Psychoverse

by Jamie Hawke

  I found Mer stuck behind a wall as Hinru ducked out and unloaded on a mech. The former Gold Reaper shouted, ran back with her gold cloak fluttering behind her, and then the room morphed into gold and purple that shot out and left the mech in a pile of scrap metal. More shots were fired, but the two monks entered, throwing up pulses of energy again, then the shield.

  “On me,” I told Mer, and we ran to find the others. Erupa had gone ahead to make sure it was clear, and appeared suddenly at the end of the hallway. She stepped back, a corpse falling at her feet, and I realized that she had used her shadow strike.

  “Clear,” Erupa hissed, gesturing us on.

  “That’s not the way,” Master Richter said, standing behind Hinru as she followed us. The shield beyond was being assaulted by a barrage of firepower.

  “Any minute they’ll either break through that shield, or realize that coming after us another way makes more sense,” Hinru countered. “Seeing as they had a water traveler in the group behind us, and this group has a trinth, I say we fucking move it.”

  “Trinth?” Master Dawa said, now moving to catch up with us as we started moving down the hall. “Impossible!”

  “What’s a trinth?” Mer asked.

  “Better not to ask, but since you did…” Hinru looked my way as if I could answer. When I didn’t, she said, “Kind of like a cyborg, but with parts of dead people.”

  “The fuck?” I shook my head, not liking the sound of that.

  “Yeah, it’s worse—reason it comes about is certain supers have an almost immortal aspect to them, so when they die,” she stopped to dodge back as I shot at a lone gunman who had appeared in the hall in front of us, “instead of death, their bodies start to merge with others, seek out metal, form… it’s weird. Too complicated to get into.”

  I had never heard of these things, and the thought made me sick.

  “They’re nearly impossible to kill,” Master Dawa added, stepping up beside me as we stopped at a new passageway. Tink went small and moved ahead to check the way. I could sense aggression and Cheri had her voices to warn us, but with all the chaos at the moment, it was best not to rely on them.

  We waited another beat, then saw Tink flying back toward us. She motioned that it was clear before turning and going back the way she had come. We moved, but an explosion sounded from behind. Then more from nearby, and the building shook.

  Erupa glanced back and suddenly vanished, coming up to shadow-strike someone as they charged in. Shit, how did I not sense the incoming would-be attacker? I focused on my senses, pulling aggression from three not far off.

  “Forward, to the right,” I said, and then realized that I was literally pulling their aggression, not just sensing it.

  By the time we charged up and around the corner to take them on, they were stepping back, clearly debating whether to retreat or not. Some readied their rifles and one’s hands ignited for the attack as Tink hit the closer two with pixie dust, causing one to drop to the floor, clawing at his eyes, and the second to scream, shooting wildly until he hit the third. Before a wild shot could hit my team, Cheri had removed the rifle along with the man’s hands, thanks to a swift strike from her sword.

  As he screamed and blood spurted out, a section of the wall behind him pulled outward. A metallic being was there, red circle glowing as a blast was about to hit. Little drones flew out of its top as the monks and Hinru stepped in. Their attacks were like a one-two punch, followed by an uppercut—in the form of a good shield, energy pulling inward to cripple it, and piercing purple blasts that sent the drones to the floor.

  What they didn’t help with, though, and I almost caught too late, was the line of drones that had scurried along the ceiling and were now dropping down behind us, flashing red.

  “Down!” I shouted, leaping for Mer and tackling her to the side, my body ready to absorb the impact. My shield fizzled as we were caught in the periphery of the blast area, but Hinru caused an energy burst to counter the effect of the explosions. Then I was rolling, shooting, and had my arc baton up and ready.

  “Quick,” I said, guiding Mer with me, the other ladies falling in as we moved. We were clearly compromised, so I figured getting to cover somewhere else was our best bet.

  We turned down another hall to find a fat fuck with a flamethrower, but I zapped him with my baton and Cheri got two good stabs in before Erupa kicked him out of the way and finished it with two shots to the head.

