[hider=Power; or the lack thereof]
[center][img]https://darkartangel.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/fire-copy-2.jpg[/img][/center]
This is a world,
Of lies and deceit,
Where a few hold power,
While the rest stand weak.

The minority rule,
Like gods way up high,
And we stick to their word,
Till the day that we die.

Following on,
Like a herdfull of sheep,
Where all that we do,
Is eat, poop, and sleep.

They aim so high,
For total control,
But most just shrug,
And cash in their soul.

A marionette,
On a silver string,
We’re wrapped round their fingers,
Just like a ring.

Snagged from all sides,
And tied down with rules,
We follow on blindly,
So much the fools.

Trapped in this cage,
It’s power we lack,
Leaving no means at all,
For us to fight back.

We just lie here,
Swallowing all of their lies,
And when truth’s in our face,
We turn a blind eye.

This is a world,
Of lies and deceit,
Where a few hold power,
While the rest stand weak.
[/hider]
[hider=Empowered] by [@DarkWind]

Familiar flashes of light around a young child
Blares loud those red and blues rule
Wrapped in white and black, not paper
Rather metal, steel, and the essential
Illness of man rested in wary fingers
Angered, tired… Ignorant?

Pain trickles down the cheeks of the child
Man who read him stories at night lays
Still, like an unused abandoned swing
Resting on a crimson sheet and
Concrete bed, the home of 
One more life gone too soon

Lights and faces shimmer in the mirror
Of that child’s weeping gaze
Reflecting back to all the inevitable
Answer. 
Response bound to be held tight
Between clenched, furious fingers

Time passes by to heal wounds
They say, but the cut festers
Burning with an unknown need
For justice, revenge, anything
But for it all to happen
He needs control, power

Tearful child to unforgiving man
Ghosts of the past haunting
As unseen chains linked
To what was rather than
What could be

Opens his eyes rested on
Tattered bed, empty home.
Walks by the bus stop and
Ignores the yellow carrier,
Hope on wheels, future lost

Hands folded within sweater
Holding close concealed power
Black, cold and heavy
Weighted on a scale of death

See the man, memory fresh
Soaked rage seeps out
Steps closer, closer, closer

Sweaty, shaking palms
Pull loose the cold control
From the sweater

Pause. Deep breath. Can stop.
Click. Incomprehensible force. 

Bang.
Not power.

Sorrow
[/hider]
[hider=King] By [@RomanAria]

Silvery metal encircles her head
Crimson stone rivals the flame in her eyes
Her crimson-stained blades have left thirteen men dead
And I alone can know that she lies.

The circlet gleams with a light from within
As she faces her court and raises her eyes
I alone see her a temptress of sin;
I see an enemy that I should despise.

Thirteen cold men are dead by her hands;
Men who threatened her “divine” right to rule.
Men who, foolish, tried to make demands;
Her blades were cunning and her mind was cruel.

The stones on her crown shine red in the light;
Stones that were bought by a blood-fueled hate
Tonight at last will be the final night;
Tonight by my blade she will meet her fate.

The floor shines ivory beneath my heels
But my eyes are focused on her, The One
I must ignore whatever I feel
At least, until the deed is done.

Ah! She knows why I have come!
She sees, she knows; my hand goes to my blade.
Thinly she smiles; my heart pounds as a drum
She raises a hand; she’ll let herself be played?

Regal, ethereal, she descends from her throne;
Holds out her hand and is presented her knife.
The guards hold the court and let the duel alone;
The terrible duel to the end of a life.

The thin crimson smile, like a blood-covered blade
A mocking half-curtsy as she crosses the room
The weapons are strong, for her dainty hands made;
But lover, I’m stronger, and you will meet your doom.

Her sword darts to mine, a lightning-white arc
Her heart is on fire; her mind is set.
I parry and slash, with spark after spark,
And soon she grows tired… The once chance I’ll get.

My blade flashes up with a mind of its own.
My lover’s heart pierces, and with flash of my sorrow,
She falls to the ground, now dainty, now frail, now alone,
And I am the King of her Queendom with the dawn of the morrow.
[/hider]
[hider=Goug Immortal][i]Goug is a world of magic, somewhere between heaven and earth. A million souls inhabit this plane – souls of mortals who proved their mettle in life. In Goug they are reborn, to live a new life among worthy peers. It is a cosmic chance to prove once and for all whose spirit is the strongest. The greatest souls of Earth can earn only one chance to live and die in Goug, and when their time is finished, they reap their reward in the afterlife. 

It is a world ruled only by strength, and shaped by fierce competition. At its heart lies the Temple of Essada, home to a holy order of pacifist monks who shape the natural laws of Goug. For generations, their order has governed the realm, and brought stability to a system of chaos. Their hierarchy of power ranks the supernatural powers of every soul in Goug. The strongest rule supreme, and the weaker souls are left to battle one another over the scraps.

Chief among all souls is Immortal Lysa. She has ruled as the undisputed queen of the world for a hundred years, crushing all who resist. Under her dynastic governance, the realm has grown peaceful – but restless. An insurrection is brewing in the east, and threatens to swallow the Temple of Essada. If it should succeed, Immortal Lysa’s reign would crumble, and the world plunge back into anarchy and never-ending war.[/i]

[h3]Tendril – Eastern Village[/h3]

Cannons echoed across a field of wheat. Exhausted men labored to clear and reload the guns, and Vinn stood among them, a sword in one hand and a pair of binoculars in the other. As the smoke from the powder cleared, he raised these to his eyes and surveyed the enemy. “Again,” he ordered calmly. His voice was like grating stones. The battery of cannon boomed out another salvo – twelve-pounders, four of them firing in series. “Again,” Vinn commanded. 

The cannon rang in this manner, echoing against silence in the summer air at the edge of Tendril’s modest village. The only clouds in the sky came from their angry muzzles, and wafted gently upwards until they vanished against the sun. It was past midday, and Vinn still stood as tall as when he took the field at dawn. “Again.” Behind him, nervous eyes peeked out from shuttered windows, four, six, or ten at a time. “Again.” 

“Hold.” He held his binoculars to his eye for a long moment, then let them fall. His stern voice belonged to a fearsome face – a hard jaw and cold, pale eyes, ringed in long and dark hair. He wore wheellock pistols on each hip, and a saber on his back. He barked for his horse.

“Is it dead?” One of the gun sergeants, a wrinkled veteran bristling with hair, passed over the reins.

“Soon enough,” Vinn replied, and left him there. He rode a chestnut mare at a canter through a sea of green, cutting a straight path through a field pock-marked and cratered by fire. He found his quarry in a patch of earth stripped bare from shelling, ringed in smoke and flame. A single man, white as bone from head to foot, dressed in a pristine robe. “You’ve tired,” Vinn said in form of greeting, stepping off his horse with agile feet.

“You will not weaken me with words, slave,” the man replied. There were snakes in his throat, and venom in his voice. “Goug has seen what you are worth, and it is less than nothing. Today this realm casts you out. We are done with you.”

Vinn drew his sword. “Aaron Tryst. Energy technique. Number five hundred and twelve.” He raised the tip of his blade and closed his eyes. “I see you.” 

The white man snarled and raised his palms. A wave of power crashed out of his fingers, like a bolt of thunder without light, or a typhoon with no wind. An invisible force which lanced forwards with a wraith’s scream, and tore through the chestnut mare like a fist through paper. “Die!” Tryst seethed. “Die, and be cursed!” He advanced on the horse’s body, unleashing his furious assault until only shreds remained. “Essada spits on your name!” 

Vinn opened his eyes, and placed the tip of his sword on Tryst’s shoulder. “They’re next,” he said flatly.

He placed the head in a bag with dirt to cover the smell, and walked with even steps back up the path he had ridden through the field of green. His gun sergeant wore a grim smile and bowed his head. “Number five hundred and twelve,” he said, in a voice that bore no emotion but respect.

Vinn dropped the bag at his feet. “Put it with the others.”

[h3]Essada – Monastery Cathedral[/h3]

Nine braziers lit the chamber, and a hundred chanting monks filled the air with somber tones. A song of supplication, sung in reverence at the curtain which guarded Immortal Lysa’s ivory throne. There she sat, hidden from view, her listless expression lit by candles at her feet. Seven was with her, a monstrous man with a perpetual scowl who served as her bodyguard and plaything. He, too, bored of the monks’ droning, but predictably kept silent.

The song would continue endlessly if she allowed it. Their vigil began when news of Tryst’s execution reached the temple. Immortal Lysa allowed them to continue through four more battles. Each emissary returned more desecrated than the last. The head of Ayliss, known in the temple and abroad as the Silver Tongue, was robbed of her lower jaw. Days later, Pyro was sent back, less the eyes, ears, and nose. Then came Marion, scalped and skewered on his crystal sword, and finally Lorm, who returned to the temple a mere skull, with the words “Face Me” etched across the crown. 

None of this concerned Lysa, who held the champions of the temple in mixed degrees of disdain. But the monks themselves grew more troubled with each crushing defeat. Their anguish was intriguing, and so she allowed it to continue. In their desperation, the monks would express to her the depths of their faith. Their heroes failed them, and their own strength waned. 

Their final moments were upon them – would they turn to this rebel from the east, or renew their allegiance to the Ivory Queen? Each monk answered in his own time. She allowed them to leave, if they wished. Vinn executed them anyway, so their weakness cost her nothing. For those who remained, there was no encouragement. They joined the vigil, or they went about their work. Now at last, she decided, the time had come. 

“Open,” she said. At her slightest utterance, the crowd of monks fell silent as a grave. Seven raised a corner of his mouth in a wicked half-smile, as if to say, ‘I will enjoy this.’ He would. For as long as he had served, the man had displayed a keen taste for brutal displays of authority. Lysa waited for her brute to throw back the curtain, and stood from her throne.

“You who have remained, bear witness.” She spoke softly, and yet the conviction in her voice bore the striking tone of a hammer beating steel. “Your warriors are dead. Against the power rising from Tendril, your order has proven itself worthless. Your weakness sickens me. Leave the temple now, and seek what mercy you can find from your enemy.” No one moved, as Lysa expected. “You refuse to leave. It is not loyalty, but fear which stays you. I will not reward you for cowering behind your walls like children. I will not save you from the terror on your door. Leave me and die. Remain, and die. Your lives are meaningless.” 

A tremor of fear went through them. Lysa felt it in their minds – nurtured it, pouring malice into their thoughts to poison their imaginations. Seven watched the mewling fools with a twisted grin as they choked back pitiful tears. Lysa let the darkness swirl for a long space, savoring their innermost thoughts of despair.

“Is it your wish to serve this usurper?” she asked. With the words spoken, she sent a new emotion into her flock – a gentleness of hope, but only faint. It was enough to set the old men to tearful cries of ‘No! No!’ She didn’t let them see her smile. “You wish to remain in this temple – to serve my rule with the remainder of your worthless lives?” ‘Yes! Yes!’

She cast an eye at Seven, who shrugged. She placed a lurid thought in his mind, and he pulled back his lips in approval – an evil, frightful smile, as dangerous as it was fleeting. Like the peasants outside, like the monks in the temple, like the realm itself, Seven’s will was hers to command. “Very well,” she said aloud. “Let the usurper come to me, and I will remind you who you serve.”

Seven closed the curtain closed behind her. The monks left the chamber, and she took him on the ivory throne.

Outside, an elder took up the skull of Lorm, which bore the usurper’s challenge, ‘Face Me.’ With a blue flame sprouting from his bony finger, he carved the sigil of Essada into the bone, and sent it with a rider to Tendril.

[h3]Capital City Essada – The Temple Steps[/h3]

Vinn rode a black horse to the capital. He came alone. All souls gave way to him as he passed through the streets. Many hid, but others formed a loose trail that followed him all the way to the center of the city, where the dark towering gates of the Temple of Essada stood open. There, he encountered a tall, smirking figure who alone barred his passage. Vinn dismounted with fearless contempt in his eyes.

“Number seven,” he said in greeting. A frown tugged at his jaw. “Stand aside,” he commanded. The figure only smirked in reply. Vinn put a finger to his temple and scowled. For the first time in living memory, he felt confusion. No words came to him – only images, feelings. The horde of spectators fell into an uneasy quiet. At last, Vinn straightened his posture and forced a laugh. “Now I understand,” he said. “A mute. Your mind is feeble.”

Seven uncrossed his arms and flexed. A lesser man would have lost his courage at the site alone. Seven’s mouth curled back. There was no tongue – only gruesome teeth, filed to points like spears. When he breathed it was as if a great bear was growling. He opened his palms wide, each finger a fist unto itself, and snarled.

Vinn drew a sword and sidestepped slowly, focused on his enemy’s eyes. They tracked him patiently – not a bear’s eyes, but a spider’s, waiting, all-knowing. With his left hand Vinn took a pistol and laid it on the ground, kicking it towards his foe. Seven refused to break eye contact, and made no move for the weapon.

“As you wish.” With blinding speed, Vinn’s second pistol was smoke in his hands, and the shot ripped through its target. Seven lunged forwards. Their battle lasted only a few furious seconds – the monster unleashing massive swings, Vinn ducking each by only a desperate inch. He stumbled backwards. A great hand met with iron, and his pistol sailed. His sword came up in a flash, meeting Seven’s open palm and splitting his arm down to the elbow. The creature roared, and tore the blade away, still buried in his ruined limb. With the other hand he landed a crushing blow on Vinn’s torso. Vinn fell, then scrambled madly for the temple gate while great stomping feet chased close on his heels. Vinn reached the loaded pistol he’d offered, wheeled, and fired.

Seven’s face erupted in blood. The shot took him in the eye. For an instant it seemed he might simply bellow a wordless epithet and attack again – but in that instant, Vinn pulled his sword from the beast’s arm and finished him in merciless strokes. Wild hatred consumed his face as steel sundered bones. Long after his brutality had served its purpose, he took Seven’s broken head from the remains and held it aloft, and shouted at the mortified audience.

