Foundation of All

“Power down your weapons and prepare to be boarded. You have deployed a Class I Weapon on an inhabited world and by galactic law are under arrest for…”

“Will you let me get a word in?” Sean said in frustration, still keeping one eye on the screen searching the smoldering dirt for Lira. With each passing second he lost more hope even as the shuttle grew closer and closer to the surface as the person on the other line began speaking without giving him a chance to respond for thirty seconds.

“I have no intention of declaring war. My friends are down there, and I was trying to get them out. My ship is searching for them right now.”

The line went silent for a moment,

“And you dropped an antimatter bomb on them? Some friend you are,” the man said harshly.

Sean hesitated, before taking the plunge, “We’re Immortals. They would have been fine.”

“Oh.”

The line clicked and was silent for a long while. There were ten vessels circling the area, weapons focused on the shuttle but none of them fired. Sean did power down the weapons as requested. He couldn’t help Lira if he got the shuttle shot down. Even if he wanted to fight, he would never make it to the larger ship parked up in orbit without being destroyed.

Still no sign of Lira, and Sean began to accept that she had probably been too deep when the bomb hit. After so long it was likely the bugs had dug to her and dragged her off to wherever Roger had gone.

The line opened again and the man spoke again, sounding distinctly irritated, “We have contacted the Immortal Council about the situation. They are sending enforcers to collect you to detain and retrieve your companions to get to the truth of the matter. They will be in this system in a few days. If you attempt to move your vessel more than fifty miles from your current location or leave the atmosphere then we will consider it a declaration of war and open fire. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand,” Sean said distractedly and then hung up the call a minute later. They had nothing more to say to him it seems but more threats. The scan had failed again. He had to accept it, Lira and Roger were gone. He would have to come up with an attack plan to clear the tunnels and find them. But what to do… He had some materials on the shuttle, but not nearly enough for anything substantial.

Sean thought about it, but he couldn’t think of anything else he could do but wait. When the enforcers arrived, they would go down and extract Lira and Roger from the nest. Hopefully.

Sean told the ship to keep scanning and stood and made his way back to where he’d left Ash’s head. At least he had saved him. Sean took a long deep breath. Ash was the only one of them that could actually die. Lira had been right, they had to prioritize him over everyone else.

Lira and Roger, they would just have to find a good vacation planet after this to relax and cry it all out. But if they had lost Ash then… Yes, Sean’s priority was making sure for now that Ash was kept safe until he had a real plan in getting the others back.

It was what Lira and Roger would want him to do. And the both of them were well past the point where pain bothered them anymore. He was sure it was nothing more than an annoyance for them being stuck down there… They would be fine, no need to worry. Nope, none at all. They would be… fine.

Deep down in the depths of the planet, Lira was in darkness being carried who knows where by the beetles she could hear chittering and walking all around her. The ground shook and the tunnels had collapsed on themselves a few minutes after she had convinced Sean to run to save Ash.

But it hadn’t been enough. She had been trapped in the dirt, but before she could even plan out what she could do the ground had collapsed below her, dumping her directly into another group of the swarm.

By the Shadow he was such an idiot, thinking of jumping in after her. Almost risking Ash without a second thought.

Suddenly the sounds around her changed and she realized that she was in that massive room from before where the massive grub-like creature had been. Had it survived? Lira didn’t feel any of the effects she should be from the severe radiation that had bathed that chamber. Was it another similar one?

She heard heavy movement of literal tons of soft flesh hitting dirt just in front of her and thrashed even harder in an effort to escape. But without even being able to see the beetles attacking her she had trouble even hitting them let alone causing damage.

Suddenly there were a pair of jaws around her and she was in a very large slime filled tube. She shuddered and tried to back up, but the walls pulsed around her pushing her down what it was not apparent was the grub's massive throat. Lira was strangely grateful that her hair was so short right now after regenerating her head. This slimy gunk would be a pain to clean off… Yes, that was the real concern right now, not her sliding into this giant mutated grub’s stomach.

She tried to turn around, but she couldn’t get a good grip on anything through the slimy gunk coating her whole body, which she now felt was slightly acidic, lightly burning at her skin.

Her clothing wristband finally gave up the game and failed, her clothing falling off her in large patches as the acid kept eating away at it. Great, now she was naked too. And covered in even more gunk now. Just wonderful. At least this place was warm.

Finally, she dropped into a chamber that felt decidedly not like a stomach. The floor was flat instead of a giant pool of acid below her for one thing. She made her feet, only to stumble as the room around her shifted as the creature moved.

