Scythe wasn't lying when he said that their next few sessions wouldn't be as pleasant.
Kaede held her mouth tightly closed as the baton struck her over and over again, her arms over her head to shield herself from the blows. She had learned after the first beating that it wasn't a good idea to display any reaction after a strike; the Poslushi apparently considered visible pain a sign of weakness.
The soldier with the baton eased up and Kaede struggled back to her feet. Her lip was busted, she was bleeding profusely from her nose, and she had almost too many bruises to count. Scythe stood slightly behind Kaede's assailant, logging on his datapad the human physiological response to physical trauma. "I'm going to ask you to answer my question again. Where, to the best of your knowledge, is the main base of operations for the Coalition?"
Kaede sighed. "For the last time, if you're asking about our political leadership, there's no centralized place for that. The best I could say is Earth, and you probably already know where that is. Now, if you're asking about military, they're probably in a bunker somewhere that nobody below the rank of General knows the location of. So, please, for the love of whatever you consider holy, can we move on to the next question?"
Scythe exhaled a sour smell, probably dislike or frustration. "Next question, then. What is your species' nominal reaction to exposure to electromagnetic waves shorter than ten nanometers in wavelength?"
Kaede had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. "You're going to have to dumb that one down."
"I believe the term in human language is 'ultra-violet' radiation. Now, answer the question."
"We get sunburns, I guess?"
"Elaborate."
"Radiation burns? You know, the cells destroy themselves so they don't mutate?"
"And at higher intensities? What about the gigajoule range?"
Kaede braced herself in anticipation. "I don't know, I'm not a physicist!"
Scythe gestured to the soldier. "Jog her memory." he commanded. The Poslushi's antennae perked up and he flicked his wrist, the baton extending instantly. However, as he raised his hand to strike Kaede once more, Scythe's datapad made a noise.
"Halt!" he exclaimed as he read the glyphs displayed on the device. A few seconds passed, and then he made a grunt of affirmation, looking back at Kaede.
"You won't be repenting after all. I'm sorry, Kaede, but the High Judge has selected you for something else. You know, if you had chosen submission earlier, we might not be having this conversation... but what's the use in talking about missed chances?" Kaede could swear that she saw the beady-eyed Poslushi grin as he plugged the wire back into her collar and pulled her along with him through the bowels of the facility. She hated every fiber of this place, how it was cold and damp, how it was far too large and far too small seemingly at intervals, and how she couldn't even look her captors in the eyes without risking a beating. But most of all, she hated that collar. It was a frigid, sharp reminder of her captivity, and she had had enough of that when she still lived with her mother.
The organic, cavernous corridors eventually gave way to a sterile white room, inside of which sat nothing except a set of wire restraints and a camera of some sort. Slowly, methodically, as though to remind Kaede further that she was at his mercy, Scythe wrapped those restraints around her, forcing her to her knees with her arms spread outwards to prevent any attempts to escape. "I hope you're comfortable, Kaede. You know, I've come to like you more than most of the... creatures you call your comrades. I hate to say it, but I might feel something watching you die." he said, leaving the room and sealing it behind him.
A cold blade shot up Kaede's spine with those words. She tried to keep her breathing in check. One, two, one, two, controlling her heartbeat. If they were going to test some sort of weapon on her, it would be best to die knowing they saw she wasn't afraid.
The ceiling folded upon with a whir of machinery and a great black cube descended on a metal arm to rest in front of her. It hissed and squealed as one side opened and she emerged.
"Oh, not you again." Kaede said. The shock of their initial encounter had long since worn off, but it had been replaced by a rising, terrible nausea that made it hard to breathe. Kimoto Suzuki smiled warmly as she circled Kaede like a wolf sighting its next meal.
"Oh, Kai? Are you not happy to see me?" she asked.
"Don't even try that with me. I know what you are."
Kimoto feigned hurt. "Oh, how rude to say that to your mother! Did no one teach you manners after you abandoned me?"
"Whatever. Just do whatever magic crap you have planned, you wannabe kami."
Kimoto gave another of her false smiles as she caressed her daughter's cheek, and then Kaede was somewhere else, strapped to a chair in a pitch-black room, bound by cords of rope.
"I guess we can dispense with pleasantries. I am Ceptheon, and I take my name for the star that is Sirius in your tongue." Kimoto said, her eyes briefly sparking with untold power.
"Where am I?"
"Your mind rests within my microcosm. It is my world, one of fantasy and possibility, where I cannot die but you most certainly can. Now, Kaede, precisely what do you want me to do to you first? My benefactors have tasked me with seeing the precise extent of the human mind's ability to experience pain, and I'm not one to disappoint." suddenly, there was a purse in Kimoto's hand, from which she extracted a pocket knife. It glinted hazardously as she held it close to Kaede's carotid artery.
