Killing Olympia

Meat smoldered in the center of 12th Avenue. Fat boiled and burned. Muscles charred, tensed, and curled around the bones they still clung to. It reeked. Stank so badly it pierced its way through the blood clogging my nose. I tried to get up. I tried to get my feet underneath me. I slipped. Landed in the remains of several people smashed together. Bodies. Countless. Vomit surged into my throat. Filled my mouth. I threw up until I was a coughing mess. My ears rang. Someone was shrieking. The skyscrapers had all shattered from the impact. One good eye to see. One blurry vision of people staggering dumbly across the street, slipping and sliding in burning human remains. I looked up.

Gayne was hovering inches above the cracked asphalt, his white regalia drenched in blood. He was saying something. Maybe to me. Maybe to the pedestrians still walking around. I tried to get up. Fell again. Landed on my bad shoulder and sent a shockwave of agony crashing through my skull. I was lying in somebody's ribcage. I had to shut my eyes. Had to ignore the smells and stenches. It reeks like Arkath. I gritted my teeth. Wanted to move. My body wouldn't respond. It fought back, weakened my arms, made my heart stutter. It was getting harder to stay awake. But I had to. You have to. It was my job. It was my…my… Gayne looked down at me, then moved slowly toward where I was lying. He didn't let his boots touch the ground. The heat coming off his body warped the air.

I didn't hear his voice at first. What rushed toward me when my ears healed was the screaming. The crackling of flesh catching fire whenever Gayne got close. The shrieking of people calling for help, trapped under flipped cars. The people inside the skyscrapers were cupping their ears. Almost everyone would be dead by now.

The impact had been fast, it had been sudden—it had left an entire avenue caked in blood.

"Unfortunately very fragile," Gayne muttered. He picked me up, his thick fingers wrapping around the back of my throat. He raised me above his head and slowly turned. He didn't have to speak. He wanted their eyes.

He wanted them to see me covered in blood, my shoulder barely attached to the rest of me.

They stared. They didn't fall silent, they didn't stop shrieking in pain—but they stared.

And all I could do was let tears of agony streak down my face. I was keeping myself awake through fear. You don't pass out in the face of an Arkathian. You didn't 'give in.' But my eye couldn't focus. My head swam.

I felt like puking again. The longer he held me toward the sky, the more bodies I saw. I clenched my teeth. Tried not to cry. Buildings had been painted scarlet. Strips of flesh streaked across the pavement, burning in the oil trapped inside of the tarmac. You've got to fight. Screaming. A kid was shoving her mother's limp legs back and forth, trying to tug the rest of her loose from underneath a car. Rylee, you've got to fight. Some of them, so shell shocked they could barely walk, stumbled over corpses that left them with burns on their arms and faces when they landed in the smoldering remains. The one fucking time the world needs you to do something, Rylee. For once in—

Gayne let go of my throat. I landed in a heap at his feet, covered in his shadow. The canyon of buildings on either side of us meant the sun was a pale sliver that made the blood shine and the shards of shattered glass glimmer.

He swiped his hand hard across the air. The blood on his body splattered on those closest to him, throwing them backward. He stained pillars of stone and storefronts. White marble shined scarlet. The rest of the blood and gore on his body got burned to cinders and gray ash in an instant. Then, slowly, his body cooled, and he smiled.

"People of Earth," he said. His voice shook the ground. A news helicopter beat in the sky above. For a moment, it felt like the world had stopped spinning underneath me. I tried to get up. I tried to push myself off the ground. My hand slipped on blood. I landed hard on the concrete. Gayne's eyes flicked down toward me. I stared up at him, my teeth bared, fist curled so tight it hurt. Hurt so badly it almost made me forget about every other raging feeling inside of me. Then he landed, one foot crushing me against the ground, the other on the pavement, as if I was his pedestal. He put his arms behind his back and ignored me as I screamed. "It is with humility and respect that I come here today bearing good news. You have been chosen to be liberated." Murmuring. I gasped for air as he shifted his weight off my spine. My back ached. I couldn't feel my toes. I can't feel my legs I can't feel my fucking legs. "You may question what exactly it is that you are being liberated from, and to that, the answer is simple: yourselves. You squander so much…potential. You hoard your resources. You do not participate in galactic trade. By all accounts"—his voice dropped a decimal—"we have taken your solitude as an offense to our Great Empire."

I slammed my good hand into the stone underneath me. It cracked. "Get…" I wheezed. "Get…off—"

Gayne used his foot to roll me onto my back. "Your strongest protector is nothing to us. In short, humans, we have not come here to negotiate, nor have we come here expecting retaliation. You will stand down. You will cooperate. And you will respect the wishes of the Great Arkathian Empire. Your transition will be seamless, unless, of course, your world leaders seek to mobilize their armed forces. For that to be the case, I pity you." He stepped on me, squeezing the ounces of air out of my lungs and crushing my ribs in the process. I wanted to scream. I wanted to rage. My body didn't. It couldn't move. I could only lie there, listening to him from a distance so great it almost felt like I wasn't there to begin with. I could only look up at him. At the sun behind his head, making him a shadow. "I hope you do not think there is a chance of your rebellion. There is none. Countless have tried. None ever succeed."

