This tremor is thestrongest one yet. I can feel it flowing out through my body like a giant ocean wave originating in my rib cage.
Some of the soldiers topple. Others wobble but stay standing. One or two drop their weapons.
I grit my teeth. Using my Legacy is exhausting me and I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep it up. But I have to. I stomp again.
A few more go down, but now the rest are shooting at me.
I’m trying to figure out what to do next when I hear a ferocious roar. Glancing over my vehicular shield I see a large, tawny shape leap from the trees and grab one soldier by the shoulder, yanking him to the ground. Dust roars and lunges again, his massive jaw snapping shut like a trap around his quarry’s neck. The soldier’s scream dies mid-shriek, his body convulsing as it turns to ash.
But the lion has already moved on. He’s ripping through the soldiers easily, their fire barely slowing him down. Dust claws and bites, not stopping to consider any individual enemy for more than a split second before moving on.
The Mogs still left standing are confused—they didn’t plan for this, and now they’re not sure whether they’re supposed to be shooting me or Dust, or whether it’s time to retreat altogether.
I take advantage of the confusion. Two soldiers are backed up almost to me, and I shoot them bothbefore they remember that I’m still a threat too. Dust’s finished off another soldier, and several more have taken shelter around the side of the main structure—collapsing something is one trick I got pretty good at with Malcolm, and though it causes spikes of pain to shoot through my forehead I shake the roof loose and drop it on those soldiers, easily crushing them. That leaves only two, and they move away from Dust and me both, shooting at him to keep him back and edging away toward the trees where they must have a ship waiting.
If they reach it I’m toast.
I’m using my Legacy far beyond anything I’ve ever tried in the past, and every time I cause a new quake I’m more and more exhausted. My vision’s starting to go dark around the edges, but I know I don’t have any choice except to fight through it. I concentrate and send a tremor under a nice thick tree, the same way I did to the guard station back at Dulce Base. It topples with a loud groan and crushes one of the soldiers beneath its trunk. The last Mog simply turns and runs, but Dust is on him in an instant in a blur of teeth and claws. A few seconds later he’s trotting back toward me, his mouth coated in ash. He doesn’t seem fazed by this. That makes one of us.
“Thanks,” I manage to mumble weakly when he reaches me. Then everything goes black.
When I wake up, I’m in the passenger seat of a car flying along the highway. My head’s still pounding and my vision’s still blurry. The New York City skyline is barely recognizable over the dashboard as an abstract haze of lights. I have no idea how I got here or where I’m headed. The events of the past few hours bounce around in my skull like a million Ping-Pong balls. Everything’s jumbled and hard to make sense of.
Groaning, I look over to the driver’s seat. Behind the wheel is Rex. Even in my messed-up state, I fumble with the door handle. I’ll jump out right here, I think. I’d rather be instant roadkill than spend another second letting him think I trust him.
“Hey!” he says when he sees me fumbling to escape. Before I can get the door open, he reaches to the console on the dashboard and locks all the doors. I’m trapped.
“Calm down,” he says. “I don’t know what you did in that parking lot, but whatever it was it took a lot out of you.”
I don’t want to hear it. “Where the hell were you?” I demand. “What the hell happened back there?”
Rex barely glances up from the road. “Same thing that happened to you,” he says calmly, as if I’d just asked him to remind me of tomorrow’s weather forecast. “The Mogs got to me too.
Some of the soldiers topple. Others wobble but stay standing. One or two drop their weapons.
I grit my teeth. Using my Legacy is exhausting me and I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep it up. But I have to. I stomp again.
A few more go down, but now the rest are shooting at me.
I’m trying to figure out what to do next when I hear a ferocious roar. Glancing over my vehicular shield I see a large, tawny shape leap from the trees and grab one soldier by the shoulder, yanking him to the ground. Dust roars and lunges again, his massive jaw snapping shut like a trap around his quarry’s neck. The soldier’s scream dies mid-shriek, his body convulsing as it turns to ash.
But the lion has already moved on. He’s ripping through the soldiers easily, their fire barely slowing him down. Dust claws and bites, not stopping to consider any individual enemy for more than a split second before moving on.
The Mogs still left standing are confused—they didn’t plan for this, and now they’re not sure whether they’re supposed to be shooting me or Dust, or whether it’s time to retreat altogether.
I take advantage of the confusion. Two soldiers are backed up almost to me, and I shoot them bothbefore they remember that I’m still a threat too. Dust’s finished off another soldier, and several more have taken shelter around the side of the main structure—collapsing something is one trick I got pretty good at with Malcolm, and though it causes spikes of pain to shoot through my forehead I shake the roof loose and drop it on those soldiers, easily crushing them. That leaves only two, and they move away from Dust and me both, shooting at him to keep him back and edging away toward the trees where they must have a ship waiting.
If they reach it I’m toast.
I’m using my Legacy far beyond anything I’ve ever tried in the past, and every time I cause a new quake I’m more and more exhausted. My vision’s starting to go dark around the edges, but I know I don’t have any choice except to fight through it. I concentrate and send a tremor under a nice thick tree, the same way I did to the guard station back at Dulce Base. It topples with a loud groan and crushes one of the soldiers beneath its trunk. The last Mog simply turns and runs, but Dust is on him in an instant in a blur of teeth and claws. A few seconds later he’s trotting back toward me, his mouth coated in ash. He doesn’t seem fazed by this. That makes one of us.
“Thanks,” I manage to mumble weakly when he reaches me. Then everything goes black.
When I wake up, I’m in the passenger seat of a car flying along the highway. My head’s still pounding and my vision’s still blurry. The New York City skyline is barely recognizable over the dashboard as an abstract haze of lights. I have no idea how I got here or where I’m headed. The events of the past few hours bounce around in my skull like a million Ping-Pong balls. Everything’s jumbled and hard to make sense of.
Groaning, I look over to the driver’s seat. Behind the wheel is Rex. Even in my messed-up state, I fumble with the door handle. I’ll jump out right here, I think. I’d rather be instant roadkill than spend another second letting him think I trust him.
“Hey!” he says when he sees me fumbling to escape. Before I can get the door open, he reaches to the console on the dashboard and locks all the doors. I’m trapped.
“Calm down,” he says. “I don’t know what you did in that parking lot, but whatever it was it took a lot out of you.”
I don’t want to hear it. “Where the hell were you?” I demand. “What the hell happened back there?”
Rex barely glances up from the road. “Same thing that happened to you,” he says calmly, as if I’d just asked him to remind me of tomorrow’s weather forecast. “The Mogs got to me too.
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