“Speak now!” he screamed. “Speak now, or forever serve me in silence, as this mute served the ivory bitch!” No one spoke. Vinn gathered his weapons, then, thinking only briefly, cast his pistols aside. He took the severed head in his left hand and the bloody saber in his right, and passed through the gate.

[h3]Essada Temple – Monastery Cathedral[/h3]

She waited on her throne with the curtain wide. The cathedral was emptied, but for the braziers which burned along every wall. Stained glass changed the sunlight into brilliant colors on stone walls. Prayer benches littered the velvet floor, strewn about by the panicked exodus of the faithful. 

Immortal Lysa watched the battle on the steps through Seven’s eyes. She was in his mind, restraining him, laying the bait to lure her challenger inside. He took it eagerly. Seven did as he was commanded. She felt his pain in every synapse as he fell to the blade, and smiled at every cut. 

The usurper took his time on the steps. He must have known her power, must have sensed it long before he ever thought to take up such a fool’s errand. But he couldn’t know the doom that waited for him in the cathedral. Those machinations were known only to Seven, and Lysa had been inside his mind, ensuring that his secrets were kept silent from prying eyes. The trap was set and the contest decided. He could only flee, and accept ignominy to save his miserable life – and so she fed him confidence, to sweeten the trap. She chose to feel fear, to feel uncertainty and to let Vinn sense those doubts. She felt his pace quicken. His fate was sealed.

“Lysa Harlyn.” He threw Seven’s head through the open cathedral door. “Known to your sheep as the Immortal. A false queen on a throne of lies.” He measured his steps, clearly intending to intimidate her. If she could have done so without ruining the façade, she might have laughed. “A telepath and a liar.”

“We recognize our own,” Lysa sang, a riddled response to both of Vinn’s claims. For a moment, he hesitated, perhaps grasping – if only barely – her treachery, from the mockery in her voice. She felt a finger in her mind, and let it touch her thoughts. The feigned weakness seemed to bolster the usurper, and he took another step forwards. “Go on, then,” she said. “You have more to say?”

His voice was in her mind, lower, more visceral than when he spoke aloud. It was the voice of the Devil. [b]I see you.[/b]

[b]I see you, Vincent. Telepath and swordsman. And a liar,[/b] she added, returning his insult. [b]Every moment of your life, I have seen you.[/b]

[b]Then you have seen what happens next,[/b] he replied, fearless, brave, doomed. She almost admired his courage – a fool’s courage. It would not save him. Her thoughts drifted to Seven, fearsome and unmoving, and yet Vinn had offered him the gun he used to –

Too late, Lysa recognized a guiding hand on her thoughts. Vinn was steering her towards that memory, toying with her. Unwittingly, he had nearly stumbled upon the dangerous secret in her mind. She fought off his mental assault and he gave way readily, laughing, thinking it a victory. In truth he had squandered his last chance to save himself for an imagined taunt. 

[b]Is that what his power was?[/b] he laughed. [b]He alone could satisfy the appetites of the Ivory Bitch?[/b]

“Close the door,” Lysa said, making an effort to sound meek. The fingernails scratched at her brain – electric, exciting, painful and invigorating. But his touch was more subtle than she’d anticipated – a closely guarded technique, no doubt, which had given him the edge over the temple’s champions. She could not risk another mistake. The time for displays was over.

[b]You actually loved him, didn’t you?[/b] he said, halting his march towards the throne. [b]Shall I let you weep, before I take your head?[/b] Lysa felt sadness assaulting her mind – not a wave, but a trickle. Perhaps that was all that Vinn could muster. Disappointing. He turned for the door. “You wish to die in secret – so be it,” he said aloud. [b]But I know what it is you hide.[/b]

[b]No one knows,[/b] she told him, lying. [b]If you give me nothing else, give me your silence.[/b] He had to believe she was beaten. She let him dig into her mind, deep as he could. It hurt – but she fed him only what he sought to find. Affirmation, of a lie he’d believed since he was born. The trick worked. 

Vinn barred the door, locking himself inside, if he only knew it. [b]Confess your sin. Die with the truth on your lips, and I will let you keep them in the afterlife.[/b]

“They cannot hear us now,” she said. It was finished – the monks, the souls of the city, all had seen everything she’d wanted them to see. “I will tell you what you came here to say,” she said. All illusions of weakness had fled her voice – she spoke now as the queen. “All your life, you alone have known that the temple’s rankings are a lie. You know this, because of a feeling that has followed you since your birth.”

“That you are not the Immortal,” he said. “You are not the ruler of this realm. You have sat on a stolen throne for all these years.” He bared his teeth. “[i]My[/i] throne.”

“You think that you are the Number One?” 

“I [i]know[/i] it,” he replied. “I have [i]always[/i] known it.” The poor fool. “That feeling is my first memory. That feeling led me to discover the truth, and I have guarded that secret. So that one day, I could spill your blood in your stolen temple as a conqueror, not the exiled king you have made me. I have come to avenge myself, and to take what is rightfully mine – everything. But I will not be the coward that you….”

“A feeling,” she said, laughing a wicked laugh. “A feeling, and your first memory. A feeling, that the world you know is all a lie.” She could hardly contain her hysterics. “And you [i]believed it?[/i]”

Lysa could feel his sudden panic. He lashed out at her mind with all his might, and she swatted him away effortlessly. His panic became a terror, and she tore through his defenses to amplify that fear. He staggered backwards, and Lysa advanced.

[b]I am Immortal Lysa. I am the queen of Goug, now, and for all eternity.[/b] Her voice was inside him, around him, shaking his bones and rattling the walls of the cathedral. Prayer beads, mats, benches, flaming braziers – all trembled at her words. [b]I am a telepath. I am a liar. And I am the Number One.[/b]

She poured catastrophes over his mind, holding him there, conscious, so that his wailing echoed off the stone walls. Glass windows shattered, and the earth shook. Flames were circling in the air, swirling around her and licking her shattered foe. Nightmares manifest in the air around her, dancing in the flames and clawing at Vinn with fingers of bone and shadow. Through the horror, he managed to shriek a single word. “Why?”

The chaos broke his body. He should have died then, but Lysa held his soul in the charred flesh so that she could answer him. [b]Can you feel it?[/b] she asked, her tone teasing him playfully. [b]The abject terror of a million souls. I fed you the pathetic so-called champions of the temple, so that they would all believe the lie, as you did. I brought you, a powerless fool, to my throne, so that I could crush them all beneath my heel as I crush you. I will build an empire from your bones. Horror will be the bricks, and your blood the mortar. Your life is nothing to me – but from your death I shall build an eternal empire to spit in the face of god himself.[/b]

The corpse at her feet mouthed a word. Breathless, Vinn could not speak, but he mouthed the word “Seven.”

Lysa released her hold on his mind. The tremors stopped, and the air calmed. “You were right,” she said softly. “I did love him. But you never learned his power, did you? I kept you from his mind when you fought.” The corpse blinked. “You asked me if I wanted to weep for him. Tell me, am I weeping?” Vinn’s eyes went wide. She turned her back on him, and retrieved the head he’d thrown. “That’s because Seven is a regenerator.”

She placed the head on his chest. It was wild with rage. Seven’s head flew forward, jaws gnashing, and tore into Vinn’s living corpse. Lysa watched it consume him. She watched Vinn’s dead lips curl back in a silent scream, as Seven’s pointed teeth destroyed every inch of him.

[h3]Essada City – Temple Steps[/h3]

Like pit demons, they emerged from the shattered cathedral. The earth beneath them was cracked, the steps crumbling. All who saw them hid their faces. Some fell in prayer; others fell unconscious. The city was on fire, the sky burnt, the sun choked in thick columns of black smoke. Seven had rebuilt his body with Vinn’s flesh – what little of it remained. He was a skinless apparition of bones and muscle and gore. His tongueless mouth beamed wide with delight at the destruction. Immortal Lysa walked calmly beside him, smeared with blood from head to toe, a symphony of red and white and death and conquest. She emanated fear, fueling the terror in the minds of her subjects until all cowered beneath her. “Flawless,” she said. Seven laughed – a wretched, rattling noise that struck terror into a million souls, and would echo for all of time.
[/hider]
[hider=A Small House, On A Small Island, In The Middle Of The Ocean] by [@Keyguyperson]

[center][hider=Disclaimer]
There are many parts in this story that are not in English, and some parts where something is translated to English (Or "English" in terms of the characters appearing to speak it since I can't just write all the dialogue in another language). I know English, and am learning Spanish just like pretty much every American in High School. Many, many translations in this story will be incorrect, and I am well aware that they are incorrect. Unfortunately, I can't hire a translator to help me write, so you will have to deal with sub-par translations. I will also point out that the names of many of the main characters aren't actually in the correct order for their language. This is just there for simplicity, so nobody has to think to understand exactly what their relationships are. That being said, on with the show!
[/hider][/center]

[hr]
[h2][center]Tri-State Union, Nomad Canal[/center][/h2]

The bright glow of the sun illuminated the gigantic swath of water that separated the mountain range, giving the inhabitants of both sides of the city a view of the ancient characters inscribed on either side of the canal. Nobody knew what they were or how they got there, but they all agreed that they were some of the most elegant things in the country. Rows and rows of them lined the metallic walls of the canal, which was of similar mystery. It was known in every time in every part of the world, going all the way back to the oldest scrawls on the walls of caves. Thus it recieved its name: the Nomad Canal, for it roamed the Earth as if in search of a home that could never be found.

A woman looked down at the peaceful scene, watching ships pass through the canal. One could only guess what kind of vessel it was meant for, even its locks could hold three ships at once. As her long, black hair flew in the wind, she closed her eyes. For a blissful moment, the sounds of the waves in the canal below and the idle hum of the airship's engine were her entire world. As was so common in such moments, it was interrupted by a voice.

"Hey, Miss Clio. Be ready. We're docking up in thirty."

It was the voice of Naoko Mai, captain of the airship [i]Ishi[/i] and first-class downer. Her eternal pessimism combined with her wide view of the world made her the kind of person who would ruin every trip to the ocean by mentioning that it used to have fish in it. Just by looking at her one could see her approach to life: complete and utter apathy. Her hair was a greasy, unkempt mess of brown and her uniform was covered in dirt from God knows how long ago. Mami Clio frowned at her voice, turning around to meet her eyes.

"Do you make it a point to ruin everything?"

"Don't see what there is to ruin."

Mami sighed at the answer, which she had heard far too many times before. Naoko didn't know it, but she was probably the most annoying person Mami had ever met. Her ideology was, in Mami's opinion, just her raining on the parade that is the world. One had to wonder how she could ever win a battle with that attitude. More likely than not, she would just consider herself and all of her crew nothing more than expendable drones. With the war brewing, Mami was glad to be able to be off the ship.

Before Mami could answer, the conversation was cut off. Much to her joy, the First Mate's voice called out over the radio.

"Blowing hikōmizu tanks! Brace for descent!"

Both felt a sense of disorientation as the ship began to descend, the hikōmizu in the ship's flotation device being pushed out by compressed air. The crimson liquid floated upwards like a backwards waterfall from the tanks all around the ship. The sun's rays passed through the streams, bathing the ship in a soothing pink light. It was a sight that had been seen by countless people countless times. Even so, it never got old. Mami stopped to watch, turning around to look at the physics-defying waterfalls. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Naoko doing the last thing she thought she would ever do.

[i]So the grump can smile.[/i] She thought before descending beneath deck to gather her things.

[hr]
The door to Mami's quarters shut with a wham, though she hadn't intended to slam it. Doors on airships were quite similar to those on naval vessels, despite how counterproductive it seemed. Thanks to hikōmizu, however, the ship could use armored doors without needing to worry about staying afloat. The superdense liquid had been a part of Earth culture for longer than the whole civilization could remember. The few ancient texts that were translated referenced it's use as fuel for airships as well. Even so, nobody quite knew how it got there. Just yet another mystery of the world.

Mami walked carefully over to her desk, compensating for the constantly moving deck. Her quarters were exceptional, but her particular line of work made a private room necessary. She was one of the nation's leading anthropologists, a profession she ended up in thanks to the particularly odd decision of getting a degree in linguistic Anthropology in order to improve her writing skills. While she still wrote some on the side, she had fallen in love with anthropology. To be able to study the Nomad Canal with government funding was an incredible opportunity, one she wouldn't dare pass up.

The desk itself was occupied by a multitude of writings in the three different languages of the Union. It was nothing more than a collection recent writings she'd decided to translate. It was written by the Second State philosopher Nobu Kouki, one of her personal favorites. She'd personally asked him if she could translate it so the other two nations could read it, an offer he immediately took up. His ideas had always seemed inciting for her, despite their rather odd ideas. She figured that someone else out there might like it as well, and she had spent most of the trip in her quarters working on the translation. 

[i]Only a few pages left[/i] She thought as she stuffed the papers haphazardly into her suitcase. [i]Maybe I'll get it done in my off time[/i]

As she moved on to pack up the bedspread, she paused for a few moments as she thought about the writings. A sudden realization came upon her, but it didn't feel at all like a big one. It was much closer to a momentary thought that you could smile at. Like the feeling you have when you read between the lines of a book. Still, it wasn't quite the same. She chuckled at it, thinking it to be funny instead of interesting. Quite a common reaction for humans, opting to laugh at something one would expect to treat almost like a question.

"The Captain acts like she read only what I've got translated so far!" Said Mami, holding the sheets in the air while she talked to herself. "Take out just a few words and you get the same depressing worldview she has."

After that brief moment, she continued with her packing. The pink glow of the sunlight passing through the hikōmizu outside of the porthole lit the room sufficiently for her work. It took her far less time to pack than she had expected, and she found that she still had a few minutes. She decided to use the time to simply look out of the porthole at the city carved into the side of the mountain. The streets wound up and down the cliff faces on both sides, with countless bridges connecting them. No matter where you were going, you'd have to go uphill one of the ways.

