Now, Earth
The cult forces had set up their staging area in the parking lot of a public utilities facility. Several gas-powered light towers bathed the entire area in harsh, white light.
The light was a beacon in the middle of the dark, abandoned city section.
Nila stared at it from her spot on a rooftop several blocks away.
“Okay,” she looked at Veronica and Mads, “I’m not forcing you guys to be a part of this. I just don’t see a way that we can avoid having to have to kill people and if you aren’t okay with that then that’s perfectly fine. I wouldn’t have you near this if things weren’t so desperate.” Nila sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Are they really still technically people though? Keisha said that they were straight up turning their fingers into knives or shooting tentacles out of their stomach. I’m thinking that maybe they already gave up their humanity to this Deep Azure thing,” Mads said. “Also, I can always shoot their knees out or something. Maybe spine shots so they can’t move?” she shrugged.
“I’m not sitting back. We have to get Tessa and Dad back!” Veronica clenched her hand on the lip of the roof, accidentally crushing it.
Nila digested that for a few seconds. She felt like she had failed the younger women, but what choice did she have? “Alright, let’s get in position,” she tightened the straps of her rectangular shield to her arm. “Mads, hop on,” she jabbed a thumb to her back.
Mads swung her shotgun over her back and piggy-backed on Nila.
“Watch your feet, Veronica.”
“Aunt Nila, I can see better in the dark than you can,” Veronica huffed.
Nila snorted.
She took off across the rooftops. They moved quickly and quietly. The gaps between alleys and narrow streets proved no barrier to their superhuman physical ability.
They stopped on top of a liquor store across a four lane street from the cultist base camp.
Mads got into sniping position hidden behind the store sign.
Veronica joined her and waited for the signal.
“Veronica, keep quiet. Do not shout your attack,” Nila whispered.
She waited for the teenager’s nod before she dropped down to the street and sprinted across, taking cover behind a large tree just on the outside of the fence surrounding the facility.
She had many concerns about the plan. Not the least of which was leaving Veronica and Mads by themselves. Her second concern was for herself. She was about to take part in a two woman assault on what looked to be several dozen heavily armed cultists. Men and women that probably had the ability to turn their own flesh into dangerous weapons.
A dog suddenly barked somewhere in the distance.
Nila peeked around the tree. She counted to ten and trusted in Veronica. She jumped over the eight-foot high fence and charged the nearest knot of cultists.
They spotted her almost immediately. Men and women raised guns and their empty hands toward her.
She had her shield in front of her, but even that wasn’t a guarantee against magic and weird abilities.
The cultists suddenly jerked and fell over. Seizures ravaged their bodies.
Veronica showed the improvement on range and accuracy over distance that her hard work and practice had created.
Nila stared at the helpless cultists. She didn’t want to, but did she really have a choice?
She held her baseball bat-like club in a white-knuckled grip, as she completed her grim task. She hated herself for every moment. Every life-ending smash.
On the other side of the parking lot, the weredog, Rino, had no such compunctions. She tore into the cultists. Her bipedal form was the perfect blend of sheer muscle and speed.
The cultists couldn’t hit her with gunfire.
The individuals with Fleshcraft tried to match her claw to claw. They lasted marginally longer.
In the end Rino stood alone. Her furry coat was stained with blood. Some from the cuts on her body, but most from the dead cultists.
Nila looked up.
More cultists streamed out of the facility.
They must’ve seen the petite woman standing by herself and decided that numbers would be enough.
A loud bang shook the night.
Nila saw the spray of blood of the man’s stomach thanks to her enhanced perceptions.
Bang!
Another cultist dropped. Her knee exploding in a shower of blood and bone.
Nila felt something tickle her senses as she backpedaled to give Mads and Veronica more time to hit the cultists.
The leading edge of the cultist formation seized up and fell face forward. They spasmed on the asphalt as more gunshots rang out.
The cultist numbers had been thinned considerably by the time they were able to cover the distance to Nila.
A man lashed out with his tentacle arm, it resembled a giant squid’s with the clubbing, spade-like end.
Nila ducked behind her shield as it struck and sent her stumbling several steps. The strength was surprising.
Bang!
The man roared in pain as a slug ripped through the thinnest portion of the tentacle.