Before she could react, something grabbed her around the stomach and lifted her in the air with its large chitin jaws. Fuck! There were beetles living inside the grub?! It carried her through the darkness, and even after she killed it another appeared and did the same thing acting unperturbed that she had just killed its fellow.

She killed three more before she was carefully shoved into a gelatinous wall behind her while she faced outwards. For some reason the beetles stopped pushing her in when her whole back half was encased, leaving her head and abdomen fully exposed even as her arms and legs were fully submerged.

She tried to move to punch one of the creatures blindly again through the gelatin, but found that she was stuck. The sticky substance kept her arms and body in place no matter how much she thrashed and the gelatin resisted and snapped back after Lira strained to push forward for a few seconds.

“Lira? Is that you?” A familiar voice called out from the darkness.

“Yeah,” she answered after a short pause, “Are you caught in the wall too? You know why they didn’t push us all the way in? It’s like,” she strained to move her arm for a few seconds only for the effort to send her hand flying back deeper into the gelatin after a few seconds, “They’re trying to capture us for some reason. Why not trap us fully inside?”

“Well… you’re not going to like it,” Roger answered, “It’s real disturbing at first. Hopefully Sean and Ash can get us out soon. If it makes you feel any better I am fully naked, and I get very uncomfortable whenever those insects scuttle directly near the zone of my manhood as they go by. Real nerve wracking.”

“Thanks, Roger. Very helpful.”

“Hey, I’m just saying. If it were any larger they’d hit it as they went by. They only pass by six inches away from the guy as it is. And the beasts would do it too, just going about their business even if my business is in their way. You’re rather lucky you don’t have to deal with that.”

Despite herself, Lira snorted through her nose with suppressed laughter at the thought of the beetles hitting Roger down there, totally oblivious as they went by. But she shook her head and focused as she remembered Roger’s first words.

“Focus, Focus. Be serious for a second, what’s going to happen to us Roger?”

“Who’s joking? Other Immortals more well endowed would be really suffering right about now. Never thought that was the kind of thing I would be thinking to myself one day.”

“Roger!” Lira snapped, “What horrible thing is happening?!”

“Ugh, fine. Attack a guy when he tries to lighten the mood… Well, the short of us is they’re eating our entrails.”

“Wh- What?”

“Yep. Special little bug comes around and cuts open our abdomens, takes out the intestines and organs and whatnot, and throws them on the floor. Or whatever you call the surface below us. There’s some little ones that it's feeding down there, probably the babies. Or little worker drones, who knows. It only stopped for a few minutes before you came in. They’ll probably be back soon.”

Lira started thrashing more violently and groaning as she strained to escape.

“Look, it’s no use. I’ve been at it for… however long I’ve been in here and not moved an inch. If you get displaced there’s some kind of force or system that moves you back to where you were. It’s unpleasant, especially if you throw the creatures off their rhythm so they have to dig around inside you more when they take out the goodies. But we’re Immortals, we’re used to that kind of thing by now right?”

Lira hesitated but then relaxed.

“Yeah,” she said before hesitating again and speaking with her voice only wavering a tiny bit, “Nothing this extreme though... But at least it's not a sex thing.”

“At least it's not a sex thing,” Roger agreed with an encouraging note in his voice, “I was only half kidding about the dick joke by the way. Just so you know. They really are running right by there.”

“Thanks, Roger. That’s really what I was really wondering about right now.”

There were some fleshy plops of carapace on the fleshy floor to the side and some rustling.

“That’s probably them. Just relax and think of it like peeing or pooping. That helps a lot.”

“Pooping? Seriously, that works?”

“You’ll know what I mean in a minute. It’s an eerily similar feeling.”

Lira tensed as the pattering of legs filled the room. She heard what sounded like hundreds of little somethings scrabbling around on the floor. The babies…

Before Lira knew what was happening, a chitinous blade slid into her abdomen and with two quick slices opened her up. Another shovel-like tool went inside and pulled out everything inside until she could feel it scraping her spine and the lower portion of her ribs in a few quick in and out jabs.

“Ah, NO! Don't–,” she gasped as the blade went through her gut.

She bit her lip hard and cut herself off hoping that Roger hadn’t heard her.

For a second Lira felt strange as her organs spilled onto the ground below, even the warmish air of the chamber feeling odd on her open abdomen. She could hear the little creatures below squirming around fighting for the food. A few seconds later, she was fully healed again.

Roger didn’t say anything, and Lira let out a small sigh of relief. He must not have heard her.

