The Last Hero's Wasterland Sanctuary

Subway Skirmish and System Shocks

Chapter 9: Subway Skirmish and System Shocks

"Aurex, run!" Lyra sobbed, her voice cracking with terror.

The heavy steel blade whistled through the air, shearing a lock of Aurex's hair before he could even register the movement.

"Whoa! Watch the face!" Aurex yelled, throwing himself backward into the damp dirt.

"I told you to run!" Lyra shrieked. Her body twisted mechanically, her arms jerking as she spun around for a brutal backhand strike. "I literally can't stop myself! My limbs are moving on their own!"

"I can see that!" Aurex scrambled backward on his hands and knees, narrowly avoiding another downward slash that embedded the glowing blade deep into a cracked pumpkin. "Vaelia! Get the gravity-wire! The one near the left fence post!"

"I'm on it! I'm on it!" Vaelia shouted from the edge of the clearing, her fox ears twitching frantically. "But you better not let her chop my tail off, Aurex! I just brushed it!"

"Just pull the pin and throw it!" Aurex roared, ducking as Lyra’s sword swept over his head, parting the air with a terrifying hiss.

"Heads up! My arm is raising again!" Lyra screamed, tears streaming down her soot-stained cheeks. "I'm going to swing from the left! Get out of the way!"

"Thanks for the commentary!" Aurex rolled to his right, his shoulder slamming into a broken fence post. "Vaelia, now!"

"Catch!" Vaelia yelled, lobbing a heavy, metallic sphere directly into the space between Aurex and Lyra.

The moment the sphere hit the ground, it let out a sharp, electronic click. A web of shimmering, purplish light erupted across the grass, instantly pulling Lyra’s feet flat against the earth with a violent thud.

"Ugh!" Lyra gasped, her knees buckling under a sudden, invisible weight. "What is this? I feel like I weigh a thousand pounds!"

"It's a localized gravity-press," Aurex panted, pushing himself up and dusting off his knees. "It won't hurt you, but it should buy us enough time to figure out how to get you out of that tin suit."

"It's not working!" Lyra cried out.

The crimson veins on her silver breastplate flared with a harsh, blinding light. The magical energy surged down her legs, forcing her joints to creak and groan as she slowly lifted her right foot against the crushing gravity field.

"Are you kidding me?" Aurex stared in disbelief. "That wire was rated for a charging forest-boar!"

"The Sovereign Seal is fueled by the royal bloodline's core!" Gregory roared from the wreckage of the flagship, his voice carrying a wild, desperate triumph. "You cannot fight the King's magic, peasant! Princess, cut him down! Take his head!"

"Shut up, Gregory!" Lyra yelled, her voice trembling as her sword arm slowly rose again, resisting the purple gravity field with a terrible, grinding force. "Aurex, you have to run! The armor is burning through my life force to override the trap! If this keeps up, it’ll snap my bones!"

"Vaelia, where is the ancient discharger?" Aurex demanded, his eyes darting to the glowing crimson module on Lyra's chest. "The EMP one!"

"In my bag, but it's not tested!" Vaelia sprinted over, holding a heavy, brass-plated device that looked like a cross between a megaphone and a lightning rod. "And by not tested, I mean the last time I turned it on, it blew up my favorite toaster!"

"I don't care about your toaster!" Aurex yelled. "Can it fry the magic circuit on her chest?"

"Probably!" Vaelia squeaked. "But it's also going to shock the absolute daylights out of her!"

"Just do it!" Lyra pleaded, her sword hand shaking violently as she aimed the tip directly at Aurex's throat. "I'd rather be shocked than murder you! Please!"

"Alright, hold still!" Vaelia aimed the brass nozzle at Lyra. "Actually, don't hold still, because you can't! Just... don't move your chest!"

"How is she supposed to do that?" Aurex yelled, stepping in close. He grabbed Lyra’s vibrating sword arm with both hands, his heavy leather gloves smoking as they made contact with the unstable red mana wrapping the blade. "Hurry up, Vaelia! This stuff is hot!"

"Stop! You'll burn your hands!" Lyra sobbed.

"I've had worse burns from my stove!" Aurex gritted his teeth, his muscles straining as he held her arm back. "Vaelia, fire the damn thing!"

"Firing!" Vaelia squeezed the heavy iron trigger.

The brass device let out a high-pitched, deafening whine, followed by a massive, blue-white flash of electromagnetic energy. The air cracked with the scent of ozone and burnt hair.

The blue pulse slammed directly into Lyra’s chestpiece. The crimson veins on her armor sputtered, sparked wildly, and then shattered with a loud, metallic pop.

Lyra let out a sharp cry as the residual electricity arc'd across her armor, and then her entire body went limp. Aurex caught her before she hit the ground, dragging her out of the sputtering purple gravity field.

"Lyra? You still with us?" Aurex asked, shaking her shoulder.

Lyra blinked weakly, her eyes slowly focusing on his face. "I... I think my toes are numb. But I can move my fingers. On my own."

"Good. Don't try to stand up yet," Aurex said, letting out a long breath.

"We did it!" Vaelia cheered, tossing the smoking brass device into the dirt. "Take that, royal magic!"

"Uh, Vaelia?" Aurex stared past her, his eyes widening. "Why is your toaster-killer device still humming?"

