Now, Threnosh World
Gene could hear the marsh water roil in the darkness.
Time seemed to slow.
He grabbed his sword and stood in front of Mads and Olo. “Get Olo away. I’ll try to give you time.”
Gene knew that his internal mana supply was too low for any spells. Using one now would leave him crashing. The sheer terror of the fight with the creatures had led him to instinctively push more mana into his individual spells than he normally did. It had meant that the spells had been more powerful at the cost of a lack of control, which meant inefficiency, thus greater drain on his mana.
The creatures burst out of the water.
Gene could only see a wall of snapping teeth, armored plates and powerful muscle.
He screamed and held his longsword high.
The creatures lunged him like a crashing wave.
Behind him Mads screamed.
Time slowed.
Gene was confused.
Mad’s hadn’t sounded scared, but more excited.
Gene blinked.
The creatures seemed to be suspended in midair.
Ah, he realized that this was what it must’ve been like when one was close to death. The whole ‘life flashing before your eyes’ thing.
Except.
He wasn’t seeing his life.
Indeed, he could hear the creatures jaws snapping and their muscles straining even as they were held in place.
There were so many.
At least that meant he wouldn’t suffer. One crushing bite and he’d be dead.
“Gene!” Mads snapped.
“Huh?” Gene turned and looked at her dumbly. “Wha—”
Mads was pointing up into the night sky.
Gene couldn’t see anything, it was too dark.
“There’s someone flying this way, fast! Looks like a person wearing high-tech armor.”
Gene squinted, but gave up and fixed his gaze on the dozen or so creatures still held in place as if by invisible hands.
“A person, Gene! A human!” Mads grinned. “Don’t you get it?”
A loud boom echoed from high above them.
Gene was almost knocked over by a powerful gust of wind.
When he picked himself up off the ground he saw that the creatures were dead. Broken and twisted.
“Shit!” In staring at certain death, Gene had forgotten his friends were seriously injured or worse. “Olo! Johnny!”
----------------------------------------
Tessa sprinted through the dark jungle. The stars gave her enough light to see the branches and roots in her way. But she didn’t have time to avoid them. She plowed right through them beast mode-style like that one football player from the old days. Olo would always play clips he had saved on his laptop for some reason.
She splintered thick, low hanging branches with her kanabo, while roots that caught her legs snapped, barely slowing her stride.
Tessa was making a lot of noise, but she was drowned out by the sounds coming from ahead. It sounded like two giants were wrestling, slamming each other through the trees.
She came up on some movement.
Something really long, thicker than her body, and covered in fur was writhing through the thick undergrowth.
Tessa plucked a few bits of metal from her small bag and aimed.
A crashing sound to the left had her throw herself to the ground.
Something shot above her.
The mass of its passing reminded her of that one time in her younger days when she had been playing too close to the edge of the train platform when a train had zipped by. She had a scare that time, though not as much as her mother had.
Tessa rolled and kipped up to her feet.
She shoot her handful of metal into the side of the mass.
Instantaneous acceleration meant that the tiny projectiles hit just as hard even after only traveling a few feet.
There was a load roar as Tessa was showered by blood and guts as the mass exploded.
Tessa wiped her eyes with disgust and spat out bloody bits. She needed to learn to keep her mouth closed or wear a mask.
So much for Mads’ giant furry snake, she thought with satisfaction. Now she just needed to find Veronica. There seemed to be at least another one out there, hunting, which suggested her sister was still alive.
A tree to her left exploded in a shower of sword-like splinters that cut her clothing and scratched her skin. She sprang back several dozen feet on superhumanly strong legs.
A large head, lizard and snake-like, snapped at her with a mouth filled with blade-like teeth.
She battered it with her kanabo as she continued to jump back.
The giant furry snake was strong and tough.
She was hitting it hard, the thwacks echoing out like gunshots, but it kept after her. She caught a glimpse of a big shadowy mass a few hundred feet behind the snake. It was bulldozing trees.
What the hell?
Tessa jumped to the side.
The snake followed, turning on its own body and striking.
She swung with all her might.
The snake snapped its jaws shut on the upper half of the over five-foot long kanabo.
