Nucleus 1: The Dust of Moon [Mature Sci-fi Romance]

A creature of impossible size burst from below - a segmented nightmare that dwarfed the surrounding pines. Its crystalline armor caught the morning light, each plate the size of a car door, grinding against its neighbors with sounds like breaking glaciers. The Glacierwurm reared up, towering forty feet above them, its maw a spiral of rotating teeth that seemed to descend forever into darkness.

Lorna's mind struggled to process the sheer scale. This wasn't just a Radi-Mon - it was a living siege engine.

"Buddha's mercy..." Xin breathed, frozen for a heartbeat.

The creature's eyeless head swayed, seeking. When it oriented on them, a deep rumble emerged from its depths - not quite a roar, more like an avalanche given voice.

"Run!" Lorna grabbed Xin's arm, Håkon leaping and clinging desperately to his right shoulder this time.

Behind them, Watrous's laughter echoed through the chaos. "Beautiful, isn't it? The Jokull's finest tunneler!"

"Flee if you wish." Ulrik said calmly, Rimfrost resting on his shoulder. "The worm will pursue."

They sprinted for the Space Rover as the ground continued to crack and heave. The Glacierwurm's massive body was still emerging - segment after segment of armored flesh, easily a hundred feet long and still coming.

Xin dove into the driver's seat, hands flying over the controls. The fusion engine roared to life just as the creature's tail finally cleared the hole, sending a shower of frozen earth skyward.

"Hold on!"

The Rover lurched forward, tires spinning on the destabilized ground before finding purchase. In the passenger seat, Lorna fumbled desperately for the glove compartment. Her shaking fingers found the Indra-Sprite vial next to her backup weapons.

She downed half the contents in one desperate gulp. Aether flooded back, the relief almost painful.

The Glacierwurm oriented on their movement with surprising grace for something so massive. Its head reared back, maw gaping wide. Deep in its throat, Lorna could see frost building, condensing into something far worse than mere ice.

A torrent of freezing mist erupted forth - not a stream but a blizzard compressed into a killing breath. It caught the Rover's rear quarter, and the vehicle shuddered violently. Ice didn't just form on the surface; it invaded, spreading through the drive system's components with crystalline fingers.

Warning lights blazed across the dashboard. The steering fought Xin's control, the Rover lurching sideways as one rear wheel locked completely.

"Drive system's compromised!" Xin wrestled with the wheel, fighting to keep them moving forward. "We're still mobile but barely."

The ground exploded again - not from below but beside them as the Glacierwurm dove back underground with terrifying ease. The displacement alone nearly flipped the Rover.

"It's tracking us from below!" Lorna gripped the door handle as they careened between trees.

"Keep us steady," Lorna commanded, pulling out her 10mm Magnum Váli. She pressed her left palm against the grip, feeling the Echo Sapphire within respond to her restored Aether. The weapon hummed with potential.

"Luna, Custodem Fulminis!"

Silver-blue electricity coursed along her arm, gathering around the pistol until it crackled with barely contained power. She removed the magazine - five bullets remaining - and the metal grew cold in her hand as lightning danced across its surface.

"Lorna, what are you—"

She hurled the electrified magazine out the window. It hit the ground behind them and exploded into a web of lightning that stretched across the entire forest path. The Glacierwurm, still pursuing from underground, erupted directly into the electrical web. Its shriek turned to agony as thousands of volts coursed through its crystalline armor.

It crashed to the surface, twitching with residual electricity before retreating back into the ground, roaring with displeasure.

"Oh, that!" Xin breathed, glancing in the mirror at the fallen behemoth. "The same spell you did in Taipei."

"My good old trick." Lorna slumped back, chest heaving. The special technique had burned through most of her restored Aether. In the rearview, she could see Ulrik and Watrous standing calmly amid the chaos, making no move to pursue. They'd gotten what they wanted - confirmation of her identity and a test of her abilities.

But the Space Rover's erratic movements and dashboard warnings were growing more urgent. Ice still spread through the systems, creating new failures by the second.

