- Location
- California
There is a reason we all reach for the tissues whenever Kona writes about dogs.
Metal Gear Solid V: Chronicles of Outer Heaven (MGS/Valkyria Chronicles)
- Thread starter konamikode
- Start date
- Sci-Fi Crossover Action Mature
Nix's Warden
Welcome to Hades
- Location
- United States
Huh. We're going to need that Refugee Tech sooner then I thought.
[ ] R&D 9: Refugee Integration Program (Refugee Tree)
Mission Difficulty: DC 25, 50,000 GMP
Research Time: 1 Turn
Reward: Begin a work program for refugees staying on Mother Base.
Mission Brief: Not all the people we pick up or come to us seeking safety are going to be fit for the mercenary life. We may be looking to build a nation of soldiers, but every nation needs a working population to support military power.
Refugees will automatically be placed in under the Contractor section of Diamond Dogs as part of a 'Working Party'.
Working parties do everything from custodial duties, cooking, and other small, but important tasks that keeps Mother Base operational.
Every 100 man strong Working Party will allow you to take a building action, but not have that action be slotted for however many turns it takes to build the building in question.
An initial action dice will still be used to start the process of building.
Upgrades available as Education is researched.
- Location
- Lowton
Today is the first day I have ever really understood why people like dogs. I have always been a cat person and both of mine are selfish gits but they are my selfish gits.
Last edited:
Nenshou Yuuki
I will fail you in every way
- Location
- London
As a fellow cat owner, yeah that describes them pretty well
Might of Outer Heaven: For a Better Tomorrow
konamikode
Cooking Harder
Might of Outer Heaven: … For a Better Tomorrow
Date: Unknown
Time: Unknown
Wasteland, Dite
POV: …?
The Fury
The Beast flailed as it was held against the mountainside, mechanically swiping it's arms against the burning giant that was equal to it in size.
Yet each blow dealt to the titan of fire only seemed to seamlessly pass through the raging fire, melting the scales covering the hungering machine until finally the accumulated damage caused it's melting arms to liquify and fall in great, steaming rivers splashing against the bubbling glass below.
And then, the giant of fire spoke, each syllable laced with purifying anger that blasted the skull shaped metal mask of the powerless god.
A god who could do nothing but quail against the Fury of the great spirit of Rage.
'Disgusting creature.'
'How many worlds have you consumed in your terrible hunger?'
Pillars of liquid fire rose from the crust of the dead world, melting the legs of the god who groaned in a long drone and attempted to escape.
Two hands of pure molten hatred lanced into the torso of the struggling machine, pinning it to the mountain that had already begun to whither from the sheer heat forcing the world around it to quail.
'The flames of my rage will incernate you.'
The fires spread, encompassing the totality of the monster until the half melted form began to thrash wildly with quickly regenerating limbs that had taken a silvery sheen. Arms resembling tentacles tipped with cannons erupted from its back and attempted to douse the spirit in liquid ice.
But even as the fire dimmed around the titan made of flames, the great spirit only pressed himself against the now roaring machine god with his dwindling fire.
'Yes.'
'That.'
'That is Fury.'
And so the fire titan was defeated, crumbling away into ash as the victorious dark god continued to spray coolant onto the hardening glass below.
But it's judgement was not yet over.
The Pain
The ear splitting buzzing of a numberless swarm came next.
From the split open earth did countless insects without cohesive form coalesce in the sky, spinning in great, terrible circles until the vague outline of a large, faceless man formed.
'Pain…'
The Beast nearly finished reforming from the damage done to it, looked up at its new enemy with glowing, anger filled eyes.
Where before it's movements were ponderous and slow, motivated only by need…
Now, there was something else behind the fusilade of munitions that created the storm of explosions currently ripping into the swarming giant.
Anger.
'You have caused it.'
'Now you will feel it.'
But the swarm is numberless, each chunk destroyed being immediately replaced by more until the giant that stood at half the god's size now dwarfed it fivefold.
And like a tsunami crashing into the coast, the body of the spirit made of biting, stinging, and ravenous insects fell upon the dark god in a wash of buzzing and chittering horror.
The hungering beast could do little more than stumble, fire, and swat at the tide no more effectively than a man pulled into a riptide.
It begins first with the sound of sparks.
The insects burrow deep into the body of the angered machine, biting, ripping, and tearing the delicate internal components beneath the armored shell of the behemoth.
Twitching, shuddering, and finally, falling, the hungering god can do little more than curl up as the systems that allow it to function are corroded, eaten, and rewritten by the numberless swarm so numerous that the machine had been covered completely within and without.
Then.
Then it screams.
'I am The Pain.'
The Lord of Dust begins to crackle and glow, shuddering as it overpowers it's own systems and causes both itself and the swarm to become consumed by jolting electricity, equally damaging and clearing its systems of the unwanted taint.
'Hurts. Doesn't it?'
Moments later, the chuckling voice of the insect spirit fades, the mass of burnt insects falling to the ground with the surviving colonies being frantically burned in the flames of newly created weapons that torches the ground in a field of fire once more.
The Fear
'I can taste it…'
The whisper begins, so close that the presence could be standing right next to you, but so far away that it may not even be there at all.
The machine reacts, smashing its fists in hurried hurricane around it while it's weapons fire erratically in every direction without purpose or necessity.
The childlike god looks around wildly, the glowing lenses of its formerly narrowed eyes lit the world in the bright white of searching illuminations.
'Feel it stirring…'
The large, disc shaped circles twirled this way and that in search of the ghostly voice and when that wasn't enough, thousands of similar vision modules began to open across every available space on its body.
The Beast had completely forgone any sort of armoring in favor of lighting up the world with countless eyes in search of the quarry it knew was there.
