Marcel pulls his new sword, formally belonging to Oasis King, out of the chest of the last of the gang members he’s been fighting for the previous hour. Yesterday, his group had been attacked by a small horde of around one-hundred monsters. They’d managed to survive with no injuries, but upon realizing the monsters were being controlled, they realized how massive of an issue this would be later. For seven hours, they tracked the horde’s movements back, until the group located the gang members’ hideout. It was not the main location, but a small satellite den for the monster hordes to sleep; with minimal guards posted. Launching a surprise attack, they killed the last of the monsters and the gang members who were managing them.

  “That’s the last of them.” Sara, Melodie, says, pulling her own sword from the neck of a crimson archer. Kevin, Crasher, and Jackson, HotJack, similarly ended their battles, though both of them relied more on their gifts than weapons.

  “Let’s head back. I’m exhausted.” Jackson says, lifting and rotating his sore feet. Not wanting to attract attention, they left the transport behind as they approached the gang’s hideout, and walked for an hour through the wasteland.

  “Yeah, we’re done here.” Marcel agrees. While it may have taken them seven hours to backtrack the horde, getting to their own hidden hideout takes less than two.

  Upon arriving, Jackson spots someone waiting for them in the entrance. They approach cautiously. “Greetings!” The man calls out. He is wearing well-kept and modern, but blood covered, armor. It isn’t the scrap armor of a gang member, who would forge it from leftover materials or broken pieces of transports, but well-crafted hero’s armor. At first, Marcel thinks it is someone sent by Oasis King, but chooses to believe his final words and pushes the thought from his mind.

  “Who are you?” Marcel calls out.

  “I’m Amalek!” The man replies. “I need help. My group was killed in the battle. I need transport back to the city so I can make my reports!”

  “Battle? What battle?” Melodie asks.

  Two days ago.

  One of Oasis King’s informants sits in his office. She is the overseer of a network of other spies and scouts. “We’ve found the location of the main site that the hordes and the gangs controlling them are operating from. The gangs have been calling it Beth Shan.” The woman says. She’s a professional looking woman, wearing a normal office suit with a skirt. She isn’t a field operative, but more of an analyst, good at organizing others and dealing with bad situations through official and unofficial channels.

  “Is the man, Lahmi, at the site?” King asks.

  “He is. He’s good at rooting out our operatives, but we finally got one in long enough to confirm his presence and report it back.” She says.

  “This hasn’t happened in years.” Wasteland General, who’d been listening quietly to her report as well, says.

  “We can’t waste an opportunity like this. Abner, get every one of our teams. We’re moving in.” King orders.

  “Is that wise?” The woman questions. “A full force attack could weaken our defenses in the event of another attack.”

  “That’s why I’ll only be taking my hero group. The city needs to be defended, and my group has more than nine teams now, with fifty-four members. A small army of heroes kicking down their door will be more than they can handle. As long as we know where they are, there’s nothing they can do.”

  “No more playing defense. We can cut the head of the snake off, and leave the body to die.” General agrees.

  “A precise strike with the full force of the top hero group in the city. It could work…” The woman ponders.

  “I’ll get everyone ready.” General says, standing from his seat. With that, the woman leaves as well, having completed her report and left copies with King.

  Left alone, King thinks about Omar, the shadow he saw in Ba??la?-?ō?’s cave, and how much of it could be true. Certainly, in the moment, he believed it all, that he was actually talking with Omar. But now… he wonders if the shadow simply was telling him what he feared most, that his mentor had replaced him with the one person he feared would. In truth, Marcel is as powerful as King had once been. In the modern day, since the fall of the thirteen judges, not many heroes had such power. Saul was the only one in his youth; aside from the three Cardinals, who all retired years ago. But now, there is another. He puts it out of his mind and gathers his gear, deciding that he’d simply been tricked.

  Everyone moves quickly to organize and gather their gear. Less than thirty minutes pass between King receiving the news, and everyone loading up into their various transports. King carried his new sword, and a short spear. Lacking his former power, he has changed his fighting style to make up for it. He can’t carry his heavy steel shield and swing his sword effectively anymore.