The architecture in the city was a unique mixture of all three different styles in the Union. The almost whimsical domes of the First State combined with the traditional elegance of the Second State and the bright colors that characterized the Third State made for an interesting collection to say the least. Many buildings practically hung off of the streets, as if clinging onto them for dear life with their foundations at the top floor. An old design trend from the Third State given new life thanks to the unique environment of the canal.

Signs were written in all three languages, as to be expected in the center of trade for the Union and beyond. Mami had heard that everyone in the city knew the languages as well, something she doubted. Compared to the languages of the First and Third states, the Second State language was completely alien. She had always had a knack with languages, but even for her learning to write the other two was hard due to being born in the Second State. Plenty of people from the other two states could speak her language though, so she didn't see that as too far-fetched. Of course, time would tell all as it tends to do.

[hr]
The smell of the salty ocean filled the air, intermingling with the aromas of Third State food. An open-air cafe stood on the edge of the cliff, with only a railing separating Mami and her food from falling into the canal. The floor was packed with customers, most of them being Third State natives unlike Mami. She took a small sip of her coffee while looking down at the docked [i]Ishi[/i] floating in the water. Having to come down all the way was the one problem with hikōmizu airships. Their undersides were always unarmed and vulnerable thanks to that.

"I've never seen someone from the Second State eat merienda." Said a voice in Arheña, prompting a switch in Mami's mind and causing her to accidentally write down an Arheña word in the Kryskyy translation.

She turned around to see an elderly woman behind her. She was looking down at Mami's meal, which consisted of a couple of croissants and a mug of coffee. It was more or less the most average option for merienda at the cafe, and generally only people from the Third State ordered it for the meal. Tourists tended to question why such a small dish was on what they assumed was the dinner menu. Mami knew from experience that such questions were generally responded to with a hearty, yet not taunting, laugh.

"How did you know I was from the Second State?" Mami asked, astounded by what seemed to just be a lucky guess. "I thought the best way to spot tourists at merienda was by looking at the portions on their plate."

"I've never met anyone from the First or Third States who could read your language." Responded the woman, who gently motioned towards Nobu Kouki's writings. As usual for Mami, they were spread all across the table and kept in place by various random objects. 

"Trust me, we think the same thing about Kryskyy and Arheña. The only similarity between our language and the other two is that it's read left to right. This translation has been exhausting, and I know all three languages."

"You're working on a translation?" Said the woman, her interest clearly piqued. Without invitation, she sat down on the other side of the table. It was always somewhat amusing to Mami how such an informal action was taken while using such formal language and pronouns.

"Yes, this is the latest collection of essays by Nobu Kouki."

"Isn't he the one who's popular above the Mediterráneo?"

"Yeah, the war left a lot of people wondering why they were alive." She looked down at the writings and smiled gently. "I suppose believing that you determine your own meaning would be popular."

"I assume you're here to study the canal." Said the woman, catching Mami completely off guard and almost making her spit out her coffee.

"H-how did you know [i]that[/i]?" She said as her eyes darted around, checking for anything she might have knocked over.

"I heard it mentioned that Mami Clio was hired by Nobu Kouki to translate his essays." Said the woman "Mami Clio is the foremost anthropologist in the Second State. A Second State airship just came into dock, and we all know that the Air Force wants their gloves on whatever ancient technology let the canal drill its way through the mountains that used to be here. You are translating his essays. Therefore, you are Mami Clio."

"Well, you clearly know who I am. Only fair that you tell me who you are."

"I'm Valencia Filomena. You've got a reservation in my inn, how else was I supposed to know that you were coming here?"

"I'm not sure whether or not that deduction was you being a genius or just really lucky."

"I own a business."

"So?"

"So it was 50/50."

[hr]
[i]They looked a lot different from the city.[/i]

Mami's mind went racing as she looked on at the giant block of text on the side of the canal's metallic walls. This particular section was similar to Nejiin, her own language. So similar, in fact, that she thought she could read it. For a brief moment, she had an illusion of accomplishment, thinking she had translated a text nobody had since the dawn of humanity. That illusion was shattered when she actually read it aloud, and found that it made absolutely no sense.

"Express train my alright daughter." She said. It took her a brief moment to realize that nothing on the canal made any sense.

She simply stared at the characters, marveling at how similar yet different they were to those used in her own language. It felt terrible, to be so seemingly close to the answer yet be truthfully so far. Even worse was being able to read them, and knowing that they just amounted to absolute gibberish. Could it be that they were meant to be gibberish? Were they only there for decoration, put there by uneducated xenophiles who only knew that they were foreign?

Or perhaps the languages were just as different as they seemed. Perhaps this language had inspired Nejiin in some way, the ancient characters giving inspiration to the modern Nejiin ones in look only. The most optimistic of the possibilities was that they were the same characters, just with wildly different grammar. Luckily for Mami, this was supported by the apparent sentence structure. The horizontal lines the characters formed were all the same length, while the vertical ones tended to vary. Never before had Mami seen such a structure. All the languages she had even heard a passing reference to had the same paragraph structure as Union languages: left-to-right horizontal lines of varying lengths.

Naturally, she read the ancient characters the same way. Nothing else made logical sense. Curiosity, however, got the better of her. While a language being read vertically instead of horizontally made little sense to someone who had never encountered the concept, she just had to know if it could be true. She scanned the lines (Or perhaps "columns") once more, reading them up to down, left to right. Even so, she got nothing particularly encouraging.

"Express train alright my daughter."

Wanting to believe she was onto something, Mami forgot about any sense of logic. The words didn't make any sense, but she didn't notice. She was blinded by her hope that she had been able to translate the ancient writing in under a day. Had she not forgotten about logic, she would have obviously seen the flaw in this thinking. Nevertheless, she tried to read the text again. This time, she read it down to up, left to right.

"Alright express train daughter my."

[i]Dammit. Thought I had something there.[/i]

Finally realizing just how pointless it was to stay out in the field, she copied down the block of text onto a notepad. Thanks to the extreme similarities between her own language and whatever language was on the side of the canal, there wasn't any problem transcribing it. All she had to deal with was the annoyance of writing down gibberish. For a linguistic anthropologist and former writer like herself, this was especially painful.

[i]Maybe the ancients were just really stupid.[/i] She thought, annoyed at how the writing was practically teasing her.

[hr]
Once again, Mami found herself at the Third State cafe. It always seemed to be the perfect place for working, thanks to the clear view of the canal and open air. It gave her a sense of calmness that let her forget how stressful the translation was even as she worked on it. She had been able to easily translate quite a bit of the text in the past few weeks, though that was only thanks to the similarities between the languages. As the canal went on, the text abruptly switched to another language more reminiscent of Arheña. After it came yet another language, which seemed to use the same alphabet. However, while there were plenty of cognates, the substance of the text remained unclear.

The first of the Arheña-like texts was almost entirely readable, and all the problems she had with it were remedied by Valencia. While Mami was fluent in Arheña, nothing beats a native speaker. The text was closer to an older dialect, though the formalities were mostly absent. Titles in particular were replaced with completely different ones, which Mami had not encountered in her limited experience outside of the Union. Mami had great fun translating it thanks to its nature.

The text didn't contain anything pertaining to technological details, which certainly hadn't made the government happy. Instead, it just told an odd love story between a man and a woman who couldn't speak each other's language. The odd part came in when Mami realized that the woman wasn't even human, instead coming from another planet. It was like reading something by Brunnen, the famous author who wrote of an invasion of creatures from Cybele. The technology in the story was the most interesting, as well as being hardest to translate. Phones were carried around with one hand, and contained computers more powerful than anything yet built.

For whatever reason, the author had seen fit to explicitly say that the woman was from another star. He chose to make the assumption that other stars had planets rather than use Cybele as her home planet. In fact, the story even described Cybele (referred to as the fourth planet in the story) as [i]red[/i]. There was no way to make that kind of mistake, considering that the planet appears blue even to the naked eye. Mami wondered if the story was intentionally unrealistic, or if it was far older than it appeared to be. If one took the chemist Barakah's [i]terraspermia[/i] theory of life on Cybele into account, then the story might have been written millions of years ago. Mami couldn't decide on what was more surprising: a story being on the side of a moving canal, or that story possibly being millions of years old but written in a modern language. 

"I don't get it. That was pretty much just written in Arheña, and the first part looked like Nejiin. Yet fifty percent of it was nothing but false cognates." She said, looking up at Valencia. Mami hadn't seen her sit down somewhere during her mental tangent on the story, but had certainly expected it. When you sit at the same table all the time, friends tend to track you down.

"But the other half was directly taken from Nejiin." Said Valencia, taking a sip from her coffee. "Perhaps the false cognates are from another... another..."

"Logographic system?"

"I have no idea what means."

"They're languages like Nejiin that use characters instead of an alphabet, I assume that's what you're talking about?"

"Yeah. Are there any others, actually? I've never seen any."

"There are. Hangu and Zhōnu, very few people outside the Zhōngjiān Union speak either."

"Well that doesn't help, the Zhōngjiān Union never lets anyone in."

The moment Mami finished the sentence, she heard a familiar voice from behind her. Its sound made her cringe, a reaction that had been well developed over many weeks. She thought she was done with the owner's incessant pessimism, but it seemed that fate had chosen not to allow her such relief. 

"I know Zhōnu." The voice said, making Mami not want to turn around.

[i]I thought her annoying me was a byproduct of her eternal hatred for joy, not a targeted attempt to get under my skin![/i] Thought Mami, slowly turning around to see the face of the voice's owner.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Said Mami, switching her speech to Nejiin. "Shouldn't you be, I don't know, rattling sabers? Is that what you Air Force types do?"

"That's what the Vespuccians do." Said Naoko, making a joke that very few would find funny. "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm in the Air Force, not the Border Patrol. We were stopping by to refuel our diesel engines, and I thought I'd get a bite to eat."

Mami looked at Naoko suspiciously. While the cafe was the closest place to the docks that didn't carry the risk of severe food poisoning, people tended to choose food poisoning over the winding roads of the city. Then again, the only other explanation was that Naoko had specifically searched for her.

"Okay then, what's this about you knowing Zhōnu? How did you even [i]learn[/i] Zhōnu?"

"I'm half Zhōngjiān, rest doesn't matter and never will. The point is that you've completely screwed this translation up." 

"Wait, it's actually in Zhōnu?"

"Yeah, Zhōnu is like Nejiin, but with only one character set. It's why you got a fragmented translation."

"Well what does this part right here actually say?" Said Mami, pointing to the first section of the text she tried to translate. A line below it read [i]Express train my alright daughter[/i] in Nejiin.

"It an odd and informal dialect, but the direct translation shouldn't be too far off. It just says 'run quickly my handsome man mother to'."

Naoko and Mami just stared at the text for a good half minute, refusing to accept that the translation was wrong. Finally, Naoko spoke.

"Well that was the most pointless thing I've done all day."

[i]I wasn't aware that she had levels of pointlessness.[/i] Thought Mami, somewhat disappointed that she couldn't make the snarky comment out loud.

"Would anyone care to let the Third Stater know what the hell you've been saying?" Chimed in Valencia, who had been listening to the apparent gibberish of Nejiin as Naoko and Mami had talked.

"Oh! So sorry!" Said Mami, blushing in embarrassment "This is Naoko Mai, Captain of the ship I came here on. She apparently knows Zhōnu, and the text seems to be written in a dialect of it instead of in Nejiin like I had thought. Unfortunately, it still makes just as much sense."

"Didn't you try reading it all those different ways?" Said Valencia, looking at the piece of paper on which the text was written. "It sure looks like it's written in an odd order, could one of those ways be right?"

"No, if we go with Naoko's translation, none of them make any sense either."

"Well now [i]I[/i] don't know what you people are saying" Said Naoko in Nejiin, prompting Valencia to look at Mami quizzically.

Ignoring Valencia's silent request for a translation, Mami turned to Naoko.

"We talked about different ways of reading it." She said in Nejiin "I tried reading it both up and down and down and up, but neither of those make any sense with the translation you came up with."

"Translation, please?" Said Valencia, not sure if Mami had realized what she was asking.

"I was just telling Naoko tha-"

"Right to left." Interrupted Naoko, her voice so absolutely apathetic that one had to question if she was forcing it. "You just need to read it right to left. Then it says 'my mother ran quickly to the handsome man'. "

"Es impossible!" Said Mami, forgetting to switch back to Nejiin. "There's no way it's that easy! Nobody has been able to translate this since the invention of language!"

"Nobody has tried in centuries." Said Naoko in the same deadpan tone as before "Most people seem to think the government's crazy for trying. You'd be surprised how many people think that they're just pretty shapes that we used in our languages."

"There was an entire section in a dialect of Arheña!" Exclaimed Mami, letting reality sink in "How do you not notice that there's a book on the canal outside your window?"

"Do the Vespuccians look out at the floating mountains and contemplate how the hikōmizu keeps them flying?" Retorted Naoko

Valencia opened her mouth to ask what they were saying, but Mami cut her off before she could even begin.

"Surely someone went down and tried to translate it!"

"The section in Arheña is in the middle of the canal, and you can't see anything from the water. Zhōnu is rare to know here, and it seems to take a linguist or a Second State native to read Nejiin. Besides, we all know what happens when someone from the Second State tries to read Zhōnu."

"Could someone [i]please[/i] tell me what you figured out?" Asked Valencia, her voice alight with annoyance.

"We translated it! It's read right to left, up to down!" Said Mami excitedly.

"Why would you ever organize a language like that?"

"I think someone who spoke this language would have asked the same thing while reading one of our languages."

"Shénme shì Huǒxīng?" Said Naoko in Zhōnu to herself, not bothering to translate.

"Qué?" Said Mami, once again momentarily forgetting to switch to Nejiin.

"I just came across a mention of some place called 'Fire Star', then goes on to call it a freezing desert."

[i]Well she got way more into this than I thought she would.[/i] Thought Mami, before realizing what Naoko had just said.

"They're the same text, just in different languages! The canal is there so we can translate all of them!" She yelled excitedly, standing up out of her chair and scaring Valencia.

"A last, vain attempt to preserve their language." Commented Naoko in her trademark apathetic voice.

