Page 182 of Godslayer
Seventeen years of mods, and upgrades, and glitches, and patches.
I’m not even an animal at this point. Nothin’ but a machine.
This isn’t my fight—it’s his.
Let the protocol run.
Because my mind is somewhere else now. Floatin’. Watchin’. High above the arena. Detached. Unaffected by what Tyse down below does.
I am back in Tau City, just inside the boundary of the Tower District. Kissin’ Clara Birch to tame her spark. Lettin’ it spill into me. Lettin’ it fill me up. Taking it all, as much as I can, to save us from the spyin’ eyes of Stayn.
Where am I?
Epsilon!Epsilon!Epsilon!
For the first time, this chant is only in my head. It’s not real.
I look down again—further down. Scannin’ the scaffolding of the cage and the arena below. Countin’ bodies. Not dead ones—there’s too many. Livin’. And there’s so few.
I’ve torn through his horde—his mistakes.
But on the big screen, Epsilon’s laughin’. That twisted, burned face is laughin’ as he pumps his fist in the air screamin’, “That’s the spirit!”
And then, just when I think I’m about done here, wall panels open up in the side of the arena and they pour out. Hundreds of mutant augments.
Only these ones canfly.
Not enough.
I knew it. The moment I got here, I knew it.
Clara!
I had a plan. I did. Ido. But I can’t do it, not fightin’ on fumes. And now, that plan is the least of my worries because now, when I beg for her help, it’s not about a plan.
It’s about survivin’.
Clara!
This plea for help is inside me. Down there, in the fight, I don’t even have time to think, let alone scream.
Clara!
Down below the first flying mutant arrives at the cage, makin’ it swing wildly in mid-air. I watch myself drop to a knee, duck a swipe, punch up into its gut. It folds, wheezes, then I rip a wing off and kick it through the bars.
Another lands behind me, claws raking my back. I turn, grab its head, slam it into the rail until it stops moving. Blood sprays. I wipe it off my eyes, fists already rocking the face of the next one.
Back up here, things go quiet and a blue mist slowly begins to undulate its way towards me. For a moment, I suspect poison. That mad god is gonna kill us all with poison.
But it’s not poison. It’s…spark.
Clara?
No. Not Clara. Somethin’ else. Somethin’ I’ve never seen before appears in the mist all around me. Women. Girls. Even babies. All of them empty and dark, made up only of an outline of spark.
This spark manifests as a glowing, cracklin’ line of light. Arcing off in many directions at once, like I’m in the middle of a sweep storm, born from the minds of ancient gods.
Flickerin’ and hangin’ in the misty air.