Tessa held on tight and pulled.
The two strained against each other’s strength for a moment.
Then Tessa found herself whipped from side to side high in the air.
She had super strength, but even with her denser bones and muscles she only weighed around two hundred pounds.
It was a trivial amount for the creature to lift. No amount of bracing and pulling on Tessa’s part could overcome physics.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
Tessa felt the snake spasm. Then she was flying into the air. The sky was clear for a moment then she was swallowed up by the tree canopy as she crashed back to the ground.
She stood up quickly even as she tried to get her wind back.
“Tessa! Tessa!”
Veronica’s voice.
Tessa followed it until she found her sister high up in a strange alien tree. It was as tall and thick as the sequoias in the national park they used to go to every year, but as gnarled and sprawling as an oak.
“Not snakes!”
It was hard to hear Veronica’s voice over the crashing jungle.
Tessa made a motion in an attempt to silence her sister. Didn’t Veronica know that she was drawing the snakes’ attention?
The huge tree shook with a tremendous crash, but held.
Tessa’s heart leapt into her throat as she watched Veronica slip and almost fall from probably five hundred feet up.
The shadowy bulldozer must’ve hit the tree.
Tessa could make out several giant furry snakes coiling around and through the tree’s sprawling trunk and branches as they searched for Veronica.
Tessa raced toward them. “Hey! Come get me!”
“Not snakes!” Veronica called back.
Damn it, shut up! Tessa thought. She rounded to the left side. Searching for a line of attack that’d let her hit multiple snakes with each shot. She only had a handful of ammunition left.
As Tessa reached the other side of the massive tree, she finally realized what Veronica had been shouting.
“It’s a hydra!” Veronica’s voice drifted down to Tessa.
Tessa couldn’t count the number of heads. They were writhing around too much.
The hydra was enormous. It was bigger than an elephant, taller, much wider, built with big, strong muscles that visibly rippled even beneath the thick coat of wiry fur.
A long, thick tail lashed from side to side as its heads strained upward in their search for Veronica.
“I don’t have enough for this thing,” Tessa whispered.
It was too big, too thick for a few small bits of metal. It had already shown that it could handle being hit with her kanabo.
“I’ll lead it away. I’ll lose it and come back to camp. You need to head back. There are a bunch of smaller monsters attacking. You need to help the others!” Tessa shouted.
Veronica yelled something back, but it was drowned out by the loud boom as Tessa magnetically accelerated her last handful of metal bits into the flank of the hydra.
Sparks lit up the dark jungle.
Fuck!
The damn thing was armored.
The hydra’s heads slithered out of the tree and it turned its massive bulk to face Tessa.
She had its attention.
The many heads shook, hissed and roared independently of each other.
The hydra charged at Tessa with steps that sent tremors radiating across the ground.
She turned and ran.
Tessa was fast.
The hydra was hampered by the need to bull its way through the thick undergrowth.
How had it managed to follow them all the way from the spires without drawing their attention?
A mouth snapped just behind Tessa.
She took a sharp right around a thick cluster of huge trees.
A dozen heads slithered through large enough gaps or punched right through and snapped at Tessa.
If she wasn’t superhuman she would’ve been a light snack.
She dodged, ducked, dipped, dived and dodged.
The Five D’s!
The hysterical thought flashed through her head.
Focus!
She ran sharply left and suddenly found herself sliding down a steep hill.
The hydra crashed through the tree right behind her.
Another tree loomed ahead of Tessa. She thrust her kanabo into it and pushed herself to one side.
The hydra had no problems. It simply trampled right through.
The hill opened up into a long drop down to a rushing river.
Tessa only had a split second before the hydra reached her.
Jump!
She obeyed the voice in her head. Only realizing that it sounded different from the voice of her internal thoughts as she plummeted to the raging river.
A dark shadow covered her from above.
The hydra had gone over right behind her. Too big to stop itself.
Tessa suddenly felt herself shoot forward with a burst of speed. Then she was heading up into the sky. Her stomach dropped. Not unlike a slingshot ride.
She looked back as the hydra continued to plummet into the river. Its many heads hissing with indignation.
