Book 5 chapter 21 draft
Added 2023-09-25 08:17:15 +0000 UTCHello everyone, getting back into the swing of it with the new baby here, the writers block hurdled over and sprinting towards the end. will get this chapter done by the end of the month and get back into the swing of it soon. school holdyas will be ending on the 10/10 and Lil squigs will be in kindy,hopefully my life will settle down and I can continue on.
hope you enjoy this chapter and see you in the final! ~squiggles
Jasmine's body was thrown to the ground, several servants pinning her down. The error message continued to blare around them, repeating itself in several different languages. It was mayhem, the servants scrambled to hold her down, almost crushing her face into the floor, she could barely breathe as she struggled to fight back.
“Unknown variants such as yourself are almost more trouble than you’re worth… almost,” the lady’s voice rattled in her ears “If I had the authority I’d have you incinerated for the jeopardy you put my mission in, but the emissary had other ideas-”
“LET ME GO YOU CRAZY BITCH!-” Jasmine screamed, she felt the amalgamation grip falter, enough to kick and scramble from under them. The error message paused, loading a new image on the surrounding screen.
“My authority will not be overturned by an unregistered candidate!”
the servant's attention was redirected, swarming over to Itsuki and Xant.
Itsuki aimed the pistol with both hands and fired, it was deafeningly loud, the recoil unexpected, but the shot was dead on. A servant's head exploded with blood and partiuclates, its body falling limp to the floor, but it didn't stop the dozen others clamouring towards them. Xant did his best, swinging the bat and his tail knocking down any that came close but even with his improved physical strength, there was nothing they could do against the sheer numbers. Itsuki didnt go down without a fight, he fired off what he could before he was overwhelmed, the weapon wrestled from his hand, it took seven servants to hold him still enough for the scanner to read his code.
From error red to a calm blue spreadsheet, everything that made Itsuki a person was listed. Age, sex, height, weight, blood type, along with weird things like favourite colour, teeth condition and education.
“(check numbers)Self Destructive, Anti-social, Hallucinations, Classification: Weapon…”
“At least the candidate you brought with you can be salvaged, once I remove the inferior peripherals that have been installed.”
A scan of Itsuki’s body was shown on screen, an x-ray of the implanted alien organ translator highlighted in his skull.
“Place the candidates in Containment, destroy the insect.” the order was loud and clear, ringing throw everyones head.
The servants’ all snapped to attention, those not holding down prisoners swarmed towards Letu. The knight stood on shaking ground, stamina and nerves stretched to breaking point, there was only so long he could hold off an enemy that did not suffer from being ‘stiffed’.
The plasma blades, like their knight, began to suffer from use, for every limb they sliced off the blade spluttered, overheating its power source until its light died. Leaving him with simple sharp swords.
Human hands reached for him, ripping out wings and tearing limbs from their sockets, the pain dulled by shock, his body fell limp to the floor.
The other servants dragged their kicking and screaming prisoners to the far side of the room, the floor opened up and there black coated stasis pods were open and empty, awaiting contents.
Jasmines fight response flew into overdrive.
Words failed her as she just kicked and screamed in response, she was willing to hurt herself in order to get free, willing to injure the servants to stop them. Her actions sent itsuki in a likewise frantic state, the pair became vicious, unremorceful, desperate. Their Freq was pure instinct at this point and Xant struggled to hold his own against it.
The shockwaves ran through his body were painful, the limit of what he could withstand, his nerves were on fire… reminding him of a time when he was as desperate as they were.
The memory of the Vassal’s open maw forever burned in his psyche, he struggled to wrench a hand free and focused on his captors.
Emotions werent the only electrical signals that ran through nerves, muscles followed the same organic infrastructure. Xant focused with all his being and sent the signal for his captors muscles to seize.
The act had both saved and almost destroyed his life years ago, he was willing to risk the same again.
This time, he wouldnt be the only survivor.
The moment was enough, with the servants bodies imobilized the humans broke free, ripping away from the servants. Jasmine running to free Xant, while Itsuki unleashed as much violence as he could in the oppertunity the doctor provided them.
