Damocles
Season 8, Episode 1
Idris-9 [city], Teltobah [planet], Meertomb [star system]
1 July; 10:25:09 Hours
Eeeeeeerrr, the high-pitched screeching ripped through the underground rail tunnel as the speed train shot through the dimly lit and musky passage. There were quick bursts of bright white as the inlet lighting of the tunnel flickered, and steam bellowed free from several small ports that the train shot by. The passenger cars, themselves, were elbow-to-elbow with Astronauts as chatter and laughter consumed their entirety, all while Gabe sat upon one of the benches - asleep.
“<Can you believe we’re going to be within eye sight of the Golden Voice, Nevaeh?>” one of the dozens of Astronauts said to his Mechlic - a grey with violet blotches, octopus-like being - friend, who happily nodded.
“<Yes! She’s saying what we all have!>”
“<Soon there won’t be anyone holding us back!>” another Astronaut loudly expressed, as he passionately spoke with his group of friends several feet off to Gabe’s left. “<The True Vision will not be able to keep us from changing the world anymore!>”
“<That’s right, Heltur!>” his friend agreed before another echoed.
“<Nevaeh is us all!>”
“Ohhhhhhhhh, Gabe…” an eerily familiar voice weaved its way past the Astronauts where it perched beside Gabe’s right ear, and his eyes shot wide open before they flickered around, taking sight of the car.
Gabe slowly leaned forward with his hands upon his knees, several of his dreads fell in front of his face, and the loudness of the chatter twisted into a pounding murmur. His eyes now specifically darted from one Astronaut to another. He watched their mouths moving while no longer being able to hear their words. He could feel the joy of their laughs, yet was deaf to their bellows. Then, Gabe’s eyes grew wide as he caught sight of a streak of crimson that moved through the thick toward the back of the car.
“Bastard!” Gabe roared and shot up from the bench seat, with Astronauts gasping and shrieking as he pushed his way past them in chase of the figure.
“<Hey!>” one yelped before a young female Telvian cried out.
“Ahhh! <That backwater-ape touched me! It touched me!>”
“<Watch your primate-hands, you backwater filth!>”
“<They have no standards! No standards, I tell you!>”
However, Gabe paid none any mind as he continued to rush down the car as he caught flickers of the crimson silhouette through the crowd every several feet. His brown eyes slowly turned emerald as he closed the distance; he saw several wolf-like Astronauts who brandished their fangs to him, then he saw a dark olive skinned teenage Human-like girl who locked eyes with him for but only a moment before the crimson blared at him through another set of heads, and he moved deeper, only to then make out the rear door of the car slide open and then closed.
“No! You’re not getting away again!” Gabe growled before he squeezed by two large, pot-bellied Derks, and the door hissed as his approach triggered the sensor, with it sliding to the left.
Gabe paused. He could hear the shrieking of the speed train rushing through the tunnel. The warm, musky, and tense air blew in at him with his dreads pushed back out of his face. Gabe then exited car-twelve and onto the small connection bridge, with the next car’s front door hissing as it slid to the left. Something was different, however, as a thick and cold air wafted out at Gabe and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
“Mmmmmhm,” again, the eerily familiar voice came before the deep popping sound like someone cracked their neck, and Gabe entered car-thirteen. “I can smell it, Gabe… I can smell what you hate to admit…”
“Heeeh, huh, heeeh, huh,” Gabe panted with the door closing behind him, and his burning emerald eyes locking onto the silhouette in the alien darkness that smothered out the car’s overhead lights.
The familiar voice finished as a deep, gravelly and demonic tone bled over it, “… fear!”
“Theo!”
“What’s wrong, brother?” chuckling, the being who was silhouetted out now raised its head, as it stood out before Gabe, with the inky blotched crimson hood lifting just enough to reveal a twisted Theo. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
Gabe took an aggressive step forward with Shade crawling across the floor. “Your mind games never worked on me - They’re not gonna start now!”
“My mind games?” and then directly beside Gabe’s right ear, an ear-to-ear razor-sharp fanged mouthed Theo emerged from the Shade for a brief moment as he grinned, “No, not my mind!”
Gabe spun to find nothing but the dark with the flickering inlet lighting of the tunnel flashing in every few seconds through the window of the door.
Then slowly, Gabe turned back to the lurking embodiment of his eldest friend, and he growled at it, “You didn’t beat me!”
“Hmm, it sure feels like it!”
“You ran! You did, Theo! You ran away from me with your tail tucked firmly between your legs, to your Shim whore!”
Only the razor-sharp fangs could be made out through the shroud of darkness that blacked out Theo’s face while Gabe vigorously pointed at him, and yet they remained in the largest of twisted grins.
“I’m gonna end it,” Gabe breathily muttered as he proudly nodded his head over and over again, “Yeeeah! Imma end it! I’m gonna end it right here like I was going to on Ravelous!”
“Oooooooh,” the corrupted vision raised his right inky index finger, wagging it slightly. “Lying now?”
