|
Post by Malice on Apr 28, 2011 14:19:00 GMT -5
P R O L O G U E
- I -
"It all ended and started on that day. Zanarkand, the city of the dead. Seemed like the perfect spot. A location that was all too suitable. Information coming through our network indicated that this would be its next spot to show. Its next target. It of course, being the mosnter known as the Key. The Solomons Key. A massive monster that terrorised areas of Gaia, bringing death and destruction in its wake. A monster of terrible power. At least. Thats what the controlled story was. And it wasn't hard to keep the people believing that. Truth was that there was far more to this creature than anyone was willing to admit. When it first emerged only two groups on Gaia knew the truth. Us, the Remnants. An elite group of men and women. Survivors of the wasteland. The old world. Of the Blight. We kept a silent watch over this world. Wardens to ensure that the same thing didn't happen to this world, that did to ours. And then there was M-Labs. A shadey group of scientists, militants and mercenaries led by the engimatic man known as M, and his right hand man. Crimson.
The solomons Key was a monster, that much of the story was true. What we didn't let known public. Was just what kind of monster. The solomons key had came with us. Through the gateway. The original infectee of the Blight. Paitent 0. One of our old allies. So long had he wandered infected. That the blight consumed him totally. His heart. His mind. His soul. And finally his body. Twisting it into the monster that would become the key. And as this creature of corruption tread across Gaia. It spread the very thign that had destroyed us. And it was our job, our mission. To make sure that it didn't happen again.M-Labs were different. They saw an advantage in the blight. They wanted to use it ats a weapon. As an enhancement. The fools didn't realise just what kind of nuclear fire they were playing with. Not until it was too late. The key struck three times, each in different locations. Lindblum city, the Mt Galias crater. And finally. In Zanarkand.Just like on our world. The presense of the key drew the attention of certain people. People who had started as nothing, but with the touch of the key. They grew into legends. The union of Gaia reborn. Each time the Key was defeated it retreated, healing its wounds and seeminly only growing stronger as time passed. On the time of its final attack we planned to finish it completely. Thought that by cutting off the head of the monster that was the Solomons Blight on this world we would be doing some good. Eliminate the driving force behind the blight and its monsters. And we'd be able to reap the chaff in a clean up operation. Thats how we thought it'd turn out. We were wrong. Things went downhill from the very begining..."
-Tzigone. Personal Datalog. 03/03/2011
12/10/2010 17:22PM 25 minutes to sundown
One by one, lights flcikered on in the dark service corridor. Light clicks of boots echoing throughout the metal walls. A fine grey suit under what appeared to be an old bauge leather duster. A symbol on the right hand sleeve. The number twenty six in roman numerals with a vertical line through an extended I. Creating the illusion of a cross. This man was Tzigone. Leader of the Remnants. Once upon a time Tzigone had been a member of a group known as the union of Gaia. Greatness wasn't in his profile. In the group he wasn't what you would call the most spectacular of members. Nothing in particular set him aside from everyone else. But nowadays there was one thing that distinguished him from all its former members. He was alive. It had been four years since they had come from the waste land. Two years since the Blight had ravaged Gaia. Tzigone was now moving into his mid thirties. And despite still having a youthful appearance. He felt tired. Aged. His stance reflected this. Shoulders hunched. Scabbard of his gun blade shifting as he moved by his side. He had just left the war meeting. He'd given his orders for what the rest of the Remnants needed to do. Forces would be mobilised, the remnants were by no means an army, their numbers ranged to about 200, including recruits. But they were elite. Numbers were bolstered by the mechanical division but he didn't trust machines all too much. Each man under his command. Each one who wore the mark of the Remnant. The order was. Quarantine.
They'd surround Zanarkand. And shut it off. This time. He would move in, and destroy the Key himself. He wanted this done quickly. They couldn't risk members of the New Union getting involved. At the moment, rumours of some of them being infected were enough for him to want them kept away. For that he called in a favour, a man more mysterious than him. The one who was in the temple of Gaia. The one who ran the sanitarium for the Lost. The man known only as Dorian. He'd done a favour for Dorian once, and now he'd called in the favour. Luckily Dorian needed little convincing. In fact, Tzigone could almost say the man was planning something of his own for the infected members of the union. Regardless. Dorian would keep them busy whilst he took care of the Key. Afterwards. He'd eliminate them as well.
All traces of the blight had to be eliminated, no matter what the cost was. Good. Bad. Irrelavent. Risk of spreading the infection was too great. Tzigone stopped for a moment. The Remnant forces would be waiting for him. But there was something he needed to do. he took a left and headed into a smaller security corridor. This was lit with a red light. As he came to the end of the corridor things opened up and before him was a large door. He felt something wash over him. It was all proceedure for coming in here. The greatest secret of the Remnants. One he kept from everyone. A retenal scan, a blood test. Everything, he had put in every security measure availible to him just to make sure that no one would be able to get through this but himself.
The doors slid open slowly. Almost as if they themselves were hesitant to open even with all the security measures past. He walked inside. The room was cold. Unnaturally so. In the centre of the room. A single light pulsating a strange pale blueish green aura. The source of the light. A large crystal/stone. A piece of materia. Huge materia, thats what Shinra called its like. Materia so large and powerful that using it to manipulate the forces of magic could be catastrophic on a national level. The equivalent of several of Galbadias nuclear warheads. But this huge materia was different. It was more dangerous. More powerful. And no one could know that he had it.
Tzigone approached the materia, on its surface there was a single imperfection. The mark of a handprint. Burning pain shooting up his arm, he wants to let go but he can't his hand no longer feeling like his, as if its been severed at the wrist. Blue and green lines moving up his arm, into his body. It burned. Oh how it burned. The light grew brighter and brighter. His skin began to turn to ash before his ey-. A frown. Bad memories. Tzigone rolled up his sleeve. Removed the black glove from his hand. And pressed his hand to the stone. The pulsing light grew brighter. Wilder. And he was consumed.
"Why do you still keep me here?" " You still have some use"
12/10/2010 3 minutes later undisclosed location A black room. In the centre sat a man, holigraphic screeens surrounded him. Thumb and index finger held his chin.The images across the screens surrounding him constantly shifted and changed and yet like a silent silouette he barely moved. A few seconds passed. And then he stretched out a hand and pressed at a lcoation upon the holigraphic monitor. All others froze, and then went out. A white square surrounded the location at which his finger was pressed. The man spoke out a single word. " Enhance". The image zoomed in. And on the screen, although somewhat blurred. Was what appeared to be a helipad with several veichles laid on it. A sudden light in the dark. An ember burning orange. Revealing the face of the red haired gunman.Crimson. " So. They're getting ready to move. Should we give the order?". The man sitting at the screens looked up at Crimson. " Tell Hawkins he can test out the new Iblis.2 prototype". Crimson let out a mild laugh, laced to the bone with arrogance. " Oh, so we've got another T-1000 model eh?". The reference to the popular movie didn't seem to catch on with the man sitting down. Silence. Crimson turned around and headed towards the door. " You got no soul ya know that M?". M, the man in the chair turned around, the holigraphic screens lit up surrounding him again. " Souls would hold us back from doing what is neccisary". M turned his head to the left, the screen there shifted and a womans face appeared on it. Her skin was dirtied. As if she had been spending time in a desert. She stared through the screen at him, and behind his sunglasses. He returned the look. " Have you reached the required location yet?". She stared through the screen for a few moments. And then spoke a single bold word. " Yes". M scrossed his legs, laying his hands on the arm rests of the chair he sat upon. "Good, we can proceed then with the plan, make sure that they get out of there alive, give them each the injections however do not force them to take it". Silence once more. Then the woman said another single word. " Why?". M merely folded his hands. " I want to see, which of them will risk safety for power...which ones the blight has taken a hold of the most...or are simply more power hungry than others....". It was a simple personality exam. Those who took the injection to hold back the effects of the blight would be safe from the Key's control. Those who didn't. Wouldn't be. It was that simple. " Understood". The screen blanked out. And the M-Labs logo showed up once more emblazened on the background.
