Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
As suggested, I'm moving this fic to it's own thread, so that if I break anything, it will just be my thread.
Premise - Three teens from widely different world end up saving one of the galaxy's richest figures from an assassination attempt, and then go on to fight for truth, bravery and 'all that stuff' under the grateful auspices of Queen Sarya of Venegar!
*********************************************
Emerald Legion, Chapter 1 "A tale of a fateful trip" - wherein three young people discover the hero within (Note: Telepathic communication is delineated by tildes. For example; Imra thought ~Brackets bad.~ Communication through the Champion’s Rings is in italics. )
Rokk continued setting the tables while blanking out Imra’s endless questions about that new guy, Gorf, or whatever his name was. They’d been working together as crew on the Star-Cruiser Quantus for two months, and he’d thought they were getting closer, but now this new farm-boy from Winath had all her attention. She’d never seemed terribly interested in his tales of sports-action, but he’d made an effort, and now found himself pushing her towards Garth just so that he didn’t have to hear anymore about his ‘hidden depths’ or ‘simple strength’ or whatever she was on about this time. Figures, his first month off-planet and he’d fall for a telepath. Ugh.
“Yeah, he’s great, Im, I like his arms, too.” Rokk said off-handedly while running the sterilizer-wand over the table, assuming that since Imra had stopped talking, he was now expected to pretend he had been listening appreciatively.
~Quiet, Rokk! Don’t look, but those men near the viewing port have guns!~;
Rokk immediately looked to check them out, and while he couldn’t see any visible arms, he closed his eyes and stretched out with his other senses, to feel suspicious chunks of cold metal beneath the exotic diplomatic robes of the three ‘ambassadors.’
~I said don’t look! You’ll make them suspicious!~
“I’m not looking, and you’re right, they have some sort of guns under their robes. I can sense them. But they're diplomats, Cadri I think, so perhaps it’s some sort of custom? Maybe it’s normal and they’re just decorative…,” Rokk whispered in response.
~No, they are all very pointedly *not* looking at that woman in the green dress who just came in, and they are all thinking about their guns!~
Rokk opened his eyes and turned to see the woman in the green dress, only to be momentarily struck with her statuesque beauty and her clear sense of presence. She seemed to move into the room and through the chatting dignitaries as if she had her own gravity field, and he could see various diplomats and celebrities turning their heads and breaking off their own conversations to greet her.
“Madam Sarya…” “Your Highness…” “An honor, indeed!” “You grace us with your presence, milady.” “What was she thinking, oh my gods, that dress is so last millennium…”
Well, okay, clearly not everyone was taken with her, but still, the newly crowned Queen of Venegar was definitely drawing attention, and all eyes were upon her. Peeking, Rokk noticed that indeed, the three robed ‘diplomats’ near the viewing port were studiously looking out the window, suspicious behavior indeed as all other eyes were focused on the Queen’s entrance.
~I’ve warned the captain, and she says security is on the way. If we can just stall them…~
Cutting off Imra’s thought-cast, Rokk moved directly in front of the Queen of Venegar, “Majesty, the captain has asked if there is any specific refreshment we can offer you this fine day. I wouldn’t recommend Gandili Sparkle-water for just anyone, but there’s no chance that it would outshine your own radiance.”
Rokk could hear the gasps, and sniffs. The Athramite diplomat who had been attempting to get Sarya’s attention was muttering darkly, ‘The nerve! Impertinent!’ but as he was only three feet tall, Rokk had neatly blocked him while subtly attempting to steer the Queen away from the viewing port.
“Most gracious young man, that would be acceptable,” came the reply, which Rokk only barely heard as Imra’s thoughts boomed in his skull.
~Now! They are drawing their guns!~
In her agitated state, Imra thought-cast this message to the entire room, and panic ensued as Rokk spun to see three bulky blaster pistols leveled at him, or, more specifically, at the startled monarch directly behind him…
“Great galaxies!” “We’re all going to die!” “Run for the lifeboats!” “This was supposed to be secure, I’m going to sue!”
Blocking out the sounds of the panicking dignitaries, Rokk put one hand behind him and pushed the Queen behind him while he reached out with his magnetic powers, certain that he was about to die, as there was simply no chance that he could seize all three guns before a single trigger was depressed. Just as he reached out, a sizzling arc of electricity suddenly played across the right-most gun-man, and he quickly changed targets and seized the gun from the man on the left, wresting it from his grasp and sticking it to the ceiling of the compartment with a loud clang. The right-most ‘ambassador’ was writhing on the ground, and the farm-boy from Winath stepped forward, pumping a constant stream of electrical energy into the paralyzed figure. But he was clearly straining to maintain the arc, and the gun-man stubbornly refused to go unconscious, just twitching and struggling to regain control of his spasming muscles.
~Focus! I’ve got the one in the middle fooled. He thinks he’s shooting his gun right now, but I can’t hold it!~
Even as Imra’s thoughts cut through his distraction, Rokk saw the man shake his head and quickly switched his focus to seize this man’s weapon as well. This man had a firmer grip on his weapon, and Rokk ended up slowly walking forward, focusing all of he magnetic might on keeping the gun pointed up into the air, hoping to smash the thug with a serving tray when he got close enough, only to belatedly remember the first man he had disarmed was still quite awake and active. A vicious right-hook drops him to the ground, and Rokk looks up to hear the clank as the gun he had pinned to the ceiling abruptly drops. The gunman he had failed to disarm was smiling now, and swiveling his gun towards the farm-boy.
“No more heroes, I think. Get the Queen, and let’s move!”
And then everything is a blur. The man who struck him suddenly goes flying over his head and he can hear an outraged voice, “Unhand me, peasant!” Meanwhile, the farm-boy has crouched in front of the gun-man he has paralyzed and there is a loud *pop* as his hands make contact with the fallen man, who then lies very, very still.
Desperate, Rokk reaches out with his powers and yanks the fallen gun into his hand and stands up before the remaining gun-man, who is now pointing his gun at the farm-boy’s head. The stand-off is broken as Imra announces the arrival of security, and when the remaining gun-man turns to see the approaching guards, Rokk strikes him in the back of the head just as Garth reaches forward to grip his leg. Just catching the edge of the shock through the pistol, Rokk still has no feeling in his hand an hour later…
That hour is a confusing one, and the captain demands detailed reports from the three of them, separately and together. The head of security, who was apparently shirking his duty, decides to make up for it by yelling at all three of them loudly and obnoxiously, for, “Risking the Queen’s life with your foolish stunts! Of all the grand-standing…”
Fortunately, Imra helps him to block out this tirade, distracting him with reports of things happening in the other rooms, until suddenly she gasps in his mind,
~Oh, this should be good.~
At that, the door opens and Queen Sarya of Venegar swoops in, and the first thing Rokk notices is that she’s changed her outfit, already.
“Your Majesty…” begins the captain. “Thanks to the quick reactions of our security teams…” begins the security chief (even the Captain shoots him a look at this one).
“Be quiet.” The Queen says, in a stern tone that brooks no dissension.
Apparently oblivious to the social situation, the security chief blusters on, “It could have gotten out of hand, but the training our crew receive…”
His words are interrupted by a loud CRACK as the Queen’s dainty fist lashes out into the nearest wall-monitor, which technically should be shatterproof, but shatters nonetheless. Rokk hopes that wasn’t something important to ship’s functions…
“I said be quiet! And now, begone!” The Queen stamps her foot and points at the door, which obediently opens behind her. The security chief makes a strangled noise and the captain sweetly adds, “Please leave now. And, you’re fired.” The captain then turns to the nearest security person, “You are now security chief, Relfa. Please escort citizen Bro-kal to his quarters, where he is to remain for the remainder of the voyage.”
The Queen turns and the sour look on her face melts away. She nods to the captain, “Thank you. Where was I? Oh yes, I would like to thank your valiant crew-members for preventing this abduction attempt, the Emerald Throne is in your debt.” She smiles and extends her hand first to Garth, who, like the farm-boy he is, takes it and pumps it vigorously with a big grin.
Withdrawing her hand with some effort, the Queen’s smile is frozen on her face as she turns to Rokk and somewhat reluctantly extends the offended appendage. Rokk gently places his fingers beneath her palm and raises her hand to his lips, to brush a soft kiss to the amazingly large emerald adorning her middle finger.
Her eyes grow large for a moment and she twitches visibly and he can just hear the words, ‘unsanitary barbarians’ as her smile widens to grotesque proportions as she turns to Imra and just nods curtly. Imra smiles impishly and extends her hand palm up in the traditional Venegarian greetings to a superior while bowing her head, and Sarya visibly sighs in relief as she extends her hand palm down over Imra’s, hovering above it and promising the shelter provided by the ruling caste to those beneath them.
“It has come to my attention that your tour duties end this with this voyage, and that you are to disembark on Earth?”
Imra nods, and watching carefully, Rokk also nods. Garth seems to think that this was an invitation to share his life’s story and responds, “Yes ma’am! I’ve always wanted to go to earth, and working passage was a great opportunity to…”
“Yes, yes, wonderful!” Sarya says, with a little clap, getting ‘that look’ on her face again, and Rokk can’t help but feel embarrassed for Garth. Then he glances at Imra and sees that she is looking at Garth with a look that even a non-telepath can read as, ‘ah, the big goof, he’s so adorable.’ ‘Charitable moment over,’ he thinks sourly.
“I mention this,” Sarya continues, uninterested in the teen drama unfolding before her, “because I to will be dwelling on Earth for the next 12 cycles, as part of my training in diplomatic matters and galactic standards of governance. It is tradition on Venegar for the regent to be accompanied by a select group of champions, whom, in days of old, vied for her favor.” Looking pointedly at Garth, she adds with a warning glance, “Not that any nonsense of that sort would apply now, of course!” Imra is hiding a smirk, and for a moment Rokk loves her all over again. But the moment passes as the Queen’s next words shock him, “And I would like to invite the three of you to work out of the soon-to-be-established Venegarian Embassy. Your duties would be light, as the champions duties were traditionally less involved with protecting the person of the Regent and more in the performance of ‘daring deeds’ to draw her attention and reflect well upon her beneficence.”
“So, we won’t just be your bodyguards?” Rokk queries.
“I expect that I will have scarce need for such in New Metropolis. No indeed, the traditional role of Queen’s Champions was to function as heroes, as inspirations to the people, a reminder that any of them could impress her with their bravery and honor, and be rewarded with the opportunity to make a difference.”
Rokk peeks sideways at Garth, and he’s clearly eating this up. He peeks at Imra, and she’s looking introspective. Rokk’s mind is already made up, but he decides to give it a moment.
“It’s such an honor, it’s almost overwhelming! Can we have a moment to talk it over amongst ourselves, your highness?” Rokk attempts smoothly.
“Certainly.” The Queen replies, and from the look she has cast, she clearly has noticed also that Garth’s mind is already made up.
~It’s like nothing I’d ever even considered. To make a difference and not just be one of a thousand Titanians? To share my gifts and use them to make the universe a better place? My mother will *freak* out…~
And with that, Rokk knows that Imra’s mind is made up. She left Titan to get away from her domineering mother, and at every port call she worried about her mother appearing to whisk her back home. Back home, her prodigious telepathy made her alone in a crowd, but on Earth, her uniqueness would be a blessing, not a curse.
“I’m in. Are you guys in?” Garth seemed almost nervous, as if afraid to take this step alone. “You guys are my best friends! I can’t imagine doing this without you. What if I screw it up? I know these people laugh at me. Look at the dumb farm-boy, ha ha. But you guys are always cool with me…”
Rokk feels like an Imskian with shrinking sickness. “Um, yeah. We’ve got your back, Garth. This is the chance of a lifetime.” He looks guiltily at Imra, and she’s smiling to him in that way that he’d always wanted to see, as she places her arm on his shoulder, and the other on Garth’s.
~Let’s do this.~
Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged |
Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
Emerald Legion, Chapter 2 "Home is where you make it" - where three travelers find a place, and a calling
Sarya, 53rd Queen of Venegar, Regent of the Emerald Throne, Keeper of the Eye of Ekron, was not a happy woman. The functionary next to her babbled on about the history of the building that the UP had ‘generously donated’ to be the new Embassy to Venegar on Earth, and it was an abomination.
“The Museum of Space, as you can see, was designed by famous Martian architect Rev Soon Ak in the quirky ‘retro’ style of ‘art-deco,’ which was undergoing a resurgence of popularity in the mid-28th century. A sign of nostalgia for a simpler time of boundless optimism, it’s kitschy, yet functional understated…”
‘Enough of this,’ Sarya knocked the data-pad spinning from the functionary’s hands with a casual backhand. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll take it, just paint the damn thing green already.”
“It looks like someone fired a giant missile at New Metropolis, it got stuck in the ground, and they slapped a door on it and called it a building.” Garth muttered as they approached the bright-red door in question.
“I think that’s what they were going for, actually.” Added Rokk, turning his own datapad sideways, as if the building would look any less ludicrous from some other angle.
~Well, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, right?~ supplied Imra, with a cautiously optimistic tone.
Opening the door and striding forward impatiently, the Queen of Venegars next proclamation was in a language understood by all sentients, “Aaaahhh!!!”
“What in death’s name is that *thing*!!!” she pointed at the towering creature roaring in her face as her Champions prepared to defend their new patron.
“Oh, that.” Muttered the functionary, still shaking his nerveless fingers. “It’s an artificial construct meant to represent an extinct earth creature, called a Tyrgorasumething Rekus.”
~Tyrannosaurus Rex.~ corrected Imra, pointing at the name on her datapad. Lacking a datapad of his own, the functionary just glared at her.
“Yes, that. It’s one of the museum exhibits that was left behind when the place was closed down.”
“Well, it’s appalling, and completely inappropriate.” The Queen declared huffily, “It stays.” She pointed to a display on the second tier, “And those brutish looking ancient weapons of war. They stay as well. Everything else goes. See to it.”
Dismissing the functionary with an airy wave, the Queen placed her hand on the animatronic T-Rex’s snout and petted it absently as she turned to her Champions, “Welcome to our new home.”
What a difference three days and an apparently unlimited amount of money can make. The Embassy was now painted in a shade of forest green, with the ‘rocket-ship fins’ painted a darker jade green in contrast. Entering the embassy, the original foyer had been reconstructed into various meeting rooms and guest quarters, while the uppermost two floors had been cleared away and made into a grand open-aired throne room, with overlooking galleries that let to private chambers on the second tier. Every surface of every wall had been painted a dark metallic green, appearing almost black at a distance, and every door had been folded away into the walls when not in use, to be replaced with a gauzy pale-green translucent sheet of cloth that billowed in the warm breezes that circulated through the chambers. The soft scent of earth and flowering plants, jasmine, morning-glory and lilac, wafted along these breezes, accompanied by the occasionally raucous cries of the birds imported to flutter about these interior gardens. The roof had been replaced with transparent crystal of such a pale shade of green that it was all but invisible at full transparency, that could be darkened on command to an opaque shade of near-black jade. Wishing to surround herself with the things of earth, her new home for a time, the foliage and fauna alike were all species native to this world, and green and red-feathered hummingbirds flitted about seeking sugary treasures, while a mated pair of quetzal birds engaged in some sort of domestic dispute about their new living arrangements. Sarya hoped they resolved this squabble soon. If they continued to disrupt the harmony of her court, she might feel the need to execute one or both of the disrespectful creatures…
Just over the burbling streams she had constructed in this interior garden, a throne of green crystal sat, and behind it, relocated from it’s former home on the first level, towered the crouching form of the extinct earth dinosaur, one tiny forelimb resting on the back of the throne, while it’s enormous head moved slowly, examining each other resident of the room, it’s massive tail gently sweeping back and forth. Every now and then, in accordance to it’s programming, it would sniff the air in the direction of a worker and utter a low growl. Delightful. Extinct or not, Sarya *would* find a way to have a living sample of this species.
The room was prepared, and within the hour, her Champions would report to her presence, to receive their formal recognition. Settling herself into the throne and patting the head of her enormous mechanical pet, Sarya awaited the day’s business.
“Oh, lords of steel and stone, there’s just no way.” Rokk exclaimed as he lifted his ‘Champion’s Garb’ from the box. Jangling and clanking in his hands rested two stone worth of metallo-mesh fiber one-piece bodysuit, which, in and of itself wasn’t too awful. Woven of a fine series of interlinked metallic chain rings, that Rokk immediately could sense as being composed of Braalian mag-steel, and further, seemed ideally suited to his own preferred magnetic resonance frequency, the suit looked to be form-fitting. The links were primarily dark jade green in hue along the chest, shoulders, sides, gloves and boots, with panels of lighter forest green along the under arms, inner sides of the legs and lower torso. Effective use of countershading, and not objectionable by itself, although he would have preferred that the colors be reversed, rather than call attention to the crotch. ‘And ass,’ he thought, as he turned the suit around.
Still, in his magno-ball career he’d worn far less tasteful attire, as he was well aware that the fans didn’t show up just to see dazzling athleticism. Sex sells, after all, and at least the Queen wasn't requiring him to prominently display corporate branding tattooed onto his flesh.
No, the questionable bit were these metal ovoids all over the suit. Each had weight to it, and had been shellaced a glistening metallic green, so that it was hard to tell if they were supposed to look like metal or gemstone. Also of Braalian mag-steel, Rokk knew that they would resonate with his own biomagnetic field, and be effectively weightless when worn close to the skin, but still, he couldn’t imagine not looking like a clattering ornament-drapped festival pole…
Oh well, nothing for it, he certainly couldn’t tell the Queen of Venegar that he wouldn’t be caught dead in the clothes she’d picked out for him. Shrugging, Rokk pulled the cold metallic suit on and stepped in front of the mirror with his eyes closed, waiting to see how bad it could possibly be.
“Wow.” It was astounding. The metal ovoids ended up positioned over shoulders, biceps, chest, hips, forearms and thighs, and didn’t only not look awful, they actually somehow accentuated his own musculature. If anything, they made him look *more* muscular, adding just the right amount of curve to look powerful, but not bulge out cartoonishly. Turning around, his secondary fear was confirmed. “Oh well. At least I have a nice ass.”
