The Hope Saga

INTRODUCING HOPE

2020-01-01T20:02:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Hope Saga Blog! (Hope Blaga? Horplaga? Thing.)

Hope was a roleplay I ran from August 2008 until March 2009. It eventually had thirteen PCs, dropping in and out as the story went on, and told a strange, epic tale. As an experiment, rather than have NPCs, I had various other friends play recurring characters. Near the end there wound up being a few major NPCs, but for the most part I played very few characters.

The vast majority of Hope was played out online, and written by the players in third-person past tense. As such, large chunks of this story are that original writing. I've edited things, and written parts of it myself, but for the most part it's written by the players. As such, it reads a little oddly--every character is a viewpoint character, so the story flow is a little strange. For the most part I've tried to keep things reasonable and make it work as an ensemble piece, but it's tricky to do that while retaining the original player writing. A few of the sessions (such as the first) were played in person or through other non-text media. These sessions I have reconstructed from memory--they'll be marked as such at the beginning of the posts.

Here and there I'll post bits of background material--things the PCs were told outside of sessions. These will be listed as Detailed Hope.

One of the other things I did during the roleplay was provide a soundtrack! Every scene had an ongoing soundtrack (consisting of various pieces of other soundtracks and nonlyrical music), to set the mood and feel. This added a LOT to the roleplay, I felt. As such, I assembled the entire soundtrack into a trio of .zips. 108 tracks of epic music! At the beginning of every update / scene, I'll list the track number and title in parentheses. It's a lot of music (over half a gig!) but I highly recommend it! It'll enhance your enjoyment quite a bit! (And it's all good music. Promise.) The main theme is Ghost Hardware, track 9. Any time I don't specify music (which will be rare!), it's a good fallback.
Disc 1: Corkscrew
Disc 2: Roost
Disc 3: Center

So without further ado...
Click here to jump to the first page!

Enjoy!

Love, the GM.

SOLDIERS OF HOPE (3)

2012-02-03T19:59:00.000-08:00

((94 — Broken Home))

July 4th, 802 AT.

The medical room was quiet, unmoving. A technician had come by the night before to clean up the blood.

Skunk glanced around silently as she guided the stretcher bearing Kasby's still form. Kasby lay on the stretcher, an IV drip running into his arm. He was unconscious but breathing. One of his arms was heavily swathed in bandages.

Goat was lying in one of the beds, staring at the window. He looked up when his friend entered. "Skunk!"

Skunk stopped dead. "Goat?"

"Yep!" He sat up eagerly. "I've been getting worried about you guys. Where've you been? Where are the others? What's up with Kasby?"

Skunk snorted. "His hand got lopped off."

Goat observed Kasby's injury as Skunk wheeled the stretcher into position near his bed. The bandages hid anything particularly vicious from sight, but they were soaked through with blood.

"Me," Skunk continued. "Well, I suppose I've been fine. Owl, I haven't seen her in a few days." She furrowed her brow, looking at Got. "How did you get here? And why are you in the hospital?"

"Escaped in the Quinn from Sector... Four... with Kasby, Giraffe, and..." His face fell. "Zebra," he said softly.

Picking up on his tone, Skunk prompted, "What happened to Zebra?"

"The thing that Jaz turned into... got her. In this very room."

"Shit." Skunk bit her lip. "She--it--got Kasby too. Nearly killed me in the process."

"Did you hear how it and its demon friends killed all the higher-ups here but Barret?"

Skunk shrugged. "I heard that some demons had come a-calling at the meeting-thing, but that's really the sum of my knowledge."

"Mm." Goat leaned back against his pillows. "Barret's a jerk."

"Who's she? Sounds fishy to me."

"She was the military leader of Sector One, before all the other five leaders got assassinated. So now she's basically the dictator." Goat lowered his voice. "I think she's a demon."

"What even is a demon?" Skunk asked in exasperation. "At first I thought they were just those things we fought at the start of all this. Then Jaz... well, you know. And now dictator-demons?"

"Apparently they can be humanoid. Doesn't seem like much of a stretch for them to look completely human." He paused. "After Kasby ran off to hunt down Jaz, Barret sent me, Giraffe, and Zebra to reclaim one of the gun towers from some rebels. We tried to reason with them, join them even, but they shot me in the arm." He used one hand to point at his shoulder, which was still bandaged from the fighting two days earlier. "I do not like them."

"Yeah... I don't think anyone does." Skunk sighed. "What about Spider?"

"I was going to ask you that," Goat said worriedly.

"Hmm..." Skunk gazed at the ceiling. "There was no one else, was there? Me, you, Owl, Spider, Zebra, Giraffe. And Kasby."

"Nope. Everyone's accounted for 'cept Spider," Goat said. "Face is running out of survivors..."

"She can take care of herself, I guess," Skunk said half-heartedly. She didn't seem convinced in the truth of her own words.

The hospital room was silent again for an uncomfortable minute.

"Ah, Face," Goat finally said. "Playing hookball with Aardvark and Platypus... Practicing the art of leaping with Master Jellyfish..."

Skunk kept silent. Her memories of Face were not the type of thing that most people found pleasant or cheery.

Goat was still talking. "Shame how he didn't leap far enough that last time..."

Skunk cracked a tiny smile. "All gone now, no doubt."

"Learning to make sandwiches, with Xylophone! 'Goat! You just something between two other things! It's fucking simple!' Xylophone was always yelling..." Goat's smile almost looked real, but his periodic glances at Kasby's unmoving form gave him away. "And Hippopotamus, that girl with curly hair! The times I almost asked her out..."

Skunk changed the topic with a half-roll of her red eyes. "So where's Giraffe?"

"Back in her room, resting."

"Mm. Good." Skunk's voice was flat. "You were saying about the possibly-demonic dictator. That sounds like trouble to me."

"Yeah!" Goat sat up slightly again. "I've got pretty much no evidence other than how all the other leaders got killed so conveniently, but I'm sure of it." Goat's eyes narrowed. "Something in my gut tells me."

"I don't know much about the situation, but it doesn't sound impossible." Skunk walked over to the windows and gazed out at the city below. "What are we going to do about it, then?"

"I'm gonna heal up, first," Goat said, flexing his shoulder and wincing slightly. "Not sure what to do after that."

"We can't exactly let the entire city to fall to bits, though." Skunk frowned, then sighed. "I wonder whether Owl is still at the library... She'd have an idea."

SILENT HOPE (3)

2012-02-03T18:31:00.000-08:00

((91 — Darkness))

July 3rd, 802 AT.

As Spider neared the crystal where the Talons had left their demons, nothing seemed to be amiss. The four demons still sat there, mostly asleep and functionally in a daze. Caf idly picked at her feathers every now and again, but other than that the demons seemed to be in something of a holding pattern. There was something slightly odd about the gravity here, a gentle off-center tugging, but Spider ignored it.

Spider fell over to the demons casually, mostly ignoring the others in favor of keeping her eyes locked on Scorpia. The large insect was huddled over in a corner, not far from Seth's Noh.

"Okay, girl." Spider stepped down onto the crystal. "We're getting you off this rock, 'kay?"

It was the middle of the night, and the Void was dark around her. Far behind her was the distant glow of Sector One, barely visible in the thick fog. She had left Owl and the librarian--Delissa, Spider vaguely remembered--hard at work, still investigating the strange portal. The other side had proved far too vast to explore on foot, so Spider had returned to collect Scorpia.

Scorpia looked up at her indignantly. She scuttled over, and put herself under Spider's hand. The girl petted the demon's opaque shell awkwardly. The other demons watched for a moment, but quickly realized their own masters were still gone, and returned to their listlessness.

"So, er, I hope you don't mind the cold. We're going someplace freezing, and I bet you can help carry some supplies.... though I'm not sure how to get you in sneakily." Spider glanced over her shoulder, back towards Sector One. "Maybe you can make yourself... I don't know, not... energy-like?"

Scorpia's antennae quivered, and then she shook, growing smaller and paler until she was almost invisible, much smaller than normal.

Spider raised her eyebrow. "Well... alright. I've already got some supplies, so... I suppose we get going?" She hovered into the air.

Torrential Black let out a quiet little squawk. It sounded very lonely.

Spider looked over at Black nervously. "Um... I'm sure the rest of those guys will come back for you soon," she said vaguely.

She lifted off, Scorpia just behind her. She frowned, though, feeling again that strange tugging of gravity. It was like there was some huge source of gravity lurking nearby in the fog. She looked, though, staring into the fog on the far side of the crystal from Sector One.

There was nothing, just empty fog. It was thick fog, though, and the more she focused on it, the clearer the pull felt. She re-centered herself on it, and started to drop slowly towards it, moving away from the city.

She fell like that for a few minutes, getting closer to the source of the gravity. She was sure of it now, there had to be something there. Scorpia clicked quietly from her side, and Spider looked at her demon. "You feel it too?"

A glance over her shoulder confirmed that the crystal the demons had been sitting on was long out of sight, and now even the glow of Sector One had vanished into the fog. She let Scorpia drift a little closer.

She bumped into something.

The gravity ahead of her resolved suddenly, becoming not one vague wash of density but a thousand points of pull. There was nothing she could see, just more fog, but she could feel it.

A voice boomed out from behind her. "EXCUSE ME."

Spider jolted in midair at the sound, and spun in the air. She bumped into whatever invisible thing she had found. "What!?"

Before her loomed a massive being, easily three hundred meters tall. His skin glowed yellow, and she looked down to see that his feet trailed off into a vague yellow smoke. His face consisted only of nine glowing yellow eyes, but other than that, he looked... human. Humanoid, at least. Spider crossed her arms and pouted up at him.

"I'M AFRAID I CANNOT LET YOU GO BACK. YOU HAVE SEEN TOO MUCH."

She raised one pointed eyebrow. "What?" She said it quieter this time, more annoyed.

Its four muscular arms unfolded, and one of them reached out to her. Around each wrist was a manacle of glowing red writing.

Spider scrambled through the air, falling backwards away from the hand. The arm faded elongated, stretching out, following her. As massive fingers closed around her, she switched gravity suddenly, slipping out between them. "Who the hell do you think you are!?" She spun, then smacked straight into the palm of a second hand. The thick yellow fingers wrapped tight around her, pulling her up towards the being's face.

"I? I AM MAGID, LORD OF DJINN."

Spider beat her fists on the fingers uselessly, but didn't seem to take the thing too seriously. "What sort of name is that?"

Behind it, the air rippled, as if a curtain was being dropped. The Void suddenly glowed a horrible bloodthirsty red, the glow of a thousand larvae backed by a thousand thousand demons.

"THE NAME OF THE GENERAL OF THE SOUL-EATER SWARM."

Spider stopped hitting his hands. She peered out into the redlit abyss. "Okay... General Soul-Eater. No need to shout." She tried not to be afraid, but was failing slowly.

With one of its three free hands, Magid flicked a finger, and a larva flew forward from its place in the swarm. Its four leathery wings flapped slowly, bringing it towards Spider.

"Okay, so what exactly do you want?" She turned back to the General, and squirmed a bit in his fingers, contorting. Scorpia was somewhere else, but so small and lifeless as to be nearly invisible.

"TO SERVE THE SOUL-EATER, AS HE HAS PROVEN MY BETTER. YOU ARE A LIABILITY, AND AS SUCH, ARE TO BE CONSUMED."

Spider opened her mouth, then closed it. "God DAMMIT. I saw that coming." She sighed.

The all-too-familiar red portal split the air in front of the larva. Snaking red tentacles leapt from its gaping maw, reaching out for her.

It had been said before that Spider was flexible and agile, but even she had boundaries of where she could move. When her life was in danger, though, those limits no longer applied. She squirmed and squeezed and made herself as tiny as possible, folding against the curve of his fingers. At the same time, Scorpia grew again, stabbing the yellow General Soul-Eater in one of his unblinking eyes with both stingers.

Magid hissed angrily, drawing back, a great gout of yellow flame erupting from his wounded eye. In his distraction, he lost his grip on Spider. "THAT WAS A GRAVE MISTAKE, YOUNG HUMAN." His voice was no less deep, but now tinged with anger.

Spider zoomed off sideways, pulling all the gravity in the world with her. Scorpia fell alongside her, zipping away from the sprawling swarm. She looked back, tumbling in the air, just in time to see the yellow smoke at Magid's base swirl up around him. It dissipated into the fog, leaving nothing behind.

A massive hand closed around Spider from behind, yellow smoke blowing past her. "I SHOULD BE NOT SO SURPRISED," the demon boomed. "THE OTHER HUMAN I HAVE SO RECENTLY MET WOULD HAVE DONE SIMILARLY..."

Spider thrashed about, trying to squeeze out again, then paused. "What other human?"

"SHE CALLED HERSELF... JAZRILL QUINN."

Spider stared up at him with narrowed eyes, her face smug and disbelieving. "What? She's dead."

"SHE IS NO MORE DEAD THAN YOU SHALL BE. MERELY... MADE PART OF SOMETHING GREATER." Magid paused for a moment, as if in thought. "I AM UNSURE HOW HER CONSCIOUSNESS WAS ABLE TO MANIFEST WITHIN THE SOUL-EATER. HER BODY HAS CERTAINLY MADE AN ABLE AGENT."

Spider paused herself, thinking over the man's words. "Uh. Soul Eater. You mean that big army thing?"

"THE SOUL-EATER IS HE WHO IS THE HEART OF THE SWARM. ALL-DEVOURER, ALL-CONSUMER." Magid opened his hand, but this time a ring of glowing yellow circles remained, pinning Spider's limbs to her side. Scorpia was similarly bound, floating a few feet to her side.

"I think I'm actually starting to get it," Spider said with a bitter smile.

A pair of larvae flew towards where they floated in the fog. "YOUR UNDERSTANDING IS NOT OF MY CONCERN, YOUNG HUMAN."

Spider stared at the larvae. The tentacles of energy snaked out, twining around her and her demon. "Bye," she said lamely. She thought briefly of Seth, and the Talons, and of Owl and her friends from Face. She thought of Kasby and Jaz.

Mostly she thought about how much it sucked, how unfair it was, and how unsatisfied she was with everything. She had gone into Face to find answers, and was about to die two months later just as confused as she had been when she started.

She took a deep breath, stared up at Magid, Soul-Eater General, and bellowed, "YOUR FACE IS--"

The red swallowed her, and she was gone.

HOPE’S EDGE (6)

2012-01-27T20:30:00.000-08:00

. July 3rd, 802 AT.

((95 — Industrial Heist))

The cavernous grand hall of the museum echoed with the sudden silence. Seth looked down at where Kiara's corpse lay at the foot of the stairs. Blood seeped out through dozens of tiny cuts, pooling around her and flowing out onto the floor.

He stifled the multitude of curses that nearly flowed from his mouth and began to walk up the stairs, moving as slowly and quietly as he could.

On the second stair he jerked his head up to attention as a skittering sound came from above. A second later it turned to an odd, raspy breathing as the sound came closer.

He raised his blade, frowning at the empty air. "Get the fuck down here, NOW!"

Suddenly he felt putrid breath hot on his face, and the strange sounds were right next to him, filling the air.

“Son of a bitch,” Cyclops swore as he heard Kiara’s yell. “Reno, we’re going to help Seth. Grab one of those swords in the display.”

The glaze that had settled over Reno’s eyes seemed to subside. “Alright. I’m all for experimentation.” She flipped her dagger into her holster, stretched her hand back, and threw a forceful punch into a display case. She seized the hilt of one of the swords, and wrenched it from the case. The oblong metal blade swung out awkwardly, heavier than she had expected.

Cyc didn't wait, just started running off towards the back of the room.

Chun watched them go. "Shit," she said under her breath, then pulled her goggles down over her eyes and withdrew a jagged piece of crystal the size of her forearm from her backpack. She followed after Reno, who was now holding the hefty sword at some semblance of a combat-ready angle.

The remaining Talons arrived at the back door just in time to see Seth staggering backwards out of it, swinging Kiara's crystal sword wildly, his other hand clutching at his face.

Reno's eyes went wide. "Hang on, Seth!" She darted forward, trying to raise the sword and stay balanced.

Seth's blade connected with something hard in front of him. Suddenly he could see it. They all could. It loomed over Seth, a giant bat-like thing. Instead of wings, it had at least thirty long, bony claws emerging from its sides. A human figure was embedded in its chest, but the creature slipped out of sight after a moment, fading upwards into the darkness.

"Son of a bitch," Cyc said as he rounded on Seth. He raised his pistol and opened fire, aiming indiscriminately upward.

Somehow, one of his shots connected. As a shrieking filled the air, the demon became visible for a few moments, and the assembled Talons could see its face. It was the face of Devrah Marash. Chun's mother.

Chun paled, suddenly unable to move. "M-mo-MOM!? Fuck!" She began to hyperventilate, dropping to the floor and trembling.

The demon's features twisted with madness, then fixated on the source of the words as it began to move again, fading once more into invisibility. A terrible keen filled the room, echoing in from all directions.

"Chun, get out of here!" Cyc roared. He blinked once, twice, letting his demonic eye open wide. Now he could see it, a pale hideous creature, somehow using magic to hide from ordinary sight, skittering across the ceiling of the room. "Chun, it's behind you, go!" He raised his gun again, sighting down the barrel.

Her name jolted her upright, and she broke into a run, heading for where Seth stood at the bottom of the stairwell. She clutched the chunk of crystal tightly to her chest, breath ragged in her lungs.

Reno just stared, the sword hanging limply from her fingers. The creature strobed in and out of existence as Cyclops' shots hit it. "Dammit," she breathed, actually looking panicky. "They fused... how did they... fuse?" She was muttering to herself with an air of questionable sanity.

Cyclops' gun clicked, out of bullets, as the creature threw itself from the wall, slipping invisibly through the air at Chun. He bit his lip, then ran for the case full of swords that Reno had opened.

Reno was still mumbling. "If one dies... they both have to die... we can't leave one without the other..."

Chun just ran, muttering "how," over and over again. She felt claws at her ankles, and faltered, stumbling forward. She heard Seth's voice from ahead of her, an unintelligible yell, and she caught herself and ran forward in a burst of adrenaline-fueled speed.

Seth watched her stumble. It had to be right behind her. He streaked straight toward that which was once Devrah, Kiara's crystal sword over his head. As he reached Chun, the blade connected with the thing in midair, and Seth threw his momentum into it.

It appeared fully to sight, now, its body a mass of blood and bone. Seth's blade had sunk deep into it, plunging straight into the chest of the human embedded in the beast's stomach. It screeched terribly as its claws lashed out, ripping wildly at Seth's arms.

"NO!" Reno's yell cut through the air. "SETH! DON'T SEPARATE THEM!" She dashed forward with astonishing speed, raising her sword. "KILL THEM TOGETHER! BOTH OF THEM!"

Seth just screamed, not knowing whether to pull back or keep striking. His hands were still wrapped around the hilt of the crystal sword as the thing scratched at him. Its claws were tearing the sleeves of his leather trenchcoat to ribbons, and leaving deep cuts in his arms.

Chun trembled and slowly dragged herself to standing from where she had slumped on the ground a few feet away. She lifted the crystal slab and took a shaky step forward.

Reno reached Seth and the demon, and swung wildly at its side. Mid-swing, her sword ignited. Her concentration broke, and she let the flaming sword go with a yelp. It still hit the side of the demon, though it clashed ineffectively against the beast's bony arms and fell to the floor.

Cyclops, too, had caught up with them, and thrust his own stolen sword into the creature's back. It howled and stumbled further forward, looming over Seth. Its flailing claws swung back in an attempt to pull the blade out of its spine.

The sudden blaze from Reno's sword lit Chun eerily as she advanced to stand alongside Seth, the light reflecting off of the goggles over her eyes. She raised her crystal block, and swung it hard, arms tense. The solid chunk smashed across the face of what had once been her mother. There was a sickening crunch, and the chest-head lolled to one side. Then the red faded from its eyes, and it was still.

Seth let go of the sword, gasping. He was bleeding from his face, and heavily from his arms. He fell to the ground, and tried to catch himself. His arms crumpled under him.

"I hate kids," Cyclops muttered as he jerked the sword out of the beast, then walked around the fallen creature to look at Seth. "You alright there, Lancelot?"

Seth spat blood. "Been better," he grimaced.

Chun kept trembling, and sat down and took off her backpack. The crystal lay to one side, discarded. She held her head in her hands.

Reno seemed to slowly slide out of her psychotic spasm. "S... Seth?" She stumbled over to him. "Dude... are you..."

Seth looked down at his arms. His jacket was in shreds, and his skin wasn't much better. He couldn't see any exposed bone, but that wasn't much comfort. "I should live," he said, still gasping for air. "Would somebody bind my arms?"

Hearing the call, Chun started taking deep breaths. She pulled out a small notebook and jotted down a few words. Then she exchanged the items for some gauze stolen from the room upstairs. She got to her feet and walked to Reno. "Patch Seth up." Her voice was flat, emotionless.

Cyclops jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the fallen demon. "Anyone want to tell me exactly what that thing was? Or why you didn't tell me about it earlier?"

As the words left his mouth, the thing leapt into the air once again, still fully visible. The grotesque corpse of Chun's mother hung limply from its chest as it went, heading straight for the box in its case. The eyes along the demon's skull had turned a curious yellow.

"Hell no!" Cyc yelled as he spun and made his way after the creature.

Chun glared at the thing. She shoved her backpack at Reno and ran after the thing as fast as she could.

Cyc raised his sword as he gained on it. It wasn't moving fast, crawling along the floor with its bony claws. He swung hard just as it reached the box.

Its claws grabbed at the glass protecting the box, and it jerked back. Cyc's sword cut it, but flew back as electricity jolted through the demon, and from there through his sword and into his hands.

The glass was shattered, though, and the demon pulled itself slowly to its feet, reaching for the box. Chun came up to it, then wrapped her hands around Kiara's crystal blade, still where Seth had left it, embedded in the beast's chest. She tugged hard, and the sword came free. Even as she stabbed at the creature, its bony arms were reaching around her, still going for the box.

"MY. BOX." Cyclops roared in primordial rage, his sword lashing out at the demon. His blade connected, again and again, digging out great chunks. Brown ichor flowed from where he struck it.

Chun's hair was more wild than usual as she kept swinging. Slowly the beast fell back, as the man and the girl hacked at it over and over. It slumped to the floor. Its final keen seemed to crawl down their spines, but still they continued. Chun kept swinging with all her might until the beast was in pieces and Kiara's crystal blade chipped against the concrete floor.

Cyclops struck the ground a few more times for good measure before he dropped the sword. Then he turned on the box. It sat there, completely unprotected. He grabbed it, his hand closing on its cool surface. He grinned, face covered in the demon's brown blood. "Aces."

To his normal sight, its six sides were engraved with strange markings and runes. He looked the box over with his other visions curiously. He could see what looked like tendrils of dormant magic stretching out away from it in all directions, but they looked empty somehow. He shrugged, uninterested in what the thing actually was, now that he finally had it. He tucked it under his arm.

Strangely calm, Chun walked back to Seth and Reno. Seth was lying on his back, his tattered trenchcoat discarded to the side. Reno was hunched over him, the sword clutched in her hand. Its blade glowed a dull orange, and steam rose as she held it over Seth's bleeding arms.

Chun stared. "What are you doing?"

"He was bleeding too much. I have to cauterize the wounds." Her voice was hollow, making her sound somehow more shaken than Chun.

Seth nodded slightly. "It was... my idea..."

"This is a bad idea," Chun said quietly. She didn't make any motion to stop her friend.

Reno took a deep breath, then pressed the flat of the blade against the biggest cut on Seth's arm.

He let out a howl of agony as his flesh burned, but held still as he could. He tasted blood, and he wasn't sure if it was from the cuts on his face or biting his tongue.

"Reno," Chun said. "Don't cauterize his face. Only the biggest wounds."

"I gave him options," Reno said as she worked. "He picked the flame. And don't worry, I won't give him deep-fried face." She moved to another wound, starting to cauterize it.

Chun chuckled just slightly, and Cyclops gave her an unsettled glance as he walked up. He didn't like the smile plastered across her face. "You kids are all types of crazy," he said, shaking his head.

Seth continued to gasp for air, eyes squeezed shut, but they could see it was working. The bleeding had stopped, though his arms were now raw and pink, the flesh slightly charred.

An unfamiliar voice came from the direction of the stairwell. "Hey, you, what's--ugh!"

Cyc instinctively ducked down, looking towards the noise. He motioned for the kids to stay down and started moving towards the stairs, darting from the shadow of one display case to the next.

A guard came out of the doorway, gun drawn, pointed at the ground. He swore and pulled a radio from his belt. "Check, check, we have intruders, I repeat, we have--"

He fell to the ground. Cyc stood behind him. A moment later, alarms rang throughout the building, trilling sharply. Cyc swore. "We need to leave. Now." He grabbed the guard's gun, leaving his empty one behind before rushing off towards the remaining Talons.

Chun's bag was already packed, and Reno's sword had gone dim.

Seth coughed. "Arms numb. Someone help me up?" His eyes were still closed lightly, and his face was now heavily bandaged, courtesy of Chun.

Reno turned to Chun. "Hurry. Help me carry him." The two of them bent down and gently lifted Seth up, supporting him by his midsection.

Several sets of footfalls came tramping down the hallway that the first guards had emerged from. Another trio of guards came into sight in the dim hallway. One of them yelled. "Drop the weapons, and put your hands in the air!"

"Fuck this," Cyc muttered as he ran for the front entrance. His demon eye rolled sideways in his head, and he opened fire at the guards.

Seth spat, and tried to point towards the demon's corpse. Realizing his arms only hung limply at his sides, he nodded towards it with his head. "That's your intruder. Or was, rather."

The guards returned fire, and the giant glass front of Tanique Hall shattered. The sound rang loud in the night, for a moment outsinging the rapport of the pistols.

"Move, folks," Cyclops yelled, pushing the Talons towards the front of the Hall, the box tucked safely in his pocket.

Seth ran, as best he could, still leaning desperately on his friends for support. The night outside beckoned, dark and safe.

HOPE’S EDGE (5)

2011-03-18T19:16:00.000-07:00

.
July 3rd, 802 AT.

The long group bedroom was quiet, and felt very much like a part of the Library that it was—that peculiar silence that only comes of the absorptive ability of thousands of pages of thousands of books.

Kiara sat on her bed, reading an old journal, waiting for something interesting to happen. She’d been sitting for a day, now, and was starting to get antsy. Night had fallen, and brought with it… absolutely nothing interesting.

Chun was in a corner, sitting on a chair, next to a towering stack of books. She fidgeted for a while, then grabbed one at random and began leafing through it. After a moment she decided it was boring, slipped it back into the stack, and grabbed a different one. She’d been doing this since they arrived at Tanique Hall, in between checkups on Kiara’s leg.

Kiara glanced over to the door and sighed. Her shadow fidgeted slightly.

The door swung abruptly forwards, revealing Seth, Reno, and one Cyclops. “Miss us?” Seth said, grinning.

((92 — Wrong Platform))

Chun grinned and tossed the book aside. “Barely.”

“Hey kid, I make the snappy lines,” said the dashing Cyclops, giving Seth a swat on the back of the head as he entered.

Kiara grinned widely. “A bit, maybe. Anyone hurt?”

“None other than a few guards,” Seth laughed. Next to him, Reno shrugged and spun a knife between her fingers, trying and failing to look innocent.

“Funny thing for you to be saying, peggy.” Cyclops made his way over to his wounded Talon. “See, I called you peggy on account of the leg you lost. Want to tell me how you let something stupid like that happen?”

“Don’t know how, actually.” Kiara scowled. “Bitch shouldn’t have been to get me from that close.”

“Which bitch? Be specific, peggy, there are a lot of them.”

“Some pilot.” She grimaced, pressing the end of her stump gently.

“This have to do with that big demon fleet or whatever?” Cyc asked as he waved his hands in the air for effect and lounged into a seat of his own.

“Nah,” Kiara said, shaking her head. “Had to do with… a bit of a misunderstanding on our way in.”

“Suppose it always does. Still, I hate to say it kid, but I don’t know what use I’ll have for you in the next step of our plan here.” He sat forward in his chair, frowning at her. “How well can you get around?”

“With others watching? Not so well. I can move somewhat, though.” Slowly, she pushed herself to the edge of the bed, then stepped off it. Her shadow gathered where her leg should be, keeping her upright. It didn’t look anything like a leg—just a shifting pillar of darkness—but she didn’t fall.

Seth raised an approving eyebrow. “Creative.”

“No reason not to be. I suppose we could wrap some pants and boots around it, though, if really necessary, and we… had extras.”

“Kiara,” Cyclops said casually, his demon eye rapidly analyzing. “I can’t help but notice you seem to have some sort of horribly otherworldly darkness for a leg. Want to explain that?”

Kiara said again, dispersing it. “I’ll let Chun do it. She’ll say it better.”

“Me? Oh, yeah.” Chun looked devilishly excited. “Well. My mom and I were working on a project, see? Playing with crystals and demons. And, to make a long story short enough for you to listen… we found out how to control demons, with crystals.”

“Well hot damn!” Cyclops’ eyebrows shot up. “Any sort of crystal? Any sort of demon?”

“Yeah, any one, any where,” Chun said, eyes dancing.

“If you can catch it first,” Kiara added.

“Yeah, uh, that detail!” Chun admitted, laughing. “That IS the hard part.”

“Catch it how?” Cyc was sitting up now and seemed to be intently listening, like he always was when he smelled profit.

“Like they did in the old days,” Chun said. “Big nets and stun guns. And a LOT of crystal cages.”

Cyc nodded, thinking. “Does this new revelation have anything to do with the hordes of demons I’m hearing about?”

“Nah… we were only doing what all researchers do… and taking it a mile and a half further.” Chun was trying to hide her pride, but only barely. She grinned madly.

“How many demons do you guys got so far?”

“One each. I also have only minimal stuff with me to do any tweaking for any other demons we find.”

“So count off, what do each of you crazy kids have? I gotta say I’m proud of you rascals. Out there enslaving forces of nature and all. It does a man’s heart good.”

Chun Red grinned very widely. “I have a fifteen foot tall crow!”

“Well,” Kiara said. “I’ve got this shadow thing I’m calling Umbra.”

“How physical can it get? Both of them, I should say. The crow and um… er… Umbra?”

“Completely,” Kiara said.

“Mine is called Torrential Black, and he is great, seriously talented at flying, with two sets of wings! He is very physical, and looks like he could fight, though I never got the chance to try.”

Reno just sort of frowned. “Caf is… Caf. I can’t describe Caf. ‘S like… my other…” She trailed off, shrugging.

“Don’t go soft on me now, Reno. Can Caf do anything useful?”

“I… Caf… yes. All sorts of things. Caf can capture anything launched at him and spit it back. And fly. Very useful.”

Seth smiled. “We’ve got a nice little array of friends here, Cyc.”

“Aces. Thanks for that detailed explanation, we’ve all learned a lot. Seth, how about you?”

“Mine’s not here now, but he’s a crystalline—eh?” He cut off as a voice came over the loudspeakers.

The voice was male, and fairly quiet. "This is a reminder. Tanique Hall is under basic lockdown, due to the riots. All staff are requested to remain calm, and in the safety of their rooms." The message had been repeating every few hours all day.

“Oh. Right. That. Anyhow, it’s this crystal-thing. I can change its shape with my mind. The thing’s good at cutting and breaking other things. And probably shielding, though I haven’t tested it out much.”

“Wow wow wow,” Cyc said. “I dig it.”

“Now how are we getting out?” Kiara said, clearly eager to start moving again.

“Slow down, peggy. We’ve got some business to take care of first.” Cyc looked around the room, at each of them in turn. “There is an item, in this very building, that I think should have the luxury—no, the honor—of getting stolen by us.”

Seth’s eyes gleamed. “Do go on…”

Cyc started to get excited as he began to explain the plan to his co-conspirators. “So guys, it’s literally right downstairs. Main lobby. Like three guards max. We’re in, we’re out. Aces. Plus with our demon stuff, it’s pretty much a done deal.”

“What is it?” Kiara asked. “And the only demon here is mine, we had to leave the others outside the city…”

“We could… get them.” Chun grinned quite a bit, obviously wanting to see what Torrential could do.

“Wait, you guys don’t have your demons? Why not?”

“They couldn’t sneak into the city,” Kiara said.

Chun shrugged. “Difficult for a fifteen foot tall crow.”

“I thought you said they lived in little crystals!”

“No, no, they are controlled by crystals,” Chun corrected.

Seth smiled, trying not to laugh. “There’s a fine line.”

Cyclops scowled. “Well, this is nonsense. So we have one demon? Or two, I guess, if you count the mojo I’ve got floating around here.” He poked the scaly corner of his eye a few times for good measure. He turned again to Kiara. “Can you have a shadow leg and do some sort of shadow noose at the same time? Or a shadow club even?”

“She can be pretty much anything.”

“But at the same time, ‘cause you falling over everywhere isn’t going to help us out at all.”

“No idea.”

“Well, why don’t you go ahead and try that out,” Cyclops said slowly, voice clearly bordering on the edge of frustration.

Kiara frowned, concentrating for a moment, then let out a quietly disappointed sigh. “I… no. One shape at a time. But I could… say, sit down around the corner.”

“Or someone could hold you, easy problem to overcome. It doesn’t come with any price, does it? You get tired? Hungry for people burgers?”

“Nope.”

“Phew. I’d hate to have a bunch of cannibals to deal with.” Cyclops sat back in his chair. “So, kiddos… want to come steal the magic box with me?” He grinned, then added, “Oh, yeah. It’s a magic box.”

Chun laughed. “Love to!”

“Sure,” Kiara said.

Seth’s smile was his only answer.

“Good, good. This should be fun. Reno? You in or out?”

“You bet your ass I’m in!” Reno said loudly from her corner of the room.

Kiara let out a small dejected sound. “Actually, I may as well just sit here and control Umbra. Won’t get in the way.”

“Aw, that’d be mighty kind of you, but how would we stay in communication? You’re coming.”

“Point… okay, I’ll sit around the corner.”

“Aces. So, someone help Kiara here, and let’s start to head downstairs. I’ll explain my plan as we go.”

Chun leapt to the task, getting her arm under Kiara’s shoulder, and helping her to her feet.

Cyc made a sweep of the room twice—once with his regular sight, and another with his demon eye, to make sure nothing funny was going on. He let his second vision linger for a minute on Kiara’s demon leg, then turned to the door. “Let’s do this, kiddos.”

((93 — Versus))

They went down the back stairway, meant for staff and maintenance only. Cyclops stopped them for a moment on a flight as footsteps approached the door on the landing, but the sound continued past, leaving them alone. A few flights down, they came to the back door to the main hall. Cyclops gently pushed the staff door open, and motioned for the others to follow him into the museum proper.

Inside, it was set up like one would expect of a museum hall. Glass display cases filled most of it, filled with demon skeletons and preserved carcasses, ancient guns and machinery, and other assorted artifacts of leadership. Here was the first crystal sword--there a crystal imbued with demon energy that seemed carbon-dated closed to thirteen thousand years old--the vials containing the DNA of various Earth-based animals that the scientists had never had reason nor equipment to decant and clone. The lights were turned off, and the large hall echoed with darkness.

The Talons eagerly examined the nearby treasures. Reno’s pale gaze slid delicately over everything. Next to her, Chun and Kiara were staring in wonder at the artifacts.

Cyclops tapped his foot once, getting their attention, then hissed to them. “Okay cats, here’s what I’m thinking. I scope it out with the ol’ eye—” Here he tapped his eye for effect. “And we run in, grab the box, and get out. Easy as pie.”

“Put me down,” Kiara murmured. Chun did, resting her just inside the stairwell, then grinned at her friend.

From a ways off, the sound of footsteps carried through the hall--the sound of the night guard, almost certainly.

“Well, maybe not that easy,” Cyc muttered.

“Shit, not again,” moaned Reno under her breath.

“Just knock him out nice and easy.” He turned to Reno. “And to you, shhhh.”

Seth drew his crystal switchblade and began to sneak forward along the edge of the room. Chun came silently behind him, with Reno after her, dagger swishing out again.

The guard stood well ahead of most of the display cases in the room, looking out towards the front doors. He held a large taser baton in one hand. His posture made it clear that he wasn't expecting any particular excitement.

From her position in the stairwell, Kiara closed her eyes, sending Umbra creeping barely visibly along the floor.

Seth watched it creep past him, amused. He took up position behind a case and waited. If the demon didn’t finish the job, he would be ready.

More footsteps came, from off to the right, followed by a voice. “Hey, Max.”

The guard they were sneaking up on turned to look in that direction, and nodded back. "Andrew."

Another guard—Max—came out from behind a segment of wall, looking every bit as relaxed. The two guards began to talk casually.

"Weird, us both being on shift at once."

"It's those damn riots."

Cyclops, watching from afar with his demon eye, whispered to Kiara. “Second guard. Wait for these guys to jet.” Kiara nodded, and Umbra slipped back against the wall, blending into the ambient shadows.

"I know, man, I blame all the refugees,” Max agreed.

"Yeah? My little brother is a radio operator for the landing platforms."

"Mmhm?"

Seth barely stifled a laugh at that, but fell silent as the guards continued talking, not showing any signs of going anywhere.

"And he says there were HUNDREDS of refugee ships. He didn't get to sleep for DAYS 'cause he was landing 'em all."

"Shit, man, way more than they said on the news."

"Yeah..."

"Hey. You hear something?"

"Like what?"

"I dunno, sounded like voices."

Kiara froze. Umbra tensed.

Next to her, Cyc whispered as softly as he could. "Alright, Kiara, think you can make umbra like a big blanket, and catch them all?"

"You're hallucinating, man."

"I'm gonna go check it out."

"Whatever, man."

Max started walking back towards them.

Seth held his position silently, switchblade closed but ready. Chun bit her lip, trying to hold perfectly still against the wall.

Kiara focused, and Umbra shaped herself into something like a large shadowy net, flat against the wall.

Cyclops waited until Max was nearly level with where Seth, Chun, and Reno were hiding, then tapped Kiara on the shoulder. “Go go go!”

Umbra detached from the wall, and in a blur of darkness wrapped around Max, knocking him to the floor. “What the—!?”

The other guard--Andrew--looked up. "Max? You okay?"

“Score one, us,” muttered Reno. Seth nodded, then began to sneak forward, trying to flank Andrew.

Max called back. "Something knocked me over! Couldn't see it, though..."

Cyc pulled out his pistol and began to advance, moving quickly from display to display, making sure to hide his reflective gun as he did so

Kiara grinned with satisfaction, and Umbra reached out a tendril, wrapping around the second guard’s ankle.

Andrew yelped in surprise. "Something's grabbing my ankle!" Umbra yanked, and Andrew's leg went out from under him, hard. He landed on his back. "Gah!"

Meanwhile, Max was getting back to his feet. "What the fuck is this thing? Did you see it?"

Seth reached Max. “Nah, and you didn’t either.” His grin gleamed in the darkness as the guard spun to face him. He brought the blunt end of his switchblade down on the guard’s head, and Max fell forward, unconscious.

Umbra, meanwhile, had bound Andrew’s weapon arm to his side. He yelled again. “Fuck! Thing’s… got my arm!” He struggled at the shadowy stuff, trying to free his arms to no avail. “Get—off—of—me!”

“Your turn, Andrew.” Seth didn’t bother to keep his voice quiet as he closed in on the second guard.

The guard pushed away on the ground, his eyes catching sight of Seth. "Ah, shit, man, you're one of the demon assassins, aren't you! Fuck!”

Reno and Chun stepped out from behind the case, flanking Seth as he advanced. Both were smiling.

“Forget my face.” Seth laughed. “Or don’t,” he finished, uncaring, hammering the blade casing onto Andrew’s temple. The man slumped, unconscious. Umbra quiet slipped away, fading again into the shadows.

“Okay, demon assassins,” Cyc called, still keeping his voice low. “Let’s get that box.”

Seth cracked his neck, then his knuckles. “Let’s.”

The box was in a particularly large glass display case in the center of the hall. Unlike every other item, it had no plaque to describe it. It was a simple gray box, a few inches an edge, with strange runes etched into each side. It was oddly off-center in its case, as if someone had somehow bumped into it.

Cyclops approached the box, his eye starting to scan for anything suspicious. He suppressed a grin. He had been after this box for far too long now—the only thing he hadn’t yet succeeded in stealing. “Somebody tie those gentlemen up, would you?” He said. “We’re going to need—”

Kiara's voice cut him off, out from the stairwell at the back of the room. "Trouble!" Her voice carried fear with it.

