by Prax Venter
Abby turned to face him. “I must assume the water is pouring through from the vortex on the other side.”
Mark scanned the area for any of those floating islands Audra had mentioned as he muttered, “Logically flawless as always, little one.”
With the four of them focused on looking for anything other than water and sky, it only took another half hour of searching the edge of the rim before they found a cluster of floating islands about fifty feet up from the water. Moss-covered ruins stood balanced on dry crumbling dirt, and Jezebel’s hooves knocked a small cascade of loose material plumbing to the water below as she landed. The ancient ruins of what might have been an impressive stone city seemed abandoned.
“Just a reminder to everyone that I can’t swim,” Sasha said, jumping onto the floating island with only minor trepidation. Mark looked over at her and she knocked a knuckle on one of her chrome legs. “I’d sink like a rock.”
“Then don’t fall off,” he said and then turned his eyes on the simple, but plentiful structures before continuing. “This might not be the exact place they were talking about meeting us, but I don’t see a centaur army. Let’s take this nice and slow. If anyone walks into any traps, you will disappoint your Commander, and shall be punished accordingly.”
Abby and Angel stayed in the air to make sure they had overwatch on any possible threats as the others took a closer look around. Satyr-Jez, Sasha, Mark only made it a few steps before their aerial eyes in the sky relayed a vision of a bluish luminescence spilling on one of the distant crumbling walls.
They all mounted up again before passing over several ruined towers to check it out, and when they landed in a ruined courtyard and saw the exact same blue brazier they’d found on the moon, Jezebel’s heart skipped a beat. The azure flame danced with the vortex winds and across from it stood a basic stone pillar with a big glowing button on its surface. A jagged section of sandy brick that had to be a second floor provided enough cover for this alcove to be protected from the worst of the elements, but Mark got the impression that none of it was going to last much longer before it all plummeted into the swirling abyss below.
“Audra mentioned this,” Jezebel said. “She said her whole party was sent to the keypad room on the moon from a button like this.”
“Can I press-”
The ‘it’ Sasha was about to say was wiped from her lips as the world around them became True Strike warnings, chaos, and ancient stones pummeling his body from every direction.
Mark triggered his spherical barrier, and it cleared the debris, yet he found that it immediately started moving up as gravity pulled him down through what sounded like spaceship laser fire.
He sent a ping to Jezebel that her priority was catching Sasha as he copied their Druid’s flight ability with his Mirror. Glowing wings appeared at his back allowing him to say “fuck you” to gravity and he twisted out of the pulverized raining ruins.
Bright streaks of energy continued to obliterate the floating island they’d been standing on, and as Mark soared out over the Penultimate Vortex, he discovered an armada of futuristic flying vehicles bristling with turrets all firing bolts of super-heated plasma.
Mark’s mind kicked into overdrive as he coated his whole body in pure white Salivis energy as if he were a bullet and thrust one fist outward toward their attackers. His protective bubble popped almost instantly after he’d created it, but it had done its job.
No one was reporting the need for dire healing, and he could feel that the flying doe had shifted into a flying bear before she intercepted his plummeting sex demon. With his team airborne and not dead, he turned his full attention to destroying these honorless augmented horse bastards.
There were two different types of aircraft above the ocean, the bulkier Centaur Technocracy style he’d seen before that used excessive amounts of vibrant arcs of lightning for lift, and in the middle of everything sat a huge hovering carrier shaped like a sleek whale. The carrier’s curvy sides flowed with the telltale waterfalls that proved these fuckers had been hiding under the water.
Portholes on the carrier began to open, and one of the Centaur gunships locked on and pelted him with superheated plasma bolts, forcing him to reallocate most of his goddess-given power toward his front. The force of the erratic yet infinite explosions on his protective energy were not enough to break through, but he couldn’t really see anything, and it was pushing him backward more than he could push forward. Without many options, Mark closed his eyes and tried spinning away from the fire.