Out of sight.
Lurking.
Hunting.
'The Fear.'
The spirit of mischief echoed, his laugh bouncing around the canyons and plains that surrounded the destroyed battleground.
Still the frightened god searched, completely stopping it's attacks against the surrounding area as it impeded its vision.
Just as the spirit had wished.
The Lord of Dust had been left defenseless and without the shell that had protected it so far.
The Vengeance
'SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'
Like the hammer of Thor himself, a great, hateful being emerged from the roiling storm clouds above in a flash of lightning followed by a clap of thunder.
So powerful was the bolt that the explosion following immediately afterward was drowned out.
As well as the pained shriek of the machine god whose body had been messily melted through from shoulder to glowing foot.
It fell to the ground in a great, stumbling crush. Unable to stop its fall and blinded by the shock of blue white plasma that had split the main body of roughly two thirds its former mass.
Weakly, sluggishly the fallen titan attempted to begin regenerating, reaching with a sense of desperation towards the part of its body that had been split from it.
'HAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!'
A second bolt flew down from the sky, blowing apart the arm that had been reaching for it's forcibly torn metal flesh as the machine trembled from the unexpected impact.
Then, without warning, the optics of its eyes glowed a dark, hateful red as its back opened and formed into a focusing array.
It fired a dark, crimson beam of coruscating energy into the storm cloud above which was met by yet another flash and boom of replying thunder.
Then a second laser apparatus formed.
Then a third and a fourth.
Completely eschewing its regeneration, the hateful machine god used all of its resources on hand to create as many laser cannons it could and shot salvo after salvo of heavy plasma and pillars of discolored light into the sky.
The machine continued to fire long after the clouds had been vaporized before stopping suddenly and resting its face on the ground.
Sluggishly after a moment of long thought, the greatly damaged being began to transform its body back into its former configuration and reached out towards its still torn and unresponsive half to pull it back into itself.
And then the arm that had nearly finished regenerating fell dully to the earth lethargically, as if it lacked the power to do anything more than weakly twitch its fingers.
The End
'Yes. That's right. You want it to be over don't you?'
The elderly voice tutted, a veritable forest of moss springing up around the destroyed landscape and began to cover the downed, smoking form of the fallen god.
But weak as its struggles may have been, the beast still reached out to touch the part of its body that had been so violently ripped away. Like water running down a river, the torn piece of the Lord of Dust began to flow into the shuddering, smoke belching form of the machine god that seemed desperate to repair itself.
Only unlike before, what used to be a flood of machinery repairing itself at impossible speeds, the river of liquid metal instead turned into a trickle. A stream more than a river of dust barely cohesive enough to be called solid.
'The End is coming. As it does for all things.'
'Why fight it?'
Rather than stopping, the former trickle instead increases in activity and for a moment, the liquid metal being absorbed seems to move with a desperate, horrified will.
And then the repairs begin to slow, what had been fixed instead sloughing off in flakes of rusting metal.
The Sorrow
'Sad…'
The voice of untold billions moan into the air, coating everything in a thick layer of weight that drags at the dead world.
Impossibly, a river of shallow water bubbles up from the cracked and melted earth that flows towards the fallen god who is even now ineffectually attempting to repair itself.
Within the river float countless bodies, listlessly being taken by the current towards the Lord of Dust. And as the water begins to poll around the crater the dark god lies, millions of ghostly arms rise from the deepening water.
The many, pale blue limbs grab, tear, and scratch against the metal of the fallen machine, some forming into giant arms and hands made up of many, bodies.
All of them moaning and desiring nothing more than to drag the creature that murdered them down into the depths.
'So sad…'
The number of limbs wrapping around the Lord of Dust grow as the seconds pass. And with each hand scratching at dull metal, the still struggling dark god is pulled inch by inch into water that couldn't be more than several feet deep.
As if the beast was being pulled into the waters of Helheim itself.
"Sorrow."
And drown it does.
Unable to free the torn half of its destroyed body from the sea of dead it'd been sank beneath, the beast instead uses what remains of itself to form powerful rockets beneath it.
The Lord of Dust attempts to lift off, a bubbling, hissing ocean of mist below it as it uses all of the considerable thrust it can generate to fly into the sky.
The ghostly hands are unable to hold, ripped free from their purchase, the souls of the dead that make up the enlarged limbs become droplets of howling spirits that fade into the aether as other limbs ponderously reach into the sky to capture their quarry.
But the battered god has flown too high, a thousand feet off the ground as thrusters intermittently spark and jostles the now disc shaped giant unsteadily in the air.
Even after the moans of the dead fade and the sea of souls sinks back into the earth, the hungering god remains the air as it attempts to continue enough repairs to propel itself through the portal leading to a branch of Midgard.
What remains will not be enough to destroy it, and soon it will grow strong enough to consume worlds once more.
That cannot be allowed to happen-
The flash followed by the crack of the weakly sputtering and sparking man forged machine still prone on the ground groans.
The primitive railgun that had shot into the air had caused said weapon to disconnect in a shower of sparks, broken circuitry, and wiring as it fell to the ground, useless.
But the blow was enough to knock the Lord of Dust out of the sky and send it careening back down towards the ground.
…
How interesting.
The Joy
I can feel the mind that is dictating the actions of the man machine.
She is strong, a true warrior who had been taken from her well earned rest and entombed within a sarcophagus of unfeeling steel and shackled by her lessened form.
That is no way for a warrior to live.
I reach out, swimming through the metal armor that encases her mind to touch with my hand, the flickering red orb that acts as her eye.
"... who…?" She asks weakly, a tone touched by confusion and the lack of material for her spirit to hold itself onto.
Yet hold she does.
