ARCHE

[English]

image [https://i.imgur.com/sw5jQm3.png]

Snowfall (cont.)

10-11-103 P.I. 11:56 PM

Like a giant eel gliding from the depths of its lair, it emerged from the shadows. Darker than night itself, the bioweapon seemed to suck in all light that was cast upon it. A scaly face with tall, pointed ears led its smooth and slender frame, blending seamlessly into the snaking neck that followed. Shoulder to hip it appeared almost canine but stripped of fur. Muscles and fat lay bare under a covering of the same black, light draining scales. Instead of soft cushioned paws, armored digitigrade fingers and toes, tipped with robust claws, scraped the frozen ground. A continuous, short, ghostly white fin ran from the back of its head, down its spine, only to fan out into a paddle as it reached the end of its long tapering tail. Embedded within its scales, a row of large azure rings flashed down both sides of its body. Their hypnotic patterns now on full display, they cast faint halos of blue along the length of the prowling creature’s form.

Standing half as tall and twice as long as she, the bioweapon stepped back into the light by the guidance of a sinuous forked tongue, head held low as it prodded the ground with each delicate tip. Paying no mind to its onlookers, it paused before the abandoned campfire, charcoal and ash gathering on its tongue with every flick. Then, it snorted, sending puffs of ash, dust and snow to the wind.

Tall, pointed ears swiveled as it raised its head and directly faced both Hyperfania and the Frumsvalinn. Cast in the light of Fafnir Base, the true nature of its otherworldly face became apparent. The scales of its face were larger and smooth to an almost glossy finish. Along with the light absorbing scales of its body, they formed a strange illusion of contrast at the base of the creature’s skull, one that made it seem there was no real connection between them to begin with. But most striking of all, resting under thick ridges and behind a compact pointed snout, deep eyeless sockets sat as if the bare openings of the skull were fully exposed.

Then, came the clicking.

Low and sharp, one long then four rapid. Over and over, it repeated the strange call, neck craning as it rose higher in its posture, busy ears never ceasing in their advertency.

It took a step.

Then another.

And another.

Tracing the outskirts of the facility, the bioweapon paced in and out of the darkness, the eerie glow of the azure rings its only constant.

A harsh rumbling growl leaked from Hyperfania’s chest just before a beam of electricity shot from her. Striking the creature in the shoulder, the sudden attack caused it to momentarily pause mid-step before continuing at a slower pace.

The shot hadn’t been meant to kill, merely test. Any lesser being would've died with the amount of voltage it had just received, yet it stood unfazed. It seemed her mother's procedure had been a success after all. Whatever else it would end up revealing to be, at the very least, it was a bioweapon fully fledged, and fully capable.

In the quiet of the standoff, as one beast of terror followed the movements of the other, a battle raged inside Hyperfania. Something was off. With any other bioweapon, ripped throats and spilt blood would have occurred on sight. A part of her still wanted nothing more than to pull the creature limb from limb and tear out its innards.

But another was cautious… curious even. Not for Demarcus, the bioweapon’s Core was as brain dead as it had been kilometers ago.

No.

This was something else. Something familiar. Her? But how was that even possible?

She had to understand.

Lowering her head to see it better, she took a step towards it. The bioweapon froze on the spot, both ears snapping in her direction. She took another step forward, and one more. The flashing of the rings increased, their light blurring together with the one adjacent until merging into a single wave of traveling light.

She had to get closer.

Step. Hyperfania relaxed her jaws as she readied her Core to fire. Step. The bioweapon’s paddle-finned tail twitched. Step. She was so close now she could almost taste its near maddening presence.

Then, Hyperfania halted her approach. The rings now flashed at a dizzying speed as the bioweapon’s neck raised into a tall S-curve as it ‘stared’ up at her, monstrous face to monstrous face. She could hear her mother’s words amongst the chaos of her mind. Composure was paramount.

Opening the barrier so that another could enter, she reached out with her consciousness to the unknown.

“Demarcus?”

No response.

Undaunted, she expanded out further, searching for any traces of her mate's broken mind, but all Hyperfania found was an ocean of cellular noise.

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“I’m here, Demarcus. Can you hear me? Can you come to me?”

But there was no response.

Not Demarcus’s.

Nor anyone else's.

Nothing.

It was an empty husk. A shredded consciousness of disjointed fragments and residual memory, messy and blurred. A whole life, her beloved, ripped apart cell from cell by the very flesh that had once protected him. There wasn’t even a body left to bury, as the horrid thing had made sure to deny her that peace as well.

If she hadn’t… if she’d just… if things were different... maybe Demarcus would've still been alive.

“Not again…” she cried out in the void of the bioweapon’s shattered mind “… no… no, no no no. Like this? After everything?! You can’t be. PLEASE… please… not like this…”

She wished for a miracle, calling to the human divines and all their gods and saviors, praying that one would take pity on her. Yet no aid was given. Not a single word of remorse. Was she undeserving? Her life so filled with violence and cruelty that the innocent lives intertwined with her own were just as condemned? Would they not even listen to that which had been created outside their Grand Design? Or was there nothing? In the end, it didn’t matter, as Hyperfania’s pleas fell upon the uncaring universe.

