Chapter 55: Inevitability Revealed
Perspective: Destiny
Destiny approached the broken portal, passing through the corpses of her old enemies, and feeling a little embarrassed. She hoped Anya didn't realise she'd been drinking since she last saw her. To her credit, it had just been the night of the officer's lounge opening, but everyone deserves to cut loose every now and then, even heroes. Right?
But she mostly thought about that to try and avoid thinking about the real issue. The gem was flashing again. Obviously, she couldn't answer it in the Shelter, so she'd just had more time to dread it as she tried to reach Anya. She had resolved to take whatever help Freak offered her, but she didn't like that she had to.
Finally, she crested the hill and saw Anya waiting for her, lounging in the mouth of the portal. She didn't straighten up, instead maintaining a look of luxuriant disdain beneath closed eyelids.
"So, you've been drinking again?"
"Yes but-"
"-And after the dramatic bottle smash? Kiddo, I could not be more disappointed-"
"-That's not important right now," grumbled Destiny, rummaging in her pocket.
"Don't change the subject on me. You've got to take this seriously or you'll end up even deader than I am!"
Destiny pulled out the pulsating yellow gem and waved it in front of Anya.
"I'm plenty serious, now lighten up. We can't let this guy know we've been fighting."
Anya groaned.
"Sure, we'll just talk shop, I guess."
She stood up and shook her ethereal body out.
Destiny pressed the crystal, and she saw the same pattern of criss-crossing yellow lines as before, which eventually coalesced into Freak's translucent form. From the second his face weaved into view, she knew this would be a big one.
"Destiny, we need to meet in person, right now!"
"What's happened?"
Freak raked his talons through his hair and curled in on himself. His glowing features were stretched taut with stress, to the point that he looked fit to explode at any moment. Seeing a phantom of fear scared could have been funny if Destiny ignored the implications.
She tried again, with forced confidence.
"What's happened, Freak?"
"I'll tell you in a moment, just… let me..."
He looked wildly around the hilltop, half-crawling forward. Despite not physically being there, he carefully avoided the broken glass Destiny still hadn't cleaned up. It was strange, animalistic, as though he were trying to sniff something out. Then, he straightened up and loped towards Destiny.
"Sorry, it's easier if I show you."
He then slashed upwards with his talons and caught her between the eyes. She staggered back as warm blood sprayed out and trickled down the bridge of her nose. As her eyes cleared, she realised the sky was black. Then, the portal was gone. Then, she was nowhere.
She looked around and saw Anya huddling close to her. She placed a hand on her shoulder, and it didn't phase through. So, Freak wanted her to experience something physical.
Suddenly, a path beneath her feet. They walked forward instinctively, the dark still around them. To the left, a glimmer of light, a glimpse through a space the size of a doorway into a laboratory. Some scientist Destiny recognised from files and descriptions: Veronica Mercury. She looked dreadful, with pale skin and dark rings digging into her face. She kept frantically tapping buttons and scribbling figures, desperately trying to escape an answer she'd come to, or an error she'd made. Finally, she buried her face in her hands.
"I'm sorry," wept Mercury.
Destiny wanted to stop, or maybe to go in and try to figure out what this was about, but she couldn't stop walking. Her pace just kept accelerating.
Next, on the right, she caught a glimpse of the Entity - the main body, not a manifestation - prowling around a distortion in the air, a crack in the world. But now she passed the doorway even faster.
"Destiny, slow down," Anya shouted.
Destiny realised how fast she was moving and couldn't slow down. Anya was falling rapidly behind her. She tried to stop, but her legs disobeyed her, striding on. She saw Anya trip and fall, and then disappear back into the dark.
Next, a glimpse of a long table. She remembered it as the place Marinus Bul and the Entity had tried to recruit her and David all those months ago. But now, the Entity's generals were gathered. The main body sat at the head of the table and offered instructions she couldn't make out. Some fell to their knees in servitude. Others rose in anger, only for manifestations to emerge from the shadows, pass their hands through them, and absorb them until they were nothing.
Her speed was terrifying. If she hit anything, she'd break like glass.
Then, the machine, large and impervious. Crystals shone within it. The Entity approached and shed its armour. And it was grey, swirling, and terrible. And it was everywhere and everything and every-
Destiny tripped and skimmed across the ground. It was a roof of cold, bronze slabs of stone, and she was careening towards its end. She tried to get a grip, but the slabs were too smooth, and too tightly packed to leave a gap. Nothing had ever damaged these stones. Nothing ever could. She slid over the edge.
Then, as she saw Nexus unfold beneath her in all its patchwork expanse, a hand reached from the sky and grabbed her own. She was dragged back onto the roof.
"Thanks Anya," she said.
"Oh sure, thank her."
Destiny's breath left her.
A man with dark, messy hair and a patchy stubble stood over her. He wore a dark blue jacket over a leather chestplate and white shirt. An unbroken gauntlet sat on his wrist, crackling with the energy of the Hollow Emerald.
"David…"
He pressed a hand to her cheek. "I said I didn't want to lose you again, so I won't."
They kissed and held each other tight, until they heard a boom. The Tower shook beneath them. They staggered apart and looked around for the source of the apparent danger.
She looked around at the sky and at the ground and saw nothing. Industry and fields and forest below. Only yellow and orange and wisps of cloud above. And then she saw it.
