Chapter 626: War In Heaven

"When it all happened I, like everyone else in our universe, was completely unaware of the desperate struggle against a being with nearly limitless power. We had not clue, no idea, of the titanic struggle of Immortals and Apostles against a screaming titan. We did not know that the Devil faced off against God.

"Had I known, nothing would have been different.

"I had my part to play, my small part in the grand tapestry woven by the Gods themselves.

"My tanks treads were crushing the forces of the Atrekna, my guns were sweeping away their foul creatures, and my crew was loyal and brave.

"We. the Lanaktallan of the Atomic Hooves, did our part.

"They did theirs." - Former Grand Most High Sma'akamo'o, from I Have Ridden the Hasslehoff

The wind was full of the taste of ash and scorched metal with the faint taste of burnt flesh. The steady mournful sound of Lossglass creaking as it slowly settled ran counterpoint to the sound of the wind. Threading through it was a voice, exhausted, cracked, harried, but still singing even through pain and torment.

The singing, a child's lullaby, was coming from a brown skinned woman. She was two meters off the ground, her arms straight out from her sides. She was leaning forward, her chest being crushed by her own weight. Her skin was bruised and abraded, oozing blood in many places.

Her forearms were wrapped in barbed wire, her hands pinned to the crossbar by the heavy spikes driven through her wrists. Her legs were bound together by cruel barbed wire and her feet were held fast by heavy nails.

She inhaled heavily, as best she could in her exhaustion, and continued to sing. It was a slow song, ancient as the hills around her, and one that she had learned at her mother's knee.

She could hear the crunching of pebbles and shards of Lossglass but lacked the strength to look up. She merely kept singing, blood drooling out from between her swollen and cracked lips.

"Father," she heard. Rather, she heard a word she did not understand uttered in Prakrit.

"Yes?" another voice asked. She recognized that word as English.

She tried to look up, failed, and used what little flagging energy she had to take another breath.

"Can she not be saved?" the Prakrit speaker asked.

"I'll do it," another voice said. It was a rumble, the voice of a large man and the woman knew that the man would be frowning, his face dour and severe.

"If you wish her saved, Luke, then you must help your brother," the first English speaker said.

She ignored it all, lost in a haze of pain, dehydration, and exhaustion. She had been tormented by hallucinations, by visions, for longer than she could remember.

She continued to sing the lullaby.

The crossed wooden beams, charred from the explosion that had torn apart the house they had once been a part of, that she was crucified on lifted up as she heard a man grunt with effort.

"Careful," a bubbling woman's said. "Luke, catch the top."

She tilted, staring up at the sky. Having her weight no longer all resting on her shoulders allowed her to take her first full breath in a long time and she gasped twice.

She kept singing.

She felt herself lowered to the ground. She closed her eyes at the brightness of the sun, still softly singing to herself.

"Hold her arm. I don't wanna rip her arm off," the rumbling voice said.

She felt slender, work hardened hands hold her forearm, pressing the barbed wire into her arms, but she was beyond such minor pains. The spike in her left wrist shifted, she felt thick fingers slide between her flesh and the flat of the railroad spike.

It screeched as it was pulled free.

The action was repeated on her right wrist, on her feet.

"Help me unwrap the wire, brother," the rumbler rumbled.

The wire was unwrapped from her legs and her forearms. She felt a cloth put over her midsection, from her breasts to just below her crotch, preserving her modesty.

"Careful, Thomas," came the first English speaker's voice.

Wide hands slid beneath her and raised her up, lifting her from the cross. Several steps and she was lowered into the pebbles, sand, and chunks of Lossglass that made up the surface of the hill.

"Water," she whispered.

Fingers, fingers that felt strange, that made her lips tingle and tickle, touched her cracked and dry lips.

She felt water, cool water, trickle over her lips and she opened her mouth, drinking the water being poured from the fingers and into her mouth as fast as she could swallow.

The fingers withdrew.

"It'll make you sick," a woman's bubbling voice said.

"Father," the Prakrit speaker said.

She felt a hand rest on her forehead and opened her eyes.

