Now, Earth
Tessa hurled the broken spear shaft at the creepy old cultist woman.
“Mage Shield.”
A fat, pervy-looking man raised sausage-like fingers up and Tessa’s missile broke against a glowing red shield.
Fishmen swarmed at Tessa.
She was faster and stronger than them and their numbers meant that they got in their own way.
Tessa slashed and stabbed with the tooth-like sword she had liberated from a fishman. It broke after getting stuck inside the fourth fishman she killed.
She jammed the broken sword under a fishman’s chin and used his dying body as a makeshift weapon to clear a small circle around her.
Bolts, bullets and spells started to fall around her now that she wasn’t in the middle of a scrum.
“Shit!” Tessa grunted as a few of the attacks hit her.
Without armor she took damage. Bolts and bullets broke her skin, but didn’t penetrate all the way through her dense muscles. Spells singed her flesh and burned her hair.
Tessa fell back as the fishmen piled on her.
They hauled her up and started carrying her toward the altar.
Tessa kicked and punched, but couldn’t find enough leverage to get completely free, before more hands replaced the ones she had managed to shuck off.
There was almost a sense of solemnity to the procession to the altar. Almost religious.
Except for Tessa’s loud cursing.
She wanted no part of whatever obscene ceremony the cult and the fishmen had in mind for her.
Her dread and desperation grew as she redoubled her futile struggles.
Unfortunately for her she was all by herself. Surrounded by enemies in a profane temple beneath the ocean floor. The sun’s light didn’t reach down here. Only a dark god’s eyes gazed upon the proceedings.
Tessa spat in the god’s eyes.
As did those that cared for her.
Nila charged out of one of the tunnels on the second tier.
The cultists were focused on Tessa down on the first floor. They were not prepared as Nila smashed them with her heavy baseball bat-like club.
Ranged attacks bounced of her extra-heavy rectangular shield as she mowed her way around the second tier platform encircling the temple.
Broken faces and bodies were left in her wake. She wasn’t holding back. Superhuman strength displayed how devastating it could be against those without comparable defenses.
“Tessa! Hold on to your brain!” Veronica called out.
“What the fu—”
“For justice!” Veronica pointed a finger down at Tessa and the mass of fishmen.
Tessa tried not to bite her tongue as Veronica’s electromagnetic pulse sent every muscle in her body into spasms.
The fishmen dropped her as they too started to seize up.
Tessa stood up with a groan. “That hurt!”
“Sorry!” Veronica called down. “Here!”
Something metal glinted in the torchlight as it spun through the air.
Tessa grinned.
She caught her kanabo in one hand.
“You fuckers are dead!”
Tessa laid into the downed fishmen like their head’s were watermelons and she was Gallagher. She had never understood why her father had found those old videos so hilarious. As she pulped fishmen heads, she, perhaps, started to understand.
“Tessa! Catch!” Veronica threw a bag down.
Tessa already knew what was inside. She felt it through her magnetic abilities. She caught it and immediately pulled a handful of the contents out.
She locked eyes with the old cultist lady staring down with undisguised hatred. “Block this,” she snapped her hand out and magnetically accelerated a handful of nuts and bolts at the old lady.
“Mage Shield!”
The pervy fat guy again. Except this time, his magic shield didn’t hold up beyond the first few projectiles. The shield shattered and the cultists in the third level box ducked down to avoid the metal rain. Not all were quick enough. A few fell with holes in their bodies.
The cultists weren’t shooting down at Tessa. They were busy with Nila coming from one direction, while Veronica and Mom attacked in the other.
Here and there cultists seized up and dropped over the railing down to the first level thanks to Veronica’s targeted pulses.
The less said about the grossness that happened to the cultists her mom touched, the better, as far as Tessa was concerned. She’d ask her mom about it later.
Tessa wasn’t sure what to do next when the answer presented themselves in the form of more fishmen coming out of the tunnels all around her.
Good.
They all deserved to die and they saved her the trouble of hunting them down.
“Foolish child!” the old cultist lady stood up. Her hands on the broken stone railing that Tessa had just shot to pieces.
Tessa had to give it to the old lady.
“Are you that crazy? You’d stand up when I’ve got a handful of metal ready to send your way?”
