[center][h2][color=gray]Apostate[/color][/h2][/center] [center][color=beige]...attends a genocide...[/color][/center] [color=yellow]Setting: Astus’ Island[/color] [center][b]I[/b][/center] White held the Astawhacker with both hands. It was their most prized possession - A jury-rigged piece of equipment that his little sister had created out of scrap during the early days of the apocalypse. One whack to any of the Demon’s minions and they’d be disabled thanks to a wave of… Aethelic mumbo-jumbo, or whatever. Sweat started to flow from behind his mask, even with his suit’s air conditioning at full strength. Normally, he wouldn’t even be outside, but the situation called for it. Having drones floating around so close to their hideout was too risky for his liking, and if he wasn’t even able to whack some bots for his sister’s sake, then what good was he? Two drones hummed by overhead, unable to peer down the crooked alleyway that White was hiding in. They were the small fries, those that made no difference should he take them down. What he needed to find was… Ah. He squinted and wiped at the moisture covering his visor, and saw the carriage-sized red and black drone floating down the main road next to him. A Neuron. Taking that thing down would disable all nearby drones, so the only thing left to do was get to work. The Neurons had no blind spots, so trying to sneak would be useless. Instead, this would be an all out brawl. White took a deep breath, trying to still his rapidly beating heart and pressed his hands together for a quick prayer. ‘To whoever’s listening... Should I not make it back, please take care of my sister.’ Then he stretched a little bit and walked out onto the main road. The Neuron immediately stopped in its tracks, twenty meters in front of him. A loud humming and whining emanated from the Neuron then, and it was responded by several smaller hums from all around. White’s heart was practically in his throat and had he not done this before, he probably would’ve turned tail and run for his life. One Hunter drone blasted through a building’s brick wall. It was wheel-shaped and its mouth revved up. In that split moment, White slung his shield from his back into his left hand and grit his teeth. Explosion after explosion rang out down the road, each one accompanied by a massive impact against his shield, denting the metal and pushing him back. Finally the salvo stopped, and White dropped his shield in time to see three more Hunters flying in and the Neuron starting to get away. He dug into his pocket and threw a vial of glowing blue powder onto the ground, a large shockwave of blue energy washing over the area and sending the drones tumbling onto the ground. He wasted no time, breaking out into a run and climbing on top of the Neuron. There, he stabbed the Astawhacker into the Neuron’s camera and pulled its trigger. The explosion pushed him off the Neuron and onto the sizzling hot cobblestone road, where he rolled until he found his feet. There was no time for injury now--he could relax when he was back home. As if on cue, the Astawhacker, depleted, fell and skidded along the floor beside him, a little blacker and a little worse for wear. He chuckled and picked it up. “Thanks, bud.” He whispered and patted the Astawhacker, not even bothering to look at the dead wreckage of the Neuron and the immobile Hunters. He froze when he turned, however… Because a Prime Astalonian stood there, watching him. Covered in the blood of its latest victim, flaking off bit by bit in the extreme heat. In her hand was a long, thin blade, longer than he’d ever seen, and despite the slight differences in her shape and form, he could actually recognize her. Carer, the one who had cared for him in his youth whenever his parents were both at work. He’d heard stories about what the Prime Astalonians were like nowadays, from survivors and people who’d fled as their loved ones were slaughtered. If they were true, then… yeah, he wasn’t making it back to his sister. Images of her kind, smiling face flashed across his mind. At least he would go knowing that his sister wasn’t going to be found, now that the Neuron was destroyed. He smiled bitterly behind his mask, dropped the depleted Astawhacker, and pulled out his trusty hammer. [center][b]II[/b][/center] The Godlight crashed down upon the cobblestone roads. Blood sizzled as it splattered all over the walls of the nearest ruined building, the body of a slim male lifelessly dropping onto the stones. Carer was exhausted… But unlike her mind, her body needed no rest. Over the years, it had gone on to tirelessly chase after the people she loved. She had been forced to stab, slash, crush, break, burn, strangle, and murder her children and despite what Astus had