I ran in the center of a Peacekeeper formation. They towered over me in bulky armors, making me feel as if I were enclosed in a wall of scale and steel. Heavy feet cracked the earth as we moved away from the relative safety of my hastily constructed defenses and towards the sounds of gunfire. We were headed for the smoldering ruin of our former transport, its flames cutting through the fog like a decrepit lighthouse.
Both abomination and beast circled us, their roars and claws striking from every direction. A deep growl startled me, and I looked to my left. I heard the skitter of claws on stone, but my eyes saw only a blur retreating behind a thick haze.
Things hid in the miasma of ash and dust, darting in to strike before fading back into the fog. Attackers fell before a constant streams of lead, delivered with scalpel-like precision. The women surrounding me, the soldiers, never hesitated or missed. They charged and killed, and I ran with them.
I was struck by the beauty of it. Brilliant flares of gunfire burst through the plumes and ribbons of dust like hundreds of burning stars born into a chaotic nebula; each created only to die in the same instant. I felt as though I were watching the relentless cycle of death and rebirth at a cosmic scale.
I looked down as something hard yet brittle cracked under the pressure of my boot. One more step and another object, round and white, snapped before turning into powder beneath my foot. Small yellow-white shards littered the ground, and long angular protrusions pushed through the earth like broken teeth in a malformed jaw.
Bones, withered and bleached, were strewn across the dry, dusty field. The further I ran the greater their numbers, and the greater the extent of their decay. Even if these corpses, it must have been thousands of them, predated the battle, they couldn't be more than a few weeks old. Despite that, only dry, desiccated bones remained.
As we drew nearer to what remained of the Peacekeeper vehicle I felt myself begin to weaken. My stamina slowly began to drain, and I felt a heaviness in my limbs. It was slight, but perceptible. My stamina was going down by only a fraction of a point every few seconds and was regenerating at almost the same speed. I could probably last hours at this rate, but the loss was slowly increasing in speed the further I moved.
I looked around, but if any of the troops around me noticed, they gave no indication. I looked to find the Peacekeeper who had tried to communicate with me earlier. I had come to think of her as Head Girl, because of the way she had taken charge earlier. Her actions gave no indication that she had noticed the drain, either.
It was convenient that I just gained an ability that allowed me to replenish stamina in battle. I still found it odd, but I wouldn't let my unease stop me from exploiting the ability to its fullest.
My thoughts were interrupted as the Peacekeepers began to slow. We were only a few hundred yards away from the transport at this point, and Head Girl had come to a halt. She held a closed fist above her left shoulder as a signal to the others.
In the same moment, the charging soldiers stopped and fell to one knee. Rifles jumped to the ready with the heavy clang of metal on metal. The change in position was almost instantaneous, and was carried out with a practiced grace.
I planted my feet and skid to a halt with decidedly less grace. I was unsure what to do so I began to create large, hexagonal shields. A thin membrane was beginning to take form when Head Girl stopped me by holding out an open palm and shaking her head in disapproval. As soon as my shields were dismissed she threw three small orbs about fifty yards (45 meters) in front of us. She then repeated the action behind and to each side of us. As soon as the last grenade left her hand she turned and made eye contact before giving me a quick nod.
Everything gained a slight red haze as my shields solidified around us. I looked forward, taking a deep, desperate breath. Before I could fill my lungs again, the air was knocked out of me by what felt like a train driving through my chest.
Pillars of fire and light rose up into the air as multiple shockwaves converged around me, sending tremors through my skull. My shields did little to dampen the force, but it was over quickly. I fell to one knee, as I struggled to draw breath. Air came in short, fitful gasps that felt like hot needles tearing through my lungs.
Nothing moved. The only sound was the drumming of my own heart. The only thing I could see were bright specks and swimming lines of light. I gently rubbed my eyes, but it did little to help. The quiet stillness seemed to drag on forever, and I could feel the pre-fight fear beginning to grip me. The sweat running down the back of my neck turned cold.
I turned my head, my eyes darting back and forth feverously. I envied the calm control of the women around me. They remained unmoving as they gazed into the quickly darkening fog that surrounded us.
