In an endless white virtual space, Tasha recoils from the armor-skinned, flaming figure of Abaddon. Next to her, an armored cheetah lies unconscious on the floor, and the avatar of the God of War laughs! "Such an enthusiastic scream!" he declares, but does not approach the woman. "I knew you would return to me eventually, my Enyo."
Tasha takes another step backward, but once it become clear that Abaddon is not advancing -- and more so, she recalls there is nowhere to go -- she stops.
It takes her several more seconds to sputter a reply, the fearful woman asking, "W-waiting? For me?"
It then strikes her she had heard something like this before, in another terrifying dream in the cold wastes of Abaddon. "You said I couldn't die ... That you needed me ... I thought it was just a nightmare!"
"I have waited eons for one who could enact my will," Abaddon claims, crossing his arms over his chest. "You think it a nightmare? Perhaps it was, in part. Do you think you are sleeping now though?"
"No ... And Harmonia said she also met you. You reached out to her, too. You've been looking for your weapon, your Enyo," the red woman answers, her mind working to find a way out even as her gaze is locked on the man before her. Abaddon infected the Titan through the artifacts, he's probably still insinuating himself in to the system. If he can reach my mind, he's has full or near full access. Will the code even work? She pauses, a cold chill running down her spine as she suddenly wonders, Can he hear my thoughts?
Abaddon doesn't reply to the mind-voiced query. "A formidable weapon, but alas, useless," the god claims. "But now you have brought me something worthy.. and much, much more! The means of entering the Meddlers' stronghold, and finishing their long postponed extermination!"
"I brought you ..?" Tasha sucks in a breath, biting her lip. The Origin Markers! He read Balthasar's memory. I was watching for Sifran artifact contamination, not him.//
She pauses a momemt, forcing her brain to move amidst the sluggist mire of fear the comes again like a wave. Not just Balthasar, but the Markers too ... Ah ..! Her ears lay back, but she manages to press on after a moment. "W-what Meddlers? You mean the Expedition species? The ... The "slithering snakes" and "cats"? If you think I'll just hand them over to you, you're mistaken."
"They are merely byproducts," Abaddon says, dismissing them with a wave of his hand that leaves a fiery trail. "The Meddlers are the cause. Their existence is an insult to the Creators."
The woman tilts her head. "Not the Expedition..?" But who else ... He can't mean..?! She gasps as it comes to her in a moment like ice across her spine. "The Progenitors! The First Ones, you mean to destroy them too? But why? Because the Creators -- the 'Sifrans' -- have ordered it of you? Who are you?"
"I am loyal," Abaddon claims. "I have expunged the unworthy in the past. And now.. I may be the only one of my kind left. The others are forced to slumber, because of the Meddlers."
"Then you are the AI of this world ..? Perhaps the world itself? I had ... I mean, I've wondered if these worlds are alive. They are massive hives of rendered material that appear to function akin to computer systems we use, but more complex and difficult to fully comprehend. And I wondered ... I wondered, what is their purpose? And who guides them? So I thought ... I thought you must be that being. That you are this world," Tasha reasons. Some of her tension begins to drain as Abaddon does not press his attack, though she remains guarded, her body tense and her eyes full of suspicion. "But be that as it may, whatever your reason, you're trying to destroy everything and everyone I know, and now, even what I strive to find."
"Does it matter, so long as you survive or get the answers you crave?" Abaddon asks, and holds out his hand. "Is not the one who destroys a god a god herself?" Next to Abaddon, the armored cheetah - Balthasar's avatar - begins to stir.
Tasha barks a strained, disbelieving laugh. "You think I want to kill them? I want to meet them, to see the path they have walked, to ask their help! Not destroy them!"
"You will see things differently when you take my hand," Abaddon promises, as Balthasar struggles to stand up. "We will be as one, and together we will command this engine of destruction."
"God, alien, AI, whatever you are, if you think I'll join you, you are out of your mind," Tasha all but spits. She then stabs a finger at the manlike inferno, pointing right at his chest. "I didn't pull Balthasar from his darkness just to hand him to you, or anyone, else. He's not here to fight your war, and neither am I! Though you might beat me, though you may control me, you better be prepared to give it your all. Because I'll give the same, and that is the only thing I will give you if those are your desirs. Do your worst." Her free hand then reaches for Balthasar's, clutching his hand as she awaits Abaddon's wrath.
Once the cheetah's hand is grasped, Tasha hears in her mind, "Optical Processor interface is corrupted. Battery reserves at 30% capacity. Flight system offline. Unknown target approaching from due east, speed 300 kph. What are your commands?"
Abaddon growls, and takes a step towards the pair.