Then Lorna noticed something missing as she secured her own weapons back in her coat. "Xin, where's Kuma?"

His face fell. "I... dropped it to catch Håkon."

From his shoulder, Håkon chirped apologetically, scales darkening with guilt.

"Hey, no. You saved me, boy." Xin reassured the little Diabolisk before turning to Lorna. "Sorry, I should've grabbed it after—"

"It's fine. The gun has an Echo Sapphire." Lorna raised her left hand, closing her eyes in concentration. This would be trickier than summoning her own weapons. "Kuma, svar på mit kald gennem Aether."

The air shimmered, but the portal forming was unstable, flickering. She pushed harder, reaching not just for the weapon but for the trace of familiar Aether that still lingered within it. Emmanuel's essence, mingled with her own from their time together.

The portal solidified. Through the swirling vortex, Kuma drifted into view, suspended in the space they'd fled. It passed through and settled onto the console between them as the portal collapsed.

"Thank Buddha that worked." Xin exhaled in relief, then paused. "Isn't that Manny's gun, though? Attuned to his Aether?"

Lorna kept her eyes on the road ahead. "Yeah. I have his Aether in me."

Understanding dawned on Xin's face. "Oh. So you two have..."

"Fucked? Yes. Several times." She met his gaze directly, voice steady. "Him, Thomas, and a few others over the years. All before I met you."

Xin nodded slowly, processing. The Rover hit a bump, reminding them both of their deteriorating situation.

"Hey…I know this is awkward timing," Lorna continued, securing her own weapons back in her coat. "But you know - I have a past. I've had needs. I just hope that's—"

"Lorna." Xin's voice carried more amusement than upset. "We're both adults. You're twenty-nine, I'm forty-one. Did you think I expected you to be waiting in a tower somewhere?"

She blinked, caught off-guard by his matter-of-fact tone.

"Besides," he added with a slight grin, "I had an android girlfriend. Was patron to some Leased Lilies before that, too." He then met her gaze, mimicing her earlier tone. "All before I met you."

Despite everything, Lorna found herself laughing - short and surprised. "Fair point."

"Thanks for saving us back there," Xin said, navigating around a fallen log. "I got cocky, trying to take on two Horde leaders at once."

"You held your own. We all did." She glanced at Håkon, who was watching them with tilted head.

Family-together-but-mother-unhappy? The little Diabolisk's mental voice carried confusion.

"Nah, boy," Lorna reached over to stroke his head gently. "Grown-up feelings. We're okay."

Håkon settled against Xin's shoulder with a small trill, apparently satisfied that his pack was intact even if he didn't understand all the dynamics.

But the Rover lurched again, more violently this time. Whatever damage the Glacierwurm's ice had done was getting worse.

The Rover lurched violently to the right, nearly clipping a massive pine. Whatever internal systems the ice had compromised, they were failing faster now.

"Structural integrity's dropping," Xin reported, wrestling with the controls. "The controls are…fighting me?"

Through the trees ahead, Lorna spotted a small clearing - barely large enough for the Rover, but it would have to do. "There! Set us down before we get hurt."

Xin nodded grimly, coaxing the dying vehicle toward the gap. The Rover's fusion engine coughed, sputtered, then died completely twenty meters from the clearing. Momentum carried them forward, but without power steering, Xin could barely keep them straight.

They crashed through a cluster of frozen bushes, the Rover's white armored hull groaning in protest before sliding to a halt at an awkward angle. Ice continued spreading through the vehicle's systems, creating ominous cracking sounds.

"Out. Now!" Lorna grabbed her weapons, checking that both Váli and Baldr were secure.

Xin scooped up Håkon, who chirped in alarm as more warning lights blazed across the dashboard. They evacuated quickly, boots crunching on frozen earth as they ran from the dying vehicle.

The ground trembled again. Not the massive displacement of the Glacierwurm's emergence, but rhythmic impacts. Footsteps.

"They're coming," Lorna said, turning to face the direction they'd fled from. Through the trees, she could make out movement - deliberate, unhurried.

