Now, Threnosh World
Corrupted rushed at Cal from all directions. The streets were full of them as they died in the dozens as they swarmed over the old-style tracked combat drones.
The formerly Threnosh beings were a distorted mockery of their true nature.
Gray skin was stretched taut on overly muscled bodies. Their fingers had lengthened, with nails turned into sharp and deadly claws. Their mouths had also lengthened and distended to allow them to use their sharp teeth as effective weapons.
Cal used his telekinesis in a way he had never before.
Ruthless efficiency was what he wanted.
There was no time to waste on fodder.
Mother Madrigal awaited inside the birthing creche facility.
The corrupted swarmed.
Cal crushed them into the street with invisible force as he stood motionless.
He didn’t even blink as their blood splattered towards him.
It was a simple matter to wave them away with more telekinetic force.
His Threnosh made full body suit remained pristine as he floated several feet off the ground toward the facility.
Countless corrupted continued to swarm around him.
They were torn apart as if they had dived head first into a blender.
A circle of death swirled around Cal.
A bloody trail many yards wide followed in his wake.
Now… you embrace your truth.
The voice in his head.
Mother Madrigal.
He had thought the voice belonged to others over his long imprisonment. Acquaintances, friends and loved ones. People he cared about used to manipulate him into strengthening her Inheritors and—
“You tricked me. Made me kill Brightstrike,” Cal said flatly.
You blame another for the works your own hands have wrought.
“No, I blame myself, but you were the catalyst. You manipulated my perceptions, my mind.”
Weakness leads to downfall. You are responsible for your capabilities. You chose your path. Chose to limit yourself. Thus… death.
“Why? Why seek this violence? I know you. Thoughts aren’t a one way street. They go both ways. You went in my head. I was in yours. You’re a sapient being. Emotional and rational. You, me, the Threnosh, we aren’t all that dissimilar in the end. Coexistence is possible. And yet—”
The spires demand conflict. Strength and power demand conflict. Rise or fall. There is no middle ground. We take or are taken from. Death is not the worst of fates. You have seen a mere speck of the immensity that is our existence.
Cal wanted to refute the words, but he couldn’t. Not after what he had glimpsed in Mother Madrigal’s mind.
She was closer to an eldritch being or a some kind of dark god, but he saw the threads of sapience within her. Whispers and hints of desires and fears. Her motivations weren’t so different. Squint and she was almost human in that regard.
The thought brought on a wave of despair that had Cal suddenly drop to the ground. His telekinesis momentarily disrupted by the lack of concentration.
The corrupted howled and charged with glee.
Cal hit them with an explosive telekinetic shockwave that violently thrust them hundreds of feet away.
He continued to walk toward the birthing creche facility, which resembled one of those super factories or warehouses back on Earth.
“No more tricks,” Cal said. “The world with you in control is not the one I want to live in or for those I care about.”
Lesser beings tell themselves lies. Truth is held by the powerful.
Cal stopped a few hundred feet away from the huge facility. Its metallic walls sloped slightly like the side of a pyramid as it rose up. The darkness added an ominous quality to the way it loomed over Cal.
He felt small.
He reached his hands toward the structure.
“That’s the thing about motivations. I can have several. I told no lies. You’re existence is inimical to the world that must be.” Cal sunk hundreds if not thousands of telekinetic fingers into the structure’s outer wall. “Your death is central to the two things that motivates me. What I have spoken of… and what I want. Safety for those I care about and—,” his voice hardened, “revenge.”
Cal pulled with the power of his mind.
Blood leaked from his nose as the structure’s metallic walls began to buckle out toward his outstretched hands.
A birthing creche facility was the single most important structure in Threnosh society. They had built it to the height of strength and durability that their considerable technology expertise was capable of.
The strain grew, but Cal powered through it.
The Mother’s discordant sound struck, but it was weaker, less focused than it had been at any other time prior.
Cal’s telepathic walls shook, but held firm.
A loud squeal, like a dying animal’s, filled the air as the meter’s thick metallic wall started to fracture and tear at a hundred different places.
“You can’t hide from me,” Cal said through grit teeth as he gave it one last pull.
A huge swath of wall came loose in huge chunks to reveal the interior of the structure.
More corrupted crouched ready inside. Inheritors in the dozens were scattered amidst the thousands of birthing pods.
Cal knew that the pods contained unborn corrupted or perhaps more Inheritors.
You would destroy life before it begins?
