章 62: chapter 62: The Reclamation of Tamaran
I placed the Fortress in one of Tamaran's moons, on its dark side, before sending the mech army through to create a spearhead. Clark was still unsure, but I assured him that the robots wouldn't hurt the tamaraneans in any way. After that I opened several portals across Tamaran, all leading to Apokolips' strongholds, to cause the maximum initial and free the people before we went in. The occupation forces, despite outnumbering them more than ten to one, were caught off guard by their repentine appearance, and their combined firepower was enough to keep it even. Then, with the areas around them secure, we'd set up strong points to hold and heal the slaves.
Even before that, however, we knew that the ship Kalibak came in had to go, both for practical reasons and because we wanted to give a massive show of force. Going by Komand'rs account and Clark's knowledge of Apokolips, that ship could easily hold a few hundred thousand parademons, plus proper apokoliptians, and that was not counting the many more that came after to secure the planet. For an entire planet of superhuman aliens, it seemed as if Kalibak had come unprepared, but then, he hadn't come to conquer, it had a teleporter linked to Apokolips, and we didn't want to take a risk with that thing, even though Kalibak wasn't on it when we attacked. That's where me, Clark and Grundy came in. The rest, again, would help Komand'r deal with the parademon army.
Fortunately, Clark's no killing rule did not apply to parademons, not that the others would had bothered following it given their last experience with the creatures.
Parademons. Not demons proper, but the closest a creature not from Hell could get. Quoting a certain scientist, they had nothing in them that could resemble a living organism: no glands, no digestice tracts, no souls. Just pure, unaltered evil, and the single goal of fulfilling any order that came from Darkseid or his circle, just like actual demons, both from DC and DOOM Hells, and those ones in particular followed a very cruel man.
Which, again, meant none of us had to hold back when it came to the fight. You already know what me, Clark and Grundy could do and were doing, so I'm not gonna bother with us; instead, I'll focus on the others.
First, Kara, and compared to the others she preferred to help the people rather than fight, which actually took guts given the parademons focused on her. It wasn't the first time she fought parademons, but she focused more on freeing the slaves, breaking their shackles and taking them to safety while the mechs did most of the fighting.
John might as well have been Thor in plate, crushing any parademon that tried to fight him in melee in an uncharacteristic show of rage, obviously result of Apokolips' previous invasion, and even though his armor couldn't take as much damage as we could, he was more than able of dodging their blasts. It helped he went directly to a group of mechs to help them, and in turn be helped by.
Rachel simply grabbed and smashed them by the dozens, a simple yet effective method to fight. She did have a threshold where her magic reached a certain point, the one involving her parentage, but even a thousand frenzied parademons weren't nowhere enough for her to reach that point. Later when we reviewed the battle, the others became surprised when they saw what she could do in a proper fight. After that she didn't waste time rescuing the slaves in her area, her magic making the job trivial.
Mecha-Boi simply flew, blasted at anything below him, and kicked any parademon that got close. Not impressive at first, until he began to fly at mach five, and then through parademons. Add in the fact he was quite heavy despite being four feet tall, and you get a kinetic kill vehicle that couldn't be destroyed.
Pausanias and Ayame made one hell of a team: his shield could petrify scores of parademons at the same time, and those that didn't have the misfortune of flying at the moment were shatted by the dozens by Ayame. and the mere sight of just two people, however strong they were, hacking parademons apart with only swords inspired the slaves to take up whatever they could get their hands on and fight.
Komand'r focused on freeing her people, but that didn't stop her from tearing any parademon that attacked her apart with her bare hands, even forgoing her energy spheres to do so.
But none of us, not even me, counted on Patrick to cause the most destruction, and unlike the others he was entirely by himself. One moment, he was a colossus stomping and smashing the enemy, the next he was reenacting the Tasmanian Devil and tearing parademons apart in a bloody tornado, then creating a nearly literal forest of blades to increase the carnage. A bit offset by his corny delivery of one-liners, but other than that, he was the first in wipe out all the parademons near him.
As for the mechs themselves, again, what they lacked in numbers they more than compensated with firepower, resilience, and VEGA's matrix giving providing them with unparalleled coordination.
Meanwhile, we three bruisers. Because of the ship's size VEGA couldn't open a portal, and even then it could jump away; for that, we had to disable it first. First, me and Clark would distract its defense complement and destroy it, while at the same time Grundy, who had no way to help us due to a being unable to fly, began to destroy it from inside. Again, parademons made up the vast majority of the crew alongside a small detachment of apolokoliptians warriors, part of Kalibak's entourage. These proved to be much more skilled and stronger than the fodder, enough to give the underpowered embodiment of Earth's Green trouble, but all came to an end when Clark and me arrived. Again, the no killing rule did not apply to them, so I won't say more. After that and a quick portal to the middle of interstellar space, we focused once more in destroying the ship, eventually causing whatever passed for a reactor to explode far away from any celestial body, after which we returned to the main fight.
We also saw things there, things I'm not going to describe, but all they did was push us forward in destroying it, and take Kalibak out.
And then, fresh of our collective victories, Mecha-Boi discovered it. Later we found out there were more of it like it in several locaitons across Tamaran, but it was by far the biggest of the lot. As for what exactly was it...
"Guys... I think you oughta see this, all of you." The tone of his voice made clear he had found something terrifying, but what?"
"What is it?"
"Just... Just come to my coordinates and see, please."
We all did, and found Mecha in the middle of a deserted area of the planet, several miles away from the closest settlement, and standing near the edge of a slope.
"Mecha, what is it?" Ayame asked.
Mecha didn't. Had he been human, he'd been hyperventilating. Given what we saw, added to his mental age, it was the proper response.