“The Deep Azure protects me. I am the Grand Priestess. Your earthly powers cannot harm me, so long as I have faith.”
“So… crazy it is then,” Tessa shrugged.
The old lady looked down haughtily, like old school royal family style. Tessa had watched the show with her mom before Netflix stopped existing ten years ago.
“You’ve done nothing, but delay the ritual. If you don’t wish the honor, then perhaps your mother or sister will serve,” the old lady smiled.
“Over my de—” Tessa frowned. “Let’s make that, your dead bodies, in that we will kill you all before any of your evil, creepy rituals have a chance of happening.”
“Yeah!” Veronica spat as she clubbed a screaming cultist over the railing and down to the first level. The man’s tentacle arms waved wildly before his necked snapped as he face-planted into the stone tiles. “Kill you all!”
Tessa noted the look on their mom’s face. She wasn’t happy about any of this.
“Indeed, the ritual must continue,” the middle-aged man next to the old cultist lady said. He reminded Tessa of those lame car salesmen in commercials or like a politician with his slick hair and perfect suit. Who the hell wore a suit to a fight to the death inside a deep, dark temple to evil?
Upon reflection, Tessa realized that the man’s appearance fit.
The old cultist lady narrowed her eyes at the man.
“The Deep Azure requires a sacrifice to take a more… direct hand in events. He has been most displeased by recent events and your mismanagement, Laura. There is no more time to waste.”
“What are you talking about, Mitch?” Laura sneered.
“Your leadership has been found wanting, but in honor of your service you will be granted a great honor, the greatest. I understand you’ve never had children. Well, this is your chance.”
Tessa couldn’t believe her eyes. What kind of dumbasses fought amongst themselves in the middle of a battle with very dangerous people.
Upon further reflection, she realized that it was on brand for an evil cult to stupidly infight.
Still it was a shock to say the least as several tentacles erupted out of Mitch’s body to grapple with Laura. It took seconds, but he had disrobed her of her strange, deep blue robe that seemed to swirl like the ocean’s surface and lowered her naked body down into the fishmen’s waiting hands.
Laura struggled and cursed, then called on the Deep Azure as the fishmen carried her toward the altar.
Tessa was transfixed. She didn’t know what to do.
Above her on the second tier, her family continued to fight with the other cultists and some fishmen that had appeared out of the tunnels.
Tessa backed away. The altar was in between her and the procession.
It was obscene.
“This is what you wanted, Laura,” Mitch called down, “you will know and be known by the Deep Azure more than any other human being on this world.”
“What kind of weird bullshit is this?” Tessa spat.
“Watch closely, little girl. That could’ve been you. So, maybe you’ll reconsider being difficult. It’s not too late to surrender and join us. Now that Laura has so graciously taken your spot on the altar, you can have a spot on the inner council. Same with your parents and sister. You too, Nila Chen. With all of you on our side we can expand our territory, bring peace and safety to more people. Make our state, our country great again!”
“Shut the fuck up!” Nila snapped as she clubbed a cultist over the head. “Your kind never changes.”
“I curse you, Mitch!” Laura roared.
“Jesus, Laura, have some dignity. This is our most hallowed ritual and the greatest honor a woman like you can earn,” Mitch said.
Tessa eyed the fishmen around her, but they had backed away and seemed to be more interested in watching whatever they were going to do to Laura.
“Please, help me!” Laura begged.
Somehow, Tessa knew that the old lady wasn’t talking to her fellow cultists.
Laura sounded really terrified, but then again she was going to have Tessa go through the very same ritual.
“Why? You were gonna do the same to me,” Tessa said.
“Please, please, I’ll do anything you want!”
Turn about was fair play. Quid pro quo, her Uncle Cal had been fond of saying.
Still.
The cult really wanted this ceremony to take place.
So, that meant she didn’t want it to take place.
Tessa tightened her grip on her kanabo.
The fishmen seemed to sense something was up. They shifted toward her.
Tessa threw her free hand out.
Magnetically accelerated metal bits shot out with a loud bang that reverberated through the temple.
The fishmen carrying Laura fell, perforated.
The old lady tried to scramble away, but more fishmen grabbed her.
Tessa charged, but was met by a wall of fishmen.
They clashed.
The solid metal kanabo was close to fifty pounds and wielded by a superhumanly strong young woman.
