Chapter #7

The night was cold and silent. Small gusts of wind blew through the streets of downtown Limerick. The tall looming skyscraper of the Warren Incorporation cast an eerie shadow across the area under the full moon’s glow. Lights shown from some of the windows, showing there was inhabitants in the building. 

Little did anyone know that the building had been empty for four years. The last owner, Steven Zachary, had fired all of his employees and somehow continued to keep the building in business. Finally, after two years of struggle, Zachary left business work and disappeared, never to be heard from again. Still, the building stayed under his name; therefore, the building was thought to be in process of a business comeback. But that day would never come as Mr. Steven Zachary stood looking out his penthouse window, on the top floor of the empty building.

Zarian chuckled to himself. It was almost too easy taking over this place. It’s sad how no one could trust Seth Zarian but believed they could listen to every word of a ‘Steven Zachary’. He shook his head and smirked, this world is pathetic.

He decided it was time to see how the plan was coming along. He turned away from the window and headed toward the elevator. Once inside, he pushed a combination of levels that would take him directly to the basement underneath the Warren Building. The elevator shuddered and began descending through the forty seven floors until finally coming to an abrupt halt on the level zero.

The doors slid open revealing a dark, dingy floor with doors on each wall. The cavern was lighted by small lanterns hanging on the ceiling. Zarian walked across the dusty floor and turned the knob on one of the doors on the far right side of the room. It opened to reveal a whole new room, a workshop with most of the stolen lumber and steel piled in the back. Ranzford sat at the table, his head covered by a welding helmet, using one of his arms as a burner, melting the steel down and pounding it down with his other hand which was a small sledge hammer.

He looked up from his work and muttered under the helmet. His hands turned back to their original shape and he removed the helmet. Sweat covered his forehead as he matted out his hair, “Mornin’ Cap’n!”

“How’s the working going?” Zarian picked up a long, metal pole with a sharpened point on the end.

“Fairly well, sir. So far of weaponry; fifty in all. Shields and armor are still coming along, but not as fast,” Ranzford picked up the handle of the axe he had just been welding.

“Good, keep up the pace. I’ll send Mr. Allsworth to come in and help speed things up.”

“Uh, I’m really doin’ fine down here, really,” Jerry tried to avoid the idea of dealing with Kenny.

“I’ll send him down here tomorrow,” Seth glared, “If you can’t deal with that, too bad.”

Zarian left the room without another word. Ranzford angrily shoved his helmet back on and went back to work.

The room across from the welding shop was dark and damp, like the inside of a sewer. The only light in the room came from the door which had just opened, revealing Zarian standing in the doorway. The light flooded in to show a dingy Quinn Flanders, matted hair and sprawled all over an easy-chair. Tubes and wires were attached to him, carrying his toxic ooze to elsewhere.

He sat up slowly as Zarian entered the room, “Can’t we atleast get a tele in here?!”

Seth glared at Flanders angrily. He headed down the room a little ways until he came to a large cell door.

“How many?” Zarian asked.

“Twelve,” Flanders scratched his head, “Process has been going slow. But I’ll get the hang of it.”

“Hmm…” Seth stepped a little closer to the door. A loud gurgling growl came from the other side of the bars.

Zarian smirked, “We test him out first…”

~

“That’s all we’ve basically figured out so far, I’m afraid,” Cedar finished explaining his and Draco’s conclusions to the group sitting around the table.

There was a long silence of exhaustion and despair. Henry threw his hat on the table as Catherine twiddled her fingers. Aaron and Martin exchanged worried looks and then looked down to see Maxwell, his head resting on the table, sleeping. Roger shuffled through papers at the counter, trying to find answers that really weren’t there while Marié tried to comfort Clare who had started crying.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” Marié broke the silence and looked up at Donovan.

He sighed before sitting down at the end of the table and placed the pipe back in his mouth, “There’s something big about to happen. I’m not sure what but I can guarantee that we’re going to be dealing with life threatening problems very soon.”

Henry laughed.

“What’s so funny?!” Cedar looked at him puzzled.

“Heheh, well detective, we’ve already decided to put our life on the line the first day we faced those b******s. I think we’re all still in this together,” Henry explained.

Everyone nodded in agreement. Donovan puffed on the smoke pipe before nodding, “Alright. Now, we start with-.”

