Dunes

"Paragon?" A very confused Cinder asked.

"Hey, isn't that the sword Battery needed to teleport to us?" Snowdawn questioned. "I feel like her having it isn't a good sign."

"Where the hell did I end up?" Paragon managed to get off of Cinder and crawl into the back seat of the van, falling onto her back. Destiny rested on the blind girl's stomach, looking around wildly and working as her eyes.

"What are you doing here!" Cinder panicked.

"This sword is alive." The girl explained pointing at Battery's sword which was stabbed into the seat.

"What?"

Cinder stared at the sword that had impaled itself into her seat. She pulled it out with ease and gripped down on it tightly. "Is everything alright, Paragon? You can tell us if something is wrong. I'm guessing things didn't go well, if you're here."

The van rumbled and shook as up above Myth spoke. "What did you mean that the sword is alive?" He questioned. "We're going to need an actual explanation, Paragon."

Paragon nodded and tried to wrap her head around it. She stared at the sword Cinder was holding through Destiny's eyes. "That blade is Harrison Avalon. I think...'

"You think?" Snowdawn asked frowning.

Cinder shot the blade a look and tightened her grip around it. In a movie or comic the sword would speak to them. Try to talk them into working with it like most curse blades did. Not this one though. It didn't glow, or change at all, as she tightened her grip on it digging her nails into the handle. The blade held strong, and even as she began to heat it up with a light wave of fire it didn't react. "Should I break it?"

"No!" Snowdawn said with wide eyes. "Have you seen what Battery can do with that sword? Are we sure it's actually Avalon? What if he just swapped places with it?"

"Avalon as far as I know doesn't have an ability to change into a sword." Myth stated shaking the van once more.

"I saw it happen. Or at least Destiny did." Paragon said, shaking her head. "He glowed and then morphed into it. He said he was in the Emperor's army and the partner of Battery. I think he was turned into a monster, but instead of turning into a beast the Emperor changed him into a weapon? He didn't say anything but he did take me here?"

"Why?"

"He said Wish was here."

Cinder winced and rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. "Well Battery did say she likely isn't dead, and we are following after the Wandering Coin."

Sky's face paled a bit, and she balled her hand into a fist. "So, Avalon was telling the truth. You are planning on fighting Wish again."

Cinder just shrugged. Snowdawn sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "What is even happening anymore? Can we just call the others and ask what's happening on their end?"

"No signal." Myth said, shaking his head. Whisper had stopped responding to him around the time she hit the Wasteland. He also hadn't been able to get a hold of anyone. They'd need to get back into the city if they wanted to let anyone know what was happening. "We also can't just leave Whisper to fend for herself. If there is a gate in that place they're heading to, it will let them know she's there, and they'll find her sooner or later. Besides, Whisper is as strong as a normal human, so I don't think she'd be able to walk all the way through the Wasteland and get back to a city. We need to get her and then get back to the city as soon as possible."

Cinder nodded. "Get me closer to that ship. I'll shoot it down, and we can scoop Whisper up and fly away-"

"Better idea!" Snowdawn announced, pointing at the sword Cinder was still holding. "Guys, we have a teleporting sword with us! Let's just use it to teleport Whisper to us, or us to Whisper, or whatever we have to do, and then run!"

"Paragon just said the sword was Avalon who I'm pretty sure is evil."

Snowdawn snapped his fingers. "Right. Let's say that it really is Avalon. Hello Mr. Avalon. You're now stuck here with us and I'm guessing you can't do anything. Battery mentioned that the way he teleports is by giving a verbal command. I'm guessing that's how your power works. Teleporting powers always have a weird gimmick like that. You're a sword right now though so you can't speak. I'm guessing that means you can't teleport. I actually came to this conclusion because otherwise you'd be way too op. I mean you'd be able to just tp yourself into people and kill them or something right. But you can't. You've been relying on your teammates this entire time. You have a bunch of rules you have to follow just as Battery said. Verbal is just one, you also have to know a person to teleport to them, or a location to go there. So now you're trapped here with us. You could maybe turn back and then use your power to teleport since you'd be able to speak but we'd likely jump you. So, in other words! You have no choice but to help us!"

"That's actually a good idea."

"I have my moments."

