The entire wall behind Artificer changed, turning into a picture of a night desert, with sand dunes spreading all the way to the distant horizon. Not a single cloud marked the night skies. The moon’s and stars’ bright light illuminated a group of sixty soldiers slowly moving across the sands, all in Iterna’s colors.
It took Ratcatcher a moment to understand that she was looking through the visor of one soldier in the middle of the group. Looking through the soldier’s visor, the power armors of the soldier’s comrades were a bright blue that she could see even at night, when most people would only see pale bodies that were hard to tell apart from the surrounding sand. Iterna’s optical camouflage rightfully stands as one of the best in the world.
She saw a flicker on the soldier’s HUD. The commander, now that she was sure of his rank, had seventy icons on the visor’s left side, each marking the heart rates of his soldiers. And now, one of them went dark. And another. The lives of two members of recon teams have ended in a flash. The commander raised a hand, giving a calm order to form a circle and retreat, his next order sent two recon teams running back from their positions. With well-trained movements, two soldiers fired guided missiles at the last locations of their downed team members, planning to buy enough time for others to retreat to safety.
Long tongues of darkness slithered across the sand dunes, making a pool of still darkness around Iterna’s military unit. The stillness didn’t last long, and, like a wildfire, the tongues shot up, hungrily reaching to the sky and leaving the people in the utter dark. The icons of recon teams went dark, turned off not by physical damage but by disruption in communication, some of the most advanced night and thermal vision machinery installed in helmets had failed to see through the darkness. In a calm voice, the commander gave an order to shift to dimensional vision, and for a moment, the darkness disappeared, showing an unusually lifeless desert on the right side of the soldier’s helmet, while the left side still saw the wall of darkness. All colors and clean shapes disappeared from the right side. The dimensional vision was the newest type of optical device in Iterna, one meant to see dangerous spatial anomalies that could swallow a person whole. Ratcatcher saw a flickered image of missiles reaching their destination and a milky white flash of explosion, but sound came from within the darkness, only slight tremors rocketed the ground.
“Salutations, interlopers!” A voice filled with ear-piercing venom boomed all across the desert, making Ratcatcher and Smar twitch from disgust at the sheer wrongness of the mixed sound of cheerful laughter and cries of pain in this voice. A figure stepped through the darkness, a horrible and mangled vision of a living being.
Standing three and a half meters tall, his skin had the same void color as the darkness behind him, a tattered leather cape, made of stretched human faces stitched together, hung from skinny-looking shoulders. Looking like a victim of starvation, an iron armor meant more for torture than protection encased him from neck to toe, leaving some of his protruding ribs exposed. All around the dark body, the metal deeply pierced the flesh in numerous places, forever merging with bones and leaving the skin covered by bulbous inflammations and growths around the wounds’ edges. Four long screws stuck out from the frontal lobe of this being, and a horrible scar devoured the right eye, leaving just an orange orb in the left socket to look at the group with a slit of a white pupil. A thin longsword rested in the sheath on the being’s belt.
“Lay down your weapon and surrender!” The commander shouted at him.
“A most magnanimous offer, but on this night I serve as the Brother’s hound master.” The figure almost broke in two, making a low bow to the soldiers. This simple move tore open his wounds, causing green blood to mark the black body. “Alas, I have no time to enjoy the wondrous torture. Surrender one and all and experience all the intricate sensations the dearest Mother will inflict upon your bodies as she extracts your every little secret for us to enjoy,” A high-pitched chuckle left his scarred lips upon seeing rows of raised weapons aimed at him. “I take this as no.”
He jumped, nimbly evading shots that left holes in his leather cape. In a single somersault, the “hound master” landed amidst the soldiers, moving too fast for the regular men in power armor to dodge. With the merest touch of his crooked legs and inverted knees, he has snapped the shoulder of one of the soldiers. Gracefully turning around, the attacker reached out for his sword, taking out a twisted, broken, and reforged sword of blackened metal with hooked and sharp edges, meant to slice and rupture organs. With the sound of a howling wind, the sword bit into the soldiers’ armor.
Ratcatcher felt the food reaching her throat, seeing guts and blood pouring from wounded people. Their attacker clearly could have sliced them in two, but almost with some sadistic glee, he stopped the cut just short of the spinal cord, slicing through the ribs and lungs and leaving his victims screaming. Slowly, far too slowly, the soldiers started to turn to open fire at him, and darkness poured from his legs, engulfing nearby people. Switching to lasers, the soldiers speared the darkness with brilliant laser beams, only to find their foe charging to the side, showering everyone out of his way.
“My kindred!” Rolling aside, his cape flapping like wings, the Naturalborn shouted. “Don’t be shy! Come and partake in this joyous carnival of flesh and blood!”
