#We Survived and I even pulled off a carrier landing without killing us!

[accumulated-error]

Flying coop in VTOL is amazing, especially in a two seater airplane. Where else can I yell at my beloved best friend to jam the fucking radar spiking us while pulling enough G's to separate the plasma out of our blood in an effort to avoid the telephone pole sized missile that's currently making a beeline for our plane.

[thesunicarusfellfor]

The neither route was amazing! If you ever get ideas for it pls continue because i found it really interesting. You are a great writer.

Okay! This route actually made me very happy, but unfortunately, as much as I wanted to write it, I didn't know how exactly to do it? If that makes sense?

Context is HERE- The very end of the story is the Neither route.

TW: Anxiety, mentioned nightmares, mentioned Tubbo threatening Ranboo, guilt

I would also like to say that cuddling is platonic.

Left The Game (Plat!C!Ranboo x GN!Reader x Parental!C!Philza) Headcanon/Fic (Part 3???)

Ranboo Beloved joined the game.

(Y/n) (L/n) joined the game.

Michael Underscore-Beloved joined the game.

You and Ranboo tumbled out of the swirling portal and hit the ground with a hard thud, dirt and sand kicking up around you both upon impact.

Before you could comprehend what happened, a small squeal came from behind you and something slammed into your back, causing a groan to pull itself from your chest.

The monochrome male mumbled from beside you, his face practically buried in the grass which caused his words to be muffled.

His crown had rolled a few feet away, and his bags had opened as well, sending a few of his tools scattering, but everything seemed to be intact?

You slurred a mess of words before spitting out the sand that had gathered up in your mouth, attempting to tell the tall male that you were alive.

At least somewhat.

You both knew that you three had to drag yourselves into Phil's house, but the travel was so exhausting. Sleeping in the dirt sounded so tempting...

A quiet whine sounded from the weight on your back, reminding you that Michael had also come into the server with you.

When Ranboo got up, he picked the zombie piglin up from where he sat on your back, allowing you to get up.

You both, plus Michael who was resting on Ranboo's hip, began to pick up everything that had dropped out of the portal with you.

Once everything was gathered up, you three wandered through the iron doors of Philza's home and looked around curiously.

Two cats, one named Pog and one named Champ, came up to you both, chirping and meowing eagerly before pausing suddenly. They most likely expected Phil...

Michael gave a loud squealing noise at the sight of the cats and squirmed out of Ranboo's hold, running over to pet the cats.

Ranboo set off to find food in the chests, scribbling in his memory book the entire time.

You, on the other hand, dug through your bags to find materials you had brought to make three beds. One yellow, one grey and the other (f/c).

Once you placed each of them beside each other, Michael eagerly hopped into the middle one (the yellow one), while Ranboo walked over with plates of steamed carrots and baked potatoes.

"Stressed?" He mumbled softly, watching you stare down at your wrist where the tattoo of a heart with deep grooves in the center rested. The exact place the three hearts tattoos were, "I-I know, it's going to be a little different... But... Maybe it's a good different! ...Please, eat something and then get some sleep. Phil will check on us in the morning, and you know how he can get..."

With a smile, he handed you the plate and a fork before sitting on the floor at the foot of the beds with his own plate. Luckily he had given Michael a golden apple before he had gone to look for food, so the child was quietly drifting off to sleep, "Do... You really think that running was the best option?" You whispered, taking a bite of the vegetables.

"I... What else could we have done?" He frowned, setting his crown beside him before taking a bite of his own food, "We couldn't fight them... and they were definitely not going to let you go so easily. Hell... Tubbo... My own fiance was threatening to kill me because I was talking to you and caring for your burns!" He hissed, tilting his head back with his eyes pinched shut tightly, trying so hard not to cry.

You quickly walked over and moved his plate so it rested on his bed and you wrapped your arms around him tightly. The enderman hybrid eagerly returned the hug, crying into your shoulder so the fabric of your clothes soaked up his tears, "Should... I have just... Accepted their love, and maybe learn to love them back? For everyone's sake?" You whispered, your voice wavering as you tried to keep your composure.

"Absolutely not!" He yanked himself back from your shoulder to give you a glare, "That relationship would not have been healthy whether you loved either of them or not! They would've kept you locked away like a prized possession, and they would've severely hurt anyone who tried to interact with you!"

"I- I know... But..." You glanced down, but Ranboo tilted your head upwards so you were looking at him, but you still avoided eye contact so it didn't make him uncomfortable, "Your... Your relationship..."

Ranboo sighed, "I know. But, I'd rather that he showed me his true colours and I divorced him again for that, rather than him manipulating someone into loving him... and putting everyone else in danger in response. Now. We have a lot to do tomorrow. Finish eating and get some sleep."

The next morning, Philza practically slammed open the iron doors to his own house, looking a tad bit out of breath and a bit frazzled.

Once he saw you, Michael and Ranboo curled up in a small cuddle pile on the three different coloured beds, he gave a loud sigh of relief and adjusted his striped bucket hat.

Thankfully, the father of Minecraft let you three sleep for a little while before waking you and Ranboo up around noon.

First, he gave you both spare elytra's and so you could keep up with his massive black avian wings.

Ranboo's turned into massive black and purple dragon wings, while yours turned into (f/c) (f/a) wings.

Phil showed you both the end realm and his Endlantis, which he gave Ranboo special water protection potions so he could swim through the waters as well.

This man basically treated you three as if you were his own children!

Taught you how to fly.

Taught you how to cook properly.

Everything!

And basically survive with bare minimums.

Once you both got better at flying, a few months later, Philza rEAAALLY wanted to take you to the massive project he called Nether Void.

"Ready, mates?" Philza walked over and ruffled the hair on both your and Ranboo's heads with a soft smile, somehow unbothered by the blistering heat of the hellscape, "Double check your potions, armour durability and food supply."

Ranboo mostly stopped wearing his crown because it had problems staying on when he flew and because it had a lot of memories tied to it, so he didn't want it damaged. He had also stopped wearing his tux, instead, he wore plain black pants and a white ruffled poet shirt with a purple short cape that had a golden trim and gold chains, which was a gift from Philza.

You on the other hand wore something similar but with a(n) (f/c) poet shirt and a(n) (f/c) and gold cape. Your cape was also a gift from the fatherly figure as well, and so was the (f/c) infinity scarf type fabric wrapped around your shoulder over your chest that helped you carry and protect Michael as you flew, "Yep, we're ready to go, Mr. Dadza Minecraft!" You gave him a mock salute with a smile as he laughed.

Ranboo checked on Michael who was nibbling on a golden apple before he helped put the zombie piglin child into your scarf carrier, "Yeah, everyone seems safe!" He chirped softly as he adjusted his cape to spread his wings, shaking them out a bit in the heat of the lava.

"Let's go!" You cheered softly once you made sure Michael was 100% secure and wouldn't fall out somehow, "Food is stocked up and in my bag, as well as Regen and Health pots, and a first aid kit and two extra totems."

Philza gave you a proud father smile and took off first, hovering in the air for a few seconds as he waited for both of you to catch up. Thankfully, he knew very well that you both likely would never be able to catch up to his skill in flying as he had been born with massive feathered wings hundreds of years ago. You and Ranboo had never been into the air until a few months ago. Once you both caught up, he took off and soared through the burning hot nether.

Phil loved telling you both the stories of the lands. The Blaze Empress who lived in the Quartress, the foolish Ender King...

You and Ranboo always listened to his stories with such eagerness, often asking him to retell the stories when you were having a bad day or just wanted to relax.

The elder male actually greatly enjoyed having two children to raise again, even if he didn't have the best track record with sane children.

When he did leave to go to the DreamSMP, he would always promise you both that he would be safe and NEVER left without saying goodbye, even if he was angry or upset with either one of you.

He never wants his last words to someone to be filled with anger or hatred.

Somedays he would go to the SMP, you and Ranboo would not leave the house, just out of fear that he wouldn't come back, or that Tubbo and Tommy would come out instead of Phil.

Both you and Ranboo were plagued by nightmares very often for the first few weeks and woke up in tears in the middle of the night.

As old as Phil was, he had absolutely no problems comforting either of you in the middle of the night, same with Ranboo.

"Here mates..." He whispered softly as he handed you a hot beverage and gave Ranboo a grass block, "You're safe here... I promise. I would have to allow either of them into the server, and that would never happen... Especially now that I know what kind of people my sons are..."

You sighed and put your hand on Ranboo's back as he sobbed into your shoulder, using the fabric of his shirt to dry his tears before they burned his skin, "I know... I know... There's just the overwhelming fear that suddenly I'll wake up and I'll be back in the SMP and-and..." You decided not to finish your sentence, nuzzling into Ranboo's hair to try and keep yourself calm.

"Last I checked... Techno scared them off from the Tundra... But I haven't been in Snowchester or near the Embassy enough to know what Tubbo and Tommy are doing. But Ghostbur said that Tubbo has gone absolutely nuts... And Sam had to steal the nukes so Tubbo wouldn't destroy anything else... He also said Tommy on the other hand hasn't done anything except visit Dream in prison constantly."

Ranboo gave a shaky sigh and glanced over at Michael, most likely extremely happy that he brought his child along so he didn't have to deal with a psychotic Tubbo... Hell, he didn't know what would've happened to his kid if he did leave him. The thought caused him to give a small sob and hide his face again, holding onto you tighter and practically pulling your smaller form into his lap, trying to silently promise you safety and using you to remind him that he wasn't alone.

"We... we can't thank you enough, Phil... Really... You taught us so many life skills, kept us safe and promised us a safe haven... Allowed us to your private server..." You whispered, before feeling the warm cup being taken from your hand before a hand replaced it.

"Honestly... It's the least I can do to protect you both... You two have become two children to me, and, while I haven't been able to raise you from children like Techno, Wil and Tommy..." He didn't continue his sentence, struggling to form sentences, but both you and Ranboo understood and were quick to yank him into your little cuddle pile/hug, the two of you eagerly hugging him.

"Thank you... Dadza..."

[tealquacks]

The Flowers of Tenebrae

for the first day @lunoctweek , also posted on Ao3

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29720592

Enjoy!

They stopped the train to let the civilians out at Tenebrae. It was the best decision they could make, Noctis ordering the conductor to stop while Luna went through the train, healing whomever she could. And she promised each and every one of them that they would be safe in Tenebrae. They looked at her with big, hopeful eyes, and Luna felt grateful to be alive in that moment. Tenebrae would keep them safe. 

When the train stopped, Tenebrae burned.

Ash fell like snow from the darkened sky, smoke billowing in thick clouds. Luna could almost see the fire burning, nestled in the heart of the castle she once called home. The civilians rushed off the train in a confused hoard, a few of them bumping into her. She didn’t move. She could hear their panicked whispers, children crying, and her home burned.

Luna closed her eyes and tried to imagine the place she’d grown up loving, the place she’d met Noct at, but no matter how tightly she squeezed her eyes and prayed to gods who didn’t seem to listen, she still smelt the smoke. It burned her lungs. Just like drowning. For a moment, her mind took her back to the shrine to Leviathan, a wall of water slamming into her as the world around her crumbled like a pastry, not being able to breathe, lungs burning.

Her legs had carried her across the bridge from the train station. Mud squelched under her shoes as she walked, the feathery petals of Sylleblossoms leaving dew drops on her pants. People walked around in an almost casual way, as if her home wasn’t burning, as if she hadn’t lied to all these people, told them they’d be safe and protected. If fate was written by the gods, she’d have to have a word with them. Curing the scourge was one thing, but endangering the lives of all these innocents…

“Luna?” Noct asked quietly. Luna flinched as he set his hand on her shoulder, then sighed. She took his hand.

“I’m okay, love, just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Blasphemous things,” she said solemnly. Noctis laughed awkwardly, as if she was joking. Maybe he was just trying to lighten the mood.

He squeezed her hand in his.

“I’m sorry. I really am. I… I’ve lost my home, too, and it hurts so much. And well, uh, I didn’t move on? But I tried to ignore it, since I had to. It sucks.”

Luna couldn’t help but give an amused chuckle, gently squeezing Noct’s hand back. Noct never was good with words, awkward at the best of times, but he was always sincere. 

“I don’t know what upsets me more,” Luna mumbled, “seeing my home burn, or knowing that these people have to travel even more just to be safe.”

Noct let go of her hand, instead setting both of his hands on her shoulders. They felt warm, even through the fabric of the black jacket she wore. He looked at her with a soft expression— thats all she could think of it as. Not pitying, or sad, just soft. 

“Luna, I am so, so sorry. If it makes you feel any better, though, Aranea is going to get these people out of here. She has a drop ship, and can get them somewhere safe. After that, we can start making our way to Graela, the Crystal—“

“—and I can give the Draconian a piece of my mind,” Luna interrupted. Noct made a face.

“Huh?”

She looked at Noct. Noct stepped forward, one of his hands setting itself at the small of her back. She stepped forward, letting Noct envelop her in a warm, familiar hug, the smell of the outdoors plastered to his pale skin. She buried her face in his shoulder, trying to get the smoke out of her nose. Noct gently pet her hair, occasionally tangling his fingers in the silky strands.

“Please don’t do anything stupid,” he mumbled. Luna couldn’t help but laugh.

“Maybe I am a good influence on you,” Luna said. Noct huffed.

“I’m serious, dear… why the Draconian, though?”

Luna breathed out against Noct’s shoulder. 

“Bahamut is the one who wove this fate of ours, the one who planned all. I was meant to die while making the covenant with Leviathan, and yet, I survived. I’m afraid that the lives of these people are at risk because I avoided fate. When I confront the Draconian, I will tell him to leave the people alone.”

A beat of silence passed between them.

“Luna,” Noctis whispered. She felt his breath against her ear.

“I am the people’s Oracle. A healer. It is my duty to protect the innocent, no matter what the cost is. If it is my own life, then so be it.”

Noct squeezed her even tighter, and she could feel him tremble ever so slightly.

“Yes, you’re their Oracle, but you’re my Luna,” he said hoarsely, “the Luna who told me all I know about gods and stars and all that. The Luna that showed me all the secret places in Tenebrae, the Luna who sent me messages and pressed sylleblossoms in a book, the Luna who can talk to gods without flinching,” Noct’s voice wavered as he sniffled against her, “my best friend, the love of my life. My Luna. I’m not letting you sacrifice yourself.”

“Me neither,” Luna said, voice thick with tears.

“If Bahamut is going to hurt people just because we don’t do what he says,” Noct whispered intensely, “then let’s kill him.”

Luna pulled away from his arms, blinking up at him in shock. He had that determined look on his face, the one he got while fighting Leviathan, or when they were playing Kings Knight on the train. Any question of his sincerity died on her lips. When Noct got that look, he would do whatever he could to reach his goal.

“Noct—“

“—We can commune with the other gods. Tell them that we don’t want to follow Bahamut’s fate. Convince them to join us, fight with us—“

“Noct.”

“I’m being serious, Luna, I mean, Gladio, Prompto, Iggy, you and I could certainly fuck up a god—“

“Adagium could help us.”

Noct stared at her in a way that made her wonder if there was anything behind those eyes of his. 

“Who?”

Luna sighed. 

“Adagium. The carrier of the scourge, the accursed one. Ardyn Izunia.”

Noct froze.

“No way.”

“Yes, way,” Luna replied.

“And here I thought he was a creepy old guy!” Noctis exclaimed. Luna smiled, tilting her head a little bit.

“Well, you got that part right. He’s an immortal creepy old guy. So the next time we meet him, we must make it known we’re keen on killing the Draconian.”

“And what do we do until then?”

Luna sighed. She looked at the burning ruins of her home, then down to her feet. Even amongst the ruin, Sylleblossoms grew from the wet earth, as bright and persistent as ever. Just like they did when they were children, and somehow Luna knew that they always would be there. Even if it wasn’t quite the same, the flowers would dot the land of Tenebrae. 

She crouched down, and gently plucked a sylleblossom from the earth.

“We stand by one another, my love.” 

Noct gently took the flower from her hand, a small smile gracing his face. He leaned in, and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

“We will, we’ll be together. No matter what.”

He said it like a promise. Luna looked over at the burning castle of Tenebrae, then back at Noct. 

She kissed him as softly as she could, their lips hardly ghosting together, and thought of a perfect world where every promise would be kept, and every flower would bloom forever.

[ghoultyrant]

FoZ Notes 22

Okay, here we go, final volume of the series. Not likely to be much added value here, but I took these notes regardless, so I’m posting them.

---------------------------------

We open with a bit about Brimir and Sasha, showing he put the Lífþrasir rune on her to potentially avert catastrophe while really hoping he didn't have to do so. It seems to be implied he doesn't want to get Sasha killed, but it's ambiguous and could be taken as him not wanting to nuke the Elves or something of the sort. Looking back after reading the rest of the volume... I honestly have no idea how this is meant to be taken.

The narrative refers to Colbert as being one of the 'rare realists' of Halkegina. That's... morbidly comedic in how grossly wrong it is, but there you go: Colbert is supposed to be a realist in the pessimistic sense of 'that sounds too good to be true, so it probably isn't true'.

