Vault: Dying Light
Skitskat woke up in a house; yellow walls decorated with flowers, a large TV hung upon a wall, the smell of her mother's stew in the air, and she sat on a large soft sofa. She sat in a house in a city, pictures of her children with varying talents covered the walls, the children playing or studying in the living room, judging by the colouration and the different scents in the house, she had 6 children, her enlarged stomach indicated twins. Beside her was the man she hoped would be her husband. She had met him in her homeworld, but he left before she got the chance to confess. He sat tired on a couch, clutching her hand with a loving look in his eyes that skit returned.
Keshab woke up in a field with a pain in his nose, his son was in combat stance with a terrified look on his face and his wife was laughing in the background. His wife was as white as snow with emerald eyes and fit from living off the land. Their son was brown, black and white and was strong for his age. Keshab laughed as he picked himself up, nodding with amusement and approval. The two spent years perfecting their technique, learning to travel the cosmos, lock picking, disguises, and all his trades. He watched as his son stumbled and failed, only to rise to heights he could only dream of.
Borvolog awoke in his spaceship at the prime of the Kenesion Empire before the chitin collapsed it. The galaxy was a tapestry of lights. Starwhales in pods of thousands sailed across the void, their excretions seeding a new galaxy, gigastructures bridged galaxies together, allowing for near instant travel across the universe and other universes. In the far-off corner, his budding buddy pointed to a new civilisation reaching for the stars.
Kenisions reproduce via mitosis; each clone has similar memories to the original but different personalities. These are called budding buddies, buddies for short. This one was the closest thing he had to a younger brother. Borvlog, sensing his buddy's excitement, set a course to safely observe the civilisation, promising to take him planetside if he behaved and kept up disguises.
Something was odd, however. The controls hardly felt solid, the time was off by trillions of years, voices of Keshab and Skitskat were heard like distant echoes, and the words “v-39-ip” flashed on the console. He pressed on the word; memories of the emerald twilight, his previous adventures, the fall of his empire, all were displayed on the interface. He felt a dreadful weight on his nucleus as the realisation hit him. He focused on reality, pushing his senses to their utmost. His brother was gone, the empire was gone, the galaxies before him were no more than a congealed mass of writhing, thinking flesh that turned anything that drew too close to it into chitin. His electromagnetic field detected 4 objects, none matched the size, shape or mass of anything in the room.
At the height of his dread, Borvolog watched in terror as he relived the worst moments of his inherited memories. The gigastructure flexed and buckled as trillions upon trillions of hive ships burst forth like a virus, cancerous tendrils wrapped around the gigastructure, amplifying their will on reality, barnacles grew upon the gigastructure and belched spores into space, an onslaught of Chitin warriors swarmed the structure, digging into every crack and crevice. A pulse of collectivised malevolence ungulated spacetime, his buddy boiled and blackened in an instant, Borvlogs' protective shield broke against the roaring shockwave, insignificant against the hiveminds' might. His last moments in his fallen paradise were of his buddy's protective membrane bursting across the floor and a mass arising from the tar. Borvlog's body sank into the liquid, watching as the chitin tore creation apart.
Its shriek of terror and despair rang through his connected link.
Skitskat's dream altered to her in a hospital bed, her last recollection being driving to the hospital. Behind the hospital window with the words “v-39-ip” stuck to it, her husband stood in front of her 6 children, clutching the newborns tightly, his face relieved and joyful. Skitskat reached for her husband.
Around the same time, Borvlog's mental shockwave cracked the dream. Instead of her hand, a metal one reached out. She looked down to see most of her body being converted into machinery. A conglomerate of grinding metal and roaring pistons, memories of her friends, her homeworld and her mission were forcefully revived. Skit called out for her friends, for anyone to help. She slashed and tore at her cybernetics, much to her family's horror. Something broke inside her; the pain was agonising, shooting through her body, gears ground to a halt, and her body stopped responding. She fell back onto her bed, her head shifted to a mirror: her jaw was mechanical, one of her eyes was not of her own, black, viscous fluid poured from her mouth and nose.
