The Great Belligerency [Round 4: Static]

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

---

As his new surroundings faded into focus, Phil found himself staring at an empty room full of one-man desks, with a larger one at the end he was standing at. It took him just under a minute to realize that he was staring at a classroom. All the desks were empty at the moment, but a lack of dust showed that this was most likely only temporary. You'd think that with enough tech to build a flying utopia, they'd rework the school system. He brushed his hand across the teacher's desk, and a holographic interface popped up; it seemed to be requesting a fingerprint scan. Phil raised an eyebrow. I stand corrected. He moved to one of the student desks and tapped the top of it lightly. Unlike the teacher's desk, it didn't ask him for any sort of identification, instead displaying an empty surface with a small box in the corner. Phil extended a pointer finger and tapped the box, causing it to release a number of icons which he assumed represented different programs. He scanned the list, but wasn't able to recognize anything except a suspiciously familiar card icon. On a hunch, he tapped it, and a Solitaire window appeared. Instead of lying flat on the desk, it was propped up at an angle. Must be so the teacher can tell if someone's playing card games in class. I personally would've just put spy programs on them, but I guess letting the kids have the illusion of freedom is important. He tapped the icon again and the window retreated.

Walking over to the window, Phil glanced out at the campus. It looked remarkably like your average perfectville college from his era. It was a warm summer day with a light breeze, and large, shady oak trees grew all over the grassy grounds. A group of muscular, almost simian jocks were chucking a football around in one of the open areas, and little clusters of people crossing the campus weaved in between them. Others littered the grounds in groups of three, pairs of two, or alone, mostly studying, sometimes chatting. He noticed a bipedal lizard-like boy shyly flirting with a just-as-shy butterfly-like girl behind an oak tree, safe from most prying eyes. Phil grinned. Life as usual. But the most important feature was a big sign on the building across from the one he had appeared in. New Shambhala University, Phil read to himself. Home of the Fighting Locanias? The hell is a locania? Phil paused to think for a moment. First order of business is to locate Reinhardt or Cole. Teaming up with Ur or Balance would be political suicide, so to speak, and Soft seems too unstable to make a good ally. Julia worries me, though. With her speed, she doesn't need my protection at all, which means that she could betray me at any point. The same goes for Reinhardt; perhaps I should warn him? Although on second though, perhaps that's not such a good idea. He certainly didn't save her from Dove before, since I saw her grab him and pull him away from the group; that special effort to recruit him may mean they're in cahoots, and tipping one off would alert the other. She must have an ulterior motive for her alliance with me, if not the one with Reinhardt as well, and I intend to find out what it is. Oh, and just in case... He turned on his rifle's safety, then cracked open the door, and cautiously slipped out.

Phil strode purposefully down one of the paths towards the building with the sign on it, hoping it would be an administrative one where he could get a map of New Shambhala, or at least one of the area surrounding the university. Unfortunately, the administration found him first.

"Excuse me, but is that a...gun?" A tall, humanoid man who resembled a lizard, with scales all over his back, arms, and legs, and with a tail coming off his end stopped Phil in his tracks. He was wearing a lab coat and had a sticker on it reading, "MATH/PHYSICS WING."

Phil shook his head. "Just a replica. I was asked to give a lecture to a history class here on soldiers in the past, since they're currently studying them. I figured the kids might find it more interesting if I looked the part, eh?"

The lizard-man nodded. "Ah, alright. Make sure you keep your visitor badge on at all times, though; the security bots are finicky about that."

Visitor badge? Uh oh. "Oh, right. I was meaning to ask someone where I could get another; I must've dropped mine at some point when I was changing into this costume, and I can't find it anywhere."

One of the scaly arms pointed in the direction of the building that Phil had already been headed towards. "That's the main entrance. Just ask around in there and I'm sure they'd be happy to oblige."

Phil nodded and resumed walking. "Thanks!" The nodded back and smiled, then continued on his own path. After a couple of minutes, Phil reached his destination. He nodded to the people there as he left the university. He spotted a rack of pamphlets and picked up one of each, then flipped through them until he had found a few with maps of both the surrounding area and New Shambhala in general. He put the rest back and walked out the wide doors, drawing a few odd stares from the passerby, but nothing else. He sat down on a bench near the entrance to New Shambhala University and pulled out the maps, trying to decide where to begin his search for the others.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

Amidst the myriad alien cultures of New Shambhala, Cole did not seem out of place. Everyone simply assumed he was a species they had not encountered before; there were enough in this city for that to be plausible.

It was actually rather comforting. He had been used to concealing himself and lying low. Now he could walk around openly, though not quite freely; the other combatants might stumble across him at any time, after all.

In fact, he was more unsettled by what he found familiar.

The Cultural Museum had quite a few exhibits on early 21st-century Earth. It was a strange experience to walk through a recreation of a now-ancient science lab, one which Cole had visited himself. And which, he noted silently, they had made several significant errors on. It was a pity he couldn't bring them to the attention of the museum staff without raising questions about how he had gained the knowledge.

But he was not here to reminisce. He was here to search. He walked through the exhibit, finding the exhibit of religious artifacts.

Behind the glass display case, Cole saw items allegedly blessed by several gods he recognized from legends, and a few he didn't. Either some new religions had formed since his time on Earth, or the historians had erroneously recorded gods that were never worshiped. Both explanations were quite plausible.

But what most interested him was a small animal horn with a string tied around it. More precisely, the plaque beneath it which said "Horn of Anansi".

It appeared that the horn had been fashioned into a crude musical instrument. The plaque gave a few details.

"Anansi's followers believed that when a priest chosen by the spider-god blew a specific melody on this horn, he would be summoned to the god's realm for an audience. We can find no documentation of this alleged melody, but given that the artifact seems to be a simple carved animal horn, it is unlikely that this is true. Estimates for the size of Anansi's religion wildly vary; some experts believe it was merely a small cult, while others have found evidence to suggest it was the dominant religion of the planet for at least a century."

If he still had a human mouth, Cole would not have been sure whether to smirk or to scowl. On the one hand, this was potentially the key to locating Anansi and enacting his revenge. On the other hand, assuming it worked, not only did he need the melody, he needed some way to actually play the instrument. The unique nature of his body made that less than trivial.

Nonetheless, he had located it. The museum was too crowded to take it without drawing unwanted attention, but that was all right; he had another stop to make.

He recalled his conversation with Jaknel, the mammoth-man. Cole remembered that his new acquaintance had taken his family to the zoo.

A zoo which most likely had an entomology exhibit.

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

---

The girl pursed her lips and nodded crisply to herself as she stalked through a service passageway. I've created an electronic history for you new identity. Who do you want to be?

I shall need a background in military matters, though it should be unassuming enough to pose no threat to this city's rulers.

A security consultant then... we'll still need to give you a reason to be here, though.

The girl passed a maintenance crew, who nodded a polite greeting, and turned a corner. She opened a panel in the floor, and descended into a rather large ventilation system.

You mentioned you were planning on killing one of the leaders? A member of the "Administration", yes? Perhaps the one you plan to kill requested my presence before his death?

That... is quite cunning, actually. Setting up a virtual paper trail now. You arrived this morning, and the Administrator - one "Dr. Traven Slott" - sent you a rather urgent-sounding message about a week ago, requesting your expertise at earliest possible convenience. I've set up accounts in your name across the city, and given you a penthouse in a high-end hotel in the main business bloc. I'm arranging a care package to be sent to your room, with all the electronic devices you'll need to be a properly functioning citizen of galactic culture.

What about weapons?

A wall panel in a closed warehouse fell to the floor, and the girl slid out without a sound. She glanced around the room, her augmented vision picking up every detail in the low-light environment. Before her lay an assortment of machinery and tools which workers used to perform maintenance on the city's tram system. The tram was a marvel of engineering, allowing frictionless /and/ inertialess acceleration, transporting people around New Shambala in a timely manner, all while giving them a silent and comfortable experience.

The girl smiled. This would do.

It is being taken care of.

---

Ambrose Lom, username "cr3-79" ("Cree", to her friends), hunched towards her bank of display cubes, and squinted. "That's odd," she murmured. She reached forwards, and the holographic gloves circling her hands and fingers responded. Her fingers dove into one of the display cubes - a glowing holographic cube which contained the user interface for her unit's custom (and highly illegal) computer system, and her gateway into the city's 'net. She continued to waggle her fingers, and icons within the cubes danced to their movements. She paused, reading a few more displays, before she reached over and activated another floating icon.

An image of a horn appeared, and a green aura flicked on around it, indicating a connected user. The word "minotaurus" appeared below it.

"Minnie, have you been creating any fake identities?"

"First, don't call me that. Second, no."

"Well do you know anyone who might be?"

"No."

"Aaare you sure?"

"Don't insult me. All the burners in New Shambhala know not to barge in on my territory. At least not without my permission."

"Right right, Minnie. You're the big man and all that."

"I told you not to call me-"

"Anyways I thought you should know that someone just created a fake ID in the city's systems, complete with an entire life-history. It's pretty heavy-duty."

"What? Damnit..."

A few seconds passed, and Ambrose waited.

"... Cree, whoever did this is serious. I don't think it was someone from the city."

"That's what I'm thinking. You got the 'cast about the explosion earlier?"

"Yeah. You think it's the same people?"

Ambrose rocked back on her floor.

"I dunno... but keep an eye out. Something's not right. I don't think that was an accident."

"Agreed."

The horn disappeared, as "minotaurus" disconnected. Ambrose leaned forward again, and looked at the ID card on one of her cube's faces. "Matthew Vanhart... who are you?"

---

It was perhaps twenty minutes later, and the girl was tucking an oddly-shaped collection of metal and ceramic inside a back pocket. Vandrel had, following her instructions, started off towards his hotel room. The girl, however, was headed somewhere different.

---

As tripeds went, the Yun were the most gangly and ungraceful example of tripedal biology. They were also incredibly paranoid, and despite their reputation for clumsiness, Yun guerrilla forces were renowned galaxy-wide for their ruthlessness, efficiency, and stealth. Not that Yo Shi'i Lop was a guerrilla fighter. In fact, the Yun scientist had never had a violent thought in his life. Yo Shi'i Lop was something of a coward - most Yun were, what with the paranoia inherent to a species of herbivores - so when he heard the thump of something landing behind him, his first instinct was not to turn and look, but to run.

He'd made it two feet before something hit the back of his elongated neck, and his unconscious body flopped to the ground in a tangle of limbs and clothing.

He woke some time later, and began struggling when he found his six limbs all thoroughly bound. A curt voice brought him up short.

"Stop." The word was translated into his language though an earbud in his lower auditory receptor. He looked up to see the barrel of a gun pointing at him, and did what most any Yun would do.

He freaked out.

The small room where he'd been brought was abruptly filled with the screeches and whoops as Lop's two vocal head-appendages began spurting his displeasure.

The girl winced. She'd downloaded the publicly-available translation programs for this species, and had integrated them into her aural implants, but they could do nothing about the sheer volume of this alien's protests. From what she'd read up on them, however, they were disinclined to resist when exposed to pressure, or threats. Unless they were guerrillas, which this one most certainly was not. She shoved her makeshift gun closer to his sensory-stalk. The motion did not go unnoticed. The sensory stalk went rigid, and was quite obviously focused on the piece of metal staring it down.

The girl took a moment to study her captive. She'd never seen an alien before now; there had been none in her home universe, and this one certainly met the criteria of "alien". The Yun were a tripedal-based species, meaning they had three legs, three arms, and three "heads", each on an elongated, highly flexible neck. Two of the heads were mouths, both capable of forming speech. The third head played host to a large array of sensory organs, both natural and (in modern Yun) artificial. The ocular, aural and olfactory organs were standard-fare on all carbon-based life forms, but the Yun, being skittery herbivores, had enhanced senses for detecting danger. Their ocular organs gave them nearly 360 degrees of unimpeded vision, and their brains allowed them to easily notice and process any movement in that field of view. They could also see further into the infrared spectrum, as well as into the ultraviolet, though their sensitivity in the so-called "visible" spectrum was weaker than in other species, resulting in moderate colorblindness. Their aural sensors were positioned in threes; a trifectum ringed the top of their oblong "head", and three others rested at the base of the sensory stalk, where it met the body. This three-dimensional placement gave them the ability to, with a fair degree of accuracy, determine the distance to and the vertical and horizontal positions of most sounds. A Yun torso was a slightly elongated oval, which flared out slightly at the bottom where the double-jointed triplet of legs splayed out. On the back and front of the torso were breathing slits, and Yun clothing was designed around giving these slits maximum exposure and maximum protection.

The two mouth-stalks had finally stopped yowling, as the eye-stalk continued to focus on... "Is... is that a g-gun?" Lop whimpered.

"Yes".

"A GUN?! There are no guns on New Shambhala! How did you get it on here?! Those things are dangerous OH BY THE CIRCLES ARE YOU GOING TO KILL ME PLEASE DON'T KILL MEEEEEEEEEHEEEHUUUBUBBUHH" the poor scientist's protests quickly devolved into the Yun equivalent of pathetic blubbering.

"Shut up." The gun was suddenly jammed into a trembling mouth-stalk, which, much to Lop's shock, he was unable to move. "You're going to do something for me."

"Why? Why should I! You're going to kill me when you're done and you're going to kill me if I refuse! Either way I'm dead! Dead dead DEAD!"

"Wrong. If you refuse, I'm going to start cutting off your limbs one-by-one, until all that's left is your squishy little potato of a body and a single eye. You'll still be able to breathe, hear and see, but you'll be powerless to run as I track down the rest of your herd and eviscerate them in front of you. Slowly."

She had Lop's full attention now. "W-what do you need me to do?"

The girl smiled. Lop had never put much effort into interpreting human expressions, but he was fairly certain there was something very wrong with that smile.

---

Ambrose and "Minnie" had been working together to try and find the origin of the Matthew Vanhart identity. Minotaurus was... a bit territorial, however, and so Ambrose had been shunted off to trying to figure out who might want to use it. What she'd found was troubling.

She quickly brought up the horn icon, which blinked green almost instantly.

"Minnie, we've got a problem. Whoever's using this identity put in a special effort to make it seem like his presence on New Shambhala was requested. By Administrator Slott."

"Dr. Travin Slott? Are you certain?"

"Yeah, I've got records of a message sent from Slott's personal station to Vanhart's public inbox. It's disturbing enough that an Administrator would quietly 'request' the presence of a Security Consultant on New Shambhala, but add in that the contents are encrypted using an incredibly advanced algor-"

"Give it to me."

"Minnie, I know you've got to maintain the whole 'anti-social genius' thing but really, is a little tact too much to ask for?"

"Give it to me, please."

"Better. I still want to know why you want it."

"I know someone that can decrypt it."

"Someone who's not me? Who do you know that's a better burner than me?"

"Not important, they just are."

Ambrose raised an eyebrow. "You'll share the results with me, right?"

"Yeah sure."

She sighed. "Minnie, you're kind of an ass sometimes, you know that?"

"Whatever." The horn blinked out, and Ambrose gave the empty space the finger. A small tone chimed from one of her cubes, and she looked at the message displayed on its face. "Oh hello there..." she muttered. "Checking in, eh? Well, let's see what you've got on you..." her fingers moved quickly, as she burned through Hotel Reccxer's security systems. A man could be seen on a screen in the corner of the cube's face. The man looked exactly like the picture in Vanhart's ID file, and, in fact, was Vanhart, at least according to the hotel's automated concierge system. Ambrose was now using that same system to scan Vanhart's localized network, and download the details on his implants and any other cybernetic upgrades he might hav-

She straightened suddenly and gasped out a "What?!" as the results of her burn came back. Vanhart had no implants! No localized network, no cybernetic upgrades, nothing! Electronically, the man didn't exist. He gave off no electromagnetic emissions, and showed exactly zero signs of any technology anywhere on his body. Which, in this modern age, what not just rare, it was impossible. Every human was born with cybernetic implants, grown with them in the womb using nanobots. You couldn't even navigate through galactic civilization without some piece of integrated tech. Yet this man...

Ambrose hunched forwards intently, fingers weaving a complex symphony of code as she set about tracking everything Matthew Vanhart had done since his arrival, and everything he was about to do.