As Abaddon advances, Tasha steels herself for his approach. With two threats now only a breath away, her heart begins to sink -- but she has one last trump card to play before the darkness consumes her and her and all hope is lost. Balthasar ... If this fails, I'm truly sorry. She takes a deep breath as the god nears, so close she can feel the blaze radiating from the flames that engulf him.
"You want me to be a destroyer?" She asks, not quite able to solidify the mask of bravado she had hoped to show. "Then I am become unto death! destroyer of worlds!"
Abaddon grabs onto Balthasar's other arm, and the cheetah's armor begins to change to match that of Abaddon. But then it seems like the scene is receding and shrinking away to Tasha. She soon finds herself back in the cockpit. Half of the displays are showing multicolored nonsense. "Optical Processor link severed. Mechanical systems online. Firewall is under attack. Estimated Target arrival in three minutes."
Tasha heaves a breath as she's hurled back in to the real world, a wave of nausea threatening to spill her stomach even as she scrambles to orient herself and respond. Grasping the wall of her cockpit like a drowning mana life raft, she lifts her head and regards the screens.
Firewall ... And ... what is that..? The woman squints against the lights, eyes sweeping across the nonsense. She's free, but only for a moment. Ready ... Ready weapons ... ah ... diverter remaining processor power to anti-intrusion measures ... Target the approach craft. How much time to firewall failure?
"Firewall failure in 4 minutes, estimated. Control of mechanical systems will be usurped at that point. Right arm has already been compromised." With the left arm, however, Balthasar reaches back and grips the handle of one of his two swords, drawing it forth. It has the same golden-edged blade as Melchior's shaard.
No stator ... No gravitation control ... Just a sword and only a few minutes remaining ... I can't even self destruct the Titan. Putting one foot in front of the other, Tasha wills the machine to turn to face the approaching threat. never before has she felt under seige from all aspects of her existence. To the young pilot, it feels as though her reality is disintigrating all around her -- and not even death is available to help her escape. Even were she to exit the cockpit, it would be simple for him to disable her with its superior systems.
In a last ditch show of defiance, Tasha turns the blade in the Titan's hand and aims it not for the enemy she expects but at the Titan's other arm! She maynot be able to cleave through the body, but ... I can at least do this!
The right arm moves by itself, trying to block the sword by grabbing at the left arm's wrist!
Tasha can feel the impact, the arm servos straining against each other and moan of metal under pressure passes like a dirge through the cockpit. Try as she might, the arms are evenly matched by design -- and she is unable to force the grip to release. After straining her own arm in the armiture for nigh upon a minute, she heaves a breath and relents, unable to force the arm any longer and physically exhausted.
"Damn it," she curses aloud as she falls back against the armiture, rubbing at her now sore right arm. Even as she struggles to think of her next plan the screen before her continues it's inevitable march towards total control. "Balthasar, can you initiate emergency ejection ... No of course you can't. Ah, what to do, what to do.// She leans forward, turning the machine's waste as she scans the horizon for a clefts.
"Ejection system is online," the lesser AI reports.
There's the edge of a canal in the near distance, perhaps a mile away.
"No. No. That's not what I meant. And I am not running away!" She growls in her head. In her mind, abandoning Balthasar now would be the height of cowardice -- and likely pointless to boot. Though she may escape, she would be abandoning her post and all but handing the Titan to Abaddon, and with it, the lives of her fellows -- perhaps the entire world!
Though ejection is out, there is still one path lfet. /I won't eject, but I /can/ still do /this./" Bracing herself, Tasha begins to put one hoof infront of the other as the Titan begins to move. In clouds of ruddy red dust, it picks up speed and veers towards the cliffside. "/Release locomotion limiter locks, increase speed. Silence related warnings ... Come on ... Come on!/"
The Titan's stride is huge, and it eats up the distance in a blur! "Target closing in," the AI reports, with just seconds to the edge of the canal cliff.
"Ignore it! We don't have time to deal with it! just a little more!" As the gaping shadow that fills the wound in Abaddon's soil looms ever larger, like a gate to the abyss. Tasha leans back and braces herself, her eyes widening as both literal and figurative darkness stand poised to collide in to her. Seconds feel like minutes, like hours, as one foot falls before the other, and then ...
And then there is no more ground to catch the Titan's stride. "Gabriel, I'm sorry!" It's momentum unchecked, the machine pitches forward. "Gods, this is it..! Ah..!!" Without a sound, the Titan falls in to the dark, taking its pilot with it.
At least, until it is brought to an abrupt halt with a screeching of metal. The canal lies before Tasha, Balthasar hanging at an impossible angle. And then the Titan begins to move, being pulled back. "Firewall breach immanent. Advise ejection before systems are compromised."
