"Come on, guys!" Natalie urged. "Those booms have to be close!"
"We're- ah- coming!" Sam insisted, out of breath, but not spirit.
Over the hill, they saw the aftermath. A building with one side crumbling, a crater in the street, and Jacent, lying in the shadow of a bench, trembling in a pool of blood. Gren was pressing a folded up clump of fabric to his torso, her little arms straining. "H-... Help me!"
The others rushed over, even Sam suddenly renewed with a burst of energy as she dashed to them.
"H-... He's dying..." She looked up at Natalie as if she'd personally done something very wrong.
"No." Samantha dropped to her knees, raised Jacent's head, and embraced him suddenly- desperately. She kissed him as if to somehow transfer her own well-being into his, not caring if it made sense. Her heart told her to do it, and she would live or die by it.
Silence ensued. Seconds turned to minutes, and minutes stretched on for their own tiny eternities, anxiety and unsureness filling them all as they looked on, helplessly.
Minutes passed, and with it, so too did hope. Gren clung to Natalie, who held her in kind, her face a mix of desperate hope and disbelief. This couldn't be happening.
"Come on..." Carrie whispered, as if to insist that, no, he wasn't allowed to die. Not him, not with all he'd been through. Surely this wasn't enough to finally do him in... was it?
Erwin and Max looked at each other, then at the scene before them, discomfort in any position.
Finally, Sam... reluctantly... released him. His head was laid gently on the grass.
Natalie choked back a sob, biting her lip. Of course this had to happen. What, was she a child? Did she believe she'd go the whole way without having to lose anything at all? The odds caught up with everybody eventually; she and her friends weren't some special exception. She could take some... cold comfort in that Jacent wasn't dishonored; he would have wanted his last moments to be fighting for humanity. The part she couldn't deal with at all- the terrible truth- was that they had no time to mourn his passing. "I..." she felt horrible even saying it. "We... we need to-..."
"I want to stay with him." Sam looked up to her in earnest.
The wolf girl swallowed once, then nodded. She looked to the rest of her friends, and turned away. Osoth wouldn't wait.
"... I'm sorry, Jasmine..."
A minor tremor jolted through all of them. They turned back, haphazardly returning to his side. His eyes were closed... but raspy breath went in and out of him. He wasn't gone. Not yet. Not this time. Natalie quietly thanked nobody in particular that her childish wish had been granted despite its foolish likelihood.
"Jacent..." Sam's eyes filled with warm, salty tears, streaming down her cheeks. "You're awake."
"Who wouldn't wake up... for a kiss like that?" He smiled softly, squinting, then gazing into her eyes.
Natalie stared intently into the emerald circles floating in those pools of black. "Jacent, your eyes..."
He smiled softly. "That's... why I'm sorry. I failed. So... it was Jasmine's turn to fight," he explained simply. "Aheh... still correcting my stupid mistakes... big sister..."
"The Dragon..." she realized.
"It was my fault!" bleated Gren, who'd been holding in her torment until she was fit to burst. "I'm sorry Natalie! I told him he could do it, so he tried his best, but... but he wasn't as good as you... I'm so sorry." Her bottom lip jutted out.
"... Jacent?" Natalie knit her brows together. "But Gren, he's-"
"An aspiring apprentice," he finished with a note of insistence. "Maybe, one day, I'll be as good as Natalie."
Erwin interrupted, "But... what happened here??"
"And why can't I seem to fully heal you?" Sam frowned.
"Um, excuse me."
Behind them, an insectoid girl gestured with her PET. "Milly Evans, junior reporter?" Carrie asked. "You're in Jessalynn's pack... and you're also the one who outed us on the news!" She took on an angry tone.
"Whoa whoa, hey now, that wasn't me, it was Osoth; how was I supposed to know she'd say what she did? I don't get what you're mad about, though, you're getting a ton of support!"
"What, really??" Natalie asked, genuinely surprised.
"Well yeah, duh!" She creased a brow. "At first, people were on the fence, but since I've been interviewing people you saved, you've got quite a few fans." She cleared her throat. "Oh! Right. I don't wanna expose you to anything gruesome, but about your friend? Well, I caught the whole thing, if you think it'd be useful." She handed the PET to them.
From an aerial view, they saw the entire conflict. Jacent and the navy blue inkling fighting, Gren showing up, her grandfather being thrown into the ooze, and the nigh-disintegration of Gatemaker Parthal. Shelly took to Lastik once more, and she and Tisdale helped each other leave.
From the corner of the shot, Carrie spotted it first. "Natalie, look." From the tar pit, a shape emerged, slowly but surely. Red eyes and the form of an adult female wolf took shape. "Osoth..."
Still in the grip of the Dragon's rage, Jacent immediately threw the first blow. Osoth was splattered against the wall, and reformed instantly, standing there. Another one, this time a dragon kick, and Osoth took the hit again. But this time, she rode the sphere of force and enveloped it, using the momentum to form a deadly pike behind Jacent... and drive it through him instantly. Trembling, he threw a few unfocused strikes before he hit the ground bleeding.
"Whoa," Max appraised the display before them. "Her style really is invincible..."
"... How do we fight that?" Erwin's knees shook as his nerve left him entirely.
Natalie looked on with a mounting dread. She'd never seen Jacent so powerful... and yet he'd been picked apart. Trounced. Osoth wasn't just another inkling; she was something much worse.
"Hey." Jace's raspy voice called her. "I know what you're thinking. But don't go having doubts now." He coughed, the pain of doing so making him cringe. "Sam's done as much for me as she can. Now go on, Grayswift, and show them your courage. Fulfill your destiny."
She took a deep breath and nodded slowly. "Okay. Come on, team."
