Now, Manila

“I saw you, but not,” Lilah rasped. “You were wearing weird armor and there was a building with a lot of flags. A huge room with seats and fancy stuff on the walls. Like, paintings, statues and other junk.”

“Slow down, Lilah, breathe,” Eron hushed her as the others looked on with worry.

“Where’s the doctor?” Phillip whispered to Madalena. He didn’t like how thin and pale the young girl in bed looked. Eron had told him briefly of her magic and the costs she had borne of late.

“Should be on his way. I sent one of the kids to get him like I sent Nestor to you,” Madalena replied.

“The gray was everywhere. In so many places,” Lilah continued weakly.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. The people I told you about. They’re here to help us. My dad, my brother, others. They’re strong and brave and they’ll help us all get out of here,” Eron said. “Just rest…”

“I saw…” Lilah closed her eyes.

Eron made sure she had fallen back asleep and was still breathing before he turned to his dad and cousin. “We can’t waste anymore time. We need to plan and act now.”

“Leges Servitae, Pax Fiat,” Phillip recited the words his uncle had left him.

For some reason they had pushed themselves free from his thoughts on to his tongue.

“What?” Eron frowned.

Phillip repeated them. “Tito Carlos said those to me. Obviously, a hint about the fog. Throughout the conversation he had implied that the fog’s control was… variable… he claimed to be more of himself in that moment,” he turned to Madalena, “he spoke about you.”

Madalena set her jaw firmly. “That wasn’t him, not really.”

“Sounds like Latin,” Eron said. “You wouldn’t happen to know what it means?”

“Service and peace are the only words I recognize, sorry… it’s been a long time since high school Latin class,” Phillip said.

“Two out of four isn’t bad,” Eron said.

“I don’ t know either,” Madalena shook her head.

“Law Serves Peace, Let It be Done,” Dr. Rufo walked into Lilah’s room.

“You speak Latin?”

“Oh, no,” Dr. Rufo shooed Eron out of the way so that he could assess Lilah’s condition. “I just specifically remember that because its on one of the government’s seals. Congress or Senate, maybe both. I had a niece,” his voice grew somber, “she was an attorney for them and she took me on a behind the scenes tour of the GSIS Building in Pasay. This was right before the spires appeared. It was the last time I saw her. I’ve burned that day into my memory. She was just starting, right out of law school. We were all so proud of her.”

No one knew what to say.

“Thanks, Doc,” Eron said finally. “I’d say that’s the first solid hint for a location.”

“It could be a trap,” Madalena warned.

“Tito Carlos seemed genuine to me. At least at that moment. He even warned me that he might not be as helpful the next time,” Phillip said.

“It’s good enough for now. Let’s gather the others,” Eron said.

They met back down in the restaurant to Cherry’s mild annoyance, which she showed by loudly slurping the contents of her blood bag through a straw.

She garnered a variety of looks. Fear, disgust and lust, sometimes a mixture of the three.

“Would you like one?” Cherry eyed Ginessa, who had come to sit at the bar. As far as possible from the majority of people seated at tables in the middle of the restaurant and from Cristos, who lingered at the stairwell, leaning up against the door frame.

“That one doesn’t want to let you out of his sight,” Cherry whispered.

“Cal said he has orders to kill me if I show signs of ‘evil’,” Ginessa said.

“And they allowed him to travel with you?” Cherry’s eyes narrowed dangerously at Cristos, who returned the glare with a stone face.

“Cal said he wouldn’t let him if he tried,” Ginessa said.

“Well he’s not here, is he?”

“Mr. Cruces and Rino are also supposed to keep me safe from him,” Ginessa shrugged.

“Girl, you need to be more concerned with your safety,” Cherry sighed. “They can’t watch you all the time.”

“It’s fine…”

“It really isn’t. What’s so valuable about him anyway? He just looks like a soldier.”

“He was special forces and… he isn’t so bad. He didn’t torture me when I was in the cage.”

Cherry’s eyes widened before narrowing.

Ginessa sensed the murderous force of the more powerful aswang’s building rage. An ire that was directed toward Cristos.

For his part the soldier grew wary. His hand drifted to the pistol at his side.

“Wait! Don’t do anything!” Ginessa hissed urgently.