"I told you, it has a little bit of a feedback issue," Vaelia said, her smile instantly vanishing as she looked down at the device. It was glowing with an intense, rapidly shifting blue light. "Oh, no. Oh, that's really bad."

"How bad?" Lyra asked, leaning against Aurex's arm.

"The EMP wave didn't just hit your armor," Vaelia whispered, pointing toward the shattered flagship behind them. "It bounced off the dampening field and hit the flagship's main drive."

The massive, half-buried wooden ship suddenly shuddered. The glowing mana crystals embedded in its hull turned from their dull, dying blue to a violent, pulsating white. A low, rhythmic thumping sound began to vibrate through the ground, growing louder and faster by the second.

"Is that supposed to happen?" Lyra asked, her voice tight.

"Absolutely not!" Aurex stood up, pulling Lyra with him. "The residual mana engine is undergoing a rapid thermal feedback loop. Vaelia, translate!"

"The big boat is about to explode and take the whole valley with it!" Vaelia screamed, grabbing her tool bag.

"Gregory!" Lyra called out, looking toward the wreckage. "Gregory, get your men out of there! The engine is going to blow!"

Gregory didn't need to be told twice. He was already scrambling out of the ruined deck, his golden armor covered in mud as he sprinted toward the western hills with his remaining knights.

"Every man for himself!" Gregory yelled, not once looking back.

"Well, so much for royal loyalty," Aurex muttered, his jaw clenched. "We need to move, now!"

"Where?" Lyra asked, looking around the open clearing. "The forest is too far! We won't make it out of the blast radius!"

"The ancient subway shaft!" Aurex pointed toward a small, reinforced stone structure hidden behind his ruined shed. "The old transit line under the farm!"

"The underground ruins?" Vaelia gasped. "But Aurex, that sector has been sealed for centuries! We don't even know if the tunnels are stable!"

"They're made of First Dynasty alloy, Vaelia! They're sturdier than this entire mountain!" Aurex grabbed Lyra’s arm, pulling her along as he sprinted toward the stone structure. "Unless you want to find out what it feels like to be vaporized by raw mana, you start running!"

"I'm running! I'm running!" Vaelia cried, her ears pinned flat against her head as she bolted beside them.

Behind them, the flagship let out a deafening screech as the metal hull began to tear open. A blinding column of white light shot straight into the sky, vaporizing the clouds above. The ground rolled and buckled like water, throwing up massive plumes of dirt and shattered pumpkin vines.

"We're not going to make it!" Lyra gasped, her heavy armor slowing her down as the shockwave of heat began to singe the back of her cape.

"Yes, we are!" Aurex reached the heavy iron door of the stone structure. He didn't bother looking for a key; he grabbed his heavy wrench and slammed it into the rusted pneumatic bypass valve.

With a loud, metallic hiss, the heavy steel door slid open, revealing a dark, yawning stairwell that sloped steeply into the earth.

"Get in! Go, go, go!" Aurex shoved Vaelia and Lyra through the opening.

He lunged in right after them, grabbing the inner emergency lever and slamming it down.

The heavy steel door slid shut with a massive clang just as the world outside went completely white.

A split second later, the shockwave hit.

Even through the thick reinforced stone, the impact was terrifying. The entire stairwell shook violently, throwing Aurex, Lyra, and Vaelia down the stone steps in a tangled heap of limbs and armor. Above them, the ceiling groaned. Massive cracks spider-webbed across the ancient concrete, and with a deafening roar, the entrance tunnel collapsed entirely, burying the door under hundreds of tons of solid rock and earth.

Then, there was silence.

The heat faded, replaced by the cool, damp smell of ancient dust and stagnant air. The absolute darkness of the underground swallowed them whole.

"Is... is everyone still in one piece?" Aurex’s voice echoed in the pitch black.

"I think my tail is caught under your leg, Aurex," Vaelia groaned from somewhere near his boots. "And it really, really hurts."

"Sorry," Aurex said, shifting his weight. "Lyra? You okay?"

"I'm alive," Lyra whispered. Her voice sounded small, stripped of all her usual princess-like composure. "But... we're trapped. The entrance is completely gone."

"Yeah. We're officially buried," Aurex sighed, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small, wind-resistant mechanical lighter. He flicked it, a tiny orange flame illuminating their dirt-caked faces.

"What do we do now?" Lyra asked, looking up at the massive pile of rubble blocking the stairs. "We can't dig our way out of that."

"We don't," Aurex said, turning his back on the collapsed entrance. He pointed the flame deeper into the dark, yawning cavern ahead of them. "We go down. The ancient transit lines should connect to the lower vaults beneath the old city sector. If we can find a maintenance terminal, we might find another way up."

"And if we don't?" Vaelia asked, her eyes reflecting the tiny flame.

"Then we'll have a very nice, very quiet place to starve to death," Aurex said dryly.

Suddenly, a low, deep, rhythmic hum began to vibrate through the metal floor beneath their boots.

Along the dusty, metallic walls of the tunnel, faint yellow emergency runes began to flicker to life, casting a dim, amber glow across the ancient railway tracks stretching into the darkness.

"Uh, Aurex..." Vaelia whispered, clutching his arm. "Did we just wake something up?"

Aurex stared down the long, empty tunnel as the deep hum

grew louder, like the breathing of a massive, metallic beast.

"I think we did," Aurex said, his grip tightening on his wrench. "Let's keep moving."