The Heretic and the Defiled

Season 1, Episode 3

Oct 30, 2024

Metrog [planet], Condor [star system]

19 December; 6:04:23 Hours

In the deep corner of the wide-stretching star system, Condor, sat the steel planet of Metrog while the intensity of one of the largest stars, Enor, shone upon the city world. The planet that was once one of the most resource plentiful in the universe had been terraformed into steel, glass, and concrete over a century; what was mountains, rivers, fields, and beauty is now only a molten core with a parasite living off it in the form of the largest trading port and black market known to exist.

The steel goliath's moons - Welom, Ishool, and Abel - sat at nine, eleven, and one o’clock in the dawn sky with a damp breeze that blew through the maze of a billion streets. Shoving their way around, the well over fifteen billion population moved through the normal early morning fog of vendor smoke and vile. There was always conversation, laughter, and yelling of the angry, happy and drunk with ads playing on hundreds of holo-screens just above the streets.

Moving quickly through one of the massive crowds, a slim woman did so meticulously as she made certain not to bump into a single Astronaut. Her face was hidden under the shadow of her deep purple hood, it was clear that she didn’t want to be tracked by the unimaginable number of surveillance cameras and drones around the metal planet. But one thing that everyone noticed whether she wanted it to be or not, was the hilt of her Rapirous - a long rapier sword.

She was flawless, moving with grace as she would glance over her shoulder every few steps before the other. Paranoia blatantly had its cold, malnourished hand upon the small of her back, and that feeling was reinforced upon hearing a few Rippers in the distance talking, “<She can’t be that far from here.>”

“<No, a child said he saw her get off the transport back on M’Kreahm Block.>”

“<Well, should we split up?>” a third asked as they all were glancing around, trying to spot their target in the thick of heads.

She didn’t hesitate, the woman shot to her right at the first sight of an alley. Though this time she wasn’t as careful, now pushing and shoving her way through the crowd. She closed forty feet in less than a minute, before squeezing between two vendor stands and into the darkness of the rarely used path. There, she leaned up against the wall where she took in a deep breath before lowering her hood. Her long brunette hair was tied in a loose ponytail with bangs. She slowly opened her eyes, revealing their deep, glowing purple that lit up in the dark.

Her hand moved to her gray trench coat’s pocket where she pulled out her Tether, placing her thumb on the center of the screen and immediately a three-dimensional holo-image of her parents - Grilor and Eoba - and herself materialized. Tears welled up in her eyes, remembering it was like yesterday when they were stolen from her.

Her head began to shake as she bit her lower lip. “<Come on, Syia. You can’t allow yourself to get caught up in this sorrow! NO! Not when he’s chasing you!>”

Syia lowered her Tether with the holo-image dissolving before she returned it to her pocket, stood up straight, and then wiped the tears from her eyes. She looked up the alley, seeing the intense neon lights and morning glow shining into the hidden path, and without a second thought, she made her way to the opening. There Syia saw yet another crowd, like a rushing school of fish that moved without having to be told where to go, adjustments being made every second when an Astronaut entered or exited the stream.

Her hand instinctively moved to the hilt of her Rapirous, touching it before she took a single step forward, swept away into the current.

***

Nearly 5-hours later…

Syia came walking out of a bar, where she stopped and raised her hood back atop her head. She kept her eyes down on the ground as she didn’t want to make unwanted eye contact with anyone, but something caught her attention; several Astronauts were crowded out front of the bar’s window, each looking at the six holo-screens that were showing five reporters of the Universal News Network, while an advisory chyron rolled across the bottom of each screen, reading in different languages from across the universe, “<EMERGENCY! PLEASE BE ADVISED! EMERGENCY!>”

“<This is a real-time update,” a reporter, who was of the Bashton species - humanoid, possesses four slits for nostrils with no eyes as they’ve evolved to rely on their sense of smell, and skin complexion being tan with red blotches - urgently explained, “in regards to the travel advisory levied yesterday by the Galactic Defense Corp, which was a result of a Black Guard fleet that departed from Ravelous…>”

Syia froze when she heard what the reporter said. She spun to the window, her attention locked on the holo-screens as the crowd grew larger and more frantic by the second.

“<…The GDC has updated its travel advisory to a Code-Red - issuing a complete travel ban on Metrog and its several moons.>

“<What did he just say?>” one of the Astronauts yelled from the back of the crowd.

