Above World - By Jenn Reese Page 0,86

against her metal spike, and the other slammed into her shoulder. She’d seen them coming and fell back to absorb the blows. But he was faster, so fast. Her left arm went numb from the force of the impact.

Aluna shifted her spear to her good hand and adjusted to a single-arm grip. When Fathom punched with his third arm, she knocked his fist to the side and swept her spear into a spin. Spinning protected her body and disguised her attacks.

“This world doesn’t need you, or your father,” she said. “We don’t need to be ‘protected.’ We don’t need to be ‘improved.’” Her left arm started to tingle as feeling returned.

“It doesn’t matter what you need,” Fathom sneered. “You are parts, nothing more. We will control the whole.”

He twisted and kicked at her face. She blocked with her heavy spear and sidestepped. Fathom hopped and swung the other leg out in an arc toward her face. She dropped her spear, ducked, and grabbed his foot as it passed over her head. She shoved straight up, trying to push Fathom off balance. The technique would never work underwater, where your enemy could just somersault away.

But Aluna was an Above World fighter now. There were new rules. Fathom flailed his arms and crashed onto his back. He twisted onto his stomach and tried to regain his feet, but his extra-long legs kept slipping in the mud.

Aluna vaulted onto his back and tried to pin him, but he was too strong. He bucked and she grabbed the dorsal fins jutting out of his shoulders to keep her seat. If only she were heavier or stronger! If only she weren’t alone.

But wait: she wasn’t alone. Calli and the Aviars were here. Daphine was here. The crab people were fighting all around her, along with the freed prisoners. And somewhere out there, Hoku and Dash were here, too.

“Help!” she yelled. Her voice sounded impossibly quiet in the din of battle, but got louder and louder with every word. “Help me! Help me keep him down!”

Fathom wriggled beneath her, his multiple limbs sinking into the ground as he tried to push himself up. Aluna clung to him with her weak hand and tried to slam the bottom of her spike into the back of his skull, where only glass protected his brain. One of his elbows jerked back and struck her in the temple. Her head pulsed with pain. Her vision clouded. She lost her grip on the spike.

She cringed, expecting another blow, but it didn’t come. When her vision cleared, she saw Daphine clinging to one of Fathom’s arms and Calli to another. The snake-man prisoner had wound his long tail around a leg. Even Barko the dog was there, bloodied but determined, his jaws around one of Fathom’s ankles.

“Get off me!” Fathom screamed. “I’ll harvest you all for parts! Karl Strand will hear of this!”

“Well, if he does, you won’t be the one to tell him,” a familiar voice said. Aluna looked up and saw High Senator Electra, her face cut and bleeding, her wing scorched, her eyes fierce. The Aviar lifted her spear in both hands, clearly intending to drive it into the back of Fathom’s skull.

“No!” Aluna said. “The device on his arm — it controls everything!”

Electra began her swing but changed the direction at the last moment. Her spear point smashed into the muddy earth, piercing the artifact on Fathom’s arm.

Sea Master Fathom screamed.

“Alive,” Aluna said, to herself as much as to the people around her. “We can take him alive.”

High Senator Electra spat. “This is your fight,” she said. “We’ll do it your way.” She flipped her spear over and smacked the butt into the side of Fathom’s head. Aluna felt his body relax.

“You did it,” Daphine said in her ear. “Aluna, my sweet, sweet sister. You did it.”

“He’s out!” Calli yelled with a whoop.

Aluna’s head felt as if it were barely attached. Her stomach lurched and she wondered, idly, if she might pass out. All around, the sounds of battle clanged in her ears. Several nearby Upgraders surrendered as soon as their leader fell.

“Sharks,” Aluna mumbled as she fell into darkness. “They never expect you to fight back.”

ALUNA SAT on the edge of a pool at HydroTek’s rim and toyed with the bandage on her leg. Just beyond the clear slope of the dome wall, the ocean spread blue and glittering to the horizon. Somewhere out there, the City of Shifting Tides was waiting.

“You’re keeping the scope?” Aluna asked.