Descent of Nightmare (Chapter Sixteen)
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saladloveChapter list: https://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/650.html
Map of Kaldriel: https://i.gyazo.com/332b0c0172dcc60acb46
Rough map of Hatu: https://i.gyazo.com/ea4f9f51b9dc7b9d8b86
Chapter Sixteen
Namesake
Mainframe, Kaldriel. November 9, 2277. Time instance 842N.
“So,” Q said, turning to look at M with a mischievous glint in her eyes, “you’re finally living up to the name of M.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” M clicked his claws on the ground subconsciously, tapping an anxious pattern on the platform. He had a pretty good idea where she was going, but by Tanadin’s raised eyebrow, she had no idea. The seven thousand unit that had been investigating Q looked curious as well, but quickly wiped their face clean.
Well, that was to be expected. They weren’t familiar with the raptors in any capacity, especially not the Mystrex.
“M has always been one of the most free-thinking of the Mystrex. You are the only Mystrex in the history of ever to renounce our ways and run off to another planet. You did that through empathy, M! And that’s something you’ve seriously seemed to lack until now.”
“Should I take offense to that?”
“Absolutely.” Q tilted her head slightly. “I was watching some old historical videos on the trip over here, actually, and you might be interested to see how what you said to the Council compares to something I found.”
M frowned. “What I said to the Council? Were you spying on that meeting, too?”
Q grinned sheepishly. “Maybe.”
“Rebel.”
“Q usually is. Anyway, I think you should see this, it’s really interesting. Your friend can come too but she might need translating.”
“Seven will just love you going back in your ship,” Tanadin informed her, but followed anyway. “Not to mention taking M and I inside too.”
“You probably shouldn’t go in there,” the cyborg warned. “That wouldn’t-”
“I’m not going to fly off with you, calm down. I just don’t have a screen stapled to my face.” Q stepped up to a console inside and turned on the screen, typing in a command and navigating to a file. “This is your speech to the Council, M. I don’t think you realized entirely what you were saying, but…” She played the file and M reluctantly stepped closer, immediately recognizing the scene from over a month ago.
His pose was so aggressive, he realized, with his hood down, claws up, and knees slightly bent. His hands were in a ready position with his claws prominently displayed and he was tense, from his expression to the end of his tail. What feathers could be seen were puffed up and his eyes glowed dangerously. He tuned into what they were saying, ignoring Q’s quiet translation to Tanadin and the cyborg curiously listening in.
“You might not know them, Speaker, but I do. I spent twenty years down on Kaldriel, watching them fight and strive for their freedom! They’re no different from us! Their souls burn with the same fire, their eyes watch with the same intelligence, their blood spills with the same lost potential! They are us! They are us as we were before the Traveler, but they didn’t need him to get this far! Does that not make us equals? But you would have them enslaved! I’ve spent no time on the other worlds but I can almost guarantee that they are the same way. Kaldriel doesn’t live in the past, like Hatu has been doing for hundreds of years! Did you know that they have no caste system? And even in their most chaotic times, in their most rambunctious places, they had a sense of unity and order. They’ve moved on! They are our equals! So why are we enslaving them and entrenching ourselves in the past?!”
The figure of Ves’kos leaned forward and snarled, and M realized that it made his past self only grow tenser, teeth bared and looking for all the world like he intended to rip the Speaker’s throat out. “That kind of talk is near-treasonous! You are dismissed!”
“I’m not done.”
“You will obey the first circle!”
“I will not!”
The clatter of the beads hitting and shattering against the floor rang in his ears, calling forward the memory in brilliant clarity. He watched as he pulled up his hood and charged out of view, the horrified reactions of the Council covered up by Q’s excited wooping before the footage cut out.
“Now, watch.” Q opened a different file, displaying the image of a crowd gathered around a podium. The date indicated that it had been about a hundred and fifty years ago, shortly after the Hatuian raptors had conquered their first alien planet. M shivered and stepped closer, watching curiously as a cloaked figure stepped up to speak to the crowd. Their glowing eyes identified them as Mystrex but their dark yellow color sent an indescribable pang through M.
This was one of his predecessors.
“Sixtieth incarnation,” Q mumbled, but quickly stepped back to get ready to start translating at the older Mystrex pulled back his hood.
