E1M8 Cont

INTERDIMENSIONAL TETHER STATUS: ACTIVE

So now Hayden could pull him out of Hell at any moment? The Slayer thought as he sulkingly marched through the service deck in the direction of the transport dock. He supposed it was beneficial. Neither he or Praetor Suit had interdimensional travel methods of their own, and the tether would be useful once he closed the Fracture from the other side and had to return to Mars.

Still, the Slayer had a bad feeling about Hayden being able to teleport him willy-nilly. He’d just seen Hayden warp him out of his bunker at the first sight of a confrontation, and he guessed that wouldn’t be the last time. No other extortioner the Slayer met had ever been able to hijack the Praetor Suit; the Slayer would have to be careful when the inevitable betrayal arrived.

Also, how did Hayden manage to reprogram the Suit? Not even the Argenta could do that; Hayden must have acquired technology from the other Corrax races, undoubtedly the Verimor.

Or, perhaps even…?

Nah, it must have been the Verimor.

With a sliding hiss, the door to the final airlock chamber slid open, revealing a pallet jack loaded with power cells, an opened crate from Mixom containing chainsaws, and four opened Argenta sarcophagi of Separatist making, bearing the symbol of the four marauding Zealots.

…the sky burned with siege projectiles and dragonfire…

…four figures rose from the mountaintop…

…their eyes blazed with hellfire, but their hands crackled with the divine…

…dull green armors, horned helmets…

…at their lead stood the fallen Royal Prosecutor, great horns rising over their accusing gaze…

…firewhip in one hand, plasma axe in the other…

Without thinking, the Slayer equipped the super shotgun and blazed to where the open sarcophagi lay. He aimed the shotgun at one’s interior, but it and the other sarcophagi were empty, their occupants nowhere to be found.

The UAC had found and woken the Zealots. He hadn’t sensed their presence on Mars, so clearly they weren’t on the planet anymore.

This was bad. This was really, really bad.

The sentry bot on his shoulder looked curiously at the sarcophagi and then beeped inquisitively at him. He sighed and lowered the shotgun. Wherever the Zealots were, they were out of his reach for the moment, and he’d have to deal with them later.

He stepped into the airlock and pressed the cycle panel before stepping out into the transport dock, a wide exterior deck with destroyed transport craft that opened to a wide canyon in Mars’ surface.

How the hell did the UAC even find Argent D’Nur?! The Slayer restlessly wondered as he walked towards the canyon edge. How did they ever wake the Zealots?! He’d put those bastards in those coffins himself!

More importantly, had they found Valkyrie?

Gleaming armor of ivory and gold, radiant Solar Lance bearing a sliver of the Argenta sun, and shining wings of light soaring with the strength of the Ancestrals, carrying her authority and power to all corners of the Argenta kingdom.

Firstborn daughter of King Novik, Holy Empyrean Knight of Exultia, and the current and last Dragonborn of Argent D’Nur.

Valkyrie never joined the Separatists, she fought ardently against the forces of Hell her whole life! Not only was she Argenta royalty and Voice of the Ancestrals, she’d been graced by the Divinity Machine long before HE ever was!

But that raised the question: where was Valkyrie? Both she and the Seraphim disappeared during the fall of Argent D’Nur, and the Slayer never found either after that. She likely followed the Seraphim into his exile. Valkyrie would never betray Argent D’Nur, but would she defy Heaven? He wasn’t sure.

Wherever she was, the Slayer knew she was alive. Unlike the Zealots, the Divinity Machine had granted her true immortality, just as it had him.

Brining his focus back from the past to focus on the present, the Slayer leaned over the cliff to gaze into the yawning abyss. Rather than a single continuous fissure, the canyon was a complex series of crests and ravines that stretched across the surface at varying heights and depths. Even with his Clearsight, he couldn’t see the bottom anymore in its deepest places, and his HUD marked the Executive Research Division more than two kilometers ahead. The peaks were too far apart to leap across them and reach the other end, and the Slayer was not about to fight his way through a pitch-black chasm filled with who-knows-what. A multitude of bomber and gunner drones circled high above in holding patterns, as if awaiting orders.

