Washington, D.C., November 2056
Blind and deaf, yet there were glowing golden footsteps in the void for him to follow.
Alin had woken up with the weird helmet on his head.
He had kept the gray contained for fear of possibly hurting people he didn’t want to hurt.
Tricking him into hurting his friends was definitely in the evil guy’s playbook.
Time held no meaning.
He walked for hours.
He walked for minutes.
Whatever the case, the next thing he saw was the inside of an arcane prison cell as the helmet slipped off his head and folded into a palm-sized cube that floated into the ceiling, disappearing like liquid into the dark surface.
The small space was just large enough to stand and maybe half lay against the back wall.
“Don’t touch the glowy walls,” Victor said.
His friend was to his right, separated by said glowy wall with strange script flowing across the surface.
He recognized some of it from their study of the demigod’s and eidolons’ magic.
Strength for the barrier and pain upon touch from the inside.
Catelin was to his left.
There were ten total cells arranged in a circle around a large empty space.
The walls, floor and ceiling was made out of a dark substance that shined slightly like metal, but felt rough to the touch like stone.
Each cell was occupied by a Mist Spekter.
Where was Kat?
They looked to him expectantly.
He tried not to acknowledge the fear in their eyes.
There was an emergency escape.
At least in theory.
But only for Mist Spekters that were also Rayna’s Rangers with a class.
People that had joined up on the road to the enemy capital and after, like Nathan and Elisa across from him, were just as stuck as he was.
The gray roiled like worms writhing underneath his skin.
He was glad for the blue sleeves.
That was the last thing they needed to see.
“No one say a word.”
No one had.
Good discipline.
The enemy was obviously listening.
What was the best play?
Get the demigod. Destroy the focus of the ritual circles keeping his dad out. Profit?
The only question was how to do that without getting the others killed.
He remembered that Madalena, Aims and few others from the Philippines were likely in the same place.
He was just about to call for the demigod when the ceiling opened up.
The bastard in question descended in a pillar of gold light.
Suiteonemiades only had eyes for him.
Well… shit… that’s right. He knows. Only question is how much?
Alin amended his rough plan.
“I don’t have time to waste, which means neither do you. I’ll give you a chance to save all of them. If you’ll but listen to what I have to say.”
“Sure.”
The glowing wall winked out.
He stepped forward hesitantly.
The demigod cast a shadow like an old oak. Immense enough to make the wide chamber feel suddenly cramped.
“Follow.”
Up the pillar of gold and into a spacious corridor of the same dark metallic stone.
Empty except for the occasional automaton of bronze-colored metal and magic standing guard or patrolling.
He considered attacking the broad, obsidian back, but thought better of it.
It wasn’t a fight he could win.
He hadn’t grown strong enough since the last time he had tried and failed miserably.
Faces flashed across his thoughts.
Ones he recognized and one that was blank because the baby had never had a chance.
“I will show you first. Then you will listen to my tale. After that you shall decide.”
“Let everyone go unharmed first and I swear to hear you out.”
“Child, you have power, but not enough to dictate terms. My largesse is unheard of amongst my kind. They would do what they will with you and your friends before beating you to suit their purposes like a blacksmith hammers a blade or chestplate. In truth, you are beyond fortunate that it was I who won the right to be the Gods’ spear upon this world. Did you know that the raping would have already begun? The eagerness of many of the soldiers are only surpassed by that of my cousins.”
“That would the worst idea. I might not be able to hurt you, but the soldiers… they’d be dead before you could stop me and since you want something from me…”
Suiteonemiades laughed.
A sound of boisterous happiness.
“I would disinclined to interfere. Rape is a special type of dishonor. Those that perpetrate it deserve to suffer before a just death.”
The demigod stopped suddenly.
The wall disappeared with one gesture of an arm the size of a small tree trunk.
A transparent glowing wall flowed with script.
Another cell, but much larger than his.
Meant for long term occupation.
“You see, child. There is no need for you to hide your truth for I already know.”
Madalena paced on the other side of the wall.
Alin reached out, but stopped before he touched the wall.
His dad’s cousin looked angry.
Which was good.
Aside from her missing arm, she didn’t look like she had been imprisoned for over a year.