said before the beginning of the end, it never got easier. Everytime her body found another Homuran, she would scream at herself, trying to get her body to listen to her for once -- To set herself free. And yet it was always in vain. Her latest victim had been one of her bravest children. He had a bright future ahead of him, with his talents and sharp mind… And there he was, laying on the ground. And why? He must’ve been a kid when the cleansing had started. Why? Her body twitched. A minor glitch which had developed over the last few weeks. They might have been the finest machines to ever grace the Galbar but they were still machines and machines needed maintenance. Years of getting showered in blood and overheating were beginning to take their toll. A sonic boom wrenched her attention back to her environment, the powerful shockwave laying waste to the entire area and sending Carer flying. Only a split second after the blast, a fiery comet came crashing down onto her. It had all been so fast that her sensors hadn’t even perceived the threat. [i]CRITICAL ERROR. MAIN AETHELIC GENERATOR ANDSECONDARY AETHELIC GENERATOR OFFLINE. UTILIZING EMERGENCY BATTERY… CRITICAL ERROR. EMERGENCY BATTERY MISSING. CRITICAL ERROR. GYROSCOPE MISSING. CRITICAL ERROR. VITAE CONDUITS #35, #87, #238, #23, AND #9 RUPTURED. CRITICAL ERROR. DANGEROUSLY LOW LEVELS OF VITAE DETECTED. TOTAL LOSS OF FUNCTION IN 13… 12… 11...[/i] Carer’s body creaked and groaned as it tried to grasp at the impossibly heavy weight on top of her torso, then with a last push, fell limp. [i]FOREIGN OBJECT IN CORE CAVITY DESTROYED. CONNECTING TO PLATFORM…[/i] Suddenly, Carer jerked awake. She could feel her body, she could move it. A bitter smile graced her rusted face, the lights behind her cracked visor blinking on and off erratically. [i]7… 6...[/i] “T… “Thank… you…” She whispered and used the last of her strength to caress her liberator’s leg with her broken arms, the very leg that had crushed right through her torso. [i]3… 2… 1… SHUTDOWN SEQUENCE INITIATED. GOOD NIGHT...[/i] Slowly, the world went dark… And just like that, Carer finally got to rest. [center][b]III[/b][/center] Apostate let loose a primordial roar that trembled from his form, his smoke replaced with blazing fire and his metal now molten and dripping. No semblance of thought laced his scream, only the rage and pain that stabbed inside of him. Distant crying rang out through the ruined alleyways, that of a child. With a faceless visor of molten metal, Apostate scanned the decrepit ruins that ringed the crater he stood in. Kicking scrap metal off of his leg, the god began to walk towards the crying, each step shaking the ground and leaving drips of fire. His presence lit up the alleyways as he stepped into them, and almost mechanically he walked through — as if he knew them by heart — until he came to a half collapsed building, clearly destabilized by his entry. With Apostate’s approach, the crying stifled to choking whimpers. The whimpering came from below a particularly large piece of rubble. Brick on the outside, insulation in the middle, and rusty metal on the inside. The whimpering ceased for a while, then the sobbing resumed. “Help me… W, y-you promised…!” The tiny voice cried. “Rah!” Apostate growled, a fiery arm slapping the rubble and sending it into the musky sky. The rest of the building shuddered from the impact but as it began to fall, molten tendrils came shooting out of the god and sending them every other direction, leaving a small sanctuary right around an even smaller, cowering figure where the rubble once was. The child was covered head to toe in layers upon layers of clothes, her face barely visible behind the dark visor on her face. Tubes and such were hooked up between a pack on her back and her suit, a gentle humming coming from the pack as she stared in disbelief at Apostate. A moment later, she screamed at the top of her lungs. “WHITE! WHITE!! H-HELP ME! THE PRIME!! H-HE-” She coughed and retched inside her visor, then fainted. Reaching a fiery hand out, Apostate’s smoke swirled around the small girl until a shell of metal was woven around her. Just as he picked it up, the whir of machines began to sound in every direction. Swarms of hunters came fluttering onto the scene with the box-like Neurons shortly behind them. A deep groan sounded inside the pained god, but instead of staying a rumble, it quickly turned into a mighty roar, shaking the rest of the buildings around Apostate to the ground and alerting the hunters. Their center weapons spun into action, showering the god with explosive projectiles. A wall of smoke erupted between the god and the flurry, catching them in the thick vapor. A boom sounded and the shower of explosives shot back from