saladlove | Rise in Revolution (Chapter Sixty-Five)

The last chapter before the final battle. Answers a few questions and that's about it.

Chapter list: https://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/650.html
World map: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/Kaldriel-RiR-map-594639189

Chapter Sixty-Five

Mixture

Shoreline, Salvek. April 22, 2272. Time instance 842N.

Seven waited for them, arms crossed, as they walked up the beach. Emma wasn’t sure what was bothering him, but something seemed to be. It was hard to tell what, exactly, was off about him, but something clearly was and she didn’t like it.

Nine moved ahead of the group to speak to him first. “We found a visper hive and they’ve offered us their help. Some of them will be coming here to help us set up camp and aid our defenses if we get attacked. They can’t assist in the actual attack, as the Mainframe has something in place to keep them at bay, but they’ve offered use of their tunnels to get us close to the Mainframe under the desert.”

Seven blinked. “Oh. Well that’s a thing.”

“Emma also found a laser sword.”

“A what.”

“She found Nightbane,” Geek explained, “one of the most powerful artifacts known to mortals and demons alike. It’s only allowing her to use it and it can cut through metal. We suspect it can be used to damage cyborgs.”

Seven raised an eyebrow. “You leave for an hour and a half and this is what happens.”

“We find a bunch of bug people and a laser sword. Yep.” Tanadin grinned. “Don’t you love us?”

“Hm.”

“How’s the transfer going?” Nine asked, looking over the camp behind Seven.

“The last group should be departing.”

“Excellent.” Nine grinned. “I can’t wait. We’re almost there, guys.”

“We’re almost there,” Tanadin agreed. “It won’t be much longer.”

“If we live.”

“Shut up, Shawn.”

“What?! I’m just-”

“Shhh.” Tac patted his shoulder with her working hand. “Has anyone seen Kyir? I need to get this fixed.” She held up her right arm.

Seven gave her directions before walking off to go do something productive. The group split up after that but Cataclysm stayed with Emma, holding her hand as they walked into camp.

They wandered for awhile, just enjoying the silence. Emma held Nightbane in her right hand, still not sure where to put it, but feeling safer with both it and Cataclysm there.

After a couple of hours, Cataclysm paused at the sound of his name, turning and smiling at Jase.

“Hey, Jase. What do you need?”

“Kyir and Geek wanted to see you guys. Mostly Emma. But I’m sure you could persuade them to let you in, Cataclysm.” Jase winked at him behind her shades and led the way through camp, Cataclysm laughing the whole way.

Kyir’s setup appeared to be a table next to a tent large enough for maybe two people to lie down in. He looked like he wasn’t ready to do a whole lot of mechanical work, but that was to be expected. The time for anything other than emergency repairs was over. The time to fight was now.

On the table was a metal box with a red square painted on it and a small green light that indicated that it was on. Kyir leaned against the table with his arms crossed but stood up straight when he saw them approaching. Geek sat on the ground a few feet away, looking very tired and holding something small in her hands while the Nethernomicon floated idly beside her.

“Here.” Kyir walked up and immediately handed Emma something that, upon closer inspection, seemed to be a belt specially made to hold a sword without a blade. She grinned and thanked him, putting it on and sliding Nightbane into position. It wouldn’t fall out accidentally and would be easy to retrieve if necessary, something that made her feel excited about it all over again. I don’t know what you are, Nightbane, but you’re definitely going to change things for me. It hummed softly at her side.

“Alright, awesome. Now that you’re not carrying it around like a goddamn pen, take it back out again and hit this.” Kyir motioned at the box. “Just avoid the red square. That’s the important bit.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a box that’s only purpose is to run an extra cyborg anti-magic dampener. If you can affect the box with magic, you can affect the cyborgs with magic.”

“Oh. Neat.”

“Yep. Now hit the box with the sword. I want to see this thing.”

Cataclysm backed up a good six feet before Emma even retrieved Nightbane from her belt. She held it a safe distance away before activating it, the emergence of the blade sending a shiver through her as magic hummed through her system.

Kyir stood next to her, looking carefully at the sword, its silver light reflecting off of his shades. “That’s interesting,” he mumbled. “Does it change colors?”

“I have no idea,” Emma admitted. “It’s just been silver both times.”

“Huh.” Kyir reluctantly stepped back. “Take a swing at the box, then. Don’t hit the table.”

Emma moved forward and swung at the box.

Nightbane sliced through the metal as if it wasn’t there. The lack of resistance against the blade was startling but freeing as well, like she had no limitations on what she could do. She grinned and swung again, carefully avoiding the red square painted on the front.

Kyir whistled softly and stepped forward, investigating the damage. “Clean through,” he mumbled. “I’ve never seen anything cut like that. And the dampener did nothing. Like it wasn’t even magic. Huh.”

Geek got to her feet and waited for Emma to put Nightbane back before stepping forward, holding out what she had been holding in her hands. A necklace, made of a simple black cord, dangled from her fingers. It had a beaten silver amulet shaped like a winged serpent coiled around several times that looked well-loved but still durable.

