Emergence: Chapter 18

The ship rocked and Devilclash was thrown from the thin-mattressed standard-issue bed onto the cold hard floor. Most of the bugs righted themselves and stayed in mid-air, but the Hive-Stone clattered to the ground. Righting themselves, the bugs swarmed around the Hive-Stone once more, picking it up and placing it in back in to its original position.

She heard shrieks coming from outisde her chambers. Her door slid open with a quiet hiss and she stepped through as a man ran by, straight into her arm. Panicking, the man flailed his own arms, trying to swat the bugs out of his way, before Devilclash was able to reform her arm. “Look where you're going.” Her voice did not lack reproach. The man looked back, but continued running away.

Gunfire, and the man was torn apart in front of her, bullets thudded into the walls.

Xaosians. Silver-skinned, scaled monstrosities. At first, they seemed similar to the Scalimen, but the Xaosians had no tail, no emotional tells, and their gargantuan hands were designed by evolution for violence only. In fact, the hands of the Xaosian were the only areas not covered by their black combat armour. When they saw Devilclash. They briefly aimed, and fired.

Attaching the Hive-Stone to two bugs, she decomposed herself, allowing the hive to become the swarm that it should be. Some bullets took out some bugs, and Devilclash felt not a pain, but as if part of herself was lost; she reeled with the feeling. Reaching the Xaosians, she had the bugs swarm onto them. They tried to swat the bugs away, but hundreds of tiny mouths ate through the Xaosian's armour, aided by a natural acid, before climbing inside and devouring the Xaosian. One was targeted in the helmet, his eye being a passage for the bugs to destroy his brain; the other had his chest targeted, heart devoured.

Taking on human form once more, she looked down at the two Xaosians. Obviously here to kill Lord Tahkshi.

She opened herself to the Swarm and relayed these memories to the rest of the Pyrkagia. As she did so, she felt the shock and horror of the others who could see it. A visualisation of the Swarm, which she held in her mind, flashed a dark red as the shock turned to anger; how could the Xaosians do this? Curious, she tried to find the Pyrkagias she had detected on Raan before, but she found no sign of life. She delved deeper, swimming through the memories and eventually found the one she was looking for; while the body was gone, the memories remain forever.

Buildings fall as the ground shakes; an aftershock of the Xaosians mega-weapon. Crevasses open and swallow a building. My building. We fall for an eternity, but some of us live when the building stops. Then come these...things. Silver skin, always shifting. They're on us now. Fighting is useless.

Devilclash detached herself from the Swarm, breathing quickly as she did so. Creatures in the core of Raan? Silver shifting skin? She thought she knew what they were, but they were all dead, surely. She put it to the back of her mind for now; I'll discuss it with the Primary when I get to Buun.

She dissipated herself once more and made her way to Tahkshi's chambers; protecting him was her first priority. When she reached the chambers, alarms around the ship were ringing and red lights were flashing in the corridors. Luckily, she didn't bump into any more Xaosians. She gently pushed the door to his chambers open. It was very similar to Devilclash's, just slightly larger and with a rail-desk in the corner; the Lords were supposed to have plain, nondescript rooms so as not to make it obvious where their chamber was. “Tahkshi?” She called; it looked empty, but he could have been hiding. When she received no response, she realised that the only logical place that he would have gone to would be the bridge.

So she reformed her human self and ran to the bridge to the sound of squealing alarms and gunfire.