Grrkkn was no expert in human body language. Better than most his kin, from many, many years of dedicated research and effort. But still, he understood well that he would likely never become a true expert in human subtleties.
But some things were just universal, it seemed.
Faith was shaken, deeply so. He… didn’t quite understand why. She was already a bit tense for likely quite understandable reasons this entire time, but now she seemed to be teetering on the edge of something dire. Her eyes were wide, her exoskeleton making strange chirps as the plates rubbed together. She looked like an insect that was fleeing from an unseen predator, and though they were currently moving through a strange rotted grasslands of sorts to avoid something that had John and Cobalt quite jumpy, he had the distinct feeling that it was entirely unrelated to that.
“What bother you?” He asked.
She recoiled. “None of your business, pagan!”
He tilted his head in confusion. This reaction seemed unusual… and Pagan, he didn’t recall that word in his studies or exchanges before. Perhaps it had to do with her religion, that did seem to be a particularly sensitive topic for her.
Still, he did not like that part of her. It was so strange, he couldn’t entirely understand her reactions when it came to what she believed in. At times, she seemed uncertain, almost like she was fighting with herself about it. Yet she was more than willing to attack others to defend her position? What sense did that make? Why would anyone do such a thing?
In any case, prying would likely only exacerbate problems. So it was perhaps better to let sleeping beasts lie.
“By the way, Artos, can you use our psychic power to detect any nearby gateways? The magnetic force goes hand in hand with the electric force, and we know well that both interact with the mechanisms of the portals. That would perhaps be a better option than going blind, right?” John’s shade suggested.
“Unfortunately, while inactive, there is little difference between them and any of the other pieces of inert steel surrounding us.” John’s body, animated by the machine in him, answered.
“If it working tech… can grow fungus in.” Grrkkn brought up. “Fungus in me no grow well in inert matter. But grow much faster if working. Not enough make work by itself, need few hour for grow, but can detect gate from scrap maybe.”
“That’s… a better idea than anything I could have come up with.” Cobalt said. “How do you know if it is growing faster, though?”
“Speaks with me. Like Mother Forest do.” He answered.
“Disturbing…” Faith muttered.
Ignoring her, he sent his will outwards, focusing on the movements of the spores. They seemed to be having difficulty gaining traction, almost like they were slipping through the material at times. Some managed to find decaying organic debris to aid in fuelling their growth, while others latched onto Si-laden particles for growth. Small pieces of somewhat almost-functional technology were implied with bright spots of rapid growth and connection, but a far cry from even the distant echoes of his target.
But in the distance, he felt a single trail moving faster than most, along with other tributaries implying wires spanning like veins and arteries toward a singular nexus. If anything were to be a clue, that would be it.
With a satisfied snort, he pointed at the target. “Not far, that way.”
“Alright, that me-” Cobalt started before freezing in place. “Oh no… that’s too fast…”
“What do you-” He began to ask before he perked up, sniffing the air. The scent of distant rot, sour and sick. Along with a humming like spore-flies in the early days of spring, deep in the most humid valleys in the West of the Mother Forest’s embrace.
And though indistinct and distant, nearly impossible to hear for human ears, probably, and unrecognisable to his Kin unfamiliar with human tongues, he could detect a subtle pattern underlying it. Words, layered between the buzzing, angry accusations from a swarm uncountable strong.
“Murderers!” they said. A chorus of millions, possibly more, as one.
A huge spray of spores was ejected from his fur in a nervous puff, an action he wasn’t even aware his own body could do. Faith coughed behind him and seemed ready to complain between the choking wheezes, but he quickly grabbed her and slung her on his shoulder like a newborn cub.
“Follow, quick!” He yelled.
Cobalt, Artos and John’s shade didn’t need to be told twice.
And so they sprinted through the dried husks of thorny vines, a million pieces of useless rust decorating long-dead ground. Not daring to look back even once as the buzzing behind got louder and louder, now echoing with distant screams.
