Heyaa, BiggerFish!
I'm probably never going to get around to finishing Vanya's story, sadly, so I'll sum up in (semi) brief what I'd planned to happen. Splint was letting me wrap up the Spearbreakers story, so I guess you can consider this something of an Epilogue.
After battling Cronan Tames (which I detailed in one of my previous posts here), Vanya was going to dive into the lake outside that Parasol city I mentioned and swim to shore, effectively escaping Tames for the time being. After getting her gear back and changing into her regular clothes, she heads back to Kenzon's apartment. Kenzon saw it all on the news - and knows that Tames is actually after Vanya, not Katie. Because of this, he makes his girlfriend, Jade, kick her out of her apartment, and takes Katie back to live with him (after spitting a few choice words of hatred in her direction). This leaves Vanya completely homeless, and she wanders the Parasol slums, afraid to talk to anyone lest she gets someone killed.
After a few days, she goes back to Kenzon's Armory and tries to take him up on his previous offer of training so she can get off the street for a while, and maybe beg for a little food - at this point she's lost all sense of pride. She also doesn't really care if Tames kills her because, as she sees it, she has absolutely nothing left to live for. Kenzon has anticipated it, though, and leaves her with a free coupon to a bar - a free meal, more or less. Vanya, hungry as she is, goes there straightaway. The meal (and alcohol) leaves Vanya feeling rejuvenated, and ends up dancing to the Parasolian music, despite a crowd of gawkers - this would be a special moment where Vanya finally stops hating herself for how she's an elf. I would've loved to write that up, but I never got quite that far. In any case, it turns out that Reudh has followed her there, and when she stops dancing, he applauds her, and they sit down for a little chat, where Reudh reveals that she's a very different girl than he'd initially imagined. While he's dearly fond of her, he doesn't think a relationship would work out, and Vanya accepts this. After a warm embrace, the two part as friends.
But it only goes farther downhill from there. Kenzon completely bans her from going to his armory, Eltsha disappears, and she is for once completely without a friend. She's tired, hungry, and freezing, doing her best to scavenge little scraps of half-edible garbage just to keep herself alive - even Solnay has been relocated, but by who, she's not sure. She eventually gets the idea that someone is trying to starve her to death - and another very shaking confrontation with Joseph proves that it's the case. Shaken, she wanders the Parasol tubeways in a daze, wanting to get back to the Lobby area so she can beg Shawn to let her through... but her mind wanders back to the day her sister died - when she was running away from all those Ballpoint soldiers - and how Wari had told her not to lose hope. At this point, Vanya has certainly lost hope... not even the word "honeycomb" ever came to mean anything in the end.
And that's when the tubecar slows to a stop in front of an abandoned underwater laboratory. Over the entrance, in large letters, is the word, "HONEYCOMB". A glimmer of hope springs forth in her chest, and she steps off the tubecar - the local AI recognizes her and says she's authorized, permission granted by a certain Dr. Solnay Calivant Hylcelon. It then offers her a tour - which she accepts. It warns her that she must touch nothing during the tour, and she says she understands.
Honeycomb, the AI explains, was a top-secret government project that got mothballed after a certain high-ranking member went off the deep end and stole much of the technology, going away to form a new company called Eris. The intentions of the project was to perfect the idea of working "psychoclones" - physical clones of soldiers with an electronic link to the minds of their original selves, so that the cloned minds, in hibernation, would awaken with all the memories of the original if the original was to die. It is mentioned that Eris later perfected the technology and used it extensively, and goes on to list the technical challenges that such a venture presented - but Vanya isn't listening. Her breath short, her widened eyes are fixated on a particular tube, in which she sees someone she thought she'd never see again: Salaia.
In a frenzy she throws open her sister's stasis chamber, completely ignoring the alarms that begin to sound, and unplugs all the tubes and disconencts all the equipment. Salaia's body falls into her arms, breathing gently - Vanya sits on the floor and lays her in her lap, praying that she'll wake up, shaking her softly. All at once, Salaia's eyes flutter open wide in a panic. She coughs, a weak hand flying to her chest as though in pain as she tries to struggle backwards away from something that doesn't seem to exist - as her mind transistions from being on the floor beneath Urist's gun to a Parasol laboratory with her older sister... whom she now remembers. Crying with happiness, Vanya hugs her tightly, kissing her and promising that nobody would ever take her away again. It's a happy reunion, though a bittersweet one as their situation dawns on them - alone in a Parasol laboratory with absolutely nowhere to go, and alarms sounding in the distance.
Vanya changes into the armor Mr Frog made her, and gives Salaia her clothing - Salaia is terribly weak, as her cloned body has never used its muscles before - and Salaia helps her out to the shuttlecar. She explains they have to get away - have to get back to Everoc - and the only person that can help them is Shawn.
Or so she believes.
~~~
Meanwhile, in a distant laboratory, a dwarf is working, puzzling through a series of intense, complex calcuations. The machinery behind him stutters - he's jury-rigged it just so in order to get these measurements, these readings - it's a shot in the dark, but he's hopeful. He has the coordinates his mentor gave him - he knows the location of Parasol - he just needs to get these last computations correct. Over the past year, he's never given up - his resolve has never wavered. He felt in his heart that she was still alive - the elven girl he'd fallen in love with in what seems a distant past.
