Re:Cursed

It felt like a lifetime ago that she'd last seen the Fleshsmith leader — and technically, it had been — but seeing her now, so much of the pain the woman had inflicted upon her came crashing back. Nyxil remembered the horrid chains that nibbled and chewed at her body. She remembered the constant agony and exhaustion of her captivity.

Solan's eyes burned with a greed far surpassing anything Nyxil remembered. Even as the woman sacrificed her to the Eidolon gods, she had been disgruntled and as unpleasant as always. To see her grin sent shivers down Nyxil's sharp spine.

It was only because her heart now hammered faster than she could tap her fingers — all of them — that she even registered what happened in the second after they locked eyes.

Solan didn't waste time for any word, or to celebrate her discovery; she struck. Her mountainous, fleshy chain crashed forward. It ripped through pipes, pistons, and all sorts of machinery that hadn't yet folded away. The ground between them was gone, but that mattered little for the original Fleshsmith. Her serpentine creation crossed the three hundred metre gap with ease.

A thousand screaming souls pushed against the bloody pink flesh that wound between massive chain links. Their vague forms were each shackled by black steel. Bound to eternally serve as her tool. Agonised howls surpassed the growing hum of energy above, and distinct voices rang in Nyxil's mind. They called for help. Pleaded to be freed. Fear and despair ran so rampant amongst the writhing flesh of Solan's chains that it infested Nyxil's mind by proximity.

The chain rushed towards Nyxil. Frozen in shock, terror, and harrowing pity, she could do nothing but watch as a weapon she couldn't hope to survive came for her. If Solan's goal was to kill her, wrap her up in its flesh, or simply destroy Tarchon's home, she wouldn't know, as the blooming flower of pipes above shifted. They spiralled and twisted, as steam burst all around her. The flower formed a drill, and slammed into the oncoming chain.

The mass of machinery and piping stopped the chain's approach, but even as it spun and its axil smoked, it couldn't damage the creation of the Fleshsmiths' leader.

"Annoying steamskulls." Somehow, Solan's grumbled comment broke through the deafening grind of steel against steel.

Her chain backed off momentarily, revealing not even a scratch, while Tarchon's massive drill had already splintered and dulled. If the machine sensed it wasn't working, Nyxil didn't know, but it bloomed outwards again and shot forward, intent to wrap around the chain rather than cut through it.

Solan didn't so much as give it the time.

Her chain whipped around and crushed it from above. The amount of power behind that single flick of its length cratered the blooming pipes, and the force shockwaved through its metallic frame to destroy the motors, servos and pistons that kept the entire structure moving. A snake swatting a toy mouse.

Splinters of steel rained down into the pit. Nyxil finally took a step back, into a waiting mechanical arm that clicked around her waist and yanked her back.

Seeing the arm, Solan pushed her chain forward once more, only for the pair of sleek new cannons to the sides of the cavern to unleash mighty pulses of power that momentarily blinded Nyxil. No longer did they hum. The cannons roared with power that burned at her eardrums just as much as it did her skin. When she blinked, she found two massive holes in the serpentine chain, and a furious Solan.

"Ta̽'Ș͑t̕r̊a͑ḷa̾͆n͙͂o̼͗v͐͐̿͝'r̝͇͎͓͜ !" she shouted at the glowing blue walls. "Do not interfere if you know what's good for you."

"Come now S͍̾ølą̛́̄n̼̙͈̘̄̍̓͘-K̨̩̯͚̻͎̙̩͚͚'K͙͔a͔n̡͎ṱ̡̿͗̚'l̹̮-R̫̜̩u͂̇'a͚͌̏n̫̝̔̉̍, you can hardly expect us to abandon those under our protection." Ta'Stralanov'r's voice suddenly engulfed the chamber, coming from everywhere. "Unlike some, we do not settle with half-measures."

In a fit of fury, Solan threw her chains against the walls, only for the intense blue energy to incinerate that which it touched. The world shone and Nyxil felt her skin peeling, but whatever happened next was lost to her.

