Winter Dread, page 21
“Let him,” I said. “You have to let him.”
And the man touched my forehead. “I see what you see. I do not like what I see.”
He vanished in a flash, and so did our prisoner. We looked at each other, shocked. Terrible, wailing screams echoed through the caverns. Trin covered her ears, and Frenk went to her to do the same.
I’d never heard anything like it, and I really didn’t want to ever again.
There was another flash of light this time. Mist formed again before us, and then it was as though the rock moved before me. A small pedestal rose from the ground.
“They will no longer hurt anyone with what they created from me,” the voice said. “Take this in compensation for what they have done. Do not worry for what you drew from me; the kenosi I lost there he replaced with his true-life energy.” A small vial formed in a glowing ball of light. “It is only slightly different from what the doctors have been giving you,” he said. “I do think you would have discovered it soon enough. But this will help. They shouldn’t have done what they did. They were wrong to cross me.”
Inside the vial was a swirling mixture of golden fluids, purple flecks mixing around and around. Then the man was gone, the swirling mists with him. There was nothing left but the stalagmite and the vial.
Above it was a timer: one minute.
I was about to pick it up when Frenk asked, “You’re sure?”
I looked to him. “I’ve never been this concerned about a vial. If what he really did was what we heard, then this is the cure we need for the front line. For Kan, Venkath, and every one of us.”
“We need to get it to the lab.”
“There’s no time for a lab,” I said, “it’s on a timer.”
“Crap.”
I picked up the vial. This was one of the most gemlike things I’d seen here in ages. Real loot for something that seemed to have happened without any of us really doing anything. The poison in the first place, the sickness. We had no idea who these guys were, but we at least might have something that would cure it.
I popped the top off, and without hesitating any more, downed the liquid. It burned; it burned through me like fire, spreading from my throat outwards, my stomach, my veins. Now I was the one who screamed.
I smacked my head again. When I went down this time, it felt like I was going down for good.
KYLE RANZ HEALTH - 3%
I seemed to drift into something I hadn’t been in before. A room formed before me, almost like the dream I had of being back on Earth, but this was different. I rested on a wall. The pain ripped through me. I tried not to bang my head more. I reached up and held it.
Then saw her . . . the creature I thought Luke was. I laughed at that. There was no way that he could have been the same species she was. Now I saw it. I saw the differences. The colours, the features, though they moved and morphed in here as much as the colours did. I tried to focus on her, to see more of her.
“You are quite the young man, Kyle. When I pushed you onto this path, I had no idea the pain you would go through or the lengths you would push through to help those around you.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“My names never mattered to anyone as much as it seems to matter to you.”
“You know why,” I said. “Names have power. No one here knows what you are, who you are, and I can’t tell them because I don’t know.”
“No, you do not, but then again you do. You all do. I am more part of you than you think.”
“You’re denti, so you are the denti queen?”
“Yes and no,” she said, stepping closer to me. Once before me, she held out a hand. “I will stop the pain at least.”
I reached up and took hold of her hand, just like she said. The pain then disappeared, and I was at least able to stand properly.
“I have so many questions,” I said.
“I know. This planet like many around it are sentient creatures. They are as beautiful as you are to me, and I wish to save all of you. You have a long road still ahead of you, and many trials. I believe you can and will face them with the love and honour you have inside you.”
“Defending the rift?”
“It was always my fight, but I knew I wouldn’t always be able to do it alone. I began many years ago to train and teach those who I believed could continue the fight and eventually win. I grew weaker and weaker, not strong enough to even guide them in the battle filled, and it was left to men, men like Ozai Venkath and Xirob Veti.”
I cringed at her use of his name. “I don’t know anyone with that name anymore,” I said.
Her eyes softened. “Do not forsake him. Let him come to you when he is ready.”
I pushed her away, not wanting any more riddles, or tests, or anything. I wished all of this was over.
But she gently tugged me back. “You do not just wish for this to be over. Because if you did, you wouldn’t be fighting right now.”
I closed my eyes. She was right. Everything I was, was to fight. No matter how hard it was, or what it took.
“If I go back to them now, I’m cured from the sickness. I’ll have something inside me that will let me help them, all of them.”
“Yes, Armastai, the planet’s core has seen to it that he’s fixed what should have been for someone else.”
“You’re a god here, aren’t you?” I asked.
She looked at me, her hair almost floating around her face. Ethereal, silky. “Almost a god in your eyes. But a very weak one at the moment.”
I thought about it, how things had been developing, but she brought the view of the rift back up for me.
I could see how far it stretched; how many were fighting? Thousands. There were literally thousands of megas on that line. I swallowed. We were such a tiny component for the war, so tiny. “How can I make a difference out there?” I asked. I was stunned. “The rift’s been here for many years, you’ve been fighting it and losing, and the more you lose, the less you have to fight with. If we start to close the rift, will you regain your energy to fight?”
“You know I would.”
“So this really isn’t about winning by force alone, it’s bit by bit. I think I can work with that.”