“<No! This cannot be true!>”

The reporter went on to explain, “<As we were told by the GDC’s Public Information Officer, Colonel Re’Gyna Foss: ‘The attack fleet was initially pinged for travel details due to the Depth’s hostile-and-extremely dangerous status and we received no response, but after an AI predictive GPS location assessment was made, we’re confident there could be an invasion unfolding before our very eyes within the coming hours.’>”

“<The Black Guard is really coming here?>” a man - quite hairy and much taller than all around him - gasped. “<They can’t!>”

“<No,” a woman, whose skin complexion was light pink and her hair was blueish white, echoed the man’s concern as she cried, “no, no - Metrog is a free man’s land! It’s against the Harborage Treaty!>”

“<When has that ever stopped the Defiler of Thrones?>”

“Bash’goa!”

Syia was panting as she didn’t know what to think. She unknowingly had started to back away from the bar, with the panic spreading like wildfire around her.

“<We must all get out of here!>”

“<And where are we to go?>” an older Astronaut who had lived his entire life on Metrog yelled.

“<We don’t care - Anywhere but here!>”

“<Smugglers! Smugglers must be willing to take people off planet!>”

“<Move out of my way,” Syia could hear another yelling just as she got sucked back into the drift, “I’m leaving this doomed sphere, and no one’s stopping me!>”

***

Several hours later…

“<Wilom fat! Eaog testicles!>” A street vendor - a Kaibornite, an obese primate-esque species - was shouting to the crowds, as he stood at his food stand, “<Xaoomilk, all for four pieces of silver OR five black-credits!>”

Syia looked at him, seeing his bloodied apron as he walked out from behind the grills that were all cooking massive racks of ribs and gave off an ungodly smell. She could see him holding a slab of meat in one hand while a jar of testicles in the other. Syia couldn’t help herself as she covered her mouth, trying not to throw up from the smell and absolutely disgusting show the Kaibornite was putting on.

“<Come now! Better nowhere else - FOUR pieces! Only four pieces, ya’ hear?>”

“<No! Gauber juice for THREE pieces! Best in the galaxy!>” another vendor chimed in. “<Buy the juice and throw in an extra piece, and I give you Eaog testicles for FREE! For free, I say!>”

“<One Vylla penis and a slab of Gedell blubber for cheap! Just nine pieces!>”

“<Maashu fetus! Only three black-credits!>”

The smell began to waver as Syia moved past the food vendors, but now into the silks and jewels wing, where she could see the most beautiful women and most handsome of men who hung out open windows of the second, third, and fourth stories of the buildings around her. All of them were calling down to those on the street. None were clothed, each flaunted their bodies with the women caressing their breasts and the men stroking their penises. Syia was quick to look back down the street as her cheeks blushed, but a hand grabbed her bicep and turned her around where she looked up to the individual.

“<You have the most beautiful eyes!>” A woman of the Polynilmus species - olive skin, fluorescent blue eyes, an average of 8 feet tall, long silky hair down past her buttock - who was wearing a silk toga that barely covered her body, caressed Syia’s face as she asked, “<Come join me? I promise you that I can make you feel the five levels of nirvana! I’ll wash away the fear you carry in your heart! Please, Goddess? Just twenty pieces.>”

Syia forced out a smile as she took notice that the woman’s nipples were pierced and had chains that connected them, and she gently removed the woman’s hand from her face before giving her two pieces from a pouch on her belt. “<No, uh, no thank you.>”

“<Thank you, Goddess! Thank you!>”

Syia couldn’t believe her eyes as she witnessed men and women giving into their lust, as they participated in the brothels. Some were out in the open, while others moved behind closed curtains only for their moans and cries to be heard. It was like a symphony of sexual ecstasy, but it quickly changed as Syia caught sight of slaves.

She could see in the distance a slave market where young boys and girls were being sold, none were older than fourteen. Syia quickly turned away, trying to hold back tears as she so desperately wanted to intervene but she knew she couldn’t.

***

½ hour later…

Enor was high in the sky, shining its intensity down upon what was the steady flow of the crowd but Syia found herself running directly into the Astronaut in front of her. She quickly stumbled back, her face contorting with eyes open wide and mouth gasping as she looked around. Syia felt an all too familiar sinking feeling overcome her as she stood there deep within the now-stalled crowd. But despite something telling her to revert back to the young girl she once was and to run away, Syia started to push her way forward through the crowd to the opening she could make out in the distance.