  “Listen up.” King says through all the transports’ radios as they drive for the city’s gates. “The plan is simple. Everyone take positions around the compound. Long range attackers will light them up, and then the close combatants will protect the distance fighters if anything gets close. We’re going to do formation two. Once you’re all set up, no matter what, stay in formation. The signal to begin attacks will be on my team’s first strike. Watch each others’ backs. This all ends today.”

  One by one, all the teams radio back that they understood. Among the transports, there’s a quiet tension as everyone readies themselves for a hard fight. According to the intel, they should expect over a thousand monsters, and two hundred gang members. They’re outnumbered, but better trained, stronger, and better equipped. Every single one of them is confident.

  Arriving at the site, they all surround it, getting their long-range weapons ready. For the most part, the long-range specialists use aura rifles, but a few have gifts that work best at range. Soon, everyone is set up, and King’s team begins. “Fire.” King says. Two range specialists on his team take simultaneous opening shots, killing a few small monsters. A moment later, all teams open fire, filling the gang’s hideout with their attacks. The first volley kills a total of sixty-seven monsters. Many of the monsters were packed so tight that it allowed the heroes’ shots to penetrate through them, killing others as well. From that point on, chaos erupted.

  “All units, be aware, a mass of monsters is heading out. They are going in all directions.” King says over the radio. He is standing on the top of his transport to monitor when the hordes start their counterattack. “Estimated arrival time to nearest team, one minute.” He looks to the left and sees Johnny’s team in the distance, about fifty meters away from his position. Then he looks right and sees Wasteland General’s team, about seventy meters away. He switches to another channel, one only Johnny’s can hear. “Johnny… stay safe.” King sees Johnny look his way and wave, then make a thumbs up. King didn’t want to bring him, but Johnny was one of the strongest heroes in his hero group. They need his strength for this.

  King takes a deep breath and waits. The wind blows and he hears the start of fighting in the distance. He can’t see which team is being attacked from where he is, but he knows soon it will come for him too.

  Like a flash of fur and teeth, an amarok lands. One swipe, two, a bite. All aimed at King. He blocks with his spear and perries with his sword, then dodges the bite. One of the other heroes on his team stabs the amarok, then King follows with a slash to its neck. Both attacks are shallow. But the stab catches the amarok’s attention. It twists its body and closes its massive jaws around the hero’s arm, tearing it off in a single bite. Another hero approaches from behind, ready to make an attack, but he’s dead before he even swings his weapon. A massive spike from a crimson archer’s tail pierces the hero’s brain. Blood splatters across the amarok and other heroes, but none notice at first. King notices the dead man, and the spike that is flying straight at his own head, and smacks it out of the air with the tip of his spear. Then he and the other hero both stab and kill the amarok. All the while, the battlefield is still filed with the sounds of various ranged attacks. Pillars of fire plume and land on hordes of monsters, burning them to a crisp. Bolts of charged aura tear through hides. King takes a defensive stance between the crimson archers and the ranged attackers. He knocks several more spikes and spines out of the air, while the other heroes on his team move to kill the crimson archers.

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  King glances to the side, first left then right. Johnny is alive, fighting two bark biters at once; nothing he can’t handle. General is fine, supporting his team as they fight. As one goes down, he brings them back up with his healing gift.

  The sound of a strange clicking, like teeth chattering, starts to grow closer. King’s team retakes their positions, changing only slightly to fill the loss of their slain comrade. By the time their formation is reset, a dozen small monsters, like starfish with squid tentacles and beaks, squirm up the hill King’s team is posted on. They use their fleshy tentacles to worm their way up the rock’s crevices. They are slow, but there are many. Two of King’s men pull small handguns out, not aura pistols but normal handguns, and take aim. Each fires multiple shots, which is normally enough to pierce the thin hide of smaller monsters like this, but while the bullets do penetrate their hides, the monsters do not slow their approach. Bullets tear though their small bodies, ripping off whole tentacles in the process. Some do die, but none seem bothered by it. Eventually, a hero moves it for a melee attack with his sword. He swings, slicing one of them in two. But another grabs hold of the hero’s leg, and starts climbing up his torse. He screams, trying to use his sword to get it off. Another hero tries to help, but more of the starfish monsters, which none of the heroes present have seen before, swarm the first, completely covering his body with theirs.