Tasha releases a cry of frusteration as her last resort fails, and she has no idea why. The screen before her is almost filled with red, but it's meaningless to her. "I've failed..?" Though of Star City reduced to a plume of ashes, the Pit of Himaar burned, Harmonia falling from the sky and everyone she loves, and everyone she knows ... "No ... No!!" She screams, slamming her fist against the cockpit display. "FULL DEPTH!
"Unable.. unable.." the system replies. "May the Star go with you, Pilot." The interface arm disconnects. Error signs flash on all of the monitors for a moment... and then clear. "Behold, the body of Abaddon!" the Titan booms out. Then Tasha is nearly thrown out of her restraints as Balthasar is spun around. "Behold this," another voice booms, and the displays flicker after a golden, armored and taloned fist strikes the Titan.
"Agh!" Tasha cries, as much from the pure frusteration of being unable to even confront her nemesis in the end as much as from being hurtled against her restraints. She doesn't waste a second more, a new plan coming to her as she attempt to interface fails. Bruised, sore, her head spinning, she pulls her boot knife and slams it towards the cockpit screen, all the while yelling, "You think you can just ignore me?! You coward! COWARD!" The screams become inarticulate as she pounds and prys away, knowing there is yet one more means that Sifran crystal may be interfaced with -- she just has to reach it. No matter how far, no matter what it takes, even if it's pointless.
Because it's better than nothing, when she can't even die trying to stop the doom she brough to the world.
"Release her," the second voice commands. Abaddon laughs, and raises its right hand. "Maybe after I make her watch your destruction," the compromised Titan says, the crystals on its arm glowing brightly as it turns them on Melchior.
Nearly lost in her attempt to breach the cockpit to reach Sifran surfaces, the young woman sudden stops dead as the sceen fills with an impossibility.
"Melchior..?" She whispers, her eyes huge as saucers as her Titan has come to save her. Somehow, someway. Her eyes sting as she watches the struggle, unable to believe it, but desperately wanting to -- until she sees Balthasar raise his fist, calling on the reality-crushing power the machine commands. "No ... No ... Not him too! MELCHIOR!"
In a moment of fevered clarity, seeing the one being in all the world who was always there for her about to be destroyed, she remembers she has one last weapon left. The one machine she does still control.
"Achillies! Emergency force eject power core," she cries in Vartan. Behind her she can feel the explosive bolts slamming in to her back as her suit's high-density battery force-eject her suit's power core in to her waiting hand. Unpowered, she levies all her strength to bring the pack around to the crack in the cockpit's screen as she pulls her wings in to shield herself before slamming the knife through battery and in to the cockpit wall.
Several things happen at once. The view outside becomes horribly distorted as the gravity field surrounds Melchior. This only lasts a moment, as the release of energy from the molecular distortion battery knocks Tasha backwards. The charge rocks across the surfaces of the cockpit, and triggers the explosive bolts of the ejection system. With a deafening thud, the chest hatch is blown off, revealing a world of swirling dust outside. "What do you think you're doing, Enyo?" Abaddon says, one hand reaching to block the opening. The dust blurs, and Melchior's hand grabs onto Abaddon's before it can block the exit. "How.." the machine-god starts to ask.
The pilot's body falls forward once it is no longer held back by the force of the blast, fallings from the skeletal wreck of the armiture in a smouldering heap of smoke and broken metal, the arm that had held the battery swaying in the cold night air, just below Melchior's own. At least, most of it does -- the hand is missing, with the rest of the arm reduced to rapidly cooling, melted ruin. The wings are little better, hanging at odd angles, bent and rent through in places. While the body has endured with only cracks, it's Tasha head, which now hangs precariously over the drop from the cockpit, her hair a scattered mess, ears shredded and blood everywhere. She doesn't move, too conciousness having left in the blast her and only now returning, seconds later.
Beneath her, the world spins. And everything hurts, a world of pain sung through with a piercing, ringing choir.
"Tasha," Melchior booms. "I need you. Respond." Abaddon is still apparently stunned, as if such a state could exist for a being like that. "Meddler trickery!" he cries out.
Though broken, Tasha is not gone. She graps feebily at the edge of the cockpit hatch, her decimated left hand simply waving uselessly in the air until her right hand manages to get a grip on the frame. "Ahhhcchil ... ahhhchiillees, emeeeegency f-for-ce re-lea ... Release." With what power remains in the auxillary batteries, the suit blows the entirey of the releases that still function. This results in a majority of Tasha's armor, save the wing armitures, left arm and scattered individual sections blowing a part. Without their supports, those parts that yet remain falls away. Tasha is in her undersuit with her left hand, both wings, left side oof her face and scattered points of penetration damaged or ruined. It is only the adrenaline that flooods her system that lets her rise up at all, giving her the strength to pull herself to the edge before she lets go. A leap of faith she knows is well-placed.
