Trail of Malign CH.2

[registry: brush him]

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"...talking... cave monster... stole... my... bible." The Composer concluded this page of his journal with an audible "Hmph", before closing it. "There we go. I just added that to the 'List Of True Events In My Life That I'd Get Institutionalized For Talking About'. What do you think, Blackantler?"

Jacob looked down at the alien moose he was using as a mount. It didn't respond - it just kept walking. "You know," he began. "to be honest, I think Blackantler would be a better name for your species, not just a name for you. What's a good taxonomical name for an alien deer with distinct black antlers?"

He tapped his chin. "Kindly Alien Moose. And in Latin, that's..." he paused, looking off into the canopies, where he watched as Panthereyes hopped across tentacle-wrapped branches.

"That's..."

He couldn't quite finish his sentence, for his eyes set upon something on the ground. Blackantler stopped moving, and he stared down at the same thing Jacob was looking at. "That's what I think it is, isn't it?"

Etched deep within the mossy dirt below was an absolutely colossal print. A hoofprint - with three protruding indents. Jacob looked ahead, and saw more of them, passing by them as Blackantler cautiously treaded. More hoofprints - but not just prints, heaps of ash, too, where carcasses lay burnt to crisps, some partially devoured, some clearly just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Blackantler stopped at one particular print, and from the glowing bushes around, some animals emerged. Jacob shook his head slowly as they surrounded their brethren.

Yellow, three-legged animals with blue stripes on their backs. Faces filled with eyes, no mouths, no noses. Just eyes. The word "Hamdog" appeared in Jacob's mind. He hopped off of Blackantler's back, slowly approaching the scene where the Houndeyes were gathering.

Corpses on the ground lay singed. The Houndeyes were gathering around their charred brethren, and Jacob realized, now, just how benign the zones he had just been in truly were. The bodies burned alive, surely trying to escape the huge creature. He looked at one of the Houndeyes, and it made a quiet humming sound, one that instilled Jacob with a sense of sadness. Mourning. He knelt down, placing his hand over the back of the poor creature, stroking it so as to comfort the alien dog.

He watched as they moved forward, in the direction where the enormous hoofprints had been making their rounds, and then ran away, as if they feared for what was beyond that threshold.

Jacob understood why. Whatever had slaughtered the Houndeyes would surely slaughter their brethren, too. And, Jacob inferred, will surely want to slaughter me.

But he needed to remain resolute. He turned around, approaching Blackantler, who was crunching on one of the glowing leaves protruding from an alien shrub. He hopped up onto its back once it finished eating - he understood its need to have nutrition. They would both need their strength for the challenges that surely awaited ahead.

"Let's go, Blackantler."

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Jacob pushed forward on Blackantler's back, holding the base of the antlers as tightly as he could to secure himself, in case the beast started running for any reason. As he went beyond the veil where the Houndeyes were too afraid to cross, he saw precisely why - for the Xen flora and fauna around him, the shrubs, the flowers, the tendril-wrapped trees, all of them were scarred by piercing flame.

Blackantler groaned in discomfort, afraid, evidently, to go further. Jacob petted its neck in reassurance. "Don't worry," he sighed. "We'll be fine. You and I will both be fine." Soon enough, the alien animal was resolute enough to go forward again.

The next few minutes were uneventful. Jacob stared in awe at the beautiful flora and fauna around this cancerous zone at first, but his expression devolved into fear, into sorrow as he watched such things reduced to ash. His gaze turned to the right, setting on trees that had been reduced to charcoal, along with the Xen growths which had taken a liking to them.

One tree, tall and thin, now fit only to fuel a fire...

One tree, round and wide, with many leaves that still clung to life...

One tree, huge and bulky, shaped like a humanoid, with a glowing red face...

Jacob blinked.

Wait.

There was a rustle as the surrounding forestry was jostled, and the "tree" Jacob had his eyes on started moving. Obviously, he realized now that it wasn't a tree. As it ripped a small one from the ground and cast it aside, Blackantler started moving away from it, a deer in headlights - the headights of fire that protruded from the huge being's wrists.

"Go. GO, Blackantler!" Jacob desperately kicked the deer's leg, and it only moved slightly. "Didn't you hear me?! Go! HURRY!" It still barely budged. It was mesmerized, afraid, like Jacob...

And just The Composer had come to terms with the fiery monster's approach, the alien moose took off.

The Gargantua emerged from the forestry, and started pursuing Jacob and Blackantler, faster than the two ever expected.

The chase began.
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Stomping through the Forest of Giants, as Jacob had named it in his mind as the Gargantua pursued them, the giant's feet echoed through the Zone, loud enough to be heard from miles adjacent. It let out a catastrophic roar, terrifying Jacob, but his mount remained unequally resolute. It ducked underneath the roots of a tree so rotten its base was a burrow for headcrabs. They were stirred from their sleep as the deer rode past them, and rudely awakened when the Gargantua burst through the great root, turning it to splinters and killing most, if not all, of the parasites inside.

Jacob looked down, feeling a sharp pain in his chest as he rode, and realized a headcrab had actually been caught on his chest. It was now biting him and screeching at him, and he yelled back, prying his fingers under it and tearing it off. It hurt, quite a bit, but it was worth slowing down the Gargantua for even a second as he turned around on his hips to chuck the little Xenoparasitus at the Xenotherium Gigantica. He watched as it slowed down, if only for a few seconds, to tear the tiny thing off and burn it into fried headcrab.

"Holy SHIT!" Jacob cried out involuntarily. He turned his gaze back ahead just in time to notice that Blackantler was driving headlong into a thicket filled to brimming with strange orange pustules. They spat out gas - orange gas. Jacob realized, inherently, that they were spores. He gasped, scrambling to put on his respirator before he started passing through, not wanting to risk becoming a victim of some alien fungus.

While Blackantler remained unperturbed by the spores, so too did the Gargantua. It ran through the thicket of spores without breaking a sweat. At one point, a Barnacle's tongue began lowering, which Blackantler ran past. And when it touched the Gargantua, the giant thing was only slowed down for half a second before it ripped the Barnacle out of the system's roof, making a horrific splattering sound.

Jacob looked ahead, and noted that more barnacles were dropping their tongues. Blackantler won't make it past those. He thought for a nanosecond, and an idea came to him. Unless we get past them before they fully lower. And then, neither will the monster. Jacob liked this plan.

He started riding forth, booting Blackantler to make it go faster. The Gargantua is so close. He panted, leaning forward, riding hard on Blackantler. The barnacles are so low. He looked up at the tongues. If he were under them now, they would be but an arm's reach standing up. It seems so distant. Like he was driving a car through a narrowing tunnel. Spores everywhere. They're in my eyes. His heart raced, but so did Blackantler.

Jacob waited for just the right moment, and then shoved down on Blackantler, pushing against his antlers hard enough that it caused him to tip over, stumbling forward and going downward. He went underneath the barnacle tongues well low enough that the alien stag wouldn't have made it if he were setill upright. They slid past. The narrowest escape Jacob had ever made - and then came the moment of truth.

The Gargantua, blind by its hunger, blind by its hate, barreled out of the thicket and charged forward. Its massive arm extended out to grab Jacob as it swung forth, about to essentially tuck forward, an effort to grasp its prey, its fallen human and blackantler meal, hungering for long-roasted flesh.

But it didn't make it. Its arm stopped just meters away from Jacob's face as he scrambled away, and as Blackantler, too, stumbled backwards. And Jacob gasped with relief the likes of which he hadn't truly seen. For the Gargantua, as violent and as powerful as it was, was stupid. Every single barnacle it had attached to firmly grasped a part of its body, each barnacle pulling its weight. The Gargantua struggled, but its left wrist, the one where the flamethrower was attached, was constricted. Pulled upward, into a mouth that chomped hungrily. The rest of its body slowly hoisted up as every barnacle filled itself up to bursting with the roaring Gargantua's meat. It was heavy, but thirty barnacles were strong enough to pull its mass.

Jacob and Blackantler stared with absolute, deluded awe. Even the barnacles would not be enough to destroy this creature, but ten vengeful brethren of charred houndeyes surely would. From the bushes, the lemon-like, walking buckets of eyes emerged, their fronts lifting to reveal their mouths as they each bit into the huge aberration. Its free arm thrashed, desperately trying to crush them, but it was powerless as they eventually each released cries louder than any sound Jacob had heard except for, perhaps, a Nova firing. The sonic shockwave assisted in reducing the Gargantua into disconnected pools of meat as it was finally torn apart, its body splitting and fed to barnacles and houndeyes alike, individually.

Jacob watched, devoid of words, devoid of anything to say. His eyes focused on the scene in front of him, the dead Gargantua, and the remains that the gluttonous barnacles and houndeyes had yet to get to, dropped haphazardly on the dirt bed of the spore-filled thicket. The only words he could say, the only phrase he could wrench out - "Holy. Shit."

Some of the houndeyes approached him. Full from revenge and from the nutritional value of a giant angry flamethrowing aberration, one houndeye stepped forward, offering his leftovers of blue-tinted meat to Jacob.

The grown man stared down at it, honestly wondering if he should accept the gift from the full dog. He held the meat in his hands as the houndeyes barked at him, and then disappeared into the glowing bushes, leaving Jacob in dazzled awe. He slowly removed his rebreather so that he could breathe properly - he needed that. The breath.

He didn't want to eat the Gargantuan meat, but perhaps Blackantler did. He offered it to the deer-like beast as an apology for forcing him to fall over under the barnacles, and, to his relief, it accepted the gift.

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Jacob spent many more minutes sitting in front of the spore-filled thicket where the barnacles had their meal. He was cross-legged, eating a can of beans he had brought along with him, just thinking. For a moment, he was just relieved and still recovering from the excitement, the racing of his heart. But then he started thinking, started considering the circumstances. He was 28, and for the past 16 years of that relatively short life, the Invaders, the Portal Storms, the Xenians, everything around him a culmination of his childhood gift - the invasion. And for one of the first times in so long, longer than he could possibly remember, he was truly, unwaveringly grateful to be alive.

But it was time to make progress, ever deeper into the region he was in. Behind him, he saw on the hills, on the mounds, around the rotting trees, a new environment. There were not many glowing leaves and jungle-like trees - this was more like a swamp, where the vegetation was rotten and cold, blue water that was very unlikely to be healthy waged war on the land.

