by Jacob Holo
“HELP ME!!!”
There was nothing Jack or anyone else could do.
The fiend bit down, and Jared’s scream filled his ears. With a harsh grind of its teeth and twist of its hand, the fiend ripped Jared’s seraph in two. Red chaos-imbued fluid sprayed out in a violent arterial shower, and the hypercast channel fell silent.
“Oh God, no…” Jack whispered.
“Jared!” Yonu shouted.
The fiend tossed the bottom half of the seraph into its mouth and swallowed.
So… who shall be next? the fiend asked simply.
“That voice…” Veketon said. “It can’t be.”
“Jared, answer me!” Yonu shouted, her voice desperate with grief.
Silence.
“Answer me, curse you!”
Jack and Veketon joined Knight Squadron in front of the chaos fiend. Seth, Quennin, and Tesset arrived moments later. No one said a word.
Zophiel and Othaniel cruised past the fiend and pulled up behind it. He raised his portal lance in triumph.
“Tremble, puppets of the Keepers. Tremble before the power of my lord!”
“Vayl!” Veketon called out.
The fiend faced him. Ah, Veketon. I was wondering if you would grace us with your presence.
“You speak as if you know me.”
But I do. The question is, do you recognize me?
“It takes more than a different name to fool me.”
Vayl nodded. Naturally. So tell me, what name would you use?
“The one I gave you tens of millennia ago,” Veketon said. “The one you bore until the day we both died.”
And that would be?
“I name you Malael, a dead seraph of the Seekers.”
Vayl clasped its hands. Oh, very good! Very good! Then you truly are Veketon. I had some doubts, but not anymore. No one else could have recognized me in this form.
“Malael who?” Jack asked.
“My original seraph from before I died.”
“Seriously?”
“It would appear so.”
“Vek, what is it with you and making enemies out of everything? If we live through this, we need to have a serious talk about this bad habit of yours.”
“At this moment, I find it hard to disagree.”
Veketon, my old comrade, why don’t you give up this charade? I know you are merely using these other humans to achieve your goals, but you no longer need them. Come, join me and help us execute this Keeper rabble. There is no need for us to be enemies.
Jack quickly buffered the detonation code for the nuke in Veketon’s throne.
What do you say to that? Vayl asked.
“No,” Veketon said without hesitation.
Jack blew out a relieved breath and cleared the detonation code from his link.
If that is your answer, then so be it. Vayl spread its arms wide and flexed its talons. You have one last chance to flee this place and never return. I shall not grant you a second warning.
Jack detected another swarm of spawns gathering in the ruins. He turned to the fiend, a thought striking him.
“Seth, I’ve got an idea.”
“By all means tell us.”
“Okay, first we’ve got another swarm coming in,” Jack said. “Yonu, you take Knight Squadron and suppress them. Keep the rest of us clear.” He waited. “Yonu, did you—”
“I heard you!”
“Okay. Good. Tesset, you got any antimatter left?”
“Four grenades ready to go.”
“All right. I want you to follow me in. Stay close because we’re going straight for that thing’s jugular. Literally its jugular. The rest of you suppress the Disciples. Understood?”
Everyone acknowledged.
“Then let’s take this monster down!” Jack said.
“This is it!” Seth said. “Do not hesitate! ATTACK!!!”
Jack shot in with Tesset an invisible specter behind him. The chaos fiend lunged at him with a huge, gleaming talons.
Jack dodged beneath the giant hand and weaved to the right. The fiend swung at him again, and a single talon scraped against his barrier. Blue sparks fountained from the contact, and Jack gritted his teeth and dodged to the left.
The fiend opened its mouth slightly, revealing rows of wet teeth with bits of seraph twisted in the gaps. It clenched a fist and smashed it into Jack from above. Jack tumbled away, righted himself, and dodged the follow-through.
“Tesset!” he shouted.
“Almost there!”
Her sleek green seraph materialized at the fiend’s shoulder. It snapped its head around, twin burning eyes focusing on her, and began reaching for her. Tesset pulled her mnemonic bandolier free and, with a quick throw, stuck all four antimatter grenades to the fiend’s neck.
