Chapter 24

Actually getting people out of Onnekus was far easier than I’d expected. They had very little to take, and they really hadn’t settled in after their homes had been destroyed. Which meant moving somewhere that was almost identical in appearance didn't really affect them too much. Though, I doubted their ordeal of having to move again gave them much faith in their new home. I’d have to encourage the goddesses to put them at ease.

Or you could have faith in them and not try to micromanage basic fucking shit! I scolded myself internally. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have enough to do as Sania and Danivra had just kindly reminded me.

As the others ensured the Admin Hub was clear, I headed down to the Portal Ring once again to check on our guardians and the evacuees. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the guardians, but… I didn’t exactly trust the guardians. That would have to be earned if we could continue to use them.

I flew over the heads of those escaping, to find that my fears were unfounded for now. The guardian’s stood armed and ready, watching the entrance of the tunnel, as innocent people streamed past them and into the portal to Toukal.

I moved to the nearest Guardian. Brown armored and stout, though not as stout as the gray armored guardians lined up next to them.

“Hey. Do you guys have a leader?”

As I listened to his answer, my eyes wandered over the physical differences between all of the guardians. The White and Black armored groups were on opposite ends of the hall from each other, but these were the tallest of all the guardians, broad and lean. The red and orange armored guardians looked the most dangerous. Fairly tall, but more powerfully built than athletic.

Green, Copper , Blue and Purple were all of average height and build with very little between them. Silver… well silver looked thin and weak. But I had to hand it to them, they moved the fastest of all the others. Finally came the odd, translucent armored group. Their description escaped me as your sight fell into them rather than on them. It was a disconcerting experience and only with spirit sight could I see them properly. They were the only group to have all the different physical shapes and sizes among them.

“No, Universal Administrator.” The brown armored guardian answered. “Whatever you tell me will be shared with my brothers and sisters immediately. In that way, no leader is necessary and power struggles among us are less likely to arise.”

I offered an uncertain. “Sure…” Then got to the point. “In that case, once, all of the evacuees are through you should all go through too. We’re gonna drop this entire hub to the ground once everyone is safe.”

Brown armor didn’t respond for a hot second, and the pause was awkward. For me at least.

“We do not wish to overstep our position, Administrator,” he finally said. “But our duty as an elite emergency guard requires that we do not leave until we are certain you are safe or we have been destroyed.”

I’d been almost certain there was some AI like Aly, running the guardians, or that they were using some kind of shared consciousness, but his next words gave me pause.

“Dark Three has asked me to inform you that while destroying the Administration Hub makes the most sense given the circumstances, you cannot destroy the transport tower. If you do, you will be trapped here.”

My heart skipped a beat at the revelation and all that it entailed. “That makes a terrifying amount of sense. Do you have a name?”

“Earth Six, Administrator.”

“Okay, Earth Six. My friends and I are gonna wreck the city, but I’ll shield the transport tower from damage so we can skedaddle when the time comes. My question to you, and all your fellow guardians is this: I know we can cut off the Admin Hub from the Administration System, but  will that be enough to prevent Hakan fucking with it?”

“What Administrator knowledge does this Hakan person possess?”

“A fair bit. He ran the place for a millennia or two after all the other Alo-im left. He’s a criminal now on account of him being a total fucking bellend.”

The Brown armored soldier seemed to tense up. A movement I wouldn’t have expected from an automaton, no matter how well made. Worse still, he suddenly looked five times more dangerous than he had a moment ago. The Earth Neuma radiating from him increase substantially. “Do you refer to Senator Hakanilaris of the 310th to 329th High Council?”

“That depends on how popular the name Hakanilaris was among the Alo-im,” I said vaguely, stalling to decide how I wanted to play this. Suffice to say alarm bells were ringing like I’d just entered an intensive care ward.

I took a wary step back, glancing from side to side to see if the other guardians had reacted. They hadn’t and as I turned back to Earth Six I was coming to realise my assumptions about these Guardians were well off. The next question was how they would react to knowing it was their old Universal Administrator trying to break in.

I considered lying, but dismissed that thought almost immediately. Call it instinct, call it stupidity, but I told a rough estimation of the truth and prepared myself for things to go bad. “He was definitely high ranking before becoming a criminal, I don’t know if that helps?”

As the emotionless reflective visor stared at me silently, I cast another look around to the others, hoping above hope that they wouldn’t attack while all the people of Onnekus were filing through the portal in an oblivious line. My heart sank further when I found every single one of the Guardians were now facing me. Earth Six spoke again.

“We must discuss what has occurred with Senator Hakanilaris. That you are in opposition to him is a cause for concern. That the System has declared him a criminal is even more worrying.”

“There’s a lot to unpack, and a pretty long story, and right now I haven’t got time to go through it” I said gesturing at the refugees.”

“We have noticed none of them are Alo-im and you said they left? We must know where they have gone.”

“Clive!” Aly said urgently, pulling me from the conversation at hand. “The efficiency of Hakan’s assault on the Distortion Barrier has increased. We have perhaps two hours at most.”

“Yeah. Well we might have a bit of a problem with these guardians. I think they’re getting sus about Hakan.”

“I am trying to uncover more about them, but I do not  think you need to worry. What I have discovered so far is that they are subservient to the Universal Administrator, which is you. So I suggest you act like one and use your position to instruct rather than inform.”

“Bloody hell, Aly. Don’t mince your words, hey?” I cast a glance back at the intimidating Earth Six. “But on his occasion I think you might be right.”

