“Arkaziel and I will deal with he shark, can you two set up communications with the Celestial Wardens? I’d rather not get caught in cross-fire,” Telos asked Bobbi and Kallos.
“Consider it done,” Kallos nodded, but Bobbi pouted.
“You’re trying to keep me from getting exposed to the Void, aren’t you? Did you forget I’m constantly exposed to it thanks to our soul-links?” Bobbi demanded an answer, as if she’d been wronged.
“That’s not what’s happening, Bobbi. I want to recruit the Wardens, and you and Kallos are better suited to that than Arkaziel is, and I’m immune to the Void.” Telos shrugged, but thought her logic made sense. “Besides, it’s not like I’m leaving the ship, although I suppose Arkaziel might.”
“Damn skippy I am!” Arkaziel muttered, before he vanished to reappear outside the vessel, his form rapidly growing until he matched the size of the corrupted shark. Telos estimated the shark to be somewhere in the vicinity of one-hundred and sixty meters long, or roughly the size of a fifty story building. Size wasn’t everything, though. For all that Arkaziel could dwarf the size of the creature easily, fighting an eldritch horror in the depths of space put all of the homefield advantages in the hands of the horror, or for anyone not named Telos it would have.
Their vessel glowed with transcendent inner light. Divine radiance suffused the ship, and the surrounding vessels were bathed in radiant energy. Rent hulls mended, generators previously rendered inoperable by the devouring power of the abomination restarted. The benevolent light of Ein Sof restored the battered fleet of the Celestial Wardens, but that wasn’t all. A concentrated beam of Ohr Ein Sof blasted from the forward section of their vessel. Moments before the solid beam struck the eldritch horror it split into dozens of smaller rays that struck fins and tentacles off the abomination’s body.
“It’s about to scream,” Telos muttered, before she switched her focus from offense to defense. Ein Sof dissipated from its dense beams into diffuse luminance that clung to the Celestial Warden’s ships. Arkaziel followed that first beam of light, his fangs plunged into the profane corrupted flesh between the sharks head and trunk. All four of Arkaziel’s sharp clawed limbs ripped at the body of the shark abomination while he locked it into place, the horror’s mobility had been neutered by the first attack from Telos, and now it floated in space unable to escape the hold of the vicious StarMane.
“The Wardens want to know if they should hold fire?” Kallos looked to Telos for an answer.
“Yes, have them stand down, the situation is well in hand. They should tend their wounded, or enjoy the show.”
When Carcharoth screamed, it wasn’t with a voice. Potent psychic waves roiled off the eldritch horror in all directions, and the only way to counter them that Telos could think of was using the Void itself. The darkness between stars roiled and churned in response to her control, and the omnidirectional psychic attack vanished before it could attack anyone but Arkaziel, who had the mental defenses to endure it thanks to the blood of Tiamat, the soul-strengthening tenets, and his own potent mental defenses. If such an attack had reached the Warden fleet, Telos had her doubts that more then a dozen of them would have survived without corruption.
Yet in controlling the void between the stars Telos revealed her presence to the eldritch abomination, and whispers came like a deluge to assail her. She somewhat imagined this was what it felt like for a celebrity to visit a third grade class room.
#You who wield this echo of the Primeval Mother, your presence in the cosmic song is occluded. Why do you not flaunt your song? Why does this pathetic task from Nyarlathotep bring us into conflict with the faded hymn of Ayin? In your darkness, even our existence wanes, have you come to consume creation? Will you embrace us, who have been left behind?#
A hundred thousand voices made the symphony of Carcharoth’s voice, but the individual strands could be traced to beings of every race and creed. The amount of knowledge that flowed from Binah into Telos was enough to fill libraries and came closer to stunning her than any attack others might make would. There was Bob, from Mu Arae, who had discovered immortality only to outlive his planet, and cursed his existence on the solar winds. Bob was one of thousands, but the names and stories of all of them passed through Telos’ mind, and she grasped the nature of the eldritch horrors in a way she never had before. They were collective beings, hive minds of existences that shared a commonality.
Those who underwent gnosis and passed into higher realms were theoretically able to ascend to the realms of Bythos and Sige, the Aeons in Pleroma. Yet some traversed the self and existence, and came out the far end of gnosis with very different goals. Those who sought an end. These beings grew together in their needs, and bathed in the eldritch powers of the Void. A cycle that had been given life by a mere fragment of Ayin’s shadow, the Black Flame of the Void, Fred.
“Oh you poor souls,” Telos sighed with a mix of pity and annoyance. She understood the turning against reality, on some levels. Life wasn’t fair, the universe was cruel, and the escape from its confines was guarded by the Archons and Ialdaboath, who’s sole obsession was to restrain the living in the land of the physical, in the cage of flesh. She was less sympathetic about their embrace of the Void, but suffering had rotted their brains, and what remained attempted to mirror the totality of existence, the potential of every universe. Even the collective mind of hundreds of thousands couldn’t withstand the revelations of higher planes, countless timelines, and the patchwork of the Cosmic Song that they could now hear. Existence outside of time, alone, was enough to break the minds of most mortal entities, and the Void birthed Eldritch Horrors did far more than exist outside of time, they exalted in it.