-
- -
-
Following Milly's advice, they traveled closer to the main outlet for the subtrans- an Elysian Field that held buoyed trains ready to be lowered into the underground. What met them, however, was nothing short of a war zone. Smoking craters, scores of monsters, zombinks- some of them armored- and in the middle of it all, a teal, inked bear. Murphy's soldier friend, Sanders, was now the new host to General Laibon. What's more, some of the monsters were working in concert, corralling zombinks to several of Osoth's ink pits, and feeding them into the abyss. Natalie grimaced and reached for Coul's hat-
"Get down!" a voice whispered as she was yanked down behind the hill. "Are you trying to get your head blown off??"
Natalie blinked in recognition. "Murphy!"
She was a little worse for wear, bruises, scrapes, cuts and soot all over her. But like a junkyard dog, this only seemed to make her more intimidating, not less. "Yeah, it's me, kid. D'you know who that is up there?"
"General Laibon," she affirmed. "That's what I scouted ahead to find out."
"That's right, the pompous shitbag." She eyed toward him, sneering. "And he's got my partner, too." Natalie shot her a surprised look, which she rolled her eyes at. "My cop partner. He'd have gotten me, too, if not for... that Cedric kid, of all people."
"So how much of the army is left??" Natalie asked.
Murphy gave her a side-anchored frown and shook her head. "You're lookin' at it, kid." A disgusted sigh escaped her. "Shoulda trusted you. We mighta won this battle together. A general has to be paranoid, but I got too paranoid..."
The girl shifted uncomfortably. "You did what you felt like you had to."
"Don't bullshit me when I'm wrong, Grayswift," she retorted gruffly. "... So what's your plan?"
She grimaced. "... Working on it?"
She fully expected Murphy to tear into her, but she just got a nod in reply. "... Those things out there. The greys. Can they take you over?"
"The zombinks?" she replied before she could remember that was just her personal name for them. "I mean, no. Those inklings are much weaker than the ones we have. Ours are elites."
"This is exactly what I'm talking about. All that intel, I could've-" she huffed. "I've got a little toy that I need your help using. But I'm gonna need your friends to create a distraction."
-
- -
-
Laibon knew something was up. At this point in his life, he could just sense it. It had been too quiet for too long, and something about Osoth's control over him had altered. There was a different quality to it, which usually meant she was in some manner of emotional flux. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen Parthal in quite a while. He needed his troops replenished, where could she have been?
~BOOOM!~
There it was. An explosion by the Southwest. The same gaggle of children that had embarrassed him so thoroughly when they surprised him at the Climate Control tower. His lip quivered with anger, baring his teeth. "Not this time." He immediately ordered the shufflers and bugapes to meet them on the field of battle. The children were brave, but with no army, their desperation was showing; attrition would leave them harrowed and routed. An anticipatory smile formed in the corners of his mouth. Who had the upper hand now?
~BOOOM!~
The troupe of bugapes beset upon the teenagers were thrown like ragdolls as an explosion rocked the ground around them. Where was it coming from?!
~BOOOM!~
The next explosion sent a large force of shufflers fleeing, and finally he triangulated the shots- they were coming from behind a hill.
~K-DASH!~
Suddenly, that hill disappeared in a fog of dirt and grass. The camouflage paint shifted to stark black and revealed a big armored vehicle known as the AGRO- Armored Guard and Reconnaissance Object. It resembled a small hovering tank, its design both blocky and tenacious, and it had weaponry that normal soldiers couldn't dream of carrying. It was the very first weapon to be banned under the Great Disarming, and as she sat in the driver's seat with all of Murphy's intuitive understanding of the thing, Natalie Grayswift was about to show everybody why.
"WHAT?!" Laibon shook with rage. Murphy had never told Sanders about this! "That paranoid lunatic..." And sure enough, he'd moved his troops to respond to a threat that created a gap right up the middle, leading straight to his objective. "Back! Come back to the wall!" He had to defend the two buildings that had collapsed on each other to create a makeshift wall; it was the only thing blocking access to the rail yard. "Stop them!!" Flexing his power, he reached out to all of the dumb animals within any kind of vicinity and summoned them to gather as well. He'd sacrifice any number of stupid creatures if it would save his skin.
Murphy cackled and howled as another force of shufflers was sent flying, fusion cannon shots from inked soldiers impacting harmlessly on the vehicle's shield. She loved the recoil of the main gun as it sent an unstable energy conduit wrapped in two separate pockets at their foes. The two types of energy met each other on contact, like an epoxy- except that this particular formula exploded in a cloud of heat and sheer force. "Bring me around for another shot!"
Natalie shifted the controls and sent the AGRO into a donut spin, taking off at the end of it. She poured on the speed, intuiting what Murphy wanted to do. As they neared a particularly large bugape, the labrador general pointed the gun downward, waited until the last second and fired. The explosion rocked the creature, burning its cracked shell, but it also launched the AGRO upward like a ramp, slamming its crimson red-glowing undercarriage into the thing's face. They landed at the same time the bugape did, drifting around to face it as it lifted its head once... and passed out completely. Natalie had been afraid of the implementation of military weaponry, and she still maintained that caution... but she had to admit, it was fun as hell to use if you had to.
Meanwhile, Carrie and friends had made a beeline straight for the ooze puddle near the wall. Sam and Max used various means to corral the zombinked citizens, Erwin kept an eye out, and Cat used a huge fallen tree trunk as a scoop, slowly bulldozing the crowd back away from the wall.
"Farmer at nine o'clock!" barked Murphy, gesturing to a harvester, bigger than even the bugape that had played part in their (for it, very) extreme stunt. "Shit, cooling cycle, I need a minute!"
"... I got this." Natalie sped away from the pursuing metal monster, turned a complete one-eighty, and immediately punched it. The thrumming propulsion systems roared, vibrating the entire chassis and its occupants as they gained velocity. At the last second, Murphy shot the ground, the blast diverting around their shield and launching them into the air. For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of the grav-skiff engine... and then they slammed into the huge robotic bruiser with a deafening ~BRUNKT!~
Momentum carried them the short distance that remained and sandwiched the harvester between two stacked buildings and what amounted to an armored projectile. The AGRO tumbled to the ground, rolling onto its shield and righting itself in the shadow of the harvester, which looked like a boxer on the ropes, its immense and deeply crushed body now one with the architecture.