  “Get them off! Help! Help!” The hero yells. One starfish monster places itself on the hero’s face, and starts to eat it using its long beak. Blood and some sort of green slim pour out from under the starfish, and all the others are forced to listen to the muffled screams and squelching flesh as they defend themselves from the same fate. By the time the hero’s screams stop, the others have only just killed enough of the starfish to buy themselves some breathing room. King looks left, Johnny isn’t dealing with the starfish, but is fighting six tree-huggers. His team is backing him up, but seems to have suffered losses. Two dead bodies lay on the ground near Johnny. To the right, Abner seems fine. None of his team are dead. If one is injured, he steps in to fight, then heals them while the others defend them both.

  Over the radio, calls for help from other teams start to pour in.

  “Team six, requesting backup!”

  “We’re getting over run!”

  “They have some kind of mountain thing!”

  “There’s too many! Team five is pulling out! Ahg!”

  “This is team two! Our position was overrun! We’re moving to team six’s location to reinforce!”

  King takes the radio, realizing that this formation is not going to work. They hadn’t expected monsters as powerful as amarok or as seemingly immune to pain as the starfish. “This is King. All teams, we’re changing formation. Push closer and switch to form nine. No more long range attacks. Their relying on us defending, so we’re going to attack.”

  “This is team four! Those starfish things! Don’t let them…” The line cuts out. King tries to fix the radio, but realizes it wasn’t cut on his end. He looks at the starfish just in time to see the hero who’d been killed by it rise from the ground, the starfish still clinging to his face. His body covered in red and green. The hero picks up his sword, and charges wildly. King reacts fast, cutting the starfish in half, along with the head, or what was left of it, of the hero it had been attached to; killing both finally. Immediately, King gets on the radio.

  “This is King! Those starfish can control bodies! Do no let them on your face!” He turns to his team. “We’re pushing in. Let’s go.” His team exchange glances, but follow him down the cliff and into the base nonetheless. Going down, King spots several heroes already moving down towards the base. Most are running in formation. Some are walking, and have starfish on their heads. King diverts his path and kills those infected heroes before rejoining with Johnny’s group.

  “Johnny, are you okay?” King asks.

  “Yeah. We lost some people, but no one else is injured.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Saul!” Wasteland General calls out to King.

  “Abner! You and your team go north. Johnny’s team and mine are going to charge down the center and draw their attention. I need you to find and kill the leader!” King orders.

  “Got it.” General says and diverts his team away.

  With that, King and Johnny’s teams both arrive at the main gates of the gang’s base. King swings his sword, killing one of the monsters guarding it. Johnny leaps over King, landing on a gang member, and thrusting his sword into his chest. Johnny twists the sword and pulls it out, then swings it at the neck of a lindwyrm to his right. Another hero from King’s group joins him, using a well placed bolt from an aura rifle straight through the opening in the neck Johnny made to kill the lindwyrm.

  Moments after breaking through their gates, the hordes descend in full force. But unlike when fighting using the walls as backup or a safe place to retreat, here, they have nothing except their rapidly dulling weapons and weakening bodies.

  The two teams form a circle, fighting while pushing deeper into the hordes to keep as much attention on them and off General’s team as possible. King spots some of his other teams at the top of the cliff… and watches as they load into their transports and drive away.

  “Agh!” One of the remaining heroes cries out. She grabs the spot where her arm once was, and is then impaled by the barbed tail of a monster. It pulls her limp body out of the circle and into the almost churning mass of monsters.

  “No! No!” Another calls after his friend, diverting his attention just long enough for a lion-like monster to disembowel him.

  One by one, the groups are dying. Until there are only four left. “We need to pull out!” Johnny says.

  “Sir! This mission is a bust!” A hero from King’s group says.

  King consider this, and decides they are right. But he does so too late. A tree-hugger lashes out with its vines, slicing Johnny’s neck all the way through. Johnny’s eyes go wide as a crimson archer slams into him. Johnny’s head hits the ground. King, stunned and frozen, doesn’t see the same crimson archer raise its tail.

