Ravens of Eternity

203 Ice Queen, Pt Max and Claire both stoically defended themselves as numerous Hallowed ran at them in random waves. When they did attack, Max shredded them with short bursts from his rifle, while Claire cut them down with precise beams. No matter what, few made it past the first couple meters from the wide doorway.

What was odd was that the Hallowed seemed to have some sort of tactic. Or at least it seemed like they were slowly developing tactics. Most of the time, they simply stood outside and waited, but sometimes they rushed in at them as fast as they could.

And those who rushed in fanned out, or ran down one side, then the next.

None of them could understand what they were up to, only that they were figuring out how to get in. If they went out themselves, either through the door or through the window, it was clear they would get swarmed from all directions.

All they could do was wait and hope that Miko would be able to get them out of their situation, somehow. And as the girl sat entranced while her consciousness attacked the settlement’s upgraded Security Intelligence, her drones flew around and supported the four of them.

Two took turns and shot at any Hallowed, while the third brought them supplies – mostly ammunition from the storage bins found along the weapons wall.

After a long lull, Max and Claire both lowered their weapons slightly, put off guard by the sudden lack of aggression from the Hallowed.

Then, out of nowhere, corpses that had stacked up on the Hallowed’s side of the door were drug away. Once they were clear, a number of Hallowed then ducked in the corner of the doorway and pulled away any corpses they could grab.

Amal was shocked when she saw them act in that manner.

.....

She wanted to believe it was because there was some humanity left in them, that what little they had was trying to hold on. She wanted to believe that they pulled their dead away as a gesture of respect, of sorrow, of remembrance.

Both Claire and Max were also perplexed, and didn’t bother to shoot. They wanted to understand what was going on.

“I think they’re trying to clear the way,” said Max. “Like they know running on corpses slows them down or something. I think their programming – whatever it is – is adapting...”

“Adapting?” asked Claire. “What? Like strategizing against us?”

Max nodded solemnly.

“Cover me,” said Amal.

Without waiting, she ran out, grabbed the nearest two Hallowed that lay on the ground, and dragged them back behind cover. There, she performed a Quickscan on both of them. Although one was already dead, the other was still barely alive.

The one that was still breathing, if only just, had bullet holes in its stomach, upper abdomen, and shoulder. Blood trickled out of them effortlessly, and worsened with every short breath. She focused on him first and performed a deep scan.

At the same time, she injected her nanites into his body to cauterize his wounds. She hoped to buy him a little more time so she could figure out a countermeasure. But to her absolute shock, all the nanites she injected were dismantled by some sort of security system.

A DING in her DI alerted her to the completed deep scan, which snapped her out of her distress. She then pored into the data in the report.

There, she found the exact same things that Miko had discovered – a complete subversion of the human body’s natural signals through highly invasive cybernetic augmentations. But she looked a little bit further.

Her deep scan also revealed nanite swarms that had been dispersed throughout the Hallowed’s body, hidden within every white blood cell in his system. And it looked as though they protected him from any manner of unauthorized alteration.

Even medical help was refused. Or, at least, unauthorized medical help.

More critically, she saw that almost all his brain functions had shut off. Purposefully. Without a body to talk to, the mind only knew insanity. So it chose the only logical conclusion – to diminish itself. Though it wasn’t much of a choice, any decision it could make meant keeping some semblance of who they were to the very end.

Hope lit up in Amal – if there was a fragment of them left, then maybe there was a way to undo the damage. Or at least undo the cybernetics’ absolute control. And maybe that would allow their minds to restart, to reawaken.

She also realized that there was a very high possibility that she would also unleash those who chose insanity over going into purgatory. But she believed that even they could be healed, given enough time.

She had no choice but to believe.

“Aim for their heads,” she said. “Please. Or at least, do whatever you need to do to ease their suffering. These people deserve to die with some dignity.”

Claire and Max both agreed audibly. But then all three of them heard deep thumping just outside.

“What’re they doing?” Claire asked.

All three of them looked on wordlessly as they heard impacts happen all over the wall just around the door. Almost like they were hitting the wall with various pieces of things, like clubs and chisels.

Then they heard as the cobble walls cracked and fragmented and fell.

Out there, the Hallowed was doing exactly that. They struck the walls with their various tools and loosened the mortar between the bricks. The larger, heavier tools easily fragmented the cobble and caused cracks to appear with each strike.

Then, once a good amount of wall broke free, they began to specifically chip away at those spots. They pulled apart stone and brick and cobble and let it all clatter to the ground. Once they had cleared a good two or so meters around the doorway, they then struck and gouged at the thin sheet metal that separated them.

Then all activity stopped when the Hallowed computed that their simple tools wouldn’t open up the metal. Not by themselves, anyway. And certainly not without any help.

Rifle fire from the Hallowed’s side erupted, which caused all three of them to duck back down behind the heavy desk. They heard as the Hallowed’s gunfire punctured and punched through the sheet metal, and tore into them easily.

With the thin metal sheeting weakened significantly, the Hallowed tore it apart with ease. Half a dozen of them grabbed portions of the sheet metal, pulled back, and peeled them away.

To Claire and Max’s alarm, they had completely wrenched open the doorway until it was twice as wide as before! They now had much more space to charge them!

Which they did. A host of them ran right into the room at full speed, straight towards the three – and they didn’t stop streaming in.

