Chereads / ALTERNIVERSE (Original Short Story) / Chapter 10 - ALTERNIVERSE: Chapter ten

Chapter 10 - ALTERNIVERSE: Chapter ten

Cerberus continues to sneak around the building while making his way to the others in the main hall when he hears a muffled explosion within the brewery. The rumble shakes the building and the hallway Cerberus is in currently. 

"What the hell is going on!? Feels like hell is breaking loose!" Cerberus takes off running down the hall as swiftly as he possibly can.

Pivoting on his foot, Rounding the corner on his left, pushing off the tile floor with enough force to break it. As he's running the rumble starts up again and seems to grow louder. Just then the wall to his right breaks forth into the hallway and B.A.Ds body is seen coming through it. Cerberus crashes into him as he was unable to stop in time causing both of them to roll and slide down the rest of the hall. They finally stop with B.A.D atop the beast man's stomach. 

"So… how are we doing? Are we winning?" Cerberus asks B.A.D who just grunts heavily before picking himself up. "I'll take that as a no."

Laser beams continue to blow up chunks of the building as Hexen tries desperately to blast Transmuter. Horizon lifts himself into the air, extending both his arms out to the side and with his telekinesis pulls together chunks of fallen debris scattered about. Horizon then points his arms forward at Transmuter, launching the massive chunks with extreme force. Transmuter scoffs, lifting both his hands to the debris, placing the palms of his hands on them once they reached him. His red static surges, instantly the two chunks of debris are destroyed, exploding outward from him in Hexen's direction. Cerberus leaps into the fray grabbing her just in time before the shards hit her, having the wall behind her become riddled with them. B.A.D runs back into the room through a hole made by Hexen and joins up back with the others. 

"This isn't working, physical attacks don't seem to do anything!" Horizon says in frustration. "If I can just get close enough I co-"

"You could use your Blackout power?" Transmuter says, cutting him off mid-sentence. "I know all about you and Hexen's mental abilities. Don't think it'll be that easy to get close to me." Transmuters right arm turns black and red electricity begins to cover it. He slaps his hand onto the floor and the red static surges across the floor turning it black and fluid-like his shadows. Immediately multiple giant, black, tendril-like hands sprout out from the floor charging straight at the heroes. 

Horizon, using his telekinesis, flies around the room trying to avoid the shadow hands but one seems to be right on his tail. Hexen tries blasting away at the massive hands coming for her but most of them swerve out of the way, grabbing her and slamming her straight through the damaged walls until she is thrown outside the building and onto the dirt road out front. Horizon sees his partner get slammed through the wall and rushes over to help but gets caught by another shadow hand from below him. The shadows keep rising and slam him through the ceiling, flinging him away once he's outside. Cerberus runs and bounces across the room, leaping from any surface he can get a proper footing on while dodging the multiple shadow entities. B.A.D at this point has absorbed enough kinetic energy from before to increase his strength and agility as he rushes at the villain. He bobs and weaves through the assault of the shadows getting closer and closer with every step. The gazes of their red eyes meet as B.A.D cocks back his right arm as he funnels all his energy into his fist. Transmuter gathers the shadows around his arm to meet the attack head-on. A shockwave of red energy and darkness goes off from the collision. 

B.A.Ds fist rest within the palm of Transmuter having caught the punch. B.A.D is left in shock seeing his punch easily blocked. "Don't tell me that landing a punch was your plan."

A small smirk grows on B.A.Ds face. "No, that was just a distraction." Transmuter is confused until he looks up to see Cerberus coming down full force ready to deliver a devastating ax kick from above. 

A powerful explosion of concrete and dust fills the room, cracks in the ground rip through the floor from the impact. B.A.D and Cerberus leap back to a safe distance as the dust slowly starts to dissipate.

"Did we get the bastard? There was no way you could've missed." B.A.D states still in a defensive stance. 

