They arrived in front of the breach shortly, their base being specifically built nearby so they could fend off any surprise sentrinian attacks. While the others began taking their positions, and making final adjustments to their equipment, Tari stepped closer to the binding, examining it to see if there were any changes since the night before. The binding’s thin membrane wall, shimmering iridescently and incorporeally fading in and out of sight, gave slightly under her touch, like the surface of water, pushed without breaking. Tari moved her hand to a spot where the torn dimensional fabric and the undamaged parts met and looked through to the other side. Looking through the tear into the dimension of the sentrinians always made Tari incredibly uncomfortable.

It was like staring into a gray void devoid of light and shadows. The material of reality within the dimension Sentrin was indistinguishable from the sentrinians’ writhing gray and colorless bodies, which stared back at her with the pressure of millions of hungry glares. She paused in her inspection, taking a moment to stand and glare back, grinning as her kyr-marks jumped sporadically, showing her own desire to fight. If she didn’t have to close the breach, she would have taken great satisfaction in personally cutting down the number of glares she felt on her by half. She sighed as she returned her focus to the binding. It was all a constant futility, though, as the same sentrinian she cut down today could possibly be the same one, respawned after centuries, that she would have to cut down again. They didn’t die, and their hunger to devour the vibrant energy of the Nol galaxy would never abate.

She stroked the binding from the top of the tear, down to where it met the ground. Contrary to its smooth appearance, it felt fibrous under her hand, like the skin of a leaf or a flower petal. It was a wonder that something that felt so delicate was strong enough to block out an entire dimension of monstrosities. She traced the tear again in the opposite direction, feeling each undulation under her touch. She could also feel the residue of the auras left behind by its original creators: Rick, Sol, and King Marviel. She felt burdened by the fact that her own unique mana signature would now be added to this fabric. She knew she was not worthy to stand among such great individuals yet, but the sense of honor and pride she felt was much stronger.

“Tari, are you ready?” Fee asked. Tari nodded, turning to look behind her. Fee had changed into a white two-piece suit that included a long-sleeved shirt and snugly fitting leggings. On her feet, she wore thin-strapped white caliga sandals. Like marakians, zentalians did not wear armor into battle, but Tari couldn’t understand why they wore white of all colors. Then again, she thought, it wasn’t like the sentrinians bled.

In their combat suits and helms, Brel and Capricorn looked like grey statues, shimmering red and gold for Brel and blue and white for Capricorn as their powers flowed through the suits. Tari knew from experience that even high-powered laser blasts from an Iclaxian battleship couldn’t pierce the shell of those suits when Brel and Capricorn wore them. She smiled, seeing that everyone was ready. The smile immediately dropped when she saw what Silver was wearing. Dressed like she was about to go to a gala instead of engaging in battle, Silver wore a light blue dress that stopped at her knees, made with a thin billowing fabric, which draped elegantly on her light gray metalo-protein skin, paired with glaringly white running shoes. She had definitely not been wearing that when they’d left their camp.

“Silver, did you just change?” Tari said, wondering why she had even brought such an impractical outfit into the binding.

“Yes, but I’m ready now,” she said seriously.

“You did understand the plan, right? You’re not just creating a shield today. You’re actually fighting.”

“Oh, she knows,” Capricorn said, “She’s just choosing to be an overconfident princess.” He still clearly had reservations about the entire plan, and Silver’s leisurely attitude did nothing to improve his mood.

“Capricorn, I’m being very serious right now,” she said, adjusting the bandages on her hand. You all know that nothing can touch me,” she said, smiling softly, though her eyes shone like blue orbs of defiance.

They said nothing for a moment until Brel whispered, “famous last words,” then pretended to clear his throat.

Silver rolled her eyes. “Let’s get started. I’m ready to drop the shield.”

Choosing to accept Silver’s fashion choices, they grew serious and moved into position. Brel, Fee, and Capricorn moved to stand directly in front of the breach, with Tari and Silver standing two steps behind them. In reaction to their movements, they all felt, like the rolling of thousands of marbles under their skin, the attention of the sentrinians turn fully towards them.

