Chapter 36 - The Curtains Flew - part 2 - The Unforgettables: A ZeroYear litRPG

  “Don’t even think about it!” Liora cut in, looking at Laetilia and reading her daughter’s Thermopylean resolve as she watched the horde of demons lining up, engaging in an inexorable pursuit. Were it not for the wings of Petra’s new magic turbocharging the ship, they wouldn’t even have these few seconds to plan a reaction. Liora continued, “Silas! You said all these creatures are linked to that meteor?”

  Laetilia could not take her eyes off the demons, while Silas offered a compunctious answer, distracted by the frantic task he was performing with the tactical probes: “That’s right. Since that thing came out of hyperspace, some topological linear defects, thin and tubular, have linked each of these demons to the core, which appears to be inside this meteor-like sphere. Along these distortion lines, there are sporadic solitons from which I’m getting readings of electromagnetic energy, and on a smaller scale, gravitational. I suggest caution if you use portals too close to these things.”

  “Got the part about being careful with teleportation,” muttered Petra, who was operating the sensor probes while sending the data to Silas.

  “Hmmm…” Liora narrowed her eyes, trying to dig something from her memories. “We have to get rid of the source. Any clue about where these lines intercept, Silas?”

  “Right in the middle. I’m opening a visual channel on our comlink with the updated vectors,” Silas replied, followed by a brief silence of concern as the augmented reality layers pinpointed the planet-scale target.

  “That thing is gigantic! But it doesn’t seem worried about defending itself,” commented Frank from a corner, arms crossed as usual.

  Liora broke into a smile and pointed a finger at Frank. “That sounds really good! If the meteor isn’t dodging, we can try a coordinated attack.”

  Frank was startled and ran his hands through his hair. “Seriously? Attack a meteor? We’re going to need a nuke or something, aren’t we?”

  Liora shot Frank a surprised look and answered, “As far as I know, your strength has long surpassed any Earth weapon. That spider before Adarian had its own gravity, and I remember you dismantling it with your weapon deactivated. But you are right, just opening a hole in that thing might not be the best strategy. I have a plan!”

  “We’re going to need to act fast; we’ll have company pretty soon,” Petra commented as she calculated the time, noting Laetilia didn′t move her eye an inch.

  “Silas, I’m going to need a few dozen batteries!” Liora said as she began to accelerate in super-speed, already carrying the devices to the lower deck even before the answer. As she blurred past the bridge, she continued her interrupted sentence: “Frank, Petra, and I are going to charge against the core. Once at the target, Frank and I will try to synchronize our attacks. Frank opens a breach, and I fill the meteor with maximum fire. The batteries will overheat my weapon for sync. Petra will protect us and open an escape route.”

  “What? Negative! You’ll blow up your weapon and probably yourself along with it!” Silas protested.

  “We’ve done something like this before to get the ship out of the snow and escape the Golems, and I’m not increasing the power, but I need perfect sync. I’m hoping the telepathy magic doesn’t screw us over. I think we have a chance to make this work, but the target can’t dodge,” Liora commented hurriedly.

  “Guys, they’re all after me; wouldn’t it be better if I tried to fly the other way?” Laetilia suggested, uncertain and worried about the plan.

  “If that’s really what they are looking for, they’ll probably ignore us. We have to take advantage of it!” Liora replied, already heading for the aircar. Petra and Frank ran ahead to lose no time. Liora was the last to leave the bridge. She said to Silas and Laetilia, “As soon as we attempt a single attack, we’ll use Petra’s portal to return. You two, try to buy us as much time as possible!” And she disappeared in super-speed.

  Silas responded via mental magic: “Liora, if things go wrong, come back immediately. Plan B is for Petra to open the portal to the dojo, we enter with the whole ship, and defend ourselves from there.”

  When Liora reached the lower deck, the door was wide open. The firmament was dominated by the Meteor, already burning part of the atmosphere in turbulence. The sound of the end of the world could be heard in tune with the colossal fury of a hurricane. Amid the chaos, the demons pursued them like supersonic spears in formation, ignoring everything around. Petra looked at Liora, resigned. Both exchanged a silent smile, still hearing the echo of Silas’s words in their minds, but with little hope for a Plan B.

