Does a God Dream? [M]

[Tearen Wover]

Early morning. Dew sits upon the crimson specked leaves like shimmering hitchhikers with nowhere to go. A primordial sun rises over frost-caked mountaintops, and a cool mist permeates the valley floor. Behemoth creatures shamble through the fog, picking at the ripest leaves available on the primitive trees. A lone figure stands among the herd, clad in a brown robe, a scythe in its bony hand. The blade shimmers with an unearthly light, and at this being's feet, there lays the body of a young woman. Her blonde hair is dyed blue with the blood that has recently burst from a gash in her neck. Begging eyes look up and the robed figure, but only soulless yellow orbs stare back. In a few moments, she passes from this world, her soul migrating into the aether beyond this physical realm. The enigmatic figure sighs. Another successful hunt. His master will be pleased. The brown-robed man takes a few steps in the opposite direction the herd of monsters is traveling in, before seemingly melting into the mist. There is no further reason to linger.

A lone dragonfly alights on the dead woman's nose. She makes a sufficient perch, for now.

Back in the diamond city, Nealaphh pulls his brown hood down from his head, revealing a sullen, yet youthful face. His eyes still glow a solid yellow, and his skin has ritualistic scars carved into it. A shaven head, with only a thin black ponytail sprouting from the nape of his neck denotes him as an acolyte of the Crawling Chaos. The sunlight of Vega shines heavily down through the crystalline towers, and rainbows dance across all surfaces with scintillating beauty. Nealaphh, the enigma, approaches the Master's temple. He should have no reason to fear the coming conversation, but still, his steps hold a reluctance that betrays his true emotions. That woman, the immortal...he knew her. Walking up the two-hundred steps to the grand onyx tower, Nealaphh kneels before the heavy stone doors and utters a simple prayer to the Primordial Instinct. Withdrawing a knife from his cloak, the enigma pulls his left sleeve up to his elbow and carves a bloody rune into his forearm. The mark of another successful mission in the name of thermodynamics. Once this ritual is complete, the stone doors pull themselves open, and Nealaphh enters the pitch darkness beyond.

Inside, the chapel resembles the beauty of deep space, with red-tinted points of light glowing in all directions. Thousands...millions of tiny beacons in the darkness. But Nealaphh knows better; he is the Master's head priest. Those are not flames or points of energy. They are eyes. Hefting his scythe into the air, Nealaphh summons light into this dark place and reveals the horror. Wriggling tendrils of black ichor writhe across the stoney inner surface of the chapel, with beady red eyes bursting from the black flesh like luminescent tumors. These thin tentacles spiderweb their way all across the floor, walls and ceiling of the chamber, meeting together at the center of the ceiling where a slavering maw awaits. There come tiny screams of terror as Nealaphh walks to the middle of the floor, squishing eyeballs and tentacles as he does so, but there is no reason to be concerned that he may anger the abomination. It feels no pain. The words begin to come, and the tattooed scars on Nealaphh's dark brown skin begin to glow a soft blue-green.

"Yes." Nealaphh says. His voice is heavy and deep, filled with purpose. More words come.

...

"It was easier than usual. Trust does that."

...

"I don't see why not."

...

"I am honored by your words."

...

"I would prefer we didn't linger on that thought."

...

"Again, you honor me. No, I will be fine."

...

"Serving you is its own reward, but...I shall listen, as always."

...

"I don't understand."

...

"How is such a thing possible?"

...

"So it is true...I suppose congratulations are in order."

...

"If you feel if that is what is best, then I will obey."

...

"It doesn't matter. Let it begin."

With those final, fateful words, the black tendrils leap from their writhing stupor and cling to Nealaphh's body like horrid leeches, and grow tiny, razor sharp teeth. Nealaphh grits his teeth as he tries to bite back the screams as the tentacles worm their way into his flesh, tearing chunks of his body free with tiny cries of triumph. Agony does not begin to describe the pain, and Nealaphh lets loose a howl of anguish. The slavering maw over head lets out an empathetic roar of its own, and the chamber is filled with maddening screams. Piece by piece, Nealaphh is savagely torn asunder, his black blood splattering to the ground in great gouts. Now blinded by pain, Nealaphh can only listen to the terrifying sound as a thick tentacle eats its way through his spine and bursts out through the front of his chest, his still-beating heart clutched in its unhinged jaws. This too, disappears down a horrible gullet, and the last thing Nealaphh hears with his mortal ears is the sound of a great elasticity, as the monstrous jaws on the ceiling descend to claim their prize...

...

Silence follows. The chamber is slick with blood and drool, and the giant mouth picks pieces of flesh from its needle-teeth. A few moments pass, and light begins to course through the black tendrils, like veins in a luminescent heart. The onyx chamber rumbles in protest of the foul energy that now courses through it, and the million-eyed monster within begins to curl up into itself, forming a brain-like black ball that wobbles and spits in furious protest. Outside, the diamond city is collapsing. Perhaps it would be a tragedy if it weren't for the fact that its sole remaining inhabitant had not just been consumed by Chaos and Madness. Giant, refracting towers smash to the valley floor, sending violent shockwaves the perpetuate into the mountains that surround the crystalline metropolis. Trees fall, and avalanches rage down the mountains. Great, flying creatures take to the skies, their panicked squawks heralding the coming darkness. The shockwaves begin to shake the entire planet, it's purple-gold fields of snake grass shuddering under the immensity of this moment. From orbit, vast volcanic fissures open on the face of its largest continent. Three, giant eyes, two level with each other and a third below the leftmost ocular, formed by geysers of molten rock denote the harsh reality; the planet is now alive. Inaudible from the void of space, horror upon horror is revealed as the entire planet begins to compress and fold in on itself, entire landmasses crumbling like scabs over a fresh wound. With a final burst of energy, giant plumes of plasma shoot from the core of the world, denoting the presence of an infant black hole, the newest member of an intergalactic family of such fell beings.

With ravenous cause, the black hole that is Nealaphh swiftly devours the remaining planets and stars within the binary system. It grows swiftly to meet its new purpose. A mortal mind cannot comprehend the power that it holds now, and as such, Nealaphh's mind expands to fill with a newfound understanding of the cosmos.

The God-Mind cometh.

Hail the Crawling Chaos.

Nealaphh is.

[Tearen Wover]

Spilling endlessly over the cold rocks were tides of blood. Sanctified life force shed from the one True God. This endless hells cape, whose sky was filled with myriad broken worlds, was all that remained of the division betwixt heaven and hell. The sullied and haggard feathers of a million angel wings littered the landscape, clinging to the corpulent bodies of their demonic opposers. On the horizon, the Morningstar lay shattered, a testament to the gravity of the situation. Great beasts picked their way through the festering offal, siphoning whatever meat they could find into their great, otherworldly gullets. Carrion spirits, taking the shape of immense birds, circled the sky, where a permanently eclipsed sun sat brooding. The moon that obstructed its light was unremarkable, save for the three eyes that bedecked its surface. Two eyes even, one below the right. The mark of Nealaphh.

The god-mind stalked this landscape, pleased with the results of the most recent conquest. The Praetors be damned, nothing stood in the way of Entropy. The ever clashing forces of heaven and hell were more than obsolete in this modern age, dying their own pathetic deaths as one by one, more people closed their minds and hearts away from the insufferable dogma that fueled the eternal conflict. Nealaphh had merely served to put them out of their misery. With him walked Maleficus, The Dragon, a purple humanoid with flowing red hair from the waste up, and nought but wings and carnage below the waste line. The Dragon was pleased.

"Long have I envisioned this day, Nealaphh. You have served me and Pandora admirably in this endeavor." Maleficus said, his mere words setting the ground beneath them on fire. Nealaphh looked across the distant horizon at the broken morning star, which shone down on a giant, hunched figure, blackened in silhouette, but unmistakable all the same. He squinted, staring at the waterfalls of deific blood which leaked endlessly on to the now sullied landscape. In one masterful stroke, Nealaphh's Master and Maleficus had entwined the fabrics of Heaven and Hell, turning both planes into a landscape of glimmering mountains and black ash deserts filled with hellfire. The purest white clouds floated dreamlike overhead, and through them swam giant insectoid vermin, tainted with the touch of Lucifer. What role had Nealaphh played in all of this?

