I barely had time to flinch, never mind take cover, but Master Aki had thrown himself over me. We were knocked back, with him landing halfway on top of me. With a groan, he rolled off me holding his stomach.
“Master Aki!” I scrambled to my feet and checked him over. His lip was bleeding but his head looked okay. I was about to check his stomach when a shrill cackle came from the mouth of the cave.
“Kit Steele comes to challenge me at last,” a raspy, feminine yet primal voice called out.
I swiveled and lay my sights on the mother of all ghouls. Looking at her, it all became clear to me. She had the colored, ropy hair like the giants and the build of a sentry with the skin of a grunt. On her back were four tentacles like the skids had, all serrated. She was like a freaking mutant of all of them. Except the Galadrias. I didn’t spy anything of them in her and I wondered if they even originated here.
“You make them all,” I said with wonder.
She grinned, showcasing serrated, shark-like teeth. “I am the mother of everything you see.” She opened her arms wide, “and I will also be your end.”
I’d somehow been so enamored with what she looked like that I’d forgotten I came here to kill her. Her tentacles shot out for me, but Master Aki lurched forward and cut the tips off of two of them, while I was able to dodge the other two.
I stepped forward to run at her, but it felt like I was walking through cement. My legs were slow and shaky.
“She’s controlling you! Use your power!” my mentor shouted.
Mental combat was not my strong suit, but I cleared my mind and tried to connect with the force pushing in on me.
Holy Mother, she was strong.
I felt her in my mind, weighing on me like a ton of bricks, pushing at the edges and trying to break me.
Pain. I pushed out at her and she grinned.
“That’s cute,” she huffed, still not having moved from her place at the entrance of her cave.
A searing hot pain like I was being lit on fire exploded up my back and I screamed.
Everything happened so fast. Master Aki threw another grenade, and at the same time I heard bullets snap from his gun. Dawn lurched forward, breathing a stream of fire so that the queen breeder couldn’t move away from the grenade, and I just writhed on the ground with the pain she’d stuck me in.
The bomb went off, throwing me back a few feet, and suddenly Master Aki was in my face. “That’s all I got, the rest is up to you, Kit. Go deep, don’t be afraid of that power. You’re not a little girl anymore, you can handle it now.”
The pain had subsided when the bomb went off. I’d hoped it was because she was dead, but I knew better. This bitch would be hard to kill. It would take all three of us, no doubt.
Standing, I waited for the rubble to settle and went within myself. Deep inside the recesses of my mind was a great power. It felt like an earthquake, and if I were to let it loose, it might erupt and I’d lose my sanity.
Maybe going insane would be worth it if it meant defeating this monster and ending the Dream Wars. Either way, I couldn’t afford to just sit idly anymore. With a shaky breath, I pulled the zipper on my mental power, letting it flow fully.
“Yes!” Master Aki shouted as the hairs on my arms stood up. It felt like I’d just swallowed lightning; everything in my body was alive.
A blur to my right had me spinning just in time to see the breeder lunging for me, two shiny blades in her hands.
Without panicking, I raised my katanas and felt for the air around her body. There was space there, but the space was not empty; it was filled with matter, energy. I froze that energy with my mind somehow, by instinct, and she stopped her advance like she’d run into a brick wall.
The shock on her face caused me to grin.
“You! You stole my power, little girl,” she hissed, and clanked her blades together, causing the energy to break apart. “Now I will steal something from you.”
Her tentacles came out behind her like wings, and that’s what drew my attention, but I realized too late that it was a distraction. As I readied myself to fend off the tentacle strike that never came, she flung those two blades so deadly fast I didn’t even realize they were thrown until I heard Master Aki’s strangled cry behind me.
It was like time stopped. I spun in seemingly slow motion as Dawn charged forward, blowing an arc of fire to keep the queen breeder back. Master Aki had a blade in his throat and another in his stomach; he was staring at me, wide-eyed. Blood gushed from his neck wound as he slunk to the ground.
“Noooo!” A guttural cry left my lips as the power I’d brought up flooded to the surface. I should have brought Ronnie; she could maybe have patched him up. The power within me shook my arms as I held a hand over his bleeding throat.
I wept over the man who had been like a father to me. “Hang on. Dawn will fly you home.”
He looked up into my eyes and smiled. “No, child…” His voice was weak, and as the grief crashed into me, wave after wave, the ground started to shake. I don’t know how I knew, but it was my anger causing the earth to shake.
“It was always to be… this way. End the Dream Wars. Be happy. I love…y—” He didn’t finish his sentence before the breath left his mouth and he…was gone.
Grief and rage whirred within me like a blender. I popped onto my feet with both blades drawn.
That evil bitch was about
