Tales of the Old World Demon Lord
Chapter 40 – The right hand of God
[Eternum Calendar 1972]
“Good, you pass. Welcome Yui Kirisaki, to the [Upper Echelon]. From this day you will hence be known as… [Nemesis].”
Enshrouded by a desolating darkness existed a tomb that dwarfed time itself. With fading lights keeping illuminated what was contained, it presented itself as a cylindrical glass tank. Filled inside was a strange orange tinted fluid whose fluorescent glow cast a sickly complexion on even the heartless steel floor. Connected through the floor via complicated mechanisms and wirings, it growled in a low hum. The ominous noise served as both the guard dog and a warning to keep what slept inside from being awoken.
Floating gently within the center of the glass tank was a figure of a small girl, her long black hair swaying side to side under the direction of the orange water. Various complex gadgetry and wires protruded through and from her small body, digging deep into her flesh, they in turn connected her essence to the machine. With only a single glance it was unclear if it was the machine keeping the girl alive or if it was her that was used to power the machine as a battery.
‘You do not have my permission to die yet; you’re of much more use to me alive than you are dead. To me who has such high expectations of you, do not fail me.’
Her eyes twitched, slowly peeling open they revealed incredibly sharp blue irises that contrasted strongly with the overall orange hue around her. Bubbles brushed past her face as a familiar voice resounded in her mind; a memory of a long forgotten time, but to her it felt like mere minutes ago that she heard those words.
Silently staring into the orange tinted abyss before her, an unknown period of time passed as nothing but blank thoughts filtered through her mind. Eventually though, as she started to recover more and more of her consciousness, the rusted cogs in her brains started to turn. From her near brain-dead and vegetative state a single prominent thought rose into her mind.
‘He’s… calling…’
She replayed that strange voice over and over in her head. With her mind still mostly in an inactive state, the most she could do was move based on pure emotions. She tried to move but her body had refused to budge even an inch as the machines that wired into her were draining her of her strength. Some more time went by as the concept of what was happening to her finally dawned on her.
Realizing the powerlessness and dreary hopelessness of her situation her eyelids became a heavy burden. An overwhelming sense of light-headedness overcame her and due to it she was forced to shut her eyes and dive back into the dark abyss. The dreaded darkness overtook her once more as she felt for the first time in an unspecified amount of time the emotions known as ‘loneliness’.
An emotion that gave birth to desperation; fear slowly tangled around her, chocking her just as those wires did. Her heartbeat instantly spiked irregularly and her bright blue eyes opened completely as her consciousness fully returned to her. That being said, her mind was still in disarray and even thinking straight brought upon her a painful migraine. The constraints of her techno-bondage suffocated her as she tried to free herself, yet it was impossible for her current state as the machine continued eating away at her stamina.
If strength wasn’t going to work then the fallback method was obvious to her, she would use the vast psychokinetic powers at her disposal to manipulate the tank into opening. Even disoriented she was still able to produce enough effort to unleash a Psionic force to break the glass, or at least that should have been the case. Instead not a single scratch appeared as the glass gazed back at her mockingly.
At an instant she knew what this was. ‘Psion… resistance,’ it wasn’t completely unknown for such materials to be in existence but they were so incredibly rare that they could have been easily written off as just a myth. In fact, the only people that should have even known and had the power to excavate such materials were the [Upper Echelon] members of the ‘USSC’. That was to say that the reason she was here was because one of them had created and put her into this cylindrical prison.
She didn’t want to think about it, ‘a traitor…’ amongst their numbers. They were all her friends and each of them had been extremely loyal to the USSC. Picking one out that was the most likely proved to be an even more impossible task. Still, she had to escape from this prison, else her mind wouldn’t be able to endure it for longer. Thus she had put on hold matters regarding this situation’s origin and decided to focus on escaping first.
Mustering up whatever strength she could she formed a tight fist and proceeded to, unhesitatingly, smash it against the curved glass in front of her. The first strike hurt disproportionately to her capabilities; she was an elite soldier, there was no reason to have hurt this much.