Cinder gripped the sword tightly with both her hands and awkwardly raised it up. She had seen Battery use it a bit and heard them discuss how the blade worked. She cleared her throat. "B- Bring Whisper here!" Silence hung in the van as nothing happened. She used her senses, but there was no pop or anything. It hadn't worked. "Okay. Maybe then, take me to Whisper? Put me on the ship? Bring Battery here? Take me to Battery? Put me in Oleander?" Each time she spoke, the blade remained still and didn't respond.

"Well, that isn't good." Snowdawn winced.

"The sword isn't yours," Myth sighed. Now that I think about it, I remember Battery saying something about this. The same thing goes for Green Wolf. Those two are allowed to borrow the blade if they have permission from the owner. I guess if you don't get permission, then it's just a cool-looking blade."

"Can I try?" Paragon asked. "The sword worked for me, after all." She suddenly had an awful feeling in her gut.

"Sure." Cinder quietly handed the sword over, a little salty she wasn't able to teleport with it. "Give it a go."

Paragon took the sword and gulped. "Bring Whisper here." Just like with Cinder, nothing happened. "Take me to Whisper? Still nothing, huh? It worked when I asked it to take me to you. Hmm. Put me back in Cinder's lap?" Still nothing. That growing pit of worry got larger in her gut. "Damn it."

"Why'd it work before?" Cinder questioned.

"No clue." That was sort of a lie. She had a pretty good idea. The blade belonged to Avalon. It had been created by the Emperor and passed down to Jack. He could let others borrow it, but that was it. In other words, she wasn't the owner of the sword. He had let her borrow it to escape. As for why, she had no idea, but it painted a single picture in her mind. He had gotten away. Maybe the sword really wasn't him. All of this was still all according to Avalon's plan.

Snowdawn huffed and folded his arms. "Seriously? And here I thought I had some great ideas. Still, as long as we have the sword, the bad guys can't use it, so it's not like it is bad for us to have it, right?"

"That's true." Cinder smiled, already returning to her bubbly self. She punched her palm, and soft flickers of flame made small blasts all along her arms. "We'll just do my old plan. Myth! Get me close to that ship! I'm going to blast it down, grab Whisper, and then all of us will run for the city!"

The ship in question wasn't too far from them now. They were less than two miles away from the metal structure that came out of the ground, and the mayor's robot had kept to a straight path, heading directly for the thing. The Wandering Coin members had definitely noticed them, as a few seconds later, the remaining arm of the robot turned to face toward them and began to fire a wave of bullets toward them. Myth's wings folded, and he allowed himself to drop, easily dodging the gunfire.

They had been noticed down below as well, dozens of large metal trucks and other machines built from scrap trailing behind them, clearly interested in looting whoever fell out of the sky first.

Cinder took a calm breath and rolled down her window. She allowed half her body to hang out. Her shield had been turned off, leaving it as just a bracelet so she was able to hold both her arms out in front of her. Fire began to swirl out of her palms, forming into a large bow, which she drew back. "I'm counting on you to grab onto something, Whisper." The girl could see the Paths of the world, so she was confident Whisper would be able to avoid dying in the crash. She still held back by quite a bit though. "Here goes nothing!"

The arrow expanded and blasted out with incredible speed! The robot was too slow to dodge, and her attack easily blew off its last arm. It began to spin rapidly and fall toward the ground below. Right before she could cheer, though, the back of the machine blasted away as a wave of red fired out toward them. Something was blasting out of the robot. Thin and so fast she couldn't even react to it. Whatever it was, it easily sliced through one of Myth's wings, causing the hero to let out a loud cry.

"Grab onto something!" Snowdawn yelled out. "We're going down!"

Myth lost control of his flight, and the heroes began to fall, just like the robot. More of the metal on the machine broke away as a pair of large red wings made of liquid formed out and began to slow its fall. The robot made a relatively soft crash landing in comparison to the heroes behind it.

Whisper's van smashed into the ground at high speeds, shards of metal and glass blasting out. She was reminded of that damned day once more. The day she had first met Lucifer. The day her father crashed the car and got the Dead Virus. She wasn't that little girl anymore, though. She was something else. Something far stronger.