Another screen lit up, M moved his head, a painted face and a mad grin. Ariana. One of his cloned fighters. A powerful mage. If not somewhat. Unstable. " Heya boss just lettin ya know we're ready to move on out!". She said the last word with some real feeling. obviously looking forward to what lay ahead. Although M was somewhat. Intrigued, and perhaps even Antici[pant of the idea about having a pure specimen of the blight in his hands. There was something about facing such purity that made even his steady hands shake.
" I will be with you momentarily. I do not expect the Iblis model to do significant damage to remnant forces, however...it should hold back enough of their numbers to allow us to break through into Zanarkand...I will meet you there...over and out"
. The enigmatic leader of M-Labs began to make the motions to stand, as all his screesn seemed to link together. Curious, this caused the usual blank mask to crack slightly. His eyebrow raising in a questioning manner. A high pitched whine began to emit from the speakers, growing louder and louder, pitch growing higher and higher. A face of discomfort and annoyance transended the blankness. The screens brightness began to rise. Lighting up the room further, growing brighter as the tone of the whine grew higher and higher, louder and louder. For a second. A blurred image appeared on all. The screens like a white halo surrounding him. And then. The noise stopped. The screens powered down. And M, was left in darkness.
" interesting". Was his only comment. Before he turned his back. And walked out of the room.
12/10/2010 17:27PM 19 minutes to sundown.
Cold sweat on his face, the blue light was begining to fade. He hated doing that, hated doing all of this but it was all neccisary. At least thats what he kept trying to convince himself. But each tie he saw the look on...no, couldn't think about that anymore. Things were begining to come back in, there was a ringing in his ears. No, it wasn't in his ears. It was in the building. It was, an alarm? Panic flowed in. How long had he been out for? He looked on his wrist, his watch. Five minutes. Longer than he'd expected, but not long enough for anything terrible to have happened. He had to find out just what was going on and he had to do it now. Out into the corridor, still weak on his feet. The feeling would pass soon. And be replaced with his usual strength. The red lights in the building were flashing, another indication of the alarm status. He slowly walked down the corridor. unti- Bang. An explosion detonated the wall next to him. Sending Tzigone flying off his feet and through the air. Slamming into the eastern most wall with an impact that made him feel like expelling his guts. It had knocked the air out of him. His eyes gazed up, confused. Deafened for a moment by the sound of the explosion, eyes stinging, dust from it kicked up into them. Through that dust walked a figure. Pale skin, white clothes. He knew that face. An Iblis. One of M-Labs cretions. A multi-purpose andriod that carried out high risk assassination and assault missions. Bythe looks of it the thing had taken a battering, its arm was hangign off by the wiring and it had several holes blown through it. The artifical skin that it wore peeling off by what looked like the effects of an explosion, or perhaps fire magic. But it had still made it through here. What was M-Labs trying to do? The Iblis Model raised up its other arm. A gun. A blink. Tzigone was now standing behind it. Sword drawn.
In two neat slices, the Iblis fell apart. Down on the ground in two halves. He walked through the hole blasted in by the Iblis, bits of torn metal still glowing a bright orange.
Tzigone was both glad and, disheartened to see that the damage was relatively minimal. There had only been a single Iblis model sent out against them. And by the looks of it, the android had let off a few grenades near some helicopters and had then bolted straight into the compound to avoid capture and find him. In other words. It had been a distraction. It was going to take them another twenty minutes to replace the destroyed helicopters with fuelled ones from the base. M hadn't meant for this Iblis to do any damage to the remnants. Merely hold them back long enough. And by all accounts. It seemed that he had succeeded. " Get the wreckage off the helipad, replacements. Yesterday". Troops began to move around him. Mechs began to remove the wreckage. He'd get there...although this was going to alter his plan slightly. Removing his cell phone from his coat he dialled in a number to main operations.
" This is Tzigone...Code Q, charge the satalitte laser. Begin preperations to fire upon Zanarkand Dome. We may need it".
There was a confirmation on the other line. But all he could do now was wait. Wait uintil they could get new helicopters into the air.
.....30 seconds earlier ....
Tzigone hadn't long left when the Iblis began to reboot. There hadn't been many enhancements in comparison to the original model. But this was the main one. The Iblis model was capable of sustaining massive trauma, and still be capable of going after its target. The mission on this model was simple. Delay the Remnants as long as possible. This time going directly after them was not an option. It would only cause at most a few seconds of delay. The metallic spine of the Iblis snapped out of the severed torso like a whipping tail. The Iblis flipped onto its front, hands pushing it up. Claws formed from its hands....as it scurried off into the darkness.
|
|
|
Post by Malice on May 9, 2011 15:12:49 GMT -5
P R O L O G U E
- I I - On the helicopters now, sound protectors blocking out most of the fan blades spin. But it was loud, still loud enough to penetrate it. Tzigone sat on his seat away from the troops. The helicopter was long, almost so that it could be called a gunship as opposed to a regular helicopter. The remnants did have airships for for these drop missions they needed craft that could land drop off troops and supplies and take off again quickly. Airships didn't have that tactical advantage. These craft did. And had all the bite they needed to talk about it. Tzigone sat in the back centre. To his left and right were rows of Remnants. In his hand. His sword. His thumb steadily stroking the rim between the hilt and the blade. He wasn't nervous. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen. What he was though was aggrivated. Annoyed that M-Labs thought themselves so bold as to make such a move. Ever since they'd came to Gaia the remnants had established themselves as the top clas power within gaia. A secret organisation who held all the power. However. They wern't alone. In hsi world, the brotherhood abnd the hivemind had been the organisations that secretly held all the cards. But here. For whatever reason. Those groups had never came to be. Here. It was M-Labs. Although the group didn't match the Remnants for military power. Tzigone knew that its leader, M. Had at his disposal one of the widest information networks on Gaia. The man had his finger in every single govermental pie. Where the Remnants used their old world knowledge to predict events. M knew from direct intel. That was one advantage they had over the Remnants. And any advantage was to him. Unacceptable. But not accepting something did not mean it wasn't. And todays action was proof of the remnants vulnerabilities when placed against M-Labs. Both groups were directly to heads. Remnants wanted all traces of the blight wiped out. It made sense. Tzigone had seen it consume his home. M-Labs however had seen no such thing. They however knew just what the Blight was capable of. But they didn't care. They wanted to weaponise it. Claiming that they were looking for a cure. But Tzigone knew better. he'd met people like M. Overglorified bastards too consumed by their own power and ego to see whats in front of them.A new toy to play with. Didn't matter if it had sharp edges. He'd poke and prod at it until he was bloodied and scarred. And now they were after Solomons Key. The original source of the blight. If they ever got a hold of a pure sample. Then things were going to get much much worse.
