Aeon Legion: Labyrinth (55 page)

“Manticore,” Terra said as
she remembered. “I don't suppose we could reason with you?”

The Manticore named Sero
turned to Terra and regarded her with its glowing green eyes. “Reason
is an unnatural deviation. Something unnecessary to survival. There
is only change and the strength it brings. I will devour each of you
to claim your flesh and the changes it brings as my own. One by one I
shall...” Sero trailed off. It stopped before sniffing the air. As
it smelled, it lifted up its front body, showing off a large set of
crushing mandibles below its head. “That reek across time. I smell
Silverwind. One of you has been close to her!”

Terra glanced back to the
other strike teams. They had regrouped, but looked near panic.

Sero smashed the ground and
growled as it recoiled from the tirones. “Vile! Poison! I will find
and kill them!” it roared as it charged.

It moved fast, smashing aside
pipes and boulders that stood in its path. Zaid and Roland dodged
Sero's scythed claws while Terra scrambled out of the way, but the
attack left them scattered. Javed's team fared little better as it
swatted them aside. Tacitus ordered his strike team to hold the gate.
Their formation crumbled when Sero jumped and landed in their center
and shattered their cohesion.

Nergüi's strike team moved to
attack, using an aeon edges burst against Sero before it knocked each
attacker back with its tail. The burst engulfed Sero's side, severing
car sized limbs. Neon green blood now soaked the floor as the
creature paused while still standing over the gate. Sero held still
for a moment before new limbs sprouted from its body and a thicker
layer of armored carapace grew over its damaged side.

“That's right,” Terra
said, remembering the class on the Manticores. “Manticores can
regenerate. They are from a hyper adaptive ecology that was the
result of a Biological Singularity. It will just keep changing the
more we hurt it.”

The creature turned in place
and regarded the circle of tirones. “None of you will escape! Every
drop of blood will be taken!”

Javed motioned to the
Manticore. “Everyone attack! Overrun it and chop it into pieces too
small to heal!”

Everyone
charged. Zaid cursed, but ordered his team to charge too.
This
isn't a strategy
,
Terra thought.
This
is a mad charge against a monster.

As the tirones charged, Sero
turned its armored front to the largest group of them, lifting up
part of its front head carapace to expose hundreds of small holes.
With a powerful, muscular motion the Manticore shot hundreds of
spines each the size of a pool cue. The razor sharp spines pelted the
area around them as the tirones hid behind their shieldwatches. The
land in front of them turned into a pincushion.

Terra thought Sero's attack
futile until she lowered her shieldwatch and saw the charge had
staggered. Now half of the tirones reached the Manticore, but it
pushed them back with powerful claw strikes and knocked them all out
of the battle. Now only Zaid's strike team remained standing.

Zaid gathered his strike team.
“Everything has fallen apart. We have to stop it ourselves!”

Sero charged again, but
another tiro jumped out of the darkness in a flash of motion, slicing
off one of its large claws. It roared while taking a single step
back. Terra then saw Hikari standing in front of it.

“Orochi?” Hikari asked as
she jumped back from the monster.

Zaid, Roland, and Terra ran up
to join Hikari.

“About time,” Zaid said.

Hikari kept her eyes on the
monster. “I waited for it to leave an opening.”

A cracking noise echoed as
Sero regenerated the lost claw.

Zaid recoiled from the
monster. “Maybe we should retreat?”

Terra shook her head. “It
has limited energy. If we hurt it enough, its regeneration will slow.
We can beat it.”

Zaid nodded and made a series
of quick hand motions. They charged. As they drew close, Sero faced
them. Terra felt herself go cold just looking at those six glowing
green eyes.

Sero jumped forward. Terra had
to Speed her vision just to see it. The counter attack disrupted
Zaid's charge and scattered his strike team. Terra realized that Sero
dominated the flow of battle. It could think and use strategy to
disrupt any attempt by the tirones to gain momentum.

Zaid grinned as each member
now stood at a corner of the beast in a rough square. He made a quick
series of hand signals and Terra understood. They had formed a
perimeter around the creature. She smiled when she realized that Zaid
had used Sero's strategy of disruption against it. Now Zaid's strike
team could attack it from multiple directions.

