Civil War 8.11
Thursday, May 26
"Uhhhhhhhhh."
Much like trying to wake again after staying up for three days, the haze that surrounds your mind takes substantially more effort to pull yourself out of than it should. Cracking one eye open, you stare blearily at the ceiling before you realize what is so strange about having a solid sheet of metal above your head.
You don't recognize it, you can't think of any reason why it should be there, and most importantly, the last clear memory you have is being stabbed with a sword.
That thought cuts through the last of your stupor, and you sit up to discover three interesting facts. First, you do not have a hole in your chest, nor any evidence that such was ever the case. That's good, a good start to the day. Second, you are wearing your normal civilian clothes. Third, and not so good?
Perfect Storm is no longer hanging around your neck.
«Taylor. You're awake.»
Turning around, you find a raccoon crawling into your lap with a sigh. A sense of relief washes over you. You might have been beaten up and locked away in a cage, but your Guardian Beast is here with you. That is a good start to any escape plan. "Hey, Sam. You okay?"
«Well, we aren't dead, so things aren't as bad as they could be. Just don't expect me to be much help in a fight right now. Those Belkan guys pack a wallop, and I don't like getting shot with their version of Solar Wrath. Hurt more than I thought it would.»
The door slides open before you can even start to think of how to escape, and two people walk in. The first is a man with tousled hair and a five o'clock shadow, dressed in a rumpled military uniform. Nothing about him would be out of the ordinary were all his hair not purple. The second is a younger woman with red hair; unlike her counterpart, she clearly took time to make sure she looked professional.
You dislike both of them on sight.
The man gives you a casual wave and starts talking, though what he is saying you haven't a clue. You wait until he is done for long enough that his grin starts to fade before you say, "I don't know who the hell you are or what you want, but when we get out of here, and we will, we're going to make your lives a living hell."
Now the man's smile is gone completely, and he turns to look at his partner, who looks unhappy as well but also… confused? Why in the world would they be confused? You're the one who was ambushed and kidnapped. They have a brief conversation filled with incomprehensible speech as well as a displeased tone on the woman's part before the man conjures up a holographic screen and says something to the face on the other end of the line. That done, he leans against the wall and slides down it to sit on the floor across the room from you. The woman glares at him but does not say anything about it. Unhappily resigned is probably the best way to describe her expression.
«I recognize him now,» Samantha says out of the blue. «The clothes are so different it threw me for a moment. This is the axe-guy who was fighting us. The one who shot at us with that blue bombardment spell.»
«If he was trying to kill us, why is he sitting there without a care in the world?» you wonder.
«No idea.»
The door finally opens to reveal a man with the same face as the person on the screen, and he dangles an ocean-blue jewel from a silver chain. Your heart leaps in your chest before suspicion supplants your excitement. Why show you Perfect Storm? What do they plan to do to your Device?
Apparently, the man's plan is to take it from his subordinate and toss it to you.
Your fingers grip your Device tight as you try to figure out what his plan is. He's a mage. He knows what you're capable of working together with Perfect Storm, and that you are all but powerless without it. Why in the world would he willingly give it back to you? «Storm, are you all right? They didn't hurt you, did they?»
«All systems functional, Mistress. Binding to prevent deployment of Barrier Jacket and transformation to staff applied. No other tampering. Twenty minutes necessary to degrade binding.»
The man grins at you again and asks, "Can you understand me now?"
So that's why they gave back Perfect Storm. They can't get whatever they want, probably information, if you can't understand their questions and they can't understand your answers. In lieu of giving him what he wants, you demand, "Who are you? What do you want?"
"What do we want? That's an easy question with a complicated answer. Depends on how much you know already." He scratched his chin. "Who am I is easier. I'm Arton Erga, Enforcer for the TSAB. This is Teana Lanster, also an Enforcer."
"You're from the TSAB?" Somehow, you doubt that. Their behavior doesn't match up at all with what Admiral Tucson told you about them.
His gaze turns shrewd. "So you already know about the TSAB, huh? That narrows the possibilities down considerably. I'm starting to think we got off on the worst foot possible."
"And whose fault is that when you ambushed me, shot me, and stabbed me in the chest?" you spit out.
"Oh, definitely ours. We scuttled this one up good, 'specially if you are who I think you are." He shrugs, and you can't help but frown. An admission of guilt is not what you expected, though his blasé attitude does not make you any less unhappy about it. "Not much we can do about awful first impressions now, I'm afraid. You know my name, so what's yours?"
"Why should I answer your questions when you refuse to answer mine?"
"I answered one of them, if you think back, and I already said the other one is tricky. Tell me your name, and I'll give you your answer. I promise you that."
You are highly tempted to tell him just where he can shove his promise, but you bite your tongue at the last second. If they're lying about who they are, your name will mean nothing to them. If they are telling the truth… Well, you really don't know what you're going to do in that situation. "Taylor."
