There came a strange voice.
Observe, it said. It was feminine and warm. It was soft as a feather, yet vast in its profundity. Hunter could hear secrets in that voice. It could feel ancient pasts and glorious futures. He could hear a universe born and another die. It was peace incarnate, so deeply removed from the chaos surrounding him.
He hadn’t heard it in his head. It had echoed throughout the entire world.
The voice came and went. Time slowed further. His mind grew quieter still.
His full focus was on Aera and the beast.
On its own accord, he felt his attention pulled to the creature. It was as if his mind was being piloted by something deep within him. However, it didn’t feel threatening. It didn’t even feel foreign to himself.
He saw how the etherium around the beast seemed to will itself into a charge. It streamed to the ape as if responding to a call. Somehow, the beast was resonating with the surrounding etherium. Its presence seemed to encourage it, almost as if the beast’s presence was a network.
That’s not accurate, he realized with a sudden insight which had come out of nowhere.
The relationship between the beast and the etherium was even simpler than he’d assumed.
The beast was a glyph. The world was its network.
Feel, the voice said. He felt his aura highlighted. It had expanded during the last few seconds, and he was aware of all the etherium flowing throughout at least half of the outpost.
He felt it with a clarity and sharpness that he’d never felt before.
He noticed how shaped force fields surrounded the beast. The clarity was so intense that he could almost pretend to see them as they manifested, twisted, expanded, and faded. Where they appeared, destruction followed. Air, stone, bullets, people, debris, all forced in every direction. A walking grenade, an intelligent hurricane.
At the centre was a nucleus. Where the previous Class-1’s aura had been like a gentle candle flame, this one was like a furious inferno, the ether stoked by a sourceless breath.
The beast didn’t seem in full control of its power. Its aura and manifest power matched its fury, its persona, its rage-addled mind.
Calm, the voice said. As Hunter processed all of this, the beast had only moved a few steps towards his sister. Something within him was stirring — out of his control, yet its presence was like the return of a long-lost friend. It was like the antidote to all fear, rage, and pain.
An incredible comfort suffused his limbs. It numbed his pain.
His mind stilled further. The etherium around him grew more apparent to his senses, so intense was his clarity that it hurt. The sharp knowledge of every detail was orders of magnitude more complex than anything he’d ever experienced.
Whatever was working through him was far more powerful than Hunter could handle. But he wasn’t afraid.
The outcome of this fight was already determined, so this was not a time to regret or despair.
Call, the voice said. And Hunter could feel his channels vibrate. Etherium rippled within him. The pain would be overwhelming, but his mind was too silent to register it as a threat.
It was a curiosity.
That any pain could break through whatever power was numbing his body was a testament to just how intense the strain on his body was. Whatever was controlling him was guiding him, trying to teach him something.
The vibration within his etheric channels was something he’d never heard of before. His father’s journals never spoke of this. But then he could feel how the etherium around him stirred in response.
Response, the voice said. The etherium surrounding him shifted. At first, he felt like the beast’s aura had expanded in his direction, but then etherium flowed towards him.
It wasn’t the beast’s aura; it was his own. His power was matching the beast’s. Their auras were tuning into the same frequency, the same etheric desire.
In slow motion, the beast’s expression changed. Its eyes met his, confusion furrowing its brows. He saw precisely when the beast identified him as a threat. He witnessed a decision being made. As the creature focused on him, all nearby living things linked to its collective consciousness also focused on him.
The parasite had seen him, and deemed his presence intolerable.
It’s fury would find no satisfaction here. Before him, it’s petulant rebellion was nothing more than a child’s impotent wailing.
Flow, the voice said.
Hunter expanded and contracting his etheric channels. It barely took any concentration. It was like he’d been doing this for years. He didn’t have to think about it. He only had to will it to be done.
Effortless, like breathing.
Lifting his arm.
Like the ease of seeing, hearing, feeling.
The etherium flowed through his hands. A force field twisted around him, launching him towards the beast. The force field cut off, another one forming, lifting his sister out of the way. Two more formed, and he felt his body straining in a way it never had before. He imagined every cell of his being was about to be torn apart by the amount of power flowing through him.
It was more than his body could handle.
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His bones felt like they were dissolving. The surface of his skin broke, and blood flowed. His muscles pulled, strained, and tendons snapped.
Yet he moved. Where his body could not, Force could. He hovered above the ground, shaped force fields wielding debris like hammers, assaulting the Class-1 puppet. A field formed under the creature. Its power was too much for etherium-hardened flesh to resist. A thin field accelerated a piece of debris to such speed that it turned to powder, which shot straight through the creature’s brain.
Hunter’s pain became overwhelming. The beast’s aura suddenly disappeared. Its body went limp, and as it fell, so too did he.
He wondered if this was how he would die.
Despite the pain, he would go out with a smile on his face. His sister was secure and unharmed. The primary threat to the outpost was dead. He could see explosions in the distance. The Ambition had let loose its reserve arsenal. He wished he could see it from up there, the sea of fire consuming the horde.
As he faded, and the sounds of the world disappeared, he heard the voice speak.
Your fate was decided before you were born. Your journey does not end here.
----------------------------------------
Trey had seen it all unfold like a nightmare. When he’d heard that Hunter was called to the wall in order to fix a problem, he knew that everything was about to go wrong.
He couldn’t explain why. Hunter was a capable artisan, and repairing an error in the Aegis system wouldn’t take too long. But the beastwave was in full swing. By the time it was repaired, only a single Guard had died. A life for increased defence of the entire outpost?
The human heart within him felt the sting of every loss. His intellect, as cold as ever, recognized a profitable deal when he saw one. The angel of death had demanded the life of one of his people, and in return, more would live.
