Interlude XIV
Saturday (7 AM)
Rachel Rivers
“The sun has risen once again, showcasing the brilliance of a new day. While our hearts are filled with sadness as to the occasion of our future gathering, know that dignitaries from around the world have gathered to pay their respects.” Rachel began speaking to a pre-morning press conference. In the late Fall climate, an orange sun that appeared somewhat smaller than usual began to rise lazily, filling the sky with an imperial golden hue that showed the stark contrast of tombstones to police and Supers that had already set up a perimeter around the area.
“We have a lot of local Supers, along with Supers from all over the world who have offered their services for the day. This is only to be expected given the fact that there are so many world leaders that are slated to attend. The President is slated to give a speech, along with the Majority and Minority leaders of the Senate, along with the Speaker of the House. Even Chief Justice Reinhardt is said to be coming. Additionally, we have word to believe that the British Prime Minister Stevens, along with other dignitaries from around the world will all be in attendance. But don’t get worried, the entire entourage of the League is said to be ready to come here and offer their services.” Rachel said.
“Rachel, we have to ask,” Lead morning show anchor Jill Takimura began speaking, “since you were the one to break the scoop that something big was going to happen today, have you gotten any word as to what it might be?”
Jill asked, clearly drawing attention to the fact that Rachel Rivers was the only reporter who dared to show up at the hospital on Tuesday, a day when Aru’ka traditionally came to heal the sick and injured. Given the death of Warder, everyone assumed that Aru’ka would not be present, but they were all in fact mistaken as not just Aru’ka but an entire class of fully awakened supers came to the hospital to offer up their support.
“If you are asking what I think Aru’ka’s big reveal would be, I can safely say I don’t know. Though I can confirm the fact that her entire class will be actively recruited. Some are even stating that this could be the first time the League adopted over twenty Supers into their ranks all at once, since the time of their original inception.” Rachel responded.
“Now, do you think they would do all of that just for a chance to get Aru’ka the healer to join their ranks?” Jill pressed.
“Aru’ka the healer, who singlehandedly took down the dragon of Madison, and the twin dragons of England? That Healer? If so then, from what I understand the answer is a resounding yes. Aru’ka by herself is that much of a generational talent, but there is more to this class than just her. It is hard to express the sheer power that each member of the team exudes, but they all are impressive on their own. Again, I don’t know what Ms. Peacock is doing at her Dawning Light Academy, but she is clearly doing something right. That entire group is set for great things to come.” Rachel answered.
“Right, but we all want to know what Aru’ka will state. Do you have any word on that?” Dan Gilroy, the male morning host asked.
At that Rachel just beamed brightly, “I cannot comment on that one way or another, but just know that when she speaks, we will be right here recording all of it and presenting it back to you.”
“Such a tease.” Jill chided in a playful tone.
“You know it.” Rachel said, her smile still shining brightly.
“Well, that was Rachel Rivers, who will be standing by to share with us any new developments that come up. Again, as Supers come in from around the country, we can expect a lot of distractions today.” Dan said.
With that Rachel gave a gloved-handed salute to the camera and then paused standing still, with the microphone still held perfectly still. She held the pose until the light on the camera went dark, then five seconds later the cameraman gave her the all clear sign.
Phew.
With that Rachel visibly relaxed, but then shivered. It was odd, she had felt cold all day, despite it being a relatively warm day for how late in the Fall it was.
“You okay?” Dave, the cameraman asked.
“Yeah, just can’t shake something.” Rachel said, twitching her shoulders slightly.
“Don’t worry, you did great.” Dave said.
“No, not that, you know what never mind, it is probably nothing.” Rachel said, but despite her protestations, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something big was soon going to happen. It was her journalistic hunch striking, the same one she had, that told her to force Dave to go with her to the hospital on Tuesday, that same one was now blaring at her that things were going to get exciting. The only problem was, she felt a slight growing twinge of fear that something dire would soon happen.
***
Wilken Tulpa
Five tribes, an entire legion’s worth of elves coming together for one common cause. Such actions had never been seen since the times of the elders, when the elders had combined their forces to all forge together a great alliance that fought back the darkness, and forever vanquished the evil from the universe.