---

Phil's study of the maps he'd gotten from NSU had led him to what he believed to be the most likely place for him to run into the other contestants: the Central Tram Station. He was standing outside the main building, in a gigantic square (labeled on his map as "Harmony Square") which was surrounded on all sides by gracefully arching buildings which appeared to flow into each other as they stretched towards the sky. Shops, theaters, restaurants, and many other different businesses lined the square, all bringing focus to the huge open archway which led into the CTS. Harmony Square was crowded, as the city's nightlife was beginning to pick up, now that the sun had finally gone below the horizon. Phil was looking around for a nice vantage point when his helmet's communicator beeped. Somewhat confused, he answered the call. The voice on the other end was deep, mechanical, emotionless.

"Phil Girnham."

"... yes, that's me."

"Do you know a young girl, blond hair, not too smart?"

He grimaced at that last one. "You mean Julia?"

"Good, so you do know her. Tell me, if she were in danger, what would you do?"

Phil had to think on that. There'd been a few things that had been bothering him about Julia lately, suspicions he hadn't yet acted upon because there was simply no evidence, and yet...

"I'd kill the person responsible."

"I rather hoped you'd say that. As it happens, Julia is safe. For now. But that will change if you don't follow my instructions."

"Wait, do you- are you saying you have her?"

A pause, then, "Phil! Oh, Phil! I am so scared! I don't know where I am, these-" the sobbing voice was cut off quite suddenly, and replaced with the mechanical one.

"She will be hurt every time you disobey. She will be returned to you safely if you comply."

Phil grit his teeth. Much as he was still suspicious of the girl, she didn't deserve this. He felt... uncommonly protective of her. So...

"What do you want?"

"A global broadcast will soon be made throughout the city. In that broadcast, a gun will be fired. When the broadcast ends, I want you to kill every alien in sight."

Phil blinked inside his helmet. That wasn't a terribly unreasonable request, considering who he was. It seemed too easy.

"That's it?"

"Not exactly. You must ensure that no humans are harmed by your actions. You must cause only alien deaths. Every human death that you cause will be met with instant and severe pain for Julia. That will be all. You should meet very little resistance, as this city is unaccustomed to dealing with armed hostiles."

Phil grimaced. Killing he could do, but specific killing might be a little more difficult. He looked around the square; at least the alien population was fairly dense. "I can do that," he said.

"Glad you understand." The link closed.

Phil moved off towards a nicely elevated platform on some scaffolding he'd noticed, and began pre-combat checks of all his weapons. He was actually a little excited; it'd been a while since he'd had an opportunity to kill and cause destruction with wild abandon. For Phil was a killer at heart, and his favorite orders had always been "Kill them all."

---

The girl stopped speaking, her orders to Phil successfully delivered, and smirked at the paralyzed Yun. Lop was unrecognizable, which was kind of the point. With Lop's forced help, and a little research using New Shambhala's databases, the girl had been able to piece together an outfit that completely concealed all the parts of a Yun which others of its species could use to identify it. The final step had been to keep Lop from moving; Yun were prone to prancing, fidgeting, and general restlessness; and that was when they weren't being threatened with the slow and painful death of everyone they knew. The girl and the alien were in a room together, dark except for a single light shining on the unmoving Yun. One of the scientist's arms was held out perpendicular to his body, and his mid-joint had turned at a right angle, so that his eight-fingered hand was pointing straight down.

It was also holding the gun.

A gun which was pointed at the top of a kneeling man's head.

Administrator Slott was bound, gagged and blindfolded to keep him from speaking, and Lop's mouth-stalks were hidden; his spindly body was under the complete control of the girl's limited telekinesis; if it weren't, he'd be practically exploding off the walls as the urge to run overpowered his higher thought processes. In this state, he was nearly useless as a speaker, but it didn't matter. She just needed an alien body to pull the trigger.

Lop had heard the girl's half of the conversation and, fighting his instincts, managed to get small whimper out, which may have contained actual speech. A few more tries later, and a few words squeaked out from his terrified mouths.

"Y-you... you're insane! Y-you're j-just going to... to..."

The girl looked up from the recording device she'd been preparing, and smiled again.

"Yes. And it's about to get a whole lot worse."

---

Vandrel. Are you at the hotel?

I have arrived. The devices you left me are here, but I am unfamiliar with them.

I'm sending over a mnemonic data package that will help you get up to speed but right now what's more important is that you lay low, and try to stay around humans. Things are about to get a little crazy.

Vandrel nodded quick acknowledgment, though it was mostly unnecessary. He began picking up the various devices inside the small suitcase which he'd found on his bed. The data package unloaded relevant information on each device as soon as he looked at it, and very quickly he knew the basics of the technology he'd just been fitted with. He locked the door, and sat on the bed, as information flooded his brain.

---

Ambrose wouldn't have noticed it if she hadn't been so intent on capturing every little detail about Vanhart. So when a few passive sensors in his area picked up weak fluctuations in an electromagnetic field which had suddenly surrounded him, she jumped.

She'd been surprised when Vanhart had been greeted by what appeared to be a care package of modern technology in his room, but all he'd done was open the case and stare at it for a few seconds. Then this field appeared from nowhere, and she had only a few precious seconds to analyze it before it disappeared and he started picking up and installing the implants like he'd known how to all along. The results from the scan were... troubling. She hadn't had a whole lot of time, so things were still vague, but... she'd distinctly picked up a second field, highly focused, coming from... somewhere. It hadn't been active for long enough for her to pinpoint it, but it was definitely there. Now if only she could just-

A horn appeared in front of her, interrupting her thoughts.

"Load up a 'cast. Any 'cast."

"Minnie, what-"

"Just do it."

She did, and was greeted by... a Yun? Holding a gun?! And it hadn't killed itself out of fear yet?

Before she could even begin to process the oddity of what she was seeing, the Yun began to speak. Her computer's auto-translation system turned the howls and yelps of Yunnese into galactic standard English for her.

"Humans of New Shambhala. Your tyranny is at an end. For too long you have discriminated against the other species in this city, and violated the egalitarian philosophies which made this city great. Most of us were willing to tolerate your patronizing, until now. Recently, human commandos have been secretly dispatched to this city. Armed human commandos. Their purpose was unclear, until a group of enterprising non-humans discovered biologically engineered diseases in this city, secretly developed by the humans, specifically for use against all non-humans."

Ambrose was still struggling with the concept of a violent Yun when she realized she couldn't see any of its identifying features. Or its mouths. And it still wasn't moving...

"My name is Prism, and I urge the oppressed non-humans of New Shambhala to rise up with me against our would-be, bigoted rulers. The destruction of Pan-Horizon Solutions in Laboratory District 7b was the first strike against the humans. This is the second."

Now she noticed the human kneeling underneath the oddly-shaped gun - probably designed specifically for use by a Yun, she thought - and her incredulous horror kept her from looking away. Her mouth fell open as she recognized the man - as every being watching recognized the human. "Administrator Slott..." she breathed, and her eyes were drawn inexplicably towards the object pressed against his head.

The gun that the girl had built was not a regular gun. It used the incredibly powerful magnets from the tram system to accelerate any magnetic object small enough to fit inside the barrel to supersonic speeds. It was, in essence, a miniature railgun.

So when Lop's finger (against his will) pulled the trigger, the result was nothing short of spectacular. The projectile plowed through the top of Administrator Slott's head, reaching the floor in less than a hundredth of a second. His body exploded into two separate masses, spewing liquified human everywhere.

The feed was cut, and all hell broke loose.

Her cubes were alerting her of high-priority 'casts from around the city; uprisings, both human and non-human, public officials denouncing... whatever they could find to denounce, reports of human commandos opening fire in Harmony Square... the city was in chaos.

"Cree. You know what that was."

Ambrose shook herself. "I... I'm not..."

"It was a Yun guerrilla fighter. When have you ever seen a Yun stand that still? And who else could have gotten a gun into this city, of all places? It's the only explanation."

Ambrose thought a bit. It was true, the havoc wreaking through the station did have the signature of Yun guerrillas. Maximum damage in minimum time, with an emphasis on stealth. As Yun were, as a species, not generally cut out for being fighters (both physically and psychologically), one would think that Yun guerrillas would be more of a galactic joke than any real threat. Yet how other Yun viewed them was telling; every Yun guerrilla was considered legally insane by every Yun authority. They were trained to use their flight-instincts to their advantage, and underwent rigorous procedures to bring their jitter-prone bodies under control. They were ruthless, efficient, and few had ever actually been seen, though their handiwork was renowned galaxy-wide.

And the very fact that this Yun had been able to hold a gun without flying out of his shoes, much less pull the trigger, was proof that Yun guerrillas were in the city.

Ambrose moaned.

"Exactly," said minotaurus.

---

The girl was already a good distance away from the room where she'd had Lop kill Dr. Slott, and she'd already disposed of the remnants of the bodies.

The video hadn't been sent out live, of course. She'd needed some time to cut Lop's immobilized body into pieces for easy disposal, and to clean up Slott's remains, as she was fairly certain what passed for New Shambhala's authorities would pinpoint the video's origin fairly quickly. So, she'd recorded it, and sent it out after she was a few city blocks away.

As she made her way through the city's underworks to her next destination, her internal monitoring protocols threw up a message. Someone was looking into her creation of the Matthew Vanhart identity, and that someone had found some things she'd rather be left alone. She pulled up the digital profile of the culprit. "'Minotaurus', is it?" she muttered to herself. "I'll have to pay you a little visit, I think."

A blur, and she was gone.

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

---

Soft lurked in the darkness, wiping off her axe quietly. It honestly wouldn't have come to this if they had just complied. It would have made everything so much easier and the ending that much closer. But now there were dead bodies that weren't caused at all by karmic death, not even close, and that sort of attracted unwanted attention and because she was smart and good, she knew when she couldn't handle a crowd of unfamiliar beings with unfamiliar biological systems rushing her in an attempt to disarm her and maybe imprison her in some way. So because she was so smart and good, she had ran and hid.

This might actually require much more subtlety than she first thought.

It was such an odd concept for Soft and she felt extremely uncomfortable with acknowledging that threats and out-right demanding would simply not work here. Hell, she was uncomfortable with simply even allowing that there were other ways to solve a problem such as this. But, well, the story had to finish and this city had to fall. It shouldn't take too long for her to be able to figure out what to do and then she could start smashing things, most likely propulsion devices and maybe faces.

Obviously everybody was going to look around for a little girl with a giant axe. So that meant, unfortunately, she'd have to put ol' Choppy away for a while. Unshouldering the large book, she let it fall open and nonchalantly just shoved the axe in. The large weapon slipped in, as though through water. Soft thought seriously about her other defining characteristics and decided that her cloak, caked with mud and blood and ragged to the point of embarrassment for anybody who had the misfortune to set eyes on it, was a bit too conspicuous and let that drop in the book as well. Brushing off her thick dress, Soft looked down at herself, twirling around, trying to decide if this was enough...

The last thing she put away were her bows. She let her long hair fall down and brushed it back annoyed, remembering why she had tied it back in the first place. She brushed it down a little before suddenly taking something else out of the book.

They'll certainly be looking for a girl with an axe. They certainly wouldn't be looking for a girl with a sickle.

Hey, she needed to arm herself. If she knew one thing, it was that the world was dangerous.

Strapping the book on her back again, Soft walked out confidently from her hiding place, back onto the streets, swinging her light sickle cheerfully. Had anybody been around, they would have probably stared strangely at her poor disguise before trying to aprehend her again. As it was, the street was mostly empty, everybody probably having moved on to try to find her somewhere else.

So it was only later that she ran into a crowd after randomly stumbling into a large square. Luckily for her, the crowd was occupied with something else, some sort of broadcast that she had not been paying attention to at all. (It could have been excused since she had none of the implants that received these 'casts, but ignoring the blaring screens that floated along in the air?) She had dropped in on time to hear a bit of the end and see the crowds staring blankly up in silent disbelief. Her book had time to write out the words '...the trick was successful and two factions suddenly rose...' before a loud noise erupted and she was suddenly in the middle of a riot.

It hadn't been particularly violent at first, most of them not exactly used to violent tendencies, but after loud, angry debates about who was in the wrong, ("You alien scum killed our leader!" "You humans! You've always had a history for being so xenophobic!") they quickly got into the swing of things and after the first punch was thrown, everybody suddenly joined in.

Soft stood there, staring up and frowning to herself. This sounded like a completely different story that needed to be resolved. But you can't have two stories going on at the same time! That was just silly and a bit inefficient! Now the endings that needed to resolve both of them conflicted! She couldn't have this war resolve with a heroic hero saving the day and then have them all die in the fall!

But this definitely sounded like a setup by a tyranical tyrant. That she definitely couldn't ignore. And this trick was done by...

Soft didn't have to take long to come to the conclusion that that tyrant was probably behind this. It was so obvious even if the book attempted to have some sort of air of suspense. (Though she had no idea how he managed to do it...) Though racial tension weren't usually the subject of many fairy tales, a tyrant was a tyrant and she needed to get the hero to come along and kill him or whatever. So where was bug boy? Sheesh, he really should have the decency to stay close at hand in case these sort of things happened.

Soft was so lost in thought that she hadn't realized that both sides had taken notice of her.The aliens hated her because of what she looked like. The humans hated her because she held a weapon, something that they were suddenly appreciating. Both circled around her and although most then became distracted with preventing the others from reaching her first, several individuals came up to her, peaceful faces twisted into a scowl.

She finally took notice of them and raised her sickle. This didn't seem to drive anybody away. So as some strangely shaped alien being leapt for her, she hooked the sickle around its head and pushed it backwards with her foot so that his head was now flying through the air. Or maybe it was some other sort of appendage. She wasn't quite sure. The rest suddenly mobbed her and she kicked and scratched whatever faces she could manage to scratch and bit when everything else failed.

"You don't attack helpless little girls!" she shrieked angrily as she beat down the small mob. She turned towards a charging rhino-gorilla-turtle thing and prepared to decapitate it or something when there were several loud blasts and the alien corpse fell down, smoking. Soft paused and looked up to where the shots seemed to have come from and saw even more bright shots coming from the roof or something. She squinted at it for a while before deciding that this was not at all important to the story and turning to find bug boy.

And then after the happy ending, she'll make sure to get everybody to fall back to the ground. The order was very important.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

Reserved. I know I posted recently, but slip's post has altered my plans.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

Cole had made his way to the museum lobby when the broadcast began. He didn't even need to watch the entire scene unfold to realize what this meant for his plans.

A terrorist attack would, at a minimum, lead to heightened security across the city. Sneaking in after hours and stealing the horn no longer seemed feasible.

Furthermore, the message seemed, to Cole's mind, designed to inspire distrust between humans and nonhumans more than anything else. He gazed at the crowd around him, and noted the humans eyeing him and the nonhuman visitors with suspicion. The nonhumans returned the gazes.

The situation was a powderkeg. Cole decided that it best served his interests to light a match.

"How DARE you humans try to wipe us out!" he shouted, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. "My people had heard this city would be welcoming for us, but this is what you think of non-humans? The Grand Mayoress of Sk'va will be most displeased!"

It had the desired effect. A human shouted back at him.

"Shut up! We let you live here for all these years, and you repay us with an assassination?"

The arguments started flying. Not long after that, so did the fists. As well as the legs, pincers, tentacles, and even a few prehensile tongues.

Cole mimicked a jumping spider to focus on avoiding the melee; although nobody was heavily armed, and his bioelectric shock would have inconvenienced him, he had work to do. Any security forces would be focused on calming down the battle; the theft of a relatively insignificant artifact would hardly warrant much notice.

Cole crept along the walls and ceilings on his way back to the exhibit; most of the visitors were either running to leave, running to escape the increasingly chaotic fight, or simply hiding.

When he arrived at the exhibit on religions, the room was devoid of life - there were few good hiding places, and enough time had passed than anyone looking to flee had already done so.

Cole shaped his hands into the pincers of a scorpion, expecting to smash the glass display case open.

He was surprised to find the horn outside of the case, with a note tied to it. Cole was even more surprised when he read the note and realized it was addressed to him.

Mr. Aran:

Consider this trinket - or, more precisely, the fact that you do not need to risk triggering the alarm in order to claim it - as your advance payment for the favor I will ask of you later. Once you have completed the task to my satisfaction, I will provide you with a means of actually using the horn.

I don't recommend that you try to contact me. I will contact you. I believe I have already proven myself capable of this.

