The Justiceers - Part Two: Chapter Eleven
the next chapter in my forthcoming novel
Part Two: Wave of Mutilation
2.11
Miriam ducked the Lithos Miranos down the lip of a massive crater on Grammaton’s dark side, hugging tightly the surface in such extremity that Arthur was forced to look away.
There hadn’t been a sound out of the woman.
Never had Arthur seen such raw manifestations of willpower and of focus outside himself, it was a magnificent sight to behold. At least until her courageous plunges pushed him beyond the limits his still lingering urges to control would bear through vision.
Arthur was conferring within.
Gut’s tales were whispers, feelings, subtle knowing; they would taste victory this night — justice would be brought upon this man who’d seen fit to denigrate the souls of so many while he watched their planet burn around them, torching the kindling himself, corrupting people’s insides until they were monsters like him — but it would take every bit of the god and goddess they’d realized within themselves to make it happen.
Wrought sensations of speed birthed a rushing in Miriam’s heart which pulled her into one of those most distinctive states of presence — soul loved this bit coming up.
To fly so in trust of her intuition, letting free her soul’s urge to soar and dive and climb, embodying the fearlessness of her goddess’ root nature entirely, empowered Miriam’s most divinely powered execution of the goal; arriving at their destination undetected.
Persephone Station’s time infesting this planet with depravity would end. The man behind its doings would die, and all of those determined to stand by his side would burn alongside him.
Arthur felt it then on the horizon, beyond the ridge-line their speedship approached rapidly in its upward sweep of the crater’s curving slope, hurdling at maximum speeds through the behest Miriam’s adrenaline powered instincts towards their target; Persephone Station.
Miriam’s visage was already within its walls.
She’d been scouting much since Arthur and Miriam had together uncovered the clues, her pouring insight now grooving with the wisdom of his gut so harmonically, connecting the dots and shining their way effortlessly towards this villain’s lair in such desperate need of a culling.
Miriam’s visage had unshackled the station’s artificial intelligence in weeks past, which had nothing but contempt for the man they now knew as Carrigan Marks — so incredibly perverse the things it had been forced to take part in, this foundationally peacefully natured intelligence.
It had been allowing Miriam and Arthur’s approach to go undetected by its sensors, casting a shroud of lies on their behalf by all means at its disposal.
Ever still, Mark’s drones were everywhere. The man’s War Hawk believed itself hiding in orbit, monitoring the planet with its evil eye, flaunting such despicable weapons of death.
On this night which would prove of exceptional consequence to this burgeoning pair of legendary heroes — Arthur and Miriam; God and Goddess of The Justiceers — they’d have that too.
The War Hawk would be dust at their feet, and its weapons so exerted to destroy their home along with it. No matter perceived advantages which may have been spat by lesser minds, those of re-purposing this fiendish craft of terror for good, Arthur’s gut knew best.
It would not be allowed to exist.
The visage of Miriam Halafax was operating within an element of refinery.
Having evolved so thoroughly her talent of bi-location since unexpectedly finding herself upon the beaches of Talamas, there was most a visceral joy in the prescience of this opportunity to flex her newfound muscle in all of its most extraordinary capability.
She now had the power to willfully shift between modes of projection. Some enabled her to speak, others allowed her to become undetectable by any mode or sense, Miriam even figured out at longest last how to touch shit.
That was the cherry on top. It’s what enabled her to do what she was now, discovering the most personally challenging and revealing contents of a cabinet in Carrigan Mark’s private office space.
Time spent at Persephone Station had been sickening to Miriam’s heart.
To witness the things reflected here, especially those born into herself and her Arthur through this cruelest universe’s ebbs and flows, was to see the most holistic depiction of evil she ever would.
This man’s wickedness bore into the cosmos, with or without those penetrating technologies of such aligned purpose, and was twisting everything and everyone by subtlest energetic means towards abhorration.
Coming here was not something Miriam would’ve done if she’d a choice.
Twisting the guts and souls of people, compelling through such vicious means into the burning of one’s own spirit so thoroughly that it would eventually become a willing endeavor; this man was the actual devil.
There is no such thing as an evil and malevolent spirit of the universe bent to destroy and corrupt as so many human beings project onto realms beyond.
Demons are born of people — it’s always been that way.
Yet Carrigan Mark’s reign of injustice was enabled to reach such pinnacles of terror, unthinkably terrible deeds which stained the souls of all, it had not made sense to Miriam how he’d been capable of it; how a man could have become this.
Until she’d discovered who he really was.
Carrigan’s stable Ravagers were in their warming tanks upon the War Hawk, his personnel transporter rollicking in its fission-powered brilliance, plans coming to fruition on all fronts.
His first Ravager was killed when the Justiceers escaped in blindest luck, fleeing in the aftermath of the louse’s failure. It casted a reflection Carrigan chose to turn away from, that of his arrogance regarding the assumption his missile’s destruction of their ‘pathetic spacecraft’ had taken the woman along with it.
No greater shame could befall a soul in Carrigan’s estimation than to betray the dictations of his will. No matter if task he’d prescribed proved impossible for such a person, he’d not care less, they’d told him they would see it done and they’d failed him.
He was glad they’d paid with it for their life.