The fishmen weren’t nearly as strong as Tessa on a one on one basis, but they had numbers and they cared not for their own lives.
Tessa fought, but she couldn’t make any headway as Laura was carried to the altar and unceremoniously mounted by one of the fishmen.
“Veronica, don’t look!”
Tessa heard her mother’s shout. She couldn’t see over the fishmen. They were too tall.
The agonized sounds Laura made were enough to let her know that she didn’t want to see.
“The ritual!” Mitch cried out in sheer delight.
Tessa grit her teeth. That man went on her smash list.
She swung her kanabo and sent a group of fishmen flying like bowling pins.
A spear skimmed against her side, tearing through her shirt and flesh.
The pain brought tears to her eyes. She poked her kanabo out and crushed the fishman’s throat.
Tessa stumbled back a hand over her side.
The fishmen were content to keep her at bay, while the horrid ritual continued.
Tessa would never forget the sounds that came out of Laura’s throat.
It seemed to go on forever.
Seconds, minutes, hours.
It could’ve been any from Tessa perspective.
The thought of it threatened to overwhelm her senses. Until she remembered that she wasn’t alone in the temple. Her family was here as well. They would all share in the same fate that the cult and the Deep Azure intended.
It was certain to be a dire one.
Soon, all Tessa could hear was Laura whimpering.
“It is done,” Mitch intoned.
The man had put on Laura’s robes.
“Gaze upon the Deep Azure as it is birthed into our world!”
That didn’t sound good.
Tessa backed up and jumped to the second level platform to join her mother and sister. Her Aunt Nila was still fighting on the other side.
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Tessa helped her sister clear the area so that they had some breathing room so that she could finally see what the hell was going on.
Tessa would regret what she saw on the altar.
Laura was on her back, arms and legs chained to the four corners.
“What the fuck!” Tessa said.
“Don’t look!” Megan hissed.
“Too late, Mom,” Veronica said in a small voice. “I’m going to be sick… again.”
Tessa noticed the puddle of vomit on the floor a few feet away. Come to think of it, she too was feeling nauseous. So many things in the temple elicited that reaction. Worse of all was the sight of Laura.
The old woman’s eyes stared blankly up into the domed ceiling.
Her stomach was huge and distended. As if she was nine months pregnant. That should’ve been impossible. Her stomach was as flat as a board earlier. Before—
Tessa didn’t want to remember what she had heard, just as much as Veronica and their mother must’ve regretted the sight of the obscene and evil cult ritual.
There was no warning as Laura’s stomach suddenly exploded in a shower of gore that had Veronica puking again.
The fishmen started chanting something in a strange high-pitched language that prickled Tessa’s skin.
“It’s so wrong,” Tessa whispered. She didn’t want to believe her eyes. “No one deserves that.”
Despair filled her thoughts, her being. Her kanabo suddenly felt heavy as she watched a small figure emerge out of Laura’s ruined stomach.
A spike of pain threatened to send her to the ground, but Tessa fought it off and willed her vision to stabilize. From the sounds of it her sister and mother were fighting the same struggle.
Tessa focused on the scene down below.
A baby?
No, a fishman baby?
Except, not exactly. It looked different. Its scales glittered in the torchlight a deep, dark blue, almost black, not like the silvery gray of the normal fishman.
The small figure grew with impossible speed, right before their eyes, until it towered over the average fishman.
Tessa would’ve guessed at least eight feet tall.
It was big and broad shouldered with an obviously strong musculature, like it was carved out of marble, so smooth and perfect. Every scale on its body seemed to be perfectly fitted with the others.
Its face was the worst part.
It married the human and fishman. Half from each side, melded together in a way that made it terrible to look at, but impossible to tear your gaze from.
“Ladies and gentlemen! The Deep Azure has deigned to manifest a physical avatar to walk amongst us and rule!” Mitch crowed. “Rejoice for you have witnessed the birth of a new golden age of peace and prosperity!”
A roar answered the new cult leader’s words.
Just not the kind he had expected.
It was one filled with anger, boiling over into rage. It came from one of the tunnels near where Aunt Nila fought desperately against several cultists and fishmen as they lashed at her with tentacles and shoot spines. She was struggling. Her movements looked slow and weak.