“Wait a minute!” Leslie yelled from the TV room. There was a shuffling noise and she rushed into the room, “There’s another ruckus downtown. It’s serious!”

“Alright, let’s move!” Tracey grabbed the keys to the bus.

~

Darkness covered the city as clouds blotted out the sun. Wind whipped through the public park, the Reservane River rippled as it wound it’ way to the Cape Cod Bay. The bushes shuddered in the wind.

A large hoof crushed one of the bushes. A giant, ten foot monster stood grinning down at the broken twigs on the ground. Antlers sprouted from it’s head, having the face of a deer but the rest of the body seemed furry, with bear claws for hands that gripped a long saber. It wore a brass chest plate and armor along its arms and legs.

And it thrived off of pure hatred.

It’s tall, pointy ears suddenly pricked up at the sound of a large engine heading it’s direction. It turned just to see the large double-decker bus roll into the side street of the park. The monster growled, angry with this new invasion on his newest territory. His saber began glowing a crimson green as it stood prepared to fight…

Henry stepped out of the bus, staring bewildered at the odd creature standing on the other side of the park, “What the hell is THAT?!”

“Something of Zarian’s?” John looked back to Donovan curiously.

“I don’t know but we better get rid of it before it destroys the rest of this park,” Cedar pulled his gun from its holster.

Just as he did, the monster attacked. It charged head-on into the group of people, waving its saber around wildly. Everyone dodged out of the way and John shot a huge fireball after it. It was just about to hit the creature, when the monster swiftly spun around, cutting through the fireball and then absorbed into the sword itself.

John stepped back in shock, “How did it…?”

Harold stepped up and shot large ice sickles at the creature, each time the monster sliced the ice with its sword, absorbing whatever it touched.

Donovan raised his gun angrily, “Shoot it down then!”

All three police officers pulled at their guns and aided Cedar in shooting at the beast. But before any shot got to the creature, it began to spin it’s sword in a circular motion, much like a fan. As it picked up speed, it began deflecting each bullet shot at it.

“Err, we’re getting nowhere with this!” Donovan lowered his gun angrily.

The monster's saber changed to a bright red, and a blast of fire shot out, aimed at Catherine. She threw up her hands, which created a huge wave that broke through the ground in front of her. The fireball blasted against the wall of water and disappeared inside it. The water resided as Catherine lowered her hands.

“That was close,” she chuckled slightly.

Henry suddenly ran off further into the park. “Hey! Where the hell are you going?” Donovan roared after him.

“Just keep it busy for a sec,” Henry jumped up into a tree and disappeared from view.

Aaron looked over at Martin, “What the hell is he up to?”

“Dunno, but he said to distract the thing. So let’s do it!”

Roger jumped in and began duplicating himself. The duplicates then rushed at the monster at once, slamming into it violently, only to make it angrier. The beast roared and swung its sword through the air, each time slicing through a Verlin duplicate.

“…Rog…Roger!” a crackling voice came from the COM link.

“Henry?!” Verlin pulled the earpiece closer to his ear.

“Can you get this thing a little more to the right?” Henry whispered.

“Sure thing,” Roger quickly created four more duplicates, each running directly at the monster, one tagging behind. The giant monster took one huge sweep with it’s blade through the first three duplicates. The fourth one lunged at the monster, missing the blade and slamming into the stomach of the beast. The blow made the creature stumble back a couple feet.

“Perfect!”

Henry leaped out from a tree above and jumped onto the back of the surprised monster. His hand sparked and Henry sent thousands of jolts through the creature. After a few seconds the monster slunk to the ground, its heart no longer beating.

“*Phew* Nice one, Henry,” Roger fell back onto the ground, breathing heavily.

“What was it?” Marié continued to look back at the creature’s body, expecting it to spring back to life.

“It’s what I feared,” Donovan examined the saber laying on the ground. The initials S.Z. carved into the handle.

Suddenly the monster’s body began to melt down into a purple liquid that spread into a large puddle.

“Ugh!” Clare stepped back, holding her nose, “It smells horrible.”

“I’ve seen that before!” Leslie gasped and looked towards Donovan. 

Cedar just stared painfully, “This really doesn’t look good…”

~