“Your fate is sealed, Mother Madrigal… but I will consent to allow your corrupted and Inheritors to leave with the promise of immediate and complete cessation of hostilities with the Threnosh. I promise to mediate negotiations for a fair and peaceful arrangement of coexistence. If that is not possible then, maybe I can take your children to another world. As you have shown me. There are more of those than I can comprehend.”
Infinite.
“Do you agree to my offer?”
No.
Cal let the guilt wash away. He sent an overwhelming wave off telekinetic force into the open side of the structure. Corrupted, Inheritors, birthing pods, every bit of machinery for hundreds of feet in front of him was cut, pierced or bludgeoned. Nothing was spared.
Some of the Inheritors survived. Those with abilities that enhanced their durability, quick enough to take cover and let others blunt the damage, or possessed even more esoteric abilities, still stood.
Cal could see their minds. He imagined them as strong flames, more torch than candle. They shined bright and waved in the wind. Their thoughts, hopes, desires and fears everything that meant they were alive.
He reached out with his telepathy.
To call it that was limiting. He was capable of so much more with that half of his power set. The possibilities truly scared him.
Like he had said. He had seen into the Mother’s mind. He couldn’t deny the similarities.
That’s why her song was able to reach out and infect him from such a great distance. Her power and skill made it so that he couldn’t recognize the mental invasion for what it was.
Cal reached into the Inheritor’s minds. He imagined their flames shrinking from torches to candles. He saw his hands reach out and snuff the tiny flame.
The Inheritor’s dropped as one, like puppets without strings they flopped bonelessly to the floor.
NOOOOO!
The screech was like a broken violin string. It temporarily brought Cal to one knee as blood began to stream out of every orifice in his head.
My children!
It was a banshee wail that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, but solely focused in Cal’s mind.
“You chose your path,” Cal said through grit teeth, “you are responsible.”
The wail continued.
A brokenhearted mother’s cry.
It sounded heartrendingly sad, but Cal knew it to be an obscenity.
The wail suddenly stopped.
Cal rose to his feet.
You do not have sole claim to vengeance.
The Mother’s voice was calm and clear in Cal’s mind.
Cal rose in the air.
The dark interior of the facility beckoned.
He drifted forward slightly as if to enter the depths. To face the beast in its lair.
He stopped.
“Wait… you actually care about them. This mother thing isn’t just an act. In your own way, you care.” Cal sensed the truth. He reached out with his thoughts. There were many Inheritors scattered all over the city section. Fighting with combat drones. The largest group was further away climbing a shaft to the surface.
Pursuing…
Cal smiled.
“You should’ve agreed… if only for your children’s sake.”
Cal shot away into the air with a loud boom.
PJ15 needed help. He couldn’t ignore that just for his own vengeance.
Mother Madrigal tore her way out of the depths of the birthing creche facility.
Cal spared her a brief glance back.
She flew in his wake. Her cloak of skin with hands along their edges was unfurled and propelled her forward like wings.
The Mother was enormous, fifteen feet tall, like statue of flesh come to life.
The sight didn’t make sense from a scientific standpoint, but that was expected since the spires appeared.
Cal heard her song in his head. It didn’t emanate from her hood-shrouded face. That was a black void. There was no hint to what it concealed.
The sound was filled with overwhelming desperation and a building rage.
Good, Cal thought, I do to you as you did to me.
He sent a telepathic spike into the Mother’s thoughts.
She brushed it aside.
He ripped up the street surface and structure walls beneath him and sent them scything at her in jagged pieces.
She slapped them aside with impossibly long and thin arms.
Cal ripped through the air as fast a jet, yet Mother Madrigal somehow kept close.
They covered the distance to the transport shaft in a matter of minutes.
Cal zipped through the large, oval-shaped opening. He spun and faced the rapidly approaching Mother Madrigal.
He grunted with effort as he collapsed the tunnel.
Dust from over a decade of disuse erupted with the rest of the debris in a great cloud that filled the entire circumference of the shaft.
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Cal zoomed up out of the cloud. He could see light streaming down from the opening at the surface thousands of feet up.
Tiny forms crawled up the side of the shaft. They looked like ants in the distance.
PJ15 crawled up the side of the shaft, while Inheritors and many more corrupted chased closely behind.
The air spun and shook in Cal’s wake. Whipping winds threatened everyone climbing up the shaft.
An Inheritor with voluminous sacs on their back shot super-heated gas from a pair of holes in the palms of their hands.
The attack splashed harmlessly against Cal’s telekinetic shield.
