The Son of Malfurion
Member
Chapter 1
The Mega-Verse’s Most Wanted
The smiling face of a bloated Asurian male filled the ship’s holo-screen with a waft of Malis’s hand.
Buzzing filled his ears, and he quickly tuned the volume down. He knew the sound for what it was, and grimaced at what he knew was to come just the same.
The Asurian’s holo image beckoned down from a hover throne for an unseen attendant, and a scene played out where a half starved child was dragged before Emissary Daniels like a lamb to the slaughter. Bedraggled and stripped of clothing, the sickly looking boy was promptly executed, swiftly and without mercy, with a stroke of the attendant’s hand. Malis sat forward expressionless, and watched as a crystal goblet was held under the victim’s split throat until it nearly overflowed. The contents were then handed up to Daniels, who drank from the glass with heavy, unnatural gulps. Malis noted the hovering fiend’s pallid texture. The Emissary looked like a bloated corpse, and something was propping him up it seemed from behind, more so than the loose bones and bio-augmented lard on display. There was a sense of power emanating from Daniels, and this Malis didn’t fully understand, nor enjoy. He could feel it through the holo-screen, the unnatural air that shrouded the Emissary like a tangible film. Upon closer inspection, he saw faces in the open spaces where nothing existed surrounding Daniel’s throne, and a very real chill ran the length of his spine. A face in the nothing. The thought unnerved him. It couldn’t have been real, he told himself, though held no intention of reversing the footage to confirm this theory…
He reversed the tape despite his urges, and looked at the faces in the Nothing. They cooed to him. The Emissary on screen swayed his hands like a mechanical spider, articulate yet numb, filled with ice and fire in the same hollow moment.
Flies showered down from on high and enveloped the slain child; that noise from earlier hadn’t been static after all. After the horrid feast of the child’s remains, the flies buzzed from the shrunken corpse back onto Daniels, freely moving in and around his brimming mass.
The Asurian seemingly turned his eyes on him from the holo screen, dark, buzzing grin ever present, and Malis paused the screen. This was his 34th time watching the footage, and it hadn’t gotten easier, surprisingly. It had, however, reinforced his most recent personal belief: That monsters not only existed, they thrived.
Something was coming.
It spoke to him, his instinct. It told him to run and never look back, to be done with all of this madness and settle somewhere far enough away that by the time the Council had caught up to him, he would either be too old or too dead for it to matter. Maybe he would commit suicide once he found his own personal patch of dirt, for often he dreamed of endless fields and a place to look on towards, forever seeing into the last horizon he promised to himself. He cried when he thought of the beauty of the infinite, cried out to the spirit of the world and how it had beaten him into a honed edge so unlike a living creation. He felt like an automaton, worthless as the vacuum sealed androids that dignitaries purchased in bulk to guard themselves and their treasure troves with. How he was a dragon of selection, and they dragons of the hoard, he would never understand.
Three icons blipped onto the ship’s opposite radar screen, and Malis smoothly reacted without missing a beat. The ship’s active camouflage was already engaged, so he cautiously shifted his ship’s vision to 360 degree mapping. If things were in control, then why was his heart hammering so sporadically? He could hear its thump through the multiple layers of his armor. The smooth inner frame of the ship’s chamber blurred momentarily before disappearing completely, the cabin dissipating to reveal open star scape where the planet below yawned forward in growing swaths of milky blue and flickering maroon, three ships skirting into reality only a few yards away. Any closer and Malis would have feared his engine still running, his fingers motioning for all power to drop to its lowest possible capacity. He flicked out his forked tongue and crossed his black banded arms, leaning forward in his swivel chair to get a better look at the three coordinated star fighters. One was matte black and reflected nothing, the underside of its diamond body loaded over in thermo-nuclear warheads. The other two were of a similar make and hue, but appeared more heavily modified, blaring red symbols across their splayed wings giving them a pronounced flair unlike most star fighters he had come across. The symbol was of a snake crossed with archaic spears, both impaling it’s open heart. The silver heart was laid over in golden writing that read, ‘Fear Rickter.’ Malis didn’t know who Rickter was, but he figured if they were putting his name on star fighters he must have been someone important. A few moments later and the fighters zipped away in unison.
The squad had seemed awfully close. So close it seemed as if they were keeping tabs on him. Something about all this had felt fishy ever since he had escaped the iron clad confines of Fedra’s Deepness, like a rain cloud over his head that never seemed to dissipate. He could feel its constant shade, the lingering weight of its darkness cast down from some place he just couldn’t explain. It had been the same aura he had felt back on Fedra surrounding its main throne room, like a residue of some kind. Or maybe it was his hate for it all that left him with this drained feeling. Was he getting clouded by his emotions, or ruled by them? “Let them come. Be it man, or shadow.” His hands flipped the ignition switches back up to running capacity, the engine roaring back to full power with ferocious blurts of blue flame searing off its inner body. The jolt of its bone shaking pulse raised him from his weaker thoughts. Dropping his ship into third shift, he began his descent into the cloud ridden atmosphere of Silva Six. He was not a being made of fear. Though the sickly curl of terror dug into him, he was driven by flames far hotter then such petty, imaginary things.
The heat of this task, beyond anything he had ever dreamed to accomplish, was undeniable.
The smooth transition towards the planet’s surface was far too calm for Malis’s liking. The underbelly of the XR glistened with washes of wiry blue and steely grey as it approached a lake nearest Daniel’s most private estate. Thin ripples spanned the lake’s surface where the ship’s thrusters lightly tapped against its body. Once its bulk was steadied, it shuttled towards the shore like a lurking vulture, silent in its approach. The wavering camo over its body slipped away completely, and the ebony ship's nose nearly kissed the beach head before it settled back on its landing supports, thin yet capable landing pegs that slunk from its underbelly like curled spider limbs. The ship’s escape port released with a hiss of steam that loosened its pilot to the shore, Malis landing feet first into rolling surf and sapphire tinted sand. His gloves were of an exo-material that allowed him to feel through the fibers of its skin tight mesh as if the water enveloped his bare skin, and as his fingers breached the rigid cold, he paused and felt that chill for a short while. How the biting cold hurt.
He bore it, like the nerve cackle in his back and missing cock, lightning in the brain and down the shaft nothing anymore compared to the weight of the task at hand. “An echo of a soul.” The cold was the stillness in him, and once he became numb to the bite it held, he stood up straight. Standing at over 7’2, the lithe Fedra reptilian was clad in old Earahdan armor, lightly plated exo-mail that latched from the cusp of his steel toed boots up to the nape of his muscular neck. The armor was capable of taking multiple rounds from a rail gun, and could withstand the heat of a plasma bolt if need be due to its heat repellant scales and incredibly durable frame. A riveted face plate slicked his features into shadow, his helm a heavily modified version of its original threadbare design. Across the warriors back laid his prized Torix, a three foot retractable plasma spear that was his first and only gift in this life. It hummed in constant heated anticipation, several smaller versions of the spear lining the hunter’s leather patched tool belt, the thin cylinders clanking one another like tiny ornaments. He padded at his hip holstered Nova Blaster, a 25 cycle revolver that shot deathly hot bolts of radiant plasma. Its barrel was run over by long swirls of glimmering runes, the likes of which could be found on various tomes and monuments across the Mega-verse, the symbols of Alien Gods and the Lords of the Breathless Eternal linking every inch of its chrome make up. His tri-pupil eyes blinked sideways, his second pair of lids shirking over his inner vision. The helmet's final outer visor slotted over his riveted mask, and the data-com's inner workings linked into the helmet's mainframe immediately. Images of the sand strewn beach spanned together upon the visor's inner plate. He began forward, the city of Null looming in the distance. It was all not so far off, he thought. His mouth went dry, and he licked at his scaled lips, swallowing hard. There was no going back, after the things he had seen and done, and he wouldn’t have had it any other way.
