Three Square Meals Ch. 121

That thought made him freeze, as a recklessly dangerous plan came to him unbidden.

John focused his will inwards, deep into the hidden recesses of his mind... to that place where darkness lurked. He could feel his guide seething within the eternal prison, the very same place of torment that his malevolent alter-ego had attempted to banish him. The guide now had no way of seizing control of John's body, so was utterly incapable of influencing the wider world, but he was still painfully aware of everything that transpired around him.

It would have been a horrific fate for John, forced to watch as his guide ran amok, while finding himself powerless to intervene. For his guide, the incarceration was just as excruciating, as he had his own agenda to follow... one that John seemed hell-bent on deviating from. Normally, the guide viewed John's actions with disgust and contempt, but not today. When John focused on that schism within his subconscious, he sensed tense anxiety and a phenomenal amount of hate... but that fury wasn't directed at him.

*I can't do this alone... I need you,* John said, directing his thoughts at the eldritch prison.

*A truce then?* his guide asked with a disquieting hunger. *Agreed! Now stop wasting time... free me!*

John hesitated for a moment. *Do you understand the stakes involved? If you try and fight me for control, we're dead... Larn'kelnar will kill us both while we're restrained. Only working together can we-*

*I agree, you thrice-damned fool!" his guide screamed. "Free me so we can gut this cretin like the pitiful maggot he is!*

Feeling a dark sense of foreboding, John reached for the prison within his mind and sundered the wards imprisoning the other half of his subconscious...

***

"Did you hear me, Blake?!" Larn'kelnar snapped, lashing out with his sceptre and smashing John across his face, breaking his jaw with a sickening crunch. "You will answer me!"

Suddenly the lights began to flicker and dim, making the Progenitor look up in surprise. At the same time, a swirl of eldritch power began to twist around John's shoulders, the grey vapours rolling along his arms. The insubstantial mists twirled around the manacles holding him in place, then suddenly shifted from wispy and ephemeral to rock solid. The black bands shattered in an instant, razor-sharp fragments exploded outwards, peppering Larn'kelnar who gaped at his prisoner in astonishment.

"He was right..." John growled as he dropped to the floor in a crouch, his jaw snapping back into place as the wounds regenerated. "You whine like a mewling thrall..."

John's eyes snapped open, illuminated by a dazzling blue light. He roared in fury as he accelerated with psychic speed and bull-rushed Larn'kelnar, who was caught completely by surprise by the frenzied attack. They barrelled across the chamber, John's furious charge taking them directly towards the psychic inhibitor. The hex shield protecting it repelled John, knocking him backwards, but its creator sailed right through the barrier unimpeded. There was a thunderous boom as Larn'kelnar smashed into the black device, shearing it off its base and breaking the sensitive components within.

Larn'kelnar shook off his daze and vaulted to his feet, his face a mask of fury. "You tricked me! The Inhibitor never had any effect on you!"

John held out an open gauntlet towards his runesword, which sailed across the room towards him as it answered his summons, landing with a clang in his open palm. "No, I wasn't faking anything. I wasn't strong enough to escape... without him," His mouth suddenly twisted in a wicked smile, his voice starting to reverberate with an eerie echo. "But now you're facing both of us..."

Larn'kelnar gaped at him in horror. "By the stars... you're insane!"

"I've been fighting with the dark half of my personality for most of my life," John replied, his expression bleak. He glanced at his runesword which burst into flame, the blue tendrils licking up the blade with an unsettling hunger. A menacing smile appeared on his face as he continued, "But for once, we both want the same thing..."

***

Edraele gasped when she heard John's thoughts with shocking clarity once again. The last hour since the attack on the Invictus had been the most fraught of her life, especially being cut off from his inner voice. *John! Oh thank God you're alright!*

"Have you any news? What's happening?!" Tsarra asked in alarm, her beautiful azure face drawn with worry.

"John's been freed!" Edraele exclaimed, sagging back in Luna's supportive arms.

The Young Matriarchs hugged each other, all the Maliri women in the bedroom filled with a profound sense of relief.

*Matriarch! Prepare to channel more energy to me on my command!* John demanded imperiously.

*Don't speak to my girls! Leave talking with them to me!* John snapped a moment later, his voice firm and uncompromising.