In a wave, the void behind the binding shifted, slowly lightening up as small spots of light began to fill the space, a horrid mimicry of a washed-out starry night sky in the form of millions of bright, mad, yellow eyes opening up. Within minutes, the sentrinians were throwing themselves at the wall of the binding and breech, trying to rip it open with the force of their assault. There was no sound when they hit, only ripples in the binding’s wall and air pushed continually into a powerful breeze. In places where the Binding was undamaged, it held firm, but the tear, which they targeted with specific brutality, only remained unbreeched thanks to Silver’s shield.

“Alright,” Fee sighed, moving ahead of Brel and Capricorn slightly, “Silver, drop main the shield.”

“Dropping the shield,” Silver said, then closed her eyes. Her body started to glow a bright blue. She looked up, feeling her power and mana, which had been spread across the binding dimension, begin to be drawn back into her. It was like folding a large silk cloth, small enough to fit into a space beside her heart. To Tari, it felt like a filled cup spilled over, its contents evaporating instantly, leaving behind only emptiness. It suddenly felt much colder, and she shivered slightly, not realizing how the constant presence of Silver’s power over the place had made it much more bearable.

Silver opened her eyes, breathing hard, but remained standing, her eyes causally filled with bright blue energy, now had black streaks around the corners. “Main shield down,” she said clearly.

“Confirmed. Drop the breach shield on my mark,” Fee replied, then stretched a hand forward palm facing the rush of sentrinians hurling into the shield, the last barrier between them. Her pale skin glowed as her veins lit up in hard, bright purple lines. In front of her palm, a large purple wall of light formed, slightly smaller than the size of the breach. Behind her, Capricorn’s hands lit a bright blue, and energy constructs of plasma in the shape of long swords slid out of his hands. Brel remained still, but Tari saw the small sparks of his signature gold lightening, dancing on his shoulders and around his head. The three of them were a blazing sun, but the sentrinians, though they hesitated slightly, continued to throw themselves at the breach.

“Drop breach shield now,” Fee said.

She said, “Dropping breach shield,” and immediately, the shield was dropped. “Breach shield down.”

The result was instantaneous. The sentrinians began to push through the hole, their numbers in the tens of thousands, only to meet instant death against Fee’s wall of anti-matter. She spread her arms, expanding the wall, then leaped forward, forcing the sentrinians back into the void, along with herself, followed by Capricorn and Brel. The three small, bright spots of light, purple, red, and gold, fought against tides of gray, as they had been doing almost every day for the last ten years. The sentrinians fell by the thousand under their attacks, but where the thousand fell, two thousand rose to take their place. As they continued to fight, a large group of the sentrinians suddenly turned to Fee, attacking her specifically. They twisted their bodies tightly into needles and threw themselves at her, attempting to get past her anti-matter wall, targeting her head and heart. She fended them off with ease, though some of their attacks hit her arms and legs.

“There is a wrag mother or father among them,” Capricorn said, sending the telepathic message to all five of them. From that point, all communication was done telepathically, as in-ear neuro-comms did not work in Sentrin. It was obvious from the way they specifically attacked Fee, unlike him and Brel, whose energy-based powers often lost some efficiency against the sentrinians, Fee’s anti-matter could not be consumed by the energy-hungry creatures, so each touch of it was a guaranteed kill. Capricorn knew the regular sentrinians had no way of knowing that, but a wrag mother or father, maybe millions of years old, could easily direct the rest with their knowledge and power.

“It doesn’t matter,” Fee answered back, “Unless it chooses to show itself and fight personally, this is just a minor annoyance.” She made a slicing motion with her hand, cutting through the next wave of sentrinians like melted butter.

Capricorn and Brel, too, cut down wave after wave. Capricorn’s plasma swords, tearing sentrinian after sentrinian in two, then he stretched out his hand, and mimicking the sentrinians’ assault, he twisted his plasma constructs into thousands and needles, each as powerful as a small sun and sent them hurling towards the sentrinians. Brel danced among them like lightning between clouds, sending destruction wherever he landed, creating large gaps in the sentrinians’ formations with his explosions of lightning. So, they fought none stop while keeping alert for the monster they felt shifting among the hordes of mindless soldiers.