Her heart constricted tighter with every beat. “Demarcus, don’t make me do this… please…” her soul cried out to his, but there was no response, and with his silence came a strange calm. “Why couldn’t you have just stayed dead?” she asked the void.

And with that, Hyperfania’s heart shattered.

“DAMN IT! DAMN IT! DAMN IT! DAAAAAAAAAMN IIIIIIIITTT!”

The empty husk flinched in response to her outburst and a low, growling hiss escaped it as it coiled its neck further back. She didn’t care how much she frightened the machine. She would have it bear witness to what its existence wrought before ending it.

Her sorrow was a pain unlike any she’d felt before. Not the maddening burn of fire. Not the sudden sting of bullets piercing hide. Such trifles as physical deaths were far too quaint to be compared to the eternal scar now forming at the very center of her Core.

This was an infinite pressure.

Omnipresent, constant, crushing her in all directions as the limitlessness of its cruelty pushed her further into despair.

And yet, despite that hell of loneliness, there was glee to be found in it as well.

Now, she had no reason to hold back.

She would kill this broken husk—electrify it, stab it, claw it, tear and rip its profane flesh until she was bathed in gore and guts. Until she made it break under the suffering it had brought unto her.

The Colonel’s commands pushed through her Core’s code, dictating against her will.

But it was a moot order.

“Orders; nullified.”

How could she kill something that wasn’t even alive?

A push came from beyond the static of the husk’s Core, responding to her murderous intentions. Swelling like a hurricane, it crashed into her in its attempt to eject Hyperfania’s consciousness back into her own body. The response of a vacuous system desperate to sustain its perpetuity.

Like a viper the husk struck out, lunging towards Hyperfania’s exposed neck, fanged jaws grazing the soft scales of her underside.

But it wouldn’t reach her.

With the push of her great wings Hyperfania launched her one tonne mass into the air, only to then tuck her wings back in and allow her body to be pulled to earth like a stone. Using the wrist of her left wing as a battering ram, she aimed for the husk’s right shoulder.

Underlying bones shifted as ligaments tore. The husk wailed in pain, its strained clicks and hisses bouncing off the surrounding walls and cliffs as it crumpled to the side of its dislocated arm.

Open jaws snapped back as Hyperfania maneuvered out of the way only to grab the husk by the back of its skull, the hook of her beak digging deep into thick muscle as its fresh blood flooded her gums. Twisting her body, she mounted it, placing her talons into its exposed flank, pinning it under her weight. It kicked and struggled and tore at the membrane of her wings, but it was too late. Then, forearms on either side, she firmly planted herself to the ground with the husk’s still screaming head caught within her beak.

She would break it.

Hyperfania pushed with her wings, forcing her upper body higher and higher. She gripped with her talons, keeping them steadfast in their hold as she rotated more and more upright. She pulled on the body of the husk, bending it like a board caught between two clamps as she stretched it to the absolute limits of its form. And then, with a violent thrash of her neck, she twisted.

Between her teeth, a pop was felt, and the husk instantly fell silent. As Hyperfania twisted further, the head began to give way as gravity won over the lifeless body. All at once, muscle, bone, and blood separated from one another and a jolt of force overcame Hyperfania, staggering her backwards off the husk’s corpse.

The Frumsvalinn rushed in, flamethrowers pointed at the bioweapon’s headless body and setting it aflame as soon as they were in range. Streams of cleansing fire lit the night, and Hyperfania took a moment to watch as the remnants burned to a crisp in the crackling flames. She dropped the husk’s decapitated head and let it fall to the ground with a squelching thud, suddenly feeling too weak for bloodlust.

She moved aside as another group of Frumsvalinn aimed for the disembodied head, Thrigur Neutro Gartenberg and his two shield bearers waiting eagerly to secure the Core hidden inside before it had the chance to reweaponize.

She would play along until the rest of the current body was destroyed, and when nothing was left and the Core was contained inside the BOCS—and only then—would she destroy it as well, faulty orders be damned.

“Goodbye, Demarcus,” she spoke out one last time to the emptiness inside the broken Core.

But to Hyperfania’s horror, the hurricane of static from the mindless system struck out, invading her mind with a sudden fury. Even without its body, it seemed the husk had no intention of giving up the fight.

A new sensation took hold.

She went numb, as if having been cut off from all tactile sensation simultaneously. Next went her senses of motion and balance in quick succession. The world tilted and bounced as Hyperfania hit the ground hard, collapsing under her own weight.

She couldn’t move.

She couldn’t breathe.

The air scalded as she watched the dark amorphous mass of bios aevum gather around the husk’s still yet to be contained Core. Sight went next, leaving the screaming of men the last thing bioweapon Hyperfania remembered before she slipped again into death’s embrace.