GZ Legends 36: Roadburner Pt 2

            Momentarily stunned from a horn blast that made the ground tremble, Electrode struggled to move. The Hearse bore down on him with savage ferocity, its shining grill seemed hungry for flesh. As the skull hood ornament was about to smash into Electrode’s mid-section, a black shadow whisked through. Nyhtwulf had arrived on scene and rescued Electrode at the last second. The Hearse didn’t miss a beat as it turned to follow the flying thief across the parking lot.

            “Are you okay?” Nyhtwulf asked.

            “Yeah, just need to clear my head. Drop me up here at the edge of the lot. I can keep ahead of it now. And thanks!”

            The Hearse was gaining on the two until a long bladed lance shot down from above, impaling the asphalt and catching The Hearse mid grill. Being stopped cold by Anubis’s lance was a bigger surprise to the death machine than anyone else. It paused as Anubis landed in front of it.

            “Well, that was easy!” Anubis laughed. “What’s it like to be stopped by a pointy stick?”

            “Stupid Hero! I am no base machine to be stopped from a single direction!” In an explosion of sound the voice echoed.  The Hearse spun its body around the lance and hit Anubis like a giant baseball bat.

            Since receiving his powers, Anubis had taken direct hits from artillery and space age weaponry. He had been punched by Cyclone, a younger brother to Death himself. In all of that, pain had not been much of an issue. For the first time in all the battles, something really hurt. Anubis realized that, until that moment, he had no idea what getting hit really hard meant. His body went through a panel van, blasting it into two pieces, and Anubis kept going. He moved through the walls of the nearby mall so fast he barely noticed the first shop was women’s apparel. The next shop was sporting goods, then a shoe store. He kept going. Two support pillars snapped like matchsticks, and he kept going. Two more shops and three walls later, he burst through the opposite side of the mall building and kept going. The oak tree shattered as he went through filled the air with a cloud of splinters. Past all of that, mercifully, was desert. A great dust cloud burst into the air, as Anubis’s body carved an 80 yard trench across the ground.

            After several long moments, Anubis put a trembling hand on the ground to try and push himself up. His first attempt found him staggering and dropping to one knee. He coughed out some dust and sand while trying to get his wits back in order. As he concentrated on taking some long deep breathes, he was surprised at his next thought.

Despite all of what he had just experienced, he heard himself mutter, “It can talk.”

Back in the parking lot, Electrode fired bolts of lightning at the machine as it charged him again. This time, Electrode was able to dodge the attack and The Hearse smashed into a closed gas station. Electrode took advantage of the situation and launched a full lightning assault, engulfing machine and building in an explosion of force and fire. He didn’t conduct this assault without care as there were no other buildings nearby. Still, The Hearse quickly emerged unscathed, though alight with burning gasoline.

Nyhtwulf, with no fear of flames, landed on The Hearse’s hood, hoping to distract it from further damage. He gripped the section where the hood came near the windshield and tried to look through the darkened barrier. The Hearse abruptly stopped. Electrode kept fair distance while watching to see what Nyhtwulf could achieve.

“You serve our master, Lord Death,” The Hearse growled.

“I served. I am free with his blessing. Let’s stop this now. No more destruction is necessary.”

“Since you carry the blessing of Death, I will not kill you. I will not obey you either.” The Hearse sounded its horn again, throwing Nyhtwulf into the air. If the lupine Twilie Demons were ever considered to have a weakness, it would be intensity of sound.

Nyhtwulf caught himself in the air, but had to shake off dizzying effects. At that moment, a bright sword spun in through the air and bounced off the body of The Hearse. Lonestar’s longsword returned to his hand as he ran in to help his friends.

The Hearse spun and charged effortlessly at Lonestar. The Starknight jumped over the machines hood and brought his sword down on the windshield. To his surprise, he was thrown backwards hard and fast. His sword, blessed as it was, didn’t even leave a scratch. Lonestar landed hard on his back 30 yards away as The Hearse kept coming. This time it was Electrode’s turn to save a partner as he dashed in and moved Lonestar out of the way. As it passed, Blacktide unleashed a wave of disintegration energy that did absolutely nothing. Blacktide looked on in shock. Nothing had ever withstood his power like that before.

While all of that was going on, Dr. Vampire found Anubis.