“Fine…” Cherry said after a moment. “I made such a big deal about proper guest behavior to that bitch earlier… I’d look like the biggest hypocrite if I gutted that man right now.”

“Please don’t!”

“Relax, girl… here, have some blood,” Cherry thrust a blood bag at Ginessa. “Well… what’re you waiting for?”

“I have my own,” Ginessa said.

“Allow me to be a good hostess,” Cherry smiled toothily.

“I… I don’t like to drink when others can see,” Ginessa squeaked.

“You’re an Aswang. You drink blood because you have to. This blood,” Cherry tapped the bag, “came from a hospital or maybe a clinic, I don’t exactly where Eron got it, but it didn’t come from me taking it from another human being. In fact it was magically produced. You think after ten years in an abandoned hospital that it’s normal for supplies to just show up?” she arched a brow. “A person would be a very stupid to begrudge you this. When the alternative is…” she shrugged.

“Can I please have a straw?”

Cherry smiled as she handed one over.

The two watched the discussion while sipping their cold blood.

Jake spun the magical communication device on the table. “We can’t boost the signal. Need more magical power to do that and we just don’t have it,” he eyed the rangers seated together at a nearby table.

“You can say it, nerd,” Mouthy said without her usual bluster. She was downright subdued. “They’re gone and nothing’s going to change that. I’d rather we came out of this with something, so we wouldn’t have wasted their lives.”

“Without Two-toes and Smores— Well, that leaves us with just myself, Amber, Alexa and Max as full-on mage-types. Max isn’t at a hundred percent. I’ve used up a lot of my stored mana. And, no offense, but Amber and Alexa just don’t have enough. We might’ve been able to do it with the other two. Smores had a pretty big pool and Two-toes’ wasn’t bad either.”

Mouthy raised a glass of guava juice in mock toast toward Jake. She took a long pull. “Fucking wish this had alcohol,” she muttered.

“Shut up. You can’t get drunk at a planning meeting,” Hardhat whispered, but even her voice lacked the customary bite when it came to castigating her squad mate.

“What about the gabunan? She’s got a lot of magic power,” Rino shot daggers at Cherry, who smiled blandly.

Jake shook his head. “It’s not exactly the same. The devices were designed for—” he hesitated, “human mana.” He ducked his head in apology toward Ginessa.

“Okay, so you can’t boost it. What if we get closer to this Hyatt?” Eron ventured.

“In theory that’d work. We only lost connection after we got a few blocks away from there,” Jake said.

“Could be that the fog only allowed us to communicate up until that point. Bit coincidental that the ibingan shade attacked at around the same time,” Doran nodded toward Phillip.

“My uncle suggested that this entity is a thinking being, so that is a strong possibility,” Phillip said.

“We don’t even know if Cal is still there,” Madalena said.

“Why would think that?” Eron frowned.

“You heard what Lilah said up there.”

“She had a nightmare.”

“You don’t believe it’s just that. She’s seeing things out there while they’re happening. She’s spoken of them. There must be a connection that she’s getting through her sigils.” Madalena pointed at Demi. “Strange armor. That other woman upstairs has a one too. Your brother has one, right?”

Eron nodded reluctantly.

“Lilah said she saw you wearing strange armor. What if who she saw was your brother?”

“The fog expanded to take in the ibingan. Cal and I talked about that,” Phillip said.

“Lube-less assfucking bullshit,” Mouthy muttered.

“It took our base?” Amber’s voice shook.

“We don’t know that for sure,” Alexa soothed the young woman.

“Alright, different angle then. Tito Carlos’ words,” Eron regarded his dad. “You believed him?”

“Yes, Anak.”

“Then he wants us to go to that senate building.”

“As a trap!” Madalena snapped.

“Or not. What if that’s where the fog entity is? I mean its real, main body or whatever the horrifying equivalent is?”

“You’re just gonna punch it to death then?” Madalena scoffed.

“If that works. If not then it’d at least make for a pretty damn good distraction,” Eron shrugged.

“If we can’t strengthen our signal, then we can weaken its ability to block or interfere,” Jake’s eyes lit up.

“There might not be a base to reach,” Madalena said.

“Then we’ll know that for a fact and plan accordingly. My main goal right now is to get everyone out of this so that Lilah doesn’t have to maintain her wards,” Eron said.

