Captain Tut'el held up the cardboard shield, the other side spraypainted red, even as he chopped at the shades with the heavy bladed weapon that had been labeled 'cutlass' in the nanoforge directory. One shade clawed at the cardboard, snarling and hissing, the other screamed and began to dissolve as Tut'el hacked off her leg.

Behind him, the Private, Beatnik Tut'el was pretty sure he was called, was hacking with a two handed blade. They were chopping their way deeper into the building.

In the lead was the Warfather himself, Vuxten. Riding on his shoulder was the greenie that no longer went by a number but was instead called "Inertia" by the other greenies.

The Warfather was, like Tut'el and Beatnik, wearing cardboard armor adorned with red spraypaint. He was carrying a weapon spit out by the nanoforge that had been listed as a 'cold iron' weapon, using it to hack at the shades.

Inertia, on Vuxten's shoulder, was firing a micro-missile launcher, using the tiny warheads to destroy display screens as they kept moving deeper into the facility.

Tut'el was exhausted, but he wasn't going to show it in front of the Warfather.

A 2.5D display detonated right before another tiny missile blew the door off the room at the end of the hall.

Shades swarmed out of the revealed room, so thick that they formed an opaque wall as they screamed and charged forward.

Beatnik took two steps, moving between Vuxten and Tut'el, who had taken a single step.

Tut'el and Vuxten kept the shades off of the shield-less Beatnik, who hacked and chopped at the shades with the cold iron two handed bladed weapon. Tut'el clenched his jaw and stepped forward with the Private and the Warfather each time they stepped forward. He used his shield to prevent the Shades from reaching the Private, whose sole job was to hack and chop at the shades.

Finally, the crashing tidal wave of shades was past and Tut'el realized he could see inside the room.

Banks of computers, all with displays, were sitting in the room beyond.

Shades were crawling out of half of the monitors, screaming, sometimes tearing at one another, but for the most part sweeping forward.

The tiny green engineer, barely a foot tall, leveled his microrifle and started firing quick bursts, each burst shattering one of the screens.

The Private hacked and chopped his way into the room.

"CROM ENUMERATE THE RECENTLY DECEASED!" the Private yelled at one point.

Finally the room was cleared and Tut'el leaned against a counter that was splattered with ectoplasm and littered with pieces of monitors and viewscreens. He was breathing heavy, his hand pressed against his side to try to mitigate the pain of a stitch in his side, the short chopping blade set on the counter.

The little greenie moved up to the induction link, touching it with a cybernetic bladearm replacement. Flickers appeared between his antenna and the Warfather watched closely.

"Got it," the Warfather said. "Any idea who the priority signal is?" he paused a second, then pointed at a clear spot in the center of the room. "All right. Use that holo-emitter and put them right there."

Tut'el grabbed the cutlass, taking a deep whooping breath and exhaling hard before stepping up next to the Warfather.

There was a flickering. The room suddenly lit up with white light. Gold streamers flowed through midair and flowers dropped from where they just suddenly appeared. Trumpets played and a harp glissando sounded.

The light faded and a figure stood in the center of the room.

"Oh, my, I wish I could arrive much more circumspect," the figure stated.

Tut'el knew his eyes were bugging out.

The figure was all glittering blue code with silver patches that looked like song notes. It was a Terran, yet looking kind and caring.

"Vuxten, my son, I was beginning to wonder if you had forgotten that I am willing to assist you in your times of need," the figure said.

"It was little hectic, Father," Vuxten said. "That, and I figured you had a lot to handle across the galactic spur."

The figure nodded. "Indeed, I do," he gave a soft chuckle and a smile. "Well, nothing ever got done by avoiding doing it."

There was another glissando and the figure vanished.

"Well, that was a thing," Beatnik said through the cloud of smoke he had just exhaled, cracking open a beer.

Tut'el wanted to hit him.

-----

Elu looked over at what his brain insisted was the Primary Fluffle.

The students and teachers in the clustered crowd were all gently jostling at one another, shifting position. The larger females making up the outside, the males and smaller females inside (the smaller females moving between the males and the larger females), with three pregnant females in the center. Ears were straight up, the larger females were looking around constantly, bouncing up and down by flexing their hocks. The smaller females would hop once in a while to get a clear view of outside the fluffle.

One of his gymnastics team mates moved up next to him, two large females and one smaller one following. The three females had table legs sprayed with iron powder, their shirts and pants painted red. They were all wearing paper plate masks colored red and a red hat pulled down. The larger of the two big ones had her ears outside of the hat, her ears powdered a dark red.

Elu wasn't sure he had ever seen any of the females before, but then, their faces were covered by paper plates.

"Doors are secure, same with the windows," he said. He looked over at the fluffle, where most were wide eyed. The smaller males were huddled, most of them shivering. "I keep asking myself, why aren't we in the fluffle, shivering?"

Elu shrugged. "The war?"

"I was in the shelter," Arleetru said. "You, that makes sense, but me? I sat on the floor playing board games with my siblings for like two years."

The other gymnastics team-mate came over and Elu noticed he was being followed by four females, two small, two large.

"Back windows and hallways are secure," he said. He looked at the fluffle. "Part of me wants to scream at them to get to work, but they look like their a half-inch from a complete meltdown."

Elu nodded, then tuned to look out the window.

Shades were pressed against it, gnawing on the invisible field that held them back, clawing at it, pushing their faces against it so their 'flesh' deformed and flattened.

"Galaxy's apex predator, right there," Ortrupa said, shaking his head slowly. "Alive, complete wrecking machines. Dead? Body's poisonous and out comes a killer shade."

"When you absolutely positively have to wreck someone's shit up, the Universe recommends Terrans," Elu said, giving a short laugh at the end.