He had killed them.

Every.

Last.

One.

The slain angels and demons littered around their feet had not killed each other, oh no. That war had been fought many times and had never ended. Once Heaven and Hell had been united, the collected servile beings were so stunned that they didn't even have time to think of harming one another. But the culprit behind all of this was clear. It had happened quickly, as Nealaphh had descended from the Marked Moon, clad only in his brown robe and wielding the Enigma Blade, his psychic weapon that would take any form he desired. This day, it was an axe, half again as long as the Enigma himself. The musical voices of heaven and the bestial roars of hell all arrayed against him, Nealaphh waded fearlessly into the midst of these unending hordes.

They set upon him with fury, both righteous and indignant. As Nealaphh cut down all who came at him, there was an odd, tittering laugh in the air, accompanied by the asynchronous piping of dissonant flutes. With great swipes of the oversized axe, Nealaphh fought his way through the endless hordes, leaving a path of divine and profane carnage in his wake. Dust rose and fell, as both on the air and land, the god-mind dispatched the pitiful aberrations of religious faith. But these figments were not his true targets, oh no. No, Nealaphh knew what the real goal here was. He dared the Utmost High to show himself, to do something about this madness that was being wrought. As usual, He remained silent, but the Fallen One...the Fallen One answered.

Killing the Morning Star was trivial really. For all the gravitas given to him, he was still simply a fallen angel, and many, many angels had already fallen this day. The immensity of the dual could not be described in appropriate terms, but once The Serpent's head fell to the dirt, that was when He decided to show his face. The entire plane rumbled, and the stars above aligned themselves into new patterns which heralded His coming. The deity simply appeared, without fanfare, and proceeded the battle with Nealaphh. Obviously, the god-mind was no match for the god, but Nealaphh was mighty enough to give Maleficus enough time to deliver the mortal blow. And what was this mortal blow, one might wonder? What does it take to kill a god?

Obscurity.

While the Utmost High was in combat with Nealaphh, Maleficus procedurally erased his existence within the Zeitgeist. No mortal mind would again conceive of His existence, and this, not the axe blows that were so easily deflected, was what brought Him to His knees. Everyone, all the demons and angels and beasts and noble steeds froze and watched as the Great One sank to the ground. Great wounds opened on His body, and thus, the ocean of blood spilled forth. Now, with nothing to fuel their divine sparks, the angels and demons went limp, dead on the spot, and fell to the now bloodied sands underfoot. All of this, this entire grisly, gruesome scene, happened within the span of fifteen minutes...

Nealaphh looked back and Maleficus, a fake expression of humility held within the gleaming yellow pits he held as eyes.

"Yes...I know." Nealaphh said, slowly coming to a halt. Maleficus looked back at the god-mind in query, a single dark eyebrow raised.

"Something disturbs you, Enigma?" The Dragon asked, folding his four arms over his bare chest. Nealaphh tossed the Enigma Blade to the moistened dirt. As it hit the ground with a thud, Nealaphh turned his back on Maleficus, and slowly began to walk away.

"Return here at once, Enigma!" Maleficus shouted. But Nealaphh did not heed the enraged summons. Something far darker, far more primordial was beckoning him...

...beckoning him home.

"I no longer enthrall myself to you, Dragon." Nealaphh called over his shoulder, "I return now to my rightful Master."

"I AM your rightful master, you lost fool!" Maleficus roared. With speed untold, The Dragon surged forward and gripped Nealaphh by the back of his neck. But Maleficus suddenly realized that all he held was an empty brown robe. The Enigma was nowhere to be seen.

"No, Maleficus. No you are not." Nealaphh said in a droll tone, akin to an impatient parent talking to a child. Maleficus whipped around, trying to see where the Enigma's spirit might be hovering. The Dragon let loose a terrible roar, which resurrected legions of angelic and demonic corpses, for it was so terrible that it woke even the soulless from their death.

"I return to the service of the Crawling Chaos, whom I have always served. One day, you will too." Nealaphh said solemnly, his voice nothing but a chiming upon the wind.

"Laughable. I can crush the Multiverse on a whim, Enigma. Your precious 'Master' included." Maleficus scoffed, rising high into the blended skies. To prove his point, he clapped his hands together, and everything became nothing. The Dragon panted within the Ultimate Void. Nothing was mightier than he, the force of Destruction. Creation persisted because he permitted it. This was truth.

...from his perspective.

Again, Nealaphh's voice came to Maleficus.

"...are you so sure that you remove the Multiverse? Or do you simply remove yourself? That's your folly, Dragon. Godhood is not a measure of power. It is not a measure of omnipotence, omniscience, or omnipresence. Godhood is awareness. And I'm afraid..." Nealaphh said, trailing off. Maleficus tilted his head.

"Afraid of what, figment?" he cried, spreading his arms out. He caught his breath as a long, shimmering blade burst through his chest. Behind him, Nealaphh stood, Enigma Blade in hand, a sorry expression on his face.

"I'm afraid, you're unaware." he said. Maleficus pulled himself free of the psychic weapon and rotated to face Nealaphh, but the Enigma was already gone.

"Sleep, Maleficus. Rest easy in your Void, for your purpose has been fulfilled. The Master will call on you in time." Nealaphh said softly, as if soothing a baby to sleep.

The Dragon raged and belched fire, he thrashed and tried to summon the Multiverse back into existence just so he could crush something. But nothing came, and he drifted deeper into the void...

[Tearen Wover]

Sleek spacecraft cruised past the small porthole. The light of Terra gave their purpose-built fuselages a bright blue sheen; just a touch of light in this otherwise soulless environment. Tearen let out a soft sigh and turned away from the blissful scene. It would be his turn to fly CAP next, so he put on his flight gear with lethargic reluctance. The Aschen native thought back to his wife and baby daughter on Caprica. If only they knew how harsh it could be on the front lines of this conflict. The TNG was still putting up a valiant fight on the surface of the world below the carrier ship he was stationed on, but the battle for orbital superiority was done.

The only thing left for starfighter pilots such as himself was to try and catch the odd civilian ship that tried to escape past the Aschen blockade. It was tedious, like trying to scratch an itch on your back that you could never quite hit. So far six ships had gotten past them, two of them on his watch. The Admiralty would surely be out for blood, if only for the fact that they too were feeling war fatigue and needed an outlet.

The pilot took a seat in the mess, and after proper salutes were given, everyone went back to eating. The food was really quite good, but everyone still complained about it on principal. Tearen ate alone, his mind a whirling slurry of resentment and homesickness. It was with almost robotic automation that he then made his way to the hangar, clambering into his personal vessel. It was a larger ship, designed to hold a support role within a fighter wing. Normally two pilots were required to fly it effectively, but Tearen didn't both calling his assigned co-pilot. This sort of patrol didn't require the craft's full flight capabilities.

The sleek, almost featureless helmet sealed itself shut over his head with a hiss, and after a moment, the HUD hummed to life, inundating the pilot with a stream of acid green data that stung his sleep-deprived eyes. As the logistic fighter's harness clunked into place, the craft powered up automatically, and hovered on to the launch track. Various flight deck personnel cleared the way, and the voice from the flight deck of the carrier buzzed in his ear.

"Cherubim Tau-67, you have been cleared to sortie."

"Copy that, sweetheart." Tearen said with a smug smile. He could heare a nearly inaudible scoff from the other end of the comms. He knew Angelica too well; she would be giving him hell for it later. Tearen had been tempted more than once to potentially have a little inter-rank fling with her, but the memories of home stung too much to risk sullying then with scandal.

"Tau-67, confirm hardware green."

Tearen reached up and clicked a few switches into place. More digital prompts, more lights blasting in his face.

"Yyup. Hardware green. Tau-67 cleared to depart?"

"Affirmative. May His Divine Shadow fall upon you."

"You too, sister."

With that, Tearen punched the throttle up to maximum and let the magnetic sling heave him out into the vacuum beyond. He oriented himself to the fleet and waited for his wingmen to sortie as well.