“Your brother— If he’s down in here with us…” Phillip began.

“I trust in his ability to take care of himself. Besides, he wouldn’t agree to a young girl’s death for his sake alone.”

“What do you mean?” Phillip said.

“Lilah doesn’t have much time left. Turns out it’s hard on a young girl’s body when she’s the only one keeping a powerful, otherworldly entity from subsuming us all,” Eron said.

“And I thought being stuck in an undersea cave system with fishmen and a dark, ocean godling was worst experience I’d ever had to go through,” pale-faced Max coughed bitterly.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Yay for you,” Mouthy gave another mocking toast. “Our worst experience prior to this was putting down a crazy sex slavery cult. That or undead. I don’t know… guys, were the undead worse or the cultists?”

“The cultists. We lost Iz, One-eye and Punchkicker,” Aims said flatly. “And you need to keep your mouth shut if you don’t have anything constructive to add.”

“You’re not the sarge,” Mouthy grunted, but remained silent for the rest of the discussion.

Eron ignored the interplay. There wasn’t a person out there that hadn’t had terrible experiences in the post-spires world. He had sympathy for their losses, but the dead were gone. Only the living mattered.

“Two groups,” Eron held up two fingers. “One to go to this GSIS and destroy the fog entity if possible. The second group will take everyone here out of the fog while the first distracts.”

“What about the rest of our sanctuaries?” Madalena snapped.

“We’ll need another bus to pick them up. Now that my dad is here that’s doable,” Eron said lightly. “Dropping the wards here should ease the strain on Lilah and every bit counts. Madalena, you’ll push the bus we have now. With the portable ward, you shouldn’t have any problems going north and getting out. After you drop everyone outside, you come back in with the ward and meet up with my dad and pick up the rest of the sanctuaries. We’ll have to decide which one you’ll meet up at.”

“You’re going to GSIS by yourself, huh?” Phillip said.

“Who else?”

“I’m stronger than you without your main powers. It makes more sense for me to go,” Phillip said.

“Which is why you’ll be pushing the bus. You’ve got several places to evacuate. You’ll do it faster than me, which means I don’t have to distract as long. If we switch places then you’ll have to face the entity for a longer period of time.”

“I’m in tentative agreement to this plan,” Demi said.

“Watch Captain?” Jake’s eye widened.

“We are no longer combat effective and from my understanding that wasn’t the worst the fog entity could’ve sent against us,” Demi continued. “Commanders are injured,” she nodded toward the rangers. “Our best fighter is down.”

Rino cleared her throat, but was ignored.

“Hanna’s just got a concussion. That doctor has Skills and we’ve got minor healing abilities. Even without all that Hanna’s enhanced physical constitution means she’ll be ready to go in a few days, a week at most,” Jake said.

“The girl doesn’t have that long from what he’s saying,” Demi nodded at Eron, “which means the same for the rest of us.”

“Her wards are the only thing keeping us safe,” Alexa agreed.

“You’re mages too, can’t you, like, add mana to them? Ease the drain on Lilah?” Madalena ventured.

“Sorry, just looking at them I can feel that they’re different,” Alexa said.

The other mages nodded in agreement.

“I only checked them out a little bit, but it’s like they’re directly tied to her, constantly. We can’t… cut in,” Jake threw his hands up.

“Okay… well, unless anyone else has better ideas, we need to get started on this now,” Eron said.

Silence.

“Great… um, Dad, I’ll give you the locations of the closest buses that we might be able to use, along with a map of the sanctuaries. Good talk everyone. Let’s get this done.” Eron abruptly stood up and went back upstairs. Cristos had to scramble to avoid being walked through.

“That really wasn’t,” Trevor whispered to Amber.

“Shut up, Trevor! Read the room!” she hissed.

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

Elsewhen, Elsewhere

In another time and a different place stood a silent world of gray. Entirely devoid of life… almost.

One thing existed.

It savored total and complete victory.

Finally, it was alone.

The world’s native defenders had been taken.

Other powerful entities had vied with it for dominance.

They too had been subsumed or utterly destroyed.

It was finally safe to do what it was born to.

Exist.

Nothing more, nothing less.