A brief timer started.
She angled her wings and launched straight up in a blur of motion, but the fiend swatted her with an open hand, bending three of her wings and sending her spinning out of control.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Jack dove in. He ignited his sword and sped past Tesset a split second before the fiend struck a second time.
One of the talons slammed against Jack’s barrier, blue lightning crackling along his upper left wing. The sharp end of the talon pushed through and gutted the wing completely.
“Damn, that hurt!” Jack shouted, thrusting his sword into the fiend’s wrist.
The energy blade buzzed through the fiend’s flesh like a chainsaw. Blood and bits of gore spewed out, and Jack drove the blade through in one powerful stroke. He pulled his sword free, and the fiend’s hand dropped off.
The grenade timer reached zero.
Four containment fields dropped in perfect synchronicity, and the world went white. Twenty gigatons of thermal energy scorched the fiend’s neck.
Seraphs scattered from the huge fireball, barriers shimmering against the forces roaring past. The shock wave rushed across ruins below but did no visible damage.
The world dimmed, and the chaos fiend became visible again. Flesh bubbled around the mutilated cleft in its neck. Liquid gore gurgled outward, reforming the sinews and arteries almost instantly. The creature raised the severed end of its right arm. Black flesh oozed out of the wound and reformed the lost hand’s bones, muscles, and then skin in a matter of seconds.
The chaos fiend was whole once more.
“God damn it!” Jack shouted.
The fiend held out a shriveled arm and pointed a single talon at Jack.
You, I need to take seriously.
The fiend’s whole body sizzled with power. Huge arcs of black lightning snapped between its wings, traced up an arm, and gathered in its hand.
“Everyone, get out of the way!” Jack shouted.
The tip of its talon flashed with black light and a thick beam of chaos energy blasted out, burning the ash storms in a line of pure darkness. Jack barely dodged beneath it, the beam passing so close that flashes of energy spat off his barrier.
The fiend drew the beam across Knight Squadron. Most of them were still embroiled in heavy spawn fighting, and they noticed the attack too late.
The beam splashed against an Aktenai seraph. Her barrier flashed bright green for a moment, then gave out. Torrential black light burned off her armor and vaporized internal systems until the seraph was nothing but a charred metal endoskeleton.
The fiend swung its sustained beam towards other targets.
It clipped another Knight Squadron seraph, vaporizing two wings and an arm before the seraph dodged out of the way, trailing orange fluid. The beam finally dissipated and died out.
“Seth, we can’t keep this up!” Yonu shouted. “We’re getting slaughtered!”
“Stay in there, Yonu!” Jack said. “Seth, we need to take this thing out.”
“I know, but how?”
“We’ve got to be hurting it.”
“We need to hurt it more,” Seth said.
“Then have everyone close in at once,” Jack said. “And see if
your lances have any effect. Go for the eyes, the throat, the chest. Anything that looks vital.”
“And the Disciples and spawns?”
“Ignore them! We need to kill that thing! It’s all or nothing!”
Seth let out a slow nervous exhale. For a second, Jack thought he wouldn’t go through with it. Seth didn’t fear his own death, or if he did, that fear rarely affected his decisions. But to order all of his friends to death was something totally different, and perhaps, even more terrifying to the man.
But the moment passed, and Seth shouted, “Everyone, target the fiend! Don’t let up! TAKE IT DOWN!!!”
Jack shot in, leading a charge of seven seraphs and two thrones. The fiend slashed at Seth with its talons, but he dipped nimbly underneath the attack, dodged around the second swipe, and flew in with his portal lance held high.
Seth crashed into the fiend’s chest just below the neckline and thrust his lance into its black flesh. The creature clenched its jaw in obvious pain.
Jack rushed in behind Seth and climbed towards the creature’s face. He came level with its eyes, flared his wings wide, and bolted in with a burst of speed. Jack sank his sword into the fiery depths of its right eye, and the fiend roared with rage and agony.
Veketon followed Seth’s example and plunged his lance into the fiend’s neck. Quennin flew in and drove her glaive into the other side. Oily blood gushed from the monster’s wounds.