Nila saw a flash of movement out of the corner of her right eye. She threw her bat up and was rewarded by a shower of sparks as a woman with fingers like knives slashed at the eye slits of her helmet.
Bang!
The woman’s head exploded.
Nila grit her teeth. Poor Mads. She had to do better to keep the girls from being forced into that spot.
She had to act rather than wait to react. She stopped holding back. Superhuman strength, agility and quickness meant that her strikes broke bones with every hit and that the cultists were too slow to hit her back.
Nila spun and leapt in the midst of the cultists like the protagonist of movie. Unlike fiction the results of her attacks were all too real.
The dead and dying surrounded Nila. She was numbed as she finished the latter ones off. Blood drenched her bat and was splattered all over her armor and clothing. Standing in the harsh glare of the tower lights made it impossible to hide what she had just done.
How many had she killed?
She had no idea.
Nila let out a long breath and trudged toward the facility. She still had to deal with any remaining cultists.
Perhaps her poor state of mind was to blame for why she didn’t notice the huge, white-furred beast bounding at her out of the darkness.
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Gene couldn’t take his eyes off of Kare.
The weredog was in a type of intermediate form between human and scary monster. She was significantly more muscular, almost like a bodybuilder, but leaner rather than bulky. Golden hair, fur had sprouted from her exposed arms and framed her face. Which had transformed into a more animalistic version. Her eyes shined in the light of his spell while sharp teeth were revealed whenever she opened her mouth to speak.
Disturbingly, he still found her attractive.
“Sorry, guys. I’d go full transformation, but it gets pretty tight down here,” Kare said in deeper voice than her normally high-pitched chirpiness.
“Don’t worry about it,” Hanna said flatly.
Gene found himself edging back away from Kare.
“What’re you doing?” Olo whispered. “We need your light.”
“Sorry,” Gene mumbled and moved back abreast with his friend.
Kare was in the lead, while Hanna came next.
Gene and Olo followed. The former was responsible for the tiny orb of light hovering in his free hand to provide enough for Kare’s night vision to function. The latter was expected to protect Gene with his huge, rectangular shield.
Bastien, Megan and Alexa came next.
Keisha and Max brought up the rear. The latter already had his left arm covered in a thick tangle of thorny branches in a mixed shape between a shield and a gauntlet. The spell provide offense and defense in tandem.
Johnny flitted around the center of the formation. He intermittently vanished from their perceptions.
The sewers didn’t smell as bad as Gene had expected. It was a dark thought, but he had the lack of human population in this section of the city to thank.
Kare suddenly stopped.
Hanna held up her longsword to signal the rest of the group.
“Hmmm…”
“What?” Hanna whispered harshly.
“I dunno… too many smells. Lots of blood and other stuff,” Kare sighed. “I’m not as good as Rino at this,” she pouted.
Gene found the sight incongruous.
The tunnel was split in two directions.
“Can you tell where the biggest concentration of cultists are?” Hanna said.
“Not really. I mean the weirdos don’t smell like normal people anymore, but its all kinda mixed together. So, like, I can’t separate the two.”
Hanna cursed.
“What about heading for the largest concentration of people?” Gene ventured.
“What’re you thinking, kid?” Hanna said.
“Cultists are probably going to want to hit the Sac people with overwhelming force. Like, if what she says is true,” Gene nodded at the bestial Kare, “then the Resistance people aren’t really the fighting types. They’ll be trying to run. Sac people are soldiers. They’ll try to escape, but if they can’t then they’ll fight. You got to think that the cult knows all this, so they’ll go in force against them.”
“Sorry, I can’t tell how many people are in either direction. Just that there are people,” Kare said.
“Why the hell not?” Olo snapped out of nowhere. “You’ve got a supernatural sense of smell.”
Kare’s smile didn’t budge. “It’s like when you smell hamburgers cooking. Can you tell how many?” she crossed her arms triumphantly. “Nope, didn’t think so.”
“Alexa,” Hanna beckoned.
A look of worry crossed the woman’s face, but she moved up to join Hanna.
“We need your ability. Can you get a general feel for which direction the largest concentration of cultists are likely to be?”
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Alexa nodded hesitantly. Her face grew pale.
“I’m sorry,” Hanna lied, “but we’re running out of time.”
