I'm going to be super cheeky right now, and try to argue that Rose has already won. Unknowingly, she's hit Control's spirit ban.
Control has been abandoned by its faithful followers. The Man in White is alone, betrayed by its protege, let down by human weakness. It's more vulnerable than it's ever been before, because its narrative is uncoiling. Control is institutional power, not personal power...
... and now it is alone. It has no institution. It has no underlings. And it's up against a mage with a super strong Primordial Avatar, who's got a personal theme as the gardener pruning back an overgrown garden.
[X] Write-In: Fright: Control is a paper tiger. That's the dark secret at its heart. Control never had power on its own - it acted through the Union. Back in the day it was made up of mortal men and women - masters of magic and technomancy - who could give as good as they got. But they're gone. There is only Control now. And Control has just been willingly abandoned by its only servant in this room. This wilful abandonment by Yinzheng has hit Control's spirit ban. It is a government without a nation; a king without subjects; a general without an army. Fear and intimidation is its only option, while it tries desperately to call for help.
Rose laughs, taking a step closer. It's a surprisingly joyous note. "Reina was born in the year of our lord, 1210. The Albeigensian Crusade started just the year before, with hidden blades striking down many of their mystical masters and adepts. I wonder if that's a coincidence? So did she. I've seen her memories, and she sometimes wondered if her angel Gabriel had been with a Cathar before he came to her."
"You accept your heresy?" the Man in White asks scornfully.
"The Order of Reason began as heretics. The Union convulses every fifty years as its internal contradictions become too big to manage." Rose still smiles, flashing fangs. "Heretics are how our ideological genepool avoids stagnation. The only kind of life that is perfectly static is dead."
"You use the words we coined as a magic spell." Contempt roils off the Man in White, almost tangible. "Speaking of biology as if it explains..."
"I'm a Progenitor," Rose says. "That's what we do."
Glass breaks underfoot as she advances. Around her, all the broken screens on the machinery flash to light. Ten symbols flicker over broken screens, orbiting around the central emblem of the Technocratic Union. They're the insignia of the nine Chairs of the Invisible College and the Empty Chair, the chair of the Aleph. Plasma arcs from screen to screen, painting the sullied chamber in actinic bright light.
The air shimmers and warps. Things from outside are pushing against the walls of the world. They're trying to get into the little bubble of order and sanity men call Earth. But this is the worst possible place for such an incursion. This is a Technocratic construct. The old gods were forced out beyond the Gauntlet by the actions of the Order of Reason. These new gods, born of the hubris of the Technocratic Union, fair no better.
The mutilated flesh in the tanks twitches and convulses. It was made to hold the form of a limb of Control, and even ruined, it can still be of some use. "You are a fool, Reina," says a severed head, voice bubbling from a ruined throat.
"You think this can stop us?" croaks another corpse, split diagonally. Ruined eyes gouged out by the rage of Piero still track her as she advances. "We cannot die."
"We are natural law. We are the falling apple and the rainbow cast from the prism."
"We are the invisible hand and we are the market."
"We are the dreams of the stars."
"We are mankind. Mankind is us."
"You dare not strike us down. All will be chaos if we are not there to be the guiding hand."
"We are order. We are time. We are."
"Reina!"
"I'm not Reina," Rose says, and her voice sounds like Thorn's. It echoes in this space, gaining a timbre and pitch that it shouldn't have had. "I think she's gone. The man who killed her is dead and so she has realised what you never did. The cycle must turn. The old must step aside so that the young can grow old in their place - or else be cut down. She knew her time was up. You refused that. You are no god, Control. You are a cancer. You are mutated cells, growing and feeding on your host until in time the whole of existence dies under your bulk. And you won't stop. You can't stop. Because your apotheosis is your screaming fear of apoptosis."
She has nearly reached the Man in White, and all his words, all his tricks, all his contempt for human weakness in his dread-long life mean nothing.
"We are the Union!" he screams in her face, and she ignites in a pyre.
The fire does not burn her. It embraces her, and the white heat burns a clear violet. It surrounds her. It wraps her like burning wings and blazes upon her brow like a tiara.
"You have been abandoned," Rose says, wreathed in violet light, and she sounds sad. "Your last follower walked away. What is the Man without his institution? What is a general without an army? What is a king without a nation?"
She raises her blade, and the edge gleams like a scythe. The air smells of summer days and freshly mowed hay.
