"ENOUGH!" Mekegare said, panic and frustration flashing across his face. He raised his hand into the air and clenched it into a fist. The structure around them started to rumble, quaking with a growing intensity until the walls themselves burst open. The panels buckled and tore as thousands of the machine-husks poured in from all over the Hold. They burst forth from the holes in the walls like a swarm of termites, rushing past their daemonic master and lunging towards Admu.
The necrotic cyborg drake that menaced Leman began billowing toxic smoke and spewing jets of plasma, gouging the metal with its superheated breath. Leman dodged the lumbering beast's attacks with ease, re-acclimating to a style of fighting he had not practiced in millennia.
"This brings me back to my days fighting Ice Wyrms in the caverns of Asaheim." Leman said, rolling underneath the dragon's swiping claw and plunging his sword into its belly. The creature recoiled, leaping backwards and screeching in pain. It seemed that despite it apparently being a mechanical construct animated by warp sorcery, Leman's enchanted blade allowed him to inflict pain on the hideous beast.
I must end this soon. Leman thought. What in the Hells was Admu thinking just running off like that? I'll be giving her a stern rebuke after all of this… after I ensure she's alright.
The entire hall began to shake as the air was filled with a blood-curdling howl. Leman covered his ears, and even the mechanical drake seemed to twist and coil in discomfort.
What was that noise? It sounded like… no, it couldn't be… I have to find Admu, quickly. Leman thought.
Suddenly, the undead wyrm straightened in an unnatural motion, as if lifted by a puppeteer's string. Its head swiveled towards the source of the noise, pausing for a moment. Then it screeched in surprise as it felt its head being pulled and then slammed into the wall. Leman had leapt onto the creature and grabbed hold of its horns and was grappling with the beast's skull from behind. It thrashed and howled as it tried to break free from his grasp.
"Thought you could ignore me? You got in my way. Now I'm going to finish this." Leman said, a savage grin painted across his face.
Admu struggled against the unceasing tide of metal wraiths. They clawed and tore at her skin fruitlessly, yet even with the immense power coursing through her she could not bring herself to destroy them. She heard their voices even louder now, as if their torment and anguish were her own. Their pain and madness is what powered the abhorrent daemon, and now that power was hers as well. Her mind was swirling with an uncountable tempest of emotions, and she could not tell which were hers or something else's. She opened her eyes and saw a massive figure rise from the masses of machine-husks. It was a gargantuan, undead Ironkin, like the one she had met on the Kin's ship two nights ago. Like the rest of them, its metal hide was torn and mangled, with cables and wires dripping with corroded oil hanging out of its chest. It began charging towards her, barreling through the swarm like a crazed animal.
"Yes, my thralls! Disembowel the usurper!" Mekegare said, laughing to hide his suppressed panic.
Admu's instincts shouted at her to attack, to eviscerate the thing limb from limb, but all she could think of was laughing with Vêlyma and Ykkhí on the shuttle. She didn't want to hurt their friends, their family. She closed her eyes, unsure of what to do and awaiting the worst… yet nothing seemed to happen. She opened her eyes. To her shock, the giant Ironkin was standing with its back to her, single-handedly holding the immense tide of undead machines back.
"What!?" Mekegare said.
"What are you-" Admu said.
"Warp… creature" The giant construct said, with a degraded voice between bouts of static. "You must... stop… Machineblight… save Votann… no matter… what is… in your way."
"But… I don't… I don't want to kill you all…" She said, tears welling up in her fiendish-looking eyes. "All of this power… and it's just made me more like him."
"Do not… hesitate… We are… already… dead…" The giant Ironkin said.
Admu's eyes widened.
"I can… feel… your intent… you... are not like... him. The Machineblight… tormented us… laughed at… our suffering. You… weep for us…" The Ironkin said, the joints in his arms and legs beginning to crack and buckle under the weight of the horde. "No future… without… Ancestor Core… you must… defeat him… you are… our only… hope…"
Admu breathed deeply, clenching and then unclenching her fists. The anguish and uncertainty on her face was washed away by an expression of determination.
"I will." She said.
In seconds, the maelstrom of voices in her mind grew quiet. She rose to her feet and outstretched her hand. She balled her fingers into a fist and clenched tightly. Suddenly, the horde of machine-husks began to react. Some of the husks began attacking the ones next to them, knocking them over and tearing out their innards.
"W-what's going on? Why are my thralls disobeying me!?" Mekegare shouted.
The horde had turned on itself, devolving into self-contained brawls of feral, out-of-control machines. They cannibalized one another, the contradicting influences of two dominating souls too much for the enthralled husks to handle. Some even tore out their own processors and circuitry, finally being granted enough freedom to end their suffering.