Where the hell where Hayden’s Scout Bots?

“Ha ha ha ha ha!”

The Slayer turned puzzledly towards the sound of metallic laughter closing on him from throughout the facility, catching sight of a dozen humanoid figures leaping across the rooftops of the Advanced Research Complex before landing in a semi-circle around him, cornering him with his back to the chasm. He equipped the HAR in preparation of a fight with Pilots, but he lowered the gun in confusion when he finally saw the figures up close.

“What’s this now?” One of the soldiers spoke in a harsh mocking tone. “A little green army man, lost and separated from his team?”

“Ha ha ha ha!” The other cyborg soldiers cackled around him, but the Slayer merely stared in mild bewilderment. Talking intelligent zombies? Were these the Griefers that Hayden’s computer talked about?

“What the hell is he wearing?” One of them yelled, a brutish soldier with a sniper rifle, deployable shield wall, and grapple hook. “That’s got to be the ugliest combat armor I’ve ever seen!”

“It looks like a shitty dollar-store version of those HALO suits!”

The Slayer’s surprise quickly soured into irritation. His Suit was created years before those flimsy HALO rip-offs and was INFINITELY more powerful!

“What’s the matter, trooper? Cat got your tongue?” Another Griefer with a grenade launcher and gravity mines on its waist asked, carelessly moseying closer to the Slayer who felt unusually bothered by the demon’s nonchalant attitude.

Did they not know who he was?

The Griefer then twirled the launcher around and slammed the stock directly into the Slayer’s visor, whose head sharply snapped sideways with the sudden strike, dropping his ARMOR to 198. A vein throbbed in his temple as he began trembling with rage, and the sentry bot on his shoulder whistled softly while worryingly shaking its head.

“Look at him, he’s shaking with fear! Ha ha ha! Did you piss yourself too, private?

Maybe the Hell Lords will be kind enough to give us your head as a trophy! Keep it nice and pretty within that helmet while it’s hanging ON OUR WALL!”

The Griefer threw its launcher stock again at the Slayer’s face, but this time the Slayer effortlessly slung the weapon past his face into the canyon below, grabbing the Griefer in his other hand and bringing him close to his face. The other Griefers exclaimed in alarm as they raised their weapons but didn’t open fire yet.

The Slayer stared down the demon in his grip, bringing it close to his helmet so it could see through his opaque visor and bear witness to what lay behind. The Griefer’s glassy eyes widened with mortal terror, and the Slayer knew the demon realized the truth.

He was.

The motherfucking.

Doom Slayer.

He then swung the operative into the ground while charging a Blood Punch, effectively vaporizing the demon on the rocks and covering the immediate area with fine red matter. He grabbed two more by the throat and tossed them into the canyon as the rest of the squadron mobilized.

Certain Griefers grappled onto the rooftop and shot sniper rifles while camping behind orange shield walls, others remained on the ground to spam grenades at him.

Some tried to flee.

One Griefer dove into the canyon and disappeared into the night. Another leapt past its companions on the roof and disappeared over the rafters. Two more tried vainly to force open the airlock gate.

“Can’t make it! Can’t make it, this shit’s stuck!

Out of my way! Door’s stuck!

DOOR’S STUCK!”

The cornered Griefers turned around and fearfully opened fire on the Slayer. Without looking, he kicked an enemy grenade in their direction to promptly hear an explosion and the sound of splattering gore.

The Slayer switched to the phase rifle and opened fire the Campers’ shield covers, bursting the shields and killing the operatives quickly with a barrage of plasmoids.

Too easy. Of the last four Spammer left on the deck, he killed one with a shotgun shrapnel shot before downing another two with explosive slugs. He turned to the last one to find it kneeling at the edge of the deck and pointing directly at him.

“Target marked! Bring the thunder!”

Huh?

The Slayer heard the rumbling of an approaching gunner drone as the last Griefer ran for cover, and he leapt into the canyon just as a barrage of explosive machine gun fire razed the dock he’d stood on, though not before getting nicked in the crossfire.