Practicing walking towards the mirror with a jaunty step, he looked a little cartoonish at first, but slowing his pace down and walking with a weighter, more deliberate step made the skin-tight outfit actually look like a suit of armor, and with the right confident expression, he looked pretty Champion-like and not at all like a teenager wearing a skintight bodysuit covered with shiny metal balls…
Oh yeah. He could work with this. Time to be a Champion.
~Thoughts of mercy! Where’s the rest of it?~ Imra thought out loud as she dug through the package, hoping to find more components to this ‘Champion’s Garb.’ Instead, all she had was a long gauzy transparent scrap of cloth that looked like the curtains Sarya had insisted on replacing the doors with, ~Have they no concept of privacy?~, a few dark green leather bits that could have come from a Serellian squirrel, ~Actually, the squirrel would have hide left over…~, and a bunch of flexible golden tubes of Titanian psi-metal, ~It’s illegal to export this off of Titan! It’s good to be the Queen, I guess…~.
Imra spent a decent interval attempting to figure out how these various components would assemble to form anything remotely resembling ‘clothing,’ ~Great archetype! Couldn’t she have included instructions? I had an easier time assembling a mitochondrial DNA structure in molecular micrology…~
Finally, it was completed, although Imra turned the mirror around to block the view from the door, so that no one would see her changing, and probably moving stuff around trying to figure out where it was supposed to go. The leathery bits ended up just covering her, in the fashion of a bathing suit designed to optimize exposure to solar radiation. And there were shoulder pads, which seemed somewhat unnecessary, since half of her butt was hanging out. Perhaps she could attach them back there? Nope, they seem to be necessary as attachment points for the cape. Perhaps some sort of butt-cape? No, that doesn’t work either. The warm golden Titanian metal flowed smoothy around wrists and waist and neck. Slender snaking tubes worked their way under her arms and connected to the various leathery segments, even serving as very, um, ‘supportive’ structures that she found to be rather liberating, as without them any sort of movement led to more, um, ‘movement’ than she was entirely comfortable with. It felt kind of like warm hands cupping her…, and rigid psychic discipline ended that train of thought.
The golden metal also snaked around the upper portions of her legs, and she found it somewhat ironic that the metallic ‘jewelry’ ended up covering more surface area than the actual cloth costume elements. The boots were, what a shock, dark green leather, and brushing her hands across the leather, she was surprised to feel fine scales. Apparently it was designed to feel like reptilian hide. Unless, hideous thought, it was *actual* animal hide… Holding the offending item at arms length and scanning the inner tags and labels, she was comforted to see those happy words, ‘genuine synthetic.’
Finally, the last of the metallic ornamentation attached to her brow, with a lovely smooth green emerald center-set and she was done, the box was empty, and she’d never felt so naked, without actually *being* naked.
She whirled the translucent fabric of her cloak around herself, and, as expected, it concealed exactly nothing. ~Wonderful. Let’s get this over with.~
The alarm went off again and Garth looked up at it bleary-eyed. He remembered that the Queen wanted them together for some sort of official ceremony in ten minutes, so he might as well get up and get ready.
Oh, that ‘Champion’s Garb’ showed up. Cool. Ripping open the box, Garth pulled out a skintight bodysuit in a shade of green so dark that it looked black at first. The gloves and boots were yellow, and golden lightning bolts traveled down the sides of the arms and legs, while a larger white lightning bolt ran directly down the center of the suit. Metallic golden bracers, belt and some sort of leg cuff things accompanied the outfit. ‘Neat.’
Pulling it on, Garth quickly ran his fingers through his hair, flexed a pose and dashed out the door.
Imra stood self-consciously in front of the Emerald Throne, arms-crossed and attempting to hide herself under her useless transparent cloak, while Rokk kept smirking and stealing admiring glances. Curse him, he’s practically wearing a suit of armor and I look like a Jazerri dancing girl, only not as pretty…
~Where’s Garth? I hope he hasn’t changed his mind! Great Thinker, what if he’s left and gone back to Winath…~
“You worry too much.” Rokk says, turning away, “I’ll go get him.”
He walks away quickly, before Imra can formulate a response, leaving her standing in front of the Queen, who is absently reading a datapad.
~Um, your majesty?~
Sarya looks up with a patient smile. “Yes, my child?”
~Is there any chance that there might a Champion’s Garb that has a little more, um…~ floundering, she pirouettes around, showing her dilemma, ~well, just *more.* Maybe something mysterious and regal, with flowing all-concealing robes?~
“Certainly not, dear. A Champion does not represent concealment or deception, she represents truth and honorable intent. If you are to be a Champion, you will have nothing to hide, no secret shame, nor display anything but pride in self. You are a beautiful young woman, and while I understand that it is Titanian tradition to conceal the material body in many layers of cloth, to admire and revere only the mind and not sully one’s thoughts with concerns over the disposition of the flesh, you are not on Titan. In this building, you stand among the traditions of Venegar, and as Venegarian tradition is prepared to honor you, I require you to similarly respect those traditions.”
“Did you have any other questions, dear?” Sarya finishes, looking back at her datapad, and Imra received the implicit message that this conversation was over.
Rokk stepped into the hallway that led to the quarters, and Garth came jogging into view immediately, somewhat out of breath.
“Hey, I’m not late am I? I thought it didn’t start for another couple minutes…”
“No, you’re not late.” Rokk said curtly, before putting his arm on Garth’s shoulder. “Look, Garth, I’m only saying this as a friend. If you’re going to jog in that thing, for the love of iron, put some underwear on…”
“Uh. Okay.” Garth grew uncharacteristically silent as they walked down the corridor to the Queen’s throne room. “Look, Rokk. I just wanted to say, y’know, just before anything gets weird…”
“What.”
“I like girls. I mean you’re cool and all, and I don’t have any problem with that sort of thing, and I like you, but I don’t *like you,* like you…”
“Never before has a Champion of Venegar been from any world other than Venegar. By choosing you three for this honor, I break with centuries of tradition, and so cast the lot of Venegar with the United Planets, in hopes of creating *new* traditions, for a new day!”
“For it is not the blood that flows in one’s body that makes a Champion. Since the earliest days, Champions have come from those of noble blood, and from those of common stock, for it is the *spirit* of a Champion that is recognized by Regent. Heroes are not born, they are made, forged in fire and adversity, and you three have shown the fire that reveals to all doubters that heroes are not just from Venegar. They can come too from Braal, and from Titan, and from Winath. Whether you choose this day to stand at my side as Champions or not, you *are* heroes, and no honor I could bestow could change this simple truth. I only acknowledge what already will be made known to all, that we stand in the presence of noble spirits, deserving recognition.”
“Stand forth Imra Ardeen, if you would be Champion, but be honored no matter your choice.”
Allowing her flimsy cape to fall back past her shoulders, no longer attempting to conceal her body from sight, Imra walks forward and bows her head, placing her hand forward, palm-side up.
~I would be honored to serve as your Champion, my Queen.~
Sarya smiles, and passes her hand in front of her crown. A green glow comes from behind her hand, and when she turns it around, the round emerald that sat in the center of the crown has somehow separated itself from it’s golden setting, and now floats before her hand. Lowering her hand, the emerald orb now floats before Imra’s widened eyes, and swells before her until it is the size of a man’s head. Inside of the spherical stone, a great star can be seen twinkling and Imra can hear voices of encouragement, as if from far away.
“You see now the Eye of Ekron, the stone of succession and chooser of the Rulers of Venegar. As the stone chose me to bear it through this lifetime, so shall it now ascertain your worth to serve as Champion. Every King and Queen of Venegar will see your face, and know your heart, but have no fear, for I already know their verdict.”
“Place your hand upon the stone.”
Without question, Imra does this, and feels a warmth course through her. From the surface of the stone, the crystal seems to bulge beneath her hand, and before her eyes, two tendrils of emerald extend from beneath her hand, and unite over her ring finger, merging into a seamless whole. With a painless surge of pressure, her hand is pushed from the surface of the stone, and she now bears a band of solid emerald.
“You carry now the Champion’s Ring. May it serve you body and soul, as you serve the cause of truth, body and soul.”
“You may now stand down, Champion Imra Ardeen.”
The process repeats with the remaining Champions, and Sarya completes the ceremony, dismissing the monitors and delegates who had stood in the galleries watching the proceedings.
“I understand that you have not grown up learning the lore of the Champions, and that some explanations are in order. Please be seated.”
The three Champions look around, but no seats are in evidence. Garth plops down on the ground, and after looking to see that the Queen seems to accept this without comment, Imra and Rokk also seat themselves.
“The Champion’s Rings are composed of the same stone as the Eye of Ekron,” the Queen says, the stone reducing in size and returning to it’s setting in her crown. “It has been a part of the ruling family since as long as there has been a ruling family, and it touches the souls of all who have born it. I can feel the encouraging presence of my parents, and their parents, and many others I have never met in this lifetime, Kings and Queens all. Through the Rings, you also will form a connection, and the Rings assist the Champions in three different ways.”
Firstly, you will hear my thoughts, if I wish it, even from across the universe, and in time, you will learn to communicate with each other…
This is awesome, can you hear me, Imra? It’s like your telepathy! Hey, Rokk, how about you, is this working for you?
“Or perhaps you will master it far in advance of my expectations,” the Queen adds dryly, with a glance at Garth.
She’s so hot when she gets all Queen-y. Oh Great Harvest, how do you turn this off!
Rokk reaches over and snatches the Ring from Garth’s finger and places it in his hand. “Down boy.”
“Ahem. Thank you, Champion Krinn.” Sarya quickly proceeds, “As the Ring entwines within your soul, to allow communication, so too does it enjoin with your physical self, and, traditionally,” with a glare at Garth, “this also takes some time.” Garth is still studiously examining his left foot, which has apparently become endlessly fascinating, holding his Champion’s Ring in his hand and glaring at it.
“You will find that the Ring sustains your physical state, such that you will find yourself in less need of sustenance, and even able to withstand extremes of temperature, pressure or deprivation of oxygen. The effect is limited. You will not be able to enter a raging inferno, but you will find that no matter the amount of cloth covering your form,” she smiles at Imra, “your body will not feel a chill, and you may indeed be able to hold your breath for hours, depending on the strength of your lungs.”
“Will we be able to fly?” ~What?~ “Fly!?!”
“Yes indeed Champion Krinn. I see that you have been reading up on the subject.”
“’On Wings of Emerald,’ according to the poem.”
“Exactly! As you have seen, the Eye of Ekron is able to levitate itself, and defy the forces of gravity. This Rings will enable you to do the same, and normally I would caution that this also takes time and training, but somehow I would not be surprised for you to again defy expectations in this matter.”
Garth had already slipped his Ring back on, while studiously avoiding looking at the Queen, and was sort of hopping in place.
Imra simply raised her hand as if pointing towards the ceiling, and slowly majestically rose towards the ceiling.
“Hey! How are you doing that?”
“And now my Champions, it is time for you to take these new gifts and practice them outside of my Throne Room.”
~Yes, my Queen.~ “By your leave, Highness.” “Yes, ma’am!”
Outside Imra floats imperiously a few meters above Garth, who bounds into the air laughing as she spun just out of his reach.
“How come you can do this! I trained to be a pilot, I should be the one flying around already! And how come I got the communication thing first, you should have gotten that…”
“She’s Titanian, Garth. A born telepath. The rings aren’t using telepathy, so she’s having to learn a new language. Trust me, she’ll be better than both of us once she finds the frequency…”
“But what about the flying? This is unfair! Come down here, you tease!”
~Ha ha, I don’t think so. You’ll figure it out if you want it bad enough. I’ve been flying since I was a girl, in my mind. It’s just another astral dream to me, only this time, I get to take my body with me and not leave it sleeping in bed.~ Imra is whirling through the air, gauzy cloak swirling about her, reveling in her new freedom.
Finally, Garth manages to catch her ankle, and looking down, he’s now hovering a meter off the ground as well. She gently pushes him off while he’s distracted and he quickly stabilizes and swoops around her, arms wheeling madly as he swoops through the air in great arcs.
“I’m flying! I got it! You have to try this Rokk, it’s not hard at all!”
Rokk just crouches and uses his magnetic powers to hurl himself into the air like a rocket, his particular specialty from the magno-ball courts, and then uses his powers to stabilize himself.
“Whoah!”
~He’s cheating and using his own powers. He hasn’t even started to use the Ring yet…~
“What’s cheating? I’ll figure it out, and then I’ll be faster than both of you…”
“Wanna bet. Hey, there’s the metro-dome. I bet I’ll get there first…”
~Not a chance, Garth. ReadySetGo!~
“Hey!! Cheaters! I'll get you for this!”
Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged |
Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
Emerald Legion, Chapter 3 "You have a hole in your mind" - wherein the convictions of our new Champions are put to the test
The UP sure knows how to make a new dignitary feel welcome, Rokk thought as he took in the amazing numbers of delegates and diplomats and ambassadors packed into the Queen’s throne room. The ‘Champions’ had been a big hit, for about six seconds, and then, as if a whistle had been blown, the delegates started spinning around in a dizzying whirl. At first he thought it was some sort of ritual dance or something, but standing back, he could see the patterns forming and breaking up. It was like some sort of chaotic fractal display, and the longer he watched, the better he could identify the power-players, to whom everyone else was orbiting. It was like a courtship dance, where the brightly colored animals dance around trying to draw the attention of the breeding females, and that comparison made him laugh, as one of the prime ‘breeding females’ was the dour Coluan Ambassador, Orin Fex, standing like a rock amidst an endless parade of people approaching him on some matter or another only to be rudely rebuffed, or outright ignored, at his whim.
Rokk was just close enough to eavesdrop, if he tilted his head just right, and a cute young girl who was certainly not old enough to be Ambassador of anything had caught the Coluan's sleeve and was standing on her tippy-toes trying to get his ear.
“It’s so green in here! You must be loving this, Orin, the entire room goes with you! But really, would have killed her to splash some other colors around?”
“The colors are tastefully arrayed Miss Guampti, and if you’d bothered to consider that the Venegarian visual range is centered around three distinct shades of what you call green, and that any color spectrum past yellow or blue is effectively black to them, you might have constructed a pair of lenses that allowed you to appreciate her eye for detail.” All delivered in a no-nonsense tone, as Orin Fex disentangled his sleeve from the young woman’s grasp with a surgical economy of motion. “As for your color, you are transparent, young lady. To your left stands Ambassador Ravin, reknowned for his lechery and lack of intelligence. Ply your wares in that direction.”
Rokk had been moving through the crowd slowly, pausing only to catch the last bit and bit back a smile as the young woman smiled brightly and flounced away towards the Talokkian Ambassador with a predatory gleam in her eye, apparently undaunted by her chilly reception from the Coluan appointee.
He wasn’t looking and suddenly there was a hand on his chest, stopping his forward motion before he collided with an older white-haired delegate and as he stepped back suddenly, an identical hand landed on his shoulder, stopping him from backpedaling into the Winathian Ambassador’s twin-brother. Mumbling apologies, he exited stage left, lingering to hear their dry exchange.
“Miss Guampti has assumed a new target.”
“Certainly not Orin Fex, I saw her prowling his direction…”
“Certainly not, although she made a valiant attempt.”
“Allow me to speculate. She burbled and flounced. He gave her a science lesson and a curt dismissal?”
“Just so.”
“Hmm. Perhaps I underestimated her charms. A science lesson and a curt dismissal? I do believe that constitutes sexual intercourse for a Coluan…”
“Very droll. And now she has her targeting reticles all over Ambassador Ravin.”
“Fish in a barrel. But he’s slippery, she might end up with nothing to show for her exertions.”
“Did you hear about her work with the Rimborian Criminachs?”
“Only that they signed an exclusive and punitive trade agreement with Caarg. Was that her doing?”
“Indeed. Five of the eight Syndicate leaders scoffed at the Caargite offer, recognizing that it was far to the advantage of Caarg. Over the next two days she seduced her way through their ranks, and when the final tally was held, they voted unanimously to go with the Caargite offer.”
“Breathtaking! Did they discover that they had been duped?”
“They did, but they were not mere elected rulers. Each Criminarch is head of a backstabbing association of murderers, thieves and extortionists, each waiting for the first sign of weakness in their leaders so that they can strike them down and take their place. And so the eight were forced to smile and proclaim their excitement and enthusiasm about their new trade alliance. It was a glorious sight. Then they piled back into their fleet of cruisers and headed back for Rimbor. Rumor has it they were firing on each other before they left the system…”
“She is a marvel, her father must be so proud. Do be careful, your taste for underaged morsels is well known, brother.”
“Oh, you wound me. Speaking of underaged morsels, how is your new wife?
“Most uncalled-for, I merely have your best interests at heart.”
Rokk grinned at the last, but noticed that the older brothers weren’t even looking at each other as their traded jibes, each facing the other and watching over his brothers’ shoulder to take in the entirety of the room, between them. There was no venom in their words, and he quickly realized that it was all for show. Their glittering eyes missed nothing, and their bickering served only to create the appearance of distraction.
And then any attempt at remaining a detached spectator ended, as the Braalian Ambassador plowed her way through the intervening delegates to stand right in his face. Ambassador Rela Martt had been a miner, and through hard work and back-breaking discipline, moved through the ranks of supervisor, manager, corporate flak, executive and was within a hairs-breadth of being the youngest CEO when she was side-shuffled into the diplomatic corps by terrified rivals, eager to get the woman they called ‘the guard-dog’ as far from Braal, and their own careers, as possible. She was the last person in the universe to be made Ambassador to anything, being notorious for her abrasive attitude, taste for micro-management and utter loathing of any idea that did not come from her own head. Absurdly, her stocky frame was draped in the frilliest pale yellow dress, with lace and many tassels, which snapped angrily in the air around her like hissing snakes as she maneuvered her fire-plug-like frame into his personal space.
“Mr. Krinn. I thought I saw you skulking around. I don’t know what Venegar was thinking, proclaiming the likes of you are her Champion, but it certainly sets her down a peg in my estimation.” Her meaty hand thumped on his chest as she stared up at him, “Do NOT do anything to bring further shame on your family, Krinn. You’re a screw-up, and it’s an insult to Braal that you are out here partying it up with your betters while hard-working Braalians are trying to restore the integrity of the sport.”
And with that she was gone, stomping away on her thick hairy legs.
