Chapter 76

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

Friday 12th May 2000

Melody Hill’s predatory gaze was piercing my eyes as she stood over me, her chest rising and falling with pained wheezes. It probably would have only taken a single well-timed blast of blue from my Lokon sword to knock her back and give myself a chance to turn the tables, but I couldn’t find the wherewithal to do it. She moved before I could, bringing her scythe forwards, pointing its outer edge at my neck.

“I have to admit,” she grumbled lowly, “despite everything… despite your deranged insistence that you won’t join me… I still want to offer you my hand. I honestly don’t know what it is about you that intrigues me so much. Perhaps it’s because we’re not so different…”

“We are. I would never do the kind of shit you’ve done. You don’t understand me at all if you think we’re alike,” I warned her, glaring back up at her, our eyes locked in a duel to the death.

“We’re mirror images. You intrigue me. And you can’t deny we’re both stubborn to a fault.”

I found myself wincing a little at the comparison, equal parts irritated and concerned by how true it rang. It seemed that Melody always found a way to cut right at my heart. And even if I knew how to do the same to her, I’m not sure I had the disposition to do it.

Police car sirens wailed outside. They almost seemed distant. Somewhere far, far below. Hopefully, the others and the police had things under control on the ground. More control than I was maintaining.

“And we both like pizza, I’m sure the list is endless and mundane,” I sneered back at her, finding just enough bite to keep the discourse going. Anything to keep her attention on me.

“Cute,” she remarked promptly, and edged her scythe just a little closer to my throat. “Obtuse, but cute. Like a child.”

“Oh, hey, another similarity between us. Maybe you’re onto something after all.”

“I’d watch how you put things, Alex. It almost came across like you calling me cute.”
That damn smirk. So proud to have caught me out.

Still, I carried on:
“You used to be. Back in the day.”

“You were crushing on my mask,” she insisted casually. “I don’t know why you can’t get your head around the fact that this is the real me, since the beginning.”

“I guess your mask was just that effective,” I shrugged lightly, trying not to move more than was necessary. “It was more likable than the real deal.”

“Alex, someday you might finally grasp that kinship means more than whether or not you like-”
She cut herself off with a pained grunt, clutching at her chest with her free hand. Her scythe wavered.

I took the opportunity, and swiftly swung at her weapon with my own, knocking its blade away from my throat. The blow destabilised Melody, sending her stumbling back a few steps and granting me the chance to rise to my feet. For a moment or two, as she recovered, I had the upper-hand in our apparent duel. I braced myself, taking on a reasonable fighting stance, my sword held somewhere between attack and defence.

It felt good to be the one on the front foot. She’d had the advantage for most of this fight. That was understandable, really, considering the circumstances… not to mention that she seemed to have the advantage over us in general.

“You Matthews children are so much trouble…” she told me through gritted teeth, trying to stand upright even as her injury weighed her chest down.

“Hey, I wasn’t the one who stabbed you in the chest…”
Sometimes, I catch what I’m saying and realise just how bizarre my life has become. That wasn’t a sentence I ever expected to find myself saying.

Melody shifted her scythe about, and slammed its end to the floor. Our surroundings responded to her apparent command, shifting about like components of some vast machine; the floor upon which we stood seemed to rise up steadily while the walls parted like the petals of blooming flowers.

I made the first move, lunging for her with my sword: she blocked, but still took a step back from the force of the blow. Within a fleeting moment, she thrust back at me with her scythe, and I blocked and recoiled in turn; she swung for my legs right then, and I dodged narrowly as she grunted and clutched her chest. Stumbling, I took a second or two to regain my footing.

Prowling, panting already, Melody moved around, sizing me up for the next strike. Realising that, I decided not to give her the chance, and sprung forward, taking one, two, three slashes at her, each one countered but keeping her on the defence.

She unleashed white; I mirrored her with blue. The rising platform and the shifting walls were doused as we continued, strike and parry, strike and parry, one taking the lead, then the other, matching each other over and over, and then our surroundings completed their transformation and we stood on high above town atop Melody’s white-created tower. I had no opportunity to take in the view shaded orange by the evening light, or to try and check on what was happening below. I barely had the time to register the two individuals, a balding man and a fancy woman, chained up nearby who could only be Melody’s parents.

