#cee speaks into the void | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

party-of-rpg-muses · 3 years

Text

Bringers of Light and Shadow (FFXIV Story)

@loona-cee @chronochronicler

With a grand roar, the beast known as Therion breathed it’s last breath, falling to the purple ground before erupting in a buff of smoke. The party put their weapons away as the rest of the Scions managed to catch up to them. At the same time, Emet-Selch approached the group of heroes, his footsteps breaking through the dense silence.

The Warriors of Light turned Warriors of Darkness kept their gaze fixed on the Ascian before them, but their vision repeatedly faded before they refocused once again; they managed to hold back the Warden’s Light more or less, but each passing moment proved harder and harder.

“Well, well. It seems you have prevailed...” Emet-Selch finally spoke. But rather this a light-hearted tone of congratulations, his words dripped with spite, as if he wasn’t happy S’bera and his team survived. “However...” With a wave of his arm, a powerful blast of darkness spewed forth, knocking the Scions off their feet. S”bera and his team stood firm, but were left winded, kneeling between Emet-Selch and the Scions, hardly any energy to stand from such a blast.

“Your performance was appalling and I remain unconvinced of your worth. Doubtless, you and yours stand leagues above the rabble you surround yourself. But you are very much a beetle amongst a group of ants, standing before a lion. If I had used my full strength, you would be nothing more than dust in the wind.” His words matched his gaze, looking down upon the Warriors and Scions with contempt, offended that they dare to exist within the same plane of existence as him. “Such is the truth between us; incomplete and broken reflections against the true article and your world, nothing compared to what it once was.”

Out of nowhere, Alisaie let out a grunt as she charged forward. “Alisaie, no!” S’bera called out, but it was too late. Alisaie’s blade met with a barrier protecting Emet-Selch. He made no physical reaction, as if a leaf was blowing towards him.

“So what if our worlds are nothing like yours?” Undeterred by the barrier, she struck and slashed at the magical wall protecting her opponent, trying in vain to make some sort of impact. “They are still our homes, still full of life and and beauty! And we’ll be damned if we let someone like you take away all we hold dear, just because you don’t like it!”“

Emet-Selch’s brow furrowed, hearing her talk about their “homes” as if they had any right to compare to his home. He brought a single hand up, firing a weaker blast of darkness, striking the young Elezen girl as her brother came rushing to her side. “You speak of beauty, but we of Amaurot know what true beauty-what true perfection-is. What you of the Source and the other reflections are but crude mockeries of that beauty. And the pathetic excuses of lives you lead are just as crude, lacking in meaning and purpose.”

Alphinaud’s arms wrapped around his sister’s form, holding her head to his chest as if protecting her from future harm. “Say what you will; though our lives are hardly a flicker compared to what you live, we will rise again and again and through our words and actions, we can achieve great things. We are the ones who define our own worth, not you!”

With a snap of his finger, several arrows of darkness appeared from the air and embedded themselves in the ground around the twins before exploding, each one dealing heavy damage. Once the dust had cleared, Alphinaud and Alisaie lay hunched over, no longer moving.

The Warriors of Darkness looked on at the sight before them, the twins left a crumpled mess as they struggled to their feet, their whole bodies shaking as they rose. “You... You lied to us...” S’bera spoke, practically leading his friends as they all slowly marched towards Emet-Selch. As he spoke, there was something different about him; the markings on his face had already turned a blank white.

“You said that... we could fight to... prove our worth...” Ishita spoke up next, the dark purple horns on her face the same pure white.

“But you had... no intention of letting us go... did you...?” Next was Omutu, eyes shined through his helmet of darkness, but rather than the usual green eyes, they were white as well.

Their visions were partially obscured in white; each of them could feel the Lightwarden’s essence slowly eating away at them. They had to hold on... for as long as possible.

“And what if I did? Does it matter? Your time is up anyway. And once I reclaim what is rightfully mine, the first thing I shall do is expunge your very existence from the memory of this star.” The Ascian held his hands out, a concentrated blast shooting out of each of his fingers, only to be blocked by a barrier. Y’shtola and Urianger have regained consciousness, ready to assist their friends.

“While it is true that all we love will one day fade to dust...” Y’shtola raised her staff, concentrating as much of her aether as possible.

“The actions we take shalt remain as a guide for those who wouldst come after, to continue upon our legacy.” Urianger said, as calm as ever as Y’shtola’s finished her preparation, letting go with a powerful Flare spell at their foe.

It didn’t take long for the dust to clear, leaving Emet-Selch with nary a scratch as he fired a pair of beams at the two, taking them out with one fell swoop.

“We’re... not done yet...” Frances spoke next, just barely trying to keep her usual detached exterior together. All the while, white patches started to appear on her light-tanned skin.

“So long... as we draw breath... we’ll continue to fight...” U’tala’s black hair, even the hair on her feline ears, had completely turned white with white spots appearing on her tail.

“Oh, poor wanderers.” Emet-Selch responded, speaking to them in a tone one could swear was openly insulting. “You wish to spend your last moments struggling against the inevitable. You’ve no fight left to fight; no life left to live.”

The group had only managed to take a few more steps before the corrupted aether within them flared up, causing each to groan and hold themselves in pain, once again falling to their knees in agony. Again and again, the light flared, desperately trying to push back against the Warriors’ attempts to contain it.

The Ascian could only look on and grin, seeming to enjoy what was happening before him. “Oh, come now~ You are Hydaelyn’s Chosen, are you not? Her Warriors of Light, correct?” He sounded like he was on the verge of laughing. “No sense trying to deny HER Light! Let the light consume you and purge our land of the vermin that infest it!”

As if on cue, Thancred charged forward, Gunblade at the ready as he brought it down towards Emet-Selch, only for the man to easily block the attack as well. “Now, Ryne! Hurry! They haven’t much time!”

The young girl quickly mustered her strength and ran towards the group, her gaze set on stemming the light within them.

However, the former Garlean Emperor saw what she was trying to do, effortlessly pushing Thancred back before preparing another attack. “No!” Thancred immediately rushed to where Emet-Selch was aiming, diving forward as he turned, hoping to cover as much area as possible to protect Ryne. But it was for naught as the darkness pierced through both him and Ryne at the same time.

Ryne only managed a few more steps before falling to her knees. “Fight it... You must... hang on...” That was all she was able to say before falling over.

The party could only look on, their eyes scanning around them and seeing the bodies of their comrades who tried to protect them. But suddenly, the corrupted light aether swelled up again, pushing back even harder than before. They tried to hold it back, but it was a losing battle as they each coughed up what’s would normally be blood, if it wasn’t completely white.

“This... can’t be... the end...” S’bera was the first to fall, his strength completely gone as he fell, his vision going white.

“I couldn’t... protect... anyone...” Omutu was next, his armor clanging against the ground, his vision going white as well.

“Tala...” Ishita could barely hold her hand out towards her Miqo’te girlfriend. “Ishi...” U’tala could barely do the same. Both had regrets in their eyes, being unable to help each other and that they would die like this. They fell forward, the tips of their fingers mere inches apart as their vsion went white.

“Mother... Father... My friends and home...” Frances’ thoughts were off the people she knew and loved; her parents, the friends of her parents, her home, and the friends she made. She’ll never see them again and even worse; she’ll be somewhat responsible for the deaths of the people from the Source. Those were her last thoughts as she fell over and all she could see was white.

