Ravens of Eternity

But found that hir arms and legs were bound to some kind of old table.

No, an old, dirty bed. Hir wrists were tied by some kind of rope that was affixed to an old wooden headboard. Hir ankles were also tied by that same kind of rope, but to the baseboard.

Panic filled hir the moment ze recognized where ze was, and when this happened to hir. This was where ze used to live, back on Earth. Back before Bellum Aeternal. Back before ze was in an orphanage.

Back when life was hell.

Hir anxiety spiked through the roof, which caused hir heart to race in hir chest, and hir lungs to hyperventilate uncontrollably.

Ze attempted to pull and tug at hir bindings, but found hirself completely powerless. Against simple rope.

No, ze told hirself. Calm down. Breathe in, breathe out. This isn’t the past. This is Godeater. Taunting me. Trying to break me?

.....

Lucifer closed hir eyes, and breathed in and out slowly. An exercise that Freya had taught hir to do many, many times. Although ze didn’t find much value in them before, they certainly helped hir now.

But when ze opened hir eyes, ze was met with a massive distorted face that loomed high above. It seemed to stretch out from horizon to horizon, and held a sick grin that seemed to split the man’s face in half.

Inside that grin were massive pearly-white teeth that threatened to mince everything they touched.

“There you are, my little freak,” said the face. His voice resounded all around and echoed throughout the massive room.

Fear pierced through Lucifer in an instant, and caused hir to turn paler than ze had ever been before. It was a fear that ze hadn’t felt in a very long time.

But ze pushed through it almost as quickly as it came. And replaced it with anger – truckloads of it.

“Father,” ze said through gritted teeth, “I want to kill you.”

Hir father’s distorted face laughed heartily. Bellyfuls of deep guffaws and chortles filled the air, even as his spittle rained down from above.

“You?” he said, a mocking tone in his voice. “Kill me? You can’t even kill yourself.”

His laughs became even louder, and they seemed to boom all around him. Lucifer felt the world around hir shake, as though the ground beneath hir quaked.

And despite the derision in hir father’s voice, ze remained stoic. Ze pulled hirself together and shot back.

“I’ve already killed you once, you prick,” Lucifer cursed. “And I’ll happily kill you again and again and again. From now until the end of goddamned time.”

Ze then attempted to tap into True Harmony, to pour energy into hir body and break out of hir bonds. And of course, to strike that thing with every ounce of strength ze had.

But nothing came. No bottomless wells of energy. No feelings of euphoria and completeness.

No sense of being, not even in the slightest.

And for the first time in a very long time, Lucifer felt weak. Weaker than ze had been for a long time. And hir heart instantly fell. Which hir father easily noticed.

He stopped laughing, and instead stared down at hir with beady, judgemental eyes.

“Are you finally realizing that your little worlds, the ones you keep making up, the ones you keep retreating to...” he began. “Are you realizing that none of them are real? You can try to escape all you want, but in the end, you’re stuck in here. With me. Forever.”

He sneered at hir, even as incredulity covered hir face.

“The faster you accept it, the better off you’ll be,” he continued. “Not that I care. You can be as aware or as insane as you want to be. Either way, I get what I want. And you? You’ll still be my broken little freak.”

Before Lucifer could gather hirself up and retort. Before ze could fight back even a little tiny bit, a massive fist the size of hir body came careening down from the sky. It slammed into hir with an overwhelming amount of might, and utterly smashed the dirty old bed underneath hir to pieces. Wooden splinters were thrown in every direction as the bed itself broke apart.

Lucifer hirself was absolutely crushed by the blow, and felt every bone in hir body snap painfully.

Beyond that, the floor underneath hir cracked and shattered into broken chunks, and collapsed from beneath hir. Ze fell through, along with the tattered remains of hir bed.

Despite the pain that covered hir body, all ze could feel was relief.

Relief that ze was free of hir monster. Even if every bone in hir body was broken, nothing could take that feeling away from hir.

At least, until hir father’s face burst through the open hole he had created himself. He then reached through and clawed his way down, even as ze fell further and further into an encompassing darkness.

“Where are you going?” he screamed at hir. “I didn’t say you could leave!”

Hir father appeared to dig down after hir, and tore apart layers of dirt and stone and concrete and sand and brick.

And although ze didn’t have the energy to fight back, and although hir body throbbed with the pain of multiple broken bones, ze still managed to extend hir middle fingers and point them at hir father.