"That's a beautiful sight..." Murphy admired.
"Let's blow it up," grinned Natalie.
"Kid. If you were my daughter, I swear." The lab loaded up a shot as they sped away from the scene and took aim. "I'm overcharging this one! It's gonna be big! Ready... aim!"
~Kra-DOOOOOM~
The entire construction- the buildings, the robot, all of it- burst to pieces, flaming wreckage flying up into the air and disintegrating, falling to the earth as ash. A massive hole had been bored through all of it.
"Welp, that's all she's got," Murphy noted as the whole thing powered down with an electric groan. "The propulsive fuses on these things were always a little easily tripped so you don't 'explode' or something. More baby gate failsafe bullshit." She laughed. "Either way, the welcome mat doesn't get any cozier than that, Grayswift. Go get her."
"Thanks, Murphy!" Natalie rose out of the hatch and-
"Stupid CHILD!" -Was lifted bodily, thrown out of the tank and slammed to the ground.
"Argh!" Grayswift winced as her sore muscles were dashed onto the dirt. Laibon stood over her, incomprehensibly angry. "Laibon! You've lost!"
"Not if I can get rid of you," he promised gravely.
A high-pitched whining sound interrupted his thought. Murphy stood, hands on the mounted flechette rifle, a smile one mile wide on her face. "I'll take your surrender now."
"... To an animal? It rankles, even the thought," he spat.
The yellow lab's reply was the sound of repeated force blasts hitting the inkling general like a dozen hyperactive children throwing gravel. The ink tore away like tissue as the gun barked insistently. "AAAAAARRRRGHHHH!!!" And with that final cry, the bear popped out of his forced shell and promptly passed out, sleeping like a baby.
"... Nice!" Natalie grinned. "Quick thinking, just using the force blast on that gun."
"Thanks, kid." She smirked, then glanced aside. "... Uh-oh." Laibon was gone, yes, but unfortunately that brought to bear the fact that there was now a gaggle of monsters and a forest full of feral creatures running wild.
"... Hold on! I got this." Natalie dashed back to a small puddle of what was left of Laibon before it dissipated, hesitated, and outstretched her arms. What ensued was a pause by all of the unintelligent creatures present. Wolves and shufflers, bugapes and bears, raccoons and rabbits and grabbers gathered all around. A few squirrels and birds even perched on her arms. A fox licked her hand as she grinned.
"Oh man, Natalie! Now if only you could sing!" Max jumped up and down exuberantly.
"Haha, what?" She shook her head and smiled. "Well, um. I guess this is a good temporary fix, but..."
"Wait, who's this?" Erwin flipped on his PET, and a familiar face accosted him. "Shelly!"
"Erwin!" she blurted out. "D'you like, have a signal buoy on you??"
He blinked. "Well, yeah, but that's not gonna carry all the way out-"
"Plugitin, plugitin!" she urged.
"Okay, okay!" He rushed to find an outlet, pulling out a light and plugging the buoy in. The effect was immediate- the zombinks lost their grey pallor and and their hosts blinked, unaware of what was going on. "... What?? But wait, how did-"
"I liked your schematics so much, I decided to build one myself! I used the train's magnetoscopic variance projector, but I just didn't remove it first." She grinned and gestured up to the train, which kept a loose circuit above them.
"Shelly, that's genius!" Erwin exclaimed. "And with a little adjusting, it should keep the animals calm, too!"
Carrie folded her arms and snickered. "Yeah, yeah, alright. Nice work, snack tray. Now, if Sugarbutt's through having her Forest Princess moment..."
Natalie snort-giggled as a doe licked her cheek. "It tickles! ... O-Oh, s-sorry." She shrugged, a small blushing grin on her face. "... Alright, everybody. If Milly's info was good, and I know it was, Osoth's on the other side!" She pointed to the buildings with the hole through them, still clouded by dust. "Let's finish this!"
-
- -
-
Thunderous booming in the distance was getting to be a disquieting, yet commonly heard occurance. It was always preceded and followed by even more unnerving silence. Gren wrung her hands, unsure what else to do with herself.
She glanced to Jacent, who rested with his eyes shut save for the occasional hiss of pain accompanied by shuddering. He'd be okay. Maybe.
The goat girl took another look around, almost annoyed that there was nothing there. It wouldn't have felt bad to have her fear be founded one of these times. "... Jason?"
"Yes?" he rasped, not bothering to correct her.
"... Do you think my grandpa is still..."
"Yes."
His speed answering surprised her.
"I do not know for sure, of course." He took another labored breath. "But Osoth, like your people, does not seem to have much use for the deceased. It stands to reason that he is in there... somewhere."
She nodded silently, hopefully. "... I wish I were strong like Natalie."
He waited a moment before replying. "You're standing guard over me. I think that's plenty strong."
Gren wanted to say something against that, but she also didn't want to make him feel worried that she wasn't good enough to protect him. What was there to say? Hey Jason, do you think Natalie's awesome, too? Hey Jason, are we going to make it out of here? Hey Jason, do you like trading Paochumon?
"... H-Hey Jason, what would I do if, um, hypothetically there were a bunch of those one-eyed meat monster things coming for us??" she squeaked out.
Jacent moved, but just barely. He managed to reach down just a little, clearly in no condition to stand, much less fight. "... Gren. How good are you with yo-yos?"
She winced, staring at the shufflers as they slowly trundled toward them. "I-... I'm pretty good, I know a few tricks, like um, around the world and... and walk the dog..."
He opened his hand and nodded gravely, revealing Red and Blue. "I'm about to teach you some new tricks."
-
- -
-
As the smoke cleared and they ran further forward, the city looked less like Locksmouth and more like another planet, its surface teeming with pools of black, red-infused ichor. It covered the ground, buildings, walls, ceilings, everything it could. It festered and grew like a disease, several places were hard to walk without touching it- and nobody wanted to touch it. Not after what they'd seen.
