The Mantis Corruption - Book Three - 15. Chapter 15 - Tisa

On an unimpressive day, very similar to many of the days before it, for one brief moment in time everything went horrible for Tisa.

It was a chilly evening at the beginning of her first winter in Teshon City, and the sunlight was swiftly fading.

Tisa was collecting boards in an alley when a pack of hunters descended upon her, and she was trapped. Like holes that led to oblivion, her shadow discs suddenly surrounded, and the headless skeletal torsos that emerged from them were terrible.

Tisa spoke, “I can hear the cosmic music from the radiation of the universe!”

Before the first would-be attacker could get to her, one of Tisa’s creatures lashed out with a vicious sword comprised of nothing but darkness. It cut cleanly through the man’s neck and severed his head from his body.

Tisa continued, “I can taste the elements that burn in the stars!” and she sounded like a goddess.

“Claw Two, watch out!” someone cried from the mouth of the alleyway, but it was too late.

Another terrible apparition from one of Tisa’s disks of darkness, and it swiped through the air with a curved blade. Claw Two’s forearms were lopped off just above the elbows, and she fell to the ground, writhing and screaming. Her cries of anguish became a quiet gurgle, as she was skewered by another entity of shadow that impaled her to the ground with a brutal spear.

Headless skeletons of darkness were now protruding from each of the void discs.

“I see the world!” Tisa declared, and her voice came not only from her own mouth, but also from every apparition that filled the alleyway. Her words echoed with furious wrath. “I can see eons!”

One of her creatures struck another hunter with a brutal club, and a blade of blackness bit into the man’s hamstrings. He crashed to the pavement and roared in agony, as he tried to drag himself away from the deadly encounter.

Tisa wreaked havoc against her unknown enemies. “I look into distant corners of alien galaxies!” she cried, expounding on thoughts shared with her by Tilby.

Horrible weapons of darkness cleaved three more assailants, as they attempted to strike out at the hideous headless monstrosities. Their blows passed through Tisa’s shadows, but they were so much more than shadows. The swords and spears from the void also passed through the hunters, and their bodies fell to the grimy gutter, mangled and dead.

The hamstrung man was the only one left alive in the alley. He was trying to crawl away from his oncoming death was wailing.

Tisa stepped up and stood over him.

“Where are the others?” she asked, but she did not wait for a reply.

Another shadow hole opened and an apparition appeared with a massive battle-axe clutched in its bony fingers, and the vaporous skeletal form brought its blade down on the man’s ankles like a guillotine.

As his feet were removed from his legs, the man let out a scream like a lobster being boiled.

“Where are they?!” Tisa asked again.

“Fuck you!” he spat.

Without hesitation, her darkness monster struck again with the force of an avalanche.

The man shrieked, as both his legs were chopped through the knees.

“Who’s out there?” Tisa snarled at him.

The man bawled, “Talon!” and he reached for his leader.

“Who is that? Where’s Talon? Where is Talon?!”

Her creature struck again, but this time, its blade sank through the meat and bone of the hunter’s shoulder and took off his entire arm.

The one-armed man, bleeding out in the alley at Tisa’s feet, whimpered pitifully. With his remaining limb, he pointed a quivering finger at a rooftop several buildings away.

Tisa looked up and saw another man. He was staring straight at her, and even at the distance, he appeared shocked.

A final strike of the battle-axe removed the dying man’s head from his shoulders.

Tisa had never attempted conjuring one of her creatures at a distance, but when she reached into her powers, they obliged. Another disc of void appeared in a flash of darkness several stories up, right in front of the man who was staring at her. A headless skeletal entity emerged with a spear, and it thrust its weapon into the man’s heart.

As the last hunter fell from the rooftop, Tisa withdrew all of her apparitions.

She was alone, surrounded by death, and she knew this was right. Tisa wondered what it would all mean for her, as an idea began to percolate in her mind, and she was certain of the potential of her idea.

The day after her encounter with the hunters, there was the attack on the Teshon City underground. She did not learn about the incident until it was over, but the news of the battle helped Tisa recognize the purpose behind her new idea. However, it would be a full year before she was able to put her plan into action.

