Saying no to being the squadron’s scout is hard, especially when the only one capable of blending in with the Unbounded is you. Of which there were thousands.
Violet was wandering rather aimlessly in Unbounded form when she saw it: the plain of Rot. She paused at the outer stretches of the disease-ridden patch. It was pearly white in colour, and a slightly darker hue than regular, solid supreme steel. Like churned bonemeal.
It reminded Violet of snow. She had almost lost track of the seasons with how rapid the last year had been, but it occurred to her now, upon that eerie sight, that winter was well under way.
Perhaps if she were a few years younger, and the world wasn’t currently in the midst of a divine plight, then Violet could have spent this year’s end doing something trivial. Like building a snowman, or making angels in the snow.
That reality was far off, however. Instead, Violet was occupied with tip-toeing across the edges of the infected area, opening up her senses to the Supreme Fiend’s disease. It was an energy unlike anything she had seen before. It was like the aura was a swarm of angry bees — no, scratch that, hornets. Enraged hornets. Enraged hornets on steroids.
It felt viscerally violent in an unexplainable way. Like the humming energy was intent on killing her. Or at least ravaging her body until she, like Andreas, would need a dedicated team of doctors to keep her alive.
She remained standing at that edge. The tricky impulse to step forwards kept her bouncing on the balls of her feet, staring at the killer plain that could be her graveyard.
Venturing deeper here and venturing deeper into the Silver Cavities were two very different things. Down there, the Infinity wasn’t actively trying to kill her, at least not with recogniseable intent. Rot, on the other hand, possessed a sort of lethal aptitude. As if it were conscious; imbued with the spirit of a killer and equipped with all the tools to make it one.
But just because something could go wrong, didn’t mean it necessarily would. Especially with how attuned to Infinity Violet was as an Unbounded. Fully draped into her fiend form, perfected to be at one with Infinity, she could afford to take a few risks.
Did Rot affect Unbounded? Based on the way a few of the larger beings were slithering through the space, not in the same way. To fiends, was this nothing more than a highly concentrated area? Like the deepest regions at the heart of the Cavities . . .
Violet paused for a few more apprehensive seconds. Then, before her logical mind could talk her out of it, Violet took the longest stride of her life into the wasteland.
When she didn’t implode, and the aggressive air around didn’t tear her apart, Violet risked a few more haphazard steps. The little sense she detected in the Rot was like the hivemind of a consciousness. Little more intelligent than that of a small hunting animal, or large insect. Though it was wise enough to detect her Unbounded state.
Her human elements clearly confused the Rot. So Violet hurried off ahead, before the energy could get a good grasp on her.
She was loping on all fours towards what had initiated her coming here: another platform. Several, in fact.
The others had begun to arrive a few hours after her squadron. All appeared to be going well, and for a few minutes there, it actually looked like somebody would save them. Then there was a sound like a glass house shattering, and Violet, likewise with the rest of her squad, felt that fickle optimism be crushed. There could, despite all those discrepancies, however, be people that had survived.
Survived the collison. Survived a flying Belindo who Violet suspected had retreated from their defence, back towards the other squads. And, maybe it wasn’t possible, but survived the hordes of hungering Unbounded here. Her own team had only managed the latter thanks to the defensive arms of mother nature. A ravine quite literally was their last line of defence.
As for the other squadrons? She couldn’t see how anybody below Warlord could last any longer than a few hours in those crowds. Not without the perfect disguise she was fortunate to have at her disposal. Maybe if they were with an amy, but a couple teams sent into the middle of nowhere hardly equated that.
The full might of the military. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to think that was precisely what they needed. Though Violet couldn’t say she was keeping her fingers crossed.
She became used to the threat of Rot soon enough, or the lack thereof. It was difficult to pass through, of course, but so was a rocky mountain trail. Following the scent of smoke, she reached a vantage point where she could see it — decaying away in the middle-distance.
Violet didn’t have to squint to see the clump of grey metal. Whereas her own damaged vehicle sparked, this one was set fully aflame. The dancing streaks interweaved with the drifts of smoke, an alluring pattern of ash on crimson that looked otherworldly on its metal backdrop. Like a steel planet cursed to drift away in a sea of red.
