Descent of Nightmare (Chapter Forty-Five)
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saladloveChapter list: https://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/650.html
Map of Kaldriel: https://i.gyazo.com/332b0c0172dcc60acb46
Rough map of Hatu: https://i.gyazo.com/ea4f9f51b9dc7b9d8b86
Chapter Forty-Five
Selection
Akrar, Kaldriel. November 19, 2277. Time instance 842N.
M was surprised when Annihilation, of all people, ran up to him and almost slammed into him from momentum. She slowed down in time, though, skidding to a stop and cringing at the pain of an agitated wound. “M! Have you seen Deathclaw anywhere?”
M pulled down his hood and raised an eyeridge. “Not for a few days, no. Why?”
“I couldn’t find him before the battle and I don’t think he was in it at all. I’m really worried. What if something happened to him?”
“He’s not in his room?”
“No.” Annihilation shuffled her wings nervously. “I haven’t seen him for hours.”
“Strange,” M mumbled. “I’m sure he’s fine, but you never-”
He was interrupted by the Mystrex in him throwing back his head and releasing a series of notes, a call that M had only issued once before in his life. The cloak hummed and the magic in his core shifted slightly, as it did in all Mystrex.
M lowered his head and his eyes glowed brighter. He pulled his hood up and raced through the possibilities of how this had happened, resisting the trembling in his bones.
There was a new Mystrex. The only way was that if the kavakras had a good candidate for the cloak that had been sent back, or…
Or…
M growled something about being back and shot off, racing at top speed through Akrar and to where he and Q were staying. He shot past dozens of citizens, although few, if any, noticed him, and his feet left no imprints even on soft dirt that he crossed as a shortcut.
He slammed his way into the building, shoving the unlocked door against the wall, and rounded the corner into the room where he’d put E’s cloak after their confrontation.
It wasn’t where he left it. Instead, standing before where it had been was a Mystrex, its size hard to make out due to E’s cloak but it clearly towered above every other Mystrex that M had ever seen. It turned to face him, glowing red in its cowl the only indication of its identity until it pulled its hood down. Red eyes shone out from the dark gray scales of the Mystrex, accenting by curled horns as dark as the cloak.
“Deathclaw,” M whispered, pulling his hood down and feeling his legs shake.
How had this happened? The cloak wasn’t supposed to accept anyone but raptors- which he apparently counted as, despite being half-demon- and he certainly wasn’t trained to be a Mystrex. It was an abomination, even more so than the son of a Mystrex existing in the first place, even if it did keep the kavakras’ hands off of E’s cloak.
He wasn’t trained. He hadn’t learned. He didn’t know how to be a Mystrex, what it meant, or any of his duties. M’s claws curled and dug into his hands, anger rising.
Why did these things keep happening?!
“I overhead you.” Deathclaw’s- E’s, his old name was irrelevant now- voice was steady, the same as it had always been. “Your conversation with Q. You were worried about the other raptors getting the cloak back.”
M growled softly. “That didn’t mean for you to-”
“I had to try.” E’s claws clicked against the floor. “It wanted me to.”
“It-”
“Yes.”
M bit back a series of choice words that were uncharacteristic for him to say. “You shouldn’t have put it on. You shouldn’t even qualify as a raptor. It shouldn’t have accepted you- you haven’t been trained, you don’t know what it means to be Mystrex, you don’t-”
“Teach me.”
“What?”
“You and Q know how to be Mystrex. You can teach me.” His wings shuffled under his cloak, moving the fabric oddly. “You can’t undo this, can you? I’m a Mystrex until I die.”
“You shouldn’t be alive at all.” M clicked his claws on the floor, a jarring rhythm against E’s. “But I suppose that… doesn’t matter.” A sigh bubbled in his chest and he let it escape. “Very well, E. I will speak to Q and we will train you.” His eyes narrowed, the lights in them dimming slightly. “But you won’t like anything that this entails.”
~~~
“Tanadin!”
Tanadin turned at the shout, raising an eyebrow as Neves approached. “Hey, Neves. What is it?”
“Well, first off, I’m glad to see you’re okay and didn’t get super stabbed again. Second, I… wanted to ask a favor of you.”
“Shoot.”
“Seven wants me to go to the Mainframe and that place scares me shitless.” Neves grinned awkwardly. “Fall usually goes with me when I have to go but she’s so busy training Lucy that I don’t want to bother her, and I don’t want to just share the train with Sheva because she’s really scary.”
“You want me to go on the train with you to the Mainframe because Sheva scares you and the Mainframe freaks you out?”
“Yes.”
“Sounds good. I can do that.” Tanadin smiled at his sigh of relief. “Don’t you need to stay here, though? Don’t you have patients?”
“Yeah, well, Scara said she can handle them if Seven wants me at the Mainframe that badly.” Neves crossed his arms. “I’m pretty pissed he’s pulling me away from this but he said it’s important. I don’t see why Sheva needs to go, either, but I guess she knows what she’s talking about.”
Tanadin shook her head. “You’ll never understand Allvaers, Neves. Just live with it.”
“I don’t want to live with it. I want to be mad.”
