With his aural sight, Josh saw an obsidian tendril shoot from Kyon Shi’s mind and encapsulate Alysa’s paralyzed form. At the same time Kyon Shi took a knee, held a hand up in surrender, sucking in air and panting out dark clouds of rancid stink from deep in his dead lungs. His heavy cowl in the physical world had been pulled back during the battle and several strips of leather skin and one pale bat ear had been peeled back from his bald head to hang on slender strands, showing dry, white and lifeless bones beneath.
“You win, warrior...” Huh-huh-huh. The stink of rotting breath filled the space between them with his continued gasping. “...The undead fire of my grey Core has been significantly reduced.”
Sen took a step back, flat-footed, uncertain how to respond to his enemy’s words.
The frail looking undead shifted his gaze to Josh and his expression turned into one of pure malice. Still panting Kyon Shi spoke again, “Know this human. You have driven me to the point of recapture. Orlen…” The lich extended his hand as he called out a name–
“Please no no no no NO NO MASTER–” The terrified cry was stifled as arm-thick surges of black energy came from a shattered but healing skelmander that Josh hadn’t even noticed was advancing on their position. Exactly as if the force keeping his bones together had been withdrawn, the skelemander immediately stopped speaking and crumbled to the ground in a tumble of dry bones that maintained his body's previous momentum. Sliding a small distance, they came to a rest and remained still in a disorganized spread on the deck plates.
There were also hundreds and thousands of other finger-thick pulses from all directions that also colessed on Kyon Shi. Forming an onyx nimbus around him that steadily sank into his medians. Obvious strength and vigor returned to his previously battered form as a relieved grin full of short needle like fangs and evil hate opened wide on his dead face.
Josh and Sen unconsciously took a step back from the occult spectacle as the unhealed wounds from the human monk’s many slices and amputations instantly recovered. Open wounds slid closed, claws, digits, a missing limb and even his sliced-off ears grew back to once again ride high on his undead head. All occurring in the scant breadth of one deep breath. When it was finished Kyon Shi again spoke from his familiar position of angry arrogance. Continuing his sentence from where he had left off, as if he hadn’t just interrupted his previous train of speech to raid his refrigerator of undeath.
“...But now the fight is over. Now that I have Sophie, your child, within my grasp and am feeding on her even as we speak...” A malevolent shine rose in his eyes as he nodded to Alysa’s frozen form in her EVA 20 meters away. As if the matter was settled, the energy dryer again stood in a leg spread, flat footed stance before them. As if he had no cares in the world.
Josh’s mind raced faster than his heart was beating as he did a series of double takes. Trying to decide between continuing with Kyon Shi versus running to Alysa’s side on wobbling legs. Josh’s Aura sight told the truth of the energy drainer’s claim. A thick, black, wavering tentacle of defilement rose from the top of Kyon Shi’s head and encased Alysa’s entire body. Josh could see momentary pulses of underlying golden sparks surge from below only to be overcome by the putrid rot of Kyon Shi coming from above.
Still spitting out bitter words, the vampire continued. “I should slaughter and carve the spiritual pair of them up before you. Feed you their excrement while you lay dying on the ground…But as I have said, I haven’t called you here to kill you…yet. You will be made into my willing, spiritually risen undead servants. Of this, I assure you.” He narrowed his leathery brows.
Josh was pretty sure, ‘refilled’ as he was…Kyon Shi just might be able to deliver on that promise. But for some reason instead of acting, the monster continued monologuing. “Since I found her in your mind, Sophie and her trove of spiritual energy have always been my target.” His back cheeks rose in sharp enmity filled points as his cracked dead lips pulled back in a rictus on his shrewish face. He then nodded to affirm his own statement. “I will feed off of her until she has been drained so many times she no longer can absorb Aura from the iteration. During this time she will serve as the handle I use to control and crush you both. When I have finished with her I will feed you her still-living, physically linked avatar before I reabsorb you both for my advancement!
The lich gestured with a skeletal thin hand at the ground before him. “Now! On your knees and we will begin your instructions in pain.”
Josh and Sen remained standing, but unmoving. Unsure how best to prevent Sophie from suffering. Kyon Shi seeing their hesitancy filled the gap.
“...I can see that you continue in your willful nature. Despite everything you still need a bit more tenderizing–” Kyon Shi’s dead bat face lit up in an ‘Aha moment’ expression. “I know! I’ll show you how I like to do things...”
Kyon Shi pressed a commlink at his tattered collar with his freshly regrown left hand.
“Yes m’lord?” came a distant and tiny reply.
“Launch the remainder of the plunge vessels and convert the Brigantine.” Kyon Shi pointed at the almost complete arc of plunge vessels overhead for Josh and Sen’s benefit. Then, as if he was building Josh and Sen’s trust through the action of ordering the extermination of every Kaizuko on the Brigantine, the energy drainer leaned toward them in a conspiratorial manner.. “We’ll finish our talk after the Brigantine has been subjugated, hmm?”