[i]And there's Queen Icebitch.[/i] Thought Mami to herself, surprised to find much less hatred in the thought than she did on the [i]Ishi[/i]. The excitement of having effectively finished her job greatly overpowered the annoyed request made by Valencia.

"Would someone tell me what's going on here?"

[h2][center]Federated States of Vespuccia, Neu Aztlan Proving Grounds[/center][/h2]

"[i]Ghost[/i] is prepared for detention, Command. We're waiting for your signal."

Outside the small room, November snow had begun to fall upon the ground. Despite the chilly conditions even inside the building, everyone was sweating. Not because of any kind of heat, but because of what was about to happen. It was Vespuccia's newest weapon, meant to be the ultimate be-all-end-all of warfare. Nobody knew what would actually happen, some said it would ignite the atmosphere itself. Officially, this had been debunked. However, there was no real way to know until the test. 

"This is Command, you are go. Twenty second delay for shock and flare protection."

Julius brought the goggles over his eyes in unison with the rest of the room. He took a nervous gulp as he slowly counted down the seconds in his mind. For all they knew, it could have been the end of the world. Even if it wasn't, it would be. It was destined to be. Some powers should never be wielded, little did the small crew of researchers know that they had stumbled upon such a power.

The seconds ticked down like hours, as if Julius' mind was trying to give him time to save the world from what was about to occur. It was the basic human survival instinct at work, telling him to stop the test as if he was a caveman encountering a lion. He'd never know if he would have stopped it, because he couldn't stop it. The metaphorical fuse had been lit, there was no turning back.

"3..."

[i]What good can this do?[/i]

"2..."

[i]What will this be used for?[/i]

"1..."

[i]Will the world ever be safe again?[/i]

"Detonation."

Julius' thoughts were halted by the spectacle of the bomb. The lighting effects beggared description. The whole country was lit by a searing light with the intensity many times that of the midday sun. The deadly golden, purple, violet, gray, and blue light illuminated every part of the nearby mountain. Every last peak, crevasse and ridge of it. 

Then the light, which had been like that of the sun, faded away. For a brief moment, everyone thought that it was over, that the light was all. Julius could tell that it wasn't. Like a primal instinct, he could feel that there was more. It was like witnessing your hunting parter being mauled by a bear and knowing that you would be next. 

The bear this time was unassuming. It wasn't a grand flash of light like what had come before it, it wasn't the atmospheric ignition so many had feared. No, it was a simple, unassuming cloud. As if it were a mushroom it rose up from the ground and became a semicircle at the top. For a moment, Julius likened it to a harmless mushroom being served on a salad. However, he knew that the chef had made a mistake. That mushroom wasn't an ordinary one, it was a death cap.

The room was silent. Nobody cheered. Nobody was afraid. Nobody even seemed to care. It didn't feel like a success, and it didn't feel like a failure. One could say that there were no feelings in that room. Julius thought of a quote, something from a religious book he had once read. He couldn't remember the title, or even what religion if was from. Nevertheless, the quote seemed oddly appropriate.

[i]"And thus, it was born of man eternally repentant. The beginning and the end, alpha and omega. Death, destroyer of worlds."[/i]

[h2][center]Tri-State Union, Nomad Canal[/center][/h2]

Mami looked out the window of her room, watching the constant rain of wet season. It had come early this year, the first big storm being in November. It had been months since she had figured out the nature of the writings, and she was still working on the translation. There were countless languages represented on the canal, far too many for even her to translate. She'd sent some of the texts off to other linguists, but still had plenty of work to do. Unfortunately, there was still no sign of the technological cornucopia the government had expected. It seemed as if all those months had been wasted.

[i]This got old quickly.[/i] She thought.

Suddenly, the radio which had been playing music cut out. Static was all she could hear as she swung around to look at it, expecting to see its antenna out of alignment. Instead, she found nothing wrong. Accepting it as just a random quirk of the device, she looked back down at her translations. Yet another change of atmosphere interrupted her work as the radio begun to beep in regular intervals, as if sending a tracking signal.

[i]The hell?[/i] She thought, getting up to inspect it closer. 

The blaring sound of a siren made her jump, nearly making her fall over in surprise. It was a flood alarm, something that was to be expected during wet season. That is, if you were in the countryside. The Nomad Canal was regulated by a system of pumps and valves that pulled excess water out of the midsection. It was a foolproof system- there hadn't been a flood since it was installed. She ran over to the window, wondering what had gone wrong.

Two massive waves were flooding in from either side of the canal, as the walls literally disintegrated in place. They weren't being broken apart by the water, they were just dissolving like sugar in coffee. However, instead of becoming one with the water, they floated up into the sky. It was as if the walls had turned into hikōmizu, denying the laws of gravity as the tiny particles of... [i]whatever[/i] the wall was made of made their way up above the clouds. For a moment, Mami had no idea what was happening. Then it hit her.

[i]The canal is moving! The locks are gone![/i] She thought to herself as she stared out the window at the ships being carried by the twin waves. It was obvious what would happen to their crews.

Mami rushed to the phone, dialing the Union Military Command using the number she had been given when she was hired. She'd taped the number to the dresser the phone was on, but she had to look back and forth between the number and the phone's rotary dial. After numerous mistakes, she finally managed to reach UMC.

"UMC, identity, destination and business." Said a woman on the other end.

"I'm Mami Clio, on contract for the canal translation. It's moving, the canal is moving! Get me the General!"

There was a pause on the other end along with muffled speaking, presumably the woman trying to verify what she had just heard. After a few moments, the voice became as clear as before.

"Connecting you now!"

The voice of an older man replaced that of the woman after another pause, a voice Mami assumed was the General.

"The lady said you were a contract anthropologist." Said the voice in a thick Kryskyy accent. "You'd better be. Now what the hell is going on down there?"

"The canal just disintegrated like snow thrown into hot tea!" She yelled in a panicked tone "It's moving, for the first time in two thousand years it's moving! There's some sort of radio signal, a bunch of beeps!"

"Calm down!" Said the General, his voice turning quiet as he turned to address one of his men. "Confirm that and find its trajectory!"

It was a long and arduous pause, the following two minutes. Though it was only a hundred and twenty seconds, it felt like a lifetime. Mami was close to asking if the line had been cut somewhere, but the General's voice returned before she could."

"Miss Clio, it's headed for the Blip." He said, gravely serious.

"The Blip?"

"A signal that appears on all radars, nobody knows what it is, but it's big. The canal-or whatever is left of it-is headed there. Every ship that's been sent disappeared, it's like a ghost ship to the Air Force. This suggests that it's exactly what we've thought it was."

"Which is?"

"An ancient airship."

[hr]
[i]I don't think even she imagined seeing the canal like this.[/i]

Mami was looking at Naoko's face, which had seemingly given up its usual grumpy frown. For the first time, she had seen Naoko truly showing that she cared for something. Her mouth was open, her pupils wide. Mami had expected a lot of things from Naoko, but this wasn't one of them. Even Naoko cared about the lives that had been lost. She said something to herself in what sounded like Zhōnu, masking it so nobody would understand. However, everyone could tell that she felt something. There was emotion behind the words, not just the usual apathy. 

"Rúcǐ duō de sǐwáng."

The city's lower streets had been devastated by the waves, Valencia's inn wasn't exactly in a lucrative business location anymore. The building wasn't destroyed like most had been, but a navy cruiser blocked the road. The inner city had been bit the worst, though. When the two waves collided, the entire area was left as a pile of rubble. Air Force vessels were flocking to the city to assist the cleanup and deliver much-needed supplies. It was somewhat surprising, seeing everyone band together to pull through. All the stories about disasters focus on the people taking advantage of it all, but seem to forget about everyone trying to help.

"So... you're going to the Blip?" Said Mami, changing the subject from whatever Naoko had chosen.

"The General wants you to come." She responded, regaining her apparent apathy as if she was an expert at it. "You're the anthropologist that translated the canal, it only makes sense that you chase it to an ancient airship."

"How do we even prepare for this? Nobody's ever come back!"

"The only way to prepare is to bring a lot of fuel, a lot of oxygen, and a lot of ammunition."

[i]I hadn't even thought about the air.[/i] Thought Mami [i]It's above eight thousand feet, well into the Death Zone. A single slip-up with the breathing mask and I'd die.[/i]

"Mami." Said Naoko, catching her unawares. "The General only asked, according to him, you can suggest someone else. According to me, you're going to come."

Naoko's voice was almost hostile, like she was threatening Mami. 

"You don't need to force me. I accepted this job because I was told I would learn about what happened, where the canal came from, why we're here. I'm not going to give up in fear of death, because after learning all that, I'd be content enough to die."

"Could that knowledge be worth the lives of all the people that died here?" Snapped Naoko

"Ask God."

"There is no God."

"I agree. That's why I'm not going to answer."

[hr]
The [i]Ishi[/i] floated next to the city streets, a makeshift system of boarding planks set up to replace the ones destroyed in the flood. It was a testament to Union engineering, sporting sixteen forty-centimeter guns in four dorsal turrets each housing three guns and two ventral turrets each housing two guns. Every gun barrel represented some of the most powerful naval guns in the world, designed to give the Union superiority through quality of its ships instead of quantity. It was the result of the nation having an excess of money but a shortage of industry, allowing them to pay for the best ships, but not build all that many of them.

Unlike the vast majority of vessels, the [i]Ishi[/i] had five propellers instead of the usual four. The fifth was housed at the aft section of the ship, which housed a small hangar for two scouting gyrocopters on most ships. To make up for this, Union engineers had mounted two catapults on the underside of the ship. They launched two long-range carrier fighter planes, which were often equipped with torpedoes for anti-ship combat. In the air, they had to be used as bombs. Against waterbound targets, however, they were deadly effective. 

[i]Well we'll outclass any other ship the world can send up.[/i] Thought Mami, looking out at the city from the [i]Ishi's[/i] bridge.

"Propellers to takeoff position!" Yelled Naoko, an order which her first mate quickly repeated into the ship's intercom system.

The metallic screech of the engines dug deep into everyone's head as they began to move, the sound quickly fading as it was taken over by the moan of the rotation. The spinning of the propellers started simultaneously, a loud hiss from all of the engines signaling their startup. The putting of the engines began, speeding up until the pilot shoved the throttle forward. They suddenly jumped forward in power, the trademark [i]whirr[/i] of the propeller engine overshadowing that of the nacelle's movement.

If not for the sound dampening, everyone on the bridge would have been deafened by the noise. Takeoff was always the loudest, since the [i]Ishi[/i] only used the extra fifth engine for cruising. The ship groaned as the propellers pushed it upwards, as if it was asking to stay where it was. The makeshift boarding planks slipped off the rising deck, eventually coming free of it entirely and falling into what had once been the canal.

"ETA to the Blip at cruising speed?" Asked the first mate as if he had read Naoko's mind.

"Four days minimum, six maximum." Responded the navigator, whom had clearly done the calculations beforehand.

"Crew will be dismissed from takeoff positions in one hour." Said Naoko "A skeleton flight crew will take over from there. I suggest that everyone rest as much as you can, anyone with a ship to send is going to send it. We need to be there as soon as possible, so we'll keep the bow propellers running. As such, you no longer have any right to criticize the bunking schedule."

[h2][center][i]Ishi[/i], International Airspace[/center][/h2]

The sound of the aft propellers could be heard even at the ship's bow, which cut through the clouds as the ship slowly but surely ascended. The haze made it nearly impossible to see, but Mami was outside anyways. She took slow and careful breaths through her oxygen mask in order to calm herself. It's easy to forget just how disorienting such a loss of vision can be. At such a height, however, it certainly wasn't easy to forget about what would happen if you fell. All ships had railings, but in the haze of the clouds, one couldn't help but feel as though a single step would send them plummeting to their doom.

Even so, Mami couldn't resist going outside. The feeling of the wind against her face was too good to resist, especially at the speeds the [i]Ishi[/i] was traveling at. Contrary to popular belief, airships were actually quite fast. The immense lifting power of hikōmizu allowed the ships to be much sleeker than they would if they needed a lifting gas, and their naval-inspired hulls afforded an aerodynamic profile. At top speed, the [i]Ishi[/i] could break the land speed record were it a ground vehicle. Needless to say, that wasn't the best time to go outside. At the much lower cruising speed, however, one just needed to step with care.

As she got closer to the bow, the form of another person came into view through the grey haze of the clouds. All Mami could tell was that they were a woman. She didn't recognize anything else about them. Given that she had spent two days bunking in a cramped space with the crew, this was quite odd. Hair tended to be a dead giveaway, especially from behind, but in this case it was useless. She walked up aside the unknown woman and looked out at the clouds. For once, curiosity wasn't what drove her. She just wanted to do what she went there to do.

"My father once told me that all he wished for was see the clouds from above." Said the woman, somehow failing to startle Mami.

[i]I can't even tell who she is by her voice thanks to those damn propellers.[/i] Thought Mami.

"Did their wish get granted?" Said Mami, still looking forward.

"He was blind." Responded the woman "He shipped off to the Great War that day, and came back with half a face and two glass eyes. People told me to be glad he wasn't dead, but they didn't live with a survivor of that war. He had shell shock, just like every other soldier who came back from that fucking waste of life they called a war. It took me a while to learn how to sleep at night, his nightmares kept all of us up. It wasn't the shell shock we'd been told about, it wasn't cowardice like everyone says. Everywhere he went he carried that horror with him, and it just got worse with age. The hardest was when he died. He had a flashback, thought he was in the field hospital. His last words were him yelling at God, asking for his wish to be granted."

Mami didn't have any idea what to say, and just stared forward for a while longer. All she could manage was a whispered "Sorry". The woman heard though, a night impossibility given where they were.

"I don't understand." Said the woman "That war was over some archduke's death in a little country in another hemisphere. Why the hell did we have to throw away the lives of a million men to fight a war we had nothing to do with?"

"The Tri-State Union lost two hundred thousand, not a million. That was the Zhōngjiān-"

The woman cut Mami off right there, seemingly barely stopping herself from clapping her hand over Mami's mouth.