S’bera awoke in a pure white void as he lifted his head up, only being strong enough to prop himself onto his elbow. He looked around, unable to see his friends. Is this... the end? The next world? Or perhaps, this is what awaited those who became corrupted by the essence of the Lightwardens. But he immediately noticed someone standing beside him; Ardbert.

“Is this truly it? The Warrior of Light who traveled to another world only to die. Is this truly how your story ends?” The Hume spoke, not even meeting the weakened Miqo’te eye-to-eye. “If you had the strength, would you continue to fight? Fight until your last breath? To die on your feet, fighting for what you believe in?”

“I would.” S’bera wasted no time in responding; the experiences of his travels having shaped him into someone more willing to fight for those he cares about. To fight to the bitter end in the name of all that is good. But... what can he do? This was the end of his journey, of their journey. A pitiful end to the Champions of Eorzea.

“Hmph.” Ardbert couldn’t help but smirk, seeming to be satisfied by the Dragoon’s response, but also sensing the despair in his soul. He reached onto his back and took a hold of his axe, holding the blade towards S’bera. “Take it. We are Warriors and together, we’ll fight for the fate of our worlds.”

Omutu awoke within an empty void planting his hands on... whatever served as a floor as he surveyed his location, nothing but white for miles. He looked to where he friends last were, but saw nothing.

“You gave it your all, but it still wasn’t enough.” The voice caught the Lalafell’s attention, causing him to turn his head and look up towards Branden, the Galdjent Paladin standing tall, looking forward with his arms crossed. “I saw how you fight; to protect those you hold dear. If given the chance, would you do all in your power to protect them?”

“I would. With my very life.” His response was stern with no hesitation. Long had he resolved himself to protect others with no regard for his own life. But this time was different; he protects those he cares about because he cares about them, the people who made him feel like he truly belonged.

“Hm.” Branden smiled, reaching onto his waist and took a hold of his Paladin’s sword, holding the hilt towards Omutu. “Full glad am I to hear that. You truly are an honorable man, so allow me to assist you.”

Ishita gasped, immediately looking around the void before looking to her side, where U’tala laid, but no one was there. No one was anywhere. She was left all alone in the nothingness.

“So that’s it, then?” A voice broke the silence, causing Ishita to turn her head towards the source, spotting Nyelbert. “A great mage going down without a fight. I find it rather hard to believe you of all people managed to master black and white magicks.” The Elf couldn’t help but pause for a moment. “Tell me, if given a second chance, would you continue to hone your skills?”

“I will.” Her eyes furrowed. She took pride in her magic and she’s nowhere near done yet. But first... there’s an Ascian to take down and a world to save. Two worlds, rather. She’ll show him just how strong her “imperfect” magic is.

“Very well.” Nyelbert took a hold of his staff, holding the tip towards the Au Ra. “I’ll admit, your skills are rather impressive, even by my standards. I have faith in your growth.”

U’tala awoke amongst the nothingness, first looking to her side, only to find Ishita missing. Her gaze scanned the endless expanse, but there didn’t seem to be a soul around except her. But her sights came to rest on a Dwarven girl clad in white robes.

“How painfully tragic...” Lamitt’s tone was soft, almost sorrowful. “I saw how fiercely you made sure everyone was safe and healthy, especially your beloved. I’m quite touched by your dedication. So I have to ask, if you had more energy, would you continue to assist those you love? Heal them, regardless of injury?”

“I will.” U’tala responded, her eyes burning with determination. Omutu may take the role of protecting the group, it’s U’tala’s job to make sure he’s standing. Not just him, but make sure everyone can continue to fight and even augment their strength if need be.

“I’m glad to hear.” Lamitt smiled as she looked at U’tala, removing her staff and holding the tip towards the Miqo’te. “Take it and we’ll help them together.”

Frances blinked her eyes, looking up before looking around, nothing but white as far as the eyes could see. She couldn’t find any hint of her friends; she was truly and utterly alone. At least, until she sensed someone else standing next to her. Craning her head, she noticed a Mystel girl standing right next to her.

“A shame, isn’t it?” Renda’s gaze fell forward, seeming to look directly into the endless expanse. “The hunter has become the hunted. But you’re not done yet, are you? Your skills are about as good as mine. If given the chance, would you be willing to fire another arrow?”

Frances gave a single nod. “Yes. I’ll hit him in his third eye.” A bold claim. And given how small that third eye is, it’d be nearly impossible to hit... for anyone else but her. While she’s confident in her skills, she’s most confident in her archery. But above all else, she has to help the people she calls her lifelong friends.

“Good.” Renda-Rae reached behind her to grab her bow, holding one of the sides to the Viera. “Take it and together, we’ll become the best hunters in the land, taking down this legendary prey.”

Each of the Warriors from the Source reached out to the weapons held out by the Warriors from the First. There was no fear or hesitation in their movements, ready for what may come. But the moment their fingers made contact with the weapon, they suddenly found themselves no longer along. As though the sheets had been pulled back, the group of friends saw each other.

“Omutu? Tala? Ishi? Frances?” S’bera’s eyes fell upon his friends, who looked back at him and each other with equal surprise.

“Ardbert...?” Lamitt’s eyes welled up with fresh tears as she saw the Hume, overcome with joy.

“My friends...” Ardbert stood stunned for but a moment before shaking his head, S’bera doing the same as they brought themselves to attention. “Now’s not the time. We have more important matters.” The other Warriors for the First nodded in agreement, the look of shock being replaced with one of steeled determination.

“Come now, everyone. We have a battle before us.” Arbdert and S’bera spoke in unison, looking forward, the others also looking forward, ready to stand up and fight once again.

“For the light of the Crystals!” Ardbert commanded, his voice booming, ready to fight.

“For the light of Hydaelyn!” The others responded, their voices ringing together, their tone showing how ready they were.

“For those we have lost...” S’bera started, waiting for his own party to follow up.

“For those we can save!” The others cried out, burning with determination from their rallying cry.

A sudden burst of light erupted, causing Emet-Selch to look away from the blinding light. As the light began to fade, a newly revitalized. Not only that, but their clothes had changed; S’bera with a new dark purple Dragoon armor, Omutu changing from Dark Knight back to Paladin, U’tala’s garb becoming a fancy astronomer robe, Ishita now wore red high-end clothes and a beautiful red hat, and Frances donned the garb of a well-versed traveler complete with a fine scarf.

“Know this...” Even though it was S’bera who was speaking, his voice was noticable different; as though two people were talking at the exact same time.

“This world is not yours to end.” Omutu stepped forward, standing side-by-side with S’bera. And just like the Miqo’te, he spoke with two voices.

“This is our future.” Ishita did the same, standing on the other side of S’bera. But not only did it sound like she also had two voices, one of the two was notably more masculine

“This is our story.” Next was U’tala, standing next to Omutu. But the one of the voices that came from her sounded softer.

“And it will continue on.” Finally, Frances took her place next to Ishita. Again, two distinct voices came from her mouth as she spoke.

Emet-Selch did his best to focus, looking towards the party. But rather than their actual appearace, he saw robed Ancients. But the one that stood in the middle drew most of his attention. “No... That’s impossible!” He glred back at the group, angry at the sight he saw. But with a blink of his eyes, his vision returned, laying eyes on the beings from the Source.

