Re: The Phenomenal Fracas! (GBS2G6): [Round Two: Witch's Haunt]
02-05-2011, 08:21 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Wojjan.
The pirate had wandered into the cabins, into the one wagon which, while being the top of the class, was strangely enough the only one without actual chambers. It was peculiar, but he didn't stop to wonder much more about it. Covering his head with his arms, and apparently forgetting his head can't simply hide inside a table, Riko sat or almost laid at one of the tables. He was only slightly dozing, it seemed, since he quickly jolted up the moment the pirate closed the door behind him.
"What?" he exclaimed.
"I'm hiding."
It soon became apparent neither of them were particularly interested in what had happened to carry the other to where the ended up, and the terrified young man could really do without the pirate's constant staring.
"Could you, I dunno, just go away or something? I'm really not in the mood for your pirate talk and I just wanna get some rest because this train just suddenly stopped and started and I have no idea where we're going anymore and there's a dude with a sword made of sand and he's probably going to kill me when he finds me and you know what the worst part is? I don't even care enough anymore to save myself."
“Him again? I just dealt with him before I got here!”
“It was just an example. There's plenty of other murderous freaks to fill in the blanks.”
As if it heard the conversation a mech that seemed to be waiting at the door arose from standby and tried to capture the intruders in first class. God knows what awakened it. But at the same time, apparently being informed about the eavesdropping guard or existing only through some incredibly precise balance of making it a fair fight, the fire alarm closed down the upper-class part of the train. The jagged robot had never dealt with such situations yet, and decided to take down the door the only way it knew.
Riding headfirst into it until it opened, and failing that, shooting at it.
It would ride against the door long enough for Ripper to spot the air vent and drag the nervous lad with him. The neverending source of protest echoed in the ducts, but Ripper ignored the constant questions of "Where are we going?" and "Is this the roof for the love of god don't be the roof."
Oh boy. It was the roof.
Syvex and Eureka immediately spotted the man who shot at him and the guy who shocked her. Eureka motioned towards Syvex in a way that could be interpreted as "Come here," or "Keep driving," or if you strained yourself "Be quiet and follow me." Whatever she did, it couldn't have meant "There are two guys up ahead both of which tried to kill us once or twice and I suggest you look for yourself because one of them is running at us."
Syvex noticed Eureka waving, and took that as the first of the possible interpretations. He caught up with her. He noticed there Riko and Ripper up ahead, men who both had tried to kill him already, he was pretty sure. The pirate, to top it off was lunging right at him like a madman. Just great.
-
There was definitely a battle going on. But while there were two on each party, it was a duel. And while it could have been a duel neither side was actually inflicting harm. If there was a fight to the death based entirely around evasive movement they would have both been gladiators.
Eureka was doing close to nothing, deciding to lay low and go in for a sneak attack later, or whatever she'd think up (but she was gonna do something, no she wouldn't drop to Syvex' level of phony alliances) and Riko was occupied with not spazzing out and falling of the train's roof and hitting the floor or whatever there was below he didn't even dare to peek yet and dying a horrible death oh god he knew it yup he's dead for sure I'm spazzing out ain't I.
Ripper was caught off guard by a thin tendril of cotton wrapping itself around his foot. It was soon joined by another one, and another one, until his entire leg was caught up in cloth. Eureka shouted something inaudible at Syvex. He in turn started tugging at the bandages, holding back a content grin over what he assumed would be a very, very quick round. Syvex slammed Ripper into Riko, sending the man flying off.
Oh. There was water below. So that was there. Man those were some terrible last thoughts okay quickly I regret nothing jeez Riko that was lame.
Thud.
-
"Are you awake?"
Riko's body was stiff and cold, and practically lifeless. Somewhere in his head was a mind still buzzing around, but it wasn't feeling anything. His deathly frozen body ached all over, as if covered entirely in bruises.