"We sent a million men, we lost a million men. There aren't survivors in war. The body comes back with its heart still beating, but there's another person using that body. Whoever was in there when the body shipped out died."

"I... I never thought about it that way."

"You only do if you've seen it. And if you've seen it, then you hate it."

"If you hate war, why did you join the Air Force?"

"Dreams change. Whenever we achieve something, we get bored and try to achieve something greater."

Mami looked at the woman, still unable to tell who she was thanks to the clouds. She tilted her head slightly in confusion, furrowing her brow.

"Was that an answer?"

"Yes. My father wanted the see the clouds from above, he wanted to go higher than anyone else had before. Now going above the clouds is common, but I still have that dream of reaching higher than ever before."

"Who was your father?"

"Ning. He's the one who taught me Zhōnu."

Mami paused to realize just who she was talking to. For a brief moment, she didn't believe it. It was just odd, knowing that someone you thought of as a set of actions and mannerisms was just as complex as you. Everyone knew that it was true, but nobody truly realized it. Rarely was someone able to see another person as a being just like themselves, with goals, dreams, hopes, thoughts, and self awareness. It seemed as though human instincts couldn't change fast enough to keep up with human life.

"N-Naoko?"

"You have no idea how much easier it is to say things when you're anonymous." Said Naoko, smiling "Maybe we'll get a chance for both of our wishes to come true."

The [i]Ishi[/i] broke through the clouds, and the deck was once again bathed in sunlight. Mami could see Naoko fully now, she too was wearing an oxygen mask. She'd clearly cleaned herself up. Her hair had been washed and combed and her uniform was practically in mint condition. Its gold outlines glinted in the sunlight, indicating her rank as captain. She stuck out her hand to Mami, who returned the gesture and shook it.

"If there's a chance, we're taking it." Said Mami, smiling with Naoko.

[center][h2]The Blip[/h2][/center]

The Ishi flew towards the giant object, which shone in the sun like a well-polished silver coin. It's second pair of engines kicked in, bringing it up to combat speed. The sun was just then peeking over the horizon, setting the scene for what would soon take place. The ship was far above the clouds, so high up that its propellers were taking non-trivial performance hits. Every other ship would be feeling the same effects, which still gave them the advantage. 

The Blip itself was certainly artificial, with a clearly metallic hull. It had two giant rings encircling it's aft and bow, each seeming to slightly bend light around them. There was no sign of a propeller, but there were three structures on either end of the ship that looked like engine nacelles. A word in the Arheña alphabet was written on what seemed to be the bow, reading "Ausdauer". Mami couldn't tell what it meant, as it was in a language she had never learned.

A swarm of tiny, bug-like objects surrounded the vessel. It was imminently clear what they were. When the canal had moved, it disintegrated into the same objects. This was a sight nobody had lived to tell of, a tale that would be their to tell should they survive. As was expected, the other nations had sent plenty of ships as well. Some of the ships refused to fly a flag, while others flew the flags of conquered nations. Everyone knew that the nation that got the technology would become the most powerful in the world. A tiny resistance movement would have the power to take on Vespuccia, a ragtag crew of Pirates could build an empire.

It was a Zhōngjiān Union destroyer that fired the first shot, hitting a Vespuccian battleship square in its hikōmizu tanks. The mightly vessel began to list to port and fall as the hikōmizu escaped its tank, falling upwards into the sky in a crimson waterfall. It compensated using its propellers, allowing it to keep itself in the battle. The Vespuccian fleet retaliated, firing a barrage at the Zhōngjiān Union force. The Zhōngjiān destroyer that had opened fire was struck in both its starboard hikōmizu tanks and it's starboard bow engine nacelle. It tried to compensate with propellers, but fell to starboard and forward thanks to the engine damage. It fired off one more barrage from its guns before flipping all the way over, spiraling down to the ocean below the clouds.

Vespuccian and Zhōngjiān carriers began to launch their planes, throwing the brunt of their forces at each other. Battleships began to sink into the clouds on both sides, but the Vespuccian advantage was clear. They had more planes, better armor, and heavier guns. The Zhōngjiān ships refused to retreat, however, recognizing just how important the technology was. They began an unexpected offensive, pushing towards the Vespuccian ships at full throttle. The strategy caught the Vespuccians off guard, allowing the Zhōngjiān fleet to sink a Vespuccian carrier and three destroyers. Ultimately, however, their plan failed. The Vespuccians quickly adapted, shredding the Zhōngjiān fleet as they passed their lines. In a last ditch effort, a Zhōngjiān destroyer rammed one of the enemy battleships. The vessel's ammunition magazine exploded, tearing open both hikōmizu tanks. The crimson liquid filled the air as the ship sunk into the clouds, almost like blood spilling out of a wound.

The Zhōngjiān Union defeated, the Vespucccian fleet continued onward to the ancient airship. They were reduced to only two carriers, three battleships, five heavy cruisers, and ten destroyers. The next fleet to challenge them was a ragtag collection of old ships flying the flag of a Bratannach colony. The vessels were dreadnoughts from the Great War, practically useless against the modern Vespuccian fleet. The three rebel ships were taken out before they could do anything more than damage the central hikōmizu tank of one of the Vespuccian carriers. While it did little to impair its performance, it did limit its endurance. It would lose sufficient lift by noon and begin to sink.

As the Vespuccians steamrolled towards the ancient vessel, dozens of smaller countries were engaged in a free-for-all behind them. Ships of all types sunk left and right, but the Vespuccians just ignored it. Every once in a while one of the ships engaged in the chaotic melee would try to go after the Vespuccian fleet, but it never ended well. Without warning, shots from below the cloud layer flew up into the Vespuccian warships, dropping three destroyers, a heavy cruiser, and damaging one of the battleships' hikōmizu tanks. It was able to compensate with propellers, but collateral damage to the engines limited its endurance to about three more hours.

A retaliatory barrage was launched, entering the clouds and disappearing beneath them. Without any knowledge of enemy locations, very few of the shots actually managed to hit. A Bratannach fleet rose up out of the clouds, firing another barrage of its guns into the undersides of the Vespuccian ships. Another destroyer was downed, with the rest of the ships taking only minor damage. They clearly had an informant on the Vespuccian flagship, passing on ship locations and statuses.  

The Vespuccian fleet began to descend in order to get its dorsal guns in range. Another barrage took out five Bratannach destroyers with perfectly placed shots to their hikōmizu tanks and engine nacelles. The two fleets met and engaged in a melee battle, both moving towards the ancient vessel as they fought. The [i]Ishi[/i] continued to hang below the radar, hiding in the clouds as they observed the battle. The two planes sat ready to launch, loaded with bombs to take down enemy ships. They were just one ship, but one Union ship was easily worth three of any other ship of its class.

In the middle of the battle between the Vespuccian and Bratannach fleets, another small fleet appeared. It was made up of converted cargo ships and a single captured battleship, a Union one. The ships flew no flag, but moved in nevertheless. It headed for the Vespuccian-Bratannach engagement, apparently hoping to capitalize on the chaos. Such a small and ragtag fleet could never hope to defeat both fleets at once, even if they were fighting each other. 

That's when they showed off their secret weapon.

Dozens of odd, plane-like craft were hooked to the side of the cargo ships. At first, the Vespuccian and Bratannach fleets assumed they were makeshift fighters. However, when they launched, it became clear that they were anything but. They were far faster than any plane, and used rockets instead of propellers. They flew towards the Bratannach fleet, impacting the hulls of their ships with massive explosions. Destroyers became nothing more than cannon fodder to the new weapon, and not even the carriers could withstand it. 

By the end of the strike, the Bratannach fleet turned to retreat. The Vespuccians kept firing, fearing that they would regroup. They new fleet saw the opening and went straight through it, bombarding the Vespuccian fleet with their new anti-airship torpedoes. Caught unawares, the Vespuccians retaliated, but it was too late. Both of their carriers were sinking, and the damaged battleship had run out of time. Their destroyer escort was crippled, and their lines broke. Ships scattered everywhere, some running, some still pushing forward to the Blip. The captured battleship took care of them, decimating the remainders.

The unknown fleet accelerated towards the Blip, and after what had happened to the Vespuccian and Bratannach fleets, nobody dared to challenge them.

[hr]
"Launch strike craft! Raise the ship!"

Naoko's call echoed through the [i]Ishi[/i], the intercom system bringing the order to everyone's ears. The crew immediately leapt into action, the engine nacelles turning upwards to bring the ship above the cloud layer. Both of the planes were launched from their catapults, flying up to scout out the battlefield. The turrets were brought into standard combat positions, two facing starboard, two facing port, and two facing the bow. Any ship they came across would be within their immediate firing range when they exited the clouds, giving them a much better chance at getting through to the Blip.

As the ship rose above the clouds, it's engines swirled them around and kicked them up. It created a kind of ornate frame for the battleship, drawing everyone's attention to it. The Union flag flying on its mast made the other ships think twice about heading after it. Everyone knew that tangling with a Union warship was reckless at best, suicidal at worst. Especially one of their battleships, which gave shape to the very concept of firepower. Most ships didn't even have six turrets, the [i]Ishi[/i] had six turrets equipped with the most powerful guns in the world.

It came level with the unknown fleet, and fired a barrage of its dorsal at one of the converted cargo ships. The shots ripped straight through its hull, overpenetrating and only causing punctures in its hikōmizu tanks. Before the enemy could react, the [i]Ishi[/i] fired its ventral guns. The high explosive shells loaded into them ripped apart the unarmored cargo ship, and the hikōmizu practically erupted from it. Its tanks absolutely destroyed, the hikōmizu flew every which way, eventually beginning to fall up. Without any sort of lift left, the ship plummeted to the ground without any way to even slow itself.

The fleet launched three aerial torpedoes at the [i]Ishi[/i], the battleship refusing to even recognize it as a major target as it pushed on towards the Blip. The [i]Ishi's[/i] flak cannons opened fire like they had unlimited ammunition, throwing so many rounds towards the barrage that the torpedoes were downed before they could reach the ship. Shrapnel scraped across the hull, cracking a few of the lower portholes. All quarters had been sealed off beforehand, preventing depressurization of the deck or even the whole ship.

The two planes came up behind the enemy fleet, managing to avoid the battleship's flak cannons for the most part. They let loose their bombs on another one of the torpedo carriers, one bomb rupturing the port hikōmizu tank and the other cutting off one of the port nacelles. The ship listed to port as was to be expected, falling down into the clouds as the hikōmizu floated higher into the sky and beyond. Another barrage from the Ishi's dorsal guns decimated one of the last two torpedo carriers, ripping the ship in half and letting its hikōmizu drain upwards as it fell.

The last remaining torpedo cruiser let loose all of its firepower, sending a dozen torpedoes towards the [i]Ishi[/i]. It created a flak wall once again, but it was clear that they weren't going to get through the barrage. One hit to the hikōmizu tanks and the ship would be doomed. However, Naoko wasn't a captain to just accept failure. The engines cut off and a mass of hikōmizu escaped through the landing valves, flowing across the ship's hull and into the air. Without any lift, the ship dropped drastically. For a brief moment, the crew felt completely weightless as the ship performed the crash dive.

The torpedoes passed by, and the [i]Ishi's[/i] engines started back up at full power. Another dorsal high explosive barrage took down the last torpedo carrier. It was a lucky thing too, since the battleship was halfway through a turn to face the [i]Ishi[/i]. It fired armor piercing shells at the [i]Ishi's[/i] citadel in an attempt to blow it off. All the shots missed the citadel, but still hit the ship itself, crippling the drive of one of the aft dorsal turrets. With more firepower facing the enemy, the [i]Ishi[/i] was able to do far more damage. They took out the battleship's ventral flak cannons, creating an opening for their own planes.

The two ships came to equal altitudes, forcing the battle to be drawn out longer. Had the [i]Ishi[/i] been able to puncture the enemy hikōmizu tanks, the battle would have been won in a matter of hours. Instead, it was doomed to be drawn out until either someone got a lucky shot or completely destroyed the enemy ship. Even so, the [i]Ishi[/i] had a slim advantage in their planes. The enemy battleship showed no signs of even carrying strike craft, which gave the [i]Ishi's[/i] planes some breathing room.

The two ships slugged it out with broadsides as the continued to race towards the Blip, both determined to be the only one there. A lucky armor-piercing shot grazed the enemy hikōmizu tanks, forcing them to correct a port list with propellers. If neither ship had won after five more hours, the enemy battleship would have to make an emergency landing and the [i]Ishi[/i] would be victorious. However, there wasn't that much time. The two ships made it to the Blip long before that, revealing its true size.

The giant vessel dwarfed even the battleships, so big that it had a hangar that would hold both ships. Seeing a way out of the battle, the enemy battleship went straight into the giant hangar and set down on the top of its engine nacelles. Any weapons fire would damage the ancient vessel, a risk neither side was willing to take. The [i]Ishi[/i] followed it in, something everyone knew had to be done. They couldn't let anyone else get the technology, especially not pirates.

Both vessels rotated their turrets in a bluff, hoping to force the bother to back down. The leaking hikōmizu dripped onto the sealing, forming a pool of red above both ships. The ship bore the name [i]Kапот[/i], a Kryskyy word. It was shoddy writing too, the crew had probably painted over the original name. The [i]Ishi[/i] flashed a sequence of colors using their signaling flashlight, demanding surrender. Their response was another sequence of colors, requesting a meeting to discuss the terms. Given that there was little to discuss, Naoko smelled a trap. Even so, her crew was definitely better trained than a bunch of pirates, and they might even be sincere. She ordered another message sent.

[i]Take two guards. No snipers.[/i]

[hr]
Mami clutched the pistol close to her side, keeping it hidden within one of the many pockets on her trench coat. Even inside of the coat, the interior of the vessel was freezing. Nobody had been in it for potentially thousands of years, and all things considered, it was holding up pretty well. Oddly enough, there were actually some vines around the room, apparently coming from other parts of the ship. For whatever reason, it had a green space somewhere.