As Josh was Sophie’s father, Sen was no doubt following Josh’s lead. A tense coil waiting to spring or knell at Josh’s decision.
Obtunded by hearing what horrors were going to happen to Sophie. Seeing with his Aural sight what was happening to Alysa. And then seeing the steel curtain of destruction closing the distance between its start and the Brigantine… It took Josh several beats before he could hear the subconscious voice that had been screaming in his head trying to apprehended over his fears. But one more glance at the envelope of energy around Alysa’s body made Josh’s mind realize what his subconscious had been trying to tell him.
The golden surges…
The golden surges!
They had been coming from Sophie’s side. They were decreasing in frequency and amplitude, yes… In fact, they were significantly weaker than before…but they were still coming. SOPHIE WAS STILL FIGHTING!
Josh’s mind slammed into overdrive. The POS has been monologuing!
Worse than the just risen from the dead, Dread Pirate Wesely raving about a ‘Duel to the Pain’ with Prince Humperdink, Kyon Shi has been stalling for time.
He needs to die…and right now!
~Sen!! Kyon Shi’s monologuing! Attack now!~
With no gap, Sen’s blade flashed through the air and Kyon Shi ducked under the first backhanded flourish only to have his left forearm severed blocking Sen’s full-force returning right to left slash.
Still Kyon Shi’s limb was regrowing even as Josh’s karmic brother’s initial question came through their bond. ~Mono-whatting?~
~Monologuing! Talking in long singular discourse to stall for time. But our girls are still fighting! Tear him to pieces! I’m going to see if I can help on the mental side of things.~
Josh sped toward Alysa and grabbed her shoulders to enter her and Sophie’s soul space–
And his consciousness bounced off Kyon Shi’s waiting mental barrier that surrounded Alysa. Like a rubber ball against a brick wall he rebounded, landing right in the trap that the undead monster had laid in waiting for Josh to do such a foolish thing as expand his mindscape in the presence of a mind mage.
Suddenly, Josh was in three places at once. In one, he was roasting over a fire pit with a wooden skewer the size of a Christmas tree piercing him from mouth to rectum. The rising flames roasted his skin to transparency. Charred black edges expanded over him as he slowly rotated in agony.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
But Josh was also standing in Sophie’s and Alysa’s soul space. Alysa was kneeling behind Sophie with her arms wrapped around his small child defensively. Sophie stood with her arms and legs spread out in an X. Golden light pouring from her, forming and filling a spherical space around them. Rivulets of blood flowed from her eyes, ears, nose, and the corners of her tiny mouth. A mouth that was grimacing and grunting in pain even now as she strained against the obsidian putrescence that smashed against her defenses. Kyon Shi’s death rail was crushing Sophie’s Essence into a tighter and tighter space. Already on her knees, Alysa had to hunch to the side to keep the shield from smashing her head.
She was only seconds away from losing this fight.
The third and last piece of Josh’s splintered consciousness lay with his own body as he stood in front of Alysa’s frozen form. Kyon Shi’s putrefactive mental tendril still surrounded her, broken up by the flashes of golden Aura that came from Alysa’s body. The ebbing interruptions of Essenced still glowed from inside the choking, cloying darkness. The golden interruptions in the struggle between Sophie and Kyon Shi seemed to correspond to Sen’s flurry of sword attacks against the energy drainer’s body. Sen’s strikes were having an effect…but as the black filth was steadily growing stronger, Sophie's resistance continued to weaken even with Sen’s attacks…
Josh’s little girl was weakening and wouldn’t hold out much longer.
* * * * *
Kneeling, Alysa gripped her arms as tightly as she could around Sophie’s narrow chest. She had funneled as much of her Essence as she could to her. But Alysa’s help was only a drop in the bucket compared to the powers that had been thrown around inside their soul space. Both the drilling attack of foulness from Kyon Shi and Sophie’s unceasing resistance were off any scale that Alysa could understand as a non-Attuned cultivator. But now the tiny girl struggled to keep her arms and the shield that protected them up. Already Sophie had drained their entire soul space of its Essence. The multi-hued fields and forests, babbling streams, fantasy herds, and fanciful flocks, even the pink clouds that had hung in the sky were gone. They now floated in a space empty in all directions save for the increasingly greasy smell and taste of rancid vile that hung around them.
Early on in their struggle Alysa had told Sophie that this wasn’t a winnable fight. That she absolutely needed to go, “…You can't save me this time. Please get out of here! Go, now!” The space marine had pleaded.
Sophie’s only response had been to look up from the corner of her eye, her cheeks raised in a partial and helpless smile. Then to grit her teeth and push her Essence even harder. Her short arms and legs stretching as far as she could get them.