A sense of duty, a desire to protect, and the heavy aura of failure surrounds her metal form. It is enough that her spirit holds on as tight as it can on the living world.
Until she can finish her duty.
Her mission.
To fight today…
For a better tomorrow.
'I am Brunhilde… my distant kin.' I say kindly, placing both of my hands along the cold plate of her metal hide and lowering my forehead to meet slowly warming steel.
"... Finish the… miss...ion." She wavers, fingers that have held onto the edge of life upon the cliff face of the void of death, tighten as she pulls herself upwards with all the strength she has left.
"Jack…"
And I see.
The blood of the Allfather still runs weakly in this branch of Midgard.
But his will yet remains strong in his successors.
…
I can hear the metal around us groan as the unliving warrior marshalls her strength of will and forces her steely body to move.
To fight.
To Protect.
"I have to fight." She wills.
I feel the ghost of a smile upon my lips. An expression I have not had reason to don in a thousand years.
'Then you will not fight alone blood of my blood.' I sing.
My hands gently flow into the coffin of steel and wires as my legs tuck into my chest and my arms wrap around them.
Our Contract is Accepted.
Thus, two will become One.
Date: Unknown
Time: Unknown
Wasteland, Dite
POV: Ahab
Ishmael and I stood and watched as the Lord of Dust fell from the sky and held firm against the approaching cloud of dust caused by the impact of its lessened, but still massive form.
Rifles in hand, we watched as the many rifts in reality close one by one until at last, the only remaining tear in space was the one where both of us had entered into this living hell.
We shared a look at that moment.
One where we both wondered the same question momentarily before shaking our heads and walking towards the broken battleground that was made more of glass than sand at this point.
This wasn't over yet.
There would be no retreat, not until we were sure this monster was dead.
Even if one of us would be left behind for a time.
At my side, I never noticed that the light of my dimensional fulton pack had stopped blinking green and had instead began flickering an ominous red.
Not that it mattered for me.
I'd never planned on going back when I went through the portal in Ishmael's footsteps.
I could use some alone time in this place to gather my thoughts.
And Ishamel…
He already spent too much time alone.
As the dust began to settle and we approached the fallen beast with D-Walker slowly rolling behind us, we could see that the Lord of Dust was wounded…
But it was far from dead.
Even now it was still shuddering weakly, thin tentacles sprouting tipped with all manner of tools as it began to repair itself in a far more primitive fashion than before.
One of the tentacles snapped our way, a single red lens glowing balefully as several more thick limbs formed weapons on the ends to point in our direction.
We fired first.
However, the long familiar reports of our rifles failed to reach our ears before the sound of steel being shorn open from behind us reached us in time a blurred flash of silver strands of hair on white fabric almost daintily slammed into the ground in front of us.
In the path of the bullets and beams being fired our way-
Ishmael and I lowered our rifles at the same time, eyes widening as we attempted to move forward and tackle the new arrival to the earth in the hopes a serious wound could be avoided.
We were stopped in our tracks, first by the flaring of blue light that wrapped itself around us, second by the cacophony of thousands of rounds bouncing off the shield.
Third, were the glowing, ruby like eyes of a woman who was too perfect to be real.
They were alien.
Ancient.
But…
So painfully familiar.
"Jack… and John." She said with a small smile, two voices blurring into one.
One a pleasant alto I've never heard before.
The second…
The second was a voice that had been buried into my memories over an unknown period of hypnotherapy.
"Boss…?" Ishmael starts, moving forward with a hand that reaches towards the glowing, impossible woman as he unsteadily gathers his stolen breath. "Is… is that you?"
"Part of us… yes." She replies, eyes crinkling pleasantly.
Those warm alien eyes look over our faces for a long moment, but not so long that the fire being held back is slackened.
Those very same eyes that glittered with untold joy, hardened at the continued interruption and from an inhumanly pale hand, sent forth a wave of blue that crashed into the struggling beast and exploded against the painfully groaning machine.
"Then...you're…?" Ishmael continues to walk forward with his hand out, as if he believes the figure before us will fade if he so much as touches her with his blood caked hands.
"Jack. It's me." The Joy replies, taking his larger hand into both of hers and placing it against her cheek.
The smear of dirt and blood it leaves doesn't ruin the image of ethereal perfection.
No.
More than that, it's almost as if it's always belonged there, hidden by a deceptive beauty that shrouded the monster beneath.
"Na-" The scarred man finds himself unable to speak, two delicate hands that look like they wouldn't be able to split an apple, much less silence the most deadly soldier in the world, does so with only a thumb on his lips and warm hands upon his cheeks.
"I'm sorry Jack. But you have to continue the mission now." She states sadly and Ishmael's eyes widen in a realization that I…
I can't comprehend.
For all that him and I are one… in the end, we're two different men.
Two different sides of the same coin.
"Boss!?" He cries out in pained desperation, still reaching out with an outstretched limb as he's launched almost gently away back to where Sahelanthropus laid unmoving.
When she turned to me, I had lowered my rifle entirely, not knowing what to say or do with my unwanted intrusion-
"John." She spoke my name and hooded her eyes with that same smile she'd reserved only for Ishmael.
So filled with meaning that I couldn't understand…
I don't why I said the words that I did.
"We fight today…"
They just seemed like the right thing to say.
"... for a brighter tomorrow." She finished, closing her eyes and exhaling softly.
Those were the last words The Joy spoke to me before I found myself floating in the air and gently propelled towards where Ishmael landed at a speed that would've crushed me from the sudden acceleration.
By the time I landed and Ishmael had lifted himself up, preparing to run back into the fray, it was too late.
Too late to do anything but watch as a pillar of blue fire rose into the sky and encompassed the world in a horrifyingly beautiful blue.
