by Ren Garcia
"Unfortunately, your kindness is unwarranted, unasked for … and unwanted."
And like he had once been told, Shadow tech didn't make a metallic sound when scraped. Instead it moaned and wailed, like it was alive.
They circled once or twice, she continuing to rub his CARG seductively with her moaning claws. "This…is so unfair," she said moving slowly to her left. "I can kill you at my wish, and all you have is this silly weapon. You must be very frightened."
"Not frightened. I'm disappointed. I truly wanted to help you."
She stopped and stood still. She threw her arms back, her claws rising into the air. "Oh, that hurts, Lord of Blanchefort, that stings— that I've disappointed you. Hehehehe … go on, try to kill me. I will allow you an open attempt, a free shot, if you will."
She waited, her featureless black sash floating about her head, covering all traces of her face and hair. He thought he could see her grinning beneath it.
Davage smiled and put his CARG down. "I have a demand."
"I see," she said, waggling her claws at him. "State your demand."
She Wafted with a blast of air and appeared behind him, her tiny yet cruel hands wrapping around his chest, the claws interlacing together—an odd, menacing embrace.
"I demand you remove your mask," he said, nonplussed.
The hands appeared quizzical, surprised. "Hahahahahaha! Request denied."
"What is the matter, Black Hat? Scared?"
The hands pulled back, and she reappeared in front of him. She seemed puzzled. "Why make such a demand?"
"You were very beautiful, sitting in my brig, where you sit right now. Fine skin, lovely red hair—those shining green eyes. I wish to see it again."
"Think me beautiful, do you?"
"I do. I wish to see your face again."
She stood there a moment. "Lord Blanchefort, I make a counter offer. You are a handsome man. If I didn't hate you so, if I didn't wish to taste your blood, I might find myself rather enamored with you."
She pulled up the lower part of her mask, exposing her mouth, only there was no mouth there. There was a Shadow tech amalgam of hairy female and male parts, squirming, rolling, dripping, reaching.
Davage was horrified. He turned away.
"Let me kiss you!" she said in a demonic Black Hat voice.
She approached him. He could smell her as she neared in the dank air.
"Come here and kiss me!" she shouted, using the Dirge.
Davage, Dirged, unable to control his actions, began moving toward her.
"Heeheeheheee," she tittered softly.
When he got to her, she put her arms around him, reached up, and kissed him with that travesty of a mouth. He gagged as parts wormed and thrust their way down his throat.
Feeling himself begin to wretch, he hauled back and delivered a crushing head butt to her mouth, sending her recoiling, holding her face. So much for the Dirge. A swollen mouth will hinder it.
Davage tried to go on the initiative. "Again, show me your whole face and be rid of your Shadow tech trappings … if you are not scared to face me as a woman and not a monster," he said.
The Black Hat stood there for a moment, confused. She suddenly lunged and sent a claw speeding toward his chest. Davage side-stepped and countered, crossing the claw with his unbending CARG. The Shadow tech screamed as it crossed the hard surface of the CARG.
She purred, impressed it seemed. She swiped again and again.
He crossed, parried, met her guard, side-stepped, and thrust. Sparks blossomed and floated from their clashing weapons.
Davage was a master with his CARG. The Black Hat, though fierce and determined, couldn't match his skill, and only his mercy left her standing. She tried an overhead swipe, which Davage met with the full weight of his CARG. It was a heavy weapon, and its mass was too much for her, her claws bent and shattered. He then gave her a shallow cut across the chest, which didn't seem to bother her in the least.
They stopped a moment, both breathing hard. She then came again, her claws regrowing, and seeing her try such a move previously, Davage moved to his left, swept her legs out from under her, and sent her down with a thud.
He put his CARG to her throat.
"Will you yield and listen to reason?"
Suddenly, he felt an iron hand grip his throat. He was lifted off the ground into the air. "Certainly," she said.
TK, she had him in a total full-body TK, and there was no getting out of it.
Gripping him in her TK, she stood and brushed herself off. She regarded him for a moment. She then slammed him down to the ground hard. Repeating the action, she did it again and again, over and over until the landscape spun. His CARG jostled loose from his TK'ed hand, and she kicked it away.
She brought him down very close to her masked, featureless face. She looked at him and caressed his chin with a claw. "Pity …" she said.
And with a savage cry of victory, she sent her claws toward his chest. Again and again, his uniform shredding into tatters.
Her claws couldn't penetrate Davage, however. She found that his skin, while TK'ed, was rock hard, diamond hard, the angry claws not able to penetrate. They bounced off, the protesting Shadow tech wailing at the feast of blood denied to it.
She stopped and laughed. "Hmmm, pardon me, then, if I simply crush you!"
She tightened the TK, Dav feeling his guts compressing up into his throat.
Dav, feeling it all coming to an end, found as she compressed his chest, his limbs began to free up. Quickly, he drew his MiMs pistol, pointed it, and fired.
