The Moon's Fangs | 1

Reks Arlen

Gems fell from the sky like dying stars. It would have been a beautiful sight if it weren’t for those gems being monsters.

Hundreds of them shot through the cosmea and smashed into Orlaith’s astral barrier, detonating in flashes of multicolored fire. Each impact sent shockwaves through the dome, rupturing it like cracks in sacred glass.

It was supposed to be impossible. The archaic barrier weathered far greater attacks than this. But regardless of what he believed, the impossible was here. And it swarmed the empire.

Hope and safety dissolved at the same terrifying rate.

The few soldiers in the vicinity fought desperately to hold off the invaders, spending their lives to buy a few more vital seconds for the bloodied citizens to get away.

By the time Reks arrived, the forest was already burning. Sunset-hued trees turned to ash, charred bodies strewn among crystalline corpses. His squad split at once, gate-rings flaring as they leapt through the chaos to cover ground.

Every muscle burned as he ran, his breath syncing with the surge of adrenaline and fury as he raced across scorch marks and deep gauges pockmarking the ground. His Guide, Luk, coiled beneath his skin, eager to strike.

One of the monsters—a blood-soaked, jagged creature made of azure crystal—charged him.

A cold, cruel intelligence burned behind the crystalline eyes of the Adamant Horde. But it did so in his eyes too.

Reks smiled. Did this overgrown rock construct think it to be a real monster? He was the one worth fearing. In this duel, on this planet, in this empire.

Reks ducked, slid behind the rock golem, and unleashed Luk like a whip from his wrist. The serpentine weapon shot forward like a loosed arrow, punching through the back of the beast’s neck and out it’s mouth in a single, precise strike.

Shards of crystal rained down as the thing collapsed.

“Shayd end you,” Reks muttered down at the soulless husk, letting the Guide slither back beneath his skin, like a viper slithering back into its pit to patiently await its next victim under the guise of his skin.

There were more. Too many. He blinked through short-ranged warps, appearing behind enemy after enemy, severing their weak points with surgical precision, eventually losing body count along the way.

Warp and slash.

Rinse and repeat.

It became a deadly rhythm.

Even in a surprise attack like this, his squad performed the same brutally efficient tactic they had drilled for and executed thousands of times as evidenced by the growing pile of crystalline bodies before them.

And yet, something felt wrong.

He caught Cyra’s eye across the battlefield, then Sorren’s. No words exchanged, but they all felt it.

The monarchs were missing.

Ellison—the Rising Empress.

Not here.

Not where she should be.

It wasn’t like her.

But the ruling family’s whereabouts was not the only thing pissing him off. It twisted his gut—almost as much as the fact that today, of all days, was supposed to be the Star Rite. He’d spent painstaking months pulling strings and fulfilling shady services to snag exclusive reservations on Planet Vi’lr. And now this? Of all things? Of course one of the empire’s most bloodthirsty enemies would pick today to lay siege. It would be another eighty years before that event occurred again. By the Fates…

He always had a feeling The Fates thought him to be unworthy of their divine touch, but this felt personal.

~Another time will present itself, I assure you.~ Luk’s voice brushed through his mind like a cool wind. ~Or simply ask her outright. The worst she could say is no.~ Despite the surrounding chaos, his Guide’s words were clear in his mind. It was like a wash of clarity over the battle-lust fueling him during this fight. The steadfast reassurance when everything around him was pure havoc. Usually.

He nearly choked on a laugh from the serpent’s ill-placed humor. The worst she could say? Oh, she could certainly do far more harm.

We talked about this. Reks struck down another enemy. The Star Rite was the perfect time to ask. Surrounded by the influential high class of friendly nations on a planet where she’d be expected to follow their rules and customs during our stay… remember?

~Yes, yes. Our crafty little idea to prevent her from wielding the Void.~ Luk’s serpentine laugh slid through his mind. ~Are you sure you didn’t collaborate with the enemy, just so you could avoid it a little longer?~

He flared at the lighthearted accusation. “Not the time,” Reks hissed out loud, dodging a monster armed with a crystal battle-ax.

Reks jumped on the monster’s back, wrapping an arm around its neck for leverage, stabbing repeatedly. The sharp edges of the beast cut into his torso, sending thin rivulets of blood to flow down his armor.