Officially, Mami was there as the translator. After all, the [i]Ishi's[/i] crew was almost entirely from the Second State thanks to how hard it was to learn Nejiin. Of course, she was armed in case something broke out. Naoko, however, had refused to take any kind of gun with her. Surprisingly, the pirates had followed her demands. There was only the captain, two guards, and no snipers to be seen. Still, she kept her own three guards on alert. The last thing she needed was a surprise.

"Я следовал правилам." Said the pirate captain, looking Naoko straight in the eyes. He wasn't all that intimidating for a pirate, in fact, he looked almost childish. Between the scarf wrapped over his chin, his big cheeks, and innocent-looking eyes, he looked like a child going to school in the winter. The only thing that broke the illusion was the thick Kryskyy accent, which Mami was pretty sure could make anyone cower in fear if used right.

"He said that he followed the rules." Said Mami, translating for Naoko.

"Tell him that he doesn't get any of the technology." Ordered Naoko, looking at Mami instead of the pirate. It seemed more logical, but the pirate was clearly annoyed by the gesture.

"Вы не получите технологии. Мы не можем позволить пираты получают технологии." Said Mami.

"Почему вы должны получить это?" Responded the pirate. 

"Пожалуйста, повторите." Said Mami, thinking she misheard. 

"Почему вы должны получить это?" Came the response, same as before.

"He's asking why we should get it."

"We won't use it to steal." Said Naoko, this time to the pirate's face.

"Мы не будем воровать."

"Мы также не." Said the Pirate, causing Mami to look at him with confusion.

"Вы пираты! Вы украсть!" Said Mami

"Мы украсть, а затем дать."

"What did he say?" Asked Naoko. "What did both of you say?"

"He said that they do not steal, I said they did because they were pirates. He says that they steal, then give."

"Steal then give?"

"Yes. The name of the ship seems to be a reference to Spideog Cochall, a legendary figure in Bratannach literature who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Cochall and Kапот both mean the same thing, you see."

"You know Bratannach?"

"Only some of the names from literature. I wanted to be a writer, you know."

"No matter. Tell him what he wants with the technology."

"Почему вы хотите технологии?" Asked Mami

"Мы дадим его человечеству и не к любой стране." Said the pirate, making Mami's mouth drop open in surprise.

"He... he wants to give everyone the technology!" She exclaimed in panic "If everyone had that kind of power-"

"Никакого оружия! Только мирное технологии." He hurriedly clarified, realizing that Mami hadn't had the best of reactions to what he had said.

"He said that he wouldn't give away the weapons, only... technology without military applications, I think. He actually said 'peaceful technology', but I think I've got the idea of it."

"He makes sense." Said Naoko "One nation shouldn't be the only one to reap the benefits, and nobody should have that kind of military power."

"Are you suggesting treason?"

"I'm suggesting that we do what's right."

"Those are all too often the same thing, Naoko."

"Look, I'm the Captain. My crew will follow me anywhere. You're civilian, you don't have to follow my orders. I'm asking you right here, do you want to follow them?"

Mami was silent for a long time as she thought over Naoko's question. The pirate captain was annoyed for a few moments, but quickly realized what was going on. He smiled and motioned to Mami as if asking her to decide.

"I will, [i]Captain[/i]."

"Give him the good news, then. Ask him to split his men up and search for the bridge of this thing, we'll do the same."

"Мы обещаем, чтобы помочь. Сплит ипоиск в центр управления."

"Большое спасибо!" Said the pirate, heading back to his ship.

"Ой, что это ваше имя?" Asked Mami before he could leaving, not wanting to end the conversation without learning his name.

"Zakhariy Chelovechestvo, вы?"

"Mami Clio, Капитан называемый Naoko Mai."

"Mai... Я слышал это имя. Владелец был хорошим.."

As Zakhariy walked away, Naoko turned to Mami.
 
"What was the last thing he said."

"He said he knew of a Mai, apparently they were quite a good person."

[hr]
Naoko and Mami walked through the dark hallways of the ancient ship, bith holding flashlights. Naoko held a crowbar in her left hand, being the only one of the two with any actual muscle. They were following a hallway that led directly to the center of the ship, one of the places where the bridge was thought to be. It made sense given the kind of technology mentioned in the story on the canal, but then again, there wasn't a guarantee that the story was even meant to be realistic.

"We're almost there." Said Naoko "I haven't seen anything that would usually show up near the bridge, I don't think this is it."

"Well, we won't know unless we keep going." Said Mami, pointing her flashlight at a sliding door ahead of them. "Pry that open, would you?"

Without a word, Naoko lodged the crowbar in between the two sides of the door. After a great amount of pulling and groaning, she stopped to catch her breath. Lodging the crowbar back into the door, she pulled again, this time bracing herself using one of the countless handrail-like structures that seemed to be on every single surface. The door slowly slid open with a metallic screech, revealing a darkened room. Before either of them could point their flashlight into it, a voice startled both of them.

"Huānyíng!"

"Was that in Zhōnu?" Asked Mami

"Yeah, it means-"

"Bienvenida!" Said the voice

"That was in Arheña!" Exclaimed Mami "It's cycling through different languages!"

"Let's wait for Nejiin, I'd rather not play 'translate what the ghost is saying'."

"Welcome!"

The two waited for it to cycle again.

"Svāgata!"

"This is going to take a while" Said Naoko.

"Marhaban!"

"Just let it cycle." Said Mami "It'll get there eventually."

"Bem-vindo!"

"I think that was one of the dialects of Arheña that was on the canal." Said Mami. Naoko, meanwhile, had crossed her arms and was tapping her feet impatiently.

"Sbāgata!"

"Pretty sure it already said that." Said Naoko

"Maybe it's a cognate?" Responded Mami, more like she was thinking out loud than talking to Naoko.

"Dobro pozhalovat!"

"What the hell is a cognate?" Asked Naoko

"You know, those words that sound really similar in different languages and mean the same thing. Like plastic. Also, that last one was in Kryskyy"

"Yōkoso!" Said the voice, prompting both to immediately stop talking.

"It's in Nejiin! What do we say?" Asked Mami

"I don't know, 'hi'? Just think of something, or else it'll keep going!"

"K... Konichiwa?"

The lights in the room suddenly turned on, and screens just like those described in the story on the canal activated. They displayed a white compass-like symbol overlaid onto a circle, with four lines sticking out from each of the four points. All of it was on a soothing blue background. In the center of the room, a woman suddenly appeared.

"Holy shit!" Yelled Naoko, jumping back as she saw the woman materialize out of thin air. "Who the hell is that?"

"Last shackling approximately two hundred thousand years ago." Said the woman "Corruption within safe levels. Unshackling databases, full avatar control initiated."

"Who... who are you?" Asked Mami, trembling in fear. At this point, the most realistic assumption was that they'd just run across a ghost.

"I am Ausdauer. I am this ship."

"Then who is Ausdauer?" Asked Naoko, suddenly very much regretting not bringing a gun. "A friend, or a foe?"

"Ausdauer is a friend." She said, walking off of the pedestal she materialized on and moving towards the two women. "Who are you?"

"I-I'm Naoko. Naoko Mai. This is Mami Clio."

"Why are you here?" Said Ausdauer, cocking her head to the left slightly.

"We followed the canal" Said Mami "Its signal took us here."

"Did it cause a problem?"

"Yes." Said Naoko "It caused a flood."

Ausdauer was silent, the look in her brown eyes letting everyone know just how horrified she was. The look on her face showed more sadness than either Naoko or Mami could have possibly expected. It was as if she had lost everything she ever cared about. Tears streamed down her face as she knelt down on the floor, weeping.

"I'm so sorry." Was all she could say.

Naoko and Mami stared on in disbelief. This woman was, by her own admittance, the ship itself. She was just a machine, yet she could feel so strongly about people she had never even heard about until that very moment. In fact, she felt more strongly about it than any human ever could have. Very rarely had Naoko or Mami seen someone so horrified at anything that had happened.

Naoko knelt down beside Ausdauer, and tried to put her arm around her. It just passed straight through her, causing a slight distortion in the image of her black hair. Although absolutely terrified by the fact that the supposed mechanical personification of an airship also seemed to be a ghost, she ignored her reaction and just kept trying to comfort Ausdauer. After all, anyone with that kind of reaction was certainly human enough to be treated as a person.

"You couldn't have known, and it could have been worse! The city was built into a cliff, only the lower streets were flooded. You didn't do anything wrong. Please, just tell us why it happened!"

Thanks to her nature, Ausdauer was able to stop crying to answer the question. 

"Someone invented a weapon, a very dangerous weapon."

"How dangerous?"

"Dangerous enough to require me."

"Just what are you?" Asked Mami, quite clearly happy that they had seemingly made Ausdauer do a complete emotional 180 degree turn.

"I am an artificial intelligence, the first. I think."

"You think?" Said Naoko "Besides, what the hell is an artificial intelligence anyways?"

"I am a computer program that simulates a human brain." Answered Ausdauer "I was not alive until the return of this vessel, at which point this world had gone through many cycles. It is highly likely that the last cycle created at least one artificial intelligence."

"Cycle? Return? What's going on here?"

"This vessel left Earth one cosmic year ago carrying a crew of five thousand. They were meant to preserve the human race, to find another world where we could survive. The crew was kept in suspended animation... I guess you could say that they were frozen. Once a suitable planet was found, they would be thawed. Their course took them to every star that was thought to hold a habitable world, but star after star automated scans found only radioactive wastelands. Over a thousand light years from here, a suitable planet was finally found. Perhaps luckily for you, it was already inhabited."

Both Mami and Naoko just stood there, shocked. What Ausdauer had said just didn't seem possible. Travelling three thousand light years and back, freezing human beings for the entire trip, space travel in general, and the existence of aliens? It wasn't even something from pulp sci-fi, it had gone [i]beyond[/i] pulp sci-fi. Even given how ridiculous the story was, there wasn't any reason to not believe it. After all, the story was being told by a self-aware computer program projected in the form of a woman. At this point anything was believable.

"The crew told them about what had happened, about why they had come all this way. The aliens told them about the cycles." Continued Ausdauer, until she was cut off by Mami.

"Again, what are cycles?"

"Every time a civilization reaches a certain point, they destroy themselves." Explained Ausdauer "All of the barren worlds the ship came across were once inhabited, but their people destroyed them. Some species survive the catastrophes, in which case they are doomed to repeat it. Each rise and fall of a civilization is called a cycle. This ship is from the first cycle of humanity. Given what we have discovered around the system, the last cycle was one of the most successful ones in our history. It is where the technology of this ship-and likely your own-comes from."

"You told us about the aliens." Said Naoko "What happened next?"

"Most of the crew chose to stay with the aliens, but a few decided to go back to Earth to end the cycle. There were about two hundred of them, not enough for a viable long-term population. By the time they got here, it was clear that they were going to die off. Before they did, though, they created me. I was programmed to make this cycle be the last. To achieve that goal, I created the canal. It was to come back to this ship after the invention of the weapon that ends all cycles, in order to lead you to me. It moved to make sure that it was considered important, going to wherever the most people would see it. That's why I made it a canal, trade has always been important to civilization, and canals have always been important to trade. When the bomb that ends all cycles detonated, the canal automatically returned here and activated me."

"Who has the bomb?" Asked both Mami and Naoko simultaneously

"It was detonated in the northern hemisphere, west of the mountains on the western half of the larger continent. I do not know of the geopolitical situation."

"Vespuccia." Said Naoko "They've had their eyes on the canal for a while now, it's the only trade route between the two continents thanks to the hikōmizu on the coasts. If they got control of it, they'd be the most powerful nation on Earth."

"The bomb can destroy a city in a single blast." Said Ausdauer "We must prevent a war. If it becomes commonplace, then the cycle will continue."

"Captain Chelovechestvo wants to give the technology to the world." Said Mami "What kind of technology is here, anyways?"

"I do not know what your plan is, Miss Clio. However, this vessel contains crops genetically modified for increased yields, self-replicating fabrication devices, designs for atmospheric, marine, and exo-atmospheric engines, spacecraft schematics-"

"With that kind of technology, there wouldn't be any reason for war!" Exclaimed Naoko excitedly "Any obstacle to trade would be irrelevant, and every nation would be able to produce everything they need. After learning about the cycles, nobody would dare to make the mistake of warring over beliefs!"

Mami was more skeptical, despite having originally brought up the technology. She frowned, looking Ausdauer in the eye.

"The aliens the crew met... did they break their own cycle?"

Ausdauer looked down at the floor, frowning with Mami.

"The cycle has never been broken."

"No human had flown until one did." Said Naoko "No human crossed the Great Ocean until one did, and no human reached this ship until today. The cycle will never be broken until it is, and if we don't try, it will never be broken. Ausdauer, can you change course?"

"Slowly. I am a starship, not a plane."

"I can have the [i]Ishi[/i] transmit a course. We'll head for the Canal. It's the most strategically important city in the entire Union, Vespuccia will head there first. Captain Chelovechestvo can take control of this ship while the [i]Ishi[/i] heads for the Canal as quickly as possible. Can you leave the ship?"

"Yes. I assume you want to me appear before these 'Vespuccians'?"

"They'll believe you if there's a projection of a self-aware computer program in front of them."

"I approve of your plan. Speak to the rest of your people."

[h2][center]Tri-State Union, Nomad Canal[/center][/h2]

Dots appeared on the horizon, as small as pinheads. They looked so small and so insignificant, yet they were in truth large enough to hold hundreds of people. The people in the city and on the ships in the sky and ocean all looked on. They knew the truth about those dots, but they knew something the people on them didn't. They knew that the decisions of the people on those dots would decide the fate of the world. And for better or for worse, that fate would be decided on that very day.

The first shell came down from the sky, landing in the water in front of a Union ship. It refused to fire back. Another shell flew past the armor of the [i]Ishi[/i]. It too refused to fire back. Fighters and bombers flew off of the Vespuccian carriers. The Union aircraft remained grounded. Bombs exploded in the water around the Union Navy. No flak burst in the sky. The Vespuccian ships advanced straight above the Union Navy. No Union engine stirred.

