Now, Earth
Nila hit the Deep Azure like a missile.
Her shield slammed into its back and drove it forward a few steps.
Its hand went forward and Veronica took the opportunity to let go.
Rather than get slammed into the ground with the Deep Azure’s immense strength, the teenager merely hit the ground hard.
She rolled and made sure to cradle the small bag to her stomach in order to protect Twinkle Star.
“I shouldn’t have brought you along,” Veronica whispered as she slowly uncurled her body.
Twinkle Star’s indignant squeaks were his only answer.
Veronica saw Tessa nearby and rushed to her older sister’s side.
“C’mon, get up, you need to shoot that creepy thing,” Veronica tried to pull Tessa up.
“Everything hurts and I’m seeing two of you… spinning,” Tessa groaned.
“No time for that, Aunt Nila needs our help!”
Nila had to take a moment to recover from the tremendous clash. It was like hitting a steel wall with a car. She was the car.
The Deep Azure stood in all its ominous might.
Nila could feel those damn thoughts creepy around the edges of her mind.
The Deep Azure stared it her with its lidless eyes. Like ocean whirlpools that led to an empty and eternal abyss where all hope went to die with a whimper.
Nila felt herself falling.
Until the Deep Azure raised a massive, muscular arm and beckoned her to it.
“So, that’s how it is?” Nila got an impression that the Deep Azure was magnanimously granting her the opportunity for physical combat. Despite the fact that it could end her will to resist or even exist with a thought. “Fine, your mistake,” she spoke with a bravado she didn’t feel.
Nila rushed in and slammed her baseball-bat like club into the side of the Deep Azure’s knee. The shock reverberated up her arm.
Twenty pounds of metal struck with every bit of her super strength, enough to pound deep dents in bank vault doors, barely moved the Deep Azure.
It punched out, almost too quick for Nila to react.
She raised her shield.
The blow sent a sharp spike of pain up her arm.
Nila scrambled back, while the Deep Azure appeared to be content to stand there like a damn statue. Its deep blue scales, like armor, glittering in the torchlight.
Nila would’ve called it beautiful had it been just that, a statue, rather than what it was, an abomination given physical form to walk her home and perform its abominations on humanity.
The massive, fist-shaped dent in her shield pushed painfully against her arm.
The throbbing pain was excruciating.
Broken.
She realized that the Deep Azure’s punch must’ve broken her arm.
The Deep Azure attacked.
Nila had no choice.
She struck out with her weapon, while raising her shield to block with her broken arm.
Nila cried out in pain as her vision temporarily blackened.
The next thing she knew was lying flat on her back staring up at obscene carvings on the temple ceiling that made her sick.
“Hey, ugly! Take this!” Veronica shot the Deep Azure with a finger gun.
The electromagnetic pulse washed over it.
Ineffective, just like before.
There was another loud bang and a powerful shockwave of wind that sent dust and loose rocks flying, whipped up in the relatively confined space as if a tornado had briefly spawned.
A small hex nut, so tiny and insignificant, yet given great power flashed through the air and struck the Deep Azure in the back of its head.
The blow rocked the Deep Azure forward.
A handful of perfect deep blue scales twinkled to the ground.
“Fuck you, fishy fucker!” Tessa snarled
The older sister was supported by the younger as both shot rude gestures towards something that was as old, powerful and inscrutable as eldritch gods in the fictional works of their world.
The Deep Azure turned from the fallen Nila and marched toward the two Cruces sisters.
“Do it again!”
“Trying,” Tessa fished out another small piece of metal out of the small bag at her side. She held it in her hand aimed and magnetically accelerated it to supersonic speeds.
The tiny missile nailed the Deep Azure in the chest.
More glittering scales, each perfectly the same as the other, fell to the ground.
The Deep Azure kept coming.
“Oh crap… my kanabo,” Tessa grimaced.
“Got it!” Veronica sprinted toward the discarded weapon. She heard her mother’s cry of horror as the Deep Azure reached out as she ran in front of it.
It was quick, but so was Veronica.
She jumped up and used its arm as a spring board. She skidded to a stop, grabbed the kanabo from the ground and slung it to Tessa in one smooth motion.