A woman approached him, dressed as if returning from the theater. Thin, white gloves adorned her pale hands and a luscious, yet refined feather boa was draped around her neck, her dazzling evening gown lost its glimmer in the lack of light. But by far her most denoting feature was her face, mostly because a magpie mask had covered it. She didn't hide the fact she was here against her own will, or at least against her own better judgement. Her gaze bore into the young man, as much as in disbelief. Riko could only guess to what.
The woman walking towards him with, to be quite frank, a flair of apathy was a frightening sight. Even moreso was her crouching, seating herself right before the young man, her eyes giving off the message she wasn't actually all that interested in here and now. Riko tried to get up, or at least crawl away if rising were to prove too much, but couldn't quite fruitously pull off either. His first attempt to push himself off the ground had him strain his arms and collapse on the blackness. He felt as if something heavy was pressing on his chest.
The woman's touch, not unlike his own, was cold. He couldn't quite figure out whose fault that was. It drifted across his neck, searching for something. She dug deeper, her touch boring into his chest. It was as if her hand had simply passed through his – and he would admit it so – far too many layers of clothing. And Riko was more surprised than the woman himself as her hand retreated, covered in a shining, almost unnatural red. Most of it wasn't blood, they both were quite certain. They knew it was impossible for someone to bleed that much, and from every place at the same time. No, Seventh had already realised what was going on. She extended her hand towards the young man.
The pain must have been excruciating. From every part of his body poured whatever the red substance was, tearing open his skin and leaking down to the ground. As it touched what was an invisible floor, it dissipated. Riko's thoughts, for the first time since the third round, were clear.
It wasn't the third round. It was the second.
Those clear thoughts were not Riko no longer panicking: If he had been placed on the train again he would still feel not at all at ease – and where he would be placed next would only unsettle him more. No, Riko's mind and body had been purified. Cleansed from the mind-bending and controlling powers other beings, contestant or no, had been inflicting on him. The Malevolence no longer held the man in its wretched grasp, Muriegro's spells had for now been disabled. Whatever this woman had done, it had healed him.
"Listen well. I am not in the least acting on my own goodwill let alone for your safety. What I would want is for you to die by the hand of that savage mine, but personal connections forbid me as much as incite me to help you. I am Seventh, refer to me as such. I took part in setting up this battle. Don't think of me as your patron. You shall regret it so sooner or later. If you seek help or challenge your position being," and she chose her next words carefully, “poetically level, address to Sixth.”
She decided to add in her typical tinge of sarcasm, “If you seek a friend, get a dog.”
Riko had had his mind cleared from any tainting influence, but memories weren't fixed on such a short term. He had up to now had no idea of the priest's true identity as an amazon menace. The scientist had no idea that Seventh was not speaking of Tamerlane, but of Muriegro when she mentioned a savage.
"I will say this only once because with every second ticking away in this timeless plane the chance of the others finding out grows larger. The Malevolence is not acting on its own behalf. It's being steered by someone, a man – no, a god – in a different battle than yours. His name is Balance.
Balance has been taking measures against an inter-battle plot called The Network. He has been singling you out, along with Syvex. You both have replied to the message of Vandrel Reinhardt, the face of this web. That same Balance has also ensured the battles skipping around like you have already witnessed. He is the reason you can't administer help to Syvex. He is the reason you cannot get your fleet to enter.
He is the reason Lenore is still not with you since.
Listen to my words carefully, scientist, and tell them to the viper as well: What Reinhardt promises is a lie. Do not engage in any more activity with him, for your own good as much as that of every contestant in the grand battles, as much as the entirety of life as we know it.”
No doubt the man had a lot of questions still, but before Riko could wonder what she had meant with that last part, he was already warped back to his original position.
Or not quite.
-
It of course shook up the other contestants when the scientist who he had rammed a pirate into (it was amazing how little sense this sentence made) reappeared on the train's roof.
“What the...”
“Can... Can you teleport?”
-
Walls in the mansion's basement were unnecessary. The vast expanse of nothing and sorrow and every little bit of hope crushed beneath that horrible horrible stench, everything was dead beneath here.
Or at least everyone was going to be.