  A bout of flames burst forth as he died. The fire hit the wall, then burst out to cover the path behind us.

  “We’ll go around,” Master Richter said. He and Hinru turned down the opposite hall.

  I led the charge down the first set of stairs I could find, then along an underground passage that led out at the side of a hill.

  “Are there too many of them?” Tink asked, small and fluttering along next to my ear.

  “No such thing,” Erupa replied, earning a laugh and high five from Cheri.

  My reaction included some small part of anxiety, but I agreed in a sense. If our role in this life was to take down as many of those enemy fuckers as possible, then best to give us access to as many as the universe could give.

  At that moment, my wish was about to come true. We emerged through a clearing on the side of the hill to find ourselves behind enemy lines, and all I could do was laugh as we watched them converge on an energy field some distance away. My best guess was that the monks and Hinru had emerged into their midst. While their action was focused on taking down that shield, me and mine would deal as much damage as possible upon those motherfuckers.

  Our attack flowed out, mental and physical. My crippling emotional attack sent the crowd of them into a panic, so that they trampled each other as Cheri charged out, laughing, sword swinging. Erupa went left while I went right, shots ringing out but only until we were close enough for hand-to-hand attacks. Meanwhile, Tink flew out to pixie dust the bastards, creating a new wave of bodies falling and crazed attacks erupting among their ranks.

  Hinru and the monks were doing damage as well, as they worked in our direction. My arc baton and emotional attacks were hitting left and right. We burst out from there, emerging into a dusty clearing that led to green and purple beyond. The sound of a fast-flowing river came from that direction.

  My screen popped up, showing my level had increased. Since I had leftover upgrades, I enhanced my shield, amplified my ability to defend against mental attacks, and added a new one called Energy Flare.

  We broke into a sprint, making for the water as the monks shouted for Hinru to get ready. Halfway there, however, a shot rang out and gold light flashed. A shock wave thrust out from the ground. The earth exploded, spewing mud and dust upward, and everyone except for one or two robots and those who were already flying was thrown on their asses.

  A man and a woman arose, instantly recognizable by their gold outfits and flowing gold capes. Two of the Gold Reapers, leaving only one of them out there, unaccounted for. The golden duo rose into the sky as everyone else looked up at them, robots and others pausing in the assault. One of them turned my way, the other toward Hinru.

  Their eyes said it all. The rumbling through the earth added to the effect and the realization that we were quite possibly screwed.

  3

  “Traitors!” their voices boomed out simultaneously, echoing as the two began rotating around each other.

  “Me?” I shouted, baton sparking at my side as I stood ready. My eyes darted to each of my teammates, checking to ensure they were ready for this and not vulnerable. “I was a fucking lone wolf, not answering to you.”

  The one on my side slowed his movement, looked straight at me, and laughed. “You were always ours, and so it will be in death.”

  Without another word, the Gold Reapers unleashed their attacks.

  Or… tried to. Their gold beams burst out, a barrage of arrows of light pummeling us. Before the strikes could do anything more than a brief surge of pain and panic, though, Hinru had harne
ssed the river waters around us and pulled in a way that sent her purple light to connect outward, and create a flowing watery shield.

  “You forget, this is my territory,” Hinru said, rising, hands outstretched as if the purple were pulling her toward the water above.

  The Reaper closest growled and shot back down, pummeling through her shield to tackle her, while the others were met by our shots and strikes. Tink appeared beside one of them to attack before shrinking and zipping off out of sight. Erupa appeared behind with a shadow move, struck, and then reappeared behind the one that was attacking Hinru to hit him, too. One of my shots ricocheted off a Reaper’s chest, taking out one of the other attackers coming from our right.

  “To the water!” Hinru shouted, tossing the attacking Reaper aside and managing to restrain him temporarily with the purple mist so that he looked like a man lost in the fog. The female Reaper was exchanging blows with Cheri and Erupa, while Mer and the monks were working the third down by the water.

