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Chapter 158 - Elevator Games
🕑 Added 2021-07-02 16:24:23 +0000 UTCAurelia exits my pocket space with an array of golden swords, one pointed at each enemy. Tokomaha emerges with a small army of her own, carrying spears ready to be thrown. The others also have their weapons drawn and glare down the soldiers in black.
The enemies finally react and point their weapons, but a glowing streak moves through them before anybody can make the first move. Their guns fall apart in their hands, and they stand before us unarmed and utterly bewildered.
"Surrender now, and nobody has to die." Rolan appears in front of us, leaving behind an afterimage of light from Roshanee in his hand. I doubt anybody on the Rhodos station knows him but seeing a human-looking person among us should help persuade the enemy. "You serve false gods who are petty and cruel. We are here to free the world of their scourge."
I raise an arm to stop the others from carrying out their attack. I'm ready to block the shots for their intended targets in case Rolan missed a weapon among them. For now, we may be able to avoid a massacre if the enemies do accept the hero's proposal.
But then I realize that without an atmosphere, nobody could have heard him talk. Instead, the soldiers hastily reach for their sidearms, but Rolan speeds through them and cuts the handguns apart in one swift motion again. Left with no recourse, they turn and run away, and I hear the hero sigh over our channel.
"I would help you get your message across, but I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate it when it's me saying those words." I muse while walking forward and passing Rolan. He sheathes Roshanee and sighs again.
The others follow us as we make our way through the hangar. The soldiers are heading for the many airlocks, most likely hoping to get new weapons from the armories and barricade the corridors to stop our advance. Shelnir knows how well it worked last time, and we've all grown stronger since then. But it seems that she doesn't care in the slightest that her soldiers may get slaughtered.
To spite her, we won't kill a single one of them then.
"Show yourself, you hack fortuneteller." I call out into the vacuum of the hangar with the Crawling Chaos voice. Most of my companions stop in their steps upon hearing this, but they aren't as affected as the much weaker-willed enemy soldiers. Some of them flinch and trip, others run for cover, and a few even collapse on the spot. I know that my voice alone can't kill, so those should be merely knocked out.
"What was that?" Gram wonders with an anxious undertone in his voice and looks around frantically while readying his shield. I turn to him and grin, revealing myself to be the culprit.
Given that we're in a vacuum, Shelnir's answer wouldn't reach us anyway. I guess we have to go through an airlock and enter the pressurized section of the station before we can get any pointers from her.
Last time, she disguised herself as a goon to lead us to the right place. I doubt she will put herself in such danger again this time, especially after how badly it went back then. But the Rhodos station is far larger than Alverost's battle station, so searching randomly would take way too long. I guess it's time to find us a guide.
"Grab somebody who looks different from the regular soldiers." I order Tokomaha, who makes her clones fan out and search the hangar between the parked vessels. The original is wearing the anti-inhibition watch, so she will be fine even without a spacesuit in case there's an inhibition field generator hidden somewhere in the hangar. Her clones can be like canaries in the coal mine; they will dissolve into dust if they enter one such field.
Soon, we reach the airlock on the other side of the massive hangar beyond which a few soldiers have already escaped. I look around for a panel with the obvious open button but find none. I don't want to break it open as that would remove the air part of the airlock.
"How is this one?" Two Tokomaha clones approach, dragging a soldier in their arms. This one also wears black armor but has a distinct red shoulder guard that marks him as someone of rank. To make sure that it's not an illusion or disguise, I use my Chaos senses to probe his physical makeup and find that he's a regular human male without any hidden additions.
"Open this door." I put a hand on his helmet and use a mouth on my palm to demand in a tone that leaves no room for argument. My expression implies that if he won't do it, I'll find someone else.
"I'd rather die." He responds, the vibrations of his voice transmitting through my arm to my ear.
"So be it." I shrug with my hand still on his helmet so that he can hear what I'm saying, then address the Tokomaha clones. "Throw him outside."
"H-huh? No, wait!" When he realizes that I'm not granting him a quick death, he struggles against the little goddess's grip and presses his helmet against my palm so that I can hear his pleas.
"Let me handle this." Rolan steps forward and kneels beside the man, and I draw my hand back. He puts the glass of his helmet against the man's so that his voice can reach him. If we could figure out their frequency, we wouldn't need to jump through these hoops.
Rolan proceeds to explain to the captain that he used to be a toy of the gods, raised up to be a hero of humanity, and then dropped solely for the sake of entertainment. He speaks of their attempt to destroy the entire world once they realized that they lost control. And now that retribution is coming for them, they've gone mad and still attempt to continue playing their games.
