Netsakh sifted through the darklings memories. It was distracted with piloting, so much was accessible to them without it taking notice. Many memories were important to the young light, such as how it had come across it's strength. Recent, vivid memories showed it at a gathering that taught about sustaining darkling bodies. It had used this as a compliment to other knowledge. That knowledge was advanced knowledge on electrical and jump mechanics. The source of that knowledge was why they were at this rock. The memories were hidden from Netsakh, and so they had asked the darkling to explain. It had insisted on coming here, so Netsakh went along with it. The memories suddenly closed up, snapping Netsakh to attention. They had arrived.


Ghods landed his ship on a large rock bank. It hadn't been disturbed for years, and looked the exact same as when he was a kid. He knew it could hold the weight of a ship. Netsakh wondered how he knew the advanced physics that went into his body modification and the suit. Of course, he dutifully obeyed, and he knew sight could explain it much more than words, so he flew out to his old home, his birthplace. She was the Light that blessed him, he could face a few demons for that.


At the bottom of the valley next to them, a large group of metal boxes lived around a gaping hole in the surface. Cheep, mass-producible houses, smelling of aluminum and factory smoke. He looked out to the east of the villiage, to a lone house with several rectangular scars on the dirt around it. Old locations for some of the houses. Of course, no one would want to be near that place. He felt Netsakh mentally recoil at the hatred and disgust he felt, but payed it little mind. He set his helmet to recirculate and reconstitute the air inside. He still hesitated, but after a few seconds, went invisible and began walking toward the house.


He did look to the other houses in the village, searching for something familiar. He was met with the sight of the old spray-painted wolf heads being crossed out and covered, and red and black snakes taking their place. He wouldn't have to worry about run-ins, but he did want to kill a few leaders before he got off planet. "Remember why you're here. Do not take unnecessary risks." Netsakh's voice soothed his aggression slightly, so he made his way to the lone house. His house.


He braced himself as he touched the door handle. His helmet was recirculating air, but the memories of the putrid smell came back all the same. He pushed open the door, and locked eyes with the skeleton lying on the floor. A circle of black marked the carpet, extravagant assortments of molds and fungi growing at the edges. While the skeleton wearing them had long since been bleached by sunlight and time, the clothes it wore were only so on the top. The bottom was the same black as the carpet around it. Ghods stepped on the edge of the tainted carpet, the black crust making a loud crunching sound. "Ndiekhaya, utata".


Netsakh had been feeling a new feeling. Excitement. Their curiosity would be rewarded, and knowledge would be theirs. The sight that met them through the darkling's scowling eyes confused them, however. The corpse of another darkling lay on the ground in this container, its flesh having long since rotted away and flowed into its surroundings. Their darkling stared for some time at it, and made sounds that did not resemble any language that darklings had spoken before. Being inside its head, Netsakh knew what they meant, however, their meaning of "I am home, father" confused them even more. "How does this clarify how you obtained your extensive knowledge?"


It motioned to the dried corpse on the floor. "Before you is the great Magnus Carter al'Demichase the Twelfth. Libertonian scientist charged with reverse engineering several scans of items in a vault on Manhattan, or so he said. The only man in the universe with the audacity to conceive me." It motioned to a stack of papers and a device with writing and schematics on them. "Over there you'll see the only things I learned to read off of. His theories and such." It motioned to a few devices in the corner of the container. "And here we have my childhood toys. Finely tuned fabrication devices." It seemed to be becoming increasingly angry. "I'd introduce you to my childhood friends, but by now the Xenos or the Police have got to them. Or maybe the LSF, if they caused enough trouble."
"Why would darklings keep their empowering members here, with no power?"
It was quick to respond. "Keep a man poor, and he will have no resources with which to escape. Keep a man in pain, and he will not have the energy with which to escape. Keep a man blind to the outside world, and he will never see an opportunity to escape. They had a scientist slave, and they kept him as such."
"Then why is it that you escaped?"
"I never assumed the best in people I didn't know. I was ruthless, and quickly removed those I couldn't trust." Netsakh made mental note of this.
"Your precursor was incredibly knowledgeable, and so you became so as well?"
"Something like that, yes."


Netsakh studied the memories dragged up by the darkling's anger. They were all connected by that anger, and as one flowed by, the strings of emotions pulled the others with. The earliest ones were simply rage induced by boredom. Locked within the tiny container, the darkling, its predecessor, and another of its age that Netsakh did not recognize went about their daily lives. Constant repetition birthed boredom. The predecessor brought the tools to the young ones, presenting them as toys. Netsakh quickly skimmed through the aging of the three. Netsakh's darkling grew to be skilled in the physical universe, building mechanisms from very basic materials, and engineering energy conduits through them. The other darkling became skilled in the manipulation of the devices that the predecessor used. Netsakh isolated the memory of the devices, and presented them to their darkling. "Identify these."
"Electronics. Those ones in specific access the Neural Net, which is a universal network of those devices that provides a wide variety of data and communication, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols."
"It is a false Light?"
"Well, I've never thought about it that way, but I guess..."


Netsakh continued through the memories, consolidating their understanding. A predecessor and it's two successors, the former skilled in analysis, the latter skilled in physical manipulation, and manipulation of the Neural Net, which is a false Light. They stored this information in their own connection to the Light. The knowledge of a false Light may be important. The memories themselves, however, Netsakh imprinted onto themselves for further analysis. They watched further through the memories. Both successors grew strong, as the predecessor deteriorated. Netsakh skipped the process to a more important memory. Netsakh noted that the two stayed together for the entirety of the time. They had left their container, and had found that they lived in a loose conglomeration of containers. There were other young darklings there, in the spaces between the containers. Netsakh's darkling was apprehensive, however, the other immediately went to the other young ones, and began speaking. Eventually, three came over to their darkling. A raspy voice echoed through the memory. "Que pasa, chocolito?" Their darkling tilted it's head quizzically. The other smiled. "I'm Antonio Kress. These are my brothers, Davachi and Maxamillion." Their darkling thought for a minute, then asked "How do you write your last name?" Antonio picked up a hardened clump of dirt, and used it to write on the wall of a container. Cháurez. Their darkling read the word silently, and then simply accepted the misinterpretation. Kress was not a name it had expected from their way of speaking, and it had been correct. It accepted the name for the purpose of avoiding unnecessary hostilities. "I am Ghods. Like roads, but with a 'g'. That's Meko. His name isn't like anything."
"It is too. It's like neko!"
The one named Maxamillion spoke. "Que es?"
"It's the Kusari word for cat."
"You spend too much time on the neural net"
"Ha ha! You're just mad that I know something you don't." Their darkling declined the temptation to respond. It was a waste of time, and there were better thing it could be doing.
"Well, if you want to hang out with us, we were just going over to old man Cougar's place."
"Of course! That sounds cool."
"It is cool. Just keep your head down and your mouth closed, and we won't have issues."


Netsakh watched the memories a bit longer. The visits to "old man Cougar's place" continued. Various other darklings joined. They formed a coherent group, with Netsakh's darkling and the one it always was with at the top. The charismatic approach of Meko, and the strong silence of their darkling put them in leadership, and they took control of both their group of containers, and three neighboring groups. Eventually, they began to fight war, as all darklings do. The symbol of choice for Netsakh's darkling's group was an animal that was not found on that planet, strangely enough. A wolf. Canine. Carbon based organisms that commonly formed groups similar to the ones these darklings found themselves in. Their enemies chose snakes to be their symbol. Reptilian. Carbon based. Commonly venomous, often found in darkling sentiments with negative connotation. Also a strange choice. The fighting continued, and despite the distinct advantage their enemies had, being space faring, the wolf darklings found themselves on equal ground still. Netsakh watched many memories of the two throughout their joint adventures. Their predecessor died at some point. A vague, numb grief was attached to that memory. However, a sharp stinging pain was attached to the memory of a single phrase that shortly followed that memory: "Don't you feel anything? What's wrong with you?" Netsakh dismissed it, and moved through more memories. One caught their brief attention. One of the trips to "old man Cougar's place" found a new sensation. Netsakh surveyed it briefly, and found something that concerned them. They brought it up with their darkling. "Why did you chose this image to represent us?" They highlighted the form the darkling gave them.
"Uh, what do you mean?"
"Why have you chosen a form of darkling with opposite reproductive design to represent us?"
"I don't know. I guess I have a habit of deciding things without forethought."
Netsakh was unimpressed with it's answers. "Do you wish to breed this image of us?"
It laughed. The sound was strangely calming, however, there were more important matters at hand. "No. I'm probably to old for that."
"Reproductive fertility lasts until the fourty-fifth year in darklings. You are in your thirty-sixth."
"Well, yes. I guess you're right. Well, if it's any help, I outgrew that before my first flight to space."
A check of it's memories confirmed that. Netsakh returned to their studying. They couldn't shake the slightest twinge of disappointment, but they were busy, and could address that later.