"Lorna…" Xin added in a low voice. "If the worst happens…I've learned a new spell recently. Been practicing it, too."

"A what?" Lorna looked at him.

"A Void chant that can create some chasm between us and them." Xin swallowed before continuing, meeting her gaze. "The first part can be channeled with a silent chant, but it'll be very long. Buy me some time as I cast it."

"I…" Lorna looked to Håkon hesitantly, seeking opinion as he now perched onto Xin's shoulder.

The little Diabolisk chirped, somehow assuringly.

"Okay." Lorna nodded as she looked away, at their approaching foes.

Watrous emerged first in his corrupted form. The academic's mocking smile remained, but his movements had an unnatural fluidity beneath the black coat he wore.

"Such a lovely chase," he called out, voice rusty. "Though your driving could use work, hmm?"

"We need to talk." Lorna began.

"Oh?" Watrous grinned in amusement. "The illustrous Daughter of Harald now wishes to talk."

Ulrik followed, Rimfrost in his massive paw. The polar bear's expression remained neutral, almost contemplative. He rumbled with certainty. "The hunt ends here, Sigrún Fjeld. Submit the pendant, and I will grant your swift deaths."

"Not very creative." Lorna drew Baldr, though she knew her Aether reserves were nearly depleted.

"Creativity is not required. Only results." Ulrik's eyes, now glowing cyan, tracked them. "Your mount is destroyed. Your Aether is spent. What remains but surrender?"

Big-scary-bad-coming! Håkon's mental warning spiked with new urgency.

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The ground didn't just tremble this time - it cracked. A fissure split the earth between them and their pursuers, widening rapidly. Steam hissed from the gap, carrying the acrid scent of disturbed permafrost.

Then the Glacierwurm erupted again, its massive form bursting through the forest floor in a shower of frozen earth and shattered trees. But something was different. Dark scorch marks marred its crystalline armor where Lorna's lightning had struck. The creature moved with jerky, pained motions.

"Ah, our minion returns," Watrous observed with amusement. "Though somewhat worse for wear."

The Glacierwurm's eyeless head swayed, disoriented. When it oriented on them, its rumble came out wrong - higher pitched, almost keening. The creature was in pain, possibly dying, but that only made it more dangerous.

"Yes, the shards seek reunion," a new voice said, deep and resonant. "Especially when threatened."

The air behind them shimmered, reality seeming to fold in on itself. A circular portal tore open in the fabric of space - not a simple doorway but a grotesque maw lined with jagged, bone-like teeth that spiraled inward toward a pulsing purple core. The Ormheimr writhed with organic malevolence, its fleshy edges dripping with some unknowable ichor as eldritch energies swirled within its depths.

From this nightmare aperture stepped a figure that made Lorna's blood freeze.

The creature stood over five meters tall, but it was his face that held her transfixed - a horrifying fusion of flesh and exposed bone. His massive curved head like a demon without horns. His body was still the same patchwork of organic flesh, brown exoskeleton and bio-mechanical augmentation, cables and tubes threading through exposed musculature.

Skarn.

But it was his eyes that held Lorna transfixed - crimson orbs that burned with recognition.

"Sigrún," he said, and her Nordic name on his lips felt like violation. "My beautiful Sigrún. How I've missed you."

"Primarch Skarn." Even Ulrik inclined his massive head in respect, though Lorna noticed he kept his grip on Rimfrost.

Watrous actually dropped to one knee. "Lord Skarn. The operation proceeds as—"

"Silence." Skarn didn't even look at the professor. His attention darted to Håkon on Xin's shoulder briefly before returning toLorna. "Forty Earth days since your pregnancy in Taiwan. You've grown stronger. Motherhood suits you."

"You're not his father," Lorna snarled. "You're just the thing that—"

"That gave him life?" Skarn laughed. "He carries my blood, my power. And soon, he'll understand his true purpose."

Beside her, Xin tensed. On his shoulder, Håkon's scales had gone completely black with terror and confusion. Bad-wrong-HAKON-father-who?