He didn't mount up on Blackantler this time, but he did tie a lead around the animal's neck, bringing him along with a small handful of leaves to compensate. He looked around, and thanked the presence of his respirator as he stared down at one set of spores which squirted out gasses when Jacob went near them.

At such an inopportune time, the spores distracted him. He wrote in his notebook, sketching them, writing down names he had made up for them, retelling the events prior, the Gargantua... when he heard a hissing rattle.

Turning around to see a leathery black creature that fit in perfectly with the swamp. A headcrab - a POISON headcrab - leapt towards him, pouncing him with a feeling for head.

Jacob yelped, but he was unable to stop the crab from piercing his chest with its venomous claws. He gasped, inhaling deeply, and then desperately, weakly pushed it off, huffing and breathing deeply. It scurried away, and Jacob felt weak. Blackantler looked on in concern, watching the man fall to his knees and vomit.

"Shit. Fuck. Fucking... shit. Shitfuck."

The Resilient Composer repeated swears to himself like a broken record as he pulled out a first aid kit. He opened it, and his hand weakly grasped a sponge, and some antibiotic water. The Composer pulled off his jacket, and then wriggled out of his shirt, quickly applying the antibiotic and the sponge, cleaning his injury. Although as an antibiotic, it did prevent the worst of symptoms, it did not stop figments of the neurotoxin from coursing through him.

Jacob stood up, only putting on his shirt - he felt much too hot to be wearing the jacket. He lumbered forward, with Blackantler following, not fully aware of what was going on. Only that the human it had been traveling with was now in pain. Poisoned didn't cross its mind.

He rested on a spore mound, staring down at it. The gas went into his eyes, and he ached, sighing and breathing as deeply as he could, rasping. His respirator did only so much to ease his symptoms.

Before him was a trail where trees edged the ground, and caves could be found across the way. Deerantler ran ahead, quickly securing the way forward, as if checking for adversaries as Jacob lumbered down the way.

He passed a cave - a familiar one. He stared into it, mesmerized... only for a moment before he forgot why he was even looking at it, continuing forward.

Another cave appeared, this one to his left - then another to his right. This path - dotted with fleshy cave mouths. And although he tried to shut the voices out as symptoms of his tired body and tired mind, he heard them clearly, there was no denying it, there was no pretense.

"Oh, dear," one cave cooed. "You've been poisoned."

"He is exhausted! Did the pests reach you, dear?" This one had the voice of an English professor, a trust mechanism, maybe. Or just Jacob's delirious mind giving weird voices to natural things. Surely. "Leave me alone, damn it."

There were more caves than his mind could count, and they were all speaking to him now. He picked up his pace to avoid them, to get away from them.

Their voices. Their voices were so familiar. It made his heart stop. He moved faster, running away as the tendrils kept reaching for him, kept yearning to feed.

"Ey, homie, you don't look so good. C'mere, I can take care o' ya."

"Snap out of it, boah! Get over here! You're a mess!"

"You're not much smarter than a leaky pipe, so I'm guessing I can repair you, too. Come over here."

"You look tired, Jacob. It's quite alright. I taught you how to secure an adhesive bandage, I'm sure I can extract some neurotoxin."

"Ah, Master Hibbler! The venom of the modified headcrabs is potent, but reversible. Allow me to assisssst."

"Vile human. For your crimes, you should be blamed. Come and face your vortal judgment."

Jacob finally fell to his knees, exhaustion and fatigue winning over his body. Strangled by tiredness, only a few meters away from the Path of Caves. They kept talking, kept mocking him, inviting him to come over in familiar voices. He wasn't sure if the things he was hearing were real, or simply a product of his fatigued mind. But soon, it wouldn't matter. His eyes closed, and his mind stopped racing.

The tendrils extended over, riveting and creaking around stones and rotten wood to reach for their meal, each one hungrily grasping, each limb from a telepathic sentient cave wanting its share of sustenance...

 

[registry: brush him]

Further chapters will be posted in here, but this chapter will not be merged with Chapter 1.

 

[registry: brush him]

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"Jacob? Jake, sweetie, you passed out again."

The warm, familiar voice stirred the boy from his rest on the couch. Young, only eleven years old, and still feeling hopeless, like there was no future for him, no joyful things to look forward to.

"I made spaghetti. Why don't you come to the table?"

The boy wiped his nose with the back of his hand, sniffling. "Alright," he muttered, putting his hands in his pockets and following his mother to the table. He picked a seat, one on the long end of the table, and sat down, his elbows on the table, his cheeks in his hands.

He had tears in his eyes, and a bruise on his cheek, as usual - not because he had been hurt at school, but rather because he had done the hurting, and someone punched back. But that's not why he was crying. It was something else. A scar that hadn't healed, opening up again. It opened when someone mentioned his father, at school - something foolish, something childish. "At least I have a dad!" He was already somewhat of a bully at school, and in his mind, the other children deserved it. They were all the same. Just like the twerp who mentioned his father. At the time, he had no regrets.

Jacob felt a hand on his chin, and looked up at the face of his mother, who looked forlorn, who looked sad. But she hid it with a smile, and smothered his with a bowl she placed before him, over the table.

He looked down at it; somewhat cheap noodles, sauced with the Prego brand. There were chopped up bits of meat in the sauce. Jacob rolled some of the pasta around his fork, and then took his bite.

The memory alone was enough to elate him, to allow him to feel a semblance of joy, of warmth. But it was what she said after that reached him even now, that was so relevant in this dire moment.

"Never lose sight, Jacob, of what makes you happy. Of what inspires you. What makes you feel full. What makes you human. Never let go of that - not emotionally. Not physically. And no matter what happens, on that day, never forget how grateful you are to be here. To be in this world."

Jacob thought about the words for a minute, then slowly nodded.

"I never will."

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Jacob rose up, awakening at last, gasping out. He reached for his face instinctively, trying to tear off something - his respirator. He huffed, realizing it was gone. His eyes scrambled around the room he was in - a room. Yes, a room...? Wooden, the planks rotting, the sound of ambience on the outside. A strangely constructed "hut", and he laid atop a bedroll of leaves. To his right, a stand held the answer. There stood his respirator, and at this point, he noticed something about it. It was cracked.

Looking down at himself, he realized that his shirt wasn't on. It was on the stand next to him, along with his dirtied jacket and his backpack. His machete and shotgun had been removed from their sheathes and placed on the table. His chest, where the headcrab had lacerated, was wrapped in bandaging.

It soon became clear who owned the hut, as soon, its owner brushed past a cloth flap, looking at Jacob while holding a lead. Attached to it was, oddly enough, a headcrab. It wrapped around the crab's torso, moving it along through a leash-like contraption.

The one who held it was a Vortigaunt, who wore a long, dirty-yellow robe. Jacob's two eyes locked with the Vortigaunt's four, and he slowly raised his hand to wave at it.

"Uhh... hi?"

"THE HUMAN!" The Vortigaunt suddenly yelled out, startling Jacob and causing him to jump in the bed. "It has awakened, it is alive! Gaka zurr'gram!"

Jacob was still reeling from the surprise, and could barely understand what the Vort was saying. It could be translated as "Adore me in my pride, I am awesome", but Jacob wasn't sure. It was some kind of praise to the self. "Stand, human, stand!" the Vortigaunt called out, releasing the headcrab and allowing it to move around the hut. Jacob, overloaded to the senses, weakly replied "Hold on, I just need to..." He interrupted himself to ask "What happened?"

"Ahh," the Vort started, chuckling to Jacob. "So wise! That your first question is not who or what I am, but rather, what events led to you awakening here! Yes, yes..." it cleared its throat, then gestured with its two-fingered hands. "You were wounded - envenomed. The dark crab sank its teeth into you. The venom coursed through you when we arrived to stop it from coupling with your fragile head. It and an rather ornery Antlion, of course..."

"Jesus," Jacob couldn't help saying. "I'm incredibly lucky you were there, then." The Vortigaunt nodded. "Indeed, you were. Apparently, your respirator cracked under the pressure of your face and you inhaled a common psychedelic we typically use for recreation."

"Listen, though," Jacob continued, reaching over for his shirt to start putting it on and ignoring the Vort. "If you're here, I need your help - do you know the way West? I need to get to the shore." The Vortigaunt thought on it for a minute, then rubbed his chin. "Perhaps~!" He pointed upwards, explaining. "The way West is blocked by a rather colossal wall of spores. Even your respiration device would not safeguard you from these - they grow on the skin, consume the flesh. But the Vortessence could safeguard you through the Sickened Wall." The Vortigaunt rubbed his hands together. "Perhaps, if I were more empowered by the Vortessence... perhaps you would have better luck with the Shaman."

"The, uh, shaman," Jacob echoed quietly. "Yeah. The shaman. Can I... see the shaman?" he asked as he finally put on his jacket, standing up from the bed.

"Yesss! Come!" and with that, the Vort burst from the hut, leaving it and allowing Jacob to follow close behind.

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The Composer followed the Vortigaunt out of the hut and into a path carved through the Malignant Mire. His eyes set upon the buildings around him, made mostly of stilts and alien leather, and the swamp it was carved into. Pools of liquid surrounded the tribe's trail, but even they were incorporated with the infrastructure, with some buildings partially sunk into the moisture.

There was one path that lead into a cornucopia of rotting trees, moss infestations, designs of nature both Terrestrial and Xenian origin. Coiled around it was a massive seat, and the branches leading up to it were guarded fiercely by a small storm of Vortigaunt hunters, many of which were armored with heavy antlion carapace. Some of them were simple mages, enveloping themselves in Vortal power to show that they would not tolerate discrepancy from this newcomer.

Sitting atop the seat was an ancient-looking Vortigaunt, wrinkled and splotched with violet. Atop his head was what appeared to be a ceremonial crown, or something to that number, and he stared down at Jacob with such distrust, such spite, and such superiority that it genuinely made Jacob lower his head in respect out of instinct.

"Shaman! The human visitor is awake! He is standing right next to me!"

"I can see him VERY clearly, Jarlanack, for I am not blind and I was not deaf to your earlier bellows." The old-looking Vortigaunt standing at the silent Grand Elder's side moved away from its master's throne, and stepped down by the roots of the mire's structure until he was on the path. He stood before Jacob, and at this point, he noticed that the Shaman was terrifyingly tall.