"I got him, alright. Let's hope it was enough to keep him down." Jetting out from the cloud of dust is a trail of spikes made from the floor. "SHIT!" B.A.D jumps to the side and out of the way of the spikes. Cerberus jumps up to dodge the spikes when a shadow hand bigger than before shoots out, grabbing him mid-air. 

The shadow continues to extend until it slams Cerberus into the wall, pinning him there. Transmuter walks out of the dust cracking his neck, the shadows peeling back off the surface of his body.

"You overgrown house cat… I almost felt that." With that Transmuter whips his arm around and drags Cerberus around the room, crashing into B.A.D as well as rubble and other walls completely shattering them then throwing the beaten-up hero through the same wall that Hexen was thrown through before. Transmuter starts walking to that wall and points at B.A.D who is breathing heavily on the floor. "I'll deal with you later." 

Outside Hexen starts to regain her consciousness with blood dripping from her forehead as she awakes just in time to see Cerberus hit the ground a few feet away from her to the right. Rolling on the dirt road of the driveway Cerberus comes to a stop one and a half yards away from the brewery. Having sustained so much damage, Cerberus shifts back into Daniel. A flowing black trail of shadows comes from the hole that Daniel made, traveling down the wall and along the road until it stops just before him.

Transmuter rises from the shadow trail looking down at the beaten hero, barely moving. Daniel tries to get up off the ground but Transmuter steps onto his back to keep him in place. "I would say you guys put up a decent fight but I wouldn't want to be called a liar." Transmuter raises his left hand as it starts to spark with his red electricity. "Let us see you heal from this." Transmuter reaches for the back of Daniel's head but is blasted off of him by a red energy beam.

"I'm not done yet you son of a bitch…" Hexen says with her hands up struggling to keep balance. 

Transmuter picks himself off the ground now covered in dirt and a part of his cloak destroyed. "You little whore, this was my favorite cloak." Red static surges on the ground underneath Transmuters feet in a five-foot radius turning into a pure shadow. 

"So sue me." Hexen starts charging energy into her hands for another beam.

"BLACKOUT!" Transmuter quickly turns around hearing Horizon yell out from behind him but it's too late. The villain drops to his knees into the pool of his shadows with the arms motionless and his head tilted back.

Hexen lets out a sigh, lowering her hands dropping to the knees as well in exhaustion. "Thank the gods that worked." She says.

"Luckily I managed to catch him off guard to use it. He would've killed you if I hadn't done it in time." Horizon says, holding his right arm in pain as he walks up to the motionless Transmuter. "Now we can put this psychopath behind bars for good… hmm?" Horizon leans in a bit closer noticing the blood-red eyes of Transmuter begin to gloss over with pure darkness. "What the hell-" Just then Transmuter grabs hold of Horizon by the throat, slowly getting on to his feet and lifting Horizon off the ground.

"I have to thank you for putting my other half to sleep for me. I shall reward you with a painful death by my hands. Be grateful that you get such an honor." Transmuter says in a deeper, distorted voice. 

Hexen tries to get to her feet as quickly as possible seeing Horizon in danger. "LET HIM GO!" She yells out charging up the energy in her hands. Transmuter, still only looking at Horizon as he gasps for air, begins to funnel the shadows beneath him into his open hand. Hexen shoots a beam of energy toward him with the Transmuter countering with his beam of shadows. Hexen looks on in shock at this development as her beam gets overpowered and she is blown back several feet into the street. 

Horizons vision begins to blur from the lack of oxygen to his lungs. The last thing he sees is the pitch-black, soulless eyes of Transmuter before Horizon passes out. The moment Horizon passes out Transmuter drops his body on the floor as he steps back holding his head. The darkness in his eyes rolled back to show the regular blood-red color from before. He looks down at the unconscious body of Horizon at his feet then over at Hexen's body lying in the street. Not knowing how their bodies got there, Transmuter just walks away from it all without saying a word.