Roxanne remained calm and still in her stance. Ordlach’s stance, in contrast, was casual and dismissive. He fired up his matching aura; it was sharp and cragged. Both sized each other up while the crowd's impatience grew and grew. Finally, they both charged. The two auras collided with an explosive flash that split the atoms in the air.
Both shields cracked under intense pressure and sent sparks and energy in every direction. Sweat pooled on Roxanne’s brow, forcing her to grit her teeth during the exchange. She pushed ahead with her right fist and pressed it directly into the shield; her ring glowed vibrantly. Ordlach held both hands ahead of him and ground his boots into the ground to anchor himself. Buzzing filled the air. The energy being output rode on soundwaves that went through them both, yet Ordlach’s robotic laugh kept invading her personal space.
"Stupid! Human vermin!” He shouted. “You were a total idiot to challenge me!"
"Shut. Up." Roxanne spat and pulled her left hand back. Energy crackled and traveled down her arm like a cascading river of yellow energy. It coalesced around her fist, and she swung as hard as possible. It connected, pierced the space between auras, and she simultaneously let loose with a vast cone of plasma.
It crushed Ordlach’s shield instantly like it was just sugar glass. Plasma engulfed him and forced him back into the coliseum wall. It pounded on his outer armor and made his molecules feel on fire while dirt flew up as he made two parallel lines away from Roxanne. The back wall shuddered, and inch-wide cracks spider-webbed vertically.
The more overzealous audience members fell from their seats and down to the dirt floor; at least, it had to be a 20-foot drop. Ordlach covered up to avoid the falling bystanders, then lifted his right arm and stopped one in midair by encasing himself in a hard-light bubble. The Uzrath slammed into the bubble head first with a crunch that sent the torso snapping back end over end.
With a massive swipe down, Ordlach sent the body flying at Roxanne. She bounded upwards and caught the Uzrath in her arms. It wore a beige tunic with a large woven brown cummerbund that fit around its waste. It had patches of wispy white hair and was completely unconscious.
Ordlach crouched slightly before rocketing into the air. As he did so, he turned his right palm up and let a bubble of hard light energy materialize on his fingertips. He turned his torso to the right, holding the energy ball up, his nerves tensing. Then, he threw his arm forward and tossed the hard light ball in one fluid motion at them. It crackled with anti-matter energy that distorted the air around it like it was cutting through reality itself.
Roxanne caught a glimpse of this out of her peripheral vision. A warning symbol flashed across her HUD while Azonne kept tabs on the anti-matter ball's trajectory on the fly. However, the anti-matter that permeated the air threw the calculations off; it collided with Roxanne and her passenger unexpectedly. The ball started eating at the Uzrath she held in her arms, and it crumbled into dust that slipped through the spaces of her fingers. The ball continued and hit her in the chest and sent her rolling to the ground. It parked on her chest and felt heavy to move. She strained, first trying to sit up and then attempting to lift the ball off.
Neither worked.
Ordlach landed at her feet with a thunderous stomp. He held his hand out in front of him and mentally pushed the ball further and further into her chest. Her aura bent and cracked under the intense pressure but held. Roxanne couldn’t guarantee how much longer it could hold. The integrity of the aura, tracked on her HUD, was at 20% and dropping. Should it fail, she would have to wait for it to reboot, so she needed to be proactive.
Roxanne lifted her head and glanced around the ball, catching a glimpse of Ordlach’s left boot. She raised her right hand and kept it level with her body; her ring ignited. An inch-thick cone of light elongated out and rushed toward Ordlach’s leg. Roxanne hardened the light just before impact, taking him off his feet and crashing face-first into the dirt.
Roxanne grunted and rolled the ball off her chest. The thing crumbled to dust as Ordlach rose to one knee and shook off any proverbial cobwebs. Roxanne used the respite and flipped off her back and onto her feet. She charged Ordlach, swung with her right hand, and connected with his helmet with an energy-backed punch; he staggered and almost tipped over but used a hand to steady himself against the ground.
She didn’t hesitate; she exploded upward and let loose with a flying knee that crushed the front of his mask and caused him to flop onto his back. Roxanne hovered in the air for a second, then came down onto his chest with both her knees with tremendous force. The dirt floor underneath them rippled and depressed massively, kicking up dirt, and debris fell on them like a fine mist.
