“Lento spawned at coordinates <32.2, 7.4>, sector W3” the monitor chimed in it’s robotic voice.
Rem thought about dismissing the call, but a commission is a commission… perhaps the money outweighed the call, but it wasn’t worth the effort on either end. Still, all the equipment that Rem had needed some touch ups, as the dark gray helmet was beginning to show wear, the respirator on it had begun to run low on battery as marked by the dimming green light emanating from the vents. And of course, the bodysuit that resembled a morphsuit out in the real world began to thin, it’s once thickened dark gray rubbery cloth began to weather down to a thin sheet, and it’s neon green displaced stripes and lightning bolt-esque patterns began to dim as the battery for the power pack on Rem’s back began to diminish. Even the Symbol of Eternity began to show that it too was dimming. Either way, something about the repetitive calls weighed on Rem’s mind as of late, but maybe it was simply a bad hunch.
“Alright, I’ll be there in 10” Rem replied to the monitor.
Taking these calls was a pain, even if it did pay decent cash.
“Why should someone so talented waste their time on crap like this” thought Rem quite narcissitically as they began to finger around the black bars of the Delta bike they were riding. “I should be back at HQ getting paid to do crap all, like those friggin desk jocks do. They don’t even know anything useful! The creator had no idea what they were doing, creating desk jobs for those idiots”. A blank demeanor fell on Rem’s face as they realized they slipped up and started thinking like they used to when they were a total A-hole… again.
The Waste was particularly calm this night, not an unusual occurrence, but still peaceful. The Delta bike whizzed across the barren landscape, with it’s gray body humming like the purring of a sabertooth. Black polygons whizzed past as Rem stared straight on, the occasional neon-orange translucent chameleon, or a light blue mirror shine bird floating in the air aimlessly looking around passed by as the vehicle buzzed along. The landscape itself wasn’t all that bad, but quite empty. A simple grid like series of polygonal black ruins littered the scene, with the area sometimes interrupted with a tech-y looking flower popping up from the flat ground, shining it’s brightly colored neon petals like some sprite from a video game. The black sky mirrored the Waste, but instead of ruins and polygons strewn about, it was an endless black lake, like staring into a void. Out here in the Waste, even stars weren’t rendered by the DTR-15. The only feature in the featureless landscape was the mountain range all the way over in Eloin, but that was visible from almost anywhere in the Waste, of course excluding the far lands, in sector WX. For a second, Rem thought they saw a faint light on the mountain.
“Alright, I’m here, but I see no glitch. There’s supposed to be a Lento here, right?” Rem asked the monitor.
“Locating glitch” the monitor pinged out.
The situation looked ever more boring for Rem.
“Glitch located, drawing towards coordinates <26.3, 8.2>, Eloin Precinct” the monitor gladly chimed.
“Why would it walk towards the mountains? Those things aren’t supposed to have a sense of direction, and why that specific coordinate?”
“Query failed to parse, insufficient data in the library to answer” the monitor bleeped.
Rem continued to drive, now turning to the mountains to see if there was a glitch hidden around the many black polygon ruins.
“Ah, found ‘em”
The glitch was classified as a Lento, so naturally it would look a little more beefy, but of course to Rem, this was nothing. The glitch simply was a menial task, but money is money. Jumping off the Delta, Rem approached the monster haphazardly, it’s large demeanor and red and black mask gave the monstrous blob a look of toughness, the massive arms like tree trunks glued to a burnt pile of glitching patterns. The surroundings, the monster, the dark scene would all make one think that they were in some sort of horror game, but in reality, the monster was simply a farce.
Leaping toward the glitch, Rem struck it once in the leg with a beaming sword, neon green and gray with a blade flickering out neon green sparks as it passed through the monster’s flesh and bone. The second strike was slightly more sloppy, but it didn’t matter, because by the time it rolled around, both legs and a large chunk of the chest was gone, spilling out a black fluid glitching rapidly with red green and blue colors. The second strike however finished the job, taking off the head of the massive beast. A brief pause occurred as Rem leapt nimbly away from the corpse, then an explosion of red hued pixelations boomed out from the corpse. The corpse then faded into the void.
