companionwolf

“You want to do it,” asks PC, “or should I?”

Alex looks at the Shard, at the Gate, grimaces, and hands it off to him. Espeon jumps down, Alice teetering on her back, to join the group in standing a bit away as PC steps up to the Gate. He takes a deep breath.

What if it works? Eylion’s voice.

I’m not sure, he says. I don’t think it’ll notify the Elders, but I also wouldn’t put past them to have some kind of ... alarm, or something. 

I am watchful, it says, and he feels something where a stomach should be heat with Psionic potential. I will be ready. 

“Here goes nothing,” PC says, and gingerly reaches a hand holding the Shard into the empty space of the Psi Gate. 

For a moment nothing happens, and continues to not happen, and PC is about to withdraw his hand and sigh when the Shard sparks light inside of it, and there is a pulsing about the rim of the Psi Gate. Alex visibly cringes, blood gushing anew from their nose. 

“I think you’ve got something there,” they say thickly as the pulsing of the Gate gets stronger, faster, until a bright white flash emits from the Shard, PC wrenching his head away from the flare but managing to keep the Shard in place. The Gate’s rim has stopped pulsing, the inner part of the circular shapes a bright purple now, and all at once they flicker and psionic energy crackles across the empty air between—

“Whoa, are you guys seeing that?” Tulip’s voice, half muffled by the new loud hum that comes from the Gate, steady and deep. PC blinks the light spots from his vision, and sees what she means- it’s a clear image into what he can only assume is the alien base. Half built structures and empty rooms inside glass paneling to keep out the water; PC doesn’t seem much in the way of things he recognizes, but he thinks that’ll change when they actually get in there. 

“I guess it’s working,” says Alice, who’s come up to PC’s feet and peers into the Gate. “They must know the door is open, even without some tripwire or trap.”

PC waits, hands shaking slightly around the Shard that hums alongside the Gate, but there is no Elder appearing to chide them, there is no wave of Psionic energy or Dragonball Z type laser. Just the empty base and its empty metal floors, faint flickers of aquatic life passing the glass walls. He cannot see the Elder’s sarcophagi from here, which he supposes makes sense; they are in the last room in the game, that must apply here as well. 

PC pulls the Shard back, the light emitting from it dims, and the image between the rims collapses on itself as the inner of the circular almost ring fades to dark. He blinks, looks to his friends.

“Guess we don’t need your ship engine after all,” says Espeon.

“Wait, like you’re serious about having a ship?” says Davey. “Are you... actually not a person?”

“I thought this was obvious; no, I am not of your planet,” the Spartan says. “That is not a matter of concern at the moment.”

Davey looks like he’s going to argue, to Espeon climbs up his body like a tree and settles onto his shoulder, where a Awakened tail gently settles itself against his mouth. “You’re doing the human thing of getting distracted,” she says to him.

Alice shakes her head at them, and looks up from her place at PC’s feet at the Outsider Shard. “Someone will have to stay behind to hold it up,” she says. “I will do this, or perhaps Sam will.” 

“We’re not going now, are we?” asks Tulip, sounding incredulous. 

“Oh, no, no,” says Alice, matter of fact. “You are nowhere near ready, I think. The Spartan speaks truth in that you need to practice. But I’m sure between them and PC you’ll be able to learn and prepare sufficiently.” 

The Spartan’s visor flashes. “I can help those with firearms learn to weld them properly,” it says. It looks toward Pillow Central. “You seem to possess ability in melee combat. You teach that one-“ it points at Davey- “how to best make use of it.”

“We can probably go over Psionic stuff too,” PC says, nodding at Alex. “I can try to teach you the things I’ve picked up.”

“What about mind control?” asks Tulip, and PC hears Davey inhale sharply. 

“I’m not sure,” he admits, “but we can workshop ideas. We have time, I think, it’s not like—“

As soon as the words leave his mouth, the Gate hums to life again; the humans scramble back, behind the Spartan, Alice running with them and ducking behind their legs. PC stands frozen as the Gate powers back up and the image of the alien base appears once more, only this time obscured by a humanoid body with a palm outstretched to them. 

“AVATAR,” he mumbles. Or something similar? How can they have Avatars now?  There’s been no invasion, so no blacksites, no gene processing—

He feels Eylion prod at the being in the middle of the Gate, and hears it snort. It is not a Psionic being itself, says the Ethereal. It is only a husk. A crude imitation. A robot. There is nothing human or genetic at all. They simply sit in it; killing it would not kill them— it is not like the one within the GRE, or like the Avatars of the game. They haven’t gotten there. 

The being stares at them from beneath a purple visor about its face. PC stares back.

The being speaks: “What naive bravery,” it says. “We almost find it endearing.”

Eylion spits at the being’s feet. It raises its other hand from its side, and a Psionic grasp grabs PC by the collar and pulls him, he feels the ripple of the portal as he is brought through, and suddenly he is inches away from the proto-Avatar, on the other side of the Gate, feet dangling above the ground as it clenches his shirt in its Psionic fist. Panic raises in his chest, and he struggles, kicking and twisting. The Elder, because that is what this is under mechanical hood, watches. 

“You are but a child,” it says, “both in host and self. We pity you. You could have been something far greater. This world, yet, has that possibility still.” It looms over them, and PC chokes because the grasp has moved to his mind mapped throat, because the looming is too much like how the GRE’s servant did, chokes because he is back in that small space, back on fire, chokes—

“You would do better to walk with us,” it says. “You have redemption possible yet.”

Eylion manages to spit on its visor, pure Psionic in form, and the tiny Psionic glob crackles and dies as it hits the glass.

The Elder shakes the head of its proto-Avatar, and tosses him roughly back through the portal onto the hard floor of the Psi Gate housing. He lands on his stomach and rolls for second, gasping and flailing because some part of him is back on fire, he’s on fire, and then there is Alex helping him to his feet and asking what happened, Alice being pressed into his hands—

“Deep breaths,” she says.

He breathes. She coaxes him through a quick grounding exercise - what do you see hear touch - and by the end, he is steady again. He explains what happened to the group, and they listen in rapt attention. 

“I don’t know if they’ve got other aliens in there too,” he finishes, “but I think we’ve got a lot of training ahead of us to do. And to do fast. We’re reaching the end of the proverbial rope here with time before they finally call in the invasion, I think. I’m terrified I just sealed its happening, and when I say happening I mean soon.”