Borvlogs' disembodied voice could be heard; his pained and terrified cries were a beacon. A beacon that Skitskat clung to. She closed her eyes and focused, blocking out her husband and children's cries, the gargling as the oil filled her failing lungs, until there was only silence and wetness.
Keshab reawoke in what appeared to be a mortuary, rows upon rows of sarcophagi lining the wall up to the ceiling, Thomas and other Chagoran security forces surrounded him. All he remembered was that this was a heist gone wrong. After being caught, his wife and child were separated by armed guards. He barely had enough time to process his surroundings when the sarcophagi hissed open. His wife stepped out: her fur now chrome fibres, her eyes were white flames, her skin seemed to have been dried out and encased in liquid metal. For a brief moment, their eyes met before she marched down the corridor. Keshab knew that the automaton was no longer his wife; his heart sank deeper and deeper at the thought of his son suffering the same fate.
Thomas pulled him up in front of the sarcophagi, the words “v-39-ip” engraved on the centre. The sarcophagi opened, revealing a bed of needles, sockets and plugs. Keshap was forcefully shoved inside the sarcophagus, kicking and punching as he went. The door slammed shut, the plugs shot out wires that restrained his hands, feet and neck, the air grew thin, a cold wetness began to fill the sarcophagi that bit and stung and hissed. Keshab mustered all his strength, slithering hands out of their restraints. By now, the liquid was up to his hip and became even more excruciating. He punched the door relentlessly, the crack growing with each strike. With the liquid up to his chest, with his free hand, he pulled the rope into his mouth. Kishab's powerful jaws broke the restraint, but he also tasted the liquid in his mouth. He hissed at the taste and pain it brought. With that pain, he sent his head crashing into the sarcophagus door and flying forward. Red liquid forced him back down; it didn't sting, but was warm and thick.
Borvlog and Skitskat found themselves knee-deep in a thick, red substance smelling of iron, bile and amniotic fluids. Keshab burst from the liquid further and deeper ahead, manic and feral, panting in erratic rhythms. His eyes snapped to his crew before turning to the artefact, now further away, an otherworldly radiance illuminated it. He raced towards the artefact through the sludge. If the legend was true, it could get them out of there, it could save them, he could save them. It got deeper, deeper and deeper until he found himself up to his chest in the substance.
He went to push a heavy object out of the way, only to find his wife coldly staring back at him. Keshab stopped, the hairs on his body stood on end, the adrenaline wearing off as he cradled the body in his arms, clutching it tighter and tighter to his chest. Borvolog kept trying to reach him, begging them all to wake up from the illusion. Keshab closed his eyes, mumbling how this wasn't real, how she was fake. But she felt so real, smelled so real, her cold body being the major difference.
When Keshab opened his eyes, he found himself clutching empty air; the vault returned but had grown larger. Skitskat collapsed to the floor, and Borvologs reformed himself from inside the host. Their disguises were deactivated. The trio quickly surmised that they had been discovered. They turned to look at the door, only to find it gone, replaced by a wall. All they needed to do was grab the object and leave.
“Keshab. The teleporter.” Skitskat said, barely holding back her fear. “Get us out of here!”
Keshab looked at her and then at the artefact. It was just within reach.
Keshab picked himself up, and he stumbled towards the podium, claws stretched out, reaching for the object. Keshab became more sluggish. slower, slower, yet slower. Until he came to a halt, a thin veil of light wrapped around his body, as did the others.
In the far-off corner, the vault's wall began to open, and something stepped into the vault. It looked like a shadow trying to pull itself together; metal feet tapped against the floor, it was a robust humanoid automaton, cold white eyes regarded them, the semes of its body glowed an neon green, the id number “OS-459” was engraved on its collar, its body was chrome with orange and green lines going down its body similar to a high visibility jacket, it's skull had yellow streaks going from its mouth, through its eyes, ending at the back of its neck.
Frozen, a primal, visceral wave of fear rippled through their bodies as they tried and failed to move.
It skulked between the team members, systematically analysing them; Its long, talon-like finger poked Borvolog, electricity crackled as it pierced his energy barrier and distorted his membrane. Borvolog thought he had long purged fear from himself, as almost nothing could truly hurt him. His shield made him neigh untouchable, to have his delicate membrane violated by human machines provoked a vile sense of disgust and helplessness in the kenision. His attempts to overpower the field only resulted in the veil constricting him further.