“Eat this!” Tessa lined up her shot and fired the kanabo straight into the Deep Azure’s face.
The missile flew too fast to track.
Those without enhanced eyes didn’t see anything. They only heard the impact.
If the earlier shots had been akin to gunfire, then this was a massive bomb.
Everyone was jarred by the shockwave and brought to their knees by the sound of it assaulting their ears. The humans, the fishman, even Tessa and Veronica, none were unscathed.
When the dust cleared the Deep Azure still stood.
Except, it was injured.
Its perfect cheek was marred. In place of glittering scales was an angry-looking wound, exposed flesh, dark as the blood dripping down to its chest.
The shattered remains of Tessa’s kanabo were scattered all around. Some of the shards had been driven deep into the stone walls and pillars.
The Deep Azure opened its mouth.
It was fortunate that they had been partially deafened by Tessa’s attack. This time the effects of the Deep Azure’s words weren’t as pronounced.
The fishman on the first level finally moved.
They approached Veronica, who was now trapped between the thirty or so fishmen and the Deep Azure.
Two things happened in quick succession.
First, a human shape came flying down from the second level to land in the midst of the fishmen.
The Deep Azure regard it for a moment, but continued its walk toward Tessa on the other side of the temple.
“Eldritch Dart!”
A woman’s voice was accompanied by a flash of pinkish light as an ethereal projectile, small, like a crossbow bolt flew from above and struck the Deep Azure in the back.
The dart penetrated to the shock of all. It stayed in the Deep Azure for a few seconds before it vanished.
“I know your nature! I can hurt you! You stay out of my head! I reject your presence!”
Tessa recognized the ranting woman up on the second level.
It was Alexa.
“I reject you from this plane of existence! You don’t have a place here! Obscenity! Wrongness! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!”
Tessa grew hopeful.
The Deep Azure waved a hand in Alexa’s direction.
She gave the most ear-splitting cry and fell back.
“Damn it,” Tessa muttered.
The Deep Azure slowly turned its head back to her.
----------------------------------------
Hanna couldn’t use her Skills. She had a feeling that she needed to save her energy for her best one, the right moment.
It wasn’t too much of an issue for her. She preferred to rely on her actual skills, proper technique rather than whatever the spires did to allow people to go into autopilot for specific moves.
She swept her greatsword across in front of her and deflected the spine-like bolts from the fishmen’s organic-looking crossbows.
Hanna gave a silent thanks to passive Skills that didn’t drain stamina beyond the norm.
Her opponents were stunned by the display, which gave her a moment to glance beyond them. Thanks to the downward angle of the second tier platform she could see over their heads down to the first level.
Things didn’t look good.
Veronica had been sent flying.
Nila was down.
A loud boom shook her and everyone else inside the temple.
People, fishmen, allies and enemies, everyone and Hanna looked down at the Deep Azure.
Tessa had hit it with her best shot.
Hanna narrowed her eyes.
It had barely budged, but for a few scales off the back of its head.
Another loud boom had Hanna gritting her teeth against the pain and ringing in her ears. Even with her hearing muffled from the first boom, the second one still got through.
Movement out of the corner of her right eye.
Alexa stumbled to the railing.
There was space for her, but now she was exposed, no longer hidden behind their tanks.
The Deep Azure opened its mouth.
The sound it made was incomprehensible and indescribable.
Hanna expected to be brought low once again, but to her surprise she was mostly fine. No sudden spikes of despair and rage.
A lucky side effect of hearing damage.
“Keisha!”
“What?”
“I need you to throw me there!” Hanna shouted at the top of her lungs. It felt like she was wearing a noise-canceling headset. She pointed urgently at the thirty or so fishmen on the first level as they started to move toward Veronica, who was caught in between them and the Deep Azure even as it stalked toward Tessa at the other end of the temple.
Keisha gave her a look and shrugged.
Without preamble the bigger woman grabbed the back of Hanna’s plate armor. One hand on the collar and the other on the bottom.
“Power Throw!”
Keisha yelled as she spun Hanna around once, twice then threw her clear over the heads of the cultists and fishmen down to the first level.
