Foundation of All

“Sean, unknown ship has arrived at the edge of the system.”

“Is it the Immortal Council? I thought their reinforcements weren’t supposed to arrive for days still.”

“I don’t think so,” Ash said, “The ship appears to have a non-standard design and the Immortal Enforcer vessel appears to be activating their weapons systems.”

“Non-standard how? Do we have any images?”

Ash swiped at the display and a three d model appeared of the ship, and Sean immediately saw what Ash meant. He had never seen anything like it before. Where most space ships were sleek and smooth, this thing was spiky and jagged. Long antennae and long barrels of weapons poked from every surface of the thing, only the cockpit window and thrusters left clear of them. It looked almost cobbled together, rusted and ancient weapons mixed with shiny new ones.

“The weapons of that ship are warming up as well,” Ash said, “It appears that the two ships are communicating with each other.”

Ash and Sean could only speculate on what was happening for the next day or so as the strange ship barreled at massive speeds towards them.

Once the two ships were close enough, the new ship erupted in weapons fire, absolutely bathing the Enforcer ship with their shots. The Enforcer’s ship’s shields flashed brightly as they fought back the assault that managed to slip by their point defense systems.

“Should we help them?” Ash asked.

“No. They’ll only think we’re joining in on attacking the Enforcer,” Sean said and continued watching.

But the assault just kept coming, an endless wave of shots blasting into the Enforcer ship as it feebly tried to fight back. In only a few minutes, the shield was overloaded and flickered off, shattering the ship into debris.

More shots kept pouring into the wreck, pushing it into the planet’s atmosphere where it began to burn up and fall down to the surface below.

Over a hundred mortal ships began slowly rising out of the atmosphere towards the attacking ship, minutes away from engaging en masse.

“Open comms,” Ash said, “It’s from the attacker.”

“Hey, all you mortals,” a male voice said over the line, “I’ve got no problem with you lot. I’m just here for the Endless Flesh. Unless you want to go boom like the asshole over there, I’d back off.”

There was some silence. Probably the planetary government answering directly rather than on an open line.

“Yeah, whatever,” the man said, “I don’t care. I could take on fleets four times your size without breaking a sweat. Honestly, those ships are just trash. Can their shields even take two or three real hits? I mean it’s just sort of sad really. But I don’t want to waste my ammunition on all of you, so you go your own way and I’ll go mine, yeah?”

The planetary fleet exited the atmosphere, but they didn’t immediately fire on the hostile ship, instead circling around warily.

“Yeah, yeah. I get it,” the man said, “We fight if I go towards a settlement or whatever. I’ll be pissed if you try to attack me when I’m down there. Talk to you never.”

“Direct comms request,” Ash said, “From the hostile ship. Should we take the call?”

“Yes,” Sean said, “Who knows what he’ll do if we don’t answer. I don’t like our chances if he decides to attack us. But audio only.”

“Hey, you. You’re the Immortal that found the nest, right?” the man said.

“Yes, that’s me. My two friends are still down there. Along with most of the enforcer squad that went to retrieve them.”

“Hahahaha. I can’t believe those assholes actually got caught. Galaxy’s finest my ass. Well, I suppose it’s best to go down and clean up the mess. I’m sure this is nothing a little plague won’t solve.”

“Plague?” Sean blurted out, “Are you a Plaguebringer?”

“Oooooh? Someone had a bad experience with us? Did the stiff suits in Immortus Station do a good job in shoveling their propaganda down your throat? Not that I blame you, I wish I could go to Immortus Station too and live it up.”

“No, one of you assholes attacked one of my friends,” Sean replied angrily.

“Huh? We did? Now, that’s interesting. I thought the files said you were just a little baby bird? Let’s check… Oh, yeah. Not even a thousand! Wow, you really are young. I just kind of skimmed it before, it’s such a pain to read them through every time. I wonder who it was that’s made you so upset? Ah, but now I feel a little bad for yelling at you.”

The man shifted into a high pitched blubbery tone as one would when talking to a baby,

“Now where would a little baby like you meet a big mean Plaguebringer like me? Where’s your mommy and daddy? They shouldn’t have let you wander off so far from home.”

Sean gritted his teeth, but didn’t reply to the man’s goading.

“Well, whatever,” the Plaguebringer continued in a more normal tone, “Don’t answer. I’m sure it’s in the file somewhere when I finally bother reading it through. But for now I guess I’ll go down there and start fucking some shit up. Nyx Vesper out. Bye bye for now.”