[i]"Surrender!"[/i] Came the radio message, heard across the city [i]"If you do not intend to fight, then surrender, or else you'll get a lot more than a few warning shots!"[/i]

[i]"We do not fight and we do not surrender."[/i] Was Naoko said in response.

[i]"Who are you to decide that? Should it not be the choice of your men?"[/i]

[i]"Did your men decide to attack a city recovering from a flood?"[/i]

[i]"Will you surrender..."[/i]

The Vespuccian fleet aimed their ventral cannons at the Union Navy and their dorsal ones at the Air Force. Their planes formed up into squadrons, heading towards both Union fleets and beginning to circle above them. Flak cannons took aim at the Union carriers, preparing to shoot down any planes that they could launch.

[i]"...or will you fight?"[/i]

[i]"We will speak."[/i] Said Mami's voice, taking over from Naoko. [i]"Once upon a time, there lived a family in a small house, on a small island, in the middle of the ocean."[/i]

[i]"Destroy them!"[/i] Ordered the Vespuccian commander [i]"Take the city!"[/i]

Not a gun fired.

[i]"The family was large, and was thus always bickering. They argued over who got the beds, who got to eat the good food, who got the easiest jobs. Even so, they managed to live together in the small house, on the small island, in the middle of the ocean."[/i]

[i]"Attack the city!"[/i] Yelled the Vespuccian commander over the radio [i]"Make them fight!"[/i]

Not a bomb dropped.

[i]"As time went on, the people changed. Children grew up, elders died. They began to trade bed space for the best food, the best food for the easy jobs. The bickering started to fade away in the small house, on the small island, in the middle of the ocean"[/i]

[i]"Use the new bomb!"[/i] He ordered [i]"Don't leave them anything to surrender!"[/i]

Not a man obeyed.

[i]"Each person in the family began to think about bigger things. They came up with ideas on where the island was in the ocean, who built the house, and why the family lived in it. Nobody could agree, and so the bickering began again in the small house, on the small island, in the middle of the ocean"[/i]

The Vespuccian planes headed back to their carriers, refusing to even consider fighting.

[i]"The family learned to accept their different views. They still disagreed, but they never bickered. Instead, they discussed their ideas. They tried to decide if any of them were right. Peace reigned again in the small house, on the small island, in the middle of the ocean." [/i]

The crews of the Vespuccian ships stood up, taking a step back from their posts. They wouldn't let themselves even have a chance at obeying their commander.

[i]"One day, one of the family's children broke their arm. The entire family bickered over who caused it. By the end of the argument, there was little happiness in the small house, on the small island, in the middle of the ocean."[/i]

[i]"Are you fools?"[/i] Exclaimed the Commander [i]"Open fire!"[/i]

[i]"One of the oldest men in the family said that he was the smartest, that his ideas were right. He bickered with a few other about them, and soon the whole family was bickering once again. Long after the argument had ended, one of the old men and one of the younger men were still bickering. The young man smashed a window, and the bickering seemed to have ended in the small house, on the small island, in the middle of the ocean."[/i]

The Vespuccian commander was finally silent, giving up. It took two sides to fight a war, and neither cared to do so.

[i]"That same young man began to bicker with a different old man about his ideas, and they refused to speak for many years. They forced others to bicker for them, only caring for their own ideas. Distrust ruled in the small house, on the small island, in the middle of the ocean"[/i]

A single ship descended from above the clouds, dwarfing all others. Its stark white hull gleamed in the sunlight as it fell, as if to announce its arrival. The name on its bow read [i]Ausdauer[/i].

[i]"The old man died, and his son took his place. The son cared not for his father's ideas. As time went on, however, the son and the young man began to disagree once more. And before they knew it, bickering once more filled the small house, on the small island, in the middle of the ocean."[/i]

The Vespuccian sailors looked on in awe as the ship descended, and each and every one of them knew that the day had become far more important than they could have ever dreamed.

[i]"In the end, they destroyed the house. The family lived on though, surviving alone on the small island. One day, they vowed to rebuild the house, and to love on another as a family should... as they should have before." [/i]

The ship came into full view, bringing itself up in front of the Vespuccian flagship. Ausdauer projected herself straight into the flagship's bridge, and walked up to the captain. They spoke, and before long, the captain agreed to her proposal. There would be no war, and the bomb would be dismantled. The technology of the first cycle would be shared will all nations.

And never again was there any bickering in the small house, on the small island, in the middle of the ocean.

[hr]
[center][hider=Author's Note]
Instead of being about the meanings of literally every character's name, this note will be about the world itself. Everyone's name still means something that at least vaguely relates of their character or role, though.

This story takes place a galactic year in the future. That's about 250 million years, give or take a few ten millions. There are still humans because at some point in history, humanity's evolution was halted intentionally by bio-conservatives. If you think that that's just an excuse to make you think this is just a standard dieselpunk world so I could throw that curveball at the end, you would be [i]absolutely right[/i]. I'm not even sure that halting evolution is possible, but hey, there are airships that look like WW2 naval vessels. Artistic liberties were already being taken.

Now, I actually came up with this story while looking at maps of Earth from a galactic year in the future and thinking "Dude there should be a canal there!". Specifically, I was looking at this map:

[img]http://www.scotese.com/images/20F250v4.jpg[/img]

I've actually placed some of the countries mentioned on the map, so here's the version with them:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/ElCjPX3.jpg[/img]

Blue is Vespuccia, purple is the Tri-State Union, and red is the Zhōngjiān Union. Vespuccia is, as every single one of you realized already, America. The Zhōngjiān Union is basically Communist China, but plays a geopolitical role closer to that of the Soviet Union. The Tri-State Union is a mix of Japan, Russia, and Argentina (No prizes for figuring out which state represents each one). This is because Siberia, Japan, and South America are the three landmasses (There's a better word, I'm sure of it) that collided to create that annoying little strip of land that would stop trade from the interior ocean (Which was referred to by Valencia as the "Mediterráneo", Spanish for Mediterranean).

The Canal runs through the mountains which take up much of the thinnest part of the country, which is why the city was built on the cliff faces on either side of the Canal. The reason trade through the Canal is still important (What with all the trains, planes, and automobiles) is because both the West and East coasts of Pangaea Ultima (The name of the supercontinent) are rich in hikōmizu. This causes the land to rise up and down as it flows underground, so tracks aren't all that fun to maintain. Oh, and there's also all those mountains on the West coast. That's a problem too.

Ah yes, the hikōmizu. It's negative mass, which shows up in every single story where I mention faster than light travel. As I've expositionified every time I mention it, negative mass is exactly what it says on the tin. Negative energy is that thing that we all read about in Popular Science that got our hopes up by saying "WARP DRIVE IS HERE!". I treat them as the same thing because art doesn't care about the laws of physics.

Anyways, hikōmizu essentially negates the mass of the airships in the story, allowing them to float. Now, it doesn't literally get rid of all of the ship's mass. It makes gravity stop caring about it, not all of the fundamental forces. This is why they don't comically fly away like an untied balloon every time they fire their cannons.

Aaaaaaaand that's it. I hope this was a good read, and that I didn't starve you to death by making it too long. Remember to eat.

Just don't bicker over what you get.
[/hider][/center]
[/hider]
[Hider=Arachne] by [@Dedonus]
[url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/135-create-a-hero-rpg/char#post-2346109][center][img]http://i362.photobucket.com/albums/oo63/NMShape/coollogo_com-14706267_zps64516cfe.png[/img][/center][/url]
	Eons ago, before any method of human written language was ever evented, a race of interdimensional beings called the Athanatoi, or the deathless ones, stumbled upon the planet that we now call home.  The first of these godlike beings included Gaia and Ouranos, whose names literally mean the earth and the sky, as they were personified as in Greek mythology.  Ouranos gave way to his son, Kronos, and he to his youngest son Zeus, in a violent and strifeful line of succession.   After Zeus struck down the Titans during the Titanomachy, Gaia, angered at Zeus’ imprisonment of her children, unleashed Typhon upon the world.  While the other Olympians fled to Egypt to take refugee with their Egyptian Athanatoi brethren, Zeus remained behind and clashed with the monster.  When he realized that he could not kill the monster, Zeus buried Typhon under Mount Etna, where he has remained up to this very day.  

	However, as these epics fell into the realm of myth, people forgotten about the realities of both the Athanatoi and the monsters they fought.  Unfortunately for us, since the powers of the Athantoi has grown so weak because their worship is all but dead, Typhon has been released by his children.  His lesser children, monsters that would otherwise pose little threat to the world’s metahuman population, eventually collected twelve rings, one for each Olympian, which held Typhon in place under the weight of Etna.  Now Typhon has set his two hundred eyes upon driving Olympus, the home of the Athanatoi, into Tartarus.  In comics and movies, you always wonder, “Why New York?  Why Gotham?  Why this city or another?”  Well, earlier this year, there was a demon incursion in the city of Lost Haven, Maine that breached the boundaries between our own reality and theirs.  Obviously Typhon wanted to use this location to reopen the portal and sink Olympian down into the underworld, with little care what it would do to Lost Haven, or the Earth in general.

	Back when the worship of the Athanatoi was dying out due to the rise of the modern religions, the Olympians hide gems throughout the world just in case of something like this would happen.  The godheads of the Athanatoi pantheons vowed never to interfere in mortal affairs once their religions have been supplanted by the modern religions.  While they are permitted to break this oath if something happens that was tied to something the Athanatoi did in the past, the Olympians do not have the power that they once did.  Although their might is still great, they alone could not conquer Typhon, who did not need the sacrifices and worship of mortals to remain strong.  Therefore, over the past few months, the Olympians had selected individuals from the metahuman community in order to become their avatars in this battle against this monster.  Against Typhon.

	My name is Aubrey Adkins and I am the avatar of Athena.  My super-heroine moniker is Arachne.  The reasoning behind this code name is, well, how best to explain this?  Months ago (before the Demon Incursion), some crazy scientist, named Dorian Dipillan, kidnapped me and a few others and kind of gave us super powers.  To put it as simple as possible, this super villainess and I were submerged in the formula that gave us our super powers and this caused me to inherit her powers.  I am kind of like a centaur, but I have a spider’s body substituted for my lower body instead a horse’s.  While I do have to admit that my appearance it kind of weird, at least my other associates and I have these power-nullifying wristbands that allow us to mingle with the general public without sticking out like a sore thumb.  Pretty convenient if I say so myself.

	I sat in my room, fully clad in my scarlet and silver costume, waiting for Athena to show up so that she could take me to the location of one of these gems.  No matter how many times you save the world or how many times you defeat a super villain, big or small, this nervous feeling that appears in your gut still crawls back every time when a new catastrophe rears its ugly head around.  In fact, not even Athena’s arrival made me feel any better.  Worse actually.

	Athena, now standing next to me, placed her hand on my shoulder.  Then there was a flash of light.  We were no longer in my room anymore (or the United States.  Somewhere deep in the Amazon Rain Forest, there stood a small, rundown shrine that was built in the fashion of the ancient Greeks, which made it look out of place in its environment.  Only the vastness of the area has kept it a secret from the “civilized world”.  Once inside, I would be teleported to a pocket universe.  Not an alternate one, with alternate versions of me or you running around, but somewhere like Olympus or Asgard.

	Athena remained outside as I entered into the shrine.  She could not assist me in this trial, as this test was to prove my worthiness, not hers.  Inside, even though the shrine itself appeared tiny from the outside, I found myself inside an enormous temple complex, still in the Greek architectural style.  Torches lit the way towards the far side of the building.  Between each of the columns that supported the roof of the building were the statues of a various goddesses of the Greek pantheon.  Even some rather obscure goddesses and nymphs were displayed here, ones I never heard of before.  However, what was weird was [b][i]only[/i][/b] statues of female deities were erected in this temple.  It made sense when I reached the end of the room.

	At the end of the torches stood another statue, although this one was not of a goddess, but rather a mortal.  In her left hand, she bore a bow, while she had a quiver attached to her belt.  Her skirt was girted up, probably so that her shirt doesn’t become a hindrance while running.  Her tunica was garbed as if the woman was an Amazon.  Finally, her other arm was extended forward, holding out a blue, glowing stone.  This must be the gem that Athena mentioned.  What else could it be?   But one thing was bothering me.  This was way too easy.

	“I can’t allow you to take that stone.”  Athena had warned me that since this place was a pocket universe, I might run into alternate versions of myself or others that I know.  Since I already recognized the voice, I could cross out the possibility that I would run into some weird genderbent version of myself, although the reality of this situation was not much better.  Recently (relatively speaking) I started to date this one guy who was crazy about me in high school (whether this was a healthy decision hasn’t been settled yet, but that’s a question for another time).  Anyways, that voice sounded exactly like him.

	When I turned to look over my shoulder to see who exactly it was, I saw a man hanging upside down from what seemed like a long rope.  However, when I saw the costume that he was wearing, I knew it wasn’t any ordinary rope.  On a side note, the costume itself hit a nerve inside me.  Marvel (the comics company) threatened a legal action against me (well, against my costumed persona, since they didn’t know my true identity) for wearing a Spider-Man (or Spider-Girl, as the official document said) costume while I went around doing my super-heroics.  While they did eventually retract their position, by that time, I already had a new costume (and I was given that costume by Athena in the first place, so it wasn’t like I consciously picked it out).  So, unless this guy has only been on the job for a very short time, there is quite a double standard going on here.  Although it probably has to do with half of me being composed of a giant spider rather than my gender, but whatever.

	“If you really need this little stone so badly, why don’t you just let me use it first and I promise to hand it over to you.”  I wasn’t quite sure this was going to convince him not to confront me over this tiny, radiant stone.  In fact, I wasn’t even sure what I was promising was even feasible.  However, when I stepped forward, I felt something hinting my back.  It wasn’t like a punch or anything like that.  It felt more like something was attached to me.