“Interesting, they usually don’t squirt that much” noted Rem to themself, “The contract is complete, is my cash wired over?”
“Payment transferred”
The computer paused, a slight red hue beginning to fade in the screen.
“SOS detected by coordinates <26.3, 8.2>, Eloin Precinct… major glitch detected… several casualties reported”
Just then, a silvery blue blast of light shot past the sky, and looking toward the mountains, Rem saw multiple other blasts ringing out from the side of a large mountain. Rem jumped onto the Delta bike, immediately speeding toward the mountain.
“Well that’s new”.
“Are there any more details?” Rem asked, as the black landscape gradually churned out into a gray blue rocky highland and the sky began to fill with colorful nebulae and stars.
“Current data: L-3 glitch detected, 5 wounded severely, and it appears there are multiple glitches from across the waste closing to this location” beeped the monitor.
Turning now to full throttle, Rem then proceeded come up to the mountain range, also barren of much vegetation in this spot but less so than the waste. More shots began to whizz from the SOS spot, becoming more and more frequent. At that moment, as Rem began to come towards the site, a light mist began to fade in, first a mere mist, but then began to grow more and more dense, turning into a heavy fog, then into a thick curtain of misty gray.
“I can’t see anything here, where’d this fog even come from?”.
Rem then tapped their wrist two times, and a glowing green display popped up, after going back between fidgeting around with the Delta’s bars to keep the bike on track and selecting various panels on the wrist display, the fog then became more so a translucent gray than a blanketing wall. In the rocky distance of the highlands, there were several flying white and blue figures and a large ominous crimson one in the middle. Blue-silver shots were being fired everywhere, only to be dodged by the figure in the middle.
As Rem approached, the figures turned out to be a group of Verba Falus ranked officers from Eloin led by a Verba Quaia as indicated by the shape of the blue stripe on the pristine white clothes, along with the arm number (written in Khala of course) indicating 3 members as V-3 and one as V-4. Even though they were low ranking officers, with 6 total members and 5 injured fairly badly, Rem knew they should have been able to defeat any lowly glitch with ease. This was a special case, however, as all 6 were being beaten to a pulp by the monstrous glitch in the middle, a Lament-3 glitch who bore resemblance to a hooded man with crimson-maroon robes, but instead of a face, there was merely a void with piercing red eyes staring back at Rem.
The source of the fog, it turns out, was from none other than the monster, with a rather thick fog surrounding the creature and a murderous aura surrounding it’s bloody eyes.
As soon as Rem approached, the creature let out a terrifying howl-screech-growl hybrid noise, striking all the surrounding forces for a moment, all of them flying or standing still for a brief moment as the creature began to tread towards Rem.
“Wha- I haven’t seen something like this for…” Rem trailed off.
Rem then jumped off of the bike, turning to face the monstrosity.
“K-KRO G-GRA… ELOKHE!” the beast roared at Rem.
The figure then darted fast as a mouse toward Rem, with it’s hulking figure fluttering as the maroon robes struggled to keep up with the speed of the glitch. Rem leapt into the air, out of the way of the beast, but not completely so, as the mere glancing of the black tar claws of the monster had ripped a deep cut into Rem’s leg. A med from the force rushed over to see if Rem was fine, but Rem simply pushed the med away and hobbled over to the bike, quickly administering a white glowing liquid into the wound, then rushed back to fight the monster. Pulling out a compact laser gun, the RI-8 from their utility belt, Rem fired several shots toward the glitch, all while running toward higher ground to perhaps even the height difference at least a little. With no effect, the plan of shooting seemed to not be working out.
Deciding to instead take the monster head on, the plan was to shoot the L-3 and distract it, then strike with the beam sword, hopefully dealing enough damage to incapacitate it while calling for backup. Running now head on toward the beast, Rem shot 3 shots toward it in the hopes of distracting it’s attention. The shots were extremely well placed, toward the head, but as the bolts connected to the hood, they simply bounced away. Only one of the shots hit the monster, square in the face. Looking toward the monster who had stopped dead in its tracks after being glanced, everyone witnessed as the monster began to fade to gray. Maybe the shot killed it? Rem stopped running toward it as maybe it was a simple case of being able to injure the face to kill it.
