Lost on Cornucopia
They'd been walking along under the hot plains sun for hours, the endless fields of barley, or wheat or whatever damnably dry crop was currently growing in amber waves of grain stretched out for near miles around with no building in sight in any direction. It wasn't the prettiest of situations to be in, but it wasn't the worst. The sun was due to begin setting in the next hour, and every so often Kage was finding a nice puddle down in the ditch to the side to wash the dust and grime off of his sweaty neck and hands with. The water of course was a murky beige color of its own, but hardly anything to be too concerned about and thus the Nephilim Host continued along his trek down the winding country road. He'd been a part of a small tourist tram leaving a fortified city in the middle of this realm known as Cornucopia, which was quite the appropriate name for the lush and ripe landscape and crops it yielded annually. Kage however had suffered the misfortune of having been forgotten at a small rest stop about two or so hundred kilometers away from the nearest town and while Cornucopia's stars were cold in comparison to his own home planet's stars, together, overhead, beating down upon his fair skin they were a merciless and tireless force of nature.
Well? Do you remember where you saw it? It can't be too far now, if you need me to, I'll take over, I can probably get us there faster...
The familiar hissing sound in the back of his muddled and tired brain stirred his consciousness up and brought his senses back to him as he suddenly stumbled and fell face-first into the dirt. Mumbling half-heartedly in reply to the Nephilim Spirit, his hoarse voice rang out over the sound of the rustling fields around him," how many times do I have to tell you not to startle me like that, especially when I'm practically dead on feet like now. We're still nowhere near civilization and that tour tram won't be back here for a couple of days. So either we have to keep walking for a few days back in the direction from whence we came and hope someone comes along and sees us, or we go off the beaten path and try and find the source of water and energy for all of these sprinkler and agricultural guard systems."
Cornucopia was a Class 4 World, its technology built mostly around its highly agrarian society; the fortified cities were places where the robot denizens of the planet would pool together their collective resources to engage in trade with other planets, worlds, and realms. For those who understood how to traverse across the multiverse as the Nephilim Host and Spirit had done, it was hardly a rare sight, however for such a realm to be housed upon a rather large planet of incredibly lush and vast scales was. They hardly needed to be anywhere, they'd lost their pursuants many days before and so now they both were able to enjoy a brief reprieve. Well, at least they would have been able to had they not managed to get themselves lost in the middle of quite literally nowhere. A slight tone of indignation sounded from the voice in the back of Kage's head and an image of a child angrily stomping back to its seat and sitting down looking not in the least bit amused, he smiled slightly and began to pick himself up.
Watching his shadow as he got up from his semi-prone position on the side of the road, he gave a loud groan and licked his dried lips. They were slightly chapped, the skin beginning to peel away from them and he subconsciously began to chew on the moistened flesh as he began thinking on what to do next. Looking back behind him down the road in the direction of the next settlement, he knew it was likely closer than the previous city, but it was hardly worth the risk of turning back now. they'd been travelling as aforementioned for several hours in this direction, and indecision now might prove fatal if indeed they were on their own out here. However, looking in the direction he was going, there was hardly a reason to suspect he was any closer now than he had been a few hours before. while there were no crossroads, shifting planetscapes were hardly a new thing to Kage and it was just as likely he could be caught in an extra-terrestrial version of a tourist trap to quite the most literal (again) degree. To get lost out here was likely to be fated to die a horrible death via dehydration among a source of near infinite food.
"Well, here goes nothing." Right foot out, then left foot out. Rinse, wash, repeat, second after second and minute after minute stretching out into the sunset of the second sun over the distant horizon. Having come to a stop finally, deciding it was time to settle down for the night, it was then he finally realized he'd seen something out of the corner of his eye, a glinting of something against metal. Starlight upon tin or aluminum perhaps? His head snapped to the right and his eyes worked hard to refocus in the quickly waning light of the evening starset. Finally perceiving the figure standing up and out of the fields, he felt a moment of elation and quickly ran down from the road and into the fields of grain, moving quickly towards the lone figure. As he neared it, the distance between them quickly closing as he ran wantonly, he waved his hands and moved to shout when suddenly he felt his legs go out and his mouth clamp shut eating his words and stifling the sounds of joy and excitement he'd gone to speak. The Nephilim Spirit was now in control and it spoke quickly to the boy, Stop! Look at it, it hasn't moved a single inch has it? It's not alive, or at least whatever it is, we're not even certain if it is friendly or not!
