It took everything Maverick had to keep them both in place, one hand resting on Adam's arm. Inside her the void creature recoiled as anima energy bubbled up into his skin growing hot through his sleeve and radiating in Maverick's palms. It was only fortunate that Adam was so fully covered by clothing and a mask. Perhaps, people around them would have noticed the subtle glow, but that was not a chance they should have been willing to take.

Adam shifted, feeling his blood beginning to boil through his skin. It was one thing to worship the void, that was fine, everyone could choose even if that choice was clearly stupid, but to threaten his son was another thing. Kay wasn't involved in this, had never asked to be involved, and now these assholes were painting a target on his forehead

Destroyed

The word echoed around inside his head along with memories of Kay, smiling, and laughing, playing in the sand and cuddled up asleep holding his stuffed fish. How these people could target a child and think that they were in the right. Whatever this was had rapidly moved from a religion to a cult to a terrorist organiztion in a matter of few minutes.

Adam understood that targeting him or Sunny made sense. Both of them were military actors with political affiliations, but the moment these people targeted his son, a civilian noncombatant, was the moment he lost whatever sympathy he had for them.

You didn't target children.

Even worse to target specific children.

Even worse to target his son.

The oracle raised her hands, dark hair spilling around her shoulders, but whatever beauty he might have seen in her before had now been marred and twisted beyond recognition. Her smile was a gastly sneer, her long, slender nails were claws, her beautiful face was a grotesque perversion, "Step forward my fellows, connect yourself to the void, feel its energy course through you."

Behind her, the bone growth began to pulse with a slowly growing orange energy.

All around them the crowd began to move forward, feet shuffling and tripping like a horde of zombies, their eyes wide and their mouths open as they reached out towards the alien tumor.

As soon as their fingers touched bone, the chance was almost immediate. The Subtle orange glow grew brighter, heads tilted back, and exposed skin began to boil with shadow as their void companions were drawn upwards through their skin and to the surface, drinking in the energy.

At his side Maverik could feel the pull, but refused.

The oracle smiled

"Drink it in, drink in the energy of our enemies! Their souls refined for our purpose!"

Adam's hands clenched.

He grabbed Maverick's hand and moved forward to follow the crowd, which was forced further back and towards the center of the void growth in their effort to find an open spot. Maverick kept her arms crossed in an effort to avoid touching any of the cultists, whose bodies squirmed with pusing orange energy and shadowy ecstasy.

Adam kept his eyes forward, focused on the center of the tree.

Maverick glanced at him, not sure what he planned to do, not sure whether she should stop him or encourage him.

They continued their slow march forward, one of the last people in line before growth.

The only open spot, within reach, and without a cultist running their grubby hands over the bone, was the central section at the apex of what might have been the trunk, the point where all other branches spawned from.

It seemed like as good a place as Any.

Adam lifted his hand, but stopped as Maverick caught him around the wrist.

"What are you doing!?"

Both of them glanced around, waiting for their strange behavior to be noticed by someone, but the cultists were simply too preoccupied. The oracle was still preaching, her words no more than a background murmur to the strange feast that was happening at her back. She kept her hands raised, head tilted back as if drunk on her own words.

"I'm crashing a party." He tried to pull his hand away from her but she strengthened her grip.

'You have no idea what will happen to you if you touch that thing."

"Trust me."

Maverick paused, unsure. She had trusted Adam in the past, and it usually worked out for the better but.... These people had threatened Kay, and she wasn'[t sure she could even trust his judgment. His voice sounded calm enough, but that didn't mean that he was calm inside his head.

That's when the hand came down on her shoulder.

She nearly lept out of her skin, spinning to find a strange masked woman standing at her back.

She reached into her jacket for the knife that waited there, but paused when she looked into the eyes behind the mask.

"Celex...."

The woman smiled, showing a row of perfectly straight, white teeth. His voice filled her head, "Trust him."

She paused reluctantly letting go of Adam's hand as his fingers stretched towards the tree.

The sheer amount of times they had run into problems because Adam touched something he wasn't supposed to, couldn't simply be counted on one or even two hands, but here they were, and now she was letting him do it again.

Maverick Kept back, switching places with Celex, who extended his own hand

The two of them closed their eyes feeling the hypnotic thrum of the void cult around them.

The Oracle's voice grew in pitch and volume.

Her words no longer seemed to make sense, filling the air around them.

And then

Their fingers touched bone.

At first it was like placing their hands on an electric fence, a ojlt of energy rolling through their bodies, but then the energy stopped, blocked by a wall as they resisted the push of void energy.

But.... was that void energy?

Celex would be the first to notice, and as the void energy batted against his skin, his mind was filled with strange fragments, memories, thoughts, feelings, a sense of horrible terrible pain. He grimaced,and it took everything he had just to keep his hand in place.

He saw light.

Heard a soft voice.

Felt a gentle caress against his kin.

But all f that was drowned out by unimaginable pain, and fear.

The pain of being ripped apart piece by piece endlessly, and forever.

His hand trembled, and the sensation caused a cold sweat to break out across his human body.

He felt dizzy, and sick and almost lost his balance were it not for Maverick, who moved forward to hold him upright.

Adam was not so sensitive, and so did not feel the pain.

But he could feel the wrongness just fine.

It needed to be destroyed.in

Eyes squeezed shut, his body tensed, and the steady glow that had been emanating from his skin became a flicker, and then a radiant pulsing beacon, hidden beneath his jacket, mask and gloves.

His body began to heat, his clothing began to smoke lightly.

Beside him, Celex followed his lead, still held up by maverick, who could barely stand to touch him as the void energy pulsed against her skin, exciting the thing inside her as it tried to claw its way to the surface.

And then golden light appeared under Adam's palm.

It began as a radiant golden circle, that then began to splinter and diverge in veins and capillaries that crawled its way through pale bone like cracks in glass. The golden light grew stronger searing maverick's eyes to the point where she closed off her eyepieces, plunging her into near total darkness.

But still she could feel the radiating heat.

Void energy battled against the slow spread of anima energy, and as it was pushed back, Celex regained himself, pressing his hand harder against the bone until golden light was streaming from his own hands rapidly joining and then overtaking Adam as golden cracks continued to splinter through the void bone.

The air around them was practically vibrating

The air hissed and sizzled.

The oracle's voice had died away, sensing something strange.

Cult members who came in contact with the burning orange strands leaped back, falling to the floor as if whatever had been holding them in place had snapped.

The oracle turned, and screamed.

Maverick turned, unglazing her eyepieces just in time to see the oracle hunch over, black shadow pulling its way from her body, clawing upwards towards the light as shards of bone erupted in spikes along her spine. Behind her, the other two were too preoccupied to notice, and maverick took the opportunity.

Inside her own body, the void creature was let free.

Shadows boiled up around her as it tore itself from her skin, lifting her upwards by a collection of shadowy spider legs, leaving her suspended in the air, and towering over the crawling void creature that was once the oracle.

Maverick stepped forward with a skitter, and the oracle backed away in confusion.

Around them the cultists mewled in confusion as the last of them leapt away, falling to the floor. Golden veins of light pulsed throughout the bone growth, invading every corner of open white until a lattice of gold was all that remained.

And then

The void growth shattered, and with it cam a a massive burst of energy that vaporized the stone of the outline temple, and doused the torches across the entire city.

What remained was a smoldering heap of rubble and a tableau of fallen bodies, still but somehow still hole under the night sky and its vast array of stars

It was only a moment of shocked silence and stillness, before the first cultists chest began to rise and fall in the steady rhythm of breath.