The Griefers could command the drones?!

Behind him, the last Spammer leapt into the canyon before firing its jump pack to lift itself over the gap. Like the rest of its companions, the Griefer was crude in its movement and did not possess the Pilots’ advanced jump pack or grapple hook, and he could easily outrun-

A cyber caco rose from the chasm in front of the Slayer with mouth wide open.

-FUCK!

He threw a proximity mine and charged a Blood Punch before approaching the demon, breaking its armor with the strike and finishing it off with a point-blank super shotgun blast. The Slayer could see more Cacodemons, lost souls, and imps rising from the canyon, disturbed by all the commotion.

“Calling reinforcements! I repeat, calling reinforcements now!”

The roaring of passing aircraft brought the Slayer’s attention upward, and he caught sight of several dropships airdropping multitudes of Griefers into the canyon.

They could call for backup?!

The Sentry Bot on his shoulder aimed and fired its new machine gun attachment at the operatives in a dutiful attempt to fend them off – which the Slayer noticed consumed from his own bullet pool – but the bot’s machine gun had limited range and only managed to kill two approaching Griefers, the others struck by its rounds mending their flesh wounds within moments.

The Slayer leapt onto a protruding crest and slid across its side before jumping off again, but a barrage of grenades and Cacodemon lightning bombarded his position and pummeled him with shrapnel. 165 ARMOR. The descending Campers deployed parachutes and pelted him with sniper rifles. 131 ARMOR. He fired a shot with the HAR as he leapt across the various rock walls, but he missed and the shot strayed far-off.

“With aim like that, you must make a fucking mess around the toilet!” A Griefer yelled.

Flaring with fury at the insult, the Slayer switched to the rocket launcher and fired a rocket into the operative’s vicinity and remotely detonated it, faltering the Griefer before switching to the combat shotgun and killing it.

Fuck sniper rifles, the shotgun was all he needed.

Coming into range of an airdropped squad of Spammers, which he noticed where pinned on an isolated crest, the Slayer loaded a shrapnel shot and fired it at the demons. To his surprise, the demons dropped explosive charges on the ground and jumped on top before detonating them, hurling themselves with the blast without suffering any harm. Sliding down the wall to avoid their hail of grenades, he switched to his new lightning gun and pulled the trigger.

FWEOOOOOOOHHH!!! The rifle unleashed a sizzling white stream of shrieking electricity that fractured on impact into a myriad of bolts that sought out and fried the Griefers within moments, popping in surges of plasma and gore.

!!WARNING!!

LOCKED ON

A laser sight settled on the Slayer as a volley of smart bullets rained on him. 97 ARMOR. A Griefer followed close behind while wielding a Smart Pistol that automatically targeted him. He quickly slid deeper along the walls of the canyon, dodging a Cacodemon’s bite in an attempt to find cover from the Griefer in the pitch blackness of the nighttime chasm.

SONAR DETECTED

Sure enough, the Slayer’s enhanced ears caught the high-pitched ringing of a sonar pulse coming from above as the message appeared on his HUD, marking his position as another warning flashed on his visor.

!!WARNING!!

LOCKED ON

There was a short whirr and a beam of searing energy found the Slayer in the darkness, striking him precisely in the back and lowering his ARMOR to 76. Looking up in the direction of the attack, he found the same Griefer with a Static Rifle and shoulder-mounted stability rig aiming the smoking weapon at him. The operative must have hacked that same stability rig into some sort of aimbot, reprogramming its active suspension systems into automatically tracking marked targets.

The Hacker raised and aimed its weapon again, and with no room to dodge the Slayer rushed to put distance between himself and the demon. He raced for the edge of the crest he stood on, took a great leap towards the next distant edge, and missed. His hand grazed against the surface of the rock as he plummeted into the chasm.

The faint ringing of metal against stone brought the falling Slayer’s attention upward, and he caught sight of two distant humanoid figures sliding down the canyon walls after him, leaving a bright trail of dust in their wake. Unlike the cyborg Griefers, these figures had clean white exteriors, and a quick glance with his Clearsight confirmed they were not demonic or even alive, but robots.

