TOMORROW’S POSSIBILITY

TOMORROW’S POSSIBILITY

chapter 7

I

—

The Hunter’s black raiment was swallowed up by the darkness. It was a moment of despair.

The siblings saw it. They saw the single streak of light that zipped from the heavens down to earth. It split the darkness. To be precise, it was the gleam of a white-hot blade struck by lightning that cleaved the darkness. Covering their ears, the boy and his sister crouched down. For they had heard a voice that wasn’t a voice—a scream that was not of this world. Even after it faded, there was no saying how long the vile chill it’d inspired persisted.

When they looked up, they saw the gorgeous features of the figure in the black coat. That alone was enough for Leda to lose herself. The continuing rain, the cold wind, even the shadow of the fear that’d just been erased all seemed to fade into the distance. She didn’t really get a sense of how wonderful he seemed. The young man’s beauty brought a human’s emotions right up to the point of madness.

“D!” Piron called out.

“What?” asked a hoarse voice.

The boy bugged his eyes. “Ah! The little baldy!”

“Oh, shut up!” the baron said, his lips pursing as he stood beside D.

“Where’d you go? You ran off and left us!” Leda said, the corners of her eyes rising irately.

“What are you giving me that look for? Is that any way to treat the person who saved your lives?”

“Saved our lives?” the siblings said in unison, not surprisingly. That sounded impossible—and astonishing. But their eyes were to go wide once again.

“That’s right,” D assured them.

While the two of them were still reeling, the baron said, “You supposed I just ran off and left the two of you to your fate? Don’t treat me like I’m one of your fellow humans. I left because I had some serious thinking to do. Besides, I even warned the two of you to run for it!”

“What was that, anyway?” Leda said in the endearing tone of a young girl.

“Telepathy. That’s not the sort of thing just any Noble can do. But it’s the kind of power I possess.”

“And you kept it a secret from us?” Piron said, suddenly kicking the baron in the shins and drawing a cry of pain from him.

“Stop,” said D. A faint smile was on his lips. “It’s thanks to this Nobleman that I returned.”

“Really?”

As the baron hopped all around the astonished pair, he said, “Now do you see? I went off to bring this fellow back.”

“Well, I’ll be,” Leda said, folding her hands in front of her chest. She was an actress, plain and simple. “Forgive me, my dear baron. I had no idea. And I never thought you the sort of man who’d run off and leave the two of us behind.”

“Well, he’s not really much of a man,” D said. This time in a hoarse voice.

Finally finished bouncing around, the weeping baron sputtered with tears in his eyes, “Wh-what’s that you said?”

“Actually, you did manage to bring him—I mean me—back. But what’s the story with that darkness we just saw?”

“Wh-what do you mean, ‘What’s the story’?”

The Hunter’s left hand rose. Somehow, the movement didn’t seem to be D’s doing. “Oh, don’t give me that. That darkness was a creature you created to capture humans for your experiments.”

“What?” Piron exclaimed, eyes bulging. Using both hands, he jerked the barrel of his gun around, training it on the baron.

“No, don’t! Stop it!” the Noble cried. “Didn’t your parents teach you anything? You’re not supposed to go around pointing guns at people.”

“Stop it, Piron,” Leda said.

Although Piron lowered his weapon, he wasn’t entirely convinced. “I don’t understand any of this,” he said. “Explain it to me, mister.”

“This is the area where the shrimp had his vacation home,” the hoarse voice said.

The siblings’ eyes were drawn to its source—D’s left hand, hanging easily by his side.

Unbothered, the voice continued. “But we’re talking about more than five thousand years ago. While he slumbered, there were massive shifts in the earth’s crust, swallowing the whole place. Which included a horrifying research facility. Well, the shrimp found the entrance to it and called this guy—I mean, me—back.”

“Would it be as easy as all that to find?”

“It was my castle, you simpleton! I could find a way into it in any day or age.”

Turning, D looked down the street—the direction in which the darkness had left. A hoarse voice said, “Well, let’s head in, then.”

“What?” Piron gasped, eyes nearly popping from their sockets.

“It hasn’t been finished off,” the hoarse voice told the boy. “That thing will be back. It looks like it has the ability to repair itself automatically.”

“Then you can’t kill it?”

“We’ll leave that to him.”

Speared by the gaze of the other three, the baron took a quailing step back. “I never gave it the ability to repair itself. Someone must’ve modified it in the last five thousand years.”