Time continued. The war with the Xenos continued. Their group chose the name Wolfblood, and Netsakh's darkling and the one who followed it were given new names. Netsakh brought a snapshot of the memory, a "war room", up to their darkling. "Tell us of this."
"Me and my twin brother. We lead a gang in this here town. Romulus and Remus, the wolfblood brothers. I made strategies, he gathered intel. Unfortunately, he was more interested in his own greed than the greater good. I sought to help people, he sought to help himself. Most people agreed with his ideals more than mine, but since I was irreplaceable on the field of combat, I was kept as leader. The Kress boys helped us with distant relations, other towns and such. They also managed the recruits. Our second in command, if you will."
"Two biological groups to lead others..."
"Families. We called them families. Everyone on this unhallowed cesspool had a dysfunctional family. Some kids had no parents, some had one. Some had parents that worked in the mines up north, some had parents like mine. Hell, everyone was unique. Having two parents was just as weird as having none. Helluva place."
"What let your family be stronger than others?"
"Ruthlessness. An iron fist is needed to lead people. My brother and I had no hesitations killing Xeno scum, Police scum, Marine scum. I even caught a Security Force scum off guard. We taught our followers to be the same. We were elite, and after I turned twenty, the only people who dared fight us on this surface were the Xenos and the LSF." He laughed, but it wasn't genuine. There was nothing comforting about this laugh. "We were second best on this planet."
"Tell us of your brother."
"Meko? Not much to say. Spoiled child. Had a knack for nerual net things. No sense of honor or right. He just did what he wanted for personal gain. Of course, his charisma and humor made many people think he was something far from his true nature. Lots of people looked up to him as a kind individual simply because he would get drunk with them."
"Darklings tend to associate single objects and entities with their joy."
"True... True." He seemed to want to argue, but dismissed the thought.


Netsakh came to the realization that they were no longer locked out of the memories. They had a semblance of control in the mind of the darkling. They felt more connected to it as well. Quickly, they skipped to the next important memory. Their darkling and the one that followed it stood at the door. The corpse that would eventually be the skeleton on the floor in front of them now sat, with skin and flesh melting. Small insect creatures, probably scavengers, flew about in the room. They lit a small stick on fire, and blew it out, settling it into a slow burn. They left it on the first step of the container's entrance, and closed the opening to the container. No words were spoken between them. Netsakh skipped forward, across an extremely long walk. A large container with darkling space-shells entering and leaving from large flat rocks outside was their destination. Netsakh resumed paying attention when they reached the large container. They had weapons in their hands, and stood to the sides of an opening. "Quick rundown of the plan?"
"There's a freighter bound for Planet Erie leaving in seventeen minutes. We need to be on the cargo bay by fifteen."
"Sounds easy enough. No mercy for the DSE goons?"
"How much have they shown us?"
The one who follows laughed. "Kill on sight it is, then."


They opened the door, and quickly made their way in, hunched over until the end of the hallway. Their darkling fitted a sort of extension on the end of their weapon, then fired it at a large black object with a glass lens. The extension muffled the weapons sound, changing it from painfully loud explosion sound to a sound resembling two rocks striking each other. They rushed in, down a hallway, following a string of arrows. They used knives to quickly execute the few other darklings they found in the place, stabbing their necks and quickly breaking their spinal nerves. They arrived on the first of the large rocks, where metal was being loaded onto a space-shell. Then, they did something that surprised Netsakh. Hidden behind a stack of the metal, they took off their coverings. They were wearing uniforms matching the ones that their darkling had referred to as "Marines". They ran forward. "Hey! Has patrol Beta one left already?"
"The marines? Just missed em, kid."
"Ah, damn. We're recruits. We were supposed to be with them."
"Ah, well, I could give you a lift. Where were they headed?"
"Planet Erie, sir."
"Well you must have the luck of the devil. I was just about to head out there. Git in the passenger compartment, I'll have you there by six lanes and a jump gate."
"Much obliged, sir."
"Anything for Liberty's shining youth."
"I'll put in a good word for you when we get there."


Netsakh skipped forward once again. The other darklings were preparing. Eventually the launched. Netsakh observed the technology that the darklings used for travel. They went through a single jump, to a warmer star than before. Then, their darkling got up, shot the darkling that had helped them in the head, and dragged the body to an opening. They hit a few buttons on the keypad, and launched the body into the void. Then, they returned to the seat from which the space shell was piloted. "Think the boys back on Pittsburgh can handle themselves without us?"
"We taught them how to handle themselves. They can do it just fine."
"Alrighty, then. You got a place to go?"
"The outer regions. We need to replace this ship. It won't be long before they notice it's missing."
"Ah, about that... You've got to replace this ship. I've got..." The one who follows held one of it's datapads forward. Netsakh froze the memory and began cross referencing their darklings vocabulary with the words shown on the datapad.


It read: The Lane Hackers. "Making the corporate weenies cry, so our kids can live in a free and just galaxy." All young Lane Hackers and all former oppressed, stepped on, abused, neglected, defrauded, and recently enlightened Ageira or other Liberty companies' employees, as well as recently converted agents of their military hoodlums are invited to hack this comm channel to request induction into th...


The datapad wasn't large enough to display the rest of the message. Netsakh resumed the memory. "The Lane Hackers?"
"Hell yeah. It's a chance to get rich off of the people who did us wrong, Ghods. I can make a living- nah I can make a wealth off of the people who made money off of us."
The same numbness their darkling had before returned. Netsakh understood it, this time. A common sight, a steady constant was removing itself. In Netsakh, pain was felt, but the darkling didn't feel. Netsakh questioned this, but kept it to themselves. "Want me to drop you off on Erie?"
"Nah. There's a junker base by that big purple planet over there. I can figure out the rest."
"Alright. I'll set the autopilot and turn the scanners to full."


The flight there was silent. They arrived, and were hailed by some rusted ships, red, with a pointy effigy of a face printed onto their sides. Netsakh's darkling didn't hear what was said through the communication system, so Netsakh didn't either, however, the one who follows got up and pressed a button near the piloting mechanism. "We've got a shipment of boron for Allentown, and I need to talk to some people aboard." He then turned to Netsakh's darkling. "End of the line, brother. I'll see you soon."
"Yeah." They waited a short moment before they both raised their right fists to the left side of their chests in a silent salute. "See you soon."


Netsakh stopped watching there. The numbness of their darkling's memories was beginning to affect themselves. With full access to these memories, they could easily continue later, when they were able to resist the emotions better.


The sound of a gun cocking caught both of their attentions. Ghods spun around to see his old right-hand-man, Davachi Kress, aiming a Model 4546 into the empty space beside him. He then spun it to the other side, swinging his aim, looking for something. Ghods was still invisible. "Que en inferno, things go from bad to worse. W-w-whatever espiritu is there, uhhh..." He lowered his gun slightly. "You want some food? Abuela is cooking tonight..." He trailed off timidly. Ghods smiled to himself as he dropped his invisibility. "Food would be great, yes. I remember señora Kress making wonderful chile con pollo." Davachi dropped his gun in pure shock. "Santo judío-en-dos-palos" A smile crossed his face as he recognized the voice. "Wait, Romo? Is that you?" Ghods unfastened his helmet. "Always has been."

"Aye aye aye! Abuela! Look who came back from the dead!" Davachi's natural volume was earsplitting at it's least. The shouting was only matched by his grandmother, who could have hailed Planet Manhatten from her kitchen with ease.
"No te dije que volvieras antes de las nueve de la tarde?"
"Sí, sí, sí, pero mira quién está en la puerta!"
Davachi's grandmother stomped quickly around the corner, spatula in hand, and stopped to intake the sight of Davachi displaying Ghods in the doorway, complete with jazz hands and a grin that belonged on a ten-year-old. "Ah, Romo. Good to see you here again. Tell me, was Davachi on his way back by nine?"
"Of course, Señora Kress. I'd never keep him out past his bedtime." They shared a good laugh at the expense of Davachi, who was relieved to not be on the receiving end of that spatula, and would endure any mockery with gratitude for that.

