Now, Earth

The Deep Azure cracked Remy through a stone pillar over thirty feet away.

Remy’s vision flickered as darkness encroached around the edges. He struggled to breathe in the air that had just been forcefully driven out of his lungs.

The Deep Azure turned its attention to the people on the second level as Remy struggled and failed to get back to his feet.

It moved quickly for its size and apparent weight. Stone tile cracked underneath its feet as it ran straight for the people.

A few paltry spells struck the Deep Azure and did nothing.

It reached the edge of the stone platform and grabbed it.

The Deep Azure turned its head, deliberately fixing Remy with an unblinking gaze.

You have taken my servants. I shall take yours.

It pulled.

The thick stone protested with a great rumbling groan for a moment.

The people tried to turn back and run for one of the tunnels. They were forced to stop by the sounds of approaching fishmen.

They were trapped.

The stone beneath their feet crumbled and brought them all crashing down to the temple floor.

Dazed, they didn’t immediate notice the Deep Azure looming over them all.

The dark shadow it cast over them in the torch lights signified their doom.

By dint of misfortune, Captain Hamill and Jimenez tumbled down to the ground closest to the Deep Azure.

Captain Hamill recovered first. He had managed to shield Jimenez from the brunt of the fall by placing his body between hers and the ground. Bruised and battered from falling onto the rocks and stone floor, the captain still managed to climbed to his feet and charged the Deep Azure.

Brave, but doomed.

The Deep Azure allowed Captain Hamill to thrust his fishman spear into its stomach.

The captain was a big and strong man. He was sorely disappointed when the spear point skipped of the Deep Azure’s scales.

The Deep Azure raised a fist.

Captain Hamill swallowed the lump in his throat, but held his head high, back straight. He recognized the being in front of him. Its touch on the captain’s mind had made a coward of the man several times during the mission.

Not one moment more.

The mission’s success or failure was out of the captain’s hands now.

The Deep Azure’s fist descended.

Unlike, Remy, Captain Hamill had a normal human’s durability.

The Deep Azure crushed him into the ground like a bug.

Shouts of dismay filled the temple.

Jimenez shut her eyes tight and waited for her end. How could she fight something like a god? It felt inevitable, like a riptide pulling her out into the ocean. Why struggle? Wasn’t it easier to let the end come? At least the nightmare of the last several days would finally be over?

Insignificant.

“In The Zone!” Keisha barreled forward with a hoarse cry.

She blocked the Deep Azure’s punch, which would’ve smeared Jimenez into the ground like Captain Hamill. Her shield buckled, bent and broke, along with her arm behind it.

“Get back you idiot!” Keisha hissed.

Jimenez scrambled back to the bulk of the group.

The Deep Azure regarded Keisha as if she was more than an insignificant insect.

The woman was tall and strongly built. Fitting for an ex-collegiate shot put athlete. She had only gotten stronger in the years after the spires appeared. Her enhanced physical attributes passives pushed her beyond her old limits. She could bench over 500 pounds and Enhanced Stamina allowed her to workout harder, longer. She would’ve crushed the Olympics in her current state.

Keisha slammed her sledgehammer into the Deep Azure’s knee.

The shock reverberated up her arm and she felt the hardwood shaft crack in her right hand.

The Deep Azure barely budged.

Keisha took a step back. The pain of her shattered left arm was a dull ache thanks to the adrenaline flowing through her veins. Her best active skill allowed her to ignore it and every unnecessary stimulus to focus all of her attention on the Deep Azure.

The swirling whirlpools in its eyes were barely able to tug on Keisha’s thoughts.

Keisha cocked her right arm back. Her hammer wasn’t going to survive another strike.

“Power Throw!” Keisha roared and put everything she had into it.

Her hammer’s metal head clanged like a gunshot off the Deep Azure’s face.

It rocked back half a step. It looked down at Keisha and opened its mouth.

One sharp tooth was broken.

Keisha’s best shot.

Despair filled her.

It wasn’t fair.

The Deep Azure moved too quickly for her to follow.