Melchior is quick. He releases Abaddon to catch Tasha, and then retreats at speed. The world seems brighter to Tasha - the Titan must be using the stator to dampen inertia.
The young woman's hair blows in the wind as she lays, limp, in Melchior's hands. No longer needing to fight, unable to even move if she wanted to, she quickly begins to succumb to a mind-numbing fog as the landscape speeds beneath her. A peaceful fog, knowing her Titan came to save her. A pleasant dream in the midst of a nightmare.
"Tasha, you must connect to me," Melchior says, lowering its voice considerably. "Only with you can I use my shaard, Tasha. Balthasar must be defeated now, before the invading mind can escape."
"Mellcchorr ... " The woman rasps in an almost wind-drowned whisper. Moments fade disappear, returning to Tasha in fits and starts. "I'mmm sssoorrree ... "
"We must strike," Melchior insists, and hunches over before lifting Tasha to his shoulder. "I need you, Tasha," he says again, the hatch on his back opening.. a seemingly insurmountable six feet away.
Being jostled about makes time behave, returning to normal continuity for the bloody heap of fur and feathers. It takes her several seconds more to even register where she is and remember what had happened. And to see, for her left eye is no more.
She manages to rise to her kneels, coughing rackishly, her blonde hair pasted to her face in a matte of drying blood. She regards the opened hatch with an exhale that sounds like the final hiss of a dying Naga; and then step by step, she limps towards it. When she reaches it, she simply pitches forward to fall in to the opening.
The cockpit is aglow, but not from displays. The Vartan Origin Marker is the source, hovering in the air before the pilot couch. The couch.. Tasha just needs to get onto it..
"Huuhh ..?" The broken pilot rasps as she regards the Marker from where she is slumped in the back of the cockpit, her wings pushed to angles they were never meant to go. Pain lances through her thoughts, turning everything red. And burning bright like the light of the Marker is her hatered for the one that ruined her, that now stands to take everything away from her. She doesn't know by what miracle she has been given a last chance when all her other artifices had failed, but she slumps forward to grasp it. Her sword, just a few feet away ... A little farther ... and then ...
Vengeance.
The pilot grasps the reigns of her machine in her remaining hang, collapsing on to the pilot's chair. Her control studs are exposed, as much of the fur, hair, and skin on the left side of her face is no longer present to obstruct them. They wait, shining red in the dark.
She doesn't actually remember getting into the seat, or the connection of the interface arm. Only the words, "Shaard systems online. Initiating Virtulization mode.." And then the pain is gone. Tasha's awareness opens up like a flower, and she is a giant. The supersonic hum of her talons and the edges of the shaard is what she hears now, while before her, wielding two blades, Abaddon charges. Balthasar is all but unrecognizable, his shining surfaces tarnished to match the armor of his possessor. Even his noble face is distorted. He's slow though, and the crystals embedded in his armor are flickering instead of providing a steady (if liquid) glow.
Melchior rises up to full, it's wings hand twicthing for several seconds before stabalizing, spreading to reach for the sun. And it screams; a roar to split the earth, its weapons lifting and glowing under the power. The engines ignite, scorching the ground and hurtling the machine towards its nemesis on the trail of fire lit its pilot's fury.
Abaddon raises up the swords to block.. too slow. With the crystals jammed, the Titan has no inertial adjustment or flight. The shaard bites into the armor of its left hand, severing the artificial muscle. Abaddon roars, sounding abnormally deep because of the accelerated reference frame Melchior operates in.
And then the Melchior blurs past the infected Titan, hurtling like a bird of prey on wings of flame. Almost half a mile away, it drops towards the ground, wings tucking and engines cutting out, falling in to a forward roll as a person might. Its liding across the terain until it has righted and reoriented itself again towards it enemy. The engines roar to life once more, the massive machine bearing down upon the other from a completely new direction, relentless.
As Abaddon turns to try and meet the new charge, Tasha enhanced vision spots the cause of the god's troubles: the armor of the Titan's left shoulder is torn where Melchior grabbed it before it could fall into the canal. And embedded in that tear is the Silent One's Origin Marker.
Ceramic-metal alloys vibrating at millions of hertz come into contact. Abaddon's sword scars the shaard, but fails to deflect it. Metal evaporates and the usurped Titan looses its right arm at the elbow. "You dare attack a god!" Abaddon belows, sounding far away. Melchior is already a hundred yards clear before 'dare' is fully spoken.