Upon a closer inspection she found that her hand was much smaller than the one she remembered having. It wasn’t just her hands but her entire body had been shrunk to the size of a child. ‘What…?’ unlike her more educated comrades, she wasn’t a scientist thus she couldn’t explain why this was the case. The situation had plummeted into an exceedingly depressing state as it would be impossible to break through the glass with a child’s body.
‘No… I’m a soldier…’
Clenching her fists tightly she prepared herself for even more pain. She started pummeling at the glass container as she wordlessly endured the pain. Over and over, even as bruises started to form on her knuckles she continued without complaint.
It was a missed opportunity; as a first generation psychic she did not have the luxury that many other later generations shared, namely the [Gigandoll Power Frame] implants that multiplied physical capabilities. Even with her child’s body and strength if she had those implants then it would have been possible to smash through a glass of this caliber easily. Though what she lacked in physical capabilities were augmented by external armaments and unparalleled levels of psychokinetic potential.
How even possessing such strong powers if it didn’t work she was no different from a regular, powerless human. Seconds turned into minutes and minutes turned into hours, once more an unknown amount of time flew since she started this impossible task. Whilst being small, a crack was eventually marked on the tank’s glass, though it was her fists that suffered greater trauma. The blood from her wounds started to seep in and mix with the orange water to create a bath of wine smelling of rusted metal.
Being double teamed by her own pain and the machine that sapped away her strength, continuing on with this charade looked more and more impossible. ‘No… there is one more way…’ she grit her teeth as she let go of the tension in her body. Her stamina may have had been depleted due to her actions and the machine, but her psychokinetic powers still remained. It was true that the tank was highly resistant to her powers but her own body was not.
[Telekinesis], it was the most rudimentary form of psychokinesis but it was arguably extremely useful for many things. Using this power it was possible continue on with her assault on the tank. Forcing that power upon herself she was able to move her own body without actually moving her body. Manipulating her own body she recklessly continued the self-endangering assault as the pain had already numbed her senses. It was akin to grabbing someone else’s arm and smashing it across the window, but only that it was her own body.
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It could be that the hours had turned into days, but being sealed within this dark tomb with only the tint of orange for company she couldn’t accurately say.
Broken fists. Broken collar bones. Broken shoulders. Rapidly losing blood. Her current status was like a lifeless doll, dangling by wires and submerged into strange liquids. The only reason her life was still just barely preserved was because she had sustained with her powers.
Her consecutive strikes across the vulnerable crack in the glass had finally overcome the integrity of the tank. A small hole was formed and the liquid inside was starting to seep out. It wasn’t much but this could also be used for some inertial force to completely shatter the glass.
She resumed her bloody strike.
…
With a final stomp the glass impeding her freedom had finally shattered as the contents of the tank pooled outside. As she was pushed out, the wires and machinery that dug into her flesh were also violently removed in a fountain of blood. As she slid out of the tank an unfortunate accident occurred when she slit her stomach across some of the shards of glass.
She fell painfully towards the cold steel floor in a pool of her own blood and orange liquid. Up until now she did not even grimace as her body was being broken apart but with the relief of freedom she also felt the income of pain rushing straight to her. She didn’t utter a word but she did grimace with a sour expression as she tightly clutched upon the wounds of her stomach. Curling up into a fetal position she stayed that way until the pain would alleviate itself.
Despite the status of her injuries being very life threatening, she did not die. In fact her wounds were healing faster than she was bleeding out. The cuts and bruises faded out at a visible pace with her skin returning to the white porcelain it was to begin with. ‘I see… I still have my nanite impants…’ she breathed a sigh of relief.
[Subdermal Nanite Armor], though not a full implant like the Power Frame, this was a natural one that imbued her with various boons. The first being a passive ability known as [Hyper Regeneration], which did exactly what the name implied.
She stayed awhile after that to catch up with everything she had just accomplished. Laying stark naked upon the cold steel floor she looked up towards the black abyss that was supposed to be the ceilings above. She shook her head, ‘it’s impossible… nothing comes to mind.’ She retained much of her long term memories, who she was and what she did, yet her memories prior to being sealed here had vanished.