They had been in the air for nearly twenty minutes. In this craft it wouldn't take them long to reach Zanarkand. Now they were flying over the calm lands. Soon they'd see Mount Gagazet. And then Zanarkand. Some Remnant forces were already there, mostly the mechinised division setting up the quarantine zone. He looked to his back, peering out the shaded screen that led to the cockpit. Looking out to see what lay beyond it. The window showed the mists of Gagazet.
Piloting through them was never easy. But they were remnants. The best of the best. And they had to be. For what happened next. The sound of shattering glass. And blood being spileld. The groan of a dying man. Tzigone was alerted, quickly turning around. What looked like a metal spine had now pierced the window of tghe helicopter and was embedded in the chest of their pilot. Something swung down and through. That face. it was the Iblis he'd defeated back at the base. How was it still alive? Still functioning. Tzigone struggled against his harness as the Iblis began to crawl in through the window. Red lights began to flash on and off. Tzigone threw off the sound protectors and the glare of the helicopters blades and the alarm sound flashed through his head. The harness was strapepd in tight and in the paniced movements of he and the other Remnants it just wasn't coming off. His thumb caught under the rim of his blade and popped it up allowing him to cut through his harness. And just in time. As he stood up, that metal spine rammed through the back of his seat.
The machine stared at him with cold eyes. As the helicopter began to freefall. The worst of it wasn't the spinning. But rather the sudden feeling of falling whilst standing. It shifted his insides, threw him off balance. Yet that machine. That machine didn't need to care for such things. It lundged at him again. He threw himself to the ground narrowly avoding the pointed tip that would spell his death. Despair however flooded through him as a groan from his right sounded out. Likely it was more of a scream, but muffled as it was by the sounds of the alarm and the rotor blades Tzigone couldn't make out much else. But the pained look on the mans face as the bladed spine that was meant for the commander took him instead. Guilt flared up. But only for a moment. After that. A crash. And then. Oblivion.
He awakened to the cold. Twitching awake. Sore all over. There were bits of burning wreckage all around him. Bits of charred flesh. A time long ago this would have made him sick. But he'd seen far worse since then. He was on mount gagazet. Not so far away from Zanarkand. He could make it now on foot. Having one of the other gunships land would be too dangerous on this mountain. Weather conditions, wind speeds and of course the instability of the snow drifts just made it too much of a risk to take. Particularly when they needed their forces on the group asap. He slolwy pushed himself up, sole survivor. Once again. Too many situations had he escaped because of this power. It was his curse. His gift. And the only reason he was still fighting. Whether or not that was a good thing for him. He didn't know. Passing by the wreckage he saw the skull of the Iblis, shining there among the rest of the debris. Some of its parts still attached. Tough bastards. He walked past. A twitch. Bringing his body to full turn he faced the android. And was almost horrified at what he saw next. The bits of metal and the wreckage from the helicopter were breaking down and moving towards the Iblis like a large black carpet of steel.
Each part of it like an individual grain of sand all pushing into the Iblis, joining with its body. Tzigone grunted as the Iblis was lifted up by this, repairs and even upgrades, using the gunships weaponary. He'd never seen something like this. It was breaking down and adapting the gunship to itself. As powerful as the leader of the Remnants was. He wasn't a fool either. That kind of weaponary in this kind of enviroment was going to cause avalanches. He had no choice. Run and strike back whilst running. Keeping that thing and its weapons at a distance was neccisary. he bolted off towards the nearest carvern. Sliding inside. not for protection, but rather because he knew that there was a network of tunnels heading up the mountain made by the mountains inhabitants and guardians. The Ronso. It would lead up to the summit and out onto the peak facing Zanarkand. From there he could make his way down and command his forces. He just had to make sure he got there first. The tunnels were too small for the Iblis in its new form. But he highly doubted that would make much of a difference. The thing would track him. And catch him at the summet. Thats if it didn't get to him by blowing holes through into the caverns. Speak of the devil and he shall appear.
Or in this case blow a man sized hole into the caverns bringing down snow and rubble around him. He kept his head down, the thing would likely be tracking him by head, or maybe sound and movement. Who knew. In this climate though it was likely heat. Event hroguh this rock compared to the surrounding atmosphere he'd be showing up like a light bulb in a dark room to an infra red sensor. Another hole, this time the round actually made it through, blowing up rock in front of him. It was like a landmine going off in his face. A ringing in his ears. But Tzigone pushed himself forward. Had to get to the top. Had to make it to Zanarkand. Everything depended on them beating M-Labs. Destroying the key . It was vital to the survival of this gaia. For the survival of humanity. For the survival of the Remnants. Dodging the blasts became easier. He began to notice a p-attern in its shots, and used that to his advantage. The Iblis Andriod he had encountered several times ebfore. As far as he was aware of there was only one of them. Butthis one had been slightly different.
The original Iblis hadn't been what you'd call talkative, but it spoke far more than this one had. That and it seemed to have some kind of twisted intellect of its own. He knew that it was one of the more dangerous pieces fo technology out there. Equipped with a learning AI. Memories of the old world and the battles against the Mother began to play through. He didn't doubt this version was equipped with a similar AI. But it didn't seem as smart. Perhaps it was new off the line. Hadn't gotten as much in the ways of learning experiences as the last Iblis.Tzigone would just have to make sure it didn't get the chance to either. He reached the peak, emerging into the dark of the night, breathing out mist, keeping his breathing at a steady pace. Or at least trying to. It was all difficult at this altitude. Eyes darting around. A small whine. Barely noticable. Dive to the left, a hole exploded up where he had been standing. His enemy revealed itself. The Iblis seemed to have grafted itself to the remains of the gunship. The remains of its body striking out on the front of it like an icon on a sea faring vessel.
The gunship itself had for the most part been repaired. Likely the result of the Iblis's nanomachine technology. It now flew with no pilot. The Iblis figure stretched across the front opened its eyes, and the gunship opened fire. Tzigone drew his sword. blocking the first few onsets of gunfire with speed and accuracy. Then, in his other hand he built up a glowing ball of fire magic, spinning around and unleashing the searing heat onto the gunship Iblis. It went to make evasive moves, But Tzigone clicked his fingers and the fireball split into four, Each moving around on every side of the Iblis ship. A swoop of the hand the the fireballs conneccted to one another via a stream of fire, trapping the ship in a halo of magical heat. It made to move up and out of the halo. But Tzigone was ready. Ice magic this time. Forming on the blades. It wasn't too hard with the tempertures already below freezing on this mountain. The blades began to spin more slowly. Causing the gunship to start a decent. He raised up his arm
. And a large spike of ice smashed up from the ground into the air. Impaling the gunship. The screech of metal parting aside under the pressure of the ice. Tzigone reached into his coat. Removing what appered to be a small iron orb. He sheathed his sword. And clicked a button on the small orb. The orb then increased in size, going from the size of a pingpong ball to what appeared to be a blitzball. With this in hand he jumped up now facing the gunship Iblis. And tossed the ball at it. It caved in the motief of the Iblis on the front, smashing through the face, acting like a cannon ball moving right through the shell of the gunship. The magic he summoned faded. The ship began to sink to the ground. Along with himself.