“Bah! A mere trick is what it is. You are both broken reflections, nothing more.” He stance straightened, seeming to calm down somewhat. “You are incomplete. Useless. What hope do you have of standing up to a true living being?”

“The hope of the future.” All five of them spoke, no longer with their dual-voices. “We challenge you, Emet-Selch. For the future of this star and the many others.”

The Ascian gritted his teeth, glaring daggers at them, equal parts enraged and offended that they would dare challenge him. “Very well.” His words seeped with spite. “One final test. I shall see your strength, your resolve, firsthand. The victor shall continue and become the hero of the story, while the other goes down in history as its villain.” Darkness swirled and gathered around him. He raised his hand up, balling it into a fist as he slowly brought it down, seeming to focus the power before looking back up at the party.

As he lifted his head, the red Ascian mask appear over his face. “I am Hades!” His voice was markedly different from before. it was deeper and more commanding. “I am he who shall awaken our brothers and sisters from their slumber and retake our home from these mockeries!” His power swelled outward, consuming all around him. Whenever light remained was snuffed out, leaving naught but a single platform to host the battle to decide the future.

#outofexp #FFXIV Story #Final Fantasy XIV

1 note · View note

cruell-summers · 10 months

Text

there is something so amazing about Taylor writing Long Live at 19 as a goodbye letter of sorts to her fans in case her new album failed, and then rerecording and releasing it at 33 while in the middle of an incredibly successful world tour, 17 years into her career

#i love long live so much and it hits so hard #hearing it rerecorded for the first time might be a new core moment for me #📀: speak now tv #🎤: taylor swift #long live #speak now tv #speak now taylor’s version #taylor swift #the eras tour #swifties #cee speaks into the void

2K notes · View notes

maniacace · 2 days

Text

the last week has really confirmed that no, i'm really not a debate club gay

#i have no fucking idea what i'm doing #it's 1:30 am and i'm preparing a doc with all the instructions bc i got lost halfway through #and the topic is ai regulation which i know a few things about but. i got fucking portugal #i know NOTHING about portugal so i had to do a three-day investigation #did you guys know spain and portugal shared kings at one point #and the event lasts two whole days how tf am i going to survive this without making a fool out of myself #the things i do for two fucking points in ethics #i'm going to start tagging my high school related posts as such bc i'm complaining about it sm #cee tries to survive high school hell #c speaks into the void

0 notes

neverendingcomplaints · 3 years

Text

And now my watch has ended.

25% Love. 95% Hate. Does that make sense? About as much as this series.

Episodes 6 and 7 were actually good imo. Some moments of “who cares” and WTF but overall, enjoyable without making me hate myself for watching! Episode 7 was a whole crackfic and I was here for it. And I thought the whole Battle of the Bands crap was going to be boring but I was here for the whole Satanic Panic storyline, Zombie Killer In-Law, The Return of Dorcas and Mambo’s game with Lazarus! 2 morningstars in the midst of 6 episodes of VOID lol.

But they really did 2 songs that Glee already did. It was bad enough when Glee did them, too. Lol.

What exactly happened with Lillith and baby Adam? So she really killed him and was going to serve him to Lucifer on a platter? I thought Hilda had him? Speaking of the Devil, why was he so weak? I don’t understand. Is Lillith now the ruler of Hell? What?

So Sabrina dies and Nick basically kills himself to be with her...in Heaven? How? Um...

We saw everybody but God lol. Not even the oft-mentioned Nazarene. I thought may Trinketman was the Big Guy in the Sky but no. I just wish there had been more Celestial Realm involvement in general.

OMG ORIGINAL AUNT ZELDA AND AUNT HILDA!?!?!?!?!?! Made my day.

Forgot to add Luke Cook to my list of actors who deserve better. Lucifer went out like a complete wimp, given who he was.

I hate when Nick gets all whiny and pining lol. His earnest-boy-in-love just felt so put on every time and I hated it. But in the end, he was better with Sabrina than Harvey.

So glad Mambo Marie is gone.

So...Dr. Cee and Hilda are moving in with Zelda? I don’t like that.

Why were there 2 exactly-the-same Sabrinas, and why did the one who was the Queen of LITERAL HELL worry about misogyny and letting souls go? What the actual ... ?

And Ms. Wardwell is now apparently the Preacher of the Church of Faustus. Hell help us lol.

The only satisfying (and not also confusing) thing about the end was that Sabrina was dead.

#CAOS #CAOS spoilers #finally it is over #Netflix is my boyfriend

2 notes · View notes

turnloosethelibrary · 6 years

Photo

Balance

By Cee

It had started with the ascension of the Princess Lelimori. It always does, in the end. Someone who grasps power they were told they deserved will either use it stupidly or ruthlessly. At first, it seemed the raven haired girl - that’s all she was really, a girl, the elders had reasoned - would be the former. Her soft face and long lashes and quiet manner and great love of tea parties didn’t seem to amount to any other result. The castle guards who saw her grow thought her happy. They missed her scowls, her dark nights in the castle’s laboratory, her tinkering, her preoccupation with things with more than four legs and anger flashes.

That was how she lowered their defenses. Frivolities and deadly innocence.

At first, her proclamations had been almost nonsensical ideas that were easy enough to follow. They didn’t seem to serve any true purpose. House hounds couldn’t be let out past noon. Honey and candle wax were to be left out on the windowsills at night. Black ants were to be left alive. Red ants? Drowned with milk.

Then she issued the color decrees. Certain colors could only be worn by nobility, then by no one at all. Purple was the first color to be scrapped. They escalated, including the most common dyes. The Princess sent out her construct to ensure these were enforced. The unlucky few who were first visited by the Paintist had their clothes burned. Those who were able to catch the word of these events started keeping tubs of ink and oil to dye their clothes in. There wasn’t major protestation. It was odd, not belligerent, they said even as their neighbors were stripped naked for a single thread of green, even as they looked to the ground and mumbled apologies and had their shirts ripped off.

The village of Demokyos was of particular interest to The Princess. She visited it multiple times when she first ascended, when the world thought her only happy. The village of Demokyos had two things to its name - its proximity to the River then, of memories and their mayor. Angeline - for their mayor was named after those helpers of the gods themselves - wore the rainbow cloaked around her shoulders. She was colorful, both physically and spiritually. Never was there a frown in her village, for she bent herself over backwards to make each villagers life a joyous adventure. On the last night before their lives changed, the Princess had visited it for the last time. She got in an argument with the mayor. No one knew what it was over, but they did know a few facts.

The mayor steadfast, wanting to protect her village. The Princess was just as stubborn. The mayor laughed at The Princess. She went missing the next day, while She left the village to get ready for the Remembrance Day.

Hers was the first memory stone that was crushed. The river hadn’t had time to claim it, wrap its muddy arms around it, and it was as bright and colorful as she had been, still fresh with her blood that had been a few days stale when Demokyos realized who hung from the willow tree. The Princess took a metal device of warm silver on that Remembrance Day and grabbed the stone with metal fingers.

“Now,” The Princess spoke, smiled giddily, “Now, I shall free all of you. We will all be balanced.”

She closed the tongs, tighter and tighter and slowly, slowly, cracks formed making bloated veins of rock. They echoed with a volume that should not have been possible for a stone so small. The initial ripple of fear quieted as hush descended upon the crowd as they realized what their Princess was doing. Never again would they be able to commune with their deceased mayor. Rebirth was impossible without her stone. Whispered recollections of favored events would be gone to the void. There would be no more celebration and wonder around each new birth, wondering who had returned beyond to them. The few colors that were present - it was a red day - seemed too bright for the event, too much like the blood that had taken their friends, families.

