No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.
— Robert Allen Zimmerman
They say the Skies are lost to Humanity. They say that After Calamity, the gaze of man should never gaze heavenward.
They were fools.
The unveiling of a new Singularity, you find, is always a treat.
Here is yet another man full of idealism backed by the ruthlessness of his adjutant.
Here is yet another man excitedly talking about how the betterment of Humanity can be achieved.
Here is yet another man who will be broken in the Wing Wars in... oh, you'd say three months, really.
Really now. Reclaiming the Skies.
Ridiculous.
Still, as an Arbiter, you can make your judgement on this tomfoolery. And your arbitration is that of mocking laughter.
They say Zachary has no chance. They say that the newly christened X Corp had no chance to survive the coming war.
Alone, true. They would've been slaughtered and their Singularities split amongst the spoils of war.
But there were others.
Others whose designs align in tandem, in writing and rhythm.
The sounds of flesh rending are music to your ears. Always will be, really. So long as you are in this work line, the agony of others is an orchestra you will never trade for
anything. And though by now many of your men are dying, mostly in pieces and tenderized for the consumption of the Backstreets of District 23, your foes are
dead.
Save one. One person whose blood bled orange from the stumps of his legs and one who glares at you through a lacquer-mask stronger than anything that's
not derived from three Singularities.
Here, and the sight sears itself to your brain forevermore, lies a broken and battered body of a Claw-men.
"Bastard. You utter irrevocable
bastard. You and your Udjat
carrions. This is not
yours to fight."
"Mmm." You hum, lowering yourself down to the dying form of the Executioner in front of you.
"Perhaps not. But our leader was insistent in this matter. And well..." You chuckle dryly, ears perking at the thumping sound that comes closest to you. "...we're not the carrions. We're the
herald of those."
A baleful mask that once inflicted terror look towards the direction of the sound, one that revealed itself to be a sharply-suited woman with a cape of white-gold.
The Claw-men laughs, a true and wet one from a being such as he. He
knows now. His defeat is ordained— a prophecy writ in the beating heart of the City itself compelled him to lose.
"Funny how life works, doesn't it?" The woman said as if the dying din of battle did not rage all around her. "A Prescript led you here to this fight. Another Prescript marked your doom." She made a gesture with her index finger before nodding to you. "As the Prescript wills."
"As the Prescript wills~" You intone happily, hefting your staff like a bat.
Your staff, glowing gold, shatters the ribcage of the Executor. And then you swing, shattering the heart behind it. Another one and the spine blows out of his back.
And the War swings your way.
The War was won. The Head acceded. And the new X Corp was christened.
And all will learn of the Skies.
Just not in the way the trespassers and natives expected.
The Sky burns. It is a tapestry that blazes azure, crimson, and emerald from manifold machinations. Around you, the broken bodies of Executors sent alongside you slide off the slippery scales into the ground below. The Sweepers will feast well tonight. Of the task force sent against the beast that dared encroach upon the threshold of the City, you remain.
Doesn't matter, you can finish this job on your lonesome.
This beast, this
Sky Serpent, dared. It dared to crash down from the roof of the world, parting the skies and bringing ruin and devastation throughout the edges of the City, rolling and swiping its skyscraping body here and there as it spurts gouts of smokeless emerald flame that scorched all it touched.
A consolation perhaps, that the thousands burned died instantly.
And then there are the
parasites that assailed you and the Claws. Burrowing monstrosities not unlike the things that came out of the Ruins, armed with all manners of biological weapons designed to maim and murder with varying degrees of efficiency.
Against the Claws, it's an even enough match with all dead and you remaining standing. You are wounded, true. Your neck had been torn apart thrice, and your lungs boiled by an acid spray of one of these interlopers. But you can survive that. Sadly, so can the beast survive gouges the size of train cars ripped out of its body. It's
funny, honestly. You and it, fighting like it's a drunken barfight in some lowly Backstreets bar as if the Claws your weapons and the monsters its. As if nothing else is truly at stake.
But this charade ends here and
now. As the saying goes, 'One will die here and the other on the way to the hospital.' You take a deep breath.
Long ago, there lived the Locksmith...
The world screamed. Your
body screamed as well. For not only are you wielding power a man isn't meant to, but you're also wielding too
much of it. To channel a Singularity in an ad hoc manner have consequences. Your innards become outtards as blood and brain fluids orange made their displeasure known.
That's fine.
You have no use for them now.
...and now, only the « Lock » remained.
They say that if one were to look up during The Partings, one would've seen the sight of the Great Serpent's body enveloped in a black lock, darker than the void of space itself.
One would then see the beast attempt to thrash once more, only to be ripped apart, its resistance bisecting itself lengthwise in half, ending its reign of terror in the Sky.
One would then feel the abject despair as the divided corpse crash through the length of the City, its still living innards and parasites killing all they can touch from the Backstreets to the Nests indiscriminately.
They said that a million died in a week, as the events of The Partings and the aftermath caused a desperate battle of survival that raged between Nest and Backstreet dwellers against the alike.
And after all that, the Head said it's all worth it. So it is.
"Beholder Franc, I have worked with you for sixteen years and I think I am allowed a particular candidness."