Rokk set down his drink with a shaking hand, ‘Well. That went well.’
Imra had left early, complaining about the ‘noise’ of all the alien minds with their multiple agendas being a bit overwhelming. Thanks to the Champion’s Ring, he was dimly aware that she had gone outside, and was now either hovering over the building or perhaps seated on the roof, probably gathering her focus before making another attempt.
Garth had been standing in a corner, trying not be noticed, but with the amount of people present, it was hard to find wall-space, and it came as no surprise to Rokk when he checked the Ring and determined that Garth was also outside, near Imra. He’d noticed that Garth had become conspicuously absent about the same time as the Winathian Ambassadors arrived, and was beginning to suspect that he wasn’t the only Champion in no great hurry to be reminded of home and family…
Still somewhat shaken by the encounter with Ambassador Martt, Rokk almost dismissed the sight of a Karthooni diplomat shaking her head in disgust and waking out of one of the curtained alcoves. He moved towards her, but she just raised a hand and kept walking. Curious now, he moved quietly towards the entryway and peered within, only to see some huddled figures in whispered negotiations.
Garth! Imra! Get down here, now.
Already the whispering had paused, and someone had noticed a presence at the door, so Rokk just walked in, “*There* you are. Do you know how hard it is to set something like this up? We’ve got a hundred people out there, each with their own specific needs, and it would look appalling if we didn’t have the ability to accommodate our guests.”
The drug-dealer had gone into a defensive stance, moving his product into a fold in his robes, but seemed cautious. “What you mean, young Champion? I assure that the presence of security is not required, nothing untoward is occurring, simple negotiator of passage through extra-spatial rifts in the Vega sector, I am.”
“Security? No, I serve the Queen, and nothing you are doing violates Venegarian law. I’m here to buy. You sell, yes?” shifting to the staccato rhythms of gutter-speak felt natural, and Rokk felt soiled just hearing the words roll off his tongue, especially after his meeting with the Braalian Ambassador. ‘If she could just see me now. She’d kill me herself…’
Rokk hadn’t managed to make out the whispered words, but it sounded like it ended with ‘fire.’ Hearthfire was a happy narcotic, barely illegal. So Rokk picked the worst option, “I need Mindfire, and a lot of it. Payment will be in star emeralds.”
The dealer’s multifaceted eyes clicked as the man shifted his focus. Rokk knew he had his direct attention now…
~According to the Ring, Rokk is in the left-most chamber.~
Stay outside, and out of sight, came Rokk’s silent command.
“What’s going on?”
~There are two others in the room. Sweet concepts, they are negotiating for drugs!~
“What?”
~This can’t be right. Rokk just said that he wants Mindfire!~ Imra started moving with purpose towards the room, but Garth pulled her back.
“He said stay out of sight.”
~Let go of me, you don’t understand, Garth. He said Mindfire!~
“You’re right, I don’t understand. But I trust Rokk. Let’s do as he says.”
Okay, I’ve convinced him that I need more, before the end of the party. He’s going to go back to his source. Imra, can you follow him without being seen?
~If he sees me, I’ll destroy his mind.~
Imra!
“Great harvest, Imra!”
~Fine. We follow him. We find his source. *Then* I end him…~
He’s got a man watching me, and I can sense a transmitter in the bag he gave me, so he’s going to know if I follow him. I can’t short it out without him knowing something is wrong, and I don’t want to just leave it here.
~Garth and I will follow him…~
He’s moving!
Imra spins around and grabs Garth in a passionate kiss, throwing him up against the wall.
Okay, we’re attached to the hull of his ship, flying off to harvester-knows-where. I love this plan. So what’s Mindfire, and why does it make you go psycho? Garth asked through the Ring.
~It’s a drug.~
I figured that part out, he added, attempting to figure out how to ‘sound’ sarcastic in his mind.
~It gives most races a sense of profound oneness with the universe, and rush of sensation that has been known to kill people in poor physical condition.~
So, say no to Mindfire…
~That’s not it. The reason I’m ‘psycho,’ is because of the source.~
The suspense? It’s not actually killing me here, but it does kinda itch.
~They make it by torturing a Titanian, and distilling the neurotransmitters from her system. To get a pure dose, they have to terrorize her to the point of nervous collapse, and because she’ll never be quite as terrified by the same thing the same way, they have to find new creative ways to terrorize her to keep the dosage levels pure. Eventually she’s so broken that they can’t scare her anymore, and they discard her as useless.~
Okay, I’m on the psycho shuttle now, too. Let’s fry these creeps…
~We’re slowing down, I’ve told Rokk that we’ve arrived. Oh, prime mover, there are a half-dozen people here. I can’t hide us from all of them, Garth…~
Fine. Keep yourself out of the line of fire.
~They have guns, Garth, and you can’t stun them all!~
I’m not on a space-cruiser surrounded by paying guests, Imra. I’m not going to shoot to stun…
The landing bay was deep underground, and as the shuttle landed, alarms began to sound and various sentients began to produce weapons. The dealer leapt out of the shuttle in surprise as a meaty tentacle seized him out of the air. “You fool! You’ve led them right to us!”
With that Garth came flying around from behind the shuttle and cut loose, blinding yellow flashes of lightning flying in all directions. Two gun-toting crims fell to the ground, not even twitching, without even having time to bring their guns to bear. Within seconds, the remaining four present had pointed various weapons at him, but they couldn’t seem to get a bead on him, as he flew through the landing bay at breakneck speed, flinging lightning bolts indiscriminately in his wake. Swooping through the air like some crazed stunt-pilot, at one moment he was swinging around the parked shuttle in a deadly game of keep-away, the next he was skimming along the ground mere centimeters from the surface, flying directly under one spindly-legged gunman and blasting him in what should be a most sensitive location, assuming his anatomy conformed to humanoid standards. Based on how he curled up and whimpered, Imra assumed this to be the case.
Still, the three remaining gun-men had regained their composure, and the blaster-fire was getting too thick for Garth to dodge. Imra tricked one into shooting another, while Garth wasted a moment attempting to electrify the deck plates and stun the tentacled leader. Unfortunately, the plates were too well insulated, and a well-aimed blaster-shot struck him from the air.
~Garth!~ Imra made it to where he had landed unconscious, a smoldering hole in his shoulder, and reaching into his mind, she screamed, ~WAKE UP!~
“Aaaagh!” Garth jerked awake in time to see Imra standing directly behind the original dealer they had pursued. For some reason he was pointing a gun into empty air and talking while Imra had picked up a fallen man’s gun and was holding it like a club.
“I’ve got you now, female. Surrender.” the noisome creature menaced.
“Dude, she’s behind you…”
Whack! Thud.
“Told you.”
Imra helped Garth to his feet, only to freeze, as a half-dozen more armed thugs entered the hangar-bay. The tentacled leader clarified their mission objective. “What are you waiting for? Kill them! Kill them both!”
~Gulp.~
“Here goes everything…” and suddenly both Garth’s lightning blast and a half-dozen blaster bolts intersected on the hapless shuttle. There had been an explosive rush of air and a thunderous explosion, and in the blink of an eye, the shuttle was parked, on it's side, directly between the young Champions and the gunmen.
“Hey guys. Thanks for saving me some.”
“Man, am I glad to see you, Rokk.”
~I can sense the Titanian here. We need to get to him.~
“One thing at a time, Im. Crazy gun-men first.”
With that, the gunmen came around the smoldering shuttlecraft on both sides, only to fall back as a storm of metallic objects from all over the hangar-bay and lightning bolts drove them back.
~Throw the shuttle at them or something.~
“Can’t. I drained my reserves getting here and doing it the first time. It’s going to be days building up to that sort of stunt again. How about you Garth?”
“…”
“Garth?”
~WAKE UP!~
“Gah! Fine. I’m good. Let’s go.”
~Rokk, he’s losing blood. I can’t keep him awake much longer.~
A piece of metal hull fragment suddenly flew towards Rokk and hovered in front of him. “Can you zap this and make it hot, Garth?”
“Sure, why?” he asked, but already pouring current into the metal until it was glowing slightly around the edges. “It’s not going to hold a charge or anything… AARRGGH! WHAT THE SPROCK!!!”
The metal had suddenly spun around behind Garth and slapped onto his wounded shoulder. A sizzling sound and smell of scorched flesh assailed them.
“You were bleeding. It’s stopped now. You can kill me later, if we live.”
~I’m blocking the pain, Garth. We need to focus.~
“Block harder. ‘Cause I don’t think it’s working…”
~Look out!~
And with that, combat was resumed, as the three Champions took to the air, no longer able to shelter behind what was left of the shuttle.
“Science Police! Freeze!”
The gun-men pivoted, to pay attention to this new threat, as a dozen heavily-armed SP troopers pounded down the launch bay.
~No one did, it’s an illusion, I had to wide-cast it to get all of them. Strike now!~
Thanks to Imra’s illusory ‘cavalry,’ the three Champions quickly dispatched the remaining thugs, and the leader, four blaster pistols torn from his nerveless tentacles was backed against a wall.
~You will lead me to the captive.~
“Titanian. You think I’d be trafficking in Mindfire if I wasn’t shielded against your kind?” the ring-leader blustered. “Your powers are useless against me. Release me, or the prisoner dies.”
~You are bluffing. You have no men left. And you’ve never met me, so don’t tell me what I can do.~
With a wet gurgling sound, the ring-leader flailed about and collapsed in a heap of twitching tentacles.
~I’ve got the codes to the door.~ Imra thought-cast as she walked over his twitching body and opened the bulkhead behind him.
Garth nudged the twitching form with his boot, “Imra, you didn’t actually destroy his mind, did you?”
~No. He still remembers his name. In a few months, he should have re-learned how to control his limbs…~
Impatient, Imra flew down the corridor to a door and entered another code, to reveal a darkened room where a single emaciated figure, body covered with half-healed scars, lay enmeshed in tubes and wires and machinery.
“Imra, be careful…” Rokk began, but she seized the crystal helmet off of the man’s shaven head and immediately both of them jerked, and the minds of all four were seized as the two telepaths made contact, and the young man’s fear and pain were amplified through the room, endlessly looping and feeding back upon itself at the speed of thought. Garth fell over immediately, the new wave of pain blending with his own and dropping him like a stone, and Rokk felt his mind shuddering around him. He managed to lash out and shove Imra away from the young Titanian, severing the connection and ending the assault.
“Science Police! Freeze!”
Rokk just shook his head, “Great timing, guys.”
“I said freeze!” repeated an SP trooper, pointing a gun at Rokk’s head as he tried to get back to his feet.
“We’re with the Venegarian embassy and have diplomatic privilege. Contact your superiors.” Rokk said, with his hands raised palm forward in a show of submission.
“Sir, we’ve got the Mayor on the comm. She says anyone wearing a green ring is ‘a good-guy’ and to ‘give them all necessary cooperation.’”, interrupted another SP officer.
~I contacted the Queen at the same time as the SP. She’s covering for us.~
“We encountered a man dealing Mindfire at the Venegarian Embassy, which is our jurisdiction. We followed him back to his source, and have made the arrest. This is now your show, and we’ll get out of your way. But we need medical attention for this Titanian male, and our friend. Now!”
“Sir. I have no idea what’s going on here, but if the Mayor tells me to, I’ll take your word for it. Get these people out of here! And put out those electrical fires in the hanger-bay…”
They stood before the Queen, who was on the comm with the President of EarthGov, the Mayor of New Metropolis, the SP Commissioner for the Metropolis district, the Titanian Ambassador, the Kathooni Ambassador (who was corroborating Rokk’s story, having also seen the original suspect ‘dealing’) and a bunch of other people that Rokk didn’t recognize.
“Excellent. This issue is resolved. Thank you for your supporting testimony as well, Ambassador Marin, it’s been a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” The Queen signaled that this meeting was concluded and the dozen floating panels winked out one by one, after an interminable series of parting statements.
The Queen took a pause and sighed heavily, and they shifted their feet uneasily. "Well, my young Champions. Not even twenty-four hours had passed since the Ceremony of Choosing, and you already have earned the gratitude of the Titanian government for rescuing one of their citizens, and, equally importantly, shutting down New Metropolis’ most notorious Mindfire supplier. As I have honored you, so now you so quickly prove your worth by honoring me with your bold acts,” she pauses to look at Garth, still wearing a regen-pack on his shoulder, “and at great personal risk to yourselves.”
The Queen rose from the Emerald Throne and bowed her head before her stunned Champions. “Thank you.”
She sat back down as they gaped, smiling slighty. “Now, please. Do try not to stir up any more excitement today. I have a full schedule.” Sarya waved her dismissal, indulging in a warm smile to her departing Champions
Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged |
Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
Emerald Legion, Chapter four. “Presenting, Kid Cosmos!” – wherein one of our Champions reveals the how’s and why’s of his journey to Earth.
Rokk shuffled uneasily, waiting for the Queen to finish her meeting with the Orandan ambassador.
After a seemingly endless round of particularly insincere, ‘Oh no, it’s *my* honor, majesty,’ they finally left and Sarya’s smile remained frozen on her face until the last of them had bowed and curtsied their way out of the room, at which point she flung her barely-touched goblet of Orandan dream-wine behind her. “Even your choice of beverages is both sweet and bland. Good riddance.”
Rubbing her temples, she noticed her Champion standing patiently and motioned him forward.
“Do you require something Champion Krinn?” she asked perfunctorily.
“If this is a bad time, majesty…”
“Do not waste my time with sycophantry. This world has far too many diplomats already. Always speak your mind to me without fear.” the Queen gestured impatiently.
“I was just curious, about the Champion’s Garb you selected. It’s Braalian mag-steel, but it takes months to energize the structures once they are assembled, and I can’t imagine that you had this lying around just in case you ran into a potential Braalian Champion…”
“Certainly not.” She admitted. “One of my agents found it for sale. The magnetized discs were crafted for the Braalian Export Commisioner to wear to his wedding.”
“The one that didn’t happen, because his intended eloped with their best man?”
“Correct,” the Queen smiled. “Apparently he had no interest in having such an unhappy reminder hanging around and ordered it disposed of. His aide decided that ‘disposed of’ meant ‘sold for a tidy profit.’”
“But it’s perfectly calibrated to my preferred resonance, which is pretty rare…”
“Unique, actually, but quite available to anyone who bothers to look up the vital statistics of reknowned magno-ball celebrity, ‘Kid Cosmos,’ three time planetary champion at the Braalian annuals. You do still have a few fansites active, you know…”
Wincing, Rokk attempted to lead away from this line of questioning, “So you just ordered it re-calibrated?”
“Correct. It may take months to charge the matrices, but it takes mere hours to re-calibrate them to your unique specifications.” The Queen steepled her fingers and leaned back. “Now, perhaps you can answer me a question. Tell me the story of ‘Kid Cosmos,’ his rise and fall. Tell me of this ‘ferrous hydraxaline.’”
Face darkening, Rokk’s posture stiffened, but he answered, eyes fixed on the enormous dinosaur directly behind the Queen, as if unwilling to meet her eyes.
“I was three-time champion, top of the rankings, with thousands of fanatical fans who followed me around like I was some sort of god. People paid more attention to my comings and goings than the President of the Mining Consortium. But there’s always someone waiting for you to fall, so they can be number one, and some of them aren’t willing to wait. After three years, one of my rivals decided to slip ferrous hydraxaline into my food. They had people *living in my house,* pretending to be my loyal fans, scrubbing my back, bringing me breakfast in bed, and, oh yes, *poisoning* me.” Rokk’s fists had unconsciously clenched and his arms shook with anger, he took a steadying breath before continuing,
“Small doses of Faith boost a Braalian’s magnetic intensity, although it makes fine control more difficult.”
Sarya raised a finger to interrupt the narrative, and Rokk looked stunned momentarily, as if he’d forgotten he had an audience, “Excuse me, ‘Faith?’”
“It’s the street-name for ferrous hydraxaline. They first discovered it as a clear liquid seeping out of a crystalline formation in an underground temple, and the visitors to the shrine would dab the liquid in their eyes, which would allow them to see metal veins in the walls. They called it ‘faith.’ It was never particularly safe, and sometimes people would go blind if they used it too much. Over the years, they refined it to be a thousand times more potent, and a thousand times worse for you…”
“Occasionally, some loser will use Faith to boost his power, to try and compete out of his league, but generally the lack of control gets them in more trouble than the power-boost is worth, and there is inevitably long-term nerve damage as crystalline structures start forming in the nerves and tearing apart the cells.”
“They fed me enough of the stuff to kill a half-dozen people. Turns out the flunkies they had dosing me up overdid it in their drive to impress their boss. I had mood swings, which the press loved. Every week there was some new report of me flipping out and threatening someone, and it was only a matter of time before the power-surges became too intense for me to control, and things just started falling apart around me. My body was so full of Faith by this point that they didn’t even need to drug-test me, the doctor could feel the contamination when they brought him into my cell. It took a dozen people to shut me down, my powers were so out of control, and so artificially boosted, and I was ranting and raving about plots and conspiracies and jealousy.”
“Ironically, I was right about that. There *was* a plot. But it didn’t matter, my entire nervous system was so degraded by that time that their attempts to remove the drug from my system was just as dangerous. The drug had *replaced* my nervous system, and if they removed it, I’d be paralyzed. It didn’t matter that it was obvious that I hadn’t willingly attempted to overdose and kill myself, I would never compete again, and my title was stripped. I spent the next six months in and out of hospitals, living in my parents’ house while they tried to deal with my imbalances. My mind, my body, my powers, all of them were going haywire, and I was a constant danger to everyone around me. I’d be so angry that they had to slide food under the door, or even call in security to restrain me, and then I’d be so depressed that my brother would skip work-shifts and classes to sit by my bed because they were afraid to leave me alone.”
“Finally, I gained enough control that I could get up and walk around under my own power, but the doctors were baffled. My nerves were gone, rotted away, but still I was moving, and the veins of crystallized ferrous hydraxaline served somehow as magnetic conduits. I wasn’t ‘walking,’ so much as jerking myself around by sheer magnetic manipulation. Lots of therapy later, I was able to walk, and talk, and feed myself, and spent a lot of time apologizing to my family…”
The queen looked puzzled, “If everything was starting to finally come together, why did you choose that time to leave Braal?”
