Don't Call It a Comeback (Part Two)
"Ravana of Bhalswa," says anchor, his polished visage looming over the screen behind you, "This is a rare opportunity for someone of your background. You must be thrilled to have ascended your caste."
You flash onto the screen, as polished as you've ever been, the worst of your scars covered in layer upon layer of makeup. You glare daggers across the table, where Chahna Chola sits pretty, and even in the now bile rises in your throat as you remember the Lodi Khan's urging you not to cause a scene.
"I apologize, Quadri-Saab, but mostly, well," you say, grin turning vicious, "
I'm pissed."
One of the Garudas swings, a stun prod rocketing towards, into,
through your chest. The Garuda flicks her helm towards your scarred, grinning face as the teeth descend around her fist. Your torso snaps shut before she can process what's happening, trapping her hand and breaking the prod in half.
She wrenches and turns as the others descend. The elevator turns into a brutal cloud of fists, knives, guns, and teeth. You are surrounded, subsumed by, drowning in the violence.
"That is a bold position to take, Ravana," says Chahna calmly, "And counter, I believe, to the facts on the ground as the Lodi Khans have outlined them."
"Fuck that. The Lodis can say what they want, I saw what you did, the inhabitants of Mewat saw what you did," you bellow, "I
will never let you forget-"
The doors open. Floor 25. A crowd of civilians and schoolchildren on tour and half a dozen soldiers. Someone screams. The Garudas try to push you to the door. One soldier takes a step towards you, another raises their gun. A man turns to stampede away, blindly bowling over a child. And you reach out. With your will, with the raw extension of your power and authority, as you grab the elevator doors. You scream "KNEEL" and light pours from you, enveloping the soldiers, the crowd, your assailants, and they all just
stop. Frozen utterly by the weight of your authority.
Then you slam the doors shut, the elevator shudders to life, and the fight resumes.
You eat a rifle, pummeling its wielder with one hand as delicious metal slithers down a flash-grown throat. Suddenly a flash of pain. Your muscles spasm, your mouths writhe and gibber as electricity courses through your form. There's a prod in the small of your back, the Garuda scaling up the electricity as she presses. The other swarm atop you, stabbing, shooting, shocking, trying to keep you down. One grabs your hair another tries to pin your arms.
And then you reach out, grab the arm still pushing the stun prod into your back, and snap it in three places. She drops screaming, you pull another off of you, slamming her by the face into row after row of buttons. About half of them light up, but you don't care. The doors open to a short man carrying a glass of water and you fling a Garuda, battered, maimed, visor cracked open, into his chest.
Five minutes, and much annoyance later, you reach the tenth floor. The doors slide open, revealing a receptionist whose feigned pleasantness swiftly turns to open horror as he spots the two, unconscious Garuda Unit members in your arms and the other two on the floor.
You smile, drop them, and step out of the elevator. "Don't fucking
touch that button," you order. The man freezes, his hand halfway to what you're fairly certain is a silent alarm beneath his desk. Behind you, the elevator's doors close, taking away his only hope for salvation.
He smells delicious notes Surpanakha traitorously
No, you reply.
The man's gaze looks towards the elevator, towards his own computer screen, and then back towards you. Unharmed. Unruffled. Face grim as you walk up to the desk. "Can I….help you?" he squeaks.
A smile breaks across your features as you look up at him, pompadour level with his shoulders. "Well my man!" you say, "Yes you can. I need some ah…." you snap your fingers for effect, looking for the words, then casually ripping his terminal from its socket and swallowing it whole. "Some of them
directions."
Where are you planning to fight Jutayu?
[ ] In the station's Temple complex
Untold gods are worshipped here, including many from humanity's cradle. Most notable is the Temple of Ram, not the Monitor, not the brutal overlord who has reigned for so long, but his inspiration. The man and divinity who Rama has styled his self, his governance, his rule after since before he took power.
[ ] Atop the walkways over the reactor core.
True prayer reactors are complicated, impossibly tall things, strewn with walkways that engineers and Brahmin may adjust the mandalas and replace the offerings in response to ever-changing votive landscapes across the solar system. Hanging machinery display grand mandalas and the collected belief of unknown millions swirls across the chamber.
[ ] In the Null-Grav Training Zone
The most complex of the station's training facilities. It's a half-mile long zero-gravity sphere, filled with a dozen simulated environments. The first step of any prospective Garuda, any Dragonblooded scion looking to join the Pilots. Station exteriors. The hulls of broken ships. Moons in the process of being torn apart. The myriad impossibilities of hell. All these and more exist in the shifting, unreal territory of the training zone.