Alexa opened and shut her mouth a few times. She couldn’t bring herself to utter the words. “If my brain explodes cause I draw fucking Cthulhu’s eyes… it’s on your head,” she glared at Hanna, who merely nodded. “God, you’re such a bitch,” Alexa muttered. “Fine…” she took a deep breath. “Sense Eldritch.”
Her words were barely a whisper.
Nothing happened for several long seconds after she triggered her Skill.
The silence in the dim sewer tunnel grew oppressive.
Until Gene felt something encroaching on his thoughts. He caught Bastien’s eye. His friend had felt it too.
“Somethings not right,” Megan said. The whites of her eyes were large in the dim light of Gene’s spell.
“Everyone, head’s up. I feel it too,” Max said from the rear of the formation.
“What? I’m not—” Hanna started, but then she turned with her longsword and shield ready, facing the darkness of the split tunnel ahead.
Perhaps the ability to perform magic had given them an advanced warning. The mana in their bodies made them more sensitive to things of a supernatural or otherworldly nature.
Whatever the case. Gene and the other magic users picked up on the presence that had suddenly focused on them.
It was like an oppressive weight. A smothering blanket or a harsh spotlight.
They all felt it. Like the mouse beneath the tiger’s gaze.
They were exposed with no place to hide. Their thoughts, hopes, dreams, fears, everything that made them, them, was laid out like an open book.
The experience was overwhelming.
Gene wanted to scream and cry and laugh. He was insignificant. A gnat in a great big eye that drew him into the abyssal depths like an ocean whirlpool. An eternity of nothingness lay below him and help him, he wanted nothing more than to dive in.
The others around him cried, laughed or whimpered. There were muttered denials, weak.
Alexa’s piercing scream broke them out of it.
The woman bled from every orifice in her head. She poured blood.
“Oh my god!” Megan said.
Gene sat up slowly. He was confused. He remembered walking in the sewer tunnel. Waiting expectantly for Alexa to do her thing. Then… nothing.
Alexa started to thrash and threatened to slam her head into the floor.
Olo caught her and held her in his strong arms. “What do I do! What do I do!”
“Hold her!” Hanna said. “Everyone else, defensive formation!”
Kare stared at her and blinked. “Wow… that was a trip…”
“I might need some help covering the rear. I’m seeing double,” Max called out.
“Gene!” Hanna barked.
“On it,” Gene said as he moved to back of the formation. At least that’s what he thought he said and did. Things still didn’t feel real.
Throughout it all Alexa continued to scream and bleed.
“Damn it, girl! Don’t trip on me,” Keisha slapped Alexa.
It did nothing.
“Uh…” Olo’s eyes were wide.
Bastien raised his halberd and started praying. “Our father…”
The darkness in the tunnel seemed to fade away.
The people felt, not exactly safe, but safer. As if the presence looming over them had temporarily relinquished its hold.
The slight young man was the center of it.
The seconds felt like minutes, the minutes like hours, but eventually Alexa stopped screaming, while Bastien continued to pray softly.
“Don’t stop what you’re doing,” Megan said.
Bastien nodded. Sweat had started to bead on his forehead, but the young man stood tall.
Alexa was out cold, but Olo was strong enough to easily hold her up.
“Um…”
“Keep her up, Olo,” Megan said. She laid both her hands on Alexa’s head and did her thing.
Healing.
That was the bulk of what Megan could do.
“No pressure, but hurry it up…” Hanna said.
Megan ignored the harsh woman. This wasn’t something that should be rushed. The brain was a delicate thing.
Minutes passed as the soft glow around Megan’s hands grew in intensity.
Alexa’s eyes suddenly shot open. She looked around wildly.
“You’re okay,” Megan said gently.
“The hell I am!” Alexa screeched. “Let me go! We need to get out of here! Get far away! It sees me! It knows me!”
“Which way do we go? Left or right?” Hanna said.
“You don’t understand—”
“The sooner we take care of those bastards the sooner we can leave,” Keisha cut Alexa off.
“Left tunnel,” Alexa said weakly.
“Don’t lose your shit,” Keisha laid a hand on Alexa’s shoulder as Olo relinquished his hold.
“If you saw what I saw—” Alexa noticed the look in Keisha’s eyes.
“I’ve got a pretty good idea and it looks like so does everyone else,” Keisha said.
