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Started April 07, 2023 by @EldritchHorror-Davadio health_and_safety emoji_events

tune

Arcturus's Capture

Arcturus walked downstairs, still shirtless, and went to check the food. As he walked into the main room with the fireplace, he immediately stiffened, his instincts screaming.

Something was off.

No shirt, no metal on his arms, but the armor on his legs flowed upwards and out, forming blades in the blink of an eye.

It wasn't fast enough.

There was a loud roaring sound, and two much bigger humanoids attacked him. He got his hands up in time to take the worst of the impact across his forearms, one of them immediately buckling under the attack. He flung blades in the faces of his attackers, scrambling backwards to get some distance.
Arcturus had a fleeting thought, and he intentionally fell towards the bathroom, away from the stairs.
The attackers followed, which is what he wanted. Anything to keep them away from Lyanna.
He kept scrambling, his blades morphing to form a shield. He managed to black most of the blows, which, thankfully, were just blunt trauma. No blades so far. He glanced over the shield to see who he was being attacked by.
It was two large hammer-head goblins, all muscle and sinew and thick bones. They were beating his shield with maces, big dull metal clubs with ridges rather than spikes.
They were wearing ill-fitting Royal Guard uniforms.
He managed to take that all in, before trying to climb to his feet. He managed to stand, but one of his arms was clearly broken in the first attack, and he couldn't move it without seeing stars.
Something looped around his leg and pulled, and he landed flat on his back. His head hit the edge of the tub, and a mace landed heavily on his chest, cracking some ribs. His last thought before the darkness took him was Please stay quiet up there, Lyanna…

The hammerheads looked at each other, their wide-set eyes blinking slowly. They weren't very smart, just incredibly strong, and the only thing they'd been expecting when they smelled the cooking meat was food. They had come through a window when the front door was locked, and had been skulking around when they heard the Elf coming.
They did have orders to bring anyone found in the Crownlands back to the palace, so they stuffed their faces with food for a moment, before tossing Arcturus over their shoulders and heading for the palace.
…..

Thud
Pain.
"Wake up, pretty boy."
Thud
Pain.
"Douse him."
Cold, wet. No oxygen. Sounds muffled.
Arcturus opened his eyes, inhaling water. He was being held under the surface, and he thrashed, trying to come up. Somebody yanked his head back by his hair, and he spluttered, coughing violently and nearly screaming as his ribs popped loudly. He cleared the water from his lungs, and tried to hold his ribs, but his hands were bound. He reached for the metal, but it was gone.

He had no clue where he was.

The Elf looked around wildly. He was surrounded by several big people. Goblins, many of them. Some men. And a single Orc, the massive humanoid monstrosity looking down at him with one eye.
"Ah, so the little girl awakes." The orc sneered at him. "Took you long enough."
Arcturus took stock of his situation. No armor or weapons, not on his arms or legs. He tried to remember, and realized the goblins must have taken it off him back at the house. No cloak, no pouch, not even his shirt. Just pants and his boots. His arms were bound behind him, probably with goblin leather, super tough and extremely strong. He was on his knees in front of a small fountain, in one of the courtyards in the palace. The goblins and men all gathered around him didn't have the usual look of Royal Guards, and Arcturus remembered what Lyanna had said about the people storming the castle when she left.
Must be commoners setting up some form of government…
Thud
The Orc slapped him across the face for the third time, his meaty hands clobbering Arcturus's head sideways. The creature was viciously strong, standing easily 8 feet tall, with massive muscles and tusks to boot.
"Focus, Elf. I'm talking to you. And there's no point in trying to figure out how to escape anyway, you're going nowhere." The orc snarled at him. "Why are you here?"
Arcturus kept his head down, not making eye contact. Truthfully, he was very dizzy after being slapped several times and half-drowned.
A blade touched his chin and cut as it was pulled up. He lifted his head to avoid the sword tip cutting up his face.
"I said, why are you here, in the Crownlands?" The orc leaned in, growling in Arcturus's face, his breath rancid.
Arcturus wasn't beaten yet. There was still a flame in there somewhere.
"Die, Orc-filth." He snapped in Sindarin, before spitting in the Orc's face.
The beast snarled at him and wiped his eye, before planting a size 18 boot in the Elf's already broken ribs. Arcturus crumpled like he was made of paper, the wind knocked out of him too much for him to scream in pain.
"Toss him in a cell. We'll see if he's still swearing at us after a while."
The Elf was unconscious again from the pain, before they even picked him up to drag him away.
…….

He woke up disoriented for the second time. This time, he woke up by himself, in the dark. There was no light wherever he was, and the floor he was on was very hard. He felt around, and realized he was on stone flooring. The dungeons, then.
There was a tiny bit of light, now that he opened his eyes. One eye was nearly swollen shut, where the orc had slapped him several times. But the other eye could see a sliver of light coming through the window on the door. Arcturus had not visited the dungeon in his time as ambassador to Valdosia, but prisons were similar across the world, and he knew what to expect. Stone floor, stone walls, thick wooden door, metal bars across any windows, and if he was lucky, filthy straw to sleep on.
He was not lucky. There was no straw, and when he tried to move, something yanked at his ankles. He was chained to the wall by both feet, the chain just long enough to allow him to reach near the door, probably so they could feed him. He reached down to check the chain, and found the links to be as thick and as big around as his fist. The rings on the wall to which the chain was attached were equally sturdy, and Arcturus knew he wasn't getting out that way.
They hadn't given him a shirt, or a blanket, or anything, and his hair and upper body were still cold and wet. He shivered in the cold and the dark, and bit back a yelp as the small movement sent a spike of pain through his ribs. He checked his body slowly for wounds, and didn't find any cuts, except the small one on his chin. He did figure out that his nose had been bleeding, he had a split lip, his left eye was nearly swollen shut, and those were just the small things.
The more worrying problems where his arm and his ribs. His left arm was hanging limp at his side as he sat up, and he could move it, but his fingers wouldn't move and every time he tried, his arm all the way up to his shoulder would throb in agony.

But even the pain in his arm was no match for what they had done to his rib cage.

He felt around, his small sounds of anguish echoing in The emptiness of the cell. Out of 24 ribs, he counted nine broken, mostly on his right side, and at least five more cracked or badly bruised. Every move sent white hot pain through his body, every breath was like inhaling shards of glass. On top of that, he still had a little water in his lungs, and occasionally a cough would surprise him. It was like exhaling wood splinters, and he yelped every time without meaning to.
Somebody walked by and punched his door, yelling "Shut up in there!"
Arcturus lay back down with a groan. Lying flat on his back was easier than trying to sit up, and he was dizzy anyway. He lay there, trying to think of all the ways he could get out of this.
He didn't come up with many options.

I just hope Lyanna is alright…
…..

Time passed, with Arcturus drifting in and out of consciousness. He'd not eaten in a couple days and now, he was feeling it.
He heard voices down the hall. Gruff voices, angry voices, drunk voices, but all men. Some goblin, some human, some troll, but all enemy.
And then, suddenly, a light silvery sound drifted down the hall to him. A lovely, lyrical noise that usually made him smile.
Now though, he panicked.
Lyanna!
He didn't want to think what she was doing here, although he had a guess. His panic subsided slightly as his heart melted at the idea she would come after him.
It immediately rose again as the guards began talking to her.
C'mon, beautiful. Talk your way out of this.
The wounded Elf couldn't hear the full conversation, but he got the gist, and his stomach turned at the way they were talking to her.
The main dungeon door opened, and he could hear the scruffy guard calling after Lyanna.
Nahar's Hooves, if I get out of here, broken ribs or no, I'll strangle that slavering cur with my bare hands…
He managed to get to his knees, and crawled towards the door, till he'd pulled the chains taut. He couldn't hold his weight up, his ribs protesting, and he wound up lying on the floor on his stomach, hands stretched towards the door.
Lyanna…..

Wake-up Call

Chet scrambled out of his bunk as his communicator screeched.
"Evans! Get down here, we've got a situation!"
He was already pulling on his vacuum suit as he yelled "On my way!"
A situation in the cryo-bay was never good. In his 2 years awake working on the ship as a cryo-technician, there had been a few troubled moments, but as he took off running down the hall, Chet could tell this was worse. He wasn't the only one running. Security went jogging by, and were armed with the heavy rail-gun rifles instead of their small sidearms. The reactor maintenance teams were at a dead sprint, pulling on their face shields over their vac-suit helmets. Chet ended up in a group of the other cryo-techs, all hustling towards the bay.
Alarms were going off, red lights flashing, and as Chet got to his bench, he could see multiple alerts.
Warning: High levels of gravity fluctuation detected.
Warning: External atmospheric levels detected.
Comm: We're tumbling, engage the inertial dampeners!
Comm: Wake up the sleeping crew members, all hands!
He sucked in a breath, realizing something had happened. Gravity flux meant the graviteum engine was having trouble, tumbling meant spinning in space, external atmosphere meant they had been pulled into a planet's gravity and were going to crash land.
And all hands meant the bridge didn't have a lot of hope. Not a good sign!
He also noted with a deep sense of frustration, that the ship's AI was either offline or too busy dealing with keeping everyone alive to answer. That meant doing everything only as quickly as he personally could think.
First things first. Wake up the secondary crew. He typed quickly, pulling up work logs and the sleep logs and trying to figure out exactly who was awake and who was asleep. The names were coming at him fast, and the alarms were blaring, and his officer was barking orders left and right.
He punched the button for the first remote wake up, and realized he'd made a mistake. He'd picked a name for a colonist, who happened to be related to a crew member he'd intended to wake up. But it was too late now. The colonist would just have to wake up, and then they could slap the 'accidental awakening' button if they wanted.
Chet just focused on getting actual crewmembers woken up.
…….
He was still waking up crew members, when there was a juddering feeling, and the gravity plating under his feet rippled and flexed. Another alert popped up on his screen.
Warning: Graviteum engine offline. Inertial dampeners at 97% capacity.
Chet's eyebrows shot up. That was really bad. If the inertial dampeners overloaded, everybody on board would feel the full effect of the rapid deceleration they were doing. He hurriedly hit the wakeup button for the current name, before sending an orders request over the comms channel.
Before his message had even sent, there was a voice bellowing over the noise of the alarms.
"All hands, abandon ship! To the lifepods! Repeat, abandon ship, all hands to the lifepods."
Chet was stunned for a moment. They were being ordered to abandon all the colonists and crew still in cryo-sleep, leaving them to just…. live or die on a whim. He knew the rationale: if the ship broke up, at least those who escaped could build. If they all stayed on the Deus and it exploded, the mission was a failure.