Sero turned to Zaid, but
stopped when Roland charged. It faced Roland only to have Hikari
attack one of its legs and slice it off. The Manticore roared as it
swiped at her with its large, barbed tail. Terra then attacked,
aiming for the tail, but Sero jerked away before her aeon edge
connected. Surrounded, Sero flung spines all around its body.
Venomous spines fell like rain around them as Terra hid behind her
shieldwatch.

Zaid gave another hand signal
to attack, but Sero turned to Zaid and locked its six glowing eyes on
him. “A smart bit of flesh,” Sero said as it charged at Zaid.

Zaid's eyes went wide, not
expecting the creature to target him alone. Hikari jumped on to the
beast's side and slashed at the carapace while Roland sliced off a
front claw. Terra struggled to keep up with the monster as it ran
away from her. Sero ignored the damage as it rampaged towards Zaid
and lifted up its front carapace again. It sent another wave of
spines at Zaid.

Zaid held his ground and kept
his shieldwatch raised. All the spines froze in place, impacting on
his shieldwatch's stasis shield. It was then Terra saw it. The spines
were a ruse for when Sero drew close, it lashed out with its tail
under the cover of the hail of spines. Focused on the spines, Zaid
failed to see Sero's stinger tipped tail curve behind his back and
strike.

Terra froze when Zaid fell to
the ground, stinger piercing his heart. Sero then ejected the stinger
that remained lodged in Zaid's chest to prevent him from Restoring.

With Zaid fallen, Sero turned
its attention to Hikari and threw her off its carapace. Roland
charged in behind, but Sero swatted him aside with his long scorpion
like tail while the stinger regrew. Roland flew back, hitting a wall
so hard that blood came from his mouth. A Restore ring ran around
Roland seconds later, but Roland did not stand again.

Terra shook herself out of her
shocked state and ran towards Zaid. If she could remove the stinger,
then Zaid could Restore himself. The stinger was too large a living
organism for the shieldwatch to erase with a Restoration.

Hikari continued to duel with
Sero, alone. Sero regrew its lost limbs while attacking Hikari. She
blocked hundreds of spines while dodging a flurry of claw strikes.
Neither gave ground to the other until Hikari's shieldwatch beeped.

“Shieldwatch power
critically low,” came Minerva’s voice from Hikari's shieldwatch.
“Shutting down non essential functions.”

Hikari cursed and retreated
while Sero turned to the last tiro standing.

Terra stopped when Sero jumped
between her and Zaid. It shook the ground with its weight upon
landing. She pointed her aeon edge at the monster. “You are in my
way!”

Everything slowed around her
as Terra Sped her movement and reflexes. If she didn't do something
now, Zaid would die. Terra tried to weave around the creature, but it
was too fast even with Speeding time. She slashed at it when it drew
close, but it proved agile enough to dodge her blows with ease. When
Terra felt suddenly off balance, it pierced her shoulder with the tip
of its scythe and smashed her into a nearby wall.

Terra screamed. The taste of
blood filled her mouth. She thought with bitter irony that she was
about to be squashed by a bug. Then she forced her panic away and
everything slowed while she Sped time around her so she could think.

No
,
she thought.
I
won't die here! Time is mine! It's a part of me. There must be some
part of time I can use to survive this.

It was in that moment, just
when the cold of the wall behind began crushing her, that she felt
her connection with time strengthen. Terra bent time to her will,
focusing on the pain and damage to her back. She felt the force of
the blow, the waves of energy rippling through her. She took that
energy and Slowed it to a crawl. Gradually, she released tiny pockets
of the kinetic force of the blow, allowing her body to absorb the
damage.

Terra became like iron,
smashing through the thin layer of organic growth before crashing
through the stone beyond that. The monster stopped when Terra hit the
iron pipe hidden by the stone and pulled its scythe back. When the
scythe withdrew from her body, Terra Restored herself.

Sero turned after having
smashed Terra into a wall as it was under the reasonable assumption
that she was dead. It paused upon hearing Terra's footsteps echo on
iron. She walked out of the rubble without a single scratch on her.

