The Ramblings

[Kaome Sky Deathand]

Haunted by a Winter Night Phantom...in this summer stormy time?
Hah, crazier things have happened.

[Kaome Sky Deathand]

The Stage in a field of grass/ Black masked me

"To be, or not to be. Yet everything is meant to be. Whether you weather the weather of life's own storm or simply follow along this stages curtain grand design. Alas be poor and Yoric falling upon a bed of thorns and thistles, to shall be lifted nevermore and again to the bliss of a sweet kiss. Rise and thou shalt fall but endure thine rise and out this damn spot upon which your die was cast. Live and be lived and then see what I have seen as the cosmos burn out beneath the gaze of the mask you carry, And know for certain this is all a dream."

-Told to me by me in a dream, upon which I promptly woke.

The Revelation

I beheld myself in a realm of white-gray fog, shrouded in silence.
Before me stood a vast and gnarled tree, the oldest tree one could imagine, immense and powerful, even as it looked to be dead it held that strong vibe of life. And the fog lifted, my eyes piercing the veil, to see before me a vast garden, one forgotten by time. And lo, a voice did call to me saying: "I know ye not, speak quickly then, I bid thee say, what manner of man art thou?" I turned and at a great distance beheld a man upon a pale horse, even to it's eyes and hooves. Seven stars did this man hold in his right hand, garbed in flowing silks of raven color, skin paler than the harvest moon, eyes like galaxies, birthing and dying in the span of seconds. I spake saying: "Who I am is immaterial, that I am here is all that matters." He did gaze at me at length, for how long I could not say. He then stepped his horse toward me, crossing the gulf of oblivion in the twinkling of an eye. He spake saying: "How is it you come to be here Son of Adam, in a place that has long been forbidden to the Sons and Daughters of Man?" Again I spake saying: "That I am here is all that matters." Then did he point to the tree saying: "Go then, for you are here to speak with the Tree and be given gifts and curses in equal part. What you will see I cannot say, and what I cannot say you may see." I turned from the Pale Rider and ascended steps that were once hidden from my eyes. At the top I reached a platform and there sprang a waterfall from the midst of the tree. I did bask in the waters of life and there I learned. When I stepped back I was not wet, yet water flowed from my spartan clothes. I returned to the horseman and before I could speak he spake saying: "What thou hast seen is for thine own eyes. What thou is tasked, is for thine own hands. What thou must sow, so shall you reap, even to the glory of God." I spake saying: "A message I shall deliver, and a message they shall hear." He spake saying: "I have seen your coming and do tremble, for I pray you do not succeed, for if thou should return in a goodly time, then they are truly lost and all that you desire shall be laid at thine feet." He did point saying: "Travel the road of which I point and be forever gone, for sure, one day, you will have us undone." I did travel without sound, away from Heaven's first gift and did come to my body once more. All that I have seen, I cannot say, what I cannot say, you may once see. I was tasked and so I shall deliver. We are meant to suffer, until our last breath rattles from our lungs. What fleeting happiness we now possess we should embrace, for what we perceive as time is fleeting at best. I speak only that you might hear, for that is my purpose. You are given the gift of free will and ultimately decide for yourself which path you shall travel. I am only here to ensure you hear the message. From the songs that angels sing was I born, and the earth is my home. I shall not rest, nor go to the light or fall into darkness, but wander the earth until all have heard the message. Then I shall wander still, for there is no place for my shell to linger but upon the soil and my spirit there reside.

I awoke, knowing I pay a price that I promised myself I would one day pay.

