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RotL Round 3

Deviation Actions

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It was an odd group. Of the four, three of them appeared human, ranging in apparent age from young adult to middle age. The fourth was a strange grey creature with nose practically as long as its body. All four of them were talking with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The youngest human--at least, the one who looked the youngest, with her blue hair in a long A-line bob, tried once again to explain what the others seemed unable to comprehend.

"It's like DNA," she said. "There's a series of coding that tells us what to do, how to do it, that kind of thing. What we learn, our experiences, those aren't the same."
The young man, not much older than the young woman, shook his head in annoyance. "But you don't have bodies. We can't fight something by going after DNA or whatever. That's germs that do that."

The oldest of the three humans, a woman with short silver hair and a set of alarming canine teeth, shook her head. "Biological warfare exists. And technological. We just aren't equipped to use them. We're basically limited to physical action."

"Maybe you are," snarled the small grey one. She opened her mouth as if to say more, but a thundering crash erupted, shaking three of the four so much they struggled to remain upright. The blue-haired woman, being a holographic projection, flickered momentarily. As one, the group looked out on the war-mangled street of the Shattered City. The place was well named. What buildings hadn't been destroyed entirely were pocked by bullet holes and scared with char, all of them in various stages of destruction. Metal struts stood naked above piles of rubble, the bones of buildings caught in the crossfire. The air was heavy with smoke and screaming, both from weapons and the targets they connected with. Whatever had caused the concussive blast had probably been close.

The holographic woman regained her composure. "I am limited too. If you want to remove Nebel and retake the core, you'll have to find a solution within your means." She looked
past the others for a moment, perhaps remembering something she was unwilling to share.

"Maybe you should think of AIs more as minds than as bodies. Your mind can go anywhere you can imagine, but there's always something physical attached to it."
The others didn't respond. They still looked out the door of the building they had picked as a temporary shelter, each mind miles away from their physical bodies.
---
Life had been easier in the States, Skip decided. True, he'd been out of a job and scrambling to get enough money to eat and pay rent from week to week, but that wasn't unusual. Nobody had money, unemployment was rising again, the promise of the New Deal set on the backburner as the president's power waned. Like most people he knew, he managed to get by somehow. News from Europe boded ill, with Germany's annexation of Austria and the Munich Pact being signed, but that was almost dreamlike, totally separated from him. Somebody else's war.

Now he was fighting someone else's war, and dealing with things he would never have believed a year ago. Demons and robots, a world inside a ship in space; his life had become a kid's story. He was also fighting someone else's war now, swept up in a draft with no registration cards. So far he hadn't seen any of the Remnant forces, the people fighting to gain control of the ship, and for that he was grateful, but now all that was about to change.

Now he, along with Ellie and a woman he didn't really know named Salamanca Ruiz, were supposed to prance into Remnant territory and shut off a machine that thought for itself and would actively fight them. They were in unfamiliar territory, outgunned, and completely a loss for how to proceed. Not to mention Scruffy being missing. Even if, by some miracle, the trio managed to get rid of this Nebel computer thing of the Remnants without getting killed or maimed, he'd still have to find the girl and he'd still have no way to do it. They'd been put inside a spaceship that was as big, if not bigger, than all of Earth. Finding one little girl in all that space would be practically impossible.

On the other hand, if someone--or something--else found her and Scruffy didn't survive the encounter...well, he wouldn't have to worry about any of the things bothering him. The Ennumi would make sure he was very dead as soon as it was freed.

"Hey!" Ellie's voice, as usual dripping with distaste. "Can we go? Or are you just going to stare at your shoes all day?"

He'd been looking down, lost in thought. The three of them had been moving from building to building in the city, avoiding the DarkTalon assault on the Remnants forces. At the same time, they were on the lookout for anything that might be part of the city's now active automatic defense systems. For the most part, Sala had led the way, leaving Skip and the much less maneuverable Ellie to follow in her wake. The small elephant snorted in disgust, unable to follow the woman without being given permission from Skip.

"I like my shoes," he said. "But I don't expect you to understand. You don't like anything."

He started walking anyway, keeping close to the outside wall of the building. There wasn't any good reason for it, but it felt right to be moving in a strange crouch, a sneaking gait, with all the horrifying sounds of battle filling the air. Ahead of him, Sala held a gun aimed up and ready for action, and moved cautiously forward, eyes wide and alert. Her fluid motions defied her age. He guessed her to be about fifty, but she moved with more grace and poise than he ever could. Perhaps it had something to do with being a police officer, or maybe some kind of futuristic enhancement everyone from her time enjoyed. He motioned for Ellie to follow, silently granting permission to act, and the three moved through the city in a silent parade.

Hours had passed like this. Sneaking around until they decided to take a rest, hearing the shooting and the screaming and who-knew-what-else that was happening out there, then sneaking off again. Once, when they took shelter inside a building, something that looked like a woman appeared, calling herself Licht and claiming to be an AI, the same type of thing that they were sent to shut off. She'd tried to help, explaining what she and the rest of them were, but knowing that he was supposed to fight what sounded like a computer-ghost did nothing for his confidence and gave then no ideas for how to take on this challenge. Licht promised to help if she could, but apparently she'd ventured into the computer-ghost equivalent of highly-dangerous enemy territory by coming in the first place. She'd disappeared as suddenly as she came, leaving the three just as lost as they were before.

Something didn't quite make sense about her appearance though. Well, lots of things didn't, but something about what she'd said, or maybe something else he couldn't quite place, seemed wrong. If the one AI could move freely though a computer system, and appear in the real world for a quick chat, that meant they all could, didn't it? If Nebel was the same type of creature, and he was not forced to sneak around in enemy territory...
"Is he playing games with us?"