Edraele listened to him speak, the tone and inflection changing radically between sentences, leaving her bewildered. That momentary confusion evaporated as she recognised where she'd heard that first voice before...

"Oh, John... what have you done..." she whispered under her breath, a shiver of dread running down her spine.

***

Alyssa lay on the floor, trying not to groan in pain and alert her attacker that she was still alive. Being hit by Larn'kelnar's force wave had knocked her senseless, her body hurting in a dozen different places from that devastating impact as well as being battered across the floor. The worst of her injuries was the stabbing pain in her chest, which intensified every time she took a breath. Fortunately, her Paragon suit had taken the brunt of the blow and by the odd cracking noises she heard when she carefully shifted her arm out from underneath her, the armour wasn't in good shape.

There was a huge crash on the far side of the room, sharply reminding her of their tormentor's presence, then the psychic dampening field that had curtailed her powers suddenly vanished. It felt wonderful to be free from its debilitating effects, as if a huge weight had been lifted from her mind. Alyssa could sense the girls again in a flood of emotions, all of them still alive, but radiating pain from being hurled into the wall. Narrowing her eyes as she experienced her friends' suffering, Alyssa felt nothing but hatred towards the architect of all their recent woes.

Her mounting fury was abruptly curtailed when she heard John's inner voice... both of them!

*I'm going to try to hammer my way through his shield!*

*No! This is no time to act like a mindless barbarian! Stay at range and focus on counterattacking his psychic abilities!*

*Fine, we'll try it your way... for now.*

Eyes wide, Alyssa turned around, wincing at the sharp pain in her ribs. She saw that John and Larn'kelnar had squared off against each other, the air between them humming with eldritch energy.

"I always knew there was something wrong with you, Blake!" the Progenitor snarled, lashing out with his glowing runic sceptre. "But I never suspected you were deranged!"

The ensuing force wave slammed into John's hex-shield and cracked scores of hexagons with the titanic impact. John rammed his sword down into the deck, using it like an anchor to stop himself being hurled backwards.

"Yet you're the one planning to wipe out billions!" John replied, his face reflecting his disgust. His expression suddenly twisted into a feral snarl. "You sought to conquer our dominion without your legions... you will pay for your arrogance!"

John made a curt gesture with his left hand and the shadowy energy coiling around his fingertips shot out to form a pair of grey lances. With a disconcerting dirge they streaked towards his opponent, the first shattering one of the hexes in the grey barrier, the second driving through and impaling Larn'kelnar's black shield with a grating shriek. The Progenitor looked down at it in shock as his shield reverberated with the impact, never expecting that John would be powerful enough to pierce the protective psychic barrier.

Recovering quickly from that unsettling realisation, Larn'kelnar repaired his psychic shield in an instant. He started it spinning, the sphere of hexagons rotating swiftly as they circled his body. "Is that all you've got, whelp?" he taunted John with a derisive sneer.

Larn'kelnar raised his sceptre, the runes blazing brightly as several hulking creatures appeared. Standing on six legs, the enormous grey insectoids were a nightmarish fusion of spikes and claws, each blade viciously serrated up to its sharp tip. Standing twenty-feet-tall, they towered over John, every inch of them corded muscle and thick grey chitinous plating. One of the immutable rules of maintaining summoned constructs was to make them as realistic as possible, or they lacked weight and solidity in their form... but that didn't mean they couldn't be psychically enhanced. Three sets of disconcerting humanoid eyes locked onto John, glowing with an eerie purple light as they lunged forward in a supernaturally accelerated charge.

"I hunted these brutes to extinction," Larn'kelnar said with a smirk. "The Arntriss Templars made fine sport, especially if you slaughtered their families first..."

As John dodged and parried the frenzied insectoid assault, Larn'kelnar casually hurled a telekinetic lance at him. The streak of grey hit his hex shield, then exploded, jagged fragments tearing a massive hole in the barrier and destabilising the structure enough for it to collapse. The Progenitor's mocking laughter echoed around the room as John hurriedly created a new hex-shield, while being forced to backpedal away from the plunging chitin blades.

Alyssa turned back to the girls and saw that some of the huddled figures had started to stir. *Stay down and play dead!* she ordered them sternly. *Rachel, start healing everyone! Sakura, get over here, we need you!*

***

The white blade dripped with blue blood as Sakura pulled the ninjato from the thrall's torso, droplets spattering over the Larathyran's breastplate. She'd caught another group of thralls in the small armoury adjoining the Bridge, which the crew on the Command Deck had used to prepare themselves for battle. Caught by surprise, half of the thralls were already dead before they even managed to fire a shot.