~Monday, February 8th, 2010

The men with no faces and the crossing of the Balance

I closed my eyes and fell asleep. My eyes opened to find me sitting in a chair. The room I was in was dark, clinking chains hung at random points. A weak orangish light swung back and forth from the rafters. I could hear vermin in the wall. I made to stand but found myself stuck to the chair. Not bound at all. I just couldn't move. Then the people came in. Moving shadows with horrible masks of dancing light....
They didn't say anything at first. Just stood around me, towering. They spoke a broken guttural language, if you could call it that...just to each other. I could not speak at first, but finally when they asked me a direct question I felt weight taken off my chest although nothing was there but a black undershirt. One of them asked my name. I answered: "I am the Anthem." None of them moved but I felt my right arm break at the elbow...
They asked again. I answered: "I am the Assessor of the Black Tontine." They shattered my left knee-cap with what felt like a shotgun blast. They didn't move or flinch or anything. They just stood there. Their faces danced, light and shadow mixing back and forth in vile patterns. I didn't cry out. No tears, no blood. I just blinked. They asked a third time and I Answered: "I am the last breath before dying." My spine snapped, my right arm was broken again. My chest took a hammer blow and I felt my ribs crack and my lung pierced by bone. I still sat there. They got angry and started screaming like banshees...
Then it was like a whirlwind. I just felt like twenty guys with baseball bats kept slugging me all over. I just sat there while the things of shadow raged and struck out at me. I just sat there till they were spent and standing like statues. Then I got to my feet, standing up from the chair and listening to the wood creak and protest as I stood. The light above me started to spin like mad. My shadow danced and took on different aspects kneeling, prone, laughing, crying, strangling the Shadow Men with their faces of light. It blurred and they started to whimper and then started to scream. They tried to turn and leave but I held them there. I took two steps to the closest one and said: "Kaitan sustains me. I am the Balance and it must be served." I contorted the Shadow Man with a twist and flick of my right broken arm and he was both pulled into himself like a Black Hole and spat outward like a supernova. The other two exploded into nothingness just by watching it. I now stood there, covered in some dark substance. I turned and faced another me in the chair. He was broken and bleeding and crying and very much still alive. My 'Darker' self stepped right toward me and looked me in the eyes. He said: "Which one is real? Which one brings balance?" then I awoke.

[Kaome Sky Deathand]

Styx?
Oh he'd have kicked her. Cursed her.
Muttered and screamed and raged each and every possible expletive that had ever existed. Her limp body would have been the target for bone crunching, flesh gouging, muscle tearing attacks. Her skull would go last if Vince didn't crush it first. Then Styx would have seen to Red who would have been pissed at her commander and rightly so. Styx, would feel bad, like he lost his edge bringing an obvious bad idea right inside their home. Vince would be right to say something harsh, reminding the commander of who he was, what he had done. Styx would shake his head and sigh. He would glare back at the body with a sneer, only wishing she was still somehow alive, broken and bleeding and mewling so he could peel the flesh from her slowly...or throw her broken form to some slavering stupid feral ghouls, Super Mutants with a penchant for 'fun' things to do with human females. Anything. She deserved so much worse.
He'd probably burn her in the courtyard, head on a spit, skull leering out forever...maybe half burned.
Lots of rage and spite to let go there.

Then he'd nuke Vault 105.
Flood it with an army of talons after he called in all his favors. Bring it crashing down only in the hopes he might be alive just long enough to execute anyone who knew her name, what she looked like, anything that even conjured a memory.
If he died bringing everything she once knew down then it would be an equal exchange for that one moment of superhuman stupidity.

Pins and Needles?
They'd probably live a wonderful life together, in love.

Alas we only get one shot and if you're a fool for a smile or a kiss your bullet might miss so keep your eye on your goal.
There's just one rule that can save you your life, its a hand on your knife, and a devil in your soul.

Keep your hand on your gun.