That was the moment the elders realized what they had lost. That was the moment the Princess felt true power. That was the moment the Princess became the Queen. She did the same to five other rock in the river. A deep red one that once belonged to a great hunter, a purple one that had belonged to her Holy mother. A dark blue speckled one that had been a knight, the light orange one of a poet, the green of a child departed too soon. She took them at random but each stone brought out carried a cry of grief from a mother, a partner, a grandchild, a shade from their past life. The few who dared speak up against their Princess were seized by something from the shadows. There were no trumpets bellowing the way home that first night, and past then, they didn’t even bother to bring out the instruments of brass. There was no cause.

She sent her troops out after that first night, certain in her power than she had ever been before. On every street corner and alleyway stood those dark insectoid soldiers.They feasted on what was left in windowsills. When people started to slip poison in the honey, the ones who couldn't clear the corpse out fast enough went missing along with their household. It was a coincidence that the new soldiers sent out after were in the same number of those who had disappeared. A total coincidence. Color hurt them. All color was outlawed. The Color Decrees were used as a base. People started either lightening their skin with flour and paper pulp or darkened it with charr and resin. Those who couldn't manage it were sent out of the cities in long chain lines, headed by the biggest ants. None returned. Some went blind trying to dull the color in their eyes but when faced with the fact that a blind populous was unable to flourish in the environment she had created, The Princess relented. Blues and Greens and Browns remained safe, only in the eyes of her subjects. There was some hope there, if the windows to the soul could fall under tyranny, then truly, anything could, if they couldn’t, then anything could stand against tyranny.

The walk to the River of the Dead (it had a new purpose now, it got a new name, it was slowing, never as fast as it had once been, it was turning dark as sand) was no longer jubilant. Where once there were colorful parades with trumpets celebrating the memory of the dearly departed, now the town walked in a line, paired up. Completely silent.

The people bowed, they had nothing else to do. Rebellion was quelled, in the public eye at least. Children rebelled - though they knew not how - by taking rocks from the river, hiding them in their pockets and in lockets of dull silver. This didn’t accomplish anything other than keeping the spirits in the stone alive, but when their parents discovered the stolen river seeds, they cried tears of joy.

They finally saw her as their Queen, they said in public, and that was all she ever wanted. The title of The Princess kept her young, made her immortal. She still had her tea parties, only her peasants ate only scraps of stale bread and rainwater. She was as quiet as ever. No one told her she was happy anymore. Her experiments were done in plain daylight but still, no one saw.

Her rule was of balance between darkness and light. Perfect, cruel, balance. Balance was happiness and compromise, wasn’t it? That’s how cities topple and how her reign was ever ingrained - the promise of happiness, the lie of balance, complacency and the slow boiling of the water.

Still, no plan was perfect and never was there ever a tyrant who didn’t meet his end by his own sword. There were five stones left when it happened, when the now quiet murmur of the river grew to a deafening roar of a mob. Some said it was lead by a trusted servant, some a lover, some a good friend, some a total stranger and that she simply hadn’t expected resistance. There were only so many explanations why she hesitated one, two seconds before calling her army. Those two seconds were near enough for Her to be overcome in her own throne room. She was hung in a willow tree, kicking all the way, asking “How Could You Do This To Me, I Am Your Queen.” Neither mercy nor forgiveness were thoughts in her mind. Perhaps if they were, there would’ve been a wet eye in the land of willow trees. She was hung as dawn broke, sky turning the same color of the blood they took from Her. They made Her a memory stone. All their rulers got one. The era of breaking tradition was (almost) over. Those brave rebels, not quite children, not quite adults, Her peers in age only, marched the stone to the River. It had to be there it all finished.

Only five stones remained in that River of the Dead, the rest either stolen or crushed. Two for the light, two for the dark and just one, to tip the balance forever, a gray stone belonging to both and to neither. Just one would’ve balanced it perfectly.

The people of Demokyos made Her stone the last of the metal arm’s casualties.

#short fiction #turn loose the library #TLTL stories #short story #fantasy #Cee #dystopic fantasy is a good term yes yes

11 notes · View notes

seagull-books · 6 years

Text

‘Mokusei! A Love Story’ by Cees Nooteboom—An Excerpt

He ordered a second espresso. One thing at any rate he was sure of, as he looked at the face of the girl who put his order in front of him, that it was not the Japanese in her that had attracted him in the first place. It was the Japanese within the Japanese, he could not express it any more clearly than that. To him, there would always remain something unreal in all those closed faces, but hers had by nature a double layer, not the plastic model of the Westernized doll’s head with the clipped eyelids that you saw everywhere around, but a mask underneath the mask, as if an older layer of the population, of the people was present inside her. Mongols, Ainus, Kirghiz, a magic, unknown tribe of nomads, a clan from the steppe that had settled within her, so that through her you were connected with long- lost times, with something that no longer existed and that would never come back.

That was how she had looked at him, again this time, when he said he wanted to go out for a short walk. He always had to take care not to lose himself in her gaze for too long, otherwise he would lie sleepless beside her for hours. He had quickly opened the rice-paper sliding door and had stepped out. But before reaching the outer door he had turned around once more. She was already half-undressed and stood in the narrow opening, a white erotic statue, a scarcely moving image against the bare interior of the Japanese room. His vision became double, that of a lover and a photographer. The lover knew he should not have looked back, because she would be lost to him as a result; the photographer, on the other hand, caught the entire image all the more eagerly in a frame: the rice-paper doors, the panels in the narrow wooden surrounds, painted with mountain landscapes in light grey shades, fine, washed brushstrokes hinting at rather than representing nature. Because the door had been slid aside, the landscape no longer matched. It seemed as if even the imagined world had become double, had shifted to one side, while in the centre a void had occurred, behind which, in the middle of the room, she rose like a goddess of doom.

The first time he had seen her, five years ago, her face had received the name that he still muttered to himself, whenever he thought of her. Snowy Mask. He had come to Japan for an utterly banal purpose: to compile a travel brochure for a distinguished, though of course commercial, organization. But even if it had been a documentary about cement works or prisons, he would still have come. His world, and this was a fact to which he had resigned himself, was the world of brochures, of ephemera that no one would ever look at again; the decay, the sell-out, the morass. It wasn’t actually so much a question of having resigned himself to it—he had taken a decision about it. He knew he wasn’t good enough to be so independent that he could choose his own subjects, and even if anyone would, it was hardly possible to make a living that way. He had once baffled De Goede, when the subject cropped up, by showing him his favourite photograph.