"Wait! A world of fantasies... microcosm..." the gears were turning in Kaede's head. This was familiar somehow... that's it. "This is a dream."
"Ah, I see that you have a name for it. Has your species encountered us before?"
"Not that I know of, but if this is just one big lucid dream..." this was her only hope of survival. Kaede took it, exerting her will out into the world around her, commanding the fabric of reality to reform in a preferred way. The pocket knife in Kimoto's hand found itself cloned, as a copy appeared in Kaede's offhand. A second and a slash later, she was freed, and stood before the creature that pretended to be her mother.
Kimoto's face blanched and her mouth fell agape. "What... but that's... not possible..."
"Your 'prey' doesn't sleep, so I guess they're not used to the rules of this world. Let me put it simply for you, Sirius." the face of the creature, once so powerful, changed to fear, as she scrambled backwards. Kaede could feel a tugging in reality itself as the creature tried desperately to escape its own realm, only to be blocked.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
"We have our own microcosms. We all do. So if you think you can fight us in a realm we know just as well as you do, don't expect not to take some casualties." Kaede smiled sadistically as she snapped her fingers and Kimoto was dragged back to her. Slowly, methodically, as though to remind Kimoto further that she was at her mercy, Kaede tied Kimoto to the chair that she, until a few seconds ago, was a prisoner in.
"You don't want to do this! Do you want knowledge, power? Anything you want, just say the word, but don't do this!" Kimoto begged. Kaede ignored her pleas as she willed a roll of duct tape into existence and forcibly shut Kimoto up.
"That's your other mistake, Sirius. If you wanted to make it out of this unscathed, you shouldn't have taken the form of the one person I've fantasized about doing things to for a long, long time. So, as my stand-in for Mrs. Suzuki, I'll be living out a few of my fantasies today with you."
As Kaede began, Kimoto tried to scream, but her efforts were stifled not only by the tape but by the barrier of her reality, trapped in her domain-turned-tomb.
---
"Scythe, something's happening." the Ovinis technician said, gesturing to his display. Scythe took his eyes off of Kaede's limp form and went to check it out. The psychic presence measure of the Eidolon was sputtering, which was abnormal but not alarmingly so.
"It's probably exerting some of its power on the subject. Give it a little while; it'll return to normal."
A few minutes later, "Sir, it's not coming back up."
Nothing had changed regarding Kaede's physical appearance, so Scythe was skeptical. "If it's been using that much force on the subject, it's probably determined itself to turn her into a vegetable."
"'Her?'" another Poslushi Healer Caste asked.
"My apologies. 'It' is what I wished to say."
"Sir?" the Ovinis asked again.
"What now, you paranoid lout?"
"It's still going down."
Now this was odd. Scythe had never seen an Eidolon use more than a tiny fraction of its power for anything. The display said that it was using a whopping twenty percent of its presence, and the metric was growing quickly. At this rate, it would cook Kaede from the inside out.
The meter continued to drop. At this point, Scythe was starting to become worried, as the power of the energy release when Kaede's body could no longer store the immense energies within it grew larger and larger. Then, the trend stopped, holding steady for a few moments. Scythe sucked in a breath, hoping that it would stay there. His hopes were denied, as the meter simply dropped to zero, and then faded away altogether.
"How is this possible?" he uttered. It shouldn't have been. No known creature had survived a direct Eidolon possession in history. The only creature that could permanently kill an Eidolon was another Eidolon, and even then they did it by...
"Oh no. Oh, no no no. We need to leave." Scythe said, stepping back from the console.
"What's happening?" the other Poslushi asked.
"That... thing... it's devouring the Eidolon. We need to go, now!" Scythe yelled as he ran from the room. Whatever that creature was, it must have been manipulating him all along, fooling him into believing that it was weak so it could be allowed to feast on predators-turned-prey. Whatever this entity was, it was not the same as the pudgy bleeders that made up the rest of the species it claimed to belong to.
Alarms began to blare as the entity awoke. Soldiers bumped and threw Scythe around as they ran in the direction of the lab. As Scythe continued his sprint, he could hear their screams echoing around him. Then, a flash of light, and the entity was upon him, grabbing him and lifting him into the air without a shred of effort.
"You." Kaede said, her eyes glowing an unnatural blue. Scythe couldn't even form words, letting out an incoherent scream of pure, unadulterated fear. Then, Kaede was in his mind, picking and choosing what she wished to keep and burning the rest. The world faded into something unfamiliar, something that memory failed to recognize, and Kaede dropped Scythe to the floor, twitching, mindless.