Within the Binding, Tari continued sealing the breach. She sat down a few feet in front of the hole, legs crossed under her, with her hands on her knees, palms facing up. Her marks pulled themselves from the rest of her body to concentrate in pools on her palms, then in fine threads, they rose up from her palms, into the air, and onto the edge of the breach. With each strand that rose from her hand, Tari felt a small tug in her psycor. She closed her eyes as the battle ahead became too distracting. Focusing on her kyr-marks, she carefully split each band, thin enough to match the intricate and detailed thread of the rest of the binding.

Each split felt like the ripping of an organ bit by bit so that it didn’t hurt as it happened, but eventually, she would realize half of her was in shreds, and the pain would come all at once. As each strand formed into the correct size, she immediately began weaving it into the binding. Then, once a patch half the size of her palm was woven, she would collect kyr particles from the surrounding area to take the place of her marks, manipulating them into the unique material of dimensions that was created by Rick, Sol, and Marviel. This was the easiest part since she had the rest of the intact binding to use as reference, but the weaving itself was a trial in patience, skill, and stamina. She continued the process, sealing the hole, patch by patch. She felt something brush past the area she was working on and opened her eyes to see multiple sentrinians pushing past the frontline and into the breach.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Usually, this would be the point where she would have had to stop weaving and start helping with the defense to prevent any sentrinians from making their way into the binding and thereafter into Nol, through the binding wall on the other side, but this time, she simply smiled and closed her eyes, refocusing on her work, as Silver stepped in front of her. Silver stood immovable as she forcefully smashed down and crushed sentrinians between her shields. Not one passed her to reach Tari or the other side of the binding.

# # #

They weren’t sure how long they’d been fighting at that point, but it was irrelevant. The hole was now half closed, and the sight of the progress gave them such hope that they grew immune to any pain or weariness they felt. Fee, Brel, and Capricorn gathered closer to the front of the breach. Now that they had a much smaller hole to defend, they concentrated their attacks on the sentrinians directly in front of them. Perhaps due to their weariness, which they ignored, or the hope they felt clouding their judgment, they didn’t notice as a spear snaked between the sentrinian soldiers and past Fee’s shield.

The force of the attack knocked back into the binding wall, and she twisted at the last minute so it barely missed her neck but tore a deep gouge in her shoulder. Her fuchsia blood erupted from the wound like a fountain, staining her white shirt, purple and glistening from the zentalian crystals in her blood. She let out a scream but quickly bit down on her lip and, using her other hand, grabbed the spear as it was pulled back. Her hand glowed as veins of anti-matter shot up the length of the spear to the creature that had sent it. As the spear-like limb disintegrated, a loud primal scream erupted from the depths of the sentrinians army, and they parted to reveal the wrag mother in their midst.

Wrag mothers, unlike wrag fathers, did not take on a recognizable bipedal or animalistic form. Instead, they were large balls, the size of moons and planets, rippling with monstrous life as they poured young sentrinians out of their bodies like smoke from a factory chimney. This one was on the small side, but they knew immediately that they could not underestimate this monster. The concentration of its colorlessness drained any hue from its surroundings. Parts of it were fully translucent, and thousands of large pale yellow eyes covered its body. Where there were no eyes, sharp spears, and needles protruded from it, one still shrinking from Fee’s attack.

“Kicht,” Brel cursed. “Fee, how are you doing?” He asked, not looking away from the wrag mother.

“Fine,” she said, getting teeth against the pain. “You and Capricorn take care of the wrag mother. Silver and I will protect the breach.” Fee felt Tari reaching for her telepathically but interrupted whatever Tari had to say. “We don’t need your help, Tari. All you need to do now is focus on the breach. That’s the way you can be most useful to us right now,” she said, moving back into the binding.

