PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS THE OLD THREAD. THE MOST RECENT THREAD IS HERE:
Haunting at Shanxi...
Haunting at Shanxi...
Haunting At Shanxi (Puella Magi Madoka Magica/Mass Effect)
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PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS THE OLD THREAD. THE MOST RECENT THREAD IS HERE:
Haunting at Shanxi Redux (Puella Magi Madoka Magica/Mass Effect)
It is thoroughly edited.
To those of you who hadn't seen the SB thread:
Just so everyone knows, this isn't intended to be a stomp fic, it's a horror story with both turian and human protagonists. I include this disclaimer because it's a story centered around Shanxi.
To those of you who read the original:
Currently this is just a repost with a few revisions, but this version of the thread will eventually include:
An index
An actual ending
And, potentially, a sequel (I already have a few ideas, but I'll need to figure out if they can actually be hammered into a plot)
Also, I should note that I have spent a fair chunk of time revising where I want the plot to go, so pre-rewrite information might no longer be reliable.
I'll be including the next chapters as I finish editing them, and should be providing new content by Saturday, and the index will include a clear separation between the revised chapters and the new ones.
~~~
Civilian Camp D14, Shanxi
Erin sat in "her" room, resting on the bunks, feeling rather bored. There wasn't really all that much to do, honestly.
She wasn't even sure what to think of her… was captors even the right word? Captors seemed more the sort of word that was used when talking about kidnappers, not whatever these aliens were.
She had never really thought about aliens. Oh, when she was younger, before she had contracted, she had thought the idea of the mass relays and the technology taken from a dead civilization was pretty interesting, but well, by this point, she didn't quite have the fascination that her parents seemed to have with the idea.
Aliens existed.
They're all dead now.
Get over it.
And now, well, the aliens were here.
It had started about a week ago, when a research team sent through the relay had failed to report back. Even then, she had focused on her "job" to the point that it barely registered, until the announcement came that they were all to report to the bunkers blared over the loudspeakers.
She had been at school, and so she found herself being herded into the emergency bunkers that had been specifically built under the school. She couldn't help but be a bit annoyed at how nervous everyone else was as they were herded into the bunkers. Some part of her knew that she was being unfair, but she could smell the fear of her classmates.
She wasn't sure if that was normal, or just another of the perks of being a Puella Magi that Kyuubey had forgotten to mention, but she found herself drifting away from the televisions and loudspeakers just to get away from it all.
Still, her ears were sharp enough to pick up the bits and pieces, "invasion", "garrison", and other such things, which were… worrying.. It hadn't taken long for the bunkers to be forced open, and for the aliens to enter. They began to grab people and herd them outside of the bunker, and only bothering to put restraints on the teachers who attempted to resist.
They had eventually been brought outside of the city, where a great collection of prefab buildings had been placed on the fields. They had all been left in the buildings there, with the aliens setting up fences and walls outside of the encampment, and they left the captured humans to their own devices.
They had actually been left in somewhat comfortable conditions, they were given bunks that weren't too hard or too soft, and the food wasn't too terrible, even if they had all been crowded into very large rooms. Erin… wasn't really sure what to think situation. She knew that she was being calmer than just about everyone else there, even the teachers, with her fellow classmates being particularly… annoying in their speculation. She supposed that it didn't really help that the 4th grade class had covered Nazi Germany just last month in their history classes, and now they had found themselves being rounded up and shoved into camps, and so they had made the… obvious, conclusions. Which lead to the unease spreading from the younger children.
Well, those who hadn't just assumed that the aliens were trying to eat them or something.
She avoided the conversations of her fellow classmates, and found herself wishing that she knew where her parents were. She hadn't really been able to relate to her fellow classmates for… years now, she supposed. Ever since she had first contracted.
While she was just as unable to talk to her parents about being a magical girl as she was with her fellow classmates, at least she could talk to them about some things without finding herself getting annoyed at them being… stupid. The way that they talked to her after having learned that she had been held back from graduating (for medical reasons) didn't help. There were apparently other magical girls on the planet, but not only was she the oldest (at just past seventeen!), but, well, she was the only one who lived in this city.
She had never met another magical girl in her life, though Kyuubey had occasionally offered to put her in contact with others, but she had refused.
Really, she could handle the city on her own, and Kyuubey had even warned her that a lot of magical girl friendships tended to dissolve into rivalries over who got the Grief Seeds, so it was probably for the best that she was the only magical girl in town.
Kyuubey was normally right about those sorts of things. I'm sorry that it took me so long to track where you had gone. A childlike voice spoke into her ear.
Erin's eyes shot around the room until she spotted the "speaker". Kyuubey! You little fluffball, I was getting worried about you!
That was hardly necessary. You know that I am invisible to the eyes of most people. Regardless, the catlike creature leapt up to her bunk and sat in her lap, where she began stroking it between the ears. Yes, the bunks were public, but everyone else was too distracted with their own conversations to notice her stroking the air above her lap, and, frankly, if anyone was going look at her in a funny way during her reunion with the one person on the planet that could actually understand her, well, she didn't really give a damn what they thought.
Erin scratched at her head awkwardly. Ah, well, I heard something about a few explosions, so I thought that maybe a few of them had gotten lucky or something. Besides, I wasn't sure about your ability to hide from... aliens.
Kyuubey glanced up at her from her lap as it projected its thoughts again. The Turians are just as unable to perceive me as humans are, unless I want to be seen.
Erin frowned for a moment. Turians?
That is the term that the invaders refer to themselves by, yes.
You, you know what they're called? A hint of anger and suspicion managing to sneak its way into her mental voice as she asked the question.
While we have little reason to speak with them frequently, we are mutually aware of each others existence. It paused for a moment, before seemingly realizing just what she was angry about.
We were looking towards your imminent first formal contact with interest, though this particular scenario failed to fall within expected parameters. The aggressiveness of their fleet was unanticipated.
She frowned at the thing in her lap. So, you hadn't thought they were going to invade? But why didn't you tell us that they existed? Or... done something?
It tilted its head at her. Their motivations for invading this planet are currently unknown, and we are pursuing our own channels in an attempt to understand what cause they have for invading the planet, and hopefully we would be able to mediate any conflict between your species without further bloodshed. Somehow its mental voice became mildly disapproving. I actually had, I had brought up the existence of other species beforehand, when I mentioned that humanity would find itself in a greater galactic community eventually. Had you not been paying attention?
Her face flushed, she quickly projected. Ah, no, that lecture just, slipped my mind. She forced her hands to continue rubbing the doll on her lap, and avoided scratching the back of her neck.
Honestly, she spent a lot of time talking to Kyuubey, especially during any physics classes where, for some sort of magical familiar creature, Kyuubey seemed to have an almost intimate understanding of the concepts being discussed. When she convinced him to talk about the subject with her during class, well, her grades in physics were higher than in any other subject, up to the point where the possibility of scholarships had been raised (She had a bit of trouble in history, since her teacher seemed to think she was trying to be a delinquent or something after she had absentmindedly mentioned Joan de' Arc having been a magical girl).
He mentioned so many things to her, many of which just slipped past her head, and she sometimes just… ignored him. Still, Kyuubey was a good sport about it. So, you plan on talking to these aliens about having invaded the planet?
Yes. She couldn't quite help but get that the Incubator was perfectly aware that she was changing the subject. Or maybe she was just imagining that. Kyuubey was weird, sometimes. With luck, we will be able to avert further conflict before the fleet from Earth arrives.
Erin quickly sat up straighter. Wait, the fleet's coming?
The Incubator tilted its head up at her. Of course. Earth already knows that the research fleet disappeared, and after Shanxi went dark, they knew that they had little choice but to mobilize their forces. Considering the distances involved and the somewhat unorganized nature of the alliance, we currently estimate that the arrival of the fleet will take little over a week.
Erin gave a soft grin. That's good to hear. But… A small flick of her palm that almost appeared to be an act of sleight of hand had her Soul Gem appear in it.
The Incubator leaned in close enough to examine it. Hm. It doesn't appear as if your Soul Gem is clean enough to survive for that long without being cleansed with a Grief Seed. Not only that, but you've failed to establish a stockpile for times such as these, Erin mentally scoffed at that, he always told her to be more careful, but she could hardly be expected to, well, expect aliens, could she?
Kyuubey continued. and as such, it appears that you will have to go on a witch hunt soon.
Erin winced. Do you think these… Turians, do you think they'd let me just… wander off on my own for a while?
That is unlikely. Sometimes, Erin found Kyuubey's tendency answer questions that she had meant to be rhetorical to be cute. This was not one of those times.
However, we do believe that it should be well within your capabilities to escape captivity using your abilities.
But, they have patrols outside, and cameras… It had occurred to her, actually. Just garb up, slice her way through the wall, and make her way free. But, what would she actually do if she got out. Head back to her home, grab her a handheld and hope it had enough charge, and just hang out until the fleet arrived? It was an option, but...
As they are unable to see me, it should be well within my abilities to get you through a window in their patrol routes.
Hah! She grinned, and scooped up the Incubator in her arms. You're the best!
*****
With Kyuubey's help, it was actually pretty easy to sneak away. Find a place to transform just outside of the cameras, and then move whenever he told her to, and she soon found herself on the outskirts of the city.
