“So, I take everything’s fine then?” Ichi asked, trying to focus on the screen. For humans, it was one of those massive, stupidly expensive things one would puff and extoll every time someone visits yet never use outside of that because of how inconvenient it was. For her, it was about as big as a slightly oversized smartwatch display. Not exactly the best setup.
“Y-yes, everything’s fine” Kendall nodded. “There’s a l-lot more little ones running a-around but… I d-don’t really mind.” She presented a woman in a lab coat sitting on her palm. “I have lots of p-people to talk to… Lots of new f-friends.” She absent-mindedly petted the woman, who didn’t seem particularly happy about that, yet also didn’t look all that bothered.
“Good to hear, dear.” Ichi sighed, her pupils contracting into razor-thin slits. “And aside from that? No issues, no kaijus, no…”
“We’re scanning the island and the… well, about as much of the water as we can,” the woman on Kendall’s palm interrupted. “There are signs of kaijus but so far, we’ve only detected titan lifeforms.”
Peter placed his hands on Ichi’s forehead, sensing the tension invading it. “One of the dead ones then.”
He knew she understood but also sensed that her paranoia refused to let go of worry. Peter wasn’t surprised – as far as he knew, it was the first time they were separated since… well, ever. A strange thought. Ichi acted like a mother for Kendall… Wait, would that make him a father, or a… stepfather then? He quickly glanced at Ichi, then at the screen, noted how ridiculous getting called that by either of them would be, and discarded the thought.
But not before imagining asking Ichi to call him ‘daddy’, and how much shit she’d be giving him for it till the end of time. Peter tried to mask his laughter with coughing.
“What?” Ichi asked, eyeing towards him despite being incapable of seeing him up there.
“Nothing.” He covered his mouth. “I’m just being stupid.”
“A-alright then…” Kendall cleared her throat and turned to the woman in her palm. “Miss Jane is t-teaching me new recipes a-and uhmm… and…”
Jane glanced up at her, before taking the initiative. “Ken’s a really good chef. The entire camp eats her stew at least once a day.”
Kendall turned her head sideways, trying to hide the blush and smile, succeeding at neither. It wasn’t exactly hard to believe though – her dishes, as indescribable as they were – were top notch as far as he was concerned. They only became tedious because of how often he was forced to eat them, which the camp mercifully didn’t have to experience.
“T-they’re not t-that good…” Kendall mumbled, pressing her lips together. “A-anyways… w-what about Ni? Is she o-okay?”
“She’s watching elections,” Peter stated bluntly.
“What?” Jane asked, her composure broken.
Peter rolled his eyes, slid off of Ichi, and held the camera to show the other dragon. Laying on the ground like Ichi, surrounded by a group of workers and sending tremors through the ground by constantly smashing her fists into it as if trying to chant or encourage the absolute shitshow on screen.
“…Why?” Jane mumbled, visibly bewildered.
“Don’t ask.” Peter returned the camera and hesitated. “And don’t look at our browser history.”
Kendall turned completely red, her eyes jumping between Jane and what were probably Ichi’s and Peter’s faces on the screen. Sensing the impending collapse, he patted Ichi’s cheek, signaling they should give her some space to process, and maybe explain without having them as witnesses. Despite the side-eye that earned him, the counter-side-eye made her huff, which in Ichi’s case counted as a reluctant agreement.
“Sure, dear. We’re gonna be here for a few weeks from what the tinies told me,” Ichi announced. “If you need anything, just call. And if things go bad, I can fly home in…”
“Ichi…” Peter interrupted.
She pressed her lips together, before making a resounding clip with her tongue. “Just know you can call any time, okay?”
“Y-yes… Thank y-you, sis…” Kendall muttered, before ending the stream.
Ichi stared at the screen displaying nothing more than a light-blue menu as if trying to conjure her sister back. Alas, it was not meant to be.
“Aren’t you overreacting a bit?” Peter asked, pushing the setup back inside and locking the door.
“What do you mean?” She frowned, adjusting herself.
“You literally offered to fly thousands of kilometers on a whim.”
“Not on a whim,” Ichi scoffed. “If she needs me.”
“Uhuh.” He nodded mockingly. “Don’t worry, the ‘tinies’ will take care of her.”