Mekegare's eyes darted back and forth as we watched his enslaved machines destroy each other, powerless to stop the dismantling of his army. Then his eyes turned to the center of the chaos, where he saw Admu. Her wings unfurled from her back, and the crown of lightning on her head crackled as she walked unimpeded through the mayhem towards Mekegare. The daemon's face distorted with rage, his rotten teeth bearing in a twisted scowl. A deep, unspeakable hatred bubbled up from deep inside of him.
"You… how DARE you… I will tear you limb from limb and scatter the pieces of your soul into the deepest pits of the Chaos Wastes!" He shouted, spittle flying from his mouth.
He readied every corrupted weapon system he had, aiming gun barrels, missile pods, and energy coils all towards the odious creature that threatened to supplant him. The air was saturated with a hail of poison lead, beams of necrotic energy, and warheads leaving innumerable trails of noxious fumes like the threads of a spider's web. Admu turned into a shadowy blur, dashing across the battlefield so quickly it was like she was in multiple places at once. Mekegare made a sweeping strike with his beam weapon, lighting the floor beneath her alight with baleful flame. Admu launched herself into the air, tearing towards the daemon in a chaotic but deliberate pattern. He tried to launch a barrage of missiles before the impact, but it was too late. The warheads scattered in all directions as Admu careened into the daemon, knocking it off of its mechanical feet and sending them both tumbling backwards. Admu tore into Mekegare's metal armor with the talons on her hind legs, holding him down and gouging deep slashes into the thick plating. She delivered a barrage of punches to the daemon's face and torso, denting and warping its armored plating.
Regaining his senses, Mekegare struck Admu with his largest claw, releasing her grip on him and sending her flying backwards. He unleashed yet more firepower from his arsenal of weaponry, yet Admu had already recovered and begun strafing from his line of sight. He rose on his myriad of mechanical legs, scuttling to his feet. Admu moved like a speeding shadow, the bullets and missiles simply passing through her after-images as she evaded the daemon's attacks. She shot towards him, sliding to a halt right beneath his right arm with her fist drawn back. She unleashed a right hook straight into the daemon's side with such primal force that the shockwave passed straight through his armor and concussed the air behind him. Foul air and spittle flew from the daemon's mouth, its infernal lungs nearly crushed by the power of Admu's strike. He stumbled backwards and attempted to regain his bearings, but Admu lurched forward with her leg raised. The muscles of her thigh tightened like steel cables as the top of her foot cracked against the daemon's head, twisting it to the side at an unnatural angle. The daemon reeled in a dazed stupor, then grabbed his head and snapped it back into place with a sickening crack. Mekegare let out a furious howl, his eyes burning with infernal energy, and charged at Admu with his claws bared. She dodged one claw as it slammed down into the floor, then sidestepped when he thrust a hand covered in jagged edges at her.
Roaring with malefic fury, the daemon's composure shattered. The dented and torn metal plates all over his wounded body slid and shifted out of place, revealing every single daemonic weapon and projectile it had. Missiles, bullets, warheads, and beams of warp-cursed energy flew in all directions, which Admu dodged with ease. The walls and ceiling were battered by waves of firepower and rocked by explosions, causing the strained and ancient superstructure to buckle and warp. Admu looked around in a panic, realizing that the structure surrounding her was about to give way. Mekegare, his judgment clouded by fury and wounded pride, ignored the collapsing walls and charged straight towards Admu. He grabbed her arm and his mechanical claws clamped around her neck in a tight grip. Unphased, Admu dug her claws into the daemon's head, carving deep marks into its metal mask. The two grappled back and forth in a mad frenzy, smashing into the walls and support columns.
A chunk broke off from the rapidly deteriorating ceiling, crashing into the ground and punching a hole straight through. The floor began to shake violently, then jerked down as the supports beneath them buckled. Large cracks spread across the floor as sections of rock and steel broke apart and dragged the surrounding edges into the rapidly widening chasm. Admu slammed her foot into the daemon's chest, kicking them apart. Finally aware of his surroundings, Mekegare scrambled on his mechanical legs to escape the collapsing floor, appearing like a spider attempting to scuttle up the side of a spout. Admu gritted her teeth and scowled, outstretching her wings and shooting up into the air. She turned on a dime, propelling herself down at the daemon with a single stroke of her chimeric wings. Like a kinetic missile she crashed into the bloated cyborg, knocking him off of his feet and slamming into a large piece of falling debris. They rebounded off of it, shattering the chunk of metal and concrete and sending them both hurtling down into the darkness below.
Dóri thrust his plasma-drill at the feral machine-husk, but its erratic, twitching movements made hitting it difficult. It was hunched over like a malnourished ape, its decrepit form barely lit by the glow of their work lamps. Oil dripped from its torn innards, and its eyes glowed with a dangerous intent. It lashed out once again, flinging itself at the Kin with its serrated claws outstretched. Dóri blocked its mauling hands with his power tool and shoved it aside, moving out of the way and trying to remain between it and his occupied siblings.