While it was one of the largest settlements on the planet, looking at old pics of New York, she couldn't really help but feel that the massive number of quickly assembled buildings weren't really deserving of the title of city. Only the industrial structures topped three stories, and most of the rest were just rather samey houses.
Pulling out her soul gem, she grinned. Looks like we found us a witch right off the bat.
On her shoulder, Kyuubey replied. It is hardly surprising. After the stresses of the invasion, witch activity has substantially increased. You might even be able to acquire several Grief Seeds during one night.
Nah, I don't want to get too greedy. One should last me enough Besides, who knows how good a watch they keep on their prisoners? Better to just do this one hunt and get back quickly. She hesitated for a moment, her thoughts darting towards a different subject. While I'm gone, would you, would you mind tracking down my parents? I didn't see them in the camp we were sent to, but I think that there were several camps around the city. Could you... mind checking those to see if they're okay?
The Incubator nodded. It's no trouble. Are you sure that you will not need my assistance?
Ah, don't worry about me. I have more combat experience than the entire planetary garrison put together. I'll be fine.
Kyuubey nodded in acknowledgement, and ran off into the night. Very well. *****
"It's just, look at these buildings. Do any of them look older than a few decades?" The Turian Hierarchy's military was one of the most disciplined fighting forces known to galaxy.
Sarasi glanced back at the turian who'd just spoken. "Yes, Larir, we see that, but it might not mean anything. We know nothing about this species. For all we know, they have a proud cultural tradition of going after anything older than a century old with sledgehammers, just so that they could be in a state of constant urban renewal. I imagine that it gives them a pretty healthy economy, actually."
It should be noted that this discipline was more in a strategic sense, and random patrols, particularly when in the "comfort" of a Turian APC (built with speed and durability in mind, to survive a fight just long enough to get to a safe place to dump its cargo, with rather less thought given to amenities), tended to be almost as prone to random chatter as the various other species. Especially since the few holdouts resisting the Turian forces seemed to be in an entirely different hemisphere. There had been a firefight yesterday, but none of those riding in this particular vehicle had even been within five miles of that engagement.
Larir continued speaking. "Right, you laugh now, but this has to be a new colony. There's no way that this was their homeworld."
"You know what, you're right. You should go report this higher up in the command chain. I hear the admiral has a little box just outside his door, and a little slot to stick paper in just waiting for intrepid soldiers to report their latest findings. It's labeled "The Incredibly Fucking Obvious," and it sounds like just the sort of place where you should stick it."
Larir frowned. "Right, I know it seems obvious, but if this is just a colony, then they probably have a larger fleet getting ready to hit back."
Sarasi sighed. "Then that's something for the fleets to worry about, though I can't expect that they'd need to worry much. These native's shield technology is so primitive they only took one or two shots to break, and they're so fresh into space it wouldn't surprise me if this was their very first colony. I really doubt that they have a whole fleet of ships off by their homeworld or something."
Olihiek spoke up from the back of the vehicle. "Besides, from what my buddies up there told me", he tapped his knuckles on the roof of vehicle, "their fleet didn't stand a chance once our fleet started firing at them. They're barely at the eezo stage of development, and I doubt that whatever ships they have back at the homeworld are much better."
Larir frowned. "Still, I don't like it. Why wasn't this-"
"Be advised, Sergeant Togriss, we have picked up a heat signature in your area. It looks like one of the natives. We picked up no traces of eezo, but not all of the local weaponry was eezo based, so keep your eyes open. We are updating your HUD with its last known location."
Sergent Togriss tapped the side of his helmet. "Confirmed command, will investigate, over and out." He glanced at his men, "Cut the chatter, this little patrol now has an actual objective, we are searching for a possible hostile, but more likely it's just some civilian who escaped the initial sweeps."
Sarasi shrugged. "At least it's something."
All present began checking their weapons and their equipment. They had all checked it before they went on this mission, and it wasn't likely that they would actually need to use any of their kit, but certain things were just done, and it was better than twiddling their talons while the vehicle covered the four kilometers to their objective.
As they approached, Larir, who had been seated at the sensors, announced"Alright, I'm picking up a heat signature, hm, it's moving pretty quickly for a person, but that's what it's reading as."
Sergent Togriss nodded over to Sarasi, "Head them off and we'll get out and see if we can't convince whoever it is to come along peacefully." This would be easier if they had working translators, but at this point, the tech boys were still trying to write up programs for translating from Turian-to-Prothean-to-Unknown. Besides, there were few messages that pointed gestures, handmovements, and occasional application of the shock prods couldn't communicate, although he hoped that that last one could be avoided for now.
Larir glanced at one of the screens that he had available. "Ah, it sees us. It's… damn, whoever it is out there is quick; she just jumped on top of that building. Get us up there and let's see if we can't get her to surrender, but moving like that, it's probably not a civilian."
Sarasi triggered the jump jets on the APC, and the machine leapt up into the air, the eezo in the engine temporarily lightening the vehicle to the point where it could launch itself from the ground to the roof (as well as, incidentally, keeping it light enough during landing so as to not collapse the roof from its jets). As they began to descend Larir shouted
"-heat spike, jink jink!" Sarasi tried to maneuver the APC away, but by choice or by design, the attack came just after the apex of the jump, when maneuverability was lowest. He saw a flash of red and grey strike towards the window, he instinctively held his arm up to block it, and-
*****
Larir groaned as he stood up from the flaming mess that was once their ride, and glanced about him. The front of the vehicle had a massive gash in it, with the edges appearing to have… melted.
Glancing at his helmet, he saw that the rest of his squad still had positive life signs but- "Command, this is Private Larir, my squad was ambushed, we have" he winced as he looked at Sarasi's arm, several feet from his body, "-one casualty, but the rest of us should be ready to continue pursuit soon. Target has fled the area."
That felt, sloppy, but then, he had hit his head during the… landing. "We are sending a gunship to provide overwatch and another APC to pick up the wounded. In the meantime, provide us with a sitrep."
He groaned and grabbed his head. "We pursued the unknown to a rooftop, unknown is not civilian, I repeat, not civilian, they possessed some sort of," at this point, he had the urge to try and make something up, to call whatever it had been some unknown energy weapon or something, but his training had been too thorough for that- always report exactly what you see, leave the speculation to command- "it looked to be a giant flaming sword, command."
A moment's silence on the other end. "Repeat that last part, private." "It looked to be a giant flaming sword. Heat signature was white on the infa-red. Whatever it was, it cut right through our kinetic barriers like they weren't even there. Our APC is… non salvageable."
"… we'll check your suit's telemetry once you get back. Hold your position until your squad is back on their feet." And his reward for his honesty was… skepticism.
"Ah, what's the situation?" And Togriss was conscious now. "They're sending over a gunship to hunt down the insurgent, and an APC to pick us up."
"Hmph." He stood up and surveyed the area. "Keep an eye out in case our unknown decides to come around to finish us off. For all we know, their being so visible on the heat spectrum was just bait for a trap."
They heard a groan from the side, and Sarasi tried to get up. "Urgh, Sergent, I can't seem to get up, could one of you give me a hand?" He was trying to lift himself up with one arm, his stump waving ineffectually. It took a moment for him to glance to his side. "-oh. And I just said- heh." He paused.
"Hey, Sarge, do you know if this suit's medical suite comes with painkillers, because I can't feel anything, and I can't tell if it's shock or drugs." Togriss knelt by him, reaching into the pouch on his side and began to tie a tourniquet to the wound, "It's probably a bit of both, now stop moving and try to stay awake."
Olihiek spoke up, surprising all present with his consciousness. "I see a heat signature over in that factory complex over there. It looks like our target might be resting."
Togriss thought to himself for a moment. "It'll take a few minutes for the gunship to get here, and by then they could have escaped to whatever hidey hole they managed to use to avoid us in the first sweeps. Sarasi can hold his position, the rest of us are going to approach the building and wait for the gunship to arrive. I don't want to let this unknown get away. Move out, Olihiek, you got point. Sarasi, contact us if your helmet picks up anything new."
The three of them moved out, leaving behind their wounded for the medics to pick up. They moved cautiously, but apparently, whoever it was in that building wasn't keeping an eye out for followers, as they detected no signs that they had been spotted, and the target appeared to be content to wait in the building. They reached the roof of structure just three buildings away.
"If there's any movement, our sensors should pick it up." Togriss spoke to his squad. "We're waiting here for the gunship." They… waited. They wanted to keep radio communications to a minimum, which meant helmet communication was out, and they wanted to minimize noise, which meant that simply talking to each other was not an option.
They might have checked their weapons a bit more thoroughly than the situation warranted, even if their vehicle had been destroyed with them in it, but if his squad checking their weapons meant that they weren't focusing on the fact that their assailant could realize their presence at any moment and shoot another… whatever the hell that thing was… at them, Togriss wasn't going to object.
Olihiek glanced into his armband. "Just received a narrow band text transmission, looks like another patrol has already picked up Sarasi, and their medic is saying that he's going to be alright." Some of the tension bled from the squad. "Our gunship's ETA is about, now, looks like." From the clouds emerged a single ship, its searchlights dancing around the building. "Any idea why it's making its presence so obvious?" Laril asked. "I think… the pilot's trying to bait whoever it is into triggering an ambush."
Togriss watched the ship. "It's flying low, but not lot enough that it wouldn't have time to launch flares and dodge." Olihiek pulled out his rifle, using the scope to search the building. "I see movement inside, it's heading towards the side of the building that our air support is on. Flagging and transmitting."
