Spires

Kind eyes the color of the waves lapping at the sand.

A large finger reached hesitantly.

It felt hard and rough in pudgy fingers not yet large enough to encircle.

Legs kicked with a mind of their own against her soft bindings.

Unpleasant wetness spread.

Once again she betrayed herself.

Comprehension yet remained beyond her grasp.

Thus, she opened her mouth and let loose that which lurked in her core, ever close to the surface.

“She possesses the lungs of a warrior!”

The voice rumbled, sending disconcerting, but somehow comforting vibrations through her.

Confusion silenced her own.

She had only ever heard soft, lilting voices or the one that she knew was ‘mother’.

That one truth she knew even though her mind had yet to divine meaning or understanding to the gibberish in her ears.

Naturally, she had no comprehension of such things as ‘word’ and ‘definitions’.

Every single moment of existence for her was one of discovery.

Unfamiliar scents filled the air.

She had no words to describe them, but she knew that she didn’t like them.

It was so unlike the only world she had known.

That wasn’t the only change.

The golden hue to everything was gone.

It only shined from somewhere behind her.

She wriggled, trying to crane her head back as a flower turns toward the sun.

Failure!

Curse her weakness!

She found her voice again to share her displeasure with existence.

“You have reviewed the texts diligently?” Mother said.

A soothing presence reached inside.

Why was she upset again?

The thought flitted away in the warm, golden embrace.

“Yes, my Goddess.”

A third voice, soft like those she remembered, but without the golden warmth.

“He has studied hard the past 2 years so that he could read them in his own right.”

“I could not have done it without her patient tutelage for my skull is often times as thick as my arms.”

“Then it is done,” Mother said.

A throat cleared.

Deep voice rumbled.

Thumping vibrations shook her warm, hard living cradle.

She liked the warmth, but not the hardness, nor all the movement.

Not at all like the soft, steady cradles she had grown accustomed to.

“Speak, mortal.”

“Uh… just… her name… I mean, what should we name her, my Goddess?”

Interesting how such a voice of deep strength could sound so small.

“Her true name is Aehrone. You may name her as you wish. Consult the texts, but I urge you to find your own ways of motherhood. She starts with the same potential as all of my children. Raise her to rise to the limits of this or don’t. She will serve her purpose, regardless. Do not waste this greatest of honors.”

The golden warmth vanished without a trace.

Her voice wailed.

Its absence was like a gaping void.

Not that she’d understand or be able to put it into words for many years.

The soft voice made pleasant sounds as the world shifted.

The jostling displeased her as it spread the wetness further.

“She’s got a warrior’s lungs!”

Brow furrowed.

Soft cradle replacing hard cradle was a good thing, yet the wetness remained and worse it was getting colder!

“It’s too bad that she’s also got your brow and nose. Aww, look at you, our precious little demigod.”

Soft tickled her chin and pinched her cheeks.

She preferred the former over the latter.

“A warrior’s dread countenance! Just like the long ling of her mortal ancestors! The next fierce topaz eagle to rake her talons across the blood-red skies!”

“Shhh… careful. Our Goddess will not be pleased to hear such words.”

“Aehr holds dominion over all. Mother of children. Mother of battle. Is not the bearagon mother a fiercer warrior than bearagon father? Did she not pick the mightiest warrior in the land? Our seed never fails to bear fruit. And that fruit?”

“Yes, yes, warriors without compare… but… I’d wager a bag of the sovereign’s own coin that you getting chosen had more to do with Sargas having the cleanliness of a bearagon.”

“Ugly bastard too. A doughty warrior, but he can’t compete with this jaw line. It’s why he grows that beard of his. To hide that chin!” Laughter. “It’s not even a chin! How can a man have a negative chin?”

“Enough, Hektor! Lest your pride grows to rival mythical Sussicran.”

“Ha! You’ll not likely find me starved to death next to a mirror pool of Mt. Aitsamim.”

A hundred thousand telekinetic blades and spikes thinner than a molecule slid through adamantine armor to be utterly erased the moment they touched golden divinity.

“Hektoria!” mother called.

She ignored the voice despite the Skill throwing it so far into the depths of the tangled jungle.

The delta cat from the deep marshes a few leagues to the south had taken its last marsh piglet from the village.

Little Ser Wheek’s-a-lot would be avenged.

She had sworn an oath on her father’s name to her boon companions… the other village children.

A vine serpent, so named for its appearance, struck without the courtesy of a warning hiss.

She bopped its snout, sending it slinking away in crushing humiliation.

She was no prey. She ruled the jungle. Tiny as a patch as it was.

