Chapter 2: Chapter 2
My silence is loud. I stand in the bridge of my starship, arms folded behind me as I look out beyond me. Before my eyes, space beckons, endless and terrible. Little pinpricks of light push away at the darkness, cores burning with celestial fires that keep the stars alive, lest it swallows itself whole.
Shadows move to block their sight, plunging me once more into darkness. They float slowly around my ship in their hundreds, artificially placed to block our path.
"My liege." A small voice called from below me.
My golden eyes look down from on high at the smaller figure of Nike. She looked up at me with equally golden eyes as was the color of divinity.
I stand 12 feet and some inches tall, broad in shoulders. My armor pulsing with low levels of fusion energies, bloodied from another battle altogether. Black course hair long and haphazard. Nike herself told me I looked like I was carved of iron. Hard, cold and unyielding. It was not a figure I felt familiar with, too many times I felt out of my league, afraid and alone. I tried my best to mask them, apparently I was doing a good job.
"You know its a trap right?" Nike smirked at me. Her eyes didn't seem all too bothered with this idea, but fighting on land and fighting in space are two different things, and Nike thrived in this.
In her early years, she spent her days soaring through the clouds with her Harpy companions, so she quickly gain a sense of movement, far wider than most who spent their days on the ground.
"Yes I know its a trap." I responded with a smirk. "Not as graceful as Iapetus would like though?"
"No." Nike admitted, "But it might be enough, he knows he can't win as he is so he holds out long enough till reinforcements arrive." Her face scrunched up as though she smelt something foul.
Her eyes golden and aloof, her lips wide and red, which opened to draw in her victims. She was beautiful, but not in a pretty way, but like a lioness, wild and eager for blood.
"My liege, my lady." Called a red man. Silenus was his name. From his flesh came my army. Hand crafted for war by my mother the queen, he had served his entire life to prepare me war and now war was here he served as my battle commander.
"Iapetus's ships have been spotted." He reported, his light brown eyes meeting my golden, "He hides on a rock just fifty-three kilometers southwest of us."
"Just fifty?" Nike frowned, "How come it took this long to find him?"
"Forgive me lady Nike." He bowed, "But the tracking systems here are a bit spotty. There were not made to work without the presence of Aether."
Spit lodged in the back of my throat, none of this felt real, yet it felt more real than anything.
"Take us to him, commander." I say.
Silenus nodded, and saluted. "Yes, my liege."
He turned back and began shouting instructions to the equally red crew members. "Gunners to positions. You attend to targeting. Deploy shields. We're ending this now."
Someone else responded, "Engines at maximum capacity, sir, we're ready."
"Ready yourself Nike." I tell her.
She gave a low laugh, "When aren't I ever."
Engines rumble, fusion thrusters primed, we shoot forward into the darkness.
....
One the screens, I watch as six of my ships surround Iapetus. The eerie silence of the men becomes a crashing noise. Blood pulses, hearts race, now was not the time for words, now was the time for action.
Iapetus' ship was a hulking behemoth of spikes and edges, but it size did not bring much advantage to it.
We surround it like a pack of wolves around an angry moose.
No fatal shots were fired, after all we didn't wish to destroy the ship. We wanted to take it.
The screens blink shut, the interior of the boarding pod is black, a click and a hiss from my pod. All around me, my ears pick up the same from others, then suddenly, movement. One second on the ship, the next hurtling through Erebus, the weaker of the two darkness.
I rip soundlessly and sightlessly through space. Trusting our mathematicians calculations. I see nothing, hear nothing and in that brief moment, I was nothing. It all happens in a few seconds. By now the gunners on Iapetus' ship would have seen us, some of my men are already dead. This is a fact. One I process and simply accept. There was no oxygen in space, so no sound or light from the explosions.
The pods slam into the ships weak shields, passing though with relative ease. Then without any warning my pod grinds to a halt. I burst out of the pod, like a xenomorph myth of my past life. Hungry and howling for blood. I look around, but there was no one to kill, we had smashed through the bridge's thick glass like hot knife through butter. Bodies swooped out of the safe interiors into Erebus, seconds later the emergency forcefields slam back to place, alarms began to blare with its usual annoying pitch.
"Yes!" I hear Nike's excited voice over my comms. Like me she reveled in this, unlike me, she enjoyed that she reveled in it.
I turn to her, like the the others who had joined me on this mission, she wore enhanced power armors made for deep space warring. Though thicker and slightly more cumbersome than normal power armors, it made for an awesome war-machine.