The blade sliced inwards and the process repeated almost identically from before all the way down to the exact motion of the blades and shovel.

On the third time, she took Roger’s advice and imagined like she had to go to the bathroom. When the blade entered her she imagined letting go and suddenly something clicked and she couldn’t unthink it. If she pretended like she was the one choosing to do it, then it helped her to not panic at the horrible situation. It was like a more painful form of breathing.

After five more rounds of it, she took a few deep breaths to calm down. The slices were perfectly even, slicing in again as soon as she was fully healed again.

“You okay over there, Lira? You’ve been quiet for a while.”

“Yeah, urk, yeah. Just took some getting used to. Thanks for the tip, imagining it like that helped me calm down a lot,” She said in a forcefully light tone.

“Glad I could help. Did Sean and Ash make it out at least?”

“Yeah. Ash ran out of power. Threw all her antimatter at this thing to try to kill it, not that it worked. Urk. Ash ripped off her own head so we could carry her out. Oof. Sean took it to the shuttle, I was sure I heard him take off in it after I got caught. He’ll be back for us.”

“So that’s why this thing shook like that earlier… I just thought this creature we’re in had indigestion or something. Well, that’s good to hear. Those two won’t leave us. I’m sure Sean’s besides himself trying to get us out right now.”

“I hope he’s okay.”

“He’s okay? You’re worrying about him right now?”

The blade entered Lira’s abdomen again.

“Okay, fair,” she admitted, “But still. He’s already high strung after that Immortal that first found him hasn’t tracked us down. Without us or even Ash there to calm him down I worry he’ll get all obsessive again and do something stupid.”

“Hmmmm. I don’t think this is the same as one of his engineering or gaming sessions. Everyone gets drawn into those when they’re invested.”

“But for a full year? If we hadn’t stopped him, he would have been playing that Foundation of All game for even longer without even knowing how much time had passed. He kept talking about how real it all felt and how things were changing around him in the game world. He was completely obsessed until we snapped him out of it. That’s more than what’s normal even for Immortals like us.”

“I do admit, that one was a little too much,” Roger allowed, “But he’s always been more tolerant to keeping his focus up for a long time more than the rest of us. Didn’t he spend a few straight weeks training with Brenda of all people without stopping after he literally had just arrived at Immortus Station? And he apologized when he came out after that year, he just got too into it as he was playing. We’ve all gone a little too far when we were too invested in something or other in our lives. Didn’t you feel the same for some of your art projects?”

“I know, I just worry, that’s all,” Lira replied with a sigh, “Remember when I said Sean took Ash’s head and left? We were at the entrance, I had the head and threw it to him after one of the beetles got my leg. Told him to go. He nearly threw himself back into the tunnel after me multiple times as I yelled at him to leave. He could have let Ash die because he wasn’t thinking things through.”

“Alright, that’s not fair. He saw you being dragged away by these things. I would have jumped after you too in the heat of the moment, if it came down to it. Not exactly a time when most people are perfectly logical about things.”

“I know, I know. But still. This, us being trapped here without him knowing what’s happening to us, is emotional for him too. Without us there, who will stop him from realizing he’s gone too far?”

Roger was silent for a moment, “He’ll be fine,” he eventually said, “He’ll try to rebuild Ash first thing, they’ll help Sean if it comes to that. Ash is always dependable like that.”

Lira sighed, only flinching slightly as the insect in the pitch black darkness scooped out her guts onto the floor again.

“You’re right. I’m worried about nothing. Ash will help him. She’s always been so dependable and Sean will listen to her.”

“Although I’m sure Sean will call them a he. He’ll be there for all that time without you there to fight back against Sean’s evil influence. Maybe Ash will even give in and choose to be male while you’re gone!”

“Pfffft. Horror on horrors. No way that would happen. She’s stayed nice and neutral for five hundred years. She won’t change that easily.”

“Yes, you two are rather irresponsible parents,” Roger said mockingly, “Making Ash have to choose between mommy and daddy as soon as they became aware of themselves. Quite the conundrum you two have put them in.”

Lira flushed in the darkness, “Roger! She was practically born as an adult! She’s not my, our, any… she’s part of the group! We shouldn’t treat her like a kid. Then she might feel bad, like she’s not properly an equal part of the group with the rest of us.”

“Ah, just teasing,” Roger said, “I don’t think Ash really cares. They would have done something by now if it bothered them. You’ve certainly told them they could say something if it bothered them enough times over the years. And that it was a joke and neither of you really would care if they chose the other gender.”