It had never occurred to her that a jungle of its like didn’t belong so close to the coast. Nor did she pay attention to her history lessons enough to pick up the knowledge that the jungle had sprang up practically over one night, approximately 9 years ago. Exactly a week older than her in a not at all suspicious coincidence.

Father had often said it was a great training ground.

Not that she understood what he meant as he bid her to enjoy it, while mother’s eyes narrowed at his broad back.

The delta cat appeared out of the brush, cautiously prowling down the trail.

It appeared scrawny. More skin and bones, than sleekly muscled hunter.

Too young to be on its own.

Too hungry and inexperienced to notice her perch in an old grandmother’s twisted web of branches high above the dimly-lit floor.

Leaves and other detritus crunched underneath its paws.

Once again, a mark of inexperience.

Fuzzy ears twitched, but it continued on.

She fell upon it like a silent shadow.

A long while later, after an epic struggle beneath an old grandmother’s impassive gaze, she returned to her home.

“No, Hektoria! What is this?”

“He’s just hungry.”

The young delta cat yowled in her unyielding arms. It clawed at the stone tiles of the entry way, clawed at her arms and legs, adding more scratches to the criss-crossing lines of wet gold all over her pale skin. Bits of foliage, small twigs and the like made a tangled bird’s nest out of her golden hair.

She had changed her mind.

Vengeance had given way to rehabilitation… this time.

“Please, mother! I’ll feed him!”

Mother’s eyes narrowed.

“Well… your father has been talking about getting you a battle companion. This does seem portentous,” she mused, tapping a finger on her dainty chin. “I’ll allow it. But—”

Always with mother, but the acquiescence had come quickly enough that the young girl knew better than to speak.

“— I won’t be mauled by that thing. Take him to Beast Trainer Ludion. That beast isn’t to set foot in this house until it is fixed. I will not step in puddles and piles in my home. Do you understand?”

The golden-haired girl bleeding gold couldn’t help the smile on her chubby-cheeked face.

“I’ll name him Aehronion!”

The delta cat yowled and dragged furrows in the dirt all the way to the outskirts of the village.

Golden energy erupted, clearing a wide swathe through the dark clouds.

Golden rays pierced the gauzy wisps as they sped across the sky.

The contents of her stomach lay on the grass between her wet boots. Liquids mixed. Some had gotten on her boots, making patterns in the wet red.

The old veterans had advised her not to take anything more solid than water after her last trip to the latrines.

They had lied for she could see small chunks in the grass.

“I was hungry for nothing,” she whispered.

“Not so,” father said.

He stood like a mountain at her back.

An unyielding bulwark against their enemies.

“Those little things that look like bits of meat are actually little pieces of the inside of your guts. At least that’s what a doctor once told me. Unfortunate fellow… took a disintegration ray to the chest…”

She took a deep breath… a mistake… the acrid smoke and iron tang wafting from every direction made her gag.

That wasn’t even the worse of it.

The old veterans and father had warned her, but she hadn’t been prepared for the stench of human and sapient waste.

Truth be told, not that she’d admit it, a bit of pee had escaped her desperate clenching at the start of the battle.

“I’m proud of you daughter!” Father beamed down at her. “Blooded in her first battle at the second youngest age of our line!”

“Only second?”

It was good to distract her thoughts from the bits and pieces of once living people scattered across the battlefield.

“It is said that the Hammer of Anaphron was a mere handful of days after his 13th birthday when he fought in the Battle of Crimson Unending. On that day he cast his birth name aside for the honor and glory of our line. And here stands my daughter! Not even 15 year’s old! And dueling Level 30 warriors!”

“You slew their First Sword, father.”

Those boulder-sized shoulder’s shrugged.

“She was young. New to her class. It might’ve have been a different story had she a decade or two under her sword hand. A bit of a waste, really, but that’s how it tends to go with Suiteonem’s lot. And that is why we fight. Suiteonem cannot have our lands.”

“In Aehr’s name.”

The words came easily.

“In her name,” father intoned.

Left hand clenched around a golden orb.

Blinding light leaked through armored fingers, turning into wild arcs of thin beams that undulated like flying serpents.

The first wave broke individual invisible shields thought into existence to block each beam despite their erratic flight paths.

A second wave a split second later, ablated layers off dark gray armor.

Its strength belied its drab appearance.

Like striking a fully-grown true dragon.

She strode through the ruins of our home village— town.

It had grown prosperous in the decades since she had last visited.

All thanks to mother, who had parlayed father’s spoils into multiple industries taking advantage of the surprising development of magical flora and fauna in the embarrassingly-named Hektoria’s Playland.

