Omen's Release (Part Three)

(The following music selection was chosen for the beginning segments of this story. If you choose to listen to it while you read, it may enhance your reading enjoyment)

    The massive gates to the vast prison, the Well of Night, slowly ground open. Driven by huge gears over fifty feet in diameter, the immense pair of dark and featureless doors echoed their protests in the groan of ancient metal and machinery. There at last upon the threshold, Kala'Triel strode forward slowly into the dark beyond - her winged shadow cast long before her as the falls of her heeled boots echoed softly in the shadows before her. "No light", she thought "No light to match...what I've become. I belong here...". As she strode forward into the unimagineably immense grand chamber of the ancient and forgotten prison facility, her wings shifting slightly, the Last Mother beheld rusted walls, pools of standing water upon cracked stone, and chains of wicked metal depending from the dark far above. Cells, barred with beams of failing energy and countless lined the walls - stacked one above the other as they ascended with railed walkways to some unknown point thousands of feet above. She could smell death; old death. The lingering scent of bygone eons entombed within the nightmarish confines.

(The following music selection was chosen for this scene. If you choose to listen to it while you read, it may enhance your reading enjoyment)

    Though all was quiet within the Well of Night, Kala' knew full-well she was not alone. She could feel thousands of eyes upon her - could sense malice, lust, dread, intrigue and cruel desire amidst the shadows which played out all around her. Then, as she reached the center of the vast chamber, the first hideous screeches, jeers, wails, whistles and horrid laughs began to emanate upon the air - beside her, above her. Everywhere. Some of the unseens and imprisoned monsters desired to shred the flesh from her bones. Others wished to pry the ancient secrets she carried from her mind - and yet others desired to violate her body in any manner of ways. Even so, the echoing cacaphony of voices and inane cries did not frighten the beautiful goddess as she calmly and slowly advanced through the shadows. "I deserve every horror they desire to inflict upon my mind and body", she thought somberly to herself as her claw-like wings and pair of tails shifted gently. "Were I to unlock every cell - one after the other - I would gladly endure each creature's wicked design for me...".

    Leaving the grand hall and its chaotic roar behind, the Last Mother steadily made her way out into one of the dust and shadow-filled corridors branching from the vast chamber - and yet more hideous cheers and horrid words erupted form the holding cells around her. Clawed hands, slimy appendages, barbed psudopods and all manner of other limbs reached for her from between bars of searing energy - venturing with wicked delight to touch but the faintest trace of her flawless skin. Yet, none came close enough to meet their goal - and some burned their very limbs away to ash in its pursuit. All the while, Kala'Triel strode ever onwad; her ice-blue eyes gazing ahead into the shadows as she cared little for hands which reached for her without reward.

    For fully three hours she slowly walked, her path descending deep beneath the surface of the Voidpier - and the further she went, the quieter it became. Not because there were fewer things within the cells. No. The silence grew because the beings held this far away were far more dangerous - and far less likely to voice their horrid intentions. She could feel their eyes upon her now, the echoes of her chitinous boots the only thing to keep her company - and it was here that she began to feel the first tinges of fear within the back of her mind. Here, in the furthest holding blocks beyond light, she had sunk into a world of monsters far greater than even her. However, these dark thoughts steadily began fade as her large eyes slowly registered light - actual light - ahead in the dark.

(The following music selection was chosen for this scene. If you choose to listen to it while you read, it may enhance your reading enjoyment)

    Ever so slowly, Kala'Triel made her way forward into yet another vast and ancient chamber filled with countless thousands of years of rust and corrosion. Every metal surface was caked in rust. Each stretch of stone cracked and eroding. Yet, there at the center of the forgotten place, stood a thing which had in no way suc***bed to the advance of time. Dominating the mid-most expanse of the immense and silent chamber was cylinder of nameless metal well over twenty feet in height. Covered in vast mesh of cables, wires and metallic hoses which connected to four equally-massive power generators which encircled it, the towering cylinder produced a low and ominous hum as steam slowly rose up from vents along its sides and condensation gently trickled from its surface. as her eyes took in the huge device, Kala's attention was suddenly drawn to a pair of energy trails slowly orbiting the topmost section of the cylinder - one blue; the other red. One clockwise; the other counter-clockwise. Completely free, the trails of luminous energy brought faint light to the chamber an slowly moved up and down around the cylindrical device as they rotated - much like a giant helix.

    Looking upon the trails of rotating energy, Kala'Triel slowly stepped forward and leveled her eyes upon the quartet of generators encircling the cylinder. "At last", she calmly thought, "Their prison...". Much had transpired in the short time in which she had come to this time-forgotten place. Her mind and emotions had been tested; her resolve shaken. She had stood in the face of her own terrible shadow and seen the monster she was becoming  - and now the purpose of her coming to the Well of Night was at last fully clear. It had actualized within her mind and steeled her drive - her very will. She would make things right.