Megan handed Alexa a clean hand towel to wipe the blood off her face and neck.
“You’re not alone,” Megan said. “We’re all in this together.”
“C’mon people. We need to move,” Hanna pushed Kare toward the left tunnel.
“That was so weird,” Kare said.
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“Join and the Deep Azure will give you everything you desire.”
Remy studied the old cultist lady. He had to hand it to her. She was pretty brave. She had to know that he considered breaking her neck every few minutes she preached at him.
“You want your family safe. What father doesn’t? That is the least of what we offer.”
Remy kept his mouth shut. So long as he didn’t talk then he gave them nothing. Day two of his captivity had been the same as the first. Down to the same old lady. He had actually expected a different salesperson after he had come with inches of crushing the woman’s throat.
“The truth is their safety is entirely in your hands. If you don’t decide quickly enough than it might be too late for your wife and daughters,” the old lady smiled.
It was grandmotherly, but Remy knew her for the viper that she was. Her and her damned freaky robe. It was why he kept his eyes on her face, as unpleasant as that was. Staring too long at the robe did bad things to his thoughts. Kept threatening to suck him in.
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me, Mr. Cruces. I said the safety of your wife and children teeter on the brink.”
Remy grunted. He supposed that needed a response. “I want to see Tessa.”
The old lady’s eyes flicked to one side.
Remy wouldn’t have noticed back when he was a normal human being. Superhuman sensory perceptions meant that he caught those slight movements without really trying.
“Did you forget that you are the prisoner? It isn’t your place to demand… unless you’re willing to give in return?” the old lady leaned forward eagerly.
“I give you nothing,” Remy said. It felt important that he verbalized that firmly.
The old lady sat back a flicker of disappointment crossed her face.
Yeah. Remy needed to be very careful with what he said and thought.
“You still haven’t provided proof that you have Tessa. I have nothing to say until you do,” Remy said. “If you do have her all you need to do is bring her to me.”
“And so you plot a blatant attempt to escape with your daughter,” the old lady sighed. “Do not take us for fools. We both know that our only leverage over you is the safety of your wife and two daughters. Megan, Tessa and Veronica.”
Remy frowned. The old lady looked triumphant.
“Perhaps I will give you something as a sign of our good faith effort to come to an arrangement.”
“That’s on you. I don’t ask for anything, nor will I accept it if it means I’m in you and yours’ debt in any way,” Remy said.
The old lady shrugged. She stood and walked to the door of Remy’s makeshift prison room.
“We have captured your eldest, Tessa. Your wife, Megan and youngest, Veronica are currently somewhere in our city.”
Remy tried to conceal his emotions. Give them nothing. His heart beat rapidly. He could barely hear the old lady’s words over the blood rushing in his ears.
“They’re obviously trying to rescue you and Tessa. My concern is that anything can happen in a battle. The longer you drag this out then the chances of something tragic occurring will naturally rise.”
It took a supreme force of will for Remy to stay seated. The rational part of his brain screamed at him to stop and assess. Ill-timed action had just as much of a chance to doom his family as help them.
“It’s so simple. All you have to do to make everyone safe is become one of us. You’ve seen our city. How safe and normal it is. Don’t you want that for what’s left of our once great nation?”
The old lady smiled at Remy one last time before she stepped out and shut the door.
Remy stewed.
Let them think that they had something over on him. When the time came. He’d make them pay.
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Then, Threnosh World
“What is taking you so long?”
“I have told you repeatedly that I am not as proficient at this task as Adahn,” PJ15 said flatly. It took effort to moderate their tone. Brightstrike had been insistent to an extreme level.
They had spent many days walking deeper into the darkness of Orchestral Meridian’s abandoned sublevels. Everywhere they looked were signs of death and decay.
A thick layer of dust had come to coat every surface without custodians and their cleaning drones to maintain the standard pristine cleanliness of the Threnosh.
They occasionally came across tiny bones scattered across empty streets. The only sign of the previous Threnosh inhabitants.
That is to say, the bones were the only sign that didn’t create dread and revulsion in Brightstrike and PJ15.
Broken, dry and desiccated egg sacks littered almost every city section they had crossed.
So many corrupted had been birthed deep in the dark bowels of the once bright city.