The contestants in the battle were the only ones still alive, but alive would prove to be a terrible term. Their bodies were present, but they weren't beating. Their bodies hung unmoving from the ceiling, the semblance of touching the ground and standing on it poorly conveyed by something which never payed attention to how people normally stand. Held up by invisible strings as if a puppetteer's diabolical play they couldn't even move their heads. Their minds, broken and cut apart with deceit and illusion and the feigned idea of the world continuing on, as if they weren't in their own hell and own suffering and absolute agony only a force of pure malevolence could procreate.
But their voices, they rung in the scientist's head, as if they were simply speaking to him from on the train.
-
“What the hell is going on here? What happened here?”
“Uh, what do you mean? You fell off, and-”
“Fell off what? Where is this place? What's wrong with you, why can't you see this? Why aren't you moving?”
Syvex hadn't considered Riko, scientist and always either confused or confusing, a perfectly sane person but he was quite sure he wasn't completely mad either.
“...Okay, what?”
And the confusion only rose in the others on the roof as he simply walked off the train, hovering in mid-air.
“What in the name of Davy! Why aren't you falling?”
“What do you mean, falling? There's nothing there!”
Riko's words were to the contestants deictic to a world he only could comprehend or even visibly notice. From his lunatic speech the others could discover Riko existing in an entirely different plane as them. It was not exactly easy to follow: Riko was hard enough to coherently understand, a Plato describing the world only he could truly live in, but with every mention of a train he started retching, more red which he recognised as the same which the woman had cured him from dripping off his face.
“You... Where are you? Balance, where the hell are you? Seventh, can you cure them? Please help them they have to escape, the Malevolence still has them you have to save us!”
Okay, now he's just lost it.
-
Every possible source of sound immediately died out around the scientist, and while their throats weren't generating anything, so did the voices of the battlers. Every light dimmed out leaving Riko in a similar spotlight as when Seventh had appeared.
All noise was replaced with the voice of one person. Someone who had been assailing Riko simply for daring to overthrow the unspoken rules of the phenomenal fracas.
“Listen to me, Riko Diveley. You shall be my means to sabotage the Network. I will give you the message Reinhardt sent after receiving the transmissions, and you shall form a reply which will entail your battle halting from jumping. You shall tell him you now have a means of transport available, your troop of ships assigned to your command by GRIMACE. With these ships you will cure the other partaker in the conversations, Syvex, rendering him more useful to the group as a whole. You shall remain active in the network until I tell you to do otherwise than what Vandrel Reinhardt orders you.”
“And then what?”
“Then nothing more.”
“What if I don't?”
“Then I will kill everyone.”
-
It's difficult to describe a world simply stopping. If there is no visible effect present to denote the change, no shred of world ripping apart and fluttering down to reveal the actuality beneath the surface, no cracking skies falling down like a shattered dome of glass, not even a single flash of bright white light as a soft voice sets again the real world in motion. No objects morphed back to their real counterparts – and in this situation such a transformation would have been quite impossible, seeing as there was no train in the mansion's basement. Not did the seven present wake up all together knowing it was all just a bad dream – and if they did, it would be waking up from a dream to arrive in a nightmare. Static did not eat away parts of the scene, nor did these parts melt like iron in flames.
No, from one moment to the other, they just stood again, awake. In the basement, no trace of Balance but several bloodied stenches of the Malevolence.
And it was up to them now, not overarching forces from the outside.
-
"Beings of the multiverse, denizens of all that heed to the whim of the gods, the day has came for us to unite, to forge a new era. Together we shall form a mighty union, we shall come together and crush all opposition beneath our combined feet. I, Lord Vandrel Reinhardt, am an experienced master in tactical planning. My armies have conquered lands far and wide and brought all that oppose us to their knees, hacking their heads from their pitiful necks to punish them for their misdeeds. Future allies! I have heard your replies, and you are not alone! With access to all of you, we could form an army more great, more powerful than ever I had layed mortal eyes upon. As a gift, I include within this message information which shall allow you to better communicate across the multiverse! We shall come together and strike back at all that oppose us! Together, the empire we form shall extend across never-before-matched boundaries, encompassing dominions never before dreamed of! My friends, my allies from all imaginable walks of life, this is it! THIS SHALL BE OUR HOUR!"