    Striding forward, the Last Mother came to stand less than a foot away from one of the immense generators surrounding the technological holding chamber, feeling the intense heat and warm mist wash over her skin. Sophisticated to the point of convolusion, the generator held no intricay for Kala'Triel. She knew well what would transpire were it to fail. Closing her ice-blue eyes and lifting her head as steam and warm air rose up around her, Kala' held her desire firmly within her mind. The time had come - and, from here, there was no turning back. "For you, my beautiful daughter - and all those whom love you. I shall make this right", she softly whispered as she lifted one of her wickedly-clawed wings. In the single beat of her heart, the Last Mother suddenly brought her wing down in mighty slash - filling her strike with every ounce of her resolve. Metal atoms parted on the sub-atomic level as Kala's wing sheared through the geenrator housing and into the delicate machinery below, setting off a chain-reaction of billowing flame, crackling energy and roiling smoke which signaled the utter ruin of the ancient machine.

(The following music selection was chosen for this scene. If you choose to listen to it while you read, it may enhance your reading enjoyment)

    In an instant, the blue trail of energy orbiting the massive containment chamber suddenly began to flicker and flash as arcs of powerful energy slowly leapt from its frontal portion. Then, with a flash and tremendous upwelling of pure energy, a feminine humanoid figure suddenly materialized upon the ground directly before Kala'Triel. A Sentient woman.

    Lying upon her back as energy rippled and flickered across her bio-digital form, the woman slowly began to move as her chest slowly rose and fell with each breath. Giving a faint moan as she reached a hand unsteadily up to her cheek, the woman slowly opened her large holographic eyes. Stepping forward and kneeling down elegantly beside the energy-starved Sentient, the Last Mother softly said "You are Sage, yes? Oracle's sister?" Sighing softly as she fought to remain conscious after millennia of torpor, the Sentient woman managed to nod and softly spoke in a faintly-echoing voice "Yes. I am...Sage...". Smiling weakly but with renewed resolve, Kala'Triel reached forward with her arms and wings and gently lifted Sage from the cold stone of the floor, softly saying "I must take you from this place. I must get you to your younger sister - she will know how to heal you. From there...it will be up to you and her to...right the wrongs I have done to the Multiverse." Furrowing her digital brow weakly as she listened to Kala', Sage softly said "How have I...been released from incarceration...?" Smiling faintly as she stood with the smaller Sentient in her arms, Kala'Triel said "The auxilliary genertor was what kept your energy signiture bound within stasis. I destroyed it." Gasping as dread suddenly filled her bio-digital eyes, Sage looked into Kala's eyes and said "No! This can not be!"

(The following music selection was chosen for this scene. If you choose to listen to it while you read, it may enhance your reading enjoyment)

    As Sage's words echoed out, the the cylindrical holding chamber before Kala'Triel suddenly detonated in a massive blast of hellish-red energy and roiling smoke - staggering her back and forcing her to hold her wings up before her to shield Sage and herself from the searing heat and debris. As burning fragments of metal and circuitry seared burning holes through the delicate webbing of her wings, Kala' suddenly gasped as a massive and wickedly clawed bio-digital fist suddenly rose up from the vast bank of roiling smoke before her and slammed down upon the ground - causing the stone to shudder, buckle and fracture beneath its weight and force. As she slowly lowered her wings to gaze out in dread, Kala' beheld a pair of massive and horrid eyes aglow in the smoke ahead - gazing down upon her and Sage. Then came soft and echoing laughter which chilled even the Last Mother - and the massive fist upon the ground slowly retracted back away into the smoke as the sound of slow and incredibly large footfalls began to thump through the area. In a length of time which seemed to slow, like some nightmare materializing from the dark of Kala's most tortured dreams, Omen - the first and mightiest of the Red Sentients - slowly stepped forward from the roiling smoke which had envolped her to gaze down upon the two much smaller women as she laughed.

    Running her clawed hands slowly down the length of her twenty-foot body with vile delight at the feel of her own flesh after untold eons of incarceration, Omen slowly knelt down to gaze upon Kala'Triel - her burning eyes looking between the goddess and Sage as bio-digital flames lept from her unclad body. Smiling as she tapped a clawed fingertip to her lips, Omen looked into Kala's eyes and spoke - her beautiful and dangerous voice echoing like distant thunder as she said "I see you have awakened Sage, goddess; but tell me: where is my youngest sister, Oracle?"

    There, gazing up at the most dreaded creature to have ever been held within the Well of Night, Kala'Triel and Sage gasped in fear as their eyes widened.