“Are you seriously hurt?”

“Well, that sure hurt seriously, but I don’t know about seriously hurt,” Anubis gave a pained chuckle. “I’m headed back in to stop that thing.”

“I’m afraid we aren’t doing very well on that front. We’re only keeping its attention on trying to kill us. At least that keeps it from killing innocents.”

“Well, Doc, I may just have an idea.” After Anubis’s explanation, Doctor Vampire raced back toward the fight as fast as he could go.

Anubis lifted into the air and grit his teeth. He felt power and energy surge and launched himself back toward the mall. He flew right back through the tunnel his body created across the mall and back into the parking lot. As he flew past, he grabbed his lance out of the asphalt. He could see Electrode and Lonestar standing in the street with the Hearse preparing another charge. When he saw that Dr. Vampire had arrived to spread word of his plan, it was time to attack. Anubis held back his lance and glared hard at his target. He threw hard and the bladed lance streaked with the accuracy of a guided missile. The Hearse was charging as the lance hit home deep in the front right wheel well and into the ground at an angle.

The fact that The Hearse didn’t break his lance earlier wasn’t lost on Anubis. He realized that he needed a more precise point to stop the machine in its tracks. The Hearse’s front wheel halted against the lance and gouged a long line in the asphalt. Lonestar, whose own weapon was also blessed against destruction, took his cue to dodge to the other side. He thrust his sword into the opposite wheel well hard, and created another locking point for the Hearse. Electrode dashed behind it as it was stopped. With thousands of lightning strikes, he heated the asphalt around the back tires, hoping to lock the wheels in half molten tar. Doctor Vampire brought out a small device and flew up to the hood of the monster. It was a device made to return large artifacts to the museum. He slapped it down on the hood and was thrown back as it exploded. Nyhtwulf caught the Doctor and all of them stood, wondering what to do next.

“You cannot control me with your pathetic toys!” The Hearse roared. “Your weapons may be blessed, but the ground beneath me is not! You will not hold me long enough to save your lives!”

The Hearse began to shake back and forth, cracking the street under it and throwing chunks of asphalt in all directions.

Doctor Vampire turned to Nyhtwulf, “For what I’m about to do, I need you ready for me. I need you to be ready to strike me down.”

“What?” Nyhtwulf was stunned at such a request.

“Please just trust me, you will be the only one here who can without killing me.”

Doctor Vampire turned back to the Hearse, spread his arms and shouted; “Hearse of Death and Destruction, hear me! I, Doctor Vampire, a force of darkness, wish to prove myself worthy!”

The Hearse stopped cold and the heroes stared at Doctor Vampire in shock.

GZ Legends 35: Roadburner Pt 1

            The sheriff’s cruiser sat on the edge of a lonely Nevada highway. Deputy Morton opened a sugar packet and emptied its contents into a cup of coffee. As he stirred the coffee with the miniature straw, Deputy Morton took a deep breath and slowly blew it out in a release of boredom.

            “I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” Morton said to his partner.

            Deputy Caldwell stared through his window toward the black sky. “I know what you mean.”

            “People are going nuts. If this keeps up, I won’t be far behind them.”

            “You gotta hang in there. So do I.” Caldwell took a sip of his own coffee. “Besides, they manage this okay when it happens in Alaska, don’t they?”

            “Heck if I know. I’ve never been to Alaska. Hey. What is that? Do you feel that?”

            The cruiser trembled slightly.

            “Maybe we’re having a tremor,” Caldwell said.

            The trembling slowly increased to more of a consistent shudder. Keys jangled from the ignition and coffee sloshed from the cup holders. Outside, rocks and gravel danced on the ground. Both men knew what an earthquake was, but they had never heard one make such a strange sound. It started as a low droning noise, barely audible to the human ear. As the cruiser shook harder the sound increased in volume and pitch. Both men cried out and covered their ears.

            Something long sleek and black flew past them on that deserted highway. As it did, the windows of the cruiser exploded outward from the sonic barrage that seemed like the wail of a thousand tortured souls. Both men were left with their ears ringing as if they had been in a bomb blast. Their vision blurred and dizziness overcame them. They slumped unconscious with no clue what had just passed them in the night.

