They Beget Terror
Posted on Wed Aug 12, 2015 @ 2:51pm by Captain Isha t'Vaurek & Tania & Commander Caden Aldrex & Commander Caleb Ryan & Lieutenant Mikaela Locke & Civilian 'Key Holder' Yolanthe Ibalin & Lieutenant Si'Lar Trellis & Ensign Jessica Mayhew & Shea & Orrin & Odessa & Alfrigg
2,573 words; about a 13 minute read
Mission:
Eye of the Beholder
Location: Promenade
Timeline: MD03. 23:58
ON
There were shifts in the air on the Promenade. The Bokkai could feel it, and looked up. Stepping out from almost nowhere were more of the fairies. Two terrifying figures, one in white, one in black, fell into step beside the red woman, oozing power and confidence. A hundred yards down the walkway were more. These were preceded by two Fleeters, who looked positively feral, and a mild looking Antedean.
Yolanthe found herself shifting her weight so she could run. Her uncanny sense for a winner was showing her the outline of the battle to come. And it was going to be a battle. There was nothing of the small melee about this. The air itself tasted of blood and doom. She could feel the weight of cataclysm settling over the promenade. When these creatures kicked off, it was going to be legendary.
Orrin's gait was relaxed, but his eyes and ears were fully alert. They were here. Somewhere.
And then there he was, only a few meters away, still exactly as he remembered him. He smiled. Still with that dour, lifeless expression on his face.
"Hello, brother," Alfrigg said, almost too quietly to be heard over the normal din of the promenade.
Orrin tipped his hat. "Hello, brother! I'm not alone. Look who else is here."
Shea bowed to Alfrigg. "I've missed you, brother. Come back home with us. Give up on those poisonous bitches. They're going to ruin two universes. Do you really want that?"
"What I want is for you to answer for your crimes," Alfrigg said coldly. Shea just burst out laughing.
Rusalka eyed her sisters. "It’s not enough to steal my throne, little girls? You have to chase me through my exile. It ends here. I will not run from you. Not anymore."
"Then you will die." Tania shrugged. "This realm is wasted on you. You let the mother of monsters run amok, and your loyal sword there will have the mortals turning on each other in a moment. You will leave this realm broken, and full of terror. I will not let you."
Rusalka snorted. "Hah. All you have ever wanted is slaves. People may feel afraid of the dark. But at least they feel. Would you have won my throne if those you fooled had known the freedom you offered was freedom from their own will?"
Tania drew herself up, every inch a queen, by right of destiny and her own hand. "And they are happier for it. And once you are dead, even the last remnants of your loyalists will--"
Shea rolled her eyes at all the talking. Alfrigg had made his choice. Tania was never going to change, and Odessa would be walked over whichever of her sisters won the day. "Oh, for the love of-- " She drew a slender black rod from her pocket and pointed it at Tania. She gave her blood hounds the nod. "Sic 'em, boys."
The two security crew charged at Odessa, She pointed her wand between them and fire a blast of burning plasma along the Promenade, aiming directly for the fairy's face.
"NO!" Alfrigg cried out. With a speed much faster than any human he stepped in front of the plasma blast and took it full force in the chest. It created a charred, smoldering wound. He fell to the deck gasping for breath.
A short distance away another security crewman was talking to a shop owner. He saw Alfrigg get hit and instantly sprang into action. "Hey!" he shouted, reaching for his sidearm.
Without hesitation Mister Kuari, the Antedean under Orrin's spell, turned and fired his polaron pistol at the man, vaporizing him on the spot.
The crowds on the promenade screamed and stampeded away from the gruesome scene.
------------
The specter of Rh'Vaurek faded as Isha heard the scream.
Something always seemed to be screaming, panicking, running, or exploding around here. She rose to her feet and picked her way towards the commotion.
And why was that woman always at the center of it? she thought, spying Yolanthe in the crowd.
And what the hell is she doing with... "Eviess!" Isha called. "What the hell are you doing with my daughter?" she said, storming over.
In reply, the bartender dropped Eviess into her arms and shoved the pair of them back into the communications alcove. A second later a wave of heat rolled over the spot where they had been standing. Yolanthe stepped back, somewhat peach. But she addressed Eviess, "This is your mum? You could have said!"
"I told you she was the Queen," Eviess said. "You try to be, just like her, but you're not." As she said it Eviess pointed at Tania before her hand flopped down.