Vitorrio apparently already knows that the place Saito comes from is 'the holy land'. I... have far too many questions...

Vitorrio dumps on us a backstory about how Brimir being God or Jesus-analogue is a lie and actually Brimir came from Earth and all magical nobles come from Earth having fled from the technology-using humans who are our ancestors. This is dumb nonsense, but foreshadowed dumb nonsense. Much worse is Vitorrio randomly claiming commoners haven't awakened to their magical power as an inevitable consequence of 'the blood thinning', where returning to Earth is supposed to be a solution. HOW???

If magic is a genetically inherited thing where breeding with non-mages is 'diluting' magical blood and reducing the portion of the population who can do magic, going back to Earth with it's technophile non-mage population is the OPPOSITE of a solution to magic power fading. Furthermore, how did we end up with mages in a minority in the first place? Did the original mages actually run away with a massive population of non-mages? If so, why? Were they slaves? SO MANY slaves that Halkeginia is predominantly non-mages? 'cause if so I have zero sympathy for the population that became Halkeginians.

Furthermore, Halkeginia is FILLED with magical races! If Vittorio wants to make magical humans the default form of human and the narrative is going to invoke magical eugenics while making Vitorrio entirely amoral in pursuit of his goals, the correct solution is to fight to overcome human prejudice against elves and orcs and other demihumans and in fact attempt to institutionally encourage cross-species breeding between commoners and assorted magical species. It's not like this series has been shy about sexualizing eg Tabitha's dragon when she's in human form, so you can’t tell me the series is shying away from bestiality undertones!

But no, Vitorrio's True Plan For Real This Time is literally to conquer Earth in some insane, nonsensical attempt to Get Magic Back. And of course nobody calls him on this being utterly insane nonsense that cannot POSSIBLY accomplish his stated goal.

Okay, and he also wants to conquer Earth to escape the Wind Stone-based catastrophe, with eyebrow-raising logic about how surely nobles will survive it just fine and only commoners will die, but seriously the magic genetics bit is blatant, horrifying nonsense, and it’s Vittorio’s inner thoughts so there’s no room to headcanon it as a lie or something else that would excuse this awfulness.

Also Vitorrio magically gets to drain Saito's life force as a side effect of opening the door. No explanation or justification provided. Just... loldrama.

This conveniently causes Saito to go into an Expositional Flashback™ in which he meets Brimir again and Brimir conveys that he's trying to kill all elves everywhere because "we can't understand each other", with this somehow supposed to be connected to magic stone catastrophe stuff. So, you know, stuff we already knew that doesn't make any more sense than last time.

When we cut back to Louise and company, we learn they immediately screwed off to wring their hands over Saito's unconscious form, instead of fighting Vitorrio’s horrible plan. Really?

Louise is explicitly willing to DIE to prevent Earth from being invaded... but no one entertains the notion of eg killing Vitorrio to stop his nonsense. Nah, they're going to try to talk him out of his insane plan. Really?

Henrietta is now using -dono when referring to Saito. Are you kidding me?

Henrietta and Vitorrio magically recognize a relatively modern pistol as being better than Halkeginian firearms... by just looking at the pistol laying around. Not testing it and seeing it has superior performance, or even remarking on something like it being made of parts too fine for a smith to pull together so precisely. Just... magically knowing it's good on sight.

Vitorrio also reveals that Earthlings have somehow invaded Halkeginian in ages past via a never-before-established natural portal between the world's, and now claims he wants to hit Earth before Earth figures out how to harness the Void (Why he thinks non-mages will be ABLE to do so goes unexplained) and attacks Halkeginian. This is ALMOST like a sensible, coherent motivation, but requires ignoring how contradictory and insane the premise is.

Turns out Vitorrio somehow knows for a fact that Louise can cancel the Wind Stone catastrophe, but is withholding this information from everyone to try to force people into going with the Conquer Earth plan. This is dumb, but plausible human dumb. Much dumber is the narrative talking directly to the audience to reveal that Julio is being left out because he's totally unsuited to deception and is actually a naive innocent sort... in utter contravention of literally EVERY prior scene Julio was in.

The Romalian church steals a nuke from under the sea, and Julio magically surmises its principles and informs Vitorrio that it's operating on Void principles. So... Void magic is now supposed to just be atomic shenanigans? I'm pretty sure the narrative previously heavily implied they're quantum shenanigans and regular magic is somehow atomic shenanigans. Consistency!

Pegasi are apparently a thing in Halkeginia. I don't think such came up before and it feels like a poor fit, but it's been a while since I last read so I might be forgetting something is all.

It's now being retconned in that Saito being the Lífþrasir familiar means that A: ANYONE using Void magic will tap Saito's life, and B: he will die in a matter of days for no good reason even if nobody taps his life force any further. Really? That admittedly makes the earlier bit of Saito collapsing into an Expositional Flashback™ a part of this retcon instead of pure arbitrariness, but this is a blatant, stupid retcon that cannot possibly be reconciled with prior events.

Derflinger is continuing to absorb magic while 'asleep', which I'm pretty sure contradicts what happened in prior volumes.

Also, Saito is perfectly willing to attack Romalian forces in an attempt to stop them from using nukes... but people continue to completely ignore any possibility of attacking Vitorrio himself. What is this garbage?

We get introduced to the Vysendal, Tristan's royal flagship built to carry dragons for the fight with Albion... which we somehow never heard about the many volumes ago it should've cropped up in. It’s basically a fantasy aircraft carrier airship.

Three loud knocks followed by two quiet knocks is how Agnes announces herself to Henrietta, apparently, and it's apparently forbidden for anyone else in the Tristainian palace to use this knock. O...Kay?

Bizarrely, Henrietta is of the opinion Saito would never cause trouble without a good reason. Attempted-rapist Saito, you mean? The Saito who has picked fights with people over issues of ego? That Saito? Mind, she barely knows him to be honest, but that just shifts the issue elsewhere. Hell, she even describes him as 'not hot-blooded', which is just laughably wrong.

We get introduced to Château d'If, which is an Elven prison. This is a little confusing given Elves have always solved these kinds of problems with exile or murder historically, but okay. Really, I'm more baffled by the French-sounding name, given Gallia is Not-France and the Elves haven't previously had Frenchness to them. In any event, it's an island prison off the shore of Eumenes, which... seems unlikely...

Also, it's directly named after a real place. Oh, and the narrative draws attention to the French naming, saying the name means 'prison island's in Gallian... but doesn't explain WHY it's named in a language Elves sneer at.

We get explicitly told only Elves that have committed serious crimes, such as treason, get locked up here. You know, the kinds of crimes we previously got told got Elves exiled. We also get told the island has been nearly totally abandoned by the Great Will (for some reason...) so Elves can't use Ancient Magic on it... except apparently the guards can due to making contracts of some sort, in contravention of prior Ancient Magic mechanics.

... and now Guiche is joining in on the 'Saito wouldn't make trouble without a good reason' nonsense train. He actually kind of knows Saito! Not only that but he's repeatedly projected his own shitty behavior onto Saito! He's very nearly the last character I'd buy this belief from!

The 'Great Will' is supposedly a giant chunk of magic rock (I forget if this already came up or if I’m getting mixed up by having run across some spoilers in earlier note-taking), and it grounding arbitrarily accumulating spiritual energy periodically is what causes the Wind Stone disaster stuff. We get this info from Brimir, with no explanation of how he drew this conclusion.

The story also throws in a line about how even blowing up the Wind Stones with Void magic isn't a valid answer because yadda yadda exhaustion. Honestly, this looks like a Suspiciously Specific Denial, like readers raised exactly this possibility, and the author is going 'shit, that's a really good point, but I can't have my intended drama if that's a valid answer so I've gotta invent a reason why it isn't'. Because seriously, with the scale of destructiveness Void magic is capable of, particularly considering how much the story is playing it up... yeah, blowing the Wind Stones up really ought to be a valid answer.

Compounding this is that Brimir explains his plan to prevent the Wind Stone disaster was... to blew up the Great Will. And it apparently worked. So the story is just contradicting itself; which is it? Explosions aren’t helpful, or explosions are helpful? It can’t be both.

Oh, and there's drama about how Brimir tried to explain his plan to the Elves, but they refused to move their city away from the Great Will so he could nuke it without killing them, with Elven leaders saying that if the Great Will wants the world destroyed then so be it and Brimir also remarking arbitrarily that the city at the foot of the Great Will would be the only place safe from the Wind Stone disaster so the story is kind of implying the Elves are actually going 'well, we'll be fine, so we don't care if you all die'.

Anyway, Brimir was pushed over the edge into nuking the area because his home village was slaughtered by Elves while he was trying to talk the Elves into letting him nuke the Great Will. So honestly this is revenge in part. (No explanation is ever offered for why they slaughtered his village, incidentally)

We also learn Sasha killing Brimir was in response to nuking the Elven city, and that Brimir let himself be killed, at least in part to free Sasha of her Familiar runes so the arbitrary death-by-being Lífþrasir won't kick in.

A recurring thing in this final volume is that the Gandalfr boost for just holding a weapon lets Saito function in spite of being heavily weakened. As in, he literally cannot stand, and then holding a weapon let's him walk, and in fact fight athletically.

There's a surprisingly clever moment during Tabitha and Saito's escape where she summons some water to use it as a reflective surface to check around a corner. It's just a variation on using a hand mirror to check around corners, but if characters had been using magic in this kind of way the whole time I'd be a lot more willing to overlook the series' many, many flaws.

We get told the Knights of Parterre are good at casting spells undetected... no explanation for how this works... and that Tabitha has mastered this skill, too. Ambush spellcasting is a neat idea, admittedly, but the context this is being invoked in is just confusing to invoke it in.

There's a bit about Elves being helpless if they can't complete magical chants. It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure previously part of what made Elves scary-powerful was that Markey needed to chant and Elves did not. Certainly, I remember for sure that Markey were chanters the whole time, which is conspicuously failing to be mentioned in this volume...

Aaaand now the story is saying Saito being emotionally moved by his rescuers (Louise not being among them, note) is helping to power his Gandalfr abilities, trampling on that whole 'powered by love' thing. Really? Like, it’s a dumb plotpoint, but undermining it by making emotions-in-general provide power has a lot of thematic and practical problems.

Vittorio's other name is Serevare, apparently. I presume that's his personal name, though it's not actually clear. I don't think this has been alluded to before. In any event, him spending a night praying is able to make mountains rise from underwater. 'cause Void magic. The exact justification provided is that he's specifically manipulating the magic Stone with Void magic, but this just raises obvious questions about the potential to use this capability to address the Wind Stone catastrophe, since those are also magic stones of the exact same sort. Sure, Vitorrio is lying about being unable to deal with the crisis, but nobody within the story notices this. Even with how low my opinion is of the intelligence of these characters, I can't suspend disbelief over this. It's a gaping hole in the argument Vitorrio is using to coerce Louise into helping him invade Earth. The story HAS to address this, and it doesn’t, instead stacking on drama scene after drama scene even as it rips out their foundations as they’re being pushed.

We get told Gandalfr powers can't actually compensate for lost vitality (even though that's exactly what Saito has been doing for a while now), but Derflinger can do so. (Never mind that he was re-acquired only minutes before this claim) Gandalfr powers can 'only' make Saito light as a feather. Yeah, just ignore this nonsense, it's just a crappy attempt to say Saito is even closer to death than ever before without actually impairing him in combat scenes any.

You remember how Derflinger has Convenient Magical Memory Loss? Yeah, while he was 'asleep' he got rid of that. Gosh. How convenient. And no, the story isn't going to try to explain why he didn't do this sooner, or explain how he knew how to do it now. Admittedly it's completely in-character for Derflinger to create problems for no actual reason while claiming to be helping... with the qualifier that's clearly not meant to be part of his character.

This is dumb and arbitrary, is what I'm getting at.

"Wow, even swords can cry." "No I won't, because then I'd rust." Wow, that's actually a great exchange that legit got me to laugh.

Holy crap, the story also remembered about crow familiars being used as serial scouts. That last showed up, what, 15 volumes ago?

Vitorrio apparently deliberately aims the portal at a US army base. At least, that's how Saito's internal narration presents it, but I'm pretty sure this is just the writer talking directly at the audience. This is presented as a sensible and intelligent course of action, which is confusing given I'd think Vitorrio would want to get his entire army on the other side before they had to face resistance. Even considering how intrinsically dumb his entire plan is, this is just confusing.

Turns out the Gandalfr killing their master makes Void magic go away. Because Reasons. So naturally Louise has committed suicide-by-Saito, to save his life. I cannot express in words how thoroughly I hate this stupid, monstrous, lazy culmination.

Then the story doubles down on the stupid, lazy, monstrous writing by having Derflinger commit suicide to revive Louise.

Bafflingly, Louise mourns Derflinger. I honestly cannot think of a single even marginally positive interaction the two had to justify this response. Like sure fine I can buy her feeling grateful for his sacrifice -ignoring how garbage everything about the sacrifice and its leadup is- but the story has her reminiscing about how he was 'always helping' and all. Conspicuously, where Saito flashbacks to a bunch of Actual Prior Events when mourning Louise's death, Louise doesn't name even a single incident in which Derflinger was helpful. So the writer can't remember any such moment either, and just hopes readers won't notice the lack.

Also, in literally the final volume, the place Saito was originally summoned finally has a name: Austri Plaza. Uh. Sure?

Cattleya gets convenient 'secret Elf medicine's to cure her incurable condition. So never mind that bit of respect I had for the series.

Louise permanently awakens to wind magic, because of course she does.

The elemental siblings show up, and we get told they're... vampire-human hybrids??? What? Did that crop up before and I just totally forgot?...

Oh, and Louise and Saito go live Happily Ever After in Japan after a bunch of drama is wrung out of Saito intending to first stay in Halkeginia and then more drama was wrung out of him deciding to go home even though it meant being separated from Louise. The story conspicuously fails to address how this could possibly work out well; Louise has pink hair, and is unlikely to completely avoid using her magic. She’s going to end up on an MiB dissection table in no time flat, frankly, not live happily ever after. This isn’t even touching on how messed-up it is for Louise to throw away her life in Halkeginia to follow Saito back; she has responsibilities of myriad sorts in Halkeginia. Heck, so does Saito at this point! Whereas back in Japan, the story has consistently indicated Saito’s parents are literally the only people who will notice or care about him going missing.

For that matter, there was this whole thing with Siesta, Louise, and Saito working out a three-person relationship, and while I found it cringe-y and was dubious because of the likely motives, this is just throwing that out by summarily cutting out Siesta. And also trashing the creepy, stupid crap with Tabitha and Henrietta loving Saito for no actual reason.

This ending is awful and antithetical to what lead up to it on so many levels.

-----------------------------------------------

So that’s it, I’m done taking notes on this series. I have a few things I’ll be saying in the coming weeks, but the note-taking is done, finally.

[eamesandbellamyaremyheaven]

Bloodreina - The New Avenger Chapter Five (The 100/Marvel)

Prologue || Chapter One || Chapter Two || Capter Three || Chapter Four

Summary: The 100 AU in the Marvel Universe What if Octavia and Bellamy joined the Avengers after escaping HYDRA’s Ark Project? Set after the Battle of New York. 

Pairings: All platonic for now: Steve x Octavia, Avengers x Octavia, Bellamy x Octavia, Bellamy x Raven, Octavia x Raven, Boodreina x Winter Soldier, more to come soon…

Word Count: 2699

Warnings: Bad writing maybe? (sorry about that)

A/N: I know I haven’t updated in a while - sorry about that. Hopefully I will find the inspiration to continue update regularly. Please, if you enjoy it, like and comment! 

Chapter Five- “you’d be right by my side”

Only the most delicate missions required both Bloodreina and Winter Soldier to work together, something Octavia wasn’t very fond of. The soldier had no concern of anyone else well being, he was a machine devoid of emotions, and Octavia couldn’t trust someone who had no heart.

The Hamburg mission was barely a success, although well executed and the targets acquired and terminated quickly without loose ends, Octavia still managed to get shot in the crossfire. Now they were heading to a safe house, an abandoned loft in a deteriorated building. The soldier walked in first, rifle in hand, inspecting the place, with Octavia following suit, hand still clutching the bullet hound in her chest, right above her heart. As soon as he cleared the floor, Octavia allowed her drained body to fall onto the stained couch, one of the few pieces of furniture inside the apartment.

She observed as he desperately tried to regain communications with the Operations Control, to no avail. Frustrated, he took the earpiece and threw it away across the room. He sat himself near of the windows, scanning the street for any suspicious behavior from the people walking by. And although his eyes were locked at the people roaming outside, his mind was elsewhere. That morning before the mission he seemed collected, calm, as he always was. What had changed?

“Soldier, report on the mission” Octavia commanded, as she stood up. She walked towards the open kitchen, where she found a first aid box in the far-side of the top cabinets, only reaching it at the tip of her toes. She looked back at the soldier, he had ignored her command as if she wasn’t even there.