"Did the Houndeyes render this one mute?" The Shaman inquired. "Uhm- no, I was just... waiting for you to ask me to speak." The Shaman stared at him for a moment, before commenting "I hadn't asked you to speak, I merely asked if you were mute. You'll do well to watch yourself. Now... what has brought you to our Tribe?"

Jacob thought about his words for a minute, and then spoke up. "I want, uh- I wish to reach the Californian Shore so that I may sail to Europe and join my friends, fighting against the Combine."

"A noble cause, if stupid, considering you are seeking to breach the most dangerous section of the Malignance Zone. Not to mention the Sporewall..."

"I'm aware. I wanted to ask if you could... help me get through it."

The Vortigaunt registered Jacob's words, thinking to itself, looking down at him, examining him. "Perhaps, human. But your issue must be addressed second. Come." The Shaman gestured towards himself as he moved towards a building, one marked with a strange symbol that seemed to show a simplified Vortigaunt reaching over to another one. Energy was being weaved from its hands. The one on the bottom was bleeding.

As Jacob entered the hut, he looked at its contents, and found a small gathering of Vortigaunts, their hands extended, energy flowing from them and into the body of a Vortigaunt on a wooden slab, being tended to, for it laid in a small pool of dry blood, and was unconscious, clearly on the brink of death, if not closer.

"Our kin, this hunter - wounded by the Guardian," the Shaman explained, gesturing to the wounded one. Jacob felt empathy, being quite familiar with such a position. He sighed deeply. "The extract, distant. Our husbandry, failed - for the Antlions rose against us, and took their hive from our grasp." The Shaman looked at its fallen brethren with genuine pain in its eyes. He feels it too. Jacob looked up at the Shaman as it finished its claim. "The Composer shall venture into the Hive, and retrieve the Extract."

Jacob sharply breathed air. He was afraid the Shaman would say that. But he supposed it was fair. It was either this - or he tried to go past the Sporewall. And that was a no-go.

"Alright. I guess I'm up to that task. I mean, I'm terrified, I could die, but I'll do it for your brother... if you'll safeguard me through the Sporewall."

The Shaman seemed pleasantly surprised, looking down at Jacob with renewed hope. "Ahh. A human with a selfless tendency. Then I shall let you venture forth, and into the depths of the Antlion Hive."

Jacob took a deep breath, and then nodded. "Lead me to it," he requested.

 

[registry: brush him]

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As The Composer was escorted along the trail of the Tribe, towards the outskirts in the direction of the Malevolent Hive, his eyes set on something in the distance, something resting near the base of a spore tree. Jacob took a moment to put on his respirator, which had been repaired since the mishap with the Caves. "Hold on. What is that?" He focused on the creature sitting near the tree.

The Vortigaunt Shaman, puzzled, glanced ahead at the tree where Jacob was looking. "Ah. That would be--"

Jacob suddenly called out, finishing the Shaman's sentence for him. "Blackantler!" He rushed forward, and the animal, at first bewildered, eventually noticed its human rider. It called out with a bellow as Jacob knelt down, basically hugging the alien deer. "...intriguing. We have never seen a Human, or a Vortigaunt, successfully tame a beast of the Maligned Land. We were certain it had happened at some point, but you are the first case for us to be made aware of."

"Yeah, I kind of tamed him by accident," Jacob explained with a chuckle as he rose back to his feet, taking a minute to mount Blackantler. "Here, hop on! I'm sure he'll be able to support two people."

"...I will not be doing that," the Shaman replied curtly.

"Suit yourself, I am definitely not walking all the way--"

"We are already here. The Hive is a mere tense of paces just over there." The Shaman pointed to demonstrate, and indeed, Jacob found himself aware of the protruding, colossal hive. Spore mounds surrounded it, nothing the respirator couldn't handle, but in alarmingly high rate. He noticed tentacles emerging from within as well, which pulsed with delivered essence spawning from the Central Hive.

"Were you to follow those, you would soon discover The Extract. But do not worry - I shall guide you."

"Oh, great, because I absolutely DID NOT want to go in there alone," Jacob chuckled to himself. "Yeah, I'd... I'd die."

"You would, yes," the Shaman replied. "Leave the steed here - I am certain it will remain safe, awaiting your return."

"Good thinking." Jacob hopped off the Blackantler, and gave it a pet on the neck, before directing it towards a shrubbery of glowing leaves - leaves it quite happily began to crunch on. It would certainly be occupied whilst he and the Shaman ventured into the Antlion Hive.

"Well, human? Are you prepared?"

"Absolutely not."

"Then let us enter the depths."

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There was a resounding thud as Jacob dropped from the last slope and into the middle of the entry shaft, where the depths of the Antlion Cave was separated from the hellishness of the Malignance Zone. Then another - this one louder, more echoing, as the hooves of the Vortigaunt Shaman clapped against the stone ground.

"Well, it definitely looks and smells like an Antlion cave," Jacob commented. The Shaman gestured ahead, towards a tunnel filled to brimming with egg sacs. "That scent would surely be emanating from there."

"Yeah, I figured. Right, can we get moving? They're probably gonna notice us being here."

"Wise," the Shaman replied, starting the venture forward, a spear gripped in his two-fingered, tiny-thumbed hands.

The Resilient Composer stepped out of the entry shaft and into a system of tunnels that, until just then, seemed hollow. The Vortigaunt Shaman leaned around the corner, and as he set his eyes upon what Jacob was looking at, the simplest "Oh." could be heard as he noticed the swarm.

There was a buzz, a rattle, as the Antlions turned around, hissing at them.

"Really? 'Oh'? REALLY?" Jacob angrily asked.

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Jacob readied his machete, glancing at the Shaman. "I'll get their legs, you get their butts."

"We have understood!" The Vortigaunt called out, preparing his spear.

Three antlions marched forth in a drumming sync, and Jacob felt the reverbrations as one antlion stepped to him. He drew his machete, and stepped forth, bringing it upon the antlion's leg with ferocity. As it screeched, he felt another one crawling up to him, reeling its legs for an attack. He jerked backwards, and hacked up with the blade, severing the second antlion's leg just in time to move away from the second one.

The Shaman rolled its eyes. "We shall assist," it stated, before stepping forth and driving its spear into the jaws of one antlion. A muffled, gurgling insectoid screech could be heard before the bug expired, and its corpse was soon used as a thrust to crush another one of the bugs.

"Shit!" Jacob called out, slightly amazed. He focused his attention back on the last antlion, cocked his machete, and then awaited its attack. When it pulled back to assault him, he drove the blade up and into its jaws - the Antlion's surprising weight nearly caused him to stumble, but he remained steadfast, forcing himself forward and flipping the bug over. He drove a blade between its carapace, slitting it apart with a quick movement.

"Precisely!" the Shaman congratulated. "More approach." He pointed forward with his spear, where shadows painted the wall with marching antlions.

"I'm ready," Jacob proclaimed with his blade prepared.

More antlions skirted into few, one flying almost into the wall, mounting it with its claws before descending onto the ground, before the Composer and the Shaman. Jacob drove forth, and the hissing Antlion's leg would soon be ripped from its body by the sharp blade of a jungle machete. Stunned, it was unable to resist when the human grabbed its "throat", and jerked upwards, forcing his leg against its carapace in order to quite literally tear the alien bug's head off.

"Be severed!" The Shaman called out, many meters away as it flipped a swarming Antlion over and drove a glowing fist into its powerless carapace. It exploded soon after, covering the Shaman and Jacob alike in vile ooze, which prompted an involuntary "Oh, that is just SICK!" from Jacob's newly covered mouth. He didn't spend too long, of course, being disgusted - for a new adversary arrived at the end of the tunnel. Not one, but two. Antlions glowing green, with acid coursing through their limbs.

The Shaman put his spear away, and looked at Jacob. "I presume you possess a human firearm?" He asked. Jacob blinked, realizing that, indeed, he had - his holster still carried the sawed-off Combine Shotgun. He pulled it out, and broke it.

"Wha- did you TRULY just dismantle your own weapon?! In the heat of such a dire situation?!"

"What? No!" He replied as he pulled out two 12 gauge shells, holding them between his fingers before loading them hastily into the shotgun, and closing it. "It's break-action!"

"You certainly broke it with one action- oh."

Their banter was interrupted when Jacob looked ahead, at the last second, to realizing a volley of acid was coming towards him. He ducked out of the way, avoiding acidic spit from both directions, which would've certainly turned him to mush. He shouted a cuss as he readied the shotgun, and, at last, fired it upon the acid-bloated beast. It jerked back, and then spread its wings, flying up into the ceiling one final time before exploding in a shower of acid.

One speck hit Jacob's hand, causing him to yell out. That was MUCH more painful than I was anticipating. He huffed, and then stood up, readying his shotgun to fire it upon the other Worker.

The Worker hissed as it was knocked back, its body bloating with stifled acid as it limped backwards. It didn't take long before the acid overflowed, and the bug exploded, this time not catching Jacob or the Shaman off guard.

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Once he knew the coast was clear, Jacob sat down to look at his hand, where the acid had left a sizable burn mark. He let out a dramatic "Owww."

"Are you an infant?" the Shaman asked genuinely, folding his arms as he stepped up to Jacob, kneeling down to examine his hand. "Ah. The Worker's deterrent reached you. You are quite lucky it was in such small volumes - that fluid can dematerialize even the strongest of terrestrial stones."

"I think I knew someone who actually got their cheek melted through by this stuff," Jacob commented under his breath.

"Yes, that... that does happen," the Vortigaunt explained. "Now, stand. We have extract to obtain."

The Composer recomposed himself and stood up, brushing the Antlion gore off his filthy jacket before moving forward.

Turning the corner, Jacob was greeted with a vast expanse where Antlions lept across a great chasm. Tentacles that peeled in from the ceiling shot spores occasionally, and the Workers would always spit acid upon them to quell their spread. It seemed that this colony, if none else, would not tolerate the spread of Malignance. Jacob found this to be... weird.

"Why don't they want to let it in? Wouldn't that... you know... help them?"

The Shaman grasped his spear, pointing towards the center of the hive, where the Extract could be found. "The Malignance would ruin their prized product."

