"Do you think you can take me?" it screeched through the fog. "Do you understand what I am? I am Death! I am the thing that your parents told you about to frighten you as a small child. We were the giants in the Earth, the Titans, the Elder Gods. I am one of the First. You are but a worm to me. You will suffer, and you will die."
"You're also long-winded, apparently."
"Your torment will be the stuff of legend and haunt the nightmares of these people for generations."
"You'll have to catch me first," Drake replied, and then apported.
As the bridge of his ship materialized around him, Drake began shouting orders. "Hephaestus, raise our shields and place an immediate interdiction field around southern Florida."
"Done, and done. What is the nature of the threat, Prince Drake?" the ship's machine intelligence asked.
Drake was running through the ship to his armory. "An Enemy," he replied. "It claimed to be one of the First."
"Do you believe it?"
"I've never felt one so powerful," said Drake. "So, yeah. I do."
"You may not be able to defeat it, if it is. The First who fell to darkness during the War were powerful even then. They can only have become more so."
"Is its tech better than yours?"
"No," Hephaestus replied, sounding smug. "I was created during the Late Expansionist Phase; the War came after the Decadent Phase. Much technology had been lost by that time."
"Then I'll be fine."
"Your overconfidence will result in your death."
"I've been dead before."
"You will be again if you pursue this course of action."
"I cannot allow it to get away," Drake said. "These things have destroyed this world and its people; I need to avenge their deaths. You can keep an eye on me and make sure I don't get into too much trouble."
"I could disperse the region into hyperspace and save you the trouble," said Hephaestus.
"No, I need it alive so I can question it."
"Capturing it is even more unlikely than destroying it."
"I'll take my chances. I need to know why they're here. Besides, the planet's ecosphere has been damaged enough. If you have to strike, do so surgically. Don't just blast half a continent away."
"I would have been content with simply the former state of Florida."
Drake stripped and donned his heaviest armor. He could fall through the heart of a star unscathed wearing it –the built-in stasis technology helped – although he hoped he wouldn't have to test that. He hurriedly selected an array of ranged weapons and his matter destroying sword. The sword was linked to the Instrumentality, one of the most powerful forces in any of the universes. He suspected it wasn't going to be enough, but he didn't have much choice.
"Hephaestus? Do you have the location of the Enemy? Is it still at the base?"
"No. It has moved faster than I thought possible and has almost reached the edge of the interdiction zone."
The interdiction zone was a hyperspacial field designed to prevent dimensional apportation. If the Enemy made it out of the zone, it could flee the universe. Drake couldn't allow it to report that he was here. If it got away, it could bring back its brothers. Drake could fight one, he hoped, but not hundreds of the things. Not all at once. He knew that from bitter experience.
"Can you set up a wider field?
"I can, but I would have to drop the current field for two-point-three microseconds. The Enemy could escape."
"How is it moving so fast?"
"Through line of sight apportation, I assume. It is the only explanation."
"Can you teleport me nearby?"
"I can send you outside the edge of the field closest to the current location of the Enemy."
"Just get me close."
The silver swirl of a fold teleport swept over him, and, as the event horizon evaporated, Drake found himself standing on a ruined city street.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Drake thought at first that Hephaestus had badly misjudged the teleport. The ruined buildings on either side of the street were of a classic Bavarian style, common in northern Europe. Then he noticed the geodesic sphere across the lake and realized where he was: Disney World. The buildings were gift shops, and small, stuffed anthropomorphic animals littered a nearby corner. The sky above loomed grey and turbulent. Earth's oceans weren't cooling as quickly as the land masses. Violent super-storms dumped ice and snow across the northern hemisphere. Soon the entire planet would be entombed in ice.
The Enemy was nowhere in sight, but Drake had the crawling sensation between his shoulder blades that he often got when one was near. He activated the entropic sensors in his suit. Background entropy was high, although not unexpectedly so for a ruined theme park slowly rotting into the sea. The readings were erratic but definitely higher across the lake. Drake began trotting along the concourse. The bright, festive colors of peeling paint and the copious litter on the ground only made the place more dismal. Once thousands of people had roamed these streets seeking entertainment. Now, not even the ferals roamed the ruins.
Drake's footsteps didn't dispel the oppressive silence.
He passed through the edge of the interdiction field and felt the substance of the universe harden around him. The Enemy couldn't escape, but neither could he. He checked his display: by its readings, the Enemy was approximately six hundred meters ahead of him. Drake readied his rifle and advanced at a steady trot. It was too close to the edge of the interdiction field for him to feel comfortable. He needed to drive it back, keep it occupied.
The blast took him by surprise, coming from the side and not where he thought the Enemy would be. His armor dissipated most of the energy, shattering a crater into the pavement beneath him. The energy that got through almost bowled him over. Drake returned fire with his rifle. The sun-hot cutting beam ignited the clutter on the ground and all of the buildings within ten meters of his target. The air itself burst into incandescent plasma.