“Are you trying to tell us somebody could alter one of your devices?”

“Strike my last comment,” the baron said brazenly, folding his arms. “That it knew of my awakening after five millennia and powered up again is all well and good, but this self-repair ability—hmm. It might’ve acquired the ability to evolve . . .”

“It’s coming,” D said.

Abandoning his train of thought, the baron said, “It can’t be helped. Follow me.” He tossed his chin in the direction of the general store.

A second later they dashed for the building, D alone composed, the others frantic. As soon as they were in the store, the baron crashed right through the doors to the back room. Barreling through them, they found themselves in an office. Continuing straight, they turned to their right when they came to a dead end. An elevator door was set in the wall there. The baron pushed the down button. The doors immediately opened, and all four piled in.

The baron touched his finger to a button with a downward-pointing arrow. They rapidly descended further and further.

Less than five seconds had passed before Piron said, “The panel only shows one floor, but we’re going down so far and so fast. What’s going on?”

“At present, we’re a thousand yards down—and we’ll be there soon.”

The baron’s statement proved correct. Roughly thirty seconds later, the elevator halted.

“Three thousand yards down. That was a hell of a shift in the earth’s crust.”

The door opened and the baron stepped out. As Piron followed after him, the boy could only murmur, “What in the world is going on here?”

It was strange that an elevator in a store operating on the surface would lead to a facility that’d sunk into the earth five millennia earlier. Now, the very walls of the white corridor appeared to be giving off light.

“Sis, aren’t the homes of the Nobility supposed to be made of stone? This is like something from another world.”

“That’s the sort of thing bumpkin Nobles go for. Continuing the traditions of our forebears? Sheesh! That musty stuff turns my stomach!”

After walking for less than a minute, the baron halted, and an elliptical entrance opened in the wall before him.

It was a strange room. Piron’s remark summed it up nicely when he said, “What the hell? This is even smaller than the store. And it doesn’t even have any tables or chairs or anything.”

“There are tables. There are chairs, too. Have a seat over there. I’ll expand the place now.”

Taking three steps to the center of the room, the baron waved his hands to either side. Seeing the walls recede without a sound, Leda’s eyes widened. Piron was backing away unconsciously when his rear hit something, sending him tumbling back with a cry, only to be caught by a soft chair that’d risen from the floor.

“Wh-what is this?”

Ignoring the cry that might’ve been of either shock or delight, the baron began to run his fingers over the control panel that’d also risen from the floor. As he looked at a screen that couldn’t be seen from where Piron and his sister were, there was a fierce turbulence in his eyes.

“This is bad, D. You know what I mean?”

Standing behind him, the young man in black said, “It’s coming, isn’t it? Can you control it?”

Already moving both hands feverishly, the baron turned and said, “Oh, no!” in a dialect the siblings had never heard before. “Gaining control of it is impossible. When you cut into it earlier, it caused a malfunction, and the shock of the shift in the earth’s crust made its logical processor go crazy.”

“Lousy piece of crap,” the hoarse voice said.

The siblings finally went over to the others and peered down at the screen. Leda swallowed hard. Piron was speechless.

It showed the elevator doors. And they were opening. No—where the two doors met, something black was seeping out. That dark shadow.

“It came after us, eh?” the baron said, and for some reason he looked at the two children and licked his lips. “Okay, are both of you going out there, or do we just offer it one? It doesn’t matter which one of you is sacrificed. Ah, there is no greater love than this!”

His words suddenly became a cry of pain. D’s fist had delivered a blow to the Nobleman’s bald pate.

“Oooooh,” the baron groaned, his eyes spinning from what surely had been a powerful strike. However, when the Hunter grabbed him by the collar, hoisted him into the air, and shook him violently, the baron cried, “Hey, you’re making me dizzy! Unhand me!”

“That bastard was fine all along,” Piron grumbled.

“At this rate, it’ll swallow the research facility too,” D said.

Not only the children, but even the baron sighed with relief. D had spoken in his own voice.

“What’ll happen if it swallows us?” Leda cried out shrilly.

The shadowy mass on the screen had begun advancing down the corridor. The walls and ceiling were being stained with black.

Pursing his lips, the baron replied, “That’s a secret.”

Beside him, D asked, “Can it be stopped?”