He grasped onto the front of the gunship as it plumeted down, crawling up onto the widnow and holding on for dearlife as it begun its decent into Zanarkand. What he saw from there was a glimpse of something strange happening. The remains of a grey bloated organic substance covering the dome. And a bright blue light shining from the sky. He saw the Remnants engaging with an unknown enemy. At first he thought it was M-Labs...and then...he saw that his forces and the M-Labs troops wern't fighting each other. But this third unknown party. That blue light. It looked too familar. The gunship crashed into a crowd of the enemy throwing Tzigone off and onto the ground on impact before exploding in a blaze of glory.
It seemed that before the day was over the planet indended him to be battered bruised and broken. Which was only suitable. He slowly got to his feet limping up. All around him was a disaster, a warzone all too reminisant of those in the dreams sent by Entrer and Ruien in the past. This time though it seemed that M-Labs and the Remnants had been forced into fighting together against one common enemy. It was just as he suspected. The Terrans. Soemhwo the Terrans had managed to get onto Gaia. This wasn't right. This wasn't how the gate to Terra was to open up. It was supposed to happen at the Iifa tree. But then, he had to remember the events behind that incident as well. Everything was begining to uncontrollably veer off path. Soon the Remnants wouldn't be able to predict events at all. He grunted. And headed toward the Remnant line. He needed to keep this contained. Drive the Terrans back. And keep this place quarantined. So much for him defeating Solomons Key. .
|
|
|
Post by Malice on May 10, 2011 12:10:14 GMT -5
P R O L O G U E
- I I I-
"What do you mean M is inside the dome!?"
" We can't let him leave alive with the body of the key"
" Prepare the satalitte bombardment, I'll cleanse this whole place before I let the blight get out"
" Yevon? Sin? Who cares. We don't need the final Aeon, but we do need to destroy this!"
And there it was, things had gone from bad to worse. Intel indicated that Dorian had failed, the blighted had managed to join up with the other members of the union and were now facing the blight in its purest form. The Solomons Key in its purest form. Their destruction was inevitable. It was the belief of Tzigone that only he held the power to defeat the key once and for all. And that even the combined forces of the union and M-labs would not be enough. But still. He thought he'd warn them. The time he spent as a member of that old union itched at him. And so he sent a message broadcast on all frequencies to the dome. Warning them that they had precious few minutes to escape before he unleashed an orbital bombardment upon them all. He would repeat here what he did at Dolelt. He would glass the place from space. Anything to defeat the Blight. Anything to win. Even wiping out this dead city. The Remnant forces were begining to regain control. He wouldn't play down the role of the M-Labs soldiers. They played their part in keeping the number game up whilst the more skilled Remnants cut down the opposition. The Terrans were begining to retreat. Allowing him to fully concentrate on what really mattered. Events going on inside that dome. He didn't know what was going on inside. Perhaps that was what irked him the most about it. That he couldn't just go in and deal with the situation himself much like the M-Labs forces. The situation had changed ever since he heard that Dorian had failed. H was sure that he could defeat the key on his own. But if the blighted were there and the key managed to control any of them. That was a different story. The blighted were members of the union. Powerful all. And if they fought alongside the key against them. He didn't know how well he would fare. Would he be pushed to make that ultimate decision? No. It was far safer that he stayed outside and coordinated this action. And that is when things got crazy. He was damned sure that he saw something flying out of the dome andheading towards the sky. The time for his bombardment came and went. And he was horrified to discover that something had happened to damage the satalite. Its then he truely thought about going in. Until the airship came crashing through the roof of the Zanarkand dome. It was like watching some sort of movie. It was horrifying and yet he couldn't take his eyes away let alone act. And then everything went...strange. He heard the whispers of a voice in his mind. Telling people not to give in. To strike the final blow. The final blow? Surely that did not mean...they were winning?
The idea of the union actually overcoming the power of the key was to him. Ludicrious. Amazing even. He didn't know whether to be overjoyed or wary. Regardless. If they were striking the final blow to the Solomons Key now, then that meant that M was one step closer to obtaining a pure sample of the blight. And...thats when M-Labs forces began to start leaving. He grabbed one of them. " Where are you going?". The soldier just looked at him " Mission is complete. Terrans are leaving, we recieved the order to return to base". Tzigone just. Let go of the soldier. They'd recieved the order to leave. That the mission was complete. Of course this could all just be a game for M, plotting to leave with the body after Tzigone had been tricked into leaving. Surely he couldn't have gotten out of the dome without usingt he front exit? Or any exit. He had Zanarkand surrounded. He ordered reports from all commanders on the sides of the city. None had reported any trace of M or the clones leaving. Tzigone ordered the Remnants to finish the mop up of Terrans and then head home. He'd stay here. Wait in case M came. Hours passed. The union emerged slightly worse for the ware. And yet. No M. Night passed to day then back to night. Still. No M. Until finally he entered the dome and searched for himself. No M. But more importantly.
No remains of the key.
" It was in the days after that battle in which we had our hardest conflict. Yeah, I know. What could be harder than an all out dog fight with the Terrans whilst trying to contain the blight. I'll tell you. Infiltrating M-Labs and getting back the body of the Key. Weeks previous, Ruien had tried to join the Remnants. I didn't trust him then. And still didn't even after. Call it lingering bad taste. But I was willing to overlook it. He was strong. And he had a reason just as powerful as mine to want the body of the Key back. So I decided to drop my own personal convictions against him. And allowed him to lead a group of Remnants into the M-Labs base on the Lost Continent. What I know about what happened there I get from reports and CCTV footage. By the time our forces invaded they had already begun to make preperations for moving the body. Apparantly M had his own little rebellion, one of his clones wasn't willing to play game with using the body of the key. I'll give you one guess as to whos clone. Ruien. Thats right. I'm not quite sure what happened to her. But Ruien says M kileld her. But honestly I don't really believe that. There was something about that glint in his eye that told me he wasn't being completely honest. And there was that name. Persephone. In my time as leader of the Remnants, I've learned that theres no such thing as coincidence. That its just an illusion created by someone who is controlling events.
Regardless. The body of the Key was recovered. And we burned it. Every trace. Gone. We'd cut the head off the snake. Ruien joined the Remnants. And we had M-Lads on the run. Or so we thought. I was so sure that everything was going to be fine. That these recent few weeks of activity would be nothing more than a bad memory. That we could return to being silent watchers. But I was wrong. This was no snake. It was a hydra. "
" So Just what am I looking at here?"