Ichi shifted, rising on her elbows to focus both eyes on him. “Did I offend you, tiny?” she asked, poking him in the stomach.
“Of course, I’m about to dump you,” he replied. “She’s a big girl… dragon, Ichi. She’ll be fine.”
“I know, I know, I just…” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her snout.
He began tracing a few coarse scales on her shoulder, regretting how little his touch could actually do. Still, she always appreciated the thought more and this time was no exception. “I get it. But she’s safer back home than…”
“I know. That’s why I allowed her to stay,” she grumbled. “Still feels wrong to… leave her like that…”
An audible crack resonated in the air when one of Ichi’s fingers cracked as she balled her fists, her face pure tension. He knew she wouldn’t explode – the most that could happen would be her smashing the ground once or twice – but that wasn’t what concerned him. The true problem was her uncanny ability to internalise and subsequently silence her own emotions. They would then end up swirling inside for the rest of eternity. Untying the ancient knots, letting her relax and rewind were the most important parts of this relationship. At least from his side.
“Love… would you like a foot rub?”
Ichi snorted and opened one eye to look at him with something that would resemble amusement, were it not for the stress. “I’m too dirty for that, and you know it.”
“And I can still do it, and you know it.” He shrugged, looking straight up.
“Because you’re stupid.”
“Yeh, sure – I’m the stupid one in this relationship.”
Ichi slowly blinked before putting a single finger on top of his head. “You do know I can smash you into the dirt at any time?”
Peter crossed his arms, ignoring the threatening digit. “Consider me shaking. And get over here.”
Once her snout was levelled with him, he placed a big, long kiss on it, tickling the area below her nostrils and rising a slight smirk out of her. “Stop worrying so much. Everything is fine. They’ll reach the stupid rock in a week or two, we’ll go home and just… live.” Another kiss. “We’re past the worrying stage.”
Ichi exhaled, almost unconsciously rubbing her nose into him with at least temporary relief, gently tracing his back with the same finger that just threatened to flatten him. Good enough.
But could have been better.
“You know, I’m surprised – you didn’t flinch once on camera,” he stated bluntly. “Didn’t expect that.”
“What? What camera?” Ichi froze.
“You talked with Kendall. She saw you though a camera, just like you’ve seen her.”
“That wasn’t recording though – just sending.”
Peter placed his chin on her snout, smiling slyly. “Who knows? I could have been recording, you never know.”
Torrents of hot air encircled his head when she exhaled, trying and failing to mask her involountary purr.
“I hate you.” Her hands enveloped him more thoroughly.
“I love you too.”
***
Plate smashed into the table with a resounding clang, startling them even before the inhuman face could do so. Peter quickly glanced at the towering mech, thankfully finding it in place and powered.
“Gentlemen.” The pilot nodded, picking up a fry.
“You here?” Gregory cocked his head. “In the mess with plebians like us?”
“There’s only so much of Alice I can handle,” Jacob replied bluntly. “Besides, I wanted to see what they feed you in here.” He lifted the bland, desaturated piece of what at least nominally was once a potato. Despite the lack of eye mimicry, his hesitation was palpable. The count-as-food disappeared in his mouth, forcing a nigh-imperceptible twitch on his lips before he swallowed. “This fucking sucks,” Jacob announced, grabbing another fry.
“Cry me a river.” Peter shrugged, doing the same. “Anyways, what about those bones?”
“B-bones?” Michael tore his eyes away from the pilot and looked at Peter sheepishly, before remembering the topic. “Ah-h, yes… Blackscale armour seems to be made from the same material as kaiju bones… Or at least, a more condensed version of it, which says a lot. Bones can be cut with difficulty, but so far, we don’t have a reliable way to damage the armour in any way aside from thermal energy.”
“And even that’s difficult,” Jacob muttered, trying out the sorry looking porkchop.
“Yes.” Michael nodded. “And it’s because the internal structure is… exotic.”
“Exotic,” Peter scoffed. “What alloy or composite achieves such durability…” He paused, reframing Michael’s statement. “Wait, you mean it’s made out of exotic matter or something? Strange particles, or…”
Michael drank half a bottle of water and shook his head, before producing a sliver of the familiar, black material out of his pocket. Perfectly cut into a rectangular, about two fingers wide and four fingers long and definitely a lot thinner than Peter expected. “At most, there might be admixtures of exotic matter, but tests indicate it’s regular matter… just compressed.”