The serpent tsked in disagreement. ~Have you considered taking her to the Star Rite may lead her to believe you have other intentions for the night? You may infuriate her, unintentional as it may be.~

Hence the Star Rite. He repeated. El wouldn’t have caused a scene at such a special occasion. Now we’re screwed. He checked himself for any major injuries. It was hard to tell during the heat of battle. Check her status again.

~Still dark.~

Reks wiped blood and sweat from his eyes.

It couldn’t be a coincidence she went off the grid nearly the exact moment all hell broke loose. However, it wasn’t like her to hide from a fight. He both admired and resented that attribute of hers.

He chuckled bitterly to himself, pulling his blade free from the back of another monster. Even had she not been an empress, a woman with a will like that was unparalleled, but all that did was make his job as her vitiate all the more difficult.

Right now, he couldn’t reach her—not while she was in that damned infernal Void. That was a gift she alone possessed.

The thought of that cold, sentient energy sent a shiver up even his battle-hardened spine.

His dark eyes swept across the chaos while working on solving the bigger picture at play. The timing… the breach… the missing royals… it wasn’t a coincidence.

The Adamant Horde had never been able to penetrate this far into orleizen space territory, let alone attack the planet’s protective barrier directly.

Theories spun in his head while he continued to dodge and fight for his life on the battlefield.

The Full Spectrum—Queen of the Horde. Where was she?

That kaleidoscope nightmare wouldn’t dare take a back seat in a siege so much in her favor. No. She’d be reveling in it, in her disgusting glory. Not unless…

His blood ran cold.

Reks cursed out loud. “RYSC, come in!” He barked through the comm-link. “Anyone have eyes on the royal family?”

“Negative!” Cyra yelled over rapid-fire.

“Yuri and I haven’t seen them either,” Sorren answered. “Why, what’s wrong?”

He gritted his teeth. “She’s not here. The Full Spectrum. She not here. This isn’t an attack—it a godsdamned distraction.”

“You think she’s after the Lucils?” Sorren asked, horrified.

“The Full Spectrum couldn’t give a flying fuck about the other Lucils,” Cyra spat, the sound of shattering crystal reverberating through her sound link. “That walking-rainbow wants Ellison’s blood and hers alone.”

Yuri cursed. “Evac squad’s reporting the underground asylum’s nearly full. If this continues, we’re going to have more than just the Horde to deal with.”

Before Reks could answer, the air in front of him warped. A man stumbled through—a vitiate donning the emblem of the golden serpent on his chest—the High Emperor’s crest. His armor was nothing more than ribbons. Blood fled from his body in rivers. His knees buckled.

“The Moon’s Fangs…” the man’s voice was a rasp, each word dragged from his lungs. “The High Emperor… in danger… Spectrum…” he placed his bloodied gate-ring in Reks’ hand as his eyes went glassy, his last breath leaving him before collapsing into the blood pooling beneath his body.

Even in the chaos, a deafening silence settled through his sound link with his squad.

Reks stared down at the gate-ring—the weight of the vitiate’s sacrifice to get it to him rested heavily in his palm. He clenched it as Luk began to transfer the little energy it had left into his own, as well as absorbing its last warp coordinates.

“We have our answer.” Reks said grimly. “Notify the General—”

The battleground turned unnaturally cold, and black umbrage rose from the ground like living darkness blindly searching for purchase. His sense of danger spiked as he witnessed the shadows sink into dozens of slain crystalline monsters, turning their blue hues to black. Then they rose, oozing in darkness and malice.

New monsters were now among them, carved shadows that possessed the corpses of their enemies.

An ally of The Full Spectrum? Had to be. Her abilities derived from the crystals that made up her body. Nothing like this.

“I’m gonna need another set of eyes here. I’m not sure if mine are working too well.” Yuri said, voice hollowing.

Luk completed the energy transfer, then synchronized his gate ring’s coordinates.

“Don’t tell me The Moon’s Fangs is scared of ghosts.” Cyra scowled through the comm, though he felt the fierce smile she’d have paired with it. “Go save the Crown. We’ll rally with the General and hold things down here.”

Her resolve was enough of a wake-up call to get him moving. He flung his gate ring into the air and vanished.