“I can fly,” she whispered. A delighted smile crossed her face only to fall when a voice spoke in her head.
I got you. You and Veronica are safe now.
Tessa belatedly realized that she wasn’t flying of her own accord. It was like an invisible hand was carrying her high above the tree tops.
In the distance she spotted Veronica floating next to a figure clad in full body, high-tech armor and a helmet with a translucent faceplate.
She couldn’t make out the man’s features in the darkness, but Veronica had a huge smile and was waving excitedly.
Tessa relaxed.
For some reason, she believed the words.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
She was safe.
She let out a loud whoop. A myriad of emotions went into it, but mostly relief.
The nightmare that had began with the destruction of her family home had lasted lest than a week, but Tessa had felt as if she had aged years.
So much had happened in such a short amount of time. From fighting the fishmen in her neighborhood, to the Deep Azure in its evil temple, to this strange alien jungle and its own terrible creatures.
Tessa suddenly remembered her friends.
She opened her mouth to shout, but her words were swallowed by the wind as they took off with a burst of speed toward the camp.
I know. They’re fine. We’ll pick them up then get out of here.
The voice in her head became familiar.
Uncle Cal? Tessa thought. She shield her eyes from the wind as she stared at the armored figure ahead of her, Veronica at his side.
Yes. The voice in her head paused. I have so many things to say, to ask, but there’ll be time for that later. We need to get out of this jurisdiction before we run into anyone else.
Er… are we talking in my head.
Tessa imagined her uncle’s wry grin.
Lots of things have happened.
Tessa felt a surge of sadness, uncertainty, fear.
The sensations vanished just as suddenly, like a rice cooker lid slamming shut to keep the steam in.
Later. The other kids need medical attention.
----------------------------------------
Cal had to amend the term kids.
They weren’t kids anymore. Not like he remembered, which made sense since people aged as time passed.
He felt dumb for being surprised that they had grown.
The stupidly self-named Team F.C.W.R. and Mads, his two nieces.
The young men would’ve been close to their mid 20’s, Mads a year or two younger. Tessa was around 20. Veronica, the baby, was 14? 15?
The Veronica remembered was still a little chubby cheeked. Not the long limbed, gangly gazelle, flying in his telekinetic grip next to him.
Cal sighed ruefully. She was a couple of inches taller than him now.
They all were taller now.
Sometimes being a manlet was tough.
The dark ocean expanse beneath them was vast, immense.
He could sense the fear, tension and worry coming off his passengers. Like the waves thousands of feet below.
He had gotten used to flying without the perceived safety of a vehicle. The kids hadn’t.
Ten years since the spires appeared. No more plane flights.
When was the last time Tessa and Veronica had flown in a plane?
Cal found the memory in an instant.
His little sister’s, Rayna’s, high school graduation.
They had flown down to Southern California for that.
Cal and Nila had driven the six hours since he didn’t like flying.
The irony didn’t escape him.
That fear had been conquered years ago.
He could feel their eyes on him.
Their whispered thoughts were full of doubt.
Was he really who he said he was?
Was he their Uncle Cal? Or the guy that babysat them on monster clearing runs in Target, Home Depot, grocery stores and strip malls?
Not just doubts. Hope as well.
But fear above all. For themselves and for each other.
The battle with the creatures had cost them dearly.
Cal could hear their thoughts blend together despite his best effort to respect their privacy and protect himself with telepathic walls.
It was like sitting in a crowded dinner party and eavesdropping at all of the different conversations.
From the loud ones to the hushed ones. There was no escaping them. Unlike the dinner party, he couldn’t simply leave the table.
Cal took a deep breath and reinforced his invisible walls.
The noise lessened, but didn’t vanish completely.
A notice flashed in Cal’s faceplate.
The aerial transport was in position in neutral airspace, just on the edge of Prime Eternal Warden 1’s jurisdiction.
“Be advised, interceptor squadrons inbound on your position,” the communicator’s flat voice filled Cal’s helmet.
He expanded the small projection of the map in the corner of his faceplate to overlay over his entire field of view.
There were a lot of interceptors. Out this far over the ocean meant multiple aerial transports since the interceptors didn’t have that kind of range.