The brown guardian was still staring at me waiting for a response that wasn’t going to come. I used spirit sight to check on the line of refugees, and felt a little lighter that they were almost all through, then heeding Aly’s advice I spoke again.

“I’ll tell you everything you want to know, after we have everyone out of harm’s way. We have less than two hours, so I’m going to go and help the others tear the hub down and prevent our enemy from using it for their own gain.”

“Of course, Universal Administrator,” he said snapping to attention.

I took the opportunity to get away from the foreboding emergency guard, shooting out of the underground cavern at speed to find the others.

It seemed they’d split up with Destruction and her all-out attack team in the west of the city, Devotion was in the south with Mal and the others, Peace and Life were in the east and Sania and Danivra’s groups were in the north. A quick overview of the hub with Spirit Sight showed me roughly what I’d expect to see, with Destruction’s group causing far more damage than the others. Devotion’s group was surprisingly only slightly behind with some magnificent use of shields to compress whole areas.

Sania and Danivra’s team were doing well two, but without full godly power they were falling behind a little.

“Need to pick up the pace guys. Aly just told me, the shields falling faster and we have two hours. It wouldn’t surprise me if Hakan can increase that again, so I want us out of here in an hour, max!”

As the acknowledgments came in, I teleported to Sania and Danivra to help out. They looked relieved to see me.

“How’s it going?”

Sania shook her head. “Slowly. The buildings here are remarkably resilient. What would destroy a small town on Falritas isn’t enough to take down one tower here.”

I wasn’t surprised by the news and began building a blast. I created a core of Reflection first, then coated that with Gravity, before heavily smothering that with Light and Fire Neuma. I hadn’t made this concoction before, but my quick firing wits and everything I’d learned and understood about Neuma now brought me to this attack and I estimated this was the strongest combination of pure destruction I could build. I let it grow large in front of me, then condensed it down as small as I could before finally letting it fly.

As it hurtled toward the center of a few towers, I noticed the others around me had stopped to watch its flight.

Smashing into the steel lined street it erupted into an immense explosion that ballooned outward in all directions creating enough pressure to push all of my friends back a foot or two, despite our lofty position.

They oohed and aahed and I smiled. Not through pride, but because the blast wasn’t finished yet.

The second layer of Gravity activated, pulling the blast and the damaged buildings back toward the impact point.

It seemed my friends were more confused now. And when the core of Reflection activated, repelling everything back outward again, they were doubly confused.

The whole attack had caused a kind of pulsing ripple of destructive power and when the smoke and dust cleared, I felt like oohing and ahhing myself as around two square mile of city was utterly levelled. Only a crater filled with smoldering debris remained.

“Are you trying to make us look bad?” Andalar asked, though he had a wry grin on his face.

“They call that showing off among the humans,” Grigor added.

“They call that getting things done,” Wind of the Wild said with a triumphant smile. You will have to teach us how to create such an attack Clive. Or the closest approximation that we can.”

“Sure. Let me think. I used Light, Fire Reflection and Gravity and the Wultr here only have Light and gravity.”

Danivra stopped me with a hand. “Wait. You only used four Neumas to achieve that?”

“I did yeah. From watching you all diversify, and seeing the importance the guardians put into individual Neuma’s creating a whole together, I’m beginning to see that while I thought Neutral was the strongest all of this time as it used a little of all the Neuma’s it’s probably the weakest. It’s all about using the right tool for the right job. Or the right Symbiosis of powers. It’s been right in front of me the whole time and in some sense I always knew that, but it’s only recently I’ve truly understood.”

“So what do we do?” Sania asked. “I can see the Neuma, but not like you.”

“Okay, for the Wultr, looking at your Neuma Affinities. You could create something similar with a core of Light, tightly backed, covered by a layer of Gravity, and then a layer of Air and Stone.”

“Explain?” Wind said abruptly. I didn’t mind. We were at war and I wanted them to understand what they were doing.

“Simple. “Air and Stone for your initial impact, should affect the stone within the towers. Combined with air it will weaken them structurally. They will push one way with the initial blast. Pull back the way they came when Gravity strikes. And then a final explosion of Light, should create that reverse outward again and really shake the place about.

“And us?” Danivra said quickly before the Wultr around me could practice.

“That’s a lot tougher,” I replied rubbing my face as I thought. “Dark is a more insidious power. It consumes rather than energizes… Okay. Try this on for size.”

“We want a core of Gravity this time. It’s gonna finish less spectacular on the boom front, but no less destructive.”

“We are stealth by nature,” Danivra said with sinister smile.

“Layer it with Stone and Air and finally Darkness and Decay.”

“We use five?”  Andalar blurted out proudly for some reason. “What do they do?”

Danivra held a hand up to stop me from replying and in an uncertain manner answered herself. “Decay Weakens, Darkness consumes. I guess the two together will damage the structural integrity of all they touch.

Air and Stone will cause the actual damage, outward of the impact site, and Gravity will pull all of that expended power back in, potentially doubling the effect?”

I fired finger pistols at Danivra. “Egg-fucking- zactly. Though double the damage is probably a bit much of an ask. I’d say about a quarter of the original damage at most. But what a quarter that will be. Now get to work practicing those attacks. We really don’t have much time.

They all flew off to do their worst, apart from Sania who paused briefly to give me a smooch. As she pulled away, she smiled. “Thank you Clive. We needed that more than you know.”

Then she was off leaving me a little confused. “Needed what?” I asked across our bond. I felt only humor in answer.