"It's okay, boy. He's just a mean monster." Lorna maintained her gaze on Skarn, pushing down her own fear.

"Deny the truth all you want." Skarn's form rippled, his carapaced hands raised, his tentacles writhing with anticipation. "Though I'd prefer you alive. There's still so much we could create together."

"Primarch," Ulrik interjected carefully. "The next Moondust shard remains pinned nearby. Perhaps we should—"

"In a moment." This time Skarn did look at the polar bear, and Ulrik actually stepped back. "I did not arrive here from Shashan to to be rushed."

The casual display of dominance sent chills through Lorna. If even Ulrik, with all his power and pride, deferred so...

"You came for the shard," she said, buying time while her mind raced for options. "But you can't touch it either, can you? That's why you need my pendant."

Skarn's eyes narrowed. "The Yosemite shard resists any servant of the Hivemind. Harald's insult - making his greatest creation reject his greatest enemy."

"My father's…creation?" Lorna replied, utterly confused.

Xin continued his secret incantation next to Lorna, his slender form flinching, eyes widening behind his glasses.

"Data says the Crystal is almost a billion years old." Lorna replied incredulously. "No human can possibly—"

"Create such things?" Skarn's laugh was like grinding stone. "Your precious father never told you, did he? About his little trips through the eons?"

Lorna felt the world tilt. "What are you talking about?"

"Harald Omdal, the great Archmage of Buskerud." Skarn's voice dripped with mockery. "Did you think the Moondust Crystal just happened to exist? A convenient weapon waiting for humanity to discover?"

"You're lying." But even as she said it, doubt crept in. Her father's secretiveness, his mysterious knowledge, the pendant he'd given her...

"Am I? Ask yourself, Sigrún - why does your pendant resonate with every shard? Why does the Crystal respond to Nordling blood specifically?" Skarn stepped closer, ignoring the Void fissures crackling around them. "Because Harald shaped it that way. Planted the seed eons ago, then returned to harvest pieces when it grew too powerful for even his taste."

Lorna's mind reeled. The implications were staggering. "That's impossible. Time travel—"

"Is child's play for a psion of his caliber." Skarn's eyes gleamed. "He planted that 'ancient' Crystal, then spent decades shattering it. Weakening it before having everyone - including you - to try and regain control over it. Even created his Jokull Horde to help place the final shard."

"Then why are they fighting him?" Lorna demanded, though her voice wavered.

Skarn's smile widened. "Because I showed them the truth. Their 'creator' was using them as tools, just like he's using you. They chose freedom over slavery. Just as you could choose me over him."

Lorna stared at Skarn, her world reshaping itself around his words. Everything she thought she knew about her father, about the pendant, about this entire life since leaving Oslo...

Behind her, Xin's whispered chanting grew more urgent, his hands now wreathed in swirling Void energy. The multiple fissures widened, small green light bleeding reality at the edges.

"You're saying my pa manipulated everything?" Her voice was barely a whisper. "The Crystal, the Horde, me?"

"But I can free you from his web, Sigrún." Skarn extended one massive, clawed hand. "Join me, become a Hundkynda, and I'll show you power without chains. Love without manipulation."

"I..." Lorna looked at the extended hand, her mind spinning. If Harald had orchestrated everything, then what was real? What choices had actually been hers?

It was in that moment that Xin finally uttered the finisher of his secret incantation out loud, his left hand raised: "Śūnyatā Mahāgarta!"

The ground exploded between them. Not another Glacierwurm, but something worse - multiple Void fissures opening simultaneously, verdant green energy geysering skyward. The contamination was accelerating, feeding on itself, pulling at Watrous, Ulrik, and Skarn, sucking and drawing them away like multiple mini blackholes.

"What in the…" Watrous looked at Xin incredulously.

"I found this spell the other day searching data about the Rakshasa Horde!" Xin said with a confident grin. "A spell that Vyom created before becoming a Radi-Mon."

"Who?" Watrous looked apparently shocked, but with the blackholes pulling him back, there was no need to even answer his question.