Yonu charged in with the tattered remains of Knight Squadron, all four of them with swords drawn. Othaniel lashed out with her energy whip and cut down the most heavily wounded seraph, but the other three reached the fiend, and their chaos swords bit deep into its flesh.
Jack kicked off the fiend’s face as liquid fire poured out of its ruined eye. The wound was healing. All of the wounds were healing, but slower now, especially where Seth and Veketon had struck with their lances. Those wounds festered like pale boils on the fiend’s dark skin.
“Keep it up!” Jack shouted. “We’re hurting it!”
Zophiel dove at him, but Jack dodged out of the way and slammed his chaos sword into the Disciple’s back. Zophiel plummeted towards the ruins, and Othaniel attacked, her energy whip lashing tightly around Seth’s throat and upper wings. Jack swooped in, cleaved through the whip, and dove at the fiend again.
Vayl reached for him with its talons, and Jack met the attack head on. He crashed shoulder-first into the fiend’s palm and thrust in with his sword. He drew the blade across the fiend’s palm and severed two fingers before dashing away.
The fiend swiped at Seth and hit solidly, ripping out his left arm and part of his torso. But Seth held onto his lance and sped towards the fiend’s throat, glowing white fluid pulsing from his chest wound.
Seth struck deep, and Veketon followed suit, driving his lance into the fiend’s neck. They raked their lances across arteries and muscles, and the fiend screamed mentally in thunderous pain.
It smashed both Seth and Veketon with its fists, sending them flying to the side. Bleeding fluid and bits of armor trailed behind them.
Jack flew in again, and Zophiel rose to meet him.
“Get out of my way!” Jack shouted, slashing down with his sword. The Disciple’s lance met his sword in a flash of energy, and Zophiel’s defenses staggered out of the way. Jack brought his sword crashing down against the seraph’s head, mangling the brass helmet and sending Zophiel tumbling away.
Jack flared his wings and shot in towards the fiend’s face once again. Two burning eyes stared back, one dark burgundy, the other lit with enraged inner fire. He stabbed its face just above the wounded eye and then drove his sword down through it. The eye extinguished completely, trails of clear fluid spilling out.
The fiend fell away, one hand clutching its ruined eye, the other swiping madly at the seraphs. Finally it turned and dove into a tunnel along the Ziggurat slope. Zophiel and Othaniel followed it through, and the great eight-part brass doors sealed shut behind them.
“Breach those doors!” Seth shouted. “Press the attack!”
Seth and Veketon dropped onto the center, both of them leaking conductor fluid from gashes in their armor. They pierced the bowl-shaped doorway with their lances. Ziggurat brass melted into liquid gold and dribbled away. Quennin drove her chaos glaive into the same crack and began prying it open.
Jack landed next to the other pilots, who’d opened the doorway just far enough for him to jam his hands in. He grabbed hold, flared his wings, and fired his drive shunts at full power. Slowly, one of the eight wedge-shaped panels eased away. Something snapped within the door’s hidden mechanisms, and the panel broke free. Jack shoved the panel aside, and the pilots streamed in.
***
The tunnel was initially a smooth circular passage that dipped down into the ruins. Eyes opened along the walls, watching the six seraphs and two thrones pursue their foes through the ruins, coming to a monstrously wide chasm of brass that branched off in several directions.
“Which way?” Yonu asked.
“Follow me,” Jack said, tracking the fiend’s influx signature. “Straight ahead.”
Walls of brass loomed on either side of them with mangled structures of unknown purpose above and below. Cracks ran up some of the walls, and all of the Ziggurat eyes in this chasm were shut. They hurried through.
Jack led them deeper into the convoluted ruins, through one giant chamber after another. They came to a wide cylindrical space covered completely in sleeping brass eyes. One opened lazily and watched them bolt through an opening on the far side.
After several minutes of twists and turns, an artificial tunnel loomed ahead, wide and freshly bored.
“The Gate passed through here,” Jack said.
“We’re getting closer,” Seth said. “Everyone be ready.”