Hanna emerged out of the gloom. Her greatsword flashed in the torchlight as she beheaded a fishman in passing.
Keisha was a step behind her as she powered two cultists over the railing with her heavy shield.
Tessa smiled as she saw her friends emerged next, along with over a dozen people she didn’t recognize.
“Hey, Tessa, how does your head feel?” Veronica said quizzically.
“Fine, I guess… fine…” Tessa came to a sudden realization.
Her head felt better than fine. It was clear in a way that it hadn’t been since they had come to San Francisco. She no longer felt pressured and dirty by the thoughts in her head. Her power didn’t bring her sharp pains that she had been ignoring and powering through on sheer desperation.
“I have a theory,” Veronica said.
“Do go on,” Tessa tested the weight of her kanabo by swinging it around faster and faster.
“So, like the Deep Azure tried to get us all to kill ourselves, like yesterday back at this ex-secret agent guy. It did it by doing this sort of mind whammy making everyone depressed, except me. It didn’t really hit me as hard, so I used a huge brain blast to drive it away—”
“Get to the point,” Tessa kept her eyes on the Deep Azure as it stood motionless, like a statue, watching the fight above it.
“Right, sorry, so, like if the Deep Azure is right there,” Veronica pointed down, “then maybe it can’t do all that mind crap we’ve been dealing with.”
“Yes, that seems likely,” their mother said. “Except, we don’t know how long we’ll remain free of its mental influence,” her eyes were haunted, “so we need to get out of here now!”
Tessa shook her head. “Sorry, Mom. Can’t. Don’t know the way out and we can’t leave our friends. We have to kill it.”
A chime sounded in Tessa’s head.
She didn’t have time to read the notification or ask her sister and mother if they got it too.
Because their friends had made a mistake.
They had cleared their immediate area of cultists and fishmen.
Several of the people that Tessa hadn’t recognized, armed with weapons taken from the cultists and fishmen, jumped down to the first level and charged the Deep Azure and the fishmen in a mad rush.
Hanna and the others didn’t want to abandon them, so they too followed.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit!” Tessa jumped before Veronica or her mother could stop her.
Her friends were going to get slaughtered.
Didn’t they see how much power the Deep Azure was packing in its tightly coiled muscles?
Tessa didn’t roar a battle cry. She flew through the air silently. Her kanabo in a two-handed grip over her head. She aimed to smash the back of the Deep Azure’s head.
He didn’t have a chance.
Or at least that was the plan.
The Deep Azure met Tessa’s kanabo with an almost lazy-looking backhand.
The clang rang out like an explosion and caused everyone else to cringed and cover their ears. Even the fishmen, especially the fishmen.
Tessa had no idea what had happened.
The next thing she felt was her back crashing into one of the stone pillars on the far end of the temple. Right below where the cult leadership watched from their third level box with bated breath.
Tessa’s vision darkened and her thoughts drifted away, despite her grasping fingers.
She dimly heard her sister shouting something about justice as her mother cried out her name.
Then the Deep Azure spoke.
----------------------------------------
Remy was rushing.
He knew, deep down that he was out of time. He didn’t know how or why, but something was shouting it into his ears.
The pain in his head from the usage of his power dwindled with every passing moment. However, that voice in his head suggested that it wasn’t an entirely good sign.
Remy magnetically shot the borrowed machete into the fishman’s scale-armored chest.
Too deep.
When he pulled the machete back the fishman’s body came flying with it.
Fishmen came out of the side tunnels.
Remy directed the machete and the attached body towards the closest tunnel, blocking the way.
He dashed forward, plucking the machete free to slash it into a fishman on his right.
What he lacked in proper technique, he more than mode up for with his overwhelming strength advantage. The slice wasn’t clean, but the fishman’s head still went flying.
Several borrowed knives shot forward like missiles.
Fishmen died.
Remy reluctantly gave silent thanks to those three cultists guards for having so many weapons on them.
He magnetically pulled the knives back to hover around him.
The deeper he went the more he bathed himself in the fishmen’s dark blood.
He always kept one of the two machete’s in his hand.
The borrowed weapons dulled, then chipped and finally broke.
He kept the axe strapped to his back as a last resort for when he inevitably ran out of jagged metal shards.
Remy hit several dead ends through the dim tunnels that forced him to back track.
The fishmen acted strangely.