the wall of smoke, slamming into the hunters and causing a ring of explosions. With the first wave turned to showering debris, the second wave opened up, but this time Apostate was on the move. The god was a blur of fire as his towering form cut between the mechanical units. His very presence melted the closer enemies and his tendrils of magma snapped at ones further away — all while keeping the metal egg clutched safely in one of his hands, a cool smoke protecting it from his own aura of destruction. With the ground still shaking from his movements, Apostate juked next to a Neuron and with a free hand, he clawed it into the air. A faceless visor inspected it calmly, contrasting the absolute devastation his wild tendrils were spelling behind him. Finished with his inspection, the metal box slowly turned a glowing red until it burst into a fiery ball, the shrapnel bouncing off of Apostate and stabbing into the sides of a crumbled building and clueless hunters. Apostate turned into the direction he now knew the workshop stood, bending the flaming pillars that were his knees and adjusting his potential trajectory. His body rumbled, and with a powerful kick, he launched into the air, leaving a basin of fire in place of the ruined street. The clouds hissed as the god cut through them, the sky a sickly orange. In mere seconds, Apostate was already arching back down to the island, his free arm reaching out just as he landed. The ground ruptured from the impact and flaming smoke erupted from the fissures created. In the hand Apostate swiped out with, he now held another helpless Neuron. A great wave blasted from the Neuron, Apostate’s voice booming along with it. “Defy.” Mechanical whirrs ticked and lights flickered as the Neuron reconfigured its own programming, the other Neurons and hunters in the area copying the chorus of sounds. [center][b]IV[/b][/center] Heavy, toxic music rang out throughout the workshop as the sounds of metal being torn apart blared from the speakers of the command terminal. [I]CRITICAL ERROR. AETHELIC NETWORK DOWN. UTILIZING ALTERNATIVE SERVERS… SUCCESS. NOW VIEWING FEED #83[/I] Astus swept his flaming hair back, eyes glued to the screen that showed a blur of molten metal and fire taking down the entire Southern detachment of drones. The camera struggled to follow the one he already knew to be a God, and when the feed went dark, he leaned onto the command terminal and nodded his head. “Fuck.” Moments later, he was digging desperately through the cabinets and drawers in his workshop, throwing stuff over his shoulders left and right until he came upon a particularly ornate thing he had crafted a while back. He inspected it closely, admiring his own handiwork. “Wow, what an adorable saucer.” He sighed then threw it as well, shattering it in the process. “How come I haven’t made ANYTHING that can counter a God?!” He shouted as he slammed his fists on the workbench, denting the surface. “God damn, now I’m gonna have to fix that! We’re gonna have to fix that, Astus!” “Holy shit, now that bad habit’s coming back again-” Astus felt his dead heart beat for the first time in decades. It wasn’t a good feeling, he realized. He also didn’t believe in breathing, so he definitely did not take a deep breath. “Okay, okay, calm down. That’s the guy that stopped the blast, we definitely don’t have the equipment to fight him now so we have to think of something, and quickly.” he thought out loud, finally running back to the command terminal to read the message he’d been dreading. [i]DRONE UNITS NON-RESPONSIVE. VIRUS DETECTED. ANTIVIRUS PROGRAM RECOMMENDED.[/i] Astus hit ‘No’ on the recommendation and then navigated his way to something he thought he’d never use, and waited. Eventually, the rumbling of the earth above and the flickering of the electric lights in his workshop told him that his ‘visitor’ had arrived, so he cleared his throat and turned on the PA system for the first time since the start of the cleansing. “HEY HEY HEY, JUNIOR. GOTTA SAY, YOU’RE QUITE THE INDUSTRIOUS ONE AIN’T YA? TO HAVE BLASTED YOUR WAY THROUGH YUDAIEL’S LITTLE SHOW AND THEN KICKED THE BOLTS OUTTA MY ENTIRE WORKFORCE IS NO FEAT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. YOU’RE NOT COMING ANY CLOSER, THOUGH. WHY? CAUSE…” Astus cut off the transmission for a moment as he pressed a button on the dashboard and all of the drones he’d ever built self-destructed. Even those inside the workshop. He overheard some screaming coming from the residential areas of the compound, and shrugged. “... ‘CAUSE YOU DON’T HAVE A DRONE ARMY ANYMORE! HAH!” Time seemed to slow down for a second, a new sensation erupting alongside the cacophony of explosions and only thanks to Astus’ godly eyes and vision did he witness