Tzigone sat in his office staring at a screen in front of him, it was littered with statisitics and a mini map with red dots spread over it. A voice from the monitor spoke out. A remnant in another location. " Information we recently recieved. Its happening in a number of areas. These sir. Are missing persons reports". Tzigone raised an eyebrow. Missing persons reports? That was something for local goverment to deal with. It wasn't something that the Remnants would take interest in. After all plenty of people went missing everyday in Gaia. Murders. Kidnappings. Slavery. Any number of reasons could be behind ti. But then. There was something in the words. The information that was passed to them, not that they had recorded themselves. Which meant that someone who kenw of their existance had passed the information to them. " Who presented us with this information?". He waited for a few moments in silence for the answer. " The data flow was signed, M sir". Tzigones eyes slitted. M. The leader of M-Labs. IOf it truely had been him who sent it, and he didn't really doubt it was. Then this information was indeed important for something.Ever since M had escaped Ruien there had been silence from the M-Labs front. Until now it seemed. Just what was M getting at by sending this information. What was the connection between them? " Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I'll look into it".. Missing persons, he kept scanning over the documents, knowing that there was something in here that was supposed to scream out to him. And thats when he found it. Attached to one of the files. A Mr Richard Davis. An engineer from Galbadia, Deiling City. Last known location was on a job repairing the gears above the cities presidential arch gates. And there was a video. Except it was in Midgar. That alone was odd. Watching a video of a Galbadian on a train in Midgqr. But still if he was an engineer who didn't particularly care fore region disputes then there was nothing wrong with it. So. Why attach it? And then suddenly it hit him. There in the bottom left hand corner of the video ticking away was the time and date which it had been recorded. The date, several weeks after the missing persons reports came in. Reports on the man indicated that there had been a struggle at the scene. Or at least signs of one. And yet, here he was. Not bothering about letting his family know. But yet seeminly passive. Not as if he had been abducted. He couldn't quite put a finger on it. But he didn't like this one bit.
As he progressed through the reports. Looking back on old ones in light of this, he began to see patterns. Signs of struggle. Violence. Most cases the authorities assumed murder. But they wern't conentrated to a single area. Rather they were spread. But there was a pattern to them. To the locations. To the dates. it all started with this man Richard Davis. In Galbadia. Then it moved to Timber to a woman, Eileen Hooper. Then from TImber to Costa Del Sol. And from there to Junon. And then things started in Midgar. The one conclusion he drew from this. Was that particular route was a typical route used by people travelling from Galbadia to Midgar. And whoever. Or whatever was causing these strange incidents. Was using it. He would need more investigation. So he dispatched a team to Midgar. Particularly to keep an eye out for any of the subjects that were missing..
--
The screen is grey, the camera used to record this footage is old. But still running none the less. A man stumbles onto the scene in the view of the camera. Clearly drunk. The surroundings and the camera identify the area as Midgar upper plate sector 2. The man looked middle class. Was still wearing the shirt and tie from his work. A pass for Shinra HQ swinging around his neck as he makes his sporadic falling mvoements. Another figure makes their way onto the scene. A female. As she turns to face the direction of the camera she is identifiable as the subject Eileen Hooper. The man stumbles back, his back facing the camera. Eileen walks towards him. Her face clearly shown by the footage. He drunkenly stutters out. " So....we goin home baby?". She smiles. But its strange. Malcious. " Yes. I'll take you home". Her right hand goes behind her back. And she draws a knife. Ramming it into the mans belly. He bends forward. Making a sound as if he's being sick. With the ammount of alcohol he consumed it is a possibility. She draws back and stabs again, and again, and again and again. The man slumped forward limply. Leaning against her shoulder. A single tear moved down her face. But it appeared to be black.Moving down her face slowly.
She took the mans head in her hands, held him up face looking at her. Then she kissed him. For a moment..black smoke seemed to move out of her nostrils and into his. Surrounding them btoh. Then his body went from limp. To stable. She grinned. And walked away. The man remained standing there for a moment. Then turned to face the camera. The same black tear rolling down his face. And then grinned. Walking off again.
--
There wasn't any mistaking it. That was one of the missing persons. And much like the man on the train they were displaying odd characteristics. It was more than likley a possession of some kind. But then that was still an isue with monsters and happened on a regular basis. There was something that tied this to M and tied it to himself. Something that mad eit important enough to warrent the attention of the Remnants. Perhaps the thing that kept his attention the most was that tear. Not for the obvious reasons. Those being that people don't generally cry black tears when they arn't possessed. But rather because it was so utterly familar. So familar and yet he couldn't place a finger on just where he had seen it before. it was going to be one of those things that annoyed him. He knew it. But for now there was the more direct issue of just what she had done to the man. Possession tended to be a single thing, but this looked like it had been spread to them man via touch or in this case kiss. Saliva? That black smoke. It seemed like whatever it was it acted in a fashion similar to a disease. Almost like...the blight. M-Labs. Disease like nature. This thing had Solomons Blight written all over it. Bar one thing. Blight monsters wernt' that smart. Terrifying, fercious. Unrelenting. Powerful. Certainly. But smart? No. They were at best, beasts driven by a singular instinct. The smartest of them. The Manifests. Were merely monsters who were maddened reflections of the personalities absorbed by the blight. Little more than photographs of the last thoughts of the person who had been taken by the blight. Ghosts. Still stuck living in the moment when they died. With no idea to what they were actually doing. Sad creatures. But undeniably dangerous. Just what was M trying to tell him? A knock on the door. " Sir. We've got a report from Ruien about that mission in Wutai". Ruien. Wutai. Lately the samurai warrio-. He froze. Black tear.
A metal plate over his eye, staring into the distance, the man looked ill. Staying away from the others on the airship. Around his neck a pedent. Seemed to be made of a white rock with a black core. White as bone. Black as the abyss
The patriot turned, unloading a guasser round into the High Summoners chest. " You've been too much trouble".. Tzigone and Jay rushed into the aters, wading in and dragging the body out. Not breathing they perform CPR
He turns. Coughing up blood and sea water. On his hands and knees. The metal plate shifts and falls to the sand. Black liquid oozes out from that side of his face. He looks up to face them. His eye a different multitude of colours. What looked like a black tear running down his face from that side. Corruption
" Its an arcana, the one used to summon Amon, the god of wrath, I found it in Omega Ruins, Ruien took it...but I got it back...need to protect it from falling into thehands of the Mantra...and this is the only way I know how" . Was that it? A clue? He remembered. There was a manifest created of the High Summoner, the first of the Manifests. A prototype. Manifest 0. It had been assigned to kill the Sorceress. And had been the reason he had turned Dollet into little more than a glass beach. They had captured that Manifest. But thenit had escaped whe-. Suddenly everything was begining to fall into place. The Manifest had escaped their HQ after the sorceress had attacked. The first disappearance was in that very city. So Manifest 0 was behind all of this? He had been there at Dollet personally and had seen the creature. It was much like any of the other Manifests. Mindless bar the twisted reflection of the personality it had been based on. Little more than a ghost in the system. It had no determined plan. It couldn't think far enough to have one, just like any of the other blight monsters. So just what was going on? Just what had changed?
" As it turned out, Manifest 0 was only the first of several Manifests to gain what we decided to call. Sentience. In the weeks after more and more incidents began to crop up. M-Labs continued sending us documents concerning the cases. Manifest 0 appeared however to be on the top of M's agenda. Unlike other Manifests who required a living host in order to survive. Manifest 0 took its hosts from the dead. Until now it had shown its ability to spread some of itself from the main host into other corpses. Creating Blight Ghouls. However. That had been before its sentience. Now it seemed that the creature was capable of splitting its conciousness throughout multiple corpses. We knew that, to capture it as we had done before we would need to find the main host. But up till now that task had been unsuccessful. Several corpse bodies had been identified and eliminated in Midgar. But none of them had been the main host. There was always the question,just what was that Manifest doing in Midgar? We couldn't keep things under the table for long, eventually the press got hold of some footage, and began dubbing the murders the " black tear massacre". Already they were attributing it to some new disease. Thankfully Avalanche was already helping ( not of their own knowledge) by pointing the finger at Shinra and its bio weapons department. ....it was...the 23rd of march when we recieved the call from M-Labs. M wanted to meet to dicuss the growing crisis. I didn't trust the man. Never would. But the corrispondance he'd been sending us from his information network at least identified that he knew the situation was one beyond either of our control. I was willing to meet. In the end we decided that the meeting would take place on neutral ground. Zanarkand. Considering the nature of our problem. It felt oddly suitable".
