‘Go forward,’ he says.
I do, the shield absorbing more blaster fire as I press towards the Mogs. The bracelet is now a steady, numbingly painful buzz against my wrist. Carefully following my steps to keep from getting shot, Adam pops around the edge of the shield, gunning down two of the Mogs in one go. Realizing they’re not making any progress, the other two try to retreat. I lower my shield and launch a fireball that explodes between them, knocking them both to the ground. Adam finishes them off with some well-aimed gunfire. Out of danger for now, my shield retracts back into my bracelet.
‘Not bad,’ I tell him.
‘We’re just getting started,’ he replies.
We run down the access road around the bend, and the opulent homes of Ashwood Estates finally come into view. There’s no one out and all the windows are dark; the whole place feels like a ghost town. To our right, I see Adam’s old house, and a few houses down from that is the trash truck and the high-tech chair the engineer was inspecting. The salvage teams, the engineer and the General are nowhere to be seen.
‘They’re coming from the backyard!’ Sam yells.
Both Adam and I spin around in time to see a squadron of Mog warriors sneaking towards us between two of the houses. It would’ve been a pretty good ambush if we didn’t have scouts perched in their trees. As they raise their blasters, Adam is ready. He stomps the ground and a concussive wave of force rolls in their direction, pavement and chunks of grass rippling upward. The closest Mogs are completely thrown off their feet, others stagger and one of them accidentally discharges his blaster into another’s back.
‘I’ll finish them off!’ I tell Adam. ‘You go make sure they aren’t calling reinforcements.’
Adam nods, then sprints across the lawn towards his old house. Meanwhile, next to the stunned Mogadorians, I notice a metal tank that had come unmoored from where it was attached to a house. With my hearing focused, I can hear a faint hiss emanating from the tank. I almost laugh at my luck.
It’s a gas line.
I launch a fireball at the Mogs before they can collect themselves. It whizzes right by the lead Mog, who I think actually smirks at me, thinking that I’ve missed in those two seconds before the propane tank explodes, incinerating the lot of them. The windows of the two adjacent houses are all blown inward from the force, large black singe marks forming on the outside, grass burning. I have to stop myself from appreciating the destruction – it feels almost cathartic to destroy this place, to tear down what the Mogs have built, after how many times they’ve torn down my attempts at a normal life.
‘Damn, dude,’ Sam says in my ear. ‘We felt that over here.’
I yank my walkie-talkie off the back of my jeans. ‘What’s it look like, Sam?’
‘You’re clear,’ he says. ‘It’s weird. I thought there’d be more of them.’
‘They could be down in the tunnels,’ I reply, starting towards the house Adam rushed into. I scan the empty windows as I go, wary of any Mogs who might be lying in wait. It’s just too damn quiet.
‘And that huge-ass general guy,’ Sam says. ‘He wasn’t with the ones you blew up.’
I’m crossing the lawn towards Adam’s house when the front window shatters and Adam’s body comes flying out. His legs smack hard against the porch railing and he’s turned head over heels, flipped like a rag doll into the front yard. I run to him as he shakily tries to pick himself up.
‘What happened?’ I shout.
‘Father … isn’t happy,’ he groans, looking up at me as I crouch down over him. There’s a huge piece of glass sticking out of his cheek, a trickle of dark blood running down his neck. He yanks it out and tosses it aside.
‘Can you get up?’ I ask, grabbing his shoulder.
Before Adam can answer, a booming voice interrupts. ‘Number Four!’
The General strides confidently through the front door, looking down at me from the porch. He’s huge and muscular. The tattoos splashed across his pale skull are way more intricate than any Mog I’ve seen outside of Setrákus Ra. I sense motion behind him – other Mogadorians, I can’t be sure how many. They don’t come out of the house. It’s almost like the General wants to do this alone.
I stand up and face him, my hands glowing and hot, a fireball floating in my palm.
‘You know who I am, huh?’ I ask him.
‘Indeed. I have long hoped we would meet.’
‘Uh-huh. If you know me, then you know you don’t stand a chance against me.’ I crane my neck to look past him. ‘None of you do.’
The General actually smiles. ‘Very good. Bravado. A welcome change of pace. The last Loric I encountered ran. I had to stab him in the back.’
I decide I’ve had enough talk and whip the fireball at him. The General sees it coming, hunkers low and in one surprisingly fluid motion draws his sword from its sheath. He slices the air in front of him just as the fireball gets close, and the glowing Mogadorian blade absorbs my attack.
Not good.
The General leaps off the porch, sword raised above his head, and brings it down in a vicious arc towards me. He’s fast – way faster than the other Mogs I’ve been fighting – and my shield barely has time to deploy before his sword would cleave me in two. The shield rebuffs the blade with a loud clang, but the force is still enough to knock me backwards and off my feet.
‘John!’ Adam shouts, and the General, having landed right next to him, takes a moment to kick his son hard across the face. Adam screams, rolling away.