Panicked, Ordlach lashed out and grabbed her by the face with his massive claw. His hand completely blindsided Roxanne, and she kicked wildly. Ordlach raised her in the air with minimal effort and slammed her right back onto a nearby pile of bones. Every bone shattered under the force. Their sharp bits and edges bit deep into her armor and punctured some of the fabric on her legs. Without missing a beat, she rolled backward off the pile, grimacing as she did so.
Ordlach was still trying to get his bearings from the beatdown he had just gone through and let her hurry away.
“Stupid! Stupid!” He shouted, and Roxanne couldn’t help but wonder if this was a taunt for her or a self-critique. Ordlach had risen to a knee again and pounded at the ground, frustrated. His head shot up, and he caught Roxanne staring at him; he struck the ground once more with his right hand and fired off a blast of energy directly into the ground.
The dirt under the topsoil glowed and bubbled and traveled toward Roxanne. The terra underneath rumbled, and her eyes shot open. Roxanne crossed her arms in front of her and hardened her protective aura. Anti-Matter light burst beneath her like a geyser, forcing her upward as her shield struggled to maintain cohesion.
The energy eventually dissipated and no longer held her afloat. Roxanne spun around and faced the ground as she started to drop. Ordlach had rushed under her and fired up another solid beam of plasma at her, so she responded in kind. The two beams collided in mid-air and forced the air around them to contract in a silent implosion. The column of anti-matter and light energy kept Roxanne suspended in the air and gave her a micro-second to consider her options.
Azonne listed three scenarios in her HUD with Dumb, Mostly Harmless, and Really Dumb criteria. Azonne had really got her sense of humor, and she was kind of proud of the steps they’d made in their time together. The first scenario—Dumb—involved her cutting off her beam, followed by creating a super dense light shield in front of her to tank the anti-matter and crash land on top of her opponent.
The second—Mostly Harmless—had her continue the stalemate, except that she would overwhelm the inferior rings and, most likely, the opponent's ego.
Fun.
Really Dumb, however, was probably the favorite. That plan called on Roxanne to create hard light armor around her body, tank the blast, then land in front of the opponent to kick the crap out of them. The micro-second was over, and she needed to choose. The problem with plan Really Dumb, hence its name, was that all she could do was condense her aura into shields or bubbles, so molding it into a sort of coverall super tough armor was a little beyond her, for now.
She made a note to work on it.
Roxanne eased up on her outpouring of power, allowing the anti-matter to push her beam closer to her. She hardened that and created a thick shield so heavy it went through the anti-matter like it were just a stream of water. With each passing second, she got closer to the ground, forcing Ordlach to abandon his light and roll out of the way. Roxanne hit the ground with the force of a box of TNT. The soil flew up like a tidal wave, swept Ordlach away, and into another far wall of the arena. The nearby crowd scrambled away from their seats, learning the lesson the last fool who fell in here taught.
Ordlach’s back armor cracked, and his cape had entirely torn off by the concussive force that felt equivalent to one megaton. A massive cloud of dust separated the two and hung there like hanging moss. Roxanne shot out of her crater in a beautiful ark and landed five feet away. She immediately landed a forward combat roll, came out of it with her right arm pointed forward, and cut loose with a tight beam of plasma radiation that connected with Ordlach and shoved him back into the wall.
The partition gave way just a little more before it finally crumbled. The benches snapped and imploded inward with the rest of the wall while audience members scurried up and away from the rapidly spreading collapse. Ordlach lay there, groaning. Roxanne approached, keeping her ring trained upon his body while just his lower limbs rocked back and forth lazily.
“Yield,” she said. Ordlach lifted his head; the destroyed mask had been cracked in half and slid off as he did so. He had no hair to speak of, but his eyes were a fierce shade of orange that burned with tremendous anger. The outer shell of his head was full of wounds and cuts from the hundreds, maybe thousands, of times he allowed himself to get mutilated out of boredom.
“I’m not beaten!” He shouted.
“I think you are.” She said back.
“No! Screw you, human trash!” Roxanne’s rings flashed; she’d had enough. Something struck her from behind, and she suddenly felt very heavy. Roxanne spun around; a small platoon of guards had emerged from her entrance and volleyed over some more shots. Still feeling the last bolt's effects, she could not move out of the way. The bolts cascaded across her body like pouring rain, and she had no choice but to drop to the ground.