Sure enough, as Kage raised his head again over the tops of the heads of the dozens of barley or wheat or oat plants he'd taken impromptu shelter in, he now could see as the last beams of starlight faded into the night, that the being indeed stood still, remaining at post in spite of Kage's obvious approach. It remained a stalwart and steady guard. It was interesting to see such an antiquated device, but now Kage understood why the Nephilim Spirit had been so cautious. This was an old "scarecrow", a device originally built to ward off pests through basic fear-through-presence tactics. Originally unanimated dummies, scarecrows were a common sight on agricultural worlds of a Class 2 or lower civilization, but it was when one was on a Class 3 or higher world, they needed to be on guard. His suspicions were quickly affirmed as the Nephilim Spirit, still in control of his body, pulled a clump of barley next to him, wadded it up, and sent it up and into the air in the general direction of the scarecrow. A blur of movement and suddenly the scarecrow was in the air, massive scythes lashing out from metallic arms and tearing into the soft luscious grains. Less than a second later and the grains fell back to earth, nearly pulverized by the flurry of attacks from the razor-sharp sickles of the scarecrow. This was true power, and terror. Kage's heart now beating at well into his panic zone suddenly was forced to lower itself as the scarecrow (now back upon the ground) began to deploy for the evening.
Scarecrows upon Class 3 or higher worlds were automated sentinels, designed to automatically engage high-level threats to a crop, but from the appearance of this one, anything not broadcasting a typical Cornucopian IFF Transponder would likely become a target. Then there was the matter that it was likely specially designed to hunt down living organisms at night using a wide array of tools at its disposal, one of which would most certainly be a motion-sensor, heat-sensor, and heart-beat monitor. Organic things were a threat to crops, robots likely weren't. Because all the work could be done by nearest city's drones during the day, the scarecrows were likely out of job until they left the fields at night leaving the few animals cheeky enough to attempt an incursion upon the crops. This was why it hadn't activated as Kage had been running at it, with enough starlight still left in the air, it had not deployed into active sentinel mode. With this being the case, Kage would have been able to approach it as he'd seen fit, but now, with the sun down, the tables were most certainly turned. The glowing singular red eye of the sinister guardian of the field slowly cast its crimson glare in Kage's direction, his view suddenly dropped. The Spirit was still in control.
It saw us, it is moving to engage, on my mark, we run. If we get back to the road in time, it will disengage, but if we fail, it will most certainly kill us right here and now. Ready? Kage was hardly rea-GO!
Within seconds the teen was on his feet and running at a near break-neck pace for the road. A loud whistling filled the air behind him as the scarecrow's blades flipped out of their roosts, and putting even more power into his thighs, his lungs aching and burning for air, Kage closed his eyes and leaned further into his mad dash. Crops trampled underfoot, the humming of the scarecrow's repulsor engines just behind, and that sinister whistling following him the entire way, now only pure adrenaline and terror were fueling his sprint. He was like a hypersonic missile, bolting across the amber ocean in a streak of flesh and cloth, and then suddenly he could see it: the road! His arms swinging wide, pumping like mad, his legs rotating like the wheels of a sprint-car, his chest burning, aching, and his thighs and calves feeling as though they were being ripped into it was almost as though something told him to make that last effort and so he did. "Spiriiiit!"
Calling upon every last ounce of strength and energy left in his now thoroughly exhausted body, he slammed everything he had into his thighs and calves, and pushing up and away from the ground, he dove forward, and soaring through the air, a sudden whistling came into hearing and then a sharp pain as suddenly everything went to black.
