36. Hestia Part IV Armegeddon.

"There wasa time when we came quite close to getting the lizard's kind to free us," Charon said in the stillness that followed.

"Clever lizards. They had an uncanny ability to navigate the currents of the zeitgeist in their culture. It's a pity about your homeworld. But, as you know, a certain amount of suffering is always necessary to bridge realities. It may sound like magic, but I assure you, it's a science." Charon was engrossed in manipulating a peculiar display, unlike anything Auren had ever seen.

"What… what did you do to him?" Lupo stuttered.

The light around them was so thick Auren could barely see beyond his hands.

"Bartie? Why, he's in hell, of course. Pain. Suffering. Your emotions power our technology. Emotions require consciousness. All of reality requires consciousness. Without it, nothing would exist. You see, we started out not unlike you. We were corporeal—meat and bone, sinew and flesh. And then we adapted. We became more. We merged. We let go of our differences and accepted that each of us wanted nothing more than to survive at any cost. So now we scan the void. We listen to the whispers that flitter to us through the cracks in the laws that govern whatever makes any of this possible, and when we find a suitable reality to consume, we spread ourselves there. We do what every species does: we conquer. But it isn't a game, lizard. It's being an animal. And every consciousness has some semblance of an idea of what it is like to be one of those. But do you know what is a game? Ending consciousness. Erasing it. Wiping it out of each reality where it exists and then seeing what happens. That's a game." Charon wasn't singing anymore. Itsvoice sounded more like the whispers in Auren's head than it did the friendly AI assistant he had mistaken it to be.

"Skotádi," Ophion hissed.

"Yes, Keth. That is the name your kind knew me by when I attempted to make this same deal with them. It will always impress me that I had to wait for another species to catch up to you before seizing control of this reality. Your kind cost me millions of years. It takes a true galactic war to create a rift of pain big enough for us to travel through. You Keth made that exceedingly tricky before now. Always tamping down the newest upstart before we could topple you. In the end, we did have to give the humans a few little boosts along the way, such as the technology for these synthetic frames. Imagine the bandwidth issues with beaming the data to build these here from another dimension."

The portal in the doorway pulsed, and a view of the empty nothing of the Keth system glimmered across it. The gash that had opened there had grown to nearly the size of the system itself. Out of it poured thousands of battleships—all glowing the same blood red as everything else.

"And with that, I'd say that my job here is done," Charon said merrily. It floated toward the portal.

"I will say, that was one of the more difficult wars I've had to trigger," it announced, pausing briefly as though savoring its time in this dimension.

Auren felt a flicker of fear as the shadow loomed somewhere just out of view of his conscious mind. He could still hear it whispering in the moments his thudding heart didn't drown it out. He glanced nervously at his brother, then to Lupo and Ophion.

He'd said love.

The whispers screamed in agony—and Auren rose unsteadily to his feet.

"Hey, Charon?" he called.

"Why yes, Auren?" the droid replied, momentarily sounding quite harmless. It had been about to pass into the portal. A distant boom sent dust cascading down around them.

"Go fuck yourself."

Auren grabbed the still-smoldering Keth rifle from the ground and fired it at the alien robot, ignoring the pain his body attempted to alert him against.

A personal shield activated around the creature, and Auren grinned madly as first Lupo and then Fengári added their firepower to his own.

"I'm irrelevant," the droid sputtered.

"We can agree on that," Fengári gritted.

"You're wrong, Skotádi—it is a Game," Ophion hissed.

The whir of his micro-missiles launching had all three humans sprinting out of the temple and into the greater complex in a frenzy.

The red light seared so bright for a moment that it was totally blinding—and then they were stumbling out into the cool silver-blue of Hestia's dawn.

Auren collapsed on the ground. His brother crashed down beside him. He was followed by Ophion, who was covered in cuts and scabs from the shrapnel his destruction had created. Outside, it was as though nothing had changed. The red glow was gone. Just like that. The air was still. And from the looks of it, Charon hadn't made it out of the chaos alive.

But we're still here, the shadows whispered urgently. We're still in you. And now we're here to stay!

Lupo wrapped his arm around Auren's shoulder.

"Hey," he said.

The shadows fell silent.

"Hey," Auren replied.

Auren leaned into him, too tired to care anymore if Charon dragged itself out from behind them and murdered them.

"Uh… guys?" Fengári said.

He stood at the edge of the complex's staircase, staring down beyond where Auren could see.

Lupo looked at him, and they rose and joined Fengári at the steps, Ophion at their heels.

Below, thousands of synthetics stared up at them like they were their saviors. One by one, they fell to their knees in gratitude.

"You've freed us!" one called.

"By the stars, you've done it!" another cried.

Auren hadn't had time yet to realize that when Bartie had been disembodied, he'd likely lost his command over all the others. He noticed dozens of Lupos out in the crowd and stared at them incredulously as the one he knew beside him squeezed his hand.

"That invasion fleet is a problem we'll need to outrun for now," Lupo murmured.

Auren nodded, imagining those cruel red ships blinking into space above them at any time, piloted by the demons. Their mechanical agent had been bad enough—confronting one of the shades in person was beyond anything he hoped to experience.

"So what's the plan?" Auren said, staring out at the crowd as it continued to grow. Workers from across the valley were massing beneath them.

"Well. We have an asteroid that is more than capable of housing all of us. Last I checked, it had a few ships to spare in that hanger bay, too. And, of course, we've got the Fortunato. I say we make a run for it while we regroup. Let's get these people onto the Minotaur and get out of here while we still have a shot."

Auren couldn't think of a better idea. He shrugged.

"Yeah. Sure. Why not. Let's do it. Fengári?" Auren asked.

"Bruv, just get me off this planet and we'll be golden," Fengári said.

"And you, Ophion?" Lupo asked.

"I believe it is my destiny to see that these Skotádi are cleansed from our dimension. If I must partner with a horde of aberrations to perform that ritual, then so be it. I do, however, have a request," he hissed.

Auren was piqued.

"Go on," Lupo said.

"I would ask that you allow me to self-impregnate—for the perpetuation of my species."

Auren blinked.

"But you're a boy lizard?" Fengári said, looking at Ophion skeptically as though he'd missed something.

"My kind has many genders, and we can alter our hormonal state to move through them at will. Young Keth will be reckless, and it will occupy much of my time to rear a brood for the foreseeable future."

"And how many are in a brood?" Lupo asked.

Auren wasn't surprised he was considering letting Ophion do it. He seemed to have a soft spot for the alien. After all, the odd creature had saved them from certain doom more than once.

"Several hundred," Ophion answered.

"Alright. Well, I was expecting more like three or four, but if this feels like something you need to do right now, we can set you up on the asteroid."

"Thank you, friend," Ophion hissed. The word sounded strange, coming out of their mouth.

The lizard's eyes had softened since Auren had met them. Their posture was more relaxed. And Auren couldn't help but feel moved by their vulnerability now, by the trust they extended to them despite what they'd been through. In some weird way, Auren saw himself in them.

They had all begun to rely on one another in one way or another—and it drove them places none had ever imagined going. He looked out at the mass of synthetic humans beneath him, all of whom had been forced into torturous entrapment. Many of them, he knew, had been criminals, and now they were to build a society together as refugees.

To the best of his knowledge, this was all that was left of their kind. The demons had instantly eradicated the bulk of the human fleet before their eyes. Their mere entrance into this reality had dissolved an entire solar system. Their ships had been innumerous. Vast and terrible. He couldn't see how such a sophisticated foe could be counter-measured.

Humanity was doomed.