Episode-04: Nova’s Birthday Present

Date: November 24, 3008
Time: 02:00
Location: New Leaf City

~Felix~

They burned with the fury of the sun. A reddish hue of light flickered off of the buildings surrounding the demolished square, giving off a hellish scene of destruction. The wind had died down, abandoning the city and leaving the citizens to fend for themselves.

Felix turned away from the smoldering tanks which were now reduced to heaps of melted scrap metal. His stomach did a back flip as he imagined the charred corpses of the men who once commanded the once powerful machines. Forcing the thoughts into the back of his head, he turned to look down the street on the north side of the square.

“Where do you suppose it’s going?” Felix asked aloud to no one in particular. The monster’s footsteps had decrescendoed progressively as it moved away, razing everything in its path to the ground. In the distance, Felix could see a cloud of dust hovering over the remains of yet another punished building.

“Who the hell cares?” Maldran retorted, “I just wanna get as far away from this place as I can.”

“What?” Michael suddenly exclaimed, making Felix spin around to face him. “What do you mean, Mal? We’re in the army! It’s our job to protect the Maple world!”

“To serve and protect, I know,” Maldran quoted the army’s motto as he rolled his eyes, “But we don’t know how to stop the monster the size of a mountain! How the hell do you suppose we can kill that thing?”

Michael fumed as he stared at Maldran, but then suddenly turned his attention to Nova, “Nova, remember what we did to Orbis?”

His words triggered that distant memory in Felix’s mind. Just a year ago, Nova had flattened Orbis with a single tactical nuclear missile launched from The Academy back when the Nexon Dominion was in control. It was only after the complete decimation of the white city that the Dominion was overthrown. Not many people knew how Orbis was destroyed, for the press told of a bullsh** story involving a crash landing of a hydrogen-fueled space craft.

Felix’s eyes darted to Nova’s as well as her own recollection of the incident rushed back. She stood there, staring blankly at the ground, but then jolted her head up again, “No, I’ll never do anything like that again.”

“It will work,” Michael suggested hopefully. Felix had a slight impression that he wanted to see the mushroom fireball once more. He made a mental note to kick Michael in the balls later.

“No,” Nova flat out rejected, “You don’t know what it’s like.” Her voice trailed off.

“What it’s like to do what?” Maldran asked curiously.

Nova hesitated for a moment, then spoke in a somber tone, “When the nuke hit Orbis, I could feel everything and everyone dying. Thousands of voices echoed in my mind as their bodies were incinerated by the heat. That single moment was hell, and I’ll never forget it.” She looked up at Michael with her emerald eyes, “No, I will never do it again.”

Something in Nova’s voice chilled Felix to the bone as he stood there, a spectator. Michael faltered, then fell silent, unwilling to argue with a telepath who could kill by just thinking about it.

“Come on,” Damiver walked up, taking Nova’s hand, “Let’s get out of here.”

The group walked north towards the docks. Hopefully the ferry system still worked. Felix’s nose tingled as smoke floated across the street, carried by the slight breeze. Bits and pieces of the city were burning, and with most of the fire department disabled, it was going to stay that way for a long time.

As they continued through the ravaged streets, they came across something white covered in a film of dust and debris from surrounding buildings. Felix approached and examined it carefully. Then, his mind gave a sharp jolt, as he realized he was looking at the “Y” of the “MapleStory” sign. That monster must not like reading very much…

Suddenly, it bellowed again; its horrid voice echoing out into the night. It was close, too close. Felix ducked down just in time as something massive swooshed by overhead. There was a cacophonous crashing noise; he looked up just in time to see a gigantic grey tail smash through the top floor of a building in front of him, bringing brick and concrete down onto the street like meteors.

“Sh**!” Felix swore loudly as he felt fragments of stone bounce off of his head. Throwing himself out the way, he dove behind a car just in time as a cloud of dust engulfed the group once more. The world around Felix shook as the monster stomped around in a direction he could only hope was not his. The behemoth screeched, making Felix’s hairs stand up on end.

As the dust cleared and the wreckage settled, Felix opened his eyes again. The world was again, a shade of grey. There, in the middle of the street, was a crater that spanned the entire width of the road: the monster’s signature footprint. The monster itself had disappeared again, leaving only a trail of destruction behind.

“Hey!” someone yelled out from an unknown direction, “Everyone ok?”

“Yea,” Felix hollered back as he struggled up, “I’m fine! Where are you?” There was a brief silence, when he thought someone had said “hell”. Then, Damiver’s voice boomed out.

“You guys see the crater?” his voice was shaking in the excitement. Felix strode towards the center as the group appeared from behind their cover. The five of them met up at the edge of the indention into the earth, staring at the massive hole in awe.

“Goddam this city is screwed,” Maldran whispered to himself. For the first time in his life, Felix agreed with him. He couldn’t see any way New Leaf City could survive this attack. In his mind, he knew Michael was thinking the exact same thing.

“Let’s get to the docks,” Michael muttered quietly.

The salty sea tingled Felix’s nose now, replacing the putrid smoke of before. As expected, hundreds of people were crowding onto the docks, trying to claim a place on the ferries. One had already set sail, and from Felix’s eyes, was grossly overloaded.

“How the hell are we going to fight through all of that mess?” Maldran asked in bewilderment. The mob had poured right onto the boat landing, the locked gates already trampled under hundreds of pairs of feet.

This isn’t going to work… Nova’s voice suddenly exclaimed in everyone’s mind.

Right as she thought those words, Felix’s eyes darted from the crowd back to the ferry that was already on its voyage to Victoria Island. For a moment, it seemed to be fine, continuing on its way just like any other night. But then, it shook violently, as if the rudders had glanced off of the rocky bottom. Then, right before his eyes, the boat was lifted out of the water with seemingly extreme ease.

He couldn’t see anything in the darkness of the ocean, but Felix knew the monster had just doomed those people. Illuminated by the ferry’s lights, people were jumping out, only to fall hundreds of feet into the ocean to their deaths. Felix muttered a curse under his breath at the spectacle.

Then, using appendages that Felix couldn’t see, the monster easily snapped the craft in half and hurled the two halves away like a rag doll. The steel hulls hit the water, creating tremendous splashes of white foam water before bubbling down to their watery graves. And Felix thought the story of Titanic was tragic…

There was a distant blast, and the docks lit up with a burst of flame. But it wasn’t a explosion of any sort. Felix’s eyes dilated in horror as he realized the monster was actually breathing fire onto the docks, incinerating the many helpless New Leafers who were unlucky enough to be stranded there.

“Sh** let’s go!” Maldran yelled suddenly. Felix found himself running with all of his might away from the docks. But where were they going? All sources of escape from this accursed island have been cut off. The subway was caved in, the ferries were being torn apart; the gods seemed to have unleashed all of their wrath onto the city.

They finally slowed down as the distant screams died down. A deafening roar told Felix the monster’s mission was accomplished. He threw himself down on the side of the street. In front of him, lay a burning car that was flipped upside down. The fire flickered, turning the street into a frightening house of horror.

Off to his side, he heard Damiver whisper, “Hey Nova, it’s your birthday.”

A gust of wind blew past, carrying ashes and cinders from the flames down the street. The smell of smoke lingered overhead, making the city smell like one giant birthday candle. Felix chuckled to himself. Some birthday this turned out to be.