At times they attacked him with ferocious abandon, while at others they were nowhere to be found.
The tunnels continued to twist and turn as it split into multiple branches before converging back into one.
Remy rushed forward through it all. The dim light provided by the unearthly, glowing moss-like substance was as bright as daylight to his enhanced vision.
Time ticked down as Remy’s panic started to grow.
Remy stopped and punched a crater into on of the disturbing sculptures carved into the wall. It was mildly nauseating to look at, but he had more important things to worry about it.
Remy let loose with a primal scream of frustration and rage.
A scream suddenly cut short.
Remy blinked.
He finally figured it out.
Go down the tunnel with the most fishmen.
They were desperate to keep him from going forward. The way they were practically trying to drown him with their bodies was the answer.
Keep moving in that direction.
Remy vowed to make the fishmen’s efforts futile.
Nothing could stop him from getting to his daughter.
He heard it echoing down the tunnel.
The sounds of the dying.
Remy threw himself into a wall of fishmen with a half-broken sporting goods store machete in each hand.
----------------------------------------
Now, Threnosh World
The pain from the lack of skin on the upper left side of his body was blunted by the Threnosh medical gel coating it, along with his own adrenaline.
Still, the impact as Cal slapped Mother Madrigal’s long arm aside to get in close, stung. He pummeled her in the face.
He half-expected his hand to vanish inside the black void covered by her flesh hood, but his fist connected with something solid within.
Even then the hood didn’t give up its secrets.
Cal still couldn’t see Mother Madrigal’s face, despite being so close.
Oh well.
He didn’t really need to see her face.
It was probably a horrific sight judging by the rest of her.
Cal’s right fist jack-hammered into the Mother’s face, while he kept a tight hold on her right elbow with his left hand.
Alas, a three-fingered grip was about two-fingers weaker than the full five.
Mother Madrigal twisted her impossibly long arm out of Cal’s grasp and slashed him across the face with sharp nails.
Cal was lucky he turned his head away and closed his eyes.
All he got were shallow cuts rather than blinded eyes.
Cal kept punching, but the Mother threw him off.
He reached out and grabbed for anything. His hand latched on to one of the Mother’s many hands lining her flesh cloak. He squeezed tight, grinding her finger bones together.
The Mother hissed in pain and unfurled her cloak in an attempt to throw him off.
Like a dog on a rope, Cal didn’t let go.
He grabbed another of the Mother’s hands. Three fingers were weaker than five, but more than strong enough to break more of the Mother’s.
Cal’s back slammed into the wall.
The air was driven from his lungs and he let go of the Mother’s broken hands.
Cal ducked as claws gouged deep furrows in the metallic wall behind him.
He propelled himself into the Mother’s embrace with his legs.
Telekinesis was off the table. He need the full power of his mind to keep the Mother occupied in their simultaneous mindscape struggle. Out in the real world Cal could only rely on his physical power.
It felt strange. Like he had locked away half of him.
No, no, no.
He was getting distracted.
Focus on the fight!
The Mother’s flesh cloak engulfed Cal in darkness.
Panic started, but was just as quickly snuffed out.
Cal struck with tight hooks into Mother Madrigal’s statuesque body.
It felt like hitting a mix between flesh and hard crystal.
Warm, cold, both, neither.
The Mother’s skin bruised and cracked underneath Cal’s fists.
He could feel, hear the breath driven out of her.
Light.
The dying sunlight from outside the cavernous tunnel hit Cal’s eyes.
The Mother had opened up her cloak.
He was caught off guard.
Cal didn’t see the Mother’s flesh skirt shift.
Something beneath it came up too fast for him to block or dodge.
A hard blow struck him in the chin, causing him to bite his tongue.
He thought of a mouthguard.
A tiny, incongruous thought that dangerously took up a place in his thoughts when he needed complete focus on the fight with the Mother.
A vise-like grip grabbed both his ankles.
The back of Cal’s head slammed into the metallic ground.
He saw white and sparkling stars amidst the encroaching blackness around the edges of his vision.
He threw his arms up over his face to take the brunt of the blow against the side of the tunnel.
The ceiling approached Cal in a rush.
He blinked and found himself standing inside a school gym.
A wrestling mat sat unfurled in the middle of the basketball court.