Hanna weighed a little over two hundred pounds with all her gear and armor.
Keisha threw her a good one hundred and fifty feet.
An impossible throw made possible by the Skill and Keisha’s Enhanced Strength.
“Shit!” Keisha took a clubbing tentacle across her armor-covered back. That’ll teach her to drop her shield in the middle of a battle.
“On me!” Olo stepped in front of her and drew the next set of attacks, blocking them with his shield.
In many ways they were fortunate that the enemy was content to attack from a distance.
Especially, the fishmen. It was strange that they were content with shooting volleys from their crossbows when they would’ve crushed in close combat.
Keisha picked her shield up and drew her hammer to step up next to Olo.
“Get her back here!” Keisha gestured at Alexa.
The young woman had actually fired a magic spell at the Deep Azure and was now ranting at it.
Olo moved in that direction when Alexa suddenly gave a piercing shriek that shook them all to the core. She fell back and lay still on the cold stone tiles.
The fishmen aimed their crossbows at Alexa’s unprotected form.
“We need to retreat!” Captain Hamill shook his head. “Can’t keep this up.”
Keisha felt like she had earplugs in. She could barely hear the man. “Fuck off! We ain’t leaving our people.” She read the captain’s lips well enough.
Olo’s mouth moved a split-second before the crossbows twanged.
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His voice was soft.
No one heard his words.
Keisha couldn’t read him.
To those watching, Olo’s big form crossed the twenty feet or so distance to Alexa in the blink of an eye.
Perfectly placed to intercept every single spine-like bolt.
Olo fell to his knees.
Most of the bolts stuck out from his large shield.
A few, however, stuck out of his body, through the armor.
“I need cover!” Keisha shouted.
“Fireball!”
Gene’s blast exploded in the front ranks of the cultists. One took the brunt of it and remained still on the ground, charred.
The rest fell back in shock, which gave Keisha and a few others the opening to run over and drag Olo and Alexa back to the relative safety near Bastien at the rear of their formation.
Olo was in bad shape.
The spines had gone right through his plate and mail. One in his thigh, one in his spear arm, two in his torso. One of the latter looked bad. It was right in his gut. The front of his pants were already soaked red.
“Heal him!” Johnny tugged at Bastien’s sleeve.
Bastien gave a look of pure anguish and paused his prayer.
The light around him dimmed and everyone instantly felt a massive wave of despair crash over them.
“I can’t stop. If I do then we’re all dead,” Bastien looked at Olo, “sorry, bro, but I can tell that my healing ability isn’t good enough for that.”
“Not your fault,” Olo said through grit teeth.
“Fuck that, heal him!” Johnny roared.
“We’ve got only one person, who can fix it,” Mads said.
Johnny’s head whipped around and followed Mads’ pointed finger.
All the way on the other side of the temple Megan stood at the railing staring down with anguish at her daughters’ plight. She didn’t notice the cultists slowly sneaky up on her from one of the tunnels on her side of the second level.
“Fuck it! I’ll bring her over. Cover me,” Johnny said.
Mads nodded. “Only got four rounds left, but I’ll get it done. Don’t screw this up.”
Johnny couldn’t go left, that way lay cultists and fishmen.
Going around to the right was clear, except for the cult leaders up in a third level box. He’d be exposed running right under them.
“Save a shot or two for those shitheads up in their luxury box,” Johnny said. He took a deep breath and suddenly everyone lost track of him. Sight, sound and even smell. They all couldn’t notice his presence.
Down below, Hanna hit the ground in a roll.
She thanked her enhanced physical attributes for allowing her to survive the flight and landing without serious injuries. She’d be bruised and sore in the morning, assuming survival, which she wasn’t actually counting on.
She was surrounded by roughly thirty fishmen after all.
The fishmen didn’t wait for Hanna to recover. Nor did they attack one by one.
They swarmed her from all directions.
Hanna stepped to her right and parried a spear thrust.
The fishman was significantly stronger than her, but momentum and leverage won out over brute force, even if the impact rattled Hanna’s bones.
