[[Secondary Scenario]]
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[hr]
"Never ask for anything, but desire everything."
Mitte rolled her eyes.
"As difficult as she can be, each one of us here love the Colonel with all our hearts." She put her finger on the black gem in her cleavage. The black sheen seem to glow blue,
"All of the officers have one of these. They say it contains a bit of the Colonel's magic. It binds all of our hearts together."
---
The screen in front of David sprung to life suddenly. The USB itself clicked and whirred, and the lights in the laboratory came on all at once. Blue light flooded the room as all of the machines woke from their ancient slumber. David could finally see the extend of the lab. Smooth metal walls coated in dried blood and deep rakes in the floors and walls. It was as if a whirlwind of blades had made its way through the place. He shuddered, there was a chill that bit into his very core, as if his own soul was warning him what he had just done was unforgivable.
Something loaded on the screens before him. A program had launched and was ticking through actions faster than David could track with his eyes. Commands jumped from monitor to monitor, turning on more and more systems as it tore through the computer systems like wildfire. Before long every screen in the room was executing the same obscure commands. Then as quickly as it had spread, it stopped. After everything was over, there was a list on the main terminal that stood before David. Despite his instincts he glanced over at the document.
Code:
[b]Name: Capture Date[/b]
Do Victor: October 17, 1993
Nahir Ahmed: January 14, 2015
Sieghayer Rebecca: March 30, 2020
Cole Kelly: November 11, 2011
Donnell Elizabeth: February 1, 1945
Langley John: December 31, 2090
Ypre Jack: April 22, 1814
Alexander Johnathon: March 18, 1776
Fitzgeralt Ethan: July 2, 2013
Faust Molli: April 18, 2015
Antoine Cecil: April 24, 1624
Yamegawa Meiko: May 7, 2031
Yang Wenfen: November 4, 1999
Allyon Nicholas: June 11, 1963
Stausmahner Ian: September 24, 1983
Yohan Ezra: July 28, 1312
Vym Laurry: May 1, 2024
Spar Donald: November 23, 1650
Li Natalie: July 27, 2109
Kindunos Niko: May 17, 1741
Matsamuda Kei: August 24, 1803
Roberts Laura: June 26, 1885
Daniere Brian: July 24, 1922
Vaker Andahu: August 11, 2041
Nayadokovov Georgie: March 24, 1957
Steven Hughs: February 29, 1960
Isami Yona: March 15, 473366
Moore Peter: June 14, 2020
Coors Hanna: June 14, 2020
Valduur Vihaan: October 4, 2701
...
The list went on and on. There were hundreds of names, if not thousands. Each of them with a corresponding date. He recognized a few, he didn't recognize most of them. Though he understood that these were the staff of not only the Rising Dawn, but of the entire Rising Dawn group.
Code:
West David: April 21, 2015
Bernstein Rugal: April 21, 2015
D'Zannifer Kalastryn: April 21, 2015
Rostikova Katya: April 21, 2015
Khatri Anjali: February 9, 2016
Caim: April 21, 2015
Angelus: April 21, 2015
Zaczoltski Nina: February 7, 2016
Heroes too. David felt his breath catch in his throat. His stomach sank and his head started hurting. The world around him seemed to be spinning. Each time he close his eyes he could see the names, the dates, but not only that, but the faces of each of the people named. He knew their voices, their smiles, their tears. It felt like he had just met a hundred thousand new people, and yet he felt like he had known them for years and years.
Code:
Marlow Alice: April 21, 2015
He did not know that name. He could not know that name. Though he felt as if he must know. The world around David spun and spun, and he felt ill. The air was dry and wet at the same time, the whir of fans turned to a deafening static. The bodies in the corner of the room writhed. They reach out, thin frail arms reaching toward David as the dessicated bodies of those young girls tried to drag themselves across the floor toward them. Fresh blood seeped from inside of the vault where they came. The Rising Dawn shook, as if some massive drum was being struck in the center of the ship. David reached for the USB, although he did not need it. The names and dates were already burned into his mind. He stumbled out toward the door, but the chains had fallen down over the opening. There was no way out.
Bloodied corpses reached for him. Their desiccated faces crying out in silent anguish. There was a darkness above him, sweeping quickly. A glimmer of green light, and a great heaving mass of nanomachines landed between him and the corpses.
Niflheim raised his head and took a good look at David. He gave his version of a laugh,
"No one would have thought it would be you to cause this, and that made you the perfect candidate for this job. Well done Vihaan, well done." The great black beast put a hand on the door and tore it from its hinges.
"Run David West, run. The weight of the world is now on your unworthy shoulders."
---
Vihaan stood before the Gem of Want with his arms out stretched. His grin was ear to ear. His robes whipped around him as the Gem grew in strength. Even within the protective vault of the secured floors, he felt the reverberations of David's actions. The old boy had actually managed to inherit a piece of the primordial soul, it was more that Vihaan could have ever hoped for. Now the threads of causality were unravelling, and in the first time in a hundred thousand cycles, time moved in a way that was not predictable.
The Game of Want reflected this uncertainty. Its power lashed outward, bolts of blue energy that reached outward into space time to search for the cracking threads in reality. The black gem, where it had pulsed with blue light one a month in years past was now constantly emitting a flood of azure light. The flooding of its eldritch energy filled Vihaan with a uncontainable jubilation.
