Today I Save Myself

by Greg Laurel

  In the distance, a lone Loriken was setting up something of his own. Not a bomb, that was for sure, but it was definitely not the power generator its label plate was trying to say. He made his way over.

  “I’m just setting up a power generator for some of the booths here, compliments of ‘Ebsil Ty’.” Time seemed to freeze, and the letters he spoke, but may not have pronounced, appeared before Miles in the air, as if he was processing them just that quickly. EBSL TJY. A single shift in letter, DARK SIX.

  It seemed Miles didn’t need to create a crisis, this Demon servant was going to do it for him. Before Miles could act, the power turned on. “No, wait!” was too late of a call before a red portal tore itself into existence, forcing a gaping wound in the fabric of reality itself, and the Loriken was ripped to shreds, so close to this event. Miles dropped the briefcase he held, and conjured his cutlass as the first troopers from Hell stepped into existence. He began to face them, and cut them down, but he was only one man, and the Demons that ignored him began their slaughter as the crowd of this expo ran in terror, as they would.

  Miles blasted his containment field generator with The Aura, and it activated, surrounding the downtown of Hulae, and there was no way out for anyone once it finished projecting itself. Miles’s curses for this twisted luck of his, both fortunate and not at the same time were only interrupted by him slicing through another Demon. For some reason, there was no one else fighting but him. No other power-wielders, or even someone with a larger than average pocketknife. This initial bloodbath lasted for near ten minutes, as Demons streamed from the portal, and Miles tried to close it with The Aura somehow, hoping he could get lucky with the shots he fired at it. In a desperate moment, he pulled his hand back, as if trying to dislodge this accursed gate with telekinesis. It seemed to stutter in space at this, and Miles figured he was on to something. Another invisible heave, and the portal began to violently destabilize, crushing in on itself until nothing remained but the mangled corpse of the hellspawn that was trying to get through it at the moment. Fighting for a few moments more, he made his retreat, but the problem remained: thousands of Demons were here, and there was no way Miles could let that containment grid down until that number was zero.

  Chapter the Eleventh

  Miles’s comm-link in his scanner pinged. It was Dorg.

  “Radien, please tell me this wasn’t your plan! The Conclave is in an uproar, and everyone wants answers, especially me!”

  “My plan was just the containment field! I was going for to lock ‘em all in like a reverse siege or something, then some jackass Loriken opens this portal! And it wasn’t pretty, either! It’s like it... shredded itself into reality! There wasn’t much left of the poor bastard by the time Demons actually started coming through...”

  Dorg sighed in relief, that he hadn’t made a huge mistake in believing anything of Miles. “What do I tell the Conclave, then? This is my corner of the galaxy to speak for, after all.”

  “My investigation into the Chorgon Nehr’s dissenters led me to this event, and I took the containment grid generator in case things got hairy, because I figured that there’d be a considerable amount of people who’d want this lot dead, and at the very least it could be held in one spot until blowing over.”

  Dorg looked over his shoulder, nodded quickly, and cut off the transmission. By this point, it was several hours in, and Demons were patrolling the streets, looking for survivors. There weren’t many, and they were holed up and hiding in the buildings that hadn’t been searched yet. If nothing else, they probably wouldn’t be speaking against Demon hunters anymore...

  Miles nearly jumped out of his skin when someone put their hand on his shoulder, and almost got a knife to the throat. A Hajivakk, a more winter-acclimatized one to be sure. “Jesus fucking shit, man, don’t startle me when Demons are out and about! I could’ve killed you!”

  “Yeah, not my best move, I see that now,” she noted. “I’ve not seen your kind before, what’s your name?”

  “What, now? This isn’t exactly the best time, considering the factors!”

  “Well, if we’re gonna die here, I think I’d like to know a bit about this new species I’m seeing!”

  Both fell silent as they heard footsteps. Their ears weren’t the only ones listening, it seemed. The sound of metal shifting, like someone had propped their weapon on their shoulder, and the heavy breathing of a Demonic trooper were all that could be heard soon enough. Miles waited for a few moments, listening for where it was, before standing up and throwing the knife that would’ve gone into this clumsy native of the planet Mjarfus’s throat into the abomination instead, and it decayed to rot and ash before it could hit the ground.