Cal wasn’t concerned. He flew faster even while carrying people.
“Maintain position. I’m ten minutes away. Have the medics prepare three pods. One human seriously injured. Two critically injured.”
“Acknowledged.”
Cal kept the speed constant and they soon reached the transport.
The rear ramp opened and he flew everyone directly into the large space.
As soon as the ramp closed. Tessa tapped him on the shoulder.
“Uncle Ca—”
“Shh… not a word.”
The door into the next compartment slide open with a soft hiss. Threnosh in medical-type power armor entered.
“I go by Honor on this world. Please don’t use my real name,” Cal grinned sheepishly, “I swear it made sense to me at the time,” he shook his head. “I’ll explain later.”
“Sure,” Tessa eyes narrowed. “That’s weird, but okay.”
“Weird,” Veronica agreed.
Cal sighed. “Just— I’ll explain—”
“— later,” Tessa and Veronica echoed.
Cal kept Olo and Johnny levitated as the medical personnel scanned them with their instruments.
The Threnosh finished their task quickly and promptly walked back into the compartment.
Cal followed with Olo and Johnny.
The rest trailed behind.
“Keep going,” Cal pointed to the next door, “there are seats in the next compartment. I’ll be along in a bit. Except for you, Gene.”
“Help them, but please be quick. We have a lot to tell you,” Tessa said.
“Mom, Dad and Aunt Nila need help,” Veronica pleaded.
That got Cal’s attention. He almost stopped to ask, but focused on the critically injured.
“Just wait. I’ll be there soon.”
Cal could see the questions in their eyes, but they listened.
Gene’s face was pale, sweaty. He held his steel helmet limply in his right hand. He cradled his broken left arm close to his body. “Can you really help them?” he only had eyes for Olo and Johnny.
“Threnosh medical tech is basically like magic,” Cal looked at Olo’s burn-ravaged skin, “I’ve relied on it once or twice before.”
“Okay,” Gene said in a small voice.
“Trust me. I’m confident they’ll be fine,” Cal grinned and pointed at a medical pod, “now take off your clothes and get in the pod.”
“What? No, that’s alright. You should take care of Olo and Johnny first.”
“Their pods need more time to prep.”
“Okay,” Gene sighed. He dropped his helmet, unbuckled his sword belt. Boots and pants followed. The steel chest piece and the padded kevlar coat beneath present a problem. “I can’t get my top and bracers.”
Cal gave Gene a telekinetic hand.
“So, what happens?” Gene was naked and stepped into the medical pod.
“Place the mask over your face. It will automatically create a seal,” the medic said flatly in the standard Threnosh speech pattern, “do not move.”
“Relax, man,” Cal said. “Your broken arm is about to be fixed in less than a day.”
Gene’s eyes widened. He nodded and put the mask on.
The pod’s clear door swung shut and sealed with a hiss. It reclined back until Gene was flat on his back. The healing liquid filled the pod up.
When it was full, Gene’s eyes fell shut as the anesthetic took effect nearly instantaneously.
“Honor, place the dark one on the preparation table. Portions of his attire and armor have been fused to his flesh due to the fire damage. We must cut the pieces off before immersion.”
Cal complied with the medic and telekinetically placed Olo onto the table.
“Shit, Vee wasn’t kinding… tiny gray iron men,” Johnny said in a raspy voice. “Cal? You an Iron Man too?”
Cal shook his head. He wasn’t surprised he had glimpsed inside Johnny’s head. The young man had been fighting for consciousness during the entire flight to the transport.
He had grappled with the ethical dilemma of forcing Johnny to stay unconscious in order to spare him the pain.
He had seen the extent of Johnny’s internal injuries.
Horrific was the appropriate word.
Johnny coughed and groaned, blood stained his lips.
Cal read the pain radiating from Johnny’s thoughts.
And fear.
“I can’t feel my legs,” Johnny said weakly. “Just… can you… kill… useless without my legs. Can’t fight… can’t get stronger.” Tears flowed from his eyes.
“Things must’ve changed since I last saw you. You’ve always played the dumbass, but you never were one,” Cal said. “Gaining Universal Points isn’t the only thing in life.”