The Enemy stepped though the shimmering waves of heat. It had given up human semblance and was now in a form straight out of Drake's childhood nightmares. It was huge, wreathed in smoke and black fire, with large bat-like wings sweeping up behind it, its eyes two burning coals. Drake had never seen the Enemy wear armor before – not the technological kind – but this one was wearing armor much like his own. It also clutched a device of archaic appearance that Drake could only assume was the weapon with which it had fired upon him. It opened fire again, and Drake apported away before it hit, shooting again with his rifle as he reappeared. The Enemy screamed as it was struck and apported away, as well. They chased each other through the burning ruins, apporting and shooting.
Setting the world on fire, again.
The Enemy vanished and then reappeared across the lake, again hidden by darkness. It began doing something that bent and distorted reality around it. Drake could see the lensing effect as space-time warped. He checked, but the interdiction field was still in place, so the Enemy wasn't trying to run. He found out what it was doing a moment later as the burning buildings and kiosks around him imploded under a sudden increase in gravitation. The pavement caved in under his feet. Only the built-in dampening field of his armor kept him from being crushed under thirty gravities of force.
Drake struggled to raise his rifle and fired across the lake, but the Enemy apported away again. Drake was shaken as normal gravity reasserted itself and he was pelted by huge, shattered slabs of pavement surging out of the ground. The Enemy, back in its demonic form, appeared and stuck at him with a fist larger than Drake's head. The blow hit his rifle, which bent under the force of the strike. This Enemy was unimaginably strong. It grabbed Drake and hurled him into the boiling water of the lake. By the time he resurfaced, the Enemy was gone again, lost in the steam and smoke.
"Come on, you coward!" Drake screamed. "Fight me! I thought you weren't afraid of me!"
"I'm not," the Enemy said from right beside him.
Drake spun, but was stuck
before he could draw his sword. The Enemy leapt upon him, forcing him down into the boiling water, and black fire flowed down its arms, biting and gnawing at his armor. Drake screamed – he could feel his skin melting, despite his armor, under the touch of those entropic flames – and began pounding the Enemy with his armored fists. They rolled out of the water and through a burning pagoda, striking and tearing at one another. Drake finally managed to shove it off of him and drew his sword, but it apported away again before he could strike.
Drake found it standing atop a replica stone temple, arms raised. This Enemy was connected to one of the powers, he realized. Whether it was the Instrumentality or the Cynosure, he couldn't tell. That it was either one troubled him; neither of those powers should have been accessible to one of the Fallen.
The lightnings started as he charged across the plaza. Blast after blast stuck him, but his armor protected him, and the attack was insufficient to do more than stagger him as he ran. Drake apported and came out swinging with his sword. The entire upper surface of the steppe pyramid dissolved into chaos and collapsed. The Enemy responded by leaping upon him, and they tumbled down the steps to shatter the pavement below.
Downdrafts whipped the fires around them into an inferno.
As they wrestled, Drake managed to draw the edge of his blade across the chest of the Enemy, ripping a deep cut that began to pulse with a silvery sheen as the Enemy was torn apart atom by atom, the energy being directed into hyperspace. Then, impossibly, it laughed, and the wound closed up. Nothing could survive a strike from that blade, and yet it had.
"You'll have to do better than that," the Enemy spat. It flung him away, and he smashed through a series of buildings before rolling to a halt.
The battle was not going the way Drake had intended. He'd killed thousands of the Enemy, but none of them had worn powered armor. None of them had ever resisted the bite of his blade. This one was different. This one was a match for him, if not more powerful. He was suddenly afraid he'd made a grave mistake. To hell with this, he thought.
"Hephaestus," he called, "target the—" He was cut off as a small moon struck him from behind. At least that's what it felt like. He felt bones break as he tumbled along the ground. Drake staggered to his feet, only to be hit again. This time the stasis field on his weakened armor activated to save him, and reality blinked as his time stopped for a moment. He came to, lying on his back.
"You little fool," the Enemy hissed. "You fight for this world and don't even know its value."
The Enemy swopped down upon him, and Drake discovered that he'd dropped his sword somewhere. Not that it had done much good for him. He tried to stand. The Enemy hit him and drove him back and down into the pavement, shattering a new crater. Drake cried out as broken bones grated, and then he was airborne as the Enemy threw him into the curving wall of the geodesic sphere.
He fell like a bomb through the inside of Epcot, smashing through walls and shattering glass. It was waiting for him outside and struck again almost instantly. The Enemy was just too fast and strong for him to face in human form.
Time to try something new. He apported before he hit the ground, appearing near the edge of the interdiction field. He opened himself up to the awful power of the Instrumentality, and the power coursed through him. His shapeshifted into a form more suited for fighting. The Instrumentality adjusted his armor on the fly. Energy vortexed around him like a cyclone made of smoke and lightning. The Enemy hesitated when it saw him.
That was all he needed.