That gravity weapon, like she’d seen Sten use earlier. A little part of her hoped he was the only one with such a weapon; wishful thinking at its finest. Roxanne tried just to lift a single finger but was unable; she felt magnetized to the ground. The crowd was stunned, unsure if they should cheer or boo or just run away. Ordlach sauntered over to her, and he kicked her side petulantly.
“Stupid trash! Human Trash!”
“What was all that ‘honor the challenge’ stuff? More fakery, like your entire existence?” She couldn’t help it. He kicked her again, harder this time. Then again. And one more, for good measure, that one took a rib.
“You’re the fake! Not me!” he shouted. “The mantle is mine, as it should be!” He raised his left first at her. The duplicate crackled and started to come to life. He pointed it at her head.
The crowd began to stir, and murmurs lept out of their mouths. A black silhouette danced in the sky and grew larger with each slither. Ordlach took heed of this, following the direction of every pointed claw.
“What is this?!” He shouted. Something glimmered in the distance, and another-smaller-object broke off from the bigger one. It caught fire instantly as it broke through the upper atmosphere.
The fireball raged and grew more prominent with every passing second. It became clear that this burning object was coming for the arena, and panic spread from patron to patron like an infectious disease. Ordlach, too ran and, unsurprisingly, left Roxanne anchored there. She could feel the fireball's heat on the back of her neck as it got closer, so she shut her eyes.
There were worse ways to die.
The fireball, however, completely missed her and touched down right in the center of the arena. The landing sent a shockwave that rippled outward through the dirt, making the entire inner wall buckle and groan. The dust waffled away in a swirl; that fireball was Lady Steel. She saw Roxanne lying on the ground and hurried to her, ecstatic.
“Oh man, I made it!” She shouted and hunched over her friend's body. “What are you doing?”
Roxanne couldn’t move her head, but luckily she was already looking in Corina’s direction. “Corina?? What are you,” she started. “How did you—never mind, can you get me up?”
“Are you glued down or something?”
“A gravity gun.”
“Gravity gun?” But before she could say anything further, a volley of beams cut through the air and collided with her at different joints; the upper chest, legs, and shoulders. She, too, collapsed flat on her back with a grimace.
“Basically, that,” Roxanne said to her friend. Surprisingly, Corina was smiling.
“Believe it or not,” She said. “That’s not the craziest thing I’ve heard today.” Corina attempted to sit up, and the entire earth shuddered. Roxanne looked concerned, but Corina seemed non-plussed about the whole thing. She tried again, straining, grunting, screaming; her arm barely lifted off the ground, but, amazingly, it did lift.
She pushed harder, and the ground started to rise as well. Everything around them felt like a localized earthquake was going off until reality finally stopped fighting and gave in. She ripped her arm free from the gravitational pull and brought 5 tons of dirt. It whipped through the air and buried the guards who had stood there dumbfounded over what they had just witnessed.
Corina freed herself further from the effects of the weapons with only a touch more force applied. She got up and dusted herself off before grabbing hold of Roxanne and pulling her free with even considerably less effort. The two faced each other for the first time in what felt like forever, and they hugged.
“Man, it’s good to see you!” Roxanne exclaimed.
“Ditto.” The reunion was interrupted, however, by shouting. Some of the crowd had returned and were in awe of a second human being in their midst. Soldiers had also appeared among them and began pushing their way toward the two women.
“So this is Uzrath, huh?” Corina said to Roxanne.
“I’m definitely going to need to hear the entire story of how you found me,” Roxanne replied. “If we make it out.”
Ordlach had emerged from his hole and stood 10 feet away from them. His armor mainly destroyed except the shoulder and leg armor, but those looked like a hard tap would get them to crumble. He was holding on to his torso, doubled over in pain; his eyes still burned a white-hot orange. He pointed at them, “Kill them both!” And the soldiers lept from the stands.