At a steady gait he found the villa’s stone pathway easily, the context of his visor growing less in padded number, the highlighted target's villa flitting into existence past a row of high stalked flowers. The smell rolling off the blood red plants was sickly sweet at best, so much so that it nauseated Malis, though he pressed on undeterred. As he silently wandered the stonework garden, he paused near a small pond where subtle movement from under the water caught his attention. Enormous indigo eels flickered beneath the water’s surface where rainbow lilies calmly floated over head in tight pulsating bundles, writhing over each other like masses of boneless fingers being forced to mesh as one. Ducking low, he tapped his visor and zoomed in his sight to see across the pond, catching signatures of movement from beyond the waist high reeds. Stalking around the small stone way, he watched several black clad guards go up and around the three step paths towards the villa, some walking straight for him. Sitting back into the reeds, he held himself steady and waited. As two guards passed he made his move, clocking one with a hand chop to the helmet so hard it caved his skull in, the other barely turning in time to catch a stomp kick that sent him tumbling into the eel pond below. Blood hit the water, and the eels sparked over in bright twitches of ethereal static, their bodies tumbling like organic clockwork that enveloped the hapless guard. There was little struggle as they enveloped him, the surface of the water bubbling up violently before growing deathly still moments later. The lilies settled back into their mindless glowing, and Malis let out a rough, anxious breath. He dragged the remaining guard over into the nearby reeds as quickly as he could. The man twitched, making a low groan from inside his helmet like the sound of a deflating balloon. Malis immediately snapped the guard’s neck to end his suffering, but more importantly, his shrill whimpering, shaking his head at his own sloppy handiwork. Nerves, they always got the best of him at the worst times…
He tapped at the guard’s communication bracelet located on his armored wrist and ushered an automated report to the other patrols. If they had heard the splash, it would show up as a false alarm for all sectors. Eventually this would catch up to him. All it took was one curious guard to check out said false alarm, and then… he shook away the thought. He didn’t have time to keep pondering his next move. Not wanting to risk another loud splash, he broke a swath of reeds and laid them over the dead guard at his knees, looking up to see if any more guards were patrolling nearby. The reeds were a poor camouflage attempt, and the guards would find him either way given they had individual radar tracking on one another, but maybe it would buy him some time before they realized someone, or something, was up to murder around the Villa. Not wanting to start a war so soon, he watched three shoulder to shoulder guard patrols wander up towards the back of the castle’s abode, leaving the front of the Villa wide open for scouting. A silent sprint to the building’s outer landing, and Malis was quickly on his way towards the front entrance. Biospheres containing miniature forests rich with similarly tiny flora and fauna floated serenely by on gigantic hover pads, and Malis used their dense shadows to make his approach less noticeable. Opposition was quite low, and the remaining patrols towards the entrance of the estate were curiously sparse. Malis had expected far higher security; automated turrets, plasma drones, something other than foot soldiers. He found the front doors oddly without noticeable protection as well. Running a diagnostic scan over the entrance way, the front door’s frame was discovered to be laser coated, and with a light spray from a small tinsel canister, the nigh invisible trigger activated lasers fizzled into the visible spectrum.
Another moment of scanning, and Malis squatted to press his thumbs into the back joints of his ankles, triggering the Grav-connect within his boots. The boots emitted miniature squeals as gears twisted and pistons flashed along the outer rim of their heels. Dim red lights slowly loaded into azure hues from under his step like the tinny ringing of underwater chimes, and the boots completed their activation sequence, the color fading from their heels. Wandering to the Villa’s left side, he placated one foot on the wall of the building, stiffening his joints to press hard at the brick face. Another moment, and he was walking up the wall, carefully finding his way towards the roof. The roof’s metallic edge gave off a glint a little further up, but something else glinted more so; the barrel of a high power fission rifle, swinging back and forth as if attached to an automated turret. Malis knew better however. Reaching the under crop of the roof’s edge, he could hear the private security enforcer breathing through his carbon filed mask, his weapon’s barrel hanging rather frivolously over the angular outcropping of the roof. He shot his hand up and gripped the rifle by the barrel, tearing it down towards the ground with a vicious yank. The man was pulled halfway over the roof’s edge before his throat was spilled open by Malis’s razor sharp claws. He seemed to gag weakly as he expired, and a tethering rope with a harpoon tip was established and latched into his back straight through the spine for added finality. The other end to the two part pulley system was attached to the roof’s under-shingles, and his body gently slid to the ground via rolling cable, Malis not taking the time to look back to make sure the body was out of sight. He was too busy giving the rifle a once over before slacking it over the roof’s edge, himself following suit.
The view from the roof was breathtaking. He could see Null’s citadel from this high up, the silver topped towers of the Riders Enlisted glistening like starlight in the world’s receding backdrop. The Grav-Connect function of his boots settled down as he stared off towards more pleasant sights, and the lights under his step dropped away, himself instinctively squatting to avoid the chance of being spotted from on high. He swiftly moved to the center of the roof. The Torix found his grip, and the three foot capsule fired open to reveal its glorious six foot length, the glistening ivory of the plasma spear’s edge sparking broken figments into the dreary night air. He enjoyed the thrum that ran up his forearms and licked down his spine when he wielded the Torix, the familiar whine of his most prominent tool bringing back harsh, yet fond memories. He had been a Nothing, spit upon and branded, but now who was dealing the brands and whipping cuts? He shook away the primitive thought. It was a terrible way, to be that which he hated most, but like most things in the Megaverse, one did not change much without becoming a part of that which they wished to change. Violence begot violence, death given was death returned, and in all walks, flesh for flesh was the currency of war and misery. And this was certainly a war. Malis could feel it, looking on towards the cloud ridden sky as cerulean wisps lumbered by, revealing in fragments the star filled universe beyond, the home of everything and all. Brutal memories kept their voices down in the corners of his mind’s reflection. To find solace in the pain of others was something he was lost upon, for he could not describe the incarnate rage that lived like a God in his scales, nor the feeling he felt when looking into the lost eyes of his quarry, but he knew in his deepest self that he gained no pleasure from such necessary action. He could atone some time, maybe, when this was all said and done. But what, at the end, would it even matter then? When all the castles were burned, and all the kings were left without their thrones and their brittle skulls, who then would haunt the Megaverse. Would there be creatures such as him to stand against those that would rise up from the ashes of the fallen. He didn’t know, nor did he believe he would have the strength at the end to stand against another dread current either way. A dark wave once more washing everything in nuclear chaos, as it had in the beginning.