In another few decades the town would have become a city.

That path was dead.

Burned and wiped off the face of the future’s map.

War had seen to that.

Her legs took her to the cemetery in the center.

Mother and father rested together in a plain, but well-made crypt. Their likeness were carved into the marble doors.

She paused, stroking the pumpkin-sized head of a delta cat.

Also marble, Aehronion’s likeness, exactly captured from the notches in his ears, scar-covered body, broken fang and missing toes. As he had guarded her until his last against that razor-spined hydra, he would stand watch over her parents until eternity ended.

An unbidden memory grabbed hold of her.

Of her loyal friend in his youth getting into Pumpkin Farmer Cofeus’ prized patch of magic pumpkins and carving one of the over-sized rainbow-colored things to put on his head as a helmet. A passable copy of the ones worn by the village’s warriors. Oh, how the children had loved following the delta cat parade back and forth in front of the barracks as though in mockery. He had done that regularly. So much so that the farmer had been able to send his children to the academy of arts and sciences in the distant capital with the gold father had paid for all the magic pumpkins. Father’s laughter had made it clear that he had considered it coin well spent.

There had been talk of a statue of father.

She had received messages from the town’s leaders.

Great, great grandchildren of the some of the village children she had run together with as boon companions. The ones that survived the adventures and battles to retire.

She hadn’t known it until after her 20th year, but that had never been a path for her.

How long had it been since she had lasted visited?

Twenty years? Twenty-five?

When she had returned to grant her family’s holdings in perpetuity to the vil— town 2 years after she had reunited father with mother.

It had been the awe in their eyes that had firmed her resolve to remove herself from the place.

Not that she had any other choice.

Aehr, Mother, needed her services across the entire world.

But even then to see the descendants of her boon companions with lined faces and gray hairs while she looked as she did when she had entered her prime only served to disquiet her.

The passage of time was easier to bear when she didn’t see distant echoes in the faces of others, heard it in their voices.

A falling star cracked across the sky.

It demolished what was left of the town hall.

She found herself standing in front of the rubble before she realized it.

Battle instincts honed over decades at work.

“Cousin.”

“Cousin.”

Suiteonemone.

A different one from the last one she had dueled and slain in the remains of city on the distant northern coast.

The other demigod was a big brute of a woman.

Armor torn, weapons chipped.

The anger and rage simmered just beneath the surface, revealed by the clenching of corded muscles and pulsing of the veins wriggling like fat worms in her thick neck.

Her cousin tossed a broken body onto the perfectly cut stone tiles covering the wide main street.

The Eidolon of Aehr had never given his name.

Her teacher.

He had eased her way into the world of the Gods with the patience of a mother, which was why they had clashed often.

She had two mothers.

But only one held her heart.

That hadn’t changed since she had placed her heart’s mother, her true mother, in that crypt.

Still, the eidolon had never done her wrong. He had imparted useful knowledge, which she knew would serve her well in the future.

“Did you call me here to surrender?” Suiteonemone sneered.

“This was a prosperous place, providing so many valuable things to places even across the five oceans.”

“Not anymore.”

“Not anymore,” she agreed. “Your pointless war—”

“War needs no point. You forget this truth in your softness.”

“It’s disappointing. I had hoped to see something different in you, cousin. You’re only the second one of our kind I’ve met, but it seems you’re no different from the first.”

“No. I’m stronger.”

“I suppose conversation is pointless… like war.” She drew father’s weapons. Short sword and long axe. “I will slay you and drive your armies from our lands. In Aehr’s name.”

“Rage for Suiteonem! Rage for my father!”

God-like power punched a golden figure through the dark clouds.

He seized control of a distant satellite using his own to trigger a hidden virus.

Ultra dense rods the size of light poles released.

They burned in the atmosphere like meteors visible across much of the lands below.

He guided them to their target.

Massive kinetic force released with each impact.

Rods vaporized against divine energy.

Adamantine armor finally failed.

He trapped it all inside an enormous invisible bubble.

Kinetic energy belonged to him, so he seized it and focused it all on the demigod.

Hektoria.

Aehrone.

Neither now.

A being of golden energy with one thought even as it was torn asunder.

It had the power to wipe a city clear of everything, leaving a flat, glassy plain had he allowed it.

Instead, he dragged it into the void where he released it to join the cosmic energy that swept across like waves.

Was that a good fate for the demigod?

Did it matter?

The soft part of him took solace in the thought that there were worse fates than oblivion and a sort of cosmic oneness.