“You already made a huge difference. If section ten had been lost today, there would have been a large breach in that sector. We would have eventually lost more and more.”
I understood how things went down. I didn’t want to admit the art of war was something I’d studied a lot of, but warfare in games, especially really hard ones, was difficult to judge. So you had to think how they could get in little by little to weed down your own forces and that would be, by one tiny gap, just one entry point, just like a germ or bug getting into your body, turning to infection.
“Then we’ll keep on doing as we are. We will keep them pushing back.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Was there any specific reason I got to see you, here again?”
“I wanted you to know everything you are doing is going in the right direction. That you should trust yourself more. You doubt yourself too much.”
I laughed at that, and I knew Xe, and Asht on the inside were doing the same. They agreed with her, and so would Hiroto and Tyto.
“I will try not to doubt myself anymore.”
“Then return to your world and your friends. I will see you again, hopefully in much better circumstances.”
“You think I can take a mega merge now?” I asked her.
She leaned forward, and with a finger touched the side of my face. “You have more than enough inside you to complete a merge and your team, the Metal Titans, has my backing. When you return to them, and to your mech, I want you to own it, and own me. No one else may know who I am, but they will, out there on that battlefield. When you get there with my crest, they will fear you the most.”
Her finger ran down my cheek to my shirt, there it burned right through and into my skin. Something else formed as she traced it. The crest indeed was something to behold. From the centre grew a flower, so pretty and in detail, and around it many wonderful spirals and lines. Language and wondrous things, small creatures like hummingbirds.
The design grew out so much that my sleeve burned away with it, and I was left standing there looking at the design as it spread down my bicep and into my forearm.
SPELL - FORTIFIED TATTOO - YOU HAVE BEEN GIFTED THE CREST OF A GOD - WHEN ACTIVE, THIS INCREASES YOUR - KENOSI X 20, AND ALL STATS X 20 - YOU MAY ONLY USE THIS ONCE PER DAY. LASTS AS LONG AS YOUR KENOSI DOES, KENOSI STRENGTH DEPENDANT.
When I looked up, she was gone, and I was looking into Tyto’s eyes. “Kyle?” he asked. “You back with us?”
I nodded. “That was a hell of a ride. We good to move now?” I stood up, brushing off the dirt. I touched my head, still a little sticky. “I really want a shower.”
“How you feeling?” Trin asked.
“Like I want to get in those mechs and nail Edward to the floor,” I said.
Tyto slapped my arm, and I winced, almost like the design I had seen burned onto my skin was a real tattoo. Not that I knew what one that size would do to me, but I was sure it would hurt. Burn, just like this.
“You really want to just get back there and get out in the mechs tomorrow?”
“There’s no other way of doing this. He thinks we’re all failing, that we’re sick. We get in, get this whatever is inside me spread to the rest of the Metal Titans, sort it out so the others will be fine. That Kan will as well. And we rest up. Back to training tomorrow, right?”
“Okay,” Tyto said. “I’m in.”
“Good, because we’ve really still got some fights coming our way.”
“You’re really going for Edward? You think you can take the lead from him?” Frenk asked.
I nodded. “I’m not a hundred percent sure how I am going to do it just yet. But I will.”
“Will you want those on his team?”
“No,” I answered honestly as we walked. “I don’t want any of them with me. I’ve asked some friends over here. Xe and the new almost friendly dungeon will get them to the base, but I wouldn’t trust any of his team.”
Frenk stopped walking, lowered his head. Trin took his arm in hers as he asked. “Would you trust me?”
“I would trust you, yes.” I looked to him, knew what he’d been through, and I held out my hand for him to take. “If it comes down to it, and we need people to add to make us a full mega, who would you have? I would need eighteen other minds, choose wisely. Your counsel there is important to me. Understand?”
Frenk shook my hand and then started to think. I let him in and carried on walking. The cave we were in now seemed to head back upwards at least, and that meant we’d soon be back at the medical hangar. The sun had indeed set, leaving nothing but night. I could see enough in the lights around here. I knew we were back where we should be. “There’s no rush,” I said to Frenk. “Think about it, because I might need to ask it of you at some point and pull in who I need, not who I know.”
“I will,” he said, and we all stepped out into darkness, heading for the medical hangar with no more issues.
The extraction process to get the cure out of me took all night, and it wasn’t easy. I was exhausted as I could ever have been the next morning. Legs and arms felt like lead. The new drug and the cure were spreading out and through to everyone in the hangar before it was time to for me to get breakfast, though. I was glad.
Dr Herin asked me many a time what had happened, how it had come to be inside me, and that I seemed to have just been better without any other medical intervention. But I thought that explanation was better for Venkath. It would be up to him then if he told others.
As the sun peeked its head out, Tyto came to me. He looked somewhat rested, cheeks rosy, and he stood taller. “You sure you want to do this today with Edward and not wait another day till you’re at least feeling better than you look?”
I cocked my head at him. “Aww. Why? How do I look?”