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It was distant at first. Silent. Then came the quake of air as the sound barrier was broken twice in quick succession. I was choking on my own tongue and blood. Barely able to blink and breathe. But I felt…her. I felt a power so great it ran through my bone marrow. The lacy clouds above us split open, and suddenly, with a sound just as loud as a missile shrieking through the sky or a comet tearing through space, Europa slammed into the Earth. The ground shook. She stood, steam and heat rolling off her body. I turned my head. Blood dribbled out of my mouth. She tensed her jaw when she looked at me, when she looked around. Blue, white, and gold. Those were her colors.

But that didn't matter. The only thing that did was the glint in her eyes when she looked at Gayne.

Hatred so pronounced it almost bled from her eyes lit the darkened avenue.

My heart quickened, beating weakly against my ribs. I reached out to her, hand quivering.

"Ah," Gayne said. He got his boot off my chest. I gasped for air and slowly, agonizingly, rolled over. "Bastard Daughter of Thorne. I thought we'd dealt with you enough. It seems you've found elsewhere to hide now."

"Leave Earth at once, Gayne," Europa said. Her voice echoed. She glowed with soft light. She felt…good. The pain ebbed and flowed now. It didn't trash and kick and gouge. I could almost think clearly. "Immediatly."

Gayne's eyes narrowed. "On what merit? Yours? Your rebellion is dead. The last of the enslaved perished years ago. You run to the edges of the galaxy to this backwater planet to spark your ideals within them as well, just for you to lead them all into needless slaughter. If the humans do as they're told, there will be no more bloodshed."

I'd begun crawling away. The piles of charred meat, burnt bodies, crushed cars and broken glass slowed me. I had one good arm to use. She was an agonizing eternity away. I was making a sound. Crying. Loud and ugly.

"Leave this planet, now," she said slowly. More helicopters in the air. Capes skimming the sky.

Gayne ignored her, then looked up toward the cameras on him. The avenue was silent. I froze. Dozens of Capes landed on buildings or hung in the sky, shrouding the avenue. Gayne's shadow streaked across the pavement and the bodies, larger than anyone's, covered Europa by tenfold. His eyes scanned the skyscrapers above him. He watched the cameras. He stared at the blanket of superheroes who'd fallen over him. It wouldn't be enough. It wouldn't be anywhere near enough. Gayne shifted on his feet. The ground cracked. Europa bent slightly. Stones skittered around her boots. Gods, please. Not now. Not again. A fight between these two would be dad and Titan all over again, and…no. Not in the city. Not with so many people still around. Not with Bianca so close to any of this.

Gayne smiled thinly, then looked at Europa. "Do you remember the Empire's terms?"

A flash of rage crossed her face, but she didn't move. "I'll gut you like the animal you are."

"One year," he said. I froze. Looked at him. One eye still swollen, lungs still aching. Gayne lifted off the ground and spread his arms, his voice louder—so loud it hurt, so loud it shook the entire avenue. "Our terms have been set, and our Empire begins the process of adjusting to your cultures, your ways, your…champions. It is only fair that you do the same. Prepare your planet for the arrival of the Arkathian Royal Family. Clean your streets. Remove the waste within the very air you breathe. Be proud, Earth, for you can behold the stars, as your gods are here. We are merciful. We are forgiving. And we will ensure that you will prosper under our eternal protection."

Europa launched forward. The ground shifted underneath her feet, then exploded into debris.

For a moment, a fraction of a second, she was above me, her fist carving through the air, golden light flowing off her body in veils. Her eyes burned golden and her teeth were bared, canines sharp, wet, predatory.

Gayne dug his fingers into her gut, stopping her on impact. I screamed for her. She gasped blood through her teeth as he raised her into the air, almost knuckle deep. Blood spilled through her teeth. Europa grabbed the side of his skull, jammed her thumb into his eye socket, and sent a shockwave of light through the side of his head. A brilliant golden explosion threw me backward and sent Europa skidding. She stumbled, slid, and caught me.

Gayne, though, was still standing upright, blood shining on his fingers, the side of his face smoking.

His right eye was dull. Blood trickled from its tear duct.

His jaw was set as he stared at Europa, his fists now balled.

She was breathing hard but kept me in her arms. She stumbled. The light in her eyes flickered.

"No stronger than your insect of a mother," he muttered. He spat saliva onto the ground. The force alone dug a divot into the concrete. He turned to us as his right eye went gray. "As the humans say: here's a parting gift."

I was suddenly on the ground. Gayne was suddenly in front of her. Then his fist met her stomach.

Europa erupted upward through the sky, smashing through several Capes above us. She vanished into the clouds as body parts rained to the ground and injured Capes tumbled through the air and smashed against stone.

Gayne crouched beside me. He used his finger to wipe the blood and tears from my eyes. "Such a soft face," he muttered. "You were never meant to be one of us. I suppose, though, even bugs have their strengths." He stood, towering over me. Heartbeat in my skull. Fog washed over my brain and vision. "When we meet again in one years' time, Daughter of Thaddeus, I expect you to kneel in front of the throne. You would make an extremely useful Herald of this planet. For once, you would have a place amongst your own kind. After today, these people will not respect you. They will not want you. Locate our closest outpost once you heal. From that point, we can begin to negotiate which humans you will want most to be spared. You can redeem the House of Korr once more."

"Until then," he said, smiling. All teeth, Europa's blood streaked on them. "Heal well. Do not perish."

And that is an order from the Royal Family, he said in Arkathian. The final thing I heard.

The only few words that every Arkathian understood, however young, however old.

Whatever bloodline.

Slowly, icily, unconsciousness swept over me.

Gayne erupted into the sky as Capes descended from above.