“We’ll make it,” Corina said. “I got the fodder!”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Lady Steel floated in the air before rocketing in a tight circle around the arena, creating a barrier between them and Ordlach and Roxanne. Corina met the platoon head-on and casually deflected fired beams fixed on her before she struck the ground with a punch that forced the ground at their feet to erupt and launch them into the air. She grabbed one by the leg and spun around before releasing him toward another platoon. They crumbled under the weight of the thrown body, and Corina pounced. A gut punch sent one flying upward; she grabbed that one and used him as a makeshift club with which to attack the others.
Roxanne didn’t hesitate, and she ran toward Ordlach, who sent off bolts of anti-matter haphazardly before he flew over the barrier and out of the arena. Roxanne gave chase. The two yellow streaks of light twirled over each other, sending thin tight energy beams toward each other both offensively and defensively. Several times they came together only to split off and make another run of attacks. Roxanne was the aggressor; she outclassed him at full strength, and they both knew it. What he hoped to accomplish by running away, she couldn’t say, but his elusiveness was getting annoying.
Ordlach banked upward and doubled back toward the palace, started circling the central tower, and she kept up with his every maneuver and feint. She gained on him, and he let loose a cone of anti-matter that she just slapped away.
“It’s over, Ordlach, yield!” She screamed.
“I’ve got you where I want you!” He shouted back. Roxanne got closer, and they were flying side by side now. Ordlach took a swipe in her direction with his left arm; she blocked it and trapped it in her armpit. She forced them both to stop and held her other fist up. Ordlach pulled, his eyes squinted, and he whimpered, “Let go!”
“Last chance,” Roxanne said, holding her ring an inch away from his chest. He answered by spitting on her and raising his other hand at her, a vain attempt to get her before she got him that didn’t work. White hot energy exploded outward from her ring, sending him flying down the tower. The outer wall imploded inward upon contact, and after a moment, the one on the other side burst open outward with a cloud of stone and dust following in his wake. Down and down he flew and crashed to the arena. A tidal wave of dirt shot toward the sky and came down with the viscosity of a mild snowstorm. The tower shook and shuddered under the force of the collision but held firm.
Roxanne tracked the destruction caused by Ordlach and touched down by his body. He lay there motionless, aside from the contortion of his facial features. Ordlach continually cycled from pain to anger and back again. He tried to lift his right arm limply, but she stepped on his wrist and killed that thought dead. She bent over and pulled the ring off the index finger before she did the same to the other arm.
“I’ll take those,” she said as she held them aloft. Roxanne studied the off-gold trinkets. Similar symbols and shapes were carved into it but were haphazard and lazy. They looked like a perversion of the ones she wore if that; black market knock-offs.
“Did you win?” Corina had emerged carrying a group of unconscious bodies and dumping that lot on a pile she had already created. Roxanne nodded without taking her eyes off Ordlach, then said:
“Yeah. You mind watching this goober for me?”
“Sure,” Corina replied before tossing the last body aside. The crowd was still in shocked silence when Roxanne flew up to the luxury box. Enehva was still fastened to the pole and had her head hung low. It left Roxanne unsure if she had even seen the entire fight, which was secondary to her concern.
She landed softly in front of Enehva, took her chin into her hand, and raised her face to hers. “Enehva…?” She said softly. It took a moment, but the queen stirred, and her massive eyelids flew open. Relieved, Roxanne stood up and began undoing the ties that held her in place. She made sure to steady her against her own body before she released the last strap and gently eased her lower to the ground.
“…did you do it?” Enehva asked weakly. Roxanne held out her hand, turned it over, and opened her palm. The duplicate rings sat there uselessly.
“What does this tell you?” She said with a smile.
Enehva let the rings fall into her hands and immediately started crying. She closed her hands over the duplicates and held them close to her snout; it was actually over. “Help me up,” she said and offered her hand. Roxanne took it and held her elbow with her other hand as leverage to assist her.
Enehva opened her hands and stared down at the rings some more. Holding these meant that Ordlach was defeated, something that felt like it could never be possible until recently, and here it was. She placed a hand on Roxanne’s shoulder and whispered, “Thank you.”
She climbed the single step in the box to raise her for the rest of her people to see. All eyes immediately locked on her figure; the black hole framed her in the sky. She held up the rings for all to see, they shimmered dully in the haze, but it was clear to all what she was holding.