Hiroto came up behind him. “Hot as always, but like you’ve been awake forty-eight hours.”
I laughed at his openly voiced words. “What? I’m not going to answer any other way?”
Hiroto turned on his heels and, clapping his hands, shouted to the others. “Breakfast and out to the mech hangar, we’re taking that mega on again. Be ready!”
22
Going for that mega-merge was something else. Edward had seen us all at breakfast and wasn’t happy that we were up and about. He had, of course, come over to see how we were all feeling. To hope that we were okay. Double standard asshat. I really didn’t want to speak with him much.
“We’ll be ready and out there for when you are,” I said to him, literally shoving as many sausages in my face as I could--chewing and swallowing also as quick as I could. I needed real food, and I had to start digesting as soon as I could. I would not want to part with any of it to win the mech merge again or after it, even though I knew the amount I was shoving in was going to make me sick.
“What are you doing?” Dylan asked as Edward walked away.
“I need to be sick still. I gotta fake that I’m still not a hundred. We need this to be full of flaws still. I’m not happy with doing it; it’s got its own connotations for being deceitful. The only way for us all to gather more intel on is by playing up on how much you’re losing trust in me.”
“Okay.”
My mech felt so much better as I slid into the cockpit here. I didn’t need to feel off; my stomach was bursting. But the mech, wow. I hadn’t thought or felt it like this the other day. It hummed and purred. There was pure power in here.
I was given the same number in the mega-merge by Edward as before, and I watched the others from my teams launch in and do what was needed. I could see with even the little practice they’d had over the last few days they were doing much better. They were so much faster.
When it was my turn, I opened up to the merge and went for it, just like I had last time.
It also wasn’t going to work. I was going to let it fail.
I connected with them with every one of his team that I didn’t know. I could feel my wonderful men and woman, the mech-wolves, the energy. Their thoughts. And I let them know how I was feeling.
MEGA-MERGE CONNECTION COMPLETE - RANK 2
Nice, but I was about to throw up.
I sent the message.
Me - Still sick, pulling out.
It was never easy to fail anything. As the merge went down, my mech took a missile blast. I knew they’d been practicing with real weapons. But fuck me, it hurt. I lay on the floor for a moment, then opened the cockpit and vomited sausages everywhere.
I heard the ceasefire order and everyone else’s disgruntled thoughts from the merge collapse. I felt awful, but I had to do it. I needed Edward to still think I was crap.
Tyto was by my side in seconds and giving me some kenosi to help.
Lance spoke with Edward and the others, then came towards us. He stopped his mech and hopped on out. No issues at all. “Walk with me,” he said.
I moved away with Lance, and we walked right back to the hangar before he activated the shield there and spoke. “That was a solid hit. You took that really well.”
“Why did you pull me away from the field?”
“Because I could see you stuff your face on purpose this morning. You might not be able to fake it again.”
“I understand. I’m not sure I should merge properly with the team today.”
“You can, and you will. They damaged your mech, so we’ll go back with some tools. Your tech team can see to it properly later. We’ll fix it up. Give you some time to gather your strength again. The little Tyto gave you isn’t enough.”
“I can draw from the world around me,” I said. “Once I’m back out there, I will do just that.”
“You can take pure kenosi from the world around you?” He looked at me curiously as we stepped towards one of the mech bays.
“Yes,” I said. “There’s a few things that I can do that a lot of your teams here can’t, it seems.”
“Yes, Edward just told me you also used Molecular Manipulation. I had some ideas your skills would not only impress him but worry him. I was correct.”
“Thanks,” I said and took the tools he held out for me. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get through today.”
“Good, let’s head back. Get you fixed up and back in that merge.”
I sucked in and walked with him. He was the one who tinkered with my mech, and I let him. It was mostly for show. I was sure. I did as I said I would, and I opened up my kenosi channels.
Lance looked down to me and smiled. “I can’t see you doing anything, but your energy flow I can feel. All my hairs are sticking up the back of my neck.”
He carried on for a while longer, glanced to me the once, and I nodded. I was at full health.
Then I climbed back up and in, closing the cockpit around me. Everything was back in the green.
“Feeling okay?” Hiroto asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “We’re all green, good to go.”
When I opened the command chat with Edward, I could see the slew of messages at me. I flicked them away. I wasn’t taking any down talk. He had no idea what happened. He just thought I was a weak-ass shit.
Just like I planned.
I waited for the command to come from him and the prompt. Then the merge began again.
My turn was coming, and I didn’t hesitate even though my stomach churned a lot.
When my number was up. I boosted up once more and connected with them, giving myself up to Edward without question.
When the merge completed and Edward was stable, we moved as one. I didn’t like it, though; everything here felt wrong. It wasn’t a merge I would ever be happy with. I was nothing more than a puppet. And a puppet whose master I did not trust one bit.
I got a message from him directly. “All good?”
“All good,” I replied.
It was very different feeling the others here; the minds in his team were strong. That was obvious. I wanted to try to get to know them, as best I could. Xe?
