The final screams of a dying world - Darkened Skies, Blast Front Predators, No More Singles album, 4386PG

The nude Atrekna was first, climbing the wall quickly, faster than it could walk. It blurred and then vanished partway up the wall, only a distortion giving any hint to where it was at. It hung outside the hole blown in the wall for a moment, then vanished within.

After a moment the spear poked out and waved.

"Let us hurry. Remember, speed, silence, accuracy. Use your abilities, fight on your terms, as the Malevolent Universe has taught you, not on their terms," Dalvanak said. He touched the wall and levitated up, his fingers tight around the pistol grip.

The others followed quickly.

Through the hole led to a fairly large room that the EFP had completely destroyed. There was wrecked devices of strange and arcane construction and purpose, smashed crystals, destroyed neural tissue globes, and rotting biomechanical constructs. The far wall was cracked large enough for two Atrekna to move through it shoulder to shoulder, revealing a hallway.

The nude Atrekna in the lead, the group moved into the hallway, which terminated in a crystalline looking metal plated shaft that led up and down.

Dalvanak held out his hand into the shaft, the maimed hand scarred and missing fingers. Dalvanak closed his eyes for a moment, sensing the flow of phasic energy.

"Down," he said. He stepped back.

The nude Atrekna jumped to the far wall and began climbing down it one handed, the other hand tight around his spear. The Queen of Blades went next, followed the by Atekna wearing the mask of the fearsome Hamburger King.

One by one they all slipped into the shaft, Dalvanak in the middle, and floated down to the chamber at the bottom.

It was empty of the living, just ropes of biomechanical conduits and pipes, sparking crystal, neural network globes, and other arcane devices. Phasic energy hummed through the conduits comprised of arcane metals, carefully carved crystals, and living neural tissue, all of it suspended on tendon, bone, and alloy struts.

"Go forward. Find them, report back, your spear will be blooded soon enough, old friend," Dalvanak said.

"Anytime," the nude Atrekna answered. It turned, vanishing, and moved into the hallways. It ghosted down the passages, staying close to the walls. Where there were air currents, the nude Atrekna moved with them. In still rooms it moved slowly and carefully.

It checked each room, looking in without the benefit of its third eye. The cold red glow was muted in the narrow pupils. Each room was dark, nearly without light, just enough to be comfortable to the Atrekna.

Twice the nude one held still as a construct of crystal, phasonium, and living tissue moved by, carrying out orders given to it earlier. The third one was larger, with data crystals jutting up from the foam-like crystal base.

The nude one shadowed it, staying in the eddies of the air current, moving only when it moved.

It led the nude one to a large chamber, floating over the balcony railing and slowly lowering itself to the floor of the room below.

The room was massive. Huge carved crystals nearly five meters thick that extended from the roof and the floor, almost meeting. The points of the crystals left two meter gaps that held strange objects, half in realspace, half otherwhere. Phasic energy crackled from the points of the meters thick crystals, playing over the objects. From each of the object light lanced out. Rainbows with white cores, phasic energy coiling around the beams of light that connected the outside crystal formation's objects to another massive object hovering over the floor.

Beneath the center object were twisted and arcane machines, pulsating with phasic power. Dozens of gates were open beneath the object, sets of five gates set in geometric patterns. One gate was to Hellspace, and tendrils of energy reached out from the burning gate to the four others. Two for hyperspace, two for jumpspace.

Moving around the floor were Atrekna, carrying out strange and unknowable tasks.

The nude Atrekna peered over the balcony, keeping a tight control over its phasic powers, and watched carefully for a long moment.

Then it spun around and vanished back into the hallways.

Dalvanak waited patiently for The Hunter to return. That was something he had learned from the malevolent universe. When to move and when to stay still. When to fight, when to run. All important lessons if one was to survive for any length of time in such a young and energetic universe.

The Hunter emerged from a side passage, lowering its camouflage field with flickering kaleidoscope effects and a slight play of phasic lightning across its skin.

"Want some candy, mister?" it said.

Dalvanak nodded, then turned to the others. "The way is lightly guarded, but while our friend can move unseen, detectors and servitor constructs will spot us quickly."

He hefted the pistol.

"We must be ready to reach out to our misguided brethren with violence," Dalvanak said. He motioned the Queen of Blades and the Terrible Visage forward. "Our aggressive friend will go first, followed by the two of you. Lead the way."

