Re: Grand Battle S3G1! (Round Three: Caelo Ruinam)
01-01-2012, 01:48 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.
Lady Midday usually saw fit to wear white, which, believe it or not, already signified death on some parts of the planet. She was working on the other parts. The people down below, by her thinking, had spent far too long fearing the darkness and all that they couldn’t see, and far too little time fearing what was right in front of them—namely, her. She’d rather they relish the quiet, dark moments they were able to find alone at their beds at night, and then see a flash of light...
Lady Midday seriously had thoughts like this all the time. She had long since come to terms with her pathological need to subjugate, terrify, murder and occasionally cook and eat everyone around her. If you enjoy something enough and you’re good enough and can make a fair amount of money in the process, there’s really no sense in questioning your own motives. Were she to, say, go into therapy, and learn, say, that her unending lust for violence resulted from being breastfed until the age of two while her mother dabbled in dark magic and hallucinogens, or that her aversion to modest, practical daywear probably had something to do with her father’s doll collection, her newfound self-awareness might cost her the moments like these: feeling the wind on her bare back/thighs/etc. from the observation deck of her newly-hijacked flying death fortress and surveying the damage.
And oh, such damage. Caelo Ruinam’s Sunstroke Device, when deployed against a civilian population, didn’t mess around with trivialities like radioactive fallout and pillars of smoke and survivors. It simply got the job done, wrapped it and tied it up for you with a bow. The land beneath was wiped clean and uniform, pounded so precisely into a flat expanse of rock that it shone brilliantly white, reflecting the light of the sun back into Lady Midday’s eyes. Like a diamond cut out of the Earth. It was wonderful. She grew bored of it almost immediately.
“Science Masochist!” she barked, turning back into the bowels of Caelo Ruinam. “Ray, I know you can hear me!” The lack of response from Ray, the Science Masochist, did not please Lady Midday. Her trusty submissive technologician was hunched over Caelo’s central computer in his customary black labcoat and compound goggles. The chain attached to the collar around his neck dangled tantalizingly on the floor within Lady Midday’s reach. Suspecting that Ray was doing this on purpose (he was, after all, a masochist), Lady Midday nonetheless gave into the urge to give the chain a good yank and throw her assistant to the floor.
The Science Masochist lay dreamily gurgling beside his chair, looking up at his mistress’s legs for a moment before rising unsteadily to his feet. “How are we?” asked Lady Midday patiently.
“We’re fine,” gasped Ray, massaging his airways. “Ruinam’s power supply wasn’t exactly built to withstand a max-power Sunstroke every day, but its original designers were certainly prepared for a worst-case scenario. We’re immobile for about six hours, but life support and basic artillery should be good.”
“Any way to track the heroes?”
“Which ones?”
“The competent ones.” Lady Midday cast an expectant glance back at the observation deck.
“They should be pressurized into their base components along with the rest of everything down there,” assured Ray. “But no, there’s no way to make sure. Unless they’re an ore deposit, the instruments here would have no way of tracking them on the ground.”
“Hmmm. I don’t like that.” This was a lie; she did, in fact, derive a bit of thrill out of the uncertainty. “And the incompetent ones?”
“No word from security except for a couple of odd deaths and injuries, so we can assume they’re still running around on the lower levels.”
Lady Midday liked that too. “Cute. Let me know when six hours are running out. We’ll be taking Sunstroke to Triple City as soon as we’re skyworthy again.”
“Yes, mistress.” The Science Masochist sat back down and resumed his ill-defined fiddling at the control center. Lady Midday took leave of him and entered the corridor outside, where the better part of her honor guard was loitering.
Lady Midday hated her honor guard. She selected them randomly and constantly bashed it into their heads that she had selected them randomly, but she could never liberate them of the idea that they formed some sort of elite cadre handpicked for the secret potential that only their Lady recognized. Dolts. The ego boost resulting from their selection from the honor guard led to a strong sense of camaraderie amongst the men balanced out by a predilection towards oddly homoerotic macho posturing. She could not stomach it, but today she had a use for it.
Storming out into the corridor, Lady Midday interrupted what appeared to be an arm wrestling tournament and suffered through the experience of twenty faces looking up at her expectantly, unsure whether they were about to die or get laid. Most of these men had claimed in private to have slept with her, which was only going to make this harder.