“I wonder…” Melody glared at me, her eyes inquisitive and cruel. “If I cut you open, filled you with white and pushed you off the tower… would you survive? Would you live the rest of your life as a crippled, tortured, mangled mess?”

“I’d teleport myself away before I hit the ground,” I couldn’t help but smirk back at her, actually managing to outsmart her for once. “Though having a load of white in my body probably wouldn’t be healthy any which way…”

“Please, Melody…” her mother spoke out, pained, scared. “We just want you back… we want all of this to go back to normal…”

Those words made Melody freeze completely, her face like thunder. Slowly, menacingly, she revolved to face her parents.
“‘This’ hasn’t been normal since 1988. You’ve lived in absolute ignorance and I don’t know if I loathe you or envy you.”

“What are you talking about…?” her father asked her with brow deeply furrowed.

“Harmony.”

I couldn’t tell if that was simply a namecheck or an actual summons, but with a flurrying haze of rainbow light, Harmony Hill her-pseudo-self manifested a few feet away from Melody.

“The one and only!” she chirped, and I could almost see Melody’s heart contort even with her back to me.

“Harmony, how did you just…?” Mrs Hill asked her daughter, eyes so wide.

“It’s just a dream,” the pretend girl assured her. “You’ll wake up on the sofa soon enough.”

“Stop it,” Melody hissed. “Don’t act all cosy and innocent. You’ve never had that right.”

“You gave me that right, sister.”

“I didn’t know any better.”

“Girls, please,” Mr Hill urged, “one of you explain everything… and for god’s sake, let us down!”

“She’s not the real Harmony,” Melody declared with so much hurt beneath her stern tone. “She hasn’t been for twelve years. Harmony died and she took her place. You’ve been living with a preternatural cuckoo.”

Understandably, the look on the adults’ faces was one of confusion and disbelief. Melody turned to Harmony, and momentarily clutched her chest again before speaking.

“Show them. Give them back the memory. Let them grieve like I did.”

“Harmony, no,” I pleaded, taking a step forward. “You can’t put them through that.”

“You can, and you know you want to,” Melody countered leeringly. “You exist to be creative. See how they break.”

“No, there’s more to this than torturing people! So much more! Please, Harmony, don’t make them suffer just because Melody wants them to!”

Melody looked to me now.
“They would have suffered anyway. They should have. We should have grieved together.”

“Then don’t make them go through it now just because you made a stupid decision!” I snapped at her.

Bad move on my part.

Melody snarled and slashed towards me, an arc of white slamming into me before I could defend myself and sending me sprawling, tumbling my way closer to the edge of the tower than I would’ve liked. My sword slid away and over the edge: the moment I recovered, I teleported it back to me.

“Do it, Harmony,” I could hear Melody urging her sister.

Harmony took a couple of steps closer to the two people who had seen her as their daughter for more than a decade. The parents whose real daughter was long dead, whose passing went unremembered – this was the same girl, to them.

“Are you really… really not her…?” the mother asked, confusion still there but now muddied by fear.

Perhaps touched by that swirl of emotions, Harmony put a hand to Mrs Hill’s cheek.
“I’m not the girl you gave birth to. Not physically. But I’m every bit as real as she was. I’m no less Harmony Hill than she was. I’m just so much more than that as well.”

“Then what are you?”

The father had just a little fear too, but betrayal was across his face at that moment.

“I’m Lokonessence. A force of creation on the fringes of the natural world. I’m the Painters’ powers,” she motioned towards me as I stood, now, a little distance from the edge, “and the monsters they fight. I wanted a physical form, and I found little grieving Melody…”

“You… used us… you stole the image of our daughter…?” Mrs Hill clarified with moistening eyes.

“I became her. If it wasn’t for me, you would’ve spent all these years without her. But she lives on through me. I am Harmony Hill.”
She reached across to Mr Hill, placing her free hand on his cheek.

“All this time…”
Tears rolled down the mother’s face.

“All this time, a lie,” Melody growled. “A fabrication. But now you can remember the dying moments of your little girl.”

Silence descended upon us all, only the wind blowing through. Harmony’s hands remained on the faces of her parents as they looked at her with a maelstrom of emotions.

And then, her hands fell away, drifting back down to her sides.
“No. They know the truth now. That’s enough.”

