The Scream

  The Japanese snowdome of Truck-kun's dreams had reached its breaking point. Here and there, the ground was gradually pixelating into jagged cubes of information, leaving little in the way of room for motion; the trees and the water, the rocks and the clouds, the nature had all vaporized into an amalgam of artifacts, their quanta indistinguishable. And, in the night sky, the stars bled into the velvet black in light, zebra streaks. Among the horror-striking, nightmarish tableau, there laid the body of the Yuki-onna, white and bare; it was luminescent, with a cindering hole in her chest where her heart should have been. Next to her, the leavings of the shrine mirror she had used to return the megatruck's laser beams and beat the giant over the head in close-quarters combat glittered in shattered rest.

  An indomitable wave of stomach-churning anxiety, mixed with pure indignation, passed over Inês, vibrating in intense energy peaks. She screamed. It was a primal, piercing peal; barbed and keen. Her body trembled with rage, and so did the earth—or what was left of it. With a low, ominous rumbling, the saw-toothed ground breached; cavernous rifts, dark and bottomless, birthed small islands, adrift in the vast, digital sea. Behind the veil of obscurity, the world flattened, void of texture; details were deleted; all that was left were grey models, outlines and connecting vertices; geometry. It was as if the whole world had become her instrument.

  The megatruck arose from the shaking chaos laboriously, tumbling; his brewing, cubist storm circled his combat-wearied frame with a menacing wail. His towering figure, angular at first, was now misshapen. His metal skin had been striped of its coat in countless spots, and he was dented here and there. But despite what the Yuki-onna had put him through, he was still formidable. Unbent and tall like a wind turbine, he stepped forward ominously, but Lu was ready. Reacting straight away, she leaped from her island of solitude onward, setting herself up on a stage better suited for her and launched into a frenzied, whirling assault; performing the dance of her ancestors with honor. Her movements were precise and ebullient, with a joy and power that lit up the air around her in radiant arcs. She sometimes held her skirt up like colorful wings and sometimes let it trail behind her like a tail feather. Shock waves of red-orange flames shot up from her every stomp of the ground, her every step and twirl pulsating like blood from a severed artery. Swiftly, they melted through chunks of the megatruck's metal sheet and chrome frame, warping the machine into a mutilated husk and sending sparks flying into the dark abyss.

  Dripping with sizzling, super heated alloy, the colossus let out an eldritch cry. And, rushing toward Lu with destructive momentum, he jumped over the cold cyber void, his grille mouth opened in a grating, distorted threat. She bounced moments before his metallic frame crashed into the brittle ground. With an undaunted hand, Jin raised his komabue and began to play his grandfather's song; blue notes of a mournful, pensive piece. The effect was instant: as the megatruck attempted to get up from the ground, his every move got jerky and hesitant, as if his limbs were being held back by tight, invisible strings; and then, his already decelerated speed slowed down further, like he had been pushed into quicksand. The spectacle was pitiful: stumbling and sluggish, the giant looked like a marionette, guided by drunkard hands.

  As the song persisted, Marcel stepped into action; turning his rapier in whistling motions, the boy made gleaming ribbons of waters spring forth in a rush. She would have to ask him about those fencing lessons again, Inês thought. Jumping from platform to platform around the hors de combat megatruck as he maintained a safe distance, he struck at every critical point with the strength of a geyser: the joints, the sensors, the hydraulics—he knew the machine all too well. Billowing clouds erupted in a concert of smoke and vapor. Exchanging a look with Jin across the ruins of Truck-kun's zombic phantasm, the pair harmonized a silent plan; Marcel enclosed the megatruck in a cosmic sphere of water as Jin's music guided the currents into constriction. Violent flashes of light glared from within: blue, red, green; but the laser beams, weakened and sedated, never found their way out of their Devil's Triangle.

  At last, Inês closed her eyes. For an instant, she needed to recuperate; she needed home, her sibling, her mother, her father, her friends, her country. And then, having communed with them, she took a breath and she sang. She sang a song of the people, her people; people tied to the rhythms of nature. People who suffer, people who are tired. She sang of sorrow and of the destiny of the Portuguese soul. She addressed you and she addressed me. She sang of endurance in a commanding way and she channeled centuries of grief into one performance. The remaining plots of land exploded, leaving nothing but a dusty blur of dirt. The megatruck convulsed; inhuman. His unloving body cracked and shattered. While Inês concluded her song, Lu began to dance, her burning fire bringing the megatruck's watery grave to a boil as she cried. The sphere trembled as the waves of sound and fire collided with it, throwing curling clouds of steam up in the air. Finally, it happened: there was a deafening detonation, followed by a blinding blaze, and the sphere evaporated in the blink of an eye.

  The islands were pushed away in a primeval blast. Inês managed to barely catch Lu by the tip of her fingers as she passed her by and held on to her dearly. She felt her face against hers, humid with tears.

  "Inês," said Lu in her hear. "You sang beautifully. I'm glad we could perform together. One last time."

  "And your dance… You were enchanting," Inês responded with a teary embrace.

  They hugged tightly, suspended in the growing nothingness.

  "És a minha irmã, Lu," Inês said with a kiss. "E eu amo-te mais do que tudo." 

  "Yo también…" Lu sobbed. "Yo también te amo, mana. Eres todo para mí."

  The duo remained locked together as the Gehenna scattered off in oppressing waves.

  "Grab on to me!" yelled Jin.

  Hand in glove, he and Marcel were drifting near. Inês and Lu turned to them and managed to grab one of the boys each by the skin of their necks. The four companions joined hands, interlocking their fingers closely.

  A clangorous row came from down below; the megatruck, Truck-kun, had collapsed by his lonesome in a pile of smoking carcass. And, like a dying heartbeat, a flicker of blue glitched on and off deep within the scraps.