Falling onto a dead Advisor is a nice way the break your fall, just for the record.
After a tumble, ███████ stands up, dusts herself off, and checks her equipment.
Ah! Her crossbow is still intact, and she has a good supply of bolts. Her armor piercers are mostly gone, but so are the targets she would have used them on.
In her part of the battlefield, anyhow. The Combine were still pursuing the fleeing Resistance elsewhere.
Where's her staff? Oh, there it is. "Eruni? Ayuni, Leeuni! Come to me!"
The three apes appear again. "Mistress, is that really you?" Eruni asks while Ayuni runs over to ███████ and picks through her hair.
"Feeling a bit full after that," ███████ says, grinning. "but I want to try that on more time, This time without a proboscis wiggling about in by brain." She rubs the back of her neck.
"That is her," Leeuni says. "Yes," confirms Ayuni, "I find nothing hiding on her scalp or under her scalp." "Do you really want to bring another Advisor here? Oh please don't, they have terrible voices, even from afar," Eruni complains.
"Don't worry my pet, you won't be in earshot of that Advisor. I want you to take this dead one and dump it in one of those pocket dimensions you have found. I wish to study it further." She chuckles to herself as she thinks of th grandiose plans the Advisor had for her body.
Eruni walks over to the Advisor's corpse, and then vanishes, taking the corpse with her.
"Good," says ███████. "Ayuni, I need you to point out the closest Advisor to Leeuni."
"There! I see a slug floating above that fight."
"I can't see it, but I trust in your eye. Leeuni, call it over."
"SEAWORM! MY MISTRESS HAS ALREADY SLAIN A NUMBER OF YOUR SPECIES AND WONDERS IF YOU ARE ALL SO WEAK AND DEFENSELESS. ONE WONDERS HOW YOU CONQUERED THIS PLANET AT ALL." Leeuni taunts.
The distant Advisor looks toward the source of the voice and notices the large gap in the Combines forces. It hastily communicates with the others and coordinates a closing of the gap.
(how?)
Most of the Advisors were up in the air, fighting the Dragon and the Black Lion on the opposite side of the field. There was no one closer to the gap, no one else who could investigate it.
"It approaches," Ayuni reports.
"You two go home."
"But..."
"I don't want any distractions, either for me or the Advisor. Besides, what would I do if one of you perished? I don't want my monkeyfaced
'sister' to regain her voice or her sight. Go."
And the remaining two gorillas vanish.
A sea of dead bodies and broken machines
(how?)
But only a human female left standing. Clothed in green robes, clutching a lance? and a crossbow??
(how?)
Wave after wave of pain washes over ███████. She lets it happen, she lets it knock her down to the ground. But she doesn't stay on the ground. "What is the maximum lifespan of you species?" she asks.
She gets slapped into the air by an invisible force. She doesn't land gracefully at all, but she gets up, and demands."What is the maximum lifespan of you species?"
(why?)
She is launched into the air again, and teeth grinding pain awaits her when she lands. "What is the maximum lifespan of you species?"
(why?)
The Advisor decides to find the answer.
{I am your Queen! I AM Your Mother.
You WILL Obey ME!.
You will LOVE ME!
FOREVER.}
(MUTANTEXILEFAILUREIMMORTALFAILURECRIMINALMUTANTEXPERIMENTEXILEATAVISMMONSTEREXILE how do you know of her?!)
The Advisor lifts ███████ and throws her much farther than before.
(why won't you die?)
███████ stands again. "Then let me ask a simpler question. How long do those bodies last y...I WILL NOT DELIVER THIS WORLD FROM THE CLUTCHES OF THESE WORMS AND INTO YOUR CLAWS!!"
The Black Lion roars overhead, harried by Advisors.
(fear)
███████ begins firing off fireballs at the Black Lion. Some hit their target, but most are deflected toward the pursuing Advisors. It is then that cats, felines of all sizes, start darting in and out of the edges of her vision.
(distress?)
Distressed giggling, laughing. Jaws, bone crushing jaws circling the charnel houses. Whooping, lowing, howling.
More cats appear. Panthers, lions, tigers.
Claw beasts. "By what foul trickery are you avoiding me you slinking beast?" ███████ shouts at the harried Black Lion. Cats! Cats everywhere! "You are in league with the worm!" Magic isn't working. Projectile weaponry! She loads her crossbow and shoots at a phantom jaguar.
Lowing, terrible lowing. Screaming. Giggling.
(This is not Africa. This is... No, this can't be Africa. Not again.)
Whooping.
The ghostly cats begin appearing to the Advisor.
(how?)
"You where in league with them the whole time!" ███████ is loading and firing as fast as she can, but the cats keep coming, the Advisor keeps deflecting the bolts, the Black Lion is still too far away for everything but magic.
It was then that the first hyena appeared.
███████ is sent flying through the air again.
Packs of hyenas. Lowing, groaning. Giggling, chattering. Squealing. Waiting to pounce.
(this is not africa. this is... why can't i remember?)
"What are these creatures?! More allies of cats?? I WILL KILL YOU ALL!" ███████ searches for her special crossbow bolts. There are no more of the diamond tipped armor piercers, but there is … opal.
Searing light splits the sky and the air thunders in protest. Wherever the opal-tipped bolts land, lightning strikes!
The hyenas pounce and the cats are thrown into disarray. Bone crushing jaws and teeth snap at legs, at necks, at heads, at bellies.
(this is not ... home. i want to go home. how? where?)
"HUMANITY IS MINE!" ███████ fires a bolt at the large shadow the flying Black Lion casts.
Kra---THOOM!
Through the Advisor's mind and through ███████'s there comes an unearthly scream. A scream and images and words and fear and RAGE. Ragefear directed at Anticitizen One, the monster, the destroyer
(Tell me, Dr. Freeman, if you can. You have destroyed so much. What is it, exactly, that you have created? Can you name even one thing? I thought not.)
RageHATE
fear of the gourd with the changing red numbers notagourdabombnotabombanurnacoffin
(what is this feeling?)
The GeneWorm Facility is consumed by light. Pure starlight unfiltered by thousands of kilometers of atmosphere and millions of kilometers of interplanetary space. ███████ rose to meet the light with arms wide open. She let it burn her clothes, she let the light taste her flesh.
Not a gourd
A bomb
Not a bomb
An Urn
A Coffin
Full of the Ashes of a Dead Star
She awaited the shockwave; the emptied out eyesockets of her grinning, blackened skull keeping their vigil of the light.
A Star That Grew Up Too Fast
A Star That Grew Too Big
A Star That Consumed Too Much
A Star That Burned Too Brightly
A Star That Died Too Soon
A Star Whose Death Seeded The Stellar Nurseries With Life
And Seeded the Clouds That Gathered Around Those Newborn Stars
With Death
And I Shall Show Them The True Horrors Beauty Of Immortality Eternity Life Death