Seth flicked his wrist, opening the shiny blade. “I’ll check it out,” he said, as he began to run back towards the stairwell.

“Good man,” Cyc encouraged, eyes never leaving the box.

Kiara's crystal sword came skittering towards Seth, sliding along the floor. Her voice followed it, panicky. "Demon!"

From her position at the base of the staircase, Kiara could hear something coming down it. She frowned, calling Umbra back to her, to see if it could get a view.

It sounded like... skittering claws. Kiara's eyes widened, and she strained to see it, drawing her crystal sword awkwardly.

The sounds reached the edge of the stairwell, and the thing came around the corner--

... but there was nothing there. The sounds continued towards her unabated, accompanied now by an odd rasping breath. "Trouble!" Kiara tried to call, but her voice came out shakier than she had wanted.

Umbra flickered to Kiara’s side, forming a barrier.

The sound of movement stopped, right above her.

Umbra clawed at where the sound had come from. The claw met flesh and feathers. From her touch, an image rippled outwards. Hanging over her, braced between the sides of the stairwell, was a large creature, somewhat bat-like, with skeletal appendages that looked more like long, bony fingers than wings.

“Demon!” she called, voice shot through with panic. Her mind slowly processed what she was seeing. Embedded in the flesh of its chest was a… what had been human… Kiara’s eyes went wide with horror as she recognized the figure buried in the demon’s chest.

The creature looked down at her with both faces, all four eyes glowing red.

Desperately, Kiara thrust her sword at its center of mass. One of the skeletal wing-segments smacked down, knocking the sword out of her hand. The sword clattered off into the hall.

Umbra lunged upwards, slashing again with its claws, but the creature lashed out with its sharp-edged bones, shattering the shadow and dispersing it. The creature faded into invisibility once again.

Kiara pulled her demon towards her, wrapping herself in her living cloak of shadows. A strange calm settled over her. “Goodbye,” she whispered quietly to herself.

Then dozens of invisible claws tore into her flesh, shredding her skin to ribbons.

In one fluid motion, Seth flicked the switchblade shut and picked up the sword. Jaz had shown him how to use one once. He kept running.

He heard the sounds of a scuffle from the stairwell, and clenched his teeth, trying to run faster. He crossed the last few yards to the stairs, skidding to a stop at their base.

Blood covered the bottom few steps, and—

At the foot of the stairs lay the mangled corpse of Kiara.

Seth let out an almost-silent "fuck" as his breath caught in his throat.

HOPE’S EDGE (4)

2011-03-04T08:33:00.000-08:00

.
((85 — Untrue))
.
July 3rd, 802 AT.

The crystal tunnel echoed with the screeching of metal on metal as the hinges protested the opening door. Seth stood outside, calmly letting his cigarette burn itself out. He was wearing his classic demon-leather trenchcoat, and his golden earrings jingled a bit in his left ear’s cartilage. On his face was a wicked grin. He was rather looking forward to seeing his mentor. Reno stood behind him, smiling over his shoulder.

Finally, as the door clanged to a halt, he tossed the dying butt to the floor, and ground it to dust underfoot. “Evening, Cyc.”

“I really hope you brought one for me too.”

“But. Of. Course, mate.” Seth reached into his coat and pulled out two fresh ones. He handed one to Cyclops, along with his lighter.

Cyc grabbed it with a smile and a wink. Brown jumpsuit aside, there wasn’t anything normal-looking about Cyclops. His brown hair was styled back, his face covered in stubble. And of course his left eye had three pupils, was red shot-through with violet, and was surrounded by the crimson demonic scales that covered the left half of his face. ((Griffin Simpson))

“Now tell me,” Cyc asked as he took a long drag. “What took you two so long?” This was accompanied with two quick swats to the backs of their respective heads.

Seth laughed, leaning in the doorway. “Oh, you know, the usual. Guards, demons to fight, demons to train, apocalypses…” The prison cell was small and roughly spherical, with a ledge cut into one side to apparently serve as a bed. The only illumination came from the light filtering through the dozens of feet of crystal.

Reno bowed her head shamefully a moment before speaking. "You two catch up. I'm gonna go knock some heads, clear us an escape route." She ran off down the hallway.

Cyc nodded approvingly. “Resourceful girl.”

Seth laughed again. “You should’ve seen her earlier, seducing prepubescent boys.”

After a moment’s pause, Cyc rounded on Seth, his face absent of its previous easy smile. "Now tell me, boy-o of mine. Where are the rest of the Talons?"

“…Recovering.” Seth’s smile was gone too. “We encountered a bit of trouble on our way in.”

“How long are they going to be… recovering?”

“Dunno. Hopefully not too long. They should still be somewhere near a library.”

A muffled whump came from down the corridor, followed by Reno's voice. "One down!"

“Atta girl!” Cyc called out the door, then snapped his eyes back to Seth’s. “They got skinned knees? A little winded? Or are we talking fist-sized holes in their bodies?”

Seth broke the eye contact. “Kiara lost a leg. Well, most of one, anyway.”

“Damn. How long ‘til she’s mobile?”

“Not sure. But it won’t matter soon, will it? She’ll have to move. We all will.”

“Suppose you’re right, prison busts aren’t popular with the locals. But enough talk, you ready to go?” He stretched, rolling his shoulders backwards.

“Yeah. Let’s catch up with Reno.”

“After you,” Cyc said, with a little bow and a gesture for Seth to lead.

Seth nodded. “Let’s book it.” He took off down the hall. Cyc followed him, puffing like a chimney on his cig all the way.

Reno leaned against the wall by the elevator, eyes closed. "What took you two so long?" She grinned wryly. The old guard who had stopped them earlier was facedown on his deck, a small trickle of blood seeping from the back of his head.

Cyc took the cigarette out of his mouth and blew a breath of smoke. "Violent sodomy. Speaking of violence, which one of you delinquents did this?" He said, gesturing at the guard.

"That would be me." Reno hit a button on the wall, and the elevator doors slid open.

Seth stepped inside and pulled a small silver revolver out of his coat.

“Gold star for you,” Cyc said, entering the elevator with Seth. “How many of those hand warmers you got, kid?”

“This’s the only one that makes things go boom. I’ve also got a few sharp things. Any preferences?”

"Whatever you can spare, kid. So what's this big escape plan?"

Reno laughed. "We barely need one. There's just the kid up here, what with the riots."

“You’ve always been a better shot than me,” Seth said, handing Cyclops the gun as he pulled out his crystal switchblade with his other hand.

“Aces,” was all Cyc said as he took the gun, fiddling with it. “I recognize this gun! You kids hit my storeroom.” He thought for a moment. “Gold stars for both of you for resourcefulness.” Then he turned to Reno. “Wait, riots?”

“Shit,” Seth said, eyebrows raised in genuine surprise. “You not hear about the impending doom, corked up down there?”

Cyc frowned at him. “You have some information you want to share with the rest of the class?”

The doors of the elevator slid open onto the first floor hallway. The young teenager still sat at his post, looking around awkwardly. "H-hey!" The boy pointed. "Y-you can't..."

“In a nutshell?” Seth said, ignoring the guard. “We’ve got a fleet of demons coming down our collective ass, bigger and badder than anything you’ve ever seen. Anything anyone's ever seen.”

The guard stammered, gesturing at Cyclops. "He can't..."

Cyc trained the gun on the kid, not even looking at him. "What are they doing about it?" He said to Seth.

The kid shut up quick, his hands raising in the air over his head.

“No clue. Some friends of Jaz—” He paused for a moment and took a sharp breath. “—some friends of Jaz… shit, I don’t even know. But they got here first and warned everyone. Not very well, I guess, given that all hell’s broken loose already.”

Cyc’s human eye brightened a little at this. “So this whole rock is in pandemonium, eh?”

“Yeah,” Seth said, leading the way down the corridor. The rest of the way out was clear. An empty hallway leading towards a huge hole in the wall where the door had been.

“Good. Now let’s got out of here, and then I’m gonna tell you a little story,” Cyc said, making his way towards the hole.

“Sounds like a plan,” spoke Seth, as he stepped outside.

SOLDIERS OF HOPE (2)

2011-02-25T21:08:00.000-08:00

.
((89 — Beginning))
.
July 3rd, 802 AT.

Goat’s room in the hospital was a small one, at the outer edge of the crystal spire. A window let a beam of natural light in, gently illuminating the room. The room was long and thin, with space for six beds to fold down from the wall, though only Goat's was in use, leaving most of the room empty.

Giraffe shuffled in through the door, not fully awake yet and trying hard not to spill the tray of food she was carrying. Zebra followed her in, yawning as well. She quietly took a seat in a nearby chair, looking like she might nod off for a bit.

Goat opened his young, naive eyes. Bandages were wrapped tightly around his upper arm, and more over his leg. The doctors had told him the bullets had gone clean through, and with the benefits of modern medical practices, he should be good to leap again in a matter of days. “Good morning!” He said, looking at the two newcomers.

Zebra waved a hand noncommittally. "Morning."

“Here’s some—” Giraffe paused to yawn. “—food, Goat. How are you so cheery?”

“I just woke up,” he said. “The terrible state of things hasn’t gotten to me yet. Plus you brought me food, which is very sweet of you. Thanks!”

Giraffe gave half a smile and shrugged, setting the tray down on Goat’s lap. “Least I could do.” She happily sank down into a chair next to Zebra, and began gently nursing the cup of coffee she had taken from the tray. “Enjoy, I thought it was rather nice myself.” Next to her, Zebra was similarly sipping at a cup of coffee appreciatively. It didn't appear to be doing much to wake her up yet, though.

Goat sat up and instinctively transformed the food into a sandwich, then began munching happily.

“So,” Giraffe said after a minute or two of quiet eating. “How are the appendages?”

“Good, except for the fact that they’re injured. I think they’re getting better though.” As if to demonstrate, he gave a flail with his injured arm, then winced.

“Well that’s good,” Giraffe said, stifling a laugh. “Any idea where we’re going next?”

Goat frowned. “I see two options: we stay here and do Barret’s dirty work… or we go find Kasby.”

Giraffe perked up slightly. “I like option two, Barret bugs me.”

“Bugs? Seems a bit of an understatement. Hey…” Goat lowered his voice to what he thought was a whisper. “Do you think she’s a demon in disguise?”

Giraffe pondered it a moment. “I dunno, the only demons that we’ve seen, even in disguise, have had non-human features. But then again, she could be like us and just scared of more of her/our kind.”

“We’ll see,” Goat said. “In any case, I guess I won’t be doing much ‘til these limbs heal up.”

Giraffe shrugged. “Guess so.”

The conversation trailed off for a long minute. Goat stared out the window, down at the city below. “This city is really big,” he stated quietly.

Giraffe looked at him blankly for a second. “Well that was random. Are you—”

“Hey,” he cut her off, moving his toe nervously. “If we haven’t been eaten by demons when my limbs get better…”

Giraffe continued to look at him in confusion. “Um…”

“Do you want to… um… gonadate?”

“Say again?”

Goat gulped. “Go on a date?” His eyes darted nervously.

Giraffe puzzled for a second before looking at her coffee. “I don’t… know? Maybe?”

From her chair, Zebra raised an eyebrow, and a hint of a smile creeped along the corner of her half-asleep mouth.

Giraffe jumped up. “I need more coffee!”

“Kay,” Goat said quietly.

She shuffled to the door, yelling over her shoulder, “And that wasn’t a yes, by the way!”

Goat let out a sigh, then looked to Zebra.

The girl immediately pretended to be asleep, letting out a pointed and perhaps overloud fake yawn.

After a few minutes passed, Giraffe sauntered back with a fresh cup of coffee.

“Still not sure?” Goat asked tentatively.

Giraffe opened her mouth to respond, but turned her head as something caught her eye. On the far side of the room, a yellow mist was slowly beginning to flood the floor, flowing seemingly out of nowhere.

((90 — 0800 Dub))

“Wha!” exclaimed Goat.

“I dunno!” Giraffe yelled as she climbed onto a chair, trying to get away from the mist. Zebra stood up, looking down at the mist in confusion.

Part of it swirled up in the far corner, beginning to solidify into a human form. Slowly, it resolved into something all three recognized--the creature that had once been Jazrill Quinn.

Giraffe looked wide-eyed at the figure. “Fuck!”

“Gah!” Goat yelled.

Its skin was black and cracking, and its eyes shone red. The goggle lenses now embedded in its forehead glowed a fainter red, looking almost like a second set of eyes. The creature took a step forward, hissing angrily. It looked around the room, looking for something or someone. From a mouth that was far from human, the thing let out an angry howl.

Giraffe stood very still, and began to hiss for Zebra to do the same.

Zebra didn’t seem to want to wait around, though, and hurled her cup of hot coffee at the creature.

The cup hit it in the chest, splashing steaming brown liquid all across it. It screeched again, this time in pain.

Giraffe looked at Zebra. “Now she’s going to come after us!” she screeched.

“Fine by me,” Zebra said angrily, and picked up her chair, holding it over her head like a weapon.

Then the creature ran at Zebra--though it was limping slightly, favoring its right leg.

With one arm, Goat threw his tray of food at the creature, as Giraffe shot a blast of flame at its injured leg.

It leapt into the air, over both the fire and the tray of food, barely avoiding hitting the high ceiling. It came down with the crystal blade emerging from the end of its arm aimed squarely at Zebra's chest.

She stumbled backwards, trying to get out of its way, but the blade sliced through her shirt and chest, spattering blood on the floor.

“NO!” Goat shouted. Giraffe just turned up the heat, focusing on the wounded leg. This time, her blast of flame caught the creature solidly, bringing out another howl of pain. It rolled to the side, out of the way of Giraffe's blast, clutching at its burnt leg.

“Oh no, you don’t get away that easily,” Giraffe yelled as she re-directed her blast to follow it.

Next to her, Zebra looked down at herself, at the blood that was quickly staining her shirt red. Then her eyes rolled back into her head and she fainted. As her unconscious form hit the floor next to Goat's bed, the room around them seemed to ripple.

A second room seemed to overlay the hospital, a room of metal and wood. It looked almost like one of the rooms of Sector Four, but the walls were overlaid with thick red wires, that pulsed slightly, like blood vessels.

“What the fall?” Goat said, eyes darting around in bewilderment.

Giraffe let off her flame, nervously pacing. “This isn’t good.”

Zebra now stood again where she had been, looking around in confusion. She also lay prone on the floor, at her own feet.

Where Jaz was, though... A second form overlaid hers, this one a glowing silhouhette of angrily flickering red light. It looked around, scowling and hissing, and then its eyes seemed to settle on Zebra once more. Both forms, the physical and the glowing red, took a step towards her.

“Hey you!” Giraffe shouted at the glowing figure. It ignored her, not seeming to hear at all.

Without warning, it leapt forward, landing right in front of the ghostly figure of Zebra. The physical form landed badly, its burnt leg not supporting it well, but the red form stayed standing.

“What…?” Zebra was still frowning in confusion, not understanding. A pale red line appeared along her chest, matching the cut on her body on the ground. Then she reached out a hand to touch the creature’s face, the angry red mist every bit as insubstantial as her hand. “Jaz?”

For a fleeting moment, the redness seemed to peel back where she touched, and the familiar face of Captain Jazrill Quinn emerged from beneath the rage.

Then the moment passed, and the fire once more covered the creature. With one swirly red hand, it grabbed Zebra by the throat.

“Well, shit,” she said quietly.

The creature's other hand punched straight through Zebra, emerging out the back of her spine in a grisly display of bloody light. She fell backwards, even as a third wave of Giraffe's fire hit the creature in the side.

Before Zebra's ghostly body hit the floor a second time, the world rippled, and the overlays vanished. They were once again in the medical room, face to face with the physical demon that had been Jaz.

A demon that was now right in the line of Giraffe's flame. It shrieked, diving backwards, trying to get away from the fire. Giraffe just growled, increasing the intensity of the heat, channeling her anger into it.

Snarling, the creature locked its eyes on its one escape: the window. In a final burst of effort, it launched itself forward, despite both wounded legs. The creature flew over where Goat still lay in bed, smashing through the window next to him.

The room was suddenly deathly silent.

Giraffe ran over to Zebra, dropping to her knees and looking over her body. There didn’t appear to be very much blood, but she wasn’t breathing.

“Shit,” Goat said quietly, eyes wide.

Giraffe didn’t respond, just pulled Zebra’s bloody shirt back to look at where Jaz’s crystal blade had hit her. The wound was a long cut, a slice that ran from shoulder to hip, but it wasn't terribly deep. It wouldn't be life-threatening, but... Zebra wasn't moving. Wasn't breathing.

“Fucktards,” Giraffe spat bitterly.

“Good thing we’re kind of already in a hospital, right?” Goat offered.

“I… I don’t think it will be able to help much.” Zebra lay still. No pulse pushed blood from the wound.

Giraffe reached out her hand, and gently closed Zebra’s eyes, her own hollow eyes looking down at the corpse of her oldest friend.

SILENT HOPE (2)

2011-02-18T20:16:00.001-08:00

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((88 — Phendrana Drifts))
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July 3rd, 802 AT.

“It’s just up ahead,” Delissa said, looking back over her shoulder at Owl and Spider.

The two refugees were following her through the streets of the city, on their way to the entrance to the Deepana Caverns. They had meant to get an early start, but had all wound up sleeping in, and it was midmorning by the time they got moving. The night before, after checking on Kiara, Spider had split off from the Talons and shared Owl’s room for the night. They’d stayed up late catching each other up on their various exploits since parting ways a month earlier.

The alleyway suddenly opened up into what at first looked like a large courtyard. The ground was made of massive metal sheets, instead of the usual ground-down crystal of the rest of the city. In the center sat a small kiosk, with a single door.

Delissa frowned. “Usually there would be guards, but I guess they’re all busy dealing with the riots…”

Spider touched off the ground, letting herself fall towards the building. “Then let’s head inside!”

Owl jogged after, Delissa close on her heels. Their footsteps rang loudly on the metal, making it quite clear that there was nothing but air beneath the panel. They reached the door to find Spider frowning at the large padlock hanging conspicuously on the handle.

“Won’t open,” the teenager said. “I could hit it.”

Delissa shook her head. “It’s probably magically reinforced, knowing security around her. Crystals inside the lock. I guess we’ll have to come back another time.”

Owl stepped forward. “I think I can do something about it, actually.” Smiling, she rested her hand on the padlock. The pattern of words flowed off of her skin, surrounding and describing the lock. Owl focused, and her mouth moved just slightly, lips shaping out words. The writing on the padlock changed, and the lock changed with it. With a click, it popped open.

Delissa just stared. “I… it just…”

“Yeah. It’s… useful, sometimes.”

The younger librarian nodded. “I read about it in your journals, but it’s… it’s something else entirely to see it for real.” She looked at Owl, who smiled sheepishly. “You’re absolutely incredible.”

Owl blushed. “No, I’m just… I do what I can with what I have, and it’s not…” She trailed off as a loud clanging came from within the kiosk. She turned to see Spider already inside and halfway down a ladder.

Spider looked back at her. “What? I got bored. Come on!”

The crystal caves turned out to be much like the ones they had explored on Face, only scaled up a dozen times. They came complete with strange shadow-filled cracks and long-desiccated corpses impaled on crystal spires.

After the fourth or fifth set of corpses they passed, Delissa stopped, tugging on Owl’s sleeve. “We should turn back.”

Owl frowned at her. “Why?”

The girl swallowed, looking down. “We’ll end up like those people we passed… we’ll get impaled!”

Owl shook her head. “I don’t think so. The shadows—the things in the crystals—seem to acknowledge that we’re on their side now. They made contact with us, back when all this was starting.”

Delissa nodded. “I know. I read about it. It still… it feels uncomfortable here.”

“We’ll be fine,” Owl said. “Spider and I have been through much darker situations than this, I assure you. A little spelunking is, you know, easy as falling for us now!” She laughed awkwardly, and Delissa laughed with her, but Owl didn’t think her half-hearted joke had done much to cheer the librarian.

Sighing, they followed after their gravity-defying companion.

After what felt like at least four or five hours of wandering through the crystal catacombs, Spider stopped them abruptly.

Owl raised a questioning eyebrow. “What is it?”

Spider scowled at the floor, looking at it from where she stood on the ceiling. “Gravity goes all weird, right under us. It feels funny.”

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno, but I don’t like it. Something’s messing with it.”

“Something alive?” Delissa asked, voice small.

Spider shook her head. “I don’t think so. It’s like… there’s a hole, where gravity suddenly goes all flippy, like a ledge or something. I can’t really describe it.”

“Do you think you lead us to it?” Owl asked.

Spider nodded sharply. “Absolutely.”

It took them almost another hour of exploration before they found the source of the strange gravity. The orange light came into view first, flickering strangely in the otherwise white-lite tunnel. They rounded the corner to it, bringing it fully into view.

In the floor of the tunnel was a large crack, at least three meters long and half a meter wide. Its edge was lined with glowing orange lettering, that drifted along the length of the crack, phasing gently in and out of itself.

Owl walked slowly to the edge, staring down at the letters, studying them, trying to read them.

“What is it?” Delissa asked quietly.

“And can you read it?” Spider asked, hovering over her shoulder.

Owl shook her head. “I can read the words, but the grammar doesn’t make any sense. It’s all just strings of numbers and descriptive language… Maybe I could decipher it eventually, but it just looks like gibberish to me.” She let out a frustrated sigh.

Spider fell to the ceiling, inverting in mid-air to land on her feet. She stood over the hole, looking straight down through it. “It’s all just white in there!”

“What do you mean?” Owl followed her gaze, and saw only empty whiteness within. A burst of cold air came out, prompting her to pull her arms against her sides.

“The other gaps all had shadows in them, filling them in. This one isn’t even a crack! It’s just white!”

Owl started to answer, but Spider cut her off. “I’m gonna go check it out!” Owl watched as the teenager detached from the ceiling, and let herself fall through the portal.

Delissa frowned after her. “Will she be alright?”

Owl nodded. “She can take care of herself.” She crouched next to the gap, and touched her hand to the words. Rather than flow off of her, the words on the back of her hand took on the orange tint of the writing on the ground. “Oh!” She exclaimed quietly.

“What is it?” Delissa asked worriedly.

“It’s… I can kind of feel how it makes sense now! It’s like the portal is explaining itself to me…”

“Portal?”

Spider came rocketing back up through the gap, a whirlwind of cold following her. She landed again on the ceiling, her head and shoulders now covered with a strange dusting of white. She grinned gleefully at her two companions. “Owl! Owl! There’s a whole WORLD in there!”

DETAILED HOPE -- RENO

2010-10-16T10:31:00.001-07:00

Illustrated by Hannah Rothman.

HOPE’S EDGE (3)

2010-10-15T21:14:00.000-07:00

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((80 — Yami no Butou))
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July 3rd, 802 AT.

It was the next morning by the time Seth and Reno made it to the Complex. They had spent the previous afternoon doing some basic reconnaissance, and making their way through the city. Transportation would’ve been easier if half of the trams hadn’t been shut down due to riots. Reno somehow managed to remember the address of one of Cyclops’ old hideouts, and they crashed there for the night.

The elevator descended the central spire, heading towards the open areas around its base. The Complex was buried inside that spire, and the only entrance was on one of the faces. For a moment the elevator jerked slower before continuing—presumably the result of a lack of maintenance or attention.

Reno stumbled, feet slipping out from under her, but Seth took a step forward and caught her with one arm, helping her upright. “You alright?”

She nodded slowly, putting a hand to her temple. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

He frowned concernedly at her. “You sure?”

Reno looked away, out the window. “I…” She sighed.

“What is it?” Seth sounded uncharacteristically concerned.

“I’m pretty sure my dizzy spells are symptoms of demon withdrawal. I need Caf. The connection… it’s… he’s a part of me. I’m losing track of what’s me, and what’s human, and…” She swallowed hard, but her voice was still flat.

He reached out a hand to her back, almost putting it around her, but held back. “Three weeks of freefall would fuck anybody up, yo.”

“If I concentrate on something calming, I should be fine for now. But I… we shouldn’t stay here too long. It might get more severe.” She turned to face him. “I don’t feel like me, by myself. That’s how I killed that pilot. It wasn’t really me doing it.”

Seth just nodded uncomfortably, not sure how to respond. He was saved by the elevator nearing the ground. “You ready for this?”

Reno smiled. “Yeah. I can do this.”

Outside the wide windows of the elevator, the two Talons could see a large plaza before them, crammed with rioters. "Dayum," breathed Reno. "Look at 'em all."

With a loud hiss of outrushing air, the wood-and-glass elevator gently touched down. The cage door retracted, opening out onto a landing platform, up a few stairs from the plaza. Above them, the crystal spire stretched off almost higher than they could see.

A handful of uniformed guards stood nearby, keeping the riot in check. What had been a riot, anyway. Half the people in the crowd looked unconscious, injured, or similar, and the other half looked about to keel over. It looked like the last dregs of a riot which had been going for days--and, from the radio broadcasts they had overheard on the tram, that's exactly what it was.

“Well shit. Ain’t this pretty.” Seth flicked on a pair of shades he’d had stored in his demon-leather trenchcoat for such an occasion.

“You think we missed the bulk of the heavy crap?” said Reno.

Seth shrugged. “S’pose.” They walked the dozen yards along the edge of the crystal spire to the massive door set into it. Etched above it were the words THE COMPLEX. “Looks like this is the place.” The door was easily three meters tall, a heavily sealed array of steel and bolts and deadlocks. There was a small radio panel set into the crystal next to it.

“…and now the big question,” said Reno, squinting up at the behemoth of a crystal prison. “How the living fuck are we going to get Cyc out of here?"

“Oh, I think we might have our ways.” He gestured to his coat, and to one bulging pocket in particular.

Reno leaned over and examined it. "I have a good feeling that this is the part where you whip out the metric crapton of awesome stuff."

“Sounds ‘bout right. I grabbed some supplies from Cyc’s pad while you were still napping.” He patted the pocket affectionately. “Let’s see if we can get in without this shit, though. Of course, if we can’t get in subtly… then it’s time for the fireworks.”

He walked up the door, looking it over. It didn’t seem particularly guarded, at least from the outside. He took a second look at the people dealing with the riot, and noticed the little COMPLEX logos on their shoulders. Lucky riot.

“Well… let’s try knocking.” Seth strolled over the door and smacked it a few times with his fist. The noise was deep and hollow, an echoing vibration that shuddered through the door.

“Oh,” said Reno, with a hint of disappointment. “I thought you meant knocking with literal fireworks.”

The radio hissed, shutting her up, and a voice asked, “Yes?”

Seth leaned over to the radio. “Yo. Here to visit an old friend. Wanna open the door?”

“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to give me an authorization code for visiting.”

“I’m sorry, did that sound like a question? Let me rephrase that. You want to open the door.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir. You’re going to have to leave.”

Seth shook his head and sighed. “No can do, bro.”

Reno leaned into his ear. “Fireworks anytime now, buddy.”

He nodded. “Let’s see here.” He reached into his coat and felt around for a minute. “Ah. This should do nicely.” He pulled out a small glowing crystal, and place it directly in front of the door. “You might wanna take a step back, babe.”

“Okie dokie,” said Reno, obliging.

The crystal pulsed, glowing with... well, it wasn't light. It was an absence of light. The space around it seemed to pulse shadows, as if all the light were being sucked out of it. The air around it rippled, and the crystal seemed to shrink. There was a flash, blinding un-bright, of non-space. The world seemed to ripple, and for a single terrifying moment, a hole opened into absolute nothingness.

The door, the radio, the crystal floor--in the blink of an eye, everything in a two meter radius from the crystal vanished into the black hole, never to be seen again.

Any hint of mental vagueness Reno had at that moment vanished with the door. “WOAH,” she gasped. “What wasn’t that?”

Seth laughed. “Wasn’t not a black hole. Boom, baby.” The hallway on the other side of the vanished crater stretched forward. Seth lit a new cigarette and began to walk forwards. “Let’s raid this place.”

"Aye aye, capitan," saluted Reno, feeling strangely invigorated by the burst of nothingness. Reno hadn't felt this good since before she separated from Caf. It was as though the burst of nothing had subconciously reminded her that there were worse things than being separated from your mental partner.

A small guard post sat to one side of the hall, with the remaining arm and a leg of whoever they had spoken to on the radio. The corridor was moderately well lit by a series of lamps overhead, stretching forward. Various side passages and elevators up and down branched off from the main tunnel. These were marked with various combinations of letters and numbers, denoting... well, to be honest, they had no idea. But they probably denoted something.

“Wonder which one’s got Cyc,” Seth mused as eyed the numbers. “Any ideas, Reno?”

She stood next to him and rubbed her chin in thought. “Let’s seeeeee…” Her chin-finger stopped moving. "Does starting from the bottom and working our way up make any sense?"

“I don’t have any other ideas.”

She grinned. "Or should we just do it the old fashioned way and hold a sharp deadly object to a guard's throat and make him tell us?"

“That’s faster.” Seth shrugged, smiling lazily. “I think we can pull that off. All we need, then, is a guard.”

“A guard and THIS little bugger. I mean dagger.” Reno whipped out the aforementioned sharp, deadly object.

“Excellent. Let’s keep going down this way. Should be a guard post or something.” He began once again to walk. After a few minutes’ walk, they came to a bend, turning left. “Wonder what’s ‘round this corner…” He stepped around it.

The corridor continued along for a good distance. A door was inset into the left side of it, though, with a window-like opening next to it. Anyone on their way through the corridor would have to pass the window.

Seth nodded approvingly. “Bingo. You wanna chat with the bloke? Or shall I?”

Reno grinned. "You know, this is something I've wanted to try for a while, but haven't for weird tomboyish feminist reasons."

“Take it away, my friend,” Seth said, laughing.

((81 — Peeping Tom))

Reno straightened herself, smoothed out her hair, and sauntered over to the guard post in an uncharacteristically sexy way.

The young man sitting inside the window was scribbling away in a journal, eyes down. There was a desk there, cut from the crystal itself, but no glass separating her from him.

“S’cuse me,” she said, lowering the pitch of her voice ever so slightly to induce a more womanly tone. “Sorry for walking in like this. The door was open."

The guard, who didn't look much older than thirteen or fourteen, looked up in surprise. "Wha--?" He shook his head, long brown hair flying out of his eyes. "You're not supposed to be here!"

Reno froze for a moment, startled by how young the boy was, but continued anyway. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, putting on a slightly more-dramatic-than-necessary tweak to her self-protecting hand movements "But my heart tells me I must be here!"

The boy blinked at her in total confusion. "Um? You should leave! Or uh, I'll call the guards!" He stammered awkwardly with every word. "Er, the other guards."

Seth leaned on a wall—out of sight, around the corner—trying very hard not to laugh.

"You wouldn't do that, would you?" she said, leaning in and putting on heavy layers of passion "My lover was wrongly imprisoned here and I must see him again! Please, kind young man! Please tell me where his cell is!" One side of her jacket conveniently slid down, exposing her shoulder and a bit of her chest.

The boy swallowed hard. "That... that would be against protocol." His eyes strayed rather un-subtly to her chest, then jumped back up to her eyes, as his face turned beet red.

Reno took note of this. "Oh, you don't have a girlfriend, do you? Some sweetheart you miss right now?"

"N-no..." He pushed his chair back from the window slightly, starting to sweat, clearly immensely nervous.

"That's a shame," said Reno "Then...you certainly don't understand how I feel..." Reno inched provocatively close to the guard. "...you don't know what it's like to have someone...special in your arms..."

The boy said nothing, simply staring at her, eyes very wide.

"...so let me put it this way." Reno reached forward and cupped the boy's face in her hands. "You tell me which cell Cyclops is in, and you get a kiss from me. Don't tell me where he is, and I'll kill you." Her sickly sweet tone drizzled over every word.

"...C-Cylops!?" It didn't seem possible, but his eyes widened even further.

"Yessssssss," Reno hissed seductively.

The moment of thought passed through the boy very quickly. "H-he's in solitary confinement... Cell s-seventeen... Down the elevator, end of the hall."

"Wonnnnderful," said Reno, and kept her promise. Her face mashed with the young guard, almost as though she intended to suck the life out of him through her sheer dramatized over-sexuality.

She raised one fist. BAM.

The boy dropped to the floor of the guard post, unconscious.

Seth laughed uproariously. “BWAHAHAHAHAH WELL PLAYED AHAHAHAHAHA!” He slowly wiped a tear from his eyes. “That… that was beautiful.” He doubled over, staggering around the corner, still laughing.

Reno sauntered back over to him. "Glad you enjoyed the show," she said “Because I am never. Doing. That. Again.” She hacked up a mouthful of spit, swiftly ejecting it onto the floor and ridding herself of the pubescent-guard germs.

“Awwww,” said Seth teasingly. He walked over to the elevator just down the hall. “So uh Reno. You looked uh pretty good there. If you catch my drift.”

Reno looked at Seth as though she wished there were knives present directly in front of her eyes so that she could stare them into him.

((82 — Poison Prison))

Seth shrugged and sighed sarcastically. “Was worth a shot.” He hit the button, and the elevator’s doors slid open.

She followed him in, and unconsciously tightened her legs. “Three years ago was a one-time thing, Seth. We were kids experimenting. Nothing more.”

He raised an eyebrow at her suddenly more serious tone.

“B’sides,” she continued, looking away. “You’ve got Spider now.”

He leaned against the wall, eyes aimed at the ceiling. “Yeah. Guess I do.” The air in the elevator suddenly felt a thousand times more awkward and full of tension.

Then the doors opened onto the lower floor. The guard in the post in this window, a middle-aged man, jumped to his feet. "Hey! What are you doing down here?"

Seth pushed off the wall and took a step towards him. “Here to visit an old friend.”

The guard pulled a large standard-issue gun out from behind the desk and pointed it at the two. Clearly he was neither as inexperienced nor as incompetent as his companion upstairs.

“Whoa!” said Seth, throwing his hands up. “What’s with the hostility, bro?”

"Civilians are not allowed down in solitary confinement! Even with visitor authorization." His voice was gruff and to the point. "Which, given your lack of escort, I sincerely doubt you have."

Crap, thought Reno, I guess THIS is what the old saying goes about not bringing a knife to a gun fight.

Seth’s tone took on a severity rarely seen. “Do you even know who I am!? How DARE you call me a civilian. Rent-a-cops these days. The nerve.” Next to him, Reno put away her surprise at once, playing along and assuming a psuedo-stance-of-importance.

The man blinked, suddenly unsure. "Um. Oh jeez, you're not one of the Quinn's crew, are you?"

Seth practically exploded at him. “What the fuck do you think, dullard? In case you didn’t notice, there is an ARMY OF DEMONS COMING HERE. Now, if you don’t want any more bullshit on your hands, like the riot going on outside, you let me the fuck in. I’m here to get a man who can help clean up this mess so that the Sector can survive.” He paused for breath. “Dig?”

The man behind the counter swallowed. "Of course, sir. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I understand. I won't get in your way."

“Thank you.” Seth let out a long breath, and walked right up to the counter. “Now, would you kindly direct me to Cyclops’ cell?”

"Cyc--! If... I..." The man's brow furrowed, and he let out a sigh. "Down the hall. The door lock code is 8697." He pointed to the right.

Seth nodded, and walked to the right. He waved to Reno. “Come along, now.” They counted off as they walked--door thirteen, fourteen, fifteen... Down here, the walls were pure crystal, unadorned with anything besides the metal doors and the dim bulbs overhead.

At long last, they reached the door to Cyclops' cell. A simple steel door, with "17" stenciled in white paint on it, and a small electronic keypad set where a lock would normally be

“Let’s see… eight six nine seven.” Seth spoke the numbers as he keyed them in.

The door let out a hiss, mechanisms moving in it as it unlocked, then swung open towards them.

HUNTING HOPE (2)

2010-10-13T08:22:00.000-07:00

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((86 — Building Steam With a Grain of Salt))
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July 2nd, 802 AT.

Kasby braced one foot on the creature’s chest, and pulled his crystal sword out of it. He collapsed against the wall, panting. He looked at his leg, where a bullet had grazed him, and confirmed the injury wasn’t too bad. He closed his eyes, took a shuddering breath, and looked at what he had just killed.

It was obvious it had once been human—and just as obvious that it no longer was. Its skin was black and leathery-thick, like charcoal. Its clothes had melted into its flesh, becoming a carapace of sorts. Exposed veins still pulsed eerily glowing red blood through it. Its right arm ended in a twisted hunk of metal—a pistol, fused into the hand that had once gripped it, now all part of the same creature. In life, in humanity, it looked to have been a man, of maybe Kasby’s own age. Now it was just another dead demon.

Slowly, Kasby pulled himself to his feet, took one last look around the shattered lab, and walked out. A crew of scientists would be here soon to perform an autopsy on the creature. He had other places to be. He retraced his footsteps, going back the way he had come, towards the Bioresa tram station.

He had lost track of time, by now. Night had come and gone. He had slept at some point. The hours were blurred together, a vague swirl of trails of blood and corpses and crystal. Every few hours, a new report would come in of someone sighting a demonic assassin, and he would set out to hunt. Two more times it had been Jaz, and both times she had escaped handily. Other demons had gotten away similarly, but he had killed three of the things now.

He blinked, and realized he’d already made it back to the tower, lost in thought and memory and sleepless haze. The tram car door opened onto the central platform of the transit terminal. In the last few days, it had changed drastically, from a bustling place of activity to a nearly empty hall. Most everyone was either in their homes, bolting down and readying for war, or in the streets, rioting. Kasby, cold as ever, strode through the almost abandoned hall to enter the central tower.

The radio at his belt crackled, and Mercuria Barret's voice came through. "Bellwood."

Kasby lifted the radio from his belt, and held it up. "Almost back." He sounded more than just physically tired—exhausted down to his core.

"Don't come back. Got a report in from down in Haraya, of more nonhuman activity." Her voice was terse, to the point, as always, but he could hear the strain of three days running the city by herself beginning to wear on her. "Likely another assassin. Take the 63 Tram down there and check it out."

"On my way," he said, his tone as neutral as he could manage.

"Good. Barret out." The radio clicked off.

He turned around and walked to catch the 63 tram. The tram swung away from the dock without incident, sliding down the wire with an audible hum. The car swooped down, taking him towards the flats of the city, where the lower classes lived, those who could not afford the nicer houses on the quartet of crystal spires that dominated the landscape. Kasby stood in the tram, holding onto the guard rail. He stared straight out at the passing landscape as if it was keeping something from him.

The street was practically empty. Ramshackle houses stood around her, shanties and lean-tos comingling with more solid buildings. Here and there a store or restaurant eked out a quiet existence. They had slammed their doors to her, people fleeing the streets before her.

Skunk clenched her fists and tried to ignore the fearful stares of her fellow humans. In fact, she was starting to doubt she was quite human any longer... She shook her head in irritation. The day since her arrival had been spent aimlessly wandering the city, watching as humanity turned its collective back on her.

From a nearby door, a young boy stumbled out, not older than eight or nine. He clutched a sword made from two pieces of scrap metal glued together, and brandished it halfheartedly at her. "S-stop!"

Skunk glared at him incredulously. "What the fuck you want, punk?"

The boy shrunk back at her words, almost stumbling.

Despite herself, she paused. Softening her tone slightly, she added, "You can forget the the sword, kid."

"I... I won't let you kill my dad!"

Skunk's brow furrowed. "I don't have anything to do with your dad. What are you talking about?"

A man's voice hissed from the door the boy had come out of. "Daniel! Daniel, get back in here!"

Skunk held up a hand. “Daniel. Hold on. Just answer me, I won’t hurt you.”

"Y-you're gonna kill 'im! Like you killed all the people over 'n Storm, an, an, an, an daddy says you killed the Council!" The boy stammered, but was fierce and defiant, his own words seeming to inspire him.

"Look, punk—Daniel. I've been here a few hours maximum, and since I've been here I've done nothing but walk around. I don't know what you're talking about." She paused. "Why do you think it was me?"

The boy frowned. "... your skin. You're not a person, like we are."

"How did I know," she muttered. “Your dad is wrong.” She sighed. "You know what? If all you're gonna do is brandish a stick at me and accuse me of things I didn't do and don't plan to, I'm leaving."

Overhead, a tram car whirred down a cable, settling into a dock a block or two away.

"I'm gonna--" The boy was cut off as his father ducked out through the door, grabbed him, and pulled him back inside.