Inside the gunship, the pilot flagged his acknowledgement of the new information that had been sent to him, moving his gunship slightly away from the building and orienting the nose towards the spot where Olihiek had spotted the target. "I still don't have a clear shot at the target, and Command would probably still prefer it if we were to take the unknown assailant and weapon in for analysis, so I can't just shoot through the wall, wait, there's bit of heat moving up the stairs, it looks like the target is heading towards the roof."
"Alright, I have a clear shot at the roof exit, see if you can keep on luring him out until they're in my field of fire."
"Will do." He watched the door from his perch, just waiting for it to creep open and give him a clear shot- The door ripped open, and someone darted through it, a single sweep of her arm launching a curved blade out towards the helicopter. The pilot tried to maneuver out of the way, but the blade curved in midair, igniting itself in brilliant flames, and in the heat of the moment, Olihiek noted that there was steam coming up from where the rain fell to the blade.
"Launching flares and- the missile is ignoring the flares, I repeat, it is ignoring the flares, dodging dodging" the blade kept to its target, and the gunship was sliced in half as the sword ascended to its target.
Olihiek, cursing his brief lack of discipline in tracking the weapon rather than the shooter, turned his scope lower, sighting- He paused, hesitating, as he looked at the shooter's eyes as she, and it was a she, he could see that now, watched the descent of the vehicle in… horror? As it crashed down in flames into some of the buildings, he saw the face of Nalian, his blueskinned little asari niece.
Shaking off the mental image, he looked into the scope, and the target was moving (so damned fast) he shifted aim, pulled, and was rewarded with a burst of blood coming from the unknown's shoulder. "Target is wounded, pursue!"
Came the voice of Togriss, snapping him from his surprise. The three leapt from the roof, their suits helping to reduce the impact from the fall, and rushed to the building, hoping speed would get them past the unknown weapon. They burst down the factory door, charging into the building.
"Target was last seen on the roof, go go go!" As they reached the second floor, a blade emerged from the ceiling, stabbing downwards and striking the shoulder of Larir, his shout of agony nearly making his fellows hesitate as they continued to move upwards, with Togriss blasting his shotgun above him in the hopes of preventing another attack.
They saw a door on the third floor, and their HUDs informed them that that area was directly above where they had been ambushed. Togriss leaned his shoulder in and slammed against the door in his armored bulk, breaking the door. Inside they saw- A girl, but Togriss was more concerned with the small black orb that she held in her hands. His instincts screamed grenade as he charged forward, ignoring the hand that was trying to pull him back-
****
One minute ago Erin huddled in the corner, looking at her rapidly darkening Soul Gem, and silently thanked Kyuubey for the fact that her body felt pain only in a dull sense.
You're welcome. From a window, there stared two red eyes.
Kyuubey, can you- she wants to ask him to come up with some way for her to escape, but she's hurt. Hurt from the battle with the Witch (who had managed to escape), hurt from shot to the elbow, and-
- The chopper fell, screaming, the flames engulfed the building-
She shuddered. She hadn't meant to pick a fight, but when that vehicle showed up, she had just, panicked. She threw the sword based on pure instinct, instinct that had been born from years of fighting within labyrinths, not... well, not the on the outside, not where it could have hurt someone.
She had wanted to rest, to run, but they were following her, and she could hear the roaring of the flames below, and the scream of pain from the alien she had impaled below sounded so human, she… She couldn't run. She wasn't well enough to run.
I tracked down your parents. Kyuubey interrupted her thoughts. Ah? How are they?
They would never even know, never even understand-
They were killed yesterday. It tilted its head at her.
Wha- what?
As it turns out, someone else attempted to fight against the invaders using more conventional weapons, and most eezo based weapons have remarkable penetrative abilities. Several buildings were pierced through and the stray shots ended the lives of your parents.
No… When she had fought back, she had never even though about collateral, never even-
The flames were approaching, she could hear the screams, she couldn't do anything, couldn't rip out the IV and move-
Her gaze fell to the window, lingering at the flickering orange light. The door slammed open, and she saw one of the Turians charging in, his taloned arm outstretched, her Soul Gem was somehow in her hand and it shifted to black-
*****
Comments and critique are welcome.
Haunting at Shanxi Redux (Puella Magi Madoka Magica/Mass Effect)
It is thoroughly edited.
To those of you who hadn't seen the SB thread:
Just so everyone knows, this isn't intended to be a stomp fic, it's a horror story with both turian and human protagonists. I include this disclaimer because it's a story centered around Shanxi.
To those of you who read the original:
Currently this is just a repost with a few revisions, but this version of the thread will eventually include:
An index
An actual ending
And, potentially, a sequel (I already have a few ideas, but I'll need to figure out if they can actually be hammered into a plot)
Also, I should note that I have spent a fair chunk of time revising where I want the plot to go, so pre-rewrite information might no longer be reliable.
I'll be including the next chapters as I finish editing them, and should be providing new content by Saturday, and the index will include a clear separation between the revised chapters and the new ones.
~~~
Civilian Camp D14, Shanxi
Erin sat in "her" room, resting on the bunks, feeling rather bored. There wasn't really all that much to do, honestly.
She wasn't even sure what to think of her… was captors even the right word? Captors seemed more the sort of word that was used when talking about kidnappers, not whatever these aliens were.
She had never really thought about aliens. Oh, when she was younger, before she had contracted, she had thought the idea of the mass relays and the technology taken from a dead civilization was pretty interesting, but well, by this point, she didn't quite have the fascination that her parents seemed to have with the idea.
Aliens existed.
They're all dead now.
Get over it.
And now, well, the aliens were here.
It had started about a week ago, when a research team sent through the relay had failed to report back. Even then, she had focused on her "job" to the point that it barely registered, until the announcement came that they were all to report to the bunkers blared over the loudspeakers.
She had been at school, and so she found herself being herded into the emergency bunkers that had been specifically built under the school. She couldn't help but be a bit annoyed at how nervous everyone else was as they were herded into the bunkers. Some part of her knew that she was being unfair, but she could smell the fear of her classmates.
She wasn't sure if that was normal, or just another of the perks of being a Puella Magi that Kyuubey had forgotten to mention, but she found herself drifting away from the televisions and loudspeakers just to get away from it all.
Still, her ears were sharp enough to pick up the bits and pieces, "invasion", "garrison", and other such things, which were… worrying.. It hadn't taken long for the bunkers to be forced open, and for the aliens to enter. They began to grab people and herd them outside of the bunker, and only bothering to put restraints on the teachers who attempted to resist.
They had eventually been brought outside of the city, where a great collection of prefab buildings had been placed on the fields. They had all been left in the buildings there, with the aliens setting up fences and walls outside of the encampment, and they left the captured humans to their own devices.
They had actually been left in somewhat comfortable conditions, they were given bunks that weren't too hard or too soft, and the food wasn't too terrible, even if they had all been crowded into very large rooms. Erin… wasn't really sure what to think situation. She knew that she was being calmer than just about everyone else there, even the teachers, with her fellow classmates being particularly… annoying in their speculation. She supposed that it didn't really help that the 4th grade class had covered Nazi Germany just last month in their history classes, and now they had found themselves being rounded up and shoved into camps, and so they had made the… obvious, conclusions. Which lead to the unease spreading from the younger children.
Well, those who hadn't just assumed that the aliens were trying to eat them or something.
She avoided the conversations of her fellow classmates, and found herself wishing that she knew where her parents were. She hadn't really been able to relate to her fellow classmates for… years now, she supposed. Ever since she had first contracted.
While she was just as unable to talk to her parents about being a magical girl as she was with her fellow classmates, at least she could talk to them about some things without finding herself getting annoyed at them being… stupid. The way that they talked to her after having learned that she had been held back from graduating (for medical reasons) didn't help. There were apparently other magical girls on the planet, but not only was she the oldest (at just past seventeen!), but, well, she was the only one who lived in this city.
She had never met another magical girl in her life, though Kyuubey had occasionally offered to put her in contact with others, but she had refused.
Really, she could handle the city on her own, and Kyuubey had even warned her that a lot of magical girl friendships tended to dissolve into rivalries over who got the Grief Seeds, so it was probably for the best that she was the only magical girl in town.
Kyuubey was normally right about those sorts of things. I'm sorry that it took me so long to track where you had gone. A childlike voice spoke into her ear.
Erin's eyes shot around the room until she spotted the "speaker". Kyuubey! You little fluffball, I was getting worried about you!
That was hardly necessary. You know that I am invisible to the eyes of most people. Regardless, the catlike creature leapt up to her bunk and sat in her lap, where she began stroking it between the ears. Yes, the bunks were public, but everyone else was too distracted with their own conversations to notice her stroking the air above her lap, and, frankly, if anyone was going look at her in a funny way during her reunion with the one person on the planet that could actually understand her, well, she didn't really give a damn what they thought.
Erin scratched at her head awkwardly. Ah, well, I heard something about a few explosions, so I thought that maybe a few of them had gotten lucky or something. Besides, I wasn't sure about your ability to hide from... aliens.
Kyuubey glanced up at her from her lap as it projected its thoughts again. The Turians are just as unable to perceive me as humans are, unless I want to be seen.
Erin frowned for a moment. Turians?
