Ravens of Eternity

Chapter 321

321 Force of Nature, Pt Freya was close to tears as she felt the wind as it flowed freely around her body. She felt an indescribable amount of joy as it swept all around her, as it brushed against her black feathers, as it lifted her up by her wings.

It was there, thousands of meters up in the sky, with nothing between her and the rest of the world, that Freya understood the purest meaning of freedom.

Though, as much as she was enjoying her Raven Form, she knew she couldn’t keep it for long. Simply, she was already beginning to tire out from holding it, and needed a place to land. Soon.

Especially considering what she was flying over.

Her eyes darted across the sparkling jade waters of a vast ocean far below. And there – just at the edge of her sight – she found what she was looking for.

It appeared to be an elongated island completely covered in industrial buildings and manufactories out in the middle of nowhere. Her telescopic vision revealed the salt-battered building all around, some of which seemed to be built right on the very edges of said island.

But it wasn’t actually an island. In fact, the whole thing was a massive barge that slowly crawled across the water.

Though only the top seemed to be visible, it had an entire submarine section beneath the waters. Freya easily saw its massive silhouette surrounding the “island” from high above. She estimated it was right around a kilometer and a half in length, and about half that in width.

This was practically a battleship hidden in the water, and was easily three times the size of the Raven’s Refuge.

.....

Undaunted, she angled her body towards it and descended gracefully. As she neared, Freya took note of all its visible defenses. There were numerous anti-armor turrets scattered all over the island. Their guns constantly scanned the skies for anything and everything, and from every direction.

The only thing they ignored were the various sea birds circling above them.

Among the throngs of workers here and there were also numerous pairs of sentries patrolling the deck. All wore the same light armor and were moderately armed with submachine guns, pistols, and batons. None seemed even remotely dangerous, at least to her.

Freya darted past the white and gray and black gulls and landed in a hidden corner behind some disused equipment. There, hidden from view, she shifted out of her Raven form back to normal. Her body grew and expanded, even as her feathers withdrew back and revealed her bare skin.

Her previously beady black eyes shifted to her brilliant green once again, which drew back her vision and refocused to a shallower, but more vivid depth of field.

When she was done, she leaned up on one of the crates next to her, and panted heavily from the endeavor. Three hours was the longest she had been able to stay transformed thus far, and was close to pushing it.

While she recovered, Lucifer swooped down gracefully next to her and shifted back into hir form as well. Though, in contrast, ze was only a little out of breath, and hir transformation was almost twice as fast.

“Don’t tell me that tired you out that much,” Lucifer chided her in a whisper.

“Gimme a break,” Freya replied. “Haven’t had a whole lot of time to practice lately. I’m always having to do training and drills and -”

“Stop whining. And stop making excuses. We figured out how to do this at the same time, remember? We started practicing at the same time, too. And I’ve got as many responsibilities as you. So I don’t wanna hear it.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

As Freya waved hir off, her glance naturally fell along Lucifer’s athletic and slim build. And of course, she couldn’t help but glance down at hir crotch. The curiosity had always eaten away at her, and now that the both of them were totally in the nude, she had a chance to satisfy it.

Not that it went unnoticed by Lucifer.

“You enjoying yourself?” ze asked flatly.

Freya immediately snapped her eyes up, ashamed at violating the whole ‘eyes up here’ thing.

“Sorry!” she blurted out. Then she said it again, but quieter.

“I’ve always just wanted to know, what you uh, looked like, down there” she continued in a floundering whisper. “I mean, since you can shift your body all-fluid like, and that you change so often, I was just thinking about what maybe happened there, too, not trying to offend or anything.”

Lucifer’s already unamused face stayed that way, even as Freya continued to flub her nonstop sentence.

“Can you please get serious?” ze said. “We’ve got work to do.”

“Cut me some slack,” she replied. “I already said I’m on break.”

Ze exhaled at length, the exasperation evident in hir breath. At times, ze just couldn’t understand why Freya got so ‘lusty’ from time to time. It seemed almost animalistic to hir, and could practically smell her hormones in the air.

But ze also realized this was the perfect time for revenge. Daze her, just like she did to hir during their fight months and months ago.

A feint for the real blow later.

“I wear what’s necessary,” Lucifer finally said. “Right now I’ve got on my mons pubis, honestly because it’s more aerodynamic to fly without any... dangly bits. Just hanging there. Getting in the way, as always.

“Or I could maybe wear a huge slab of manhood, meatily swinging away at all times, if that’s more to your preference. And if that’ll get you to shut up...”