  I held off a team of regular soldiers coming at us from the tree line, and repeated Hinru’s commands. We all moved as one, breaking off from the attacks and charging over, so that her shield rose behind us and a moment later we were at the water’s edge, shooting through.

  Fast travel took us out to a ledge beside what appeared to be the ruins of a mining operation. We all turned toward the water, ready to attack.

  “Not there,” Hinru said, motioning to the sky instead. “If they’re going to follow, it’ll be that way.”

  “Can they track you?” Tink asked.

  “I don’t think so, not with any sort of tracking chip at any rate. But the Reapers are the best Hunters there are, so if there’s a way, they’ll find it. A power-trace, perhaps.”

  “That’s a thing?” Mer looked at me, worried.

  “It is,” Hinru replied. “Sort of like, if Ezra knew how to focus on a specific person’s emotion and gave it a value, he could then follow it, in a sense.”

  “Pretty sure I can’t do that,” I replied.

  “Yet,” Master Dawa said. At my look of curiosity, he actually smiled—rare for him. “There is much you hadn’t learned when you left the temple. I saw it in you then, which made it all the more difficult to see you go before reaching your full potential.”

  “I—I didn’t think you even knew I existed.”

  “Actually,” Master Richter glanced at his companion, waited for a nod, then said, “Master Dawa was the one who spoke up regarding your admission to the temple. If I remember correctly, he—”

  “I saw what you could become,” Master Dawa cut in. “With the help of the sands, I witnessed your true birth. Now that I’m here with you, I realize it is still possible.”

  True birth. I had heard the term before when at the temple, but never in reference to me. It was essentially their version of reaching nirvana, of being able to transcend the old self, to expand beyond limitations and embrace all one was capable of. The idea that Master Dawa saw me as capable of doing so was mind-blowing.

  “How?” I asked.

  “In time… But only you can answer that question.”

  My team didn’t seem to grasp the significance of the discussion, judging by the confusion pouring out via their auras. After a moment, Cheri chuckled, playing with one of her pigtails.

  “That was so fucked up.”

  “You think?” Tink flapped her wings, irritably. “Can we acknowledge the fact that the elite bounty hunters are actually after us?”

  “But get this—we got away, unscathed,” Cheri countered, and laughed. “Shit, they couldn’t even catch us, while Ezra was able to.”

  “What’s that say about them?” Erupa said with a raised eyebrow.

  “More important is what it says about Ezra,” Cheri replied with a wink my way, then blew me a kiss.

  “Sure, don’t take into account the help we have,” I countered, motioning to the monks and Hinru.

  “What we need to focus on,” Tink said, nodding at the monks, “is getting the fuck off this planet. Almost there?”

  “Thanks to Hinru, yes,” Master Richter replied, and motioned us on.

  Our trek took us past the old mines, along a ridge that gave us a view of another river far below, and a city of tall, gleaming buildings. Sometimes it was hard to remember that planets like these had their own civilizations, of sorts. Old colonies that had popped up and evolved quickly, then been largely forgotten by the rest of the galaxy.

  A warm wind carried swaths of purple mist across the land, blowing trees and picking up to spiral the purple to our left, then vanish. It wasn’t until then that we were able to see that the land beyond the closest ridge was populated by slow-moving creatures. From a distance, they looked like some form of monkey but larger and with glistening metal, and sometimes with three or four arms.

  As we drew closer, we realized that we would have to pass through them in order to reach the buildings—and that was definitely the way we needed to go as we couldn’t very well walk through the city out in the open, since we had no idea what might be waiting for us there.

  “Trinths?” Cheri asked.

  “No,” Hinru replied. “Simpler beings, though similar. Not alive.”

  “Don’t say that.” A shiver ran up my spine. The idea of beings moving that weren’t quite alive in the traditional sense gave me the willies.