He spun away from more attacks.
Sharp spikes, caustic liquids and different elements lanced out from the Inheritors.
Cal zipped by them all.
He reached PJ15 and the corrupted just below the Threnosh.
He swiped a hand across the space contemptuously. A large swath of corrupted were brushed off the wall like dust.
Cal reached a hand out to PJ15. “Let’s go.”
PJ15 shot a long tendril out from their hand.
Cal took it and pulled the Threnosh up behind him as he flew toward the distant sunlight.
Hundreds of meters passed by in seconds.
Cal felt a tickle on the edge of his thoughts which turned into a screech that had a new batch of blood stream out of his head holes. He stopped and reversed course instinctively just as the side of the wall erupted out in a spray of dirt, rocks and metal.
Mother Madrigal reached out with her long, sinewy arms.
Cal pushed them away with a thought. He spun around the Mother. The hands on the edge of her flesh cloak grabbed at him and PJ15.
Forceful shoves of telekinetic force kept them off Cal. While PJ15 struck them aside with tendrils erupting from all over the surface of their power armor.
Cal whipped PJ15 up toward the hole in the sky. It was still so small. So far away. “You go. I’m going to finish this.”
PJ15’s face became visible as their helmet’s faceplate retracted.
Their words were lost in the wind as Cal used his telekinesis to hurl the Threnosh away.
PJ15 shot up like a missile.
Cal was so intent on making sure they made it that he almost didn’t notice the rush of movement from the gaping hole in the wall that the Mother had made.
Corrupted… winged ones.
Cal cursed as a dozen or more swarmed around him and buffeted him with their bat-like wings as they took flight after PJ15.
He reached out and clawed his fingers through the skin-like flap connecting the corrupted’s wrist to lower leg.
The corrupted screeched in protest.
Cal pulled it down and sent it shooting down at the Mother, where she clung to the wall.
The Mother caught her child, but the impact broke it.
She wailed, but let the dead corrupted drop before she launched herself up at Cal.
Cal tried to keep her back, but the Mother powered through his telekinesis.
Half a dozen hands grabbed him and wrapped him up in the Mother’s flesh cloak.
The warmth and feeling of comfort it brought him made Cal shout in panic.
Not again.
Never again.
Cal kept his thoughts in his control even as the two of them plummeted down the shaft toward darkness.
----------------------------------------
Honor had gotten PJ15 up most of the way to the lift shaft exit. They had to crawl up the wall the last few dozen meters.
A variant group of corrupted was closing quickly. They were flight capable, but not particularly fast. PJ15 scanned their flight speed in a direct climb as roughly the same as a baseline infantry soldier’s maximum run speed.
PJ15 had a sizable lead.
Now that they were at the surface they tried to reach base camp on the comms.
Nothing, but the same interference.
They crested the lip of the opening and pulled themselves up and immediately engaged their boot jets. Their energy had regenerated enough for one powerful burst.
The boost shot PJ15 into the open sky hundreds of meters. Wings erupted from their back at the apex of their ascent. They aimed their gliding flight toward a thousand meter tall tower in the distance.
Orchestral Meridian’s central tower gave PJ15 their best chance at contacting the rest of their team. Either the distance height provided would allow them to escape the reach of Mother Madrigal’s interference. Or they could attempt to create visual means to draw the notice of their team.
PJ15 hit the sleek, metallic side of the massive tower a few minutes later. They started climbing. Their power armor’s ability to adhere to nearly any surface allowed a rapid ascent. They didn’t need to look back to know that the flying corrupted were coming.
They climbed the tower.
A hundred meters in less than a minute.
The corrupted’s screeching reached their ear holes without enhancement.
Their comms began to crackle with static.
PJ15 climbed higher, faster.
“PJ15 to base, I have located Honor. Attempting to transmit last known location. Reinforce with all haste.”
PJ15 set their words to repeat as they continued to climb.
They did a calculation.
They could go no higher. They were exposed on the side of the tower. The flying corrupted could swarm them with ease.
PJ15 spied an open area several dozen meters to their right.
A landing area for aerial vehicles.
It was their only option for a place to fight from.
They shot a tendril across the gap and swung down to land without a sound.
The surface of their power armor bristled with spikes and tendrils with a mind of its own as the flying swarm approached.
PJ15 regretted dropping their projectile weapons.
The static continued to crackle over the comms.
PJ15 pushed it out of their mind. They focused on the fight.
A proximity alert pinged in their helmet.