"Right... right, of course!" Jacob appalled at the idea, acting as if he were a scientist making a breakthrough. "...it's quite basic inference," the Shaman said with a frown. "Well, hey, look, I'm not thinking straight. I've been in this hellscape for a couple of days now, so excuse me..." he scoffs.

His train of thought was interrupted when the Shaman heard something - a rumble, echoing through the caverns. The Vortessence infested his mind with words he recognized. Hide. And so, he grabbed the Composer's arm, and yanked him behind a rock, hiding with him.

"Wha- what are you-?!"

"SILENCE, human. Listen..."

Jacob fell quiet, and listened closely. He blinked, and then gradually turned his head upward as he felt a rumbling above him.

He leaned around the corner of the rocks, and his eyes set upon a colossal beast, easily the size of ten freight storage units. His heart skipped a beat as he watched its hundred legs, the impossibly huge centipede, mingle with a rock before crushing it.

"What... on this good Earth... is that?" Jacob awed, his breath but a hushed gasp.

"The one entity within this cave that has truly allowed itself to be consumed by the Malignance."

The Vortigaunt paused, and then finished the dangling sentence.

"The King."

 

[registry: brush him]

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"PLEASE don't tell me we're planning on taking that big giant thing on," Jacob mumbled under his breath.

"No. Even the other Antlions recoil in fear at the sight of their own King," the Shaman murmured.

"Well, what are we gonna do?"

"Evade it. If it sees you, you will know pain beyond your ken, long minutes before your vortal tethers are severed."

Jacob gulped, breathing deeply. Something told him his built up pain tolerance wouldn't comfort him if the King saw him. "Alright," he huffed. A few moments passed as he peeked around the corner of the rock, looking at the infested, corrupted King. He inhaled through his nose, watching as the King was distracted by a wayward Antlion that failed to hide.

As the Antlion was crushed beneath the mass of the spore-ridden centipede, Jacob beckoned the Shaman, and then pointed ahead towards another rock safe to hide behind. Then, he dashed forth, taking refuge behind it as the Vortigaunt soon followed, joining him.

The King's gaze reverted back towards the rocks where the intruders could be heard scurrying, and the Composer felt a chill in his heart as the King slithered its way to the other side of the ravine. Its mandibles chittered and chattered as it sought a sign around the cliffside. Its spores squirted just above Jacob's hiding place - he couldn't risk their effects, let alone coughing, so he reached into his satchel and hastily placed his respirator on, breathing deeply from it. It silenced his breath as well as protecting his lungs, and for a moment, he relaxed under the pressure of nearly being seen.

The King turned, its many eyes fixating on its extract, which hummed vibrantly, nearly ready. It slithered across the walls of the cave's ravine, towards its precious extract.

"Well done," the Shaman quietly congratulated. "Now, with me." He stood up and trotted along the side towards the Center, before turning towards the Composer, blinking. "What is the hold?"

The Composer huffed, slowly removing the respirator. "I have honestly, truly never been so goddamn scared."

"You surely have, a judgment of your past experiences... but I digress. Stand. Conquer your fears, large, hairy baby man, and come forth." And with that, the Shaman disappeared around the corners of the walkway.

Jacob, still intoxicated with some of the worst terror in his life, three-decade lifespan, breathed deeply, and then stood up, following the Vortigaunt.

As they turned another corner, the Shaman ducked below cover, and Jacob soon followed. Together, they witnessed as the Corrupted King reached one of its hundred vibrating legs into a hole within the hive's center, where the eggs were. It latched onto one of the lesser extracts, and there was a vibrating hum as the King cooed at its child.

And a tremor as it spat corrosive spores onto the extract.

The faintly glowing ball that was once blue, turned green, and then red as the spores infested it, dooming the to-be grub to a life of infestation. In that moment, Jacob felt something unusual - sadness. Sorrow for the Antlions. Their King was hopelessly infested, but they could not defeat him, and now their children, the next generation of their kind, would be tainted forever by their ruler.

"There's gonna be a guardian, right? There has to be at least one."

The Shaman shook his head. "No," he stated simply and bluntly as he gestured with his spear, into a dark corner where Jacob's eyes hadn't yet ventured. "it lays there."

He looked into that corner, where the tainted, maimed Guardian lay gestating in a pile of spores, its body riveted with a crimson cloud. Jacob gasped, and put a hand over his mouth, protecting it from a spore that came wayward towards him.

"Do not tarry. The extract is near."

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​

Jacob approached the Central Hive, now abandoned temporarily by its King, and the Shaman followed close behind. He peeked over his shoulder, at the Vortigaunt, and then looked back at the Hive, breathing deeply. At last, he stepped forward, and climbed up onto the Hive.

"I just reach in and grab it, right?"

"With delicacy, as if you were caressing the most fragile of eggs."

Jacob nodded, seeming to understand, and he looked around for the purest of the Extract. Buried in one of the holes was an extract that glowed an ominous, but welcoming green - the brightest, the purest. His hands were wrapped in fingerless gloves, which cushioned his palm as he placed his hands within the hole, wrapping his fingers delicately around the egg.

He couldn't look inside the hole, but he could feel its texture, it's almost fluidic essence, and he managed to eventually pull it out, placing it in one upward palm and protecting it with his other hand. He sighed.

"I got it."

"Good. Now all that remains is to-" the Shaman was cut off by an unbelievably loud screech from deep within the cave, where the Antlion King had ventured.

"Oh, that's bad," Jacob softly said.

"All that remains now is to RUN!" the Shaman abruptly called out, and with that, his hooves could be heard crackling across the ground. Jacob looked on in shock for a moment as the Viral King turned around a corner, its eyes fixed on Jacob. Its legs trailed against the wall it walked on, and he saw as a cloud of spores burst from every pore in the King's back.

They mingled with the rock wall, and from them, hatching tendrils finally burst from the walls, peeling into the Hive, tearing through the rock. Sores erupted from the ceiling, and the ground deep blow glowed as something awful awakened. More tendrils spread around the Hive, and antlions burst from the walls, running. Not towards Jacob, or the Shaman - but AWAY from the King. They were abandoning their Hive.

Jacob stared as the Antlion King's unleashed infestation began to spread, and only at the last moment worked the nerve to begin running. He took off, following an Antlion that stood between him and the Shaman.

"The Jacob must not tarry! Observe!" cried the Vortigaunt as he suddenly jumped forward and mounted one of the Antlions, attaching to its carapace. The carapace wasn't as delicate as its exoskeleton, and so the alien was supported as it rode the insect out of the Hive.

"Wha-- my hands are full! Shaman?!"

The Shaman rode off, obviously not hearing Jacob, or, perhaps, not necessarily caring, and Jacob realized his error as he looked down at the Extract between his hands. "Oh, I am so fucked."

He rushed around the corner just in time to notice the King. But for this moment, it was not pursuing him. It was moving towards the infested Guardian.

As the spreading infestation reached the Guardian, Jacob watched through a swarm of fleeing Antlions as the Guardian finally awakened, ripping free from the gestating infection. Spores flooded the Hive, and Jacob scrambled with one hand to put on his respirator, knowing it would be the only thing to save him.

The Composer, tailed and led by swarms of evacuating Antlions, rushed for the final slope at the top of which laid the awaiting Shaman. He ran to the end of the hall - and realized there was no direct way up.

Jacob turned around, watching as Antlions leapt up, their wings flapping as they vacated from the hive, storming the Shaman in Antlions, but not harming him, for they had much greater concerns. They fled for the trees, burrowed into the dirt around the Hive, and the Shaman stared down at Jacob.

"I need help! I- oh, dear god."

The Antlions were gone, and all that remained was the Guardian. Its reddened flesh glowed as it veered around the corner, adjusting its position to "stare" down Jacob. And then, it charged.

"Shaman. Shaman! SHAMAN!" He fruitlessly called out. He looked up as the Shaman began to channel energy into his hands - a delicate weave of energy emerged from them.

"I- it's- it's coming, there's no way up, I need-!"

The Guardian was so close that when the Vortal energy consumed Jacob's body, and he began to briskly levitate to the surface, energy weaving around him and floating his gravitationally abused body to the surface gliding past the rocks and spikes as he ascended the tunnel.

He landed next to the Shaman, who patted his shoulder. "Well done. You prioritized the Extract's survival over your own."

"Yeah, thanks! Maybe be quicker with the Vortal floating next ti--"

Jacob and the Shaman were both sent back as the Hive finally crumbled under the weight of a burrowing King. And suddenly, the two of them were face to face with an impossibly huge creature.

It screeched in untold fury.

"With me, Shaman!" Jacob called out as he ran, Extract in both hands as he approached his trusted beetle-like steed. Blackantler, who waited patiently all this time. The Shaman instinctively lifted him up, placing the human atop his steed (since his hands were occupied with the Extract), before hopping onto the long-legged creature himself.

Jacob huffed, and then kicked the hind of the beast. It responded to this signal, before rushing forth as Jacob leaned forward. Inbound to the Vortigaunt village, the Composer prioritized the safety of the Extract before the grasping of the antlers.

The Shaman's gaze averted over his shoulder, where the infested King spread its corruption through the Mire. He grunted. "Hold fast! We shall slow its descent!" Raising his arms, the Vortigaunt's energy wrapped around several fallen rocks, some of more considerable size than others. And with a pause, the Shaman hurled the rubble towards the Gestating King, lobbing rubble towards it as though his life depended on it.

One after the other, stones, rocks, great mounds of dirt, even spore mounds torn from the ground, slammed into the face of the King. It slowed down, but it would not stop, not yet.

Blackantler ground to a halt before Tribe Dahh Jurr-Esh, and Jacob slid off of him, running deeper into the tribe with the alien deer and the Shaman close behind. He called out to the Vortigaunts within the tribe - "Incoming, INCOMING! VERY big Antlion!"

The Shaman stopped in his tracks as he raised his arms. His energy weaved into a shap, one that soon turned solid as rubble and dirt coalesced into a shape. This shape was a horn, and the Vortigaunt's bizarrely shapen lips were placed against it before exuding a great burst of air.

Throughout the tribe, the Vortigaunts stirred, emerging from their huts. They understood the message, and the Composer, Jacob, turned around to witness as they all emerged. A swarm of Vorts, spears grasped tightly in their hands, Vortal shields forming a defensive bulwark, energy coalescing within their hands.