Ten minutes later, Tearen was the lead in a wing of six. They were assigned to fly for six orbits, offsetting the sigma of the orbital plane every rotation. As such, Tearen burned into the proper orientation for this pass around the planet and cut the engines, bringing a deathly silence to the entire scene.

The world below was verdant and lush, just like Caprica. On the mainland of Aslund, however, fires raged, visible even from thousands of miles in the sky. Wing City was the worst...he heard tell that the entire metropolis had become a burnt out no man's land. It would be a tragedy if it hadn't happened at least a dozen times before. As recently as four years ago, so insane god named Maleficus nuked the entire city just for the hell of it. Even though Terra was the largest thorn in the Aschen Empire's side, it still put a knot in his stomach. The Caprican parliament swore that their planck devices could keep such wonton destruction from befalling their core worlds, but seeing this...Tearen wasn't so sure.

...

Three hours later, the flight group was making its fifth pass over the north pole of the planet when everything in Tearen's cabin roared into alert mode. The flight deck of his home carrier bellowed into his ear.

"Contact! Correction...multiple contacts on the far side of the moon. All CAP pilots burn to the designated coordinates and wait for target distribution!" cried the new flight deck attendant. Tearen shot forward in his seat and put the burn path up on the screen.

"Tau wing, on my mark. Three...two...one...mark!" Tearen called. In response the other fighters under his command all ignited their engines in synchronicity, and they rocketed off to meet these attackers.

"Who are we even fighting?" Tearen called over to the flight deck. There were a few moments before a response came.

"Taiyou!"

"...What?!"

"All contacts ID as Taiyou Empire vessels. Stand by, Tau wing."

This was bizarre. The Aschen had JUST signed a peace treaty with the Taiyou the day before. This sort of turn around on an official treatise was completely unprecedented... and what was the point in attacking here, where their military presence was the strongest? What were they after?

Tearen turned his head to look at Terra and wrinkled his face. That place. Whatever the Taiyou were desperate for, it was there.

"Tau wing, target assignments incoming now."

Tearen looked off towards the moon, growing ever larger in his viewport, and saw several targeting reticles pop into place.

"Alright ladies and gentlemen, looks like were tasked with taking down a resupply ship and her escorts. Let me know you heard me." Tearen said, his eyes flicking across the buffet of targets. His wingmen called in.

"Alright...Pazo, Klee, Erin, you three cover Hendro, Master and me. We'll take point and put some alpha down on the supply ship."

Ten minutes later, they were on grid with the enemy vessels and in the thick of it. Tearen's large Cherubim fighter couldn't out maneuver the Taiyou Katana fighters, but they crumbled when the wing leader could get a firing solution. Still, he was seriously hurting without his copilot. The supply ship they were attack actually made pretty good cover against the Taiyou's own defenses, but Tearen couldn't help but feel something is off. On a whim, he toggled vector visibility on in his HUD, and tilted his head.

"Uh Klee, you seeing this?"

Klee responded through a storm of static.

"Motherf...now is NOT a good time captain!" she screeched. Tearen watched as she blasted across his field of view, pursued by two enemy fighters. Tearen hauled his fighters ass into alignment and started pursuit.

"Stay still, I can scratch yer itch!" Tearen shouted, arming two missiles.

"Make it SNAPPY!"

Klee stopped her evasive maneuvers and pulled up into a straight line. The katana fighters followed her, but they weren't stupid. They went into opposing barrel rolls, playing havoc with Tearen's targeting.

"Uhh...okay. Missiles won't work. Gonna have to eyeball it!"

"Tearen, don't you fucking d-"

But Tearen had already pulled the trigger. His quad disruptor turret blasted to life, lighting up the two Katana fighters with hot blue death. One broke off and the other took a hit in the engine block, immediately spinning out of control and forcing Tearen into an evasive roll.

"...ooookay then. Put on your vectors, Klee. You see it?"

"You're a bastard and yes. What do you make of it?"

"I dunno, a resupply ship breaking formation and charging headlong into the enemy line is, y'know, tactically unsound. Unless..."

"...what?"

"Break off the attack, get clear of that supply ship now!" Tearen screamed into his comms. He kicked his engines to maximum and tried to pull away from the immense freighter, but it was too late.

The next thing Tearen saw was the resupply ship bulging outwards as the singularity bomb it was carrying released itself.

After that, blackness...

[Tearen Wover]

As the days went on, more and more of the jackal folk were taken by the crystalline invaders. Their primitive weapons and rudimentary tactics were no match for the Shards' coordinated and perfectly synchronized raids. The jackal folk begged and pleaded to their beautiful goddess, and yet received no succor in return. Their numbers dwindled until there were just a little over a thousand left, cowering in their thatched mud huts with spears clutched in hand. Great fires were lit at night, in the hopes that they would be able to see the extra-dimensional horrors before they were upon them. One jackalfolk in particular, Arrat She, one of the few remaining warriors, was on guard the night the land of Laren ceased to be.

The star motes had just finished scattering to their resting places among the heavens, and the great fires had been lit. Arrat She said farewell to his mate and two sons before venturing out into the hastily erected towers around the Delta City. All reports from scouts venturing into the hills always returned with messages of ghostly horror. Abandoned houses, dry wells, and withering crops. Tools and baskets of food just dumped on the streets, as if the small populations of each nomadic camp had just vanished. They were all that remained.

Arrat She considered saying a prayer to Kuolema, but figured his time would be better spent keeping his eyes on the dark skies, the place from which the glinting horrors always emerged. The cool desert wind blew in from the north west, and Arrat She took a deep breath of the lush air. Somewhere a woman wailed in song to their lost god, a final plea for mercy. There was a heavy tension upon the night.

It happened shortly after the fourth hour of Arrat She's watch. As he idly picked his claws clean from atop the tower, there came a winking from the sky. Quickly, he let out a long, keening howl, which many of the other watchmen joined a moment later. Muffled screams and sobs came from the city as the first Shards slowly descended to the ground. With haste, Arrat She bounded down to the ground and charged at one of the black monsters with a loud snarl. With a quick sweep, he tripped the Shard with his spear and pulled a large, copper sphere out of his pack. Lifting it high in the air, he smashed the metal orb into the construct's glimmering, featureless face until it shattered into pieces. With no time to rest, he ran towards another, eager to send the creature back from whatever nightmare it emerged from.

The battle went on like this for an hour, but despite Laren's best efforts, many lives were still taken, spirited away into the swirling voids that the Shards always came and went through. Arrat She was beaten, sweaty, and bloodied from a litany of cuts and pricks from the Shards' vicious, cutting limbs. Still panting, he looked off to his right and saw one of his fellow warriors pinned on the ground by a group of Shards. With a mighty hurl, he pitched his orb at one of the crystalline figures, shattering its glowing head outright. The other two Shards looked up and turned slowly to regard Arrat She. Deep inside him, he felt panic. Despite her damned absence from their lives, he could hear Kuolema calling him to the Shade. Tears streaming from his eyes, Arrat she belted towards the invaders with his spear held high. He battered one to the ground, and was about to rear around and ground the other when there came a white hot pain in his mid section. Immediately he fell to one knee as he saw the black glass spear jutting from his gut. The other Shard that he had just knocked to the ground stood up and held him tightly in its cold, sharp hands as the one that had impaled him approached him, hovering just inches off the ground.

He knew what was going to happen next, but in accordance with what remained of his faith, he was determined to look his death in the eye. Alas, the Shards had no eyes, only those damnable, swirling motes of color within their heads. The second shard pulled its arm back, its right hand coalescing to the form of a long needle, poised to pierce his skull. He was shivering, but still he bared his teeth and flared his nostrils.

Just as the shard was about to claim him, however, the other warrior he had rescued recovered his poise, and surged upwards, snatching Arrat She's orb from the ground and smashing the shard's head in similar fashion to how Arrat She had saved him earlier. Sparing no time, the other warrior surged towards the Shard that held Arrat She and took it to the ground, hammering its face with his bare fists until the head cracked and its light was released.

Arrat She clutched his gut and looked to his new friend. He recognized the warrior as Yntha, a younger man than he, who had no mate nor territory to claim.

