War Beast

Book Two: Chapter 14

After the flash cleared, Jenny rubbed her eyes and looked around.

"Where are we?" Huntar shouted in astonishment.

Jenny glanced at the brick walls and the wet concrete ground. Behind her was a metal crate that looked like a dumpster.

Are we back in New York? Jenny almost assumed that until she noticed the sky was purple, with two full moons.

"Halt!" a mechanical voice shouted.

Six small spotlights flashed into Jenny's eyes. After her vision cleared, three humanoid machines approached her and her friends.

Jenny's eyes widened.

The robots looked exactly like General Cluster's mech suit, except shorter in gray metallic colors. She could even see the crab-like creatures' hideous faces inside the suits' cockpit heads. All of them looked exactly like Cluster too.

"Show us your identification cards!" One crab asked.

"Torag?" The rhino asked.

"Show us your identification cards!"

"What identification cards?" Zena asked.

The crabs raised their energy cannon rifles at her.

"Unauthorized species will not be tolerated on Dargis!" One exclaimed. "Surrender now, or prepare to be terminated!"

Huntar pulled out his sword. "We are warriors, and warriors never surrender!"

"You have been warned!" The mech fired his blaster.

Huntar held out his sword, and miraculously the blast bounced back off his blade.

The beam flew back into the crab's face and blew his cockpit. After he exploded, the mech suit fell backward to the ground.

The other two stared at their fallen companion, shocked about his death.

Jenny was just as surprised as the two aliens. Huntar never told her who built his broadsword and where it came from.

The crabs pointed their weapons at the Beastmen.

"Prepare for termination!" Both shouted in angry tones.

By instinct, Jenny jumped in front of the mechs with her hands out. "Wait! We're-"

From her palms, lightning blasted out, shocking the mech. They shook and screamed until their bodies exploded across the alley.

Jenny shielded her face as flaming debris flew past her. She lowered her hands and found only metal pieces, burning around mechanical body parts. No corpses laid among the rubble.

"That is sooooo awesome!" a female voice shouted behind Jenny and her friends.

Jenny and the others turned around, spotting a pink girl standing behind the dumpster. She looked surprisingly human with short curly purple hair hanging down on the right side of her smooth face. On the left side of her head were two curly horns sticking up together. She probably has two more horns on her right side although Jenny couldn't see them. The girl's eyes were green and she wore a dark purple leather jacket over her long skinny plastic pants. She looked like an alien biker chick from a cyberpunk novel.

If Eddie was here, he would totally fall in love with that strange girl, Jenny thought.

Zena pointed her battle staff at the alien female. "Who are you!?"

The girl opened her mouth, but she paused when a siren approached above the alley. Eight bright lights appeared while making roaring jet engine sounds.

"Follow me!" The pink alien girl placed a black sticky ball on the wall.

After she ran from the wall, the ball exploded, blowing a large hole through the wall.

"Follow me!" she shouted.

Jenny turned to Zena. "Come on!"

Zena glared at the alien. "How can we trust her?"

Jenny narrowed her eyes. "Do we have a choice?"

Zena heard stomping sounds and looked back.

More mechs marched into the alley. Ten to twenty, all armed with energy weapons that Huntar wouldn't be able to block all at once.

Zena nodded to Jenny. "Let's go!"

Jenny and her friends followed the pink girl through the hole. They entered a chamber with futuristic with an oven, table, and round counters across the walls. Next, they dashed through a living room with two round couches facing a flat-screen monitor.

The pink girl kicked the front door down. "This way!"

Jenny caught up to her inside a corridor with doorways across the gray walls. The structure could be an apartment complex for the alien resident. Perhaps the aliens weren't so different from humans after all.

Down the hall, the pink girl dashed toward a double glass doorway next to a stairway. She stopped when lights flashed outside. "They got this place surrounded! This way!"

Jenny understood when two hulking shadows appeared behind the door. She followed her friends up the staircase behind the pink girl.

They ran through the second floor, the third floor, and they reached a dark double metal door at the top. The pink girl pushed the door opened, revealing the empty rooftop.

The pink girl approached the roof edge and looked down.

"Now what?" Jenny asked, approaching her.

From the stairway, two mechs sprinted to the roof and aimed their weapons at Jenny's group.

"Hold your position!" One of them shouted.

Jenny gulped.

Did the alien girl bring them to a dead-end?