by Greg Ramsay
“Is... did that happen to you Genine?” Lia asked, her voice quivering, her body trapped. Genine leaned in so close to her face she could smell the alcohol on her breath, even see the bloodshot eyes indicative of drug use.
“And you weren’t there for me like we always promised each other we’d be. Why?!”she asked suddenly enraged.
“I’m sorry!” Lia managed to finally say through her tears.
“No, that’s not why... It’s cuz you wanted to be a pussy like your parents, while we did all the work!” Genine seethed at her. Lia was too terrified to respond. “I’ve decided you’re coming with us when we go back. A promise is a promise after all!” she said creepily.
“Okay I will, just stop!” Lia begged, still struggling.
“Good girl! First we have to beat the pussy out of you, then we’ll be together just... like... before,” she said menacingly above Lia’s screams as she forcefully tore her clothing off her.
Lia lay there screaming in pain, yelling “NO!” begging her to stop as Genine’s bottle violated her virgin flesh aggressively. Her words fell on uncaring ears. Eventually her rage overpowered the pain. She stared Genine down as long as she could bear in vengeful silence, denying her the satisfaction of further screams. Inwardly Lia was engulfed by every kind of agony raging through her body. She felt the pain burn deep into her every definition of self until her remaining strength failed her. Broken, she let her head drop; her empty eyes stared vacantly at her watch, waiting for it to be over while Genine’s friends cheered at their righteous conquest.
Tears rolled down Lia’s face, seeping from enraged eyes that stared like lasers at the General. She remembered limping her way home, ignoring her mother for days. She didn’t eat or sleep, spurred on by a confusing mixture of anger and profoundly deep depression. Scared, her mother eventually tried to find out what happened, only to be stuck in a circle of meaningless fights. While Lia secretly flirted with suicide, her anger turned to self-hatred, at first taking Genine’s raging about it being her fault to heart. Then when rage killed her pity, she increasingly hated herself because her arm wouldn’t use the knife she found to sever her veins. Starvation wasn’t possible due to her mother monitoring her; there was no highway traffic to jump into, or bridges to jump off. She was denied any capacity to decide her fate.
Soon her depression convinced her she’d never have a choice again. She didn’t want to live, but couldn’t die. So, she resolved to live on her new-found hatred. A long argument with her mother ensued, her mother begging her to stay and be an artist, wholly ignorant to what happened. Lia spouted bullshit patriotic excuses to justify her quest for vengeance, rather than explain anything.
Then abruptly, she left to enlist. She stayed with James a while in his government awarded condominium – a perk of being a genius in a world short of them. In time he got her to confess what happened. Just as with her mother, an argument ensued. James begged her to let him help even though he knew he couldn’t do much. She made him promise not to tell her mother before handing him the bottle she’d hid in her backpack. The next day she was picked up by a recruiter without so much as a goodbye. James filed a report through the under-staffed police station who eventually bothered to forward it to the military, but by then she was too far away to interview. Lia had long since quietly disembarked a bus mere metres behind an unaware Genine.
When she finally realized Lia was there, she acted like nothing ever happened. The social culture on base was one of strength over emotion. No one dared whine for fear of reprisals that no commanding officer cared to report. Lia didn’t mind, the silence had long since become a friend. With how badly the Freedom Front was losing, she was certain an opportunity would arise for Genine to accidentally catch some friendly fire in the chaos of battle. To her dismay that day never came. After a year of brutal accelerated training with everything from swords to guns, her base finally got word of James’ report. Lia was led without explanation by a Sergeant, acting uncharacteristically weird, deep into the command tents. He revealed what James had done. He’d provided the very evidence she wanted kept secret to prove beyond a doubt what Genine had done, fingerprints and all. Lia was forced on oath to testify it was true. Inwardly she hated James almost as much as Genine for his betrayal. Now her mother and the whole fucking army would know she was Genine’s bitch. Lia grimaced at the memory through tears.