He didn't realize he'd said anything out loud until Sala rounded on him. "It's why we're not dead," she said. He expected a snarl, but her voice was quiet, steady. "The defense system isn't registering us."

"So it's a trap," he said. "Why exactly are we walking into it if you knew about it already?"

"We're not," she said. "I'm walking into it. You're staying out of the way."
---
There were passages beneath the city, a maze designed to allow troops to appear and disappear in the city in the event of an attack. Part of it was the leftover burrowing of a tunnelborer that had been destroyed long ago, expanded into a network that connected the city directly to the Broken Peaks bases. They were careful to avoid revealing the tunnels to the enemy forces, So far, there had been no attempts to destroy or block them by the Republic. Either the DarkTalons enjoyed the fighting too much to tell their superiors and destroy all levels of the city, or the Republic somehow didn't know about them.

Jeff, Lt Jeffery Markoe, counted the number of Remnant fighters still with him. Eight people managed to scramble away from the battle, out of the fifteen under his command. He'd called for a retreat, falling back into the tunnels to rest and reappear in a new location to harass the latest wave of DarkTalons surging through the area. Nearly half of his people had been put to the sword, probably literally turned against their fellows as their lifeforce was stolen and used as ammunition for the sword's wielder.

He'd waited long enough, probably too long. He shifted a well-concealed toggle, setting what looked like piles of unused building materials on a timer. In less than a minute, it would all shift to conceal the entrance to the tunnel.

"No!"

Jeff turned, looking for the source of the voice. A terrified Remnant soldier tore through the entrance to the warehouse, clothing torn and blood gushing from an arm bent impossibly as if it had a second elbow. Close behind came a DarkTalon knight, slowed by the heavy white armor. The terrible sword flashed as the knight swung, missing the terrified Remnant by a hair. He scrambled for the tunnel entrance, ignoring the need to keep its existence from the enemy's knowledge. Jeff panicked, stymied by the same rule. If he acted, standing next to the entrance, he would expose it just as surely as if the soldier led the knight to it. If he stayed still, he would be an obvious target, and he didn't have the firepower to take on another DarkTalon right now.

A second stroke of the sword connected with the young man, tearing him almost in half at a point just below his shoulder blades. He screamed as he went down, the sound erupting from his throat after his life had ended. The soul gem flashed as it absorbed Remnant lifeforce. So far the knight hadn't noticed Jeff, but with a downed foe it would be a matter of seconds before it sought out a new target. The sharp bite of bile flooded the back of his throat. This was it, his last stand. A desire to go down as a hero warred with the instinctive need to run for his life. Either way he'd end up skewered the same way the boy had been.

The knight's black eyeplate turned in his direction. He'd been seen. At the same time, the timer on the tunnel's camouflage ran out. A stack of brick seemed to roll forward, while a pallet of prefab walls shifted to cover the worn ground where Remnant feet had made telltale dirty tracks and worn the floor smooth with their frequent traffic. The knight approached with the same deliberate slowness as the construction-decoys behind and beside him. Instinct won out over training, and he leapt for the rapidly closing tunnel entrance. The knight was practically on top of him by the time he made it in, just barely fast enough to escape being crushed by the sliding set. The knight looked at him as the entry closed. He fired once, a useless gesture with so little ammunition left, but hoping that somehow it would pierce the armor and erase any Republic knowledge of the tunnels. In response, the sword stabbed at him through the rapidly narrowing gap. He leapt back, the door shut, and he and the eight other survivors were left to stare in horror at each other in the dim light.

They'd been discovered. The Republic would be in the tunnels, safe from Nebel's automatic defense system and eradicating one of their biggest advantages. All because Jeff had waited too long to retreat and hide the entrance.
----
Sala continued forward relentlessly, only pausing for a few minutes at a time when she judged it absolutely necessary. Skip struggled to keep up with her, more used to driving a boat than sneaking through a warzone. Ellie watched him, waiting for him to make some kind of complaint, but aside from a few grunts and whimpers, combined with the shaking in his knees, he stayed silent. An elephant was designed for walking all day, even a young one, so the fatigue her human counterpart was feeling didn't affect her. Demons didn't get tired either, not in the same way. That probably explained Sala's constant progression toward the mountains. She doubted Skip knew what the woman really was, but Ellie and Sala recognized each other as demons as soon as they met. Different backgrounds, different abilities, but the same type of being in the same way that a gazelle and an eland were both antelope.
By now they had nearly reached their goal. As far as she could tell, Sala planned on forcing Skip to hide instead of getting shot up in the inevitable fight before charging into what promised to be a heavily-guarded military complex and then overcoming yet another type of being. The chances of her succeeding were absolutely zero, especially considering her lack of knowledge about how to take on AIs, which seemed to be some kind of technology ghosts. Ghosts she could probably handle, but technology as a whole was still entirely baffling to her. It seemed demons from a century later had similar trouble grasping the concepts.

The three of them rested outside a small collection of relatively intact buildings. The half-finished mountains dominated the sky. Ellie listened to the rumblings from the ground, which the animal part of her improperly identified as subsonic communication from fellow pachyderms. The ground here moved, echoed, all over a background growl. The ground was hollow then, caves or something ran under them, and things moved inside them to cause all the sounds. The rumbling came from further away. Something told her it was connected to the uncharacteristic heat coming from the ground as well.

"This is where we part," Sala said. "If the fighting gets this far, the Remnants will be more concerned with their base than taking you out."

Skip, leaning against the wall, crossed his arms in defiance. "Where'd you get the idea you were in charge? If you go, I'm coming too."