“Which of you has been secretly giving the others footrubs on your downtime?” she asked. Thirty-eight eyes flicked towards one soldier, a particularly self-assured Aryan type who Lady Midday had recently been considering sending out on a suicide mission just so she wouldn’t have to look at his face. She turned to the soldier who, having only half-heartedly terminated his arm wrestling match with the culprit, was now tenderly holding his hand, and asked, “how’s his technique?”
“Worthy of the honor guard, milady,” replied the soldier, giving the Aryan’s hand a gentle squeeze.
Lady Midday rolled her eyes. “You. My bedchamber. Now.” The masseur seemed to perk up at that, and several of his fellows were clearly suppressing catcalls, opting instead to merely pat the man on his back as he passed.
Lady Midday’s bedchambers had been hastily appropriated by the admiral or the foreman or the princess or whoever had been running this place a half hour ago. The mattress was a little soft for her taste, and the lady whose portrait hung on the wall opposite the bed had a weird chin, but it would do, if she ever felt compelled to sleep, which she hadn’t for the last three days. Lady Midday’s metabolism had been stuck in a hypertense world domination mode for a while now; hence, footrubs.
“It’s these heels,” said the guard, going to work on the elaborate structure of buckles and zippers that kept her footwear on. “I don’t know how I’d be able to deal walking like this.”
“Oh, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” retorted Lady Midday, lying back on the bed. “I’ve been walking in stilettos since Daddy first, um, since I was a child. Walking around in flat feet feels more awkward to me nowadays.”
“Uh-huh, well, that’s cause you’ve seriously—“ the soldier slipped her boot off very quickly, as though tearing off a band-aid “--fucked up your arches, if you’ll pardon my language.”
“I came here for a massage, not a lecture on my fashion choices,” snapped Lady Midday, wiggling her toes.
“Yeah, yeah, this impatience probably isn’t doing you any good either. You need to relax.” The mistress of evil was distantly shocked by the man’s impertinence and considered murdering him, but was forced to admit that he had her by the balls, or, more precisely, by the foot. His massage was a bit clunky and distinctly masculine, but better than anything else she could get in this gods-damned sky-fortress.
She reasserted her authority by mumbling “please stop talking now” and closing her eyes. She’d forgotten to close the blinds, and the blaring light reflecting off the land below seeped in everywhere. Lady Midday assured herself that the act of closing her eyes was by no means a precursor to any length of sleep.
Well, maybe just a micronap, she quickly rationalized, waking up a few minutes later. She took a quick tactile survey of her surroundings to report that her immediate circumstances had not gone horribly off the rails in the brief time she’d been out. Her hair was a bit disheveled, was all. In fact, the guard seemed to have gotten into the rhythm of things, and was delivering a truly impressive rubbing to her left foot. A sound that she refused to consciously believe sounded anything like “mmmm” escaped her lips, and she lazily hoped that the soldier hadn’t heard it.
“Ah, good,” came an unfamiliar voice from near her feet. “You’re awake. Listen to me closely. Your masseur is dead. If you make any sudden moves, I will stop doing this, and then I’ll break your ankle.”
“No!” hissed Lady Midday, startled into wakefulness. “Don’t stop doing that, please!” Trying not to be too sudden, she lifted herself into a seated position. Sitting by the edge of the bed was a middle-aged man dressed in an ill-fitting guard’s uniform, who was just going to town on her feet. He looked slightly too comical to be actually frightening but, yep, there was the guard lying dead on the floor. “Alright,” said Lady Midday, “What do you want?”
“A job,” answered the man. “If I understand the situation properly, it looks like we have a mutual distaste for heroes. And I happen to know of five heroes in this fortress alone—plus some other guy who’s just an asshole—who I can help you get rid of.”
“Uh-huh,” replied Lady Midday, realizing that she was still wearing her other boot and could stab this guy’s eyes out with the heel (seriously, thank the Gods for heels). She could also attack him with magic, but, not knowing his defenses, that was a bit riskier. She decided to negotiate, figuring that anyone who could sneak through her defenses and also make her feet feel this good could prove useful. Also, five heroes? She only knew of three, though that could be a bluff on his part. “A job, eh? What are your qualifications?”
“Science!” replied the man enthusiastically. “All of science. Pick a science. I am great at it. That’s the main thing.”
“You’ll have to—ooh, right there—you’ll have to do better than that, stranger. I already have an expert scientist on staff, and I trust him completely.”