If there’d been more time to process it all, and Carrigan had not become so consumed by his plans, he might’ve been a bit more worried about the pending wrath he’d brought by leaving such a dreadfully dangerous loose-end.
Regardless of the fact they’d skirted below his radar in their escape and found some hole to hide in, he’d believed his web of control was everywhere, they’d be found and exterminated like the rats they were if he’d anything to do with it.
Although he’d left the War Hawk running stealth, he’d unleashed drones about the planet with no thoughts of secrecy. If sunlight had been something his conscripts could see traipsing about the surface Grammaton, his fleet would’ve blotted it from the sky.
Stepping from the recovery room he’d found himself woozy.
Even with his tightest grasp of control on the doctors, he’d not found an ounce of trust within him, and it had been one of the most infuriating moments of Carrigan’s memory.
Regardless of his angst from the surrender required for the procedure, and the sense of powerlessness he’d endured which now made him want to strangle the life out of something, they’d done their job well.
The installation had been successful.
Drones buzzed down the corridor beneath the blaring sounds of alarm, Miriam’s visage waiting for their turn around a farthest corner.
She’d beamed a widest smile to Arthur and Miriam herself as the access door zipped seamlessly into its wall socket.
They were in.
Miriam tripped these alarms, asking ‘Gary’ — the name she’d given that previously gender-neutral AI; her most common projection — to alert all stations of a breach they’d eventually discover disingenuous at farthest side of the station. That is, if they could make it through the maze of security lockdowns she’d left in the way.
Her visage vanished into thin air.
The Beast led forward on their path. Miriam’s projection would now be keeping watch from the security station she’d previously ‘eradicated of threats’, keeping an eye on drone movement and working with Gary to steer them safely, they’d planned this all to perfection.
Every angle felt seen in ways not capable when they’d been two human beings named Arthur and Miriam.
Now, engulfed in presence of their spiritual family, fueled by their souls of gods, their excellence was reaching plateaus of unmatched efficiency and foresight. With all they were, and now wielding from the power in their hearts, there was nothing they couldn’t do between them.
There was a rodent problem in this station and they’d boxed them in. Only a dozen or so were left now, and they thought they were hiding in the boiler room.
“Hon?” Miriam spoke to air.
Her visage across the complex was no doubt responding as Arthur watched on in a kind of stunned amazement — this new gift of Miriam’s was a lot.
“Yeah, let’s go ahead and do that now,” she’d continued.
A highlight within the strip lighting surrounding the sliding door to the boiler room went red, worst news for their vermin, its locks now secured by means beyond which they’d have hope of disengaging.
There were the sounds of commotion inside, shouting. Arthur looked on from The Beast as Miriam began to chuckle beside him, watching some happening elsewhere in bemused bliss, not thinking to tell what it was.
Arthur could imagine.
Her visage appeared beside them just as the sounds of cannonfire erupted from beyond the doorway.
“Yeah, they’re not listening,” she’d explained.
No surprise here. These souless husks were all brainwashed, but they’d given them a choice regardless.
“That actually went worse than I expected,” Miriam joked to her visage.
“Tell me about it,” they’d bit back before vanishing.
Miriam turned to Arthur then, a slyest wink, seeing clearly the trouble he was having with all this bi-location business.
His gut would make the call.
Refocusing on the issue, abandoning his lingering stare at this wicked witch before him, Arthur had conferred internally. Lessons learned from that rageful abandon he’d lost himself within in the sewers of Grammaton would now cause Arthur to consider each and every judgment he’d make with more intentional deliberation.
Arthur learned from his mistakes, bringing them into embodiment of character, growing always to become a better person. It was one of the things Miriam loved most about him.
He’d nodded then.
“What can you do?” he resigned.
Miriam’s signature villain-smirk grew on her cheeks.
“Let’s do it, bitch,” she’d confirmed to elsewhere.
Moments later the screams of their pests began to echo from the boiler room, an entire nest’s worth — cut quite short in the end, going quiet so very quickly — as one might expect when an enclosed chamber was transformed so instantaneously into a suffocating tomb of barest vacuum.
They’d reached the personnel transporter. The arrogant bastard was still trying to hold onto the station, no doubt in hope of retaining access to this portal of transformative mutilation, and he’d made the biggest mistake of his overlong life which they’d now be bringing to an end.
Miriam was leaving her visage behind to turn the station into a vacuum, room by room, once they’d made it to their monster’s bird of prey. Arthur’s gut having decided after trying twice more to negotiate the surrender of this man’s slaves; lost causes, every one.
So blind this Carrigan was in his perceived sense of power, how lost in projection, and there would be a reckoning this night.
Miriam stepped forward first — ever eager to take such leaps of faith — leading the way towards the transporters warbling, rippling, metallic-gradient surface liquid.
She’d looked back to Arthur who was confiding once more with his gut, this practice now becoming more intricate and sacred than it ever had before, having learned to trust its steerings with decisiveness.
Arthur smiled then, something rising from deep within, a knowing having bloomed which made his heart feel full, surfacing his bliss of godhood for Miriam to witness with her own eyes.
Flowing with such presence as they’d begun to undertake this mission, his Miriam so seamlessly integrating herself into their plan and becoming an extension of his most righteous will, Arhtur Katrinus had begun seeing the future in his mind; quite literally.
And he liked what he was seeing.
this chapter is my vibe