Homeland Conspiracy

The search begins when Khay lets me know she was entering a large room. She says, from what she can make out the room it is a barracks, living quarters to house at least a dozen people. She sent groups out to find a power switch or electrical panel. I told her to tell me if she finds something, immediately, maybe the placement of a panel in her room may help us to find a panel in this room. One of my men signals he’s found a circuit panel on the northeast wall, about a foot off the floor. The panel is about four and a half feet high and two and a half feet wide. LEDs glow underneath the face plate, each one having an identification tag to label what it represents. The button marked ‘MAIN’ is glowing bright green, indicating main power’s accessibility. Almost half way down, an LED marked ‘MAIN LIGHTS’ shows red. All is basically visible but in this dim light of glowing LEDs anything could be hiding in the shadows so more light is very much welcome. Buttons above and below the light button were marked, ‘CAGE 1’ through ‘CAGE 50’, after the lights were turned on we would check what is in the cages. A nod gives a guard the clearance to turn on the lights. When he does the lights blaze to life and I hear the hum of power lines fall silent giving me a bad feeling. When the lights came on something that used a lot of power was shut down. “Khay! Report!” “Routine.” She is much calmer than I. “It looks like living quarters here. What do you have?” “Get over here. I think something is going to jump off soon.” The chaos seems to wait until I introduce it because off to my left, plasma rifles are being discharged. When I look left weapons are firing behind me, creatures of different types are surrounding us, genetically altered creatures. Lycans spliced with orcs, bears spliced with goblins, and a troll spliced with a ram, are a few of the creatures that came into view. Plasma rifles hiss to life, searing the air as their projectiles search for the target. The plasma generates a heat of up to thirty thousand degrees, though after a second exposed to the atmosphere the projectile burns itself out. Some of these creatures are brushing off the plasma like they were flies before they’d burn out. “Khay! We’re under attack! Get your ass in here!” “We are trying! A door slammed shut behind us! It is going to take a minute to get through it!” I can hear plasma fire over the Comm-link. “We might be dead in a minute! Hurry!” These creatures are unnatural, without mystical energy none of these beasts should be able to take a single plasma shot let alone walk through a pelting of them. Admittedly, some of the creatures are as big as an African elephant but to take a charged bolt of plasma is, I thought, impossible. Damn it! I can feel my inner darkness awakening, something I shouldn’t have to fight also. I need to keep my wits but I can already feel it filling me. One of my Guards rush to me for a battle plan and by the look on his face I can tell my eyes, pupil and all, have turned black as coal-powered onyx. The Bracelets of Heaven and Hell covers my hands and begins forming rakers, I can feel the call for blood in my head and heart. As the Darkness grows within so does the need to shed blood, not natural blood, but the blood that runs black with the vile evil which spawned it. Or even that which runs red with the attempt to imitate that which belongs in this realm, with the intention to warp this realm and all the beings in it. “Tell the men to pull back. Khay, hurry up! We’re being overrun!” My voice is cracking and deep. “The men are working as fast as they can!” We are going to die unless someone does something. “Not fast enough.” The words came forth more like a growl than a spoken sentence as something came over me. A switch in my mind is flipped letting me see the Darkness as a tool, as something to use in order to survive and rid the world of these unclean beasts. The rakers extending from my presently platinum colored, gauntleted hands become jagged and serrated. The guard by me steps and nearly falls away from me. I can’t imagine what he sees when he looks at me, I know my eyes turn black but something else happened. Actual visual effects, maybe or maybe not but the way I see the world is very different. My eyes see colors more brilliantly, almost as if all colors are painted over with a fluorescent glaze. For a brief moment a pain stabs at my eyes and then passes. Though I retain control my Darkness still tries to drown me. Mentally I find myself surfing the ebb and flow of chaos, a single breath away from being swallowed by a tidal wave of madness. Only my will drives me to stay in concert with the fierce forces of the all consuming Darkness. “Try not to shoot me.” I say calmly as I stroll towards the horde. I shouldn’t be this calm, normally I’m not. The focus on my Darkness helps me fight to keep my sanity and leaves me little room for fear of these five dozens, mutant, killing machines. Five dozen plus one… Me!