“Is that so? You’ll have him working in the control room down the hall, then?”
“That’s none of your business!”
“Hold that thought.” The stranger gave her toes a quick squeeze and darted out of the bedchamber.
“Ack.” Lady Midday swung her feet over the side of the bed. “I warned him not to stop with the foot. Guards!” She attempted to stand but found that, only wearing heels on one side, she was rather unbalanced, and fell back onto the mattress. The lady in the portrait with the ugly chin was giving her a knowing look, and it took her about ten seconds to remember to call for the guards again, louder this time.
Three of the other assholes in her honor guard rushed in to find Lady Midday lying on a bed with her left boot sitting next to the broken and undressed corpse of one of their comrades, which, she reflected, was probably not very flattering for her. So instead of giving them any orders, she vaporized them with a lightning bolt spell and stewed in her misery for a bit. Inevitably, the stranger promptly reentered, now covered in blood and wearing a familiar labcoat and goggles. “Alright, problem solved,” he announced. “You don’t have a scientist anymore.”
“You killed Ray the Science Masochist!” accused Lady Midday, unbuckling her right shoe. “I demand recompense!”
“Uh-huh. How about I start by editing that program he was writing to get this fortress’ power cells optimized two hours sooner than his original timetable?”
“That’ll do.” Zip. “But first, get going on my right foot.”
“But of course.” Her new scientist’s delicate, pudgy hands slowly and sensually slid her remaining boot off.
“So what do I call you, new servant?” asked Lady Midday.
The stranger considered this for a while. “I had a name once,” he said eventually, “But it doesn’t seem to apply anymore. You shall call me: Ray (Sadist Forme).”
“Alrighty, New Ray,” agreed Lady Midday sleepily. “You know, the old Ray wasn’t really a masochist. I just told him I’d hurt him if he didn’t pretend that he was.”
“Ha!” Ray (Sadist Forme) proceeded to spend the next several minutes performing acts on her feet that honestly felt better than sex, which wasn’t saying much, since Lady Midday was psychologically incapable of enjoying sex. She mused to herself that, even if the Science Sadist worked out every knot and relieved all the tension, her feet would never truly feel satisfied until the entire continent was crushed beneath it.
Seriously, that was how her brain worked. She was an evil bitch.
Lady Midday usually saw fit to wear white, which, believe it or not, already signified death on some parts of the planet. She was working on the other parts. The people down below, by her thinking, had spent far too long fearing the darkness and all that they couldn’t see, and far too little time fearing what was right in front of them—namely, her. She’d rather they relish the quiet, dark moments they were able to find alone at their beds at night, and then see a flash of light...
Lady Midday seriously had thoughts like this all the time. She had long since come to terms with her pathological need to subjugate, terrify, murder and occasionally cook and eat everyone around her. If you enjoy something enough and you’re good enough and can make a fair amount of money in the process, there’s really no sense in questioning your own motives. Were she to, say, go into therapy, and learn, say, that her unending lust for violence resulted from being breastfed until the age of two while her mother dabbled in dark magic and hallucinogens, or that her aversion to modest, practical daywear probably had something to do with her father’s doll collection, her newfound self-awareness might cost her the moments like these: feeling the wind on her bare back/thighs/etc. from the observation deck of her newly-hijacked flying death fortress and surveying the damage.
And oh, such damage. Caelo Ruinam’s Sunstroke Device, when deployed against a civilian population, didn’t mess around with trivialities like radioactive fallout and pillars of smoke and survivors. It simply got the job done, wrapped it and tied it up for you with a bow. The land beneath was wiped clean and uniform, pounded so precisely into a flat expanse of rock that it shone brilliantly white, reflecting the light of the sun back into Lady Midday’s eyes. Like a diamond cut out of the Earth. It was wonderful. She grew bored of it almost immediately.
“Science Masochist!” she barked, turning back into the bowels of Caelo Ruinam. “Ray, I know you can hear me!” The lack of response from Ray, the Science Masochist, did not please Lady Midday. Her trusty submissive technologician was hunched over Caelo’s central computer in his customary black labcoat and compound goggles. The chain attached to the collar around his neck dangled tantalizingly on the floor within Lady Midday’s reach. Suspecting that Ray was doing this on purpose (he was, after all, a masochist), Lady Midday nonetheless gave into the urge to give the chain a good yank and throw her assistant to the floor.