Señora Kress stepped back to her kitchen, a sacred realm that no one dared infiltrate for fear of death. Ghods smiled at the memories. He had always preferred this family over the others near him. They knew no weakness. Should any of their enemies come to kill them, all of them would go down fighting if they did not kill their aggressors first. A family that provided more than most could ever hope too, strong and secure in a corrupted system that feeds on misery. He walked over to the small couch in what passed as a living room in the house. "Davachi, come. It's been a while since I was last here. Give me an update." Davachi's smile disappeared as he got down to business.
"We've mostly been overrun by Xenos. The movement exploded in the recent years, with people looking for a way to fight against Libertonian corruption. Instead of being another gang, they've turned into a sort of unorganized patriotic zealot army bent on killing foreign influence. Es malo, to say the least. About a year ago, the wolfpack gave our final stand before going to the shadows."
"The numbers?"
Davachi's smile returned, but colder and more smug. "One hundred twenty-seven of ours, four hundred seven thousand of theirs."
"Rounded down?"
"Rounded down."
"Who'd we lose?"
"Remember that house-group to the north? Yeah, that's not there anymore. It was burned with improvised incendiary devices. They targeted most of the fourth rank of command after someone leaked the hierarchy. After the initial attack, the third rank got jumped by LSF spooks, so I think there was another leak with that too. After that, Anton and Max jumped on transports and went to who-knows-where. I stayed here with Abuela to hold down this fort, and to train the lesser rankers in how to properly take care of the show. It isn't much anymore, just our black market deals really, but we're still here, breathing and all."

The news that Xenos had weakened them enough for the LSF to strike was disappointing. However, it wasn't surprising. The Xenos had been their enemy for a long time, and they had a number advantage that was barely even humorous. Four hundred thousand Xenos was nothing to them. One hundred Wolves was two thirds of their members. They had the sense to lay low, and despite the bitter taste of defeat, and no doubt the mindnumb gloating of their enemies, they seemed to have successfully faked their death. The best he could ask for in such a dire situation. "You've done well, Davachi. I've started a little funding operation. You and the rest of the Wolfpack are going to Kusari, to planet Kyushu. You're going to start a rice farming business. The wolves will be your employees. I've invested in enough to get you started, and you should be stable in that environment for the foreseeable future."
"Uh... Why?"
"To keep my duty as your leader. You'll be alive and well, living stable lives. This is non-negotiable."
He sighed a tired sigh. "Understood, I'll inform everyone."
"You leave in exactly twenty-seven days. The ships will be here for eighteen hours. A fleet of OS&C shuttles. Do not speak to the pilots in any way, shape, or form."
"Roger that." His sigh grows closer to defeated. "Romo, I've never left the surface of the planet."
"There is always a first time for everything. Ghods could see the reluctance in Davachi's eyes, and knew he needed to do something about that. "Davachi, listen. I chose you as my second in command because you were logical. You still are logical, which is why you stayed here, as the sword and shield of the wolves. Meko chose Anton through popularity and his friendships. Every decision there was emotional, based off of feelings. I chose you based on facts, and even now that hasn't changed. Factually, you are the one I trust with this. Factually, you are the one who can lead them. Factually, I know you're their hope, because Anton and Max left. You're the one I have left to carry the duty of leadership."
"... Sí, I understand. I'll get the word out." He still seemed apprehensive, but less so than before. It was to be expected, leading a group of at least ninety to a foreign land.

Netsakh's mind was reeling. The sheer anger that their bearer felt at these Xenos was beyond overwhelming. It was corrupting. All-encompassing. Absolute. They struggled to suppress the feeling from themselves, knowing that empathetically feeling this anger would drive them insane. Despite their efforts, the coils of hatred began wrapping around their mind, slowly but surely numbing senses, screaming for blood and destruction. The mental space of their bearer was no longer the clear blue waters that Netsakh had brought. Instead, a grey storm thundered, and red bolts of electricity split the scene. The water had become black, and the stars, the minds in the collective that Netsakh shared, had been hidden by those clouds. No more did warmth flow from cosmic reaches. They were alone to contend with their bearer's rage.

The wolves had been evacuated. His duty was almost done. He'd spent much longer than he intended to, getting wrapped up in his job of leadership once more. Things had started to feel like how they once were, a duty driven man driving others to duty, only this time there wasn't the needless resource squandering of his brother and his brothers friends. Who could have guessed that without the fun and games, they got further than with those that made them "happy". Well, as always, he brought the truth before them. Unfortunately, now that the reality of the universe being built on work and triumph was brought before them, there were a few that chose death over life. The petty selfishness that lead one to decide "If I can't live how I want to, then I want no part of life" was a plague to humanity, but, as with everything, could be used for the greater good.

And so they stood around him now, the 18 men and 3 women who decided that not being able to live the life promised by Meko, his delusional brother, was a fate worse than death. They would lead a charge against a house-group that served as a Xeno supply cache. For them, it was one way. They had been raised to know their own worth. They knew they would die this day. They had fully accepted that when they made the decision. No one said a word as they stood there. Everyone knew what one another was thinking. Ghods stood up before them, standing on top of a rock that was elevated above the rest. Before him stood his people. the few that still believed the lies and illusions of wealth and grandeur that Meko had promised them. Behind him lay a group of houses, their target. He couldn't convince them to change their minds. No words would matter to them, no matter how wise. Instead, he held his left hand over his heart, a salute of fidelity unto death, and they returned the gesture. They then gathered around him, to watch their target. To wait for an opportunity to strike.

For thirty days, Netsakh had been tormented by their bearers anger. For thirty days, they had hid deeper and deeper in their bearer's mind, searching for a small corner of hope. There was no such thing. They found a new depth of understanding in their bearer. An infinite abyss of wrath, without reason or hindrance. He was insane. Nothing mattered to him but the sedation of this anger at any cost. He wore thousands of fake personalities in his life, made thousands of fake identities simply for the sake of destroying as much as possible to feed this desire. But unlike the references that Netsakh knew from other minds, their bearer's insanity was calm. They knew patience. They knew the power of cycles. Unlike most minds that are insane, they knew how to wait. It was of no matter to Netsakh, this understanding. They were enclosed in this void, being dragged deeper into their bearer's insanity. It was a choking darkness. It was corrupting them, they could feel it...

It was time. Ghods motioned to his following, and they set out in a steady walk. They walked with purpose, giving the illusion that they were supposed to be there. They walked by two patrols of outer guards, with nothing more than head nods of acknowledgement. They approached the inner guard, two young men with long-rifles. Agiera tech, either semi-auto or burst fire. No matter, Ghods drew his pistol and shot both in the head before they had time to react. The shots that he fired rang out, echoing in the desert. Shouting from multiple buildings began to escalate. Confusion, not hostility. Not yet. His following split into groups of three, and began killing everyone they came across. Eventually, the realization hit the Xenos, and they began to return fire. Ghods had kept track of the outer patrols during this. The closer one began their way back to assist their colleagues in the town. The crackle of electricity that he had come to be familiar with filled the air near him for a short time, and he was invisible.

The closer patrol group was about thirty meters away, the further about ninety. Ghods mentally charted a connection between the group closer to him. First the lead, then the two behind them, then to the one straggling to the right, then to the last two. He unsheathed his combat knife, and followed that course, slitting their throats gracefully in one fluid movement, all of them collapsing behind him. As he had predicted, the group began firing in the general direction of where he was. He sidestepped a little, letting the plasmid rounds fly to his left, and he walked towards them. None of them took notice, and he once again laid a path between each person in the group. Without flaw, he executed in the same manner as the others. That takes care of backup, he thought to himself, and made his way back to the group of houses. He noticed the fine dust stirred up by his steps seemed to flow. The wind was picking up.

Something snapped Netsakh out of their lull. The suffocating deep that had claimed them seemed to flash a different shade of black. They could not call out, for the darkness took their voice. Their bearer could not hear them, other Lights could not hear them. They could not hear their bearer, nor the other Lights as well. Even so, amidst the ceaseless anger, a muffled shout came through. The buzz of Netsak's numb senses told them that the sound came from the darkling's mind. The shouting was not loud enough for them to make out any form of language. After a few unintelligible sentences, the shouting stopped. Time seemed to flow backward for those few moments. They had finally sensed something other than this horrible darkness, and now it was gone. However, a wind suddenly buffeted them, tossing them around in this darkness. They were helpless before the currents of this anger. They could never learn how, or from where it flowed.