At the least, one person would remember Hektoria and the people she had truly cared about before the so-called gods poisoned her story with their selfish touch.

Cal floated there for hours, pondering eternity while he recovered enough strength to go home.

Southern California, Spring 2053

One of the magus’ eyes flashed.

The largest one, about the size of a beach ball, swiveled its gaze down to Alin.

She was one of the few that could see the gray whether he allowed her or not.

A rock imbued with glowing white power burst against the magic shield.

It appeared that Captain Patriot could as well.

Confirmation was always good.

He’d add the update to her file after.

She alone stood tall.

Sentinel of Liberty.

Guardian of Freedom.

America’s Champion.

Just a few of the names her nation’s media had given her to inspire their citizenry.

The rest of her soldiers sagged or fell to their knees, the strongest dragged the weakest back behind destroyed vehicles or the piles of rubble they had torn out of the asphalt for cover.

Mages gave their lives to hold their shields just long enough to prevent a complete massacre.

He pulled back from those in their last moments.

That was an experience he didn’t want or need despite the significant increase to his gains.

The more utilitarian sorts would’ve encouraged him, arguing that there was very much a need for every bit of power he could squeeze. They’d point out that he still couldn’t call on the ghosts. That draining the lives from a few more people, enemies out for the blood of those he cared about, could make the difference.

“Shut up.”

Sometimes it felt like his internal voice didn’t align with him.

Captain Patriot thrust a thick, glowing branch twice her height.

“Focus fire on my target!”

A soldier peeked around his cover.

“Can’t see shit in this fog, ma’am.”

“Just fire where I’m pointing!” she snapped.

Projectiles carved brief tunnels in the gray.

“Protect him!” The magus’ magic shield dimmed and cracked. “To us, hurry!”

His boots thudded against the parking lot surface as he sprinted through the rubble carefully avoiding many small craters.

Using his thrusters would’ve made the journey quicker, but the magus’ huge monster eyeball wouldn’t have been able to keep him in her aegis.

The shield it projected was large enough to absorb everything until it shattered.

He could almost hear the great eye groan with something like pain.

Bullets plinked against his armor.

Mundane and special, whether through Skill or spell.

A dark fireball, nearly black and no larger that a marble exploded against his side, sending him careening through a pile of rubble.

He found the mage in question and drained her.

High level.

At least 40 from the flavor of her vitality.

She struggled with all the might in her considerable willpower.

A metaphysical tug of war that could’ve lasted an hour had the two of them been alone on the battlefield.

She jerked.

Repeating crossbows made out of monster bone and sinew hit her with a steady stream of green-tipped spines.

Enchanted tactical body armor and clothing absorbed the withering barrage until it didn’t.

Death came quickly.

Too fast for Alin to let go of his grasp.

He didn’t want the surge of vitality precisely because it felt better than anything else in the world. He didn’t want to know that a part of the soldier was now in him forever.

Captain Patriot descended like a bolt of white lightning.

The empty sockets behind her plain blindfold blazed painfully bright even through his darkened faceplate.

She hammered him into the asphalt.

A human-sized eye flew in, hitting her with a scintillating beam.

The white glow around her tactical body armor dimmed. Dark cloth outer layer disintegrated, revealing exposed circles of the ceramic plates beneath.

Her power surged.

She went yard, backhanding the monster eye straight out of the park.

White branch rose and fell upon a sudden dome of earth.

A huge hand emerged beneath her boots.

Bolder plunged hands into the asphalt from behind a multitude of shields surrounding the small island of green in the middle of the roundabout just outside the hotel-casino’s front entrance.

A second earthen hand gathered Alin up in a gentler grasp.

Halfway there and he face planted.

Soil smeared across his faceplate.

The world spun.

Bright blue sky marred by dark smoke one instant.

Dark gray parking lot surface the next.

A glowing boot to the face kicked him across the parking lot toward the old American soldiers’ positions.

The earth erupted beneath the captain once more.

Doomborer emerged.

Whirring saw blades all over their squat, bulky true skin armor dimmed the white glow as they shredded armor and clothing.

Fists blurred, becoming nothing more than a white glow impossible to look at as they pounded the Threnosh.

Drill arm bored into her chest, destroying what was left of her armor. Mining laser flashed, cutting her helmet in half to reveal short blond hair matted to her forehead.

She flicked a collapsible baton, imbuing it with her power before jamming it into the tiny gap at the over-sized drill arm’s elbow joint.

Doomborer’s arm squealed as it failed to dislodge the immovable object.

The captain continued to hammer the Threnosh in the chest armor, denting the Threnium.

