RE: The Great Belligerency [Round 4: Static]
01-19-2015, 11:36 AM
"That, I suppose, answers that."
"Without actually answering anything at all," interjected Pyk. "What's going on here, and who are you?"
It wasn't often that any of the heads of the Rebuilders were at a loss, but it seemed to be coming at a greater and grater frequency as the prophecy unfolded. Amala, on the other hand, was becoming quite accustomed to confusion and uncertainty in the time she'd maintained her individuality, and did her best to seem confident and self-assured and generally dignified.
"I am Amala, who tends the garden." A bit of divine prescience guided her next sentence, and she felt fairly confident in saying "I have crossed the void to aid you, my children. What can your mother do to ease your plight?"
As she focused on the scene in front of her, it became quite clear who exactly she was addressing. Perhaps that burst of divine prescience could have been a bit more specific; she almost felt foolish addressing these people, given their nature, but decided she was too far in to back down now. Nevertheless, one of the four grinned.
"Our mother, eh? I feel like there might be some kind of miscommunication here."
"No," Vei spoke again, focusing everyone's attention. "Look closer, beyond the shell. If anyone could be called our mother, it would be one like she."
As the others observed her, Amala felt a swelling of power in the back of her mind. She was bolstered by their faith and understanding, and her uncertainty was replaced by empathy and maternality.
"Yes. I may not have birthed you myself, but I am no less your mother for it. I see fear in your hearts; tell me, what is its cause?"
Since the apocalypse, the four Rebuilders had made plans on plans, set about doing everything in their power to save their world and their people; in the space of instants, those plans were discarded and reformulated. They could never hope to confront the Firebringer on their own: he had proven time and again to be their match and more, and only their seeming destruction and that of their subjects had sealed him away. Now, though, there was a new factor, one noted in no prophecy and anticipated by none it spoke of. As they described the situation to the new arrival, new plans were made. They would be painful to enact, but they provided the first glimmer of hope that had really shown itself in recent memory.
---
Ur smiled as she watched the door in front of her heat, buckling as it began to glow and warp. She was unsure how the foolish scientist had managed a feat like this, but she felt sure that his hubris would be punished immediately, and she'd be able to channel that punishment onto countless others. Everything was coming together nicely. She stroked the bee in her hand pensively, almost as one might a surly white cat.
Her wicked smile faded and her fingertip slowed, though, as she became aware of the nature of the fire that was licking at the far side of the seal. Aran was surely not its source; he could never muster power like this, and moreover would never allow himself to harness a divine source of energy. Whatever had happened in the minutes since she had sealed him in the temple had quite gotten away from her, and it was becoming clear that it would be best not to be present when whatever was happening actually happened.
She turned to flee; she could have teleported, of course, but wanted to see what would actually emerge in a gout of godly flame and a wave of molten metal. As she did, though, she collapsed to her knees: it was bad enough that her plans for Aran seemed to have gone awry, but she felt in her bones that something had changed for Amala as well; the connection to her followers in the Plateau had been a galling, nauseating sensation in the back of Ur's mind, a headache and a reminder of why she was forced to play with insects like her stolen charge, but that needling, almost-forgettable presence suddenly blossomed to a coruscating, suffocating wave of negation. Something present and powerful was feeding her other third, and whatever it was left little room for something like Ur to exist.
As she crumpled, bad became worse: behind her, rivulets of molten metal became gouts of spurting quicksilver, and the door began to melt in earnest.
---
Forgotten as was possible and as alone as she could be, the last third of the sundered goddess floated through the darkened city. She was directionless and perhaps insensate, an empty cocoon or broken eggshell, inhabited only by ghosts and memories.It might not even have mattered what she did or where she was, had her spectral Brownian motion not brought her into the path others had happened to take.
She'd been drifting for some time without stopping, but without warning ground to a halt and screamed. It would probably have alerted quite a few people to her presence, had everyone who could have heard it not already known she was there: the cybernetically-augmented girl had detected her easily, enhanced senses catching the muttering and groaning the once-goddess seemed to constantly emit; the leader of the small band of Rebuilders had been informed by her new book what was approaching and what it would be doing; her followers had been warned by means of hand signals and whispered commands, and had expected the scream.
Nevertheless, both the girl and the commandos independently decided to converge on the source of the sound. The former had given up on the possibility of catching her quarry off-guard, while the latter simply needed a reason to delay rendezvous with her commander while she thought. While no party involved had intended to encounter any other, their imminent meeting was so perfectly timed that it might seem a higher power had ordained it, had it not been for the fact that a higher power was what they were about to meet.
