Chapter 15 Quoth the Raven “Nevermore” Part 2

“As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door-

Only this and nothing more.”” - A guy who definitely fucks birds.

The sky was covered in eyes.

“By the Earth, Wind and Fire Classifications, the Gate has been designated Jebel, Calm and Keneq. Despite the low disruption class, the presence of an active Invader using Channeling has made me upgrade the threat class to High B,” Freddy heard the Colonel record. “Four B rank Meta’s are on the field with the A rank Allen. Along with GERM Squad 4, the local cape team led by Grassroots and the cowl Telepurte.”

The villain perked up stiffly at her name being called out, she was a long-ranged teleporter, who unfortunately took to bank robbing. Later getting captured by the cape team glaring needles into her right now. Freddy suspected if her power wasn’t so useful she would’ve been rotting in a prison somewhere.

“Due to the low disruption class, MTF Lambda Six will be providing logistics and artillery support. Reality Anchors will be kept in reserve until required,” Howard finally finished, putting down the tape recorder.

“Is that really needed general?” Grassroots asked, his living costume writhing with every spoken word.

“It’s a bureaucratic requirement,” the Colonel answered.

“Not to mention there is strength in speaking a plan aloud,” Freddy muttered.

“👍” Foxy spoke in agreement.

“Off to your positions everyone,” Howard continued. “I want this threat sealed by tonight.”

And he wasn’t being foolish or rushed here, Freddy knew. There was a time limit before the Invader claimed this entire section of reality as its own. Then it was truly lost and in every sense of the word, irrecoverable.

Freddy got the cowl separated from the cape group, the woman almost sighed a breath of relief as she distanced herself from them. Grassroots continued to glance at the villain even as he moved off with his team to do their own part.

“Don’t worry, she won’t get away from me,” Freddy reassured them with a smile. Though in truth, Telepurte wouldn’t want to escape, unless she went the way of old villains like Irritant the Immortal or A. Nigma, that is, going completely batshit insane. But the eyes she was looking at him with weren’t that of someone looking for a way out, but of a meek caution.

The rules here for meta villains were very clear, and incredibly humane compared to other places, a cowl assists in dealing with existential threats like Gates and avoided killing people, if they don’t or were more trouble than they were worth, then instead of heroes, a kill squad would be sent after them.

Some places skipped the middle man and just mind controlled anyone caught, but that tended to be riskier compared to appealing to the cowls innate nature of looking after their own hides before anyone elses’.

Though her blood flow was oddly fast, and she kept glancing around her. Definitely preparation for a flight or fight response, probably flight given her ability.

“First time in a Gate?” he casually asked as she blinked forward, next to the large device they would be stationed to defend.

The woman nodded, huddling into herself almost like a mouse.

“👋😊” Foxy greeted cheerily.

The other meta, Allen Gibbs simply stood stoically to the side, well, appeared to, his heart was beating absurdly quickly, which might’ve made him worry for any other A-Class if Freddy didn’t know the other man had severe social anxiety. It was hilarious in a way, the man kept getting dragged into more and more dangerous Gates because he doesn’t know how to say no.

When the Colonel left back into the safety of normal reality, along with all the other unneeded baselines, they began. The Invader stood out in the centre of the Bleed affected radius, unmoving, its ‘petals’ closed around its head. Its massive size made it dwarf even the tallest trees, blood flooded freely within the grooves made by its arms, creating strange eldritch symbols, and the false fire that lit all only served to highlight the monster.

The remaining Guardsmen manned the device, one blowing into a whistle, signalling everyone to put on their earmuffs. “Firing in three! Two! One! Fire!”

Chemical explosions were long thought to be too unstable, too many different moving parts, even if only one was altered, that was one thing in the missile which you had no idea how it would react, so the weapons they used were relatively simple, less moving parts to ensure less things went horrifically wrong.

The Guardsmen manning the device fired, releasing highly compressed oxygen to launch a massive ball of scrap metal, its range was close to eleven thousand metres thanks to all the fuckery contrivers and gadgeteers alike put into it. All they felt was the massive noise that would’ve burst their eardrums had they not worn protection, and the line of trees was simply… obliterated into sawdust by the sheer force of that thing passing by, drawing a deep gouge within the forest as it flew closer towards the Invader.

Then it abruptly stopped mid-flight.