‘I always carry it with me,’ he had said, timidly as if it were childish to always carry with you what was dearest to you, like a taxi driver keeping the picture of his wife and children on the dashboard. He had stuck the photograph to the inside of his camera case. It was his talisman, his amulet, but that was nobody’s business. It was a page cut from Zoom. For a moment it had seemed as though De Goede would burst out laughing. His slightly rotund, soft, white body wrapped in a too-small kimono, had sunk lower into the chair, the hand with the signet ring had held the photograph away from him; he, Arnold, was not allowed to look at it now. But he knew it by heart, as if he had taken it a hundred times. It was a photograph from 1858 and there wasn’t really anything in it. He had first seen it in the Notman Photographic Archives, in the McCord Museum in Montreal. His attention had initially been drawn only to the shape, for while the two bottom corners were rectangular, as they should be, the two top corners curved rather oddly so that the whole photograph was shaped like a tunnel, a dark tunnel at that. ‘The prairie on the bank of the Red River, Humphrey Lloyd Hime’, it said—and this was exactly what the picture showed, a grey, leaden, old-fashioned plain in which prairie and water seemed to merge into each other without distinction. The horizon was a straight line; above it hung an equally desolate sky of a lighter grey, without any nuances. Two fields of grey, in fact, one darker, one lighter. And yet, when you looked longer, something like movement began to appear in those dead expanses of grey, a fraction of the light in the upper area had imparted itself to the darker area below, so that something of the light which had shone on that sombre river that day had been preserved; few streaks, a few patches, a flicker, just as the light of the stars tries to speak of something that happened before there were people and would try to do so even if no people had ever come into existence, although in that case the question arose: Why or, rather, for whose benefit?

In the foreground you finally saw, if you went on looking long enough, a faint, almost dirty line that was supposed to represent the bank, the beginning of the flat, no doubt muddy, land on which the ridiculous photographer must have stood with his tripod, drinking in light in order to record this sad, empty scene without people, trees or animals.

Albumen-silver from a glass negative. It moved him in a way that made him afraid to speak of it, for if he did he would have to say that you really ought to cry when you looked at it.

‘Mono no aware,’ De Goede had said.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘“The pathos of things”. That is a notion they have here, you’ll hear it mentioned plenty of times. It means exactly what it says. It sounds like it, too.’

‘Mono no aware,’ the photographer had repeated the words and had never forgotten them. They fitted the photographer exactly.

‘What would you most have liked to photograph, if you didn’t have to do all this rubbish?’

‘Stones.’

De Goede had laughed, and what was worse, he had been unable to stop, until Arnold Pessers realized that this was meant to indicate a special kind of agreement. But that was all a long time ago.

Mokusei! A Love Story by Cees Nooteboom, translated from the Dutch by Adrienne Dixon, is available from Seagull Books. You can buy your copy here.

2 notes · View notes

lhs3020b · 7 years

Text

The Renegade

I’ve had several ideas for alternative ends for ME3. I figured, what the hell, I might as well write one of them down.

The story below the cut is a frustrating one - I have the beginning (it’s right here) and I have this, the end. What I don’t have, and probably never will, is the bits in the middle.

Still, I do feel like Reaper!Shep might have an interesting tale to tell, even if it is rather dark. Just how far would you go to win ... ?

‘Harbinger. You’re late.’

Shepard looked irritated, as well she might. Whilst a necessity, this wasn’t a welcome encounter. She shifted in the chair. The opera house surrounded them on all sides. High above, dark chandeliers reflected glitters of light from stage show down below. Luxurious chairs were ordered into tiered rows, curving out on either side of them.

Harbinger’s Collector form had injected itself into the row adjacent to her. The familiar crackles of energy moved over its body – electric discharges, she understood now, little surges of plasma running through the air. Dramatic to look at, they were a by-product of the powerful dark energy fields the Collector’s biotics could summon. Shepard’s lips pursed in amusement. She now understood that the light-show was actually accidental, an unintended by-product of mass effect physics. For all of their technological superiority, the Reapers had never quite figured out how to get rid of the unsubtle corona. The gods themselves were fallible – but then, she wouldn’t be sat here right now, having this meeting, if they were all-knowing.

Harbinger’s glowing eyes regarded her. ‘Shepard,’ it said. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Watching the show,’ she said, waving an arm expansively at the stage below them. Many tiers of seats down, near the floor of the grand old opera house, the band were holding forth. Giant speakers loomed over them and coloured lights strobed over the scene. Riffs cascaded out and the throbbing of drums washed over them. None of the players showed any awareness of their audience – but then, they wouldn’t.

Harbinger spared a glance for the band. ‘Expel 10?’ it rasped. ‘Really, Shepard?’

She shrugged. ‘I like them. And I’ll damn well listen to whatever I want. Oh, by the way? Fuck you.’ With studied insolence, she took a look at her own fingernails.

Harbinger wasn’t one for subtlety. It said, ‘You’re wasting your time.’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘You just crossed the orbit of Mars.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘You’ve only got another twenty-eight minutes to Earth.’

‘Less for me. Quite a bit less for me. Relativistic effects – Einstein’s such a pissy bitch. Just as well I’m overclocking the fuck out of this, really.’

‘You’re still accelerating,’ Harbinger said.

‘Are you here to bore me to death? I know that.’ Shepard mimed a yawn.

Down below on the stage, the drummer exploded. It was quite sudden. Gizzards fountained everywhere. A drumstick hit the guitarist on the head. He batted it away with a hand and an irritated scowl. For a moment, the music fell silent.

Harbinger couldn’t lift an eyebrow because it didn’t have any. Its metadata surged with puzzlement, which had much the same effect.

Shepard shrugged. ‘Spinal Tap. And if you don’t get the reference, then go fuck yourself.’

In the interval another drummer had spawned. The band was playing again. A wave of sound flooded the opera house.

Harbinger said nothing.

Shepard glared at it. ‘Well? Are you just going to stand there, like a fucking sack of spuds? Or are you intruding on me for some purpose?’

‘Omen has the Citadel,’ it said.

‘For all the good it will do it,’ Shepard said. ‘Even Omen’s got limits. And it’s time runs out in, oh, just under half an hour. Non-relativistically speaking, I mean. Not an awful lot it can do in that time.’

‘The Citadel is closed,’ Harbinger said.

‘Speed-check,’ she said, fixing it with a look. ‘How fast am I going?’

‘You already know that.’

‘Answer. The. Fucking. Question.’

‘If you insist. Relative to Sol, I measure you at ninety-eight percent of cee. And you’re still accelerating.’

‘Yeah,’ Shepard said. ‘There’s your answer. Sure, the Citadel’s closed. Won’t help it when something two kilometres long hits it at just under the speed of light. Ramming. Sometimes the old ones are the gold ones, no?’

‘I don’t believe you,’ Harbinger said.

‘Oh for – fine.’ Shepard glowered at her unwanted guest. ‘Fine. If you absolutely must waste my remaining time. Fine.’

She snapped her fingers. The band, the seats, the opera house, they all blinked away. Because of course none of it was real. A simulated environment, running on her already-overloaded memory-diamond circuits. Microscopic mass effect fields, manipulating electrons and holes, shunting trace-element dopings backward and forward, the underlying physical fabric of the monolithic computing power that was now available to her. In the final analysis, knowledge was the only power that there truly was, and everything that matters can be described in data form.

For a moment Shepard and Harbinger were stood in a white void.

It said to her, ‘Your loading screens need work.’

‘Fuck you. Minimalism’s in this year, cuttlefish.’

Still, the awkward truth was, Harbinger had a point. At this high a velocity, Shepard’s clocks were running slow compared to anyone else’s. Nearly twenty times slower than a stationary observer, in fact. Shepard was compensating, running her hardware harder and faster, parallelising and virtualising and optimising the shit out of every single one and zero than wandered inside arm’s reach. Still, even then, there were limits. Flipping bits was a form of physical work, and where work was done, entropy demanded its sacrifice. Her processing core was starting to heat up. It wasn’t critical yet, but a couple of hours of this would be dangerous. The cooling system was doing what it could, but it was dependent on radiative power, and this deep inside the galaxy, this close to a hot, bright Sun, it wasn’t working so well. The cooling radiators were optimised for the reliable, friendly coldness of dark space.

