LEGACY OF THE BLAZERS - CHAPTER TWELVE (Patreon)

CHAPTER TWELVE

Lux had never ran so fast in her life.

The ground shook beneath her feet as a second boom sounded off, then a third, and a fourth. The fifth one put a period at the end of the symphony of explosions, then there was nothing but the sound of footsteps filling the air. Hers, Bon’s, Kern’s, and the hundreds of Panty Mafia members behind them, all desperate to know what the hell was going on.

Just minutes ago she’d ran up this corridor, hell-bent on revenge, and now she ran alongside the very people she wanted to get revenge against. Couldn’t think about that, though. It would only slow her down. Cy has to be retaliating, she told herself. That’s why there were so many explosions…

Were.

That was the key word there, and what got her to put her head down and keep chugging along. Thinking, at a time like this, was stupid. Soon she would see, and she needed to rely on that. Everything was going to be okay when she walked outside and saw Blowhole’s ship falling out of the sky, a burning inferno. It had to be. It just goddamn had to be!

Another boom came. This one must have hit the building itself because it caused it to rock like the whole thing was about to come down and sent Lux sprawling onto the floor, watching as Kern and Bon sped by. She jumped back to her feet and hurried after them, knowing the stampeding Panty Mafia members would crush her if she waited even a second too long. When she finally reached the entrance, it was clouded with thick smoke that curled around her lungs, squeezed them tight.

She fought through the ash, smacking away cinders which stuck to her skin like scorching hot glitter, and threw herself through a front door which, thankfully, wasn’t on fire.

But everything else was.

“What the…” Kern started.

“…Fuck!” Bon finished.

Chaos. Ruin.

Two states of being she had become all too familiar with.

Destruction, desolation, devastation. Call it whatever the hell you want—what sat in front of her was nothing. Flames licked the ground, burning brightly under the moon’s somber glow, and the metal of the Nightmare, the ship they’d worked so damn hard to steal, was scattered around in jagged, tooth-like pieces. Between them? Bodies. Dozens of them, connected by the streams of blood flowing away from them.

Blowhole’s monstrosity of an airship lingered in the sky above them, but Lux couldn’t pay any mind to that. As she hit the open air and left the hazardous embrace of the smoke she regained all of her senses, and the sight in front of her only made the slew of screams worse. It was just like…

Memories from before crowded her mind but she shoved them away as she ran into the wreckage, not caring about her well-being, just wanting to know who was okay, if anyone was. Tegan. Derek. Spike. Cy...

Oh, Cy…

“No, no, no.”

Countless familiar faces pulled themselves out of the wreckage, skin melted off their bones or already burnt to a crisp. Greasers who had risked their lives to get this machine were now dying with it and it was all because of that fat whale bastard! Bits of glass crunched beneath her feet as she pushed white-hot pieces of the Nightmare away, not caring that it glued her skin to the metal. Ash coated her hair, poured off her like rain. Tegan, Derek, Spike, Cy. Tegan, Derek, Spike Cy.

“Tegan…”

“Derek…”

“Spike... “

“Cy…”

She lost her balance, tripping over the arm of a Greaser who had been crushed by debris. His eyes had been smashed out of his skull like a thick jam and dripped across the ground in front of her. She cupped her hand over her mouth and tried not to scream but couldn’t help herself—she was sitting in a pool of blood, and the air around her stank of iron, and she didn’t know where her friends were, and, and, and…

“Lux…?”

That voice…!

She lifted her head and saw, just a few feet in front of her, trapped underneath a few fallen sheets of metal, was Derek. Blood leaked from his forehead and he had his arm outstretched toward her. He clenched his hand like he was trying to grab her.

“Lux…”

She couldn’t help but run, slipping and sliding and almost falling flat on her face because at least one of her friends was alive, and she had been worried none were, and that made it easy to forget the reeking stench of dead bodies all around her. She pressed her hands against the bottom of the metal and with a huff and a puff she heaved it up enough for him to escape from its grasp.