That is the term that the invaders refer to themselves by, yes.
You, you know what they're called? A hint of anger and suspicion managing to sneak its way into her mental voice as she asked the question.
While we have little reason to speak with them frequently, we are mutually aware of each others existence. It paused for a moment, before seemingly realizing just what she was angry about.
We were looking towards your imminent first formal contact with interest, though this particular scenario failed to fall within expected parameters. The aggressiveness of their fleet was unanticipated.
She frowned at the thing in her lap. So, you hadn't thought they were going to invade? But why didn't you tell us that they existed? Or... done something?
It tilted its head at her. Their motivations for invading this planet are currently unknown, and we are pursuing our own channels in an attempt to understand what cause they have for invading the planet, and hopefully we would be able to mediate any conflict between your species without further bloodshed. Somehow its mental voice became mildly disapproving. I actually had, I had brought up the existence of other species beforehand, when I mentioned that humanity would find itself in a greater galactic community eventually. Had you not been paying attention?
Her face flushed, she quickly projected. Ah, no, that lecture just, slipped my mind. She forced her hands to continue rubbing the doll on her lap, and avoided scratching the back of her neck.
Honestly, she spent a lot of time talking to Kyuubey, especially during any physics classes where, for some sort of magical familiar creature, Kyuubey seemed to have an almost intimate understanding of the concepts being discussed. When she convinced him to talk about the subject with her during class, well, her grades in physics were higher than in any other subject, up to the point where the possibility of scholarships had been raised (She had a bit of trouble in history, since her teacher seemed to think she was trying to be a delinquent or something after she had absentmindedly mentioned Joan de' Arc having been a magical girl).
He mentioned so many things to her, many of which just slipped past her head, and she sometimes just… ignored him. Still, Kyuubey was a good sport about it. So, you plan on talking to these aliens about having invaded the planet?
Yes. She couldn't quite help but get that the Incubator was perfectly aware that she was changing the subject. Or maybe she was just imagining that. Kyuubey was weird, sometimes. With luck, we will be able to avert further conflict before the fleet from Earth arrives.
Erin quickly sat up straighter. Wait, the fleet's coming?
The Incubator tilted its head up at her. Of course. Earth already knows that the research fleet disappeared, and after Shanxi went dark, they knew that they had little choice but to mobilize their forces. Considering the distances involved and the somewhat unorganized nature of the alliance, we currently estimate that the arrival of the fleet will take little over a week.
Erin gave a soft grin. That's good to hear. But… A small flick of her palm that almost appeared to be an act of sleight of hand had her Soul Gem appear in it.
The Incubator leaned in close enough to examine it. Hm. It doesn't appear as if your Soul Gem is clean enough to survive for that long without being cleansed with a Grief Seed. Not only that, but you've failed to establish a stockpile for times such as these, Erin mentally scoffed at that, he always told her to be more careful, but she could hardly be expected to, well, expect aliens, could she?
Kyuubey continued. and as such, it appears that you will have to go on a witch hunt soon.
Erin winced. Do you think these… Turians, do you think they'd let me just… wander off on my own for a while?
That is unlikely. Sometimes, Erin found Kyuubey's tendency answer questions that she had meant to be rhetorical to be cute. This was not one of those times.
However, we do believe that it should be well within your capabilities to escape captivity using your abilities.
But, they have patrols outside, and cameras… It had occurred to her, actually. Just garb up, slice her way through the wall, and make her way free. But, what would she actually do if she got out. Head back to her home, grab her a handheld and hope it had enough charge, and just hang out until the fleet arrived? It was an option, but...
As they are unable to see me, it should be well within my abilities to get you through a window in their patrol routes.
Hah! She grinned, and scooped up the Incubator in her arms. You're the best!
*****
With Kyuubey's help, it was actually pretty easy to sneak away. Find a place to transform just outside of the cameras, and then move whenever he told her to, and she soon found herself on the outskirts of the city.
While it was one of the largest settlements on the planet, looking at old pics of New York, she couldn't really help but feel that the massive number of quickly assembled buildings weren't really deserving of the title of city. Only the industrial structures topped three stories, and most of the rest were just rather samey houses.
Pulling out her soul gem, she grinned. Looks like we found us a witch right off the bat.
On her shoulder, Kyuubey replied. It is hardly surprising. After the stresses of the invasion, witch activity has substantially increased. You might even be able to acquire several Grief Seeds during one night.
Nah, I don't want to get too greedy. One should last me enough Besides, who knows how good a watch they keep on their prisoners? Better to just do this one hunt and get back quickly. She hesitated for a moment, her thoughts darting towards a different subject. While I'm gone, would you, would you mind tracking down my parents? I didn't see them in the camp we were sent to, but I think that there were several camps around the city. Could you... mind checking those to see if they're okay?
The Incubator nodded. It's no trouble. Are you sure that you will not need my assistance?
Ah, don't worry about me. I have more combat experience than the entire planetary garrison put together. I'll be fine.
Kyuubey nodded in acknowledgement, and ran off into the night. Very well. *****
"It's just, look at these buildings. Do any of them look older than a few decades?" The Turian Hierarchy's military was one of the most disciplined fighting forces known to galaxy.
Sarasi glanced back at the turian who'd just spoken. "Yes, Larir, we see that, but it might not mean anything. We know nothing about this species. For all we know, they have a proud cultural tradition of going after anything older than a century old with sledgehammers, just so that they could be in a state of constant urban renewal. I imagine that it gives them a pretty healthy economy, actually."
It should be noted that this discipline was more in a strategic sense, and random patrols, particularly when in the "comfort" of a Turian APC (built with speed and durability in mind, to survive a fight just long enough to get to a safe place to dump its cargo, with rather less thought given to amenities), tended to be almost as prone to random chatter as the various other species. Especially since the few holdouts resisting the Turian forces seemed to be in an entirely different hemisphere. There had been a firefight yesterday, but none of those riding in this particular vehicle had even been within five miles of that engagement.
Larir continued speaking. "Right, you laugh now, but this has to be a new colony. There's no way that this was their homeworld."
"You know what, you're right. You should go report this higher up in the command chain. I hear the admiral has a little box just outside his door, and a little slot to stick paper in just waiting for intrepid soldiers to report their latest findings. It's labeled "The Incredibly Fucking Obvious," and it sounds like just the sort of place where you should stick it."
Larir frowned. "Right, I know it seems obvious, but if this is just a colony, then they probably have a larger fleet getting ready to hit back."
Sarasi sighed. "Then that's something for the fleets to worry about, though I can't expect that they'd need to worry much. These native's shield technology is so primitive they only took one or two shots to break, and they're so fresh into space it wouldn't surprise me if this was their very first colony. I really doubt that they have a whole fleet of ships off by their homeworld or something."
Olihiek spoke up from the back of the vehicle. "Besides, from what my buddies up there told me", he tapped his knuckles on the roof of vehicle, "their fleet didn't stand a chance once our fleet started firing at them. They're barely at the eezo stage of development, and I doubt that whatever ships they have back at the homeworld are much better."
Larir frowned. "Still, I don't like it. Why wasn't this-"
"Be advised, Sergeant Togriss, we have picked up a heat signature in your area. It looks like one of the natives. We picked up no traces of eezo, but not all of the local weaponry was eezo based, so keep your eyes open. We are updating your HUD with its last known location."
Sergent Togriss tapped the side of his helmet. "Confirmed command, will investigate, over and out." He glanced at his men, "Cut the chatter, this little patrol now has an actual objective, we are searching for a possible hostile, but more likely it's just some civilian who escaped the initial sweeps."
Sarasi shrugged. "At least it's something."
All present began checking their weapons and their equipment. They had all checked it before they went on this mission, and it wasn't likely that they would actually need to use any of their kit, but certain things were just done, and it was better than twiddling their talons while the vehicle covered the four kilometers to their objective.
As they approached, Larir, who had been seated at the sensors, announced"Alright, I'm picking up a heat signature, hm, it's moving pretty quickly for a person, but that's what it's reading as."
Sergent Togriss nodded over to Sarasi, "Head them off and we'll get out and see if we can't convince whoever it is to come along peacefully." This would be easier if they had working translators, but at this point, the tech boys were still trying to write up programs for translating from Turian-to-Prothean-to-Unknown. Besides, there were few messages that pointed gestures, handmovements, and occasional application of the shock prods couldn't communicate, although he hoped that that last one could be avoided for now.
Larir glanced at one of the screens that he had available. "Ah, it sees us. It's… damn, whoever it is out there is quick; she just jumped on top of that building. Get us up there and let's see if we can't get her to surrender, but moving like that, it's probably not a civilian."
Sarasi triggered the jump jets on the APC, and the machine leapt up into the air, the eezo in the engine temporarily lightening the vehicle to the point where it could launch itself from the ground to the roof (as well as, incidentally, keeping it light enough during landing so as to not collapse the roof from its jets). As they began to descend Larir shouted
"-heat spike, jink jink!" Sarasi tried to maneuver the APC away, but by choice or by design, the attack came just after the apex of the jump, when maneuverability was lowest. He saw a flash of red and grey strike towards the window, he instinctively held his arm up to block it, and-
*****
Larir groaned as he stood up from the flaming mess that was once their ride, and glanced about him. The front of the vehicle had a massive gash in it, with the edges appearing to have… melted.