"Eternal gratitude, Yntha..." Arrat She grunted. He tried to rise to his feet, and Yntha helped him up with one arm around around his shoulders.

"Come, let us go to the mother of medicine. She will see you through the night." the younger jackalfolk said hastily, dragging Arrat She through the streets even as the screams escalated all around them.

"No...no. Take me to my den. Kuolema is beckoning me, Yntha. I...agh...I wish to be with my family before I travel to the Shade."

Yntha paused, but let out a short sigh.

"Very well, it is far, but-"

Yntha was cut off as there suddenly came a blinding light from overhead. A massive swirling portal, bigger than any Shard had ever made, ripped open the sky above the Delta City. Doom followed shortly after. More Shards than could be counted descended from the whirling breach, and Arrat She could see a dark sphere in the distance, beyond the approaching horde. Arrat She had seen this in his dreams before...a black sphere with a crystalline, four winged crow atop it. As if responding to his recollection, there descended the crow, its four wings radiating a swirling light. Around its beaked head there were four halos of winking beautiful color. There were no words that could be said.

Even as a dozen shades descended upon them, Arrat She and Yntha watched as, with an ear-splitting shriek, the gleaming, giant crow cast a harsh light upon the center of the Delta City. They watched as their monument to Kuolema, an enormous bronze statue, well over fifty meter high, was pulled into the air. There, as it hung impossibly among the rain of Shards, the effigy shattered to a million pieces, unleashing a shockwave that tore up buildings and trees as it approached them. Houses were disintegrated in the blast, and Arrat She stared his death in its face.




Arrat She, The Shade


His soul coalesced slowly, perhaps over hours. The transience of travel to The Shade did not lend itself to concrete measurements of times. But, as promised, Arrat She was brought into the Garden of Shadows, where pitch black trees stretched eternally into the purple, star speckled sky. He looked at his own hands, translucent, and radiating a silver light. He knew that he must travel to the center of the Garden, to come into the embrace of Kuolema herself. Arrat She wondered to himself if he could even feel any fealty to his god, who had done nothing for them in their hour of doom. All the same, he was here, so he might as well. Arrat She found Yntha a little further down the path, and they spoke of their lives and what Kuolema might think of them. Arrat She's mind was elsewhere, though. It was terrible to fathom, but he almost wished that he would come across his family among the umbral trees.

Finally, after what seemed like days of traveling without rest (for spirits had no need of such things), Arrat She arrived at the Garden of Shadows. What he saw explained much, and would leave him with as many questions as it would tears. There he saw his goddess, Kuolema, and she was beautiful. No sculpture nor fresco could ever dare to come close to her radiance, despite the fact that she looked almost nothing like a Jackalfolk. Her flowing green robes lifted and swayed in the ghostly breeze of the Shade, and her flaxen hair spilled from her crown like golden wine from a gilded jug.

That was not the horror, however.

For in her beauty and transcendent majesty, Kuolema's body hung limp from the extended spear of some...unspeakable monstrosity. Its form was hunched, and its skin carried a blue pallor that denoted cold, senseless decay and death. Over this decrepit form was plastered that damned, unspeakable black crystal, which coated the creature's body like scabs over dried skin. A long, needle-like spear was extended from the gauntlet of said armor, as an unsightly, clawed appendage hung, outstretched, from the monster's bloated body. The spear pierced her radiant skull, and a green light seemed to be siphoned from her beautiful frame.

This all appeared as if it had just happened, for Kuolema's holy sword, Wrath's Splendor, suddenly fell from her grasp with a loud, resounding clang. The spear was retracted, and the unspeakable horror stooped low to pick up the weapon in its heinous talons. All spirits present were completely silent, and no sound passed through the Garden, save for the delicate whispering of the breeze amongst the trees. And then the beast turned its head towards Arrat She. It's lifeless, featureless, hollow face. To gaze into this...orifice of madness...was to gaze into something too alien to fathom. But Arrat She knew. This beast was the master of the Shards. This beast was responsible for the sundering of Laren. Arrat wanted answers, yearned to sink his teeth into its flabby, grey neck. But the only thing that the beast said was...

"All the new melons, they cannot stand the test of time. Better a dead fossil than living."

And with that, the creature was gone, vanishing back through a Shard portal without a sound. Back to its damnable black sphere. Back into Arrat She's nightmares.

[Tearen Wover]

He stood in the middle of an empty field, with cracked, pale mud stretching in every direction. At his feet lay the naked body of his lover, her dark, ebony skin glinting with sweat in the light of the high noon sun. She still slumbered, as the consummation of their dedication to one another was still freshly pulsing through their bodies. Nearby was the skybike, dutifully parked with its headlights looking in the opposite direction. To make love in a place that was such an expression of raw death and vacancy had been a cornerstone experience in his life, and he was glad that the woman had suggested it.

Still, despite the fact that they were the only living things for several miles around, Tearen could not help but feel slightly exposed. The dry, warm wind of the salt-flats felt good against his own sweaty skin, but they should really be getting back to the city. As the pilot in training began to dress himself, the sultry voice of his partner called out.

"Mmmmno. C'mere." she cooed, tugging on his ankle with a playful smile. Tearen grinned bashfully and sank back down to lay by her side, still bare chested. She ran her fingers through his long, white hair and gazed at his face as if in wonder.

"You realize I have to sortie by 1500, don't you? I'm already going to be late for the briefing." Tearen said, only semi-serious. She looked at him with a quirked eyebrow.

"And I'm the base nurse and I say you're on sick leave, fly boy." she said, arching upwards and moving to sit atop his pelvis. Tearen tried to fight her off with soft chuckles, but she pinned his arms to the ground and leaned over his face, her own long white hair tickling his nose.

"You're not dismissed, adjutant." she said, leaning in to delicately nick his neck with her teeth. Tearen sucked in a deep sigh and let nature take its course one more...

...

The sky overhead was completely black by the time they had finally clothed themselves and mounted back up on the sleek black sky bike. Tearen had left the canopy open so the cool desert air could lick their skin as they careened across the salt flats. Neither of them spoke, not because of any reticence to do so, but simply because the whir of the sky bike's powerful motors was too loud.

Tearen kept his eyes fixed on the glimmering lights of the airbase on the horizon, but the woman watched the stars overhead, and the ships that wove between them. The largest ships in orbit could almost have their actual shape made out, if she squinted hard enough. It was the love of the stars that had pulled the two of them together in the first place. That, and a few too many glasses of Ambrosia during a homecoming party that had been held after the Navy returned to Caprica after a succesful conquest against yet another nameless civilization.

Now there was talk of going after the center of all evil ifself; Terra. She had heard only scarce rumors of the frightening planet...of how self-proclaimed demigods walked the streets, how dragons roamed its hills, and vampires infested every shadow. That campaign was still at least a year off, but by that time, Tearen would be an official Navy pilot...and he would most likely be shipped off to that terrible world. The sadness of this thought spurred the woman to cling more tightly to Tearen's body as he guided the skybike back into its appropriate garage. The maintenance slaves didn't comment as the two of them dismounted. No good could come of betraying the trust of native Aschen citizens. Tearen and his lover parted ways with a single, sweet kiss before he returned to the barracks.

Only a few of his squadron mates were present...the rest were curiously absent. Tearen's wing leader whistled at the pilot and beckoned him into his cramped office with a snap.

"Corporralll...says here you've been in medical all say. You on your period again?" he jabbed. It was a a joke, but it was not meant to be funny. Tearen sat down in the only other chair in the office and, quite brazenly, propped one of his legs up on the Captain's desk.

"Eeeyup." he said simply, proceeding to pick grit out from under his fingernails. The captain narrowed his eyes and smacked Tearen's leg away. Tearen didn't fight it; he had already made his point.

"You missed your sortie. Command is starting to take notice."

"'Bout time. I am their best pilot, after all." Tearen said, flicking the badge on his jacket lapel that proved it.

"Agreed. Well, you'll be getting the usual demerits and extra chores. I'm also assigning you to traffic control for a week. Since you seem so reluctant to fly, I figure it's the least I can do." The Captain said, his tone oddly calm. Usually by this point he was red in the face with fury.

