Phoenix Prime, Chapter One

The Future Fighters’ conical heads were far too high in the blue heavens to be glimpsed from the window of the abandoned waterfront bar, which was nestled in tightly behind the heels of two of the mechanical giants maintaining their motionless barricade about the heart of town. Such an unlikely hideout had seemed to Dr. James Neetkins and his comrades the only kind that might lend safety for any length of time, but even from here James could perceive far too many prowling alien creatures, stalking warriors bristling with blades, and foot-long star-cruisers of the tiny Stealthonian race buzzing by. Nor was the refuge so tucked-away as to shield from view the vast mushroom-cap saucer hanging over the Town Hall’s dome and feeding long entwined tendrils deep into the pavements below. James could only make scientific hypotheses as to the purpose of this ghastly spectacle, but all his conclusions tended towards it being bad news. Worst of all though was that he and his party of crusaders were a mere five minutes’ walk uphill from their objective, for beyond what had been the bus station were the ruins of a shopping centre that had housed a public entrance to the caves beneath Nottingham. However, the sheer volume of Solidity patrolling the streets meant it might as well be a light-year away.

James turned at last from the window to his kith and kin, who had convened in chintz armchairs around a table in the deserted derelict saloon. Kral-it-Gor, a huge rock-man, was not as well-suited for this as the three girls on whom identical DNA had bestowed a close resemblance. Completing this outlandish assortment was Dylan Cook of The Four Heroes, suspended comatose in a mobile life-support tank that stood in the corner of the room.

“Time tae face facts, laddies and lassies,” James announced gravely. “Oor wee quest’s ground to a halt. It’s all very well that we’re bearing wi’ us the ainly means o’ unsealing the caves and saving Planet Earth, but at the rate we’re going, we’ll still be sitting here wi’ oor non-existent drinks lang after the Solidity’s destroyed the warrld.”

“I concur, Father,” said Phoenix Prime, who of the female trio was unique in boasting magnificent wings of flame. “It’s clear we’ve no longer any prospect of making it to the cave entrance unnoticed. The only choice left is to revise our strategy.”

The others looked to her.

“We break cover,” Phoenix Prime went on, “and divide our expedition. In two separate teams there’s a chance at least some of us will make it through the Solidity. Those of us possessing the power of flight can take an alternative route – that is, straight down the hole left by the Nottingham Drill. It lets out directly onto the rock-face we’re here to penetrate. Meanwhile, with the enemy’s attention thus diverted, the remainder of you may be able to get there via the overland route we originally intended to use.”

“You and I, zen, are ze airborne detail?” inquired Phoenix, her clone, who was physically identical to Phoenix Prime but that she wore glasses and the wings with which she flew were generated artificially. “Zat should prove interesting.”

Phoenix Prime nodded once, apparently heedless of any irony. “Phoenix and I know the formula with which to undo Dimension Borg’s work,” she resumed, “and as do you, Father. That will ensure either team remains equipped to complete our mission, should the other be eliminated.”

4-H-N, the second clone, restrained herself from commenting on what a warm-hearted girl Phoenix Prime was when she was in her stride. She knew that such baldly tactless pronouncements were the result of Phoenix Prime’s having seen too much science and not enough love in her life thus far, and that that much, at least, was not her fault. Moreover, whatever 4-H-N’s opinions might be on the deeds for which Phoenix Prime was well and truly to blame, she could not help grudgingly admitting there was courage in her proposal, nor that it was indeed their only option now.

The rest of the party were of a like mind, so they walked out together into the bright sunlight of a rubble-sheltered car-park. Phoenix Prime spread her burning wings, while Phoenix strapped on her flight-enabled backpack and stowed in a separate carrying-case the share of the technical equipment she and Phoenix Prime would need.

“Take care of them, Kral-it-Gor,” the latter instructed her faithful captain. “They’re going to need your strength.”

“As you command, Great Leader,” rumbled the rock-man.

That was the easy goodbye out of the way. Meanwhile flesh-and-blood members of the team both synthetic and otherwise had good reason to envy life-forms such as Kral-it-Gor’s. All were aware that long drawn-out farewells were a luxury they could ill afford, but here was a parting that may prove an eternal one between a father and two of his daughters, with one of whom he had enjoyed a parental relationship and to the other he had only just begun to make amends. Something surely needed to be said. And even besides the observances due to family, Phoenix would be also leaving behind the one she loved, in full knowledge of what that entailed. When Dylan awoke he might find her no longer there to welcome him home. Expressing all this, and succinctly too, seemed to the small assembly of interconnected souls an impossible task.