Riko had no need for any improvements to the open-space principle, his means of communication were plenty and adequate. It did help that right after the message Balance lived up to his promise, and disabled the random movement of the battle. Signals were again straightforward. He would finally be able to contact Lenore.
He couldn't give up now.
-
Imagine in a room seven people, or at least being, brought together in a battle to the death unadmonished and unknowing of their fate, only one thing certain and every round verified: they are mortal, and they will die.
Imagine residing in that room a terror so unspeakably evil it reads the souls of those it desires to torture, and uses those fears it finds against its prey. Now imagine a deity, a god who is omnipresent, omniscient and most importantly omnipotent in this dire situation, imagine him steering such a behemoth of fear, tweaked perfectly with precise knowledge over every being, fine-tuned to produce fear. Condensed fear.
Imagine that room bearing the marks of every being that came to pass in this room after wilting endlessly and almost begging for the sweet embrace of death to close their eyes and let it all fade away.
Imagine that group of seven plagued by the demon's presence, and terrified by the game shadows played on the floor, mimicking pain and agony projected on the bloodstained boards.
Now can you imagine their reaction?
-
Shadows were rare in a room where there was neither light or a wall to project them on. But there they were, imprints in the empty space. They were apparently still deciding on a single form, jittering left and right, occasionally splitting and conjoining and edging only ever so slightly closer to the terrified cluster of people in the middle.
Black silhouettes darted across the room depicting figures holding sharp tools, looming overhead. Covering the group entirely the draping shadows were adorned by a few incandescent dots. Those dots grew larger both in size and numbers before noticing the crowd and unleashing a devastating flurry of fire, burning almost through the group, but soon giving way for a tall figure with sharp teeth and a mean glare. It streched out his hand in an unnatural fashion as if constantly in pain or thrusting a weapon. The teeth soon detached and the figure grew several more arms and eyes and a menacing titter before crumbling into fragments of shadow which formed hands, greedily clawing at the players. Some of them holding searchlights, they still weren't quite sure how they could be portrayed by shadows alone. Then from the shadows glowed the symbol some instantly recognised as the one of the horned woman clothed in bandages as she almost reached the fighters but vanished again.
A torrent of bad memories both recent and long since suppressed roared in the mansion's basement, and with so many people at once it just couldn't decide what form to take on. Only one person was left unscathed by the event.
Because Riko had other things to do.
“T-This is, again, Riko Diveley, trapped in a battle. If you receive info of the Phenomenal Fracas, that's where I am. I... I forgot the name of who put me here. I was wondering if you could help me in seeking the coordinates for the grand battles. I have several ships in my command that can travel across dimensions, and reach the different battles. If you require their service, you have my frequency, and I can send and receive whatever equipment you need. I am-”
Any recipient of the message would hear an incredible screech.
“I am a member of the organisation of GRIMACE, you may have heard of them already. While their goals are evil, they possess several kinds of technological equipment. If you need anything, you can contact me.”
Doing what the god had asked of him recalled in Riko his words. The battles stood still now. He could be saved. He could alert GRIMACE and they'd save him! He quickly pressed the alarm on his communicator, and notified GRIMACE headquarters about his situation.
And unbeknownst to Ripper Blackmask, a similar orange light on the endorphic core flickered on.
-
“Lieutenant, we have received two distress beacons from our scientists, coordinates twenty-three, nineteen, approximately five hundred east, three hundred north. Permission to send to grand screen?”
“Permission.”
On the screen they both stood. Two blinking dots, next to no distance between them.
“Give me the ID for those.”
Upon receiving a very lengthy list of numbers, the lieutenant's face went entirely pale. Could it really be? The ID matched perfectly, so he knew that there was no way it couldn't be, but to find their prized technology at the same time one of their better scientists got abducted, in the same place even, the idea was just preposterous.
