Chapter 87

***This article contains spoilers.***

## Highlights

* Rachel, John, Alyssa, and Dana visit Rachel's father. They explain everything about the other Progenitor and the threat they're facing.
* John had to break his bond with Alyssa to fight off the eldritch monster by the lake at Rachel's father's house. They rebonded stronger than before.
* Edraele is recovering in cryostasis until the team can meet her at the border.

## Notes

### Miscellaneous

* John and Alyssa talk to Jade about finding more Lenarrans.
* Kali's Fleet Commander said the Kintark were only rotating their fleets. A massive movement of fleet assets like that might be indicative of an impending attack elsewhere. However, that seems unlikely, as the reserve fleets now on border patrol duty are the Kintark’s elite forces.
* Rachel, John, Alyssa, and Dana visit Rachel's father. They explain everything about the other Progenitor and the threat they're facing.
* Jade recalls more details about her past.
* John had to break his bond with Alyssa to fight off the eldritch monster by the lake at Rachel's father's house. They rebonded stronger than before.
* Edraele is recovering in cryostasis until the team can meet her at the border.

### Abilities

John consciously makes Jade more resilient.

* John normally put no conscious thought into the way he nurtured Jade under his psychic care, generally having a vague idea about making her stronger. This time however, he focused specifically on trying to develop her resilience, not wanting to see her get so badly hurt ever again. The lazy pulses of light that flowed out from her stomach intensified in their luminescence, making her body glow with a verdant radiance in their wake.

### Attempt

Alyssa stood beside him, leaning in to plant a soft kiss on his cheek. All of a sudden, psychic memories flashed before his eyes, the blonde opening a bridge to the Astral Plane and linking it to him. Rachel’s mother danced across the grass beside the lake, a beautiful smile on her face as she twirled her daughter around in time to lively music. She’d passed on her high cheekbones and delicate features to Rachel, the similarities between the two quite striking.

“We’ll give you everything we’ve got,” Alyssa murmured, wrapping her arms around him and closing her eyes. He felt Edraele’s presence strengthening in his mind as she agreed.

Taking a deep breath, John began to gather his will, feeling his body tingling as both his Matriarchs began to channel their energy to him again. This time he was ready for the resistance that sought to oppose him from doing what needed to be done. He focused his willpower to pierce the ethereal barrier once more, feeling the towering but impotent fury of that ancient presence lurking in the Astral Plane.

Eldritch energy began to coil around his arms, the hair standing up as his body crackled with the vast surge of power that was charging within him. He closed his eyes and with a confident smile on his face he blasted that energy across the Astral plane, striking the vast wall and punching his way through.

Suddenly he felt a yawning chasm of sickness and despair, with waves of revulsion and horror washing over him. The astral presence was gloating now, the otherworldly behemoth revelling in his suffering. He felt like rancid fingernails were being scraped across the inside of his eyeballs, and he toppled forward, retching at the stomach-churning sensation.

Alyssa fell to the ground with him, stunned into insensibility as she was assailed by the same feelings of dread and nausea, sharing them in full force over their bond.

“John!” Rachel screamed, sounding absolutely terrified.

“Holy fuck!” Dana cried out in horror.

John could hear the girls scrabbling towards him across the ground, just as an eerie crackling filled the air. He managed to drag his eyes open, fighting against the urge to vomit, and saw a convulsing black portal shimmering in the air a dozen metres away. Thick grey fog poured out of that pulsating rent between the planes, sending misty clouds floating down to the lawn and across the lake.

As he looked on in stunned disbelief, a writhing tentacle slithered through, the slimy appendage covered in a revolting mix of jagged claws and insane eyes. It quivered in the air as if tasting the scent of reality and revelling in that sensation. The loathsome tentacle was quickly joined by a second repulsive limb, this one oozing with black ichor that bubbled when it dripped onto the grass, filling the air with a vile stench.

“Close the portal!” Dana begged him, shaking John in terror.

John tried to shut the channel of energy down, but whatever was opposing him had lashed onto that column of power and was forcing it open with freakish titanic strength. Corrupting his bridge to the Astral Plane, the hideous abnormality was now using it to send its unholy spawn after them, intent on defiling them in unspeakable ways.

Shut off the power! he yelled at his Matriarchs.

Edraele’s terrified scream filled his mind, before it was abruptly cut off in a heart-stopping instant.

Alyssa was still reeling from the shock and she let out a feeble groan, clutching at her face as she spasmed on the grass next to him.

The tentacles suddenly seemed aware of their presence, coiling ominously as they undulated towards them. Despite the bright afternoon, the sun seemed to dim in their tainted presence, a brooding shroud enveloping the lakeside bank. There was a tortured wailing sound, like hundreds of voices united in their agony as something big thumped against the otherworldly gate, making it bulge obscenely.

Dana grabbed John’s shirt, tearing buttons in her haste. “That portal’s getting bigger!” she yelled at him frantically. “Do something!”

“John!” Rachel screamed, sounding petrified as the twisted monstrosity of eyes and claws lashed towards her.

He shook his head to try to clear it, then tore off his watch communicator and shoved it into Dana’s hand. “Call for backup!” John blurted out, staggering to his feet.

Trying to ignore the pounding in his head, he attempted to will his psychic speed into effect, but his concentration was shattered by the barrage of needle-like pain assaulting his mind. The tentacles surged forward, intent on the brunette who lay paralysed with fear, barbed, hook-like claws rippling with their ghastly hunger. John leapt forward, acting by instinct alone as he formed two telekinetic barriers around his forearms. He blocked the stinging lash with a double armed parry, trying not to get flung backwards by the monstrous strength behind that blow.