  Liora grabbed the wheel and shot toward the demon horde. Frank risked two, three well-aimed long shots at the vanguard demon. His shots had no effect other than drawing attention, but that was his intention. The aircar and the demon entered a collision course in an aerial joust. Petra watched her opponent closely as she swung her flexoclava against her stone hand, producing a metallic crack in provocation. She rose over the front seat of the aircar. And beside her, Liora pressed on, unflinching, daring the monsters to be the first to break.

  The upfront demon is the biggest and fastest of them all; its claws transformed into scythes just before the crash as the decision for a total impact is sealed. Given its size, it delivered a direct strike against Petra with incredible precision. But Petra answered at the same level, and both blows clashed perfectly. An impact explosion engulfed the aircar in flames and smoke, while Silas and Laetilia saw time stretch amidst the tension of the waiting; they didn't take their eyes off the monitor as the mental connection became a turbulent mess of adrenaline.

  Petra’s telepathic voice brought the good news even before the result of the joust became clear. The demon was pulverized as the aircar continued onward, spearing through the bubble of the explosion. Petra said, while her regeneration dealt with two deep wounds on her shoulders: “Oh yeah! The first one was fast, but make no mistake, those guys are not weak at all.”

  Laetilia couldn't contain her happiness, and she spoke mentally with a jolt of relief and surprise: “Incredible! These things are ancients, considered gods…” Frank: “Well, Petra brings a fairly solid objection to that idea.” Liora cut the thought: “Attention, now they are coming for us!” Frank: “Shall we take them one at a time?” Petra, regenerating: “Look, I think I can handle about 3 or 4 at once.” Liora: “I’m going to descend as if moving away. Frank, take the helm and maintain a straight trajectory,” Liora said as she jumped to the back seat, switching places with Frank. Silas: “Eight of them changed the course; they’re zeroing in on you!”

  Liora maxed her timeframe and fired her weapon at maximum power. A rain of missiles met the horde. She commented telepathically, as everyone watched in astonishment, all the 8 demons exploding one after another along the way: “Two or three well-placed shots for each one; they’re tough!” Silas: “Most impressive, Liora! But they’re spawning faster than that; at this rate, there will be hundreds soon.” Frank: “Hey! I can try to get some!” Petra: “If they fight back, you’ll have trouble; we can try to set up a defensive line together.” Liora: “Let us focus on the source; we already gave the ship some time until we hit the core. Petra, try to find a spot on the meteor’s surface for us to dig a hole.” Petra, activating a sensor Liora brought with her: “OK, let’s see… Almost the entire surface is flat. Wait a moment… Two formations look like rugged mountains, radially apart, from which no demons are coming out. Shall we attack one of those?” Frank: “The idea is to hit the center. If we approach the mountains, avoiding the demons, our chances are higher. What do you think?” Silas: “There are fewer distortion lines near those mountains. I can plot some clean routes for Frank to get there.” Liora: “Then that’s it, Frank. Let’s switch places again. Get ready to fly on my signal!” Liora jumped to the front of the aircar as it dove, speeding away from the horde.

  Despite the massive attack against the vanguard, no more demons changed the route to retaliate, ignoring the aircar and continuing the pursuit. Laetilia said mentally, “As I imagined, they’re coming after me!” Silas, engulfed in darkness: “Or they’re after Kalis…” Laetilia, looking at her blade, thought: “Maybe you’re right; shall we teleport it somewhere far away?” Frank thought, while Kalis responded in a tone of apparent revolt, in its ancestral tongue, to the surprise of Laetilia, who didn’t know the sword could read thoughts: “Didn’t Beni say always to keep it close?” Laetilia: “Yes, but Beni said a lot of things, and it would only be to distract them for a while.” Liora: “Let’s try that if our attack doesn’t work... Guys! I think the horde just sped up.” Silas: “Yes. Laetilia, take the lead. I’m going to the gun turret to try something!”

  Laetilia sat in the pilot’s chair she knew so well, while Silas flew to the lower turret and began firing the ship’s energy cannons against the demons in a dogfight. Silas operated the devices as if they were trivial, and his shots were accurate, but the efficiency was far inferior to Liora’s. He said while operating the turret at an accelerated pace: “They are not good at dodging, and it seems they don’t have long-range weapons, but they are much faster. I won’t be able to stop their advance this way.” Laetilia, piloting: “Some of them enter warp speed inside the atmosphere; they’re going for a kamikaze strategy!” Laetilia’s thought was interrupted by the impact of the first demon throwing itself against the upper part of the ship; she concluded, “No point maneuvering. The first one penetrated the hull and is in our quarters above the bridge.”