The King arrived, and the Vortigaunts held steadfast.

​

The King screeched, and from the dirt, Antlions infested with its spores ripped free. Some descended from the trees, and they stormed the tribe. They stopped at the bulwark of shields, and from above, hunters descended with spears and blades in hand.

Jacob blinked, and whirled around with his shotgun in his free hand. An Antlion had tried to sneak up on him, and he fired the contents of a shell onto it.

Its heavy carapace was almost entirely untainted by the bullets, and Jacob realized that the infestation had taken place all about the creature. Spores erupted from its back, and at this point, Jacob thanked his deities that the spores remained incapable of passing his respirator. This Antlion had growths emerging from its back, and its face had split in half to reveal a vile membrane.

Jacob huffed, and, panicking, loaded another bullet into his shotgun after breaking it. He closed it, but this move was slow, and he was sent backwards as the infested bug tore through his side, nearly ruining his jacket and piercing his hip. He let out a grisly "Auughh!" as he collapsed to the ground, panting. He looked up at the Antlion, and watched as its face opened up to reveal its innards, the spores, the infestation's culmination.

With the last of his strength, Jacob raised his arm and fired the shell into the open face of the abominated Antlion. Its head cracked off, and it fell to the ground, at last, slain.

The Composer, torn at the side, stared at the body, leaning on his elbow before letting himself fall to the ground. His gaze drifted away from the body, and to the battle beside him, where Vortigaunts waged war against the Antlions.

He watched as the King stepped into the field, his infestation seeping into the ground. Convinced that hope was lost, the Extract still firmly planted in his hand, he stared blankly into the sky. But it was only moments after that something opened his hand, and a slick grasp pried the Extract out of it.

Weak eyes attended to the one who had taken the Extract, and Jacob saw a familiar figure. A ceremonially armored Vortigaunt Praetorian, an ornate spear in his hands, standing among several - five, Jacob guessed through his tired mind. And between them stood the familiar face of the Grand Elder. He looked down at Jacob, and pointed towards him, speaking in a raspy, dark tone.

"Stay there... Human. The emperor's rage shall be judged."

Jacob wheezed quietly, watching as the Grand Elder and his praetorians stepped off.

The Antlion King looked ahead, and the Vortigaunts turned back, looking towards their Elder. Turr Liis'Tholk emerged from the line that separated the Tribe from the Malignance Zone, and Jacob watched as the Vortigaunts stepped out of the way, clearing the path between the Elder's Praetorians and the Tainted Antlion King.

"You were given respite from your strife," Turr Liis'Tholk began. "and your Hive was safeguarded." Energy flowed into the Grand Elder's hands as the King chittered, as if afraid, before the master. "But now our pact is upset. And now your body is a temple for none but the ravaging spores within." Turr Liis'Tholk inhaled, and then placed his hands together. The Praetorians, their spears crackling with energy, tore across the wood and metal, and charged the massive King. They leapt upon the beast as it begun thrashing, their ornate weapons digging deep into his flesh, occupying the ravaging monster.

The Grand Elder called out to his tribe; "Brethren! At my side! Let us cast down this beast with the misericorde of the Vortessence!"

Vortigaunts gathered around their elder, including the Shaman Jacob had traveled with for so long. Jacob huffed, and then slowly stood up, still pooling blood into his hands as he lumbered towards the gathering army. He stood at the Shaman's side.

"Let my power distribute into you. Share in the Vortessence's might. Allow this atrocity the mercy of DEATH!"

The Shaman raised his hands as energy pooled into them. One arm grasped the Elder's, and the other grasped Jacob's. In a moment, he felt an incredible surge of energy flow through him, and he gasped. "What...?"

"Shh," the Shaman quieted. "Focus."

Jacob looked on upon the unbridled mass of the Antlion King, and the Grand Elder finally spoke the word of execution.

"STU!"

And in one fel moment, the energy gathered within the hands of the defenders, including those of the wounded Jacob, would be launched forth with one swift motion, one even Jacob would have no trouble reciting. The Vortal power erupted on the Antlion King, and with the overload of energy, the infested emperor would crackle and screech, thrashing one final time as the Vortigaunt defenders vacated, fleeing the collapse.

The Corrupt King stopped crackling, and finally, it collapsed to the floor, a thud as the Praetorians and the Grand Elder finally reunited. They gathered by his side, and the old Vortigaunt gazed towards Jacob. Still somewhat wounded - and still recovering from the daze of participating in such a colossal ritual. But apart from that, he seemed surprisingly well. It seemed his endurance would safeguard him this day. The Grand Elder took note of this as he stared at the man whose age was between youth and middle.

"Come, human. And bring the Extract."

Jacob mumbled "Of course," reaching into his satchel for the egg, and holding it in both hands. He watched the Tuur Liis'tholk leave for the medical hut, and slowly followed in the masterful Vortigaunt's footsteps.

 

[registry: brush him]

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The Resilient Composer, hands protecting fragile Extract from the grasp of nature, stepped out of the open, murky air and into a hut where medicine was extracted. The Vortigaunt from before, wrinkled and tired, lay still on the wooden slab as shamans gathered around it, expressing panic, expressing fear.

"He has succumbed. He will surely perish!"

"He has mere minutes! We cannot hold his tether longer than another!"

The Grand Elder, Tuur Liis'tholk, stepped in behind the Composer, who looked up at him silently - respectfully. The tall, crowned Vortigaunt stepped to the slab, inviting Jacob to his side. "The Extract has been retrieved," called the Grand Elder. The Vortigaunts exclaimed in relief. "Yesss! The Extract..."

"...the Extract," the Grand Elder repeated as they each set their eyes on Jacob. His eyes met with the Grand Elder's, and then with the Vortigaunt healers, as he slowly extended his hands and opened them up. Their contents revealed, the Vortigaunts chanted, praising the All-In-One.

"What should I do?" Jacob questioned, looking up at Tuur, his expression uncertain.

"Stand by... be silent," the Grand Elder responded with a murmur as one of the healers grasped the Extract from Jacob's hand, raising it upward. "A pure sample! Let the false barriers of the Vortessence... fade."

"Fade..."

"Faaade."

With that, the healer's hands squeezed against the Extract, crushing it and allowing its pure contents to coat their hands. They reached for the hands of their brethren, and as the Extract impacted them, they spread it to their ilk. The final two healers touched the Grand Elder with the extract, and soon, one of them reached out for Jacob.

"Wha...?"

His wrist was wrapped with two long fingers, coated in the Extract. When the hand was removed, Jacob saw a violet mark on his arm, and soon, it spread through his veins, the color changing him. He watched the Extract spread to his injury, the mark left by the Antlion, and watched as the wounds dwindled, the Extract touching it, too, sealing flesh and bone and muscle.

But his vision was soon clouded. He looked around the room in a stupor, watching as the Vortigaunts did their work. They chanted as their hands interlocked with the body of the dying Elder, and even in his mind, he could hear them, chanting. He saw other things, too.

He witnessed visions he wasn't entirely aware possible to experience - namely, the events that led to the Elder's wounds to begin with. He saw the King once again, less corrupt, but still infested. He saw one of the King's mandibles extend against an army of fleeing Vortigaunts, and he watched its belly split open as the King pierced it.

In his eyes, one could see pain, for that is what he felt - in these brief minutes where the Extract's effects had touched him, for then and the continued mending of the impaled, dying Elder, he felt their pain, he felt the anguish of the Vortigaunts, truly believing that the wise Elder had died. He saw the Grand Elder, and the single tear that shed from his eye as his close brethren, perhaps offspring, Jacob presumed, fell to the King.

Conviction, too, radiated from his heart. As the enormous wound clotted in its green-colored blood and the area above solidified, the body scarring, the Composer witnessed the Vortigaunts, their struggle, their hope, their determination as they carried the Elder their way from the Hive, back to the Tribe.

More visions overwhelmed him, some more abstract than others, and he had difficulty intermixing the visions with the reality of the Elder being resuscitated. He saw a steel corridor, and an orange man charging him, bringing a red object down on his face. He felt chains pulling against his throat, only to watch as they cracked and fell off. He saw from a different perspective, another point of view, and now he was a great being collapsing under his own power, watching below as the orange man held his mace, looking up at his accomplishment, at his victory.

For some reason, he felt comfort and freedom in those moments.

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He would likely never truly interpret the visions he witnessed while his mind was interbonded with the Vortessence, and as the haze eventually cleared, he snapped into reality, still, in time to watch as the Elder's violet eyes finally opened. He blinked as the Vortigaunts shared praise and relief.

"His life, preserved."

"Our kin, restored."

"Pain beyond our measure has been postponed. We are complete."

Jacob blinked, wiping his eyes. "Did I... did I pass out? Was I just dreaming?"

The Grand Elder glanced towards the Composer, his eyes narrow. "You were interwoven with the Vortessence. You will certainly receive an incredible pain to your mind shortly."

"Pain? I don't feel any p--ohhhHHH fucKING god!" Jacob suddenly recoiled, hands over his forehead, pressuring it as his brain ached from exposure to a concept far beyond him.

"That would be it," Tuur murmured.

The Elder, who laid still on the slab, looked towards Jacob. "Human. Why has he come?"

"The Extract," The Grand Elder explained simply.

Jacob took a hand off his forehead to huff, and wave slowly. "Hey~"

"THIS human retrieved the Extract?"

"He received assistance," the Shaman explained. "From I. So, no credit shall be distributed to the human."

"Hey!" Jacob snapped. The Elder sat up, looking towards Jacob, and then towards the Shaman. "To this tribe, I owe the life of this body," he thanked. "And to the human, who foolishly, albeit cleverly obtained the Extract used in my resurrection."

"You're absolutely welcome!" Jacob called. "And, listen, I didn't want to bring this up now... but..." He breathed deep, and then gestured Westward. "I assisted you not just because... well, I felt bad... but also because I needed to get past-"

"The Sporewall, yes, yes..." the Grand Elder dismissively finished the sentence. "Very well. A transaction is as it is. I will send for Jarlanack to escort you to the wall. But I shall warn you, now..." He paused, and as Jacob looked up, listening intently, continued. "The way ahead is as virulent, as violent, and as dangerous as can be measured 'possible' in your world. The true test of your cleverness is yet to come. Should you feel that you cannot continue, we will allow you here without beration."