  “I’d like to think I have no plans to die today,” Miles said, turning back dramatically. “If you’d like to think that as well, stay close.” Miles took two steps forward, then looked back around, as if to correct himself. “Wait, no, fuck off, you’re one of the idiots attending this event! One of the asshats who’d rather the worlds did nothing while this kind of thing went down!”

  “I beg to differ,” she said, reaching into her dark grey sweater and producing a small badge, bearing an official-looking seal that Miles was probably supposed to recognize and think had meaning. “Synval-Kolderan, I’m here on behalf of the Chorgon Nehr, we’ve been tracking a Loriken with a Rift Lance for months, and our last lead was here, of all the rotten luck. Did you see where he went after the portal was opened?”

  “Yeah, he went all over the place.” Synval took a second, then winced a little. “Probably figured Hulae’s expo was the prime location, with a city full of people who unironically thought that Demons could be reasoned with, and had equitable desires, not even demands.”

  “Well, it was either me or someone who wasn’t planning to leave without knocking a few heads.” A shadowy figure seemed to creep across the wall behind them, like a deep-sea crab of ninety percent legs that didn’t seem to work in any comforting way. Synval whipped around to face it, drawing a concealed pistol and blasting this Demon with a pulsing energy that caused it to writhe on the ground and disintegrate. “I think we can get along. You clearly don’t agree with this lot either, and can handle yourself. That’s all I need in an ally right now.”

  Miles nodded, and Synval took hold of her own scanner, that seemed tailor-made for Demon hunting, since it had an exact count of how many were left. Nine hundred eighty-seven, thanks to their separate efforts over the last few hours, and maybe a handful of desperate last stands from the less fortunate. Astonishingly, the Demons outnumbered the survivors. There were well over fifty thousand attending this event. But both of them understood that now was not the time to be burdened by death. The Demons sure wouldn’t be, and had no problems taking advantage of anyone who was.

  A finite number of foes, thus every blow dealt was permanent. Miles and Synval switched between operating together and independently, picking off lone foot soldiers, and teaming up for the occasional squad or particularly large opponent. The number of lifeforms in the downtown that weren’t Demons however, reached only two. The first night rolled around, and unfortunately, it looked like they’d be stuck for a bit. Only fifty or so thinned from the horde. The opportunities were not plentiful, and as they made their threat to the attack’s success known, the Demons were become more vigilant, and it was unlikely they were traveling alone from here on in. Miles and Synval had found a warehouse near the edge of the quarantine that the Demons weren’t paying attention to, even if only because they’d already raided it hours before, and killed everyone inside. The only fortunate thing was that the bodies weren’t even there to be seen all mangled, since the forces of Hell used bio-fuel to operate their war machines and artillery. Meaning of course, that cremation of the dead was going to be taken care of pretty thoroughly.

  “Some cultures call it a high honor to have one’s body burn after death,” Synval said at their pseudo-campfire. It was more just a soft lantern. “The idea that they are use
ful even beyond mortal existence, as light or as fuel.”

  “And others?” Miles asked.

  “Others say that to be reduced from a grand and complex form to simple ash is an insult. The universe is a big place, so there’s all other views in between. I can’t say for sure what this crowd’s collective thought on it was. But I think most will be glad that they don’t have to speculate why the casket had to be closed, as it were.”

  Miles nodded. “It’s really odd that I’m so flung into this whole universe thing. It was less than a year ago I was so stuck on a backwater planet, so sure my whole life would be nothing but stagnant and unsatisfying. In these short months, I’ve been shown and granted so much, more than I think I could comprehend if I thought about it long enough.”