"Okeedoke." Tearen said, offering the captain a half-ass salute before standing up. The Captain cleared his throat.

"Not that I dismissed you, but I need you to see something real quick." the captain said, waving at his vid screen. An image of Tearen's lover appeared on the screen, sitting at her office desk. The pilot's heart sank, but he could not have possibly predicted what was about to happen. All at once, his missing squadmates burst into the office. Two of them pinned the nurse to the wall, while a third placed a disruptor pistol against her head. The gun-wielding pilot, someone he had considered a friend, smirked at the vid screen. Tearen was frozen in place.

"You're a valuable asset, corporal. The higher ups need you on deck with the rest of us, elsewise you won't be flying a damn garbage hauler." the captain said calmly. He stood up and lit a cigarette, also offering one to Tearen. The corporal didn't budge.

"So I'll ask you once, Corporal. Are you loyal to the divine shadow?" the captain asked softly. It took Tearen a moment to process the words, but after a second, he dumbly nodded.

"Excellent. Then you may be concerned to hear that we have discovered an individual who is acting as an inhibitor to the might of the Divine Navy. Luckily, we have apprehended them, and they will be dealt with accordingly." the captain said, a warm smile spreading across his face.

"W-" Tearen started, but he was cut off as there came a dull cracking sound echoing across the base. This coincided with the image of the woman's head disintigrating. A prey to reflexive rage, Tearen surged forwards to wrap his hands around the captain's throat, but the hands of the lingering squadmates grabbed him. It wasn't the worst thrashing Tearen had ever suffered in the service of the Divine Navy, but coinciding with the death of a woman he loved, it was the only one he ever truly remembered...

[Tearen Wover]

The peaceful planet of Cerex had never known true strife. Isolated deep within the reaches of a dense globular cluster, the dark nebula surrounding the planet prevented its native people from ever seeing any other star other than their own, bright, hot beacon. Through the marvels of science, they of course knew that other stars existed; the sky was filled with radio waves and thermal energy that was able to pierce the inky veil, even though light could not.

Their attempts to extend their reach to other worlds was inhibited, however, by their inability to navigate safely through the thick cloud. As such, their only recourse was to expand to their moon, Jakarl, on order to further the might of their species. Confined to these two worlds, the people of Cerex were united in one cause, if only because they had no other choice than to make the most of the small world they called home.

In the Before Times, Cerex had known the blight of industrialization, a corporate poison that plunged their world into a toxic dark age. No life could live naturally on the surface of Cerex for millenia, and in those years, the great underground cities of Ophlin sustained the few thousand survivors of the Cerexian race. At some point in the past, lost in the obscurity of time, a daring undertaking was initiated to return Cerex to its former glory. Through careful construction, the Cerexians and their allied colonies on Jakarl built massive atmosphere scrubbers, that converted the polluted miasma that washed over the land into breathable atmosphere. Hardy new plant and animal species were bred to be compatable with the slowly purified atmosphere, and slowly but surely, Cerex returned to an Eden among the stars.

This time, things would be different. This time, armed with the knowledge of the past, the Cerexians built their cities to work with the planet, not against it. Their technology, using clean processes and efficient manufacturing, had a minimal impact on the ecology of the healing world, and efforts to maintain the biosphere balanced out any negative effects the regrowing population had on the planet.

The cities of Jakarl, which were climate controlled and constructed for survivability to begin with, assisted in this new infrastructure, and together, planet and moon entered a golden age.

It was into this golden age that the Black Moon came. No one noticed it at first, since its black, glassy surface was nearly indiscernabls against the ebon backdrop of the surrounding nebula. As people looked into the sky at night, however, they noticed a strange shimmering in the sky. The Black Moon glowed with an internal energy, gently pulsating, as if it was a living being.

No one knew what to make of the Black Moon at first. Some people thought it was an omen from the gods, others thought it was of alien origin. All that can be known for sure, is that when the day of the Black Rain came, such conjecture failed to matter. Massive, ship sizes shards of black crystal descended from the black moon, piercing through the atmosphere of Cerex and imbedding themselves in its surface. The devastation from these bizarre meteor showers was bad enough, but that did not belie the true horror that was soon to come. From the impact craters, splintering off from the crystal spears like snowflakes, came the Shards. Black, crystalline beings, the walked on two legs, and has two arms that ended in cruel, needle points. Their heads bore no feature save for the same unholy glow that pulsed within the Black Moon, and they made no effort to communicate.

The battles were swift and bloody, but the shards strode with impunity across the once bountiful fields of Cerex. All sentient creatures within their reach were hunted down and executed. The shards...they seemed to pull something from the bodies of their victims. Shining pinpoints of light that traveled up their piercing arms and merged with the glow in their head.

All conventional weapons were useless against the shards. Though they were vulnerable to blunt force, and could be eradicated easily, there simply seemed to be an endless supply of them. Worse still, the crystal spears which had bore them to the surface of Cerex seemed to be...infecting the planet, converting the very soil and stone of the world into the same shadowed glass which they themselves were comprised of. The death toll was unimaginable, and once again the people were forced back into the underground city of Ophlin, their only refuge from the once more uninhabitable world.

Here they were safe for a few scant days, not knowing what terror was befalling the surface of their beloved world, not knowing who they had left behind. Gradually, however, people began to notice signs that their days were numbered. Small veins of dark crystal began to snake their way into the city, emerging from walls and ceilings like charred creeper branches, searching for anything to cling to. The Cerexians did their best to clear these tangles away, but after a week it became impossible to keep the infestation at bay. The crystal was almost everywhere within the city now, and the Cerexians knew it was only a matter of time before the Shards followed.

In a desperate gamble for life, the remaining Cerexians made a break for the surface, where a transport barge from Jakarl was waiting for them. The hundred or so Cerexians who remained blasted and cut their way through crystal choked passages, only to break through to the surface to find a black, glimmering wasteland. The crystal stretched as far as the eye could see, with the vage shapes of what used to be buildings and trees looming all around them like titans. Strangely enough, the Shards were absent. The Jakarl soldiers, armed with their ballistic weapons, stood around, eyeing the horizon anxiously. The Cerexians were loaded on to the immense transports, and as they pulled away from the surface of their lost world, the collected people of Cerex and Jakarl looked back on its face.

They watched as the entire planet became covered in black crystal, totally converted to that damnable, alien substance that defied all known science. They watched as Cerex began to glow with its own internal light, becoming almost an exact copy of the Black Moon. The Black Moon and Cerex began to drift close to one another, then, all at once, merged intona single cosmic body, like two droplets morphing together on a rain speckled window.

Tears and shouts of fury filled the decks of the transport ships. Panic ran among all passengers; was Jakarl next? The answer came as, beyond all explanation, the new Black Moon simply vanished. There was no flash of energy, no great tides of gravitational power. It was simply gone.

...

Nealaphh surveyed the reports from the team leaders that had ravaged the surface of Cerex. All in all, forty-eight million, seven hudred twenty thousand, three hundred eight minds had beem liberated from the planet. It was not quite as large a bounty as he was used to claiming, but being that it had been a relatively low-risk operation, the numbers were acceptable. Upon returning to Nucleus, he would be eager to share the results with his Master...

[Tearen Wover]

Beep...



Beep...



Beep...



Beep...

"Do you think he'll ever wake up?"

"I don't know."Beep...

...

Beep...

"...do you think he can hear us?"

"...I..."Beep...

"I don't know..."

...Beep...

"Oh...okay."

...Beep...

"Mommy, I'm scared."

"I know, baby girl."Beep...

...

"Those xenos who hurt him-"Beep...

"The Taiyou."

"...those Taiyou. They're gonna kill gonna kill them right? Daddy's friends are gon' get them back?"Beep...

"Hush now, don't be talking violence up in here."

...Beep...

"...*sniff*...I hate them..."

"Everybody hate 'em, baby.Beep...

...

"Do the gods hate us?"Beep...
"Girl, I said don't be talkin' like that!"

...Beep...

...

Beep...

"Look baby I'm sorry. Momma misses Daddy too."

