Dark Star [18+]

Chapter 6

Diana's POV

Alpha Centauri's venom sends me into a dream state.

His excitement fuels my own inner excitement – and then I have a fun ride through a twisted dream.

This venom has filled me with ultimate power – it's different. Alpha Centauri? He's given me something startlingly new. I'm in space, and Earth, where Our Tcno rejected me for being a Dark Nine – simmers below in their perfect utopia of Light Intelligence. I'm standing on the edge of a spaceship, able to exist in the vacuum, on the edge of an Enta space craft. Just the thought of seeing Earth's surface erupting with the disruption at the core, has the Elions tracing my skin with their long claws while the planet before me shatters into heat and disintegrates through Elion technology. Their power changes matter to dust. The whole Earth starts to revert to star stuff in waves of Elion power. Directed by an Empress alone. I'm doing this. I look over my shoulder and see Alpha Centauri at the head of his Star Squad, and Ninth Squad, scattered about, watching the Earth disintegrate like it's just sport. "How does it feel, Empress?" Alpha Centauri asks me this. At his feet, Jitters and Orlai are clutching onto his robes, faces obscured by the weight of their weakness from giving too much blood. After fulfilling that role entirely, I switched to receive venom only and not to give blood. My mind is an idea. Destruction of light. I understand Elion Kind fuelled with their venom. I understand their excitement – although that's not the word at all. It's not even power or thrill seeking. It's just the Elion mission, taking what's so ordered and making it powder. Watching sophistication and ordered light, evaporate, melt, scatter and die. For some reason in the dream I'm just smiling and feeling like the most powerful villainess in the universe. Everyone is scared of me and my Kors. I'm not normal. I'm not okay. My own soul has become Elion. The alien enemies of all soul creatures. I am now the perfect darkness, guided by light – a Dark Estoria.

I gasp awake from the nightmare– my human heart is racing in my chest, racing to get away from the Elion takeover of my mind. I've rolled off my bed in the Kor Hold and runned to a window, climbing onto the sill to gasp in fresh air.

My heart is breaking – and I broke it. I gave in, in the dream, I surrendered to evil. Why?

I can feel it crawling under my skin right now – this Elion thing I had never felt before. It's like lightning stored as liquid magic in my blood, surging power through me. I have to release it.

And I think I know how.

From high up on this Kor Hold, I slowly look down. I see the slope of the mega structure, slipping to the abandoned city below.

I'm going to feel that strange Elion power hit my mind if I don't release it.

I slide off the sill into the air – it's not a jump, rather a slither onto the side.

My feet touch the inclined structure, I run down a few steps and jump off – and suddenly I'm flying forward and out into the mist of the city.

I look back for the dust I saw trailing me when I was with the Entas. But there's no dust. There's nothing but an invisible force of power, surging me up and into the air. As I release the Kor magic, my whole body sings with adrenaline like I've just escaped death and won every trophy, "Oh FUCK!" I scream as I start to fly much faster, having no idea how I'm controlling it – until I use my thoughts to imagine my body slowing and moving left to the top of another Elion structure. I land on a tiny ledge on the top of a narrow pyramid and I scoot down and hold onto the pointy top, looking all around me, then looking back – at the Kor Hold.

From the window I see my minder – the Estori watched me fly away. He has a big grin on his face, all fangs shining with clear venom.

But I'm so far away.