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There’s no scar on his chest. No mark. Nothing.
“My warships hold your world’s most important cities. It should be clear by now that your planet is finished. And yet, you still resist. . . .”
Setrákus Ra’s tone is even and condescending. Marina, Ella and Nine crowd in behind me as he drones on.
“Did he get plastic surgery or something?” Nine asks. “What’s with his face?”
I take a closer look. Setrákus Ra’s features are as sharp as ever, his head still shaved, the purple scar on his neck still puffy. He’s pale, dark eyed, and yet . . . he looks less haggard than when I last saw him. He doesn’t look so old or nearly so monstrous. He looks much closer to the young version of Setrákus Ra that we all saw in Ella’s vision.
“He can shape shift, can’t he?” Marina asks.
“No,” Ella says. “The staff he used for that was destroyed in New York City. This . . . this is something else.”
“Lorien,” I say. “It’s got to be from the Loric energy he stole.”
“I gave humanity an ultimatum,” Setrákus Ra continues. “Surrender unconditionally and turn over to me those humans infected with Legacies. Only the wise leaders of Russia saw the wisdom in my words. Only they understood that these Legacies now afflicting humanity are a disease, something passed on from an alien species driven extinct by their own hubris. They are a sickness that only I can cure.”
“I am not fucking extinct,” growls Nine.
Setrákus Ra puts a hand on his chest, like he’s feeling an emotion. “I understand how paradigm shifts can be difficult. I understand that acknowledging humanity’s subservience is troubling for the unenlightened. I am not a monster. I do not wish to see your cities razed, to shed blood needlessly, and so I allowed the deadline I set to lapse. I gave humanity time to come to its senses. I showed mercy.”
Setrákus Ra leans towards the camera, and I instinctually lean away from the screen.
“No more,” he says, his tone suddenly icy. “This transmission is being broadcast simultaneously to the captains of my fleet. My loyal followers, humanity has refused to embrace Mogadorian Progress. They must be shown the way. We will lead them towards enlightenment with fire and blood.”
Marina covers her mouth with her hand. Ella stares daggers at the screen. Lexa focuses on flying, pushing the ship’s engine beyond its breaking point. Nine’s fists clench, his knuckles cracking. I stare at the spot on Setrákus Ra’s chest where I struck, where I almost killed him. Not good enough. None of it was good enough.
Setrákus Ra takes a deep breath and bellows.
“All warships! Open fire!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
FIVE FLIES FORWARD AT TOP SPEED. HE HOLDS his blaster by the barrel, not bothering to shoot it. Instead, he wields the weapon like a club. He hits the line of Mog warriors like a whirlwind, caving in their skulls with his weapon’s handle. As he dusts one Mog, he grabs a second blaster from the Mog’s disintegrating hand. When one of the warriors tries to leap on his back, Five throws a vicious elbow, his metal carapace causing a resounding crunch. He shoves one Mog back with telekinesis, lets him bounce off the wall, then headbutts him to the ground.
I’ve never been so happy to see Five.
“Traitor! Beloved Leader gave you everything!” Phiri Dun-Ra shrieks at Five. She unleashes a fireball in his direction. Five ducks to the side—his bathrobe catches on fire—but the heat doesn’t harm his metal skin.
“He gave me nothing!” Five yells back, and flings one of his blasters end over end at Phiri. It hits her right between the eyes and knocks her off her feet. Dark blood coats her face, her nose broken.
If I was Phiri Dun-Ra, I would’ve caught that blaster with my telekinesis, no problem. I realize that just because Phiri is capable of stealing my Legacies, that doesn’t mean she knows how to use them. She’s lashing out with one Legacy at a time, trying to do the most damage while not playing any defense.
It gives me an opening.
With Phiri stunned, I wrap my hands around the Voron noose and yank it out of her grasp. I pull it over my head before any of her cronies can stop me. Most of them are too distracted with Five anyway.
Now I just need to get her piercing tentacles out of my back.
Phiri’s pushed herself up on her elbows, shaking off Five’s blow. I lunge forward from my knees and drive my forearm right into her throat, trying to cave in her windpipe.
She gurgles once and then reacts. I feel a tearing sensation in my back as Phiri’s tentacles lift me off of her. They turn me over and send me straight up, face-first into the ceiling and then back down to the floor.
I’m dazed, the wind knocked out of me, a tooth loose in my mouth. I’m still hooked to Phiri Dun-Ra. I can hear her coughing, as well as the dull, bludgeoning sounds of Five working his way through the vatborn squadron.
