“Well, shit…”
“I feel like we’re sayin’ that a
lot, lately,” Davídrius commented, glancing toward Christeané as he jumped out
of the hovercar. He then turned back to the gates to the mountain base, warily
eying their burnt remains. “…But, uh, not really much else to say, huh?”
“If the gate’s been burned…
Kevérin and Kevken should be here, right?” Christeané kicked the gate remnants
aside and began briskly walking into the complex, “Something bad must’ve
happened if they needed to break in…”
“That’s easy to tell even without the gate,” Davídrius pointed out as
he sped to Christeané’s side, “The defensive CENT fields are down. What’s that tell ya?”
The two Chaotics fell silent as
they progressed past the unmanned defenses at the front of the complex. Shortly
after they entered the main courtyard, stopping to observe the battle damage
before Davídrius blasted forward and inspected the rest of the base. Christeané
only had to wait a few moments until the Superspeed Introtechnic returned.
“The Commander’s dead…” he
frowned, “It looked like she’d been corrupted…”
“Shit,” Christeané scowled,
“What about Kevérin or Kevken? Are they still here?”
“Kevérin’s in the basement with
that Prior, working on… something,” Davídrius responded, “…you go meet with him
and find out what’s goin’ on, I’ll go find our weapons.”
“Got it,” Christeané nodded back
as the two Introtechnics began approaching the building again, “Time to see
just how bad things are…”
* * *
“Morcii… has returned.”
“Yes, he’s back,” Kevérin
responded irately as he opened a hatch in the wall and began inspecting the
underlying wires, “How many times are you going to tell yourself that before
you help me fix the damn comms?”
“Do
you not understand the significance of this event? Unless you have fed me
falsehoods, you destroyed Morcii through the use of the Master Fourth Tier
Chaos State. Yet he has returned!”
“Trust me, Arcán, this is all
god-damned truth. How about what you’ve told me though, huh? You said
destroying Morcii with the Chaos State would be enough!”
“I
claimed it would be enough in lieu of better information, and I said as much!
If only you had joined my core with the Arcán Ayas, then perhaps we would not
be in this situation, hmm?”
“You annoying little…” the
Transfer Captain growled, slamming the hatch shut as he finished with the cords
and storming over to a nearby console just as Christeané entered the room.
“…What are you doing here?” Kevérin eyed the Introtechnic with annoyance, “I
thought I told you to check out the Gateport.”
“Dude… chill,” Christeané
responded warily, “We were just there; Davídrius and I came back to get our
weapons, and then we find the whole place wrecked and the Commander dead… what
happened?”
“Lack
of foresight, that is what happened.”
“Arcán–!” Kevérin snarled and
then stopped himself, taking a moment to calm down and take a deep breath. He
then resumed working at the console as he addressed Christeané, “…Morcii’s
back. He corrupted the Commander to get the location of the Master Ayas out of
her. We had to kill her, but Kevken’s going after the Ayas himself.”
“So he really is back,” Christeané scowled, “damn it.
You should know that Siyuakén’s back, too.”
“What?”
“What?!” Kevérin and Arcán
replied simultaneously. The Pyrotechnic then continued, “But Kaoné said that
Morcii killed her!”
“And you have to wonder what that actually means to someone as corrupted as Siyuakén,” Christeané snorted, “If Morcii’s keeping her as close as he has then simply ‘killing her’ might not be enough to actually, well, kill her.”
“Just like Morcii himself, apparently,” Kevérin sighed irately as he stood up and approached another wall hatch, opening it and igniting a small, intense flame on his fingertip as he began cutting wires and attaching others.
“…What are you doing?”
“I’m fixing the comms,” the Transfer Captain responded, “But I’m not an Electrotechnic so I have to reroute power from other systems in order to boost the comm arrays enough to overcome the jamming.”
“You can do that from here?”
“Not effectively. Doing it this way will cause the systems to burn out after a couple days… but if we haven’t kicked out the Nanocreatures by then…”
“Yeah…” Christeané sighed, “I get it. Damn, this is all fucked up…”
“You’re tellin’ me!” Davídrius exclaimed as he dashed onto the scene, his sword boxes slamming against the door as he barged in. “On the way to the armory, there were… …just how many people did Morcii need to kill, huh? He didn’t even stop to corrupt any of ‘em!”