---
The CSS Bactria was the closest to the location of the anomalous energy flare within Poslushi space, and was thus first to respond. The Falkland-class missile cruiser emerged from warp, accompanied by its escorts, the destroyers CSS Crimea and CSS Yucatan. Before them lay some sort of military space station, recently abandoned. Preliminary scans showed rather extensive hull damage, so it was probably evacuated in a hurry.
The shuttles sheltered within the Bactria's bays were retrieved and fueled, and a multinational contingent of espatiers was readied for combat. Captain Vogel of the Bactria stood at his bridge, trying to relax but ready for anything.
From so far away, the station wasn't even visible. That was to be expected: combat in space wasn't like the naval battles of old. It took place over hundreds or thousands of kilometers, limited only by the strength of one's radar and the accuracy of one's targeting systems. As it turned out, throwing a baseball from New York and breaking a window in Honolulu wasn't hard when you had a room-size supercomputer devoted to finding out exactly how you should pitch.
The radar officer took off her headphones and spun in her chair to look at Captain Vogel. "We've got three bogeys closing in on the station, low tonnage, probably the cleanup team."
"Are our weapons ready?" Vogel asked.
"As they'll ever be, sir." the weapons officer replied. Just then, the whole ship quivered slightly.
"We've taken a hit, port, top deck. Doesn't seem to have pierced the armor." the engineering officer noted.
"Weapons, focus fire. Particle beams, coilguns, plasma cannons. Let's see what the Poslushi can intercept.
On the outside of the ship, a bank of turrets swiveled into position. One let off a bright blue beam of lightspeed helium nuclei. Another fired a burst of ferromagnetic slugs that closed the distance in seconds. The third charged up for a fraction of a second before launching a massive self-contained plasma torus.
The radar officer spoke up again. "Coilgun rounds are being knocked off course, and we're getting reflections from the plasma. Negative contact on either. Wait... it looks like the neutral particle beam made contact."
Vogel had to think for a second about this. If they had some sort of energy shield around their ships, then how would it be selective? Then, he realized that the Poslushi had a much simpler solution.
"It's a magnetic field."
"I'm sorry, sir?" the weapons officer asked.
"Magnets would mess with the momentum of magnetic slugs, and ionic plasma would get dispersed trying to ride the field lines, but neutral particles wouldn't be affected. Weapons, our missiles are degaussed and EMP-hardened, correct?"
"Of course, sir." the weapons officer smiled as he realized what Vogel was thinking of.
"Put the fear of God into 'em."
"Yes, sir."
If there was sound in space, there would've been a thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk as the missiles were released from their tubes. The projectiles floated along for a few moments, and then, once they were far enough from the ship that they wouldn't burn a hole in it, they activated their fusion thrusters and screamed off towards their various targets. Moving at tens of kilometers per second, they possessed so much kinetic energy that their designers didn't even bother with any form of payload. The missiles left a trail of plasma in their wake as they shot forth. Three hundred kilometers. They started to zip about erratically, making them near-impossible to hit. Two hundred kilometers. The first projectiles started to zip past them. A missile lost control and spun out, breaking into pieces as a laser cut into it. One hundred kilometers. The missiles stopped relying on the mothership's guidance signals and switched to active radar seeking. Fifty kilometers. More missiles were being destroyed, but it wasn't enough.
Twenty-five kilometers.
Ten kilometers.
Zero, and the three ships burst like rotten pumpkins as the remaining missiles punched through them like arrows.
The radar officer turned around to see Vogel once more. "Bogeys are breaking apart into smaller contacts. Safe to say, we got them."
Vogel smiled. "Send out the espatiers for search and recovery. And add three to our score. We're not far from beating the Montana's kill count."
As the shuttles returned home, they brought with them a few disoriented humans, a few mindslaved ones, and a boatload of corpses. The mindslaved prisoners seemed well-fed and well-treated, but the free ones were emaciated and obviously had been beaten. However, one held herself higher than the others, and none of the prisoners seemed to want to come close to her. Captain Vogel waited for them in the shuttle bay, shaking the hand of each prisoner and welcoming them home before they were carted off to the medical bay.
When the more regal one approached him, he shook her hand as well, but felt an odd electricity flowing through it, traveling up his nervous system with an unpleasant tingle. The woman seemed oddly familiar.
"Do I know you?" he asked.
"Oh! Kaede Suzuki. I was the Japanese liaison to the Polegate Fleet before I was tasked with spearheading the JSDF's part of the raid on Rasputitsa."
Vogel suddenly recognized her. "My God, Colonel, what did they do to you?"
"As it turns out, they're more... blunt when it comes to interrogation than we are."
"What happened to the station? How did you survive?"
"Well, there was something of a breach on board the station, something got out, and we kind of just worked from there. And, regarding how we survived..." Kaede glanced back at the piles of Poslushi and sheep-person corpses being unloaded for autopsy.
"I handled it."