The Mantis Equilibrium - Book Two - 24. Chapter 24 - The Clash

Vion wielded a sword.

Chenchi gripped a club.

They stood with 39 other Messiahs at the border to Gate Town. There was no sneak attack this time; they were bringing war to their sworn enemies.

The night was cold and dark, and the winter sun was still hours from sliding above the horizon and spreading its light over the two angry crowds. Countless voices, shouting at and over each other formed a raucous chorus that only further built the tension.

Vion glared across at the resistance. There were many more people on the opposing side, and they looked to him like a ragtag mob of angry protesters, weak and ineffectual. However, there were undoubtedly Shifts, and he could even see several Biological Shifts among them. Vion focused on them.

He stared down to the far end of the resistance at a pair of Biological Shifts. A man with blue skin was standing beside a figure who was transparent, not unlike the crystalline husks that Vion was investigating, and he wondered if the two of them were part of the group who were killing his people.

Vion left Chenchi and wove through the pack of Messiahs, and he noticed a woman whose hands burned with a pulsing red energy. He did not want to see what she could do; he wanted to cut off her head. Vion ground his teeth, hating the standoff, the stalemate that neither side seemed anxious to break. He continued through the crowd until he was across from the two Biological Shifts; Vion was determined to take their heads.

Then suddenly, a giantess lumbered up behind the inhabitants of Gate Town.

Vion stopped in his tracks. He was amazed.

The massive woman towered over everyone. She was wearing thick plate armor and carrying a wicked warhammer.

Vion greatly desired to cut her down to size, and he squeezed his sword’s hilt in his powerful fingers as he continued through the gathered Messiahs. He also noticed a man in the crowd with smoke rising from his skin. The idea of slaughtering every enemy was delicious to Vion.

As he reached one end of the crowd, the opposite end erupted in chaos.

A beam of blue energy blasted into the Messiahs, and the screams of those who were hit by the assault rang out through the streets.

Vion turned and saw what looked like a man-bear. The beast was not as big as the giantess, but he was huge.

Across from him, two Messiahs were on the ground, writhing in agony. They were both missing flesh and their exposed bones were scorched and blackened. One of them had been hit in the arm and the other in the ribs.

Seeing their catastrophic injuries, Vion assumed the man-bear was one of the other killers who he was hunting. He was now certain that the three were there in the crowd of resistance, and the fiercest rage boiled up in him.

“Charge!” Vion screamed at his horde of Messiahs, and they did.

Several in the back of their group carried ranged weapons, and they hurled javelins like missiles into the protesters. Multiple people were impaled, both Shift and their human cousins alike. A pair of Messiahs at the back started throwing boulders into the resistance, and the rest of their fellow empowered brethren launched themselves at the residents of Gate Town.

Those humans among the protesters who possessed the greatest survival instinct fled the slaughter, but Shifts of all sorts retaliated against the Messiahs. Their energies appeared in countless forms.

Rings of yellow light flashed from one woman’s hands. Another fired beams of green energy from her eyes. The bear-man launched several more blue blasts, and from behind him, a young teenager with skin like liquid mercury jumped at an oncoming Messiah. The youth’s body split into countless pointed projectiles that separated and soared through the air. They sunk into the Messiah’s nigh-invulnerable flesh and pierced him straight through. He fell to the pavement dead, and the boy’s liquid body reintegrated. His hands formed into a pair of long blades, and he rushed at the attackers.

Vion saw Chenchi collide with the resistance before he lost sight of her. Then he turned his gaze forward and ran at the Biological Shifts who dared to oppose his authority. He hoped they were the murderers, and he looked forward to massacring them.

The Biological Shift with blue skin reached out for Vion as he attacked, and the Messiah swung his sword through the air like a hurricane. The blade made contact, sinking into the blue man from his collarbone to his ribs. Vion’s blow took the man’s arm off, and it opened his torso with a fissure in his flesh. Pale yellow blood burst from the destructive strike, and vile organs the color of unripe tomatoes poured from the body-rending gash. He fell to the pavement.

