Chapter 309: Too hot, hot damn (Patreon)

The moment I spot what I presume to be Starmother’s original body, her host looking out at the expanding ball of Astreum through the Final Hub’s transparent front wall, I signal the others with a flash of pink.

Then I prompt Alec to point at her, and without further communication, we all accelerate forwards, converging on her location.

Of course, after her little speech earlier, we’re hardly the only ones moving in her direction. Peilor all over are flying towards the front wall, though whether they were inspired to help defend against the Astreum approaching with a deafening roar, or simply fear what reprisals may come if they don’t, we’ll never know.

“All of the external anchors have been deployed,” Trisha whispers from my backpack. “Kaitlynn has been joined by her pets and is working on the internal anchors as we speak. However, Commander Haron has received reinforcements which have significantly sped up his progress towards the Voidcannon.”

She’s alive, thank Goddess!

I listen intently to the reports, but Trisha falls quiet when we draw near Starmother’s host, a sleek, bipedal, reptilian female with dark grey scales and white, slitted pupils. It turns around upon our approach, revealing a bright pink crystal that’s quite a bit bigger than the average Peilor embedded in the centre of her chest.

More importantly, the Espir fluctuations rolling off said crystal tell me Starmother’s Espir Pool ranges around 14.000 motes.

Shit!

“It was about time you showed up,” Starmother drawls in a displeased tone, her voice somehow perfectly audible over the intensifying roar of the incoming explosion. “What is going on out there? How could they have possibly taken the Voidcannon, let alone used it?”

“We’re not sure, Your Highness,” Farouq chimes from Loudmouth’s forehead, smoothly taking the lead. “We believe agents from the Realm of Imagination have somehow turned a portion of the Voidcannon’s engineering personnel and—”

A familiar ripple of Espir washes over us from the distance, causing Starmother to flash in surprise.

That was Elysia; she’s descended! That means Starmother’s hive is fully trapped now!

The original Starmother remains silent for a bit. “Well, this just turned serious, didn’t it?” she muses, sounding surprised and almost pleased at this fact.

Meanwhile, Peilor have arrived all around us, spread out near the transparent wall. The Yang ones appear to have begun forming massive Gravitational fields, and the Yin ones Spatial Boundaries.

<There’s so many Peilor here,> Alec sends through his Lavi Flows, a mixture of worry and thrill accompanying the message. <What are we going to do?>

<We wait,> I reply firmly.

<What for?>

<For them to have their hands full dealing with that.>

The noise builds to a crescendo, as the Peilor frantically work to finish their defences. Unfortunately, Starmother herself doesn’t seem inclined to help, satisfied with keeping watch over the proceedings.

Then the Astreum at last arrives, roaring in defiance, seeming almost alive as the fields of Gravitational Energy funnel it into huge Warp tunnels. Orange tongues escape the powerful flows and lick across the transparent wall separating us from the cataclysm, but don’t seem capable of damaging it.

The Heat shining through is still immense, however, which shows when the grey cloth covering Loudmouth’s armour abruptly catches fire. I quickly flood the area with Cold, but the damage is done. A flash of shiny blue scales is revealed from beneath.

I distinctly sense the moment Starmother’s attention falls back on us, with far greater intensity than before. “Hold on... you’re not even my agents, are you? Who are you, then?”

Damn. Well, there was no real reason to put it off any longer anyway.

Without saying a word, I Warp Alec closer—as close as Starmother’s Gravity Field allows.

To my utter surprise, however, she Warps back in the same instant, before I can even spread out my tendrils.

Warping is a Yin ability, while that crystal is clearly Yang. Did she bring out more than one? No, there’s only one large Espir Pool... then it must’ve been her host!

“An assassination attempt? How nostalgic!” Starmother drawls amusedly. “I suppose you’re part of all this then, yes? Tell me, how did you pull off the infiltration of the Voidcannon?”

Waves of Persuasive Espir come washing over us with her words, but I counter with a gout of Devouring Flames, that literally burns her Espir out of the Aether.

