Friday, March 8, 2019

1.07: First Blood in Tartarus

Prometheus sat up too quickly, his mind wobbling from the disorientation of leaving the simulation. It took him a while to comprehend what Thanatos was saying – Hekate was in the underworld, she’d released Kasios and Tiamat, and Macaria was alone in the prison block with them. Prometheus nearly collapsed when he set his feet on the ground – his whole body felt numb – but he followed Thanatos out of the facility, across the cavern floor, to the nearest loading ramp of the scuttled Tartarus. An army of skeletal automatons created by Prometheus and Macaria’s predecessors stood ready to charge into the ship and fight.

“Can they escape?” Prometheus asked.

“No,” Thanatos said, “I don't know how she got in, but the only way out for them is through our defense drones. Honestly, though, allowing them to escape would be less dangerous than allowing them to stay in that ship.”

“Okay… is the ship still air tight?” Prometheus asked.

“The prison block certainly is.”

“Okay,” Prometheus said, “You and I are going to slip into the ship, make our way to the bridge, and dial down the oxygen in the prison block until they pass out, okay?”

“Macaria…”

“Will be fine. She's practically half plant; even without her Legacy to enhance her powers, she can survive on the carbon dioxide for a while if we crank up the yellow light down there.”

Thanatos nodded, and they ran into the ship. They made their way to an access tunnel, climbed to the top of the vessel, and then followed a large hallway to its bow, where the bridge sat behind a large round window overlooking the interior of the cavern. Thanatos slid into the glossy black captain’s chair and began operating controls to power up the bridge.

“Life support’s on the back left wall,” he said, “You want Deck M, quandrant Beta.” While Prometheus worked through the life support controls, Thanatos brought up a holographic view screen. Hekate was holding Macaria at sword point, while Tiamat and Kasios were bashing away at one of the sealed bulkhead doors.

“Got it!” Prometheus shouted. The lights on the prison deck suddenly glowed much brighter, and after a few moments, Hekate and the escaped prisoners began to cough on the video, clutching at their throats and chests.

Thanatos watched anxiously as Macaria slowed her breathing and put her face and bare arms toward the warm lights, her aspen-white skin sprouting small green leaves. “I would have thought these two were powerful enough to smash through that bulkhead door,” he commented nervously.

“Not after so long in stasis,” Prometheus said, “They’ll grow stronger if they get out into the world, but right now they’re all but helpless.”

Hekate spotted the camera that was monitoring them and shouted at it, “Damn you Thanatos, you’ll kill us all!”

Macaria laughed a little, understanding the plan, “Give it up Hekate,” she said, “I don't need as much oxygen as you do. All my husband has to do is wait, and I'll be able to truss the three of you up myself.”

“Then I have no choice but to make the circumstances more pressing for him,” Hekate said. She turned and plunged her sword through Macaria’s left side, skewering one of her lungs. Green blood poured out along the blade. Thanatos screamed in horror.

“I know you’re watching Thanatos – restore the life support, open the doors, and I’ll stick her right into this cryopod here. Your wife doesn’t have to die, Thanatos.”

“Prometheus, do it!” Thanatos commanded.

“You don’t understand… if we let them escape, there’s no telling what could happen.”

“Don’t talk to me about what could happen while she is bleeding out!”

“Time’s wasting, Thanatos,” Hekate shouted, "Your wife is losing a lot of chlorophyll."

Prometheus’s hand hovered over the cancel button. If the prisoner’s story had been honest, then maybe Hekate wasn’t wrong to move towards a coup. On the other hand, whatever the faults of their society, Tiamat and Kasios were still monsters, “If we wait just a few more seconds...”

“It takes ten minutes to get down there from here,” Thanatos said marching over to Prometheus’s station, “Even if they collapse now, Macaria will be dead by the time we get down there!” Thanatos and Prometheus began to struggle for the station; Thanatos tried to use his powers, but they were too weak to affect Prometheus without the Mictlanggun Legacy to help him focus. Prometheus heated up one of his hands and threatened to melt the controls.

Another voice sounded on the view screen; it was Kasios, “He’s not going to do it,” he coughed, “We can’t… wait… any longer.” He held out a hand and something began to sparkle and glow around it, but the nascent object sputtered out and dissolved.

“We don’t have the power to recreate anything,” Tiamat said, “It’s been too long since we…” the woman fell to her knees, gasping.

