Co-written by Lilith and Ridley
The stench of infected blood pervaded Lilith's nostrils as she struggled in vain to withstand the frenzied force that was the primal ultralisk. The woman liked to think of herself as being exceptionally athletic, but compared to the ravenous beast, her strength was a freshman going up against a professional football player on the world's muddiest field. As she slid across the frictionless creep, she sprouted as many additional extremities as her body would support, but no amount of limbs could provide enough traction on the mucilaginous floor nor repel the ceaseless flurry of wrist-mounted blades. At least she managed to grab some handfuls of the primal's slick, scaly hide, which was a small accomplishment in its own right, though not the decisive victory she actually required.
Lilith cratered into a slime-slathered wall as the unrelenting Kaalok plowed her through like a semitruck to a hapless pedestrian. The hulking creature tackled her to the ground, pinning her as it sheared her multitude of hands and feet like string cheese. Normally she wouldn't mind the position, but what would her master think seeing her like this? Although, maybe a bit of jealous rage would encourage him to assert his dominance…
That can wait for now.
“I've had college quarterbacks ram me harder than this!” taunted Lilith, who has never attended college.
Kaalok snarled, gnashing his crocodilian fangs. “Your essence belongs to me!”
“Only if you ask nicely!” Lilith jeered, exposed jaws grinning literally ear to ear. Every time she generated a new appendage, the ultralisk would disjoint it, akin the the heads of a hydra - minus the infinite splitting. Holding back the reptilian creature was like trying to wrestle a gorilla, alligator, bear, and tyrannosaurus rex at the same time, an absurdly impossible task. Then again, Ridley was more than twice as big, and she could handle him well enough. A little size difference never hurt anyone. If you believe hard enough, anyways. Don't question the logistics.
Lilith was completely oblivious to the zerg that were moments from ganging up on her, but before disaster struck, a blinding white flash detonated inside the biological chamber and—
Flatline.
She felt the rumbling tremors, heard the booming clangor of raining artillery followed by monotonous ringing. Rather than glimpse the aftermath of the cannonade, distant visions blossomed in her mind. Ruthless mortars stormed a destitute bunker, packed with trembling soldiers unaware of the true danger lurking in their meager refuge. Yet more incidental casualties in the villainess's way of her intended victim, a military commander of no small renown, who's grisly murder would shock the nation he'd sworn to give his life for.
Were all those promotions worth it?
Lilith returned to the present, eyes adjusting to the gleaming sunlight pouring in from the control room's collapsed roof. Mountains of vaporized zerg corpses scattered the area, virus-riddled flesh reduced to cauterized lumps of meat. The gigantic carnivorous lizard lay several hundred feet away, dormant, blasted by Syntech's timely explosive delivery. She wanted to press the advance while she had the upper hands, but her hampered movement stalled her impulsive aggression.
I can't be hurt that badly, right? While her wounds were far from severe, she knew well enough how accumulated agony can spiral towards precipitous doom.
A quick hit oughta fix this up…
Rummaging inside Nothing There's guts, Lilith plucked out one of the needles she stored in its musculature, marveling at the faintly luminous, pale blue liquid filling the glass tube. After a deep, weighty breath, without the slightest bit of consideration for the long-term consequences of her actions, the woman slammed the syringe into her bicep, her bloodstream ardently imbibing its contents. The effect was immediate, both Lilith's and Nothing There's hearts slowing to a placid pulse, as serenity flowed throughout their beings. All her anxieties and worries seemed to ebb into blissful numbness. She was forcibly ousted from her transitory trance, however, as the primal beast regained its bearings and roared with reinvigorated voracity.
Lilith responded by cracking over a hundred knuckles. “C'mon, let's go! Just you, me, and Lord Ridley!” Speaking of which.
Where is he?
Eyes in the back of Nothing There's skull widened as a titanic umbral figure surged towards it, claws brandished for feral brutality descending on her like toppling skyscrapers. Even if Lilith's reflexes had been dulled, the amalgamation remained alert and all-seeing, lurching through the gap between Phantoon's razor digits and springing away from a follow-up grapple.
Red irises sloshed around in their milky white puddles before concentrating on the traitorous spectre. “What's the matter, boss? Can't wait until we're finished to fool around?~”
No response, not so much as a sneer or growl. Phantoon was entirely fixated on shredding the abnormality in the air or torching it with azure flames.