“Why?” Melody spat with another unnerving display of genuine emotion.

“Just because,” Harmony replied more sincerely than I was used to.

“Why do I have to be the only one who remembers you dying?!”
She swept her scythe where Harmony stood, but the Lokonessence entity dispersed into a multi-coloured cloud as the blade passed and reformed immediately after, facing Melody now. Their parents were stunned, if not panicked.

“I could wipe your memory too, if you want,” she offered, with the faintest hint of relish behind her voice. “You can forget her death and I’ll be your ordinary flesh-and-blood sister.”

“Never. Not for one second. I will never forget her.”

“It’s not like they don’t remember the original Harmony,” the Lokon-girl giggled.

“They don’t remember her final moments. They…”
I could see Melody shaking, just briefly, before she managed to steel herself again.
“They don’t know where she ends and you begin.”

“So?”
Now that, I’m certain was intentionally provoking.

“You aren’t her. They deserve to know.”

“Melody, Melody, Melody…”

She stepped right up to her sister, and spoke quietly enough that I could only just make it out from where I stood.
“You don’t get to decide that.”

A ferocious torrent of white burst from Melody’s scythe, and when the view cleared, Harmony was nowhere to be seen.

“Melody,” her father began, “why are you doing this to us?”

“Because I can,” she muttered to him.

“You could’ve done it months ago,” I pointed out, walking a little closer. “Y’know, when you were twiddling your thumbs not doing much of anything.”

“I was preparing. Biding my time.”

“Why now, then?”

A dark look crossed her face.

“Don’t tell me you’re running out of ideas? I mean, this is the third time this week you’ve had your followers storm town. Wanted to throw a little family conflict into the mix this time?”
Yes, I know, she was already simmering and I was throwing more wood on the fire. But prying further and trying to understand her was all I could think to do, especially when I had a hunch that I was right.

“A little longer,” she stated, “and we’ll have our victory.”

“You and how many others?” I asked. “Every time you do this, more of your people get arrested.”

“And we garner even more. Every action catches the attention of more of the disenfranchised monsters out there.”

“Fine,” I sighed, realising she’d led me down a tangent, “but what does capturing your parents have to do with anything?”

“It felt fitting. To forge a new home and string them up at its peak.”
She waved her scythe, and the mechanisms of the tower whirred as if to remind me of their existence.

“Please, Melody, we love you!” Mrs Hill called across to her daughter. “Just stop this! Come back to us!”

“New home? Did you get bored of Adam’s place?” I enquired, another step closer to her.

“That was always temporary,” Melody kept her attention on me. “And it helps to try and control the board. Both Adam Montgomery’s base, and my home town.”

“This is all chess to you, then? Just a game?”

“It’s more than a game.”
Her eyes suddenly alight with joy.

The familiar sound of air being displaced repeated behind me.

“We’ve got you, Alex,” Dakota’s commanding voice followed.

“And Melody’s got a couple of other people…” Bao observed.

“Her parents,” I informed him, readjusting my grip on my sword.

“Ah, all seven of you…” Melody commented, disappointed. “I’d ask you to leave, but I know you like to do the opposite of whatever I suggest…”

“Damn straight!” Lucy confirmed with relish. “You should’ve just asked me to stab you and I totally wouldn’t have!”

“How do we take this tower down?” Dakota quizzed Melody, who naturally scoffed.

“That was a stupid question, Dakota…” Kendal noted at an only-slightly reduced volume.

“Was worth a shot…” our leader murmured, striding forwards, to my side. “Alex, I’m trusting you to keep her parents safe.”

“I- wait, we’re going with Bao’s idea…?”

“Looks like it,” she nodded. I heard Bao give a hushed “yes!” behind me.

“This better work…”
All the while, I trained my eyes on Mr and Mrs Hill, on the chains holding them, on the abstract frame they were fastened to. I most likely only had one shot at this.

“On my mark!”
In the corner of my vision, I saw a swell of green which, a second later, plunged into the floor. Behind me, the others fulfilled their part of Bao’s earlier vision, a flurry of colours joining the green.

The tower rumbled.

“NO-!” Melody screamed out.