Kasios grabbed Hekate’s sword from her, walked over to one of the cryo pods, and thrust the blade through the glass, skewering the sleeping prisoner inside. He moved to the next and did the same – then the next, and the next, killing the men and women mercilessly.

“What is he doing?!” Thanatos shouted.

“Destroying futures,” Prometheus realized. All the possible futures those prisoners still had ahead of them were decisively cut short, one by one, and Kasios would thrive on the destruction.

Kasios roared despite the thin air and raised his hand again; this time the weak sparkle gleamed brightly and resolved into an armored sleeve that ran up to his shoulder, with a glowing weapon projecting from the gauntlet. The weapon glowed brighter for a second and then discharged, shattering the sealed door and letting fresh air in.

Rather than making a run for it, Kasios laughed and began shooting the other occupied cryopods, his power growing with each kill.

“Macaria!” Thanatos ran from the bridge and back to the prison block, summoning his drones to storm the ship. Prometheus glanced long enough at the screen to see Hekate kneeling over the dying woman while Kasios continued his gleeful rampage. Prometheus turned and ran after Thanatos.

They descended ramps and ran down the long hallways to midship. The percussion of metal feet marching on the ship’s metal deck plates announced the arrival of Tartarus’s drone army just as Kasios stepped through the breached door. That was good news – Prometheus had in mind to stand back and let the drones swarm the escaped prisoners – Kasios could destroy the soulless machines by the dozens and he’d gain nothing from it.

Unfortunately, Thanatos was in too much of a rage to listen to Prometheus's advice. He transformed into a massive black bull and charged down the hallway at Kasios. His target raised his arms and a sparkling shimmer surrounded his body, Spiky black armor plates that glowed with orange light at their edges manifested from thin air and sealed around him. He lowered his hands to manifest a large silver glaive, and with a single precisely timed swing, he bisected the charging bull in a shower of blood and organs.

The drones rushed forward to avenge their master, firing their own ancient energy weapons. Kasios dematerialized his melee weapon, raised his fists, and began rapidly firing blasts of green energy from weapons integrated into the armor on his forearms.

From the other end of the hallway, Prometheus reached out with his powers, found the exotic weapons the ancient warrior had created, and heated up their metal components. Kasios felt his armor getting uncomfortably hot, but didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late – the high tech plasma blasters on his wrists overheated and exploded, the compressed, radioactive gases escaping violently in a burst of shrapnel that obliterated both of Kasios’s arms from the elbows down. The armored juggernaut screamed in pain and rage, and ducked back into the room. He could use his shapeshifting abilities to restore his hands, but he’d expended so much of his energy on that display of power that he struggled to summon the strength to do so.

Unfortunately, Tiamat had evidently followed her husband in the wanton slaughter of their fellow prisoners. She raised a hand towards the advancing drones, and with a shimmer of light, sea water began to pour into the hallway from nowhere in particular, flooding the compartment. The drones faltered in the unfamiliar environment and Tiamat transformed into a multiheaded serpent that rushed down the water-filled tunnel destroying the floundering automatons. Prometheus tried to boil the water around Tiamat, but she was too fast; she whipped her tail at him and struck him with a long barb, tipped with poison. It cut him despite his resilient skin, and Prometheus’s muscles seized painfully as the poison hit his nervous system. He fell to the deck as the summoned seawater drained away and Tiamat returned to her humanoid form.

Kasios kicked him once on the way out but Hekate forbade him from doing more. She stopped and leaned over her helpless adversary for a moment, “You really should have let us leave, Prometheus.”

The rogue Titans plowed through the remaining automatons, looted a few more resources from the ship, and departed before Prometheus was able to even crawl down the hallway. Thanatos’s corpse, still in the form of a bull, was a cold stinking mess. Prometheus hadn’t been close to Thanatos, but it was still intensely sad to see the life of a good man ended so abruptly. A few months ago, the man had been willing to give up his godlike power to be a father, and now he was nothing more than butchered meat.

Prometheus staggered into the prison block, tears already rolling down his cheeks as he expected to find Macaria’s body lying dead on the floor. Instead, she was resting comfortably in one of the undamaged cryopods, her bleeding and asphyxiation arrested by suspended animation. While Kasios and Tiamat had fought their way out of the prison block, Hekate – the mastermind of the whole affair – had taken the time to prevent Macaria’s death. Thanatos’s grief-fueled suicide charge had been unwarranted – if they’d let the prisoners pass, the man would still be alive to father Macaria’s children. Instead, Prometheus would have to mend Macaria's wounds so that she could live to have her heart broken.

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