companionwolf

The Psionic relay opens with three paths, one down the center to a control panel like computer, flanked by elerium generators. The other two paths are like walkways, and when they reach the other side of the room they lead up to two inert Psi Gates. Beyond those, a bridge riddled with side generators and ending at a large open doorway.

(He can’t see into the next room, though. He doesn’t need to. He knows what comes next.)

Reality tears once again, between the Psi Gates, and out comes not only a pair of elite mutons and a berserker, but a at least 9 foot tall robot with a large chassis and two stomping legs.

“Oh,” says PC. “Oh, that’s not good.”

“Hey, Alex?” calls Tulip as she ducks for cover against a wall, the mutons firing their weapons into the empty air. Alex has flattened themselves near where they entered, and Davey has streaked across the room to take shelter by the computer panels. The Spartan skitters to press against the other wall, eyes on the Sectopod.

“Yeah?”

“Any qualms about mind control? ‘Cause we could really use it right now!”

PC, huddled with Espeon, looks back behind him toward Alex. The human is swallowing hard, and he sees purple flicker in their dark eyes. “I’m willing to try,” they respond, and splay fingers toward the berserker, purple sparks flying from them.

Espeon fires a ball of Psionic energy at a leg of the Sectopod; the robot shrieks, a electronic scream that makes her cringe, and the robot rears back, takes aim at them— a hail of bullet comes flying from its underbelly, and PC drops to the floor, Espeon doing the same.

The berserker, on route to Davey, stops. Its eyes flicker purple. PC can hear Alex breathing heavily, a hum of straining from their lips. The berserker turns to its subordinates, and puts a punch into the head of one before the other fires at it.

The Sectopod continues to barrage PC and Espeon, even as Davey crouches up halfway to lean over the computer panel and shoot at its side, even as the Spartan unloads a plasma round into it. PC feels the impression of gritted teeth, and suddenly he is running, flinging himself beneath the Sectopod and sliding, one hand raising his sword to its underbelly and slicing through. He emerges staggering, the robot smoking and beeping, only to yelp as one of the mutons fires through his chest.

“Bitch!” yells Espeon, firing a Null Lance at the elite muton; she severs one of its legs, sending a cascade of yellow blood across the dark floor and the muton to the ground. PC manages to fumble for his sword and stab it just behind the neck, ducking as Alex’s mind controlled berserker swings a fist above him to collide with the remaining muton’s face. PC maintains his downward push, and the muton on the floor stills.

He’s gasping, he realizes. As if he has real lungs that have been damaged. Silly, really, he thinks, as the world blues for a moment— PC pulls the sword from the corpse and lets one hand rise to the hole in himself. Phantom blood pours around his fingers. He shakes his head. Focus, focus.

The Spartan has joined Davey at the computer panel, periodically ducking back down to avoid the Sectopod’s bullets as they fire plasma into it. Espeon races across the room, clambers up the robot’s leg, and fires a Psionic ball into its servos— there is a cracking, sparks and smoke as the leg is detached and sent clattering, and then a thunderous crash as the Sectopod tips over.

PC does not see Espeon. Fear in his heart. He blinks from regular vision to the tactical—

There she is, leaping away from the generators. She ducks into the safety of the computer, and curls in on herself. The air around her, Davey, and the Spartan shimmer purple as the generators spark ominously. PC looks toward Tulip, who is coming toward him and the mutons from the other walkway.

“Wait!” he yells, backpedaling toward the access bridge as he does. “Get away from the —“

The generators go off. There is green and grey and force; he’s pushed hard against the closed door in the wall, knocked to the floor. All he can hear is ringing. There is nothing but fog of war in his tactical vision, and nothing but smoke in his eyes.

“Tulip? Alex?” he calls.

A cough from near the left psi gate, and then from near where they came in, the sound of Alex hissing through their teeth. Relief floods his senses.

“Davey? Spartan? Espeon?”

He blinks as he gets to his feet. In tactical, he sees a bubble surrounding the latter three, unpenetrated by the blast. Espeon is pawing at it, her eyes narrowed; he imagines he can hear her, that she is swearing and confused, and the idea calms him slightly.