“Compressed?” Peter raised an eyebrow. “You mean… No, compressed as in ‘hydraulic press’ or ‘neutron star’?”
Michael extended his arm, offering the souvenir for inspection. It slid off of his hand, hit Peter’s palm… and nearly dragged it along with itself. Like a bar of lead, just unnervingly flexible.
Michael wiped a few sweat droplets from his forehead. “Particles locked in a grid multiple times denser than normal, which makes their structure resilient beyond any conventional material.”
“First of all, why are you even carrying this.” Peter looked at him inquisitively. “Second of all… how? It’s almost like tungsten.”
“It’s denser than tungsten,” Michael corrected, taking the souvenir back. “And I have it, because I like it.”
Peter hesitated, his mind racing to connect previously uncorrelated dots into a mosaic of thoughts and concepts. What sort of monstrous energy could force particles together? Hadron colliders, but that resulted in rapid decay or annihilation. What else could possibly…
“Is this degenerate matter?” Peter asked cautiously. “Like in a neutron star?”
“It is possible. We don’t really have a way to cross-reference that in the… foreseeable future.”
Gregory threw Michael a side-eye. “I’m sorry, but could you not throw around classified information in a bloody mess?”
Michael waved dismissively. “We all got clearance for this.”
“Well technically… I do not,” Peter replied honestly.
“Oops I guess then?” Michael shrugged. “Not telling you at this point is nothing but stupid.”
“You haven’t worked with the military for long, have you Doctor?” Jacob asked, considering how much more of the ‘food’ he could handle.
“No, not really. Why?”
“It shows,” Gregory interrupted. “Stupid is our second name. You will get in trouble for dismissing confidentiality like this.”
It was quite clear that neither Peter, nor Michael were particularity interested in whining about procedure – the first one got lost in his own thoughts for good, trying to create viable hypothesis about how an effect like this could be achieved. Star-core level pressures were clearly not enough, considering the number of fusion reactors on Earth and the lack of any mentions of it… But there were things that began making sense. For example, its near-perfect blackness – particles stacked so densely absorbed any radiation far better than any known substance… making it vulnerable to thermal weapons in the process. But the fact this was classified knowledge made him realise something else as well.
“Yeah, better not spread it,” Peter mumbled, raising his eyes at Michael. “Imagine people learn how outclassed we are tech-wise.”
A small flicker of realisation on Michael’s face, followed by his expression darkening were a good test-run for it. Presenting… whoever was sending kaijus as skilled in bioengineering but technologically stunted lent some credibility to the idea of an ‘even fight’. Being outpaced… or more aptly, obliterated on both fronts wouldn’t work well for morale.
Michael shook off the momentary weakness. “What do you think, Smith?”
“You’re asking me?” Peter looked at him incredulously. “It’s way above my competences.”
“Most things you’ve done were. It’s rare to see it swing this way, so I’m asking if you have any ideas.”
Peter finally noticed that his fork had been patiently waiting mid-way to his mouth. Gracing himself with another bite of the now cold mediocrity, he considered what could he possibly say that wasn’t already said by people far smarter than him. “I mean… Maybe use it as a high-energy fuel? Or you could cover Jaegers with it?”
“Happening as we speak,” Jacob muttered, “My baby will be fitted once…”
A roar interrupted him, silencing the perimeter and turning heads of the entire expedition. Expecting another kaiju, people split into two groups – one prepared to dart away, the other with cameras ready to record the fight. Neither was meant to be in the end – the roar was nothing but Ni’s scream of frustration.
“What happened?” Michael shouted, on the brink of joining the first group.
“Fucking Neumann!” she seethed, prompting the small crowd around the screen to back off. “He won Alberta!”
“And that’s news how?” Gregory asked incredulously.
“She doesn’t hear you,” Peter explained. “Too far, too big and…”
“How’s that surprising, lass?” the major raised his voice. “He was leading there by like, twenty points.”