Gabe gritted his teeth and let out a deep breath from his nose.
All while from the ceiling behind Gabe, slowly emerged from the thickness of the Shade another shadow of Theo, who lingered upside down with arms wide open, and whispered, “I guess you couldn’t meditate me away, huh, brother?”
“Albatross!” Gabe roared and spun around to find the doppelgänger gone, again.
“Mmm, heh, ha, hah, ha!” simply bellowed from the monstrous Theo back off behind Gabe, but then a hiss ripped free in front of Gabe, and everything changed in a blink.
The cold darkness had vanished with the dull blue lighting of the overhead lights of the car painting its emptiness around him. Gabe’s eyes blinked in disbelief. He glanced around, and even back over his shoulder as he panted, but then heard the soft voice of Mya call to him, “Gabe? Gabe? What are you doing back here? We have to go! We don’t have much time!”
“He was here!” he frantically tried to convince her, as she grabbed his arm and pulled him along to exit the car. “He was right here, Mya!”
Mya stopped and looked up at him while she winced. “He? Who? You mean she? Nevaeh? Was Nevaeh here?”
“Nah-no, no! Thee—” but he stopped as he could see they were in the station and nearly all the Astronauts had disembarked and were moving through the substation toward the stairwell to the city above. “Wuh-wait… We’re here?
“Yeah,” she confirmed.
“Already?”
“Yes, Gabe! We don’t have much time! The Fangs are in position and are waiting for us!”
“The train ride was supposed to be thirty minutes,” Gabe couldn’t wrap his mind around the time loss, as he tried to rationalize to not Mya but himself, “I saw him… We boarded the train, and I closed my eyes for a second, just a second…”
“Gabe?”
“… Then, then I immediately heard him - I heard his prong-tipped tongue! I, I, I saw, I suh-saw that bastard! I could smell the death that lingers upon him! I know it, I nuh—”
Mya grabbed his forearms and forced him to look at her. “Gabe, pleeeeease! We have a tight window! We don’t have time, and if we linger any longer, we’ll miss our only shot!”
“Heeeeh,” Gabe sighed before he gently pushed strands of her long black hair out of her face, and then nodded his head. “Okay, let’s move.”
Mya smiled. She then guided him along as the two hurried through the substation toward the stairwell. The echoing thumps of their exit left behind the empty cars and suffocated in the hollow, before from the thickness of the dark, a deep and gravelly laugh rumbled free.
***
Thirty-five minutes later…
“Tear out its eyes!” roared from the massive, two-thousand large crowd that Gabe, Mya, and a small squad of Fangs looked down upon to the courtyard below them. “Make the Vision blind! Tear out its eyes! Make the Vision blind…”
“<Don’t get me wrong,” one of the Fangs expressed as he turned to the others with Gabe sitting upon the ground looking at his hands that were folded in front of him, “The True Vision is a blight to the Universe, but if we allow this cult to grow any larger - We’ll have a much bigger problem on our hands!>”
“<It just feels wrong, Kahto,>” another noted.
“<Wrong?>” a third scoffed before the second spun to him and snapped.
“<Yes, Lah’tahmar! It feels wrong to assassinate someone fighting against their oppressor! Does it not?>”
“<She’s not an oppressed, Ceedro! She’s a Tameerkan; a whisperer of lies; a cognitive bender!>”
“<So wuh—” Ceedro exclaimed, but as Gabe listened, his shadow cast upon the ground to his left twisted in his peripheral with Theo’s twisted laugh taunting him.
“Mmm, heh, hah, ha, ha - Listen to them, brother… Even your precious Quarter can’t decipher good from evil… How can your mission continue if they cannot simply differentiate the monsters from the virtuous?”
Gabe’s nostrils flared. His eyes again flickered between their natural brown and the burning emerald. He panted while biting his lip. He then clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles bulged and roared his growing frustration; however, all of their nipping attention quickly shifted over the ledge as cheers erupted.
“Nevaeh!”
“<We love your voice, Nevaeh!>”
“<Your golden tongue will set us free!>” what felt like the ten thousandth gleamed.
Escorted to the eye of attention, a dark olive-skinned woman entered the celebration of the thousands. Five followed her - neither ahead nor behind, as they orbited her like measured presence of the realized reality around her. Each scanned the crowd, and none spoke a word as the cheering continued what appeared nonstop.
Her long, curly black hair swayed in the subtle breeze of the courtyard. She raised her right hand in acknowledgement, gold-coated fingers that caught the glimmer of the sunlight, and she held it for a small eternity. The crowd grew louder and louder in adoring pride until she slowly lowered her hand, with the cheers instantly smothered. Her gold eyes scanned the Astronauts before her, and she smiled.
“<We love you, Nevaeh!>” a voice called from the crowd, and Nevaeh subtly blushed before giggling.
“<And I love you all!>” and she felt the reverberating uproar of their cheers that followed.
Gabe’s eyes were locked on the Golden Voice. His upper lip twitched while he heard the chatter of his Fangs still bickering at the other.