The first thing that M noticed was how old the raptor was. His scales must have once been a lovely tawny color, but were now tinged with gray, especially around the muzzle. His eyes drooped and he looked tired, with dull and cracked claws and a few missing teeth. He walked with a slight limp, as if his joints pained him, and when he spoke his voice creaked but still rang with the power of the Mystrex.
“Yesterday, we learned that our struggle out in space has finally drawn to a close with our success. We have taken the planet Daldrik as our own and have assumed full control of its people to further our endeavors. We will get resources faster, with the use of fewer raptors. Hatu will suffer less, due to less damage to its surface in favor of Daldrik’s. We will gain access to many new resources that we have never encountered before, including a new type of metal. We will become more powerful than we already are. We will be feared and hated for generations to come. For we have invaded the home of these aliens. We have taken their lives, their freedom. We have taken their future. We have destroyed their hopes, their hearts, and their dreams. And for what? New material resources?”
His voice rose so that it rang clearly across the crowd before him, eyes brightening.
“What right do we have to stop them from living? Would we, ourselves, not be dead were it not for the Traveler? The Traveler, a more advanced being, capable of controlling us but doing no such thing, instead helping us out of ignorance and into the light of dawn. Are we not, then, the Traveler to their Hatu? What would he think of us, now, seeing us controlling others for our own gain? We were taught to work together, to treat those not of our kind with respect. Symbiosis, he called it. But we have taken the role of the parasite, the slaver, the tyrant. We are the monsters we loathe, the power we fear. We have destroyed creatures just as intelligent and evolved as us. We could learn from them! And instead we have proved ourselves unworthy of their wisdom. We are our own destroyer. We are our own corruption.”
He straightened up and his teeth bared, claws moving to a more threatening stance as anger colored his voice shades of furious crimson.
“Never before has raptorkind faced such a moral dilemma. Never before have we faced such a crossroads in our destiny. What we have done is unforgivable. But we can change this. We can free Daldrik. But if we do not, we are the tyrants. We are the monsters. The slavers, the murderers, the thieves and destroyers. Do you want to be known this way, forever throughout generations of countless alien races? Is this really what we want?”
The old M’s voice rose into a shout, making their very bones shiver with the power of his voice and fury.
“A Worm Sun dawned this morning, something that has not been seen for three thousand years! Is this not a sign of the mistakes we are making, of the path we are treading? Do you not see what we are becoming?! We are being forsaken by our own dawn! I am begging you to change our path!”
His voice quieted, then, exhaustion pulling at his flesh and dragging at his scales.
“But I am Mystrex, and I am loyal to Hatu. I will follow the decrees of the First Circle, as will all Mystrex. We will not go against their order. But I speak for us all: we do not condone this. We do not support what we do. But listen to me when I say that we, the raptors of Hatu, are in the wrong. I follow my orders but beg you to stop this madness.
“For what we do is wrong, and we will only bring about our own destruction.”
He pulled his hood up and vanished into the growing darkness. M watched the screen even after the recording ended and Q closed the file, feeling hollow deep within.
What have we done?
M stilled, his claws resting and unmoving as he shut his eyes, taking a deep breath. What have we done?
“You see what I mean now,” Q mumbled, gently nudging him. “You didn’t get the wrong cloak, after all.”
“I never thought I did.” M’s eyes opened. We can’t change the past. But we can change the future. “How can we help you, Tanadin?”
“I- what?”
“How can we help you?”
“I have no idea. I’m still a bit flustered over the whole ‘we’re going to war with Heaven’ thing. Didn’t Q say something about another Mystrex showing up?”
“I’m pretty sure they’ve sent someone to try to kill M, yeah. I wouldn’t be too surprised if the rest of the fleet wasn’t far behind.”
“Well,” Tanadin said slowly, “I suppose you might want to work on dealing with that.”
“How?” M asked, tilting his head. “How are we supposed to stop an entire fleet of ships?”
Tanadin shrugged. “Beats me. Ask Seven.”
~~~
“No, no, and no again!” M snarled, baring his teeth after Seven’s explanation. “You’ll...you’ll disintegrate the entire fleet! Anyone who comes out of warp within the affected area-”
“-will be destroyed, yes. That’s the idea.” Seven looked at him severely. “It’s what must be done to defend Kaldriel.”
