Chapter 53

[The following chapter contains strong language. Reader caution is advised.]

Thursday 30th September 1999

Something remarkable and yet completely ordinary has happened. Last Monday, Kendal turned 18.

Eighteen years old. Old enough to drink alcohol (legally). Old enough to go clubbing. She’s an adult now, pretty much, and it had suddenly dawned on me that adulthood isn’t too far away now for the rest of us, barring Kitty. That was (and is) quite an overwhelming prospect for me. Independence, responsibility – well, more than I have now; everyday responsibility – work, and a whole load of other things that I really don’t feel ready for. At least I know Dakota feels the same way…

With our Melody-hunting duties finally over, Kendal threw upon us her early birthday celebration plan the very next day: we were going to visit Alton Towers, the theme park. It was one of the things she’d considered for the Summer of Fun that we’d not gotten around to, and apparently at some point, she decided to turn it into a surprise for the rest of us.

I must never go on a rollercoaster again. I felt like I was going to die more times in the space of a few hours than in 15 months of being a Painter.

Of course, Kendal enjoyed herself greatly, eagerly anticipating riding Oblivion especially. Y’know… the world’s first vertical-drop rollercoaster (apparently). One of the fastest rides in the country. The one she informed us severely that she’s been waiting eighteen months to ride since it opened. I kind of remember the promotion back then…

Kitty and I were the only ones who didn’t want to go on the ride, and of course we got dragged along anyway… Kendal was utterly ecstatic when we finally left that metal mayhem machine, and it was great that she enjoyed herself, but I was too busy feeling like I’d just plummeted my way into a staring contest with death to really care about that in the moment. And Kitty wound up throwing up, though credit where it’s due, she managed to hold it in long enough to make it to the toilets.

It was a wild day, not entirely unenjoyable but certainly not my first, second or even fifteenth choice of activity. We finally got back to Dakota’s in the early evening, and turned the TV on in time to see a news report about Melody having escaped from custody early this morning.

Named and identified on television. 17-year-old Melody Hill, top student, unmasked as rebellion leader and currently on the run from the law.

Wisely, Dakota recommended we wait until tomorrow to figure out what how to handle this new situation. That didn’t stop us discussing it as we ate pizza together, of course, since it was on our minds. How could it not be? We’d been stupid enough to think that handing her over to the police would be the end of things, when she can clearly teleport her scythe to herself just like we can with our weapons. And yet we let them take her in like this wasn’t inevitably going to happen.

Sunday came around quickly enough, and our planning ultimately came to the conclusion of “keep doing what we had been the first time”, with the addendum of checking in at her initial hideout periodically in case she returned there at some point. After all, who’s to know how the mind of Melody Hill works?

By the time we reached Monday and Kendal’s birthday itself, we found our classmates discussing nothing but Melody. How could she be behind all of this? How did she escape from custody? Is she really a “monster”? She never seemed like one, after all. It’s hardly like she’s got anything in common with that guy who escaped from Ashdown earlier this year. Naturally, the gossiping has died down over the following days – already old news, I guess – but I still hear her name being muttered in conversation once or twice a day.

Like last time, I’ve had nothing to tell you until now with our search for Melody. More evenings wasted on fruitless efforts to find one girl in our entire town.

Which made the fliers that I found lying in the streets as I made my way to school feel like salt in the wound.

“Thursday 30th September 1999, 4pm, town centre.” And her emblem, drawn in outline form to be visible on the white paper (which I’m sure was made from her shadow-Lokonessence, unless she’d gained access to a printer, which thinking about it isn’t that unlikely so never mind).

“I strongly advise you avoid going into town today, unless you absolutely have to,” Mr Davies spoke in form, with a voice sterner than I think I’d ever heard from him aside from when disciplining students and seemingly tinged with fear. “Even though we all know Melody… we clearly didn’t know her as well as we thought. Please don’t try anything reckless. Don’t think you can talk her out of this or anything like that, and don’t let yourself be swept up in her ‘rebellion’ rhetoric. Leave this for the authorities to handle.”