On one cold night, Tisa and Olona stood among the resistance in Gate Town. The crowd was protesting a group of Messiahs who were insistent upon imposing their authority over the city. There were many Shifts in the resistance, some of whom Tisa came to know over her year and a half in Teshon City. There were other humans, like Olona, who befriended their Shift cousins and lived with them. Present also were several Biological Shifts, and although their unusual appearance always startled Tisa, she was grateful they were with the resistance. She always enjoyed seeing any of them in Shifton.

A bear-man growled insults at the Messiahs to one side of her. He was huge, towering over most of the crowd, and thick dark fur covered every inch of him. Tisa’s eyes kept shifting in his direction, but the Messiahs who were opposing the resistance were her main focus. They menaced with clubs and blades and all sorts of weapons, but when a blue light began to emanate from the bear-man, Tisa turned her gaze back to him.

She could feel the oncoming confrontation. Tisa was ready to add her powers to the protection of all other Shifts in Gate Town, but when the clash finally happened, Tisa was almost instantly incapacitated.

A blast of blue energy sent the neighborhood spinning into chaos.

Tisa managed to conjure only a single void disc among the group of Messiahs. A vicious bolt of black fire blazed from it at the invaders of Gate Town. However, before she was able to do anything more, a massive chunk of stone came hurtling through the air. It exploded against one of the old Oselian military buildings in a spray of concrete shrapnel. One of the chunks collided with the back of Tisa’s head and knocked her out cold.

The battle erupted so quickly that Olona did not have time to get involved in the violence before Tisa fell to the pavement.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here!” Olona yelled to her unconscious companion. She grabbed Tisa under her arms and dragged her away from the fighting. Olona’s mechanically-enhanced body pulled Tisa with ease, and in a matter of minutes, the two women were back in their home at the edge of Shifton.

Olona immediately set about treating the small wound on the back of Tisa’s head. She cleaned it and applied a thin layer of ointment, then wrapped her head in a bandage. Olona tried to wake Tisa by speaking her name and gently patting her cheek, but the terror she had felt when the battle started now overwhelmed her, and she broke down in sobs that shook her body. Olona brought her face to her hands, and she cried hard.

Then fingers gently caressed her arm.

Olona dropped her hands and looked at Tisa through her tears.

“What happened?” Tisa groaned.

Olona shook her head. “It was really bad,” she whispered. “People were dying. I was scared, and I got you out of there.”

Tisa’s brain was bleary from the blow. “My head,” she moaned.

“Yeah, you got hit with a rock. Hey, don’t mess with the bandage!” she commanded, as Tisa began to tug at the fabric. “Just relax,” Olona said in a gentle voice. “Lay with me. Tell me about Liovia. What was it like living with a witch? By the by, I’m glad you’re okay,” Olona added. She climbed onto the bed behind Tisa and wrapped her arms around her injured companion.

Tisa mumbled, “She wasn’t a witch.”

“I know,” Olona said with a smile. She was very glad to be home.

They stayed up late and talked for many hours, as the adrenaline in their veins and brains dissipated. Tisa told stories about her life in the woods, and Olona shared her disappointments during her time as an apprentice. They each talked about their past many times before that night, but returning to the familiar topic comforted them before they eventually fell asleep.

That was the night that the Messiah Tower was destroyed.

Tisa went looking for Tilby many times after the Battle of Gate Town, but she never found him again, and she never learned what became of her friend.

A few months later, while Tisa was home alone, a bizarre machine materialized before her. She was startled by its appearance, but even more so, she was intrigued. On the front of the machine, several components shifted into a square that extended forward from its surface, and the shape of a human hand appeared. The hand began blinking with a soft yellow light.

Tisa pondered for a moment, but then she brought her palm to the illuminated handprint.

She and the machine vanished.

They instantly reappeared in a dark underground chamber, and a voice spoke behind Tisa.

“It looks like Tualu has decided to add a new member to our team.”★