She remembered a closed trial took her away from her first deployment. The General pulled enough strings to prevent her daughter from being punished. Genine was a top-class soldier while the General herself had won many wars for Freedom. It was decided Genine would be deployed to an isolated part of China, the most dangerous field of battle at the time. Lia was offered leave, which she immediately denied and was instead deployed to a different part of the country. She remembered spending years in grim fighting filled with hatred bolstered by a death wish. Ultimately she never found Genine. The war ended in stalemate before a peace treaty was signed. She heard long after being returned home, that both Genine and the General had fallen in combat. Lia’s vengeance was denied; she’d only killed faceless enemies in the name of the very system that failed her.
Time passed for Lia like waves idly ebbing away. James supported her financially more or less on his own while she worked her issues out. He patiently put up with all her misplaced hatred and mental breakdowns until finally they reconciled. They had Janey and life was great. James’ work was highly lucrative, so Lia was free to try for best mom ever. Her mother even forgave everything, fully understanding like she’d always hoped. Though her mother wasn’t proud of her motivation for enlisting.
Then Crimson Alliance guerilla terrorists attacked the daycare where Janey stayed while Lia got her nails done on weekend. From there it was back to war as a newly minted Spec Ops. Tory’s birth during leave broke up the constant suffering until Tory became a cause years later, thanks to the super-cancer defeating L-strain.
Now Lia stood at an empty alien pod, a would-be murderer, turned government sanctioned murderer, turned child killer, turned genocidal Goddess, face-to-face with a symbol of her dark path. “I belong beside you, General,” Lia said, mournfully quiet. Gradually she made her way back to James to discover he’d been watching her via a console. They exchanged depressed looks. “It’s not wise to spy on a Death Goddess...” Lia said sadly.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” James asked, hoping he was wrong.
“Yup, a final gift from the loving almighty All Giver,” Lia said coldly. “Can we revive any of them?” Lia asked.
“Probably not, why?” James asked.
“Most of them are warriors with lots of potential reason to be angry. Can’t hurt to at least try making an army out of them. It’s not like we don’t have time to equip them on the way to Ravager land...” She said like it was obvious.
“Killing her won’t fix any of it,” James said knowingly.
“Why kill her? She’s supposed to be dead already, not bubbling away in that pod. The least that cunt can do is help, since her daughter fated me to be THIS!” Lia said angrily. “Assuming the fucking Yamoushala didn’t plan it all out,” she finished under her breath, wishing she’d made the alien queen suffer.
“Let’s say Yamoushala gave you this fate. You’re a greater Goddess than it now. From here you can determine anything, nothing can stop you!” James said enthusiastically.
“Ya, I’m transcendent. Whatever,” Lia muttered annoyed. “At what cost though?” she asked seriously.
“We’ve been over this...” James replied. Frustrated, Lia stormed to the mothership’s command console. She calmly punched in the coordinates for the Ramashin homeland; all ships followed as if part of a hive mind.
“You focus on waking up the sleeping deadlies. I’ve got us on auto-pilot to subjugate another race,” Lia said casually, like it was a weekly occurrence.
“Wonderful,” James replied sarcastically before wandering off to try and do as she requested.
James wan
dered through the ship as she had, much more fascinated with the machinations of it, now that he understood it all. We have everything we need to survive even as humans indefinitely, he thought to himself. In time he arrived at the collection. Like Lia he was amazed by the sheer scale of it all, but could clearly see her aspirations weren’t possible.
Meanwhile, Lia gathered all remaining Ramashin at the hangar to oversee the remaining repairs. Get armed, man ships. Ravagok come soon, she bellowed. The Ramashin made themselves taller then shorter by stretching out their tendril-like legs like muscles. Lia smiled at the acknowledgement. Being the ultimate Goddess of a ravaged cosmos comes with some perks at least, Lia thought to herself sarcastically.