“Or the Painters!” Nadia blurted as though unable to help herself. Muttering erupted across the form group immediately after.

“Perhaps,” Mr Davies mused. “though we don’t know anything about them after all this time.”

“They’re heroes, though!” Jeremy insisted. “They’ve literally been patrolling to try and find Melody.”

“The point remains, please don’t get yourselves involved with what Melody’s doing. Stay out of town today.”

Of course, that just wasn’t an option for me. Nobody else but the Painters could hope to stop Melody, somehow.

Our best guess as to what that “somehow” was, incidentally, was the destruction of her scythe. That was where she was drawing power from, and even with all of her intelligence and cunning, without the force to back it up, she was still just a teenage girl. The hard part was going to be getting close enough to have a chance at destroying her weapon… hopefully the actual act of breaking it wouldn’t prove as challenging. I remember Bao struggling to destroy his blades long ago, after all…

We had one other idea, no less challenging: the restrictor clamps that Nick placed on our weapons all those months back. We’d thought of it a few days ago, and went out of our way to check the abandoned warehouse in case they were still there. No joy. Dakota phoned Neil, who confirmed our suspicions that he and his team had swept the area and picked up everything they could find. He assured us he’d search for them in their storage lot and send them to us if he found them. Unfortunately, that was only a couple of days before Melody’s fliers appeared.

I’ll cut to the chase, since I’m sure you know the gist of the lead-up. (We managed to go without doing any homework first thing after school, though, which was a “leapt into freezing-cold water”-level shock to the system.)

I expected town centre to be eerily quiet when we arrived a couple of minutes before 4pm, but as the six of us approached in our Painter gear, we found a fair crowd of people loitering on the outskirts. An anticipatory buzz was in the air, like they were waiting for a concert or a football match to start. We said nothing as we drew close, and we didn’t have to; a few people spotted us, then more, and the crowd had parted to let us through by the time we reached it. Words of encouragement were called out to us… considering the public had barely seen us for months on end, it felt strange to be receiving adulation like this. We’re hardly big celebrities or something like that.

“This feels like that time with the robot and the arena…” Bao muttered to the rest of us as we strode on towards the high-street.

Really, I should’ve expected this, but somehow it didn’t occur to me… there weren’t any civilians strolling around still, but there were several police officers patrolling about, keeping vigilant. They didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see us approaching.

“We were hoping you’d show up,” what I could only assume was the senior officer addressed us, striding across to us.

“Sorry, we need to invest in a Paint-signal or something,” I replied jauntily without thinking and then felt a wave of panic that it’d be taken badly. In reality, the man barely reacted at all. Trust me to fear the worst…

“That’d be really cool!” Bao remarked. “We could come up with a team symbol and-”

Dakota put a hand on Bao’s shoulder, which was enough to curb his train of thought. Then, she turned her attention to the cop.

“Any sign of Melody yet?”

“No. We’ve been here for about forty minutes now, but there’s been nothing yet. I reckon she’ll show on the hour. Worst case, she’ll spot us in advance and abort.”

“Do you want us to patrol with you?” Dakota asked him.

“If you’re able to track her, that would be a huge help,” he replied, before checking his watch. “She should be here any moment.”

“I’m still not convinced she’s going to show,” Zahid spoke up. “This could be some big trap or a distraction. We’re all here and she goes and hosts a rally somewhere else.”

“And I keep telling you that’d be a dumb thing to do!” Kendal groaned back. “‘Hey, everybody, come to town at 4pm! Only kidding!’”

“Alright, less arguing, more searching,” Dakota eased the two. “We’ll fan out and search around.”

She once again looked to the policeman.

“We think we need to destroy her scythe to stop her, so if we get the opportunity…”

“I’ll pass that on to the other officers,” he nodded back.

And with that, we spread out across the high-street to begin our search. I made my way to the right side and slowly headed up the street, waving my sword around in front of me as I’d grown used to doing over the past few weeks. We’d done this so often now that I was becoming an expert at reading the changes in the glow of my sword’s blade… and at that particular moment, it grew first brighter, and then, as I continued from shopfront to shopfront, dimmed again.

