– General Theodore Roosevelt, personal correspondence posted before second battle of the Somme, 1918 Imperium flagship Tokugawa Madi was waiting at the end of the twenty-foot-wide catwalk. He had been joined by two other Iron Guard: the wretched Lazarus, Hiroyasu, and the stalwart Nobunaga, a Brute who was also the Chairman's champion sumo wrestler. Sumo was another weird Jap obsession that Madi had never gotten into. He found the whole thing kind of queer, with men pushing and slapping on each other in loincloths, but Nobunaga had been a tough guy before he'd picked up half a dozen kanji to increase his already formidable strength and vitality. Behind the three Iron Guards was the engineering section's Torch and twenty of the strongest Marines on board.
Of course, it was his brother that appeared at the far end of the catwalk first. Jake looked a little scary in the red light, the foreign invader surrounded by the giant heaving bags of gas, and for just a moment, it was like the bags were lungs and the Tokugawa was a great living creature. Jake was the disease infecting it and he was the cure.
"Maybe I should start writing poetry," Madi said.
"Huh?" Nobunaga grunted.
"Nothing…" Beneath the catwalk, was a two-hundred-foot drop to the armored section that separated the two top hulls from the bottom one. There were a few ladders that went all the way down, but he had a feeling that anybody who went over this rail in the next few minutes wouldn't be taking a ladder. "Hiroyasu, fall back and animate the marines as they die. Marines, stay behind cover and use your rifles. Choose your shots carefully. Do not let anyone through. Protect the Torch. We don't want a fire in here. Nobunaga, on me."
Jake just stood there in the center of the doorway a hundred yards away, watching.
"Come and get me, Jake…" Madi whispered. The Geo-Tel had already been activated, and the Power was gathering, but his brother would be dead long before it fired, and he'd make sure this time.
A short, balding, pudgy, bespectacled man joined his brother in the doorway. The man scowled, as if sizing up the engineering section's defenses. Madi recognized him. In fact, he'd even shot him recently. Damn Grimnoir vermin, they were harder to get rid of than cockroaches. The man cracked his knuckles. He'd been a little woozy from all the hits he'd taken at Mar Pacifica… What had that lump's Power been?
And then he remembered. "Marines, cover your ears!" he shouted, but it was already too late. The Mouth had started talking. It wasn't a voice, it was a Voice. It was too big to come from a man, it came from a god. It didn't sound in his ears, it was like an ice pick driven through his skull and twisted around inside his brain. Madi ground his teeth together so hard that some of them broke. He had to steady himself against the railing to keep from falling.
His accent was off, the pronunciation was terrible, but apparently Japanese wasn't this god's first language. "Omaetachi wa kotei o shitsubou saseta. Watashi no meiyo wa hijyou ni kizutsuite. Watashi ga dekiru koto wa, mohaya jiketsu shika nai." Madi could feel his own will surging against the command, but behind him, he could hear the bayonets clearing their scabbards and a scream as the Torch turned his fire inward and burned himself to a crisp. You have failed your emperor. I am deeply ashamed. The only honorable solution is immediate suicide.
"No! Stop! It's a trick," but the blades flashed and his men died, gurgling and choking. The terrible Influence waned and his head cleared. Madi let go of the railing, having bent the pipe with his fingers. Only the Iron Guards had been strong enough to resist. Nobunaga had drawn his Nambu pistol, but Madi clamped down on his wrist. "No guns."
The other Iron Guard's eyes widened in understanding. With their Torch dead, they couldn't risk shooting in here. Madi turned back to his brother. Jake was still standing there in a big black coat. The Mouth was at his side. A blond man in grey appeared to Jake's left, and then he was joined by a female zombie to his right. The four walked forward together, side by side, ready to fight.
He could still beat all of them by himself without making so much as a spark, plus he still had an extremely powerful Brute, and already Hiroyasu was using his Power to raise the disemboweled marines. Jake and his Grimnoir were still dead, they'd just have to do it the hard way. He started walking. They'd meet in the middle. "Come on."
That had been one of the most impressive displays of raw Power that Sullivan had ever seen. Daniel Garrett hadn't just been fueled by his magic, but also by desperation, hate, and the burning desire to save the woman he loved. Dan was grey and shaking, sweat pouring down his face, and he looked like he might fall over.
"I didn't know you spoke Japanese," Heinrich said as he joined them.
"Just that one… been practicing." Dan grimaced. It physically hurt to channel that much Power at once. "I can't make people do something they wouldn't normally do, but these Imperium elites are so honor-bound, I figured it was worth a shot."
Delilah stepped up next. She was weaving as badly as Dan, but for an entirely different reason. "The Lazarus who… made me. He's inside. I can feel him. He's going to wake the dead."
The UBF Normals were hanging back. This fight was way beyond them. In fact, now that they were down to just Iron Guards immune to his magic and unable to use his guns, their Mouth was out of his league too. "Dan, why don't you take the others and go look for your girl."
"The Geo-Tel comes first," he stated with firm determination. "Jane would hate me if she found out I let a million people die to save her first."
"Come on," Sullivan said. The device had been activated. He could feel it within, like its dreadful magic was beating against his own inside his rib cage. They started walking.
Madi was dressed in some sort of red and black samurai robe, the traditional look thrown off only by the big revolver hanging in his shoulder holster. Next to him was a similarly attired, short, yet incredibly broad man with a round face and a top knot. "Look, they got a fat one," Heinrich said.
"That's not fat," Dan answered. "That's a sumo."
"Sumo-schmoo-mo," Delilah said. "I'm about to whoop his ass."
The others didn't realize it yet but he knew that his brother was too powerful to defeat, especially in a limited amount of time. "No matter what happens, get to that device." He dared not share his plan because he was worried that Madi could already hear them. Sullivan looked at Delilah out the corner of his eye. "I'll always love you."
"Just remember your promise," she whispered, and then she pushed her Power so hard that she seemed to grow. He'd never seen her do anything like that before. She was holding nothing back, running so much magic through her tissues that she was sure to destroy them when the magic wore off. There was no reason to hold back anything now.
Both sides charged.
Sullivan let loose with his magic the same time Madi did. Two conflicting gravitational fields collided between them. The air rippled like water. Delilah charged through the distortion, screaming. The sumo bellowed in return and hurled himself at her. He dwarfed her and kanji could be seen glowing through the open neck of his robe. At the last second Delilah dodged to the side, extended her arm like a clothesline, and hit the Iron Guard in the throat. His head snapped back, momentum still carrying him forward, and his feet flew out from under him. The landing was hard enough to shake the entire catwalk.
Madi extended one hand and Delilah fell into the air. Heinrich leapt over the downed sumo and went at Madi swinging. Madi threw one mighty fist clean through Heinrich's chest as the German went grey. Heinrich came out the other side and slugged Madi in the back of the head. Madi didn't seem to notice it, but gravity changed again and Heinrich was slammed to the metal floor. He cried out under the crushing force.