Three Square Meals Ch. 105

*Bringing so much of Genthalas back into service has made a huge difference, as has the scale of the recruitment programs for starship engineers,* Edraele replied modestly. *At the rate you've been supplying new schematics, being able to execute rapid refits will be critically important to keep the Maliri fleets up to parity with Thrall vessels.*

*Not just up to parity...* John said quietly. *I've seen the kind of difference a tech advantage makes; we have to aim for just that kind of edge over the Progenitor's forces.*

He could sense his Maliri Matriarch's earnest agreement. *I'll do whatever I can to speed up our manufacturing processes. I'm hoping Dana might be able to suggest some improvements...*

John turned to look at his Chief Engineer, the redhead sitting opposite Alyssa with a serene expression on her beautiful face. *I can't help feeling guilty for relying on her so heavily. She must be under tremendous pressure to meet the sky-high expectations we have for her.*

*You haven't got any choice, John. Dana's the key to unlocking all the technology we need; you've made her the window into the Progenitor legacy encoded in your DNA,* Edraele said, her voice sombre.

*Yeah, I know, but I wish there was some other way.* He sighed and glanced at Alyssa again. Squinting against the glare, he noted that her expression had shifted into one of intense concentration.

*I believe my daughter might be on the cusp of discovering some new technology. Irillith's been making impressive progress on decoding the Vulkat tech archives. From what we know of their ships, at the very least we should anticipate some innovative improvements in-* Edraele's voice trailed off in a shocked gasp, her astonishment radiating over his empathic connection with her.

*What is it Edraele?* he asked in alarm. *Are you alright?!*

His calls were met by ominous silence.

For a man grown used to having three talkative women chattering away in his mind, her lack of response filled him with a dark sense of foreboding. Alyssa's face was showing the strain now, her brow furrowed as she fought some kind of tense internal struggle.

"I think something's wrong," John said, darting a worried glance at his four companions. "I just lost contact with Edraele!"

"Is there anything you can do to help them?" Faye asked, her big expressive eyes looking to him for answers.

He hesitated, his gaze returning to Alyssa. When he saw a flicker of pain in her taut expression, his heart ached with a terrible feeling of helplessness. "Without Alyssa or Edraele giving me support, I'll never be able to get into the Astral Plane... the drag effect from my imprisoned Progenitor side is much too strong. Even if I could start a spirit walk, I'd be yanked back into my body in seconds and it would leave me completely drained of psychic energy."

"So we just wait?" Jehanna asked, looking worried.

"I don't think I have any choice," John was forced to admit. "The plan was for Alyssa to build her pocket plane, then for all the girls to sleep and recover their energy. I was going to feed them all late at night, probably about 2am, then go to bed and trigger the nightmare. The girls would be full of energy and ready for combat, then we were going to fight off the Astral monsters until Alyssa-"

He didn't get to finish as Alyssa interrupted him with a wordless cry of anguish, then pitched over, clutching at her head. Around her, the five girls collapsed like puppets with their strings cut. John leapt over to the blonde, tearing off a gauntlet so he could feel for a pulse. "Check the others!" he yelled in alarm.

The thunderous pounding of his heart settled down to a raucous thump as he felt the fluttering pulse in Alyssa's throat. "She's alive..."

"Irillith's okay!" Jehanna called out a second later, sounding greatly relieved.

Lynette was next to respond. "Tashana too, but her heartbeat is very faint!"

"Dana's pulse is weak, so is Rachel's," Faye said, her normally chipper voice on the edge of panic.

Helene gasped in horror. "Jade has no pulse!"

"She doesn't have one," John said, holding his hand up to the aquatic girl in a calming gesture. "Let me check..." He quickly closed his eyes, checking the network of connections in his mind. To his eternal relief he saw that the Nymph was still present, nested under him as a matriarch. However, he didn't have an active connection with her, so was unable to tell if she was hurt. "She's still alive... I don't know any more than that."

The Fleet Admiral pulled off her Paragon helmet and sat next to the unconscious Maliri girl, studying her with concern. "Do you want me to call for medical assistance? I can get a team of doctors here in two minutes..."

John was busy checking Edraele and her girls, then let out a long sigh of relief when he found they were all still alive and connected to his Maliri Matriarch. He sat down on the bed and carefully brushed Alyssa's mop of golden hair away from her face. "Thanks, but they won't be able to help. I think Alyssa tapped out all the girls... there's nothing medics can do to treat psychic exhaustion."