"Ykkhí! Status!" Dóri said between labored breaths.
"The cooling bank is trashed! I have to rewire the exhaust heat somehow!" Ykkhí said, his tools embedded in Vêlyma's mechanical arm.
"Rewire the exhaust to my central coolant system!" Vêlyma said.
"But the overheating would-" Ykkhí said.
"I can take one or two shots before my heat sink fries." Vêlyma said, banging her chest with her fist. "Just do it!"
"Alright!" Ykkhí said.
Dóri and the undead Ironkin circled one another, the Kin's heavy magnetic boots plodding on the steel floor while the beast's trailing claws scraped against it. Dóri waved the flame of his plasma tool in front of him, reminiscent of a distant ancestor warding off wild predators with a torch. The hunched figure recoiled slightly, scratching and clawing at the floor. It let out a horrid, metallic screech and lunged forward, wrapping its spindly claws around the barrel of the plasma cutter. Dóri struggled against the creature's unnatural strength, but his grip was faltering.
"Done!" Ykkhí shouted, pulling out his tools from Vêlyma's arm.
The inner mechanisms were still exposed, but there was no time for re-sealing. She immediately rose to her feet and powered up the lascannon, raising her arm and pointing it at the creature. The air was filled with an electric whirring noise as the lascannon's capacitors filled with energy, preparing to fire. Within the shattered cranium of the feral machine, a glint of dim intelligence flashed as it recognized the immediate danger. With supernatural speed, it instinctually recoiled just before the searing beam of red light fired from the barrel of the lascannon. The laser volley grazed the machine's skull and passed straight through its arm, melting straight through and carving it in half. Vêlyma fell to one knee as her integrated heat sink struggled to recover from the excess strain and thin wisps of steam jettisoned from the gaps in her metal casing. The twisted husk's severed appendage clattered on the floor, twitching with lingering unlife. The creature howled either in pain or anger, tearing Dóri's plasma cutter from his hands and lunging towards the direction of the beam. Just before its serrated claws could dig into her metal flesh, Ykkhí smashed the side of the husk's cranial casing with a large wrench.
It stumbled backwards slightly, then scrambled upright and shifted its attack towards the youngest Kin. Then, from behind, Dóri leapt onto the machine-husk's back and gripped onto the shattered holes in its casing, dragging the creature backwards with his weight. Ykkhí rushed forward and wrapped his arms around its two remaining appendages, trying to hold it in place.
"Vêlyma… now!" Dóri shouted between his gritted teeth.
Vêlyma struggled to her feet, powering up the lascannon's capacitors once more. She visibly struggled to raise her arm and point the barrel of the weapon, aiming straight for the center of its cranial casing. Suddenly, the creature seemed to freeze. The feral twitching and diseased swaying ceased. For a brief, immeasurable moment, Vêlyma and the husk locked visual sensors and stared into one another. A series of flashing lights beamed into her mind, just before the beam of her lascannon penetrated the undead machine's skull. Fire, electric sparks, and pieces of shredded metal flew from the machine's shattered cranium as the concentrated light beam fried its internal mechanisms. The husk fell completely limp, smoke billowing from the molten slag that used to be its head, and it fell to the ground.
Vêlyma fell to her knees, her chest compartment leaking smoke and stray sparks, though nothing comparable to the husk she had just liberated from unlife. Her torso slumped forward, and her arms fell limp at her side.
"By the ancestors… we did it!" Dóri said, before a worried expression flashed across his face. "Vêlyma?"
Dóri and Ykkhí rushed to their sister's side, who remained silent and motionless.
"What's wrong? Is it the heat sink?" Ykkhí asked with a frantic tone.
"Wh-what?" Vêlyma said, as if coming out of a stupor. "No… no, my cooling banks are… fine. Just… just some superficial damage."
She slowly rose to her feet with her brothers' help.
"I'm… I'm fine, really." She said, attempting to assuage her brothers' concerns.
"Alright… well we better finish removing the purifier soon. I don't think we can take on another one of those things." Dóri said.
He picked up his plasma cutter and reluctantly returned to work alongside Ykkhí, as Vêlyma watched over them in silence. Physically, her internal systems were strained but not permanently damaged. Some minor repairs and regular maintenance and she would be back to regular functioning in short order. Yet, in her mind, she was still reeling. Amidst the chaos and tumult of her roiling thoughts, one thing rose to the top above all the others. A message transmitted moments before destruction, a message only she would receive. The husk had spoken lucidly, in a voice that was vaguely familiar to her but not enough to put a name to. Regardless, she knew it was no trick, no sorcerous deception. The single word that it had uttered rang throughout her neural network like a deafening bell, the meaning of which she would not understand until later: hope.