[Kaome Sky Deathand]

"Blackheart, circle around on the left. I'll draw their fire."
Legion spoke to over the tightband, watching as his present company in the light framed AC 'Inferno' crouched behind cover. The city was in ruins around them, several members of the MVRebels had laid waste to the buildings without any demands made. Senseless destruction. The sortie went out and those close enough to respond did. This leading up to a joint operation between Legion in his Hard-Wired Coffin, Blackheart who Legion suspected was none other than the Allerbmu CEO Mr.Spencer, in his Inferno, and a woman whos path kept crossing both of theirs. Spencer enjoying the...lighter...side of that relationship. Carom. In her Phoenix.
Legion had once carried her out of facility. Then, some time later, killed her sister in self defense on the Ark Orbital platform. He had tried to make up for that with both proof and a third of the bounty from the death of Raven, whom Legion had also killed...with a blessing from Allerbmu and a few other corporations in a joint effort with the Lucifer Blacks. Tension was still high, but she tolerated his presence. He figured them balanced if only just. He saved her life, but took her sisters...that she didn't like anyway, but...

"Carom."
*-* I'll cover. *-*
"Acknowledged."
he shook his head. She still had it after all this time.
He wondered how much she remembered about Layered, if she was haunted by the past as he himself was. A relic of the old world, still here only because he was too terrible a thing to just die.
The screens flared. Targets made themselves known.
The Hard-Wired Coffin burst from cover, throwing debris in every direction.
With a stalwart gait, he crossed into the fire zone, grenade launcher unslung, firing even as his ponderous steps carried him forward. Bullets rang off his super heavy frame, barely even scratching the paint. He chuckled, Legion, and keyed to return fire, bringing up his Pulse rifle and unleashing a burst of solid projectiles that lit up the night with tracer streaks.

It was going to be a good pay day.

[Kaome Sky Deathand]

Pinned.

Sure, he could take it, his AC a ponderous Super-Heavy with more armor than most bunkers, however, it wouldn't be prudent to spend most of the pay on repairs and ammunition costs. Legion was one of a declining group of pilots that still used solid projectiles and warheads almost exclusively. There was just something so satisfying about the impact of depleted obtanium bullets shattering enemy armor points.
The rebels had a surprisingly good vantage point and the weapons to keep it. Even Carom was having difficulty finding targets to pick out and Blackheart was currently navigating broken buildings in silence and stealth. No telling when he would be in position and even then if it would be enough to break the point.

*-*This is Angel...*-*
"Go ahead." Legion replied to his transport pilot. The woman was one of the best he had ever seen in and outside of combat situations. More than once she had covered long enough with the airships on board weapon systems for legion to complete a sortie or, if he was feeling honest, to limp to safety.
*-*I found him*-*
Legion chuckled, deep and ugly. He keyed broadband.
"Titan Fall."

*-*Been a long time...partner.*-*
Titans Fist shattered the ground with his impact. His weapon systems triggered almost at once, unleashing death and destruction all around him. Legion burst from cover, opening up with his Pulse Carbine and a solid shot from his grenade launcher. The night gave way to false dawn as the two Acs stormed the point.

[Jericho Veronus]

I'm pretty sure if Titans Fist unleashed his weapons systems, there wouldn't be anything left for Legion to use his Pulse Carbine and grenade launcher on.

[Kaome Sky Deathand]

The Crossing.
It is different for each of us. Our memories of our last visits often overlap for what seems like an eternity. Sometimes, if the area we enter is weaker than a, shall I say 'mere' calling for assessment, those who witness The Crossing can see quite a show. Reality breaks around us for that moment. Like glass, each shard showing a different event from before or even ahead, for time really has no placement from our realm. It exists but not in any manner that would be useful to anyone. Even ourselves. We come when we are called or our contracts have been threatened, or broken by any party.

This Crossing is no different.
I can see...there, a moment when I took a tithe of fruit. It was small and red and almost round. Crisp. Juice that flowed when I bit into it. Sweet. The flesh was thin but the fruit itself was filling. The seeds even tasted of sickly sweetness. Another shard and I see a bottle. A drink. Another tithe. It was dark and rich and it burned the throat of the form I took in that moment. A pale man, tall. I remember those days. Wasteful.