Soon, shifting shadows filled the mist once more. Clacks rang out as rifles were pulled against armor, but no one fired. Head Girl stood up, a closed fist held above her head with her rifle down at her side.
My heart raced, every instinct in me cried out to fight. I had to destroy the danger around me, or flee. I focused on visualization as I waited for the fight to begin. It calmed me, if only slightly. The more clearly I held the image, the more powerful the construct would be once conjured. Luckily for my chaotic mind, a sharpened pole is one of the most basic forms imaginable.
As the shadows began moving towards us, Head Girl kept her arm upraised. The shadows were beginning to take form and were slowly moving forward. I noticed them take a strange, tilting gait – a half step, followed by a short lunge. It created an unnerving two beat rhythm.
Before I could fully make out what the creatures were, Head Girl threw her hand down and drew her rifle up to her shoulder. The Peacekeepers responded with an unending barrage of bullets. I maintained my shields, while also conjuring a rain made of dozens of fencepost sized spikes. After a volley, I'd release control of the energy, allowing each projectile to slowly unravel.
I repeated this process several times before I finally saw what I was fighting. One of my spikes impaled the head of a creature while a hail of gunfire cut through its torso and limbs. As it fell to the ground there was no blood, instead a pile of splintered bones rolled forward.
The bones might have been goblin, or even human. The forms they had been shaped into were not. As I looked up from the pile of loose bones at my feet, several more of these creatures became visible. What I saw resembled shambling mounds of bones crafted into only the barest hint of a humanoid. They were not skeletal, merely made from bones.
Every part of these golems was created from tightly packed bone, with no regard for original function. One creature had a pile of skulls making up its chest, while its head was made of a rib cage and a broken pelvis. It ambled forward on thick legs of coiled bone that moved with jointless dexterity like powerful, supple worms. One hand was like a massive club, and the other ended in a long, thin blade made of sharpened femur.
I redoubled my efforts, straining my focus as I continued to conjure lances of chaotic energy. A wave of backlash washed over me, making my mind feel as if it might break. Still, I continued.
Spears of energy littered the field of battle and countless bullets shattered bone. The golems would continue to move forward despite broken bodies and shattered limbs. Even destroying the head was not enough. One such creature was slowly approaching when I shattered its head and tore off both legs with a hail of spikes. Despite these injuries, it continued to drag itself forward with barrel-thick arms made of mismatched bone.
Head Girl switched positions, taking the shield directly in front of me. She dispatched the crawling bone golem with a single shot, before taking out three more in less than a second. When she was finished she turned towards me, a cloud of gunsmoke clinging to her figure.
A long-fingered hand grasped my shoulder and drew me towards the imposing Peacekeeper. I looked up towards her eyes, violet surrounded by flecks of gold. She looked down at me with a predatory stare. Unlike most Peacekeepers her face was smooth. Rather than bumps and ridges, she had a group of three small scales at the corner of each eye and in a thin line around her jaw.
She barked an order at me in a gravelly voice and physically moved me so that I was looking in the opposite direction. There I saw the silhouette of two massive columns growing into the sky. They twisted and swayed like grass blown by a gentle wind. My first thought was that someone must have dropped some magic beans.
That fantasy was quickly broken when the twisting vines began to fall towards me. As they came crashing down I threw up another layer of shields and directed everything I had left into a volley of spikes. Head Girl's rifle began to shorten as it's barrel widened; within moments she was firing grenades towards the twin monsters. Each shot hit its target with a thump and a thin sheet of flames that clung and began to spread across the moving pillars.
The remaining soldiers were directing their fire towards the pillars as well, ignoring the shambling bone golems that were drawing ever closer to our position. Grenades, automatic fire, and heavy shots that shook the air with the force of a cannon – none of these stopped the speeding descent. The sky grew dark as the shadow enveloped us completely.
The pillars became fully visible in the seconds before their imposing bulk swallowed us completely. Each was a pale white tentacle made of tightly packed bone that writhed and spun like millions of maggots crawling over each other. The bones clinked together producing an ear splitting rattle.
The world went dark.