In months and years to come you'd wonder if you could have done anything else. But every time you did, it always came down to the same thing: who Amanda Hawk truly was. You'd been a leader, a mother, a teacher, and always a friend. But when it came right down to it, at the very core of your reality, Mending was only the term you'd felt closest to what defined you.
When you'd first set out, in the very beginning, you hadn't been trying to fix things. You'd been trying to help people. When the Circles had grown, slowly at first, but then into something so much more than you'd ever imagined, you'd never sought to use them. They'd been a creation of yours, yes, but also of so many more. Knowing that they'd also been your first Artefact didn't change that, either. And when the Pattern had been found, when the plans of the Elder First had been shown to be something that could not be followed, you had not stepped into the light because you wished for power. It had been because you cared, and despite your total inexperience in matters of war, you'd recognised the needs of the heart.
Humanity united would always be greater than humanity apart. You did not think that; the Web had shown you that reality to be true. But that was your truth, not one for everyone. And in this, you understood why Kalilah had chosen as she did. Seeing death ahead of you, and no way to escape it after Words failed, she'd chosen to give of herself to save those she cared for. Your bodyguard still, after all this time. But that wasn't everything she was, not anymore. And looking back on the moment, you'd realise that that was the only reason you'd had time.
:Blast radius. Run.: Your own gestalt flashed out across the Two Twenty Three even as you dropped away from them, Vega's influence finding you a way through as not-colour and pure white danced at the centre of the Shiplord globe. Shields flashed as they tried to resist the echoes of that power before being overwhelmed. And as you dived towards the inwardly focused ball of Regular Fleet craft, you saw their armour start to slough away, running like water. Behind you, you felt the Two Twenty Three wheel away, the protections of their united strength now sufficient to allow full flight. They would be safe, at least, and able to respond to whatever came next even if you were not.
Arcs of power flashed from the core of the building firestorm, centred on the point where Kalilah's hands were still clasped in silent prayer, and you wheeled around one as it sliced a Shiplord cruiser ahead of you into two ragged halves, atmosphere and the flare of secondary explosions painting the world around you in an orgy of clashing colours. You dived through the scattering wreckage in a nimbus of aquamarine light, ignoring the drones and Shiplord suits around you. They couldn't touch you, after all.
Instead, you focused on what was ahead of you, the point at which the Shiplord weapons and Kalilah's burning soul met, and why she'd chosen this. Pain, yes, of course. A desire to do more than just watch as so many others died. But it went deeper than that, and you needed to find how.
Kalilah had lost everything and everyone she'd ever cared for in the Sorrows. She'd honed herself into a weapon without equal, a Lance that had been wielded to devastating effect against the Tribute Fleet during the Second Battle of Sol. But since then, with the expansion of the Two Twenty Three and all the time you'd spent together, you'd thought she'd been getting better. Except, she had been. Of course she had been. What else would drive one to sacrifice like this but a desire to protect?
She'd failed to protect her family. She'd failed to be there to protect you during the Second Battle of Sol, no matter that you'd survived. Her purpose, as she saw it, was different to what you'd seen it as. And when she'd found herself forming connections again, was it any wonder that she'd be willing to sacrifice anything, even herself, to protect those she'd connected to?
On some level, deep down, Kalilah had found her way to a new family. But in her mind, that only went one way. She had to protect, to defend, but when your gift is only destruction, how can you do that? Answer, destroy that which threatens your family. And if the power you bear is not enough? Find more, no matter the cost to yourself. For your family matters. Compared to that, she did not.
How could you have been so blind? Because she'd thought of herself as whole, inasmuch as she ever could be. No matter for now. You could address your mistakes, and hers, later. For now, you had to make sure there was a later.
You were past the first two shells now, dancing between whips of lethal power that scorched space itself as they tore through lighter Shiplord craft. They were trying to run, you thought, but they'd left it far too late. And it was only then you realised that you'd never even asked Sidra if they were ok with doing this. There was, again, no time for words, but the gestalt you heard in their voice was quite clear enough.
:How else would you be here, if I didn't agree?:
As gestures of support and agreement go, that was a big one. There was just enough time left to take a breath, and power with it; hopefully sufficient to survive what you were about to experience. Then you hit the wall of opposed power, and almost staggered to a halt. Pain tore at you, the merciless presence of the Shiplord weapons matched by the inferno of Kalilah's soul, put to tinder by her own hand.
You remembered this feeling. You'd survived it once, when Kalilah had synchronised with Asi. It was so much more than it had been then, but then, so were you. And you would not let your friend die. Somehow she sensed you entering the field around her, but her movements were slow compared to your own, her Aegis flickering out of existence now that the anchors that maintained it were half a light-second distant.
You caught her side on, Sidra cancelling your speed with perfect precision as you wrapped your arms around her, ignoring the look of shock and…had it been fear? That suddenly marred her serenity. You knew the question she wanted to ask. You knew how she'd ask it, what it would mean. And you answered before she could, with the only words that would ever matter.
"Together." You never knew how you said them so fast, or how she understood. "Like we should be." You pulled the whirling nexus of power still racing around you closer, forming it into a solid shell that was alike to an Aegis born of ten billion souls. Your own strength raced down, deep into Kalilah's soul, where fire and destruction raged.
You didn't try to put those fires out. You didn't think you could have. Instead, you wrapped your own soul around those parts of hers that were now aflame, to protect them. She jerked suddenly in your grip, her eyes wide as she sensed what you were doing. And you found the link between you as clasped hands started to slip.
:No one left behind. Not today.: Concepts without words, but words were all that could describe them. Soothing, gentle, and spoken as only family could.
:Let go.:
Her hands opened. And-
Such A Baleful Radiance: INPUT OVERLOAD ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR
A hand torn free as the world died.
There was no sound.
Hatred was not enough for them.
There was no fury.
Only destruction would suffice.
There was only
light.
Choose a perspective:
[] Lina Sharpe
[] Adriana Thera
[] Vega Cant
[] Mary D'reve
[] Iris
[] Write-in
Neither Amanda nor Kalilah may be chosen as a write-in.
