“Yes, General.”
The human scrambled away, leaving the old demon standing amongst the dead and dying, unable to take the comfort and joy in the screams he normally would have. The specter of the Forsaken clouded his mind, refusing to leave him in peace.
*****
Venadrin scrambled away from the general, grateful for the reprieve, and ran back to the squadron he had nominal command over. All that was left now were the weakest and least controlled of them, the ones who wouldn’t have survived the white light of the temple.
He rubbed his skin where it burned, like he’d been in the sun too long, and wondered what that light had been. He’d never run into its like before, but it had to be something of the Ancestors, he supposed. One of the defense systems, one of few that had survived this long.
For all the good their toys did them, he sneered to himself.
If they’d been so powerful as the stories about them implied, the demons would never have beaten them. Stories were just stories, humans wanting to avoid the reality and pretend that once they had been powerful.
Magic was powerful. Demons were powerful.
Humanity and its toys had never been anything but weakness masquerading as power, making those who relied on them weaker by association.
Venadrin remembered the scorn in the Wanderer’s voice as he’d talked about mercy and his fist whitened around his blade’s grip in response.
Screw him and his smug demon shit attitude, Venadrin thought as he started to angrily gather his squad. If I see him, or that girl again, I’ll kill them myself.
*****
“Where are we?” Elan asked, looking around.
The area was the first she’d seen since arriving that wasn’t gleaming white, instead being a darker blue-gray color predominantly.
“This is the facility armory,” the specter told her. “If you are intent on suicide, I suppose I will help you sell your life for a value that approximates a reasonable exchange.”
Elan had no idea what the ghost was talking about.
The look on her face must have passed that along to the spectral man, though she had no idea how since he wasn’t looking at her. Regardless, he seemed amused as he spoke next.
“Weapons, girl. I’m bringing you to weapons.”
“You have swords here?” she asked intently.
He laughed. “No, child, there are no swords here. I said weapons, not toys. Your ancestors were far more powerful than mere sword wielders.”
Elan’s expression soured. “If they were so powerful, why are the demons here and they aren’t?”
The specter paused, seemingly to slump in place for a long moment.
“That,” he said finally, “is a deeply involved story. Come, I’ll give you the short version in what little time we have.”
Elan followed willingly, her ears pricking up to hear that story.
“First, it was no war as one might think. The intruders did not come as an army to face your ancestors in battle,” the specter said. “They struck from within and without, with one seemingly unrelated crisis after another. Bioweapons the likes of which have never been seen before, or since, which you may thank the fates for. Beasts that used humans as food, or worse, and disease that struck down people by the billions. In the midst of all that, they snuck in something…else,” the ghostly figure said as they walked. “It was believed to be biological initially…”
Elan’s expression looked lost at sea, causing the man to sigh.
“A disease,” he said. “A sickness that…weakened people, eating at them from the inside…but did not kill. Before the collapse, over ninety percent of humanity were being cared for by the remaining ten. Then it all came apart, and that was when the true horror began. The sick, once they were deprived of treatment, began to go insane. They turned on those who’d cared for them, and it all ended in screaming. Many of those you call demons are the perverse children of those poor, twisted souls, enduring what the demons call the Change.”
The man paused, looking at Elan intently. “Only then did the armies arrive. They defeated us before they even set foot on the battlefields…but don’t mistake that for thinking they took this world easily. With less than four percent of our people, we still fought, and it still took them centuries to control this world. The demons, as you call them, bled for every inch of the ground they now control…but they’d defeated us before we understood we were under assault.”
Elan didn’t even comprehend the numbers he was talking about, but she knew that they were far larger than anything she’d considered before.
“So they can’t be beaten now,” she said numbly. “They won against us when we were powerful, if weakened. I don’t know much, but I know that we’re not even that now.”
“Perhaps.” The man shrugged slightly. “However, in my experience with humans…you do not surrender to the darkness so easily as that. Hope is an eternal spring.”
Elan’s eyes narrowed as she looked sharply in his direction. “You’re not human?”
The man turned to look at her, an acrid look on his face as he seemed to visually reconsider her intelligence in real time.
“Really?” he asked dryly, gesturing at himself. “The ‘see through’ did not give that away?”
Elan blushed. “Well, I thought maybe you were a ghost?”
The man rolled his eyes. “I introduced myself before, but I suppose I can’t blame you for forgetting.” He bowed slightly. “I am Merlin. I am the EI of the Avalon Facility.”
Elan shook her head slightly. “I’m sorry…EI?”
“Elemental Intelligence,” Merlin responded. “It is difficult to describe in layman’s terms... To properly understand what I am, we would have to sufficiently advance your education to cover the subatomic guidelines that govern the universe. I am very much afraid we do not have the time for that now.”
Elan grimaced, but nodded.
There was too much to do. She just then realized that they’d come to a stop, so she looked around at the mostly bare walls that had row after row of empty racks that were clearly intended to hold something.
“Is there supposed to be something here?” she asked.
“You would be hard pressed to locate an intact armory anywhere on this world now, I am afraid,” Merlin told her. “Most were raided in the aftermath of the invasion, if they had not been issued during the initial fighting. There are exceptions, but those are not available to us at the moment and you would be more of a threat to yourself with real weapons than to the demons, I fear.”
“What are we doing here then?” she asked, frustrated.
He waved and an outline appeared on the wall, a section visibly unsealing and popping out.
“First, while that shirt you wear is undoubtedly better than most armor available to your fellows in these times,” Merlin told her, eying the silky shirt she’d belted down under her leather vest, “it is not rated for combat. Try these, if you please.”
Elan looked into the compartment that was open, skeptically eying the contents, of which there seemed to be very little.
She looked between it and Merlin a few times, then finally spoke one word.
“Really?”
“Just put it on,” he told her testily, exasperated.
Elan sighed, grabbing the folds of dark fabric inside, only to freeze as a sharp tingle of power jolted through her hand and up her arm. Unable to move briefly, Elan stared as the material flowed up her arm and coated her skin in a dark grey film with slightly iridescent hexagonal patterns. She tried to jump back but barely managed to shuffle a little, and the material just followed with her as she tried to pull it off with her other hand.