Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

God of Chaos

They stood on the viewing deck of the derelict, one of only four still on their feet after the attack. Everette stood eyes closed in something akin to rapture as he swayed back and forth over the ground. A small, manic smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and every time his mouth opened a string of incoherent whispers would cascade from his lips.

Renegade stood next to the man clinging on to the last fraying edges of her patience. She had locked that other bitch away in the back of her head, but that didn't change what had happened. She had the entire group of them in her grasp, and could have dealt with them then and there, but the other one had gotten in the way, actually taken control of her body.

Forced her to do things she did not want to do.

That fact was both embarrassing and rage inducing.

"You're just afraid."

Worst of all, she was still here.

"I am not talking to you."

"Giving yourself the silent treatment, you know, back on earth they make pills for that."

Off to her right Everette continued to whisper to himself.

"Will you shut up!" Renegade snapped, finally unable to contain her rage, but unable to direct it at the true target of her anger without choosing to punch herself in the face.

Everett turned to look at her, the manic smile passing from his face for only a moment, "You do not understand what we have accomplished here. HE is coming."

The phrase made renegade shiver, and in the back of her mind she couldn't shake the shard of ice that formed inside her head and sent radiating shivers down through her body. What made it worse: that sliver of ice, that sliver of doubt wasn't the product of Maverick, it belonged to Renegade herself. Even worse than that, the smug satisfaction radiating from Maverick, who had sniffed out the sliver of doubt the moment that it appeared.

This time when Maverick spoke it was, surprisingly not mocking, her voice was soft and reasonable.... And she hated it. "Of course you have doubt, you spent your entire life trying to avoid this moment, to fight against apollyon. You know what he can and will do. Personally I don't think you are fighting for Apollyon at all."

Renegade snorted, but tried not to think too far on the subject.

"You are fighting because you are angry and rebellious, and they are the only ones out there to fight for. Personally.... I think we should just go off on our own. If I can't have my friends then at least don't subject either of us to this."

Renegade ignored the construct in her head, but she didn't have to worry about fighting Maverick for long as they were both interrupted by a sudden rising chill. It began in that sliver of ice in the back of her head and radiated out through her body. Though nothing outside in the universe had noticeably changed, to her it seemed as if the world had grown that much darker.

Wavelengths of orange and red became more saturated, and the shadows in the derelict behind her only seemed to deepen. Her heart sped up a fraction, her mind filled with the distant buzz of anxiety, like a fly trapped inside a fluorescent light.

Everett leaned his head back, eyes rolling and mouth open in a sick expression of pleasure, "He is here!"

Another shiver ran like a rat down the ladder of her spine.

"We must go to him."

Even renegade could admit that was the last thing she wanted to do. Apollyon was not a creature in the same way they were. They talked about him in terms of he, and intentions and thoughts, like he had a body and a mind like the rest of them, but the truth couldn't have been more distant.