By the way, the alarms on the window down the hall and to the left have been disabled. I suggest you use that to escape. Do hurry, the deactivation was temporary.

-Minotaurus

Cole changed his arms back, and hung the horn around his neck. He then mimicked some termite mandibles and ate the note, seeing no reason to leave it lying around, but lacking a better means of disposal.

He then headed for the window, wondering who precisely could have known he would be here. One of the other contestants? That seemed unlikely. But it seemed even less likely that one of the natives could have been responsible...

He opened the window and leapt out, mimicking a set of beetle wings and flying down. Despite what the note had said, he had every intention of locating this "Minotaurus". But first, he still needed to make a trip to the zoo.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

---

A few minutes of visual surveillance was all Phil needed in order to decide on his plan of action. He strode towards a door marked "Employees Only" and, as expected, encountered no resistance. No one here would even think of entering a door they weren't supposed to enter, and they had assumed he was an employee himself. He crept a few flights of stairs to where the central control station he had seen from ground level was. It was occupied by two aliens of the same species, which resembled a large yellow ball of fuzz with many eyes and about six arms. In other words, the perfect watcher and button pusher. One of them turned to Phil as he pushed open the door, immediately recognizing him as not being an employee. "Hey, you're not allowed in he--ungh!"

Before it could finish the sentence, Phil had darted up to it and slammed it bodily with his rifle. Before it could recover, he brought the rifle down like a sledgehammer, crushing what he assumed was its skull. The other had by now turned around and was gaping at him in stunned silence; Phil wasted no time in beating it to death as well, with about as much resistance. He noted that there wasn't much blood on the floor. They're either unconscious or they don't bleed very easily. He shuffled around in a closet near the back of the room until he found some maintenance rope, then tied the two aliens together and pushed them in front of the closed door to delay anyone who might try to get in. Phil rubbed his hands together and sat down in one of the now-vacant chairs, searching the control panel for an intercom speaker of some sort. After a few moments he located a microphone sitting in a hook off to one side. He picked it up and pressed the switch on it, turning the system on. The noise level dropped as all the travelers listened attentively to the intercom. "All human patrons, please exit Central Tram Station. Repeat, all human patrons, please exit Central Tram Station. Luggage will remain in custody and will be returned in a matter of hours." A chorus of groans from the crowd accompanied these words, but soon all the humans were moving towards the main doors at a steady clip, until only a few stragglers were left arguing over their luggage, and then there were only aliens waiting for their trams. Phil put the mic back in its hook and poised his hand over a switch. However, he hesitated a moment instead of pressing it. "Suit, identify humans in FOV."

A single outline appeared on his visor, located around the image of the human reporter on one of the vid screens in Central Tram Station that ran news 24/7. Phil nodded in satisfaction. "Suit, abort." The outline disappeared, and Phil decided that he was clear to continue with the next part of his plan. Settling down, he turned his gaze to the television broadcasting news and waited for the signal. It wasn't long in coming.

Less than five minutes after Phil had began watching the news program, the anchorwoman anxiously announced that there was breaking news occurring, after which the view changed to that of some alien species holding a gun to the head of a human. Phil sat up and moved into position, posing his fingers over the buttons and switches he was going to have to use in a few moments. As soon as the alien stopped talking and fired the gun, he flipped all but one of the switches in the section labeled "LIGHTS" to their off positions, and the entire station, with the exception of the control room Phil was in, plunged into darkness. At the same time, he hit a button labeled "LOCKDOWN," figuring there weren't all that many things it could mean. Sure enough, the button played out exactly as planned; thick metal barriers rapidly moved down to close off the station's main gates, and the tram tunnel doors, which resembled bank vault airlocks, all closed and locked themselves, closing off all routes out of the station. The crowd below began murmuring confusedly, unsure as to what was going on.

Phil picked up the mic and pressed the button again, lounging back in the wheeled chair. All noise in the station immediately ceased, leaving an expectant hush in its wake. Phil savored the pregnant silence for a moment before speaking into the microphone, his gruff voice slicing through the darkness. "As you may have noticed, the station is now dark and completely closed off from the rest of New Shambhala at the moment. If you'll take a moment to look around, you'll see that there is still one section of the station that is lit; many of you have probably already noticed it. That section is the control room, which I am currently occupying." Phil wheeled over to the large window and waved jovially to punctuate this. "You've probably guessed by now that I am not staff. Congratulations, you're a winner!"

Phil spun around in the chair, turning his back to the window. "I have placed a number of bombs in key locations around Central Tram Station. I have with me a detonator, so I may trigger them at any time I wish. Failing that, they will all explode within two hours." A hushed murmur filled the station, and Phil smiled malevolently under his helmet. "Please understand that this is nothing personal. I have no grudges with any of you in particular, and I'm not being paid to do this." Phil paused again, and he could almost feel the entire station holding their breath as they waited on each of his words. "I just want all of you non-humans dead." The intercom clicked as Phil hung it back up, and the light in the control room flicked out as he turned off the last light switch. 1, 2, 3, 4...

Screams erupted from the crowd below and all of a sudden the previously-still throng began shifting around like a pond disturbed by a large rock. Phil unholstered his rifle and strode towards the door. "Suit, activate night vision." After yanking the dead-after-all alien corpses out of the way of the way, he pulled the door open and walked down the stairs.

------------

Professor Julio tapped the blackboard with his baton until the class quieted down and turned to give him their full attention. "Now that you have all returned from lunch, let's continue our discussion on failed utopias. Perhaps now we can actually get some work done, hmm?" Most of the students dropped their eyes guiltily, and Professor Julio resisted the urge to chuckle. "Please load page 349 on your desks." The students tapped a few times on their electronic desks until they all had page 349 open for viewing. "Today we will be discussing New Shambhala, often referred to as 'The City in the Sky,' one of the longest lasting utopias to ever exist."

------------

Phil kicked open the door at the bottom of the stairs and was greeted by the luminous night vision display on his visor. The crowd was milling around in terror so much that there had already been several people killed from being trampled to death. Phil began firing into the crowd with glee, dropping alien after alien without discrimination.

------------

"New Shambhala was the product of millions of years of scientific progress. Rapid scientific jumps in the field of anti-gravity made it possible for the entire city to be held afloat by only six anti-gravity generators, although there were more than ten times that number aboard to act as failsafes."

------------

Phil fired a shot clear through the head of a lizard-man, splattering his blood and his brains on a bipedal bug-like creature behind him, which screamed piercingly before being executed as well. Phil thought it might have been female, in a purely matter-of-fact way. In all honesty, he couldn't have cared less.

------------

"The educational system was considered to be one of the finest of its time. People traveled from all over the world to take part in it, and many of the world's greatest minds emerged from the many universities of New Shambhala. All of the schools were equipped with top-of-the-line technology and had excellent budgets."

------------

By the time the crowd had realized that the real threat in the station was not the supposed explosives, but instead the commando ripping through the large cluster like tissue paper, Phil had already murdered at least forty of their number. It was at this point that they started running away from him and screaming, to his immense amusement.

------------

"In fact, the entire city was a technological marvel. Not only were they able to get it to float, but they were also able to keep the entire city of New Shambhala powered through only six power plants, along with four for keeping it afloat and two spares in case of a critical failure."

------------

Phil was carving a path of destruction through the crowd, littering the ground with dead bodies. The number on the top left of his visor increased in count whenever he killed someone, and the number in the top right increased whenever he missed a shot. The one on the top left was resting at sixty-eight; the one on the top right still read zero.

------------

"But even more important than the technological aspect of New Shambhala was the societal aspect. It had a reputation that eventually became close to a slogan: 'Never turn a friend away.' Despite the several day wait usually required to gain entrance to New Shambhala, largely due to the exhaustive background checks run on each applicant, the percentage allowed in was calculated to be 98.74%."

------------

A group of aliens were clustered near the employee-only stairwell entrance, clearly planning to reach the control room and cancel the lockdown. Phil strode over and gunned them down without difficulty, chuckling at the way they scattered when he came near like children trying to swipe an extra cookie after dinner.

------------

"But as great as New Shambhala was, there's a very good reason we're studying it during our failed utopias unit. New Shambhala is different from any utopia we've studied or will study in this unit for three reasons. First, it lasted an incredibly long time. Second, it did it all without having any form of authoritarian government. And third, those responsible for its sudden decline were never apprehended, or for that matter even located. For all intents and purposes they vanished after the major initial events occured."

------------

A group of aliens tried to rush Phil. He acknowledged their courage even as he dropped them mid-run before executing a flying kick into the lower torso of a hairy primate a foot taller than him. It seemed surprised that someone so much smaller than it would even consider attacking it. It died surprised.

------------

"While these catalysts were never located, they were extensively researched. Pictures taken of them were used to search the databanks, along with any information about their them that could be inferred from their actions. Unfortunately, most of them turned up massive numbers of results at best, and nothing at all at worst. However, there were two that did return results, puzzling as they were."

------------

Phil took a moment to survey his handiwork so far. Bodies of more species than he knew existed littered the floor like some sort of morbid cultural variety poster. Hmmm. Phil frowned. Definitely not enough. Grinning wickedly, he took aim and continued furnishing the floor.

------------

Several snapshots of Reinhardt masquerading as Matthew Vanhart appeared on the student's desks. "Matthew Vanhart was one of the key instigators of New Shambhala's decline. After the assassination of Administrator Travin Slott by a Yun guerrilla, Vanhart stoked the growing unrest between humans and other species into a roaring inferno, ushering in what historians have labeled the first inter-species racial cleansing in the history of the entire human race."

------------

A sobbing mother tried to hide her child behind her body while the father launched himself at Phil. Phil shot the father in the chest and he dropped, writhing on the floor in agony. Phil stepped over his body and ended his misery with a single shot in the head. The woman screamed and tried to run, but Phil took aim at her back and killed both her and the bawling child in moments.

------------

The snapshots of Reinhardt were joined by a number of ancient paintings and tapestries. "As strange as it may seem, every search through the databanks connected Vanhart to an ancient tyrant who was recorded as having carried out genocides against several racial groups, accusing them of witchcraft, which at the time was a perfectly acceptable reason."

------------

The station was full of death now. Bodies littered the floor, and Phil had gotten bored with gamely searching for the survivors and had assigned the task to his suit, which pointed him towards any moving objects that were emitting heat. A few of them tried to halfheartedly rush him when it was clear he knew where they were, but they might as well have stayed where they were for all the good it did them. Most were simply curled up in whatever served as the fetal position in their species when Phil came for them.

------------

Professor Julio glanced at the clock to make sure he'd have enough time to finish class on schedule. Satisfied, he shifted his gaze back to the class. "The second result that turned up was a human commando who went missing in action hundreds of centuries ago." The images of Reinhardt winked out, to be replaced by several pictures of a man in a suit and helmet carrying a rifle, and a single picture of him without the helmet, displaying a heavily scarred face.

------------

As Phil shot the last sentient being in Central Tram Station beside himself, he looked around at the gruesome, bloody scene in front of him. Bodies were heaped everywhere, and the floor was slick with multi-colored blood from the various species. Phil grinned widely and, slipping off his helmet for a moment, inhaled the smell of death from the newly-created battlefield, feeling the adrenaline rush slowly fade and allow him to relax ever so slightly.

------------

"Phil Girnham was a top-secret military commando, and at the time of his disappearance he was close to being arrested and put on trial for committing several crimes against humanity. At some point in his history, he was given a near-fatal wound, and spent close to a year in surgery; that's the reason for his facial deformities. After he had recovered, he stole a piece of advanced armor and a prototype weapon, escaped the facility he was being held in, and then vanished. The unnamed commando in New Shambhala was named after him for lack of a better choice."

------------

The peace didn't last long. Sparks erupted from the large metal lockdown doors. Phil blinked, then remembered that there was a world outside the killing zone he had created. Sure took you long enough. As the New Shambhala authorities desperately tried to weld their way through the metal doors, Phil darted across the field of bodies, back towards the control room.

------------

"Girnham's actions were notable in that they marked the first widespread killing of non-human races. Girnham, along with a team of allies, infiltrated New Shambhala's Central Tram Station, taking over the control room and putting it into lockdown. During the lockdown, Girnham's team slaughtered all the non-humans inside Central Tram Station, estimated to have resulted in more than three hundred total deaths."

------------

Phil reached the control room in less than a minute, and wasted no time in canceling the lockdown. As the doors slowly rose up, he darted down the employee stairwell and out the back door which employees entered by to remain inconspicuous, noting the sound of several men, who he assumed to be members of whatever passed for a police force in New Shambhala, vomiting upon realizing the gruesome reality of the killing field they were being presented with.

------------

Professor Julio glanced at the clock once more. "That about wraps it up for today, I think. No homework for tonight except to have a good weekend and enjoy yourselves." The bell rang just then, and Julio smiled as he watched the students rushing out the door. Ah, to be young again. He glanced back again at the lesson plan on his desk. What I wouldn't give to be able to understand some of the mysteries at work in this universe of ours...

Originally posted on MSPA by Wojjan.

---

The god looked to his right.

The god looked to his left.

There was a certain flair to him. How he stood, arms folded, in the town centre, eyeing up the city folk, each with their despicable cowardice, incredible sloth, vicious lies and deception and oppression and...

He closed his eyes. This was not a past he had to judge now. There were others, far more important than ordinary people. And as of now, they went by the name of Julia.

He looked down. No, that's not quite right.

He saw down.

He saw the intricate, delicate system; everything in the town being balanced out perfectly in harmony and bliss, not only to sustain flight but also to preserve the order of nature itself, as sick as it may have sounded. This oppression of anything non-human, one which another contestant had been thriving for endlessly...

It was supposed to be.

He then noticed that with such a delicate system the presence of the battlers - there were 7, an odd number - clearly made the system lop-sided. He quickly sped up from the flying floor high into the air, hoping to undo whatever cracks in the chi his feet had been causing, gathering many an odd look. Once flying high above the city, he finally figured out his role in this battle.

He was the mediator, a force to counteract the others.

As the god assumed an almost relaxed position in midair, he observed from above with insanely keen vision that pierced through buildings and people, gathering all of New Shambhala in one quick passing-over, and only slightly regretted the fact his laws of balance required his eyes to now glimmer with an otherworldy shine. (It would, after all, only be fair for others to see him if he saw them.) Dwelling on the land, the citizen, and moreso the attentive battlers would have noticed his apppearance and ascent.

With these shining eyes he saw a laboratory erupt in flames due to a meltdown and the confused hand of his long lost mother, the demoness judge decapitate the "irksome bugs with no backstory" and the Central Station of New Shambala shut down and die off.

Balance blinked back down onto the ground, apppearing in a spot where the rough estimate of what he needed was present. His iridescent eyes hovered only a few feet of the already volar city, but he managed to keep up speed to remain exactly in the same spot.

"Citizens of New Shambhala...

...Today is your judgement."

------------------

Balance waved his hand.

The horrible god of equality stood in the center of the town set ablaze, floating above the rubble and destruction his swift motions had produced. The city population combusted at the simple cleching of Balance's fist. His face contracted into a devilish grimace, giddy laughter spewing from his lips. The sight was all but befitting a god, let alone one that is called just.

After about 32 corpses were claimed for his deeds, he teleported away to another, seemingly random spot. There, his rampage again continued, more death spreding across the random points in town he picked. Each number of casualties was measured with an unimpeachable precision, matching exactly the amount of lives the other players too in different parts of town.

At a certain spot, he did have to leave someone alive.

The confused and frightened mollusklike alien cowered in her shell, only daring to peek once to ask the question.

"...W-Why?"

"They were on the right side of town."

Balance blinked away, leaving mollusk lady to grief the abrupt passing of her friends, and reappeared in the sky, content that the casualties his boorish enemies were progenerating were balanced out again. Another job well done.

He did however remember another thing. Amy had been sending out a broadcast starring Vandrel sometime ago. Her plan was no doubt to break free and oppose the Executor. Balance knew that the Executor was too powerful for that to work. Any attempts to face him would, aside from certain death to all but one contestant, bring about a disruption.

Within a moment Balance set up a shield. Aside from the Executor's precautions to create a bubble, he would have to make sure no radio communications reached the brute and the mischievous woman. This shield would serve to protect this order.



After a split second, the Grand Battles hopped around in dimensions, jumping from place to place in an attempt to thwart the incoming messages, unbeknownst – or so the deity had hoped – to the Grandmasters.

Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.

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I think I'll reserve

Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.

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SpoilerShow

bleh this is a post

Had she been at full power, Ur wouldn't have needed even to move to find her targets. Or, for that matter, eliminate them. Divine senses would have pierced through physical and magical barriers even if they had been miles away, and a simple effort of will would have stopped their hearts, or exploded their heads, or replaced their blood with molten lead. Anything was possible, and none of it was difficult. However, as the ghosts welled up within her, they drowned out all but the most mundane of senses, and even those swam and warped as though through heat mirages and some rather exotic hallucinogens. Her powers, too, were near unavailable; trying to do much more than the divine equivalent of parlor tricks was so impossible as to not be worth trying.

She flew at apparently-random around New Shambhala, occasionally plunging through the reinforced hull as her garbled senses hinted one of her targets might be below. When it inevitably wasn't what she was searching for, the maddened goddess would indiscriminately slaughter those unfortunate sapients that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her actions had thus far served to advance her own goals little, but there were a few observers who were only too enthusiastic to spin her chaos towards their own ends. She was just human enough in appearance and just indiscriminate enough in her killing to make an excellent propaganda tool for certain fearmongering forces.

This continued for some time, the fury of being unable to find those she really wanted to destroy tempered somewhat by the bloody satisfaction that came with every snuffed life. Any survivors left were not spared out of mercy or balance or even for the political reasons many other contestants were picking their targets for, but were simply left breathing and soaked with the ichor of their friends and family because by now even Ur's most basic mundane senses were failing her and every moment left her reason more and more muffled and warped. Of course, this meant that by simple statistics since humans were more numerous than any other species, humans were most likely to be among the survivors of any given attack. It was all rather convenient, from a certain point of view.

Still, even the most convenient and apparently-cooperative natural disasters are bound to turn unfortunate, and in her current state (or near lack) of mind, that was the best way to describe the shrieking avatar of death. So it was now, as Ur was finally able to locate one of her targets.

There came a creaking sound from above Phil, followed by several loud crashes and the sound of metal splintering. He was easily able to avoid the debris that crashed down, but as he turned to see what had caused the ceiling to cave in, he was confronted by a rather surprising sight. Ur was lunging towards him, quill-glove scything through the air; more disconcerting than that, however, was the fact that every bit of her seemed to be twitching: her face was quivering, her limbs jerked erratically, and her body as a whole looked like it was in danger of flying off in twenty different directions at once. The air was full of her screams of "I will shred your soul, Phil Girnham!", but even through the piercing scream, he could hear quieter moaning voices lamenting things like "Left you to..." and "... of your every blessing..." as though they were inside his own head.

Ur was out for blood.

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

---

Oh, come on, the hero was always nearby when trouble was afoot. Why wasn’t it easier to find him? Gaaaaaaah.

And this sickle was so stupid too didn’t have the comforting heftiness of a big honking axe seriously. Though she supposed it was doing a good job keeping the masses off of her and oh man letting her hair down was a bad idea why didn’t she remember how much it had got in the way before and now people were grabbing it and gaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Why did things have to get so chaotic? Even chaos in the stories were a bit orderly. Mobs formed and dispersed in an orderly fashion. Kingdom was never really that deep in squalor after whatever magical item that had kept it so prosperous was stolen. If rogues roamed the streets, they only ever bothered whoever was plot-important. And if one more person tugged on her hair, so help her, she was going to shove this sickle so far into their eye socket that the blade would curve out and make its exit through their heart or something. Who knows, maybe some of these guys were formed in a way that made that anatomically possible.

There were citizens throwing stones all over the place, either at each other or at buildings, not that she really understood that because if you were going to be violent, why not be violent at something actually living? Gave a little more satisfaction, for one thing. And people were definitely a bit easier to bring down than buildings. Buildings were pretty much built to be a bit more resilient than their builders.

And speaking of buildings, Soft ducked into one now, trying to kick away any crazy stragglers trying to grab at her dress the nasty perverts and also trying to keep on top of the story but seriously this was getting tough and what now there was a massacre going on what how many antagonists were there supposed to be? She totally wasn’t going to fit all of the things she would have to do into one redemption plot. And wait there was another massacre going on now, this one more widespread, sort of and shoot going inside didn’t help much at all because there were people fighting inside too and actually should she be happy about massacres? But no, that wasn’t the symbolic fall of the city she wanted and if she really wanted to keep out of this annoying fight maybe she should duck into the stairwell. Phew. Fight dodged.

And now Soft crept up towards the roof, uncharacteristically silent as she tried to straighten out all the threads of information the book was giving her. Space murderer in one place, dirt goddess in another…no, she was with space murderer now and dramatic fight scene time and bug boy was doing boring research which was like adding in the tedious forensic stuff into detective stories, not that those were her forte or that she even knew about forensics in the first place.

Soft finally stopped at the roof and hesitated as the book devoted several long and dreary paragraphs about the chaos that was devouring the city all around her. It wasn’t that she had no idea what to do, more like she had no idea what to do first. Of course, there was the problem of directing bug boy back to where the story was freaking happening because you don’t just leave your protagonist out there away from the freaking action that was just poor form. And she had to figure out how to thwart the tyrant with whatever he was doing. And she had to make the city fall. And she had to make sure that the shadow man wouldn’t interrupt anything, which meant…

The previous storyline was a disaster by the end. The direction it had petered out randomly and thus it was left unfinished with no message. But she did learn something from it and that was that while it was not usually wise or fun to butt in to a god’s business, sometimes it was necessary. At least to make sure the damn story actually finishes. She made the mistake of assuming that whatever dirt goddess’ business was, it wouldn’t mess with hers, and look what happened!

So first on the list is getting dirt goddess away from everybody else, hopefully without getting demoted into non-existence.

Except the book had yet to actually tell her where to go to find them. So maybe she sort of vaguely knew the type of building they were in. It wasn’t like the book came with map directions.

So maybe focus on the redemption plot again?

…Not that she knew where the supposed protagonist and antagonist for that were either.

And destroying whatever was holding the city up was a no-go either if she had no idea where that was. So basically she was useless.

She could destroy the whole city. That was a nice thought. Would totally solve all her problems. No more stories, no more guiding…

Wait what the hell was she thinking.

The stress of the job was just getting to her, that’s all. What she needed was some sort of way to manage what seemed to be three stories going on at once. She just needed a way to separate them all. That would make it easier, right? Then no story gunk would contaminate another story.

Obviously, she would have to split the whole city into different parts and hopefully the key players would happen to be in their own separate part of the city.

…Not that she really had that much power. Splitting cities? Nobody really trusts a lowly spirit with that sort of power. She was quite certain she knew who would have that sort of power, though. Not that she knew where either of them were—

Reacting to something dully narrated to her, she quickly scanned the skies and grinned as something finally went her way.

“Hey!” she called out, hopping over the railing and leaping towards another rooftop in order to get closer to her target. “Oh Mister Scaaallllles! Come down here for a bit!”

The book also went ahead and narrated what exactly he was trying to do at this moment. Soft didn’t really understand it, but whatever he was doing, it certainly wasn’t more important than what she needed to do right now. “Mister Baallaannce!” she called out again, apparently having managed to retain someone’s name. (If you were going to remember someone’s name, might as well be a god’s.) “Stop that thing you’re doing, seriously, there’s something else you need to do!”

She clambered on over to another rooftop and had a sudden thought.

“If you don’t mind,” she added.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

Cole soon realized he was not alone in the skies above New Shambhala. The goddess Ur was flying around recklessly, destroying with no rhyme or reason. She even flew right by him once without appearing to notice.

Somehow, this was even more disconcerting to the former biologist. He continued towards the zoo, hoping she would not destroy it before he arrived.

As it turned out, the zoo seemed to have closed down for the day. Cole watched as a line of people slowly left the zoo, being searched by the security forces and then sent home when none proved to be carrying any weapons. The process was calm and orderly.

Cole took it as a sign that none of his competitors were in the area.

There appeared to be a large glass dome over the zoo - likely to keep vandals of flying species out. Flying in was not an option.

That was a small matter to Cole. He flew towards the entrance. As he approached, he began to shift his arms into pincers, and grew a scorpion's tail. He landed, grabbed a surprised security guard, and flung him aside.

"I will be brief," he said calmly to the frightened crowd in front of him. "I wish for access to the exhibits on insects and other arthropods. Grant this simple request, and there will be no need for further violence."

The orderly atmosphere vanished immediately. Most of the crowd panicked. A few braver souls charged at Cole, refusing to be intimidated. The security forces were divided between trying to calm both groups, and trying to arrest Cole.

They were mostly ineffective. The security forces were trained to handle vandals and petty thieves, not psychopaths. The civilians were even less prepared. Anyone who drew close enough to threaten Cole quickly found one of their arms - or similar appendages - crushed between one of his pincers. His tail swept aside the few who dared to attack him from behind. And anyone who did manage to land a hit on him was shocked by his bioelectricity, giving him a chance to retaliate.

Cole was not aiming to kill, but neither was he specifically trying to avoid it. He wounded seventeen critically, and killed three guards and one civilian outright. He made his way to the gates, indifferent to the damage he was causing.

One soul stood in his way. But that one soul gave him pause.

It was Jaknel, the mammothlike man he had met before.

"So. Ko'laran, was it? Just who, or what are you? Are you working with the Yun guerillas? And what do you want with this zoo?" Jaknel glared at his would-be attacker. "Whatever it is, I won't allow you to bring any harm upon this city."

Without saying a word, Cole spewed a thick strand of web at his acquaintance, pulling him aside swiftly, then ran into the zoo. He spewed more webs at the entrance as a crude blockade, much to the frustration of the security forces.

Jaknel was puzzled. He was largely unhurt. Yet the Sk'van, if that was what he truly was, had shown no hesitation in attacking the rest of the crowd.

A security guard quickly slapped a device on him. He was immediately paralyzed.

"Do you know something about that madman?" the guard screamed. "If you do, you'd better tell us. Now."

Jaknel's family watched with terror as the surviving guards took their patriarch away.


***

You could have burrowed in, Cole suddenly found himself thinking. The ground doesn't seem that thick around here. You could have at least tried it. Or waited for the crowd to thin. Why did you have to be so impatient?

But the Executor can move us at a whim, was the mental reply. What if we are moved before we can make use of this opportunity? Or that crazed goddess arrives here?

And does that justify the people you wounded in your haste? The ones you killed? Until you came across one you knew before, you cared about nothing save the fact that they were in your way. You were treating them with utter disdain. As though they were...

Insects.

Cole paused momentarily.

I set on this path from the moment Anansi transformed me, he concluded. I cannot go back now.

Not until I have made that spider pay for what he has done.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

---

Phil immediately rolled to the side, and Ur crashed into the floor where he had stood only moments before with a tremendous crack. Without stopping to pause, he let off a short burst of fire from his gun at the fallen god as she picked herself up from the ground. But Ur was faster than Phil had realized, and she leaped at him with inhuman speed and a feral screech, reaching him before he could do anything more than raise his weapon reflexively. Ur's sickle clattered into the sturdy multiweapon, and Phil took the chance to kick her legs out from beneath her. Ur landed on her butt in a rather undignified fashion, and as she looked back up at Phil, her face contained both unearthly fury and, Phil was surprised to see, a faint pouting expression, like that of a child denied something they thought was reasonable. His weapon now free, Phil snapped the barrel to face Ur and fired a point-blank burst into her chest. To Phil's dismay, other than being knocked back slightly and made slightly angrier, Ur seemed largely unaffected by what should have been a fatal bullet wound. Phil quickly weighed the situation and decided that a tactical retreat was in order; he sprinted off down an alley fast as he could, with Ur chasing after him, screeching death threats at the top of her voice.

Phil's mind raced just as his feet did. Maybe I can lose her in a crowd. "Suit, locate nearby living organisms my size or larger." Semitransparent triangles, size scaled to show distance, appeared on his visor as his suit carried out the command; he noted distractedly that his suit had not assigned an icon to Ur. He focused on a large group of fairly large triangles somewhere to his right, which he assumed indicated a crowd of the size he was looking for.

Before the armored commando and undead goddess burst screaming out of a nearby alley, the crowd was, for the most part, in a cheerful and lighthearted mood. Despite disturbing recent events, it was still a beautiful day, and the community was thriving just as it always did. The citizens of New Shambhala were no strangers to misfortune, but instead of trying to hide problems as past dystopias had, they found ways to fix them or move past them. Instead of focusing on the accidental death of one of their close friends, they focused on the sunny day, or the birth of a child, or the pay raise they just got. This positive outlook shared by nearly every citizen was what enabled the city to keep functioning as well as it did.

But then of course the armored commando and the undead goddess burst screaming out of a nearby alley and everything went to shit.

Phil dashed through the crowd, doing his best not to make waves, not so much to avoid being rude as to avoid making his location within the crowd visible. Ur waded into the crowd at a slower pace, taking the time to slice through everyone who got in her way. Within seconds the crowd was scattering, numerous species united in the single goal of getting the hell out of there. Phil glanced behind him and noted that while he was gaining a little distance, it wasn't nearly enough to be useful in the long run; the moment Ur had gotten out of the crowd she'd be right back on his tail, and he couldn't run forever. He burst out the other end of the crowd and darted into another alley, hoping he could lose Ur before she made it out of the crowd. I need to find some allies.

Without warning, his headset burst to life. "Phil? Phil, is that you?"

Phil was so surprised he nearly forgot to respond. "Julia, this is Phil. What's going on?"

Julia's voice came back, frantic and scared and small. "That thing left for a while, and I managed to get loose and get on its computer terminal! Phil, you're being chased by Ur!"

It took all of Phil's mental concentration to resist the urge to roll his eyes, and he had to bite his tongue to keep from responding sarcastically. "Yes, I know. Is there anything you can do from there?"

"Ummm...well, there's a map here. It's got your location highlighted, and a few other ones...ah!"

Probably the other contestants...unless I'm not the only one being blackmailed. "Can you click on any one other than the one right behind me?"

Julia's voice was much more energetic this time. "I just did, and a window appeared showing Cole! You were friends, right?"

"I suppose so, at least for the moment. Can you guide me to him?"

Phil imagined Julia hunching over the display, tracking his dot on the screen and then comparing it to Cole's. "Okay, pass the next two intersections and then make a right."

-------------------------------------

Cole scuttled down the narrow hallways of the entrance to the insect wing, peering into each door as he passed it. It seemed he had chosen to enter from the administration wing, and thus was unable to find anything but flies and the occasional termite as he passed through the building. He tried a few of the terminals, but they all had virtual locks on them, so he gave up on that rather quickly, choosing instead to simply work his way towards the insect exhibits themselves. The building, which unbeknownst to him housed the main body of the zoo's administration, was surprisingly large, and the task took him about ten minutes.

At last, Cole made his way into a hub, with hovering signs pointing the way to each kind of insect. In a matter of minutes he was looking closely at a very specific spider, safely penned up in a display case made of some transparent material. If he had still been capable of smiling, Cole would have been doing so at this point. He was about to smash the case open and escape with his prize when the door burst open and Phil came barreling in, with a psychotic Ur in close pursuit. Phil shouted a greeting as he vaulted over a display table, knocking all the cases off of it and releasing a small cloud of various insects. "You ready to fight a god, Cole?"

-------------------------------------

Phil sped down narrow side roads and back alleys, following Julia's instructions as best he could in his frantic retreat. In no time at all he had made it to the insect wing of what appeared to be some sort of zoo. Unfortunately, that was when disaster struck.

Julia's next message had a much more frantic tone to it. "Phil, I think I see--" Then without warning, the line went dead.

Phil swore. "Julia? Come in, Julia." Blast. Did she get caught?

"GIRNHAM! STOP RUNNING!" Ur's bloodthirsty wails behind him reminded Phil that he had no time to lose, and he decided to put the matter of what had happened to Julia to the back of his mind for the time being.

The door was blocked by a layer of webbing, but was hardly an obstacle for Phil; he simply broke in through one of the windows next to it and sprinted down the long hallway until he reached the same hub Cole had gotten to. From there he followed the same path Cole had, until he found himself bursting through a door to find the bug man eying a display case with a spider in it. Phil vaulted over the nearest display table, scattering display cases left and right. "You ready to fight a god, Cole?"

