5.15

“All right, back away everyone. We’ll take care of this.” Silas inflated himself and edged toward the trash golem.

The small, quivering crowd backed away a little from the golem. Hunter did a quick head count, there were thirty.

“Jimena, I need you to watch the back. Wouldn’t want something to come up from behind while we’re taking care of this one.” Hunter readied some dust into a bat and used the rest of the dust as a protective coating on his arms and neck. He didn’t want to get burned.

“Right.” Jimena circled round the back of the crowd and scanned the area, though she kept her focus on Hunter and Silas.

The trash golem was made up of all sorts of junk. The brown mass that seemingly held it all together writhed and squirmed as the body moved about. One glass bottle sat horizontally on its face like some kind of mocking grin. It reared back and let out a roar.

“What’s the plan?” Silas asked. Silas bounced up and down on the spot, readying himself for an attack.

“Just focus on smashing it to pieces.” Hunter bent his knees and took a quick glance at everything around them.

Other heroes and people were fighting off other trash golems. Hunter didn’t recognise most of them, however he did see Copter flying overhead.

Silas kicked things off by launching himself straight at the chest of the trash golem. Surprisingly, he went through the chest. The trash golem morphed its body in such a way that it formed a hole and Silas sailed clean through. Hunter watched as the creature brought itself back together.

“Well that’s new,” said Silas. He brought himself to a tumbling, skidding stop.

Hunter rushed the creature and sent his bat in for a swing against the golem’s head. Just as Hunter’s bat was about to collide with its target, the trash golem retracted its head into its body.

Anticipating that the creature would do something, Hunter quickly redirected his bat to swing down into the body of the golem. The bat impacted but the body quickly split in two, giving way to the rest of the attack.

“Jimena, any ideas?” Hunter called out to her. There was no response. Hunter whipped around to see Jimena pelleting some incoming trash golems. The small crowd brought themselves closer together. The fear on their faces was about ready to explode as they realised there was nowhere they could go.

“Hunter?” Silas called out. Hunter looked back to see the large trash golem was closing in on the group. Silas continued to fly at the creature, but it was of little use.

“Um, Hunter, I need a little help,” called Jimena.

The familiar overwhelming sense of crippling doubt started to creep up Hunter’s spine. The group of people started to cry and scream.

“Swap!” Hunter called. Silas and Jimena moved in unison, knowing what Hunter meant.

Silas soared over the crowd and smashed into the smaller golems, knocking them apart like bowling pins.

Jimena sprinted at the larger one and unloaded as many slime balls as she could. When the creature was encased in slime, Hunter attacked it again with his dust bat. This time the golem failed to morph its body and it took the full impact of his attack.

Within only a few moments, the immediate dangers were gone. Hunter looked to the group of civilians. Most had calmed down with only a few of the children still crying.

“We need to keep moving, we need to get you out of here.” Hunter stood tall over the group.

“There’s no way out,” cried one civilian.

“We’re all gonna die,” said another. The rising hysteria was infectious, and Hunter could see the whole group were ready to follow suit.

“There is a way out, and you won’t die. We’re here for you. As are many other heroes and police. We’ll get through this. I promise you that,” said Hunter.

More explosions rocked the area around them, and a building collapsed.

“C’mon, let’s move it,” said Jimena. The small group of civilians followed the three teens. Every now and then, a police officer was moving about, ushering the crowds to continue down a certain path.

Most of the civilians were scattered about, running with themselves, but Hunter could see there were a few other heroes doing the same thing as they were, herding larger groups to push forward together.

The ground shook with a mighty thud. It shook again and again, as though something gigantic was walking. Some of the civilians and other heroes stopped in their tracks.

“You guys feel that?” Hunter asked. Jimena and Silas stopped just ahead of him. The ground shook again.

“Yeah,” replied Jimena.

“Do you think its like that giant trash golem we fought with Brickla?” Silas asked.

“Could be,” said Hunter.

Brown, amorphous sludge engulfed a 70-storey high-rise. Within moments the building was completely enveloped in the sludge. The shape of a bipedal trash golem slowly formed.

“How are we meant to compete with that?” Silas asked.

“We’re all going to die!” A few different people screamed in unison. Civilians started to scatter. Before Hunter could react, he witnessed a trash golem kill one of the people that he had been guiding through Crooked Downs.

The trash golem slowly moved to another building, leaving only the metal skeleton of the previous building. Hunter watched as it grew in size before his eyes.

“This has been one of the most disappointing attacks on Athena City I’ve ever done.” The screeching voice echoed from atop the golem.

“Is that the Trash Queen?” Silas asked.

“It would seem so,” said Hunter.

A few more of the scattered heroes closed in and formed a group with the three teens.

“Anyone got any bright ideas?” asked one. Hunter turned and saw that it was Rush.

“I’ve got nothing,” said Silas.

“I mean, I could go so far as to say this is unfair. This is not a game I’d put stakes into.” A man in a dapper suit looked concerned. He wore a set of undersized glasses and Hunter could see he was rotating a large sum of dice in his hand. His hair was greased back and his face was clean-shaven. He wore cufflinks in the shape of dice.

“Gadgeteer is on her way. We’ve just gotta try and hold out till then,” said another.