Another, a doomed planet, burning.
I stood on the ashen ground and tsked, chiding the blasted form before me. The Deamon was a wretched thing, and the tontine, the contract, it made had not been fulfilled. It promised power enough to one to turn a world to ruin and protection to see it through. The man had been brought down, his work unfinished. The Deamon failed to protect him. The corrupted soul was gone and so the Deamon would pay the recompense for the tontine unfilled. It begged. It tried to find a loophole. The gaffer stick appeared in my hand and it screamed as I removed it from continuity. No warp for it to return to. No realm to torment any more. Such is my power.

Here, a lovely girl.
She signed the tontine and I pitied her for it. A rare feeling. She was so sure...and I, ancient, knowing, she had heart set and yet as soon as he was safe he left her for another. I spared the scythe and compelled her to walk off a cliff into the Void. She never hit the bottom, but her grief has scarred that place for eternity.

Ah, my tontine with the righteous man.
When he made it I smiled, though he could not see it. My form then, as now, tall, cloaked in long black. My eyes blaze, haloed by the light of madness from our domain. To see one such as him crossing a line such as this. He signed it without hesitation. Justified. I laugh at him still, I have much time, I will see him again.

My tontine with a rat.
A canvass of human skin with script written in a long elaborate lawyerly language. It is lengthy and full of boring details to ensure that the party that signs cannot be victim if the tontine should fall through. It is well done, nay, perfectly done. The culmination of two lifespans that have seen the same stars brought into life, dim. Even so, the author fell victim to hunger and while he feasted upon sweet meats and cranial fluid this...rodent...knocked over an inkwell of blood and stepped in it. Its next few tracks carried it across the canvass and I just happened to be around....
It was good as any signature...This particular rodent has lived for thousands of years and I expect it will outlast the doom of the universe if it is within my power to uphold that tontine then.

There are others but I have Crossed now.
Another fool wanting power and riches. I sigh on the inside, but hold out my hand.
Any mark will do, as long as the price will be paid in the end.

[Kaome Sky Deathand]

==> This is detached battle back-up unit LETHE.
==> Do you require control instructions?

"Amusing. No Lethe, I don't, please run the start up procedure."

==> ... ... ...
==> Start up procedure initialized.
==> Do you require a mission overview?

"No Lethe, that isn't necessary, I know where we are going."

==> ... ... ...
==> Do you require my presence?

"..."
"Who else can I talk to out there Lethe? Who else has been where I have been? Seen what I have seen? Fought what I have fought? Bled with me? Bloodied my enemies? Lost comrades in the field? Saved lives? Ended souls?"

==> ... ... ...
==> Thank you...Commodore.

~Before the Storm

[Kaome Sky Deathand]

HADES - Orbital Frame => Mark II Orbital Frame (OF) from the older days in a braver age. Bulky, heavily armored, modified to be kept up to standards with current tech levels. Armament includes Hands on Weaponry, usually a modified assault rifle carried by the Regulars, but not limited to rocket launchers, pistols, rail guns, etc. A tower shield, a sword forged from Jupiter metatron, in-built sub-weapon systems such as short range rockets. A cape structured from a collection of small plates that absorb energy attacks and restructure themselves as the OF moves. (Naked Anubis 'wing' idea) Pilot is housed in the core between vital systems instead of the 'cockpit' ((stupid design)) Equipped with a detached battle back up unit (LETHE). Equipped with an experimental drive system that allows the pilot to perform intense combat maneuvers that would hinder or kill pilots under normal conditions. Appears as a heavily armoured knight with a 'V' visored eye plate and a crown of spikes/thorns. Black the color of space underlit by an ember red/gold to appear on fire/hellish.

Hades - Personnel - Pilot => Captain/then Commodore of the OF fleet. Veteran of many battles. Survivor. Top Ace pilot leagues beyond many others. A slow rage that is focused in battle. Wears an older uniform from long ago, high black boots, polished, gray pants, black and silver sword belt, gray coat, black gloves to mid forearm, black/interior red half cape from right to left shoulder boards, drapes down left side, gray officers cap with black and silver trimming/piping. A handsome face/then concealing space/pilot helmet. Carries an officers cutlass/saber/short sword and a pistol. War Hero. Tired. Follows orders. Orders followers. Feared. Respected. Has private quarters that connect directly to OF HADES launch bay. They are very nice/bordering opulent in stark contrast to how many would expect them to be (spartan, probably sleeps on the floor of an empty room somewhere on maintenance level...someone should actually say that) loyal to a fault. Brought back the most important find of perhaps the new century. Enjoys toasts (Not the bread) Commodore // speaks through vid screens, intercom or via secretary (see Persephone) is rarely seen outside his quarters.