Before Cole could respond or even wrap his head around this sudden turn of events, Ur exploded out of the same door Phil had just came through, and he decided explanations could wait for later. Ur flew straight towards Phil, only for him to jump to the side and shoot her in the face with a well-aimed shotgun burst. She whirled around and screeched at him, lunging forward with her sickle; Phil ducked the blow, but the rest of Ur still collided with him, and god and mortal went tumbling to the ground in a tangled heap, wrestling furiously with each other.

Cole took this opportunity to grow a particularly nasty pair of pincers and hopped onto Ur's back. He clamped his new pincers down on her head, cutting viciously into the sides. To Cole's surprise, no blood came from the wound. Ur screeched in pain and bucked her back viciously, throwing Cole into another cluster of display cases. Phil took the opportunity offered by Cole's distraction to land a solid right hook and kick Ur off himself, rolling backwards to gain a little ground while Ur stumbled back to the table behind her.

Ur looked between her two foes, a stock expression of fury on her face. A loud buzzing noise filled the air as a massive swarm of bees rose up ominously from behind the dead goddess before launching itself at Cole and Phil. Cole simply ignored the bees as they plastered themselves uselessly against him, and began growing sharp claws and extra arms. Phil was not so fortunate, and he was forced to run for a nearby fire extinguisher and begin coating the bees in flame retardant foam. Before long the swarm had dwindled in numbers to the point where it was hardly a formidable obstacle, but it had served its purpose as a distraction. Ur crashed into Cole, the cuts on her head mysteriously gone.

Cole brought his claws up to block the sickle blow; the shock of the collision hurt a bit, but it kept the blade from hitting his more fleshy parts. He snapped his pincers at the goddess, but she was unfazed and snarled back at him. Vines began to sprout from the floor and encircle Cole's legs, rooting his feet to the spot. He struggled against the bonds with increasing urgency, eventually resorting to viciously snapping his pincers at Ur; she was forced to withdraw her face a few inches after he nearly nicked her in the eye.

Then a grunt followed by a sickening thunk came from behind Ur as Phil brought the fire extinguisher down on her head, squashing it like a pumpkin, but with distinctly less mess; despite the grievous wound, Ur still did not bleed. A hideous shriek came from Ur, and she rocketed out one of the windows, nearly knocking Phil over in the process. The vines, deprived of Ur's force of will, became limp, and Cole easily kicked them off and stood up, his insectoid form fading back into a more human one. He turned to Phil, who, he noted with a touch of envy, didn't seem to be winded in the slightest. "Mind explaining to me what that was about?"

Phil shrugged. "I would if I could. She just appeared out of nowhere and tried to attack me. When I discovered that bullets barely fazed her I ran off to find an ally. I saw a sign pointing towards the zoo and figured you might come here because of the insects." He doesn't need to know about Julia yet. He paused for a moment and chuckled quiety. "Sorry if I ruined your bughunting expedition."

Originally posted on MSPA by Captain Lhurgoyf.

---

Over at the hotel room, Reinhardt watched the scene from the comfort and safety of his isolation. Among the devices that had been sent to him by his advisor was a small handheld screen, apparently tuned to the contestants in contact with the girl. With a push of a button, Reinhardt had activated the device, the screen displaying the view from Phil's helmet, just as if Reinhardt had been there himself.

The tyrant smirked grimly at the scene unfolding before him. This sort of chaos in the city would be fun. He was pleased with what was going on. Rubbing his hands together, the tyrant mused again on the astounding capabilities of such technology. If such a way as this, to allow one to hijack the very sight of another, was possible by the capabilites of ordinary, supreme, natural mankind, Reinhardt had great potential in his race. He could achieve these miracles, no, he could even go beyond them, with just enough technological knowledge.

Just as Reinhardt began to get lost in his maniacal thoughts, he was alerted by what he saw on the screen. Phil was apparently attempting to contact Julia, but failing. Had something happened to her? Reinhardt, as an fascist who ruled with an iron fist, had no plans of sharing power in any way, but Julia was his advisor, his connection to the advanced knowledge of this city. He could not afford to lose her so early.

Vandrel Reinhardt stood up from his seat, once again approaching the parcel he had recieved. Steadfastly but slightly worried, he picked up another device, this time a portable communicator that could carry the voice of one user to another. He tuned the invention to Julia, hoping to hear a response.

"Julia, are you there?" he asked, waiting for a reply to come.

Originally posted on MSPA by Wojjan.

---

“And you're asking me to split the city in pieces.”

“Yes, pretty much.”

Balance was not only the god of justice, but also of mopy serious behaviour. But when he was faced with such a request, he couldn't help but swallow a laugh.

“You're asking me, a god who absolutely hates vigilante justice, to split a city in pieces in front of the eyes of an even stronger god who can teleport and probably kill people at will here, even me, and you want me to do so because it fits in your story?”

Soft had to rethink things a bit because her narration was never that boring and long winded and halfway through Balance's blabbering (the point about the god stuff probably) she spaced out a bit but after he said something that resembled a question, she roughly explained: “Yes.”

“Oh this is priceless. Just priceless. Forget about it.”

“But Scaaaaaales!”

Balance cringed at the nickname, and considered simply finishing Soft off to continue to the next round for a second. That second soon panned out as he pondered over how it would get him an antagonistic position and the weight of that decision on the Executor's plotting and every little connotation even slightly related to that decision and how it would make Julia more wary and how it would siphon force away from him because it would be far from a fair fight (She did have an axe though. Maybe offer a clear hit?) and that second soon was a minute of awkwardly pivoting back and forth (or from Soft's point of view from left to right) in midair as if it were concrete, and then replying.

“What?”

“That took long. Mister Balance, this story is important! You want to keep everything at ease right? Keep Mister Executor pacified? I can do that too! It's the story that counts! If that guy isn't pleased we are done for!”

Balance nodded without even noticing, which was odd for a god.

“Very well. I will make sure it's a spectacle, so he has a good show,” he said. He thought, If I can distract him somehow, maybe I can keep the jumping up long enough for Julia to miss the replies.

The god looked, perhaps for the first time, at the young girl before him. ”What did you have in mind?”

“I dunno, like some walls?”

In a mere second Balance stood on the ground, and the few escapees from his latest attacks already screamed and fled or fainted, but this time the god simply touched the floor. It cracked. From the cracks protruded a purple beacon, shining a force field in seemingly random directions. It broke several building and sliced anything in its way neatly in half. It sparkled a bit too, for your viewing pleasure.

“Look, girl, in each wall there's a hole somewhere to get through it, but it'll take some time to find. If you seek your protagonist, leave, and go search for him."

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

Reserved.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

Cole sized up his visitor. He had only spoken to Girnham once before, he realized; he did not know what the man had been doing since.

A thought occurred to him. It seemed unlikely, but at the same time, there was little harm in asking.

"Did you, by any chance, leave me a note at the museum?"

Phil shook his head. "No. I haven't been to any museums. Why?"

"Never mind. It isn't important." There was a pause before Cole spoke again. "What do you make of this city?"

"Huh?" Phil was confused. He hadn't taken Cole as the type for small talk.

"It is a simple question. This is a city filled with amazing technology, some of it beyond what I could have ever imagined. More than, that, however, the life that fills it is fascinating. Before arriving here, I had never seen an intelligent life-form other than humans. Now, I can step outside and see literally thousands, many of them unlike any form of life I have ever seen before. Is that not amazing?"

Phil shrugged.

"I guess. I hadn't really thought about it much."

If it were possible to glare with compound eyes, Cole would have done so.

"A pity. Perhaps you should think about it more."

A set of dragonfly wings sprouted from Cole's back, and he lifted himself off the ground.

"I will continue looking for insects of interest. As long as you do not interfere, I have no reason to harm you."

With that, Cole flew away. However, he was not, in fact, searching for insects; he had already found what he was looking for.

The spider he had acquired had evolved a very distinctive ability, which had made it a valuable prize. Its webbing contained a potent acid that was both highly corrosive, and highly volatile.

In short, Cole now had a deadly weapon on hand. But he needed to be careful with it. Webbing had never been Cole's expertise; when he used it, often some loose strands would stick to his body. It was a mild inconvenience at worst, and usually ignorable - but this was not the case if those loose strands could melt through his body and then explode.

Regardless, it was a worthwhile addition to his arsenal. He would simply have to practice working with regular webbing if he could find a safe place to do so.

Cole's thoughts were soon interrupted by a voice behind him.

"Hey, is that beetle over there any good?"

Cole turned around to see Phil following him, and pointing at a large stag beetle crawling around on the wall. A nearby plaque indicated that this was a newly-bred species, and that its horn was harder than diamond. Only the fact that it had plentiful food and no rivals had kept it from breaking out of its cage.

Cole flew over to the beetle and grabbed it. How fortunate. He turned to his guest.

"Yes, this will be quite useful. Thank you. Now, why exactly are you following me?"

"Because I don't have anywhere else in particular to go just now, and if that crazy goddess comes back, I'd rather not face her alone." And I just got a call telling me to follow you, but you don't need to know that.

Cole reflected on this for a moment.

"Well, then. I believe I have sufficient reason to cut my business here short. So perhaps you can make yourself useful, and assist me with my next objective."

"What's that?"

"You may recall that I mentioned a note before. I am looking for its sender, one 'Minotaurus'. I doudt you have any information, but if you do..."

"As a matter of fact, I do," Phil interrupted. He was lying, but the message he had just received had been clear enough.

"Say exactly what I tell you to, or she dies."

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

---

Soft rolled her eyes as she theatrically bowed and made her leave. Gods and their silly complex scale rules and limitations. He totally didn’t have to make this difficult for her. She felt it. But he just had to because otherwise it would bother him or go against his nature or whatever. Rules oughta be simple. Don’t do this unless you want your nose shoved down your throat. Don’t do that, because then you’ll find yourself choking on your own blood. Everything else you can do. Rules. And they make sense, outlining the line you never cross.

But then you make rules for yourself to abide by and they are incredibly silly and even probably would hinder yourself because these rules are just stupid and even works against good intentions and gods were just stupid.

Soft looked up for a moment and sighed. It would be nice if she could just fly over these things whenever she needed to, but looks like Scales thought of that too. In any case, she doesn’t need to just yet, does she? Let’s just see who happens to be in this smaller section, hmm? She intended to at least finish one story today. Whatever loose thread she came across first, that would be the one she would work on.

Hopefully, the narrative would work in her favor again and actually help her find someone. Or at least the things that held this city aloft.

She landed on a rather tall building and peered down at the crazy going-ons of the little ants below. Somehow, things seemed to be calming down. Or perhaps everybody killed each other. Or maybe everybody was just hiding.

According to a sign that she managed to read after turning her head in an awkward position, it was a hotel. Tyrant-man was in a hotel, wasn’t he? Maybe he was in this one. That would be nice. In fact, what was he doing now?

…troubled by what he had seen, Reinhardt decided to check upon his ‘partner.’ Things seemed to be getting a little bit too crazy out there and he felt the need to both check to be sure she was alright and double-check when, exactly, he was supposed to go out once more. Little did he know, that his call would be interrupted...

Woah woah, hey. Third person omniscient. That didn’t happen every day. She didn’t even know she had access to future events. Potentially, at least. But at least she could now infer that, very soon, she would come across the little, misguided tyrant. Perhaps even in a few seconds.

Alright, enough with wimpy, lightweight sickles. Soft took only a little while to take out a rather hefty and rather large hammer out and smashed through the roof beneath her. The room below didn’t really seem to have anybody in it, so she started to just demolish the whole floor before finally coming upon the only room that seemed to be occupied on this floor.

Vandrel wasn’t exactly deaf and a giant hammer smashing open walls as easily as a kid knocks down sand castles wasn’t exactly the quietest thing in the world. Soft burst into the room. Her book announced her arrival in Vandrel’s room with a lot of pomp and circumstance. She cried out, “Ha!” And then Vandrel attacked.

He couldn’t say that he was quite used to this sort of weaponry. The most advanced it got back in his world was siege weaponry and catapults, really. (Because only man-made advancements counted. Whatever ‘advancements’ other races made didn’t concern him.) Just learning about them didn’t exactly prepare him for using them and he had never gotten a chance to practice.

The gun sent Soft flying back through the holes she had just made (and some walls she somehow ended up missing) but it also almost got him falling onto the floor. So this was the power of magnetism…at least the repelling side of it.

He took out another one of his new weapons, something he felt a little more comfortable with (though he certainly still didn’t quite understand it). With a push of a button, a cylindrical chunk of metal turned into a sword. Not exactly a sword as he knew it, with beaming lights and the emitting heat dealie, but a sword nevertheless.

He proceeded cautiously through the hole in the wall, looking for the crumpled figure of a little girl somewhere amongst the rubble.

The problem was…he couldn’t just kill her. He was going to conquer this city, after all, and he couldn’t do that if the round ended. But just leaving her alone wasn’t a good idea. At all. He didn’t know Soft too well, but she didn’t strike him as the type to just not follow tenaciously if a fight escaped her. So he would have to figure something out. If he could.

Some rubble shifted in front of him and Soft burst up, pointing an accusing finger. She hesitated a little, seeing someone a little different than she expected, but then pointed dramatically again. “Ha, your disguise doesn’t fool me, you little bigooot! Recognize meee?”

Reinhardt blinked. Was she supposed to be in disguise? She didn’t exactly go to the lengths that he did, now did she.

She hefted up the hammer again and swung it down. The heavy weapon wasn’t exactly very fast, which gave Vandrel quite a bit of time to just slice the head in half as it came down.

“Hey!” she cried out, halfway between pouting and spitting with rage. “That was just cruel!”

“Look,” Reinhardt said, gritting his teeth, still holding up the futuristic sword-thing defensively. “We don’t have to fight.” Though it would be really nice if you would go off and die. Preferably last round.

Soft laughed derisively. “Booooy, villains always need to fight the heroes in a dramatic fight! And then the hero comes out on top in the end!”

“So what, you’re supposed to be the hero?” he shot back sarcastically.

“Oh, no, no…we’re getting there…”

Another ridiculously large weapon juxtaposing against the small frame of the girl that wielded it. The wide swing of the Zweihander was easy to dodge and then he just used the strange gun again. This time, she flew right out of the building. He followed her and peered out the hole. As expected, she wasn’t dead. And it might have been a bad move on his part. He realized this when Soft grabbed ahold of his jacket and tossed him over her shoulder before letting go of the edge to fall after him, swinging the sword wildly in attempts to cut him into ribbons. First, he shot the gun at her again so that she suddenly went flying upwards. This had the unfortunate effect of making him fall faster. Turning over, he then aimed the gun at the ground below and pulled the trigger.

Amazingly enough, this worked, and it slowed his descent enough to not wound him drastically upon impact with the ground. He glanced up. Soft was still busy falling. And he had yet to think of a way to deal with her.

A metal claw embedded itself into the ground beside him, connected to a chain. He barely had any time to jump out of the way before Soft came down, colliding with the ground with the speed of a very fast thing. She stood up while the dust was still clearing and put away the hookshot. (A must for every adventurer.) And she walked slowly towards Reinhardt, now dual-wielding what appeared to be two very nicely carved wooden swords.

It occurred to her at some point that it would probably be very hard to lead Vandrel to Cole when she had no idea where he was, especially with the barriers in the way now. Stupid stupid stupid.

Originally posted on MSPA by Captain Lhurgoyf.

---

Reinhardt pointed his sword directly in the face of his assailant, his angry glare peeking out over the cracked surface of his sunglasses. Spitting with rage, the tyrant held up the glowing blade in a defensive stance. Surely, if these swords were only made of wood, eloquent as they were, they would splinter and shatter with ease under the force of any blade, no less this one made of light.

"What in the everlasting hell do you think you're doing, you little bitch?" Reinhardt cussed, the anger slurring his voice. "An insignificant brat like you, daring to challenge the military master Lord Reinhardt, conquerer of the Middenlands, commander of the righteous, slayer of creation's filth? Are you so plauged as to think your presentation will intimidate me? I have seen more combat experience than a girl your age would ever have! I have survived - I have caused - more battles than you have had chest colds! I will not balk at such utter idiocy!"

"Such a naughty boy you are. Watch that language of yours, and don't talk back!"