A deadly silence replaced the chaos happening on the other side of the empire.

The grass was unburnt. The sky quiet. The air tasted of blood.

And she was waiting.

The moment his boot touched the ground, a barrage of hell-rendered claymores sliced through the air in a shimmer of death. He lunged a hair too late, and a colorful sword tore into his shoulder like cold fire.

He dropped to one knee, bleeding, staring across the field of dead vitiates at The Full Spectrum.

Her body gleamed with every color. Liquid gems coalescing into feminine curves, hard angles, wicked elegance. The Full Spectrum was like a sculpture made of only the most brilliant crystals, given the gift of life.

He gripped at his bloodied arm painfully, dark eyes glued to the crystalline woman before him. The claymores rejoined her, deconstructing and melting back into her body.

She didn’t speak at first. She only smiled.

At her feet… Geraios Lucil—Ellison’s father—laid dead. His veins were unnaturally black, splintering across every inch of visible skin. His Guide torn from him in her grip, still writhing weakly before crushing the serpent, turning it to stardust. And with it, cursing his soul to Shayd.

Reks took one look at the man, and he knew. Death had not come swiftly for the High Emperor of Orlaith. The emperor’s once-blue eyes were now absorbed in the same demonic black splayed across his entire body.

Bile threatened to rise as sickness churned in his stomach. Ripping one’s Guide from their body was worse than death. It was an act against the Fates. Without a Guide, an orleizen’s soul wouldn’t be able to ascend to Celestia. A lost soul without a Guide could easily fall into the hands of Shayd, damned and enslaved for all eternity.

A fresh swell of rage flooded him like a storm’s tide. Reks couldn’t move, couldn’t tear his eyes away.

The Full Spectrum noticed the effect seizing Reks, and she smiled with inhuman satisfaction. Her motley grin manifested into disgusting joy as she rubbed the death in by licking the High Emperor’s blood off her finger.

Hatred lashed through him, body trembling. Even his Guide burned with conviction.

“What a shame,” she mused, voice like fracture-edged timbre. Her words splintered at the ends, like tiny shards of glass broke with each syllable. Each word made his bones ring in agitation as his Guide translated her strange language. “It is not every day one witnesses the death of their monarch. If only you arrived sooner.”

Reks said nothing.

Her smile widened. “Which would make for a better trophy to dangle before the Little Moon, I wonder? Her father… or you?”

“You’re going to wish I never found you.” He vowed, voice low.

Danger flickered across her multicolored eyes. Her finger elongated into a needle. Then it flew at him.

Reks dropped. It missed—barely. It sang a sharp tune as it zipped through the air above his head.

An immediate warning from his Guide forced him back up in a jolt. ~Behind you!~

Blood sprayed when the spike sliced his arm under the first wound. But it slowed down its momentum just enough for him to snatch it and redirect its force back at the kaleidoscope queen, full circle.

When he chucked it back at her, it liquified against her body, rejoining her form.

Of course it did.

Luk slithered from both his wrists like twin serpents sharing the same fury.

The snake-like whips raced towards The Full Spectrum’s neck, but - fates - she was too fast. Motley crystal erupted from her skin, rippling like liquid for a half-second before coalescing into a diamond-hard shield in front of her.

He switched tactics, influencing the whips to dart around the sides of the shield at once as he charged her.

The Full Spectrum split her small shield in two, having complete mental control of how her crystals moved. She pounced, tackling him to the ground in one fluid motion.

His back smacked against uneven ground, and the burning sensation of jagged crystal bit into his hands and arms as her split shield clamped on like ravenous leeches. The Full Spectrum’s lips curved into a bloodthirsty smirk as she manipulated the crystal to break his skin.

A guttural yell erupted from his lungs, competing against the roar of the gradually approaching fire.

When he tried to free his hands, the crystals only dug deeper.

She looked down at him with sinister fascination as she moved her hands over his shoulders and chest while straddling him. Despite her petite frame, the pressure of her weight against his hips was not something he wanted on him for an extended amount of time. Suffice it to say, it felt like a huge, serrated boulder was attempting to flatten him.

Her fingers squeezed into his side, forcing her razor-sharp claws to punch shallow holes into him.