Jacob nodded, and smiled faintly at Tuur Liis'tholk. "Thank you. I will keep that in mind, but in case this is the last time we meet, uhh- thanks for not letting me get eaten by Caves. And Poison Headcrabs. And Antlions."

"Of course. If all humans are as you are, then perhaps I foresee a great future, a great profit in schooling houses for the lesser.

"H... haha?"

"Now off with you. The preparations for our Ascendance must continue."

Jacob nodded, and, facing backwards, stepped out of the medical hut, leaving the Vortigaunts to their plans. He ventured towards Jarlanack's hut.

 

[registry: brush him]

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​

"The way beyond is up this particular valley. Another several steps..."

The Resilient Composer muttered "Got it" inattentively - he was checking over his shoulder to see if Blackantler was still following him, and peeking into his pack to ensure everything he needed was still there, including his somewhat worn respirator. Indeed, they were, and so he turned his attention back to Jarlanack. A creature of mottled flesh, a hole in his head - probably a victim of tortures of the Malignance Zone. His wandering thoughts were set back on their path as they finally came over the valley, with Jarlanack standing atop it.

"Ah, at last! We are here." The Vortigaunt gestured forward, and when Jacob stood beside him, he saw the same thing he did - the Sporewall, at last. A coliseum of spores spanding hundreds, nay, thousands of miles - easily impassible unless he were willing to run the length of California - or what was left of it.

"Holy shit."

He took the name "Sporewall" non-literally, but this truly was a wall of spores. He flipped open his journal to take a few notes, looking up in aw at the enormity. Jarlanack tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.

"Yes, the Wall is quite great - but there will be time to admire it once you have passed through it. Do put on the respirator, yes?"

Jacob quickly reached into his pack for his respirator, and held it close to his face. He looked at Jarlanack, and the latter raised a finger. "Now, for the remainder of your trip, I'd advise keeping that on! You see, the way beyond is the most dangerous, most infested, and most anomalous part of this corrupt zone. You'll surely not want to be exposed to them."

"No kidding," The Composer responded. "I hope it lasts. The respirator, I mean."

"At this time, now - at last, the way shall clear for you."

Jarlanack stepped forward, and waved his hands in an erratic motion unfamiliar to Jacob, and in one swooping gesture, a warping wall of Vortal energy emerged from a dot between the Sporewall. It spread, purifying the area around, shaping itself in such a way that as long as the barrier held fast, a human could pass through.

"Go, dearest Jacob! And may it be remembered to you that our tribe is open to all humans!" Jarlanack paused. "Well, to you at least."

"Thank you for everything, Jarlanack," Jacob began as he finally put on his respirator. "Stay safe here."

"Ah, I shall revert that wish to you, for where you go is far more dangerous than here."

Jacob shrugged. "Yeah, just a niceness thing, really," he muttered. "Goodbye."

"May the Vortessence show you to us again, Supplanter of Strife."

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Jacob Hibbler, the Resilient Composer, emerged from the Malignant Mire and into the final state of his journey. The Xenian Malignance Zone, spreading and vile, stretched across a hundred thousand acres, and its will to stop was nonexistent.

Now, Jacob found himself on the top of a hill littered in spore sacks, occupied by a culture of mutant headcrabs and tortured, mutated animals sandwiched between scorched plains stretching across the Californian ruins. In the distance his eyes set on a Once-Beautiful City, the roofs of great still interlocked by trusses, the epicenter now a skyscraper enveloped by the virus, now a spine for an entity atop which spores billowed out like smoke from a busy factory.

The city, which Jacob fancied to formerly be Los Angeles, had roots gestating within from which tentacles the size of subways sprouted, limply hanging over the desiccated walls of metal and stone crafted in a hurry by horrified, yet unwitting survivors who thought quarantining their tall, infested building would be enough to save them, and the entire West Coast from what was to come.

So much to take in, and the Composer stared ahead, Blackantler at his side, and simply... sighed. He wished, more than ever, that the events spawned by the Black Mesa Incident had never come to pass. He wished now, more than ever, that his world could become what it was before. He wondered if it even could. The thought that the answer might be yes would've been enough to keep him going.

Hopping aboard the back of Blackantler, he brushed his mount's neck with his palm, solemnly ushering "Let's go, buddy."

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Jacob gripped the antlers of his alien steed steadily. As they passed down the path into the Quarry Valley, Jacob saw mountainous spore mounds spraying their corrupt product into the lands around. He noticed that they didn't simply push their spores from nowhere - in fact, the volcanic spreading seemed to be forming a slope in the sky where the infestation blotting out the sun would be absorbed. He traced the clouds back to their origin - once again, the great skyscraper-spined garden called to him.

His nose twitched, and at first he thought the smell that flowed into him was just another product of the diseased zone, but then he sniffed the air again and realized that it was the smell of rot. Active rot - caused by consumption, the exposure of open flesh to the air. He found himself vying down a path where there was nowhere left to go but through a chasmic quarry. Deep beneath the gradually descending slopes, on the other side, a trail would finally begin to extend up, bringing him closer to the city that no doubt held the docks to freedom.

A screech rang through the air, and Jacob whirled around, exclaiming "What in the fuck?!" And something was, indeed, barreling towards him. It looked eerily like a fast variant of a zombie, a human one, rushing towards him, except mounds of flesh were replaced with spores, and the insides of the flayed beast flowed with Xenian anima, its muscles boiling over. It leapt towards him, hungry to add Jacob's flesh to its atrophying muscles, and Jacob was fast, but not quite fast enough.

"Unrgh!"

The claws of the beast slashed his side, leaving minor cuts, and the atrocity zombie scrambled behind Jacob. With him stunned, it intended to stand, intended to finish the job. Blackantler stood ready to face the infested zombie, and would've potentially defeated it, but he would not have a chance. For something emerged from the depths of the quarry, erecting from the pit of impossibly scalding, corrosive acid.

It was like a flower, except it was clearly not of Terrestrial origin, and it could've easily been roughly the size of a house. It dripped acid as its floret bed opened up to reveal a hill of teeth. Its face enveloped the zombie, devouring it swiftly and messily, before returning to a fully erect, upward-concentrated state.

At this point, Jacob, a hand on his side, stared onward, mumbling "Sweet Jesus." as he watched the flower squirt out a volley of spores. They catapaulted into the air, and soon, more flowers emerged from pits of acid within the quarry, not directly beside, but nearby.

Plane-like aliens which the Composer vaguely recognized flew overhead, and when the spores reached them, they shriveled up and collapsed paralyzed and descending into the acid below.

Jacob whistled, and looked down, noting the mounds where the acid level rose and descended on occasion, filling up new spaces with the volume of the flower. Sometimes it'd overflow, and there would be a telegraph of great rushing as it rose up, then slowly descended once again. He sighted out rocks, large ones, where he could take refuge. Even Blackantler could fit on the rocks. So, with that in mind, he took a deep breath, and then descended into the quarry.

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From how loud the infested zombie screeched and how quickly the flower devoured it, Jacob surmised that perhaps the flower was drawn to noise. That's the only reason it would've left me alive. So he remained quiet as he traversed the first level of the quarry.

The acid rose up into the second level when it overflowed, and passively rose into the third level from time to time. The fourth level was a pool of acid, plain and simple. If I fall down there, I'm not getting back up. He waited for the acid to rise up into the third level, noting how long it took, how quickly it rose and the time for it to once again descend. And once it returned to its base, Jacob finally descended.

He had to go through this part of the quarry to reach the city, so he did. He had to be quick to leave - the flower above was sprouting spores, and another swarm of drones was about to dive into the flower pit. He looked up, whistling, and then down. He realized the acid was rising, and let out a distinct "Oh, FUCK!" as he scrambled towards a great rock. Blackantler, releasing a loud grunt, followed suit, using its great hind legs to leap atop the rock right next to its terrestrial rider.

"It's fine, it's fine, I got you-!" he called out, holding onto the alien stag as the acid rose to a level just below his feet on the level of the rock. He turned his gaze up where the planes were falling, and one by one, they dropped into the acid. They splashed into the dirt, and Jacob found himself instinctively lowering to the ground to avoid splatters of acid.

Eventually, the fluid lowered with the decomposed matter of the Xen planes, and the Composer, ever careful, stepped from the rock, beckoning Blackantler down with him. His heart raced, and so did his legs, as he descended the third level of the quarry and sprinted for the path leading up. As he finally scaled the path, he heard a gurgle, a rush of liquid, and a motion from the flowers. The one behind him lowered itself, sensing the scrambling of the human, and the acid began rising once again.

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit, go, go, go!" He called frantically to Blackantler as he began scaling the slope. Acid followed behind, at first distant, but when he looked over his shoulder, near, extending well beyond the second level of the quarry. Blackantler made it to the top in due haste, but Jacob scrambled up with panic. The gravel began to dissipate, and rocks fell into the acid, never to be seen again. Soon, Jacob would join them - if he did not escape beforehand.

Freedom from the flower pit was just several paces away, but Jacob couldn't make ground. The acid was mere feet away from rising to his level, and he took one final risk. He cried out, "BLACKANTLER!" as he finally worked the friction of the gravel to jump upward, leaping towards Blackantler, reaching the beast's lowered head, trying to grab its antlers, to hang off of them.

His hand locked with the bone, and he found himself adrenaline-fueled throwing himself atop Blackantler's back as the acid filled the quarry to brimming. It boiled and scalded, and Blackantler instinctively ran away, escaping the offshoot of the dripping flower pit acid. It snapped towards them as they escaped, and the acid would begin, soon, to bubble and fester. It would return to its base state, its natural state, the flower turned skyward so that it might absorb what little light poured through the dark clouds of The Malignance Zone.

 

[registry: brush him]

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The great tendrils sprouting from the center of the city once known as Los Angeles extended far beyond the city walls and into the ground outside. Or, in better words, against - not into. The end of the tentacle was open, and even from many, many meters away, The Composer could see the expansive meters within. But that didn't wrench his attention first - the coming storm did.

To his right, there was a new type of cloud he hadn't seen before. At first, he believed it to be a Portal Storm, which would've been unusual - he hadn't seen one of those in nearly a decade! It was impossible, but it wasn't unwelcome if it meant brushing away the vast filth of the Malignance Zone.

