Z27
The Ghost Walks Again
By Marzena
Chapter 8: Showdown
There was a machine appearing right behind them and the three of them started to run again.
"Jedda, please! I'm sorry!" the young man cried, following both Jedda and Hadea deeper into the jungle.
"It's too late to be sorry now, Partha!" Jedda snapped. She'd actually liked the young man when she'd first met him but now all she felt was disappointment, annoyance and anger. How could he have done what he did!
"I want to make up for it, Jedda! What can I do?!"
"Fight for your people!" she yelled back, the only thing she could think of. Really, there wasn't anything else they could go. They would fight. And most likely go down doing so.
Partha disappeared, hopefully not to run away or make things worse but to really help getting his people out of danger, especially the kids and the women.
"We need to stop those machines!" Hadea panted, coming to an abrupt stop. "Running won't do us any good. Soon we'll be exhausted and they'll catch up with us. And in the meantime, they'll stomp the whole jungle into the ground!"
There was only one thing they could do. To get the roboships' attention and then run straight towards the machines, hoping the laser blasts would hit the large targets one by one and take them out. The roboships were just that – roboships. They were machines themselves, programmed to hit the helpless victims on the ground. They wouldn't be able to make out a difference between other machines there for the same purpose and the humans they were programmed to kill. It was the only change of getting rid of the machines. And it was a dangerous and risky chance.
And one they took. It was Jedda, Hadea, the chief and some of his bravest warriors that were now running for their lives, avoiding both machines and laser blasts. Two of the Falou warriors met their end and one got badly wounded. The chief had a bleeding arm, and Hadea was slightly limping now, too. Jedda herself was dirty and dusty, tired and exhausted, her Phantom costume torn everywhere and she, too, was bleeding. But the last machine fell, taking a whole tree with it. At least the danger from the machines was gone now but the area all around them looked like a bombing had taken place. Not one standing tree left and dead and wounded people – Falou members and some of Madden's men – lying everywhere on the ground.
"Get cover!" Jedda now yelled, trying to sound strong and confident like her father would have despite everything that had just happened. "The roboships are coming down on us! Get cover!"
Fighting her way through the jungle – or what was left of this part of the jungle – Jedda then spotted the chief's son lying on the ground, badly wounded and unconscious. He held a young boy in his arms who he'd obviously trying to protect. Gently, Jedda told the boy to run for safety, to hide somewhere in the bushes where he'd be safe now that the machines were eliminated. Nodding, the boy ran and Jedda tried her best to stop the young man's bleeding.
"That was very brave of you, Partha," she told him, although she knew he couldn't hear her.
"And that very touching of you, my dear," another voice said and horrified, Jedda turned around, only to be face to face with Ming the Merciless, standing on a small hovercraft not far behind her, accompanied by heavily-armed ice robots and frostmen.
"Or should I call you Phantom now?" he continued while his hovercraft was closing in on her. "Oh, I have to say, you'd be such a disappointment to your father!"
Jedda stepped back, seeing the weapons of his guards aimed directly at her and the chief's son. There was no escape. And even if she would have been able to throw herself into the nearest bushes and disappear – she was a jungle princess, after all! - she couldn't just leave the unconscious Partha behind.
"And now everything here will be destroyed by my roboships!" Ming continued, laughing that hateful evil laugh of his that she just couldn't stand. "And with you, Jedda Walker, the line of the Phantom will end!"
Then, suddenly, there was something flying through the air, disarming the guards with a precision that took Jedda by surprise. It was Hadea's staff, the one she never parted from because doing so would also part her from the mighty powers of Netherworld. But she had parted from it and it send the weapons flying through the air, dropping on the ground.
Ming turned around, facing his eldest daughter with pure disgust in his eyes, but Hadea didn't even flinch. She didn't show any emotion at all, even when Ming commanded his guards to get her, dead or alive. She just threw him a look full of hate and then she took off into the jungle again in her torn outfit and with her limp while the ice robots and frostmen ran after her after having gathered their weapons again. Only a few remained to protect Ming, but Jedda wasn't fooled by that. There could be more of them right around the corner. But she'd done one thing though – she'd picked up Hadea's staff before any of the guards had been able to reach it.
"And that's where you're wrong, Ming," she stated, standing in front of Partha to protect him. "There will always be a Phantom!"
And suddenly, there was the Skull Copter high up in the air, firing shots at Ming's hovercraft. For a moment, Jedda thought Hadea had made it to the copter. But even without her limp she couldn't have been that fast. And whoever was in the Copter also fired shots down at an nearby area which was the direction Hadea had ran off to. Someone was protecting her from Ming's guards as well as Jedda from Ming. Could it be …?
"Father!" she gasped, hoping for the impossible. It could be true, right? They hadn't found a body yet. She knew Flash and the others had been searching. And the fact that the powers of the Phantom hadn't worked when she'd tried to use them earlier …
"So he is still alive!" Ming spat, sounding furious.
He had his guards to turn around the hovercraft to get out of the Skull Copter's shooting range. But the person in the copter was busy firing in the other direction again and even after doing so he or she didn't try to follow Ming's hovercraft. Which could mean that it was indeed the Phantom who was flying the copter. He never killed and he never aimed to kill or destroy.
Hadea appeared again with no one on her trail anyone, taking back the staff from Jedda, looking up into the sky. She didn't even glance at the wounded Partha. It just wasn't in her nature.
"Is that …!"
"I don't know … I … I hope so, but ..."
The Skull Copter rose high into the air again and flew in the direction of the volcano, now firing shots down there. For a moment, both Jedda and Hadea wondered why. There was nobody up there.
"He's destroying the elixir!" Jedda finally gasped. "So both Ming and that Madden guy will leave and have no reason to return here."
Which was probably the safest thing to do. The secret was out now. Word would spread. Even if the Falou would agree to move to another location, they would always be hunted down down, there would always be fights, wars, blood would be shed over something as powerful as an health elixir. It was something that could have done a lot of good in this world, but the world wasn't ready for it yet. Not as long as people were willing to fight wars over it.
"Ming must have realized that, too," Hadea stated. "He's taking off."
Indeed the roboships were leaving and Ming was most likely in one of them now. He hadn't known where exactly the elixir was hidden, but someone shooting laserbeams at a place where nothing was going on had been a dead giveaway. And the pilot of the copter had surely intended for Ming to realize that because he'd taken his time, firing away at the vulcano constantly until the last roboship was out of sight. Only then the copter was turned around and came back, looking for a place to land.
Some Falou appeared behind them, distressed about the destruction of their precious elixir and even more distressed to find their chief's son lying unconscious and wounded on the ground. But neither Jedda or Hadea did care for that right now.
"Let's find out," Hadea suggested, a rather guarded look on her face.
Jedda didn't even wait for Hadea to follow her. She just started running.
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