He ground his jaw from the pain, staring back at her defiantly.

Her attention dropped as she traced the crescent moon insignia on his chest. “Poor creature… you continue to fight these pointless battles for your entitled Little Moon. How is that turning out for you?” Her chin elevated with cold amusement as she grasped his jaw and squeezed. “Did she abandon the Fangs that protect her?”

The Full Spectrum was a predator. And like all predators, she probed for a weakness to exploit in her prey.

He would know.

He laughed in her face, bloody and defiant. “So you finally managed to break the barrier after failing the past, what—millennia? Wow, congratulations. Old dogs can learn new tricks.”

Real anger flashed across her face. Her teeth scraped together like the shrill bite of metal raking against porcelain.

The Full Spectrum applied more weight against his pelvis. When he buckled from the crushing pain, the crystals holding down his hands cut deeper. Black spots dotted his vision.

“New tricks? The only element I lacked was a strong ally who wanted in as much as I. Neither of us could succeed alone, yet together, we discovered quite the lucrative loophole.”

Reks immediately thought back to the strange shadows that emerged on the battleground, and how it seemed to possess the corpses of the Adamant Horde.

“I find it hard to believe someone’d be stupid enough to collude with you.” He countered with deliberate recklessness, aiming to pry out the name of this so-called ally.

Her body rippled in vile pleasure. “What was once divinity’s armor now gleams on darker shoulders.”

A shard of meaning lodged into him, cold and sharp.

Her arm morphed into a dagger. She angled it at his chest, to pierce the moon she so desperately despised. “A shame she will not see your face as I carve out your precious Guide—”

He spit blood at her rainbowed face the exact moment Luk shattered through the crystal restraints, constricting her throat.

A grating scream pierced the air as she grabbed at the coiling tendrils attempting to behead her. Reks wrenched his legs up from between hers and stomped his boots against her sternum. The force reverberated up his legs, but it was enough to free him.

The Full Spectrum writhed, her body spiking in rage as she tore Luk from her neck. His Guide managed to disfigure her neck, but she was quick to mend the damage. She turned to him with a look dripping in animosity.

Fates.

The fire burning behind him flickered across her spiking form. He dove behind a tree as a volley of crystal needles ripped through the air at him.

The tree was pelted by most, but a couple impaled his calf. His jaw clamped, face twisting from the pain. Blood poured from his leg as he pulled them out, then stood. The bark creaked when the needles tugged free and rushed back towards her.

“Ooo. A survivor, aren’t you?” her purr had a sharp, irritated edge to it now.

Steadily, he reached back over his head and withdrew the daggers crossed between his shoulder blades. Blood trickled down his arms from multiple wounds.

A bestial grating sound emitted from the woman, which turned into a shrieking chime as she unleashed an attack.

Reks dove away from the tree just as a large, imperfect lance severed it in two. In his dive, he hurled both daggers at her before the collapsing tree blocked their line of sight. The crash boomed through the forest, providing him with a couple extra seconds of cover.

His vision swam and he struggled to maintain balance while moving to the treeline before the dirt could settle.

~You’re losing too much blood. I need time to heal the wounds.~ Luk unhelpfully chimed in.

Just do what you can. But I need your focus on this next move.

He kept to the shadows, searching for a weak spot. It was risky, probably too risky. But his options were running dangerously low.

Reks watched her tear his dagger from her chest. Liquified, motley crystal dripped from its sharp edges. The Full Spectrum stared down at it as if surprised he landed a blow.

He inhaled a deep breath, getting ready for the faint and roll that, with luck, would put him behind her within distance of a killing strike. Though, before his foot left the ground, a faint whisper from behind froze him to his core.

“Be still, my vitiate. For your greatest test has yet to come.” Something cold pierced the back of his neck, sucking away every ounce of strength he had, like oxygen in space. “May Fate guide you back to me.”

He tried to reach for the voice, but he no longer had control over his body. His limbs collapsed. His vision blurred.

“Ah, how unexpected. The Moon devours her own Fangs before daring to face me. Ever ruthless.” The Full Spectrum said, though the voice faded out of his reach.

Hands pulled him away, deeper into the trees as a blur of silver stepped from the shadows to face the monster in his place.