"You don't even know what an AI is," Sala said, sounding less patient. Her fangs glittered as she spoke. "You're totally lost, and I'm not going to have time to watch you and get things done. I'm not having your blood on my hands because you want to play hero."

"I'm playing hero?" Skip said. For once he wasn't joking. "You're a middle-aged woman wearing a uniform trying to take on an army and shut off a monster computer, all in the name of earning a chance to change her past from another computer creature."
"She's more than that," Ellie chimed in. "Ask her about those teeth."

To her surprise, Skip reached inside his jacket, sliding the black handle of a small handbell into view. A glint of gold was just visible behind the dull green cloth. "I'm pretty sure I figured that out too," he said. "You've been unusually polite, so either she's a demon or you're finally out of rude things to say."

"Good idea, chase her off with a bell. That's really going to make her bring you along on this suicide mission."

Sala watched them, her lips pressed together. The woman didn't seem to know what to make of the scene. Skip stood upright, turning his back to Ellie to face Sala. His hand was still on the bell, holding it just out of view as if it were some kind of weapon. So far as Ellie was concerned, and probably Sala, it was. The sound of bells hurt, physical pain that drove demons back from the ringer. At least, it did to the ones Ellie knew about, but there had been a bell in the small church set up by the missionary not too far up river from the JNC boathouse. Presumably Western demons had similar aversions to the sound if they were used in places demons were not welcome.

"Let's not fight about this," he said. "I'm fighting enough as it is, I don't need more enemies right now. We're going together."

"I could just take the elephant," she said. "And we could both turn on you."

Sala didn't know the rules then. Skip would hardly give permission for her to go with another demon while he stayed behind. If Sala tried to force the matter, Ellie would have to side with him, and as much as she hated the idea, unless the older woman put her into mortal peril, protect Skip from harm. She shifted her weight back and forth on her front feet, wanting to scream at both of them, to run away, to tear Skip to bits, or maybe Sala. She wasn't sure which she hated more right now: the man to whom she was bound, or the free demoness who was about to put her in an impossible situation.

Skip smirked. "Sure. And pigs might fly. Let's just go. On the way, you tell me what you can do, I tell you what we do."

"Aside from freak out about not smoking," Ellie snarled.

Before either of the others could react to the snide remark, the building they had been hiding behind shattered. Rubble rained down on them, shards of metal and plastic and whatever else these things were made of falling everywhere. She narrowly avoided being brained by what must have been a fragment of support beam. The others dodged similarly. On the heels of the explosion, a handful of people in mismatched armor galloped past, mostly heading for two other nearby buildings. One of them, wearing one grey boot amid an otherwise red and orange outfit, nearly collided with Sala as he ran through.

"Don't just stand there!" he yelled. "We have to get back to base before they collapse the other tunnels!" He didn't seem to notice Skip or Ellie, and he didn't look to see if Sala listened to him. He disappeared into one of the same buildings the others had charged into.
There wasn't time to think. Sala took off, running much faster than her apparent age would indicate. Skip tore off at the same time, calling to Ellie to follow. Ellie wanted to scream at them both for being idiots, but there was no time. She took off at top speed, her front legs moving faster than the back as she and the others raced into the building. These were Remnants, she'd seen the odd amalgam of uniforms in the robotics factory. Right now they were too busy to notice a pair of strangers in their midst, but following them into their hideout guaranteed they would soon be caught and killed. Before she could voice her concern, the pair dashed into a hole in the ground. Staying behind was not an option, not with Skip controlling the bond. She trotted after them, just as what appeared to be perfectly normal furniture started shifting to obscure the entrance. The stairs gave her trouble, but she managed to get herself fully inside the passageway before the entrance closed.

Westerners were all insane, Ellie decided. American idiots and demonesses with deathwishes. Even Sam, the man who had bonded her years ago, was preferable to these whackos.
-----
The frantic mood of the Remnants was contagious. Skip felt his palms sweating as he pounded down the tunnel after Sala with no idea where they were headed. Soldiers, many of them looking as wide-eyed and lost as he felt, raced past them. Nobody headed the other direction, all of them moving away from the hidden tunnel entrances at top speed. None of them seemed to notice that the three didn't belong here, especially not Ellie. Whatever had them riled up, it kept them occupied. The lights were dim, set high in the ceiling and spaced at wide intervals, making it difficult to see what lay ahead.

If Sala's abilities included an intuitive knowledge of maze layouts, they would have no problems. Otherwise, they needed to stop and figure out what the hell they thought they were doing before someone else realized they weren't comrades in arms. As if reading his mind, which, considering Ellie, may have been the case, the woman veered left, barreling down a side passage everyone else seemed to be ignoring. He followed, panting too hard to spit out the string of invective flying through his mind. She turned again, heading for a closed door. For a second she fumbled with the handle, but it seemed the door was locked.

He didn't wait to see if she had a way of coaxing it open on her own. He shouldered her aside as he drew the revolver, firing point blank at the lock. The bark of the gun echoed in the tunnel, but nobody came to investigate. They headed inside without saying a word.
A swivel chair, a desk, and what Skip guessed to be a different version of computer console greeted them. Sala sat down, clearly familiar with the equipment. He leaned against the wall, ignoring the pain in his legs but not bothering to hide his ragged breathing. The computer screen came to life, everything covered in a slightly yellow sheen. Maps flashed across the screen, along with text written in a language he couldn't read.

"Is there a way to print this?" Sala asked the computer.

A voice with no timbre or inflection, feminine only because it was high-pitched, answered negatively. "Proper release codes required to print documents from this location."

