Act 1: The Death of a God

Chapter 3 - Kilegros

by Emmanuel Ordway

Chapter 1/2 here.

Kilegros sat up and grabbed at his throat while panting heavily.

“Peace, Eonvym, peace.” A familiar deep voice greeted his ears while Kilegros opened his eyes and they were flooded with the light of that place he’d been at no more than half an hour ago.

“I’m dead aren’t I?” He ignored the black figure’s words and looked up at it from the ground, the figure looming over him menacingly.

“None are dead without passing through me first. I am keeping you here in this between state.” It responded to him, its voice unchanging in harshness like a disappointed teacher.

“Why won’t you let me die.” His words were less of a question and more of a demand as he rose to his feet in defiance.

“I told you your mission. You are not permitted to feel death until you do your job.”

“Pretty sure I just felt it.” He spat while his hand grasped at his chest where he had been fatally wounded.

“Pray your life shall be endless, so you do not.” It warned, a faint amusement in its voice while the world once again closed in around him into blackness, Kilegros’ air sucked from his body.

 

“AH!” Kilegros sat up once again from the floor, his feet touching the ground as he threw himself up to them and leaned against the wall.

“Woah woah woah, what the hell!” He heard a muffled voice as he looked up and saw some porthole in the wall, now facing the two Shaikyn he’d seen before.

“Where-” He looked around his surroundings and noticed the large door behind him that led to the void of space.

“How are you alive!” The Eonvym staring at him shouted while pointing at Kilegros, his suit still charred a darker black and smoking from Kilegros’ attacks.

Kilegros looked down at his body and didn’t see any apparent harm, his suit was still blackened and torn from the fight, but his body felt fine.

“I’m magic, bitch.” He laughed at Fictillis who seemed to angrily slam his hand down on something unseeable to Kilegros, the room starting to dim its lights while the air from Kilegros’ lungs left. The Eonvym looked around the room as his mind took a backseat, his body acting only to survive while he held his hands out and the streaming lines of electricity connected to the walls around him. He forced the current throughout the ship and shut it down, the doors staying still as the pressure and air came back to his lungs.

“What the hell did he do?” The angry voice of the woman Kilegros had seen not too long ago was muffled, as well, behind the door.

Kilegros breathed heavily as he leaned against the door and looked at the porthole where the lights were slowly coming back on.

“Let’s start over huh? Open the door,” His voice was vile, but he tried to not seem too upset before adding onto his words. “Please.”

“How can we trust you?” Fictillis got moved out of the way while the woman stepped into view, her visor and helmet covering her face like Fictillis, clearly these two had some sense of honor.

“What would I get out of killing you? This is clearly a large ship that needs a crew to handle.” The once dead Eonvym shot back at her, raising his back right hand over his shoulder to flip her off.

The Shaikyn looked back at Fictillis who was out of Kilegros’ view.

“Fine. But if we catch you doing anything, we’re putting you down, again.” Ahri warned him as the door hissed and slid open.

Kilegros covered his eyes from the lights for a second before looking out past them into the hallway, seeing a clean, white-walled hallway that led to a multitude of different rooms.

“Thanks.” Kilegros took a step out of the airlock before Fictillis got in his way, the other Eonvym’s form larger than his own, blocking Kilegros’ path.

“Slow down there. Basics first.” Fictillis spoke sternly with his arms crossed, his visor looking Kilegros up and down, inspecting his probably broken equipment. .

“My name is Kilegros. Passed the academy but didn’t make it to the fleet before I did something. Now I’m here. Good enough?” Kilegros stared at him while his back hands flexed, sparks sprouting out from the palms of his hands and twirling between his fingertips..

“Kilegros?” Fictillis laughed in disbelief. “Kilegros was pronounced dead over one hundred thirty years ago back when I was learning to walk.”

The two Shaikyns in front of him were laughing at his rather absurd statement, but Kilegros wasn’t amused, instead he looked down at his suit and back at Fictillis and the other Shaikyn’, noticing the differences in technology. 

“One hundred thirty years.” He repeated as his mind began to wander, thinking about how much he could have possibly missed. 

“Realizing how dumb that lie is?” The woman sneered at him.

“My name is Kilegros Silas. I was born on Kresh, next to the Black Ocean. I was taken at birth by Sir Izan and trained at MEA. Here,” He raised his right arm up and reached onto his left  arm and tried to activate his holographic identification on the data screen, but found his suit was broken from his fight with Fictillis. “Dammit!”

“Alright, what is your real name?” Fictillis calmed down from the fit of laughter, waving his hand at Kilegros in an annoyed manner.

“Where did I die?” Kilegros looked back at him, his eyes glaring at Fictillis’ visor.

“What?”

“Where did I- Kilegros die?”

“He burned up in an atmospheric reentry on Mars. His dumbass is the reason we figured out going too fast is a good way to get yourself blown up while entering planetary orbit. Go too fast, and you die, go too slow, and you get flung around and hope you don’t die.” Ahri answered Kilegros, just getting over her laughter.

“I didn’t die on reentry. I don’t know what lies they told you, but get me to a computer,” He grabbed what looked like a plastic pouch on his chest and tore it off, revealing a USB port, a system for older suits which acted like a black box. “And I can prove it.”

Kilegros walked with the two Shaikyn in silence to their bridge, the two still wary of him. Once they got onto the bridge, there was a Hydra working in the space, seeming to have multiple wires poking into the back of its head while it was stuck in a sitting position at the front of the room. The Hydra’s main frame was built to be around the same size as a Shaikyn, just missing the back arms, yet Kilegros did not doubt it made up for the missing limbs in hidden weapons.