One last act.
One more sacrifice to be made in order to safeguard a future that must come to pass.
A Final Flame.
'No. You do not deserve Joy.'
And in the spiraling, purifying blue flames, all of us were consumed.
"BOSS!!!!!" Ishmael struggled forward, arms held up in front of his face as the both of us squinted at the small dot in the distance.
Brighter blue than anything in the surroundings.
It brought a Joy that warmed me more than all of the memories of better times I keep close to my blackened heart.
I felt Sorrow, true sorrow on a scale more heartrending than all the hardship I've been through in my life.
All this ran through me when the small, brightly burning figure vanished into the sea of sapphire.
Even when it grew so bright I could see my arm bones through my eyelids, I couldn't hear the explosion.
Not when Ishmael's broken voice railed against the heavens beneath me as I shielded his body and stopped him from forcing his way to his own death.
When the light finally died out and the heat stopped buffeting our surroundings, I rolled off of my brother and listlessly stared up into the clear blue skies.
For the first time on this world, we could see past the ever present shroud that kept the planet in a near year round winter.
Warm sunlight stream down, and I found myself reaching for it without rhyme or reason to play with the bands of light.
I could feel the phantom tingles of my false hand warming in the warmth of the star that had nurtured life on this planet for billions of years.
"Ahab…" Next to me, Ishmael spoke, staring blankly up at the sun himself.
"Was this all worth it, do you think?" He asks, gently prying the bandana on his forehead free and letting the wind take it away.
I hum in response, untying my own half of the Boss' bandana and doing much the same.
Memories, those of my own that I'd made after waking up flash through the vision of my missing eye.
The people we'd saved.
The horrors we've stopped.
The home Mother Base has become.
Not just for us.
But for everyone we've fought to protect.
"Yes." I reply, a small weight easing off of my chest that I'd never known was there.
I glanced over to the right, my blind eye unseeing, but knowing Ishmael knew I was asking him the same question.
"..." He laid there silently, looking up at the sky for a long moment.
"I don't know." He says finally and a comfortable silence falls between us once more.
"You should get going." Ishmael mutters, bringing his hands back to rest his head against his cupped palms. "I'm gonna lay here and think for a bit."
The main portal, of course, had closed after the defeat of the Lord of Dust.
Without anything to power the portal, only one of us would be able to get home using the dimensional fulton.
Theoretically.
"Ishmael…" I start, but I'm interrupted by a small snort.
"Just don't keep me waiting too long, Ahab. It's a bad habit we seem to share." He states, fishing a cigar out of his combat pack. "Don't you have someone waiting for you back home?"
Heh.
Yeah. I do.
Nothing more needed to be said.
I would respect Ishmael's wishes and come back once everything at home was put in order.
Or so I thought.
In the distance, a pained groan stretched across the horizon, causing both of us to jump onto our feet and stare in disbelief at the much reduced, but still slowly moving mass the size of a truck.
A truck that was slowly growing in size.
"No." I heard myself say in horror, only barely realizing that it I had spoke.
"... so that's what the Boss meant, huh?" Ishmael whispers to himself, lighting his cigar and taking a deep drag before moving towards the burst open cockpit of Sahelanthropus.
"Ishmael, wait! What are you…" I cut myself off in realization, seeing the solid green light of Sahelanthropus' eyes still glowing ominously next to us.
"No. Jack-" I plead.
"It's fine John. He smirks, glancing over his shoulder with his blind side. "The world has only room for one Big Boss."
Frozen, I can only look down momentarily at the dimensional fulton pack when the sound of my greatest friend and mentor's voice knocked me out of my reverie.
"Go home John-" He says.
"Jack!" You-
You have a choice to make, Ahab.
One Dimensional Fulton.
One Choice.
You Move.
[ ] Stop him, knock him out and portal him if that's what it takes, but Ishmael can't die here.
No, that's your role.
Your Duty.
His Absolution.
Reward: Continue the game as Big Boss
You pause, hand held out to reach for him, but place it back down roughly against your side.
[ ] Activate the dimensional fulton and escape. One of you must live on and Ishmael has passed the torch to you.
He is Big Boss.
But so are you.
Even if you are now alone.
Reward: Continue the game as Big Boss
VOTE MORATORIUM 6 HOURS
Ends 8:00 PM PST Time
AN: 11%
:3
Date: Unknown
Time: Unknown
Wasteland, Dite
POV: …?
The Fury
The Beast flailed as it was held against the mountainside, mechanically swiping it's arms against the burning giant that was equal to it in size.
Yet each blow dealt to the titan of fire only seemed to seamlessly pass through the raging fire, melting the scales covering the hungering machine until finally the accumulated damage caused it's melting arms to liquify and fall in great, steaming rivers splashing against the bubbling glass below.
And then, the giant of fire spoke, each syllable laced with purifying anger that blasted the skull shaped metal mask of the powerless god.
A god who could do nothing but quail against the Fury of the great spirit of Rage.
'Disgusting creature.'
'How many worlds have you consumed in your terrible hunger?'
Pillars of liquid fire rose from the crust of the dead world, melting the legs of the god who groaned in a long drone and attempted to escape.
Two hands of pure molten hatred lanced into the torso of the struggling machine, pinning it to the mountain that had already begun to whither from the sheer heat forcing the world around it to quail.
'The flames of my rage will incernate you.'
The fires spread, encompassing the totality of the monster until the half melted form began to thrash wildly with quickly regenerating limbs that had taken a silvery sheen. Arms resembling tentacles tipped with cannons erupted from its back and attempted to douse the spirit in liquid ice.
But even as the fire dimmed around the titan made of flames, the great spirit only pressed himself against the now roaring machine god with his dwindling fire.