In response to his words, new, brown-colored forms have broken from the shroud of darkness. Moving on all fours, these Changed had oversized, four-handed hands that ended up with claws, their bulging eyes resembled those of a frog and twin small bionic cannons in their shoulders spat deadly acid at the soldiers. Hooks, needles, and blades covered their bodies, sticking deep between patches of stiffened skin, tough enough to endure a few bullets before breaking. Accompanied by the hissing coming from the acid on the defenders’ bodies, the Changed rushed on, skittering across the sand like ice skaters.
They were met with a fury of gunfire and missiles, leaving holes in their bodies and exploding whole swathes of the approaching army, killing and wounding dozens. But wounded soldiers tried to claw after their comrades, giggling like hyenas, and new Changed arrived by the moment, swarming the soldiers with sheer numbers.
Ratcatcher could scarcely believe her eyes. Changed’s skin has endured the most grievous punishment: blocked beams and bullets, before giving up. Their long claws were tough enough to ram through an armored visor, reaching out for the eyes below. One of the Changed has knocked a soldier off his feet, pierced the side of his helmet with his claws, and pulled the helmet off the woman’s head. Instead of finishing his foe, the Changed grabbed the woman’s head, trying to pop her like a balloon, and groaned when a laser beam speared his belly after an Iternian soldier had fired five times into his stomach. The woman stood up, bleeding from her ears, and tried to take aim at her next foe. A single cut left her headless.
“Honor our guests!” The Naturalborn laughed, darting away from a firing line. “Lose yourself in the sweet agony and deal sweet pain in return for this kindness!”
“Rapture and slaughter! Kill, kill, kill, until pain is no more, and we are set free!” His soldiers burst into cacophonous laughter, filled with barely contained pain.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The commander shot through the Changed’s head, leaving a body toppling on the ground, and turned around just in time to dodge a swing of cruel claws aimed at his knee. Blobs of acid followed next, melting the commander’s pauldron, before the officer responded with a burst of armor-piercing fire, downing the enemy soldier. Reaching for a grenade, the Iternian found himself flying through the air, his arm and ribs shattered by a single kick of the Naturalborn.
The poor man flew through the dark veil that dissipated before his very eyes, landing amidst the sand and leaving a trace with his body before finally stopping. The icons of recon teams flashed up, showing that people were alive and retreating. With a gasping groan, the commander gave the order for them to keep on retreating, lifting his head.
Four problemsolvers stepped into the fray. Tall, handsome, and sculptured in perfect form that could cause envy from any athlete, these people were man-made abnormals who served as elite troopers of Iterna. The four of them moved in perfect sync, crashing heads and piercing the Changed in front of them with their bare hands, the metal on their fingers turned to blades. Their fury pushed the Changed back, creating an opening for the Iternians to retreat. Not stopping at this, the problemsolvers threw their grenades, illuminating the battlefield with a brilliant plasma explosion, before choosing a new target. The Naturalborn, who was walking toward the downed commander, sensed something and leaped to the side, meeting a blinding cut with his blade.
Sparks illuminated the night, and the problemsolvers surrounded their foe, circling around him. One came directly at the Naturalborn, engaging in a fierce duel of cuts and slashes that forced the problemsolver back. Two more leaped forth, firing machineguns that caused the Naturalborn to back down, laughing with contempt at their seemingly clumsy attempts. A shot in his back silenced his laugh, two more shots that tore skin from his chest made a scowl appear on his lips, and a long slash that nearly took away his eye made him jump away. The problemsolvers followed after him, circling like sharks around their prey.
The Naturalborn touched his chest with a free hand, looking at his green blood. Licking off his fingers, he spun around, his sword striking forward and nearly cutting open the problemsolver behind him. Her comrades saved the woman, two shots redirected the sword into the woman’s clawed blades, allowing her to survive the hit and the last problemsolver leaped at the Naturalborn, burying both of his clawed gauntlets into his back.
“Sublime teamwork,” the Naturalborn coughed out blood. “For this exquisite thrill, I’ll let you know my name. Gaexus is the one who ends you tonight.”
Tongues of darkness came from his back, spreading like wings and confusing problemsolvers for the briefest of moments, leaving them deaf and blind. Before they could switch to the dimensional vision, their foe toppled to the right, with his foe still on his back. Gaexus kicked back with an elbow, sending the problemsolver off himself along with a chunk of flesh. Turning into a blinding ball of cuts and slashes, the Naturalborn cut a hand off the female problemsolver and had the other’s belly opened. Two bullets flied above him, shot in the place where his was a moment ago.
“Pray tell me your names, my lovelies, so I could immortalize you among the list of people fallen by hand.” Standing up, Gaexus dispersed the darkness, beckoning his foes. “No answer? Ah, you must be shy types! Fear not, immortalized you will be! Before the night’s end, your faces will join my tapestry!”