"Without actually answering anything at all," interjected Pyk. "What's going on here, and who are you?"
It wasn't often that any of the heads of the Rebuilders were at a loss, but it seemed to be coming at a greater and grater frequency as the prophecy unfolded. Amala, on the other hand, was becoming quite accustomed to confusion and uncertainty in the time she'd maintained her individuality, and did her best to seem confident and self-assured and generally dignified.
"I am Amala, who tends the garden." A bit of divine prescience guided her next sentence, and she felt fairly confident in saying "I have crossed the void to aid you, my children. What can your mother do to ease your plight?"
As she focused on the scene in front of her, it became quite clear who exactly she was addressing. Perhaps that burst of divine prescience could have been a bit more specific; she almost felt foolish addressing these people, given their nature, but decided she was too far in to back down now. Nevertheless, one of the four grinned.
"Our mother, eh? I feel like there might be some kind of miscommunication here."
"No," Vei spoke again, focusing everyone's attention. "Look closer, beyond the shell. If anyone could be called our mother, it would be one like she."
As the others observed her, Amala felt a swelling of power in the back of her mind. She was bolstered by their faith and understanding, and her uncertainty was replaced by empathy and maternality.
"Yes. I may not have birthed you myself, but I am no less your mother for it. I see fear in your hearts; tell me, what is its cause?"
Since the apocalypse, the four Rebuilders had made plans on plans, set about doing everything in their power to save their world and their people; in the space of instants, those plans were discarded and reformulated. They could never hope to confront the Firebringer on their own: he had proven time and again to be their match and more, and only their seeming destruction and that of their subjects had sealed him away. Now, though, there was a new factor, one noted in no prophecy and anticipated by none it spoke of. As they described the situation to the new arrival, new plans were made. They would be painful to enact, but they provided the first glimmer of hope that had really shown itself in recent memory.
---
Ur smiled as she watched the door in front of her heat, buckling as it began to glow and warp. She was unsure how the foolish scientist had managed a feat like this, but she felt sure that his hubris would be punished immediately, and she'd be able to channel that punishment onto countless others. Everything was coming together nicely. She stroked the bee in her hand pensively, almost as one might a surly white cat.
Her wicked smile faded and her fingertip slowed, though, as she became aware of the nature of the fire that was licking at the far side of the seal. Aran was surely not its source; he could never muster power like this, and moreover would never allow himself to harness a divine source of energy. Whatever had happened in the minutes since she had sealed him in the temple had quite gotten away from her, and it was becoming clear that it would be best not to be present when whatever was happening actually happened.
She turned to flee; she could have teleported, of course, but wanted to see what would actually emerge in a gout of godly flame and a wave of molten metal. As she did, though, she collapsed to her knees: it was bad enough that her plans for Aran seemed to have gone awry, but she felt in her bones that something had changed for Amala as well; the connection to her followers in the Plateau had been a galling, nauseating sensation in the back of Ur's mind, a headache and a reminder of why she was forced to play with insects like her stolen charge, but that needling, almost-forgettable presence suddenly blossomed to a coruscating, suffocating wave of negation. Something present and powerful was feeding her other third, and whatever it was left little room for something like Ur to exist.
As she crumpled, bad became worse: behind her, rivulets of molten metal became gouts of spurting quicksilver, and the door began to melt in earnest.
---
Forgotten as was possible and as alone as she could be, the last third of the sundered goddess floated through the darkened city. She was directionless and perhaps insensate, an empty cocoon or broken eggshell, inhabited only by ghosts and memories.It might not even have mattered what she did or where she was, had her spectral Brownian motion not brought her into the path others had happened to take.
She'd been drifting for some time without stopping, but without warning ground to a halt and screamed. It would probably have alerted quite a few people to her presence, had everyone who could have heard it not already known she was there: the cybernetically-augmented girl had detected her easily, enhanced senses catching the muttering and groaning the once-goddess seemed to constantly emit; the leader of the small band of Rebuilders had been informed by her new book what was approaching and what it would be doing; her followers had been warned by means of hand signals and whispered commands, and had expected the scream.
Nevertheless, both the girl and the commandos independently decided to converge on the source of the sound. The former had given up on the possibility of catching her quarry off-guard, while the latter simply needed a reason to delay rendezvous with her commander while she thought. While no party involved had intended to encounter any other, their imminent meeting was so perfectly timed that it might seem a higher power had ordained it, had it not been for the fact that a higher power was what they were about to meet.