Keisha felt a heavy impact.

Then nothing.

Stunned silence.

Keisha’s crumpled body bounced off one of the stone pillars near Nila and fell to the ground in a twisted heap.

Nila would never forget Keisha’s face.

There was some mercy in the fact that it was mostly untouched by the horrific damage done to the rest of Keisha’s body. Since the beginning she had always been one of the strongest.

The Deep Azure had made a mockery of that strength. It had destroyed everything the woman was and would ever be.

Nila felt true despair.

It was over for her. She was going to die down in the depths of the earth. Would her family ever know? Would Cal?

“No! You fucking shitfish!” Tessa shot her last handful of nuts and bolts at the Deep Azure.

All she succeeded at doing was to strip a few more scales off the towering being’s body.

The Deep Azure slowly advanced on the terrified cluster of people.

“Stay back!” Bastien’s eyes were screwed shut. He prayed like he had never prayed before.

The light around him seemed to brighten as it pulsed.

Then the Deep Azure stepped into it.

The light died and Bastien gave out one last cry before falling to the ground. His halberd clattered amid the rubble next to him.

They truly knew despair at that point without the young man’s protection.

All hope was lost.

All thoughts of resistance fled.

All that was left was to accept their fates or lose their minds.

Some fell to the latter.

A soldier screamed and slashed their fishman sword indiscriminately around them.

Gene barely blocked it with his own blade.

The soldier dropped their weapon and ran blindly to their right.

The Deep Azure caught the young man and dashed his brains out against a nearby pillar.

The young man’s brutal murder was a trigger.

More people tried to run, heedless and frantic.

The Deep Azure caught each one.

I take your servants from you. Will you not stop me?

Megan wavered. Her eyes darted wildly beyond the Deep Azure. She could see her husband, her two daughters. Her mind was consumed with one thought.

Go to them. Go to her family. Safety and comfort awaited her.

There was a darker thought whispering insidious words.

Don’t you want to hold them one last time before you die?

“Yes,” Megan hissed.

She started to move.

A hand grabbed Megan’s ankle and brought her crashing to the ground.

“Don’t,” Del said through grit teeth. He was prone. His legs were trapped beneath several large chunks of rubble.

“Let me go! I have to get to my family!” Megan kicked at Del’s arms and head with frenzied desperation.

Nearby, Mads cradled her shotgun tight to her body as she sat on the ground and rocked back and forth whispering something inaudible.

Johnny crouched next to her. He hyperventilated as his eyes darted wildly around. He looked like a rat surrounded by a circle of cats. Searching for a way out where there was none.

Olo climbed to his feet. Megan’s healing had saved his life, but he was still weak. His hands were empty. Weapons and shield were forgotten at his feet. He tried not to look at the Deep Azure as it killed, but could not. It was like trying not to stare at the ocean when you were in tiny boat in the middle of it.

The Deep Azure seemed to be present wherever the young man looked.

“Leave them alone!” Veronica hit the Deep Azure with an electromagnetic pulse.

The shot pierced the invisible miasma that had blanketed them all.

For a moment their thoughts were mostly their own.

Veronica slumped to the ground.

Hanna was behind her. She was on one knee as she struggled to lift up her greatsword toward the fishmen that were beginning to emerge out of the dark tunnels.

Their reprieve was brief and time was up.

Enough for Remy to act.

----------------------------------------

Remy watched the Deep Azure kill his people. He watched it tower over them in all its dark power, like a wave cresting in slow motion before it crashed down to swallow them up and drag them away into the depths with no trace.

His wife was in danger. His children were in danger. Friends.

There was nothing he could do.

Despair filled him.

Veronica’s shout and pulse harshly vibrated through him and snapped him out of it.

Remy pulled Hanna’s greatsword out of her weak grip with a magnetic field and sent it whirling into the fishmen as they closed on her and Veronica. The blade slashed and stabbed with deadly speed, driving the survivors back to the tunnel entrances.

At the same time, Remy used more magnetic fields to gather up the remnants of Tessa’s kanabo and reformed it.