Only a few yards ahead, and she saw them. People.
“Retreat!” A fully clad man waved his arm ahead of himself. Violet followed where he was shooting his wide-eyed expression, only to be greeted by a squadron in worse shape than her own.
It was anarchy. They stumbled around like children let outside, or a group of men falling out of a pub, still fully enveloped by the effects of their stupor. They poked spears out at another group: encroaching Unbounded.
She eyed their eerie bodies. Boneless, a dark, morphing grey in shade that was more repulsing than she could put into words. The clansmen’s blades pierced through the flesh. Or did they? Violet looked again, this time watching as the flesh gaped open where flung weapons passed through. Their bodies having literally contorted to avoid any damage.
The men and women screeched. Stress marks made a criss-cross pattern of their faces. Violet tried to sense what sect they were all of, though found their abilities to vary massively.
There was a man who caught her attention, fully clad in a strange exoskeleton, like he had another set of basalt bones overlapping his body. The ground at his feet was consumed by a black, snaking tar-like substance. In some ways, it seemed to be a Rot of his own. What separated him from the others was the absence of any blade. No dagger, sword, or halberd — not even a bow and arrow.
In a saunter so casual it didn’t appear to match the rest of the scene, he approached one of the fiends. He stretched out a hand, the Unbounded failing to evade the touch. One soft scrape of a finger was all it took.
The fiend immediately collapsed. That dark ooze, more physical than Donovan’s shadow, and yet in unequal degrees unreal, bared its full wrath on the Unbounded.
With one frenzy, where there was once grey, became a heap of jet.
Violet identified him as a member of the Death Clan. After that sickening display, she didn’t need any more confirmation. When she finally tore her gaze off his macabre advance, Violet checked the others. They weren’t faring too well, to say the least.
One poor fellow had been lost in the onslaught, all in the brief time she had looked away. Ichor kept his body afloat in an amassing river. One she didn’t want to know how many lost souls had contributed to.
Clanging metal and shrieking Unbounded. Both acted in tandem to perform the ballad that kept the fight alive.
Violet sidestepped a limp body, ducked an arrow, and pushed aside more Unbounded before she could draw a breath. Her eyes must have been glued to the burning platform off ahead, for no matter how much danger she narrowly avoided by a hair’s breadth, she would always return to its sight.
Hey. She heard, like the far off, obscured call of a drowning man.
Blood flew through the air in a golden streak.
“Hey!”
Violet swivelled on her feet. Behind her, a woman wearing a bloody helmet yelped out again. Crystal clear this time. “Hey, you!”
“Me?”
“Yes, you moron! Are you with the first to arrive?”
Violet was about to call out in alarm, as another Unbounded crawled up behind the woman. Before she could even open her lips, something flew into the Unbounded’s head. The clump of metal was bathed in a burst of gore. Violet inhaled sharply, before the flying magnet returned to their grasp.
Magnetism Clan. Violet noted.
“Yeah, we’re all safe in a ravine past that Rot.”
“All of you?” She bit her lip. “I’ll be damned, you guys are lucky as all hell.”
“I wish I could say the same for you.” Violet took in one more glance of their surroundings. Now that they’d moved in deeper, Violet could make out another wall of fog. Smoke. If she squinted, multiple others of the floating platforms could be seen. None of them were in prime condition.
A great centipede of an Unbounded, likely the same one Violet had compared to a caterpillar earlier, dragged its bulbous body over to them. For having just met this woman, she and her acted in tandem.
Two magnets flew into the Unbounded on either side, while Violet, having long since abandoned her fiend form, forewent her claws in favour of teleporting rapidly. Her eyes received nothing but the blasting light of Chaotic energy for a few seconds. Rapid seconds where her fists showered down with blows.
The creature erupted. Green ooze coated both them and the floor, and Violet was just thankful none had gotten into her mouth.
“How many of you are there?” Violet asked, the power of a Splintered Rank emanating from the woman. If there was anyone most likely to be the squad leader here, however disorganised they all were, it was her. “Are all the other squadrons out here fighting with you?”