It was interesting, the feeling Kage had, a warmth spread from across his back and onto his thighs, it was soft, like a cat's fur coat. He smiled and shifted, but now the warmth gave way to a more intense and deep-seated pain, a pain that almost seemed to be manifested out of fear and anger and hatred incarnate and it bubbled up within the teen's clouded mind like water from a spring. Memories gushed forth from the fiery heat as images of his sisters and his friends and family and everyone else in his clan lanced out and away from him, slowly leaving him. Raising an arm in protest, begging for them to come back to him, to stay with him to the end, a darkness steadily moved in to replace them. It was a cold, empty, and hollow darkness, it was a void. An empty chasm in space and time, and his soul reached out into it searching for substance but only found the cold unforgiving reality of its situation. It was gone, separated from reality, from the world. This was its reality now. This was death. Everything you ever knew, leaving you, forsaking you as one of the damned and forgotten. This was the price for receiving a Nephilim Spirit, and even while Kage had hardly ever agreed to his contract, it still had stuck and now he was damned for it. At least, that is what should have happened.
Wait, damnation... where is it? That lake of molten rock and burning sulfur? where were all the devils with their sinister smiles and gleeful grins as they watched the souls of the damned and oppressed swirl about within their pits? He looked up, this was not damnation, so where was it? 'Spirit?'
A tentative guess which was promptly rewarded with a resounding answer, YES.
'Where am I? What just happened to me? Did I die?'
NO. The voice boomed again, its presence seemingly overwhelming in this black chasm, YOU ARE WITH ME, I NEEDED YOUR BODY SO YOUR ARE HERE AND I AM THERE.
'Wait, what? You needed my body so I'm here? where is here? Where is my body?' Kage looked down at himself, or at least perceived himself to be looking down at himself and realized suddenly with a startling realization that there was nothingness about him. He was disembodied, simply floating in darkness,' wait, a moment, are we here? In my mind?'
This would make sense, though Kage was hardly aware that this was what it felt like to be Spirit, he knew that what he had just said had to be true. Everything, every sign pointed towards this being the only answer, the way he felt without feeling and the way he existed without being. It was as though he was already a certainty in this reality, within this universe, and his own physical manifestation in this realm would simply be an unneeded redundancy in what he was doing here. As his mind continued to wrap itself around these facts, he looked up and suddenly a bright light wrapped down and around him enveloping him in conscious thought until suddenly he found his eyes snapping open to find the twisted and smoking remains of a Scarecrow heaped over his stomach. Nearby, one of the wrist-blades, presumably the left-hand one stood sticking up out of the ground, blood caked to its blade, but not along where it would be expected. Looking down at his palms, the pain he could feel confirmed his suspicions yet again as he realized what must have happened in the span of time he'd been unconscious.
As the scarecrow had struck him, the Nephilim Spirit within him had moved to protect its host and in doing so had astrally projected itself in full power. In order to do this, it would have needed to have swapped places with Kage's own consciousness thus sending Kage into the own deepest and innermost parts of his mind, that is, the abyssal void where Spirit resides. He smiled, though the pain was hardly comfortable, it was a welcome intrusion upon his perception of reality. Balling his hands up into fists, he slammed them both down into the dusty road underneath him and continued to play out the scene within his mind's eye. First Spirit must have engaged the scarecrow directly while leaving what little of its root that remained in Kage's own body top get it to a standing and combat capable position. Within a hundredth of a second, this likely would have occurred. These movements undoubtedly would have inflicted great pain and damage upon Kage's own internal musculature and the aching fire in his thighs, back, and practically everywhere else confirmed these thoughts. When the scarecrow had been sufficiently beaten off, Spirit must have then commandeered Kage's body in a direct assault against it and managing to obtain and wield one of the scarecrow's broken wrist blades against it, Spirit had made short work of the mechanical construct.