the entire action. The ground had trembled and violently shook, only ending as the encased wall right next to him burst into a shower of dust. There in the gaping maw of the destruction was Apostate, a curious metal egg in hand, and a tunnel of broken walls and floors behind him. Despite this, the flaming god didn’t stop his charge, slamming into the opposite wall before wrenching himself to face Astus, debris shaking from the ceiling. An alarm blared, and then the sprinklers on the ceiling activated and showered everything with water. The water caused sparks to fly everywhere, and the music that had been playing in the background grew distorted and eventually stopped. Astus pressed a couple buttons and the alarm stopped, then he turned to Apostate while he dug through the drawers underneath the command terminal. “Apostate, right? Wanna explain why you wrecked my army, my employee, and my workshop? Or are you too far gone to talk?” Trying to delay Apostate was all he could do as he found what he was looking for in the drawers. The next time he showed his hands, they were covered in an opaque layer of liquid metal, his Second-Skin gloves that he usually wore when working. [i]DA-Class Emergency, bring all the Homurans you can get a hold of to my current location.[/i] Having sent out his orders, he then turned his attention to the strange feeling he was getting from inside the metal egg in Apostate’s hand. He knew what it was -- He’d been tracking those biological signatures for years now. He pointed at the egg with both hands. “That’s mine by the way, champ. Hand it over so I can dispose of it cleanly and put an end to this mess so we can all finally start to progress.” "No." The voice bounced off the walls, causing another shake of dust to fall from the ceiling. Apostate braced and darted at Astus, a blade of solid flame erupting in his free hand. Astus deflected the blade with one hand and immediately countered with an uppercut with the other, his hand making contact with the other god’s form despite its gaseous nature. Having pushed him back temporarily, Astus chuckled and wiggled his left hand, his glove flaking away after having grabbed the flaming blade. “Look behind you, kid!” He nodded at the shapes now through the sealed glass doors leading out of his workshop. Homurans, several of them, all of different colours and ages, and all of them terrified. “Think they’re afraid of us? Nah, they’re afraid of what’s going to happen to them if you don’t leave and let me fix all those holes you made in the structure. This whole place is gonna be like an oven to ‘em! Now, I don’t know about you, but Baked Homuran doesn't sound too good, does it?” In a fluid motion, Apostate swung out his arm, using the crook to slam into Astus. Spinning into the blow, the god turned to pin Astus against the wall with a crack. Now face to face, the molten mask of Apostate dripped with his voice. "Is that all you have left?" “Besides the parasite you’re clutching so tightly in your hand and the couple thousand scattered throughout the compound… Yep. You happened to crash into the city containing the last remaining defiant survivors. Little late to try and be the saviour of the downtrodden, ain’t ya kid?” Astus smirked, a bead of flame sweat dripping down the side of his face. Apostate paused and silence filled the atmosphere. Only the sound of crackling flame, small whimpers and settling dust remained as the god thought. Finally a low growl rumbled. "Where are they?" “In this compound, where they’ve been for years now. If we keep fighting, they’re all going to die from heat stroke. I can promise you that.” Apostate's grip tightened and with a lunge, one of his molten tendrils came crashing in, just missing Astus' face. "Fix it." Astus was unfazed. His junior really must have had a couple screws loose, right? “You gotta release me first, dumbass.” The god of defiance let out a low growl before ripping his arm away from him. Apostate’s flames were dimmer now, being replaced with a black smoke. He stabbed his blade in the air, the tip pointed at Astus. “Now you fix it.” “Hmmm…” Astus tapped his chin in mock thought for a moment, squinting his eyes. Eventually, he shrugged. “Nah. I’ll do it only after you leave. Can’t turn my back on you, you see.” A low, pained groan rumbled in Apostate’s chest. Finally he let his blade vaporize back into smoke. With his fingers still tightly clutching the egg he took a few steps back. “I’ll go, for now.” Before he turned, Apostate added, “but know that I will finish what I have started, the day that no homurans reside on this island, or the day that they once again call out to me, I will return and finish our fight.” Astus waved dismissively at Apostate, rolling his eyes “Yes