The squelching ooze-covered limb attacked next, smashing downwards with a clumsy overhead blow. He blocked it easily, but the thumping impact sent a spray of black ooze outwards, the viscous ichor spattering over his shoulders. There was a tingling sensation for a second before the agonising pain started, his arms burning as the black liquid bubbled with malevolent glee.

“Fuck!” John hissed, lurching back a step.

Rachel had been shocked out of her daze by his cry of pain and she scampered backwards, while John tried to protect her from a second scything strike by the clawed tentacle. It whirled through the air, then surged forward, changing the angle of attack and catching him unprepared. The barbed hooks ripped into his right arm, spraying the black, rubbery tentacle in a fountain of blood. It seemed to shiver in delight, coiling back on itself and smearing the sticky redness over its multitude of eyes.

“There’s more of it coming through!” Rachel screamed in warning.

John glanced behind the cavorting tentacles, seeing a huge blunt-toed ... hoof ... stomp down on the ground as the portal yawned wide. He winced at the searing agony in his arms and shoulders, trying his best to stay on his feet as he battled with the pain. Sensing his weakness, the tentacles looped towards him again, given greater length to attack as more of the creature wedged its way through the rip in reality.

Dana had her arms around Alyssa and was dragging her away from the hideous creature, when she heard the high-pitched scream of retro-thrusters on full burn. “John! Get clear!” she cried out to him in warning.

The slimy tentacle swung down in a heavy overhead blow, but John had no intention of being showered in more of that hideous ooze. He dived to one side, managing to narrowly avoid being splashed by thick black liquid as the tentacle smashed into the ground. The second one whipped across his legs, flaying him from thigh to calf as the barbs tore into his flesh. He crawled backwards, his face a mask of pain as he desperately tried to put some distance between them.

The unnatural gloom was suddenly pierced with a blazing flare of blue light and John heard the distinctive sound of Pulse Cannons opening fire. Faye had brought the Raptor in low over the lake and weapons capable of crippling a two-hundred-metre destroyer unloaded on the ethereal abomination. She strafed the hideous beast with sizzling blue laser bolts, from midway down its writhing tentacles right into the lower torso that was bulging through the groaning portal.

“Yeah, eat that you fucker!” Dana whooped, punching her fist in the air.

Outraged roaring boomed around the lake as the tentacles thrashed in that staccato hail of blue bolts. John sagged with relief, safe in the knowledge that nothing living would be able to survive that storm of laser fire. Abruptly the scream of Pulse Cannon fire cut out, followed a second later by more wrathful bellows, the spine-chilling noise sounding louder than ever. He gaped at the ethereal monster in shock. It was completely unscathed by the laser fire that had raked over its revolting hide!

“There’s no fucking way that thing could live...” Dana whispered in horror, realising that the Raptor’s weapons had absolutely no effect.

“It’s an eldritch monster!” Rachel gasped, her astounding mind searching for answers despite the debilitating fear coursing through her body. She crouched down by John, helping to drag him as he crawled further away from the rampaging beast. “You hurt it before with psychic attacks, it must be vulnerable to them!”

John glanced at Alyssa, but she was lost to unconsciousness, lying limp in Dana’s arms. His own body was burning with pain, from the savage rips in his arm and legs, to the still-hissing black ichor that was searing his flesh. He could barely stand, let alone try and fight this beast, even if he could concentrate over the agony.

YOU WILL SUFFER AN ETERNITY OF TORMENTS FOR YOUR IMPUDENCE!

The terrible dirge that filled John’s mind seemed to echo with a chorus of agonised screams, as if drawn from an endless legion of wretched victims. That baleful cacophony jarred into his very soul and he shrank back from it, his every instinct telling him to flee in terror. With an urgent desperation borne of fear, he did the only thing he could think of, slashing through his mind to sever the source of his connection to that ungodly presence. The backlash blotted everything from his mind, all except the raging wail of frustration from the stygian monstrosity that was hell-bent on his destruction.

The barbed tentacle lunged for John, thrashing with an inhuman thirst for more of his blood. Fighting back her terror, Rachel flung herself over him, shielding his body with her own to buy him a few more precious seconds. She clenched her eyes shut, ignoring Dana’s horrified scream as she waited for that moment of agony when the barbs would slice into her flesh...

And she waited...

A screeching cry of indignant fury left her quaking with fear, but it was Dana’s sudden gasp of shock that coaxed Rachel into slowly open her eyes. John’s face swam into view before her, his eyes rolled back and his mouth agape, her man out cold. She whirled around to look at the massive beast that had assailed them, then gaped at it in stunned amazement as its foul body was forced back through the rapidly closing portal. The tentacles convulsed in the air, dragged backwards as the rift began to seal itself. Despite the creature’s concerted efforts, it couldn’t keep the portal open and it yanked its tentacles back through the gap with a final blood-curdling roar.

The ethereal fog faded away, as did the revolting stench from the beast. In its place, Rachel picked up the repugnant smell of the black fluid that was still eating into John’s shoulders. She acted immediately and grasped his hands, focusing intently on trying to heal his numerous wounds and counter the corrosive effects of the horrible ooze. The misty healing aura rolled down her arms to envelop John, spreading out from his hands and out over his body.

Her concentration was momentarily disrupted as a piercing hiss filled the air, the onyx liquid visibly recoiling from the gentle grey shroud. She watched in fascination as the ooze began to smoke, reacting as though it was being burned by the healing mist. Rachel ramped up the strength of her restorative aura, purifying John’s body of this foul corruption. The terrible lacerations across his arm and leg began to boil, smoke pouring from the wounds as she cleansed the tainted residue left behind by those vicious claws.