She continued the step and spun around to let another thrusting spear pass inches away from her side.
Her blade flashed in the torch light. High to low, a down-angled slice from right to left across a fishman’s exposed back.
The armor-like scales parted for Hanna.
She had drawn first blood.
Hanna danced in and around stabbing spears and teeth-like swords.
Her greatsword cut arcs around her.
Perfect footwork and unnatural reflexes was the only thing keeping her from slipping off the narrow edge she trod upon.
One mistake meant her end.
The fishmen’s strength would render her armor mostly useless against a direct thrust or stab.
Hanna’s breathing grew labored. Her helmet grew hot and heavy. Sweat ran down between her eyes.
She overextended.
One foot, off in placement by an inch.
It was enough.
A fishman stabbed her in the thigh.
She managed to turn and deflect the sharp point, rather than take it full on.
The impact still caused her to stumble, which opened her up to a different fishman.
Its sword clanged and skidded off the back of her plate armor.
A lucky break.
Hanna whirled, sweeping her blade back.
The fishman caught the tip with its throat.
Hanna couldn’t stop. She had to keep moving.
The fishmen kept closing in.
Jabbing from all around her.
They shrank the circle. Hemmed her in. Gave her no room to maneuver.
Hanna was out of options.
Except for one.
“Tenfold Cuts.”
Hanna slashed her blade out in a vertical cut, high to low.
The fishmen dodged back, but several in front of her fell back.
Dead.
Limbs severed. Torsos partially sliced open.
Multiple cuts appeared on the fishmen even thought the physical blade hadn’t passed near them.
Hanna turned and sliced across at shoulder level in an 180 degree arc behind her.
Blood suddenly spurted out of several deep lacerations on multiple fishmen. All the way from their waists to their heads. Even fishmen standing in the back ranks weren’t spared.
Hanna slashed and stabbed her blade all around her.
The fishmen had no idea how to respond as she scythed through them like wheat.
It defied explanation. As did most things from the spires.
Hanna’s blade struck with ten times the speed and cutting power she could normally exert. The single blade struck as if it was ten blades and it reached out ten times beyond the length of the physical blade.
Hanna didn’t stop until all the fishmen were bloody chunks.
When she did. She crashed hard.
Her arms dropped. She could barely keep her grip on her sword. Her legs shook from the effort to keep her standing.
Hanna looked up, her eyes heavy, at the tumult on the second level behind her.
Megan stared down, imploring Hanna to go help Tessa.
“Sorry,” Hanna shook her head. She had done her best. It was up to somebody else now.
Megan turned her desperate gaze back to Tessa.
The Deep Azure slowly strode to her daughter, like the tide, inevitable. It seemed to be savoring the terror and despair it was inspiring.
Tessa’s face was a mask of defiance, but Megan could see the fear in her daughter’s eyes. A mother noticed such things.
Someone shouted a warning.
Megan turned to the voice and followed the frantic gestures to her left.
She quailed at the sight of several cultists slowly approaching her from the side.
Now that they had been noticed they broke into a run.
A loud gunshot echoed through the cavernous temple.
Mads had put the slug through what seemed to be the lead cultist up in the third level box. The man had the slick, untrustworthy look of a car salesman or a politician.
His head rocked back, but he didn’t fall.
When he brought his head back there was a hole in one eye and out through the back of his head.
Mads felt sick.
With her enhanced vision she could see it all with precise detail.
The hole in the man’s head was devoid of blood or brain matter. It looked like she had poked a hole in a lump of dough.
Mads looked away as the man glared at her. There was enough terrifying things to deal with at the moment. The cult leaders appeared content to merely watch the battle. Besides, she had accomplished what she needed. Three rounds left to make a difference, she leveled her shotgun across the way to the other side of the second level.
Unnoticed by all Johnny ran beneath the third level box.
He sprinted desperately to catch up to the cultists before they reached Megan, which was doubly difficult by the need to hold his breath lest he completely drop his stealth mode. As long as he wasn’t breathing it’d take someone with enhanced perceptions on a higher level than him to notice he was around.
Johnny couldn’t hold it, he gasped for breath.