Sophie’s meaning had been clear. Alysa had dry swallowed, registering her sister’s split-second glance more crystal than any words: I will never leave you.
In Sophie's stubbornness, the golden shield had moved a few centimeters farther from their losing battle… But since then it had only been pressing back in despite amazing efforts from a four-year-old’s psychic frame against a eon’s old evil undead cultivator.
However, for the last minute Sophie had been completely unresponsive to anything Alysa had said or done. The girl's eyes were squeezed tight with dark rivulets of drying blood leaking from the corners. Dark tears that quietly spoke of the pain she was experiencing to protect them. Sophie was also quietly chanting a verse over and over again as she rocked slowly in a rhythm that to Alysa indicated the little girl had less and less physical control of her legs.
Alysa bit her lip and sighed, knowing what she had to do…the only thing she could do. The space marine wanted to just go through with it right now and get it over with as quickly as possible. But she owed it to her spiritual sister to say why she was going to sever their link.
Alysa licked her dry lips, and in barely a whisper, far too overcome with fear and hate and sorrow, she spoke into Sophie's small ear. “...You don’t understand Sophie. We… I can't protect you from him…” Alysa swallowed again, fighting back her tears and failing as they streamed down her cheeks. “...When the bad man gets to you…he will do terrible, terrible things…I…I can’t let that happen!”
The space marine’s words stopped as hopeless sobs wracked her body, momentarily overcome by the deeds she knew Kyon Shi was capable of. Of the terrors he would inflict on this little pure soul.
If Sophie heard her, Alysa didn’t know. The wavering chanting had not stopped. Then suddenly, for a brief micro, the child’s knees buckled, only saved from completely collapsing by what had to be an instinctive reflex taking over an instant before she fell to destruction.
Now, lock-kneed she stood rigid but wilting.
Alysa’s time with Sophie was over. She needed to act before there was no more time to possibly save her little sister. The space marine reached with her will to grab the ends of the tie that Sophie had somehow formed weeks ago to save her life back in the Epsilon 97 section of the Hegemon-4.
Alysa didn’t know for certain if it would work, but if there was any chance for Sophie to get away this bond had to go. It was Alysa’s body that Kyon Shi was holding on to after all. If Alysa broke the tie that bound them across the iterations, hopefully, the girl could still lead a full normal life in her own world. In her home iteration. Far away from the evil that wanted to devour her.
To be true, Alysa wasn’t certain that it would allow Sophie to get away…In fact, the only thing she was sure of was that severing the bond with Sophie's Karma would immediately end Alysa’s life. Just as surely as forming it had saved her when there was no hope. But Alysa’s life was a small price to pay to keep this monster from ever laying a finger on Sophie…No! That could never happen!
The space marine reached with her heart for the joining between their souls. Felt the uncountable involutions and weavings that joined the two of them from mind to core. She was not sure how she knew, but it was certain as a heart storm that their bond, as with all things involving the soul, could be affected by a strong enough intention of will. Especially when it came to breaking a bond. Things are always easier to destroy than to create.
Alysa grasped the cord with her will and—
Once again Sophie’s head snapped up to gaze into the empty space above them at exactly the same instant as a feral and vicious roar of challenge and rage echoed through the physical world and was somehow carried through to their soul space. Empowered by a force outside of Alysa’s reckoning, the child managed a surge of strength to push their shield out once again.
* * * * *
An orange and black blur streaked over the decking of the open bay, directly from the void. A solid stream of sunfire rounds preceded the form as they tore into the head and shoulders of the undead Essence vampire from above. The surprise of their impacts momentarily rocked Kyon Shi’s body back, making the undead raise his arm in defense.
Sen stepped to the side and made space for Ishan to directly enter the melee on Kyon Shi’s left flank. The Tiger Affin altered the trajectory of his wingkit and dropped down, filling the gap like a puzzle piece. At the same time the newcomer was swinging a dark-bladed machete spitting electric blue sparks from its edges with both arms. Ishan’s massive double-handed downstroke severed the undead’s raised arm at the elbow and embedded itself in the side of his rotting skull. Cutting the tip of the lich’s pointed left ear.
As if merely insulted, Kyon Shi’s frown deepened and he gave his full attention to the late arriving Tiger Affin. Moving so fast that Josh couldn’t see it clearly, the undead push-kicked Ishan dead center with a foot strike that bent his heavy chest plate and resounded with the muffled sounds of cracking ribs. Ishan roared in pain as he was shot away to the far end of the hangar and back out the opening he had just come through.
Like the ancient carnivore of his ancestry, however, Ishan was made from some seriously tough stuff. He managed to reopen his barrage of Gatling fire even as he was blown backward and out of sight. The gunfire unerringly continued to strike the undead in his head and shoulders, leaving blackened four-pointed stars that quickly healed.
