Sineul ran several laps around the ER-Madec. He needed to get close to reach his Priestess as soon as possible. Seven AUM galactic interceptors followed him, and he couldn't get any closer without bringing the possibility of multiple nuclear explosions with him. The Resonator could take several hits without breaking apart, but he didn't want to risk the safety of his priestess.

  He returned to the immobilized destroyer where hundreds of rescue operations salvaged survivors from the aftermath of his attack. He found it to be the only place where his pursuers couldn't take risks. He had no choice but to exploit this, if it was the only way to gain an advantage.

  He maintained a lead of 4 seconds with the interceptors, and he came to an abrupt stop right above the destroyer. He broadcast his demand in short-range transmission to all nearby receivers.

  "AUM Galactic, stand down and surrender. I will allow safe rescue for your survivors if you leave your interceptors behind"

  The first interceptor was too close to slow down, and Sineul dodged it by 1.7m as it sped past him over the destroyer. The second interceptor gunned straight at him and fired four slip drive missiles. Sineul pulsed the klin shield to deflect them. One of the deflected warheads hit the destroyer below, obliterating a sizable section into small debris. Some of the rescuers and survivors were vaporized, and some unlucky souls were snapped from their tethers, flying away into the darkness at terminal speed.

  Sineul placed a well-aimed klin beam at the center mass of the approaching interceptor, and it crumpled like an aluminum can. The resulting debris scraped over and under L98 Vellek.

  The third interceptor managed to stop itself, and the pilot immediately ejected, using his spacesuit controls to navigate himself into the destroyer. The third and fourth followed him quietly.

  The sixth had a new idea: it approached Sineul from a wide arc and fired two missiles. One bounced off the klin shield into the darkness. The missile attempted to regain target lock, but it went too wide and reached the deactivation condition before it could correct itself. The other missile hit square on the face of the Vellek and splashed a dense cloud of plasma over its entire length. The interceptor itself crashed into the Vellek before Sineul could move out of the way. He managed to parry the weight of the entire interceptor with a maximum output klin shield pulse. It grumbled beneath the Vellek as it slid past and dashed towards the darkness, with a dead pilot in the cockpit.

  The seventh panicked mid-charge and changed course last second as the Vellek emerged from the chaos. It bounced along the destroyer's edge, flipped upside down, and jammed itself into a crevice.

  Sineul burned the 3 surrendered interceptors with a rapid series of klin beams. He made sure to destroy their propulsion, trash their ordnance, and burn their cockpits.

  "I applaud both your bravery and cowardice, and I am grateful for your swift decisions in resolving this matter" Sineul announced politely as he primed his slip drive to get to ER Madec as fast as possible. His Priestess needed help, and he was dangerously too late.

  "You should get out, Calan," she told him, after putting enough distance between them and the mad priest.

  “Huh? What do you mean get out!?”

  “I mean this.” She opened the locks of the battle-frame and let him spill out. It was no longer safe for him to be inside the battle-frame. She had to solve this on her own or die trying. There was no need to risk both him and her biologics. Calan didn’t have a soul backup like her and she only had one human body.

  “W-wait! Why did you throw me out! What did I do?” Calan was offended by this sudden change. Despite the great beating that he got from the priest, he felt powerful when they finally gained the upper hand. He thought he deserved a reward for this, not being thrown out so suddenly.

  “Not your fault, run. Find somewhere to hide.” For a moment, she considered giving him her klin sidearm, but she decided against it. He had no shield. He only had the spacesuit. If he tried to shoot a gun, he’d definitely find a way to kill himself with it. “Hide until I’m done with this bad man, understand?”

  “Uh…” He glared meekly at the darkness around him. “H-hide where Lira”

  “Anywhere is fine, I can find you when I’m done, or you can find me.” She pushed him towards the nearest exit from the networking room. The priest had found them, and he dashed at them at terrifying speed. Calan ran away just a second before the priest jumped on Liera. She lacked the previous agility with Calan gone, but this allowed her to take more risks she couldn't before.

  She landed a direct hit on the priest, and she unfurled her fist to toss a mine in front of him. The explosion sent them flying in opposite directions. The priest groaned, smoking from his exposed muscles. His arms weren’t enough to protect him from that explosion. Liera, meanwhile, had the protection of a full klin shield, and with Calan gone, she had no worries about things exploding near her. If he was inside for what just happened, he could’ve been seriously injured by the vibrations alone. Without giving the priest another moment to recover, she dashed at him, this time with two mines. She landed both on either side of him, and the resulting explosion slammed him further back into a shattered wall. Liera sprinted again, her mag pads screeching across the floor.