Chapter 12 – Inhuman Revival
Hours later James was still going through the Ramashin collection. Some appeared to maintain the slightest signs of life thanks to when they were suspended, much like Lia’s team in PsychoLife, but worse. He used a separate command terminal to isolate any pods containing those with faint potential, ignoring those who also had critical injuries. “I don’t know if any of you agreed to this fate, nor do I care if you deserve it by some measure... I need troops and you do deserve the chance to finally die.” James felt a lurching force shake the mothership as it roughly exited hyper speed. Lia love, I may have to take away your alien spaceship licence, he thought to himself jokingly. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. Good thing I’m a virgin at this,” James muttered to himself as tendrils raged out of his armour like thousands of umbilical cords.
Everyone from Hitler to Genghis Khan to Alexander the Great was penetrated by a tendril right in their gut. With the careful precision of a surgeon, James replicated his hybrid material through the tendrils accompanied by small amounts of his will and equally small amounts of stored power. James was extremely careful to only augment existing body parts rather than completely override human physiology. You’ll heal, you may even think again, but you’ll be mine, James thought hard, forcing his will on their gradually augmenting brains. Thinking about what happened to Tory enraged him. At least this time everyone being forcibly resurrected was already long dead by all accounts, though risks remained.
James roared, sending a final blast of power and material through the forty or so individuals. In doing so, he also triggered the latent abilities imparted to certain individuals whose brains were fully repaired. James watched like a proud father as kings, reviled villains, conquerors, and heroes stepped from their gradually opening pods in unison. Men like Alexander, Genghis, and Hitler retained just enough of their traits to be identifiable through a thin layer of slowly forming armour that fed on their provided energy. James observed for a while, bellowing with his Ramashin voice to ensure he had the master control they lacked when resurrecting Tory. He smiled when kings and soldiers locked step before him like silent drones.
Satisfied he set about pushing himself. No scientist can be satisfied with just one great success, he thought to himself. He set about gathering various alien species that had long since perished. Repeating his resurrection technique, this time he literally poured more of himself into it to ensure their various evolutions of brains would have compatibility modification, without losing their natural functions. James nearly collapsed with the effort of augmenting physiology so vastly different from his own.
Many of the species had bodies whose proportions were vastly larger both in height and scale than human. One stood a full eight feet tall with four huge clawed limbs. While another had a massive plated exoskeleton and giant pincers. Easy to see which dominant traits they kept for their mutagen, James thought to himself while he mused about the shifted. James stabbed his kynari into his foot willing it to release. The last of its stored energy restored his power reserves so the hybrid material wasn’t over-extended. When the mad process finally concluded, about 1000 mutated soldiers with varying degrees of visible mutation stood before him. The massive alley-like environment looked packed since it wasn’t built for a crowd.
James was still connected to each of his reborn or revived minions so he passed mental imagery to each of the natural commanders. Every being that stood before him was made to understand that he and Lia were their gods now. Once he was certain his will had been imparted, he allowed those who appeared to be the leaders of each species or time period a degree of free will. Those with the granted charisma trait naturally began bellowing rousing speeches in their native tongues warped by shifted-like distortion, imparting his will and purpose further. James watched in awe as everything from aliens to cowboys to Nazi commandos fell in behind each of the universes’ greatest alphas. In a matter of minutes James had about ten separate massively diverse army groups with naturally established hierarchies that he commanded.
“Lia’s gonna hate this!” he said with joyful pride before bellowing marching orders. James led his new army like he was silently invading the ship, hoping whatever shockwaves she felt distracted her from the noise of their various equipment. The army made a brief pitstop at what might as well have been a weapon museum so each combatant could pick up what they knew. James graciously spared more of his hybrid material to augment the weapons slightly, just in case. Re-arming took roughly ten minutes thanks to the hive mind organization he’d fostered. The mutated Nazis needed no help with the concept of efficiency so they took command under Hitler to speed things along. James cringed at the distorted aggressive German commands he gave. Subtle, very subtle, he thought before bellowing to carry on. He ran ahead of his advancing troops to find Lia standing enraptured by what she saw outside the ship.