Perfect timing, right as he was closing with the rearmost cultists.
The two men turned.
Johnny sucked in a breath.
The men blinked in confusion.
Johnny plunged a short spear in each of their chests.
He ran past them, while drawing a karambit in each hand.
The knife blades were curved and pointed, like a tiger’s claw. Their cutting motions were designed to follow the natural punching movements of the human arm. It was perfect for Johnny as he slashed at the backs of the cultists legs when he ran by them.
The ones that bled, found that the bleeding was beyond the norm thanks to one of Johnny’s Skills.
The ones that didn’t were a problem.
Johnny drew their attention by attacking.
One tripped him up with the tentacles coming out of their upper lip.
Johnny cursed. “Motherfucking nightmare fuel Zoidberg!”
The tentacles grasped at his legs and arms. He slashed at them, but they kept coming.
Bang!
The cultist’s head exploded.
Johnny scrambled to his feet.
More tentacles reached for him.
Bang!
Johnny didn’t need to worry about what was behind him for the moment.
Megan was close, but so was the last cultist.
Johnny hurled his knife.
It spun through the air.
And struck the back of the man’s head.
Johnny groaned.
The ringed pommel hit hard, but not fatally.
The man turned.
A fatal mistake.
Megan laid a hand on the back of his head.
Johnny turned away. He had seen many terrible things in the last few days.
What Megan did to the cultist probably topped everything else.
“Um… Olo’s going to die. You have to heal him… please,” Johnny pleaded.
Megan looked down to where her daughters were in danger.
The seconds ticked away.
“Okay.” Megan was being useless standing and doing nothing. If she could save a life, then she had to, even if it wasn’t her daughters. “But, how are we going to get past them?”
“The luxury box assholes?” Johnny shrugged. “I’m pretty sure Mads has one more shot. She’ll get them to put their head down when we run under.”
Megan had one last hope.
Once she healed Olo, she’d try to convince everyone to attack the Deep Azure.
If they wouldn’t, then she’d do it herself.
Her life for her daughters’ was a good trade.
Bang!
True to Johnny’s word, Mads gave them the opening to dart underneath the occupied third level box.
They rushed to Olo’s side.
“Pull the bolts out,” Megan commanded.
Olo winced, but screwed his mouth shut. The barest whimper escaped his lips.
Megan felt the pain. He was so young. She had seen him grow from a gangly teenager to a big, bull of a young man, yet here he lay, dying from a gut shoot.
“Get back!” Megan snapped. Her hands went over the wound and began to glow.
Rumbling in the tunnels shook the temple.
Dust and debris showered down on everyone.
“What now?” Gene said in disgust.
“Probably an earthquake, with our luck it’s the big one,” Johnny spat.
The sound appeared to be getting closer.
Building and building until a great gout of debris shot out of one of the lower level tunnel entrances into the temple.
“Get away from my daughters, you bastard!” Remy roared as he shot out of the tunnel. Directly at the Deep Azure.
----------------------------------------
Remy had ripped chunks of metal ore out of the surrounding earth in his mad dash through the tunnels, through the fishmen that had tried to stop him.
Hundreds of pounds of jagged metal shards and rock-crusted metal cores pierced and bludgeoned the way forward as Remy pushed everything in front of him with a powerful magnetic field.
The painful spikes when he called on his power had mostly disappeared. It was more like a dull headache in the moment.
He had left the fishmen as bloody smears against the carved stone surfaces of the tunnel.
The long, straight tunnel carried sound well.
Remy’s superior hearing meant that he heard all of the details of the battle at the other end long before he drew close.
What he had heard brought him on the verge of panic.
He heard his wife’s anguished cry as his daughter, Tessa, roared.
Megan wasn’t supposed to be down here.
More loud words, another voice he recognized.
Veronica.
Remy put on a burst of speed. He moved faster than a car, but it was still too slow.
Time. His mental state did strange things to his perception of it. Seconds felt like minutes, felt like hours.
Another voice sounded out that shook him to the core. High-pitched and utterly alien it actually hurt him, physically and in more ways that he couldn’t adequately describe if he had to.
