by Sean Davies
“We didn’t do too badly for little fleshy ones,” Connie chuckled. “I’m going to burn those bots, just to be safe.”
Genie moved aside and pulled out her phone. “Cool, I’ll call it in—there are probably more spires like this hidden around the planet.”
Constance made sure there was nothing more left of the mechanoids than a puddle of blackened metal, as Genevieve dialled into the secure emergency channel and reported their findings to a high-ranking Justiciar officer.
✽ ✽ ✽
Alice ploughed through the dense Tropican undergrowth atop her green and black camouflaged Raptorkor mount, glaring to her side where Chloe O’Kelly was riding next to her in a full suit of power armour. The Book Wielder had (without asking permission) applied her artistic talents to the robotic mount she’d named Biscuit; it now sported an eye-catching black and pink colour scheme, and even featured a few cute cartoon cat stickers. The Lord Imperator was far from impressed.
In addition to the disobedient yet incredibly talented Book Wielder, Alice had brought the Vampire Nightclaw Karamo, a skilled Mage named Singarus, and three elite troopers for her main kill team. Dozens of other Justiciars were also hidden in the clammy jungle, just beyond the concealed city’s magical barrier, and airships with enough ordinance to level Neo-Industria to the ground were on standby should Alice and Chloe’s plan fall through. Everyone was equipped with full suits of power armour modified specifically to protect against chemical attacks in order to stave off the corruption Demon’s toxins for as long as possible, despite Chloe claiming that her barriers would do a better job and Karamo’s reluctance to reduce his agility.
Although they had the firepower to wipe out the test site, Alice didn't want to risk bombing it unless she was one-hundred percent certain that the entire mass of the corruption Demon would be caught in the blast. She knew that if he managed to slither away then she'd be back to square one, and for the sake of Mydia’s citizens, Alice couldn't afford to ruin the advantage she'd been blessed with.
The Lord Imperator also wasn’t keen on leading a large amount of people into the lion's den (which would obviously be booby-trapped with Corriztis’ nefarious contraptions), but Chloe O'Kelly was convinced that her binding spell was powerful enough to freeze the Demon in a timeless prison; Corriztis had already admitted that he was struggling to maintain more than one host, and would be weakened. The Book Wielder had even suggested that she might be able to hold the spell long enough to get to the Aldacium medical facility, giving the poor host Theodore Miller a chance of freedom that didn't have to result in his death. Alice had eagerly agreed to the plan, unable to pass up an opportunity to give the corrupted Vampire Bloodmage, who had been one of her first and most loyal Justiciars, a chance to regain his life.
“The Catacombs are so much easier to travel through when bitch-queen Cherriesa isn't there,” Chloe commented. “I wish it was always like that.”
“I agree. But do you really want her on Central Isle longer than necessary?” Alice asked with the faintest hint of a smile.
“Fuck no,” the redhead scoffed. “I wonder how Veronica and real Winston are doing.”
“Cherriesa said that the Mayor did something to the blood magic link,” Alice informed her. “She was livid, but apparently it seemed to help, though she's still cut off from communicating with Veronica.”
“By the time they get out, you'll have two bits of good news for them,” Chloe said optimistically.
Alice hoped that the ginger Book Wielder was correct, and that she wouldn't be facing Omniosis in a new, far more powerful form instead.
Alice checked the map on her HCD. “We're coming up to the boundary now. Be ready for anything.”
They passed through the secret city's invisible shield and the thick, colourful jungle ahead of them disappeared, replaced by an awe-inspiring city of white stone and coloured crystal buildings of all sizes that were topped with pointed spires or protruding battlements. The very floor itself was tiled with black and white slabs of marble, each of which engraved with a gridded pattern for grip and lined with detailed silver and gold borders.
