Dawn of the Void - Chapter 153: Still 100% human

James paced as the Zorathian guided his crew through their paces. Their voices were a background murmur as he watched the entrance tunnel. The remaining six aliens in their alcoves worked diligently, appearing unworried, but then again what the fuck did he know about Zorathian nerves? Their crimson turtle skulls betrayed as much emotion as a hand-axe throwing target.

Over and over again he toggled his Death Attack ability up and then dismissed it. Over the past few months he’d grown used to dropping attacks without having to worry about friendly fire. It made battle feel almost surreal, game-like; he could blast away without worrying about his friends. But now?

Now he possessed a weapon three hundred times more powerful than his most potent previous attack.

And yet. Sure he could drop three hundred billion points of damage on someone, but Thaggy the Black had wielded 4 trillionpoints. And still they’d stalled out at Level 25. Or, well, chosen to stop. Been made a deal. Thaggy would set down his hacked Death Attack and become – what – a god?

An Eluthaarii.

Even the greatest of heroes/clutch leaders cannot defeat gods.

Every time he started to feel a flicker of confidence, the slightest hint of hope, all he had to do was think about how a hundred plus Zorathians at Level 1,000 had failed to not only reach the bottom of the Pit, but to even hamper the Eluthaarii plans.

James stopped pacing and grimaced.

They had a plan, ridiculous as it was, but then what? Say they grabbed a hundred cubes. A thousand.

What then?

They’d absorb five or six, say, become demigods, return to Earth, empower a bunch of other folks, and – what? Head back down into the Pit? They couldn’t teleport directly into the Eluthaarii command centers. And even if they could, what could their little crew do against creatures more like the Towers of Creation than mere aliens?

No.

The Eluthaarii were just on too high a level. There was no contesting them directly. Which meant – what?

Their only hope was to convince the Eluthaarii to leave them alone. To go away and take the Pits with them.

To – what? Heal the whole world? How many humans were left? A few million around the world? That was plenty to recover the species. Unlike the Zorathians they needed only a few hundred to regrow.

But how could they convince the Eluthaarii to fuck off?

The more James and his crew excelled, the more these overlords would desire to recruit them.

What if they took the same deal the Zorathians had taken?

The very notion galled James to the depths of his gut. To say goodbye to Earth and fly across the stars to fight someone for the Eluthaarii’s benefit? To get involved in some bullshit galactic war that had nothing to do with him?

But hadn’t he been willing to die for his friends, for humanity? Wasn’t this just a variation on the theme? Instead of dying he’d disappear. What happened to him wouldn’t matter. In fact, it never had. The one throughline in all of this had been his willingness to serve and help however he could, wherever he could.

If it meant sacrificing himself so the few remaining millions could survive, then…? Why would he say no?

Because he wanted to shove his boot as far down the Eluthaarii’s craw as he could. Because he wanted humanity to be different. To not bend knew like every other species. To show the aliens that they’d underestimated the smart apes from Earth.

Because he was willing to die in order to win, but dying in order to surrender?

The very idea made him sick.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Serenity had come up behind him. “You look like a dude that just locked himself out of his car.”

James didn’t want to but he couldn’t help but chuckle. “Oh yeah? Sounds about right.” Serenity raised an eyebrow, waiting. James looked past her to where Mavthua was helping Olaf. “I’m just trying to think of a way to win this thing.”

“And?”

“Coming up with nothing. We’re attempting a Hail Mary pass to win ourselves some Reservoir Cubes. Which the Zorathians already did and then still decided to surrender. How will it be different with us?”

Serenity linked her arm through his. “Because humanity’s like cockroaches, and we just need a few of us to survive?”

“Heh. True. But.” James rubbed at his brow. “How do we do that? Survive this thing? What does that look like? We fight our way to the bottom of the Pits? We… steal all the Reservoir Cubes in the universe and power up to Eluthaarii level?”

“There you go. Let’s do that.”

“Just like that. Steal all the cubes.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me. You heard Mavthua. It takes a god to kill a god.”

James studied her face. “And you think the Eluthaarii will just sit down while we knock over every Void facility in the galaxy? Why wouldn’t they intervene before we become too powerful?”

Serenity shrugged. “Fuck if I know. But it’s a plan, right? Plus, you know how things always go. We set out to accomplish objective M without knowing even knowing J, K, and L exist. Along the way we discover them and change our plans. Make it up as we go along. We just need a trajectory.”

“So our plan is to hope we come up with a plan?”

“Exactly!” Serenity grinned beatifically. “It’s served us thus far.”

James smiled ruefully. “Genius.”

She hip checked him. It was weird – her hip checks no longer had Strength 200 behind them, and he didn’t have Stamina 200 either to absorb it. It was just a plain old hip check. “C’mon. What else we gonna do? Surrender? Just give up? As long as we got a plan, or a ghost of a plan, we can keep on trucking.”