“Lots of reasons. I *hated* Braal. One minute, I’m the most popular man on the planet, the next, I’m some cheating druggie pariah, and the people who used to wait for hours to shake my hand are now defacing my statue outside the coliseum and spitting at my brother when they saw him on the street. My people are hyper-competitive, and the only thing that gets the crowd howling more than a hero, is to see a hero fall…”
“But it was my all about my brother, really. Pol worshipped me, and he never gave up on me. He was never as good at anything, and he just got used to that. Anything he did, I’d done two years before, and yet he seemed fine with that. When I fell, he was so angry, but he never believed for a second that I had cheated, and he stood by me. But when the doctors came back with their reports of ‘miracles’ and being able to walk again and being more powerful than ever before, I failed to realize what this would mean to him. He saw it as his chance to be like me, and he started taking Faith.”
The Queen looked alarmed, “Did it harm him, as it did you?”
“We caught him in time. There wasn’t much nerve damage, and they managed to repair it all, but I couldn’t let him keep thinking that I was some sort of role-model, so I faked a massive relapse, and convinced the doctors to spread the word that my systems were failing again, and that I’d be paralyzed for life, my powers burnt-out and uncontrollable. We agreed that it was for the best that nobody on Braal think that the fluke that had happened with me meant that they should dose themselves with that poison on the one in a billion chance that it didn’t cripple them, or worse.”
“So I left for Earth, for some ‘experimental treatment’ that might allow me to live a ‘normal life,’ and I’d planned on keeping a low-profile until I could fake some sort of exo-skeletal suit.”
Rokk lifted his arms and smiled, “And now, I’ve got this suit, and I’ve told Pol that I’m still paralyzed, but this special suit lets me walk around like a normal person… As far as anyone on Braal knows, I’m a cripple, only able to move my limbs through the use of special machines.”
“I was a hero on Braal, celebrated for my athleticism and mastery of my powers. Now I’m a cautionary tale. Parents warn their kids not to be like me and waste their lives.”
The Queen settled back into her seat, having been unconsciously leaning forward, “Thank you for sharing this part of yourself, Champion Krinn. Your words are reassuring to me.”
“Reassuring? I don’t understand…”
“If I had ever had any doubts about my choice, which, I must stress, I have not, you would have reassured me that I was correct in my choice. You are indeed a Champion.”
Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged |
Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
Emerald Legion – Chapter 5 “Dysfunction” – Imra learns an uncomfortable truth about Garth
The reception at the Xanthu’un Embassy was fascinating to Sarya, full of exotic animals and fragrances and energetic performances. Certainly the colors were tiresome, black on black on black, with the occasional splash of yellow, but apparently the colors chosen were considered to be quite complimentary to those with visual ranges to see them.
She had artfully dodged the Winathian Ambasssadors thrice, but this time she was out-foxed, caught between a babbling pack of Athramites and the droning introduction of a Dryadan emissary who… would… not… shut… up! In a classic pincer movement, the twin Ambassador flanked her and appeared at each arm, and the while she had not sought out this encounter, she had to admit admiration for their tactical acumen, and gratitude for ‘rescuing’ her from the Dryad, who had spent the last several minutes reciting his family lineage.
Cutting them off as they began their legendary two-pronged verbal assault, “Yes, I *have* received your missives, and yes, indeed, one of my new Champions is from Winath. Garth Ranzz is a fine young man and does your world a great honor.”
“Be that as it may, Highness, his family has expressed some concerns. Apparently, he left homeworld unannounced and they simply wish to contact him, if he happens to be available…” the Ambassadors wore matching smiles, and Sarya had already forgotten which of the two identically clad twins was which. She pointedly looked in-between them, “Champion Ranzz has fulfilled the Ritual of Choice, and is a lawful adult, is that not true?”
“Be that as it may, Highness…” one began, while the other expounded, “reports of his injury raise concerns…”
“*Then* he is free to live on Winath, or Earth, as he chooses.” Sarya cut in, placing a hand on each Ambassadors chest and pushing them gently, but relentlessly apart, to clear a path between them, “*If* you have a message to pass on from his family, and I’m *sure* that it is merely an oversight that his communications have not yet reached them, I will be happy to pass that message on at our next meeting. Champion Ranzz is a hard-working and honest soul, and I have no doubt that even as we speak he has his hands quite full with the pressing duties of his station. Good day.” Giving the Winathians a spare moment to produce a message, Sarya summarily bulled through their carefully constructed barricade and walked away.
Garth Ranzz dozed intermittently, ring-hand flung over his bare chest while his other arm was currently entangled under the snuggling form of Imra Ardeen, who was idly toying with the fingers of his ring-hand. The regen-pack was gone from his shoulder, and only a bare patch of skin, slightly pinker than the surrounding tissue, gave any sign of the near-mortal wound so recently inflicted.
~Garth?~
“Mmmm?”
~Can I ask you a personal question?~
“I guess, s’not like I could keep anything from you anyway,” he replied with a sleepy half-grin.
~You know I’d never pry into your mind, I was just curious about something.~
“I trust you, I’m sorry, go ahead,” Garth’s eyes were open now, and his voice revealed his concern that he’d said something wrong.
~I’ve been reading up, and Winathians usually don’t leave home-world without their twins. I hate to ask, because I’m afraid to bring up something that might be bad…~
“No, no, I have a twin. Heck, I have two siblings, actually…”
~Two? How is that possible? I thought all Winathian births were identical twins?~
“I’ve got an older brother, Mekt. He was a singleton.”
~Did something happen? Was there an accident?~
“No, not unless it happened real early. By the time mom knew she was pregnant, the doctors could only find one baby in there. At first they thought it might be a false pregnancy or something, but it was real enough. He was just alone.”
~That’s a big deal on Winath, right? To be all alone?~
“Yeah, it’s like being born without any legs or something. Like someone being born on Titan without telepathy, I guess… Anyway, he was all messed up, because of that. And then me and Alayn were born, and it just kind of reinforced what a freak he was. He didn’t like us much, and we didn’t really understand why he was mean to us, and so angry all the time, so *solitary.*”
~Did something happen to Alayn?~
“Yes. Well, no. I don’t know. We were just normal twins, like any other. I’d get up in the morning, and he’d be stretching and I’d run my hand through my hair and he’d run his hand through his hair and we’d both nod and head off to school. We didn’t need a mirror, we could just look at each other and see what we looked like. I’ve read that twins on other worlds end up dressing different or getting different hair-cuts or act different, sometimes one becomes ‘the confident one’ and the other becomes ‘the shy one’ or something, but that’s not how it works on Winath. We don’t *want* to be individuals. If my twin looks like me, if I’m wearing the same shirt, if he finishes my sentence and I catch the book he drops before it hits the ground, that’s how it’s *supposed* to be. If an off-worlder can’t tell us apart, that just means that we share something that they lack, not that there is something wrong with *us.*”
~And?~
“And then Alayn started keeping secrets from me. Well. One secret, anyway, but it was the biggest secret. I’d wake up, and he’d already be up, looking at himself in the mirror like he was staring at a stranger, and I couldn’t figure out why. I’d catch him looking at me, like something was wrong with my face and he wouldn’t tell me what. I never figured it out. I shouldn’t have *had* to figure it out, he was my twin. I should have *known.*”
~Known what, Garth?~
“When we reached the age of Choosing, he started taking Pro-Fem, and calling himself Ayla.”
~Oh!~
“Yeah. Oh. I couldn’t understand. It’s the way we are, to be like each other, and here he was deliberately choosing to look different, to become a different person, as unlike me as could be. It was the worst kind of rejection, like something was awful and ugly about me, that he had to change himself so badly to get away from me. I was angry and we fought about it all the time, and as the months went by, his body kept changing and every day his face looked less like mine, and I felt a little more of myself slipping away.”
~That must have been hard, but wasn’t it Ayla’s choice to make? I’m sure she didn’t make this choice to hurt you…~
“Yeah, I get it now, but it was so hard to deal with. Mekt would laugh at us, say we were a family of freaks, first him, then Alayn, and now he was gonna stick around just to see what sort of freakshow I turned into… And then there was the accident, and the scientists were poking and prodding at us, and I just couldn’t take it. I left. Walked into town and caught a ride to the spaceport, and begged every ship-captain in port to just get me off of Winath.”
~And that’s how you ended up on the Quantus?~
“Yeah, Captain Frake said I looked like a ‘healthy specimen’ and ran me through my paces, but I got a working passage out of it…”
~Souls in repose! Oh Garth, I didn’t know…~
“What? Oh no, it wasn’t bad or anything. I would have done anything to get off-world, and all she wanted was to get off period. I guess the big dumb meatworlder look really draws in the sophisticated inner world sorts…” The bitterness creeps in, no matter how dismissive Garth attempts to sound.
~Don’t you dare! You’re not a dumb farm-boy, and Sarya would march right in here and smack you for thinking that! The Queen of Venegar says you’re destined to be a hero, are you going to tell her otherwise?~ Imra was sitting up now, holding Garth down with her hand as he tried to get up.
“Uh, no. I think she’d kick my butt.”
~Right, and she’d have to wait in line, because the line to ‘kick your butt’ would go around the building and I’d be in it twice! And don’t for an *instant* think that the big, dumb lunk thing is the only thing you have going on. You don’t think *I’m* attracted to that, do you?~
“Uh, there is no right answer here, is there?”
~Probably not.~ Visibly calming herself, Imra continued with less fervor, ~My turn. I grew up on Titan, a frozen chunk of hell where the people have to live inside pressurized arcologies, to protect them from the way-below-freezing temperatures and the too-thin-to-breath atmosphere. Everyone’s a telepath, and the concept of privacy? Non-existent. You wanted your brother to always be there, even drew comfort from that? I would put on a pressure suit and go stand on the methane glacier, just so I could be alone or five minutes out of the day…~
“I’d go crazy, if I didn’t have open skies…”
~Most of my people can’t stand open skies. They go crazy if they *aren’t* all lined up like vegetables all in neat orderly rows in their cozy little packages. At the age of Inclusion, when we are considered adults, we finally get to move out of the common rooms into our own private chambers, barely even big enough to stand up in. Our exercise routines consist of yoga and stretching exercises, because there isn’t enough room for us to be running around or playing any sorts of sports. Most of us are so wrapped up in ‘the life of the mind’ that they are only dimly aware of the physical world, creating works of art, or scientific theories, or doing remote work.~
Imra runs her hand over Garth’s chest,
~None of the males on Titan have muscles like this. None of them have *hair* on their bodies. None of them have skin this dark. Oh, sure, everyone’s in shape, because of the yoga and the biofeedback exercises, but nobody’s ever even seen meat, let alone eaten any. So when I say that I’m not one of those inner-world bimbos like Captain Frake, understand that you are as far from the Titanian standards of attractive as a man could get.~
“I didn’t mean…” Garth begins, but Imra puts her hand over his mouth,
~I know, I’m just making sure *you* know. If my mother saw you, she’d think I was completely insane, but it isn’t your muscles that I see, it’s your loyalty and your honesty and your longing for family and connection and stability. All these things are attractive to me.~
“Wow. Um, thanks. I’m going to sound really shallow if I say that I like your eyes, right?”
~No, just insincere. It wasn’t my eyes you spent the morning thinking about…~
“Hey, you said you wouldn’t read my mind!”
~I didn’t have to, I was there, remember…~
“Uh, no, actually, I’m forgetting. Help me remember?” Garth said with a grin, taking Imra’s hand in his own and leaning up to meet her.
Ah, a satisfying haul, Rokk thought as he balanced the tray of finger-sandwiches he’d managed to abscond from the reception going on upstairs. Time to see if the troops are…
A low sound from Imra’s quarters stops him in his tracks and he closes his eyes as he recognizes that it could only have come from Garth.
‘Well, that certainly didn’t take long.’
Having completely lost his appetite, Rokk sets the tray down on the floor and activates his Champion’s Ring, flying down the corridor at such speed that the pale green curtains whip about ferociously at his passage.
Bounding out of bed, Garth is at the doorway, poking his head out the curtain.
~Garth, put some clothes on before you leave my quarters!~
“I’m not leaving. See?” Proudly holding up a platter full of tiny sandwiches, “Food.”
~The valiant hunter returns. My hero. Close the curtain already.~
“Rokk must have brought us breakfast in bed. He’s so cool.”
~Uh, yeah. I’m sure that’s *exactly* what happened…~
“You don’t think he’s jealous, do you? And how do you manage to sound sarcastic in your head?” Garth mumbles around a sandwich containing unidentifiable meats and vegetables soaked in a pungent curry sauce.
~I’m not really sure. About either of those questions.~
“’Cause I talked to him about that earlier, about us just being friends and stuff, so I think we’re okay.”
~What!?!~
“You know, the whole male/male thing.” Garth made some sort of complicated docking maneuvers with his hands, betraying his uncertainty about the matter, “I’m not really into that, and at first I thought I hurt his feelings, ‘cause he seemed kind of angry, but he’s been okay with me since, so I think he’s over that man-crush thing…”
~HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!~
“Imra, are you okay?”
~HAHAHAHAHA! Snort.~
“Okay, breathe or something, you’re freaking me out…”
~BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!~
Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged |
Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
Emerald Legion – Chapter 6 “Tell me of your homeworld, Usil.” – In which our young Champions share their impressions of their birth-worlds…
The three Champions had used their Champion’s Rings to ensconce themselves atop one of the spot-lights, watching the moopsball play-offs from a spectacular vantage point that no one else could challenge.
“I just don’t get it. *Team* sports? Where’s the glory in that?” Rokk muttered, not for the first time.
~Cooperative exercises are useful, Rokk. You have to admit we worked well when we coordinated our actions and didn’t all attempt to run rampage against those gunmen…~
“That’s different. This isn’t life or death, or military action. It’s for *fun.* What’s fun about sharing the glory?”
“I beginning to think I’d never last a second on Braal.”
“Oh, it’s not that bad, Garth. Yeah, we’re hyper-competitive, but it brings out the best in people. It gives people something to strive for, goals and dreams and all that.”
~That’s easy for a sports-prodigy to say. But it doesn’t work out for everyone, does it Rokk?~
With a heavy sigh, Rokk concedes the point. “That’s for sure.”
Garth was trying to figure out the game again, “This game is stupid! They just run around for like, a few seconds, and then call time-out to argue about all these stupid rules for another half-hour.”
“On this we are agreed.”
~We’re all colonists, come back to the mother Earth, but we don’t really have anything in common with these people. Tell us about Braal, Rokk.~
“Not much to say. It’s just a rock that exports lots of exotic metals. Just about everyone is tied to the mining and enrichment consortiums, and we work like beasts, and then play twice as hard when shift is over. Our SP branch is the second highest paid in the UP, because we keep them so busy cleaning up after us. The only spectator sport more popular than magno-ball is bare-knuckled bar-brawling…”
“Second-highest paid?”
~The detachment to Rimbor is the highest paid, I’ll bet.~
“Yeah. Even we can’t compete with actual professional troublemakers.”
~Everyone has magnetic powers, right?~
“Not like mine, but yeah. When we settled Braal it was an accident. The third planet was lush and hospitable. Braal, the fourth planet, was a shattered lump of metal and rock that had been split open by a cometary impact a few million years before. The molten iron core spewed out in an enormous fountain that scorched Braal’s smaller moon, and formed the magnetite ring surrounding the planet today. The planet was all lopsided and broken, and after some ridiculous number of years, all of the chunks of iron that had rained back down to the planetary surface degraded into particles the size of sand. The entire planet was one giant desert, but the sand dunes were made of tiny chunks of iron, and when the moons passed overhead, the magnetic fields would sweep across the deserts and hurl up mile high clouds of charged iron particles that spent the next million years wearing everything else on the planet into dust.”
“So, obviously the colony ship wanted the third planet, and got sucked in by the magnetic forces?”
“Exactly. They had planned for it, but an asteroid shower damaged the ship and brought them too close to Braal, and left them unable to escape its’ pull. The captain realized that she’d drain the ships fuel and burn out the engines, and still not be able to escape, and then have nothing left to make a safe landing. So she accelerated towards the planet and cut the engines to save power.”
“Ballsy move.”
“Yeah. She tore into the atmosphere like a meteor, and only engaged thrusters when she was nearing impact, slinging the ship along the surface and letting the atmosphere break their velocity. She went all the way around the planet two and a half times before the desert sands, attracted to the charge the hull had picked up during entry, reached up and pulled the ship from the sky.”
~I don’t get it. Was it a sand-storm or some sort of magnetic interference?~
“The charged iron sands were attracted to the ship as it passed overhead, and the more of them clung to the hull, the more they slowed the ship down, and weighed it down… Fortunately, they also ended up cushioning the ship from the worst of the impact. The captain died, and six other crewmembers. The passengers in cryo-sleep were heavily shielded, with triple redundancies and all back-up power reinforcing those sections, and still, 23 of them couldn’t be revived. At planetfall, two crewmen and 227 passengers were left alive, on a planet with an unbreathable atmosphere, and magnetic fields so intense that most of their machinery flat out wouldn’t work.”
~What a nightmare!~
“Yeah, the first year was rough. But the passengers were all scientists and explorers, resourceful folk who had leapt at the challenge of colonizing a new world, so far out on the fringe that they knew it would be years before anyone came to check on their progress. They couldn’t live on the surface, so they tunneled down, using the airlock tubes to make a passageway down through the iron sands until they hit rock. Then they used cutting torches that they’d ripped off of the useless worker-droids to bore down through the rock and fashion caverns, which they immediately began to seed with renewable food sources, as they were already running short on rations. Thoughts of colonizing the surface were abandoned when the exploration teams were attacked by what turned out to be unknown forms of electromagnetic life. The head of the team was Resa Martel, and she was unconscious when they brought her back, her suit having been overloaded by the energy discharges, and having some sort of epileptic fit. She recovered quickly, but the researchers discovered that she had been pregnant, and that the baby seemed to have retained some sort of magnetic charge. Because of the high iron content, just about everyone was suffering mild metal poisoning, but she seemed to get healthier, and months later, gave birth to Genn Martel, the first Braalian. He was born with bright purple eyes, and a powerful magnetic field, and the colonists knew that everything had changed…”
“So the purple eyes, everyone on Braal has those?”, Garth asked.
