Bender of Worlds

by Isaac Hooke

  The incoming dwellers were aiming their energy launchers at Tane and his two remaining visible companions.

  “Take cover,” Tane said grimly. “They won’t fire at me.” At least, he hoped they wouldn’t.

  Sinive and G’allanthamas dodged behind nearby crystal structures on either side. Tane meanwhile continued jetting forward. He glanced at his rear view video feed. So far, he saw no sign that the Amaranth were pursuing. Actually, they probably were. They just hadn’t arrived yet.

  We can’t let these dwellers delay us.

  He unleashed an Essence Missile and it cut toward the school. The aliens quickly parted, but one of them was too slow, and the bolt ripped into that one, half-severing its sideways-oriented head.

  The work proved a bit too draining. Tane was still tired from the encounter in the clearing. He’d have to rely on the Essence bolts created by his beam hilt for the next little while—they were far less exhausting to create.

  Two of the dwellers fired their launchers then. Except, the weapons didn’t release bolts, but energy nets.

  Tane released air from his dorsal vents and narrowly slid downward and out of the way, bouncing off the lakebed.

  Jed appeared in the midst of the dweller school, hewing one of them in half with his Chrysalium sword, and the other dwellers scattered.

  Tane arrived a moment later. He brandished his energy ax, moving it through the water just as easily as if he resided in air, thanks to the boost provided by his servomotors. One of the dwellers fired an energy net at him but he sliced through it easily with his ax. Then he jetted forward and cut open the dweller’s carapace.

  A tentacle hit his shield, and the already weak energy field drained almost instantly, allowing the tentacle to wrap around his leg. The alien responsible for that appendage drew him in.

  Tane cut downward with his ax and hacked the tentacle away.

  Another dweller grabbed him with two legs and quickly drew him toward its carapace. Tane slammed into the underbelly, unable to swing his ax in time. His weapon arm was splayed outward, pressed against the surface, the energy blade in his hand extending beyond the edge of the carapace, rendering the weapon useless.

  Tane launched the fist of his other hand toward the underbelly. He created a work of Light Glove before impact. His fist lit up with a blinding white aura and he felt the hard underside give beneath him. When the light faded, he removed his hand to find that a large, glistening, cauterized crater had been carved into the alien’s flesh where he’d struck. He was a little surprised at how powerful it was.

  Gotta love the Feral Necklace.

  Those legs that had bound him were now loose and pliant, so he pried himself free and sliced the ax through the carapace for good measure. Black guts burst out.

  Another dweller came at him, but a Fingers of Ruin work launched into it. At first he thought G’allanthamas had done it, but a glance at the overhead map told him his dweller friend was still in cover with Sinive. Those smears of unreality had come from Tane, created by his Finger of Malevolence ring.

  Another dweller bore down on him but a plasma bolt ripped into it from the side: Sinive, firing from cover. The alien’s energy shield had been lowered, of course, because it had intended to grab Tane.

  Jed finished off the last one and then became invisible once more. The party resumed their mad flight from the clearing.

  “I just spotted the Amaranth behind me,” Sinive said.

  “Can you still see them?” Tane asked.

  “No,” Sinive replied. “I ducked behind a crystal and ran. They’re about seventy-five meters away.”

  “Good, don’t let them maintain line of sight long,” Tane said.

  “If they saw her, they’ll use a distortion tunnel to jump closer…” G’allanthamas said.

  “Good point,” Tane said. “With me… take cover, now!”

  Tane dodged behind a crystal just ahead, and the others promptly joined him. Then he peered past the edge, and waited.

  Sure enough, from Sinive’s former position, the six Amaranth appeared. They drifted forward imperiously, heads tilting to and fro as they surveyed their surroundings like kings.

  Tane ducked from view, and hoped, sincerely hoped, that the dwellers hadn’t spotted him.

  “They’re coming toward us,” Jed said.