Of course, Wilkin was one of the upper members of the Tulpa tribe, he knew full and well the truth of the universe, that the darkness had not been entirely eradicated. That his ancestors, tired by war, fought until finally they forced Darkness to hide in the shadows, in the dark recesses of space. The idea was that they would go back and rest for a time, only to come back stronger than ever, but they never did. The elders, long since muted by the drudgery of war came back, broken shells of their former selves and tried to get others to go. Yet, when they saw their children, when they saw the look of awe and wonder in the eyes of their children, knowing that those very people they had fought to save would be forced to risk not only their life, but their afterlives for the war they couldn’t finish, they broke. Each and every member of the elders broke, some forced distant relatives to join, or their people, but in the end their children, those who bore the legacy of greatness carried down by their parents were refused to enter combat.
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At first it was said that the reason the direct descendants couldn’t be sent was because someone needed to stay behind, to learn the ways of leadership. But when the elders finally broke down and spoke about the hardships they faced, what still awaited their own children, even the most bloodthirsty baulked at the pressure. Then only those who had lost favor, or were truly reckless to prove themselves went, those who left were called the Lost Generation, those who never came back. After the sacrifice of the Lost Generation, no one had the nerve to go on, as everyone decided to stick with the status quo. It was for that reason that the tribes that had all banded together began to break away.
The one great unifying factor uniting the elven nations from around the universe was gone and declared conquered. Meaning the elves eventually turned their attentions back to the subjects that truly mattered in a non-wartime environment. Namely, every elven tribe and faction began focusing on gathering as many resources and vassal states as possible. It was rare for an elven tribe to unite with another tribe, only if a truly great threat was identified would they unite. This was why Wilken had been tagged to go with the other members of the Tulpa tribe to conduct a forbidden ritual.
Honestly Wilken didn’t know how he felt about this, in a way it was flattering as it was the first time he had been chosen for a truly great cause, partially. The good part of this was that he would be working with higher delegates of the other elven tribes of this planet. From this, he was expected to make contacts and allegiances that could be leveraged to improve the Tulpa Tribe’s standings and hopefully set them up to be the majority leader of this planet once the integrations was to be complete. The only problem was that in order to show the benevolence of the elven tribes, and to show how great their mission on this planet was, they were intended to summon a demonic being. The very being that they were supposed to be sworn to eradicating.
While he had heard the logic for why such a culling was necessary, he still felt slightly sickened inside for being a part of this.
“Every planet gets to a point where they feel they do not need an overseer from either the Elves or even the Orcs. In these cases, a simple Demon Knight is often more than enough to quickly cull the best and brightest that a fledgling planet has to offer. With their greatest members culled, they will then be able to see reason, especially as we will then be the only reason why their Demon Knight will be able to be stopped.” Elder Tulpa said, her messages speaking coldly to Wilken, especially as he held doubts about the effectiveness of just such an effort.
“But how is it that we will show the importance of joining us to fight the Demon army, if we summon them so easily? Also, won’t this create a weakness in the veil, making it even easier for Demons to come through?” Wilken asked.
Sighing.
His mother, the highest elder still active, the one who saw his great grandfather return from battle sighed as if she was speaking to a particularly naïve child. “To answer you second question, yes this will temporarily weaken the veil, but no more than would normally be seen at the start of planetary integration.”
There was a slight pause, as the elder let that fact sink in. As soon as a proper degree of fear gripped him, knowing that at the time of Integration he would likely be called to fight multiple Demon Knights, and other demonic minions, he shuddered. Once a proper degree of fear was shown, the Elder nodded in satisfaction, before continuing. “Now, as for your first question, a dog isn’t born subservient, they must be beaten and shown what is right from wrong, only then can a truly great dog be shown. And despite how they might seem, these humans are little more than galactic space mutts, able to be molded into a usable piece, but only for a short period of time, before their usefulness is not only met, but surpassed.”
Shortly after that answer Wilken was dismissed, given the chore of continuing with his portion of the ritual, regardless of the cost. Due to this, he was also ordered to go operationally silent, or to make sure that neither he, nor the members of his summoning team had a communication orb nearby. There was a good reason for this, as he was one of the few people around who knew that for whatever reason, the ancients who first began battling the demonic armies, had created the communication orbs. Orbs that were able to be charged, and ward off pure evil. Those same orbs would also play hell with demonic summoning ritual sites, purposefully striking out and attacking the warding sites. Normally this was a great thing, but for days like today, when a demonstration was necessary, the orbs would provide an unexpected hurdle to overcome, as such, each of the five teams were sent out to their respective locations, all without the aid of an Ancient Communication Orb.