"Oh, you fool. You think that'll stop me? You think that will stop a hardened commander, a gladiator, a tactical genius, to give me a reason not to crush your throat in my bare hands, rend your flesh from your bones, and drive my blade through you until your body isn't even strong enough to hold itself up any more?" Vandrel asserted, referring to a punishment he had enacted upon a dwarf unfortunate enough to be seen near his castle with a valuable cloak around his neck. Of course, the suspicion of theft wouldn't have been so great if it were a human, but to Reinhardt and the people who lived under his brutal reign, what difference did it make? A dwarf and a thief, an elf and a rebel, a halfling and a gambler, an orc and a murderer, were but two sides of the same coin.

"You said you weren't going to kill me, you silly. I don't suppose you forgot? Did you hit your head on the way down? Poor you!" Soft added, tilting her head and smiling coyly.

"Yes. Yes I did tell you that," Reinhardt added, a smirk spreading across his face. "I won't kill you just yet. But when I'm done with you you may as well have wished I had."

With that, Reinhardt swung his hand in an arc, knocking his opponent back and off her feet, her wooden swords knocked from her hands and crashing on the hard ground. Giving her a kick for good measure, Reinhardt then turned and picked up a piece of rubble.

"This should get you to stay put," he said, mockingly using the style of Soft's ever-annoying childish admonishings, as he pinned the girl under the rock.

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

---

SpoilerShow

Invincible Godpost Part One: In which we realize someone's been naked this whole time.

Moments prior...

"Julia, are you there?"

The girl cursed inwardly. This man had no sense of covert protocol. Then again, he hadn't come to power in the same environment as her and her brother. He had cunning, but was too unfamiliar with what "secrecy" meant in the modern day-and-age. No matter. He was obviously a fast learner.

"Don't call me that, never on an unsecured channel. Some has been follow-" There was a crash on the other end of the call, and then the line went dead. The girl checked local security feeds, and was able to piece together a basic picture of destruction caused by Soft's entrance. There was nothing she could do for Reinhardt here.

The girl dropped down through an elevator shaft's emergency exit into one of them many service tunnels of the city, and brought up a display of several of the city's digital message boards. She had been posing as "Prism", the "resistance leader" she'd invented earlier that morning. Almost immediately after the broadcast, she had begun quietly began setting up an information network for the resistance, a movement which was growing the more "Prism" showed himself. Recruits were surprisingly easy to come by; previously mild racial friction now blown to unbearable proportions in the wake of the city's recent massacres had stirred much of the non-human population to be more receptive to the idea of taking action.

She'd kept herself physically busy, of course. A few well-spent hours back in the workshop she'd found earlier netted her five more gauss-type guns, which she sent off for use in her burgeoning resistance movement. Though, she was becoming increasingly annoyed with the walls of sparkling purple energy which had laid themselves all across the city. The time required to find ways through them was becoming a major impediment to her progress. Balance would have to be dealt with, at some point.

Having already laid much of the groundwork for an organized resistance, the girl began disseminating instructions. She pursed her lips, and continued on down a service corridor of the local public, underground transportation. She still had a few loose ends to tie up.

---

Ambrose's stomach rumbled, and she realized she hadn't eaten anything yet today. She was considering getting up to grab something from the food replication unit when a notice jockeyed for her attention inside one of her cubes. She opened it immediately, and nearly gasped when she realized what she was hearing. A conversation between Matthew and... someone named "Julia"? Thoughts of food once more forgotten, Ambrose shoved her hands back into the cubes and began waggling her fingers in a complex weave as she attempted to trace the call.

---

Ur brooded in an abandoned parking lot. So distracted was she with her own internal demons that she didn't notice the small, six-limbed furry creature across the lot, hiding in the shadows, preparing to fire a makeshift thermal cannon at her. It was cobbled together from various aircar parts, and this was the first opportunity the alien had to test it on what it was pretty sure was a human. Looked human, anyway.

So it was that Ur also did not notice as a small hole suddenly appeared in the side of the alien's head. The alien was jerked slightly to the side, carried by the excess energy of the projectile, and slumped over quietly, dead. Shortly thereafter, Ur left, to attend to her own goals.

---

The girl paused at a ladder, and double-checked her location against the blueprints of these tunnels. She looked up the shaft, and decided this was the one she wanted. She began climbing.

As she moved up, hand over hand, she continued to monitor Reinhardt's... situation. Between the surprisingly strong girl-spirit and this Minotaurus, she had a lot of damage control heading her way. She began to set up a few preemptive defenses, just in case.As she was preparing to erase record of their recent conversation, she found a few oddities, almost as if...

She nearly froze mid-climb. Someone had been listening. Someone had been listening! Her brow furrowed as she discovered that no trace of the listener's origin had been left behind. Whoever she was dealing with, they were very good. From what she'd been gathering on Minotaurus, he certainly fit the bill. Nearly at her level, and considering this city's level of technology...

She continued climbing, determined to reach her goal.

---

Reinhardt moved quickly away from where he'd pinned the annoying brat. The girl's last words on the communicator were troubling him, but he knew by instinct that he had to get to the other administrators. According to the information his partner had sent to him earlier, if they could be led to believe he was here to help, they would be able to give him whatever power he needed over the city. Provided the right... incentives, of course. He'd jogged a good distance away by now, and according to the holographic map in his vision, he was well on his way towards the Administrative Bloc.

Reinhardt.

The voice was just as crisp as always.

I was wondering when you'd contact me again. Your last words have been troubling me.

You have a ghost.

...pardon?

Someone's been ghosting you. Following you, discreetly. I should have seen it sooner... first they were looking into the Vanhart identity I created for you, and now there are digital fingerprints in every surveillance camera that's ever had a clear shot of you. Not to mention that someone heard our conversation earlier.

It seems to me that you have been... derelict in your duties, then.

Silence. Reinhardt spent the time searching for a hole in another of Balance's forcefields.

These were all areas of your responsibility, yes? And these are all areas which have been found to be... lacking? Perhaps you are not as good as you think you are. Or perhaps you are not as... invested in my goals as I have been led to believe.

The girl could not find a good angle on Reinhardt's face. He was avoiding what security cameras he could see. He was learning. More importantly, she still needed him. She had learned long ago when to let go of her pride, but doing so still wasn't easy. She clenched her teeth.

Errors easily rectified. I apologize if I have seemed lax in my duties. My goals are your goals.

Good. I am headed towards the Administrative Bloc. What will I need to know?

The Administrators are a group of fifteen high-ranking academics, all brilliant scientists and professors in their own right. Though they have ruled this utopic city in seeming cooperation, there are minor rivalries between them. Administrator Slott's death has tipped the balance towards a small group which has always been vocal about stronger security measures, considering the recent rise of corporate espionage. The other events of today have essentially solidified that group's position as the current leaders of the Administration. Their names are Dr. Soldova Burr, Dr. Pelinous Penrose, Dr. Qoi La'ar Som, and Dr. Gerritusilwalthoracksnis. Two humans, a Yun, and a Panthorn, respectively. The humans are the center of the group. They will give you the authority you need, piece by piece, and I will give you the excuses to grab more and more. How you weed out the non-human Administrators is up to you.

That will do. I must also inquire as to why you called our previous correspondence "unsecured". Surely you have ensured the devices you gave me to be safe to use?

They use highly advanced encryption algorithms, yes. But I never consider anything I haven't built myself to be secure. This is the most secure form of communication we have.

Should the need arise for me to contact you on an "unsecured" line in the future, I shall call you Jade.

... I understand.

Reinhardt closed the connection and smiled to himself. The girl had been uppity ever since they'd met, and now she'd been put in her place. She would be subservient to him or he would sever their service. Her brother, on the other hand...

Reinhardt frowned. They were of the same mind, he and the strange, silver-eyed man. But there was something... he couldn't quite place it. Continuing to puzzle over the problem, Reinhardt continued on his way through the currently deserted streets, skirting anything that sounded like a skirmish large enough to delay him.

Unfortunately, given New Shambhala's current state of chaos, avoiding the roaming gangs of protesters and bloodthirsty aliens proved to be rather difficult. As Reinhardt stepped onto a narrow bridge linking two large, suspended, a gang of angry-sounding aliens entered from the other side. Reinhardt turned, but found his way blocked by a group of equally angry-sounding humans. The latter group wasn't paying him much attention. He wished the same could be said about the former.

As it was obvious the only way through was to fight, Reinhardt pulled out the gun he'd used earlier, braced himself, and fired.

The energy blast carved straight through the dense group of aliens, like an invisible bowling ball knocking aside floppy pins. The aliens recoiled slightly, but then with cries of, "A human commando!" "Agent of the oppressors!", they pushed forwards. Reinhardt drew his sword. The humans rallied around him, and they charged.

Reinhardt cleaved through the aliens, graceful yet forceful. Despite his skills, however, he was unused to fighting against such unhuman opponents. He didn't account for the flexibility of a tentacled alien, as one of its limbs, holding a sharp object neatly dodged his swing, circled around behind him. Before he could react, the alien fell dead, and a sticky yellow fluid began to ooze from a freshly-made hole in the side of its central nervous cluster. Reinhardt looked around for the shooter, but the bridge crossed an enormous gap, and buildings towered all around him. The shooter could have been anywhere, and besides, Reinhardt was quickly distracted by the surviving aliens.

He and the humans dispatched the rest of the other group quickly and easily. The humans thanked Reinhardt, and the tyrant told them they were doing good work, and that New Shambhala would be free of aliens very soon.

Vandrel Reinhardt left them, and continued onwards.

---

Ambrose sat back. It had ended. Whatever "it" was. She'd nearly jumped a foot into the air when that strange electromagnetic field appeared around Reinhardt again. She still couldn't make much sense of it, but she pointed every sensor and ran every diagnostic algorithm she could muster at the field until it disappeared again. This time, however, she'd gotten a good ninety seconds of solid data. Vanhart had gotten harder to track after that, so what she had afterwards was splotchy, and now she wasn't able to find him at all, which was only marginally confusing. He was heading through a part of the city that had suffered pretty badly from the earlier riots. Still, she should at least be able to see something...

She tapped an icon on the leftmost face of her leftmost cube, and a horn appeared.

"Heya Minnie, gotta present for ya."

"I told you to stop calling me th-"

"A really really strange level 6 electromagnetic field has been following Vanhart."

"... give me the data."

"What? Minnie come on, you can't just-"

"Give it to me."

"Why?"

"I know someone who can interpret it."

"... Minnie... Minotaurus, buddy guy... person... listen you can't just keep demanding things of other people. What do I get out of this?"

"I'll tell you what he tells me."

Ambrose sighed.

"That's not what I mean. I want payment. You usually pay me for my information. I thought we had a nice working relationship."

"Fine."

A small blip indicated money had been transferred into the holding account they frequently used.

"Really, Minnie? I'm not stupid. This is worth more. The fact that you've gone all 'commissar' on my ass and have been demanding rather than paying is proof enough. Somethin' big is goin' down and I not only want my fair share of the loot, but I want in on the whole thing."

"No, you don't."

"What do you mean I d-"

"I'll pay you more, but you don't want to know what this is all about. Trust me, total worldview collapse is not a pleasant experience."

"... total whatnow?"

"Transfer the data. I'll transfer the money. I'll have my contact analyze it, and I'll send you the results. But that's it."

Ambrose pouted. "I guess that'll do..."

She nudged the appropriate holographic symbols, and Minotaurus's icon disappeared. "Not even so much as a 'thank you'..." she grumbled to herself, but her heart wasn't really in it. Her credit account was being distracting.

---

Balance had his hands full ensuring equal deaths. Humans and aliens were slaughtering each other all across the city, and for every human death, and Balance, having taken the stance that both sides must remain equal, was killing a human for every non-human, and a non-human for every human.

The god's indiscriminate killing had made him enemies everywhere, and as he paused, standing over his latest attempt to maintain equality, a growing whine caused him to look up. An aircar was barreling straight for him. The god's vision could make out the driver, a human, grimly gripping the controls, face set in a determined grimace, obviously intent on killing Balance any way he could.

The car was moving fast, and Balance had been caught unprepared. Under normal circumstances, he probably would have been killed, especially since the car was filled with explosives. A fact Balance only became aware of when it exploded in mid-air, and even several hundred feet away, the blast was still powerful enough to knock him off his feet.

As the god pulled himself back upright, a small detail nagged for his attention. Thinking back, just before the aircar exploded, he had noticed something travel quickly through the air, fast enough to appear as a thin, dull grey line, and hit the car. He puzzled over the apparent intervention, and then shrugged. Just another death to balance.

---

The members of resistance cell 314 eyed each other warily. Well, most of them eyed. A few used high-pitched frequencies to observe the positions of objects in the room, and the body stances of their companions, or pointed their infrared-detection fronds towards the others in an accusatory manner. That they had been assembled so quickly was enough to put them on edge; each was afraid the others were not up to the task, and that their own wavering courage would be discovered. In true, cell-organized resistance manner, none of them knew the identities of their superiors, what other cells were doing, or even how many other cells there were. "314" didn't necessarily indicate a number in a sequence. For all they knew, they were the only cell.

They had all traveled long and indirect paths to reach this meeting; indirect, mostly because of the sparkling forcefields which criss-crossed the city. Most of them assumed the forcefields were some kind of automated defence for the city.

They were meeting in a recently abandoned apartment, thoroughly ransacked by looters. A large table in the middle of the apartment, which had proved too heavy for any of the looters, made a nice meeting space. The twelve aliens were gathered around it.

A large mass of long, curiously textured hair at the door of the empty apartment whuffed impatiently. Its hair began to vibrate, producing a variety of buzzing noises. The other being's translators began to chatter in or at their appropriate sensory apparati. "Well, we all know why we're here. Why don't we just get started?"

A confusing tangle of limbs near a wall began gesticulating wildly.

"But we don't know what we're each supposed to do! Prism just told us to invade Administration, but not how or or... who should do what or... anything! How do we even accomplish this?"

The mass of hair began to vibrate again, but an elephantine creature stepped forward from the far end of the apartment.

"Prism said more than that. Our exact orders are to take control of Administration and take all humans we find hostage. Prism obviously trusts our competence enough to leave the details up to us. So, I suggest we all begin laying some ideas on the table."

A twisting mess of light and shadow began glinting frantically.

"Well, first we'll need to ensure we can neutralize all the security staff. How do we even do something like that? We have no weapons!"

The mass of hair somehow managed to vibrate commandingly. "Yes, we do." A large box was pushed out from beneath the hair's bulk, and pulled open by an odd brown tendril, which then retreated back beneath the mass of hair. The gathered beings moved forward, and collectively gasped... or emitted some analogous reaction. There, before them, were five universally-designed gauss guns, similar to the one Prism had used on the earlier broadcast. It didn't matter that there weren't enough for all of them. Five was all they needed.

The twelve gathered beings began communicating excitedly, more confident now, some even daring to hope their revolution would succeed.

---

Ambrose yawned, and stretched. She'd lost Vanhart five minutes ago, and aside from the disturbing evidence of an anti-human terrorist network establishing itself across the city's information network, she didn't have a whole lot to do. Minnie, the selfish bastard, wouldn't let her look into the Vanhart identity, and all her other trails had dead-ended one after the other. The only worrying aspect of her inaction was that her searches for more information about this "Julia" person had been completely fruitless. The encryption on the call was top-level, and almost proved a challenge for the master burner. But despite all her skill, she still couldn't locate the other end of the call. Not one to trouble herself by worrying about something she couldn't solve for the time being, she'd set the issue aside until more data presented itself. In other words, Ambrose Lom was extremely bored.

So when Minotaurus's icon popped up again, she could barely contain a squeal of excitement.

"'Sup Minnie, Minnow, Mmmmmmightymousey, whaddya got for me?"

"... are you all right?"

"Damnit Minnie I'm goin' stir-crazy here! You've gotta give me something!"

"I will. I can. Unfortunately not over this connection. Looks like I'm going to have to bring you in deeper than I'd like."

Ambrose stopped bouncing and sobered. Minotaurus's tone was deadly serious.

"You're going to meet with someone, in a public place, in twenty minutes. I'll send the address to your mobile unit; stick to public transportation. I'd avoid your aircycle for now."

