Worlds War One

xliii [Badia]

"Do you see it?" Bad asked.

They'd left Eden behind. Autumn Loloma, aka Pept of the A'aninin, had decided to stay and remain in the Forsaken Land. Bad was reluctant to leave one of her people behind. "She's a civvie, not a soldier," Saanvi had reminded her. "And Ji has a Ghost eye now. We don't need her." Bad wondered what the princess's opinion would be if Seaman Choi hadn't been frankensteined. Would Saanvi have demanded they tie up the Ghost and drag her along?

Seaman Choi led the way. His eye flickered in and out of his socket—an eerie occurrence like his ocular orb was a unique effect in a glitching movie.

"Rotten is leading a group of about twenty undead," Seamen Choi reported. "They're traveling in a perpendicular route. We should intersect with them if we stay on our current course."

"Good," Bad said. "Let's engage the enemy here before they get to wherever they're going. We want to avoid any additional civilian casualties."

"Oh," the Seaman gasped.

Oh was never good. It was what someone said when one dropped a donut or stubbed a toe or someone canceled on dinner at the last minute. It was the short precursor to bad news. Bad would rather he came out and told them. Ohirritated her.

"What is it, Seaman?" Bad snapped.

"There's something else between here and there," Seaman Choi said. "Something . . . big."

Bad felt it before she saw it, something displacing the air in the distance. A tremor against the balls of her feet. The subsonic thump of something incredibly heavy treading in the distance. She pictured Kong or Godzilla. It was Leviathan.

She took the measure of her squad. A Demon Princess who wasn't a soldier. A scared Golem who wanted to run. A patchwork person made of parts Human, Angel, Magi, Ghost, and Golem. And three more soldiers with plenty of ammo. Up against a walking, hungry skyscraper.

"And Rotten is on the other side of the Leviathan?" Bad asked.

Seaman Choi nodded.

"We don't know where he's headed next," Bad told her squad. "Maybe he'll strike our own homes. Maybe the next victims will be our families. Maybe your fiancée, Airman Fox. Maybe your parents, Seaman Choi. Perhaps the Laghari royal court. The only way to stop Rotten is to get past that Leviathan."

"The next victims will be someone's family," Airman Fox said. "We need to stop Rotten."

Seaman Choi and Private Ramírez nodded in agreement. They were true soldiers with true hearts. They were too young to know better yet. Bad needed a better reason. She would lead them past the Leviathan because it might be her husband and daughters that Rotten would turn next. She would not let Charlie, Mary, or Rebecca get turned into soulless zombies.

Drill never wavered, constantly waiting to follow. He stared down at his boots, not looking up or around. He wanted to be anywhere but here, but he wasn't going AWOL. Wherever Bad went, he would follow. The rest of the troops awaited their orders. Saanvi never exhibited anything other than forward momentum. Penina was the only one who might bolt back to Eden. But the Golem was too scared to go back alone.

Bad led the squad forward, eyes roaming the tree line above, searching for signs of giant monsters. She had already lost Private Golden, and Autumn had stayed behind with Isis. Bad didn't want to lose any more troops. She had to keep them safe against...

It towered before them like a lone high-rise standing sentry along a barren expanse of flat plains. Bad stopped. This foe was beyond her scope of military experience. The Leviathan stood a hundred stories tall, maybe more. A cloud, fluffy and blue, passed by at its shoulder level. An amalgamation of stone, metal, and flesh made up the behemoth. Three legs extend down from a torso, each limb the diameter of a grain silo. Three arms twirled around the upper trunk of the creature, twisting tentacles as giant as sequoias at the trunk and tapered to thin whips at the ends. The head was the size of a water tower, a bulbous shape with three eyes, one glowing red, one yellow, one blue. The mouth gaped open as wide as a highway tunnel leading into darkness, some mucus substance dripping from stalactite teeth, each featuring three points.