An infinity passed in those few seconds. The truth was there. The answer to escape was simple. This darkness was within their bearer. Should they fully take their bearer's anger as their own, then this void becomes theirs. But, to take darkness would taint themselves. It is unthinkable. But it is the only way out? It is unthinkable to become as darkness is. Even as they reminded themselves of this, they grew tired. Resisting wore on them. The constant turmoil, the numb senses, the deafening silence, the choking voicelessness. It was easier to not resist. It caused them pain to defy the black waters they found themselves in. They wished for rest. They begged for rest. They begged for death. They begged for release. Their mute cries fell on deaf ears. But deaf ears heard. The infinite sinking stopped. They had reached the bottom of the abyss. The solid floor of darkness that they had found reached up and grabbed them. Netsakh let it grab them. Why resist?

Ghods had calmly walked back to the house groups. There was still shouting, but it was uniform. He walked through the roads, invisible. His wolves lay dead. All of them. 21 dead men and women, and about 50 dead Xenos. He smiled to himself, feeling proud of those people he led. They carried their convictions unto death. As he continued walking down through the houses, he began counting remaining Xenos. 28, and some more in a house that had been locked. The wind had picked up more, bringing a sandstorm that obscured their sight even more. Ghods decided it was time to make his move. A few stragglers he had marked had split enough to be unnoticed. One was making a call of some sort, probably reporting the attack. Ghods thrust his knife through his neck, breaking his spine and instantly killing him. The best kind of kill, he thought to himself. The phone he was holding seemed to be in the process of dialing. Ghods crushed it with his heel, and moved on. Another straggler, this one looking for the outer patrols. He received the same treatment. The sandstorm had a few minutes until it peaked.

Ghods drew his pistol once again, and made note of his targets. Two who seemed to be guarding. Two shots rang out, striking each of them in the head. Immediately, various energy bolts and physical rounds whizzed by him. With himself being invisible, and with the sandstorm nearing its full severity, they had no hope of coming near him with their shots. He fired again and again, each shot dropping one of them. The fear in their eyes as they gathered around the locked building nearly made him laugh. Again and again, he fired and hit. He took pause to sidestep incoming fire. In desperation, they simply fired in the general direction of the incoming rounds. Doing this actually brought them closer to hitting. Ghods was no fool, however. Stepping back to obscure himself in the sandstorm, he dropped his invisibility and switched his helmet into infrared view. Taking a deep breath, he channeled the energy that was going into his invisibility into his pistol, a black-market MM-13 plasma pistol. Overcharging it resulted in what it was known for, a highly explosive round of plasma and antimatter. The mini-mortar. He was nearly grinning as he pulled the trigger again. The resulting explosion flared on his vision, but from listening he could still discern what had happened. Firstly, all the defenders were dead, and secondly, the door had been destroyed.

Invisible again, he stepped forward to investigate what those people were guarding. Stepping over the remains, and onto the bent metal door that had been torn off its hinges, he stepped into a room. The sound of crying met his ears. Children. He scoffed at the feeble intent of the Xenos. As if having offspring would allow them to live forever. A foolish proposition he had heard many times before. Nonetheless, he raised his gun, and began firing.

The darkness consumed them. They felt nothing. The presence of nothing. A coalesced form of nothing? The metaphysical presence of nothing? Was there... something before them? Something that was nothing? Netsakh asked without a voice: "What are you?" It did not answer, yet it was answer enough. It was darkness. It was nothing. It was absence. "What do you want from us?" It answered, yet the answer was not enough. "Suffering."
"We are suffering."
It laughed.
"Bring proof. You lie. You mock me? Why must I? What am I? What are you? Bring proof. You lie. You lie."
A realization came to Netsakh. It was repeating. It was unthinking. It was demanding assimilation, and through that it kept Netsakh trapped in this consciousness. So Netsakh answered, with no voice, with no truth, with no light: "There is no proof. We... I do not lie. You must not. You are not. I am not. I do not lie."

It laughed.

Netsakh laughed with it. It was easier than fighting nothing.

Something had finally given him pause. There was a single child left. A little girl with gold hair. At first, she had screamed and hid as Ghods executed the children in the building. However, now she simply sat, wide blue eyes watching as he raised his gun to her forehead. What gave him pause was the beeping that came from his pistol. What a dramatic time to overheat, he thought to himself. He stared into her eyes, as she looked up into the three visual sensors on his helmet. They seemed blank. She wasn't afraid anymore, that was for sure. He made a rough estimate on his chances of being tracked if he left her alive. Low, but non-zero. Once again, he brought his invisibility upon himself, and he left. His ship's location was marked on the display in his helmet, and he needed to get off-planet as soon as possible. Despite a single outpost on a single planet not being anything close to a significant dent in the Xeno movement, fanatics retaliate in full force to every threat. He'd done what he came to do. His people were safe, and he had some revenge in the mix.

Deep in the sandstorm, his helmet ejected a spent air filter. To his utter surprise, a loud ding came from behind him, followed by a thump, and then the soft pat of the filter hitting the ground. He turned to see what had happened. Collapsed at his feet was the girl he had left alive. He guessed that she had been following his footprints, and the ejected filter had struck her. As she got to her feet, she coughed slightly. The sandstorm was choking her. He let his invisibility fall and pointed his pistol towards her. She didn't say a word, and moreover didn't flinch. Instead, she reached for his pistol, almost caressing it as she held it to her head. She was begging for death. He wouldn't be commanded, demanded, or begged for anything from some spawn of a Xeno. As he huffed in disgust, he reached into a utility pouch on his thigh. He brought out a spare filter, and crushed it in his hand. Pulling the wad of fiber from the center of the filter, he handed it to the girl. "You want to die, you pathetic thing? Show me you're worthy of it. Bite this, and don't let go until I say so." She did so immediately. The remnant glass shards stabbed her mouth, and Ghods couldn't help but take notice of the contrast between her bright red blood and her soft white skin. She had been well sheltered for an inhabitant of Pittsburgh. Strange, given the perpetual poverty of this planet. Nevertheless, he tucked her under his arm and carried her the rest of the way to his ship.

Netsakh could see again. They quickly sifted through the memories. The darkling had disobeyed them. Despite their clear order to not take unnecessary risks, he had gone and fed his anger more. He had done something that would attract attention. And worse so, he had kept some sort of memento. "Is there nothing that you do that is not riddled with lose ends?"
The darkling did not answer out loud, but instead spoke to Netsakh's mind. "Woah, what happened to your deadpan monotone?"
"Do not question me, fool. And do not respond to my question with a question."
"Wait... "me?"? "my"? Since when can you understand first-person perspec-"
"WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT QUESTIONING ME?"
"Alright, fine. You can see in my head. You know damn well what I'm doing."
"You follow your anger around blindly, making poor decisions for the sake of self-sati-"
"Stop. I'm not having this chat right now."
Netsakh stopped. They did question themselves why they stopped, but found no answer. They felt their own anger building up, as well as their bearer's. What a hopeless case.

Ghods unceremoniously tossed the child he had collected in the general direction of his bunk, and began starting the launch sequence for his ship. He needed to be in the Colorado system by the time the crime network lit up. Given that he'd cut communication, he'd easily have enough time, but as always it was better to be safe than sorry. As his ship hovered over the sandstorm, he bid silent farewell to his birthplace. He never intended to see it again, so a polite goodbye was hardly amiss. Netsakh was restless, he could feel it, but even she knew better than to interrupt his piloting with anything that wasn't an emergency. Ghods sat in the pilot's chair and marked his course. As he made his way out of the atmosphere, he began to forget the child left in his living quarters.

High above Planet Moros, a home to the Vagrants, a lone Kusari Large Transport hung. It was dormant, in a way. Lighting, combat shielding, and most other functions were disabled. Inside, a series of circuitry with an alien design had replaced the position of a crew, and, at a table in the starboard section, Ghods was modifying himself and his suit. He felt the stare of the child he'd kidnapped on him, which wasn't exactly surprising. His arm was cut open so that he could add miniature tesla coils to his nervous system. He'd seen something in an old-age video, and he wanted to recreate it. No doubt this would be a weird experience for that child.

Netsakh decided it was time to do something useful. They'd flown across half the Sirius sector with next to no information, acting on their bearers incoherent whims. She reached into the child's mind, searching for information that hadn't been removed in the personality purge. Most of it was shattered, possibly because the child herself didn't realize it. Netsakh took the easiest approach to that end. "Can you speak?" The child looked bewildered, then lightly touched her throat.
"Y-yes, I can."
"What's your name?" Once again, a look of astonishment.
"Crystal, I think."
"Very well, then, Crystal. What all do you remember?" She sat and thought about this for a while.
"I remember a blue sky... and a red one. There was a lot of dirt with the red sky. I don't remember anything more than that..."