Glancing at his helmet, he saw that the rest of his squad still had positive life signs but- "Command, this is Private Larir, my squad was ambushed, we have" he winced as he looked at Sarasi's arm, several feet from his body, "-one casualty, but the rest of us should be ready to continue pursuit soon. Target has fled the area."
That felt, sloppy, but then, he had hit his head during the… landing. "We are sending a gunship to provide overwatch and another APC to pick up the wounded. In the meantime, provide us with a sitrep."
He groaned and grabbed his head. "We pursued the unknown to a rooftop, unknown is not civilian, I repeat, not civilian, they possessed some sort of," at this point, he had the urge to try and make something up, to call whatever it had been some unknown energy weapon or something, but his training had been too thorough for that- always report exactly what you see, leave the speculation to command- "it looked to be a giant flaming sword, command."
A moment's silence on the other end. "Repeat that last part, private." "It looked to be a giant flaming sword. Heat signature was white on the infa-red. Whatever it was, it cut right through our kinetic barriers like they weren't even there. Our APC is… non salvageable."
"… we'll check your suit's telemetry once you get back. Hold your position until your squad is back on their feet." And his reward for his honesty was… skepticism.
"Ah, what's the situation?" And Togriss was conscious now. "They're sending over a gunship to hunt down the insurgent, and an APC to pick us up."
"Hmph." He stood up and surveyed the area. "Keep an eye out in case our unknown decides to come around to finish us off. For all we know, their being so visible on the heat spectrum was just bait for a trap."
They heard a groan from the side, and Sarasi tried to get up. "Urgh, Sergent, I can't seem to get up, could one of you give me a hand?" He was trying to lift himself up with one arm, his stump waving ineffectually. It took a moment for him to glance to his side. "-oh. And I just said- heh." He paused.
"Hey, Sarge, do you know if this suit's medical suite comes with painkillers, because I can't feel anything, and I can't tell if it's shock or drugs." Togriss knelt by him, reaching into the pouch on his side and began to tie a tourniquet to the wound, "It's probably a bit of both, now stop moving and try to stay awake."
Olihiek spoke up, surprising all present with his consciousness. "I see a heat signature over in that factory complex over there. It looks like our target might be resting."
Togriss thought to himself for a moment. "It'll take a few minutes for the gunship to get here, and by then they could have escaped to whatever hidey hole they managed to use to avoid us in the first sweeps. Sarasi can hold his position, the rest of us are going to approach the building and wait for the gunship to arrive. I don't want to let this unknown get away. Move out, Olihiek, you got point. Sarasi, contact us if your helmet picks up anything new."
The three of them moved out, leaving behind their wounded for the medics to pick up. They moved cautiously, but apparently, whoever it was in that building wasn't keeping an eye out for followers, as they detected no signs that they had been spotted, and the target appeared to be content to wait in the building. They reached the roof of structure just three buildings away.
"If there's any movement, our sensors should pick it up." Togriss spoke to his squad. "We're waiting here for the gunship." They… waited. They wanted to keep radio communications to a minimum, which meant helmet communication was out, and they wanted to minimize noise, which meant that simply talking to each other was not an option.
They might have checked their weapons a bit more thoroughly than the situation warranted, even if their vehicle had been destroyed with them in it, but if his squad checking their weapons meant that they weren't focusing on the fact that their assailant could realize their presence at any moment and shoot another… whatever the hell that thing was… at them, Togriss wasn't going to object.
Olihiek glanced into his armband. "Just received a narrow band text transmission, looks like another patrol has already picked up Sarasi, and their medic is saying that he's going to be alright." Some of the tension bled from the squad. "Our gunship's ETA is about, now, looks like." From the clouds emerged a single ship, its searchlights dancing around the building. "Any idea why it's making its presence so obvious?" Laril asked. "I think… the pilot's trying to bait whoever it is into triggering an ambush."
Togriss watched the ship. "It's flying low, but not lot enough that it wouldn't have time to launch flares and dodge." Olihiek pulled out his rifle, using the scope to search the building. "I see movement inside, it's heading towards the side of the building that our air support is on. Flagging and transmitting."
Inside the gunship, the pilot flagged his acknowledgement of the new information that had been sent to him, moving his gunship slightly away from the building and orienting the nose towards the spot where Olihiek had spotted the target. "I still don't have a clear shot at the target, and Command would probably still prefer it if we were to take the unknown assailant and weapon in for analysis, so I can't just shoot through the wall, wait, there's bit of heat moving up the stairs, it looks like the target is heading towards the roof."
"Alright, I have a clear shot at the roof exit, see if you can keep on luring him out until they're in my field of fire."
"Will do." He watched the door from his perch, just waiting for it to creep open and give him a clear shot- The door ripped open, and someone darted through it, a single sweep of her arm launching a curved blade out towards the helicopter. The pilot tried to maneuver out of the way, but the blade curved in midair, igniting itself in brilliant flames, and in the heat of the moment, Olihiek noted that there was steam coming up from where the rain fell to the blade.
"Launching flares and- the missile is ignoring the flares, I repeat, it is ignoring the flares, dodging dodging" the blade kept to its target, and the gunship was sliced in half as the sword ascended to its target.
Olihiek, cursing his brief lack of discipline in tracking the weapon rather than the shooter, turned his scope lower, sighting- He paused, hesitating, as he looked at the shooter's eyes as she, and it was a she, he could see that now, watched the descent of the vehicle in… horror? As it crashed down in flames into some of the buildings, he saw the face of Nalian, his blueskinned little asari niece.
Shaking off the mental image, he looked into the scope, and the target was moving (so damned fast) he shifted aim, pulled, and was rewarded with a burst of blood coming from the unknown's shoulder. "Target is wounded, pursue!"
Came the voice of Togriss, snapping him from his surprise. The three leapt from the roof, their suits helping to reduce the impact from the fall, and rushed to the building, hoping speed would get them past the unknown weapon. They burst down the factory door, charging into the building.
"Target was last seen on the roof, go go go!" As they reached the second floor, a blade emerged from the ceiling, stabbing downwards and striking the shoulder of Larir, his shout of agony nearly making his fellows hesitate as they continued to move upwards, with Togriss blasting his shotgun above him in the hopes of preventing another attack.
They saw a door on the third floor, and their HUDs informed them that that area was directly above where they had been ambushed. Togriss leaned his shoulder in and slammed against the door in his armored bulk, breaking the door. Inside they saw- A girl, but Togriss was more concerned with the small black orb that she held in her hands. His instincts screamed grenade as he charged forward, ignoring the hand that was trying to pull him back-
****
One minute ago Erin huddled in the corner, looking at her rapidly darkening Soul Gem, and silently thanked Kyuubey for the fact that her body felt pain only in a dull sense.
You're welcome. From a window, there stared two red eyes.
Kyuubey, can you- she wants to ask him to come up with some way for her to escape, but she's hurt. Hurt from the battle with the Witch (who had managed to escape), hurt from shot to the elbow, and-
- The chopper fell, screaming, the flames engulfed the building-
She shuddered. She hadn't meant to pick a fight, but when that vehicle showed up, she had just, panicked. She threw the sword based on pure instinct, instinct that had been born from years of fighting within labyrinths, not... well, not the on the outside, not where it could have hurt someone.
She had wanted to rest, to run, but they were following her, and she could hear the roaring of the flames below, and the scream of pain from the alien she had impaled below sounded so human, she… She couldn't run. She wasn't well enough to run.
I tracked down your parents. Kyuubey interrupted her thoughts. Ah? How are they?
They would never even know, never even understand-
They were killed yesterday. It tilted its head at her.
Wha- what?
As it turns out, someone else attempted to fight against the invaders using more conventional weapons, and most eezo based weapons have remarkable penetrative abilities. Several buildings were pierced through and the stray shots ended the lives of your parents.
No… When she had fought back, she had never even though about collateral, never even-
The flames were approaching, she could hear the screams, she couldn't do anything, couldn't rip out the IV and move-
Her gaze fell to the window, lingering at the flickering orange light. The door slammed open, and she saw one of the Turians charging in, his taloned arm outstretched, her Soul Gem was somehow in her hand and it shifted to black-
*****
Comments and critique are welcome.
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The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
So I suppose Coobs decided to cut his losses and at least get a new witch out of her before the Turians scragged her?
On a setting note, given what the Reapers are made from, I'm surprised the Incubators haven't cracked them open to feast on all that delicious despair.
On a setting note, given what the Reapers are made from, I'm surprised the Incubators haven't cracked them open to feast on all that delicious despair.
Oh now this is interesting. Consider me hooked.
Maybe they don't know about the Reapers. Or worse, maybe they work for them.
Maybe they don't know about the Reapers. Or worse, maybe they work for them.
Nanao-kun
Klaxosaur Princess
- Location
- EST
Or maybe the Reapers work for them. Would kinda make sense, seeing as the sheer amount of despair and desperate wishes produced could make up for the genocide of the galaxies races.
- Location
- Ekaterinburg, Russia
Very possible. Also, it's possible Reapers are like a method of hoarding that despair of species death. Basically, Reapers exist to all be consumed one day so that universe can be changed when Incubators as a whole make a Wish that prevents End of the Universe, forever. Possibly by igniting the Galaxy Cauldron (BSSM manga reference).
EDIT!!!