The sky was shrinking in. The horizon was getting nearer. The world was turning slowly in on one point. And as it did so, she saw patches of grey static spreading like moss mold rot. Like maggots waiting to burst forth, the Entity was becoming everywhere. And it spread beyond Nexus. She saw cities nations worlds appear in the sky and wither away into its form. One body, one being, endless and final.
And now it was spreading onto the roof of its own Tower, consuming, eating, debasing its creation.
"Destiny…"
She turned. David staggered towards her, across a patch of the seething grey. The grey was spreading across him too, and melting away as it did so, taking away soft, peeling chunks. Like rotting fruit, eaten by maggots.
"I…"
It reached his jaw. It devoured his face. He reached out. He fell forward. Melted into the nothing that everything had become was becoming will become.
She fell to her knees, choking back tears of horror and loss. It would reach her next and there was nothing she could do. She scrunched her eyes shut. She waited.
"Destiny. Destiny, wake up!"
It was Anya's voice. Destiny couldn't feel her presence. She opened her eyes. She was back before the portal, lying on her back.
"Thank Notch, you're awake," sighed Anya.
Anya turned and eyed the image of Freak, who was cracking his knuckles obsessively over by the edge of the hilltop. Destiny rose up.
"What the shit was that?" she asked.
"That's what will happen if we don't stop it, soon."
"No, what was that?" she asked, more angrily.
She took a step towards Freak, but he didn't seem to notice.
"I needed to make sure you got just how serious this is. Excuse my slight artistic liberties."
He was still looking away.
"You had, no right."
"Hm?"
Freak turned around, confused.
"You had no damned right to use him like that!"
Tears were flowing down her face. She fell to her knees. She'd had him back, just for a second. It didn't matter that it was a lie, he had been back and now he was gone again. The pain was all fresh and all new and just as bad as before.
Anya laughed harshly.
"You used David. Ho-ho-holy fucking shit." She rubbed her temples. "The second I think you can't get any more pathetic, you just go and overachieve, don't you, Freak?"
"I-"
"Get out of here, now. We're done. You've got your fear fix, you've had your fun. So, unless you're going to come in person so we can kick your ass good and proper, don't bother coming back."
Freak groaned.
"Humans! So myopic! Don't you see why I had to use him?"
Ignoring the still-weeping Destiny, he stormed up to Anya and sneered at her.
"I need her to understand what everyone and everything is going to see and feel and lose if that thing wins. I'm sorry if I hurt the poor duck's feelings, but this is bigger than her or you or me. That anguish she feels right now, that is all there will be at the end of the world, and then there will be nothing but the Entity. If she can't bear it, maybe she should either help me stop that from happening, or just off herself now."
He turned away, furious. Destiny stopped crying. She wiped her eyes and sat up.
"He's right," she said.
"He certainly is not!" Anya protested.
Destiny ignored her and looked at Freak.
"What's your plan?"
"There's the issue. Beyond the fact that we can use the crystals to somehow harm things like the Entity, there isn't much to go by. And harming isn't killing. Other than that, there is one thing left: The Entity's one fear - one of two technically if you count your mage there - and that's the dimensional scar located in its throne room."
"So, where do I come in? What do you want me to do?"
"At this point, trying to jam a crystal in there, hitting it with magic and hoping it does something is the best we can hope for. The magic part is where you come in. I'm reasonably confident that I can get you up to that point." Freak sighed. "Issue is that I don't happen to have crystals on hand, can't even appropriate one from the shipments because there are no shipments anymore. The machine is scheduled to come online in just a few days."
Destiny didn't say anything.
"How difficult is it to get crystals with our guys?" Anya asked, with a contemptuous sidelong glance at Freak.
"Unless Fire had a secret stash that we don't know about, Steve's the only one I know has access to any crystals. Sadly, they're in his ender chest. We need to trick him into opening that up."
"Is he easy to trick?" Anya asked.
"Kind of, yeah, but Jennifer's not and they're pretty much inseparable. There's also the issue that Shadow can apparently hear and see most everything going on in the build. It drives Kay nuts. Whole place is on high alert."
The gears were turning in her head.
"So, we'll need Shadow distracted, we'll need Steve to be in a situation where he'll feel safe to open the chest, and we'll need to ensure the others can't interfere."
She and Anya locked eyes.
"You said Fire had a stash of poisons and sedatives," Anya remembered.
"I'll get a few of them together in the officer's lounge. We'll drink for a while, move the conversation to the crystals. No reason to be so secretive about them now - the enemy knows where we are. Steve'll pull them out..."
"Then you drug them all. Slip off with the crystals."
"I'll kick up a fuss, make it sound like an enemy attack. Slip off in the confusion. Maybe you," she pointed at Freak, "Could make a few appearances around the base, get Shadow, Kay and anyone else I can't drug off my back. That doable?"
Freak shrugged exaggeratedly. "Sure, sure. Just need to not get myself obliterated by your mage but I'll figure something out. Just let me know when you need that distraction with the crystal. Maybe notify me a few hours before so I can get into position quickly."
"Okay," Destiny breathed. "And we'll slip out through this portal. Maybe destroy it after us so they can't follow. Well, there's the bones of a plan. We'll hash out the details as we go."
And with that she felt a great burden lifted. She didn't have to choose between the King in Ash or the unknowable mage anymore. She had her own path. And she knew where it ended. In betrayal, and in death, but also in a duty fulfilled. She would see it through.