“Untouched with one exception. However, as you will see, your kin endured the Enysomen Crown better than the others.” The demigod turned the wall back into the dark metallic stone with another gesture. “The crown was meant to aid the Gods with managing their memories. Eternity is a long time to collect them after all and their storage space isn’t infinite. Thus, it is taxing when worn by mortals. Your kin’s superior constitution allowed her to weather it.”
Unlike the others.
The demigod showed him Aims and people he didn’t recognize.
The latter from Manila.
The only thing they had in common was surviving the fog.
Older men and women that didn’t deserve to suffer more and yet there they sat in their cells.
Staring blankly into nothing or rocking themselves back and forth in the fetal position on their beds.
“I don’t regret subjecting them to this. I did it for my one, true purpose.”
“Let me guess. I get to try that crown on next?”
“Well, aren’t you the prescient one.”
He found himself in a small chamber made smaller by the demigod’s bulk.
The chair reminded him of the dentist’s clinic. Infinitely more comfortable, but infinitely more intimidating.
The Enysomen Crown’s sharp tines dug into his head uncomfortably.
Pressure and pain, but not as much as one would expect from needles into the brain.
“I know what you are. I have obtained hidden records from ancient archives at great personal cost, but I must know for sure.”
“Why?”
“It’s pointless to tell you until I know that I can use you.”
Approximately 26 years passed in reverse.
Alin blinked back to reality with a pounding headache.
Suiteonemiades stared down at him.
“That was your mortal life.”
“What?” he slurred, felt drool dripping down his chin.
“One minute, one year. Would you like to know what is at stake for the ones you care about?”
“Huh?”
The demigod sighed and pulled a bright potion from his bag.
Clarity came with the sweet, fruity taste.
Alin remembered.
The entirety of his life that he had just re-lived and his present situation.
“You still haven’t said what you want from me.”
“I want your true self.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Well… you need some time to recover, so how about I tell you a story and perhaps you can glean understanding. Or I can show you how the battle above is going? Your father and uncle have decided that mercy and a light touch are no longer necessary. Every military structure, government building and monument are either burning or been reduced to rubble. Skyships battle my aerial forces and your world’s strongest face my cousins and eidolons. So many have already perished in their wakes.”
“Listen, let me stop it. You let me talk to my dad, we can put a pause on things while we negotiate whatever it is you want from me.”
“This isn’t a negotiation, child.” Suiteonemiades directed his attention to a strange orb set into the dark metallic stone wall. “Opsmatiosi. A humanoid species that may share origins with the monster that your magus of the many eyes stole from. Their head makes for a powerful scrying artifact… within range and reason. Perhaps, you’d like to see how the people you care about are doing while you listen.”
Alin tested the restraints and found them a match for his strength.
“It seems I don’t have a choice.”
“That is true.”
The artifact opened a giant eye as big as a human forehead. Smaller eyes opened around it.
A projection fuzzed into existence as the demigod took a deep breath and began.
“My true name is Phosfuriae. I didn’t realize it’s full meaning until I was a grown man. You see, my mother gave it to me. She had said that I was her little light that led her out from the darkest tunnel of her life. Again, I didn’t understand until much later.”
Hayden paced on the bridge of a skyship. Glowing lights on her armor told a tale of random discharges of electricity that came with agitation.
The bridge wasn’t like any of the other skyships he had been on and he didn’t see any rangers manning the stations. Indeed, he couldn’t tell who was who because their helmets obscured their features and the projected image was slightly fuzzy.
“-Tezuka’s just deployed. T-minus 30 for portal. Inform Glowy.”
“She’s ready.”
“Captain! High-speed sensors just triggered. Quadrant 37. Mach 1— make that 3— 6… steady at six.”
“Get that predictive algorithm on it!” The captain tapped and swiped quickly on his holographic control panel. “Once it spits out the projected path link Relentless directly to it.”
“Proximity mines,” Hayden grunted.
“He’s running close to civilians.”
“It’s done!” A curse. “Sorry—”
“Forget it. Send it to him.”
“Track prediction has him on an intercept course with our—”
So, Alin thought, they got the experimental skyship up just in time for this clusterfuck.
“She was a demigod like me. Daughter of Sunor, who sits most high, ruling over the pantheon. But that didn’t afford her protection from the machinations of other Gods. For we are spawn to them. Tools to be used and disposed of as they saw fit. Naturally, grandfather didn’t see fit to inform my mother that he had bargained her to Suiteonem.”