“That’s not the point!” she facepalmed, growling. “Whatever, Poplawski can still win if he gets all the swing states…”
Peter mimicked her to the iota, grabbing the bridge of his nose. How did this happen? Why was Ni of all people corrupted with politics? No matter… There was only one way to fix it now. He stood up, noticing a rogue fry stuck to his pants via a mayo stain. “I’m gonna give her the talk.”
Taken from NovelPhoenix, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Oh man, ‘the talk’ with a dragon?” Jacob’s face lit up even despite his eyes. “I gotta see it.”
They both strolled through the pavilion, pushing past the eerily silent line of starved workers until they’ve reached her head. From up close it became apparent that she was still watching the screen through fingers, her expression conveying nothing but desperate tension that threatened to turn into dread any second.
“Ni.” Peter patted her upper lip, getting no reaction. He steeled himself and repeated the motion more forcefully. “NI!”
“What?!” she snapped, gracing him with a side-eye. “The fuck you want from me, midget?!”
“IT’S ALL BULLSHIT!” he screamed, his voice cracking.
Ni blinked, visibly startled, and forcefully pried her eyes from the screen. “What?”
A slight chuckle could be heard as Jacob swallowed.
Peter put his hands together, took a deep breath, and pointed at the screen. “The elections. The campaign. The candidates. The entire SYSTEM, Ni. It’s. All. Bullshit,” he articulated each word thoroughly.
“What do you mean ‘bullshit’, midget?” she scoffed. “They’re both completely different, and the people choose what they want in the coun…”
“No,” Peter cut her off. “To run for President General, you have to BE a General. And pray tell me, do you know who appoints Generals?”
Ni opened her mouth, but paused, unable to find a response. Just as he suspected.
“The council of Generals, Ni. They say who can run and on what. No matter who wins, they will do EXACTLY as the old fags say.”
“Then why even have elections?” Ni asked, her eyes snapping between him and the ever-greener map on the screen. “It makes no sense.”
“So stupid idiots can argue and fight against each other, instead of fighting them,” Peter stated bluntly. “Without it, people blame the council. With it, people blame each other.”
Ni stared at the screen, still surrounded by a small crowd of likeminded workers. Colour and enthusiasm slowly drained from her eyes… until they suddenly hardened. “You’re lying,” she uttered. “You must be.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Jacob laughed, throwing a fry at the screen. “Neumann took New Mexico.”
A wave of grumbles, ranging from furious to disappointed rang throughout the crowd. Curses, spitting, profanity – they went through everything one could expect, before dispersing into the camp, resigned to flow with the current for another few years…
Ni smashed her fists into the ground for the last time before her stubborn head finally admitted defeat. Or at least, that’s how Peter interpreted her deflation.
“It’s okay.” Peter traced her cheek. “We all went through this.”
“Shut up,” she grumbled. “Shut the fuck up.”
Notably, she didn’t move away from his touch, which said a lot more than her tantrum. A bit of genuine connection, instead of the stupid parasocial…
“You still owe me a hundred bucks,” Jacob smashed the sliver of comfort Peter painstakingly built.
“What?” Peter asked in confusion.
“I don’t even have money,” Ni hissed, confirming Jacob was talking to her, bewildering Peter even more.
“Should’ve thought about it before the bet,” Jacob replied, going back towards the bench.
For everyone’s sanity, Peter unplugged the screen, cutting off the presenter’s mumble about the incoming shift and the possible recount. It didn’t leave them in silence – far from it – but the sounds of normalcy had an almost therapeutic effect. That is, until Ni spoke.
“Midget… can you do me a solid?”
“Okay… What exactly?” he asked cautiously.
“…Lend me a hundred.”
Peter slowly blinked.
***
Thump. Cracks. Roar and screams. It all happened too quickly for anyone to react. No one realised what happened at first, the geyser of dust blocking the view for a good minute, before the ancient soil settled and revealed the cave-in.
The bottom of the strip mine simply disappeared, taking a good chunk of the spiral with it. The main cutter disappeared alongside two lorries, lost in the bowels of earth that opened below them.
Ichi rushed toward the hole, stopping at the edge of it. Hesitation lasted but a moment. She stepped into the cone, her feet finding support and leaving deep imprints on the transport slopes, at least until the walls transformed into a harder type of rock more willing to support her.
