The being had attacked without warning, tearing a hole through the side of the ship Shield Six before immediately terminating the engines and leaving everyone drifting and trapped in the dark. Thankfully, Kal had strong infrared vision, allowing them to still see. That didn’t mean that they had a handle on the situation though.
Whatever it was, this being was angry, and potentially a Voidborn. It certainly looked the part, heavily armoured, large antlers, too much gold, but no trace of a physical body. Had Kal not known better, they would have called it an Apocalyptic, the monsters of their old universe that worked in similar ways, and were often too dangerous for the elite team of Cleansers to take on. Not that they had ever met one, the Imperators had destroyed the Apocalyptics millennia ago.
Either way, it was currently tearing their ship apart. While Nuh had managed to keep everything in one relative piece, it had taken the strongest member of the Cleaners away from the rest of his team. Tah was busy trying to repair the engines and get the ship moving again, in a bid to eject the rampaging monster from their ship and fly off, but since the cargo bay was now in ruins, he was low on supplies. Not that it mattered, something metallic and blue flew through what Tah was working on, making him have to start from scratch.
“You alive, Gah?” Tah shot his sibling a telepathic message as he helped him up. All six of them were using their Silver Link to communicate and keep things clear.
“It just… adapts…” Gah didn’t answer the question. “I kept it held down for a few seconds but it seems to just ignore my magnetic fields now.”
“Swap places with Nuh. Keep everyone in physical contact with the ship. I’ll try to-”
A large, dark claw reached in and grabbed Tah, dragging him out and back into the cargo bay proper, but he was saved by a blast of searing energy, severing the being’s limb. Not that it mattered, the creature didn’t seem to react in pain and simply regrew its missing arm, the claw that had grabbed Tah disappearing in a blinding explosion of gold particles.
Several small implosions seemed to knock the entity back, causing it to briefly stagger. Leh and Pah were both now on the offensive, using their vacuum and plasma shields to lure the creature closer to the gaping hole where the cargo bay doors used to be. Weirdly though, Pah’s attacks suddenly stopped affecting the creature, it was shrugging off temperatures akin to low level stars.
Now that Tah could properly see this creature, he got more concerned. It was definitely a Voidborn, but it looked positively ancient. Tah would have also suggested that it was huge, however, the six Cleansers were all very small. But it hadn’t said a single word since it had appeared. Normally Voidborn beings were much more talkative.
Snapping back into gear, Tah added his own power to the offensive, charging a beam of electricity and firing it directly at the Voidborn’s chest. This stunned it briefly, enough for it to turn its attention to Tah and focus on him directly. A second bolt of lightning was reflected directly back at Tah, but he simply absorbed it. The Cleaners knew how to deal with their own powers being used against them, they’d learned from experience, and this was no different.
The creature grunted, then stopped in his tracks. Nuh had returned to the battle, crushing both the Voidborn’s lower limbs and ripping them from its body with his gravitational powers. But as Nuh tried to do the same to the rest of the Voidborn, he found he couldn’t get a grip on them.
“By the Nest, how do you adapt to GRAVITY?” Nuh nearly shouted as Pah tackled him out of the way of a torrent of fire. Tah struggled for an answer as he and Leh tried to distract the Voidborn away from their siblings. However, the Voidborn took them both out, stunning Leh with a blast of electricity and sending Tah flying through some wreckage via a vacuum explosion.
Sensing that Tah was the leader of the group, the Voidborn stomped over, only to find itself stumbling again, then blinking awkwardly as power returned to the ship. While the Voidborn had already adapted to Gah’s magnetic powers, Gah was now throwing debris in its direction. Koh had silently managed to repair the main generators, at least temporarily and was now adding his own sonic abilities to the fight, but the Voidborn almost instantly adapted to that as well. With a snarl, it magnetized Koh to the ground and flicked Gah away with a shadowy claw.
Suddenly, a wall of ice appeared, separating Koh from the Voidborn, breaking its attention and allowing Koh to escape. Something large (but still not as large as the Voidborn) slammed into it, then froze both its upper arms in a shower of glass-like hail, before slicing another limb off with their scythe.
“Pick on someone your own size!” Akah roared as he started cutting into the Voidborn. Despite the fact that Akah was armoured, he was mostly organic and fleshy, and this had given him a small advantage, the Voidborn hadn’t noticed his presence at first. Sharp pieces of ice tore through the Voidborn’s limbs, but the injuries quickly healed up.
Akah’s advantage though didn’t last long. The Voidborn was now stealing Kal’s powers and using them against Akah to keep its distance. While Akah had managed to deflect bolts of lightning and cool down blasts of plasma before they could hit anything, there was little he could do as the Voidborn simply removed all gravity from the room, causing everything to float, before using a magnetic wave to strip Akah of his scythe and shield. A dark claw wrapped itself around Akah’s throat, holding him in place, the two of them hovering in the middle of the wrecked room.
