Permiso watched Pine’s hunt with genuine interest while Gavin felt his heart fall to the pit of his stomach. He had handed Pine to her and now he was feeding her bloodlust. He watched Pine smash a skull in with the butt of the stolen rifle, turning to bash another Pierrot before one of the assassins jumped down from above to restrain him. He flipped forward and landed on his back, kicking two more as he tried to remove his current assailant. He fought like a feral beast. It was so vicious that when the lights turned green, Gavin felt like a sudden arctic breeze had just passed through. He turned to look at the monitors and as he saw it his regret and darkness formed a dense pit of vile hatred that couldn’t help but escape as laughter.

The lights changing was enough to distract Permiso as well, Gavin’s laughter causing her patience with him to end. She jammed a knife under his ribs, piercing one of his lungs. Pulling the blade free, she went over to her announcement system and said, “Kill everyone who bears not my brand.” When she finished she realized that the comms weren’t working. Annoyed she tried manual override but even that didn’t seem to be working. She was confused as that was supposed to be hard wired.

She froze when she saw what was now playing on every monitor around the station. The video was an old one she thought she had deleted. It was dark, but clearly her. She was bleeding from multiple cuts, her clothes torn, her sobs overpowering her broken laughter. She had brands back then that she had since removed. She looked no different than the way she remembered the True Gavin. She started to laugh, her arrogance masking her fury poorly, “Do you really think I care? That I can feel guilt? Shame?” She kicked the smirking Gavin, “I am the goddess here and your petty attempts to ‘appeal’ to me are a joke.”

Gavin shook his head, the foam in his stab wound making her realize he had been palming a medical kit when she came. He said with satisfaction, “Why would I waste my time on you? I’ve seen what you can do. If I wanted to put you to death, I had to kill you like any other false religion…”

She grabbed him by the neck, sneering, “And how can you do that? How can one man kill a goddess?”

“I can’t. But I’ve introduced a poison you can’t stop.” He laughed, “Doubt.” She tried to understand what he was saying. “You have placed yourself as a goddess with the power of life and death. But now they and everyone else has seen that you are just like everyone else. Weak, scared… a mortal.”

Reijaa dropped from a vent in the courtyard, restraining one of the hunters and vomited. She sifted through the bile swiftly and tossed Vittivici’s Bane to Pine. The wolf held the pendant tentatively and with confusion before Yelana placed the pendant on his neck. She whispered something to the gem and vanished like she was made of mist, a purple light enveloping the wolf.

The wolf opened his eyes, Pine putting his hand on its neck, thanking it for keeping him alive. As the device on the back of the pendant lit up for a moment, he could feel the darkness encroaching around his heart, but it swiftly washed away. The Ventari passed him over and he was relieved. Seeing the corpses the wolf had left behind, he readied himself for the hunters that remained, Reijaa dragging one swiftly into the shadows. “Life is precious. Do not throw it away at my feet.” The hunters did not listen, much to Pine’s regret.

Permiso shouted at him, crushing his windpipe, “This is my temple! You believe you can walk out of it alive?”

He shook his head, filling her with confusion and disgust before tossing him into her bed. He smirked, “It’s too late now, Permiso. They’ve seen it. Doubt will spread. Even if you kill me here, your descent is decided. But there is a way to avoid it.” He tossed her a small device with a single button on it, “There is no greater blessing than to die beautiful at your hands, right?”

She looked at it, the full realization sinking in as she noticed his friends making their way towards her temple. She pushed the button to open the shutters, but there were no Pierrot running to her aid. Knowing him, this would decimate her station and anyone left in it.

Sai spoke on the overhead, “I’ve hacked your systems and locked all the hangers. You push that and it all ends.” She walked over to the monitor to double check and she could see he wasn’t lying. She was completely locked out. But she had administrative access locked to just her terminal. How did they do it? Sai laughed, “I didn’t think Katsi’s idea of a tazer bracer made sense, but she was right. You didn’t think twice about letting me hang out on the floor until it was too late.”

She looked at the bracer and noticed the once vibrant green gem had gone dark. She turned again and there was a blood trail arriving and quickly leaving her temple. She watched as Gavin was carried by the snake woman. Permiso paused and then began to laugh. She punched the glass and cracked it but she continued to laugh. Her laugh echoed through the halls of the entire station, like the wails of the damned.

