But something had stayed his hand. Calmed him. Brought a peace that almost didn’t make sense. Almost on a subconscious level, he made a decision. And, just like that, all the anger and the hate and the thirst for vengeance went away. Gone. He didn’t understand it, but he felt it all the same. He had a calling in the world now. And he swore to never think of Jane again after he watched her disappear into the gray mist with Chu and Tick.
A murmuring behind him interrupted his thoughts. A rumbling of whispers and movement as people talked to each other, leaning close to speak ear to ear. He looked back at his soldiers, wondering what they could be excited about. He didn’t see anything on the other side of the tall soldiers who made up his army, when he heard a different sound coming from the Void. A series of thumps and roars, like drums and wind. He quickly whipped around to take a look.
The giant wall of churning fog was only a couple hundred feet away now, and forms of mist were separating from the main cyclone. Pockets of swirling gray air popped out all over the place and coalesced into more human-shaped bodies than any Void creatures they’d encountered before. They formed in the air then dropped to the ground, landing on two feet that were suddenly solid. The ones closest started walking toward the Fifth Army.
On some level, Sato knew that these creatures were people who’d been stolen by the Void, sucked in from who knew where by the pulsing blue substance that was somehow related to the Fourth Dimension. It didn’t make sense to him, probably never would. But the Void had turned them into monsters, and now more than fifty had already been created. They were coming toward him, as if they’d zeroed in on him specifically.
He remembered all too well what those things could do.
His army would need to attack hard and fast before the beams of pure flame came shooting out of the creatures’ mouths.
He was just turning to face his army and shout commands when Tollaseat interrupted him, something he’d never done before.
“Got major trouble, we do,” the giant man said.
“Yeah, I’m pretty aware—”
“No, sir! I ’spect you don’t! Not talkin’ about the fog things! There’s an army of machines revvin’ up on the other side of us. Looks a might nasty, too.”
Sato lifted up on his toes and saw a few traces of silver and what looked like mechanical arms. He didn’t understand it at first, didn’t know what was going on. But he knew three things.
His army was small. And surrounded. By two different enemies.
Tick guessed they were about two miles into the massive storm of the Void when everything fell apart. It started with the wind, a visible, monstrous thing mixed with the gray mist. It grew to an unnatural level, so fierce and mighty that the sound of it drowned out the booming thunder. And the bubble of protection created by Mistress Jane finally became worthless.
It stayed intact, but suddenly became a victim of the wind, whipping up into the abyss of the Void with Tick and the other two still inside of it. They smacked into each other, rolled around, tossed back and forth like pebbles inside a bouncing beach ball. Chu’s cube flew out of his hands, and its corner hit Tick just above the eye, sending a sharp lance of pain through his skull. An inch lower and he might have been blinded for life. Chu called out, frantically trying to maneuver his way through the chaos to grab his precious device once again.
But movement was impossible for any of them. Tick finally curled up into a ball and quit trying to fight something he couldn’t change. He bounced up and down, wincing each time he slammed into Jane or Chu, hating the feel of chins and elbows and feet digging into his flesh and bones. The temptation to unleash his Chi’karda was overpowering, but he held back, realizing that flying around in a bubble was better than getting separated and lost, each of them swept away by the brutal winds.
The shiny orange bubble of Chi’karda hit the ground and rolled. Grunts and shouts and barks of pain filled the air as Tick closed his eyes and squeezed his arms and legs into an even tighter ball. The bouncing finally settled, and everything stopped moving. Tick, filled with nausea, looked up to see that not much was different from before. The orange sheen of the bubble was still around them, the swirling mist of the Void raging on the other side. His first thought was that maybe a particularly strong gust had caught them from underneath to throw them through the air like that.
He saw Chu crawling toward his silver cube. Jane was trying to stand up, obviously woozy, her robe in disarray and revealing her scarred hands and arms.
“We need to move,” she said in a hoarse voice that Tick barely heard. “The Void is going to keep trying to stop us. We need to move! Now!”
Tick nodded. Chu picked up his precious device. Jane pointed, making Tick wonder how in the world she could possibly know which way they’d been walking before. But he had no better ideas. They picked up where they’d left off and started moving.
They’d taken maybe ten steps when the ground exploded upward, throwing them all in different directions. The bubble vanished for good.