The arm dragged her into the heart of Tarchon's workshop. The walls were cracked and the tables had fractured, but that all seemed insignificant as the floor opened up and dozens of panels slid into place around her. They formed a shell of mechanical parts that clicked into place one after the other until, for a moment, everything was still. Then the earth shook, and she fell.

Encapsulated by machinery, Nyxil had no way of knowing what was happening outside, only that she was falling.

Her entire world was chaos. So many things moved around her. Wires whizzed past her head, sliding fast enough that they would slice through her if she pulled free of the harness that now clung to her. A loud whistling rang through her head as intense pressure released from a series of valves above her.

Suddenly, weight returned to Nyxil. Her shell stopped falling, but from all the shaking and jostling, it never stopped moving.

Just when the shaking seemed to settle and she had enough time to actually process what had happened, the roof was ripped open by Solan's chain and her ride was thrown into a side wall. Nyxil had only a moment to see the tunnel they were speeding through and the trailing flesh and steel chain that shredded through Coral's inside before it was engulfed in that same blue energy.

Panels slid over one another to seal the broken gap in her capsule, but before it fully closed she watched as burning flesh melted off the metal links.

The space afforded to her in this shell shrunk. Wires cut at the cloth of her robe as they shifted around her in a dense, evershifting web. Motors they connected to screamed their complaints to the world. Everything smoked. The array of protective plating never stopped clattering as she felt her body thrown one way then the other. Each turn left such a strain on Nyxil's body that she could only imagine how fast the shell was moving.

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When gravity shifted, and she found herself laying on her back while the pod still shot through the core of Coral, Nyxil's mind finally caught up. Her hand raised to grab at the dozen steel cables that coiled around her chest. They were all that kept her from falling into the dangerous mass of machinery that surrounded her, and yet she had to put an immense effort into not snapping at them with her claws. She did not like being bound.

Solan had found her out.

There was no denying the greed that woman had showed; she knew without a shadow of a doubt what Nyxil was. With the concealer from Ta'Stralanov'r, it had felt like her mutations might never be discovered. If even the spines that slipped through her rope weren't noticeable, then maybe her past would never repeat.

But now Solan knew what she was. Nyxil's future was now fated to mirror the past.

She didn't want to just sit here while the two cult leaders fought. But what could she do? No matter how strong Nyxil had become since time had unwound, it paled compared to those two. She wasn't even close to Tarchon, and his machines had been destroyed in moments.

Was her best option another Dark Star? It wouldn't kill Solan, and Nyxil certainly wasn't looking forward to being stuck in another one for so long, but it might give her somewhere to hide. Better that, then becoming Solan's sacrifice.

Things had been looking up for Nyxil, but with this, all was bound to change. She was acutely aware just how good her position had become. For the first time ever, she had people on her side. Dan and Ari may not be strong, but they were friends she'd not had in her last life. And while Nyxil may not be able to rely on them when it came to the cults, she now had Tarchon and the Technocult willing to protect her.

But now that Solan knew, the cults would come. All of them. She had told the others of her existence last time, and she would do so again. Ta'Stralanov'r may have been willing to hide her from them, but to fight every other cult for her? That was far more demanding.

The Technocult were bound to enter conflict with the other cults, but this was too early. They didn't have time to prepare and plan upon what Nyxil had told them. No matter the value they saw in her, she wasn't worth their cult.

Nyxil's heart was still pounding in her chest, and she knew it was affecting her thoughts, but she couldn't risk bringing it back down to a calm rhythm. Everything was moving too fast. She needed the reaction time. The appearance of Solan had caught her flatfooted, and if not for Tarchon and Ta'Stralanov'r's defences, she would already be bound by chains again.

Curling her tentacles, elongating her claws, and revealing her third eye, Nyxil prepared for whatever happened next.

When the shell finally shunted to a stop, barely a dozen seconds after she first laid eyes on Solan, Nyxil sliced through the cables holding her still. With nothing suspending her, she fell. Her tentacle had already reached for her blade, and now it whipped forward to strike at the rapidly shifting wires. They didn't snap on contact as she'd hoped. Instead, upon registering touch, they retracted, tightening against the walls they weaved between.

She didn't wait to see why she'd stopped. Nyxil threw herself at one of the panels that hadn't fully locked into place through the ride. Her claws hacked at the motors. The eye in her sternum ate at its joints, and her tentacles pressed into the available gap, trying to widen the slight jar wide enough for her body to squeeze through.

She didn't see the panel array fold open behind her.

Success! Nyxil tumbled out through the broken sheet of metal and immediately fell into a sprint. Her single wing threw her forward with no mind for who was behind her. The only thing on her mind was that she needed to get away. Find somewhere in the depths of Coral where they would never find her.

Every day without her second wing, she missed it more. Today was no different. The dark, unlit tunnel would be so much easier to navigate if she could fly.

Nyxil didn't take more than two steps before her tentacles took over. Not three steps after that, her run came to an end. A hand grabbed her by the back of the neck. She felt her spines spike upwards, but they scraped against something they couldn't pierce.

Suddenly unable to move or twist her head, she brought her arm back and snapped her claws down. They clanged against something hard. Pins and needles shot up her arm, but she didn't let up her efforts. She clamped again, to no avail. She tried to synchronise the crushing strikes of her claws with her heartbeat, but it was too fast, and her hands couldn't keep up.

"Be calm, and collect yourself."

The sound of Tarchon's voice registered in her mind at the same time he twisted her by the neck to face him. She hung like a kitten, and stopped fighting. The tentacles already snaking along his back — looking for somewhere to attack — went slack.

Nyxil hissed… it felt appropriate.

He put her down, and as she forced the thumping of her heart to slow, she couldn't help but state the obvious. "S͍̾ølą̛́̄n̼̙͈̘̄̍̓͘ knows."

"Yes, we considered the possibility." He turned and moved, making it clear he wanted her to keep pace. "Now that she's made such a blatant show, there will be no opposition to your stay within the temple. We can become more active in our protection without claims of bias."

Nyxil struggled as she ran after him. Tarchon was far more agile than he appeared.

"But… what happens when she tells the other cults?"

"She won't," he said with confidence she couldn't understand. "We calculated the probability to within a thousandth that Solan would approach any other cult if she knew about your status."

"That's what happened last time. She brought all the cults into the sacrifice."

Tarchon glanced back at her as he ran. "Did she?" he questioned. "Or was her hand forced?"

Uncomprehending, Nyxil only blinked.

"The Fleshsmiths, and S͍̾ølą̛́̄n̼̙͈̘̄̍̓͘ by extension, are horrible at keeping things hidden. Most don't question the Dark Stars are their fault because this isn't the first time they have mismanaged their own members so horribly."

So… information about her leaked, and Solan had no choice but to share her with the other cults? It would explain why she'd always seemed so grumpy in her presence, while now she was only giddy. But, that didn't settle Nyxil's mind. She could hope Ta'Stralanov'r killed the Fleshsmiths' leader, though for some reason she didn't think it would be so easy.

"Will you really continue to be on my side?" Nyxil asked doubtfully. "She knows now, and even if she doesn't tell the other cults, it will only encourage her to push forward the war. It won't be only the Machine God Worshippers you need to fight from the start."

Tarchon didn't speak for a few moments, and despite her heart no longer racing, the anxiety was chewing at her. She doubted anything she said was something they hadn't considered, but there was always the possibility that just saying so would spark a decision. But she had to know. Nyxil couldn't stay near them if they were just going to give her up the moment the cults demanded their sacrifice.

"You are not alone." His words were careful and direct. Tarchon made sure to lock eyes so she knew the full weight of his promise. "We are with you. You have our protection and support."

Nyxil couldn't breathe as she was forced to accept the reality that she truly did have someone willing to look out for her. They'd proven themselves today, and yet it was still so hard to actualise in her mind. She choked up, and even if she could think of any words to say, they wouldn't have made it to her lips.

Then Tarchon had to ruin it. "As long as you place first in the Trials."

Well, he needn't even say it anymore. She was determined to crush the competition. But first, where was Tarchon taking her?