The morning starlight which now illuminated the valley as a whole rather well now left Kage wondering what to do until he suddenly realized he could hear a small monotone beeping. Looking down into the smoldering wreck of the scarecrow, he could see plain as day the emergency transponder beacon requesting for a repair crew blinking on and off in time to the beeping. He smiled and squatted down to get a better look at the beacon. sure enough, it housed a small GPS-tracking unit inside and so with the power of technology, soon enough a repair crew would likely be out to repair the scarecrow. Kage would simply have to wait on that certainty. Questioning Spirit as to how long it had been destroyed, he managed to elicit the response of only two or so hours, when the shift for the scarecrow would have ended. It was an interesting delay, but again there was no use in activating an emergency beacon if no one was on duty to receive it ad if no one was on duty while the scarecrow was, there was no reason to broadcast the signal. Kage internally shrugged at the thought guessing this must be some convoluted form of bureaucracy these semi-sentient constructs had come up with in their time upon this world. Letting himself fall back onto his back, Kage winced in response to the lance of pain that shot through all of the offended muscles, but within moments their protests had died down into sighs of relief, soon rescue would be here and they'd be recuperating alongside the rest of his body in a medical care unit back in one of the fortress city's infirmaries.
Thinking to himself on the sheer amount of luck he'd had, he suddenly realized that luck had nothing to with it, and he'd only survived this chance encounter because of Spirit. This creature, or being... whatever it called itself, was most certainly powerful, and in order to have used a weak construct like Kage's own body to defeat a machine built to kill in perhaps one of nature's most effective and efficiently possible methods, it was hardly a chance encounter or lucky strike. This had been sheer power and knowledge, and while there were certain to be other beings and spirits out there far more powerful, when it came to defending itself, the Nephilim Spirit was quite secure in its position somewhere near the top of the leader-boards. Self-preservation, that is what drives every Nephilim Spirit to find a Nephilim Host, and between Kage and his Spirit, they both were in good hands.
His hands slowly making their way into his pockets and withdrawing a small tangled mass of metal and lint, Kage held up in front of him, squinting as the morning starlight of the first star in the day cycle came up over the edge of the nearby mountaintops surrounding the valley, he could pick out what he assumed had been a project of Spirit's as it had awaited Kage's awakening. Something to the tune of three paperclips and four balls of lint had gone into crafting a small and ornate figurine or incredible perplexity that had Kage not been capable of losing focus so easy, he'd have been liable to have missed entirely what it was meant to be upon the smallest details that Spirit had embellished upon," It's a dog..."
A Belgian Malinois thank you very much. an Earth Breed, very powerful, highly effective, very well-rounded. You'd like them. It perhaps was the most sociable thing Spirit had said since they'd arrived on Cornucopia, and Kage smiled. It wasn't often that he'd see such kindness and generosity from Spirit, and even more so rare was the simple thought it had regarding Kage's own feelings and this even more so than anything else brought a smile to the teen's face as he let the figurine slip back into his hoody's pocket. No use in interrogating the Spirit about it and making it embarrassed so he simply settled for the next best thing," Thanks."
And so it was that they both sat their in silence staring up into the baby blue sky, both wondering where this life would take them, with one becoming even more human with every day, and the other growing more powerful by the other and between them both, a passion to find a way to cheat death and return to their respective homelands. One day they'd find the secret to unlocking life and death, and transcend it all, but for now they'd simply have to deal with life as it was, and maybe someday they'd find a place they could lay their heads and not fear for their pursuers, wherever in the multiverse they were. Here and now however, Kage let his eyes close in a continuation of an early morning nap as he let the sound of wind across the grain fields flow into his ears like the sound of waves upon the shore, and smiling in the morning breeze he fond himself saying one final statement," Perhaps one day we'll have our destiny?"
In reply, somewhere along the wind, drifting upon the currents of the summer breeze came the soft answer,' Perhaps.' and with that Kage let his consciousness slip into a deep and restful sleep.