Max and Claire had no option but to fire wantonly into the crowd. The three drones had to resort to using smaller charge blasts merely to help slow down the tide. Together, they cut down the Hallowed quickly, and slowed their advance greatly.

Although they thought they were doing well, what they didn’t see was that behind the Hallowed charging in were those with rifles. They aimed randomly into the office, and fired round after round, fully automatic.

They cut down everything in front of them, other Hallowed included. Their bullets pepperd the walls, floors, upturned desk, everything. They also found their way to Claire.

Their bullets raked across her body, and threw her down to the ground in a bloody heap.

~

Icy rain fell all around Callie as she ran across the rooftops at top speed. She was filled with elation, excitement, fear, and dread all at once. The mix of disparate and dissonant emotions shook her deeply and caused her to stumble as she fled.

Eva was in hot pursuit right behind her. Both their feet splashed a slurry of melting ice with every step that they took.

“I’ll take back what I said about your family,” she taunted. “You’re all certainly superior, especially when it comes to running and dying!”

Callie grit her teeth at Eva’s provocations. She seethed with anger as her words wove through her blood, and boiled it.

She leapt across a rooftop below, then quickly spun around and reared back her hammer the moment she landed. She swung just as Eva was about to land, and caught her while she was unable to evade in the slightest.

Callie poured as much strength as she could muster into her strike, along with all of the hate and frustration and anger she had pent up. She focused all of her power and fury into that single strike, and for a single moment surpassed herself far more than she ever had before.

She broke through her own genetic limitations, and expended power well beyond herself.

Surprised by the sudden attack, Eva raised her blade and parried just in the nick of time. But even then, she was blown back from the sheer force of the strike. She was knocked straight into the brick wall of the building they both just jumped from with a WHUMP.

Her impact left a slight crater in the wall itself, and the cobblestone bricks cracked and fragmented all around her. It caved in slightly and crumbled inwards as she picked herself up out of it.

Pain radiated from Eva’s back – she looked inwards and saw a hairline fracture along one of her vertebrae. Muscles bruised and a little torn.

Then she grinned. That’s what she got for playing around too much.

She looked down at Callie on the rooftop below, who was panting heavily from the exertion. The Prophet looked pathetic – her hair and outfit was waterlogged with icy water, her hammer had numerous nicks up and down its shaft, and the girl herself was hunched over – wounded and out of breath.

Eva leapt out of the crater and landed gracefully a handful of meters away from Callie.

“Well done,” she said. “Tell me – how does it feel to finally break free of the limits of your own blood, hm? Even if it was short-lived?”

“Get spaced,” Callie retorted in between breaths. “That was all in the blood all along.”

But Eva shook her head in response.

“You don’t get it yet,” she said. “Your so-called Father’s been limiting your blood. Wanna know how I know?”

She pointed to the Hallowed that ran along the streets under them with her blade.

“It’s the same way you’ve been limiting theirs, obviously,” she continued. “You’re His tools, like these things are yours. Simple, mindless things that only do what they’re told. Whatever you were before, whoever you used to be was taken away and replaced with...”

Eva then looked Callie up and down, and shook her head in disappointment. Or maybe sadness. Callie couldn’t tell.

“Something that’s less than you used to be,” Eva eventually said. “And your beloved Father took the best parts about you, away from you.”

But Callie barely heard anything she said, and anger filled her again. It began to empower her, and she lifted her hammer up, ready to attack again.

“Don’t you dare insult Father!” she cried. “He loves all of us! He wouldn’t ever do that to us!”

“I’m not insulting you this time,” said Eva. “Honestly, I feel sorry for you. Angry, too, sure. You don’t even realize you’re just an upgraded version of those things out there. You don’t realize that you’re designed to die just like they’re meant to, too.”

This only incensed Callie even further, and she feebly brought her hammer up, as though she was about to attack. But she had spent all the energy she had, and could barely muster up any kind of offense.

“You. Shut. Your. Mouth!” she yelled. “You don’t know a gods-damned thing you’re talking about! Our blood contains the absolute best genomic code across humanity!”

Eva turned towards Callie, then slid her blade back into its sheath.

“Alright then, prove it,” Eva said. “If you truly are the genetic perfection of all humanity’s best traits, then you should have zero problems avoiding my next attack, right? No problems at all...”

Eva activated Ascendant Form for the first time during the fight. She felt energy radiate out from within her, and flowed to every part of her body. The sound of rain as it pattered on her clear helmet energized her, and helped her focus her entire being onto a single point in time and space.

Then she leapt forward with frightening speed, far faster than Callie could even see. Eva grabbed the synth with both hands, and threw her over her shoulder with a simple throw.

She slammed the girl on the roof with extreme power, and caused the whole thing to fracture and crack. Dust flew up as stone and mortar were pulverized. The roof cratered slightly from the impact and began to collapse.

Then, Eva reared back a fist, shouted a kiai, and struck Callie’s chest with a FWOOM. The force of her strike reverberated through Callie, and into the roof under her. The entire building shook loose from the impact, and mortar was crushed into powder between some of the brick.

Callie threw up blood as the wind was knocked completely out of her. Her eyes went blank as she flicked in and out of consciousness.

At the same time, the roof caved in underneath them, and caused them both to fall.

There, the building collapsed all around them, and buried them under its rubble. The roof caved in, along with most of the walls and two of the corners. All fell inward and buried everything under rock and stone and brick and dust.

Even as the rain continued to pour down, clouds of mortar dust and finely ground stone floated up and filled the air in between.

.....