Tessa caught it in one hand and whooped with renewed vigor as she launched herself at the closest group of fishmen.

He sent a barrage of rock-encrusted ore at the fishmen threatening to surround Nila, giving her an opening to scramble back to the larger group.

Seconds had passed.

The Deep Azure seemed content to watch and wait.

That was fine with Remy. He ripped the ore out of the rocks around him and shaped them into long chains with his magnetic power. He made them stronger than steel. He was just beginning to create a full-body suit of metal armor when the Deep Azure moved.

It picked up a beach ball-sized chunk of broken stone in one hand and threw it at Remy with a lazy flick of its wrist.

The projectile’s loud boom shook dust and debris through the entire cavernous temple.

“Shit!”

Remy barely dodged out of the way thanks to his better than human perceptions and reaction time.

Stolen novel; please report.

The Deep Azure’s thudding steps heralded its next attack.

Again, Remy blindly dived to the side. He barely avoided the Deep Azure’s foot as it stomped a small crater into the thick stone floor. Cracks radiated out over a dozen feet in all directions.

Remy scrambled to his feet while using his magnetic control over one of his chains to send it snaking around the Deep Azure’s tree-trunk thick lower legs.

Remy grit his teeth. The effort to cinch the chain tight against the Deep Azure’s strength and weight was an enormous strain. Pain spiked through him. He ignored it.

He reached a hand out and sent the second chain wrapping around the Deep Azure’s thick neck.

He set a magnetic field at the other end of the chain and pulled it to the ground.

The Deep Azure barely budged.

Remy was forced to increase the attractive force beyond what he had expected.

The chain creaked and cracked in protest at the immense forces it had to endure.

Remy kept increasing the field’s strength. He was approaching the most powerful he had ever done in the past before the Deep Azure finally toppled to the ground.

Quickly, he created another field at the chain around the Deep Azure’s ankles.

Sweat beaded across Remy’s brow as he was forced to keep increasing the strength of the fields against the Deep Azure’s efforts to pull free.

“Hurry!” Remy pointed to the tunnel he had emerged from. “I carved arrows into the walls. It’ll take you back to Alcatraz. I’ll catch up and fly everyone out.”

Tessa kept the fishmen back from the larger group with sweeping strikes of her kanabo, while Nila and Veronica lifted large chunks of stone off the trapped people.

Those capable of moving unaided went toward the tunnel at Megan’s urging. They had shell-shocked looks on their faces.

They were moving too slowly.

The pressure and pain were building within Remy. He couldn’t hold the Deep Azure for much longer. He looked around desperately for something he could use. Maybe encase it in a metal sarcophagus.

A collective cry of dismay had Remy whipping his head around.

Fishmen poured out of the tunnel he had set his escape plan on. Dozens and dozens forced the people back.

Veronica was there with a high-pitched battle cry before the fishmen could fall on the people. She swept her staff in wide arcs to keep the fishmen at bay.

Trapped again

Remy despaired.

Become my greatest disciple and you save them. They will all be honored above all my followers.

The Deep Azure raised its head despite the immense pull of the chains down to the ground. The stone floor cracked underneath its hands as it slowly, inexorably, pushed itself up.

Be their savior.

Remy grunted with effort. He wasn’t going to give up.

You will be their doom.

Remy screamed as the chains around the Deep Azure’s neck broke along with the magnetic field and something within him.

The pain was as intense as anything he had experienced before. His breathing came in ragged gasps, but he could see the Deep Azure rising to its feet through blurred vision.

He had to push through. For his family, friends. He couldn’t surrender to the darkness.

The chains around the Deep Azure’s legs had loosened with the breaking of every one of Remy’s magnetic fields. He cinched it up tight with a thought, ignoring the pain.

The Deep Azure pulled at the chain, but it held fast for the moment.

“New plan,” Remy said through grit teeth. He had to think fast. He looked to Megan. How did she get down to the profane temple in the first place? She hadn’t come through Alcatraz, like he did. “Megan! Which tunnel did you come in from!”

