Butler watched out his window as the flaps on the wings lifted, slowing the small aircraft immediately as it descended towards the landing strip.
"Oh God!" He exclaimed, looking at the scene unfolding ahead.
A towering craft in the distance was inching along its way, drawing slowly closer to its destination. It was much further along that he had expected it to be -- he would have to act quickly.
"Put it down as close to that shuttle as you can!" He shouted to the pilot, who nodded in the affirmative.
The man guided the craft with expert precision down onto the crawler way, the tires chirping as they touched down and raced towards the sleeping giant. Butler had his seatbelt undone and was standing at the door before the plane was anywhere near a complete stop, ready to spring out and do whatever he could to foil the plans of The Phloxans.
The moment their velocity was quelled by the braking system, he leapt out -- finding himself no more than a hundred yards from the giant spacecraft. Several purple-eyed men riding on the crawler saw him and leveled off firearms in his direction. One of them scrambled off towards the front end of the vehicle and returned with a woman, her face dropping at the site of him. She stormed back out of view for a moment, then returned toting a megaphone.
"You're too late, Ambassador!" She yelled voraciously into it. "You've failed!"
"I don't think so -- whoever you are!" He shouted back, stressing his throat so that she might hear.
"Please, Conrad -- you know me!" She returned. "I told the human he wasn't to address me, but I'll allow you the honor of calling me Count!"
"My my, The Conquistador of Kahnik himself! Were you so worried, Zeenadi?" He shouted again. "That you had to come yourself? Tomlinson almost had you beaten -- I've come in his name, to give you one last slap across the face -- for my people! You shall not have The Tal-Gashot!"
Butler leaned back into the airplane and grabbed a sniper rifle he'd stowed near the door. As soon as the woman on the crawler saw it, she frantically commanded her men to fire.
A hail of shots pelted the aircraft, the pilot being struck early and falling prey to the hunters quickly. Slugs passed through The Ambassador too -- bright flashes of golden light erupting from his body each time he was hit.
"Don't tell me you've forgotten already, Zeenadi?" He quipped as he raised his own rifle to his shoulder. "You can't kill me with that!"
"NO!" Janet howled as her nemesis took aim down the scope -- focusing his cross hairs on the windshield at the top of the shuttlecraft.
He couldn't see through the tinted portholes, so he did his best to judge where the head of Randy Johnston would be inside. He hoped that his armor-piercing shells would be able to penetrate the high-tech material, but wasn't at all sure they would.
The rifle kicked powerfully as he fired the first shot, the bullet missing its target and chipping the metal around the edge of the darkened windows. Adjusting his aim, he fired again -- the slug finding the porthole this time.
To his dismay, it bounced off the treated glass or plastic just as it had the metal -- doing little or no damage. He fired again -- and again -- and again, hoping to at least crack the surface with the repetition so that the cabin would decompress once in the vacuum of space. Johnston being sucked out of the craft would do just as well to kill him as his being shot in the head.
Before long, though, he was out of ammunition -- the surface still seeming undamaged.
"Your kind knows nothing but failure, Ambassador!" Janet gloated with a smile. "Even in the desperation of looming death, you are useless! Your people will rue the day that Thig's tinkering led to your creation! Bow down to your superiors, Butler! Prepare for the end of --"
Janet’s tirade was cut short by sudden jolt that shook the crawler. She nearly lost her balance, shifting her weight backwards to keep from falling off the platform.
A second violent lurching caused her to fold to her knees, looking up at the source of the noise; the shuttle. The sounds of a struggle echoed through her still keyed-up megaphone, the vertical space craft rocking with repeating thuds.
"What's happening?" She shouted out to those gathered around her.
Many of the men at her side seemed to know exactly what was transpiring. They cast themselves off of the machine on which they rode, falling a good distance to the concrete below where the bones of the bodies they inhabited snapped and popped on impact. They knew what was wrong, and so did she... Polyphemus was awake!
The rocking of the shuttle grew increasingly violent, until it suddenly started to topple like a giant Jenga tower; the massive missiles strapped to its belly riding along with it as it started to fall from the crawler.
It was an incredible site to behold; it teetered like a steel Sequoia cut down at its base, the moans and creaks of stressed metal tearing at itself and eventually crashing to the ground. By some miracle, none of the rockets ignited or exploded; though such a catastrophe would've at least served the purpose of destroying the monster thrashing about within the cargo bay.
The craft landed on its side, the bay doors facing Butler as massive dents formed from within. The steel expanded around each blow like the aluminum foil at the top of old Redi-Pop trays, until it looked like the metal could take no more.