It still felt very wrong.

He glanced at the screen, at the long list of names he was leaving, maybe to die, before standing up and scrambling for the bay doors. He'd been one of the last ones, the others not hesitating to leave. And now, as he reached the doors, he looked back, just for a moment, before sealing the door, clamping the lever in place. Maybe, just maybe, with the bay sealed, they would somehow survive.
He made a mad dash towards the lifepods, knowing if he was late they might leave him.
…..
The crew flooded into the pod area, and quickly began splitting into their designated teams. Each pod had specific people assigned to it, and they were careful about that, even in the chaos.

No one would let a stowaway in.

"Too much weight will throw off our flight!"
"There's not enough breathable oxygen!"
"We don't have space for another body!"
All kinds of excuses flew her way. Finally, one soul took pity on her.
"These are the crew lifepods. Try the colonist pods on the next level. Good luck!" The crewmember pulled the hatch shut behind her, and the pod fire off. It had been the last one, and it left Meg alone on the deck.
……
Chet rounded the corner, hearing the tell-tale thump of pods firing off the ship.
No, no no no! He sprinted harder, but the noises suddenly stopped, just as he came in sight of the pod bay.
Gone. His team was gone, the entire crew was gone. And with them, the pods.
Wait, what about the colonist pods? He turned to run up to the next level, when a lone figure in the pod bay caught his eye.
"Hey! C'mon, we gotta move! Colonist pods, next level!" He shouted, waving his arms, before taking off running.
After a moment, he turned to glance at the person following him. She was a colonist according to her uniform, and had the wet, glistening look of someone just thawed out. Chet immediately knew who she was.
"Over here!" He bounded up the steps to the upper pod bay. The girl didn't even have a vac-suit on, and Chet wondered if she'd be a little foggy from the cryo. "Grab a vac-suit off the wall before we get in a pod! And whatever you do, hurry!"
They came to the chutes, and Chet noted that many of them weren't powered up. Of course, the colonists aren't supposed to be awake yet.
He took off again, frantically running down the line of dead chutes, until he glanced at one and the panel was green.
"Once you've got the suit on, down here!" He waved the girl down the long wall towards him, and then stepped into the chute, dropping feet first like some life-giving playground slide. He landed on his feet in a small craft that would fit maybe 3 people, scrambled for the front control panel and prepped it to launch.
A countdown initiated as the pod readied, and Chet buckled in. He glanced over as his companion slid in next to him.
"Buckle in, 5 seconds!" The viewscreen in front of them blinked to life, like a huge windshield, except it was just a sensor feed from the front of the pod. The walls were meant to handle a lot of things, so there was no glass.
The scene in front of them was carnage. The lifepods that had launched before theirs had apparently launched too far into the planet's atmosphere, and many were breaking up on entry, the heat shields failing. Chet's eyes widened, and he hurriedly checked a couple of settings.
Atmospheric entry was an option, and he immediately hauled on the large lever. There was some clanking as extra heat shields were configured, the computer recalculated their trajectory, and then they were off.
There was a lurch as the pod shot out of the chute like a missile, heading for the planet below them.
Chet gritted his teeth and hoped they'd make it. However, only a minute or so out…

There's no sound in space, so Chet didn't hear when the Deus finally gave up, but the lifepod got hit with the front edge of the shockwave as the main reactor blew. The sensors burned out, and they were left blind.
Which was bad, because the control panel was flashing that someone would need to manually guide the pod in its landing. Chet could feel the pod flying in the S-curve that would help them slow down, and he could feel as they hit… 'debris.' (His mind wouldn't let him call it anything else.)
But their view of the blue and orange planet below them had been obstructed. The viewscreen was just a blank wall now, and Chet couldn't get the sensors to respond. They were all whited out with the remnants of the nuclear reactor blowing up behind them.
Chet tried to remember how high up they'd been before the sensors blew. The control panel was offering him options.
AI controlled landing! He jabbed the icon, but nothing happened. Likely, Artemis-11, the AI onboard the Deus Ex Machina, hadn't been able to load the little fragments of herself into the lifepods before they escaped. Which meant that option was out.
They had reverse thrusters, but without being able to see, he didn't trust himself.
There was also a parachute option. If he was stuck with that…

Chet suddenly realized he wasn't alone in the pod. Remembered he didn't have to figure this out alone.
"Got a name friend? I'm Chet, and I'm hoping you know more about flight than I do?" The colonists had all kinds of jobs, maybe she could help…

Lightspeed

"Enterprise-17, do you copy?"

"Enterprise-17 here, reading you loud and clear, Homestead. AI integration complete, checklist complete, waiting for yellowlight."

"Acknowledged, you have yellowlight at your discretion, repeat, yellowlight at your discretion, Enterprise."

"Roger that." Captain Waru Robinson began flicking ignition switches and releasing magnetic anchors. He glanced over and made eye contact with the blue holographic man sitting in the copilot's chair. "You ready, Spock?"

The AI answered without look at him. "I was born for this, Captain."

Waru smiled and flipped the final switches. "Just thought I'd check, mate."

Spock nodded, seemingly deep in thought. Waru spared him another glance to make sure the AI wasn't frowning, then placed his hand over a red lever.

"Enterprise-17 to Watchtower, do you copy?"

"Watchtower to Enterprise-17, we hear you. You are cleared to detach."

"Roger." Waru pulled the lever, disengaging the final clamp holding the Enterprise-17 to the deck of the Watchtower. As the action caused the Enterprise to lift off from the deck slightly, Waru felt Spock firing stabilizers to keep the ship from spinning.

"Clamp disengaged, Watchtower, we are exiting proximity on run-up." Waru fired the small thrusters lightly, giving the Enterprise a small push away from the Watchtower. They couldn't fire up the Big Engine until they had cleared the Watchtower's safety zone. Spock was busily stabilizing, and clearly focusing hard on their reaction chamber; he was staring down as he continued his operations across the ship, not moving his hologram while he worked elsewhere.

"Acknowledged, Enterprise, you have cleared proximity zone." There was a pause as the significance of the moment sank in for everyone. "You have greenlight at your discretion, repeat, greenlight at your discretion."

"Roger that. Heading to Warp." Waru took a deep breath. "Let's give it a burl."

"Chookas, Captain Robinson."

Waru smiled at the slight break in decorum from Watchtower, and he nearly laughed out loud when Spock looked over at him confused.

" 'Chookas', Captain?" Spock quirked an eyebrow as Waru nodded seriously.

"Means 'Good Luck', Spock." Waru checked the navigational coordinates one more time, glanced at all the gauges and readouts, and thumbed open the cover over a horizontal handle. He twisted the handle 90 degrees and it locked in place, before springing from the dashboard attached to a short column. Waru adjusted his grip and looked over at Spock. "Which we'll need. You ready?"

Spock nodded, his eyes focused again. "All systems optimal, Captain."

Waru braced in his seat, took another deep breath, and yelled "Punch it!". He punched the column back in, his grip on the handle leaving him white knuckled.

There was a loud sound as the Big Engine ramped up, and then a blip.

……….
Corporal Leo Kelly sat at the coms console in Homestead HQ, anxiously awaiting any response. The Enterprise-17 had blipped 20 minutes ago, which meant they were either successfully approaching Vesta Mining Base, or were dead. The other 16 Enterprise ships had all ended in deaths, their pilots and AI's smeared into space dust and strings of code as they attempted light speed. Those men and women had bravely given their lives for science, and were counted heroes, but Kelly hoped that Waru Robinson would not join the list.

"Anything, Corporal?" Commander Evans had ceased pacing behind Kelly for a moment, and was asking for only the 5th time in 20 minutes, which Kelly thought was rather impressive.

"No, sir, coms are quiet, but the message latency is roughly 10 minutes, so silence doesn't mean anything yet and-"

"Thank you, Corporal." Evans cut him off, which Kelly knew wasn't mean to be rude. He tended to ramble when he was nervous, and the Commander knew that. Evans resumed his pacing, and Kelly proceeded to check that all his sensors and coms receptors were cranked up to 110%, ensuring he would catch absolutely anything that came in.

"Homestead, this is Watchtower, we've still got radio silence. Anything from Enterprise-17 or Vesta Mining Base?"

"Negative, Watchtower, not a thing. Maintain coms discipline." Kelly sighed, trying to calm his nerves. For a second, the sound of a voice through his speakers had caused his heart to jump. Commander Evans was standing behind him again and noticed.

"Trouble, Corporal Kelly?"

"No, sir, just… I'd really like for this work." Kelly glanced up at the Commander. "Waru is a personal friend, and-"

"Watchtower, Homestead, this is Enterprise-17, we are on approach to Vesta Mining Base, repeat, Enterprise-17 is on approach to Vesta Mining Base. Strewth, we made a successful FTL flight, mates!"