"I'm good at maps," Skip said. River maps required fast memorization. In the humidity, and in constant danger of slipping into the river, ruined in a sudden rainstorm, or snatched by the wind, it was stupid to keep them out for more than a few seconds. That, and information about river depth and hazards had to be in a skipper's head. Trying to read the map while navigating around dangers would at least result in grounding the boat, and at worst destroying it entirely. He could commit a map designed for dry land to memory relatively quickly. Better, if Sala decided where they needed to go, he could concentrate on that route to cut down on potential wrong turns.

"You some kind of cartographer?" she asked as he stared at the screen.

"Skipper," he corrected her. "Navigator and captain mixed together, basically. So, what's the plan?"

"We have to get to the computer core," she said. She pointed to it on the map. "I've been thinking about that physical body versus mind thing. If this Nebel has been installed into this system, that means his physical presence is--"

A face appeared on the screen, not all that different from the image of Licht. This one was male, with green hair instead of blue. Like Ellie, this creature's eyes blazed red. The features were twisted in a sneer.

"You retards know I can hear you, right?" They'd heard the voice before, when Infinity had been giving them yet another mission. This, then, was Nebel. "You're plan is to waltz in and find the off switch, right? Because I'm totally going to let that happen."

"You let us get this far," Sala said.

"And I might let you get closer," he laughed. "But I'm going to kill you. Even if you make it to the core, there isn't some big red button with a 'Do Not Push' sign. This isn't some comic book." He was still laughing like a damn hyena. Skip gritted his teeth. Were Nebel really there, he would probably have decked him and handed the guy his teeth.

"I'll let you go if you're scared, of course," Nebel taunted. "Just turn around, walk back to Infinity, he'll understand. The DarkTalons probably won't, and if you run into any of our forces they probably won't take kindly to you, but I personally won't lift a finger against you."

"I thought Skip didn't shut up," Ellie muttered. Nebel seemed to hear, the red eyes narrowing in anger.

"You've been warned, little monster," he said. "You're on the wrong side, and I'm going to get rid of you and everyone else siding with Infinity." He disappeared from the screen, leaving the three to contemplate his threats.

"I'd say 'go to hell,'" Skip said, "But I'm already there and I don't want to see him every damn day. Let's hurry up and get rid of him."
----
Twice he'd been in charge of a mission, and twice he'd screwed up so badly he'd never forgive himself. Every life lost in the tunnels today was on his hands. The DarkTalons had wasted little time in storming the network and crushing the Remnant forces using them. Guerilla warfare had devolved into slaughter, the Remnant forces unprepared to fight in what they had come to think of as a safe haven. There were contingency plans, of course, but collapsing the tunnels and funneling the enemy into passages the Remnants could easily defend took time, and that time cost the lives of his fellows. He tried to tell himself it was inevitable, that the entrances would have been discovered whether or not he'd been standing there, otherwise why have plans to deal with it? He told himself it was war, and people died in war, and it wasn't his fault, anyone's fault, but that didn't help either.

He followed his troops, racing through the maze towards the Broken Peaks. They were to form a line near the entrance of the base, a reserve force in case the DarkTalons managed to overcome the blockades and ambushes being laid for them even as they invaded the tunnels. He'd be close by the makeshift cell where they were keeping a Republic prisoner, a teenage girl named Annette he'd befriended on his last mission. He'd promised to return her to her friends, but the higher-ups declared her too big a risk to go free. She'd been locked up in a room that had been intended as an office. She'd been crying last time he saw her, calling him a liar and clinging to her bell necklace as if her life depended on it while a soldier pulled the door closed on her. She was right, he'd lied, and now he had her on his conscience as well as his own people.

He forced thoughts of guilt and the girl from his mind as they approached their assigned coordinates. The eight soldiers spread out, taking cover where they could while making sure they covered as much of the area as possible. Fresh weapons and ammunition had been hidden in these strategic locations, ensuring that even frantic, fleeing troops would be able to fend off attackers once they took up their positions. Jeff scanned the area, making sure each of his people was well enough to fight and properly armed before taking up his own position.

He listened to reports of enemy movement on the radio. The Republic forces were advancing,  but being held at a point about fifteen minutes away. There were others now, not just DarkTalon knights but , although where they'd come from he couldn't guess. The reports confirmed that the chilling sight of a grey-clad Blackfire soldier had not been seen, but various other troops were sighted. From the sound of it, tshere was time for one quick call, and maybe even an apology, before he'd be fighting again. He keyed in a code burned into muscle memory. A second later, Berénice's voice came on.

"Hello?" It was a question more than a greeting.

"Hey, it's me," he said. "You're safe, right?"

"I'm where I belong," she answered, telling him nothing. "It's not the first time they've come after us here. They're just coming from a different angle, right?"

"Berénice, you have to be where it's safe." She would know what he meant. There were sections of the base that were heavily shielded, with their own life support systems, designed to protect the people that the Remnants could ill afford to lose. The original intent had been a safe haven for weapons research and development personnel, keeping them alive if something went horribly wrong. A second, broader set of shields protected the rest of the base from the same. Now, with the enemy about to overrun them, he wanted to know that at least one person he cared about would be safe, even if it was only for a little while.

"Safe? I'm busy, Jeff. This isn't the time," she said.

"Yes, it is. " It was the only time he'd get. A feeling of dread filled him, a premonition about what would happen to him when the Republic forces made it to his position. He had to say this now.

" Look, two things: first, I'm sorry," he said, knowing she wouldn't know what he was apologizing for but needing to say it. "Second, g-goodbye."
As the word left his mouth, the heavy white figures of the DarkTalon knights, accompanied by an assortment of smaller soldiers,  came lumbering into view. Their swords dripped with sticky red fluid, shining dully in the poor light. They formed ranks, the larger DarkTalons in front of the smaller troops. A trio in the middle, hands free of weapons, stood unnaturally still. A tense moment passed, both sides waiting for the other to make the first move.