  “Probably shouldn’t spend too much time thinking on it, then,” Synval suggested. “It only matters where it came from sometimes. If you know well that your gifts came not from deliberate, needless pain, misfortune or fuckin’ whatever, then you can just have your time and use it too, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “It seems to be the consensus around here. Far from what I’ve usually heard. All that ‘life’s to be suffered’ bullshit from just about every religious jabroni to spit on the ground with their shoes, the idea that nothing is supposed to be good...” He chuckled for a second. “There was a disturbing amount of people who’d look at like, a kid’s show that was actually solid, right? Y’know, funny stuff. Good memories. They’d then make these ridiculous theories that it’s actually all death and misery. Like, ‘the main character is hallucinating their friends’ or ‘everyone’s dead and it’s actually purgatory,’ and the like”

  Synval laughed, appalled. “Seriously?! That sounds so... ugh, I haven’t even got a word for it! It’s the kind of stupid shit you could only look at and laugh at the lame effort to ruin everyone’s fun!”

  Miles agreed, she hit the nail on the head with that. They then began to plan their efforts for the coming day, and the days ahead. And as the days went forward, the Demons were killed quicker and quicker as Miles learned more about them, the different variants, and how to dispatch them. Though initially, it was predicted it would take near a month to eliminate them all, the final Demon was dead within a week. The fact that they were still trying to have eyes everywhere with fewer numbers helped, as it spread them out quite thin. Synval showed Miles the count on her scanner. Zero Demonic presences remaining, and Miles nodded and let down the containment field. Synval said she would handle the press, and Miles left her to it, heading back to Cynofrax, flopping on the couch in Veralis’s home, which she almost considered to be both of theirs, but Miles wasn’t convinced, since he wasn’t paying rent. Freeloader, maybe. He’d call himself that rather quickly.

  Veralis walked in from the Holographic Arena, which could be used for more than just combat training, it could even make complex projections of scenarios to react to, or environments to navigate. She mussed Miles’s hair a little, and to his own surprise, he didn’t mind that much, just playfully batting at her arms with a ‘njehhh’ sound.

  “I’d ask how it went, but I already know most of it,” Veralis said, and Miles sighed.

  “Yeah, could’ve been smoother. Kinda ironic that one of the Chorgon Nehr was actually helping me rid the Demons. It’s probably going to help their cause a hell of a lot. A single Demon Hunter and some random yahoo took out a good twenty-five hundred Demons or so, and even closed the rift they were using.”

  Veralis switched Techbooth on to see the broadcast from Gliropa. Synval was making her address still, but Miles hadn’t left her too long ago.

  “I can confirm that a Rift Lance was used to open this portal, as the Chorgon Nehr had been tracking down leads on a possible attempt to construct it, and plans to use it to take over the entire planet of Gliropa. I am confident that if not for my intervention, and that of Miles Radien, whose presence was an honest miracle, the Demons would have at the very least destroyed Hulae in its entirety,” she said to reporters, who themselves had to help hold back the crowd trying to sneak a peek at what was left of the downtown block.

  “And what of the fifty thousand plus people that were attending this expo? Miles Radien’s species only recently was even noted as existent by the Conclave, and how can they be trusted when he himself denounces them? How many—”

  “One at a time, and you’ll be lucky that I have answers for both of those so far. It is with sorrow I must report that Miles and I were the only survivors, and it is known that Demons do not leave behind the bodies they destroy. Almost three thousand Demons were present, and of all the people here, the only ones who fought were myself and him. If his actions today, and his destruction of the Deceiver Avanchenvaldr do not tell you his trustworthiness to aid the universe, then I must call you... fuckin’ dumb as shit.”

  Miles cracked up at that final comment. “Oh, I like her. Ho boy, she should do interviews on Earth. It’d be a laugh riot, followed by idiots getting punched, probably.”

  Veralis snickered and Miles more or less came to his senses. “Well over fifty thousand dead is not a laughing matter, I know. But she gets the point across, what needs be known.”

  “I know what you mean,” Veralis said, hopping over the back of the couch to sit next to him. “I’ll be honest, no one with a rational inkling will get too choked up over these kinds of people dying. They won’t celebrate, no one will. They won’t brush off fifty thousand as a statistic, people are better than that. But what they will do, is understand that this is why orders like the Chorgon Nehr, or the Vindarr Valokoria, or the Ordus Gente exist: If they don’t, this is what happens, and without the luxury of a decent ending.”