She went to speak; however, the sky's slithering silhouette had moved closer to the city until it hung menacingly in the air above the stadium. Most Uzrath paid it no mind, instead transfixed by their queen, who had lowered her hands when the machine came closer into focus. The machine straightened out and brought the snout of the head up close to the box, the opaque red eyes that made up the view screen reflected the psychedelic imagery that was the sky back at them. Corina floated up to the box carrying Ordlach behind her. He could be mistaken for lifeless but had his arms crossed in front of him, his body language speaking volumes louder than any translator could.
The machine’s ersatz mouth craned open, and a young boy dressed in an armored space suit alongside a very tall and slim mechanical creature stepped out. Roxanne looked to Corina for some sort of answer but was met with a shrug of dismissal instead.
“My ride,” she told Roxanne. “I’ll explain later.”
“I hope so,” Roxanne said back. Enehva seemed to recognize that machine as familiarity spread across her features, and she approached it. “Duuvell, is that you?”
The Urgineer got down on one knee and showed deference toward her. “Yes, my queen.”
“I would have thought you would be long gone from this plane.”
“Same to you, my queen.” He stood up.
“Why are you here?” She asked him.
“I want to be with my people when the time finally comes.” He replied. “Immortality is…a curse.”
Enehva smiled and touched him on his shoulder. “Indeed, old friend, indeed.” She turned from him again and climbed the step once more. She held her hands high toward the sky again, and all eyes returned to her.
“My people!” She said. “My son has been defeated. It is time to choose. We have been arrogant. Arrogant to believe that we deserved to survive the calamity. And what has it brought us?! Cruelty. Pain. Suffering. Where we were once a source of hope for all sentient life, we instead became a scourge upon it. We have been living a mockery of life instead, and I ask you, is this what you truly want? Or should we finally rest, become the relics of history that we should have been?!”
The crowd roared at her. They screamed and shouted and celebrated in the stands. The outpouring was the first genuine emotion they had felt in thousands of years, if not millions. Enehva shouted again, “Should we shut down the engines?!”
Every claw pointed upward in approval; spontaneously, they all started chanting: “SHUT. THEM. DOWN.” It was rhythmic and made Enehva swell up with pride. She looked back at Roxanne, who offered her a smile.
“Is that what you wanted to hear?” She asked Roxanne, who bowed as her way of acknowledgment. Enehva noticed her son was sitting on the floor, arms still folded, but something was off about him. He glanced up occasionally at his mother; he seemed to be seeking some validation.
He wanted to know if it was okay to stop all the bravado, if it was okay for him to stop pretending that he was in charge and that he knew what he was doing. Enehva went to him and got low enough to take him into her arms. She pressed him close into her, and he gently started weeping. It was tough to sympathize with the bugger in Roxanne’s eyes; Gresh knows she didn’t want to.
But even this display tugged at her soft side.
“Greshing hell,” she whispered. “I got something in my eye.”
“Same,” Corina replied and side-hugged her close.
***
Enehva joined Roxanne, Corina, Sam, and The Urgineer as soldiers escorted them to the main anti-matter engine. This one fed into all the others, which meant it was where the main battery resided. The enclosure was domed and colored gold with white trim around plates welded onto one another. The Anti-Matter engine looked less like an engine as Roxanne understood it and seemed more akin to an old furnace she had read about in historical archives.
Thick piping traveled in and out of it, then met and connected to a giant stack that went vertical straight into the top of the dome. At the front of the engine was a grated opening in which black-tinted white anti-matter energy sparked and leaked through. Roxanne questioned the safety of such a thing but kept that to herself.
Also anchored on the front was a marked specialty compartment with a glass visor. Behind that visor was the power source. It was cylindrical and translucent, with a bright red cap marking the end where it made contact with the circuits that powered the entire structure. The light inside was plainly visible and sloshed around like liquid instead of protons and electrons. Roxanne was ahead with Enehva and The Urgineer, and they seemed to be going over the next steps as far as turning this thing off went. Sam and Corina hung back, not saying much to each other, but unsaid words hung between them like spiderwebs.
“So that’s your friend, huh?” He asked her, cutting through those cobwebs casually. “She’s cute.”
Corina raised her eyebrows. “Calm down, buddy,” she said. “But yeah, she’s my best friend, actually.”
“That’s surprising,” he answered back.
“How so?”