The figures deftly and nimbly leapt from one jagged rock surface to the next, sliding and running across the walls as they chased after the Slayer and the nearby Hacker. The Hacker aimed its Static Rifle at a Scout Bot and fired, but this teleported out of the way of the beam and launched a bright white projectile from its hand, catching the Hacker in the chest and warping it away from the Scout Bot. The Hacker reappeared thirty meters away before slamming on the side of the canyon, leaving a bright red stain on the rock walls.

One of the bots raised an arm and fired a fast blue projectile in the Slayer’s direction, but this flew past him and erupted into a swirling blue portal directly below him. The Slayer passed through the portal and immediately found himself catapulting through the air above the canyon, arcing back down to land on a solid rock surface away from the demons. Hearing the sounds of two metallic entities landing in front of him, the Slayer raised his gaze at the Scout Bots, who were keenly studying him.

They were unimpressive robotic androids, with the size and shape of a human, donning clean white UAC body armor. Their heads were entirely robotic and consisted of what appeared to be an OCULUS core with the rough proportions of a human head, revealing a large glowing central eye. One Bot had an orange eye and was labeled P3, while the other’s eye was blue and its ID was A7. The Slayer noticed their arms possessed intricate components, with palm emitters that glowed the same color as their eyes. Portal guns.

The Slayer recognized their design. They were the same types of droids he found with the doomed UAC expedition in the Kadingir Sanctum.

“The latest and most advanced line of operator chasses from Iris Solutions, equipped with cutting-edge Mars tech.

The third generation UAC Scout Bots.”

The orange robot in front of him raised its hand to gleefully wave at the Slayer, making a chirpy metallic whirr that sounded vaguely like hello, which his sentry bot eagerly returned. The blue robot beside it kept its gaze on the Slayer. P3 suddenly elbowed A7, who looked back at its partner before warily raising its arm and giving him a small wave.

A baffled Slayer raised an eyebrow. These were the advanced droids meant to help him?

A frag grenade suddenly exploded on the ground between them. The Slayer winced as shrapnel struck his ARMOR, while translucent bodyshields appeared from the Scout Bots to block the attack. The horde was closing in, and the Griefers had followed via the robots’ own portals.

“Follow the Scout Bots!” Continued Hayden. “They will take you to the other side, but you must follow their directions!”

A series of marked linear waypoints appeared on the Slayer’s HUD to highlight a path through the canyon, but he’d had enough.

An infuriated Slayer ran and leapt off the rocky crest on which he stood towards the next nearest ledge, spinning around and firing the Gauss Cannon for a momentum boost to cross the gap as the Scout Bots wailed in alarm and chased after him.

He dropped several proximity mines behind to booby trap the canyon as he escaped the demons, and the sounds of several explosions and crumbling rocks indicated some had found their targets, but the mob behind him kept snapping at his heels.

SNAP!!

Lurching as something froze him in place, the Slayer looked down to find himself caught in the swirling well of a gravity mine, his ARMOR steadily ticking down from the tidal forces. 63. 60. 57.

Get the f- GET THE FUCK OFF!!

Unable to break the mine with his foot as he floated, he equipped the shotgun and destroyed the mine with a solid blast, which exploded and took another 13 ARMOR but dropped him. He leapt towards the next wall and Gauss-boosted to reach it just as a pair of portals from the Scout Bots appeared in front of him to help him cross the gap. He passed through the portals and made it to the opposite wall, not stopping as he leapt off again towards a flat outcropping to spin around and equip the HAR.

PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!! Three Griefers were torn to shreds by automatic 50 cal fire and plunged into the canyon. POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! A quick burst from the Pulse Rifle downed a Cacodemon. A Hacker leapt through a Bot’s portal and aimed a Vortex Rifle as an aimbot warning appeared on the Slayer’s HUD. He switched to the Lightning Gun and primed its alternate fire, letting the auto-targetting crosshairs settle on the Griefer before pulling the trigger.