Too late Jeff registered what was happening. Those three were MageSoldiers, Siofra capable of tearing them apart with magic instead of physical force. An eerie blue glow engulfed them, becoming increasingly opaque as it gathered. He knew what came next.  Like the Remnants, the Republic had sustained massive losses in today's battle. The intense enjoyment of physical combat was being overridden by caution, using powerful ranged attacks that could not be countered by their enemies. As one the knights parted, the other soldiers giving room to the Siofra as they concocted their spell. The glow appeared to have physical substance now, a burning blue meteor growing larger at an incredible rate. No, not growing, coming toward them. The spell had been cast, too quickly to do anything to defend themselves.

Light travels faster than sound, but somehow Jeff heard the scene before he saw the world explode in electric blue. He heard himself screaming, saw people who had looked to him for instructions, lives he had been responsible for, torn to bits and thrown through the air. He couldn't breathe, the smell of fire and smoke and burnt flesh filled the air, but oddly there was no pain. The horrific scene were replaced by total sensory deprivation. He was wrapped in nothing, the blinding blue replaced by a deep grey blankness. He surrendered to it, thinking it was better than fighting it only to be cut down by a DarkTalon blade.
---
The plan was simple: don't get killed. The three of them ran, following directions Skip soon realized had been tampered with even before Nebel made his presence known. They ran into dead ends twice before Sala suggested a different means of finding their way.

"I've been known as The Hunter," she said cryptically. Skip stared at her in confusion, not sure how to respond. She changed, not with the faint rainbow glow of Ellie's magic, but a flash of lavender fire. Flesh cracked and blackened, claws erupting from the woman's hands and feet. Her face jutted outward as a long slender tail shot out of the base of her spine. He screamed, watching someone who had seemed almost normal crumble and flare into a canine beast. The transformation took seconds. The screaming lasted a short time longer. The thing Sala had become ignored him, setting her nose to the ground and sniffing as if she were a normal dog in a normal situation.

She took off without warning at a pace not quite a run. Skip hesitated.

"You're just going to let her go?" Ellie said. "Hurry up or you'll lose her!"

"She's--"

Ellie glared at him, red eyes blazing. "There's no time for that. We'll help her take out that computer ghost, and then we'll have time to go to pieces."
He didn't feel like arguing with her. "Come on, then. We'll both follow her." He hoped she could come up with a concrete plan and a way to communicate it before bursting into a what was probably a heavily guarded complex to take out a computer that had been playing cat to their mouse for the entire day.
---
The Republic forces were small. Only about twenty soldiers had made it this far, but that was all that was needed to tear apart what Remnant forces they encountered. The three MageSoldiers made short work of the rag-tag last line of defense before the tunnels joined up with the proper base. Similar spells were hurled at any other available targets, taking out doors and walls in strangely beautiful displays of destruction. DarkTalons rushed ahead, eager to cut down anyone stupid enough to make themselves targets. They'd found their way into what seemed to be a kind of all-purpose area. There were supplies, and clearly this was a rallying point for fresh guerilla fighters to head into the city, rotating out the combatants instead of exhausting a small, doomed force. Shattered doors revealed offices and research laboratories, some with half-finished experiments waiting. Someone had managed to warn the people down here, the non-combatant members of the Remnant forces, and most of them had fled or hidden before their enemies could cut them down.

A methodical destruction of everything seemed foolish. For now, the soldiers worked on flushing out anyone who hadn't made it to safety. Some were arrogant, not believing their stronghold could be so easily invaded. Others simply had bad luck. Either way, they died.

They progressed inward. The DarkTalon forces knew of the mission to regain control of the core and remove Nebel. They supported it, all having faced the AI's defense systems and watching their comrades fall to it. It was likely this assault on the Remnant base would end in their own deaths, but in the meantime they intended to get payback for all those who had fallen and maybe, if they were lucky, get close enough to the computer core to support the strangers assigned to shut it down.
---
They had arrived, Ellie teleporting the three into the room when no entrance was readily available. Sala shifted back into her human guise, the same crumbling-ember effect running in reverse. The place was all silver and grey, with green, blue, red, white, every color of light flashing from panels and readouts and things Skip didn't have names for.
"This isn't right," Skip said. "We went too far to still be under the city."

"Well, duh!" Nebel's laugh filled the room. A projection appeared, first a ghost and then seeming as solid as any of them, of the green-haired young man. "The Data Core is under the city. The Remnants aren't as stupid as you are; they managed to get me installed there, but I'm also still here at home. They copied the programming."

Home? The body, the computer that held the AI mind, was that what this was?

"I don't remember inviting you in though." A dull metallic clang announced the appearance of several large guns as they slid out of the walls and ceiling. As one, both humans drew their guns. Skip whispered to Ellie to do what she needed. Nebel's weapons were about as long as Skip was tall though. They wouldn't last long in this kind of firefight. His stomach plummeted to the floor and his heart flew into his throat. Cold sweat coursed down his back.

"This isn't my damn war," Skip mumbled.

Apparently the AI's hearing was good enough to make out what he said under his breath. "Isn't your war? You're in it, you picked a side. You picked wrong, that's all." The image shrugged, still smirking. "If you were on the winning side, you'd be happy to fight. But if you were winners, you wouldn't have sided against me."

Two of the guns fired. Sala pounced, throwing herself onto Skip. The two fell to the ground. A few inches to the left, where he had been standing, black scorch marks scarred the floor. A small hole had been burned in the metallic floor just about where he imagined his head had been.

"Good job," the AI taunted. "And now for round two."