……….
Out in the Kuiper Belt, a small receiver picked up the sounds of cheering and celebrations taking place across the Solar System. Humanity was jubilant as news of their first successful Faster Than Light flight spread.

"Listening Outpost 2531 to Realm Security, be advised, humanity has achieved stable light speed."

"Realm Security to LO2531, message received. Preparing a Welcome Party."

……….
On December 18, 2229, Captain Waru Robinson of the North Atlantic Nation Space Force made the first successful Faster Than Light flight, from Earth to Vesta. Colonies on Mercury, Mars, Venus, and Ceres all celebrated this major victory, calling it "The Christmas Warp". Captain Robinson and AI 'Spock' would go down in history as the first Earthlings to survive lightspeed. Humanity had gained access to the stars.

And the galaxy took notice.

Voltron Lite

Romulus closed his eyes, running the calculations in his head. "I think I accounted for drag and re-entry. Just wanted to run it by you, make sure I wasn't missing anything obvious." He opened his eyes and smiled. "I'll run it by the lion, though… I think he'll appreciate it. The ray shielding you designed and mounted is working great, but- well, you know me." Rom had a bad habit of interdicting his lion, placing it between incoming fire and the other lions. He tended to take a lot of damage, leaving the others free to return fire, but it meant he'd need more shielding than the rest.
He smiled at Caleb. "I'll leave you to your reading. I probably better go clean up, I've got grease everywh-"

A loud claxon alarm began sound from all the lions, alerting the paladins they were needed. Rom slapped Caleb's shoulder encouragingly and took off running towards the other group.
"Guys, we gotta move!" He grabbed Leo's shoulder. "Are you coming with me or staying here?" He'd been the one to pick up the hitch-hiker, so he assumed Leo would go with him. But he noticed he'd interrupted something and said quickly "You're welcome to go with Codie if you prefer. Just whatever you do, we all need to move quickly." He took off at a dead sprint for the yellow lion, which was already moving into position for him to get into the pilot's seat as quickly as possible.

Rom clambered into the yellow lion, which he had affectionately name 'Remus', and pulled his helmet on. "Caleb, have you got the coms up?" He strapped into the pilot's seat and Remus took off, an icon showing up on his screen. "I've got a location marker, anybody copy?"
He was glad to hear Eyros, which meant Caleb had the coms up, so those two at least were in their lions and moving. That just left Codie, and Rom could see the icon for the red lion moving, so he was up and going too.
"Anybody have any clue what we're running into?"
A few minutes passed before everyone could get up and going. Romulus was running circles around all of them. He and the yellow lion had bonded quickly over boundless energy, and waiting on the rest was making him a little stir crazy. Instead, he was pacing while he thought, trying to analyze the icons and symbols Caleb had sent over.
"Caleb, Eyros… are those Galran fighter craft?" The small icons were swarming around the large symbol he recognized as 'passenger transport'. "There's got to be some reason they would want that transport."
He noted Codie having issues, and consciously stayed away. He felt like Codie was often overwhelmed by his massive personality, and the poor kid didn't need that right now.
He quickly searched up all available logs of passenger transports from space ports in a radius of 10au's. Nothing mind boggling came up.
Until he checked the cargo log.
"Oh. Oh man. Caleb, need you to look at this." He sent over the log. It showed a passenger transport being cleared to make room for just over a ton of weapons grade deuterium, a highly explosive fissile material. "Is that what I think it is?"
If the Galrans captured that transport, they'd make a huge jump in weapons production.

Romulus nodded to himself as Caleb confirmed his fears, and stopped circling. He took a deep breath and let Remus calculate for him.
And then he was off, heading towards the mass of swarming fighter craft around the valuabel transport.
Their team didn't have a leader. 'Team' was stretching it, they really didn't even have all 5 paladins
They had kinda fallen into roles over the last month. Caleb was the smart one, Romulus was the strong one, Eyros was the medic, and Codie so far had filled whatever spot he could. Romulus hooped the red lion pilot would slot into a comfortable role soon, but he'd been helpful despite his struggles.
Romulus had one of the bigger personalities, and had just kind of shrugged a lot of responsibility onto his own shoulders. Like being the one to head into combat first in most situations.
He watched the icons for the rest of the team form up behind him.
Romulus watched the way they'd come in to the sector the fight was in. Romulus/Remus up front, Eyros/Blue next, Codie/Red and Leo third, and Caleb/Ione last. Interesting. He assumed Caleb had brought up the rear intentionally.
"Caleb, any ideas on how to work this?"
The techie sent him a couple of battle plans, centered around breaking the swarm up into smaller pieces and eliminating them one by one. The second one looked good to Rom. He pushed it through to the rest of the group.
"Fellas, try to follow this if you can. We'll adjust as we go." The plan had their colors clearly marked, making strafing runs to cut through the swarm, then turning and hitting them with forward guns and torpedos after.

Of course, no plan, no matter how solid, survives contact with the enemy.

They came up out of a nebula to find the battle happening in dead space. Calling it a battle was generous, it was more like a hunt. If the swarm of Galran fighter craft were small and agile, like a pack of jackals, then the transport was the elephant being hunted, heavy and slow and covered in strong armor. The shields appeared to be holding up, but wouldn't last much longer under the current barrage, and once they were down, the craft could land easily and begin boarding.
They would kill everyone and take what they wanted, leaving the transport a stripped-out husk, floating in space.
Romulus frowned as he thought about that. We can't let that happen…
A stray fighter craft came zooming out to meet them, and Rom's guns flashed, zapping it out of existence in a blink. It had fired off a small torpedo, but it was going to miss him.

He did a double take as he realized it was going to hit Codie instead.

He hauled on his controls, spinning Remus around, and managed to get the main body of the yellow lion in between the torpedo and the red lion. It detonated, Romulus shook in the cockpit, and he silently thanked the stars that he'd added all that armor earlier.
"Codie, get your head in the game, you're gonna do fine! Slight change of plan, you and Eyros follow the plan you've been given. Do your best not to get zapped out of space." Rom wasn't barking orders, just trying to be convincing. They had no reason to listen to him, other than a few battles previously where he'd shown he knew how to handle himself.
"Caleb, that transport is going to need their shielding boosted, it's startng to flicker. If I can get you in close, can you do that?" They were zooming into the main body of the swarm now, the icons getting fuzzier on the screen as they entered the scrum.
Romulus nodded as Caleb replied in the affirmative.
"I can get you there." he said, his voice even.
Romulus had made a few changes to Remus over the course of the last month. One of the first things he had done was bulk up the lion's armor and shielding, with Caleb's help.

The next thing he did was make weapon upgrades.

The other lions, in fact most of the space-faring universe, used energy weapons. Photon torpedos, dual-phasic lasers, phazer beams, concentrated particle beams, neutrino streams- all of them very powerful. But they had a flaw that Romulus disliked. They tended to leave the target intact, meaning there was usually a ship, a body, or a target of some kind to clean up after.

That was why Romulus had always preferred kinetic weaponry.

It left nothing in your path, and for a guy who was often the trailblazer, the guy clearing the way, that was incredibly usefully. Like now, for instance.
He began firing 4-inch thick railgun rounds into the swarm. The Galran fighter craft could shrug typical energy weapons, even survive torpedo fire, but physical hyper-dense collapsed deuterium rounds moving at a decent fraction of the speed of light?
They popped like over-full balloons, leaving gaps big enough for Remus to fit through.
"Stay close!" Romulus called, focusing his fire in a concentrated circle. If Caleb stayed with him, they'd pull even with the transport in a couple seconds.
He did his best to shield the green lion from any incoming hits, trying to conserve its power for what he'd asked Caleb to do. Once they got into position, he would do the same thing, and hope they could guard the transport long enough for Eyros and Codie to decimate the swarm.
Within minutes though, Eyros anc Codie were having serious trouble. Romulus growled quietly, his frustration ramping up. The swarm was relentless.

"Eyros, go to auto-pilot and focus on your fire patterns. You can shoot them down quicker if you're less worried about juking them out." The blue lion pilot was an excellent pilot, but he tended to get distracted by the thrill of flying.

Romulus punched through the swarm, pulling even with the transport and leaving a shielded spot for Caleb to pull in behind him, very close to the transport. The green lion could probably stand on the hull if Caleb chose to.

He began focusing his fire in a widening cone, slowly clearing the area. He noted the red icon pulling its weight and smiled a little, before offering Codie some help.

"Codie, you copy? Ask your lion to turn on point defense, so you don't have to work so hard to shoot everything down. It'll auto-fire the weapons along its sides, so you can focus on what's in front of you." He softened a bit. "If you need help, holler at me, I can clear your tail."

He didn't pester Caleb, not wanting to interrupt the brilliant tech's train of thought.

Romulus took a deep breath as he checked the situational markers. His armor was at 70% and stable, Caleb had gone silent on coms, Eyros and Codie were both focusing better and working in tandem. Things would be ok as long as this continued.
He switched from the cone he'd been coring to a more single shot approach, gutting some of the bigger fighter ships. Some seemed to be seating two pilots, rather than one, and he focused on this. Any fighter slapped by a railgun round was dropped quickly, and Rom could see an end to the horde.
Eyros was moving and spinning and ducking, the blue lion a blur, and a lot of the fighters were trying to follow him and tag him. Codie was less mobile, but was definitely putting out more fire power, and their lions must have synched up, because every time the blue lion looked like it was about to be overwhelmed, it would pass close by the red lion, which would thin the herd considerably. It was a good strategy, and put the two paladins' strengths to use.
Caleb seemed to be making progress, and was focusing hard, if his coms escape was anything to go by. Romulus glanced over, making eye contact with the green lion out his viewscreen. They were close enough for him to see the physical cables making a connection to the transport. Its shields were holding, but barely, flickering ominously now. Rom had full confidence in the quiet tech's ability to handle it though.

Things were going fine, and that set off his instincts. Things never went fine.

It was at that moment that a Galran light cruiser decloaked in the empty space behind them, dwarfing everything but the transport.

Family Dynamics

Queen Cornelia Vespasian was a shrewd woman. She'd had to be, in her position. One of the Keres, uplifted to Duchess by her marriage to the Second Son of House Vespasian, and then uplifted to Queen when the King had died and her husband ascended the throne. She was a beautiful woman, and one who had put in the time on the battlefield.
She was also a mother, and the current atmosphere amongst the 5 Kingdoms was troubling to her. Her husband had no interest in coddling their son; he never had, even when the Prince was young. In fact, if not for the fact he was expected to have an heir, Cornelia suspected he never would have bothered with marriage. She'd borne him a son first thing, and he'd never shown interest in more children, or a bigger family. He'd never shown much interest at all, other than in his son's failings, for which the young Prince had always been severely punished.
So when things had began to go wrong within their own borders, it had been the Queen who had ordered higher security for her son. And it had gone so far, now, as her summoning Vidar Kane, a man of impressive record. Hopefully, he would be the last bit of personal security the Prince would need.
They had a meeting this morning at 8, and the Queen was ready for a fight from both of the men in her family.
Vidar arrived on time, and the Queen smiled slightly. That was a good sign. She glanced over at her husband, and beyond, to the spot where the Prince usually stood.
Somehow, he was missing. She should have expected this… maybe Vidar could keep him on time or something. The man was prompt at least.

King Olybrius Vespasian was an impressive man. 6'2", blocky, like he was carved from oak, with the musculature of a champion of old. His long, golden blonde hair was pulled back in a tight Viking braid, his beared plaited. The armor he was wearing was dyed a blood-red color. The King never presided in anything other than his armor. Most other kings had ceremonial clothing, more comfortable outfits they would wear while not in combat. Olybrius wasn't that kind of man.
His piercing blue eyes were set in a hard stare, seeming to bore directly into Vidar's soul. He didn't acknowledge the bow, the symbol, or the greeting.
The Queen smiled at Vidar, and inclined her head. "Vidar Kane, thank you for your willingness to be here, and to heed the call placed on you. I'm sure you're aware of the upheaval in these days, and I'm sure you're also aware of the necessity of protection for-"

As if on cue, a raucous laugh could be heard echoing in the halls of the antechamber. Several men's voices mixed, calling goodbye's and see you laters, and then a mountain strode through the doors.

King Olybrius Vespasian was an impressive man, but the son he'd sired with one of the Keres was… beyond believing in many ways. At 6'6", he towered over his father, despite the small height difference. If Olybrius was carved from oak, the Prince was sculpted from granite. If Olybrius looked like a champion of old, then Prince Romulus Vespasian was one of the gods, come back to his people. His hair, more platinum than gold, was styled in a long fauxhawk that would stick out the top of his helmet like a plume. As he passed Vidar, he turned and nodded at the warrior, a friendly gesture. His eyes were an icy blue, similar to his father, but lacking the hostility. They were open, friendly, and at the moment… slightly unfocused.

As the Prince walked to his spot on the dais, Vidar got a strong whiff of alcohol, specifically whiskey. Romulus kept a steady gait in his vantablack armor, his helmet under his arm. He gave his father a short nod, and gave a much more sweeping bow to his mother.

"You're late, boy." The king spoke, his voice a growl. "Can you not even summon the decency to be on time?"
Romulus took his spot next to his father, and when he spoke, his voice was a deep rumble. "My apologies, my King. Had I realized we were to have such a distinguished guest, I would have hastened my steps." The underlying accusation of 'you don't tell me anything' was clear.

The King narrowed his eyes, and turned his attention back to Vidar. "I disagree that my son needs guarding. If he fails to protect himself, then he was never worthy to be a Vespasian, or indeed, my son, in the first place. However." He glanced at the Queen. "I do agree he needs a baby sitter, like some suckling child unable to be responsible."

The Queen had taken on a long-suffering expression, not enjoying the tension between the King and his heir. When it became clear that Olybrius wasn't going to shoot down the idea, though, she perked up. "Indeed, perhaps some of your better habits could rub off on our youthful son." She smiled at Vidar. "Have you any particular questions for us, before you are assigned on this necessary, and might I add honorable, task?" Her eyes were hopeful.
The King's glare was back, baleful and challenging Vidar to say anything, anything out of line.
And the Prince's expression? Somewhere between complete boredom and deep annoyance.

When the distinguished warrior had no questions, the Queen smiled, a beautiful expression on her lovely face, and clasped her hands together gratefully. "Thank you, Vidar. Your family will be compensated handsomely, I assure you."

The King kept his glare on Vidar, for just a moment longer, before glancing at the Queen. "If we're done here, I have a meeting with my generals to get to." He stood and strode off the dais, and down the center of the room. As he brushed past Vidar, he growled "Don't disappoint her." His guards fell in behind him, and he was out the door.

The Queen stood as well, looking happily from Vidar to Romulus, who still had an impassive look on his face. "I'll leave you two to get to know one another. Romulus, will you be at dinner tonight?"
"If you ask it of me this time, Mother." The Prince said quietly. "If you feel like enduring the spitting match that is sure to come."
A sad look marred the Queen's smile. "I do ask, and I also ask that you do your best. It's a hard day for your father."
"As you wish, my Queen." Romulus bowed low from the dais, and the Queen flashed one more smile at Vidar, before exiting as well.

Romulus stood and squared his shoulders as she left. He regarded Vidar for a long moment, as if studying the man. He took in the lethal look of the man, his size, what visible scarring there was, and the wolf at his side.

With a shrug and a smile, Romulus decided he liked Vidar.

He stepped down off the dais towards the warrior.
"Well. Vidar Kane. Let's get a couple of things straight." He stuck out a gauntleted hand, big enough to swallow Vidar's hand and wrist in a handshake. "First, my name is Romulus, and you can call me that or Rom. If you must call me some honorific, 'My Prince' will do. If I have to remind you more than once to avoid 'your highness', 'your majesty' or any other such ridiculousness, I'll remind you with a backhand." He locked eyes with Vidar. "Second, I'd like to call you a friend, rather than a bodyguard, because believe me, I don't need you. You're here now, and my Queen has asked for you to shadow me, so I won't try and bribe you out of that. But please, let's neither of us pretend I need protecting." He released Vidar's arm. "Questions?"

US Trophy Hunters Division

The Trophy Hunters are a clandestine unit composed of members from various Spec Ops groups across the military, run under the CIA 'Special Activities Center' heading. They are a series of blurred lines and grey areas, crossing military branches, occasionally recruiting civilian experts, run by the military but technically under the CIA's control, hunting monsters that don't officially exist. There are only usually 300 people with the tag "Trophy Hunter" in their file at any given time, making the Division one of the smallest and most rarified groups the US can field. The Division uses its own ranking system, since the members come from various branches with various rank structures.

Commander Vancina is the officer in charge of the whole Division. He accepts and directs missions and is in charge of final decisions. He also enjoys a personal hand in recruiting.

The Division splits into 3 Companies, Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie Companies. Each company is 100 men, with the Captain being the 100th man.

The Division recruits from CIA SAC, USMC Force Recon, USMC Scout Snipers, USAF 427th, USAF Non-Standard Aviation, USAF SpecOps Low-Level II, USN Seals (including Seal Team 6), USN Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen (or Special Boat Teams), USA Rangers (including Delta Force), USA Green Berets, USA Civil Affairs, and USA PSYOPS. With 12 major Special Operations groups recruiting into a Division of only 300, there is quite a diverse array in operators. However, the requirements to become a member of the Division are incredibly steep, limiting candidates.

The Trophy Hunters are monster hunters, although some of the more particular men prefer the term 'Cryptid Containment'. These monsters are often the subject of myth and legend, and are deliberately kept that way by governments and people in power. But they certainly exist. And they're certainly deadly. The Trophy Hunters were formed as a response to these monsters, and have been engaged in counter-cryptid operations for a long time.

They've been deployed along the Pacific Rim to fight Kaiju.

They've been deployed in North America and Asia to contain rampaging Sasquatches and Yetis.

They've been deployed in the Atlantic to take down various forms of Kraken.

They've been deployed around the world to combat werewolves, vampires, shapeshifters, minotaurs, the Loch Ness monster, wendigos, the Jersey Devil, wampus cats, chupacabras, and many of the other horror stories mothers tell to scare their children.

The Trophy Hunters have protected the civilized world from all of these threats, as well as the panic that would rise if the average person knew of the existence of monsters and aliens.

Members of the Division are sworn to an extreme level of secrecy. They are all men who have gone on black ops and been labeled 'MIA' or 'KIA'. They have gone through a similar process to the Witness Protection Program, and have had their identities changed. All of the men recruited have therefore been selected because of their lack of family ties and responsibilities back home. They cannot form long term relationships before the age of 45, when they're up for retirement, and they are on call at any and all times to respond to threats. According to the US government, as well as any family and friends they may have, their old identities are dead, killed in action, or missing in a combat zone. This has lead to the Division being referred to as the Revenants, ghosts of their former selves.

The Revenants form a sort of family amongst themselves, since they are the only ones who know the truth about each other. Teams are very close, officers wind up acting as father figures, and funerals are usually held only among the division.

This is where we find Ronnie Vale.
…..

Ronnie cursed internally as the deer took off into the woods. He'd been about to hit it with a railgun round, but something had spooked it as he'd been settling into position. The traps were all clear still, he'd checked, but his second objective for the patrol was still incomplete.

Dinner.

The local deer had been more skittish recently, as if they'd finally gotten wind of the Blue Blood living amongst them. Ronnie shook his head as he settled back against the tree roots he was camouflaged in. The monster had been there for a while now, but the wildlife were just now showing signs of duress.

Or maybe it was whatever he'd seen last week.

Ronnie had reported it to Sergeant Evans, who had run it up the chain of command, but the other scouts and all the sensor arrays had reported nothing so… they had chalked it up to the stress of his first mission. But Ronnie knew what he'd seen.

And if the wildlife had seen his mysterious xeno, maybe that explained the sudden skittishness.

He had the oddest sense of… of not being alone, as he sat there. The Russian woods gave him the creeps. Being out here, where Division history told him they'd once hunted down Baba Yaga, just reminded him that there was so much they didn't know.

The unknown had scared him, ever since… the Incident. But becoming a Revenant?

This was his way to fight back against the unknown.

He squared his shoulders, trying to clear the feeling of being watched from his spine, and stood up. That deer had scared any other wildlife away with its mad dash into the woods. Maybe he'd have better luck at Rally B.

He hit the coms button on the inside of his gloves. "Corporal Vale here, moving from Snare 6 to Rally Point B, still executing Operation Dinner."

He heard the coms tech snicker. "Roger, Corporal, logs updated. Proceed with Operation Dinner, and good luck, Vale."

Ronnie smiled to himself as the tech broke protocol to crack a joke. Operation Dinner was a very serious affair. Food was important, no laughing manner.

He took a step, and the feeling of you're not alone suddenly increased.

The Division had recruited him because he had good instincts. When Charlie Company had deployed to Russia to contain this cryptid, he'd been told to trust his instincts. So he froze.

Because those instincts were screaming right now.

Ronnie scanned the area, tightening his grip on the railgun. He didn't move, but his senses were on high alert. He squeezed down on the thumb pad in his glove, and his helmet visor turned to ENVG, throwing up thermal imaging and light contours. Nothing was showing up though. He squeezed the other thumbpad and his Peltors cranked up, his hearing enhanced to the point he could hear the shifts in the air current.

There. A rustling in the trees. He snapped his head in the direction of the offending tree but still saw nothing in the foliage. There was a weird… Something between 2 trees, and the other tree shook slightly, but Ronnie couldn't tell what was there. Whatever it was, it was moving away, and Ronnie swallowed hard before keying his coms.

"C1E2, Vale here, I've got an unidentified contact heading towards Civilian Checkpoint 2. Tailing, please advise."

"Copy, Corporal, tail but keep your distance. I'll connect you to Ensign Davis."

"Roger." Ronnie heard another rustling and moved forward, his railgun at his shoulder. He moved to the first tree and saw nothing out of order, but as he was moving to the next one, he saw the same Something between two trees much further ahead. It was like a strange bending of the light between the trees, in a big shape. Too big for how little the tree rustled. Ronnie crouched and tagged the spot on his GPS output, so that Command could find him if he went down. He then moved quickly across the forest ground, following the rustlings. Suddenly, they stopped. He didn't see anymore light bending just then, and was about to move to the next tree, when his ENVG lit up with thermal signature. He swore in his head as a realized it was one of the local Voloshkan farmers. The Russian nationals hadn't responded too well to their livestock being killed and a whole group of heavily armed, futuristic black ops operatives moving into the woods. The Civilian Checkpoints kept track of how many Voloshkans went into the woods, and clearly, this guy had come looking to kill something. He had a shotgun and appeared to be wearing something similar to camo or light body armor or… something.

There was a thud, a soft noise but incredibly loud on Ronnie's Peltors. The farmer was near a spot where the light suddenly bent again, and he gasped before firing the shotgun several times. The Peltors muted the sound of the gun, but now Ronnie could see the farmer scrambling backwards from something. He turned off the ENVG and pulled his railgun up, prepping to run in, when the light stopped bending.

And morphed into something hideous.

Easily 7' tall. Bipedal humanoid. Bodybuilder muscular. Mostly green. Thick dreadlocks. Functional cloaking. Bristling with weaponry. Covered in armor.

And already decapitating the farmer.

Ronnie froze as he remembered he had no backup in the area at all. His coms clicked softly, and relief flooded him. Command was watching and had seen what he was seeing.

The massive creature picked up the farmer and looked around. Ronnie instinctively started to duck but managed to keep from moving at all. He knew if the creature had any kind of sensor it would see him, but he could hope in the middle of battle it wasn't paying close attention.

It strung up the farmer from the nearest tree.

Ronnie watched every gristly second, knowing if he looked away, command wouldn't have the video logs to analyze. He tracked its movement, did his best to get trees in the shot to show scale, and occasionally zoomed in on things he thought were important. Wrist blades, for instance. What looked like quills. The face, which might be armor.

And then it just… cloaked. The light bent and it was gone, except for the rustling of a nearby tree.

Ronnie waited a decent length of time, listening as the rustling moved farther off, before turning and sprinting back towards HQ. He wasn't a runner but the adrenaline made him soar. The critter didn't chase him down and kill him, so that was good.

At least Command knew he wasn't crazy now. Something else was out here.

And it might be out of their league.
…..

Ronnie ran up to the picket line, trying to calm his racing heart. The pickets had no mercy.

"Hold!" A round bit the tree behind him, whizzing up over his head. "Identify yourself."

He hit the brakes, sliding slightly in the dirt. "Corporal Vale, Revenant, stand down! Tim, it's me."

Corporal Tim Garcia stepped forward. He was completely blended into the bark of the tree he was standing against, and the effect was like seeing the trunk split. Ronnie flinched slightly as the 6'9" ex-Ranger revealed himself, much nearer than Ronnie had expected.

"Vale, what on earth are you doing sprinting up on my picket position?" The big man kept his gun pointed over Ronnie's shoulder, obviously expecting some attack.

"Tim, we're not under attack, it's just…" Ronnie swallowed as he tried to figure out some other answer than the truth. Tim cocked his head to the side, waiting for a response, so Ronnie sighed and spit it out. "I was running scared."

Corporal Garcia nodded. "Hey, everybody gets spooked their first mission." He turned his head again, listening to his coms, before gesturing at Ronnie. "Command wants you inside, Vale. Better keep running. I'll let the sentries know you're coming."

Ronnie nodded and jogged towards camp. He glanced back and Tim was gone, melting back into the tree. It reminded Ronnie of how the critter had just… disappeared, and he shuddered.

By the time he got into camp, all of senior leadership and the analysts were examining his footage. The sentries had waved him through, and he was being directed toward Captain Allen's mobile bunker- "The Tent" as the men called it.

When he stepped inside, he could see the footage he'd captured thrown up on several screens. The various analysts were working on getting measurements against background elements, tracking movement speed, checking footfall impacts to determine weight, and checking the critter against the Division's database. The database held info on all of the creatures and cryptids the Trophy Hunters had been called on to contain, as well as worldwide rumors.

"Corporal Vale!" Ronnie looked up to see Lieutenant Ramos beckoning him over. "Join us."

The officers were around a holo-table, essentially a big touchscreen, with a map of the area wide open. As Ronnie glanced at it, he could see his GPS pings marked where he'd dropped them, as well as the various rally points, civilian checkpoints, snares, known contacts, and the picket circle.

Lt. Jameson laid a hand on his shoulder. "You good, Revenant?"

Ronnie nodded, the collective name reminding him who he was. "Yes sir."

"Good." Captain Allen himself piped up from head of the table. "I've been briefed on your recent report. Do you think this is the same creature, Corporal?"

Ronnie swallowed and nodded. "Yes, sir, I believe it's the right dimensions for the ship I saw."

Allen grunted. "Remind us why we didn't believe you?"

Ronnie was a little confused by the question, but responded anyway. "Sir… I'm brand new. Fresh out of the grave, and I didn't have my ENVG on, so there was no footage. Others heard the noises but they could be explained by other things, and we already have one critter out in these woods, so the likelihood of a second is statistically low."

Allen had a serious look on his face. "Valid reasons. But you got your proof." He stood up and beckoned one of the analysts over. "How long were you tailing this monstrosity?"

Ronnie spent the next half hour detailing his snare trip.
…..

"All units, copy by click, repeat, copy by click, proceed."

The mass communications went out, sounding in every helmet. Every Revenant either clicked with their glove controls, or verbally clicked. The entire 100 headcount came up as present, and the coms tech nodded.

"This is Captain Allen, keep your coms lines open for a moment, but maintain radio silence. This mass com is to let you all know that there's a 5th element in these woods. Target, Revenants, civilians, wildlife, and now a potential second target. We'll refer to this element as "Critter" for now, till we have a better lock."

Every helmet received a visual of the creature Ronnie had seen, spinning in the corner of their visor.

"Critter is clearly sapient, and has proved hostile to humans, but only upon provocation. Critter possesses advanced cloaking, much superior to what we're able to field. Weaponry is untested at this point, other than blades from the arms, but as always, men, assume if we have a weapon, they have a counter. We've got microwave rifles, they might thrive on microwaves. We have plasma ejecting rounds, they may be fireproof. Do not attempt to fire on this creature without mission approval. The Critter has shown a preference for arboreal travel, so stay out of the branches."

A scheduling table popped up, with some sections highlighted. "Also, some of our snares have been tampered with, and it is believed this Critter may be behind that as well. The new snare check schedule is here, as well as moving our pickets to 2 hour shifts rather than 4. Stay alert, do not let your guard down, and remember that this Critter is not our target. If an opportunity comes where we need to prioritize, always bump the target to the top of your personal hit list. The Blue Blood is still our main mission objective."

A map location popped up, the GPS ping blinking. "Last point. Retrieval Team, there's a civilian body at this location. Retrieve carefully. Do not engage the Critter if it shows up, and seek mission approval before engaging the target. The body is strung from a tree. Apparently this Critter of ours likes to send messages. We're not trying to send one back by getting in a fight, but out of respect for the dead, lets get that Russian down. Allen out."

The men all clicked acknowledgment.
…..

Ronnie had asked to be Retrieval Team's sniper. Lt. Jameson had tried to get him to go rest, but it was mid afternoon, and Ronnie was keyed up. Captain Allen had approved his request, so now here he was, staring down the scope of his Bushmaster BA50, watching the team cut down the body.

There was so much blood.

He pulled his head back for a second, as the image of the farmer's head hitting the ground jumped unbidden into his mind. The Critter had been so… just so Efficient, Ronnie was feeling equal parts horror and admiration.

Something caught his attention way off to the side of the team. He quickly put his eye back up to the scope and swung the gun over.

There. The Blue Blood had startled a flock of birds a ways away, and was eating one.

It didn't seem to have seen Retrieval Team yet, but it was walking in the right direction.

"Ensign Roland, this is Corporal Vale, I have visual on the target, approaching your position, copy?"

"Copy, Vale, how long?"

Ronnie took a second to estimate. "You got about 60 seconds."

"Acknowledged. Command says engage if necessary, whatcha packin'?

Ronnie checked his ammo pack. "I'm carrying incendiary rounds, as well as armor piercing. We can try again with the conventional rounds."

Ens. Roland hesitated. "You got anything bigger? Those rounds didn't do much the last time."

Ronnie smiled as he opened his second ammo pack. "I've got compressed plasma rounds, as well as density collapsed deuterium. You ok with those?"

"Roger, Corporal. Fire at will."

"Copy that." Ronnie settled a little lower into his perch on the side of a ridge. He could see Retrieval Team moving faster, trying to get the body situated and search the area for clues about the Critter, and he could see the Blue Blood approaching.

He took a deep breath and settled his crosshairs on the target. It seemed to change direction just then, scenting something in the wind.

"Target has acknowledged your presence, Ensign. Get outta there." Ronnie could tell the Blue Blood had noticed the team when it lowered its head. There was a sense of purpose in its movement now.

"Good to go down here. Keep it off our tail, Corporal." Ens. Roland sounded out of breath, and Ronnie knew they would be heading out of the area at a jog. They had to carry the body, but there were 6 of them, so they could jog and pass the body off and keep from getting tired before crossing the picket line.

Even so, the Blue Blood was big and moving quickly. It could still catch them.

He squeezed off the first round.

At around 1000 meters from the target, it was a midrange shot for Ronnie. He watched through his scope as a full second passed, before the armor piercing round hit the target square in the body. Just like before, it didn't do much.

So he fired off the incendiary round.

Wait a second. Watch the round go off in the Blue Blood's face.

A slight flinch but again, no real damage.

So he quickly switched magazines, and this time when he squeezed the trigger, the Bushmaster sent a compressed plasma round towards the target.

Compressed plasma rounds were still cutting edge, and Ronnie always enjoyed watching them go off. They were like incendiary rounds, except, instead of a fireball when they made impact, they would erupt into a directed stream of superheated plasma. They were pretty effective on most targets.

Ronnie wasn't sure how the Blue Blood would react.

The next round he had loaded was a density collapsed deuterium round. As a localized nuclear explosion, getting hit with one of those felt like getting punched directly in the face by the sun. If the compressed plasma round didn't work, he was pretty sure the DCD would, but… you could never be sure with cryptids.

By this point the Blue Blood had reached the site, and Ronnie kept his crosshairs trained on it.

He didn't notice the light shimmering in the tree as he fired the DCD.

Ronnie watched as the plasma round slowed the Blue Blood, but didn't really hurt it. He closed his eyes when the DCD made impact, but he could tell the difference in reaction.

"Ensign, confirmed, DCD rounds cause noticeable damage, repeat, DCD rounds affective. If you change vectors back to base I should be able to keep the target from engaging."

"Roger, Corporal, updating the MO now." Ensign Roland would make sure the entire base knew to use DCD's in their weapons, at a minimum. They could pull out gravity or magnetic rounds if they had to, but if enough DCD's would do the trick, that was fine.

Ronnie watched through his scope as the Blue Blood oriented itself in his direction now, instead of after the squad. Time to go, then. He quickly scrambled backwards, loading another DCD round into the Bushmaster as he went, before standing and lining up a shot. He'd run when it went off.

He had his scope up when the Blue Blood sprouted something from its leg in a spray of blood. It looked like a spear, or something. A shimmering caught his attention and he moved to cover as he saw the light bend to reveal the Critter. He made sure his scope was recording the data again, transmitting it to command.
He hunkered down to watch, keeping his weapon trained, knowing if things went south, he might have to try to slow down both parties.

Not a happy prospect.

Pillow Fight I

Brogan adjusted his armor nervously. The last few minutes before the tournament began were always nervewracking. This was the third year he'd been a part of it, but his first year in the lists as one of the fighters. There was a whole new kind of adrenaline in his veins, standing on this side of the rails, instead of his usual spot as a squire.
His own squire, his younger brother Deegan, was standing on the other side of the rails, frantically restuffing the pillow that would be his primary weapon in this fight. It had developed a hole in one side in the qualifying fights, and Deegan had repaired it quickly. Brogan was impressed with how fast his brother had picked up his squire duties.
"… and now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've been waiting for!" The herald, who had been endlessly droning on about chivalry and gallantry on the field of battle, and then recognizing the various royalty and nobility in attendacne, finally got to the point, and Brogan paid more attention. "On the east lists, you will see the representatives of the royal family, as well as some of the heroes you know best!" There was a loud cheer from the crowd, and several of the knights waved. "And on the west lists…. the challengers! From the barracks of the nobility, these men have chosen to try their skill against some of our nation's finest. A cheer for their courage!" A quieter cheer, went up, and Brogan shook his head just a little. Everyone knew what this really was.
The king and the highest nobility drew from the lower nobility for their soldiers and knights. So the east lists were full of nobleman's children and high-born men, who'd been trained in the arts of war from childhood.
This selection meant that the lower nobles were left to draw from the serfs and peasants, like Brogan's family. The west lists were full of commoners and low-born peasants, which always gave these tournaments a heavy symbolic value. It seemed that every year, somehow, regardless of rule changes and other attempts to even the playing field, the royal knights came out on top.
In fact, these tournaments had become a yearly reminder of the superiority of the nobility over their peasantry, and Brogan always hated that.

But being a knight paid well, and he had a family to feed, so here he was.

He looked up into the stands, and saw three faces that made him smile. One was Lord Timmons, a minor baron who had given him a chance. One was his mother, smiling at him with worry in her eyes. And one was his blind father, face held up to feel the warmth of the sun, leaning into his mother so she could describe the scene to him. His sisters were at home, so he had only these three faces to look for.

Deegan tapped his shoulder, and handed his pillow over the rail. "All set, Brog. I'll toss up a quick prayer to Tulkas, but good luck!" His younger brother hissed quietly to him, before the marshals nudged him back from the rail.
"Thanks, Dee." Brogan hefted the pillow, densely stuffed with goose feathers and thick stuffing, and noted the heavy-duty patch Deegan had put in place. It would do just fine.
The herald wrapped up his blustering about the two sides, and finally explained the rules for those who didn't know. "This contest shall be decided by the last man standing in the arena. A fighter can be eliminated in several ways. If he surrenders, if he's knocked unconscious or incapacitated, or if he's knocked under or over the rails, he is declared out of combat. It shall be at the discretion of the marshals to allow a knight's squire to remove him from the arena, if need be." The herald turned towards the royal box. "And of course, his majesty will start the tournament, and may call a stop to the fighting anytime he wishes. Now, to arms!" Another wild cheer went up from the crowd, and Brogan took a deep breath.

This is it.

He looked across the flat dirt of the arena at his opponents. There were roughly 100 men on each side, prepared to dive into a huge free-for-all, where the goal was to outlast your opponents. He looked at each man, armored similarly to how he was armored. Blankets and comforters, wrapped in tight circles and figure-8s across his torso and limbs would protect his body. A pillowcase turban on his head as a helmet would hopefully keep him form serious damage. He could see that some of the wealthier knights had things like weighted blankets to add extra strength to their armor, or small pillows wound into their turbans to provide extra protection to their heads.

And the weaponry… it varied from man to man, and some of it was… intimidating, to say the least. Most of Brogan's allies had what he had: a common pillow, 2 feet long and about 6 inches thick, full of roughly 3lbs of some kind of stuffing. A few had a second, smaller pillow, that they could use for secondary attacks.
Over in the east lists, though, he could see pillows of all shapes and sizes. Heavy couch pillows that could concuss a man with one well-aimed blow; small, quick pillows that overwhelmed a man's defenses and drove him beyond the rails. Some knights carried a normal pillow, and also a large, dense body pillow, which they used as a full-sized shield.
And one man, Sir Rixtus, a towering giant who was easily 7ft tall in his cloth boots, was carrying a full bean bag chair as a weapon. It was as big around as Brogan was tall, and had to weigh 70 lbs. Getting hit by that thing could send a man flying, regardless of how good his defenses were.
That's what had happened to Larenk, Lord Timmon's former knight in the tournament. Brogan had been his squire for 2 years, when a smashing blow from Sir Rixtus had knocked Larenk backwards into the rails and flipped him over them. He'd landed awkwardly with all the momentum, and had broken his neck. The doctors had been able to help some, but… he'd never been the same.
That's what had given Brogan the chance to step in, and now, here he was, sweating in his armor and trying to calm his racing heart.