"I know..."Beep...

...

"C'mon, tell daddy you love him and then we can go."Beep...

"Okay..."
Beep...

"Daddy? It's Abbey...please don't die...I offered my favorite hologame to the gods...they have to save you now..."Beep...

...

Beep...

"...I love you, daddy..." smek

Beep...

"...that's good Abbey. You run and get something from the snack machine. I'ma talk to daddy a while."Beep...

"...okay."

Beep...

...

Beep...

"Tearen? Tearen I know you can hear me..."

Beep...

"Now baby I love you. You know that. But you gotta come on home now. You ain't ever flyin' again, you hear?"Beep...

"...when they told me you was blown up over Terra, I...I thought we were done. But you hung in there for us, and you got your way here. Now it's time to go the rest of the way."Beep...

...

Beep...

"...sigh...I know you'll come home soon, Tearen. Ain't no god gonna take you from us yet."

Beep...

"...I gotta go now, but I'ma be back tomorrow, alright?"

Beep...

"...I...love...you..." sm-ekk

Beep...

...

Beep...



Beep...



Beep...



Beep...



Beep...



Beep...


Greetings, Tearen...
Beep...

Beep...

Beep...

Beep...

Quite a touching scene. Tell me...are you ready to ascend?
Beep...
Beep...
Beep...
Beep...
Beep...
...Then let me show you your true potential...
Beep...
Beep...
Beep...
Beep...
NEALAPHH!

...

Beeeeeeeeeeeee-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

[Tearen Wover]

Pitiful...

That was really the only word that Nealaphh had describe the force arrayed before him. Over one-thousand heavy Aschen cruisers and many more assorted support and battleships hovered silently far above the swirling vortex that held his mind. The Sovereign had far overstepped its grace this time, but what was even more confusing was that it had told the Aschen of Nealaphh's only weakness. Being the enterprising bastards they were, they had immediately organized a siege fleet to attack Nealaphh's core...

...a black hole.

How they possibly could hope to destroy such a primal force was far beyond Nealaphh's ken. One did not destroy a black hole...black holes destroyed everything else.

Fine, let them come. Nealaphh would show them the error of their hubris. After a time of standoff, the entire Aschen fleet began to fire their disruptors at Nealaphh's core. Really? What were they hoping to achieve? The event horizon dessicated and absorbed the hail of weapon's fire without so much as a hiccup. Nealaphh didn't even bother to retaliate. The machinations of such fleeting minds did not concern him.

...

After a week of constant barrages, Nealaphh had run out of patience. Perhaps it was this last vestige of human emotion that inspired him to finally retaliate, but this ceaseless foolishness was wearing thin on his humor. In a blinding flash of light, Nealaphh released a gamma ray burst from the core of the black hole, a monumental blast of energy which immediately destroyed a third of the collected vessels. Not even cindered hulks remained of the destroyed star ships. Nontheless, the remaining forces continued their monotonous assault. Now Nealaphh was suitably annoyed. Extending his awareness around the fleet, the Enigma peered into the cabins of the ships in order to try and discern what insanity was compelling them to carry out this plan.

There was no one on board. The entire fleet was running on autopilot. Bewildered and further confused, Nealaphh released another gamma ray burst, and then one more to decimate the remaining forces. Once he had done this, a smug laughter played upon Nealaphh's senses. Alarmed, he tried to find the source of the supernatural eminations. After a short time, he found it; The Sovereign, dangling a fragment of his consciousness around Nealaphh's core like an angler trying to catch a prize fish.

"I suppose you were behind this madness." Nealaphh said, adopting a bored tone. The Sovereign let out an ethereal sigh before responding.

"Yes...yes I am. It was not easy to convince the Aschen to devote an entire fleet to a suicide mission, but it served it's purpose."

"And what purpose is that?"

"Oh, in time little Enigma. You will understand in time."

With that, the malign presence withdrew from the area, leaving Nealaphh frustrated beyond recourse. Had he been played? Was there some bizarre game being played among the gods he served?

...the answer, was yes. But Nealaphh would not uncover why for a long, long time. A time at which point, it would be impossible to redact the terrible mistake he had just made...

[Tearen Wover]

Nealaphh watched as the ex-lich known as Jules Restlin slowly walked down the sidewalk of Solinus Avenue. Wing City was on the verge on monumental change, and this young man was the lynch pin of the Master's entire operation. Jules, of course, knew that the Zeitgeist was just a figment of the Master's scheming, and that the reality behind this so called apocalypse was really just another play for absolute power. It was an elegant stroke, of course. The Master would never commit to a plan that wasn't sheer genius. Still...Nealaphh had doubts as to the Master's ability to predict mortal psychology as of late. He had become obsessed with rising to ever higher echelons of reknown, and as such had undertaken a nearly fanatical recruiting spree, taking on new Enigmas faster than Nealaphh could indoctrinate them.

On top of that, the Vankoryth Detente was beginning to show signs that they were losing interest in the worship of the Master. Nealaphj had been opposed to taking the vampire nation on as supplicants for fear that they would still believe themselves greater than the Master. Honestly, Nealaphh wouldn't be surprised if he decided to simply lift his blessing of darkness off of their land and let the undead prats fry.

Nealaphh shook himself back into the present moment. Jules had entered the small boutique storefront where he held his nightly classes on lucid dreaming. A nice distraction, but the true intent behind it was far more potent. The more people learned how to manipulate the dream world, the more their waking reality would seem fake. Just another world to control. As more and more people unlocked their unlimited mental power, the Zeitgeist would start to collapse. At that point, the Master would partition part of his power into a seperare entity called "The Dreamer". A being of colossal, primordial destruction. Only the Master would have the ability, the insanity, to heroically absorb this beast into his self, but he would require the power of many other gods and mortals to do so. Then...when the time came and he had enough supplicants, the Master would reclaim his partitioned power, and combined with the power taken from all other sources, he would ascend beyond the nadir of reproach...truly...the ultimate being.

Of course, this all depended on humanity continuing to try and unlock their hidden potential even after seeing the effect it had on their Multiverse. Nealaphh wasn't sure that this was a tenable thing to rely on, but he knew better than to question the Crawling Chaos at this point. In the blink of an eye, Nealaphh ported himself into Jules' office. Nealaphh had taken the form of a small, rotating black prism; it wasn't necessary to try and deceive Jules into thinking he was a member of VARIAtech, but Nealaphh liked this form. Jules looked up from his computer with a blasé expression.

"...what does Hotep want now? I've got class in twenty minutes." Jules said, and ugly sneer on his face. Nealaphh was always disappointed that Jules never seemed phased by anything, but considering what the necromancer had been through, it was hardly surprising. Besides, disappointment was a useless human emotion that he had been told to rid himself of.

"The Master-"

"Nyarlathotep."

"...the Master requires your presence in The Gap. He wishes to discuss escalating your endeavors."

"...and he sent you to tell me this? Badass Nyarlathotep can't send me a drone or a prophetic dream? He sends you? What are you then, some eldritch carrier pigeon?"

"You have your orders, Jules Restlin. See to them."

"Whatever."

With that, Nealaphh winked back out of the physical realm and into the aforementioned Gap. It was the space that had been left over after heaven and hell had been similtaneously combined and purged. In the places of demonic legions or heavenly hosts, vast, mountain sized monstrosities lumbered across the vacant landscape. Great storms of dust carrying showers of decaying angel feathers howled slowly across the ash filled plains. The corpse of The Maker still sat, hunched over, but had since ceased bleeding out its ocean of blood. Great, screeching scavengers hovered on the updrafts from the Blood Ocean, picking at the deific flesh with relish.

The Master had made his lair inside the dead god's enormous skull, taking root as the disgusting black fungus that had ended Nealaphh's mortal life so long ago. The Enigma flew through the purple skies to the precipice of the cadaver's jaw. Hovering within the skeletal carrion cavern like a pearl inside of some horrendous oyster. The words of the Master came after a short time.

Nealaphh...the message is delivered?

"Yes."

The Necromancer will come?

"In time, I'm sure. Jules may try to deny his leash, but he is a loyal dog."

Good. Be on your way then.

