by Vi Voxley
Seeing Tieran, the Fearless charged without pause. It didn't bother with words. The message was clear enough.
21
Tieran
This is it.
Tieran only had a moment to register the Fearless' appearance before the creature struck. He jumped out of the way of its massive claws, growing longer with every second.
He felt like laughing, although the situation was dire and Audrey had never been in greater danger.
But the Fearless was finally giving him a chance.
Dodging the powerful blows that threatened to take his head off, Tieran was pleased to see that for the moment, the creature's attention was on him and him alone.
As it should be.
As the Fearless roared, the walls of the station shook. Even Tieran's ears hurt, but he made himself push through any pain the monster might have caused, blocking it out to be dealt with later. It had finally reverted to its basic instincts and that was the final opportunity he was going to get.
He could see the lifestone's glow within the Fearless, making the monster almost transparent where it was hidden in its body.
It was a disadvantage, but Palians were known for one thing above everything else – and that was taking problems and turning them against themselves. It was how they handled the galaxy and everyone in it.
They had even let some dangerous species go unpunished and unchallenged to give the Brions something to do. The violent core of the most formidable race in the galaxy needed a target and from time to time, the Palians were forced to provide that.
Never the Fearless, though. Never them. They were a plague upon the galaxy and Tieran meant to end it once and for all that day.
The Fearless towered over him, looking like something out of a storybook more than real life. It truly was the epitome of a monster, with the burning eyes and the black-as-night skin, almost impossible to break.
The size of the enemy didn't scare him. On the contrary, it was everything Tieran had been hoping for. In a place that small, that cramped – at least for the Fearless – it was hindering itself while he had a large opponent to aim at.
And his target was right ahead, glowing.
He needed to get closer, much closer.
The Fearless seemed to realize that too. Suddenly it understood what he was about to do and Tieran saw the most furious gaze he'd ever seen, a deathly red glow in its eyes. The Fearless bellowed such a cry it knocked him back, sliding on the floor before regaining his footing.
"Not so fast," the Fearless gargled at him. "If you do this, she will die as well. We are connected, forever. She knows this."
Tieran never dropped his guard, but the monster's words gave him pause.
Could it be true? Would Audrey not have told him if she was inescapably tied to the fate of the Fearless? Everything he'd seen of her told him it was possible. Audrey cared about her people, Verien, the galaxy. It wasn't impossible that she would have sacrificed herself like that, confessing her love to him as her final words.
The eyes of the Fearless were burning with vicious glee.
No.
He couldn't believe that, refused to accept the prospect of losing her. The creature was lying, it had to be.
In the next moment, Audrey screamed.
The shrill, heartbreaking sound made Tieran turn. The Fearless struck at once, sending him crashing into a wall. Only his armor saved him, morphing in mid-air to soften the blow, but it also destroyed many of the nanobots, leaving him with less protection moving forward.
Audrey's cry continued, unbroken, like she was never going to say another word, nor laugh in the way that he had come to love.
He got up, rage burning in him now. It wasn't natural for a paladin to hate the enemy, but the Fearless was pushing him deeper into emotions he didn't want to feel. If Audrey had taught him anything, it was that embracing his emotions was not always a bad thing.
"Do you hear that?" the monster asked, prowling, edging closer to her. "I'm doing that to her. And I can do a lot more if you don't lead me to the rest of the stones."
"The stones are gone," Tieran said, coming closer carefully, watching the Fearless bare its fangs in a terrible growl. "You know that. They're under the mountain now, buried again. It isn't in my power to bring them back."
He didn't have the connection to the Fearless that Audrey had, but even Tieran could feel the Fearless shake with rage then. The disappointment surrounded it like a physical aura.
He wondered if the other paladins were prepared to follow his orders and destroy the planet if he failed. The lifestone would be gone with the Fearless, but there was no other choice.
"Tieran…"
The sound of her voice was so pained it hurt him to hear. He saw Audrey, lying on the ground, her long blonde hair spread around her as she'd fallen. Her eyes were bloodshot, but she was looking at him.
"It's… lying."
In the next second, the Fearless cast a look in her direction and Audrey's eyes slid shut.
Rage blinded Tieran.
He charged the Fearless, but the enemy was prepared for him. The true battle began as Audrey's lifeless body laid on the ground. Tieran couldn't see if she still breathed.
It can’t be over!
The glaive in his hand cut and tore at the Fearless, trying to get closer, but it came at a price.
All the simulations he'd fought were not a match for the real monster. Even in its gigantic form now, having lost some of its speed, the enemy was damnably fast and agile. Every slash of its claws diminished the nanobots in his armor as the Fearless sought to tear through them and rip at flesh.
The smart bots compensated for every loss, strengthening the places that were weakened, but their numbers were running out.
Still, it was more than any other armor would have done. Tieran had seen vids of it, the Fearless needing only one strike to punch through even the strongest metal.
The last Brion general to kill one of them had been luckier than his predecessors. Tieran had seen quite a few of the galaxy's most feared warriors fall to the monsters that lurked in its darkest depths.
