“A thought on the essence of change. If its presence does not trigger descent, surely it shall allow one to ascend for levitation is the outright denial of change.”
HM: 900, DecY: 7
"Saturday. Yeah definitely Saturday" says a young boy to his fellow raid members.
While they obviously heard him, no one responded or acknowledged his statement. They remained in sync and focused with glares cobalt radiated across their foreheads and glasses.
"My mom and dad you are know (sigh), performers for the PJOT, so the house is all mines.”
Overly anxious, the boy peered over his monitor to gauge the expressions of the room. Unsurprisingly, he releases another defeated sigh. Plopping back down at his desk, the young bays eyes widen as he whines, "seriously, come on!!!” He cries in direct response to the new messages flooding the chat.
> Sl@yher99: m.o.m.o, m.o.m.o, m.o.m.o
>
> NiceCream: momo dude, SHEESH
>
> Spec-trrrr5: mmmmmooooommmmmoooo
>
> Blew_Falco: every time :(
***
Nested deeply some-odd 2000 kilometers away; a pack of guardsmen trench though the Harppor-Rune northern woods. Seemingly more metal than man, each guard stands drenched in royal armor; this is with the exception of Lower Scarlet John R. Hawkmen-Delks. He is known by those within his Hound as Sir Butcher; a moniker he gained for his barbaric but lethal swordsmanship.
A faint whisper of static always surrounds the Lower Scarlet for he has donned the Mach-9 “Ghost-Fox” prototype armor. Crafted by the swift engineers from Nation Himmelchesa’s House of Research (HHR), the Mach-9 armor allow combatants to evade modern weaponry while dispersing minimal amounts of energy. The featherweight amortium material creates a positively charged layer of repellent to legal steel.
“Mighty sparkly over there Sir. Like a lost nickel at a park.” - Right Pyre
“Forgive him Sir Butcher. He was fitted for armor this morning.” - Left Pyre
“Am I the only one who wonders how such a suit defends against black steel?” - R.P.
“Know you nothing of High-Moon 290th Scourge of Metals? The treaty of Renovoire is covered in depth during Pyre Indoctrination. Such metals are in high scarcity in addition to being banned across all five nations.” - L.P.
“Sir Butcher, surely you do not believe such litigation can deter action?!” - R.P.
“Muzzle out, muzzle on.” - Lower Scarlet
Lower Scarlet halts the platoon as he surveys the local area and clearing ahead.
“Tell me Pyre. What say your training about the behavior of surrounding wildlife?”
“It is of natural order Sir.”
“Be it unbelievable, there are beings that chatter more than you Pyre. Tree-howlers are the most fitting example at the moment.”
A contagion of fear sweep about the about platoon. All guardsmen stand conscious of the sonically absent howler ape that swarm the Northern Runes. Thirty paces ahead, four Clearsmen trail blaze to a nearby clearing. Following an abrupt pause, 3rd Clearsmen bellows over his right shoulder. A commanding howl echos towards the platoon.
“DOOOOOGGSSS BLOOOOOD!!!!”, yelled 3rd Clearsmen Pike with all his might.
Here lies a phrase known all too well amongst the 24th division of Scarlet’s Hounds. The high attrition rate within the Hound is almost exclusively attributed to halfsoul-related casualties. The term “halfsoul” denotes KBN citizens who poses cloned organs from non-human donors.
Sir Butcher dashes with urgency towards Clearsmen Pike.
“Report” - L.S. Hawkmen-Delks
“About as fresh as morning dew Sir.” - 3rd Clearsmen
The dog tags of a fallen guardsmen lay entangled amongst the high grass. Though spattered with blood it shined akin to unsheathed steel. Such a sight thrust blood into the head of every guardsman. The eleven man pack of Pyres, Clearsmen, Archers, and Scarlet flank the clearing. Following the silent command of Lower Scarlet, all Guardsmen submerge into the high grass. Weapons drawn to every nth degree: a target must be sacked.
***
The joyous laughter of a small child echo throughout the small cabin, nested within the clearing. A look of anticipation and thrill radiates from the young boy to his mother. With frizzled hair and rosy cheeks, the mother gleams adornment upon the child. Formally an Upper Scarlet within the 3rd Scarlet’s Hound; Dylione Sirene Santos seeks refuge with her only child following an act of desertion from the Knight’s Arm.
“Okay Desmond. Just once more.” - Dylione
Desmond metronomically sways and claps as Dylione carols away. They danced, and danced, and danced to a jingle of war. The faint patter of Desmond’s footsteps adjacent his mother’s was quite rhythmic on it’s own. Dust and blissfulness fly carelessly through the air. Dylione bares a faint smile as she reminisces chanting alongside fellow guardsmen. Mugs overrun with stout clash in celebration of battles won throughout the deserts of Ashes Canyon. The tune of “Ash and Stout” was sung till wee morning around every campfire.