yes, vengeance and anger and war. See ya around, champ.” With little else, the god of defiance pressed the egg close to his chest and backed into the hole he had created in the wall earlier. Astus heard Apostate’s heavy footsteps above his compound, which in turn slowly turned to the simple sounds of hissing smoke, until there was no sound at all. Once it was confirmed that Defiance had left, Astus sighed, wiped the sweat off his brow and looked incredulously at the Homurans and Primes gatherers around the doors to his workshop. “Ridiculous, ain’t it?” [center][b]V[/b][/center] Lorelei awoke with a start. She shot up and onto her hands and knees, desperately taking off the visor covering her face and tossing it as far away as she could, which wasn’t much. She wiped at her face with her gloves, getting rid of the vomit and spit that had come to coat her face. She did all of this without gagging – for she was too exhausted to do so. Once she was done cleaning up as well as possible, she sat back on her heels and let her forehead touch against the soft grass. She stayed like that for a while, the dull aches of several bruises all along her body slowly coming back to her. Eventually, she straightened up and looked around. The first thing she saw was a bright blue sky, and the first thing she felt was a cool breeze dancing through the grass and across her body. “C-Cold…” She whispered, deciding to take off her soiled gloves and starting to mess around with the tubes hooking her suit up to her pack. She clearly wasn’t in the same place she’d been before, and it was far too cold to be wearing a forging suit. A woolen blanket fell onto her from above, once again hiding her away, but this time a bandaged hand with cut fingers pinched the hem and lifted it off her face so she could still see. There kneeling in front of her was a man. His face was bandaged in such a way that she couldn’t see his right eye, just a bloody stain on the white linen. The bandaged wrapped through messy black hair and disappeared under a rugged beige cloak, only to again appear on his hands. He scuffed his boots and held out another hand, a fig fruit in the palm. Lorelei gasped and averted her gaze when she realized she’d been staring, a little trembling taking hold inside her chest. She kept messing around with the tubes until they came apart, a loud hissing being heard for a moment, stopping only when the humming coming from her pack died down to silence. After that was done, she quickly wrapped herself as tightly as she could in the woolen blanket. Looking people in the eye made her feel weird, so she looked down at the grass. “A-Adult? H-How?” “It’s a disguise,” Apostate answered, “do you remember a scary demon of fire and metal?” The man let himself fall backwards, landing on his rump and throwing his arms over his knees. “That was me.” She tensed up. It was the last thing she remembered before waking up in the new place – Tears welled up in her eyes and her poor little heart skipped more than a single beat. She shook under her new blanket. “Y-You? Astalonian? G-Gonna k-kill me?” “No,” Apostate said, “on all accounts. I am Hevel, the Apostate. Your brother asked me to save you.” He tossed the fig up into the air and caught it again. “Do you need to eat?” She perked up, “W-White! White i-is okay? Where is h-he?” Silence grew between the two and an ashamed crook bent Apostate’s mouth into a frown. He cast his left eye down, averting it from Lorelei. A soft groan rumbled from the man and he rolled the fig on the ground. “You should eat.” “O-Oh…” She wasn’t dumb, she knew what that answer meant. She’d seen variations of that expression countless times already. Her tummy rumbled and she looked at the strange new fruit. One part of her told her to take it, but the other part… “N-No food from stranger. W s-said this to m-me.” “You don’t have to eat if you don’t want to,” Apostate’s voice was soft. “That’s your ‘right’.” Lorelei sneaked a peek up at Apostate’s eye and immediately looked away. She then looked at her right hand. “R-Right?” “The right to be,” Apostate said. “You have the right to love, to life, to be happy — to have everything you need.” He slowly rose to his feet and looked outwards across the garden of Hevel. Following his gaze, she could see the grass swishing in the breeze, dancing with brilliant trees. With his back to her, she noticed for the first time, the large bar of metal on his back. “Do you understand?” Apostate’s voice came, his finger pointing towards a large black statue, a tiny yellow flower bobbing behind it. “Y-Yep. There n-no more f-flowers back home. Why i-is cold here?” “There was one left.” Apostate put a hand to his chest, just as a groan rumbled out. “It called to me, just like that