“Send every squad over to that place. That dot... is our life's work.”
The pirate had wandered into the cabins, into the one wagon which, while being the top of the class, was strangely enough the only one without actual chambers. It was peculiar, but he didn't stop to wonder much more about it. Covering his head with his arms, and apparently forgetting his head can't simply hide inside a table, Riko sat or almost laid at one of the tables. He was only slightly dozing, it seemed, since he quickly jolted up the moment the pirate closed the door behind him.
"What?" he exclaimed.
"I'm hiding."
It soon became apparent neither of them were particularly interested in what had happened to carry the other to where the ended up, and the terrified young man could really do without the pirate's constant staring.
"Could you, I dunno, just go away or something? I'm really not in the mood for your pirate talk and I just wanna get some rest because this train just suddenly stopped and started and I have no idea where we're going anymore and there's a dude with a sword made of sand and he's probably going to kill me when he finds me and you know what the worst part is? I don't even care enough anymore to save myself."
“Him again? I just dealt with him before I got here!”
“It was just an example. There's plenty of other murderous freaks to fill in the blanks.”
As if it heard the conversation a mech that seemed to be waiting at the door arose from standby and tried to capture the intruders in first class. God knows what awakened it. But at the same time, apparently being informed about the eavesdropping guard or existing only through some incredibly precise balance of making it a fair fight, the fire alarm closed down the upper-class part of the train. The jagged robot had never dealt with such situations yet, and decided to take down the door the only way it knew.
Riding headfirst into it until it opened, and failing that, shooting at it.
It would ride against the door long enough for Ripper to spot the air vent and drag the nervous lad with him. The neverending source of protest echoed in the ducts, but Ripper ignored the constant questions of "Where are we going?" and "Is this the roof for the love of god don't be the roof."
Oh boy. It was the roof.
Syvex and Eureka immediately spotted the man who shot at him and the guy who shocked her. Eureka motioned towards Syvex in a way that could be interpreted as "Come here," or "Keep driving," or if you strained yourself "Be quiet and follow me." Whatever she did, it couldn't have meant "There are two guys up ahead both of which tried to kill us once or twice and I suggest you look for yourself because one of them is running at us."
Syvex noticed Eureka waving, and took that as the first of the possible interpretations. He caught up with her. He noticed there Riko and Ripper up ahead, men who both had tried to kill him already, he was pretty sure. The pirate, to top it off was lunging right at him like a madman. Just great.
-
There was definitely a battle going on. But while there were two on each party, it was a duel. And while it could have been a duel neither side was actually inflicting harm. If there was a fight to the death based entirely around evasive movement they would have both been gladiators.
Eureka was doing close to nothing, deciding to lay low and go in for a sneak attack later, or whatever she'd think up (but she was gonna do something, no she wouldn't drop to Syvex' level of phony alliances) and Riko was occupied with not spazzing out and falling of the train's roof and hitting the floor or whatever there was below he didn't even dare to peek yet and dying a horrible death oh god he knew it yup he's dead for sure I'm spazzing out ain't I.
Ripper was caught off guard by a thin tendril of cotton wrapping itself around his foot. It was soon joined by another one, and another one, until his entire leg was caught up in cloth. Eureka shouted something inaudible at Syvex. He in turn started tugging at the bandages, holding back a content grin over what he assumed would be a very, very quick round. Syvex slammed Ripper into Riko, sending the man flying off.
Oh. There was water below. So that was there. Man those were some terrible last thoughts okay quickly I regret nothing jeez Riko that was lame.
Thud.
-
"Are you awake?"
Riko's body was stiff and cold, and practically lifeless. Somewhere in his head was a mind still buzzing around, but it wasn't feeling anything. His deathly frozen body ached all over, as if covered entirely in bruises.
A woman approached him, dressed as if returning from the theater. Thin, white gloves adorned her pale hands and a luscious, yet refined feather boa was draped around her neck, her dazzling evening gown lost its glimmer in the lack of light. But by far her most denoting feature was her face, mostly because a magpie mask had covered it. She didn't hide the fact she was here against her own will, or at least against her own better judgement. Her gaze bore into the young man, as much as in disbelief. Riko could only guess to what.