“There’s no need for him to do that here,” Christeané replied, holding out his hand to catch his battlehammer and its harness as Davídrius tossed them his way, “not when his forces are out in the city, corrupting everything there.”
“Which is all the more reason for us to get goin’,” the Superspeed Introtechnic urged, “We need to find Morcii, if he’s here!”
“He is,” Kevérin commented, “But Kevken’s already gone after him.”
“And I can go after him faster,” Davídrius pressed, “Where is he?”
“If he’s going after the Master Ayas, then he should be heading to the military Gate Train depot in the Western Peaks.”
Davídrius and Christeané glanced at each other cluelessly. “…Where?” Christeané questioned.
“One… moment…” Kevérin responded slowly, “If I can get this right… then you guys can patch into the comm array and get GPS that way.”
“And how long’ll that take?”
“Did you not hear me say ‘one moment’?” the Pyrotechnic retorted. Several seconds later he sighed of relief and approached another console. “…Alright! We have comms again! …Well, shit!”
“What now?” Davídrius questioned apprehensively.
“The orbital fleet seems to have assumed the worst, after seeing the Nanocreatures arrive and Nimaliaka Central’s following communications blackout,” Kevérin reported, and then looked up at Christeané and Davídrius uneasily. “…They fired an orbital barrage at the facility holding the Master Ayas. It’ll be obliterated within the next ten minutes.”
* * *
“Chaos
Energy… Detect.”
Kievkenalis winced slightly before focusing on the environment around him, watching the trails of Chaos Energy among the Western Peaks. Through repeated use of Chaos Boost he was easily able to cross the entire city in a quarter of the time it would have taken to use a hovercar, but he had trouble scaling the western mountains and feared that Morcii may beat him to the Master Ayas in the end.
“Over there…” he muttered to himself, noting a potential source of Energy as all of the Chaos Energy in the area slowly moved outward, like water from a waterfall. Using Chaos Boost again he leaped into the air, catching himself on a higher cliff-edge – and noting that he had reached the top roads. He had decided to scale the mountain himself instead of follow the roads due to how long and windy they were, but when he thought back to how much time he had wasted trying to scale the cliffs…
No good, he shook his head, attempting to discard the irrelevant thoughts as he dashed off down the road, taking the final bend and spotting the Gate Train loading depot. Need to find the Ayas… He stopped momentarily at the entrance gates before speeding through their wrecked frames, reaching the interior of the complex just as Chaos Boost wore off. He slowed to a brisk walk as he approached the main building, inspecting the complex and all of the damage it appeared to have sustained very recently.
“Chaos Energy Detect,” he muttered again, immediately snapping his head downward to focus on a distant point-source of Chaos Energy. “It’s still here… good. Chaos Boost.”
The Chaostechnic rushed into the main building, quickly finding his way to the nearest elevator and smashing through the door to the shaft with Chaos Massive Impact. He then flung himself down the shaft, muttering “Chaos Claws” halfway down and slamming the claws into the shaft walls, slowing his descent. He glanced around warily until spotting the nearest door; wrenching one of his hands from the wall, he directed it toward the door and called “Chaos Massive Impact,” tearing the doors off their tracks and opening the way to the floor. Kievkenalis then released his other hand from the wall and jumped toward the opening, landing with a haphazard roll as the pain from calling multiple Chaos Attacks in quick succession momentarily ruined his ability to concentrate.
“Kevken!”
The Chaostechnic jumped, his focus lost again by the sudden voice in his ear. He quickly recovered and realized it was coming from the communicator he had picked up at the mountain base. “Kevérin? You got the comms back up?”
“Yeah, and found out something really really bad,” the Pyrotechnic responded hurriedly, “Listen, the orbital fleet launched a bombardment barrage at the Western Peaks base barely half an hour ago! Those rounds will hit within the next five or six minutes and they’ll wipe out anything within a kilometer of the base, so stay back!”
“Stay back…?” Kievkenalis echoed wearily as he climbed to his feet and began rushing down the hallway, “But I’m already here. Chaos Massive Impact!” he paused to tear a door off its hinges, “and so is the Master Ayas!”