It doesn't take long for the former hero to persuade the man, whose worldview is shattered when he learns of the treachery of the Old Humans. Surely, he must have seen the signs before but looked away in fear or willful self-delusion. But seeing people from Earth coming all this way to put an end to the false gods seems to have opened his eyes.
The two Tokomaha clones let go of the man, and he walks over to the wall next to the airlock. Touching it with his glove causes a panel to open and reveal buttons. Inputting a code with practiced motions, he activates the door, which slides open toward both sides.
"Thank you." Rolan says and waves, knowing that the captain can't hear them at this distance. But when I realize that, I walk over to him and put my hand on his helmet glass again.
"Tell us your frequency. Let's stay in contact." I demand, not out of goodwill toward him but for my own needs. After all, once we have the frequency these soldiers communicate with, we can announce our reason for being here to all of the crew at once.
The man still feels apprehensive when I'm the one talking to him. After all, I look like a human but walk around in a vacuum without wearing a pressurized suit. But I'm sure he also witnessed me pushing a hole through the meter-thick hangar gate as if it were snow. Maybe that's the reason he gives it quite readily, allowing me to tune in and speak into his helmet directly.
"Thank you. Now go somewhere safe until you hear an announcement from me that it's over." I say and give him a dismissive wave of my hand. If he's smart enough to recognize that fighting us can only mean death, he should understand not to get in the crossfire between the Old Humans and us.
He only nods silently and walks off, noticeably shaken by the revelations and our appearance. I doubt we'll see him again, so I turn to the party to prepare a speech over the Rhodos station garrison's channels. That's when I notice Rolan looking at the retreating man's back with a pained expression. He must be thinking that we came here and destroyed many people's worldviews, leaving them with only emptiness.
I feel no sympathy for those who would blindly follow orders or believe in false gods. It's one thing to think there's a higher power, but a whole different matter when that supposedly higher power tells one to commit atrocities in their name. But I suppose common sense isn't as common as its name implies.
"Hear me, soldiers of the Rhodos station! My name is Chaos, Queen of the Dominion. I have come to purge this universe of the false gods that play with our lives. Whether you are demon or human matters not to me - stay out of my way, and no harm shall come to you." I speak into my internal microphone as I lead our boarding party into the airlock. "Oppose me, and you will learn what a real god can do."
Everybody stares at me when they hear my last statement, but I ignore them. It may sound hypocritical to call Elaine and Shelnir false gods in one sentence and present myself as a real one in the next. But at this point, my power may as well be that of a true god as humans understand it. I make miracles happen even without the need for the Imagination Engine.
"Good speech, sister." Asoko comments snidely. But she knows best how close our existence is to actual gods. Our scope is already beyond comprehension, even if it deals mainly in destruction - evidence of our heritage.
As we emerge on the other side of the airlock, we come upon a broad corridor with several elevators before us. I press the button to call one as a test; the last time we did this in enemy territory, it was filled with soldiers. If my speech didn't have its intended effect, we might run into troops here.
When the elevator arrives only a moment later, it opens to a large but empty cabin. It's not yet proof that my announcement is keeping the new humans away from the fighting. Still, I appreciate that our time isn't wasted on subduing another contingent of soldiers.
The elevator appears to be a troop carrier, as our entire party fits into it with space to spare. In other words, I doubt this goes all the way to the command center or the beam weapon control room. The buttons for the floors certainly don't give anything away, but at least there are only three, including the one for the floor we entered on.
Since we boarded the Rhodos station in one of the hangars below the beam weapon's concave dish, I decide that going up is the only sensible choice.
"Do you know where we are going?" But before I can press the corresponding button, Kerry suddenly calls out to me from the doorway. They have been staying quiet since earlier, so I already forgot about their presence. They're walking on their own two feet now, staying in the very back of the party as if not wanting to stand out.
"I don't." I reply truthfully. Knowing how gigantic the Rhodos station is, searching haphazardly will be pointless. And I announced that everybody should stay out of my way, so we might not even run across a person who could guide us. "You've been here before, right?"
"Yes." Averting their eyes, Kerry responds sheepishly. It was a rhetorical question since Elaine is their mother, but I didn't want to assume anything. When talking to the Child of the Sun, one needs to use a light touch to avoid causing them too much stress.
"Can you show us the way?" I walk out of the elevator and crouch down before Kerry. They turn away and hide their gaze behind their helmet. We're somewhat pressed for time, but I know to give them room for thinking and considering their role in this.
Finally, Kerry nods and points down the corridor. I pet their helmet, through which the Child of the Sun can seemingly feel my touch, and stand up to tell the party to leave the elevator again. But before I can do that, the doors close in front of me, and I hear the hum of the machinery inside moving the cabin.
"Umm." I turn to look at Kerry, whose glowing eyes stare back at me in bewilderment. Is this Shelnir's attempt to separate us?