A quick shift of focus showed a small 3D projection of the surrounding area in one corner of PJ15’s faceplate.
Small objects were converging on his location.
Drones?
Their physical profile wasn’t like the drones PJ15 was familiar with, but the signals they emitted…
One hovered into view.
It was a drone.
It hovered on a similar anti-gravity unit as the standard for the different types of aerial drones.
PJ15 didn’t recognize it.
The drone emitted a signal that had PJ15 wince at the harsh sound in their helmet. Curiously, their auditory protections didn’t engage.
More drones appeared and spread out around PJ15
All the while the flying corrupted drew closer.
“Acknowledged.”
A voice spoke over the comms.
A voice that PJ15 hadn’t expected. The speaker was supposed to be part of another operation hundreds of kilometers away.
“We are currently facing heavy enemy assault across our controlled city sections. I am sending what reinforcements I can. Vanguards are inbound on your position. A strike team will be dispatched to Honor’s last coordinates,” Frequency said.
“Send a quick recharge unit to my location. My presence will be necessary. Designation: Mother Madrigal is accompanied by no less than 12 Inheritors and hundreds of corrupted.”
“Strike team will route to your position first. Status on Brightstrike? I do not detect their signal.”
“Brightstrike was killed in action against the enemy. They provided the crucial opportunity to locate Honor and strike at the heart of enemy territory,” PJ15 said flatly. “We must triumph and complete the Task… for Brightstrike.”
Silence.
“We will,” Frequency said solemnly. “We will not fail.”
----------------------------------------
Vanguard Blazer Ecoria 70 had just emptied their micro missile pack into a mass of corrupted to allow the small squad of infantry soldiers to retreat toward a fortified position when they received new orders. Below the vanguard combat drones rolled forward into the gap that they had just cleared. The drones would kill corrupted in droves before they were inevitably overwhelmed.
The vanguard’s rose red and brass colored power armor glinted in the sunlight as they rolled to ditch their empty missile pack. Their anti-gravity units whined in protest as they banked tightly to orient themselves toward PJ15’s coordinates. They added the thrusters in the palms of their gauntlets to those in their boots for extra speed. They were going to need it to get there in time.
Vanguard Zeljanz 31 was a metallic blue and gray streak through the narrow city streets. They were only a few meters off the ground due to this particular city section being below surface level. Corrupted contacts beeped in their proximity alert system. The twisted monstrosities were all over the place.
The vanguard had cause to regret utilizing the optimum path to the target location. In retrospect, they should’ve sought clear skies at the cost of greater overall distance to travel.
The micro missile pack attached to their back disrupted their aerodynamic profile and slowed them down, made them less agile.
A small group of corrupted loomed ahead in the darkness.
Their targeting system fed instructions into their faceplate. They raised their open palms and aligned them to target. They fired bursts of battering force. The same force that provided the thrust for flight punched the corrupted aside and allowed the vanguard to zoom through.
The vanguard power armor was second only to the elites in terms of overall power. However, they were woefully underpowered without additional weapon packs, like the micro missile battery. Speed and maneuverability was what they needed to rely on against more powerful opponents.
Vanguard Zeljanz 31 finally hit a shaft to the surface. They zoomed in and up without slowing. They were in blessedly clear skies seconds later. “I am en route to PJ15’s location. I do not see Vanguard Blazer Ecoria 70 on sensors.”
“Be advised, Designation: Mother Madrigal’s interference is still in effect. Sensors and communications will remain impacted until further notice. Vanguard Blazer Ecoria 70 is en route. You will reach the target location approximately eight seconds ahead of them,” Communicator Dreylox 7193’s voice crackled over the comms.
“Acknowledged.”
Vanguard Zeljanz 31 could already see the swarm of flying corrupted with the maximum magnification view in their faceplate.
----------------------------------------
Now, Earth
“It’s a straight up fort,” Johnny said.
“Nah, dude more like a castle,” Olo said.
“What kind of castle’s got machine gun emplacements?” Mads said.
“So… like a bunker?” Bastien said.
“Shhh,” Gene said. “Keisha and Hanna are glaring at us.”
The group was inside what was once a donut bakery. There were more of them scattered in different buildings all around their target.
Their target being the cult’s fort that stood over the entrance leading to the Deep Azure’s tunnels underneath the bay.
“Do you want me to go over and shut them up?” Keisha said.
“Nah… they’re just scared shitless,” Hanna said.
Keisha shrugged. “So’s everyone else.”