“The door!” Jasmine screamed, desperate for the way out, but all four of them ultimately lost in the darkness. She let out one last primal scream, hoping that it could help in anyway…
Her prayer was answered.
A light pierced the dark with a determined roar.
A fist punched through the holographic screen from the outside.
Captain Rynard burst through, breaking the door from its framework and allowing the chaos in. His power armour scanned the room and pinpointed the namegiver and his companions immediately, charging through with purpose and drive he ran to scoop up the smaller beings and stomp on any servants not fast enough to get out of his way.
“Stop it! Stop it immediately!!” the lady wailed, but her servants just ended up as red paste under the dinosaurs steel boots.
“Hold on!” Rynard roared as Jasmine and Xant clamoured and clung to the giant’s arm, Itsuki threw himself into the other but was not lifted up. Rynard's left arm had been dislocated in the breakthrough, it hung from its socket but his hand still clenched open when needed.
“Letu!” Jasmine called out, pointing to the fallen knight's body across the bridge, Rynard swerved and leaned in close to the ground, scraping Letus's body off the floor as he made his round lap out of the bridge.
“Brace!” Rynard warned his friends as he prepared to bash through the opening he created.
Shattered glass and silicone scratched them all as they left the immediate clutches of the lady. The captain jumped down the entire stairway to heaven, landing with a force that could crush cars and shatter bones.
Jasmine, Xant and itsuki fell off their saviour, scrambling up against the wall behind him for safety.
The entire gallery was destroyed, the army that had followed her into the gates of hell had indeed, unleashed it. Without the advantage of an ambush, the council soldiers were able to hold their ground against the lady’s artistic abominations. Those monsteres that were not still fighting were slowly melting in the acid fire, the soldiers and knights dispatching them with brutal efficiency.
“I tried to get to you sooner,” Rynard explained, putting Letu’s body down as he reached for his left arm and yanked it back into its socket, “but we had to take care of these guys first,” with a quick and sickening crunch the arm went back into place, Rynard showed no sign of pain at all, “it would have taken longer, but thankfully we had back up,”
The captain pointed over the far side of the battle, the organised and uniformed soldiers were far and few between, instead helped by hundreds of irregular aliens.
The pirates had come into the fray.
“Wait, if the pirates are here that means-” Itsuki started only for Jasmine to scream over him
“BEAU! WHERE ARE YOU!?”
They all searched the chaotic crowd, but should have been looking up.
The Red Ash Admiral was flying overhead, a swarm of escorts behind her and riding on her back was the Master Chief, taking potshots with a melter gun in hand.
The swarm descended, creating a protective barrier around the humans and allowing their leader to land, a buzzing, electric energy coming from the both of them, adrenaline in the heat of battle.
“You’re alive!” Beau greeted the lot of them.
“Barely,” Itsuki replied, wiping blood from his mouth.
Jasmine closed the gap, resting a hand on Beau's shoulder and her forehead on his arm, her freq giving out a pulse of relief that they were all safe, but her words contradicted the sentiment.
“Shits fucked,” she breathed, “We have to get out of here, the ship is alive and shes fucking crazy,-”
There was a loud and paralyzing shriek overhead, running through their bodies like the harsh winter wind.
“Unelightened heathens! I shall render your components down to their base sugars and rebuild my menagerie! For the glory of the stars will be returned to their rightful heirs!” the lady’s voice dripped with hate, Beau and aralukia stared up in disbelief.
“The ship, talks?!” she exclaimed, Jasmine nodded in reply, but before she could give a proper answer there was a earch shaking rumble and the tunnel entrance closed, locking them all within the bowels of the ship.
“The Rajavan has a consciousness,” Xant explained, while busily tending to the broken and battered Letu, “it is without the ability to rationalise or be reasoned with, we must evacuate,”
“The opportunity may be past us,” Aralukia replied, “without an immediate exit, we loose precious time and the council still plans on vaporising the Rajavan, us on board or not,”
The lady’s servant amalgamations began to pour out from the stairway to heaven, dozens rushed to take on the council soldiers, another front to the chaotic battle.
“Then what are our options?” Jasmine asked.