“I enchanted this with most of the energy I have right now.” Geek sounded tired, her wings drooping. “It will protect you from most forms of physical harm, drawing on its own energy reserves. It will try to refill its energy by using magic around it, but it doesn’t recharge quickly. Once it’s out of power, it’s out, so try not to get hit. It doesn’t draw on you because if it tried to block a big enough hit, it would drain all of your lifeforce and kill you instantly.”

“If I took a hit that big, I’d probably die anyway.” Emma took it from her and looked it over. “Thank you. It must have been hard to enchant.”

“It was. Don’t wear it unless you’re going into combat. Preserve its energy.” Geek slowly sat down again. “You’re the wielder of Nightbane, and that’s not something to take lightly.”

Emma nodded slowly and put the necklace in one of her pockets, running that over in her mind several times. What are you, Nightbane?

“Why is Nightbane so important? How do you know about it?”

“That’s a long story, one that I’m not equipped to tell right now.” Geek shut her eyes. “I’ll tell you what. Once this is all over, I’ll tell you everything I know about Nightbane, alright?”

“Okay.” That was hardly a satisfactory response, but it would do, she supposed.

~~~

Cap raised an eyebrow at the visper as they approached. There were about two dozen of them, all in varying shades of gray and red and brown, chattering excitedly amongst themselves. She hung back in the small welcome party, letting Seven and Nine step forward to greet them first. Sheva drifted closer, looking at them curiously.

One of the visper- Krissok, he said his name was- paused mid-introduction and pointed a red claw at Seven. “You! You are a cyborg, yes, but you are also of visper blood!”

Seven blinked. “What?”

“I can tell through your mind-frequency that you are mostly human-cyborg, but you are descended from visper.” He buzzed his wings. “You did not know?”

“No.” Seven looked at his right arm as if comparing it to the arms of the visper. “I didn’t.”

Sheva’s eyes widened and she investigated the visper more closely, zipping back over to Cap and whispering in her ear. Her voice was something Cap was never going to get used to, and she suspected that Sheva was only speaking because she deemed it necessary.

“Have him pull up his shirt. I need to see his sides.”

“Now?”

Sheva nodded.

“Um.” Why do you make me do these things? “Seven? Sheva wants you to lift up your shirt. She wants to see your sides.” Her voice was quiet, not wanting the others to hear.

“Okay.” Seven didn’t really seem to care, immediately doing as instructed. The visper didn’t seem to notice, chattering about how he was related to them, while Nine instantly protested.

“Do you have no idea of when things are weird?”

“I’m assuming it’s important!”

Sheva moved forward to investigate, hovering by Seven’s right side. His left was all metal, but on his right side, two rough patches of skin, slightly darker than the rest, could be seen.

Right...where...the bulges on the visper’s sides were.

Cap nodded and motioned for him to lower his shirt while Sheva leaned back in the air, shutting her eyes and thinking. Cap didn’t pay much attention to the conversation for awhile, thinking about the implications of Seven being part visper.

She had no idea what that entailed, other than being part bug. She tuned back into the conversation as Nine asked, “So what kind of things can you guys do?”

The visper exchanged glances before Krissok spoke again. “We can fly, and our stingers could easily kill a human, but cyborgs are immune, yes?”

“We have blood filters, so yes.”

“We have claws and teeth and mandibles. We are durable but don’t have the tricky exploding magic that many humans do. But we are unkillable in numbers.”

Nine’s eyebrow shot up at that. “The file on visper mentioned that, but I didn’t know what to think of it. What do you mean?”

“Visper have a special ability, very low frequency magic, that protects us. We concentrate and we become immune to damage or become stronger or faster or can do things better. Using it or getting hurt helps break the concentration, but we can link our minds and the strength of many overcomes the strain of one.”

Cap’s eyes widened. “So if you had a hundred visper…”

“A hundred wills combating the break of concentration, yes.”

One visper stepped forward and Krissok fell back into the group. He was a gray-brown color with dull orange eyes. Unlike the other visper, he had a golden scarf wrapped around his neck and, when he spoke, it was a bit more clear than the others.

“Some of us, such as myself, are skilled in concentration and protection on our own. I am moderately protected from damage at all times and it’s very hard to break my concentration, especially if I link up with the collective. I’m what could be referred to as a ‘warrior-monk’ in your tongue, but that’s not...quite right.” He clicked his mandibles. “I am Lissko. I am the only ‘monk’ of this hive- larger hives have more of us, but Hive Vosta has only me.”

“If you have that protection running all of the time, wouldn’t you die?” Cap asked, frowning and remembering Sheva’s earlier words.

Lissko tilted his head. “No. To an untrained visper, overuse of the power may make us ill temporarily or knock us unconscious, but it could never kill. Why would you say that?”

“No reason,” Cap mumbled, letting them go back to their conversation. She backed away from the group and lowered her voice, turning and addressing Sheva directly. “How do you know that this power will kill Seven if he overuses it? It doesn’t kill the visper.”

To her surprise, Sheva answered, but Cap almost wished she hadn’t.

“It’s how we lost our mother.”

Cap didn’t have a response to that.