"The area destabilizes!" Ulrik reported, backing away from the expanding corruption. "Primarch Skarn, we must withdraw."

"No." Skarn's form began to shift, growing larger, more monstrous. "Not without what I came for…"

He moved. Despite his massive size, Skarn resisted the fissures' pull and crossed the distance between them in two strides. Xin raised Kuma, firing a full burst that sparked harmlessly off bio-mechanical armor.

Skarn's clawed hand shot forward like a spear. His talons pierced straight through Xin's ballistic puffer jacket as if it were paper, lifting the smaller man off his feet. Red blood spread across the fabric, and Xin's eyes went wide with shock and pain.

"Xin!" Lorna screamed.

The Void fissures began collapsing as Xin's concentration shattered. The green energy dissipated like smoke, and Ulrik and Watrous surged forward, no longer held back.

"Lorna…" Xin whispered, blood flecking his lips. "…run…"

"Not even worthy to be made a Draug." Skarn tossed him aside like a broken doll. Xin hit a tree trunk with a sickening crack and crumpled to the ground, motionless.

"No!" Lorna activated Baldr, but her depleted Aether barely maintained the blade. She managed one desperate swing before a tentacle wrapped around her wrist, squeezing until she dropped the weapon. Another tentacle constricted her waist, lifting her off the ground.

Håkon leaped from where he'd been thrown, landing on Xin's chest. The little Diabolisk's scales had gone pure black with terror as he nudged the unconscious man's face, chirping frantically.

Wake-up-father-wake-up-please!

"Still fighting," Skarn murmured, drawing Lorna close. His crimson eyes turned to study Håkon with disturbing interest. "But in the end, you shall both belong to me—"

In that moment, just when Lorna sobbed, fearing this was the bitter end of everything, an elder's voice rang out from somewhere behind them. A voice she had never thought to hear again, yet always wished she could in the last eleven years.

"Glacies Lunae Fulgur!"

The Ordovox incantation was exactly the same spell that Lorna knew, but it was intoned with a much more resonant, profound frequency. The very air seemed to crystallize around the words.

A flash of silver-white light split the air. Skarn roared in pain, tentacles releasing Lorna as he clutched at his face. Blood - thick and black - oozed between his fingers.

"Step away, Sven!"

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Ancient, powerful, and terribly familiar. The shadows themselves seemed to recoil as a figure materialized from the swirling snow.

Falling to the ground, Lorna scrambled to her knees and turned to look. Her lips parted, but no words came.

The man looked exactly as she remembered from her childhood. Average height, graying beard, messy silver hair, eyes the color of winter storms. He sat astride what appeared to be an improvised cobalt blue hoverbike that thrummed with barely contained power. Next to him at the controls was a creature that resembled a groundhog, but the rodent's gaze held wit and unmistakably human-like intelligence.

"The Oppressor!" Ulrik raised Rimfrost, ready to strike.

"Protect the Primarch!" Watrous sprang into action, his slender but terrifying form undulating forward.

"Vetrarvindur!" The elder's second spell was in Jǫturmál.

It sent both attackers stumbling backward, though neither was seriously injured. Wind and ice swirled around them in a localized storm.

"Olav! The magnetic pull!" The elder called to the mysterious groundhog.

The groundhog nodded, his tiny paws flying over the control panel. A mechanical arm extended from the hoverbike, and to Lorna's amazement, it began lifting their damaged Space Rover despite being a fraction of its size.

The hoverbike swept toward Xin's bloodied form. The elder reached down with both arms, carefully lifting the unconscious man's slender form onto the vehicle's backseat. Håkon clung to Xin's chest, tears streaming down his tiny face - the first time Lorna had ever seen the baby Diabolisk cry.

Father-hurt-father-not-moving! The mental voice was pure anguish.

The bike's magnetic field caught their scattered weapons - Kuma, Baldr, everything important - pulling them safely aboard.

Then the elder turned to her, the hoverbike hovering closer. His storm-gray eyes met hers across eleven years of separation.