The demigod, Ekraiades, light where Phosfuriae was dark, ran with easy strides, leaving a trail of sparkling golden lights in his wake. Like flickering fireflies.
The Opsmatiosi artifact slowed it down so Alin could see more than just a golden blur.
Every person and monster that the demigod ran past moved as if they had been submerged in glue.
“My mother was a true hero. Fighting injustice, slaying monsters and doing anything to forward her father’s dominion. For she believed in his lies. That there must be civilization. That order needed to be imposed. That there were fundamental rules that must be followed. Of course, that only applied to lesser beings. Not Gods. And what was her reward for centuries of loyal service to her very father?”
The image shifted to a familiar golem.
Chrome rolled on tank treads at the head of long, snaking convoy made up of a motley assortment of vehicles.
The image swept through the entire convoy quickly.
Congresswoman Johnson-Lopez stood inside the bus filled with her staff and people from her neighborhoods.
Mist Spekters rode in armored trucks.
Gun and spell fire filled the cold night as monsters and rabbit people fell on them like ants on a caterpillar.
“Oh fuck!” Victor brought up the rear on Razorwind. The robot horse could fit several people and it was filled to capacity.
Once again, Alin couldn’t quite tell who the others were because their helmets obscured their faces.
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The street erupted underneath them.
Razorwind leapt, but a smaller pillar of earth struck him from below, scattering the riders to the street.
The rabbit people pounced, red eyes wide, mouths foaming, dicks waving obscenely.
The truck ahead of them had screeched to a stop and reversed, but it wasn’t going to make it. Machine gun fire on the horde was as effective as a toy water pistol against a raging house fire.
Clawed hands reached—
Sudden fire!
The horde burned!
Victor and the others piled into the back of the truck with Razorwind back on his hooves, clattering alongside them and firing his weapons at the monsters and rabbit people attacking from the side alleys and rooftops.
“Suiteonem is a God of arrogance and violence. The two concepts fill the bulk of his portfolio. He went to her forest home and said nothing as he took her. Weeks of punishing defilement until he was certain— that I had been— implanted in her.”
- Chrome emptied machine guns taken from the local supply. Huge drums of ammo attached to her golem’s arms and back emptied in seconds—
“I knew none of this. Wouldn’t learn of the truth until I had spent close to 2 centuries laboring to further my father’s goals.”
The congresswoman stood next to Chrome’s golem, flanked by Dre and a few others. They faced off with an average looking man in the middle of the street, standing a top a small hill he had made by pulling the earth from beneath the asphalt.
“Little light, she always called me. It was just the two of us in the modest home deep in the heart of the Crystal Forest where dazzling crystals grew alongside the foliage and fruit upon the trees. 10 years of happiness for me. She never once let slip how I came to be. I found and saved those early memories once I grew powerful enough to recall them.”
“— your family. Evacuate with us!” the congresswoman pleaded. “There are children! Civilians! Please, Devyn! We’ll get your wife and kids. You have to see that it isn’t safe here anymore.”
The man had pulled up walls of earth around the convoy. Tall and steep. It continually crumbled to prevent the monsters and rabbit people from climbing it.
“Because I had forgotten them. A combination of my child mind protecting itself from the trauma inflicted when my father deemed it time to send for me.”
Ekraiades surged from up the street.
Twin trails of burning air shot down from the sky, forcing the demigod to swerve.
He tried again and again, but the twin trails kept him from reaching the convoy.
“The shit-eating filth never does things peacefully, you see. He could’ve sent a message or ordered his minions to refrain from violence. Who’s to say that my mother wouldn’t have given me up peacefully had it been an option?”
Golden light and white hot flame clashed.
Entire blocks of the city spontaneously combusted in their vicinity.
Buildings, trees, living things.
Nothing was spared.
“—dess of War. Submit and received honor, wealth and power beyond what your quaint little world can provide.”
“And I am the Phoenix Empress. She who shelters the eternal empire of flame beneath her wings. Submit and receive your life back.”
“I watched her end. Despite only lifting her weapons and using her magic to deal with the occasional wandering monster that entered her forest, she reaped a bloody toll on my father’s minions that warm summer’s day.”
“Glowy’s on the field. Trailing Tezuka. Moving into Quadrant 12 as planned.”