Helene glanced over at him, sky-blue eyes tense with worry. "John... what are you going to do if they don't wake up tonight? Will you face the bad dreams alone?"

He met her anxious gaze, then looked at the three equally worried faces looking his way. Slowly nodding, he said quietly, "I might have to..."

***

"That's it... they've stopped glowing!" Faye called out from beside the bed, her luminous eyes fixed on the four Nymphs.

"Good. If they've absorbed all my cum, they won't be pulled in with me," John said, his expression grim as he sat cross-legged on the bedroom floor. He glanced at the ship's chronometer, watching time roll inexorably onwards as the display changed to 2:00. "Are the girls stirring?"

"No change," Lynette said quietly, checking each of the sleeping women on the bed. "Pulse is there, but still weak..."

"I don't like this, John," Jehanna said, her pretty face shadowed with worry as she squatted down next to him. "From everything I've heard about the nightmares, you barely survived the last few times... and that was with ALL the girls with you."

"I've been relying on them too much, I see that now..." John said, his voice distant but with an undercurrent of steely determination.

Helene knelt at his side and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Faye told me that you get your power from us... that you're stronger when you fill us before battle. Let me help you... I'm not afraid."

John shook his head. "You're a brave girl, but I can't let you do that. I'm not going to risk dragging you in there with me." He smiled at her and added, "But I will take a kiss for good luck..."

She tried to return his smile, but he could see that it was strained. Helene crossed her wrists behind his neck then leaned in to give him a tender kiss. "Please don't leave me..." she said softly when she pulled back. "I've only just found you... I don't want to be alone again."

"You'll never be alone, the girls are your sisters now," John said, giving her a supportive smile.

"It's not the same," Helene whispered back, on the edge of tears.

"My turn," Jehanna said, dropping to her knees beside him. Helene moved aside, then Jehanna's dark-red lips were pressing against his with a frantic urgency edged with fear. "You can't make me fall in love with you then not come back to me..." she whispered, her brown eyes desperately staring into his. "I can't survive that."

"Everything will be okay, I'll just be gone a little while," he said to them both, his voice filled with a confidence that he didn't feel. He glanced at the other two and saw they were both watching him, Lynette looking deeply conflicted, while Faye's cute elfin face showed how distraught she was. "I want that first kiss tomorrow, Faye," he said with an encouraging smile. "Nothing's going to stop me coming back for that."

She wrung her hands and nodded, but he could see she wasn't convinced by his bravado.

He Inhaled deeply, then stifled a yawn and closed his eyes. Centring himself and finding his focus came easily that night. Despite his uncertainty at venturing alone into the Astral Plane, he was convinced that what he planned to do now was the right course of action. His breathing slowed and his senses sharpened as he prepared himself, a host of new sounds and smells coming to his attention... the rapid beating of Jehanna's heart, Helene's alluring scent, and the barely audible song that Faye was singing under her breath to give herself courage.

Blocking out all thoughts of the women in the bedroom, he concentrated his heightened awareness inwards.

*It's just me and you now...* he thought to himself, feeling that lingering black presence in his mind. It was an ugly thing, malignant and cruel, with waves of hate pouring from the mental prison he'd constructed to bind his Progenitor guide. *You know what I'm facing and what's at stake... how strong is your sense of self-preservation?*

Gathering his will, he waited patiently for any sign that his malevolent other half had heard his challenge. The minutes ticked by, his breathing deep and slow as he bided his time...

Then he felt a seething surge of resentment and there was a slight shift in his consciousness, Progenitor knowledge springing unbidden into his mind. John gained a sudden understanding of powerful eldritch runes... and how to form them into runic scripts that were ideal for the Astral battle he would shortly be facing. His Progenitor guide was still dug into his mind like a tic, but in that moment, John felt that implacable grip loosen for just a split-second. Tapping into months of tightly suppressed rage, John hurled it at the parasitical presence that had nearly usurped his very being.