"Use only as directed. Consult your doctor. Do not insert into any orifices. Side effects may include your world catching on fire," Arleetru laughed.

Elu sighed. "My sister said that the streets were littered with the dead. She was going outside to try something."

Ort blinked. "Your sister went out in that?"

Elu nodded. "Yeah. She's seen worse. The things we saw," he glanced at Arl. "Be glad you didn't see it."

"See what?" Arleetru asked, shivering as one of the shades raked her own face with her nails, scoring her flesh to the bone.

"What we can do to one another," Elu said. He looked back and cocked his head. "Something's happening out there."

There was a flickering. A pop of blue that vanished, taking the shade with it.

Elu leaned forward, almost putting his nose against the window.

He jumped back, the female swearing and the two males behind him screaming.

A Terran stood there, between two shades, only this one was made of streaming blue code, patches of silver here and there, with what Elu recognized as song notes moving in the silver.

He recognized the Terran instantly from his sister's description.

The Terran touched the shade, whispered in its ear, and it vanished. It turned to the one on the other side of it, whispered, and the shade's face went from complete and furious rage to wonder before it vanished.

The Terran vanished, to reappear next to another.

"Look, there's hundreds of him," Arl said.

Elu shook his head, looking out at the quad.

Hundreds of the Terran kept appearing, either stopping a running shade by gathering it up in an embrace, or appearing next to it. It would whisper, and both it and the shade would vanish.

"The Digital Omnimessiah," one of the girl's breathed. "He has come to deliver us in our hour of need."

Elu just nodded.

-----

"He's still fighting," Ru'ulrmo'or said, peeking out the narrow slit in the mylar.

Dreams of Something More just nodded. She didn't need to look to know what the Mosizlak was doing.

He was doing what he did best.

"He's not using that spiked club any more," the Lanaktallan said.

The 2x4 with a nail in it, Dreams mused.

"How much longer can he keep it up?" Synko'fa'ahntmo'o asked, wringing all four hands. "He's been fighting for four days."

"As long as he can," Dreams said. She looked at Speaks. "Are the superluminal links down?"

"Hyperwave just underwent a total crash. Same with the other systems," Speaks said. "Not sure how. Looks like they got hacked."

Dreams nodded.

"Why are the shades attracted to him in such numbers?" Synko asked.

"Phasic energy," Dreams said. "He's flush with it, and he uses it when he fights. Shades are attracted to high levels of phasic energy."

"But, if he fights, then he uses phasic energy, attracting more, but if he does not use phasic energy, he cannot defeat them," Ru'u said. He blinked all six eyes. "No matter what he does, his situation does not change."

Dreams nodded. "Yes."

"Then he cannot win."

"No."

"Then why fight?"

"Because he can keep from losing," Dreams said softly.

"I don't understand," Ru'u stated.

It was quiet in the room.

Breaking the silence, Speaks peeked outside. "He's getting tired."

"How can you tell? He looks fine to me," Synko said.

"He wiffed that kick. He's lost about forty pounds. There's no showmanship in his moves, it's all killing and fighting now," Speaks said.

Synko watched as more shades streamed down the street, an almost solid mass of ethereal combatants. They swarmed over the Mosizlak in a wave, completely covering him.

It took nearly four seconds for the shades to be thrown off of the Terran in a flash.

The flash was not as blinding as before, the shades were not hurled away so far.

"Dammit," Speaks said, turning away from the window.

Synko noticed the human was only fighting with one hand now, his other arm hanging limply. He was turning his head side to side quite a bit as he went into a flurry of blows that drove the shades back.

Synko heard the clack of a rifle and turned away from the window.

Speaks was pulling a rifle sling over his head as the Madame Diplomat picked up cardboard spraypainted red.

"Let me help you with that," Speaks said.

"Thank you," Dreams said softly.

"Come here and help me put this on," Ru'u said, holding out cardboard armor.

Synko nodded and started to move away from the gap in the mylar window covering.

He stopped, turning back to the gap.

The human was on his back, fighting against a half dozen shades, kicking with his legs, one hand moving.

Another human suddenly appeared in the street.

It was made of blue code with silver patches.

"Something is happening," Synko said.

"He's losing," Speaks said. "I don't really want to watch a friend of over ten years get ripped apart by dead men."

"No, there's someone else out there," Synko said.

"More fool them then," Speaks said.

A golden burst of light emanated from the blue figure.

The shades vanished.

"There's a blue Terran out there," Synko said.

"Blue?" Dreams moved up and peaked out the window. She went rigid. "Oh... oh my..."

"What?" Speaks asked.

"It's the Digital Omnimessiah," Dreams said softly, her voice awed. "He truly has returned."

As Synko watched, the blue figure helped the Terran to his feet, putting one of the Terrans flesh and blood arms over his own digital shoulders. Multiple other versions of the blue Terran were appearing, embracing the shades, both the shade and the duplicate blue Terran vanishing.

The digital figure helped the limping, slumped, battered Mosizlak to the front of the building as Synko watched.

-----

The chainsword's roar lowered as the wielder let the engine go to idle. Blinking, Ret.lek stared as the blue Terran kept appearing and reappearing. Dozens, hundreds of him appearing in the night to touch one of the shades. Each time he appeared there was a burst of gold light that revealed other shades.

The shades had stopped their assault that they had pushed forward even in the face of the howling of dogbois and the color 880808.

Up and down the line the dogbois were howling out their glee.

The shades were vanishing as the blue one touched them.

He exhaled, thumbing the off switch on the Treana'ad combat knife he'd been swinging with both hands, letting his shoulders slump. He looked at the XO, who was lighting a smokestick.

The XO nodded at him.

Ret.lek just nodded back then went back to staring at the scene in front of him.

In our darkest hour.