'Yes.'
'That.'
'That is Fury.'
And so the fire titan was defeated, crumbling away into ash as the victorious dark god continued to spray coolant onto the hardening glass below.
But it's judgement was not yet over.
The Pain
The ear splitting buzzing of a numberless swarm came next.
From the split open earth did countless insects without cohesive form coalesce in the sky, spinning in great, terrible circles until the vague outline of a large, faceless man formed.
'Pain…'
The Beast nearly finished reforming from the damage done to it, looked up at its new enemy with glowing, anger filled eyes.
Where before it's movements were ponderous and slow, motivated only by need…
Now, there was something else behind the fusilade of munitions that created the storm of explosions currently ripping into the swarming giant.
Anger.
'You have caused it.'
'Now you will feel it.'
But the swarm is numberless, each chunk destroyed being immediately replaced by more until the giant that stood at half the god's size now dwarfed it fivefold.
And like a tsunami crashing into the coast, the body of the spirit made of biting, stinging, and ravenous insects fell upon the dark god in a wash of buzzing and chittering horror.
The hungering beast could do little more than stumble, fire, and swat at the tide no more effectively than a man pulled into a riptide.
It begins first with the sound of sparks.
The insects burrow deep into the body of the angered machine, biting, ripping, and tearing the delicate internal components beneath the armored shell of the behemoth.
Twitching, shuddering, and finally, falling, the hungering god can do little more than curl up as the systems that allow it to function are corroded, eaten, and rewritten by the numberless swarm so numerous that the machine had been covered completely within and without.
Then.
Then it screams.
'I am The Pain.'
The Lord of Dust begins to crackle and glow, shuddering as it overpowers it's own systems and causes both itself and the swarm to become consumed by jolting electricity, equally damaging and clearing its systems of the unwanted taint.
'Hurts. Doesn't it?'
Moments later, the chuckling voice of the insect spirit fades, the mass of burnt insects falling to the ground with the surviving colonies being frantically burned in the flames of newly created weapons that torches the ground in a field of fire once more.
The Fear
'I can taste it…'
The whisper begins, so close that the presence could be standing right next to you, but so far away that it may not even be there at all.
The machine reacts, smashing its fists in hurried hurricane around it while it's weapons fire erratically in every direction without purpose or necessity.
The childlike god looks around wildly, the glowing lenses of its formerly narrowed eyes lit the world in the bright white of searching illuminations.
'Feel it stirring…'
The large, disc shaped circles twirled this way and that in search of the ghostly voice and when that wasn't enough, thousands of similar vision modules began to open across every available space on its body.
The Beast had completely forgone any sort of armoring in favor of lighting up the world with countless eyes in search of the quarry it knew was there.
Out of sight.
Lurking.
Hunting.
'The Fear.'
The spirit of mischief echoed, his laugh bouncing around the canyons and plains that surrounded the destroyed battleground.
Still the frightened god searched, completely stopping it's attacks against the surrounding area as it impeded its vision.
Just as the spirit had wished.
The Lord of Dust had been left defenseless and without the shell that had protected it so far.
The Vengeance
'SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'
Like the hammer of Thor himself, a great, hateful being emerged from the roiling storm clouds above in a flash of lightning followed by a clap of thunder.
So powerful was the bolt that the explosion following immediately afterward was drowned out.
As well as the pained shriek of the machine god whose body had been messily melted through from shoulder to glowing foot.
It fell to the ground in a great, stumbling crush. Unable to stop its fall and blinded by the shock of blue white plasma that had split the main body of roughly two thirds its former mass.
Weakly, sluggishly the fallen titan attempted to begin regenerating, reaching with a sense of desperation towards the part of its body that had been split from it.
'HAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!'
A second bolt flew down from the sky, blowing apart the arm that had been reaching for it's forcibly torn metal flesh as the machine trembled from the unexpected impact.
Then, without warning, the optics of its eyes glowed a dark, hateful red as its back opened and formed into a focusing array.
It fired a dark, crimson beam of coruscating energy into the storm cloud above which was met by yet another flash and boom of replying thunder.
Then a second laser apparatus formed.
Then a third and a fourth.
Completely eschewing its regeneration, the hateful machine god used all of its resources on hand to create as many laser cannons it could and shot salvo after salvo of heavy plasma and pillars of discolored light into the sky.
The machine continued to fire long after the clouds had been vaporized before stopping suddenly and resting its face on the ground.
Sluggishly after a moment of long thought, the greatly damaged being began to transform its body back into its former configuration and reached out towards its still torn and unresponsive half to pull it back into itself.
And then the arm that had nearly finished regenerating fell dully to the earth lethargically, as if it lacked the power to do anything more than weakly twitch its fingers.
The End
'Yes. That's right. You want it to be over don't you?'
The elderly voice tutted, a veritable forest of moss springing up around the destroyed landscape and began to cover the downed, smoking form of the fallen god.
But weak as its struggles may have been, the beast still reached out to touch the part of its body that had been so violently ripped away. Like water running down a river, the torn piece of the Lord of Dust began to flow into the shuddering, smoke belching form of the machine god that seemed desperate to repair itself.
Only unlike before, what used to be a flood of machinery repairing itself at impossible speeds, the river of liquid metal instead turned into a trickle. A stream more than a river of dust barely cohesive enough to be called solid.
'The End is coming. As it does for all things.'
'Why fight it?'
Rather than stopping, the former trickle instead increases in activity and for a moment, the liquid metal being absorbed seems to move with a desperate, horrified will.
And then the repairs begin to slow, what had been fixed instead sloughing off in flakes of rusting metal.