BZZZZHHHHT POPP!! The crackling microwave beam surged from the weapon and found its way to the demon, electrifying it in the air before exploding it in a burst of sizzled flesh and superheated air. The concussive blast faltered two nearby Spammers, one of which was finished by his Sentry Bot’s machine gun and the other by a flicked shot from the Gauss Cannon.

Quick-scope? Make it no-scope.

As he raced away, the Slayer checked his ammo pools. He was full on rockets and still had bullets, but his plasma and flechette count was critically low. He could boost himself with the rockets’ blasts, but unlike with the Gauss Cannon he ran the risk of self-harm. Though he was almost across the chasm.

He leapt off the rock wall just as the Scout Bots launched another pair of portals that warped him to a nearby rock crest, switching to the rocket launcher to aim it downward and propel himself, but he mistimed the jump and merely blasted himself with an Argent explosion. 18 ARMOR.

“What’s wrong, newbie?” Shouted a Spammer lobbing incendiary grenades at him. “Don’t know how to FUCKING ROCKET JUMP?!”

Gritting his teeth to the point of pain, the Slayer spun around and fired a rocket at the approaching Griefer, hitting and killing the demon with the single shot.

At least he wasn’t a loser that spammed grenades just because he couldn’t aim for shit!

WARNING

!!LOCKED ON!!

The Slayer turned in the direction of the Hacker taking aim with a sniper rifle, but the Slayer broke into a Rampage to dodge the shot and the bolt missed him.

“Even with an aimbot, your aim is still garbage!!” The Slayer heard a Camper shout at the nearby Hacker.

“Shut the fuck up, you fucking faggot!!” Spat the Hacker.

“I’d call you cancer, but at least cancer gets fucking kills!!”

To the Slayer’s surprise, the Hacker turned and shot the Camper point-blank in the head, switching to its Smart Pistol to execute another three Griefers before pointing at the Slayer.

“Killstreak reached! Go for Hellstorm Missile!”

Go for what?!

Hearing the rumble of an approaching drone and high-pitched whistle of a missile launch, the Slayer and Scout Bots purposefully dived into the chasm below as the Hellstorm missile fragmented into cluster rockets that struck near their position, wiping out a portion of the horde and his remaining ARMOR.

So that’s how they did it. They could call in air support if they achieved a certain number of kills, these ‘killstreaks.’

SONAR DETECTED

The Hacker had chased after him, reaching into its belt for a ballistic knife before launching it at the Slayer. The Slayer reflexively caught the blade out of the air and mindlessly flicked it back the demon, surprised when it struck between the eyes and blew its head off.

Holy shit, he wasn’t expecting that throw to actually land.

He soared through the air after passing through the Scout Bots’ exit portal, turning to see A7 and P3 beside him before the three of them landed on a large flat clearing away from the war zone, the Executive Research Division visible in the distance and accessible from the nearby ridges. However, the remaining Griefers followed via their grapples and satchel jumps and landed around the trio as imps and cacos lazily followed. Assault drones hovered behind the Griefers, and bomber drones rumbled above. He turned to P3 beside him, who looked back at him before slyly closing its one eye at an angle while beeping sneakily. Almost as if it was winking.

He understood and opened fire.

P3 immediately teleported into the mob to engage in close-quarter combat while A7 remained with the Slayer. The orange Scout Bot blinked in and out of the demon horde, warping them off the cliff with its white orbs while killing them in single punches as the blue one opened portals around the Slayer to teleport charging demons away, all the while he and the Sentry Bot opened fire on the horde with machine guns. With precise and calculated teleports, P3 avoided enemy attacks while baiting the Griefers into shooting themselves, and A7’s portals redirected most of the demons’ grenades and fireballs back at them. 186 HEALTH. 162. 141. Low on bullets and plasma, the Slayer looked to a charging Griefer while drawing the chainsaw.

BZZZTT!!

