Chapter 70: Reunion
Perspective: Shadow
The hours after Destiny's "betrayal" had gone fast. With Kay gone, the coven had fortunately become a lot easier to handle, so Shadow had ordered them to heal the drugged leadership members to the best of their ability. She knew her brother's poisons well and she knew that this particular one was resistant to healing magic, which would at most take people from knocked out to very drowsy, after that it was up to the individual's liver to do the rest.
Shadow stood in the officer lounge along with Astro and Tyron, who were now assessing the situation. Couches and stray wool blocks from the spleef arena had been converted into makeshift beds to house the still-recovering victims of Destiny. Urist fared the best out of everyone physically, his dwarven resilience having fully fought off the effects of the sedative. However, ever since the incident, the dwarf seemed visibly distressed, apparently the situation had brought up some bad memories from his past.
The other four people who were able to stand were the Brines, Rathina and Seth, the latter of whom seemed more confused than anything since he had been thrown head-first into this mess of a situation.
"And you just let her go?" asked Astro, eyes drifting between his feet and the bar.
It had taken this long for the question to come up, but Shadow still took several seconds to answer. She wasn't happy with what happened.
"Yes, I did. And I let Kay get away too, that one was not intentional though."
Shadow took another pause, gathering her thoughts. So far nobody knew why she had let Destiny go, just that it happened, because after all "didn't see" was not an excuse Shadow could make. She crossed her arms, partially to make herself feel safer. Her shadow spoke a different language, Wodahs' arms were outstretched in defiance.
She continued: "I saw what she wanted to do. She stole the crystals because she somehow found out she could kill the Entity with them. Sadly, she found this out through Freak of all people, and this could all be some cruel scheme of his… but I don't think that's the case."
"And did - do you think she'll actually succeed?" asked Jennifer in something caught half-way between a groan and a yawn. Steve looked at Jennifer, frowned a little, then rubbed his temples.
"I at least thought there was a possibility. If Freak truly turned against the Entity, he must have found something that threatens him directly. All worlds merging alone is not going to do that. Whatever its true plan is, Freak doesn't see himself coming out in a good position. He was here. He could have done who knows what. But instead, all he did was to tell me to let Destiny go."
The more Shadow thought about the situation the more she doubted her decision. Was this really the only way? Was it even a way? At least the thoughts kept her anchored in the here and now, so she didn't need to think about other things.
"Listen, Shadow, I'm trying to be nicer," began Astro. "So, I'm going to go over there, get myself a drink, and pray the conversation has moved on from this by the time I come back. We have bigger fish to fry…"
He turned and began to walk away. Tyron, after a short, mumbled conversation with Rathina, spoke up.
"He's right. Rathina, tell them what you and Glowstar found while scouting."
"We found the portal activated," said the dark-haired girl. "Destiny didn't make much effort to cover her tracks, so I followed her on dragon-back. By the time we arrived, footsteps and scanner-readings indicated Destiny had already reached her destination and re-entered Nexus. Unfortunately, the portal was deactivated so it looks like the enemy has closed off that route. The portal was also noticeably different from the one she escaped through, but we can't identify a reason."
"Perhaps a different iteration," nodded Seth, trying to pretend he understood what they were talking about. "Ceaseless march of technology and all that."
Shadow said: "If that's the portal she told us about before, she's in the Tower. Whether that means anything is left to be seen. From what I've seen the general Shelter population has calmed down, except for Raphoe and his posse. They caught wind of Kay escaping and they are calling for something, what exactly is difficult to see under their King in Ash paroles."
"I wish it was just Raphoe," snorted Astro, just returning from the bar. "Those hunters Kay brought in are demanding a full meeting of leadership with themselves in attendance. They made their deal with Kay, and now that he's both been deposed and flown the coup, they seem terrified we're going to hurl them back into that frozen wasteland they come from. I'm going to assume Raphoe has been agitating. He's devoted, I'll grant him that."
Shadow was about to reply when she noticed something at the edge of her perception. A messenger was sprinting down the corridor to the officer lounge as if pursued by a wild beast. Shadow mentally reached out and made the door swing open in front of the messenger, who stumbled into the room.
"Lookouts spotted some manner of comet heading straight for the shelter!"
Looks were exchanged, Astro shouted: "By the Mods! Shadow, teleport us up there. Let's find out what we've got to deal with now."
Shadow gathered all her focus to cast the spell, several runes flashed on her skin. In the blink of an eye, they were suddenly standing in the open field in front of the Shelter's entrance, logistics workers were running around, scrambling to find places to hide. The messenger hadn't lied, there was a bright dot on the horizon of the morning sky, steadily growing bigger. Whatever it was, it came from the direction of the Tower, and it was fast.