Skunk blinked. "Oookay," she muttered. Turning to the cable car, she walked over to investigate. The tram building was extremely dilapidated and worn-down, like everything else in the area. The windows were all broken, and large sections of wall and flooring were gone, looking as if they had been pried off with crowbars. She could hear someone moving inside.

Skunk stepped through the door into the tram room, and found herself face to face with the business end of Kasby's pistol. "Fuck! What the hell, Katsby!?" Skunk held herself still, resisting the urge to jump away.

As Kasby made eye contact, he froze for a moment. He let out a breath, and lowered his weapon, but did not break eye contact. He looked... tired. But maybe for the first time in a long while, a little bit relieved. "Skunk. Holy hell.”

"Nice way to greet a friend," Skunk said scathingly.

Kasby almost smiled. "You're alive. Thank the Void... you'll have to tell me what happened later."

"Sure, assuming there's a later." She looked around the room. It was small, with a patchwork roof that let bits of light shine through. "What's happening here? Some kid just tried to kill me. Ranting about how I’m a monster.”

"I'm not surprised. This city's been thrown into chaos... and you don't exactly look human," Kasby noted, gesturing at her metallic skin.

"Thanks, I get that." Skunk's tone was light, forced. "What's happening around here?" she repeated.

Kasby's expression hardened. "....Assassin. Of the demonic variety. Took out almost all of the Council, and now it’s running amok. Not to mention the Swarm is practically at the gates." He looked away.

"Demons come in the assassin variety? I thought they were all ravening beasts.” She sighed again. "I saw you on those, uh... screen things.”

Kasby looked confused. "Televisions? I was on the television?"

"At the assassination thing," clarified Skunk. "I saw you guys."

Kasby blinked. “How long have you been in Sector One?”

"A few hours, I guess."

"On that note, where are Spider and Owl?" his voice was laden with concern.

"Spider? Not sure. Owl is probably still in the library," she added, almost guiltily. "We landed there, and I'm betting she'll stay there as long as she can."

Barret's voice came from the radio clipped to Kasby's belt. "Bellwood! Report."

Kasby grabbed the radio off his belt. "Situation has been handled, Barret. How many reports of non-human activity in this area, again?"

"Just one. Good to hear it, too. We've got another report in from over at Enjaya. Reason to suspect they're trying to take out the reactors."

"On my way," Kasby repeated for the third time that day. He clipped the radio back to his belt without replying.

"Good. It's barely a kilometer away, you should be able to run there. Head straight outwards from your current position, towards the spire." Barret’s voice came through the radio. “Good hunting. Barret out.”

Skunk looked at him, one eyebrow raised. "Where are you going?"

“Demon hunting,” he replied, expression neutral.

"I could do with a bit of a fight," Skunk hinted. "This city pisses me off."

Kasby looked hesitant, for a moment. "...Alright. I don't have time to argue. Just... follow me." With that, he broke off back towards the spire.

Skunk followed, looking distinctly more eager and bright-eyed than she had been.

((87 — Battle of the Heroes))

The direction they were headed was drastically more industrial. A cloud of black smoke hung over the district, drifting out of angry smokestacks. The crystal spire rose dramatically, pointing outwards, away from the city center like the spoke of a wheel. Buildings, factories, and industrial complexes covered it, sprawling up its face.

They hadn’t even been running five minutes when they began to hear the first screams. Kasby’s pace increased. He darted towards the scream, swerving around corners and ducking under pipes as he navigated the industrial labyrinth. Skunk strained to see the source of the screaming, but followed Kasby.

Up ahead, a single large building dominated the base of the crystal. A large pair of double doors opened into the base of the building, hanging open. Two guards lay by the doors, dead of matching slash wounds to the chest. Kasby pulled the dartpistol from its holster once more and skidded to a stop a few feet inside the building.

Skunk glanced at the corpses, then began forming her left hand into a blade. With her right hand, she caressed the whip at her side. Another scream came from inside, cutting off abruptly.

Kasby walked carefully through the interior of the building, his pistol aimed in the direction of the scream. Inside, a quartet of ladders lead upwards, toward a series of catwalks.

Skunk stepped up beside him, peering at the ladders. “That’s… crappy. If we get trapped on those...well, it won't be pretty."

From further inside came another scream, as if falling from a catwalk, ending in an electrical hiss.

"Fuck it,” Skunk swore. “Let’s do this.”

Kasby nodded. "Don't get caught in close range." He was already bounding up one of the ladders. Skunk climbed up beside him, cursing as she re-formed her hand back to its normal shape.

The building was full of an electrical hum, with static electricity setting their hairs on end. As they reached the top of the ladders, they could see down into the center of the building. A trio of massive crystals, glowing with orange light, floated there, rotating in a slow circle. Huge arcs of lightning leapt between them, and to rings of dynamos and collectors lining the room. Metal-lined wooden catwalks stretched outwards from where they stood, overlooking the reactor core. At the center of them, a control platform hung from the ceiling.

"Okay...what's all that? And what should I be expecting from these demons?" Skunk hissed.

In response, Kasby just pointed to the control platform. Half a dozen scientists cowered on it, looking in fear at the figure advancing towards them.

She--it--walked slowly them, crystal blade at her side. The leather clothes, the walk, she short-cropped hair. It was unmistakably Jazrill Quinn. Or what was left of her, anyway.

Kasby raised his pistol and took careful aim.

"Fuck," remarked Skunk, too anstonished to even sound surprised. She took out her own gun as well, cradling it lovingly. "Do you want me to...?"

It took another step towards the scientists, moving slowly, taking its time with the kill.

Skunk kept her tone neutral. "Kasby?"

Kasby wore an expression colder than any Skunk had seen on him before. It might have been that absence of emotion, more than anything else, that showed Skunk the turmoil, the rolling storm inside him.

He pulled the trigger. His hand was steady, and this time, the crystal shard flew true. It thudded into the square of the creature's back, sending it sprawling forward against the catwalk, bringing forth an angry howl. Bracing itself on the catwalk with its blade, it reached its one hand back, grasping at the wound. Slowly, its whole body tightening visibly, still hissing angrily, it pulled the chunk of crystal out. The crystal hadn't gone more than an inch deep, most of the impact taken by the leathery armored skin that had once been a flight jacket.

There were two parallel catwalks running towards the control area. "Run past. Protect the scientists," Kasby ordered Skunk, gesturing to the unoccupied bridge. He broke forward towards the creature, raised his pistol and fired again. And again.

"Got it." Skunk crossed the room in as fast a run as possible, considering their height. "Good thing I grew up on Face," she grumbled.

It was still pulling itself to its feet as Kasby fired, its hand still tight around the first shard. The next shot went wide, but the third and fourth slashed across her sword arm. Jaz dropped again to the catwalk as the arm holding it up was shot out from under it. Kasby continued his frenzied advance, and ripped the crystal sword from its sheath at his side. He flew into Jaz full force.

Skunk didn't stop until she had reached the scientists. They huddled behind a control panel, and one let out a yelp of terror upon seeing her. "P-please..."

"For fuck's sake, I'm here to fucking save you!" bellowed Skunk. "Now MOVE!"

The scientists, a group of mixed-gendered elderly people, blinked at her for a long moment. Then they obeyed her order as one, leaping to their feet before her commanding voice. The scientists took off at a run down one of the other catwalks, fleeing at high speed.

Skunk turned towards the demon, in time to see it bringing its feet up, catching Kasby hard in the face with a kick. Skunk formed both arms into long, hooked blades. She advanced more cautiously than Kasby had, waiting for a clear shot.

Stumbling back, Kasby landed half on the catwalk, one leg slipping off of it. He slipped and teetered, for a moment over the edge.

Jaz took a step towards him, grinning as if meaning to shove him, and in that moment Skunk struck. She darted in close and stabbed with her blades, one after the other.

Jaz swung to face Skunk, bringing her crystal blade up to block both blows. Her wounded arm was moving at half speed, though, and barely managed to knock them aside.

Skunk danced just out of range, grinning manically. The thrill of battle.

Hissing angrily, the creature got fully back to its feet, and took a few steps back, now focusing on Skunk. A yellow sheen passed over the goggle-lenses that emerged from the skin of its forehead for a moment, but it shook its head, clearing them back to their normal red.

Skunk moved in, feinting and then going in, aiming for the creature's belly, under the wounded arm. The distraction of whatever had happened to her was enough, and Jaz couldn't block fast enough. She managed to fall backwards, though, away from the slash, past where Kasby was stabilizing himself. The blade's tip still dug into her chest, flitting away a long line of blood. It hissed furiously, almost spitting with pure rage.

"Did you see that?" Skunk yelled.

Kasby pushed himself forward and regained his balance. He dashed forward towards the combat, ducking under Skunk's arm as he lunged. She attacker as well, and they lunged in parallel, blades extended.

Jaz put a foot back and brought her blade up, free hand wrapping around the base of it for support—

The three blades met with a loud clash, ringing out over the hum of the reactor below.

Skunk grimaced at the shock, but pressed in, striking again. "I can hold her, Kasby!" Jaz blocked a strike, a second, a third, alternating between the two attackers.

"So hold her!" he almost screamed back as he continued to trade blows.

The yellow glow flashed over the lenses above Jaz’s eyes again, looking like another pair of eyes, watching her. A shudder ran through her, and she dropped back, pulling her sword arm away from the three-way-clash. She took three quick steps back, away from the fray, and raised her blade high over her head.

Skunk rushed in with renewed power. “Gotcha!”

Jaz’s hand dropped, sweeping out a full arc, swinging around below her, rending through the flimsy metal of the catwalk. With a horrible creaking, it began to bend downwards, pulled down by its own weight, no longer supported from both sides.

Skunk's eyes widened. "Oh SHI—" Skunk’s momentum carried her forward, into the hole. She stretched with her hooks, and just barely managed to dig them into the wooden catwalk on the other side of the gap. "Fuck!"

Kasby's mouth dropped open. No.

Jaz fell forwads, dropping through the widening gap, down towards the three spinning crystals below. Kasby lunged forward, throwing himself against the catwalk and extending his arm as far as it would go. He grabbed onto Jaz’s arm as she plunged downwards.

Jaz hung, dangling from the catwalk, held up by Kasby's grip. Slowly, she turned her head to look at him, eyes bathed in dispassionate yellow glow.

“Please. Not again,” Kasby said, whispering.

"Kasby, what are you doing?" screamed Skunk. Her blades slowly began to cut through the catwalk, inching her downwards.

Jaz's blade arm flashed upwards, swinging at Kasby's wrist, where it held her tight. The blade bit in deep, throwing blood across the catwalk. But Kasby did not let go. He shook his head, silently, mouthing one word. Please. Please.

She fell away from him, dropping away towards the reactor. Kasby's hand still clutched her wrist in a dead man's grip. As she reached the crystals, there was a swirl of yellow smoke, and she was gone.

"Touching!" yelled Skunk frantically. "Now fucking get me out of here!" She attempted to claw her way towards Kasby. Her motions only pulled the catwalk down further, creaking louder. “Little help?”

Kasby watched the beast that had once been his lover fall into the reactor below. He felt everything. And yet....shock. He looked at the bloody tattered sleeve where his hand once had been.

If only the catwalk were metal, instead of wood boards, she could've bent it into shape, but—another crack. Another crack. The wood itself was beginning to crack, where Skunk's blades dug into it. “Kasby.” Skunk’s voice was quiet, hard to hear with the hum.

Over the creaking of the collapsing catwalk, and the reactors, Kasby managed to hear Skunk. Ungracefully, in the midst of all this, he stumbled to his feet and backed away from the broken edge. "....Skunk. Skunk!"

Skunk gingerly kept her hold on the other side of the gap, a meter away from Kasby. Skunk could feel her heart pounding, adrenaline rushing through her.

Kasby rushed forward again and held out his uninjured hand.
"Grab hold!" He was close enough that she could probably reach him, but it would mean pulling one of her blades out of the woodwork.

"Cocksucker," she groaned. She could almost hear Owl’s voice in her head, saying “language!” The thought threatened to bring a bitter smile to her face, but she fought it off. "Okay, gimme a sec." She cautiously pried one hand loose. “I don’t think you’ll be able to pull me out...”

Kasby looked around in a panic. The pain was beginning to cloud his thoughts. He had to act quickly. The captain ran back to the control panel, and went to work at the display to try and turn the reactor off. "Hold tight!"

“Kasby!” Skunk yelled. With only one hand dug into the wood, she was slipping faster. "Oh, fuck..." She cut an inch deeper into the wood, towards the edge.

The controls were complicated, covered with switches and dials and readouts. "Fuck!" Kasby shouted, before dashing back to Skunk.

Skunk, starting to give up on Kasby, unclipped the whip from her belt with her free hand, and tossed one end away from the gaping hole. She concentrated, melding it with the metal edge of the catwalk.

Kasby skidded to a stop, grabbing hold of the secured whip with his hand. The catwalk frame groaned under the weight, but held. Kasby stabbed the crystal blade into the wood platform and used it to brace his leg. "Alright, Skunk!"

"Okay, no problem," she groaned. She reformed the other blade into a hand once more. With nothing holding her to the catwalk anymore, she fell down, swinging under it, held up by the wire. Skunk grunted, holding onto the whip for all she was worth. She squeezed her eyes shut, just briefly.

Kasby threw himself backwards, bracing against the sword to hold Skunk above the humming reactors.

Between Kasby's grip and the metal bonding, Skunk didn't fall. Not quite.

Kasby could feel the pain beginning to overwhelm him, though, darkness dancing at the edge of his vision, and knew he couldn't hold on for long.

“Okay,” she called up. “Good. Very good. Not dying. Excellent.”

“Hurry, Skunk,” Kasby rasped through the fires that had ignited in his nerves.

“Goddamn demons,” she half-whispered, struggling up the whip. Reaching the catwalk at last, she collapsed onto it, gasping.

As Skunk reached safety, Kasby let go of the whip. He swayed, upright, for a moment, before collapsing to the catwalk.

They lay, side by side, now alone with the massive whirring crystals below them.

"Kasby?” Skunk panted. “You still awake?”

The only answer from the unconscious captain was a slowly expanding bloodstain in the woodwork surrounding his left wrist. Skunk stared for a moment, then picked him up carefully. She was still trembling, but she managed to get him over her shoulder, carrying him away from the hole. She walked towards the control area, the catwalk still making ominous creaking sounds with every step.

The radio at his belt hissed and crackled. "Bellwood!" The voice was the same as before--a harsh, older woman.

She jumped at the radio's crackle, right in her ear, but pushed the talk button. “Uh… hello?”

"Who is this? Where's Bellwood?"

"If you mean Kasby, he's here. Badly injured. Here, I mean... shit, what did he call it?"

There was a pause. "But the reactor's still online."

"Yeah, the reactor. We’re at the reactor.”

"Alright. I'll dispatch a medical team. They should be there within fifteen minutes.”

"There was a fucking demon-thing, and it cut the railing, and then...well, his hand is gone. It’s dead, though, it better be dead.” Skunk knew she was babbling.

"Good. Barret out." The radio hissed static for a moment, then went silent.

Skunk took a deep breath. “Okay.” She lay Kasby down in the center of the controls, and collapsed against a bank of controls herself.

She stared blankly up at the ceiling, settling in to wait for the medical team. “…fuck.” This time, there was no Owl to scold her.

SILENT HOPE (1)

2010-10-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

[Reconstructed]
.
((79 — The Days Become a Traveler of a Hundred Generations))
.
July 2nd, 802 AT.

Owl turned the page slowly, taking care not to damage the ancient book. She eagerly scanned the new page, taking in word after word, locking them away in her mind to store forever. Each page, each book, brought with it incredible ideas, strange worlds, new people—the memory of an entire civilization.

“Owl?”

She had been sitting in the basement of Tanique Hall reading for… she didn’t know how long. She had no motive or means to keep track of time here. The archives were unlike anything she had seen before. A massive underground warren, a labyrinth, with every wall lined with bookshelf upon bookshelf. It was as if someone had taken the Archives from the Corkscrew and let them multiply seemingly infinitely, burrowing out into the crystal.

“Owl.”

Periodically Delissa had come down to bring her food and water. Owl quite liked the librarian, she found. The woman was a scant few years younger than Owl, but apparently only qualified as a Junior Librarian. It boggled Owl’s mind to think that in this world, thirty-four was considered young, with a whole lifespan ahead of one. The idea of so much more to learn, to discover, to read… for the first time in months, Owl found herself honestly happy.

“Owl!” This time the voice penetrated Owl’s thoughts, and brought her attention snapping upright. There before her hovered a familiar face, one she hadn’t seen in almost a month.

Blinking calmly, Owl carefully set the book in her lap on the table, then turned to face the girl. “SPIDER!” she yelled, wrapping her arms around the girl in a sudden blur of motion, grinning widely.

Spider laughed, and embraced the older woman in return. “Hey! I thought I’d never see you again!” They broke their embrace, and Spider settled to the wall. “What’s been up?”

“Oh goodness! So much has happened.” Owl opened her mouth, about to lay out every detail of her life over the last month, but stopped and reconsidered. “Skunk and I were captured by a scientist, escaped, and flew here,” she summarized.

“Huh,” Spider said. “Sounds like fun, I guess. I, uh, got a pet demon, and met up with the Talons, and maybe made friends, I think.”

Owl quirked her head to the side. “Talons?”

“They’re…” Spider thought back to the events of the morning. “They’re just people, I guess. From Sector Four.” She looked away for a moment, her eyes coming to rest on the books. “How long have you been down here? Just been reading?”

Owl’s eyes lit up. “Oh, Spider! You won’t believe the things I’ve read!”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“There are so many things in the universe! It’s all so vast… there are these demons that don’t hurt people or have magic, called animals—”

“Anemals? That’s what that lady said about our names!”

Owl nodded. “My predecessor once told me that all of the names in Face came from an ancient record of naming. I think that it was actually a zoology book from the old ship!”

Spider looked at her blankly. “Sure.”

The older woman laughed. “I haven’t looked up what a spider is, but an owl was apparently a big thing with wings and big eyes, that people used to think was very smart!”

“A perfect name for you, then. What other kinds of anemals were there?”

“Well, there were these things that wriggled like this—” Owl made a motion with her hands together. “Called fish! They lived in big water places called, uh, ponds! And people ate them all the time.”

“Weird.” Spider stopped, thinking. “Where was all this water? I thought this place just had fog.”

Owl shook her head. “This wasn’t in the Void.”

Spider looked at her quizzically. “Not… in the Void? Where else is there?”

The rememorist smiled. “This was on a place called Earth.”

“What’s an earth?”

“It was… is… a…” Owl frowned, struggling to describe it. “Imagine a giant crystal, only round. Kind of like Sector One, only a million times bigger. Instead of being made of crystal, though, it’s all made of solid dust and liquid metal, and covered with plants and water and friendly demons that don’t kill you!”

“That… sounds nice,” Spider said, smiling. “Where is it?”

Owl’s face fell. “Too far away. The Templar, the ship that crashed and became Face, was full of people leaving it, to find a new home… as far as we’ve come from Face to get here? That would be like… a millimeter, compared to how far it is to Earth.”

“Oh.”

They sat in silence for a moment, thinking, before the calm was broken by footsteps coming around the corner. Delissa walked up, carrying a basket. “I, um, thought you might be hungry, so I brought some food!”

She came a few steps closer, then stopped short, staring at Spider. After a moment, she took a deep breath, and finished her approach, setting the basket on the table.

Owl smiled warmly at her. “Thank you, Delissa.”

“You’re… welcome, Owl.” The librarian bit her lip. “Could I… ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“I, um. Why are your skin and shadow covered with words? And, um.” She looked to Spider. “How is she sitting on the wall?”

Spider laughed. “Oh, man, that’s a really long story.”

“…which I happen to have written down!” Owl grinned. “Would you like to read it?”

Delissa nodded eagerly. “I would love to! If you… wouldn’t mind.” She looked down, her face turning a shade of red.

Owl looked at her in surprise. “What? Would that be odd?”

“I… well, it’s your journal, isn’t it?”

“And what’s odd about that?”

Delissa looked at her in confusion. “Well, you’re alive, and we’re not…” She trailed off, looking at the strange expressions on Spider and Owl. “Are things different in the outer sectors?”

“We’re not—” Owl started.

“Yes. Yes they are,” Spider cut her off.

“Oh.” Delissa nodded. “Well, around here, it would be considered an invasion of privacy to read someone’s journal while they were still alive, or if you weren’t… particularly close to them.” She turned a darker shade of red. “I’ve never read someone else’s journal before.”

“While they were still alive? Why do you keep emphasizing that?” Owl asked.

“Well, of course once they’re dead, you’ll want to read their journal for all the important information they took down,” Delissa said very matter-of-factly.

The rememorist nodded. “I suppose that makes sense.” She smiled. “The books are up in my room. I’ll bring them to you later, alright?”

“That would be wonderful. Thank you.”

Owl sat back in her chair, thinking. “Wow. It’s… so much has happened, these last months.”

Spider nodded, stopping with her hand halfway to the basket of food. She’d just remembered quite how hungry she was. Three weeks of harshly rationed supplies hadn’t been good. “Yeah, uh. Yeah.”

With a start, Owl sat up. “Center.”

Spider looked at her. “Huh?”

“The Center. That’s… that’s where the shadows told us to go. Back when this all started.”

“I missed that part. I was with Kasby.”

“Well, the point is, we’re… we’re here. We’re at the Center.” Owl frowned. “But nothing makes any more sense than it did at the Corkscrew.”

Spider shrugged. “Well, we’re at Sector One, but maybe there’s a way to further into the center of it…?”

Slowly, she and Owl both turned to face Delissa. The librarian blinked at them. “Sorry, I… lost you…”

“We… need to go inside.” Owl said slowly. “Is there a way into the heart of the crystal? Into Sector One itself?”

Delissa shook her head. “Not a way that anyone can access.”

Spider raised an eyebrow. “Is... there a way people can’t access?”

“Yes. The Deepana Caverns. No one has ever come back from there, though.”

“What are they?” Owl asked.

“They appeared two or three hundred years ago… cracks in the crystal.”

Owl and Spider exchanged glances, eyes wide. Spider turned back to Delissa. “Can you take us there? We need to go in there. I need to… I’m an architect. I can check the integrity from inside. See if…”

“… if there’s something trying to escape,” Owl finished. “Whatever’s trapped inside this crystal… right here in the center…”

Delissa frowned. “I can take you to the entrance, but no one’s allowed inside any more. Too many expeditions have vanished inside, never to return. Kids started trying to brave it, on dares to each other, so now the entrances are guarded.”

Spider laughed. “We can get in. Don’t worry about that.”

“If you insist. We can go there first thing in the morning.”

Owl smiled. “Thank you, Delissa.”

The librarian blushed again. “It’s… it’s nothing, really.”

“Now then!” Spider said. “Can it be time to eat?”

Delissa laughed. “Absolutely!”

“Great! I’m starving. What’s for dinner?” She opened the basket.

“I made you sandwiches.”

Spider stopped, looking inside, and then looked up and caught Owl’s eye. They laughed together, smiling with tears in their eyes. Delissa watched, smiling along with them despite her confusion.

HOPE’S EDGE (2)

2010-09-25T14:14:00.001-07:00

.
((77 — Distant Lights))
.
July 2nd, 802 AT.

The wan voidlight illuminated a tired scene. Kiara still lay unconscious on her coat, with Umbra standing guard over her. Not far off, Noh’s fog had gone opaque hours earlier, after the surgery. Chun was curled up in a ball on top of Torrential, who was lying down with his beak under one wing. Reno was the only one awake, pacing uncomfortably, absent-mindedly spinning her crystal dagger through her fingers.

Spider stepped out of Noh and walked back to the group, holding her arms. She looked older now, her eyes grave and heavy with dark circles. Scorpia scuttled up behind her.

Seth emerged from the dark shadows of his demon behind her, and cleared his throat a bit. “Yo. Guys.” He glanced around. “Err. Gals. Whatever. Someone wanna wake Chun for a tic?”

A faint groan came from Kiara, as she raised her head slightly, looking around, finally starting to wake up. Umbra curled up next to her, still in gryphon form.

Seth sighed at the complete lack of action from his fellows. “Alright. I will myself.” He trudged over to Chun and prodded her with his foot.

Torrential was the first to stir. He lifted his head, in doing so knocking Chun tumbling to the ground. She sat up, abruptly very awake. “Whu—oh, hey guys.”

Kiara sat up a little further, resting on one elbow. Umbra flowed under her, stabilizing her. “Anything… happen, while I was out?”

Spider shook her head. “Not really. We can’t stay here forever, though.” She glanced over at Seth.

“…yeah,” he said. “But ‘fore we go. One, uh, minor note.”

“What?” Kiara asked tiredly.

“What just happened back there? Let’s not do it again.”

“Agreed.” Chun got up and brushed herself. Beside her, Torrential mimicked her, ruffling his feathers.

“The whole killing people who thought we were demons thing. It’s… that was not good.” Seth looked off to the side. “There’s gotta be a better way to go about things than… doing what I did. And what that caused you guys to do.”

Reno shifted her eyes upwards. “Well,” she said. “They DID try to kill us. So it’s justified.”

“So, uh.” Spider cleared her throat, and changed the subject quickly. “I figured it’d be safer if we didn’t go charging in with our demons. I think I should fly in first, and try and talk with them. Maybe get a map and find a place for you guys to enter without being spotted, or provide a distraction.” She shifted her feet, obviously a little uncomfortable with this half-formed plan.

Kiara frowned. “And why wouldn’t they just… shoot you, Spider? That’s what they tried before.”

“Well, they’ll wonder how I got to the base, but I won’t have a demon with me.”

“Well, duh.” Kiara blinked at Spider in confusion. “But how do you plan to get in without using your demon?”

“Uh…” Spider scratched her head. “I can fly.”

“Oh. Good… good point.” Kiara closed her eyes, fading back into sleep somewhat.

Spider laughed half-heartedly. “Guess she’s a little more out than she thought… anyway, you guys can NOT bring your demons into the base. It’ll cause a panic, and it’s likely that you’ll just kill everyone. We can’t do that.”

“Yeah,” said Chun. “But someone will see us coming on our demons. It will cause panic either way.”

“You guys don’t come in on demons!” Spider said. “I’ll go alone. Find a way for you guys to come in without being noticed.”

“I’m with Spider on this one, yo,” said Seth. “Worst case, we bring in the cavalry. As a backup.”

Reno tensed a little. “How long do you think we’ll be separated from our demons?”

Spider looked to Seth for support. “Shit, I don’t know. Either you guys wait here, or I bring you without your demons, which will take a while to go back and forth.”

Kiara sat up again, rousing. “Mine can hide… if she chooses. She can help. And… I’ll need her to walk.” She glanced uncomfortably down at the stump of her leg.

Seth glanced away. “We can help you move, Kiara. Actually… perhaps we can use that as an excuse to get in.”

“I was just thinking that!” Spider said.

Kiara raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Explain…?”

Seth half-grinned at Spider, then turned to Kiara. “People see injured person. We get help. They’re much less likely to be suspicious. We’re much more likely to get in… without incident.”

“So we’re using Kiara’s injury as our ticket in?” said Reno, as Caf came up behind her, nuzzling her.

Spider rocked back on her heels. “But we’ll be showing up at the base out of nowhere. We don’t exactly have a ship…”

“If more ships fly overhead we could hijack one,” said Chun.

“Uh.” Spider’s eyes widened. “We do have a ship. We have a ship that’s been in a recent accident.” She looked out at the Void. Sure enough, the ship they had damaged was still drifting, not far off. The gaping hole in its side made it list slightly to port, but other than that it was still functional. Spider jerked her thumb at it.

Seth grinned. “This just might work.”

Spider nodded. “Bet you I can get it working again if there’s any problem. We should still probably leave our demons here, so they don’t get detected.”

“Wouldn’t we still be noticed, though?” Kiara asked from the ground. “I would think they’d recognize their own ship.”

“Sector One is big, right?” Spider said. “And we have someone who’s seriously hurt. They might not pay close attention.”

“We could tell them that the crew valiantly saved us from demons but tragically died,” suggested Reno.

Seth nodded again. “It might not be perfect, but I think it’s our best bet.”

Reno was looking very apprehensive. It was clear that the idea of being separated from Caf was not an appealing one by any stretch of the imagination.

Noticing, Seth looked at her flatly. “Reno. You’ve got two options. Stay here with Caf, or come alone.”

Caf nudged Reno in the back. She turned around and looked her beloved in the eyes forlornly. The girl stood up and cupped Caf’s head in her hands, leaning their foreheads together.

Kiara rolled her eyes. “Anyway, let’s… rehearse our story in more detail. In case they ask. Also… we might be able to sneak one demon in…”

Seth furrowed his brow. “Is the risk worth taking, though?”

“I’m useless without Umbra, right now. Besides…” The demon slid into Kiara’s faint shadow, and faded into it. The shadow darkened, but the demon was quite unnoticeable. “She is a shadow.”

“Huh,” said Spider. “That is a cool trick. Okay. So, maybe we were flying our own ship, but it got attacked by demons. That’s what the other ship picked up on. They rescued us, but died in the process?”

“Drove the demons off?” Kiara said. “Or killed them?”

“I say killed,” Seth said. “That way they won’t go looking for them. If they think there’s an immediate threat, they’ll start looking, and maybe find ours. That is not what we want.”

“Okay, I’m going over to the ship to see if it’s still working. You guys finish up the story.” Spider fell upwards into the mist, heading towards the damaged the ship.

Reno withdrew from Caf, suddenly looking steady of mind. “So why were we out here?”

“Refugees from Four,” Seth said.

“We should get going,” Chun said quietly. “If we arrive too late they may get suspicious.” Without another word, Torrential hopped to the edge of the crystal and took off towards the ship, Chun on his back.

“Let’s move.” Seth jumped up onto Noh and followed Chun. Umbra and Caf lifted off close behind, carrying Kiara and Reno. They approached the bullet-shaped ship, and one by one stepped off of their demons, through the massive rend in the side of the ship. Chun saluted Torrential, who flew back down. Caf and Noh, though, stayed alongside the ship for the moment.

Spider was inside, bent over the controls. “It’s all working here still, thankfully.”

Seth glanced around. “Any recent journals?”

“Umm…” Spider started to check the bookshelf, then remembered that she couldn’t read. “Uh, take a look.”

Umbra flowed into the space under Kiara’s stump, becoming a shadowy leg. Slowly, Kiara made her way to the bookshelf and pulled down the most recent journal. The last update had been about a week earlier, and was just a quick few notes on an uneventful few days of patrolling. Kiara nodded. “Good. Nothing.”

“Alright, let’s go then.” Spider moved towards the controls. “Um. So. Not that I don’t technically know how to fly a ship, but… does anyone else know how to fly one better than I do?”

“I can get by, but I’m not very good,” Kiara said.

Spider shook her head. “You’re really out of it, Kiara.”

Seth flicked a hand, and Noh drifted away towards the crystal they’d been on. “I’ll take it from here.” He stepped to the controls and sat in the pilot’s chair. “All ready?”

Reno took one last look at Caf. Nothing was said. It was all in their eyes. Reno clenched her hand ever so slightly before releasing it again. "Ready."

Kiara braced herself against the bookshelf. “Ready.”

Spider nodded. “Yeah. Let’s do this.”

Seth cracked his knuckles, grinning. “So uh. It’s been a while since I last did this. This should be go.” His hands flicked a control, and the ship accelerated at an uncomfortable speed, lurching heavily to one side.

Kiara stumbled and fell, despite her bracing. She seemed to give up on standing at that point and plopped down on the floor. Umbra disappeared into her shadow.

Chun laughed uproariously as the ship continued to rock and shake. “This is FUN!”

Spider was unmoved by the motions of the ship. “So, right, what’s the rest of our story—” She shut up quickly as the radio on the control panel beeped loudly. Seth barely managed to stifle an ironic laugh.

A male voice came from the radio. "Astartes, Astartes, this is Sector One, do you read?" The words were followed by a half-masked yawn.

“Hey,” Seth replied. “This isn’t Astartes but, uh, we read. Unless Astartes is this ship, in which case… yeah.”

“… you’re… yeah, Astartes is…” The man on the other end sighed. “You know what, I don’t even care.”

Spider glanced at Seth. She stepped from the wall to normal gravity and walked to the console. “We need help, one of our crew members has been really hurt!” She tried to sound as panicky as possible.

“Yeah? Lemme guess, refugees from Sector Four? Stragglers?”

“That we are,” Seth said.

“Well, all of the landing fields are full. Courtesy of the other refugees. Should still be room on the roof of Tanique Hall, though.”

“Spiffy. I can see this ending smoothly already.” Seth rolled his eyes.

“Listen. I’ve directed something like a hundred and fifty refugees ships in the last forty-eight hours. And gotten a grand total of oh… six hours of sleep. Maybe.” The radio operator’s voice was frustrated. "So if you would kindly just shut up and go where the data points you..."

“At least you have two legs,” Spider snapped.

The radio broke into what sounded like static, which quickly resolved into a cracking, coughing laugh.

Spider ignored it. “One of our crew, not so much. Can you send someone to help?”

The laughter trailed off, but the voice now carried a tone of bitter sarcasm. “Yeah, I can totally spare a medic for your injured friend. By which I mean nope, sorry. Between the refugees and the riots, all the hospitals are jam-packed or shut down entirely.”

Seth muted the mic for a moment. “At least no one will be suspicious of us getting in.” He flipped it back on again. “Alright. Let’s just land this thing.” As if on cue, a green light winked on on the console.

“Did you get the telemetry data?”

“Yeah.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic. Sector One so very over and out.” The radio crackled off.

Seth laughed. “Riots, eh? This might be easier than we thought. That, or very, very messy.”

“Wow. This place sounds lovely,” Spider snickered. “Bet no one really notices.”

Chun grinned. “You know? I almost want to show up on Torrential, just to add to that guy’s bad day.” Spider shot her a cold look, and she shrugged vaguely apologetically, then grabbed a random book off of the bookshelf and settled down to read it.

((78 — Unite))

Following the data, they slowly orbited the crystal. After about half an hour, the city came into view, nestled in its crevice between the massive crystal spires. “Nice,” said Reno with a chink in her voice that was most unlike her.

Chun jumped up and shoved the book in her bag, marveling at the sight. Spider helped Kiara to the window, and smiled as the younger girl pulled out her own notebook, and began sketching a rough image.

Spider admired the massive-scale architecture as the ship came in low over the city. “Impressive,” she said quietly. In several places, especially around the base of the crystal tower in the center, she could see large riot mobs. She looked away, turning to Seth. “You guys don’t have any idea where your friend is being held captive?”

He shook his head as he brought the ship up towards one of the side spires. “Cyc told us about the prison at Sector One, The Complex, but nothing specific. He’s gotta be in there, but no clue where it is.”

“There’s gotta be a map somewhere in this city. Man, it is big!” She looked back out the window as their destination came into view. She smiled at the immense columns along its front, noting how they structurally compensated for the glass wall behind them.

One ship was already on the roof of Tanique Hall. It was a little larger than theirs, with a pair of engines on either side in rotating gimbals. Seth raised an eyebrow. “Great. A roof. Hope I don’t hit that other ship. Could get awkward.” He reached a hand up and brushed his red-tipped bangs out of his eyes.

“Don’t… crash…” said Reno, still with the unusual stutter in her voice.

Seth fiddled with the controls, trying to slow the already-shaky ship down a bit. It jerked its way down towards the rooftop, coming to rest… just above the roof.

“Aw balls.”

With a shudder, the engines cut out, and the ship dropped the remaining foot to the surface. It landed with a resounding crash, hitting and rolling slightly to one side.

“Oh woah!” Spider didn’t move, leaving her now floating a foot about the deck of the ship. “Uh, let’s get out. Now.” She pointed towards the hole in the side of the ship.

Seth nodded. “My work here is done.” He hopped off, blowing a kiss to the smoking wreckage as he did. Chun grinned, and jumped out behind him.

Kiara gritted her teeth, wincing with pain. “Someone want to help me?” Spider set herself down and walked to Kiara, offering an arm. Kiara took it, pulling herself to her… foot. Umbra slipped quickly into her shadow, and they awkwardly made their way down onto the roof.

Reno finally released the support bar she had been gripping, though it was not particularly clear whether this was because she had chosen to let go or because enough sweat had accumulated that her fingers simply slid off of it. She exited the ship, almost tripping over herself as she did.

“Want a hand there, Reno?” Seth actually seemed a little concerned.

“Yeah, that’d be great, Seth,” said Reno, reaching out an arm to him. Seth offered his own, and she rested her weight awkwardly against him.

Spider adjusted her grip on Kiara. “Right, we better get you someplace to rest… if they have any beds left.”

“I doubt they do… but that would be nice. I’d be good with a crutch, though, I think. At least for now.”

“We’ll find something of the sort,” Spider assured her.

Chun readjusted her backpack and slid her goggles over her eyes. “We should stick together, since there are riots.”

Spider nodded, and reached for the door in the small structure atop the roof. Just as she did, it swung open, and a small woman stepped out. Both started and jumped back in surprise.

The woman laughed slightly. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.” She was dressed simply, in a long green overcoat tied with a plain belt. "Hello, you all must be the new arrivals. We got word there'd be another group landing here..."

“Hi,” Spider said nervously. “Uh, do you think you could help us out?”

“Of course, we’re happy to. We haven’t got much, but, well, no one thinks to go to a Library when there’s a crisis on, do they?” She let out another awkward laugh, tucking a strand of wild red hair behind her ear. “Sorry, where are my manners? I’m Delissa, one of the junior librarians.”

“Right.” Spider smiled slightly. “Um, I’m Spider.”

The girl raised an eyebrow over her thick glasses. “Spider, huh? What is it with you Sector Four folk and your animal names?”

“Anemal names?” Spider cocked her head. “Right, uh, we’re strange like that?”

Chun tried to look composed, which ended up with her looking like she was just frowning hard. “I’m Chun.”

Kiara smiled, though it looked a bit strained. She leaned a bit more exaggeratedly on Spider. “I’m Kiara.”

“Seth.” He waved a hand.

“R…Reno Corbonov.”

Spider glanced at Kiara, then back to Delissa. “Listen, our friend is hurt. Is there a place she could lie down? Or at least a crutch or something?”

“Of course, of course, let’s get you inside.” She gestured for them to follow her, and started down the stairs into the building. As she walked, she called up to them. "We've got a few spare beds in the living quarters here, there should be room for you."

Delissa led the Talons down a long corridor, passing a number of side doors. Eventually she came to one with the door hanging half-open, and pushed inside. She called out as she walked to the door. "Hello? Owl? Are you here?" When no answer came, she shrugged and walked the rest of the way in.

“Wait, wait!” Spider halted abruptly, causing Kiara to grimace in pain. “What? Owl? What?” She looked around, distressed and flustered, her hair seemingly more everywhere than normal.

The room inside was lined with fairly average beds and amenities—tables and lamps here and there. "Owl's the other girl staying here... her and her friend Skunk, but I think Skunk had to run off somewhere. They came in on the other ship on the roof." Delissa smiled, helping Spider lower Kiara into one of the beds. "Friends of yours from Sector Four?"

“Uh, yeah…there we just the two of them?”

Delissa nodded as she filled a glass of water from a faucet in the corner of the room, handing it to Kiara.

“Tch. Owl and Skunk I can deal with. It’s that other one.” Seth spat.

Spider pulled her mouth to the side and shrugged. “Well… I supposed I’ll see them at some point.” She looked at the others. “If you see Owl or Skunk tell them…” She paused the words on her tongue.

“Tell them what?” Kiara asked.

“Tell them… I’m here, I guess.” She looked down, and crossed her arms. “Anyway, we should get a map, that’d be great.”

“Yeah, uh. We need to… find our friend’s house,” Chun said slowly.

Satisfied that Kiara was settled, Delissa nodded. “Hold on, I’ll be back in a minute with one.

“Thanks,” said Chun as the woman ran out of the woman. She stood there, looking around the room awkwardly. It was fairly spartan, but not uncomfortably so.

Reno gently detached herself from Seth’s grip and sat down on another bed, rubbing her temples. Spider sat down, her legs and arms both crossed. She didn’t look like anything, face completely blank.

Seth dropped the remains of a cig from his mouth, leaned against the wall, and lit a new one. “So we get Cyc back. Then what?”

No one responded for a long minute.

Spider looked away from them all. “No one knows what to do,” she hissed under her breath.

Seth sighed. “One step at a time, then.”

The door pushed open again, and Delissa came in, holding a piece of paper. She handed the map to Reno, who was closest. “So where did you say your friend lived?”