The demon roared in agony as the Slayer thrust the blade into its abdomen, using its hands in a vain attempt to push the Slayer back before he slashed the saw through its head in a wide spray of blood. The bisected corpse fell to the ground and the Slayer had enough ammo for the Lightning Gun.

FWEOOOOOOOHHH!!! The crackling stream split into a short-ranged spray of bolts as it contacted the demons, electrifying and damaging others around them. He swept the beam across the multitude and threw proximity mines into their vicinity. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Noticing A7’s nearby portals, he fired into them as the Scout Bot opened and closed them, releasing lightning discharges and grenades all throughout the arena at angles impossible for the demons to predict. He leapt into one portal and warped to the other side of the arena, switching to the super shotgun to blast three Griefers to shreds before jumping back. A Blood Punch killed two Campers keeping their distance on the far end right before the Slayer reappeared twenty meters away and killed another three with explosive slugs. Cacodemon lightning balls and drone fire pelted him, as did the splashback of countless explosives. 114 HEALTH. 97. 73.

“Strike zone marked! Go for fire!”

A growing rumble on the horizon indicated the approach of a bomber drone, one the Slayer could see was equipped with three strike missiles. He turned to A7’s portals and had an idea. Waving at the bot to get its attention, he pointed in the direction of the drone before pointing back at himself and upward. The robot nodded in understanding and created two portals in front of him, one above the other. The Slayer jumped into the bottom portal and surged through the two in an endless loop, quickly reaching terminal velocity before A7 recreated the top portal fifty meters above the clearing, launching the Slayer high into the sky as he charged a Gauss siege blast, took careful aim at the drone, and fired.

PSHEWW!!

Direct hit. The drone exploded in a burst of flame and metal before having a chance to launch, and as he fell back down the Slayer equipped the rocket launcher. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Taking care to avoid the robots, he rained rockets on the horde and left their sizzling gore splattered across the rocks before charging a Blood Punch and releasing it on the ground in the center of the clearing. POWW! The last five Griefers were eviscerated by the blast and scattered into the canyon. The mob was gone.

PEW PEW PEW PEW! BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM! Four plasma grenades stuck onto the Slayer and erupted, bringing his HEALTH down to 52. The Spammer raised its plasma grenade launcher once more and prepared to fire, but before the Slayer could react, A7 leapt in front of him and blocked the attack, the plasma grenades bursting its overshield and blasting at its chassis. The damaged robot fell to the floor and the Slayer heard a horrific metallic screech from P3’s direction. The Spammer turned its weapon at him and the Slayer rushed back, but not because of the demon. Without warning, an orange portal appeared behind the Griefer and an enraged P3 teleported into the demon, a faint orange aura surrounding the Spammer for a moment before the demon contorted in agony and P3 reemerged in its position, telefragging the Griefer and splattering its organs across the clearing and the Slayer’s Suit. He turned to A7 but the smoking Scout Bot was already picking itself up to tiredly give him a thumb’s up. He offered his hand to the robot and A7 took it, helping the bot to its feet before P3 stepped forward and brushed against his elbow.

COMPATIBLE ROBOTIC UNITS DETECTED

HACK MODULE ENGAGED

Suddenly, a green spark emanated where the Slayer touched the robots and they both warbled in alarm, green translucent shielding spreading across their chasses.

ROBOTIC UNITS SUCCESSFULLY REINFORCED

STRUCTURE AND PROGRAMMING FORTIFIED AGAINST DEMONIC CORRUPTION

The shielding faded and the Scout Bots looked to the Slayer in wonder, their minor damage mended and even A7’s chassis not smoking anymore.

So this was the power of the Hack Module. The Slayer understood why Hayden prized it so much.

RWOOOOMMMM!!

Three dropships were descending through the clouds headed directly for them. Preparing for another intense confrontation, the Slayer and two Scout Bots raised their Gauss Cannon and portal guns, waiting for the ships to come into range.

PEWW PEWW PEWW PEWW PEWW!!

A barrage of blue plasma bolts suddenly rained from the cloud cover and tore one dropship apart. The second dropship broke off from the charge and tried retreating, but a second barrage blasted that one to bits and struck the third one’s engines.