“Isn’t it though?”
“Debatable. Besides, you don’t necessarily need to fight to gain points. I’ve seen Threnosh researchers and engineers get them for breakthroughs or designing something good or even improving something. Shit, my administrators get points for performing their tasks well. It’s almost like they’re getting paid for a job.”
“Not like that on our world,” Johnny wheezed.
“True,” Cal conceded. “But now that the ten year initial period is over maybe it’ll change.”
Johnny looked down in confusion. “Why are you taking my pants off?”
“Sorry, bro, but you have to be naked to use the awesome medical pod.”
“Huh?”
“Like a bacta tank.”
“A what?” Johnny blinked in confusion.
“From Star Wars.”
“Don’t remember…”
“It’s a magnificent piece of Threnosh tech. Works almost like magic. It’ll fix all of your injuries.”
“All—”
“Yup, all of them.”
“Shit. What’re you waiting for? Strip me naked and get me in there.”
Cal chuckled. He had already gotten most of Johnny’s gear and clothes off while distracting him with idle chatter. “Have a good sleep. Try to have good dreams.”
“Wait… how long is this going to take?”
“Can’t say for sure,” Cal lied, “but when you wake up it’ll be like no time had passed.”
Johnny’s injuries were horrendous. At a guess, Cal figured the young man’s time in the pod would be measured in months rather than days.
Cal telekinetically placed the mask over Johnny’s face.
The medic’s thin fingers danced over the interface in their power armor’s gauntlet, while the skeletal arms attached to their pack manipulated the pod’s mechanisms.
Johnny was in competent hands.
Cal turned to the medics working to slice the fused cloth and metal from Olo’s flesh. The smell of burnt human skin was awful, but Cal had been desensitized to such things thanks to his horrid experiences. His sense of smell may have been much better than it was from the pre-spires days, but he just ignored it. “Will you need my help to get him into the pod?”
“Negative. Subject’s mass is within the combined carrying capabilities of our exoskeletons,” the lead medic said.
“Please take care of them.”
“We will do as the task requires.”
Cal nodded and headed to the next compartment where the others awaited.
He knew that they had tons of questions for him.
He had his own in return.
One huge one in particular.
He had only gotten hints of it from their turbulent thoughts.
He needed to know what had caused them to travel from Earth to the Threnosh world.
----------------------------------------
“You have to help Mom and Dad and Aunt Nila and everyone else! Please, Uncle C—” Veronica caught herself. Her uncle was being weird and lame, but he looked and sounded like she remembered. He stood in front of them near the front of the compartment with his left hand behind his back. “Dad’s fighting a big, evil monster god. Mom, Aunt Nila and the others are in the tunnels and they’re flooding.”
Her uncle’s face was a stone mask behind a transparent faceplate as he stared at nothing in particular.
“The spire we came through is underwater now, but you’re wearing high-tech power armor… it can handle that, right?” Tessa said.
Their uncle nodded. “It’s not powered, but it can be sealed with a limited oxygen and carbon dioxide recycling system… can attach oxygen tanks.”
“Then you can fly back to the spire and help them,” Tessa said.
Veronica watched her uncle’s mask crack as a look of agony flashed across his face. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“I’d be too late—”
Veronica joined Tessa in a loud protest.
Her uncle held up his hands.
“You guys were in the jungle for about four days, Threnosh time. I don’t know if it translates exactly to Earth time. I don’t know how much time passes during the spire transit. I’m sorry, but all probabilities suggest that I can’t do anything to help.”
It was hard to listen to the anguish and defeat in her uncle’s voice. He had seemed so powerful and in control when he had flown them all across the open ocean with his powers.
“But you have to try!” Veronica pleaded.
“Fine, it’s too late to go back through the same? Then take us to the same one you went through. It’ll take us back to UC Davis. The Deep Azure wanted to capture us. It won’t kill Mom, Dad, Aunt Nila… the others,” Tessa’s voice wavered.
Veronica knew what her sister was thinking. She had heard, if that was the right word for it, the Deep Azure’s voice as it spoke to her father, some of the conversation at least. She had seen what it had done to that soldier guy from Sacramento, what it did to Keisha. It didn’t care about taking the others alive.
