Black Market Merchant

“Get the nets and catch them before they all get out from the river!” Garth yelled out. “We lost the big one, but the minions are still within our reach!”

The barge had tipped over on its side after Alan cut the grapple chains and now lay beached over thirty meters from the water. Even with their boat becoming useless the Sun People were not worried. Every one of the two hundred fifty Sun People were hurrying way from the barge to spread out to cover the eastern bank and prepare to capture the Twisted.

The Night Hounds and Logos Cutters were easy targets as they floundered across the brown water and were easily picked off as they tried to climb the steep, sandy shale banks of river. In moments there were dozens of weighted nets wriggling around as the Twisted inside of them struggled to break free. Adding to the mayhem a few of the Sun People shot their gas rockets at the Twisted, and in their confusion, tried to physically tackle these monsters using nothing but their own strength and tie them up.

A few other deliberately attacked the Twisted with a small taser like devices. The affect the shock made was enough to disrupt the baby Hoard Mothers mind control and this caused the fleeing Twisted to become aware of the humans trying to attack them. This was exactly what the crazy Sun People wanted, a fight. The Twisted were unprepared to take on these humans who were specifically trained to fight these monsters. The sheer skill in which they moved, tried attacking or defending with their various handheld weapons, and working together to take on the rowdier of Twisted was breathtaking. In some cases, it looked like they were dancing with monsters rather than killing them.

The Sun People were laughing and really enjoying the moment. With so many of their hated enemy fleeing without so much as putting up a decent fight was well worth the trip.

“Death to the Radiations Spawn!” Was a common call among the zealot Sun People after every time they killed or captured a Twisted. Along with chants saying, “The Sun’s challenge has been won.” Or “Twisted scum are not worthy to bask in the Sun’s light. Go back to hell!” Could also be heard echoing off from the dam and cliffsides.

The Skull, on the other hand were not participating with such glee. Instead, they vouched to warily stay huddled together near the boat incase the Twisted ever came to their senses. Though as the monsters numbers grew fewer and the baby Hoard Mother slowly faded off over the horizon, they began to relax.

“This is such a bore!” Alan sighed tossing his firemen’s axe onto his shoulder. “I was expecting us to have some huge battle defending the town, but as soon as we got here, fired a few rockets of gas, they all gave up and left. Why did we bother even going to recruit the Sun People if they were this easy to fight off?”

“I don’t think it was all that simple.” Ashen One said as he surveyed the town. “Have you not noticed that the entire westside of town is burning to cinders and that not a single other human as shown themselves so far?”

Hemlock scratched his head as he spoke. “What if the rest of the Skull have been wiped out already? I didn’t see any signs of our lookouts on the downtown rooftops either. Even the boats docked along the river were completely empty.”

“It could be that the population had been battling for some time now and the Twisted were already tired.” Wind Talker added. “Just take that glowing green woman and the two Mechs that were battling the Twisted at the top of the cliff moments ago. They seemed to have been having quiet the duel.”

“Now that you mention it, could one of them be the person from the prophecy?” Alan said rubbing his chin.

“It could be possible.” Wind Talker answered with a shrug. Holding onto the tip of his russet hooded cloak to keep his face hidden, he looked up at the Hunter Mech dangling motionlessly from the cliffside. “There had to be some elements that revolved around a person saving this town from the Hoard. Otherwise, this whole endeavor does seem unfruitful.”

Alan looked up at the Mech as well and as he thought about the prophecies words. “Well, the Twisted Hoard came here, the fire is burning the town in ash, and someone saved the town. I am going to assume it wasn’t Garth.”

Alan and the others listening to him glanced over at the mud-covered Garth who was presently trying to ride a Night Hound like a horse. The black skinned alien like creature was not a happy monster and it was trying to bite at Garth who was sitting on its back and trying to shove a rope in the creatures mouth like reigns. Every single Skull member began to chuckle among themselves seeing such a ridiculous sight.

Alan cleared his throat and continued. “Then there is the part about fighting alone against insurmountable odds to prove their validity. I wonder how I am supposed to figure that out if we all missed the battle with the hoard. All we saw was the end.”

Everyone was silent as they mulled over this question. It was then Ashen One that broke the silence. “What about the other part Lady Cassandra said, for the Speaker, you Bone Flayer, to find the one that desires to avenge the lives of traitors? She said that that person is also the one from the prophecy.”

“A good point.” Wind Talker noted. “I would say that it would be one of those two, the Hunter Mech pilot dangling above us or that green glowing woman.”

Alan looked back at the Hunter Mech curiously. “You might be right. It could be one of them.”

…

Lisa sheathed her collapsible katana into its hilt and then placed the blade onto her magnetic belt. There was no more need for it, the outcome was clear to her now. All these monsters were leaving and not even one of them fought back.

Lisa whispered, “Release Armament.”