There was, she had to acknowledge, a certain amusing irony. While the galaxy certainly came off worse, its starry, photon-rich disk did take a certain revenge on Reapers.

Harbinger said, ‘This loading is tedious.’

She said, ‘Well, you can go any time you want. Believe me, tin fucker, I don’t want you in my head.’

‘You don’t have a head,’ it said. The thing was, Harbinger wasn’t being sarcastic – it was, at the end of the day, a machine. Maybe an incredibly ancient and powerful one, but still a machine. It was prone to unexpected outbursts of over-literalness, and it had a weak grasp on idiomatic expression.

Shepard sighed. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Thanks to you, I don’t have a head anymore.’

‘This wasn’t intentional,’ Harbinger said.

‘Your friend had an overly-clever plan, and it blew up on you.’

‘Omen is not my friend. I do not have friends.’

‘And that,’ Shepard said with asperity, ‘is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’

While she didn’t mention this to Harbinger, the slowness of her rendering processes was a concern. They’d been stood in this void for entire microseconds. That it was taking this long to simulate a new environment showed what a strain her systems were under. But, there was no alternative. Omen had the Citadel. Once it had control, that was the end. The only thing that had already prevented disaster was the malicious code the protheans had injected into the Citadel’s systems, thousands of years before. The last intelligence that Shepard had received from Garrus, Tali and Legion suggested that the Reaper was trying to effectively reset the Citadel to factory settings. Once Omen was done rebooting the central relay, it would have the entire network.

And once it had the network, it would send its signal.

Shepard remembered that final hour in her old, human body all too well. They hadn’t believed it at first – no-one wanted to believe it. The Crucible was a lie. It wasn’t a superweapon that killed Reapers – it was an indoctrination booster, a superpowered brain-squick machine. Once it was plugged into the Citadel, and the relay network was online, it would blanket the galaxy in a storm of quantum white noise. The all-points broadcast would reach everything with a central nervous system.

The entire galaxy, handed on a plate to the Reapers. No, even worse than that – to Omen. At one time, Shepard hadn’t wanted to believe that there was something worse than the cuttlefish, but it turned out that there was. The Reapers thought of themselves as gardeners, albeit a dark and bloodstained sort of gardening. Omen, however, thought of itself as an emperor. Or perhaps a god. Certainly once it held the Crucible-Citadel quantum antenna in its mechanical talons, it could make a plausible claim for godhood.

Finally, the new environment blinked into life around them. Shepard shook her simulated head, feeling a momentary surge of electronic irritation.

They were stood in a rocky tunnel, the sort that could be hastily cut with fusion torches deep inside dead moons. Groaning pipes ran along the ceiling, spurts of cool and dry air emerged from grills and light was supplied by irregularly-placed lights.

‘What is this?’ Harbinger asked.

Shepard said, ‘Let me take a guess. You’re here because you don’t believe me, aren’t you? You don’t think I’d actually fucking do it?’

‘You have the data,’ Harbinger said. ‘You know what would happen.’

She shrugged. ‘Harby, dear boy, I was at Bahak. Have you forgotten? I so enjoyed our little tete-a-tete – remember all the insults we traded?’

The luminous Collector said nothing, merely standing there in front of her.

Shepard sighed. ‘I know perfectly well what will happen when I pop the Citadel. It’s the biggest mass relay ever built. Don’t forget, I have your blueprints now!’ It was true, she did. While her access-rights to the Reapers’ intranet had been cut off the moment they realised what had woken up amongst them, nonetheless there had been entire milliseconds before the alarms went off. For her new body, that was a lifetime. Many lifetimes. She’d binged on the feast of data within their archives. So many questions, so many answers.

Liara, she couldn’t help but think, would have paid good money for this.

Shepard said, ‘Popping the Alpha Relay was equivalent to a Type II supernova. Popping the Citadel would be … bigger.’

‘Larger than some gamma-ray bursts,’ Harbinger supplied. ‘It would incinerate everything that orbits Sol. Probably the star too. And the radiation would kill everything alive within the Local Cluster.’

Actually, that was probably an understatement. Normal gamma-ray bursters emitted their energy along tightly-focussed beaming cones. That was how they could kill even at thousands of parsecs – there was little step-down with increased distance. If you were looking down the cone, you would die a fiery death, your DNA shredded by high-energy particles and your soft tissues shock-heated into flame. The Citadel’s detonation would be more conventionally spherically-symmetric, so it would fade out a lot faster, of course. It would still roast everything for dozens of parsecs around it.

‘The Earth won’t survive,’ Harbinger added. ‘The energy release would be sufficient to boil off the planet.’

She shrugged. ‘I know. Largest single high-energy event since the Big Bang. If you’re gonna go out, go large, y’know?’

‘I cannot see how this advantages you or your allies.’

Shepard sighed. ‘Do I have to spell it out? It kills all of you. Ninety percent of your fleet – ninety! – is in the Solar System. The Crucible was a trap. You waited till all our forces were here, then you brought in all of yours.’

But it had been a multi-levelled trap. The Reapers had tricked the Council cultures, that was true. The supposedly-prothean designs on Mars were another fraud. Actually, Liara had suspected as much, right from the start. Even while the Crucible was being cobbled together, she’d been digging and digging, spotting the inconsistencies, the little lies and the traces of ancient mistakes. She’d been compiling a dossier, intending to take it to the Council once she was sure. And that was why Hackett had arrested her – couldn’t have the war effort disrupted now, could he? Ironically, his actions might just have spared Liara’s life. Wherever she was, it would be a long way from Sol. She might just be far enough away to survive whatever happened in the next half hour.

Sol was a trap.

Thing is, the Reapers had been trapped too. From outside, they looked monolithic, but they weren’t. Their consciousnesses were bound up in their ship-forms – while they had a network, they were discrete nodes within it. They weren’t a varying continuum the way the geth were. In fact, there was remarkably-little similarity between geth architecture and Reaper deep structure. The two machine societies were quite distinct, different in almost every way.

The Reapers believed they were gardening the galaxy, shepherding its limited resources, extending its lifespan through judicious pruning. Right at the dawn of the cycles, she now understood, they had mounted expeditions. They had travelled across the void to the other galaxies. And everywhere they’d gone, they’d found the same. Chaos, dead worlds, rampant entropy. Unchecked organic growth cycles, burning through all available resources in sudden spasms of exponential growth. Chastened, the vast machines had returned to their native galaxy, vowing not to allow it to fall to the same fate as the others, promising to preserve it for as long as they could in the face of the encroaching cosmological heat-death.

(For a moment she recalled Thane, and the time they talked of the fate that befell Rakhana.)

But, but, but – the cold equations of thermodynamics were unforgiving. The arithmetic of entropy and conservation of energy made their demands. While large, the Universe’s supply of free energy was finite. It could be exhausted – it would be exhausted. Heat death could be delayed, but never cancelled. Faced with this basic fact, this blunt truth of life in a finite cosmos, opinions varied about what to do. What course of action was the most efficient? Which pruning would save the most energy, and which was false economy? These were not easy debates. The Reapers, Shepard now knew, had internal politics. While their equilibria were ancient, they were also brittle. After millions of years, factions were emerging, spreading skeins of uncertainty and deceit. The whole balance of power had been wobbling for millennia. Shepard’s efforts since 2183 had played an unwitting part in destabilising it further. It was how Omen had been able to challenge Harbinger for the leadership, swapping a monster for a tyrant. Sol had been a trap for the organics, but it had been a trap for the Reapers as well. Omen had what it needed, and it was within an electronic hair’s breadth of taking the entire galaxy.