Through the massive command one-way window that could penetrate the armour beyond, James could see multiple Ravagok motherships and countless vessels all gathered together outside Tamashiri. To him it resembled a derelict space trailer park.
When she sensed he was close, Lia reflexively said, “We’ve got countless enemies up front,” delivering the message like a battle report. “We’ve got an army,” James said as if he was challenging the Ravagok alone.
Lia spun around to face him with a raised eyebrow of suspicion. “What did you d...” she started to say, then she saw Hitler and the other army group commanders march in like drones. Gradually they all spread out in the massive bridge, allowing some of their diverse troops to fall in behind them. “You...What. The. Fuck. James?!” she asked in a mix of astonishment and disgust. James just smirked at her. After a moment she went off as expected. “For one thing, you told me they couldn’t be resurrected. So I left you to do whatever. I knew you were doing something cuz I could sense your power going nuts, but this?!”
“I got us an army” James said matter-of-factly.
“Ya, but you weren’t supposed to bring back people like Hitler! Bastards on his level should fade away in alien-pickle juice till they’re dirt... not that that’s a fitting enough end.” James could see she was staring angrily, although more toward the still human-faced General Ramadon.
“You said it’d be beneficial to make an army out of them – implying all of them,” James said with a hinting tone.
“I know what I said; it’s different in context!” Lia seethed angrily. One by one, each group saluted her in their unique fashions. Lia managed to look away from the General to find herself inwardly seething at Hitler’s salute. Lia wanted nothing more than to tear his head off and mount it on a pole of her hybrid material so she could stick it up James’ ass. Jump bitch, she bellowed at Hitler. The man who almost conquered the modern world began hopping on the spot like a bunny, still saluting her.
“Every single one of them whether evil or great, ruler or slave, queen or god, obey you now.” James said calmly like a sales pitch. “I understand your viewpoint, I do, but you obliterated the planet that remembered the wounds men like Hitler caused. Now they can die in service of the last humans while conscious enough to feel all the pain when they fall.”
“That isn’t enough,” Lia muttered.
“True, but you were right to suggest reviving them. Besides when the fight is over, you have full authority to end them how you see fit. They’re nothing more than intelligent slaves. Better we use them than the Ravagok, assuming they have the means,” James said with cold emotionless logic.
“So it’s superpowered-mutant-zombie-Hitler, The General of Rape, 1000 other mutt-zombies made up of humans, gods, aliens, and us, versus an unknown alien-shifted force not counting what’s planet-side? How fucking ridiculous!” Lia exclaimed.
“When isn’t our life ridiculous?” James asked playfully.
“When you aren’t playing God and overcomplicating it!” Lia yelled angrily. “What’s next, are you gonna make alien unicorns fly out of Genghis Khan’s ass and do the can can?” she asked sarcastically.
“Anything for you, honey,” James replied with smiling sarcasm. Lia huffed exasperated.
“I leave you alone for two hours and this is what you do,” Lia muttered.
“Sorrryy... not sorry,” James said jokingly, his veiled frustration poking through his fake smile.
Noting this, Lia let the subject drop; he couldn’t take it back now. Might as well put his hybrid mutant zombies to work. She scanned each of the commanders of James’ army groups. Some she vaguely remembered for their military achievements as they were still being taught in Army Holo-history. Some she couldn’t place while others were of species she’d only glanced at in revulsion. Lia sighed.
Faintly she heard a system alert from her command console. One of the smaller Ravagok vessels had come alive and was approaching them slowly, hailing on an open channel. Given that the Ramashin had stolen the technology the Ravagok used after developing it themselves, its design was familiar. The ship was a void-like black, allowing it to blend in space, save for the stars it so obviously blotted out. Lia answered the hail. “Hello!” she bellowed politely in Ramashin dialect.