“Um… did he specify a district?” Kiara asked from the bed, looking to Seth.

Reno handed the map off to Seth, who blinked. “I uh,” he started. “I think we can take it from here.”

Delissa shrugged. "Alright. I think I'm going to try to find Owl!"

“Great!” Spider perked her head up.

The librarian smiled warmly. "You want to come? She should still be wandering around the archives in the basement somewhere."

Spider looked around at the others. “Uh… I don’t think you guys need me. I can come back and keep Kiara company?”

“Your choice, Spider,” Seth said. “I know where I’m headed. Have an old friend to see.”

“Yeah… I guess I do too.” Spider grinned faintly. She stood up, and nodded at Delissa. “Yeah, let’s go find them.”

“Great! Come on.” She walked out of the door, motioning with one hand for Spider to follow. Spider did so, waving her friends farewell.

Chun looked at Kiara. “I should stay here with her. Make sure her condition doesn’t worsen again… besides, I can go looking in the library for any relevant medical books.

Seth shrugged, then turned to Reno. “That leaves us, then.”

Reno nodded, and pointed to a spot on the map in his hand. “There’s the Complex,” she said quietly. “Right at the base of the central spire.”

Seth grinned. “Then let’s book it. We’ve got a Cyclops to find…”

SOLDIERS OF HOPE (1)

2010-09-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

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((83 — Sandsnake))
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July 2nd, 802 AT.

Zebra looked out the window of the tram and sighed. Between the assassination of the Inner Chamber Council and Barret’s declaration of martial law shortly thereafter, the whole city was in a state of pandemonium. The streets below were full of rioting, and smoke rose here and there throughout the city.

Three days had passed since Kasby had stalked off to track down Jaz, and none of the rest of the crew had seen him. Of course, Barret had kept them busy, with hours upon hours of extensive debriefing. Her people had squeezed out every drop of information on Face and the Devourer Swarm the crew had.

Now, for the first time since their arrival, they were being allowed to leave the citadel. Certainly, they’d been given nice enough housing quarters atop the spire, but Barret had made it quite clear she didn’t trust them.

That morning Barret had informed them that one of the defensive platforms on the outer spires had been taken over by a group of rioters and dissenters, and she was sending them to get it back. She made it quite clear that the platform itself—and its massive gun emplacements—was considerably more important than the lives of any of the people inside, as far as she was concerned.

“Remind me why we care about this?” asked Zebra sourly.

Giraffe shrugged. “It’s not like we had much of a choice. She just kind of shoved us onto the tram.”

“I don’t like being a conscript!” said Goat.

Zebra nodded. “Me neither.”

“I’ve got a feeling we’re going to wind up joining those rebel-types,” Goat said hopefully.

“Yes, joining the group of unknowns and making an enemy of that woman is an excellent idea,” Zebra replied.

“Who wouldn’t get behind it?” Giraffe asked sarcastically.

“I didn’t say it was smart,” Goat said. “But we already don’t like her, right? We’re half-way to being enemies!”

“The other half being the part where she wants to get rid of us once she’s doing using us. I’d like to avoid that part, thanks.” Zebra didn’t even bother using a sarcastic tone at this point.

“In any case,” Goat said. “Let’s talk to them first. See why they’re trying to take things into their own hands."

Zebra shrugged and looked back out at the scenery, clearly losing interest. The tram car was taking them up along the edge of one of the three enormous crystal spires that formed the basis of the city. At this point they were high enough that there were no more buildings, just bare crystal. Up ahead, directly atop the peak, was a large building, heavily armored, with numerous large gun emplacements sticking out all over it.

((84 — Judgement))

The tram slid into the dock with a hiss of air and a whirr of gears. The door slid open, and a hail of bullets whizzed into the ground just outside it.

“Guys!” Goat called. “We don’t want to fight!”

“They have really big guns,” Giraffe said, crouching next to her chair.

Zebra shifted position, making sure none of her was directly in front of the door. “Which is why we’d prefer not to fight.”

Goat frowned, and watched as a woman strode out onto the platform. She was large and well-built, with a bandana tied around her otherwise-bare head, and a very big gun held in her one arm, braced against her chest. Two men and a young teen girl followed her out, all clutching similarly large weaponry, and all pointing them at the entrance to the tram.

Goat started to exit the tram, just as she the woman spoke loudly. "Don't let me catch one'a you movin' a muscle." To emphasize her point, she fired the gun a few times at the ground in front of Goat’s feet. “Ah! Nope!”

Goat disappeared. “Whaaaa!” he declared, from several yards in the air.

The woman looked up and scowled. She made a small hand gesture and the three people behind her immediately opened fire at Goat. The boy attempted to dodge, while falling. This was not particularly easy, nor successful. One of the bullets tore through his upper right arm, and another grazed his thigh. His landing was similarly unpleasant, as he thudded onto the top of the tram car with all the grace of a falling brick. “Aaaaargh!” he expressed, pain running through his system.

The woman growled at Zebra and Giraffe. "I say don't move, I mean don't move. I'm not fuckin' around here, kiddies."

“Wasn’t plannin’ on movin’, but thanks for the info,” Giraffe replied.

“Yeah, you got it,” said Zebra, raising two fingers in a mocking sort of salute.

“It was an—AAAAYYGRH—reflex!” yelled Goat.

“Now then,” the woman said flatly. “What exactly do you three think you’re doing up here?”

“Well,” Giraffe said, frowning. “We were wondering WHY exactly you were up here?”

The woman rolled her eyes. "We're up here 'cause the bigshots on the spire are getting themselves killed. We obviously can't trust anyone down there not to be a fuckin' demon."

Goat managed to wriggle his way up to a sitting position atop the tram car, despite the pain. “We were planning on talking peacefully!” He winced, one hand on his leg and the other on his shoulder, pressing on the wound. They were far from life-threatening, but they sure hurt a lot. “Hell, I was thinking we might even join you!”

"Yeh? Joinin' us? We're not some prettyboy club for you and your friends to just waltz in and join."

“That’s fine!” Goat shouted. “‘Cause now that I’ve got a bullet in my awesome leg, I don’t really like you anymore! ARGH!”

"Fine by me. We don't give a flyin' fuck 'bout anybody but us. We're gonna stay up 'ere, and shoot any blasted demons that try to come near us. Fuck th' rest of the city, they're on their own."

Giraffe leaned back against the chair she was sitting in front of. “Just wondering, how or what do you eat up here?”

"We brough' plenty a' foodstuffs. A few cratefuls on our way up,” the woman said defensively. The three behind her exchanged significant glances, but said nothing.

“Right, ‘cause you starving would just be bad,” Giraffe said sarcastically.

The woman took a step towards Giraffe, gesturing with her gun. "I don' think I asked for your advice, y' little punk."

“I don’t think I was giving it,” she bit back.

“On closer inspection,” Goat chimed in from atop the tram car. “There isn’t actually a bullet in my leg. My arm hurts like a bitch, though.” He glanced pointedly in the direction of the tower in the center of the city.

The woman rolled her eyes, catching the hint. “Lemme guess. Barret sent you.”

“Yeah,” said Goat. “But, her being a jerk, we’re not really here on her behalf.”

Giraffe nodded. “We’re jerks on our own time.”

“Jerk. Putting it lightly. Psychotic bitch is closer to it.” The young-looking girl took a step forward and reached for the woman's shoulder, but the man standing next to her caught her arm and pushed it down.

“Anyway,” Goat said. “I’ve got some advice. If you wanna disregard it, and get gobbled up by the—nngh—Devourer Swarm, fine by me.” He sat forward. “The demons that are coming eat everything. Including, but not limited to, what you fire at them. So these guns will pretty much just be good shooting down people like us who want to help you.”

“And why, exactly, should I believe you? Bullets did the trick on you just fine, seems like.”

“Well, that just proves I’m not a demon, doesn’t it? Also, ow.”

Giraffe stood up slowly, trying to look as nonthreatening as possible. “See, either you can shoot and kill or harm us and then die, or you can have us help you and maybe not die. Your choice.”

“We can be pretty helpful,” Goat added.

The woman shook her head slowly and unambiguously. “We’re not particularly interested in your help.”

Giraffe shrugged. “If you say so. Your dead corpse.”

“Pity,” Zebra said quietly. “I was so looking forward to getting to know you.”

“Now then.” The woman pointed the gun at them. “Are you leaving via tram or via gravity? Because it doesn’t particularly matter to me.”

Giraffe glanced to Zebra. “Tram good with you?”

“Really, it’s up to you,” Zebra replied. “I’m not even sure why I was sent on this mission.”

“Guys, gravity means falling,” Goat said from the tram’s roof.

“Well!” Giraffe said. “As much as I hate the trams, I was never a fan of falling.”

“Delightful,” the woman said. Without bothering to wait for Goat to get off the top, she shot the lever controlling the tram. The piece of metal snapped off in a blur of sparks, and the tram began to roll back down the way it came, away from the rebels and back towards the center of the city.

HOPE’S EDGE (1)

2010-09-10T19:01:00.000-07:00

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((73 — Duran Shoukan))
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July 2nd, 802 AT.

“Badass.”

“What?” Spider said blandly.

“That.” Seth jerked his head forward, indicating the massive crystal that comprised the center of the nebula. “The city. Well, crystal thing.”

He sat, as usual, in a floating crystal, part of Noh. Each of the Talons was arrayed around and behind him, riding their respective demons. Chun was still asleep, as it was yet early. The light had only just brightened, and no one had bothered to wake her.

“Wonder why it looks like that,” Kiara said quietly from her perch atop Umbra.

“It’s the heart of the thing, probably where all these other crystals came from.” Spider shrugged. “Maybe.”

Up ahead, something sparkled in the air between them and the crystal. Seth squinted, trying to make out whatever it is. As he watched, the single point resolved into a pair, growing larger.

Scorpia sniffed, reaching out to sense for any demonic energy. Spider, straddling her demon, looked as well. “Huh…”

Reno gazed almost lazily towards the approaching points. They grew larger, or came closer. Metallic, and approaching fast.

“Not demons,” Spider said, frowning, feeling what her demon did. “Uh… we’re riding demons, so… this should be interesting?”

“Those… ships?” Kiara said, raising her eyebrows. “I think we should get out of their way.”

“Probably not a bad idea,” Seth agreed, watching the pair continuing to grow closer. They resolved into a pair of approaching ships. “Yeah, let’s not get hit by those.”

“Going down,” Spider said, as she and Scorpia dropped downwards. Umbra and Kiara followed, with Seth descending close behind.

The ships dropped to match them. They continued towards them, maybe half a kilometer out. The one on the left was sleek and bullet-like, with its companion shaped like a tilted cross. Both were clearly heavily armed, with visible gun emplacements on the front.

“Well then. I guess we say hello to these fuckers.” Seth twitched. “Maybe one of them will have a pack…”

“Yup, they’re chasing the demons!” Spider said, zooming to the right to avoid the ships. “Maybe we should split up!” she called, not bothering to stop.

Reno and Caf furrowed their brows. “Huh,” she said.

Kiara coaxed Umbra forward, and she shot liquid shadow forward, trying to cover the viewports of the ships. They broke off, rolling in opposite directions to get out of the shroud.

The ships flew past the Talons, opening up with their machine guns as they did. A hailstorm of bullets streaked towards the teens.

“FuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK!” Seth threw his arm up in front of his face, and a sheet rose up out of Noh, between Seth and the oncoming fire.

The others dodged in various directions, darting out of the line of bullets, separating further. Below them, Torrential Black dropped away, almost out of sight, the sleeping Chun still on his back.

“Dammit!” Spider shouted. “I knew that was gonna happen!”

As they maneuvered, Caf stretched his mouth open wide and let out his own stream of bullets, using his power to copy the attack against him. The ship rolled, Caf’s bullets tracing down its side, leaving heavy dents. “Excellent,” said Reno quietly.

“Alright. Get ‘em, Noh.” He kicked his demon into full gear towards the x-shaped ship.”

Spider came to a halt and hovered for a second. “What are you guys doing!?” As she reached her peak, she saw the ships’ guns stop let up for a moment, apparently to reload. She flipped, and began to fly back down towards the others, Scorpia close behind.

The cross-shaped ship spun towards Seth, accelerating. Reno, watching, shook her head in frustration. “Get your ass into gear, Seth.”

As if in response, Seth dropped out of sight into the core of Noh. The demon then formed itself into a bullet-like shape, with a groove spiraling along it. “Ramming speed. Go,” Seth said quietly. Noh went.

“Are we seriously going to fight…” Spider watched Noh morph, and never finished her sentence. “Oh.”

The demon accelerated, and crystal met metal with a rending tear. Noh won. The creature tore through the ship, through wood and metal and cogs and flesh. It emerged out the back in a flash of shattered steel.

“Yes, Spider,” said Reno flatly. “We ARE seriously going to fight. And it looks like we’re winning.” There was something lacking in Reno's voice that was ever-present three weeks ago.

“I guess so!” Kiara called down, and then swooped in atop her demon. Umbra, still in gryphon form, went for the ship Caf had hit earlier. It spun its gun to point up at them, firing a blast of flame. A shroud of shadow covered the two of them, taking the brunt of the flame, but halting their dive, forcing them back.

Seth’s head popped out of the top of Noh. “Bitchin’.” He looked to where the ship he had smashed was falling slowly back down towards Sector One, and dove, chasing the debris. He looked for anything still alive, but the ship was a mess of sparking electronics. Nothing and no one had survived.

Spider hovered upon Scorpia, uncertain and waiting.

After a few moments, Umbra dove again, this time wrapping herself and her rider with a dense cloud of shadow. The ship fired a second time, but the flames washed harmlessly around the demon. They dropped alongside the ship, and Umbra landed on the side of it. Shaping one leg to have massive talons, she clawed viciously at the hull. The metal rent back, making an opening.

The pilot inside swore violently, jumping back. She fumbled on the wall, pulling down something akin to a shotgun, and blasted at Umbra point-blank with it.

Umbra screeched as the buckshot went through her shadows, then flowed through the tear, liquid-like, enveloping the pilot. “Fuck, shit, fuck, shit!” The woman cursed louder, but managed to get her belt pouch open. The slammed a crystal into the shadowy stuff around her.

Umbra shrieked louder and flew back, through Kiara, who was stepping forward into the ship. A large amount of her essence stayed behind, though, trapped in the crystal.

A ways away, Reno made the most microscopic of nods, and Caf flew in towards the ship to help.

Overhead, Spider looked around nervously. “Oh, shut up,” she said to no one apparent, and dove back down to the others. From outside, the ship was listing hard to port, smoke rising from the engines. Below her, Caf accelerated towards the ship, closing fast.

Kiara leaned forward, putting her weight into a punch that took the pilot square in the jaw. She staggered back, falling against the wall of her ship. “What the fuck!? Who the fuck are you?”

Kiara didn’t answer, instead drawing the knife from inside her coat.

The motion gave the pilot enough time to regain her grip on her shotgun, though, and she leveled it squarely at Kiara’s face. “You’re one of those demon assassins, aren’t you! Well FUCK YOU!”

Time seemed to slow, as a number of things happened very quickly.

Kiara’s eyes widened, and she lunged forward, slicing at the woman’s stomach.

At that moment, Spider and Scorpia both slammed into the top of the ship, with as much momentum as they could muster.

The ship shook hard to port, knocking both girls inside off balance. The woman stumbled forward, her motion taking her onto Kiara’s knife. The blade cut into her chest, splashing red blood out into the air.

With a resounding BOOM that reverberated through the metal of the ship, her shotgun went off. The buck shredded into Kiara’s left leg at the thigh, turning it instantly to mincemeat.

Caf stopped short in the air, launching Reno forward off of her back, targeting the hole in the ship. The crystal dagger slid fluidly out of its holster, and she tightened her grip as she brought her hand back.

“Bitch.” Clutching at her stomach, the pilot shoulder-rammed Kiara out towards the hole in the side of her ship. Her eyes widened as she saw Reno flying straight towards her. “Aw, fuck.”

As Kiara fell backwards out of the ship, Reno flew straight over her, slamming into the pilot. With only the slightest bit of emotion, she muttered, “die, you bitch.” Her knife swung forward as they hit the back wall of the ship, thrusting into the woman’s neck.

Blood spouted from the wound as the woman's eyes froze over in a bitter glare. The pilot tried to choke out a final word, only succeeding in a miserable gasp.

Reno lowered her face level with the pilot’s. “Don’t,” she said quietly. “Ever. Hurt. Our demons.” With one deft jerk, she pulled the dagger out of the pilot’s throat, and she collapsed in a heap against the metal floor of the cabin.

((74 — Nemesis))

Outside, Spider had darted down and caught Kiara before she could fall very far. “What the fuck happened!?” she asked in a frantic voice, lifting the other girl away from the ship.

Kiara just let out a stream of loud, violent curses as what was left of Umbra flowed around her leg, trying to staunch the bleeding. “Fucking shotgun!” she finished.

“Shit… why the fuck did she shoot you?” Spider held onto Kiara, but her eyes narrowed in something close to anger, or at least surprise. “Why the fuck were you trying to kill her?”

“Because she tried to…shoot me…” Kiara’s voice came in short gasps, but she raised it to a yell for a moment. “Reno! Get her belt crystal!” She panted for a moment. “She damaged… Umbra…” Seeing Spider’s glare, Kiara winced and continued. “I was just going to knock… the bitch out…”

In the ship, Reno sighed at her bloody dagger. “Greeeat,” she groaned, leaning down to wipe the blood on its previous owner’s clothes. She picked up the crystal where it had fallen, then stepped outside onto Caf’s waiting back, floating up to join the others. As she left the ship, it continued to list to one side, beginning to fall back into the Void without power.

Blood gushed from Kiara’s hip. She couldn’t feel anything below it. She winced, going white with pain for a moment as Umbra spread out, enveloping her whole lower body.

“Hey,” said Reno, holding the crystal. “You wanted this?”

“Yeah,” Kiara said. “Break it for me? I’m not… in any shape to do it…”

“Sure thing,” Reno replied. She put the charged crystal on a metal part of her backpack, then touched her crystal dagger to it before violently swinging the blade up and then down again. The crystal shattered, taking a few chips of Reno's dagger with it.

Umbra's demon essence seeped out from the shards and floated back to its owner. She swelled and darkened, looking far more substantial than before.

"There," said Reno "That's one physically incomplete member of the team put back together again."

Seth rose back to meet the other Talons.“In retrospect, that was horribly unnecessary. But a fucking awesome test of might. We kick ass.”

Spider shot him a vicious glare, and whispered to Kiara, “Can Umbra hold you now?” The pilot nodded in response, and Spider gently leaned her back into the waiting shadow.

“Kiara,” Seth said, raising an eyebrow. “You look damaged.”

"My leg is... fucked." She said, looking down, Umbra shrouding it from view.

“Let’s land and get you somewhere we can fix that, yo. Or at least… make you not die. And such.” Seth looked away.

“Yeah, ‘cause they’ll really want to lend us med supplies!” Spider shouted.

“I’m sure… they have some on board…” Kiara said.

“Spider,” Seth said. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Spider jerked her head to the ship, motioning for Seth to follow. The two of them shot down to the drifting ship, and in through the hole in its side. Spider immediately began to scavenge for medical supplies.

“Look, Spider,” Seth said slowly. “I know what we did was completely fucked up. I realized it too late, though. Yes, those people were probably just trying to defend this city from what seemed like a demon invasion.”

“Don’t you dare say but.”

“But… well, those two are dead now. We’ve gotta keep Kiara from joining them, and keep the rest of these folk,” he gestured up towards the other Talons, “ from realizing what we just did.”

Pulling open a box on the wall, Spider started shoving painkillers into her pockets. “You’re an idiot. If you don’t want the rest of the people to realize the consequences of what just happened, you have to be ready to take the blame for it.” She glanced at the pilot’s body. “Shit. Shit, Seth.” She raised her eyes to him. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”

“… it is my fault. I’m the one who charged them first.” He looked down. “Kicked into oh-shit-they’re-trying-to-kill-me-mode before I could think. That’s no excuse, though.”

Spider bit her lip, and shook her head. “It’s not,” she said, sympathetically. “You’re right, though. We have to get Kiara fixed up, and somewhere safe. Can we get to the city without attracting more attention? Maybe I should just bring her in…” She was focused now on the job at hand, and purposefully didn’t look at the body again.

Having taken what she could, Spider let herself drop sideways out of the ship, and back up to where the others were. Chun had joined them, presumably woken by Reno. “I got some bandages,” Spider said, passing them to Chun. “Take these pills, they’ll help the pain.” She extended her hand, holding three little blue tablets.

Kiara took them and dry-swallowed them with a grimace. “Thanks.”

Chun, riding Torrential as ever, leaned forward and winced at the blood. "That is WAY beyond saving. Shit, shit, shit.” She swallowed. “Kiara, we might have to cut your leg off.”

“I…” Kiara closed her eyes. “Yes. I realized that.”

“Come on,” Spider said. “Unless we get you to the city…”

Kiara shook her head. “Can’t… not in the city.”

“There are other crystals nearby.” Spider didn’t waste any time, heading off towards the nearest crystal. It was a little ways below them—a small dodecahedron, maybe fifteen meters along each edge. The other Talons quickly followed down.

Black landed long enough for Chun to jump off, then retreated to the edge of the crystal and perched. Chun took off her backpack and pulled her goggles down over her eyes. She rummaged through it and eventually pulled out what looked like an oversized scalpel, or very thin knife. Spider came walking up the slanted plane to her, holding the bandages and a bit of disinfectant from the ship.

Chun shook her head. “Spider, we can’t just bandage this, it is shredded. It will get infected if we do that… I think we should cut it off first, and keep as much skin as we can to stitch over the wound and make a stump.

“Uh, okay, I’ve never really done this before…” Spider looked around uncomfortably. “I might have a needle and thread, actually… don’t know what else would work better.”

“Never done this either… just read about it in theory.” Chun kept her face blank, clearly trying to hide how little of an idea of what she was doing she had. “Needle and thread would help.”

As Spider frantically searched her bag, Umbra gently set Kiara down next to them on the crystal. Kiara winced, and her demon withdrew, revealing the mangled leg. The area from roughly the top of her left leg to just above her knee was a ravaged mess of shredded muscle and blood. Bits of shattered bone were splattered throughout as well. Kiara’s face had drained to pale white. “Just take it off… it’s… gone…” she croaked.

Spider came up holding a pair of needles and strong thread. She saw Kiara’s leg and gulped. “Uh… UH.”

Chun knelt down over Kiara. “Spider, do me a favor? Hold her down? You might want help, too…” Fortunately at this point Kiara’s eyes had started to lose their focus, as the pain pills kicked in. Spider gripped her by the shoulders, trying to hold her steady.

“Kiara!” Chun said, and Kiara managed to make eye contact with her. “I need you to concentrate on keeping Umbra from killing me and Spider.” Kiara nodded, clenching her teeth, and Umbra flowed up around her hip, forming a makeshift tourniquet. Chun’s face went pale, and Torrential began fluttering his wings nervously. She took the scalpel and began carving away bits of flesh.

Seth stood next to Noh, leaning on him. If one good thing came out of that fight, it was the pack of cigarettes he’d found on the wrecked ship. He lit up.

Spider held onto Kiara tightly, as if to quiet her own anxiousness. She winced, trying to keep her eyes off of Chun’s work.

Reno sighed, watching Chun take out bits and pieces. "Look," she said "If you want this to be quick and some resemblance of painless, don't you think we should use something bigger?" Reno produced her now-serrated crystal dagger.

Chun shook her head. “Listen, if we’re not careful about that, we might paralyze her other leg.”

“This I can do.” Seth walked towards them, Noh floating along behind him. “Noh can do a pretty clean cut. We might want to use him instead of a dagger.”

Kiara gritted her teeth, apparently more coherent than they’d thought. “Use fucking Noh to do it if that’s what it takes, just take the damn thing off. You won’t—nngh—paralyze me as long as you stay below the hip.”

Chun frowned, biting her lip. “It makes sense, but we’ll need spare skin. I’ll cut a bit loose and you cut off the rest as quick as you can.”

Seth tried to stifle a shudder, and only half succeeded. “Just… just tell me where to cut.” He raised his arm, miming a blade with his hand. Noh sprouted a rather swordlike crystal appendage, mimicking him. Seth looked to Chun, waiting for the cue.

Chun quickly made two cuts and ripped back some skin that was still clinging to the dead useless muscle. She pulled it out of the way and nodded to Seth.

He brought his arm down, into air. Noh brought his arm down, into flesh, tendon, bone. It went straight through, clicking against the crystal below Kiara. The blade then receded as quickly as it had come out.

Kiara cried out with pain, but quickly choked it back, eyes squeezed tightly shut. Umbra tightened around her hip, slowing the bleeding as much as possible. Spider now held one of Kiara’s hands tightly, keeping her shoulders down with the other arm.

“Nice cut, much better than I could have done.” Chun immediately pulled the skin back down and grabbed the needle and thread from on top of her pack. “Shit, Reno, grab some bandages and try to stop some bleeding.”

“Right,” said Reno, reaching for the bandages with a speed somehow slower than that with which she had killed the pilot. She cut the bandages with her dagger before redepositing it in her holster.

Chun wiped the needle on her backpack and started stitching, an awkward uneven line that just got the job done. “Where’s the disinfectant?”

Spider quickly grabbed it and tossed it to Chun, not letting go of Kiara’s hand. She tried not to watch what was going on, but couldn’t help wincing as Kiara tightened her grip.

Seth’s eyes grazed Spider’s hand, holding Kiara’s. Abruptly, he turned away and walked into Noh. The demon instantly faded into a dark fog.

Chun grabbed the disinfectant. “This is going to sting.” She frowned and poured it over the awkwardly stitched wound. She turned paler, but grabbed a section of bandage and helped Reno cover as much of the stump as they could. She tied the bandages as tight as she could, watching as they stained solid red in moments.

Kiara, gritting her teeth, managed to get out a strangled, “Are you done yet?”

Chun leaned back, shaking and looking at her hands. “I… I think I am…” Torrential ruffled his feathers as if he was hit by a cold blast of air.

“It looks loads better now,” Spider said, attempting a smile.

“Well, there’s not much left TO look loads better,” said Reno. Gazing at the blood on her fingers, she picked up the smallest shred of bandage and wiped them clean.

Kiara looked down at what was left of her leg, then lay her head back. “That’ll… hold for a bit,” she said, then quite unceremoniously passed out.

Spider gave Reno a look, frowning.

“Hey, don’t give me that,” she said back. “You know it’s true.”

Chun cleaned her knife and the needle on a piece of bandage, put her knife away and slid her backpack on, then handed Spider the needle, thread, and remaining disinfectant. She got up slowly and walked to Torrential. She sunk down, leaning against Black’s leg.

Umbra grew from the shadows under and around Kiara, returning to her gryphon form and standing over her master’s body protectively. In her unconsciousness, Kiara let out a quiet whimper.

Spider put the supplies in her bag, and carefully slipped her hand out of Kiara’s. She went over and slumped next to Scorpia, resting her head against her demon’s carapace. She looked up into the empty fog ahead, and let out a sigh. “Well, shit,” she said shakily.

HUNTING HOPE (1)

2010-09-03T14:02:00.000-07:00

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((76 — Confined))
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July 1st, 802 AT.

The tram rolled down towards the dock, creaking as it went. This car wasn't like the others Kasby had seen--it was old and dilapidated, looking like a remnant of an earlier era. Clearly people didn't come down here from on high much.

The Storm District stretched out in front of the dusty windows, a vast expanse of corrugated gray and rust-red rooftops, narrow lines of darkness marking the alleyways between them. Here and there, lights cast pools of pale yellow in the otherwise-dim night.

Kasby stepped out of the tram car and pushed one side of his coat back to rest his hand loosely on the handle of the dartpistol. He walked out into the district, his boots thudding clearly through the empty streets. It was the second night since his arrival at Sector One, and he had yet to sleep. There had been reports of sightings of Jaz all over the city, but each had proven to be a dead end. Every time he felt like he might find her, he found nothing at all. He wasn’t about to stop looking, though.

Ahead of him, the door to one of the warehouses rolled open with a too-loud creaking. A short, roundish man covered in engine grease stepped out. The thick pair of black goggles over his eyes shone pale beams of light over Kasby, inspecting him. The man shook his head. "So you're all Inner could spare, eh? Not s'prised."

Kasby nodded at the man in a professional manner. A detached one. His eyes scanned the surroundings intensely.

The man wiped one hand on pants that probably only made it greasier, then extended it to Kasby. "M' name's Stern, Darryl Stern."

Kasby shook the man's hand tightly with his own gloved hand. "Kasby Bellflo—Bellwood."

Stern grunted in response, putting his hand back in his pocket. "And you're looking for the... creature." His mouth fouled up around the word, and a small shudder went through the man.

"Yes," Kasby said in a neutral, careful tone.

The older man laughed bitterly. "Shouldn't be too hard to find her."

Kasby's eyes drifted upwards, towards the rooftops. "Why do you say that?"

Stern stepped out of the doorway, clearing Kasby's view to inside, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Just follow the bodies."

Inside the warehouse, half a dozen bodies were strewn, all in varying states of dismemberment. A trail of blood ran from one to the next and out the back door of the mostly-empty warehouse.

Kasby grimaced. His eyes were cold. Hard. "How are you still alive?"

The man faltered, eyes dropping. "I..." He coughed once, twice, then pushed his goggles to his forehead and looked Kasby square in the eyes. "I got the fuck out of that thing's way and didn't even try to stop it, that's how."

Kasby matched his stare. "No room for heroes in the Void, right?"

"Just survivors,” Stern said.

"And the walking dead," Kasby added to himself quietly as he walked past the shorter man. The captain began to follow the trail Jaz had left for him.

Stern said nothing as he left.

The path was easy enough. Blood and gore marked the men and women before him, long gouges left in their bodies, the mirror of gouges Kasby himself had left enough times to recognize.

The trail left the first warehouse, moving into the second, then a third, then a fourth. Over containers and cargo and spare parts. Where there wasn't gore and death, there was a steady trail of droplets of blood, fallen from the tip of the crystal blade.

Kasby followed the trail at first as if in a trance. His footsteps left soft echoes as his eyes went from drop to drop, wound to wound. The farther he went, the more he picked up speed. His tracking became frantic, his expression set in dead intensity.

As he went faster, the blood got fresher. One thing didn't change, though:

There were no wounded. Only the dead.

Kasby was at a full run, now, and his bootsteps thumped and rang out loudly throughout the warehouse. From ahead, the sound of a scream echoed towards him, reverberating through the warehouses like a megaphone. It stopped abruptly.

Kasby pulled the dartpistol from its holster and tore into the next warehouse, stopping a few feet inside.

The warehouse was full of old construction machinery. Dilapidated cranes sat rusting throughout. A grisly tableau was perched atop one of the cranes at the far end of the room.

She stood, back to Kasby, crystal blade held high, struck through the chest of a girl not much younger than Kasby. As he watched, the creature moved its arm and let the body drop to the floor dozens of feet below with a wet thud. It flicked the crystal blade, sending the blood running down its clear faces spattering away.

Kasby watched the spectacle coldly. His weapon was trained on the monster atop the crane. With a deft hand, he pulled the trigger. A tremor went through his body, shaking him to the core, as he fired a volley.

The crystal shards sliced through the air, leaving a quiet whistle in the air. Two shot past the creature. The third thudded into its shoulder. It dropped off the crane, howling in pain and anger. The fall became a flip, though, and it landed deftly into a roll, coming up whirling to face Kasby. Its eyes still glowed that bloodthirsty red, shining against blackened skin. The goggles lenses now permanently embedded into the thing's forehead shone with reflected red light, looking almost like a second set of eyes, eerily watching on behalf of someone--something--else.

Kasby's weapon was still pointed straight at the creature, but his hand trembled uncontrollably now. Jaz. His mouth formed the words, without any sound. Please.

The creature that had been his lover let out a shrieking cackle, and charged him.

Still holding his gun in his left hand, Kasby pulled Jaz’s crystal sword from its sheath at his side and raised it up to block her attack. The blow hammered in with all the force of her inhuman diving gait, an overhead swing full of rage and insanity. The twin blades met with a crash that filled the warehouse.

Kasby was thrown back by the force of the blow, but the blade did not shatter. His arm throbbed from absorbing the impact. He steadied himself before he fell and switched his balance, to hold the sword in something resembling a fighting stance.

She laughed, that sound that was almost familiar but horribly alien, and struck again, pushing forward. He swatted away her first attack with his blade. With his other hand, holding the dartgun, he tried to pistol whip the creature across the face. The hit caught the creature as it was still bringing its blade back up, slamming into its cheek and dropping it to the ground. Almost instantly, it lashed out with its sword, swinging wildly at Kasby's feet.

The blade sliced into one of Kasby's shins. He grimaced in pain but leapt backward using his other leg, curling into a roll and coming up in a shooting stance. He pulled the trigger again.

The creature was halfway to its feet when the crystal thudded into its left leg. It howled in agony, dropping to the ground and clutching at its wound with its hand.

Kasby pushed himself forward as he rose, throwing that momentum into a flying tackle. He hit the demon, hard, knocking it all the way flat. He used all of his weight to keep the creature down, and pressed the barrel of his pistol into her forehead.

It laughed again, thrashing against him, then seemed to cough and choke. A yellow sheen passed briefly over the lenses on its forehead, and it coughed again, this time exhaling a breath of yellow smoke.

Kasby's heart beat a staccato rhythm in his chest. He held the weapon in place, though he trembled everywhere.

The creature's solid red eyes squeezed closed, and a deep voice boomed out of the creature's mouth, powerful and male. "NOT YET. I STILL HAVE USE FOR THIS ONE." The yellow smoke swirled around Kasby, pouring out of nowhere to cover the demon he was pinning to the warehouse floor.

"NO!" Kasby screamed out against the yellow smoke. "DON'T TAKE HER!" He pressed himself down, gripping the deep, black skin tightly, the pistol having dropped from his fingers. "Not again!" he sobbed into the smoke.

His cries echoed through empty yellow mist. He was alone in the warehouse. He collapsed onto the crystal floor, his forehead pressed hard into the cool material. Though sobs wracked his body, his face remained dry. He had no tears left to shed.

LOCKED HOPE (2)

2010-09-02T13:11:00.000-07:00

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((75 — The Farthest Land))
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July 1st, 802 AT.

The crystals hung in the air around them, silent witness to their long journey. After almost a month of freefall, they were finally nearing their destination. The two crew of the ship had found ways to occupy themselves, bit by bit. Owl had spent plenty of time practicing her editing, changing aspects of the world around her. Most of Emerson’s lab equipment had been changed into food or other living supplies. Skunk had convinced Owl to explain the basic workings of guns, and together they had edited and extruded the materials to make a pair of hand pistols.

Owl and Skunk now sat together on the top deck of Emerson’s ship, staring at the massive crystal ahead of them. Owl peered out at it, then back to the open notebook in her lap. "Snowflake!" she said aloud, jotting it down. "That's the word I wanted."

Skunk fiddled with a bullet, staring gloomily out at the huge crystal. She was impatient for something to do, something to fight. A month of almost complete inaction had left her with a severe case of cabin fever.

"Snow... flake...." The rememorist thought for a moment. "No. Those aren't as scary. I think." She crossed out what she'd written. "Unless it's a snowstorm. And you're a poet."

The radio on the control panel crackled. "Unknown ship, unknown ship, this is Sector One, do you read?" The voice was young, male, and sounded extremely tired.

Owl jumped. “Sector One!”

Skunk's face split in a rare, tiny smile.

Owl pressed down on the intercom button. "Hi, Sector One?"

“Hi. Another straggler from the refugee fleet?”

"Oh far-reaching fog... it's another person," Owl sighed. Into the intercom she said, "Not exactly. I don't think. We, um. We kind of… took this ship? But it wasn’t really stealing… it was, um.”

“Oh. Uh. From who?”

“Um. Doctor… what was it now… Emerson!”

"Crazy sonuvabitch he was, too,” muttered Skunk.

The voice fell silent a moment. "Uh. Okay. Who am I speaking to, exactly?"

"Oh, um. Owl?" Owl said. "And Skunk."

“…Owl. Right. Owl and Skunk.”

“…From Face.”

The voice over the radio let out a long sigh.

“Previously of Face,” Skunk said quietly.

Owl’s expression darkened. “Sorry. Um. Previously of Face,” she corrected into the intercom.

"Listen,” came the voice. “I've been landing ships for something like thirty-nine hours straight. So how about I send you the telemetry data for the landing fields, and then go back to sleeping on the console."

Owl frowned. "Young man, I don't think that's a very responsible thing to do," she reproached.

"Splendid," muttered Skunk darkly. "More lectures."

"Shh!" Owl hissed back.

"... I know it's not, but what with the riots, my co-workers are cut off." The voice sounded more and more tired by the moment. "So it's just me against the refugee hordes."

Skunk leaned over and spoke into the intercom. “That’s fine, great, just get us the stuff.”

Owl's face went blank. "The... the what now?"

"The refugees. Where are you from, lady? Sector Two or something?”

"No, I heard that. But you said RIOTS before. What riots?" Owl probed.

“You're coming from the direction of Sector Four..." He didn’t sound like he was listening.

"Um... Well. We were there,” Owl said. “But Face wasn’t.”

There was another long pause. "...I'm just gonna send you the telemetry data, okay?"

Skunk rolled her eyes. “That’s what I said to do earlier.”

Owl frowned, but answered, "Yes. We want the data."

"Now, unfortunately, the Outer Landing Fields filled up entirely, what with the refugee fleets and all."

"Okay... So where do we land?”

"Buuut Tanique Hall is shut down 'cause of the riots, so the roof of that is totally open."

"Send us this precious data already," Skunk growled.

"As long as you don't mind parking on top of a library, you should be able to set down there for the moment."

"Skunk, be patient, oka— LIBRARY?" Owl jumped up from her seat.

“Uh, yeah.” The radio operator paused. “Is that a problem?”

“Oh! No! We’ll land there! We’d be delighted!”

“Well, that’s settled then, yeah?” Skunk said. “So SEND US THE SHIT ALREADY.” Skunk's tone was bored and forceful. but her restless eyes betrayed her unease.

"Yeah, yeah. Coming up."

Owl giggled like a gleeful child. "Library," she sighed.

After a minute, the console beeped, a green light indicating receipt of the directions to land. "See you planetside. Sector One out."

"Thank you. Goodbye."

The beginnings of a tremendously loud yawn seeped through, then the radio beeped and fell silent.

"Okay, let's land!" Owl grinned, pressing a sequence of buttons.

"Yay," said Skunk unconvincingly.

“Oh, hey!” Owl said. “Want to try flying like we practiced?”

Skunk shrugged, but obligingly took the coiled wire from her belt. She walked to the back of the deck, and closed her eyes. Wrapping her hand around one end of the wire, she moved the other end out into the open air using her powers. It drifted along the deck, plugging into the metal of the control console.

With it connected, Skunk extended her consciousness into the panel itself, feeling out the metal levers and control knobs. Any touching metal was fair game, and she began to operate the controls from remote.

“Good, good!” Owl said. “A few more degrees forward.”

Slowly, working together, they brought the ship around the massive crystal, and towards the city.

After a few moments of no directions from Owl, Skunk opened her eyes. “Owl?” She looked over to see the older woman standing at the edge of the ship, looking down, jaw wide. Skunk walked to her, about to ask what she was looking at, when she saw it.

The city was a truly impressive sight. Skunk whistled. “Well, that’s… damn.”

“Uh huh.” Owl delightedly scanned the city below, taking in as much detail as she could. Halfway up one of the three large spires, she saw a broad expanse of green—what she recognized from her readings as a ‘forest.’ “Oh, trees!” She gushed, clapping her hands. “They make air!”

The screen in the console beeped again, scrolling up to show a map, all glowing green outlines. The data the young man had sent them was the coordinates to Tanique Hall, a spot most of the way up one of the spires.

“I’ll take control, Skunk,” Owl said, and the other woman detached her wire, recoiling it at her belt. Owl frowned as she stepped back to the console. “Ooh, I don’t like this angle,” she muttered.

“Hardly the worst thing we’ve said,” mused Skunk.

Tanique Hall was an old-looking building, a lone block set into the crystal slope further up than almost anything else. Massive columns lined its entrance, and large windows were set into the front of it. The top of it was large and flat, easily big enough to accomodate six ships the size of the one they were in.

“Impressive," admitted Skunk. “Now how about landing?”

