CHAPTER 18 - ETHERIA AND MARS

Second Age, Echo Realm

For much of the following five months after the conflict resumed, the alliance forces became entrenched in various disparate locales within Sol, with litters of glitter cats controlling specific territories as more naval reinforcements constantly arrived to buttress them. Near the front, relatively speaking, a factory toiled away, nested in the rings of Saturn. Vault like doors opened, and out bustled a crew of Com Omegan workers in airtight suits onto a platform that appeared to be a docking bay. "New shipment ready for dispatch", one of them said on the radio, as the others went to locations where levers appeared out of the framework. A singular workman looked through a viewing console to where a blue orb was approaching the station. "They're here" he shouted to the crew as the orb arrived. Fissures soon appeared on its surface, until it was clear that it was a man curled up as in a ball. Waterfalls flowed down across his body, woven like clothing. Then, besides Emzeser another arrived, Etheria, who also alighted on the platform. He gave the security code, and the men simultaneously switched back the levers, allowing the doors of the platform to recede, and out of them came flocking the shooting comets, implanted with chips that would direct them to go and seek out fresh moons to inhabit. "Didn't think I would ever be your bodyguard" she said, half admiring the icy trails left behind by the strange golem-like insects. Things began to take an alternate turn as the Com Omegans, hearing word from the radio raced to the side to look down on the atmosphere, like a soup of clouds brought together from different worlds roiling over the province overseen by Gale Force Wind. A squadron of craft headed by brazen glitter cats cut through the fog towards the cities below. They struck first, turning into glitter handguns that shot spell-bullets to clear a landing site for the dropships. "Well, duty calls" Etheria sighed mischievously. "You have a certain singular way of getting out of obligations, I hear" Emzeser said to Etheria as she backed away from him and dived off of the platform towards the fray. As she did, he searched through the flock of comets for one that was most healthy and whispered to it to cease its departure. Hovering over it he let his waterfalls rain down on the stone until it swelled in size, and he settled on its back, until finding a way beneath its scales into the interior. Evolutionary features began to fade away, and its characteristics were reduced to those of the para as Emzeser burst from its stomach, through celestial star-skin, a hyperparasite into the womb of space itself. "How tired this endeavor has made me, but I am somewhat glad she is not here for this part" he thought to himself, distracted so much that he did not sense the approach of another creature that landed placidly on his shoulder. "Maybe there is no way to redeem the cruelty of nature, but as long as we are human, we will seek to find a way" he contemplated, and then feeling the twinge of its legs, looked up. Fresh Monarch, her eyes blank and oblivious with joy flapped her wings. "Hello, little friend, and what is your name?" he began, but the visitor did not notice his speech, convinced as it was that he was a mere resting place. Feeling faint, he wiped sweat off of his face, and then watched as the Monarch fluttered away into the depths of the night. "Patron, come and assist me" Etheria called to him telepathically. The message was relayed over a distance, and cost ten Yola, a type of telepathic currency to send information. But for the time being, he was too fatigued, and listened to the reports of the strike-force's invasion of a military facility, and watched the mausoleum ships drop payloads from the skies. A fifty-something Dilbert Netting Norris had lived in bright-burrow cove for about five years. A quiet neighborhood, it had never done him wrong. Early that morning, after coffee, he walked out to the driveway and climbed into his Oldsmobile, slamming the door shot, and drove through the neighborhood to the public library, dropping off his overdue books into the metallic bin. Below, at the bottom of the hull of the mausoleum ship Case Homecoming, bombs dropped onto the Saturnian landscape below, where the advance party had made headway against the entrenched facilities. About two and a half hours later the strike-force retreated, and Emzeser panted, noticing a few glitter cats breaking from the group. "Are you going to make it back home?" Etheria asked as she arrived, and summoned soul-points to siphon energy back into his bloodstream. "It's alright now, but I think some of them are making their way towards Martian space, we should follow" Emzeser replied, and they tracked them, along with a Com Omegan fleet back to the red planet. "Their forces are burrowing deep beneath the surface, mam" came a report over the radio. "Brother, may I take this errand on my own? The task of awaiting my return will fall to you" Etheria asked with worry, turning to him. "That's a trying task. Let's just say I owe you a debt of gratitude" he relented, watching as his teammate sought out the place where the strays entered into the interior. Deep below the surface, a feeling of unease crept over the patron as she discovered larger excavated tunnels, which led ever further to a series of underground bunkers and facilities populated sparsely by easily dispatchable workers, but then continued to wider tunnels that arrowed down to the heart of Ares. "What the …" she whispered to herself, spying the endless cavern lit by a