" Tzigone""M". Nods and names. Civil enough greeting for two men so opposed to one another. In this case it was no different. In the Zanarkand conflict M-Labs forces and Remnants had been forced to fight side by side against the Terrans to maintain the quarantine. And now they were here once more. Driven by the same danger. A common problem. To try and help gaia. The two men stood opposite one another. M staring at Tzigone. The other equally following that example. Crimson and one of the clones stood next to M, the one with the painted face. The clone of Kefka. Adriana. Tzigone had decided not to bring anyone directly to the meeting point. The other remnants were waiting for him on the outskirts. In a way it was his own way of showing M that he was not afraid of M-Labs,and was strong enough to face off against them on his own no matter who he brought. However. Looking at Crimson still made him twitch. He had worked with Agent XXVI in the wasteland. The man had been forced to them as a means of survival. And honestly Tzigone had been glad to have his gun and trigger finger. Rumour was he never missed. And Tzigone had never seen him miss either. Every single target he shot at. Took the bullet and bit the dust. A deadlier man he never knew..
|
|
|
Post by Malice on May 11, 2011 13:27:27 GMT -5
P R O L O G U E
- I V -
One would think that the inevitable on course of such a meeting between two rivals of such high calibure would result in little else but violence. In their minds, both M and Tzigone honestly believed they thought they were doing what was best for Gaia. M was already exceedingly wealthy. The manw as originally a scientist for Shinra, but his brilliant mind was not limited to this. Ever since he was young M had been a skilled manipulator. A rpedictor of events. He used this ability to rise through the ranks of his fellow students till his potiental was recognised and taken hold of. He was hired by Shinra, eventually working his way up to being on par with Professor Hojo and Gast. Conflicts of views and opinons forced him to leave and develop his own project. Building his wealth using his natural born talents. Building contacts, brokers. A Gaian wide network of information, along with several businesses throughout multiple regions. His combined wealth from all of this was more than enough to fund M-Labs. Keeping him far ahead of the game. Ever sicne the incident that had resulted in M-Labs losing the body of the Solomons Key to the remnants he had been reclusive. Bitter. The loss of the body meant the loss of any pure blight sample. Already M-Labs had developed a vaccine for the blight. But if they were to have any hope of actually creating a working cure for thsoe who had already been infected. Then a pure sample was required.
Now. That was beyond them. He wasn't going to lie. He knew the blight had potiental. Vaccine was fine but that only dealt with people who would be vaccinated, and as vast as his resources were. He didn't have the ability to go global with the production of it. He had the placebo for it. A drug that would temporarily block out the effects of the blight. But there was no definite cure yet in sight. And without a cure. There was no means of control. Without means of control. He could only watch as things began to spiral out of control. Admittedly part of this problem was his own fault. The Manifests. He had created the first five Manifests. But as he did things began to spiral out of control. it had started in the Veldt Facility. When one of the security guards had stumbled into a quarantined area. Usually blight infection just means that the person will over time become a blight monster. However...this was the first time he had ever seen a Manifest born naturally.
He had no idea it was even possible. It was almost as if the blight had learned to adapt. As if it had learned from him how to make a more efficent monster. M had seen so many things voer the past couple of years with this that he wasn't even willing to discredit that theory. Everyone believed that M-Labs had created all the Manifests as weapons. But that simply wasn't true. The truth is, M believed he started the dominos falling. And his attempts to stop it were goign unfruitful.
And so was the purpose of this meeting. And the main reason why he wasn't ordering some sort of assassination pulled off on Tzigone. " So, by the sounds of things you managed to figure out the information, congratualtions. you are smarter than I gave you credit for". Tzigone's brow furrowed. He crossed his arms. Ignoring the last part of the comment for now. " Manifest 0 is behind it, and is currenttly the one dealing out the Black Tear murders in Midgar". M nodded. " Yes, but that is only one small portion of the riddles answer. The main portion of it lies in the motive. Manifests do not display self awareness. At most they are memories. Ghosts. They may carry out the thoughts or feelings of the personality encased within, But those will never change, they'll repeat like a broken record player.Sometimes this can be confused for intellegence, such was the case with Manifest Dremora. In the Manifests we created, we managed to embed a single command. Within 0 this was to kill the sorceress Blue. Whilst moving to Midgar to take advantage of her hatred of Shinra is logical. It is precisely the fact that it is logical which makes no sense. The Manifest per its nature would directly attack. Not plan. These actions show intellegence. Planning. Something that has up till now been impossible for Manifests".
Tzigone stared on, he already knew most of this. And had already guessed the rest. So now here they stood on equal points. Both knowing precisley the problem but wondering just what the other thought of the solution. " We have to hunt down Manifest 0, it doesn't matter how smart its gotten, it'll still continue to go after that goal and won't stop till it succeeds. So we have an advantage in knowing what it aims to do". M shook his head. " Simplistic view, true enough we know what it intends to do with Sorceress Blue, but the rise of intellegence indicates that we should not limit its goals or motives to this single idea. It may well have other motives, it also brings up the question, does it retain the personality it was based on or does the manifest have a new persona? And then...there is of course the question of whether or not 0 is merely the first". There was silence there, uncomfortable as both thought. Tzigone had known the high summoner that was the primary personality within Manifest 0. In the last year he had known him the summoner had done terrible things. To have him wandering Gaia again particularly in the blighted form of a manifest would be horrific. And then...what if this Manifest was only the first? What if they were all growing intellegent? "...Do you really think thats possible?". Asked Tzigone to M, assumung that the man who had created the first Manifests would know more on the subject than he would. M however shrugged. " I cannot say, it depends on just what caused this...anomaly in the first place...Manifest 0 was always different, taking its hosts within the dead rather than the living...But if that is not what is causing this...then there is only one isolated incident that I know of linked to all Manifests and blight monsters". That idea was perhaps the most horrifying of them all. Tzigone knew precisely what M was aiming at, but didn't dare say it. He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. " You arn't suggesting that the death of the Key had something to do with this are you?". M stood there silently, not moving. His expression unchanging. " It is...a possibility, we know that the key was the original source of the blight on this world, and that all Manifests could hear the call of the key, the same with all blight monsters. They were connected. Unified through the Key's corruption". He brought his hands together, gesturing unification. "
We know all blight monsters show no signs of individuality, even the Manifests who were only determined by a strong personality embedded within the blight still showed aspects of others within that personality....it suggests that they were all linked together somehow, its my theory that the...linking circuit if you will...for all Blight creatures...was the Solomons Key". He didn't want to believe it. But in a way M was making a macabre kind of sense. That all blight monsters had whilst it lived, been connected through the key. A sort of Neo Hivemind. " ...So when the union destroyed the key...". M nodded. " The connection would have been severed. That sea of personalities would be cut up, an individual with thousands if not millions of different personalities and souls within them would be beyond mad, disfunction they would be feral....But if thats split down and diluted. Particularly with a single strong dominant personality as seen in the manifests". Tzigone grunted. " Then they'd be able to think and act coherently.....how long do you think it could take before they all gain this intellegence?".
