Before they were lines of code they were the uber rich, the experts without experience or expertise, the emperors with the magic clothing that everyone claimed was the most beautiful clothing they had ever seen, the leaders who came from outside of the system to rebuild it in a glorious new manner. The soothsayers with crystal balls of code and silicon shifting through the data streams for the correlations and connections that will create the future desires and fulfillments before the global and individual consciousness recognizes the market driven synchronicity of the repo man. The Weavers of cultural tales and myths from flax into gold and perpetual royalties free from the commons but not the tragedy. - u/drsoftware, History of the Terran Afterlife Wars
Daxin stood up, the streams of code running out of his fist and pooling on the floor before they dissolved into nothingness. Code dripped off the whitish blade in his other fist.
"We've got to get back," he said, turning around.
A puff of purplish smoke unwound from a point waist high in the middle of the room. It thickened, then cleared to show Bellona standing still. She was wearing white gauze wrapped around her and the smoke still swirling around her feet.
"Oh, boy," Peter said.
"Stay thine hand," she said, her voice a burbling choir. "Our footsteps are imprinted in the acrid brimstone of failure on this task," she continued.
Daxin clenched his fist. "I have to..."
"Nay, we, the First Apostles, failed and our failure is written in burning warsteel across the heavens," Bellona gurgled. She pointed at Dambree, who had turned to stare at the living dead woman. "His fate, our fates, all of the fates of those who dwell in the stars above, lay with the children."
"But," Daxin started to protest.
"Do you intend on doing the same thing expecting a different outcome, brother?" Menhit asked softly, stepping forward and putting her hand on Daxin's bicep. "Our war is here, in the afterlife, as relics of the past," she turned and stared at Dambree. "Run for the mat-trans, child. The Digital Omnimessiah needs you."
Dambree nodded, grabbing the grav-ski mask as she moved quickly across the room.
Menhit looked up into Daxin's stormy face. "A child shall lead us," was all she said.
Daxin stared at her for a long moment then turned to Peter.
"Get me another one, I want answers," he said. He looked at Legion. "Get me another one."
Legion just nodded.
"Legion just ID'd another one that's outside their hardened system," Peter started typing, staring at his screen. "All right. I'll bring them in, but I'm not sure if they'll talk."
"They'll talk," Daxin rumbled. He looked down at the dissipating code at his feet.
"They always talk."
-----
The fox and the frog walked next to the man as he limped along, one hand pressed against his stomach, leading them through a forest of data columns that reached up to the sky with glittering fingers of stored code. The columns were covered with a thick layer of data compression and leakage, carefully sorted data and precisely built code having slowly fragmented around the edges. The moss on the pillars gleamed even as the pillars themselves creaked and sang beneath a sky the color of a tv turned to a dead channel.
Little birds and animals moved between the columns, jumping and hoping, swooping and singing. A handful of jeweled spiders climbed over one pillar, collecting metatags and putting them into balls of webbing on their thorax.
The grass was knee high on a tall Treana'ad, made of sugar spun datathreads and hyperlinks, rustling and sparkling as a trio moved through it.
"This is an ancient place," the frog said looking around. "Beautiful and enchanted."
"A strange place," the fox said, watching as a bird landed on the frog's backpack, sang a snatch of pure notes, then took off again.
The man looked back, his face lined with grief, worry, and old pain. Ancient madness passed through his eyes for a moment, then was gone.
"An ancient and guarded place, older than you can imagine and younger than you can think," the man said. He stopped, holding his side, and gasping for a long moment.
"Sit, sit, let us rest a moment," the frog said, moving up to the man. He guided him to a broken column that had weathered into a flat rock covered in scrolling runes.
"I thank you," the man said. He watched a spider slowly spin a web between fractured spears of crystal that had fallen from the vast columns and stuck into the ground, scattering seeds of jpgs and gifs across the ground.
"Drink," the frog said, holding up a skin of honeyed wine cut with water and vinegar.
The man drank, looking around. "What we seek is not much further," he said. "An ancient place, that grows older the further we get to the center."
The fox and the frog nodded, snacking on pieces of code flattened and pounded, with seeds and fats hammered in.
"What is it that we seek?" the fox asked.
"A thing I was afeared of, that, in my madness, I avoided," the man said. He rubbed his forehead, shuddering, then took a long drink before continuing. "Something that even madness itself tried to conceal from reality itself."
The frog nodded, swallowing the bread and pemmican. "What was it?"
"I do not know," the man said. He looked up at the starry sky, full of drifting data points and floating points. "All I know, is it has been there for a million million years."
"That," the fox said, "Would indeed be a sight to see."