“Soldier, report” she tried again, her voice more austere this time. She sat back in the couch, taking off her jacket, exposing the bleeding wound. The bullet went through her chest and exited from the back in a straight line, which meant that the wound would heal faster if she manage to stop the hemorrhage, or she would die. So, she needed to stop the bleeding as soon as possible and make a bandage. She grabbed the first-aid kit that sat on top of the center-table and dropped the disinfectant liquid on the open wound, gasping at the burning sensation it inflicted. 

And yet again, the soldier had decided to ignore her. If he becomes unresponsive, use violence to force him to comply. That were her orders, the only way HYDRA knew how to deal with the Winter Soldier.

“Soldat, what happened?” Octavia yelled, her voice cracking as a new string of blood ran through the gauze and down her top

“I don’t know!” he yelled back at her, and both froze in place

She was now speechless, her mouth slightly open as she stood still in her seat. That was not the Winter Soldier, as he stood facing her, evident shock in his features, as he was only now realizing her condition. He shook his head sightly, walking towards her without saying a word, kneeling in front of her, taking the gauze from her hands and pressing it gently against her chest.

“What’s your name?” Octavia asked, taking in his features for the first time. His sharp jaw line was covered in a thin layer of beard, his thick lips pursed in a frown and his steel blue eyes focused on the task in hands “Your real name, the one you had before joining HYDRA”

“I- I don’t remember” he simply told her

“Well, that sucks. You know? You must’ve had a name, a place of your own, family, friends... You just can’t remember them”

“Do you?” the Soldier looked up, a small smirk crossing his lips, defying her for an answer

“My name is Octavia. They don’t know I know about my past, or else they would erase my memory. They haven’t done that in a while, which makes it easier to remember stuff from before.”

“Before?”

“Before they made me kill people. Before Bloodreina”

The bleeding had slowed, so he sat the bandage on top of the wound and pressed it in order for it to stick to the skin, which made Octavia gasp.

“How bad is it?” she asked, her voice hoarse as her body was drained of all its strength “Am I gonna die?”

“I can’t stop the bleeding” he admitted “We need to get you back to base soon, before you bleed out”

“No, I won’t go back” Octavia said, as she tried to raise herself from the couch

“That’s not up for discussion.” the Soldier retorted, pushing her back to her seat. He got up, grabbing the riffle he left by the window and sat by her side, setting the riffle down against the couch.

Octavia grunted in discomfort, frowning. She tried to move again, and he simply sat his metal arm in front of her torso, pushing her down effortlessly, again.

“You’re a real piece of work, aren’t ya?” he asked

“I liked you better when you didn’t talk at all” she retorted

“Yeah, I bet” he replied, pursing his mouth in a brief, yet irritating self-satisfying smirk, as he leaned back on his seat, crossed his arms behind his head and closed his eyes.

Octavia could feel her body starting to shut-down, as time passed by. This was her last chance to try to reason with her mentor, before she fainted “You know, we could just make a run for it”

“Yeah? And what would we do next?” he wakened out of his doze, but spoke without opening his eyes

“We’d hide for a while. In a place like this, maybe. And as soon as I got my strength back, we’d come for them” 

“You wanna go against HYDRA? Alone?” he asked, skeptical “You’ll die”

“Then I’ll die - as a free woman, not a weapon” she looked at him, whose gaze was already on her “And I wouldn’t be alone, you’d be right by my side”

***

Present day

Octavia hated that feeling. If only she had known Bucky Barnes, Steve’s best-friend was the Winter Soldier, she would’ve tried to help him. But how could she know? She had seen the photo of Bucky in the museum and Steve had told her a whole lot of stories from their old times together, but there was barely no resemblance with the stoic and merciless HYDRA soldier that trained her. She had looked into his eyes and saw nothing but darkness and apathy. Except in Hamburg… 

Octavia looked around. They were being transported in a SHIELD van, with their hand and feet cuffed in chains. Sam was sat right in front of her, with Natasha by his side. Two guards stood facing them and the door. She looked at Steve, who was sited by her side, and the look on his face, helpless and grieve-stricken, was breaking her heart.

“Did you knew?” He spoke in a whisper, staring nowhere straight-forward “Did you knew he was my Bucky?”

His Bucky. His family. His home. “No, of course not!” Octavia said quickly, her voice cracking in angst “I would never do that to you... ”

Steve turned to Octavia and smiled weakly “It was him. He looked right at me like he didn't even know me.”

“How's that even possible?” Sam said, as he too was listening to the conversation “It was like seventy years ago.”

“Zola. Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43, Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall. They must have found him and…”

“None of that's your fault, Steve.” Natasha spoke nonchalantly 

“Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky.”

“We need to get a doctor here.” Sam said, bringing everyone’s attention to Natasha, who was bleeding from her shoulder “If we don't put pressure on that wound she's gonna bleed out here in the truck.” 

One of the guards pulled out an electric rod and Sam flinched away, but instead of hitting Sam the guard neutralized the other guard and knocked him out. 

“Ah” the guard panted as he took of the helmet, revealing to be Maria Hill “That thing was squeezing my brain.” she looked at the group, her eyes landing on Sam “Who's this guy?” 

***

Maria led them to a secret facility, which was basically an old abandoned dam. As they arrived, Maria brought them to a room were Nick Fury was. Alive. Natasha sat down on a chair close to him, a doctor stitched her up as Fury explained how he’d survived.

When the doctor finished treating Natasha, Octavia helped her move to a seat at a table, which had on top a tablet, a briefcase and a bullet-proof looking metal case, and stood behind her. Maria and Steve helped Fury sit down too, and as Sam walked to Steve’s side, Maria opened the briefcase, and a photo of Alexander Pierce flung across the table. 

Fury reached for it “This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize. He said, ‘Peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility.’ See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues.”

“We have to stop the launch.” Natasha spoke straight-forward 

“I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore.” Fury said, as he opened the metal case, that contained three chips.

Maria turned the tablet around, showing a 3D model of the Helicarriers “Once the Helicarriers reach three thousand feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites becoming fully weaponized.”

“We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own.” Nick added, and Maria continued

“One or two won't cut it. We need to link all three carriers for this to work, because if even one of those ships remains operational a whole lot of people are gonna die.”

“We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA. We need to get pass them, insert the server blades, and maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what's left…”

“We're not salvaging anything.” Steve cut Fury off “We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick, we're taking down SHIELD.”

“SHIELD had nothing to do with it.” Fury tried to justify, but Steve wasn’t taking it

“You gave me this mission, this is how it ends. SHIELD's been compromised, you said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed.”

“Why do you think we're meeting in this cave? I noticed.” Fury pointed out

“And how many paid the price before you did?” Octavia asked, and the room fell silent. Fury gulped and sat straight on his chair. He was apparently bothered by her remark, but he hid it very well as he turned to Steve, and spoke honestly

“Look, I didn't know about Barnes.”

Steve seemed unfazed “Even if you have, would you have told me? Or would you have compartmentalized that too? SHIELD, HYDRA, it all goes.”

“He's right.” Octavia agreed “It’s time to end HYDRA, once and for all”

Fury looked at Natasha, then Maria. They nodded in agreement. He finally looked at Sam, who simply raised his hands and smiled sheepishly

“Don't look at me. I do what he does, just slower.”

Fury leaned back in his seat, apparently annoyed “Well... Looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain.”

***

Natasha needed a couple hours of rest for her arm to heal properly, so they waited. The plan was being set on motion. Maria and Sam were discussing a few details while Steve was seemingly impatient, and he excused himself, saying he was in need of fresh air. After a while, Octavia went after him, finding him outside the dam, lost in his thoughts, completely oblivious to her presence.

“You thinking about him?” Octavia called, as she walked towards Steve.

“Yeah” he answered slowly, looking down at her “All that time you spent with him... How was he?”

“Brutal” Octavia spoke, adverting her gaze from his “but if it wasn’t for his training, I wouldn’t have survived HYDRA. He made Bloodreina be, and I survived because of it.” then she smiled, as a particular memory came to mind “but there was this one time, in a mission gone wrong, that I saw something in him I haven’t seen before. There’s a small part of him that was still human, so I thought”

“What happened?”

“I almost escaped HYDRA, but he brought me back against my will” she replied dryly, remembering the hurt she felt when she woke in HYDRA’s infirmary, patched up but a prisoner, again.

Steve looked away from her, setting both of his hands on the railing in front of them “I’m sorry”

“Don’t be, it’s no one’s fault” Octavia said, as she her right hand on top of his left “How was he, back then?”

Steve smiled, as he spoke “Kind. Funny. He always had my back when I got into a fight.” Octavia arched her brow and Steve laughed “Which I did on a regular basis” Octavia cracked a laugh, and Steve nudged her gently before continuing “He was also a ladies’ man, and was always trying to find me a date... But most times I’d just end up as a third wheel”

Octavia laughed amused at Steve’s embarrassment. She and Natasha were having such difficulties trying to find him a date, and he was Captain America, so she imagined the hardships Bucky had to endure trying to find girls willing to go out with a very young, tiny Steve who was to shy and awkward to maintain a talk with a girl.

“He sounds like the best”

“He is”

“Steve...” Octavia started, hesitantly “That guy today, the Winter Soldier... He’s not your friend, not anymore”

“And he's gonna be there, you know?” Sam called out to them, making both of them jump in surprise and take a step away from each other, to which Sam grinned and Octavia frowned “Am I interrupting something?”

“Jesus Sam, you scared me!” Octavia scolded “Your point is?”

“Look, whoever he used to be, the guy he is now, I don't think he's the kind you save. He's the kind you stop.” Sam clarified

“I don't know if I can do that.” Steve pointed out

“Maybe we can do both” both boys looked at Octavia, and she explained “Stop him first and then save him”

“Well, he might not give you a choice.” Sam added “He doesn't know you. None of you.”

“He will. Gear up Sam, it's time.” Steve turned and started to walk away from the group “Octavia” he called out “Come with me. If you're gonna fight a war, you gotta wear a uniform.”

Tags: @glossiefandom, @dayanna-hatter

[italicwatches]

Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online - Episode 05

I am full of food and have set some aside for a friend. It’s a bit late, but let’s do this. It’s Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online, episode 05! Here we GO!

-We begin with the other team, prepping for their big final hunt and getting all excited about it…Also, incredibly hard to translate language puns.

-Meanwhile, M is having a real bad day. Like, really bad. Possibly his worst. And…Well, M insists that if he dies in the game, he’ll die for real.

-First, question. I’m not saying he’s lying yet, but what fucking idiot would thus enter into a PvP Battle Royale? If you’re trapped in the game, you keep your fucking ass in the starter town(hai, Kazuma desu) and farm low-level PvE mobs for enough credits to get by!

-Second, well I just found my screen cap and we’re only a minute in.

-Because LLENN calls bullshit, this isn’t SAO. …Now tell her what was on that letter, you dumb idiot. He hands it over without resistance, and it’s from Pito, of course, telling him…That if he survives an entire hour, she’ll be super impressed. But if he dies a cowardly death, or after the hour mark, she’ll totally kill him for real. …Dude, you can’t let Pito get into your fuckin’ head like that.

-BULLSHIT YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT WOMAN IS CAPABLE OF

-Opening!

-Sidenote, what the fuck was his plan if shooting LLENN in the head had worked? Take on the entire enemy team himself? She’s not a political enemy, you can’t trade her corpse for fucking safe haven.

-And we’re back. So, whatever the actual situation is, M is fully convinced that PIto will legit murder him in legit reality if he loses. Do you have any idea how obsessed she IS with the original SAO?! With the idea of death games, and of putting your life on the line?!

-And LLENN puts out the question I just wanted to know. And his plan? Kill her. Become team leader. Resign, which wouldn’t count at suicide by the strictest definition of Pito’s terms, and would kick him out right away so he could make a run for it.

-…You’re a fuckin’ idiot and you took her way too lightly, man. So here’s the actual factual plan. She’s gonna go shoot the other team full of red pixel dots. You’re gonna go hide somewhere. If she dies, you can bail out or whatever. Peace.

-And then she’s off, barely stopping long enough to retrieve her cool hat before she’s off like a rocket and putting together a battle plan…What’s her best tools? Simple, the core thing she’s been pouring XP into since day one. At least in terms of this Squad Jam, she’s the fastest woman alive! Run, LLENN, run!

-Meanwhile, M is trying to convince himself he wasn’t in the wrong here…And then with one last war cry, LLENN’s out of comm range.

-She’s moving at full force, sprinting over a dockside…And finds herself having just jumped into the enemy team! Behind cover, return fire! It’s a vicious high-speed duel with their forward scout, as she desperately tries to find LLENN…But gets out-played, taking vicious shots! LLENN gets glanced in the shoulder, but reloads far faster when the mags run dry, and blasts the gun right out of the other woman’s hands!

-She starts calling for reinforcements and goes for her sidearm…But it’s far too late, as she gets bisected with gunfire! The rest of her team arrives just in time to watch her collapse, and for LLENN to fucking book it behind some rocks when they pour it on! The heavy gunners are going full force…

-And the sniper tries to pin her down, but the wildly desperate LLENN somehow outruns them all, even as she tries to ignore that little bit of her lizard hindbrain that doesn’t realize this is just a game and FUCK FUCK FUCK THIS IS PRETTY LEGITIMATELY SCARY FOR HER

-Episode 05! “Leave the Last Battle to Me”

-While the other team make a point of taking their fallen comrade’s gear…They’re gonna get vengeance for you, and claim that gold, friend. Don’t you worry.

-Back with LLENN, she takes stock. Down to 70% HP. Only six mags left, and two plasma grenades, and a knife. Not a good set of odds. She’s running into the lion’s den here…

-But she remembers what Pito taught her. Never fire randomly or in desperation. If you can’t say with certainty where you’re aiming and why, then all you’re doing is giving away your location and fear to the enemy. Center, focus. Always act with intent.

-And LLENN starts to put her focus together. She can do this. She will do this. Deep breath, get moving. They’re gonna get eyes on her…

-And then two shots ring out. One in her back. One rips through her mag carrier. She stumbles, staggers, takes another shot as she falls down there side of the cliff, barely pulling through with about 30% of her HP left…The leader starts pushing the rest of her team to herd her in…

-As LLENN realizes she fell for a fucking trap. They used their Bullet Lines to draw her in! But she can still move. She can still run. Everything hurts, but if she can get from cover to cover…

-She’s got multiple sharpshooters on her…And when they pin her down, the big guns come out! LLENN is stuck, pinned, and desperate…

-When she gets a plan. She throws a grenade just over the rock, starts counting…And the instant it goes off, she sprints, letting the ball of plasma catch their fire and block her escape! MOVE! FUCKING MOVE!

-The other team…Well, she’s earning their respect. Pulling shit like this solo? Little rabbit’s good.

-While LLENN manages to get out of the line of fire, and the pain’s starting to wear off. She can focus, and think…But that leaves her needing to think of a plan. Right now, she’s got a real problem. Her victories come from being up close and personal…

-That’s right, LLENN-chan! Wait, who’s…

-…LLENN.

-LLENN, sweetie.

-You need to log out.

-You’re hallucinating.

-Because I refuse to believe your gun is actually talking.

-Anyways, P-chan tells her to go forward, to use her speed to get in and god dammit why does P-chan have anime eyes. No you cannot meet senpai!

-At least LLENN has the smarts to realize she must be losing her mind.

-But eventually, the enemy team is hunting her down, and she’s chilling on a rock. Looking for her? They shoot…And she just fuckin’ dives away from it, before racing in! DAKKADAKKA, big gunner down! The sniper’s caught in too close, unable to get a solid shot in,, and instead gets lost to a plasma grenade!

-LLENN eats a glancing blow, ends up spiraling down with about 25%, and caught under two Bullet Lines with her gun out of reach…

-When a shot lances through the air, hitting a grenade on the other gunner’s belt! She’s lost in fire, and it’s down to the leader in the thick…

-While the last two members of the team, watching from afar, get eyed by sniper fire! M, is, back in the game! They’re on the run, but LLENN’s got this…

-As she races in against the leader!

-And eats a roundhouse kick to her tiny, vulnerable stomach that sends her into the far wall. Soooo that’s not great.

-Yeah, that hurts real bad. The leader pins her down hard, and puts round after round into her chest…But it doesn’t work?! HOW?! WHY WON’T YOU DIE?!

-She put the scanner in her breast pocket. The scanner is indestructible.

-It’s the frying pan of GGO.

-And that gives LLENN enough time to whip her head away from the next shot, for the leader’s mag to run dry! LLENN flings a P90 mag at her, forcing her to step back, giving our tiny pink devil enough space to just magdump!

-The leader ferociously grabs that P90, trying to rip it out of her hands, to snap it in half…You’re good, little one. Good enough to piss her off. What’s your name? LLENN. Yours? Eva. Everyone just calls her Boss.

-You ran dry, didn’t you.

-So did you.

-And then the other gunner arrives, the last one still armed! JUST FIRE, you fool! One of them has to survive, that’s all!

-But she hesitates. For a singular moment too long. Her machine-gun gets shot apart, and in a final play, she throws the boss her sidearm magazine!