"These things are all over the city!" Erwin observed. "What could she be doing with them all??"
"Nothing good," Carrie decided.
They ran for minutes more, their footsteps echoing eerily. Though it felt like they might never make it, they reached the rail yard. Trains covered in ink sat in their respective bays, waiting to be put into service, and on the main turnstile, stood a familiar wolf woman coated in black, facing away from all of them.
"A frontal assault?"
Her voice boomed, not from yelling, but as a result of every single one of the countless pools of ink repeating her words. She was a crowd by herself, a thousand voices fading in and out, the inhuman nature of it deeply unsettling. Blood red eyes blinked in and out of existence as if twinkling stars in a maleficent nebula, each splash of tar-like matter pulsing malignantly in some kind of biorhythm with her.
"For the offspring of one so brilliant, that's dangerously uncreative," she judged, that same insistent neutral frown upon her face as that of a predator evaluating its next meal.
Natalie shook her head. "Cut the oogie-boogie crap. We've got you right where we want you, now. Parthal, Laibon, Urgai... they're all gone, and the dome's locked. There's nowhere left to run."
A glint of one solid red eye peeked- just a glint- before she shook, a small tremor throughout the membranous miasma as she... chuckled. At least, that was as close an approximation to anything human as she could figure. "... Of course it is. I locked it. Why you never tried to unlock it and let in help is beyond me." She laughed deeply again, the ground vibrating with her. "But then, you were always different, you and he." She lifted the bloodied, bruised and battered face of Cedric for them to see. "Oh, Emnas. You came so close to that army of the willing. Together with what a... troublesome beast you are, it could've been something. But these people feared you with just a little help." She stroked his cheek.
"Die in a fire, hideous beast," Cedric spat.
Without another word, she threw him into one of the dark pits, a blackened splash, and it was as if he'd never existed. "Wait! Cedric..." Natalie winced when she thought about how they'd sent him to fight alone. He hadn't stood a chance, like Jacent hadn't.
Like Echelon hadn't.
What felt like hundreds of memories stormed through Natalie's mind, but they weren't her own. Vague recollections of battles waged, plans made, small victories and... an overwhelming, enveloping defeat, each time.
"Do you feel them, Echelon? Are they coming back again, the ghosts of your past? I know how hard it is to have all of those holes in your memory."
"What's she talking about??" Carrie asked, confused.
"Let me elucidate this, dear Natalie, for while you're new, Echelon has heard this a hundred times now." Osoth didn't turn around; instead, she shifted to face the other way, taking a few steps forward and gesturing. "Each time I defeat your poor little inkling, I eat her. Well, not completely, obviously; I chew her up and spit her out, and she comes out a little worse for the wear. It's delicious, our little tribute to the short, simple lives of you creatures. And when I do this, I take scrumptious little bits of her with me. Thoughts, feelings, emotions, and most inconveniently, memories." She smiled cruelly. "How many times do you think Echelon has challenged me and failed? Two? Three times? Maybe even a dozen?"
Natalie's head suddenly split with pain as thousands of memories flooded in- far too many for her to even comprehend. "Anh!" She fell to her knees.
"Natalie!"
"Are you okay, Natalie dear??"
"What's happening?"
"You're freaking out, chica!"
As the images flashed before her eyes, the teenaged girl saw more than a memory. She observed a history, a dark narrative of a small hope struggling against a gargantuan force. And that force... crushed it. Without fail. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. Osoth had come to embody more than a foe, more than an enemy to fight; she was the Space Natalie had come to fear. She was the unforgiving, all-consuming vastness that could swallow stars and heed no cries of the insignificant germs that lived from its light. The Space that had taken her father from her. "I-... It's not going to work."
"What??" Samantha burst out abruptly.
She stared, wide-eyed, as her head turned slowly to her friends. "My... My plan was to copy Osoth's ability to control inklings. But. I-... I can't. I've tried- Echelon's tried that before."
"... Oh..." Erwin sank into his shoulders with worry.
"And... and I know what her plan is, too, now." She licked her dry lips and swallowed. "She's been throwing people into her pools to absorb their energy, expand her body and... and..."
"And what??" Carrie prodded.
"She's going to crush us, and burst the dome."
-
- -
-
~CRACK!~
Grendolyn Murcbee flung a fancy metal yo-yo at the supposed face of an aggressive shuffler, and sent it reeling back, sliding along the ground. She caught it as it came back hard, wincing as it smacked her palm, but throwing out the other one in a sidelong swipe, backing a crowd of two others away from her. It unwound at the end of the swing and clattered to the ground, losing all momentum. She quickly picked it up and re-wound the string with a fearful urgency.
"Don't panic," Jacent instructed from the ground, his head propped up on a bench. "Just keep moving. Stop throwing them like punches- let the rhythm happen." He watched her prepare to hit another one that had already been beaten on. "Fluid motions, let it flow." She twisted her torso as he'd instructed and sent an underhand flick, Red flying out. Jacent concentrated on the toy, accelerating it telekinetically and watching it slam into the shuffler. "Good, just like that!"
Gren's heart raced. She didn't feel helpless anymore! No more running and hiding, she was going to fight her way out of this. Red rushed to smack one eye, then a chest. The little goat drew a deep breath and flicked Blue up and out, bringing it around her head like a lasso, then slashed diagonally downward, sending the creepy monsters flying as if she'd delivered a super-powered haymaker. The yo-yo didn't stop, however, and came around behind her. She looked just in time to see it smack one of Jacent's boots, which clacked its steel frame against the other loudly. She gasped. "I'msorryI'msorry!"
"Mistakes are part of learning," he replied. "Just keep your eye on your opponent!"
Gren turned around, one hand dangling down with its unwound yo-yo on the ground, the other quickly popping a shuffler in the head. To her surprise, as Red returned, so did Blue- she must have tugged it back somehow. However, she hadn't paid enough attention, and a large flipper-like arm smacked her on the back harder than she'd ever felt before. The little goat fell to the ground with a cry of pain, hissing as tears stung her eyes. "Nnnghh!"