The Sorrow
'Sad…'
The voice of untold billions moan into the air, coating everything in a thick layer of weight that drags at the dead world.
Impossibly, a river of shallow water bubbles up from the cracked and melted earth that flows towards the fallen god who is even now ineffectually attempting to repair itself.
Within the river float countless bodies, listlessly being taken by the current towards the Lord of Dust. And as the water begins to poll around the crater the dark god lies, millions of ghostly arms rise from the deepening water.
The many, pale blue limbs grab, tear, and scratch against the metal of the fallen machine, some forming into giant arms and hands made up of many, bodies.
All of them moaning and desiring nothing more than to drag the creature that murdered them down into the depths.
'So sad…'
The number of limbs wrapping around the Lord of Dust grow as the seconds pass. And with each hand scratching at dull metal, the still struggling dark god is pulled inch by inch into water that couldn't be more than several feet deep.
As if the beast was being pulled into the waters of Helheim itself.
"Sorrow."
And drown it does.
Unable to free the torn half of its destroyed body from the sea of dead it'd been sank beneath, the beast instead uses what remains of itself to form powerful rockets beneath it.
The Lord of Dust attempts to lift off, a bubbling, hissing ocean of mist below it as it uses all of the considerable thrust it can generate to fly into the sky.
The ghostly hands are unable to hold, ripped free from their purchase, the souls of the dead that make up the enlarged limbs become droplets of howling spirits that fade into the aether as other limbs ponderously reach into the sky to capture their quarry.
But the battered god has flown too high, a thousand feet off the ground as thrusters intermittently spark and jostles the now disc shaped giant unsteadily in the air.
Even after the moans of the dead fade and the sea of souls sinks back into the earth, the hungering god remains the air as it attempts to continue enough repairs to propel itself through the portal leading to a branch of Midgard.
What remains will not be enough to destroy it, and soon it will grow strong enough to consume worlds once more.
That cannot be allowed to happen-
The flash followed by the crack of the weakly sputtering and sparking man forged machine still prone on the ground groans.
The primitive railgun that had shot into the air had caused said weapon to disconnect in a shower of sparks, broken circuitry, and wiring as it fell to the ground, useless.
But the blow was enough to knock the Lord of Dust out of the sky and send it careening back down towards the ground.
…
How interesting.
The Joy
I can feel the mind that is dictating the actions of the man machine.
She is strong, a true warrior who had been taken from her well earned rest and entombed within a sarcophagus of unfeeling steel and shackled by her lessened form.
That is no way for a warrior to live.
I reach out, swimming through the metal armor that encases her mind to touch with my hand, the flickering red orb that acts as her eye.
"... who…?" She asks weakly, a tone touched by confusion and the lack of material for her spirit to hold itself onto.
Yet hold she does.
A sense of duty, a desire to protect, and the heavy aura of failure surrounds her metal form. It is enough that her spirit holds on as tight as it can on the living world.
Until she can finish her duty.
Her mission.
To fight today…
For a better tomorrow.
'I am Brunhilde… my distant kin.' I say kindly, placing both of my hands along the cold plate of her metal hide and lowering my forehead to meet slowly warming steel.
"... Finish the… miss...ion." She wavers, fingers that have held onto the edge of life upon the cliff face of the void of death, tighten as she pulls herself upwards with all the strength she has left.
"Jack…"
And I see.
The blood of the Allfather still runs weakly in this branch of Midgard.
But his will yet remains strong in his successors.
…
I can hear the metal around us groan as the unliving warrior marshalls her strength of will and forces her steely body to move.
To fight.
To Protect.
"I have to fight." She wills.
I feel the ghost of a smile upon my lips. An expression I have not had reason to don in a thousand years.
'Then you will not fight alone blood of my blood.' I sing.
My hands gently flow into the coffin of steel and wires as my legs tuck into my chest and my arms wrap around them.
Our Contract is Accepted.
Thus, two will become One.
Date: Unknown
Time: Unknown
Wasteland, Dite
POV: Ahab
Ishmael and I stood and watched as the Lord of Dust fell from the sky and held firm against the approaching cloud of dust caused by the impact of its lessened, but still massive form.
Rifles in hand, we watched as the many rifts in reality close one by one until at last, the only remaining tear in space was the one where both of us had entered into this living hell.
We shared a look at that moment.
One where we both wondered the same question momentarily before shaking our heads and walking towards the broken battleground that was made more of glass than sand at this point.
This wasn't over yet.
There would be no retreat, not until we were sure this monster was dead.
Even if one of us would be left behind for a time.
At my side, I never noticed that the light of my dimensional fulton pack had stopped blinking green and had instead began flickering an ominous red.
Not that it mattered for me.
I'd never planned on going back when I went through the portal in Ishmael's footsteps.
I could use some alone time in this place to gather my thoughts.
And Ishamel…
He already spent too much time alone.
As the dust began to settle and we approached the fallen beast with D-Walker slowly rolling behind us, we could see that the Lord of Dust was wounded…
But it was far from dead.
Even now it was still shuddering weakly, thin tentacles sprouting tipped with all manner of tools as it began to repair itself in a far more primitive fashion than before.
One of the tentacles snapped our way, a single red lens glowing balefully as several more thick limbs formed weapons on the ends to point in our direction.
We fired first.
However, the long familiar reports of our rifles failed to reach our ears before the sound of steel being shorn open from behind us reached us in time a blurred flash of silver strands of hair on white fabric almost daintily slammed into the ground in front of us.
In the path of the bullets and beams being fired our way-
Ishmael and I lowered our rifles at the same time, eyes widening as we attempted to move forward and tackle the new arrival to the earth in the hopes a serious wound could be avoided.