-Eva whips her pistol up, catches it perfectly…And LLENN finds it to her head. But P-chan will protect her! Shot after shot echoes across the desert landscape…

-And when it’s over…LLENN still stands, with P-chan filled full of damage…It shatters in her hands, and, uh, guys?

-Guys?

-P-chan was her power limiter.

-So this is bad.

-Very bad. With a furious roar, she dives in with her knife, tearing Eva’s thighs open! Back and forth, cross cut that puts her on the ground, and then a vicious strike to the chest! LLENN eats a punch before she can land it, loses all but her last 1% of HP…

-But the knife went up. And she catches it with her free hand, diving it CLEAR THROUGH EVA’S NECK! Crimson neon sprays from the wound, she hits the ground in a heap…

-And LLENN almost eats a sniper round to the head from the last surviving member. But M draws her out by standing firm, and the two snipers cross counter with bullets. The enemy sniper drops…And then so does M.

-But then the fireworks go up! TEAM LM IS THE WINNER OF THIS FIRST SQUAD JAM!

-LLENN arrives to find M’s…Got his pack on backwards and it took the shot. You ridiculous man you scared her half to death. But that, is, the, game!

-This first ever Squad Jam lasted just shy of an hour and a half, and they fired 49,810 shots! Jesus. I wonder how many of those were out of P-chan.

-Credits!

-Aftercredits! The real world. When a tiny adorable schoolgirl comes up to Karen, because they noticed she got her hair cut short and it turns out this whole group always admire Karen when they see her walking by, thinking she’s so elegant and graceful like a model and this is the moment when we’re supposed to realize that this is Eva’s squad. Like, you see it, right?

-But, yeah. It’s an interesting thing, conflicting height complexes…But Karen managed to push herself forward. It might sound silly, but…The sheer wild desperation of a VR game, of fighting for her life again and again, was what locked it in for her. She realized she could endure.

-And indeed, one of them calls the head girl, Saki, Boss, and Karen doesn’t quite put it together yet, but she ends up making some adorable younger friends. …Gahhhh, it’s impossible.

-And then Saki comes up to shake her hand. For defeating the Boss, I now bestow upon you the rank of Big Boss. You’re a hell of a player, LLENN. She’s gonna totally kick your ass next time though, little rabbit. Bring it on, you amazon.

WHAT A FUCKING FIGHT THAT WAS, am I right? God damn! Constantly on the edge of the seat, taking LLENN down to her final most desperate tools! Oh that was delicious.

I cannot wait to see where things go from here. We’ll see next time, in episode….Well looks like 5.5, of SAO Alt: GGO! Wait for it!

[whiplash-story]

CHAPTER VIII

Kyler

* * *

“Astro 7? Come in, what’s your status?”

“Great! Everything’s going according to plan!” Kyler yelled.

Everything was most certainly not going according to plan.

He’d made it successfully out of the hangar, barrelling over a few guards on his way, but the Corinthians had quickly found their way to their own vessels, and it seemed his hull wasn’t as fortified as he’d thought. His stolen ship was taking heavy fire, and it wasn’t faring all that well.

The smell of smoke filled his nostrils and Kyler swore heavily as he maneuvered the ship between the soaring trees and dodged as many of the blasts as he could.

It didn’t exactly help that the ship’s systems felt the need to point out his current situation--”You are under heavy fire,” a robotic voice announced.

“I’m working on it,” he said through gritted teeth, fully aware that the system had no A.I. and most likely couldn’t hear him. Cracks splintered in the glass of his windshield as more of his attackers’ ships soared in front of him. He fired his shuttle’s weapons, but the blasts glanced harmlessly off the armored hulls of the newer carriers. Kyler’s heart thundered inside of his chest. He was surrounded--and utterly screwed.

“Surrender yourself,” came a blaring voice over the radio of his ship, “and perhaps we will spare your life.”

Ha. They’d hand him right over to Rzer for the bounty that hung over his head, and the only reason that Rzer would ever spare him would be to get information about the resistance--and then he would kill him. Yeah, right.

“Go to hell,” he responded coolly.

The ships pressed in closer, and Kyler had the fleeting thought that this was not how he wanted to go out.

His mind whirred. Corinthians were an advanced race, yes, with stronger weapons than almost any other race in the galaxy, but they were hesitant to spark disagreements with other planets unless there was money involved--especially ones they thought could beat them. Yeren was nearby, and far more powerful than Corinth. If he could get there, they wouldn’t follow him. He’d be safe--well, as safe as he could be with a few million hanging over his head. All he had to do was get off this godforsaken planet and get inside Yeren’s atmosphere.

Cake.

It was time to do something stupid.

Kyler scanned the ships in front of him. His was smaller, but that made it faster, sharper. And maybe he was surrounded on all sides, but that still left one way to go.

Up.

Kyler slammed the acceleration and yanked the throttle back as far as it would go without coming loose entirely. He barely had any room to get a start, but the ship did well, skyrocketing upwards like a bullet. It clipped one of the crafts in front of him as it did. A sharp crash resounded through his shuttle, but it survived, the circle of attackers growing more and more distant as he shot through the atmosphere.

“Yes!” Kyler grinned, blood still pounding in his ears.

“Structural damage to the right wing,” the ship replied.

He groaned at the reminder that he still had a ways to go before he could celebrate. Yeren was already visible in the distance, but the smell of smoke had grown stronger, and the ship harder to control. And the Corinthians hadn’t left his tail yet; they had settled into a formation behind him. Blasts shuddered against the hull once more.

There was nothing much to do besides fly; he pushed the ship harder and harder, firm on the acceleration and weaving between the fire until Yeren was within reach.

And then the lights on the console flickered. No, no no no--

“Structural damage to the main power core.”

“Fuck!” he swore. Yeren was so close. He gripped the throttle with white knuckles, but the ship began to falter. It needed power--a thought came to him suddenly, and he cursed himself for being so stupid. He had power. With a deep breath, Kyler shut his eyes as blue sparks began to dance along his fingers. He pressed his hands against the console, praying it would work, and let a surge of electricity pass through his body and into the vessel.

It whirred to life. The lights came on, brighter than before, and the ship made a final push through into Yeren’s atmosphere. He threw a glance over his shoulder, watching as the Corinthians fell back. A cheer rose in his throat, but it died very suddenly as he realized that the power surge had been short-lived, and he no longer had control of the ship.

“You are losing altitude,” the robotic voice declared.

Kyler yanked the throttle desperately, trying to aim away from the sprawling silver city and towards the empty hills. The ship sputtered, the ground coming at him faster and faster. Panic flooded him very suddenly.

“Hey, Commander Nova?” He pressed a finger to his comm and choked on the smoke filling the craft as he abandoned the controls altogether, struggling with the hatch. It would be better to land on the grass from this height than be trapped in the wreckage, he decided. But the door wouldn’t budge. He cursed again and screwed his eyes shut.

“So,” he said, trying to keep his tone even, “I might be a little late to our rendezvous point.”

He braced himself as the ship slammed into the ground.

* * 

Kyler woke up on a stranger’s ship with a splitting headache.

A soft groan escaped his lips as he sat up slowly, fingers brushing against his temple. He blinked in surprise when they met a soft white bandage. Strange. His eyes flitted around the room.

The ship was small but sleek, with white walls and long windows and strange potted plants scattered around. Whoever owned this ship had money--and they also had him, he realized abruptly.

Instantly, the worst possible scenarios came to his mind--bounty hunters, Yertian officials, maybe even some of Rzer’s men themselves--whatever it was, he was probably going to have to fight his way out of this one.

On the plus side, this ship would make a kickass gift for Nova and the rest of the Resistance.

Nova, he thought suddenly, and pressed a finger to his comm. “Commander? Can you hear me?” Nothing but static. The stupid thing was busted.

Kyler huffed as he swung his legs over the metal bed he sat on and stood up. His aviator’s jacket was gone, but his cargo pants and shirt remained--both singed and peppered with holes, he noted. He walked--stumbled--out of the room and into a narrow hallway that seemed to lead to the main cortex of the ship, where he could hear an unfamiliar voice. With carefully soft footsteps, he crept down the hall.

A man sat at the controls, holding a radio that crackled with a voice Kyler couldn’t fully understand. A moment passed and the ship’s pilot responded with a curt, “Thank you for the report. Dismissed,” and set the radio aside.

Kyler stepped forward, but before he could make another move, the man had turned around in his chair and was staring him down with cold, icy blue eyes.

“Where am I? Who are you?” Kyler demanded, his fingers crackling with blue electricity.

The man tilted his head curiously. “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” he replied, nodding at his sparking hands.

“Oh yeah?” Kyler scoffed. “And why the hell shouldn’t I?” As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt a wave of nausea and swayed on his feet. Oh. That’s why. “What did you do to me?” he groaned, clutching a hand to his bandaged head.

“Nothing,” his kidnapper said swiftly. “But you had quite the crash back on Yeren. Really, it was a spectacle. It’s a wonder you’re on your feet already.”

“I’ve got a thick skull.”

“I’m sure.” The man looked amused.

Kyler steadied himself against the wall, waiting for his head to stop spinning. “So you’re gonna take me back to Zetari? Hand me over to Rzer?” he said finally. “Fair warning, as soon as he gets what he wants he’ll probably knock that perfect head of yours right off its shoulders. Mount it on a wall or something—right next to a huge gold-framed picture of himself.” He rolled his eyes.

“Oh, I’m well aware of the...shortcomings of Zetari’s leadership. But the bounty isn’t what I’m looking for.”

Kyler’s eyes narrowed. That came as an unexpected surprise. “If you’re not a bounty hunter...then who are you, and what do you want?” he asked, brow furrowed. “I’m guessing you didn’t get me off of Yeren out of the goodness of your heart.”

The man laughed. “Not quite. My name is Nolan Sharpe. I’m the CEO of a clandestine research operation, and,” he paused, which seemed to Kyler like it was just for the sake of dramatics, “I have a job for you.”

“Yeah?” Kyler lifted an eyebrow and put on what he hoped was a somewhat intimidating scowl—which perhaps would’ve been a little scarier if he wasn’t currently using the ship’s wall as a crutch. “What makes you think I want to be your lackey?”

“It’s come to my attention that you went to Corinth in search of weapons from Vorlan, but he wanted more money than you have to offer.” Sharpe leaned forward, folding his hands in his lap. “I can give you the money. Better yet, I can supply you with weapons more advanced than anything Vorlan can offer you.”

Kyler’s mind whirred. This man already seemed to know far too much about him and his mission—but his offer sounded tempting. The last thing he wanted to do was return to the Zetarian underground empty-handed.

“I’m just supposed to believe you have that sort of money and tech?” he asked suspiciously.

Sharpe smiled and stood up from his chair, pulling out a long case from under the dashboard. “I thought it might take some convincing.” He opened the case.

Inside was a slim, shining prosthetic leg. It was made of silver metal, with electric blue lining and smooth joints. Kyler’s eyes swept over it, studying the design carefully; it was better made than anything he’d ever seen and looked more effective than anything he’d used before. Whoever this guy was, he really wasn’t messing around.

“It’s a blend of carbon fiber and a titanium-steel alloy. Extra light, but also extremely durable. And, you no longer have to switch between settings when you run or walk or anything else—this will do it for you. There’s even an underwater feature,” Nolan explained, a proud expression on his face.

Kyler felt his eyes grow wide and actually had to stop himself from gasping aloud. He reached a hand out to touch it, but before he could, the case snapped closed.

“So, we have a deal?” Sharpe asked. “You do the job in exchange for weapons? Or, I could drop you back on Yeren and we could pretend this exchange never happened.”

He chewed his lip in thought. He didn’t know if he could trust this Nolan character, but he had a better shot of helping the resistance if he had the money and the resources that he’d offered. And besides, that leg was pretty freaking badass.

“Alright, Sharpe,” he nodded finally. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

Nolan smiled. “Wonderful.” He reached under the dashboard once more and handed Kyler a pile of clean clothes; his aviator’s jacket, freshly washed and sewn up, and under it a t-shirt and cargo pants not unlike the damaged ones he currently wore.

“Get dressed,” he said, gesturing to a bathroom. “We’ll be arriving shortly.”

[harlockauxillia30k-blog]

The Siege of Terra

The Imperial Cruiser Angelus had rotten luck, it had to be said.

Exiting warpspace after a semi-blind jump into the system, the Angelus emerged amid a traitor crusade battlegroup of multiple battlecruisers. After a minutes delay, the Angelus’ void shields began to be battered by multiple close-in broadsides. Though it tried to answer, the ship was completely outmatched and outgunned. Though those aboard it had little-time to take it in, the Sol system was a complete mess. Imperial defense had already fallen back to Terra herself, already legions of steel were dueling on Mars. Already a dozen other rocks and planetoids had been invaded. Now, Terra stood, a gleaming golden pearl bleeding red, as vast swathes of the ecumenopolis burned from planet-wide fires that consumed entire hab blocks. Dead dreadnoughts careened into the planets surface, smashing layers of cities down into silent dead rubble. And all along it, along with the glimmers of cities, small lines drawn haphazardly in all directions denoted Imperial forces fighting the traitor legions bitterly for every square inch.

Harlock marveled, even as rounds impacted the voids in front of him. He saw hundreds, thousands maybe, of smaller ships as they dueled in strike craft knife fights in the silence of the void.

When he came to his senses, he saw the characteristic signs of a failing void shield, and turned to his survivors. There was the handful of Centauri riflemen, most of them bandaged and on painkillers, and Melissa, who was having a significant emotional moment as she watched the human race tear itself asunder before her very eyes.

“Listen everyone. In a minute the captain will call for the ship to be abandoned. We will land on Terra. We may be separated. If I don't get to meet any of you again, I want you to know, that it has been my god emperor damned privilege to serve with each one of you. No matter what happens.”

The survivors nodded. Sergeant York spoke up. “Served with you for about a year sir. No finer officer in the star rifles there was, before or since.”

Private Sam bit her lips. “Feth. It’s going down like this. A-alright sir. Thanks. You pulled me out of a burning wreck on Tarentum IX, i still got the scars. Lets pull the Imperium out of hell, yeah?”

Corporal Hayes grunted. “With respect? I always thought you were a son of a bitch that was trying to get us all killed with all the crazy shit we had to put up with. But some of us survived this long. Damned if that isn't providence. Hail the god emperor. May he welcome us all at his side as the heroes who died to save Him.” Hayes produced a small golden bauble, like Harlock’s, and Harlock fished his own out, nodding at the man.

Melissa, in catatonic shock, tore her eyes from a massive imperial superheavy carrier slowly shatter and die as her bow was lanced by a formation of traitor ships.

“There is no god in this universe. No benevolent ones. Not if THIS is what the innocent deserve!” she was shouting, and she wouldn't soon stop. Anyone could see that.

Harlock walked up, calm, and planted a kiss on her lips. “This will be the last time, Klicke. Who said anyone was innocent, here?” and then let her go.

[Musical cue: this track]

“Soldiers of the 2nd Centauri Star Rifles, this regiment has lived for-”

A massive explosion just rocked the ship. The shields were out. Klaxons blared.

“...has lived for over eight centuries. From its first founding, I have fought under its banner, bore witness to its great heights, during the Ullanor wars, on Feros, upon Hesperax, fighting under a dozen legions, regarded and recognized by primarchs and generals. Under this banner have a thousand villains and a million heroes served. It is with my deep resignation, I formally retire the 2nd Centauri Star Rifles. Soldiers of the emperor, present arms!”

The remnants of the regiment saluted and presented arms perfectly in the corridors of the Angelus.

“You are all for a final time DIS-MISSED. You are free citizens of the Imperium. Seek Army logisticians and financiers should you survive the coming trials for your mustering pay and backpay. You are hereby retired. God bless you all, and good luck.”

There was a moment to let that sink in, as the ship rocked and groaned and armsmen and crew dashed about the sad band of veterans.

“Get to the evacuation boats and drop pods men. You too, Adept. If we somehow survive this,the rally point is the Pistoliers Saloon in Port Vangelis, August 3rd, for war stories and drinking contests.”

With sad grins, and a hug or two, the soldiers split up. Some teamed up, hoping in numbers they would survive. Harlock looked at Klicke.

“The adepts have a good chance of having a superior escape route, and may be able to land you in safe imperial territory. Go to them. I’ll find my own way. I always do.” Harlock said, grimly. He was quite certain this was the day he would die.

Yet, he saw no reason to die aboard some random starship. He joined the throngs of soldiers who clamored for the drop pods, launching them immediately. Eventually, he came upon a man in a wide brimmed hat, a captain of armsmen, who commanded a group of terrifying youngsters guarding drop pods. “Officers and men of rank first! The rest of you degenerates second! Wait your turn and be processed, or I’ll process you!”

A man broke from the group and ran for an open pod door.

Zzot.

He lay motionless on the ground, his head smouldering.

“anyone else want to question ship policy?! You!” He pointed at Harlock.

“Thats an officers uniform alright. You’re in Pod 3C. Get moving, your going to be stuck with some commoners though. Can’t be helped.”

Harlock nodded, and walked on, getting in 3C and clicking himself in. He silently thanked that he hadnt ate anything that day; there would be no need to fear throwing up.