Wide-eyed, Megan snapped to Remy with laser focus. She was like a drowning person reaching for that one rope. To that one chance of survival.

“That one!” Megan pointed to the second level on the opposite side of the temple.

Dozens of fishmen stood in the way.

Remy had left many scattered chunks of rock-crusted metal ore all around him. He picked them up with an expression of will and showered the fishmen in a hail of projectiles.

The fishmen were battered and broken by the barrage. The ones that survived were either in no condition to present further threats or fled. The way was clear.

“Can you find your way back?” Remy said.

Megan shook her head hesitantly. “I- I’m not sure…”

“I remember the way,” Nila said through grit teeth. Her pale face was covered by a sheen of sweat.

Remy nodded. He locked eyes with Megan. “Don’t wait for me. Get out of here. Go as fast as you can,” he said.

“What?” Tessa frowned.

“No, Dad!” Veronica turned her head to Remy in alarm.

“Hold on tight, honey,” he gave her a slight smile as he magnetically lifted Veronica’s staff into the air.

His teenage daughter was caught off guard and reflexively tightened her grip as she was carried up over everything toward the second level tunnel entrance. Twinkle Star squeaked in alarm from his place in her small bag.

“This is bullshit!” Veronica snapped, before letting go and crashing to the ground close to Remy.

“Damn it! What do you think you’re doing, young lady?”

“Sorry, Dad, but I’m not leaving you. We can take these losers.”

“We don’t have time for this.” Remy ground his teeth. “I can’t waste time.” He came to quick decision. Everyone was wearing some metal. Armor, parts of their clothing, belts, the weapons in their hands. “Hold on tight to your gear!” he yelled.

Remy tried to be gentle, smooth, with his magnetic power, but time was of the essence. He floated everyone up out of reach of the fishmen and to the second level. All except for Tessa. The glare she had sent his way let Remy know that she would’ve done as her little sister had to stay by his side. Instead, he let Tessa retreat from the fishmen to join him.

“Girls…” Remy began as soon as he had deposited everyone on the second level. “I love you. Take care of your mother.” He sent them flying before they could complain.

Sure they could let go of their weapons. Unfortunately for them, they had forgotten that they were wearing armor.

Chains snapped.

Remy turned his head.

A dark blue fist caught him in the face.

The crunch of his nose was followed by the back of his head creating a massive spiderweb of cracks in the stone tiles on the floor.

“Dad!”

Tessa’s voice.

It sounded muffled in Remy’s ears.

His head spun, his vision dimmed around the edges.

He bit back a yelp as a massive hand clamped with a crushing grip around his lower legs, near the ankles.

Remy felt the air rush around him as he flew up whip-fast. He stopped with sudden quickness and found the air driven from his lungs by the tremendous impact against the stone floor.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

Remy went up and then back down as the Deep Azure beat him into the ground like a fish.

The irony was lost on Remy. He was just struggling to stay conscious.

“On me!” Olo’s voice wavered.

The Deep Azure dropped Remy to the ground and turned its terrible and beautiful face toward the young men and women arrayed against on the other side of the temple floor.

See what you have done. It turned back to Remy’s bruised and battered body at its feet. They die for you. They die because of you.

The Deep Azure stepped away from Remy. It raised a hand to block a small piece of metal booming through the air toward its face.

Tessa roared. She forced herself to look at the Deep Azure directly despite the screaming inside her head to look away

“I can’t look at it, but I can’t not look at it!” Gene screamed.

“Do something, Bastien!” Johnny was in the same straits. He wanted to tear his eyes off the Deep Azure, but there was an overwhelming allure to the towering perfection of its deep, dark blue shape. Before he realized it, he had dropped to his knees. In despair or worship? He didn’t know the difference.

“C- c- c- can’t…” Bastien’s halberd clattered to the ground.

“What’re you doing? Do your prayer thing… like before.” Veronica held her staff in a white-knuckled grip as she stood next to Olo and Tessa.

“It- it- it sees through me,” Bastien gasped and collapsed to his knees like Johnny.