With mom and son exhausted from dancing, they rest upon the child’s favorite rocking chair. Dylione gazes through the window at the grassy fields. A fairly peculiar bird has slowly but surely commanded here attention. She has taken note that the bird appears to hover yet neither wing has flapped. Further observation reveals the bird to be resting atop a rather inorganic structure. Mother’s loving face has swiftly transitioned to stern pupils beneath a lowered brow.
“Desmond, take your toys to the cellar. Do not come up until I retrieve you.”, commands Dylione.
“Yes mother.”, replies Desmond.
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Dylione exits the cabin and shuts the door behind her. After walking off the porch and onto the grass, she awaits the guardsmen to unveil themselves. In unison, following the Lower Scarlet, each guardsmen stands tall and exits the high grass.
Scanning the clearing left to right and over again, Dylione inquires once more with strictness, “How may I be of a service to you gentlemen?”
Through no look of confusion or bewilderment, Lower Scarlet Hawkmen-Delks strictly unsheathes his sidearm. His emotionless demeanor stretches itself thoughout the platoon.
Dylione reacts swiftly with an abrupt transformation. Both feet now elongated and hocked, ending in razor sharp talons. Increased muscle mass whither away any and all adipose tissue at an instant. She stands now two feet taller than just moments before. A sprawling of both wings unveil them to cover the face of the cabin. The once sky blue eyes rest lifelessly upon the Lower Scarlet with glimmering golden flare.
From her 5 o’clock the 3rd Clearsmen takes the initiative to strike from the rear. She bares no decency to Clearsmen Pike as she pierces his larynx with the flick of her wing, never granting him a single glance. As if to demonstrate mercy, Dylione decapitates the three remaining Clearsmen within a fraction of a second. Their now severed tracheas spew mist of blood for Dylione’s basking.
“She prances through crimson mist. I…I admit marvel. Upper Scarlet escapes sound in just five lunges distance. Legend of Santos tells of arial assault that no jet dare fly. Her lateral mayhem stands toe with machinery, bar none.”, the Left Pyre utters to himself in sheer awe. He is at even more dismay pondering the mystery of why such a warrior would desert her Hound and fellow guardsmen.
“Pyres! Archers! Audible at my ready. Revolution four.” Lower Scarlet Hawkmen-Delks.
To the sound of thunder, Scarlet Santos breaks the sound barrier once more with a splitting up the middle of the formation. A thrust of both wings produces a funnel of wind aimed directly at the Lower Scarlet. The gust ushers him through the clearing and forest to follow, presumably off the face of the cliff to his demise.
With a slight tilt of her head, Dylione turns her sights to the Right Pyre. He stands frozen in disbelief.
The former Upper Scarlet menacingly whispers to the Pyre, “I shall save you for last. Continue to marinate for me if you will.”
A common bloodline shared between the Rear Archer and Far Archer of this platoon. The brothers Montoya are known throughout the 24th Hound for their astute marksmanship.
In unison, the brothers reach for their quivers. Rear Archer Montoya taut his bow with an anti-armortium arrow whilst Far Archer Montoya rear back two combustible arrows. Both archers release their rounds. Combustible lack the density of anti-armortium rounds thus they arrive on target moments earlier. Nonetheless, Dylione evades them both only to be stricken about the calf with the anti-armortium arrow.
As she darts her eyes to the archers, the combustible rounds ignite the cabin behind her. With a look of sheer death upon her, Dylione roars in anger,
“T’was my nest you BASTARD!!!”
Both archers come to the ready as Santos spits blood and assumes the lunge position. She explodes towards the Montoya brothers in a lethal assault. Before even one arrow is drawn, blood begins to spew in all directions as talons of steel mince and maul the flesh and tendons of the archers.
Seemingly with no hope remaining, Left Pyre bellows out, “I demand to know!”. He makes eye contact with Dylione as she approaches.
“Such slaughter of your fellow countrymen. Who carry duty that you know all too familiar. Speak you wretched witch!”
“I am baffled Pyre. You disloyal dogs question my slaughter, yet acknowledge thy own erratic behaviors. Beg with my permission.”
“We Pyre be only the fire that burns. You cower to the hand that wields.”
With Kevlar palmed beneath her talon, Dylione compresses as the Pyre’s eyes release from their respective sockets. She ceases not to his pleas but to the faint crackling of his skull. Practiced to precision, she knows he will suffer long before his heart grants him mercy.
***
A Pyre falls, a Pyre stands. A field of green now left smoldering beneath the feet of our Right Pyre. He now takes hold of all that is left; his honor, his wits, and shaken steel.