The hole was darkness. A gaping abyss that seemed to consume all light, leaving its bottom hidden from prying eyes… if there was one. For all Peter knew, it could have reached all the way down to the core. With sun at the extreme angle, the only thing fighting to illuminate it were the still active blades of the main cutter. The machine was spared its fate only because of the massive cords through which it was powered – they strained and wailed, supporting it weight, refusing to give up… at least, not yet. The operator screamed, fighting against the door that proved too stubborn to yield.
“Hold on, I’m gonna…” Ichi yelped, the rock below her foot giving way. Retreating to a higher layer, she hesitated, unsure how to approach the problem. The dangling vehicle wailed, the wire brakes bent, strained beyond their limits. With no time to think of anything better, Ichi drove her spear into the wall, destroying the path in the process and got on her knees.
As much as Peter admired her concern for other people, he wasn’t particularly happy about getting left on her head when she jolted it round. Maybe she trusted him to hold on on his own… or more likely, forgot in the moment. Luckily for everyone, Peter has gotten extraordinarily good at dragon mountaineering – he held onto the of a scale after sliding less than a meter.
“How do I…” Ichi mumbled to herself, before the wires emitted metallic cracks, signaling they were about to snap. With no other choice, she leapt at it, managing to take a hold of the vehicle’s tracks. “I got it!”
But before she could pull it out completely, the rocks below her knees yielded. She roared from surprise and tried to take a hold of the hole’s edge with her free hand, but the titan’s mass proved too much once more. Ichi fell into the abyss, taking the vehicle along with her, the wires snapping in an instant.
Peter found himself in freefall, his grip on the scale proving insufficient. Time slowed to a crawl, his limbs seemingly moving as if submerged in tar, his fingers desperately reaching for her horns that were always just out of reach, the dancing reflections taunting him, mocking his attempts at saving himself.
Would this be how he dies? In a stupid accident, thousands of miles away from home? Ending as nothing but a stain on the very woman he loved? It sounded stupid. Ridiculous. Infuriating. Unfair.
Unavoidable.
And supremely ironic. Lin’s killer would die the same way he did…
Ichi’s wings opened, wind smashing into the membranes like a thunderclap, slowing her descent. The proximity to horns suddenly became a threat which he managed to avoid by the skin of his teeth. He slammed into her skull, knocking him out for a fraction of a second, which proved just enough to miss the chance of grabbing onto something. He slid down her neck, unable to get a grip on the scales because of their orientation. The sliver lining – they didn’t grate him like cheese, the bad news – he showed no sign of stopping.
In the end, a miracle was granted – his body found the base of her tail, forcing air from his lungs, bruising his stomach, yet giving just enough leeway to plant his fingers under the scales. The momentary relief was cut short with yet another crash and rapid deceleration, an experience about as pleasant as the last one, before he was flung onto Ichi’s back again when she cushioned the fall with her forearms. Her groan filled his senses, sending fresh waves of pain through his freshly bruised body.
“Damn it,” Ichi huffed, looking at the crumpled vehicle in her hands, its cutters still red from the sizzling plasma. “Are you al…” She choked on air, her eyes widening. “Peter?! Where are you?! Peter!”
“I’m…” He coughed. “I-I’m here…”
With trembling hands, Ichi carefully inspected him for injuries. “Christ… I… I-I thought…” She pushed him against her chest.
Heartbeat. Slow, impossibly deep thumps that were just irregular enough to sense her terror. Her anxiety. She kept still until it subsided at least a little. The beating got steadier but was still far from calm.
The operator managed to free himself from the confines and fell to the ground, his voice muffled by the hazmat suit. “Fucking hell…”
“Ichi?! Are you dead?” Ni’s voice rang far above them.
Ichi straightened and looked up, revealing just how far they’ve fallen. Ni looked at them through a small, circular hole at least three hundred meters above, resembling an angelic figure from frescoes.
“We’re fine…” Ichi glanced at Peter anxiously. “I think.”
“I’ll live,” Peter huffed, sitting up. “I’m not sure about the truckers though.”
An understatement of the century – the vehicles were nothing but tormented crumps of metal scattered around the fresh rubble. Peter’s survival was a small miracle, but theirs… they would require divine intervention at least.
“They say they’ll dig you out with a spare cutter,” Ni announced, listening to someone outside. “Can you fly in there?”