The woman walking towards him with, to be quite frank, a flair of apathy was a frightening sight. Even moreso was her crouching, seating herself right before the young man, her eyes giving off the message she wasn't actually all that interested in here and now. Riko tried to get up, or at least crawl away if rising were to prove too much, but couldn't quite fruitously pull off either. His first attempt to push himself off the ground had him strain his arms and collapse on the blackness. He felt as if something heavy was pressing on his chest.
The woman's touch, not unlike his own, was cold. He couldn't quite figure out whose fault that was. It drifted across his neck, searching for something. She dug deeper, her touch boring into his chest. It was as if her hand had simply passed through his – and he would admit it so – far too many layers of clothing. And Riko was more surprised than the woman himself as her hand retreated, covered in a shining, almost unnatural red. Most of it wasn't blood, they both were quite certain. They knew it was impossible for someone to bleed that much, and from every place at the same time. No, Seventh had already realised what was going on. She extended her hand towards the young man.
The pain must have been excruciating. From every part of his body poured whatever the red substance was, tearing open his skin and leaking down to the ground. As it touched what was an invisible floor, it dissipated. Riko's thoughts, for the first time since the third round, were clear.
It wasn't the third round. It was the second.
Those clear thoughts were not Riko no longer panicking: If he had been placed on the train again he would still feel not at all at ease – and where he would be placed next would only unsettle him more. No, Riko's mind and body had been purified. Cleansed from the mind-bending and controlling powers other beings, contestant or no, had been inflicting on him. The Malevolence no longer held the man in its wretched grasp, Muriegro's spells had for now been disabled. Whatever this woman had done, it had healed him.
"Listen well. I am not in the least acting on my own goodwill let alone for your safety. What I would want is for you to die by the hand of that savage mine, but personal connections forbid me as much as incite me to help you. I am Seventh, refer to me as such. I took part in setting up this battle. Don't think of me as your patron. You shall regret it so sooner or later. If you seek help or challenge your position being," and she chose her next words carefully, “poetically level, address to Sixth.”
She decided to add in her typical tinge of sarcasm, “If you seek a friend, get a dog.”
Riko had had his mind cleared from any tainting influence, but memories weren't fixed on such a short term. He had up to now had no idea of the priest's true identity as an amazon menace. The scientist had no idea that Seventh was not speaking of Tamerlane, but of Muriegro when she mentioned a savage.
"I will say this only once because with every second ticking away in this timeless plane the chance of the others finding out grows larger. The Malevolence is not acting on its own behalf. It's being steered by someone, a man – no, a god – in a different battle than yours. His name is Balance.
Balance has been taking measures against an inter-battle plot called The Network. He has been singling you out, along with Syvex. You both have replied to the message of Vandrel Reinhardt, the face of this web. That same Balance has also ensured the battles skipping around like you have already witnessed. He is the reason you can't administer help to Syvex. He is the reason you cannot get your fleet to enter.
He is the reason Lenore is still not with you since.
Listen to my words carefully, scientist, and tell them to the viper as well: What Reinhardt promises is a lie. Do not engage in any more activity with him, for your own good as much as that of every contestant in the grand battles, as much as the entirety of life as we know it.”
No doubt the man had a lot of questions still, but before Riko could wonder what she had meant with that last part, he was already warped back to his original position.
Or not quite.
-
It of course shook up the other contestants when the scientist who he had rammed a pirate into (it was amazing how little sense this sentence made) reappeared on the train's roof.
“What the...”
“Can... Can you teleport?”
-
Walls in the mansion's basement were unnecessary. The vast expanse of nothing and sorrow and every little bit of hope crushed beneath that horrible horrible stench, everything was dead beneath here.
Or at least everyone was going to be.