Wait! Oh shi... The Crucible! The effing Crucible! THIS is how they use Reapers to remake the Universe!!!
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SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Was Walpurgisnacht a kind of proto-reaper then- an experimental model made by jamming witches together instead of the normal method of combining members of a species?
Aerhyce
(ʘ‿ʘ✿)
- Location
- France
What, like the Human Reaper thingy that was made (halfway) by jamming countless humans together?
Nice to see you working on this again, I really enjoyed it when you threw it up on SB, way back when.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
What part of me saying it was made by jamming witches together made you think that was necessary to be pointed out again?
Gearhead
Who, me?
I'm pretty dim before my coffee finishes hitting my system in the morning?
Hey, just so everyone knows, I'll be ignoring a fair amount of the "Reaper" speculation, since:
I'm glad to be back with this this story (it was really annoying having ideas for it popping up in my head, and yet not being willing to write anything since I thought that Rebellion would reveal rather more about the Incubators than it ended up doing).
Anyway, for those of you wondering when the story is updating again...
How about now?
(I'll be double posting, mostly since I don't want to people reading from chapter to chapter at the index to need to read through answers to questions.)
This version has rather heavier alterations than the previous one, and was essentially almost entirely rewritten. For the better, I think.
- It's not too relevant to the current story.
- I've changed some of the background, and I think I'll be wanting to play things closer to my chest this time around, to keep the proper atmosphere.
Lots of good ideas here, including a couple future plot developments, and some of mine seem inadequate, so I'll be plotting further since I don't want to back myself into a corner my giving half thought out spur of the moment answers.
I'm glad to be back with this this story (it was really annoying having ideas for it popping up in my head, and yet not being willing to write anything since I thought that Rebellion would reveal rather more about the Incubators than it ended up doing).
Anyway, for those of you wondering when the story is updating again...
How about now?
(I'll be double posting, mostly since I don't want to people reading from chapter to chapter at the index to need to read through answers to questions.)
This version has rather heavier alterations than the previous one, and was essentially almost entirely rewritten. For the better, I think.
Civilian Camp D14: 12:36 PM, Three Days Later
Gahlan idly fidgeted in his armor.
Another day of standing out there in the sun, walking along the fence, watching over the natives for any suspicious activity (though, as a totally alien race, he wasn't sure what exactly constituted suspicious behavior), or breaking up fights. He didn't know why the people on this planet were so willing to fight each other when they were all imprisoned, and so he simply assumed that they did so just to give him something to do.
Or maybe he'd have another shift of showing pictures to the natives of prisoners in other camps, and trying to figure out if their alien facial expressions indicated that the pictured person was a family member or a close friend, so that their families could be properly reunited. Of course, since somehow this camp had a disproportionate number of kids, most of them looked downwards or to the sides instead of at the screens, or seemed to spend the entire time terrified.
He couldn't think of a better way to reunite families, but he was pretty sure that most of the older people that he had "interviewed" had assumed that he was trying to root out the identities of insurgents, and seemed to be trying to guard their facial expressions. Or they just sat there crying no matter how many pictures he put in front of their face.
He'd even tried to pat the shoulder of one of the younger ones, only for the little savage to try biting his arm. He would have been amused if it had gotten the brat sick due to the whole "dextro-levo" thing, but apparently that required actual ingestion, and he wasn't about to let his arm get gnawed off out of spite. Gahlan hoped that they could get a translator up and running soon. Maybe let all these people know that they could get to their houses and do whatever the hell it was that they used to before they were invaded as soon as their army stopped hiding in the cities so that the Turian military could properly finish disarming their military.
They weren't even sure what the species referred to themselves as, as the linguists pointing at themselves, various objects, and the natives themselves, seemed to get inconsistent results. Possible names for their species included Americans, Russians, Humans, Whatareyougoingtodotomes, and Japanese, depending on which "expert's" reports were taken seriously.
He couldn't help but to quietly sigh to himself as checked the time on his HUD. The shifts were getting longer and patrol schedules were getting tighter. Of course, everyone knew why.
They had lost a prisoner.
He wasn't sure when it happened, but one of their counts had failed to pick up the full two thousand and eight hundred and thirty six prisoners. Some thorough searching through video logs indicated only one person that had been in the camp that suddenly wasn't, and on what was apparently a whim, they showed the picture of that person to the only survivor of that fuck up in the industrial district, and it turns out that, yes, the escaped prisoner was apparently the same person as the one who shot down a gunship.
There were a variety of rumors as to just what the hell had happened, and it said something that the most plausible rumor that he'd heard involved the natives seeding their population with underage sleeper agent commandos who could move like an Asari matriarch, despite the species not previously demonstrating any real biotic capability.
He was... not as on edge as many of his compatriots, if he was being honest with himself. Despite the fact that whoever it was still remained at large, he still didn't feel that it was particularly likely for the camp itself to be attacked. It was the most heavily guarded camp for this particular native city, especially now that there had been an escape, and there was a more than fair chance that whoever the insurgent was, they had simply found a quiet corner to go die in.
A scattered conversation reached his ears, interrupting his musings, and he saw a group of the aliens looking around a corner at something, occasionally calling out. He paused, glancing at the crowd. While there was a building between whatever they were looking at and himself, they seemed more, confused than the vague resentment or the resignation that he'd grown used to.
Gahlan approached the crowd, and spoke. "All right, what are we all looking at?" It didn't matter what he said; according to the training. He just needed to maintain a calm and professional tone of voice, and to let them know that he here. The crowd of natives opened up, and he saw that they were all staring at a different set of natives.
He stood there for a moment, watching as the second group just watched the fence, seeming to stare out at the outside with blank expressions on their faces. He approached them, and, after clearing his throat, asked, "Alright, what are we all looking at?" One of the watchers glanced at him, no expression on their face, before gazing back at the fence.
Peaking over the shoulders of one of the children, he saw... absolutely nothing of note. He tapped the side of his helmet. "Sergent Sieiros?"
"Private Gahlan." Gahlen noted the small mark that indicated that it was his squad leader responding appear in his helmet.
"Sir, is anything happening to the West of the camp?"
"Not to my knowledge, why?"
Gahlan hesitated. "Some of the prisoners are acting suspiciously, and they're looking in that direction." The camp was to the West of the city, and it wasn't as if there were all that many other landmarks on this part of the planet.
"I'll ask Command to send a squad over to investigate."
"Requesting that you send a few more people to my location."
"Will do. Over."
Gahlan watched the group -a quick headcount put their numbers at thirty six- as they continued to stare at... not even the outside, judging by the direction of their heads. They were looking at the fence. "It's not going to get any less electrified if you keep on staring at it."
He frowned. Still no reaction. He moved to have his helmet contact the officers in charge of watching the generator, when, as one, the crowd reached out and grasped the fence, their bodies going into spasms nearly instantly.
Galhad charged to the one closest to him, who happened to be a large male, and tried to yank him away from the fence, his insulated armor protecting him from the shock. As he tugged, he realized that the native's hands had locked around the metal wires of the fence, and even with the exoskeleton of his suit, he couldn't force the man away. One of the natives rushed past him, and Galhad was on the verge of trying to force him back when the man grabbed at the convulsing person's hands and began trying to force them open.
The man looked back, and grabbed at Galhad's waist, grabbing a baton and slamming it into the fingers of the convulsing man. A cracking noise heard over the panicked yells of the people behind them indicated that the man's fingers had been broken, and with that they were finally able to wrench his body free from the fence. As they did so, the generator finally seemed to give, and the rest of the group stopped convulsing. They collapsed to their knees, hands still clenched to the wire.
He glanced at the one that they had pulled away, and reached down to rest a talon upon the native's throat.
No breathing, and a quick check the the wrist didn't indicate a pulse, either.
He leaned back, even as the man who had rushed forward tried pumping at the chest of one of the... victims? He continued as such, before giving up and collapsing.
What the hell had happened here?
****
Medical Tent: 9:56 PM, Later that Day
So far, there had been little need to actually use the medical facilities. There had been some wounded, but using what few universal healing procedures were available (try to keep fluids inside the body unless the hole looked like it was meant to leak) meant that most people had survived. Of course, that was during the first few days of the occupation, and now they had a few actual natives staffing the building. This had been done by finding the buildings that seemed to hold most of the medical supplies and equipment, taking pictures of the symbol that seemed to adorn most of them, and then showed that symbol to the natives until one of them responded positively.
There had been a few mild injuries, but even the relatively limited levo medical supplies it wasn't as though it was overly difficult for a turian doctor to set the broken bones even without a fine understanding of just how the natives bodies worked, and anything else the alien doctors seemed capable of handling it.
Dr. Ihlen had already requested that the local hospitals be raided for more levo medical supplies and supplies specifically designed to treat the natives own physiology.
All in all, the occupation had been handled with all of the professionalism that was to be expected from the turian military, such that even the language barriers were a relatively mild obstacle.
Of course, for now, the tent was empty save for turians and thirty six native bodies.
It was almost an intriguing medical mystery, the sort of thing that he might have been expected to resolve as a hypothetical in his xenobiology class, but any purely scientific curiosity was stymied by the dead gazes of the deceased.
He frowned, shaking his head. His use of language always did get more flowery on a poor night's sleep.
At this point, there was nothing to do but to contact the General with his findings.
He hit the transmit button, and began cleaning up the room while waiting for the General to respond.