"From Hell's heart, I stab at thee!"
A hovercycle-style PeTra slammed into one of the remaining standing shufflers, the one next to him getting stabbed through the shoulder with a fanciful thrusting sword. The rider leaned to one side and kicked the creature off of his blade, leaving it to groan and shudder.
"Whoa!" Gren blinked away her tears, rising up slowly. "Who are you??"
"He's a friend. ...Moby Dick?" Jacent smiled up at Kelvalde.
"What? Star Trek II, Khan to Kirk." He smirked with a cocked brow.
"Ugh, that's terrible." The boy laughed hoarsely. "So, what about all that stuff about not being a front-line fighter?"
He looked back to him and shrugged. "Well, I figured... what the hell."
Jacent shook with suppressed laughter. "Back to the Future."
-
- -
-
"Unh!"
"Wuh!"
"Rgh!"
"Ahn!"
"Kh! Nnfh..."
The third attempt to approach Osoth ended the same as the first and second: Natalie and her friends on their backs, wiped out by a tidal wave of darkness blasting them away effortlessly.
"It's going to be so anticlimactic, you know."
Carrie tried to get up, slipping on a puddle of black slime, stumbling, and rising again.
"Just a big, long squelch. Then, pop."
The cat hefted a big block of concrete rubble and held it in front of herself, running forward. "AAAAAAAAHHH!!"A tendril grabbed the block, orbited Osoth and slammed it into Carrie's side at blinding speed, crumbling the debris to dust and knocking her aside. She dug a trench as she slid.
"This honestly isn't even very entertaining," Osoth jabbed. "You're even less prepared than usual."
From the floor, Erwin glanced aside, the pain evident on his face. "What do we do, Natalie??"
At this point, Natalie's mind had always been flooded with strategies, plans of attack, sparks of ingenuity. But as each possibility raced through her mind's eye, she saw Echelon's memory of trying that very same tactic and failing miserably. Over and over. "I-... I don't know."
"You can do better than this," the thousand voices reported with nigh-disinterest. "Mm. Perhaps you need a... do-over? Like all those tests you failed, unprepared and unready." She said it so easily, skimming over the implications with sinister disregard.
Natalie found herself wondering if it was even possible. Leave the city, regroup, stock up, find another way. But even this train of thought lead to instances of Echelon doing this in the past. It always ended the same, with Osoth amassing more and more resources, pushing her back into a corner like a chess master. She couldn't sacrifice anybody else if she knew it would work, but definitely not on a 'maybe.' Damn it, there had to be a way. But how?
"Your answer, Echelon?" She was smiling now. "You know I live to give you horrid choices. So there it is: forsake this city and its people to have a chance... or fall where you stand. Pragmatism," she gestured in one hand, "Or suicide. Which?"
"Natalie." Carrie stared at her, worried. "You can't be really considering this, can you? M-... My parents are still out there."
The wolf girl shook her head. "Of course not." But she was exhausted, and so was Echelon's power. They were all running on fumes. She stared hatefully into a pool of blackness, her reflection staring back. When she thought of all the innocent people trapped in that pit, it made her more certain than ever that retreat was not an option. She was sure they'd help her if they were in her place.
... Ah. Ah-HA!
"Osoth!" she bellowed. "I accept your challenge! This battle will not be postponed; I'll defeat you now and forever!"
Max leaned in, whispering, "Whoa, you're bluffing hardcore! Even I think you've got something! Wait, Natalie, what're you doing?!"
Nat raised her hands up, took a breath to hope she was right and slammed those very hands into the dark pool of ink that had swallowed so many others alive. "ECHELON!" The effect was like plugging into the liquid equivalent of an electrical socket, ink flowing over Natalie's flesh in a massive surge. Echelon's faded pink core brightened from a chalky suggestion to an almost blindingly bright beacon, and when she pulled away- a surprising feat in itself- she sighed in content, a wisp of misty darkness the evidence to her relief as the rest of the inkling delved back under her flesh.
"Mm. Clever girl. They're just there to hold the cattle's energy," the Empress noted. "And what will you do with this second wind?"
"This!" Natalie wasted no time. She slammed a foot down into the concrete with devastating force, popping the loose blocks up into the air. As they came down, she precisely boost-punched chunk after chunk of it, sending the heavy debris at Osoth with blinding speed. The majority of them were near-misses, but the few that did hit rippled on the surface of Osoth's flesh, vibrating with a scattered dissonance.
The chunks came flying back. Natalie managed to get her hands up in time, and Cat took it on the chin, dust clouding her face as it split on her porcelain features, but Sam took one in the gut, a distressed squeaking sound coming from her. She fell to her knees, gasping for breath. "Are you okay, Sam??" Erwin asked, hands on her shoulders.
After a few agonizing moments, she drew breath again. "Ah-... unh... ahn! Hanh, I'm alright, I- Max?!" She pointed to their iguana friend, who was in the midst of strangling Natalie, his tongue wrapped around her neck as she struggled.
"What the hell, slimer?!" Carrie demanded, unraveling the organ from her girlfriend.
"Ith not meh!" He plaintively cried, seemingly stuck in an awkward stance as his tongue winched back.
Cat pulled the tongue off of Natalie, who coughed and gasped for breath, tears ebbing from the corners of her eyes. She immediately picked up Max by his arms, trembling as she slowly crushed inward.
"C-Carrie, please, I didn't mean to!" he pleaded, grunting as ominous pops and groans came from his body. "And I'm sorry I sniff your socks!!"
"It's... not... me..." she managed through clenched teeth. "Anh!" The cat let go after Natalie tapped into her abilities to pull her arms away, dropping Max back to Earth. "Ugh, thanks. I dunno what happened."
"I do." The wolf girl narrowed her eyes and sneered, pointing up at the dark Empress, who for her part, sat on a throne of... herself. "Osoth! You're manipulating us!"