Nealaphh started to leave, but paused.

"Master...where do I play in to these plans?"

Wherever I decide to put you, Nealaphh. You question my strategem?

"No, Master. I just feel as though I could be of greater use."

...perhaps. How goes the Consulate?

"We are harvesting a steady supply of minds, but the volume is not what you mandated. Apologies."

...hrm...pehaps, then, it is time for you to escalate your operations as well. You are familiar with the planet Cerex?

"Yes."

Have you developed a method for planetary integration, as I asked?

"Yes."

Then you will travel to Cerex and integrate it. It will be a simple attack; the planet is weak and naive.

"Understood, but how does this aid the Zeitgeist?"

It does not. This is an auxillary plan.

"You are concerned the Zeitgeist might fail?"

No, but nothing is absolute. We are proof of that. No further questions. Go.

"Yes, Master."

...

[Tearen Wover]

Tearen sat on the shoreline of the empty beach. It wasn't like the soft, white-sand shorelines he was used to back on Caprica. This beach was comprised largely of pebbles and driftwood. The ghostly scraps of jetsam seemd to create sprawling, bone dry cities that the shore birds and wavecrawlers shared - an uneasy truce between their normal predator to prey relationship. Tearen couldn't understand why the birds found the wavecrawlers appetizing; they were long, twelve legged crustaceans that were an uncanny blood red color, and about the size of his foot. Tearen supposed that the birds just didn't know better; that in a world with puffed jumbras, deep-fried darkroot and lindroosi, the scuttling invertebrates were simply the best that the shorebirds had.

The young boy, around the age of twelve or so, was not alone on the otherwise empty beach. His father and sister lingered nearby, on the dry end of the breaker on which Tearen had chosen to brood. They experimented with arranging rocks in different positions, trying to get the water that came and went with each swell of the ocean to flow in certain directions. Tearen's sister had always been more adept at the engineering trade. Her mind was keen, and though Tearen considered himself a creative soul, Ziejts was sheer genius in comparison. It honestly made the young boy jealous sometimes...it wasn't as if Tearen wasn't admirably intelligent in his own right...Ziejts' mind was simply superior. Still, Tearen had his own advantages, mostly in regards to the social subtleties of school life and how to manipulate his erstwhile 'friends'. Indeed, there were few people whom Tearen considered to be truly on par with him. All the other students at his school were simply a hive-mind of useless gossip and faux-controversy.

As it was, however, school was on break for the and of the Warring Season. The Aschen military went embarked on a new campaign every cycle like clockwork, but when the forces came home, the Emperor considered it important for families to spend some uninterrupted time together. Tearen's father had dragged his two children down to some second-rate province to help set up some sort of engineering clinic. Tearen didn't quite get it, but Ziejts seemed to understand.

Figures.

Growing bored of his introspection, Tearen clambered down from the damp, black rock and waded through the shallow surf up to where his kin goofed around in the sand. Their dark-skinned bodies reflected what remained of the waning, scarlet sunlight, their ebony skin blending into the long shadows cast over top of their experiments. As pure blooded Capricans, Tearen's entire family shared long, straight, silvery white hair, though only soldiers were allowed to have theirs braided, like Tearen's father.

"Done being edgy and dark?" asked Tearen's father with a wry grin.

"Never...you know me. Always looking forwards to the apocalypse." Tearen said back hunkering down and watching the water recede back through the little channels that the pair had dug into the sand. It was neat to watch the water drain along the dark grey sand, as it reflected the tarnished platinum light of the pre-dusk sky.

"...and where will you be when the apocalypse comes?" askes Ziejts, scratching out some strange new shapes in the silt.

"Oh...you know..." Tearen said, raising and eyebrow with a grin, "...at the helm."

...

[Tearen Wover]

Tearen stood at the threshold of the initiation chambers, the feeling of anticipation bouncing up and down his spine.

"No...no..."

He shook his head. He was no longer Tearen. He had been given a new name, and a new body, though it looked the same as his old one. Granted, though this body had the same dark brown skin and flowing silver hair as his previous one, it also felt...different. Tea...Nealaphh looked down at his bare hand, opening and closing it slowly. It was if he could feel more than he used to. Every sensation was vivid and invigorating. He could smell the fresh, cool air of the night sky overhead, the sweetness of the long grass around his feet, and the constant breeze of the flirtatious wind along his totally exposed body.

It was Initiation Night, the night when all of the new followers of The Master were gathered into the usually sealed chambers of the same name that had so long been the curiosity of he and his other thirty eight conscripts. For months, they had undergone rigorous mental training and deprogramming, learning to shrug off the inhibitions of the civilized world from which they had been pooled. They had asked their mentors, perpetually clad in their brown, monkish robes what initiation into Enigma meant, but only ever received warm smiles or coy chuckles. Needless to say, the rumors of some kind of sexual congress were rampant, but otherwise, they were in the dark.

The Initiation Chamber itself was an immense sandstone building, colored a chocolate brown and covered in the inscrutable hieroglyphics of the Enigmas. It was one hundred twenty seven yards in diameter and was a perfect circle, which was rather odd for a building built in the Nameless City. Regardless, each of the Initiates had been positioned at the entrance to one of the countless doors that ringed the perimeter of the Chamber and stripped of their clothes. To his left, Nealaphh could see Nobin, a man he had little familiarity with, and to the right Nerendaf, one of his closest friends since coming to the Nameless City on the Nameless Planet. The two offered nervous smiles at one another, before turning their attention back to the simple wooden doors set into the stone walls in front of them.

All at once, there came the sounding of a loud blast of horns and pipes; a discordant sound that raised goosebumps across Nealaphh's skin. It was clearly a signal to finally enter the Chamber. Swallowing his apprehension, as he had done many times since his training had started, Nealaphh pushed open the heavy door and stepped into the chamber.

Inside, a dome arched high into the ceiling, where a single, round aperture let moonlight onto the soft, loamy dirt that was the floor of the interior of the chamber. A high wall ringed the circumference of the large clearing, and ensconced torches offered a warm flickering light to the scene. All in all, it would be quite underwhelming if it wasn't for the fact that every single Enigma was seated in stands that rose high up into the recesses of the dome. Their ritualistically scarred faces stared down at the initiates with a great spectrum of expressions, ranging from solemn melancholy to malevolent glee. Normally Tearen would be feeling quite self conscious about his nudity, but the teachings of the Enigmas had taught him not to care. However, now that he was able to see the female initiates' own exposed flesh as they too entered the chamber, his body took notice.

"Initiates." said a loud voice, that none of them recognized.

"You have all failed the first test of initiation."

They looked at eachother, confused. Some of the Enigmas laughed.

"You were forbidden from entering the Initiation Chamber, and all of you obeyed until we granted you permission. Have the mores of civilization been so ingrained into you? Have we taught you nothing?"

Nealaphh's heart plummeted. Of course. The most important part of being an Enigma was to simply do what felt right, and ignore rules and laws. In this regard, they had all, indeed, failed. Other Initiates expressed their outrage and shame in due fashion before the voice continued.

"Do not despair, because there is yet hope to ascend to the next level of Awareness. The first task; Eat."

On cue, a great feast suddenly appeared in the middle of the Chamber. A great, round table covered with myriad dishes of decadent preparation. Sets of silverware and flutes of champaign were set at places for each of the the naked hopefuls. Normally, such a thing materializing out of thin air would be startling, but the acolytes had come to expect this kind of thing. A moment passed, before many of the collected acolytes surged towards the banquet with crazed looks. Nealaphh himself launched into a full sprint, his eyes locked on a particularly sumptuous looking haunch of meat, dressed in berries and herbs. Nealaphh slammed his hands onto the white linen tablecloth and vaulted over the place setting for himself, snatching the food im midair with his feet before landing back into the dirt and immediately burying his face into the utterly delicious fare.

Other Initiates who stayed against the wall were in shock; they had just been scolded for blindly following orders. Why would anyone dare to follow another one? The answer was made clear in a moment, when the Voice called out to one of the diners.

"Nudralea, why did you obey the command?"