The elevator doors open to a contingent of soldiers in shiny black armor that seem to have been heading to reinforce the troops in the hangar. This means that Chaos's announcement did little to dissuade the Old Humans' troops from attempting to fight off the intruders.
"Run." Asoko steps out of the elevator and speaks in her Crawling Chaos voice. The soldiers were about to shoot but immediately drop their weapons and flee. It would seem that hearing a real god's otherworldly voice after the earlier announcement is doing the trick after all.
As the soldiers scatter, Asoko turns around to the elevator again, only to find that the doors have closed and the sound of machinery moving can be heard from the other side. Blinking her eyes, she stares at the polished white door for a moment.
"Did we just let Shelnir do this to us twice in a row?" She mutters in an incredulous tone.
"Communications are jammed." I mutter when I hear only static through my headset. Shelnir could have done that much earlier when I made the announcement over the garrison's frequency but decided to do it now. This means separating us is part of her plan.
I force open the elevator doors and find the empty shaft on the other side. When I look inside, I discover that it goes on seemingly endlessly in both directions. For having only three buttons, that's an excessive distance to cover. This must be an express elevator for transporting troops from the barracks to the hangar.
Since I doubt those inside pressed a button, I have no idea whether the elevator went up or down. My first instinct is that it went up, but Shelnir could be playing mind games with me and have sent it down. However, the moment I consider this conundrum, I'm stuck and unable to make a decision.
"I guess I'll have to do both then." I sigh and split my body in two with equal mass, forming two of myself. The last time I did this was in our fight against Mataku on the Moon, which somehow feels like it was months ago, even though less than a week has passed since then. I both turn to Kerry and address them in unison. "Do you want to wait here or come with either of me?"
Overwhelmed by seeing me like this, the Child of the Sun can only stare in awe. I don't think this is such an incredible feat considering Tokomaha makes hundreds of herself with a wave of her hand. But witnessing one body split in two might be more intriguing than dust being turned into clones for someone who knows the limits of the Imagination Engine.
"Or I'll stay with you." I make my two bodies touch hands and create a third between them, splitting my mass equally in three. "I'll go up. And I'll go down."
I use different mouths to speak, but in reality, it's all me inside the three bodies. But unlike Tokomaha, who steers all her clones in something akin to a hive mind, my split parts can express different aspects of my personality depending on how they form. Of course, I made sure to leave a particularly motherly part behind with Kerry.
As I travel both up and down the elevator shaft, my mind is stretched beyond its limits. The split bodies have never been this far apart from each other before, but something tells me that rather than reaching a limit, I'm merely expanding it. I'm a cosmic being that can travel faster than light, so my thoughts should be able to match that. One day, I might be able to exist in many places across the entire universe at once.
When I reach either end, I find that horizontal tunnels lead away from the shaft and deeper into the Rhodos station. Maybe a hidden panel or a specific button combination allows one to travel on these alternate paths.
The door behind the me at the top of the shaft opens, and Asoko peeks her head inside to see me floating there, contemplating what to do.
"Oh, fancy seeing you here." She says in a sarcastic tone and looks down into the sheer endless shaft. "That looks like a huge waste of space."
"If you're here, that means they must have gone down this tunnel." I tilt my head and wonder. It would seem that Shelnir pulled a fast one on Asoko the same way she did on me. But the fact that she opened the door around the time I arrived means that the elevator couldn't have already passed by the middle stop again before I entered the shaft.
"What games is Shelnir playing?" Crossing her arms, my other half asks in a rhetorical tone and sighs while shaking her head.
"She knows she stands no chance otherwise. So she separated us from the others, thinking they'll be helpless without us." I shrug while making the me at the bottom of the shaft travel back up and merge with the me waiting with Kerry. "But the Akashic Records only go this far. She has no idea what she's truly dealing with."
Even the best man-made supercomputer using the energy of the entire Sun to run could never hope to comprehend a Crawling Chaos. I'll teach her how insignificant her petty games are before true power over space and time.
"I'm sure she can hear you." Asoko glances up with a skeptical expression, then rolls her eyes. She knows that even if Shelnir can see and hear our every move, she won't be able to predict what we can do. After all, we're ever-evolving.
"Let's go." When my two thirds arrive with Kerry in tow, I meld back together with myself and point down the tunnel leading deeper into the Rhodos station.
"You'll have to teach me that one, too." My other half looks at me with an eyebrow raised before following me. She never witnessed me do it before but most likely already played with the idea when she saw Tokomaha's abilities. I only learned it by accident and under strange circumstances, so it's not surprising that neither Asoko nor the twins know about this property we have.
"It's hard to control at first, so better not do it for this battle." I lost a lot of mass that time because it messed with my mind. Still, it also served to confuse the enemy a bit, so I was able to overcome them in the end with its help. It won't work on Shelnir since she must already know about it.