The soldiers in the pod were scared out of their minds. One young girl, an armsman, wept as silently as she could. Another, an army trooper, looked like he was going to bounce out of his seat. “Oh come on, let me get some! LET ME GET SOME! HORUS! COME ON!”

Others were in prayer. At least one was, somehow, impossibly, soundly asleep, his vest adorned with a half dozen melta charge cells and a meltagun secured at his side.

Harlock said nothing, and nothing was said to him. In a few moments after securing himself, the pod was launched, and Harlock got a look at just how bad the Angelus had taken it. In another minute or two, it would begin to snap and break apart; a sure sign of complete loss of all hands remaining. Harlock hoped his friends made it out.

Other pods were certainly not lucky. Chaos fighters shot them out of their descent with glee, while one actually impacted an unawareimperial thunderbolt, sending both tumbling on fire, badly smashed into pieces. Harlock’s own had a rocky ride, being struck by hundreds of chunks of space debris from the orbital battle as he approached the burning, glowing city-world of terra.

Harlock closed his eyes as he felt his pod become rocked by traitor flak guns which begged his pod come apart at the seams. It would be a bad landing. It wasnt the best possible transport for the job either. But it would happen all the same.

With a mighty thud. Harlock’s pod smashed into the smouldered, melted remains of a triad of hive spires, flattened and pancaked into a kind of artificial smolten plateau, along with hundreds of other such spires. The landscape was awash with agony, as the occasional skeleton fragment poked out of the ash of the spires occupants and the twisted corrugated metal of towers that once accurately illustrated mankinds unbound ambition, now collapsed to absolute ruin. In the distance, perhaps a few kilometers away, the Imperial palace stood, golden and beautiful, as dark forces and entire titan legions descended upon it. To recount what one could see, even this far away, is the recount the stories of literal angels and demons. Titans fought there, not mere men.

[Musical Cue: this track]

Harlock’s pod opened. The trooper who prayed was given what she had likely asked for, a swift death, as a support beam of the now badly mangled drop pod was planted into her skull, likely killing her mercifully quick. Another soldier was crying as he tried to extract his leg from depressed metal. Harlock knew in an instant his leg would not come without the pod being dismantled. He was as dead as the devotee, he merely did not know it yet.

The one next to him that had shouted lived, however, and had unbuckled himself, kicked the pod door open, grabbed his gear and began sprinting off like mad in the direction of the palace. The sleeper had awoken, presumably when the head restraint on his seat gave way and broke his neck from the whiplash of landing. Now he and his meltagun rested un-used. Harlock picked it up, remembering his dead friend, Tech Sergeant Dienes, and collected as much ammo as he could from the man, before stepping into the burning sunset of the fall of mankind. There were other imperials about too, either from pods, or who were here before, who knew. And the astartes were here. Not the friendly kind, of course. Never them.

Harlock watched an Iron Warriors terminator, strangely alone and separate from his kin (a failed teleportation, perhaps) fire his assault cannon across the plateau, killing at least five imperials that Harlock could see, and immediately dived for cover; a natural bend in the cooled melted slag of the spires. It would take quite a bit of fire from his meltagun to do it, but he was confident this terminator could be killed.

With the courage of a man who knew he was destined to die, the Major dashed forward, meltagun in hand, charges wrapped around his chest like a bandolier. Diving to the side while it strafed opposite Harlock, he fired his first shot in the terminator’s exposed leg joint, near the knee where the armor segmented the most. It was a cheap shot, as the terminator did not see Harlock approach, but effective. It was not clear if the terminator immediately lost use of his leg, or if he melted the servos, but the iron warrior was rooted in place, forced to drag the titanic dead weight of his leg as he turned, assault cannon spinning to attack his assailant. Harlock evaded a swing from his other hand- a powered fist capable of killing him in a single hit, and fired another charge of the meltagun at the terminator.

Another man, bulky, with no sleeves and a red bandana across his forehead, charged with a guttural scream, his flak jacket swinging with his dog tags in the wind, a meltabomb in hand, up to the terminator. Harlock and the terminator ceased their duel, and the major immediately dashed back, diving behind some slag. He heard the assault cannon spit out hot lead, a groan, and a click.

Immense heat washed over Harlock’s body, making him groan. He ached. His soul was broken into pieces. He now simply did as he was meant to. Kill. For the emperor.

With a grunt, Harlock pushed himself up again, supporting himself on the rubble to see what had happened. The terminator was a mess of steamy red ooze and gore as his armor had exploded into pieces. Harlock couldn't find the imperial who did it, until he noticed a lone leg, its owner long gone, hanging off a piece of rockrete.

In the distance, a chainblade whirred, and a warrior of the World Eaters legion stepped forth.

“I know you. You were on Ferros. Come, duel with me, without that weapon. You who would dare kill a brother of mine in close combat.”

Harlock remained silent, and knelt, shielding his body from the marine. After a moment, it charged, firing its bolt-pistol towards Harlock as he whirred up the meltagun. The marine dashed overhead. Harlock pointed the weapon up, and fired... hitting nothing. The world eater had dodged it, and now smacked the weapon out of Harlock’s hands with his boltpistol.

“Khorne will be pleased this day, one way or the other.” the marine growled, assaulting with the fury that would be expected of a berserker warrior.

Harlock dodged and parried, his blade intercepting assault after assault, being forced to dodge point blank hits from a bolt pistol. The marine laughed, seeing Harlock so desperate.

And then in a flash it was decided. A carefully considered shot at the marines melee hand from his plasma pistol sidearm, a parry of the bolt pistol, and a final shot to the head.

Harlock took a side step as the smouldering, twitching body of the world eater died before him, and with a limp from a minor sprain in his legs from the dodging, he picked up his meltagun.

It had been weeks since his last juvenat injection. He had never felt so old and alone. With his melta, he leaned against some of the rubble-slag, and sighed in exhaustion. He had been tired of fighting for so many years. He didn't care anymore. There was nothing left to fight for.

He wandered his plateau, creeping from cover to cover as more marines, seemingly at random, arrived. He ambushed another iron warrior kill team, killing one marine with a good melta shot to the head, a sturdy krak grenade for the next, and a final duel resolved only by stabbing his knife, given to him by an old friend in the auxillia, through the reinforced body glove covering the marines neck.

For hours, he fought. Sometimes, he would find a random imperial army trooper, assist them for a time, until eventually they died. Harlock remained there, waging his own private war as if on a chessboard, ignorant of the greater struggle. Unaware that at that moment his god emperor was aboard horus’ flagship, or that there had been a godlike defense of the palace gate, or of the heroism of the imperial fists... none of it was clear to him, as he watched the wrecks of ships smash apart spires, as deathstrike missiles detonated atomics in the distance, as millions upon millions of warriors fought below and above, here, in this strategically insignificant spot harlock deemed his final stand, Harlock fought quietly. Desperately. Like the killing machine that 800 years only of war reduced him to. A broken spirit. A broken man.

Eventually, days and days later, Imperial recon teams sweeping areas of the planet for survivors and enemies, found Harlock sat upright, in the middle of the plateau, surrounded by the dead. The old, ancient haggard man appeared to be dead, surprising the team upon his eventual glance towards the Imperial Army troopers. Had it not been in the wake of the Horus Heresy, had it not been for the wounding of the emperor and the bloody aftermath of the traitors demise upon Terra, Harlock would have been given a medal for the things the imperials saw on that plateau of corrugated metal and ruin.

But alas, it is the fate of the infantryman to be unsung, and often unmourned.With the aid of anotherman, Harlock limped to a rhino, and spent the next three months in medical care, recovering in a mass hospital that had been converted out of a shopping district.

The Siege of Terra was over. The Horus Heresy, in its most dramatic act, was over. But the galaxy fought on in bloody wars anyway.

Colonel Harlock was given command of the 93rd Centauri Star Rifles eventually. He never knew what became of the original survivors. He never truly wanted to know. All that was certain was that on August 3rd, in Pistoliers Saloon in Port Vangelis, one of the few cities not to be completely obliterated by Imperial forces in the reconquest of Centauri Prime, Harlock sat alone, consumed by thought, and deep pain. He spoke to no one, and after the day concluded, threw on his colonel’s cloak, and prepared to depart for the planet Hesperax with his new regiment. There was a chaos insurrection to put down, and the 93rd would do it- or be put to death.

[Music Cue: this track]

///

Imperial Historical Footnote: Almost no record of the 2nd Centauri Star Rifles exists today in the modern Imperium at large. Its deeds, and sacrifices, are preserved only in a small monument erected on the world of Titan-Secundus, which reads as follows:

“The Soldiers of the 2nd Centauri Star Rifles fought and bled here. We shed our lives for the Imperium and her emperor, so all men may live free, and that precious few need to sacrifice as we have done in the future. Mourn not our fallen, Remember not our deeds. Know only this, reader: great men have gone before you to sacrifice for this, our Imperium. Do not let our sacrifices be in vain.”

The monument now rests in front of the Titan-Secundus Schola Progenium in its courtyard.

///

[worldtravelingsisters]

GUATEMALA

On December 28, we arrived as scheduked about 9 A.M.  Our tour to Tikal was the first to leave.  We were hurried off the ship and through a reception building on the pier that even had a band playing fold music.  Outside was a whole line of vendors in probably the nicest stalls we had yet seen, so we were a little disappointed to have no opportunity to look for souvenirs.  The bus took us to a military airfield.  After a cursory check by several very young soldiers, we were driven right to the chartered propjet.  There was an airline insignia on the tail and a flight attendant so I felt a bit more secure about the flight.  Take-off was typical noisy, rattly propjet but at 17,000 feet the flight was smooth and the Pringles and cookies snack was better than on most US carriers.  Watching the terrain change was interesting.  The first fields were very geometric and cultivated.  The neat rows were visible.  Then the colors changed and the shapes became more random.  Soon fields became trees and finally we were over the rain forest of the mountains, which disappeared under a layer of clouds. 

We landed in an hour at Mundo del Maya International Airport, and our group was divided onto two small buses for the hour and a half drive to Tikal. We were fortunate to have the excellent guide Amaro with his 16 years of experience in the park and a second guide from the main office of the tour company.  The drive alternated dense jungle with the rural poverty we have seen so often.  Many homes were barely structures; a variety of salvaged materials seemed to have been used randomly.  Few windows had glass, just metal bars.  Dirt floors were visible through the openings.  Cooking again seemed to happen outdoors.  Little fruit stands accompanied each group of three or four houses,  Coconuts seemed to be the big seller.  We did see a larger town that had grown up on the shores of a large lake.  It included a few hotels and even a couple of resorts.   There was also an interesting sign at a point where the water lapped close to the road which prohibited the washing of cars and clothes.

After still more miles of jungle and villages, we finally turned onto the road to Tikal, yet another 33 kilometers away.  As we entered the park, we passed a few open-air restaurants and a sign indicating a hotel.  Sitting on the ground beside the road were several families with crafts and souvenirs spread on blankets.  To accommodate Viking’ s schedule, we were allowed to drive to the central excavated area, which  visitors are not usually able to do.  This saved us 30 to 45 minutes of walking time.  Along our route were several minor excavated areas and some large mounds in the trees that we would later learn were unexcavated pyramids.  Amaro told us that the Maya organized life in 20-year blocks of time and celebrated the end of the span by building another set of temples or monuments or a ballcourt.  The huge acreage is full of these minor archaeological sites, most of which have not been and will not be excavated.  We were dropped off at the base of the hill leading up to the Central Plaza of Tikal.  Above us loomed the dark pyramid of the Great Jaguar Temple.

The temple, so named for the carvings on the lintel above the doorway into the temple, was discovered by accident and has been excavated on three sides.  Amaro explained the rigorous process used to safely uncover one of these buried temples.  The first step is to cut down the trees that have grown upon the temples.  The exposed roots are left to dry out for 3 to 4 years so they can be removed more easily and without damaging the structure beneath.  Soil is then removed, starting from the top where the temple is.  The pyramid on which the temple stands was built in nine levels, nine being a sacred number to the Maya.  The stone work is incredible, given that the Maya had neither tools nor animals to assist in the construction.  The Jaguar Temple is oriented to the sun so that the sun rises over the temple exactly centered on the stairway from the temple to the ground.   On the plaza side is that narrow, very steep stairway always shown in the photographs.  At the top, in front of the temple, the sacrifices would be made.  On the ground in front of the temple are 2 eroded stellae, each with a stone altar before it that would also have been used for sacrifices.  Only faint fragments of their inscriptions are still visible.  The stellae are protected by thatch-roofed “ hutlets” (my word) and “Do Not Sit” signs.

On the other side of the road to the plaza and above the level of the plaza are ruins of residential palaces for royalty and nobility.  What remains is a block-long rectangle of stone foundations, probably 2 to 3 stories deep.  Some decoration survives, including a faint jaguar carved over a window looking out onto the plaza.  Another feature of the area is a ballcourt where the Maya played brutal games.  One required players to get a basketball-sized ball through a vertical stone ring protruding from a wall.  They could use any body part except hands or feet to accomplish this.  The stakes were huge because the losers of the game would be sacrificed to the gods.  Amaro told us that the priests had to change their terminology so that the losers to be killed were instead called the winners.  Otherwise, they were going against their teachings that being sacrificed was a great honor.

At the edge of the plaza and between the Jaguar Temple and another one across from it is a series of 4 or 5 stone levels, like an oversized stairway.  Each level is about a foot and a half high so climbing up them with nothing to hold on to is difficult.  Given that the Maya were such small people, this must have been a real challenge.  At the top level is what has been named the North Acropolis, where a whole collection of small pyramids and other ceremonial structures is found.  Interspersed among them are many stellae, some with altars, and several huge carved masks.  All are protected with thatched coverings, although visitors are free to wander among them. On the third side of the plaza is another temple called the Temple of the Masks for the carvings on it,  It is exactly aligned with the Great Jaguar Temple and was also built about 700 A.D. Its 38-meter height is just shy of Jaguar’s 45.  The same ruler, Jasaw Chan K’awiil, had both built and was entombed inside Jaguar.  A modern staircase has been built up the back of Masks so visitors can climb to the temple level.  They can also sit on the lowest stone level.

Next our group followed Amaro on a walk through the jungle to another temple.  We had been using Mayan roads called causeways, but this was a modern path.  I liked having my hiking poles and would have liked them even more had it rained as predicted. The roads and paths were already slick from the morning rain.  The temple was called the Temple of the Two-Headed Snake.  It was taller than the previous two and somewhat older.  Like them, it was precisely oriented so the sun would rise over the temple at the top and fall exactly on the vertical stairway in its center.  Here was its unique feature.  At the base of the pyramid  on either side of that stairway is a great stone serpent’s head.  When the sunlight flows down the stairway to the heads, it looks as if a great serpent is crawling down from the sky.  At this point we divided into smaller groups.  One group of ladies felt fatigued from our extensive walking and rode back to the bus area in a pickup that had brought in supplies.  Amaro took the men to climb 180 steps to the temple platform of the Snake pyramid.  Four other ladies and I accompanied the second quide on a leisurely walk back to the bus.  

We partly retraced our steps but explored a new route as well,  We saw several smaller areas of monuments that probably marked various 29-year periods.  One included a huge carved disk that was a calendar.  It still showed quite a bit of detail.  We learned that the Maya were skilled astronomers and understood the movement of the stars well enough to use the information to plan their agriculture.  Standing next to it was a stele with the figure carved onto it still visible.  In another area our guide showed us a pair of tree-covered mounds in the jungle, twin pyramids never uncovered,  We also encountered a bit of wildlife, a coatimundi begging food from the tourists.  I was reminded of the bears in our parks and how we had to reteach them to be wild in order to save them.  We were told that the coatimundi uses its very long tail to reach into a tarantula burrow, curl it around the spider, lift it out of the hole,  It then beats it to death with its front paws and eats it.  I don’t know if I buy this story!  One other story that got my attention was based on a surviving carving of a queen pulling a string with long thorns attached to it through her tongue while priests collected the dripping blood as an offering to the gods.

Finally all together again, we closed the bus doors just as the downpour began.  All the way back we passed groups huddled under trees to find some shelter.  The driver was challenged by the instantly slippery road, especially one steep rise that we barely managed.  Unfortunately, we now had no time left to see either the museum or the local vendors.  Our return drive to the airport was too fast and too frightening,  We stopped for a quick and not-very-good lunch of rice, beans, tasteless guacamole, and dried-out beef and chicken at one of the hotels on the lake.  We rushed on to the airport and our return flight to Puerto Quetzal.  

Tikal was an expensive add-on to our cruise but worth every penny.  The contrast between the sophisticated knowledge of construction, mathematics, and astronomy of the Mayas and the ruthlessness of nature that tries still to remove all trace of them.  The way the Guatemalans have chosen to leave Tikal in a semi-restored state is interesting.  It  prevents a Disneyland appearance yet leaves so many mysteries.  The fact that no further excavation is planned fascinates me.  It is a difficult place to reach, which protects it, and that’s good.  The great mystery is still what happened to the Mays, a dominant culture for an unusually long time, from about 800 BC to almost 900 AD.  There are 4 theories: climate change, disease, civil war, and war with other tribes.  Would we not love to know which it is?