"You are as foolish and arrogant as you are, brave." The machine's voice echoed in mild amusement.
It moved onto Skitskat: it moved her head to face him, opening and closing her mouth, his hand gliding through her soft fur and stroked her tail, it plucked one of her whiskers and looked at it, the automaton shifted and warped its form into a facsimile of her before reverting to its original form with her nose added to its face. With its new nose, it sensed the fear radiating from her body: her throat began to close up and burn, she felt her head start to spin, and her eyes became irritated by the tears that couldn't flow down her cheek.
“It was fun seeing you finally grow a spine. Though to be honest, I thought you wouldn't have made it.” the machine said to Skitskat.
It finally moved on to Keshab, moving him slightly back, petting and prodding him, stroking him like Skitskat, and just like Skitskat, plucked off Keshab’s whisker and transformed into him. Keshab pushed against the veil, and the veil's grip tightened further. The machine morphed further, finishing on a Panthoran he had not seen but retained a stark similarity to him.
“This whole situation is remarkably similar to a Terran phrase. What was it?” the machine asked mockingly. It morphed again into a human he recognised, his father. “Suspicion has kept us alive many times, but boldness has granted us victories.” it said as in his voice, its eyes narrowed.
It snapped its fingers, the veil dissolved, and the vault burst to life: Skitskat collapsed from terror and asphyxiation, Borvolog lashed out with his telekinesis that tore up the very floor and ignited the air, Keshab unholstered his blaster and fired at the robot. The machine clapped its hands together, and the veil wrapped around them again. The Blaster bolt slowed to a stop in a net of light, the uprooted shrapnel and the telekinetic wave paused by a barrier, Skitskat froze just above the floor, the look of dread plastered on her face, blaster half drawn.
"You have far exceeded my expectations of you; you were indeed worth my attention this time around.” The automaton seemed to slide about the vault, adjusting the position of the teams, crushing the plasma bolt and toying with the electricity in the air. “I am designated OS-459, a security droid assigned to this sector to protect and catalogue artefacts and data for future projects. And you are all intruders." The group was baffled; this was the first time they'd met, yet it spoke as if they'd met before.
The machine gripped Keshab’s face, his talon fingers cutting a shallow wound into his neck.
“For the last time.” the machine uttered
The machine darted over to the artefact, picked it up carefully, its hand morphing to best fit the grip, marvelling at its craftsmanship before placing it back.
"The artefact has not been taken, disappointing. I shall notify the psycho-neurology team of their success." It put the artefact back, its eyes scanning the group.
"I shall run another simulation. Cycling through potential candidates." Holographic images show the many victims trapped within the loop. Terror, horror and dread, welded to their faces. Humans, Chitin, Lupinoids, Feninods, Panthorans, aborials, Ursis, Kenisions, Draconians, Baberogins, races and creatures they've never even seen before. The room grew bigger and more crowded with faces, suffocatingly so. Some of them they recognised, like the Corvox informant from the pub, some were familiar, such as Keshab’s wife and Skitskats' dream husband.
Unbeknownst to the machine, hidden by his external shield, Borvlog made an air pocket within himself. Within the air pocket, a ball of energy formed. OS-459 selected a group of Barbrogins for his next test; they were large, boar-headed, red barbarians who sailed across space. Before he could select them, the robot was shocked with a jolt of energy, disabling his stasis veil. Keshab was free and wasted no time; he fired his blaster at the machine. OS-459 batted the bolt out of the way, its fingers morphing into sicles.
Borvlog swiped his hand, and the machine was sent flying back, a long gash opened on its side. It stood up, and the gash was nearly closed, its eyes focused on Borvlog.
“A. Kenision?” it said. For a machine, it seemed almost concerned about facing a Kenision.
Its joints hissed with apprehension and readied itself for the next attack. Borvlog tried to use his telekinesis to hold the machine in place, but the machine's shields glowed in defiance of the Kenison's will.