"Hang on. This isn't like reading. It takes concentration." Owl wriggled her fingers on the wheel, then carefully positioned them above the roof. "Okay, here we go," she said, mostly to herself. "You can do this. We can do this we can do this we can do this..." Her shadow rearranged itself into the words we can do this we can do this we can do this... hey, I'm doing it right!

The engines on either side of the ship rotated softly, returning to directly vertical positions. With a quiet thunk, the ship came to rest on the roof of the building.

Owl let out the breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. “Okay. Library time.”

Skunk was staring off into the city, features blank and unreadable.

“Skunk? You ready to get out and about?”

The other woman sighed quietly. “At this point, I’m ready for anything.”

DETAILED HOPE — SECTOR ONE MAP

2010-09-01T13:57:00.001-07:00

(A) Inner Chamber
(B) The Complex
(C) Articulate Gardens
(D) Tanique Hall
(E) Deepana
(F) Outer Landing Fields
(G) Defensive Platforms
(H) Bioresa
(I) Laboratoria
(J) Enjaya
(K) Academia
(L) Scholasta
(M) Montoya
(N) Storm District
(O) Jettiq
(P) Haraya

TOWARDS HOPE (4)

2010-09-01T13:51:00.000-07:00

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((72 — You Hurt Me))

The tram-car room was still for a moment. The woven-wood walls seemed to soak up the ongoing screams from outside, muting the world around them.

Kasby had fallen to his knees, the wooden dartpistol having clattered to the floor a meter away from him. He was shaking.

Goat landed next to him. “We’d better go chase her, Captain. C’mon!”

Zebra came running in, Giraffe close behind.. “You think any of us, with the exception of you, as is fast enough?”

“I’m gonna follow her, then!” Goat said. Holding his spear tight, he jumped onto the tram, and then out, vanishing into the city.

Kasby stayed as he was for another minute or so before planting his first unsteady foot and standing.

Barret ran in, slipping her wide metal cutlass back into a sheath on her back as she did. "Where's that last assassin?"

"Gone,” Kasby rasped.

She cursed under her breath, and put a hand to her temple. “Fine, fine. You three go to the Inner Chamber. I’ll catch up with you shortly.” Her tone was sharp, curt, and to the point. Not waiting to see if they did so, she turned and went back outside, presumably to do damage control.

Kasby went without a word of protest, walking into the jammed tram.

“Is someone going to tell them what’s going on?” Giraffe whispered, pointing to the citizens outside as she followed Kasby into the tram.

“Do you know what’s going on?” Zebra asked Giraffe pointedly.

“…good point.”

“Why thank you.”

A quiet moment later, Vojtek stumbled inside. He blinked at the tram car, then poked his head in. "Is there a reason you're all just sitting here?"

Kasby remained silent, staring off into space. Giraffe and Zebra could tell, having been around him so long—this was no blank stare, or one of pure sorrow. Lines of tragedy showed on his face, but Kasby's mind was racing with thought.

Vojtek grumbled unintelligibly, then flipped a large lever inside the tram car. The gears made half a turn and then crunched audibly. Vojtek rolled his eyes, "Ugh, jammed. Just be a minute." The large man stepped back out of the tram car, slipping a large wrench out of the pocket of his brown leather coat.

After a minute’s deliberation, Kasby pulled out his short-wave radio and clicked the talk button. “Goat, come in.”

Goat’s voice came back, along with the sound of rushing wind. “Aye, Captain?”

“Where are you?”

“In mid-air, sir!”

“Get back on track, Goat. Where is Jaz? Which was direction was she headed?”

There was a crunch from outside the tram, and Vojtek came back in. He coughed. “There, should be all fixed.”

A crashing sound echoed through Kasby’s transmitter, and he frowned at it. “Goat, come in. Where is she?” He wasn’t paying Vojtek a bit of attention.

The Transportation Secretary threw the lever again. This time, the gears did not catch on anything, and whirred to life, propelling the tram car up the cable. Vojtek grinned at his handiwork. "There, good as new!" He looked up at Kasby, and was immediately reminded of the situation. His face fell, and he let out a heavy breath.

"Goat, report!" Kasby raised his voice into the radio.

Goat's voice came back. "I'm over a large building with a roof that is flat!"

"Unhelpful, Goat. Landmarks? Streetnames?"

Vojtek sat heavily in a chair and turned to Giraffe and Zebra. “Sorry for the less-than-warm welcome…”

Zebra shrugged unconcernedly. Giraffe blinked at him, not impressed. The tram rolled on, back up towards the tower they had landed the Quinn on.

The radio crackled again. “I’ve lost her—” There was another crash. “—sir. But I think I know where she’s going! She’s heading for the crystal tower in the center of the city!”

“Meet us there, Goat. Kasby over and out.” The captain tucked the radio back in his coat and turned to Vojtek. "You might want to alert security that they have a storm coming their way," he suggested without any inflection.

"How do you mean, Captain? There's not much by way of weather in the Void."

"I mean they've got a murderous, skilled demonic assassin headed their way and they better be ready."

“…ah. Right.” Vojtek took a short-wave radio similar to Kasby's out of his pocket, and flipped it on. He mumbled into it for a moment, then tucked it back into the coat pocket it came from.

Kasby pulled the Warlock from its holster at his hip and checked the cartridge. "She's still better than me with the sword. I have to fight from a distance." Kasby said, once again in a neutral tone. He clicked the safety off of the magic-slinging monster of a pistol.

The uncomfortable silence finally ended as the tram car clicked into place in the dock at the crystal tower. Kasby stepped out of the door without giving any of the others a glance, his eyes focused and cold.

The inside of the room was a wild cordon of action. Half a dozen men and women in brown uniforms surrounded the door to the car, matching guns drawn.

Vojtek stepped out and gestured, and the soldiers put their weapons up, letting the five of them past. He spoke to their commander as he passed. "Any sign of the assassin?"

"None, sir," she replied curtly.

The large man let out an angry puff of air, and walked out onto the inner balcony of the tram station, gesturing for the crew to follow. "I'll take you to the Inner Chamber. Mercuria will be with us shortly."

Kasby followed, weapon still clenched in one hand, not making eye contact with anyone. Giraffe sighed and followed, with Zebra following considerably more casually. Goat leapt into step next to them.

The grand concourse below the balcony was a wild hustle of frenzied action, people rushing to and fro in a chaotic mess. Here and there, officers in uniform tried and failed to keep things in order.

Vojtek ducked into a waiting elevator, with the others close behind. He tapped a button, and the doors slid closed. There was a now-familiar sensation of vertical motion for a moment, and the doors opened again.

The hexagonal room they exited into was clearly at the top of the tower. A large C-shaped table filled most of the room, with six chairs arranged around the outside. The walls were large windows, looking out over the city below. The floor at the center of the room, in the middle of the table, was a map of the city cut from various colored metals.

Goat jumped out of the elevator and scanned the room for Jaz, twirling his spear.

Vojtek went and sat down halfway around the table. As Zebra sat down herself, he half stood again. “Wait, that’s Suraya’s…” His voice trailed off as his mind caught up to instinct, and he sat heavily back down.

Zebra looked away, and didn’t say anything.

After fumbling with his spear, Goat perched on a chair, crouching on his powerful legs. Kasby stood by one end of the table, Warlock still drawn, eyes unmoving.

After a minute, the uncomfortable silence was broken by the elevator's doors opening again. Mercuria Barret strode into the room, silver hair now tied up in a bun. She growled angrily and spun to Kasby. "What the hell is going on, Bellwood? I think you owe me an explanation.”

Kasby paused. “I at least owe you that much,” he said, maintaining the calm voice.

Barret’s eyes jumped from Goat to Zebra to Giraffe. "Give me one good reason I shouldn't shoot your entire crew right now for being demons."

“The girl who controls fire wouldn’t like it?” Zebra said calmly.

Barret whirled on her. “Yes. The girl who controls fire.”

Giraffe raised a hand halfway. “That’d be me.”

"If you hadn't killed those assassins, you'd have a bullet in your brain right now, little girl. Do I make myself clear?"

“Sure do,” replied Giraffe. “It’s clear we saved your bloody ass.”

“Don’t you dare threaten my crew.” Kasby responded in the same calm voice he had been maintaining, but it had an unmistakable edge. He was not one to push today.

The Councilor scoffed. "This is my city, Bellwood. You do not tell me what to do."

In response, Kasby set the Warlock down on the table and pulled a holodisc from his pocket, tossing it to Vojtek. "Play that on your holo projector. It's the last data I collected before I left Sector 7."

Vojtek just barely caught it, fumbling with it a moment. He slipped the disk into the table, calling up a screen built in to the table. After a moment, he gestured for Mercuria to look at the data on his screen. She walked into the middle of the table, and did so. As she looked through the data, she scowled.

Kasby slowly pulled a second disc from his pocket and slid it along the table. “From Sector Four.”

Vojtek slipped it into the table as well, and the two of them tapped through it. “Oh,” Vojtek murmured. “Oh… this is…”

Barret stood slowly, her back to the crew. “I don’t like you, Bellwood. I want to make that clear.”

“I don’t care,” he replied.

“I don’t like you either!” asserted Goat. Zebra grunted in agreement.

“Unfortunately,” Barret continued. “You and your crew are the only ones who’ve seriously dealt with these… things… and lived. That makes you useful to me.”

“And what happens after we stop being useful?” Giraffe asked acidly.

“Then I stop using you.” Barret turned to the crew, arching an eyebrow. “So. I’m enlisting all four of you. I’m going to need full disclosure here. Everything you know about these things, and how we can stop them. Sector One has repelled countless demon attacks before, but I'm not stupid. This is different. You four are going to make sure that this city does not fall."

“Is it just me, or does this sound familiar?” Giraffe said quietly to Goat and Zebra.

Zebra shrugged back. “And we know how it turned out last time.”

“We’ll do what we can.” Kasby picked the Warlock up off the table. “Right now, though, worry about keeping yourselves alive. There’s an assassin out for your blood, and she was headed here. I don't think your guards are going to be able to stop it, Barret."

“I can protect myself. I'm the Defense Secretary for a reason, Bellwood." She paused. “That assassin. All of you knew her. How?”

Kasby slid the Warlock into its holster. "Nothing but a familiar face, Barret."

“When Face fell, she saved us,” Goat said.

“I’m not interested in metaphors. Who is she?”

“She’s a demon,” Kasby said. He walked away from the conversation to the great windows, looking out at the city beneath.

“That was no metaphor," said Goat quietly.

She turned to him. “Then explain it, child. Face?”

“It was our home,” Giraffe interjected.

Goat nodded. “A city on the face of a cell.”

Barret frowned. “What Sector?”

The boy shrugged. “We didn’t know about Sectors until Face was destroyed.”

“…what?”

“We were told that Face was a holding cell for some kind of demon,” Giraffe said. “No one there knew until it was too late.”

“We didn’t have these big flying metal ships, or the knowledge of them,” Goat said. “We didn’t know about anything beyond the city, the cell, the void, and our imaginations.”

“All we knew was Face and our humble lives there,” Giraffe added. “This was before we had these demon powers.”

Barret stared for a moment, then called out to Kasby. “Bellwood, what the hell is your crew talking about?"

“If you want to know what the hell we’re talking,” Goat said, standing up to look Barret in the eyes. “Shut the fuck up and listen to us.”

The older woman calmly backhanded Goat sharply across the face. "If you want me to understand, then start making sense, child."

“I definitely don’t like you,” Goat said, glaring defiantly at her.

“They’re from the Templar, Barret,” said Kasby, not turning away from the window. “Descendants of survivors.”

Vojtek sat up. “That’s impossible!”

Barret shook her head at him. "Nothing's impossible. Just very unlikely."

“We’re here, aren’t we?” Giraffe asked Vojtek sarcastically.

He looked at her incredulously. “So you’re saying that the Templar… landed on one of the crystals? And the crew survived for eight hundred years?”

“Listen to the girl,” said Kasby. “My crew are living proof.”

“Yeah. We’re their descendants,” said Goat impetuously.

Kasby looked down at the intercom to downstairs on the table and activated it briefly. "Guards, report. Anything unusual?"

The intercom crackled. "Nothing unusual."

"Keep a tight perimeter. Nothing comes in or out from now on, understand? Watch the ventilation shafts. Report back if you notice anything odd."

The voice came through the intercom again. "Understood."

Kasby sat down at one of the seats. Laying the crystal sword in front of him, he closed his eyes and breathed quietly.

Barret slowly circled the room with her eyes, looking suspiciously at the crew. "So are all of the Templar descendants freaks like you, or did your powers come from somewhere else?"

“I’m not a freak,” Giraffe snapped.

“We weren’t born with powers, if that’s what you mean,” said Zebra slowly.

“If we had been, perhaps Face would still exist,” Goat mourned.

“So the Templar’s gone, then?” Barret crossed her arms. “What happened to it?”

“A demon was nesting in the center of Face,” replied Giraffe. “It was trying to worm its way out.”

Barret nodded. “And you got your powers on its way out.”

“They didn’t show up until a bit later, but yeah,” said Zebra.

“We were sent to figure out what was happening to Face,” Giraffe explained. “Cracks were forming and no one knew why. We made our way into the heart of Face through the cracks.”

“Jaz was as suspicious as you are about our powers.” Goat hadn’t stopped glaring at Barret. “But much nicer about it.”

Giraffe raised an eyebrow. “Lucky you. Kasby wanted to kill us over them.”

“Hmph.” Barret started pacing the center of the room. “So. I’m guessing the assassins were people who got… remade… by those things from your data.”

“Yes.” Kasby spoke without opening his eyes.

"Well, we're going to show those demons that what they did was entirely futile. This city will run perfectly fine without the Council. The infrastructure is solid and sound, we've seen to that."

"Yes, you've proven yourself strong enough to impose a fascist hold without much trouble."

"Captain Bellwood. You would do well to remember your place in this city. You are here to help defend it from an impending demonic invasion, NOT make snide comments about how it is run."

“Oh, I think we can do both,” Goat said quietly.

Kasby held his hands up in surrender. “Right. Outsider. Apologies.”

Giraffe wasn’t about to let it go so easily. “I think you would do well to remember that you need us. You can’t deal with these demons without our help.”

Mercuria's scowled deepened. "Coordinator Ammon was with the refugee fleet. I'm going to wake him up and talk to him. Secretary Vojtek will show you to your quarters. Good day."

Kasby’s eyes opened and he sat up. “Don’t leave the building—”

Not listening, she stormed into the elevator, and the doors slid shut behind her.

"...Fuck. She has no idea of the danger she's in." He turned to Vojtek. "Is there another elevator?"

Vojtek shook his head. "We've, um, prepared rooms for you in a private apartment right nearby in the Montoya Heights..."

Kasby paid him no mind, frantically hitting the return button on the elevator. It dinged, politely informing him that the elevator was in use.

Vojtek spoke quietly. "No one's going to hurt her, Captain. She was captain of the police force before she was Defense Secretary. Used to compete in martial arts tournaments and such. There's not a single person in the entire city who can match her. Even at her age."

Kasby turned to Vojtek. "Are you willing to take that chance? She is the one real leader this city has left—no offense. I'm not going to risk Sector One on her being in top physical form."

"I don't have much of a choice, Captain." He sighed. "You might've noticed that she's... not particularly good at listening to others' advice."

"Well I do have a choice. This isn't her battle to fight anyway. It's not like she can stop me from protecting her."

“She could hit you,” Zebra volunteered.

"Your funeral, I suppose. Am I going to be completely useless, or are some of you planning on following me to your quarters?" The large man's voice was slow and exasperated.

“Just tell me where they are, will you?” Goat said. “I need to blow off some steam. By leaping.”

“…I’ll show you on the map, I suppose.”

The elevator doors dinged and slid open. Not waiting for the others, Kasby stepped inside and turned around with an odd, sad little smile for the bigger man. "Sorry, Vojtek. I've got a tumultuous romance to finally put an end to. Hopefully I'll see you soon." He pushed the door-close button, and the elevator descended.

TOWARDS HOPE (3)

2010-08-28T22:00:00.000-07:00

.
June 30th, 802 AT.

Two weeks had passed all-too-uneventfully since the crew made their two strange communications. The search among the refugee fleet for Skunk, Owl, and Spider had continued, but it still turned up no results. The confirmation they were alive had bolstered the crew’s hopes, but there was no sign of them among the two-hundred-odd survivors of Sector Four.

At long last the Quinn, and the refugees it led, was coming up on Sector One.

((69 — Tower of the Gods))

Here, near the center of the Nebula, the fog was clearer, but due to the density of the crystals visibility was about the same. For the last few hours, though, something had been growing ahead of them.

The heart of the Void itself.

A massive crystal, hundreds of kilometers across, but uniquely non-gemoetric. Whereas every other crystal was a regular shape—a cube, a dodecahedron, an icosahedron—this one looked like a misshapen snowflake, spikes of all sizes jutting out in every direction. The huge spires made a roughly spherical formation, a ball of jagged chunks and crystal towers. The valleys between the largest peaks were filled with smaller crystal spears.

The crystal filled the world below and ahead of them, looming in its immensity. They had seen other crystals this size, certainly, but always shrouded in mist, just shadowy edges and sheer faces. Sector One was impossibly huge, far larger than anything any of them had seen with their eyes. All four crew members were gathered in the cabin, awestruck by the sight.

The radio crackled suddenly. "Ship Quinn, ship Quinn, this is Sector One, do you read?" The voice was young and male--the same radio operator as before.

Kasby was startled out of the near-hypnotism of the crystal, and pushed the talk button on the radio. “This is Captain Bellwood, of the Quinn.”

“Good to hear from you, Captain Bellwood. Hope your journey hasn’t been too eventful.”

“Afraid it’s been eventful enough.” Kasby raised an eyebrow at Goat, who was getting back to his feet. He had been so startled by the radio that he’d fallen over. Goat shrugged apologetically, and dusted himself off.

The radio operator continued. “Mm. We’ve cleared a landing zone for the… ah... fleet, just outside the city proper. Your ship has a berth in the private zones up near the Inner Chamber.” There was a pause. "Forwarding you the telemetry data for both now."

“Much appreciated. Should be landing soon.”

“Talk to you planetside, then. Sector One out.” The rudimentary navigation computer beeped affirmatively, confirming the receipt of the data. The data instructed for the Quinn to orbit the crystal ahead of them another three-dozen degrees.

"Planetside. Interesting concept," said Kasby without much inflection.

“Like, one side is a planet and the other isn’t?” Goat said. “Cool! What’s a planet?”

Kasby's leather-gloved hands pulled the controls back, tilting the Quinn upwards and around the crystal. "Reaaaally big landmass, Goat."

Slowly, the Quinn made its way around the crystal. Gravity was strange, this close to the heart of the nebula. When they’d left Sector Four, they’d been in freefall, down towards the Void’s center. As they’d gotten closer, the crystals had gotten dense enough to make blind freefall suicidal, so they’d cruised downwards at something of a steep spiral. Here, gravity pointed inwards towards Sector One. By driving the Quinn what felt like upwards and forwards, they were really orbiting the massive crystal. The rest of the refugee fleet would be doing the same, when it arrived. For now, it was several hours of travel behind them, dimly visible in the rearward distance as a cluster of dots and blinking lights.

As they orbited, something began to come into view. Nestled between three of the immense crystalline spires was what could only be described as a city. Easily thirty kilometers across, the buildings of it filled the chasm between the spires fully, running up the sides of the spires as well as spilling out between them.

As they came closer, details became visible. In the center of the city, a fourth, smaller spire jutted straight up, pentagonal in contrast to the triangular prisms of the main three. Wires connected different parts of the cities, and small boxes hung from those wires, moving slowly back and forth. In the flats of the city, rails connected different areas, and high-speed vehicles moved along them, all over the place.

The data pointed to a spot just below the pinnacle of the central spire. Kasby tried to keep his eyes focused on the landing point, instead of letting them wander across the gleaming, manmade landscape. The last thing he wanted was to crash the Quinn into one of these beautiful buildings. It didn’t help that Goat was leaping around the deck excitedly.

The pentagonal top of the spire came into focus. The spire itself seemed to be hollowed out and inhabited--balconies and bridges jutted out of it at odd angles. At the top of the spire sat dozens of intricately designed ornate houses, though none as grand as the building at the very top.

The Quinn flew towards this tallest building, a masterwork of sweeping angles and buttresses, to a small landing pad on a balcony near one of the edges.

Finally giving into the temptation, Goat leapt onto the building. He jumped up to the very top, finding nothing but a communications dish, and, having satisfied his leap-lust, came back down.

Kasby activated the landing pads and gently set down the Quinn just as Goat leapt back.

A man stood on the pad, watching the ship descend. He waited patiently for the crew to disembark.

Kasby was the first to step off, and was just pulling on his brown long coat as he left the Quinn. Zebra and Giraffe followed him quietly, with Goat leaping down to the landing pad in his usual fashion, coming down behind the waiting man.

The large man smiled at the crew, and walked towards them. He had thick brown hair all over the top and bottom of his head, and wore a thick coat. "Welcome to Sector One, Captain Bellwood! I'm Anton Vojtek, Transportation Secretary." The bear-like man's voice was gruff, but friendly. He extended a hand to Kasby.

Kasby hesitated for a moment before clasping it in his own. "Warmer welcome than last time.”

"You'll find nothing but friends here, Captain."

"I get the feeling somebody probably wants to speak with us."

"I daresay just about everybody here does! The, ah, Inner Council Chamber has actually put together a bit of a reception in your honor."

“Hooray!” cheered Goat, still behind Vojtek.

Kasby opened his mouth as if to respond, but couldn't find anything to retort to. He quieted himself and merely wore a small smile. "All friends, eh?"

"Of course!"

Kasby breathed out. "That's... good to know."

"Now, if you'll be so kind as to follow me, the reception is being held at the Articulate Gardens. We'll take a tram." Gesturing for the quartet to follow, Vojtek began walking down a set of stairs from the landing pad.

“Take a wha?” Goat asked, following.

“A tram, my boy!” Vojtek smiled. “Do they not have them where you come from?”

Giraffe gave him a skeptical look, as if to say “duh.”

“No, of course they don't, none of the bases are large enough to merit transportation systems as sophisticated as ours." Vojtek laughed to himself.

The stairs wound down around the edge of the building, and into a large open room inside. They stood on the metal upper balcony of a pentagonal room, the central floor of which was full of hundreds of people, hurrying forth and hither across the room. Openings at various points around the room held the wire-boxes they'd seen from the air, which would quickly fill with people and then depart down the wires.

Vojtek spread his hands wide, and boomed, "Welcome to Central Transit! My pride and joy."

Kasby looked around, no real evidence of his amazement beside his wide eyes and high-set brow. “Impressive.”

“Where are we headed?” Goat asked, gesturing to the large map of the city that covered a nearby wall.

Vojtek pointed to an area halfway up one of the spires. "The Articulate Gardens. Very beautiful place, fabulous for receptions and parties and such. We've got a private car waiting just over here." He walked over to one of the boxes, sitting just through a door on the balcony, and gestured for them to enter.

“Swanky, even,” Kasby said quietly as Vojtek walked off, seeming to finish his earlier thought.

“You guys have fun with that,” Goat said. “If it’s all the same, I’ll get there on my own.” He set off for the nearest window.

“Yeah, uh, I choose cool moving boxy thing,” Giraffe muttered. “If it’s all the same to you.”

Vojtek raised a curious eyebrow as Goat threw himself out the window, then turned to Kasby. “Will that boy be alright?”

Kasby nodded absently. "Goat's fine. He's just leapy."

“Leapy. Sure. But hey, if he wants to miss out on the best transit system in the Void, his loss."

"Best adjective available," muttered Kasby with a half-smile.

“I always thought springy also worked,” Giraffe said, as the trio followed Vojtek into the box.

The inside of the tram car was roomy, with about a dozen seats lining the two edges, and windows just above them.

“Off we go!” Vojtek said, smiling. The door closed, and the car disconnected from the station, sliding smoothly out along the wire, carrying them over the city.

From closer-up, they could see the sprawling buildings below. Many of the buildings lower-down were ramshackle-looking, cobbled-together from strange bits. Only the areas higher up the four spires were shiny and strangely artificial.

Giraffe didn’t notice the city, cowering in the corner of the ‘car.’ Zebra looked over at her, vaguely concerned, but not enough to keep her distracted from the view. They passed another car, heading back the way they'd come.

Their destination became readily apparent ahead of them, halfway up one of the outer spires. It was a massive swath of greens, reds, browns, purples, blues, and other "natural" colors. Plant-life as none of them had ever seen it before, at least two kilometers across. It climbed and interwove and spread in great open patches, all forms of strange and unfamiliar foliage. It had a truly alien beauty to it.

“Gah! Stable ground! Not some zippy little box with no engines!” Giraffe whispered shrilly.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Vojtek's grin widened. "You've got Thalia Ayara to thank for it. And these days, her daughter Suraya."

“It’s remarkable. I’ve never seen anything like it,” remarked Kasby. “How did you grow all these plants?”

“Years of study and work. We have such efficient hydroponics that we can afford to grow unnecessary plants. As such, we’ve bred many of these simply for their beauty.”

Kasby looked back, seeming a little distracted. “Giraffe, are you alright?”

“I don’t like these tram things! I’m fine with big ships, but these tiny things are going to crash.” Her eyes were wide with uncharacteristic fear.

Vojtek frowned, but continued about the gardens. "Some in the gardens do serve other purposes, such as medicinal or otherwise, but most are simple for relaxation and the enjoyment of all."

There was a thunk and the car swung slightly to one side, prompting a yell of fear from Giraffe. It was just Goat, though, hanging onto the outside of the tram car. His hair was full of leaves, and a flower was caught in one of the horns of upswept hair. “It’s so beautiful that I crashed!” he said happily.

The tram drifted into a small building, where it stopped. Even the building was natural-looking, built out of interwoven wood branches, their flowers still blooming off of them. It bordered on a dense copse of trees, shielding the station from whatever was just on the other side of it.

Vojtek opened the door and led into the tram station, gesturing to the trees around him. "It's so massive we had to go hunting in the dictionaries for an Old Earth word for it. We had a few different ones, but we settled on 'forest.'" He laughed.

Kasby let out a whistle. “Impressive.”

Giraffe jumped out and pressed herself flat against the floor. “Ahhhh, safety!”

Vojtek stepped past her, to the door. “Alright, everybody try to look fancy. The whole city is watching!”

“Aw shit,” Giraffe muttered and she stood up, dusting herself off. Goat ran his fingers quickly through his hair, trying to get some of the plant life out. Kasby didn’t seem to react much, just pulling his coat a little straighter before he walked through the door.

((70 — Spectre Induction))

Outside, hundreds of people were standing in a clearing, watching expectantly. As the four walked--or leaped--out into their midst, wild cheering broke out. The people were of all ages and types, dressed in leather jackets and lab coats, cloaks and light shirts. Many were armed openly, unsurprisingly. Goat grinned as he spotted a young woman carrying a spear much like the one he had stashed on the ship.

The four of them stood on a small platform, suspended above the main crowd. A small bridge connected to another pedestal, where Vojtek stood with five other people. The back of the pedestal descended into the crowd, and the staircase was covered with various finely-dressed attendants, crew members, and so on. The six people atop it smiled, waving as well, all dressed in various suits and dresses.

Vojtek motioned with one hand for the crew to join them on the pedestal. As if summoned, Goat jumped out, giving a hearty wave at the vertex of his leap. Kasby stepped forward, pushing aside his coat to let it billow a bit in the breeze. He stepped up onto the pedestal with the others.

“Right-o, onward we go,” Giraffe muttered, shuffling after the others.

An elderly woman, with white hair and a sharply-cut suit stepped forward to greet them, shaking each of their hands in turn. Her voice, artificially amplified, boomed out over the still-cheering crowd. "I am Mercuria Barret, Defense Secretary, of the Inner Chamber Council, and it is my utmost pleasure to formally welcome you to Sector One!" As she spoke, a sextet of cloaked attendants moved into position just behind each of the Councilors.

She turned to the crowd, gesturing with one hand to the crew. "Please, join me in extending our warmest welcome to the heroes of the outer Sectors! The noble crew of the good ship Quinn!" The crowd erupted into even wilder cheering than before.

Barret turned and whispered to the crew, out of her microphone. "Do you have a few words for the people? The cameras are on, and the entire city is watching."

There's no place for heroes in the Void. Kasby remembered his own words well enough. Why he had said them—the memory was still clear and harsh. Still stung. But in front of all of these people—civilians defended daily, cheering for a fleet of underdogs... it was enough to make the young captain doubt his own words.

Barret watched him, her face an unreadable mask, a blank smile.

His own words still ringing heavy in his ears, Kasby turned to the microphone presented to him and opened his mouth for a second, pausing before saying anything. As he moved to the mic, the crowd quieted considerably, waiting to hear what he had to say. "Thank you. I don't know how much we deserve your praise, but it's nice to see that someone cares. That so many people care so strongly. It... it helps." He looked like he might have wanted to say more, but stepped back before saying anything else.

The crowd paused expectantly, listening for more, but, realizing that he was done, went back to vague cheering.

Mercuria nodded, then turned to the rest. "Let me introduce you to the rest of the Council. "You've already met Anton Vojtek, Transportation Secretary." He waved. She gestured to each person in turn as she named them.

"Symphet Hollum, Habitation Secretary." An old man, with thick glasses and no hair. He nodded sharply.

"Daniel McKojiro, Education Secretary." A short man, with spiky black hair and many freckles, who smiled at them.

"Monash Wallace, Communication Secretary." The middle-aged woman Barret gestured to had an earpiece affixed to the side of her head, and didn't even look up from the conversation she was having quite intensely with it.

"And lastly Suraya Ayara, Supplies Secretary." The youngest member of the Council had dark skin and darker hair, in a long braid hanging over her shoulder.

Giraffe nodded at each of the Secretaries, forgetting their names almost immediately. Zebra, meanwhile, had lost interest in the introductions, and was looking around, observing the crowd.

The six cloaked attendants took another step forward, falling into a matched line behind each of the Councilors. The crew only had a flash of warning. A gleam of crystal. A hint of mottled skin under brown cloth.

((71 — Decisive Battle))

Then a metal blade was sticking out of Ayara’s chest.

Hollum. McKojiro.

The three fell, bleeding from brutal wounds in their backs.

“Shit!” Zebra backed away as quickly as possible, shocked.

Secretary Wallace spun to face her attacker, but was cut down almost immediately by the sharp sound of a gun at close range.

Barret fared better, bringing the blade from her belt up to block the swing of the assassin coming for her.

Behind Vojtek, a crystal blade raised, coming out of the sleeves of the attendant behind him. Kasby didn’t so much think as react—no time for shock. A click as he whirled the crystal blade of Quinn out of its sheath, slicing masterfully at the blade meant for Vojtek. The sharp sound of crystal on crystal rang out as Kasby’s blade met its perfect twin.

Shock passing, the crowd erupted into horrified screams as four of the six Councilors fell bleeding from the pedestal.

“Trouble, trouble, everywhere,” Giraffe said, stepping back across the bridge, hands burning. She locked her eyes onto the assassin that had just killed Hollum, and raised her arms, letting loose with twin jets of flame. Its cloak ignited, but this only got its attention. It leapt at her, a burning assailant.

Goat, meanwhile, had leapt into the crowd, heading for the woman with the spear he’d spotted earlier. He landed in front of her, and grabbed it out of her hands, shrugging apologetically. “Gotta borrow this!” She blinked in confusion as he threw himself back up to the fray on the pedestal.

Zebra, recovering, looked around for a makeshift weapon. After a moment her eyes settled on the heavy metal microphone stand. She ran to it, ripping the wires out of the back, and hoisted it into the air, looking for a target.

Barret kicked out, landing her foot in her attacker’s chest, throwing it back. She pressed on, swinging her sword viciously. The cloak made her opponent’s movements hard to judge, but she felt the blade slice through flesh on two swings before the enemy managed to regain its footing and get its own blade up to block.

Kasby spun, putting himself between Vojtek and the assassin with the crystal blade, swinging a fast horizontal strike with his own. Behind him, Vojtek had fallen to the ground, and was crawling hurriedly down the stairs, clearly terrified. The assassin danced back, matching Kasby’s swing easily. The movements beneath the all-encompassing cloak were all too familiar.

Giraffe aimed again at the burning man coming at her, sending out more fire. Her target roared an angry challenge, the sound simultaneously human and not, but it burned out in a column of flame as the man skidded to a dead stop at her feet. Not stopping to think about the kill, Giraffe looked for her next target. One behind her, raising a blade, not enough time to bring her hands up—

Goat came down out of the sky with deadly accuracy, spear piercing straight through the attacker as he landed on its back. Leaving the weapon embedded in the assassin, Goat kicked the cloaked figure off of the pedestal, nodding sharply to Giraffe.

Zebra ran to a second one heading for Barret and swung the podium as hard as she could. It connected with a sickening crunch, the impact almost breaking Zebra’s grip on the metal pole. The figure went down, but Zebra hit it again just to be sure, then adjusted her grip.

Kasby followed his target step for step, slicing and twirling with all the violence of a hurricane. She matched him blow for blow, stepping lightly down the stairs, cloak still swirling around her. Kasby took hold of his blade with both hands now, spinning and striking, trying to find an opening, but there was none.

Giraffe watched Kasby fight, hands at the ready, trying to help, but the swordfight was too close-quarters. At this range, her fire would burn her captain just as badly as it would their enemy.

Zebra watched as Barret ducked under a violent swing, the woman surprisingly agile for her age. The Councilwoman threw herself forward, impaling her assailant on her metal blade. With a single practiced motion, she pulled the blade back out, wiping the blood on the sleeve of her coat.

The second-to-last assassin threw itself at Goat, a metal blade shining in each hand. He leapt back, dodging its first swing, then jumped forward to attack. He planted both feet on the attacker’s chest and kicked off, sending the figure flying. “Zebra!” He called out.

Zebra turned as the assassin landed with a thud in front of her, coughing loudly. She swung the stand hard, bringing it down into the would-be-assassin’s head, crushing it solidly.

Kasby tightened his grip on his blade, and with one great swing tried to knock the last assassin’s blade to the side. She ducked under his attack and darted past him, launching herself back up the stairs with almost supernatural speed. He reached out a hand to grab her cloak, catching the soft brown fabric. He tugged hard on it, trying to pull her back.

Instead, the cloak swirled off from the assassin as she reached the top of the stairs. She laughed, a sound that had haunted their best dreams and worst nightmares.

Standing atop the pedestal, in the midst of the corpses of the Inner Chamber Council, was Jazrill Quinn. Her skin was red and black, covered with bulging red veins, and her hair was a tangled spiky affair. Her goggles seemed to blend fluidly into her forehead, just as her crystal blade melted out of the end of her right arm. Her eyes glowed an unmistakable bloody red.

Kasby felt his knees almost give out underneath him on the sight of Jazrill Quinn—this mockery of Jazrill Quinn—upon the podium. He wavered, unable to move. To his side, Giraffe mumbled incoherently, as Goat and Zebra stared in shock.

The creature that had once been Jaz laughed again, a sound like glass breaking, and leapt backwards off of the pedestal, landing in the grass below.

Barret scowled, looking up. “AFTER HER! I’ll deal with this mess! CATCH HER ALIVE!”

The words snapped Kasby into motion. Over the pedestal and the stairs in one vault, he chased after her with all the determination and madness of a man possessed.

“Well, that explains THAT,” Zebra muttered under her breath. Goat scrambled for his spear, and leapt after his captain, already a few precious seconds behind.

The creature ran terrifyingly fast, making for the tram station. Her feet flew over the grass, propelling her forward.

Kasby pulled his pistol from his coat and lined up a shot. With a click of the trigger, he fired a crystal round into the gears of the tram, jamming it in place.

She leapt, scampering up the wall, and into the tram house.

Kasby kept forward, after her, at a breakneck speed. Pushing himself forward and off a wall, he grabbed the branches the tram house was made of and vaulted upwards, after her into the tram house.

Jaz paused, turning to look at him with no recognition in her eyes, and let out another blood-curdling laugh. She leapt backwards, landing on top of the halted tram car.

The captain screamed back a reply at her—incoherent and full of anger, full of despair.

She smiled down at him, a smile that was at once painfully familiar and horrifically alien.

Kasby raised his pistol at her, hand trembling, taking aim—and froze as his eyes met hers.

Then she turned her back on him, stepped onto the wire that carried the tram and, balancing on it, darted away.

BLOODRED HOPE (2)

2010-08-17T17:31:00.001-07:00

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((66 — Bloscid))
.

Time is impossible to follow, here.

She’s been running, walking, journeying for…

She long ago lost track of how long. Days, maybe weeks, maybe years.

The gray has taken her through fields, skies, worlds too strange for her to see or comprehend. Always at the edges of her vision, the shadows lurk, swimming about with their blood-hungry red eyes.

The corridor was hexagonal, here. Purple and red flowed together along the walls, tracing patterns of hexagons within hexagons.

Jaz rubbed her face with one hand. She was not tired. She should’ve been tired. Every part of her mind was yelling that she should stop running now, should have collapsed… years? ago, but her body disagreed. She wasn’t tired, and she was still angry.

She slammed a hand against the wall. “What the hell. This isn’t working. This isn’t…. I need to get out.” She turned. “Hey! You! If you’re still around, still following, show me how the hell I get out of here! I need to get back to Kasby…” If he’s still alive, her mind whispered quietly, just loud enough to not be ignorable.

Her words echoed down the corridor, bringing back no response. Only a quiet, dangerous buzzing.

“…Fuck. Fuck!” She looked around at the hexagons. “Alright. Think about this. I’ve been running for…” She stopped, unable to think how long it had been. “I’ve been running. And that hasn’t worked. So there must be some other way out. A door, somewhere.”

Up ahead, there appeared to be a break in the side of the tunnel.

Jaz narrowed her eyes. “Be careful what you demand. Wish and you shall receive…” She headed towards the opening.

The gap—hexagonal, like everything else in this part of wherever she was—opened onto a massive six-sided chamber, which ascended vertically far further than she could see. The shadows filled the space overhead, flitting about wildly. In the base of the room was a pool of sticky red liquid. Occasionally, one of the things would break away from the swarm above, diving down into the pool and re-emerging a moment later.

Jaz’s eyes widened. Her hands tightened on her swords, and she took a cautious step into the room. Her eyes followed the path of the shadows, drawn more and more to the pool.

There was something at the back of her mind. Some memory, tugging. Red…

She approached the pool, in a moment between dives, and knelt by its edge. Her reflection was murky, shadowy, not quite right. Somehow… larger than she was.

She hesitated, for a long moment, before dipping her finger in and gingerly tasting the liquid. It was sweet and sticky, catching her finger. A taste not unlike blood mixed with honey.

She frowned, and quickly stood again. She circled the pool, looking at the room, looking upwards at the things, searching for a door, an opening, a ladder, something. The walls were notched, unsmooth, easily climable, and she headed for the nearest, starting to move away from the pool.

Just as she did, it flashed, emitting a bright yellow glow.

Jaz leapt back, blinking the spots from her eyes, the sudden light startling in the dim of the chamber.

The pool flashed again, and Jaz frowned at it. She looked between the pools and the easily-climbable walls. She chose the walls. Strapping her swords to her back, she found handholds and footholds and started her climb. “Hopefully, whatever it is won’t have wings…”

Behind her, a seven-fingered claw burst out of the pool, the viscous liquid dripping off of it, and grabbed the side of the pool. The first claw was followed by a second, then a third, and together they pulled a dripping-wet robe out of the pool. The bent, spindly figure from earlier dragged itself to the floor before rising on whatever limbs currently bore it.

“YOU!” It raised one of its claw-hands, which began to glow with a cool red light.

The pool pulsed yellow again, brighter, and the light stayed, turning like a spotlight to focus on the thing climbing out of the pool.

Jaz looked back at the creature. “Oh. Hey, is this how I get out?” She nervously eyed the shadows, which had begun to flit closer to her as she climbed. Both hands were holding her to the wall, rendering her swords unusable. She cursed quietly to herself.

The yellow glow continued to narrow on the creature, beginning to coalesce into something like smoke, pouring out of the pool and the beam of light at once. The smoke whirled into the room, circling it once, twice, passing by both Jaz and the creature.

The cowled creature took several steps towards the wall, long, insect-like legs unfolding beneath it. It rose up on its spindly legs, bringing it nearly level with Jaz. It gestured foreignly, seeming to indicate the gas. “You did this?”