“Actually it’s a reaction to all the iron in our systems. Like me, Genn should have had blue eyes, but all the iron makes our eyes look purple. If a Braalian would have green eyes, the red from the iron would make them brown, and if they were already supposed to be brown, they would end up looking dark red. Purple is kind of rare, actually. Dark red is the most common eye color.”
~I’m surprised that the colonists so quickly accepted a child that was so different.~
“Ah, you’re already getting ahead of the story, Imra. And no, they didn’t all welcome the new child. A few superstitious weirdos, already stressed out by the living conditions and the shortages and the various energy disturbances said that the child was possessed by the energy creatures or something. Anytime something would go wrong, they would blame it on the birth of Genn, claiming that he was cursed or something. The other colonists were forced to move Genn and Resa into secluded rooms and guard them day and night, after a few fanatics attempted to kill them. It was nearly a civil war, until two other women gave birth to children with dark red eyes and similar magnetic anomalies. Neither of these women had ever been to the surface or encountered an energy creature, and that took some of the fire out of the movement. The last hold-out, a true fanatic who had snapped under the stress of the living conditions, ended up being killed by his own wife after she discovered that she was pregnant. She wasn’t about to let her husband kill her ‘demon-baby,’ and killed him with a plasma welder.”
~That’s horrible!~
“The other colonists banded together and held a vote. It was determined that she’d acted in defense of her child, and her desperate act was actually applauded. Five years later, she became the first elected leader of Braal. Who would have thought killing your husband would be the first step to a successful political career?”
~Only every woman in the universe, ever?~
“Heh, she’s got you there, Rokk.”
“Anyway, the shortages remained harsh, and it seemed like they ran on the brink of total collapse for three generations. During that time there were constant fears that the rationing system would fail, and there were constant rumors of a ‘death lottery.’ According to the rumors, anyone who didn’t perform a vital function would be denied a sustenance ration, to save vital supplies for those who were necessary to the survival of the colony. It never actually happened, but it had our people at each others throats for years, and even centuries later, we remain hyper-competitive, as if we aren’t going to get fed if we don’t break records and exceed expectations.”
~These fears only lasted for a few generations, and your people are *still* affected by them?~
“Yeah, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I guess fears rarely do.” Rokk conceded,
“Finally, the colonists encountered an underground sea, and a form of algae that was subsisting off of geothermal activity and chemical synthesis. It wasn’t much, but it was a carbon source, and they quickly turned it into a food supply. The days of rationing were at an end, and the deeper mines had turned up many forms of radioactive materials that could be used for power sources. Things were looking up, and over the next two centuries, exploration teams discovered that the electromagnetic life-forms were vanishing. Every decade there were less and less encounters, until it seemed that they were completely extinct. The Spiritualists of the Crystal Unity claim that for every birth on Braal, one of the creatures was replaced, and that each Braalian is a composite creature, both flesh and energy, but most people don’t believe that. Because of the whole ‘demon-child / possession’ incident, Braalians have a strong dislike of that train of thought, associating it with the crazies. I know that *I* certainly don’t feel ‘possessed’ by any sort of electromagnetic entity…”
~And yet, I don’t feel ‘possessed’ by the organisms living in my cells, or the ones in my bloodstream, or the ones in my intestines. Why would you be aware of a creature that has become an indistinguishable part of you?~
“I guess it’s possible. In any event, the worst of the storms seemed to vanish along with the entities, and over the next few centuries, the colonists were able to begin building on the surface, and soon established contact with the United Planets, who had never realized that there was an thriving subterranean civilization trapped on the world that they had marked as ‘off-limits’ and a ‘navigation hazard.’ We communicated by laser, until a Coluan scout-craft landed in our main city, completely unaffected by the magnetic storms, and the diplomat’s *kid* ended up showing us how to get our antique worker-droids active despite the magnetic interference. Something that took him a few hours of pondering, because he was bored, something he called ‘adaptive heuristic response,’ and it revolutionized our world. Any stubborn insistence that we didn’t need the UP after all we’d accomplished on our own vanished overnight.”
Rokk shifted as the night breeze whipped Imra’s cloak into his face. “Well, that’s it for Braal. You’ve pumped me for info, now it’s your turn. Tell us about Titan.”
“Yeah! I heard it’s cold there.”
~Very. Titan is the oldest Earth colony, but no one knew that for a long time, because we were hidden from Earth for centuries.~
“But Titan’s in the Earth system! How could they miss it?” Garth protested.
~Let’s start at the beginning. Telepaths have been native to Earth for millennia, but rarely welcomed. Sometimes burned as witches, or persecuted as ‘demon-children,’ like that first Braalian child, the only telepaths that survived were the ones who learned to hide their gifts. By the early 22nd century, there were enough of us being born, and humanity was so closely connected, that it became impossible to deny our presence any longer, and some cultures turned paranoid and began to cull any child that showed signs of the gift. There wasn’t a culture on the planet that didn’t strictly regulate telepathy, declaring telepathic contact to be ‘mental trespassing,’ or eavesdropping, coercion, espionage or even rape!~
“That’s just crazy!”
~Everybody had secret shames and fears back then, Garth, and would die, or, more likely, *kill,* to keep those secrets. Telepaths were the ultimate threat to society-as-it-was, and so we found it increasingly impossible to live in peace among ‘normal’ humans. The first proposed withdrawal was at a summit in Europe, a summit that was attacked by racist terrorists, resulting in the deaths of some of the most outspoken and publicly-known telepaths. It was in Amundsen City that the Earth’s telepaths began to gather, but even Antarctica wasn’t far enough away, and they came up with a desperate scheme. Earth was constructing it’s first large-scale colony ship, intended to take five hundred colonists to settle Mars, and the telepaths seized control of a cruise ship, the Pacific Princess, and traveled to the launch site in Hawaii, where they co-opted the entire site with their combined powers, and left Earth completely, leaving the would-be Martian colonists stranded on Earth, wondering what had happened.~
“That’s awesome! How did they know how to fly a spaceship? Did they have telepath-astronauts?”
~No, but a few hours alone with the original pilots, and the telepaths knew everything they needed to know. They knew that Mars was not an option. Earth could too easily retaliate, and yet the ship was not sufficient to leave the system. One telepath had worked as an intelligence agent for several nations, under various guises, and had learned of an alien base abandoned under the ice of Titan. It had been ultra-classified, and he wiped all knowledge of it’s existence not just from the data-records, but from the very minds of the few who knew of it. That was the telepath’s goal. They practiced mind-over-body techniques and entered trances, to reduce oxygen consumption and eliminate the need for foodstuffs, since the ship didn’t have supplies adequate for their longer-than-projected voyage, and upon entering orbit around Titan, they quickly located the base, and shuttled the people down over the course of several weeks, stripping every usable thing they could from the colony ship, before programming it to fly to Jupiter and plunge into the Jovian atmosphere in front of the exploration satellite orbiting that world. As far as Earth knew, the stolen colony ship had fallen into Jupiter’s gravity well and died with all hands.~
~The colonists spent the next centuries confined to the alien base, lacking the technical know-how to expand the facility. It took many generations before the technology was re-invented necessary to add onto the structure, and by then our people had grown accustomed to the bleak sterile surroundings, cramped conditions and tasteless protein bricks assembled from raw elements by automated machine. Making sound, or showing emotion, was considered rude and disrespectful. We became a race of pale-faced ghosts, never speaking, eating only tiny bites of tasteless food and drinking only water.~
”It sounds as hard as what the Braalian colonists went through, in it’s own way.” Rokk noted sympathetically.
~And yet, it was paradise. I would sit in my tiny undecorated quarters, gray walls over my gray sleeping mat, close my eyes and soar through skies of colors I had never seen with my own eyes, surrounded by living creatures I only knew from the memories past down over a dozen generations. We live a life of the mind, and most Titanians are content with that.~
“But not you.” Rokk added.
~No. I had to see these things for myself. I didn’t want to relive someone else’s dreams of sunsets that I would never see, of flowers and birds and a world with warm scented breezes where children and run and play in open fields. Mind-pictures weren’t enough. I had to *feel* these things for myself.~
“Is it everything you’d hoped?” Garth asked, as Rokk had fallen quiet.
~So much more. I want to go back to Titan and shake them and scream in their heads what they are missing. We don’t have to hide anymore. We don’t have to live like that. There is another world out here, of sights and sounds and scents, and it’s so *real.* Not dreams or psychodramas, actual flesh and dirt and sound.~
“Wow.”
~But they’d think I was crazy. They’d ‘calm’ me with soothing platitudes and psychic readjustment, saying that I was ‘overstimulated.’~, although the Ring keeps her warm, Imra wraps her cloak around herself anyway. ~I’m never going back there. It’s all I’ve ever known, but it was never my home.~
Garth massaged his shoulder, which had stiffened up from sitting in the same position for so long before standing up and stretching, “Well, I guess it’s my turn. But it’s kind of a let-down. Winath was colonized only 200 years ago, and there really isn’t any big drama. It was a rich, fertile planet, and we moved in and planted some stuff and now it’s the bread-basket of the galaxy…”
“I’m sure it’s a *little* more interesting than that, Garth.”
“Winath was old when we found it, really old. It had been crawling with life for millions of years, but a radiation wave-front from an exploding supernova in the next system had sterilized most of the living creatures on the planet. It was perfect for colonization. A million years worth of fertile chemically rich topsoil, oceans teeming with decaying organic matter, an entire dead ecosystem lying in front of them, and it was all fodder for the new plants and animals that they introduced. We measured the topsoil on our farm once, and it went down nine and a half meters!”
“That’s a lot of tordek poop…”
“Yup. It was like a graveyard when the colonists landed, and they just dropped seed and stuff started growing like wildfire. The planet was just waiting for new life.”
“And that’s when they discovered the twin thing?”
“No, that’s a myth. Stuff grows fast on Winath because the soil is so rich. If you used the right fertilizers and genetically modified crops, you’d get the same crop yields on Braal. The only reason the colonists have twins is because we’re gene-modified that way. Our sperm trigger a chemical reaction that causes a fertilized egg to divide exactly once, and then chemically repel towards opposite sides of the womb, so that the two fetuses don’t get in other’s way during development. They remain connected by something sort of like an umbilical cord, so that if even one egg implants, the other one is ‘tethered’ and won’t be flushed out, to help prevent single births. It was intended to speed up colonization, but it’s become such a way of life that they never changed it back.”
~Yikes. The colonists *chose* to always bear twins? That’s quite a commitment…~ Imra thought, her hand brushing over her stomach dubiously.
“Yeah, it was. There was no way the women were willing to just bear twins as is, there was almost a riot. So the first generation of genetic modifications caused their hips to expand slightly, to make child-birth easier on the body. It’s kind of a galaxy-wide joke that Winathian women are ‘full-figured.’”
“That must be the source of the term ‘child-bearing hips.’”
~On behalf of women everywhere, we prefer ‘Juno-esque.’~ Imra declared defensively.
“Juno-esque it is, not that *you’d* ever need to worry about that…” Rokk backpedaled diplomatically. “So the farm animals don’t actually have twin births?”
“Some were modified in the earlier years, but for the most part, not any longer. It’s just the people. And those stupid space-legends about crops producing double the yields because of some weird energy field? That would be really nice, but it’s just a load of crap.”
~What about your powers? Rokk and I come from worlds where everyone can manipulate their bio-magnetic field, or read minds, but Winathians aren’t generally known for throwing lightning…~
Garth looked down for a second, but was smiling, maybe a bit too broadly as he replied. “Winath isn’t just the breadbasket of the galaxy, it’s also got the most sophisticated weather-control systems ever constructed, since our whole planetary economy revolves around crop schedules. Turns out that those big signs at the weather control sub-station that say, ‘danger, don’t touch’ are actually important…”
“Garth, I don’t need to be a telepath to know that’s not the whole story.”
“Look, I don’t want…”
“No, you look.” Rokk stood up quickly and moved so that he right in the taller man’s face, “We’re your friends Garth, and that means *if* you want to talk about something, then we’re here, any time, no matter what.” Garth’s mouth started to move again, and Rokk smoothly put his hand over it, blocking any protest, “And it *also* means that if you *don’t* want to talk about something, we aren’t going to pry, and it’s none of our sprocking business.” He removed his hand from Garth’s mouth. “Got it?”
Garth looked to Imra, unsure of her reaction, “Imra?”
~Everything Rokk just said. Every word. Applies to me as well. We’re not your parents, Garth, we’re not here to judge.~
Garth folded his friends up in his arms, “I love you guys! You guys are the greatest, you know that, right?”
“Oh, I’ve known that for years, Garth, but thanks for saying…”
~And we’re so modest, too!~
Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged |
Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
Emerald Legion interlude “Are you now, or have you ever been?” – Where Imra asks the most important question of them all…
The three had returned to the Embassy and loitering in front of Imra’s quarters, as if hesitant to end the evening they had shared.
~I have a question, for both of you. It’s the most important question, ever.~, a playful smile flitted across her face and her eyes sparkled in the dim lighting.
“Shoot.” Garth responded confidently.
“I retain the right to lie about it, if it might serve to embarrass me…” Rokk qualified with a grin.
~You first Garth, are you a dog person, or a cat person.~
“That’s important?” Garth’s eyebrow raised skeptically, “We had dogs on the farm. Two or three, usually, and they were hard-working and helpful. When we wanted to go run around in the fields and play fetch, they’d play with us, even when Mekt was being a turd-for-brains. They were big dogs, working animals, and so they’d bowl us over and wrestle with us, and we’d have to team up, because they were so strong, but they never hurt us, it was just play. It was great. Dogs all the way.”
~And yourself, Champion Krinn?~ Imra said with a slight curtsy.
“’Champion Krinn,’ is it? Well, very few people on Braal had Earth-pets, or any other sort of pet, unless they were really rich. It was a status symbol to have an Earth-pet imported, and they had to stay indoors, because the iron content of the atmosphere would poison them. Even then, the vast majority of Braalian pets were fish. But, as planetary champion, I was expected to live a conspicuous life-style, and I had an Earth-cat, Benni. I’d be gone for days at a time, doing tryouts and exhibitions and sponsorships, and I’d come home and she’d be sitting on the couch, looking at me like, ‘Oh, you’re home.’ It was the perfect pet for my life-style. I could come and go, and she didn’t suffer at all for it. I had this metal ball that made tinkling noises, and I would make it roll around on the floor and she’d chase it around. It drove her crazy when I’d make it fly around above her head and she’d leap for it and try to pull it to the ground. But she knew it was me, even if I was sitting across the room. When she didn’t want to play, or got really frustrated, she’d ignore the ball and walk over and swipe my leg…” Rokk’s smile faded and his voice trailed off.
~That’s a wonderful story.~ Imra thought, looking so beautiful in that moment that Rokk was able to put aside the unpleasant memories that followed.
“And I think we’ve figured out you’re a dog-person,” Rokk added with a wry grin, nodding his head in the direction of Garth.
~Don’t be so sure. We had no pets at all on Titan, but we had *memories* of earth-pets that had been handed down for many centuries. They were our most prized possessions, these worn and faded memories of life on Earth, and they were a valuable commodity among our people. I have memories of running through grass and tossing sticks and handling tiny kittens, but I’ve never actually seen any of these animals with my own eyes.~
“We have to do something about that! That’s just crazy!” Garth exclaimed, as it was a great offense that Imra had never gotten to have a pet of her own.
~Yes, now that I’m Earth, getting to meet real animals is definitely high on my agenda.~
“You’re stalling, Im. What is it, dog or cat.” Rokk insisted.
~Well, I like dogs…~
“Saw that coming…”
~If I might finish?~ Imra said with a glare, hand on her hip, until Rokk gestured that she continue, ~Thank you. I like dogs because they are loyal and dedicated. Their feelings are all out there in the open, they have nothing to hide and they are always happy to see you. If you cry, a dog will curl up next to you and lick your face, and it doesn’t matter where you go, a dog will try to follow at your side, no matter what.~ at Rokk’s smug look, she added, ~*And,* I like cats. They always seem so commanding and confident. Everything they do looks graceful and deliberate. They never look like they’re sorry or confused, as if anything they’ve done is exactly what they meant to do. They never doubt themselves, and I always wanted to have enough self-confidence to be able to walk into a room and own it like they do.~
“So why did you think Imra would be a dog-person, Rokk?”
Rokk’s smile turned mock-innocent and the faint glow from his eyes shone through the shadows as he bowed his head, “Oh, no reason at all. On a *completely* unrelated note, how did you guys like those little sandwiches? I think the green curry added a pleasant feistiness to the dish, gave it certain… *lasting* qualities…”
Imra’s face flushed with embarrassment, but Garth just smiled broadly.
Rokk afforded Imra a smile before turning away, “I’m off to bed guys. I was hoping to do some training together in the morning, learn to coordinate and try that crazy team-work concept the Earthers are so on about, so don’t stay up too late…”
“Night man,” Garth waves absently to Rokk’s receding back, turning to see that Imra has already stepped into her quarters. Looking both ways, Garth pushes the curtain aside and pokes his head in, “Hey, ahh…”
~Oh come in already, you silly man.~
Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged |
Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
Emerald Legion, Chapter seven “Practice makes perfect” – wherein lessons are learned, and much butt is kicked
Garth looked up blearily to see that Imra was already up and dressed, wearing some skintight bodysuit of silvery-gray, over which she was even now attaching her golden psi-metal adornments.
“It’s not morning already,” Garth strenuously objected, flinging one arm over his eyes to block the light now filling the room.
~Yes it is, and it has been for some time. Rokk’s already up and on his way.~
A rapping at the door-frame served to underscore to Imra’s statement, and Rokk could be heard outside, “Wakie-wakie, kids. Time to kick each other’s butts…”
~Come on in Rokk, we’ll be ready in a second.~
Somewhat dubiously, Rokk entered the bedchamber, pointedly looking at the wall, only to start as Imra stepped directly into his view. He sighed in relief upon noticing that she was completely clothed. “So, no Champion’s Garb today? You are going to have to learn to fight in it eventually…”
~I know, I just want to work with what I know before I start adjusting to that outfit. I’ve already made an adjustment to the cloak so that it pulls free without effort. The last thing I need is someone grabbing the silly thing and yanking me off-balance…~
“A good choice,” Rokk then raises his voice, “Will Garth be joining us today, or is he afraid of getting his ass kicked by a girl?”