“Figure a big famous person like you had a million best friends. All the best friend's money could buy.”
Corina chuckled at this. “Oh, bless your heart,” she replied and laughed some more. “If only,” she sighed, and silence filled the air again. She glanced sideward at him and inquired: “Did he give you the cure?”
He nodded, “He did.”
“Is it a machine? I bet myself it was a machine.”
He smiled, “It’s a machine. I’d have to put it on my head or something like that.”
She shook her head and said, “I think that’s something you’d want to nail down.”
He didn’t answer that. Instead, he bit his lip and rocked back and forth on his heels. Eventually, he uttered: “I’m not going to use it.”
That surprised her. She didn’t even know what to say to that. Instead, she made a nebulous noise that sounded like “Hmm?”
“The way you used your powers,” he said. “…it kind of inspired me? Don’t let it get to your head or anything.”
“Oh no, of course not,” she tried to hide a grin and somewhat succeeded. Sam didn’t notice it, at least.
“You were right; there is more I could be doing with these…gifts.” The word escaped his lips as if they were a key to his entire state of mind. Like it had been on the tip of his tongue all his life. “If it’s alright with you,” He continued. “I’d like to take you up on that ‘cure my addiction’ thing you mentioned a while back.”
“Holy crap,” She exclaimed. “That was months ago now, wasn’t it?”
“Feels like years,” he laughed. The both of them let silence fill the air again, but this time there was zero tension attached to it. It felt like a new beginning for them, and Corina didn't feel like such a sell-out for the first time in a long time.
Roxanne, Enehva, and The Urgineer continued their talk. Roxanne was curious how this would work, at least on her end. She understood the draining the battery part, but that meant instant transportation into the real, which also meant instant spaghettification on the part of the planet and everyone on it. Corina had walked up to the group to eavesdrop while the Urgineer laid out how it would go:
“Once you drain the battery, the engines fail 20 light seconds later. If I remember correctly, it was a built-in safety precaution just in case the battery drained accidentally.”
“That’s right,” Enehva said.
“20 light seconds isn’t exactly a long time.” Roxanne offered.
“It was a death sentence regardless, no matter how long it took.” Enehva countered. That made sense to Roxanne. She noticed Corina was standing behind her, which brought to mind a question: “And what about us? Will we be instantly shifted?”
“Normally, yes.” The Urgineer answered. “However, I’ll be giving you my ship.”
“Wait,” Corina interjected. “You’d just give us that machine? Seriously?”
“I could just leave it here, matters not to me,” he replied.
Corina whistled, “No, totally fine.”
“Okay, how does that help us?” Roxanne asked.
“The machine will stay shifted.” The Urgineer answered. “It, like your friends, have their own devices that allow them to stay at a different vibrational frequency.”
“And myself? I don’t have any such device.”
“That is what the machine is for,” he replied without missing a beat as if she should have gotten that immediately. Perhaps he expected more from the one who wielded the mantle, or maybe he was just a pompous ass.
The Urgineer continued: “You’ll have 20 light-seconds to get on the ship, at which point we will vanish back into the real. At that point, I’d advise you put some distance between yourselves and the black hole before shifting back to your proper frequency.”
Roxanne nodded; that made sense enough. She looked to Corina and asked, “Sound good?”
Corina shrugged and pointed at her friend, “Don’t ask me; you’re the one with phenomenal cosmic power.”
The statement made Roxanne smile; it was good to see her again. She looked toward Enehva and nodded. “I’m ready, are you?” She asked her.
Enehva smiled. “This is a day I have always been ready for.”
“What should I do?” Roxanne asked. Enehva bowed and took Roxanne’s hand into hers. She pressed something into Roxanne’s palm and held it tightly inside her hands. She let go, and Roxanne examined it; it was the duplicate rings.
“What is this?” She asked, looking up at her.
“They might aid you in discovering this new balance.” Enehva offered with a slight dip of her head. “I suspect they’d do well in your hands than here, lost to time.”
Roxanne smirked. “What was that you had said about hubris?”
Enehva smiled back. “I believe in you. The light has chosen well.” Roxanne blushed at that. Affirmation was always welcome, no matter the source. Enehva retook her hand and guided her over to the battery. She placed her right ring against the glass of the power source.
“Call the energy to you,” she said. “It will return home.”