We were stopped in our tracks, first by the flaring of blue light that wrapped itself around us, second by the cacophony of thousands of rounds bouncing off the shield.
Third, were the glowing, ruby like eyes of a woman who was too perfect to be real.
They were alien.
Ancient.
But…
So painfully familiar.
"Jack… and John." She said with a small smile, two voices blurring into one.
One a pleasant alto I've never heard before.
The second…
The second was a voice that had been buried into my memories over an unknown period of hypnotherapy.
"Boss…?" Ishmael starts, moving forward with a hand that reaches towards the glowing, impossible woman as he unsteadily gathers his stolen breath. "Is… is that you?"
"Part of us… yes." She replies, eyes crinkling pleasantly.
Those warm alien eyes look over our faces for a long moment, but not so long that the fire being held back is slackened.
Those very same eyes that glittered with untold joy, hardened at the continued interruption and from an inhumanly pale hand, sent forth a wave of blue that crashed into the struggling beast and exploded against the painfully groaning machine.
"Then...you're…?" Ishmael continues to walk forward with his hand out, as if he believes the figure before us will fade if he so much as touches her with his blood caked hands.
"Jack. It's me." The Joy replies, taking his larger hand into both of hers and placing it against her cheek.
The smear of dirt and blood it leaves doesn't ruin the image of ethereal perfection.
No.
More than that, it's almost as if it's always belonged there, hidden by a deceptive beauty that shrouded the monster beneath.
"Na-" The scarred man finds himself unable to speak, two delicate hands that look like they wouldn't be able to split an apple, much less silence the most deadly soldier in the world, does so with only a thumb on his lips and warm hands upon his cheeks.
"I'm sorry Jack. But you have to continue the mission now." She states sadly and Ishmael's eyes widen in a realization that I…
I can't comprehend.
For all that him and I are one… in the end, we're two different men.
Two different sides of the same coin.
"Boss!?" He cries out in pained desperation, still reaching out with an outstretched limb as he's launched almost gently away back to where Sahelanthropus laid unmoving.
When she turned to me, I had lowered my rifle entirely, not knowing what to say or do with my unwanted intrusion-
"John." She spoke my name and hooded her eyes with that same smile she'd reserved only for Ishmael.
So filled with meaning that I couldn't understand…
I don't why I said the words that I did.
"We fight today…"
They just seemed like the right thing to say.
"... for a brighter tomorrow." She finished, closing her eyes and exhaling softly.
Those were the last words The Joy spoke to me before I found myself floating in the air and gently propelled towards where Ishmael landed at a speed that would've crushed me from the sudden acceleration.
By the time I landed and Ishmael had lifted himself up, preparing to run back into the fray, it was too late.
Too late to do anything but watch as a pillar of blue fire rose into the sky and encompassed the world in a horrifyingly beautiful blue.
One last act.
One more sacrifice to be made in order to safeguard a future that must come to pass.
A Final Flame.
'No. You do not deserve Joy.'
And in the spiraling, purifying blue flames, all of us were consumed.
"BOSS!!!!!" Ishmael struggled forward, arms held up in front of his face as the both of us squinted at the small dot in the distance.
Brighter blue than anything in the surroundings.
It brought a Joy that warmed me more than all of the memories of better times I keep close to my blackened heart.
I felt Sorrow, true sorrow on a scale more heartrending than all the hardship I've been through in my life.
All this ran through me when the small, brightly burning figure vanished into the sea of sapphire.
Even when it grew so bright I could see my arm bones through my eyelids, I couldn't hear the explosion.
Not when Ishmael's broken voice railed against the heavens beneath me as I shielded his body and stopped him from forcing his way to his own death.
When the light finally died out and the heat stopped buffeting our surroundings, I rolled off of my brother and listlessly stared up into the clear blue skies.
For the first time on this world, we could see past the ever present shroud that kept the planet in a near year round winter.
Warm sunlight stream down, and I found myself reaching for it without rhyme or reason to play with the bands of light.
I could feel the phantom tingles of my false hand warming in the warmth of the star that had nurtured life on this planet for billions of years.
"Ahab…" Next to me, Ishmael spoke, staring blankly up at the sun himself.
"Was this all worth it, do you think?" He asks, gently prying the bandana on his forehead free and letting the wind take it away.
I hum in response, untying my own half of the Boss' bandana and doing much the same.
Memories, those of my own that I'd made after waking up flash through the vision of my missing eye.
The people we'd saved.
The horrors we've stopped.
The home Mother Base has become.
Not just for us.
But for everyone we've fought to protect.
"Yes." I reply, a small weight easing off of my chest that I'd never known was there.
I glanced over to the right, my blind eye unseeing, but knowing Ishmael knew I was asking him the same question.
"..." He laid there silently, looking up at the sky for a long moment.
"I don't know." He says finally and a comfortable silence falls between us once more.
"You should get going." Ishmael mutters, bringing his hands back to rest his head against his cupped palms. "I'm gonna lay here and think for a bit."
The main portal, of course, had closed after the defeat of the Lord of Dust.
Without anything to power the portal, only one of us would be able to get home using the dimensional fulton.
Theoretically.
"Ishmael…" I start, but I'm interrupted by a small snort.
"Just don't keep me waiting too long, Ahab. It's a bad habit we seem to share." He states, fishing a cigar out of his combat pack. "Don't you have someone waiting for you back home?"
Heh.
Yeah. I do.
Nothing more needed to be said.
I would respect Ishmael's wishes and come back once everything at home was put in order.
Or so I thought.
In the distance, a pained groan stretched across the horizon, causing both of us to jump onto our feet and stare in disbelief at the much reduced, but still slowly moving mass the size of a truck.
A truck that was slowly growing in size.
"No." I heard myself say in horror, only barely realizing that it I had spoke.