Step by step, he was advancing, pushing the Fearless back. At the back of his mind, he knew that the only reason he was able to do that was that the monster had to be defensive.
It needed to cover its belly and the lifestones it had swallowed.
He doubled his efforts, remembering that it had been Audrey's idea, her observation. The monster's power was boosted by the stone, but it tied its life to it. The stone, for all intents and purposes, became a part of it.
Audrey had described the pain, the sense of loss similar to losing a limb, or worse, when the Fearless had been forced to sacrifice the last stone.
He was going to carve the stone right out of the Fearless and the monster knew it.
Their fight became a battle for survival. Every mistake, every attention slip was going to end in death now, Tieran knew that.
He was close enough to feel the monster's breath, dealing constant blows with the glaive, his hand never stopping the attack. He needed to keep the pressure on the Fearless until the beast finally let him grab a hold of it. The dragon-like body kept swirling out of the path of its glaive, making Tieran grit his teeth.
After long minutes of slashing and cutting and being cut, he caught a grip on the Fearless' monstrous form. It screeched somewhere above him, trying to bite him in half, but it had grown too big to bend that way.
Size wasn’t always a good thing.
I can’t stop now!
The paladin knew he couldn't pause for even a second or the fate he suffered was going to be worse than death. The Fearless hated him with a passion, blamed them both for its failure.
Not only wouldn't the monster chew him up slowly, it would do the same with Audrey, whether she was alive or not.
The Fearless had become the terrain itself, its monstrous draconic form big enough for Tieran to climb inch by inch up its body to where the glow beckoned him.
He slipped in the Fearless' blood, stumbled in the wounds he had inflicted on it. When the creature saw that everything else failed, both of them moving with speed beyond anything that should have been possible… it began to mutilate its own body to stop him.
Seeing it was futile, the Fearless tore at its own skin and flesh, trying to snatch Tieran up.
The paladin had already accounted for that possibility, of course. It only made his job harder, to jump and climb over chasms of flesh, at points staring right into the Fearless' body.
And then the monster caught him.
The smallest slip cost Tieran his balance and the Fearless snatched him up faster than he could react.
A victorious roar echoed over the hall as Tieran felt himself being pulled upwards with nauseating speed. He could see the Fearless open its gigantic jaws to chew him to powder between its powerful fangs.
He braced himself, admitting no fear.
Audrey!
All he thought of, in the face of the embodiment of terror in the galaxy, was her. He couldn't fail her, her world, her trust. Tieran didn't want to believe she was dead, but if she was, he would avenge her if it was the last thing he did.
The same trick that had worked on the simulation wasn't possible. With the same eerie knowledge, the Fearless seemed to know exactly where the danger lay for it. The mouth opened, but there was no place, no good angle to stab it and fight it off like he had with the mech.
Instead, Tieran rolled his shoulders and took a strong hold of his glaive. When the Fearless reached to pull him in two, he cut. A long claw fell to the ground as the Fearless screamed in anger, squeezing him in its fist. The pressure was enough to almost squeeze him to death, but the last remains of his armor were resisting with everything it had.
He needed to get out before it gave in or he would be squished right there in the Fearless' palm. It wasn't a fitting end for a paladin and definitely not for him.
“You’re mine now,” it hissed.
“No!” Tieran snapped back, reverting to the word the beast hated so much.
As the Fearless claws aimed to cut his head from his shoulders, he took the blinding pain, turning his attention to the hand holding him. The Fearless was big enough to actually hold him tight there, but he could still reach the wrist and that's what he attacked.
The first strike of his glaive made the Fearless howl and the second made him thrash. The claws around him let up a bit as Tieran realized the monster was going to throw him across the hall again.
He couldn't let that happen. His armor was almost gone and with the Fearless growing stronger every second from the lifestones within him, the impact would kill him without question.
Tieran slammed the blade of his glaive into the Fearless' hand a second before it tried to shake him loose. With a screech, the beast loosened its grip.
As soon as nothing was holding him anymore, he pulled at the blade and dropped. He could hear the Fearless roar in fury, but it was already too late.
He landed right on its lap, stopping his fall by grabbing on to the monster, shoving his glaive into its flesh. With heartbeats separating him from certain death by decapitation as the Fearless struck at him, Tieran began to slice the enemy open.
He was bleeding heavily and so was the Fearless. He was covered in crimson head to toe, more the monster’s than his own, and it trickled down to his eyes, but he kept cutting.
The stones were the key. Audrey had been certain of that and he trusted her.
He could already see the glowing mineral, right at arm's reach when the Fearless’ claw struck home. It impaled his shoulder and tore a pained grunt from him as Tieran almost blacked out from the pain, but then something happened neither of them had been able to foresee.
The Fearless winced away, like it had been shocked. Through the pain and the blood, Tieran could see Audrey, who had pushed herself up to sit against the wall, although she looked very weak and pale, her skin the color of her hair.