Yet that feeling still remained. The quiet call of intuition, telling him to pay attention, to consider the situation. If only he had the presence of self to quiet grief and accumulated pain.
Aera and Hunter still lived. That was all that mattered. Heaven’s help him, he was a selfish man. The lives of an Oberon would always mean more to him than others.
He was no saint, just a man. He could blame himself for his flaws later.
From the command centre, he could see the section of the wall where Hunter and Aera had been fighting for the outpost’s future. The Ambition hovered above, and like a vengeful god, it showered pain and suffering in the form of accelerated lead and etheric destruction on their enemies.
Then the notice of a second Class-1 had been called.
That quiet foreboding blossomed into a fire of adrenaline and tension. The wall exploded, and it felt like the entire outpost quaked from the attack. A behemoth of a creature walked through. Debris, people, and weapons were lifted like toys by unseen hands and thrown around it at high speeds. It was a walking force of nature. Its power was invisible to him, but its effects were clear.
Aera had been right in the middle of all of that. Hunter too. He’d heard nothing from them over the last few minutes.
Suddenly, he saw her whole life flash before his eyes, as if part of him already knew that she was dead.
He remembered holding her shortly after she had been born. She had been so small, able to fit almost completely in one hand. He’d been worried that something had been wrong with her, but she’d grown faster than any child he’d ever seen.
So fast, in fact, that he’d had to research treatments for gigantism. But her growth stabilized, and by the time she was 2, she was already walking and talking. All of his friends who had daughters had warned him that she would be trouble. She’d be his little angel until she was a teenager.
Then the angel would fall from grace, and he’d be dealing with a very smart, capable, and very rebellious young woman. But Trey had never been one to shy away from a challenge. And the solution seemed simple enough for him, even if it meant it would come with its share of heartache.
He would let her make her own mistakes and always be there when she needed a course correction. She would never feel unwelcome, unworthy, or unloved. But she would know that she could only rely on herself to solve her problems. He would be a sounding board, an honest reflection, a guiding light. Leading his family’s legacy requires self-direction, self-regulation, and independent problem-solving. She would need to master these skills.
He considered the project to be an early success. By the time they’d left Sanctuary, his daughter had learned lessons that had taken himself decades to learn. She was already a capable leader, making her own connections and expanding her own reach. She took on responsibilities willingly, volunteering to take the workload off of people who needed to focus on their roles. More than once, the command staff had pulled him aside and thanked them for assigning Aera to them. He would laugh and say she deserves full credit.
He was so unspeakably proud of her. He could never be too sure that his lessons would have the intended impact, but time and again, she proved that she cared deeply about her people. The company was more than a symbol of power to her. The people that would come to rely on her one day—when his own sun had set, and hers rose—were people that she was already taking responsibility for.
She would be 10 times the leader that he was. She would lead Oberon Enterprises and the entire Skyhold colony into a glorious future. He would retire and watch in awe as she built something incredible.
That future was slipping between his fingers like sand. And as far as he knew, she was dying down there.
He should have been there. He should have been everywhere. He should have known better.
He’d been one of the most powerful individuals in the world, back on Sanctuary. He’d done the impossible, and redirected almost their whole modern military capacity to Skyhold. In less than a month, his armada would cover the sky. His army would count in the thousands. Their weaponry would make their budding colony impossible to breach. The entire world, save Sabletown, would be no threat to the might that he would wield against it.
But they would come too late. They would arrive at a ruined outpost, hundreds dead, having been completely overwhelmed. The colony would continue, of course. The people who had yet to arrive would resettle elsewhere, fortify, and slowly expand under the leadership of whoever had the rank and seniority following his demise.
Trey had failed. He’d been resisting that fact for the last couple of days, but now it was clear. He should have known better.
He’d failed as a leader. He’d failed as a father.
“I’m going to the wall,” he said. “Call the Ambition. Evacuate as many as possible. It’s been an honour, Captain.”
Trey turned to the door. Guard Captain Niklaus grabbed his shoulder.
“I can’t let you do that, sir. We need you.”
“Nik,” Trey said, shrugging the man’s hand off his shoulder. “It’s an order. Get it done.”
“I refuse,” Niklaus said, without even a split second of hesitation.
“What?” Trey said, turning on the man. The absurdity of the situation broke through the cloud of shame and guilt which had overtaken him.
“I said I refuse. I’ll call the Ambition and head to the frontline myself, but you’ll be the first one they pick up.”
Trey shook his head.
“No, absolutely not.”
“You’re not going to be taking the easy way out,” Niklaus said, his face contorting in fury. “I didn’t devote my whole life to following a coward. I know you’re no coward. What the hell has gotten into you, Trey?”
“I—” Trey said, “—Aera, Hunter, the front line. We’ve lost.”
Niklaus snorted.
“I’ve seen you stare defiantly down the barrel of a gun. This isn’t you. Wake the fuck up, sir,” Niklaus said, gazing out the window. His eyes widened.
“What is that?”
Trey followed his gaze. At first, he had trouble comprehending what he was seeing. But how could he not recognize the young man he’d come to love like his own son?
“Hunter?”
He was flying.
Floating high above the destruction below, orbited by a storm of debris, and the bodies of creatures both living and dead. As soon as a beast passed the wall, it was lifted into the storm, thrown back over the wall, or used as a bludgeon against another creature.
He didn’t even see the objects in transit before they hit the Class-1. All he saw was the aftermath. The creature’s knees literally blew out from beneath it. Then it was hit from behind and fell face first.
It didn’t move.
Then Hunter fell like a puppet cut from its strings.
Trey didn’t even hesitate. He was out of the command centre and running as fast as his legs could carry him.