With Ishan out of the way, Kyon Shi refocused on Sen as his left arm sprang back from the severed end, once again blocking Sen’s whirling attacks with both hands and arms.
The amount of destruction brought to bear on the undead Essence drainer was mind boggling. And from the surge of golden glow around Alysa that warred with the obsidian death from Kyon Shi, Josh could tell Sophie had rallied when Ishan had attacked. But Ishan had been forced back and her golden reprisals against the lich’s attacking psychic lash were now failing even faster than before. The yellow sparks grew fainter and fainter before Josh’s very eyes. Sophie was weakening and, somehow, Kyon Shi was getting his footing back under him with a renewed focus–
But for the energy drainer to do that…It turned out that something had to give!
Kyon Shi had been battling Sophie and Sen, along with holding Josh in his mind trap and Alysa in a Force Essence paralysis. Ishan’s added attacks had apparently been the straw that broke the undead camel’s back, pushing Kyon Shi’s energy output past the red line.
He had been unable to maintain all fronts he was fighting on. So the lich shored up his overextensions with the simple expediency of releasing his force paralysis on Alysa. Without question she was the opponent he considered the least dangerous of all present.
And he was right. Alysa was in no shape to put up any kind of fight. Now free of the force paralysis she had been held in, the woman’s body sagged heavily into Josh’s arms, in the physical extension of his ongoing three part concurrent perception.
Sluggishly moving her head, Alysa turned her gaze away from Josh and looked up through the main view port at the disaster of plunge ships that was only moments from obliterating the brigantine.
* * * * *
Ishan’s attack had been unexpected and obviously telling on the undead drainer. But not enough to stop him. Just enough to put Kyon Shi on his back foot and free Alysa physically. Sophie was still absolutely trapped in their soul space. Her brief resurgence of Essence fully deplete and her resistance coming to a quick end. The golden sphere around them was shrinking visibly. It had now shrunken to the point that Alysa wouldn’t be able to return to the soul space because she couldn’t fit in it. In micros the shield would collapse and Sophie would be trapped in that bastard’s vileness. Who knows how strong he will become when he has his hooks directly into that sweet child!?
A harsh whisper, more instinctual than thought driven, came from Alysa’s throat into the physical world she had just emerged back into. “He will not have her!”
Striking now before anything could again distract her, Alysa tore savagely at the tie of their union with more intent than she had ever thought was possible. The ends shredded and then violently separated. The torn shreds of what had been one whole instantly withered in Alysa’s Aural sight before the next micro when she lost the ability to Cultivate and to perceive Aura. Without her soul partner, and the link to their shared core, the young woman could see it no more.
Alysa then slowly shifted her fading gaze to Josh, tears welling in her eyes as she spoke her last two sentences before her spirit left her dying body.
“I’m so sorry, Josh…” Alysa rasped as she looked directly into his eyes. Then she looked beyond him at the impending doom of plunge ships raining down on the brigantine and the space marine spoke authoritatively into her helmet to utter a final command. Her voicing a mix of confident authority and choking sadness.
“Command authorization delta-zero-nine. Detonate all active Og wafers.”
The next moment Alysa’s head tilted to the side, her eyes staring blankly into eternity. She didn’t feel the tiny astral hands of a little girl dropping everything to embrace their failing core with the fierceness of a lioness protecting her young.
* * * * *
Jarred into dumbfounded shock, Josh blinked, shaking his head not fully believing what was happening to Alysa or the meaning of her words. Even though he had heard them—
–Shocking realization spread through him like an electric shock and his science mind was moving him before he even had a cognizant realization of his actions. Now fully understanding what Alysa had done, stark-raving terror flooded his consciousness like the frigid waters of a bursting arctic dam.
Immediately, Josh enveloped himself and Alysa in a completely spherical earthen shield while screaming through their Bond for Sen to break away from the still overly-focused Kyon Shi and put another earthen shield around all three of them.
Then his fears voiced thoughts all on their own.
No! No! NO!!! Alysa can’t be gone! Not like this!
Sophie!?!
His soul ragged and called to his child even as he reinforced his shield for what he knew was coming.
Without losing a second, Sen was suddenly there, snapping his shield into place even as a confused look crossed Kyon Shi’s slashed but healing face. An instant later, rage boiled over the undead’s mummified bat features and he charged at them, both hands raised to smash through their helpless shields—
The world was washed away in blinding, white light.
The sound of exploding stars shattered their eardrums and they were swept away on a raging nuclear stormfront of boiling gas and liquified debris.
The last thing Josh remembered was being tumbled around like an extra large plastic bobber going over Niagara Falls during the rainy season of a La Nina year. Still, the fate of his children defeated his reason, trembling his spirit as he desperately called to them over and over again with his mind and heart.