“Stay down!” Borvlog ordered the others. Skitskat had regained consciousness but was too paralysed by fear to move. Keshab was already aiming at the machine when he felt Borvlog telekinetically throw him down.
With the only obstacle being the artefact, Borvlog felt as though he didn't need to restrain himself as much. OS-459 should see Borvlogs' electromagnetic field skew and grow with power. Arcs of electricity ignited the very air in the room in thin lines; those lines struck him like blades. The blades were too much for its shield to handle, chipping pieces of metal off the machine's body. As soon as one blade struck, 2 more took its place in a random position. The machine was stuck in a lightning storm, slowly being ground down.
Neither Keshab nor Skitskat had ever seen this level of power from him before and were too terrified to move. The air smelled of ozone and ash, the grating sound of metal being shredded rung throughout the vault; it was as if Borvlog himself was drawing upon air itself. They had no idea Kenisions wielded such power, but were thankful that Borvlog was on their side.
It took a moment for Keshab to track the pattern, but given Panthorans' quick reflexes and sensitive whiskers, Keshav managed to find a consistent area where borvlog avoided striking. Ann area around the pillar and himself. He cautiously slithered his hand up the podium, hoping to take the artefact while he could.
Skitskat, on the other hand, reached into her pocket for a plate-sized disk. After altering its coordinates, she reached inside.
Before either of their plans could finish, a deafening crack thundered throughout the room as Borvlog was thrown into the vault, cratering a wall. The machine stood where Borvlolog once was, heavily damaged but regenerating, its fist outstretched with tiny barbs on its knuckles.
“No one, let alone a human, should have this much power. How?” Borvlogs' voice seemed to irk him as he pulled himself from the wall. The cracks in both the machine and the wall seemed to regenerate at an alarming rate.
Borvlog could feel the body's broken state. Reluctantly, he began to digest the body, quickly breaking down all non-structural parts. He felt violated by the machine breaking his barrier and touching his membrane; this was worse. Helplessness, doubt, fear, and inferiority, things he had not experienced in aeons. He wanted to leave, but the sight of his team quietly concocting a plan stayed his cowardice. He saw Skit desperately fumbling through her portal and Keshab struggling with the t001 gun. He looked into Keshab's eyes, though fearful, and was filled with trust.
“Bide!” he thought, the trust from Keshab ignited a second wind in the Kenesion.
“Company secrets cannot be divulged.” The machine stood confidently, nearly restored. ”But I am man-made. Nothing can beat that.”
From both Keshab and Skitskat's perspective, Borvlog and OS-459 disappeared. The room was filled with ribbons of fire and beams of light, parts of the vault were suddenly pulverised and scorched, though the artefact, Keshab and Skitskat were untouched.
There were brief moments where Keshab could see flashes of images; OS-459 shooting beams of light from his hands, feet and eyes, Borvlog punching and kicking, straining the automaton's hull.
Occasionally, Keshab would see OS-459 lunge towards him and Skitskat but disappear within an instant, beams of light refracting off their bodies in a kaleidoscope of colours. The two could hardly breathe as the air in the vault became a hurricane, still struggling against the odds. Skitskit's eyes brightened as she fumbled in her portal, and Keshab had the t001 gun in his hand.
OS-459 slammed into the ground, metal mangled and red hot, yet persisting. Borvlogs' human host had suffered damage from the duel. Borvlog dissolved the remains until there was only a grey gelatinous blob in the shape of a human with his hand in a gripping position. In tandem with his hand, the machine arose.
A metal ball slammed against the robot's chest, and metal rods jutted out from the ball, causing the machine to spasm from an EMP.
"MOVE!" Keshab bellowed, the t001 gun trained and ready, pulling the trigger.
OS-459's body immediately darkened until it was as dark as the void, engulfed in white flames that ate away at its form. Its body rose weightlessly into the air. With crackling fury, the machine was no more than sparks.
Skitskat meekly rose to her feet, scanning for the door. Keshab admired the artefact, twirling it in his hands.
“That was eventful. Let's get out of here.” Keshab said, examining the artefact in his hand.
“About that.” Skitskat pointed at the door, or where it should have been, before tinkering on her portals.
“And the portals?”
“Nothing bigger than my hand, I'm afraid.”