“Not everyday you storm a fucking castle with machine guns,” Hanna said.
“How come you’re cool then? I used to compete in college, got nerves every time. Puked half the time too. Ain’t anyone I competed against that didn’t show the same nerves. I know the look. I’m not seeing it in you. You stormed a castle before?” Keisha raised a brow.
“Nah… well…” Hanna mulled it over. “There was this militia camp once. Chain-link fence and barb wire,” she looked out at the window to the fort, “a little different.”
“Waiting was always the worst,” Keisha glanced over at Nila, “just wanted to get my throws up.”
“Sooner is better,” Hanna agreed.
Nila stood at the window with Veronica and Megan.
“How much longer?” Veronica whined.
Nila stared across several hundred yards of cleared landscape.
The cult had torn down everything, mostly commercial structures around the tall concrete wall, to give clear fields of fire and deprive attackers of cover.
“What if those other weredogs show up?” Megan glanced at Veronica.
Veronica tsked. “C’mon, Mom! Me and Aunt Nila totally beat that guy up. If they show up again, we’ve got it covered.”
“Veronica,” Megan glared. “Take this seriously. This isn’t a game. This is dangerous.”
“I know that,” Veronica rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry. We’re going to get Dad and Tessa back. Then we’ll crush the stupid fish cult,” she pounded a fist in her hand.
Eyes swung in Veronica’s direction at the loud sound.
Megan and Nila sighed.
“Sorry,” Veronica mouthed.
“I’m serious about the other two weredogs, the men. If they show up we’re in trouble. We need Rino and Karen to handle the bulk of the cultists so we can get into the tunnel. If they have to stalemate the other weredogs…”
“We’ll get bogged down with the cultists and, or, the weredogs will tear through the rest of us,” Nila said after a moment. “I think we’ll be okay on that front. Rino said that the guy weredogs will probably be on the shelf for a day or two.”
“But I thought you said they healed quickly,” Megan said.
“Except they have limits. Too much damage, too quickly and it’ll take longer,” Nila said.
Nila felt the comforting weight of her twenty pound metal bat in her hand. The thought that she found it comforting bothered her.
“Will it ever end?”
“Huh? Aunt Nila, are you okay?” Veronica didn’t sense any weird brain shenanigans like earlier, but there was a weird look on her aunt’s face.
“One crisis to another. One monster to another. Ten years of this… what’s the point.”
“Nila… you’re scaring Veronica,” Megan tried to pull Veronica behind her.
The super strong teenager didn’t budge.
Nila blinked. “Sorry… I’m feeling a little weird… unmoored, I guess.”
“You have to get your head in the game,” Veronica said. She remembered the man who had liked to say that. “It’s been ten years. That means Uncle Cal can come back from the gray aliens’ world!” she said brightly.
Nila blinked again.
The dark clouds in her mind parted enough that Veronica’s words reached her and most importantly, she understood.
“That’s right,” Nila smiled.
A darker voice whispered in the back of her mind.
That Cal hadn’t sent a message back in quite some time. That his last message had spoken of some grand undertaking in a dead city.
“That’s right,” Nila repeated with conviction. “And if he doesn’t then I’ll go up world myself.”
“Yeah!” Veronica cheered. “It’d be cool to see another planet full of tiny Iron Men.”
Nila smiled.
Things felt just a bit lighter, especially considering the violence and possible death that loomed. She hadn’t been wrong. This wasn’t the life any rational person would pick if given the choice.
The light continued to wane as the sun completed its descent to the west.
Their timing had to be as close to perfect as possible.
Two targets.
Two different groups.
Further the cult’s disarray, force them to react to two separate places. City Hall was one. The fort before them was the other.
It was difficult to work out a way to coordinate with all forms of long range communication not functioning, which was clearly a result of deliberate measures by the Deep Azure.
It was until a Detective had pointed out that a Vampire had ways to monitor things across the city. Something like a weredog’s loud howl.
“There’s the signal,” Nila said.
Someone in the shop started to count.
Nila saw two large shapes out in the darkness loping across the distance to the fort walls.
It was wrong for someone so large and fast to also be so quiet.
The cultists manning the machine guns didn’t have a chance.
“Thirty,” Hanna said. “C’mon people! Let’s kick some cultist ass!”
Nila grabbed her shield and bat-like club and burst right through the large front glass window.
Only Veronica kept up. Despite Megan shouting for her to stay close.
The rest trailed in their wake.
Move forward. That was all Nila could do for now.