Above her stood a slender man, brown skin and eyes, totally bald without even eyebrows. Next to him stood a heavily built thick bodied man with the tanned skin of someone who had spent a lifetime exposed to different suns. Next to him was a young woman with a slashed throat who stood next to a large green man with tusks and red eyes. Last was a man who looked both haunted and exhausted at the same time, who looked as if he had just gotten out of bed, wearing the same clothes he had worn to the club the night before.

That wasn't what had her complete attention.

It was the man made completely of streaming digital code who looked down at her with kind eyes.

"Arise and be whole, Menhit the Singer," the Digital Omnimessiah smiled.

--------------

The room was filled with the screams of the Enraged Screaming Ones outside the small facility, the sounds of fists hammering on doors and walls, the slap of feet on the ground as the Enraged ran one way and then the other. Often they screamed as they attacked each other, each time the two fighting attracting more until it was a furious melee that left many dead.

Underneath the sound was the sound of a keyboard and mouse. Not the rapid gunfire of holodramas, but some clacking then singular taps as the typist scrolled down through the code.

"They're really mad out there," the tired looking man said. He tapped on the keys again, running a search for keywords. He suddenly laughed.

"What's so funny?" Menhit asked, without looking away from the door.

"There's a comment from Denmit in the code still, telling me that someone stole his lunch out of the breakroom," Peter/Macro laughed then suddenly sobered. "He was in San-Angelos when it happened. He probably died instantly."

Peter went back to typing.

The door opened, the automatic function still enabled.

Four men and two women, screaming at the top of their lungs, their eyes bright red, blood and saliva running down their chins, threw themselves into the room, their hands reaching out for Menhit, Peter, and the other occupant.

The tall bunnygirl stepped to the side, turning, and hacked the first woman's arms off at the elbows, turned and kicked one of the men hard enough he flew back into the doorway, and hacked the other man's head clean off.

Menhit twitched a finger.

The other three made a squealing noise as the floor rose up like starfish arms, covered them, then suddenly twisted together. Blood, viscera, and meat slurry sprayed from the slight gaps in the twisted endosteel. The metal unwrapped, revealing a fused together block of meat that was completely bloodless, completely wrung out. As the flooring returned to how it was Menhit twitched her finger again and the block of meat rocketed down the hallway, smashing others aside.

"They are getting most insistent," Menhit said, looking at Dambree.

"I know," Dambree said.

"I will go rebuke them. You guard Peter," Menhit said.

The rabbit girl merely nodded, her face and expression hidden behind the worn and battered grav-skiing mask.

Menhit inhaled deeply, a golden aura surrounding her, and walked toward the door with crisp, authoritative steps. She faced the ones screeching and pushing at one another as they rushed down the hallway toward the empty door and made a brushing flicking motion with the fingers of her right hand.

The Enraged Screaming Ones in the hallway were suddenly crushed against the wall. For a split second they screamed in rage, then the pitch raised right before they suddenly crushed against it hard enough they were reduced to a thick paste.

The door closed and the rabbit girl simply wiped the brush blade off on one of the dead, then pulled them to the side with one hand.

After a moment, Peter looked up from the keyboard.

"You don't seem worried," he said.

The rabbit girl just shrugged.

"I'm terrified," Peter admitted.

"You are Chromium Peter, Biological Apostle of the Digital Omnimessiah," Dambree said softly. "I have prayed for the strength to endure my demons."

Peter nodded. "Many do," he hung his head. "You must be disappointed."

Dambree looked at the door. "You are not a warrior."

"No," Peter admitted. He gave a self-mocking laugh. "You would not believe how many times I wished I was like Daxin or Thomas or even Matty the First."

Dambree shrugged. "Why? You are who you are."

"Because then I wouldn't be terrified all the times things like this happen," he gave another rueful laugh. "I'm so pathetic that the Imperium didn't even twist me into an immortal, they just sold me to an omnicorp."

Dambree stood silent.

"It must be a disappointment to see me like this," Peter said, glancing at the monitor that was showing the results of his ongoing search strings through libraries of object architecture libraries.

"No," Dambree said. "Like me, you are not a warrior."

Peter frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I'm just Dambree Limberton," the bunny-girl said softly. "I would pray to you for strength and courage with even more fervor now that I have been in your presence as you do the work of the Digital Omnimessiah."

Peter cocked his head. "But why?"

"Because you are afraid," Dambree said. "Yet you do what must be done anyway, as I did. You, of all the Biological Apostles, know what it was to be me when the Atrekna came."