He feared, and he feared very little, that in the end, all of this would be for nothing. And yet the machine kept whirring within, and he resolved in himself that he would not rest until he lay broken or utterly destroyed by this task, as he had promised long ago. Life fed upon life, and in his pursuit of redemption, petty as it seemed, Malis had learned that the Megaverse was a cycle unbroken. So, for the time being, he would act accordingly. Turning his Torix downward, he plunged it silently into the ventilation port’s opening, carving a clean oval for himself to step through. His Grav-connects automatically lit up from their previous operation. Laying his broad back against the inner curve of the shaft, he began his descent into the manor’s infrastructure, his radar scanning for security measures the entire length down. He brushed through vyper webs, and stopped at one point to calmly lilt aside one of the spindly entities. A serpentine body host to over 20 slate black legs, the Vyper-ken hissed blindly at him, and Malis’ plated finger thumped it on the head just as quick as it could strike out. Coiling back, the stunned Vyper-ken slithered back into its web strewn hole, and Malis clicked on his mag-light to look deeper down into the depths of the shaft’s musty darkness. It was worrisome, the lack of security measures. Something in his gut told him this was a trap, and thus far that seemed quite possible. So why keep going deeper? It was odd, wishing to be captured. A small part of him wanted it. To be contained, and to leer in the faces of those who had allowed that which stalked the Mega-verse to know he knew what they had done, and that though they held him temporarily, they could not contain the screaming inferno that was Malis Val Torix.
Alarms flashed over his visor, and he tapped at his communications array, linking live camera feed information from his hidden ship directly to his helmet’s inner layout. The entire mansion was alit now, and soldiers in black laden uniforms were storming the grounds from various drop ships that bore the sigil of the Red Council. Planet side defenses were up and running, and the entire facility bustled with military activity. He could hear from below the echoes of commands given by security teams scrubbing the area over; they would find his entry point soon enough, just as they had no doubt found the dead guard in the reeds. Sliding the rest of the way down the narrow shaft, he made it to a vent port where he could see the inner chambers below. Conveniently, he seemed to have bypassed most of the front lobby. From where he could see, it was a long drop down, probably 100 feet at least. The high curved walls rounded down to a center chamber lined with cultivated mini gardens filled with rare herbs and spice bearing plants. Vast fish tanks suspended above these gardens swelled with bioluminescent life. Things from oceans far off that even Malis couldn’t discern twisted and wriggled within, and one of the open top aquariums was actually right under where he looked through. It was a shame, all of this glorious bounty and beautiful life fallen under the hand of the ignorant and unappreciative. The most powerful contained that which is beauty and put a price on such at their own beck and call. To entrap beauty and art, to take it away from those who would share it and make it something attainable and natural, was the hallmark of all elitist scum. How they clung to their material worth, dribbling mules doing anything and everything to live on. How they tightened their flesh and replaced their organs with clones of their childlike selves, trading their blood with things beyond the thought of any sane patron of the Mega-verse for, what? Malis would soon know. Such dealings and atrocities had gone unnoticed for far too long. He shook at the thought. To be the instrument they had molded him to be. No matter how many of them he killed, no matter how many of them he strung up and revealed for what they truly were, they had made him...And he still acted in similar, unstoppable volition.
He looked down at his palm where his fist had tightened into an iron ball, and blue blood dripped lightly down through the shaft’s bottom, down into the open air fish tank below. Several bright green sharks rummaged over where his blood had spilled against the water’s once stilled surface, and Malis unwound his fist, knowing he was relishing too soon in the sweet thought of vengeance. He needed a skull in hand and an escape route before any further brooding.
Using his finger talon, he quickly unscrewed the nigh seamless bolts holding the shaft’s outer grate closed. He silently pulled it up and into the shaft as to not disturb anything below. Having a clear view down, he noted several tables and a metallic barrier of carts towards the far back that looked like food stations. This seemed like a mess hall for the guards of the mansion, and for all intents and purposes seemed empty for the time being. Still weary at the lack of guards, he tapped at his wrist to activate his Errasau launcher. Loading one Errasau ball from his back satchel into the wrist mounted firing device, he shot off one ball to the floor below. Before it hit, tiny legs caught its velocity, and it silently tapped to the floor, gathering its full form once more to begin rolling around. Malis tapped at his wrist and the mercury hued ball went into auto-pilot mode. The Errasau ball was a marvel of mapping and espionage technology. Capable of being fired in any vacuum, the Errasau could move upon nearly any surface, given its wide range of transformative properties. The marble sized sphere willed itself forward and quickly mapped out the room for any noticeable deformities in design. These ‘deformed’ areas would likely be host to imperceptible traps. The ones he had seen ranged from flesh frying lasers, all the way to poisonous gases that could fill a chamber in seconds. Hopefully the Errasau was enough precaution for any really nasty tricks. Once it made its first round, it made a second, and found no traps. Malis made to turn and keep going through the shaft.
“The others, they said you would come up from the back. But I knew to stick around here.” A sandpaper voice cackled from down below. Malis flinched inwardly, suddenly very aware of someone directly below him he hadn’t sensed before. He cut his mag light off. His brow knitted like a coiled spring of emerald scale, and he paused to ponder just how long whoever or whatever below him had known of his presence, and how.
Suddenly, an undeniable force ensnared Malis’ ankles, crushing them so tightly together that he could hear his bones lightly crackle from underneath his suit’s exo-skeletal plating, a weight of impending helplessness filling his stomach before it began overpowering him completely. The metaphysical grip violently ejected him from the shaft down into the shark tank below, his cry of surprise cut short as he back flopped hard onto the waters shifting surface. Lashing about, he immediately swam for the edge of the aquarium, his visor catching activity in the black waters below. A shark like an ancient mesa carved out through the darkness. Like a silent bullet, it circled him once, as if taunting him. It’s jaws were wide enough to swallow Malis whole, and it’s hundreds of serrated teeth flashed out like a field of zirconium shards, it’s hulking form blurring translucent without warning as it veered away from him. Turning his attention back to the rim of the aquarium, he felt a sudden current rush over him, and he back stroked wildly. A shimmering shark crashed by at a terrible speed. Just barely able to skim by, he corkscrewed away from its snapping jaws deftly, his legs kicking, yet still numb from the unknown energy’s crushing grip, the shark once more turning invisible as it swam back down towards the unseen abyss. From out of nowhere, the shark’s brother slammed into Malis like a bullet train from the side, its shining eyes reflecting his own lithe image back as it crashed him breathless against the tank’s inner safety glass.
Barely able to retract his Torix, he struggled against the sheer mass of the immense animal’s thrashing maw, its jaws catching him fully around his scaled torso like a closed fist over a small rodent. His armor was strong enough to stop the millions of teeth from slicing him to ribbons instantaneously, but the steel rending force of its bite would crush him soon if he couldn’t escape. His breath shortened, and bloody bubbles of struggle wrung up towards the wavering light of the room’s ceiling, his vision blurring as the pressure of the bite nearly crippled him. As the world roared away into ebbing shadows, Malis cracked open his Torix and slammed it straight down into the shark’s right eye socket, the emerald beast loosening its maw just enough for him to weakly struggle away.