But at any event, they were spared it.

The sun darkened overhead as a leaping silhouette interposed itself at twelve o’clock high. One split-second later Phoenix Prime was turning for very life to put her vital organs out of the path of a roller-boot bearing down upon her at crossbow-bolt speeds. She achieved the evasion with a hair’s breadth to spare. Her assailant landed in a crouch on the hardtop then in an instantaneous leaf-spring motion flew once more, whirling about to face Phoenix Prime. This second attack disclosed such features as a long black ponytail, a highly-toned teenage physique and the fast-spinning wheels of a pair of skates, all of which were associated with a girl known to most of the thunderstruck observers. The expression blazing from her once-beautiful face, however, had transformed her into a terrifying stranger.

“Kumiko!” 4-H-N gasped.

Phoenix Prime’s forearm came up and halted the hurtling foot before it could connect with her head. In a beat of fiery wings she ascended, while Kumiko seeming to defy gravity used the negligible leverage of her ankle against the foe’s wrist to slash her other toecap through the empty space which Phoenix Prime had vertically exited. Riding out the momentum of this wasted strike Kumiko dropped nimbly onto all fours, her second leg scraping out a half-circle of dust from the car-park’s surface to finish up outstretched directly behind her.

This arc-shaped cloud had barely begun to settle by the time Kumiko in a swift series of bounds had scaled the surrounding mountains of debris, apparently needing no wings to pursue Phoenix Prime on her chosen course. “Miss Rintari, arrête-toi!” hollered Phoenix, triggering her pinions of light and launching herself after the combatants, the carrying-case still swinging from her hand.

And thus all three were gone into the yonder. Their land-bound comrades stood stunned in their wake.

Kumiko had been off like a shot the very instant Phoenix Prime stepped outside and flexed her wings, a faint fiery glimmer of this action having touched the corner of the other girl’s eye as she rested atop a tall building several city-blocks distant. She and three fellow Collective members had become trapped inside the ring of Future Fighters during the Solidity’s invasion, and as this had denied them any further contact with their colleagues Carmilla, Degris, Steam and the two high school students at Nottingham Castle, they had been striving merely to survive behind enemy lines in much the same manner as James and his crusaders. Now the remaining trio were left little choice but to race uncomprehendingly after their errant member, Carrie aloft on her white feathered wings, D’Carthage negotiating the concrete ravines with an athletic loping grace, and Flashtease scampering and somersaulting beside him. All three were equal to making excellent time across a stretch of rooftops, but Kumiko had left them eating her dust.

“Darn it, what’s with that girl today?” Carrie exclaimed as she barrelled through the sky. “Has she flipped? The last thing we want is to draw the Solidity’s attention like this!”

D’Carthage, easily carrying his agile muscle-bound bulk apace beneath Carrie’s small flying frame, was patiently shaking his splendid golden head.

“Alas, angelic one,” he commenced. “You have known your deadly sister-in-arms as nothing more than a friend. There are facets of her nature for which that much can scarce prepare you.”

“I don’t need advice from the Next Four about my friends,” Carrie snapped back, giving her pinfeathers a spirited shake.

“Do not neglect, sweet cherub, that there was a Ryo-Hashiro in my day as there was long before it,” D’Carthage went on genially, amid an elegant jump. “Once my travels brought me to their lonely isle. Fell warriors all, formidable in the lethal arts…and as with most such clans of Orient demesnes, honour and vengeance are not the mere hollow words they have since become to us. Your friend now obeys only that surging of hot blood which since earliest memory her masters trained her to hear. An enemy has wounded her love and despoiled her honour. For Kumiko this can but end in Phoenix Prime’s death, or her own.”

“Might have known you’d be the expert,” grumbled Carrie. “But Phoenix Prime doesn’t mess around, so if you’re done making speeches maybe you can pitch in with the rest of us, who actually care about catching up with Kumiko and helping her out before – ”

The last of the office-roofs had fallen behind them, and D’Carthage and Flashtease were lithely descending to street-level with Carrie swooping alongside. As soon as the two males touched down, the girl’s voice spluttered into silence. There in the derelict car-park where they had landed, face-to-face with the Collective trio and still wearing dumbfounded looks, were Dr. James Neetkins, 4-H-N and Kral-it-Gor.

END OF CHAPTER ONE