“Hrm…” I muttered under my breath, and turned around, heading back slower than before until I found the spot where the blue blade shone its brightest. To my left was a Sports Direct – entirely possible that she’d snuck in there earlier in the day. To my right, in the middle of the high-street, was the small bandstand or pavilion, visibly empty. And yet, as I turned to one side and the other, my sword seemed to indicate that the bandstand was the right direction. Confused, but trusting Lokonessence, I started off towards the wooden construct, and found Bao and Kitty both heading in the same direction.

“Is it just me or does this not make any sense…?” Bao asked aloud.

“Unless there’s a secret chamber underneath it…” Kitty mused, just about audible considering the (ever-shrinking) distance between us.

“Hey guys!” Kendal called across to us, as she too began moving towards the bandstand.

“If she’s crouching down just out of sight, I swear…” I sighed, a few feet away now.

Bao reached it first, and peered over the low wall to look inside.

“No Melody here…” he informed us. I joined him a moment later, and likewise saw absolutely nothing inside the bandstand.

“Anything?” Dakota’s voice sounded out from nearby; she and Zahid were both being led to the same spot by their weapons.

“Empty…” I shouted back across to her.

“Maybe the middle circle bit is a doorway to a secret tunnel…” I heard Kitty mutter to herself. She was peering over the bandstand wall.

A moment later, Melody was standing there.

Kitty sprung back with a squeal of surprise, and the rest of us braced ourselves almost instinctively.

“Glad you’re here,” Melody smiled. “Let’s get this show started.”

Dozens of Hunters began pouring out of the bandstand, driving the six of us back. If the police officers hadn’t noticed Melody’s sudden appearance yet, they were certainly taken aback by the pure white creatures emerging from seemingly nowhere. Orders were barked down walky-talkies as the Hunters swarmed the high-street, but the creatures refrained from attacking for the moment.

Melody strode out of the bandstand, a smug look on her face, scythe in-hand.

“I did think I might be robbed of an audience, but that’s okay. Any publicity is good publicity.”

“I don’t see any cameras or journalists here, Melody,” Zahid snarled at her. “And nobody’s stepping forward to join your stupid rebellion. Stop fucking around already.”

“You might be satisfied leading a normal life, but not everybody is,” she replied casually. “But we already know we’re at a philosophical stalemate, so let’s cut to the chase, shall we?”

Now. I wish I could say it was intentional, and knowing her, perhaps it was. But the moment after Melody said that, a human shape suddenly landed down from above (presumably leaping from a rooftop), timed so, so perfectly in response to what our nemesis had just said. And that figure, clad in white armour, stood upright, flicked her blonde hair back from in front of her face, and raised her arms wide.

“Hi! Hope you don’t mind me dropping in!” my sister proclaimed joyously, before turning to me and adding, “get it?”

“Lucy?!” I squawked back, utterly dumbfounded by her being here, now, dressed like that.

“It’s been a while! I’ve actually missed you a bit!” she beamed.

Another five figures made perfect landings around her, quickly identifiable as Kayleigh, Will, Rin, Nathan and… well, someone I hadn’t seen before. Just like Lucy, they were sporting pristine white armour, and that was enough to spell out that she’d been spending the past month and a half at Adam’s country house with them.

“Great, blow our cover,” Kayleigh grunted. “Nice work.”

“But I thought of the joke! Did you hear the joke?”

“It was a pretty good joke…” Nathan chuckled lightly, and Lucy grabbed him into a kiss(!) in response.

Melody took a step forward. Her smirk had faltered now, though she was still maintaining a composed expression.

“This is new,” she noted coolly. “Not something I’m familiar with at all.”

“Surprise,” Will said with mocking jazz-hands. “Turns out your sister’s been keeping secrets from you.”

“Guys…” Rin winced at Lucy and Nathan all the while, the two of them still kissing(!).