Reijaa swore under her breath at Gavin in her native language, clearly worried about his wounds. He laughed through his damaged throat, raspy and gruff but somehow still confident. “Awwww, you missed me.” She allowed his humor to break her stress, but her mind stayed focused on getting him to the ship as soon as possible. The laughter echoing in the halls was haunting. Whatever it is that Permiso felt, the bloodlust overshadowed it completely. As she navigated, Pine took the lead in clearing a path. Any stray victims who had no sanity left or any spare Dolls following their programming to kill any wanderers. His strikes were clean and efficient, escaping this station alive being his only goal and focus.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

As they began to leave, Sai said on the overhead, “Um, guys… you need to start moving even faster.” Gavin was fading in and out of awareness and Reijaa worried that’s what Sai was talking about. The station that had been rock solid up to this moment, began to lurch. The halls were beginning to fill with the sounds of creaking metal and the halls began to tilt. Sai stated clearly, “She started taking an axe to the internals. Like metaphorically speaking. I mean, she is causing literal damage to the systems, but it might not be an actual axe.”

Gavin exclaimed, “She’s doing what!?!?” Spluttering up blood a little afterwards.

Sai responded annoyed, “Look, buddy! I know you are dying, but she is going to drop us into the the star we have been orbiting. Don’t know if she knows or cares about that, but you have got to go faster.”

Pouring on the steam, Reijaa tore through the halls at the same rate she had before, almost leaving Pine behind entirely. She had known that getting out of this alive was a long shot when they first got here, but now that they were so close, she wasn’t about to let some delusional psycho ruin it all. As she got closer to the hanger, she saw various Pierrot fighting like feral animals. The banter sounded like some had become heretics and others were punishing them for betraying the goddess. So much blood and killing. But she blocked it out. She knocked some them aside powerfully as Pine kicked the door to the hanger out of its frame and across the floor. As the three survivors made their way onto Gavin’s ship, the robotic form of Sai came to life and he finished the takeoff protocols. Firing the engines full force, he cleared the hanger doors and put in calculations for the faster than light jump.

As he did this, the trio collapsed on the ground, all of them too exhausted to move. A few moments later, Gavin rolled to his knees and slowly got to his feet, stumbling into the co-pilot seat, the drugs finishing leaving his system as the ship rocked suddenly. Checking the sensors, he looked at Sai who, even as a machine, was clearly worried and keeping it to himself.

The space station fell into the Star and the devices Katsi built started going off, each planted charge creating massive shockwaves through the blackness of space, rocking the ship as they went off, and each blast destabilizing the star. As a solar flare engulfed the station, the star began to go Super Nova. Gavin swallowed hard, smiled and said, “At least we know that we got her… and everyone in this system… and maybe the debris will get some people in the next system over…”

Sai stated firmly, “We tell no one.” Only for his nav system to start shorting out. “Great. Gonna have to just blind jump for a second.” As the edge of the Nova caught the back of Gavin’s ship, their course was altered just slightly.

——————

This is the transcription of the audio from the Cosmic Patrol arrest of Gavin Thalheed and company:

Officer Rasberyl: Excuse me, sir, are you aware of how fast your robotic chauffeur was traveling?

GT: Yes, but you see our navigation was damaged while escaping the nova and-

OR: You mean the nova that destroyed five planets mere moments ago?

GT: Well, yeah but-

OR: That’s an interesting situation. Since you were running from it, maybe you know what happened with that?

GT: Nope. Just happened to be passing through when it happened. Some Space Station just fell out of orbit into the star and-

OR: So you are saying it was a controlled demolition?

GT: No I wouldn’t say that.

OR: How would you describe the descent?

GT: You know what, I’m not gonna respond to these questions anymore. We got damaged getting to safety. That’s all.

OR: Well you can say that, but you are wearing a Najaran leather coat. Did you know that making jackets out of the skin of sentient species is highly frowned upon and in fact illegal in this part of space?

GT: Okay… okay… fair enough, but I have an explanation for this.

(Unidentified Najaran female): Is that Hasnacht’s Markings?

GT:*throws jacket on the ground in disgust and is almost instantly tackled by Officer Hranis* What the hell! I can explain!

OR: That’s fine. We will take you into custody and get our answers there.

Green robot chauffeur and translator: My true owner is a mute nobleman and he would like to know precisely what’s going on here.

OR: What’s happening here is your friend is a known terrorist and associate of Zora. Now we would like to take you and your passengers in for polite questioning. If we can’t, we will take you in for associating with said known terrorist.

GRCT: That sounds wonderful. We would love to cooperate.

GT: It’s his fault! If he hadn’t thought to plant the explosives on the station I wouldn’t be here! I’m a victim!

OR: Excuse me sir, what is he talking about?

GRCT: I have no idea. Check his blood to see if there are drugs in his system. He me might be tripping.

OR: We will see about that. Officer Hranis will take your ship back to impound while he’s taking the prisoner. You can ride with me and we will go back to the local sector for questioning.