[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: Recollections of a Long Siege in Kashmir

A military siege is like a chokehold on an entire people.

I was a teenager when I lived through a long curfew in Kashmir in the 1990s when the rebellion against Indian rule was at its peak. After decades of betrayals, broken promises, and pent-up resentment, Kashmiris had risen up in arms. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary Kashmiris marched through the streets in a mass eruption. India rushed in thousands of troops, turning the idyll of Kashmir into a dystopian garrison overnight. Everyone began to call the valley “a beautiful prison.”

The long war in and over Kashmir began soon after the Partition of British India in 1947. At the time, the future of the independent state of Kashmir was left undecided; in 1948, after India and Pakistan had fought their first war over Kashmir, it was agreed that a U.N.-mandated referendum would be held to allow Kashmiris a say in whether they joined India or Pakistan. That promise has yet to be honored. In 1987, a state election was rigged to prevent a new and popular Kashmiri party from gaining legislative power, leaving Kashmiris more disillusioned than ever. Pakistan readily handed Kashmiris arms and training, leading to full-blown mass uprising. The early 1990s were a time of daily bloodletting, as the Indian armed forces responded with limitless force, killing and torturing hundreds. Hundreds of protesters were killed by the paramilitaries from January to May 1990 alone.

On January 21, 1990, one day after India sent an all-powerful governor to stymie mass protests, at least 50 people were killed on the Gaw Kadal bridge in Srinagar, the main city in Kashmir. The paramilitaries surrounded unarmed demonstrators on the bridge and indiscriminately shot at them with automatic rifles. They then poked the piled-up bodies on the bridge to check if anyone was alive.

Robert Nickelsberg—Getty ImagesAn Indian Border Security Force soldier shows a suspected militant to people in a line of parked military vehicles, Srinagar, India, on July 28, 1994.

Far away in the arcadian countryside and along the Line of Control, the de-facto border that separates the disputed region into Indian- and Pakistan-administered territories, hundreds were killed in battles between the insurgents and Indian forces. Kashmir’s mountains became open burial grounds. Soon, we saw bloody internecine battles, too, as Pakistan decided to back pro-Pakistan militants to diminish those who favored an independent Kashmir. As if Kashmir hadn’t seen enough death, for some time, Kashmiris were killing one another on the streets. By day, Kashmiris were busy counting their dead, or mending their broken-bodied kin; at night, they contemplated their future.

Kashmiri Pandits, a Hindu minority who had lived together with Kashmiri Muslims for centuries, left in an almost overnight exodus. More than 200 Pandits were targeted and killed by the militants; facing mortal fear, they just left their age-old homes for the hot plains of India and became refugees. Delhi has since then used their enormous tragedy and suffering to demonize Kashmiri Muslims.

In the city where I was—Srinagar, Kashmir’s biggest city—the sight of the “coffin car” (an armored carrier deployed by the Indian armed forces in residential neighborhoods) and the olive green “gypsy” (a customized jeep used as a patrol car) would send us boys fleeing. They would sweep down a street and grab and nab. The sheer glimpse of these monster vehicles would terrify parents.

On Aug. 5 this year, when India imposed the worst-ever siege on Kashmir and unilaterally revoked the region’s long-held autonomy, I wasn’t merely reminded of all this—I simply relived everything. The soul-crushing 70-day long curfew that I experienced growing up in Kashmir never really leaves you. It follows you like a second shadow, invisible but inerasable.

In the 1990s, soldiers marched outside in chain-like formations at intervals. Our movements to see neighbors, friends, or just to walk a bit, after weeks of being restricted indoors, had to be timed to the rounds. A slight miscalculation would result in someone or the other at the receiving end of rifle butts. The soldiers could shoot you dead on mere suspicion because draconian laws that India imposed in 1990 gave the armed forces complete immunity from prosecution. The laws remain in place even today. Violence, brute power, and total freedom to exercise that power are essential tools in the hands of an occupying military. The message to the natives is clear: to break your spirit, we can do anything to your bodies.

One evening, we were playing carrom in my uncle’s house next door when we heard a commotion outside, then loud cracks, then shouting and screaming. The paramilitaries had chased a shadow in the by-lane that led to our neighbourhood from a traffic artery and pulled apart a door that they thought had helped the escapee. We held our breath.

We never found out who was beaten up, tortured, or taken away.

Alixandra Fazzina—NOOR/ReduxWomen make their way home at dusk as clouds of tear gas engulfs the air in the stone strewn streets surrounding the Jama Masjed following riots in Srinagar in Dec. 2008.

Food began to run out. Kashmiris, conditioned by harsh winters and a long history of political repression, are accomplished hoarders of food and memories. We hang ornate garlands of sun-dried turnip, gourd, eggplant, on our balconies and roof terraces. We keep large amounts of rice and pulses in man-size vats of copper or earthenware. We store so many medicines that each house has a mini pharmacy in the kitchen or living room. We remember years and seasons as that curfew or this. People who get married during sieges sometimes come to be called “curfew bride” or “curfew groom.” We remember. All of this to nourish the primeval seed of survival, as hard times begin to loom—and they do ever so often.

We dig into these repositories when the snows or soldiers arrive. The snows are always welcome, as they replenish our mountains and inject fresh life into our springs and gardens. The soldiers are never welcome because they inevitably kill or torture—both the young and old, men and women. They land in Kashmir for one thing and one thing alone: to deliver imperial punishments to a people who’ve never accepted India’s rule over them.

As the curfew lasted months, and days and nights began to get longer and more dreadful, boys in the neighbourhood started to hatch plans to do something about it all. A festival day was approaching perhaps, and people whispered that some households were barely managing to feed their children with sparse meals of rice and beans. People helped each other, of course, with tins and bags of rudiments but everyone knew the stores were running out. We were alright, I remember, and didn’t go without meals, but only just about.

An older boy with whom I’d often played cricket in an apple orchard nearby, let it be known that we could all go on an expedition into the picturesque Dal Lake, a ten-minute walk from my parents’ home. Srinagar, one of the oldest cities in the world, is a town crisscrossed by water. It is hemmed in by the famous Dal Lake on the east, and the great river Jhelum runs through its heart in the old town. The people of the city have always depended on its water bodies for food and transport. It is a city defined by water. Although rampant urbanisation and bureaucratic venality have eroded Kashmir’s water bodies during the last few decades, fresh vegetables and fruit are to this day sold at the shores of the lake. The produce arrives daily from an intricate network of small lake-side farms, floating gardens, and inland waterways.

And it was into these un-curfewed patches of land on water, water on land, that I went on a rickety boat nearly thirty years ago to hunt for food. Or is ‘forage’ a more appropriate term? We set off by a narrow clearing away from the main shore in our parts – there were rumours that the armed forces had acquired naval boats to patrol the lake, to lay a siege on the water, too.

The boat was slow, somewhat precariously inclined in its negotiation with the surface of the lake. I had a makeshift paddle, perhaps an old cricket bat or a plank of wood. But what I do remember clearly is that we rowed with all our strength to cover ground quickly, glances darting left and right in case an unexhausted vegetable patch came into view, in case a kind farmer spied us from his perch somewhere in the dense growths and understood at once what we wanted, needed. There was, of course, an air of thrill, adventure, on the boat but we also knew it was a rather desperate situation.

Prashant Panjiar—AnzenbergerYoung Kashmiris play a game of carrom on the bank of the Dal Lake in Srinagar, the capital of Jammu and Kashmir.

Each of us returned with something in our hands. A bottle gourd, a batch of withered greens, lotus stems, some potatoes perhaps too… The neighbourhood, like most others across Kashmir survived the curfew by sheer graft, collective action, and what came to be known as a ‘shutter economy’, which meant shopkeepers sold or loaned basic goods to people secretly, from under the shutter.

In that summer and autumn, after we’d scoured for vegetables in that wobbly Shikara boat, I quickly turned from boyhood into youth, became someone who lived amidst curfews and sieges, witnessing the image of the pastoral idyll – Kashmir – breaking to reveal the terrifying darkness of oppression.

The current siege of Kashmir, complete with an unprecedented, three-month-long communications blackout, is in many ways a continuation of the sieges that have come before. Yet this one might stay for a long time, a permanent siege in some form or the other. Because history tells us Kashmiris will not relent, even as they are, more than ever, surrounded by the jackboots of an occupation.

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

[literature-works]

A Different Type of Soldier Chapter 6

StarWars FMA Crossover

Story Summary: In a period of civil war, the Empire pushes the Rebel forces towards the outer reaches of the galaxy. With the Jedi Master Van Hohenheim captured and the Rebel forces stretched to their breaking point, there doesn’t seem to be any hope for them to take down the Empire. But a forgotten insignificant clone might be the answer the Rebels were looking for.

Chapter Summary: Colonel Mustang begins his interrogation but not with who he thought he would.

Chapters 1/ 2/ 3/ 4/ 5/ 6/ 7/ ?

AO3

The Captain and last surviving member of Green Lion Company didn’t know how long he was stuck there. He couldn’t sleep even in the pure darkness of the storage closet. Every time he closed his eyes the images of his unit falling one by one to the ground flashed behind his eye lids. There were some points that he had thought it was all in his imagination. Without seeing the result of the man slaughter, his foolish imagination could dream that they were still alive down on Resembool. Hurt, but alive and quickly picking up the pieces of their defeat. He knew in his heart that this was wrong. He remembered the cold lifeless form of his Lieutenant as he laid on the cobblestones. However, it seemed that his heart was already too full of scars to keep track of one more. He decided to let himself be naïve.

The Captain felt the ship rumble as it lowered through the atmosphere of what he could hope was their destination. It shuttered and lurched as the ship landed and the whirl of the engines began to wind down. Shouts and orders picked up beyond the door and the Captain heard the rebel troops on the other side begin to stir and dismount. They had arrived. It took what he thought was hours after the ship had landed before the door of the closet suddenly slid opened. The Captain flinched away and closed his eyes as the light that poured in from the hallway was blindingly bright. Hours in the darkness did nothing to help him. He felt a hand grab the front of his chest plate and yank him harshly up and out of the closet. He stumbled to catch himself but with his hands tied and his vision gone, the Captain only found himself on the hard metal floors of the smuggling ship. A horrible yelp escaped his throat as his shoulder rammed into the ground. Laughter echoed around the small group of guards around him.

“Look, the mighty empire has fallen,” he heard the one taunt.

“Shut up, Johnny,” another huffed as a hand grabbed the Captain by the armor and lifted him back up to his feet. “Get going, sir,” the man said tiredly and the tip of a blaster nudged him forward. The Captain was lead down the short hall of the ship as some of the guards jeered and mocked him all of the way. It aggravated the Captain till no end, but he did his best to keep his mouth shut and his head down. He didn’t think he had enough energy in him to fight anymore. He closed his eyes and took a deep tired breath as another image of the massacre of white armor flashed through them. He quickly opened his eyes back up and focused on the ramp before him. Maybe, for them, he could find a bit more.

The cots and injured soldiers were long since removed from the ship as the Captain realized they must have landed some time ago. All the rebel forces were gone from the ship aside from the guards who were moving him. Where did they go? He was lead to the entrance of the craft and saw a rather horribly familiar figure standing there waiting for him.

“Hello, Captain, how are you doing today?” the slimy voice of Kimblee asked with a false smile on his face. His nose was a horrible purple and blue mess, but it did nothing to fix the crude smile the Major was giving him.

“Disappointed,” he replied with a huff. “It looks like I have only managed to make you look more ugly with that hit to the face. Maybe I should try again later.” The butt of a blaster rammed roughly into the back of his head and he staggered forward. He cursed and shook out his head, ever grateful for his helmet. There was a sharp nasally laugh from Kimblee as he took ever the most joy in his pain.

“Well, it doesn’t seem we can compare all that much as you hide behind that bucket on your head,” he said crudely. “Ah well, it just seems to allow me to imagine more. People’s faces are all the more expressive when they confront death. Tell me, Captain, what do you think your lieutenant’s face looked like when he hit the ground?”

“Imagine this,” the Captain huffed as Kimblee suddenly doubled over as his knee was driven into his stomach. The guards behind him pulled him back as he tried to kick the man again, his foot just missing the Major’s head. He struggled to land another hit but Kimblee only set out a winded laugh at his feeble attempts.

“If you keep this up you will be joining your company a lot sooner than we had anticipated. That would not be good for all the questions we still need answered,” his smooth voice chucked. The Commander paused as he realized that the man was just taunting him farther. He wanted him to get angry about his unit. The man took copious amounts of joy out of it. It was like death was a joke to him and ED-0001 would not let him make a joke out of his company. He forced himself to choke down his anger and chose to ignore the Major and looked away. He was not going to him the reaction he wanted. The man frowned and hummed to himself as he pressed a button on the wall, seeing that his game was done.

The door of the ship opened, and the Commander had to blink his eyes to keep from being blinded by the sudden light that was entering the ship. He felt a sticky warm breeze race through the doorway and fresh air entered his helmet making him realize that they had landed on a planet instead of a space station like he had thought. He was shoved forward before he could even make sense of what laid beyond the doorway and he staggered down the ramp and onto the malleable ground that gave way under his clumsy false left foot. He stumbled but caught his balance before he could make a fool of himself again. He didn’t think that his shoulder could take another jarring fall. He looked around to see himself at what seemed to be a port. Several fighter ships and carriers were docked in the motor pool with mechanics huddled over the engines and people mulling about for one task or another. The sun beat down on the base and the Captain already felt beads of sweat forming on his forehead as he stared into the distant haze. This was a desert planet with nothing but dirt and sand through its entire plane. It was very different from the hot pleasant environment he was used to on Resembool.

Suddenly he heard a clank on his helmet as something hit off of it. He looked around curiously and then something else hit his hand, stinging it from the force. A booing and jeering started to arise and soon filled the air around the port. Some of the rebels were picking up stones from the ground and tossing them at him. One smacked him right in his shoulder and he growled as a roaring pain rushed through him. The Victors cheered at the hit. The guards around him tried to get the people to stop but Kimblee was paying no mind to them at all.

“You’re the one who destroyed our home!” someone yelled.

“You killed my son!”

“Murderer!”

“What do you have to say for yourself?” a man yelled at him. The Commander knew that they were blaming him for the actions of the entire Empire. It was silly and irrational to think that a single insignificant clone would have any choice in the matter of war. The Captain himself did not even see battle until that day on Resembool as he was still young and not even of age. The rebels there were desperate for answers that he couldn’t give. If this was what the interrogations were going to be like, the Captain did not foresee a good ending for himself. What information could he possibly have on the inner secrets of the Empire?

Rocks continued to pelt his armor and unfortunately the guards leading him through the port. They were not very happy about getting in the line of fire and roughly shoved him forward to quicken his pace across the malleable sand. They pushed his head down and kicked him through the small doorway of the base. Cool air hit him as it seemed to be air conditioned. The walls were clay and the hallways were thin, barely even being able to hold two people across without hassle. Kimblee lead him through the corridors until they entered yet another confinement block. He saw some strange people occupying the cells, which had clear laser field doors. He spotted a few of the occupants and none seemed to be happy to be there but they were few and far in between. As they walked deeper into the block the cells became smaller and empty. They were barely any larger than the broom closet he was shoved in before, but the Captain had to admit that at least he wasn’t going to be sharing it with cleaning ware. Kimblee typed a number code on one of the cells as he was trying to open the door but a sudden loud buzz went off and the man groaned in annoyance.

“What is it now?” he growled as he tried again just to get the same result. The Captain smiled a bit as did the other guards and the man’s expense.

“Technical difficulties?” he smirked smartly. The man glared at him before he pressed the center button. A blue light erupted out of the system and a hologram suddenly took form of a young black-haired rebel soldier with glasses skewed on his face. The digital man quickly pushed up his glasses and jumped a little bit when he caught sight of the Major, making the Captain snicker a little bit at the reaction. Anyone seeing Kimblee would probably have the same reaction. The Captain was a bit ashamed to admit that the terrifying joy that the man took in pain and murder scared him as well. No one knew what Kimblee would do just to get a bit of blood on his hands.

“Sir!” the soldier exclaimed as he saluted quickly.

“What, Sergeant?” Kimblee hissed annoyed with his sudden appearance. The hologram flustered around with some papers in its hands and the Sergeant read over them quickly, scanning for some purpose as to interrupt this man’s job.

“Um, sir, all prisoners are supposed to be taken to medical and inprocessing before they are put in their cells,” the Sergeant told him.

“Open the door, Sergeant, this one is fine,” Kimblee ordered.

“The Colonel needs to see him.”

“Then he can come down and see him himself. Open the door Sergeant,” he hissed.  With the glare he was giving him the Sergeant quickly signed off before the Captain had any room for protest. The door opened and Kimblee took him by the chest plate and threw him into yet another cell before storming out. He stumbled and fell to the ground jarring his shoulder even more, making him curse to the high heavens. His arm was still numb but the shoulder was on fire even more than it was when he actually got hit. He heard a humm start up behind him and he turned to see that they had reactivated the field to lock him in. He scrambled up and scurried towards the door but one of the Guards stopped him before he got to it.