This time, the Slayer spotted the glint of white metal speed through the clouds.

The third smoking ship careened dangerously in the air and plunged straight for the trio. Just as the Slayer and Scout Bots warily stepped back, there was a sonic boom and the last ship exploded in the air, scattering smoking metal across the canyon and the clearing.

“BZTTTT!!”

A harsh blare preceded the arrival of three large spherical drones the size of Cacodemons, ominously descending from the cloud of flame and smoke. They bore white plating blazoned with the UAC logo and their central Oculus eyes were armored as well, flanked by two pairs of heavy pulse cannons on both sides of their chassis and faintly glowing ion jets.

‘UAC HUNTER DRONES,’ as identified by the scanning module on the Slayer’s HUD.

With a shrill ringing, the Hunter Drones projected blue scanning beams from their optic sensors and waved these across the group, the Slayer raising his hand to shield his eyes from the beams. The beams landed on him and turned red as the drones aimed and armed their cannons.

He raised his own Lightning Gun as the Scout Bots backed away in alarm.

Ding.

The Drones’ beams suddenly turned green and they disarmed their pulse cannons, turning to the horizon before flying off at thunderous speeds.

“I apologize for that,” explained Hayden. “Oculus-based assets have always been volatile, more so after the invasion.

Nonetheless, you have arrived to the Executive Research Division. The Scout Bots will now leave you to continue the mission on your own.”

He turned to the blue and orange robots beside him. For walking tin cans, they fought pretty good. P3 raised its hand to its head and gave him a quick salute before grabbing A7 by the arm and leaping off the cliff with an electronic woo-hoo!. Racing to the edge and looking below, the Slayer saw the robots pass through a portal before reappearing far ahead in the canyon, leaping and warping across the rock walls as they vanished into the distance.

Huh, he scoffed with amusement.

Crazy sons of bitches.

* * *

CONTROL LAB – USS LOTHAR

DEIMOS OPERATING BASE

I couldn’t believe it. I passed my hand over the heavily corroded plate on the wall, feeling the worn indentations of the engraved letters beneath my fingers.

Deimos.

This town…is built atop a manmade Deimos starship. The asteroid above us, the planetoid…

This is Deimos. Deimos! The lost moon of Mars! In Hell, after all this time!

Vesper stood beside me and remained as quiet as ever.

But, that means…these people.

Were they…?

Vesper suddenly floated up to the sealed gate and gently pressed her hand against it, and the door heavily slid open with a deep grinding rumble that shook thick layers of dust and grime off its surface.

Behind the gate was an uncannily mundane command room that seemed bizarre after I’d spent so long in such an eerie location. There were ancient panels and monitors that still faintly blinked and sputtered in the dark, corroded and rusty but still legible.

LOCATION: UNKNOWN

STATUS: OPERATIONAL

GATEWAY: OFFLINE

“Umm…”

I looked down at the mess of buttons, switches, and levers in front of me. I could read their labels but didn’t understand what they meant, and had no idea what to do to bring the system back online.

“Breathe deeply. Relax. It’ll come to you.”

“Colonel? What am I supposed to-?”

“Trust your gut. You’ve got this.”

I did as the Colonel ordered, breathing in and letting my mind go blank. As I did I could feel sensations, vague whisperings left over from the people that had occupied this vessel long ago. Their presence and thoughts still imprinted on this cursed place. The startup sequence.

Press this series of buttons, turn these switches on, bring that lever up slowly, checking the screen to make sure the energy levels stay balanced.

The ship began to shake, and looking at a monitor I saw interior footage of an access port opening on the surface of the ship, through which a tall cylindrical framework rose into the town above.

That’s it! The gateway!

“Bzzzt.”

Hearing a chilling buzz beside me, I turned to find Vesper holding a waspid in her hand, staring attentively at the hellish insect before it took wing and flew off into the hallway. She was holding the waspid eggsac I had been carrying.

“What are you…doing?”