But it was not. Instead, The Composer looked closely and realized it was a "Sporestorm". Clouds that made up matter just like the Sporewall he penetrated not many hours ago, raining ungodly amounts of infection down below. Even with his respirator in hand, he could not be sure that it would withstand the force. He wanted to find a way past the city without going into it - but he had to come to his grips and realize there was no way to the docks without going into the corrupt city, through the great tentacle before him.

"I am going to regret this," he bluntly, firmly stated. The coming swarms of monstrous spore creatures, and the storm itself, forced him into the tendril.

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​

Jacob and his wayward alien stag, Blackantler, found their way into the tunnel. His first impression of the dark cave-like flesh path was its darkness - he could not see a single thing, not friendly, nor hostile. And so, he reached into his holster, drawing his entrusted Compact Shotgun. Over his shoulder he grasped his pack, and reached into it for his flashlight. Then in one hand he held it, in the other, his weapon.

"No way out but forward," he muttered. "No way out but forward."

As he began his steps, he heard the groan of Blackantler, and sputtered to his right. Two pairs of eyes set on a newly illuminated Venomous Headcrab, which leapt towards Jacob. The man shrieked in surprise, but the rattling hiss before the pounce allowed him to see the pounce in its infancy. He jerked to the side, and allowed the venomous beast to fly into the wall. He loaded his shotgun with one shell, and prepared to fire, but he hesitated. Such noise - it would've surely alerted the other denizens of the lair.

So, pulling on the rope to which Blackantler's neck was attached, he simply took deeper, escaping the beast as quickly as he could.

Though he soon found that it was not alone. There were holes in the tunnel that led into deeper systems, and Jacob heard the echoes of their screeches. They pried their legs from their homes, and the walls swarmed with Headcrabs, most venomous, some of the faster variety. They leapt on the occasion onto the ground, intent on pouncing him, but he was fast, fleeing them in his haze of panic, the unappetizing Blackantler a bulwark for some and his own guile a shield.

He whirled about, and raised his Shotgun to a fast headcrab that hissed at him. When it leapt, he fired the shell from the gun, and in less than a second, the great fiend was blasted into fine chunks of meat, obliterated in an instant. Its death sent a shock to the other parasites.

As they recoiled back, Jacob at first believed they would remain hidden because of the shot, the example he made of the vile crab. But such was not the case. They feared not only the armed human, determined to survive and a noble steed at his side, but they feared another who walked those tunnels. Jacob felt a stomping, felt vibrations in the supermassive tendril.

His heart seemed to stop as his contracting eyes stared, a gasp. He witnessed the coming of a great entity. A familiar one. His black, leeched skin, the headcrab so firmly attached to the host's head. It looked not even remotely human, because it never was. Jacob identified the colossus as a Zonarch. But it was no human. The host, two-fingered, tiny-thumbed hands, the extra one with elongated claws protruding from the chest... Jacob was face to face with a parasitized Vortigaunt.

Not even they are safe from that torture.

Jacob stepped back, hesitant, panicking as the Zonarch's hands stretched across the tunnel, its arms almost wide enough to touch either side simultaneously, but they curved upward, and from the rotten body of the creature, energy began to flow. He thought that it would release a blast, but instead, it simply gathered the energy, let it rest in the necrotic corpse's arms. Then it roared, roared out in a language, a language Jacob ALMOST recognized, but that was, at that moment, lost to him.

It stepped forward, and the Composer, still paralyzed, still shocked, was not able to move out of the way. It swiped its great, buzzing claw across his abdomen, and while Blackantler let out a loud groan and charged the monstrosity, Jacob found himself, muscles tensed, unable to move, against the meaty wall of a cave within a colossal Xenian gripper.

The alien steed's black antlers clashed with the necrotic harbinger's shocking claws, and for a moment they wrestled with each other, struggling against the strength of the other. Blackantler pulled back, and then rammed forth. The Resilient Composer's hope felt renewed, felt invigorated as his drive to stand returned. I won't die here. Now on his knee, he pulled forth the Compact Shotgun. Three shells remained, and each one was grasped tightly in his trembling hand. He broke open the gun, the shells between his ring and index pressured, one pressed against the other by his thumb, and loaded them into the barrel.

When the shells were loaded, he pressed the gun closed and quickly chambered a shot. He stood. Blackantler showed his hide to the Zonarch, and Jacob yelled involuntarily, "No!" as the necrotic, hands electrified with radiant Vortal energy, slashed across the hide, greatly wounding the beast. It cried out, and Jacob watched his steed crumple to the ground, not dead, but soon would be if the Zonarch were not stopped.

And stop, it did, for Jacob lurched forward, weapon grasped with the hand that didn't wield the tumbled flashlight, his left hand, his dominant hand. He pulled the trigger, and each of the twelve pellets within the shell burst from the gun, stumbling the atrocity. The Resilient Composer composed an infuriated memory. The memory of seeing an adversary on a ship sailing through the Void.

CLAW had ripped through the fabric of space to face him on that ship, so long ago. Crowbar in hand, vengeful, he drew on rage he didn't even realize existed to strike against the creature. That beast did not defeat the Resilient Composer fourteen years ago. Neither would this one.

Jacob reached into his pocket for a blade. His illicit Switchblade, used for self defense against simple thugs or for assisting with the process of picking locks, now used to avenge a wounded steed. Jacob flipped the switch with his thumb, and the blade extended as he leapt upon the stunned Zonarch, hand gripping a protruded spine from the hunched monstrosity's shoulders. He let out a cry, "Die, you parasitic FUCK!" and, with his switch primed, drove it downward, into the thick flesh of the headcrab atop the host.

It recoiled, its claws reaching upward. The 12-gauge coupled with the cut truly wounded the beast, and finally, it had to concede. It stuttered back, and then fled deeper into the tunnel while Jacob knelt down, facing Blackantler. He took off his respirator once the spores cleared, and sighed.

They were both wounded - Jacob with claw marks from three different species of monster, on his sides and chest, and Blackantler with three asymmetrical slashes across his hide. Despite the pain he was in, he still thought the deer's body more worth applying some of the contents of a First Aid Kit than his own.

"Hector, don't fail me now..."

The antibiotics and the bandaging set, thankfully compatible with the alien beetle-stag's body. Jacob sniffled, and it had only just occurred to him that he had been crying, not ready to abandon the one friend he had since he began the trail.

He breathed deeply, the pain in his hip catching up to him. He wiped his brow, looking down at the deer. It slowly stood.

"You're okay. You're okay. We're both okay."

It groaned at him, and he sniffled again. "Yeah, I know. We need to get out of here." He hastily pulled on its lead and, whilst they both limped, vortal electricity and claw marks having touched them both, navigated the tunnel.

Ahead, spores shot out from the walls, prompting Jacob to shakily put his respirator back on. He wiped his brow, then continued on, the whining Blackantler at his side. He suspected the spores were not all that protruded from the walls, and he was correct, for soon they tore open and more monstrous creatures emerged.

"Fuck. What is...?" he couldn't finish his sentence. Something unmistakably humanoid, yet still so alien, so disturbingly asymmetrical - a victim of the spores, undoubtedly. The Composer felt a dawning on his mind. The entity that stomped towards him was once a resident of the city beneath the tentacle he walked on. And the ones that soon tore their ways out of the walls were, too.

Shaking his head slowly, mumbling "God, I'm so sorry," Jacob reached down for his machete. He fixed on the flower in the face where the sporemen's faces opened up, surely their weak spot. He readied his machete, and the fiend's face opened up. Ready for such an event, the Composer's hand raised high above his head, and then came gliding down, embedding itself smoothly between the horizontal jaws of the sporeman. He buried it deeper, applying as much force as he could.

While he combated the first of the sporemen, repeating the process of kiting and then slicing the open face of the victim of infestation, Blackantler's head reeled back. To another invasive victim, they came forward, the alien stag goring its split face.

Jacob and Blackantler stepped forth, deeper into the tendril, and Jacob saw, distant, at last, a light. The darkness was filled, if only a bit, by the light of an exit, leading out of the tentacle and into the confines of the city. So close, and yet it seemed so far when the Zonarch descended from behind them. A roar nearly deafened the human and terrified the stag. It sent forth, making way for the exit while Jacob stood face to face with the Vortigaunt Zonarch.

His gaze drifted to the walls. More sporemen emerged, and from holes in the ground, ceiling, edges of the tendrils, headcrabs filled the area. Behind him, there were even more adversaries. Green-fleshed panthereyes charged forward in packs, along with spore-ridden houndeyes and bullsquids. It was a stampede, and Jacob had to race them to the tear where he could escape, race them, and outpace the Zonarch just behind, lingering close enough to touch.

The Resilient Composer, fueled by terror, stood just before the tear. He waited patiently - his eyes fixed on the charging Zonarch many meters away, but close enough that it would only take a few moments for him to slip.

Heart sinking only for a nanosecond, he dived backwards, emerging from the tear and down into the breach where the tendril's stem curved into an opening. Rolling across the ground, ending up beside Blackantler, he watched as the leaping animals from one end charged into the spore army on the other, including the Zonarch. Crashing into one another, their vile growls evolved into furious roaring.

Jacob ran with Blackantler, between the tentacle-wrapped, spore-bursting headcrab nests that used to be residential buildings, deeper into the tainted city.

 

[registry: brush him]

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Infested walls traced by a hand wrapped in fingerless gloves as the body ran around alley corners, an alien stag at his side, both hungry, both thirsty, both hurt, both frightened. One, The Blackantler, a name for a species of beetle-like alien stag hailing from the wastes of another world long since glazed over by the malevolent eyes of the Combine, the 'Invaders' as Jacob called them simply. The other, The Resilient Composer, Jacob A. Hibbler, called such for the harmony his voice suggested, the songs and tales he could compose. His title recognized the hope for the future he carried forth despite the doom of his planet, his home, his family, even where the Invaders had not reached, even where the Storms had not scoured the land.

As he turned another corner, the antler followed. Finding himself at the end of the alley, in shade where the spores had not quite reached, not yet, Jacob pulled off his respirator and rested his hands on his knees, leaning forth and panting as to catch his breath.

"Fuck. Fuck..."

Jacob couldn't help gasping as he stood up. Another dangerously close experience where his life was in jeopardy. His brow was wiped by his backhand, and his eyes set ahead, to the future, the block between him and the dock.