“No, it’s gone haywire now. It’s not the same thing that I built,” the baron said, puffing his chest. Piron came up behind him, kicking him in the ass and sending him flying.

“Don’t leave this room,” was all D told them before leaving through the exit that formed in the wall.

“What a man,” Leda moaned. The girl’s face was glowing with rapture. “He’s truly a man among men. D! I’ll remember that name as long as I live!”

“What’s a punk kid like you doing getting all damp in the crotch? He might be tall and handsome, but he’s not a real man. He’s a born swindler. Now, a real man’s more like meeeeeh!”

Leda had hurled a shoe, hitting the baron square in the face and sending him reeling, but the children ignored him, fixing their attention instead on the screen.

—

II

—

The darkness proceeded down the corridor.

I wanna see D, Leda wished with all her heart, and at that instant the screen split in two to show D standing in front of a wall.

“He’s out of his mind,” the baron groaned, his words hammering the children’s ears. “When I first put that thing together, it used to bring the humans it caught back here. But now, I can’t imagine what it’ll do. Maybe it hurls them into the depths of space or transports them to another dimension. Earlier, it had its guard down, but that won’t be the case this time. The only one who could destroy it is—”

Leda turned. “Who?” she asked. Her tone was doleful.

“There’s only one person in the world who could do it. Perhaps not even that.”

“Then D . . .”

As the girl stood there, dumbstruck and reeling, Piron put a hand on her shoulder and shook her. “Here it comes,” he said. “They’re gonna collide!”

The screen returned to a single image—D and the darkness that spread before him. Even through the screen they could feel the terrible killing lust of the darkness, which had halted. And for his part, D was a true combatant. The gorgeous figure in black basked in the aura of malice, totally unaffected.

“Impossible,” the baron murmured again. “My darkness—it’s afraid?”

At that instant, an unintelligible scream rang out in the room. The darkness had once again assailed D. This time, he didn’t have the aid of the lightning.

There was a flash. D’s blade.

The world was ruled by darkness.

“Oh, no,” the baron said in a tone that was nearly a mumble. “If it swallows him . . . Too late.”

“It can’t be!” Leda shouted. “There’s no way he could be defeated. If you even suggest it, I’ll tear you limb from limb!”

“Sis, what’s that?”

Turning, Leda stared in the direction Piron’s finger pointed. A black stain was spreading across the wall at the door. The darkness had come!

There was a shriek, which came from the baron, of course. Not saying a word, the children backed away. Before their very eyes, the walls and ceiling were stained pitch black.

“Sis?”

“Piron!”

Above the heads of the children, the darkness loomed like a gigantic wolf. The two of them felt an immense power wind around their bodies. And then—nothing happened.

Piron opened his eyes.

Leda screamed.

Suddenly, the grip on them was broken.

Diverting his gaze and sulking, the baron murmured, “Defeated.”

What he referred to lay at the trio’s feet. The darkness. It’d halted eight inches from the end of Leda’s foot, and Piron gave the edge of it a light kick. A black mist covered him up to the ankle, but it quickly dispersed across the floor. Piron went down on one knee, gazing intently at its particulate remains. He soon put his hand to his chin and said, “Sis, this thing’s a machine.”

“Huh?” Leda said, looking at him, but that was all she managed to do.

“Look.”

Holding out his index finger, Leda’s brother brought a collection of the black particles up to her eye. Focusing her gaze, she could see that they were indeed metal.

The two of them slowly turned. The baron was whistling and trying to act nonchalant. Piron was about to say something, but Leda stopped him.

“Please, don’t. There’s no point saying anything to this—I mean, to the good baron.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” said a hoarse voice that hardly suited the speaker, but how sweet it sounded against their eardrums.

“D?”

By the time the siblings had twisted around, the young man in black had already sheathed his blade.

“How’d you do it?” the baron inquired almost in a whisper. “No Noble should’ve been able to destroy my machine. Particularly after it evolved on its own and became even more horribly devious. How did you destroy it? Tell me.”

D answered, “Let’s go.”

The siblings thought there must’ve been another exit, but D went right into the darkness. The darkness of the machine.

“Sis?”

Leda gave the hesitant Piron a firm nod. “It’s okay. He went in, after all. We’ll be fine, too.” And although Piron still couldn’t hide his apprehension, she took his hand and followed D.

In the depths of the darkness they could faintly make out D’s form. The way he walked, never looking back, was exquisite. So much so that not only did Leda let out a long sigh, but so did Piron.