The Science Masochist lay dreamily gurgling beside his chair, looking up at his mistress’s legs for a moment before rising unsteadily to his feet. “How are we?” asked Lady Midday patiently.
“We’re fine,” gasped Ray, massaging his airways. “Ruinam’s power supply wasn’t exactly built to withstand a max-power Sunstroke every day, but its original designers were certainly prepared for a worst-case scenario. We’re immobile for about six hours, but life support and basic artillery should be good.”
“Any way to track the heroes?”
“Which ones?”
“The competent ones.” Lady Midday cast an expectant glance back at the observation deck.
“They should be pressurized into their base components along with the rest of everything down there,” assured Ray. “But no, there’s no way to make sure. Unless they’re an ore deposit, the instruments here would have no way of tracking them on the ground.”
“Hmmm. I don’t like that.” This was a lie; she did, in fact, derive a bit of thrill out of the uncertainty. “And the incompetent ones?”
“No word from security except for a couple of odd deaths and injuries, so we can assume they’re still running around on the lower levels.”
Lady Midday liked that too. “Cute. Let me know when six hours are running out. We’ll be taking Sunstroke to Triple City as soon as we’re skyworthy again.”
“Yes, mistress.” The Science Masochist sat back down and resumed his ill-defined fiddling at the control center. Lady Midday took leave of him and entered the corridor outside, where the better part of her honor guard was loitering.
Lady Midday hated her honor guard. She selected them randomly and constantly bashed it into their heads that she had selected them randomly, but she could never liberate them of the idea that they formed some sort of elite cadre handpicked for the secret potential that only their Lady recognized. Dolts. The ego boost resulting from their selection from the honor guard led to a strong sense of camaraderie amongst the men balanced out by a predilection towards oddly homoerotic macho posturing. She could not stomach it, but today she had a use for it.
Storming out into the corridor, Lady Midday interrupted what appeared to be an arm wrestling tournament and suffered through the experience of twenty faces looking up at her expectantly, unsure whether they were about to die or get laid. Most of these men had claimed in private to have slept with her, which was only going to make this harder.
“Which of you has been secretly giving the others footrubs on your downtime?” she asked. Thirty-eight eyes flicked towards one soldier, a particularly self-assured Aryan type who Lady Midday had recently been considering sending out on a suicide mission just so she wouldn’t have to look at his face. She turned to the soldier who, having only half-heartedly terminated his arm wrestling match with the culprit, was now tenderly holding his hand, and asked, “how’s his technique?”
“Worthy of the honor guard, milady,” replied the soldier, giving the Aryan’s hand a gentle squeeze.
Lady Midday rolled her eyes. “You. My bedchamber. Now.” The masseur seemed to perk up at that, and several of his fellows were clearly suppressing catcalls, opting instead to merely pat the man on his back as he passed.
Lady Midday’s bedchambers had been hastily appropriated by the admiral or the foreman or the princess or whoever had been running this place a half hour ago. The mattress was a little soft for her taste, and the lady whose portrait hung on the wall opposite the bed had a weird chin, but it would do, if she ever felt compelled to sleep, which she hadn’t for the last three days. Lady Midday’s metabolism had been stuck in a hypertense world domination mode for a while now; hence, footrubs.
“It’s these heels,” said the guard, going to work on the elaborate structure of buckles and zippers that kept her footwear on. “I don’t know how I’d be able to deal walking like this.”
“Oh, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” retorted Lady Midday, lying back on the bed. “I’ve been walking in stilettos since Daddy first, um, since I was a child. Walking around in flat feet feels more awkward to me nowadays.”
“Uh-huh, well, that’s cause you’ve seriously—“ the soldier slipped her boot off very quickly, as though tearing off a band-aid “--fucked up your arches, if you’ll pardon my language.”
“I came here for a massage, not a lecture on my fashion choices,” snapped Lady Midday, wiggling her toes.
“Yeah, yeah, this impatience probably isn’t doing you any good either. You need to relax.” The mistress of evil was distantly shocked by the man’s impertinence and considered murdering him, but was forced to admit that he had her by the balls, or, more precisely, by the foot. His massage was a bit clunky and distinctly masculine, but better than anything else she could get in this gods-damned sky-fortress.
She reasserted her authority by mumbling “please stop talking now” and closing her eyes. She’d forgotten to close the blinds, and the blaring light reflecting off the land below seeped in everywhere. Lady Midday assured herself that the act of closing her eyes was by no means a precursor to any length of sleep.