It only took a few minutes before the voice of General Desano Aterius appeared on the screen. "Doctor. I was hoping for something more conclusive." Ihlen frowned. That was a... remarkably quick response, especially since the General seemed to have read the report. Either he'd been waiting for it, or he'd canceled whatever he'd been doing in order to read it.
"Sir, our findings were inconclusive, though we can provide you with some of the reasons why we weren't willing to make any certain declarations."
As the General nodded his permission, the Doctor continued. "From our findings, the symptoms look like heart failure caused by the electricity, but from what we've observed of previous escape attempts, at least some of those that died likely should have survived what had happened to them."
The general nodded. "Our engineers have taken a look at the generators in question, and it looks like they failed in exactly the right fashion to pump more electricity into the fence than our safeties would typically allow." His tone indicated what he thought of that particular "coincidence" but Ihlen figured that if he had more certain information, he would have stated his suspicions more directly. "Does that change anything?"
The doctor paused, taking that into consideration. "It doesn't. There was a uniformity in the way that they died that makes me believe that they were made more vulnerable to such a death. We've investigated the possibility of this vulnerability being the result of a vitamin deficiency caused by their current diets, but so far, we haven't found anything on that front, nor have our native consultants seemed to raise such an issue with us, though we'll try to find a way to ask them."
Aterius gave a puzzled noise. "And we've found no possible reason for this group to collectively kill themselves, but for the fact that they all shared the same building. Other than a few kids being dropped off with their families, they were all randomly assigned there." At this point, he was clearly talking to himself.
The doctor responded anyway. "We did find something, General, even if it is somewhat unclear." The doctor paused, before moving to one of the bodies. "This boy appeared to have a skin condition, of sorts. The wires that he touched left more of a lasting impression on him than they did the others. Not in terms of burning, but of the pressure that he put on them. His skin marked more clearly than most, and that's how we found this." He hit a switch, and a picture appeared on screen, just as visible to the General as it was to himself.
The camera of the picture was focused on the boy's neck, and there appeared to be an indentation, or some pressure being placed on a specific area. The general stared at it. "What am I looking at?"
"We hadn't noticed it at first, as we were focused on the internals more than the externals at first, but a few others appear to have similar marks, and according to Private Gahlan's helmet feed, even if it's minor, it appeared on the necks of each of the people killed in the exact same area, though they apparently faded on most of them postmortem."
The general frowned as he peered in closed. It was... slight, and almost invisible, but he could see it when it had been pointed out. "Can you tell me what it is?"
Ihlen frowned. "Cross referencing the various pictures, it appears to be a simple symbol, of some sort. We haven't discovered its meaning, and the prisoners don't seem particularly startled when presented with it, but we're working on it." A sketch appeared on the screen.
The general stared at it, before shaking his head. "I'll put out an order for soldiers to be on the watch for anything that looks like it, but unless you have anything further, I need to attend to other things."
"Very well, General." With that, the feed cut off, and the Doctor glanced back at the sketch, and stared at the stylized flame.
Gahlan idly fidgeted in his armor.
Another day of standing out there in the sun, walking along the fence, watching over the natives for any suspicious activity (though, as a totally alien race, he wasn't sure what exactly constituted suspicious behavior), or breaking up fights. He didn't know why the people on this planet were so willing to fight each other when they were all imprisoned, and so he simply assumed that they did so just to give him something to do.
Or maybe he'd have another shift of showing pictures to the natives of prisoners in other camps, and trying to figure out if their alien facial expressions indicated that the pictured person was a family member or a close friend, so that their families could be properly reunited. Of course, since somehow this camp had a disproportionate number of kids, most of them looked downwards or to the sides instead of at the screens, or seemed to spend the entire time terrified.
He couldn't think of a better way to reunite families, but he was pretty sure that most of the older people that he had "interviewed" had assumed that he was trying to root out the identities of insurgents, and seemed to be trying to guard their facial expressions. Or they just sat there crying no matter how many pictures he put in front of their face.
He'd even tried to pat the shoulder of one of the younger ones, only for the little savage to try biting his arm. He would have been amused if it had gotten the brat sick due to the whole "dextro-levo" thing, but apparently that required actual ingestion, and he wasn't about to let his arm get gnawed off out of spite. Gahlan hoped that they could get a translator up and running soon. Maybe let all these people know that they could get to their houses and do whatever the hell it was that they used to before they were invaded as soon as their army stopped hiding in the cities so that the Turian military could properly finish disarming their military.
They weren't even sure what the species referred to themselves as, as the linguists pointing at themselves, various objects, and the natives themselves, seemed to get inconsistent results. Possible names for their species included Americans, Russians, Humans, Whatareyougoingtodotomes, and Japanese, depending on which "expert's" reports were taken seriously.
He couldn't help but to quietly sigh to himself as checked the time on his HUD. The shifts were getting longer and patrol schedules were getting tighter. Of course, everyone knew why.
They had lost a prisoner.
He wasn't sure when it happened, but one of their counts had failed to pick up the full two thousand and eight hundred and thirty six prisoners. Some thorough searching through video logs indicated only one person that had been in the camp that suddenly wasn't, and on what was apparently a whim, they showed the picture of that person to the only survivor of that fuck up in the industrial district, and it turns out that, yes, the escaped prisoner was apparently the same person as the one who shot down a gunship.
There were a variety of rumors as to just what the hell had happened, and it said something that the most plausible rumor that he'd heard involved the natives seeding their population with underage sleeper agent commandos who could move like an Asari matriarch, despite the species not previously demonstrating any real biotic capability.
He was... not as on edge as many of his compatriots, if he was being honest with himself. Despite the fact that whoever it was still remained at large, he still didn't feel that it was particularly likely for the camp itself to be attacked. It was the most heavily guarded camp for this particular native city, especially now that there had been an escape, and there was a more than fair chance that whoever the insurgent was, they had simply found a quiet corner to go die in.
A scattered conversation reached his ears, interrupting his musings, and he saw a group of the aliens looking around a corner at something, occasionally calling out. He paused, glancing at the crowd. While there was a building between whatever they were looking at and himself, they seemed more, confused than the vague resentment or the resignation that he'd grown used to.
Gahlan approached the crowd, and spoke. "All right, what are we all looking at?" It didn't matter what he said; according to the training. He just needed to maintain a calm and professional tone of voice, and to let them know that he here. The crowd of natives opened up, and he saw that they were all staring at a different set of natives.
He stood there for a moment, watching as the second group just watched the fence, seeming to stare out at the outside with blank expressions on their faces. He approached them, and, after clearing his throat, asked, "Alright, what are we all looking at?" One of the watchers glanced at him, no expression on their face, before gazing back at the fence.
Peaking over the shoulders of one of the children, he saw... absolutely nothing of note. He tapped the side of his helmet. "Sergent Sieiros?"
"Private Gahlan." Gahlen noted the small mark that indicated that it was his squad leader responding appear in his helmet.
"Sir, is anything happening to the West of the camp?"
"Not to my knowledge, why?"
Gahlan hesitated. "Some of the prisoners are acting suspiciously, and they're looking in that direction." The camp was to the West of the city, and it wasn't as if there were all that many other landmarks on this part of the planet.
"I'll ask Command to send a squad over to investigate."
"Requesting that you send a few more people to my location."
"Will do. Over."
Gahlan watched the group -a quick headcount put their numbers at thirty six- as they continued to stare at... not even the outside, judging by the direction of their heads. They were looking at the fence. "It's not going to get any less electrified if you keep on staring at it."
He frowned. Still no reaction. He moved to have his helmet contact the officers in charge of watching the generator, when, as one, the crowd reached out and grasped the fence, their bodies going into spasms nearly instantly.
Galhad charged to the one closest to him, who happened to be a large male, and tried to yank him away from the fence, his insulated armor protecting him from the shock. As he tugged, he realized that the native's hands had locked around the metal wires of the fence, and even with the exoskeleton of his suit, he couldn't force the man away. One of the natives rushed past him, and Galhad was on the verge of trying to force him back when the man grabbed at the convulsing person's hands and began trying to force them open.
The man looked back, and grabbed at Galhad's waist, grabbing a baton and slamming it into the fingers of the convulsing man. A cracking noise heard over the panicked yells of the people behind them indicated that the man's fingers had been broken, and with that they were finally able to wrench his body free from the fence. As they did so, the generator finally seemed to give, and the rest of the group stopped convulsing. They collapsed to their knees, hands still clenched to the wire.
He glanced at the one that they had pulled away, and reached down to rest a talon upon the native's throat.
No breathing, and a quick check the the wrist didn't indicate a pulse, either.
He leaned back, even as the man who had rushed forward tried pumping at the chest of one of the... victims? He continued as such, before giving up and collapsing.
What the hell had happened here?
****
Medical Tent: 9:56 PM, Later that Day
So far, there had been little need to actually use the medical facilities. There had been some wounded, but using what few universal healing procedures were available (try to keep fluids inside the body unless the hole looked like it was meant to leak) meant that most people had survived. Of course, that was during the first few days of the occupation, and now they had a few actual natives staffing the building. This had been done by finding the buildings that seemed to hold most of the medical supplies and equipment, taking pictures of the symbol that seemed to adorn most of them, and then showed that symbol to the natives until one of them responded positively.