"... so that's what the Boss meant, huh?" Ishmael whispers to himself, lighting his cigar and taking a deep drag before moving towards the burst open cockpit of Sahelanthropus.
"Ishmael, wait! What are you…" I cut myself off in realization, seeing the solid green light of Sahelanthropus' eyes still glowing ominously next to us.
"No. Jack-" I plead.
"It's fine John. He smirks, glancing over his shoulder with his blind side. "The world has only room for one Big Boss."
Frozen, I can only look down momentarily at the dimensional fulton pack when the sound of my greatest friend and mentor's voice knocked me out of my reverie.
"Go home John-" He says.
"Jack!" You-
You have a choice to make, Ahab.
One Dimensional Fulton.
One Choice.
You Move.
[ ] Stop him, knock him out and portal him if that's what it takes, but Ishmael can't die here.
No, that's your role.
Your Duty.
His Absolution.
Reward: Continue the game as Big Boss
You pause, hand held out to reach for him, but place it back down roughly against your side.
[ ] Activate the dimensional fulton and escape. One of you must live on and Ishmael has passed the torch to you.
He is Big Boss.
But so are you.
Even if you are now alone.
Reward: Continue the game as Big Boss
VOTE MORATORIUM 6 HOURS
Ends 8:00 PM PST Time
AN: 11%
:3
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Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
Oh were finally going to alt world? Damn i almost forgot that this was a crossover Lawl.
Ghostdevil
The Devil of Ghosts
- Location
- United States
[X] No, you won't leave, but you will not stop him either. The time of Big Boss is over… but there is another.
- Location
- home
[ ] Activate the dimensional fulton and escape. One of you must live on and Ishmael has passed the torch to you.
I feel like this is the right choice... but I REALLY want to play as The Boss man I really do.
I feel like this is the right choice... but I REALLY want to play as The Boss man I really do.
DragoLord19D
I ate a TARDIS but I'm still hungry!
- Location
- Ma Treasure Hoard (I ain't tellin' where it's at!)
...dbfrgddbhufdbn...
...I don't...
...I don't know what to do...
Dezron
In the Omnissiah we trust !
- Location
- Poland
Let the Feels guide you and do what your heart wants !!!
- Location
- Northern Ireland, UK
BUT THEY'RE TEARING ME IN 4 DIRECTIONS!!!!!!!!!
I CAN'T DECIDE!!!!!! I WANT THEM ALL!!!!
- Location
- Hell
But.........?
I thought?
That we would go to the other world together?
I cant make this decision....im sorry.
Im so,so sorry.
I just cant lose ahab.
I thought?
That we would go to the other world together?
I cant make this decision....im sorry.
Im so,so sorry.
I just cant lose ahab.
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
[ ] Activate the dimensional fulton and escape. One of you must live on and Ishmael has passed the torch to you.
I feel this is the way to go. I don't connect to the Joy like I do either of the bosses. Eli is a shit. And Frankly I'm more attatched to the Big Boss that did denuke than the one in Snake Eater, at least in the context of this quest.
I feel this is the way to go. I don't connect to the Joy like I do either of the bosses. Eli is a shit. And Frankly I'm more attatched to the Big Boss that did denuke than the one in Snake Eater, at least in the context of this quest.
Nix's Warden
Welcome to Hades
- Location
- United States
NOoooooooooooooooooooooooo! NOT LIKE THIS!
This is an unfair amount of good choices. But really...
I can't help but think this answers it...
Will be my vote.
Although I totally wish I could timeline split and see the results of all 4 choices. This is an incredibly painful choice because they're all interesting.
I really hate when I'm down to 1 Fulton. It sucks.
Do we Fulton
A. Big Boss - NAKED
B. Big Boss - VENOM
C. Tape Recorder - ELI
D. Boss - JOY (robot form?)
I can't help but think this answers it...
[ ] Activate the dimensional fulton and escape. One of you must live on and Ishmael has passed the torch to you.
Will be my vote.
Although I totally wish I could timeline split and see the results of all 4 choices. This is an incredibly painful choice because they're all interesting.
I really hate when I'm down to 1 Fulton. It sucks.
Do we Fulton
A. Big Boss - NAKED
B. Big Boss - VENOM
C. Tape Recorder - ELI
D. Boss - JOY (robot form?)
Nenshou Yuuki
I will fail you in every way
- Location
- London
[] Activate the dimensional fulton and escape. One of you must live on and Ishmael has passed the torch to you.
Eli isn't ready, The Boss's time came and went and this is Ishmael's redemption. It's time the phantom stepped out of the shadows and took his place as Big Boss.
Edit: didn't notice the last bit sorry
Eli isn't ready, The Boss's time came and went and this is Ishmael's redemption. It's time the phantom stepped out of the shadows and took his place as Big Boss.
Edit: didn't notice the last bit sorry
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Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
[] … No. Both you and Ishmael have failed your progenitor's vision and you will see this to the end.
Probably going to lose, don't care.
Probably going to lose, don't care.
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Nix's Warden
Welcome to Hades
- Location
- United States
6 hour mortorium.
See above.
I do agree with these votes tho sadly enough.
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
Is this art Selvaria?
Imperial Helldog
410,757,864,530 DEAD LIZARDS
Giving us the chance to bring back The Boss?
Now that is one hell of a way to bring the quest back to life.
Now that is one hell of a way to bring the quest back to life.
Personally, I think I'd rather continue as Venom because he's the one I'm most attached to, Big Boss doesn't really have anything to go back to, Eli isn't ready for the responsibility and as much as I like The Boss she isn't really much of a character, she's more of the motivation behind BB
Also, there's a moratorium guys
Also, there's a moratorium guys