“…Fine, but I’m warning you – get the Ayas and get out as quickly as possible!”
“Understood,” the Chaostechnic replied as he turned around a corner. He immediately found himself standing in front of another door and knocked it down as easily as he had the rest, but momentarily froze as pain shot through his body yet again. As soon as he could focus again he stepped into what appeared to be a long observation room. The longest wall was constructed entirely of glass, offering a clear view of a sizable clean room below – and the Master Ayas sitting in the center.
“So… you managed to catch up.”
And none other than Morcii standing at the other end of the room.
Kievkenalis immediately backed away defensively, glancing between Morcii and the Master Ayas warily. Shit, it’s too far away. I can’t activate the Chaos State, but if I try to break the glass and get closer… Morcii’s too fast, he’ll–
“Giving me the silent treatment, are we?”
Kievkenalis focused his attention on the Nanocreature leader uneasily. “…What are you doing here?”
“The same thing you are, I’m sure,” Morcii chuckled, “I’m claiming the Ayas.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” the Chaostechnic countered. Maybe, if I can stall him…!
“…Ah ha ha, you wish to know how I’ve returned to the land of the ‘living’, hmm?” the Nanocreature smirked, “The key here is that I have not actually returned, per se.”
“…You’re still dead?”
“No, you fool! I never died! What has always been living cannot ‘return’ to doing so.”
“Then… what happened at Neticen? We destroyed a planet to kill you, how can you still be around to, to cause all this Chaos?”
“How can I still be around? Oh, you Aldredanoids never fail to amuse me,” Morcii chuckled again, “You continue to attempt to assign the concept of form to that which is above it. As Aldredanoids – as beings of the flesh – you know a world where everything is tied to its physical form. It is inconceivable to you that something could exist without some form, without some sort of presence in what you know as the physical realm. I admit this is true for the vast majority of the universe… but not I! You may destroy my forces, you may destroy my body, but never will you destroy my mind – and so long as that exists, so too will the Nanocreatures! And as long as the Nanocreatures exist I will return, and I will do so as many times as it takes to seize all of the Chaos Ayas and free the Morikai from their prison! This is the gift given to me by the Morikai, the gift that will allow me to return them to this realm – or, in lieu of such, the gift that will allow me to exact their righteous vengeance on a galaxy so pitifully misguided that it thinks it can get rid of us for good!” The Nanocreature paused self-amusedly before dropping his arms to his side and transforming both of his hands into long blades. “But I have said enough for now. The Master Ayas is mine, Aldredanoid, as are all of the Ayas!”
Morcii then lunged toward Kievkenalis, crossing the entire observation room in a mere second. But a second was all the Chaostechnic needed as he quickly shouted “Teporté!” Instantly, the observation room disappeared and was replaced by a dark, rainy field. Kievkenalis collapsed to his knees from the pain of the drawn-out Chaos Ability; he had counted on Morcii entering into a monologue, and used the silence to boost the power of Chaos Teporté to enable him to teleport over a kilometer away to an empty field at the base of the Western Peaks. But the boost used a significant amount of Chaos Energy, causing him an incredible amount of pain that he found difficult to recover from. However, when the sky suddenly lit up brightly as the orbital bombardment barrage slammed into the Gate Train depot, completely demolishing the mountain peak, Kievkenalis sighed of relief, incredibly pleased with himself to have pulled off such a feat.
“It won’t stop Morcii for long…” he muttered to himself, slowly stumbling to his feet as he stared up at the damaged mountains through the night rain. “…Chaos… Energy Detect!” The Chaostechnic squinted skyward, picking out an incredibly distant trail of Chaos Energy. “…The Master Ayas was flung away…” he turned toward the eastern horizon, “…really far. I hope it didn’t land in the bay… Chaos Boost!”
* * *
Siyuakén stumbled through the
snow-blurred streets, unable to see more than half a meter in front of her face
due to the blizzard caused by Rebehka’s Overdrive. The Electrotechnic glanced
about herself quickly yet cautiously as she continuously ran enough current
through her body to counteract the cold.