Sakura froze when she heard Alyssa asking for help. It came as a huge relief to hear the blonde's telepathic voice, but that was tempered with worry at her matriarch's anxious tone. *I'm on my way! Are you alright?*

*John's been freed and he destroyed the psychic inhibitor, but Larn'kelnar took the rest of us out before we got our powers back. The two of them are duelling at the moment, but John needs our help. Rachel's patching everyone up and we're about to join the fight!*

*I'll be there as fast as I can!* the Asian girl replied, darting through the door and into the corridor beyond.

She focused her will and concentrated on enhancing her vision, making her psychic connection to Alyssa visible. The snaking cable appeared before her eyes, glowing brightly as it angled down and to the left, passing through the floor as it linked Sakura to her matriarch. Sakura rushed for the closest set of elevators, so that she could make her way down to the interrogation chamber.

***

Alyssa felt Rachel's healing aura roll over her, easing the sharp pains in her body with a faint tickling sensation. She tried to keep still and avoid the maddening temptation to laugh, the gentle stimulation of her nerves the most intense on the left side of her chest.

*You had four shattered ribs,* the brunette informed her, sounding distracted as she focused on the psychic healing.

*How badly are the girls hurt?* Alyssa replied, sighing with relief as she was fully healed.

*Irillith suffered the worst injury, breaking her collarbone and humerus in six places. The rest had a mix of minor breaks, except Dana who suffered a concussion, and Jade, who didn't require any healing.*

*Nice work, Rach,* she said gratefully. *Stay back and keep a low profile, we don't want that asshole knowing what you can do.*

*I understand,* the brunette replied, make eye-contact with her across the room and nodding imperceptibly.

Alyssa turned her attention to the rest of the girls. *Irillith, Tashana, help John. Calara and Dana, keep Larn distracted with gunfire while I crank it up. Helene, I want you and Jessica to keep as far away from the fighting as possible.* She glanced around for the Nymph. *Jade, where are you?*

*Climbing up the wall,* the Nymph replied. *I'm going to try and sneak up on him...*

Scanning the black walls for the shapeshifter, Alyssa spotted a flicker of movement as a relatively small green spider, no larger than a dinner-plate, started scuttling up towards the ceiling. *No, don't attack. I want you to protect the girls if he throws more creatures at us.*

The arachnid paused and dropped to the floor. *Okay, I'll keep them safe.*

*Alright, go everyone!* Alyssa called out, rolling over and rising to a crouch.

She reached for her Reaper Cannons with telekinetic hands and prayed that the guns were still functional. Closing her eyes, she breathed deep, feeling a sense of calm as she tapped into her psychic abilities. Gathering eldritch energy to her, it started to swirl around her arms, leaving glowing white trails as it poured down to her fists. She cracked an eye open and watched a bright nimbus of light begin to coalesce around her gauntlets, amplified by the Progenitor rune she'd inscribed there.

All around her, the girls exploded into action, launching Alyssa's plan of attack.

***

Larn'kelnar watched with amusement as John was forced further backwards, the insectoid constructs slashing and stabbing at him relentlessly. Finding out that Blake was schizophrenic had come as quite a shock, as had the realisation that he was powerful enough to overcome an eldritch inhibitor and break free of his bonds. However, it was also clear that despite Blake's raw power, he possessed the duelling skills of a neophyte Progenitor.

Gesturing with his sceptre, he sent another psychic javelin lancing through the air to slam into John's shield. Hexagons shattered as it punched through and hit him in the thigh. To Larn'kelnar's surprise, there was a golden flare as protection runes warded away the grey telekinetic spear, preventing it from puncturing the armour. He frowned in irritation and created another javelin, then looked for a clear shot through the forest of chitinous legs between him and Blake.

Suddenly, his shield was struck by a hail of tachyon bolts, the salvo of weapon fire coming from the left. He glanced that way in astonishment, amazed that Blake's thralls were still alive, let alone in any state to fight. Whirling around to deal with his attackers, he saw that it wasn't just a handful of thralls that had survived... all of them were now moving with renewed purpose. That surprise was nothing compared to his sense of stunned disbelief when two Maliri gestured towards his constructs and unleashed a dramatic display of psychic prowess.