He dove forward, knocking the Enemy from its feet. His augmented form was far stronger than his adversary. He wrestled with it. It tried to apport away, and Drake used the power of the Instrumentality to snatch it back. He drove his clawed fingers into joints of its armor and ripped its right wing off before it could shake him. The scream and wave of psychic agony almost made him loose consciousness, but instead he drove the Enemy to the ground, striking it again and again. The rents in its armor closed up almost instantly, but he managed to drive his fist through the armor and sent a pulse of pure energy directly into its heart, a blast of raw psychic fire with the full force of the Instrumentality behind it.
The dying Enemy screamed, tried to stand with white fire blazing from its eyes and mouths, staggered a few steps, and died. Its body continued to twitch as the flames ate it away from the inside, but it was dead. It was defeated.
Drake fell to his knees and lay his forehead against the pavement, dropping the link to the Instrumentality and reverting to his true form. That Enemy had been the biggest challenge he had faced since his return. I'm going to have to do better if I want to survive, he thought. He hadn't wanted to reveal himself in this fashion; such a release of energy would let every one of the Enemy on the planet know that he was here. They would hunt him now. He'd have to be ready.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of clapping hands. He forced himself to sit up. Another of the Enemy was standing by the still burning body. This was the one he'd seen across the lake. The one who'd almost killed him with the gravitic shockwave. Drake had assumed it was the one he'd been fighting, in a new form. He'd assumed wrong.
"Little prince – isn't that the title you wear? Did you think he was working alone?"
Drake sighed. Some battles simply weren't worth fighting. He was exhausted, and broken, and in no condition to fight anymore.
"You could just walk away," Drake suggested. "I'm in no mood to fight you. Leave this Realm, and I will not pursue you. Not this time. I don't often give your kind that option. Take it now and live."
The Enemy laughed, and the sound sent chill up his broken spine.
"This world has something we want."
"So I gather," said Drake. He slowly got to his feet, forcing his numb legs to move by will alone. "I don't suppose you'd tell me what it is? Maybe I could help you find it, and then you could leave. I'm getting tired of all this petty squabbling."
"Why should I bargain with you when I have the strength to take what I want?"
Drake suspected he knew what it wanted, but he wasn't even going to think it.
"You know where it is, don't you, boy?" The Enemy stepped closer to him as Drake recovered his sword and sheathed it. The weapon wouldn't do him any good against this opponent, but he liked that sword and didn't want to leave it behind.
"I do know," Drake replied. "I'm curious, though: did you think that I was?"
"Was? Was what?" the Enemy asked. It actually sounded confused, which cheered Drake, perversely.
"Working alone, you stupid, arrogant fuck."
He transmitted his message to Hephaestus. His last sight as the silvery field of the teleport closed over him was the beam of quantum annihilation that slashed down from orbit, focused tightly upon the Enemy. It didn't even have time to scream before being destroyed.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The medical suite put Drake back together in a matter of hours. He was angry that he'd had to destroy both of the Enemy. He'd wanted to question them about why they were in this Realm. He'd though they were there to punish and distract him, but it appeared that they had an additional agenda. There was something on the planet they'd wanted. He was also angry that he'd had to resort to using the Instrumentality; he didn't like to attract its attention.
"Hephaestus, is there any way you can scan this planet for technology?"
"Could you please be more specific? The planet had a thriving stage-five civilization before the late unpleasantness. Technology is present over most of the planet and in orbit. There are even traces of technology on a few of the other planets and moons."
"I'm interested in advanced technology. Is there any tech of the First or the Fallen on the planet?"
"I will need a few minutes to complete a scan."
"Take your time," Drake replied, amused. Hephaestus seemed to find it a great inconvenience if it took him more than a few microseconds to do something.
Drake left Medical and found something to eat. That was
something else he'd noticed recently: his body's demand for food had been steadily increasing. He dimly remembered that he used to eat a sizable amount of food every day.
Before he'd died.
"Prince Drake? I have found three anomalous signatures on the surface of the planet. I apologize for not noticing them before. They are very faint."
"What do you have?"
"Two signatures are consistent with advanced stasis chambers, technology level eight or higher. One is in the Yucatan region of Central America, another in the center of the Indian Ocean. The third signature is weaker; I believe it is a Waypoint device."
"A Waypoint? Here?"
"During the Expansionist Phase, we often seeded planets with Waypoints to allow for rapid exploration and colonization. This one is very weak, possibly damaged. It may be functioning intermittently."
"The local time rate is faster than in the Courts. If it is a Waypoint, it’s over a million years old."
"At least," said Hephaestus.
"Where is this Waypoint?"
"Northeastern North America. Just north of Andover, Maine."
"Son of a bitch."
"Excuse me?"
"Jason said he came through a gate in that region."
"He most likely traveled through the Waypoint, then. Unless Jason had the ability to travel from universe to universe without technology, or his people had technology to make a temporary gateway. Even still, the proximity would be suspicious."
Drake laughed. "No, he didn't have that. His people didn't have the technology to do it, either." He was quiet and thoughtful for a few minutes. "The Enemy must be after one these three artifacts. The Waypoint probably only connects to Jason's world, so I doubt it's that. I've never been to Threnendar, but he never spoke of any reason why the Enemy would want to go there."
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