“True. True.”

She moved her head around to meet his lowered gaze. “James? You getting all pouty on me?”

“Pouty?”

“All, ‘boo hoo, we’re up against gods that have killed 95% of humanity and now fully dependent on a weird alien’s bullshit plan to dive into a blackhole in order to steal void brains or whatever so as to try and become gods to kill the Towers of Creation? Huh? That how you getting?”

James laughed. “Yes. Actually.”

“Well buck up, chucko. We ain’t dead yet.”

James considered, nodding his head, then snorted, the sound halfway between despair and amusement. “True enough, I suppose.”

Mavthua moved from Olaf to Jason, but froze midstride. The other six Zorathians also ceased their work. They all looked toward the tunnel mouth. James tensed.

“Questions are being asked,” said Mavthua. “We must hurry. Deflection/dissimilation is losing effectiveness. The phase bead?” He turned and looked at one of the other Zorathians.

“Phase bead is nearing actualization,” said the alien from its alcove. “We are being forced to develop/discover n-dimension solutions due to unforeseen/bullshit localized time-space folding.”

“Proceed/hurry,” said Mavthua.

“How much trouble we in?” called James. “Mavthua? What’s our time frame?”

“We have perhaps five minutes,” said the alien. “Iron Wave Secundus Elder, Ravthorra, is summoning clutches. She has declared our explanations/excuses to be insufficient, and soon there will be violence. Excuse me. Jason. You have purchased Gloria and Aeviternum? Then go to Spatial.”

“Fuck,” said Serenity. “Five minutes?”

Olaf had moved to stand beside Kimmie, Kerim, and Denzel. “We are all finished. Only three to go.”

“Sure,” said James. “But that’s five minutes in which to complete this phase bead thing, right?”

Serenity stared at the feverishly working Zorathians in their alcoves. “I wish I could get a read on them.”

Mavthua helped Jason, then moved to Yadriel.

“Ravthorra and her lineage approach,” said one of the Zorathians, emerging from his alcove. “They have broken the eggs of our companions. We must defend the laboratory.”

It was surreal. The alien’s tone was so matter-of-fact that James had trouble understanding how dire their situation was becoming. “She killed your buddies?”

“Correct.” The Zorathian raised his hand and the tunnel mouth filled with glowing blue light. “My Circle of Protection manifests only 1.6 trillion defensive units. My clutchmates must hurry.”

Olaf stepped beside him and raised his hand. The blue wall grew brighter. “Make that 1.8.”

It was clear Olaf had wanted his words to sound more impressive than they’d come out.

Mavthua was explaining the menu with low urgency to Yadriel.

Time crawled by. Second by second.

A second Zorathian left their alcove and stepped up beside the first. They raised their hand and the blue wall grew brilliant.

“3.1 trillion,” they said, but they didn’t sound confident.

Shadows appeared on the other side. James tensed, expecting shouts, demands, but there was nothing. They were probably yelling to each other on the substrate.

Blue flared into existence across the ceiling then disappeared.

“They have attempted to teleport inside,” said the first Zorathian. “We have managed to foil/block them.”

Mavthua cut off his explanations to Miriam and instead drew up his colored panels. “Out of time. Manifest/summon the phase bead.”

“Phase bead manifold integration is incomplete,” said an alcoved Zorathian.

“We either summon/manifest it now or we never do.”

“Fair/accurate summation.”

Three of the Zorathians abandoned their posts and moved to stand beside the defenders, raising their hands and bolstering the Circle.

Mavthua and the remaining Zorathian frantically moved colors about on their panels, and then a brilliant speck of light appeared mid-air before Mavthua’s panel.

“Argh!” cried Olaf, staggering back. “My Circle is broken!”

Glimmering gold light was burning through the blue wall, corroding and eating its way through.

“Ravthorra has an attack of 2.7 trillion,” said Mavthua, dismissing his panels. “I will assist. James Kelly, your clutch must enter the phase bead. Kimmie, bring/show me the portal key, I will show you the coordinates.”

The head of one of the Zorathians burst. Fragments of bone and blood fountained up as the crystalline plating shattered and the alien collapsed.

None of the other Zorathians reacted even as James and the others leaped aside.

“Dude, you’re coming with us!” cried James.

“Incorrect. There. I have reassigned my points. I was a premiere clutchleader of my lineage. I can hold of Ravthorra for awhile longer.”

And so saying he raised his hand. The blue wall brightened, the golden attack momentarily fading.

“Mavthua, no.” The thought of going this alone, of trying to pull off this highly theoretical mission without the alien’s guidance was harrowing. “We go, now.”

“If the Circles collapse before you enter the coordinates, you will be prevented from teleporting out. I must help maintain/sustain the integrity of the Circles. Thank you, Kimmie. Here are the keys you must press. This does not activate the portal key directly, but signals to the Zorathian interface to override the key’s blockage and send you inside the ever-collapse’s event horizon. Press the keys when everyone/your clutch is inside the phase bead.”