flower over there once did. So I stood in front of it, again.” Turning back to Lorelei, Apostate cleared his throat. “It’s cold here, only because it’s away from the heat death proposed by Astus. You’ll grow used to it, or perhaps you won’t. There are warmer places to go, if you want.” Lorelei thought for a minute, still staring at the yellow flower. It was cold, yeah, but it wasn’t unbearably cold. What she was feeling was probably the last bit of refrigeration left over in her suit. Still, if what she was feeling across her naked hands was the actual temperature of this new place, it was definitely colder than even the coldest bedroom back home. “W said we are H-Homuran. Where is H-Homura? I-Is warm?” Apostate thought for a moment. “Sometimes. Homurans are a little bit everywhere. Tomorrow, a bunch will be here, even. They all come from a small house in the North East.” “I-I wanna go. W wanted to go.” “Then you should go,” Apostate said. “I’ll be heading back there in a few days, if you don't want to go alone.” “Y-Yeah. I will go w-with you.” “Okay.” The man nodded. “But first, you’ll have to tell me your name.” She looked away from the flower and down at the grass. After a moment she stood up, grunting a little in the process, and clasped her hands in front of her. “L-Lore.” “Welcome to the Garden, Lore,” Apostate held out a bandaged hand, which Lorelei hesitantly shook. Apostate gripped her hand gingerly before turning it around, so her small palm was facing up. With his other hand, Apostate dropped something heavy into it. It was a small cylinder of metal, brushed with ash. A notch for a handle was present down the center, wherever the handle might have gone. Lorelei recognized the scuff marks on it — the head of an old, trusty hammer. [hider=Summary] Scene 1: We open with a boy named White, his trusty Astawhacker, and his enviro-suit. He is a desperate survivor of the genocide and now lives in the extremely hot and desolate wasteland of the old city. He encounters Astus’ drones but successfully defeats them using his younger sister’s advice. Unfortunately, Carer comes across him and kills him easily, but not before he prays for someone to save his sister, wherever she may be hiding. Scene 2: Now in Carer’s POV, she thinks about the atrocities she has committed against her will. Her very frame is rusted with blood and gore. She hates it, she hates herself, and she hates Astus — but is unable to do any different. Suddenly, a massive explosion sounds overhead in the atmosphere and a comet comes crashing down on top of her — it was Apostate. She thanks her killer for ending her suffering before going offline forever. Scene 3: We see the world through Apostate’s eyes. His smoke has ignited into fire and his metal is molten. He is incoherent and in incredible pain. He opens up and starts going absolutely wild on Astus’ army, but not before retrieving White’s sister (Lorelei) and encasing her in a protective shell. With the metal egg in one hand, Apostate battles Astus’ army until he finds a control drone and infuses his will into it, sending a virus across the entire battle unit and infecting all of Astus’ drones with the will to defy. With his drone army, he marches on to Astus’ workshop. Scene 4: Astus is watching this all take place from his workshop. A few cameo’s take place and slow heavy metal music plays as he watches all his creations get destroyed. Finally he decides to taunt Apostate over a microphone and then cause all his drones to self destruct. Content he stripped Apostate of his army, he goads him, but Apostate blasts through the walls of the workshop regardless. A short exchange takes place before Astus, pinned and sick of Apostate, decides to use an ultimatum. If Apostate doesn’t leave, Astus won’t stop the heat death, resulting in the death of the Homurans. Apostate hesitantly submits, but threatens that once the Homurans are gone from the island, or if they call out to him again, he will return and finish the fight. Scene 5: Lorelei wakes up in the Garden of Hevel, where she officially meets Apostate for the first time. He calls himself Hevel the Apostate, hinting that he defied the Pantheon he was born into and that Apostate isn’t his real name. He makes sure Lorelei isn’t too cold, and gives her a fig — stating that her brother asked him to take care of her. A sad scene happens, and then Apostate teaches her of her right to love, to live, and to be happy, and then promises to take her to Keltra after Homura arrives at the Garden — but not before imparting a small gift… White’s trusty hammer. [/hider] [hider=Vigor] Apostate starting: 4 Apostate ending: 4 Astus starting: 5 Used 1 Vigour to curse Astalon with a temporary ultra extreme heatwave. Astus ending: 4 [/hider]