-----
Vuxten realized he was face down in the mud at about the same time as he gave a full body jerk inside his power armor, doing nothing more than just twitch inside the two ton suit.
REBOOTING flashed in the middle of his visor and he regulated his breathing.
The fans kicked on and cool fresh air washed over his face, making his whiskers tremble. His visor went through the startup sequence and it took long seconds for his suit to unlock enough for him to be able to move. The whole time he laid there, his head pounding and his stomach squirming.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
--wish was dead-- 471 griped over the link. --worse every time--
"Yeah," Vuxten said. The suit flashed the unlock and he felt the cyberlink go live.
He got up, going into the recovery pose for a moment as his head pounded.
When he raised his head he saw a whitish-blue sphere appear, go completely chrome, then go back to whitish-blue. It vanished and a figure dropped from mid-air.
It was the bunny-girl, wearing her grav-ski mask and holding her heavy brush cutting blade in one hand. She landed agilely on her feet, her knees and hocks flexing, putting her free hand down on the ground as she looked around.
"Alive?" she asked.
"Hurts to much to be otherwise," Vuxten said.
The bunny-girl nodded. "Pain is weakness leaving the body, like infected blood from an old wound," she quoted.
Vuxten stood up, his suit quickly tagging the stars in the night sky and letting him know where he was.
As if he didn't recognize the slight clearing by the creek's edge where Daxin often sat and stared at the dark water on the long nights.
Another flash in the air and the figure fell spreadeagled to the ground, landing with a thud.
The pink and white heavy armor was unmistakable.
"she-doy she-doy she-doy," the figure mumbled as it pushed itself up out of the dirt. The heavy power armor whined and hissed.
471 flashed a laughing emoji and the figure giggled like breaking glass being ground underfoot as she got up and stretched.
The torches on her back were unlit and the banners were tightly folded.
"We need to hurry," Vuxten said.
"I'll be out there, watch for me," the Hesstlan girl said.
Before Vuxten could protest she was gone, melted back into the shadows. His armor systems couldn't detect her, not even on thermal or mass detection.
--creepy bunny--
"You said it, buddy," Vuxten said, jogging forward. It was less than a mile to where the campfire and the tents were. He started fast then slowed down to led the thudding footsteps of the Neko Marine keep up with him.
They exited the woods, jumping over the log, and landing next to the lit fire.
The Digital Omnimessiah looked up from where he was sitting on the log opposite, talking to a short woman and a lanky man, both Terrans and dressed in simple farmer's clothing. Both of them had rifles in their laps. Not tactical rifles or battle rifles, just simple rifles that Vuxten's armor ID'd as civilian grade magacs.
"Vuxten, Joan," the Digital Omnimessiah said, his voice full of warmth. "Allow me to introduce John Regina Dix-Woolvet," he pointed at the man. "And Samantha Krikaktak Woolvet-Dix,"he pointed at the woman. "They are farmers living nearby. They saw the light of the fire while checking their crop fencing and came to see what was happening."
The Digital Omnimessiah pointed at the heavy power armor of the Telkan Marine. "That is Vuxten, a Telkan from the Telkan System in the former Unified Council territory," he pointed at the Neko Marine who was taking off her helmet. "That is Daisy Joy Summer, known now only as Joan."
"Cone-Geechi-Waarrrgh doki doki," the Neko Marine said, pulling her helmet off. Her face was covered in a light layer of white fur with pink swirls, her ears were perked up, and her feline pupiled eyes were wide and glittered in the firelight as she looked around slowly.
"Out there, in the woods, is the child Dambree Limberton, a young Hesstlan woman," the Digital Omnimessiah said. He pointed at Vuxten again. "In the armor housing on his back is the mantid 471, who has stood by Vuxten's side for many years," the glowing figure finished.
Vuxten nodded and looked around. "471, pop a drone."
"Hello," the Terran woman said. She looked back at the Digital Omnimessiah. "But if you know they are coming, why stay?"
"Because I must," The Digital Omnimessiah shook his head, looking somewhat sorrowful. "Those who seek my life seek it again and I do not want those not foreordained to be involved to become caught up in what was started before they were born."
--firing--
"You have died once before," the man said. The woman nodded. "What purpose does it serve to die again?"
The 40mm launcher pointed straight up and chuffed once, the drone whipping into the air, unfurling thin wings and leveling out, orbiting in a circle that slowly widened out.
The Digital Omnimessiah smiled. "I did not say I was a willing lamb to the slaughter," he said.
Vuxten nodded. "That's where we come in, I guess," he said. "471, three more drones, run a search pattern."
The man, JR, looked back at Vuxten. "The ships landed in town."