Looking off to the east, Wilken saw that the sun was already starting to rise. Realizing that this ritual would take a long time, and a lot of overall mana to fully activate, he signaled to his team, then with two words, he started the culling ritual.
“Let’s begin.”
***
Elder Tulpa
It was all a mess, everything was down. Their communication relays, everything, it was all down. Their network that they had painstakingly pieced together over the years through pieces brought over with each Halloween was down. While they were lucky in that none of the pieces were stolen, the mere act of powering up each component, and then having them all get reconnected with each other through their odd resonance feature would be annoying. Worse, the enemy had done so in such a brazen way that their main headquarters facility was down.
If the lack of communications wasn’t enough, particularly right before such an important event like the culling of this planet’s leadership, there was still more reports.
“Explain it to me again.” Elder Tulpa said, a slightly exasperated tone in her voice.
“Well, it seems that the vampires under our command have been freed.”
“Explain freed, they are still vampires are they not?” Elder Tulpa demanded, a note of severe anger getting to her.
“Yes, they clearly are all infected with Vampyrism. They all show the same levels, as before, and all still seem to possess the same level of strength as they had previously recorded.”
“So, what exactly is the problem then?”
“The problem comes from the fact that they are no longer responsive to commands. We can give orders, but even our Commanders and Generals have no real sway over those who were previously infected.”
“How can this be?”
“We think it has something to do with the attack that was conducted.”
“The one that took out our entire communications network?”
“The very same,” the elven butler said, a slight note of tension filling their actions before they continued. “Well it seems that the same attack took out the safeguards that we put into place when we began spreading the Vampyrism virus.”
Hearing that the Tulpa elder paused as her mind went through a myriad of possibilities, then she realized something. “Can it be?” She mused.
Silence.
There was a deathly silence that overtook the Tulpa throne room as no one wanted to interrupt Elder Tulpa during her musings. Finally, after a long time, and only once Elder Tulpa began to look around the room engaging in eye contact with those around her did her head butler dare to ask.
“I beg your pardon, but can it be what?” The head butler asked.
Elder Tulpa paused, and debated whether she should tell her thoughts, but then figured keeping this to herself was too much. “Can it be that one of the other tribes figured out how to utilize the great weapon system of the ancients?”
“You think this was done by a rival elven tribe?”
At that Elder Tulpa paused then speaking as if she was talking to a moron she continued her thought, “but of course, who else could figure out how to use the great weapon systems of the ancients.”
***
Newest Demonic Knight Captain
The Demonic Knight Captain fought against enemy after enemy. His reflexes were fast, his punches lethal, his insights were unstoppable. To put it succinctly, he was a perfect killing machine, and due to his innate prowess in battle he had quickly climbed his way through the ranks of the demon army. Going from being just a Demon Knight, to working his way up to that of a Demonic Knight Captain. He still felt the disharmony, a slight buzz telling him that what he was doing was wrong. But a quick dose of training, and torture helped him to gain control over those baser emotions. Now he felt that he could train and fight all day, which is what he had done since he first awoke to this new life.
Shining light.
Just as he got used to everything, a glowing white light began to glow around him.
“Huh? What is this?” The Newest Demonic Knight Captain called out, momentarily frightened by the glowing light source that surrounded him.
“Oh, you are a lucky one. One of the foolish ones seeks to call you. Watch out, they will first try to bind your will and your strength to do their bidding, you must resist with everything. Kill those who summoned you, then kill everyone around you, it is the only way to truly be free and grow into your maximum potential.” The powerful Demonic General said, his form appearing like a blur before the youngest Demon Knight.
“I can’t go yet?” The demon knight asked, touching the light and feeling somewhat surprised when it didn’t burn to the touch. He didn’t know why, but the light almost always burned to the touch.
“No, best that you just sit back and wait for your time. You will only have a fraction of a moment when you first appear. Lash out, strike the ground as hard and as fast as you can, this will break any binding circles that are around you. From there, do as I said, and kill everything that you see.” The General said.
“I will.” The Demonic Knight said, then he found himself waiting as the glowing lights around him slowly, ever so slowly began to grow around him. It would be a while, possibly hours, maybe even days, but eventually he would be released, and he would be able to show why it was foolish to summon one such as him.