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Telos had few choices in how to deal with this collective of horror. Her draw upon Ohr Ein Sof in physical reality still faced a multitude of roadblocks, while most forms of attack could only hurt the unimportant physical manifestation of the shark, not the powerful and corrupted hive-existence that powered it. Arkaziel, for all his authorities, size, and powers only wounded the eldritch horror because at his core, he too was a creature of the Void, but his power failed to measure up to that of Carcharoth’s on his own.
Arkaziel’s claws, fangs, and Void aspected darkness, bolstered with authorities of destruction, did their best to savage the space-shark, but they were the equivalent of death by papercuts, and even a massive burst of his breath attack at point blank only withered the shark. Telos stepped through space, and appeared before the restrained shark.
“Uffda, space sure is weird. You may have your rest now, within me,” Telos didn’t alter her size the way Arkaziel had, she remained her usual size and form. Exposure to the vacuum of space didn’t effect her, and her words carried across the celestial abysss despite the rules of physics. If Telos offered the eldritch horror peace, she did so by lifting her hand. Rays of Void and the Ethereal exploded from her palm in precise blasts that illuminated Carcharoth in mind-numbing light. The rays of Void acted like inversions of color, everything bathed in the darkness turned bright, and everything bathed in the Ethereal Light turned dark. For a few brief seconds it looked like Telos orchestrated a rave, before Carcharoth imploded with a loud pop, and ceased to exist.
#Thank you, Ender of Suffering. Curse you, Creator of Suffering.# The appreciation, and resentment, of the collective tide souls who had descended the Tree of Death possessed such intensity it bordered on a mental attack. Beyond time, beyond physical reality, the nihilism of an elder god ripped at her humanity. It failed to find purchase, but not because Telos had defended her humanity, because Telos had very little, if any, humanity left. Huge tides of power blossomed within Telos, and by extension through the three who were soul-linked to her. Telos’ Void core worked in over drive to digest and retain the power of Carcharoth.
+Well, shit. I feel emasculated.+ Arkaziel vanished from the void of space and reappeared in their ship as a tiny kitten.
Telos appeared next to him, a hand dropped to ruffle his fur and stroke his back.
“It’s okay, Ark. You did good, none of the Warden’s ships blew up once you grabbed Carcharoth.” Telos’ attempt at reassurance fell upon intentionally deaf ears, but Arkaziel leaned into the pets despite himself.
“What the hell was that? If you can obliterate outsiders like that, why do you even need us?” Bobbi demanded in annoyed tone. Telos only offered the pink StarMane a sad smile.
“Being an island is a lonely thing, Bobbi. No one wants to be alone, not the weak, nor the powerful. Having someone at your side is a power that goes beyond physical capabilities. There is a dearth of meaning in me solving problems, don’t you think? Or maybe I’m just being self-pitying, that might be my worst character trait.” Telos grinned at the confused expression on Bobbi’s face, as the StarMane failed to understand Telos’ point of view.
“Siegfried requests we board his vessel, or to visit ours, and discuss what he witnessed,” Kallos’ smooth, calm voice proved to be a balm to the emotions of everyone.
“Very well, who wants to come with?” Telos failed to contain a rueful laugh when Bobbi and Arkaziel shook their heads no. “Et tu, Kallos?”
“I will maintain control of the vessel, and assist Arkaziel with adjustments to the Nebula Lantern. It would be best if we approach Oizys undetected, and I believe it is possible if we shield the field with a combination of our magic and authorities, I will require your assistance as well, Bobbi.”
An unperformed wink flowed through the connection between Telos and Kallos. For all that they seemed to be on separate pages at the moment, they very much were not. If anything, the depth of their connection had begun to push them closer and closer together. Even without physical contact they could feel the others thoughts and emotions as if they were their own. Synthesis, Telos knew, had begun. Unlike the press of the universe, or desire of greater reality to merge with Telos, she welcomed the intensifying of the connection to Kallos. For all the negatives that bubbled with her advancement on the path of Eternal Becoming, Kallos represented the single unblemished positive.
“This won’t take long,” Telos flickered out of sight, and reappeared on the command deck of the Stellar Sovereign, Flagship of the Celestial Wardens, which currently sailed under the personal command of Siegfried himself. The crew of the vessel, expecting her or not, panicked at the appearance of a figure out of air. Swords, maces, guns, wands, spells, and surprise were all leveled at her, but Telos just raised her hands as if they were the police.
“Stand down,” Siegfried’s no-nonsense command echoed the room like a peel of thunder. “You’ve grown significantly in power, daughter of Nyx and Aetherius. I understand you go by a different name now?”
Telos played coy while weapons and spells were lowered. Of the many races on the command deck, she and Siegfried were the only humans. She looked nothing like a human with a third eye, luminous hair, eyes, and chest, and the plethora of authorities she wielded caused reality itself to eddy around her.
“Nice to see you again, Siegfried. I’m called Telos Metanoia now. I understand the Celestial Wardens might want to join Armageddon?” Telos’ words echoed across the suddenly silent deck. The silence dominated the room, awkward and pressing, until finally Siegfried laughed.
“Damned right we do!” Siegfried’s words summoned a wave of echoes and agreement, and Telos forced herself to look at each person on the deck. The threads of the Wardens song were mostly dark, and ill-fated, despite their raucous agreement.