Terra turned to the still
wounded Zaid who lay in a pool of blood. She closed her eyes and bit
back both despair and worry before turning to face the Manticore. She
readied her aeon edge and took a deep breath which let her emotions
bleed away.

Terra attacked. Sero whirled
to face her. When Terra drew close, it unleashed its scythes, claws,
and tail against her, slashing and stabbing. Terra weaved around the
blows, drinking in her powerful connection with time. She could feel
time flowing around and rippling through her. The monster seemed
stuck in time, fighting against it rather than with it like she did.
It used its carapace to shield itself, whereas Terra was now armored
in time.

She dodged another strike of
its tail before slicing off the tip. The Manticore roared and fell
back. It attacked with its claws again and Terra sliced those off as
well. Two more strikes to its sides sent the creature scurrying back
even further as it tried to regrow the lost limbs. Sero's
bioluminescence grew dimmer as it fought.

Green blood glowed on Terra's
aeon edge as she dueled with the monster. She had driven it far away
from the gate, but she didn't care. This monster had hurt her friend!
She felt a cold hate enter her chest. That cold hate almost made her
miss the drop in shieldwatch power and her aeon edge expended its
next to last stasis cell.

The monster recoiled from
Terra as it huddled between two pipes. “You reek of blood and
death!”

Terra paused. She was almost
out of energy and doubted she had enough to kill it, as much as she
wanted to right now. Closing her eyes, she fought down her hatred.
The main point was to buy time for them to open the gate. Maybe they
could get Zaid help. Her eyes opened again. “What are you talking
about, monster?”

Sero shifted and faced Terra
again. “I can smell it on you. That and Silverwind. How I despise
her and any she would call companion.”

“What did any of us ever do
to you?”

The
Manticore tilted its head. “We did not hate before Silverwind found
that squire.
He
did this to us! Reivair made us hate with his curse.”

“Curse?”

“Before the curse there was
only change and the strength it brought to us. The flesh of those
called humanity was but a relic to be replaced by our flesh. A united
flesh. No longer would there be individual life in ecological
systems. We are a higher form of life. A sentient ecology all built
around what you call a Manticore. All other flesh is inferior to us.
All of your technology is worthless against our adaptation.”

“Yet the Aeon Legion stopped
you!”

“No!” the Manticore said
with venom in its tone. “They failed. We spread unchecked through
Time when the Aeon Legion's hunters fell. The Legion was broken then
before Lycus and Reivair reforged them. To stop us, accursed Reivair
poisoned us with a toxin that eroded our will, leaving us unwilling
to take our birthright! Even now I feel the poison pulling at my
mind, trying to corrupt my will. But I am stronger than the others. I
will show them that we can break free of that curse and claim our
birthright.”

“Wait. How did he poison
you? Manticores are immune to poison and toxins.”

“It was a sinister and
subtle poison. Reivair offered his flesh to us and we took of it
eagerly. However, he gave us more than just his flesh. With his flesh
came his memories and experience. After we had devoured him, our
minds fully awoke to true sapience rather than the high sentience we
had before. After that, the others spoke of consequences and
morality. They abandoned the doctrine of domination and cast aside
their biological imperative to seed the entirety of Time with our
flesh.”

“He gave you a conscience.”

“A vile perversion of true
nature. Both nature and history are marches to dominate and survive.
Those who do not adapt die and are replaced by those who can. Your
Aeon Legion is doomed. They do not adapt. They sit upon Time and call
themselves its master. Yet all those around them change. Eventually,
someone will change in a way that lets them destroy this monument to
stagnation.”

“Terra!” Roland yelled in
the distance.

Terra turned. Sero kept its
distance as its limbs regrew at a slow rate. She looked up to see
Lycus standing on a distant pipe. Then she saw his terrible wolfish
grin. Lycus was not watching her, Cerberus was. Cerberus nodded his
approval to her before turning to go.

“You will die!” Sero said
in a quiet voice so that only she and it could hear.

Terra regarded the Manticore
with a sidelong glance. It recoiled at her gaze.