"Silenus!" I call on my comms.
"Yes my liege." He answers, voice crackling over the weak Aether connection. "He's heading towards the hangar bay."
I nod, though I know he can't see it, "Alright!" I shout to the two dozen madmen who followed me, "Who wants kill some Malakas?"
They shout from within their power armors, their entire being screaming for the taste of battle.
I lead them, as a king would, raising my left arm, it pulses with fusion power. A blast of starlight punches through the sealed door and we pour are way in.
We stomp our way through like metal-gods. Each punch capable of shattering bone to powder. A couple men charge at us with their regular power-armors. Had this been a fair contest they might have held on two seconds longer. Even naked, the power within me would have eclipsed theirs, but I'm not naked. I crash into them 16 feet of solid metal shaped into the finest juggernaut any man could handle. Like eggs, they shatter upon impact. Nike dashes forward, smaller than me, but still just as unstoppable.
Fists the size of dinner plates are thrown, bodies shatter under its weight. It was frightening, I was much more powerful than most, but for the most part I barely ever got to fight them, mostly I was stuck trying to bring some Titan or massive automaton down.
We carve our way through, not much in our wake could slow us down, as best as we could we kept the damage to a minimum, but there's only so much you could do.
Somewhere over the comms, I hear laughter. We rush through, tearing into the hanger bay with wild abandon. Far off to the end, I spotted the fleeing back of Iapetus. I charge, superhuman muscles working in conjecture with the best power armors known in the galaxy. It wasn't even a contest.
I slam into him, unlike the other, he didn't shatter so quickly. Prey or not, he was still a Titan and that meant something. Like I and those within my family, our genes had been edited to work beyond the commonplace weaknesses of those we governed. Bones and muscles, built so dense and durable, it was ridiculous.
Iapetus grunts as he slams into the floor, with enough force to break a tank Destroyer in half.
I back away. "Get up Titan."
He turns around to face me, fear heavy in his eyes. "Damn you." He spits at me, trying to gain back his courage.
In his hand was a spear that glowed white hot. Nike began to move towards him, but I stopped her.
"No, he's mine."
Iapetus' power armor pulsed, he charged with the spear, bellowing wordlessly, knocking me back before I turned around. His spear hummed and glowed even more as though sensing a target. As we dance, mecha-fist against spear, the faraway shouts, the alarms all fade into nothing as I focus my mind on beating this Titan in front of me.
He was fast and lithe for his 11 feet size, I was strong and stronger still in this suit, but slower. Quickly he began to strike, the armor pulsed with light with every blow, and I could feel the kinetic energy disperse all around me, like water over rock.
"Bastard." His face reddens, and he stabbed forward. We're the only ones in this strange place, the light dims around me.
Despite his fear. Iapetus' form is perfect. His feet planted firmly, but on the sole of his feet. He lunges with Immortal accuracy. His breath measured as he aimed for the typical weak points, my knees, groin, elbows. But the armor blocked those swings.
I swing, he dodges and strikes at me. I swing again, he strikes. We do this again and again. At the speeds we were going it was just a couple of seconds, but to us it felt like hours.
The armor reflects his attack, he bounces backwards shocked, kinetic energy reflects, causing him to loose balance. I smile. My fist slams into the side of his temple. Stored up kinetic energy, released in that single punch. Titanium jaw shatters, golden ichor leaps in gory mess. Iapetus lies on the ground, a Titan conquered.
I stand over him, the battle high coming down, the battle is won, but the cost is high, as it always is in war. I look around at the chaos in the hangar bay, the wreckage of ships and bodies of fallen soldiers littering the floor.
Nike approaches, her expression unreadable. "It's over," she says simply, her voice echoing slightly in the vast space of the hangar.
I nod, feeling the weight of the moment settling on my shoulders. "For now," I reply, I signal to the others. "Watch him."
Moments later other soldiers arrive along with Silenus, his face grim but determined. "We've secured the ship, my liege," he reports. "What are your orders?"
I take a deep breath, considering our next move. "Prepare for extraction," I instruct, knowing that our victory here is only the beginning. "Send word to the captains, tell them to stay on standby, until we return."
Silenus salutes, he points to the fallen figure of Iapetus, "And him, sir." He asks.
I glance back at my uncle, the jaw will take a while to heal, but eventually it will. "Bind him. We'll need him."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone