DARKEST HOUR (Part 2 of The Chronicles of Midnight)

This is the second in a set of stories, so if you haven't read the first Story RAD LANDS go back and read that one first.

http://forum.sigmast...php?f=11&t=2820

I hope you enjoy it...and hopefully you wont want to gang up on me in PvP as payback for valuable time wasted...

PS: If you like these stories please comment them, I'll be more likely to be motivated write more.

DARKEST HOUR

For a few moments we were locked in a battle of wills, muscles against muscle, steel pitted against steel..grappling for dominance.... then with a violent wrenching it was over as his metal endo-skeleton snapped and broken metal erupted from the twisted flesh of his arm.

The cyborg let out a cry of pain, and as his will broke, I gave a mighty heave and his body cart wheeled backward, to lie broken among his three companions I had already dispatched...........

The tranquility of the Taulin Wastes returned.....as if such a living hell can ever really be tranquil....and so did the the feeling of being watched.....

....but who was the watcher....clearly it had not been this scouting party of the Chrome Hand....for the eyes were still upon me....then who....or what.......

Then in a moment of clarity.... an epiphany .... the four scouts, they had not been a fight... they had been a test....this entire day had been a test....and the feeling of being watched....

Already the sun had been lost between the jagged hills to the west.... shadows long....and from the shadows...watching....yes...dozens of them!

"Well done brother....well done indeed!"

...a trap...

All around me now... creatures of flesh and metal... closing in...

"Long have we watched you...." a silken voice

"Long have we waited for one such as you..." from a body that was anything but silken...

"Brother....."

I'm in a trap....

"Be at ease, we are not here to fight our own...." the leader close now in the growing dark... but clear enough...The Chrome Hand!

All around me cybernetic things...man and machine mixed in every conceivable configuration....the one with limbs of metal and a torso of flesh...another with crab like metal pincers where arms should have been...one with synth-skin ripped away to reveal a machine face, another flesh seared and blistered..body riddled with life giving tubes and their leader.....the one with black metal orbs for eyes and the voice of silk.

Closing in around me...cutting off any hope of escape...many dozens of them...

I stood unflinching, staring into the unreadable black machine orb eyes......

"Long have we watch brother and it is clear to us you are the one......Yes...the one...."

Voices all around chanting in a chorus "The ONE!"

I was prepared to die just then... but I was not prepared for this......

When the unnerving metal orbs just stared and the silken voice failed to enlighten me further I ventured an inquiry

"To what purpose??"

"What purpose indeed brother...what purpose indeed...." silk from a metal throat

"I'm not your brother!"

"Yes...you are...all of us we are the same" silk weaving a trap

"NO!"

"Yes... brother all the same" black machine eyes staring

"We are one, flesh and metal, sinew and wire....all the same..." chanted the chorus surrounding me

"Nnnooo....." my voice a feeble gasp

"YES!"

"to what purpose.." was all I could utter

"To the one true purpose brother..the one true purpose" his silken words caught up and echoed again and again by the mechanized host all around....

"Which is????"

"The world is not as it should be brother...this is not what is meant to be....but not all is lost in decay.." he is wrapping me in silken words....

"There is beauty here too...and perfection too...." like the silk of some great and monstrous spider....

"We are that perfection brother..you and I and what we still have yet to become...." binding me

"and to bring that dream...that perfection to this place we have far to travel together and many wondrous deeds to perform..." ...no escape....

"What deeds....what do you want?....." my voice reed thin....

"Long you have fought against us brother, long indeed, and so by the Mutant and the Purists profit...and when we are defeated at your hands then what brother....their kind will show you no gratitude...you will be cast out and all that was perfection in this place will be lost...." his words holding me fast...

"so what do you intend?" my voice a whisper

"What indeed...it is time for us to join as one brother....time for the Chrome Hand to seize Taulin City and bring about the perfection that was always intended....." his silken words.. not a lie....

"but hundreds of people live there, what of them..." the question spilled from my lips

"The Mutants and Purists....they must die...those like us..yes some of those will die too, but many more will join us...." His words the truth....

"There are humans there too...what of them?" my voice sliver thin

"They are clay brother...unshaped clay...waiting for our hands..." His words taken up by the chorus, "Unshaped clay brother...unshaped clay..."

"Lead us brother...show us the way..." Back steel orbs piecing my soul

"The Way Brother...the Way...." chant the many as one

"...yes....I'll show you...." the words unbidden from my lips

For the first time his lips smiling. "If we hurry brother we can be to Taulin City before the new dawn...and as the city awakes..you will lead us"

"YES" that I would do....

The Taulin Wastes are vast and fraught with danger...the way was dark and the moons were fickle with their light that night...but I lead on..although I did not know the path I was on, I knew the environs of Taulin City well. The guards had long ago shown me a secret approach, for after I has dispersed a local band of brigands, they had grown to trust and respect me...to call me friend...and this is how I would repay them.

Already the night was deep when we can upon the shanty town.

At the vanguard of our great host I was first to realize that shapes looming up before us where not more craggy hills, but ramshackle huts, and the night was alive with activity....

As I brought up my hand to warn my companions, dark shapes rose up from were they had squatted watching the path....Iridium green eyes burned with unclean light, and the mutants threw off their night cloaks with a surprised hiss.

We had stumbled upon one of their gathering places...a place they waited to gain strength and numbers...a place they gathered and hoped to do what we were destine to do tonight...watch Taulin City burn....

without hesitation I stepped forward whip playing out ahead of me. A Mutant brought up a huge barreled gun, but I was quicker, my whip entwined his legs and with a mighty jerk back, flesh parted from bone and he was flipped backward to land in bloody ruin.

....and the night erupted in wild fire and cries.....

Two more flicks of the whip and two more guards where down... fire exploded to my left half blinding me and a hot slug nipped my ear as it zipped passed my head by a hairs breath.....my whip snapped again, catching the mutant along side the head....my wrist flicked and the mask of flesh was ripped away to reveal a misshaped skull. To my right a savage roar and a hulking mutant was upon me. Before I could strike again, powerful hands closed on my arm and I was jerked nearly off my feet. A wordless howl spilled from my lips and the creature began to twist my limb in its powerful grip. It pulled downward to yank me off balance and as I stumbled forward I caught it around the neck with my left arm. Agony exploded in my shoulder as it twisted me in a way I was never designed to bend. In desperation I struggled with the brute...the fingers of my left hand finding purchase as I grabbed up under his chin...then with a mighty wrench, I jerked his head to the side, snapping vertebra and severing nerve. His grip slacked and as I dragged my arm free, he stood there for a moment before slowly dropping to his knees and toppling forward into the dirt, like some great pole axed tree.

My arm still numb I plunged forward into the fray, a door burst open and a mutant stepped forward to level scatter gun at me. But I was far quicker, kicking out to catch him full center and driving him back into his squalled hut, chest collapsed. I turned to shout orders to my companions and was surprised my a lithe form spring from the shadows of the hut. The creature was small and agile and this was not the worse. Its arms were snake like appendages, each opening to reveal sharp fangs, which dripped steaming venom upon the rocky ground. It's face sported a mouth full of small sharp teeth, and in its growing green eyes..pure madness!

A cry of indignant discuss parted my lips...."GGGRRAaaaaaa!" And like a piston my numbed arm came down across its shoulder, pile driving the hag down into a broken heap of filthy rags. But the arms still moved and twitched with a life of their own! A Chrome Hand, the one with the machine face, stepped forward and leveling his weapon, and fired again and again into the body until all life left it. But I had no time to watch this, already I was away and looking to engage another foe.

The door of a shack some distance away burst open and a pair of mismatch mutants emerged firing wildly. The first was short and squat with a round body and arms long enough to drag the ground. The second was long of torso and thinner, but had short legs making him almost equal in height to his companion. Both fired in by direction, sending slugs whizzing past me. I charged forward,into the hail, knowing that at any moment they would find their mark. I had closed half the distance, my muscles contracted ...bracing for the impact of the slugs that would soon find me.....only half way.....

I never made it...............

For at that moment the full host of the Chrome Hands poured down between the rocks and were upon the villagers...The two mutants... were caught in a fusillade of fire from my brothers, both were driven back twisting and jerking until they fell in bloody ruin...and then it was over.

We did not burn the village...we did not want to alert Taulin City to the little rehearsal we had just carried out....their time would come soon enough.....

I lead on....the deadly serpents of the wastes did not molest us for our numbers were to great, and if any mutants remained alive, they did not make their presents know to us...so without further incident I lead the way to the secret approach and the undoing of so many unsuspecting innocents....

The city still slept, for it was that time of night they call the darkest hour.....the few moments before the new dawn begins to light the sky when night is at its deepest.

I stared at the quite city......a presents slipped up beside me...

"Only Mutants and Purists brothers...their path leads only to chaos brother...not perfection......" the silken voice

"What of the others?" was all I could reply "the men"

"They are not true humans brother, it is we who are the sons of man....his dreams made perfection...his glory realized" the voice explained

"...but..." I stammered lost in the words

"Clay in our hands brother, only clay" the chorus took up his words.."Only Clay brother...only clay"

"Yes... only clay" I echoed the truth in his words

I saw what would soon play out....I would lead my brother Down to Taulin City and as the first light broke the horizons the guards would throw wide the gates to welcome back the friend who had so long fought beside them...but the glare of dawn would hide the host behind me just long enough for then to reach the gates. As they guards were overwhelmed and my brother poured into the city, those inside would be trapped by the very walls meant to protect them. Would any of the Reapers be there....if so none would be spared. That was too bad....but it was not a time for regret.....

"Lead us brother...show us the way...." The silken voice was joined by a vast chorus of my brothers over and over...

and there in the blackest part of the night....the moment before dawns first glimmer... the Darkest Hour... I felt the surge coursing though my veins...

"YES!" burning out all thought "I will show you the Way!"

......and all thought was gone.....

Whirling about the whip struck out....the first to fall was the one with the black soulless machine eyes and then in that moment Midnight was truly upon them all. Guns were drawn and fired wildly and weapons raised in defense, but he was in close among them now, where their great numbers counted for naught. The ones that were more machine then flesh died with the machine perfection of their creation. Those that were still more man then machine died howling out their lungs out to the first light of an uncaring sky. Long after both flesh and metal had stopped offering up resistance and the merciless sun had climbed high into vault of the sky the carnage continued........


Epilogue:

Send a heartbeat to
The void that cries through you
Relive the pictures that have come to pass
For now we stand alone
The world is lost and blown
And we are flesh and blood disintegrate
With no more to hate

Delivered from the blast
The last of a line of lasts
The pale princess of a palace cracked
And now the kingdom comes
Crashing down undone
And I am a master of a nothing place

Is it bright where you are
And Have the people changed
Does it make you happy you're so strange
And in your darkest hour
Now all secrets fade
We can watch the world devoured in its pain.....

(*Begging is the End, Smashing Pumpkins)

:shock:

.....

*Applauds!*

great story!

WOW!! Excellent story. You are incredibly talented. (((((HUGS)))))

Good stuff,you are very talented.

*claps* same thing as i said on the first one
and thanks for involving my race at the beginning :mrgreen:

write more

Bravo!!! Great story.