“Seems that way.” She smiled grimly. “Looks like we’re gonna die here — and there goes humanity’s last line of defence. The rest of the front lines won’t survive much longer after this.”
Violet mumbled under her breath. Not if I have anything to say about it.
“My Mark’s powers include transportation. Can you gather everyone together?”
For the umpteenth time, the magnet returned, only preceded by the sound of squashed flesh. “And risk everyone getting killed in one fell swoop? I’m not sure pal.”
“Doesn’t look like they’ll survive much longer regardless.”
“You’re not very good at first impressions, are you?” The woman smiled.
Violet continued. “If all squadrons get safely to the ravine, there’s a chance we’ll really survive this.”
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
When the Magnet Clanswoman ceased to listen to her, Violet decided to take things into her own hands. She disappeared in a flash of magenta, and reappeared by another clansman. One spraying lightning at a worm-like Unbounded. Another flash of purple, another clansmen.
Violet jumped through space with reckless abandon. Each jolt brought another clansman into her entourage, like adding extra weight to the same lift over and over again.
Less than a minute had passed, and every other squad member who was alive and breathing were reunited. One last leap through space, and Violet would make it-
Her Mark guttered out. Which was about as sudden as if the sun descended from the sky.
Voices rose around her. A crazed mix of surprise, frenzy, and a few interjectory curses thrown in for good measure.
Violet ignored it all. All that mattered was getting her Mark to work one more time. Then, everybody would be safe. Then nobody would die, and any losses wouldn’t be her doing. Then, she wouldn’t be at fault for dragging fifty or so people to their deaths. Crowded together like lambs to the slaughter.
But her Mark refused to work.
“Where-”
“What happened?”
“Gods a-”
Those voices and more made concentrating very difficult.
“Shut up!” She screeched. “I’m getting us out of here. I’m-”
She screamed in frustration. Okay, maybe Violet wasn’t acting very calm and collected herself. The Unbounded, at first startled by their mass disappearance, had appeared to catch onto what had happened. Now they approached, gathered in one complete force, and they didn't look very happy. Like Violet was looking at an assembly of drunkards, all of which were very displeased with a beer barrel being stripped away from them.
“You fool!” The Magnet Clanswoman spat. “What have you done? You’re gonna kill us all.”
Violet ignored the complaints, which was about as easy as trying to stop a flood with her hands. She reached out with her Chaotic energy which . . . wouldn’t obey her call. Again and again, as if she was grasping at thin air, Violet found her Mark inert. Providing not the slightest sign of response.
The Unbounded were a tide, seconds away from consuming her, but that wasn’t nearly the worst part. What really disturbed her was that the fate of every other squadron was riding on a haphazard decision of her doing — no-one else’s.
This was her fault. Violet’s life would climax with dragging tens of soldiers with her to the afterlife. And a valiant last stand wasn’t an option either. She wasn’t so drained as to be unable to use her Mark; it was like it resisted her. Or couldn’t hear her pleas in the first place.
Just like when she had been assisting Remus in his stand against Joshua. As if some exterior force was forcing her Mark into quiet submission.
The fiends were in close proximity. Close enough for some of the more far-ranged clansmen to ward them off, firing out scattering projectiles.
In the panic, Violet caught sight of her arm. Immediately, she covered the taloned end with her other hand. It was no use: the Magnet clanswoman had already seen her.
“What was . . .” her confusion paved the way for fury.
“No, no . . .”
“You’re one of them!” She looked Violet up and down. Or Violet’s rapidly appearing Unbounded form. “Doppelganger scum!”
Magnets flew off the woman faster than Violet could react. The force of a Vanguard slammed into her. Compressing her chest, making the breath in Violet’s lungs leave like disobedient workers. It hurt to breathe, hurt to think. Hurt to do anything other than stare at the blaze of purple approaching in the distance.
The beacon of light disappeared as soon as it arrived. In its place, Violet saw a dark, almost majestic silhouette. It was as if the heavens had divided to allow one heavenly protector to descend. The winds seemed to stir, rippling across her Unbounded flesh and even causing the relentless Vanguard before her to take pause.
The shadow flew down, coursing through the air like a knife through flesh. The fiends around all ceased their advance. They gazed up at the new arrival like zealots to their god, and it was then that Violet realised one crucial thing.