Pulling his Champion’s Garb up, Garth hops one-legged into view. “Yeah, yeah. I’m ready. Bring it, oh, talker of big talk.”
“No bracers today?” Rokk notes, pointing out the missing bits of Garth’s Champion’s Garb.
“No bracers, ever.” Garth corrected, “They were made of conducive gold, and it’s hard enough to aim lightning bolts without the pull of the metal making it arc back towards me. The stuff has a mind of its own, and I don’t want to have to fight my costume to use my powers…”
~Ok, move it. I’m getting bored already.~ Imra declared in a no-nonsense tone that left both of her fellow Champion’s looking questioning at each other as she strode out of the room.
In the room that the Champion’s had cleared out in sub-level 3, Imra was stretching in a manner that caused Rokk to stop dead in the doorway, only to have an inattentive Garth plow right into him, before pausing to similarly admire the view.
~Keep staring at me like that and the next thing you’ll see is me kicking your ass.~
“So, Garth, your girlfriend has suddenly transformed into the master of smack-talk.”
~Get your champion-of-the-world-washed-up-ex-sports-god butt out here, ‘Kid Cosmos,’ and I’ll make you eat those words.~
Garth just threw his hands up with a bewildered expression on his face. “Shouldn’t have called her ‘fiesty,’ man. You brought this on yourself.”
Rokk stepped out onto the mats with Imra, who was just uncoiling from a yogic posture on the ground in a move that some gymnasts would consider challenging.
“Well, you’re certainly flexible…” Rokk began, but was suddenly backpedaling desperately as a rain of blows came at his face, seemingly from all directions.
~Less talky-talk, more fighty-fight, pretty-boy.~, Imra thought with a cool mental clarity that Rokk found as disturbing as her aggressive attack.
‘Ooof’ Rokk was getting punished, and only the reinforced metal structure of his Champion’s Garb was going to spare him from bruises on the ribs she had just kicked. “Aaagh!,” and then he was on the ground, having had his legs swept out by a graceful spinning sweep. She was back on her feet and smiling at him.
~Wuss.~
“Can we have a time out for me to catch my breath, Kung Fu Super-Chick?” Rokk pleaded, hauling himself to his feet.
~Sure. Want a blankie and some warm tea with that?~
“Seriously, Im, what’s up with you?”
~Nothing’s ‘up’ with me, I’m just a better fighter than the both of you put together, and it’s my job to whip you into shape. And, for your information, I don’t like ‘Im.’ My name is Imra. Champion Ardeen, if you piss me off…”
“Now wait a second…”
~No, you wait a second. I’ve been training my body since I was old enough to walk, and while Titanian physical conditioning isn’t *currently* an active combat art, it was designed from the martial arts styles of old earth. What looks like fluffy prana-adjustment moving meditations are a series of effective blocking and striking techniques. You’re an athlete. You’re hell on the magno-ball court and in great shape, but you’ve never actually *fought* anyone.~
“And you have? I don’t think so…”
~I’ve practiced all of these moves since I was a girl. And yes, when I hit you just then, it was in fact the first time I’d ever actually struck someone with these techniques. Are you going to tell me that they weren’t effective?~
“No. You know what you’re doing. I get that, and I’m ready to learn, oh, sensei.” Rokk added with a sarcastic half-bow.
~I just want you to know one thing Rokk…~ Rokk’s eyebrow arched and she continued with a grin, ~This is going to hurt *you* a lot more than it hurts me…~
Garth watched the two of them move, and it was clear that now that he was mentally prepared, Rokk was able to block most of her attacks, although he seemed to be moving in slow motion compared to her. His own attacks were perfunctory at best, and it seemed increasingly obvious that Rokk was still not taking this seriously. “Man, don’t do it, she’s gonna mess you up…” Garth muttered, but it was too late and Imra yanked Rokk forward as he made a half-hearted strike past her head and as he stumbled forward she leapt into the air, sprung off his back and kicked him hard in the back of the head. He went down like a thunderbolt, but rolled to his feet in time for Imra to just miss a stomp to where his head had been a moment before.
~You *suck.* No wonder they stripped your title!~
Garth winced as Imra’s head rocked back from the force of Rokk’s backhand, and he rushed forward as she staggered back. Rokk was already apologizing, hands in the air, “Stone! I’m sorry, oh lords, I didn’t mean…”
Imra shook her head and regarded him with a grin, rubbing her sore jaw, ~Don’t apologize, dummy. It’s about time you started actually playing to win and not jerking me around.~
“But…”
~Shut up, Rokk. I *made* you hit me. I earned that, and I’ll throw the regen-pack on it and not even have a bruise in the morning. It’s all part of the new game we’re in. Are you honestly telling me that if one of those gunmen at the Mindfire den had been female you would have held back? ‘Cause she would have shot you dead, and walked right over your corpse to shoot at us, buster, and we can’t afford that kind of thinking…~
“It’s not a ‘because you’re a girl’ thing, Im…, *Imra.* My hardest challenge match was against a girl. She put me in the hospital, actually. It’s a ‘don’t like to hurt my friends’ thing.”
~That’s very noble, but training was your idea, and we aren’t training how to lose here. We’re training to survive, and to survive, sometimes you’ve got to be willing to do things you don’t want to do. Do you think I really want to hit you?~
“I *was* wondering for a minute there…” Rokk said, rubbing the back of his head pointedly.
~Do you think I want to hit Garth?~
“No.”
~Garth, you’re up. If I sense you holding back, you aren’t allowed in my quarters for a week.~
Garth and Rokk both blinked at that bald statement, and Rokk was the first to react, “Oh wait, I didn’t realize that there was an incentive plan, can I try again?”
~Don’t push it, buster. I’ve got more where that came from.~
“You sound like an old holo-vid, Imra, nobody talks that way,” Garth said confidently as she lunged towards him.
Rokk watched the two of them move, and Garth was using his mass to good effect. He didn’t have the advantage of a metal-reinforced suit to cushion her blows, but he just kept shrugging off her attempts to throw him off-balance. Finally he got ahold of her arm and in a second he had wrapped around her like a python, and she was barely visible behind his biceps as he threw them both to the ground and drove the wind out of her with his weight.
“My big brother liked to wrestle with us, it was get good or get beat up…” Garth explained with a grunt as he continued rolling around, smacking Imra into the mats with every roll, keeping her off-balance.
~Yes, very clever. Off, now.~ Imra thought as her dainty fist drove backwards straight into his crotch.
Rokk missed a second of the action as his eyes involuntarily closed in sympathy for his fellow male, but when they opened, Garth was rising shakily to his feet looking pale and Imra had rolled to one knee a few meters away, where she was wheezing for breath.
Neither of them seemed to be interested in pressing the attack, and all three were startled by the arrival of Queen Sarya, who chose to announce her presence by clapping her approval for the scene she had just walked in upon.
“Highness,” Rokk said with a bow, “we didn’t expect to see you down here…”
“Whyever not, Champion Krinn? This figure doesn’t maintain itself,” she added sweeping her robes off to reveal a skintight bodysuit similar to Imra’s but in a dark jade green. The figure in question was a fine one indeed, bulkier than Imra’s, but with no trace of fat, and indeed quite shapely for her age, which Rokk was not nearly suicidal enough to inquire about…
Garth had already put two and two together, and walked gingerly over to Rokk. “So, we’ve just been suckered.”
Rokk realized that he was right, Sarya and Imra had clearly talked this over, there was no other explanation for their matching skin-suits.
Sarya stepped onto the mat and said, “So, who’s first…”
The three young Champion’s sat on Imra’s bed, which seemed to have become their informal meeting area.
“So,” muttered Garth sourly, holding a heating pack against his back, “Venegarian women have super-strength.”
~And they’re resistant to telepathy.~ added Imra, massaging a hand-shaped bruise on her arm. ~Or, at least *she* is.~
“Lesson learned. Queens who have to face regular honor challenges to hold their thrones are not to be underestimated.” Rokk agreed.
“Wait a minute.” Garth began and Imra just shook her head. “You were cheating!”
~Obviously, Garth. I’ve never been in a physical fight in my life. Remember when Rokk hit me?~
“I’m really…”
~It’s fine, Rokk. The point is, he hit me because he *wasn’t thinking.* I made him so angry, he just acted, and that gave him the advantage against a telepath. I couldn’t anticipate that he was about to hit me, because he realized that he’d hit me the same time I did, as it was already happening.~
“Then how come I was able to grab you? You weren’t setting me up for that dirty hit, were you?” Garth glared suspiciously.
~Well, it was the plan, I had no idea you were going to crush the breath out of me so effectively. The slamming around and keeping me disoriented thing was very effective. If you hadn’t stopped to gloat, I wouldn’t have been able to get my bearings…~
“Hmm. Things sure would have been different if I’d used *my* powers,”, Garth proclaimed before turning to Rokk and drawing a deep breath. “Rokk, I’m not sure how to say this, but you were really moving slow out there…”
~It’s true Rokk, I’ve seen the vids of your championship matches, and you moved like a dancer. When you were on the court, your serves were blindingly fast and incredibly coordinated, but I didn’t see anything like that today.~
Rokk remained quiet, eyes closed, with his hand against his head, shaking it slightly as if attempting to deny his friends questions.
“It was the same at the drug-lab. You floated in, and sort of hung there in the air, using your powers…”
“Enough! Yes, I’m slow and clumsy.”
~That’s not what I meant…~
“No, but it’s the truth. I *was* really fast and coordinated once, but that was back when I had a living nervous system.”
~What?~
“I don’t get it, you’ve got nerve-implants? I thought those were supposed to make you *faster?*”
“No. The short version is that I got poisoned by a rival player, and the drug he used killed every single nerve cell in my body, except for my brain, which was protected by the blood-brain barrier. I was paralyzed and powerless.”
~Oh, Rokk…~
“That sucks! Did they find out who did it?”
“Oh yeah, the pony-tailed creep is in Takron-Galtos. They ruled it attempted murder. He won’t be out for years.”
~But, you were walking when I met you, and you had regained your powers…~
“The drug ended up replacing my nervous system, settling down in the same pathways where the cells had been. It’s a crystalline powder, superfluidic in structure, and it contains and channels my magnetic field. It’s actually a lot stronger than a normal Braalian nervous system, but it *isn’t* a nervous system. I can’t walk, or move my arm, or any of that. I’ve spent over a year re-training my biomagnetic field to move my muscles for me, and even then, I have a regulator chip installed in here,” Rokk tapped his chest, “to keep my heart and lungs and other systems working when I’m sleeping, or in case my powers fluctuate or are blocked. So yeah, I’m just a little bit cyborg, Garth. It’s Coluan photonic tech. Any normal tech wouldn’t work in a Braalian system, due to the magnetic fluctuations.”
“So yeah, I *know* that I’m slow, and clumsy, and nothing near what I was a few years ago, when I was a star athlete. I can walk, but I can’t run. I can’t dance. I can’t jump around or do gymnastics or roll to my feet. But every day my control improves.”
~I’m sorry Rokk, I had no idea.~ Imra said, placing her arm on Rokk’s shoulder.
“Yeah, I just thought you were a little cocky or something.” Garth said
Rokk laughed, “Oh, I am cocky. And I meant what I said. Every day, I improve. A year and a half ago, I couldn’t get out of bed. Today, I’m ‘clumsy and slow.’ Next year, I’ll be as fast and coordinated as either of you. And I *will* regain every single move I’ve lost. That’s not a fantasy or goal or a dream. That’s a *fact.*”
“I believe you buddy.”
~I was so critical about the Braalian love of competition, but it’s really made you into the fighter you need to be. I’m proud of you, Rokk.~
Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged |
Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
Emerald Legion, Chapter eight “Blood is 7.3 times thicker than water” – wherein our young Champions face their greatest challenge
The Kathooni delegation had not been formally accepted into the UP yet, so they had no Embassy of their own. Instead the reception was in the sprawling Talokkian Embassy, the otherwise lightless interior of which was decorated in gleaming Kathooni sparkle-crystals, and the many glistening decorations of the various Ambassadors and their retinues. The Talokkian staff themselves wore only armor-like accoutrements of reflective metal, and, as Ambassador Ravin proclaimed, ‘bathed only in the radiant magnificence of their guests.’
Queen Sarya had dressed in robes of deep jade green, effectively black in the dim surroundings, but orbiting her crown was a fist-sized star emerald, which had been specially treated to glow with its’ own verdant inner fire. Her face was bathed in a soft green light, and shifting shadows played over her face as the stone completed its’ circuit around her head. Imra had treated her gossamer cloak to radiate the subtlest pale green hue, not enough to cast any light of its’ own, but merely enough to be visible in the dark as a glimmering emerald shadow. Her Titanian psi-metal adornments shone with their own pale amber glow, and in the shifting light sources, seemed to move of their own volition, like serpents of gold writhing over her legs and arms. Garth had allowed the white and gold segments of his own Champion’s Garb be treated with a fluorescent dye, and cut a bold figure, with his face underlit by the dramatic white lightning bolt cutting down his torso. Rokk had skipped any cosmetic alterations for the occasion, and in the unlit shadows, the pale violet glow of his eyes cut through the darkness with a surprising intensity.
“Great, we’re all gussied up, and I can’t see a sprocking thing.” Garth complained.
“Just watch out for that Talokkian Ambassador. I think he grabbed my ass when he was introducing himself…”
“You *think?* How could you not be sure?” Garth muttered, wondering not for the first time was in this glass he was holding, since he couldn’t actually make out what color it was, only that it had a suspiciously thick texture and tasted like nothing he could identify.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe ‘cause it was dark? Could have been anyone, really. Well, anyone wearing a lot of metal, I could tell that much…”
Garth got an evil look on his face and cupped a hand to his mouth, but Rokk nudged him in the ribs before he could make any sort of embarrassing announcement.
“What? I was just gonna holler across the room to Imra and ask if it was her…”
“Oh great, get us both killed why don’t you,” Rokk laughed. “What’s she doing over there anyway?”
“She said that she thought she ‘heard’ another Titanian in the room, but she’s having trouble finding them, so she’s on the prowl.”
Any reply died on his lips as the room suddenly exploded into brilliance, and the assorted delegates were left reeling and blinded by the explosion, as a thunderous display of *lightning* poured down in the center of the room.
The Talokkian and Kathooni in the crowd were most stricken by the brilliant display, and Garth could just make out a figure standing in the midst of the brilliant bolt of lightning that was traveling upwards to splash across the ceiling in a display of sparks and electricity.
~Surrender immediately, and die. There is no ‘or.’~, came a powerful telepathic command that neither Garth nor Rokk recognized, although the source was recognizably female. The command seemed to surge around in their minds like a crashing wave, repeating endlessly, and both found themselves momentarily unable to react.
A red flash, likely invisible to the light-sensitive members of the delegation was followed by a gut-wrenching stench, and Garth sank to his knees retching.
“Sweet siblings, the stench! What is that?”
“Sulphur dioxide, I think. And it’s killing them,” Rokk choked out, pointing at the fallen delegates, now clearly suffocating on the floor. “Rings, protecting us from the worst of it.”
“Thanks, Exposition Lad,” Garth muttered through his hand, futility trying to block the nauseating stench. He suddenly pointed, “There.”
Rokk turned to see a man in a blue and red outfit, wearing an unusual helmet and his eyes glowed red, much like the same energy flash that had preceded the sudden change in atmosphere.
“Venusian, methane-breathers, allergic to oxygen.” Rokk gasped, as he raised his hands and dozens of sharp-edged metallic Talokkian items of tableware flew towards the figure. Both Champions were surprised to see the man’s eyes flash red again, and the metallic projectiles dissolved into water and splashed harmlessly across the figure.
“We need to,” Rokk began when suddenly the room went dark again and he was suddenly lifted from his feet by a massive discharge of electricity which left him gasping and on the razor’s edge of consciousness.
Garth stepped into the current, blocking it with a stream of lightning from his own hands, and saw a familiar face backlit by the flaring discharge.
“Mekt?”
“Hey, little brother. Fancy meeting you here…”
Garth advanced slowly, his own streams of electricity matching the single blast that his brother seemed to be effortlessly sustaining, “Why are you doing this, these people…”
Mekt kept talking manically, ignoring Garth’s words, “You had the right idea, Garth. Winath was a dead end. Why stick around and watch little Ayla finish her transformation? Crying all the time that you’d abandoned her and thought she was a freak…”
“Shut up!” Garth screamed, switching from just holding his brother’s discharge at bay and pouring out all of his rage.
Mekt stepped back, a look of amused surprise on his face, and raised his other hand to focus fully on keeping his brother at bay. “Come on, you know I’m right. She’s a freak, and you couldn’t stand looking at her freak face. You were right to leave her behind. Who needs a twin, anyway? I sure didn’t…” his face twisted into a hateful sneer, and Garth felt himself falling back under the blistering strain.
Rokk had regained his breath, and noticed that a half-dozen men in masks were walking among the fallen ambassadors and snatching up items of jewelry and shoving them into sacks at their waists. The Venusian was watching him with arms folded, apparently considering him no threat and waiting for him to make the first move. Across the room, he could see Imra standing directly in front of another woman in what appeared to be some sort of uniform. It was obvious they were having some sort of mental battle, as Imra’s arm was frozen in the attempt to reach the woman, and both of them showed signs of strain.
Of the Queen, there was no sign, and Rokk realized that they had only minutes before the delegates began to die from oxygen deprivation, but every time he seized control of a metal weapon to use, the red-eyed man just shook his head and it turned into water in a crimson flash and fell harmlessly to the ground. The man’s environment suit was made of some material that didn’t respond to his magnetic powers, and his hopes of cracking the man’s life-support systems open were dashed.
Sensing a heavy source of metal across the room, Rokk activated his Ring,
Garth! Switch targets, I’ll take care of your brother, you shoot the Venusian!
No!
Garth, do it!
Suddenly, Garth dove to the side and Mekt’s lightning blasts flew harmlessly into the drinks table, where several of the local beverages proved to be flammable. Garth fired a double-blast of lightning at the flat-footed Venusian, and as Mekt turned and started tracking the lightning to where his little brother had landed, a 200 kilo metal gong crashed into his back and threw him to the ground.
