Ekron

Constantinople - 3

In the dark side of the moon, the recently liberated spirit of Ninkurra Drekkva, transmuted by means beyond her power, found two temple-like constructions made from spacecrafts millennia before mankind would build its first pyramid. She opened a hatch in the larger ship and rushed inside as alarms started to ring at her pass. She traveled corridors and rooms in the temple, looking for an electric panel or its equivalent to cut power off and facilitate her vengeance on those who had blinded and imprisoned her. She entered an elegantly carpeted room and felt a close, dear presence, an entity that she hadn't seen in so much time, that she couldn't remember how she had lost her company. Carmina was sat in a throne made of wire and aluminum, her brain was mutilated and filled with circuitry and hoses. Her red curly hair was long and had clearly been combed regularly for those who were keeping her secluded there. She had a mole under each eyelid and her eyes were closed. Her arms were full of scars and blood remains.

Ninkur stood in front of her, the remains of what once was Carmina's soul woke up and she opened her eyes for the first time in thirty centuries; those blue compound eyes, with a dark blue eight-pointed star and a white vertical line in their centers.

Ninkur heard steps, so she only managed to say, "You don't deserve this."

With the long sharp nails of her right hand, painted red, Ninkur took Carmina's eyes off their sockets, one after the other; then with the same hand, she penetrated the semi-ethereal matter of her own clothes and flesh, to put those eyes inside her own belly. The Macsk appeared in the carpeted room to find her in front of an eyeless Carmina. They were wearing tight rubber suits with transparent helmets. Their skin was bluish white, their hair was bluish black, and they had cat eyes. They seemed dumbed and slow, as they were intricately connected to Carmina, and the loss of her eyes had heavily affected their senses. One of them, that was closer to the wired throne, raised his hand to Ninkur and blinked. Ninkur felt a shiver, as she had been blinded by them before, but nothing happened. Ninkur looked at their cat eyes and understood that they could not "steal" eyes that were too alike their own.

Ninkur's left eye shone in green fluorescence, two large black lace wings grew from her back as her hands and feet became bestially clawed. She reached out an arm towards the Macsk closer to the throne, attracted him to her claw with spiritual means, grabbed his helmet and smashed his head against the ground, breaking the helmet.

Then she turned him around on the floor to see his face and asked, "Where is the one that stole my eye?"

"Still sleeping, near the bridge."

Ninkur grabbed the Macsk head with one hand and his body with the other, then ripped off his head and spine, throwing away the rest of the body. From her mouth, she poured a black oil to the backbone and skull. From the oil, black worms ate the flesh and crawled inside the bones, turning them black. The vestigial pair of horns in the Macsk skull enlarged and became metallic needles covered with crystal. She took that improvised weapon from the middle of the backbone and activated it. The needles shone red, and the crystal layers melted forming a plasmatic black mass that received a powerful electric arc from the needles and placed itself eight inches further from the needles' tips.

The other Macsks ran from there. Astarte ordered to evacuate the big ship and escape in the small one. She also designated Sumitre to stay in the big ship and destroy it with Ninkur inside.

Sumitre asked back, "What about Trimurti?"

"He's been sleeping for millennia. Just let him sleep forever."

That said, the remaining Macsk followed Astarte to the small ship and took off from the Moon. Ninkur understood their intentions and rushed to the bridge of the ship that she was in. Once there, she noticed that the controls were like those of a Ninevian vehicle, and she managed to make the big spacecraft take off too. She started to follow the small vehicle; that had already made a turn to pass by the side of Earth in its way to the stars. The ships left debris and remains on the dark side of the Moon, alongside with two remarkable aquamarine gems.

In a room contiguous to the bridge that Ninkur had taken over, Trimurti was unconscious in a capsule that had kept him alive for millennia. After he stole Ninkur's left eye, his mind couldn't come back to material conscience and got trapped in an extradimensional riddle. His right eye was black, and his left eye was still an exact image of The Green Eye that he had stolen from Ninkur.

In the bow section of the spacecraft, where the bridge was located, there was also a nuclear bomb, for self-destruction purposes; various versions of Anjalikastra, a laser cannon; and the remains of Carmina on her throne.

Sumitre had to get Ninkur away from the bridge to initiate the ship's self-destruction sequence, as the control panel was there, so she attacked her from the back with an electromagnetic spear, but Ninkur sensed her move and blocked the spear with her improvised spine cranial Macsk weapon. Sumitre ran to the stern of the ship and Ninkur followed her; the Macsk's plan was to trap Ninkur somehow and then go back to the bridge. The ship lost its course and started orbiting Earth.

Chasing Sumitre, Ninkur threw her weapon towards her and missed, cutting several cables in the corner of a corridor that fed the pumps of the cooling system for the ship's propulsion engines, that were located between midship and stern sections. Sumitre managed to close a door behind her and that way she delayed Ninkur's advance in a couple seconds; allowing her to reach the stern section with a small advantage. The engines were already overheating for the lack of cooling liquid when she got there.

Sumitre took off her rubber gloves, with her sharp nails she cut her left wrist and drew a circle of white blood on the metallic floor with a series of non-Euclidean symbols inside it. She stood behind it, facing the passage from which Ninkur would appear. Sumitre closed her eyes and opened her arms; on the floor, a portal to the wild forests of Dobruj unfolded. In the passage, Ninkur appeared and threw her weapon at Sumitre. The Macsk moved her arms forwards, the portal rose from the floor acquiring vertical position, facing Ninkur and standing between her and the Macsk. The weapon passed through the portal, Sumitre made another hand movement, and the portal flew towards Ninkur, swallowing her into Dobruj. Sumitre lowered her arms and opened her eyes. The portal disappeared and the Macsk sighed relieved.

In that moment, the ship engines exploded splitting the spacecraft in two. Both parts separated from each other considerably before they entered Earth's atmosphere and fell like meteorites on the planet's surface. Sumitre managed to reach a stern armored compartment and hid inside it to protect herself from the impact of the landing. The compartment contained transparent jars with plague insects inside.

"This will not end well for anybody," she thought.