That’s when Abby/Angel started turning the Centaur gunships into Swiss cheese. The cannon fire bombarding his forward shields stopped, and he looked up to see her buzzing through the assault vessels at her top speed.
A grin split his lips as one of the ships she’d perforated exploded and took out one of its neighbors in the process. The pure exultant delight both Abby and Angel felt as they coordinated their subsonic flight, telekinesis, and spellcasting through view ports tickled his mind, and Mark was beginning to think that she could probably take this whole armada by herself.
Then, he noticed the glint of light from the swifter machines now pouring out of the carrier. Perspective was always his enemy in this world, and it turned out the portholes he’d seen opening on the mysterious hovering whale were much larger hangar bay doors.
He turned toward Sasha and Jezebel out of the cannon fire’s range way above the battle and considered calling for a retreat. This giant fish ship was an unknown enemy, and they were facing the most insane force they’d encountered yet. And yet, they were all unharmed aside from some cuts and bruises during the initial ambush and were now dealing serious damage.
With his grin widening, Mark leaned forward and embraced his own sense of exhilaration that Jezebel’s limitless flight bestowed. The sensation lasted about three seconds before Abby sent back the first images of the new smaller attack ships- and they weren’t ships at all.
At first he’d thought they were biological seahorse creatures wearing white and black power armor like hers, but when one got close, and when his interconnected Enthralled noticed their pixelated white eyes on black visors, shocked silence echoed through their bonds. His magic eye confirmed the truth. They were androids… like Angel’s underwater cousins, and there was no question that they were hostile.
Mark poured on the speed to get his devastating Salivis energy into the mix, and he saw several enemies work together to block and then ram the over-powered bot/horror. Neither Abby or Angel took any real damage from the impact, and the things were not anywhere near as fast as the merged pair, but they had brought her to a dead stop. If they got swarmed by these seahorse androids…
Jezebel was trying to be calm about the new robots’ obvious connection to the Time Walker race that built their Lunar Power Droid and was not really succeeding. When Mark noticed a large section of the Nautical Power Droids start heading toward his hovering green-eyed doe and sex demon, he finally ordered their retreat.
But although the new mysterious foes were not as fast as Abby, they did displace gravity faster than either he or Jezebel could with her wings. New sounds of rushing water from below pulled his eye to the six additional whale carriers emerging from the ocean, and true fear began to grip his heart.
All Mark needed to do was make it to his team and open a door to anywhere else, but his heart-bound loves were far apart and there was no way he could make it.
Abby and Angel used everything in their arsenal to protect the others until Mark reached them, but despite the physical, psychic, and telekinetic damage she was doing, there were too many and they were too strong.
Angel blared panic in their minds when one of the seahorse droids clamped its thin metal snout around the plating covering one of Abby’s tentacles and began injecting both jolts of disruptive energy and microscopic machines into her substrate. He watched through her eyes as the creature’s head became a crushed tin can and the tight coil of its antigrav tail drooped as it fell lifeles
s back to the sea.
Bear Jezebel was mostly useless as she couldn’t Vine or perform any aerial acrobatics with Sasha on her back, but the Techno Succubus was sending Shock Bombs and Arc Bolts out in every direction.
One moment he was approaching the cloud of metal-and-magic chaos, the next he was among it, and Salivis did not hold back when he called on her to give him everything she could spare. With most of the multiverse now aware of the Goddess of Oral Sex, and with many of Those That Dwell willing to do business with her, there was a considerable quantity of power to spare.
As if Mark were at the center of a pure white sea urchin, dozens of solid energy spikes darted from his body toward every True Strike point he could perceive the instant he perceived it- some reaching out 50 feet or more. Between his raw power, Sentient Armored Abby, and Sasha’s violent electricity, they sent heaps of seahorse droids into the deep blue abyss below.
But it wasn’t enough. The reinforcements from the other whale carriers had joined the battle in the sky, and Mark took a blow to the back of his head almost immediately.