The glass easily broke when it hit her, and she grabbed Snowdawn and dragged him to the back, throwing him next to Paragon, using her body to shield them. She held onto both of them as tightly as she could as they flipped across the ground. Up above, Myth was sent flying off of them, and he also crashed across the sand of the Wasteland. Snowdawn and Paragon both gripped onto her like a lifeline as the ride finally came to a rough stop.

"I- Is everyone okay?" She asked slowly.

"I think this is the last time I go on a mission with you guys," Paragon grumbled, still clutching onto Cinder. Her bird rested in her hair; its claws wrapped tightly around her scalp.

"Check on Myth." Snowdawn groaned.

She nodded and quickly tore the metal from what was left of the car's wall away, allowing them to step out. Sand and glass stretched out in all directions. All around them, bright beams of harsh sunlight stabbed down, burning the ground and causing sparks of flame to rise. They could hear yelling and screaming around them in all directions, as well as loud roars. The Wandering Coin machine had crashed only half a mile away from the tower, so they were on a severe time limit and still didn't have Whisper.

The Wasteland wasn't the kind of place you'd want to stay in for long, if at all. Besides the intense heat and literal death rays that rained from the sky, it was also filled to the brim with giant monsters, the same kind that would rampage in cities or towns and required the Victorian to stop. It also had dozens of villains who had escaped to it, roaming the wastes to avoid the cities. People like Intake had belonged here and thrived out in this land, though Polaron's group had picked up Intake. It was common for most villains to roam these lands looking for lost treasures from the old days, such as Mental-based tech or strong Supers they could add to their army.

All across the land were perfect circle-shaped cutouts that were filled with molten glass from the many holes that were in the sky above. Each hole was about ten feet wide and flat on his stomach, Myth rested in one, seemingly unconscious, his feathers slowly burning away.

"Shit." She ran towards him, and instantly, her foot sunk into the ground as soon as she passed over the circle. It was a pool of molten glass which rose up and tried to eat away at her. She could feel the harsh sunlight on her skin, and for a moment, she even swore she could see the flickers of radiation that bore down. Even as tough as she was, it burned, but she ignored it and grabbed Myth, forcing him out of the circle. She dragged him towards Snowdawn and Paragon. "P- Paragon!"

"I'm on it." The blind girl touched Myth, pressing her palm into his burned body. He howled a bit, but slowly, his skin and fur began to regrow, and the sparks of fire on him faded away. He slowly shrunk back down to his human form as his eyes snapped open. Next, Paragon grabbed Cinder's hand, also healing the girl. "There. No more burns and I fixed the damage caused by the radiation. A few more moments and you'd have a really bad case of skin cancer."

"Is it safe for us to be so close to these holes?" Snowdawn questioned. His suit was practically gone, melting faster than he could create it. "Also, are you going to be okay, Paragon? You got the stats of a normal human. I'm shocked you're even standing through this."

"I'm fine. I've had worse." Paragon shrugged. Now that she thought about it, she wasn't really that hot. The others were practically sweating, and even Cinder looked like she was burning up, but she felt perfectly fine.

Myth stood up, and his body morphed into his bull form, which allowed him to take the heat far better. He sighed when he saw the state of Whisper's ride. "She's going to be so mad."

"I think she'll get over it if we save her," Cinder said, shaking her head. "Speaking of which, we need to hurry. If you're all better, Myth, we should get back to flying- Get down!" She threw herself into Paragon as Snowdawn and Myth jumped to the floor.

More red blurs blasted over their head, moving so fast it burned her eyes to look at them. They were rapid fire, and whatever they were, they weren't made of energy. They twisted and tore through the floor, and the rest of the van, ripping it apart.

"Just like my sister." Paragon hissed out, still under her.

"What?"

"Those attacks," the blind girl explained. Her bird was staring up at them, and thanks to the bit of power she had, she was able to make out what was within each strand. "Whoever is shooting at us is doing something my sister does sometimes. She'll compress a mass amount of water, thin it out into a spike, and shoot it at stupid levels of speed."

"Last I checked, water isn't red," Snowdawn yelled.

"That's because it isn't water. It's blood."

Myth frowned at Paragon's statement. "Snowdawn, you said when you fought Kevin, he morphed his body?"

Snowdawn looked confused. "Yeah, Kevin's muscles and flesh would do all this weird stuff, and he'd grow. It reminded me of Mars King. He even started to look like him at the end. Why?"