“Intake?”
“10% and steadily rising.”
“I want targeting solutions for the cannons yesterday! We’re firing at 50%. I don’t want to risk an overload once Tezuka really starts ramping up.”
“God energy signatures closing on them. One demigod. No ID yet. 10 eidolons.”
“Combined armed forces?”
“Unknown. Interference on visuals.”
“It’s fine. Cal’s aware.”
“She was as skilled as she was powerful. She would’ve defeated a demigod twice her age. It would’ve taken dozens of eidolons to kill her. An entire army wouldn’t have been enough. Thus, my father had sent more. I remember that day often. It gave me the resolve to spend nearly a millennia in my father’s service. They ripped me from her, but she made them pay. I never learned if my father thought I had been worth the cost.”
— Emerald Raptor banked and twisted his flying wing like a skier slaloming through his gates, except in 3 dimensions—
— harpies—
— Interceptor Threnosh— skyfuries— manticores— ranger drakes and wyverns— skyfury squadron— Marian—
Blood and metal rained.
“Do you understand?” Golden eyes shined down. “What my one true goal is?”
“To kill your father. But, they’re made out of energy.”
“That is correct. Ascension brings immortality, but not invulnerability. The divine energy can be dispersed or altered, if not destroyed. My problem is that the consciousness remains in the energy. It may take thousands of years, but eventually the God will reassert themselves and return as if nothing had happened. Do you want to know one of their darkest secrets?”
“You can maybe share it with my dad and, I don’t know, team up? It sounds like you don’t care about any of the Gods.”
“Your father lacks the capability to give me what I want.” Phosfuriae gave him a mirthless smile. “The secret is that the fastest and easiest way a God can return is through their children. The divine energy in our cells is the same as theirs. Not many of my half-siblings and cousins know this truth.”
“Then how did you find out?”
“He told me. Violence and anger gives him strength. He wants us me seek vengeance for it makes him stronger. His arrogance won’t allow him to consider the possibility that I, that any of his children, can succeed.” The demigod laid a hand large enough to cover his chest. “And, thus, we come to your part.”
— frozen landscape. Monsters, men, buildings. None were spared. All but one. A demigod that made Alcaestus look like an average-sized person charged against a freezing gale, breaking the thick layer of ice constantly forming on his lavender skin.
Cryonic set his jaw and thrust his hands toward the demigod.
Two of the most powerful beings on the planet locked in a duel with no regard for their surroundings.
“Swear a binding oath and we shall leave this world. I swear to destroy the barrier keeping your father and uncle from entering the city. Think of the lives lost with each second that passes. We both know that your father can stop that in a second if I bring the barrier down.”
“Don’t make big decisions under pressure.”
“Unfortunate, for you and for them. This could’ve been done in a less stressful situation. I need to go back further to be sure.”
Pain flooded his brain.
The second time was quicker than the first.
The difference between 26 years and just a little under a year.
Eyes watered, tears mingled with the thin trickle of blood from his forehead.
Bile rose.
“Not me. That wasn’t me.”
“Debatable. Why don’t you watch some more while we wait for you to come back.”
How much real time had passed?
The congresswoman’s convoy had grown. It was clear they had picked up people as they fled the city heading northwest parallel to the river.
Chrome still led the way in her golem, which had been mangled.
The man named Devyn clung to the golem’s back, raising walls and spikes of earth against the rabbit people continuing to chase them.
Captain Patriot, Death’s Dancer and a dwindling group of soldiers fought desperately to keep the rabbit people from the civilians under their protecting. No vehicles meant they had to run.
It was like an entire heard of injured wildebeast beset by every hyena on the savanna.
The rabbit people ripped men, women and children from the fringes.
The lucky died quickly.
“An abomination. A 100,000 years ago they were normal people, like you and me. See the works of the Gods and tremble in despair!” Phosfuriae laughed bitterly.
Alin could agree with that.
The magic used to alter the rabbit people was beyond heinous.
The perfect horde army.
Capable of obtaining sustenance from the tiniest blade of grass.
Their minds shattered irrevocably.
Eat, kill and breed.
In no particular order.
Although, the latter was what made them truly terrifying.
Males could impregnate any sapient humanoid females. Their sperm flooding the unfortunate victims reproductive system to impregnate every single egg in their body.