The Atrekna in loricated armor moved first, the one with the giant head of the Hamburger King moving up next.

They had moved a third of the way through the passages when a side door rippled open in the crystal and three Atrekna stepped out into the middle of the group.

The reactions were instantaneous.

Sees Through Liquid swung his terrible weapon, a dirty Terran gym tube-sock with a can of Liquid Hate in it, smashing the lead Atrekna between the three eyes. Cartilage crunched, blood sprayed, and the third eye popped free. Music of the Spheres lifted his flute and blew a complex series of notes, puffing black dust from the end of the flute.

The last of the three Atrekna managed to make a squeak of a noise before needles, mirror bright and lethally sharp, appeared and speared through its head, the needles stopping, flipping over, and driving back into the body in less than a tenth of a second. The needles puffed into dust that streamed back into the flute.

The second one had even less time to react as Dalvanak grabbed their feeding tentacles and yanked it forward. The pupil of Dalvanak's third eye widened, the darkness of the iris full of burning red fire. Dalvanak stared into the other's third eye with his own.

The images that flooded the Atrekna's mind burned out its brain before it could even take a breath. None of its defenses could withstand the terrible images that flooded through its third eye.

Its brains boiled out of its eye sockets.

"Quickly now," Dalavanak ordered. "They know we're here now."

"Free candy," the nude Atrekna said. It changed course, no longer going for the long winding route that minimized discovery, but instead switching to a least time route.

They were halfway down the next corridor when oval openings irised in the walls, releasing a swarm of insect-like biomechanical and crystalline constructs.

The Queen of Blades spun to the attack, the blades that made up her wings lengthening, the tips spearing out, transfixing the constructs. Most were sliced in half, others stuck on the tips of the blades for a second, sparking and steaming, but two managed to take only glancing blows.

Sees Through Liquid smashed one of the two out of the air with his fearsome weapon. The others shattered beneath a hard strike with the shaft of the spear from The Hunter.

The group quickly moved on. They could feel the pulsing of the phasic alarm alerting the occupants of the citadel that they were under attack.

The door opened into what had been an empty room, revealing multiple slavespawn with whipping antenna, bared long conical teeth, and sharps claws clacking. Phasic energy leaked from the antenna, teeth, and claws, and the heavy chitin armored bodies glowed softly with the phasic power enhanced by the implanted purplish-pink crystals.

The three Atrekna inside raised up their shard rifles, their bodies protected by the damaged but still operational armor.

The Face of Tyranny stepped forward, lifting up spoon of pure phasonium in one hand and a fork of pure phasite in the other.

"Have it your way," it intoned in a booming voice.

Fire exploded in the room, white cored hellish fire that consumed everything. The shells of the slavespawn exploded as the internals superheated and were converted to steam. The Atrekna inside the armor didn't even scream as they liquified inside the now burning armor. Air rushed into the room as the flames roared.

In less than a handful of heartbeats the room was empty except for ash. One of the slavespawn looked perfectly intact, just made entirely out of dull black material.

It gave a sigh and crumbled into a pile of ash.

The Face of Tyranny stepped back, lowering his esoteric artifacts of power he had used to focus his abilities.

The group hurried down the next hallway.

Several twists and turns, a couple of ambushes, and the group reached a heavy set of crystalline doors that glowed with internal power. The Queen of Blades attempted to push them open to no avail. The Hunter helped her but still the doors resisted.

"They fortify the door with a group effort," the Queen of Blades stated, stepping back.

Dalvanak stepped forward.

"It will do them no good," the Maimed One stated. "They are but the whisper of gossips before the hurricane."

Dalvanak adjusted his veil, opening his third eye wide. Red fire filled the black pupils and spread to the whites of his eyes. Reddish and purple lightning crawled over his finery, snarling and crackling malevolently, unlike the normally silent phasic tendrils. He raised the maimed hand over his head, the entire hand wreathed in purple and red, a glowing nimbus that flowed down his arm, making his finery ripple and sparkle. The crystal around his feet cracked and the walls creaked. Red and dark purple energy spread from the floor across the glowing door in an intricate pattern of a single twisted bar with multiple smaller bars spreading from it. Each of the smaller bars had ever smaller bars off of it, until a sparkling tree of glowing energy showed on the door.

Dalvanak lowered his maimed hand in a fist, pointing it at the door.

"Friend," he intoned the Terran word of power.