The wrag mother screeched, and the sentrinians renewed their assault. Capricorn and Brel charged through them, aiming for the wrag mother, trusting that Fee and Silver would hold back the assault. They flew quickly, discharging lighting and plasma in their wake. As they approached the wrag mother, the concentration of sentrinians grew thinner, but each one became stronger. Capricorn and Brel fought hard, slashing and cutting, sending energy blasts, and creating shields of fire, but each death was flowed by another birth from the wrag mother, though the successive sentrinians were becoming weaker as their gestation period within the wrag mother was shortened.

“It’s a matter of patience,” Capricorn told Brel telepathically.

“I feel like we’ll be worn down long before that thing is exhausted,” Brel replied, laughing lightly. He grabbed a charging sentrinian and sent a powerful bolt of lightning through it and five others behind it.

“Yes, you look so tired,” Capricorn muttered, responding with his own blast of plasma. Blue hot liquid death flowed from his hands, mowing down sentrinians. Their progress was slow but steady, and soon they were before the wrag mother, now struggling with each birth it attempted, many of its eyes dimming and shut, the spikes on its body dropping slightly. Brel stretched out a finger, channeling lighting right at the creature’s center. Contrary to its weekend appearance, though, the wrag mother reacted quickly, extending one of its spears to meet the attack. It absorbed a bit of the energy and batted the rest away, then three more spears followed, aiming for Brel.

Capricorn moved forward, quickly extending his swords and cutting down the spears. Then he spun, avoiding another spike but missing one that grazed his leg. He was sure he would have lost the limb if not for his armor. Brel joined him, moving in on the creature and surrounding it. The wrag mother fought desperately, but it was a losing battle. For every hit that its spikes landed, more were cut down, and it could no longer focus on creating more sentrinians to defend it. Capricorn pulled back, then he raised his hand up. Brel quickly moved away as Capricorn brought the hand down. A massive wall of plasma, shaped like a fist, slammed into the wrag mother, engulfing it in liquid fire.

It Screamed and thrashed in formless agony, letting out a belt of pain, extending its spikes out suddenly, in blind fury, one catching Brel on the side of his head, knocking his helm off, another through his shoulder, while Capricorn got one through the leg again. Cajaran’s did not bleed, but from each wound, energy spilled out profusely. They pulled back and sent more beams of power toward the creature that refused to die, each blast weaker than the last. They stayed together, breathing hard and barely dodging the mad attacks of the wrag mother.

Capricorn saw how the wound on Brel’s head spilled out his power into the empty void, how his gold eyes were dimming to a pale yellow, and quickly pulled him closer and farther back from the wrag mother. Brel tried to brush off his friend’s hands, but Capricorn didn’t let go. Now, some of the sentrinians were pulling away from the hole and coming to the aid of the wrag mother. With the wrag mother in front of them and the horde behind them, Capricorn quickly created a shell of plasma around them, attempting to give them time to rest, though he knew it would not last long, as he did not have his sister’s skill for creating shields.

“He quickly thumbed his hands over the glyphs on his waist, and a thin strip fell into his hands. After a second, it began to expand and unravel into a sealing patch.

“Brel, hey Brel, look at me,” he said, pulling Brel’s head close and brushing away his golden hair, which was also dimming to a dull yellow. “Brel,” he yelled.

“Why the Kicht are you yelling? I’m not even unconscious,” Brel said, snatching the patch from Capricorn’s hand and fixing it to the wound himself. “What do we do now?” he asked as he got some more patches and began covering some of his other wounds.

Capricorn, certain that Brel would be fine from his attitude, began doing the same, paying attention to the large wounds on his leg. A loud crack against his shield startled him, and he saw the wrag mother retracting a spear and preparing to strike again.

“I think we came in too deep,” he said, looking to the thick army of sentrinians that separated them from the binding wall. He could hardly see the purple and blue light of Fee and Silver’s powers.

“How long have we been going at this?” Brel asked.

Capricorn just shrugged, then flinched at another hit from the wrag mother.

“Ahh. We’re dead,” Brel said as if he was talking about the weather.

“You can die by yourself,” Capricorn said, placing his hand on the shield and sending shafts of fire at the mass of sentrinians. He was to hastened to concentrate his power into the plasma.