This time, Skip heard the high pitched whine as he watched all of the guns turn toward them, still on the floor.
---
Annette couldn't see what was happening outside, but she could hear the screaming and thundering crashes and what seemed to be a thousand different kinds of gun fire outside. She cowered in the corner, knees drawn up to her chin. She'd been locked away in here for about a week, accused of being a spy and a traitor to her race and completely ignored when she tried to explain herself to them. She wasn't some spy for Infinity. She couldn't care less about him; she was only here because she'd been with Skip while they tried to find a way to get rid of the monster inside her and capture and at least bond Captain Asmuth and the Ennumi inside him as well. Neither of the missions they'd been on had brought them into contact with anyone from either side of the conflict, except for Jeff, and that was a total accident. Both missions had benefitted both sides anyway, bringing the ship-wide transportation system online and getting rid of an ever-growing army of robots that sided against both Republic and Remnant forces. And they'd only done that because it seemed the only way they'd be allowed to go home.

Being alone and scared for so long, the Ennumi had pushed against the bonding as hard as it could, struggling to find a way to take over her body. It took advantage of her weakened vigilance against it to speak to her, not quite retreating even when she rang the bells around her neck as loud as she could. It knew she was vulnerable, and it knew exactly what to say to get to her.

They locked you up, they know a danger when they see one.

"I'm not dangerous."

You nearly killed your friends before you freed me. Your family despaired of raising you properly. You ran away and nobody came looking. The others have not come looking for you. Everyone knows they should stay away from you.

"Stop it!"

Stop what? Stop you? If I could, I would have done so a long time ago. But you proved dangerous even to one such as me. When I finally break free, you will be rewarded fittingly.

She kept ringing the bells, praying silently for help to get rid of this thing and for rescue. The Ennumi snarled wordlessly at her attempts to push it away. It, too, was imprisoned, but unlike her it would destroy the cell and eradicate the jailor and everything else around it if it got even the slightest chance. There was a reason this thing had been locked in stone long ago. She wished whoever had done it had thought ahead and not made it so easy to release them. It had only taken a single touch to put her in this living hell.

She heard footsteps, someone running past the door. No, they'd stopped. The door was opening, they were coming in. The girl leaped to her feet, pressing herself into the corner. She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. The taste excited the demon inside her, which in turn made her feel sick. A familiar face peeked around the door. Berénice stood panting in the doorway, pale except for her metal arm.

"We gotta go," she gasped.

"What's going on?" Annette squeaked.

Berénice walked forward, taking the girl's hand in her real one. "Republic got in. Blowing everything to bits. No time."

She couldn't quite grasp the concept of someone blowing her to bits, but so much had happened to her lately that she didn't bother questioning it. Besides, if she was too scared to form complete sentences, Berénice had to be badly spooked. She let the older woman guide her out of her cell and into the corridor. The other doors had also been opened. Presumably none of them held captives, because she and the Remnant mechanic were the only two people she could see. The roar of gunfire and what she decided had to be explosions filled the air behind her. It sounded nothing like it did on the radio show or at the pictures. This was a billion times worse, in a way she couldn't ever describe.
Berénice broke into a run, dragging the shorter girl with her in her scramble to get to safety. Annette wanted to ask why she was bothering to help her now, after leaving her locked up for a week and not coming to her defense against the other Remnants, but it was all she could do to keep running. The Ennumi pushed at her mind the whole time, constantly seeking an escape from the incomplete bond that kept it trapped inside her.

The horrible sounds of the battle came closer despite the running. Berénice seemed to know where she was going, but every second it seemed less and less likely that they would make it in time. Annette looked back. A figure bathed in light blue threw something at the wall, tearing the cell she had been in and the adjacent rooms to shreds. A pair of slender white-clad soldiers followed close behind, cradling nasty-looking guns. One of them noticed the two fleeing females. She shouted as they trained their weapons on her and her strawberry blonde rescuer, the one glowing blue's light intensifying as if charging up. Only a quick turn down a corridor to the right saved them.

She didn't know how long it went like that. Several time she caught sight of Republic soldiers, either unaware of who she was or not caring enough to hold their fire. She was supposed to be on their side. That's what Infinity had implied. That's what the Remnants had made clear as they locked her up.

Slow down. It will be less painful if they end you than if you wait for me to do it. Either way I'll be freed.

She whimpered. Berénice finally slowed down, heading into a small room with a variety of warnings to keep out if not given authorization. She held her bracer up to a plate next to the door. It chirped a greeting and swung open, revealing a room not much bigger than the cell she'd been in. With furniture and computer equipment, it was much more cramped. The older woman stepped inside and pulled Annette with her, slamming the door behind them.
"What's going on?" Annette demanded again.

"They figured it out after all these years. The Data Core isn't the only thing underground, and now they know. Now they got in." She began tapping instructions into her wrist bracer, again holding it near the computer as if letting it read what she had just written. A few seconds of tense silence passed, Berénice fussing with a computer display that seemed unwilling to respond to her. Annette wondered why she didn't use voice commands like everyone else in this place.

"Nebel?" Berénice said finally. Her voice was tight with fear. "Why isn't he answering?"
"I'm busy, that's why," snapped the computer. "Why. Why. Why."

"He's glitching," the woman whispered. "Oh God. Okay. Now is not the time for this. Nebel, I just need one thing. There are Republic soldiers here. Now."

"There are Republic bastards where I am too," the voice snapped. "What do you want me to do?"

"You know what to do. Anyone who didn't make it to a safe haven by now is dead. Block the level and get rid of them-Aah!"