  Tane glanced at his overhead map. The invisible Volur was standing next to him, and obviously peering out beyond the edge of the crystal, because his chip was feeding the updated positions of the Amaranth to Tane’s HUD: the six red dots were slowly closing with their position.

  Tane glanced to the left and right. The layout of the nearby crystals wasn’t favorable—there was no way they could retreat without the Amaranth spotting them.

  “I’ll draw them out and double back,” Jed said. “Wait.”

  Tane watched on the overhead map as the invisible Volur headed away from the hiding place. He was moving outward, perpendicular to the incoming dwellers, as if intending to flank them. His indicator froze as he reached the reduced range limits of Tane’s chip, as did the six incoming red dots on the map.

  “Reduce transmission range to five meters,” Tane instructed his companions. No point needlessly giving their positions away.

  He held his energy ax at the ready, prepared to attack if any of the Amaranth appeared on this side of the crystal. Sinive meanwhile guarded the opposite approach.

  G’allanthamas resided in between them. The alien had expended all his reserve triggers, no doubt. And he couldn’t create any new offensive works, seeing as all of his attention was devoted to the Dark timeline for the distortion tunnel. The alien would probably be exhausted after that was done, and Tane couldn’t expect anything more of him. Tane hoped none of the enemy dwellers were waiting for them at the shuttle, but if they were, he’d have to deal with them without the help of G’allanthamas.

  The seconds ticked past, but the Amaranth didn’t appear. Jed must have successfully drawn them away.

  But as the seconds changed into minutes, Tane began to worry.

  “Where is he?” Sinive said. “Something must have happened to him.”

  “He’ll be here,” Tane said.

  But he waited, and Jed still didn’t come.

  “We have to go look for him,” Tane finally said.

  “I’m almost done the distortion timeline,” G’allanthamas said. “Leave him behind, and we—”

  “I don’t care about your timeline,” Tane said. “Place it in reserve if you have to, but I’m not leaving him.”

  “Forgive me,” G’allanthamas said. “I should have realized how much of a friend he was to you.”

  “More than a friend,” Tane said. “At this point, he’s a brother. Just as you are.”

  “I understand,” G’allanthamas said. “You are an alien, and ugly, but our two species are not so different. We, too, honor the bonds of friendship, and the duties that come with such bonds. I am here with you now, am I not?”

  “You certainly are.” Tane peered past the edge of the crystal. The lakebed was clear of Amaranth.

  He moved back behind the structure, and then slowly vented air to move upward. He kept an eye on his rear view feed, and glanced to the left and right, surveying the surrounding crystals and the lakebed in between.

  He deactivated the energy ax along with his weak shield as he neared the top of the current structure, and then grabbed on to the jagged surface, leaning past the periphery to observe from that vantage point.

  The crystals of the city sprawled before him at the same height, a forest of glowing blue rocks. As he surveyed that blue-black landscape, he spotted a concentration of armed dwellers and spider robots above an area five blocks to the north. The entire neighborhood there swirled with activity.

  “Looks like he’s got the security forces occupied a few blocks to the north,” Tane said.

  Sinive was at his side, peering from the opposite edge of the current crystal. Meanwhile G’allanthamas lingered j
ust below them, remaining in cover, clinging to the structure.

  “They’re chasing a ghost,” Jed said, appearing at Tane’s side.

  “Jed!” Tane said. “Don’t do that again. You had me worried sick. We were just about to look for you.”

  “Sorry,” Jed said, latching onto the crystal beside him.

  “How did you do that?” Sinive said, still gazing out at the commotion five blocks north.

  “My pistol,” Jed explained. “Blinking into and out of view, I led the Amaranth away, taking down security forces as I went, slowly leading them northward. Took me a while to double back. Again, my apologies.”

  Tane felt a slight vibration on the crystal, and glancing downward he saw that G’allanthamas had slipped from where he had attached to the exterior. The alien sunk about half a meter before finding a grip on the structure once more.

  “You all right, Gall?” Tane asked.

  “I’m nearly done,” G’allanthamas replied.