Rokk used every erg of his magnetic strength to press the metal gong down, pinning the lightning wielder to the ground, while trusting Garth to handle the Venusian. His trust was rewarded as the scent of sulphur abruptly vanished to be replaced with sweet, sweet air, heavily tinged by the odor of the electrical fires touched off during the brothers’ exchange.
He shifted his position carefully, and he could now just make out Imra and the Titanian woman now face to face, faces glistening in the flicking firelight as sweat poured down their foreheads, muscles straining as they gripped each others arms. Slowly, Imra leaned forward and it almost looked like she was going to kiss the other woman when she suddenly shouted in the other womans’ face, “BITCH!”
The older telepath looked shocked and flinched visibly before attempting to regain her mental focus, but it was too late and she closed her eyes and slumped backwards, stricken instantly unconscious by Imra’s mental assault.
The sack-toting henchmen attempted to flee, only to find that the room had been sealed, presumably by the villains themselves and while Rokk kept his concentration on making sure that the lightning wielder was pinned, Garth and Imra made short work of the remaining henchmen.
The main doors wrenched open with a squeal, and Queen Sarya and Kathooni Ambassador Marin strode into the smoke-filled battlezone, accompanied by a half-dozen statuesque armor-clad Kathooni security women, who quickly moved to see to the fallen delegates, most of whom were sputtering and choking, but seemed none the worse for the wear.
Within minutes, SP troopers also entered the room, and the criminals were manacled and led away.
Being dragged out, Mekt was red-faced and screaming, “Your idiot friends won’t save you Garth! I will destroy you for this! You’ll abandon them like you abandoned us, you don’t deserve friends, you don’t deserve family, you’re *nothing!*”
Garth was trembling with rage, and his hands were crackling and sparking with energy. The SPs continued trying to wrestle the struggling Mekt out of the room, but Garth had moved into the doorway and was blocking them from getting Mekt out, “Go ahead, let him go.”
Rokk stepped between the brothers, “Garth, no.” he placed his hand on the taller man’s chest, carefully avoiding his hands, which were tossing off tiny bolts of electricity that arced towards Rokk’s metal suit, shocking him painfully.
“Get out of my way, Rokk. I’ll burn you down.”
“No you won’t.”, Rokk maintained, only managing to hold himself steady in the wake of the stronger man by using his magnetic powers to hold himself in place.
“You think you can stop me?” Garth said coldly, his eyes glowing with blinding golden energy.
“Go ahead!” Mekt ranted, “Incinerate the fool! Nothing can stop us!”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. *You* are going to stop you.” Rokk pointed behind him at Mekt, who, thankfully, had been gagged by one of the suspiciously strong Kathooni amazon-women.
“I know you won’t attack me, because that’s what *he* would do. And you’re nothing like him.”
Suddenly the glow faded from Garth’s eyes and he turned away, shoulders shaking. “You’re right. He’s not worth it.”
By that point, the armored Kathooni had given up on dragging Mekt out on his feet, and instead rolled him into a decorative tapestry, heaved him into the air and carted him off like produce, struggling feebly as Garth pointedly turned again so that his brother couldn’t even catch his eye on the way by.
Imra came up behind Rokk and put a hand on him as he sagged in relief. ~Thank you. I could have stopped him, but it’s far more important that he stopped himself.~
Hours had passed, and the young Champions had returned to the Venegarian Embassy. Imra and Rokk sat in her room, while Garth had asked to have some time and soared up into the night sky.
~Do you think he’ll be able to get past this?~ Imra asked, the concern tinging her thoughts.
“It’s got to be hard for him. It seems like nobody can hurt you like family.”
~Not just family. It’s the people we love that have the power to hurt us. We give them that power.~
Rokk looked around the room, as if the answer would be sitting in the corner, waiting to be found. “I’m not a telepath, Imra, but I know alone, and I don’t think Garth needs to be alone right now. I think that’s the *last* thing he needs. You should go to him.”
~No. *We* should go to him.~
“You guys have a thing…”
~That’s not the ‘thing,’ he needs right now. He needs friends. He needs family, and we’re his family now. You and me both.~ Imra extended her hand. ~Let’s go find our family.~
Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged |
Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
Emerald Legion, Chapter nine. “Diplomacy, by Night.” – the beautiful coming together of two cultures (Warning: Semi-Adult content. Huh, huh, I said 'semi.')
“Hey Rokk, you decent?” Garth called out before barging in anyway.
”No, I’m sprocking amazing,” Rokk said, looking up from his hammock, where he’d been reading a pad on linguistic commonalities and the development of Interlac.
Garth waved his own pad enthusiastically, “Guess what I found…”
Rokk gestured impatiently and the pad tore itself out of Garth’s grasp and flew to his own hand.
“Hey!” Garth protested half-heartedly as he crossed over to lean over Rokk as he viewed the pad.
“It’s a nice likeness,” Rokk began, somewhat bewildered as to why Garth would have a spectrum-enhanced depiction of his backside.
“Wait for it…” Garth cautioned as he selected for the image to advance in half-speed, and Rokk watched as the Talokkian Ambassador glided by on his left, hands primly folded in front of him, while a second figure moved past quickly on his right, and a hand snaked out and gave his butt a firm squeeze.
“Image freeze, and pan out.” Garth said, and the image pulled back to reveal the Kathooni delegate leaving the chamber with Queen Sarya. The hand in question was attached to one of the Kathooni retinue, a heavily-armored amazon of a woman who had copped a feel without breaking stride. “Freeze there.” Garth added unnecessarily to he datapad. “And there we have it. The pressing mystery of Ass-Grabber Lass, resolved.”
“I’m just glad it wasn’t Ravin. Guy’s a galaxy-class perv…” Rokk conceded, before looking up to the proudly grinning Garth, “While I’m grateful, was this really what you’ve spent the morning looking up?”
“Actually, I was reviewing the security footage of the break-in. It was Mekt who sealed the doors. They meant to suffocate everyone and leave no living witnesses. That Titanian woman was just there to keep them from calling for outside help and keep them pacified while they died…” Garth’s voice was shaking. “I can’t believe he’d do something like that. I’m so sprocking stupid…”
With a heavy sigh, Rokk rolled out of his hammock and stood in front of his friend. “I’m sick of having to yell at you, Garth, so sprocking listen up this time!”
Garth started to lean back, but thumped into the wall behind him and had nowhere to retreat, “Wait, what?”
“I am sick to death of hearing you go on about this stupid farm-boy thing.”
“Actually, I am…”
“You *were* a farm-boy.” Rokk interrupted, punctuating his words by poking his friend in the chest. “Not any more. And you were never stupid. I’ve read up on Winath, and on you, and your flight trainer gave you the highest marks anyone got on the entire *planet* when you were fourteen. He said that you were a natural, that you could take apart a skyburner and put it back together with your eyes closed, and he said that he *hated* that you went back to the farm and didn’t stick with piloting as a career choice.”
“It’s just natural talent, ‘though, like your magno-ball, it’s not like *science* or anything…”
“First of all, you have no idea what it takes to play magno-ball, so don’t even compare the two, and second of all, there is a hell of a lot more to piloting than instinct or natural talent. You have to deal with hundreds of variables, all with enough speed and wit to avoid any of a dozen possible disastrous decisions. Flying doesn’t take balls, Ranzz, it takes *brains.*”
“I kinda used both, actually…”
“Regardless, if balls were all you used, you would have died on your first solo flight, and certainly not gotten highest marks.”
“It’s just, all my life, I wasn’t smart enough. I always thought, if I’d been a little smarter, I would have been able to figure out why Mekt hated us. I would have known what was up with Alayn, *Ayla,* know the right things to say to make it easier…”
“You can’t live other people’s lives for them, Garth. They’ll make their own choices, choices you never would have imagined for them, but it’s not your fault, and you’re not responsible for Ayla’s choice, and you sure as hell aren’t responsible for Mekt…” Rokk’s face softened as he came to a sudden realization. “It was Mekt.” Garth didn’t react, and Rokk stepped back, “Mekt’s been telling you that you were stupid all your life, hasn’t he?”
“He always knew stuff, and he’d just give me that look when I didn’t know something, like I was one of the meat-animals or something…”
“He was *older* Garth. *Of course,* he knew stuff that you hadn’t learned yet.” Rokk shook his head, “And this is the problem with Winath.” Garth looked puzzled at the shift in topic. “You guys are all set with the twin thing, but you have no idea how to deal with an older brother.” He shook his head, "Mekt was *jealous,* Garth. *You* had the twin. *You* were the 'normal one.' *You* were the one that got accepted into piloting school."
“It’s not just Mekt. It’s everyone. Imra took all sorts of molecular science and neural psychology classes. She talks about that stuff and I’m just lost.” He points at the pad depicting the Talokkian soiree, “And here. You’re all like, ‘sulphur dioxide’ and, ‘he’s Venusian, they breath methane and oxygen kills them’ and I’m like, ‘hey, dude has a bowl over his head!’”
“Garth, I don’t even know where to start. Braal is a mining world. Sulphur dioxide is a common industrial smell. And it’s also a commerce hub, and sentients from all over the sector come for the magno-ball play-offs. I’ve met Venusians before. I had to sit through an excruciating dinner with the head of the Venusian Gas-Mines, smiling the whole time as the poster-boy for the Blacksteel Cartel.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, I know *some* stuff. You know *other* stuff.” Rokk punctuated his statement by tapping Garth in the forehead with his own pad. “Like that the Talokkian Embassy had spectrum-enhanced surveillance of the event. *I* didn’t think of that…”
“I don’t know. I just don’t feel like I can keep up. Especially with Imra being so… so…”
“Cerebral?”
“Yeah.”
Rokk steepled his hands in front of his face, drawing up his nerve. “Garth, if you ever mention this, I’m going to deny it.” Garth looked alarmed, but Rokk steam-rollered on before he lost his nerve. “It *kills* me to say this, but I had a month to impress Imra before we hit Winath to re-supply. So there I am, a good-looking, witty, charming *sports-star,* well-versed in interacting with sentients of all sorts. Since I was fourteen, I’ve had anyone I wanted and she chooses *you.* She’s Titanian, Garth. She didn’t choose you for your arms or that floppy mess you call hair. She chose you because *you’re smarter than I am.* She knows it. I know it, and the only ‘stupid’ thing I’ve seen about you is that *you* haven’t figured it out yet.”
“I..”
“Don’t. I’m never saying this again. Just don’t.” Rokk turned and flew out the door, leaving Garth standing in Rokk’s room, head spinning with notions that refused to take purchase.
Garth sat down heavily on Rokk’s hammock. “Wow.” The hammock promptly overbalanced and he flew backwards onto the floor with a heavy crash. “Oof!” Looking up from the floor at his legs, still hanging off of the hammock, he lay there, sides shaking as he laughed silently, still spun by his friends words, “Yeah, I’m a real genius…”
Rokk was sitting atop the Embassy, checking the pad and getting alternate angles. Each of the Kathooni security agents wore their armor in a slightly different style, and his target wore silvery torso-plate that resembled a one-piece swimsuit, covering her from crotch to neck, while leaving her arms, legs and head bare. She had a similar plate of steel on her left thigh, and another on her right calf. Her arms were similarly mismatched, with a bulky pauldron on her left shoulder and an ornate bracer, almost big enough to call a shield, on her right forearm. Underneath, a skintight black bodysuit covered the rest of her skin, although her milky-skinned fingers and toes were exposed, and her strong-jawed face. Her hair was a tower of black, held in place by far too many shiny silver pins.
Checking the other members of the delegation, he confirmed that each had a different style of body armor, and he was positive that he could recognize this one, even in the dark, based on the positioning of the metal covering her body.
He then looked up Kathooni courtship rituals. No reason, just bored, he managed to convince the tiny protesting voice that said, ‘what the sprock are you doing?’
The Kathooni mission was located in bowels of an administrative building, as the Kathooni had no Embassy of their own. Rokk stood in front of the entrance, wondering what the hell he was doing here. He was just looking at the pictures. And then he was just figuring out if he could recognize her. And then he was looking up how to say ‘take off your clothes’ in Kathooni. It was all perfectly harmless, and it was a train-wreck that would only stop if he turned around right now.
The door opened in front of him, and the chamber before him was pitch-black. So much for leaving before they notice, he thought wryly as an irresistibly strong arm reached out of the darkness and pulled him into the darkened room.
In the dark, he could feel a half-dozen metal-armored figures moving towards him and a deep voice sounded next to his ear, making him jump, “Jath, it is the purple-eyed one. His garb speaks of his mating status.”
‘Mating status?’ He finally managed to resolve the metal signatures, just in time to recognize that the woman in question was now directly in front of him. “Your eyes burn with lust,” came the husky voice and suddenly he felt the mail-mesh of his shirt bunch up as the woman grabbed his shirt and yanked him forward.
“Uh, hi, I was just passing by,” Rokk began lamely as he stumbled to regain his balance, wondering where he had lost control of this encounter, and then remembering that he’d never actually *had* control to lose.
“I will take you now,” the voice said matter-of-factly, and suddenly everything was spinning. By the time he got his bearing, Rokk realized that he had been hauled over the woman’s shoulder and she was carting him off like… well, like they carted off Mekt, come to think of it. And, oh yeah, her hand was on his ass again.
“Actually, I was thinking we could have something to eat, get to know each other…” Rokk protested in a voice that sounded far too high-pitched for his comfort and suddenly everything was spinning, and if not for her hand on his chest, he would have fallen over when she set him back on his feet, apparently in another room entirely.
“Oh hey, we haven’t even been introduced, I’m…” Rokk began, only to be stopped by the presence of strong fingers clamped over his mouth.
“No names. You have not yet earned my name.” the voice commanded, and with a sure confidence pried open the fastenings on the front of his Champion’s Garb. “Your armor will not serve you in this battle.”
“I…” Rokk managed to get out before she had peeled him like a banyo fruit, and he noticed that the room was just a bit chilly all of a sudden. The hand began relentlessly pushing him backwards and Rokk had just about had enough of this. Using his magnetic powers, he anchored himself to the floor and stood his ground, and heard her grunt lightly as she pushed harder against his chest. “Neither will yours,” he snapped, and with a series of pinging noises unfastened all of the snaps on the Kathooni woman’s armor as well. He felt a slight breeze and heard a loud clang as the woman pulled her now unfastened breastplate free and flung it across the room. Suddenly, despite his best attempts, he was flying through the air as she re-doubled her push, and his unscheduled flight ended in a massive pile of pillows piled in a corner. ‘Satin, I think,’ he managed to ascertain before the woman was on him like a tidal wave, pulling him under. The last sounds that he could identify as words sounded like, “Impertinent male! Learn your place!”
The waterfall was roaring past him, no, *through* him, and his body was shuddering with its’ passage. It seemed like it had been going on forever, and only now was he being born to consciousness from a place of warm soft darkness. He finally realized that it wasn’t a waterfall at all, it was his heartbeat, pounding so fast that it was like a piston engine, one continuous low thrum, the individual beats no longer recognizable as distinct events.
Slowly he felt the world spin into being around him, and Great Smithy, his body felt like it had been subjected to some sort of medieval torture! He was sprawled across the scattered pillows, and dimly became aware of voices in the darkness.
“It yet lives. I owe you two crystal moons and a blade of steel.”
“I would not have killed the male. Venegar would demand recompense.”
“I but jest, the wager was of the hours until the male recovered consciousness. His fortitude is unnatural for one of the lesser races. I desire him now.”
Rokk felt as well as heard a blade of steel slide from a leather sheath and a voice he recognized, as if from strange dream, said, “I announce claim.”
He felt metal-clad bodies shifting position and belatedly realized that he was lying naked in front of a bunch of people who could see in the dark. For some reason this seemed far more important than any impending knife-fight, but his feeble attempts to pull a pillow over himself were foiled by his arms, which trembled as if he had been pounded into jelly, shaken vigorously and then poured back into his skin.
“Stand down. I would not draw steel over an out-worlder, no matter his exotic skills.”
‘Exotic skills?’ Rokk thought? ‘Lady, I spent the last hour and a half *fighting for my life!* That wasn’t ‘skill,’ that was desperation…’ Clearly these Kathooni didn’t appreciate how strong they were.
“I leave you,” a voice announced matter-of-factly and the others left the room, and Rokk was again alone with his tormentor.
He had just managed to lean forward, ever so slightly, to discover that yet indeed, *everything* hurt, and not for the first time he cursed the fact that a man with no nervous system could still know pain.
“Drink this, you must replenish your fluids,” the voice ordered, and a cup the size of a serving bowl was thrust into his chest. He managed to grab it before too much of the hot fluid spilled onto his chest, and the smell was somewhat like Earth coffee, the beverage of choice to the Braalian working class. He sipped the rich liquid, and felt a pleasant burn travel down his throat and into his stomach, which, predictably, immediately cramped up at the intrusion. Still, a pleasant lassitude followed, and the pain faded away. “What is this stuff?” Rokk managed to say, shocked to realize that he had drained the entire bowl.
“You would call it an ‘energy drink.’ It is used after battle to soothe the nerves, and runners use it to carry messages from clan to clan, so that they may travel over many days without rest.”
‘Yikes,’ thought Rokk, not liking the sound of ‘many days without rest’ as related to his current position. “Actually, it’s making me a little sleepy.”
“I am not versed in your physiology. Perhaps it is poison to your kind.”
‘Well, *that’s* reassuring.’
“Would you like more?”
‘Why the hell not.’ “Please.”
As he sipped at the second cup, he could feel that the woman was crouching in front of him, no doubt seeing him clear as day even in the darkness, while he was only dimly aware of her location because of the heavy metallic residues in the cosmetics decorating her nails, skin and hair.
“I’m not clear on your customs. Should I tell you my name now?”
“Names are sacred things. If you give me your name, I will gain power over you.”
'Yeah, like I'm so on top of the situation, now…' Rokk thought sarcastically, “You could just look it up…”
“I already know what your people call you, Rokk Krinn, Champion of Venegar. But you have not *given me* your name. Do not do this, if you do not mean it.” The woman shifted before him, and he could feel the brush of her hair, which had come unfastened and was now hanging ankle-length about her like a cloak. “Would you know me?” she asked, and her voice for the first time was soft, uncertain. “Yes.” Rokk said, without hesitation, reaching out to take her hand firmly.
