Chapter 30: Old Foe
"So this is the woman you’ve been seeing?"
K stared at the unconscious Shira. To be honest, he wasn’t even sure if this person was Shira. She looked entirely different from the one he had seen during his fight with Luituka, the one he had seen in the white void, the one that messed with him daily and the one he saw in his trance.
"I guess..."
"Hand over the drone."
He slid the marble back into her outlet and began to put on his armor.
Static.
"...hear me...ship...now!"
The comms attached to his helmet crackled.
"What the..."
The noise came again, "K! Ship...shit...me!"
"Do you hear that?"
"Hm?"
K pulled her outlet from where she sat and held her to his helmet.
"...inboun—...are you!"
"There’s too much interference...it must be the portal we came through. Let’s go back outside, maybe we’ll make sense of who is talking and what they’re trying to say."
The duo nodded simultaneously and headed towards the entrance of the settlement. Iniko spotted them a few meters away,
"K? Where are you going?"
"Just outside, I’ll be back in a minute."
"I’ll come with you!"
"No, you have to help your people...my discovery made quite a mess." He pointed to the split open treehouse and the nearby drenched and half-bent trees.
"My sisters will be fine, they can handle themselves."
A few seconds passed.
"Fine."
Once outside the portal, the crackling stopped.
"Oh stars! K! Can you hear me? There’s a Vashki ship inbound!"
"Shit!"
Why now?
"We have to get back to Meredith, right now!"
"Start the ship!"
"Roger!"
"This is K-0-0-1 to Lex, we’re returning to Meredith. Hold the fort for us."
He dashed through the
Static.
"No, dont start the ship!"
His boots skidded against the forest floor as he halted.
"What did you just say?"
"Dont start the fucking ship! They’re above it!"
"Lex..." his visor scanned his field of vision, "how do you know this?"
"Because I’m seeing it!"
"What does she mean?"
"Were we tailed?"
"If we were being tailed, I would have known before we even landed!"
"Lex? Where are you?"
There was no response, the forest seemed frozen as well. The usual chirping of beds had disappeared alongside the scuttling of critters.
"Don’t worry go back to the ship, I’ll find your friend, I know the forest like the back of my hand."
Iniko didn’t wait for his response. One minute she was behind him, the next she was leaping from a tree and away.
"That’s our cue!"
The two dashed forward towards the clearing where their ship sat.
And just like Lex had said, a Vashki ship hovered above their ship.
"What are they doing here?"
"The only explanation I can give is that they tailed us here...and I couldn’t detect them."
The ship hummed and a compartment opened. A vashki stepped forward, K’s eyebrows pulled together in a frown, the Vashki had a hole in his side wrapped with a material that glowed each time its chest rose and fell.
"Long time no see." The Vashki held its hands out as if welcoming him. "Demon child."
"What are you doing here?"
"I followed your little beacon."
"Beacon?"
"While you were down there, I experienced some interference during that water surge but I dismissed it as it didn’t pose a threat."
"Like a gust of wind?"
"I can’t identify it as that but if that’s what you felt."
"Interacting with Shira’s ’tomb’ must have released some kind of signal for them."
"Will you two quit babbling? I’ve not come here to listen to you two!"
"..."
"..."
"Wait! I recognize that Vashki! He’s the one you fought and dealt a blow so badass he had a hole in his side!"
He did?
"When was that?"
"It was when your first rebellion was recorded! When you took out your pellet...well after. From audio feedback, that guy over there is called IraChoka or something."
"How dare you! It’s Ira’Oka!"
"Losing your temper to something so mere?"
A rumbling voice echoed. The ship groaned and another Vashki stepped out.
Immediately, K fell forward. His knees hit the ground, palms flat against it. The trees behind him bent and the nearby water bodies seemed to shrink.
An invisible pressure filled the atmosphere,
"The infamous demon child..." he couldn’t raise his head. Each time he tried, he nearly popped a bone and some blood vessels.
"...I see my beloved is still obsessed with perfection. Unfortunately, I have little to no time to have a proper chat with you. I have important business, you see...well then, I’ll leave you two gentlemen to your thing."
"C-can you see the Vashki speaking?" K strained against the weight pressing into him.
"If you can unplug me from your helmet, yes."