He took the ore from one of the basketball-sized chunks floating in front of him and flattened it. Shaped it into a small, disk-shaped object, like a trashcan lid.
Without stopping he directed the disk down to his feet.
Remy hopped on and flew faster, much faster.
The throng of fishmen ahead didn’t have a chance.
Remy battered his way through them using a densely-packed wall of metal and rock.
The fishmen would’ve had more of a chance against a runaway train.
Remy burst through the tunnel exit out into a cavernous space that reminded him of the church he had to go to back in his Catholic school days.
Except, it was all wrong.
He felt sick just being inside.
He processed things faster than a normal human. This meant that he took the sights in quickly. The alien sculptures set into the stone pillars that held up the second tier platform ringing the oval-shaped ground floor disturbed him. The carved images in the same floor were mirrored by those on the high, domed ceiling and on the walls. They depicted some kind of story, but Remy couldn’t hold on to the images even if he had wanted to.
Nausea forced him to clench his jaw shut.
Part of him understood that it was probably for the best that his mind couldn’t quite fully comprehend what he was looking at.
Focus.
He needed something to focus on.
He found it in front of him on the other side of this temple to obscenity.
Tessa was struggling to stand.
His daughter leaned against a partially broken pillar, shooting small pieces of metal at a walking nightmare.
For a moment, Remy thought that it was some kind of super fishman. Like a boss level creature or perhaps their own version of himself.
Remy shouted out with all the rage of a desperate father watching his precious daughter in mortal danger.
That thought was dashed out of Remy’s head when the eight-foot tall giant turned to look at him.
Its unblinking eyes drew him in like an ocean whirlpool.
Swirling, swirling down into the deep, dark depths.
What do you value most? What will you do to protect it? What will you do if you are not strong enough?
The chunks of metal and rock orbiting Remy wavered and dipped down to the ground. Some fell, cracking the stone tiles with loud thuds.
Remy remembered.
The giant figure covered in perfect deep blue scales was no mere fishman.
This was the Deep Azure.
“Dad!” Tessa cried.
Her voice snapped Remy back.
Come then, show me your value. Earn your place in my service.
Remy looked to his left.
Veronica stood in front of Hanna, who could barely stand. His daughter held Hanna’s greatsword in one hand as she swept it back and forth to keep the fishmen at bay, while more poured of the tunnels.
Remy looked up to the second level behind him.
The angle of the platform gave him a good view of his people, Megan included, as a mix of cultists and fishmen slowly surrounded them as more of the latter appeared out of the nearby tunnels.
To his right at the far end of the temple, Nila cradled her left arm to her body. She wielded her bat in her right hand in a desperate struggle as more fishmen and cultists emerged from the tunnels to slowly encircle her.
Remy returned his attention directly ahead.
The Deep Azure stood like a statue as it loomed in the space between Remy and Tessa.
It was too much. Too many people where in danger.
Remy couldn’t save them all.
Or could he?
He decided that he’d try. No matter the cost.
Dozens of magnetic fields sprang into being all over the temple interior.
The strain on Remy was immense. Beyond anything he had attempted before.
He pushed through it with a roar.
Hundreds, thousands of metal shards split off from the objects Remy had orbiting around him.
They shredded through the fishmen and cultists, while leaving his people untouched.
For them it was like being inside a tornado. Wind and metal whipped around them in a frenzy. Turning their enemies into small chunks. Blood, the red of humans and the almost black of the fishmen liberally coated the walls and floors.
It was all the people could do to huddle together lest they brush against the death whirling around them. Eyes shut at the horrible sights. Ears closed at the sounds of those dying. Sheer terror as the enemy was sliced and ripped to pieces.
It was over with stunning quickness.
Remy collapsed to one knee. His breathing came in ragged gasps.
The Deep Azure opened its mouth.
The sound drove Remy down to both knees as he plugged his ears in vain.
Sounds sent a spike of fear through him.
He heard it even through the pain.
Hundreds of feet slapping the stone tiles echoing out of the tunnels. More were coming from every direction.
His efforts had only bought them seconds, a few minutes at most.
Remy pushed himself up just as the Deep Azure struck him with its massive fist.