As the kill team advanced further inside the abandoned city, however, they noticed that something wasn’t quite right about it, just as Ricardo Stern had mentioned; the buildings that had looked like architectural masterpieces at first glance soon appeared to follow a pre-set pattern that had been copied and pasted multiple times. When they peered through the coloured crystal glass, they could see that the interiors were all furnished with the same basic items, devoid of any personalisation, and some even featured barred cages and sealed glass sections big enough to imprison human-sized subjects.
“This whole city is just one big test chamber,” Karamo commented grimly, as he imagined the horrors Corriztis would have unleashed on his prisoners in the ancient times.
“The scale of it... the amount of people who must have...” Chloe trailed off, unable to find the words to describe her disdain.
“It shows how monstrous the Archmage tyrants were,” Alice said, clenching her jaw angrily. “No wonder the twin rebels were prepared to punch a hole in reality to end their cruel stranglehold on Mydia.”
Eventually they reached the centre of the hidden test city, which was a large square clearing containing a deactivated Catacomb portal, opposite a small square building made of plain light-yellow stone with a set of large golden doors.
Alice considered destroying the arched portal but decided against it until the mission was over, as their presence still seemed to have gone unnoticed.
Chloe and Karamo dismounted their Raptorkors and inspected the small building, while the other three troopers and the Mage Singarus kept an eye out for trouble.
“This building’s nondescript, but definitely stands apart from everything else we've seen,” Karamo remarked.
Chloe ran her armoured fingers over the smooth golden doors and reached out with her senses. “Magic runs throughout this city, but there's something more potent inside. It runs down into the ground.”
“An elevator?” Alice asked, hopping off her mount.
“Seems like it. Now we just need to get this open without waking up Corriztis,” Chloe said, looking around for a control panel.
The Lord Imperator approached the front of the building, and to everyone’s surprise, the doors automatically slid open, revealing a circular metal platform with a hip-height control panel at its centre. The rest of the room was bare except for long strips of glowing white crystals running along the stonework.
“Or you could just walk near it...” Chloe chuckled.
“It must respond to my Archmage blood the same way the secret portals do. Do you think you can work out the controls, O'Kelly?” Alice asked, as she stood at the very edge of the doorway and looked for traps.
“I'll give it a go—no promises though,” the Book Wielder replied honestly.
The Lord Imperator couldn't see any apparent dangers, and gestured for her kill team to follow her inside. Alice made it two steps inside the elevator room when the golden doors slammed shut, cutting her off from the rest of the team.
Inside the square building and outside in the vast secret city, the crystal windows, lights, and decorations flickered rapidly, emitting a bright series of pulses that played havoc with the kill team's helmets. Their visors displayed colourful blinding interference, while a harsh electronic screeching sounded through their inbuilt communication systems, forcing them to discard their headgear to escape the immense sensory discomfort.
In Corriztis’ city-sized test site, unseen nozzles filled every room and street with a thick cloud of black mist, choking and infecting the disorientated kill team squad.
Alice put up the best personal barrier she could muster under the barrage of the room's blinding strobe lights, and tapped randomly at the control panel, hoping that she could open the golden doors and rush to the aid of her screaming comrades. However, a nauseating green gas filled the room, lowering her guard long
enough for two previously hidden mechanical arms to puncture her neck with a series of quick injections before she could even react. Alice fell to the floor, watching the syringe-fingered mechanisms retract back seamlessly into the metal ceiling, right before she lost consciousness along with the rest of her team outdoors.
✽ ✽ ✽
Inside Winston’s disputed mind, the Reynoldses stood opposite Lewis Thorne, the deceased blonde Book Wielder who had defected from the Trinity of Old to join the Shadow Circle gang (before the Archmage Omniosis had corrupted him, enlisting Mortissa Aurorana and her expert needle skills to turn the young man into a carefully disguised human-Alt hybrid).
Lewis was wearing a smart black suit over his thin figure, his blonde hair styled in an undercut with the long top combed over suavely (the same way Winston often wore his own hair), and he had his original confident blue eyes rather than the corrupted black ones.
“Don't come any closer,” Winston warned under his breath.