There were just too many, and he could no longer see his team in the sea of seahorses around them- magic eye or no. As another impact sent him reeling, he was barely aware that Sasha Static Escaped out into mid-air as Jezebel turned into a stone bear, dropping instantly.
He wasn’t sure of much else until the wind left his lungs as he hit the water.
Had he failed? Was this the end of their adventure?
As the pressure of millions of gallons of water threatened to make that despair a reality, Mark squeezed his eyes and screamed into the terrible, crushing darkness. Bubbles from his mouth rose to the distant surface as his focus slanted all the cultivated system-level powers that-
Mark’s desperate attempt to self-transcend the system was interrupted when something solid pressed under his arms. He opened his eyes to see a length of weather-worn wood disobeying physics as it rocketed him upward.
Now that his eyes were open, he noticed an additional 809,032 chunks all rising with him, and it only took him a moment to remember what could cause such a phenomenon.
Mark gasped for oxygen as he broke the surface then struggled onto a mountainous collection of solid driftwood that continued to build up around him. Shaking some of the saltwater from his eyes, he looked up to see an impressive mass of barnacle-covered anchors about twenty stories up all rear back before letting out a deafening series of shrieking peals into the sky, echoing off the clouds.
He fell back to his knees and patted the pile of wood that had once been the living boat woman he’d set free from that sea cave so long ago. Apparently, she’d collected quite a few more parts since last they met.
“Debt paid,” he whispered as Abby/Angel flew in with Sasha held over her shoulder. Both of his succubus’s wings were broken, and since he knew Jezebel was being carried to them by her own driftwood log transport, he spent his heal to end her suffering.
“She’s magnificent,” Abby said after Sasha was on her sharp hooves again.
The succubus turned around and pulled Armored Abby to her chest.
“Oh, little ones. Thank you for catching me.”
Mark patted Sasha between the horns and then turned to the sky to see what they faced. He was surprised to find the seahorse drones had begun lining up in perfect columns to either side of the amorphous mass of wood and iron anchors as if they were escorting the gargantuan creature toward the center of the vortex. A new warmth and light poured over his head, and when Mark turned to look, he saw they were entering the eye of the storm. The sun was still at early afternoon, so the intense circle of light appeared as an actual eye. Mark had no doubt in his mind that They Who Watch were probably glued to their seats right now.
Jezebel flew herself back to them when it became apparent that the attackers were no longer hostile.
“Do they rightly fear her?” Abby asked.
“No,” Sasha said, her spade tail confidently swaying. “This is respect.”
“I’m getting a bit of both,” Mark said, stepping forward as one of the glistening whale ships moved to dock with his loyal boat creature.
No one in their interconnected bond was expecting cybernetic merfolk to come walking down a wide ramp that swung out from their sleek vessel, but as the regal half-fish people with glowing implants and metal legs attached via harnesses approached them, it made a whole lot of sense. Their top-half was mostly human, like their centaur allies, but as they drew closer it became clear that they shared a strong resemblance to Pendula. Their bottom half was that of a fish, in classic mermaid fashion and each had vibrantly colored scales below, like works of art. A group of seven came out to meet them and those armed with future-tech rifles currently pointed those business ends downward.
“Collector,” a male near the center called out. “It is we that have stopped our attack.”
“We can see that,” Mark said. “We come peacefully to speak with the Centaur Technocracy, but we certainly want to talk to you guys now, too.”
The envoy nodded. “If the enigmatic Driftwood Leviathan manifests on this unprecedented scale to protect you, we will no longer support our centaur allies in their quest for revenge. She can do… mm- considerable damage when slighted. Please, we beg forgiveness.”
Mark turned to look far up at the still-growing mass of endless driftwood and the insane wad of anchors remaining relatively still as she watched. Because he himself had the opportunity to grow, his magic eye could now detect the faint bond of her gratitude connecting to his heart. Existence had been torture until this one human and his group had shown up and now she knew only endless freedom.