This was no saviour; it was a demon.
Light pierced the dark shroud, and Violet saw what was coming in agonising detail. Her stomach contorted around itself, her guts ready to materialise at her feet any coming second.
Belindo’s great wings whipped out with enough momentum to crush mountains. It looked down at their party with a mischievous glint in his eye. Like, to him, this was all the equivalent of a boy playing with toys. The world was his playroom, and there was no game Belindo preferred more than crushing them all to pulp.
Violet looked up to the man seated above, her ashen cheeks somehow finding a way to blanchen no matter how monstrous she was.
Nova, fully clad in his battle armour. He wielded a lance in one hand, scales of Supreme Steel the signature colour of their clan making up his body. It reminded her of Milap.
The only thing comforting about that notion was recalling the morpher’s end.
Everything sped up to real time so fast, Violet was left fighting to catch her breath.
The Unbounded pointed his spear down towards them. No, her. It was time for the leader to address his misbehaving daughter.
Or would he? Nova was in fiend form at that moment. The human, seemingly innocuous leader of the Chaos Clan wouldn’t show his face to the wider world, atop the back of one of their sworn enemies.
But here, no longer masquerading, but as the real, first Right-bearer, Nova could do as he pleased.
And if that meant sending a lance cleaving though his daughter’s chest, then so be it.
Nova had been manipulating her Mark, using his total control over Chaotic energy to sabotage her at every turn. It had nearly cost them their escape back at the Shadow Clan, and now it was threatening to spell her doom here. Using Chaos to reveal her Unbounded form had been dirty. But two could play at that game.
Right then, right there, Violet realised how she could reveal the true face behind her father’s mask. How she could finally expose Nova's two-faced stint to the world.
Though, for now, Violet had to take things one step at a time. Which most urgently meant one thing.
Diving to the side.
Her Mark was still of no use, and Violet couldn’t just warp out of reality to avoid the blow. It scathed against her side, eliciting a tide of Ichor when she failed to fully dodge.
The ground combusted where the weapon dragged itself forward, shrieking clansmen hurtling themselves away at the last moment. She prayed none of them got injured, or worse. She had enough baggage to deal with on the daily as it was. A few extra dead souls on her conscience would do Violet no good.
She had to free herself of Nova’s grasp, and fast. Otherwise, the consequences could be catastrophic.
The sea of Unbounded crashed into the clansmen, their inexorable advance delayed no longer. Magnets flew, weapons sparked, and Violet watched with a mix of dread and envy as functioning Marks glowed to life at their owners’ call.
Blood would spill. That alone was certain, if she didn’t get her damn Mark to work.
This was her divine property. She had the advantage here to get it working. That was true regardless of whatever stunt Nova had pulled to chain her power so infuriatingly. Sprinting off on all fours into the Unbounded hoard, doing her best to keep the pressure off her allies, Violet kept focusing on her Mark with an obsessive fixation.
She tried to pinpoint how the energy around it behaved. Because it had to be there. If not, Violet would be suffering from something far more serious than Nova getting on her nerves. He could only stop the flow of her power from functioning, not strip her of its strength entirely. Like placing a firm hand under a tap instead of turning off the waterworks.
Closing her eyes, she focused hard on her internal senses. Power left her Mark in fickle strands, then . . . then left her entirely. Being pinpointed away in a twine-like strand.
Reaching Nova.
A clear solution occurred to her then: move out of his range. But for obvious reasons, that wasn’t a choice.
Belindo and Nova could easily crush everyone here. Then there was Violet’s revealed identity. If the message was going to come out, she would have to make people believe her side of the story. She wasn’t a doppelganger. Okay, in some aspects, she was, but calling Violet just a doppelganger was as bad an oversimplification as calling bread yeast.
There was one vital issue at the centre of all this. Like gangs leaching off a linchpin. The entangled truth surrounding Violet, Nova, and the secret atrocities of the Chaos Clan would be an impossibly tough pill for the wider public to swallow. At least not as easy as it would be to label Violet a very proficient spy, rub their hands, and call it a day.