His hand reached for his helmet but the movement only knocked him off balance, landing flat on his face and keeping him there.
"Shit. What is this?"(aura K, it’s aura.)
"Have a wonderful day."
The pressure disappeared and K jumped to his feet, his blaster aimed at where the other Vashki stood. But only Ira’Oka stood there.
"Well then, I have a score to settle with you."
The porcelain plates around Ira’Oka’s face trembled. A sharp crack echoed through the clearing. Then another. Thin fractures raced across the smooth white shell before splitting apart into four jagged sections that peeled away from the center. Beneath them emerged the true face of a Vashki. Black mandibles unfolded with a wet click, smaller sensory appendages twitching as rows of needle-like teeth flexed inside the insectoid maw.
A low hiss escaped him.
"You took everything from me, Demon Child."
His visor immediately began calculating firing trajectories. K’s fingers loosened around his rifle.
[
TARGET: U’KAN
ESTIMATED LETHALITY: 2.7%
]
He exhaled.
"...Figures." The rifle clattered onto the forest floor.
Ira tilted his head. "So you’ve learned."
"My bullets won’t stop you."
"No, they won’t even slow me down."
For a heartbeat, neither moved.
The forest seemed to hold its breath. Then...
BOOM!
The air exploded around Ira’s feet.
He vanished.
"K!" Kagu yelled.
K barely reacted before something slammed into his crossed forearms.
A shockwave ripped through the clearing.
His boots carved trenches through the soil as he was driven backward several meters before crashing through the trunk of an enormous tree.
Wood burst into splinters.
His arms screamed with pain.
"...Fuck."
He looked up.
Ira was already there.
A knee drove toward his ribs. K twisted. The strike grazed him instead of landing cleanly. Even so,
BOOM!
He was hurled sideways into another tree.
His armor flashed multiple warnings.
[
MICROFRACTURES DETECTED
Location: Ribcage(right)
]
"What’s with all these new notifications?"
He cursed and hoisted himself up.
"My presence in your armor has uploaded new interfaces. Keep calm and your visor up so I can help you calculate the U’Kan’s movements and future lines of attacks."
"Okay."
Ira descended again. A downward hammer fist.
K rolled out of its trajectory, its fist struck earth instead. The entire forest floor collapsed inward, leaving behind a crater several meters wide.
"So much an U’Kan can really do..."
K sprang forward before Ira recovered.
A punch to his side, another to its chest. An elbow. A knee.
Every strike flowed into the next with precise hits.
Ira absorbed them all. His porcelain shell cracked in several places. His insectoid mandibles clicked.
"Yes. Better."
His palm shot forward. It struck K square in the chest. The impact blasted every ounce of air from K’s lungs. He flew backward through three massive trees before tumbling across the forest floor. Dust swallowed everything.
K forced himself upright. Blood splattered across his visor.
"...fuck, he’s strong."
Ira slowly walked through the settling dust.
"I underestimated you once."
"You beat him the first time...put him down for good."
His rings pulsed. "I lost my wife because of it." Another step. "I will not repeat that mistake."
He disappeared again.
K closed his eyes.
"Now that I think about it...wife?"
His breathing slowed as he listened, drowning out the hum of his armor and tuning into that of the forest.
Wind.
A distortion then nothing.
Behind.
He spun. Their fists collided.
The collision erupted like a shockwaves.
Leaves exploded into the sky for miles around. The shockwave flattened the surrounding grass. K felt bones grind inside his wrist.
Ira felt it too.
The Vashki’s arm shifted backward slightly, not much but enough for him.
K stepped inside his guard and slammed his helmet into his head. The porcelain over Ira’s forehead fractured.
Before the U’Kan could recover, he drove three rapid punches into the glowing wound still covering the hole he’d blasted through Ira months earlier.
The regenerative membrane rippled violently. Silver blood seeped through it. Ira staggered half a step.
"You..." Another punch. "Damned brat! Aagh!"
K buried another fist into the same wound. The membrane finally giving way. Silver blood splashed across his gauntlet.
Ira’s entire body trembled.
"Only a coward goes for his enemy’s weak spot!"
His hand wrapped around K’s throat. Bloody fingers ripping though his armor and pressing into his cervical spine.
K’s boots left the ground.
One-handed and effortlessly, the Vashki lifted him until they were eye level.