Her body began to systematically revert into her normal looking self. First her neon green glow shut off as the panels between her joints closed on her arms and legs and slimmed back down to look normal like before. The joints too closed and fused back together leaving no trace of a break in her skin showing that she had cybernetic limbs. Her skintight suit also receded back to its normal size and the green circuit pattern disappeared leaving only the faint hexagonal pattern to be seen.

Turning quickly around Lisa knelt to tend to little Hanna who was sitting on the pipe with her legs pulled up to her chest. “Are you alright Hanna? You aren’t cut anywhere or feeling any pain?”

“N-no.” Hanna stammered. “I am j-just cold and t-tired. I don’t think I want to e-ever do that again!”

“Nether do I.” Lisa said giving a small smile seeing that she was indeed alright. “Though I do have to say you really shocked me when you came out of nowhere driving the Mover Mech right into the Hoard Mother. How and why did you do that?”

“I saw you two were in trouble and I had been hearing this voice in my head telling me to get in the Mech. So, I did and came to help.” Hanna answered pushing back her wet muddy red hair out from her face.

“You mean you weren’t in the dam’s tunnel and the others just let you get into the Mech?” Lisa asked.

“No. I kind of ran away from them…” Hanna replied quietly. “I almost didn’t make it too. There was a scarry bunny looking Twisted that tried attacking me before I made it to the Mover Mech.”

“How did you get away from it?” Lisa asked.

Hanna was about to say she shot it with John’s pistol, but she caught herself. “I-I just made it to the Mech first and then came to help you.”

Lisa was silent for a moment as she looked at the little girl. Hanna thought she might have sensed that she had lied and fiddled nervously at her wet purple shirt. Then Lisa sighed, nodded, and stood up straight.

“I see. Well, lets get back up to the dam and let everyone know that you are safe.” Lisa then reached a hand down to help Hanna up. “And, just between you and me, if you hadn’t crashed into the Hoard Mother when you did, I might not have been able to win. Everyone is going to be very mad at you for a while, but you probably just saved everyone. Just don’t let it go to your head.”

Hanna saw that Lisa’s expression hardened as she spoke. “What you did was incredibly stupid, reckless, and idiotic. Going out there to fight a huge monster merely because a voice in your head told you too? Ridiculous. No one is going to buy that story.”

Hanna hung her head. “Your right.”

Lisa reached down and lifted Hanna’s chin up so that their eyes met. “I will buy it, however. Because I am interested in both your strange connection to Mechs and that voice. This tells me that there is something special about you. I promise to find out what. Just helping avenge your parents doesn’t seem like enough now.”

“Hey guys!” A distant voice called out to interrupt their conversation. “I am still stuck here!”

Lisa and Hanna looked back towards the collapsed cliffside. They saw Timmy waving at them from the open cockpit door in her Mechs chest. For some reason she hadn’t moved at all from that spot on the cliff.

“My Party Badger is out of energy and the mechanical arm release is jammed.” Tammy continued. “Can someone get Dixon or Sam to come pick me up? The intercom is short circuited.”

“We will be right there!” Lisa called back. “Come on Hanna, lets go. Oh, and in the future lets work on telling me about strange things happening to you. I don’t want any more surprises like before.”

“Ok.” Hanna answered felling happy that Lisa had believed her and wanted to help further. She didn’t understand much of anything going on with her and having someone to rely on was a huge relief.

After a few moments the two arrived under the Hunter Mech. The area around here was very unstable, and the cliff looked like it could collapse further at any moment. Lisa stopped and looked around at the rocks and sand that had spilled to cover half of the river at the base of the dam.

“Its going to take to long to walk back up there and I can’t climb up to save her myself with the cliff looking like this.” Lisa murmured aloud to herself. “Oh, I know. I still got another flair in the flair gun.”

Reaching into her pocket Lisa pulled out her orange flair gun and shot it over the edge of the cliff. Moments later Dixon came zooming down from above and he stopped flying just below the dangling Hunter Mech.

“Well, there you are!” Dixon exclaimed looking at Tammy. “I didn’t see you because of all the dust and smoke. I thought you were still chasing after the Twisted when they started to run away and was flying over the woods looking for you.”

Tammy huffed and puffed out her cheek pretending to be annoyed. “What do you take me for, a crazy person? Even I know when to stop.”

“Come on, jump on down and I’ll carry you from here.” Dixon said ignoring her comment.

“What about the Mech? Are you two just going to leave it there?” Lisa called up to them.

“We have a truck that has an industrial wench on it for occasions just like this.” Dixon answered as Tammy landed on the hover trailer behind him. “This isn’t the first time she’s gotten her Mech stuck like this.”

Tammy heard this and slapped his arm playfully. “Hey, now is not the time.”

“I see. Well, are you going to make us walk around the cliff or can you give us a ride to the top as well?” Lisa asked giving them a cheery grin.

Meanwhile, Hanna was listening to them talking when she stepped back a step and felt something hit her shoe. Looking down she was amazed to see that the object was Johns pistol! Somehow it had found its way back to her. Looking carefully at Lisa and the others she quickly scoped it up and tucked it back into the back of her jeans. No one saw her do this.