Everything was red and gray with stylized roaring lions painted on the court, the walls, stitched on the banners, stenciled directly onto the mat.
Well… I am waiting.
Mother Madrigal stood inside the circle behind a small white line.
Cal took a step forward toward the white line on his side of the circle.
He stopped.
“Tricky, but not this time.”
Cal pushed forth with an expression of his will.
Mother Madrigal resisted.
Their silent, invisible battle was manifested in the blurring and distortions in their environment. In their shared mindscape.
Out in the real world they battered each other with physical might.
In here their minds struggled.
Slowly, but surely the gym environment fizzled out and was replaced inch by inch with a featureless off-white room. A cheap, folding table materialized in the middle of the room right in front of Mother Madrigal.
A small tower appeared on the table. It was made out of dozens of small wooden blocks, crisscrossed and piled on top of each other in many layers.
What is this nonsense?
Cal could tell that the Mother was indignant at the affront.
She was right to be.
He was mocking her to keep her off-balance, unsteady.
“This is our epic challenge. Two enter, one leaves. Take a block, but do not bring the tower down.” Cal reached for the middle of the tower and pulled out a block.
This… this… lacks gravitas… dignity.
“You’re turn,” Cal smirked, “unless you want to quit.”
Cal watched as the Mother’s large fingers reached toward the tower sized for human hands. He had created it that way on purpose.
Was it cheating?
Perhaps.
He didn’t care. He was facing an ancient monster. He’d cross many lines for victory. Failure meant death or worse.
Without warning the tower suddenly grew to a size more appropriate for Mother Madrigal.
She reached out and pulled out a block near the bottom of the tower with smooth ease.
You are not the sole master of this domain.
Cal cursed.
He shrunk the tower to his preferred size and pulled out another block.
The Mother grew the tower again and did the same.
They went back and forth for what felt like days.
The tower teetered precariously as one by one the blocks disappeared.
Cal searched for a block to take.
A difficult choice, fraught with peril. One wrong move and your fragile world comes tumbling down on your head and on all those you profess concern for.
Cal was struck by how much of a smug monster the Mother was.
He didn’t make his move. He waited and pondered. His hand reached out, but pulled back a dozen times. He could sense that the Mother was growing impatient.
Until, finally the moment he had been waiting for arrived.
A loud sound shattered the eerie stillness of the mindscape.
What?
“It’s the sound or whatever it is you use to manifest,” Cal gestured, “all this. Whether this is some form of telepathy or your singing or music is a manifestation of said telepathy, I don’t know. I can’t really tell and ultimately it doesn’t matter. You and I share similar mind powers, that much I know. The difference is, Frequency’s sound doesn’t affect me like it does you.”
The sound grew with intensity.
Mother Madrigal wavered. Her hands clutched the sides of her hooded head.
Cal was merely uncomfortable. It was loud, although was it really a physical sound for him inside the mindscape?
The sound rose to an impossible high note and shattered everything.
The tower, the room, Mother Madrigal’s and Cal’s representations.
Nothing was spared.
Cal blinked back in the real world.
Was he?
“Honor, I have ensnared Mother Madrigal in my field!” Frequency said.
At least that’s what it sounded like to Cal. He had both his hands around the Mother’s neck, throttling her as she lay on the ground.
Which meant that he was also caught inside Frequency’s sound field.
“You must exit immediately!”
Cal narrowed his eyes.
Frequency’s translucent faceplate slightly obscured their face, which made it difficult to read their lips. The Threnosh lack of lips presented a challenge, as did Cal’s general lack of skill when it came to lipreading.
Cal shook his head. “Don’t let up!” Mother Madrigal grabbed his head in her large hands and squeezed. He tried to shake them off, but couldn’t without releasing his own grip, which was impossible. He needed to keep her within Frequency’s field. “This is our only chance!” He could feel the vibrations shaking every cell inside his body. Rending and tearing. So strong. “Focus everything you have!”
Cal accepted his fate.
It was worth it, wasn’t it?
His life to remove an ancient evil from this world.
He had no choice. He had seen inside the Mother’s thoughts.
She had grand designs on the Threnosh world and beyond to his own.
Because of him, the Mother knew intimately about all the people he cared about.
Cal couldn’t let her reach them and do the same thing that she had done to him.