M stroked his chin in thought. " Thankfully that I have some idea of, we identified Manifest 0's....evolution...roughly a month ago...we have two Manifests currently still in captivity, since then neither have displayed signs of intellect....which means that this could be a slow process to happen in order of creation or..". Tzigone raised his eyebrow. " Or?". M sighed " Best situation, Manifest 0 is an isolated incident...worst situation...". A few moments passed. M looked uncomfortable with this prospect. " It was immediete and the Manifests we have in storage have become smart enough to fake their feral activity". Tzigone didn't like the idea of having Manifests anywhere, stored and under lock or not. The things were dangerous and needed to be destroyed.
" You'll have to kill them, they're too dangerous to keep in storage. Especially if they've become intellegent".
M shook his head. " No". Tzigones temper almost broke at that stage, having him step forward.Crimsons hand moved down to his gun. Tzigone froze. Not afraid but not stupid either. He gritted his teeth and spoke out " You have to understand the danger that holding them poses". M nodded. " That I understand, however I believe that it is a calculated risk, keeping them under watch means that we may be able to determine the situation, if this is isolated or not...that is too valuable a commodity to let go, I udnerstand your feelings on the matter, but think logically about the situation. And you will find I am indeed correct". Tzigone stopped and closed his eyes. As hard as it was for him to admit. M was right, finding out just how bad the situation was, was parmount over anything else. And if they could get some indication of just what was to come....he was right, and it sickened him. " Ok, so then what are we going to do about this till then? Manifest 0 has already made news in Midgar, I think it goes without sayin that we can't let the public know about this". M nodded. " Don't worry about that, as we speak my agents are in the process of taking care of that, future murders will be censored from the Midgar press, and the current murders will be framed upon someone and it will drop out of the local eye".
Tzigone didn't feel right about someone being framed for ti, but it was better than nothing. Certainly better than any of the public finding anything about the truth of the murders. Particularly any hint of blight involvement was too dangerous to let out. M gestured forward with his hand at Tzigone. " Till then I suggest that we both put our differences aside. We have a similar enemy here, and one goal. It would be fruitless to diminish our resources fighting one anotherwhen something like this is on the horizon"..Tzigone knew that any deal between them would never last forever, even if they combined their forces in this shrot alliance. It would not be long before they were once again at each others throats, ready to stab the other in the back. But perhaps that would for now at least keep them both in check. Mutual mistrust and dislike. The Remnants had the experience and manpower in dealing with blight based threats. And M-Labs had the intellegence network that would be required for quickly identifying just what these threats were going to be. Where they poped up and just how bad things were getting. And of course most importantly. When and if required.
To cover it up. Tzigone nodeed. " Fine, we'll play it that way, this is too big of a threat to let slide under the carpet". But there was always going to be conditions, ifs and but with them, no matter what happened. " But if I find out that you are doing something that I don't like, you'll hear about it, and if its something that earns my wrath". Tzigone turned around and began walking towards the helicopter. " I'll wipe you off the face of the planet". There was no laugh from anyone. But Crimson grinned. Adriana was more concerned looking at M, she'd been silent till now but her expression seemed to paint the expression of. Are you going to let him get away with talking to you like that?!. Crimson knew better. The red haired gunner already knew that M was going to do just that. Tzigone was going to walk out of here. Why? Because truth was that guy was more powerful than he let on. " So, what now?". Said Crimson as the helicopter took to the sky with Tzigone within. M looked up at it.
" The Remnants have agreed to a truce for now, all that remains is to deal with each situation day by day, however I feel there is only one true solution".
Crimsons eyes slitted. " You mean going back home don't you?". His words errirely echoing those of the girl in that CCTV video. M nodded. " Yes". .
|
|
|
Post by Malice on May 12, 2011 16:16:24 GMT -5
P R O L O G U E
- V -
In comparison to the rest of Gaia Alexandria had been a bed of what one would usually call peace and security. At the most their only real problem in the past two years of chaos had involved a defunct priest a Cetran warrior and a pirate from Ivalice. But even that by comparison to things like Solomons Key attacks was on the list of things that were barely noticable by M-Labs. Registered as unimportant. However there was more and more going on there than people thought. Alexandria had never really been what you would call an important continent in the world of gaia. Technologically it was far behind. However its skilled military still made some impact.
When compared to places like Galbadia or Midgar. it barely even made a mark on the world. However lately that had been changing. That defucnt prieest had stumbled across more than he had thought. His zealot nature keeping him from truely identifying what the source of the issue was. His loyalty to the Alexandrian royal family. Keeping him from doing what needed to be done. In the end, he'd been executed. The Cetran got away, the Ivalice Pirate, it was rumoured he turned up somewhere in Midgar with an Elven thief. The only thing that had been left for hope of justice in this situation. Was one of the brothers at the chapel. Brother Albert wasn't what you would call Priest Material. It was precisely that reason that he was a monk as opposed to being a priest. The one who had been executed, had been the man who had saved him. Not from a monster not from some kind of demon but from himself. Brother Albert had been a black mage, of a rather nasty variety. In trying to seek the meaning of his life and his gift with magic he had joined a cult of the god of discord.
Chaos. The priest had come, and taken him away from that. Turned him to the church of Alexander. And now he lived a life of peaceful harmony using white magics to aid the people who came in with whatever afflictions they had. Admittedly though he wasn't the best at white magic. For whatever reason, his talent had always lain with the destructive arts. Healing had never been something he was good at. Only causing pain. But the church had taught him that fighting against ones own nature to destroy was truely the best virtue of the divine sentinal. He knew that the father had been no heritic, nor had he been trecherous. He would only do his duty as a servant of the royals and of the holy construct Alexander. The mans faith had been unwavering. There was no way that he would ever go against that. And Albert refused to believe it. Which is why he broke one of his first tennants. He was. Angered. By the execution of his friend. His savior.
The Brother broke into the castle at night. He kept himself quiet using a spell of illusion. Voiding his footsteps with a twisted version of the silence spell. He headed up to the place where the father and his two " accomplices" had infiltrated the resting place of the Holy Construct. He knew that by stepping on these grounds only allowed to members of the Alexandrian royal family. If he was caught he would be executed. Yet something drew him on. Spurred him to continue. A sense of justice. Or perhaps something more. Beneath his robes brother Albert held onto the holy symbol of the church. Ascending the stairs and hearing a strange music play as he got closer and closer. He found it mystical, calming and yet at the same time terrifying. He reached the top plateue, the large sword in the centre of the castle. A reflective metal was most prominant here. And so was the sound of this music.
He felt it around him, he heard it in the air and in his head. And in that music there were whispers. There were words. Words that he couldn't quite hear at first. But when he drew closer to the reflective metal he began to hear more of the words, more of the voice, clearer and clearer. Like a song to the music. He felt as if he had no control over himself. Floating on the music as if he were caught in a wind and a sea fo storms and breezes. beyond his own control he drifted off towards the edge of the plateu knowing that if he didn't stop, didn't regain control then he was going to fall, going to fall and going to die and there would be no justice for the father. Be no justice for the hero who had beeen betrayed by those he had served faithfully. But wh, why was this happening to him, why was itdrawing him now towards the edge of the castle. Why did it want him dead. Was the father truely innocent? Did he betray Alexander?