  “Say again?” Tane transmitted.

  “The tunnel,” G’allanthamas said. “I’m nearly done its creation.”

  “Place it below us as soon as you’re ready,” Tane said.

  And then just like that the rip in spacetime appeared underneath the four of them. Tane felt the suction immediately. He hadn’t been expecting it so soon, but he gladly allowed himself to plunge toward the distortion.

  G’allanthamas was pulled from view first, and Tane and the others plunged through the rip shortly thereafter.

  When Tane entered, he felt himself falling momentarily, and then landed on the hard ground underneath him. Liquid continued to descend from above in a veritable waterfall, and its weight pressed down on him. He crawled forward, wanting to move out from under the deluge, but then it abruptly cut off as the distortion tunnel closed above him.

  G’allanthamas lay collapsed on the rocks beside Tane. The alien’s long legs and tentacles were splayed outward.

  Tane glanced up from where he lay. In the dim light from the lake, outlined in front of the shuttle, he saw the ambushers then: dwellers and spider robots waiting to spring their trap. Three of them had weapon launchers pointed right at Tane.

  He rolled to the side and a trio of energy nets struck the ground where he had rested only moments before.

  He leaped to his feet and activated his energy shield while igniting his beam hilt at the same time. The long ax jumped into being, cutting through a dweller as the dual blades emerged.

  An energy net struck his shield on the right. It floated in place, forming a hemisphere a half-meter in front of his leg as it drained the weakened field. Before he could cut it away the net broke through and wrapped around his right leg entirely, nearly tripping him. But Tane was still able to walk.

  He spun to the right and unleashed a blindingly white Essence Missile in that direction, taking down another dweller.

  Tane threw out his Essence Sight lifeline so that his vision was above and behind him, giving him a much better perspective on the attack. A Tarkwail came at him from behind. He spun, intending to cut into it with his energy ax, but the robot moved within his swing—too close. His shield flashed, going from one percent to zero as the Tarkwail breached it. He activated Light Glove and punched straight through its head with his free hand, scattering shards of metal in all directions.

  Sinive was firing her plasma pistol rapidly into the enemies to inflict what damage she could, while Jed blinked into and out of existence, carving a path of doom through the spider robots and aliens alike with his Chrysalium sword. G’allanthamas, meanwhile, remained useless behind them, collapsed on the rocks, exhausted.

  None of the enemies were Amaranth. Because if they had been, the fight would have probably already been over.

  Three more dwellers closed on Tane, their tentacles extending as if they intended to snatch him up. Tane swung out with the ax, slicing away those tentacles, and he followed up by releasing an Essence Missile into one of them. The stricken dweller dropped with a blast hole carved into its carapace. Jed sliced the sideways-oriented head off the second alien, while Sinive shot down the third.

  A Tarkwail latched onto Tane from behind, easily breaching his depleted shield, and from its underbelly those telescoping limbs emerged, no doubt intending to swap out the accelerant injector in his glove for nanotech…

  Tane still had Melt Metal in reserve, and he released it, concentrating on those approaching limbs. Both melted away entirely, as did a good portion of the robot’s underbelly, thanks to the level boost provided by the Feral Necklace.

  The surprised robot shifted its grip, and Tane had enough room to slide downward. He cut his ax in a wide arc as he did so, slicing the spider robot’s carapace in half.

  Two more dwellers came at him from the left and right. Fingers of Ruin auto-fired from his ring, and three streaks of dark energy emerged. Two of them struck the first dweller, while the third streak struck the second. He didn’t know the different streams of unreality could be divided like that. Interesting.

  The first dweller fell as the veins climbing up its carapace split open, revealing the dark meat underneath. The second dweller merely screamed as its carapace cracked, and it came on even stronger. Those angry tentacles wrapped around Tane, and his near-zero shield failed almost instantly.

  The dweller pinned Tane’s arms to his side, so that he couldn’t use his ax. He released an Energy Missile and it ripped through the tentacles and into the base of the carapace underneath the head. The dweller howled and finally collapsed.

