Somebody Stop Us. Chapter 7: Sanguinefeast

The empty space beside me suddenly erupted in shadow as Katherine burst from the Deep, a black railgun braced against her shoulder. Her emerald eyes blazed with fury.

"GET EFFED!" she roared, the weapon humming with a high-pitched whine as she pressed the trigger.

The marble-white man's head snapped toward my Knight.

The railgun unleashed a devastating magnetized slug traveling at hypersonic speed, the air around it igniting from friction. The man blurred—moving faster than should be possible—as the projectile tore through the space he'd occupied a millisecond before. The wall behind him exploded outward in a shower of debris and dust.

"You missed," he stated, suddenly standing beside Katherine, reaching for her throat.

But she was prepared, vanishing in the Deep as his fingers passed through the air.

Thunder crackled across the cafe as a blinding lightning bolt flashed from Vespera. The man blurred again, but lightning careened into him, following his motion.

“Vile beastlings!” the man spat, his suit burning, white flesh cracked and flaking away.

The elderly Tanystropheus at the counter suddenly stood, his newspaper falling to the floor. His long neck contracted as his entire body shimmered, rearranging itself into a familiar gray-blue striped shark form.

"Scrutmancer Satosh," I thought as I recognized the Omnid.

Satosh pulled out a wide-barreled gun from his coat, aiming it directly at the glowing man. "Outsider Entity Sanguinefeast," he announced formally, "you are in violation of the Omnithornian Interdimensional Boundary. Stand down or face nullification."

“You dare command me?!” The marble-man growled.

Another blast of lightning from Vespera made him howl and flail, more skin and suit flaking off.

“FREEZE!” Cinder sang, her voice cleaving reality and making me freeze.

Satosh fired his weapon without another word. Instead of bullets, it released a net covered in nullifier shards. The Sanguinefeast snarled, the dark web wrapping itself tighter around him. Where the black shards touched his glowing skin, the light of his body dimmed, as though his very essence was being drained away.

"ENOUGH!" he roared, his voice distorting into something inhuman. The air around him shimmered with heat as he began to transform, his perfect human features melting away to reveal something ancient and terrible beneath. The thing with far too many angles wobbled and twisted in the nullifier net.

"That's a high level soul-eater!" Satosh shouted. "Everyone out! NOW!"

The pill-drone bartender activated what appeared to be an emergency protocol, red warning lights flashing throughout the café as a containment barrier hummed to life around the net-trapped entity.

Katherine emerged from the shadows beside me and grabbed at me, dragging me into the deep. Cinder’s 'freeze' command-hook snapped off me.

"You okay?" Katherine asked as she rushed out of the pitch-black, root-covered cafe with me in tow.

"Just peachy," I coughed, blood speckling my lips, hands frantically digging in my pocket for another weapon just in case. "What are you doing here?"

"Protecting you idiots,” she growled. “Obviously. I expected an attack from the Frontenachii, not whatever the shit punched you through the wa…”

A bright off-color thing flashed through the deep after us. It plowed right through Katherine bisecting her body and grabbed at my throat. The deep ignited with crimson and then brilliant sunlight as the Sanguinefeast thing holding me once again reformed itself into the shape of the pale humanoid.

“Thought you could get away with dimensional shifting, little snack?” the Sanguinefeast growled, dropping the body of bisected Katherine onto the concrete pavement and then flashing another twenty meters away from the cafe in a single step. His mouth opened impossibly wide, pure white tongue and teeth stretching out towards my neck. “I don’t let go of rare, four-soul snacks so easily!”

I pressed the trigger of my Arx-delving arbalest, arrow pointed at the man’s stomach.

The Void magisteel arrow detonated between us. The Sanguinefeast imploded as did most of my body.

In that instant, both of us stopped existing, obliterated in our embrace of predator and prey.

. . .

The endless funnel of stars stretched before me once more. Each pinpoint of light a soul vanishing in the funnel.