And he advanced on them, laughing as his sword danced in his hands, seeking to end his foe. No longer Gaexus gave initiative to his foes, this time he turned predator, charging after the weakest member of the problemsolvers, the man with the cut belly. The problemsolvers were a miracle produced by Iterna’s doctors. Their bodies could regenerate even the most grievous wounds up to a certain point, and they could survive for a long time in open space. Immunity to poison, the ability to see in darkness, enhanced physical might, and agility—all these gifts only served to make these people as close to the natural abnormals as possible. Given time, even such a horrid wound would heal.
And time is what Gaexus has refused to give his opponents. Two problemsolvers dropped their empty machineguns and tried to stop the sword with their now clawed gauntlets. The Naturalborn pushed through them, blocking hits from one and kicking the other woman aside. Not stopping in place, he appeared before the wounded man, cleaving his head with his sword. The one-armed woman leaped low, aiming to cut tendons on his left leg, only to have her head cave in the sand under the Naturalborn’s leg. Tearing his sword free, Gaexus found his killing blow blocked by the woman’s comrades.
A cheerful laughter came from his lips, and the mutant kicked the wounded woman away. Turning his attention toward two remaining foes, he advanced on them, forcing both of them to retreat, unable to handle the might behind his swings. Ratcatcher saw some of Augustus’ trainings in the past, more out of curiosity than out of desire to become a fencer or a swordsman. Gaexus’ style utterly lacked any feints, or fake moves, each hit meant to end the battle here and now or at least to maim his foe. Despite this obvious flaw, the man had fluidity and elegance behind his movement, reading the flow of battle with impeccable skill.
Ratcatcher also admired the perfect teamwork of the Iternians, the moment the male problemsolver momentarily grabbed the enemy’s blade, his female comrade went on the offensive, trying to reach for the mutant’s veins, and the moment Gaexus tore his sword free to try and wound the other foe, the male went on. They aimed to wither down Gaexus, cut by cut. Ratcatcher stood up, seeing how the Naturalborn started a low cut, leading the very tip of his blade across the sand. There was no reason for this, even with his lack of finesse, Gaexus was a skilled fighter. This meant only…
“Damn it,” Kayleen growled as the Naturalborn buried his left leg in the ground with a strong stomp.
A stone rose behind one problemsolver, halting her just long enough for Gaexus to cut her vertically, stopping just short of her jaw. The last problemsolver leaped forward, aiming both of his claws at Gaexus’ neck. He coughed, looking down when his body moved backward, pierced by Gaexus’ hand. The Naturalborn stood up from the sand, leaving the sword in the woman’s body.
“Now, now, don’t be a sore loser,” Gaexus smiled, evading a swipe aimed at his eye and being left with a cut above his nose. His hand grasped the problemsolver’s shoulder. He pushed his hand into the man’s body, tearing his back open with a hissing sound of electricity, broken metal and allowing broken pieces of the man’s spine and crushed heart to come out. Tearing his hand free, Gaexus ate the heart’s remains in front of the dying man before letting him fall.
“Sir! Should we finish off the woman and charge after the cowards?” A trio of Changed bowed before the Naturalborn, their leader slightly bigger than his comrades.
Behind them, the battle was over, and twenty Iternians used the distraction bought by the problemsolvers to run, aiming to join the recon teams. Ratcatcher wished them luck, fully knowing how hard it was to leave the comrades behind. Given the choice, she wasn’t sure if she would have enough willpower to make the correct decision and keep on living.
“Just tie her up.” Gaexus looked at the one-armed woman. “Based on her performance, she is clearly of a higher caste, the Brother would like to interrogate her in person. Do treat her wound, we wouldn’t want to look stupid if she dies, would we?”
“And the cowards? They are escaping, sire! Should we give chase?” The Changed asked eagerly, prostrating himself.
“No-no, I insist you don’t trouble yourself, my faithful servant!” With a smile filled with venom, the Naturalborn replied. “We need someone to spread the message, or critters will keep pouring in. Besides, the battle was long and hard, and you are obviously very tired.”
“We merely did not want to deprive you of any glory, sir.”
“Of course, of course, my most loyal hound.” Gaexus started to walk away, before raising a finger. “Oh, and one more thing. My rank is hound master. Forget it one more time, and I’ll treat myself to your insides. Now be a darling and act like a good doggie. Woof, woof, be gone with you, have fun chewing up the dead.”
Taking the sword into his hands, the Naturalborn walked all the way to the downed commander, looking down at the man.
“I heard that you Iternians have these tiny-winy things that allow you to communicate across great distances. Is that true?” A smile full of needle-like fangs rewarded the hoarse answer. “Why, thank you for your honesty. Send a message to your masters from me, please. The message is: Stay away from our lands. And now, time for bye-bye, my sweet prince. It’s been a pleasure, truly.” The sword’s tip aimed at the commander’s face for a moment before striking down and ending the recording in static.