  Tane dropped, free, to the ground. He was feeling fairly exhausted by that point, thanks to all the Siphoning. But as usual, drawing the chaos of the Dark through him seemed to mitigate the weariness somewhat—he could only imagine how he would feel without the chaotic fire flowing through his core. His high Endurance no doubt helped as well.

  Two energy nets came at him from behind. He spun, slicing through one of them with his energy ax, and narrowly sidestepping the second. He tilted the tip of his ax toward the dweller lurking in front of him, lined up the targeting reticle and fired an Essence bolt from the ax. Direct hit: he was getting good at lining up targets while in the third-person perspective of Essence Sight.

  Jed flashed into view, taking down the second dweller before Tane.

  Sinive was firing rapidly at three robots that were bearing down on her. The Tarkwails had activated their energy shields, and so far those shields were holding up. Tane immediately fired off an Essence bolt from his ax at one of the spider robots, and the deadly stellar wind passed right through the shield and slammed into the Tarkwail’s carapace, felling it.

  The second robot was rotating its laser turrets toward Sinive, as if intending to fire them at her.

  But Tane was already running toward it; he leaped past Sinive and cut those turrets right off, his Essence ax penetrating the shield. His body bounced off the robot’s energy field, and the impact drained his own shield to zero once more, so that he hit the ground without any cushioning and landed rolling. He momentarily deactivated his beam hilt so he wouldn’t maim himself with it.

  He clambered to his feet and swept the beam hilt in a wide arc, activating it, and the blade sliced through the legs of the third robot.

  Sinive’s pistol finally penetrated the second robot’s energy shield, and she downed the Tarkwail, finishing the task Tane had started.

  She rounded on him. “I had the situation under control.”

  Tane didn’t answer. Instead he surveyed his surroundings. That seemed to be the last of them. He and his friends were surrounded by the corpses of bleeding dwellers and the wreckages of spider robots.

  Tane stepped out of the White Essence and released the Dark. The energy ax disappeared, but he continued to hold onto the beam hilt, not quite ready to give up the Endurance boost.

  One of the fallen dwellers was apparently still alive. It swept its front legs across the shale, struggling to drag its body away from the shuttle. Its torso was covered i
n blood.

  Sinive went to the helpless dweller and held her pistol to its head, execution style.

  “Leave it,” Tane said.

  She glanced at him, but in the dim light from the lake Tane could barely discern the outline of her face behind the pane of her helmet.

  She returned her attention to the dweller and fired. A spurt of blood erupted from the head, and it ceased all movements.

  Tane shook his head. “That wasn’t necessary.”

  “It was,” Sinive told him.

  Jed materialized. He slid his Chrysalium sword between Tane’s spacesuit and the energy net that had attached to his right leg assembly, and cut it free.

  “Thanks,” Tane said.

  “We must board quickly,” the Volur said. “There will be more of them coming.”

  “Gall, hear that?” Tane started toward the shuttle. “Let’s go.”

  G’allanthamas didn’t move from where he still lay sprawled on the rocky ground.

  Tane stalked over to G’allanthamas. “Gall. Gall! We have to go! Get up!” Tane kicked him, but the dweller didn’t respond.

  He tried again, still nothing. Tane was beginning to worry that the dweller had been injured in the fighting, and was about to kick him a final time when the alien at last stirred.

  “Ah, just kill me already!” G’allanthamas said. “Woman? Come here and execute me as well, please.”

  “Keep calling me woman and you’ll get your wish,” Sinive said.

  “We need you to fly the shuttle! Get up!” Tane shook him. “Up!”

  With an obvious effort, G’allanthamas stood. He began to move toward the shuttle on wobbly legs. “The things I do for you, Doomwielder.”

  Following behind him, Tane gazed nervously at the lake, looking for signs of the dwellers that were no doubt coming.

  “Hurry, Gall,” Tane said.

  “Doing… the best… I can…” G’allanthamas said.