Wild Tiger Chase - Chapter 39: Chapter 39

— Léon —
The noise was terrifying.
Léon's gaze bounced around the room. Books fell from their shelves, plates shattered on the floor, the shutters on the windows splintered, and even his balance felt broken. Outside, people screamed and cried while NAVs lost control and crashed.
And then there was the wail. Something metallic, he thought, that seemed to grate its way up, pushing, piercing, drilling through rock and earth, and creating a deafening cacophony of despair.
What the fuck was happening?
By reflex, Léon reached for Pipo and stumbled towards Rob, keeping them close.
"On your hands and knees. Let's find cover!" Kali shouted. She scrambled forward to join Pipo and Léon and direct them under a sturdy table nearby. "Your place is wherever is safer for you, Léon. It's. Not. Here." Her voice was controlled enough to pass as speech, but the words rang so loud and hard in his mind, she could've been shouting against his ears.
Léon scoffed in disbelief. "Tiny! Over here!" He was quick enough to dodge a falling snow globe, but not the porcelain horse that fell right after. "Shit."
His fingers met Satina's while Kali hugged Pipo. Another rumble came from deep within the earth; the quake intensified.
"Under the table, all of you. Now," Kali said.
Rafa and Phillip reached them soon after. Léon held one of the feet of the table and shut his eyes. When he pictured himself at home, he expected it to feel cozy and familiar. Still, as he looked around the growing destruction and felt his mother's hand on his wrist, home sounded more like an alien concept—a distant place he had left in New Continent, four years ago.
A movement caught his eyes. He looked over his shoulder in time to see Rob's arms losing force. He leaned forward until his forehead met the floor and growled, shivering from head to toe.
Something was wrong.
A shiver crawled up Léon's back when his man looked up. Rob's eyes... the whites were starting to turn black. Why did that seem so familiar?
"Run, Leo. Run!" Rob shouted. He clasped at his temples and grunted. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face, his cheeks darkening as veins rose on his neck and forehead.
Way too close, something pierced the surface of the earth. A gnarled, metallic column shot up from the street outside, rising and branching like the stem of a growing plant. With a loud roar of falling bricks, it destroyed the front wall of Amma's house and stretched, taking with it part of the ceiling, an abandoned NAV, and a bathtub.
It took only a few minutes, but it felt like hours of tension and fear had passed. As the smoke sat and small debris rolled down the half-eaten building, Léon dared to move. Thin rays of light cut through the dense veil of dust. When Léon got up and looked around, his eyes watered. There were metallic structures sprouting all around the city, and the rumble of overturned earth and falling buildings overpowered any other sound in Cidade Santa.
"What the hell is happening?" Amma asked in a whisper. Her voice was small and pained as she stared at the missing half of her house. It was a half-eaten corpse now, the plumbing and the electrical cables sticking out of the remaining bricks like picked-clean ribs after a zombie barbecue. "My mother's home, it's... it's ruined."
Léon reached for her hand.
"Careful!" Phillip shouted, pushing the group together.
After a final screech of metal against enamel, the bathtub fell and hit the asphalt, spitting pieces of cement and moldy porcelain everywhere.
Only then the earthquake stopped.
Wide-eyed and panting, Léon gulped. He looked around as if expecting the world to continue shaking—and when it didn't, he inched forward to leave their improvised cover. Amma's firm hand gripped the nape of his neck like a lioness, keeping him in place. After a heartbeat, a bookcase groaned and bashed the floor where Léon would be.
He gasped and coughed. Dust and smoke invaded his mouth.
"What the fuck," Satina mumbled. She looked up. Like the others, her hair, face, and clothes were covered with dust. "What are these things?"
Her eyes set hard on the metallic structures. They were twisted, rusted, dirty pieces of metal encrusted with orange crystals, purple crystals, and blood-red feathers.
Léon tried to get up, but once again someone held him. It was Rob this time. As the others patted the dust off their clothes or studied their surroundings, Léon slid closer to Rob. The whites in his eyes were completely black now, and from its corners, thin black veins spread, webbing across his temples.
The memory came to Léon like a bullet. He had seen this before... four years ago, after he had scoured Rob's memories. Once again, someone had forced their way into Rob's head. No. Not just someone. Another cosmic trace wielder.
Toni.
"Please, Tiger. Go. Run while you can. Go before he finds you," Rob murmured, his voice hoarse and weak. "It never felt like this. He never felt this angry. I'm... I can't.... You must go."
