Intense Struggle! (Round 7 - The Database)

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

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Soft was annoyed; this story wasn’t making any sense. A silly floating pink woman had just murdered a being that was practically death incarnate. This was not how things were supposed to happen. Messing with primal forces as powerful as this was supposed to leave you if not dead then with a very strict lesson in not messing with powerful forces as primal as this. Soft knew that she couldn’t let the silly pink woman get away with such a crime against reasonable narrative and ignored by everyone else in the room she raised the rifle she had liberated from one of the destroyed guards, and pulled the trigger.

The weapon was not really designed for use by a ten year old girl, the recoil throwing her arm back and sending bullets flying into monitors, the wall, the ceiling, more or less everywhere that didn’t contain a silly floating pink woman. Dove collapsed to the floor, his chest all but shredded by the misaimed hail of bullets; beside him glass shattered and substances leaked; and part of Kaja’s life-preserving contraption was destroyed.

Quickly Aph had grabbed Soft, knocking the rifle out of her hand. For a moment she just held her aloft, fighting Soft’s struggle to break free. Then with a wide grin Aph’s skin erupted into flame which slowly moving down her arm and engulfed the spirit of fairy tales. As she burned alive Soft screaming as much in frustration as in agony. This was not how her story was supposed to end. After a minute, once the thrashing had stopped Aph dropped her charred remains and turned her attention to the others.

Dove lay on the floor, gasping uselessly, taking in his last breaths. A deep throaty chuckle as he saw his two time murderer destroyed, followed promptly by a cough as blood poured out of his mouth. He closed his eyes and asked the planet if he had done good this time. There was a response, but it was not what he wanted to hear. Six condemning words that spat on all he had worked for. ‘Don’t be silly, planets aren’t sentient.’ The Ghost replied.

Doctor Lorrden was struggling to his feet, feeling substantially weaker than he had done before. He braced himself against the bullet-ridden desk as Aph approached him.

“How?” she asked, picking up the conversation from exactly where she had left off. “How can I drain the magic?” Kaja gestured towards Dove’s corpse, specifically to the backpack he was wearing.

“In there.” He said. The nymph reached down and disentangled the bag from the limbs of Dove’s corpse, mockingly careful not to touch the dead man. She dumped the thing down on the desk with a thump, Kaja protested to handle it more delicately, and opened it up. Inside was a complicated grey machine. Aph played with it idly flicking at it’s components until it rumbled into life, a low pulsating blue. She felt herself drifting away, and quickly before it had a chance to fully activate disabled the mana-dampening core. “It needs rewiring.” Kaja explained. “Do exactly what I say, I don’t have long.” Aph gave him a mock salute and forming tools from the D’Neya’s black tentacles she did as the dying alchemist asked.

It was tough going, every minute that she worked on it Kaja slipped further and further away. Sometimes she would ask a question and all she got in response was a snapped back ‘I don’t know, I’m just going off what I was told’. In the meantime Thatix buzzed around the room making a nuisance of herself; pretending like she had killed Dove, Ziirphael and Soft, going ‘bang’, ‘zap’ and ‘pow’ as she mimed a mighty battle that had taken place only in her head.

Eventually it was done; the mana-draining core was complete. Doctor Lorrden had collapsed into the swivel chair that the person watching the monitors would normally sit at and was losing consciousness rapidly. Aph flicked the device on, and blanketed herself with electricity. Though it was her insect instinct that drove Thatix towards the light, to the electrified nymph, part of her would have gone anyway, just because of the shiny. Piece by piece her consciousness dissipated as the swarm that made her up was electrocuted, her mana dissipating into the nearest source of magic, Aph herself. Aph watched as the mad sorceress died and giggled as she could feel Thatix’s magic flowing through her. She turned around to Kaja and stared him in the eye with a grin of grim triumph.

“One last thing.” She asked. “What makes you think I even want to kill The Monitor?” Kaja looked at her with an expression of pained incomprehension.

“He took you from your world; he made you fight and kill in order to stay alive.” The Doctor said. “Why wouldn’t you want to kill him?”

“Because I was weak, because I was pathetic and I killed and loved and forgot time and again.” Aph replied. “My existence was pointless. I was pointless. The Monitor brought me here, made me strong, gave me people to play with and to kill. The Monitor has done more for me than anyone else ever has. I would kill to protect him.” Now scowling, her tentacles impaled the dying man, spearing him through his chest and his contraption, through his limbs and through his brain. An unnecessary act she was sure, but one she felt compelled to commit anyway.

Across the sector prisoners were starting to notice that the mana-dampening had powered down, and using their abilities to escape. They fled towards the elevators hoping to get the hell out of there, only to find that they had been shut down from a small control room full of bodies. Aph was going to enjoy this.