  “Let me try something.” Hinru knelt, hands on the ground. Purple waves of mist rose, and traveled toward the strange creatures. As it washed over them, they seemed to glow purple, stiffened, and then turned and walked away.

  “Quick, inside before they break from my control and turn back this way.” Hinru led us on, finding an open door to one of the buildings at the city’s edge. Once we were all inside and had checked the area for hostiles, we found a side room to take a breather, drink some water, and have some of the dried meat and fruit bars the monks had brought, courtesy of the Hermites.

  “So, you can control dead stuff?” I asked between bites.

  Hinru glanced over, frowning. “In a sense. And if we needed to, I could animate certain types of corpses—as long as we have a connection in the essence.”

  “So, you can… bring them back?”

  “In a sense, yes. Although it’s really the essence of the planet moving through them, so it’s not like they’re alive.”

  “They’re zombies, and you’re basically a necromancer.”

  She frowned. “No. Shut up.”

  As she turned and walked off, Mer gave me a scolding look, then followed her.

  “What?” I asked. Cheri just cuddled up next to me.

  “You realize you basically disrespected one of the top Gold Reapers, right?” Erupa pointed out.

  “Disrespect? Do you know how badass it would be to be able to raise an army of zombies? To be able to—” I stopped at the look she gave me, and sighed. “Fuck. You want me to apologize, don’t you?”

  “Not me,” Cheri chimed in. “I want to sit here and enjoy the sound of your heartbeat.”

  But the look Erupa gave me left no room for argument.

  With a sigh, I kissed Cheri on the lips, then walked off to catch up with Hinru. When I opened a door and found her, it wasn’t how I expected. She had a hand on Mer’s ass, and the two of them were kissing.

  4

  Watching, I saw Hinru gently caress Mer before they separated, as they tenderly stared into each other’s eyes. I had to clear my throat to avoid coughing with surprise. They both turned to look at me, stepping away from each other at almost the same time.

  “Is this, I mean…” I wasn’t sure how to take it, honestly. Was Mer cheating on me? Did it work that way? Instead of getting mad, I decided to roll with it. “This is great.”

  “Great?” Mer said, clearly caught off-guard by that.

  “Yes. I only wanted to come over to apologize. Hinru, if it came across like I was disrespecting you, or selling what you do short, I didn’t mean it. Are we good?”

  “Of
course.” She held Mer’s hand, eyeing me. Shit, I realized. She wanted me to leave them alone.

  I gave them a nod, then turned and exited. Outside, the two monks knelt beside a glowing sift of sand, watching it spin, and glancing up from time to time. This would have looked insane to anyone outside of the temple system, but I was aware of their ways of seeing what we might have coming our way.

  “When we return,” I started, only a little annoyed that neither seemed to care that I was talking to them, “what should I expect?”

  The sand formed into a chaos of explosions, buildings falling and ships flying, before it collapsed before us.

  “First, we have to make it,” Master Richter said, now turning to me. “Enjoy your moment of respite, because it won’t be easy.”

  “The temple taught you much, only to see you leave,” Master Dawa added. “For you to return and demand the stones… it doesn’t look good.”

  “But I have you on my side,” I pointed out.

  “You have us here to back up your need for the stones. That doesn’t mean you’re any more likely to succeed in getting them.”

  “I accept that.” With a sigh, I knelt, looking over the remnants of what had been the swirling images in the sand. “Why isn’t it showing more?”

  Master Dawa didn’t give anything away, but the side glance coming in his direction from Master Richter told me what I wanted to know, even if both were blocking their emotions from me. My assumption that we would reach the temple wasn’t as sturdy as I had thought.

  “If we make it,” I said, standing. “Trust me, I’ll get the stones. Then all of this will be a distant memory.”

  With that, I returned to the group, making sure to mask my worry on the way. No matter what it took, I had to get those stones. Otherwise someone else might find a way to open the gate, either unleashing horror on us that couldn’t be controlled, or controlling it but for the wrong side.