Chapter 16: I Meet Some Bikers

Chapter 15

It started with the inner circle, where Ares’ shield sat. Then the white force expanded over Caligula to the second circle and he began to scream in pain. The whiteness expanded towards the edge of the third circle. My mad dash to distract Caligula from the Godly projectile turned into a tumble and a full blown retreat, trying to get away from the wall of white. I barely made it, but I continued to run until I got to the other side of the refrigerator.

Not a bright idea, but lets see you come up with something better when being chased by a wall of white energy.

The wall stopped at the edge of the circle and began to pulse. That is the only word I can think to use to describe it. It pulsed a few times and then exploded, the sound of the explosion like nails on a chalkboard. That noise sucks at normal volumes, try a few hundred times louder. Debris started to fly everywhere, my refrigerated started pushing me toward the mound of junk. I pushed against the refrigerator, angling it towards one of the paths leading out of the center of the junkyard. The damn thing refused to be angled and I continued to be pushed closer and closer to the pile of junk. If I reached it and the explosion continued, I would be forced into the explosion, and who knows what that would do.

As suddenly as the screeching and the exploding started, it stopped. The silence was deafening. I blinked a few times and looked around to make sure I wasn’t kidding myself. I then pinched my arm to check I was still alive, it hurt. I assumed that meant I was still living. I got up and looked around. I saw Alex getting shakily to her feet down the path that had been behind her, with just the arm remaining of the automaton that was protecting her. I looked at my little refrigerator and saw that it was still mostly intact.

Olympus Air Refrigerator company, you just got a customer for life.

I looked to where Caligula was standing and saw only the weird sun helmet and the shield. I then looked over to where Steve had been hiding. Most of the buried automaton had been burned away. I ran over, and saw Alex doing the same thing. It looked like she was yelling something at me, but my hearing had not returned yet so I had no idea what she was saying. I ran around the automaton and saw Steve completely unharmed.

Completely unharmed but writhing on the ground and, apparently, crying out as if it was the last few moments left of his existence. Alex reached me and for a moment all we could do was stare. Then our hearing came back, and after listening to Steve grovel for a few seconds we burst out laughing.

Steve sat up when he finally heard us and started complaining at our mirth.

“Guys, this is not funny. I thought I was going to die, I mean, look at the remains of this thing. Look at it, it was at least three times as tall as it is now.”

We kept on laughing.

Once we were finally able to take a few breaths we got up, and Growlz flew over to land on my shoulder, preening at non-existent feathers and just asking for a treat. I pulled out two oil filled jalapenos and fed them to him.

“Good work little buddy,” I said as I fed him.

“How did you get to be in two places at once?” Alex asked. “I didn’t see you move from behind the fridge.”

“I wasn’t in two places at once,” I explained. “I gave Growlz here a walkie talkie I found in the junk yard and had him throw stuff and set it on fire. When Caligula was wondering where to focus his defense, I stopped throwing things and spoke into the talkie, making him think I was opposite of where I was.”

The look they gave me was priceless.

We reached the two artifacts of the Gods and looked around, wondering where Caligula went. We weren’t in very good shape to fight him, but at least we could prepare ourselves if we saw him coming. I looked to where Growlz had been hiding and saw that he Junk pile was caving in at a portion about halfway up the hill. I scrambled up to take a look, and saw that there was a hole burrowing all the way through the pile. At the top I saw mountains in the distance, and as I stared at the mountains I swear I saw a giant dust cloud billow up on one of them, but the dust dissipated rapidly so nobody else could confirm it.

I slid down the hill again and walked up to my friends.

“What now?” I asked. Alex reached down and picked up the shield. She held it arms length from her.

“Father, I have completed the task and recovered the shield. Please accept this offering.” For a few seconds nothing happened, then the shield lifted up and disappeared. I reached down and picked up the helmet.

“Umm...Father? I have this item that I’m pretty sure is not supposed to be out here. I wish to give it into your hands as an offering.” Nothing really happened. Then I felt a pinprick on my finger and dropped the helmet. It slammed against the ground as if it weighed a few hundred pounds, which I am pretty sure it didn’t. It then sunk into the ground and, I assume, returned to the Vault.

“That was the Helm of Helios, the Titan of the Sun..” Steve said in awe, staring at the point where it had dug itself under the ground.

“That’s nice,” I said. “What now?”

“I saw a restaurant outside before we entered the Junkyard, maybe they have a phone or a water fountain or something.” Alex said.

“Alex, a phone would bring all sorts of trouble we just do not want to deal with at the moment.” Steve replied.

“True enough, but if there is food or water or something that will be helpful it is worth a shot.”

Not seeing any argument against this, we went to look for the restaurant at the end of the junkyard. We found it quick enough, and it looked like it was open, even though the sign where the name was supposed to be was torn down or destroyed - maybe from the explosion earlier. We walked in and saw a buffet line that, strangely enough, had all of my favorite foods. There was steak and mashed potatoes, shrimp cocktail, mac-and-cheese, eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, everything you could ever want to eat on a set of rotating trays. Start the turnstile and different foods would appear, far more than there could possibly have been.

As we sat down and started to dig in an engine revved outside, and then died. I looked up, and saw Alex and Steve looking out the window. I looked out the window and a group of bikers had pulled up to the restaurant. The biggest and meanest looking one got off his bike and lifted up his sunglasses. The leather jacket he wore looked like it fit pretty tightly to him, and the sword strapped across his back did not look for show. His helmet, which rested on his bike, was decked out in spikes, some of which looked like they had blood on them. He started to walk towards us.

Alex gasped in recognition and pushed Steve off the seat and out of her way. As he crashed to the floor she jumped over him and ran over to the door, busting them open and yelling “Brother!” I got up and helped Steve to his feet.

“Every time she sees her brother she gets like that. Oh well, lets go get picked on by bikers.”

Chapter 17