“I’m glad they put us four together!” Kayel chirped as he used his combined fire and ice powers to freeze the corruption all around him and then flash-fry it, causing it to disintegrate. “And this is actually kinda relaxing.”
“If you say so…” Nyssi wasn’t so certain, and she’d been feeling uneasy for a while.
Currently, she and Tanos were using the flamethrowers they’d been given, but Ret was being somewhat experimental, using his ability to create and manipulate light to make small laser beams. This turned out to be quite useful because it meant he could sever smaller parts of Corruption from the larger parts, allowing them to be destroyed more easily.
“Hey now, we’re the perfect team!” Kayel continued to be chirpy. “Like, worst case scenario, we just bleed on it all, right? Like we did when we were inside our universe!”
“Is this the same stuff though?” Tanos was uncertain too. “Like, in our studies, the big guys said there are different strains of Corruption!”
Kayel found it a little odd that he was being the morale booster of the team, and tried to settle everyone else’s nerves. “Sure, that’s what Vikalos explained, but he also went through which ones are the most dangerous. And we actually FOUGHT the Unending Ancient one! Mostly beat it back as well. And Arkay and those Pentathax guys like… killed the main part of it or something? I think we’re good.”
“We are not-” Nyssi suddenly paused, dropped her flamethrower and put her head in her hands. “SHUT UP! SHUT UP!”
“Nyssi, what is wrong?” Ret immediately asked as he make his way over to Nyssi and held her tightly. Tanos and Kayel stuck with what they were doing, as they didn’t want to risk the Corruption recovering.
“Shut up shut up fucking shut up…” Nyssi hissed, but calmed down somewhat. She had a 2.5m tall monster with gravity powers protecting her. Things weren’t bad. Not yet. “I’m… I’m fine… Can you… can you all hear it?”
“Is the Corruption talking to you?” Tanos was getting nearly as worried as Nyssi was.
“Yeah. It’s telepathically whispering to me. Asking me to join it, to become immortal. We’re already immortal though, right?”
“As close as we can get.”
Nyssi took a deep breath to calm herself down. “I think us being weird half-whatever-Arkay-is thingies is making it as scared as I am, and it’s trying to convince us to corrupt ourselves because it knows we’ll kill it otherwise.”
“Do not fret, Nyssi, we will destroy every bit of Corruption here!” Ret replied reassuringly. “As Kayel said, we have anti-corruption blood.”
“Yeah, I know… It’s just… distracting.”
“Do you want to take a break, Nyssi?” Ret suggested. “You have been hard at work for a while now.”
Nyssi glanced up at Ret. “That’s a good idea. I can clear my head a little bit. But… Ret, I hate to ask of this… can you carry me or something? I’m suddenly… cold and scared.”
Ret nodded. He picked up Nyssi’s flamethrower and handed it back to her, then kneeled down so Nyssi could sit on his shoulders.
“You sure you’re okay with that, Ret?”
“I am fine!” Ret smiled. “I would have said no if I did not want to. Also, Nyssi can now reach the ceilings better. Anyway, I do somewhat need to focus on my, uh, lasers…”
The team continued to make their way up the tower. The plan was simple. Ret would cut chunks of Corruption off, which Tanos and Nyssi would destroy, while Kayel dealt with the big bits. Once most of the room was clear, Nyssi, Tanos and Ret would retreat back a floor and shield themselves, so Kayel could cause a brief fire storm to incinerate anything they may have missed.
This worked very well for quite a long time. However, they reached a point where there was more corruption than wall or floor. As Kayel started burning the floor to give them all some space though, something above them moved. An eyeball formed in the black gunk, surrounded by rows of teeth or spikes, no one was sure.
Not that it mattered. Nyssi screamed out in pain and fell backwards, losing her grip on Ret’s shoulders, but Tanos quickly shape shifted into a very large, fluffy sheet and caught Nyssi on her back. She was still screaming though, and some of her words were clearly not in Panlex.
“NO, I WON’T SUBMIT! VEH SHOTARAT! NOT YOU!”
“Tenuk, get Nyssi back to the ship. Me and Ret will deal with this!” Kayel ordered, shouting over Nyssi’s screams.