The females took sperm from any sapient humanoid male with the aid of short range pheromones that overrode their victim’s terror and will.
Gestation was a matter of weeks to a month or two.
Female victims died agonizingly when the rabbit people fetuses began to eat their way out.
Male victims were luckier in a sense. They usually died in the process from claws and teeth tearing into them as they were eaten alive.
The magic spat in the face of biology.
Sometimes they failed to make the distinction between the biological sex of their victim.
The screams were drowned out by the vocalizations of the rabbit people.
Until they all exploded into red and white mist.
“Ah! There he is. A little late, your father. His attention must be pulled in so many different directions.”
Finley, Ghost Sorcerer, Rayna’s Ranger approached a huge mansion.
An iron barred fence melting behind him.
A gesture turned the entire front facade of the mansion into glittering butterflies in a rainbow of colors.
Cabal and their atrocities stood revealed.
Even as the city burned and thousands died around them.
“Cambion!” Ghost Sorcerer roared. “You’re the last!”
Politicians and generals cowered in their bunkers as bloody shadows writhed around them.
Soldiers splintered, fighting each other as much as the rabbit people and monsters until they stopped and, as if coming to a collective decision, decided to sell their lives dearly to help civilians flee the carnage.
A many armed and many headed giant monster ripped entire houses from their foundations to use a missiles against the dark spearheads in the sky raining fire on its armored hide.
A presidential motorcade fled north.
They might have made it had their tires not suddenly gone flat.
The white-furred horde descended on them.
They fought until they ran out of ammo, mana and stamina.
President William T.K. George re-lived his soldiering days for a few minutes.
Fear and terror bled together with exhilaration.
Unlike most of the men and women dying around him he was intelligent enough to save one bullet.
“They’re all the same. Small mortals without a proper sense of scale.”
A house interior.
A portal stone hidden inside the case of a mana stone activated.
A little girl screamed.
She had been agonizing over which stuffed animals to take with her.
The alarms had been blaring.
Explosions shook the windows.
Lights flashed.
“Avery!”
“Mommy!”
Mother barged in, carbine readied.
“Don’t—”
Trigger squeezed.
3 round burst.
Bullets deflected by magic shield.
Spell orbs floated around Swan Princess.
Magic cords wrapped around the mother’s limbs.
The father tried to move around his wife for a clear shot, but suffered the same fate.
Reena stepped around Swan Princess to smile at the little girl.
“Come with me if you want to live!”
Alin was surprised to see one of his friends.
“No, seriously. The rabbit people are, like, 5 streets away,” Reena said.
“You’re on Ghost Sorcerer’s list,” Swan Princess said. “So, I’m going to unbind you and you’re going to step through that portal.”
“Mr. Finley?” the mother said.
“You’re quick on the uptake, good.” Swan Princess dismissed the magical bindings.
“Where does it lead?” the father said.
“To a place without rabbit people 3 streets away.” Reena helped the little girl stuff dolls and stuffed animals into her own bag of holding.
The parents rushed to grab their own bags before entering the portal just behind the ranger and little girl.
The bedroom window shattered just as Swan Princess stepped through.
“I was aware of many things, but I am not ashamed to admit that I was unaware of that,” Phosfuriae said. “Now—” he frowned.
The projection fuzzed, switching to show a familiar chamber.
The cell chamber a short walk away.
Many of the cells that had once held his friends and teammates were now empty.
A heavily armed woman in the best Threnium power armor Rayna’s Rangers had stood in the center of the chamber.
She wore a bright yellow construction hardhat instead of a proper helmet. She still had a full faceplate though.
Phosfuriae gestured.
The image fuzzed to the other cell chambers in quick succession.
Empty cells with one Rayna’s Ranger standing in the center.
5 total.
“Automatons proceed to prison chambers and subdue intruders.” The demigod narrowed his eyes. “Not magic, which means a Skill. And a powerful one at that to bypass my defenses. Castling Skills aren’t particularly rare once you get into the higher levels, but none of those people are over Level 60, which means… well, everything is possible in the spires worlds.” He nodded, satisfied. “They replaced less valuable hostages with more valuable ones. Quality over quantity. Powerful individuals dictate the terms of conflict, not the weak masses. Time grows short. You will swear that binding oath or I will kill them all.” He gently grasped Alin’s right pinkie finger. “From what I’ve seen in your memories, pain is useful to my purpose.”