  Before any response, the invading demon tore a hole above the bridge and fell right in front of Laetilia. Despite the ease of crashing through the ship’s walls, it was on the verge of death with several wounds caused both by Silas’s shots and by having thrown itself against the hull like a battering ram. Still, it cracked a smile upon noticing Kalis a few steps away and screamed with great fury in the ancestral language of the demons.

  Laetilia held her weapon in a reverse grip and retreated. Although the weapon was too large for a typical dagger stance, she tried to hide it with her own body. She said, “So you came for Kalis?” in an attempt to buy some time.

  Liora noticed the urgency and signaled for Frank to depart while, ramping up to super-speed, she prepped her weapon with the batteries for the final strike. Losing no time, Frank spread Petra’s magic wings to propel himself toward his skyborne target. His acceleration was so great that friction with the atmosphere set him on fire, forcing him to use mana wildly to control the flames and not injure himself too much. Petra guided Frank on the exact coordinates while preparing the fast portal spell to get everyone out of there after the strike. As soon as she initiated her transport magic, she felt something was not right, confirming Silas’s fear.

  Meanwhile, on the ship’s bridge, the demon grew still, as though something had just occurred to it, and to Laetilia’s surprise, it replied in a current Metropolitan dialect, struggling with the words: “There is no Kalis…” Extending its claws toward the sword, the demon continued: “Only one, I exist, separated.” Its voice echoed beyond the demon, as if it emanated from the very environment itself.

  “Who are you?” Laetilia asked, taking another step back, faltering.

  Before she could continue, the demon interrupted her, advancing. “I am God! The time has come for this Kalis to return, being one with God.”

  “God, is it?” Laetilia challenged, “I thought your name was something like Eafa Ranfo.”

  The demon hesitated upon hearing the name. It said: “One day I was called like that.” As soon as it fells it's colleagues approaching the ship, it transformed its claws into scythes and advanced toward Laetilia, saying: “The time has come for rapture.” At that instant, Kalis responded in its ancestral tongue, and Laetilia understood: “No!”

  Silas realized the demon’s strategy and nudged the idea to Laetilia; besides waiting for reinforcements from its horde, time had allowed it to regenerate. Laetilia did not advance and engaged in evasive combat, where the Demon’s superiority in almost all physical aspects became clear, while she spoke mentally: “Things are going to get ugly here!” Silas: “I managed to eliminate the first wave... almost, we’ll have to deal with the ones that will get in!”

  Laetilia was forced to use Kalis to parry the scythes coming her way. As soon as the blades crossed, the space around them was distorted by shockwaves and darkness that hurled the combatants apart. Laetilia spun in midair, planting her feet against the wall, burning a bit of her energy beans to dampen the impact. The demon simply used its scythes as hooks, anchoring itself to the bridge floor and leaving two gashes that tore through the metal as if it were butter.

  Silas, mentally: “Two more incoming to the bridge!” While Laetilia heard strikes rupturing the hull and other demons joining the fray, emitting snarls of fury and excitement at their apparent victory, she responded: “I’m going to try something now, before they fully regenerate!” Silas didn’t answer, completely engrossed in fighting the horde from his gun turret to buy more time. They let the piloting continue on a straight line, knowing that evasive options were next to nil.

  As the ship was in dire straits, Liora felt the anxious pulse of her friends in the mental network, but she didn’t interrupt; focus was everything. For a brief time, Liora flew upward to match Frank′s vector, who was racing toward the meteor as a roaring pillar of fire, carving its way through the heavens. Just as Frank prepped his flexoclava to charge against the mountain, Liora fired, with all the energy cells discharging in an orchestrated burst, using her energy beams to fine-tune the projectiles' trajectories. She managed to synchronize more than a dozen shots that formed a perfect circle of miniature missiles, all aligned toward the meteor's inner core. Despite the apparent smoothness and beauty of her movement, the discharged energy was brutal and surged through every capillary in her body, bursting most of them and gravely injuring her. As she reached the peak of her small leap to align the attacks, the last thing she saw before fainting was Frank reaching striking range. She had only time to think, “Frank, it’s up to you now…” Petra immediately scooped her up with the aircar and ascended toward Frank, deeply concerned about Liora’s condition beside her, but stifling her thoughts for a while.