Reluctantly, Lilith evaded the savage assault, gliding around like a bird being chased out of a house it had no business flying into. “Master?” Usually Ridley maimed her with a sadistic passion, but his swings lacked any zeal behind them, bereft of those raw wild emotions she was so fond of. This wasn't the dragon she knew. Then what…?
Before she could determine the source of Ridley's sudden betrayal, the primal ultralisk collided with Phantoon like a deranged pitbull, assailing with ferocious claws of its own and rending the cosmic wraith's semi-tangible mass while its jagged tail aimed to spear Nothing There. Whatever neurological manipulation Ridley was under didn't prevent him from retaliating, however, as he slashed Kaalok with fiery knife-edged fury.
Seizing the opportunity, Lilith dived onto Phantoon's cephalopodic head, but soon found herself sliding off haphazardly like she was barefoot on an ice rink, both from the bulbous mantle's greasy gloss and it being about as large as her. Even so, she gave it her all to save her dragon. “Please, Lord Ridley, I know somewhere deep down you're in me- I mean- in there- er, not like in your ghost dude, uh…”
Maybe snapping someone out of their possession with heartfelt affirmations wasn't her forte, especially considering her abhorrent refashioning. She didn't have the chance to come up with anything better, though, as the freakish roided out ultralisk lunged at her like a dog to a tree-bound cat, swiping and stabbing at her with its scorpion-esque stinger. Ridley, naturally and only by pure coincidence, thrashed Kaalok in turn, but of course Lilith construed it as a sign her efforts were having some success.
Yes, he's breaking free!
Phantoon's indiscriminate palate for energy proved otherwise, as his eldritch tentacles lashed at the convenient meal clambering atop him. Under different circumstances Lilith would welcome such tantalizing extremities to drain her dry, yet this was another arduous test of self-control, of which she'd undergone many at this point.
Master's life is at stake, damn it! She can't let her urges get the best of her, not now. Gathering up her fortitude, the monstrous woman weaved, backflipped, and contorted through Phantoon's tentacular onslaught like she was dodging a hail of spears while maintaining her balance on a slippery exercise ball covered in a month's worth of sweat from the most humid gym imaginable. “Think of all the good times we had together!” she pled. “Like when we slayed that big-ass kraken, you
loved that—” An ethereal limb whacked her away. “Ugh, why isn't this working?!”
Then, examining the wraith's brain for the root of their mutinous spell, Lilith discovered it — not evidence of a hex, but some third, unwanted presence within their form. “How dare you…” The parasite and the crevice it used to burrow into the back of Phantoon's lobe were microscopic. The operation would be delicate, necessitating a certain finesse so as not to cause collateral damage. Nothing There, for all its lethal strength, was more than capable. Like a thread to a needle, it probed the tunnel with an attenuated tendon, wrapping the phantom tentacles in mounds of flesh as it anchored onto the writhing Phantoon until—
ZZZZSSHHLIP!
Nothing There hooked the multi-mouthed maggot and fished it out, crunching it like a grape in the process. Lilith wasn't finished, however. She spotted the pathetic shape of the culpable infestor scuttling away, and hurled a massive foot to repeatedly squash the loathsome mite into a blot of purple dross. Completely warranted, given the severity of the transgression.
As white-hot ire submerged Ridley, the first thing he heard was “Master, you're back! I thought I'd lost you, don't do anything like that ever—” Then…
Sight.
It had come back to him, amidst the darkness’s pull. For the longest time he had thought he had once again been put under the Unmaking’s pull, but as soon as Phantoon’s faculties had been brought back to normal, and the eldritch being’s senses and his own returned to the fore, it had been made clear this was something far less insidious - or permanent.
The specifics did not matter, however, nor did it matter for the fury Ridley and Phantoon felt in the moment.
The dragon heard the splat of the Infestor responsible for his internment, felt the red rage of Phantoon blossoming through his link, as his fury for being used like a tool filled Ridley.
The rage Phantoon felt was like a candle to his own, though, and as the two turned towards Kaalok, the Primal’s wrist-blades clicking in and out with anticipation of the battle, the two were resplendent with rage.
“
Phantoon!” Ridley roared through their link, as the connection deepended, unbidden. Ridley did not need words to communicate, merely to move their massive claws as though they were his own.
He did not trust Phantoon. He did not feel as though he understood Phantoon at the best of times. This was not the best of times, as their rage wove together. This was the worst. In their hatred, in their anger, the two were finally in sync, and while Ridley hardly understood Phantoon’s more eldritch powers, there was something Ridley understood in a way the old squid never truly could.
