Factory Reset: Divine Corruption

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Four: Murder Staircase

The air was heavy with the smell of soot and ash as the group traversed the desiccated terrain, holding onto their respective weapons and holding their weapons out, aiming to kill anything and anyone on sight.

There was something strangely serene about crossing the ashen wasteland, with nothing to see but miles upon miles of charred ground and silky ash. The sky was black, clear as obsidian and non-reflective, and the winds were calmed, eased without the functions of the planet.

Ja'Kle had to hold onto Mason's hand as they walked, feeling his stomach doing flips as the presence of something godly, something divine and without form was present on the planet. It felt like a coiling snake in his stomach, starved for meat and taking small portions of his tissue to digest.

Ja'Kles wings fluttered anxiously as they walked, reacting to the surging energy around them. Despite the calmness in the skies, and the wispy silence that befell the land, they knew that life remained. Maybe not life that they knew, but life still.

Mason grimaced as he held true and fast as the ash was kicked up, flying directly into his face. He sputtered out, his purple eyes dead set on the still standing building in the distance. He felt that the building had the answers.

He also felt, in his gut, that the building held the dark presence overshadowing everything. It wasn't overpowering or malevolent, but it wasn't exactly benevolent either. It was more so a neutral entity, just trying to exist.

Mason wasn't sure where he got that from the desiccated surroundings, but he had a feeling, and he usually trusted his gut on these types of things.

That coiling in Ja'Kles stomach grew harder and more drawn out as they moved on, to the point where Mason had to pick him up to reduce the pain from walking. There was nowhere else to go at this point, as he'd surely be destroyed if he was brought back up through the shadow veiling the sky.

Mason was confident that they could stave off the God, or whatever it was. It felt weaker than the Sea Goddess he had faced a few days prior, not to the degree that his protogen could handle them, but to the degree that they could face off and survive.

"The database is deep inside of this place. Rip-Cord, can you extract it?" Mason asked, turning to the anxious protogen. The monochrome cyborg nodded, his claws spinning anxiously. Like B-64 before him he could extract data, even though it was not his primary, or even secondary, purpose.

The team finally found themselves before the building, Ja'Kle feeling out of sorts even as he touched his boyfriend, feeling apprehensive about it. The building itself was a square box about the size of a standard two-story house when Earth was around.

It's gray walls were now a charred black, though some color remained. A single orange flag was tarnished and torn at the top of the building, draped over the collapsed ceiling. Wind whistles as it rang through the beams and concrete that made up the entrance.

Rallycry gulped, "That's... that's inviting." He commented as he faintly glowed purple, jutting out his head and causing the swaying wooden door to snap open, turning it's backwards momentum to the maximum without tearing it off of it's hinges.

The crew embarked into the shadows depths, Bathysphere using the lights of his insignia and his visor, along with his claws, to light up the insides. As one of the only protogen that has experienced the presence of a God, Mason thought it best for him to come along, even if there was literally no water on the planet.

The arching blue light lit up the destroyed building, allowing the group some visibility. Ja'Kle winced as he observed the inside of the room, finding that the only way down into the depths of the place, and to the data, was down something he liked to call a 'murder-staircase'.