“<Turn around!>” a withered and ominous voice barked at Syia, as an old, wrinkly tan- skinned man grabbed her by the arm. “<He’s here for you, Princess!>”

Syia struggled with him, to break free from his grip as she looked into his foggy white eyes. “<Let go of me!>”

“<Turn around! Run! Don’t go back!>”

A little pale girl with pitch-black hair walked up beside the man, both had archaic runes tattooed upon their bodies. Syia didn’t understand what the man was saying exactly, but then a language she was more familiar with came from beyond the man, and just in the opening ahead, “<No, it can’t be! This is to be a safe haven!>”

“<Ahhhhhh,” a deep, gravelly voice called out from the opening, “I can smell you, luv!>”

She began to tremble at the sound of the voice, only to glance to her right where the man and child were a second ago, to find they were gone. Then as her attention shifted back to the voice, the crowd in front of her split, and Syia was first met with the power of Enor. The blue sun’s light forced her pupils to contract before a silhouette came into focus.

Syia gasped, “<No.>”

Deep purple eyes began to glow out of the blackened silhouette as they connected with Syia’s. She shook her head in disbelief as she knew exactly who was standing out before her; Throx, the Defiler of Thrones and Sovereign of the Depth - the ruthless dictatorship of her home planet, Ravelous, and its Black Guard.

The shredded tails of his black leather trench coat whipped in the wind that picked up, and he took several steps forward with his silver armored boots pounding off the cement street. Beside him were six of his Stormers, soldiers of his Black Guard who took aim at Syia with their Kramat TAK8 power rifles. She flinched at their movement and then heard his voice again.

“<Now, now my queen, why would you do such a daft criminal act like hijack a royal transport and leave our beautiful home?>”

“<Home?>” she scoffed. “<You call Ravelous a home?>”

“<What else would it be, luv?>”

“<A prison!>” she screamed. “<Our world that was once a truly beautiful and peaceful home is nothing more than a blood-caked and fear-mongering prison!>”

The Stormers all charged their rifles but he motioned for them to stand down. Syia didn’t care, her face had become red with fury while she continued to berate him, “<You murdered my mother and father! You burned the Ravelian Empire to the ground, only, only to allow your murdering horde to place their heel on the Ravelian people’s throats!>”

Throx simply smiled. “<Are you finished?>”

“<Finished? You declared that I was your wife and forced me to my knees! You defiled me for the last sixteen years,” she began to cry as her voice lowered to almost a subtle whisper, “but the worst is that I had to carry your spawn to its first breath!>”

His smile left his face, and his voice became even deeper as he growled, “<Now are you finished?>”

“”

“<Not for a lack of trying.>”

Syia closed her eyes tightly as she knew he was referencing a time while she was pregnant with their child when she attempted suicide by cutting her throat, but Throx managed to save their lives.

He took a step forward, firmly saying, “”

At first she only subtly shook her head at him as she knew she couldn’t go back with him. Flashes of the horrors she would face, how she would be forced back upon her knees, and that subtle head shake turned into a more determined shake as she gritted her teeth.

Throx now growled, “<Get… here… now!>”

“<No!>” Syia screamed and drew her two Kramat PS22 power pistols on him. “”

“Gai’sh tul!” he slurred at her and took three massive steps toward her with the Stormers again taking aim at her with the crowd shrieking in terror.

“<I’m not going back with you! I’d rather die!>”

“<Then I will kill TEN THOUSAND of your precious Ravelians, and you shall watch!>”

In a blink, Syia opened fire on him. She squeezed the triggers nearly eight times within three seconds with bright purple energy rounds shooting straight at the Defiler of Thrones. Though the monstrous Ravelian was quick to raise his forearms, deflecting the charges with his silver bracers as two of the rounds struck a Stormer while the others hit buildings and some of the Astronauts in the crowd. The panic that had been building, burst as the crowd went running in every direction out of absolute terror.

A few Astronauts collided with Syia, knocking one of her pistols out of her hand as she fell to the ground. She watched it go sliding across the ground, only to see Throx effortlessly throwing one after the other of any Astronaut who came within reach of him. Syia, though, quickly fired off three more charges that struck two Stormers before she took off running down the street.

“<You can run!>” Throx roared as he reached up and behind his back where he grabbed the hilt of Gaargulus - his cleaving curve battle axe.

Forty yards ahead of her was an abandoned embassy, Syia knew it was her only hope and as she charged for its front gated doors, she could hear bloodcurdling screams from Astronauts that Throx was cutting down. She slammed chest first into the gates, seeing they were locked but she stepped back and fired a round into the key panel. A loud bang ripped through the streets before the gate rolled up and she ran into the darkness within.

“<Scan the building!>” she ordered her Tether as she pulled it out of her pocket. “”

A pulse of neon blue light exploded from her Tether which appeared like a four- dimensional grid that scanned the embassy in its entirety. That brief second of blue light gave her enough of a bearing to see a stairwell door, and she took off right for it. She thrust her shoulder into the door and it flew open just as her Tether projected three-dimensional floor plans with a locator of where she currently was.

