An Ultra Violent Fairy Tale by Pete Bertino - HTML preview

61 AN ULTRA VIOLENT FAIRY TALE

“I know that, Sandy.” said Kickswitch who’d already made up her mind.

“Yeah, we should all go. We’re a fellowship aren't’ we?” said Eliza.

“Not for this journey. I have a feeling Neon City is going to...”

“Going to what?” asked Lenny.

“With a fairy on a war path I think Neon City is gonna be a very dangerous place for everybody but especially for Glitterbelle. I have to hurry and help her and if I go alone I can get there very fast with an autocart.”

“Help her how? Come on even in a good mood a fairy can rip a human in half like nothin. Why are you going out there?” asked Sandy.

“Yeah, we know she saved you from those guys and we took her in and fed her and helped her just like a wizard would do.” said Lenny.

“Exactly,” said Kickswitch. “and Mariana would go still. Hell she probably would have went marching off right along with her the minute she left, she loved to fight, as long as it was a fight for good. None of you knew her but that was her biggest thing, to fight the good fight.”

“You think this is a good fight though?” asked Nelly.

“I don’t know honestly, but I believe this is something I’m supposed to do. We all know I don’t have the gift but I’m sure about this and you guys need to trust me.”

They all regarded her with sad eyes, Lenny and Nelly Robots looked especially troubled. They’d come out of the city as children not long after Kickswitch found Row House Village, they’d been trafficked as babies and were slaves until they were ten years old. Nelly and he had escaped the house they’d been living in when the owners forgot to lock a door, they stole some food then hiked on side roads mostly for almost a week before they found Kickswitch by chance when they’d run out of food and were begging on the side of a great road. For those two Neon City was darkness.

She didn’t take food and very little water and went to an autocart terminal that was just a touch screen type of device sitting slanted on a four foot pole near a set of tracks that edged the forest and corralled one to get her within walking distance of the fabled city. The cart arrived in minutes and got her there 62 AN ULTRA VIOLENT FAIRY TALE

in just an hour. The ride was beneath a moon lit sky awash in stars that took her breath away, but it was when she saw the mountains and the alien rainbow colors coming off the glass towers that made her heart flutter. She’d seen these skyscrapers before but was always left stunned by them and their electric colors.

The autocart stopped by a terminal sitting besides a great road and a sign saying the city was a half mile ahead, she used her low voltage staff as a walking stick and trekked the rest of the way. She wondered if she’d be able to find one club in such a large city but the first person she asked knew where it was and told her how to get there. She arrived just in time to witness the auto carriage turned missile crash into Crow’s Nest and set it ablaze.

After that everyone in the neighborhood was screaming and hollering like the world was ending while others seemed to loose their shit as Lenny might say and started breaking windows of stores and looting them. She saw hardly any Marshals since the fire started and had to use her staff to keep some of the crazier people off her. She put up her hood to hide the fact she was a woman as she searched for the fairy while ashes rained down like snow. She had been walking down a side alley behind a group of people when one of them, a very young woman possibly a child, turned back facing Kickswitch directly but pointing up in the sky.

“Holy shit it’s a fairy, it’s carrying somebody.” the woman shrieked.

Kickswitch followed her gaze and saw Glitterbelle rising quickly in the air besides a glass tower carrying someone. Her wings flapped and she stopped near the top of the the tower, before suddenly going down like a bullet. The young woman that might have been still a child had screamed again in horror. Kickswitch made a run for Glitterbelle.

A sea of people had come running in her direction slowing her down, she had to use her staff to stop a pair of young men who may or may not have been trying to kidnap her. They kept saying it was dangerous that way and one began pulling her along by the arm with a much too firm grip even though she repeatedly said she did not need help. After shocking the man’s crotch with her staff, she was able to free herself and continue.

When she found the building she entered quickly but quietly and saw the Chief Marshal had taken Glitterbelle’s wings with a knife. She snuck up from behind with a hand cannon she found lying nearby and put just six inches between it and the soldier’s head before firing. The boom echoed like a clap and made her ears ring as her nose twitched from the acrid fumes. On the floor laying on her side was Glitterbelle, her eyes looked like dusky marbles in her ashen face.

“I’m saved by a wizard.” Glitterbelle said with a laugh that was high but painful.