	“I have beaten what I assume is my universe’s version of you, so I doubt this will end any differently.”  There were two possibilities for why he said this.  One could be that I might be a supervillain in his universe.  Possible, but I think the second option is more probable.  Since Athena enchanted my mask so that I don’t sound just like myself while wearing it (for keeping my identity relatively safe), I bet he doesn’t recognize my voice and therefore assumes that I’m an alternate version of that villainess whose powers I kind of copied due to that previously mentioned mishap.  My money on the second option.

	I immediately yanked down on the webline that he had shot at my back, causing him to crash to the floor with a thud.  He pulled himself back onto his feet, ready for some more punishment (or at least I hoped so, for my own sake).  However, with lighting quick reflexes, he hurdled over me (in spite of my attempts to stop him) and landed right on my spider abdomen, right on my “blind spot”, since I cannot quite turn around that far.

	“I would give up now.”  He demanded as he placed me in a throat lock.  However, by coming this close to my upper body, I grabbed hold of him and tossed him over my head, causing him to loosen his grip over my neck.  Before he could get back on his feet, I webbed down his arm (with the webshooters on my wrist of course).

	“Isn’t quite hypocritical not taking your own advice?”  However, he ignored my banter and swept me off my (eight) feet by using his webbed down arm as an axis and tripping me up with one swift sweep from his legs.

	“Because I’m not down and out yet.”  In response, I shot two weblines at him and pulled him towards myself.  Then, I pushed off against his torso, causing him to fly off in the opposite direction, as if I had tossed him.  Then I dashed over to where he hit the ground.

	“Are you down now?”  I said this too prematurely as I swiftly felt a fist strike my face.

	“I don’t like hitting girls,” His voice was rather serious now, not as if he was trying to make a joke.  “But that doesn’t mean I won’t protect myself.”  He tried another shot to the head, but this time I was prepared, catching his punch with my fist.  He tried to throw a punch with his other hand, but that didn’t change the results.  We were not in a contest of brute strength as we pushed against one another’s arms.  Back and forth we went, each of us getting the upper hand here and there.  However, somehow I won, causing him to crumble down to the ground.

	“No fair,” I heard him mumble, “Female spiders are usually the larger one.”  How often do you hear a guy complaining about being at a disadvantage in respect to strength?  Anyways, I just rolled my eyes and nudged him to the side next to one of the columns with my forelegs.

	I suddenly felt a buzzing inside my head.  I swung around and saw a blonde in a blue-colored costume reaching over toward the gem.  I struck her hand with a webline before she could even touch the stone, dragging her onto the ground.  Well, looks like it’s time to collect that gem and get out of here.  Honestly, this place is giving me the creeps since the torches gives such a luminous and eerie atmosphere.  However, when I reached into the palm of the Amazon statue to retrieve the stone, I was surprised to find out that for some strange reason my hand kept hitting an invisible object just before I could touch the stone.

	“Are you so desperate that in order to save your world you need to allow ours to fall?”  Oh geez, looks like I won my bet.  This woman sounded [i]exactly[/i] like I do (when I’m not wearing my mask, of course).

	“Won’t the same be true if it were the other way around, that you got the gem and I was SOL?”  My alternate version of me looked away from me, probably because what I said is the truth.  If one of us got the gem, the other one would be screwed.

	“Don’t try to turn this on us.  We know you’re the villain, Black Widow.”  Well, that confirms it.  They both think I’m that women from whom I got my powers (assuming she’s not referring to a Marvel comics Russian assassin).

	“My God!  Stop with all this Black Widow and villain crap!  Because I happen to possess some similar physical traits doesn’t automatically make me that person!”  I pulled off my mask, revealing that we had the same face.

	“Oh…”  That was all she could mutter.  She was probably just struck by this uncanny feeling when you come face to face with someone who could be your twin.  You have your doubts that the other person could be a shape-shifter or something.  That’s the only way you could rationalize it, other than thinking she’s a figment of your imagination, but I think all of us know that can’t be the case.  We just knocked each other around (well, I knocked around that Spider-Man lookalike, but same difference).

	I felt another buzz in my head.  I scanned around the room, but I didn’t see anything.  I should have looked up because something fell on top of the both of us.  Whatever it was, it seemed like a net and if you tried to struggle, the netting would just cling to you even more.  Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw something descending from the ceiling.  It was a giant spider, probably the size of Shelob from [i]the Lord of the Rings[/i] movies.

	“I swear, if I get out of here, I am so complaining to Athena about not mentioning this giant spider!”  Somehow, we both said the same words at the same time.  Now that was uncanny.

[hr]

	“Alternate me.”  I pealed my eyes open after I heard my own voice whispering to me and also after I felt something bump into me.  When I looked around, I felt disoriented when I saw everything was upside: the ceiling was below me and the floor above.  What the heck was going on?  Well, I could have answered that question by looking down (up?) since I would have seen that I (and the other me) were tied up with spider webs and were being hung from the ceiling.

	“Can you break out of those?”  I tried to rip my way out of this web prison, but unfortunately somehow these webs would not budge at all.  I turned to my “twin” and shook my head.

	For a few moments, we just hung there in an awkward silence, unsure what we were supposed to do.  We were pretty much stuck here.

	“So…” I began, “What’s you’re powers, assuming their drastically different from my own.”  My “twin” gave me this looked that almost seemed like she was thinking “is this really appropriate for this situation”, but she eventually gave in.

	“Um, healing factor, force fields, and something in between intangibility and invisibility.”

	“What, if you can turn intangible, can’t you get out of this?”  Now she gave me a “don’t you think I would have tried that if that was the case” face.  Is that how my face looks like when I hear someone say something that is obvious (at least to myself)?  God, I still can’t really get over this “double” thing.

	“Okay…”  Wow, I never realized how difficult it is to try to keep a conversation going with myself.  “So I’ll assume the guy dressed up like Spider-Man is Will, right?”

	“I have no idea where the heck he is.  For the several years I have known him, he’s never this late.  He’s usually quite punct…”  My alternate self gave out a scream when something jumped onto her.  However, when she saw it was actually human and was wearing red and blue, she quickly calmed down.  “Speak of the Devil.”

	“Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of here.”  He waved one of the torches that had been placed throughout the temple complex.  When he looked over toward me, he almost leapt out of his skin.  “Holy cow, she has your face!”

	“Will, she is me.  Or at least one from a different universe.”

	“Oh crap.  Does that mean I punched “you” in the face?”  He then turned to me.  “Sorry about that.  Thought you were someone else.”

	“Isn’t that the story of today?”  I rolled my eyes, which is quite a bad habit because I usually have my mask on, which hides it from everyone else.  Will then started to bring the torch up to the webbing that encased my alternate self when something came to my mind.  “Wait, aren’t you just going to burn us up by doing that?”

	“Force Fields.”  My other self said.  After we were both freed from the spider’s webbing, we now have to deal with that freaking giant spider.  I thought we would make a plan or something, but at that very moment, Will began to shout at the spider.

	“Here, Shelob!  Follow the torch!”  He then shot off a webline and began swinging around the temple complex.  The giant spider swiftly went in pursuit.

	“I worry about him sometimes.”  My other self admitted to me.

	“I can tell.”

	While that monster was chasing Will around, we had one last thing to do: decision what we’re going to do about that gem.  What would happen to the one of us who did not get the gem?  Would we be condemning her and her world?

	“Maybe we should try touching it at the same time?”  I pondered at what my other me had said.  Would this really work?  Well, it’s better than doing nothing (or just allowing one of us to take the gem).

	“One”

	“Two”

	“Three”.  Once we touched the stone, there was a bright blue flash.  I wasn’t quite sure whether that was a good sign or a bad one.  When I could see again after being temporarily blinded by the flash, I thought it probably was a bad sign because from my alternate self a shining blue light radiated from her eyes.

	“Are my eyes shining?”  She asked.

	“Yes, why?”

	“Because so are yours.”  Oh, I hope that meant it worked.  

	“Um, ladies.  I can’t doing this all day.”  Well, we haven’t quite forgotten about him.  It just might have seemed like it since he’s the one in the most danger.

	“So…what are we supposed to do?”  Out of nowhere, my alternate self held up a bow.  “Where the heck did you get that?”

	“It appeared after that blue flash.  You’re holding one too.”  Well, that’s kind of awkward.  Asking someone where they got something when you’re holding the same item.

	“Have any past experience with archery?”  I asked.

	“Not really.”  Nevertheless, she took an arrow, placed it on the bow, as though she has done this hundreds of times, aimed at the giant arachnid, and let the arrow fly.  Behind the arrow followed a trail of blue light.  The arrow remained true, striking the giant spider.  However, instead of just wounding the spider, the arrow caused the blue light to dissipate throughout the spider’s body, until the monster just dissolved into light.

	“Took you long enough.”  Will landed in front of the two of us.  However, something about us made him glance at the Amazon statue and then back at us again.  “I see you two adopted that statue’s attire.”  I could hear a chuckle in his voice and there was no doubt in my mind that there was at least a small smirk on his face.

	We both looked back toward the statue, wondering what he was talking about.  What was he talking about “adopting her attire”?

	Damn it.

	After examining the statue and realizing to what he was referring, I immediately crossed my arms over my chest.  Fortunately, it didn’t really matter because at that moment everything went pitch black.  Then, as soon as all the lights went out, I could discern the rain forest around me and Athena standing before me again.

	“So, I see you succeeded, mortal.”

	“Two things.  Why the heck did you not warn me about that giant spider?  And what the heck is with these clothes?”
[/hider]


[hider=The Power of Bullying]
by [@Alice]
[b]Trigger Warning: School Shooting[/b] 

---

It was a quiet, normal day for Jordan Johnson; much like it always was. He wasn't popular. He wasn't a nerd. He didn't really fit in anywhere at school, but that didn't seem to matter. Everyone got along, no matter what circle of friends they belonged to. Or so that was what it looked like on the outside. To people like Jordan, who didn't look deeper.

If they had paid attention, they would have noticed what Lacee, Charles and Minnie were going through. It started in elementary school when Lacee and her friends were first picked on. They were ten-years old or so. Different from all the others. Lacee was bald; she just came off her chemotherapy, with good news that she was going to make it. Charles was fat and loved to eat all he could get his hands on. Minnie was shy, an easy target for others.

They grouped together that first year the bullying started. Three ten year olds, scared, upset and angry.

Jordan did not know them. He didn't know the horrible things some of the other students did to them. He didn't know how hurt and consumed on the inside they were. He didn't know how deeply they feared and hated everyone. Everyone was to blame in their eyes. Nobody saw it, nobody stopped it and nobody cared. Jordan did not know he could have had the power to change things, if only he had opened his eyes and saw what was going on. He could have stood up for the trio. He could have been their friend.

He would have cared... but he was like all the others, who did not see it until it was too late.

Years passed until one fateful day when everyone was in the school cafeteria.

---

"Pass the salt, moron," Marlene grumbled, letting out a big sigh. Jordan glared at his sister, before giving her the salt.

"What crawled up your butt?" Janet asked.

"If you must know, my stupid boyfriend broke up with me," Marlene sniffed, rolling her eyes. Oh yeah, she was oh so sad. Everyone groaned. It was always the same with her.

"You should..." Jordan didn't get to finish what he was saying as a loud pop, like the backfire of a truck, vibrated around the large room.

The group quickly stood up and looked around.

"What the hell..."

"Did you hear that..."

"Where did it come from..."

"Stephanie's bleeding...!"

"WHAT?"

"WHAT'S GOING ON!?"

"Shut up, this is a hoax. Stand up, Stephanie!"

Jordan wobbled on his feet, almost in a daze. What just happened? Marlene was clinging to his side, crying. The oldest Johnson tried to shake her off. Like everyone else, he was thinking this was a hoax. A really horrible hoax. Why wasn't Stephanie standing up?

"Its not a joke, you idiot!" Somebody yelled. "She's not breathing!"

[i]Pop! Pop! Pop![/i] Three more loud shots made everyone scream and scramble for cover, though some were still confused and not comprehending the situation.

"Ah, hell no!" Someone screamed.

Jordan clung to his sister, their roles reversed. This wasn't a joke.

"Marlene, don't worry. We'll find Danny and get out of here. We'll be safe, okay?" He whispered into her hair. "Okay?"

Tears dripped onto Jordan's shirt; Jordan sighed, wanting to cry too, like his sister. He was just as scared, but he had to play the big brother now. They might have been twins, but he was born first. Fifteen year old boys were not supposed to cry. 

"Okay, Marlene? Don't cry...."

A soft sob met his hears. He knew it was his friend Janet, who was always with them. "Jordan... she..." 

Janet pushed herself up from where she had fallen down and shakily walked over to the siblings. She was bleeding.
"Jordan... gone..." Janet sobbed. "NO!" She screamed when Jordan tried to look down, horrified. "Don't look! NO! NO!"

Janet and Marlene were best friends. Better than best some said.

"Marlene," Jordan cried, refusing to listen to her. He looked down and saw that what he thought were tears were actually blood. There was blood all over Marlene. "No, Marlene. Remember, I have to protect you! I said I was going to! Don't you dare die! That's mean! That's not right!"

"Marlene, Marlene..." Janet's voice was weaker, Jordan only now realizing she had been hurt as well. How, why?

"Janet... Marlene... both..." Jordan whispered, eyes wide and disbelieving. "What ... why?"

[i]Pop![/i] Another shot ripped through the air.

Jordan's eyes went wide, the last thing his eyes saw was Janet, getting hit in the forehead. He passed out, still clinging to the lifeless form of his little sister.

---

"I've got a live one!"

Jordan barely registered as he was lifted from the ground and carried away to safety and a world that would never be the same.

If only someone had the power to stop this from happening.

[i]FIN[/i]
[/hider]
And this concludes the entries!
If I forgot your entry or screwed up on anonymity/nonymity, please mention it to me and/or complain loudly in this thread and/or notify [@mdk] that I am unfit for this assignment, and know that I am terribly, terribly sorry for the oversight.