“Whoa, hey, don’t touch that. It’s set to stun and you will knock yourself out before you’re able to do anything,” he warned. The Captain froze as he stared at it, the light blue haze buzzing its current from one side of the wall to the other. Kimblee approached it and smirked at him, the evil eyes bearing through his helmet.

“Just sit tight there, sir,” he spat the last word, “someone will be here to talk to you.”

………….

The Captain stared mindlessly at the clay earthen ceiling of the cell he was crammed into. It felt like ages since he was put in there but he didn’t feel like he had enough energy to care at that moment. He didn’t feel much anymore. He tried to use his time there to sleep however his body couldn't even seem to do that right. His mind kept jumping back to Liore and the corpses that now scattered its lawn. He couldn't sleep, not with that. So, he used his time lying down on the hard bench in the cell and staring at the ceiling as it seemed the only thing he could do at that moment.

His arm itched. Not the actual arm, but the wound. He couldn’t scratch it, he couldn’t ease the feeling as his hands were still restrained behind him. He at first tried his best even in his condition to soothe it but he only managed to taunt it more. Laying there on his cot and suffering the pain was the only thing he could do. The itch was horribly annoying, but the Captain was marginally grateful for the distraction from his wandering mind. It gave him something to focus on. However, an injury like that, without medical treatment, was not going to end well. He couldn’t see it. His armor was blocking where the bullet hit and his arms were still tied as he could not move to give it aid, but he didn’t think he wanted to. He knew it was starting to get infected. It had to have been several hours then since he was hit, maybe days. If the rebels didn’t come in soon and decide to take care of him, he would undoubtedly get sick.

The sound of footsteps outside the door made the Captain turn his gaze from the clay ceiling towards the barrier that blocked the way. A single rebel soldier stood outside of it staring in at him. He appeared to be high ranking as ribbons were delicately pinned on his blue uniform jacket but from where the Captain laid he couldn’t tell his exact rank. Unlike where the Imperial troops were graded in pauldrons and color for differentiation, the rebels only had tiny pins. It was smart to make them less of a target in combat but it was also difficult to tell who was who. The Captain guessed that since they weren’t wearing helmets such as his, their unique facial features were good enough to tell the difference in person.

The soldier glared at him from outside the doorway and didn’t make an attempt to enter the cell. The Captain didn’t attempt to invite him in. With the way the man’s black eyes boiled in hatred and disgust towards him, he didn’t think that becoming friends was on that man’s agenda.

“So, you were the clone that didn’t do us all a favor and die with the rest of them,” the man spat coldly. “I guess the saying ‘the captain goes down with his ship’ doesn’t apply to imperial soldiers.”

“The last of my men surrendered and I had with them to spare the lives of the few soldiers who were left of my unit. I am sure you would have done the same,” the Captain growled his defense as he pushed himself up on the cot he was laying on. His shoulder hissed and growled but he bit through it for the fight. He was not going to be showed up by a pompous ass such as him. The man scoffed at him, not liking the fact that he was being compared to a clone.

“If my soldiers had captured surrendered troops they would have brought them back here as ordered by the intergalactic codes for war,” the man huffed. “We don’t murder people relentlessly like you. The reason why we went to Resembool was because we got distress calls from the Villages about them getting ransacked and pillaged by imperial soldiers.”

“Murder relentlessly? We never murdered innocent civilians under my command, unlike you. Your men were ordered to shoot unarmed troops!” the Captain yelled, standing up to his feet. “The only reason why my unit isn’t with me right now is because your troops shot them unprovoked!” The soldier, a Colonel he could see now that he stood directly on the other side of the barrier beam as him, seemed completely taken aback by his statement. It seemed that he was unaware of what had really occurred on the planet and now the Captain’s accusations were bringing those events to light.

The Colonel's eyes slowly started to scan him, getting a better picture of his prisoner than before. It was difficult for someone to use facial clues when he was wearing a helmet, but the man didn’t need them to know he was spinning some form of the truth as his eyes locked onto his still bloodied and injured shoulder.  The Colonel seemed to grow angry but strangely at someone other than him. He thought he heard a curse escape the man’s lips as he typed a few codes into the panel near his door. A hologram quickly popped up of the same little Sergeant as before. The little man was a little startled at the Colonel's rather furious expression.

“Fuery, get every soldier who just returned from the trip into the conference room. Bring some guards down to cellblock five to escort the prisoner to medical, and send Kimblee to the general's office immediately,” the man ordered. The Sergeant quickly signed off with a yes sir. As soon as the hologram disappeared the Colonel let out an aggravated breath.

“If looks like your interrogation will just have to wait,” he huffed.

“Change of heart?” the Captain teased and the Colonel growled at him. It looked like he was going to retort with something nasty but he was quickly distracted by the guards entering the hallway.

“Take him to the medical ward and have his arm checked out then send him to in processing,” the Colonel ordered. He pressed the button to open the cell as the guards gave their yessirs and they rushed in. The Captain felt a shove as the men guided him out of his cell and down the hall. The Colonel glared at him as he passed and he just returned it though it was quite halfheartedly. He was confused beyond belief. He didn’t know what was going on, if this was a trick of some sort, but he didn’t trust the man at all. The guards behind him gave him a little push as they realized he was slowing down and they turned the corner. The Captain took one last glance back to where the Colonel was standing before to find it vacant of life. A pit grew in his stomach that made him imagine that something wasn’t right about his perspective on things, he just couldn’t place what it could be.

……..

The Colonel stared out across the table at his blond-haired subordinate. She was straight faced as ever, which did not give him any clue that she was wondering why they were there. She probably already knew.

He had spent the last few hours interrogating his own troops rather than the filthy imperial soldier they just captured. They didn’t even have a name for the Commander let alone the chipped files in his wrist. The Captain was furious as any prisoner would be after such an embarrassing defeat. He blamed the rebels for murder when Mustang was sure that he had his soldiers follow the rules of war. However, seeing the Captain’s mutilated shoulder, he knew that something was wrong. Kimblee was ordered to take him to the medical ward if he was injured and even send him through in processing so that they could get any information they needed from the clone before starting an actual interrogation. Those obviously were not followed which made the Colonel wonder what else the Major had done without his supervision. He needed to get to the bottom of it.

All the other people he questioned had a mixture of answers on the matter. Some of them replied saying that Kimblee did order them to shoot the remainder of soldiers after they were peacefully rounded up, and others had a mixture of stories as they didn’t do such a thing. He didn’t know who to believe at this point and the last person he could trust was probably the one who killed the most in that firefight.

The rebels all had mixed feelings about the Central Empire, more importantly the storm and clone troopers they used. Their anger raged from a trickle of competition and anger to a burning disgust for their creation at all. Unfortunately, the Colonel had to admit that he was on the latter of the group. He was disgusted by the idea of cloning men and even more so about what they had become. He understood why many people would have sided with Kimblee if he really did order them to shoot the prisoners. However, in the matter of humane warfare, the rebel forces had no room for this conduct in their military even against clones and storm troopers, mere minions on the Central’s behalf. A prisoner of war was a prisoner of war no matter what they were which meant fair treatment and aid under their confinement. If the rebel forces didn’t uphold the Intergalactic Codes of War, it just gave the Empire new propaganda to hold against them in the long run.

“Lieutenant,” the Colonel sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose, tired of all of the people he had to question that day. He hoped that she would be able to give him something to set his suspicions to rest.

“Sir,” she answered stiffly, seeing that he was taking his time in. Mustang looked up at her, knowing her attitude was anything but impatient.

“Lieutenant Hawkeye, tell me everything that happened in Liore as how you remember it exactly,” he ordered her. She nodded her head in acceptance. His most trusted subordinate told him exactly what happened that day. She told him about her position up in one of the farmer’s barn windows and how she watched the Imperial soldiers walk through the vacated village with crates full of seed.

“Seed?” the Colonel questioned her.

“Yes sir. They took them to the previous towns. Even the other companies had them. I believe they were trading them for some reason, but I am not sure, sir,” she answered. The Colonel frowned and made a little note on the pad he was writing on. The Avarice Battalion usually raided the villages that they took their food from. That was one reason why the rebels took interest in the planet of Resembool to begin with and also that if they cut off the legion’s food supply it would be that much harder on the Empire. He wondered why they would suddenly change tactics at all. He made a note and then motioned for the Lieutenant to continue.

She told him about how the mortars dropped, and the fire fight started. She cornered a few numbers of troops down a dead-end alley and she shot the Imperial Lieutenant in the side and the Commander in the shoulder. Finally, she got to the point she knew he was asking the entire time.

“We had captured a total number of 8 soldiers including the Captain. The rest of them were killed in the fire fight.”

“I would have expected a harder fight,” the Colonel commented. The Lieutenant glared at him for his assumptions.

“Sir, don’t underestimate them. They were all very well trained. Out of the three hundred people we sent on this mission, they had only forty soldiers. They did not stand a chance, but they injured just under half of our men though we sustained no deaths,” she corrected him. Roy frowned and leaned back in his chair. He did not imagine that the companies stationed on Resembool would be that small. He had sent in three hundred soldiers to Liore alone thinking that there would have been a bigger fight. However, instead of over estimating them, the Colonel actually underestimated the soldiers. The Imperial Commander only had forty men at his disposal and managed to injure nearly half of the Rebel forces. Luckily they sustained no casualties but he knew many soldiers might not make it back on the battle fields due to the magnitude of their injuries. One of those soldiers was his own. The Colonel felt an over powering burst of anger and rage towards their newly obtained prisoner.

“What happened next?” the Colonel asked his subordinate after taking a few deep breaths to cool his temper. He knew that getting mad now would not solve anything. He still needed to get to the bottom of this dilemma. Hawkeye narrowed her eyes as she watched him wrangle in his temper. She knew about his hatred for clones and stormtroopers a little too personally. His subordinate waited for him to calm down before he continued. It appeared that even she did not want to push his buttons too far that evening.

“We had them guarded at the end of town near our own ships. Then Major Kimblee addressed the Commander and ordered us to shoot and kill the rest of the wounded Imperial soldiers.”

“Did you?”

“No. I did not fire,” she said and therefore willingly admitted the fact that she had denied an order given to her by a superior officer. She was accepting any consequences that it took for disobeying an order on the behalf of some enemy soldier she did not know. She made no excuses and made no heroic stories. She only stated the facts. That was why the Colonel believed her.

The Colonel nodded his head numbly as he disregarded the previous accounts that all the enemy soldiers were killed in direct fire. They did take at least a few of them captive which meant that his previous thought was wrong. The Commander was not the only survivor of the battle in Liore. His troops were surrendered and unarmed upon being killed by Kimblee’s order and therefore it was murder. The Colonel did not know how far the Intergalactic code of war went for clones, but there were at least some true Storm troopers amongst the Company that also were killed. No matter what, Kimblee had still gone against Roy’s own order and broke the law of war. The Captain was in the clear.

Roy groaned and dropped his face into his hands as he massaged it tiredly. This only meant a whole new pile of paperwork and pains for him.

“How did the other men react to this order?” he asked his subordinate through his hands, knowing that he might as well figure out who else was guilty of pulling the trigger.

“They carried it out and did not question it, sir,” she answered truthfully. “The only person who tried to stop it was the Imperial Captain himself.”

“He tried to stop them?“ Roy asked in disbelief. There were many reasons why the rebels and citizens called the Storm troopers monsters but one of them was because they didn’t even care to save their own kind. They regarded themselves as expendable and left their wounded for dead. He saw it too many times in his battles against the Empire to think it false. The Clones were an expendable force but for even the clones themselves to call them that, that level of self-dehumanization was a bit much for the Colonel to handle. He hated clones with a burning passion, but what the Empire trained them to do just disgusted him entirely.

“Not all clones are monsters, sir,” his lieutenant stated flatly with a warning look in her eye. “Before that the Commander had gone back out from his cover to retrieve his Lieutenant after I had shot him.” Roy frowned and sat back in his chair, covering his mouth with his hand as he thought. This clone was different. Could it have been a programming error? Or could it just be him? The Commander of Green Lion Company did not sit there and watch his troops get murdered. He did not simply leave his men on the battlefield injured or dead. He went back to help them and fought all the way till the end. He was not like any other clone Roy ever had the burden to meet. Something was different with him and the Colonel didn’t know if he wanted to figure out what. Either way, he knew he would be spending a lot more time in the future with the Imperial Commander.

“Very well. Lieutenant,” he grumbled, neither accepting nor denying his subordinate’s previous statement. He stood from his seat and picked up his extensive collection of notes. “Get some rest. On your way back to your room can you get Sergeant Fuery to go down to medical to watch after the clone and to make sure all is done for him there? I have some more people I need to talk to before bringing this load up to the generals’ office.”

“Yes, sir,” she said as she stood up from where she sat. “Make sure to pay a visit to Havoc in the infirmary. He is getting to acquainted with sitting down.”

“He’s next on the list actually. Even though he’s injured I still have to ask him questions.”

“He will be very annoyed with you for disturbing him while he’s recovering. He will probably try to kick you out,” she said with a small chuckle in her voice but as Roy watched it come it immediately left as if she remembered something. Roy understood that with war as an occupation, there were many things that soldiers did not want to think about. Their most recent engagement was lingering over all of their minds and he knew it would be a very long time till they forgot about it, if they forgot at all. With what had happened with his own subordinates, he doubted his unit would ever be the same after Liore.

“Rest well, Lieutenant,” he mumbled trying to dismiss her. She looked up at him as she snapped out of her thought and then nodded her head slowly. She reassembled herself quickly before she turned her heel and walked out the door. The Colonel watched her go with a frown. He sighed as he shook his head and tapped his paperwork on the table to straighten it out. This was not Hawkeye’s first battle and it surely was not going to be her last. He knew that she would make it through. Then again, it probably wasn’t herself that she was worried about at that moment. Roy had to go talk to Lieutenant Havoc. He made it his top priority.

…………….

The Commander felt anxiety crawl into him as he was rushed immediately into the emergency room care. He still had the shackles on around his hands but the nurses seemed more flustered with getting him care rather than if he was going to strangle them or not. They were asking him too many questions at once he didn’t know what they were saying. The guards who had lead him into the medical ward were ordered to wait outside for him instead of following him in. He didn’t really know what was going on. Many of the eyes that were laid upon him, trying to get his diagnosis written down looked rather disgusted by his presence there but they were still furiously trying to get everyone around him to do their jobs right. He was being pushed and pulled in so many directions he didn’t know where he was anymore. The Commander felt someone grab his helmet and lift it off of his head.

“H-Hey!” he exclaimed as he tried to grab it back but someone else yanked on the cuffs which bound his hands and were fumbling for the lock.

“You can’t move your arm can you?” the little grey haired woman asked him straight in the eyes. Her face was stern, but she looked more worried than the other doctors who were just doing their jobs. He numbly shook his head as she opened the restraints and tossed them to the side. Like he said his right arm fell limply to his side unmoving. She picked it up and looked at it. She poked it in many places and asked if he could feel it but he couldn’t. With a hum she let it go and it fell useless again.

“How long has it been like this?” she asked him as she and other nurses started to try and remove his armor from his shoulders and his arms. There was a sudden searing pain in his left wrist as someone took a chip reader to it to scan the files encoded there. The Captain pulled his wrist away quickly and rubbed it against his side to ease the hurt as the offender walked away with the data reader along with his personal records and data. As the nurses buzzed around him, he tried to keep track of all they were doing but it was to much at once for him to handle. One nurse went to remove his shoulder plate but brushed his shoulder the wrong way. He hissed at the pain and gripped his shoulder. The nurse carried on without an apology.

“S-since it was hit,” the Commander said as he watched the nurses carry his dirty and bloody armor away. He felt tugging on his legs and he looked down to see that they were already starting to take his shin guards off. He saw one of the nurses start for his bottom plates and he felt himself turn red as he quickly tried to stop her. He fumbled and jumped out of the ring of medics, his face heated.

“N-no… I-I can do it-”

“Stop being a baby,” the old lady scolded him. “You are eighteen years old for god sakes. My granddaughter can put up with more than you.”

“I am not even eight!” he defended as he tried to take his own thigh plates off however the straps were too difficult for only one hand and with his other one useless he couldn’t do it. He kept backing away from the nurses who were very aggravated with him. “I-I think I am fine… We could just bandage it and-”

“You need surgery,” the old woman retorted. The Commander shook his head as he was backed up into the glass wall that surrounded the examination room. Many people were observing the procedure from the other side to make sure everything was going alright or whether their prisoner was going rogue. He felt his head race. It was all too overwhelming being in there. The bright lights made his vision spin and he felt exposed. He wished he were back in his cell or even better, back on Resembool.

The nurses started to carefully approach him. Their muscles were tense and ready to pounce just as the Captain’s was ready to flee. Suddenly, there was a shimmer in the corner of his eye and turned to see one of the doctors trying to prepare a needle. His eyes widened with the sight and he bolted through the crowd to the other side of the room, his right arm flopping beside him.