One moment it was moving in a perfectly straight line, then it stopped, floating in the air for a few more seconds, slowly falling downwards, before it slammed into the ground with a force belying its supposed slow descent.

“It entered its ability range,” Freddy deduced.

“First shot is a fail,” the Guardsmen reported on his radio, they were amazingly lucky this Gate had next to no Bleed effects. “Direct fire led to the projectile stopping upon entering ability range, over.”

But that couldn’t be just it, it was floating for a moment, it didn’t just immediately fall down like hitting a barrier. Jun said it felt like no matter how much they were running to or away from the Invader, they travelled no distance, even if they felt like they did.

“Telepurte,” the cowl glanced at him, “is your teleportation distance-based?”

She nodded.

“Can you try teleporting towards it?” he asked, pointing towards the Invader.

She made a face, as did Foxy who said, “🙄”

“I have a good reason, I suspect its ability is based on distance. You just need to barely get into the ability range and try a teleport behind.”

Telepurte gingerly stepped up, then disappeared, appearing directly next to the ball of scrap at least three times her height.

From the distance, she made a confused expression, disappearing before reappearing in that exact spot, she disappeared and reappeared three more times, before she stepped back, appearing right next to Freddy again.

“I couldn’t teleport into its range,” she spoke for the first time.

“Were you making max distance teleports for your ability?” he continued to ask.

She nodded.

“🤔”

Freddy pulled out his walkie talkie, “Fred here, I suspect its ability is based on ‘increasing’ the distance needed to get to and from two points to effectively infinity, making it so any distance-based movement appears to be impossible..”

He explained his reasoning over the device. Feeling the slight novelty of being able to actually use radio inside a Gate.

“Interesting deduction.”

“But it changes nothing. Over,” the tuba twins replied.

He felt them enter his range now, flying their first full circle around the creature.

“Do you think you can overcome it for a moment? Over.”

There was a brief moment of static as the twins considered it for a moment.

“Not for long.”

“And certainly not enough to make the entire distance. Over.”

“Understood, then-”

The Invader moved.

All of them stood at attention, as the creature bloomed its flower weaved of endless grey arms, unveiling a bloody ball of flesh covered in gibbering eyes.

And they spoke.

“C’tana. Si. Koas.”

“Every baseline immediately retreat from the Bleed radius!” Freddy yelled into the radio.

The bloody symbols on the Invader’s form writhed with eldritch energy, floating off its body and into the air, rotating around it in a red dome over it.

“Sul’tana. De. Sero. Srub.”

“Foxy I need to know what it’s saying!”

The woman jumped next to him, her long sandy red hair flowing behind her, she came closer to his ear and whispered with her ability, What Does The Fox Say?

And the Fox said, “Understand.”

“Behold Watching Gods,” the Invader spoke, its language now known to Freddy. Foxy coughed into her hand as she popped a cough drop.

“Behold Watching Kings.”

Freddy’s radio buzzed, “What’s it saying?”

He hurriedly repeated the thing’s words as it spoke,

“Behold Watching Lords,” it continued to echo.

“This One Stands Within The Precipice Of Chaos…”

“ETA in a minute,” the twins called out on the radio. “Over.”

“Hurry up on that,” Freddy answered as he felt the brothers get ever closer to the Invader.

“...This One Brings The Light Of Order Into The Harrowed Lands,” the bloody symbols orbiting it increased in speed, till the point they were naught but an unrecognisable blur above its form.

“Why haven’t you guys gotten out yet?” Freddy yelled out behind him, to the two Guardsmen, to the device they were driving backwards.

But not moving any distance.

“😨”

“Behold All Those With Eyes,” the petals rose, the blood that formed that dome suddenly coalescing into a single point, infinitely small, a point with no width, length or height. It was simply a point in space. “This One Has Crafted Beauty From Chaos.”

Freddy felt it, a familiar and instinctual guttural feeling of wrongness. Something that was gone until this very moment. Something he didn’t feel because he believed the Invader’s Expansion caused the Bleed to be too diffused for any negative effect.

Something he was very wrong about, as his daggers shot out towards the two guardsmen, but he was too late.

“May All Who Behold It Weep.”

The two Guardsmen crumpled to the ground, kneeling as their eyes fell out of their sockets, sliding off their faces like water as their sockets were blackened. And from those hollowed sockets, eyes continued to fall out, falling onto the ground and blooming into flowers.