Lira settled down slightly, mentally kicking herself that she had let Roger rile her up so easily, “That’s true. She’s not afraid to express her opinion when she has one.”

“Right. Also true.”

They sat in relative silence as the conversation came to a natural end. Only the rhythmic sound of slicing blades into their flesh and the squirming of the grubs below filled the ‘room’ they were in.

“Hey,” Roger asked suddenly, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something for a while now. It’s about the person that we’ve been setting up the transmitters for.”

“Well, I’m a captive audience,” Lira replied.

“Nice! Good one. Anyway, what do we actually know about her? I get that Sean feels some kind of debt to her, but most people on Immortus station hate her with a passion. They were more than happy to tell me how evil she was when I asked them about her. We know what Sean’s told us, but she could be manipulating him. It just doesn’t sit right with me that there’s no good reason for people hating her so much. It doesn’t make sense, she must be hiding something more.”

“But Sean gave us the reason. The Plaguebringers worship her for some reason, and so everyone keeps associating her with them.”

“But that’s just it,” Roger replied, “That’s what I’m confused about. Why? Why would they worship her specifically? There are plenty of truly ancient Immortals like her floating around the galaxy. Why would the Plaguebringers be both hunting down and be so obsessed with worshiping only her among all of them? To the point that nearly every Plaguebringer that the people at the station met, used her name before launching at least one of their attacks. It just doesn’t sit right with me, and I think that maybe the people on Immortus station are on to something. Maybe some of the older ones know something that the rest of us don’t.”

Lira shifted uncomfortably. It had bothered her too, even if she couldn’t put into exact words like Roger had just done.

“I don’t know,” she said, “But Sean needs to see her, let her know that everyone doesn’t hate her. He feels like it’s part of the debt he owes her for helping him out so much when he became Immortal. I’m sure she has secrets, but so does everyone. It’s not fair to expect her to have told Sean everything after only knowing each other for a few months. Maybe she’s just misunderstood like Sean thinks she is.”

“Like Sean thinks? You don’t agree?”

Lira didn’t speak for a moment and measured her response.

“I don’t know. We shouldn’t rush to judge her. Who knows what kinds of things she’s been through, being that old? Maybe she just really cared about Sean being her friend. Her life sounded very lonely from what Sean said.”

“Hopefully she wasn’t trying to get him as her man too,” Roger said before snorting, “You’ve got him locked down. And I’m sure you’ll hiss loud enough if she starts trying to move in on your territory.”

“I’m not some sort of feral cat,” Lira said, mildly offended at the comparison.

“When it comes to Sean you are,” Roger countered before mimicking a screeching cat, “Mreeaaaawwwwww,”

“Ugh. You’re impossible, I’m not that bad.”

“Tell that to all the interested village girls around the galaxy. You sure glared hard enough to scare them off when they so much as looked Sean’s way.”

“...”

“That’s what I thought,” Roger said smugly as Lira didn’t respond, “One point to Roger.”

“We’re doing points now? How about I start by reminding you of all the embarrassing things you’ve done over the years? How many points will I get then?”

“Oh, you think you’re the only one with material? Bring it on. Without Ash’s cute little nonexistent ears around, we can really get into it and see who’s done more that we’re embarrassed about.”

“Fine,” Lira said with a smile unseen by Roger in the darkness, “How about that bar on Ilrusta…”

They laughed and joked, and as time passed the two of them slowly forgot their dark surroundings and started just enjoying unfettered conversation where they could be as vulgar as they liked and talk about all sorts of things they would never say in front of Ash or even Sean to an extent. Even when they had spoken before over the years, they hadn’t been nearly this open or comfortable with each other.

Something about the perfect darkness and their shared situation had just loosened their inhibitions and let them talk freely. And with them both knowing they were just friends and had no interest from either of them for more, there was no reason to hold back on the more explicit jokes or jabs with each other either. They had resolved that particular little potential conflict years and years ago. It was inevitable that it had come up with how much time the three of them spent together over the years.

But the free, vulgar conversation between her and Roger was fun for Lira. She never got to engage with that kind of no holds barred, verbal battle before with anyone. It was freeing in a way, if a little awkward when one of them accidentally went too far and actually hurt the other’s feelings.

At the end of their first conversation, Roger ended up winning one hundred and ten points to ninety six. And he wouldn’t let her forget it anytime soon. He really enjoyed rubbing it into her face whenever he got the chance as their wandering conversation moved onwards to all sorts of other topics…