It shouldn’t have been far to the elevator, yet no matter how long they walked through the darkness, they didn’t reach it.

“There’s something strange about this place,” Piron said, stopping and looking around.

“What is it?”

“I can sort of see through this—hey, what the hell is that?”

“Come to mention it—oh, God, it’s bones!” said Leda.

“What kind of bones?” Piron’s tone was flat, yet it was evident that he was controlling his panic.

“All kinds. Skulls, femurs, vertebrae, pelvises—pretty much any kind of bone you can think of is out there in the darkness. From all the folks in town.”

The boy didn’t know what to say to that.

“It’s one hell of an evolution this thing’s gone through,” the baron said right behind them in a sulking tone, but they couldn’t get angry with him anymore.

Following after D in that manner, they were through the darkness after another five minutes or so. Blinding sunlight shone down on a muddy street. The three of them were standing in the middle of the road.

Looking up at the sky, Leda said, “Look where the sun is—is it past noon already?”

“We weren’t walking even ten minutes!”

D stood by their side, but before he could say anything, the baron cleared his throat, saying, “Allow me to explain.”

“Shut up, you bald midget!”

“Wh-what did you call me?”

“Stop it, Piron,” Leda said, apparently still trying to play the good girl. “Kindly tell us more, my good baron.”

“Don’t you know where we were? That was three thousand yards underground!”

“Hell, that much we knew,” the boy snapped back.

“So, we walked all the way out and back to the surface. That would take until noon the next day. How sad to be human. You can’t even comprehend that? Ha, ha, ha!”

“How the hell would we know that, you stupid Noble?” Piron said, kicking him again.

Perhaps the baron was a slow learner, or maybe it was a problem with his reflexes, but he let out a cry and began hopping around.

“At any rate, we made it outside okay,” D said in a hoarse voice.

Leda donned a mystified expression.

“Get something to eat and take a rest,” D said, his voice changing once again.

Leda was absolutely spellbound.

“We’ll set out before sundown. The next town is Toro.”

And with that, D became a black statue.

“Ah!” the baron exclaimed, his fuzzy caterpillar eyebrows rising. “The ground’s quaking. Damnation! The research facility’s reactor has started to overload!” To the dumbstruck siblings he said, “We’ve got to clear out. We have maybe five minutes to get at least six miles from here.”

“That’s insane! We don’t even have a horse,” Piron said, shaking his head despondently.

“Why don’t you shut it down already?” the hoarse-voiced D barked at the baron, but the Nobleman simply shook his head.

“I can’t do that. I only managed to keep it under control until a minute ago.”

“Then what are we supposed to do?” Leda asked in a tone fitting her now-pale countenance.

“The key lies right there,” the baron said, tossing his chin in D’s direction.

Though a hint of hope streamed into the pair’s faces, the ashen hopelessness swiftly returned. Not even D could possibly carry the three of them over six miles in less than five minutes.

“What’d you have in mind, jerk?” the hoarse-voiced D snapped at the Noble. “That’s just plain impossible.”

“In that case, stay here and be engulfed by the flames,” the baron said with a mocking grin. His finger was aimed at D. “But there’s no need for that. Not if you were created by the man I know. This situation should be child’s play. You may not know it, but the you you don’t know knows it. So, if you don’t want to die, try to let it out. Show your true power—the abilities of a Noble among Nobles, that he gave you. That is the true possibility of tomorrow!”

He was nearly ranting. Even the siblings, who’d been looking at the Noble like he was an idiot, were left breathless. All his grand talk had been invested with a burning sincerity.

D remained silent. Not shaken, but breathing faintly, as still as a holy winter’s night.

“One minute left,” the baron said.

“Hey, what the hell should I do?” the hoarse voice asked. The girl and her brother no longer believed it was D’s.

“I really don’t know,” the baron replied. Clutching his leather satchel, he swallowed hard. “Ten seconds.”

His tone was poised on the brink between life and death, making it seem there was no difference between humans and Nobility.

D turned his face upward. He’d just caught a certain voice that he alone could hear.

You are my only success.

In a spot in the northern Frontier, a little town was wiped from the face of the earth. The surface was gouged by a massive crater six miles across and more than half a mile deep, with not a single molecule remaining of what had once been there, but the investigating team from the Capital was surprised to find not the slightest trace of radiation.