“Of course,” Melody huffed. “Well, I have no business with you right now, so if you don’t mind…”

She pointed her scythe forward, and an explosion of white burst forth from amongst the group, throwing them across the high street. I saw some of the police officers rush forwards, only for Hunters to force them back again.

And on my part… well, my blood ran cold, as it would do if you saw a member of your family be flung several feet by an explosion. As soon as I saw where she landed, I rushed over to her, as did Kendal; she sat herself upright before either of us even reached her, a rainbow shimmer around her like the iridescent film of a bubble.

“Jeez, that was uncalled for…” she grumbled to herself, and turned to Kendal and me with a look of befuddlement.

“What’s with the aurora…?” Kendal asked shakily, assumedly as rattled as I was. Lucy, by contrast, seemed no different than usual.

“Lokonessence, duh!”

She sprung back up onto her feet, and began charging up spheres of multi-coloured energy in her palms.

“Hey, Melody, wanna try blowing me up again? You missed me the first time!”

Melody turned to the three of us. I raised my sword, and Kendal did the same with her bow.

“I’ll just let the Hunters deal with you,” she smirked lightly at us. The predators began surrounding us, four of them snarling threateningly.

“Any trick to these ones?” Lucy asked Kendal and me airily.

“I’m assuming you can fight them…?” I checked with her.

“You can see the Contact Suit, right?”

She held her arms forward like the full set of white body-armour wasn’t plainly visible.

“That’s not an answer!”

“If I wasn’t wearing this, I wouldn’t be able to fight them, would I?”

“Not the time to start bickering!” Kendal snapped at us. She was training her bow on one Hunter, then another, maybe trying to keep them back or maybe sizing them up to decide which one to strike first.

“No tricks,” I told Lucy. “Just hope she’s made it so we can even harm them.”

“Let’s find out!” she chirped, and then threw one of her spheres of Lokonessence at a Hunter. The construct seared it, causing it to screech out, and I made sure to slash at it while it was reeling. I saw another Hunter get knocked back by another blow from Lucy in my peripheral vision – saving me from getting attacked from a blind spot like the last time. I stabbed my sword into the first beast and unleashed a torrent of blue through it, then turned to aid my sister. She was dodging the second Hunter’s swipes and bites with more athleticism than I expected of her. On my other side, Kendal was firing barbed arrows into the other two creatures.

I was going to survey the rest of the battlefield, but before I could see much other than police officers running about, another Hunter barrelled towards me. I slashed in its direction, unleashing a small tornado of blue that the white monster couldn’t quite evade in time, instead getting thrown across the high-street.

“This is so much fun!” Lucy giggled, and I turned in time to see her uppercut her Hunter with her fist consumed in a rainbow glow. With her opponent reeling, she retrieved a white object from her thigh armour and popped a short blade out of it, stabbing the creature in the chest. It let out a blood-curdling scream as it slowly faded away.

“Keep at it,” I told her. “I’ll handle Melody.”

“No way, we’re here to do that!” she insisted as I scanned the area for Melody. “You can do your monster-killing thing!”

And of course, Melody was staring right at me. She hadn’t moved an inch.

“Fine, help me out…”

This was ridiculous. Suddenly, my sister was involved in all of this and trying to handle the situation herself…

“We’re aiming for her scythe.”

“Got it,” Lucy nodded, and charged ahead before I could even make a move.

“I think I’ve got you figured out,” Melody told Lucy as the two of us ran to her. “Montgomery, right? Harmony’s mentioned him in passing.”

“Montgomery, Churchill, Professor X, whatever you want,” my sister responded, leading with her knife. Melody thrust her scythe forward, knocking Lucy back and into me.

“And he’s made his own team of Painters to enact his will,” she continued, “with me being your current target. If he wants to talk, I’ll speak with him on my own terms.”

“Nah, he just wants us to stop you!”

Lucy made moves to try and grab Melody’s scythe; naturally, the dark-haired girl didn’t make it easy for her.

“Sounds like nobody agrees with you, Melody,” I told her, moving forward, looking for the best move.

“I wonder if he told you?”