She reached up towards the darkness as if to grab it and sighed.
“[Director…]”
She sighed once more to herself and decided it wasn’t good to stay in this current state. Though it was unlikely that any enemies would be lurking nearby it was still safer to examine her environments more carefully, and also to find something to wear.
…
“[This place is… a USSC underground base, but why does it look so unused? Not just a few years or decades, but it feels as though it hasn’t been used in centuries…]”
She shook her head.
“[No, this makes no sense.]”
Having wandered about the place for a while, everything about the place looked rather intact. Other than some of it the place having rusted and broken down due to age, most of the equipment were in one piece, albeit nonfunctional. Electricity in the lab was still full functional, since it ran on perfected nuclear energy it would have lasted millennia or more.
This was good since most of the doors and lifts operated on electricity. Though if she really felt like it she could use her psychic powers to pry the doors open or fly up elevator shafts.
Wandering about a bit more she came upon a familiar dressing room. It was vague but some small memories about this place had returned to her, namely that this was the last operating base of the USSC.
“[That’s right… I was stationed here.]”
She opened the doors and found a small locker with her name on it, [Nemesis]. Opening it she found a small, black spandex suit gathering dust. On the left breast a small icon and the words USSC was marked, bringing a nostalgic tear to her eyes. She took it out and stared at it for a good while before dusting it off.
Though it would have obviously been an ill-fit due to her shrunken size, this suit had a system known as [one-size-fits-all], that adapted to the user’s body shape. Putting on the suit a synthetic voice played in her head.
“[Welcome back, user- Nemesis.]”
This suit was made in order to compensate for the fact that Nemesis was unable to have implants as a first generation psychic. It had three primary functions along with a rudimentary support AI.
The first function was [Stealth Mode] which masked her secondary presence.
The second function was [Inventory] which gave her access to an invisible pocket to store any items into a cloud storage system to be recalled whenever.
The third function was [Gigandoll Power Frame Mk VI, (Experimental)], which was an experimental version of the previous Power Frame to that was made into a wearable format. Though not as powerful as the Mk VII version, it was at least possible for Nemesis to wear.
“[At least I have something to wear… my other clothes are too big for this body.]”
Taking whatever medical supplies and equipment that looked important and storing it in her [inventory] she left the room.
…
“[That’s… ‘Testament’.]”
After a few more hours of base exploration she came across a door with a wooden plaque on it. On it the words [Testament] followed by a heart symbol was drawn.
‘Testament’ was the name of another [Upper Echelon] member; a scientist who was rather obsessed with the concept of creating powerful and unique lifeforms through rigorous and almost horrific experimentation. To be specific he was rank 3, meaning he was the third most powerful person in the entire USSC.
Incidentally, Nemesis’s own rank was 7.
She sentimentally placed her hands on the door and tried to open it physically but the lock was too adjusted. It would have been an easy thing for her to force it open with her abilities but she opted not to do that in order to preserve her comrade’s room. Though the USSC was no more, she had still held a lot of respect for each of them and was thankful that she got to meet and fight alongside them all.
With a dry scoff at herself she turned and walked away.
…
Finally she came upon the mainframe.
A large open area with various sub-facilities and practically a miniature city all contained within. She walked along the buildings, reminiscing about her past as she could almost see the spectres of the people who worked there just walking by. Though it was all in her own imagination, she could hear clearly the sounds of chatter and the whizzing of computer parts all in the background.
Now, everything around her was on the verge of crumbling down due to a lack of maintenance. It had barely avoided that fate due to the immensely complicated and efficient design that went into this place. This place had been built to last and she was looking at that proof.
Unbeknownst to her, as she moved around, she unconsciously wandered towards the middle where the command center was located. Upon the entrance read [USSC: Union States of the Sovereign Confederate], but to her it may as well have read, ‘home’.
She couldn’t help but wryly smile as she entered the building.
“[… I’m back…]”