The command and control facility was the heart of this particular city section. It was just as dark and abandoned as the rest. Brightstrike’s steps echoed softly against the metallic floors. PJ15 power armor was able to transform the soles of their boots for silent travel.
They had been concerned about drawing attention, but as the hours had drawn on that had disappeared. None of their sensor scans showed any signs of corrupted anywhere in the vicinity.
“It is not tactically sound to stay in one area for so long,” Brightstrike said.
PJ15 had heard some variation of the statement multiple times.
“Yes. I will finish my task quicker with less diversions to my attention.”
Brightstrike stalked back to the control chamber’s open door. They hadn’t restored power, so they had to force the door open, which broke it in a way that left them unable to shut it.
PJ15’s power armor had thin tendrils inserted into the control console. They didn’t truly understand exactly what they were doing. It was more like they pictured what they wanted and their power armor endeavored to fulfill their need. Indeed, they weren’t aware about the ability until current circumstances created the opportunity. Or more accurately, forced it.
PJ15 had one thought. Find the strongest active power source. They reasoned that that’s where the enemy’s main base would be located, which meant Honor would be in the same area.
PJ15 still wasn’t entirely certain that they were on the right path. The Task message had been clear. They were to rescue Honor from captivity. They didn’t doubt that fact. What they were concerned about was the probability of success with just them and Brightstrike.
“Have you—”
“No.”
Brightstrike contented themselves with checking the modified recoilless rifle they had cobbled together from the combat drone station they had raided earlier.
The rifle wasn’t purpose built to be wield by Threnosh hands. They had to rip it out of a combat drone and alter the trigger mechanism. Fortunately they were able to sync the aiming system to the display in their faceplate, otherwise accuracy would’ve been a problem. Still it wasn’t what exactly like what they had trained with.
Orchestral Meridian existed in a strange place of stasis. The city delineated the existence of the world before the spires and the world after.
The Threnosh didn’t have power armor until the spires arrived. They only had crude exoskeletons and anti-gravity harnesses to help their frail and weak bodies move around. They didn’t take a direct hand in their defense.
That was left to automated and controlled combat drones. Not that those saw much use.
The Threnosh world had been a united world for tens thousands of years. They didn’t war on each other. Those impulses had been genetically eliminated long ago.
The only true threat were large and aggressive fauna, which were quite rare. The drones and walls had been enough to keep the Threnosh cities safe.
When the spires appeared neither PJ15, nor Brightstrike had been birthed from their creches yet, so they knew little of that past. Defectives weren’t expected to do more than exist in exile until they expired, so they they weren’t taught Threnosh history.
It was ironic that Honor was the one that encouraged them to study about their own people’s past.
They owed him much.
“I have it,” PJ15 said. They disengage from the console. “City Section 12 displays power levels at operational capacity significantly higher than surrounding areas.”
Brightstrike initialized the holographic map from their gauntlet.
“Additionally, all the city sections surrounding 12 are displaying power usage levels that suggest significant enemy investment,” PJ15 said.
“That is… problematic,” Brightstrike said.
PJ15 checked the drone weapons they had attached to their power armor’s malleable surface. Tendrils wrapped around the appropriated weapons. Various ammunition containers were also stuck as if by an adhesive to the power armor’s smooth, gray surface.
“There are thousands of maintenance tunnels and drone shafts we can utilize to bypass enemy defenses.”
“Yes,” Brightstrike nodded. “The corrupted are mindless. Though the Inheritors display cognition, there are not enough of them to cover such a vast network of passage ways. They will lack the knowledge to operate our systems.”
“That was my thought as well. They will not be watching through Orchestral Meridian’s surveillance system,” PJ15 said with confidence.
“Once we reach City Section 12 we will be able to tap into the system to pinpoint where they have imprisoned Honor,” Brightstrike said.
“If we can free him then he can fly us straight up the nearest aerial transport shaft all the way to the surface,” PJ15 said.
It all sounded so simple and straightforward.
The two Threnosh had talked themselves into a successful Task without knowing the true severity of what they faced. They thought that the darkness of a dead city section hid their plans.
They didn’t realize that some eyes defied scientific explanation. That some eyes weren’t physical in nature.
Orchestral Meridian was once one of the prime cities of the Threnosh.
They had lost it to another’s hands many years ago when the spires appeared.
She saw everything in her city.