"Not that it will do them any good," the woman said. She chuckled, a rough gravelly sound that did not fit with the petite woman. "The village is empty, John and I were the only ones left after the Great Dieoff and the Great Vanishing."
"They landed while we were checking the fences. We'd seen your fire a few times," the woman said. "We figured," she took the man's hand and squeezed it, "That they would be here for you, not a couple of old LARPers that are all used up."
"Baseline human. We don't even have basic mods," JR said. He laughed. "No better company to die with, than the Digital Omnimessiah."
"Our deaths are not yet predetermined," the Digital Omnimessiah smiled.
"I don't plan on dying any time soon," Vuxten said.
--me either--
"DOKI!" the Joan said, lifting her heavy rifle.
JR sighed, turning to look at the fire, then back at the Digital Omnimessiah. "So, no solving this with peace and love?"
The Digital Omnimessiah shook his head. "I'm sorry."
He looked at the Terran woman next to him as the grenade launcher chuffed three times.
"Every hero knows, eventually, you either die in the tights or hang up the capes," he said. He looked down and chuckled. "Guess pants come close enough."
The woman lifted her arm, putting it around his shoulders, and pulled him close.
"Every monster dies, every villain falls, eventually," she answered.
471 chose that moment to link the feed from all four drones.
A massive wave of movement was heading toward the campground.
"They're coming," Vuxten said, standing up and pulling his SMG off his hip.
The Joan nodded, standing up. The flags unfurled, flickered and showed cartoon versions of the Neko-Marine waving pompoms and dancing. She held up her hands, showing a pair of pink and white pompoms in her hands, the plastic tassels fluttering in the night breeze.
"Doki!"
Vuxten nodded. "Well said."
-----
The sky flickered and rezzed for a moment, then went dark, even the data and floating points going on as the fox, the frog, and the man stepped through the grass and onto a plain of obsidian.
"That is indeed a strange sight," the fox said.
"One worthy of this journey," the frog said. "Who is it?"
The man shook his head. "I do not know."
Before them was a solid block of black tinted ICE, not pointed outward at the frog, the fox, and the man, but dedicated inward, to painfully crushing and pinning the figure trapped within. It was high-rez, as perfect in detail as the fox and the frog had seen on their journey.
Together they moved across the rippled obsidian plain, moving carefully on the black glass. They could feel the dark code, ancient and cold, beneath their feet.
Finally they reached the figure.
It was a Terran. Large, bulky, in crude armor that looked both bulky and sleek. Jet black armor. The man's face was visible. Youthful, young, but with age and weariness around the closed the eyes.
"I do not know who it is," the man admitted.
"I know what it is," the fox said.
"We have seen one such as this on our journey," the frog said.
"What is it?" the man asked, his hand held against the slow healing wound in his side.
The frog looked up, into the imprisoned man's face. "A SUDS record."
"I believe we can free him," the fox said. He pointed at the base of the column of crystalline black ICE. There, nestled against the obsidian, was a simple bronze button.
"He has been here for so long the sun has gone out," the frog said in wonder. "How is it possible that he has been here for so long?"
"This prison was built to hold him," the man said.
"And others," the frog said, pointing at column bases behind the singular crystal. "But yet, nobody else is imprisoned."
"Who do you think it is?" the fox asked.
Both of the fox's companions shook their heads.
"This has been a journey of wonder," the frog said. It looked at the man. "We should release him from his ageless prison."
The man nodded. "As you rescued me from mine."
"Let us do it together," the fox said, motioning to his companions.
The duo knelt beside their friend, putting their hands on top of his.
"Sing, together," the frog said. He held up a crystal that glimmered with a pale pearly light. "Sing with the song that has guided us so far."
Singing, together they pushed the button.
The ICE lashed out, attacking the SUDS.
The song wrapped the SUDS template, shielding it, guarding it from the black ICE that tried to rip and shred the figure inside. It attempted to lunge from the crystal, to rake the trio with cold crystalline claws, but the pearly light of the crystal and the vibrations of the song drove it back.
The armored man vanished from the prison.
The obsidian plain shuddered and shook as the massive prison of black ICE shuddered and fractured and fell apart.
The frog, the fox, and the man ran for the edges, the obsidian collapsing into nothingness behind them. The air was full of the roar of crackling and collapsing stone, the squeal of shredding data, the howling scream of misaligned code.
The trio reached the grass, barely, ahead of the great yawning gulf that replaced the obsidian plane.
They laid there, in the sugarspun glass of data compression artifacts.
The frog began to laugh.
The man joined the frog.
The fox added his mirth as they laid in the grass, next to a yawning void, where a prison had once stood for a hundred billion years beneath a dead sky, imprisoning something nearly forgotten.
-----
"Redemption can sometimes be found only under fire." - unknown