“… guess you don’t need wings.” Jaz shook her head. “No, that’s all you.”

“No. No, it is not.”

The smoke began to concentrate on the far side of the room, coming together, solidifying, forming into a figure. A humanoid figure, an upper torso, with four arms and a head exactly where one should be. At least seven glowing yellow slit-eyes covered its face, with two more on its chest. Its legs simply faded into more of the yellow smoke, just below the waist.

“Fuck.” Jaz stared at the smoke-being, her voice starting to ramble without her paying attention to it. “That’s a demon. Hell, YOU’RE a demon! Remind me why I haven’t killed you yet!?”

The sound of a throat being cleared filled the room, coming from everywhere at once.

With a mass of scuttling, the creature shuffled to face the sound, surprised. It had been too… something… to notice the coalescing earlier.

“Greetings again, Soul Eater.” The words seemed to come from the walls, echoing through the room, but were clearly spoken by the glowing yellow humanoid. “Far too long since last we met.”

Jaz’s eyes flicked to the long-legged thing. Soul Eater?

“I get so many visits now,” the creature said, clearly displeased.

“Am I too unwelcome in your realm, now?” The yellow-skinned being gestured around the chamber with two of its hands, and at itself with the other two. “I, who was once your trusted general? I, who was your greatest asset? I, who thrilled at a thousand thousand worlds under my fingertip?"

Jaz quietly began to half-slide, half climb back towards the ground. Too helpless, like a fly on the wall. Her ears picked out every word the two demons said, rifling through all their possible meanings.

“No. You may enter full-form, conditional: you take nothing with you. Nothing in, nothing out.”

“Of course not, Soul Eater. I am yet loyal to our terms of aeons past.”

“Good.” The creature scuttled back and forth, as if uncomfortable.

“I have come to once again offer my allegiance, under word of a new contract. I owe you a newmade debt, for your selves freed me from the prison that long held me bound.”

Jaz jumped to the ground, and cleared her throat in turn. “Um. Excuse me? I can see you’re, uh, having an important meeting, but unlike you I AM an unwelcome guest, and I would very much like to… leave. If one of you…” She searched for the word. “Gentlemen? Could just show me out, I’ll leave you in peace.”

“An unwelcome soul in your realm, Soul Eater? A curious thing indeed. Are your defenses so weakened?”

The glowing red eyes beneath the hood narrowed slightly. “I have no weakness.”

The being rotated on its pillar of smoke to Jaz. “I owe you no debt, little one, and even if I did, I am under oath to take nothing from the Soul Eater’s realm.”

“You don’t have to TAKE me out, I can go on my own. Just show me the—”

“The huming captine is my new plaything.” It glared at Jaz, as if daring her to disagree.

She stopped, and turned on her feet to face the Soul Eater. “Plaything.”

A booming laughter filled the room, at that. “I see you have learned from I, O Soul Eater! It is true, the lesser of my kind do indeed make fantastic entertainment!

Jaz ignored it, and strode up to the thing, which loomed over her, its attention on the other demon.

“A human in a cage will provide mirth for all eternity, if kept well-fed,” the yellow demon continued.

The Soul Eater bobbed its head. “It feeds?”

Jaz glared up at the creature whose realm she had been in for who knows how long. “You listen to me. I’ve seen you scared and confused, I’ve seen you bewildered. I don’t think you’re so tough. I said I’d like to leave you in peace, and I would. But I’ve had enough. And right now…” In a single motion, she drew her crystal sword and swung it at one of the creature’s stretched-out legs, as hard as she could. “I’d rather leave you in pain.”

((67 — Les Soldats))

The crystal sliced through the leg, taking a chunk of glowing red energy with it as it did. The creature’s eyes glowed bright as a telepathic voice urgently flashed through Jaz’s mind. Careful! Powerful, this one is, dangerous, if it knew of our wea—RRRRRAAAAAADRAGH!

The smoke-man’s nine eyes widened in shock. "YOU LET YOUR TOY BRING A CRYSTAL? THE WORK OF THE SHADOWS IN YOUR OWN REALM?"

The creature flailed, sprouting a new leg in time to catch itself. It kept its distance from Jaz, now.

Jaz’s eyes narrowed. “No. FUCK you and your rules. I don’t fucking CARE if your reputation is ruined, if you die from this, you hear me? You will let me go, and you will let me go NOW. There are people who need me. People I need.”

“No fun,” the Soul Eater says, covering up a whimper. “The toy is no fun if it has no chance.”

Jaz turned to the smoke-thing, glancing at her crystal sword. “This? Why, does this scare you?”

“I am scared of nothing, merely ill-reminded of my time in a cage.The blade you wield is of the same lineage as my jailors.”

Jaz’s eyes widened. A cage… she smiled, tight, angry. “You are a demon, then. Good. I can kill those.”

“A demon?” Without warning, the creature swelled in size, looming over them suddenly, passing through the shadows and shades, filling the room, dozens of meters tall. "I AM NO MERE DEMON, CHILD. I AM MAGID, LORD OF DJINN, A NAME YOU WOULD DO WELL TO REMEMBER."

The Soul Eater whirled, and its limbs became a jumble again as runes flowed in streams out of its missing face.

The Djinn faced the creature from above, staring down its old master. Its four arms splayed wide, somehow, despite it already filling the room with its arms crossed.

The runes glowed the same bright red as the Soul Eater’s eyes, and encircled Magid like chains.

His hands caught the rune-chains, clutching them tight in fists the size of airship engines. "YOUR TIME IN PRISON HAS WEAKENED YOU, SOUL EATER—”

The runes exploded. The blasts caught the Djinn unaware, throwing its hands open wide.

“YOU ARE A FOOL. FOOL, FOOL, FOOL.” The Soul Eater shook its head. “YOU HAVE MAGIC. I AM MAGICK.”

Jaz, still standing beside the creature, swallowed, but her grin was back, small and tight and triumphant. “Yeah. You’re made of smoke, Magid-Lord-of-Djinn. Made of steam. Hot air.” She looked up at him, and threw the words at his eyes, like darts, like flies. Distractions. “Lies.” She didn’t LIKE the Soul Eater, but he wasn’t, at the moment, trying to kill her. Her words appeared to impact against the great being like bullets, leaving holes in its head, holes of drifting yellow smoke.

The Soul Eater took a whistling breath, and continued its rant. “YOU HAVE MAGIC BECAUSE I DO NOT TAKE IT. IT IS A SERVICE FOR YOUR LOYALTY. NOW YOU COME TO MY DOMAIN AND YOU SAY INSULTS AND THREATEN MY TOYS?”

Jaz bristled again, but this time kept quiet.

Magid howled, a sound of fury and rage and captivity too well remembered.

An etheric wind picked up, and started billowing the yet-empty robes. “YOU WILL SUBMIT OR YOU WILL BE STRIPPED OF YOUR POWER. SERVE OR BE BOUND!”

“NO!” The smoke swirled up, glowing blindingly hot, shielding it from the wind.

Jaz raised an arm to ward off the heat, and backed away. “Something tells me you chose wrong,” she muttered.

“You come making claims of DEBTS? Debt of RELEASE?" Red lightning crackled into being, lashing at the smoke. "You are IN my debt, for your continued EXISTENCE."

The lightning cut through the smoke, knocking the Djinn back against the wall. Magid grunted angrily, a strangely small noise from such a huge creature.

"I would have SWALLOWED YOU. AEONS AGO. But you are too loyal and pleading and full of words. 'My gifts will be lost inside you, master.' 'True strength is cunning, not magic.' True, not-true. MAGICK is power. WORDS have magick, but they are not the same."

The runes didn’t bother snaking this time, they just appeared, in a circle missing one link. “So, use your words. You will never walk free, but you have your choices…” The Soul-Eater pointed at the remaining spot in the circle with a two-fingered claw covered in shadowy hair, indicating the last rune to be added. “SERVE me, and in doing so, lead others… or be bound, destroyed, crushed.”

The Djinn’s four arms snapped to points along the edges of the circle, and stuck there. It thrashed wildly against the restraints, unable to break them.

Then it fell still.

Jaz let out a tense breath, still clutching her crystal sword in one hand.

Once more, a booming laugh filled the room. "VERY WELL, SOUL EATER. YOU IMPRESS ME ONCE AGAIN WITH YOUR MIGHT."

“Time is my tool, not my enemy. You remember this, yes?” The runes faded away, flicking out of existence, and the winds died down.

“I DO, SOUL EATER. SO BE IT. I DO HEREBY SWEAR TO SERVE AT YOUR SIDE, I DO HEREBY SWEAR TO BE YOUR GENERAL, I DO HEREBY SWEAR TO DO AS YOU COMMAND, I DO HEREBY SWEAR FEALTY." Each sentence reverberated through the room, each sentence forming into a solid chain of words around one of the Djinn’s four wrists.

“Good. Go; retake your position, muster your armies. What are still captured will be free soon, so soon." It waved dismissively.

The Djinn shrank down, returning to a more humanoid size, though it still towered over Jaz. “As you command, Soul Eater. I leave you to your devices, and to your… plaything.” The yellow smoke swirled up from beneath it, enwreathing it in a shimmering noncorporeal veil, then faded out of existence, leaving Jaz alone with the Soul Eater.

The creature collapsed, falling against the wall of the room as its various limbs withered and disappeared. The silence in the chamber would be deafening, were not for the still-present buzzing of the shadows overhead.

Jaz coughed. She walked over the creature, the Soul Eater, and stood, for a moment, in silence. “I’m not your toy.” She wasn’t offended, anymore, just… matter-of-fact.

“No. You are headaches.”

Jaz stared at him, and then started to laugh. It was a painful, angry, horrible sort of laugh, edging on hysterical, edging on tears.

It sat up slightly, still little more than an animated robe. Its barely-visible eyes flashed with interest at her laughter.

Overhead, the shadows continued to circle, beginning to grow darker, more real, more solid.

Jaz caught her breath with a wrenching gasp. She looked at the thing, eyes clear. “Get me out of here. Please. I wasn’t kidding, before. I will hurt you, if I need to.”

“You already hurt me more than is possible.”

“And you still won’t let me out.”

“I tell you twice, Headaches, there is no way out. And now we will both die.”

The shadows continued to coalesce above them, now sticking to the walls, beginning to climb down. Points of white light glowed within each of them as they became more and more corporeal, shining through their chitinous exoskeletons.

Jaz’s eyes caught on the things crawling down the walls. “You came out of the pool. You and the smoke thing. What happens if I jump in it?”

“Do not! Put me inside! It is transport, but you don’t have place!” Since Magid’s departure, the Soul Eater’s voice had lapsed back into being a dozen different voices, layered and fading in and out of each other. Its grasp of grammar had also inexplicably collapsed again.

She blinked. “What?”

“Eeeeuh.” It flopped over and wriggled pathetically towards the edge of the pool.

The buzzing grew louder, joined by a clicking of mandibles. The insects continued to skitter down the walls, now crawling over the pool’s surface as well. The only place they steered clear of was the hole in the wall that Jaz came from, still opening back onto that matte gray walkway.

Jaz stepped on the creature’s back, holding it down under her boot. “What about if I get to the top of the walls?”

“No! No top. Infinite hive.” It flailed, seeming to start to panic. “Release! If they reach me, they will lose control! All control!”

“…fuck.” She looked around. “Goddammit! Fucking pointless, this whole thing!” She lifted her foot, and jogged back towards the corridor she came in through.

Quickly, the Soul Eater squirmed and fluttered its way to the pool, and vanished into it, leaving barely a ripple behind as the insects closed over where it had just been.

The insect creatures hissed, trying to block Jaz’s path, skittering in between her and the corridor. She kept going, hacking and slashing anything that got in her way.

Her crystal blades, both now in her hands, hacked off bits and pieces, but only when she pierced the glowing white hearts did the bugs properly break.

She paused, and suddenly smiled. She was angry… and there were a lot of bugs to take her anger out on. She fought to get her back to the corridor, then faced the hordes of bugs, her smile becoming a full-on grin. “Come on. I need this. This, I can do. This, I can understand.”

The room was empty now, save for her and the seemingly-infinite swarm of bugs.

Jaz became a whirl of crystal and flesh, her eyes blank, her mouth in a twisted grin. There was a rhythm to her strikes, a dance, familiar somehow. She felt her heartbeat like drums, saw the walls of the room, hexagons in purple and red. Red… There was something tugging, something pulling at her. She struck, struck, struck at the heart of a bug.

Jaz froze amongst the chittering cries of death, and remembered her dream. “Friends who look like demons… or demons who look like my friends?”

Then one of them came too close, and she snapped back to reality. Or whatever this was.

Putting the thoughts out of her mind, she let herself fade into the bloody red of the infinite battle.

TOWARDS HOPE (2)

2010-08-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

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((65 — Ko-Ku))
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June 17th, 802 AT.

Up ahead of the Quinn, the crystals began moving. That didn’t happen, normally. The crystals were steady, sturdy, pillars. More stable than anything else in the Void.

Kasby muttered something to himself, then stood from his chair. “Goat, take the controls for a moment.” He took a few steps over to the sensory readouts, scanning them. The sensors showed a buildup of energy in the five crystals ahead, but...

... it wasn't the normal series of spikes that showed when a demon was escaping. Instead, the readings showed a gradual ramping up, and then... the energy pulses inverting? The readings didn't make any sense at all.

“Uh…” Goat said from the controls, staring out the front windows.

Kasby saved the readings for later pondering and returned to the controls. "Well, Goat, we haven't crashed and we aren't on fire, so good job with the controls. That said, something weird's going on. I'd like to pilot again."

“You mean like that?” Goat pointed as he relinquished the controls. Up ahead, five matching icosahedral crystals were slowly drifting into position in front of them, forming a pentagon large enough for the Quinn to pass through. The space between them was starting to darken.

"...Yeah. Something weird like that." Kasby shoved his way into the pilot seat and tried to turn the ship around, as up ahead the pentagon continued to darken, turning an impossibly deep black. The edges of it rippled and fuzzed slightly, and the whole thing almost seemed to be vibrating audibly.

“CENTER!?” Goat yelled at the top of his lungs. A moment later he was gone.

Kasby pulled the ship hard to port, trying to get them as far away as possible. The Quinn came around, to point back the way it had come—

—only to have another matching pentagon of shadows behind it.

Goat landed on the back deck of the ship, just as Zebra came out of the ladder, looking for the source of the yell.

The two pentagons began to slowly close in towards the ship from either end.

Kasby’s jaw dropped. He struggled with the controls, but they refused to obey him.

“Well, that’s not good,” Zebra commented, staring at the encroaching blackness.

The shadows and darkness drew closer, looming larger, filling the world on either side of them. Then there was nothing else. Just darkness. Shadows. The Quinn floated in an empty black void, lit by... nothing at all, and yet still quite visible.

Something flickered through all of their minds, a series of concepts more than words.

welcome/greetings/safe/protect/unharmed/friend/positive/helping

"Well, that's a relief," muttered Kasby.

“Hooray!” expressed Goat.

“Um? Who are you?” asked Zebra.

us/we/shadows/creators/builders/guards/prisonkeepers/mantle/soldiers/weavers

Kasby didn't speak this time, only waited for the shadows to continue. Sure enough, they did, the concepts coming in waves and bombardments, fading in and out, a stream of consciousness more than a conversation.

before/earlier/helped/established/air/breathing/used/vanished/consumed

disaster/time/escaped/RED/devour/consume/all/heart/RED/breaking/problem/chaos/madness/error

you/yours/group/powers/enhanced/gave/gifted/saviors/karma/escaped/freed/solve

Kasby inclined his head towards Goat and Zebra. "I assume they mean you guys."

Suddenly, an image filled the void around them. It was of the crystal pillar, glowing red, the original six of them clustered around it, and Spider spinning, kicking, shattering it open. The image was simultaneously in front of them and behind them and above them and alongside them.

now/center/sent/commanded/journey/closer/able/fix/powers/useful

divided/misfortunate/separated/problems/broken/fellowship/split/acceptable

More images appeared.

Spider floated alongside a reddish insectoid demon, with Seth Quinn nearby, sitting on a chunk of crystal.

Another image.

Skunk and Owl, aboard a small aircraft—Skunk at the helm, Owl writing in a notebook.

separate/journey/important/go/path/reunite/time/passed/later

RED/problem/villain/mastermind/evil/soul/RED/heart/creature/being/embodiment/RED/chaos/avatar/consumer/devourer/soul/RED

Yet again, an image filled the space around them.

This time it was of a strange creature, vaguely humanoid, but with too many arms. A cowl hung over it, so leathery as to be almost a part of its skin. It stood in a cavern of crystals, or ice, or something like that, gesticulating angrily at whoever or whatever was on the other side of it. The being or person behind them was obscured from view by its body.

Zebra drew back slightly from this last image, surprised.

Kasby stood from his chair, fascinated and terrified by it all.

solution/help/problem/fix/aid/deusexmachina/useful/device/find/seek

This image was different. It showed no people. Only a small, gray, box, with runes sketched on each side.

Kasby reached out a hand to grasp it, out into the open air. It was too far away, insubstantial, impossible--all of the above, and none of them. Yet despite this, his fingertips brushed it. The box skidded half an inch to one side, leaving the sound of metal on metal ringing in the air.

The image--was it just an image?--faded.

after/recover/onwards/center/inwards/heart/caverns/tunnels/cold/danger/survive

heart/seek/mission/journey/recover/protect/core/heart/magic/soul/all/embodied/condensed/recovered/net/trapped

This image, like the last, had no people. Instead, a large mountain rose up, covered with something white and powdery. More of the stuff fell from the solid black sky overhead.

Atop the mountain's peak was... something. It glowed blue, green, orange, red, yellow, pulsing, swirling, spinning... It was unmistakably magical.

devourer/RED/consumer/seeks/also/race/find/protect/defend/cataclysm/apocalypse/avoid/avert/abort

This last image faded away too.

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Kasby was utterly speechless.

After a bit, Goat spoke. “So… our friends are in trouble, but everything will be okay if we go to the center, into some cold tunnels, climb a big triangular thing, and get a pretty box?”

“Seems to be what they’re saying,” Zebra said. “Basically, anyway. Though you may have it slightly out of order.”

affirmative/understood/yes/agreed/confirmed

Goat shrugged, seemingly pleased that he had understood the semi-coherent stream of concepts.

“Let’s… let’s just continue, okay?” suggested Kasby, sounding exhausted and somewhat confused.

help/aid/beyond/cannot/further/problematic/issues/locked/powerless/we/broken

journey/finale/ending/conclusion/good/positive/complete

“Well, thanks anyway, I guess,” Goat said into the shadows.

Slowly, the blackness faded away around them, revealing the crystals and Void Nebula once again. The ten crystals that had formed the twin pentagons quietly crumbed into dust, and fell away into the fog.

Kasby sat there, stunned. "I am so over my head in this," he muttered.

Zebra turned to him. “Does it matter? Do what you should, and what you have to.”

“Wasn’t planning on doing anything else, Zebra. Just… doing what I can.” Kasby pulled a lever, and the thrusters activated again.

“Let’s save the known universe, then, shall we?” Goat said. “But first, I’d better go make some dinner!”

HOPE’S SCARS (9)

2010-08-14T21:50:00.001-07:00

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[[Constructed]]
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((68 — Temple))
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June 16th, 802 AT.

“Tell me about Cyclops.”

Spider lay in the air, her head resting against Seth’s bare chest.

“Mm?” He took the cigarette out of his mouth, letting out a breath of smoke. It drifted outwards, mingling with the fog that made up Noh’s outer layers. Noh was currently an opaque black, giving the two teens a modicum of privacy.

“You keep mentioning this Cyclops guy, but no one will tell me who he is.” Spider took a puff of her own cigarette.

Neither of them was sure who exactly had started their rendezvous like this. There’s not a lot to do in a month of freefall, and one night when Spider had been resting on a chunk of Noh, it had just sort of happened. Neither of them thought of the other as anything like a lover—just people enjoying each others’ company and each others’ bodies.

“Cyc, huh.” Seth grinned, remembering. “You ever stole something, Spider?”

She thought for a moment. “Don’t think so. Face wasn’t like that. We worked together, really. If you stole, they sent you over the edge.”

“Huh. Well, the rest of the Void isn’t so friendly. Sometimes people wind up on the edge, and have to use what skills they’ve got to get by. Cyclops, well, he’s good at stealing.”

“What does he steal?”

“Anything. Artifacts. Weapons. Ships. Food. Whatever he needs, and whatever he feels like, really.”

She thought about that for a while. “But why?”

Seth took another puff of smoke. “At first it was to survive. Then it was because it’s what he does. He got known. People heard of him all throughout the Void. Cyclops, the legendary thief. He can steal anything, they say.”

“Can he?”

Seth just laughed. “Damn right.”

“How? What makes him so good?”

“Same way he got his name. His eye.”

“Huh?”

“When he was younger, he lost an eye to a demon. Took it right out of him. Most people would settle for a glass eye, learn ways to compensate for the lack of depth perception. Cyc’s not most people.”

“What’d he do?”

“Went out and found a demon that could regenerate from its wounds. Took him ages to track one down. Then he cut its fuckin’ eye out, and jammed it into his own eye socket.”

Spider let out a low whistle, impressed.

“It worked, too. His demon eye can see just about anything and everything. Through walls, through crystals… it can see further than just about any telescope, it can trace electricity through walls, track heat signatures of people coming after him… perfect for a thief.”

Spider nodded, blowing smoke through her nose. “How do you know him?”

“He found us, us Talons. Few years back, we stumbled on one of his little bases while out patrolling together. He liked our style, took us in. Taught us how to fight, how to sneak, how to give authority a proper middle finger.”

Spider said nothing, her mind drifting briefly back to her education back on Face, her studies as an architect, as a hookball player.

“Most of us Talons, we didn’t have much family growing up. Cyc’s the closest thing we’ve really got to a father.”

“What happened to him?”

“He got caught. Went after some artifact, this box thing. One of the first times a crystal’s been opened to reveal an object, rather ‘n a demon. Of course, Cyc being Cyc, he wanted it real bad.” Seth shrugged. “Guess he got sloppy, or underestimated their defenses, ‘cause they nabbed him.”

“Did they… did he go down?” Spider raised a hand, and pointed it down into the Void.

“No, no. They just locked him up. He was being stored on the Roost for a few days, but they shipped him off towards Sector One a week before we met you.”

“What’ll they do to him there?”

“Stick him in the Complex. Prison. Impossible to escape from, even for him.”

“So now it’s up to you to rescue him.”

Seth flicked his cigarette, the ash dropping off into Noh. “Damn right.”

Spider rolled over, looking up at him. “That’s pretty badass.”

The teen grinned. “Damn right.”

He bent his neck, leaning down to kiss her, letting the butt of the cigarette fall away into nothingness.

TOWARDS HOPE (1)

2010-08-12T23:44:00.000-07:00

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((64 — Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun))
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June 14th, 802 AT.

Two weeks.

Two weeks since the Devourer Swarm attacked Sector Four, destroying the Roost and killing an estimate six hundred people.

Two weeks since the formation of the refugee fleet, two hundred survivors, clinging to whatever hope they could find.

Two weeks since people started hailing the crew of the Quinn as heroes, for rescuing as many as they did, including Coordinator Ammon, still in a coma.

Two weeks since Spider, Skunk, and Owl went missing.

Two weeks since Kasby started visiting every ship in the fleet, looking for his lost crew members, to no avail.

Two weeks since the rest of the crew took over the positions of their missing comrades. Giraffe on the HAVOC, Zebra tending the engines, Goat helping Kasby in the cockpit.

Two weeks since any sign of the Swarm.

Two weeks to go before arrival at Sector One.

The Quinn drifted, silently passing crystal after crystal. Here, the crystals were far closer together, mere miles apart, and the fog much thinner. They had set out ahead of the main fleet to find a communications relay. With things this dense, long-range radio didn’t work, but a relay system had been set up to maintain contact.

Kasby guided the ship steadily, eyes directly ahead. His leather-gloved hands gripped the controls of the ship with the cold confidence of experience. Ahead, the small outpost drifted into view. It was basically a large metal radar dish, maybe thirty meters across, attached to a small box of machinery atop one of the crystals.

Goat stepped out onto the main deck of the ship. “I’ll, um, scout.” He launched himself at the outpost, out through the Void.

His landing was easy enough--the crystal was chiseled flat around the outpost. An area nearby looked like a landing pad, but for ships far smaller than the Quinn.

Overhead, Kasby began to pull the ship into a circular motion, keeping it in the air while Goat figured things out.

The box itself, about twice as tall as Goat, was mostly solid faded gray metal. Rivets stuck out along its edges, and wires sprung up from the top, spooling into the dish above. The dish was on a gimbal, and a control panel at the base looked like it would probably control rotation. There was a large array of connection ports, for various types of communications cables.

Goat put his hand to his thinly-goateed chin, puzzled. Getting an idea, he jumped the dozen meters back up to the Quinn.

"What's up, Goat?" Kasby asked. He seemed more anxious than usual since they left Sector Four, but he had been covering it up for most of the time.

“What we need,” Goat said to Kasby as he re-entered the cockpit, “is a cable. We have cables, right? For making sound jump from point to point?”

“Yeah, over by the Communications Panel," Kasby replied, gesturing with a free hand.

“Ah!” Goat leaped to it, and extracted a cable. He unwound it, trailing it out onto the deck, and shot back to the machine. The thick cable dangled behind him, unspooling in the air. After finding what he hoped was the right port, Goat connected the Quinn’s radio to the machine.

Aboard the Quinn and on the relay, a matched pair of connection lights blinked an affirmative green.

The teen leaped back to the ship. “Okay!” He called to Kasby from the deck. “Communications online!”

“Good job, Goat,” Kasby said briefly, before flipping a switch and pressing the talk button for the radio.

He cleared his throat. “Sector One, this is Captain Kasby Bellwood of the Quinn, do you copy?”

There was a long silence.

Then the radio crackled. “Captain Bellwood, this is Sector One, reading you loud and clear.” The voice was a calm, male one.

A smile tugged at Kasby’s lips, if only for a moment. “Glad to hear it, Sector One. We have a bit of a situation on our hands—big time.”

“Understood. How can we help you?”

"It's a bit complicated to explain in full, but there's been a demon attack of tremendous scale on Sector Four." Kasby hesitated before proceeding. "The Base was destroyed. At least a third of the people managed to get out alive, and are tailing my ship a good distance back hoping for some shelter." Kasby waited for a reply with bated breath.

“…I…I see. Um.” The voice faltered. “Hold on a moment, Captain Bellwood.” The radio crackled off.

“Encouraging,” Zebra said sarcastically, from where she was standing by the door.

After a few seconds, the radio buzzed on again. A new voice came through, an elderly female one. “Captain Bellwood?”

“Yes ma’am?”

“This is Mercuria Barrett, of the Inner Chamber Council. You say Sector Four base has been destroyed. Can you explain your situation in more detail?”

“I think it’d be easier to explain in person.”

Barrett grunted, clearly audible over the radio. “How far out are you, Captain?”

“About two weeks out, ma’am.”

“I see. And you said you have refugees with you?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’d estimate around two hundred.”

“Two hundred… Hmph. Alright. We’ll see what we can do about setting up to provide for them.”

“Much appreciated, ma’am.”

“What about the demons that hit Sector Four? Are they still following?”

“They are indeed,” Kasby responded grimly.

Her voice took on a solemn tone. “Alright. We’ll prepare for a full siege, then. This isn’t the end of the world. We’ve lost bases before.”

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” replied Kasby. “I think you need all the information before you go and say something like that.”

“…where are you from, Captain?”

“Sector Seven, ma’am.”

“Heh. Then I guess I’ll forgive you this one time, as I take it you’ve never been as far in as Sector One before.”

“I have not.”

“Sector One is a fortress. It’s a city. It’s not like the other bases. They might fall. The Center will not.”

Zebra raised an eyebrow skeptically, but said nothing.

Barrett continued. “You may be noticing on your way in how much denser the crystals are here. More crystals means more demons. We can handle anything the Void can throw at us.”

Kasby let out a quiet breath. “I sure hope so, ma’am.”

“Hope? Hope’s got nothing to do with it. We’ve got something far better than hope, here.”

“And that is?”

“We have guns. A whole lot of guns.” The Councilwoman paused. “Anything else, Captain?”

“No. That’s all, ma’am.”

“Very well. Thanks again for the information. See you in two weeks. Sector One over and out.” The radio crackled and faded.

Kasby switched the Quinn’s radio off. “Go down and unplug that, if you will, Goat.”

The boy did so, leaping back after a minute. “To the Center, then.”

Zebra scoffed, still leaning against the door. “Wow. Guns. I guess there’s nothing to worry about, now.”

“Wait,” said Goat. “Can’t the Devourers eat bullet?”

“My point,” said Zebra sharply.

Kasby remained mostly quiet. “Maybe they have better guns.”

Zebra raised an eyebrow at him. “Right. Of course they do. How could I possibly have doubted?” She shook her head. “I’m going back to the engines.” She headed for the ladder at the back of the cockpit, and climbed out of sight.

Kasby shrugged and continued to stare straight ahead through the Void. He pulled a lever from the floor, and the boosters of the Quinn kicked to life. With her wings unfolded, the ship soared forward again, weaving its way between the dense crystals.

HOPE'S SCARS (8)

2010-08-12T01:07:00.000-07:00

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((37 - The Airship Chasm))
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The pit was still very deep, and very large. The building was still very square, and very gray. The Void was still very foggy, and very empty. The crystal underfoot was still vaguely white-ish, and mildly striated with ore. Various strange noises, such as yelling and skittering, drifted up from the pit.

Kiara yawned. “I’m bored,” she complained.

Chun was leaning against Torrential Black, looking at the pit. “Huh, that doesn’t sound like fun.” Torrential bobbed his head, as if chuckling.

“Nope,” Kiara responded, glancing over at Umbra.

Chun walked a few paces towards the edge of the shaft. “Do you think we should check on them?”

Kiara looked up at the Void. “Well, I don’t see anything entertaining up there… so let’s.”

Chun grinned. “Yes!” Torrential bowed and she swung onto his back.

“Plus, I’m curious about those sounds.” Kiara added. “The shaft should be big enough for you both, right?” She looked at the entrance to the mine, dozens of meters in diameter.

“Probably!” Torrential began to fuss and pace.

Kiara nodded and beckoned to Umbra, who leaned down to allow Kiara to get on to her back. “Let’s go, then!”

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((61 - Battle))
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“Uh,” Spider said, very pointedly, her eyebrows raised. “Are you sure you want to do that? Really?”

Seth just grinned, laughed, and kept walking. The flickering flame from his lighter was barely enough to see another few feet, but it was something. “When am I gonna get another chance to do something like this?”

“Huh,” was all Spider said. She watched Seth for a moment, as if making up her mind, shrugged, and then followed after him.

Reno turned to Caf and uncessesarily jerked her head in the direction of Seth and Spider. The two of them, in synchronized step, strode towards the entrance of the cave, bringing up the rear.

The tunnel stretched ahead of them, bored out of the pure crystal. Occasional lamps hung from the ceiling, but they were broken. After a dozen feet or so, they came to a room branching off to one side.

“Whatcha guys see up there?” called Reno from the back.

“There’s another room, but it’s dark,” Spider replied.

“Let’s see what’s in here…” Seth turned and walked into the room.

It was clearly a storeroom. Various cabinets and drawers ran along the sides, stretching down the long, narrow room. The light from the lighter barely illuminated anything, but it was enough that they could see that all the shelves here, too, were empty.

“Kay, Scorpia—” The scuttling creature lifted its head. “Sniff out the place.”

At the foot of one of the shelves lay Wurm--or what was left of him. The skin of his chest had been ripped open, and his rib cage was bare within it. There was no sign of any internal organs or blood. Everything had been cleaned to a disturbingly shiny state.

“That’s pleasant,” Seth said quietly, as Scorpia examined the body.

Reno wrinkled her nose. "Ew. Ew ew ew ew," she muttered. "Do not like sight of dead creepy guy."

Spider frowned, then stole Seth’s lighter and lit up the cigarette between her teeth.

Reno raised an eyebrow in disgust as Seth followed Spider’s lead. "Okay," she said "You know, I REALLY don't see what you guys get out of those things."

“Styyyyyyle, my friend,” said Seth as he took his first puff. “Style.”

.

The pair and their demons reached the bottom of the shaft, looking around at the various tunnels. Five of them were lit, but the sixth was dim. Seth’s semi-corporeal demon floated outside the darkened one, as if guarding it.

Torrential quickly slowed, flapping his wings to hover for a moment, then landed calmly and squawked. Chun looked at the tunnels. “Well, well, well. Which way?”

Something yellow-white erupted from one of the tunnels, a glowing ball trailing light. It circled the shaft a half-dozen times at high speed, flitting wildly about it. It seemed to catch sight of the two Talons, though, and darted into the darkened tunnel, passing straight through Seth's demon as it did.

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Scorpia moved away from Wurm’s body, looking bored or dissatisfied, if that were possible on a creature such as that. “Nothing here, let’s keep going,” Spider said, ignoring the sharpened hairs on her neck.

Seth nodded, letting out a steady breath of smoke. “Let’s.”

Caf, meanwhile, had trotted over to the corpse, and leaned down to sniff it. The fibers in his wings seemed to grow more tense. It smelled recently dead, with a hint of... something else. Something hard to place. Something fast and dark, if such intangibles could be said to have a smell.

The demon then tentatively extended his tongue. It tasted worse than it smelled. Dark, and predatory. Like a spider's web, waiting for a fly. Caf shuddered a little and backed away. Reno scrunched her face. "Ick...okay, Caf," she said "No more licking dead stuff for you. I can taste it too now, you know."

“Reno, you coming?” Seth said from the doorway.

She opened her mouth to say something, but went silent as something illuminated the tunnel behind Seth sharply.

A yellow-white glow rushed towards Seth and Spider, through them, past them--

The same glowing will-o-wisp they had seen before, or something very like it. It shot off down the corridor, vanishing around a corner.

Seth broke into a full sprint, chasing it. “I LOVE HIDE AND GO SEEK!”

Spider flew down the hall after him, falling faster than he was running. Her demon was crawling on the wall beside her.

Reno grabbed a handfull of Caf's fur and swung herself on top of him. "Hey! Don't leave without us!" she called as Caf's wings buzzed to life.

It was easy enough to follow, due to the trail it left imprinted on their eyelids as it flew past, almost seeming to glow visibly through the walls.

At the corner Spider bounced off the wall, and the halls tilted again. “What the hell is this thing?” she shouted to no one in particular as she fell.

The trio flew, ran, and fell down the corridor, chasing after the thing. It darted around dozens of turns, through intersections, past other rooms, stairs, ladders. Bodies.

.

Torrential wheeled around, trying to follow the will-o-wisp as it vanished down the corridor. “What the fuck was that!?” Chun said.

“Uh…” Kiara just looked after the thing. “Well, let’s follow.”

The thing had left a glowing trail behind it, easily visible in the dimly-lit tunnel. Umbra walked towards it, gingerly avoiding Seth’s demon.

Torrential raised his feathers like hackles. Chun shivered, but stroked the crow demon on the beak as she walked into the tunnel. It was clearly far too small for her demon to fit, and it squawked in protest, but she shushed it, then started down the tunnel. “I don’t like this, was that even a demon?”

“I’m not sure… but maybe it’ll lead us towards the others.”

The tunnel was long and narrow, with broken hanging lights, leaving it very dark. They could barely see anything save for the glowing trail zig-zagging in the air, slowly fading as they followed it around twists and turns.

"Shit, we have to go faster." Chun cracked a smile and began to run.

Kiara, barely visible in the darkness, closed her eyes, holding on tighter as Umbra sped up.

.

((62 - Black Water))

Up ahead the light glowed brighter, as if they were catching up to it.

“Okay,” said Reno nervously. “SOMEthing weird is making LOTS of people dead around here.”

All three of them burst out into a cavern-like space.

The glowing creature was hanging in the air, twitching wildly. It looked like it was stuck somehow, trying to free itself. The room was larger than they could see by the glow of Seth's upheld lighter. A pile of some sort of equipment was half-visible at the back of the room.

Spider slowed in the air, and oriented the world to normal gravity. She touched down, and stared up at the strange demon. “Woah…”

Seth looked up at the glowing orb. “ ‘Sup?”

A low rumble filled the room around them.

Reno and Caf stiffened a little. “That doesn’t sound like a good thing…”

“These things never make nice sounds,” Spider said quietly.

Chun walked in, covering her ears and looked VERY annoyed at not having Black with her.

“Hey,” said Seth to the latecomers. “Nice of you to drop by.”

Umbra (somewhat shrunken) darted into the room behind Chun, followed closely by Kiara.

The room rumbled again.

"...that doesn't FEEL like a good thing, either,” Reno muttered.

The glowing ball twitched faster, faster, shedding more and more light. As it did, they began to see something around it. A few thin places the light did not illuminate, almost like a net or a web that the orb was trapped in.

Umbra edged back for a moment, then stood straight, exuding more darkness in a small area around it that the light could not penetrate.

“There’re two things here,” Seth said slowly.

The rumbling came a third time. Louder. Closer.

Spider looked around, trying to pinpoint the source. Scorpia sniffed at the air, doing the same.

"What is that thing? And what the hell is that rumbling?" Kiara looked around nervously, taking a step out of the hallway entrance.

Caf let out an entirely uncharacteristically feeble squawk.

“That light isn’t the one we should be worried about.” Seth moved over to one of the strands of dark and tried to see if his knife would make contact with it, if it was something tangible. The darkness caught his knife and stuck to it, held it fast.

“Don’t tell me…” Reno’s eyes widened. She had an idea, and she didn’t always like it when she had ideas. “Are we INSIDE a demon right now!?”

Then then room around them erupted with motion. It was impossible to tell what was shadow and what was demon. The darkness itself seemed to be alive, seething and twisting and turning.

All of them, humans and their demon companions, hunkered down, trying to secure a foothold on the ground. All except Spider, who shot into the air, swearing violently.

The glowing orb in the center of the darkness-web suddenly stopped stock still. The shadows seemed to coalesce around it, surrounding it, scooping it up. The orb pulsed once, then dimmed slightly. The shadows seemed to manifest slightly more as it did.

Kiara cursed, backing towards the entrance she came through, drawing her crystal sword as she did. She bumped up against the wall—no, the exit behind her had become a wall. She stuck fast to the same webbing that trapped the will-o-wisp.

“This, uh, looks bad, guys.” Seth tried to yank his knife away from the web, but found it thoroughly stuck.

The light pulsed again and dimmed further. The shadows strengthened.

Spider hovered, careful not to touch the ground or any of the walls. “Dammit! Can’t even see a thing! Scorpia, help me sense something!” She began to feel through the demon for the energy in the room. There was a lot of demonic energy.

The orb pulsed a third time, and seemed to sink slightly.

Reno gasped. “I think…” she said, "I think those two demons are fighting!”

It pulsed a final, half-hearted fourth time, and went out.

“…and one just lost.”

The darkness shuddered around them, its meal finished, and let out a satisfied rumble. Without the will-o-wisp, the room fell into pitch blackness, save for Seth's lighter and the smoldering tip of Spider's cigarette. Everyone still in the empty blackness could feel the shadows moving around them, pushing up against them.

Reno felt cold. It was an eerily unique kind of cold. Almost like the brink of death.

“We could use some more light in here,” Seth said, barely lit by his flickering lighter. “How about a smoke, Reno?” No one could see his grin.

"Thanks, but no thanks Seth," said Reno "I’m not interested in dying faster right now. If you need more light, fine, but don't expect me to put that in my mouth!"

Kiara began to feel the strands at her back tightening, and the shadows pressing up against her. They wrapped themselves around her, pinning her against the web. "Shit!" She yelled, and Umbra moved back towards her, clawing at the webbing. Umbra's claws, no matter how many forms they took, made no impact against the webbing, though it didn't stick to the demon.

“What’s happening?” Spider called out. “Where are you?”

"The... it's trapping me!" Kiara tried to slice at the web with her crystal sword. The crystal shuddered and shimmered, and seemed to catch on the webbing. The webbing shook violently on her back.

Spider fell over to where Kiara’s voice was coming from, and felt around carefully until she touched Kiara. “Let’s not let it get you. Gimme your hand!”

“Try cutting it with crystal!” Kiara tried to jerk away, stabbing it again. The webbing seemed to shred apart, sucked into the crystal blade. The shadow-stuff still clung to her, though, wrapping around her tighter.