There was a trumpet blast, and the herald exited the arena to stand in the royal box, near the King. A hush fell on the crowd, and the lists seemed to tense, like a coiled spring ready to explode with energy.
The King raised his hand, and Brogan realized he was holding his breath. He wasn't the only one, he knew, but that wasn't a comfort.
Tulkas, help me now…

The King's hand fell, and with a shout, the lists sprinted at each other, clashing in the middle with the dull whumpf of pillows hitting bodies. The fight was on.

Pillow Fight II

TW: Gore, Violence against Pillows

The day had slowly grown dark, the thick clouds obscuring the sunlight over the rolling hills of Almohada. With the darkness had come a certain grim quality to the air, like the very sky was engaged in the fierce battle happening down below.
Timbo swung his blade, his intangible hands handling the broadsword expertly. It clashed with the heavy blade of his current enemy, a towering Neck Pillow, its non-descript face covered in little bits of fluff and stuffing from its other fallen foes. The Neck Pillow gave an incoherent cry, and swung its sword in a big circle, aiming to cut open Timbo's soft pillowcase and spill his stuffing. The smaller, more nimble Deco Pillow Leapt backward, hopping frantically as the Neck Pillow lunged again. If Timbo couldn't get away from the blade, he was likely to lose this fight. Another huge sweep missed, but cause Timbo to trip and fall backwards. He landed flat on his back, a very dangerous position for pillows, given their shape and difficulty in standing uright from that position. The Neck Pillow roared, and raised the sword high, point down, intent on stabbing Timbo. The young Deco Pillow tried to roll, but couldn't fight his rectangular shape.

A flaming arrow whistled across the battlefield, from the top of an adjacent hill, and hit the Neck Pillow square in the middle. It screamed and dropped the sword, flailing as its cover was pierced and its fluffy stuffing began to burn. It hopped away, but only a few hops, before it crumpled to the ground and lay there, a smouldering pile of burnt polyester.

Timbo looked up to see his buddy Venner load another arrow and fire it into the fight, before turning and hopping down the hill to him. "C'mon, Timbo, get up! We're right on the knife's edge here! One push either way, and we win or lose in this moment!" The archer bent in the middle, and Timbo could feel invisible hands lift him, enough for him to stand up on his own. He shook himself and hefted his sword again. "Thanks, Venner. I can always count on you."
Venner slapped his back. "I'm a Wedge Pillow, support is what we do. Now get in there! Show them that Decoratives are useful too!" His face-less friend, marked only by his patterned pillowcase, turned and hopped back up the hill, loading his bow as he did. Timbo watched him go for a moment, before turning and looking at the fight happening.

The political situation in Almohada had finally spilled into all out war. King Gantu of the Tempur-pedics had done nothing to quell the growing discontent in his kingdom, and it had continued to grow and grow. There had always been tension between the utility pillows- pillows with a clear purpose, like Neck pillows and Body pillows- and the non-utilitarian pillows, like Timbo's people, the Decorative Pillows, or the rarer PillowPet People. This had come to a head, when even the aristocracy began to split. The Down Pillows and the Memory Foam Pillows had been quietly eyeing each other for years, but a recent assassination had made things worse.
The story of the murder of Lord Alanth had circulated the kingdom quickly, along with pictures, drawn on handbills by the artists who'd seen the grisly scene early on. Lord Alanth's library was the backdrop; it looked like any normal library, except for a few details. For one, the window had been smashed, clearly to be used as an entrance or exit. Furniture was overturned, chairs and bookshelves flipped. The worst part of it all was the bits of cloth everywhere. Little pieces of pillowcase, indicating Lord Alanth had been ripped apart, made the scene dark enough. The final detail was the light coating of goose down on everything. Nothing in the room had been free of getting the aristocrat's insides all over it.

A picture like that, with the story that investigators had found bits of Memory Foam in the room, was what had started outright conflict. At first, it was just a pillow at a time, found on the side of the road with their pillowcase cut open, or a knife stuck in them; but soon, it had escalated to whole groups of matching pillows, all cut to pieces, hemorrhaging stuffing of all kinds onto the dirt. The final blow had been when the utility pillows had begun killing non-utilitarians and completely stripping them of their pillowcases and cloth, leaving nothing but a pile of stuffing to be scattered to the wind.

That had started the war, and now here they were. Timbo had those thoughts cross his mind as he looked out across the battlefield. Part of him saw enemies who needed destroying, their anger and ruthlessness fueling his own sense of righteous indignation.

And a part of him wished they could all just have peace. After all, they were all basically the same when it came down to it. All of them were Pillows, faceless, armless, legless… just soft blobs of material stuffed with other material. Were they really so different? They all hopped the same, they all used their invisible hands to conduct their little lives, and at the end of the day, this fight? It was nothing but a fight over tiny differences, like shape and stuffing.

He was pulled from this line of thought by the sound of tearing cloth as a Body Pillow came spinning across the battlefield and sliced open a poor, defensless little Couch Cushion. The Cushion toppled, spilling its cotton stuffing, and Timbo felt his anger rising again, even as he gagged at the sight. The Body Pillow turned in his direction, and Timbo twirled his sword as a challenge.

The Pillow Fight went on.

The Vegan Dragon

Part 1

It had been a perfectly typical morning in Varakun for Alak. He'd woken up, gone to the market to get the day's food as usual, and then headed to work. Today he was helping Brandth the Blacksmith rebuild a section of the old forge.

He'd been on his way down the main street in the small farming town, when a shadow fell over his section of road. There was a scream, and Alak looked up to see the unmistakable form of Olybriccazchus the Iron-skinned descending towards him. The laborer barely had time to throw up his hands before the dragon's massive talons wrapped all the way around his body. Alak saw every moment of his life flash before his eyes, as he waited for the inevitable killing pain as the dragon crushed him in its grip.

It never came.

Instead, he found himself lifted into the sky, and his fear of death turned to fear of being dropped. They got to a certain height, and Alak's brain stopped trying to process his various fears. He passed out and knew no more.
…..

Olly sighed to himself as the human passed out in his grip. He'd been hoping not to terrify the poor thing, but humans were so fragile, it seemed he could barely let them see him before someone was swooning in fear.
He flapped his massive wings and headed towards home, the peak of craggy Mount Vespasitas, the Mountain of Storms. Very few had ever seen the summit, other than Olly, because of the dark ring of clouds that constantly wreathed the peak. The cave where Olly lived was the only shield from the fire and lightning and wind that the perpetual storm brought with it.
It was this cave where Olly was headed now. He flew through the storm and landed on the ledge, doing an awkward hop-skip on three feet so he could keep ahold of the poor unconscious human. Inside the cave mouth was an antechamber full of one thing: bones. It was meant to deter anyone who managed to make it up here from going any further, but it was also just where Olly tossed any bones he didn't crack open to suck the marrow out of.
It was also the reason he'd gone into town today. The dragon sighed as he walked through the path he'd had to clear through the bones, which were piled high enough to come up to his chest.
The next room was a little bigger, and more homey. Fewer bones. A big open space, where a dragon could stretch out. Furs and pelts and hides of all kinds lined the floor, creating a soft padding for Olly's scaly skin as he plopped down on his stomach. The dark of the cave was dispelled by the soft glow of the fire blazing under his skin. His red scales glowed a dim orange with the heat, and gave him all the light he needed to see.
The human woke up after a few minutes.
…..

Alak woke up in the dark. He was lying on his back on something soft, but smelly. In fact, the entire place where he was smelled of smoke and death. A distinct combination that brought his situation back to mind. The dragon!
He sat straight up, and was suddenly aware of some lighting in the chamber. Orange lights, covering the wall in front of him, that seemed to glow like they were bioluminescent or something. They were also moving, and that's when Alak realized what he was looking at. Manwe above, it's huge!
The laborer swallowed hard as he felt the heat coming off of what he now realized was the dragon's side. He was close enough to reach out and touch it, and some hypnotic force made him do it, slowly reaching his hand forward to touch the glowing ornage-red scales.

"Ah good, you're awake."

Alak didn't realize he was screaming, until it had been a couple seconds. He stopped, clamping his mouth shut and covering it with both hands. The dragon had startled him by speaking, and Alak wasn't sure what scared him more: the voice that sounded like rocks grinding together mixed with thunder and bestial roaring, or the amber eye with the slitted pupil as big as his head that was now fixed on him, not three feet away.

"No, no, don't stop yourself. Let it out. You can scream." The dragon sounded annoyed, maybe even a bit long-suffering, but Alak took his advice and uncovered his mouth, allowing his screams to come out for just under 30 more seconds.
He finally ran out of breath and just sat there, panting, and the dragon opened the huge eye it had closed in irritation.

"Now that that's out of the way, can we talk? I need your help."

Alak froze, staring at the massive creature in front of him. Olybriccazchus the Iron-skinned was a massive red and black fire drake. Easily 50 feet long, tail to nose, with wings wide enough to lift his several-ton body into the air with ease. Teeth as long as Alak's arms, razor-sharp talons that could shred armor with a flick, long curved horns on his head and spikes on his tail. The ability to breathe fire which was so hot it melted metal and caused the very air to burn.
Nothing about him looked like he needed Alak's help. Which made the laborer even more curious.

"…. How?" He was only able to squeak outone word, his body still shaking in fear too much to say more. The dragon shifted, as if settling in for a long story, and sighed, a noise like rushing wind that blew smoke in long trails out in front of him.

"I'm tired of killing. I'd like to try something else for a change. I've heard you humans have this concept, something called 'going vegan'. I want to give it a try."