The Plaguebringer severed the call, and Ash and Sean were left in silence.

“Well, at least he seems intent on retrieving our companions and destroying the nest,” Ash said positively.

“That’s true,” Sean admitted, “That’s one way to look at it.”

Nyx Vesper shifted to adjust the weight of the incubation tanks on his back. All those old school fossils wearing those uncomfortable isolation suits all the time, no way Nyx was doing that again. He felt like he’d been constantly itching for the thousand years he had tried it out. Yeah, the external tanks were a little less effective than doing it in your body. But who cares? From Nyx’s experience, it still worked.

Not to mention the suit coming in the way of his fun in battle. The isolation suits were too thick and bulky to really get the full experience and rush from combat for him. He was much more comfortable now in just a clothing band and some basic equipment. He had modified it slightly with some lights around the collar so he would be able to see once he really got going into the tunnels. It was no fun having to fight in the total dark.

Especially with his combat style. He reached to his side and pulled out the two glowing and superheated swords, one in each hand. Sure, he had a few grenades and a pistol or two on him, but where was the fun in that? It wasn’t like it mattered if he won or not. He just had to get deep enough that the plague would infect enough of the Endless Flesh that one of them would infect the breeder at the center. Why not enjoy himself as he went?

Nyx walked into the tunnel and adjusted the two valves on his shoulder and air started blowing out softly from the twin containers on his back. There, now he could fight like he wanted and disperse his plagues at the same time.

He went deeper, and none of the insects attacked or revealed themselves yet. Nyx could hear the occasional noise in the distance as one of them shuffled, thinking he was unaware of them. Damn, those enforcers really had been idiots, hadn’t they? Nyx bet they had just gone stomping in, letting themselves get jumped by surprise like a bunch of losers.

Not Nyx, Nyx was getting ambushed on purpose. It was completely different.

As he got deeper in, suddenly the area around him burst into noise as the insects started moving in on him from all sides. Nyx clashed his swords together in a spray of sparks and then took a stance, his incubation tanks continuing to spray out more disease with every second.

The first beetle rounded the corner and Nyx leapt forward and with a single slice removed its head from its body. There was another behind it, so Nyx leapt up on top of the dead beetle’s shell. His glowing blades sliced and diced as the creatures kept coming from all sides.

When the pile of bodies grew too high, Nyx dived off and carved his path through the beetles. He wasn’t perfect, and the creatures got off a few good bites on him, but Nyx didn’t mind. All it did was deplete his clothing band’s nanites a little bit.

Nyx felt his smile grow as he started getting more into the carnage. He struck furiously to clear some space for himself before brandishing his swords in the air. He knew there was no one else around to see him, but he felt cool doing it so he went ahead anyway.

“Hahaha! Get fucked! I’m gonna stomp every last one of you!”

He shouted before jumping back into battle, a savage grin on his face. He was so Shadow damned cool…

Nyx let out a wide blast of plasma from his pistol from his pistol to incinerate more of those acid bugs swarming in on him even as he slashed at one of the larger ones with the sword in his other hand.

It was unfortunate he could no longer go all the way with dual wielding the swords, but he could admit that the pistol and sword were pretty good too. Several of the smaller flowing insects landed on Nyx and promptly exploded into their acidic payload.

He twisted so they wouldn’t hit his incubation tanks, but other than that it wasn’t too much of an issue. He kept fighting. If he kept fighting towards wherever the bugs were the densest he would probably reach the center eventually.

Not that he was too worried about it, he was enjoying the combat too much for that. He noted with satisfaction that the swarm was dragging away the bodies of their dead compatriots after Nyx had fought his way past them. That should let all of the diseases spread quickly, hopefully even to the main breeder itself…

Eventually Nyx lost his right incubation tank, and with such a high concentration of bacteria and viruses, the insects around him instantly began to twitch and shrivel up when it was punctured. That let Nyx proceed farther inside the nest as the reinforcements were infected by the diseases as well, quickly dying and spreading the plague even farther.

But while suicidal, the creatures weren’t totally stupid, so after a few minutes of rushing into their diseased fellows and dying as well, their small brains finally realized what was happening. After that they just avoided the area and waited for Nyx to get far away from the festering pile of diseased bodies he had left behind him. He still had one tank left, luckily.