The floor began to buckle, and as soon as I felt it, I propelled myself towards the two captives, slicing the base of the branching frame and slamming my body into the space between man and woman. The structure toppled, and the three of us fell with it, falling first to the floor behind and then through it as it rapidly melted and dissolved into a fizzing, colourful broth. Fortunately for us, the collision meant that, as we descended at speed towards the ground below, we fell straight rather than tumbling as I feared we might.

Mr and Mrs Hill screamed wildly as we plummeted. Which I totally understood.

“I need you to hold onto me as tightly as you can!” I instructed them, urging my body to shuffle forwards until my legs were by their hands. They gripped me, and I held on to a branch of the framework with my left hand. Then, as confident as I could be that we were secure, I raised up my sword and unleashed a wide parachute of blue.

Our descent abruptly slowed right down, just in time for a downpour of colour to rain upon us as the tower continued its dissolution.

I looked upon the faces of Melody’s parents, startled and terrified and awed.
“Hey… all of this is Harmony,” I let them know. “All this power is her. She’s helping us save you right now.”
I’m not sure what possessed me to tell them that. I think I figured they deserved to know what their daughter was capable of, no matter how any of us felt about her.

Below us (and growing closer), the streets were rapidly flooded with a torrent of colour, crashing against buildings and lifting up cars. I guess that’s what happens when you turn an entire tower into Lokonessence soup…

“We need propulsion!” I shouted out, right before realising there was nothing the Hills could do to help me there.
“Sorry,” I added, “I know you can’t help but- bear with me, I’ll have a great idea any second now-!”

No time to panic. I had to think, had to come up with something…

Of course, the first thing that came to mind was pretty stupid, in hindsight (or indeed immediately after).

I brought my blade forward, relinquishing the parachute and instead simply unleashing a momentous blast of blue to send us flying not forwards, but backwards.

Which meant I couldn’t see where the hell we were going…

We surged through the tower, which fortunately was already in liquid form at the level we’d fallen to, and emerged out the other side utterly soaked a few seconds later.

“Sorry, sorry, that was stupid, lemme think of something else!” I bleated like the idiot I was proving myself to be.

Blade raised back up, I willed helicopter blades to sprout forth and begin rotating at speed. Our backwards momentum continued, but our upwards lift shifted our path on a wide arc, until we were steadily rising higher and only drifting back.

“Third time’s the charm!” I cheered myself, as I watched the tower completely lose what was left of its shape, leaving behind only a rapidly-diffusing mound of liquid. Peering below us, I could see the torrent raging on.
“I’ll get us down safely as soon as- well, you can’t see, but the tower’s all dissolved and there’s Lokonessence-liquid everywhere, s-so-”

“Thank you for saving us, but please stop talking,” Mr Hill asked of me shakily.

“Got it, sorry,” I whimpered.

It only took a minute at most for the remnants of the tower to spread out enough that it could all harmlessly smudge away. I switched the propeller back to a parachute, letting us sink daintily to the street below where the others were awaiting us.

“Wish I had my camcorder…” Bao complained as he and Kitty stepped forwards to begin cutting through the chains holding Mr and Mrs Hill down.

“The news cameras probably filmed it…” Kitty mentioned.

“Good point!” he grinned, and she smiled in kind, spurred on by his joy.

“Thirty of Melody’s followers arrested,” Dakota told me. “We reckon that was pretty much all of the ones here.”

“Huh,” Zahid started. “With that and the tower down, it’s… almost like we actually won today…”

“Duh, we’re the best!” Lucy replied with far too much confidence.

“We must have almost all of her people arrested by now!” Kendal suggested.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” I nodded thoughtfully. “We’re actually making a dent in her forces now…”

“Please…”
Mrs Hill, rubbing her sore wrists, shaking, looked to the rest of us.
“Whatever she’s doing… stop her. Bring our daughter back to us.”

“We’ll do what we can,” Dakota promised her, “but I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to talk sense into her…”

“Find a way…” the woman begged us as her husband held her. “We just want our family back together…”

Dakota recoiled a little at that. I could almost see the image in her mind, of her own family reunited.
“I understand. Really, I do. And if I can… if we can do anything to bring her around, we will.”

“Thank you… thank you…” the woman all but sobbed.

I think all of us, the Hills included, knew that Melody would most likely be going to prison for everything she’s done, once we finally best her… but in that moment, they needed to believe that this could all end happily. And maybe we’re another step closer to that being the case.