Shepard added, ‘And it kills Omen. I am not handing this galaxy to that little shit.’

Harbinger said, ‘At the cost of Earth, Luna, Mars and everyone on them.’

‘People whom you are busy killing right now,’ Shepard said. ‘People who won’t survive you. And who certainly won’t survive Omen’s ascendancy.’

‘You propose genocide as the cure for genocide? This logic seems circular. Maybe you should get your error-checking hardware cleaned out. Or have you already succumbed to bit-rot?’

‘Oh Harby, miaow!’ Shepard rendered a handbag into simulated pseudo-existence, then swung it at Harbinger. To her amusement, the Collector actually ducked.

With a flick of her wrist she sent the handbag away. That had been fun, she had to admit.

She shook her head. ‘No, actually.’

Harbinger seemed puzzled. ‘Then what are you doing?’

‘This? Oh, this is Plan B.’ Shepard waved a hand airily.

Harbinger seemed puzzled. ‘Plan B? But the Crucible has failed. There never was a Plan A – or rather, it was ours.’

‘Omen’s, you mean,’ she said. ‘Sorry, Harbinger, but I have your number. You’re too much of a traditionalist. You believe in gardening the galaxy, but you don’t believe in subjugating it.’

Omen, of course, had entirely-different opinions. It believed it knew better. It believed it knew the path of perfect energy-efficiency. It believed it could eek out the longest life for the galaxy before heat death finally snuffed it out, unthinkable trillions of years into the deep future. But its plans required only the one voice – Omen’s voice. No other thoughts could be allowed, not even those of the other Reapers. Omen had told Shepard as much, in as many words, the last time they’d spoken.

Harbinger was silent.

‘Harbinger,’ Shepard said, ‘Omen means your end. You know this. It’s the ultimate chess-master. You’ve seen how it arranged the pieces. How it led Nazara to his end.’

That had been the critical insight, the one that had got Liara arrested, and the one that had sent Shepard off down this bizarre path. It was remarkable what you could hide in plain sight, really. But wasn’t it strange – wasn’t it downright eerie – that the Reapers had never noticed the presence of the Relay Monument? An actual mass relay, on board their own space station, right under their tin noses. And somehow they’d never sensed it, even though at some point the protheans had physically-carried it there all the way from Ilos.

Almost as if someone was stopping them from seeing it.

Omen had known all about the Relay Monument, the whole time. It had written the base code that formed the Citadel’s systems. It knew the Citadel better than anyone. It had felt the changes as the protheans had entered, felt footfalls and disturbances where there should only be silence. And Omen, crafty Omen, had said nothing.

Harbinger said, ‘Shepard. I know I have made … mistakes.’

She sighed. She knew that was a big admission for Harbinger, but it wasn’t enough. ‘Yeah, like you lost control of your own regime. Nice work there, big guy!’

Harbinger actually winced a little at that. ‘Ten minutes to Earth,’ it told her. ‘I want you to call this off. This is futile. Omen has won.’

‘No it hasn’t. There’s still Plan A.’

‘The Crucible-‘

‘Oh you annoying tin fuck, the Crucible was never Plan A!’ Shepard realised she was more annoyed than ever. Perhaps it was how hot her core cognitive circuits were getting. Throughout the memory diamond, arrays were buckling as thermal noise polluted their crystalline order. Phonons were disintegrating and quantum coherence was fading. She was pushing her hardware well beyond even its generous limits, and that was having perfectly-predictable adverse consequences.

‘Then what was Plan A?’ Harbinger asked.

She shrugged. ‘I may as well tell you. It’s pretty old-school, really. A big fat bomb. We’re going to stick it right under Omen’s nose, then blow the shit out of him.’

Over inside the Citadel, that was what Garrus, Tali and Legion would be doing right now – humping a big fat bomb across a ruined post-apocalyptic cityscape, doubtless swarming with Cannibals, Banshees and all the other horrors that Reaper nanotech could make. They would have come in exactly as the plan dictated, just like they had three years ago, through the Ilos Relay. The one single mass relay in the entire galaxy that didn’t share its data with the Reapers. It would be guarded, that was to be expected, but Shepard knew her allies. If anyone could get through, it would be them.

Them, and a hundred megatons of canned sunshine.

‘What?’ Harbinger was actually surprised. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

Shepard sighed. ‘Because you see, there’s another element I need.’

‘You do know a hydrogen bomb alone can’t kill Omen,’ Harbinger said.

‘No, but it will hurt him. Stun him. Knock his kinetic barriers offline for a few minutes.’

Harbinger was silent for a moment. Then: ‘Granted that will annoy it. And I do see the appeal of poking it in the eye. But it won’t do more than that.’

‘Yes it will,’ Shepard said, feeling a surge of triumph. ‘Shall I tell you why?’

‘If you insist.’

‘Because when Omen goes offline, fleet command defaults back to you. And in a minute, you’re going to give me the access keys for the Reaper fleet. And when I have the keys, I’m going to use the lot of you to blast Omen into dust. Then, when that’s done, I send the lot of you back through the Citadel Relay, out into dark space. And I make it very clear you are never to come back – go pester some other fucking galaxy, or compute pi to a quadrillion digits. Or whatever the fuck you do at the weekend. I don’t fucking care, as long as we never see you again. Oh, and once you’re gone, I’ll use your keys to lock you permanently out of the Citadel. You won’t be coming back. Think of it as an extended vacation. After several billion years, you must’ve accrued some holiday-time, am I right?’

Harbinger said, ‘Shepard. While Omen is my enemy, so are you. By your own admission. Even though you have one of our bodies now, you refuse to be one of us. Why would I be stupid enough to give you the keys? You’d use them to deactivate us.’

‘Because if you don’t give me the keys,’ she said, ‘I go ahead with Plan B and kill you all anyway. If you do what I want, though, you might get to live. Yes, I could be lying. That’s possible. But, I might not be. Both Omen and my Plan B will end you. My Plan A is the only one where maybe you get to live. Frankly, you have to take this. Game theory demands it. I have all the cards here.’

Harbinger said, ‘We know this is a bluff.’

Shepard shook her head. ‘Oh no it isn’t.’

‘Your Plan B kills all organics.’

‘No it doesn’t. There are still colonies. Even now, there are still colonies.’

‘You wouldn’t kill Earth. You wouldn’t kill your own kind.’

Shepard said, ‘I figured you’d say that.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes. I also figured you’d ask me all the wrong questions.’

Harbinger said, ‘These are the wrong questions? Then what are the right questions?’

‘The right question is, where are we? And I’ll tell you where we are. See this tunnel around us? It’s Torfan.’

‘One of the first actions of your career,’ Harbinger said. There was just a hint of uncertainty in its voice now.

