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Oh man. He was about to fight a full-fledged Loric.
Why were they fighting? What the hell had gone down here?
Kopano didn’t know. He didn’t care. Five was going after Nigel. That made him an enemy.
With an unhinged scream, Five charged at them—flying, not on foot. Kopano and Ran spread out, trying to flank him. Ran launched two charged projectiles in Five’s direction, but he grabbed them with his telekinesis and redirected them at Kopano.
The two stones exploded right in front of Kopano’s face. He tightened his molecules so there wasn’t any pain, but the flash of light momentarily disoriented him.
“Kopano!” Ran shouted. “Ghost!”
Just as his vision cleared, Kopano saw Five flying right for him. Thanks to Ran, he was able to go transparent and avoid catching two of Five’s metal-plated fists to his chest. Hopefully, that would put Five off balance enough for them to counterattack.
Except Five kept going. Kopano wasn’t even his target.
It was the woman behind him. Kopano had barely registered her. Middle-aged, blond, a bloody nose. She’d just gotten back to her feet when Five loomed over her.
“Mom!” Nigel shouted.
Mom? Oh, damn.
“I brought this back for you!” Five snarled down at Nigel’s mom.
Then, he smashed a vial of black ooze across her face.
The trampled snow was cold against Taylor’s cheek. What had she been doing? Running towards something. But then she’d flipped up in the air, landed on her head, and . . .
It felt so, so good to rest after these last few days.
“Taylor! Taylor! Oh, you lazy shit, get up! Get up!”
Hands on her shoulders, shaking her. She blinked her eyes open and dazedly looked up.
“Isabela . . . ,” she said. “Hey.”
Her roommate slapped Taylor sharply on the cheek and the sting was enough to wake her up. She could still hear fighting, shouting, screaming.
So the battle hadn’t ended without her.
“He’ll kill them,” Isabela said quickly. “He’s crazy!”
Taylor scrambled to sit up. She looked across the field, saw Five soaring down to punch someone across the face.
Not someone. Kopano. Oh my God. Kopano and Ran.
“I have to help . . . ,” Taylor said, getting to her feet, intent to do whatever she could against the mad Loric.
“You have to heal him!” Isabela said, pointing towards where the snow was dark from an expanding pool of blood. “He can calm Five down!”
Taylor swallowed hard when she saw who Isabela was pointing at.
Einar.
Bea screamed and collapsed, clutching at her face. The black ooze seemed to be writhing of its own volition, worming its way into the tiny cuts caused when Five smashed the vial.
Ran grabbed Five with her telekinesis and yanked him away from Bea. He spun to face her, breathing hard, eyes wide. She recognized the look in his eyes.
Bloodlust.
He flew towards her, but she pushed at him with her telekinesis. Ran put up a wall of pure force. Five had to struggle to gain even an inch in her direction. She watched veins pop to life on his forehead, sweat beading on his face. He was coming.
Ran couldn’t hold him alone.
She didn’t have to.
A few yards away, Kopano pressed on Five with his own telekinesis. Nigel joined in, too. Together, the three of them had Five trapped in a box of telekinetic pressure. His every muscle was flexed and straining as he tried to move, flares of his own telekinesis causing the dirt and snow around his feet to churn.
Nigel took his eyes off Five for a moment, glancing at his mom, who was sitting on the ground, wiping that muck off her face and trembling. Gritting his teeth, he put a little extra force behind his telekinesis, hoping to break a few ribs.
Five still fought. Ran felt him pushing back against all of them, straining to be free. Out of the corner of her eye, she sensed movement. Taylor and Isabela. Doing something.
“What . . . ?” Kopano panted. “What do we do with him?”
“Hold him,” Ran said, through gritted teeth. “Until—”
An arm looped around Ran’s neck from behind, snuck under her chin, and cut off her air.
“Hell!” Nigel shouted, seeing Duanphen too late. “Ran! Watch out!”
Ran’s whole body arched as Duanphen sent electricity coursing through her.
Without Ran, Nigel and Kopano couldn’t maintain their grip on Five. He burst free and launched himself towards Nigel.