“Right, we're going to have to blast our way out. Borv you alright?”
Borvlog stood motionless, unresponsive. His membrane suddening in the light's presence, its humanoid face looked up to the ceiling. Keshab looked up too.
There was nothing, just a white ceiling. Perhaps it was his sharp eyesight or his mind playing tricks on him, but the ceiling seemed to reach higher than what should be possible, beyond the dimensions of the vault from an outside view.
Keshab ignored this oddity, fiddling with the interface on the t001 gun. It was set to disintegrate. Through Keshab's meddling, he set it to immolate, then to petrification. The spawn option piqued his interest.
In the spawn menu was an assortment of items. From walls to cars, ships and living creatures he’d never seen before. Some of them bore a resemblance to the myriad of races in the galaxy, two in particular sparked his interest. Images of cows and tigers. Keshab felt an odd familiarity with a tiger, an orange and black striped predator with a powerful build. it was familiar enough to recognise it as something similar, but bore an uncanny difference to himself and panthorans in general. Keshab found the similarities peculiar but subtly wrong. The cows, however, brought him back to his father's description. Large, black and white quadrupeds. Keshab couldn't help but chuckle at their strange design.
“Ay, skit, you gotta look at this.”
As he turned around, still fixated on the image on the device, he heard a door quietly hiss open. When he lifted his head, OS-459 morphed its arm into a blade, prepared to strike Skitskat down.
On instinct, Keshab fired without thought. A bolt of light struck the machine in the head and was buried under a weight. Skuskat rolled away, and Borvlog snapped out of his trance.
“What is that!” Skitskat shrieked.
The cow immediately stood up and began to run into a wall. The wall opened as the cow approached and quickly closed.
The machine leapt to its feet and shot a ball at Borvlog. borvlog batted it aside with its hand and shot a bolt of energy at the machine, bringing it to its knees. In response, the ball redirected itself into borvlogs back, penetrating his barrier. Before the Borvlog could expel the ball, it detonated.
A pulse burst from the ball crippling everyone in the room, Keshab and Skitskats seized up and collapsed, Borvlogs, hosts nervous system which was not digested, doubled the effect.
The mental link caused Borvlogs' pain to ring out to the others, the others' pain then reflected on Borvlog, the group's pain spiralled into further agony until the connection was severed.
From the ball, Borvolog's form began to blacken and bubble into a tar-like substance.
Despite her aching muscles and spinning head, Skitskat struggled to her feet, trying to pick up her friend's freezing body, only to have them slip through her fingers.
borvlog struggled to maintain its form; it shrieked in pain and writhed to the ground. Its form changed into objects and people whom it had met and disguised itself as over its eternity of existence, dead languages were bellowed, incomprehensible sounds echoed throughout the room, shapes of species long dead writhed in agony, memories burned away like images on film. The faint scent of ozone and sulphur was emitted from the tar.
He had never pictured himself dying in such a way; he never imagined dying in the first place. He had yet to see and experience a multitude of things. The shores of crystals, the inside of a star, the human smuggler's authentic Terran pizza. He had heard rumours of the human cradle world and had longed to see it for himself.
Yet even in his final moments, the eyes never left him. Borvolog could feel its presence beyond the room, now clearer than ever. The eyes carried more detail, a shape, a name that Borvolog could perceive and with that perception came a name, a name that brought visceral dread in the Kenesion's final moments. “Mahan.”
He pulled every ounce of energy he could muster in his failing body and implanted a mental package into his friends. Memories of a previous loop, an instinctual route of how to get out, glimpses of what to expect and how to get out alive. In addition to a new map were locations of ancient treasures scattered across the galaxy that could allow them to retire in luxury, cherished memories from before most civilisations came to be. The last memory was of their last dinner together. Though mundane and simple compared to his millennia of existence, there was a warm charm attached to it that warmed the heart.
“Survive.” it said
A mental void tugged upon the minds of Keshab and Skitskat, like a black hole of deep despair, pulling them closer and closer. Until the tar became still.
There was a deafening silence in the vault, broken by the droid's repairs and Skitskat's cries of anguish.