"Before creation; destruction," she says softly. "We burn the fields before we sow next year's harvest."
Control has been abandoned by its faithful followers. The Man in White is alone, betrayed by its protege, let down by human weakness. It's more vulnerable than it's ever been before, because its narrative is uncoiling. Control is institutional power, not personal power...
... and now it is alone. It has no institution. It has no underlings. And it's up against a mage with a super strong Primordial Avatar, who's got a personal theme as the gardener pruning back an overgrown garden.
[X] Write-In: Fright: Control is a paper tiger. That's the dark secret at its heart. Control never had power on its own - it acted through the Union. Back in the day it was made up of mortal men and women - masters of magic and technomancy - who could give as good as they got. But they're gone. There is only Control now. And Control has just been willingly abandoned by its only servant in this room. This wilful abandonment by Yinzheng has hit Control's spirit ban. It is a government without a nation; a king without subjects; a general without an army. Fear and intimidation is its only option, while it tries desperately to call for help.
Rose laughs, taking a step closer. It's a surprisingly joyous note. "Reina was born in the year of our lord, 1210. The Albeigensian Crusade started just the year before, with hidden blades striking down many of their mystical masters and adepts. I wonder if that's a coincidence? So did she. I've seen her memories, and she sometimes wondered if her angel Gabriel had been with a Cathar before he came to her."
"You accept your heresy?" the Man in White asks scornfully.
"The Order of Reason began as heretics. The Union convulses every fifty years as its internal contradictions become too big to manage." Rose still smiles, flashing fangs. "Heretics are how our ideological genepool avoids stagnation. The only kind of life that is perfectly static is dead."
"You use the words we coined as a magic spell." Contempt roils off the Man in White, almost tangible. "Speaking of biology as if it explains..."
"I'm a Progenitor," Rose says. "That's what we do."
Glass breaks underfoot as she advances. Around her, all the broken screens on the machinery flash to light. Ten symbols flicker over broken screens, orbiting around the central emblem of the Technocratic Union. They're the insignia of the nine Chairs of the Invisible College and the Empty Chair, the chair of the Aleph. Plasma arcs from screen to screen, painting the sullied chamber in actinic bright light.
The air shimmers and warps. Things from outside are pushing against the walls of the world. They're trying to get into the little bubble of order and sanity men call Earth. But this is the worst possible place for such an incursion. This is a Technocratic construct. The old gods were forced out beyond the Gauntlet by the actions of the Order of Reason. These new gods, born of the hubris of the Technocratic Union, fair no better.
The mutilated flesh in the tanks twitches and convulses. It was made to hold the form of a limb of Control, and even ruined, it can still be of some use. "You are a fool, Reina," says a severed head, voice bubbling from a ruined throat.
"You think this can stop us?" croaks another corpse, split diagonally. Ruined eyes gouged out by the rage of Piero still track her as she advances. "We cannot die."
"We are natural law. We are the falling apple and the rainbow cast from the prism."
"We are the invisible hand and we are the market."
"We are the dreams of the stars."
"We are mankind. Mankind is us."
"You dare not strike us down. All will be chaos if we are not there to be the guiding hand."
"We are order. We are time. We are."
"Reina!"
"I'm not Reina," Rose says, and her voice sounds like Thorn's. It echoes in this space, gaining a timbre and pitch that it shouldn't have had. "I think she's gone. The man who killed her is dead and so she has realised what you never did. The cycle must turn. The old must step aside so that the young can grow old in their place - or else be cut down. She knew her time was up. You refused that. You are no god, Control. You are a cancer. You are mutated cells, growing and feeding on your host until in time the whole of existence dies under your bulk. And you won't stop. You can't stop. Because your apotheosis is your screaming fear of apoptosis."
She has nearly reached the Man in White, and all his words, all his tricks, all his contempt for human weakness in his dread-long life mean nothing.
"We are the Union!" he screams in her face, and she ignites in a pyre.
The fire does not burn her. It embraces her, and the white heat burns a clear violet. It surrounds her. It wraps her like burning wings and blazes upon her brow like a tiara.
"You have been abandoned," Rose says, wreathed in violet light, and she sounds sad. "Your last follower walked away. What is the Man without his institution? What is a general without an army? What is a king without a nation?"
She raises her blade, and the edge gleams like a scythe. The air smells of summer days and freshly mowed hay.
"Before creation; destruction," she says softly. "We burn the fields before we sow next year's harvest."
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