His Torix steamed like living fire under the freezing cold water, and the searing light emanating from its edge revealed four more enormous sharks, all swiftly shifting from sight and coming his way from the depths of the hellish tank. Without hesitation, Malis cracked the plasma spear backwards and broke the hydro-seal of the aquariums inner lining, the glass casing busting open with a world wrenching screech that shattered water out like a shotgun funneled typhoon. Thrown wildly out of control from the tank’s sanctum, Malis tumbled the length to the floor below. He would have caught himself given his suit’s impressive make, that is, if it weren’t for one of the sharks landing directly on his extended left leg at the time of impact. It snapped immediately, and he cried out, struggling to drag his shattered limb out from under the wriggling shark’s flopping mass. He looked up just in time to turn away from the snapping jaws of another fallen shark, his Torix working quickly across its open throat in one fell swoop. Its thrashing quelled to a light flopping, and he turned to cut his way around his broken leg to gain some foothold into escaping the heft of the fallen beast atop him, stabbing at it over and over again until he managed to get his bloody knee up enough to begin slipping out. All of his progress however was for naught, as the heft of the shark found its way back down atop him from some unknown pressure. A figure stood over the felled shark, pressing a boot upon where his leg laid broken in half underneath.
Pain like glass being shoved under scale crackled through Malis’s body, but he was no stranger to pain, so surged back up with a fire in his blood.
He looked up in time to catch a swift kick to the face plate. If it wasn’t for his shock absorbing helm, his head would have been taken clean off. The world grew dark like a fading dream. “Weak from your swim I see.” The figure reached down and caught Malis by the cuff of his armor, slapping away the Torix he feebly held forward like a mother slinking away a child’s toy. “But you won’t be struggling anymore. I knew you would come this way. You were always so predictable. My slave whore Val Torix.” The shadowed man punched forward, the same wavering force from before crackling out from the center of his metallic palm in a roaring gush of compacted energy. It bashed Malis like a living wall, firing him head over heels into a crumpled pile along the room’s edge.
Derza took his time wandering over, his augmented fangs flashing out from behind his mutilated lips, steam pressing in hot fits from the dual chrome rivets lined across his augmented back. He rested his boot on Malis’s broad back, flicking metal flakes and fish blood off of his copper tipped fingers over the fallen soldier. Clucking his tongue, he looked over towards the flopping sharks and struggling tropical fish, water still dribbling in fat droplets from the shattered out aquarium on high. “You know, the Council wants us to take you in alive.” He kicked at Malis where he laid unmoving, a small twitch rolling over his downed frame. “And I am the Council’s will. But they didn’t say anything about bringing you back with your arms. Or your legs. As usual you fell for the trap. Classic Bram, so reluctant to plan things out. So full, of his own righteous ambition. You thought I didn’t see your little battles in silence? You think you were brave to stand up to us, with your brothers? Your whore womanling!” He spit on Malis’s back. “They’re dead, by now. And as for you…Well... Fuck you, Malis Val Torix. I’ve hated you since I first met you. It will be one of the greatest pleasures of my life to watch you burn.” He raised his palm, waves of imperceptible energy rolling over his bolted knuckles until a screaming ball of psionic force whirled to life in front of his flexing fingers.
Without warning, Malis spun off his stomach to his back, kicking out with his good leg like a spear right at the cyborg’s chest. Derza jerked back, and Malis’s foot managed to knock Derza’s open palm enough to rupture the once stable energy sphere. Both warriors were shattered back from one another due to the ruptured essence’s sudden disruption. Derza barely caught his footing against one of the exotic garden squares, his back banging a crumbling silhouette into the tile block’s colorful surface. Malis caught himself more quickly despite his shattered leg, and rolled up to his scaled boots from across the room, snatching at his Torix along the way near one of the dying sharks. He promptly snapped his broken leg back into joint wordlessly, the plasma edge of his Torix shivering to life. He stood shakily, his Errasau ball whisking across the floor to rest at his feet obediently. A low whistle, and he began towards Derza, the ball following ahead of his step, his Torix masking his form in a deathly white glow. Derza smashed at his blasting arm, but the circuits were flash fried from Malis’s interruption. Cursing, he pressed at his mechanical wrist, his squealing forearm twisting until a sequence unlocked. His prosthetic arm splintered down its middle, and from its confines a curved blade chuted out and locked into place, his mechanical digits filing away so that the sword could take precedence. Its edge gleamed like living mercury, and bands of electrical current loosened down its length like dripping poison. “Fuck it, I’ll just say you wouldn’t go down so I had to kill ya.” Derza spit, his cleft lip curling into an ugly snarl. He beckoned for Malis to come with his remaining hand, holding his liquid blade at chest level all the while. Malis snapped his fingers and the Errasau shot forward. Derza’s eyes looked down a second too late, and Malis shot in, his spear cleaving down in a sound shattering arc that seared a new scar into Derza’s mauled up scalp. Derza’s dodge turned into opportunity, and he stabbed out, striking right into…nothing. He saw the after image of Malis that his mercurial blade danced through, and looking down noted the Errasau ball was actually creating this projected image. The painless sting of the Torix found his back, and jutted with buttery ease up through his segmented chest, his eyes bulging in sullen disbelief at getting caught out so easily. He gagged as he was lifted off the ground from behind, the steaming confines of his biomechanical chassis melting instantaneously, the stench of burning flesh and melting silicone ruling the chamber’s inner confines. “You stupid, lizard.” He gasped as his eyes rolled back in his head, his cyborg body sparking wildly. Malis shirked Derza off his blade and to the ground; the cyborg’s synthetic guts and gear work spilled out in hot globules of black smoke and soldered bile.
Derza struggled to hold his innards together, but Malis kicked his hand away, forcing the cyborg to let go and topple to the floor belly first. Malis stomped down on Derza’s back, putting his Torix to his shoulder so that the cyborg’s skin blistered and bubbled vividly. “Fuck you!” Derza squealed, head slamming back and forth like a rabid mongrel. Malis, expressionless behind his combat visor, came down in a clean motion, cleaving Derza’s right arm off in a single stroke. Derza cried out, drool fumbling from his cleft lip like water breaking from a mangled faucet. Malis let his foot off him and stepped around towards his front, silently observing the livid cyborg. Sweat beaded Derza’s sheared forehead, and he twisted to his back, the light in his eyes draining as oil and synthetic blood slowly oozed from his steaming chest. “Everyone still thinks you're murdering scum, and that’s what you are. To your bones and your balls BOY!!! A raper, and a murderer..." He raved, head lolling back and forth in a drunken rhythm. "The entire Megaverse wants you... dead!” He spit at Malis, leering at him like a mad man at the end of his rope. “I braved the Road. I paid the price... and look at you... You’re nothing, so much nothing, thinking it can do anything it wants. You don’t get so lucky!” His teeth gritted into a death lock, his jaw clamping up like a man possessed by anger so pure that where it once lived below the surface of his flesh, it now sprinted forward at the fading end of his existence. It was desperate anger; the kind that needed to be said out loud. His jaw buckled, and some of his teeth snapped from his crooked mouth in awkward fragments that danced across the tile floor in skittering twirls. His eyes bulged, and he lunged out weakly towards Malis’s form, his one hand snatching out like a lone talon. “You just gonna stand there silent watching me, judging me? Not a word motherfucker!!!! Do it! End it already! EN-” The cyborg promptly shut down.