“I don…” Ichi paused, scanning her surroundings. “I can’t tell. It’s too dark.”
As if on command, a sizeable circle of light appeared on the wall. “Here. Take this.” The operator offered a portable lamp.
Ichi picked it up and repeated her search, the light revealing how massive the cavern was… and how black its walls were, their tint barely distinguishing itself against the darkness. On second look, it was not a cavern – walls surrounded them only from two sides. It was a canyon – one with an angled floor, disappearing into the abyss deep underground. How a thing like this existed at all, let alone so close to shoreline…
And then, he felt it. The stale, choking smell of ancient smoke underlined by hermetically sealed rot that festered on itself until the bacteria got strangled by the lack of oxygen. He was unsure how or why he could describe it so accurately… maybe his lungs picked up on the lower oxygen density and made up the rest…
“I… think?” Ichi replied, trying to convince even herself. “Certainly not all the way, but…” She paused. “Don’t fucking jump in-here, Ni!”
“Who do you think I am?” Ni scoffed before turning her head. “Midgets say you should move deeper to avoid shit falling over you…” She turned her head again. “Alright, alight, geez…”
Her silhouette disappeared, letting a bit more light into the depths. Ichi exhaled heavily, turning her attention to the still form in her palms. Her snout rubbed against it.
The familiar touch would have been like nectar on his soul, but… He was too deep in denial. His mind refused to believe yet another near-death experience… Or maybe… Just maybe… He was getting detached. How many times can one brush with death, before growing numb?
If he was not there yet, the line was an inch away.
“I’m sorry…” she whispered, trying to clumsily comfort him.
“It’s fine,” Peter mumbled, patting her nose. “I’m fine. It’s all that matters.”
The operator sighed, crossed himself and looked up from one of the wrecks. “I’m also fine.” He placed his hand over his heart. “I owe you my life. If there’s anything I can do to repay…”
“I saved you, because I could,” Ichi replied bluntly. “There’s nothing I want from you…” She eyed the light source. “I mean, except the lamp.”
The operator nodded, his features hidden by the suit. “I guess that’s a start.”
***
Time in the hole passed differently. Minutes dragged like hours, but hours felt like seconds – all because of the tedious monotony. There were only so many appropriate topics to talk about in their circumstances. On top of that, neither of them wanted to disturb the operator praying for the dead drivers.
Despite this, the darkness felt… oddly familiar. Almost as if Peter was meant to be there, but why and how exactly? He couldn’t tell. He had visited one underground canyon before, and it sure as hell didn’t resemble this one.
A pebble plummeted from the entrance, shattering into myriads of shards on impact and prompting them to move deeper into the cavern. Ichi flattened a few smaller stalagmites, unsettling the ancient dust, leaving craters in her wake. Once she deemed the distance sufficient, they were returned to the ground, more out of respect for the operator’s comfort than anything else.
“Oxygen is stabilising,” the operator stated, still not daring to take the helmet off. “Eighteen percent now.”
Promising. Light-headedness was becoming a thing of the past.
“It was supposed to be another fifty meters away,” the operator grumbled with frustration.
Peter gave him an inquisitive look. “Hm?”
“This thing.” The man spread out his arms. “Geologists said it would be fifty meters deeper than that. That’s why we dug, instead of blowing it up.”
“Unfortunate,” Peter replied, noting that the expedition knew about the cavern, yet decided to hide it from him for some reason. “I guess technology can be…” A crunch below his boot made him pause and step away.
It wasn’t the kind of crunch that heralded an imminent fall, but one that informed one had stepped into something suspicious. Illuminating the path revealed a myriad of gray lumps of various shapes and sizes densely covering the ground. No, not gray – the ever-present dust coloured it so. The ones his foot unsettled were…
“Glass?” Peter muttered, inspecting a few shards.
“What?” The operator turned to look at the contents of Peter’s hand. “Did it fall that far from the trucks?”
Instead of answering, Peter reached for another batch of lumps, confirming they were also glass. Just like every single other… He hesitated, glancing at the boulders scattered deeper in the chasm. A single swipe of his sleeve revealed an identical surface. More glass than an entire lorry. Not natural glass either – there were no sharp edges, the lines precisely following the familiar pattern of hardened, idiot-proof glass that splintered into safe shards.
