I might have smiled at their audacity if it weren’t so utterly pathetic.
When King saw me, the look on his face was priceless.“She asked for quarter!”I yelled above the noise, dumping the trembling soldier behind him.
I turned to Ruth and Che, whose wide eyes followed the human as she squirmed and gasped on the cement.“You want a job?”I asked, though I wasn’t giving them a choice.“Keep her safe and keep your heads down.You always bring firepower to a gunfight, not swords.Now you get to babysit the enemy.I want her in one piece.”
“We couldn’t carry the big gun,” Che said.
I sighed, already regretting my curiosity.“What big gun?”
Che grinned, his white teeth flashing through his dirty face.“The one Ruth used to blow a hole in the wall to rescue us.It was awesome.”He slammed his small fist into his opposite palm, mimicking an explosion with his flattened fingers and a loud “Boom!”
Both of their dust-covered bodies told the whole story of just how "awesome" it had been.
“Someone locked us in,” Ruth added with a defiant sneer.
Their mothers were going to kill me.
Another explosion rocked the ground, too close for comfort.“Keep her safe!”I yelled before taking off again.
“You’re out of your Warrior mind!”King shouted after me.
I glanced over my shoulder, blowing him a kiss before charging toward the soldiers operating the mortar artillery.A sharp sting lanced my side, but I didn’t slow down.
Several Shadow Warriors saw me and rose from their cover, joining the charge.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught one of our Warriors going down from a rifle round to the head.The feeling was indescribable, a connection snapping, like a piece of my heart had been ripped out, leaving a searing, empty pain in its place.
Another burn tore through my shoulder, but I kept pushing forward.
I was ten feet from the soldiers when a mortar explosion detonated nearby, throwing my senses into disarray.My ears rang, and my vision blurred again.
A Shadow Warrior beside me fell, and I kept moving, fury propelling me toward my target.
The world slowed around me as energy surged throughout my body.I welcomed the pain as each part of me expanded, growing deadlier with each passing second.
The red haze clouded my vision, making it hard to see clearly, but I didn’t need sight.I was connected to the people around me, sensing their locations, their weapons, and their fear.The emotions fed into me like fuel, powering my every thought.
Kill, whispered inside me, and it wasn’t Ms.Beast.
A guttural roar erupted from my throat, so inhuman I didn’t recognize it as my own.The sound froze the people within earshot, and their faces went slack with fear.I shook my massive head, and instinct told me they would all die.
A Shadow Warrior darted into my line of sight.
No.
I turned, seeking the true enemy.
Nova took over completely.
Time became meaningless.Seconds, minutes, hours blurred together as blood and body parts flew.I held a severed arm and used it to smash into the next person I saw.Their shattered body rolled a few feet away a second after my strike, while I searched for the next person to kill.More human pieces whipped through the air, no longer attached to who they once were.I gloried in the destruction and death, having no idea how long I rampaged.
Marinah was made for strategy, Ms.Beast for destruction, but Nova?She was complete annihilation.There was no on-off button when she faced the enemy.Nothing mattered but death to those who stood against her.I reveled in it as the red haze consumed me.I killed in multiples, using every part of my body.It went on and on and on.
Slowly, awareness returned.The sounds around me remained a cacophony of screams, groans, and cries.I heard them, but they didn’t register.
“Marinah,” King’s voice, though faint, cracked through the fog.
“Marinah,” he repeated, louder this time.
