Chapter 10: Scourge

"I dunno, it's too dark to tell" He screamed when something that looked like a scorpion's tail stabbed into the side of the chopper pulling.

"The propellers are smoking, I don't know how much we can take"

"Oh god, he's losing blood..." The reviver paled and glanced at the girl listening with her eyes on the bloodstain.

"Don't die" She said with a weak voice and screamed when another scorpion's tail punctured her side.

The other on the front seat picked up a gun and shot the tail off and the chopper was starting to show signs of relief and he watched with calculating eyes at the metallic ropes, he turned to Edna who was shaking like a newborn chick but stayed put.

"Keep trying and we could use a child's faith right now"

He wore a glove and slid down the ropes and shot the end attached to the plane and tail propeller screaming as he dropped down the clouds toward the inferno, he felt a lift and dropped on the road rolling down with a hand to protect his face.

He huffed "What the hell?"

Darcy's contour came off and he nodded watching the chopper fly off to safety.

"There's something down there" He growled when a stinger cut through his thigh pulling him down, Darcy dropped a hundred feet faster with the heat becoming too hard to bear but boosted herself with energy and cut the tail catching him.

He grimaced at the nasty metal scrap in his thigh with blood and cursed at more tails coming at them, Darcy evaded them and flew up losing her grip on him, she kicked and her feet sparked with energy losing height, he had to be over a hundred and seventy pounds, he groaned as he was left with his legs hanging and they were headed for a flock of squadron cars.

"You're going to have to endure this one"

She let him down at two feet and he flipped over on the tar while she flew back with burning muscles from heavy lifting.

Firetrucks were driving to the edge and she tapped on the glass, the driver was in shock at the face of his window and stepped on the breaks.

"Get back!"

The first truck got caught by two stingers and the tires were screeching with smoke accumulating, she stepped on the hood and cut the tails loose but froze when the driver and the other few who were in the back crashed to the front, the windshield cracked as the truck rocked on the edge, metal strained as it tried to find its center of gravity.

Her full-contour returned and she looked through the windshield, the driver shook his head as the truck inclined forward again.

"Tell everyone to get to the back"

He nodded carefully climbing to the door and moving to the other side, the firemen rushed to the end and the truck stopped rocking and she signaled the other firemen to help them out, the driver was about to step out and the truck let loose, he jumped out and the grabbed his arms pulling him on the road.

Darcy watched the truck drop and explode inviting another surge in the temperature, whatever was down there stopped attacking.

"Tell the others to evacuate, it's not safe here"

The road was starting to empty and she turned to the tails curling around the street behind her causing the others to abandon their vehicles evacuating on foot while the road cracked and crumbled, the smoke was thick, she waited for another stinger and it emerged rattling in front of her, she avoided the jabs and it formed cracks on the road, Darcy gasped at the lady rising with metal tails attached to her, completely merged to it.

"You're going to pay for this, all of you"

She let herself go and the stingers went right through her.

"Miladee" It was hard to recognize her, she was more feminine like at Central Lab, now she was a completely different image.

Half of her face was gone leaving a metallic part of her skull with red light in her eye socket, the metal was spreading to her other face till she turned into this splitting image of a Terminator but with stingers.

"It's Scourge now"

She screamed when Darcy shot her in the face and arms.

"Darcy_"

"Bad timing"

"Get to the bottom, I see a spring of essence, it's powering her up"

"Why don't I just give her the antidote?" She shot her with a few doses and they flew off her face and back, she was oblivious.

She caught Darcy off-guard and slammed her off the road with a tentacle, Darcy drew in the air when the tentacle wrapped around her pulling her around in one crazy rollercoaster ride

She phased through and saw a buggy ride to the smoke. It was too murky to see, she gasped when the tentacles dived into the smoke toward it and she got to the buggy first and found Wade in the buggy with gallons of the antidote.

The stingers stabbed the rocks and Scourge dropped off when she realized the shadow was just a pitfall.

She recoiled after a round of shots flew at her swiping off the drones like a swarm of flies, Darcy looked up at the explosions in the air with the other ones persistently shooting at her.

She groaned when a stinger dropped by them but Wade managed to escape it with the fuel tank leaking. He coughed in the fumes and morphed but his system couldn't decipher the way through.

"Go, I'll steer," She said when the car was also slowing down. He dived out of the car

while she teleported through the space to the driver's seat and gasped at the upswing, she glanced behind her at Wade as he propelled with his thrusters at full force.

She steered the car seeing clearly but she coughed, the fumes were overpowering, her lungs were screaming at the pressure and her eyes watered and she blinked seeing the glimpse of purple light in the heart of the chaos.

She climbed to the back after jamming the wheel to keep straight and jumped behind Wade and the tank detonated sending a sonic blast everywhere, the phases of the freeway crumbled with a thunderous noise and Miladee flinched at the gravel that rained, the tentacles fell off her like glass as she fell over clawing at the air with wild eyes into the mist.

Wade appeared in the clouds and quickly deciphered where he was, his target receptacles closed in on Darcy plummeting and dived catching her, he stirred over the buildings and looked at her smoke-covered face, lifeless.