“Ichi, look,” Peter called.
For a moment, she had issues focusing on the circle of light. The faint glimmer dancing along the surface prompting her to pick it up. She blew at it, clearing most of the dust.
“Shards of ice…” Ichi mumbled, staring at it as if recalling a dream.
Without warning, she picked him up and went deeper into the canyon, leaving the operator behind. The shards grew ever denser, the canyon widening with every step. Soon, it was vast enough to comfortably hold an entire town. Bitter taste of ancient dust intensified…
And then, they’ve reached the end. A wall extended as far as their light could reach, disappearing into the darkness both above and around them. But the strangest of all… It was white. Not perfectly, since the surface was stained and damaged in many places by the incomprehensible time that passed… but still distinctly white. Peter didn’t know of any material that could survive for so long.
Ichi moved with confidence of someone rediscovering a childhood home, tracing her claws along the wall’s surface. Soon, the searchlight illuminated a breach – a hole of suspicious regularity that seemed to be the origin of the scattered glass. A massive, circular window.
“What are you doing? It might be dangerous,” Peter hissed when she ducked to get into the structure.
“I remember this,” she muttered, her eyes scanning the surroundings as if in a trance. “It’s dark now, but I remember this.”
“You didn’t say you were born in a…” he paused, trying to judge the structure. “It’s a spaceship, isn’t it?”
“I… didn’t know.”
The floor was angled, suggesting the ship lay partially on its side. Truth be told, with what the impact did to Earth, the interior seemed surprisingly intact. The left wall was obliterated, the floor covered with shards and splinters… but still recognisable. Ichi moved through the angled doorframe, reaching some sort of intersection. Two of the four entrances were impassable, blocked by debris and collapsed celling, their walls crumpled into a tight cone, while peculiar spheres resting in perfectly profiled recesses lined the intersection’s walls.
“What is this?” Peter asked, pointing the light at one of them.
Ichi picked one up and inspected the pristine-white surface from all sides. “I don’t know. Don’t remember seeing them before.” She glanced down, tracing the only possible path forward. “Maybe Ni will…”
The sphere hummed and floated away, causing Ichi to back off. With an ugly squelch of unlubricated metal, the thing opened several recesses along its surface, revealing bizarre instruments of unknown purpose. Ichi cradled him, getting into a defensive pose, a stone knife in her right hand ready to strike. The thing spun around itself in less than a second, sweeping the room with faint, green light, before flying away through the door Ichi just entered through.
***
Ni impatiently tapped the ground, observing the excruciatingly slow pace at which the humans worked. How difficult could making a hole be? No, not even making – just expanding it. Trivial – she had made so many holes and dit… fortifications to make her a borderline expert. They had to be slacking.
At least she had a moment to think of suitable revenge. On Peter, on Jacob and his stupid-ass mech, on Hans… an on the council. That last one would be a bit difficult, but nothing was undoable with a good plan. For starters, she could mail them a bomb… no, a fake bomb to get them on edge, and then…
Her thoughts were interrupted by shouts from the dig site. Ni gritted her teeth. If those idiots fell into the hole again…
But then, something glistening arose from the hole. Something with an unhealthy, decrepit white tint. It flew upwards despite lacking any visible propulsion, and swept everything with green light. It locked onto her, prompting Ni to jump to her feet, but before she was within reach, it paused, emitted a series of tortured cracks and screeches, before collapsing on the ground, dead and silent.
***
Ichi stood still, in absolute silence, staring at the corner of the room, not daring to even breathe. Peter kept the light on point. They both saw it. Deep in the labyrinth of destroyed rooms, behind many broken doors and collapsed corridors, they’ve found the one thing they came here for. At the very end of the slope, right next to the enormous, collapsed shelf lay three brownish objects. Suspiciously round ones.
With glacial speed, as if afraid to even stir the air, she kneeled, the glass shards crunching below her. Eggs – or at least, eggshells. Massive ones, each easily ten meters in diameter, though it was a bit hard to judge because of the holes punched in them. Or rather, from them. At least it confirmed Ni was right.
“Which one was yours?” Peter asked, taking photos of them.
“I…” She cocked her head, reaching towards them. “The one on the left… Ni hatched from the right one, and… Kendall from the middle.”