Silence fell over the crawler way for a split second; the calm before the storm. It was ruptured in short order as the giant fist of the Tal-Gashot blasted through the steel like the beak of a chick breaking the shell of its egg. The monster continued to claw and kick until it had obliterated the majority of the shuttle, opening a space large enough through which to squeeze its massive body.
A growl as loud as thunder sounded out as it rolled onto the concrete, squatting down with its face to the ground as it tried to get its bearings. Purple-eyed men and women went scurrying away as quickly as their feet would carry them as Polyphemus stood, casting a shadow that consumed even Butler, as far away as he was.
The beast opened its oversized eyes, surveying this strange world with its neon-green gaze as a foreboding pattern of gurgling grunts cast vapors out of its mouth. The tiny creatures fleeing before it caught its attention, leading it to reach down and scoop one of them up as though it were a caterpillar in the fingers of a curious child. Everyone froze in place and watched to see what it would do -- what its intentions towards them were.
Holding the man up near its face, it seemed to think for a moment about what it was. A laser-like beam as green as its eyes surged from the lines in its forehead, scanning the wildly kicking body he held from the feet up; stopping for a few seconds when it reached the head.
What had been an indifferent expression on the monster's face changed abruptly to something much more sinister; a look of loathing and disgust, almost. It used its free hand to reach up to the collar it wore, twisting it around until a series of lights upon it illuminated.
The vaporous breath of the creature ceased to flow from its mouth and started coming, instead, out of the metallic ring around its neck. The gurgling and grunting continued, amplified now so that it was almost deafening.
As the scanning laser cut out, Polyphemus furled its brow in contempt. Through the collar came an ominous and booming declaration -- not so much speech as thought projected audibly by the apparatus. All who beheld it felt a powerful vibration in their chests; the rhythm of their very heartbeats being disturbed and made irregular by the concussion of the sound.
"DIE!" It said...
Another laser-like beam appeared from the ridges in its forehead, a crimson red this time, and scanned over the man in its clutches from the bottom up. As quickly as it moved across his body, he was vaporized. His miserable wail could be heard just as far and wide as the utterance that had come from Polyphemus, incredible suffering and pain evident in its depths.
When he had turned to dust, the monster lowered its hands to its sides and scanned the field in front of it once again. Focusing on a large pack of bodies, t
he Tal-Gashot pulled back its shoulders and arced its neck forward, firing the red beam of death at their feet and turning them to clouds of haze instantly.
People started screaming and running now, one and all racing away in what seemed a futile quest to escape the growing ire of the beast. Butler wasn't sure whether or not the laser could snuff him out, but he wasn't taking any chances. In a flash, he transformed into his natural state and rose high into the clouds to observe from above.
From a safe vantage point, he watched an incredible reign of destruction unfolding. Polyphemus marched across the landscape, his footfalls thunderous and Earth shaking, clearing the fields of every living thing in sight. Some it hit with the laser weapon, some it crushed under its feet, some it popped into the slits where its mouth should be and seemed to ingest.
Among those it picked up in its hand was a black man -- Evander Hughes. He fought right up to the end, firing what amounted to pebbles from his pistol directly into the mouth of the beast. It was unphased; tossing the man and his gun both directly into its mouth and devouring another bite of humanity.
The human under the influence of Count Zeenadi didn't run, however; she stayed put, instead, on the crawler as the chaos unfurled. She seemed to be contemplating her next move; calculating carefully. Something caught her eye, peaking her interest immediately. It was movement near the shuttlecraft. Following her lead, Butler examined the wreckage carefully, trying to discern what had broken her intense concentration.
Lowering his essence a bit, he saw what appeared to be a sack -- something inside of it writhing around wildly. After a fierce bout of kicking and shimmying, the head of a man emerged -- followed by shoulders and a torso.
The Ambassador recognized the face of this individual as Randy Johnston, the man whose image had been drilled into his mind as the target for the day. The first thought that occurred to him was to swoop in and kill him; to bring an end to the nightmare he was engrossed in.
Johnston seemed to have an agenda, though; something driving him to fight out of that sack despite the fact that his hands and feet were clearly bound. Once free of the oppressive bag, the man pushed himself across the concrete with his feet; surely scraping the flesh from his face as he progressed.
Butler was inspired by Johnston's zeal... the man was clearly convinced that there was something he must do -- at any cost. Maybe he had an answer -- maybe he knew of some way to end this all without causing any further death.