It was strange how detached from fear he was in this state. Intellectually, he knew the swarm reaching full wakefulness and converging on their location, perhaps twice as fast as it took for them to do so last time, was concerning. In cruder terms, he should have been shitting himself right about now.
But detached from his body like this, there was no small amount of dissociation going on. Some fear was present, but mixed with the generally dampened emotions and the fact he knew well that as a mostly non-physical entity at the moment, the bugs couldn’t truly touch him… he just wasn’t feeling anything close to what the others evidently were.
Perhaps it would have been more rational to be among them in this current shitshow, however.
They sprinted with great speed, so much so that it was difficult to keep up even with a completely weightless body. Gorekin’s long strides were doing an admirable job keeping up with Cobalt’s exceptional physical prowess and ARTOS’s ability to alter his own body to accelerate faster than even she could reasonably keep track of.
Mere seconds passed before they came to the site of the portal Gorekin had found, and to his moderate surprise, the portal was actually there…
It was just… well… not intact.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“SHIT!” Cobalt screamed. “I don’t know if we have time to find another one… I think I can beat a good amount of those bugs, but with the size of that swarm, we might as well be dead already!”
“I can try reconnect wiring.” Gorekin offered. “Mostly intact, except minor collapse in top archway. Should be repairable.”
“Do we have time to let your fungi grow?” Faith brought up. “Even if you put your all into it, it won’t be instant.”
“And even then, we have to keep it in place while keeping the coming swarm off our ass.” Cobalt added, yelling to get her voice over the increasingly louder buzzing.
“If I may.” John offered, looking at the metal-coated fragments of wreckage. “Using our psychic power, we may well be able to hold the pieces in place, and then it is a simple matter of keeping it there while the fungus does its work.”
“I believe we can utilise the surrounding metal and incorporate it to fill any gaps in the structure.” ARTOS added. “But it will be precise work. I will be unable to assist in any further defences while allocating resources to maintaining minimal movements.”
“Not alone at least.” John brought up. “I’m stepping in.”
There was no time for anyone to object as a dark tidal wave crested over the horizon, angry and vicious. He leapt into his own body, a strange and distinctly unsettling sort of activity in hindsight, and immediately felt a wave of emotions hit him at once. So hard and so sudden, he nearly fell over from the intensity of it.
But he couldn’t afford that. Not now, when things were so dire.
[Together.] ARTOS said. He could feel the link between them growing tenuous, in this strange realm, it was harder for them to coexist. And yet here they were, managing.
Together. He thought back.
[Adrenaline rush: 110% recommended safe limit.]
Immediately, time slowed to a tarry consistency. Despite this, he could feel his heart pumping violently, threatening to rip out of his chest. To ordinary people, he idly realised, to push their body to the brink like this so often, even out of necessity, would be downright unthinkable. But it was natural to him now.
He had never forgotten the chase, even when he was so close to Cobalt, now he knew the mountain ahead was so high he sometimes wondered if he would ever surmount it at all. An impossible task to seek power like this, a fate that a Rat like him was never meant to taste in the slightest.
The pain was comforting, grounding, for if destroying his body was merely the cost to become someone more than a nameless orphan who would die forgotten by the ashes of time, he would gladly pay it ten thousand times more. Alexander really failed at teaching him, didn’t he?
Reaching out with psychic power, assisted by ARTOS’s own mind, the pieces were lifted and separated from the rubble. He directed them towards Gorkin’s fur, rubbing each edge as gently and carefully as he could, given the speed of the clouds of spores clinging to his matted black-brown hair.
Aligning the segments carefully along the cracked archway, ARTOS began to start twisting pieces of metal in place. Hardly a good long-term solution, but hopefully it should take some of the load off while Gorekin did his thing.
[Reducing adrenaline rush output to sustainable levels… sustaining 10% output]
A wave of exhaustion hit at once, though he was kept standing on his feet by the rush of chemicals still pouring into him. His mouth tasted of copper, meridians disrupted by the pressure and constant stresses, Si improperly circulated from so long without time to meditate.
He would, as usual, deal with the consequences later.