There had been a few mild injuries, but even the relatively limited levo medical supplies it wasn't as though it was overly difficult for a turian doctor to set the broken bones even without a fine understanding of just how the natives bodies worked, and anything else the alien doctors seemed capable of handling it.
Dr. Ihlen had already requested that the local hospitals be raided for more levo medical supplies and supplies specifically designed to treat the natives own physiology.
All in all, the occupation had been handled with all of the professionalism that was to be expected from the turian military, such that even the language barriers were a relatively mild obstacle.
Of course, for now, the tent was empty save for turians and thirty six native bodies.
It was almost an intriguing medical mystery, the sort of thing that he might have been expected to resolve as a hypothetical in his xenobiology class, but any purely scientific curiosity was stymied by the dead gazes of the deceased.
He frowned, shaking his head. His use of language always did get more flowery on a poor night's sleep.
At this point, there was nothing to do but to contact the General with his findings.
He hit the transmit button, and began cleaning up the room while waiting for the General to respond.
It only took a few minutes before the voice of General Desano Aterius appeared on the screen. "Doctor. I was hoping for something more conclusive." Ihlen frowned. That was a... remarkably quick response, especially since the General seemed to have read the report. Either he'd been waiting for it, or he'd canceled whatever he'd been doing in order to read it.
"Sir, our findings were inconclusive, though we can provide you with some of the reasons why we weren't willing to make any certain declarations."
As the General nodded his permission, the Doctor continued. "From our findings, the symptoms look like heart failure caused by the electricity, but from what we've observed of previous escape attempts, at least some of those that died likely should have survived what had happened to them."
The general nodded. "Our engineers have taken a look at the generators in question, and it looks like they failed in exactly the right fashion to pump more electricity into the fence than our safeties would typically allow." His tone indicated what he thought of that particular "coincidence" but Ihlen figured that if he had more certain information, he would have stated his suspicions more directly. "Does that change anything?"
The doctor paused, taking that into consideration. "It doesn't. There was a uniformity in the way that they died that makes me believe that they were made more vulnerable to such a death. We've investigated the possibility of this vulnerability being the result of a vitamin deficiency caused by their current diets, but so far, we haven't found anything on that front, nor have our native consultants seemed to raise such an issue with us, though we'll try to find a way to ask them."
Aterius gave a puzzled noise. "And we've found no possible reason for this group to collectively kill themselves, but for the fact that they all shared the same building. Other than a few kids being dropped off with their families, they were all randomly assigned there." At this point, he was clearly talking to himself.
The doctor responded anyway. "We did find something, General, even if it is somewhat unclear." The doctor paused, before moving to one of the bodies. "This boy appeared to have a skin condition, of sorts. The wires that he touched left more of a lasting impression on him than they did the others. Not in terms of burning, but of the pressure that he put on them. His skin marked more clearly than most, and that's how we found this." He hit a switch, and a picture appeared on screen, just as visible to the General as it was to himself.
The camera of the picture was focused on the boy's neck, and there appeared to be an indentation, or some pressure being placed on a specific area. The general stared at it. "What am I looking at?"
"We hadn't noticed it at first, as we were focused on the internals more than the externals at first, but a few others appear to have similar marks, and according to Private Gahlan's helmet feed, even if it's minor, it appeared on the necks of each of the people killed in the exact same area, though they apparently faded on most of them postmortem."
The general frowned as he peered in closed. It was... slight, and almost invisible, but he could see it when it had been pointed out. "Can you tell me what it is?"
Ihlen frowned. "Cross referencing the various pictures, it appears to be a simple symbol, of some sort. We haven't discovered its meaning, and the prisoners don't seem particularly startled when presented with it, but we're working on it." A sketch appeared on the screen.
The general stared at it, before shaking his head. "I'll put out an order for soldiers to be on the watch for anything that looks like it, but unless you have anything further, I need to attend to other things."
"Very well, General." With that, the feed cut off, and the Doctor glanced back at the sketch, and stared at the stylized flame.
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Here.
Designed to treat what?
His use
they failed in exactly the right (way?)
My head canon has always been that the witches' kisses were invisible except to those with potential. After all, witches are supposed to be responsible for many deaths on earth (like massive car pileups), and if such a marking were visible by normal people, we'd have more clues to their cause of death to be artificial. We should have seen literally thousands of such marks in earth's history.
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Huh. Witch's Kisses... and no magical girls to take them out. That's going to be fun.
So, I'm guessing that some of the Turian higher-ups know about the Incubators, but the rank and file ... welp.
Hm. Do any other species have magical potential? They certainly have emotions, so.
So, I'm guessing that some of the Turian higher-ups know about the Incubators, but the rank and file ... welp.
Hm. Do any other species have magical potential? They certainly have emotions, so.
Thanks, editing now.
I... tried to justify it, somewhat. It did take a number of remarkably specific circumstances for the Kiss to be visible (namely, a mild skin condition, as well as high enough resolution cameras and extremely suspicious method of death) to see what basically looks like the sort of red lines that one might see when they've put their weight on a specific section of the skin for a long time or if the blunt side of a needle was gently pushed against the body (for the way that the kisses looked when the victims were alive).
It's not nearly as visible to them as it would be to a Magical Girl's eyes.
There's... some potential, but essentially, there are a number of factors that I'll get into later as to why humanity is best suited towards the development of magic. (It's not an elaborate, conspiracy theory sort of deal, but humanity was the only species that was custom tailored to be the most efficient energy generators that they could invent).
The Asari are still... more of a Prothean project than an Incubator one.
Still...up to 350 years worth of potential contracting time seems like it'd be tempting to the Incubators.
I am betting the higher-ups don't know about them. Some random kids with rather decent potential on the other hand...
This would imply that witches' kisses _do_ appear in reality, as opposed to being metaphysical or magic. And note: all the bodies have the same mark, not just the kid, even if they're hard to see, in the exact same area. Our own forensics, including modern and futuristics ones, would have to be massively incompetent to have missed this for centuries.
It's up to you if you want to use that justification, but it feels like you've handed humans a ginormous idiot ball.
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Well, it all has to do with the way that Karmic weight is measured. (This is all pulled from my ass, but I feel that it does justify a number of the Incubator's actions in canon, feel free to spot any errors in my judgement).
This is the sort of thing that I'd probably include in a Codex entry anyway, so:
Let's say you want to pick up a rock.
In scenario 1, you pick up the rock on your own. All responsibility for the picking up of said rock lies with you.
In scenario 2, you engineer a robot that will walk up to the rock, and lift it up. It is not capable of conceiving any option but the lifting of the rock. There is but one choice before it, and that involves the lifting of the rock. The robot wouldn't be considered responsible for its action, and thus all karmic weight for the lifting of the rock lies with the person who designed the robot.
In scenario 3, you pay a guy to pick up the rock. He had a choice as to whether or not to pick up the rock, and he had his own reasons. However, you put a clear and present pressure on him to lift the rock. Therefore, as there is a finite amount of responsibility that one can have for the lifting of the rock, that responsibility is split between you and the person that you payed. (yes, that isn't how ethics really works, but for the purposes of this analogy, I ask that you accept that premise.)
In scenario 4, someone else, entirely of their own volition and in consideration of everything in their life that lead up to this one moment, lifts the rock of their own free will.
Scenario 1 is the least efficient from an energy harvesting standpoint, scenario four the most.
Now, the Asari might be somewhere between 3 and 4 when it comes to how much responsibility they had for their actions, in terms of karmic weight. The Protheans engineered them for a specific purpose, and they thus had a strong inclination towards achieving that purpose. Much of the way that they exist was designed by the Protheans. Their biology was engineered by the Protheans, they had instincts thought out by the Protheans, and generally, they might be considered the children of the Protheans, from a karmic point of view. Part of their actions will always be based on what the Protheans did.
Now, that faded, somewhat, after the Protheans died out, but the Asari will always have that shadow that will reduce their karmic weight, as some of the moral responsibility still goes to the Protheans for whatever they do. On an individual level they have free will, but as a species they will always be ever so slightly removed from responsibility, and that dramatically reduces the efficiency of the magical girl process.
The humans (as a species) are somewhere between 3 and 4 when it comes to moral responsibility, leaning towards 4.
The Incubators intervention in humanity's development tended to come at the request of humanity, and thus in a certain sense, all of the little girls are responsible for their own actions, and, as they're humans, humanity is responsible for its own fate (yes, age of majority, how responsible are they for their own actions at that age, but that doesn't matter too much to karmic weight, and the strength of their emotions can compensate for that).
They couldn't just stab a few apes with syringes and turn them into a sapient species, as that would make humanity like the Asari. So, they allowed humanity to develop on its own, nudging it with the consent of humanity, and so humans are by and large nearly entirely responsible for their own actions, while still being pushed into being the sort of people who are willing to lift that rock, and so far, all of the math seems to indicate that humans are an optimal balance of factors when it comes to being responsible for their own actions and still doing what the Incubators want them to do.
It's not quite as efficient per magical girl as scenario four, but it's about as close as you can get while still getting the number of magical girls that they produced.
Will respond to other things later; but I think I might cross post this into the PMMM idea thread and see what people have to say.
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
For the sake of being devil's advocate, it could also imply some things about what human government/police/military possibly may or may not know about Witches and Puella by this point. They could know things as well, it just hasn't had any chance to come up?
- Status