He felt it now, prickling his own eyes, a desire to simply weep. His own Reinforcement flared to life, the feeling slightly weakened, but it was still there.

“Shit,” this wasn’t a meta ability, he’s seen enough to know the difference. The radio still in hand he yelled into it, “It’s a magic-user! I repeat, it’s a magic-user on top of being an ability user!”

They’re going to need the assistance of the Clock Tower or even the Church depending on how powerful it was. Meta Techniques were most effective against other meta abilities, not shit like magic. “We need to retreat!”

“Negative,” one of the twins replied. “We’re too close.”

“Continue as planned Freddy, all other agents begin to retreat. ETA in fifteen seconds”

He didn’t need to turn towards the other three, they were already moving back. No, he simply raised a hand towards the Invader.

“Extended Technique, Bloody Stream.”

He initially had worries about how his max range would be affected by the Invader’s ability, but it only worked in a linear direction, an ability like his that encompassed a radius around him still functioned as normal.

The Invader suddenly seized, its undulating form freezing as Freddy gripped on it, but it resisted his pull, the Invader’s own Reinforcement bought it a precious few seconds where it was still able to move slightly.

But his ability won out in the end, the beast froze just as The Tuba Brothers slammed into it, the force of the blow shattered the nearby treeline and forced his eyes closed from the scattering dust, but he could see clearly through his power, the liquids inside both men punching the Invader with enough force to shatter buildings.

“Above us,” Allen spoke for the first time.

He felt it too late, the massive objects that just entered his range. He looked up, feeling the horror of realisation.

The skies had eyes and they wept.

Every single eye dwarfed houses, falling from above like rain, they covered the entire sky.

A brief moment of hesitation, before he threw up his other arm, holding back the entire heavens with his other hand.

And it was a moment of distraction too many, as the Invader found its body freed for a single moment, one petal slashed the other, drawing purple blood that fell to the ground and blooming into crystal mouths.

And the Invader disappeared from his power as it was freed from Freddy’s grasp.

He didn’t have time to consider this as he fell to the ground, both hands held up, holding the full weight of the sky falling onto them. He felt his throat dry as his Hume was consumed to hold back the massive weight falling onto them. His mind swept the area, seeing everyone retreat from the liquids that were inside them.

But Allen still stood beside him, unwrapping the bandages on his arm.

“Shadow, I offer you the skin from my right arm from the elbow upwards ending at the wrist.”

And his Shadow answered, rising from the ground and standing beside him.

“Destroy the sky in return.”

The only acknowledgement the Shadow gave was it grasping onto the bared skin of Allen’s arm. Its fingers drew fine circular lines across it before it began to carefully unpeel the skin off the man’s arm, much like peeling an orange or apple. The Shadow then cradled its prize, slurping it into itself as if it were a particularly thick noodle.

And when the Shadow finished, it turned its head skyward, and its mouth opened and covered the entire sky in darkness.

Freddy heaved out a sigh of relief as he collapsed, the weight gone. Allen was already wrapping up the bloody arm in the bandages, the wet flesh underneath was bared for but a moment.

“How much to kill that fucker?” he rasped.

“Both my lungs.”

“And to break the magic working?”

“My liver.”

“Shit,” Freddy muttered. He was not envious of Allen’s power, powers that had an innate cost to use tended to not consume Hume at all, but those with greater costs had a greater effect. Allen’s own power allowed him to destroy anything if he offered a physical part of himself, but the more difficult the target was to destroy, the more irreplaceable the things he needed to sacrifice.

Not to mention, every time something ‘irreplaceable’ was replaced or healed, the cost went up.

“Time to retreat,” one of the Tuba Brothers called over the radio. Freddy just had enough Hume to sense one of them carrying the injured form of the other.

“Copy that, over,” he replied as he moved out.

Aiden felt it.

A feeling of wrongness, not as strong as the Gate he survived yesterday, but enough that he caught onto it like a bloodhound.

And now he stood, in a long-abandoned district, squinting into the darkness of a hollowed-out warehouse.

“Got anything Ranpoe?” he asked as he heard the flapping wings return.

The crow shook its head.

“Let’s hope it’s nothing then,” he said as he stepped in.