The heat radiating from him wasn't natural, and neither was the shake in his hands and arms. Léon touched his cheek. He tried to tilt his head back and study his eyes, but Rob hunched over and pressed his face against Léon's chest. The way Rob leaned into him—face coated with cold sweat and trembling all over—made something crack inside him.
"Come here, Bhalu." Léon tugged him closer and helped him up. "Rafa, I—your brother. Toni is—"
"Yeah." Rafa held her bleeding arm against her chest, lips half-opened and trembly. She set her hard eyes on Satina. "You were speaking the truth, then. Toni is alive. No one else could create something like this." She gestured towards the bent columns of metal.
Phillip was the first one to get up, followed by Rafa and Satina. The three of them looked around the place in a mix of fear and disbelief.
"How could Tony do something like this?" Rafa mumbled. Pain flashed in her eyes as she studied the damage from the earthquake. She squatted and grabbed a wooden bookcase. As if trying to make the destruction a little better, she grunted and raised it with her good arm. With Phillip's help, she pushed the bookcase back in its place. Rafa lowered her voice. "But after four years alive, Toni. Why now?"
"I don't know." Satina's face hardened. She caressed her arm. "But I saw him in the airNAV I took to come here. You can feel the power coming from him. He's so different from when we saw him in the Mayor's lab... his power feels so wrong. And so dangerous."
"I can't believe you took a risk like that, Tiny," Léon said in a grave voice.
"After the airNAVs started crashing, NC canceled every flight to Cidade Santa or Los Indes, and the other ports were just too distant from where Rio said you were—I used my powers on him; he told me everything." Satina helped Amma and Pipo to jump over the half wall separating them from the street outside. "That airNAV was the only way to come here, Leo. I wasn't worried about the danger. I was worried about you." She glanced at Amma and Pipo. "All of you."
"Mad respect, Partner," Phillip said between coughings.
Sirens blared in the distance as Rafa uncurled his arm from around her neck and helped him sit down on the floor. The sun was dying in the sky, leaving streaks of blood-oranges and reds behind.
Satina brushed Phillip's compliment aside. "Someone broke into aunt Kali's home, and Léon was nowhere to be found. Anyone would've done the same thing."
"Someone broke into my home?" Amma echoed. "In NC?"
"Yes, Auntie." Satina lowered her eyes and sighed. She sat down beside Phillip and rubbed her face. "Not like they broke this one." Satina jerked a thumb over her shoulder to show the destruction behind her. "But enough to make me think that Leo had been kidnapped or something. That's why I went through the trouble of looking for Rio. One thing led to another, and... here I am."
"We're lucky to have you, Satina." Rafa smiled. "My brother told me about you. We're in need of a good strategist in here. This mess definitely proves it."
Léon kicked books and debris aside and opened a trail so he could take Rob outside. The sound of glass under his boot caught his attention. Looking downward, he found an old frame showing Amma and him, side by side. Not much further ahead, old photos—those made of glossy paper and colored ink—showed the forgotten part of his family. Of all the faces in it, He only recognized the serious expression of Vó Ondina—his grandma and the old owner of this house.
He bit hard on his lower lip. Léon didn't have to worry about his lost memories anymore, but losing something like this was—well—painful. He glanced at Amma. She wore a brave expression and hugged Pipo close against her chest whispering that everything was okay, but Léon recognized the sadness in his own mother's face.
She wasn't okay. And looking around at his friends and family, it was pretty clear that no one was. Léon almost scoffed while averting his eyes to the side. It was funny to think that, out of all the dangers they had faced in OC, a damned earthquake had been the least dangerous. Outside, the asphalt was cracked and broken around all the metal columns Léon could see. He couldn't be sure from where he stood, but Léon had an inkling to believe the column formed a soft curve.
A fence, perhaps.
"Here, Bhalu. Just sit for a moment," Léon whispered.
Rob didn't show any signs of resistance when Léon reached the place where Satina, Phillip, and Rafa were sitting. With Rafa's help, he sat Rob down and smiled when Rafa cleaned his face with her sleeve, drying the sweat and the tears trailing down his face.
Then Léon squared his shoulders, his hands balled at his sides.
Sometimes, Léon thought he deserved a slap on the face.
Sure, he would be lying if he said he wasn't scared. He was terrified; in the previous week alone, he had survived an airNAV crash, at least two Barbarian attacks, and his connection to the very core of his powers was in danger, along with the lives of his oldest companions, his tigers. He had been threatened, kidnapped, hurt, fooled, and fucked—both in the good and bad sense of the word—while being thrown left and right like a ragdoll, without any regency over what happened to him.