            A few hours later, the portal brought Anubis, Doctor Vampire, Electrode, Blacktide, Nyhtwulf and Lonestar to Las Vegas Boulevard. Even in perpetual night, the heart of Las Vegas glowed in lights. They might have taken time to enjoy the beauty if only it weren’t mixed with such carnage. What wasn’t lit by neon, glowed from vehicle fires. Cars were thrown aside in all directions as if a great freight train had smashed through with unyielding force. Fronts of buildings were caved in by thrown debris. People lay injured or dead on sidewalks and against walls. The cries of the wounded echoed in the air. Everything stank of smoke and death. Rescue personnel hurried to do all they could with the massive disaster.

Ahead of the heroes, they could see where the path of destruction met with a large casino, and continued through it unhindered. A tunnel with hanging debris went through the building and to the next one beyond.

None of them could deny the knots in their throats and stomachs at the sight of such death.

“This is the work of The Hearse,” Dr. Vampire informed them. “You are about to face an object of insatiable evil. Try to be prepared.”

“I just want to know how to hurt it!” Electrode said with mounting anger.

“You can’t. Our best hope is to capture it. That alone will be a deadly fight. First we need to find it.”

“It is a servant of Death,” Nyhtwulf said. “I can sense it in the direction of the path it made. It is a few miles from here.”

“I’ll scout for it then,” Electrode said. He vanished before Dr. Vampire could warn him not to approach it alone.

“I’ll fly out that direction and back him up,” Anubis said. “Nyhtwulf, you with me?”

“Go quickly,” Doctor Vampire said, “The Hearse can match Electrode’s speed; at least in a straight line.”

“I’m going to follow the path and help with some of the casualties,” Lonestar said.

“I’m coming with you on that,” Dr. Vampire said. “We’ll catch up as soon as we can.”

“Sounds like a plan, Doc!” Anubis flew off with Nyhtwulf right behind him.

"Well, I can't fly, so I guess I'm coming with you guys looking for survivors," Blacktide said.

Several miles away from the Boulevard, Electrode skidded to a halt at the edge of a mall parking lot. In his anger, he shimmered with electrical power, ready for a fight. When he saw that he had arrived only a second before the beastly machine, he didn’t know if he considered himself more lucky or horrified. The Hearse raced into the parking lot filled with cars like a driver on a suicide mission. Nothing the black machine hit served to slow it in any capacity. Impacted cars flew high into the air as The Hearse smashed through with all the effort of wind in dry leaves.

In Electrode’s shock, he almost didn’t realize The Hearse was about to go right through the wall of the mall. Hundreds of innocent people were about to die for the sake of a shopping trip. There was no time to wait for back up, and less time to ponder what to do. As Electrode shifted into top speed, only he and the machine were moving. Tossed cars, hadn’t even had the chance to drop from the air yet. While The Hearse moved at high velocity, its speed was still no match for Electrode.

As he ran in front of the death machine, with less than ten feet clearance from the wall; Electrode released a barrage of lightning all across the hood and windshield. Once clear of the thing’s path, Electrode halted and turned with hope that he somehow stopped it. To his surprise, The Hearse went into a skid and slammed sideways into the brick wall. A rain of debris toppled as the wall fell and buried the mystical monster underneath it.

For all of a second, there was silence that felt like eternity. When the engine roared, Electrode darted several more yards away to ready himself for whatever was about to happen. The engine rev was powerful enough to toss bricks aside and its bright headlights glared through the debris. It revved several more times and Electrode assumed it didn’t like being interrupted. At this time, more than any other so far, Electrode felt his heart pounding in his chest. He didn’t know why, but in spite of all the horrors he’d witnessed since the darkness, this one scared him the most.

As the tires made their screeching sound for an impending charge, Electrode almost held his breath. The debris exploded to all sides and The Hearse barreled forward. It sounded its horn that made Electrode’s ears burn in pain, bringing the speeder to his knees. The machine of death held no hesitation as it raged forward, intent on running down the Nuclear Electric Man.

NOTE: I realize after the fact that I did the Hearse two different ways. Which way do you think I should do it? Head lights like up top or the one at the bottom? Pitch in your vote and be signed up for the free stuff drawing! Be sure to let me know who you are on Facebook or Google+ in case you win!

Want to get caught up on this story? Start at the beginning with GZ Legends 1