The contestants in the battle were the only ones still alive, but alive would prove to be a terrible term. Their bodies were present, but they weren't beating. Their bodies hung unmoving from the ceiling, the semblance of touching the ground and standing on it poorly conveyed by something which never payed attention to how people normally stand. Held up by invisible strings as if a puppetteer's diabolical play they couldn't even move their heads. Their minds, broken and cut apart with deceit and illusion and the feigned idea of the world continuing on, as if they weren't in their own hell and own suffering and absolute agony only a force of pure malevolence could procreate.
But their voices, they rung in the scientist's head, as if they were simply speaking to him from on the train.
-
“What the hell is going on here? What happened here?”
“Uh, what do you mean? You fell off, and-”
“Fell off what? Where is this place? What's wrong with you, why can't you see this? Why aren't you moving?”
Syvex hadn't considered Riko, scientist and always either confused or confusing, a perfectly sane person but he was quite sure he wasn't completely mad either.
“...Okay, what?”
And the confusion only rose in the others on the roof as he simply walked off the train, hovering in mid-air.
“What in the name of Davy! Why aren't you falling?”
“What do you mean, falling? There's nothing there!”
Riko's words were to the contestants deictic to a world he only could comprehend or even visibly notice. From his lunatic speech the others could discover Riko existing in an entirely different plane as them. It was not exactly easy to follow: Riko was hard enough to coherently understand, a Plato describing the world only he could truly live in, but with every mention of a train he started retching, more red which he recognised as the same which the woman had cured him from dripping off his face.
“You... Where are you? Balance, where the hell are you? Seventh, can you cure them? Please help them they have to escape, the Malevolence still has them you have to save us!”
Okay, now he's just lost it.
-
Every possible source of sound immediately died out around the scientist, and while their throats weren't generating anything, so did the voices of the battlers. Every light dimmed out leaving Riko in a similar spotlight as when Seventh had appeared.
All noise was replaced with the voice of one person. Someone who had been assailing Riko simply for daring to overthrow the unspoken rules of the phenomenal fracas.
“Listen to me, Riko Diveley. You shall be my means to sabotage the Network. I will give you the message Reinhardt sent after receiving the transmissions, and you shall form a reply which will entail your battle halting from jumping. You shall tell him you now have a means of transport available, your troop of ships assigned to your command by GRIMACE. With these ships you will cure the other partaker in the conversations, Syvex, rendering him more useful to the group as a whole. You shall remain active in the network until I tell you to do otherwise than what Vandrel Reinhardt orders you.”
“And then what?”
“Then nothing more.”
“What if I don't?”
“Then I will kill everyone.”
-
It's difficult to describe a world simply stopping. If there is no visible effect present to denote the change, no shred of world ripping apart and fluttering down to reveal the actuality beneath the surface, no cracking skies falling down like a shattered dome of glass, not even a single flash of bright white light as a soft voice sets again the real world in motion. No objects morphed back to their real counterparts – and in this situation such a transformation would have been quite impossible, seeing as there was no train in the mansion's basement. Not did the seven present wake up all together knowing it was all just a bad dream – and if they did, it would be waking up from a dream to arrive in a nightmare. Static did not eat away parts of the scene, nor did these parts melt like iron in flames.
No, from one moment to the other, they just stood again, awake. In the basement, no trace of Balance but several bloodied stenches of the Malevolence.
And it was up to them now, not overarching forces from the outside.
-
"Beings of the multiverse, denizens of all that heed to the whim of the gods, the day has came for us to unite, to forge a new era. Together we shall form a mighty union, we shall come together and crush all opposition beneath our combined feet. I, Lord Vandrel Reinhardt, am an experienced master in tactical planning. My armies have conquered lands far and wide and brought all that oppose us to their knees, hacking their heads from their pitiful necks to punish them for their misdeeds. Future allies! I have heard your replies, and you are not alone! With access to all of you, we could form an army more great, more powerful than ever I had layed mortal eyes upon. As a gift, I include within this message information which shall allow you to better communicate across the multiverse! We shall come together and strike back at all that oppose us! Together, the empire we form shall extend across never-before-matched boundaries, encompassing dominions never before dreamed of! My friends, my allies from all imaginable walks of life, this is it! THIS SHALL BE OUR HOUR!"