Gene grunted. “Magic Missile!” he screamed, voice high and hysterical.

Small, glowing purple orbs streaked in haphazard arcs out of Gene’s splayed fingers.

They briefly lit up the dimness of the torch-lit temple before fizzling out against the Deep Azure’s skin.

“Shit… nothing. Not even smudges,” Tessa said. “My turn.” She magnetically accelerated a bolt in her hand.

The boom shook the temple.

Just as loud as the smack as the Deep Azure caught the missile in its hand.

“Get up you morons!” Mads tugged at Johnny and Bastien. “You have to help! I’m out of ammo!”

“I’ll keep it here as long as I can. You have to get your dad,” Olo said to Tessa and Veronica, “the rest of you need to get out. Before they—”

The fishmen had begun to move toward them. More climbed up to the second level or emerged from the tunnels.

“Sorry, guys. This was stupid. I shouldn’t have…” Gene trailed off.

Tessa looked back. Thanks to the angle of the second level she could see straight to the dark tunnel that her mother and the rest of the older people had already fled through.

In the chaos her mom had lost track of her and Veronica. Aunt Nila had been preoccupied with leading the way. This meant that there had been no one to stop her from going back for her dad. Not that anyone was strong enough anyways.

Veronica had followed. Their friends had followed at Gene’s urging.

And now the fishmen were about to cutoff the escape her dad had worked so hard to give them.

They were screwed.

“On me!” Olo huffed. “That’s it don’t have much left in me. Get out of here!”

“I don’t think it’s working,” Veronica muttered under her breath.

The Deep Azure continued to slowly walk toward them. Savoring the despair, the terror.

Tessa continued to shoot small bits of metal at it.

“Stupid kids,” Remy whispered.

He burst up from the floor with a surge of energy.

The Deep Azure turned.

It was too late.

Remy drove an elbow into the small of its back.

The Deep Azure staggered forward.

Remy grabbed one leg with both his arms. He lifted, spun and threw. It was like throwing a struggling tree.

The Deep Azure went flying into the altar at the center of the temple.

Remy caught a glimpse at the remains chained to the altar. It was woman, she looked familiar, but was gone in an instant. Erased along with most of the demolished altar.

Remy tried not to vomit. The spinning world slowed, then steadied as he tried to breathe. He looked to his daughters and their friends. Then looked up and saw that the fishmen were pouring into the tunnel that the rest of his people, his wife, had escaped through.

“This is what happens when you don’t listen to me,” Remy sighed.

“It’s your fault!” Tessa snapped. “You’re crazy if you thought we’d just leave you here.”

“I’m trying to save your lives!” Remy ground out.

“It’s better if we work together,” Veronica said. “With teamwork we are safer. Especially against really dangerous things.”

“Yeah. I’ve said that… but I’ve also said that if you ever come up against something you can’t overwhelm with ease then you get away as fast as possible—”

“Right and get you,” Tessa rolled her eyes. “Well… you’re here and you’re getting your ass beat.”

“Language, young lady… I’m only letting it slide because of the circumstances,” Remy said.

“Fine, whatever,” Tessa frowned.

Remy wanted to laugh at the mix of anger and sheepishness on his daughter’s face. Twenty years old soon. He sighed. She’d always be his baby.

In the moment he wished a completely different life for Tessa and Veronica.

Not this.

Not in the heart of dark, profane temple. Surrounded by fishmen and what appeared to be their god. If such a thing was possible. It claimed to be one and had displayed the power to back it up.

“Okay, but we can’t fight this. We need to leave.” Remy looked around. Fishmen were everywhere. The cultists had vanished.

“What about there?” Tessa pointed to the far end of the temple.

Underneath where the cultist leadership had been watching from their third-level boxes was a large set of double doors. They hadn’t noticed them earlier.

The doors were made of metal bars.

Remy thought, but since the Deep Azure was already rising to its feet, he did it quickly.

The doors resembled a cage or a cell.

Were they to keep something inside the temple? Or outside?

Remy made up his mind.