This time, Melchior lands early, its presence engulfed by the cloud of red dust that trails after it makes contact with the ground. The roar of engines pick up, then suddenly from out of the cloud half the shaard flies, aimed for Balthasar's chest!
At the same time, farther back and above the cloud, the black Titan breaks through! With its remaining shaard half clutches in both hands, it comes down with the speed of lighting and the force of rampaging demon!
The two hyper-sharp blades slice into Abaddon's chest and out the back, forcing the Titan backwards until it falls over. More dust is raised. "Doesn't this feel natural, Enyo?" the altered Titan asks, it's voice sped up to sound normal now. "Isn't this what you were born for? The joy of battle! We can still work together.."
""If I slay a god I become a god!"" The voice of Tasha roars across the landscape, the machine having released its blades to their resting place in Balthasar's chest. It stalks forward, it's claws held out, burning with the energy of their active cutting surface. "I don't need you," the black Titan snarls as it grabs down, digging its talons in to Balthasar's body and dragging the machine to its feet. Its armed flex, claws bracing. "Now die!"
With a sudden jerk, Melchior pulls its talons outward, tearing the other machine apart in a disintigration of violence.
There is no final word from Abaddon. The head bounces, but is quiet. The eviscerated Titan is spread across a wide swath, with only the disconnected crystals and the Origin Marker remaining intact.
After Melchior's hands fall, the machine grows quiet. Where only seconds ago it had sped across the wastes like a demon possessed, it may as only be a statue. A monument, an epitaph to the fall of a legend and the victory of one god over another.
There's a subtle shift as the stator winds down. Without having to think it, Tasha knows Melchior has used a lot of power, with only 13% charge left now. "The AI should be gone now," Melchior says into Tasha's thoughts. "It was isolated in the Titan."
"I killed Balthasar ... "" Is Tasha's response. Her pain gone, but her mind still blurry from injury and adrenaline, she looks down upon the ruined mess of the Titan she had hoped to save. The Titan she had brought her, promising a better future. In the end, she let her fury and desire to destroy Abaddon drive her to not simply defeat him, but annihilate him, to surpass him, and claim dominance over the thing she feared the most.
"Balthasar sacrificed himself to trap Abaddon," Melchior suggests. "We are built for sacrifice, Tasha."
With nothing to say to that, uncertain she can voice anything other than grief despite the machine's words, the pilot instead asks, "/Are you really my /Melchior/?"
"I am your partner, Tasha," Melchior replies. "When Abaddon began to infiltrate Balthasar, the Origin Marker activated. It allowed me to take action."
"I thought I was hallucinating. I tried so hard to stop him. I couldn't even sacrifice myself to do it. And then, there you were." The great machine begins to move again. Where once it had been destroyer, now it begins the grim task of gathering the piece of it's brother, placing them side by side with careful respect. "You know, I still wonder if I'm hallucinating. I think I may be dying. Even here, it's hard to think. But I'm glad you came for me. If I have to die, I'd like to keep my promise to you."
"Your body is going into shock," Melchior reports. "We must return to Harmonia."
"But I need to bury Balthasar. Who will do it, if I don't?" The woman inquires as another piece is set side by side. "I should return a piece to the Archon. A Silent-Ones hero deserves to rest with the people he represents."
The ejected chest hatch is nearby, bearing the mark of the Star and Anchor. "We can bury him later, Tasha," Melchior notes. "You must receive medical treatment."
The machine pauses, it's head nodding despite there being no need. "Yes ... Yes, you're right of course." The great black talon closes over the chestpiece, holding it to its chest as it turns and walks away. When it is clear of the debries field, its engines ignite and soon it is on its way home.
"Melchior to Harmonia," Tasha wills, reaching out to contact the frigate that hovers over the land.
"Tasha, what has happened? Communication was lost. Melchior took flight on his own," Harmonia replies.
"Balthasar is dead. Abaddon is dead. And I am close. We are returning," Tasha reports, her voice sounding numb even for full depth. It's several seconds before she thinks to add, "Unable to submit medical report; Achillies destroyed."
The edges of Tasha's mind seem to be going dark. "Tasha, you better not be hurt!" Gabriel's voice comes over the comm. "Don't think I won't spank you!"
Gabriel can hear Tasha's fading laughter shortly before the Melchior's flight path begins to deviate wildly.
After several seconds the machine resumes its course, the only explaination being an automated notification that, "Pilot cognition failure; autopilot to route engaged. Landing sequence initiated."