The Mantis Variant - Book One - 23. Chapter 23 - Madame Hart & the Principal Messiah, Part Two

"Fall back, warriors!" roared Madame Hart.

"Affirmative!" confirmed the Principal Messiah. "We got more than we came for! Get topside, now!" she shouted.

The small army of enhanced Demifae and Messiahs abandoned their dead. They left the carnage and the darkness, for the fading light of the setting sun above. Several Biological Shifts chased after them and even managed to slay a few more of the invaders before they made it to the surface. The surviving Demifae and Messiahs hauled their prisoners into the Messiah Tower.

"Bring them before us," commanded the Principal Messiah.

"Nine," Madame Hart declared with a wicked smile, as the incapacitated Biological Shifts were dragged into the room. She made a disgusted noise. "Aren't they hideous?" she spat.

Chained and unconscious, each of the nine individuals was unique.

"They're repulsive," the Principal Messiah agreed. "Efficient work and a successful mission," she declared to those gathered.

Their prisoners consisted of a man covered in thick fur like a bear, another with smoke rising from his exposed skin, and a third with four arms. There was also a teenage boy whose epidermis was reflective like liquid mercury. The invaders of the underground also managed to capture two women. One of them was animalistic in appearance. Her eyes were massive, but they were currently closed. Very long skinny claws grew out of the ends of her fingers, and she also possessed a tail. The other woman was grey-skinned and stony, as if she was carved from marble.

There were three more Biological Shifts, but their physiological changes were even further beyond their kin's. One body seemed to be entirely comprised of overgrown plants. A second sprawled like a pile of dead animals made of wings and eyes and boneless limbs and weird flesh.

Madame Hart pointed at the last prisoner. "That one," she said.

"Where do you suppose its mantis gland is located?" the Principal Messiah questioned.

The two stood over a motionless machine.

"Dismantle it," ordered the Principal Messiah.

"That's a person," murmured the Biological Shift woman with rock-like skin. She regained consciousness, but the brutal fist of a Messiah collided with her head and knocked her out again.

"Bring tools!" called Madame Hart. "I want to find this mechanical Shift's mantis gland."

The unified goal of the Messiah and Demifae assault was not to massacre, but to capture. In the assault, a mere 42 Demifae along with 17 messiahs brought all-out war to the underground. They left with nine Biological Shift prisoners and left behind 23 Demifae corpses and two dead Messiahs.

During their initial plans, Madame Hart tried to persuade the Principal Messiah to simply slay as many Biological Shifts as possible and take their heads. In the end, the leader of the Messiahs convinced her to strive towards the common goal of taking captives alive. The Messiahs wanted living Shifts for experimentation.

The two women led the attack, and secrecy was not their intention. The moment their small army arrived and entered the underground, the Biological Shifts were aware of them, and the unlucky pair on guard duty was brutalized by the oncoming horde. The Messiahs were armed with clubs and bludgeons, and their enhanced strength made their blows devastating. Ranged weaponry would have been worthless in the tight turning tunnels of the Teshon City underground.

The two guards were quickly subdued, but not before they eviscerated one Demifae with eldritch energies, and pummeled another with a barrage of flying stones. Once they were unconscious, their bodies were dragged over the dead Demifae, and they were pulled from the underground.

As the army penetrated deeper, they found and clashed with the Biological Shifts who dwelt therein, and there was pandemonium. Cosmically powered individuals faced off against those who stole cosmic powers from others.

The Principal Messiah fought with a battle hammer and a massive metal shield. One of the Biological Shifts fired an energy beam that she deflected, before swinging her terrible weapon. It collided and he crumpled. He was dragged bleeding up to the city above. With her hammer and shield, the Principal Messiah raged further below, and her fellow Messiahs were beside her.

She watched in horror as one of her companions faced off with a Biological Shift woman with a bird-like appearance. Her underling grabbed the bird woman by the wrists, but then instead of trying to break free from his grip, she leaned towards him. He screamed in unknown agony. Before the Principal Messiah’s eyes, his skin began to bubble and hiss, and the flesh of his arms started to melt.