As we travel down the tunnel illuminated by a strip of light on each of the four walls, I take in the smooth and seamless architecture. I don't see steel cables or rails, so the elevator moves through magnetism rather than mechanical propulsion. It would explain how quickly it had already disappeared by the time I forced my way inside.
"The elevator is coming." Kerry points ahead and states in a matter-of-fact tone. I follow their finger and see a wall approaching us at an incredible speed. I can tell that it's empty through my Chaos senses, so this is either Shelnir's laughable attempt at killing us, or somebody called it behind us.
I raise a hand toward the elevator, and it stops in an instant. The air that was pushed ahead by it whips about my hair, but that's the extent of its effect on me. If there had been people inside, they would have been turned to a pulp on the wall. Luckily, my Chaos senses care nothing for barriers or force fields and can feel things even through the Perfect Sanctuary.
The elevator isn't seamless with the wall around it but has plenty of space to move around because it's hovering with magnetism. Thus, I move to the side of the elevator slip through the gap.
The fact that it was empty implies that the others got off somewhere ahead of us. This makes it harder for us to find them, even with the straightforward shape of the tunnel. Doors leading out of it are quite readily visible in the walls, but that means they could have disembarked through any one of them.
At times like this, I wish Senka were here. Her means of communication are as inexplicable as some of my abilities, so it can't be jammed like electronics. But she's still millions of kilometers away, dodging the Rhodos station's beam cannon while approaching. Her only weakness is the relatively limited range, which seems to be less than a thousand kilometers.
Then I remember something about the Chaos senses and wonder why I haven't tried this again since my mind has been expanded by my abilities. I was once overwhelmed by the world of light when I let myself feel every living organism. Now, I shouldn't have to fear that sensation anymore. In fact, I should be able to expand it to cover the entirety of the Rhodos station and more, considering I have already glimpsed eternity.
Closing my eyes, I concentrate on my senses and let them expand like a physical bubble. Asoko suddenly makes a noise next to me, meaning that she may have sensed it. But the fact that Kerry doesn't react shows that only another Crawling Chaos can feel it.
Light surrounds me everywhere. I can sense... everything.
"They're at the end of the tunnel." I open my eyes and declare in a calm tone before speeding forward.
"What did you do? It felt... weird." My other half asks with a frown. Her presence, and that of my children, within my senses, were an all-consuming void rather than black emptiness, so it goes both ways. I can understand that being probed like this by another Crawling Chaos is a strange sensation, but she will have to learn it as well eventually. I'm sure Uten and Saten felt it too.
"What happened?" Kerry, intrigued by our conversation, inquires while following us.
"You wouldn't get it." Asoko brushes them off, but I shoot my other half a glare that causes her to shy away.
"I used something like an inner radar. She could feel it because she's like me." I explain to Kerry patiently, and they stare at me in silence for a moment.
"That's amazing." The Child of the Sun speaks with their eyes glowing slightly more intense than before. "What did you see?"
"I know where our friends are. And where Shelnir is." I announce the last part slightly louder so that the Guide of Tomorrow can hear us. Maybe she doesn't have ears inside this tunnel, or the jamming affects her as well, but I won't pass up on a chance to make her quiver in fear.
Flying down the tunnel faster than before, I head for where the others are. I can direct my senses toward the front to monitor what they're doing. It would seem that they're inside a large hall, possibly another hangar. They're lining up with their weapons ready, and Korenga appears to have gone into Black God mode. However, my Chaos senses can't pick up who they're fighting, meaning they must be robots - possibly something akin to Hestia bots.
"We should hurry." I turn to look at Asoko and Kerry with a bad feeling about this.
Kamii, Hestia, Aurelia, and Tokomaha were there when Chaos faced an immensely powerful being created by the false god Alverost. They witnessed the power of the one called Oinos as he wielded a gigantic sword that tore apart Kairaki with every swing. They understand that even without the Imagination Engine, he's close to a god.
It took the combined effort of all of them to defeat him, and even then, it was a tough battle that could have gone quite different if only a tiny factor had been off. If not for his lack of knowledge about the true power of Kamii's curse, he would have never been defeated by her strike; she would have been turned into fine red mist by a backhanded slap instead.
Rolan and the old members of his party know Oinos from his one-sided fight against Chandra, while Svanhild and Halthor only have second-hand accounts. But they all know that even Chaos had a hard time winning against him.
However, now they're facing over a dozen clones of the Walker of the Wild, every last one carrying the Ame-no-Murakumo that can disintegrate even a Crawling Chaos with a simple swing. Shelnir seems to be done messing around.
Comments
I can't believe that after everything that already happened, you still managed to make me think "well, now shit's getting serious!"