A simple twist, like, pulling a grape off its stem.
Pain indeed.
“See.” The demigod directed Alin’s eyes to the stump. “The real you is just waiting to be released.”
No blood.
Just thick, dark gray wafting in every direction.
“Watch. Call for me when you decide you want to save their lies.”
The image projected by the artifact that was once a living person’s head fuzzed.
One became many.
A projection from each eye showing a different live shot of the demigod’s sanctum.
“Why the fuck did you refuse my Skill, dumbass?” Mouthy said.
“I’m not leaving my team,” Galen replied.
The two rose up the golden pillar of light from the prison chamber, joining the others.
Automatons clanked and whirred toward them.
“Hold fire,” Captain Butcher said.
The handful of automatons bore cuts and gouges all over their bronze-colored metal bodies
Each held their arms up in the universal sign that they meant no harm.
“I guess Cal wasn’t lying about this,” Hardhat said.
One automaton gently tossed a notebook, of all things, to the ranger captain.
Another walked past them, halting in front of a seamless wall. It plugged its grabbing claw-like hand into the dark metallic stone and opened a door into another wide corridor.
“Galen, Mist Spekters, follow that one. It’ll take you to your gear and show you the way out of this place. A shuttle will meet you outside.” The ranger captain tossed the notebook back to the automaton.
“Wait! The demigod took Alin,” Elisa said.
“No shit,” Mouthy muttered.
“We’ll get him,” the ranger captain said.
“Where are the other prisoners?” Galen said.
“We’ll free them on the way.”
“Then we’ll at least wait here for them.”
Alin struggled against the restraints.
The crown sent spikes of pain through his brain with his movements.
“Some help?”
He felt their presences.
The echoes of his relatives were reluctant.
He knew why.
Phosfuriae hadn’t been subtle about what he wanted.
Their divine energy couldn’t be destroyed, but what if the soul or essence could be subsumed by a nightmarish entity?
Death for all intents and purposes.
A door opened in the seamless wall.
An automaton walked in.
Its human-like face was an impassive mask of bronze-colored metal that appeared incapable of movement.
It held an open notebook over Alin.
The words were written with machine precision.
I am Kranaxus.
Do not be afraid.
I will free you.
Kranaxus arm opened to reveal tendrils, which plugged into the side of the chair.
The restraints slid open, disappearing into the chair.
Alin jolted like a cat let out of a trap, wincing as the crowns tines tore tissue.
“Thanks, Kranaxus. My dad told me about you. Can you help me with this?” He gingerly tested the crown.
The automaton wrote while probing said crown with his tendrils.
I do not know.
“Alright, just try, but make it quick. We don’t have time.”
Phosfuriae walked through a dark corridor as if he was on a leisurely stroll through a park.
Broken automatons appeared every so often.
More had been scattered in the corridor where the long term prison cells were located.
“C’mon, people! Get up!” Madalena exhorted her fellow prisoners.
Only Aims had managed to rouse himself from bed.
The rest continued to clutch themselves in the fetal position, staring at nothing.
The ranger read from the notebook an automaton held up for him.
“Hey! Madalena!”
“What?” she snapped.
“They’re working for Cal. They’ve cleared a path out of this place. We’ll still have to get through a bunker complex that might have people and soldiers to get outside where a shuttle’s going to pick us up.”
She locked her gaze to the automaton.
“Can you guys carry them?”
The automaton wrote.
“That’ll be a yes,” Aims read. “Hey, where’s my revolver and gear?”
Another automaton beckoned.
Alin regarded his finger on the dark metallic stone.
His stump continued to leak gray, but the finger itself lay in a small pool of blood.
Kranaxus stopped fiddling with the crown to write.
“Thanks for trying.”
It can be pulled out if you are unconcerned with pain and damage.
“I can heal.”
He grasped the crown in both hands and took a deep breath.
Darkness.
He woke up supported by Kranaxus.
“How long?”
The automaton held up one delicate-looking tendril.
“Can you show me where my gear is?”
Kranaxus nodded.
Alin took one last look at the floating projections before picking his severed finger off the floor and putting it into a pocket.
If he could get it to a bag of holding then maybe it could be reattached.