Grundy voiced my thoughts.
"Well, damn."
A pit, one larger than any stadium, and full to the brim with corpses. Men, women and children of all ages laid in front of us, many not decomposed enough.
Komand'r didn't cry, didn't scream at the sight in front of her. She merely clenched her hands into fists, inadvertently causing them to flash green. Even though it was clear it hurt her to see her people treated like trash by Apokolips, rage overpowered her sorrow.
"I'll fucking kill him."
The others took it worse: Kara, Ayame and Patrick were horrified, John simply stared in abject horror, Mecha-Boi just didn't move, and Clark was on his knees, his mind gone back to Darkseid's invasion.
A grim reminder of what Apokolips was about, and what Darkseid wanted for all of existence. And this was just an uppity princeling's doing.
Just then, the corpses closest to us began to shift: something was moving beneath them. Only, it wasn't an undead creature what Rachel grabbed. It was a living tamaranean, hacking and panting. Komand'r gasped after recognizing him.
"Galfore!" She screamed before dragging him out of there.
"Your father?" I asked.
"Her nanny, and second in command of the army." Galfore replied before she could say anything, his voice deep and resonant, as Komand'r helped him up.
Tall and broad of shoulders, and with a pinkish-red beard larger than mine, the man would have been a mountain in better times, but even though he stood tall and proud the parts of his body we could see were covered either in scars or ulcers, especially on his hands and legs.
"The bastard nailed me to a wall me and tortured me every time he could for three days, but that didn't kill me, and he was too apathetic to finish the job, so he had me buried under all those poor folks there, hoping I'd either starve or suffocate." The fact he didn't say 'crushed', or that he managed to escape at all despite being weakened, spoke volumes of his determination. Despite this, it was also clear he was still tired and devastated, and of course wounded.
"Under all... that?" Patrick gestured at the sea of bodies. "Did Kalibak..?" He trailed off, but it was obvious what he meant.
Galfore shook his head. "I don't know, but they were already dead when I saw them falling on me. He simply ordered them dumped them on me. Not that that's any better. I had to dig through the bodies of my people for three days."
"Three days..."
"Are you okay."
Galfore grunted before straightening himself. "It still hurts, but I'll survive." He looked at us once more, and even though his face didn't change I could see a fire light in his eyes. "The help?"
"Yes."
Galfore grunted. "Never expected more aliens to look like us. Where's your sister?"
"We got separated during the jump. I love her, you know that, but I wasn't going to search the entire galaxy with Kalibak."
Once again, Komand'r looked at the pit once more. "How many?" She didn't bother to specificy, there was no need to.
Galfore stood in silence for several seconds, before finally responding. "At least a third."
"A third of what?" Pausanias asked, his eyes focused on the bodies.
"Tamaran's entire population. Out of five million, going by our last census. He's really keen on exterminating us, but I'm pretty sure you knew that already."
"Jesus Christ..." I think I saw Clark shake for a moment. A third out of a population several million meta-aliens, murdered.
Komand'r didn't say anything, but her clenched jaw and trembling fists made clear what she was feeling at those news.
"Then there's still the ship. It can raze an entire city to rubble, I would know, and somehow they get more of their freaks from it. Could be teleportation, could be a hive, don't know, don't care." He looked at the sky, not knowing it wouldn't bother Tamaran anymore. "I think the only reason Tamaran isn't a burning hell is that they like to dirty their hands with blood." He then spat on the ground. "Bastards."
"That thing? We already destroyed it."
Galfor looked at us, understandably skeptical. "Say what again?"
"We took it out. Unfortunately Kalibak wasn't on board, but at least there won't be any more reinforcements coming from Apokolips."
"That had to be one hell of a bomb, then."
"Nope, we just punched it apart. From the inside, but still."
Galfor's skepticism turned into bewilderment. "You three destroyed that monster by yourselves? Just you?"
"Kalibak's father attacked our world a while back, with a much greater force, but we still managed to kick them out. A single ship wasn't much of a problem."
"His... father? He invaded your planet, yet you won? And then you came here" At that Clark nodded. Galfor then collapsed, partly because of his wounds and exhaustion, but the smile on his face made the main reason clear. "We're saved."
Nonetheless, I didn't waste time in sending him to the Fortress' infirmary, although only after a bit of struggling and Komand'r more or less ordering him.
Kalibak. He didn't really want to conquer Tamaran, nor rule it. All he wanted was to prove Darkseid he was fit of his approval by killing as many people as possible, the strongest, the better, no matter if they could fight back or not. Not that the tamaraneans hadn't fought, but they weren't warriors, they weren't used to fight people like Kalibak.
Unlike his father, though, could be stopped for good with only
He had to die. Thing was, despite his hatred for Apokolips and what Kalibak had done, Clark wouldn't want to be the one to put him down. The only one he had ever wanted to actually kill was his father.
Komand'r had no such compunction. The problem, again, was that Kalibak was much stronger than she was. Fortunately, it wasn't anything that a little help and a lot of rage couldn't fix
To do that, though, we had to find him. Fortunately, we had the bait.
How's the chapter? Did I overdo it with the mass grave, or is it a good way to demonstrate Apokolips' might and Kalibak's bloodthirst? As for how Kalibak, who's still an idiot here, actually managed to plan the invasion, something that even the SI has taken for granted... I'm also writing another crossover SI, Fastest (and Greenest) Gun In Mobius. This it's time a fusion between Fallout (and Metro, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R) and Sonic The Hedgehog, mostly Archie, and the SI is also a super mutant (there aren't others. Yet. It's only a few chapters long, but those who have read it said it's promising.
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