*Fuck you!* John snarled, riding a righteous wave of fury. *It's my mind, you bastard! You stole my birthright from me!*

He heard a howl of disbelief as his Progenitor guide was caught completely off-guard and hurled backwards, the slight shift in the mental boundaries between them becoming a tearing wrench. John gasped as he reclaimed a substantial portion of his mind, lifting a huge overbearing weight that he'd only subconsciously realised was there. His guide's startled cry turned into a scream of inarticulate rage, echoing without end in a mental prison designed to keep him locked away for eternity.

John's eyes snapped open, lit by a blazing blue light as the secrets tumbled forth. Rising to his feet, he was barely aware of the girls in the bedroom as they stumbled backwards, staring at him in shock. Summoning his will, John imagined a wall of hexagons, the six-sided plates forming a perfect dome. He raised his hands to begin his psychic runecrafting, then paused abruptly and glanced down at his chest. He grabbed his shirt and ripped it open, buttons flying everywhere as he bared his torso... a far more suitable canvass for the battle runes he was about to inscribe.

Holding his hands an inch from his skin, he watched the glowing runic script flowing across his chest, each runeword throbbing with barely controlled power.

Courage to face the most terrifying of foes.

Strength of a thousand to crush any that dare face my wrath.

Speed and precision to seek the heart of the beast.

Temporal inversion to undo the cruel hand of fate.

Wellspring of power to sustain my fury.

"John, what is all that writing?!" Jehanna gasped, her voice filled with wonder.

"Progenitor Astral battle runes," John said quietly, surveying the archaic phrases he'd just etched across his body. "They'll start working as soon as I get pulled into the Astral Plane."

"Is there anything you need us to do?" Lynette asked in a hushed voice, lifting her eyes from the elaborate glyphs on his muscular chest.

He glanced at the bed, his face reflecting his concern for the women sleeping there. Leaning forward, he whispered in her ear, "If I don't make it, do what you can to help the girls. It'll hit them hard, but I've tried to keep things at a distance between the two of us... you'll be okay."

She shook her head and the torment was quite clear in her hazel eyes. "I-I won't be... but I promise I'll do my best to take care of them."

John sighed with regret and caressed her cheek, "Thank you. I'm sorry if-"

Lynette leaned forward, catching him by surprise as she cut him off with a kiss, her lips soft and responsive against his. She blushed when they parted and murmured, "I had to do that... just once."

He smiled at her in understanding, then turned to lie on the bed beside Alyssa. Brushing his fingers through her golden hair he whispered, "Be safe, beautiful..."

Closing his eyes, he succumbed to the exhaustion, letting himself be pulled down into sleep... and the nightmares lurking in the darkness. His perception went black then suddenly began to lighten, the curling wisps of misty cloudbanks edging around his peripheral vision, just as they had the other times he'd been sucked into the nightmarish sub-plane.

This time, however... he'd come prepared.

He could feel that insidious aura of fear, designed to fill the most stalwart of men with terror, leaving them cowering and helpless. John's chest blazed with a brilliant light and that oppressive feeling was brushed aside, filling him with hope and freeing him to act. Channelling his willpower, John was instantly covered in a gothic suit of gleaming white armour, the intricate scrollwork over the plates inscribed with fine runic script. He clutched a massive sword in an armoured gauntlet, the runes that sheathed the blade thrumming with the promise of formidable power.

John's eyes shone with a fierce light as he crouched low and thumped the ground with a clenched fist, unleashing a blast wave of telekinetic force. The mists recoiled, swept backwards by that wall of psychic power, clearing a circle for a hundred-metres in every direction. Inhuman cries told of creatures caught in the backlash of his eldritch assault, their misshapen bodies hurled across the dreadful plane.

More of their foul kind lumbered out of the roiling fog, their nightmarish appearance starkly revealed now that he'd swept away that obscuring shroud. No two creatures were alike, each one a hideous amalgam of disgusting tentacles, vicious claws, and malevolent eyes, their fang-filled maws gibbering for a taste of his flesh. The horrific sight would be enough to drive any normal man to madness, but shielded by his runes and fortified by hard-won experience against these unholy monsters, John stood unbowed.

Taking a firm grip on his two-handed rune blade, he faced the closest horror, a triple-headed monstrosity that charged across the open ground on a set of six wickedly-barbed hooves. Performing a whirling cross slash, a force projection blasted out of his blade, crossing the fifty metre gap between them and slamming into the stampeding beast. The rolling boom at the unleashing of so much destructive power was followed by an agonised scream, as John cleaved through all six legs and sent the monster crashing to the ground.