She pulled one of the eggs free and held it aloft, which floated for a moment in her hand before she clenched her fist, and after unclenching it the egg was gone.

“Huh?”

She then extended her arm towards the hallway and invoked a small swarm of waspids from thin air, which were shot from her hand and surged through the door with a loud buzz.

“Whoa.”

Turning back to me, she plucked another egg loose and offered it to me. I took the egg in my hand, feeling the warm pulsating of the larvae as I wondered how to replicate her spell.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Just do exactly what she did.”

“‘Exactly what-’? How am I supposed to replicate an entirely new spell?”

“You already did. Back with the Skullworms.”

I thought back to the flaming dive I’d performed with my spear against those horrific beasts.

“That was a heat-of-the-moment thing! They were chasing me, I just had an idea! I don’t think I can do that again!”

“Don’t think, soldier! Do!

Do whatever feels right, just act.”

“…All right, I’ll tr…I’ll do it.”

I took a deep breath and sighed. I closed my eyes and focused on the egg in my palm.

All right, absorb. I’ve got to absorb it. Maybe I…fuse its essence with mine? No, not fusing…I’m synergizing its essence with my own.

Incubating it within my being.

Okay, here goes.

I held the egg and focused on bringing its essence into myself. The firm membrane, the vitreous fluid, the gestating juvenile waspids. Part of but not of me.

ABSORB.

Immediately, the egg and the larvae within coalesced into pale fluid that seeped into my hand.

That…that did it!

“Okay, I think that worked. Now, to release.”

To cast the waspids as a swarm…I have to reproduce the eggs, accelerate the incubation, disengage the waspids’ essence from my own…and release. All of this requires energy. Argent energy. Okay, okay. Here goes.

I uttered a new series of words and phrases in my mind, warily joining them together before applying the energy and raising my arm towards the doorway, ready to cast the spell.

Release.

My hand glowed and with a grotesque sensation I released the larvae from the hand, but the undeveloped maggots splattered across the wall and shrieked weakly on the floor before dying and withering.

“Ohhh, God!”

“You’re doing it wrong. You’re trying to force the spell.”

“I’m doing it exactly as she did it!”

“No you’re not. You’re doing it as someone still thinking by our universe’s rules, and not by those of Hell’s.

Those aren’t wasps, John. They’re not bugs or insects, they’re entities from a dimension completely alien and unknown to you, bearing only superficial resemblance to wasps from your world.

They don’t eat or breathe like you do, they don’t grow from eggs as you’re familiar with. They’re technically not even made up of matter – their ‘flesh’ and ‘blood’ is completely unlike your own.

Don’t force them to develop a certain way. Just hold them in your being, supply the energy they require, let them develop in their own way, and then…let go.”

“Okay, I think I’ve got it.”

Breathe in, breath out. Raise my hand towards the gate. Reproduce the eggs, nourish them, but don’t force them. Provide the energy, but don’t cultivate them into something they’re not. Let them grow by themselves and then…

RELEASE.

There was a small surge of flame from my hand and the swarm flew out at thunderous speeds, buzzing loudly through the doorway and surging down the corridor.

“I…I did it!”

“Congratulations, you’re now a full-fledged spellcrafter.”

“Ha ha ha! That’s amazing!

But, how did I manage to do this? I understood I could absorb spells and recreate them, I never thought I could craft my own.”

“It’s because of the Bloodstone. It expanded your energy reserves, your abilities, your mind.

It’s all thanks to her.”

I fell silent and looked at Vesper. She remained in the same spot, quiet as ever, staring calmly at me.

Why is she doing all this? Why is she helping me?

“BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!”

WARNING: UNIDENTIFIED VESSEL APPROACHING

Turning to face the blaring alarm, I saw a shape appear on a grainy radar monitor. An ominous and familiar hourglass, a Hellish ship arriving at the town gates.

My captors.

“It’s them. They’re here.”

“John…John!”

Vesper had already drifted out of the room and was gliding swiftly down the corridor.

“Hey! Wait up!”

* * *

KILLS - 57%

SECRETS - 40

TIME - 30:00