They flew along an upward diagonal, following the Disciple Gate’s path of destruction through the Ziggurat ruins. The tunnel curved around slightly, with caved in archways hinting at passages to either side. The few eyes they saw opened and observed them.
The Gate-carved tunnel smoothed out the closer they came to the chaos fiend’s position. To Jack, this section of the Ziggurat ruins looked, for lack of a better word, refurbished. The brass seemed more alive and huge numbers of eyes watched them pass.
Finally, the tunnel opened to reveal a grand spherical room one thousand kilometers wide. Thick buttressing and gothic structures ran up the walls like supports, and eyes covered everything, some so small they were barely visible, others tens of kilometers across. All of them were open. All of them focused on the Gate.
The Disciple Gate throbbed angrily in the chamber’s center with seven thick brass spikes piercing its equator. Two columns extended from the chamber walls, supporting the Gate from above and below without touching it. Bright energy scintillated along thick conduits in the columns, glowing purple-white, and sparks of lightning jumped from the columns to the Gate.
A wide cross-shaped pit fell away at the bottom of the spherical chamber, centered on the column and stretching down into the liquid lightning ocean far below. A cross-opening above disappeared upward, possibly leading outside the Ziggurat ruins.
The Gate undulated and spasmed, slowly shrinking under the control of this strange device. The chaos fiend floated in front of the Gate, guarding it with Zophiel and Othaniel above each shoulder. Blood dribbled out of several wounds across its body, and one of its eyes was as black as its skin. The other eye glowed hotter and brighter than before: an angry beacon of orange light.
“We don’t have much time left,” Veketon said. “The Gate is already being stabilized.”
“Then we need to stop it now,” Seth said. “Everyone, this is it! WE MUST NOT FAIL!!!”
The chaos fiend spread its wings and let loose a thunderous bellow that reverberated through their minds.
YOU WILL NOT HARM THE GATE!!!
The seraphs and thrones charged, Seth and Veketon in the lead. Jack raised his hand, summoned a chaos javelin, and hu
rled it towards the fiend. It flew straight and true, striking the fiend’s wounded neck in a splash of black blood.
The Disciples dove after Seth and Veketon, but Quennin, Tesset, Yonu, and two Knight Squadron seraphs intercepted them, striking with glaives and swords and bayonets. Their two lance-wielding allies rushed past the fiend.
Seth and Veketon landed on the column underneath the Gate, its surface scintillating with hot purple-tinged energies. They slammed their lances into it, and the column shuddered and darkened.
Thick bands of liquid silver leaped off the Gate. It pulsed and writhed, no longer even close to spherical, and the seven spikes driven into it began to shudder uncontrollably.
The fiend caught Seth with a swift attack from behind. Talons ripped three of his wings off and cleaved deeply through the pilot’s back. His seraph tumbled away, the remaining wings sputtering with power. He weaved erratically until he crashed into the outer wall and slid down in a smear of glowing white fluid.
“Jack, take it!” Seth cried out, his voice laced with pain. He sent the lance rocketing across the chamber, and it traversed the distance almost instantly. Jack caught it and immediately felt the artifact dip into his barrier. Its elegant script blazed with hot blue light, and Jack faced the upper column.
STOP THE LANCE-WIELDERS!!!
Jack flew over the fiend’s groping talons and rushed the column. He banked around Othaniel’s whip and landed hard. A conduit on the column’s surface glowed brightly near his position, and he drove the lance into it.
The conduit flickered and shook, and the Gate spasmed violently. A plume of silver struck the upper column, and huge cracks formed above Jack’s position. He pushed off as half the column fell away and vanished into the Gate. Two of the seven support spikes broke free and began spinning around the chamber.
A mental scream of pure rage rattled Jack’s mind, and he turned to see the fiend charging at him. He swung up, and the portal lance ate through the fiend’s reaching talons.
Jack dove underneath the fiend’s second attack and spotted Zophiel flying up towards him.
Too late!
Zophiel shoved his lance through Jack, piercing barrier, armor, and the seraph’s internal systems just beneath the cockpit. Jack gasped in pain and broke hard left. The lance came free, pulling parts of his seraph with it, and he swung his own lance against Zophiel with all his strength.