"Come, Sigrún!"

Was it really him? The man she had been seeking since their heartbreaking departure in 2284?

But she had little time to think. Her arm shot out, grasping for his outstretched hand. Strong fingers closed around hers - warm, calloused, undeniably familiar.

"Pa?" The word escaped as barely a breath.

"Hold tight." Harald's voice carried the same quiet strength she remembered as he turned to address the groundhog. "Olav! Drive towards our third encampment!"

Olav made a nod as he piloted. The hoverbike lurched upward just as Skarn's roar of fury shook the trees. Below them, the Primarch's tentacles lashed where they'd been moments before, missing by mere inches.

"Þetta er ekki lokið, Sigrún! [This isn't over, Sigrún!]" Skarn's voice followed them into the sky. "Ek mun fá það sem mitt er! [I will have what's rightfully mine!]"

But Olav was already banking the hoverbike away, carrying Lorna's damaged family toward whatever sanctuary awaited. Behind them, the clearing grew smaller.

As everything quieted down, Håkon's crying and his mental voice became impossible to ignore.

Father-father-father-come-back-to-me.

Lorna turned to look, tears in her eyes as she found the little Diabolisk now lying on Xin's stomach, making long and mournful trills, burying his head into the blood-stained puffer jacket as if offering a desperate prayer.

"The young one has seen too much today." Harald glanced back at Håkon, his weathered face grim. "Cover his eyes while I work."

"Okay." Lorna nodded, reaching out to scoop up Håkon, whose trill didn't stop. She lifted him off Xin's body, one hand gently covering his eyes. "It's okay, boy. Grandpa's here. He'll help."

Harald used both hands to open Xin's puffer jacket, revealing the green shirt beneath, also soaked with blood. When he opened that too, Lorna gasped. She'd seen plenty of carnage since joining SIMU, but this was different. This was someone she cared about.

Skarn's claws had torn deep - too deep. Xin's breathing was shallow, irregular. Blood still seeped from the wounds.

Harald placed a weathered hand on Xin's bloodied chest.

"Hjarta Kyrr, eldr til heims snúa," he intoned gently but confidently.

Blue radiance flowed from his fingers. The bleeding stopped first, then something impossible happened - the blood began flowing backward, drawn into the wounds as if time itself was rewinding. Torn muscle knitted together, punctured organs sealed themselves whole. Snow-white patches formed over the deeper cuts, like crystalline bandages.

Håkon struggled against Lorna's hand, his tiny claws scratching at her fingers.

"Okay, boy. Look now." Lorna moved her hand away.

Håkon's eyes widened. Where there had been ravaged flesh, now only faint silver scars remained beneath those strange, luminous patches. Xin's breathing had steadied, his chest rising and falling normally.

"See?" Lorna said as she slowly lowered her hands, placing Håkon gently on her lap.

Father-sleeping-not-broken? The Diabolisk's mental voice carried cautious hope.

"He'll be fine," Harald said, though exhaustion lined his face. "Skarn missed his heart by centimeters. Lucky."

He turned to Lorna then, storm-gray eyes meeting hers across eleven years of separation.

"It's good to see you, after all this time."

"Pa." The word came out cracked, broken. "I... all this time, I thought..."

"That I'd abandoned you." His voice was quieter than she remembered. "I know."

Lorna's hands went to her neck, pulling out the Pendant of Mánagrát. "Did you really make this? The whole Crystal?"

Harald was quiet for a long moment, studying her face. When he spoke, his words were careful, measured.

"I planted a seed in time's river. What grew from it..." He paused. "That was necessary."

"But why?" The question burst out of her. "Why manipulate everything? Why lie to me?"

"Because in every timeline where I didn't, all our planets and moons fell." His eyes were distant now, seeing something she couldn't. "Every single one, Sigrún."

With Xin resting in the backseat, Håkon perched on her lap, and the groundhog named Olav at the steering wheel, the hoverbike flew on through the frozen wilderness.

Lorna wasn't flying toward it alone, even if she no longer knew who she could trust.