James Axler - Pantheon Of Vengeance

A mutant raced along a hilltop to her right, screeching unintelligibly to his brothers who were strung out behind them. Domi snapped a shot at the reptilian mutant, but being on the run and not having a stable firing stance, she missed the gnarled hordeling by yards. The half man yowled in indignation and with maniacal strength, threw the musket like a javelin. Domi realized the weight and force behind the foot-and-a-half-long bayonet would be far more dangerous than a soft musket ball. She swerved, barely avoiding the wood-and-steel missile, but the sudden change in direction caused her to lose her footing as she stomped down hard on loose shale. Her lead over the reptilians evaporated as she took a spinning crash into the gravel. Thankfully, she still held on to her .45 and she aimed it at the hilltop mutant who was running straight at her, obviously ready to rend her with his fangs and claws. Braced and stationary, Domi was equally ready to send the clone back to the hell that vomited him onto Earth.

Shockingly, the mutant seized up and exploded, detonating seven yards from Domi. One moment, the misshapen creature was charging; the next his internal organs were externalized as a cloud of red sticky mist. Domi registered the chatter of heavy blasters cutting loose behind her. The guns didn’t make the familiar sounds of her friends’ weapons. It took a moment for her to realize that she had to have stumbled onto one of the giant, coppery robots.

Before she could send a call over her Commtact, two screaming clones charged out from behind a boulder. Domi swung the Detonics toward them and pounded two powerful bullets into one of the mutants, stopping him cold. The other, however, had taken a flying leap, and at the apex of his path, Domi could see the lethal bayonet spearing through the air toward her face. She rolled to one side, hearing the deadly blade sink into the hard, barren soil with tremendous force.

The mutant screeched with insane frustration, trying to pry the weapon out of the ground. Domi scrambled to her feet and whipped the steel muzzle of her pistol across the mutant’s jaw, shattering it with a loud pop that signaled exploding bone. The mutant collapsed into a nerveless, unconscious puddle of bioengineered twitching flesh.

It might have been a consolation that Domi only had five more mutants to face, but the creatures lurched into view all at once, hopping atop boulders. They were spread out, so she couldn’t shoot them all, even if she had five bullets left in her gun. As they grinned maliciously, fangs shimmered in the starlight.

Panting, she curled her lip in defiance. Detonics in one hand, she slid her knife from its scabbard, her ruby-red eyes staring with the same rage as the pairs of soulless, yellow orbs that sized her up. “Want eats? Come and get ’em.”

A gibbering chuckle escaped five pairs of lips, and they lurched forward just before freezing, yellow slits widening with horror. Domi had heard the thunderous beat of ponderous footfalls shaking the earth behind her, but now there was only silence. She would be caught in the line of fire between the machine-gun-armed robot and the savage clones anyway, so she stood her ground, ready to make the mutants pay dearly for her life. The wind rose over her head, the breeze so strong that it flicked the head wrap off her bone-colored hair, the rag fluttering away uselessly. It was a sudden, unnatural breeze that set off her instincts. Reflexively, she rolled backward, away from the quintet of hordelings, but the golden-maned titan wouldn’t have landed on her. The crash of three thousand pounds of mechanized warrior shook Domi almost off her feet.

Even more stunning was the raw power emanating from the armored war machine standing in front of her.

It had landed on one mutant, and twisted limbs poked up between the giant’s metal toe claws. With a grace belying its enormous bulk, the robot lashed out with long, hydraulic-piston arms. It quickly snatched up two mutants from their perches atop boulders, eliciting screeches of horror. Powerful crushing fingers closed on their toylike little bodies, gore vomiting between gigantic metal fingers. The squeals ended moments before the creatures’ lower bodies plopped greasily onto the rocky ground, everything that their bellies and legs had been attached to pulverized into liquid mush. A fourth hordeling screeched in rage, lunging to attack the mechanized warrior.

Domi snapped up her pistol and blew it out of the air, .45-caliber slugs cutting it down in midflight.

Artem15 whirled at the sound of gunshots and watched the reptilian clone flop dead on the ground. Red camera lenses tightened in focus, examining the young woman she’d come to rescue.

“Lower the weapon,” she ordered the albino girl.

“Not on your life,” Domi said. She clenched her pistol and knife, ruby-red eyes glaring in defiance.

“Why not?” Artem15 challenged.

“Not wrapped in metal!” Domi spit. Her anger dissipated into alarm. “One’s getting away!”

Artem15 whirled in response to the warning, following the flash of movement as the last mutant fled with a speed born of pure terror. Her shoulder guns chattered to life, ripping out streams of bullets that sliced the misshapen horde clone to ribbons. “Thanks for that.”

“Not your enemy,” Domi returned. “Thanks for your help.”

Artem15 straightened and nodded.

“You speak English?” Domi asked.

“All robot pilots do,” the woman in the mobile armor replied. “But you…Where are you from? Where’d you get that gun? And what is that uniform you’re wearing?”

Domi looked down at her pistol, realizing that the flood of the pilot’s questions were more than she could easily explain. “My stuff’s from a lot of places. Me, I’m from America. I’m from a place called Cerberus.”

Artem15 tilted her head. “Cerberus?” she said with interest. “Did you come alone?”

“Three friends,” Domi answered, still nervous enough to speak in her clipped vocabulary. Her ruby-red eyes widened with shocked realization. “Back this way!”

Artem15’s robot cameras whirred, looking toward the direction that Domi was starting in. “Wait! I hear the fighting. Climb on!”

“Climb on?” Domi asked.

Artem15 extended a powerful, blood-slicked metal hand toward Domi. “My way’s faster. Trust me.”

Domi looked at the pulped remains of the mutants that had been crushed in the enormous digits. “You got to be kidding.”

“I won’t hurt you, and we need to get to your friends quickly,” Artem15 said.

Domi grabbed on to Artem15’s “thumb” with both hands and hauled herself up into the main joint that formed the robot’s palm. With ridiculous ease, Artem15 carried her up to the gigantic shoulder gear housing for the robot’s left gun.

“Name’s Domi,” she offered.

“Um…Diana,” Artem15 answered. An uncomfortable silence followed the pronunciation, as if the words had somehow caught in her throat.

“What’s wrong?” Domi asked.

Diana couldn’t explain—and honestly didn’t want to—the sudden identity trauma she’d caused herself. “Nothing. We have to reach your friends. I’ll try to explain later.”

“Okay,” Domi replied uncertainly.

“Hang on tight,” Artem15 warned.

Domi wrapped her arms around the steel gear-shaped shoulder armor without protest. Moments later, the albino understood why as massively powerful leg hydraulics flexed, then sprung, launching both robot and girl skyward.

Domi’s voice rose in a wail of dismay and shock as they accelerated into the starlit night, but the wail gave way to a crescendo of childlike glee as she realized that she was flying on the shoulder of a robotic giant.

For a moment, she allowed herself the windswept joy of sailing in flight as she’d never traveled before.