Rebehka observed from a distance, gauging Siyuakén’s position through her connection to the snow all around her. The two Chaotics had been fighting for nearly an hour at this point, long enough for her Overdrive to wear off once and allow the Cryotechnic to call it again. Through the blizzard, Rebehka could easily track Siyuakén, but the advantage was countered by the corrupted Electrotechnic’s ability to sense nearby currents – including the minute currents present in living creatures. Neither Chaotic had yet to land any kind of significant blow on the other.
…’Yet’ being the key word, Rebehka amended mentally, finally jumping forwards and creating several tens of ice javelins before hurling them at Siyuakén. Two of the javelins sliced into the Electrotechnic’s back and leg before she quickly hardened her entire skin with her nanomachines, weathering the frozen onslaught before retaliating with a powerful lightning blast that Rebehka just barely managed to dodge by throwing herself to the side. The Cryotechnic quickly disappeared into the blizzard again, using the snow and wind as cover as she continued to barrage Siyuakén with attacks. Shortly after she managed to land one more, the Electrotechnic let out a massive electric pulse that stunned Rebehka, throwing off her next attacks. Siyuakén then summoned an immensely powerful lightning bolt from the sky, imparting enough force and energy to the ground to blow back the snow and ice for tens of meters around her – which was just enough to lay eyes on Rebehka. Immediately the two Chaotics locked eyes, but Siyuakén moved her hands faster than Rebehka could her body – and fired off another powerful lightning bolt directly at the Cryotechnic. Rebehka managed to create several ice barriers to help absorb the blow, but she was still thrown violently into a nearby building, slamming into its walls and collapsing to the ground in a daze.
Several moments passed before the Cryotechnic could recover from the blow and scramble back to her feet, leaping away from her location to evade any potential follow-up hits. As no lightning came, however, a thought crossed her mind…
I was open. She could have attacked, she could’ve hit me hard… why didn’t she?
Rebehka faltered for a moment, unsure of what to do next. She then furrowed her brow as she created a long spear of ice and dashed toward Siyuakén’s location, thrusting the weapon forward. The Electrotechnic began to dodge at the last second, barely evading the tip of the spear as she whirled around and slammed her right hand into Rebehka’s chestplate of ice, imparting enough electricity to the surface to shatter the chestplate and knock the Cryotechnic back. Rebehka quickly rolled away as soon as she hit the ground, jumping back to her feet and rushing off as an electric blast hit her previous location a second later.
She’s slow… she’s barely fighting me at all… Rebehka frowned, increasing the distance between herself and Siyuakén as she slowly circled around, …Why? According to everyone else she was able to hold her own against both Kaoné and Wilkas, on two different occasions… I may have trained with her, but how have I drawn blood and she hasn’t?
The Cryotechnic suddenly flinched away as Siyuakén summoned another skyward lightning blast, creating a brief opening in the blizzard through which she could see Rebehka. The Cryotechnic immediately lunged backwards through the snow curtain just in time to evade several lightning strikes on her position, all of them missing by a hair.
…She’s not fighting to kill. She’s fighting to intimidate… she doesn’t want to kill me. Rebehka stared through the blizzard dumbfoundedly before feeling the hair on her neck rise, prompting her to throw herself to the side just in time to evade another electrical blast. Is she… is she resisting…? She did manage to overcome the corruption on Neticen, even if she was near death, but… can she do it again?
The Cryotechnic stopped in her tracks, turning to look at her friend through the snow storm. A second later the air in front of her lit up as she felt the warmth of lightning pass straight in front of her face; a second strike hit her squarely in the chest, but only with enough energy to melt half of her ice armor and stagger her.
…That must be it! She still has the ability to influence her own actions. Is it because Morcii just recently returned? Maybe because he no longer has any of the Ayas, he can’t control her as completely as before…? Rebehka’s expression hardened as she repaired her ice armor and prepared even more projectiles. If that’s the case, then now’s my only opening. If I don’t get through to her now, then I never will! “Siyuakén!” the Cryotechnic shouted into the wind, unsure if her voice would be lost in the storm but nonetheless certain of her course of action, “…I’m sorry to go against your wishes again, Siyuakén, but– forget everything I said earlier! I swear to you! I lost you once, but this time… I’ll bring you back!”
* * * * *
==================== End of Chapter 74 ====================
* * * * *
Data Entry: {null}
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