Riko had no need for any improvements to the open-space principle, his means of communication were plenty and adequate. It did help that right after the message Balance lived up to his promise, and disabled the random movement of the battle. Signals were again straightforward. He would finally be able to contact Lenore.
He couldn't give up now.
-
Imagine in a room seven people, or at least being, brought together in a battle to the death unadmonished and unknowing of their fate, only one thing certain and every round verified: they are mortal, and they will die.
Imagine residing in that room a terror so unspeakably evil it reads the souls of those it desires to torture, and uses those fears it finds against its prey. Now imagine a deity, a god who is omnipresent, omniscient and most importantly omnipotent in this dire situation, imagine him steering such a behemoth of fear, tweaked perfectly with precise knowledge over every being, fine-tuned to produce fear. Condensed fear.
Imagine that room bearing the marks of every being that came to pass in this room after wilting endlessly and almost begging for the sweet embrace of death to close their eyes and let it all fade away.
Imagine that group of seven plagued by the demon's presence, and terrified by the game shadows played on the floor, mimicking pain and agony projected on the bloodstained boards.
Now can you imagine their reaction?
-
Shadows were rare in a room where there was neither light or a wall to project them on. But there they were, imprints in the empty space. They were apparently still deciding on a single form, jittering left and right, occasionally splitting and conjoining and edging only ever so slightly closer to the terrified cluster of people in the middle.
Black silhouettes darted across the room depicting figures holding sharp tools, looming overhead. Covering the group entirely the draping shadows were adorned by a few incandescent dots. Those dots grew larger both in size and numbers before noticing the crowd and unleashing a devastating flurry of fire, burning almost through the group, but soon giving way for a tall figure with sharp teeth and a mean glare. It streched out his hand in an unnatural fashion as if constantly in pain or thrusting a weapon. The teeth soon detached and the figure grew several more arms and eyes and a menacing titter before crumbling into fragments of shadow which formed hands, greedily clawing at the players. Some of them holding searchlights, they still weren't quite sure how they could be portrayed by shadows alone. Then from the shadows glowed the symbol some instantly recognised as the one of the horned woman clothed in bandages as she almost reached the fighters but vanished again.
A torrent of bad memories both recent and long since suppressed roared in the mansion's basement, and with so many people at once it just couldn't decide what form to take on. Only one person was left unscathed by the event.
Because Riko had other things to do.
“T-This is, again, Riko Diveley, trapped in a battle. If you receive info of the Phenomenal Fracas, that's where I am. I... I forgot the name of who put me here. I was wondering if you could help me in seeking the coordinates for the grand battles. I have several ships in my command that can travel across dimensions, and reach the different battles. If you require their service, you have my frequency, and I can send and receive whatever equipment you need. I am-”
Any recipient of the message would hear an incredible screech.
“I am a member of the organisation of GRIMACE, you may have heard of them already. While their goals are evil, they possess several kinds of technological equipment. If you need anything, you can contact me.”
Doing what the god had asked of him recalled in Riko his words. The battles stood still now. He could be saved. He could alert GRIMACE and they'd save him! He quickly pressed the alarm on his communicator, and notified GRIMACE headquarters about his situation.
And unbeknownst to Ripper Blackmask, a similar orange light on the endorphic core flickered on.
-
“Lieutenant, we have received two distress beacons from our scientists, coordinates twenty-three, nineteen, approximately five hundred east, three hundred north. Permission to send to grand screen?”
“Permission.”
On the screen they both stood. Two blinking dots, next to no distance between them.
“Give me the ID for those.”
Upon receiving a very lengthy list of numbers, the lieutenant's face went entirely pale. Could it really be? The ID matched perfectly, so he knew that there was no way it couldn't be, but to find their prized technology at the same time one of their better scientists got abducted, in the same place even, the idea was just preposterous.
“Send every squad over to that place. That dot... is our life's work.”
quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur.