"Fade out!" Sullivan shouted. Heinrich fell through the floor and Sullivan slammed his Power against Madi's field. The extra gravities were forced away from Heinrich, leaving the German hanging by his hands under the catwalk. The sumo was sitting up, despite Dan futilely punching him in the face. Sullivan roared and headed straight at Madi as Delilah rebounded off the railing behind him.
Sullivan slammed a big fist into Madi's jaw, then the other, then threw out a boot and kicked Madi in the stomach. The Iron Guard didn't even seem to feel it and one hand shot out and grabbed Sullivan around the throat. He dragged Sullivan in close, crushing off his air. "I'm the strongest there is. You understand me? The strongest! You'll never make it past me! NEVER!"
Sullivan used his Power, increasing his density, protecting his throat. "I know." The railing creaked around them. He Spiked hard, slamming as much force onto them that he could muster. Madi threw it back, just as he had in Mar Pacifica, but his eyes widened as he realized that Sullivan wasn't trying to crush him, but what was underneath.
"Jake!" Delilah screamed as a perfect circle of catwalk sheared away and the two of them fell.
They dropped like a pair of stones. Jake kept striking Madi in the face and Madi hit him back with bone-jarring force, but both of them were running as dense as iron. The armor-plate floor barely slowed their descent, and they ripped clean through the steel, crashing through beams and supports, tearing wires, and then ripping through the bottom hydrogen hull. They fell through the gas, in an empty, totally lightless space, kicking, punching, throwing knees and elbows, in a freefall brawl to the death. Sullivan held his breath.
Fighting through the pain, Sullivan flared his Power again. He didn't want to fall through the bottom of the dirigible. Madi must have realized the same thing, and together they slowed, but still trying to kill each other. The bottom of the hydrogen chamber barely impeded them, and then they were rebounding through more materials-aluminum, steel, copper, and finally wood. Sullivan threw his hand out and caught hold of something as Madi tore free and kept falling. His brother crashed through one last darkened floor, highlighted in a circle of sudden light but shrinking away. Madi flared his Power before impact and landed in a heap far below.
He'd ended up in some giant wooden room. There were other people down there, and a circle of curiosity was closing in on Madi's fallen form. Sullivan let go and followed. He landed in a crouch, boards splintering, reaching for the rifle slung on his back, but it was gone, torn free from its sling somewhere above. He reached instead for his pistol, and luckily it was still in its flap holster.
The Iron Guard came up off the floor, snarling. Sullivan was able to crank off four rounds before Madi threw a backhand that would have taken the arm off a normal man. The.45 went flying away. Sullivan stepped back, shaking his stinging arm.
Four holes began to drizzle blood down the front of Madi's torn robe. His brother stopped, looking around, realizing where he was. "Well, I'll be damned. Ain't this appropriate."
The room was huge and mostly bare, probably some sort of training room. The walls were glass, and beyond them was nothing but darkness. The floor was polished hardwood. He turned slowly. There was a mess of Imperium in this room, dressed in black uniforms with red accents and a big red sash. All of them were pointing guns at Sullivan, except for the ones that were ready to destroy him with the ice crystals collecting down their arms, or the jagged bones twisting between their hands, or the electricity cracking in their eye sockets, or the floating objects that they'd telekinetically picked up with their minds… He was in a room full of Iron Guards.
"Well… shit," Sullivan said.
"Ahem," someone gave a polite cough, and both he and Madi turned at the same time.
"Chairman!" Madi exclaimed, sounding embarrassed, just like back when Dad used to catch the oldest Sullivan brother doing something bad, like torturing animals or setting fires. He dropped to his knees. "Forgive the intrusion."
Heinrich was nowhere to be seen. Delilah was picking herself off the ground from where she'd crashed through the railing hard enough to break every bone in her body. So it was up to him. Daniel Garrett had hit the fallen Iron Guard with everything he had. He punched him in the face until he felt his knuckles break, and then he'd tried kicking him, but the huge Iron Guard slowly got up from the grating anyway. Dan stepped back, shaking his stinging hands.
The Iron Guard twisted his head and he could hear the vertebrae pop. His little black eyes were far too small for the size of his head, and they zeroed right in on Dan. The sumo growled.
"Sure you don't want to talk this over?" Dan asked. The bridge shook as the Iron Guard lumbered at him. Guess not.
Delilah shoulder-checked him out of the way. "Pick on somebody your own size!" The two Brutes crashed together; one dead, one alive; one huge, one tiny; but both of them very angry. They stood toe to toe, hammering each other.
Dan landed on his side with a grunt. The Iron Guard hit Delilah so hard that he felt the vibrations travel down her body and through the floor, but she didn't budge. Delilah responded by putting one hand on his shoulder, shoving herself into the air, and bringing her elbow down in the center of the sumo's head with a blow that could have killed an elephant. That staggered him a bit.
"Get the device!" Delilah screamed. "I'll hold fatty!"
Struggling to his feet, he saw Delilah throw a backhand at the Iron Guard's head, but he was too fast, too martially skilled, and he caught her arm while simultaneously bringing his other hand around. Delilah's forearm shattered, bone visibly ripping through the flesh. Dan gasped at the horrific wound. Delilah stepped back, looked down at the jagged bones sticking out of her forearm and the delicate hand dangling uselessly from the skin and tendons. No blood came out. "Move your ass, Garrett!" she ordered as she stepped forward, ducked under the Iron Guard's swing, and drove the bone shard into the sumo's vast belly.
Dan heard the Iron Guard gasp as the bones penetrated his body, but was too busy running for engineering to look back. A hand appeared over the edge of the railing. Heinrich! He was alive and pulling himself up. He didn't dare stop to help his friend. He could feel the air humming with the Tesla device's energy.
The lights were no longer red. He was in the engineering section. He jumped over the dead bodies of the Imperials he'd murdered and the pile of twisted bones and smoking fat that had been their Torch. There was a single man standing in his way, wearing the same red and black robes as the other Iron Guards, but this one wasn't nearly as physically intimidating. Skinny and ratlike, this had to be the Lazarus. He was blocking the steel door. Dan could feel the Geo-Tel on the other side.
But then the Lazarus moved a scabbard around in front of his body and drew a sword. His English was perfect. "I am not the warrior my brothers are, but I am more than a match for the likes of you." He tossed the scabbard away and lifted the blade in both hands. The eviscerated bodies were starting to move, groaning and whimpering on the floor as they came to. Even the ashen pile of bones was stirring. The dead soldiers began to cry out in agony.
The Lazarus hissed. "I am Hiroyasu of the Iron Guard, and my magic is based in suffering."
There was a grey flash as Heinrich surged past. Hiroyasu swung the sword through the blur. Heinrich rematerialized, blocking the weapon before it could come back up. "Suffering?" Heinrich asked, grabbing the surprised Iron Guard by the robe. "I'll show you suffering." Then the Fade spun him around, both of them going grey as they sailed into the wall.