The berserker is getting up, eyes no longer hazed with violet. It turns on him, and its partner nearby reaches for their weapon— he prods Elyion, who furiously fires off a Null Lance, cleanly taking the arm of the muton off and kicking it back. He dives for the plasma gun, grabs it, turns it in his hands and fires as the berserker barrels down on him.

A purple burst of Psionic energy suddenly rips through the berserkers chest and through his abdomen; he howls, the berserkers howls, and he gags on the bloods that spews out of the body onto him. Alex stands behind it, panting. “Sorry,” they sign to him. Their hand is splattered with blood, which still steadily oozes from their nose.

“ASL,” he manages.

A nod.

“I didn’t know you knew ASL,” he continues.

“Is now—“ A pant, a huff from behind him. “Is now really a good time for languages class?” Alex reaches down to him, and he lets them pulls him to his feet; when he turns, he sees Tulip, who has her hands pressed to a wound in her side.

“Oh, shit, where did that—“

“Shrapnel,” she wheezes. “From the explosion.”

He glances toward the Psionic bubble again. Espeon is on the Spartan’s head, throwing herself against it. It’s ok, he thinks, hands running across his own body to his medkit. It’s ok. It’s ok.

Keep it, says Elyion, as he starts to remove it. I will heal her. Before he can object, his body moves on its own accord, returning the medkit to his waist and reaching toward Tulip. Somewhat hesitantly, it instructs her to lie down, and wraps his hands around the piece of shrapnel in her side.

“Aren’t you supposed to keep it in?” she asks.

I am not a doctor, says Elyion, and pulls.

Tulip screams, PC and Alex cringe. Blood gushes from the wound, PC’s hands becoming sticky with it as Elyion presses them against her skin and hums. A green glow envelopes them, and slowly the bleeding lessens, and then stops. Tulip is breathing heavily, teeth clenched. Elyion smiles down at her with PC’s face, and stands up. PC is returned his body then, and helps Tulip to her feet; she’s shaky, nearly collapsing on him.

“Are you ok?” asks Alex.

“I’ve been better,” she says.

There’s a soft noise of Espeon’s body hitting the metal floor, and Davey’s relieved sigh. The three come hurrying over, the Spartan scanning the humans first, and then PC. It points to his chest.

“Your injury remains,” it says.

“Right,” he says, and runs his fingers across it. He begins to concentrate, only to break that when Alex’s hand lands on his.

“I’ll do it,” they say, batting his hand out of the way they pinch the wound together, igniting purple fire about their fingers. The wound seals, and Awakening responds in kind, new stitches materializing to keep the hole shut. They step back from him, eyes on the Psi Gates now.

“How many do you think there are?”

“Does it matter?” says Tulip. “I mean, when we’re going to kill them and make the Gates useless anyway?”

“What if they lead to other worlds?” they say.

“They most certainly do,” says the Spartan. “But these ones are of little concern; they are inactive.”

“Then I’m picking up on something else…?”

“The Elders,” says Davey. “They’re Psionic themselves. Isn’t there some kind of coffins in the next room that they’re inside?”

PC nods. “Sarcophagi,” he says. “I… I don’t know if we should destroy those, or kill the Proto-Avatars, or both, or neither, or—-“

“Relax, pillow boy,” says Espeon, coming to rub herself against his legs much like a cat. “Game says kill them, so we’ll do that. We’ll smash the fuckers too just for insurance. No kill like overkill, am I right?”

PC waits for the Elders to speak. To demean them. To minimize their efforts. To say anything.

But these Elders are quiet.

PC swallows. They’re standing near the door into the final room. “We could still…” He falters. “We could still turn— I mean, go, I mean—-“

The others shake their heads at him.

“We have gotten this far,” says the Spartan. “We win, or we die. There is no point of return now.”

“I think it’s ‘this is the point of no return’,” says Tulip.

The Spartan shrugs. “Human phrase,” it says. “My way still got the message across.”

PC runs his fingers across the ribbon around his neck.

For the Hoard. For the Beholden. For Earth. For the humans he has brought into this. For humanity.

“Let’s finish this.”