Alak's jaw hit the ground as the dragon, The Scourge of Varakun, The Flaming Death himself, asked about veganism. He just stared at the giant death-dealing machine for a moment, unsure if this was some trick, before deciding that if it was, he was dead in the dragon's lair already.
"I think I can help with that…"

The Vegan Dragon

Part 2

1 Year Later

Mayor Alak trudged up the street from his house to the town hall, where his office was. Today promised to be a stressful day, and part of him wasn't looking forward to it.
Breakfast was waiting for him in the conference room, as were several of his local leaders of industry. They all looked serious, and he could tell they'd all come to some kind of agreement about what they were going to speak with him about this morning.
He had a feeling he knew, but he said nothing other than greetings as he walked in and sat down to his eggs and toast.
After a few minutes of silence, void of the usual pleasantries and small talk, Alak finished his plate, pushed it back, and leaned back in his chair. "Well, gentlemen. You seem to have something on your minds this morning. Please feel free to say what's bothering you."
There was a moment where they all just looked at each other, before a gentleman in a silk tunic, denoting his position as Chairman of the Merchants' Guild, spoke up. "Well… Mayor, we've been talking. All of our industries have suffered recently, and we've narrowed it to one common factor causing the issues. We wanted to talk to you to see if there's anything that can be done, but we're aware it's a sensitive issue."
Alak had a sinking feeling that he knew what the problem was, but he asked the question anyway. "And what is this common factor, Chairman?"
The Chairman hesitated, but a man in leather armor with a star pinned to his breastplate spoke up. "It's Olly, Mayor."
Alak groaned and leaned forward, resting his face on his hands for a moment, before sitting up. "I figured. I think I know, but… each of you, explain to me how he has caused suffering in your industries."

Varakun's Game Warden spoke up. "Well, before he went vegan, Olly was keeping the local predator population down. In the last year, however, we've had more deaths to livestock and people from bears, cougars, and wolves, than we've had in a very long time. Hunting parties have had to be organized, and our people are farmers, not hunters. But even if the hunts were successful, we can't keep up with the rising predator population. Turns out removing the top of the food chain is a bad idea."

"And the effect of the predators on our livestock is worse than when Olly would eat them. A few sheep or cattle from each farm once or twice a week is very different from a couple every night." The Head of the Farmer's Union, known as the Yeoman, picked up where the Game Warden left off. "One huge sentient predator was bad enough, but we would gladly take that over hundreds of big, unthinking beasts tearing our farms apart. He also never caused structural damage unless challenged, but our fences and pens are torn down regularly now."
He went on. "On top of that, the hit to our agriculture has been gigantic. We supply him with huge portions of our vegetables and plant food, which has caused our industry to crash. We've had to import foodstuffs from other places. We initially thought it would be ok, because we could sell more meat now that Olly wasn't eating it, but we haven't been able to do that because of the predator problem. So we're losing money."

The Chairman jumped in. "And our economic standing has gone down quite a bit, meaning our ability to procure other goods has shrunk. Without our booming farm business, many of the merchants don't have the capitol to expand their businesses to cover the losses. We also-" he paused, unsure of himself, but went on with a nudge from the Yeoman. "We also have realized that the presence of a vicious dragon near our town was actually protecting our business. Nobody wanted to set up shop and try to cut our profits. But now that Olly has been 'gentled', as they say, we've got competitors rolling in, and that's bad for the families depending on our business for their daily bread."

The Sheriff, the man in leather armor with the star, finished for the group. "And competing businesses aren't the only ones rolling in. Varakun is remote enough, near the Mountain of Storms, that we've always had a little bit of a problem of criminals trying to hide out here. But it wasn't a problem, because most criminals are cowards who aren't big on living near the lair of a dragon. But now, we're being overrun. My 4 deputies and I cannot keep up with the level of crime our little town is generating. I've had to deputize more men in the last year, but they're all farmers, and fathers as well. The town is becoming more unsafe."
He shook his head. "On top of that, as Olly has gotten gentler and more friendly, people have flocked to see him. We've become something of a tourist attraction, which of course means lots of people coming through. The crime rate would be up anyway from that, but the addition of criminals to the mix means that hardly a day goes by without some visitor turning up in my office complaining of robbery, being conned, or being assaulted, and with the high numbers of people coming and going, theres often nothing we can do. It's uniquely frustrating, Mayor, and I don't mind telling you I kinda wish Olly would go back to killing things."

Alak listened carefully, and slowly nodded at the end. "it certainly seems like it would fix a lot of things. But we were all in favor of it before."

"Because getting the local dragon to go vegan seemed like a great solution. Who could know it would lead to all of this?" The Game Warden gestured around them. "Our farms are failing, our businesses are closing their doors, our town is full of criminals and our forests are deadly to all the visitors coming through, all of whom leave here with terrible stories to tell the rest of the kingdom."
The Yeoman was a bit more quiet. "Olly wanted not to be hated… it's our fault he felt that way, because now we see how much he was really doing for us. He didn't deserve our anger."

Alak nodded again, and leaned forward. "So. How do we fix it?"

They brainstormed all day, tossed around ideas, and by the time the sun was sinking in the west, they had a plan. Mayor Alak left townhall with just one question in his mind.

Would Olly agree to it?

Of Chloris and Vulcan

It is said that in the eons past, Fordivore was smaller, and its people few. In those days, the forests of ironwood, oak, elm, and ash spread across the face of the main landmass of Londris, and in those verdant groves did Chloris rule. Lady of Life, Her Grace of the Gilded Greenery, and Spirit of Nature did her followers call her. In the open did they worship her, at that time fearing nothing but her anger should their devotion fail.

Chloris was but one of the Children of AinaTar. Her siblings were given their realms and responsibilities, and at the start, none did match the power which was given to Chloris, save her sister, Venilia, who ruled in equal measure over the great oceans of Londris.

Out in the dark of space, AinaTar worked to answer the requests of those who cried out to him in need. He formed a gift, one of great import, and sent it to those who called for aid.

In her sylvan finery, Chloris looked to the heavens, some sense whispering to her of gifts sent from her Father. She noted her brother, Vulcan, also gazing into the firmament with hope and expectation.
Then did their followers rejoice, sighting the gift of AinaTar breaking into two parts, to bless two parts of Londris. Chloris noted part of it would land in Venilia's domain, and part in hers. She called out, then, a clarion call for action from her brother Cedalion. God of Stone, Master of the Mountains, and Delver of Deepest Caverns, Cedalion saw the gift approaching, and in great strength stomped his foot. The power of this blow formed a landing place for the first part of the gift of AinaTar, a cavern deep beneath a mountain formed to house it. Chloris was gratified that her brother, as much as was within his power, left her greenery intact.

She watched as the gift landed in its cradle, and smiled upon it. So too did she smile upon those of humanity who came racing to see this wonder, and in like manner did she smile at Vulcan as he came timidly forward to gaze upon this gift.
The purpose of the gift was not clear to Chloris, but the longer she watched Vulcan's reaction, the greater her sense that he knew what to do with it. And therefore did she speak gently to him, and grant him leave to do with gift of their Father as he thought best.

Vulcan leapt at this chance. He would never have taken unto himself the nerve to ask Chloris to give ground in her own domain, but the gift of AinaTar called to him, in both places it had landed. To those few who worshipped him did he impart knowledge and secrets, which would allow them to master the gift.
Venilia followed her sister's example, and gave place to Vulcan to work what he could with the gift. And so it was, that the followers of Vulcan spread across the face of Londris, working wonders and uplifting mankind out of the dark.

But with the gifts of AinaTar often come trials, to sharpen and hone the receiver, and thus it was with this gift. Vulcan was careful, but he longed to help the people who called to him. In his zeal, yea, even in his love did he work wonders which began to infringe upon the mission of Chloris. She beheld that the people were happy, but that a further growth in Vulcan's power would shrink her own, and in that moment did jealousy over what had once been hers sink into the heart of Chloris.

In wrath did she send her followers to break down that which was built of Vulcan, and in devotion they followed her instruction. In her anger, she aided them with allies of wood and green, the very wildlife itself turning against the followers of Vulcan.
From his place atop The Mountain Cedalion had built did Vulcan look down upon this conflict. He grieved the anger of Chloris, wishing her hurt to be healed. From her craggy perch, he stepped down, and offered her a truce, in hopes of assuaging her. But in her ire, Chloris refused the olive branch he offered, and pressed her attack.

Then did Vulcan turn his back on the conflict, for he knew what was to come. The slow creep of his power, and the gaining of great strength imparted to his followers, had not been intentional. He turned, partially in irritation at the attack on those who worshipped his name, and partly to hide his eyes from the carnage that would follow. For not lightly was Vulcan known as the Master of Metalwork, Lord of Weaponry and Engineer Divine.

Gifted with Auranium, that most precious of metals, the Vulcanites defended themselves. Chloris went forth to wage war on humanity, and found their engines of battle to be too strong for her followers. Indeed, when they found their endurance fading, their stamina for the battle waning, the disciples of Chloris fled from their Vulcanite brethren. In vengeance did the Vulcanites pursue, only to be stopped by the calloused hand of Vulcan himself. He would not allow his sister to be defeated entirely, nor her followers wiped out.

In this, Vulcan hoped to show Chloris that he wished for peace, and still loved her as a fellow child of AinaTar. But in that moment, when with his own hands Vulcan turned the blades of his followers, Chloris felt only betrayal, and pity. The perceived betrayal she could not forgive, and the pity she did not want. In her belly then was planted a seed of deepest bitterness, a long rage which the ages could not wither.

And to this day, no peace has there been between the Vulcanite Church and the Chlorisian Disciples.