The scene began to slow to a standstill, like a heartbeat pausing to take a breath. As everyone waited to see if it would die, the monster burst out in a fiery red pixelated flame! It’s hood now began to burn bright red, and the eyes shone like a ray of red light hitting garnets, a furious roar echoing out from the void of a face, and the ground began to shake as if an elder god was angered toward the Earth itself! Blood started to seep from the ground, the fog turning to a reddish black haze, and the burning fires in the glitch’s eyes turned toward Rem. There was now no time for plans. Leaping into action with support from the officers from Eloin, Rem and the V-4 officer began to viciously attack the beast full force.
Also fighting the two vigorously, the now enraged L-3 had now begun to flail its razor sharp claws back and forth, most of the strikes missing, but the occasional strike connecting to the arm or leg, ripping away small chunks of the pair, but also having chunks torn off of itself in the attack, as it turns out.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
The ground was stained with glowing blue and green bloodstains from the two, pixelated slicks of carnage speckling their bodies, but especially for Rem, considering the old equipment didn’t provide a whole lot of protection. The ground also had much of the beast’s blood littered about as well, black splotches of pulsating pixelage covering portions of the ground more than the other two combined. The beast began to fight more voraciously than ever, and after many grueling minutes had passed by, Rem had enough.
“All units retreat!” barked the blood clad Rem. “I haven’t had to do this in a long time” Rem faintly whispered as all of the officers began to flee from their positions.
Clicking a small button on the sword, a bright green light immersed the surroundings as the sword began to clack apart, floating almost, to Rem’s right arm, reforming quickly into a new weapon. All of the bright green lights from the bodysuit had faded to black as the weapon formed into its second form, collecting into the core of whirring and whizzing metal plates and bits as a rough cylinder formed around the arm. Charged with all the energy that was left in the energy pack, Rem aimed toward the beast. A high pitched chime rang out, indicating the cannon had reached usability, and in an instant, Rem triggered the cannon, a blinding green light shot out and in a fraction of a second slammed into the glitch, taking out a large portion of it’s midsection so fast that there wasn’t even time for a drop of glitchy black blood to spill out. The L-3 then shuddered for a split second, sputtering out, “k-kras… alakh… Rem...” and as the light faded from it’s now dulled eyes, the creature burst into chunks of black gore and then faded out of existence. The fog it had produced began to clear out.
It wasn’t even a minute of rest before something else began to happen; something was barreling out of the sky towards the ground near Rem! Rem quickly spotted that it was a person! Rushing over, Rem deployed a land pad, and the body fell into it, slowing quickly as the magnetic field had caught them and gently decreased power, lowering them safely to the ground. Calling the nearby medic back over to the scene, as well as the rest of the force, the body was found to be alive, but unconscious.
The body belonged to that of a young lady, around 20 or so with long blonde hair, icy blue eyes, and an unmarked citizens uniform from Eloin. Checking the records with a portable scanner, the medic was unable to find any sort of registration for the mysterious young lady. In fact, there wasn’t even any record of identification for this person, or even an indication that she had taken the factional test! A complete rogue who nobody knew, she was immediately to be sent to a lockdown facility at HQ after proper medical treatment.
“This- this never has happened before! There has to be a reason why… The glitch was L-3 class, and this girl drops from the sky with no registration whatsoever! The program never messes up. Get her to HQ, I’m going to call a council assembly. But more importantly, the glitch” rambled Rem, “Where did you guys find this glitch?”
The leader of the 6 officers replied, “We were doing rounds in the mountains, scouting for stragglers as usual, but this… thing appeared behind our squad and, well, caught us off guard. We lost Jein, and we weren’t going to let this bastard take any more of us, so we decided to engage. Next thing we knew, it had injured most of us and destroyed most of our visibility with that fog, and then you showed up”.
“It just appeared? Glitches don’t just spawn onto people!”
“I’m sorry, but that’s what happened, we thoroughly checked the area and it just appeared”
Rem began to think.
“Perhaps, just maybe… no, that’s not supposed to happen until…” Rem trailed off, “I’m going back to Nekro, contact your superior to report this incident, and tell him to alert the council for a mandatory meeting, ASAP”.