"Is that artillery?" Wondered Tyron.
Shadow focused again. "Give me a moment, I'll tell you exactly what it is."
She expanded her perception again, the Void called out to her as she did, countless impressions impacted on her consciousness like large grains of hail. Just a little more and she'd be able to see. The shape of the object seemed to match Tyron's guess of artillery, or at least it couldn't be far off. When her sense of magic expanded with the rest of her perception Shadow realized that this was not a projectile, it was a person casting a powerful pyromancy spell. In fact, she recognized the signature of the spell. She saw the notes detailing its effect in front of her mental eye as clear as the day she helped create it. Looking below the wreath of flames, Shadow could clearly see the caster's red eyes glowing brightly. That was all the confirmation she needed.
Suddenly, Shadow felt like a weight was being lifted off her. The Void retreated. She couldn't wait any longer and took off using a flight spell of her own. She met her brother just as he crossed one of the mountains surrounding the Shelter and quite literally flew into his arms.
Fire exclaimed: "Shadow! It's good to see you. How are you holding up?" When an invisible second pair of arms wrapped around him, he added: "And of course it's good to see you to Wodahs."
Shadow replied: "Good! Too good actually. Way too good compared to how I felt just a few seconds ago."
Shadow let go of her brother and they slowly floated downwards, as they descended Fire said: "I think I know what you mean. I saw what happened to you while I was gone, through Claw's eyes. I think we'll both need some time to talk, but sadly there is an apocalypse on the horizon."
Shadow nodded. As important as this reunion was for them, Fire was right. Shadow's feet hit the ground first, Fire followed, burning the moss off some loose rocks before his flaming wings faded away.
Suddenly, Fire found himself unable to advance. Shadow saw a transparent, glass-like cube surrounding her brother. Her eyes darted around, looking for the source, and quickly found it. Astro floated in the sky some ways off. She contemplated calling out to him to stop when she realized what he was hoping to achieve. A line of troops was forming outside the Shelter and slowly advancing towards them. More importantly, a speck in the sky flashed in the first rays of early morning light. Tyron, stone wings propelling him downward and Kir in hand, soared straight down at Fire. Astro was just holding the target in place for a kill shot.
Shadow watched a smile creep up on Fire's lips, did he look proud? He definitely looked proud. Then, with a quick movement of his hand he conjured an explosion that shattered the left side of the cube, then took some quick steps, displacing himself enough that Tyron couldn't correct his course enough to hit him. Tyron only barely managed not to crash into what remained of Astro's force field.
While Tyron regained his balance, Fire said: "It's good to see all of you again."
Since the line of soldiers didn't stop advancing, Shadow pointed towards her brother's head and added: "Red eyes! It's not Claw!"
Suddenly, one of the walls of the cube shot forward and shattered against Fire's chest. The other two moved over to defend the still-staggered Tyron. Astro swooped down, Amicus in hand, ready to strike. Then, at the last moment, Fire looked up, and Astro either heard Shadow or saw the evidence himself. He stopped mid-flight and gawped downwards.
"Red eyes… Fire?" Astro asked, still about a foot above Fire's head and completely upside-down. "Is that you?"
Fire laughed. "Just the one. Nice job on the defense by the way, very fast response time."
Astro laughed and righted himself before dropping down to the ground. A very genuine smile kept threatening to dominate his face.
"Thanks, Shadow just kind of flew away so we had to improvise."
"Astro," interrupted Tryon as he pulled Kir into a defensive stance. "Are you sure it's him?"
"Yes."
"Because… you know I've never seen Claw up close before. No one told me about the eye color thing before."
"Oh, sorry, yeah. No, it's definitely Fire."
"Thank you."
Tyron ran up and bear-hugged the Mencur-Besh as Kir chirped away in the ears of everyone nearby. While Astro's attempts to wave the soldiers away failed to stop them from advancing, their formation quickly broke down, and it became less of a march so much as an excited jog.
Fire returned Tyron's hug and said to no one in particular: "You can't imagine how good it feels to be in control of my body again."
"You can't imagine how good it feels to have some good news," said Tyron. "Things have been really stressful for the last few hours… days… weeks. Basically, since you got possessed, I have had one evening off, and that was overshadowed by internal drama crap."
Shadow knew what conversation was about to happen before Fire spoke again.
Fire asked: "So, Tyron. I heard Kay made you second-in-command. I imagine that's where the stress comes from?"
"Mods…" muttered Astro.
"Well, Fire," began Tyron. "I… was second-in-command. Now, I'm commander."
He and Astro exchanged nervous looks, each daring the other to finish the job. Eventually, a look of terrible realization came across Astro's face, and Tyron became distracted by that.