Nyx shifted his weight and shifted his last incubation tank so it was centered on his back. He had been fighting for a while now, he was probably close. He checked his belt for his three grenades and his second sheathed sword. His pistol and active sword were still in his hands, ready just in case the swarm tried burrowing out of the walls again to try to surprise him.

All of his gear was a little worse for wear, but all of it appeared to still be working. He could hear the pattering of limbs on the floor in the distance. It seems he was far enough away that the swarm was moving in for another attack. Just one last stretch, then he would be fighting the big one. Now that would be a real battle.

Nyx flicked a little chunk of gore from his shoulder. He had been coated in the stuff for days, it was like a second skin by now, covering all of him red. But he still tried to remove the larger clinging bits when he could. He had to wipe his eye occasionally to make sure it wouldn’t block his vision. But this was it. He could hear the big creature below shaking the ground as it no doubt prepared for his arrival.

Usually they were more intelligent, so it had likely realized that sending more fodder wouldn’t end up slowing Nyx down that much now that he was so close. And despite how massive this nest was, the creatures were despite their name, not quite endless. It had likely had enough time to recycle most of the flesh from the beetles killed by the Enforcer team, but with Nyx infecting most of the bodies with disease the breeder wouldn’t be able consume them to replenish their numbers again. They would probably rush him as soon as he set foot in the massive chamber he knew was below. More room to use their numbers advantage even as the breeder attacked him directly.

Nyx took a deep breath and shifted his incubation tank on his back. Here it was. The most important part of the mission. If he failed this part then he’d be like those enforcer chumps, and end up captured himself.

All the disease he had released up to this point would decrease the colony’s growth for a while and buy some time for more reinforcements to come here if they had to. But the big one would be smart enough to isolate itself and probably survive to rebuild the swarm again, and with five captured Immortals fueling it it would regrow pretty fast if it just decided to migrate somewhere else and rebuild from scratch.

Well, nothing for it. Time for the big battle. Nyx flicked his wrist so his sword came up in front of him, and then with a massive grin he started running full speed.

Lets goooooooo!

Nyx came running into the giant chamber and stopped for a moment at seeing the titanic creature inside. It had swelled in size since the first Immortals had caught a glimpse of it. It now rose over seventy feet tall off of the ground even as its tubelike white form lay on the ground. Truly massive. Nyx’s little lights shooting out from his neck didn’t even fully light up its form as it loomed above him, most of its body still shrouded in shadow.

Nyx ran forward and fired his pistol on a tight blast right onto its reddish head. The massive creature flinched slightly even if it only scorched its reddish chitin a little bit. It opened its massive jaws and then… it screamed.

“SHRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!”

The sound was so loud that the tunnels around them shook and Nyx was blasted back by the pure power of the shriek. His ears popped and bled as he hit the far wall with force, cracking several of his bones. He fell to the floor a second later, luckily managing to hold onto his weapons as he did so.

Just as he had predicted, Nyx could hear the rush of the larger swarm moving in on him from all sides to harry him even as the grub lurched towards him at full speed. It was so large it looked like an oncoming wall rather than a single creature.

Nyx unhooked his incubation chamber from his back and hefted it over his shoulder as he stood. Now to deliver the goods…

The massive jaws opened and the grub lifted off of the ground slightly as it towered over him. A second later it darted forward and Nyx threw the canister at it before diving to the side.

He almost made it. He was far enough away that as the grub slammed its head into the wall before sweeping its jaws to the side towards where he went, that it only managed to crush his back half.

Nyx looked through the gloom as his legs regenerated. He rolled back to the side as the creature looked around, trying to spot him.

The rest of the swarm was almost on Nyx, but he focused on the creature, his eyes darting around looking for the distinctive glint of metal. He didn’t see it, and relaxed slightly. He had delivered the plague to the creature, it had swallowed the metal tank whole. Now it was only a matter of time before it died now, whether it took days or weeks to accomplish.

Excellent, now he could really get into combat without anything else holding him back. Nyx fired his pistol as rapidly as he could as his legs finally finished healing under him and he made his way to his feet. He could hear the massive grub twisting towards him at the noise, but Nyx didn’t let up as he charged towards the wave of oncoming smaller bugs pouring out from the nearby tunnels from all sides.

His plasma shots scorched the large beetles heads, sending them stumbling to the side or outright killing them if Nyx was lucky. These stumbling bugs disrupted the charging line of them in that area, sending the ones behind piling up or stumbling around in confusion as their way was blocked.