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The Mega-Verse’s Most Wanted
The smiling face of a bloated Asurian male filled the ship’s holo-screen with a waft of Malis’s hand.
Buzzing filled his ears, and he quickly tuned the volume down. He knew the sound for what it was, and grimaced at what he knew was to come just the same.
The Asurian’s holo image beckoned down from a hover throne for an unseen attendant, and a scene played out where a half starved child was dragged before Emissary Daniels like a lamb to the slaughter. Bedraggled and stripped of clothing, the sickly looking boy was promptly executed, swiftly and without mercy, with a stroke of the attendant’s hand. Malis sat forward expressionless, and watched as a crystal goblet was held under the victim’s split throat until it nearly overflowed. The contents were then handed up to Daniels, who drank from the glass with heavy, unnatural gulps. Malis noted the hovering fiend’s pallid texture. The Emissary looked like a bloated corpse, and something was propping him up it seemed from behind, more so than the loose bones and bio-augmented lard on display. There was a sense of power emanating from Daniels, and this Malis didn’t fully understand, nor enjoy. He could feel it through the holo-screen, the unnatural air that shrouded the Emissary like a tangible film. Upon closer inspection, he saw faces in the open spaces where nothing existed surrounding Daniel’s throne, and a very real chill ran the length of his spine. A face in the nothing. The thought unnerved him. It couldn’t have been real, he told himself, though held no intention of reversing the footage to confirm this theory…
He reversed the tape despite his urges, and looked at the faces in the Nothing. They cooed to him. The Emissary on screen swayed his hands like a mechanical spider, articulate yet numb, filled with ice and fire in the same hollow moment.
Flies showered down from on high and enveloped the slain child; that noise from earlier hadn’t been static after all. After the horrid feast of the child’s remains, the flies buzzed from the shrunken corpse back onto Daniels, freely moving in and around his brimming mass.
The Asurian seemingly turned his eyes on him from the holo screen, dark, buzzing grin ever present, and Malis paused the screen. This was his 34th time watching the footage, and it hadn’t gotten easier, surprisingly. It had, however, reinforced his most recent personal belief: That monsters not only existed, they thrived.
Something was coming.
It spoke to him, his instinct. It told him to run and never look back, to be done with all of this madness and settle somewhere far enough away that by the time the Council had caught up to him, he would either be too old or too dead for it to matter. Maybe he would commit suicide once he found his own personal patch of dirt, for often he dreamed of endless fields and a place to look on towards, forever seeing into the last horizon he promised to himself. He cried when he thought of the beauty of the infinite, cried out to the spirit of the world and how it had beaten him into a honed edge so unlike a living creation. He felt like an automaton, worthless as the vacuum sealed androids that dignitaries purchased in bulk to guard themselves and their treasure troves with. How he was a dragon of selection, and they dragons of the hoard, he would never understand.
Three icons blipped onto the ship’s opposite radar screen, and Malis smoothly reacted without missing a beat. The ship’s active camouflage was already engaged, so he cautiously shifted his ship’s vision to 360 degree mapping. If things were in control, then why was his heart hammering so sporadically? He could hear its thump through the multiple layers of his armor. The smooth inner frame of the ship’s chamber blurred momentarily before disappearing completely, the cabin dissipating to reveal open star scape where the planet below yawned forward in growing swaths of milky blue and flickering maroon, three ships skirting into reality only a few yards away. Any closer and Malis would have feared his engine still running, his fingers motioning for all power to drop to its lowest possible capacity. He flicked out his forked tongue and crossed his black banded arms, leaning forward in his swivel chair to get a better look at the three coordinated star fighters. One was matte black and reflected nothing, the underside of its diamond body loaded over in thermo-nuclear warheads. The other two were of a similar make and hue, but appeared more heavily modified, blaring red symbols across their splayed wings giving them a pronounced flair unlike most star fighters he had come across. The symbol was of a snake crossed with archaic spears, both impaling it’s open heart. The silver heart was laid over in golden writing that read, ‘Fear Rickter.’ Malis didn’t know who Rickter was, but he figured if they were putting his name on star fighters he must have been someone important. A few moments later and the fighters zipped away in unison.
The squad had seemed awfully close. So close it seemed as if they were keeping tabs on him. Something about all this had felt fishy ever since he had escaped the iron clad confines of Fedra’s Deepness, like a rain cloud over his head that never seemed to dissipate. He could feel its constant shade, the lingering weight of its darkness cast down from some place he just couldn’t explain. It had been the same aura he had felt back on Fedra surrounding its main throne room, like a residue of some kind. Or maybe it was his hate for it all that left him with this drained feeling. Was he getting clouded by his emotions, or ruled by them? “Let them come. Be it man, or shadow.” His hands flipped the ignition switches back up to running capacity, the engine roaring back to full power with ferocious blurts of blue flame searing off its inner body. The jolt of its bone shaking pulse raised him from his weaker thoughts. Dropping his ship into third shift, he began his descent into the cloud ridden atmosphere of Silva Six. He was not a being made of fear. Though the sickly curl of terror dug into him, he was driven by flames far hotter then such petty, imaginary things.
The heat of this task, beyond anything he had ever dreamed to accomplish, was undeniable.
The smooth transition towards the planet’s surface was far too calm for Malis’s liking. The underbelly of the XR glistened with washes of wiry blue and steely grey as it approached a lake nearest Daniel’s most private estate. Thin ripples spanned the lake’s surface where the ship’s thrusters lightly tapped against its body. Once its bulk was steadied, it shuttled towards the shore like a lurking vulture, silent in its approach. The wavering camo over its body slipped away completely, and the ebony ship's nose nearly kissed the beach head before it settled back on its landing supports, thin yet capable landing pegs that slunk from its underbelly like curled spider limbs. The ship’s escape port released with a hiss of steam that loosened its pilot to the shore, Malis landing feet first into rolling surf and sapphire tinted sand. His gloves were of an exo-material that allowed him to feel through the fibers of its skin tight mesh as if the water enveloped his bare skin, and as his fingers breached the rigid cold, he paused and felt that chill for a short while. How the biting cold hurt.
He bore it, like the nerve cackle in his back and missing cock, lightning in the brain and down the shaft nothing anymore compared to the weight of the task at hand. “An echo of a soul.” The cold was the stillness in him, and once he became numb to the bite it held, he stood up straight. Standing at over 7’2, the lithe Fedra reptilian was clad in old Earahdan armor, lightly plated exo-mail that latched from the cusp of his steel toed boots up to the nape of his muscular neck. The armor was capable of taking multiple rounds from a rail gun, and could withstand the heat of a plasma bolt if need be due to its heat repellant scales and incredibly durable frame. A riveted face plate slicked his features into shadow, his helm a heavily modified version of its original threadbare design. Across the warriors back laid his prized Torix, a three foot retractable plasma spear that was his first and only gift in this life. It hummed in constant heated anticipation, several smaller versions of the spear lining the hunter’s leather patched tool belt, the thin cylinders clanking one another like tiny ornaments. He padded at his hip holstered Nova Blaster, a 25 cycle revolver that shot deathly hot bolts of radiant plasma. Its barrel was run over by long swirls of glimmering runes, the likes of which could be found on various tomes and monuments across the Mega-verse, the symbols of Alien Gods and the Lords of the Breathless Eternal linking every inch of its chrome make up. His tri-pupil eyes blinked sideways, his second pair of lids shirking over his inner vision. The helmet's final outer visor slotted over his riveted mask, and the data-com's inner workings linked into the helmet's mainframe immediately. Images of the sand strewn beach spanned together upon the visor's inner plate. He began forward, the city of Null looming in the distance. It was all not so far off, he thought. His mouth went dry, and he licked at his scaled lips, swallowing hard. There was no going back, after the things he had seen and done, and he wouldn’t have had it any other way.