"Sure th-wait, how do you know I have an aircy-"

The connection was cut and the horn disappeared. Ambrose got up, and then looked down. Deciding that now would probably be a good time to put on some clothes, she glanced at her wrist display to confirm the address had been received, threw on some loose pants and a rather worn-out long-sleeved shirt, grabbed a small nutrition bar from her counter and rushed out the door.

Two seconds later she came back, put on her shoes, and ran back out again, locking the door behind her.

---

Cole glared at the commando's armored back. All his attempts to push for how Girnham knew "Minotaurus" had been neatly rebuffed.

Cole was beginning to suspect the soldier was lying.

Still, they were definitely headed somewhere. And Girnham didn't seem to be that adept in the ways of deceit. If the mercenary's intents were malicious, Cole felt sure he'd be able to tell by now.

Which made the small, quiet, irregular, but consistent sounds picked up by his audio sensory fronds all the more worrisome. They'd been following the pair for some time, and despite Cole's best attempts at surreptitious recon, he'd never seen or heard or sensed anything more than the occasional soft step, creak, or tap which had been keeping pace with them. Normally indistinguishable from the regular background noise of a city in chaos, the sounds would have gone unnoticed by anyone but Cole. His acute pattern recognition abilities, gained from years of struggling through complex scientific research and concepts, combined with his finely-tuned natural suspicion, were enough to make the consistent closeness of the sounds stand out to him.

And whatever was making those sounds, there were definitely two of them. One watcher for Cole Aran, and one watcher for Phil Girnham.

The pair came out of a dusty alleyway onto a vast, elevated, deserted promenade. Hastily-made signs spouting idealistic rhetoric of varying types littered the ground, forming drifts against the occasional body - evidence of the protests-turned-riot-turned-slaughter which had been happening all over the city.

Phil led them over to a monolithic office building of some sort. As they hiked up the massive marble stairs to the large, heavily fortified security doors of the main entrance, a group of five guards, armed guards, came out to meet them.

Phil, who had been holding his rifle in a ready position during the trek, cautiously lowered the muzzle, but kept it raised enough to still be threatening. Cole just bristled.

The guards, three humans and two hard-skinned, featherless bird-like humanoids, waited for them at the top of the stairs. "Minotaurus has been expecting you, Cole Aran. If you would follow us."

Cole and Phil glanced at each other. The guards seemed to be pointedly ignoring the commando. Cole looked back at the guards, and their guns. This was the first time he'd actually seen munitions of any kind on New Shambhala, and he suspected these may be the only armed forces in the city. If such was the case...

Cole was still suspicious of this "Minotaurus" and his motives. It couldn't hurt to have Phil with him if things got ugly.

He turned his gaze from the guns and back to the human who'd spoken. "My associate will be joining me." The guard opened his mouth to reply, but something about the directness of Cole's statement stopped him. He nodded, and gestured towards the door. "This way," he said, and the other guards fell into position around Phil and Cole as the entire group entered the building.

Inside was a lavish, soaring atrium. The ceiling was roughly sixty stories above them, and sat atop a tapered point, as the atrium narrowed with height. A stairwell of disconnected, floating steps swooped downwards on either side of the oval floor. In the center, an intricate and beautiful circular pattern decorated the softly self-illuminating floor. Massive windows replaced the walls of the first level, and artificial sunlight shone down upon the levitating isles of exotic plants drifting through the atrium's upper levels.

The uniformed guards were to be found in abundance, as well. A majority of them were human, or belonged to the same avian species as Phil and Cole's escorts. A few other more alien species could be seen, wearing their equivalent of what appeared to be the standard guards' uniform. The only exception was a hulking three-legged shape, completely covered with brilliant white, glinting armor. It stood rock-still off to the side, and Cole almost mistook it for a statue until he noticed the way others were avoiding it. That, and the two massive weapon-ends sticking out from behind its back. Neither contestant could identify them.

Overall, a very strong security presence, though automated security was oddly lacking.

The guards continued moving towards the center of the atrium, and then suddenly stopped in the middle of the circular pattern. Phil and Cole looked around warily. Then the ground moved, and the pair found themselves, along with their escort, being carried towards the building's top by a levitating circular platform.

The platform moved too quickly for either contestant to easily resolve the many floors and rooms they passed, but the entire structure was obviously buzzing with activity. To what purpose, however, was the question nagging Cole.

The platform continued on through a circular hole in the ceiling of the atrium. The platform traveled through a cylindrical shaft for a few seconds before coming to rest in a circular room, the floor of which was conveniently also the platform they'd just arrived on.. The escort dispersed, and took up positions on either side of an an unassuming opaque glass door. Phil and Cole cautiously approached. It slid smoothly open. The pair stepped through.

The room was tastefully spartan. It was by no means large or looming, and was relatively well-lit. A few small bookshelves lined one wall, and a few small couches sat in the leftmost corner, near the door. The air was refreshingly chill. The only extravagance was the rear wall, which was a single window looking out at the sparkling city. The towers of New Shambhala cast long, foreboding shadows in the waning sunlight.

Standing in front of the window, silhouetted by the setting sun, was a stocky, broad-shouldered, horned figure. A deep exhalation stirred from its solid frame. "I imagine you both must have a few questions."

The window began turned opaque, and the figure turned to face the contestants, and both mentally recoiled at a sight literally out of myth. A bull's face looked back at them. Its eyes glittered with keen intelligence, and fixed them both with a stare.

"I am known as Minotaurus. And you," he gestured a thick arm towards Phil, "are Phil Girnham, former commando. You," turning his head to Cole, "are Cole Aran, former biologist, cursed by Anansi."

"How do you know all this?" Phil demanded.

"It is my business to know things. Though, I must profess I do not know why you are here, Mr. Girnham. I intended only to meet with Mr. Aran."

Cole threw Phil a suspicious look, and the commando could feel the minotaur's gaze fixing him from across the room. Phil reasoned it a bad move to answer that question. He remained silent.

Minotaurus waited quietly for a few more seconds, before moving on. "I assume we'll find out soon. Regardless, I must speak with Mr. Aran alone. If you would excuse us?" Phil nodded, and gratefully left the room. The door slid closed behind him, meeting the wall with a quiet thud.

Phil walked into the platform room a ways and then stopped, scoping out the guards still positioned around the room. He turned back to the door. "This had better be quick," he grumbled to himself. He adopted a comfortable yet ready stance and prepared to wait.

A message popped up on his helmet's HUD, startling him out of his boredom.

Well done. The girl will be waiting for you on the ground floor.

Phil blinked. Was that it?

Before he had a chance to puzzle over the confusingly short message, the door to Minotaurus's office opened soundlessly once more, and Cole stepped out. He strode into the platform room and over to his waiting companion. Phil caught a glimpse of the minotaur with his back to the door once more, looking out towards the falling twilight. The door slid shut once more, its quiet thud perfectly masking the sound of softly landing feet just inside room.

Cole approached Phil. There was an uncomfortable silence.

Phil shifted. "Well?"

Cole looked at Phil, stretching out the commando's obvious discomfort. "Well, we talked. The only thing you need to know is that Minotaurus doesn't know why you're here. I have to admit, I'm curious now, too."

Phil shifted again, a little more uncomfortably. "Look, I'm not really sure mys-" His words were cut off as an explosion blew out the door to the office. The guards pointed their weapons at the contestants and opened fire, while at the same time alarms went off all over the building. One of the guards slapped a pad on the wall behind him and the floor dropped out from beneath Cole and Phil. The pair had survived the initial barrage thanks to Phil's shields and Cole's quick hardening of his exoskeleton, but were now unprepared to handle sudden free-fall. Thinking quickly, Cole sprouted four almost invisible wings, which then turned completely invisible as they beat faster than the eye could see, emitting a jarringly low buzzing sound. Phil, not having the luxury of flight, immediately fired a magnetic grappling hook at the ceiling. The clamp landed close to the inner wall of the atrium, and Phil swung down, performing minute corrections with the grappling line's length. He crashed through a window a few floors down, hitting the floor at a perfect angle to roll to his feet and begin firing at the surprised guards. Cole, lacking a place to land and not willing to brave the gauntlet of a direct descent, touched down next to Phil. The pair turned and looked out over the atrium. Where before it was buzzing with activity, now it was overwhelmed. Guards could be seen flowing up the single, spiraling floor of which lined the atrium. The contestants moved away from the edge, and noted the how the floor slanted downwards slightly. There was only one way down. No stairs, elevators, or secondary routes. Just a single, unbroken spiral.

Phil grinned. Cole sprouted more weapons. The pair advanced.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

---

Phil reached for his waist with his right hand. "Cole, shield your eyes!" Cole looked back at him quizzically, just in time to see the commando throw a small cylindrical object at the guards, turning his head to the side and covering it with his other arm as he did so. A moment later, a loud BANG was heard from the same direction, and the burst of light that accompanied it dazzled him momentarily. A few shots followed, and when Cole's vision cleared Phil was throwing a dead guard down the spiral ramp into a cluster of others. It crashed into the group and knocked two of them off. They landed 28 stories lower a few seconds later and promptly died; by that time Phil had already thrown the second guard's body down the ramp, causing another casualty and forcing the group of guards to retreat.

Cole blinked to help restore his vision quicker. "Wait, where did you pick up those flashbangs?" Phil only chuckled in response and bullrushed down the stairs towards the next group of guards. Cole chased after him, wondering what else the commando had up his sleeve.

The next group of guards pointed their guns at the two contestants as soon as they saw them coming. Cole jumped over the side and zipped around the group to get behind their back, while Phil fired his magnetic grappling hook at the gun of the guard in front. The instant it had a grip he dropped to a sliding position and retracted it as fast as possible, propelling himself towards the enemy at an astonishing pace. A moment later, he kicked the guard's legs out from beneath him and shoved the body into his three allies, getting him tangled up with one of them, pulling them both to their deaths. The rest stumbled backwards; Cole stuck out a leg, and they went tumbling down into the next group.

A hail of bullets danced around Phil and Cole as two guards across and down on the ramp suddenly remembered they had long-range weapons. Cole backed up and ducked down to avoid the whizzing projectiles, while Phil crouched and raised his own gun, tiny blue sparks rising up around his suit as it absorbed the shots. He fired once, and one of the guards dropped; a second shot took out the other one. Phil continued his mad rush down the ramp, while Cole dropped down the middle and charged into the next pair of guards. Quickly growing a stag beetle's horn, he gored one and forced him off the ramp, adding to the slowly growing pile of bodies at the bottom. He heard a gunshot and then a thump as the body of the guard behind him, who had been about to shoot off his head, fell heavily to the floor of the ramp. Cole assumed the unseen shooter had been Phil, who was in actuality engaged farther back on the ramp, and hurried down.

A short ways back on the ramp, Phil rushed into a group of guards. The first pointed his weapon at the commando, only for Phil to aim a flying kick at his chest. He dropped his weapon, doubling over, and Phil vaulted over him, kicking the legs out from underneath the guard behind him and sending him falling to his death. A gunshot sounded, and Phil followed through with the motion, jerking his left elbow where he had expected the first guard's chest to be; instead, he hit only empty air. Turning around, Phil found the guard lying on the ground, clearly dead. Huh. That kick shouldn't have killed him. Before he had a chance to notice the bullet wound that was the true cause of death, he was distracted by Cole shouting at him to hurry up. The scientist was on the run from a group of four guards who had arranged themselves in a two-man-wide firing line near the bottom of the ramp. Phil fired his grappling hook at the ceiling and swung across the gap feet-first, firing his weapon one-handed at the firing line. He killed one of the crouching ones and managed to land a few body hits on the other before he collided with the standing guard nearest to the edge. Phil wrapped his legs around the man's torso and pulled forward with them while releasing the grappling hook from the ceiling, flinging the man over the interior edge and pulling Phil onto the ramp. The remaining two guards stared at Phil with a shocked look in their eyes and dropped their weapons, raising their hands in the air. "We surrender! We surre--" Phil cut him off with a few choice gunshots, then dealt his buddy the same treatment.

Cole joined Phil from the spot he'd retreated to when he had encountered the firing line, eyeing the dead bodies distastefully. "Really, Phil? Shooting them after they'd surrendered? I expected more of you."

Phil turned to face Cole. "They were enemies. They decided that when they fired at us. I wasn't about to let them change their allegiance when they realized they were outmatched." He looked down at the bodies and picked up one of the weapons, eyeing it critically. After a moment's inspection, he nodded slightly and tossed it to Cole, who caught it reflexively. "Here. You might find yourself needing a long-range weapon at some point. The workmanship's good, so it should last you for a while." The pair turned and stepped off the ramp onto the eerily-quiet third floor landing, then made their way for the stairs down.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

Cole stared at the rifle for a moment. He was not used to using weapons; he had various types of claws and acids at his disposal, after all, and he was used to traveling light. At the same time, there were situations where a more conventional weapon might prove useful. He decided to hold on to it for the moment. He slung the rifle over his shoulder to keep his hands free, then followed Phil down the stairwell.

"Cole, can you keep these guys out of trouble, just in case this is a trick?"
"Of course. I have several nonlethal toxins I can apply, not to mention spider webs. I can render them unconscious for several hours easily."
"Good. Do it, then let's get out of here."

A simple question could have avoided that needless bloodshed. And Phil hadn't even thought to ask it.

Are you any different from him?

"Hey! What's with you, Cole? You're real quiet all of a sudden."

Phil's voice snapped Cole back into the moment.

"I am considering our next course of action," he replied, somewhat annoyed. "Do you have a particular plan once we leave this building?"

Phil shrugged as he continued down the stairs.

"Not so much. I figure we'll just lie low for a few hours, I guess. That, or run like hell, and if anyone gets in our way--"

He was cut off by a loud, booming voice as he reached the bottom step. So loud, in fact, that it knocked him and Cole to the ground, and even shook the stairwell beneath them.

"DEFILERS! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THE TEMPLE OF MINOTAURUS?"

The voice was so loud that Cole could barely make out the words; it sounded more like a foghorn, except with a volume knob turned up all the way. Thinking quickly, he stopped mimicking all hearing systems; the voice was so loud that the vibrations could still be felt, but at least he might have a chance to concentrate this way. He glanced at Phil as he tried to pick himself up; the soldier simply pointed at his helmet and gave a thumbs-up. Presumably he had some sound-dampening equipment in there, for what little good it would do.

As Cole glanced around the entryway, he soon realized the source of the voice. It was coming from the enormous, three-legged statuesque guard he had noticed before. Now it was very clearly moving, and he could get a better look at it.

The voice seemed to be coming from a series of amplifiers in the creature's chest rather than its head, although it didn't appear to have much of a head to speak of. It still seemed to be speaking, judging by the way the armor around its chest was moving; Cole imagined it telling them of the hideous fates that awaited them in the afterlife for defying Minotaurus.

Its torso was gigantic, and boasted three arms, all covered in bright white armor. The one on the left was extremely large, with two joints, each surrounded by strange finger-like growths; the arm ended in a gigantic hand with three massive fingers.

The two right arms were significant smaller, but otherwise had the same structure as the larger arm, except each boasted six of the strange fingerylike appendages around each join. They appeared to be much more versatile and nimble than the left arm. Each of the arms held a katana in its hand and a small pistol in one of the joins; there also seemed to be a noticeable, well-protected compartment on the right side of the armor, in reach of the arms. Cole suspected that they contained spare weapons.

The creature moved towards them, still speaking in its booming voice and declaring them heretics. As it walked, Cole noticed that it seemed to be able to rotate from below the waist; its legs were moving in strange positions.

Drawing closer, its left arm bent backwards - apparently the creature was double-jointed as well - and vanished behind its back for a moment. It reappeared afterwards with a massive firearm, so large that even the creature's gargantuan hand needed the help of the joint-fingers to hold it up.

"AND NOW YOU WILL PERISH IN HOLY FIRE, HERETICS!"

Neither Phil nor Cole heard the words, but they could quickly guess the sentiment as it aimed the cannon towards them. The voice alone was a powerful weapon; just as Cole and Phil had scrambled to their feet, the hulking brute spoke again, knocking both back to the ground.

However, Cole noted that it had shifted its arm as it spoke, and had not yet fired the weapon. In fact, its movements in general seemed less directed when it spoke. The one line Cole had heard suggested that the sentinel viewed Minotaurus as some sort of holy figure; perhaps their foe was overcome by faith as it spoke, too caught up in the moment to actually attack.