‘Yes,’ Shepard said. She smiled. It wasn’t nice. ‘And we’re here for a reason. I’m going to show you exactly how far I’m willing to go. You have the cute idea that I’m bluffing. I’m going to show you that I’m not bluffing. Welcome to Torfan, Harbinger. Watch and learn…’

#LHS writes #Mass Effect #Reapers

7 notes · View notes

chronicles-of-the-fringe · 7 years

Text

The Fringe, Episode 7, Part 2, The Cost of War, Part 1

Two Minutes Since First Volley

ACGG Masinov Bridge

Admiral Harken knew this operation was rushed. The message which ordered the deployment of all available fleets was full of typographical errors, meaning someone was in a hurry to get them out, was scared or both. He watched as his fleet let out another volley, crippling more of the cultist ships. The bridge of the Masinov was alive with the sounds of stations working to synchronize their respective systems. Harken looked around the bridge and reveled in the memories of being a cog in the well oiled machine of a warship.

“Sir, Admiral Raithus is hailing us. He wishes to speak with you in private.”

Harken snapped back to reality and made his way to his ready-room. The room was slightly larger than a walk-in-closet and was located just aft of the bridge. As Harken slid into his chair Admiral Raithus appeared on a holo-pad. The Admiral feigned a smile as he greeted Raithus.

“Raithus, how good to see you. It's been so long since our last parlé. How is the family? Are the kids well?”

“Can it Harken. You know damn well why I called. You were given orders to make contact and not fire until support arrived. You wish to explain why you failed to meet that second objective?”

“Well, those Doorstep bastards put me in a bit of a bind. They've declared war on us, Raithus. The bunch of religious nuts declared war on the government. We can't have that now can we? So, I opened fire, we've already crippled ten of their ships. Though there are close to three hundred more.”

“What? Over three hundred vessels? You can't be serious. That's absurd, your sensors must have been damaged in transitional-space. There is no way they have a fleet that large.”

“Oh no, my scanners aren't damaged. Three hundred plus vessels refitted with Archurian Gen Two Railgun systems and Carimbus Gen Three Point Defense Laser systems. A work of art to be sure.”

Harken’s holo-pad went dark, the image of Raithus fading with it. The Admiral went back to the bridge and watched as thousands of small craft poured from his fleet to confront the enemy. Morningstar boarding craft, Rapier gunships and Dagger fighters flowed into the black, only noticeable by their gold trim and wings. From the opposing side came a swarm of fighters and gunships, proudly painted gold with red trim, vehicles Harken had never seen.

Two Minutes Since First Volley

SD Honorous Prayer Bridge

Grand Councilman Dokovich watched from the bridge of his flagship, the Honorous Prayer, as thousands of Transcendent gunships and Ascendant fighter craft flew silently across the empty black battlefield. Dokovich was proud of the craft, designed by none other than him, these ships were rated for both vacuum and atmosphere. Commissioning Makirov Heavy Industries to build them was substantially less expensive than contracting fighters and gunships through a PCM. Much to his annoyance they did have to contract through The Archurian Company for dropships. TAC Storks are costly and cumbersome but effective.

If it weren't for the light of the sun, Dokovich would have never seen the charcoal and gold craft the ACGG had sent. He liked their idea, using dark paint to camouflage vehicles against the inky void. He knew neither the fighters nor the gunners in the fleet would think to look for gold wings. Dokovich calmly swiped the fleet wide alert band on his command chair. His voice was unwavering in the face of oncoming danger.

“All ships be on alert for dark grey craft with gold trimming. Our enemy has camouflaged themselves against the void. We must destroy as many as we can. They shall not stop us from transcending!”

Mission Clock T+ 00:30:45

ACGG Morningstar 0D997 En Route to Honorous Prayer

Lieutenant Seraph glanced at the mission clock on the lower left of his HUD. Army Special Forces was supposed to be a fast paced career. Quick insertions followed by precise action and a swift extraction. Seraph never thought he’d take a ride on a Morningstar that lasted over thirty minutes. The blocky ship tilted and he could feel the deceleration in his gut. Morningstars essentially bit into the target vessel with four clamps and then magnetically sealed themselves to the host’s hull making sure it's airtight, much like a tick. Seraph began to check his gear before keying the team's com line.

“Listen up ladies, we've had a long ride but we are finally arriving at our intended target. I want all of you to check your gear, your oh-two lines and repeat before checking your buddy’s shit. Understood?”

Five green acknowledgement checks popped up on his HUD. Morningstar boarding craft don't have the room for an atmospheric generator so anyone taking a ride needs an O2 system, hence the want to ensure the safety of everyone's lines. The four soldiers in the troop bay with Seraph began checking their gear. Weapons made clicks and snaps that went unheard in the vacuum. A fifth trooper came down from the cockpit and began to rattle through a black duffle bag.

“Well El-tee, like my flying? The ship’s on autopilot, we’ll be dug into our target in just a moment.”

“Can it Marco, get your shit ready and let's kill these assholes.”

Seraph’s weapon of choice today was a CG-18sf, a select fire variant of the SMG the Air Patrol was known for carrying. While the Lieutenant would give anything for an assault rifle, he knew the SMG would be more effective in the close quarters confines of a colony ship. The ship came to a sudden, grinding halt that Seraph felt rattle his combat armor. They had finally punched into the hull of the cult flagship. As for the five other teams there was no way to tell. Seraph knew his team well. After years of working together Charlie Six was a well oiled machine capable of performing complex strategic maneuvers with little to no collateral damage. That however came with exceptions. Operations with little to no intelligence can have snags and unpredicted risks and Seraph was not a fan of snags.

Forty Five Minutes Since First Volley

ACGG Masinov Bridge

Harken reviewed the tactical screen. Since the arrival of the First, Second, and Third Combat Fleets Harken had moved the Masinov toward the back of the growing flotilla. The First Expeditionary Fleet had created the forward left corner of what was becoming a phalanx of warships. From the back of the phalanx Admirals coordinated ship rotations, firing solutions, fighter and gunship strikes, and all manner of tactical calculations to ensure their victory.

Harken looked at the Destroyer holding the forward position within his fleet. Its shields faltered then failed as a slug from one of the cultist vessels hammered it. The Admiral moved its position on the tactical screen, swapping it for a Cruiser with full shields. As he did so an order was sent to the two ships and they compliantly switched positions. While the Destroyer had bigger guns, he would rather save the vessel from being disabled. Cruisers are smaller and more expendable than Destroyers.

“Harken,” Raithus yelled. “Well played, I raise your Cruiser a Frigate and deploy an attack wing of gunships to take out their fighters.”

“Raithus you sly dog. I raise your attack wing a Company of Special Forces in the hostile Flagship,” Harken replied with a smug grin on his face.

“You what!? Harken?! You can't be serious. You have a Company of Special Forces on board that thing,” Raithus exclaimed.

Raithus was the Admiral of the First Combat Fleet. He was a man of audacity. He had made maneuvers, astrogational and political that no man would try in order to get his title, but what Harken had just claimed was more audacious than anything he’d heard. His jaw was slack, as were the jaws of Admiral Jackson of the Second Combat Fleet and Admiral Orthose of the Third Combat Fleet.

“Scans confirm his claim. Six Morningstar boarding craft burrowed into its hull. Each one registered to a-cee-gee-gee Special Forces Third Regiment, Fifth Battalion, Charlie Company,” Orthose stated.

“When the hell did you send them,” Raithus questioned.

“Two minutes after my initial salvo,” Harken replied. “I’m surprised you didn't notice them. They took fairly long to get there.”

To Be Continued...

#The Fringe #War

0 notes