Isha drew her daughter closer. "Evie, Evie, it’s not important," she told her, though the mist in Eviess' eyes terrified Isha. Isha flicked her gaze back to Yolanthe.
"What have you done to her?"
Yolanthe went amber. "Nothing. I wouldn't hurt a child." The Bokkai disgust at the suggestion was obvious.
"Mummy, it was Tanis...Tanlis...whatever her name was. She said if I helped she'd let me live. It wasn't the Rainbow Princess."
Isha's grip tightened as she deciphered what Eviess was saying. The wizened creature that should've been safely incarcerated?
-------
Tania drew her own wand. "No more words then." She flicked the thin rod at her sister, and a blast of energy lanced towards Rusalka, disintegrating everything in its path.
-------
Caleb heard the reports on the comm and hurried from his office. “Arm up!” he ordered the few security officers still in the Security Center. He slipped his sidearm in his holster.
Jessica stood up from her desk, already armed, as she had been since the evacuation. She looked exhausted – they all did – running on caffeine and stims. And then there was the strange visions afflicting several of his officers.
“Ready, sir,” Jessica said, downing the last of her cold coffee.
Caleb paused and then walked out of the room. He unlocked the armory and started handing out the Type III phaser rifles. “Stun only,” he reminded unnecessarily. “Let’s go.”
It didn’t take long for the security team to ride the turbolift to the Promenade. On the way, Caleb ordered, “All security teams converge on the Promenade,” and gave them the level where the showdown appeared to be occurring.
As they exited the turbolift, Caleb shook his head, trying to clear his vision. Everything looked sparkly, like someone exploded a glitter-bomb all over.
“Anderson, Mi’kel,” Caleb said, “start clearing out civilians. Tejero, Reynolds, have your teams form a perimeter. Dano, Mot’la, up three levels. Ah want ya’ll on overwatch,” he told his best shots. “Sniper positions.”
“And watch out for the webs,” Jessica said, waving at something in the air. “What, did they bring giant spiders?”
Caleb frowned, looking at the ensign. “Mayhew, ya okay?” he asked her sparkling form.
“Fine.”
“Okay, with me.” Caleb wiped his eyes. Were the Fae doing this, too? Messing with their heads?
Caleb raised his rifle to his shoulder. He pointed to Jessica to circle around and cover Tanis’ group while he went around toward Rusalka’s. “Get them in a crossfire,” Caleb ordered quietly over the comm.
Once in position, Caleb called out, “STOP! Put down your weapons, put your hands on your head and your faces on the floor!” he ordered. “You take one more action, Ah will fire!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Caleb spotted Captain t’Vaurek and her daughter with the Bokkai club owner, way too close to the fire fight.
“Captain! Ah need you an’ your daughter ta get clear!” Caleb called out. “You too, Ms. Ibalin!” Caleb said, ever the gentleman even in a crisis. He shook his head again, the glitter clearing. Why in the hell were they wearing hoop skirts and corsets, dressed like this was some Ancient West show?
Isha's hand tightened on the hilt of the iron relic in her tunic. Get clear? She was going to kill the little imp, and watch the light drain out of its eyes.
"It'll be alright," she told Eviess as she placed her on the floor. "Mummy has something to take care of, then we'll get you to the doctors."
"I can take her," Yolanthe offered. She could see exactly what Isha had planned.
Isha stooped and picked Eviess up again. She was so light and to Isha's eyes seemed almost translucent. "Keep her safe," she said, doing something she never thought she would, handing her dying daughter into the care of Yolanthe so she could commit murder.
Caleb kept his eyes locked on the Fae, but tried to keep the captain at the edge of his vision so he would know when they were clear.
“Dano, Mot’la?” he asked over comms. “You in position?”
“Setting up now,” came Dano’s reply.
Shea's blood hounds leapt upon Odessa, bearing her to the ground and ripping chunks of flesh out with their bare hands. For a moment the fallen fae keened, a hideous wail that froze everyone’s blood, and then she lashed out with her own wand, a lash of fire ripping into the human and hurling over the edge of the railing and down to the Bajoran gardens below.
Shea herself saw the security teams arriving on the promenade and grinned for a moment. A third faction meant more chaos. She didn't mind that at all. She aimed her wand at the ceiling over Tania's head and sent three plasma balls straight at it, boiling the decking out from beneath the people above to crash down on the usurper queen.
Tania laughed, a keening cackle that cracked through the air. She sprouted wings and with a swoosh rose through the fire.