"Taylor. Found the Agharti and dialed up Enforcer Command Taylor?" You give him a sharp nod, and he sighs. "Was afraid you were gonna say that. Well, Taylor, I'm sorry we had to meet this way, and that, you know, we shot you outta the sky. Bad case of mistaken identity. Thought you were somebody else who we really couldn't go easy on."
"What did this other person do to deserve being ambushed and murdered in cold blood?" you snap.
Lanster is the one who answers you. "I don't know how much you know about what the Agharti was carrying, but the reason it was traveling through this section of the Dimensional Sea is that it was carrying a dangerous piece of ancient magical technology back to Midchilda. A Lost Logia."
You cross your arms. "I know. Admiral Tucson explained all that."
"Oh, you talked to the boss-man already. Good on you," Erga says.
"This particular Lost Logia," Lanster continues as though neither of you had interrupted her, "is called the Assimilation Engine." Your mind screeches to a halt at those two words. Did you just hear what you think you heard? "What it does that makes it so dangerous is that it forcibly converts any mage it comes in contact with into one of four types and programs them to be completely loyal to the world it came from. We've been searching this world and those nearby for you and the Lost Logia, and when we arrived on your world we tracked your mana use to where you were flying." After a moment, she shakes her head. "It was my fault. Your Barrier Jacket looks just like the one the bombardment-types wear, and when I saw you I assumed that anyone who looked like that had to be one of them. The chances that someone else would have that exact Barrier Jacket is tiny, but clearly not impossible. It doesn't help that you have skill with shooting magics and a Fire Mana Conversion Affinity. I'm sorry."
You open and close your mouth, unsure of exactly what to say. On the one hand, you really weren't expecting them to apologize, no matter how lackadaisical Erga's was. On the other, they still attacked you out of the blue without even trying to talk. No matter that their assumptions weren't completely wrong. While your mind wrestles with that dilemma, you hear your voice say, "It's called the Calamity Witch template, not bombardment-type. And the name of the Device is Immortal Assimilation Engine."
The two Enforcers slowly turn their heads to stare at you. "I'm going to regret asking this," says Erga, "but how do you know that?"
You look down at Samantha, who in turn has raised an eyebrow at you. You suppose that's only fair; it's your big mouth that threw this wrench into the works. A moment to think yields no worthwhile alternative. They already have enough information to work it out, so you might as well admit it. Slipping Perfect Storm's chain over your head, you raise the jewel. "Meet Perfect Storm, my Intelligent Device. Also known as Immortal Assimilation Engine."
"A Class-1 Lost Logia, and you're using it like a regular Device. Heh. Heh heh ha ha ha."
While her partner laughs the laugh of those drifting into insanity, Lanster puts her hand on her forehead. "Wonderful. Now I know how Admiral Harlaown felt at the end of the Final Book of Darkness Incident. This cannot be happening."
"On the plus side," Erga says once he gets his laughter under control, "this mission just got ten times easier. About twenty times more awkward, but easier all the same."
"Once you're done yucking it up, I'd like an explanation of why my having that template gives you the right to shoot me without provocation," you interrupt in an icy voice. After all, the end result is the same whether they knew you were the Taylor they were looking for or not. They still shot you, tried to kill you, all because of how you were dressed? And these are supposed to be the good guys?
Erga's humor vanishes, and Lanster glowers at you. "Do you know what happened the last time the Immortal Assimilation Engine activated?" You shake your head slowly. "It killed more than five hundred people, and the only reason it stopped was because it ran out of targets on the ships it was on to attack and convert. The ship I was on lost a third of our crew trying to reseal it. Official projections are that, activated and left on even a low-magic world like yours, given a month it would have converted five hundred thousand. Probably more. Each and every one of them transformed from human beings with their own hopes and dreams into brainwashed soldiers whose only goal is to conquer the Dimensional Sea in the name of a dead world most people have never even heard of."
"Belkan lies," buzzes Perfect Storm, the sound like a swarm of bees fluttering around your neck. "Galea could not fall. Attempt to subvert Mistress. Not trustworthy."
"Look, Perfect Storm, Immortal Assimilation Engine, whichever you want to be called," Erga says, and for the first time in this entire conversation there is no joking undertone. "It's not easy to hear that your world is dead. I know. I've been there myself. Worse for you, I'm sure; I at least knew growing up that Eltria was dying. But it ain't lies, sad as I am to say. Galea fell at the end of the Warring Ages, along with a bunch of other worlds when Belka made their final blitz. That was a thousand years ago now. There's nobody left. I'm sorry."
«Lies,» your Device whispers, voice tinged with desperation. You wrap your hand around it and give it the most comforting squeeze you can.
While you are trying to reassure Perfect Storm, Samantha lifts her head to stare at the Enforcers. «What happens to us now?»