“Irregular. Victory: not expected.” the machine said, regrowing its arm and leg. It stretched out its arm, the metal liquifying and solidifying with a slight deformity. “This pain is new, something to adapt to, something to learn from.”
Before it could fully repair itself, it was riddled by blaster fire from Skitskat. They darted around, firing relentlessly at the machine. The machine seemed confused, as if it hadn't predicted the reaction; it looked at itself, calculating the damage it sustained.
Keshab hid behind the pillar, fiddling with the artefact until the touchpad displayed disintegration. He jumped up, firing several shots at the machine. As soon as that happened, the chest plate of the machine leapt off and intercepted the laser.
Tears rolled down Skitskat's eyes, she stopped whimpering and snarled as she attacked the automaton, firing blaster shots at it. It dogged effortlessly, but a stray bolt clipped its shoulder, sending it stumbling back. She didn't stop; she fired more and more until her blaster clicked.
The machine leapt at Skitskat, slapping away her blaster and holding her in the air by her throat. The robot was shocked by Skitskat's display of bravery, impressed even. Skitskat looked at the machine with newfound fury, desperately kicking and punching. Skitskat heard the t001 gun click and a bolt pass by his eyes. The adjacent wall exploded, revealing a security force outside the vault, unprepared for the explosion. Before they could spring into action, the wall of the vault regenerated.
OS-459 retaliated by throwing the injured Skitskat over at Keshab. Keshab dodged out of the way, but found a metallic fist that knocked him down and a metal foot crashing into his chest. It ripped the t00l gun out of Keshab's claws and analysed the artefact. It tampered with the device until the words “petrify” were displayed on a screen and pointed at Skitskat.
There was a brief flash of green light, and Keshab saw Skitskat holding her stomach, stumbling back. The robot released Keshab and watched him run to his last remaining partner. He held her as a flash of green lightning leapt from the growing infected area, he watched helplessly as she turned to stone before his eyes, her pained expressions lingering eternally in a stone visage. In her final moments, she felt the eyes, stronger than before, images of a prior loop realised. Borvlog was slumped over and on fire, Keshab riddled with laser burns, a pain in her abdomen, surrounded by armed guards.
The room was silent, occasionally broken by Keshab’s gritting teeth. Keshab turned to face the automaton, a machine riddled with laser shots. Keshab could have sworn that the face of the machine smirked as it shot Skitskat. Keshab stood up, ears rolled back, claws sharp and blaster drawn. He no longer cared about money, his life, his future; he wanted to destroy the device and end the loop, no matter how many lives or retries it took. Both Keshab and OS-459's weapons were at their sides. Keshab drew first, but was no match for the machine.
OS-459 watched as Keshab fell over, stone eating away at his body up his stomach. He fired more shots at the robot, rarely hitting. The stone ate away at his stomach, reaching into his chest, his legs went numb and stopped moving, and the stone was eating them both faster than the rest of his living body. Keshab still kept firing at the machine, and some of the shots grazed and hit the machine. When the stone crept up his chest, he felt his lungs harden too; breathing became near impossible, every breath of air was a fight on its own. It wasn't long until he lost feeling in his arms and neck, leaving only his head. His vision blurred as he suffocated, the growing numbness and stinging failure scourged him with every moment of failure.
The thought of his team, how his greed led them to their demise, the death of a dream with a child who would exceed him, his wife likely never seeing him again. As his vision and hearing disappeared, he was brought comfort by Benny escaping Prometheus without issue.
As the stone engulfed his head, blindness all-consuming, his heart stopped.
Once the machine confirmed Keshab's death, it returned the device to the podium and went back to its place in the vault's wall, sending a subtle signal to its superior.
The signals target stood in a hall: surrounded by obsidian podiums with strange, ever shifting icosahedrons and tesseracts set upon them, each one glowing with an haunting green glow, a gold plaque who’s letters also glowed green detailed the object, the date it was discovered and the contents, the hall itself seemed to stretch forever, rows upon rows upon rows of podiums, grey concrete floor tiles and cubes, the air was deprived from any sensation, heat, movement, odder, at the entrance had a metal door. A tesseract that showed the events was clutched within a metal hand, a grim face reflecting off the tesseract.