Alin came out of the tumble into a crouch.

Multi-weapon in hand.

A roar.

Swiping claws.

A pained grunt.

He stared into the eyes of a young man.

His age, though it was hard to tell with the animal-like features in the hybrid supersoldier’s face.

A thin layer of tawny fur.

Sharp canines and a rich, velvety red gushing out of his open mouth to join the waterfall from just below his jaw running down the hardlight blade to coat Alin’s hand.

The supersoldier slumped forward in an almost embrace.

A head shorter than Alin with a wiry frame, but much heavier than he looked.

Artificial muscles helped him carry the load.

A shield against the projectile fire from the other soldiers.

The ground shook.

Thundering steps.

Full body armor of thick plates taken straight from an ancient main battle tank.

A giant shield of the same material covered in steel spikes.

Another hybrid supersoldier.

Rough textured skin in gray visible around the eyes.

The only thing missing were two ivory tusks.

The supersoldier hit Alin with the same force as the animals who sacrificed their essences to empower.

Warnings beeped. Lights flashed.

He forgot where he was for a moment, losing concentration and his grasp on the soldiers.

They broke out stamina potions and used Skills or spells, if they had enough mana.

Battles ebbed and flowed as one side or the other gained or lost the advantage.

A great, big block of a foot, roughly shaped like a plate the size of his chest stomped him into the asphalt.

Electric field engaged.

Recoiling, trumpeting in surprise more than lasting pain.

Withering fire lashed against spiked shield.

Time bought by Alin’s friends for him to scramble and create distance.

A shadow passed overhead.

It took him a second to realize that it was Doomborer.

The Threnosh’s true skin was all about the subterranean world. Moles weren’t meant to fly like birds.

Movement gusted behind him.

The blow sent him stumbling forward.

A blind cut as he turned.

Yellow blade shattered into pieces against white-armored arm.

Straight punch to the chest dented his armor and sent him flying.

Like a pitcher setting up a batter.

The elephantine supersoldier clubbed him with the door-sized shield.

Lights flashed. Beeping intensified.

He was rapidly losing what he had taken from the soldiers.

Thunder shook the ground. This time from his side of the battlefield.

Dark gray armor painted in urban camouflage.

Cannon on left shoulder. Heavy recoilless machine gun on right.

Flamethrower under right arm. Laser under left.

Recoilless guns in multiple locations.

Shield emitters all over.

Primal lumbered forward, unleashing hell on the old American soldiers.

They took cover or died, swallowed up by the storm.

Golems flanked the Threnosh.

Three of them.

Two in the old style controlled by a simple neural cortex with the ability to obey simple commands from their assigned golem controller. One, with a much larger oval body, controlled directly by Golem Pilot Yasmin ensconced behind a multi-layered shell of composite materials and Threnium.

The former survived long enough to expend most of their remaining ammunition. Their thick steel armor was not enough.

The latter was a one off.

But for the single pilot’s passion, they would’ve only fielded golems controlled from a safe-ish distance. Just like the drones in the sky battling the harpies.

Speaking of which… a flock disengaged from the dogfights to dive bomb.

Primal split his fire.

Machine gun spat flechettes skyward while their bulky back opened to disgorge a spread of missiles.

Not micro, but not as large as those found on pre-spires modern warcraft, they streaked to meet the harpies.

Exploding at the last moment to fill the sky with flame and shrapnel.

Magic shields took the brunt of the blasts.

Only a few failed, sending the wing-armed women plummeting to the ground in bursts of blood and feathers.

Angry spells raked across the Threnosh and Yasmin’s shields.

A hulking supersoldier sprinted with pace that belied her size, thumping grenades from her launcher with each step.

Yasmin’s shields held until the last grenade.

A white blur closed the distance, ripping gun arms off before a Threnosh laser scorched a line across her back.

Blooming flames engulfed Captain Patriot, but didn’t slow her.

Shrouded in white, she charged straight into the mouth of hell.

An enormous harpy landed on Yasmin’s golem.

Talons pressed into the ovoid body, driving it deeper into the asphalt.

Metal, even Threnium, squealed in protest as the birdwoman three times the size of the others used a spell or Skill.

Alin deployed his arm laser and took aim only for a ham-sized hand to clamp over his entire helmet.

Up he went.

Down he came.

His back slammed on armored thigh.

Another hulking supersoldier.

The man hissed.

Strong, but not strong enough to overpower his power armor.

Electric field activated at the speed of thought.

The supersoldier jerked. Hands locked around the very source of his problem.

“Sphere of Null Light.”

Alin muttered a curse as the lights went out.