—

III

—

A porcine grunt echoed in the darkness, and the baron awoke.

“What a revolting sound. This is a nightmare,” he murmured, and then his expression grew bitter. He’d just realized that it’d been his grunt.

Before getting up he checked on the leather satchel in his right hand, then looked all around him.

“Yipes!”

There was desert as far as the eye could see. The sunlight shining down from overhead scorched the white sand. His nostrils were assailed by the unmistakable odor of burning sand. He peered all around, but all he could see was an endless succession of sand dunes.

“Hmm, was I thrown all this way by the shock of the blast? I probably won’t be seeing any of the others again, I suppose. Well, at least I’m alive. That’s something. Leave it to the man they call D. When it came right down to it, he was everything I expected. You did well, Sacred Ancestor!”

After getting a handle on the situation and his fate, the baron held a hand up over his head, saying, “What a dilemma! It seems the fate God has in store for Alpulup Macula is to shrivel up in the sun. Damn it, there’s nothing to do but fight that, then. My kind challenged the very gods!”

His exclamations were drunk up by the stark light and blue sky.

Letting out a single sigh, the baron murmured, “Guess I’ll get going.” About to start forward, he paused. “But which way should I go? For that matter, where should I go? Back to my own domain? No, that’s too far. I have no recollection of this desert. Perhaps one of the lowly humans’ towns? No, no! As soon as they found out I was a Noble, I’d promptly have them driving a crude stake through my regal yet feeble heart. That said, I suppose I have no place to go. Damnation! I wonder if any Noble has a castle in the area. Oh, there’s no place left in the world for a Noble now. No helping that. Be that as it may, I should press on.”

Looking quite dismayed, he started off on foot with his satchel in one hand. He was a tiny speck of a figure waddling through a world of white sand. Seen from high in the heavens, it would’ve looked as if he only went a dozen inches or so before he came to a stop.

“It’s hot!” the baron groaned as he wiped his sweaty bald head.

A sand dune loomed before him, and the thought of what lay beyond it didn’t inspire new strength in him.

“Shiiit!” he exclaimed, falling back, spread-eagled, to be baked by the sunlight.

Still, he’d walked about three miles. That was due to his strength as a Noble—though since there normally weren’t Nobility who walked in the sunlight, it was unclear whether his achievement was cause for boasting.

His consciousness had rapidly grown fuzzy. Though the Nobility were indestructible, the ability to walk in the light of day had cost him a substantial reduction in stamina.

“Something’s not right,” he suddenly murmured.

And without knowing what it was, his consciousness was swallowed by the darkness. In this case, his condition must’ve been similar to the “sunlight syndrome” that plagued D.

—

A very pleasant sensation spread across every inch of the baron, awakening him once more.

“Ah, I’m alive!”

No sooner did he shout that than water was poured over his head.

“Gaaaah! What are you doing?”

“Oh, little bald guy, were you up before we threw the water on you?”

Three men wearing turbans, sun visors, and heavy goggles were gazing at the baron, who lay on a simple collapsible cot. It was one of them, a bearded giant of a man, who’d dumped a helmet full of water on the Nobleman.

The baron noticed that he was in a tent. That was why his body had returned to normal even before being splashed with water.

Instantly reverting to his pompous, haughty self, the baron asked, “Who are you men?”

“Who the hell are you, wearing that sort of getup?” shouted a weedy, thin beanpole of a man. “Who’s stupid enough to walk around out in the desert in broad daylight? Everyone knows you get through the days however you can, then move by night. Are you human? Maybe some kind of lunatic?”

“I—I—I’m a Noble, you insolent wretch!” the baron howled, veins bulging in his temples.

That brought an explosion of raucous laughter from the trio. The third—a solid wall of a man—clapped his hands as he said, “Like there are any Nobles that can walk in daylight, you damn fool! We rescued your sorry ass so we could get a reward from your relatives. Okay, give us your name and address.”

“I am Baron Alpulup Macula, ruler of the northern Frontier sector.”

“You still screwing with us? Hey, this guy’s a real nutjob. Let’s strip his stuff off and toss him outside!”

“Yeah!”

The trio rolled up their sleeves—but no matter how badly drained of power, a Noble at his worst would have enough strength to prevail over five or ten humans with one hand. However, the baron’s course of action showed just how cowardly he was.

“Hey, wait a second. Stay back. If it’s gold you want, I’ll show you a way to make all you could ever desire.”