There was one insane plan already cooking in the fried nexus of her mind. Though with that came her second problem: it would take Passings to accomplish, if not longer. Perhaps there would be ways in which she could quicken the process to a few Passings. But within the next few minutes, as the battle became a bloodbath, Violet probably had seconds.
She strained her Mark to a burning point. Her skin roared in pain, like it was under constant strain from a friction burn. Wisps of Chaotic energy fizzled away in little lashings of lightning.
Violet heard a shriek off to the side. Her head turned away from the erupting magenta exploding out of her body, and settled on-
A Foot-Soldier was immersed by a wall of Unbounded. His head was askew, neck snapped. Half-opened eyelids bore into Violet as though the hand of death itself was wrung around her neck.
Those eyes. Those lifeless eyes looked into Violet with the faintest recognition. This is your fault. The trampled corpse spoke. I’m dead because of you.
Something in her snapped.
Nova either ceased paying attention to Violet, or her anger finally broke through his bonds. Supreme Steel flashed over her body, uncoloured to reserve energy for more of the resource to be created. The excess floated around her like the chained islands of Eclipse. Jagged clumps eager to pierce through her father’s supple skin.
She launched up in a burst of power. Violet’s Mark was drained from wrestling with Nova, and creating so much armour out of thin air had taken its toll.
Space ceased to have meaning. Violet reappeared atop Belindo’s snout. She sensed faintly, over the overwhelming rush of her own untempered power, the presence of multiple God-Graced arriving from the horizon. She ignored it entirely, stamping the bladed end of her boot into the reptilian mass.
Amber blood gushed. It looked too unsightly to match the beautiful gold of Ichor, but Violet didn’t finch as it splattered against her thigh. Belindo rasped, the equivalent of a steam engine combusting, to Violet’s ears.
Hooking herself to Belindo through the piercing boot, Violet stared up at Nova.
His Unbounded form always had been hideous. Like hers in so many ways — pearly white skin, taloned flesh, with a bald, wrinkled scalp. The teeth in his mouth were like those of an alligator. She imagined them ensnaring her, slapping her frail form across the floor over and over again. Beating out every last spark of life.
Nova grinned with those very same fangs. “My own daughter drawing her blade against me.” There was a flash on his forehead. The symbol of his Divine Right, an upturned palm, blazed to life before disappearing yet again. “Feeling ambitious, aren’t we?”
He spoke quietly enough for no-one but him, her, and perhaps Belindo’s groggy mind to overhear.
Violet sent all the Supreme Steel floating to dive for Nova. So rapid an action caught Nova off guard, and Violet’s heart soared at the possibility she could land a real hit. The organ never stopped flying, her heart stuck in her throat, as every one of her projectiles faded to dust.
“What is this?” Nova barked, the blood suddenly rushing to his face. “I’m doing you a favour! See how they all look upon you now that your true form is revealed! You don’t belong with mortal scum.”
“I am half-mortal!” Violet croaked back, not liking how her own voice sounded.
“That’s different! You shouldn’t wear your mortal counterpart with pride. Doesn’t it disgust you? Like wearing the wrong set of clothes for ever and ever? This is the burden we must bear to spark real change! We wear the wool of the sheep we must butcher!”
Nova’s arms flew up, like he was at the end of some crescendo. Violet’s boot was blasted back, a layer of metal forming across all of Belindo’s slithery mass. At the same, as she fought to maintain balance, Violet felt the armour on her body dissipate. Like the metallic suit had been a bundle of ash barely kept together.
And now, in a reversal of roles, Belindo was clad from head-to-talon with a monstrous sheen of Supreme Steel. He may as well have stolen the suit from Violet’s dead body.
But she wasn’t going to dilly-dally while Nova finally bit the bullet, and decided to kill his own daughter. Or double-daughter, seeing how both their Unbounded and mortal forms alike were biologically related.
Finally back with the reins over her own power, Violet immersed herself in a swell of magenta before Nova could do a damn thing about it. She heard one sound, uttered from his lips and cut off, before Violet abandoned her father for good. Never again would she give him the time of day.
While Nova was distracted, Violet had a slim window of opportunity to flash over to the split crowd below. This time, she couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.
To save everyone, Violet would have to act quickly.