“” Syia thought to herself as she climbed the stairwell, rounding the third-floor landing and heading toward the fourth. “<Maybe he, uh, maybe he didn’t see me come in here! Maybe he kept following the crowd… Oh Syia, who are you lying to? He knows!>”

However, when she rounded the landing to the 14th floor, she found it had collapsed and her path was completely blocked. “<Dammit!>”

Syia backhanded the wall, punching a hole into the decaying cement but then she immediately froze. She thought she heard something a mere second before her fist hit the wall and she strained herself to listen as closely as she possibly could, but when there was nothing, she said to herself, “<Maybe it was debris—”

Immediately thunderous booms reverberated through the stairwell as boots pounded their way up.

Syia hurried down the half flight of stairs and threw open the thirteenth-story door, where she ran into the massive room. There were row after row of desks with everything left untouched: documents, computers, desk lamps, and various other odds and ends. It looked like an inch of dust covered it all. Even the windows remained tinted like everyone went home one night to never return.

She glanced around for a moment, looking for somewhere to hide, before hurrying down the center aisle and taking cover behind the massive support column. Syia drew Rapirous, placed her back firmly up against the column, and looked across to the windows which were the height of the entire thirteenth floor.

Her heart pounded in her chest, especially as the door eerily swung open and Throx remarked, “<Silver Mist… I did always love that scent on you.>”

Gaargulus was in his left hand as he held it down at his side, taking several steps into the room with its tip dragging across the floor. A sharp screech cried out, the blade cut through the cement and Syia flinched as she couldn’t help but think her impending doom was right on the other side of the column.

Then a thunderous explosion erupted as a desk exploded on top of another after Throx had thrown it. He was no less than ten yards from Syia and she held her breath nearly as tightly as she was holding the hilt of her rapier. And then again a desk went flying, but this time Throx roared, “<You can’t bloody hide from me!>”

She refused to give him the satisfaction and remained behind the column, but something changed as she heard his voice get a familiar tone of satisfaction. “<Perhaps it’s story time… Have I ever told you the valiant but tragic tale of Grilor?>”

Syia snapped, charged around the column, and unleashed a powerful downward strike on Throx who wasn’t expecting the level of explosion behind her. He raised his cleaving axe, blocked her blade, and smiled. “<Ah, there you are!>”

“<You will pay for what you stole from me!>” she hissed at him while she struggled to push her blade down even a mere inch further.

“<Would you like them back?>” he asked before glancing down at his belt.

Syia’s eyes squinted at first, but then she looked to his belt when her face twisted with eyes sinking deep and mouth opening wide in true disgust and disbelief as she saw two skulls hanging from Throx’s belt. One adorning a silver crown while the other a tiara, the skulls of her father and mother. And in that moment of emotional wreck, Throx backhanded Syia who tumbled across the floor where she hit into a desk.

“” he softly said, as Syia began to get back to her feet.

“<Come back to Ravelous with me where you will take my side, and I promise I will forget this indiscretion.>”

“<Never!>” she yelled before spitting at him.

“<Stupid girl!>” he roared as he started to walk toward Syia, but she moved faster this time.

Syia charged him and dropped to her knees where she slid across the floor and under his legs before spinning around and swinging Rapirous at the back of his legs. Sparks erupted as the blade cut Throx’s mail pants and as he turned with a wobble, Syia jumped into the air and swung her rapier down on him. He again blocked it but then took another and another, and another. She screamed with each strike, and Throx allowed Gaargulus to take them.

However, her unadulterated rage managed to drop the Defiler to a knee. She continued to scream as she unleashed swing eleven and then twelve, but Throx’s grimacing morphed into an ear-to-ear grin. It was too late as Syia swung Rapirous down at him yet again, he pushed himself back, now it was him who slid across the floor to gain enough distance that he shot up with and swung Gaargulus to meet her blade. The two met with such force that the blade of Rapirous shattered, and the force Throx exerted carried through and launched Syia back into the window.

The four-inch thick glass exploded behind her, sending Syia falling thirteen stories to the ground below.

The Defiler slowly walked to the edge where his silver armored boots hung partially off, and he looked down to the street below when a gray and silver Class XII medium cruiser shot up in front of him and the window. An intense gust of wind shot in, the tails of his coat flapping back, and he instantly saw Syia lying on the ramp of the cruiser.

“<Nooooo!>” he yelled, watching her stand up with her hair a mess and blowing in the wind. She locked eyes with Throx one last time while the cruiser continued to rise in altitude, the ramp closing, and then in a blink the cruiser shot off into the sky.