“Don’t make us laugh!” two of the men snapped vehemently, but the beanpole stopped them.

Focusing an unrelenting gaze on the baron’s form, he said, “There’s something weird about this bald midget, that’s for sure. Maybe he’s one of their victims?”

“If he is, he doesn’t have no freaking scars from it,” the giant said, pointing toward his own neck.

The remaining man, built like a wrestler, grabbed the baron by the base of the throat and hoisted him into the air. “You said you’d get us all the gold we wanted. Well, let’s see you make good on that.”

“Auuuuuuugh . . . Where’s my . . . satchel? In it . . .”

The wrestler turned around, asking, “Where is it?”

Scratching his head, the beanpole replied, “We chucked it. There was nothing in it.”

“What about that?”

The wrestler tightened his grip on the baron’s neck, making him shout in desperation, “Auuuuuuugh . . . Of course not . . . I’m the only one . . . who can open my bag . . . Hurry . . . Bring it . . . here.”

“Get it!” the giant said, and the beanpole positively shot outside.

The wrestler let go of the baron, who immediately fell back on the cot.

The beanpole soon returned. “It ain’t there,” he said with an exaggerated gesture, weathering the malevolent glares of his compatriots. Four more men came in after him.

“What have you done with it, you dolts?” the baron shouted angrily. “Th-th-that . . . That had the result . . . of all my research in it. Find it . . . you damned simpletons . . . Even if it kills you!”

His voice broke time and again, not because he’d nearly been strangled, but because he was choking on his own rage.

The men’s expressions changed. They’d finally realized there was more to the bald man than they’d suspected. Exchanging glances, they nodded, and the giant commanded them, “Okay, split up and look for it!”

“Stay right there!” the wrestler ordered the baron before leaving.

Once the tent flaps had closed, the baron laid back and let the vitality flow back into him, grinning wickedly.

“Idiot. Who in the world would be stupid enough to stay here when someone tells them that? So long as I have a sheet to keep the sun off, I could survive in the desert or the heart of a blast furnace,” he chortled.

Still grinning madly, he grabbed the blanket off the bed, then poked his head through the tent flaps for a peek outside. He looked like a burglar checking if the coast was clear. Confirming that all the footsteps and shouts were a good distance away, the baron went outside.

Eyeing the sand dune that loomed before him with suspicion, he said, “What have we here? From the shape of it, this is the same dune I was about to go over when I collapsed. And these scum were on the other side of it? Shit!”

As he muttered to himself, he walked over to where the cyborg horses were hitched. By now he realized the men were huntsmen who specialized in desert work. Grabbing the reins of just one of the cyborg horses tethered to a fence of steel piping, he slapped the hindquarters of the rest and shouted, “Hyah, off you go!” As their reins were lightly twined around the hitching post, the slightest panic was enough to undo them.

A scream rang out. It was that of a female—a young girl, the baron noted. Jumbled with it were odd voices and the reports of firearms.

“What the—” the baron cried despondently, and with good cause. The last cyborg horse had whinnied, reared on its hind legs, and promptly galloped off. He was just about to chase after it when he heard a shout of, “It’s a water beast!” The cry that shook the heavens was far more desperate than the baron’s.

“Oh shiiiit!”

He was going to flee in the opposite direction from the voices when right in front of him, some men popped out from behind the tent. The trio he’d just met was there, too. All looked like they’d seen a ghost.

The baron’s face was tinged with black, for the thing that’d reared up on the other side of the tent had blotted out the sun.

It was a colossal, ocher insect a good fifteen feet long. With a body that resembled a collection of lumps fused together, it displayed no eyes or any other sensory organs. Its hide probably had a metallic luster because of the way it burrowed through the earth to move.

“Shit! The horses are gone!”

The Nobleman was about to run as fast as his legs could carry him when a sharp voice barked, “Don’t go anywhere!”

“Yipes!”

The baron froze in his tracks, but then he heard forceful cries of “Okay!” in reply, and gunshots rang out. The men were unloading their firearms into the enormous insect.

“Save that kid!” shouted the wrestler.

“Huh?”

Turning, the baron noticed that the men had their attention focused on something near the water beast’s fingertip-shaped head. Just below it clung a girl he recognized.

“Leda?”

At that point, the girl finally shouted down to them with complete abandon, “Help meeeeee!”