“It’s healing,” Brel said, pointing at the wrag mother, which was beginning to absorb some of the sentrinians.

Capricorn’s heart dropped. He reached out telepathically to Fee but felt no response, so he tried Silver.

“What’s going on,” he asked.

“Capricorn, how are you guys doing? I can’t see you anymore. Fee is too injured to keep fighting, and I’m out of the binding, but I’m not sure how Tari is doing. I can’t reach her telepathically,” she replied.

“Kicht,” He cursed.

“I…” then she was cut off.

Another strike against the shield cracked it, and Capricorn groaned loudly.

“What’s going on?” Brel asked.

“I don’t know, she cut off… but Fee is out, and she can’t contact Tari,” he said quickly. Then they braced themselves as another hit shattered the shield. “We’re retreating,” he yelled, and they started pulling back.

They began moving backward, back to back, with Brel clearing the way back to the binding while Capricorn fended off the attack of the wrag mother. As hard as they tried, though, minutes passed, maybe hours, yet they did not seem any closer.

“This isn’t working, Capricorn,” Brel said without a hint of humor in his voice. “We’re in trouble. I’m barely making sparks at this point.”

Capricorn said nothing but saw that his own blasts were looking more like thin strips of fire. As if to make them painfully aware of their impending deaths, the wrag mother, now mostly recovered, let out a screech that Capricorn could have sworn sounded like laughter and then charged at them. Brel quickly turned to face the charge with Capricorn. Together, they created a wall of compressed energy that, though protected them, broke under the first hit and left their back open to the smaller attacks from the sentrinians. Fortunately, their suits protected them from the smaller assaults, but as the wrag mother charged forward again, spears extended, eyes blazing hungrily, they boldly raised their hands again, forming a shield they knew would not be strong enough to protect them.

The spears bore down on them and struck, but instead of hitting and destroying their weak shield, the attack was repealed, and the spears retreated, burning with blue light. Surprised, Capricorn felt a shiver run down his spine and turned back to see Silver, in her ridiculous dress, still pristine, cutting a wide path through the sentrinians with her shield. Like the batting of a giant fan against flies, she flicked her hands and pushed the horde back, crushing them under sheer telekinetic force. Then behind her, moving through the cleared path, unhindered, on large black wings, Tari flew past them, creating a powerful gust as she did, and charged at the wrag mother.

Tari extended her hands, and her marks formed into a thousand blades of steel, twisting like snakes, striking the wrag mother. It screamed furiously, sending shockwaves that shook Tari’s bones and rattled her teeth. She undid the kyr-marks that made up her wings and dropped, avoiding a spear from the wrag mother. Then, as the spear started to retract, she wrapped her marks around it, allowing it to pull her closer to the creature. Once close enough, she placed her hand on the creature’s body, thick like mud, and pulling her in like quicksand, but she remained unphased. From the point where her hand touched, her marks began to leave her body, crawling and spreading over the wrag mother’s body. Tari stared into one of its eyes and smiled viciously. She felt the creature shudder as her marks invaded it and restricted its movements. She manipulated all her marks into the form of barbed wires and tightened them until the only thing that dared to move on the creature was its eyes, which shook in a mad fervor that its body could no longer express.

Tari exhaled slowly, and her kyr ignited as she sealed the creature’s eyes closed and shredded through it, leaving nothing behind.

The wrag mother passed silently, but the sentrinian soldiers screamed an insane cry that thundered and echoed in through her mind, yet their bodies were unmoving, in catatonic stillness. Tari did not know if they screamed out of grief or anger, but they screamed and screamed until she cut them all down as well. She felt no pity for the sentrinians, as they were not so deep in the heart of their dimension that their deaths would be permanent. Unlike them, she and her friends did not have the luxury of reformation after death. Now that sentrinians had been cleared away for the moment, Tari joined Silver, Capricorn, and Brel as they made their way back to the now fully intact binding.

# # #

The battle and sealing of the breach had lasted about three days instead of one, and after taking four more days to recover and make sure the binding was fully secure, they were finally able to put their ten years in the binding behind them and return to Nol.