Well, perhaps not literally literally, as they’re Imaginary flames burning Imaginary waves, but... close enough. Either way, now that we’ve been made, there’s no reason to waste any more time.

“Get her!” I shout.

All we need to do is tie her down a little, so she can’t move away when Loudmouth activates the beacon. Although it’d be best if I could get her out of her crystal, that doesn’t seem too likely right now...

Jacob immediately launches himself forward, as Farouq Warps Loudmouth closer, spreading his field of Spatial Energy to interfere with those from her host.

“Now now, no need to be rude,” Starmother chimes, as she effortlessly manipulates Gravity to weave her host in between us, not even bothering to strike back. “YOU WISH TO CEASE ALL ACTION.”

If her attempt at Persuading us just now was like a blanket gently drifting over, her Command is more like a sledgehammer to the face.

Alec freezes in the middle of stretching his hand forward, the Electric Energy gathered in his palm starting to dissipate harmlessly. Similar scenes play out around me, with Loudmouth going rigid mid-leap, Farouq powering down his field of Spatial Energy, and Jacob continuing forward until he bonks into the transparent wall at considerable speed, though thankfully with his arms stretched out before him.

In the end, I’m the only one who manages to withstand the Command, as the disparity between our Espir Pools isn’t that large.

Oh shit... Why did I think we could do this? She’s going to kill all of them!

However, it turns out I’m not the only one unaffected, as there was one being with us that remained hidden, and therefore wasn’t targeted by Starmother’s Command.

“Emma, dear, you have to stall her!” Trisha whispers at me from Alec’s backpack, her soothing voice almost lost in the cacophony. “Dave is on his way!”

“What? No!” I whisper back. “Tell him we don’t stand a chance; tell him to stay away!”

“He’s still coming,” Trisha replies after a moment. “He says to trust him, and be ready.”

Shit!

Right at that moment, as if on cue, the Heat becomes too much, and the remaining grey cloth covering all of my friends catches fire as One. It quickly burns up, revealing Alec’s gorgeous creations in all their glory.

“My, that armour is rather pretty,” Starmother muses. “Almost a crime to cover it up, isn’t it?”

“There are worse crimes,” I bite back. Gotta keep her talking then, I guess.

“Oh? You’re a tough one, aren’t you?” Starmother drawls, her attention falling on me. “Do you have a name?”

“I do,” I reply more calmly than I feel. Since Elysia’s landed, the original Starmother should be cut off from the rest of her hive. And either way, with Goddess there, Kaitlynn should be safe. Screw it, then.

I step out of my crystal, revealing my spiritform.

“Emma?” Starmother asks in surprise. “To think you’d get this strong so fast... I simply must know your secret.”

“Diet and exercise,” I reply tersely, as I mentally go over my options.

Starmother laughs. “Oh, I do so appreciate that clever tongue of yours. Ah, the blue armours, yes, these are your friends, aren’t they?

What did you call yourselves again, the blue trigots? A bit silly, really, all trigots are blue these days; it’s the only pigmentation that hasn’t gone extinct...”

Well, at least it shouldn’t be too hard to keep her talking, she clearly loves the sound of her own voice.

“It’s the Blue Dragons,” I correct.

“Oh yes, those have been extinct for a while here as well. Shame, they made for good hosts.”

As she speaks, her current host comes floating steadily closer to me and Alec, who’s still hanging in his frozen pose, utterly still, but alive, for now.

Let’s try and keep it that way.

“You like to act like you’re so tough, don’t you?” I sneer at Starmother, folding my arms over my chest. “Oh look at you, nothing fazes you. Am I really expected to believe you don’t care even if Goddess is destroying your little hive as we speak?”

“So you know about that?” Starmother asks. “Well, so what if they’re destroyed? They're me, but so am I. If they’re gone I will be weaker, but you know what? Rebuilding my strength sounds like an fun challenge. And growing beyond my current strength with the methods you’re about to reveal to me sounds even better.”

That’s not a direction I want this conversation to take, so I quickly try to redirect the topic. “Do you care so little for lives that not even your own matters to you anymore?”