“As you have seen, I am a woman of many things, yet a liar I am not. I stand before you promise fulfilled.”
“A mangle of flesh and parts soul you are. A hellish bat with acquired taste for Himmelian blood,” smirked the Pyre as he spat at her feet.
“I admire the strength you show amongst your own peril. It is the strength that clang to as my soul was breached atop a cold, lifeless bed of steel. I was made anew you know?”
“Do not lessen me to a naive girl with unkept ambitions!”
“Do tell the ambitions kept within the framed choice of life and death Pyre?!”
“I am nauseous from the stench of my brothers’ flesh. I shall provide you nothing more than cold, hard, STEEL!”
He lunges at her with every once of momentum his wobbling legs could muster. Within an instant the Pyre’s clear view of Dylione is obstructed by flashes of static with iron’s clang ringing about. Lower Scarlet Hawkmen-Delks stands squarely in front of the Pyre with his sidearm drawn in reflection.
Lower Scarlet demands that he retreat immediately. With no rebuttal, the Pyre strikes out to the forest with Dylione in arms reach. A gaze of her talon ruptures the Pyre’s right calf but Lower Scarlet’s firm grasp of the harpy’s wing retrains her from making a fatal blow.
John forcibly retracts the Upper Scarlet and clasp her throat within his palm. “You bloodlust shall expire with me.”
“Oh do spare me your lecture Lower Scar-“
A swift dagger injected into her upper bicep startles her. “I shall spare all but thy blood”, snarls John.
Dylione’s still functioning left talon slices John about the face, while her right talon readies a subsequent slash. John creates distance and readies his side iron.
The pupils of his soul dance with anticipation as he deconstructs the Upper Scarlet’s geometry. A masterful recreation of the minute twitches of every muscle. John understands that he is to live, if not die within these gasp of air.
Reset, reassess, and reengage.
An eruption to the heavens beget a meteoric decent. John’s blade trembles from the pressure of Dylione’s crashing assault. A screech of metal, a clanging of shields with swooshes of missed targets along the way; John and Dylione gauge at the other’s person.
“Gaaaawwh!”, John yells alongside a thrusting of his hips, shins, and boot against the diaphragm of the Upper Scarlet. “Ooof!”, bellowed a back-sliding Dylione.
A drowning and breathtaking gust of air serves as the only warning to her lateral assault. Once, once more, and once again she wizzes by john, missing only by way of the artificial current produced by the Mach-9 armor.
Now twice and three times more Dylione makes a pass but with added fierce. Such added fierceness proved useful as small knicks now riddle John’s armor. The blotches of crimson provide a artistic touch and look.
“Grrrr. DAMN IT!”, the Lower Scarlet bellows in frustration. Though breathless and bloodied, John remains sure of his calculations and confident in House Research’s work. Though his surety can not drown out curiosity. A strong emotion escapes his mind and rolls from his tounge, “What magnitude of sonic—”
“Shriek! Clang! Gush.”, Dylione displays yet another multiplier of ferocity. Subsequent attacks have exceeded the Mach-9’s refractive capabilities and thus she has firmly implanted her talon in John’s adductor. She retract he claw with a triumphant “hmph”, as she scolds him from the high ground. John now drips more blood than sweat, hovered over a defeated knee.
“I have studied long enough,” says an exhausted John. “I have no doubt that you had a hand in the creation of my armor.”
“A hand. An arm. A soul. That ridiculous contraption was made from my very essence. On of many attempts by the Arm to reclaim the power in which they gave me.”
“Do carry on then. I shall rest with my men, we fought well.”
The former Scarlet approaches John in the most dismissive of ways. She gathers his golden lochs and forces him to her attention. “You tell multiple lies Scarlet.”
There lies a dramatic pause as she gazes at the mountainous vista. With serenity, she mutters, “You will come along with me. These woods have not felt Himmelian presence for generations. I must know why this has changed. You will provide answers.”
John has succumb to delusions of blood lost. He witnessed mirror images of Dylione before his vision fled. His last conscious memory be that of overwhelming gust beneath her wings.
***
Above the woods and through the clouds, our hobbling Right Pyre snarls the sight of Dylione’s wings preciously kissing the fallen sun.
“I am sure of it. If at all cost, you will tell the Tale of Icarus.”
Upon limping over to the smoldering remains of the cabin that once stood, our Prye uncovers something most startling. The cellar doors lie unscathed and intact.
“Iron by no doubt. But why?”
Though he reasonably suspected to uncover a sobbing child, he is met by a seemingly never ending tunnel. A lack true purpose and a dumbfound mindset compels him to explore the unknown. And so our Prye, his flaming stick, and hobbled echos disappear into darkness.
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