  Miles sort of... understood what she meant by people. It’s why that was the word he heard. People referred to the ones of the universe, the configurations of being that are worth fighting for and alongside, maybe even in the name of. But there didn’t have to be a matter of ‘in the name of’ anything, this is just what needed to be. A warrior, when a fight needs be fought. A defender, when a world needs defending. A healer, when an innocent needs healing, and a wiseman when a lesson need be taught.

  Never cowardly or weak, aldka Sehlkavhika, þsehlkoska

  Never ignorant or the liar, aldka Sehlhaldn, þlurein

  Never corrupted, never evil, aldka Sehlflown, aldka Sehlakarka

  For hope is brought on the wings of the Defender, Gidaan taydeltn aravinda Giraydien

  Miles remembered those words from back on Earth he didn’t have words to define. He remembered that one riff of his, Song of the Defender, that he had played on his first day on Cynofrax. The words he once couldn’t define fit perfectly in the rhythm of the anthem.

  “That’s... almost too serendipitous,” Miles said as he figured this out. “It can’t be some destiny thing, right?”

  Veralis heard Miles out on his discovery, and told him what she could figure. “I don’t have a clue how you knew those words. They’re ancient and powerful, in the language of Old Cynofrax. Before the Vulpians of today came along, the Old Cynofraxians were our ancestors. There were days when the words they spoke could shake the very foundations of worlds. Everything they said in that primal tongue seemed to carry so much more weight than their letters alone, and not even they could truly understand why. Their words just seemed... beyond definition, even to themselves, but they decided that the universe didn’t need to be solved, and not every question needed an answer. Not that it shouldn’t be, or must never be, just that whatever happened was to happen.”

  Miles thought about that. Whatever happened was to happen. An odd similarity to how he felt, with a few finer details removed. Though Miles figured that some things could be just fine existing in mystery, he wasn’t a pushover. If there was an answer needed, there wouldn’t be much that could stop him aside from death itself.

  “Proximity alert,” Techbooth stated to cut the philosophizing.

  Chapter the Twelfth

  Veralis opened the door
to her home, and Arakai, the Vulpian from when Miles first came to Cynofrax stood there. “I figured it would be a good idea to see how Radien was doing, considering the waves he’s been making after a relatively short time.”

  Miles headed up to Arakai, who wasn’t in his armor this time, just some casual clothes for the day-to-day on Cynofrax. “I hope that landing didn’t give you too much trouble upstairs, it seems to be a big deal, those Plains of the Stars.”

  “No one upstairs needed to know, since it was resolved without incident,” Arakai assured. “And I think you might like to know that some of the counselors at Alindros Parliament are considering granting you a homestead on Cynofrax in observance of what you’ve done for us all in such short a time.”

  Miles perked up at this, both shocked and excited. “Really? Then I suppose I can stop freeloading from Veralis, here.”

  “Hey, it’s not freeloading if I offered!”

  Miles half-nodded “Right. Either way, I’d be a fool to not accept it if it goes through.”

  “Smart man. Technically it’s only in consideration, but between you and I, that’s only because they haven’t written it down yet,” Arakai finished with an ear twitch, which acted as a wink for Vulpians.

  “Well, thanks for the heads-up, Arakai.”

  Arakai took his leave, and Miles just stood in awe. “I mean… when The Aura makes sure you don’t have to sleep, you get a lot done.”

  A few days later, Miles got the word officially. He now owned a home on Cynofrax, just outside the Alindros city-province in the area known as Sectora Neutros, an area covering at least seventy percent of Cynofrax’s landmass. Essentially, this huge swathe of land consisting of self-governed towns and cities that weren’t part of a nation-state, but their allegiance remained to the planet as a whole. Alindros’s Parliament commissioned and built the home for Miles, to honor his defeat of Avanchenvaldr, and the saving of Hulae, and simply handed the keys to him, so to speak. It wasn’t a physical key that opened the door, just advanced biometrics. Miles moved Techbooth and the tools he had from running the Fourteen Werewolves to this new base of his, and told Veralis she was welcome whenever she wished. Veralis, of course, insisted on keeping the Holographic Arena. But since Miles had the Keystone Forge and could make a new one, he agreed.