“Hm. You are not a Voidborn. But I do not like your scent. It is… familiar. Something I ought to… deal with, after I have dealt with the errant entities in this sector.”
The Voidborn snarled, then raised a second claw, ready to strike Akah down. It didn’t get a chance to though, as a small implosion separated the two. Before the Voidborn could react, it abruptly disappeared. Something briefly flashed white, everyone hit the ground, and Tah appeared where the Voidborn once stood. Except his left arm was gone, and what was left was a molten stump.
“What… happened?”
“I teleported him into a sun…” Tah stared at his missing limb, speaking oddly slowly. “I’m not very good at it though… Think I need a restart.”
“You do that, brother,” Koh patted Tah on the back. Tah’s eyes flickered briefly before the light in them faded, and the Cleanser fell backwards, seemingly unconscious.
“Is he alight?” Akah asked, looking confused.
“Yeah, he’ll be fine,” Koh explained, sticking to his telepathic voice. While Tah was their leader, Koh had always been second in command. Weirdly, it was the weakest of Kal that led the strongest. “We have batteries. Very good ones. But using nova abilities, powers outside our normal scope, drains us and we need to recharge sometimes. Is everyone alive?”
“No! I don’t know!”
That voice didn’t belong to Kal, it belonged to Tahvra, Akah’s fellow organic friend and a being Kal considered to be an organic version of themselves. Gah stayed by Tah’s side, and the rest of Kal followed Akah back down the main corridor, heading to the cockpit. Tahvra was kneeling on the ground, standing over a very tiny, mechanical being. Nearby was a golden mask.
“Kanuva?” Leh exclaimed, racing to the being’s side. They were unconscious, but a small light on their chest glowed faintly. The being was white, blue and humanoid, but with odd proportions, overly long arms and short legs. Just like the Cleansers though, it was completely mechanical.
“I… I don’t know your kind’s biology, I didn’t know how to help him, it just… stabbed him and ripped his face off and…” Tahvra was on the verge of tears. “I don’t even know if he’s alive!”
The Cleansers though didn’t seem to have an answer. They were only just putting together the pieces themselves.
“So, wait, Imperators are just… powered up Generas?” Pah muttered. “Like… the same way we are powered up Cleansers?”
“Not just any Genera…” Koh realized that he recognized this individual. “When we first woke up, Nuh and I, we went to the ice village to depower their Imperator and I am certain we ran into this guy… Mator was the Imperator of Light all along?”
Nuh also seemed to recognize the being, and had disappeared back down the hallway, returning with a light blue mask. At the mention of its name, the creature’s eyes snapped open. It sat up, then immediately covered up its bare, mechanical face with its hands. Nuh handed the mask to Mator.
“Are you alright?” Koh asked.
“Oh… You Cleansers are not supposed to see me like this…” Mator frowned, putting the mask on. “Why in the name of the Great Spirit do you have spare Canoh on your ship?”
“Keepsakes…” Nuh shrugged. “We didn’t destroy everything in our universe when it was time. We also just discovered that Imperators were once Generas.”
“Not all of us…” Mator sighed to himself. “Guess that’s what saved me though. It’s probably going to be years until I get enough energy to become an Imperator again.”
“It’s fine, you’re fine. Just surprised to see you, that’s all…” Koh’s eyes dimmed briefly. “Anyway, we need to get the ship repaired. Tah’s going to be out of it for a few hours, though, which means we can’t really get much done in terms of electrical repairs, so I suggest we all take a quick break to pull ourselves together. Alright?”
Akah, Tahvra, Mator and the rest of Kal all nodded. Koh dismissed the rest of his team, while Mator wandered back down the main hallway, looking rather disorientated and confused, considering everything was now massive. Leh and Nuh followed him, brimming with questions, while Tahvra made his way to the mostly unused medical bay to grab some plasters for himself.
“Why were we attacked?” Akah finally asked Koh as everyone began to settle down. Koh sat in the captain’s chair, seeing if anything was still working.
“No idea. We’re low rank Decay Lords that specialize in corruption removal, we’re harmless and people know to leave us alone. Thank you for the help, by the way.”
Akah smiled a little. “Just doing my job as a guardian. What IS Kanuva now? Or Mator or whatever you called him?”
“It’s a long story.”
Akah tutted, sitting down in the seat next to Koh. It was too small for him, but he didn’t care. “We have time.”
“Not now…” Koh tapped on a console and it briefly sprang to life, before fading again. “I gotta send some messages out. If a Voidborn was willing to attack us, then it might attack everyone.”
“But Tah teleported it into a sun.”
“It survived Pah’s plasma attacks, which are way, way hotter than a cool sun in the Periuniversal Void…” Koh trailed off. There was an awkward hint of fear in his normally unchanging voice. “I don’t think that’s the last we’ve seen of that Voidborn…”