"You've failed, Rusalka, call off your mewling underlings. I'll spare them, weak-minded fools that they are. The people love me and yearn to see your head on a spear," Tania cried, landing on the opposite side of the promenade.
Oblivious to the burst of dust, debris and flame Isha stalked forward, cutting through every illusion without hesitation.
"Failed?" Rusalka replied, her voice resonating throughout the promenade. "I, who have evaded your mediocre attempts to find me? I, who by right am the indisputable queen of my realm? I, who will tear the heart from your chest and burn it before your very eyes?"
"You are blind, my sister. Every sprite and imp loathes your memory. You know this. Why else would they have raised me to power? Yet even now you fail to acknowledge your inevitable defeat."
What was that? An ally? Rusalka saw the woman. She burned silver with the sheen of star-iron upon her as she advanced on the usurper Tania. It was Tania who was blind, she hadn't seen the woman.
"The choice is yours." Tania spread her winds once again, their wide span casting a shadow around her. "My patience draws thin. The lives of your followers are in your hands."
The woman's progress was determined and trance-like. She seemed unaware that her clothes had been tattered and her skin cut. Green blood shone as bright as her eyes. Rusalka recognized the desire for vengeance in her, and whether she had offered it or not, accepted the service she intended to pay her.
"If you can catch us, you can kill us," Rusalka spat back, determined to keep Tania's attention from the woman, "but in fifteen thousand years you haven't come close to us."
"Until now!" Tania shrieked. "Now I claim my realm, today I rid the universe of your scourge, today I... I...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy."
Tania clutched and snatched at her chest as the star-metal blade found its target.
As the alien crumpled Isha drove the relic home, the ancient blade forged from a star that fell to ground on Romulus centuries ago, a star that had its origin in the realm of the Fae. She knew nothing of that, only that the creature had poisoned her daughter. By the law of her people, she had the right to take its life, and she had.
Caleb shook his head, unsure what he was seeing. Had the captain just stabbed that creature?
“Stand down!” Caleb shouted again to the remaining faction. Glancing up, he saw his snipers in position and he and Jessica moved slowly forward toward the captain, keeping their weapons trained on the Fae and their minions as they moved to protect Isha.
From her vantage point Rusalka looked down on her fallen sister, her followers Odessa and Alfrigg seemed uncertain of their next move.
"My friends," she said to Shea and Orrin, "today we reclaim our realm." She drew a cloak of mist about them as they moved towards the fallen Tania and their unexpected champion masking them from the security team. With a flick of her wand she extended it to include Yolanthe and the girl Eviess.
Isha’s head snapped round, “I’ll kill you too,” she said, green eyes flashing dangerously.
Rusalka chuckled softly. She shook her head. “Its all over,” she said, “the usurper is defeated, and we will return at last to our realm. You have served us well.”
“I serve no-one. My daughter is dieing because of its actions, and because of yours.”
The Fae’s gaze fell on the child, she was fading. “She may have a day, or a week, or a year. I cannot reverse the effects of my sister’s cruel spell, but I can give your daughter life.”
A bubble of hope swelled within Isha, but it burst too soon, “I’ve experienced the double speak of your people, what life would that be?”
“A year in my realm is decades in yours, such a beautiful intelligent child with the gift of knowing us. She would be happy there.”
“An eternal child, ever beyond my reach? You are known for stealing children, why would I give her to you?”
“Because you would know that beyond the thin veil that separates our worlds she was there. I am in your debt, Isha … t’Vaurek, I would seal the relationship between our people’s with this arrangement.”
“I’ll not give her up as a hostage.”
“Then be prepared to bury her,” Rusalka said.
Isha turned aside. She could see the security team close by but separate – could they hear all this? Could they see it? Could she believe the Queen of the Fae?
“I have three wishes to grant you, Isha. No need to speak them, for I have gleaned them from your thoughts. Remember, it is beyond any power to bring the dead back life so that I cannot grant except as I have offered. Those other yearnings … those wishes will come true. I cannot tell you when, but you will recognise it when they do.”
Isha said nothing – she’d thought of Eviess, of Rh’Vaurek, of finally bringing her re-unificationists home. She’d thought of a life of peace, of Argellian growing into a man as powerful and loyal as his father, of finally knowing that her life was hers.
“Your people are growing restless,” Rusalka observed, “Everyone needs a leader, and our time runs shorter.”
“Take her,” Isha said.
In a flash the Fae, and Eviess were gone.
Isha fell to her knees.
THE END
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