Believe, The Ambassador thought to himself... believe until the end!
Floating over towards the launch pads, where Johnston was headed, Butler realized what was happening. He saw a small child strapped to a chair at the mouth of a rocket; the boy screaming and crying in unfathomable terror. This wasn't some valiant attempt to save the day -- it was the last act of a man condemned to die... a last-ditch effort to save his frightened child and comfort him in the moment of his death.
His own fatherly instincts taking hold of him, he assumed human form again and worked to free the boy from his captivity. The little one was understandably as frightened by The Ambassador's glowing form as he was by the rampaging giant in the distance, driving him to leap from the chair once the final straps had been undone and race away. He stopped suddenly, though, realizing that moving forward would bring him closer to the beast.
Butler zoomed over to Johnston and unwound the tape from his wrists and ankles; eager to see the man reunited with his son. He couldn't save them, but at least he could let them be together for the end... as he would've liked to have been with his own daughter.
No sooner than he was free, Randy jumped to his feet and ran towards his boy. As he approached him, Sammy held out his arms in anticipation of an embrace. Just before the two came together, though, the child was suddenly pulled away as though yanked by an invisible rope.
"Come here!" Janet shouted.
Randy's head snapped around to follow the boy's path through the air, Sammy blasting past him and flying right into the waiting arms of the purple-eyed woman.
She turned the boy away from her, holding him under his armpits and raising him up into the sky. "Come and get him!" She shouted, waiving him at backside of the tyrant Polyphemus in the distance. "You!" She continued. "Filthy Tal-Gashot!"
The monster finished its task at hand first, crushing the last of a group of people before turning back towards the crawler. Obliterated bodies and blood covered every inch of ground in sight as it peered at her; at the child she held between them.
Nothing more was moving, all of the Phloxan influenced men and women having fallen in the path of the creature. Only the five of them drew breath... Butler, Janet, Randy, Sammy -- and the destroyer.
"Here!" Janet called again, flaunting the crying child as Randy made a sprint towards the crawler. "Don't forget to kill this one, creature! Do him NEXT!"
Randy ran faster than The Ambassador had ever seen a man move towards the crawler, but stopped short of the machine. He bent down to retrieve something from the ground, then held the object up in front of him.
He had found a pistol dropped by one of Janet’s guards. He looked at the Tal-Gashot, standing still amidst the wreckage as Janet waived Sammy at it.
"Sammy!" He shouted to his son, keeping his eyes on the creature. "I'm sorry, buddy!"
"Here, beast!" Janet continued to shout. "Look HERE!"
"I'm sorry I was never there for you -- sorry that I wasn't there to protect you!" Randy cried.
"Daddy?" The boy moaned through a veil of fear and pained grunts.
"I'm sorry that you have to see this, son, but it's what I have to do!"
The beast stayed still, examining the scene with its head cocked to the side in some sort of confusion. It had witnessed only an exodus of these beings in its way -- why did this one on the machine stand defiant, holding a smaller one? Why did the other stand with weapon in hand, taking no action at all?
"I love you, buddy!" Randy said with undeniable sincerity as he turned the barrel of the gun towards himself. Pressing it against his head, he took a long deep breath like so many before along this journey. Saying another little prayer, he closed his eyes and prepared himself to go for it once again.
Its curiosity peaked, the Tal-Gashot engaged the green laser once again and scanned over the strange man poised to take his own life.
It had never seen anything like that before... why would a creature seek to terminate itself?
What could drive something to those lengths?
The beam stopped at his head, as it had on the man it held before. The beast's expression changed once more, but it was a markedly different countenance that consumed it this time. It looked heartbroken... pained...
As Randy's finger tightened around the trigger, the collar worn by Polyphemus flashed with colored lights again. The green beam flickered a bit as its face tightened in something that resembled a frown.
"Love," said another thunderous roar that oozed from the apparatus with the beast's vaporous breath. "Family... suffering!"
The laser shifted somehow; changing to an indigo as it enveloped the whole of Randy's body.
"Stop!" The creature ordered as the firearm in Randy's hand suddenly turned to a molten liquid and dripped through his fingers, burning him.
Though he tried, Randy couldn't move a muscle in the tight grasp of the light. Polyphemus inexplicably marched towards the man where he stood, still maintaining the beam as he drew closer. The indigo field grew more intense when it stood directly over top of him.
The Ambassador didn't know what to think when Randy started shrieking in pain... was Polyphemus killing him? Did it know what that would mean to itself?
