Apocalypse: The Ice King Returned

Chapter 12: Order of the Queen

Constance was always terrified of rats, but when she saw her brother fighting the Queen behind her, she knew it was time for her to step up and help him.

Luther was not surprised that the Rat Queen was strong enough to deflect a fire ax. What surprised him was how easily it overpowered him after it slashed at his ax. He swung the ax as hard as he could, but the rat sent him stumbling back a few steps.

Even while he was regaining his balance, the Rat Queen swiftly clawed at him. 

He stepped back to keep his distance and lifted his ax to resist its next attack. By now, his back was pressed up against the metal gate, and he could hear the echoes of the zombies stuck behind it. 

The Rat Queen was definitely a rank four mutant, and Luther didn’t stand a chance against it if he kept trying to fight it like this.

He used the rest of his strength to send a frozen vapor from his hand that completely coated the fire ax in solid ice. 

The vapor continued to ride down the edge of the ax, and it covered the Rat Queen’s claws as well.

The giant rat shivered from the cold and stepped back, retracting its claws quickly. 

Luther smirked now. His ice at this stage must have been at least -30°C, and none of these rats could fight him at that temperature.

Luther quickly took advantage of the opportunity by building frozen pads of armor over his arms and legs. He gripped the ax and strengthened the ice.

But he lost his advantage quickly.

The Rat Queen lost its ground but learned quickly that it could gain it back from the side. It flashed to the left, then jumped back and attacked from the right. Luther was almost scratched by its claws several times. He felt safer now with the strong ice armor covering his most vulnerable parts. Every time the rat broke through his thin armor, he was able to repair it constantly so it could never reach him.

He knew he couldn’t keep doing this as it only tired him out. The Rat Queen also learned his armor was weakest where he repaired it, so it focused its attacks on the weakest ice now.

Luther was losing his upper hand in this fight, but he stayed calm and found ways to avoid its attacks.

He looked to his side and found a ditch. A plan formed in his mind. After he dodged the next attack, he quickly hopped down into the ditch. 

The Rat Queen predictably followed him down into the water. Its large body wasn’t completely submerged, but it was deep enough.

The Rat Queen began to charge at Luther, unhindered by the water. But Luther stepped forward and waved his hands over the ice, barking his order. “Freeze!”

The surface of the water in the ditch was frozen instantly, and it forced the rat’s legs down. The Rat Queen was stuck for a moment, but it screeched loudly and broke through the thin ice again.

Luther planned for this, and he was ready to follow through with it. He was only worried that it would be too difficult for him now.

Luther called out again, "Freeze!"

Suddenly, a cloud of frozen air expanded outside of his body. His face was flushed, and his whole body felt like it was on fire, and sweat dripped down his forehead from exertion. But because of this, his body was now covered in frozen vapor.

Luther was completely shrouded in ice. His body was exhausted, but he pushed through his limitations as he built up the cloud around him.

He pushed the vapor down into the water where the ice thickened. At first, it was only two-inch thin ice, but the ice got darker as it mixed with the dark green sewage underneath.

The Rat Queen struggled now, but it could not get out of the ice. Luther now covered the rat’s body in cold vapor, where it stuck to its hair and its skin. It was connecting to create a thick layer of ice around its head and body. 

The rat screeched loudly, its hair sticking on end. Its body was twitching as it tried to pull away from the ice. Luther's face was red, and all the vapor was now off his body. He was breathing much harder.

He was exhausted.

His powers were being depleted and he couldn’t go on with this fight for much longer. But he kept himself on his feet and he stepped closer to the rat frozen in ice.

Luther grabbed the fire ax off the ground. He stood over the Rat Queen and brought down the ax onto its head. 

Bang!

The Rat Queen screamed and its head cracked open, releasing a slow stream of a green liquid that smelled like blood. It swung its body crazily, screaming and wailing, but it was useless. 

Luther's eyes were red. He wanted to kill the giant rat as soon as possible. 

He didn’t hesitate another second, raising the ax another time.

He chopped down on its head seven or eight times. The Rat Queen screamed for a while at first, but it fell silent suddenly.

Luther kept chopping down on it after this until the Rat Queen's head looked like a split open watermelon. Then he stopped. The Rat Queen was dead. 

Luther got on his knees and dug into its open cranium. He found a crystal—another power core—that he swallowed and felt his energy replenish and his strength grow. He felt heat coming from his belly before it dispersed. 

His body ached now, but he felt stronger than before. What made him feel even better was knowing how close he was to rank up to Bronze three.

Luther now focused on the remaining rats his sister was fighting. Three of them tried to run away at the sight of their Queen being slaughtered.

 "You’re not getting away that easily,” Luther shot three ice arrows, easily killing each of them. Only one of his arrows didn’t hit its mark perfectly, but now that he had grown stronger in his ice power, all his arrows had to do was pierce their skin so it could freeze the rat’s bloodstream and kill it.

The arrow was stuck in the shoulder of the third rat. It tried to run away, but Luther had caught up with his ax. He cut off the rat’s head in one swipe. All that was left in the sewer was the smell of flames, the howling of zombies, and Luther’s deep breathing. 

The monsters were destroyed, and they were safe…for now.

The smell in the sewer was strong but slightly overpowered by the smell of mutant blood. A backdraft from the flame broke out and sent Luther and his sister down into the gutter of the sewer where they first found the mutant rats.