She smiled sweetly. "Don't blame me for your troubles in the ranks, Echelon. Though, you might find you've had a change of heart, too!" She snarled and gestured to the girl, who stood in a defensive position and concentrated. Sweat poured down Natalie's face as she focused on resisting being controlled. It was like trying to stand against a hurricane threatening to rip her from the very ground she stood on. "What's this? Oh ho, willful disobedience."
She focused momentarily on Sam, who gestured to Natalie with the last of her healing energy, creating a cloud of painkilling haze around her head. "Anh?" the girl blinked, her head swimming. Before she knew it, her joints were jerking into motion against her will. "Argh!" It wasn't fair; even when she concentrated, Osoth just used her friends against her!
Their problems were about to get worse, however. Natalie tapped into Jacent's powers and began rapidly pummeling Carrie's midsection, jackhammering her fists into the cat's gut. "ARGH!" Carrie screamed, grabbing Natalie's arms only to get a foot in her stomach for her trouble. "Gungh! Help me!"
Natalie's entire pack was on her in moments, struggling to contain her. They received blow after scratch after strengthened potshot as they finally successfully piled on the girl and pinned her to the floor. For her part, Natalie could only seethe. "Osoth!!"
The inkling's red eyes appeared to roll in some form. "Oh, Echelon. Why do you commit such treason? Helping the Rigid Ones while betraying your own race." She examined her fingertips boredly. "How many times have I saved our people from extinction? Countless very difficult decisions, all made by me, saving every last one of us- even you." She looked up with an expression of indignation. "And this is how you thank me? You petty child."
"Thank you??" Echelon demanded, inking over the girl. "You stand here, glutting on a massive store of prana- which we could all benefit from- while the majority of the greys are miserably trying to extract something from the terrified people and animals they're forced to invade... and we should thank you?!"
"You seem to be enjoying that prana," she jibed cuttingly.
The smaller inkling sneered. "Your leadership has driven us into ditch after ditch! These people are smart, they have technology and creativity and-... and ideas. They could've helped us!" She shook with anger. "But now they'll never trust us, and it's all because of you!"
Osoth chuckled darkly, the pools rumbling the entire area. "And how, pray tell, would you have bade their help, without first invading someone?" She grinned at her silence. "What you mistake for my personal decree is merely our deeper nature, dear Echelon. We were made to dominate our hosts. We are the superior being."
"I once feared that," Echelon admitted. "I used to worry that you were right. But I never understood before today... how much of a lie that was," she snarled.
"Let's see how you like me dry!" Natalie sprung out from Echelon, hitting the ground running.
For the first time, Osoth's eyes widened in genuine surprise. "What?"
Her feet ran between increasingly saturated puddles of ink, running faster at the same time that she knew one wrong step was doom.
"WHAT?!" Osoth snarled.
Natalie ducked down, tensed her legs as hard as she could, and sprung up with the hardest uppercut she'd ever thrown in her life- no powers, no armor, nothing... just flesh and bone, propelled by righteous anger. The inkling's head rocked back in a hateful cloud of sputtering liquid gibberish and bounced. But most importantly of all... she lost focus.
"Natalie! Now!!"
She ran back as fast as she could, flipping forward and sliding on her back into Echelon once more. Freed from Osoth's influence, she dug her hands into the nearest puddle. "Get ready, everyone!" The recharge of life force pulled into Echelon, but she acted like a conduit instead of just a destination this time, all of her allies feeling themselves regenerated in mere moments by the stream of life. Instead of the kids, their inklings stood tall, fully rejuvenated- some of them more than they'd ever been.
"You..." Osoth still appeared stunned. "You existed... outside of her. Independent of your host. I've searched for this ability for ages!" She fumed. "How?! I've dominated creatures completely, and never have they displayed any affinity for this! Of all the dumb luck that you should discover it before me!"
"No amount of dominance would ever do it," Arus shot back. "That was your foolish mistake."
"You have to work in tandem with your host, not... not terrify them!" Mhend added, frustration from the past underscoring her words.
"How insipid. You're just too stupid to understand what really makes it happen." She shrugged. "Ah, well. I can savor that little morsel once I'm done chewing you this time. Oh yes, that reminds me." Her playful smile evaporated, replaced by a razor-thin glare. "I'm finished pretending you had any chance."
The ground under them began rumbling. Small trembling began larger tremors, and soon it was vibrating violently.
"Dude, what's going on?!"
"An earthquake??"
"It can't be!"
"Well, it's happening!"
"Hang on, guys!"
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"This is Milly Evans, your eye in the sky, reporting to you live!"
Hugh and Margaret held each other close, anxiety playing on their sleepless faces as they watched the scene unfold.
"As you no doubt heard and can see, the two factions within the alien force known as 'The Inked' are squaring off against one another."
Dr. Masterson embraced his wife, trying to comfort her as she frowned at the projection.
"On one side, the self-described rebels under Echelon's command..."
Bo's pack crowded the kitchen table, staring intently at the images before them.
"On the other, the invading Empress Osoth."
Ms. Hendrix watched worriedly from the bath, too drawn in to leave, and unsure if there was any safer place to be.
"I'm not sure what's happening, but there appears to be some dissent in the ranks. Wait, it appears as if this is a trick Osoth is able to pull... it's hard to make it all out, and I may be extrapolating a bit, but... it sounds like Osoth enforces total domination over their victims, whereas Echelon appears to favor a more diplomatic and inclusive approach. I believe we may have discovered the basis of their opposition! And at the risk of sounding biased, I think I know who I'm rooting for in this fight."
Mrs. Lee watched with bloodshot eyes, rhythmically petting the head of an exhausted grade schooler as he slept.