A second Zorathian’s head burst, blood and brains splashing everywhere. The huge, armored body collapsed.

Again, none of the remaining aliens reacted.

Denzel gestured and both Zorathian rose to their feet, heads completely healed, only for their skulls to shatter immediately once more.

A yellow oval appeared in the air, refulgent and hazy.

“Enter/go,” said Mavthua. “You have seconds.”

Jason and Miriam hustled through the oval and disappeared.

A third Zorathian’s head burst.

Kerim, Denzel, and Olaf ran inside.

“Mavthua.” James felt a reeling sense of loss and horror. “It shouldn’t have gone down this way.”

“But it has.” The Zorathian didn’t sound upset. “Upset the Eluthaariians, James. Discomfit them.”

The rest of his crew entered the oval. A fourth Zorathian’s head exploded in a fountain of gore.

“I promise we will.” And with that James ran into the oval.

He’d half-expected to emerge into Herman’s bar, but instead they entered an artificial realm of infinite yellow floor stretching unimpeded to every point of the horizon with a pearlescent sky overhead. His companions clustered close, and the moment James appeared Kimmie hit the keys.

The world thrummed and the golden floor undulated. Everyone half-crouched in alarm, robbed of their former preternatural grace.

“That was the teleport,” said Kimmie. “I’ve got some Spiritual Exaltation to help with my new power. We’re just inside the event horizon, I think. The phase bead is moving toward the black hole.”

“How long will it take us?” asked Jason tensely.

“I’ve no idea, sorry!” Kimmie clutched the Bifrost beneath her chin. “I can only vaguely sense what’s happening out there. It’s this substrate thing. Spiritual Exaltation is just our way of understanding this whole underlying dimension that works as… I mean, I don’t really know how it works. It’s kind of like a psychic realm? It’s how Terrify or Inspire used to work, by accessing minds through the substrate. I think?”

“Wait,” said Denzel. “Psychic powers are real?”

“If they could access the substrate… yes?”

“I knew my Uncle Donny wasn’t full of shit!” Denzel grinned angrily at everyone. “He really could see – sorry. Doesn’t matter. I just knew it.”

Yadriel raised both palms in a ‘slow down’ gesture. “Wait. So we’re in outer space right now? This is it? We flying into a black hole?”

“Yes?” Kimmie winced apologetically. “We are?”

“Fuuuuck,” groaned Yadriel. “I thought I was down for this shit, but now I’m all creeped the fuck out.”

James forced himself to sound calm. “Kimmie, you know how to get us out of here?”

“Yes?” She held the Bifrost more tightly under her chin. “We’re not actually leaving this dimensional space. We’d die immediately if we did. Mavthua explained it to me, but like, really quickly. Our phase bead is like a virus? It’s going to attach to the demiplanar facility inside the black hole and inject us into it?”

“Inject us into it?” repeated Serenity, deadpan.

Kimmie’s expression grew more apologetic as she nodded.

“Well.” Kerim shot his cuffs and smiled around the room. “Then we’ve got nothing to worry about, do we? It’s all taken care of. Worst case scenario I’ll just reverse the flow of local time and we’ll try it again.”

“You can really do that?” asked Denzel. “How far back can you go?”

“It depends. It’s a balance between area of effect and the amount of time we regress. Myself alone? Probably over a minute. All nine of us in a small space like this? Five, ten seconds.”

“Wow,” said Denzel. “For real though – these are the literal powers of angels. Are we even… human any more?”

“Yes, honey.” Serenity stepped up beside Denzel, pretended to sniff at his shoulder, then stepped away. “You’re still 100% human.”

Denzel scowled at her.

“Kimmie, how much of a head’s up do you think we’re going to get before we’re injected?”

“I’m trying to keep tabs. It feels like we’re still moving pretty slow? Mavthua said it would be slow till it wasn’t and then it would all happen at once.”

“Useful,” said Jason irritably.

Miriam took his hand and squeezed it.

“Do your best to give us a head’s up, yeah?” James smiled reassuringly at her.

“Man, this demiplane sucks,” said Serenity. “0/10. Not even a single bar stool.”

Olaf frowned. “Mavthua did his best, yah? He and his clutch die for us.”

“Just saying.” Serenity didn’t seem impressed.

“Deep breaths, everyone.” James forced a smile. “Any moment now we’re going to slide into a black hole and find who the fuck knows what guarding the Reservoir Cubes. Take a moment. Compose yourselves. We’re only going to get this one chance.”

“More than one chance,” corrected Kerim. “Perhaps three or four if we stand very close together.”

James laughed. “Fine. We’re just gonna get three or four chances to make this right. Get your shit together, because here we go.”