. "Fine, run, I'll cover you. We'll figure this out on our own."
I waved Bart off. The boy ran a few feet away from me, then leaned down. My eyebrow went up watching him as he then got back up, pulled his hand back, and threw a rock- hitting a tree about ten meters away. The tree turned- he had a good eye.
The hunter moved towards us. "Well kill it!" Bart shouted.
I yanked out my sword Rita, the lightning blade, and pointed it at the incoming black monstrosity. CRACK! Electricity flew off the blade and impacted the creature, tearing off one of its arms the monster falling to the ground, a crunch being the first sound it had made as it hit the ground and laid down prone.
Black ooze came out of its wound. Bart ran over to the fallen monster. He folded his arms. "If I can save Jess, I'm doing it."
I smiled. It had been only a few days ago, but it seemed like forever. I remembered when Jessica got injured, this kid had actually been eager to help her. Should I really have been surprised he was still willing?
"You're my eyes!" I shouted. I jumped from the tree.
Bart and I cut through the trees, the noise of the camp resounding through the trees. Bright lights, sirens, explosions- seemed Xao and Jay were doing their job well.
We turned and headed for the cliff, Bart quickly yelling behind me. "HUNTER!"
"Hit the deck!" Bart dropped to the ground as I turned, holding my sword out, scanning the trees. A huge black clawed hand was coming straight at Bartholomew. The hand wrapped around the boy, who had curled into a ball. I threw Rita back in her scabbard and pulled out my second blade.
The second blade I called the blue assassin. It was a double-bladed sword, with a long handle and a dagger-like hilt. I ran towards Bart as he was being pulled towards a black creature, screaming for me to save him.
I gripped my weapon with both hands, marked how far I was from the trees behind the monster-and jumped.
I came out of the jump, my sword covered in the monster's black blood. The creature was now looking at me. It had released Bart and now both hands were coming towards me. Electricity shot to my hands as I swung at the creature's right incoming hand, slicing through it. Electricity shot to my left hand as I pulled it back, slamming the dagger into the left hand and wrenching it through.
I then pulled out Rita again, firing an electric blast at the creature, blasting through its chest. The monster dropped to the ground.
Back to work, I ran towards the cliff, yelling for Bart to keep up as he was about to recover his breath.
I finally came to the cliff. I looked up- there it was.
A flying saucer, some thirty feet across, descended, getting closer and closer to the ground. It was spinning as it came down.
I tried to talk myself through what to do. "If the outside is spinning, the inside must be stationary or anything inside would be hopelessly dizzy. Um... that means the engines have to be below... shoot how do I attack that? I thought for sure..."
Bart came up beside me. "How you gonna take it down?"
"I thought I would shoot out the engines..."
"You think the engines are dead center?" he asked.
"Probably, so that's not an option so..."
"So it spins using centrifugal force to sort of steer and hold position with an engine in the center- ya think?"
"About that.... you're only eleven, how do you understand all that?"
"What? You didn't notice. I love mechanics. That thing is kinda like a top. If you want to destabilize it, quickest way is to damage the outer edge and make the weight distribution unequal, it'll wobble like crazy then and be forced to land... think your lightning blade can do that?"
I pulled three metal tent stakes out of my satchel, attaching one of my small magnets to each. I then ran the blade of Rita along each of them. "Directly? Heck no, the damage I could make with this lightning blade would be insignificant. However, a while back, I discovered I could use this sword to make... sort of electric bombs. They could blow up anything. Over time I trained the ability to time the explosions and be able to make more than one."
"You think that thing has shields?" Bart asked.
"Most likely. It has two settings, either an energy shield for projectile or absorption for energy, I've dealt with the like before. If they deflect one, they can't deflect the other. My electric attack can't really hurt a ship that size. But they don't know that- they also won't know what these are."
I turned and pointed my magnet weapon at the ship, firing a small magnet at it. To the naked eye, it probably looked like just a scrap falling towards the ship.
I swallowed and looked back at Bart as a gust of wind from the ship shot out around us. I shouted, "If that thing fires on me, I'm dead- I'm not asking kid- run!" Bart hesitated. I was about to point Rita at him but stopped. That was never necessary. "JUST GO!"
Bartholomew tore away.
I held the now magnetized stakes over my device. They shot up into the air for several kilometers. If someone didn't know what they were for, they probably looked like meaningless debris.
I held Rita with both hands, pointing her at the ship. Electric pulses shot down my arms and fired into the sword, amplifying and firing at the ship as near lightning.
A field of energy quickly surrounded the ship, the lightning flashing away from the hull, ripping out into the air meaninglessly.
In my mind 'NOW!'. I slipped my finger down to my magnatron.
The magnets on the stakes activated, they shot down, pulled towards each other, and straight towards the ship, straight towards my planted magnet, spinning near the edge.
A laser shot out of the ship, impacting the cliff below me. I closed my eyes, ready to accept if this was fate.
BOOM!
The massive ship careened to the side, almost flipping with the force of its own weight like a top struck on the side. The laser shot just overhead, ripping alongside the cliff, missing me by a hair's breadth and burning through the trees a fire sweeping over the forest.
(***)
J-Star:
A series of three explosions seemed to go off near the outer rim of the ship. The whole vessel banked left and right spontaneously, suddenly crashing into the side of the clearing.
I pushed a button for a device on my left hip. I had just opened a com-link. "Tarth... they did it."
"Did what? There was no deal from you."
"No, I didn't make a deal. The boys just took down a spaceship the size of a small building... bigger than that really."
"What did they do?"
"I don't know but it's crashed with a small hole on the outer rim- otherwise most of the damage is probably from the crash it just experienced.... how are we supposed to get this thing to a distribution center or something for study?"
"Don't worry, I'll handle that."