Myth nodded. "Wish is the Lord of Land and Life. Kevin controlled his muscles and flesh. This guy is firing blood at us. When I spoke to the Watch Dogs, they said they also fought a member of the Wandering Coin who could control bones. All of the Wandering Coin Supers are basically just watered-down versions of Wish."

"Does that help us?"

"You bet it does." Myth gave a smirk and jumped to his feet. One of the beams blasted forward and hit him square in the chest but simply bounced off of him as his form changed into that of a lion. "The Nemean Lion had near unbreakable fur!" He ran on all fours, more beams bouncing off of him. As he passed, Snowdawn reached out and grabbed Myth's tail, allowing himself to be dragged. He held his hand on the floor, which caused a wave of ice to flow out, boosting Myth even further along. "Can you do your teleport?"

"It isn't teleporting, and I'd need to be at least five meters close to them to make it work," Snowdawn said. "Also, I'll be out of the fight for a bit once I do it, as it breaks all my ice and shuts my power off for a few minutes!"

"That's fine! We just need to get close enough, and we're golden!" He roared, still pushing through the hundreds of red blood beams that smashed into him.

Back over at the crash, Cinder climbed off of Paragon and helped the girl out. "Sorry about this in advance."

"About what-" Paragon was forced off her feet as Cinder picked her up and jumped high into the air, blasting fire out of her feet and shooting her toward the sky. Paragon held onto her and let out a loud yell. "No more flying! This keeps going wrong for me!"

"That's why I said sorry!" Cinder laughed. The girl turned her body in midair, and the fire around her legs grew even stronger as she blasted herself forward, heading to the villain's crash site. "Whisper! We're coming to save you-"

The ground exploded, sending a hail of ice and sand flying in every direction. Something massive rose from it, letting out a gigantic roar so strong it nearly blew everyone's eardrums out. Covered in thick brown scales, it almost looked like an enormous worm, though it had rows of large teeth in a circular maw which began to fall towards them, opening wide about to swallow Cinder and Paragon whole!

"Oh shit!" Both girls yelled.

A few minutes earlier...

Whisper pressed her back to the wall, watching the villains talk amongst themselves quietly. Thanks to her power, she remained out of sight and felt the oddest feeling in her gut. She couldn't help but stare at the large metal tower that hung in the distance—the thing that they were flying to. She had seen people who had Paths that would constantly change or people who had broken their Paths and stood outside of its realm. People like Battery or Myth.

This was the first time she had seen a location that had something similar, though. It wasn't the same, however. It didn't have a set of ever-changing Paths, instead it had no Paths. No matter how closely she looked, she couldn't even begin to guess how things would go. Even the Paths around everyone else seemed to cut out and vanish the closer they got. Paths to her always looked like trillions of strings going in all directions, forming one big spider-like web. Each string was like a series of roads and trails going forward and backwards. Not here, though.

Something had blown a massive hole in the web.

"So, what is this place exactly?" One of the figures in red, a girl judging by her voice, asked.

"This tower was built by a man known as Sini, several years ago." The mayor explained. "He, along with the man known as Avalon, created it to be a launch pad, I guess you could say. It was built to try and send humans off of this world and escape in case the entity known as the Beast, or Shadow, ever returned. The Emperor ended up taking it over and used it to get himself onto the moon. After the war with the death of Sini, it was all but forgotten."

"This guy we had to meet." The other figure in red said slowly. "He couldn't have come to us?"

"No. He could not."

Whisper watched all the villains closely. From what she could tell, Mr. Brenner and the Mayor were just regular humans. If the Mayor did have a superpower, then it wasn't something that boosted his stats, as she had knocked him out once already before they escaped. The real threats were Kevin and the two in red cloaks. There were three supers in total—five if you count Wish, though the white-haired girl still hadn't opened her eyes yet—and Doc, who she was sure was just a Mental-based villain.

"When we're done here, I'll need to tell my son goodbye," Mr. Brenner said quietly. "I went too far and got caught. I won't be able to come back from this one."

"Do you regret it?" Doc asked.

The officer shook his head. "No. It's for his own good. This is the only way. Only Wish can kill that damn monster. I trusted the heroes, once. I even got one of them to watch over my son, but he still got hurt. The heroes failed me, and they still haven't been able to stop Lucifer. I don't care if it is on the side of evil, I don't care if I'll be going to hell and never see my wife again, I don't care if he ends up hating me. At the end of the day, if this saves his life, then I'll gladly accept my eternal damnation."