Lunging forward with his sword outstretched, a lance of psychic energy hit the next monster in its contorted face, melting through its sickening features and exploding out the back of its brutish head. John span around, hacking down the next wave of eldritch terrors that lurched out of the mists, dismembering them with a series of lethal scything cuts. Every savage chop with his runeblade sent another unstoppable wave of force across the glade, severing limbs and piling mangled corpses in a circle around him.

Now that the fearful denizens of the mists had been alerted to John's presence, far more of them began to pour out of the billowing fog. Moving with fluid steps, John spun his sword around as he flowed through the kata he'd spent months learning with Yamamoto and refining with Sakura. Telekinetic arcs lashed out across the clearing, slicing through blackened hides and pustulent flesh, leaving glowing wounds in their wake. He felled one after the other, but their numbers were too great, swelling to a relentless horde of feral bloodthirsty beasts all champing to sink their fangs into his flesh.

Eyes widening in alarm, John spotted a stampeding monster in his peripheral vision, the squat six-legged abomination charging at him from his flank. He leapt aside to avoid getting flattened by its huge clawed hooves, but a flailing barbed arm clipped him as it passed, smashing his vambrace and sending a shooting lance of pain up his arm. The collision knocked him off balance, battering him towards the dripping maw of a particularly vicious-looking horror. John drove his sword deep into the ground as an anchor, jerking himself to a halt. The impact of the potent runeblade striking the obsidian sent a thunderous quake through the ground, the aftershock knocking the monster off its feet.

John found himself only metres away from the contorted features of that disgusting beast. He could see the rows upon rows of serrated teeth that lined its huge mouth, as well as the razor-edge whip-like tongue that flickered over its enormous fangs. A dozen malevolent eyes locked onto his face, its gleeful hunger for his blood quite plain to see. The creature thumped the ground with legs as thick as tree-trunks and hauled its corpulent body aloft, its sickle claws rearing back to strike.

Channelling his will through the runeblade, John unleashed rolling waves of blue flame across the cratered ground, the walls of fire spreading out like ripples on a black pond. The azure fire enveloped all the creatures in the clearing, licking up their limbs and immolating their foul flesh. He saw the look of anguish in the eyes of the four-legged abomination beside him, an agonised roar of torment escaping its enormous maw. The fire swept up and into that gaping hole, blistering blubbery lips and sizzling the thrashing tongue to a crisp. Painful cries turned to horrified whimpers as one eye after another popped, melted in its socket by the fiery inferno.

All around the clearing, hundreds of the Astral horrors writhed in their death throes, the dreadful smell of cooked flesh saturating the air. John surveyed the burning hellscape looking for threats, but the cascade of fire had consumed everything in sight, oily smoke pouring from the piles of incinerated corpses. He straightened and glanced down at his wounded arm, the pain fading as he healed himself, his armour unbuckling and straightening as it was repaired.

The runic well was helping to fuel John's psychic powers, but his personal reserves of energy would only go so far. John knew that time was not on his side and a protracted battle would only end one way. Hauling his gleaming sword from the ground, John faced the sinister wall of fog that surrounded the smouldering glade.

"Face me!" he roared across the astral sub-plane, throwing every ounce of contempt he could muster into his brazen challenge. "Or will you hide behind your minions like some pathetic coward?"

"TOO LONG HAVE I SUFFERED THE INDIGNITY OF YOUR EXISTENCE. YOUR FOUL CORRUPTION IS AN AFFRONT TO EVERYTHING WE HAVE FOUGHT SO LONG TO ACCOMPLISH. YOU SHALL BLIGHT OUR PRESENCE NO LONGER, JOHN BLAKE..."

John felt the ground shudder under his feet and a gust of wind whipped past, a chorus of tormented voices echoing around him on that breeze. The swirling eddies quickly built into a howling gale, accompanied by a nerve-shredding cacophony of tortured screams that assaulted him in an endless dirge. The mists billowed away to reveal the endless obsidian plateau beneath his feet, only distinguishable from the blackness of the sky by the twinkling stars dotting the heavens.

He stared in mounting dread at the murky grey fogbank as it parted around titanic limbs, revealing something dreadful lurking deep within the mists. John gaped at the towering behemoth facing him across the plain, the staggering size of the immense creature revealing how laughably mismatched they were.