“My Clan is Jath,” she said with some firmness, and then leaned forward to almost whisper, “My name is Lydda, and I give it to you.”
He wasn’t sure if it was the drink, but Rokk felt his world shift around him, and understood. He leaned forward and said softly, for her ears alone, “My Clan is Krinn. My name is Rokk.”
She breathed into his ear again and somehow made his name sound like sex, “Rokk.” She leaned back slightly, “But this is not the name by which I shall know you. I shall make for you a name that none but we shall speak, when we are like this,” her hand dropped possessively to rest below his stomach, and Rokk winced with the reminder that his next date was with a regen-pack.
Her face hovered before his, and he could just make out the reflection of her silvery eye-makeup in the purple light of his eyes. “You are Thall.”
Trying desperately to remember any words in Karthooni, “Plaything?”
“Ha! No, that is Thole, and yes, you are that as well. Thall is the name of the comet that passes our world every seventh year. It ignites great storms of light that flicker like fires in the upper sky, and the ground below is bathed in purple light. Predatory beasts stalk the harsh light, taking advantage of our discomfort, and the males cower in fear. We take them into dark places and hide from the violet fire in the sky. We comfort them through this time.”
“My eyes. You said they burn with lust…”
“Yes. Your eyes call to our brightest fears. But I am a warrior. I have stared into my fear, and found there a mate.”
Her hand began to move again slowly on his stomach, as if tracing patterns only she could see. Rokk was surprised to feel his body responding to her touch. He reached out for her hand, “Lydda,” he said, saying her name very softly, “I can’t do this again. Not yet.”
“Release your fears, little male. I will not break you. Our time of battle is done. Now it is the time of peace,” she relaxed next to him and softly stroked his face.
“Uh, I’m not sure about Kathooni males, but the rest of us don’t like the phrase, ‘little male.’” Rokk noted. ‘Especially when we are naked,’ he added silently.
“It is a term of affection only, Thall. For the challenge at hand, your anatomy is…” she cast a measuring glance. “sufficient.”
‘Ouch.’ Thought Rokk. ‘Oh yeah, that’s *much* better. Note to self; Kathooni pillow-talk to be avoided at all costs…’
Rokk limped into the Embassy quietly, attempting to stick to little-used corridors, but resigned himself to his fate as he turned around a corner to find himself face to face with Imra and the Queen.
The Queen looked up with a distracted expression and not a trace of emotion passed her face as she looked him up and down. “I trust the other person looks worse for wear?”
~Garth! Bring the regen-pack! Rokk, what happened…~, Imra said, eyes wide with concern.
Drawing a breath, Rokk decided to get it over with fast, “Yeah, it’s a funny story. I got married.”
~WHAT!?!~
He heard a crash as Garth came around the corner and dropped the regen-pack in the middle of the hall. “WHAT!”
Rokk just closed his eyes and hung his head as the Queen of Venegar began laughing.
Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged |
Set
There's not a word yet, for old friends who've just met.
posted
Emerald Legion, Chapter ten “That which does not kill us, generally hurts.” – In which Rokk and Lydda redefine marital bliss
Lydda awoke to find herself alone, and Kand in her doorway, laughing roughly.
“Your pet outworlder has fled already, Jath. You offer him your name, and he takes it and runs like a mongrel with a scrap of meat.”
Lydda rose with a scowl and began seeking out her armor.
“Shall I help you prepare for the hunt?” Kand offered teasingly, shrinking back as Lydda hurled a blade into the wall next to her head.
“Leave. Or fight. But do it now.” Lydda growled, satisfied to see Kand’s eyes narrow and her back as she turned away.
Lydda prowled out into the common area to the sounds of her fellow warriors coarsely discussing the events of the night before, and Kand shot her a venomous glare of superiority. Brushing past her roughly, she reached the outer doors and hesitated for a moment.
“It is day, warrior. Death rides high in the sky.” Kand began, tauntingly, only to gasp along with the others as Lydda slammed the door override and opened up the portal. “Jath! No outworlder is worth this! I take back my words, do not risk this for that male!”
Lydda squinted at the glare of the dimly lit hallway and moved into the hallway, slamming the portal shut behind her and moving further into the soul-searing light of the Metropolitan day. She could hear her fellow warriors at the end of the hall calling, “Jath! Do not do this thing!” but she walked right out of the building into the full rays of the devil-sun, staggering to her knees under its’ merciless intensity. She felt her long hair streaming behind her in wild disarray, and knew that she was unfit to be seen, even by outworlders in such a state, her armor mismatched and her hair un-groomed, but she would die before she let this male escape with her pride.
She could only open her eyes the tiniest fraction at a time, and only for an instant, and then would stagger a distance before having to peek again. No matter how thinly she cracked her eyes, no matter how she shaded her gaze with her hands, there was always something bright and reflective within her sight to seemingly throw the fires straight into her fevered mind. She stumbled on, desperately trying to retrace her steps to the Venegarian Embassy, but unable to recognize any of the landmarks of the night among these bright buildings and milling outworlders.
A hand fell upon her arm and she whirled around to strike, but the deadly rays of Earth’s sun had poisoned her strength so that she could not even dislodge the outworlder’s frail grasp. “Oh, hey, are you okay lady, you look sick. I can take you to Met General…”
“I need to get to the Venegarian Embassy.” Lydda gasped.
“If it’s atmo poisoning, you need to get whatever mix your people breathe…,” the outworlder began, and seemed to be leading her towards one of the outworlders flying carriages.
“It is not. I breathe oxy/nitro. It is this cursed radiation. The Embassy,” Lydda insisted, feeling a tiny scrap of pride boil away as she added, “*Please.*”
“Okay, okay. Just sit here,” the elderly male said, and she felt a seat beneath her and felt a hatch closing against her side. Another hatch opened to her left and the vehicle shifted with the addition of new weight. “Clear for take-off,” the voice added, laughing and then the vehicle lurched forward. Lydda attempted to open her eyes ever so slightly, but the elderly man was wearing white pants, and she was immediately blinded by reflected glare. He could be taking her anywhere, and she was not strong enough to even fight an old human male in this light.
The vehicle stopped and the voice returned, “Okay, here’s Venegar. Boy, she’s got a thing for green, I guess.” Lydda was already prying at the hatch, but it opened before she found the fastening. “Okay, last stop, all ashore who’s going ashore.” The old man cackled, apparently having succeeded in amusing only himself.
Taking his arm and leaning heavily on it to pull herself out of the low-slung seat, Lydda quickly pulled her arm free. “I am in your debt.” She quickly unsheathed a blade from her wrist-sheath and the man gasped and pulled away.
“Whoah, nelly!”
She stumbled forward and gripped the man, placing the blade into his hand. “It is a blade of steel. My payment to you.”
“Alrighty then, you have a real nice day.” The voice quavered, lowering in volume as he beat a hasty retreat.
Lydda leaned against the side of the Embassy, still cool in the mid-morning shade, and followed the wall around until she found the entrance, which, of course, was in the middle of the brightly lit sunward-side. She was all-but crawling by the time she made it through the front portal, and slid down the wall to the side, out of the sickening light and heat.
She rested for a moment, trying to determine whether or not she was gathering her strength or laying down to die when a heavy footfall came into range. “Hey!”, came a male voice, “are you hurt? I’ll call a medic…”
A large hand, like that of a beast, gripped her shoulder and she squinted to see a large outworlder, one of Venegar’s Champions. Abandoning any attempt at subtlety, she whispered, “I need darkness. Light is poison.”
“Right. Dark you want it, dark it will be.” The male said as he pulled her to her feet and led her into a side-chamber. She heard him turning off the sources of illumination, but light still shone into the room through the open doorway, not at all blocked by the gauzy translucent curtain. “Right.” The male said, stepping out of the room and turning off the lights in the hallway. “Is that better?” he asked, sounding inappropriately concerned for a woman not his own.
“Yes.” Realizing belatedly that she had only a single blade remaining, and might have need of it soon, Lydda pulled a silver ring off of her finger. “You have my gratitude,” she said, tossing him the ring. “If I might also have some water?”
“Uh, sure,” Garth said, placing the ring down on a shelf. “But water’s free. You don’t have to pay me for that…” He returned with a pitcher of water and a glass.
Lydda looked at the extraneous container and set it on the shelf, drinking directly from the pitcher until the roiling in her stomach settled.
”You’re that Kathooni security person, right?”
“I am Jath. I am seeking my mate.” Lydda added, leaning forward and seizing the male’s wrist.
“Oh, I’m taken. But thanks.” Garth said, trying to dislodge the woman’s grip, which seemed ridiculously strong for someone who couldn’t get up a minute ago.
“Your words are nonsense. Your mating status is plain to see,” Lydda said, irritated by the male’s attempts at deception.
“No, really,” Garth grunted, trying with all of his strength to budge a single one of this woman’s steely fingers. “Spoken for, most strenuously spoken for…”
She released his wrist suddenly and Garth fell back. Only the presence of a wall stopped him from ending up on the floor as the tall woman stepped right up to him and placed her hand on his chest.
“If you are spoken for, outworlder, why do you advertise your availability with this display?” her hand traced the white lightning bolt down his chest, onto his stomach and Garth involuntarily laughed as he stepped aside before her hand could trail lower. “Any can see where this line leads. Why draw attention to what you do not offer?”
“Cultural misunderstanding,” Garth babbled, still backing away. “That doesn’t mean anything to us, just, y’know, a lightning bolt. Which is me!” his hand crackled with a display of electrical energy, and Lydda recoiled from the sudden light.
“Sorry, light bad. I forgot…”
“Enough of this babbling about your ignorance. Summon Champion Krinn to me now, I have words for him.”
“He’s not here. Do you want to wait in his room?”
“Is there light between this place and that?”
“Well, yes, but I could turn them all off…” Garth began, “or, I’ll be right back!” and he dashed out of the room at a dead run.
Lydda stood, unsure of what to do next. The outworlders were all insane, and she had sold her honor cheaply to a male who respected nothing. She wanted to cry, but tears were for children, and so she stood, turmoil eating away at her.
The heavy footsteps of the male returned, clearly running and out of breath, and she placed a hand upon her last blade, in case of treachery.
Garth swung around the corner, only to get momentarily tangled up in the curtain. In his hand he had a device that Lydda could see no use for, but at least it did not resemble a weapon.
“Okay, this might work. What spectrum of light do you see in?” Garth said breathlessly and Lydda thought back to her lessons.
“Ultraviolet is our primary spectrum. We also see in what humans call the ‘visible spectrum,’ but our sensitivity is such that under any lighting conditions comfortable to your eyes, we are blinded.”
“UV. Great. I’ve got these old-style pilot’s goggles. They were a gift from dad, from when I finished pilot’s training.” The male babbled, pulling out a small container and spraying some foul-smelling substance onto the round glass portions of the device. “And this,” he said, shaking the container, “is the super-dark green spray paint that Sarya’s been using on every single damned thing she sets eyes on…”
He swirled the items through the air, and Lydda tensed, as she now recognized that the ‘goggles’ bore close resemblance to a throwing snare for catching flying prey. “Okay, it’s dry now. Just put them on.”
Lydda accepted the item in her hand, and closed her eyes, resignedly asking. “How.”
Garth reached around and attempted to fasten the goggles, only to be hurled back into the wall so hard that he spent the next minute catching his breath. “You will not dress me!” the woman shouted, dropping the goggles onto his lap. “Demonstrate.”
Garth picked up his goggles, ruined now with the lenses blacked out for this crazy bitch, and showed her how to put them on. “See. Like that.” He then pulled them off and flung them at her head.
Lydda snatched the ‘goggles’ out of the air, puzzled at the male’s attitude, but resigned to the fact that she would never understand their outworlder madness. She put the goggles on and the room was blessedly dark. She peered out into the hallway and she barely had to squint, even looking out into the more brightly lit areas.
“This is acceptable.”
“So glad you sprocking approve. Rokk’s room is this way.” Garth said, pushing past her in a manner that had Lydda reaching again for her blade, before realizing that this male *claimed* that he was the property of another, and she had no idea as to his bid price. It would not be acceptable to damage him when she did not know if she could repay whatever value his mate placed upon him.
They reached another chamber, the same size as the others, with a strange net against one wall.
“This is Champion Krinn’s chambers?” Lydda exclaimed in disbelief.
“Yes.” Garth muttered in his best surly tone, arms crossed as he stood in the doorway.
“It should be larger than the other rooms. I misjudged his status.” She complained. “Where are his sleeping quarters?” she said, looking around.
“He sleeps on the hammock.” Garth ground out, each word sounding like it had been dragged kicking and screaming from his mouth.
“Hammock?”
Garth just nodded his head and Lydda stared again. “Wrapped up in ropes, like a snared beast? Hanging above the ground?” Lydda shook her head again. This was the least of the madness. She crossed to the room controls, next to Garth, who moved slightly away as she approached, and turned off the lights in the room. Still light poured in from the hallway, and Lydda extended her hand towards the container he still held in his hand.
Garth tossed it to her and walked away as Lydda began spray-painting the flimsy curtain with a thick coat of dark green.
Imra! You *have* to meet the missus… Garth broadcast through the Ring, dripping sarcasm as thick as paint.
With a forced smile on her face, Imra stepped out of Rokk’s room, to see Garth leaning against the wall in the hallway, rubbing his chest, where a bruise was already forming, and sporting a clipped smile to match her own.
I think you’ve covered her better qualities, yeah. Garth added as he wrapped his arm over Imra’s shoulder and they walked down the corridor away from their new guest.
Rokk awkwardly sashayed through the doorway, a large package of puffed pasty stuffed with cream cheese and crab meat in his hand, and he idly munched one of the freshly-made appetizers, savoring their steaming warmth as much as the sweet blend of flavors. Humming to himself, he continued to (badly) dance his way down the corridor to Imra’s quarters, where his Ring had already informed him his two fellow Champion’s were in residence. Knocking on the doorframe he could see that the two were clothed and sitting upright, so he leaned his head in and juggled the package of treats only to frown as the two wordlessly pointed in unison towards his room, wearing matching dour expressions.
‘Alrighty, then. Must be a lover’s quarrel thing going on. Best leave them to it.’ He gave up on the sad attempt at dancing-while-walking-while-eating, recognizing that he was already doing two more things than he could get away with, and just walked to his room, only to slow as he saw the green paint dripping from his lank, sodden curtain…
Gingerly pushing it aside, he looked into the very dark room, and immediately sensed a familiar armored presence.
Succulent cheesy crab-puffs exploded across the room as Lydda back-handed the offending offering away and shoved Rokk against the wall, with a blade to his throat.
“Okay, I’m trying to cut back, too…”, Rokk stammered, acutely aware of the press of cold steel against the suddenly hammering pulse in his throat.
“Do you wish to dissolve this mating contract, Champion Krinn?” Lydda growled right in his face. Rokk was momentarily distracted by the sight of ancient earth aviator’s goggles in the middle of her face, which also put them right in the middle of his face, and he could see that someone had painted the goggles dark green. ‘That whacky Sarya. Someone needs to take her paint-cans away,’ his brain offered by way of useless commentary.
“What? No, look Lydda, I don’t…” and then his face went numb with the force of her blow, and he was pretty sure that his jaw wasn’t really in the exact place it was meant to be. Sure enough, it clicked when he pushed it back into place, and *then* it really started hurting.
“You do not call me that name. Not until this dispute is done.”
Rokk stood up slowly, arms raised and palms forward in his best ‘I surrender, don’t kill me’ stance. “Look, Jath, I don’t know why you are angry. Please tell me what I’ve done wrong.”
“*What* you’ve done wrong?” Lydda said, knife slashing the air as she made her point, “*Everything* you’ve done wrong!” her hair whipped around wildly and she laughed hysterically. “Look at my hair!”
Rokk didn’t even know where to start. “Could you make me a list? We can start with the hair…”
“We had an agreement. We were to be mated. *I gave you my name!* And you, you, aaaa!” she turned around and ripped his hammock from the wall, “And you sleep in a fishing net! Like prey!” she flung the hammock to the ground and sat down on the floor, her hands over her face.
Torn between backing away and hopping the first shuttle back to Braal or comforting the sobbing woman, Rokk, as always, took the more dangerous route and knelt down in front of Lydda, carefully avoiding the side with the knife, and ran his fingers through her long hair, trying to unsnarl the tangles that had formed while she slept.
“Please, tell me what I’m supposed to do here. I should know, but I don’t. I know it’s my fault.”
Lydda regained her composure with effort and looked up, her silver eye-makeup glistening as it streaked down her face. “We are mated. It is *my* place to give you shelter,” she looked around at his room. “It is *my* task to return from the hunt with food, and to feed you,” she batted at an offending crab-puff. “It is *your* role to be there when I wake, to groom my hair and prepare me for the day’s battle. It is your task to bathe me and place my armor upon me. And when I return, you are to take the weight of my armor from me and cleanse my wounds.”
“I wake, and you are gone. You take my name and leave like a thief in the day. I must walk through fire and pain and death to find you. I must take charity from offensively-dressed and deceitful outworlders who mock our ways. I must wait for you in a shelter that I have not given you, and you come to me bearing food that I have not provided for you. Have I nothing to offer you?”
“Oh, Lydda, I had no idea,” Rokk ran his hands through her silky hair. He reached out with his magnetic powers and turned on the faucets to the bath in the next room. “I will bathe you, my big, strong, kinda scary warrior-woman. And then,” he added, handing her a crab-puff from the floor, “You can feed me.”
He rose slowly to his feet, pulling her up with him. “We’ll get this right.” She smiled slightly, and they crossed into the bathroom.
“You would use a week’s water ration to apologize to me?” Lydda said, her eyes wide at the sight of the filling tub.
“Uh…” Rokk began, but was cut off as Lydda pushed him into the wall.
“We must fight more often, my extravagant Thall.”
Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Sorry Set. Not sure what keeps breaking the thread. It works as long as I take out the last post. I'm going to try something.
From: Utah | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
Hyperpath: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic | Subscribe To Topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