No. Never. He refused to believe it. Suddenly the drifting stopped but the song continued. From it he managed to pick out a single understandable word. " Watch".. Sure enough, below him in the court yard figures began to appear, led by general beatrix, some carrying crates. Men with strange hats. Behind them. A man dressed in white and purple with silver hair. There was an odd feeling around these people, other than the general they all felt.Unnatural. Even the general gave off a feeling of discomfort around them. They stopped in the courtyard and the barrels were placed down, opened up and strangely more of these men crawled out of the barrels. Beatrix held up an unlit torch, and one of the men in strange hats lifted a hand to it. And it would burst alight. Magic? These men were black mages? So many of them. And he'd seen thsoe barrels before, at the castle and around it, even in the castle chapels storing house. If each of these barrels contained one of these man then....there were hundreds of them if not thousands.
An army of black mages? Just what was the Queen thinking? The song raised up again. A single word. corruption. Fear. He knew something that he wasn't supposed to know, but what was he going to do about it. Even the father had been executed for coming even close to this. Another burst of words from the song. Princess. Danger. save. He reeled from the sheer burst, one was enough to knock him back but all three was enough to leave his head splitting.The princess was in danger? Something had to be done but what? What could he do? In fear he ran. Ran back home.
.
|
|
|
Post by Malice on May 13, 2011 12:05:47 GMT -5
P R O L O G U E
- V I -
Ever since the incident with Dante Balamb garden had increased its security greatly. Thigns wern't going to welll for the garden , in taking an alliance with Midgar it had angered Galbadia despite claiming neutrality. Whch was of course the case, mercenaries were mercenareis. There was no in between, their only true alliegence was to money. And they'd lost business out Galbadia way. The operation at Dollet had been aresounding failure. They'd taken huge losses and those who did manage to return alive , albiet with injuries had only resulted in dragging down the moral of the remaining students. That sounded bad, but it was unfortunatly true. It wasn't a good time for Balamb garden. In the past six months in an attempt to speed recovery and boost its number of students Balamb started a scholarship program within schools for other continents.
And already this plan was starting to work. They were begining to see students moving in from all around. Alexandria, Midgar, even the overly religious continent of Spira was sending in children who wanted to learn and become part of Seed. Of course not to say there hadn't been some, complications. But after six months things had began to settle down and Headmaster Cid was proud to announce that the garden was now " blooming".
With new students. It would be interesting to see just how the increase in numbers and cultural exchange went ahead. But this unifcation could only really make things stronger. If not harder for the garden staff. Elc was one of the new students at the garden. He was a human born elf. His mother of elven origin, his father a human. Children born of the two had a chance of turning out genetically dominant as one or the other. Out of his three siblings he had been the only one who emerges with prodomiantly elven traits. Six months ago he had been forced to choose between his mother and his father. His mother had heeded the call of her elders and was begining to go back to the forest. She had been forced to choose between her people, and her family. And in the end made the choice.
As prodminantly elf. He could have went with her. But he didn't want to leave his father and siblings. In the end he made the decision she couldn't and watched her fade into the forest never to emerge again. But his father had never forgiven it. And in the end, due to his mothers traits ended up turning on him. The ame happened with his brothers. When the scholarship program by seed came up
. He jumped at it. Accomidation, education. And a job as a Seed mercenary at the end of the day. For the past six months he'd been inducted as a trainee and was learning relatviely quickly the advantages of being a SEED member. Today, he was one of the few new students who were invited to a memorial of something over in Galbadia. The ehadmaster had seemed rather nervous about the whole thing, not quite trusting the Galbadians it seemed. However this memorial was important. He could tell that much without even having to be there.
There was a lot of discussion among the new students abotu just what this memorial was. And when they brought it up with the instructors they always seemed to ignore the question, or strike it off angrily as if it touched some kind of raw nerve. A wound still open to the air. They were in boats now heading over to this place where the memorial was supposed to happen. A place called Dollet in Galbadia. On the outskirts of the old Centran Empire. They were on a boat and as the place came into view he was almost amazed by the beauty of the sight. A long stretch of beach. Completey turned to glass. It glistened in the sunlight. " Amazing..". He said to himself. One of the older people in the boat. A current seed member grunted with annoyance. Flipped a switch and the windows closed. Just what was it they were so touchy about with this?
----
All lined up, several with rifles, there was already one monument on this beach, it was the one the Galbadians had erected. A symbol of defiance. Defiance against Shinra, but it wasn't really Shinra who had done this. True Seed and Shinra had tried to take Dollet. But Shinra only under request for aid. The people of Dollet had wanted to be free of Galbadian reign. But now, they just simply didn't exist. This wasn't something that shinra would have been capable of. For Elk standing on this glass beach the the monument to the Seeds who had died here. He was both amazed, and terrified. No one really knew just what had happened here to turn Dollet into...this.
There were theories. Speculations. A cover up fo sorts. Rumours that something terrible had happened during the mission that had forced Galbadians and Seeds to cancel engagement with one another. And whatever it was, the end result had been this. The ceremony was coming to a close just as the sound of a helicopter approaching over the mountains sounded out throughout the area of Dollet. Seeds seemed to be on edge, they turned, immedietly drawing their weapons and taking aim at the helicopter. " Stand down!". Shouted the headmaster, the Seeds double guessed this roder, looking at him almost for an explaination. Until closer inspection of the helicopter as it approached a landing vector, kicking up wind.
Revealed the logo of the Shinra Corportation on the side. The rulers of Midgar city. The Helicopter landed, doors slid open. And stepping out was a single figure in a long black trenchcoat. Flowing silver hair and mako eyes identified the man as the hero of shinra and champion of Midgar. Sephiroth. The Legendary Soldier. Headmaster Cid stepped forward and outstretched his hand as a gesture. Sephiroth however didn't even lock eyes with him, and walked straight past to the monument. Looking up at it.Cid turned to face Sephiroths back, wiping his hand on his lapell before speaking. " I didn't know Shinra were sending a representative". The soldier turned his head to the side, just enough so that Cid would be in his preriferal vision. " They wern't. I'm here because I fought here, and because a fellow member of Soldier was killed in this fighting". Elk stood there in shock.
He had heard of Sephiroth and his deeds but never believed he'd actually see the man. It was like a an ant looking up to a god. And although Sephiroth was undoubtably being rude. Elk couldn't help but understan why the man was here. If people had died fighting on this beach then the comrades of those who died on shirnas side had as much reason to be there than anyone else. And it seemed that the headmaster agreed with this sentiment. His only reply to the comment from Sephiroth being a courtious nod. The ceremony continued. Sephiroth standing among the Seed members. One of them began to cry. Elk was standing behind the legendary warrior when he leaned over to whisper in the girls ear. " Don't be sad...they've returned to the planet....". The warrior moved back up standing straight the girl looking at him confused as Sephiroth let out a small smirk.
" Returned home".
.
|
|
|
Post by Ellskinny on Oct 9, 2019 7:10:33 GMT -5
Cheap Viagra From India cheapest cialis Paxil Canada Pharmacy No Perscription Cheapest Levitra Professional
|
|