POCK!
Even in this dreamscape, its report was small and unsatisfying. A tiny toy gun, the MiMs.
She took the bullet in the shoulder. Wincing in pain, she dropped the TK, and Davage fell to the ground.
She formed a massively long Shadow tech whip with a waving cato-nine tails at its end and lashed him with it. He felt his flesh sundering at its touch.
He went to his knees, alight in agony. He dropped his MiMs. With a wave of her hand, the tiny, elegant gun vanished.
"Heheheheeeeheee," she tittered.
She hauled back and cracked Davage across the back with the whip, the shaft tearing through clothing and putting an ugly, bloody wheal on his skin. As the whip pulled back, Davage noticed the cato-nine tail was actually a grasping Shadow tech hand complete with a full, tooth-filled maw in the center of the palm.
She lashed him again. The hand gripped onto him with its horrid claws, and when she pulled back, it wrenched away a fist-sized bit of flesh.
Davage cringed.
She sent another whip stroke. Davage deftly moved to his left, seized his CARG, and sliced the whip in two. Grabbing the end of the severed whip, he gave it a good jerk, and the tiny Black Hat rocketed toward him. Roughly, he clothes-lined her across the neck. She fell, gagging.
Providing her with a taste of her own brew, he picked her tiny, robed body up and threw her down on her head where she lay on the ground and groaned. She raised her head to look up and he golfswung his CARG across her face with a thudding, non-cutting blow. A rapidly assembled Sten saved her from a bone-breaking and possibly fight-ending hit. Nevertheless, Stenned or not, she spat out bloody teeth.
She moved the Sten toward him, and he just had a moment to dive out of its way.
He dove into one of the corridors and went around a few bends.
CRACK!
He felt a sting on his leg. Looking down, the whip with the hand was back, wrapped around his right leg. With a jerk he was pulled off his feet and dragged back toward the corner. In almost surrealistic fashion, a set of long Shadow tech claws appeared from around the corner and danced about, waiting to chop him into bits.
"Hahahahahahahaha!"
He plunged his CARG into its mouth and tore the hand in two. It let go.
Instead of running from the hideous claws, he charged toward them, and using a cutting stroke, he sliced them through again. He quickly reached around the corner and grabbe
d the Black Hat, who clearly wasn't ready at this point to be attacked. Again, he picked her up like a tiny red duffel bag and crashed her back down, where she groaned in pain. Her right arm snapped where she had tried to break her fall.
Stunned, bleeding from her MiMs shot, in agony from her arm and her near-toothless mouth, she Wafted away with a blast.
Dav, using his Sight, saw that she was going to reappear down the corridor to his left. He whirled and sent his CARG in a spiraling cutting arc in that direction.
She appeared a moment later, saw the CARG coming, and putting her arms out in front of her to protect her face, made the CARG vanish just as it was about to run her through.
She exhaled in exhaustion and wagged her finger at him. "Enough of that," she mumbled, toothless. She Wafted behind him and sent her claws speeding toward the back of his head.
Dav Wafted, appearing to her right, and socked her square in the jaw, knocking her down.
Davage Wafted again, this time appearing behind her. He put his arm around her throat.
"I am still awaiting the removal of your mask, ma'am," he said.
She struggled for a moment and giggled breathlessly. "Oh, sir, I am enjoying this. You fight well." With a gloved fingertip, she traced little designs on his arm. "How shall I do it? How shall I kill you? The choices are endless."
Davage suddenly grabbed her by the nose and ripped her sash off, exposing her face. He hoped that her little nose will come off with it.
There again was the red hair, the pale skin, the green eyes, the strange mark around her right eye, and a red, throbbing nose. It was Captain Hathaline, her face with a bleeding mouth.
She puckered in rage. In a cascade of Shadow tech, she blasted him off of her. He landed a few feet away, the touch of the Shadow tech galling and unbearable.
She stood, her mouth pulled back in a scowl. Her teeth were a broken and jagged patchwork.
Davage sensed that he was in extreme danger. He Sighted, looking up into the blasted sky.
Sten … she was creating a Sten field over his head. The Sten was an illegal Black Hat specialty. It was an invisible force field; Black Hats used it to protect themselves from most incoming projectiles and energies. To touch a Sten was a shocking, deadly experience. To touch it for a moment unloaded a massive shock into the person. To touch it for more than a moment or two was utterly deadly. The major drawback of the Sten was that it was very draining to use and somewhat slow to create. Adept Black Hats could create a Sten far away from their bodies. They could move and shape it, turn it into a killing field.
This Black Hat, this Sygillis of Metatron, appeared to be very adept. He could see the Sten field beginning to form overhead in his Sight.
Moving with the speed of a championship athlete, he rolled away, just clearing the edge of the Sten, and it sparked into the ground.