"Kay gone, Book gone too," explained Kir.
"Destiny's dead," said Astro. "You're here, and she's not, so…"
He turned away and looked rather blankly in the direction of the Shelter. Tyron hung his head.
"She went out with Freak to take the Entity down," explained the Dragoknight.
Fire seemed to take a moment to take in this new information. "I think we might want to take this to the command room, or wherever you do meetings now, evidently more things have changed than I know. I have some information to share as well."
Shadow gave the gathered soldiers an apologetic look before teleporting Astro, Tyron, and Fire back to the officer lounge. It was astonishing how much easier the spell felt, even easier than before she came to Nexus. Something about just seeing Fire again had somehow made things normal again. This confirmed that there was something very suspect about her whole situation, something she would have to investigate later.
A moment after they appeared, a series of startled cries rang out from the recovering members of leadership, which were quickly met by Shadow and Astro assuring everyone that everything was fine, and Fire had returned.
"Fire!" exclaimed Steve from a sofa. "Good to have you back!"
He staggered up and clapped Fire on the shoulder.
"But also, how?" he laughed.
Shadow heard Ozen, who had just woken up and was trying to resuscitate himself with a redstone-laced coffee, mutter to Rathina.
"Do you know who this guy is?"
She shook her head.
"No, but Tyron seems happy about it."
Fire said: "I'll give you the short version, more questions later. I'm the one who built this place and I used to be in charge until I got possessed by the Entity during a failed infiltration mission."
"Thanks, all caught up," Rathina said with a wry smile and a raised thumb. Ozen blinked rapidly.
Fire looked around, scanning the room for familiar faces.
"On the note of the Entity, Destiny succeeded. I didn't know it was her until a minute ago, but she threw the Entity into the Void. Just now we have a different problem. Freak has made a play for power. He's impersonating the Entity and killed the Ender. It seems the world merging plan is still in action, just without the Entity absorbing everyone after the worlds merge."
"Without what?!" Rung out Amanda's voice from across the room.
Shadow answered in her brother's stead: "I've had this running theory about the Entity, but I suppose now we have confirmation. Its eventual goal is to gather enough power to absorb all of existence and impose its order on it. That must be what Freak didn't want, why he recruited Destiny."
Shadow looked around the room again, she had gotten somewhat used to always perceiving everything around her. Now she had to consciously put effort into it. It was very refreshing to have that kind of control again.
The door swung open and in came two people. One was Urist, the other was Lucy, who was using the dwarf as a support to keep herself upright. She was evidently far from over the effects of the sedative. At the sight of Fire both of them ran forward as fast as their configuration allowed.
Urist called out: "Fire! So glad to have ye back!"
Lucy stumbled forward, almost tripping over before Fire caught her.
"Good to see you too." He said.
Lucy replied slowly, trying not to stumble over her words due to drowsiness: "I really missed you." She stopped, like she didn't want to continue. "But there is something you need to know. Kay, he escaped from his cell and stole a dimensional tracker. He used the portal room to get to another world. It took us until just now to reconstruct the target coordinates."
Lucy handed a piece of printout paper to Fire, on it was a set of coordinates that looked awfully familiar, it was their world. Shadow froze, for a moment she thought she'd return to the Void again, but no such thing happened. Still, Kay stealing a tracker and going to their world meant she had to assume the worst.
Fire shook his head in disbelief. "He's actually going to try to kill me. Probably thinks Claw is still in charge. Shadow, take me to the portal room. I need to defend myself."
"How quickly do you think you can track him down?" asked Tyron, grabbing Fire by the shoulder.
Fire replied: "He will do that for me. I need to be in my other body when he arrives and fend him off."
"We'll send a squad through to back you up," said Tyron. "Astro, Urist take a detachment and head straight through. Steve, Jennifer start rounding up the leaders of the Shelter's departments for a meeting. If Raphoe starts anything you have my leave to arrest him on the spot. Lucy, Seth, Rathina, you're with me."
There was no more time to be wasted, Shadow performed the teleportation to the portal room. It took Fire very little time to spot the targeting console and enter the coordinates. The portal would remain open after he stepped through so the reinforcements could follow.
Suddenly unsure, she asked: "Are you sure he didn't end up on the server?"
Fire replied: "I had a lot of time to think about the science behind worlds while looking through Claw's eyes. It seems our world and the server's world are too close together to be individually targetable. It will take me to the server where I can log out and return to my other body. Kay probably emerged somewhere around the manor if he was targeting my location. I'm alive, so he evidently hasn't reached me yet."
Shadow once again had to watch her brother leave into the uncertain. She would have liked to come along but her other body would not be of much use in a fight, frail as it was.
"Be careful Peter." She said as her brother stepped through the portal.