Well, maybe just a micronap, she quickly rationalized, waking up a few minutes later. She took a quick tactile survey of her surroundings to report that her immediate circumstances had not gone horribly off the rails in the brief time she’d been out. Her hair was a bit disheveled, was all. In fact, the guard seemed to have gotten into the rhythm of things, and was delivering a truly impressive rubbing to her left foot. A sound that she refused to consciously believe sounded anything like “mmmm” escaped her lips, and she lazily hoped that the soldier hadn’t heard it.
“Ah, good,” came an unfamiliar voice from near her feet. “You’re awake. Listen to me closely. Your masseur is dead. If you make any sudden moves, I will stop doing this, and then I’ll break your ankle.”
“No!” hissed Lady Midday, startled into wakefulness. “Don’t stop doing that, please!” Trying not to be too sudden, she lifted herself into a seated position. Sitting by the edge of the bed was a middle-aged man dressed in an ill-fitting guard’s uniform, who was just going to town on her feet. He looked slightly too comical to be actually frightening but, yep, there was the guard lying dead on the floor. “Alright,” said Lady Midday, “What do you want?”
“A job,” answered the man. “If I understand the situation properly, it looks like we have a mutual distaste for heroes. And I happen to know of five heroes in this fortress alone—plus some other guy who’s just an asshole—who I can help you get rid of.”
“Uh-huh,” replied Lady Midday, realizing that she was still wearing her other boot and could stab this guy’s eyes out with the heel (seriously, thank the Gods for heels). She could also attack him with magic, but, not knowing his defenses, that was a bit riskier. She decided to negotiate, figuring that anyone who could sneak through her defenses and also make her feet feel this good could prove useful. Also, five heroes? She only knew of three, though that could be a bluff on his part. “A job, eh? What are your qualifications?”
“Science!” replied the man enthusiastically. “All of science. Pick a science. I am great at it. That’s the main thing.”
“You’ll have to—ooh, right there—you’ll have to do better than that, stranger. I already have an expert scientist on staff, and I trust him completely.”
“Is that so? You’ll have him working in the control room down the hall, then?”
“That’s none of your business!”
“Hold that thought.” The stranger gave her toes a quick squeeze and darted out of the bedchamber.
“Ack.” Lady Midday swung her feet over the side of the bed. “I warned him not to stop with the foot. Guards!” She attempted to stand but found that, only wearing heels on one side, she was rather unbalanced, and fell back onto the mattress. The lady in the portrait with the ugly chin was giving her a knowing look, and it took her about ten seconds to remember to call for the guards again, louder this time.
Three of the other assholes in her honor guard rushed in to find Lady Midday lying on a bed with her left boot sitting next to the broken and undressed corpse of one of their comrades, which, she reflected, was probably not very flattering for her. So instead of giving them any orders, she vaporized them with a lightning bolt spell and stewed in her misery for a bit. Inevitably, the stranger promptly reentered, now covered in blood and wearing a familiar labcoat and goggles. “Alright, problem solved,” he announced. “You don’t have a scientist anymore.”
“You killed Ray the Science Masochist!” accused Lady Midday, unbuckling her right shoe. “I demand recompense!”
“Uh-huh. How about I start by editing that program he was writing to get this fortress’ power cells optimized two hours sooner than his original timetable?”
“That’ll do.” Zip. “But first, get going on my right foot.”
“But of course.” Her new scientist’s delicate, pudgy hands slowly and sensually slid her remaining boot off.
“So what do I call you, new servant?” asked Lady Midday.
The stranger considered this for a while. “I had a name once,” he said eventually, “But it doesn’t seem to apply anymore. You shall call me: Ray (Sadist Forme).”
“Alrighty, New Ray,” agreed Lady Midday sleepily. “You know, the old Ray wasn’t really a masochist. I just told him I’d hurt him if he didn’t pretend that he was.”
“Ha!” Ray (Sadist Forme) proceeded to spend the next several minutes performing acts on her feet that honestly felt better than sex, which wasn’t saying much, since Lady Midday was psychologically incapable of enjoying sex. She mused to herself that, even if the Science Sadist worked out every knot and relieved all the tension, her feet would never truly feel satisfied until the entire continent was crushed beneath it.
Seriously, that was how her brain worked. She was an evil bitch.