She had done it. Tieran didn't know how, but she'd managed to turn the Fearless' tricks against it. Somehow, she must have played with its mind just as it had done to her before.
The creature roared, charging at her with him dangling from its body. With a cry, he made sure he had a solid enough foothold and brought the glaive down with both hands.
The Fearless stumbled, crashing against the wall as everything flipped around. Tieran tumbled away from it, the stones spilling out to the floor near Audrey, along with blood and flesh and bone. The creature was down, but not dead.
All three of them moved at once.
“The stones!” Audrey gasped.
Audrey and the monster had been closer to the stones and went for them. No words of warning left Tieran's lips before Audrey's hand closed around the stones that had already almost killed her. Her scream was inhuman, but the Fearless slumped back like it had been struck.
The floor was so slick with blood Tieran was able to push Audrey away easily, sending her sliding away from the monster that was thrashing on the floor like something was torturing it.
In the next second, its cruel red eyes flashed open and Audrey screeched.
“Tieran!” she screamed, her voice half her own, half the Fearless’.
Tieran didn't waste a second. He was at the Fearless' side in two steps, thrusting the glaive right into its brain where it had fallen. The monster tried to claw him away, dragging bloody wounds on his body, but he held on, pushing the blade between its vicious red eyes.
For a moment, its eyes flashed green instead of red and Tieran’s blood curdled in his veins.
The monster opened its mouth, blood trickling from its fangs.
"This is not the end," the Fearless gargled, the words breaking, but Tieran had no more patience for it.
He struck the blade home and twisted it until the light in the Fearless' eyes went out.
Holding it there, he breathed heavily, only then starting to feel the toll the fight had taken on his body.
Audrey.
Turning, he saw her body convulsing, her fist closed around a lifestone. Tieran dashed to her as fast as he could, knocking the stone out of her hand.
The precious, world-changing stones were left to lie in the blood of their fallen enemy as he lifted Audrey into his arms. Under his fingers, her pulse was very weak and her eyes were open in horror, seeing nothing.
When he almost slipped on something in the blood, he looked down. The silvery bracelet lay there, coated in blood, discarded. It was then that Tieran realized what had happened.
She had risked her life to save his.
Again.
Cradling her in his arms, he rushed through the station, stepping over carnage and destruction. His heart beat twice as fast. The love of his life was in his arms, struggling to hold onto the slivers of her existence.
She was still there, he knew that, felt that. Still fighting. He had to get to a ship, to a healer. Anyone who could help.
“We’re not done yet, Audrey,” he whispered, shouldering his way into one of the smaller bays, hoping to find a ship there. “We can’t be.”
22
Audrey
Darkness swirled around her. Distantly, somewhere, she heard Tieran’s voice, talking to her. Her body jostled as she was moved.
Her body ached as if it had been burned all over. Her hands were on fire, every inch of where she had come in contact with the lifestone raw and bleeding. The second she could focus even slightly on the source of the pain, it was like she was transported back into the moment she’d laid hands on the stone.
She spasmed in Tieran’s arms.
No. Not this again!... But… I have to remember. I have to hold onto it…
She gave into the memory, fading fast in her mind as it was.
With the touch, she had been thrust back to the beginning, but it was so much more. Though the stone in her hand had been bigger than the one she'd taken from the Jorcossi, Audrey wasn't the same either.
All t
he days and weeks of torment had taught her how to handle the pain, how to push through the sense of losing herself. It had threatened to overtake her immediately, as did the Fearless, but she stood strong.
The pain had been incredible, searing, mind-breaking. But she couldn’t let go. In that moment, she had seen everything so clearly, the future sprawled out for her.
The galaxy was such a huge place. Somewhere, out there, she could see more lifestones. She saw a girl, a young woman rather, almost as young as her, with big green eyes and long red hair that flowed around her.
Another Terran, reaching for the glowing mineral she'd found at the bottom of some large, dark ocean. Audrey could feel the flash of connection between her and the lifestone.
For a moment, it seemed to Audrey that the girl saw her too.
And there was more.
The lifestones were all over the galaxy, pulsing quietly, gently, with unknown and untamed power, all hidden. Merely seeing it almost destroyed Audrey, but she held on, her mind fraying. At the back of her mind, the image of Tieran shone more brightly than anything else, keeping her attached to the real world.
All those images flashed through her mind in a moment that was so short it barely existed.
And then she had seen the Fearless, felt the hunger that was as old as the galaxy, always wanting more. It was insatiable and it cared for nothing but itself.
The Fearless had felt her too and for a moment, Audrey lost control. Right then, Tieran's blade had cut into their shared vision. She had screamed and so did the Fearless.
Her mind was spinning, fearing that she had been wrong after all, that there really existed a connection between her and the monster and Tieran was going to kill them both.
Yet it wasn't so.
Her vision cleared again and as life left the Fearless, Audrey had seen her chance.
The Fearless were so strong and so invincible, because the universe knew practically nothing about them. But she had been linked to the one before her. And it was dying, weak. She had no choice. The fate of the galaxy might as well had been laid out in front of her.