Peter had no answer.

--------

Outside the facility the mob was screaming, clawing at one another, smashing anything they could. Their upraised voices howled their rage, their fury, as they vocalized their torment, pain, and madness.

The door to the facility slid open and the Screaming Ones in front of the door were hit by a wave of purplish-blue energy that reduced them to a fine mist in a split second. In a half-circle around the door, for a hundred paces, the Screaming Ones were obliterated, atomized, reduced to nothing more than reddish steam.

Menhit the Singer, Biological Apostle, the Wrath Singer, surrounded by a golden nimbus, walked out into the cleared space even as the crowd surged forward.

Lightning arced around Menhit's feet as she lifted up into the air, her hair streaming out behind her. She spread her arms wide as she looked at the surging crowd of Screaming Ones below her.

"I HAVE COME TO RELIEVE YOU OF YOUR AGONY, BELOVED AND WOUNDED ONES!" she sang out.

Her voice shattered crysteel windows on skyrakers a thousand miles away.

Warsteel tore from the surface of the building, was shredded into long daggerlike shards, and began orbiting Mehnit's body in a complex twisting pattern even as she lifted up higher.

She put her hands together in front of her, staring down at the screaming crowd.

"You are redeemed," she said softly, nodding her head.

There was a bright flash of phasic power detonating and the screaming stopped.

When the light cleared, all that remained on the ground was the warsteel surface and the scrith exposed here and there, a pinkish steam rising up from the metal.

The Screaming Ones howled and charged.

Menhit smiled sorrowfully.

She knew what was to be done was needed but it did not make it any easier.

She lifted her hand, extended her fingers out, and twitched her wrist.

The crowd turned to pink mist.

------------

Vuxten dropped down next to FIDO, who had his cooling fins and tongue extended, panting like the goodboi to try to relieve the heat.

"Menhit's engaged," Daxin said over the comlink. "Screaming Ones, not androids."

"That's gonna be ugly," Vuxten heard Kalki answer. "Our beloved sister is much more than she seems as she kneels by the river to sing as she washes her sari."

Vuxten pushed the questions away, going down on one knee, pulling the M318 up into the rest position. He could see the heat coming off the barrel shroud, hear the whistling of the nanoforge.

"You OK back there, buddy?" Vuxten asked.

--hot hot hot-- 471 replied. --i walk in the steps of gravity have no fear of death--

Vuxten just nodded, watching the heat levels. He was still firmly in the red on the weapons and his nanoforge, but the armor's cooling was working and he was already in the high yellow.

"We make it out of this, we never have to buy another drink ever," Vuxten said.

471 answered with a smiley emoji and then an animated image of a trio of green mantid with knives and forks chasing a cooked turkey.

--------

"Evil bitch," Sam snarled, the left going slack as the right snarled. "You're nothing but pure evil and barbarism."

"Yet you stood right here and argued that even I should be saved. You placed me in a position of authority in Hell, you advocated for me to be saved," Dee said, tilting her head slightly.

"Everyone deserves a second chance," Sam whined from the left. His face contorted on the right. "You threw my generosity in my face!"

Dee nodded slowly. "You're mad."

"Yes! I just want order!" Sam screamed from the right. He hung his head. "So many people. They're all screaming, begging, crying out for us to help them," he said on the left.

"Then help me process them," Dee said.

Sam looked up. "You think you have all the answers," the right snarled. "How, how can we help them? How can I have you help process them without subjecting them to torment at your hands to heal them?" the left sobbed.

Sam suddenly stopped. "What? What are you doing?" both sides asked.

---------

"HERE THEY COME!" Daxin roared out, lowering his SMG and opening fire.

Vuxten still couldn't believe the ranges Daxin engaged the enemy at with the SMG. He knew the supposed maximum effective range of that particular model of submachinegun was supposedly only one-hundred fifty meters.

Daxin was shooting off android's heads at nearly two kilometers with pointpoint accuracy.

Vuxten lowered the barrel of the ornately engraved and inlaid 20mm autocannon.

He could see the Enraged running at them, see their open mouths as they screamed out their torment and agony and wrath.

--you can't help them-- 471 said, flashing icons of sorrow.

"I know," Vuxten said.

He squeezed the firing grip.