Since last night, a lot has changed in Elenaris. Horrors were lurking around every corner; the sewer was overflowing with them, not to mention the underground magi-train system was entirely taken over and wreaking havoc on the facilities that ran its path. The flying trains were no different; even the metal dome arching over the kingdom was plastered with countless eyes peering down at the citizens.
Announcing a state of emergency, the queen had tried to prevent further casualties. Even so, the very fear instilled in the people’s hearts was like an open invitation for the monsters to slip into their houses and destroy everything. Thus, evacuating everyone to the spire and the brothel and gambling business building that Daine and Lana had left behind in their absence, Mono was sitting at the ivory throne with a massive tube sticking into the back of her head.
Connecting herself to every automaton in the kingdom, she was trying to find a cure for this curse. All the while, her mind was split into thousands of parts, some of them split to control the spire automatons, others to the automaton working guys and gals at Daine’s business. Having sworn to protect the citizens, she was acting as their shield by directly controlling the automatons herself.
However, just protection could not cure them–alas, if there were horrors in the kingdom, the only way to get them off their backs was to find the root cause. The keeper.
"Shamisha, any luck?" She whispered, talking to Shamisha through a tall Automaton standing beside her.
Crossing her legs, Mono felt Grace moving around the throne like a drone. She’d been more worried about the queen than the city itself as of late. Learning about her origin as a little girl whose personality was wiped due to the lack of a core around her heart, the grey-haired automaton had begun leaning more into her human self.
Worry crossed her eyes every moment that Mono was away, be it physically or mentally. The current moment was no different.
"The greater the density of horrors, the more likely we are to find the keeper’s nest." Wiping Mono’s face with a wet napkin while the queen was still waiting for a response from Shamisha, Grace tried to help in what little way she could. "Gathering the citizens in a small space would most likely concentrate the horror’s attack in those two places. Possibly, forcing the keeper to shift its lair right underneath them."
"Since when did you know so much about horrors?" Mono asked, impressed by Grace’s assessment.
"Ever since I learned that this new body will keep me alive for a lot longer than the last."
"Preparing for the future. mendable." Keeping her words short, Mono remained focused on the thousands of minds she was currently inhabiting.
"Mono?" Finally, Shamisha’s voice reached the queen’s ears. Looking through the automaton next to her, Mono watched as the socceress stared up into the machine’s eyes. "Spire’s underground support columns had been giving off some strange energy. One of the students caught an anomaly. I was in the middle of checking it myself when your message came."
"Sounds like the keeper is going for the Spire first. Empty out the building, Shamisha, before it turns into a walking nightmare." The lack of urgency in Mono’s tone raised Shamisha’s eyebrows. She wasn’t sure why she had to move the whole citizenry, as her knowledge of keepers was fairly limited.
"Where? Where would I move thousands of people?"
"The castle, bring them to me. I’ll deal–"
"Master," feeling Grace’s hand on her shoulder, Mono stopped talking. "The keeper will simply change places. It’s only a matter of time. The last thing you should do is bring everyone here and risk your own life."
"I wouldn’t be here in the first place if I refused to gamble with my life." With a smirk on her face, Mono retreated from the minds of the automtons–all but two of them. "Shamisha, evacuate everyone in thirty minutes. I will use this opportunity to test the Godkiller."
"W-what?! NOW?!" Shamisha screamed from the other end, her voice ringing in Mono’s ears.
Cutting her connection with Shamisha, however, Mono decided that it was time to unleash a portion of the energy that her twin had gathered in the other world to simply roast the keeper out from under the soil of Elenaris.
"We will lose the spire, but we can always rebuild. Getting rid of this parasite es first." With that in mind, she connected her mind to the godkiller weapon. Its internal whirred to life, and its colossal body was zapped with electricity. The giant structure, as it lifted itself from the ground, tore through the entire secret lab. And from there began its crawling match towards the spire, crushing and crumbling everything in its path.
"A zero point zero, zero, zero, zero, one percent energy blast should be enough to wipe all signs of this monster."
"That little?" Grace murmured, squinting with concern.
Nodding her head, Mono reminded her what the twin was conserving the energy for.
"The power source was meant to destroy Altaris in a flash of pure energy–burned away with nothing left of its existence as proof." Just speaking out loud, Mono felt her own spine tingling with unease. So much power, so much strength–trapped in the heart of a beast created from the strongest metal known to man and capable of killing not just this world–but its gods along with it.
’Despite all of this power, the twin came here to revive her own world. Time and magic, Razor and Amedith were needed even though she had so much power at her disposal. Something...I suppose, can’t be bought back. And life in her world was much the same. Destruction is easy; repairing the damage with just energy? I don’t think that’s possible, not when that energy can’t equate to conscious life, people, and the connection that bridges them together.’ Feeling the weight of such immense power in her hands, Mono felt anxious about the test. But it’s too late to back out now; besides, the more she delays a test run, the less prepared the machine would be when they have to fight against the gods.
"Grace." Taking a deep breath, she smiled. "Can you ask the maids to prepare a banquet? Our guests will be hungry. And gods know we need some fort after what’s about to happen."
"As you say, Master." With that said, Grace walked away to work on the meal that would feed the entire city. All the while, the Godkiller confidently strided towards the Spire, destroying everything in its path and gathering energy on its underbelly cannon to shoot the earth after toppling the spire.
Under Shamisha’s guidance, the citizens were swiftly led to safety. Thanks to the many tridents stationed not too far away at the dark sand beach. Their repairs had just concluded, and the newly fitted teleporting stones were finally operational. Linkle was the one to aid the bunny girl with the rescue of the people from the confident stride of the godkiller. And when it came time for Mono to finally test the machinery–the giant rammed its shell against the spire and toppled the whole building over.
Once its ruins were rubble and dust floating in the air, the charged beam was placed right above the underground supporting pillars. For a moment, the queen felt hesitant, but then Shamisha rushed into the throne room, screaming the words.
"Everyone’s been evacuated!"
’Fire!’ And so the crab dug its claws into the ground and lowered its body, the beam now charged all the way–it fired pure white energy into the ground with a massive shockwave that tore everything around it. Inside the throneroom, Shamisha fell to the ground the moment she was hit with a burst of air, flinging open the massive iron doors to the throneroom. Even Mono felt a crack appear under her finger on the Ivory throne.
As for the rest trapped in the mansion? Every single one of them was either knocked out from the pressure or injured from the flying furniture, tiles, and everything that wasn’t bolted to the ground. After a few seconds, however, as the loud sound from the spire’s direction died down, a loud shriek was heard, and yet another ripple of energy–much weaker than before washed over the entirety of Elenaris.
Nobody but the queen had any idea what had gone down, and even as she was glancing down at the massive crater created by the god killer, she was at a loss for words. The massive beam had burned the ground to dust into a massive well with no visible base at its end.
"Hmmm...It works." She said, opening her eyes, although the very next moment, she felt the godkiller collapsing on the ground with every nut and bolt in its body snapping right off. "Well fuck."
"Fuck? That’s all you have to say?!" Getting herself up, Shamisha angrily charged at her master, screaming. "YOU STUPID BITCH!!"
Although Grace quickly moved in front of Shamisha, even she couldn’t help but ment on Mono’s reckless stupidity.
"She may be a stupid bitch. But she is the Stupid bitch that rules our kingdom; please back away–honored Sorcesses."
Heaving a sigh of relief, Mono decided that it was time for distraction while her automatons tried finding signs of the keeper’s end. Which in the end, they wouldn’t, for even the core of the beast shattering was the very cause for the second ripple of energy.
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