The bodyshell reached down and pulled something from its bag. When it turned its robotic head towards Ethan, he could see it was Gauge. For a moment, he thought he was dead and his friend was simply a hallucination. He tried to reach up and touch Gauge’s chassis, but he didn’t have the strength.
“Hey, you’re gonna be alright, buddy,” Gauge said. His words ebbed in and out of understanding. “You did good, kid. Now lemme help you.”
There was a sudden clamping sensation on Ethan’s left arm, right where the hand had been cut free. The pain sent a jolt of energy through Ethan’s veins and forced him to sit up and scream. Gauge tried shushing him, but quickly realized the only way to make Ethan silent was to physically cover his mouth. The human’s cries were muffled under his metallic hand.
“Shh, you gotta be quiet, Ethan,” Gauge said. He tinkered with the emergency tourniquet device he had slapped onto Ethan’s wound and the rising pressure made the teenager writhe. “It’s gonna be okay, man. You did awesome. Let’s get you out of here.”
Ethan felt himself being heaved up and over the bodyshell’s shoulder as if he were a sack of potatoes. He didn’t have the strength to adjust himself, let alone break free if he wanted to. He simply leaned back and listened to the sounds of gunfire and explosions as consciousness slipped away from him once more.
“We have to push forward!” Tera could hear one of the soldiers near her yell. “We need to take the storage facility now!”
Just as the words left his lips, a huge barrage of shells whistled through the air and collided right into the bunker Ethan had marked with the radio beacon. Dust was kicked up from the concrete and metal structure and Tera felt her heart lift up a little.
Did it work? she wondered. Did they bust the facility open?
Once the cloud of debris blew away from the impact, she could see only dark smudges where the shells had fallen.
Reinforced, she realized, her hopes crushed beneath the realization. It’s going to take more than that if we want to win.
The Council soldiers were starting to fall back. One of the gunships lay in a crumpled pile on the Pavilion floor, smoke rising from the flames that licked the aircraft’s fallen form. The rebel troops continued pushing forward until they met the line of Shedders, who acted as a sort of fence around the battle. The hulking monster slashed and bashed anyone who came within arm’s reach, roaring at the rebels as they approached it.
“The other cities know!” she heard the soldier in charge shout again. “We have to take the facility now before they send reinforcements!”
Tera’s expression became dismal as she watched the fight continue in the north. They pushed the Council troops back, but the Shedders held their line. They couldn’t purchase any distance, no matter how hard they fought. The cultists fought to make sure no one got one step closer to the storage bunker like their lives depended on it.
She looked behind her, toward the part of the city wall where King Hum and the others were stationed. She wished with all her heart that they could just dump all the ordinance they had onto the Pavilion.
Time is running out, she thought.
Before another whistling set of shells could make flight for the battle, a deafening tone rang out over the Pavilion. It was so loud that everyone, Council soldier and rebel alike, covered their ears in pain. The battle stopped for a split second as everyone looked around themselves, trying to understand where the tone had come from. A thousand confused expressions darted around the scene, the commotion dying to a near silence.
Tera’s eyes opened wide as she watched the firm line of cultists burst into action. Before anyone knew what was happening, the Shedders cut down almost half of the Council soldiers that remained. None of the troops knew what to do as their allies started turning on them — as they started slaughtering them. The rebels stood in stunned bewilderment as they watched the Shedders destroy the Council bodyshells with extreme precision. They danced around the rebels, ignoring them for the most part as white bodyshell after white bodyshell dropped. The soldiers couldn’t react before their numbers shrunk down to a mere handful.
“What the fuck are you doing, Nidus?” Councilman Harring asked. He was practically foaming at the mouth. “Why are they killing my men?”
“Because the final phase of my plan has begun, councilman,” the cult leader replied. He didn’t meet the furious hologram’s eyes.
“What are you talking about?”
“My plan, Harring,” Nidus replied, “to destroy the Council. Once and for all.”
Harring’s face fell. His mouth contorted with confused horror as he tried to find the words.
“I don’t understand,” the councilman said, stammering.
“That’s fine,” Nidus replied. With a swift motion, he pulled a remote control-like device from his robes. He glanced at the councilman’s hologram for a moment before pressing a button.
“What have you done?” Harring asked. His voice started to break apart as he spoke, the words popping like static on a television screen. Before he could say anything else, the hologram flickered and disappeared.
Tera’s jaw dropped as she watched the remaining Council soldiers fall to the ground, lifeless. It was like someone flicked a big power switch off, deactivating all Council life on the Pavilion. In the matter of a few seconds, the rebels and the Shedders stood alone, ceasing the battle to watch Nidus’s plan in action.
Before Tera could even cry out, the Council was defeated. Nidus had won.
Deleted
Reverend Nidus strode down from his position by the storage facility and up to the huge crowd of confused combatants.