"Good question. You mighta been adjusted by Immortal Assimilation Engine, but you still got your minds. You're not a danger to your world at large." He strokes his chin. "Don't really have a reason to keep you in the brig, I don't think. Can't punish somebody for what they might do."
"Maybe if you had kept that in mind before you shot me, we wouldn't be having this conversation." Despite your words, your voice does not have that much bite. Are you still angry? Of course. These people tried to kill you, even if it was not strictly you they were trying to kill. All the same, you are also more than a little confused by how forthcoming and apologetic they are for their actions.
Lanster sighed. "You have little reason to believe me, but I ask that you do. I was the Enforcer who finally shut down Immortal Assimilation Engine last time. I saw all its forces. The people who are converted – the other people who were converted before you came along," she amends, "they weren't people anymore. They had no individuality, no independent thought. They were nothing more than automata controlled by the Lost Logia that needed to be stopped by any means necessary before they could do any more damage. Much as it hurt to consider them as such, it was the only way to keep the rest of the crew safe."
The cold numbers she laid out earlier and her descriptions now combine make the hair on the back of your neck rise. Five hundred thousand brainwashed soldiers out inflicting destruction and death. That sounds like the Simurgh's attack on London, back when people were just starting to get a handle on how dangerous her Scream was.
They had treated you like a Ziz-bomb. Inherently dangerous, incapable of being negotiated with, and dead set on a course of destruction. They immediately moved to put you down, and much as you dislike being on the receiving end of that, part of you wonders how different their actions were from firing a lethal Solar Wrath at the escaped members of the Empire 88.
"Did telling yourself that make it easier to do what 'needed to be done'?" you ask.
"In the heat of the moment? Maybe a little." The smile she gives you is brittle and bitter. "When we returned home and I had a mental breakdown over killing who knows how many people, or when I had nightmares for the next month? Not really."
You stare at the young woman in shock and shame for a long moment before Erga clears his throat. "And on that note, let's get you home. But first." He taps the face of his digital watch. "Release binding seal, captured Intelligent Device 1."
"Seal release."
Ribbons of green light covered with script appear wrapped around Perfect Storm. The next instant, they shatter like glass. "Just like that?" you can't help but ask.
"Just like that." Rocking his torso back and forth, he hops to his feet. "Come on, I want Sambar to give the both of you a final check-up before you go. He healed up the hole in your chest Eos gave you, but he didn't have the mana after that to completely heal your familiar. We figured we'd let her rest first before we did anything else. Some familiars recover quick when they get a chance to sleep; others don't. He'll be rested up now and can finish the job without any problems."
You follow Erga down the hall and stare out the windows at the forest surrounding what you now realize must be their starship. It is morning out there, and while it is always possible that you are on a different part of this planet than Philadelphia is and that it is still night back home, you don't think your luck is that good. The TSAB did patch up the hole they put in your chest, and that had to have taken time. You've undoubtedly missed school for the morning, and in the week before finals, too. Still, all things considered, not the biggest issue you have at the moment.
"Where are we?" you finally ask.
"Don't rightly know the name of it. Don't think it has one since it's uninhabited. We came here expecting to find just your world, and instead there are fifteen of them all packed in together. You could probably see them all in one day without completely wearing yourself out. Don't find this many habitable worlds clustered together in one section of the Dimensional Sea that often."
Dimensional Sea, multiple worlds. Alexandria was right; they really are interdimensional travelers, not interstellar ones. So this must be a cousin to Earth Aleph and Earth Bet, then. Earth… Earth…
Okay, if you're going to go exploring and naming places, you should probably brush up on your Hebrew alphabet first.
A flick of Erga's hand causes two grey business card things to appear in midair, and he tosses the holograms back to you. "What are these?" you ask, peering at the nonsense characters typed on them.
"Coordinates for a dimensional transfer. First one is where we found you on your world. The other is here on this world in case you decide to swing by." He stops in the middle of the hall and turns around to face you, and you halt as well. "I meant what I said back there. Lanster, too. We made a huge mistake with you, and the Admiral's gonna have our hides for it, I bet. If we could go back and change what happened, we would. But we can't, so the best we can do is undo what we can.
"Anyway, not the point I'm trying to make. You've got a foothold in the wider Dimensional Sea now, Taylor. If you don't want anything more to do with us, that's your choice. You want to learn about it, though?" He spreads one arm wide, indicating the whole ship. "Come find us, and we'll tell you what you want to know. Door's open."
Bleghblub.
Not my favorite chapter; felt like I was trying to cover too many bases at once. Probably because it was written in the shadow of the brouhaha that followed 8.10.
We missed Tim's build vote earlier, didn't we? Let's correct that. Remember that he currently has 3 build slots to fill up. Inventory is on the first post. Take 24 hours to think things over.
And while you're discussing that, do you like planning out Tim's build schedule for the week? Do you think it's a waste of time? Is it just a means to an end and you'd prefer me to take over all the nitty gritty? Lemme know.