With its voice alone serving as a weapon, this was not all that significant of a flaw in the creature's tactics. But it was a flaw nonetheless, and Cole was more than eager to exploit it.

Just as the sentinel stopped speaking and once more adjusted its aim, Cole spewed out a strand of webbing, striking its lower elbow in the finger. The creature's armor was very durable, but apparently it had not been designed to resist adhesives; Cole pulled on the string, and the finger was lifted from the weapon just after it pulled the trigger.

The sudden shift in weight caused the creature to nearly lose its grip, and it fired a stream of plasma directly at the floor, creating a sizable hole. Scrambling to their feet once more, Phil and Cole looked at the hole and then each other; clearly, taking a hit from the plasma cannon was not a viable option.

The sentinel had reacted relatively quickly, and moved its lower-right arm in position to support the cannon, shifting its katana to the elbow; the other katana sliced through the web, allowing the creature to regain its standard grip. At the same time, its pistol-wielding elbows fired on Cole and Phil as they tried to regroup; Phil narrowly dodged the thin beam, Cole was struck in the foot. The wound burned, but there was no time to focus on that; the creature had gotten its weapons straightened out, and was advancing on them again.

Thankfully, it had opted to remain silent. Cole suspected it didn't want to be distracted by its own preaching again. However, its voice was still a potent weapon, and it would be preferable to disable it.

Cole took to the air, and changed his hands to the scythes of a praying mantis. His plan was to fly behind it, and strike the speakers as it turned around; but much to his surprise, the arm firing lasers at him had no trouble tracking him even as he was behind it. Most of the shots missed, but the reason why soon became apparent as the left arm adjusted itself; it intended to blast Cole with the plasma cannon, and was merely using the other shots to herd him towards it.

Given the choice, Cole preferred to take his chances with the smaller blasts. He quickly changed direction, his wings taking most of the hits. He dropped to the ground, keeping a close eye on the plasma cannon.

Meanwhile, Phil was struggling to dodge the blasts from the sentinel's other arm. Several struck his armor, much to his annoyance; he fired back, but the giant's armor shrugged off his shots. At the least, however, he was keeping its attention somewhat divided; Cole needed to make use of that.

Carefully eyeing the plasma cannon, Cole noticed its barrel heating up. It was about to fire again, regardless of whether or not the aim was ideal.

It suddenly occurred to the scientist that the cannon's barrel was large enough to fit an entire rifle inside. And that there was quite a lot of space underneath the giant's left arm.

Mimicking the speed of a cockroach, Cole scurried towards the cannon. Phil shouted "What the hell are you thinking?", but as Cole had no hearing systems, it went unnoticed. Not that it would have mattered; Cole would not be dissuaded.

As he approached the cannon, Cole unslung the rifle from his shoulder and hurled it towards the barrel, then continued to run underneath the sentinel's arm, and stood still - the way it could bend its arms, standing underneath was safer than running in front.

Before the creature could adjust its aim, the plasma cannon had finished priming.

The heat it had gathered was enough to ignite the munitions loaded into the rifle.

Cole had regrown his hearing systems, so he could hear the noises made by the cannon before it fired. When the subtle hum of the cannon gathering heat suddenly stopped, he ran.

He grabbed Phil, and jumped down the hole the cannon had blasted early. Then he made himself deaf again, and clung to the side of the shaft.

Above ground, the sentinel had realized there was a problem with its plasma cannon, and that it was likely severe. It dropped the weapon and ran.

It didn't run quite far enough. The explosion flung it into the stairwell with great force.

When the smoke cleared, Cole emerged from the hole, and set Phil down. The creature slowly emerged from the now-ruined stairwell, and walked backwards towards them; its armor had taken severe damage from the explosion, but the wearer was still alive, even if its weapons were mostly ruined.

Its left arm - now on the right - reached to its back - now front? - and retreived an enormous axe, still intact. The right arms reached into the protected compartment, which had apparently been designed specifically to survive such an impact, and retrieved some small, round pods.

Phil recognized them as plasma grenades. He swore, and fired on the hands, hoping to force the grenades to detonate before it could throw them. It didn't work, however; the hands were too nimble, and kept their cargo out of the line of fire. The sentinel advanced, slowly turning around to the front.

Cole realized what had happened. It was going to speak again.

The front of its armor had almost entirely been torn off, having struck the stairs with that side. They could now see its body more clearly, and the numerous holes in its chest; Cole suspected they allowed it to speak, and perhaps breathe.

This suspicion was born out as they started to move.

"I GIVE MY LIFE TO MINOTAURUS!"

The voice wasn't nearly as powerful without the speakers, but it was still forceful. Cole suspected it would be deafening if he could hear.

And the creature was running towards them, still holding the plasma grenades, and waving the axe wildly in its left arm.

"If it doesn't get us with the axe, it'll blow itself up with us!" Phil shouted, not realizing Cole was deaf. "What do we do?"

Cole had already decided what to do.

"Cover me," he said.

He copied the horn stag beetle he had recently acquired, and charged forward. After all, it was unlikely this creature's skin was harder than diamond.

Phil blasted the thing's right arms, while Cole flew up towards its left. It tried to swing the axe, but Cole's wings gave him more maneuverability, and allowed him to fly towards its chest.

Cole stabbed it in the upper chest with his horn. It screamed, and dropped the grenades, then reached its right arms towards the attacker.

Phil ran. He wasn't going to be around when those grenades went off.

The sentinel pulled Cole out from its bleeding chest, and held him up to a black patch that seemed to go around its entire... neck? Head? Whatever it was, Cole realized that this must be its eye, or some equivalent. No wonder it had been able to keep track of him when he went behind it.

Quickly, he sprayed acid in the giant's eye, sliced the hands holding him off with his scythes, and retracted them, firing a web at the plasma grenades.

Then he ran after Phil.

The creature was too wounded to run this time.

It voice echoed through the floor, carrying its final words.

"WHY, MINOTAURUS?"

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

---

SpoilerShow

Invincible Godpost Part Two: In which things go unsaid.

Minutes previously...

The girl had finished her climb, and was now in the rather sizeable ventilation ducts above her goal. It was cold. The air passing through them was frigid, obviously working hard to keep the room below well-cooled. She loosened a grate above the door into the room, and waited for her patsies to leave the room. The first one left, and she sent off a short, pre-prepared message. Then the other...

As the door was closing, she dropped silently down into the room. The girl took a step forwards, towards her target's exposed back.

"I know why you are here," rumbled Minotaurus.

The girl paused, and the minotaur turned. "I was once in a situation very similar to yours. I and one other escaped, and shortly thereafter found I myself under the employ of someone with a vested interest in these sorts of things. I have been charged with protecting those interests, when necessary."

Minotaurus placed two massive hands on the table before him and leaned forwards. "Of the seven of you, six have guardians assigned to prevent their deaths. You do not. I am keeping you here until you die." Minotaurus reached under his desk and pulled out a small device. Holding it in his meaty palm, he thumbed the display, and the room exploded. The explosion ripped the girl to the side, launching her into a wall. She heard gunfire on the other side of the door, and attempted to stand groggily. The guards would search inside soon, and she had to leave.

She grimaced. Minotaurus had been expecting her. Ignoring the more worrisome implications of that fact for the moment, she knew her current identity was compromised. Well, it was about time she went back to being "Julia" again. Taking off her face-obscuring visor, the girl darted back up into the ruined ventilation system, tracing her steps backwards until she found a relatively open space, where she began treating her wounds, and shifting her bone structure back to its previous state.

As she tried to focus on her more immediate problems, like getting to the bottom before Phil, her mind kept stubbornly drifting back to Minotaurus's last words. She knew he meant it. He'd established that fact when he sacrificed himself in an attempt to kill her. It wasn't the first time the girl had dealt with those willing her death at any cost.

But still, she was relieved that he was dead.

---

About ten minutes later, the girl kicked out a grating in an alleyway behind the building, which itself gave no sign of a massive battle raging within. The girl dressed in some plain prison-like clothing she'd stolen from the building's holding cells a few minutes before, and she was now back to her original look, though slightly more haggard-looking, and with a few rather ugly bruises. "Julia" walked out of the alley, quickly ran across the promenade a short ways and hid behind a trash unit. As she waited, she wondered about the guardians Minotaurus had mentioned. If they existed, why didn't he use them to shoot her down? It wasn't as if he had some problem with killing her himself...

She frowned. Something didn't add up.

She heard noises from the building, and she waited until she was certain Phil and Cole had dispatched every threat before shakily revealing herself. "P-Phil?" she said in a fragile voice. "Julia!" Despite his suspicions, Phil was still genuinely glad to see her alive and well... relatively. "What did they do to you..."

Julia looked away, tears welling in her eyes. "It... it's fine... really..."

Phil obviously didn't think so. He took Julia by the shoulders, and looked directly into her eyes. "I promise you. They will all pay." Looking back, he wasn't really sure what had made him say that, but the look in her eyes was worth it. It was almost worshipful.

Cole strode over. "What is this all about, Girnham?"

"Well..."

Julia piped in. "Oh it was terrible! I was kidnapped by these... these... thugs and they held me hostage! Used me to control Phil!"

"... yeah, I was getting messages telling me to lead you to the top of this building. They said they'd kill her..." Phil paused. There was something off about this, but he couldn't place his finger on it.

Julia turned to Phil. "I heard them talking about Vandrel, Phil! They were furious with him, something about a sanctuary for humans at Administration!"

A good idea, thought Phil. But there was still something... "Julia, who kidnapped you?"

The girl looked away. "I... I never actually saw them... but I think they were aliens!"

"But you never saw them. What makes you think they were aliens?"

"Well... they put these things on my ears that blocked out everything, but also were like... speakers! I could hear their voices in my ears, but I think it was translated. Who else would do that but aliens?"

She had a point. But now Phil was able to place what had been bothering him. This was the same group that had commanded him to slaughter a station full of aliens, and then tasked him with guiding Cole to this building, obviously so they could meet with Minotaurus. But why? And who caused that explosion?

Cole spoke up. "Well I suppose that answers my question." He glanced at Phil, then at the girl, and took Phil off to the side. In a low voice, he asked, "Is she dangerous?"

Phil looked back at Julia briefly. She was standing somewhat awkwardly, obviously unsure of herself, looking at the pair expectantly. "She's harmless," probably, "we can trust her." Maybe.

Cole nodded. "Then she's not a threat for the moment." He walked back to the girl, and Phil followed. "I should be going. Minotaurus gave me some useful information before he died."

The scientist didn't even wait for an acknowledgment before he strode off, leaving Phil and Julia alone. Phil shifted, trying not to look at the girl.

If she was telling the truth, that meant there was a third, powerful and entirely unknown faction which seemed to be working towards its own goals in this city. If she was lying...

If Julia was lying then she was more dangerous than Phil had previously been willing to believe.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

Cole ran out into the city, cursing the mysterious force fields that had suddenly appeared and had been getting the way at least since he and Girnham had left the zoo.

Why had they appeared in the first place? They didn't seem to be part of the city's security, for two reasons - first, they had cleaved several buildings indiscriminately. Second, what kind of security system would allow huge, gaping holes that anyone could walk through? It was a glaring weakness.

Why would anybody put up a nearly-unbreakable wall that could be easily, if inconveniently, bypassed altogether?

Cole paused. Of course. Balance.

Such a wall fit the god's modus operandi perfectly. Which suggested that, if Cole went through enough of the holes, he might find the blasted deity.

Balance had ruined his battle with Dove already, and now he was getting in the way again. The god would have to be dealt with.

A shame I can't kill him, Cole thought, as he flew along the wall, searching for the next hole. But I do have an agreement to keep.

****

"Who are you, how do you know who I am, and what do you want?" Cole asked.

"Not one to waste time with small talk, I see. Well, then, I'll keep this simple. You are in a battle to the death against several other beings from across the dimensions. I was once in a similar situation. And I managed to escape."

The minotaur had Cole's full attention.

"Is this your homeworld, then?"

Minotaurus grunted. "No. Not that I have any need to return there. I am now working for someone else. Someone who has taken an interest in events in these battles."

"And that's how you know about me, then."

"Precisely. And my employer has an offer for you."

Cole eyed him warily.

"An offer? Why does he need my help, specifically?"

"Hmmph. It's complicated, and not very important, frankly. What matters is this - if you kill Vandrel Reinhardt, preferably while still in this city, my employer will provide you with a weapon that can slay gods."

"I accept," Cole replied, without the slightest hesitation.

No, no, no! This was all wrong. The hero couldn't kill the tyrant as part of a job! He had to do it to save the city!

Soft sighed. She could just lift up the rock, but that wouldn't be a good story. She needed to be saved by a kind stranger or something.

Oh, wait. There was that one guy who was following her and trying not to be seen.

"Hey, you!" she shouted. "Get this rock off of me, or you'll get your toes cut off tonight!"

****

Several walls later, Cole finally found Balance speaking to a mob of human and non-human New Shambhalans.

"You criticize me for my actions? I simply apply the rules! For each human that dies, a non-human dies as well! For each non-human that dies, a human shall fall! I merely acted to correct the imbalance. You are the ones who created it!"

Cole groaned. This was exactly why he hated gods.

Originally posted on MSPA by Captain Lhurgoyf.

---

Vandrel Reinhardt swung open the doors into the offices of the Administrators, striding defiantly into the room where they were meeting. The four leaders were gathered in the centre of a podium, with the eleven others stationed around. Reinhardt felt a tinge of disgust to see nonhumans so different, so much more hideous, than he had ever seen back home, but he did not let it show.

This was an important diplomatic mission.

"My comrades. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Matthew Vanhart. You may have heard of me. I have helped defend the city from this alien threat."

A murmur of discontent arose from the Administrators. Reinhardt purposefully advanced to where the leaders were sitting, giving a bow.

"Greetings, Mr. Vanhart," said one of the humans at the stand. "We've heard the news of you. Welcome, Mr. Vanhart. What brings you to the Administration?"

"Indeed, indeed, and grave news it is. I believe that measures must be taken to combat this alien uprising. For the city to remain safe, should its integrity be compromised, we must take measures. Firstly, I would advise removing the nonhuman members of this board."

"An act of discrimination! How would this solve the problem?" came the reply from the stands.

"Ah, I am but combatting discrimination," Reinhardt began, having prepared to put on any sort of facade necessary. "Should the conflict continue, there would surely be those among the populace who would target the aliens in this board. Would we want to risk such the loss of our officials to blind predjudice? I myself, a well-meaning, unarmed visitor, was attacked by alien terrorists on my way in."

The crowd remained silent, but with a slight nodding of heads in understanding.

"Secondly, I regret to say that we must keep the city divided in its territories. Human blocs and alien blocs will be designated, and guards placed around the borders. Nonhumans wishing to leave shall be subject to examination, and if they are proven innocent, they may go."

"But--"

"Drastic times call for drastic measures. I assure you that I have seen plenty of times where we must see the issue with due pragmatism. Once the conflict has resolved itself, we shall open the city back up."

Reinhardt smiled to himself. He had conveniently left out that he would put very high standards for any aliens attempting to leave to meet. He hadn't mentioned that he had been grouping the aliens together so that they could all be exterminated at once. His people may have been superstitious enough for Reinhardt to discuss his true philosophy, but regrettably, these members would be more difficult to convince.

"I also am sorry to say that I have heard rumours that some of our own Administrators have ties with the alien uprising. Until these rumours can be proven true or false, we must take our chances. From now until a decision has been made, the Administrator council shall be composed solely of those of human stock, and these members would be under close examination of their records."

Another murmur went over the crowd.

"I would assure you that this does not mean the end for your terms. Any of you deemed innocent shall resume them once the conflict is over. I am merely taking prevenative measures. After all, my friends, holding back some of our members is a small price to pay for a potential alien coup from within," Reinhardt lied.

"And finally, I wish to be kept in this office for the time being until the conflict is resolved, or until I am called on matters of my own duty where I am needed. Until then, I would like to stay as an advisor to whoever here is in charge of your military. I should be able to coordinate plans for defending our fine city with his guidance."

"Very well," answered an Administrator. Out of their ranks, one of them, a tall, pale-skinned human, stood up, escorting Reinhardt up to his office.

The tyrant grinned once again. His silver tongue had paid off once again. Now, a city more advanced than anything of his wildest of dreams could have designed was about to become the new capital of his empire.