Spider pulled out one of her crystal guns. “Gimme your hand!” She repeated.

“Can’t… it’s wrapped around me!” It jerked her tighter, and she lost her grip on the crystal sword. It clattered to the ground.

Seth, meanwhile, had lifted his lighter to the darkness around his knife. As he did, the shadow-thread melted away, as if fleeing from the flame. “Excellent.” He ran for the flickering red dot of Spider’s cigarette.

“What the…” Reno seemed to just become aware of Kiara’s situation. She goaded Caf in their direction. “What’s cutting it?”

“Crystal absorbs it, a bit!” Kiara replied.

Chun suddenly ripped off her crystal-lensed goggles and pressed them onto the shadow. The goggles shook in her hands, sucking up the darkness they touched.

Reno withdrew a crystal dagger from the holster on her belt. Next to her, Seth picked up Kiara’s fallen sword, and they went to work.

Spider wrapped her legs around Kiara’s chest, holding tight. “Sorry, this might hurt.” She altered both of their gravity to be directly away from the wall, pulling with both of their weight.

Between all of their combined effort, Kiara ripped free of the shadows. She and Spider went flying backwards, tumbling towards the other wall.

The shadow mass whirled around all of them angrily, rumbling loudly, whipping past each of them. It was everywhere in the room at once. Nowhere to hide from it. Seth, still holding his lighter, was the only one untouched.

“Hey guys,” Seth said, shaking his head. “You won’t hear me say this much, but… group hug?”

Chun looked around, then went right up to Seth and put an arm around his waist, holding tight. Kiara, breathing heavily, followed suit, putting her back against his chest.

Spider, meanwhile, pulled herself to her feet against the far wall, and realized with a start that she was leaning against something metallic—not part of the wall. She gasped and felt beside her at once, trying to see what it was.

“You all right, Spider?” Seth asked, as he made his way towards her voice, lighter still held high. Reno joined the little huddle after a moment. Tucked into the light of the flickering flame, the four of them were untouched by the shadows swirling around them. They could feel them brushing against their feet, though.

Spider’s hands explored the object—a metal tube, maybe a meter long, open on one side. She’d seen them before, on ships and bases, and knew they emitted light from the open side. Normally, anyway. This one seemed dead. “AHA!” Spider shouted. “Get over here! There’s this thing! It makes light, I think…” She continued fumbling at it, trying to remember what she’d learned of mechanics from Kasby.

Chun thought for a moment. “It just needs energy. Use a crystal!” She held up her goggles, visibly pulsing with dark purple light through the darkness. “Catch!” She threw them to Spider.

“Woah!” Spider turned, and snatched the goggles out of the air. Without hesitating, she forced them into the slot, crystal lenses first.

The lamp hummed, flickered twice, and then lit up. It cast a wide beam of blue-purple light across the room, half-filling it.

Seth grinned. “Bitchin’.”

The shadows caught in the beam seemed to shred and disintegrate, as the rest of the room shuddered in pain. It let out a horrible rumble, fleeing back from the source of the light.

“Heheh… you don’t like this light stuff, eh?” Spider used her gravity to lift the light, shining it towards the shadows in the corners of the room.

Kiara raised an eyebrow, amused now that the danger seemed gone. “Well, there are less… convenient weaknesses.”

((63 — Hindsight))

Under the new light, they could see the rest of the room. The floor was littered with half-opened food packages and torn crates of supplies. There was enough food here to feed a hundred people for two weeks.

The shadows continued to shy away from the lamp, fleeing into the corridor they had all come down.

“Let’s chase it!” Seth sounded way too excited as he grabbed Spider’s wrist and tried to aim the light down the hallway. “Quick, before it gets away!”

“Aye aye, Sheriff Seth!” said Reno, mixing up her anachronisms. She leapt back onto Caf and the two took off down the hallway, followed by Seth and Spider, holding the light.

“Wait!” Kiara called. “Maybe we can find more batteries in here!”

“Demon now! Supplies later!” Seth kept running.

Kiara muttered a curse, climbing onto Umbra, and followed. Chun ran alongside her to keep up with the others.

Together, they all chased it, the light pushing it further and further back up the corridor, retracing their steps.

Chun spoke as she ran, sounding tired. “Why don’t we just go get the supplies?”

“Because Seth is insane?” Kiara said half-jokingly.

“Ding ding ding, we have a winner.” Seth advanced menacingly on the door of the supply room they had passed on the way in, where the demon had fled to.

“You guys gather up supplies,” Spider started, coming to a hovering stop in the doorway. “We’ll—”

“Let’s get this bitch!” Seth cut her off. “It tried to jack my knife.”

Reno raised an eyebrow. “It also tried to jack your life, Seth.”

“Minor detail.” He pushed his way past Spider, into the room.

Now the shadows filling the room were just that—shadows. Nothing supernatural about them. Wurm’s mutilated corpse still lay slumped against the back wall. The demon shadows clustered in a far corner, huddling against it, trying to seek refuge from the light and finding none.

“No escape now, demon-face!” Seth’s mad grin was fully visible this time.

Spider set down to the ground, pinning the demon against the wall with the light.

Kiara held out her crystal sword, and walked slowly to the demon, careful to keep herself from casting a shadow on it, in case it could use that. She stabbed her blade into the mass of shadows. The cluster hissed wildly, angrily, and began to dissipate, flowing into Kiara’s sword. She smirked, keeping her blade in the demon.

With a final, twisting rumble, the last of the shadows vanished into the crystal.

“Try and eat me now, fucker,” Kiara said with satisfaction. “Now, can we go back to that room with the food?”

Chun smiled. “Yeah, I’m hungry.”

“Let’s.” Seth laughed. “All that hunting made me kinda hungry too.” He looked at the space where the demon had been. “Another one in the books for Team Talon.”

Kiara grinned. "Now, some victory... dinner? Lunch?"

Reno spun her dagger around her fingers. With one final twirl, she redeposited it into its holster. "I'm up for whatever meal, as long as it's fit for HUMAN consumption." She cast an accusing glare at Caf.

“Shit yeah.” Seth headed for the room with the unboxed supplies, and the others followed.

“I’d go for something barely edible, right now,” Chun said quietly. It had, after all, been well over a full twenty-four hours since they’d last eaten, back at Sector Four.

They reached the now-quiet cavern, its floor strewn with supplies. The foodstuffs came in all varieties of genetically-engineered protein vegetable, as always.

None of them seemed overly picky, just grabbing the first food bar they saw and devouring it with a will. Chun started to wander, looking for more crystal batteries.

Reno took a huge bite out of the round-ish item she’d procured. “Ahhhh,” she sighed. “Sweet sweet olive loaf. I missed you.” She kissed the protein vegetable before chomping down again.

“So…” Spider said, a bit too casually. “Are we headed to Sector One?” She looked over at Seth.

He nodded, then bit into a massive tomato. “Yeah, ‘s why we gotta grab supplies here. Not like we can go back to Sector Four.”

“I guess you guys don’t really have a plan either.” Spider took another bite of her protein bar, then began to scavenge for more food, dumping what she found on Scorpia’s back.

Chun found several ripped-open boxes of crystal batteries, but many were already drained. She carried a few handfuls of powered-up ones over to the lights, and piled them there.

Kiara had started tossing protein packs into Umbra, who tucked them into her shadowy interior for storage.

Seth looked up from the crate he was filling with food. “You got any ideas, Spider? All I know is what your people told me.”

“Gonna get dark for a second,” Chun announced. She pulled her goggles out of the light, plunging the room into darkness. Then she shoved in the most charge-filled crystal she had found, and the light came back on, this time a healthier yellow glow.

Spider frowned. “They didn’t have much of a plan either. Crystals are breaking, and… my guys seem to think that the answers are in Sector One.” She put more supplies onto Scorpia, who swallowed them into her semi-transparent body, leaving them floating like curious organs. “The, uh, what’s it called? Center of the neb… thingy.”

Seth nodded. “We need to get to the Center, too. That’s where Cyc was taken…”

The others fell silent a moment, but Spider just rolled her eyes, still unsure of who exactly this Cyclops fellow was.

The silence passed, and they all returned to their packing. Demons, crates, and pockets were all filled to their brim with food and batteries for the long trip.

Seth came up alongside Spider, putting his crates down. “That was a nice trick back there, with the light.”

Spider shrugged awkwardly. “It was afraid of your fire thing. It made sense.”

He let out a laugh. “Yeah, well. Good to see you can pull your own in a fight like that, no matter how crazy. I like a pretty face like yours much as the next guy, but I like one better when I know she can watch my back.”

The girl frowned, not sure whether or not she was being complimented. “I, um, thanks? I guess?”

“The point is,” Seth continued. “Welcome to the team. You’re properly one of us now.” He held out a hand.

After a blinking pause, Spider remembered that it was custom for her to shake his hand, so she did so. “Yeah, thanks. You guys are a lot more fun than my old crew. Nice to be back with people my own age.”

Their hands stayed locked for a good bit longer than normal as they stared at each other, as if still evaluating the other.

Reno broke the moment by calling out. “Let’s get out of here! We’re all full up!”

The two sixteen-year-olds let their hands drop, and turned to carry the supplies they’d gathered.

After a few quiet minutes walking through the tunnels, they all arrived back at the open shaft, where Torrential Black and Seth's demon were still waiting.

Chun ran awkwardly toward Torrential and dropped what food she was holding in front of him. He flapped, bobbed his head once, and then began to devour the food.

“Ah, good to see these guys again.” Seth tossed his crate full of food in the general direction of the demon. A slice of quartz extended from the floating cloud of mist, catching it.

Spider looked around. “Anything else to do here?”

“I suppose not,” said Chun.

“Let’s get going then,” said Kiara, looking upwards.

Seth turned to his demon. “It’s about time I named you. How about… Noh. Yeah, Noh sounds good.” He walked towards it, and steps formed in its side. As he walked up them, they receded back into the crystalline creature.

Torrential finished his meal, and crouched over at Chun’s gesture. She swung herself onto Black’s back.

Reno followed suit, climbing onto Caf. “Oh, don’t be so negative, Seth,” she said, chuckling.

Spider sighed. She was tired, but she could probably hold her gravity in any direction for a few hours of falling before having to rest. Spider and Scorpia lifted up off the ground, the demon’s paper-like wings flapping to greater sizes.

Noh floated upwards, matching height with Scorpia. Seth sat in the chunk of crystal shaped like a chair, riding his demon like a throne. He caught sight of Spider’s exhausted face. “Hey,” he called to her across the open air.

“Nn?” She looked at him.

“If you get tired, you can rest in Noh. Don’t think he much needs energy, and there’s room.” He gestured to the various other large chunks of crystal suspended into the fog.

“Alright…” Spider nodded, then looked down, making sure the others were still with them. Confirming that everyone was together, she turned her gaze back up the shaft. “Let’s fly.”

The quintet rose into the air, flying up and out of the mine. Slowly they crested, coming level with the surface of the crystal.

Seth waved to the ground as it started to recede. “Later, rock.”

Reno saluted, with her middle finger.

The Void above them stretched wide, the same blank gray as always. Now fully stocked and loaded with enough food to last them the voyage, the Talons settled in for the three-week flight to Sector One.

To Cyclops, and to the Center.

LOCKED HOPE (1)

2010-05-10T15:20:00.000-07:00

((60 - Greyscale))

June 2nd, 802 AT.

Slowly, the world faded in from black, in a steadily lightening haze. Cold metal met at their wrists and ankles, hold them both against… a wall? Slowly the world came into focus, revealing a room full of strange equipment—bubbling vials of glowing liquid, apparati hanging from the ceiling, tools and instruments of all sorts. A tall man in a white lab coat was hunched over a table, scrawling notes. A long, thin red pony tail trailed down his back.

Owl’s eyes went wide, and she pulled against the cold bonds, staring around the room in confusion.

Next to her on the wall, Skunk scowled. “What the fuck?” She tried to shape the metal bonds, but found them unresponsive.

At the sound, the man at the table stood up, turning to face them. His glasses gleamed in the too-bright light from overhead. "Ah, you're awake."

Owl frowned. "Who are you?" she questioned, more dazed than angry.

Skunk pulled against her bonds. “And why the hell are we bound?”

The word 'language' came as an auto-response to the older woman's lips, but she swallowed it.

"You can call me Dr. Emerson." He smiled, and walked calmly over to a large machine that hung from the ceiling.

Skunk's face twisted into an even deeper scowl. "That's not an answer."

"Oh, don't worry, I'm sure I'll get plenty of answers out of you." Emerson pulled the machine down, revealing a large jagged-edged circular piece of metal on a socket off one side.

"Out of us?" There was a squeaky quality to Owl's tone now.

"Coward," spat Skunk venomously.

Turning to face her, he raised an eyebrow, smile unwavering. "Am I?"

"Binding me up with freak metal, using fucking machines to do your dirty work?"

He simply shrugged, and turned back to his machine, continuing to prepare it.

Owl shivered. It had nothing to do with cold.

Skunk’s eyes narrowed as she examined the machine. "Gonna torture us, are you?"

"He... he can't do that!" Owl gasped.

“Why not?” Emerson blinked. "You don't make the least bit of sense, and I intend to find some!"

"Be-because... because we... you just can't!"

"It's simple science, my dear." He took a step towards his two subjects. "Look at you! You're covered with strange words, half of them in languages that I can't find in the most detailed linguistics textbooks!"

"Well then, then... your books aren't very good." Owl squirmed under his gaze.

Skunk just rolled her eyes. "Whoop-dee-fuckin'-doo, he's a nutter too."

"And you--" he gestured at Skunk "--are covered head to toe with some sort of liquid, semi-living metal."

Owl continued to protest. "And let me tell you, from everything I've read, simple science is rarely just that."

"Well, of course not. If it were simple, it wouldn't be fun." He flipped a switch on the machine, and the circle began to spin.

“But then… then you lied,” Owl said.

The metal rotated, slowly at first, then faster and faster, becoming a shining whirring blur.

He blinked at Owl. "Really?"

"You... you said it was simple, and that simple science wasn't fun and... and that thing does NOT look simple."

Skunk watched the blade spin. "What are you looking for?"

“I’m looking for an explanation.”

"For what?" asked Skunk, trying to steal some time.

He reached back and pushed a button on a small machine mounted on a tripod. Ignoring them, he spoke to the machine. "Experiment one. Testing resilience of liquid metal skin-system, using iron saw."

"Godfuckingdamnit."

“Skunk!”

He turned back to the girls, and moved the spinning blade into position over Skunk's right arm.

"I do not like the sound of that." Skunk braced herself, gritting her teeth.

"You! Hey! Young man, you will use no such thing on her!" Owl’s protests sounded hollow, even to her.

"And how do you intend to stop me, ma'am? With words?"

Owl squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head, determined not to have the image stuck in her skull. "Words are more powerful than you might think," she answered, not opening her eyes.

Emerson pushed the saw down onto Skunk's arm.

“The saw is soft,” Owl began, as the room filled with a screeching sound of metal on metal as the saw blade scraped against the much-harder metal of Skunk.

Skunk tried to shape the metal into a harmless blob, but somehow it too resisted her power. "Ow," she commented sounding far away.

"Nearly intangible,” Owl continued. “It is made of cotton and baby blankets. The teeth are duller than a newborn's gums." The words flowed down her arms, crossing behind Skunk along the wall, wrapping around her arm and onto the saw.

"When it touches metal, it folds against it," Owl said, voice getting stronger. She pushed the words hard. "When it touches Skunk, it cannot hurt her... it is a cloud."

Emerson took a step back in confusion, watching as his best saw appeared to melt, and then half-fade away, falling through the machinery holding it up.

Owl’s words wrapped around the blade, covering it with writing, as it landed on the floor and folded in on itself.

Skunk relaxed a bit. "Okay, that's...better."

Emerson whirled to Owl. "Well then! I see I've directed my inquiry in the wrong direction!" He pulled a scalpel out of his pocket and took two steps towards her.

"Wait, what exactly do you want to know?" Skunk cut in.

Owl glared at the scientist looming over her, easily a foot taller than her. "Young man, I hope you realize that that scalpel is made of the same clouds as the saw." Owl allowed herself a strained smile as she sent more words out. "It will touch me, but it cannot hurt me. It is softer than air."

Ignoring her, Emerson spoke to Skunk. "At the moment, if the words on this woman are—” He blinked in surprise as the scalpel literally fell through his fingertips, coming to rest softly against the ground.

Skunk ground her teeth, annoyed at being useless. "Great job. Now, can you get us out?"

Owl's eyes lit up. "I can!" she answered. "The metal that holds us is melting away. But as it melts, it remains cool."

Emerson turned back to the machine on the tripod. "Subjects are proving difficult to experiment on, and resistant. Perhaps I should have done more experimentation on them when they were unconscious."

“Camera!” Owl named automatically, recognizing it from a book. “What are you taking pictures of?”

"You know, I for one wouldn't mind practicing my whip's aim on this guy," muttered Skunk, ignoring the scientist.

Owl’s words had wrapped around the restraints, again flowing off of her body and altering what they touched. The metal melted away, slipping to the floor.

Skunk eyed Owl. "So you do have your uses then."

"Several of them, I hope," Owl replied.

Oblivious, Emerson continued to talk into the camera, describing Owl's writing.

She turned back to the scientist. "Young man. Perhaps you should let us go. This whole laboratory could be a puddle of clouds." Owl shook her wrists, getting a fleck of melted metal off.

He continued to ignore her, launching into a description of the feeling of the scalpel as it passed through his hand.

"Young man!" Owl snapped. "Do your, um, guests the common courtesy of paying them attention!"

Skunk rubbed her wrists, and looked around for her iron whip, which was conspicuously absent from her hip. "You know, I think we ought to repay him with as much courtesy as he gave us."

"What do you... Oh, no. Skunk! We couldn't!"

This seemed to finally get the doctor's attention. "Hm? I'm sorry, did you say something?

"Yes, several things," Owl answered.

"Oh. I'm sorry, would you mind repeating them?"

"You know, I think this guy is absolutely out of his goddamn mind." Skunk advanced towards him menacingly.

Owl put her hands on her hips and scowled. "Well, first of all, I asked what the camera was for," she repeated. "And second of all, while I disagree with the phrasing, I think you might be right, Skunk."

"Why? Well, that seems obvious enough. To record my experiments so that I can review the data later!"

Owl's eyes widened. "So you can... that's terrible! You were going to have vih-dee-oh of this?"

Skunk kept her blood-red eyes trained on the Doctor, but didn't make any moves just yet. "Yeah, well, I think we've already seen that he's not exactly the nicest guy ever."

"Of course I was! Record-keeping is vital to good scientific methodology."

"Why in all of Face would you want something like that?" Owl gasped.

“Look, does it matter? He’s clearly crazy.” Skunk glanced around the rest of the room, eyes coming to rest on the ladder hanging down into the room from above. "There's a ladder over there, maybe we can get out."

"Well, yes, but," Owl bit her lip. "There are lines that shouldn't be crossed."

"I am not crazy, I am a man of science!"

"Same thing, from my reading," Owl replied. “Well, except for some nice ones.”

"I'm leaving.” Skunk rolled her red eyes. “This guy's not worth the time it would take to smear his brains on the walls."

Emerson frowned. "Hm." He took a few steps over towards a work desk, and picked up a fist-sized metal apparatus.

Skunk headed for the ladder. “I’m getting out of here, whether you’re coming or not, Owl.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” The older woman answered.

Emerson spun towards them. "But I've just begun my experiments!" The contraption now included a large canister of glowing green liquid which, combined with the long needle out the other end, gave it a rather sinister appearance. "Stop, the experiments will go much smoother if I sedate you."

“Owl? What’s that?”

“Don’t know for sure!” The wordmancer was already starting towards the ladder. "But the green stuff looks like a lot of various liquids in this one old book with a skull on the front... No good can come of that."

Skunk glared around the room, seeing many exciting sources of metal she could use as a weapon. She settled on touching her palm to the nearest table, melting part of it off to form a long sword-like shard. Her other arm she formed into a gleaming blade.

Owl scrambled across the room until she reached the ladder. Grabbing a rung she called, "Skunk, leave him! Let's just go!"

"He's not giving up, though. The fucker could sound an alarm or some shit, or just stab one of us in the back."

Emerson’s eyes widened at Skunk's transformation, and ran over to the camera. He turned it on its tripod to point at her.

"But maybe he won't! Let's GO and not HURT anybody!" Owl knew she was screeching and she didn't care.

“Whatever.” Skunk backed away from him, stopping alongside Owl and the ladder. “Well? Head up.”

Owl started up the thing as fast as she could. "Going, going!"

"Wait! I'm not done with my experiments!"

"He gets to keep his head, for now," Skunk growled.

"Forever I hope. If we never see him again it'll be too soon," the shorter woman replied as she went up the ladder. Owl pulled herself over the top of the ladder and came out onto the ship’s upper deck.

The ladder opened onto the deck of a ship not terribly unlike the Quinn, though closer to the Oliver in size. At one end was a control port, and a pair of large engines stuck off the sides, currently rotated to point straight downwards. The sky above was open Void.

Skunk followed up the ladder, and looked around. “Fun. Now what?”

"What do we do?" Owl asked. "I know how to navigate, but... not in this."

"Hell, I don't know." Skunk glanced back down into the room they had left, checking to see if there was a way to close the scientist inside, but unfortunately there was no door or hatch to seal the ladder.

Owl walked over to the unfamiliar dash and said, "Oh." She concentrated for a moment. “The controls are not unfamiliar.” The words again flowed off of her finger tips, beginning to wrap around the controls and alter them.

After a moment, the large red-haired man came up the ladder. He took the large syringe out of his pocket, and walked towards Skunk. "Come now, I'm just going to sedate you to make the experiments easier."

"Back the fuck off." Skunk reformed her left arm into a blade.

"They look just like the ones I've practiced on. The steering wheel is in my hands." Seeing what was happening behind her, Owl sped up. "And the buttons are all ones I know. They're in nice little rows." The steering wheel formed into her hands, and the buttons began to pop into place, one by one.

Emerson took another step towards Skunk, holding out his empty hand. “Please, it won’t hurt at all.”

“Touch me and I kill you, asshole.”

Owl bit her lip and looked back to Emerson and Skunk. “The syringe is empty! It has no point!” She cried, willing it to change. Her words were still wrapped around the console, though, and it seemed she couldn’t edit two things at once. “Darn!”

“Fuck this.” Skunk reached out her metal hand and grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him close, then impaled him with her blade.

He stared down at the extended metal now sticking into his chest. He frowned at it, clearly in considerable consternation. "This is... hm."

She let him go, then quickly lashed out with one sharpened foot, just to be thorough. The second blade caught him in the leg, cutting through a large chunk of him.

He blinked twice. "I don't think..." Then his eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell over backwards.

Owl couldn't close her eyes fast enough, and shuddered as Emerson fell. She knew she could never forget that image. Blood flowed freely from the two large wounds as his body thudded down onto the hardwood floor.

"That oughta do it." Skunk casually stepped away. "Get us away."

Owl opened her eyes and stared at her companion. "You..." she whispered.

"Owl, focus, damnit."

"What did you... you killed him."

"He was gonna torture us."

The smaller woman shook. All she could think of was the blood. "You killed him! No, no, no..." The words in Owl's shadow changed. Blood, they read in a million tongues, blood screaming agony death. Blood Face Center leaving dying blood everything everyone! "No..."

Skunk crossed over to stand by Owl, and shook her roughly. "Yeah, well, we're gonna be dead too, if you don't get us somewhere."

"No," she whimpered, tears running down her cheeks. "I can't..."

“You’ve got two choices. Die out here, or learn to fly the damn ship.”

Owl was shivering to the point where she didn't trust her finger on the dash, but she turned to the controls. "You have to step away from me," she whispered, starting the ship.

Skunk complied. "I really hope there's no one else aboard," she mused under her breath.

Owl closed her eyes for a minute. When they opened she stopped shaking. "Okay. Let's go." She punched a few buttons in sequence and grabbed the wheel.

Going back over to the ladder opening, Skunk placed her palms against the floor and stretched some of the metal to cover the opening. "Where are we going?"

"Center," Owl replied, more casually than she should have been able to.

Skunk grunted, retreating into her usual silence.

"At least I hope so,” the rememorist added under her breath.

The small ship whirred to life at Owl's touch, reorienting downwards, and dropping into the Void.

HOPE'S SCARS (7)

2010-05-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

.
((58 - Atrus' Theme))

June 2nd, 802 AT.

The fog of the Void slowly cleared away as a massive floor of crystal came into view beneath them. A huge streak of dark mineral ore splashed across the face, cutting a gray swath against the white crystal. In the middle of the ore was a huge cylindrical shaft, descending down into the crystal. A metal building sat alongside the shaft, with a large transport ship docked next to it. In all directions around it, the crystal surface stretched away, vanishing into the fog along every horizon.

The five Talons and their demons had been traveling for quite a few hours now, none of them talking all that much. While there had been no love lost between them and most of its inhabitants, the Roost had been their home. And now, in all likelihood, it was gone, lost to the Swarm.

But now they had arrived at their first layover en route to Sector One. The mine complex here had served as one of Cyclops' hideouts for a few years. It had been abandoned due to demons, and Cyc had kept up the illusion of a demonic presence for years to keep anyone from coming back. Cyc hadn't been there in a good long while, but in theory it would still be well-stocked with food and other supplies--enough to last them the month-long journey to Sector One, hopefully.

Torrential Black and Chun hovered for a moment before diving down towards the crystal. They landed next to the shaft, Torrential eyeing the surroundings. The bird let out a soft squawk and a short purring sound as Chun cocked her head from his back.

Spider rested comfortably on the back of her huge scorpion, having gotten tired of orbiting around it for so long. She shuddered, and the two landed next to Chun. The scorpion--now named Scorpia, after Spider's late mother--shrank slightly, and its wings furled up into a more appropriate size. As the rest of their companions landed around them, Spider made a beeline for the building, examining it for architectural issues or faults.

It was about two stories tall, and was clearly originally designed to serve as dormitories for the miners. It looked structurally sound, but not particularly well-designed. A large elevator shaft went down into the mine, connected to the building, with no entrance from the outside.

Reno raked the area with her gaze. "ANYONE HOME?" she called, not necessarily expecting an answer.

One came, in the form of quiet footsteps, echoing from inside the building.

Seth remained in his seat within his demon, and cocked his head to the side, listening. "Hear that?"

Kiara looked around, searching for the source of the sound. "Someone's here..." She shifted and waited, one hand casually resting on the crystal sword beneath her trenchcoat.

Chun pushed her goggles to her forehead, leaning forward to rest her arms on Torrential's head. The demon scratched at the crystal ground restlessly with a claw.

Reno's head swiveled to face the direction of the footsteps. Caf leaned in slightly towards the sound. His nostrils twitched. Reno's did the same, in-synch.

A crash of metal sounded, even closer than the footsteps, again coming from the direction of the building. Near the grounded transport ship, a large pair of double doors hung half-open.

Reno and Caf's heads jerked back simultaneously. "What was that?"

Seth took advantage of finally being back on solid ground to pull out and light a fresh cigarette. "It was interesting." The quartz beast he sat on floated in the direction of the noise.

Chun grinned. "It sounds like a person. They can't be too much of a threat..." Torrential took steps towards the sound, Chun swaying a bit with each movement. Her eager smile didn't disappear as dull thuds slowly approached.

Reno and Caf's backs both arched a bit. It seemed like they shared certain tics now. Reno's suit hadn't changed color since the implantation of the crystal, remaining a tawny brown, possibly an indication of Reno's now-constantly-alert mental state.

Kiara tapped her foot in annoyance, and began to speak. "Well, this suspense is just getting ridic--"

She was cut off as a duct on the outside of the building burst open, and a raggedy-looking man spilled to the ground. He had shoulder-length black hair that matched his scraggly beard, and was dressed in extremely dirty mining gear. He coughed violently from his position on the crystal, slowly dragging himself up to lean against the rough metal wall. ((David Gottsegen))

"Oh, well, there we go," Kiara remarked, looking a bit disappointed. "He doesn't look like a threat at all."

Scorpia flashed black and white quickly and began to scuttle towards the man. "Eh ey!" Spider halted the giant insect, which slunk back towards her, hanging its shifting head.

Seth gazed thoughtfully down at the man. "And what might you be doing here?"

The man froze, seeming to finally notice them as a direct question was posed to him. He looked around frantically, then dashed off in the direction of the transport ship.

Caf suddenly let out a shriek, and darted straight in the direction of the fleeing man. Reno looked uncharacteristically horrified. "CAF! NO!" Caf plummeted to the ground, stopping just feet from the man.

He stumbled and fell to the ground as the demon gained on him, and lay on his back staring up at the creature. "Get away from me!"

Torrential pranced over to the man, lowering his head down close. Chun leaned forward and grinned widely at the stranger. "Boo!"

He began to shiver violently and sweat. "Who the hell are you people!?"

Kiara scowled in Reno's direction. "Reno. Control your demon."

Reno scoffed as she gathered herself "Iiiii'm TRYINNGGGGGGG."

Seth floated over to the man, still not leaving his perch in his demon. "Yo, we have nothing against you, mate. We just wanna know why you're here."

The man said nothing, just looked up at the trio of demons and riders around him in confusion and fear.

"Oh. Right. These." Seth let out a brief cackle. "Don't worry about these guys, mate. I'm pretty sure they won't hurt you."

Spider walked over to Reno, Scorpia scuttling obediently behind. "Do you want me to get Scorpia to beat up Caf for you?" She offered, sounding completely serious.

Reno and Caf gave dual growls, glaring at Spider and Scorpia. With so many mimicked movements, it was hard to tell who was in control.

"Okay, okay!" Spider held up her hands, and Scorpia backed down, eliciting a quiet chuckle from Chun.

The man on the ground scrambled to his feet, bracing himself against the side of the transport ship. "You laugh now, but you'll see who's laughing when they're all dead!"

Seth raised an eyebrow. "When they're all dead?"

"Every one of you."

"Is that so? Do elaborate."

Chun turned sharply towards the man, scowling. "Yeah, why would WE be dead?" Torrential got riled up, stretching his wings and bucking his back.

The man's voice got very quiet. "It won't matter much... not here, anyway."

"I'm just going to wait patiently," Spider mumbled to herself. "Until I figure out what they're talking about..."

He began to edge along the side of the ship, towards the door to the building. "My guess is that none of you will survive." He pointed at Chun. "Especially you."

Chun frowned as Torrential became harder to control, snapping his beak towards the man, obviously violent. "Ha! Me?"

Reno furrowed her eyebrows. Not in the direction of the man, but out into space. She seemed to be concentrating on something else.

"Oh. You think these things," Seth motioned to the demons. "Are going to kill us?"

Spider walked besides Seth. "I don't think he's talking about our demons..." She said with a sudden frown.

"Oh, who knows, maybe I am." The man twitched a bit. "I don't even know any more!"

"Augh!" Spider clenched her hands to her head. "Why doesn't anyone make any SENSE any more?"

"Hey! Shut up about our sweet steeds!" said Caf, twisted mouth opening in rapid sequence. Reno's eyes lit up. Caf was talking in her voice, in a voice that decidedly did not belong coming out of a demonic mouth.

Spider stalked forward to the man, and grabbed his shirt with one hand, slapping him across the face with the other. "Start speaking our language!" She shouted.

The man let out a nervous giggle, clearly cracking. "Who cares what language you speak? It's all the same..."

"Hot DAMN!" Shouted Caf, though Reno was the one making the facial expressions and lip movements. "He can speak my thoughts!"

Spider shook the man violently. "What. Is. Going. ON!?" Apparently, the man would start making sense if she shouted at him. Obviously. Scorpia stood behind her, hissing white gas. It raised its two massive stingers.

He looked at her, eyes wide. "First to go are the lights."

Kiara paused, then sighed. "Spider. Back off. Maybe we can convince him to make some sense."

"Shh!" She hissed back, not turning away from the man, face stony cold.

"Second, the sounds... screaming, everywhere." He began to sweat more profusely. "I don't remember much, uh, some whistling? Whipping, maybe?"

Torrential landed again, obviously calmer. Chun lifted an eyebrow. "We're wasting our time here! This guy is raving mad."

"Wait..." Spider said. "Are there more people in there?" She asked, her voice strangely calm.

"No, they're gone now, you will be too. You'll find them after you go, maybe. I don't know where it is, though, but I'm sure to go too..."

Kiara frowned. "Go where?"

"Wherever the people who leave go. Those... friends," he spat, "will take you there someday, I'm sure."

"Damn," Spider whispered, and dropped the guy unceremoniously.

Seth finally spoke up, clearly getting bored. "The fuck're you talking about? Hell?"

"Leave from where?" Said Reno, from her own body this time. "This place? The Void?" And then with a mocking tone, "Our mortal coil?"

Spider rolled her eyes. "You guys are more dense than I am. And I don't like the idea of going in there." She jerked her head towards the door.

Chun grimaced, obviously not caring at all about what this guy was talking about. "Do we really NEED to go in there, anyway? There isn't anything wrong with talking and planning outside. Plus, I don't even know if I can fit Torrential in there, and I am NOT leaving him out here."

Seth raised an eyebrow at her. "... supplies. Unless you want to fast until we hit Sector One."

"How do we know Bozo here didn't already deplete the supplies?" Chun elbowed the very confused and obviously crazy man. "Eh, Bozo, you eat our food?"

He just looked at her in confusion.

"Fine, then, you guys stay out here." Seth walked towards the doors. "I'm gonna go get some food. Anyone who wants to can join me."

"Okay, valid point," said Reno, dropping her sarcasm. "I'll go, Seth."

With a desolate sigh and a whine in her voice, Spider said, "I'm sure I can get Scorpia to fit in there too... I'll come."

"Whatever," Kiara muttered. "I'm staying out here. Make sure no one else shows up."

Chun raised an eyebrow at the doors to the barracks. "I'm not even going to try to get Torrential in there. I'm staying out here."

"Very well. Kiara, Chun, you can... watch our backs, or whatever." Seth hopped off his beast and stepped up to the doors, examining them. They were undamaged, but hung curiously open.

The man followed him, walking awkwardly, almost stumbling once or twice. "If you go in, your fate goes with you."

"The worst that can happen is I'll go back home," Spider said quietly, as she and Scorpia scuttled to the doors. The scorpion was mad with red energy, its whole form twitching slightly.

Seth chuckled to himself. "Heh. Fate."

Kiara sighed, smoothing down her trenchcoat. "I'm going for a walk, see if there's anything else here. I'll be back later."

Reno watched them go, then turned back to the man. "Hey, Cryptic-o dude. Just so we don't have to come up with a million different nicknames for you, what's your name?"

He laughed. "I guess my name was Garus." He frowned, eyes still looking at Reno but seeming to not see her. "But since then I am Wurm."

"...worm? Okay," Reno deadpanned. Ahead of her, Seth and Spider headed into the building.

Chun slid off Torrential's back, starting to follow after Kiara and Umbra, but paused, looking back. "Wurm! You going in with them, or hanging out with me?"

His eyes went wide. "Wait! Don't leave me with them!"

Chun just grinned at him. "Oh, don't worry, I don't bite. But he might!" She pointed to Torrential.

Reno sighed in exasperation as Wurm scurried away from the massive crow, in through the door she held open, then followed him in, Caf squeezing into the hallway behind her.

Inside, the hallway led straight ahead towards what looked like an elevator shaft at the far end. Paths led off to the sides--stairways up and down to bedrooms, mess halls, ore dumps, and places like that.

Seth stood at the far end of the hall, leaning against the wall, his demon next to him. He casually cracked his knuckles, and watched as Spider came scurrying in from a side hall, along the ceiling. "Anything?" He asked her.

She shook her head. "This hall is just as empty of food as the last one."

Reno raised an eyebrow. "What's up?"

Seth pushed off from the wall, standing upright. "Apparently Chun wasn't being as funny as she thought. Wurm, where's all the food?"

Wurm shuffled from side to side, glancing at Caf filling the corridor behind him, then Scorpia and Seth's demon up ahead. "We... it... it's all down there. In the pit." He pointed to the elevator at the end of the hall.

"Right then," Seth grumbled. "Guess we're heading down after it."

The elevator was fairly large, clearly intended as some sort of freight lift. It was a wide platform surrounded by mesh-cage walls. A utilitarian lever was on one wall, with two simple settings--up and down.

Spider led the way in, rightside-up for once, Scorpia shrinking down considerably next to her. Seth followed, his demon close behind. Wurm crawled in, trying to keep as much distance between him and the demons as possible.

Caf clawed her way up the elevator wall to hang on the ceiling, Reno still on her back. "Okay," she said. "Can we get this thing moving before ALL the blood in my body rushes to my head?"

Spider grabbed the lever and yanked it down violently. As gears whirred and the elevator began to descend, she glanced over at Reno. "See, that's why it helps to change your gravity instead of just standing upside down."

"Wooooooooow," replied Reno. "I should try that! Yeah! That's totally physically possible for me!" Her voice became suddenly serious again. "Which begs the question... how can YOU do that?"

Spider scratched her head, looking at the shaft outside. It was lined with various old tunnels, metal support structures, and other channels, all cut into the solid rock vein. "Well..." Spider said, stretching the word out nice and long. "It's a long story... involving the inside of a crystal... and a giant slug... and some stomping boots..." Her voice took on a bitter edge. "I learned my lesson, though."

Hundreds of feet down, the elevator clicked to a grinding halt. The light was dimmer down here, filtered down from up above. The only real source of clear light was the bare bulb of the elevator. As the wire doors slid open, it fizzled out with a pop.

Wurm looked up at it, eyes narrow. "First go the lights."

((59 - Laki))

"Oh, shhh!" Spider said to Wurm, stepping out through the doors. "It's still light enough to see fine."

Tunnels led off in various directions from the walls of the shaft. Up ahead, the Void was a small circle of light, leaving the deep bathed in a dim twilight.

In the broad, open center of the shaft, though, there lay some kind of creature, half a dozen feet tall. It was chitinous, and the one large eye on top of its sectioned body looked around with sharp, clicking movements. ((Dylan Scott)) As the four people and their three demons piled out of the elevator, it skittered to the far side of the shaft, moving startlingly quickly on its six legs.

"Woah," said Reno. "Giant bug." She didn't sound particularly impressed.

"So the screams should be coming nowish, eh Wurm?" Seth raised an eyebrow at the man, who was standing there staring, wide-eyed, pale.

"Ew," said Spider loudly, glancing to the others. "So, what now? We fight it?" Her voice echoed dramatically around the cavern, coming back at them from all sides. 'What... we fight... fight now... what... what...'

Seth’s lit cigarette glowed in the pseudo-darkness. He slowly strolled towards the oversized insect, letting out a laugh as it leapt along the edge of the shaft, further away from him. “It’s afraid of us?”

From nowhere in particular came a sound like a sheet being ripped in half, or a thousand bees dying. Wurm let out a scream, collapsing backwards against the wall of the shaft.

Seth looked at Wurm, then back to where the creature was—or had been. It was conspicuously absent. “Oh,” he said, voice trembling ever so slightly. “There are the screams.”

Reno looked around, eyes flashing each direction, suddenly very alert. “Where did it go?”

Spider frowned. “I don’t know… it was there a second ago.” She glanced over at Wurm, and saw him staring straight upwards, eyes wide. She followed his gaze, trying to figure out what he was looking at.

Emitting a horrible screaming shriek, the bug was hurtling down towards them, pincers flashing, dripping massive globs of venom.

Scorpia and Spider leapt against the side well, letting out a stream of curses, dodging out of the way. “Don’t just STAND there!” She screamed at the rest of them.

As the creature redirected in mid-air towards Spider, one of the venom drops struck Caf on the shoulder. Once again, he and Reno let out synchronized screams.

Spider raised an arm to parry the bug, as Scorpia readied her two huge stingers, preparing to sting the thing. As the two lashed out towards it, it seemed to coalesce through them, thinning and disappearing.

Reno clamped her hands to her head and began to breathe words in a raspy voice that was most certainly not hers. "M-m-mast-master! It...BURNS, master!"

Spider and Scorpia both dropped down the floor of the shaft, looking mad. “Dammit! Where the hell did it—”

They were cut off by Reno’s sudden yelp as she was abruptly knocked forward by the creature slamming into the backs of her knees. She almost immediately went into violent spasms, not unlike a seizure, as it loomed over her.

Seth pulled a small hand pistol out of his jacket. It was meant for small demons, not chitinous creatures like this. “Worth a shot, he breathed.” He aimed it at the creature atop his friend.