"Come now girl! Show me your true form! I know that you cannot hide within that crystalline prison now that your lattice is unstable!" He raised his arms and channeled a spell of white flame,
"Reveal yourself O wretched warden of worlds! Show your true form to me, White Rose!" He launched the ball of alabaster fire toward the Gem of Want.
The gem flickered, and then for the first time in a decade, the gem moved. A woman appeared where it was to absorb Vihaan's spell. A raven-haired foul-mouthed convict pulled through space-time by the Gem of Want.
B.C. landed on the metal floor below the gem stunned, but none the worse for wear. The gem hovered some distance away from the center of the room, letting out bolts of azure lightning. Vihaan took a step back and readied another spell, this time one that could harm the corporeal form as well as the astral body.
"And this is who you've chosen as your champion?" Vihaan taunted the gem.
"This girl is hedonistic, petty, and rough. Yet her soul is as pure as snow. Her desire as plain and unadulterated as none other." the gem said.
"Rise, virgin girl, and become my champion."
[[Main Scenario]]
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[hr]
"Old age should burn and rave at close of day;"
Yona was furious,
"And who gave you civilians the right to call me by my first name!?" The colonel drew her dagger and extended it into a holy spear.
"And you! And you!" Yona pointed to both Rugal and Nadalia,
"How do you presume to overstep both of your boundaries!?" Yona took a step forward and put the tip of her spear over Nadalia's Darksign. She turned to her subordinates,
"Get the idiot civilians to safety and treat any personnel that were injured."
"And you," Yona growled,
"what sort of queen lacks the ability to control their own power? The very concept of using your abilities against normal human beings should make you sick, yet you claim that the damage you dealt was merely an 'accident?'" Yona spat,
"Those with great power must understand that it is never right to use their power to force people to obey you. Fear makes no great leaders, it breeds resentment and envy. I do not care that you did not mean to bring such strength to bear against my people, the mere fact that you have so little reservations in using your power against those who have none has shown to me that you are a person who is as childish as she is irresponsible."
Yona turned to Rugal,
"All of you make me sick to my stomach. Take your crew and get out of my sight. It is clear to me that none of you value the lives nor dignity of those who are not blessed with strength similar to yours."
Titania was taken aback by the clarity of the young woman's words. The scars of her youth had left deep impacts on her personality, that much was apparent, but even beneath the veneer of righteousness, there was a respect for being that was rare even among normal humans. A restraint for actions and a developed sense of righteousness and justice that was akin to the idea of balance. Among Candorians, this Yona Isami must have been on in a million. A soul as pure and righteous as their idealized god himself.
Yona suddenly fell to her knees, gasping. At first Titania was confused, and started to look for the attack from Nadalia or Rugal, but she found none. Then the world around her grew disparate. The sound of static filled her ears. Deborah had fallen to her knees as well, gasping as if out of breath. The world seemed to shatter, each thing growing distant from each other before snapping back into place.
The reverberations of a great disturbance in the leylines passing through the Citadel echoed like the thrumming of a taut rubber band. Nadalia, too, felt the disturbance as she looked toward the Rising Dawn. She recognized the feeling, it was the same sort of sound that rang through the world when a red-eye orb was activated, or when a soapstone caused two timelines to collapse ontop of each other.
Several of Yona's officers also fell to their knees as if shocked. A bright blue light shone from their chests. Their pieces of jet was resonating with the collapsing leylines. Titania rose to her feet, her eyes were blurred, but she was sure. The leylines in the Citadel
were collapsing. The invisible streams of mana were folding into themselves and falling from their course. Titania reached out with her magic to try to trace the source of the disturbance, but was shocked backward by a rush of emotions. The leylines were transmitting a sentience and buckling under the weight and immensity of the being trying to force itself into the world.
---
Naamah looked up, troubled by the sudden ripples in spacetime. She held onto her staff tightly had stroked Fatima gently with her other hand.
"I this mislike greatly," she whispered to her other half.
Code:
[b]"It feels familiar... however. Like when Solomon first manifested."[/b]
"This more sinister is."
Solomon himself watched intently at the ripples. They looked like the type that appeared on a pond after you had dropped a stone into the water. His heavenly crown, heralded by triangles of flat black space, shimmered in the glow of his strength. He was pensive and unsure about the nature of the world. There was something beyond that he could not truly make out - even past the far reaches of the collective's power. He had always felt something off with his kingdom. Siddhartha's absence and the strange influence that was dripping from each labyrinth created by his daughters was disturbing. No, not
his daughters he had to remind himself. He too, was given form by the progenitor, his strength and his domain was a gift and an allowance of the greater power.
"This part of Niflheim's plan was?" Naamah asked, laying her head on Solomon's arm.
That this event benefitted the rogue unit's machinations was mere coincidence. The scale of this event is too great for someone of Niflheim's power to orchestrate. Solomon paused. He wasn't even sure if he himself had the strength to cause disruptions on a scale as grand as this.
"Naamah understands," Naamah cooed.
---
Philip looked up and saw it. He knew it. It felt familiar. A fellow being born in the shadowy reaches of imagination's end. None else could see it's flickering shadow as it descended upon the world. A watchful gaze borne of millions of stitched eyes. The presence was familiar and foreign at the same time. He knew instinctively of it's type, but did not know this sentience personally. At the same time, from Nina's side he glanced one of it's eyes gazing at the duo. Unblinking red eyes, a flick of a snow-white tail, and the unchanging smile. Visible to only Philip, the creature moved away, content in knowing that it had manifested at least one of its many bodies.