  The priest changed strategies.

  He followed her in a mighty dash and slammed his shoulder deep into her abdomen. He powered this attack with klin shield extensions from both his feet and palms. Liera bent forwards, absorbing the brunt of the impact. Her klin shield fluctuated, and some armor plating and components on her left side collapsed. The priest pushed her nearly 100m toward the other end of the room, and punched her to create a gap between them. Liera grabbed his arm before he could retract his fist. She pivoted around him, using her free hand to slam a mine straight into his exposed stomach. The priest kicked her, hopping off her with two powerful klin beams from his feet. With the gap created, he fired a massive blast before he landed.

  One hand of the battle-frame was immediately vaporized up to the elbow. She was right to let Calan out; this would've been enough to kill him.

  The mine she shoved into him exploded, leaving a huge hole in his stomach that exposed all his internals. Black tar spurted from every crevice inside as his synthetic flesh crumbled. He was weaker now, and his field generator lay wide open just below the diaphragm. Liera grabbed her sidearm. His advantage now would be at close range. The damage he suffered kept him from dashing wildly, which left his klin beams and blasts as major problems. She had to avoid another hit at any cost. Her klin shield wasn’t powerful enough to stop a double-palm massive blast. He had at least three of them left in him, and she had only five shots on the sidearm to stagger him.

  The priest lurched at her madly, his vent lines and his mouth steaming coolant. Liera dodged him partially, but his outstretched hand grabbed her and slammed her against a nearby network tower. She fired a shot through the gap in his desperate defense. It cut a hand-sized hole next to his field generator. He landed a barrage on her, trying to shove her into a hole again. She kept her good hand well away from his barrage, and she kicked him off with both her feet. The priest stumbled back, trying to cover himself with his forearms, but she was quicker. She cut a vertical line through the middle of his chest, the beam from her sidearm slipped through the gap between his forearms. He bent forward. That shot pierced his coolant reserves on the back, and he was growing weaker for it.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Running around the disoriented priest, Liera fired the last three shots in quick succession at his head and neck. The first beam deflected off his forearm but sliced the lower half of his face clean off. The second and third cut deep gashes across the back of his head and the base of his neck.

  Throwing the sidearm away, Liera grabbed her last mine. The priest lurched forth, his jaw hanging loosely from his skinned face. His left hand grabbed her by the face. Liera shoved the mine straight into his chest. He slammed his other hand, reinforced with klin shield, to break her arm. It bent inward from the elbow, and the mine left her grasp. It detonated, sending them flying in different directions again.

  The priest was the first to stand. He had her arm. He had twisted it against his body when the mine exploded, breaking it right below her shoulder. Her arm clattered on the floor. The priest dashed at her, while she struggled to get back on her feet without her arms. With just 4m between them, the priest launched himself off the ground, propelled himself forward with his klin shield and slammed deep into her with both his fists.

  The blow weakened her klin shield and pinned her to the ground. The priest continued his onslaught until all of the orange dots faded. Her single field generator couldn’t keep up with the demand. Completely defenseless, Liera stared at him as he pointed both his palms at her, primed for a massive blast.

  A blinding orange light erupted above her.

  It was a beam as large as a person. A pillar of a klin that pierced its way through ER-Madec in a devastating attack.

  > L98 BFrame: transmission received

  - Sineul: I’m here, my priestess

  The priest, the half of him that still remained toppled over, lifeless. His upper body was completely vaporized, leaving only his legs. With the sudden loss of the field generator, the remaining parts had no power.

  Sineul had used the great unmaker on the Vellek in a risky gambit. He punched a hole through the entire resonator after finding the precise angle at the precise moment when he could completely isolate the priest based on the datastream he hijacked from the battle-frame.

  > L98 BFrame: transmission received

  - Sineul: Where is the boy?

  Calan had never been this scared in his entire life. He ran because Liera told him to and he kept running as things exploded behind him. He was told to run away from the place with the madman. He was bad with directions and he found himself running in circles through the same corridors. The head mounted flashlight on his spacesuit did almost nothing about the tangible darkness ahead of him. He bumped into several walls and he felt every impact, even through the stable fluid.

  He ran all the way into a maintenance section with a gear symbol on its door. The door opened as he approached and there was a ramp that led down to a platform. He ran onto it to look around. It was an open area of some sort but it was pitch dark. He could only see his hands on the railings with the flashlight. The platform shifted below him and four lights turned on around him.

  "Oh!" his surprise was short lived as the platform took him to a lower level. "Oh no!" he had no idea how to climb back up and it only made him panic even further.