"Echelon may be trying to resist her control- wait! Local high-schooler Natalie Grayswift appears to have separated from Echelon, confirming the rumors generated by my previous report! This has never been recorded before! Perhaps she's letting her host go in desperation? ... Oh. No! No, now she's running back to her! Say what?? Folks, not to try to read into this too far, but it would appear as if Natalie and Echelon... have a willing partnership, maybe even a symbiosis with each other! Wait, there's... I-... I hear a rumbling. There's a- oh! Uh-oh! Standing by!!"
The pockmarked pools of dark fluid began resonating, first individually, but soon completely in tandem with one another. The ground shook. The earth buckled. The ground collapsed, Echelon and her troops trying to outrun the unstable ground. Dark fluid began rising around Osoth, twisting and surrounding her, turning and spinning and orbiting her more and more quickly. Tendrils of blood-addled blackness came up from the subtran tunnel to create a whirling vortex, towering higher and higher into the air, dwarfing buildings and menacing the very skyline of the city. Crimson bolts of lightning crackled through the insidious typhoon, a cloud of sheer malevolence shaking the foundation of Locksmouth.
No matter where they stood, everyone in the entire city could witness the towering tempest of hatred, poised- like the fist of an angry god- to destroy them utterly.
"Ladies and gentlemen... I'm struggling to find even the words to describe how much trouble we're in."
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Five teenagers coughed and slowly rose amidst an incredible amount of debris. They found themselves lying in the inner city subtran tunnel, twilight pouring in through the massive opening above that most definitely was not there before. Debris flew through the air above, whirling around the monstrosity that Osoth had become.
"N-cahkck- ugh, Natalie!" Carrie called, helping the others up and trying to gain some relief from the medstick in her mouth. "How do we get back up there??"
"And do we really want to?" Erwin asked, a fair question by any measure.
"Nngh." The wolf girl struggled for a moment, getting her bearings. Crumbling infrastructure surrounded them on all sides, punctuated by the occasional vein of Osoth's Stygian membrane. It was clear, now, how she'd hidden this from everyone- the underground nature of her reserves had allowed her to drag people out of sight, then bore up to the surface when the time was right. "... I think I have an idea. Everybody hang on."
~(_)~
Mirror Slide was aptly named. It felt like going down a slide... one that didn't respect gravity, and there were no handrails or curved sidings to keep you from feeling like you were going to fly off into the abyss. Echelon had some small stabilizing effect, but it was still a rush every time. When they landed, it was onto ground that didn't resemble anyplace that the kids recognized from the city they'd grown up in.
"Good idea, using Osoth's reflective pseudopod to transport us!" Erwin noted.
"I just hope we're not too late," Natalie added.
To one side, battered buildings. To another, a destroyed subtran system. And in the middle of it all, a giant whirlpool of darkness, growing larger by the minute. As it moved, it became apparent how, as well: the grass where it previously was went from its lush green to a dead, pale yellow. Large, healthy trees emerged gnarled husks of brittle branches.
"So... what do we do now?" Carrie asked the obvious question.
Natalie puzzled over it momentarily. "I'm open to ideas."
"... Osoth is the force behind all of this mass, right?" Erwin asked rhetorically. "It's my understanding through some conversations with Phactys that inklings have a, uh- a 'core' of sorts. So somewhere amidst all that is Osoth herself. We don't have to beat the whole thing, we just have to find and disable her!"
"But where is she?"
"I don't know, but we better hurry," Max noted, pointing out that the immense vortex pulled up a subway tran in its entirety, the vehicle spiraling around it as it spun.
Erwin stared hard at the colossus, licking his lips and blinking rapidly as he concentrated hard. "... The middle."
"What??" Carrie asked. "Are you sure?"
He nodded. "It has to be! She's an alien, but this is our world, with our physics. From the shape of the funnel, she has to be exactly right there." He leveled his finger at the point.
"Got it!" Natalie ran back a few feet, made a hairpin turn and boost-jumped at a precise angle. "Comet CRASH!!" The whirling mass drew closer and closer in seconds, air rushing past at incredible speed. She entered a dark tunnel, ripping through the liquid body violently and emerging out the other side. "... I missed??" She looked back and saw something red in the underside of the now-closing tunnel she'd made. Damn! Just barely! "I can't let this chance pass!" Determined, she sped up as much as she could, slamming into the inside of the dome. Through muscle memory and manipulation of the air cushion, the wolf girl bounced off of the wall and sped back toward the blackened dervish, hopefully at the correct angle to-
"AAAARGH!!" The scream was deafening from the entirety of the writhing mass, Osoth riding the front of Natalie's force shield as if it were the fore of a train. Her black tentacles began elongating ominously, reaching for that horrible blind spot as it had with Jacent.
Nat dropped out of sky, slamming into the ground in front of her friends. Osoth followed, splattering like an inky tide... then slowly reforming with a displeased glower. "Very clever, Echelon. But you've stopped amusing me. And when that happens, your purpose is done."
"What's the matter?" Natalie jabbed. "Afraid you're going to finally face defeat?"
"D-" she failed to even begin the sentence. "Defeat? Oh, Echelon." The giant whirlwind began forming a mass of thousands of writhing tendrils, reaching in all directions and reminding them of the one big problem that remained. "Delusion has gripped your tattered mind." She gestured with a hand, summoning a small army of altered PETs which crawled out from the subtran tunnel, marching forward on their spider-like, segmented legs.
"Hold on, I got this!" Max spat a mass of glue on the ground around them, slowing their approach. However, they seemed to be able to power out of it with some effort; his glue had been spread too thin. "... Uh, whoa, they're... kinda getting through. Another plan??"
"She's controlling them remotely!" Erwin noted. "Maybe I can interrupt the signal, but I need time!"
"Max!" Sam called. "Keep them busy! Don't hold back, I'll keep you on your feet! Natalie, get her, we'll handle the machines!"
The wolf girl returned her attention to Osoth. "C'mon, Carrie, let's do this!"