Roxanne hesitated. “Now?”
“Yes. It’s okay.”
Roxanne nodded. She started to reach out mentally; being so close, she could already feel the lost energy that flowed in the battery. She closed her eyes and concentrated. The synaptic nerves could suddenly remember the loss and yearn for the power. It started flowing from the battery to her ring, and the capsule bubbled like a clogged drain snaked free of gunk.
Roxanne’s atoms felt alive as the energy flowed back into her; she felt overcome with emotion. This lost-to-time sliver of her powers sat in this capsule, imprisoned for billions of years, and she felt every lost second. Tears welled up and streamed down her face as the power returned home. Her teeth buzzed with a feeling that teetered on the edges of pain and bliss. But, just as quickly as it began, the emotions passed.
The task was done.
The battery was empty.
The machine started to shake before the failsafe clicked on and kept it running, even though it was only going to be brief. Roxanne looked over at Enehva, who was contagious in her calmness. She bowed her head again and said:
“Go.”
Roxanne, Corina, and Sam booked it from the dome. Out there, the machine waited, sprawled out on the ground with its maw spread open and ready to receive them. Roxanne followed them both inside and let them take the lead. Travel from the jaw to the bridge was easy and quick. When Corina reached the horseshoe console, the jaws snapped shut, and the machine seemed to come alive at this point. Corina stared at the console, confused, and shouted: “Was I just supposed to know how this works?!”
Sam shoved her aside, “He taught me. Move.”
He swiped through multiple screens, pressed buttons, and slid dials expertly. The machine came alive and slithered up and off the ground. Suddenly the entire planet shifted out of view, and they were alone alongside the black hole but safe. Sam guided the machine away from the black hole. It bucked rapidly and moved through space; however, they couldn’t feel the results thanks to artificial gravity. After three minutes of this, they had put some distance between them and the singularity.
“Switch us over!” Roxanne shouted. She needed to see what was happening.
Sam moved his hands quickly, and the rush of being back in the real world caused Roxanne’s knees to buckle. It felt like blood rushing back into a limb that had cut off circulation only across her entire body. It made her feel light-headed, but she toughed it out. She was just to Corina’s left, on the edge of the console. Corina was off to the side, shadowing Sam, who was deftly messing with all the controls.
On the view screen were the remnants of Uzrath, violently crushed by the increased gravity of the black hole. The edge closest disintegrated like blasted sand. The black hole slammed the planet, making it denser and denser as it was spaghettified into cookie crumbs. Finally, the dust and gas trail slipped past the event horizon before finally being smashed into less than nothing, becoming more detritus for the accretion disc.
The Uzrath were free, but it felt bittersweet. Part of Roxanne wished she hadn’t seen that at all, as she couldn’t imagine how painful that might have been.
“You okay?” Corina had asked her. The anguish was clear as day on Roxanne’s face. She swallowed hard and nodded her head; for the first time in a while, she felt tension free and collapsed onto a heap on the floor. She hugged her knees close to her chest and breathed slowly through her nose.
“I know that’s what they wanted, but,” she sighed. “I still wish there was some other way.”
Corina had joined her on the floor. There was only one chair on the bridge, and there was no way any of them were sitting in it. She patted Roxanne on the knee as she got down and said, “That’s what makes you, you.”
Roxanne smiled, “Thanks for the assist.” She said and then indicated Sam with her chin, “Who’s that?”
“I’m Sam,” he replied, not taking his eyes off what he was doing but still finding a way to give a little wave. “I saved her butt once, no big.”
Roxanne looked at Corina in mock shock, “Someone saved you? Are you losing your touch without me around?”
Corina laughed and nodded, “Well, you have been gone for a while; it was inevitable.”
“Jeez, I’m not even sure how long I’ve been missing,” Roxanne said. “Time didn’t seem to work there, to be honest.”
“Oh?” Corina said. “Well, it took us almost—how long did that trip to the rift take us? Six months?—Yeah, like six months to find you. If that helps.”
Roxanne’s eyes widened suddenly, and her voice went low, “…what?”
Corina nodded absentmindedly, not taking notice of her friend’s reaction. “Yup. Gotta imagine it’ll be another two months before we’re back in Izanami too.”
Silently, Roxanne screamed.