At the Grand Library Elektros, there contained within the documents about higher glitch classes was… nothing. Absolutely nothing had been written about an L-3 glitch save for it’s name. Lament-3. Absolutely useless. After many many hours of searching, Rem turned up nothing about high class glitches, save for the following commonly known knowledge:
GLITCH CLASSIFICATION by Anonymous
ARMOR
WARRIOR
SPEED
Largo - Quite a bit more rare than the other two, the Largo has a bit more speed and intelligence, and is quite the heavy hitter. While not as beefy as a Lento, I would not want to get hit by one of these, or even fight one, since they are renowned for their cunning tactics that make up for their slow bodies.
Allegretto - These are the most well rounded glitches known currently, and are rather smart. These are fairly deadly glitches if in large groups, and they would pose serious threat if you’re being mobbed by a group of them.
Presto - The deadliest of the deadly, these super rare glitches will easy kill any wayward traveler, as their lightning fast skills and dual wielding ability makes them hard for even a Nekron to handle!
Lento - The Lento is essentially grave, just a lot beefer, if you get hit by this glitch, you can say hello to a hefty medical bill. These are relatively common lumber tools in Kero lumberlands.
Moderato - The most modest glitch, Moderato are generally harmful, but a well weathered adventurer such as myself could easily dispatch one. Mostly found at the Waste.
Allegro - Most commonly found as a work tool, these still harmful glitches will be found in farmlands scything various crops, but in the event that you find a wild one in the countryside, they sell for a nice price to farms if captured alive.
Grave - The dumbest type of glitch, even most children could defeat one of these with relative ease, but they could definitely cause a nasty bruise. Often found in mountainous regions or caverns.
Andante - Easily one of the weakest glitches in all of Akir, these mostly pollute the sewer systems of Oran, especially in precincts like Mako, and are rarely found in Oran’s outskirts.
On the following section of the document screen was a ‘REDACTED’ sign in bright red, as well as a small list of names; Lament-1, L-2, L-3, L-4, O***, N*******, G**********. Standing at a loss, Rem simply pondered where information about this could be. The Library itself was a massive metallic gray and white building many stories high, said to contain answers to questions you didn’t even know you had, but even with all it’s bright neon glowing white lines on the building, all the cleanly kept metallic passages, the crystal floors, the millions of blueish glass screens containing the knowledge of thousands before, the conic gray metal building offered no answers to Rem’s questions. All the knowledge of the previous residents of Oran had been stored here, but none knew anything about these insane higher classification glitches.
Just then, a small beeping device on Rem’s belt began to ring- a new spawn call. Thinking about ignoring the call in lieu of the magnanimity of the current situation, Rem mindlessly put the call on hold. There was more important business to attend to: a meeting had to take place.
Heading out to the White City, Rem headed to the Grand Assembly Tower situated in the middle of all the hustle and bustle around the white skyscrapers and complexes. The tower itself was quite well furnished and made, and the resemblance to the Space Needle was very unique considering that this tower was twice the size, and almost all white marble material. The glass dome however provided a spectacular view of the outer city and inner city, showing the absolute glory of the stone white buildings, their many glass windows, and the Wall Street like bustling of the citizens clad in black suits below, and the smooth streamlined architecture of the entire area, with its SkyStorage receptacles housing the many vehicles the residents below owned, allowing for daily life to operate smooth as clockwork.
Inside the meeting room itself, it was of course finely decorated with classical paintings, contemporary artwork, and other such beauties complemented by the shined wooden floors and black leather seats surrounding the vivid cobalt colored Bluestone table. Waiting on those fine leather seats were the 5 members of each faction precinct.
Sitting in a beautiful white robe decorated with delicate swirls of glowing sky blue patterns along with a blue Symbol of Eternity was Ella indicating her position as Eloin Alir, highest command of Eloin, and the Seal of Eternity showed she oversaw the general populace of Oran and was chief advice to the nation. The elderly woman’s tied up platinum white hair and fair wrinkled skin showed her many years of wisdom and ability to hold such a position.
