E Pluribus, Ego Unum
Scene One; Selective archetype
Fog hung in the heavy winter air like a dense blanket of concealment, hiding all forms of evil denizens from sight. Something was out there, something hunting him, and he knew well what his odds of escaping were. He had slipped through their fingers enough times to brush with their damnation, their scent of evil an overpowering sense to the end that there could be no eden if such people were allowed to persist.
But power! How could they be so routed from existence when their numbers only grew as they spread their lies, breaking pacts and shattering Covenants… creating dead and missing out of living, breathing souls loyal to all that was good and beautiful in the world… but today, on this fog-covered field, he could feel the evil crawling across his skin, knew how close the hunter was to his prey.
Long had he been a hunter… sad that it would end this way, the hunter hunted, cut down with neither honor nor mercy. And in his possession, the only key element to a precious new beginning. If he fell now, if the demons tracking and tracing his steps day and night ever caught up to him before he reached the Citadel… if that evil ever got its hands on the Element, it would be over. They would realize soon enough its purpose, and storm the Citadel with all their might, so they could use the archaic fortress to their own ends. Steeling himself against the moist chill in the air, he stepped forward, but hesitated after, sure he'd heard something whisper to his left.
That this was the end of the perilous part of the journey he'd embarked on made it all the more perilous. Here, the enemy would doubtless have bolstered their efforts, well aware how close he was getting to being far from their reach, and here would be their last, final, most desperate effort to win.
When silence reclaimed the scene despite his pounding head and aching joints, he released some of his tension and hobbled forward, hustling quickly through the tall, fibrous grasses native to the planet. Coming here alone had not been in the plans, but his guard and his companion had both fallen prey to what now hunted him, and he was the last – if he failed, there would be no one to pick up the Element and carry it on, no one to keep it from the hands of the enemy. Fright gripped his withering features as he struggled with his speed and his ability, certain beyond a doubt now that the hunter would bear him to the ground at any second. His harsh breath came in labored gasps as he clutched the satchel slung from a shoulder to his chest, the strap crossing his back forgotten in its purpose. Within the satchel, the Element, the last breath of hope there was that the enemy couldn't take their homes from them.
It had gotten worse, over the last few years… more and more enemy, sneaking into cities at night and by daybreak not a soul remained. Tattered remnants of once proud civilizations lay testament to the entire invasion. No one knew if anyone had fought, but damages to structures around the towns was minimal, if present at all. Only the mark of the enemy to tell what had happened, and then later a seething admittance that the ranks had bolstered.
Sweaty, exhausted, scared and worn to the breaking point, blessed relief cut through when he finally caught sight of his destination. There, the star fury class jet ship he would be taking to get free of the planet. A smile creased his wizened features, but he was a span from it yet and needed to stop for breath. As he struggled to see through the dense fog, back the way he'd come, he remembered warning the mission commander that he wasn't as young as he used to be, and this might well not be a mission worth his weight in attempt simply for who they had chosen to send on it – the only problem was that it was discovered the hiding place of the Element was realized to have fallen behind enemy lines only after the fact… as well as that the only one who knew the layout of the maze in which it had been carefully hidden was himself.
And had his on-the-spot knowledge not been present, they would never have come as far as this… but would it have mattered? Would it be worth it to get this far, spitting distance of the ship, only to fail? The Element would be in the hands of the enemy, and the Discharge would kill them all.
No one wanted to die, but he knew least of all did his people deserve it… not annihilation. Not by a long shot. Mustering what strength remained him, the old and ailing male made for the entrance on the rear of the vessel, certain now he could make it if he was just quick enough, wishing nothing more than to be there already and not need to make the span at all. He began to laugh out of pure relief when nothing happened adverse to progress as he made the final four yards of distance, but he stopped shy of entering, to stare with deadly calm and horror at the blood tray before him.
There… the mark of the enemy. If he failed this mission, the galaxy would die. But even as he sought the final step to victorious achievement, he realized all along he'd been facing down defeat, but in the most unlikely place to find it. He traced the lines of the figure with his eyes, his bony fingers cinching around their grip, without making a move. There, standing in a pool of sticky foul green ichor, one of the enemy, crooked, broken looking, deformed and disheveled. They all were. Some said it was a disease, others claimed it was spirits. Enormous claws the length of his height hung from one shoulder, what remained of the muscle on the other arm beginning to slough off, slumped at the wrist like loose cloth.
The smell was redirected by the gentle kiss of a breeze, barely enough to stir the fog and create phantoms where there was only air, but here… right here… he let go of his horror, and sagged to his knees, unable to fully comprehend why and how the gods could justify this kind of defeat. A sob escaped him, echoing back from within the ship's cavernous interior. The enemy gargled wordlessly, a dislocated jaw forming a slouched gape when the mouth opened to allow passage of some unidentifiable sound. He looked up, at it, seeing the odd protrusions from its chest wriggling in the chill air. Then past it, at the expanse of the vessel it had been in. Resolve for one last try steeled his nerve, and he pulled his legs from beneath him, poising for a lunge. If he could just get past it… he was old, but he was not weak, and there was only one. Right as the creature lunged forward, leaping off the blood tray at him, so too did he. He sliced the air right beneath its flying body, caught on the edge of the blood tray and rolled, to pile up at the base of the backside of a control console.
Now he was inside, the enemy was out, and he was alive with the Element intact. He clawed to his feet, clawed for purchase, well knowing that those doors were still open and the danger was not yet passed. He got around the console, the satchel slapping against his hip as he did so, and hit the release catch for the doors. They closed only in time to catch the enemy half in, and at their speed, even as the enemy clawed and snarled at the metal, slowly and patiently pincered it in half until with a final rending pop its torso landed on the floor. There, it began to gargle louder, and even as he recoiled from it in renewed horror as he realized it was nowhere near dead, it crawled towards him, rolling its deformed head at him as if trying to see him.
When it reached him, it sank those calcite claws through one of his legs, and pulled him from his feet even as he tried to grab the latch on the door of the locker that held a weapon. His scream of pain as he hit the deck was ignored, but even as the thing burst open at the back and fell limp, he knew he'd sustained more damage than the creature had given him.
Still, pulling the satchel from around his shoulder, he knew he was not yet defeated, even as the head-sized sickly yellow-white cell pried free of the larger creature's back, and crawled along its old shoulders and head to reach his knees – at which point the Element in the satchel came down on top of it, smashing it flat and spreading the insides all over his lap in a gory, disgusting mess.
Leaving it to lie, he leaned his head back on the bulkheads behind him, feeling the pain his old body was suffering quite acutely. "Lords of all, have mercy on my soul. I only wanted to save them…"
The whisper echoed back to him, even as the goo slid downwards from the raised blood tray to the floor.