  Frank used his super-will to deliver two maximum power strikes in sequence against the mountain. The impact was so brutal that it cracked the head of his weapon in the process, even though it was enchanted and supposedly unbreakable. The explosion was so extreme that the entire top of the mountain; which now looked more like some kind of organic carapace, was annihilated and accelerated to such speed that matter turned into energy, causing two planetwide shockwaves that not only disintegrated the entire mountain but opened a huge crater in the meteor, exposing an ocean of yellow-reddish liquid that gushed from the meteor under pressure like a hemorrhage. Everyone heard the ancient God’s cry of pain echo through the sky, followed by a sound of fury, but it was too late. Liora’s missiles all entered the crater and dove directly toward the center. It was now a matter of seconds before they reached their final target. Frank decided he wasn’t going to stay to watch and use the momentum of his strikes to fly back at maximum speed.

  “Petra, I’m coming back, too fast! Did it work?” Frank asked, his voice desperate. The meteor reacted. As soon as it was struck, a streak of yellow light tore open an entire hemisphere, splitting its crust and revealing what looked like an eye. But one corner was wounded and gushing ancestral blood profusely. One could almost sense the pain in the sound that invaded Gate’s atmosphere across the entire region. A yellowish, almost golden eye began to focus on Frank, and some of the nearby demons started diverting their course toward him. Petra noticed this and replied, “So Frank, I don’t know about the attack yet, but they’re certainly not after the ship anymore. I’m opening my portal, and as soon as we meet, we’re geting ot of here!”

  Petra let her portal open when the time was right and noticed the edges rippling and reacting to the movement. The closer the demons got, the more distorted the portal became. She caught a flicker of the ship’s lower deck at the edge of her vision, strobing amidst intermittent lightning; the portal wouldn’t last long.

  On the ship, Laetilia accelerated into super-speed and prepped her chaos vortex to strike twice. The secret technique at maximum power immediately fills the entire ship’s environment with darkness, while a couple of swirls of energy begin to form above the knight’s hands. The demons were surprised by the unexpected effect and hesitated in fear. Laetilia fired immediately, taking advantage of the wounds Silas had managed to inflict during the exterior dogfight. The two demons that had just entered were bathed in a beam of chaotic energy that consumed them, as if they were dragged into the abyss. One of them still managed to cling to a wall with its scythes for a few moments but eventually succumbed, leaving its weapons stuck in the bridge’s exposed fuselage.

  The remaining opponent was almost fully regenerated, and at that exact moment, the ancestral cry reacting to Frank′s first blow reached the ears of everyone on the bridge. The demon went into a frenzy and charged at Laetilia.

  Once again, Laetilia defended with Kalis, but this time her opponent attacked Laetilia’s unprotected arm with its scythe, disarming the knight by severing all the fingers of her hand. With no time for anything else, the demon grabbed Kalis with the other claw and unleashed several consecutive strikes against Kalis, squeezing it tighter and tighter, as if trying to consume it. Each blow emitted a sound of despair from Kalis that even Silas could hear.

  Laetilia stumbled and staggered, having used her techniques at maximum power. Unable to continue at that pace, she thought of a different strategy, desperate to reclaim her weapon. The knight created three swirls of chaotic energy, but this time, weaker and much smaller than the first ones. As soon as she created the third, she succumbed and fell to her knees, completely exhausted. In a last effort, she managed to hurl her attacks against her opponent with her left hand; she had deactivated her entire right arm to avoid feeling the pain of losing her fingers.

  However, sensing the danger already, the demon assumed a defensive stance, halting its attack against Kalis for a few moments. Its defenses, however, couldn’t completely avoid the powerful chaotic energy strikes, but at least it managed to survive. Victorious, it simply turned its head to watch Laetilia dragging herself on the floor in exhaustion, and with a smile, raised its scythe to deliver a final blow on Kalis while looking with disdain at the knight. Just as its blades descended for the finishing strike, Silas jumped through the bridge entrance and fired his energy blast against Kalis, hitting it moments before the demon and projecting the sword into a forgotten corner of the bridge. Suddenly, Kaskas appeared and, with great difficulty, grabbed the sword with her cat-mouth, darting back into a hole in the internal fuselage where she had been hiding. The demon let out a scream of fury while trying to spot where the cat had gone.