polychromatic glow by glitter cats that had multiplied beyond number, an infestation of vast proportions. "Somewhat of a surprise, wouldn't you say" came a voice from within the viewing station in the final bunker. She turned around and saw him as he appeared from invisibility. "Tom Bell-tower? You're Vecktan. I've seen the damage you've done on many occasions" she said, recognizing him. "Don't worry, they don't know I'm here" Tom replied, and the frog atop his umbrella ribbited. "Are you here to defect? If you try to run, I won't let you" Etheria promised. A sorrowful look came over his face, and he returned to the viewing glass to look out into the den of glitter, "What it is about humans, that we sometimes do not even recognize our own image". Etheria sighed, not wanting to waste the moment, "Here I am, Tom, but what did you come to say to me?". He turned around, sensing her cooperativeness, "I've come here to make you a deal … patron, so many will die today, and you cannot save them all". She furrowed her brow, thinking that as they spoke a trap was being laid that she would soon need to escape from, "What are you saying?". Tom laughed, took out his handkerchief from his pocket and waved if for effect, "Do not be so coy. I know you will be unwilling to allow this place to remain as it is. Even now you are contemplating ways to destroy this burrow. Should it be allowed to continue as it is, accumulating, it would spill out, and earth would be at its mercy". "Then you did not come here to surrender. That's disappointing Tom" she deplored, trying to drive the conversation to that conclusion. Tom did not let it sway him, having prepared in advance for any probability, any trajectory the conversation followed, "Maybe luck is all there is, and life in this strange world can never be predicted. Why should we even seek out such answers to simple questions, or embrace the truth of why, today, your voice will continue as so many are silenced". Etheria had enough of his preaching, and stamped her foot, "Enough. What is this plan". "At a certain scale, objects cannot be fully explained by the nature of particles or waves. That is what you have experienced firsthand if you have ever explored the depths of nature. You, then, are incomplete, brining the concept of Soul-Points. I am incomplete, bringing the concept of the Spectrum Mind Wave. But together, we can describe many things" he explained. "How long have you realized this?" she wondered aloud. "For quite some time" Tom replied, "But at this juncture, it's combination is requisite, since through it our powers can save those who are to be undone and rescue them into the Spectrum Mind Wave itself". For a brief minute she considered not taking the bait, but then, knowing what could be lost by it, relented, "What do you need from me …. never-mind. I already know", and produced a Soul-Point of great purity, and Bell-tower approached, and the frog atop his umbrella spat its sticky tongue out, and caught it like a fly, and gulped it down. Then, like a ghost he vanished back through the bunker. "Brother, go and collect Log Town in the mouth of your flower ball. This world is forfeit" she said psychically to her compatriot. "What's going on?" he asked nervously. Etheria allowed him to see through her eyes across the yawning cave, "There are just too many fucking glitter cats. We have to destroy Mars". Then Emzeser, curled into a ball once more, the fissures disappearing until it mostly became a sphere, and he opened his mouth, and from the side came walking out like someone who had just reached the top of a staircase a band of ladies, wearing gardening clothes, all with long brown hair. Minor avatars of his sister, stored within. They got to work across the surface area, planting flowers, kneading the ground with trowels until the whole of it was like a meadow. When it was through, they returned back from where they came. The flower ball descended through the atmosphere, crawling towards Log Town, and when it was near opened its mouth, enormous and fanged. Carefully, the patron swallowed the city into the warmth and protection within, and rose back up towards the night, and scampered back to earth with the precious cargo. Etheria by now had made it back to the surface. "Divine Couple. Mars must die. Hear me" she said psychically across the channels. Melina and Linden agreed and granted her power that flowed from the entire fiefdom, racing through it like a tide, becoming a breach in a dam, collapsing walls. Calling upon the winds, they collected as clouds above her, and from them fell soul-point snow-flakes until the land was white. After a while, she could see it rose to her ankles, and she fell back into the bed, waving both arms and legs, making a snow angel with all her might. Satisfied, she stood back up, and from her back sprouted luminous angel wings, feathered to perfection. "Now sprout from off of me and come together" she commanded them. The wings, obeying detached themselves from her back, and flew upwards, joining together until they had become one. A blinding light absconded from the object, spreading across the landscape. When it had faded, Etheria looked, and saw her creation, a single feather, fashioned from soul-points. "I will call you the omega-feather" she thought, almost fainting into ecstasy at the sight of it. With a wave of her hand, it grew to the size of a tree. The patroness flew to it, and took hold, growing in proportion to it. Holding it in her hand, Etheria tickled the planet with the feather, and it EXPLODED. Chunks of mars, ripped apart, red and flaming hurled themselves into cosmic space.