“But-”
“We’re better with telepathic stuff than you. And we can kill this stuff with powers, not flamethrowers!”
Tanos frowned, then did as he was told. He carried Nyssi on his back down several levels, and once they were far away from that eyeball, Nyssi calmed down enough to stand up on her own. Still, Tanos wanted to carry her, so he changed his shape into that of a Banikan and carried her in his arms.
“Don’t worry, Nyssi. You’re safe. Xatarah…”
Nyssi glanced up at Tanos and blinked. “Oh. You understand that corrupted language too.”
Tanos blinked back. “Well… uh… I think all four of us can pick up these languages.”
Back upstairs, Kayel picked up the pace, firing flames up at the giant eyeball, while Ret focused his lasers on the tendrils that were steadily forming and trying to grab them. The Corruption though was beginning to speak, directly at the beings trying to kill it.
“VEY FASS. VA NETRA!”
“We’re not dead yet, not even fucking close!” Kayel growled as he intensified his flames. Most of the tendrils were quickly destroyed, but they were getting a little close for comfort.
“I do not like that we know what it is saying!” Ret shouted. “But we need to aim for that damn eye! It is not burning!”
“VEY UUKARIS! VEY SHOTARAT!”
“We bow to no one! Ret, swap roles, use your light thingy on its eye!”
Ret did exactly as demanded, and fired a burst of light at the intelligent part of the Corruption. This caused the eye to explode, and the teeth surrounding it retracted. However, the Corruption still wasn’t slowing down, and started to create more tendrils, which thrashed wildly. In the centre of the blackened mass, where the eye had been, there was…
“Is that a fucking brain or something?” Kayel hissed as he flash-froze some of the tendrils, then raised both his hands upwards, ready to blast it with fire. Flames rippled up his body as Kayel steadied himself. “Ret, back off a bit so I don’t hurt y-”
A stray tendril hit Kayel directly, knocking him towards nearby staircase and causing him to tumble down the spiral of stairs.
“IVBOK, IVBOK, UVE JASS!”
“I will not submit! None of us will!”
Although the Corruption was currently blinded, it could still somewhat sense Ret’s presence. Ret continued to dodge all the tendrils and made his way to the centre of the room, directly below the strange, infested brain. The same way Kayel had, Ret held his hands upward, palms pointed towards the brain. But this time, he was using his gravity powers to cement himself in place.
“RA KARIS, RIS!”
A blinding explosion of light emanated from Ret’s claws. In an instant, a beam of pure, burning light passed through not only the Corruption’s exposed weak spot, but through the ceiling and into the rooms above. This beam was followed by blinding waves of light, which caused the Corruption to wither away entirely.
After a good ten seconds, there was nothing else in the room except Ret, who was panting heavily.”
“Out of darkness, light…” Ret repeated to himself, before falling to one knee, utterly exhausted and completely unaware that he had just spoken in the language of the Corruption.
The silence lingered a little too long. But eventually, Ret’s friends all returned. Nyssi seemed fine now that the sapient part of the Corruption had been destroyed, but Kayel looked a little dazed, having banged his head a few times as he’d fallen down the stairs.
“You alright, best friend?” Tanos asked.
“Yes, I am fine…” Ret grunted. “I want to go home though.”
Nyssi smiled a little as she helped Ret to his feet. “Kuta just told me that all the Corruption they were dealing with was destroyed by your light burst too. So I think, yes, we can go home.”
“Ah, good…” Ret smiled as well. “Because this was… uh…”
“Scary?” Tanos suggested.
“Screwy?” Kayel offered some suggestions of his own. “Fucky? Stupid? Kinda pointless? Worse than you thought?”
“I was going to say ‘annoying’, actually…” Ret tutted. “But still, I think we did well, yes?”
“Yeah. Let’s go back to the ship!” Kayel grinned. “Maybe we can convince Vikalos to get us take-out again too. Because it turns out people with fire powers are always hungry, and I’m fucking starving.”
“Good idea!” Tanos joined in on the smiling. “Great work guys, as always! We’re such a great team.”
“Heh, we really are…” Nyssi giggled as everyone headed back downstairs, to where the ship was waiting.