She looked at him quizzically. "Can you see my Sten? How is that possible?"
"Sight," Davage said, wondering if she was now going to take his Sight away from him too. He should have said nothing.
"The Sight does not exist. The Black Hats have proved it does not exist."
Wickedly grinning, she created a small Sten maze and set it over him.
"You are encased in a Sten. I have boxed you in. There is death all around you. Let's see how well you can see it."
"I'll just Waft away."
She smiled. Hathaline's face, alight in evil. "If you do, I'll blow myself up, again taking most of the ship with me. Run my maze, Captain, and your crew will be safe."
"I think you are lying," he said.
"You are probably correct."
His CARG appeared in the center of the maze. "I will even give you your silly weapon back, should you survive to reach it."
The maze was shifting, moving. She created paths and then closed them just as fast. He took a step in the wrong direction intentionally. He wanted to see if she changed the maze, to prolong the torment.
She did. She moved the wall, allowing him to enter. With the way open to his left, he stumbled in that direction. She apparently was enjoying this sad game.
Outside, she was delighted. "I once killed a whole squadron of League Marines with the Sten, one just like this one. I simply swept it across the field and they died, screaming. You should have heard them scream."
Davage tired of this game. He looked at the CARG. It actually wasn't there—just a simple TK paint. His Sight gave it away. He made to reach for it and then Wafted. He Wafted right into her and planted her in the chin with his fist, sending her flying. She hit the ground and, grimacing, fired a sinewy, intestine-like rope of Shadow tech at him.
It wrapped around his throat, its brackish, clammy, stinking substance sticking to his skin like glue. It felt like it was alive, full of crawling, biting, stinging insects. His skin recoiled with discomfort.
Spinning him around, she wrapped him up like a spider packaging its prey for later consumption and then plopped him down.
He couldn't move a muscle.
He tried to Waft, and she laughed. "You cannot Waft through Shadow tech. I am sorry."
She slowly approached and knelt down. "You have fought well, truly. I have fought Xaphan warlords, Marines, League Fleet ships, even the Sisters. You have lasted longer than any of them. You have pained me. You should be proud."
"You cheated. You took my weapons from me just as you were about to perish several times."
She leaned forward and licked him with her bloody tongue on the nose. "And so?" She stopped and regarded him. "Hmmm, how should I do this?" she said. "A pity. If I was capable of feeling such things, I might actually like you."
"You're going to kill me now?"
"Of course I am, and I'll not think twice about it. Perhaps fighting you for eternity in hell, as we soon will be doing, won't be such an unpleasant thing."
She smiled and raised her hand. "Have you ever witnessed a person die by the Point?"
"I've been briefed on its effects."
She shrugged. "You really must see it to truly appreciate it. Usually, people simply explode from the inside out. The Giftless, the Browns, die instantly, but Gifted Blues take a bit longer. Many times Blues explode too, just like Browns, but occasionally powerful Blues, like you, do random sorts of things. I've seen people turn inside out. I've seen bones crack and entrails turn to dust."
She lifted her finger. "I wonder what you will do."
She reached out to Point.
There was a flutter of movement from a distance. She hesitated.
Davage looked at the Black Hat. For the briefest possible moment, there appeared to be two of her standing there, facing each other.
Having no other weapons available to him, he lit his Sight and blasted her. His Sight, aside from being blindingly bright at full, tended to have a calming effect on those looking at it. Maybe it will calm her enough to relax her coils.
She looked at his eyes, mouth agape. She stared, her green eyes glowing like emeralds in his light.
"What is this?" she cried. "What is this?"
She smoked in his Sight, plumes of black soot belching away from her as if she were on fire in a stiff breeze.
Her Shadow tech cocoon crumbled, and he was free. He wasn't sure what was going on, but his Sight clearly appeared to be having an effect on her. He approached and continued, hitting her with it as hard as he could. She stood there in the spotlight of his fully lit Sight, smoking.
She fell to her knees, her eyes locked in place.
There was an audible blast, and a cloud of darkness appeared to part from around her.
She sighed and slowly reached out for him. "Lord Blanchefort?" she said in a small, probing voice. "Lord Blanchefort … I …"
The floor to the dreamscape fell away, and she dropped, hanging onto the edge, her broken arm dangling.
Down below a vast, fiery mouth appeared. It opened in a smiling bellows, exhaling fire.
"DDDDDDIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!" it rumbled.
"It's her!"
she cried. "It's her!"
She hung on to the edge in the onslaught. "Lord Blanchefort," she said. "Help me, please!"
A long tongue of fire and evil lapped up, tormenting her. "Please!" she shrieked.
Davage crawled forward and pulled her up by the wrist. Standing, he bore her away from the edge, the rumbling and fire passing into the distance. When he thought it safe, he stopped and put her down. Things became indistinct. The dream began to fade.