I hung, suspended in the liminal space between life and death, aware only of the tug of the funnel trying to draw me in and the anchoring weight of the Lazarus bracelet holding me back.

The wait seemed... longer. More profound. The stars burned brighter, their pull stronger, as if the boundary between existence and non-existence had grown thinner.

I tried to call out, but I had no voice. I tried to move, but I had no form—just those strange, shimmering threads of soul-matter, stretching out like a brittle star, wobbling with each pull of the Wheel of Death.

Eternity stretched on. And on. And on.

Worry began to creep in, a cold, insidious feeling that wound its way through my formless consciousness. What if something had gone wrong? What if the Lazarus bracelet had been damaged in the implosion? What if I was trapped here forever, suspended in this infinite void, neither alive nor dead?

The stars pulsed, beckoning. The funnel of light seemed to widen, its invitation growing more insistent.

And then, finally, the words appeared, burning themselves into my consciousness:

[SUBJECT: ALEXANDER GLOCK 

STATUS: DECEASED 

CAUSE: VOID MAGISTEEL ARROW IMPLOSION

INITIATING RESTORATION PROTOCOL…]

Relief flooded through me as the cold, metallic taste of Genesis fluid filled my mouth and lungs. I choked, gasped, struggling against the thick liquid. Iridescent hands grabbed at me, their grip firm but gentle, pulling me upward.

I broke the surface with a desperate gasp, coughing and sputtering, Genesis fluid streaming from my hair and eyes.

"Alex!" Cinder's voice, thick with emotion, cut through my disorientation. Her arms wrapped around me, pulling me against her chest, her wings enfolding me in a cocoon of warmth and color. 

I blinked through the silvery droplets clinging to my eyelashes, my vision clearing to reveal Cinder's face, her ocean-blue eyes filled with tears, her expression undulating between anger and relief.

"Hi," I croaked, my voice raw.

"Don't you 'hi' me," she hissed, her grip tightening painfully. "You blew yourself up! What were you thinking?!"

Before I could respond, Vespera appeared beside us, her wings extending towards the Genesis well, dropping a bracelet down into the fluid. 

“I was thinking that imploding myself is better than getting my soul sucked out,” I said. “Satosh said something about that thing eating souls.”

“And if the bracelet imploded too?!” Cinder’s hug tightened.

“Lazarus bracelets are tough,” I shrugged.

Vespera’s talons plunged into the silvery fluid, searching, until they found purchase on something—or more specifically, someone—below.

With a grunt of effort, she hauled Katherine from the depths of the well.

The tall, naked Stollwurm emerged from the silver pool and wrapped herself in an offered towel from Vespera.

“Am I getting a towel too?” I asked Cinder. “Or are you planning to keep me naked foreva, you devious dragon-beast?”

Cinder flashed pink, then nodded and rapidly dried me off and then wrapped a fluffy, white Skyfall robe around me.

"Argh—" Katherine looked down at her newly reformed body, patting her torso where she'd been bisected. "First time I got snapped in half with just a punch."

I managed a weak smile. "So, did I get him? The Sanguinefeast?"

Vespera nodded. "Yeah, you got him. Magisteel Void-hex arrow to the core tends to be pretty definitive, even for high level Outsiders."

"You both got turned into cosmic effing confetti," Magdaline added from where she was sitting on the steps. "Dad’s pissed. But he's also... glad. That Outsider could have eaten lots of people, since he could just shift between dimensions at will. Bastard broke outta the null-net far too easily."

Vespera elbowed Cinder off me and wrapped herself around me mauling me with soft kisses. "That was a wildly unexpected maneuver, Lexxy-fox."

“You better not do that again,” Cinder growled.

"No promises," I let out. "But I'll try to avoid imploding myself when possible."

"You better," Cinder hugged both of me and Vee. "Or I swear I'll... I'll..."

"Follow me into the afterlife and kick my ass?" I suggested.

"Precisely," she confirmed, kissing me.