Pure, unremittant, violence.
“Still strong, unbowed. Great essence!” Kaalok roared, jumping in to attack Phantoon with a bladed fist.
Phantoon dashed in at the last moment, cleaving underhand with a vicious claw and cutting up the primal’s chest, the claws digging in just enough to leave a trail of red and yellow ichor flowing from the primal’s wounds.
“Kaaaah!”
The primal’s howl of pain literally shook the building, but as Ridley and Phantoon advanced, a whirl of claws and strikes, the scream left them unmoved, as the primal was pushed back, each titanic step shaking the foundations of the building they were on. Fire was poured from Phantoon’s flashing eye, burning the primal steadily with astral energies and leaving the primal Zerg firmly on the backfoot.
As burns and cuts mounted up on Kaalok’s form, the primal snarled and released something new - a spit of vile acid that blasted out like a shotgun burst. Ridley readied himself for a blow that never came as the deluge of caustic vomit passed through their form harmlessly - Phantoon making sure to phase through the attack before it could tear through his relatively fragile body.
“
You will perish!” Phantoon screeched
“-As a puppet of Darkseid!” Ridley roared.
“
-and as a defiant fool!”
“And for
fucking with my boss!” Lilith screamed, as Nothing There swooped back into the fight descending from above, its enlarged, spike-tipped kneecap digging into the Ultralisk’s back and sending Kaalok crashing into the ground with a titanic tremor.
Hilariously large intestines snaked from Nothing There’s body, wrapping around Kaalok’s shoulders and arm and leaving him trapped in an organic arm bar as he was held down. Snarling, he grasped at the floor itself, trying to tear through the organic covering and the creep below, but the offending hand slammed on as Phantoon put his considerable body-weight down on one star-spangled foot.
“You!” Kaalok spat, as the beastly commander turned its chin up to stare Phantoon in the face just as they leered down at their prey. Kaalok's proud glare was unfaltering as the two faced each other, eyes-to-eye.
“You are nothing to Darkseid! You know not what the fallen one has done!”
Ridley communicated an idea, silently, to Phantoon, with images rather than pictures, and Phantoon tore its claws into the wrists of the fallen zerg, grabbing its wrist and tearing the Kaiser blades from its armored flesh, the callous Phantoon brought the organic scythes up underneath Kaalok’s neck, not yet cutting, but wishing to see his prey’s last words.
To his surprise, Kaalok gave a bestial grin, despite the blood draining from him. “But… You are stronger than Kaalok. I have become prey. Finish me.”
Phantoon obliged before Ridley could even react, cutting the beast’s throat at the insult.
RIdley, for his part, lacked his usual fury as the alien, yellow-red blood drained from Kaalok’s neck, and the creature shuddered.
As Kaalok’s breath turned to a gurgle, Nothing There took the opportunity to finally jump off of the zerg’s back, leaving the primal to collapse in a pool of blood.
“Darkseid is nothing to
me.” Ridley spat back, piggy-backing off Phantoon’s own voice. “Nothing but a weakling.”
The Primal zerg’s body was left to rot as both Nothing There and Phantoon turned their attention to the rest of the scattered zerg defenders.
“Not… weakness.” Came the gurgling cry of the primal.
Phantoon spun around in readiness for surprise attack, but none came.
“Change. He knows you. Knows Ridley. He will…”
Kaalok’s eyes lit with a brief intelligence, and he wondered if his imminent death had left him with some way of fighting off Darkseid’s influence, if only temporarily.
“You must. Change. Grow.
Evolve.” Kaalok stuttered, slurring on his words. “Take… essence. Grow. Kill.”
Phantoon’s own alien intelligence was utterly baffled by this action. For Ridley…
Kaalok’s actions were not simple stupidity or sour grapes to his boss, he was certain. He was a fellow predator. One bound to Darkseid’s profane will. He held no sympathy for the weakness of Kaalok’s bound form, but he understood the beast all the same.
If Ridley was ever capable of being truly struck down, he, too, would want his killer to be the Apex Predator. The greatest he knew.
Phantoon granted the mercy of Death with a swish of his tentacles, as Kaalok’s life force was added to the Eldritch horror’s ever-growing collection.
“Now to clean up. Lilith.” Ridley ordered, as Nothing There bounded off to chew through the last remnants of the swarm. Their purge was still incomplete, but their conquest was no longer in doubt. The Orbital Station belonged to Wyvern.
Lilith used 1 of 4 Refined Enkephalin
