A hero rushed toward him, transforming into a cheetah as she went. She was able to jump up and bound off of rocks, limbs, and other heroes instead of being rattled by the shaken earth.
“Not today!” Antaeus bellowed, and a hole opened where she was about to land.
With a sickening crunch, the earth consumed the poor hero in a massive slam that buried her remains in an instant grave.
Swinging down to hit the ground with his fist again, two strength heroes rushed in and caught his fist, holding him in place.
“NOW!” One yelled and they both used their super powers to fling Antaeus over them and slam his enormous form into the ground.
A quick bounding woman jumped up and flung her hands out, throwing small globs of purple goo. When it reached Antaeus, it puffed into massive mounds of sticky substance that bound his arms and legs down.
“FOOLS! I AM THE EARTH!” He bellowed, and the world shook yet again, this time with giant spikes of rock jutting up all over the place in random attacks. Several heroes suffered gruesome evisceration. As heroes contended with the prickly ground, Antaeus ripped himself free of the goo. He got back to his feet, a wicked laughter on his lips.
Arx stood to the side, giving orders and listening to the reports as people said what they were experiencing while fighting.
A hero reported from the middle of the fight. “We just lost Giga Morphina, and Thunder Flare was cut in half by a spike.”
A man yelled through his comm, “We need someone like Midgard. He would pound this man into rubble!”
Arx said, “We don’t have anyone like Midgard. He was one of a kind.” The Earth shook again, and he had to keep his footing. Once that passed, he said, “All ground heroes, pull back. Get to a safer location. We have a back-up plan coming in! Once he is tethered, take him down.”
“What?” a voice asked through the comm.
“You’ll understand when it happens. Just pull back. I don’t want any more deaths.”
Adrianne, waiting with Arx, asked, “What is your backup plan?”
“He’s coming in now.”
“Will it kill Wynn?” she asked, still hesitant to say this.
Arx said, “We have no choice but to use whatever is necessary.”
“There has to be another way.”
Arx said, “He has already taken so many lives and he won’t stop. We have to put him down for good.”
She said, “I... I can’t. Please, I know it doesn’t make sense, but I can’t watch him die today. Take him to the station, get him away from the Earth. Maybe that will stop his powers. Do something... just don’t kill him.”
Arx wanted to launch into a sermon on the mass murder her brother was guilty of. However, his mind flashed with all those news reports of what he did before, how many people he killed in L.A. when he was Arx the villain. If he said Wynn should die, then he should also face execution.
Just then, Furious Squirrels dirigible flew over them. A massive chain weapon blasted out from the front of it and wrapped around Antaeus several times. A blast from the energy weapon followed this, stumbling the bound enemy back a few steps.
Arx clicked his comm. “Heroes. Bring him down, but don’t kill him. I... “
A purple blast of light flew over him. Krystal Fae said, “Sorry, he doesn’t get mercy.”
“NO!” Adrianne cried out.
A green blast of light hit Krystal, and she slammed into the ground. That green light continued to glow around her as it lifted her up and then flung her back against several trees.
Mama Pepo, battered and disheveled, stood off in the distance, controlling this display of wicked magic. With Krystal Fae recovering on the ground, Mama Pepo muttered her magic and a green fog rolled out from her.
“Stop her!” Arx ran for the old woman.
Krystal spoke a word of magic, and a purple flash of light shoved the cloud to the ground. Another blast hit the old witch. Pepo was far sturdier than expected and withstood the attack. She returned with a counter spell of her own. The two magical beings fought back and forth with one another. Each was moving so fast that Arx couldn’t get close enough to be of any help.
Krystal threw a bolt of magic and then yelled, “I have her! Stop Antaeus!”
Arx looked back and watched Antaeus struggling against the exotitanium chains they had bound him with. Speaking into the comm, Arx ordered, “Heroes, bring him in. I want him lifted off the ground and moved as high as possible.”
Flying heroes joined by the Dirigible flew over the writhing Antaeus. They tethered him with energy bindings and more cords. The heroes who could lift him off the ground carried most of the energy bindings while attaching the chains to the dirigible.
Like a toddler tantrum, Antaeus started flailing his legs and body around, kicking the ground and screaming in fury. Each time his heel met the earth, rocks exploded up, or the ground quaked.
“Stop him!” Shinobi punched his fists into the ground and tried to use his own powers to stop the onslaught. The quake rushing toward him stopped, but then an explosion erupted under his feet and threw him through the air.
Heroes struggled and more than one started fighting him again as before, but it was all worthless. His flailing made the quaking earth break and shatter. Great fissures were forming. The ground consumed forests, and cracks that broke deep into the mantle spewed up lava.
Krystal dodged a blast of magic, as well as several random rocks, and was about to reply when Mama Pepo staggered and stumbled with the shaking earth. The ancient witch took up a firm stance and was ready to continue her fight when a fissure formed under her feet. All she left was a look of horror as the world swallowed her and the fires of the mantle extinguished her evil.
Arx fell to the ground and held the earth for dear life. He couldn’t get back up, it would only bring him down to his knees again. Antaeus fell back to the ground, all the energy bindings broken, only the massive chains still binding him. His psychotic rampage grew exponentially by the moment.
Nova’s voice came over his comm. “Arx, what’s going on? We’re reading a class 10 seismic reading. The East Africa Rift is about to split apart.”
Arx rolled across the ground and then kicked a boulder away from hitting him. “Antaeus is going to destroy this world. We can’t stop him.”
“You have to!”
The shaking and quaking slowed down and then stopped. A new silence filled the area, only cut by an odd whistle.
Arx slowly rose, resting on his knees. A bright blue glow glistened off everything as one hero hovered in the air, weeping as she emit a beam of cold blue light. Adrianne held out one hand and touched Antaeus’s heart with her power. The monster, still on the ground, was hardly moving. His stone body had become dark, with a thick frost growing in places. His head fought hard to turn, but did so that his eyes could look at his sister in both terror and utter disbelief. In an instant, his rock body exploded into billions of shards of earth and dust, scattering his remains across the fractured land he once ruled as a god king.
Adrianne remained in the air, a goddess of ice stoically hovering as she observed the results of her actions.
“Report!” Nova’s loud request made Arx jump.
He said, “Antaeus is dead.”
“How?”
“I will get back to you on that. Arx out.” He clicked his comm off, while Nova protested. With tender, timid steps, he approached her. “Adrianne?”
She lowered to the ground, her glow dimming with each second. She let herself sink into a half laying position, resting her hands on the earth with tears running down her face. “What have I done?”
“You have no choice. We would all have died.”
She whispered, “He was my brother. I loved him. I... I killed him. What have I done!” She started wailing and sobbing.
Arx knelt down and held her extremely cold body in his arms, knowing no words could help her right now. All he could do was let his heart beat with hers. Arx understood this pain uniquely. He was the monster once. He took innocent lives for fun, and now he knows exactly how the pain looked in all the minds, hearts, and souls of those left behind. There were no words to help, they simply do not exist.
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