Ekron

Saturn - 6

In a forest near Agatha's cave, Irkalla's goat was taking a nap under a three, when his sharp senses detected movement somewhere in his surroundings. He looked up for the source and a glowing creature showed up a hundred yards from him. He carved the soil and jumped towards it at half the speed of sound. In half a second, he got to the glowing spot, the creature moved upwards in some sort of fog and the goat passed under it to impact and destroy two threes in a row, and then he fell to the ground. When passing under the creature, he felt a burn in his left side and his left legs lost some mobility. He stood up and from above two more glowing spawns touched his wings and his right side with their tentacles. He felt a sharp pain in all his body and could barely move, either way he managed to jump up and bite one of them but then his mouth started to burn in a venomous reaction. More creatures assaulted him and rolled their tentacles around his neck.

They were modified sea medusas designed by Achish, capable of emanate a fog in which they could float and had venom glands all over their skin. Inside their transparent bodies, a set of circuitry and wires blinked in little sparks as they communicated with each other. They had primitive light sensitive organs, scattered all over their bodies and they shared their limited perception with all other members of their pack, processing the information to assemble a collective vision. Therefore, they could not be blinded by a Macsk, as there were no individual visual organs on their bodies, only partial ones. Their nervous system was filled with breakers that could disconnect any part of their bodies if an attempt of cognitive invasion took place, so even if a Macsk dared to touch them, and endure their venomous discharge, it would still be unable to stun them.

A dozen jellyfishes attacked the goat until he passed out in pain. Then they headed to Agatha's cave. Irkalla was inside it, feeding a power cell with sea water, when thirty medusas entered the cave and overran him. Irkalla tried to blind them, stun them, called his goat, but everything was in vain. In a minute, he was unconscious on the cave's floor, intoxicated with venom. They put a metallic helmet on his head that impeded him from seeing, and therefore from blinding anything. Then they put a pair of raw metallic gloves on his hands that impeded him from touching, and therefore from stunning anything. Helmet and gloves had mechanical locks that prevented him from taking them out. They took him to a ship that transported him to Sibara, where he was imprisoned for millennia. Two dozen medusas stood guard outside Agatha's cave to protect its functioning.

Anubis received Gog's mausoleum at Llacme's castle. Then, standing next to Llacme and Achish in Sibara's throne hall, he closed his eyes and woke up the beast Szörnyet from his sleep. The celestial monster opened his black eyes and gazed into the cold vacuum.

In Dobruj, the jellyfish pack collectively saw a distant gleam; moments later a small spacecraft landed near Agatha's cave. From the ship descended a group of six Macsks in hydraulic suits: Astarte, Trimurti, Osiris, Sumitre, Enki and Ninhursag. By their side, there was a cart carrying Anjalikastra, weapon of gods. The jellyfishes attacked them, but a force field coming from Anjalikastra surrounded the Macsk group and stopped the advance of the medusas, slowly frying their circuits. The weapon casted red rays on the jellyfishes still guarding the cave, burning their bodies to ashes. An army of a hundred more medusas came from the forest nearby and the Macsk threw a transparent jar out of the force field using an especially designed launcher. The electronic lid of the jar opened, and a winged insect came out of it. It flew to a jellyfish tentacle and chew its way inside it, unaffected by the venom. The jellyfish acquired a dark blue color, its body became crystalline and broke in pieces. From its remains, a dozen more insects came out and attacked the other jellyfishes. In minutes, there were no medusas left. Trimurti pressed a switch on an electronic controller and all insects became crystal as well, except for one that returned to the jar, and the electronic lid closed.

Astarte entered the cave and the black dog inside had his eyes closed. Astarte took a machete out of her suit and cut the dog's throat; the animal fell to the ground and died in silence. At Llacme's castle, Anubis empty right eye socket started to bleed profusely, The Black Dog of Ekron fell to the ground holding his neck with both hands and lost consciousness. In the space between the stars, Szörnyet closed his eyes again, and continued dreaming.

Astarte then severed the cables that connected Agatha to the mainframe. The Osmógreh opened his five eyes and ran outside the cave dragging Agatha by the cables connecting their brains. She, strangely, kept her eyes closed. The Macsks saw the scene with a mix of strangeness and pity.

Astarte came out of the cave and said, "It's done."

"We can just go back to Kish then," added Trimurti.

"No, we're leaving this place."

"What about Maria?"

"She will escape by her own means; we'll join her later."

"Where?"

"Saturn."

That said, they went back to the small ship and joined the big one in a valley nearby. Then together they broke through Qatra's suffocating atmosphere. Once away from the planet, they entered hyperdimensional navigation and traveled across the Orion–Cygnus Arm of the Milky Way.

The Osmógreh was still running, when he realized that he was dragging Agatha behind him, he lifted her up by the waist with a tentacle and attempted to clean her clothes with another. Her hair had grown thirty-three feet in the century she was cloistered, and long red dreadlocks had formed on it. Her toenails were nine inches long, as they had broken several times, and looked like vulture claws on her bare feet. Her face, nevertheless, was still the same that she had when she was fourteen. She still had no right hand or left forearm, and her eyes remained closed. The Osmógreh grabbed her like a doll and kept her close to his left side. Then the animal opened his wings and flew across the black skies heading to the ocean. He left the shores of Dobruj and when he reached the high seas, he dove into the pits where once he had family, with Agatha by his side. There was no sign of his relatives in the dark silence of the abyss.