It lived through billions of lives one at a time in its entirety. All of the souls it had taken belonged to it. Each individual’s memories experienced as if for the first time again.

Uncounted millennium passed.

Nothing was left.

All had been consumed.

The gray that shrouded the entire world slowly receded over centuries.

It coalesced into one final form.

The last native of this world stood on four chitinous legs. It was not truth. It was one last insult to the brave, failed struggle of this world.

It skittered across a barren, blasted landscape toward a gleaming spire in the distance.

This world was dead and it knew that the spires would soon vanish. It would be eons before they returned. Without sapient life the spires served no purpose.

Time passed. Days, weeks? Such concepts were alien, incomprehensible to its thoughts.

The spire loomed over it.

An expression of will.

Creation.

A small orb of swirling gray emerged from its stolen form.

It pushed the orb into the spire.

Images flashed through its thoughts.

A selection.

Options, choices.

Where would the ideal location to propagate existence be?

A list of other worlds.

One stood out.

A blue and green sphere. A young world. Newly reconnected to the spires. An ideal world. Its native defenders wouldn’t have had the time to grow in strength. Likewise, other invaders vying for supremacy wouldn’t have had the chance to entrench themselves.

The cost to send it there was immeasurable.

Subsuming an entire world was just enough.

The choice was made without further thought or concern.

What will be was out of its determinance.

It would fall to the new one to succeed or fail.

With its purpose fulfilled the need to maintain itself, to exist, was no longer required.

The last echo of life on this world slowly disappeared into gray wisps blown away by the breeze.

In time the spires would be gone and this world would be dead in truth.

A handful of years passed. A blink as it measured things.

On the other world a spire had appeared right through a large building.

A seat of power was as fitting a place as any other.

Grandiose seals adorned the walls of a large chamber. A raised dais was surrounded by several tiers of seats and tables going higher up the farther away from the center, where an enormous flag of blue, red and white with a yellow sun hung limp.

A fine layer of dust had gathered on every surface.

The spire shimmered for a moment.

The gray orb emerged and settled on the floor before suddenly exploding outward. Gray mist began to billow, light and thin at first, but soon became thick, nearly opaque as it filled the chamber and continued to spread into the rest of the building.

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

Now, Manila

Cal woke up.

That had been an unpleasant and very confusing set of dreams.

So much so that it took him several seconds to realize something big had changed in his mind.

It was quiet.

He was alone with his thoughts.

For the first time in years, the incessant whispers were gone.

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Except, it wasn’t truly gone… was it?

Yes.

He could feel it.

There!

Just out of reach. As if sealed away in a gray box. Rattling.

He tried to grab it, but found no purchase.

There was something about the mechanics of it that he didn’t understand at the moment.

Disappointing, but he’d continue to work on it.

For the time being it was nice not having to rely on telepathic walls to keep the thoughts out of his head, even if only at a whisper.

As he sat up from the floor he noticed that there were four people eyeing him.

Hard eyes. Appraising. Judging. Wary.

He grimaced. Not knowing the truth that potential enemies held in secret was going to be an adjustment.

The two young women stared at him. One scowled, while the other looked blankly at him. Like he was a piece of furniture. The younger man kept glancing back at the very tall man.

That was the leader then.

Cal stood and the four reacted by mirroring him. It didn’t escape his notice that hands immediately went to their weapons, while the younger man pointed a finger at him. A mage-type then. The rest must’ve been fighter-types.

Cal had to tilt his head back to look the leader in the eyes. “I’m sure you’ve gotten this a lot, but did you play ball? I mean back then?”

“What I did then doesn’t matter,” the leader graveled.

“Right. Okay, that was probably rude of me. How about some introductions?” Cal was wary.

The leader had a hand on his impressive-looking bladed, wooden club. It looked about as long as Cal was tall.

The scowling woman had a hand on her pistol, while the blank-faced one had both hands hidden in her jacket.

“You first. You’re the one that showed up from out there on our doorstep,” the leader said.

“Actually, I opened the door and walked in, but semantics,” Cal shrugged. “My name is Kyle,” he lied.

The younger man glanced at something hidden in his hand and cleared his throat.

“Try the truth next time,” the leader’s eyes narrowed.

“Yeah, well, I’ve heard that Witches can do some nasty stuff to you if they know your true name, so… you’re not getting mine. You might be Witches,” Cal said.