  “Look out!” A hero calls out. But it’s too late, a forearm long barbed spike is launched from the crimson archer’s tail, straight through King’s gut. He feels it immediately, the poison trickling into his body.

  “Nooooo!” King screams at his son’s headless corpse. The hero that was fighting alongside Johnny from his team is caught in the back by the same tree-hugger that killed Johnny. Now, only King and the last hero of his team are left. The hero grabs King by the waist and pulls him back. They’ve been pushed into some kind of bunker. The hero flings open the door, throws King inside, and closes the door after entering himself, locking it behind him.

  It’s dark in this makeshift bunker. The only light is from the hero, Armor Bearer, who pulled himself and King inside. It radiates from his skin. His gift is the ability to create small protective barriers around things. Both he and King breath heavily in the dark room, completely out of strength. King’s thoughts are frozen on Johnny. He isn’t wailing, he doesn’t have the energy. He’s done…

  “We lost.” Oasis King says.

  “Yeah.” Armor Bearer says.

  “If we get caught… they’ll turn us into those things… use us as weapons.”

  “Yeah…”

  “Or they’ll torture us for information.” King locks eyes with Armor Bearer. “I don’t intend to let that happen.” King tries to pick up his sword, but can’t grip it properly. “I need you to kill me.”

  “I can’t. Please, we can get out of this.” Armor Bearer says.

  King shakes his head. “No… my son is gone… my group abandoned me… I don’t even know what happened to Abner. Maybe he got out… but I doubt it. I have nothing left. We… I failed.” King summons the last of his strength to pick up his sword again, and points the tip upward, towards his body. Then falls forward, thinking about Johnny.

  Soon, the monsters break down the door, and drag out two dead bodies. Both have deep wounds to their hearts, the killing blows. What was left of King’s men are killed or driven off. Gang members strip the armor from both men, then behead them, and stick the head on poles outside the walls. King’s headless corpse is strung up by hempen rope and hung from the walls of Beth Shan… right beside Johnny’s. The rest of the heroes are fed to the monsters.

  Lahmi looks up at the headless bodies and smiles, satisfied that his plan to feed false information to Hero Corp’s spies was successful.

  Two days later.

  Ziba cries reading the reports from the survivors. “What do we do sir?” A hero asks him.

  “Send a small team. Get their bodies down. They deserve to be buried.” Ziba says. He’d been told about the battle days ago by Abner, who’s team had been pushed back, failing to assassinate the man in charge. He’d returned in tattered armor and nearly dead. Half his team had been killed after parting with King.

  “Understood sir.” The hero leaves, and Ziba is left alone in Oasis King’s former office.

  Elsewhere, Marcel talks to Amalek.

  “The battle against Beth Shan.” Amalek explains. “The one in which both Oasis King and Oasis Prince were killed. You must have heard of it?”

  “What?” Marcel asks.

  “You liar!” HotJack exclaims.

  “Do you… have proof of who you are? Where’s you’re hero badge?” Melodie asks. The man pulls a hero badge out of his pocket, and throws it to Marcel, who is the closest to him. Marcel catches the badge, and looks at it. The badge number is 131-21-1010. He flips the badge over and sees J.B. carved into it. Marcel’s eyes widen, then narrow.

  “This is your badge?” Marcel asks.

  “Yes.” The man answers.

  Marcel turns to his friends, and points at the badge. “On the back, J.B. Jonathan Benjamin. It’s Johnny’s badge.” He whispers.

  “How can you be sure?” Kevin asks.

  “Because I was there when he carved this in himself.” Marcel’s grip tightens on the badge, furious that this man has something that belongs to his friend. Furious that this means Johnny probably is dead… Without a word, Jackson activates his gift, creating two balls of fire in his hands, and throws them at the man, burning him alive.

  Together, the group of friends mourn Johnny. But Marcel also mourns King. Despite it all, from deep within himself, from something he can’t understand, something mourns King. It grieves the life he could have lived. Marcel doesn’t know if it is that strange voice, or if he simply regrets not being able to help King in the way he needed. But to Marcel, it feels like even his aura is mourning King’s life and loss.