As he tried to pull away from her, the bird woman grabbed his wrists and poured her furious energies into him. His wails of suffering grew weaker, as more of his body began to liquefy. Grotesque lesions formed all over the man's skin, and his hair slid from the dissolving flesh on his skull. Then his eyeballs ruptured in their sockets.

Finally, the bird woman released her terrible grip on the melting man, and she launched into an oncoming group of attackers. Compared to the Messiah man with his enhanced resistance and durability who she just ruined, those next unlucky targets were mere Demifae. The slightest brush of the feathery protrusions from her skin sliced into them like countless razorblades, and the most minor nick sent them sprawling to the floor and convulsing with foam pouring from their mouths. Their wounds hissed and smoked as if smoldering, and they died in the darkness of the underground.

Messiahs and Demifae battled against giants and people who looked more like animals than humans. They fought with elemental entities, and beings who possessed godlike abilities. Despite the superior firepower of the Biological Shifts, the army from above was well-prepared and brutal. Their assault was also brief, and in only a matter of minutes, it was over. They reached the surface again and dragged their prisoners through the streets.

In the Messiah Tower, the two leaders of the unified army stood together over the Biological Shift that appeared to be a machine. The Principal Messiah's eyes moved over to Madame Hart.

"Bring tools!" the Demifae woman demanded. "I want to find this Shift's mantis gland."

Then things got horrible.

The Principal Messiah turned on Madame Hart, and using her enhanced strength, she punched the Demifae woman so hard that her fist penetrated and entered Madame Hart's guts. The Principal Messiah sunk her fingers into the woman's organs and ripped them out with the same terrible force of her strike. Gore sprayed across the wall of the chamber, and her fellow Messiahs attacked.

"You think we are just going to let a mantis gland out of our sight?" the Principal Messiah raged at the dying leader of the fringe group of Demifae. She grabbed one of Madame Hart’s hunters and threw him against the wall with such force that the impact cracked the stone. He fell twitching to the ground.

"How dare you even approach us as equals?" she continued. "You're theft of powers through arcane incantations and shoddy witchcraft are no match to the empowerments that we as Messiahs gain. Your arts are a waste!"

All around the room, the remaining Demifae were betrayed and slaughtered by the Messiahs. Arms were ripped off and used as clubs against the bodies from which they were torn. Skulls were bashed against the walls and the floor until brains oozed from the bone shards. Bodies were pummeled and battered, until only Messiahs remained standing around the nine prisoners. The room was full of Demifae corpses.

The Principal Messiah spat a large glob of saliva onto the dead Master Mystic.

"Thanks for initiating this little skirmish," she said down to the body. "We'll be able to make nine more Messiahs." She turned and pointed at the prisoners. "Drag them to the elevator, and make sure they stay unconscious." As the doors closed, the Principal Messiah waved a dismissive hand over the Demifae corpses. "The rest of you," she commanded of the Messiahs who remained below, "get rid of these bodies in the Grey Shallows, then meet me in the preparation chamber. We've got some monsters to decapitate."

She turned and headed up a flight of stairs with several other messiahs, as the rest of the bloody company emptied the entryway of the dead. Within the preparation chamber, the Principal Messiah gave her minions orders.

"Bring my set of tools, and also two secondary sets. I need a pair of you to be cutters."

"We'll do it," offered one of her fellow Messiahs, and he indicated the man beside him.

"Very good," she replied. "The rest of you are on skulls detail."

The tools were laid out, and the Principal Messiah and the two designated to cutter duty changed their clothes and donned heavy leather aprons and gloves. In the middle of the room, the others slowly assembled a strange device.

Another Messiah came racing up the stairs and bellowed "Ma'am! Biological Shifts have entered the base of the tower!"

The Principal Messiah and her team abandoned their tools and raced out of the preparation chamber.

"The prisoners are secured at the top!" she yelled at her fellow Messiahs. "Now, get back down to the entrance and kill those fucking Shifts!" She added with a growl, "I want their glands."

The group of them turned for the stairs that led below, as devastating bolts of blue energy were unleashed upon them from above★