“I guess no names then.”

“Fair enough.”

“How’d you get through the fog?”

“I jumped and ran.”

“That armor?”

“Got it from somewhere else. It was bespoke. The paint job is really great. Skills really make a difference,” he said lightly. “Not a single scratch from your attempts to pry it open.”

The scowling young woman’s eyes widened before she was able to master her expression. Sometimes one didn’t need to read minds.

“We didn’t do anything,” the leader said.

Cal pointed at the younger man. “Truth? Or lie?” he grinned.

“You better think very hard about where you want to take this,” the leader casually raised his weapon to his shoulder.

“It’s funny that you say that, cause that’s exactly what I was thinking, but from the other direction. I’m getting a very hostile vibe from you guys. I mean, if a group of people were trapped in this place. Kept safe from the fog by those things, presumably,” he pointed at the glowing sigil on the wall, “one would think they’d be more friendly when a person came knocking.”

“Yeah, well, how do we know that you aren’t with the fog? That you aren’t just another monster!” the scowling young woman snapped.

The leader silenced her with a glare.

“Well, I don’t know that. I’d think you’d know all about how that works better than me. I’m new here and you’ve been here this whole time, right? You know all about the people who set this place up? How it all works? Etcetera, etcetera.”

The four were silent.

It looked like they were on the verge of violence, but Cal had been primed by his experiences to expect violence at any instant. He tempered that instinct and decided that he’d let them make the first move. The Threnosh armor should keep him safe.

“Okay, you’re right,” the leader relaxed a fraction. “We probably know just a little bit more than you. We came from outside this fog maybe a week ago. It’s hard to tell time in here.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s something weird going on with the passage of time in here,” the young man said.

Cal noted that the young man’s hand was still pointed at him.

“It was a battle to even get this far. Monsters and people in the fog. Kill them and they just turn into mist. Same thing happened to the guys I lost. I don’t even want to think about what that means for them,” the leader sighed. “When we came up to this place there was a regrettable misunderstanding with the guys that set this up. There was a fight, but we cleared it up and they let us stay here.”

Cal tried to gauge the leader’s level of truthfulness.

His eyes hadn’t wavered one bit during the story.

Truth? Lies? A mixture? Key omissions? The best lies held truths in them to some degree.

It was going to be a lot harder now that he couldn’t cheat with his powers.

“Did they give you any of their names?”

The tall man shook his head. “They weren’t interested in pleasantries. Not that I can blame them.”

“Do you at least know where we are right now?”

“Either in Quezon City or close. It’s hard to tell with, well, you know,” the tall man said.

“We came in from the north. That’s the only thing we’re sure about,” the young man added.

“Interesting.” Cal remembered what sort of people held power north of the city. He turned and went to the front door.

“Wait! What are you doing?” the leader had been caught off guard.

“Quezon City. That’s something to start with.”

“You’re just going to go out there? With those things?” the young man gaped.

“Got here just fine. Besides,” Cal pointed at the glowing sigil on the wall, “that thing has dimmed noticeably in the past few minutes we’ve been talking. I don’t like the chances that’s it’s going to last long enough to wait here.”

“We’re going with you,” the leader said to horrified reactions from the other three.

“You’ll just slow me down. Once I find these people, the ones responsible for this place, I’ll let them know that thing needs a recharge or something.”

“You said it yourself. We can’t wait for that,” the tall man said. “We can help each other navigate and fight.”

Cal doubted these four, but he couldn’t leave them to the fog in case they weren’t bad people. Even if they were bad people, there was degrees to such things. He couldn’t just abandon them.

Thoughts of the balbal he had killed flashed through his mind.

Once he found Eron he’d learn the truth.

“Fine, but I’m not responsible for your safety. You carry your own weight.”

The four quickly gathered their things and followed Cal out into the gray gloom

“You wouldn’t happen to know where the government used to meet?” he said lightly.

“That could a couple of different places, why?” the leader frowned at his armored back.

“This one has a seal with the flag, but in the shape of, like, a shield, some leaves on either side and Latin words. Oh, yeah, huge Philippine flag hanging on the wall.”

“That sounds like the senate to me. I know a senator,” the leader ventured.

“Do you? Interesting…”