Chapter 2: The Malediction of the Boon
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Outer Rim, Minor-Spartari Theater of War — A Hellscape in Flux
"We have to keep moving—now! The bugs shattered the defense line!" The man's voice cracked with urgency, carrying over the chaotic symphony of gunfire and distant explosions. His gaze darted anxiously to the woman gripping a small, vulnerable bundle swaddled tightly in her arms.
"Wha—what about the baby?" she gasped, her voice trembling. "They won't let it aboard the evacuation shuttle—military personnel only, no exceptions!" Her eyes, wide and pleading, searched the man's for some shred of hope.
The man's jaw clenched hard enough to crack bone. "I told you. You should have aborted the fucking thing when you found out. We'd both have been court-martialed if you'd shown, but now..." His tone sharpened like a blade. "Now, there's no time for regrets." His words landed like a hammer blow, and the woman flinched, swallowing a sob.
"But—" she began, voice breaking.
"No buts," he barked, cutting her off mercilessly. "If you want to get out alive, hide the baby somewhere safe. Now move your ass!"
Torn between terror and maternal instinct, the woman's eyes welled with tears as she looked down at the infant. The baby's tiny face creased into a frown, as if sensing the cruel inevitability looming over it. She pressed trembling lips to the soft crown of the child's head.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, voice cracking like dry twigs underfoot. "So, so sorry..." The alleyway where she stopped was grim and narrow, suffused with smoke and the metallic tang of ozone from nearby energy weapons. Her hands trembled violently as she placed the infant gently inside a rusty, discarded rubbish bin—an improvised cradle of despair.
"If the defense holds, if any part of this hellscape survives... I swear, I'll come back for you," she vowed, heart shattering with each word. But even as the promise echoed in the stagnant air, a rough grip seized her arm and yanked her away.
"We've done all we can for the bastard," the man said grimly, dragging her toward the growing thunder of battle. "I hear the fighting closer every second. Move!"
The woman's heart tore apart as she was pulled away, leaving the fragile hope of survival cradled by rust and shadows.
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Inside the Bin — The Infant's Mind a Tempest of Thought
Somewhere between fleeting consciousness and primal instinct, the baby's mind surged with fragmented, chaotic impressions.
"What the hell, man? Just leave your own spawn to rot? Christ, I've been royally fucked by that accursed blue lamp thing." A sardonic voice echoed inside the infant's psyche—his own, somehow—thick with disbelief and grim humor.
"And what the fuck is this 'boon' they mentioned? I never even got told what it is, but I feel it—like a curse wrapped in cosmic glitter."
His nascent awareness flickered with an instinctual truth, as if some divine cosmic memo had been silently delivered: "The first female who sees you, not kin, will fall hopelessly into a tangled snare of pragma, eros, and mania."
"You call that a boon? I call it a goddamn child services nightmare. Fuck me sideways." An inward sigh shook his tiny form. "Should've just joined the infinite as raw energy. At least then I wouldn't have to keep dying like this."
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The Distant Roar of War—The Battle Approaches
His thoughts stumbled toward the ominous term his parents muttered: "bugs." "What the hell kind of bugs? To breach a defense force? Either they're a swarm so endless they could eat the world raw, or—"
His rumination was violently cut off by a sudden burst of frantic shouts from the street beyond the alley.
"Fall back! Fall back! Basilisk strain reinforcements inbound with Queen Guard support!" A commanding female voice cut through the chaos, sharp as a scalpel. "Regroup at checkpoint Delta. Incendiary rounds will be available for reload. Move! Move! Move!"
The cacophony of kinetic rounds cracking, laser fire sizzling, and the thunderous roar of engines filled the air. The baby could smell the acrid tang of burning ozone, hear the metallic screech of energy weapons close enough to singe his fragile refuge.
"Sounds like the fight is closing in fast... What the hell is a basilisk strain anyway?"
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On the Battlefield — The Basilisk Queen Guard's March
"ATTACK DRONES, FULL FRONTAL ASSAULT. CONSUME BIOMASS. RELEASE EGGS."
With a cold, psionic command reverberating through the hive mind, the Basilisk Queen Guard—a towering, freethinker variant numbered #1700354—strode imperiously behind its swarm of fifty ravenous drones. Its four-legged carapace clicked ominously on the cracked concrete streets of Minor-Spartari, sending vibrations through the debris-strewn ground.
This apex predator was charged with a grim task by the hivemind: eliminate the sector's sapient biomass with ruthless efficiency—minimizing collateral damage to the hive's long-term interests, or so the orders said.
But the queen's freethinking mind knew the brutal truth: biomass loss here would be catastrophic. Still, the yield from this small world's sapient flesh would fuel the hivemind's expansion exponentially.
As it paused, sensors tingling with alien acuity, the queen's antennae detected a faint scent. Not enough to be prey, but biomass nonetheless.
It barked a terse order to its swarm guard, sending them deeper into the fray, while it veered into a shadowed alley toward the source—the metal container where its next meal waited.
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In the Bin — Face to Face with Death
Despite his grim refuge, the baby's senses were overwhelmed by waves of pheromones and the piercing clatter of insectoid chattering passing the alleyway's edge.
Then, the unmistakable thud-thud of colossal footsteps approached. This is it, he thought with grim resignation. Whatever comes, it's not human.
Time stretched in excruciating slowness as the steps halted just outside the bin. Was the predator going to spare this alley? Was fate mocking him with a brief respite?
Then, with a violent BANG, the lid of the bin was ripped away. His gaze lifted to the nightmare before him, and blood ran ice cold in his veins.
Five meters tall—a towering colossus of bone-white chitin with sharp tan accents carving down its sides. Four spindly legs ended in spikes sharper than any blade forged by man. Its vertical torso bristled with razor scythes that gleamed as if carved from nightmare steel. The pentagonal head bore serrated projections like a crown of death, dripping with glistening saliva, eyes black as the void itself.
Paralyzed by sheer terror, the infant was locked in place by those gaze-born chains of power.
"Ah, the basilisk strain," his infant mind recalled faint legends, "whose eyes freeze prey in an unyielding paralysis. No wonder I can't move, though truth be told, I was pretty immobile to begin with..."
Still, in those final moments, the infant found an odd serenity—a macabre admiration for this perfect apex predator, this embodiment of death itself.
He smiled—a fragile, defiant curve of lips—ready to embrace oblivion.
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A Moment Suspended — An Unexpected Flinch
Seconds bled into an eternity. Nothing. No attack, no devouring maw closing in. Strange.
A full minute passed with the predator frozen, staring.
Then—the paralysis began to ebb. The infant slowly lifted trembling arms in a gesture of surrender, silently beckoning death's embrace, powerless to flee.
And then—the impossible happened.
The predator flinched.
"Did that motherfucker just flinch?" the infant thought, baffled beyond words.
How could a five-meter-tall, perfect killing machine recoil at the feeble motions of a day-old baby?
Flummoxed barely scratched the surface of the infant's bafflement.
"What's going on?" whispered his soul in the void.
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The cosmic dice had rolled. The boon, or curse, had just begun to unravel.