Nudralea looked up from the large flat pan of roasted tubers she was gorging herself on and spoke loudly, flecks of half-chewed sustenance flying from her mouth.

"Because I want to!"

Nealaphh nodded to himself as he took another ravenous bite of succulent meat. Exactly. They had been scolded for obeying orders, and then were given an order. The expectation, the unspoken order was to then not follow what orders would come next. It was almost a catch twenty two, but in the face of such things, it was simply a matter of doing whatever felt best, and there was no way he was passing up on food this good. The Voice asked another question, this time to one of the Initiates who had not dashed forward to sate themselves.

"Nafadk, why did you not eat?"

Nealaphh glanced over at the tall man; he had always been the most full-bodied initiate in their group, and now that his genitals were laid bare, it was clear to see that the state of his musculature was contiguous with his assets. The deep-throated man answered in a relaxed voice.

"Because my body compels me to feed, and I am not a slave to my physical form."

Nealaphh elicited a small chuckle from behind the rim of the fifth flute of champaign he was guzzling down. It was also a good answer, and one he had honestly not considered. After a time, once those Initiates who had opted to eat were finished with their conjured fare, they stood back up and returned to their original stations, though a few deigned to relieve themselves first. The now disheveled table and banquet disappeared with as little ceremony as it had come, and The Voice came again.

"Now for the next test. Kill."

At this, two ceremonial looking daggers appeared in the middle of the arena, dressed in gold filigree and glinting in the combination of moon and fire light. At this, everyone balked. Was this an order to obey or ignore...or something else? Some of the intiates lowered into defensive stances. Suddenly, a small voiced woman by the name of Nytelano spoke loudly.

"I refuse to take the lives of-"

Her preaching was cut off as the woman to her right, Nhazwa, sprinted over to her and snapped her neck with a vicious snarl. There was a beat, and suddenly blood started flying and spraying all across the floor of the Chamber. One man, Nuripad, was the first to reach the knives in the center, but rather than turn them on the woman who was rapidly approaching, he took both daggers and buried them into his own eyes. He let out a shrill roar before collapsing to the moist dirt.

Meanwhile, Nealaphh had already managed to dispatch two of his colleagues when a man named Nohone, smaller than he, jumped on to Nealaphh's back and began to try and throttle him. With an enraged huff, Nealaphh stumbled backwards against the rough stone wall of the Chamber and pressed into the skinny weight of Nohone, trying to crush the strength from the man's thin arms, but it was to no avail. Nealaphh hunched to the ground and grabbed the hands clasping his neck and yanked them free with a desperate grasp before he felt a white hot pain in his back. Nohone slumped off of Nealaphh with a gurgle. Nealaphh looked up in panic to see Nerendaf dashing away, knife in hand. It was clearly apparent that he had meant to run Nerendaf through with the ceremonial blade, but had he also intended to kill Nealaphh? Or had it been a gambit to save his friend? This mystery would never be answered, and Nerendaf was promptly tackled by four other initiates desiring the weapon.

Nealaphh felt the wound on his back, watching the melee as he gauged his health. The wound was mostly superficial, but bleeding badly enough that it would need attention soon. Still, he knew he had to capitalize on the adrenaline still in his system, and joined the frenetic dogpile for ownership of the knife as well.

Everything was sweat, blood and elbows at the five initiates tumbled and competed for their lives. All of a sudden, Nealaphh saw a glint out of the corner of his right eye, and slammed the arm holding the knife to the ground with an imperious grasp. Another initiate, Nealaphh had no idea who, tried to snatch it from the vulnerable hand, but they were grabbed by the legs and thrown away. Nealaphh had only a quick second to take advantage of the opening, and with vicious intent, he arched his back forwards and sank his teeth into the neck of the initiate he had pinned.

The taste of warm metal filled his clenched jaws as he thrashed and tore at the soft flesh with his teeth. Nealaphh had never dared dream that it could be so easy for human denticles to rend the skin of another, but in this melee of the survivor, he learned. Once the victim beneath him had ceased their forlorn heaving, Nealaphh rose from the pile of carnage, blade in hand and swallowed the mixture of foreign and self-made blood in his mouth. With dark eyes, he spied the other knife wielder stalking towards him, a man named Nikgolc. He was known to be rather proficient with bladed weaponry, but they had all been trained. Nealaphh too adopted the Enigma stance and they circled each other amidst the ever present screams and snaps. An embattled pair of initiates tumbled past between them, and they charged at eachother, silence the only sentiment to be exchanged.

Nealaphh inmediately sustained a long cut up his left arm as he smacked Nikgolc's blade away with the corresponding hand. Nealaphh tried to feint his blade to the right before thrusting at Nikgolc's ribs, but the superior fighter shifted his weight forwards and stepped on Nealaphh's right foot, causing them to both collapse to the floor, with Nikgolc controlling the pin. Nealaphh could hear the battle crazed acolyte muttering something over and over between his seething, bared teeth. Die.

Something shifted in Nealaphh at that moment. He had already suffered through mortality's final act once before, as they all had. The second time held the same fear, the same panic that he had felt the first time. And just like the first time, Nealaphh was held immobile, unable to move and change his fate. He could hear the final words he ever heard from his wife and daughter, muted and distant. The constant beeping of the heart monitor. The helplessness.

"NnnnnnnoooOOOO!" Nealaphh screamed, the strength of panic flooding his limbs. He smashed his head into Nikgolc's nose, causing the man to flinch but not relinquish his grip. Nealaphh proceeded to wriggle and throw his weight around in frenzied throes of denial, forcing Nikgolc to maintain his focus on Nealaphh and Nealaphh alone. He did not anticipate Nyeikon, a normally meek female, to wrench Nikgolc's dagger from his hand and lop his head halfway off with a two handed stroke. Nealaphh immediately rose up and drove his own blade up through her jaw and into her frontal lobe. The blade was withdrawn with a gut turning schluck before Nealaphh turned around, surveying the Chamber. All other initiates were either dead or dying, muted gasps and whispers echoing all throughout the blood spattered, torchlit house of carnage. All, except one. Nudralea. She stared at him with vigorous fire burning in her eyes, complete confidence in Nealaphh's death emanating from every twitch of her sweat speckled frame. She was unarmed, but unafraid. Nealaphh looked down at his two daggers and back to her. He should just stab her where she stood and be done with it. That would be the smart thing to do. That's what he should do. But that's not he wanted to do. Nealaphh wordlessly tossed the knife over to the bloodsoaked woman, where she picked it up with a lithe, swooping motion. There they stood, staring at eachother, preparing to die.

"Hold."

Nudralea and Nealaphh both froze on the spot and looked around, eyes wide. Now what?

"Mate."

They both looked back at each other, eyes still wide. It was neither of their first impulse to do so. Obey? Disobey?

Do what you want.

Nealaphh could feel the urge rising from his mid section, a slowly inhaled breath that spread a tingling chill through his limbs and up to his head, where his mouth began to salivate. A sensation somewhere between imminent nausea and exuberance, it ricocheted through his body, forcing him to its will.

Mate.

Nealaphh could not see the Chamber. He could not see the carnage. He could not see the torches, nor the thousand eyes staring at him. He could see only Nudralea, and her body, painted with the sacred life force of their friends and rivals. He flung his blade to the side and they melded together coupling with deep intensity and synergy. Their embrace was that of unbridled passion, and the kiss was that of empathy, sweet upon the soul.

There, in the middle of the unspeakable horror, they sank to the ground and tended to one another's overpowering need. Their breathing matched, their bodies in rhythm, they performed the ancient rite of those who held a pulse within their hearts and minds. Existential barriers faded away as they gave in to eachother, all the varied efluence of passion concocting a heady aroma which drove the imperative even further...

...

Once the final test had been completed, Nudralea and Nealaphh rose from the dirt and grime to be heralded as the newest Enigmas. Cacophanous applause and the ever-dissonant hooting of horns and pipes lauded them as they staggered from the floor of Life, victors in the Rite of Primality. The lessons would last for eternity, and perhaps, one day, they would ascend beyond the status of Enigma, the station they now occupied, and join the Echelons of the Unbodied.

One could only hope.

No other reward would suffice for what had been done.