“Creating a weak warp field around the planet?!”
“Yes. It will, effectively, do nothing other than create a warp field. The existence of the warp field will destroy the fleet and protect Kaldriel from attack.”
M felt a horrible sick feeling wrack his body, making him feel nauseous. “No. No, this is wrong. You’ll kill hundreds, if not thousands, of raptors with technology you copied from my FTL drive.”
“Yes. We will.” Kyir’s eyes sparked and he moved to stand in front of M, poking him between the eyes with a finger. “This is our damn home, M. We’re going to do anything we have to in order to defend it. Just because you wouldn’t do the same for your home- if you even have one- doesn't mean that we won’t.”
M didn’t visibly flinch, shaking off the sting before responding. “Fine. I won’t stop you. But know that I don’t condone this and I’ll have no part in it.”
“Fine,” Kyir snapped. “We don’t need your assistance.”
M nodded swiftly and left the room, Tanadin not far behind. He pulled up his hood to hide the troubled look in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Tanadin said finally. “If it makes you feel better, they had it mostly done even before you showed up.”
“There’s nothing to be done. This is the best solution that we can pull together in time.” M was grateful for the distorting effect the cloak had on his voice- he could mumble all he liked and she could still hear him just fine.
“Do you want to head back to Akrar? Those labkids need babysitting and if you don’t we’ll need to find someone else to watch you. The Mainframe doesn’t need me here to defend it, but Akrar does, and if anywhere’s my home, it’s there.”
“Defend it?”
“The angels, remember? While Seven and Kyir work on repelling the alie- sorry, raptors- the rest of us have to worry about the attack from the skies.”
M paused before nodding.
“I’ll come with you, if we can bring Q along. I have no qualms about fighting angels.”
Tanadin smiled. “I’m glad. It’ll be good to have you at our side again.”
“I look forward to it.” M wasn’t sure how true that was, but he knew that these old revolutionaries- his old friends- were better allies on the battlefield than the other raptors. Raptors assumed he could take care of himself and did nothing to defend him. The revolutionaries knew what he could do but still looked out for him, not because he was Mystrex, chosen by the cloak to keep peace and watch over them, but because he was their friend, their ally, someone they had known and trusted.
Guilt stirred in his chest but he pushed it back.
I’m proving myself again. And this time, there’s no abandoning them.
~~~
Geluu was seriously considering throwing one of the tiny pumpkins scattered around the first ring of the Mainframe at Nine when he held up a hand and tilted his head, listening.
They’d been arguing about logistics of fighting the angels and Nine had insisted upon waiting for more information from the Archdemons before doing much of anything. Geluu argued that they could at least gather everyone but Nine protested that they didn’t know where to gather them until they received word back.
Apparently the wait was over, as Nine informed him that the Archdemons had sent a demon named Talmarian to come and speak with them. Apparently he was well-known throughout Hell as a trustworthy, intelligent, and powerful demon, trusted by the Archdemons and even by the previous Queen of Hell. Nine was a bit skeptical about letting him and his bodyguard into the first ring of the Mainframe, but he allowed it since Seven wasn’t around to veto the decision and complain about security measures.
A tall man with red hair and brilliant green eyes climbed the stairs a few minutes later, smiling pleasantly at the sight of them and introducing himself as Talmarian and the imposing figure behind him as Shadhun. Shadhun and one of the nine thousand units eyed each other as Talmarian pulled up a chair and sat with Nine and Geluu, waving at Hazon before directing his attention towards them.
He didn’t seem particularly demonic, Geluu noted, but he assumed that Talmarian was merely changing his appearance for their benefit, likely through an illusion but possibly through a transformation spell if anything they’d heard about his magical ability was to be believed.
“So.” He pulled a roll of gray parchment- a material that Geluu was familiar with, a type of fireproof material often found in Hell- and unrolled it on part of a terminal that served as a desk. It was a well-crafted map of Kaldriel, with several red and white points here and there as well as thirteen dots of various colors marked on the island that housed the Infinity Cascade.
“Each of these white points is a portal to Heaven. They’re all up in the sky and can transport hundreds of angels at once through them. Each red point is a portal to Hell, which are on the ground and considerably smaller except for the one on the Infinity Cascade. With your permission, the Archdemons would like to start sending demons to guard every single one of these gates to Heaven.”