Freya turned slightly red as the mental image flooded her mind. She did her best to shoo it away, but it simply crept into a corner and hid for a while.

“N-no,” she stammered. “That won’t be necessary. Let’s, uh, let’s get back to it, yeah?”

“Glad to hear it,” ze said in response. “And yeah, back to the business at hand.”

Lucifer peeked out of their hiding spot in multiple directions, and found few and far between the both of them. With everything clear, the two of them sped out of their hiding spot and ducked from shadow to shadow towards the nearest pair of patrolling sentires.

They quickly ran up behind them, knocked them out in the blink of an eye, and dragged their unconscious bodies into another shadowy corner.

They emerged from said shadow a few minutes later, all while adjusting the straps on their armor. Freya then checked her sidearm and ensured it was loaded, even as Lucifer walked towards the closest sealed door.

Both walked up to it, and went in together.

–

Freya: We’re in

Freya: It’s pretty massive

Freya: Gonna need a bit of help getting around

Raijin: Access a security terminal.

Raijin: They are likely to have access to the complete floor plan.

Lucifer: A barge this big ought to have tons of ’em.

Lucifer: Or do we need a primary terminal?

Raijin: Any will do.

Raijin: However...

Raijin: It is possible we will require one anyway.

–

The two of them descended down to the first deck below. Carefully at first, since they weren’t sure who was allowed on which decks. But once they saw a few other sentries patrolling one of the passageways, relaxed their stances.

Lucifer casually walked up to a control panel affixed to the wall at the nearest T-intersection. The semi-hidden panel slid open and revealed a one-person booth with a terminal inside. Without skipping a beat, Lucifer went in and began to crack hir way into it.

Hir fingers swept across the terminal’s screen rapidly, as ze went through the security menus and attempted to inject an interrupt through its command code. Though ze was experienced, ze didn’t have the breadth of knowledge that Raijin did.

–

Lucifer: Got one.

Lucifer: Need help getting access.

Lucifer: Never seen a system like this before.

Lucifer: More used to cracking Fed systems.

Raijin: You should see the systems in the Empire.

Raijin: But do not worry.

Raijin: I shall walk you through it.

–

With Raijin’s help, Lucifer tore hir way through the local security circuit and forcibly created hirself a root login to the security systems. Then ze pulled all the way back, and logged back in. But this time, with full permissions. Then ze dove into the files that the security station had access to.

While Lucifer hacked into the data with Raijin’s help, Freya perked her ears at the mostly-empty passageways around her. She heard the faint sound of animals howling, yelping, whining. It was accompanied by the sounds of humans yelling, cursing, ordering.

It was right at the edge of her hearing, but she could tell it was echoing from further down the ship.

And the sounds bothered her greatly.

The two of them had come at Max’s behest. He had apparently received a highly disturbing intelligence report, and needed someone to go take a look. That someone ended up being the Corvus Republic. And all they had to do was determine if the report was accurate.

Nothing more.

Freya herself didn’t read the report, of course. Her mind could barely handle the first few pages, though she wasn’t sure if that was Tiamat’s Transcendence or not. Either way, she instead let Lucifer take a good look in her stead.

From hir initial reaction it was apparent that ze didn’t like a single thing about what ze read. And oddly, ze never shared the details contained within.

“So was Max’s intel right?” she asked Lucifer. “I’m definitely sensing something really wrong about this place.”

“I don’t fully trust Max’s intel,” Lucifer replied. “Even Max doesn’t trust it. Said it came from an old, iffy source. We’re only checking it out to see if it’s true.”

“Anything on that terminal?”

“So far, nothing.”

“Well I can hear the sounds of, I dunno, torture, maybe? It’s too far for me to tell. But something’s definitely happening below.”

Lucifer grimaced at hearing that, and worked a little quicker than before to access the right files. Ze certainly didn’t want to believe the intelligence at all – it seemed a little too neatly packaged. And too obvious. There was something between the lines of the report that ze simply couldn’t trust.

More than that, ze didn’t want to believe in the report’s contents in the first place. They detailed too many inhumane cruelties to list. A hint of anger swept through hir as ze thought about the report again.

If what it said actually was true...

.....

“Found the labs,” ze said after a few seconds. “And there’s a whole lot of ’em. Literally five full decks, all dedicated to research, development, experimentation, you name it. There’s even hundreds of pens. Maybe thousands. It’s...”

Freya’s mouth fell open as Lucifer trailed off.

“We need to go deeper down,” she said. “We need to see what’s going on here with our own two eyes.”

The two of them steeled themselves, then continued further down the massive barge.