He had his pistol pointed at Lewis, although he knew he wouldn't be able to bring himself to pull the trigger, even if it was just the dreamscape representation of his late best friend.
“Wow, nice to see you too, man,” Lewis Thorne said in a hurt voice, raising his hands defensively.
Veronica pointed her sword towards Lewis. “We know you're not really Lewis, so do whatever you came here to do,” she said in a grave tone, dreading the idea of fighting him once again.
“I’m not here to fight you. He wants me to escort you up,” Lewis sighed disappointedly, pointing to the tower with one of his raised hands, “to come to an arrangement.”
“An arrangement that involves me handing my body and mind over to Omniosis?” Winston scowled.
Lewis gave Winston a puzzled look. “Not exactly. It will be easier for him to explain—he doesn't want me to ruin the surprise.”
“And what do you want, Lewis?” Veronica asked, genuinely curious.
Lewis chuckled cheekily. “I want you to kick his ass, but it ain’t that simple, V.”
“What about this place is?” Winston grumbled, waving the imaginary form of Lewis forward with his pistol. “Lead on.”
“Yeah, Winston—the inside of your mind is pretty fucked up,” Lewis said chirpily. “And I hate to say it, but the situation is way more complex than you think.”
“Yippee!” Veronica exclaimed sarcastically.
Lewis walked them to the tower's double doors—which were engraved with the Conclave’s open book symbol, to Winston and Veronica’s surprise—and pushed them open to reveal a pleasant torch-lit interior, with bookshelves and recliners surrounding a large magical elevator.
“This doesn't look very demonic,” Veronica commented as they followed Lewis inside.
“It's not what I was expecting at all...” Winston mumbled.
“It's all part of the pageantry,” Lewis explained, with a hint of disapproval in his voice. “Just wait ‘til you see upstairs.”
Winston and Veronica gave each other a troubled look, and allowed Lewis to tap the hovering magical symbol that would take them up through the tower.
They passed by several floors, each of which was furnished normally and displayed no characteristics that linked the tower to its threatening exterior appearance; even the windows were just plain glass from the inside. The Reynoldses still found the tower unsettling, however, knowing that their foe and Winston's fate awaited them on the upper-most floor.
The final floor of the tower was closer to what the couple had been expecting, displaying the flare of grandeur and nobility that Omniosis was known for, but with a few strange twists. A long black and white carpet runner, with a gold and silver border, stretched along the beige stone floor in-between two evenly spaced pillars, extending from the elevator up to a white marble throne. The sides of the room were draped in long white curtains marked with the Conclave’s emblem, completely obscuring the chamber's walls, and strange silver wires ran along the ceiling and dropped down into the rear of the throne.
The Archmage himself was sitting upon his exquisite marble chair, with one armoured, mask-encrusted leg resting on his other knee. His body was completely encased in white armour and full masquerade masks wearing differing expressions, and over the top he wore a tight fitting white and gold robe cut at strange angles. Underneath a dark golden coif, a smug facial mask regarded the Reynoldses silently, the two masks on the side of Omniosis’ head smiling maniacally.
Lewis retreated to the far end of the room and bowed his head in humility, while Winston and Veronica walked towards their enemy.
The Archmage rose from his throne and held his arms out wide in a welcoming fashion as he began to walk towards them.
Winston wasted no time and immediately fired his pistol at Omniosis’ main mask, and Veronica soon joined in, hurling some torches towards the Archmage with her telekinesis.
The bullets shattered Omniosis’ mask, and the fire from the torches melted his armour like it was made of candlewax, revealing another version of Winston, who was laughing hysterically as the flames died down.
“What? What the...?” Winston stammered, faced with himself.
Veronica was completely speechless, and she studied the laughing doppelganger intently.
The second Winston shared the same facial features, but they were all slightly enhanced like he'd had cosmetic surgery, and his skin was unnaturally smooth, shimmering ever so slightly. His hair was still brown, but a much lighter shade than her Winston had, and it fell all the way to his back in neat flowing waves that rippled of their own accord. The copycat's irises glowed with intense speckles of colours, so bright they looked white at first glance.