Tanadin snorted. “And you do that quite well. When is our train leaving?”
“In a couple of hours.”
“Really? I would have thought that Sheva was going to stay to keep the angels under control for awhile.”
Neves shrugged. “Not my problem. I didn’t exactly ask her. I know she’s getting on after us, though- we’re stopping near the Opal Gate because she can’t pass through Hell, and we’re not just going through the portal straight there because I can’t pass through Hell.”
Tanadin sighed. “Fair. I’ll get some stuff together for a trip to the Mainframe and I’ll meet you at the train station in an hour and a half.”
Neves nodded. “Okay. I can live with that.”
~~~
“You’re sure her last name is Allvaer?” Scorp asked for probably the third time as he followed Cap, Jimmy, and Gali towards the angel camp.
“Very sure. She and her brother have caused enough trouble for me to remember it.” Cap’s voice was flat, as if she was thinking too hard to bother to put emotion into it. Scorp didn’t know her very well, but he could tell that she was friendly, if easily dragged into focusing on issues that she shouldn’t worry too much about.
“When was the last time you talked to someone in your family?” Gali asked, shooting him a concerned look.
“Hell, I dunno. Face-to-face, it was probably when I went to see my cousins shortly after they were born. You remember that, right?”
“Well, yeah. It was only the most traumatic experience of my life.” Gali grinned.
Scorp pretended to hit her. “You could live without your fence for a week or two, you big baby.”
Jimmy giggled. “Did you get all pouty, Gali?”
“No!”
“Really?” Scorp’s eyebrow shot up. “That’s not what Leo said.”
“Leo-! Aaahhrg, that traitor!”
“There she is,” Cap mumbled, increasing her pace and weaving between whispering crowds of angels. They watched the four of them as they passed, a few glaring at or shuffling away from Jimmy. Gali’s eyes flickered purple in warning and she linked their arms, watching the angels with slight hostility until they’d moved past.
Scorp ignored them, for the most part, and looked around for anyone vaguely resembling him. Eventually, his eyes locked on the angel Cap was heading towards, and he almost froze mid-step.
She was definitely an Allvaer, that was for sure. She had to be.
She was tall, for one, with blonde hair and gray eyes that shone more silver with the light that angels seemed to give off. Her wings were silver and looked like they were made of light, folded neatly against her back with the grace of someone who was well-practiced or a fast learner. Most of all, she gave off the slight hum that visper did, weaker and of a different tune, one more familiar to Scorp as the mark of a visper hybrid. She didn’t have much visper in her, from what he could tell, but that wasn’t unusual in his family. He was the most physically obvious of the bunch, probably even before the Mainframe showed up and killed some of them.
Archangel Sheva paused mid-sentence as Cap approached, turning her head slightly to look at her. The angel she was talking to frowned slightly and looked at Cap as well, confused.
Cap’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t. Don’t you pull your silent routine on me. You’re not even dead.”
Sheva grinned. “I’m just messing with you. One moment.” She returned to her conversation with the angel, nodding several times before he simply bowed.
“Thank you for your time, Archangel Elysia.”
“It’s Sheva,” she mumbled, “and you’re welcome.”
The angel left, but something clicked in Scorp’s head.
“Elysia?” He stepped forward, past Cap, and Sheva’s eyes turned to him. “Is that your name?”
“Yes, but I don’t go by it.” She raised an eyebrow. “Who are you?”
“Scorp Allvaer. I believe I’m your cousin. Do you have a brother named Asphodel?”
Sheva’s other eyebrow joined the first. “Yes. He’s better known as Seven, the cyborg in charge of the Mainframe.”
Several pieces clicked into place and Scorp growled about his own stupidity under his breath, kicking at a rock. Gali slapped her own forehead somewhere behind him. “Of course,” he mumbled. “Of course Seven’s an Allvaer. I should have guessed, with all I knew about him. I’m really off my game. Of course my dumb stupid dumb idiot genius family has someone in the Mainframe.”
“He has no memory of being himself before he was a cyborg,” Sheva said flatly. “I’m an exception because I died for awhile before deciding I was more useful as an archangel.”
Scorp opened his mouth to question before deciding that this was just typical family behavior and shut it. “Okay, well, leaving Kesron Minor sure has been an adventure. I found one and a half cousins, Gali, and her demon girlfriend.”
“I have a couple of nieces and a nephew you could also meet,” Sheva told him, face twitching in an attempt to not smile. “They were all created in a lab and Seven can’t stand the thought of any of them except maybe for Twelve.”
Scorp stared at her.
“Come on, arachnid boy,” Gali said, grabbing his arm. “You’ve got some more family to meet and I’m sure Sheva has something important to do.”
Sheva nodded. “Yes, I do. I have a train to catch so that I can go see my brother and try to fix his memories. It’s getting that annoying every time he feels half an emotion he shuts down those processors because it scares him more than he’ll admit.”
Scorp blinked several times. “You know, I think I’ll meet him sometime after you guys talk and do...whatever it is you’re planning to do.”
Sheva spread her wings. “That would be wise.” Before they could say anything else, she took off, leaving them confused and slightly concerned behind her.