  The platform slotted into the ground with a loud clang. He stepped off it, trembling in fear about his new predicament. He didn't know how to talk with Lira or the old man from this suit. The thing they added to the back of his neck didn't work like what he was used to.

  Whining in a slow crescendo, he walked towards the only light in the distance. Right ahead, there was a blinking vertical strip that changed its thickness every second. Metallic sounds came from that direction each time the strip changed thickness.

  It was a door. It was trying to close but something kept it from closing each time It tried. He could see a brightly lit area just beyond it. Using his flashlight, he saw what the door was slamming into.

  "Ew!"

  It was a rubbery black blob that had emerged from a gap in the floor. The door was slow because of the sticky black liquid on its rails. The black blob grew long when his foot was next to it and he jumped in disgust. It was a slug of some kind.

  He waited for the perfect moment for the door to widen and he slipped in through.

  He found himself in a brightly lit corridor that opened up to a room full of robots. He had seen these robots before. These were small builders that kept things clean in Rhea. They were cylindrical with two legs and a single arm. Rows and rows of these robots were arrayed in front of him.

  He noticed something wrong on the far corner. Everything here was white, glossy and metallic. Except for that corner. Nearly a quarter of the room was blackened. It looked like a bomb made with black paint exploded there. He knew this was bad news after he saw Liera inspecting he vervid corpses earlier.

  The blackened corner wasn't the part that really pushed his heart to his throat.

  Sitting in the middle of that black puddle were people. Not dead, not frozen but completely alive. They looked at him as soon as he entered the room. They were all similar. They had no clothes, no hair. They were exactly like the wierd blackened man that led him and Liera to that tall madman.

  one

  two

  three

  four

  He gave up counting. There were too many to count. They sat in identical poses and their head movements were in sync. This immediately raised all the hair at the back of his neck.

  "Want to join us?" one of the blackened people asked, revealing his blackened teeth as his dead grey eyes stared directly at Calan. "Want to join us?"

  "Want to join us?"

  "Someone wants to join us"

  "That's nice"

  "You can join us"

  "We need more"

  "Join us"

  Their voices were the same but they spoke at different intensities, copying exactly what their nearest neighbor said with slight variation. As the sentence passed through the crowd, it devolved into a unified chorus. "Join us, Join us"

  "Uhh, no, I don't-" Calan was so scared he wanted to throw up and cry himself unconscious. He slowly backed away, one step at a time. His knees were trembling and he was sure he did wet himself. He felt his bowels drop and heat spread from his feet to the top of his head. His heart caught up to the fear his brain was drowning in and it began racing like a machine.

  "I DON'T WANNA JOIN ANYTHING! STAY AWAY!" he screeched and he ran away with all the strength he could muster.

  "He doesn't want to join us"

  "but he should join us"

  "We need more"

  The entire group dashed at him in unison, flying with ease like a group of dancers. None of them had mag boots to pin them to the ground. Calan cried when he saw them spreading like a flower from that corner, using their legs to push themselves off the ground, straight at him in various trajectories.

  "HELP! LIRA!" he screamed as he ran. He turned around when he got to the door and the corridor behind him was packed full of blackened people chasing him with their fish like movements through space.

  He stumbled through the gap and in a stroke of genius, he managed to kick that annoying blob that kept the door from closing. When it closed, he was back in pitch black void with only the vague direction to run back. He ran as fast as he could toward the platform.

  "Ough!" the sound escaped from his lips when he slammed against a wall instead. He had taken off in a slightly off direction and he didn't know where the platform was. Crying his face off, he ran to the left. He found no platform. Turning back, he saw the strip of light appear again. The blackened people had opened the door.

  He watched in horror as their black shapes spilled out from the block of light and their blackened forms blended into the surrounding darkness. He ran to the platform illuminated by the strip of light that came through that corridor.

  "Go! go!!!" he yelled, punching the nearest box with all his might. It didn't do anything. The platform unlocked itself at its own pace. He saw a blackened man weaving in and out of the light just a few meters back.

  The platform raised itself off the ground and took him up.

  “Li-Lira!” He shouted, unable to figure out if she could hear him or not. “H-hello!”

  “I’m here” Her voice came through. “Where are you?”

  “-crazy people in here!" he couldn't even form sentences.

  He felt something hit his back. He turned as the platform reached the top.

  "GET AWAY!" he screamed at the floating man. His dead eyes stared blankly at him. There were several others behind him and more of them climbed up from below, using the edges of the platform to propel themselves higher.

  "NO I DON'T WANNA JOIN!"

  he stumbled and ran up the ramp. He was slower than them.

  "HELP ME! LIRA!"