LETHE - Advanced AI => Detached back-up battle unit installed in HADES. Much more than a standard operating system, LETHE talks to the pilot (Hades) begins to form an understanding of tactics and maneuvers and bond with the individual. LETHE will have by this point formed its own opinions, questions, doubts, wonders, fears, etc.
LETHE {-Lee-thee-} is, as the Greek Deity with the same name (and river with the same name in the underworld) female.

Persephone - Personnel => Title (replaces name in active duty roster) of the person (always female) that acts as secretary to Commodore Hades. Current Persephone is brunette, wears glasses (sometimes contacts) is very no nonsense. Does her Job and keeps 'Poseidon' up to date on the Commodore as per request. This person is always hand picked for their keen tactical mind, ability to think on their feet in times of duress and able to be very discreet when the need arises. They are one of (two, three, no more than seven) individuals that have seen the inside of the experimental/advanced HADES cockpit. ('Poseidon', Hades, technician/repairmen)

Things not to forget
-------------------------

ARTEMIS - Orbital Frame
ATHENA - Orbital Frame
ARES - Orbital Frame
'Ares' - Personnel - Pilot
ZEUS - Weaponry - Omega Cannon Weaponized Urenbeck Catapult
HEPHAESTUS - Massive Full AI/Orbital Frame 'Thunderbolt' Shell Loader
HOPLITE - Standard LEV Unit of Defence Forces
POSEIDON - Orbital Frame => Dusk
'Poseidon' - Personnel - Pilot/Leader => Dusk
CRONOS - Weapons Platform => Carries the ZEUS Cannon and 'The Forge' where HEPHAESTUS makes the shells
OLYMPUS -Space Station => Currently in orbit around Jupiter (Io specifically)

Jupiter Metatron
Epic mission into the 'EYE'
Enemy Forces from Mars/Earth?
Pirates!

More Later I'm sure (1/26/15)

[Kaome Sky Deathand]

Crux?
Well, I figure this is how that would have gone down.

Option A

"Give me the Desert." he would ask in his sand scorched voice.
Maxwell would think it over, then nod. "Done."
Crux would then turn to his once allies and ask them to quietly leave or face the wrath of the Desert Gods.
A fight would ensue no doubt, and it would end terribly.

Option B

All this assuming the other pokemon are fighting whoever is left of the Player-Characters teams.

The Hydrix would be far too slow to do anything against the Golden Scizor and that beast would be shredding the Desert God with every strike. So Crux would release Zamphir, his Aerodactyl and proclaim:
"There, that man there, Maxwell, sent his golden beast against your kind and the soul of that Aerodactyl cries out for revenge! Avenge his defeat by the hands of the Golden Scizor." Sending Zamphir against Maxwell to distract the him and at least Scizor for a moment.
In the end, Crux would attempt to fight the Golden Scizor with sword and knife and let down his guard on the left to be stabbed through while he threw his dagger at a distracted Maxwell. As the knife traveled, he would pull the Scizors crab-like weapon further into his chest and whisper that the beast has failed his master, assuming the knife struck Maxwell, and that he had only slain a pitiful man in return. He would spit blood, laughing before slinking down and dropping the ring that allowed him to 'call' the desert god. He would speak softly, asking Sutekh to remove the mountain and then he would think no more.

The Desert Gods, Destroyer, Devourer, and Deathbringer would plummet into the mountain and then self destruct.
As long as the enemy was destroyed, that is all that mattered. Sorry to everyone else.