“You let a Hydra control the ship?” Kilegros questioned, his voice having a hint of fear and wonder in it. The time he came from, Hydras were a violent and confusing species to the Empire, their potential as slaves from the Great War as supercomputers just being tapped into. 

“What do you want him to do? Be a glorified calculator?” Fictillis still spoke harshly to the other Eonvym, making occasional glances in case Kilegros tried to do something. 

“Here.” Ahri walked to the main table that was in the middle of the bridge, grabbing a simple data pad and tossed it over to Kilegros.

The Eonvym caught it and nodded his head to the Shaikyn, setting the device on the table and opening it up, grabbing the wire connected to the device and connecting it to his suit. The data pad shared some of its power to keep the suit functioning while it downloaded files from the suit before the wire automatically disconnected.

“That suit is old. Ahri, do we have any backups?” A neutral voice spoke from above them.

“What was that?” Kilegros looked up, startled, but saw nothing but speakers.

“That’s Tobias, the Hydra. No backups.” Ahri answered while the Eonvym shrugged the startling voice off and began to type something into the device, a small keyboard extending from the sleek white side.

“Seriously, suits now are made to do all this wirelessly and stay functional through recycled energy, this thing is practically comparing a primitive stone axe to a laser-saw.” The voice continued, now being ignored by the Eonvym while he skimmed through video recordings from his suit, eventually pausing on one recording.

“There.” He stepped back for Fictillis and Ahri to see the video that was pulled up.

“What the hell are you doing, Kilegros?” The suit only saw the blackness of the ship he was in.

“Don’t worry about it, continue on route and I’ll meet you at the dock.”

“Oh shit- He’s jumping! Jump! I don’t care if your ship isn’t ready! Jump anyways!”

 

The Eonvym waved his hand, visual waves of blue energy connecting his fingertips to the computer as the recording sped up to the next part he wanted them to see.

 

Kilegros was standing in blood, reaching up to his ankles in height.

“You know the day I was tasked in retrieving you, I knew you were going to be special. I mean we all are,” Kilegros spun around to see his former teacher, Sir Izan. “But I didn’t expect this.”

“What are you talking about?” The suit shifted while he gripped the handle of his dagger on his belt.

“Do not act like you are meant to see this, Kilegros. I am sorry, but out of respect for you being my first collected Eonvym child, I will duel you rather than execute you.” Sir Izan’s voice deepened, demanding respect.

“Duel? Why?” Kilegros spoke while Izan drew his sword.

“I take my role to our Emperor very seriously.” Izan threw himself at Kilegros and with a quick change of scenery, Kilegros was up on the catwalk. The sounds of Izan climbing a nearby pillar not far off.

“My visions didn’t tell me this!” kilegros raised his dagger up to Izan who was now on the catwalk. He lunged at Izan but Izan caught the blow with a blue energy shield made by his arm. Suddenly, a projection of himself stepped away from his body.

“What the hell is that?” The sounds of crackling energy could be heard as Kilegros pushed the gun back into its holster and his hands crackled with electricity.

“A fun new toy.” Izan laughed as the projection ran at him while the real Izan sliced at the wires holding the catwalk up. Kilegros quickly slapped his hands together and shot a beam of electricity into the projection, making it disappear instantly.

The beam shot past the copy into the real Izan and made him get knocked off the catwalk.

Kilegros jumped down and his suit’s boots splashed in the blood.

“I want answers.” He stepped up to the Knight, who was propped up against the pillar.

“To what?” Izan laughed as smoke rose off his chest.

“Why can I. . see the future? Or some version of the future?” Kilegros growled in annoyance and confusion.

“Well, it’s not too rare, Kilegros. I’ve known a few Eonvym who had that power.” Izan hissed in pain.

“Why isn’t it in the academies’ books?”

“They want you to ask about it, so they can whisk you away and make you a part of the Emperor’s guard, but you were right for not telling them. I mean you were always a clever one-” Izan looked up at Kilegros as the cadet growled and sliced the man’s throat open cleanly, angered how his former teacher was now complimenting him after trying to kill him. 

A few moments passed before Kilegros began to walk to the entrance of the bridge, a low thumping sound being heard behind him as he turned around and was suddenly impaled by a fleshy tentacle through his chest. The camera looked down at the flesh as more shot into him before looking up as one tentacle shot right into the camera and ended the recording.

Kilegros waved his hand again and dimmed the video on the screen.

“Proof enough?”

“So, you died in a bloody room because you got impaled by. . . Some flesh thing?” Ahri looked back at Kilegros.

“Yes, I died because I got impaled by some flesh thing. It's weird.” Kilegros sighed as the video went to a black screen, a message appearing on the screen.

“What’s that?” Fictillis questioned while looking at the screen.

Kilegros stepped forward and stared at it. The first part of the video seemed corrupted, a blank space with another line of words following it.

“‘Good luck Kile, find me when you’re done.’” Kilegros read it out loud.

“Who's that from?” Ahri wondered while she looked back at Kilegros.

Soon the others looked at the Eonvym behind them, his eyes under his helmet dull while he stared at the screen, as if his gaze would punch a hole through it. Kilegros walked forward, past the group, and to the computer. He set his hands on the keyboard and began typing aggressively, eager to find answers to the thoughts swirling around in his head.
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Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed.

Chapter 4 should be out in a day or two.