Sammy cried out as well, but in terror, as a geyser of blood suddenly erupted from the back of Johnston’s' neck. The strange light terminated as the man collapsed in a heap on the ground.
"Daddy!" Sammy howled.
There was silence over the craw
lerway again... Was that it, Butler wondered? Was it over?
Shockingly, Randy started to move... he placed his hand over the massive open wound that had formed under his long hair, then looked up at the creature hovering over him.
A click click tore his attention away, drawing his eyes to the concrete next to him -- where something that resembled a tiny electrical component had fallen.
"It's the chip!" Butler exclaimed. "It's removed the chip!"
The Tal-Gashot turned to look at Janet and Sammy on the crawler, firing up his green laser again and running it across the woman under the influence of Count Zeenadi. After probing her mind thoroughly, he spoke words for her that weren't nearly so kind.
"Monsters! Cowards!"
Suddenly, her body was zapped by something; some wave of energy that knocked her flat on her back, causing her to drop Sammy, who quickly scurried away.
A purple mist rose from her chest, seemingly trapped in a flickering field being projected from the forehead of Polyphemus. The colorful particles bounced around in this little force-field cage, looking desperate to escape.
The Tal-Gashot studied it for a moment before looking up to the heavens, fixing its glare on a small spec high above the clouds. Raising its palm to the sky, it emitted another beam of some sort that made an incredible buzz. The dark spot high above grew larger quickly, being pulled down by whatever it was that the beast was doing.
Butler shielded his eyes from the sun to see what it was -- finding it to be an aero-dynamic looking hunk of metal, massive in scale. It came tearing towards them, crashing to the ground not far from them with incredible force -- making a crater in the Earth and sending cracks rippling through the concrete.
"Phloxans!" Polyphemus bellowed.
Randy sat in shock, losing more blood than he figured was safe, as Sammy cowered at the edge of the platform closest to his father. It was too high for him to attempt to drop or climb down, so Butler turned back to his gaseous state and floated up to the boy. He took hold of him and carried him down to Johnston's side as Polyphemus marched off towards the object he'd yanked from space.
The red beam flashed again from the Tal-Gashot and broke the vessel in two. Disgusting man-sized leach-looking creatures emerged, quickly trying to slither away from the monster they had apparently angered. Polyphemus made quick work of them, tearing their stomach-turning bodies asunder with his hands and laser beams.
Once all of them had been dispatched, he pulled another from the wreckage of the ship... this one didn't squirm or try to escape his grasp, hanging there, instead, as though it were already dead. Polyphemus examined it closely, then looked back at the purple fog still trapped in his magical shell.
"Zeenadi!" It said, taking hold of the leach at either end and stretching it until its body tore into pieces. As slime dripped from its carcass, the trapped colorful haze fading to nothingness as its body died... the conqueror was vanquished.
Sammy squeezed his father tight, the both of them whimpering like frightened puppies as Butler waited for the monster's next move. The Tal-Gashot looked him over, now -- the green beam pulsating through his golden form. It seemed to think deeply as it received information... processing the incredible depth of a Keeper's mind in the space of just seconds.
Whatever it found seemed to move it just as the intensity of Randy's love for his son had. It killed the beam, looking over the two physical bodies huddled together as well as the glowing orb floating by their side. Its face contorted more until a stream of fluid leaked from its eye -- it had shed a tear.
Looking up to the sky again, it seemed to scan the beyond. Without a further word, it walked towards the bent rubble of what had been the human's space craft. It exhibited a degree of care and gracefulness that hadn't been present in its previous movements as it scraped some of the metal aside, leaving only the set of three rocket boosters sitting on the ground. He picked the massive units up like they were popsicle sticks strung together, placing the giant canisters over its back. Another buzz sounded out, and the rockets seemed to snap to the casing around its waist; some unseen energy holding them in place.
It looked over to the three survivors, still huddled together in uncertainty. There was a glimmer in the giant's eyes as it beheld them, looking upon them as a proud parent might examine its children.
"Live," it said to them as a torrent of flame spewed from the rocket boosters, smoke engulfing it as it slowly rose into the blue above.
An incredible gale took hold of Sammy and his father, lifting them from the ground as well until Butler surrounded them in his essence. They sat within his protective aura, watching the creature as smoke trailed off into the sky behind it.
"Where's it going, Daddy?" Sammy asked.
Randy had no answer -- he was feeling faint, still losing blood.
"To Phlox." The voice of The Ambassador said into the both of their minds. "But WE are going to the hospital! It's over now!"
Chapter 27