Taylor knelt over Einar. There was so much blood. The hole in the side of his neck was dark, the bullet having gone straight through. Einar’s eyes were glassy and empty. He stared up at the sky, unseeing.
She hesitated. Would it be so bad if he were dead? He was so pale. Taylor wasn’t sure there was even a spark left in him to rekindle.
Isabela touched Taylor’s shoulder. “Try,” she said. “We’ll need him.”
“Can’t believe I’m doing this,” Taylor muttered.
She placed her hand on Einar’s neck. His skin was deathly cold already.
Still, Taylor let her healing energy flow.
A strange memory returned to Ran as Duanphen’s electricity crackled through her.
She’d lost control of her Legacy once in Dr. Chen’s seminar. Accidentally, she had charged her desk to explode and then been forced to suck the concussive energy back in. That was the same technique she’d used to shock Nigel back to life in Iceland. Moving volatile energy from place to place, sparking molecules to life. Absorption, release, destruction.
She felt pain as Duanphen’s voltage streamed into her—pins and needles in her every nerve, spasms, blood in her mouth.
But she could take it, Ran realized. She could let the energy fill her.
“What . . . ?” Duanphen murmured in Ran’s ear, her grip loosening. “What are you doing?”
Ran didn’t exactly know. It was instinct. Duanphen’s shocking touch no longer hurt. Ran was feeding off it, soaking up the energy, letting it gather inside her.
Duanphen broke away from Ran and stumbled backwards. Ripples of currents still frolicked across Duanphen’s skin, but she wasn’t nearly as charged as she was a second ago. Ran had taken that from her.
Ran turned to face Duanphen, her fist crackling with electricity.
“This is yours,” Ran said.
She opened her palm and a bolt of lightning shot forth, all that electricity Duanphen had pumped into her let loose at once. The jagged streak hit Duanphen in the chest and left her a smoking heap, breathing but unconscious.
Ran had little time to celebrate her discovery. There was a sharp, sizzling pain in her temple. She went down to one knee and grabbed her head. The pain was coming from beneath the little scar where Walker’s people had inserted their Inhibitor chip.
It felt like something inside Ran had just burst.
Five’s hand wrapped tight around Nigel’s throat. Nigel looked up at the Loric boy, at his one eye and blemished face, and saw nothing but unfettered rage. He’d snapped. There was no reason in there.
With a mighty bellow, Kopano shoulder-blocked Five away from Nigel. The two of them got tangled up and rolled to the ground, punching each other, steel fists hitting unbreakable skin.
Kopano. God bless ’im. Always saving Nigel’s ass.
As they fought on the ground, Kopano snaked one of his hands up to press against the side of Five’s head. For the briefest of moments, it went transparent, Kopano’s fingers disappearing beneath Five’s steel carapace.
Five reeled backwards with a howl of pain, clutching at his face. “What did you do to me?”
Kopano, still on the ground, turned his head to yell towards the road. “Walker! Use my Inhibitor! WALKER! USE MY INHIBITOR!”
The second time Kopano screamed out his nonsense order to his mysterious ally, Nigel used his Legacy to augment the sound, make it carry. He couldn’t do much—beaten up and breath
less—but he could do that.
Suddenly, Five’s whole body jerked. He lost control of his Legacy, the steel skin turning back to soft, pink flesh. He fell to his hands and knees.
Kopano scrambled to his feet with a triumphant cheer. “It worked! I—”
Five stood back up. His head twitched back and forth, shaking off the debilitating shock from the Inhibitor that Kopano had snuck inside of him. Smoke rolled out of his mouth when he spoke, but the Beast was still standing.
“Always against me . . . always . . . even when I’m on the right side . . . ,” Five murmured, his words slurred. “Let me show you . . . show you what they . . . what they did to me.”
Kopano took a frightened step away. Nigel crab-walked backwards to put some distance between him and Five.
His skin changed. Not back to metal like before. The dark blemishes that covered his skin grew wet and expanded, spreading out to cover Five’s entire body, every inch of him now the same writhing black oil that he had smashed into Bea’s face.
Five held out one of his arms and tendrils snaked forth, writhing and snapping, towards Kopano’s face.