There was a huge boom and a brilliant flash as a jagged stroke of lightning arced across the room, blasting the closest Arntriss Templar. The psychic manifestation reacted just as the real-life counterpart would have, its grey armour plating exploding outwards as the lightning bolt cooked its body. Steam poured off the mortally wounded creature and it toppled over, before fading away as the psychic fabric maintaining it dissipated.

At the same time a sheet of flame curled outwards, enveloping the next two hulking monstrosities. Any doubt who was responsible for the inferno in the barracks was banished from Larn'kelnar's mind as the dreadful heat of that blaze scorched their chitinous hides from grey to bright red. The Arntriss let out agonised shrieks as the super-heated plating seared their insides, white-hot steam pouring from their mouths as they were incinerated.

"That's impossible!" Larn'kelnar protested, his eyes wide in shock. "The Maliri are just a thrall race... they're not psychic!"

Now faced by only a single enemy, John hacked through its closest leg with a smooth sweep of his flaming runesword. The massive insectoid was caught off balance and he lunged forward inside the reach of its blades to impale the wounded creature right up to the hilt. It shuddered violently, then exploded into fiery chunks, the pieces erupting like a volcano as he obliterated the final construct.

Facing the Progenitor, John smiled wryly. "They just needed a bit of encouragement..."

Before Larn'kelnar could answer, an incandescent beam slammed into his shield, knocking him sprawling backwards with the intensity of the blow. He slammed down a grey telekinetic wall to take the brunt of the beam, which gave him a chance to find his footing, but his obstruction exploded a couple of seconds later and the column of energy pounded into his hex-barrier again. Bracing himself against the onslaught, he skidded to a halt, repairing all the fractures in his buckling shield.

Glancing over his black shield at his assailant, Larn'kelnar gaped at the white-armoured Terran thrall in shock, watching as she blasted him with raw eldritch power. He'd never seen anyone other than a Progenitor possess that kind of incredible psychic potency and what he was witnessing here today was quite beyond his comprehension.

*My Lord?* Ailanthia asked fearfully. *Is something amiss? You feel... disturbed...*

Jolted out of his stupor, Larn'kelnar realised he must have accidentally started sharing his emotions with his matriarch. That would have been a galling admission of weakness under any normal circumstances, but considering what he was facing, hearing a friendly voice was enormously reassuring.

*Blake's thralls... they possess psychic powers!* he balked, unable to believe he could be saying something so ludicrous.

Ailanthia quailed at hearing her master this upset. She'd never heard him so shocked in the thousands of years they'd been together. *Are you in danger, my Lord? Perhaps it would be wise to retreat...*

*Run? From Blake and his freak show?!* Larn'kelnar snarled, the thought of it galling. *Never!*

Another pair of Blake's shield-breaking javelins streaked towards him, but with his hex barrier whirling around, they merely punched two widely-spaced holes in the hexagons. A crackling bolt of lightning hit him next, the stroke blasting into his psychic shield and sending electricity crawling across its glowing surface. No sooner had he registered that assault, a conflagration erupted underneath him, the roaring flames shooting up from the ground and scorching the base of his protective barrier.

Larn'kelnar was being assailed from all directions now and he had to work frantically to maintain the integrity of his shield under such a coordinated attack. He lashed out with a telekinetic spear at the thrall firing blazing white beams at him, certain that he could just pick off these irritating insects one at a time. The white-armoured woman sidestepped just in time, almost as if she knew it was coming, the javelin missing her by inches before it slammed into the far wall.

*Start feeding me energy, Ailanthia... lots of it!* he demanded, gritting his teeth in irritation.

His matriarch poured psychic energy into him, setting Larn'kelnar's neurons afire as she tapped thousands of thralls to fuel his powers. He channelled all that energy into his sceptre, making the runes blaze with a dazzling radiance. Dropping to a crouch, he thumped the ground with the hilt of the rod, unleashing a blast wave to take care of the irritating thralls. Blake, the blonde, and the two Maliri were all suddenly shrouded in hex-barriers of their own, the four of them knocked backwards by the force of the blow, but otherwise appeared to be unscathed. The rest of the thralls were far back on the other side of the room and when his force wave was blocked at four separate points, it dissipated harmlessly before reaching them.