He saw a plaza - a park, where buildings surrounded. Once a warm, green place where one could go and sit, taking refuge, it was teeming with men and women, even children, bloated to the masses by spores, their faces locked perpetually in a tired, weak expression in the final moments of the spores consuming them.

Jacob felt hollow as he stared at them all. Some walked in groups, in prides, families, the bonds of blood keeping them together without their realizing it. A man and a woman, hands bound together by spores. The same, except with a small sporeman between them, their child. In the park proper where they found themselves lingering in groups, groups of friends. Jacob wondered how quickly the spores must have spread - they must have been close, unbelievably so, to the epicenter of the vile spread.

They were. Jacob needed only to avert his eyes north to bear witness to another type of monster, another biological nightmare from Xen. It was much greater than a skyscraper, for it used such a building as its spine, the body wrapped in darkness, a chute pointed up so as to shoot eternal amounts of spores into the atmosphere. It was from this construct that The Malignance Zone would continue to spread.

The simplicities, Jacob didn't care about. He put the respirator back on and had Blackantler wait outside. His mind was clouded. He wasn't sure if this was the only construct of its type, only that it contributed.

It had to burn.

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The glass door was difficult to move through. Tendrils tightly wrapped about the entrance which Jacob was wedged between, it and the rest of the slithering carcass of the structure. It was an atrocity, and it stood in his way, and so he would take it down. He would destroy it. He knew it wouldn't exactly save the Malignance Zone, even if it were the only one of its kind, which he didn't for a second believe - but it would do some good, make some progress towards slowing the spread of the infestation.

He ascended tentacle-wrapped stairs and brushed past enormous, bone-like protrusions in the spore-flooded halls. On one occasion, he moved past one particular office hall, and he pushed it open, looking at the contents.

Sporemen, tens of them in each hall, bound to their desks, their hands mindlessly tracing wire-bound keyboards on their filthy desks. The computers, switched off - it was as if they didn't realize they were enveloped in spore, didn't realize they were as good as dead. A mercy to them - not realizing an abhorrent predicament.

The Composer brushed past the workers, who took no heed of his presence. They were dependent, and thus not hungry, fed by the Spinal Stack's spores, and pushed out the emergency exit.

Normally, that would sound the alarm, but this time it didn't, the alarms likely smothered by spore.

On the catwalk, Jacob found himself at the edge, looking out into the lost city below him. Once a vibrant metropolis in the middle of a successful city, he looked down at it as nothing more than a blighted misery. He focused his gaze outward in time to witness something rising, something in the middle of the Tainted City.

It was a mossy, rocky structure, a collection of great stones, Jacob surmised this much. But its bound rock, enveloped by teeming Xen growths, held together by the same, walked as if it were man. The great extends of extra limbs protruding from its "back" further indicated the chaos of the alien cultures. Even as this colossus strode inelegantly across the gargantuan wastes of the city, its brethren further in the distance, a walking conduit of infestation - one of the many epitomes of corruption, second only to the spinal stack Jacob found himself standing on the catwalks of.

Steps upward led him to the next floor. He was high up now - nearly to the top of the billowing chimney. But the top was not what he aimed for.

He approached the derelict elevators, cracked open by mossy growths, and pushed against them. The elevator doors bent beneath his push, even the slightest one, their decay evident as Jacob finally pushed them out.

The elevator shaft was incredible. It was wide, and it was the most infested. In fact, the Xen blight seemed to sprout from it, seemed to stretch from it. The growths emerged ardent from the shaft when Jacob followed them back to it. Close - and flammable.

A tumor is what he saw. In the center of the shaft. A tumor and nothing more, acting as the heart of an infestation. When Jacob pulled his lighter from his backpack, he popped it open and placed it to the edge of the tentacles.

He heard a bellow - the cry of the Spinal Stack? Or of something else? It didn't matter. The fire was lit. Jacob rushed for the catwalks.

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It worked, and the tumorous heart of the rotten tower burned. The fire spread and the sporemen stirred from their confusion, their long stupor, when Jacob burst from the skyscraper and darted for Blackantler.

"Go. GO," he called to his mount, and it soon obediently charged Westbound once again, bound for the docks, bound for the freedom of both of them. When the tumor burned, the tendril wall which blockaded the passage to the docks closed. The sporemen, the poisonous zombies, the infested houndeyes and panthereyes and bullsquids, every abomination within the city looked onward as the fires spread.

The sky was filled with great spores once, but when the screeching came to a halt, the billowing infestation became billowing fire. Emergence of the flames, the sky turned red with flames, not spores. Jacob pushed forth, and Blackantler ground to a halt on an abandoned beach, where the darkness of the sea and the distant kraken-like life forms, their offspring, bound with the abhorrence of the land.

Jacob steered for the docks, stopping there. "Fuck. Fuck. Boat, boat..." And as he scavenged the docks for a ship he could use, his gaze drifted back to the plaza where the Spinal Stack was.

Fire now spread everywhere. The simplest spark from his lighter caused a spread so rapid that Jacob was sure the tendrils were enveloped in oil. This was... a decent explanation.

Came the Xenians, some on fire and screeching, some simply infuriated by the pyroimpulsive human. Down the murky beach they charged as Jacob mounted a sailboat. Corrupt and blighted, yes, but that did not constrict it to the docks, and with the sails easily replaced, he could begin the drive.

The docks trembled as the beasts came down it. Blackantler stood fast. "Blackantler, get on the boat!" He called as he ran the stays and pulled back the tattered sails.

The animal didn't listen. Its antlers stead fast, it rammed against a swarm of charging Xenians.

"Come on, damn it!" He shouted, grunting as he prepared to pull the anchor out of the dock. "Come with me!"

But it didn't come. It would be long before the boat could move, and by then, as Jacob noticed the murked, nearly ruined boat was finally moving, he extended his arms. "Come on!"

Blackantler finally yielded. Turning, he lurched forth, rushing the end of the dock to leap upon the ship.

His hands extended. He remembered his first encounter with the beast, the deer-like alien. As it glided through the air, a swarm of infuriated Xenians behind, roaring for their burning city, tainted and irredeemable, Jacob thought in deep. If you were to die, now would be a good time to do it.

But Blackantler would not die, not yet, for despite the injury in his side, he was an experienced survivor, and his great legs carried the friction needed to dart across the body of water separating him and the human, Jacob. His hooves clapped against the solid ship, and Jacob's hands lay empty, leaning over the edge of the ship.

The smoke-filled sky assaulted Jacob's senses when he ripped off the respirator. But soon, the scent of fire would fade. So, too, would the visage of the city where fire and spore went to war.

The sea beneath him was tainted by Malignance, too, but it was still blue, and the creatures lurking within could not inflict a toll upon the ocean on their own. Between The Resilient Composer and his goal, his friends, the war, freedom, so little stood, so little could stop him.

 

[registry: brush him]

The ship they rode on carried with it some odd ramifications.

It was only there, on that boat, sailing along the Pacific and into a blue yonder that stretched out for thousands of miles of nothing, that the Resilient Composer had a moment to think about his situation.

To contemplate his place in this bizarre universe that had chosen his world as the vestige for its insanity.

Night fell like it would have before the Combine, before that day in 2001.

He became suddenly and acutely aware that it had not, indeed, been a mere decade and a half since last he saw his friends.

In fact, he was suddenly and acutely aware that he had not even been born when the Combine were pushed off Earth.

So why, then, did he make that venture?

Why did he and this kindly alien moose decide to cross that boundary?





Boundary.

That word always seemed to make him feel good about himself. Just hearing it was so pleasant - it was a fun word to say.

Try saying it.

Boundary.

Try adding prefixes.

Grim Boundary.

Golden Boundary.

Holy Boundary.

Verdant Boundary.

The boundary above, perhaps. Jacob, the Resilient Composer, looked up.

He felt like he was... high, maybe? He wondered if Blackantler saw it too.

That space around the edges and fringes of his own universe. It almost seemed like those edges of dark matter that lined his reality...

...perhaps served as some kind of boundary between our world, and the divine one.

Divine ones, perhaps?




Jacob was never religious. Or, rather, he was never thoroughly religious. He believed in God, but there was no reason to throw one's self at his mercy. "Why kill myself if God made me to live a nice life?"

If brawling, music and men were what he wanted to indulge in while he was alive, why would God object?

Jacob found himself acutely aware of the stars. He saw a constellation that formed chaotic giants and a flat world atop an endless, sprawling underworld.

He saw a great tree that looked like it held many worlds in its boughs.

He noticed a hole where he thought he saw a bright star, leading into an oblivious depth where gods floated like worlds.


My place in the world, he thought. It's up there, somewhere soon. Somewhere not now.




He sighted land.

It grew closer.

But it wasn't Europe. It wasn't a stony hill. It wasn't what he thought his home was, but it was truly his home.

It was... the place he'd just left. The city infested with spinal stacks and tumorous growths, except it was clean, and in the place of those bony skyscrapers stood a glittering metropolis with promise written across its skies.

This shining city stood out against the dreadful badlands that served as a background.

The Resilient Composer was confused. Where am I? He wondered.

The boat docked. The dock itself was empty.

Everyone must've been out on break. It must've been decades into the future, and yet he felt like it was "now", not "soon".

He looked down at himself. He didn't see the harness, or the brown jacket, or the grey shirt, or the poorly colored hair, or the compact pulse shotgun, or the respirator atop his face. he saw his friend, but the creature looked different. Looked like he was waiting for the next stop.

No.

He pulled a red bandana from his face, and looked at it. He felt chaos flourishing in his heart.

His black, synthetic leather jacket glittered in the skylights.

A crossbow, compacted down to pistol size at his hip. An aluminum club painted to appear like oak holstered in his back.

Not resilient, not just that. Not kind, not warm, not gentle, not cute, not innocent, not helpless. A trained agent, strong and true, pure and powerful, an aspect of anarchy.

Yeah.

For some reason, he felt that this city would be best suited if he were the one to destroy it. If he were the one who threw it into chaos.

He didn't understand why he felt that way. Not yet. But he'd understand soon.

The memories of his true self fluttered into view, but he would explore them later. The cocktail in his hand burned like palms on a warm stove.

And this Ruthless Anarchist had a city to burn.