At a steady gait he found the villa’s stone pathway easily, the context of his visor growing less in padded number, the highlighted target's villa flitting into existence past a row of high stalked flowers. The smell rolling off the blood red plants was sickly sweet at best, so much so that it nauseated Malis, though he pressed on undeterred. As he silently wandered the stonework garden, he paused near a small pond where subtle movement from under the water caught his attention. Enormous indigo eels flickered beneath the water’s surface where rainbow lilies calmly floated over head in tight pulsating bundles, writhing over each other like masses of boneless fingers being forced to mesh as one. Ducking low, he tapped his visor and zoomed in his sight to see across the pond, catching signatures of movement from beyond the waist high reeds. Stalking around the small stone way, he watched several black clad guards go up and around the three step paths towards the villa, some walking straight for him. Sitting back into the reeds, he held himself steady and waited. As two guards passed he made his move, clocking one with a hand chop to the helmet so hard it caved his skull in, the other barely turning in time to catch a stomp kick that sent him tumbling into the eel pond below. Blood hit the water, and the eels sparked over in bright twitches of ethereal static, their bodies tumbling like organic clockwork that enveloped the hapless guard. There was little struggle as they enveloped him, the surface of the water bubbling up violently before growing deathly still moments later. The lilies settled back into their mindless glowing, and Malis let out a rough, anxious breath. He dragged the remaining guard over into the nearby reeds as quickly as he could. The man twitched, making a low groan from inside his helmet like the sound of a deflating balloon. Malis immediately snapped the guard’s neck to end his suffering, but more importantly, his shrill whimpering, shaking his head at his own sloppy handiwork. Nerves, they always got the best of him at the worst times…
He tapped at the guard’s communication bracelet located on his armored wrist and ushered an automated report to the other patrols. If they had heard the splash, it would show up as a false alarm for all sectors. Eventually this would catch up to him. All it took was one curious guard to check out said false alarm, and then… he shook away the thought. He didn’t have time to keep pondering his next move. Not wanting to risk another loud splash, he broke a swath of reeds and laid them over the dead guard at his knees, looking up to see if any more guards were patrolling nearby. The reeds were a poor camouflage attempt, and the guards would find him either way given they had individual radar tracking on one another, but maybe it would buy him some time before they realized someone, or something, was up to murder around the Villa. Not wanting to start a war so soon, he watched three shoulder to shoulder guard patrols wander up towards the back of the castle’s abode, leaving the front of the Villa wide open for scouting. A silent sprint to the building’s outer landing, and Malis was quickly on his way towards the front entrance. Biospheres containing miniature forests rich with similarly tiny flora and fauna floated serenely by on gigantic hover pads, and Malis used their dense shadows to make his approach less noticeable. Opposition was quite low, and the remaining patrols towards the entrance of the estate were curiously sparse. Malis had expected far higher security; automated turrets, plasma drones, something other than foot soldiers. He found the front doors oddly without noticeable protection as well. Running a diagnostic scan over the entrance way, the front door’s frame was discovered to be laser coated, and with a light spray from a small tinsel canister, the nigh invisible trigger activated lasers fizzled into the visible spectrum.
Another moment of scanning, and Malis squatted to press his thumbs into the back joints of his ankles, triggering the Grav-connect within his boots. The boots emitted miniature squeals as gears twisted and pistons flashed along the outer rim of their heels. Dim red lights slowly loaded into azure hues from under his step like the tinny ringing of underwater chimes, and the boots completed their activation sequence, the color fading from their heels. Wandering to the Villa’s left side, he placated one foot on the wall of the building, stiffening his joints to press hard at the brick face. Another moment, and he was walking up the wall, carefully finding his way towards the roof. The roof’s metallic edge gave off a glint a little further up, but something else glinted more so; the barrel of a high power fission rifle, swinging back and forth as if attached to an automated turret. Malis knew better however. Reaching the under crop of the roof’s edge, he could hear the private security enforcer breathing through his carbon filed mask, his weapon’s barrel hanging rather frivolously over the angular outcropping of the roof. He shot his hand up and gripped the rifle by the barrel, tearing it down towards the ground with a vicious yank. The man was pulled halfway over the roof’s edge before his throat was spilled open by Malis’s razor sharp claws. He seemed to gag weakly as he expired, and a tethering rope with a harpoon tip was established and latched into his back straight through the spine for added finality. The other end to the two part pulley system was attached to the roof’s under-shingles, and his body gently slid to the ground via rolling cable, Malis not taking the time to look back to make sure the body was out of sight. He was too busy giving the rifle a once over before slacking it over the roof’s edge, himself following suit.
The view from the roof was breathtaking. He could see Null’s citadel from this high up, the silver topped towers of the Riders Enlisted glistening like starlight in the world’s receding backdrop. The Grav-Connect function of his boots settled down as he stared off towards more pleasant sights, and the lights under his step dropped away, himself instinctively squatting to avoid the chance of being spotted from on high. He swiftly moved to the center of the roof. The Torix found his grip, and the three foot capsule fired open to reveal its glorious six foot length, the glistening ivory of the plasma spear’s edge sparking broken figments into the dreary night air. He enjoyed the thrum that ran up his forearms and licked down his spine when he wielded the Torix, the familiar whine of his most prominent tool bringing back harsh, yet fond memories. He had been a Nothing, spit upon and branded, but now who was dealing the brands and whipping cuts? He shook away the primitive thought. It was a terrible way, to be that which he hated most, but like most things in the Megaverse, one did not change much without becoming a part of that which they wished to change. Violence begot violence, death given was death returned, and in all walks, flesh for flesh was the currency of war and misery. And this was certainly a war. Malis could feel it, looking on towards the cloud ridden sky as cerulean wisps lumbered by, revealing in fragments the star filled universe beyond, the home of everything and all. Brutal memories kept their voices down in the corners of his mind’s reflection. To find solace in the pain of others was something he was lost upon, for he could not describe the incarnate rage that lived like a God in his scales, nor the feeling he felt when looking into the lost eyes of his quarry, but he knew in his deepest self that he gained no pleasure from such necessary action. He could atone some time, maybe, when this was all said and done. But what, at the end, would it even matter then? When all the castles were burned, and all the kings were left without their thrones and their brittle skulls, who then would haunt the Megaverse. Would there be creatures such as him to stand against those that would rise up from the ashes of the fallen. He didn’t know, nor did he believe he would have the strength at the end to stand against another dread current either way. A dark wave once more washing everything in nuclear chaos, as it had in the beginning.