The office room is austere. For the standards of the highest rung of the City's society, that is. Pristine white covers the room in almost glaring bright light, broken only by lines of black and gold inlaid in a pattern designed to break the monotony. All designed in such a way to keep the image that
this is a room of a person unswayed by material concerns.
Ironic, perhaps, that the Trigrams of Hana in understated glories shine through. Material concerns are the primacy here, for the premier Association of the City.
Still, you reply. "Of course, President Hyun. We may speak as equals here."
He nods. "Then simply put, I have but two words." He inhales, and you can imagine those two words. "
The fuck." He said two, but you stay your tongue- for he has much more to say. After all, candidness for Ryeom Hyun is the candidness for a man deep in his bottles, the red with drunkenness and fury. "What is the Head
thinking? In the wake of an incident to rival the greatest of the Wing Wars, you ask us to
expand our operations? To this- this
Sky District idea? 30% of all Fixers died, Franc. We are stretched thin in all corners to the point the
fucking Fingers decided to show in force and take over our work in
earnest! You better have
something to show as to why this is the case."
You nod, and a wave of your hand summons a stack of papers directly unto his desk. You then gesture, and one of the most powerful men in the City take them without a word despite his initial outbursts.
And he read them.
And he continued to read.
And you choose to hammer the point. "The Wings have jointly considered a Flight of Peace, as it were. No fights, nothing beyond standard corporate espionage and Singularity snooping, for
one year
."
"This..."
"Material readings from the substances of the Serpent and its inhabitants. And indeed, they have the power to inexplicably enhance the Singularities of
all Wings. Even to the point of perhaps being able to
create new ones. When this information became disseminated, well... X Corp is raking
all the Ahns from selling their Singularity, making all these Districts." You raise your hands to shrug. "Sorry to say, but your concerns are
nought to them." You raise them apologetically now. "And thus, to us."
"...There's more to this." And
there's the instinct of the man who rose to the spot of President. His eyes glints as he takes your sudden — calculatingly deliberate — silence as "What does the Head offer?"
"A compromise. And the reason why the Claws outside this room opted to not
drag you to your doom for your outburst. It took the sacrifice of an Arbiter and eleven Claws to bring down the Serpent. Though the best of your Fixers could've dealt with it, the attrition rate would be too unacceptable even for us. And thusly..." You sweep your hand once more, and this time,
one piece of paper manifests directly on his grip.
It did not take long to read, and you take pleasure from the sheer
shock and paling of a veteran of two Wing Wars as he reread the paper thrice.
"Though it is distasteful for us to add colours to the City, the encroachment of impurities inhuman are
worse. Thus- that paper... and more." You smile, and President Hyun couldn't help but laugh in absurdity.
Because for once, the Head's motive is for the objective good of the City.
The Airframe Amendment was released to the shock of many. The hoi polloi
in the City having access to weaponry that can level buildings with a salvo? Unthinkable.
And yet, as the Sky Districts hang above their Wings and as the Sky-Monsters fell in force, no one can gainsay that these Airframes, and the newly christened Pilot Fixers, are not of worth.
And here, in the tumult of the historical moments, you
arrive—the owner of a single Airframe and the ruler of your own Office.
Alone. But then, that's how you'd like it.
But who, exactly, are
you?
Pilot Registry CharGen
[] Everyone born in the City has a name, one that their parents gave or one that person themselves use. « What is yours? »
[] Everyone who lives in the City has a gender. Or not. Or several. Humans can be whomever they wanted, and that's one freedom that the Head chooses to not take away. « But for clarity, what is, or are, yours? »
[-] Every Pilot has a Tac-Name. Unfortunately, you don't
get to choose yours. But the bureaucracy has deemed that yours to be... «
Pinion » It will be yours until you die.
The black-gold embossed card, one of Hana's custom order make glints with refracted light. They hit your eyes, and for the moment...
Background Vote
[] ...You see blood and the flashes of desperate struggle that led to this license card of yours. You hear the staccato of gunfire of the Thumb and the clashing of void-blades from Ring-couples. You shuffle to the forefront the memories of your bloody past in «
the Backstreets of District 11 », and as you dismiss them back, you hear a shrill scream that only you can hear.
[] ...You see a masterpiece. For this is not
just a card. It's the work of an artisan, one of the few who work in a special Hana Atelier making unique cards like these. It takes you back, to the times when you worked in «
Lutherie Atelier » before the days the Smoke War plucked the strings of your life away.
[] ...You see neutrium-gold flecks glittering like the Stars of the City. A side-effect, they say, of the Singularity process required to create this material anomaly. All you know, with your whole experience as a «
Nest Commentariat », is that this is
richness quantified. And that fleeting feeling
almost made you forget the phantom smell of charred and liquifying flesh latching on the core of your being.
AN: Welcome to Ace of the City. With the fact that Library of Ruina has completed its main story arc, I feel comfortable with releasing this Quest to the wild. If you have absolutely no idea about the setting, don't worry about it~ I will be guiding you through the world of Ruina as if this is an Original Quest. With that in mind, you may see properties of shows and works from beyond Ruina itself, like that of the
other two inspirations of this Quest, Ace Combat and Project Wingman.
And with
those out of the way, please vote
by line. No plan votes please~