  Silas, mentally: “Our plan worked. Go up through the inside to the upper east wing, Kaskas. There’s a long duct with support structures.” Kaskas: “Laetilia’s out cold; she can’t even think anymore.” Silas: “The beast is going after you. Just a few more seconds…”

  As the ancestral fury’s howl of vengeance echoed through the sky, Frank hurled himself toward the aircar, putting his faith in Petra’s magic wings to mitigate the impact. Petra, alert and coordinated, positioned the portal to launch the aircar into the lower deck, entering at high speed and grazing the side of the vehicle on one of the portal’s distorted edges, causing the portal to brake almost immediately as it passed through. Despite the perfect control, Frank’s momentum was so great that the aircar destroyed the deck wall, forcing Petra to hold her friends to prevent them from getting hurt.

  The demon forgot Kalis upon hearing the ancestral call. It turned its face toward its deity, thought the hole it had opened in the ship, only to see the enormous meteor explode into a nuclear-like mushroom cloud. Liora’s ordeal had finally arrived, completely blowing apart the eye-shaped structure, vaporizing and scattering whatever was inside. Silas smiled as he realized all spatial distortions had vanished, leaving the demon inside the ship no time to react; its body turned to stone almost instantly, frozen like a statue, its final expression engraved in stone as its horde is claimed by death, wearing, at the last breath, the mortal shoes of all its former victims.

  Silas wasted no time celebrating and ran to the lower deck, worried about his data readings. He entered the deck shouting, “Liora…” when he noticed half the aircar embedded in the wall at the back of the room, Frank trying to stand, still dizzy from the adrenaline and unsure if the plan had worked, and Liora in Petra’s arms. Petra was standing, shifting out of her granite form, holding her friend with great concern.

  Liora’s hand suddenly rose, giving a thumbs-up. Silas smiled, and after a few moments, Liora finally said telepathically: “I fried almost every circuit in my body…” Petra placed Liora in the medical device while Silas prepared to treat his friend.

  Petra said in a worried voice, “The plan worked, right? Should I open a portal to the dojo?”

  Silas replied in a calmer tone, “It seems it worked. Laetilia is out cold in what’s left of the bridge, but her life isn’t in danger. The demons that entered the ship are gone, and the last thing I saw was the meteor exploding.”

  “Frank, bring Laetilia here so I can teleport everyone if needed; then go take a look at how things are outside. I’ll join you shortly!” Petra suggested, without taking her eyes off Liora.

  Frank activated his Flexoclava once again, which had already regenerated, nodded to Petra, and flew toward the bridge. He found a demon statue in the middle, looking at a huge opening in the hull. In a corner, Laetilia lay down with Kalis beside her, one of her cats licking her hand.

  Kaskas, mentally: “She’s fine, but she’s going to need rest, and new fingers…” the cat grumbled. “First time I’ve seen someone use their body to protect a sword.”

  Frank immediately lifted Laetilia, Kaskas, and the sword, carrying them all to the lower deck, saying, “I still don’t know if we’re really safe. Let’s all stay together, OK?”

  Kaskas nodded her feline head as Frank carried everyone to the lower deck and noticed Silas and Petra completely absorbed. Frank announced, “I’m leaving Laetilia here and heading out…” He realized Silas was debriding some of Liora’s external parts while Petra used some weird magic. Petra nodded in response, without losing focus on her improvised surgery. Silas replied, “Liora will be fine. Her mind is preserved, don’t worry.”

  Frank gently laid Laetilia and Kaskas on one of the ship’s giant remaining armchairs and departed without further delay. As he flew outside, he felt the humid breeze of the explosion on his face. The air, extremely heated, entered his lungs but failed to harm him: a mix of odors that brought to the surface memories of a Texas barbecue. The lights of a colossal storm illuminated everything as far as he could see. All the liquid inside the meteor seems to be vaporized somehow, and now the rain, composed of the remains of a god, bathes the surface of Gate, spreading across the entire firmament.