“Fuck,” he said. “Fuck.”

A gash ran along his stomach. The kind nobody ever lives from. Lux propped him up ahead a relatively cool sheet of metal. “Jesus, Derek. Jesus.”

“That’s a lot of blood,” he said. Sweat was pouring down his face, and he was breathing like he’d swallowed his tongue. “I’m…fuck.”

“You’ll be fine. You’ll be…”

“You can’t bullshit a bullshitter,” Derek said. “Look at me, fucking using cliches.”

“There’s gotta be something, maybe, I don’t…”

Eventually Lux realized her words were doing more harm than good, and so she just leaned forward and pushed his head into her shoulder. It couldn’t end like this—it couldn’t. They just got the Nightmare, and the panties, and things were going too well. They couldn’t just end.

“I’m gonna die, Lux…” His tears soaked through her shirt, and when he wrapped his hands around her back she realized how utterly weak he was. His nails tried to dig into her skin but he just didn’t have the energy.

“What happened, Derek? Did Blowhole just show up, or?”

Derek’s tears started coming harder, and now his grip tightened on her. “I’m so sorry, Lux. I’m so goddamn sorry.”

“Derek—”

“—Blowhole took him, Lux.”

That took the air out of Lux’s lungs. “What?”

He buried his face into her shoulder. “He took...” he said. “...Cy.”

With that, his grip loosened once again, and Lux, realizing what was going on, pulled back, pressing her hands against his cheeks and hoping to shake some life back into him. “Derek, Derek! What do you mean? What do you…what…”

But it was too late.

His voice was gone, the light in his eyes fading fast. His hands fell off her back as he slumped forward, dead weight.

Dead.

Dead.

She hugged him as tight as she could, his still-warm blood gushing into her lap, and screamed until her throat was raw, hoping it would make her feel better.

It didn’t.

Nothing, not even killing Blowhole, could make her feel better after this.

She’d lost a great friend, and maybe another one in Tegan, too.

And if what he said about Cy is true...

She shook her head. The world around her was in flames and her head felt like it was as well—it pounded, boiling in its own blood, and she lost the will to do anything but just sit there, existing, wishing she didn’t, and not understanding.

“Derek…”

With him gone, she was the last Blazer.

Their entire legacy sat on her shoulders…

But what had she done so far aside from get people hurt? She’d fought, and won, but she’d just spent this time surviving and with all these dead bodies scattered around her, it felt like her luck was running out. If Blowhole could do this, how could she possibly go toe-to-toe with him? If he wanted her dead, he’d just have to fire another blast, and...

That was just it, though, wasn’t it?

He didn’t want to kill her so simply. He wanted to kill her himself and make an example of her. She’d beaten Cheese, she’d wronged him. To him, everyone else here was nothing. The only reason he took Cy was because Cy was important to her. She clenched her fists…

“We don’t get time to sit around, dumbass.” She raised her head and saw Kern standing next to her, arms crossed, and for the first time, she understood how he had become so feared--he wore a serious glare unlike any she had ever seen. “They’re coming.”

“What…?”

Then she saw it. The sloth, one of Blowhole’s generals, rushing straight toward them, trailed by hundreds of stuffed animals all wearing whale costumes.

“You’d better not choke out on me,” Kern said. “We’re about to have a hell of a fight on our hands.”

Her strength had been sapped. Her mind whipped into submission. But still she clambered back to her feet, put the blunt in her mouth, and sparked it up. She shouldn’t fight. Hell, probably couldn’t. But she was the last Blazer, and Blazers never give up. They fight ‘til the bitter end even if it kills them.

“I can’t afford to die yet,” she said. “Not ‘til that whale’s six feet deep.”

“Heh. Glad we’re on the same page about that, at least,” Kern said.

And with that, they charged forward.

Cy...

I’ll see you soon, I promise.

END OF CHAPTER TWELVE