“<We have to take her out now!>”
“<But think of what ripple this will send across the Universe!>”
“<Think of what ripple will be sent out if we don’t,>” Lah’tahmar stressed to Ceedro, who looked through the enhanced sights of his Kramat B92-LR rifle, which was locked on Nevaeh.
“<For generations, their wall was unclimbable!” Nevaeh preached with the thousands before her at a dead silence as they listened to every word that left her lips. “<Many were lost; many could not take their persecution; many betrayed their own to preserve themselves, but now their wall cannot endure!>”
“<This is wrong, Lah’tahmar! Come on! Yurlish? Walgus? Mya?>” Ceedro expressed his tearing convictions and tried to gain unity, all while the twisted whisper of Gabe’s life-long friend rode the breeze where it again perched upon his shoulder.
“You’re so close…”
“<Take the shot, Ceedro!>” Lah’tahmar growled before Walgus affirmed.
“<This is Shaomhav’s mission - She is a threat far greater than the True Vision!>”
Nevaeh continued as she approached the edge of the elevated stage with arms wide open. “<The vision is now clear! We are its true nature! We are its true people! We are…”
“… She’s within striking distance, brother,” the whisper burrowed its way deeper into Gabe’s ear, as he grit his teeth and attention shifted from Nevaeh to Ceedro, who now closed his eyes. “Yet she’s still breathing…”
“Come on, Ceedro,” Mya even urged him, but now he removed his finger from the trigger of his rifle as he softly said.
“This, no, this isn’t my mission.”
“Grand? Mmmh, heh, ha, hah, ha!” the twisted whisper had contorted into a sinister laugh before finishing in a deep, solemn assessment, “My, how the once grand Shaomhav Quarter has softened!”
Gabe’s eyes nearly quadrupled. His chest puffed and contracted faster and faster. The high-pitched ringing he heard like a white noise for over several minutes now felt unbearable, and then in a blink, Gabe snapped.
“Enough!” he barked, stormed over to, and grabbed Ceedo by the shoulder before he launched him across the roof.
Mya gasped. Ceedro tumbled to a stop nearly twenty feet from the others, where his head slammed off the concrete ledge and knocked him unconscious. Lah’tahmar, Walgus, and Yurlish each glanced to their fellow Fang before their attention shifted slowly to their Grand Mane, who, in the moment of explosive frustration, flickered violently and rapidly with emerald surges.
Gabe, however, let out a deep breath before he took position. He grabbed the rifle and then he, himself, took aim at Nevaeh. The hairs of the advanced sights slowly lined up upon Nevaeh’s forehead, with the vertical moving into place as the horizontal bounced ever so slightly. Then, as Gabe calculated where her exact location would be in between his next breath, he squeezed the trigger, boom.
Perception for Gabe, Mya, and his Fangs all slowed to a crawl as the energy nail shot down the barrel and fired at its target. The cheering of the thousands muffled to a drawn-out, twisted moan that reverberated like a demonic horn that heralded an end. Yet Nevaeh smiled as she had just finished a sentence, completely unaware of the nearing death nail until a silver streak met it less than a half foot from the Golden Voice’s face.
Ting screeched free as a blade deflected the shot, and the crowd erupted in fear.
The yellow burning eyes of Alarik, a Nemaakian and head of the League, pinged around at the rooftops as he slowly lowered his curve blade down to his side. Nevaeh’s eyes grew large as realization flooded her of what was prevented. Though before she could move, a jagged and berserk Knight, Kom, moved in front of her with his shadow swallowing her in a glistening silver of his invulnerable skin. Then, in the brief glare of the sun reflecting off the sights of the rifle, Gabe now locked eyes with Alarik, whose scarred face cracked a small smirk.
“Dammit!” Gabe roared before he yanked back with the rifle and shot up to his feet, as Mya panicked.
“Gabe? Gabe? Wuh-what just happened?”
“<Is the target neutralized?>” Lah’tahmar echoed the sense of concern, but his facial expression answered his question before Gabe grunted and began moving toward the stairwell door.
“We have to get out of here!”
“Oh-okay,” Mya yelped and hurried in front of him.
“Fetch Ceedro,” Gabe then ordered. “We can’t leave him behind here!”
“<But our mission isn’t his anymore, remember?>” Lah’tahmar said as he threw his arms up.
“<He’ll be a liability now, Grand Mane,>” Yurlish added as she stopped at the stairwell where Mya held the door open.
Gabe now growled as the high-pitched ringing returned. “I said… fetch him!”
Lah’tahmar and Walgus’ eyes were narrowed as they looked at Gabe, who rubbed his temple, but the two relented despite the gut-churning feeling of festering darkness as they quickly hurried over to their fellow Fang. Mya, as the others had, she continued to look at Gabe while he slowly continued toward her in almost a daze. His index and middle fingers appeared buried into his temple, like he was contemplating age-old concerns, as the whispery voice of Theo howled by his ear, “Albatross? No… Your Damocles!”