Nyx was almost in the pile of chaos when the ground behind him exploded as the grub tried to slam into him with its jaws piercing into the ground with earth shaking force.

He kept firing his weapon until it finally clicked empty, out of power and giving up the game after so long. Nyx tossed it to the side without another thought as he leapt as high as he could on top of a dead beetle’s domed shell. He pushed off of it, pushing forward and landing on top of it, almost slipping off its surface as it was buffeted by the confused beetles surrounding him on all sides. Nyx turned his head so he could eye the grub that had its large head fixed on him.

Just as the swarm realized where he was, Nyx leapt into the air as high as he could as he saw the grub’s head draw back slightly and its mandibles click in and out at a rapid pace.

As Nyx was in mid air,

“SHRRIIIIIIIIIIIII!”

The blast of sound hit him like a massive slap, sending his body flying through the air and across the chamber. He landed roughly among beetles still charging towards where they thought Nyx still was. He immediately used his sword to slice and dice the confused swarm before they could realize he was there.

The swarm was confused, but after a few seconds they refocused and started attacking him again in earnest. Nyx took out his second sword and dual wielded, slicing wildly around him as they came at him from all sides, clearing a space around himself. About thirty feet away was a small tunnel that led away from the chamber.

Nyx quickly started fighting towards it, making slow progress as the grub in the distance started charging towards him, crushing the smaller beetles below its bulk as it moved.

He was fifteen feet away and the grub was getting closer. He kept moving forward, rolling through the gaps between the larger beetles and jumping and rolling over their large round shelled backs when he didn’t see any, slicing with his blades all the way as he did so.

Nyx’s left blade flickered and then shut off as it ran out of power. Now only a normal blade, it wouldn’t cut through the shells of the beetles fast enough. He threw it in front of him to bounce off the head of a beetle that leapt up from the ground to try to jump on top of him in the churning mosh pit around him.

“Hahahahaha!” Nyx laughed as he ducked and the beetle went sailing over him shaking its head in confusion as Nyx's deactivated sword smacked it in the head. The beetle's leap was thrown off course as it landed past him and flipped over on its back, only causing more confusion as the rest of the beetles tried to move around it behind Nyx.

He was only down to one blade as he fought forward, now only ten feet away from the tunnel he was running for. He could feel the rush of air as the grub lurched towards him, undulating its body as it moved and crushing anything in his path.

He rolled forward under another leaping beetle and then rolled to the side as the beetle next to him threw itself to the side in an attempt to throw him off of his feet. He made it to the tunnel and made it a few steps in before the world shook around him as the massive grub impacted the wall behind him, sending dirt trickling down from the ceiling.

Nyx got to his feet and ran up the tunnel as behind him the grub rammed the wall again, shoving its head slightly deeper towards him through the small tunnel. He ran until he was deep enough that the creature wouldn’t be able to break through to him anytime soon from its massive chamber it sat in.

He raised his sword high in the air before laughing at the grub below. He could see it still thrashing its head and sticking its mandible in the tunnel in an attempt to dig it out and reach him.

“Hahahaha, FUCK YES! I DID that SHIT! I AM THE GREATEST! Shrivel up and DIE, FATASS! I’m getting out of here and there’s NOTHING you can do about it!”

The grub paused in its attack and pulled back slightly, before its mandibles began twitching rapidly. Nyx smirked, turned, and started running up the tunnels.

“SHRIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!”

The sound made Nyx stumble and the tunnel immediately behind him collapsed. But he was fine, left only with his remaining sword and a clothing band on him.

He started running to the surface, whistling a happy tune as he did so. With the main swarm down below and playing catch up, Nyx was able to keep ahead of them easily. He only had to deal with the swarms of those little green acid bugs and the occasional large straggler leaping at him. His trusty sword took them out easily, although it was difficult keeping it away from the acid splashes of the smaller bugs. Nyx barely even noticed as the acid splashed over his skin, the damage healing in seconds.

And easy as could be, hearing the oh so sweet wails and screams of the frustrated grub below him, Nyx escaped cleanly, his sword and clothes only just barely surviving the whole trip to the surface.

Nyx went to his shuttle and walked inside with a bounce in his step. He hadn’t had that much fun in millennia! Now all he had to do was wait and confirm that the thing was dead, and then he could be on his way again before more of those stuffy Immortal Council Enforcers showed up to claim credit for all of his hard work.