She wasn’t his Enthralled, but on a system-magic-intent level, she had been keyed to his energy signature since that day he ordered she be cut loose. It wasn’t words or images, but Mark knew that if they were in her ocean, and someone attempted to hurt him or his party, those someones would get utterly wrecked.
“So,” Mark said, turning his focus back to the orange-scaled merman before him. “You’re friends with the Centaur Technocracy. Know anything about the Orb of Legend?”
The collected merfolk shifted on their skeletal legs that straddled their longer fish tails. Mark knew each one of them coveted its infinite power as much as the Centaurs, but his initial exploration of their minds was interrupted by a shocking discovery by Angel.
Apparently she’d been passively scanning these advanced half-fish cyborgs who possessed seahorse drones almost identical to her, and she’d just confirmed they all had the same microscopic machines they found on the moon. They were actively allowing the merfolk to breathe either air or seawater.
Jezebel finally burst.
“I have so many questions! Do you know of an ancient civilization on the moon? Did you know there was a teleporter to the moon in the ruins that were just destroyed? Are you aware of your respirational nanites?” She took a step forward and pressed her hand into her chest. “I am System Host Jezebel S3K, does that mean anything to you?”
The orange-scaled merman tilted his head. “Er- No.”
Mark immediately knew it was a lie, but before any alarm bells went off, the fishman continued. “That is to say, not any more than the entire sea, land, and sky knows your name and race. It is the same for the four of you. And if you are referring to the Prison of Blue Fire, there are other such traps scattered around the edge of the vortex. You claim the Box and the Flame are truly located up in the Void Removed?”
Before Jezebel could answer, a teal-blue mermaid with an elaborate earpiece device stepped forward.
“Outsiders, I am thrilled to inform you that the King in the Vortex has just decided to speak with you personally. There is apparently much to discuss, and he values opening a dialog between our peoples. Please, come see the splendor of Gigabroia. An honor truly few have had.”
She cast her ice-blue eyes up to the Driftwood Leviathan and back, and Mark could tell that she personally wanted nothing to do with it, o
r this dangerous Collector and his Enthralled.
The base-level connection between them burst open as she refocused her attractive gaze on him, and Mark let his magic eye free to swim in those waters to get a good look at what fresh madness they were about to enter.
Her name was Reka. She was seventeenth in line to rule the Vortex and its deep endless waters. Her people were extremely reclusive and xenophobic, and there was more than a little arrogance saturating her intelligent mind. She was pissed to be above the surface. The augmented mermaid hated that Mark and his team had somehow lived through what she ardently believed should have been a guaranteed victory with no witnesses. Being wrong about anything was like a knife in the gut to her.
She was also livid that her people exposed themselves like this for the Centaur Technocracy. The uplifted race of half-horse people had proven to be invaluable on land. Especially when they’d had control over the orb, but now they didn’t, and she refused to see the benefit of their alliance when the relic was not even in this dimension anymore. Political power within the sea drove her every action and being a messenger here for these people was wasting her talents.
Instead, Reka wanted nothing more than to get back to seducing her unarguably dead-sexy brother who was fifth in line-
Mark’s mind stalled, and he found himself back in his own skin, trying to blink away the rampant incest that apparently was not a problem under the sea.
“We would love that!” Jezebel answered, already moving forward.
Thanks to Angel’s innate ability to enhance their metal communication, his Enthralled had all seen what he’d seen on his deep dive and Sasha struggled fiercely to not start laughing like a mad person at the Druid’s response.
Mark took a moment to squat down and lovingly pat the driftwood surrounding them once more then stood and flashed Reka a grin.
“Take us to your leader.”
- 27 -
The silver gargantuan whale they rode within was filled with hyper-advanced tech, elegantly curved architecture, and spectacular views. Once they all had a good look, there was no doubt its construction was influenced by the ancient Time Walker race. According to the constant buzz of activity in Jezebel’s mind, she thought they were the Time Walkers. Or more accurately, what had become of them after the Cataclysm.