He licked his cracked lips and sucked in a lungful of air.
That couldn't continue. As he looked at his mother and brother, crying over their destroyed house, he knew he'd need to do something. As he looked at his friends and family, bleeding or dying of a mysterious sickness, he knew he'd need to be brave.
And as he looked at the love of his life, broken and battered, he knew he'd need to be strong. He would have to protect them all.
No one else would.
"Tiny?" Léon swallowed hard and schooled his expression, trying to blink away his tears before locking eyes with her. "You have to tell us everything you discovered inside that airNAV." Léon met his mother's gaze. "We cannot let Toni do whatever he wants. And I will not let your safety to chance."
Léon shivered and his legs almost gave out, but Amma stepped beside him and held his arm, giving him support. Pipo looked up at him; his little black eyes welled up.
"And I won't let anyone touch you, Pipo." Léon breathed in again and steeled his voice. "You know Toni can use his connection to Rob to do step-through. We have to assume they either know where we are or—like Rob said—that they're already on our way."
"Uh. That's unlikely. Toni has never been to this place, he can't step through to where we are," Rafa said.
"It's more than just the step-through, Rafa." Léon rubbed his eyes. There was no gentle way of saying this. "Look at his face. He's doing that again. Forcing his way into Rob's mind, so he can reach us."
A crease formed between Rafa's eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
Satina answered in his place. "Before all of this started, when we were still in NC, Rob said this is what happened to his eyes when Toni forced his way into his head. Your brother said it was normal."
"Normal?" she asked in a roar. Her voice died out with a scoff. "That's..." Rafa opened and closed her lips. She furrowed her brows, ducked her gaze, and inched away from her brother, folding her arms around herself. "T-that's ridiculous. Toni wouldn't..." She trailed off as her eyes rested on Rob. "It's a violence that..." She raked her fingers through her hair. "That... oh, Goddess." Her voice cracked. "Toni would." Her expression blanked. "Toni did."
Phillip raised a hand covered in dark veins. His voice was cold, void of any humor.
"Look. If that piece of shit shows up, we're dead. I can't fight him like this, and I doubt any of us can. If what Satina said is true—if he wants Roberto—I don't think we can stop him." He rose to his full height. "And I'm with Leo. I won't allow that fucker to get what he wants."
"Don't overfocus on Toni," Satina said in a grave tone. "He's not the only player in this game, and I'm not so sure if he's really the most dangerous in all this."
"There are the Barbarians too," Pipo said in a small voice.
"And we don't have any idea of what these damned columns are," Amma added.
"Also, I'm dying," Phillip said.
Amma stepped forward. "What?"
But their conversation wasn't as important anymore. When Rob sunk his face in his big hands and growled, Léon walked to him again. With a gentle tug, that big, shivering man curled against Léon's chest, holding onto him like a scared child.
"Oh, Bhalu," Léon cooed. "I'll find a way to help you, I promise you."
He kissed his forehead and tried to tilt Rob's face toward him, but he resisted the movement. Rob's endless black eyes snapped to something overhead and widened more and more as the dark webbings finished covering his face.
"Bhalu? What are you seeing?" Léon held his shoulders. "What's wrong?"
"Right. Okay, okay. Everyone listen!" Satina said in a commanding voice. "First things first. Can we stop this?" She gestured at Rob. "It physically pains me to say this, but Phil is right. We can't have Toni here." She looked at Léon and Rafa in turn. "Any ideas?"
"If we can find a way to see the connection between them, maybe we can sever it," Rafa said. "But I honestly... I... I don't know how. If I knew he was doing this to my brother, I—I would've broken him."
"Leo," Rob mumbled.
A shiver crossed Léon's back. This was the first word Rob had said since the earthquake, and unlike what Léon expected, Rob's voice sounded clear and strong.
"What is it, lover? I'm here."
The last threads of daylight died, plunging the city into darkness. Broken cables spat small showers of flickering energy and the water from the plumbing system was beginning to pool around the house. From somewhere behind Léon's back, a great number of birds took flight, all of them crying in fear.
Rob held Léon's arm, pulling his gaze back. "You need to run. Now!"
That's when it happened. The metal columns lit up in bright orange and purple, shining in turns. They hummed with power and clacked one by one like a big machine being activated.
And then reality was slashed open.
And Antônio McCockay stepped through.