He sent flying chunks of rock-crusted metal to sweep the fishmen out of the way.

“Head for the doors,” Remy said.

The kids obeyed, but Tessa and Veronica looked back to make sure he was following.

There is no freedom. The tides flow to me. Nothing can resist.

Remy turned around.

The Deep Azure ripped a trident from one of the stone sculptures arrayed around the now-demolished altar. It thrust the trident up.

The stone flaked away.

No.

That was wrong.

The stone transformed right before Remy’s eyes.

The trident’s gritty, gray surface slowly became a deep blue, almost black color, as if it was being covered by water. Or the water was cleaning away a thick layer of dirt and grime. It shined with a slick sheen. Iridescent like a fish’s scales.

Remy felt the power hum from the trident.

Bad news piled upon bad news.

He willed a magnetic field to life and tried to wrest the weapon from the Deep Azure’s grasp.

Nothing, except for a slight vibration.

Your children can run, but they will never escape my grasp. My strength grows with every follower. I will be the eternal tide that sweeps across your entire world. Do you not see your future? There is only one choice. Stand at my side or drown for eternity.

Again, Remy came to a decision.

“I’ll catch up.” Remy magnetically shoved Tessa, Veronica and the other kids through the open doors. Before they could react he pulled the doors shut with the same magnetic field. Then he melded the door edges together into a seamless piece.

“C’mon, dad!” Tessa shouted in frustration. “Why are you doing this!” she tugged at the bars with all her might.

Veronica threw her helmet to the ground before doing the same.

The bars bent slightly, but held.

This time their superhuman strength wasn’t enough.

Remy placed a hand on his daughters’ heads.

“I’m trying to keep my daughters safe,” Remy said. “So… maybe this time you’ll help me out and listen. Escape. Okay?”

“Noooo,” Veronica wailed.

“Look, I can’t fight all out if I’m worried about you getting caught in it,” Remy said. “I’m definitely not doing a sacrifice thing,” he lied. “I’m going to beat this thing up along with all of the fishmen and then get out of here.”

“But we can help,” Tessa pleaded.

“You guys have done great already,” Remy smiled. “Just help your dad out one more time and ease his worries. Get to safety.”

“But we don’t even know where this tunnel leads,” Veronica said.

Remy silently cursed his youngest daughter’s quick and rational thinking.

“I’m sorry, but it’s the best I can give you.” Remy looked back. The fishmen had pulled back. They were heading for the tunnels. The Deep Azure stood, trident in hand, content to wait. “The fishmen might be looking to cut you off. You can’t waste time.”

“I’ll scout ahead,” Johnny said before disappearing into the dimly lit tunnel.

Remy had to focus to keep the young man’s presence from vanishing from his notice. “I’m hoping this is the main way the cult used to get here. There have to be signs, clues for you to follow.”

“We’ll leave arrows for you to follow,” Tessa said. Her jaw was clenched tight. Her eyes glistened.

Veronica sniffled as tears flowed done her face and snot bubbled under her nose.

The rest of the group moved back deeper into the tunnel, perhaps they knew. Perhaps they could see the truth in the goodbye.

Remy pulled his hands back only to have them suddenly grasped in both his daughters’ vise-like grips.

“I’ll be okay, girls. Promise. Once I’m done here I’ll be right behind you. So, make sure those arrows are pointed in the right direction.” Remy tried not to choke on his words. Lying to his children was the hardest thing he had ever done.

Remy pried his hands free with some difficulty. He cupped Tessa’s cheek. “Take care of your sister.” He wiped Veronica’s tears. “Take care of each other and… take care of your mom.”

Tessa nodded.

“No, daddy!” Veronica reached out for Remy, but he had already pulled away from the bars.

Tessa pulled Veronica back.

Remy turned to face the Deep Azure.

Unnecessary. Join me and all will be well.

Remy listened to both his daughters cry in the darkness as they ran away.

Remy pulled the metal to him. He reformed the chains, created sharp blades to hover around him and encased himself in armor.

“It occurs to me that all will be well… once you are gone.”