Of course I watch. I couldn’t look away if I wanted to, even as we back down the hallway. Christian unloads his gun into the Piken-Mog, but the bullets are either absorbed or deflected by its thick hide.
Lawson grimaces. “Was hoping bullets might do it.”
“That’s your plan?” Sam shouts, wide-eyed.
The gorilla-sized Mog reaches Christian in seconds and claps his hand over the kid’s head. He hoists him up like that and smashes him first against the wall, then against the floor. Christian doesn’t make a sound. He even keeps on shooting.
And then, after a particularly sickening slam against the floor, Christian evaporates in a burst of blue energy. The Piken-Mog looks stunned.
“What the—?” Sam exclaims.
Next to me, Caleb begins to glow. His whole body begins to vibrate, blurring, splitting apart.
A second later, there are two more of him. Two brand-new twin versions of Caleb. They blink their eyes, getting their bearings, then look at the original. Caleb nods towards the Piken-Mog, and they sprint into a hopeless battle.
He never had a twin brother. It’s a Legacy. He can duplicate himself.
“Two at a time,” Lawson says. “Getting better, son.”
“Thanks,” Caleb replies as we retreat. He looks a little wobbly. Behind us, I hear the Piken-Mog thrashing these newest twins. A glance over my shoulder reveals that they’re playing it smarter than Christian did, using hit-and-run to distract the brute. They won’t last long, but they should at least slow him down.
“I have questions for you,” I say to Caleb.
“I figured you would,” he says, not meeting my eyes.
“But all of them can wait, except one,” I continue. “How many duplicates can you create?”
“Not enough,” he replies, swallowing hard. “It’s hard. I’m . . . I’m only learning.”
“That beast is shrugging off bullets like they’re mosquitoes,” Sam adds. “We need to lose this thing until one of us, uh, until one of us with every Legacy can take him down.”
I glance down at myself, looking at my wounds. Closer now. I can feel my power slowly returning. I also feel light-headed on account of all the blood lost.
Our group takes a few sharp turns through the twisty subterranean hallways. I think we’ve doubled back at this point. We pass bodies, places where battles took place, but no one is alive. There’s a good chance we’re the only ones left.
Soon, we hear the thumping footsteps again. The snarling, the knuckle dragging.
“Bastard doesn’t give up,” Lawson says.
I try to fire up my Lumen as a test, but again my body clenches in agony. Every ounce of me needs to be dedicated to healing right now.
We turn another corner and—
“Shit!”
A line of vatborn Mogs with their blasters pointed in our direction block the entire hallway. Walker, still under one of my arms, shoves me hard to the side and brings up her rifle. As I fall towards the floor, knocking into Sam as I do, the agent sprays down the entire line of Mogs. Chunks of them ricochet through the hallway.
The Mogs are frozen in stone.
“What the hell?” Walker says.
“You really saved our lives there,” Sam says.
“Shut up, Goode.”
I look around. “Daniela was here, if—”
A roar from behind us. The Piken-Mog again barrels into view.
“Through here!” Caleb yells, already helping Lawson squeeze between two stone Mogadorians. “These should at least slow him down.”
I’m not so sure about that. The Piken-Mog is charging hard, its shoulders lowered. It’ll plow right through us and those stone Mogs. It’s now or never. Damn the pain. I start to build up a fireball in my hands, even though doing so makes my whole body clench up.
“Get down!” someone shouts.
I duck my head just as a silver beam of energy streaks from behind the Mog statues and hits the Piken-Mog. It spreads across his massive frame, slowly wrapping him in a stone covering. He’s frozen about ten yards from us, fists raised in the air, mouth open in a bloodthirsty cry.
Done using her stone-gaze, Daniela rubs her temples like she’s got a splitting headache. Seeing me and Sam, she cocks her hip and raises an eyebrow.
“Is this, like, my official role with you people? Monster stoner and saver-of-asses? Because . . .” Daniela trails off as she sees the kind of shape I’m in. “Goddamn, man.”
“Yeah, thanks for the help,” I say, squeezing her shoulder as I climb through her wall of statues. Daniela is scuffed up like everyone but overall in pretty good shape. There are stone Mogs everywhere in this hallway. She’s been wearing out her Legacy.