When my eyes finally focus, I notice the Thin Mog has edged closer to the fray. He cups his hands in front of his mouth and exhales another cloud of those spores he used to mind control Mark and the soldiers. In the darkened hallway, the only light Five’s smoldering robe, the spores look like a cloud of spiders.
“Five!” I manage to yell, tasting blood as I do. “Watch out! Don’t breathe those in!”
Five slams one of the last vatborn to the ground just as I finish my warning. He turns his head, confused, and sees the spores coming at him. His chest puffs out as he tries to hold his breath, but they’re already all over his mouth and nose. They move with a mind of their own, forcing their way up his nostrils and through his lips.
No. If they mind control Five, all will be lost. No one will survive this place.
I try to shove myself towards the Thin Mog, but Phiri’s tentacles are still digging into my back. I’m too weak.
The telltale black veins are already spreading across Five’s face. His grip loosens on his blaster, and his skin goes back to normal. His back arches as the burning robe comes in contact with his normal flesh.
“Yes . . . ,” the Thin Mog commands. “Don’t fight it.”
Five glares murderously at the Thin Mog. He’s frozen in place, though, his muscles twitching, out of his control.
“Hey.”
The Thin Mog manages to half turn at the voice. That’s the last thing he does. Sam, having crept out from one of the nearby cells, pulls the trigger on a blaster at point-blank range. The shot takes the back of the Thin Mog’s head clean off. The hallway is suddenly filled with those spores, like a piñata burst. It’s like the Thin Mog’s entire head was packed with the moldy growths, the things now floating harmlessly to the floor, where they wilt and turn to ash.
Rattled, Five sneezes and spits, shaking off the Thin Mog’s grasp.
“John—,” Sam starts to say, but then his eyes widen, and he dives back into the cell just ahead of a jagged piece of dark-colored ice.
Phiri Dun-Ra is back on her feet. She reels me towards her using her tentacles. With most of her backup dead, her eyes are suddenly wild and desperate.
“Extraction!” she shrieks into an earpiece. “I need extraction!”
Five rams into her, grabbing her around the throat with two hands. His skin is the speckled white and black of the tile floor. Phiri lets a gout of fire loose in Five’s face, but it only singes his carapace and makes him angrier. His hands tighten around her neck.
It’s a relief when one of Phiri’s tentacles slides out of my back. That feeling doesn’t last long. Phiri lashes the oily appendage around Five’s neck and lifts him off the ground so that his feet are no longer touching the tile floor. His skin loses its hardened coating—now it’s back to normal—and
Phiri is able to squeeze his throat closed with her tentacle.
Now’s it’s Five wheezing for breath.
“Let’s see what you have for me, boy,” Phiri says. The sharpened end of her tentacle slaps across Five’s face, seeking out his empty eye socket. She’s going to attach herself to Five like she’s attached herself to me.
That’s when I see Five’s blade lying abandoned on the floor. One of the Mogs he dusted must have been carrying it.
“Five!” I shout, trying to get his attention as he starts to turn blue. I stretch my leg out as far as I can and kick the blade towards him. I hope he can hear it skittering across the floor.
Before Phiri can plug into Five, he uses his telekinesis to yank his blade towards him and strap it to his arm. It’s so smooth, I get the sense that’s not the first time Five’s practiced that move. And what comes next . . . well, I know Five’s got experience in this area.
With maniacal glee, Five stabs at Phiri Dun-Ra. He hacks away at the tentacle around his neck until it’s nothing but pulp and he’s able to drop to the floor. His skin takes on the hardened tile texture again, just in time to absorb a desperate burst of fire from Phiri. Undeterred, Five goes right for the mass of ooze attached to her shoulder, mutilating it until the tentacles attached to me drop loose and wither to ash. Phiri screams in frustration, even as her sick appendage keeps regrowing. Every time it does, Five seems almost glad to get another chance to slash it apart. I’d almost forgotten how sadistic he is.
“Just kill her, Five!” I yell, edging backwards across the floor and grimacing as I notice the size of the blood trail I leave behind.
“Don’t rush me,” he snarls.
The Shadow Mog emerges from the darkness behind Phiri Dun-Ra. This must be the extraction she was screaming for a few seconds ago. He wraps his arms around Phiri’s waist and yanks her backwards, the shadows like liquid around them, swallowing them up.
Except Five doesn’t let go. He buries his blade in Phiri’s shoulder and launches himself through the shadows after them. The teleportation is completely soundless. One second they’re here and the next the hallway is completely still. Wherever the Shadow Mog brought Phiri to, he took Five with them.