He heard chaos behind him, but didn’t dare turn back. Not when moving the structure an inch would risk shearing the delicate fungus, fusing the broken circuitry back together. Minutes that felt like hours passed, honestly, mostly boredom, only made tolerable by the imminent threat of doom.
[Take over for a moment: reallocating resources to personal defence.]
John felt his cognitive load sharply increase as he was forced to fill in for ARTOS’s role in subtle adjustments. He hoped to the Great Spirit he was doing a half-decent job, though it was increasingly hard to tell with the infernal buzzing getting disturbingly close.
“MURDERERS OF MURDERERS! HOW DARE YOU DEFILE THE SCENE OF YOUR GREATEST CRIME!” He heard between the shrill hum of insect wings.
Suddenly, a huge force erupted from his right side, almost knocking him off balance. Judging by the feel, bladed tentacles being formed from his right arm, pumping in some sort of venom. Much like that Homunculus, come to think of it, seems ARTOS had been taking notes.
[That one was ahead of the swarm, but the main bulk of it will be here shortly. It seems Cobalt is already swamped, Faith is unable to provide meaningful assistance and Grrkkn is as occupied as we are on the task. Will be moving to his defence soon too. But uncertain how much more can be reasonably achieved.]
As though reading their mind, Gorekin yelled in slow motion. “Just little more now! Basic connection fixed mostly, not so delicate now… but need hold together better.”
Understanding the unspoken order, John moved as much applicable scrap as possible. Thin rods of rust and plates of unknown origin. With what little spare brain power he had to allocate while still mostly holding the segments in place, he twisted the scrap into makeshift scaffolds to hold the archway in place. It wouldn’t last long, but hopefully it wouldn’t have to.
More spikes flew from his back. Briefly, he saw through the eyes of ARTOS and his own at once, a viscerally disconcerting and nauseating experience. Too many angles of vision in places his brain had not the tools to properly contextualise into a coherent world. Was this what Magni felt all the time?
It was good that the scaffolding was now in place, otherwise, the arch would have collapsed all over again. Seeming to notice this too, ARTOS retreated back into his body and helped him wind the supports tighter.
A pounding headache was building, like a bubble of gas was in his skull and ready to explode. Blood dribbled down his nostril at a constant pace, and seemed to do similarly in his ears, judging by the wetness there.
A tingling travelled up from his ring, and he knew it was almost over.
Over the course of this ordeal, he had generated a huge amount of sweat. Buckets of mucus dribbling onto the floor and coating every nearby surface with dangerously conductive slick. ARTOS moved a tendril over closer to the archway, connecting him to the great structure.
“Need more time! Few more second at least!” Gorekin yelled, seeing what he was doing.
The buzzing grew louder, a nigh incoherent chorus. Evidently, Cobalt was beaten back, too, given how he could actually hear her laboured grunting as she swatted down bug after bug.
With each growing pulse in his ring, John held his organic fist together tighter in anticipation. In the dilated time, each second stretching just so slightly off his own perception, making what was probably a rather short wait considering the circumstances nigh unbearable. It was here when his impatience was rearing its ugly head, one wrong move and he could kill their chances to get back, and yet he would give anything to be done with it now.
[Now.] ARTOS told him.
All at once, he released what he had been holding back, a blinding flash filling his vision as he became a living lightning rod. That power, in only a moderately more controlled form, flowed towards the archway, igniting ancient mechanisms back to life.
He felt himself start to sway as the adrenaline rush became fully unsustainable and the accrued damage proved too much. He wasn’t out yet, though, surprisingly, and in the moments of semi-lucidity that followed, he made a couple observations.
The swarm should have overtaken them fully by now, but the vast bulk of it seemed to have stalled. In fact, they didn’t even seem to have gone for Gorekin at all, given the lack of bodies near him. By all accounts, it seemed like they were being distracted by something in the distance.
And for two, something he realised right before he was pushed into the portal he punched in reality by a pair of strong arms. The sky flashed a disturbingly familiar shade of blood red.