Whisper narrowed her eyes and slowly processed that. She never really got to see this 'Kyle' person. She knew of him because of Cinder and Metal Ronin, but maybe there was more to him than she first wrote off. His Paths would paint an interesting story-

"Incoming," the red-cloaked man said, letting out a sigh. "The heroes are on our trail."

She snapped her head up and stared at the monitor. Her van was being flown through the air by Myth, and she felt a little shocked to see it. Whatever this place was, it was having a serious effect on her ability to see the Paths because she hadn't seen that coming. She knew they'd give chase, but not like this.

The robot they were in began to fire toward her friends, and she reached for her taser just in case-

The entire robot shook as a massive wave of fire slammed into them. Metal blew to bits, and they began to fall. She slipped, and for the first time in a long time, she felt a wave of pain as her head cracked against the side of the glass box Kevin floated in. The boy's eyes instantly darted down to where she crashed, but she remained out of sight still. She stayed low and rubbed at her head, feeling a small trickle of blood from beneath her helmet.

As they began to fall, the man in the cloak lifted his hand and pointed his fingers toward the back wall. The blood in his hands began to swirl around and gushed out of the tips of his nails. It fired, looking like thin red versions of Battery's beams. The blood bullets casually tore through the metal as he took a blind shot in the direction of the heroes. He didn't stop there, though, as he held his hands out in opposite directions, and this time, the blood that flowed stabbed through the walls of the robot, twisting into the shape of massive dragon-like wings.

The crash was still rough, and she felt her head jerk back, and once more, she slammed into the glass Kevin was in. The glass boxes crashed over and shattered sending their fluids everywhere. Wish fell into the arms of the girl in red, who held onto her tightly while Kevin landed on his feet and slowly stood back up, fully healed for the most part.

The mayor and Brenner both held onto something as the crash finally settled down causing both men to let out sighs of relief. "Looks like we're going to be taking the rest of the trip on foot." The mayor said, running his hands through his hair. "It also seems we've once gotten lucky once more."

"How was that luck?" Kevin grumbled finally speaking for the first time since his body was remade. "We lost some of the pods. We only have a few of those left, you know."

"One more left." Doc whistled, twirling his cane. "Back at the base, so if any of you die it may take a bit for me to bring you back!"

The man in red flicked his hand and sliced the ship they were in apart, allowing them to get out. He also threw a spare cloak to Kevin and Wish. "Get dressed."

The girl wrapped Wish up in it and held onto her as they stepped out onto the sand. "What now?"

The mayor looked up towards the massive tower in the distance. The entrance to it, the vault, was high up, so they'd need a Super to enter. On top of that, they were still being chased by the heroes. "Casey, Hannah, the two of you stay here. Kevin, you take Wish. You're with me. Doc, you and Brenner are coming, too."

"Can I kill the heroes?" The man, apparently named Casey, asked as his blood began to expand out of his hands. He fired in the good guy's direction once more.

"You can do whatever you want."

"Yay!" The girl named Hannah cheered. Large bone spikes began to grow out of her flesh, forming sharp armor and claws. "Take good care of Wish, Kev." She said, handing the unconscious girl over to Kevin.

Kevin nodded and then turned and handed Wish to Brenner. "Actually, I think it's better if you hold her. There's someone else I need to grab."

"What?"

Kevin's ears expanded, growing larger, and his hearing nearly doubled in size. Whisper let out a curse and tried to jump back but it was too late. Kevin's entire body twisted around, and his arm grew to a massive size, easily wrapping around her waist and lifting her up. She let out a yell of pain as it squeezed down, broke some of her ribs, and caused her invisibility to fade away.

Casey, and Hannah both cocked their heads as they stared up at her. They didn't have long to react, though, as seconds later, the roaring of a lion filled the air, and ice blasted across the ground.

It was followed closely by a loud scream. "Whisper! We're coming to save you!"

"You guys are so screwed," Whisper announced. "My team is going to seriously kick your ass!"

Her smug look then faded, and once more, she was caught off guard when the ground exploded, and a giant worm came roaring out of it.

A monster had taken note of them.