  Frank, mentally: “Everyone, I don’t see any more demons, but it’s hot, and the rain is coming…” Silas: “Rain?” Frank: “Well, it seems the liquid we blew up… And now it’s spread all over the sky.” Silas: “Something’s wrong; it would take days to cover the sky.” Frank: “Well, I’m seeing the lights of a huge storm everywhere. I’m going to check the explosion site.”

  As Frank flew back to the battle scene, Silas began gathering data, trying to understand what was going on. Petra remained focused, meticulously enchanting Liora’s parts. Time passed slowly, and a heavy rain began to bathe Frank, but nothing extraordinary occurred. Silas asked Kaskas to collect a rain sample as it reached the ship to analyze the liquid. After that, he said, “Well, it’s almost all water. There’s a lot of organic material scattered in it, mostly amino acids, glycine, alanine… in smaller quantities, nitrogenous bases, and traces of simple sugars. Doesn’t seem dangerous at all.”

  “Well, I found some pieces of demon statues scattered in a line along the way, and the shockwave opened a crater. Other than that, nothing…” Frank said, flying back.

  Petra stepped back and stretched her arms, relieving the tension. She said mentally, “I was saving Liora’s external parts, but only the raw material. I used my creation magic to replace what was possible; however, I did not touch any internal parts. If I bled some magic in those, it would be a problem, so we had to deal with each injury carefully.”

  “You guys are amazing! Are we all good, then?” Frank cheered up mentally.

  Silas: “I think so. We’re without an oioi parts supplier, so we have to improvise.”

  Petra: “I hadn’t bothered, but now Liora’s external parts will be enchanted.”

  Frank: “Does it work like armor?”

  Petra: “Not exactly. We have real enchanted armor ready, but in Liora’s case, she’d need to train at least a little in some defensive technique; otherwise, it wouldn’t be effective. The upside is that now the parts should last much longer.”

  Frank: “That sounds great. And Laetilia?”

  Petra: “Laetilia is sleeping soundly. She lost all the fingers on her right hand and will have to replace that part. Aside from that, I could enchant her too, but…”

  Silas: “Now, Liora is going to be a magic beacon until she changes those parts. But it was either that or throw away the entire casing and compromise some internal parts that overloaded.”

  Frank: “I guess she doesn’t know that yet, right?”

  Petra: “No. Her mind is preserved in the ship’s life support systems, but she’ll be fine. She’ll probably wake up even before Laetilia, in a few hours.”

  Frank, after a brief silence: “I’m almost at the ship. What’s the plan now?”

  Petra: “Hold your horses. I’ll grab some probes and join you out there.”

  Silas: “Let’s understand what happened before opening portals to the dojo, as we are going to stop for some days until the ship is repaired. This rain appeared because of some huge spatial distortion that seems to be gone.”

  Petra joined Frank on his winged stroll, now equipped with a paraphernalia of sensors. Frank felt the rain lessen as he decelerated. He said, “So, Petra, what do you think?”

  “If you’re referring to that thing, it’s certainly not a god,” Petra replied, analyzing the data and sending it to Silas. After a while, she murmurs, "Whatever it was, those land scars are all that remains."

  Frank looked at his hands, burned and still trembling. “What are we becoming?”

  Petra smiled, shut down the sensors, and looked directly at Frank. “Pretty cool, isn′t it?"

  Frank replied in a rush. "Hell yeah! But I...", after a while, feeling the fresh air, "I don′t know..."

  "I’ve asked myself that question before. And I always remember what Silas told us when we left Rocatrista,” said Petra.

  Frank dug from his memory, “When we left for real, you mean? In the aerolito?”

  “That’s it. When he put those knives on the ground and said that we were going to learn dangerous things. Back then, I had no idea,” Petra said lightly.

  Frank smiled and clenched his fists, shaking off the rainwater from his hair. "Well, someday we’ll be laughing about this over drinks, and everyone will assume we were completely wasted."

  “Frank, spending my time worrying only about what people will think at a bar table is exactly the kind of problem I’d like to have in the future. You can bet on it!” Petra said, letting her eyes drift, catching the thunderous clouds.

  Frank crossed his arms as he flew beside Petra, his gaze wandering like a castaway on the horizon, until it found safe harbor in lighter thoughts. Both enjoyed a sensation that reminded them of their homeland, in silence, amidst the storm.