“Granted,” Nine said immediately. “We’ve always been on good terms with Hell and if we’re to work together now we can’t get fiddly over where troops can and cannot go.”
“I’m glad you agree.”
“We should station Steelwings at each of those points as well,” Geluu added, glancing up at Nine. “I’m assuming angels are affected by anti-magic pulses?”
Nine shrugged. “I’d assume so.”
“Your anti-magic pulses affect only a range of magical frequencies, right? I’d assume that most angel magic is higher in frequency than your pulses can affect, while the demons around the Steelwings would be negatively affected,” Talmarian put in.
“Be careful, then. Even if they can’t nullify the angels’ magic, the Steelwings will still be valuable.”
“You should send a detachment of casters to each of those gates as well,” Nine added. “We-”
“No,” Geluu said immediately. “A small group of casters, unless they’re very powerful, won’t put a dent on angels if they’re anything like what my research suggests.”
“On average, an angel is as strong as two or three demons,” Talmarian informed them. “Obviously, very few angels will be able to match up to Geek or myself, but they do exist.”
Geluu nodded. “We’ll need to keep larger groups in places between gates-”
“Or,” Talmarian interjected, “we could set up more hellgates at each of those points and simply send the spellcasters through whenever the need arises. Station some demons and Steelwings at each gate to Heaven, then have the Steelwings send a message back to the Mainframe when the angels arrive. A few minutes later, more demons and spellcasters will come through the appropriate gate.”
Geluu raised an eyebrow. “How will we get the spellcasters through the gates? Most mortals fry up in Hell.”
“The first circle is safe for mortals to go to as long as they leave within a few hours. Since they’ll simply be stepping out of one gate into a temporary hub that we’ll set up, they’ll be out within the minute.”
Geluu’s eyes widened. “You can do that?”
“With skilled portalmakers, yes. Hell has no shortage of those, it will only take time. Past battles with Heaven show that they prefer to send the first assault through the Ruby Gate, here.” Talmarian tapped it on the map, indicating somewhere in South Karavian mountains. “The second is often through the Sapphire Gate, which is here.” He motioned at Akrar. “Past that, we haven’t found a pattern. Last time, they switched the first and second assault locations, so we’ll get the portals to and from Ruby and Sapphire set up first. Angels are very obsessed with tradition so I don’t see why they’d break this habit. Where do you station most of the Steelwings?”
“Most of them on active duty stay in southern Skerek, where SOV used to be, although they’re fairly spread out. We can recall them to anywhere,” Nine told him.
“How long will it take to get them to each of Heaven’s gates?”
“Not long. Cyborgs can move quickly when need be.”
“Good, good.”
“Where do the attacks come from most heavily?” Geluu asked, looking at the map closely. It was disconcerting how many white dots there were marking gates to Heaven, and a rough count brought back around thirty.
“The Sapphire, Opal, Diamond, and Topaz Gates.” Talmarian tapped each gate on the map in turn.
“Sapphire is right above Akrar,” Geluu mumbled. “Of those four, that’s the highest populated area.”
“Recall the spellcasters that you have under your command there,” Nine suggested. “That way they’re right there if Akrar is attacked, and if the attack is elsewhere, they can just go through the gates that the demons are setting up.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Geluu agreed.
“Should I start sending out messages?” Hazon asked, fingers hovering over the keys.
Geluu and Nine exchanged glances.
“Yes,” Geluu decided. “Send the cyborgs to each of the gates and recall the spellcasters to Akrar. We’re getting ready for war.”
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Date: 2016-12-14 01:55 am (UTC)So this M is the second M to have a crisis of faith about what the raptors were doing, but he went the extra mile and renounced his role and rebelled, interesting.
Welp guess it's time for me to prep my mobile healing station and flasks of coffee for energy, I think I'm going to need them.....
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Date: 2016-12-14 02:07 am (UTC)GET READY, SCARA
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Date: 2016-12-14 02:12 am (UTC)*prepares*
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Date: 2016-12-15 12:11 am (UTC)-ToC'a Anon
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Date: 2016-12-15 08:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-15 11:40 pm (UTC)