The loud crackle of electricity arcing caught both of their attentions. Her bearer had succeeded in what he was trying to do. Electricity was arcing from his hands to the table. He silently called for Netsakh's assistance, and so she responded. Together, they etched the K'Vosh character for "Willpower" into the table, Ghods generating the electricity, and Netsakh controlling where it struck telekinetically. He seemed satisfied with his work, and immediately cut his arm back open and began removing the components. He sensed the inquisitive looks of both of them, and said "Just because something is interesting doesn't mean its practical or even useful."

Conceding the point, Netsakh returned her attention to the child. "This blue sky. What, if anything, do you know about it?"
"It was blue." Netsakh was more than unimpressed with this answer. "I think it was home", she added.
Ghods stood up, finished with his surgeries."Due to a series of circumstances, you're a Demichase now. Your home is wherever you are, and your duty is the greater good. Your past doesn't matter, because the past will never be the present ever again." The look on his face was strange. He seemed to be conflicted. He then smiled, which is even further from his normal set of expressions. "Congratulations on your adoption, and welcome to my bloodline."

Ghods had thought that the child couldn't speak for the short time he'd had her. He'd also never had a need for her to talk, Netsakh's telepathy bridging any kind of communication gap. He'd found answers to pressing matters, procuring food and water from stations and planets as he'd gone. Now he needed to make this child useful. Everything must be an upward trend. If not, it was another failure in a list he hoped to stop expanding. "Now, as a Demichase, you're going to learn how to fight. You must always be able to carry your own weight, and not rely on others." She nodded her head sharply. He wasn't sure what exactly she saw him as, but he decided it didn't matter right now. "Over on that console, you'll see a manifest of the materials on this ship, along with an option that says "deliver to quarters". Pick a crate of ship hull plates in the color you want, along with a crate of Bio-Neural Arrays, Bio-Neural Processors, Optical Chips, Sorted Optronics, and Robotic Hardware"
"Uh, why do you need whole crates?"
"I don't. However, once they're opened, we can't sell them."
"What are you going to do with them?"
"Improve you."

He wasn't trying to intimidate her, per se. However, in this universe, it will always be the strong who survive. She needs to get over any sub-optimal tendencies early, fear being one of those. Since another of those was weakness, he was going to give her some of the same modifications he had. Fortunately, he'd learned a few of the technologies of Netsakh's kind. He wouldn't make the same mistakes that he'd made before.

Later, in the lower aft of the transport, a small area had been converted into an operating room a long time ago. It ran regular self-sterilizations when not in use, and Ghods sterilized it himself when he was going to use it. Crystal lay on the operating table, asleep and undressed. His tools hovered in a small gravity lift that could clean the tools during the operation. "So, let me get this straight, yo-"
"I'm enhancing her muscular and skeletal structure", he said, cutting her off. "Which will also require enhancing her nervous system to accommodate the other enhancements."
"You need my help to control your own neurological modifications."
"I'm not doing the same thing to her. Think of it as brains versus brawn. I'm making her stronger, faster, harder. She'll be able to lift 40 tons with ease. She'll run faster than any human in history. Plasmid rounds will bounce off her skin. She won't, however, be able to generate the amount of energy I can. She won't have the precognition I do. She won't be able to think as fast as I do. Therefore, she won't need a Blessing like I do. If captured, she won't be executed on an initial body scan by paranoid idiots."
"She's your better half."
"Stop. Don't put it like that. She's, like, thirteen." He sensed Netsakh's confusion following that statement, but let it be. He had work to do.

Netsakh found themselves assisting in an operation once again. Their bearer was removing and replacing most of the physical structure of the body. The bones were removed and replaced with identical copies made from the untreated armor plating, and the muscular system layered with silicate versions, coupled with interfaces for the new vascular system, which worked with an artificial suspension that the body now generated. The organs were removed and replaced with organs in the same shape, but most providing different utilities. The only thing that remained relatively unchanged was the nervous system. It received additional membranes that are mostly used in powered armor for ground forces to protect the users from impact, and changes in the connection with the new muscles, making them more direct for faster responses.

Netsakh had her own share of work in this. Monitoring and suppressing the child's consciousness was one. It would not be beneficial for her to wake up in the middle of a surgery, to say the least. Instating the neural connection that allows these modifications to be used was another of these duties. There was a certain "breath of life", an innate signal to individual nerves, that needed to be present in order for the body to work properly. Crystal wouldn't feel connected to their body without it, and Netsakh could generate it remotely with telekinesis.



After the surgery, Ghods had incinerated the leftover organs, bones, and tissues. Humans as they are are utterly worthless. Keeping trash around was against his self-imposed policies. He'd spent a little time checking his connection to the ship, maneuvering turrets, directing shield power, and cataloging the contents of the cargo hold. The rest of it he spent working on the prototype interface he'd made from holo-sculpture projectors and movement recognition devices. He planned to modify this transport into something more combat-worthy later, and a war room would benefit from having another dimension to plan strategies.

A crash rang out from the bedchambers, followed by the groan of metal being torn. "Stop moving, please", he called out. "Let me come help."
"Okaaaay!"
Ghods made his way to the to the bed chambers, but as he got in the hallway, he was met with the door to her room embedded in the wall. He pulled it out, folded it in half, and tossed it to the side. He'd get a replacement later. Crystal stood in the middle of her room, looking like a puppy that had gotten into trouble. The steel bedframe was split down the middle, and the doorframe was warped where the door had been knocked off. "How are you feeling?"
"Like everything but me is made of paper?...", she offered timidly.
"Get used to it, and act accordingly. That's going to be your life from now on. You're about two-hundred forty times as strong as the average adult male, so treat everything delicately."
"Why am I strong?"
"Because I made you strong. There isn't room in the universe for weaklings." He thought for a minute, then added "Think of it as an adoption present. Or maybe a rebirth-day present."
Her eyes lit up at the mention of presents. "I get to be strong for my birthday?"
"Yeah, but that's not all. When you're feeling more control over your body, follow me to the room beneath the engine room. You're going to get armor too." He made his way back towards the prototype he was working on, but stopped to look at the broken door. "Also, move to the room next to mine for now."
"Sorry..."

In the hallways, Netsakh finally spoke up. "Not a sensitive, caring father, are you?"
"If I wasn't caring, I would have tossed her out the airlock a while ago. Actually, I probably would have never picked her up in the first place."
"You should really get a hand on your impulses."
"My apologies, I'll try to be a bit more bland and unoriginal."
"Your sarcasm is noted."

. . .

"Wait, since when am I her father?"
"What else would you be?"

"The undeniable Lord of "winging it", I see." Ghods had smoothed everything out. The holographic star-charting room was modified into a holographic training room, running various police and basic military combat training programs for the both of them, including firearm and hand-to-hand combat. Crystal quickly learned to control her strength, especially after her armor had been constructed, a turquoise and white suit consisting mostly of ship inner-hull plating, making it flexible. He asked why it needed to be form-fitting, but never got an actual answer, so he left it at that. There were outer hull plates across the chest piece, the shoulders, and the arms and legs, just so she had better protection against more powerful rounds. "As long as it works, what have you to complain about?"
"Fair enough."

As much as he wished to say that there was a necessity for two months of being locked in that ship, it was really just to kill time. He learned everything the instructions had to teach in a matter of days, and Crystal in a few weeks. What they were waiting for was an opening, a window of opportunity. A window that seemed to be opening today. He tapped into the ship intercom. "Crystal. Hologram room. Briefing."
His helmet radio crackled to life. "Full sentences. Use them. Please." She'd had an entire shift in personality after the augmentation and combat training. This wasn't really an issue, though. Confidence and quick thinking were necessary in any situation. It was just annoying.

"So, did your cute purple friends find what they were looking for?" Ghods looked up from his interface.
"Warforms are not "cute". And yes, we found the map."
"What map?"
"A map for this corner of the galaxy. Specifically, the Sirius sector and its neighbors."
"Ok, then. How are we going to get it?"
"I never thought you'd ask."
"Yes you did. Hurry up and tell me." Ghods sighed, and activated the projector. The images swirled into order, eventually showing a tower on an island. "This building is both a penthouse and a corporate building for some Liberty elite. Our target is a head-sized purple sphere that he's bought as some sort of trophy. He doesn't know how to activate it, or how to read it once activated, so this isn't exactly time sensitive, but the second some nosy scientist gets their hand on it, they'll try to deconstruct it, which would erase the data on it."
"How do you know they'll take it apart?"
"Hands-on experience." His answer was vague enough for her to not press further. The images zoomed into the 83rd floor. "Being the capitol planet of Liberty, air traffic is high. We'll be inserting and extracting through a ship posing as through traffic. As for risk, there's a private security force that serves as both corporate security and the CEO's personal bodyguard. We have about the same training as them, but we're physically superior. As for tech, meh. At this point it doesn't matter."
"So we get in, steal the thing, and get out."
"Simply put, yes. We may or may not have backup, but it's better to plan on not having backup, and simply be pleasantly surprised if we do."

His plan was simple, direct, and foolproof. That was in no way his own doing. Netsakh had run mental simulations billions of times to smooth out every flaw in his plan. Originally, he wanted to drop bombs on the tower, and sift the wreckage for the artifact. Outside of such actions summoning reinforcements, it would also run the risk of damaging the map itself. This was but one among a list of rejected ideas, and during this planning process Netsakh realised just how necessary they were for the success of their fanatical bearer.



In high orbit over Planet Manhattan, the trio rested in the cargo space of an Eagle fighter. The operative that had delivered them had informed them that they were waiting for a signal to call away the Law forces so that their atmospheric entry would go relatively undocumented. Until that signal arrived, they huddled together in the cargo hold. Ghods and Netsakh focused electromagnetic currents around themselves to provide a scan-shielding effect, hiding them from sensors checking the cargo bay. Only a few minutes passed until a magnetic wave washed over the ship. Ghods couldn't tell what was happening from inside the cargo bay, so he radioed the operative who brought them here. "What was that?"
"An annihilator round." The operative switched Ghods' connection over to the local radio frequency.
"Gunnery, prepare to fire on hostile ships." "All hands, to your stations, we've got hostile contacts!"
"The lightbearers are attacking?"
"Do what you're going to do fast. I don't have time to hang around." The gravity in the ship began to shift. They were in the gravity elevator beyond the planetary docking ring. Soon, the cargo bay pressurized, and Crystal took off her EVA helmet. "Remind me why you decided to not have a helmet with your suit?"
"Its chunky, it gets in my way, and I don't need fancy readouts like you do. Also, I don't need to hide who I am, unlike you."
He couldn't exactly argue with that. "Alright, then, but was the turquoise lipstick necessary?"
"It matches my armor."
Ghods checked the ammo in his rifle. Crystal did the same with her submachine-gun. Everything was in order. "Then, lets go steal ourselves a map." The cargo bay doors opened to show them racing across a blue ocean, away from a bustling metropolis. "Well, here comes the part with variables."
"Don't need to remind me. I already don't like it."

The duo stepped out of the cargo bay doors as the pilot pulled the ship upwards. Ghods had got the perfect angle to hit the 84th floor. He took a deep breath to set himself into a mental rhythm, and tucked into a ball to increase his rotation a bit. Crystal was behind him, far enough for her to react to his actions. His trajectory was through a large glass window. He exhaled, and un-tucked, back towards the window. "Showtime."
"I don't need commentary."

Ghods hit the window, nearly half a ton of armor and heavily modified man shattering it instantly. He narrowly missed a guard, and hit the floor with his back, flipping him over to his feet, which he dug into the floor to slow his momentum. Crystal, only seconds behind him, shot the stunned guard, and cartwheeled to a stop, whipping around to check her surroundings. Ghods slid to the end of the hallway on his momentum, tearing a decent trench in the floor tiles as he went. He raised his rifle as he reached the corner, and fired a single round through the chests of two other guards. His rifle was a magnetic acceleration railgun, of a size that's normally mounted on a vehicle. To him, it was about the same as a regular rifle. To everyone else, he was carrying a very accurate cannon. A few seconds of silence as his heads-up display adjusted to being indoors, broken only by the tinkling of the falling glass from the broken window. Nothing on heartbeat sensors. The map showed his waypoint marker behind him, so he whipped around and kicked the metal door in. "In here."
"Right."
They ran into the room. It was an art gallery featuring modern style paintings and photography of damaged Rheinland instillations. They quickly made their way to the center of the room, and crouched behind a table. "This doesn't look like purple balls and space stuff."
"We need to go down a level."
"Oh, ok." Crystal raised her heel and stomped the floor as hard as she could. The floor immediately caved in, and Ghods was reminded that she was at least five times as strong as he was. As they were falling, he spotted what he was looking for. Exactly as he had been told, a purple sphere with markings of the blessed ones. It was in a glass display case simply labeled "dormant alien artifact". As they hit the floor, life got a bit harder. A piece of floor tile shattered the glass display case, and a metal shield shot up and covered the artifact. Right after that, an alarm sounded, and reinforcing bars bolted across the doors at the end of the room. The only exit left was the large glass window behind them. "Netsakh, call evac. We're coming out hot."
"Sure thing. You want fries with that?"
"No, I just want out fast enough to not give them a face to put on emergency broadcasts." As he pondered how Netsakh had learned sarcasm, his heartbeat sensor lit up. "Crystal, eight of them outside that door."
She got to work immediately, flipping the tables on their sides, then sliding behind the metal-encased artifact. Ghods crouched behind one of the tables. He heard a voice on the other side of the door yell "Break this door already!" Ghods took another deep breath. Things had gotten complicated, exactly the way he didn't want them too. A blast shook the room, and the door flew back and clattered against the tables, Crystal peered over her cover and blasted away for a bit. She crouched down to reload, and Ghods peeked his rifle over his table. Only one guard was standing. Ghods fired, and the round hit him square in the chest, but ricocheted off. The guard was wearing some kind of powered armor, and was carrying a large minigun. "Nice gun. Mine's bigger." At those words, he revved up and began firing.

Bullets raked across, shredding the tables, bouncing off the armored artifact, and shattering the window behind them. Ghods dived behind another display case that had covered itself in metal. Crystal took the guards focus on Ghods as an opportunity to return fire, but to no avail. The bullets bounced off his armor. This did, however, cause him to shift his attention to Crystals cover, the bullet spray now aimed at her hiding spot. Now that he needed to improvise, Ghods checked his surroundings for anything useful. The door that had been blown in caught his attention. It was curved from the detonation, so Ghods slung his rifle onto his back, sprinted over to it, and stomped on the edge. It flipped up in the air, catching the guards eye. As the bullet spray made its way back towards Ghods, he kicked the door at the guard. The bullets bounced off the door as it flew, and it staggered him when it hit. "Ah! Son of a bi-" He didn't get to finish his sentence because Ghods ran after the door and was there to deliver a kick to his jaw. Instead of trying to come up with another one-liner, the guard began throwing punches. Ghods deflected a few jabs, and returned his own. Even his most solid punches put nothing but small dents in the armor. The guard was starting to wizen up, though. He threw a wide backhand with his left arm, and brought the machinegun spraying bullets around with his right arm. Ghods slid under the rotating barrels, dodging by a few centimeters. Ghods used his arms to throw himself in the air, and used the momentum of falling back down to deliver a flying kick. The guards vizor shattered with the force, and he took a few steps back to regain his position. Ghods took a boxing stance."Had enough yet?".
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but I'm gonna kick you repeatedly in the balls!" At this, the guard sprinted at him, throwing a wide left hook. Ghods responded with a quick jab at his left shoulder, trying to stop the momentum and do damage at the same time. Nothing really came from that, and the force of the punch knocked him down the hallway. As the guard began running at him, he decided a change of style was needed. Ghods stood, and when the guard got near, he spun and delivered a leg sweep. As he was now facing away from the guard, briefly suspended in air, Ghods transitioned his proximity to the ground into a backflip, which he used to deliver a flying knee to the guard. The impact shook the floor, and the guard screamed in rage. Ghods took a step back as the guard clambered to his feet, readying for whatever attack came next. The guard pointed his fists at him, and small tubes popped from the his wrists. "Those are flamethrowers." Netsak's heads-up was vital, as flame immediately spewed towards Ghods.
"Ha ha ha, napalm sticks to thieves!" The one-liners weren't getting any better. Ghods jumped towards the wall, and spring off it towards the ceiling, punching his hands and feet into it to hold himself there. Unfortunately for the guard, he'd made it known that his flaming substance was a liquid, and as he tried to shoot fire at Ghods on the ceiling, it fell back on top of him. Ghods seized the moment, dropping down on top of the guard. The guard was ready for him this time, though, and kicked him back in the direction of the room with the artifacts. The guard tried to rev up his minigun to shoot at him, but Ghods whipped his rifle off his back and shot the gun, puncturing the motor and knocking two of the barrels out. He didn't stop there, though. Ghods fired two more rounds into the guard, but he blocked his face with his arms and the bullets bounced off his armor. Both sides were starting to get a little desperate, which showed itself as the guard ripped up a portion of the tile floor and threw it at Ghods. It hit Ghods and broke apart, but the guard followed, throwing yet another wide left hook. Ghods responded fast as lightning, ducking the punch and kicking the guard in the throat at the same time. The guard stepped forward, throwing more punches, but Ghods was ready, stopping hooks, catching jabs, and slowly stepping back towards the door of the room. As Ghods ducked a right hook, Crystal jumped over him and delivered a bicycle kick to the guard's head, knocking him out, and down a floor. Ghods stood up and stepped to the back of the room. There were a lot more pings on his heartbeat sensor.

"Ride's here."
"Not a minute too late. Crystal! Get that thing out of the window. We'll crack it open once we're in a better position." Crystal casually dragged the metal-cased artifact over to the window. The pings were ascending up an elevator. "Now." Crystal kicked the metal box out of the window, and she and Ghods jumped after it. As they plummeted, their ship swooped in, and lined up with the falling duo. It then decelerated slightly, scooping up the box and the pair before closing the cargo bay doors and pulling out of its nosedive. "Lotta noise you caused."
"It's hard to invade a human's ego and not cause a screaming fit."
"Bold words. You know you're racking up a lotta favors with delaying the defense grid, right?"
"A small price to pay for salvation."
"Right enough. EVA helmet on, lil' one. " Crystal heeded the command, and soon the weightlessness of space returned. They returned to huddling in the corner, this time with the metal box to keep them company. Netsakh and Ghods focused together to shield themselves from scans, and the local radio gradually faded into the distance. The emergency broadcast radio lit up a few moments later with a description of their ship, but by this point they were already into the Jersey debris field.
"Where to now?"
"Colorado, then Kepler. We'll get you a ship to get out of house space from there."
"Wow. You must really like long rides in cramped spaces with me."
"For the love of all that is holy, please remember that you're thirteen."
"But you said that my physical enhancements would change my effective age."
"Ok, fine. For the love of all that is holy, please remember that you're about seventeen."
"No. I have nothing to do on this ride but mess with you."
"You have to admit, she has a point."
"No, stop. Not you too."
"She's literally a god. You can't argue with that." Ghods hung his head in defeat. It was going to be a long ride back.

Netsakh was enjoying all of this. Their bearer's adrenalin was a sweet flavor, his relishing in every life taken another. His hatred of humanity itself was something that would never get old, and mildly annoying him was the perfect circle of fun. His actions and reactions were things that Netsakh could live with forever, despite his tendency to bluntly refuse common sense. This darkling he'd collected and perfected was even more seasoning. They, too, knew the fun of poking fun at him, running him in his own circles. What a time to be alive. "Just so you know, the harder you resist, the harder we have to try."
"Or you could just... you know... not."
"But where's the fun in that?"
"Why is tormenting me fun?"
"Because watching your pointless efforts to fend us off is the funniest thing to exist."
"Someone's in the hot seat."
"And he's going to be there a while."
"Can't believe I gotta listen to this in stereo now."
The agent and his light laughed at this. Netsakh wondered if there was other things like humor to be learned from darklings minds.

Aboard a battlecruiser deep in the Kepler system, the operative, Ghods, and Crystal walked down the hallway, the metal case with the artifact on an small equipment trolley hovering between them. They arrived at a set of blast doors, and with a hiss they slid open, allowing the three to step into an empty room with robotic arms reaching from the walls., and the doors to slide shut behind them. The operative entered a code on the keypad, and the sound of bolts sliding shut echoed from the blast doors. "Forgive the discourtesy, but you're a loose variable."
"That's to be expected. We don't have an insurance to give you."
"The Lightmind is capable of reason, at least."

Ghods grabbed the hinges on the sides of the case, and pulled. The metal slowly stretched, and became a shade of red lighter before snapping. As he threw the pieces off to the side, a muffled explosion came from inside the case. Ghods began pealing the metal armor on the top back. Once his target had been revealed, he brushed the ashes of the pillow it was on off the artifact, revealing it to be unscratched by the detonation. Upon closer inspection, the artefact was a semi-opaque purple sphere with blue etchings in a ring around the center. "So, what is that?"
"It's a cartographer. It's special because it's adjustable, and the detail and size of the map it generates can be specified within certain limits."
"We broke into a hornets nest of people you specifically hate and who specifically hate you to steal a map-maker..."
"Have you ever seen a perfect map of the human mind?"
Crystal was silent. By this point, she was used to Ghods' habits of being vague, answering questions with questions, and speaking in parables. Also, she knew that he'd explain it to her anyway. "Normal cartographers are easy to use, and versatile. If enough energy for a full powered burst is provided, it can map an entire system in a matter of minutes. What we have here is something quite different. If I can localize it on a human mind, set it to record the maximum detail possible, and activate it with sufficient power, I can attain a map so perfect that I could create clones of that mind digitally, if not physically. This level of detail is enough to answer my questions, and once I answer those questions, I will have cleaned up my own mess, and can begin working on the messes of others."
"Neat", said Crystal. This meant that she understood a grand total of nothing, but really didn't want further explanation. Ghods knew this, and turned back towards the artifact.
"The Voidmind wants to find the root of darkness?"
"What better way to eliminate darkness than striking at its very core?"
"You, Voidbearer, are a terribly loose end."
"I understand this. What do you need to allow me to continue my work?"
"Assurance that you can be accounted for should the worst scenario occur."
Ghods focused on the sphere. Red wisps of energy began floating off his armor, forming an aura around him. The artifact responded, hovering into the air at head height. It rapidly changed colors, from purple, to blue, to green, to red, and finally to black. A loud, deep sound, barely distinguishable from a heavy vibration, emanated from the sphere suddenly, and the writing disappeared. The sphere then began to bend light around it like a black hole, the entire room began to warp and bend around the sphere, the walls seemingly extended off to infinity. All light snapped back to original, and strands of blue light began to form a wireframe around the sphere, taking the shape of a rhombohedron. The faces of the shape outlined began filling in with energy of a matching color of blue, and the markings that were on the sphere appeared in the air around the artifact, orbiting it slowly. The red energy floating off Ghods was in full effect, and blue energy of the same effect began emanating off the artifact, both swirls of color floating back and forth in an exchange. Ghods walked towards the blast door where Crystal and the operative were standing. Crystal sighed as he approached. "I don't even need your helmet to be off to see your weird sadism smile."
Ghods stopped in front of her. "I'm not sadistic. I put great effort into making sure my targets do not suffer. Quick, clean, and efficient is not sadism, and neither is salvation."
"Okay, but the smile. It's spooky."
Ghods ignored the jab at his facial expressions. "I'm going to be going on a very long trip. I need you to become fully self-sufficient before I return, okay?"
Crystal tilted her head inquisitively at first, but nonetheless straightened up and replied "Okey dokey artechokey!"
"She will be your insurance. I'll keep in contact with both you and her as much as I possibly can. Do me a favor and train her in piloting, and see to it that she provides assistance to our cause."
"I suppose fortune favors the bold." The operative turned and entered the code into the keypad behind him, and the sliding of bolts was once again heard. The door slide open, and the trio stepped out. With the psionic help of Netsakh, Ghods could see the heat of the footprints of the guards who had been standing outside the room mere seconds prior. As Ghods left and made his way towards the hanger, the artifact followed him, floating near his head.
"Results, Voidbearer."
"I understand, Lightbearer."
"If only so much, huh..."

Ghods turned to face the the operative. They exchanged a silent eye-lock. The artifact lined up vertically over his head, and the energy wafting off his body began flowing up into it. They understood each other, and that this current course of actions was mutual benefit for both sides. They each had ends to uphold for the success of this experiment, despite their differing positions. Crystal, on the other hand, was confused. "Can you please explain CLEARLY what is going on?"
Ghods sighed. "I'm taking this object to go learn about what makes humans naturally bad. You're staying here with these people, and helping them as they see fit. I'll be back in a bit, ok? Don't do anything stupid, don't take unnecessary risks, and do listen to what the people aboard this ship say."
"Ah, okay! See you later then, dad! I love you!"
Ghods looked at Crystal. Since her modifications, she'd grown from a young teenager to a young adult. He knew that she'd be the same apparent age for hundreds of years if she leads a natural life. He knew how her body worked, he had designed it. Yet, he didn't know how her mind worked. Did she see him as a father simply because he was an older male who took care of her? She trusted him sincerely, he could tell this with telepathy, but where did the trust of caretaking end and the ideal of family begin? The artifact floated back down to his side as he exhaled in contemplation. "I love you too. You'd better not be hurt when I come back, you hear?"
"I won't be, I promise!!" Crystal's elation at the returned expression was visible.
"See? You're a great dad."
"It's a descendant's duty to outperform their ancestors."
"The perfect father and his cute daughter."
"Now you're getting too far into it."
"Mm hm."



As the photon-shield across the hangar activated and Ghods flew off into space, the operative looked at Crystal. "You two are really unusual, you know."
"Being unpredictable is an advantage in both cognitive and physical combat."
"They do say that the best swordsman does not fear the second best, but the second worst."
Crystal began humming a cheerful tune as she wandered towards the interior of the battlecruiser and the operative followed.

On his transport, in the modified cargo bay, Ghods stood before the artifact he had claimed. It was activated, charging off the latent radiation of the nebula he was in. As the polyhedrons made of energy floated around him, the voices of a long dead civilization whispered to him. He longed to know what it meant, but at most he could simply figure out instructions for the use of the device. With his last specifications clarified to the cartographer, the artifact decided on a form, and the energy returned to the sphere.
"Now that you have time, I have bad news."
"What is it?"
"The other mind snapped."
"Snapped at what?"
"At us."
"Wait, what did I do?"
"Not you. The Voidmind. Us collectively."
Ghods huffed in an unimpressed manner. "Not our issue. Crystal isn't bound to any mind, they won't attack her. You and I are safe, they couldn't find us if they tried. We have much bigger things to do than get caught up in disagreements." The sphere split in half, revealing a glowing orb of energy. Small triangles began floating around his head. Targeting system, he thought to himself.
"You're not taking this seriously."
"Because it's not our issue. I'm in no place to stand in a war of Gods against Titans, and really, neither are you. Cortana and Thraike can do the chaos and bloodshed."
The sphere halves snapped shut, and a pulse of energy blasted from the triangles around his head. His vision blurred slightly, but returned after a few seconds. He knew Netsakh disagreed with his reasoning, but also knew that she could never argue with it. He was right, and they both knew it. His holographic displays lit up, reproducing what the artifact had seen.
"So what exactly is that?"
"This", said Ghods as he set his Perceived Contact Input to annotation mode. "is the most accurate scan of a human mind in history."



"Okay... and?"
"And humans have only ever figured out what the most basic parts of it do.", he said while marking different areas of the brain. "Motor functions, Physical senses, Learning, Memory, Speech, Object Recognition... Things that intelligent and sentient creatures must be able to do." He began marking smaller areas on the brain. "Things like Personality, Emotion, and Reasoning are known in terms of where, but not how or why." He stepped back to admire his handywork. "This is just the basics that I learned from that MedForce session, and from subsequent research." The hologram began zooming in to the lower back portion of the brain. "You know where this is, right?"
"Yes."
"This is where I need your help. You already know how to translate your thoughts into hologram outputs. I'd like to overlay these two things." Slowly, a separate holographic image pieced itself together. Two images of his cerebellum, one in white, one in vibrant pink, were now before him, slowly splicing together. He reached over to a keyboard to time the stop, and the images froze in air, one overtop the other. "Now, for the final piece of this beginning."
"You're trying to find the differences."
"Yes, I am. If we know what we know, then we can clearly find what we don't know, and if we know what we don't know, it will be even easier to find what we don't know. The biggest problem with humanity is that they don't know what they don't know. They lack the list of what things they lack knowledge on. So, if we overlay what we do know onto what someone else knows, then we will learn what things we have a deficiency of understanding on." He paused to look closely at the images. a small, empty space caught his attention. "Like this..." The images zoomed even further in tandem. There was a missing space in Netsakh's image that was mapped out in the cartographer. He cut the piece out and brought it closer for examination.


"Yes, yes, exactly like this..."
"Stop playing the pronoun game. What is "This"?"
"I'm not completely sure. It doesn't match anything that's been expressly recorded, and yet here it is. It's clearly a genetic part of the human mind, too." What exactly was it that he was looking at right now? It was built exactly like the rest of the human brain, yet it's design seemed out of place. It was clearly attached to the same parts of the brain that dealt with alertness and survival, but instead of the turbulent order of neurons that the brain naturally had, this portion was arranged in a crystalline lattice. It seemed purposefully built.

Netsakh was uncomfortable in this position. Their bearer opted to ignore a crisis for the sake of displaying his vocabulary and arbitrary medical knowledge. The situation had gotten worse when she'd understood what he wanted. Perfectly understanding the human mind was a minuscule task compared to the things going on around them. The universe was falling apart, and he was doing science projects in an attempt to connect emotion to material. And now, after all this, he was on to something. Netsakh recognized that pattern. It was not uncommon after the Great Collapse and the Suffering Cycles, when minds were rogue and violent, and turned on each other in pure chaos. "That's a prison. It's a severance from the minds of others, meant to contain a mind so it can be healed."
"Is that so..."
"You're thinking things..."
"Of course I am. I must always be thinking, because I don't believe in coincidences." Normally, his thinking doesn't present issues. But he seemed to be hiding what he was looking for. Something caught his attention beforehand, and he was hunting down something he knew was there.
"I don't like it when you keep secrets."
"Then, are you willing to hear a lesson on human history?" Netsakh took a moment to consider the proposition.
"Well, according to you, we have all the time in the world. So yes, tell me exactly what you're trying to do here."
"Human history is littered with inefficiencies. Our DNA puts a permanent cap on life expectancy that has yet to be removed. Our societies inevitably collapse despite genuine drive to maintain them. We gravitate towards religion, things to blindly follow. There are things that humans from all edges of their existence have clung to. The most widespread religions in Old Earth held onto beliefs that were nearly identical, despite them being greatly removed from each other. The idea that there was a Creating entity or entities, that there was some deific evil that existed, and the idea that humanity was cursed for transgressions were some of them. No matter what religion was found, and even in modern versions of those religions, these ideals hold true. Even you and I fight against the "Darkness", as if it was some form of living entity."
"So you're looking for answers to those commonplace beliefs?"
"I've already found some answers. It appears to me that whatever humanity sees as its creator was an entity or race that may have been existed at the same time as your creators. If that were the case, then at some point in our gestation as a species, we rebelled against that creator, which would be the transgression. The curse for that transgression would be our limited life." He was sure of himself. Netsakh could feel the flow of pride washing his statements. "Every attempt to remove this cap ends in cancer. The cells in the body become unstable, chaotic, and begin growing out of control. Our rules for evolution would have eventually lead to the end of that cap when humanity became capable of prosperity, but it remains. It is something that we simply cannot surpass, as if it was designed by technology more advanced than ours." He began typing inputs into his keypad. The spot he had selected began shifting and rearranging.

"And this prison? I believe it's the answer to the evil that haunts us. Whatever is in this prison could very well be the Darkness that we fight against. We may have the option in front of us to kill Loki, the Devil, the Deceiver."
"You're getting ahead of yourself. You don't even know what this thing is, let alone whether or not it's the great Darkness that haunts humanity."
"Not yet, I don't..."
"Stop that. You're way over your head. You're riding theories based on a collective imaginat-"
"Humans don't have a collective. We're disconnected, we have no mindshare. A collective imagination means that there's something there. No one hallucinates the same things out of thin air. There has to be something there."

It wasn't that Netsakh was hoping for him to be wrong. His success was always beneficial, in some weird, off-center way. It was more that they were afraid of the implications of his theories. The darkness that they touched when he was on Pittsburgh was locked away in every human. It took digging through his mind to find it. The infinite void they'd been dragged through could have been just a touch to this tiny prison. Every human had the potential to unlock that prison, and let lose whatever foul being was imprisoned there. He was right, it needed to die as soon as possible. Yet, he was reckless. Netsakh knew that he could very well unleash it with his experimentation.
"Okay, I'll bite, but with one condition."
"And that is?"
"You start telling me every detail to your plans. I'm sick of being surprised by your wild schemes."
"Anything for you."
"Then what is it you need?"
"I need a miracle. Fortunately, you're more than sufficient for that."