The two of them met in battle, fighting nearly as one. Natalie threw blow after blow, fists finding their target, but Osoth managed to keep away or, terrifyingly, absorb them to advance for a sinister press. Carrie attempted to keep her pinned, but the elder inkling proved far too incredibly dextrous. Nat had perfect offense, but the threat of Osoth's keen blades kept her from taking risks. Cat had perfect defense, but she couldn't land a hit. It was the same problem as with Parthal: a stalemate, as their friends fought and struggled.
"Terrible," Osoth said with finality, ripping one of Jacent's gloves from Natalie's arm, just missing her soft flesh with the blade. "I judge your efforts as hideously lacking... and now you pay the price."
The two teenagers thought they were tensed and ready- that they were prepared for anything. But as the tentacles whirled to produce a subtran and immediately rammed it down toward them like a missile, they only just managed to reach out to stop it. Natalie almost didn't tap into her girlfriend's power set fast enough, and when the train impacted against her outstretched palms, her heart leapt up in her throat for an instant at the possibility that it would keep going and crush them both.
Thankfully, either she'd been quick enough, or Carrie had taken enough for both of them long enough for her to switch. The tentacles twisted tighter around the mass tran, slowly pushing down harder. Carrie looked over to see her girlfriend's arms trembling as both of their shoes dug trenches into the ground. "Hang in there, Natalie! Just stay tough, we can... nng... beat this..."
Osoth casually walked behind them. "Does that sensation feel familiar to you?" She tilted her head as the teenagers sweat and struggled. "It should. That's the feeling that lets you know that it's all going to be over soon, and I'll have defeated you, again. It must be so frustrating for you, but that's what you were made to do- lose. That's why I created you, after all." She chuckled and shook her head. "So sad."
"We're not dead yet, Osoth!" Carrie spat.
"No, but... it's just a matter of time," she stated matter-of-factly. "What would you even do if somehow you got out from under that train? Continue to throw punches at me, failing to make a difference? Do yourselves a favor and just... stop struggling." A cruel smile curled up at the ends of her lips.
"I'm gonna make you regret this!" Natalie grunted, the strain on her body giving her a muscle-spasming shake.
"Honestly, little girl, I have to give you credit as well. It isn't just Echelon that got this far; you contributed a very fair portion!" She congratulated her patronizingly. "Oh, sure, you've done well considering your handicap, but you'll only ever be half as good as anyone else. Even your bedtime story came around to help you in your time of need, with his poignant moral of 'Hit them hard enough and they'll go away.' But that's all they ever were, dear girl. Stories."
As Osoth belittled them, Carrie flicked her tail toward her girlfriend, wrapping it loosely around her leg. When flesh made contact with flesh, time slowed to a crawl. Arus and Echelon walked out of their hosts in a shared thought space.
"We can't hold this up for much longer," Arus said with grave distinction.
"It's now or never, Natalie," Echelon nodded. "We have to do something. Arus-"
"We can take it upon ourselves," Arus pre-empted. All four nodded to one another, and time resumed.
"HRNGH!" Carrie turned suddenly, crouching and turning herself into a cornerstone for the train, holding the 45-degree-angled mass tran entirely on her back, trapping herself there. "NOW!"
Natalie popped off of the end of the train and leapt onto the other side of the dark inkling. Osoth laughed contemptuously. "All alone, now. The least powerful piece left on the board, in all but worthless ideology."
And then it hit her.
"... You're wrong." She pulled the purple bow out of her hair. "It's because I have the other pieces around me that I'm stronger." Natalie pulled Jacent's glove tighter down her arm. "Because my dreams make me strong enough to reach out and try..." She wrapped Carrie's bow around the other, fist clenching it tightly. "... And my love protects me when I fail."
The Dark Empress Osoth's tendrils began snaking from her body, whipping up in a frenzy to form an endless gallery of grisly ends.
"Echelon! Give me SHADING!" The wolf girl's body was covered by inkling, but this faded in moments. Instead, Natalie's human form stood again, this time bolder. More defined, more real than before. She seemed to be a veritable font of power, a presence more obvious than any other.
Osoth's deadly extremities raced toward their target.
Natalie slapped her hips like a gunslinger, bolting off with a single step. She accelerated as fast as mentally possible, careening forward recklessly on her grav-skiffs. The enraged girl gut-checked Empress Osoth, slamming her through the exit door of the train and into the car.
The dark tentacles jabbed themselves behind the girl, anticipating the sweet feeling of purchase into soft flesh... but it never came. Hard, serrated points thudded dully against what felt like stone. She slammed against another door that burst open at her expense. Thump. "No! NO!"
"Give me back my city!" Natalie demanded.
"Not to you!" The thumping, cracking squeals of door after door, car after car intensified. Thump, thump, thump.
"Give me back my friends!!" The speed poured on.
"Not like this!!" Her voice modulated terribly, her inked flesh trembling as it began to fail, what little cohesion she held dedicated to stabbing frenziedly at the girl's unyielding flesh. Thump thump thump thump thump.
Tears of pain and anger filled her eyes as she screamed, "Give me back MY MOM!!!" The final door burst open, slamming them through the engine and out into the sky. They passed clouds, ripping through them in a sheet of condensation.
"NOT TO YOOOUUuuUuUUUHHKgkllkh!!!"
Empress Osoth screamed one last time as she was slammed into the inside of the Locksmouth dome with astronomical force. The unknowable galactic nightmare popped like a jar of jelly, splattering all over the dome as its structural integrity failed. All that remained was an unconscious wolf woman, blissfully unaware.
Natalie grabbed her mother as they began to fall to earth. Fatigue gripped her, the forces of falling making it hard to keep her eyes open. She gestured outward to stop the fall, redirect their force, make herself solid, anything. "Ah... too much..." she noted wistfully. Supporting both Jacent and Carrie's powers at once... what a wonderful gift from Echelon. But she'd given all she had for it.
It was okay, right? They'd won. They'd saved the day, and Osoth was gone. She'd... she'd done a good job. Maybe she deserved a little rest, even. Her eyes shut despite her brain insisting in its sluggishness that she probably shouldn't. Just a minute and she'd be fine...
Just a minute.
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