The door shattered inward, the shards scything across the opening of the room, reducing two dozen slavespawn to slurry that splashed across equipment. The six waiting Atrekna were reduced to hunks of meat and sprays of blood.

The Atrekna inside stared with wide eyes, three screamed in terror as the terrible veiled visage of the Maimed One stood in the doorway, wrapped in unimaginable levels of power. His finery sparkled and rippled with phasic power that was so thick that tendrils of lighting crawled up and down the exquisitely embroidered cloth.

"CEASE THIS MADNESS!" the Maimed One roared, stepping into the room.

"IT'S LORD DALVANAK THE MAIMED ONE! KILL HIM AND YOU'LL BE FAMOUS!!" an Ancient One screamed, pointing at the Dalvanak.

The group of servitors carrying a crystal dropped it and fled the room.

Preceded by psychic assaults, Atrekna swooped down and slavespawn rushed forward as Dalvanak stepped into the room, his followers close behind. The Hunter sprang thirty meters into the air, going invisible, crouching down on a balcony for a moment before springing to the next one.

The Queen of Blades threw herself forward in a furious assault, her wings slashing out, blocking attacks, deflecting projectiles, even as they stabbed at the heavy armor, looking for an opening. The floor itself rose up on either side of her in bladed waves of crystal. The Face of Tyranny stepped forward, pointing with its terrible implements, fire roaring up to consume even phasonium alloy.

Sees Through Liquid pointed at where two crystals were connected to all of the Hellspace portals by thick conduits of pure energy. Inside the conduits were struggling phasic shades that screamed and clawed at the inside of the conduit. As the shades touched the Hellspace portals they turned from constructs of white energy to shadows broken up by cracks that leaked red light.

Music of Spheres nodded, lifting his flute, playing an aggressive and complex melody. Black dust puffed from his black finery, from his pantlegs, arm sleeves. The dust swirled as it moved toward the two massive crystals that had maddened faces pressed against the inside of the facets.

The Hunter jumped to the next balcony, looking down where a group of Ancient Ones desperately focused their power on attempting to stop Dalvanak's relentless advance without clearly exposing themselves.

The pistol went off and an Old One's upper torso flipped end over end through the air even as the two disconnected legs stood upright for a moment. The spray of liquified tissue hit crystals, hissing and bubbling.

Sees Through Liquid hefted a can, shaking it, and threw it at one of the massive crystals, aiming at the point of the floor column. The can flew end over end, arcing up, and slamming into the point below the hovering object that was held between the two pointed columns. Liquid sprayed out, coating the end of the crystal. The light, the phasic power, refracted and sparkled in the split second before the toxic brew of liquid chemicals was carmelized by the heat produced by the mechanism. Thick brownish gummy stuff coated the end.

The crystal cracked down the center as the carmelized liquid caused energy to backflow along the crystal matrices.

The Hunter dropped down in the middle of the group of six Ancient Ones. Its spear flashed as it stabbed one through the chest and yanked it back out. It spun, the hypersharp edge of the blade parting skin and bone and cartilage alike.

It was over before the first one completely collapsed onto the floor.

The Hunter leaped back up onto the wall, holding one with one hand.

The black mist wrapped around the two crystals full of screaming white line-art Terrans, lifting them up as the base crackled and snapped away, the crystalline foam squealing as the crystals were torn from the base.

Dalvanak held out one hand and flicked his fingers, the slavespawn rushing him all popping like ichor filled balloons.

"We come in peace, shoot to kill!" Dalvanak roared out, firing his pistol twice, ignoring the pain in his hand and elbow from the recoil.

Guided by Music of Spheres, the two crystals were flung into the Hellspace portals closest to them. The portals roared, tripling in size, as they greedily consumed the crystals. Hellspace fire roared out, converting everything around them to ash. For a second, tendrils of fire, unconstrained and unguided by the Atrekna, connected all the portals.

"TAKE A KNEE!" Dalavank bellowed as the Hunter dropped into the middle of the group.

The Queen of Blades stepped up between the group and Dalvanak, spreading her wings out in a wide fan, the two swords cross in front of her.

Dalvanak held out his maimed hand and a ragged V of energy appeared in front of him, the leading wedge pointed at where the portals were linked.

Fire exploded into the room as the portals all collapsed and the Hellspace energies backwashed into the room for the split second before the portals collapsed into themselves.