“No-No needles! I don’t need a shot-” he begged as the man got closer to him. The doctor lunged and he jumped, leaping over the examination table and knocking over a few sterile trays that were set up. A roar of complaints picked up as the nurses looked at the mess of their work.

“It’s just anesthetic! It won’t hurt you,” the short woman barked at him as the other doctor rounded the table again towards him. The Captain backed away again, his breath was tight in his chest. He could already feel the thousands of needles piercing his skin and the white coated doctors hovering over him. He didn’t want to go through that again. His mind and heart were racing a mile a minute making it hard for him to breathe.

When the doctor lunged at him again, the Captain leaped out of the way but he felt someone run into his side and he fell to the floor. The Commander tried to scramble out from underneath the man that had tackled him but he was pinned to the ground.

“No, no, no, no,” he panicked and kicked as he tried to break free. He felt like thousands of needles were coming at him. He needed to get out of there. There was yelling of orders from the other medics in the room and he couldn’t make sense of it all. It was too chaotic and bright. Suddenly he felt the unwanted prick in his arm and the serum that was in the syringe emptied out into his bloodstream. He screamed, or tried to, but his mind went dizzy and dumb instantly.

“Come on, we need to get him on the table,” he heard the strange old lady order. His limp body was tugged upwards and he was laid down on the cool surface of the metal table. He blinked dazedly around and he tried to sit up just to find that he was too tired to move. A hand rested on his face and he saw the warm eyes of the old lady stare into his. He felt scared as his vision started to grow fuzzy. He didn’t know what was going on and all he could imagine was pain. Pain and mocking scientists. However, a small smile formed on the old woman’s face which suddenly made his heart calm down from his racing state. It seemed gentle, not like anything else before.

“It will be alright. Calm down,” he heard he whisper to him as she held his face gently in her hands to keep him focused. Suddenly, he felt the forced slumber come over him as her words rang in his head. For some reason he trusted her as his eyes slowly drew close.  

………..

Lieutenant Hawkeye watched the procedure through the clear glass that surrounded the examination room. She had to ask if she was in the right place as she saw a blond-haired child on the table instead of a clone like she was expecting. However, under several people's’ answers she had to conclude that this was him, the commander of Green Lion Company. The child laid motionless on the table as medics buzzed around with syringes and gauze to soak up the blood that was pooling over the side of the table. She couldn’t believe that that was the person she had shot in Liore. Her kills never felt personal, it just felt like something that happened, they never felt real, but seeing the Captain lay there on the table right in front of her, she couldn’t seem to comprehend what had happened. Through the scope of her rifle she knew that the commander was short in comparison with the man he was running with, but to find out he wasn’t even fully matured yet seemed to give her a kick in the stomach. He couldn’t have been more than eight years old at that point. It was a little unbearable for her to watch as he went through surgery unknowing of whatever went on around him. She wasn’t giving the kid pity, she wasn’t upset that she had shot him. It was what she had to do and she did it. But looking back at what she was like at only eight years old, she knew that he must have been frightened beyond belief.

They had set him of all people in charge of an entire company on Resembool. Clones were tougher than their age let on. They were highly skilled soldiers bred and created for just that reason. The Commander couldn’t have been an exception to this, but Hawkeye could tell that there was something different in him than all the other clones. It wasn’t just the hair or the age that had surprised her, but rather what she remembered of the day in Liore. There was something about the Captain that interested nearly everyone that met him however she couldn’t understand it, and neither could they.

Lieutenant Hawkeye let out a small yawn as she leaned back in her chair. Sergeant Fuery was asleep in the chair next to her with the Captain’s files pulled up on a data pad that was currently falling off his lap. One of the nurses had retrieved the information from the chip imbedded in the clone’s wrist and they were supposed to scan through it and take it to the Colonel when the time came. Fuery was supposed to be the only one on guard duty until the surgery was over. As she and the rest of the unit were out in the field for the last few days, they were supposed to be getting some rest to recover, but Hawkeye did not think sleep was going to come to her easily that night. She was only starting to feel the wave of tiredness come over her yet it had been hours since she had come down to the observation deck to keep the Sergeant company. Fuery had fallen asleep beside her in no time, leaving her yet again to her wandering thoughts.

The Lieutenant picked up the data pad from the Sergeants lap and began to flip through the Captain’s files, wanting to know more about the clone that they had captured. She didn’t get far beyond the clone’s name before the doors of the operation room opened. The short lady, Pinako Rockbell, scuttled out of it, wiping her washed hands on her apron, a clipboard tucked underneath her arm. She spotted her from across the way and walked over to take the chair next to her. She looked almost as tired as she was but she still wore a dull smile on her face as she handed her a clean dampened cloth.

“Lieutenant, you got some dirt on your face,” she told her and the Lieutenant quickly thanked her and started to wipe her face, putting the data pad down for a later time. She realised just how filthy she was from her fight on Resembool as she saw the cloth dirtied from only a few wipes on her face.

“What’s going on in there?” she asked as she continued to try and clean herself up a bit. The old woman sighed as she crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair.

“Well, we had to amputate his arm. He couldn’t feel it at all, movement was all impossible and the bolt just went straight through his shoulder girdle. Even if we wanted to fix it, there was nothing we could do. We even had to repair some of his bones with metal just to keep him together,” she said. “Strange enough, he already has a prosthetic leg.”

“A leg?” Hawkeye asked curiously. “They should have thrown him out if he lost a leg or got injured. The Empire doesn’t keep defective clones.” Pinako just shrugged, not knowing the answer at all.  The Lieutenant frowned and set her hand down in her lap and fingered the cloth lightly as she stared into the operating room. Looking more closely, she could see the silver of a metal limb poke out from beneath the blue surgery cloth.

“How old is he?” Riza asked the old woman calmly. Pinako chuckled a little bit as if she was remembering something funny in the back of her mind.

“You know he’s only eight years old? I didn’t know he was a clone until he told me that and still I couldn’t believe it until we knocked him out and removed his shirt to find those burns on his back,” she said. “He still does act like a child as you could believe. We were chasing him around the room because he was scared of the needles. Could you believe that? A Commander of a military company, from the Empire no less, afraid of tiny needles.”

“The process of becoming a clone is rather painful one, Dr. Rockbell,” Hawkeye said calmly. “Their immune systems aren’t fully developed when they are born and have to get many injections right when they open their eyes. I could imagine that only at age eight he would still be a bit off put by them.”

“Yes, you would know all about that wouldn’t you, Lieutenant?” Pinako replied softly. There was a string of silence between them as they both watched the operation room tiredly. It looked like the arm had been removed successfully and all that there was left was to stitch up the shoulder. The golden haired boy looked so small now just laying there on the table. The whole scene sent shivers up Hawkeye’s back and she felt herself pull her jacket around herself tighter.

“I know it was the Central Empire that ravaged our home planet of Resembool and killed my son and daughter in their fire fight to conquer it. It was because of those monsters that I had to flee from there with only my granddaughter in my hands. Isn’t it silly that I look at that clone and just imagine him as something different? I don’t know, maybe it is because he looks like someone I used to know that I say this, but it is still a gut feeling that I can’t shake,” Pinako whispered. Her eyes were still locked on the room and Riza couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Riza knew that he was the enemy, yet she did know that there was something different about Captain ED-0001 that even Pinako could feel. Riza didn’t think that he was friendly, there was nothing that he would do to label him as such. But sure enough, Riza was questioning just what type of clone this boy could be. A hand patted her leg lightly as Pinako stood up with a calm and gently smiled back at her.

“You look tired, let me get you a blanket,” she offered. The lieutenant caught the old woman’s eyes before she turned away. They were wet and shiny. She sighed as she watched Pinako walk away and out of sight. She and her granddaughter had a hard life because of the Empire’s stormtroopers. They lost everything because of them. However, it seemed even Pinako was conflicted with her thoughts on the new stranger. The Lieutenant was getting curious as to what exactly they were getting into with Captain ED-0001.

[aion-rsa]

How The Living Dead Completes Romero’s Zombie Legacy

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George A. Romero figuratively wrote the book on zombies with his low-budget, independent 1968 horror film epoch Night of the Living Dead. World War Z, 28 Days Later, Zombieland and even The Walking Dead trudged that territory but didn’t map much new terrain. Romero’s final novel, The Living Dead, completed by author Daniel Kraus (The Shape of Water novelization), doesn’t expand on the basics of the zombie apocalypse. It doesn’t challenge the zombie trope Romero filled out with his subsequent works on animated corpses, when The Living Dead had their Day, Dawn, Land, Diary and Survival. But, with it, Romero and Kraus do peer deeper into the mirror to find a bitter reflection of the horrors Romero brings out in The Living.

The Living Dead is character-driven in ways the feature films could never be. In Night of the Living Dead, the audience didn’t know, nor would they have cared, whether Helen Cooper (Marilyn Eastman) put on weight after marrying Harry (Karl Hardman). But we know this about Rosa, the wife of novel protagonist Luis Accocola, the Assistant Medical Examiner who logs the first case of reanimation in The Living Dead. We also know Luis paid for Rosa’s education and had to wait to marry her because she was so much younger than him. We know Rosa suffered a miscarriage long before the recently deceased became the ambulatory diseased.

We’ll never know if “They’re Coming to Get You” Barbra (Judith O’Dea) ever dreamed of dancing with Fred Astaire at night. But we know Luis’s assistant Charlene Rutkowski recoils from the very sight of Astaire when her mother Mae tunes in to the classic movie channel because the top hatted, tuxedo-sporting tap dancer tries to lead in her nightmares. Even before John Doe becomes the archive in the novel’s version of Patient Zero, Luis wants to know more about his history, whether he mattered. Why the homeless man is dressed so fine, and why he doesn’t have the curved spine of the long-term vagrant. In this respect, he is Romero. The unimportant details may not solve zombification, but it holds clues to the fading humanity.

The Living Dead is a fitting end to Romero’s zombie chronicles. The novel form allows him to bring more of himself into the pages, each of the characters filled out with flavors Romero himself test-tasted. There is also a bittersweet meta irony to the fact that the horror genius died before finishing the work and it was reanimated by Kraus, an unabashed fan and likely successor to the “Father of the Modern Zombie Film.” He hides Romero “Easter eggs” throughout the book, while also bringing in references to the pandemic apocalypse novel The Stand. Romero worked frequently with Stephen King, adapting his writer’s nightmare The Dark Half, having a barrel of fun with Monkey Shines, and indulging their shared love of EC Comics with Creepshow. The feature film adaptation was even shot in the four color scheme which defined the magazine. They further explored the horrors of publishing with Bruiser. The city of Bangor, Maine, which is King’s home turf, is referenced within the first few pages. He and Romero are wonderfully horrific friends.

The Living Dead is divided into three acts. Act One tells the story through the introduction of disconnected characters. It unfolds like an archive from the future written from multiple points of view. The history is being put together by a team in Washington, led by the researcher Etta Hoffmann. She is autistic and unflappably records survivors’ stories. Goaded on by an internet troll named Chucksux69, News anchor Chuck Corso at the cable station WNN broadcasts the events as they come in, even though he has no idea if anyone can see him. He does this while his co-workers try to eat him. Similar things happen at sea, where the US Navy aircraft carrier Olympia becomes a floating arena where dead sailors face off against the living crew. The gospel of the dead is spread zealously by a preacher in the book.

“When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth,” Romero warned in Dawn of the Dead. The characters in The Living Dead have to learn this for themselves. The only problem with living in a world written by George A. Romero is that the inhabitants didn’t grow up in a world with Romero in it. They don’t know what to do when the dead won’t stay dead. One of the most consistent things about zombies, whether they’re found in the Living Dead universe or one of the many other genre works, is you kill them by shooting them in the head. It doesn’t have to be a gunshot; Daryl on The Walking Dead does the deed with a bow and some arrows (though that series has gone on for a full decade without ever using the word zombie). From the very first ambulatory corpse, played by Bill Hinzman in Night of the Living Dead, to the present, a fractured skull is the only way to stop chomping teeth. Try telling that to the people in the book.

Why do zombies keep on biting? Day of the Dead posited the corpses reanimate because of primitive impulses in the spinal column. We, the audience, know from that movie onward it was because of special effects wizard Tom Savini. It would be nice to think of his hand on the elderly zombie in the novel who tries to gum someone to death. In The Living Dead, we learn zombies just wake up hungry. “This hunger is different from any you knew before,” a chapter opens. “This hunger is a lack. Something has been taken from you. You do not know what. This hunger is everywhere. Hunger, the fist. Hunger, the bones. Hunger, the flesh. Hunger, the brain.” Zombies aren’t evil, they are animalistic. Humans, on the other hand, are free to act horribly. If this particular horror niche is dead it can be reanimated here with this book. Night of the Living Dead brought the genre to life. The Living Dead gives Zombies souls. 

When Romero and some friends shot the indie film for just over $100,000 that would become The Night of the Living Dead, the country was going to hell. The Vietnam War was bringing death to the dinner table daily on the evening news. The generation which grew up in the shadow of the nuclear bomb was pulling away from a rotting society, unraveling like an exposed lower intestine. While women sew American flags sometime between “Year Fucking Six” and “Year Fucking Seven” of The Living Dead, Johnny and Barbara walk past a shredded flag as they enter the cemetery where their father is buried at the start of the film that started it all. The wreath is an empty gesture. Johnny can’t even remember what their father looked like.

Inspired by Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel I Am Legend and its film adaptation The Last Man on Earth, starring Vincent Price, Night of the Living Dead reincarnated Zombie movies. Once the realm of island magic culturally appropriated by actors like Bela Lugosi and George Zucco, zombies were now hungry legions munching on the living. Brains were not yet the delicacy The Simpsons would make them out to be. The undead are a metaphor for whatever we want to put on them. Romero is a political artist and the book is contemporary. Like the ill-equipped national response to COVID-19, we watch an unprepared society face a cataclysmic event and come apart at the seams. Similar to the effects of the quarantine, the zombie apocalypse is good for the environment. Also mirroring our times, the zombies infest a hate-filled world though they prove to be an equalizer of all classes and in the toxic racial divide.

“Someone dies, someone else learns to live,” Greer, a Black teenager who escapes an overridden trailer park in the Midwest at the beginning of the novel, is taught. Minority characters feature prominently in The Living Dead. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated the year Night of the Living Dead was released. In the film, Ben, a Black character played by Duane Jones, survives the undead campaign, the tribal maneuvering of the other captive combatants around him, casual bigotry and betrayal only to be shot in the head by passing zombie thrill-killers. The final moments of the film shows photographs of men with dead zombies which look eerily similar to lynch mob photos.

Romero didn’t only use the undead as a political metaphor. They are endemic to all society. The Zombies aren’t the only brain-dead or dying characters in his films or the novel. In The Living Dead, most of the people’s minds are already infested by paranoid distrust of the news media and the hatred encouraged by social media. Luis’s life is saved at one point because he’s not flipping through his cell phone as he usually does. He actually notices the looks on the people’s faces. In Romero’s 1978 installment Dawn of the Dead, the citizenry’s minds were numbed by TV, radio and consumerism. Its biggest scene happens in a Pittsburgh shopping mall with muzak playing in the background. 

Act Two summarizes what would be the territory of 1985’s Day of the Dead (which gave zombies class-consciousness), 2005’s Land of the Dead, and Romero’s “found footage” installment Diary of the Dead (2007), but takes a turn at 2009’s western Survival of the Dead. Subtitled “The Life of Death,” Act Two spans eleven years, all of which are being recorded in “The Hoffmann Archive of Tales from the New World.” We learn zombies are more like us than we might wish to believe. Like modern man wastes most of its animal-based consumer products, the zombies only eat five percent of their kill. They also hold grudges. Zombies outnumber humans 400,000 to one. Camels, lions and zebras are immune to reanimation, but chimps come back from the dead.

Straightforward as they may be, Romero’s films were rarely what they seemed through the action. Subversive social commentary runs through his 1978 vampire film Martin, which was more about unfettered schizophrenia than vampires. John Amplas played the title role in a very realistic, and very violent, exploration. He drugs and rapes his victims before drinking their blood. The Crazies (1973) was more about the society struck by a military biological weapon more than an epidemic containment film. The Living Dead is more than a zombie novel. It is a bitter parable.

Act Three moves 15 years after the apocalypse as survivors try to put together a new civilization amidst an evolving zombie population. It is a planetary reset. The museums are covered in graffiti and overgrown. People begin to read books, mix paint, shoot each other in the face when agitated. The dead win. 

George A. Romero died on July 16, 2017, a relatively innocent time which, although it was only three years ago, seems very far away. Donald Trump rode a racist wave of xenophobia to the whitest White House the country has seen since President Andrew Jackson, but he was still treated as a joke. The Living Dead was written before COVID-19, the killing of George Floyd and a police force which militarized against protestors faster than the zombies could run in 28 Days Later. Romero and Daniel Kraus are visionaries who were able to make a parable of today’s times in almost real time. The news on Max Headroom came at you from 30 minutes in the future. The future legend of The Living Dead was predicted only months in advance to be delivered exactly on time.  

The Living Dead will be available to buy and read on August 4th. It is now available for pre-order.

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