Starmother laughs, the sound warm, almost motherly, belying everything she stands for. “Oh my sweet child... I don't expect you to understand my perspective on existence, any more than you would expect an ant to understand the height of a mountain, or a blade of grass to understand the depths of the ocean. Now, about those methods of yours...”

Her reptilian host forms a Warptunnel that brings Jacob next to her, where it puts a clawed hand to his throat.

Inwardly, I seethe. Outwardly, I don’t even bat an eye. “You want to know my secrets? Come out of that crystal and fight me. If you win, I’ll tell you everything.”

“Hmm... that sounds like rather a bother,” Starmother chimes, as her host’s nails trail up a little further, coming to rest over Jacob’s jugular. “I think you’ll tell me regardless.”

I raise a brow at her. “Wow. I’d figured you for a narcissistic, megalomaniac asshole, but I’d never considered you might be a prissy little coward, too. I guess I read you wrong after all. My bad.”

Starmother goes eerily quiet. “You really want your spanking that badly, huh?” she finally chimes, in a dangerous tone. “Very well, child. Have it your way.”

And then she leaps forth from her crystal, a vaguely humanoid-shaped storm of pink energy, arcs of pink reaching my way like branches growing fast as lightning.

I instantly conjure a stone wall in front of me, toughened with Mental Fortitude, but it quickly starts to crumble under her onslaught.

However, blocking her attack was only half its purpose. The moment she comes bursting straight through, she comes face to face with my bone trident, clad in Devouring Flames.

In preparation of this mission, I’d stored it in my Core, much like Kaitlynn’s held the whistle.

If it had been the me that left for the lower Realms, apart from lacking the skill to bring something into my Core, even I’d succeeded, the trident’s very presence would have ripped it apart.

But I’ve come a long way since then.

Starmother hisses as my burning trident stabs into her pink form, but quickly retaliates with a ball of pink lightning that sends me flying, smoke trailing after my spiritform.

Tendrils of Devouring Energy burst out of me, hooking themselves into the very Aether, which allows me to whip myself out of the way of another bolt of pink. Moving around my spiritform is all a matter of belief, and I’ve propelled myself through Aether often enough that I believe I can do this. And thus I can.

“It’s been a while since I’ve personally put a little upstart in her place,” Starmother chimes. “This is going to be fun.”

“So that’s why you seem so rusty!” I retort. “I thought I was fighting a greenhorn for a second there, all brawn and no finesse.”

“Oh, I’ll show you finesse, hon.”

Starmother’s lightning arcs out in a web that seeks to enclose me from all sides, and in response, I cover my tendrils in Devouring Flames and turn into a whirling dervish, the way Aki taught me.

Our battle rages back and forth, with both of us scoring hits, but the direction it’s going in quickly becomes clear.

Seeing as this is a Physical Realm, it doesn’t have an underlying fabric of Espir. That means I can’t tune in here, nor can I form tunnels through the fabric to teleport through. Even with my best techniques cut off, I might’ve stood a chance if my Espir Pool wasn’t at a significant disadvantage, but as it is, she’s whittling me down faster than I her.

But my goal right now isn’t to defeat her.

With my attention fully focused on Starmother, I never notice the moment Dave arrives, and as far as I can tell, neither does she. I don’t realise he’s here until I feel a familiar wave of Espir wash over me.

A wave I’ve felt once before, back in the Voidcannon.

Alec’s fingers twitch, then he gasps, drawing in a breath. Jacob launches himself away from Starmother’s reptilian host with a flash of yellow, but said host just looks around confusedly.

He found the Command-breaker device!

I turn to Loudmouth, who looks stunned and frightened, but right as I’m about to shout at him to activate the beacon, another change occurs.

All around us, Peilor are struggling to control their suddenly freed hosts, some of which are fleeing, others have turned aggressive and started fighting each other. More importantly, as a result, the massive Gravitation and Spatial Energy Fields the Peilor have created falter... then fail entirely.

Author's note:

Thanks for reading! ^^