The central egg was the most damaged, with less than half of its shell remaining. Not only because someone tampered with it from the outside, but because the other two leaned on it… almost as if they landed on top of it and rolled over.
Ichi traced the edge of her shell. It crumbled as if it was nothing but dust. “No…” she whispered, hastily pulling back before the entire thing collapsed. The reaction stopped after devouring a third of the egg.
“It’s okay. I’ve got photos,” he assured, patting her cheek.
“I know, it’s just…” She exhaled, then bit on her own fist. “I never… I thought this place was gone. When we came back here, all this… And it was underground,” Ichi stumbled over her words. “So much time…”
“More than I can imagine,” Peter replied, finally pushing the idea into his mind. It was even older than her… No – it lay here for longer than she was alive. Who knows how long it was drifting before that… or when it was built.
And most importantly, by whom.
“Do you think your parents were on board?” he asked, startling her out of trance.
“My… parents?” she asked, the words alien on her tongue. “I… maybe? I... Someone had to lay our eggs… right?”
The reasoning was sound, and enough to convince her to stand up, determined to search and find whatever remained of them. It would give closure… one she never considered, never mind expected. There was only one unopened door in this room, directly opposite to their entrance. They differed from most of the ones they found along the way, because they were not automatic. Just a simple, sliding door. A handle. A dream. And a lack of lubrication.
And horror on the other side.
The next room was nearly identical, forming a neat corridor with the previous one… with two crucial differences. The shelf that was crumpled in their room was intact here. The somewhat clean floor in their room… was covered with corpses in this one.
Skeletons, each no taller than a dozen meters. Most as dismembered piles, the rare few still complete ones stretched in the middle, staring right at the door. Scratches and indents lined the walls, vouching for their struggles, their desperation to get out. And then, it clicked – all thanks to the recognisible form of ultraviolet lights above the shelf.
This room, along with the ones further on this path, were a nursery. Eggs placed in warmth and comfort hatched into the world. A tiny, hostile world of cold floors, hard walls and taunting, uncaring doors. And most importantly, starvation.
Peter’s mind extrapolated everything into a vivid, horrifying image. A ship, searing the skies with flames of oblivion that doomed both it and the planet below. Inside it, a batch of trapped newborn titans crying for help, for food, for comfort, for anything… and being denied. Scratching against the confines of their tomb in desperate hope of salvation that never came. Comforting each other with non-verbal squeaks… Forced to kill and devour one another to survive just a day longer.
In the end, the ruthless ones were rewarded with suffering the longest. And staring at the door.
The sisters were lucky. Their eggs fell-out of the incubator before it was crushed… and their door was missing, torn apart by a rogue pipe still stretched across the corridor. Nothing but luck spared them this fate. They ventured out into the world and left their trapped kin behind.
“I didn’t know,” Ichi whispered, taking a step back.
“Ichi, take it easy,” Peter almost shouted, sensing the impending breakdown.
“I didn’t know, I swear, I…” her back slammed against the wall. “I didn’t know…” She slid down onto the floor.
Tears disturbed the ancient dust, carving whirling paths and transforming the surface into a delta. Deep in the bowels of earth, a dragon wept. Wept for her unknown kin gone longe ago. The very compassion they craved granted eons after all memories of them vanished. The last beat of cruelty in a saga long over.
In the end, there was only one thing Peter could say. “It’s not your fault.”
***
“Is the thing broken again?” Tarun asked, poking the flashing light.
“I don’t know,” Selus muttered, checking the wiring again. “Does it blink now?”
“Yes.”
She pulled out the purple wire, disengaging the antenna. “And now?”
“Stopped. Did you fix it?”
“No, just unplugged the detector.” She reattached the wire, before pushing herself out in the open. “So it’s either that, or…”
Tarun helped her stand up. “Or?”
“Or it’s a new colony,” she ended, stretching her wings. “Only two options.”
Tarun rolled his eyes. “We didn’t have a new colony for what, five hundred cycles? And it’s already distressed?” He poked the other light. It perfectly mimicked the first one’s position.
“Which is why I’m going to check the antenna first.” Selus patronisingly patted him on the cheek. “But if that’s not it… well, prepare your ship.”
FADING LIGHT ACT 2: FLAMES OF OBLIVION – END
***