“Die,” ze shouted. “Just die forever!”

~

“Lucifer!” Freya screamed into her comms.

She watched as hir core spasmed and lashed out at everything around it. Any of the mecha that even attempted to approach hir was quickly shredded by the multiple rings of armor that whipped around at breakneck speed.

Ze attacked them with such relentless ferocity that they were annihilated in a matter of seconds. Ze literally sliced them apart with hir armor plating until they struck the pilot inside. And shredded them well beyond recognition.

“Lucifer, get a hold of yourself!” she screamed again.

But nothing happened.

Everyone up in Tactical Command was absolutely shocked at what they were seeing. All kinds of errors and readings sped past, many of which left Raijin utterly shocked.

“I am attempting to perform a remote shutdown,” she cried out. “But the core is unresponsive and unreachable. Something has taken it over.”

“Is it some kind of Drogar virus?” Azrael asked, panic in her voice.

“It doesn’t matter!” Freya shouted. “We need to get Lucifer to safety!”

She grabbed one of the last Drogar mecha, then charged Lucifer straight on using it as her shield. It was quickly shredded apart by Lucifer’s spinning armor rings, and the pilot inside was literally torn to shreds as a result.

Not that it stopped Freya, or slowed her. She slammed right into hir core, and drove them both down towards the ground.

The impact jarred Lucifer, even as ze was deep in hir trance-like commune. It was just enough to daze hir ever so slightly. And in that moment, Freya reached out with her consciousness and attempted to connect to Lucifer telepathically.

And like ze had experienced with her cycles ago, she found hir consciousness enshrouded with the dark presence of Godeater. But it was far stronger than she had ever experienced.

Despite that, she allowed herself to get sucked into its depths, towards Lucifer.

She fell down into the shadows – a feeling she herself had been in a few times before. Not that she wanted to experience them again. No-one did, intrinsically.

But if Lucifer was brave enough to leap to her rescue the last time she fell into a commune with Godeater, then nothing was going to stop her from doing the same back.

Freya drew herself closer to Lucifer’s presence, which seemed small and feeble even in the rushing darkness. And there, in the far distance, she saw hir falling down perpendicular to her.

High above hir falling body, seemingly chasing after hir was a massive, grotesque man. It literally seemed to be clawing its way through the darkness to grab at Lucifer.

She narrowed her eyes and shot forward as fast as she could go – this was a dream world, after all. Physics need not apply, and anything goes. Her body sped down to Lucifer as fast as she could go, as much as her heart allowed her to stay in the dream.

And she reached out the same time the bloated man did.

But before he could get his grubby fingers around Lucifer, she snapped hir up in midair. And held hir close even as they sped away. She didn’t even bother to look back as the creature screamed in fury behind her.

“Wake up,” she told Lucifer.

Then she tore through the darkness and pulled the both of them out of the depths and back into a blindingly bright reality.

Lucifer snapped back into consciousness, though hir body was almost completely exhausted and out of energy. Ze took in huge gasps of air as ze forced hir body to calm down. Hir hands shook madly as ze stared out into the distance.

“Lucifer’s core has just reconnected with the system,” Raijin interjected. “Data is streaming in again. Reports are stating a severe systems rejection with those Drogar parts.”

“What in the hells,” ze stammered. “Freya... I... that was... I can’t... Was that..?”

“Godeater, yes,” Freya answered. “Answers later. Thoughts later. Right now, you gotta regain control, and we gotta bug outta here. What’s the status on the Kill team?”

“They reached the extraction zone,” Aurora replied quickly. “You’re clear to exit the operational area. I’m sending an emergency crew to assist.”

“No!” Lucifer cried out. “No need. I can get myself out.”

Freya and Lucifer then lifted themselves up off the ground and hovered high up. Then, both shot forward in the blink of an eye and sped towards the horizon. Raijin’s drones covered their retreat right behind them.

As they did so, Aurora authorized the final portion of their mission to the tacticians around them. In turn, the lead tactician activated the detonation sequence, and sent the signal down to the charges that Xylo’s squad had placed all over the underground facility.

And, in unison, they detonated with violent force and blasted apart everything they were attached to. Numerous hexagonal rooms were blown to pieces as their walls were torn apart. Their ceilings caved in and dirt filled in the space underneath.

Up above, entire sections of the blasted out crystal-like facility collapsed into the ground, where they were partially or wholly buried under the dirt and detritus.

Half the facility was consumed by the ground and never saw the light of day again.