The heavy steel door exploded toward them. The entire room burst apart, blasted by blue light. Annette was thrown through the computer, through the wall, by the blast, shielded from the destructive blue light by the twisted remains of the door that cannoned into her. Her vision blurred. The pain was unbearable, worse than anything she could imagine, almost as bad as the memory of pain the Ennumi  caused her before Skip bonded it to her.
She skidded across what must have been the floor, although pain and the light blinded her. For a moment, she fought to stay awake, focusing on the least painful sensations in an attempt to ward off unconsciousness. The hot metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. The floor against her ear was warm, pleasantly so. The world looked to be a flat, deep grey, an inviting blanket. She stopped struggling, letting that blanket come between her and the monstrous pain.

It did not come between her and the Ennumi. It roared in triumph, surging against her weakened defenses. It was breaking through. This time, it would do more than speak through her, she knew that. There was nothing she could do to stop it either, sinking fast into the grey nothingness that would cut her off from the world until things stopped hurting.
---
The wall tore apart with a blast of blue, sending shards of delicate metal and plastic components falling to the floor. Nebel screamed, an inhumane sound of rage and pain. The two humanoids, still on the floor waiting for the gunshots that would end their lives, were no longer his focus. Something had come through with the arcane attack, something physical. The AI turned his attention to the new attack, analyzing and identifying the objects that had been hurled into his physical presence. Two more humanoids: one the mechanic, Berénice Ximmen, who had been talking to him just before the blast. The other appeared to be a juvenile female. Both were badly injured, but only the girl seemed to be oozing a bilious green aura.

It grew rapidly, semi transparent but somehow still seeming to have a solid presence. Red claws appeared, and psuedopods erupted all over the body. It expanded rapidly. growing mouths and eyes as it grew exponentially. When it came in contact with another bank of computers, ones allowing him to communicate with the Broken Peak base, they were burned. The thing was caustic, eating away at whatever came in contact with it.

He searched frantically for a name for the thing, or a way to get rid of it without sacrificing more of his connective systems. Still, if it came to it, all that really mattered was keeping it away from the rotating sphere that held his identity safe from the world. He'd hidden it with a holographic projection, but light tricks wouldn't keep the thing from touching him. It kept expanding. He turned the weapons on it, firing again and again, but with no result. The thing laughed and continued to grow.
---
Skip and Ellie recognized the thing immediately. "Ennumi!" Ellie shrieked.
Sala's eyes opened in recognition. "It's real? I thought it was just a story, something I'd read in a kid's book or something."

"They," Ellie said. "This is only one of them. And it's going to kill all of us." Her ears flapped, and she practically hopped from foot to foot in her panic. She was free to act, but there was nothing she could do against a being so powerful . She watched as the left wall was slowly melting into so much slag, all the equipment destroyed by the thing's touch. The enormous guns fired repeatedly, but the demon laughed at the AI's attempt to fend it off.

This was hopeless. As soon as it stopped growing it would tear them to bits, literally, making sure to prolong their pain as much as it could before snuffing them out of existence. This thing had been close to godhood. Talking and minor transmutation would do nothing to harm it. Nor would Skip's toolbox, or even Sala's graceful canine form.
"We have to get out of here!" she screamed, She knew there was nowhere to go, but standing around waiting for the thing to come after her was insane. The others stayed where they were, Skip on all fours and Sala fully upright as fitted a superheroine. Crazy stupid Western cultures.

"Why is it so slow?" Sala asked. She was practically yelling, competing with the sounds of Nebel's gunfire and the Ennumi's terrifying laugh.

"Scruffy." Skip pointed at the broken body of the girl, surrounded by the transparent green body of the demon. "She's not dead. It's not free! If she was healed she'd be fine."

"How the hell do you do that?" Ellie screamed. "Demons, not faith healers, remember?" She flapped her ears hard.

"Some do," Sala said quietly. "Hellhounds, for example." The woman shifted into her demonic form. The canine jaw dropped into a terrifying grin.
---
Salamanca could feel the surging fear from Ellie and the cold fear emanating from Skip. The emotions were powerful, overwhelming. In a flash an insane, suicidal plan came to her, one that would allow the three of them to fend off the Ennumi. That hadn't been done in thousands of years, according to the story she'd been told. She didn't care. The emotions of the others were pushing her over the edge of sanity. Now was the time to act.
"Bells," she growled through a mouth not designed for speech. "Blood, bells." She hoped the others would understand what she needed from them. As a hellhound, Sala had an ability called burning blood that could heal the injuries of the righteous and injure the inherently evil. If she understood this right, she could deal damage to the Ennumi while healing the girl it was bonded to. Once she was strong enough, Skip could do whatever he needed to do to get it back inside the girl. As the only human, he was the only one of the group able to do that kind of magic.

Fearless on the high of strong emotions, she rushed at Ellie, snapping her jaws. "Blood," she snarled again. "Fight!"

"It doesn't have blood, you psycho!" The young demon's eyes widened even further as she backed away from the taller creature. "And I can't fight it!"

"Now! We fight!" She snapped at the elephant again, her teeth clipping the thick skin. She couldn't rush the Ennumi now. The caustic nature of the thing would cauterize wounds before they could damage it or help the girl. She needed to go in with flowing blood, and damn the pain. A more rational Sala might have explained this with full sentences and logic, but then again a more rational Sala would not charge into this spur-of-the-moment deadly plan. Now was the time to act. Now, while she could take on the world without breaking a sweat.
She clawed at the other demon, snapped, tried to provoke her into an attack. Finally Ellie reared up, coming down fast in an attempt to crush her opponent beneath her pillar-like legs. Sala didn't wait for the blow. It wouldn't deal the right kind of damage. She rushed forward, overbalancing the smaller creature. Ellie fell hard, struggling more to breathe than to fight, put in the one position an elephant most hates.

