The Mantis Equilibrium - Book Two - 9. Chapter 9 - Gawa, Eroli, S'Kay, & Tualu

“We’re going to do it again,” said S’Kay, and her feathers fluttered.

“The three of us were magical the first time,” Gawa added in a fawning tone. The mineral-rippled patterns flowed across her unique skin.

“I can’t wait until Tualu gets here so that we can start,” Eroli added. He was feeling much more enthusiastic, now that the moment was upon them. “Ah-ha, Tualu! There he is!”

Gawa, Eroli, and S’Kay were in a section of the underground that was still accessible. Warning signs around the area declared that it was unstable and that people should keep away. Their hidden space did not collapse during the devastation the previous winter, and the three Biological Shifts now sat together, waiting in the darkness. Only a single candle burned, and its pathetic light did almost nothing against the overpowering shadow.

“Tualu certainly knows how to make an entrance,” S’Kay added.

“I can’t see him yet,” Gawa stated.

Eroli pointed and said, “There.”

In the air behind Gawa, an almost imperceptible glow began to add its illumination to the candle’s tiny flame.

“He’s so beautiful,” Gawa said in a breathy voice.

The glow increased and began to solidify, and it was geometrical. The new light became the form of shapes upon shapes that overlapped and wove together like a tapestry of angular elements. Then, within the brilliance, Tualu materialized and the light vanished.

“Hello, Tualu,” Eroli said to him.

“You are perfection,” Gawa added in a breathy voice. She stepped up and placed her palm against him.

S’Kay looked at Eroli and smiled. “It’s time,” she said.

Tualu did not possess a human-like appearance at all. S’Kay, Eroli, and Gawa were all humanoid in form with two arms and legs and a head atop their shoulders. However, Tualu’s mutation caused a physical development of his body that fused him with metal. Much of what used to be bones and organs and muscles and flesh was replaced by interwoven mechanical pieces that all worked together in an impossible and intricate dance, equating to his life as a Biological Shift. Tualu did not have limbs or a head. The man was a large and rectangular machine.

“Hey, baby,” Gawa said to him. She turned to look at the other two. “Ready?” she asked.

S’Kay and Eroli stepped up to Tualu. They also placed their hands on him, and the four of them vanished.

In the empty darkness of the underground, the flame of the single candle flickered and slowly burned down until all the wax was melted and the wick died.

S’Kay, Gawa, and Eroli reappeared without Tualu. The brilliant flash that accompanied his appearance was also not part of their arrival. The three of them were holding hands, standing together in a dark bedchamber. A lamplight outside shined in through a window and cast an eerie glow into the space. They looked around them, found everything that they were expecting, and they released their hands.

S’Kay, Gawa, and Eroli turned their backs to each other.

The west Messiah house was a large building in the industrial district, and it was home to 19 Messiahs, including Vion. He was the only one who was not at home when S’Kay, Gawa, and Eroli appeared in the stillness. All but two of the other residents were asleep.

Before the trio, six Messiahs lay in five beds that took up most of the dormitory-style room.

S’Kay approached a bed with two people sleeping side by side in it.

Gawa stepped between two beds and reached out to the individuals asleep in each.

Eroli’s vicious claws extended, and he whispered, “Death to cannibals.”

The three Biological Shifts unleashed their cosmic energies into the unconscious Messiahs, who awoke in terror but were unable to cry out, as each was slaughtered by powers that they could not resist.

The pair in bed together tried to get away, as their flesh began to melt. They pulled from S’Kay, but both collapsed as hideous green skeletons. A thin trail of steam rose from their bodies.

Two of the Messiahs sat up in their beds, but they went rigid, burned to human-shaped cinders by Gawa’s purple lightning. Flashes of her electricity crackled across their scorched frames.

Eroli sunk his claws into the other two, and their lives were extinguished. Their bodies were transformed into statues that appeared to be made from shards of crystal. The human form of each was still intact, but they were almost completely transparent, and what remained was as delicate as glass.

S’Kay licked her lips.

Gawa’s eyes were sparkling.

Eroli was smiling.

The trio approached the door and waited, listening, but they heard nothing. They crept out into the hallway and entered the second room. There were again five beds, but three of them were empty.

S’Kay entered alone and stepped up to the two sleeping Messiahs, as Gawa and Eroli continued down the hall without her. She again activated her incredible abilities and slaughtered the two Messiahs. They awoke in horrible agony, as S’Kay’s powers changed the state of the very matter that made up their bodies.

Her victims could not scream, as their lungs melted within their chests. They could not see, as their eyeballs liquified. They tried to move before their life left them, but the flesh sloughed from their green bones and steamed towards the ceiling.

Every single one of S’Kay’s countless feather-like protrusions possessed the capability to release her energies.

A moment later, she withdrew her hands from the ruined bodies.

They were dead.

She entered the third room behind Eroli and Gawa. Each of them was pouring their energies into two Messiahs at the same time, but there was a fifth sleeper in one of the beds. He awoke with a start and fell to the floor with his sheets twisted around him. S’Kay pounced upon the man and he let out a single wail before her brutal energies destroyed his flesh.

The trio of Biological Shifts heard a door open down the hallway and they peeked out at it. A couple, both in a state of undress, came stumbling out of one of the dorm lavatories. They were looking around in concern. The woman was trying to button her blouse, but it was open and one of her breasts was exposed. The man’s pants were unfastened and there was a bulge in his undergarments.

“What the…” he began to say, but his words were cut off, as Gawa rushed at the two of them and grabbed both by their faces. They tried to push away from her, but it was too late, and her violet electricity raged into their bodies. The pair of corpses slumped to the floor, and she left them burned down to charred husks. Purple lightning rippled over their scorched frames.

The three Biological Shifts left the bodies in the hallway.

There were two remaining rooms with sleeping Messiahs. Within each, four of the five beds were occupied, and the trio of vigilantes massacred those who slept therein. When every Messiah in the house was slain, the three crept down the stairs and exited through the back of the building.

S’Kay, Eroli, and Gawa escaped into the city streets in the dead of the night★