He feared, and he feared very little, that in the end, all of this would be for nothing. And yet the machine kept whirring within, and he resolved in himself that he would not rest until he lay broken or utterly destroyed by this task, as he had promised long ago. Life fed upon life, and in his pursuit of redemption, petty as it seemed, Malis had learned that the Megaverse was a cycle unbroken. So, for the time being, he would act accordingly. Turning his Torix downward, he plunged it silently into the ventilation port’s opening, carving a clean oval for himself to step through. His Grav-connects automatically lit up from their previous operation. Laying his broad back against the inner curve of the shaft, he began his descent into the manor’s infrastructure, his radar scanning for security measures the entire length down. He brushed through vyper webs, and stopped at one point to calmly lilt aside one of the spindly entities. A serpentine body host to over 20 slate black legs, the Vyper-ken hissed blindly at him, and Malis’ plated finger thumped it on the head just as quick as it could strike out. Coiling back, the stunned Vyper-ken slithered back into its web strewn hole, and Malis clicked on his mag-light to look deeper down into the depths of the shaft’s musty darkness. It was worrisome, the lack of security measures. Something in his gut told him this was a trap, and thus far that seemed quite possible. So why keep going deeper? It was odd, wishing to be captured. A small part of him wanted it. To be contained, and to leer in the faces of those who had allowed that which stalked the Mega-verse to know he knew what they had done, and that though they held him temporarily, they could not contain the screaming inferno that was Malis Val Torix.
Alarms flashed over his visor, and he tapped at his communications array, linking live camera feed information from his hidden ship directly to his helmet’s inner layout. The entire mansion was alit now, and soldiers in black laden uniforms were storming the grounds from various drop ships that bore the sigil of the Red Council. Planet side defenses were up and running, and the entire facility bustled with military activity. He could hear from below the echoes of commands given by security teams scrubbing the area over; they would find his entry point soon enough, just as they had no doubt found the dead guard in the reeds. Sliding the rest of the way down the narrow shaft, he made it to a vent port where he could see the inner chambers below. Conveniently, he seemed to have bypassed most of the front lobby. From where he could see, it was a long drop down, probably 100 feet at least. The high curved walls rounded down to a center chamber lined with cultivated mini gardens filled with rare herbs and spice bearing plants. Vast fish tanks suspended above these gardens swelled with bioluminescent life. Things from oceans far off that even Malis couldn’t discern twisted and wriggled within, and one of the open top aquariums was actually right under where he looked through. It was a shame, all of this glorious bounty and beautiful life fallen under the hand of the ignorant and unappreciative. The most powerful contained that which is beauty and put a price on such at their own beck and call. To entrap beauty and art, to take it away from those who would share it and make it something attainable and natural, was the hallmark of all elitist scum. How they clung to their material worth, dribbling mules doing anything and everything to live on. How they tightened their flesh and replaced their organs with clones of their childlike selves, trading their blood with things beyond the thought of any sane patron of the Mega-verse for, what? Malis would soon know. Such dealings and atrocities had gone unnoticed for far too long. He shook at the thought. To be the instrument they had molded him to be. No matter how many of them he killed, no matter how many of them he strung up and revealed for what they truly were, they had made him...And he still acted in similar, unstoppable volition.
He looked down at his palm where his fist had tightened into an iron ball, and blue blood dripped lightly down through the shaft’s bottom, down into the open air fish tank below. Several bright green sharks rummaged over where his blood had spilled against the water’s once stilled surface, and Malis unwound his fist, knowing he was relishing too soon in the sweet thought of vengeance. He needed a skull in hand and an escape route before any further brooding.
Using his finger talon, he quickly unscrewed the nigh seamless bolts holding the shaft’s outer grate closed. He silently pulled it up and into the shaft as to not disturb anything below. Having a clear view down, he noted several tables and a metallic barrier of carts towards the far back that looked like food stations. This seemed like a mess hall for the guards of the mansion, and for all intents and purposes seemed empty for the time being. Still weary at the lack of guards, he tapped at his wrist to activate his Errasau launcher. Loading one Errasau ball from his back satchel into the wrist mounted firing device, he shot off one ball to the floor below. Before it hit, tiny legs caught its velocity, and it silently tapped to the floor, gathering its full form once more to begin rolling around. Malis tapped at his wrist and the mercury hued ball went into auto-pilot mode. The Errasau ball was a marvel of mapping and espionage technology. Capable of being fired in any vacuum, the Errasau could move upon nearly any surface, given its wide range of transformative properties. The marble sized sphere willed itself forward and quickly mapped out the room for any noticeable deformities in design. These ‘deformed’ areas would likely be host to imperceptible traps. The ones he had seen ranged from flesh frying lasers, all the way to poisonous gases that could fill a chamber in seconds. Hopefully the Errasau was enough precaution for any really nasty tricks. Once it made its first round, it made a second, and found no traps. Malis made to turn and keep going through the shaft.
“The others, they said you would come up from the back. But I knew to stick around here.” A sandpaper voice cackled from down below. Malis flinched inwardly, suddenly very aware of someone directly below him he hadn’t sensed before. He cut his mag light off. His brow knitted like a coiled spring of emerald scale, and he paused to ponder just how long whoever or whatever below him had known of his presence, and how.
Suddenly, an undeniable force ensnared Malis’ ankles, crushing them so tightly together that he could hear his bones lightly crackle from underneath his suit’s exo-skeletal plating, a weight of impending helplessness filling his stomach before it began overpowering him completely. The metaphysical grip violently ejected him from the shaft down into the shark tank below, his cry of surprise cut short as he back flopped hard onto the waters shifting surface. Lashing about, he immediately swam for the edge of the aquarium, his visor catching activity in the black waters below. A shark like an ancient mesa carved out through the darkness. Like a silent bullet, it circled him once, as if taunting him. It’s jaws were wide enough to swallow Malis whole, and it’s hundreds of serrated teeth flashed out like a field of zirconium shards, it’s hulking form blurring translucent without warning as it veered away from him. Turning his attention back to the rim of the aquarium, he felt a sudden current rush over him, and he back stroked wildly. A shimmering shark crashed by at a terrible speed. Just barely able to skim by, he corkscrewed away from its snapping jaws deftly, his legs kicking, yet still numb from the unknown energy’s crushing grip, the shark once more turning invisible as it swam back down towards the unseen abyss. From out of nowhere, the shark’s brother slammed into Malis like a bullet train from the side, its shining eyes reflecting his own lithe image back as it crashed him breathless against the tank’s inner safety glass.
Barely able to retract his Torix, he struggled against the sheer mass of the immense animal’s thrashing maw, its jaws catching him fully around his scaled torso like a closed fist over a small rodent. His armor was strong enough to stop the millions of teeth from slicing him to ribbons instantaneously, but the steel rending force of its bite would crush him soon if he couldn’t escape. His breath shortened, and bloody bubbles of struggle wrung up towards the wavering light of the room’s ceiling, his vision blurring as the pressure of the bite nearly crippled him. As the world roared away into ebbing shadows, Malis cracked open his Torix and slammed it straight down into the shark’s right eye socket, the emerald beast loosening its maw just enough for him to weakly struggle away.