Blam!

Pain erupted just above her shoulder. Dark blood splurted from what must have been a bullet wound. Skip stood with his revolver still aimed at her, hand pulling back the safety for a second shot. She backed away from Ellie, ignoring the pain as she redirected her attack toward the real enemy. "Bells. Now. Bond."

She bolted forward, running into the burning monster. It offered very little resistance as she passed through it, only pain as it burned every part of her it touched. Fully immersed in it, it felt as though all her skin had been torn off and the raw nerves were exposed to the world. By the time she reached the girl, the drug-like reaction to strong emotions had worn away to a grim determination to finish this one way or another.
---
Sala had clearly gone nuts. First attacking Ellie, then trying to take on the Ennumi on her own? There was no other explanation. He saw the dark figure standing over the slender figure of the girl. The Ennumi kept growing, apparently unaware of the second demon's presence. It was too busy attacking Nebel, eating away at more and more equipment , lashing out with red claws and blue fangs to target specific parts that looked especially important. He watched it melt something mounted to the ceiling. A hovering ball, revolving slowly, flickered into view. The voice of Nebel filled the room, howling with fear and anger, although the reason why was not clear. Whatever the ball was, it was important to the AI.

The hellhound's blood dripped onto the girl as Skip watched. And then, looking closer, he saw the ragged cuts on the girl's arm fade away. Blood, Sala had said. She must have mean her own blood. Hellhounds healed with their blood? But that put both of them in danger, weakening her while she stood inside the Ennumi. He'd done that once. He still had nightmares about it.

Rules Sam had drilled into his head flooded his mind. It doesn't have to be formal, no memorizing witch doctor chants, just make sure you mean it. Do it three times, three is a strong number. Don't hesitate, because you'll only get one shot before it kills you.
I will kill you, Lawrence Andrew Ward. As soon as I kill this machine.

He pulled out every bell he owned. He'd need them to make it through this in one piece. Ellie, still on her side, stared up at him in pain and horror. The earrings were not enough to fend off the power of that much ringing. He closed his eyes and ran into the monster, holding his breath for a long as he could. He squinted as he passed through the acidic body, heading for the others. The bells rang the whole time, giving him just enough protection from the Ennumi to keep it from turning in on itself and destroying him now.
He shook the girl, trying to wake her up. She groaned, but didn't revive. This wouldn't work if she slept. In fairy tales, he remembered, love could wake up sleeping princesses. Maybe friendship could revive unconscious working class girls. He knelt down and kissed her lightly on each cheek, mimicking the European tradition of bisou.

The girl's eyelids fluttered, but stayed closed. She said something, although he couldn't make out what. Good enough. He put one hand on each of her shoulders, and screamed, "I restore the bond!" His right hand moved over her chest to where he hoped her heart was. She squirmed at the contact. Again he screamed, "I restore the bond!" His hand went to her forehead, and a third time he screamed, "I restore the bond!"

The Ennumi roared. The green ether collapsed in on itself, sucked back into Scruffy's body. The burning intensified. It was trying to kill him even as it was again trapped inside the girl. It forced itself down his throat, into his ears, incinerated his eyes. He couldn't tell be sure if he was screaming, but he would have been surprised if that wasn't the case. His chest caught fire, his stomach was being eaten away, his arms and legs were shriveling up as they were destroyed from the inside out.

And then he was fine. The burning ceased. The last hint of green disappeared into Scruffy's body. He still hurt, more than he would have imagined, but he was alive. So was Scruffy. He realized he was still holding her shoulder in his left hand, squeezing hard enough to leave bruises. Even so, she was smiling at him.
---
At Scruffy's insistence, the woman who had been launched into Nebel's core room with her was taken by Ellie to another level of the military base. Hopefully her own people would find her and give her the medical attention she needed. As soon as the strawberry blonde was safely deposited exactly two levels above their current position and Ellie back with the group, the four of them made themselves known to the Republic soldiers. The MageSoldier who blasted the room that Scruffy and Berénice had been in had fallen back at the sight of the green presence. Assured that it had been some kind of ineffective weapon Nebel had attempted to use against them as he was attacked, she and her companions came into the almost entirely destroyed core room.

"I sent a remote command to shut down all Nebel processes," Sala said. Skip had no idea what that meant, but she had been talking at the computers while Ellie was delivering her patient. "I also requested the Data Core be restored to the previous settings, so any changes he made should be cleared." Skip tuned out the technological babble, letting the older woman--demon--talk to the Republic while he talked to Scruffy.

"You're sure you're okay?" he asked, probably for the millionth time.

She bit her lip and shook her head. It occurred to him that she had lost her hat somewhere along the line. Her curly hair poofed up, unfettered by the newsboy cap. "Do I have to be?" she said.

He hugged her with one arm, pulling her close. "No, not yet." He was pretty sure none of them would be okay for a long time to come.
Well, so much for getting writing done today. Getting distracted by kittens and finals and an online class and Christmas decorations. None of these things came up when I wasn't trying to write, of course. If I'd decided to take a bubble bath for hours I would have been uninterrupted for hours. Enough inane babbling.

I apologize for any OOC stuff, and for lateness, and for any inconsistency in the text. I know there's at least one, but I don't have the time or the mental capacity to edit it into submission right now.

Enjoy.

P.S. Jeff, since when did I give you permission to kick the bucket?

This is for :iconrule-maker:
I'm against :icondevonianfossil:
© 2011 - 2024 applescruff
Comments14
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TheTinkerThinker's avatar
Well written, I like how you depicted the chaos and bloodiness of the moments.
It feels like a war, which is something that hasn't been depicted clearly enough in other entries.