“SETH!” Caf cried in Reno’s voice. “YOU FUCKER! DON’T SHOOT ME!”

He pulled the trigger, and with a loud snap the gun went off. As it did, a thousand ghost shadows coalesced around the bug, pulling it away into nothingness.

“C’mon Reno, you know I’m a good shot.” He grinned. “You’re fine.”

Spider’s hand shot to the pouch at her belt and brought up her crystal gun, aiming it at Seth. The giant bug was right behind him. “SETH!” She shouted. “DUCK!”

“Shit!” He dropped flat to the ground as Spider fired twice. But as the bug leapt towards Seth’s head, jaws at the ready it seemed to fade away.

—And Spider felt something slam into her legs from behind. She tripped, and fell upwards, slamming into the side of the crevice. “Godamnitsonvabitch!” Scorpia leapt at where the giant bug would be, trying to sting it, but it wasn’t there.

“The fuck is this thing? Some kinda ghost?” Seth said angrily. He walked to where Reno still lay on the ground, twitching slightly, but not spazzing anymore.

Spider moaned, and pushed herself up on the wall. “This isn’t working,” she panted heavily. “How do you kill a ghost?”

Seth shrugged. “I got nothing.”

Near Reno, Caf started to stumble, losing balance on a suddenly limp left foreleg, still suffering from the bug’s venom. Once again, Reno silently mouthed, “…m…a…ster…”

Wurm came crawling cautiously out of the elevator, looking around, shaking. “The lights… the screams…”

Seth looked hard at the man, who was starting to seem a little less mad. “What happens next, Wurm?”

Wurm looked at him with bloodshot eyes. “The voice…”

As if on cue, a massive booming voice echoed throughout the cavern. “I. AM. HUMAN.”

Seth raised an eyebrow. “Eh?” He looked around for the bug, presumably the source of the voice, but didn’t see it.

“Hey, if you’re human,” Spider said, “then I’m a demon… oh, wait.” She paused, and pressed a finger to her lips.

Suddenly the bug was among them one more, sitting in the center of the pit. It spoke again, the voice seeming to emanate from its single eye. “I AM TERZA RIMA.”

Seth shook his head. “Back to not being human. That’s cool.”

It skittered up to him. “WHAT ARE YOU?”

“Us? We’re the motherfucking Talons, yo.” Seth crossed his arms over his chest and looked at the bug, intrigued. “Why jump us?”

“Talons. Tell me this: what is human?” It turned in a circle, its spindly legs clacking against the crystal floor.

Seth sighed. “I’m not a scientist. I’m not a philosopher. Someone else field this one.”

Spider looked to Reno, then to Terza Rima. “Well there’s humans and demons,” she said slowly. “What else is there? You have to be one or the other… or both, I suppose…”

“Human,” Reno said, her voice now seeming to come from both herself and Caf. “Homo Sapien. Intelligent, thinking, vertebrate, ammals.”

Spider gave her a very confused look.

“… or is it hammals?” Caf quirked his head to one side, looking to Reno, as they both spoke.

“Both? No. There is human, and there is monster. I am not a monster.”

“Well, you’re doing a good job of freaking us out,” Spider said.

Caf walked up to Terza Rima. “Okay… how exactly are you not a monster?”

“I THINK.”

Seth frowned. “Thought isn’t—”

It cut him off. “Sometimes. Sometimes I do not think. Sometimes I am the chaos, and the chaos is me.”

Spider threw her hands in the air. “Chaos! Monsters! Humans! No one makes sense any more!”

“When are you the chaos, Terza Rima?” Seth asked slowly.

There was a pause, and then the bug vanished. Its voice came again, from thin air. “NOW.”

Once more it was shrieking through the air, this time targeting Caf, who scrambled backwards. Reno let out an inhuman shriek, and threw herself between the bug and her demon. All three collided and—

((82 — Poison Prison))

Reno stood atop a mountain, a real mountain of brown earth and stone, the kind she had only ever seen in picture books. Above her the sky shone yellow, filled with acidic green clouds. She felt a presence at her shoulder, and turned to find Caf sitting there. He lowered his head and nuzzled it against her shoulder, and she smiled. There had been something—

Terza Rima stood before them, perched on a rocky spire. “Come, Talon. Come and see the happening.”

In her somewhat dreamlike state, it didn’t occur to Reno not to do so. She walked to the edge of the peak, and looked down at the massive plain below. Thousands of creatures just like Terza Rima were there, clashing in what could only be described as war.

She watched in silence as killing and death on a scale she had never before seen unfolded. Caf crouched low next to her, and she could feel his heartbeat in her ears, pounding steadily in time to the beat of violence in the field.

Huge sparks began to erupt here and there in the battle. Vast gouts of flame and lightning, glowing beams that vaporized dozens of the creatures. It was unmistakably magic.

From beside her, Terza Rima spoke, in a voice quieter than any he had used before. “This is the chaos that becomes us. This is the chaos that destroys us.”

Finally, Reno managed to crack the silence in her throat. “Is… this what happened to your people? You wiped each other out with magic?”

“The chaos claimed us, until I alone remained.”

She turned away from the battle, looking to Terza Rima. “Huh. How did you wind up here?”

He did not answer, instead scuttling to Caf. “The chaos is in you as well. In you both. If you do not understand it, it will consume you.”

As he said the words, Reno could feel her connection to Caf returning. Her thoughts were no longer just hers—they were his as well. A feral instinct crawling inside her head, a sort of madness. But now that she saw this feeling, now that she understood, she was able to welcome it.

“You must apart. You must be separate. If you are not, the chaos will become you as well.”

Reno frowned. “No. I’m not cutting Caf off. He’s a part of me, now.”

“Then you will be taken.” Terza Rima began to turn away.

“Wait!” Reno took a step towards him, Caf following suit. “Where are you going?”

“The chaos comes. There is nothing of me. There is chaos.”

The world began to fade around them, cracks appearing, holes in the world.

“You are not alone, Talon. The darkness comes. Find light, if you are to live.”

“Terza Rima…” Reno and Caf were now alone on what was left of the peak.

“There is no Terza Rima. There is chaos.”

—and she was lying on her back, suddenly in the mineshaft again. She could see the distant circle of light overhead. Caf huddled next to her, and nipped at her arm.

“Y’alright, Reno?” Seth asked, standing over her.

She got to her feet, leaning against Caf for support. “Yeah, yeah… what happened?”

“That demon-bug-thing did. It hit you and vanished, and left you and Caf twitching like crazy for a few minutes.”

Reno nodded slowly, unsure how to explain what she had seen inside Terza Rima’s memories.

“Oh,” Seth continued. “And that Wurm guy ran off down a corridor. Spider went after him a few minutes ago.”

.

“Helloooo? Wuuuuurm?” Spider’s voice echoed back to her along the corridor as she walked. She hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary yet, just low hanging lights and small branching pathways into the crystal. Scorpia scuttled along obediently beside her.

From around the next bend, she heard someone trip and fall, and a short cry that sounded like Wurm’s voice.

She moved to investigate, but before she could, the lights in the next section of hallway went out.

Then the next lightbulb burned bright and died.

And the next.

The darkness crept closer, looking dangerously alive. Memories of the shadows in the crystal of Face came unbidden to the surface of her mind, and suddenly staying in the tunnel didn’t seem like a good idea. Spider changed her gravity, and fell at high speed back the way she had come, the darkness following close behind as the lights fizzled one by one.

Spider and Scorpia shot out into the main space, where Reno and Seth still stood. Behind her, the darkness reached the end of the tunnel—

—and stopped short. It stayed contained within the tunnel, as if unable to leave. The entrance was a seething mass of living darkness, seeming to claw at the light outside.

Seth stared at it. “What the shit. Spider, what’d you find?”

“I found what’s killing people, I think! Wurm’s in there!” She settled lightly to the ground, still mildly freaking out.

Reno frowned. “That’s not Terza Rima… whatever it is, though, we have to get rid of it.”

A sound like whistling and ripping filled the air, as something began to glow within the darkness. After a moment, a glowing blue-white orb erupted out of it, shooting through the air. It flew straight through Spider and Scorpia as it flitted around the bottom of the shaft, then suddenly jerked upwards, vanishing out of sight towards the top of the shaft.

Seth blinked. “… what.”

The darkness began to retreat back down the tunnel it had come from, and one by one, the lights in the tunnel winked back on.

“Wait a sec…” said Reno. “Didn’t Wurm say there’d be screaming next?”

A horrific scream pierced the air, echoing out of the tunnel Spider and Scorpia had just vacated.

Reno and Caf shivered in unison. “Right on cue!”

“Fuck it.” Spider clenched her jaw, and shook her head. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I’m with you,” said Reno, hopping on Caf.

Seth took a half-step forward, then back. He so wanted to explore, but at the same time, he was freaked the fuck out. He stood there, having an intense internal battle as to whether to stay or to go. “Oh, what the hell, I’ll be right back.” He reached into his coat and flipped out a switchblade. In his other hand, he took out his lighter. Just in case.

Spider looked over at him. “Iiiiiiiiiii don’t think that’s a good idea!” she said loudly.

“Who said it was?” He replied, laughing, as he walked towards the tunnel. “But I can’t turn around now…”

Spider bit her lip. If they didn’t stop this new… thing… more humans would probably die, when they came here to investigate. She smiled slightly, but it was pained. “Dammit.”

Seth turned his back on his friends, stepping into the semi-darkness of the tunnel. “I’ll see you all on the surface.”

BLOODRED HOPE (1)

2009-11-21T11:51:00.000-08:00

.
((57 - Wall of Breath))

...

..........

Red..............

Just the color, at first.

Then a sense of motion.

Throbbing. A pulse.

It hurts.

It doesn't make sense.

There's so much, so much of it, all of it, too much of it.

What is it? Does it matter?

It doesn't make sense.

Make it make sense.

Make it work.

Fix it.

Make it make sense.

Make it make sense.

Red.............

The color is sunlight.

Filtered down through... water?

With a start, Jaz realized she was lying on her back, looking up at... water? She blinked. Felt herself out, trying to find what hurt, what was broken, what worked, what didn't. She was fully intact, to her surprise. Naked, but physically unharmed. In perfect physical condition, even--her scars were gone.

She twitched her fingers, and her shoulders, and then she was rolling to her feet, battle-ready, her fingers twitching now not because she wanted them to but because they should be gripping swords. She stared around, stared up, regulating her breath, trying to get herself oriented.

She was in... something. A tunnel. A tunnel of air, deep underneath far too much water. The ground beneath was... soft, and made of something tannish-brown. It almost felt like a mountain of grainy dust underfoot. In the water lurked shadowy forms, moving about silently. They flowed through it, shifting in and out of focus.

The liquid around her began to boil slightly, turning suddenly grayish-green. The red light still filtered down from above, but was now considerably muted.

Jaz relaxed her stance a bit, brushing the dust off of her back, her eyes glued upwards as she realized there was nothing holding the water away from her face, not glass, not plastic, just... air. She raised a fascinated hand, wanting to touch it, but pulled away as it began to change before her eyes.

She looked both ways down the tunnel, trying to find a way out. All she saw was it stretching off, curving away, fading into indistinctness in both directions. She shrugged to and tried to mutter something, but found her voice strangled from disuse. She coughed and chose a direction, walking briskly, almost jogging. The ground underfoot had a bit of give to it, and felt weird between her toes. She took a moment to curse her lack of boots, and her voice worked fine this time. It brought comfort, even, gave reality to the surreality around her.

As she ran, the liquid around her continued to shift, changing colors and textures several times. Always that dappled light, though, and always... always those shadows. They lurked just at the edge of vision, swimming through whatever it was.

After a time, she saw something more. Out a ways from the tunnel, there was an immense fissure in the ground. It belched great clouds of black smoke, glowing an even deeper red than the light from above. Something stood beside it, considerably more solid than the other shadows. It was a vaguely humanoid form, legs rooted in the waving tendrils of some sort of glowing vegatation. It was wearing a cowl and shawl, but rather clearly had more than two arm-limbs, which it waved meditatively. ((Michael Joseph Grant V))

Jaz frowned, and slowed down. "Hey!" She shouted, and found the louder she was, the more things seemed to make sense. Maybe you're just egotistical, one part of her brain whispered at her, but she ignored it.

The figure's hood jerked against the current as whoever was inside turned its head to look.

"Hey! You! Can you tell me what's going on?" She walked to the edge of the tunnel and raised a fist as if to knock on the glass of a window. She realized halfway through that it probably wouldn't work the same way, but knocked anyhow, banging her fist on the wall of water. Where she did, the wall of the tunnel bubbled outwards, appearing to boil the water away in front of it.

The figured gestured obscurely, as though speaking, then beckoned. It still wasn't clear how many arms it had. Certainly upwards of three. The boiling away of the water began to extend towards it, clearing a path.

Jaz stumbled a bit, as she was about to thrust her face through the wall to see if she could hear the figure better. She recovered and cursed at herself, shaking off her fog-headedness, and followed the new path.

The shadows in the liquid, seeming to notice this, swam towards the edges of the tunnel. The remained every bit as indistinct, though, even as they came closer.

The tunnel of air extended to include the figure, passing just alongside the fissure. The vegetation around the bottom of the cloaked form faded away as the tunnel of air bubbled past it, as if it had never been there. The figure settled gently to the ground with a faint, echoing clicking and clattering. Now it had but two arms, and seemed to be regarding Jaz, looking at her feet.

Jaz approached, cautions, not sure she could trust her head. "Excuse me?"

"Yes." The voice was edgy, placing emphasis in all the wrong places, even within a single syllable.

"Hello." Jaz's hands hung loosely at her side, and she kept her own voice as neutral as possible. "Where am I?"

"No, black-smith, not where. Who are you?" It steepled its hands, and bony finger-claws poked out of its sleeves. Far too many fingers! Or perhaps not enough, depending on the mindset. Say, a dozen digits on each limb.

Jaz frowned. "Black-smith? What..." She shook her head, and stood to attention. "Jazrill Quinn, Captain of--" She stopped. "Former Captain of the Oliver, now Co-Captain of the..."

She stopped again, thinking. "We never got around to naming it..." She looked back up at the thing, and noticed the fingers. She took a half-step back, her feet sliding into a fighting stance automatically. "Sir," she ended, and then then thought again. "Ma'am? Sir."

The thing seemed unconcerned or perhaps even uncomprehending of the gender issue. "You are so sure?"

Jaz stood straight. "I am sure that I am Jazrill Quinn, sir," she said, deciding. "And I'll be damned if I'm not a Captain."

It shook its head. "Good. This is good. How straaaaaange."

"Oh, it's good, is it? What the hell is good about it?"

"It is good you are sure. Strange-good." It took a step to one side, not towards her, its cowl rustling, face still fully concealed. "What is your powyr, Blacks Mith? Why can your kind come and go as they please? I see them but they have no such powyr. Only metal."

"Okay, listen, I have no idea what a 'blacksmith' is, firstly, and secondly, I certainly didn't come as I PLEASED, if I remember correctly I was fucking EATEN." She paused for breath, and continued more quietly, though with no less frustration. "And I don't even have any metal because my WEAPONS are missing, and no crystal because my SWORDS are gone too."

The fingers began to pick at each other nervously, then stopped. "You are not blecksmith?"

"I am Jazrill Quinn, we've been over this." She crossed her arms over her bare chest. "You haven't told me YOUR name, that's not exactly polite."

The creature ignored the implied question. "But if you are not of... of Blaskmith, what is the name of what you are?"

"Well, I'm a Captain, if I ever find Kasby and the ship. I'm a warrior, I guess you could say." She looked down at herself, still naked, though that didn't seem to be bothering her as much as she thought it should. "I'm, um, a woman? Human? That might help."

It shrank back, overwhelmed. The fingers rose into the draped hood and flickered, presumably worrying at an unseen brow. "You have many names. Not so many as I. But many still."

"Can you please tell me what's going on? And I'd like my swords." She blinked a moment, then muttered, "I guess some clothes would be nice, too." It was obvious the figure wasn't listening, so she paid attention to its words rather than her own.

"You have no clothes?" It questioned.

Jaz's usual piloting clothes were in fact on her. Her loose shirt, brown pants, thick belt, leather jacket and all.

She reexamined herself. "Well, that was fucking weird. Fits with the rest, anyway." She raised her voice slightly. "And the swords?"

Nothing.

The creature looked from side to side. "What?"

Jaz scowled. "Goddammit, of course not, nothing's that easy." She crossed her arms again. "So why do you need to know what I am?"

"I was told you are blacksmifth. I do not have you. Or do I? Unknown. But, it is important, I must be told what is called what you are." The creature waved a few limbs. It wasn't quite clear how many it had just then. "Jasrel? Capting? Wareer? Wuh-min? Hyumin?"

"So do you need me to choose?" Jaz raised an eyebrow. "Do I have too many names?"

"... No. But there are kinds of names. Names tell. Some names tell type, some tell quality, some tell manyness..." It paused, apparently thinking. "What is the name of the thing that you are, that others are also?"

"Well... the most general name, you mean? That would be human, I guess."

"Hueman. Yes. This is good. You are eaten? But you have your clothes. And skin and meat and bones and scales and hair and leaves." As it listed things, its forelimbs unfolded out of its sleeves into more, fingers disappearing back up into the folds of the sleeves again.

"I don't think I have scales. Or leaves." She looked down at herself, just to be sure. Yup, still human. "So... I guess I wasn't eaten? Listen, I really don't have time for this. What if the others didn't get away in time? I should find them. And even if they did... what will they think? Fuck, poor Kasby..." She frowned, and shifted her weight slightly. "So if you could just... let me know how to get out of this place, maybe hook me up with a ship..."

It nodded sagely. "No way out. Only in."

"Yeah, well, you also thought I was a blacksmith, whatever the hell that is, and that I had scales. Sorry, sir, but fuck you. Anyone else I could talk to around here?"

It nodded.

Jaz's face became more sarcastically frustrated, and she pulled back. "There is? Oh, great. He any more helpful than you?"

It nodded again.

Jaz raised an eyebrow, skeptical. "Really? Will I think so?"

It nodded a third time. "What are you speaking of?"

She sighed explosively. "Nevermind. Talking is not the way I get things done anyway. I don't know why I've been doing it so pointlessly for so long. Least I have clothes... so you can only get IN, huh?"

"Yes, and no. Most do not get in, like blacksm... huemins have."

"Well, how'd I get in? Most doors go both ways... they may not be designed to, but with enough persuasion, sure." Her mouth was set, now, her arms on her hips. She'd remembered that she was needed, somewhere.

"So I wonder, how is this powyr?" The creature was mostly muttering to itself, now. "How to go? Zebera left. Maybe not so."

Jaz stared at the thing. "Zebra? Zebra was HERE?"

The limbs all paused, mid-motion. "How do you know the Zebra? The one who is named Zebra but who is Blecksmythe? Why I cannot see your brains? So many questions!" It brought its arms around in a circle, this time displaying tendrils, not hands of any sort.

"She's a friend of mine, but... how was she HERE? Were they all here? Spider and Owl and Skunk, and a man named Kasby, were they here? Did I just miss them?" Jaz's eyes were boring into the thing, now. Her hand flashed out, exasperated with its questions, its constant movement, and caught one of the tendrils. "Was Kasby here? Tell me!"

Everything froze.

The liquid around them crystallized instantly, forming not ice but something much more solid. The ground around Jaz's feet turned flat gray, a blank matte panel. The gray shot off to her left, boring through the not-ice, cutting a hole, a pathway, a fading.

The thing let out a weird, animalistic squeal-howl. "WHAT DID YOU DID!?" Around it, the shadows could be seen frozen stock-still, locked in their positions, but still indistinct.

Jaz released it, bewildered. "I didn't--this wasn't me! How I could have done this? If anything, I should be asking-- Oh, I see, clever." She darted forward again, this time catching the thing approximately where the throat should be and slamming it against the now-solid wall of the tunnel.

The wall cracked a little bit, shards of the not-ice flying into the air. Jaz's crystal sword was rather abruptly in her other hand, with its matching twin at her belt. She spared a moment to grin, though it was a wondering grin, and then sobered. "Listen, you. I don't know what you're trying to do or how the HELL you did it but I am not happy."

About two dozen spurs and barbs and arms and talons and pincers rose to cover the creature's exposed face. Still, three bright red eyes shone through all that, somehow more substantial than the rest of the body.

She drew back a bit from the face, but didn't let go. "Tell me where they went, and that's it. We're through. Otherwise... I seem to have acquired a nicely pointed piece of crystal, here, one that I am rather fond of. Fare more fond of it than you... and it needs a new sheath."

After a pause, it began to yell, its voiced backed by half a dozen others, some clicks, some far from human-sounding. "Where to go? ME? YOU! You are ruining EVERYTHING!" It was frothing with anger, and fear, and then suddenly its voice went pathetic, reverting back to a single pitch. "Now I am cut off, off from the pool! Stuck! No shadows, but I am dying! DYING!"

For a moment, Jaz trembled on the edge of her anger. Both her hands tightened, and she drew in a sharp breath through her nose--and let it go. She opened her hand, and dropped the thing. "God... fucking... DAMMIT."

The creature fell further than it should have before rising on its semi-ethereal limbs. It let out a strangled cry of... well, it was hard to tell. Frustration? Sorrow?

She kicked the wall, hoping to shatter something, if only because it would make her feel better. The not-ice did crack a bit, and some flakes flew off.

The creature perked up. "Wait. Do again!"

Jaz rolled her eyes, turning towards the thing. "Do. What. Again."

"Nevermind," it said coldly, collecting itself, examining the wall.

"Almost kill you? Gladly! If you're going to keep crying like that, maybe I'll finish the--oh." She kicked the wall again, harder, this time. A larger crack ran up it, and a fist-sized chunk of not-ice fell off. It touched the matte gray surface around Jaz's feet, and was promptly absorbed into it.

"Kill me and you will surely die. But who cares? If I do who will care for you? Not one. I am all." It was mostly muttering to itself again. It bent down to examine the gray surface. 'Bending down,' of course, was more complicated than one might expect. The walkway underfoot was almost metal. Almost.

"Care for me?" She kicked the wall, again, again. "Oh, there are people who care for me. And I'll get out of here, with you or without you, and I'll get back to them, and you would have died alone and--" She stopped, looking at the thing. "Sorry, I don't mean that. You're obviously... well, you're not obviously anything, but this isn't your fault. None of it." She resumed kicking.

It rose as she spoke, gazing down the gray pathway to nowhere, then to the fissure, still frozen off in the ice in the direction Jaz was kicking, then back at her. "Oh. I see. I see."

"I would still like to know how you know about Zebra, though. In fact, I'd LOVE to know." She frowned, and took a few steps back. "And why we're kicking our way through this when there's a pathway right there."

"Get out of my world."

"Show me how, and I'll be glad to."

"Yes." It raised three closely-bound arms, which swirled in the air. "Like this."

"I have to turn around?" From her right came a great wrenching cracking, and she spun to see what it was, both swords out now.

The not-ice wall shattered at roughly knee-leve as the fissure in the ground cracked open wider, splitting the still-visible sand, shooting towards her. It hit the edge of her little walkway of gray metal, and a plume of red fire shot out of it, straight towards Jaz.

She tried to leap backwards, stumbled, fell--and then stood, entirely confused, as the fire washed past her harmlessly. "I..."

"WHAT?"

"That's not what you meant, then, this isn't... me, leaving? This is not how you leave?"

"WHAT!" Suddenly the creature was a dancing tangle of limbs, invoking every offensive spell it could think of. Lightning, tornadoes, runes, a whirlwind barrage of attacks flew out of every orifice of the world, all aimed straight at Jaz.

Every one shifted past her, flowing around her, leaving her completely unscathed in their wake. She was moving, now, dodging and un-dodging and standing still and jumping and half-trying to avoid everything but half just entirely and utterly puzzled. "What the fuck is happening?"

"GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!"

"HOW?"

Cracks appeared in the tunnel's not-ice, and a thousand tiny bugs poured of them, almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the ones Jaz had fought in the Corkscrew. Then the ceiling above her melted into not-rain, which fell, striking the insects and... searing them away, boiling them. The creature stopped whirling and threw an alien hissy fit, actually hissing and spitting and frothing a little before starting to calm down.

She glanced around, and darted down the pathway. It was better than being screamed at and covered in bugs. Again. The pathway seemed to stretch away into infinity before her, fading into a distant gray haze.

Jaz cast a glance back over her shoulder at the thing, but it was probably better off without her. She kept her swords ready and stalked forward. She was still angry, so angry at all this wasted time and nonsense. Who knew where Kasby and the others could be...

She kept walking, dead-set in the knowledge that she would her way out, one way or another. "I'll find you, Kasby. I promise."

BROKEN HOPE (6)

2009-11-20T23:10:00.000-08:00

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((55 - Mezame))

June 1st, 802 AT. 10:38 AM.

The chaos was controlled, industrial. No screams, only a mass of engines. Ships were dropping out of the myriad docking bays scattered throughout the Roost, and families scrambled to assemble their belongings. Quite a few had already evacuated, but the majority of the people of the Roost were still on it. Now, they desperately raced to their ships, trying to seek refuge.

The Quinn was as Kasby had left it--fueled up and ready to go. As promised, Ammon had removed the locking clamps, in expectation of the Quinn's imminent departure. There was only one problem. The doors of the docking bay, directly above the ship, were still sealed tight, and Kasby knew there was no way he was going to get a radio line to a docking coordinator now. He stared up at the sealed doors for a moment, and swallowed. "...Giraffe, go get in the gun turret."

"Yay guns!" The overeager woman said, climbing up the ladder to the top deck as fast as she could.

"Goat, Zebra, help me prep for a takeoff," Kasby ordered, climbing the ladder to the Quinn. "We're leaving, NOW." He settled down into the cockpit and pulled down on a lever. He picked up the intercom, busily hitting some switches with his other hand. "Giraffe, target those doors above us and make us an exit." Goat and Zebra flitted out, helping warm up the engines.

Giraffe aimed the HAVOC upwards and clenched down on both triggers. She hadn't trained on the gun as long as Skunk had, but over the previous month they'd all learned the basics of operating it. The doors above them rang, dented, and then ripped open outwards, as the metal flew off in chunks under Giraffe's onslaught of bullets.

"YEAH!" Goat cried enthusiastically, resisting the urge to leap around the cockpit.

With a flare of boosters, the Quinn shot up through the shredded doors, out into the Void. Overhead, the fog was a solid mass of red. The demons were so thick the fog of the Void itself glowed with their sickening red hue. They were in all shapes and sizes, all glowing that same red. None of the actual larvae, though, just their possessed demons...

"Oh, fun," Giraffe said, sarcasm dripping off of every word.

"Less sarcasm, more bullets!" Kasby shouted vehemently into the radio. He launched the Quinn into a spin, keeping the wings tucked in, heading up into the cloud of demons. Around them, half a dozen other ships were leaving the Roost through the top docking bays, riding out to battle in defense of their home.

"That's a lot of targets," Goat said, fumbling for his spear. He found it after a moment, leapt to the back deck.

A trio of winged demons, all vaguely scaly, came flying in towards them, shrieking. The demons were maybe half a meter wide. Giraffe hadn't let up the stream of metal for a moment, and her bullets tore through the first one in a shower of dark blood.

"Deploying Goat-Cannon!" Goat said, and leaped. He shot towards the demons like a dart with legs. He hit the second one full on, and his spear pierced its throat. It hacked up black blood onto his chest, then fell away dying. As fast as he had hit it, he pushed off, using its body as a launching pad to get bak to the ship.

With a cold expression, Kasby slammed on the throttle of the ship and wrenched a lever back. Ahead, the third of the demons swirled down, out of the area of Giraffe's fire. The Quinn leapt forward, engines roaring. The boosters kicked up and blasted the ship forward into the last demon. It smashed full on into the creature, which made a sicking splick as the ship smashed it to a pulp.

Around them, hundreds more demons swirled out of the mist past them. Many landed on the surface of the Roost, and screams started to fill the air. Kasby threw the Quinn into a roll, dodging past the flaming wreckage of a ship that had been run through by a small demon. Below them, it impacted against the Roost with a brutal crash.

Another demon, this one looking like a cloud of dark smoke with horns, came swirling in towards them.

"Where... do I aim?" Wondered Goat.

"Shit!" Giraffe bit her lip, and shot at various parts of the demon, though her fingers were starting to go numb from the constant vibration of the cannon.

The bullets flew through the cloud harmlessly as it flew down towards them. It extended its horns, the spikes shooting through the air.

Kasby angled the Quinn down, the engines roaring as it swept down towards the underside of the Roost. "Giraffe, switch the ammo cartridge!" The spikes cracked through the airspace the Quinn had vacated moments earlier, whipping past Goat and Giraffe.

"Doing so!" Next to the gun were several large canisters of various types of ammunition. She grabbed a cartridge and slotted it in, clicking the feed to the base of the HAVOC.

The cloud shot its horns at them again, this time aiming for Goat. He dodged it and leapt onto one, but it snapped back into the cloud faster than he could hold on.

Giraffe stood up, and went back to firing madly at the demon. The new rounds she had swapped in were not bullets, but rather the magic-draining crystal shards. They shredded through the cloud, dissipating it in a whiff of colored light. The horns crumbled into dust. She smiled. "Well, that works too."

((56 - Salva Nos))

The ship fell down at high speed, almost level now with the Roost. They could see, below it, dozens of ships falling out of the bottom of the base, out into the Void. Kasby pulled back the controls, leveling out the ship as they cruised along the underside of the Roost.

"Hey, look!" Goat pointed down and ahead. A ways below, five demons hung in a circle. All lacked the telltale red glow. As they watched, though, the demons dropped away into the fog at high speed. "They weren't red!" Goat said.

"I noticed," said Kasby. "We don't have time to deal with them anyway. Just make sure all these people get out."

A cracking noise rent the air, followed by another. The Roost was shaken by several large explosions from above it.

Suddenly, something large and red slipped out of one of the docking bays. It fell towards the ship that had just vacated that bay. It was pod-like, with seven twirling appendages. It spread them wide, and wrapped them around the falling ship. A series of runes and diagrams glowed across its tentacles, and the ship exploded in a shower of metal and debris. The creature flipped away from it, swimming through the air towards another falling ship.

"Giraffe, take it out NOW!" yelled Kasby, steering the ship parallel to the beast. "NOW!

"With pleasure!" She spun the HAVOC to face the creature, and opened up with the crystal shards, aiming at the main body.

The creature whirled to face them, and its tentacles traced a series of hexagons in the air. Where the tips of its tentacles trailed, the lines stayed glowing in the air. The crystals smashed into the hexagons and shattered. Its attention now fully on the Quinn, the creature turned around and swam towards them.

"Well, at least we got its attention," remarked Kasby gruffly. He yanked the controls to the side, tilting the ship horizontally, and flared the boosters just as they passed the Octo-Demon. The creature shrieked as the backwash from the engines played over it, leaving a dark burn across its back.

"Grr!" Goat held his spear tight in his hands, and launched himself off the deck at the demon. It snapped out of one of its tentacles, and caught Goat deftly, wrapped around him several times. "Gurgle!" He exclaimed in surprise.

"Noo!" Giraffe yelled, and stopped firing, out of fear of hitting Goat.

"Giraffe, use the grappling hook!" Kasby barked over the radio. "Hit the tentacle near Goat and he should be able to grab it!"

Now close-up, Goat could see the runes were etched into its skin, deep gray scar tissue. The runes near him started to glow, and he could feel the tentacles heating up. He struggled, but couldn't do much with his legs bound. Fortunately, his arms were free, and he began stabbing violently at the tentacle that held him with his spear.

Five of its other tentacles had begun tracing a more complex pattern in the air, but at this new attack, it shrieked even louder than before, and rather dramatically let go of Goat. In fact, the entire tentacle fell away with him, still wrapped around him, ripped off from where he had stabbed it.

"THE GRAPPLING HOOK, GIRAFFE!" Kasby shouted. "NOW!"

Finally finding the right switch, Giraffe clicked the gun over to the grappling hook, mounted below the barrels. She swiveled it down, and fired at the falling tenta-Goat.

The hook went flying a good ways past the tentacle, but Goat managed to push off the tentacle with enough force that he could grab the rope as it went past.

Giraffe clicked another button, and the rope began to retract in, pulling Goat in with it. Zebra ran to the back deck and helped Goat aboard.

The creature's other tentacles finished their runic drawing, coalescing into a crescent moon shape. The shape swirled around the creature, healing the burn marks across its core, and smoothing over the stump of the lost tentacle.

"Well, aren't you full of tricks," Kasby muttered under his breath. "Let's see you do that again. C'mon, heat up!" said Kasby, swerving by the Octopus and trying the same trick.

This time it was ready, and swirled its tentacles into an array of pentagons. The fire harmlessly splashed over the magic shield.

"Okay, that isn't working, what now?" Asked Giraffe.

"Needs more crystal-bullets!" Goat said, nodding vigorously.

The creature roared, and traced out another runic symbol in the air.

"This," said Kasby, flicking a switch on the controls. The first of the Quinn's heat seeking rockets roared out towards the Octopus Demon.

Lances of light streaked out of the new rune, towards the ship--

Three of the lances swirled towards and smashed into the rocket, meeting and exploding in the air. The fourth kept going, and hit Zebra solidly in the head. She went flying back, skidding across the deck, unconscious instantly.

Goat leapt to her, catching her, as Giraffe watched, aghast. She was fine, just unconscious. He quickly ran to the ladder, carrying Zebra, and ducked down into her room, laying her out on her bed.

Kasby picked up the intercom again. "This thing knows who and what we are. Those lances of light weren't random: there were four, one meant for each of us." He paused, unsure of what to say next. "...Be careful."

The world was one of swirling red light.

Zebra stood on a platform, a simple hexagon. The air around her was full of lines, shapes, swirls of colors of all sorts. A pathway of light slowly fell into place in front of her. She went up it, seeing that there was nothing much else to do--and if it was a dream, no point delaying.

The pathway curved, bringing her to a massive diagram of the creature, covered with runes. It floated in the air, highly stylized. The central circular head, with seven lines extending out from it. One of the lines was crossed out, scribbled over.

The creature hissed, and began to swim through the air towards the ship.

Kasby pulled down a lever, and the Quinn rocketed backwards, engines choking as they ate their own backwash. "GOAT, GET UP HERE!" yelled Kasby, not even bothering with the intercom.

He shot back up to the deck, in time to see the creature pulsing towards them, gaining quickly as the Quinn flew backwards. It flew lopsidedly, almost limping on the side that had lost a tentacle to Goat.

Kasby kept his eyes fixed on the creature in front of him as he spoke to the leaper. "Take your spear to Giraffe. Have her light it up, and then plant it on the Octopus thing. Fast."

"Got it!"

He barely turned to Goat. "THEN GO!"

Goat leaped to Giraffe, who quite obliging put her hands on the metal tip, concentrating as much heat as she could muster into it. After a few seconds, it glowed white hot.

The creature paused in the air, beginning to trace again.

"Goat, do it now!" Kasby yelled from the cockpit.

Goat nodded, and leaped at the demon, wielding his fiery harpoon of justice.

The demon traced a circle with one tentacle, then flitted through it--and didn't come out the other side.

Goat sailed again through thin air, out towards nothingness. "Whaa!" He exclaimed.

"....DAMN!" swore Kasby, blaring the boosters and zooming towards the falling Goat.

--the creature wrapped around the Quinn from behind, already on top of them, tentacles smacking against the top deck, sending the ship bucking off to one side, horribly out of control. A cracking came from the left as a tentacle crunched one of the wings against the side of the ship.

Zebra walked forward, examining the lines. As she did, she noticed that her fingertips were trailing white lines behind them, glowing in contrast to the red around her. She moved her hands in front of her for a moment, creating patterns.

She stopped, eventually, and reached down to touch one of the lines with the shiny white. The dot she left overwrote the red line. She slowly scribbled out that entire line, then paused.

Kasby managed to get the Quinn under control, and Goat landed deftly on the deck. The ship bucked sideways as the creature twisted, trying to bring its tentacles to bear on the crew.

Giraffe was desperately swinging the HAVOC around, trying to point it down at the tentacles. One of them smacked down in front of her, forcing her to dodge back and away from her gun.

Suddenly, though, the creature shrieked, and that tentacle lost its red glow, falling limp.

Zebra slowly began to trace over the entire drawing with her finger, line by line. Bit by bit, the white light spread outwards from the image she had traced, driving back the red, fighting it away. She stepped back, trying to stay away from the lines, especially where they touched. The red lines now swirled furiously, fighting back against the growing white.

Zebra retraced her lines, trying to help the white. With her help, the last of the red flitted off into the edges of the space, vanishing entirely. She smiled to herself, as the world faded into a calm white.

A second tentacle lost its glow. Then another. Then another, and another, and another. The last of the tentacles ceased to glow, and then finally the pod. It let go without warning, drifting away from them.

Kasby spun the Quinn away from it, speaking into the radio as he did. "...Giraffe, I don't know what just happened, but would you mind blasting that thing to hell?"

"No problem," Giraffe said happily, extending her hands and letting loose with as much fire as she could.

A wave of peace and calm settled through the world. It almost felt like it was smiling around her, and Zebra couldn't help but relax.

Then fire cut through the world in a horrible nightmare apocalypse of pain and agony and torment and--

--she woke up in her own bed. Aboard the Quinn. She... didn't scream. She lay there, calming herself. She could hear the scream, though, echoing in her mind, and from--from above deck, too. A sound of sorrow and shock. She ran upstairs as quickly as possible.

Giraffe was standing, staring at the blackened corpse of the creature, floating out into the Void away from them. "That was beautiful," she said triumphantly.

Kasby paused. "That... did not sound normal. It sounded... sad."

"Maybe we should stop killing the non-red ones so fast?" Goat suggested.

Kasby turned back towards the fleet of falling ships. "But who are we to decipher the thoughts of demons...."

"Non-red?" Zebra asked in confusion, prompting the others to notice her return to the deck. "What happened? What color was it?"

"Lost its glow, didn't it?" Goat said.

Kasby nodded. "It stopped glowing... But even before the devourers showed up, I was killing plenty of demons, years ago. None of them sounded like that."

Zebra took a step towards Kasby, frowning.

He didn't turn to face her. "Have another dream?" He said, a little more coldly than was necessary.

Giraffe stepped up and slapped Kasby hard across the face. He didn't react.

Zebra smiled at her, and looked coldly at Kasby, then dismissed him, speaking to the others more than him. "Not the dream of any human, at least."

Suddenly, a new noise filled the air, much louder than the roar of the refugee engines around them. One they were all too familiar with. It came, echoing out of the docking bays above... the sound of shattering crystal.

And suddenly, the Roost itself was falling towards them. Almost ponderously slowly, it began to twist, tumbling as it fell.

"...the core. The core broke." Kasby's eyes shot open. "GET SOMEWHERE SAFE!" he shouted to everybody around him.

"Make the ship leap!" Goat yelled.

With a blaze of the boosters, Kasby shot the Quinn forward, trying to make it out from underneath the Roost.

"Well, that can't be good," Giraffe said to herself as she held for dear life to one of the consoles, Goat and Zebra next to her.

They streaked towards the edge, the metal rending and twisting and falling towards them, darkening the sky--

--they slipped out from under it by a hair, as the Roost fell past. They could see it, then, falling away into the Void, tearing itself apart as it fell.

Kasby slumped back in his seat and breathed a sigh of relief. "That was too close."

Something enormous came out of the heart of the falling mass of debris below them. It swirled upwards and outwards, and threw its four massive arms out wide, throwing off dozens of smaller demons clinging to it. The creature was gigantic, easily as large as the Roost itself had been, hundreds of meters tall.

It was humanoid, with yellow skin, and nine glowing yellow eyes on its face. It stretched its arms, flexing them experimentally, and looked down at itself. The bottom of the creature faded into obscurity, into the Void. The Void around its bottom took on a yellow hue much like its eyes, and then swirled up to envelop it. There was a sound like the wind screaming through too tight a hole--

--and the yellow mist dissipated, leaving empty Void in its wake. The creature was gone.

There was a long silence, as the last of the remaining red-glowing demons flitted off, vanishing into he Void, their work apparently finished.

"Let's... let's get going," said Kasby quietly.

Giraffe nodded slowly in agreement. Goat and Zebra said nothing.

Below them, the last escaping survivors had vanished, falling away towards Sector One. Without another word, Kasby brought the Quinn around in a wide arc, pointing them down towards Sector One, and triggered the long range engines.