Next to her was the Mako Kanar, an elderly black man named Radan with short white hair and vibrant youthfulness who was the highest command of Mako, bearing the gray overalls and white shirt of a true Makon but still with the smoky lightened gray Symbol of Eternity, it was obvious that he was of great importance.
To his right was Lei, the youthful braided white hair beauty who was the Loselorim Lanach, highest command of Loselorim. She was donned with glowing comet-blue boots and a dress with the appearance of the universe, not just a mere picture on cloth but a universe inside the cloth, radiating a soft light, and on that dress lay the indigo Symbol of Eternity.
To her right was Baran, a 28 year old tan skinned man with a rough faced stubbly look and neatly cut black hair with the burly body of a Keron lumberman. Baran being Kero Koba, the highest command of Kero, of course bore the red Symbol of Eternity upon his black and glowing red line bodysuit, which matched his very fashionable black and red boots.
Next to Baran was Sera, a spritely young lady, quite short much like her temper. Sera donned a glowing yellow lined black bodysuit, with strange yellow shoes allowing her to run much faster, a design of her own. Upon the bodysuit was the yellow Symbol of Eternity, indicating her position as Paceus Saran, the highest command of Paceus. Complementing her personality was short dark red hair and a pale complexion, very rare for a Pacean of farmer’s descent.
And lastly the Nekro Mehai, Rem. Being highest command of Nekro is no easy feat, especially considering being a Nekron alone makes you about 5% of the population, and all that 5% is required to be the absolute cream of the crop, the best of Oran, and being the Nekro Mehai means that you have to be one the top in all of Akir. Yet somehow, Rem got the position.
“Sorry I’m late” the tardy Nekron said, “I had business”.
“Well considering that you called the meeting, I would’ve thought you could manage being on time for once” chuckled Radan.
“Well now that we’re all here, what was your petition, Rem?” questioned Ella.
“I found something that you’re all not gonna like… there was an attack today, but no ordinary attack. There was an “L-3” class glitch, and as you know, that hasn’t been seen for a long time. In fact, the only time that this is was supposed to happen is when… well you know”.
“Aww, what? You called us here for some dumb glitch?” Sera said.
Baran interjected, “Hold on Sera, I’m sure that there’s something deeper to this than we think”.
“Yes, quite so, in fact I hoped that I wouldn’t have had to tell you and Sera,” sighed Ella “but it appears I must tell you. Long ago, I was placed into this world when I was a little girl, I don’t know why, but it felt like I woke up from a long cold dream” Ella took a moment to recollect her thoughts. “When I was placed into this world, Akir, it was pure chaos. There were glitches… no, they were more than that. There were demons, stronger than anything you two have ever seen that roamed around the burning landscape. All was black, flames everywhere, but then someone appeared next to me. A man clad in a helmet similar to Rem’s had brought me to my feet, wiped my tears away, and calmed me down. He then protected me for a time. Taught me to protect myself. He taught me to build, to survive. One day, he just vanished, and at that point I was strong enough to defend myself, but the moment he left, the strong demons came back. They tormented me constantly, burned my crops, tried to kill me, such to the point where I moved to the mountains. After more of us began to come to Akir, then the demons went away too, they weren’t killed, but they simply just… vanished. These demons are the very same ones that Rem saw here today, Sera”.
Ella began to explain further, but she stopped, said she was feeling rather ill, and left for a while.
“So, this thing you saw, Rem, was it really as bad as Ella said?” Sera questioned.
“I don’t know, but the one I fought could’ve ended you in an instant if you were caught off guard… in fact one person did lose their life to that monstrosity” Rem continued, “Thankfully though, the records show that was his first, so maybe he’s still alive out there in the Waste, in the WX region”.
Rem’s belt beeped again.
“I already dismissed this, why is it-” Rem stopped their sentence.
“Is something the matter, Rem?” asked Lei.
“Tell Ella I’m going to be gone for quite a bit. If I don’t come back… use this” Rem placed a small device with a monitor on the table before leaving the room, “She’ll know what to do”.
On the small device’s monitor blinked a single message:
“[REDACTED] spawned at coordinates <38.3, 27.2>, sector WX”
“What’s the classification?” remarked Radan.
“Authorized voice accepted. Classification: Passion 1 - Regret”