She struck out with her leg, knocking Lucy off of her feet, and then pointing her scythe at me.

“Do you think he even knows, Alex? How Lokonessence only works for us?”

And then she tumbled to the floor as Lucy dived for her legs.

“Uhm, obviously it doesn’t just work for you guys,” my younger sibling jeered.

“Not what I meant,” Melody told her. “But okay. Let’s do this properly.”

She looked to me, and even though she was pinned down on the ground, she looked so confident. Like she’d already won again.

“The Hunters are gone. Gather the children. It’s story time”

I turned, and as she’d said, the Hunters had vanished. Everyone – my friends, Lucy’s allies and the police – were all taking stock and spotting us with Melody.

Within a few moments, they began aggregating around us, an entire little crowd gathering around the fallen rebel leader.

“Should we try and destroy her weapon…?” Kitty asked, looking among us Painters.

“Bold of you,” Melody replied mischievously from the pavement. “Good luck with that.”

“Bitch, you’ve lost, drop the act,” Kayleigh hissed down at her.

“No act. This is just another obstacle. I’ll win in the end. And you know how? Because only monsters can use Lokonessence.”

“What…?” Rin was the first to respond, trying to process what she’d just heard.

“The six of you. The Painters. Myself. Harmony loves us all because we’re different. We’re ‘crazy’. She can only interact with abnormal brain chemistry, and if you’re using Lokonessence, it stands to reason-”

“She’s lying,” Will interrupted, shaking his head lightly. “She’s obsessed with psychos.”

“Let her talk,” the other guy rumbled.

“Lokonessence doesn’t lie,” Melody insisted. “If you can use it, you’re ‘psycho’, Will. I’ll be honest, I always had a hunch…”

“Shut it…” he growled at her.

“We’re… monsters, then…?” Lucy questioned, still pinning Melody down. The look on her face seemed to be verging on wonderment.

“Beautiful, incredible monsters,” Melody nodded, smiling up at her.

One of the police officers moved Lucy aside, as another two hefted Melody up and handcuffed her, once again reciting her rights. The senior officer picked up the scythe and looked to Dakota.

“Do you want to have a go at breaking this, or shall we take it with us?”

“We’ll see what we can do and bring it to you if all else fails,” Dakota told him, holding out a hand to take it.

Only, it disappeared from the officer’s hand before he could pass it.

“Hey, Painters,” Melody cooed. Her scythe was poking up behind her head, apparently held in her cuffed hands. “Ever tried this trick?”

And she disappeared with the exact same sound as our weapons made when we dismissed them.

“She just teleported!” Bao observed loudly.

“Damn it…” the senior officer spoke, and then he began instructing the others but my attention shifted away from that and to Lucy, her eyes alight.

“We should get back to Dom…” Nathan told the others, a hand on Lucy’s shoulder all the while.

“Like we were never here…” Rin nodded, clearly mulling over what she’d just heard.

“Who even are you people?” Dakota asked. “I mean, I know some of you but-”

“Another time, Dakota.”

Kayleigh was already walking away when she said that.

“Mission’s aborted, we’re done here.”

“Bye then…” Bao murmured, a baffled expression on his face.

Lucy looked to me with a ridiculous, excited grin.

“Seeya later then, bro!”

“Wait!” I urged her. “You can’t just… go! Mum and Dad haven’t seen you in ages, and you’ve missed weeks of school, and…!”

“I’m working for Adam now, I’ve got bigger fish to fry!”

The rest of her team were rushing away. If any of the officers cared, they were too busy to stop them. Lucy gave a big cheerful wave, and turned to join her allies.

“Tell him we need to meet him!” Dakota told her; Lucy didn’t turn back to us, only giving a thumbs-up to confirm that she’d heard. I watched my sister hurry off down the street and away.

“Well this was a bust…” Zahid spoke gloomily.

“And I think things are gonna be a lot more complicated now…” Kendal added.

Melody teleporting, and Adam commanding a Lokon-powered strike team with my sister among its members. It certainly felt like everything was changing faster than I could keep up with…