"You think..." The insectoid mandibles clicked violently. "...reopening an old wound..." His grip tightened. "...will save you?"
K clawed at the massive hand. His vision began to darken. His oxygen warnings blaring.
"His injured side is open! Disorient him!"
He smiled.
"You always..." K rasped.
"...talk too much. Don’t ya?"
His knee shot upward aimed at where Kagu had pointed.
CRACK!
Ira’s grip loosened instinctively, dropping K.
The instant his boots touched earth, he exploded upward.
A right hook. A knee.
A spinning back fist.
Every strike targeted the same injury. Over and over again.
Ira finally retaliated. His mandibles spewing blood and saliva. His forehead slammed into K’s.
CRAAACK!!
Stars burst across K’s vision.
Before he could recover, a fist slammed into his jaw, the helmet cracked and gave way. Kagu yelled distantly.
An uppercut.
K was launched high above the canopy. He barely had time to orient himself before Ira followed. The U’Kan kicked off empty air with terrifying force. He caught K hundreds of feet above the forest.
His elbows raised above his head descended like a falling meteor.
K twisted sideways.
The blow clipped his shoulder instead, even that sent him hurtling back toward the ground.
He struck the forest floor.
BOOOOOOM!!
Trees folded outward in a perfect circle.
The earth shook. Dust billowed skyward.
K slowly climbed from the crater.
His armor was cracked. Blood soaked one sleeve. One eye had swollen nearly shut. His helmet had come off during the impact.
Ira rolled his damaged shoulder back into place. Black blood dripping steadily from the reopened hole in his side.
The air between them distorted from the sheer force rolling off their bodies.
They charged.
Two figures collided once more beneath Nythera’s towering trees, every punch shaking the forest as if giants were waging war beneath the canopy.
...
The elder watched her women clean up and rebuild the treehouse. Her daughter had gone off with the Other Kind without telling her why. Reckless. Iniko had always been the reckless kind.
"...fi...gh..."
The woman that had erupted out of the pond lay under a make shift thatched umbrella. For some reason, they couldn’t lift her. It took them thirty or so women to move her from the water and out here.
Every now and then, she’d wince and cry out.
"Are you truly our Fallen Star? Are you the one the prophecy spoke of?"
"...save...peo...ple."
"What is truly our purpose? Aside from guarding your resting place, what else were we made for?"
The Fallen Star winced and shot up, clutching her chest. Pitch black eyes shot open as blood tears ran down her face.
"How dare you!"
She roared, the sound sending a shockwave that blasted the elder and several things close to her away. Then fell back down, convulsing.
...
His fist tore through empty air. Ira’Oka was already gone from where he stood.
"Too slow."
The voice came from everywhere at once.
K twisted a little too late..
A crushing elbow slammed into his spine. The impact drove him face-first into the ground, shattering the bedrock beneath him. Before he could rise, Ira seized the back of his armor and flung him skyward.
"Doing the same trick again?"
He spat blood mid-air, held his hands out and spun.
"Fool."
Before he could land, a porcelain knee appeared in his field of vision. He raised an arm to block...only to meet air.
"Shit!"
"Your head is mine!"
Fingers spread.
An open palm settled against the center of K’s chest. Exactly where his heart sat.
K’s eyes widened.
"!!!"
Rings bloomed around Ira’s forearm,
Energy surged through the rings covering his arm before concentrating into his palm.
KRAAAAOOOM!!
The blast erupted through K’s chest.
His damaged breastplate crumpled inward with a deafening shriek of metal. The force punched completely through him, launching him backward faster than sound. Tree after tree disintegrated in his wake. Small stone cliffs burst apart. The forest floor split open in a straight line stretching hundreds of meters.
Eventually, his body skidded to a stop.
Blood pooled beneath him. His body refused to move. His lungs drew no breath.
The world became...distant.
Above him, the canopy swayed peacefully, as though nothing had happened.
Far away, he could hear someone screaming his name.
The sound faded and his vision dimmed around the edges.
"Is that all you’ve got?" Ira limped forward, nearing where K lay unresponsive.
"I almost feel shame for my wife dying by your hands."
The forest shifted. Ira glanced back. Two figures approached him, weapons drawn.
"Come, you’ll only make my rings sharper!"