His Torix steamed like living fire under the freezing cold water, and the searing light emanating from its edge revealed four more enormous sharks, all swiftly shifting from sight and coming his way from the depths of the hellish tank. Without hesitation, Malis cracked the plasma spear backwards and broke the hydro-seal of the aquariums inner lining, the glass casing busting open with a world wrenching screech that shattered water out like a shotgun funneled typhoon. Thrown wildly out of control from the tank’s sanctum, Malis tumbled the length to the floor below. He would have caught himself given his suit’s impressive make, that is, if it weren’t for one of the sharks landing directly on his extended left leg at the time of impact. It snapped immediately, and he cried out, struggling to drag his shattered limb out from under the wriggling shark’s flopping mass. He looked up just in time to turn away from the snapping jaws of another fallen shark, his Torix working quickly across its open throat in one fell swoop. Its thrashing quelled to a light flopping, and he turned to cut his way around his broken leg to gain some foothold into escaping the heft of the fallen beast atop him, stabbing at it over and over again until he managed to get his bloody knee up enough to begin slipping out. All of his progress however was for naught, as the heft of the shark found its way back down atop him from some unknown pressure. A figure stood over the felled shark, pressing a boot upon where his leg laid broken in half underneath.
Pain like glass being shoved under scale crackled through Malis’s body, but he was no stranger to pain, so surged back up with a fire in his blood.
He looked up in time to catch a swift kick to the face plate. If it wasn’t for his shock absorbing helm, his head would have been taken clean off. The world grew dark like a fading dream. “Weak from your swim I see.” The figure reached down and caught Malis by the cuff of his armor, slapping away the Torix he feebly held forward like a mother slinking away a child’s toy. “But you won’t be struggling anymore. I knew you would come this way. You were always so predictable. My slave whore Val Torix.” The shadowed man punched forward, the same wavering force from before crackling out from the center of his metallic palm in a roaring gush of compacted energy. It bashed Malis like a living wall, firing him head over heels into a crumpled pile along the room’s edge.
Derza took his time wandering over, his augmented fangs flashing out from behind his mutilated lips, steam pressing in hot fits from the dual chrome rivets lined across his augmented back. He rested his boot on Malis’s broad back, flicking metal flakes and fish blood off of his copper tipped fingers over the fallen soldier. Clucking his tongue, he looked over towards the flopping sharks and struggling tropical fish, water still dribbling in fat droplets from the shattered out aquarium on high. “You know, the Council wants us to take you in alive.” He kicked at Malis where he laid unmoving, a small twitch rolling over his downed frame. “And I am the Council’s will. But they didn’t say anything about bringing you back with your arms. Or your legs. As usual you fell for the trap. Classic Bram, so reluctant to plan things out. So full, of his own righteous ambition. You thought I didn’t see your little battles in silence? You think you were brave to stand up to us, with your brothers? Your whore womanling!” He spit on Malis’s back. “They’re dead, by now. And as for you…Well... Fuck you, Malis Val Torix. I’ve hated you since I first met you. It will be one of the greatest pleasures of my life to watch you burn.” He raised his palm, waves of imperceptible energy rolling over his bolted knuckles until a screaming ball of psionic force whirled to life in front of his flexing fingers.
Without warning, Malis spun off his stomach to his back, kicking out with his good leg like a spear right at the cyborg’s chest. Derza jerked back, and Malis’s foot managed to knock Derza’s open palm enough to rupture the once stable energy sphere. Both warriors were shattered back from one another due to the ruptured essence’s sudden disruption. Derza barely caught his footing against one of the exotic garden squares, his back banging a crumbling silhouette into the tile block’s colorful surface. Malis caught himself more quickly despite his shattered leg, and rolled up to his scaled boots from across the room, snatching at his Torix along the way near one of the dying sharks. He promptly snapped his broken leg back into joint wordlessly, the plasma edge of his Torix shivering to life. He stood shakily, his Errasau ball whisking across the floor to rest at his feet obediently. A low whistle, and he began towards Derza, the ball following ahead of his step, his Torix masking his form in a deathly white glow. Derza smashed at his blasting arm, but the circuits were flash fried from Malis’s interruption. Cursing, he pressed at his mechanical wrist, his squealing forearm twisting until a sequence unlocked. His prosthetic arm splintered down its middle, and from its confines a curved blade chuted out and locked into place, his mechanical digits filing away so that the sword could take precedence. Its edge gleamed like living mercury, and bands of electrical current loosened down its length like dripping poison. “Fuck it, I’ll just say you wouldn’t go down so I had to kill ya.” Derza spit, his cleft lip curling into an ugly snarl. He beckoned for Malis to come with his remaining hand, holding his liquid blade at chest level all the while. Malis snapped his fingers and the Errasau shot forward. Derza’s eyes looked down a second too late, and Malis shot in, his spear cleaving down in a sound shattering arc that seared a new scar into Derza’s mauled up scalp. Derza’s dodge turned into opportunity, and he stabbed out, striking right into…nothing. He saw the after image of Malis that his mercurial blade danced through, and looking down noted the Errasau ball was actually creating this projected image. The painless sting of the Torix found his back, and jutted with buttery ease up through his segmented chest, his eyes bulging in sullen disbelief at getting caught out so easily. He gagged as he was lifted off the ground from behind, the steaming confines of his biomechanical chassis melting instantaneously, the stench of burning flesh and melting silicone ruling the chamber’s inner confines. “You stupid, lizard.” He gasped as his eyes rolled back in his head, his cyborg body sparking wildly. Malis shirked Derza off his blade and to the ground; the cyborg’s synthetic guts and gear work spilled out in hot globules of black smoke and soldered bile.
Derza struggled to hold his innards together, but Malis kicked his hand away, forcing the cyborg to let go and topple to the floor belly first. Malis stomped down on Derza’s back, putting his Torix to his shoulder so that the cyborg’s skin blistered and bubbled vividly. “Fuck you!” Derza squealed, head slamming back and forth like a rabid mongrel. Malis, expressionless behind his combat visor, came down in a clean motion, cleaving Derza’s right arm off in a single stroke. Derza cried out, drool fumbling from his cleft lip like water breaking from a mangled faucet. Malis let his foot off him and stepped around towards his front, silently observing the livid cyborg. Sweat beaded Derza’s sheared forehead, and he twisted to his back, the light in his eyes draining as oil and synthetic blood slowly oozed from his steaming chest. “Everyone still thinks you're murdering scum, and that’s what you are. To your bones and your balls BOY!!! A raper, and a murderer..." He raved, head lolling back and forth in a drunken rhythm. "The entire Megaverse wants you... dead!” He spit at Malis, leering at him like a mad man at the end of his rope. “I braved the Road. I paid the price... and look at you... You’re nothing, so much nothing, thinking it can do anything it wants. You don’t get so lucky!” His teeth gritted into a death lock, his jaw clamping up like a man possessed by anger so pure that where it once lived below the surface of his flesh, it now sprinted forward at the fading end of his existence. It was desperate anger; the kind that needed to be said out loud. His jaw buckled, and some of his teeth snapped from his crooked mouth in awkward fragments that danced across the tile floor in skittering twirls. His eyes bulged, and he lunged out weakly towards Malis’s form, his one hand snatching out like a lone talon. “You just gonna stand there silent watching me, judging me? Not a word motherfucker!!!! Do it! End it already! EN-” The cyborg promptly shut down.
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