“You're Archmage Winston!” Veronica concluded with a gasp.
The Archmage clapped indulgently. “Well done, Veronica, very well done.”
The real Winston fired his pistol again, but the Archmage equivalent of himself simply stopped the bullets in mid-air before making them vanish.
“Sorry about the theatrics,” Archmage Winston continued on, unabated. “I couldn't resist—and the longer you're in here, the more time I have to root myself into our vessel out there.”
Veronica looked between the two Winstons rapidly, pulling a face of pure bewilderment. “Seriously, what the absolute fuck is going on? What happened to Omniosis?!”
“Have you not worked it out for yourself by now? No?” Archmage Winston asked arrogantly, his eyebrows arching. “Lewis, my good friend, open the curtains please.”
✽ ✽ ✽
Genevieve and Constance walked quickly back to the taxi, aware that the driver was waiting for them and that his meter was still racking up the charges.
“Good thing you had that pistol, huh?” Genie remarked wryly as they neared the edge of the corn field.
“Yeah, I’ve always liked pistols,” Constance lied, before laughing. “As much as I hate being wrong, you’ve made your point, so you’ll need to school me on how to use one properly.”
“I’d ask Brooke if I were you. I’m competent, but she’s just something else,” Genie chuckled modestly.
“I’m happy settling with an amateur like you for a teacher,” Connie teased. “I only need to be good enough to take out the Creator’s clockwork nanotech skeleton-angel things…”
“I wonder why—and how—you’re connected to this Creator thing,” Genevieve wondered, as they powerwalked across the corn field.
“So do I,” Constance replied glumly. “Ugh, all this walking is knackering me out—either that, or a Vampire snacked on me twice in a row.”
Genie laughed quietly. “I’ll get you a healing potion out of the trunk.”
They made it past the hedge and walked up the country lane to where the driver was parked, playing air guitar to a rock song on the radio. Genevieve fetched the Book Wielder a vial of healing potion to restore her lost blood before slamming the trunk shut, causing the driver to jump.
“Oh, you’re back!” the driver gasped, clutching
his chest. “What were you two up to in there, then?” he asked with a filthy grin, eyeing up their dishevelled appearances and coming to the wrong conclusion.
“Not what you think,” Constance replied honestly, swigging the vial of healing potion and taking a seat in the back next to Genie. The meter caught her eye, and she almost spat the rose-coloured liquid back out. “That can’t be right! One hundred and fifty Imperial Credits?!”
“Yeah, I knocked it up a bit,” the driver shrugged. “Call it my waiting fee.”
Constance clenched her fists, ready to shout abuse at the man, but Genevieve shook her head.
“I’ve got plenty of cash—don’t worry about it.” The Vampire Nightclaw grinned naughtily at her. “All I care about is getting that big butt of yours into my bed.”
“What about all your packing?” Connie asked slyly.
Genie licked her fangs and shrugged. “I might have exaggerated my need to head home, for my own devious desires…”
The driver hooted and cheered as he pulled away, ruining the moment, but Connie raised an eyebrow as she thought of her own way to reduce their fare. She leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder.
“If my girlfriend and I spend the rest of the journey fooling around on your backseat, will you cut that fare in half?” Constance asked, batting her eyelashes.
The driver laughed gruffly. “Hell yeah!”
“But you have to stay quiet, or we’ll be put off,” Connie added.
“My lips are sealed.” The driver ran his fingers across his mouth like he was closing a zip.
“You are a bad girl, Constance Lee,” Genevieve purred, stroking the Book Wielder’s face and kissing her.
“It’s your fault,” Connie accused as she pushed Genie down across the backseat, running her hands across the Vampire’s firm body. “You corrupted me into a horny little devil, Genevieve Jameson”
Genevieve pulled Connie down by the neck of her grey mini-dress and carried on kissing her, before whispering in her ear, “You know we were going to do this anyway, right? Meter or not?”