“We must take command of the Rajavan ship,” Aralukia replied, “it is a vessel like any other, overpower and command the ship brain and it will fly where we tell it to go”
“With the lady awake I’m not sure how to do that,” Jasmine sighed frustrated.
“So we kill her,” Itsuki replied bluntly
“We cannot kill her,” Xant responded, “to kill the ship brain destroys the ship, we would be as vassals without a commander, no control,”
“How did it wake up?” Beau asked, trying to follow the conversation, “and can't we just put her back to sleep?”
Xant's ears stood on end.
He stood and turned to the group, eyes on Jasmine as his idea began to turn into a plan.
“Perhaps… The lady did say that Jasmine was the one to immobilise her,”
Jasmine shook her head.
“No way, I was basically screaming my head off in there, my freq did nothing to her,”
“It might be different if you were connected to her…” Xant removed his regalia glove, allowing the nerves to protrude out of his fingertips “...directly.”
“You want to mind meld, with the ship?”
“I want to make a direct connection so you can render the lady unconscious,” Xant replied, “I am simply the conduit,”
“Would it even work?”
“Better to act without evidence, than to lament a lost opportunity,” Xant replied.
“Right,” Jasmine smiled, “crazy is as crazy does!” she slapped both cheeks, hyping herself up, “let's put this bitch to sleep!”
“What?!” Beaus asked, looking between the two.
“However, we will need to return to the bridge,” Xant pointed out, looking sheepishly to Rynard.
The captain raised an eyebrow.
“But i just got you out of that grub nest!”
“And we need to go back,” Xant replied, “I’m sure her brain is in there somewhere, below the bridge,”
“Her pulses were strongest underfoot,” Itsuki nodded inagreement, and turned to beau “they’ll need protection in there, the faceless zombies will eat them alive otherwise,” he pointed to the scrapes on his face.
“My crew and I can handle that,” Aralukia boasted, flaring out her wings and having her sword at the ready, “chief, you handle the fight in here, I will take care of the one in there,”
Beau nodded.
“As long as you all come back alive!” he warned, turning the dial on the melter gun to full force, “I didn't survive this long to be turned into space dust!”
Rynard rolled his shoulders and scooped up Xant and Jasmine in each hand.
“No time to waste,” he smirked and charged back up the stairs.
Aralukias men were true to their word, clearing the way of enemies as they made their way back into the bridge. The Lady’s voice could be heard, wailing and muttering to herself as Rynard landed back in the middle of the broken screen room.
The floor was steel plated, but they could still feel the shimmering, shattered glass like pulses beneath them.
“The brain is here,” Xant confirmed, “now how do to get-”
Jasmine dashed across the room, picking up her dropped segmenter sword and rushing back, turning the dial to plasma cutter and plunging it into the steel plate.
“What are you doing?!” the lady wailed, having her attention caught, “Cease your transgressions immediately!”
“Surround the voidsinger and zenthi!” Aralukia ordered, “defend them with your lives!”
The pirates were quick to fall in a circle, Rynard prepped a clawed fist, ready to tear open the plate once jasmine had made a big enough hole.
The plate unbuckled easily and underneath was the writhing and pulsating brain, red and blue veins twisted and squirmed as Xant put his ungloved hand into the mass.
His other hand reached out to jasmine.
“Are you ready?” Xant held his hand to her ear.
“As i’ll ever be,” she gulped, trying desperately to block out the screams of the oncoming servant onslaught and focus on the nerve endings connecting with her own.
Xant took a deep breath, praying to the One, the Universe, Akira and any other who would be listening, that he could withstand being in the middle of two such powerful entities-
Comments
I think your scenes are fine, they flow well and I can always tell who's doing what and when.
Owen Wells
2023-09-29 18:37:42 +0000 UTCoh good! I'm always worried when I write action-heavy scenes!
Michelle Kathleen Hodgson
2023-09-29 16:52:53 +0000 UTC:D
Michelle Kathleen Hodgson
2023-09-29 16:52:25 +0000 UTC*chefs kiss* Perfection
Owen Wells
2023-09-25 19:48:43 +0000 UTC👌
ZCochraine!%
2023-09-25 13:03:06 +0000 UTC