Vion turned and swept his sword toward the transparent Biological Shift, and it collided with the man’s neck. To Vion’s astonishment, a full third of the blade snapped off with a ringing krang as it collided against the man’s diamond-hard epidermis.

A crystalline fist like a jackhammer then slammed into Vion’s mouth. The Biological Shift’s other hand came crashing into his gut. Vion staggered back, shocked that a mere physical attack hurt him. He brought a hand to his face and was startled to see blood on his fingertips. This was the first time he shed blood since consuming the Shift’s mantis gland that turned him into a Messiah.

He was further astounded, as the blue Biological Shift’s body fused, and the man pushed himself up with his remaining arm. He then reattached the severed one, and the man’s healing was instantaneous; he was back in the battle.

People in every direction were screaming. Unlucky humans who were caught in the path of the raging Messiahs were pummeled and left to die. Shifts who were unable to resist the assault fell to the strength of their enemies. Many Messiahs on the opposite side were struck by the eldritch cosmic energies of different Shifts, and they were utterly destroyed.

Vion charged at the blue man again with his broken sword, but the giantess leapt in the way and swung her hammer down with the force of an avalanche. Vion caught himself and stumbled back as her weapon hit the pavement. The blow cleaved a massive divot in the thick concrete and caused a shockwave that knocked him to his knees and sent a stony shrapnel spray that pelted his skin.

Vion rose and roared, but the giantess was on to other enemies, and the overpowered Messiah suddenly found himself face to face with an unimpressive-looking elderly woman in an apron and a bonnet. She stepped right in front of him with a disapproving expression on her wrinkled face. Vion swept his sword through the air, and he laughed aloud, as the little old lady raised her hands to block the blade. His voice died, however, when her little fingers did indeed stop the sword.

The woman gripped into the already broken blade, and to Vion’s surprise, she twisted the metal as if his weapon were made of no more than folded paper.

“You’re…” he stammered. “You’re a…” but Vion was not given the opportunity to call her a traitor.

Distracted by the little ex-Messiah woman, another diamond punch slammed against the side of his head and sent him sprawling. The crystal Biological Shift then kicked him in the guts and knocked the wind out of him. He collapsed to the pavement, gasping for breath, and hands grabbed him from behind. Vion’s eyes would not focus for a moment, and he thought that this would be his end, but he was yanked along the pavement away from another felling blow of the giantess’ hammer.

Above Vion’s head, a void opened in the atmosphere like a disc of shadow, and a vicious bolt of black fire blazed from it. It grazed Vion’s shoulder and he winced in agony. The pain was so severe that even without a proper breath in his lungs, he still managed to wheeze a pathetic cry. However, the hands that pulled him away now barely gripped him. Vion turned to look behind him. His eyes focused. The arms were still there, as were the legs, but the rest of his fellow Messiah’s torso and head were vaporized to nothing.

Vion pushed himself to his knees again and shuffled to the edge of the battle. He slipped down a side alleyway, choking and gasping and slowly catching his breath. He pushed himself up, leaned against the wall, and stared back into the pandemonium.

The giantess’ warhammer collided with a Messiah’s head, and Vion watched his companion decapitated before his very eyes. The woman’s massive strength even overpowered that of the Messiahs.

Radiant bursts of energy filled the streets of Gate Town with multicolored explosions.

Vion could see Chenchi through the chaos, as many beams of power from multiple Shifts struck her down. The frail-bodied people in the resistance were pummeled by the Messiahs, but the screams of Vion’s brethren made him flee the battle. Their bodies were torn asunder by energies from the universe that they could not withstand.

Vion thought things were already bad, but they were about to get worse.

As he hobbled away from the violence, the Messiah Tower came into view. His relief turned to terror, as the temple of his people began to crumble and fall to the earth✪