“Yeah, we need to free them before it does bad stuff to them,” Veronica said. The sounds of that old cult lady screaming on the altar echoed in her thoughts.
Her uncle flinched and turned his gaze on her with pain in his eyes.
“Uncle, I’m really worried about them. The the cult, the fishmen… they do bad things to people,” Tessa said.
Their uncle frowned. “And you want me to send you back to face them?”
“Of course!” Tessa snapped. “What else can we do? We ran, left Dad in that evil temple.”
“You did what he told you to do.”
Veronica felt a wave of sympathy wash over her. The guilt at running away lessened. It was as if someone had engulfed her in a warm, loving embrace and told her that she didn’t do anything wrong.
The sincerity of the feeling made her believe.
Her uncle’s eyes widened.
The comforting feeling abruptly vanished and her heart sank at the reality.
“You can’t go back. Not right away,” her uncle sighed. “I’ve been buying more tutorial stuff from the spires over the last few months. Every individual has a Universal Point value. The cost of traveling through a spire to another world is based on a percentage of this value, plus a bunch of other factors that, frustratingly, I am still unable to access. And, as you found out, traveling through the spire wipes your points down to zero even if you have more than the travel cost.”
“Yeah, I know,” Tessa glared, “I got a few tutorials with my extra points, so I didn’t waste them.”
“Then how did you expect to be able to go back?”
“You can give us points?” Veronica ventured.
“I can and I was planning to, but there’s still the issue of the cooldown.”
“No fucking way!” Tessa screamed.
“Lang—” their uncle caught himself. “Again, it depends on variable factors, but even if you somehow managed to get enough points to travel in a short amount of time, you still might have to wait before you can travel again.”
“Fine, if we can’t go back, then you go!”
Veronica’s eyes widened at Tessa’s tone. It was disrespectful. Their parents wouldn’t approve.
Her uncle’s eyes narrowed, but he was giving Tessa a lot leeway. “I would, if it wasn’t for you guys.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean!”
Veronica laid a hand on Tessa’s arm, but it was shrugged off.
Her uncle’s jaw clenched, but it seemed that he was willing to let Tessa carry on. “There are… entities… on this world that I believe may be drawn to you. Whether it’s because of you being Earthlings? Earthians— we need a good name for ourselves— or due to your level of power or even your blood relation to me. I’ve had encounters with two such entities. They didn’t go well for me. You would be defenseless. It’d be guaranteed ‘death or a fate worse than death’ as the spire quests love to say,” her uncle’s wry smile carried such a weight of sadness and fatigue.
Veronica felt it, but it was gone just as quickly.
Strange.
“What about your Threnosh allies? What if we work together if these entities attack? Will that be enough?” Tessa was determined. Like a dog on a bone.
“I’m not sure if you ever played WOW, but think of it like taking on a raid boss. You need quality and numbers for a chance. Even if you do everything perfectly, you’re still assured heavy casualties.”
“We’re used to that,” Tessa growled.
More sadness washed over Veronica.
Her uncle shook his head.
“We have about two hours until we get back to base. I’ll drop by the spire and send messages. I’ll let all of your parents know that you’re here and that you’re safe. Bastien, Mads… are your parents…”
“Mine are fine… at least they should be… I hope…” Bastien swallowed a lump in his throat. “The fishmen were hitting us hard before we left town.”
“Same with mine,” Mads said.
“Okay. I don’t know what Gene’s, Johnny’s and Olo’s situations are like… in fact…” A small tablet-like device with a dull, metallic gray-colored case floated out of a seamless opening in the compartment wall and landed in Mads’ hands. “It’s basically like a smart phone. I’ve already set it on the recording app, I guess you could call it that, just give me your parents’ exact names and record your message. And give me the others’ contacts. They won’t be able to record messages, but I can at least let their family know that they’re okay. Now, tell me about the fishmen, this cult, the Deep Azure… tell me about… everyone.”
Veronica felt her uncle’s worry like a palpable thing, even if his demeanor tried to hide it.
It worried her, but she was sure that her uncle would do everything he could to help them… all of them.