Katherine shook her dark blue mane like a wet cat, sending silver droplets flying. "That was one Abyss-damned first outing in Cradlefall," she muttered. 

"That's how we roll," Vespera chirped. "I mean, we did just annihilate an ancient soul-eating monster! Not bad for an impromptu dinner outing, right?"

"Glad to see we're keeping up with tradition—maximum chaos, minimum planning,” the Stollwurm commented. “Is my dress…?”

“Safe,” Vespera replied. “It did get torn in half though.”

Kat sighed.

“We can repair it in the Academy’s Foxden Artifactorium,” I suggested. “Did my jacket survive?”

“Nope,” Vespera sighed. “We’ll have to get you a new one made on Arx.”

“What about the stuff in my pockets?” I asked.

“One of the pockets miraculously survived,” Vespera said. She dug into her bag and pulled out a piece of mangled dragonhide with a pocket in it.

“Ah good,” I relaxed, activating the dimensional gate and looking inside. “That’s the pocket with my disguise tools, beast cores and Zee Captain’s lighter. It’d be a shame to lose all of that.”

“Mags… why did the Outsider target me?” I asked Magdaline.

“Pure chance,” she said. “Lots of incursions happened today across all of Leviathan’s Cradle. We just happened to run into one of many dimensional invaders. The Omnithornian military is dealing with it now with extreme prejudice.”

“How extreme?” I asked.

“Very,” Magdaline replied. “Omnids will not tolerate invasions into their territory. The Scruts are figuring out how to block incoming interdimensional gates across the entire planet now and Cradlefall is under martial law until such is set up. The army obliterated a quarter of downtown to stop the invaders and lots of people are getting incoed today.”

“All gates?” I blinked.

“Yes,” Mags nodded. “If you’re planning to return from Arx using Io’s Sundergate, you’ll need an incoming gate permit. Omnithornia is planning to charge five million o-bux for the permit keystone.”

“Steep,” I whistled. 

“They’re trying to reduce the number of dimensional incursions,” she said. 

“Are the incursions worldwide?” I asked.

“They’re primarily focused on locations with very high Aetheric density,” Magdaline said. “It’s easier to gate to a place with lots of magic.”

Footsteps rushed down the stairwell. Ember rushed into the cave and then slowed when she saw our group, her ruby mane reflecting the gold stars overhead.

“Martin! Are you okay?” She stared at me. “Satosh told me… were killed by one of the invaders!”

“Only slightly less sane,” I shrugged. “Not the first time I got incoed.”

“You… you shouldn’t have gone out,” she commented. “I sent Satosh to protect you ahead of time but the slow-ass shark didn’t stop the Outsider!”

"Aww, such a heartwarming sister," I teased. “How about a hug for the thoughtfulness?”

Ember flushed, her mane sparking slightly. She hesitated for a few seconds, expression shifting. Then, with a huff that sent a small puff of smoke curling from her mane, she stepped forward and wrapped me in a quick, awkward hug. Her ruby mane brushed against my cheek, warm and faintly crackling with dragonfire sparks.

“Don’t get used to it,” she muttered, pulling back almost as quickly as she’d embraced me. “I just… didn’t want your soul sucked out, ya nullbrain. Not after all this dimensional bullshit.”

“Too late,” I grinned, brushing off the lingering warmth of her scales. “You’re stuck with me now, sis. Dimensional shifts and all.”

Vespera clapped her talons together. “Aww, family bonding! This is, like, the cutest thing I’ve seen all day—aside from Lexxy-fox blowing himself up, of course.”

“How was that cute?” Cinder shot Vespera a look that could’ve melted magisteel.

“What? Selfless implosions are cute,” Vespera fired back. “He like totally saved us by attracting that thing to his extra-yummy soul-bits. Fight me about it!”

Cinder smacked Vespera on the head. “Let's just head to dinner. I need another steak in me after that.”

"Seconded," the Thunderbird bobbed her head.