It isn't long before the desktop begins to flash with light - the search has succeeded: Urist has found Vanya's portal bracelet. The power source is incredibly weak after all this time, but assuming she's kept it with her - he's found her at last. He lets forth a whoop of joy for but a moment before he realizes that the portal bracelet is moving - and at an incredible pace, something far beyond what he'd ever expected a Parasolian vehicle to be capable of. More importantly... it's moving out of range.
Without hesitation, Urist leaps into action, hooking machinery up to Mr Frog's crude portal, wiring up the machinery and writing new algorithms. He's trying to do something nobody ever said was possible - make a moving portal exit. As sparks fly, smoke rising from the equipment as it begins to overheat, it becomes quite obvious that Mr Frog's equipment was never intended or designed to withstand the trials he's putting it through. Despite this he presses on, redoubling his efforts as his fingers fly across the keypad, as he leaps back towards the portal to make a fast, delicate adjustment to the machinery.
At this moment Mr Frog walks in, and is momentarily stunned at the sight of the cables and wires streched haphazardly across his laboratory. Urist hastily explains what's going on - that after all this time, he thinks he's found Vanya Carena. Mr Frog is skeptical, but looks - if he's at all surprised to see the little dot flying through the shuttlecar tubes, he doesn't show it, instead barking out orders and starting to take command of the situation. Together the duo does the last calculations they need, adjusting and installing the final few pieces of machinery in mere moments before Urist decides it's close enough. Their window is closing - the portal bracelet is almost out of range of Mr Frog's city-based tower. Despite Mr Frog's yelling of the dangerous probability that he'll get lost in transit, Urist shoulders his adamantine sawpike, quickly suits up in his armor, and plunges through the smoking, sparking frame of the portal, just before it goes dark... and Mr Frog is left alone in his smoke-hung laboratory.
~~~~
With Salaia slouched against the shuttlecar console, Vanya stands at attention, her palms on the little panels on the lefthand side as she urges the car to go faster - faster - just a little faster. In the distance behind her she can see another car with four parasol androids rapidly approaching. They've already tried to shut down her control of the vehicle, their order echoing in her mind: "The clone with you is property of Parasol; slow to a stop and surrender it or we will use lethal force." She didn't care. Vanya could still recall the code Kenzon had given her to keep Katie safe, years before - she's used it to force her shuttlecar past its normal limits, used it to accelerate it to velocities so high that it was vibrating audibly on the rails... and yet still the androids gained.
(backstory: Kenzon was actually with another woman before he met Katie's mother, and fathered a son with her. The son died in a shuttlecar accident - Kenzon's fault. His marriage disolved, and when Katie was born he swore he'd protect her like he should have his son.)
Salaia begins to despair, telling Vanya that it's hopeless and they're going to kill both of them when they catch up - begging for Vanya to slow down and surrender her - but Vanya won't. She's lost Salaia too many times already, and she won't lose her again. As the androids close in on them, she turns around, waiting, her hands gripped tightly on the hilts of her vampiric daggers. She's never had much luck with fighting before, but she doesn't have a choice - she'll do anything to protect her sister.
As one, the androids leap over to Vanya's shuttlecar, and in an instant Vanya is in motion, her body arcing, curving, sweeping smoothly about with a grace that more than rivals that of the androids. They strike with their electric batons - she parries, leaps above their heads, slashes, spins, twirls, ducks, dodges - she's a blur of motion as her sleeper abilities kick in, and all she can think about is saving her sister. After all... the desire to protect someone was what triggered it to begin with.
One android she could handle, two she could handle, three might be a stretch but four is simply impossible - bit by bit they wear her down. She manages to sever one of their heads, losing her dagger deep within its shoulder, and manages to knock another off through the airshield - it flies to pieces as the edge of the tube catches it, the velocity turned into a force of pure destruction. The distraction of watching it is just a little too much, and one of the androids hits her with its baton, knocking her off the side. She manages to catch herself, barely, hanging there by her fingers... ...an android approaches her, baton held high - Vanya cringes, a tear streaking down her cheek as she realizes there's absolutely nothing she can do... ...just as Almory's sword plunges through its chest, and the android, smoking and sparking, rolls over to the side. Salaia stands above, offering Vanya her hand: she managed to dispatch the last two androids herself while they were distracted with her sister.
The two sisters manage to get Vanya back up onto the shuttlecar, and Vanya retrieves her daggers. They've flown through two switchpoints already - Vanya knows it won't be long until they arrive at the lobby - but the console is crushed, smashed open and sparking by one of the androids' batons. There's no way to slow the shuttlecar down.
(From a PM I sent a few people before:)
At that moment, Salaia yells, and Vanya spins about, her daggers at the ready, in time to see a quavering portal exit before her, and Urist steps forth, his weapon at the ready, before the portal vanishes behind him.
Vanya and Urist share an embrace amidst while Salaia looks on, unaware of Urist's identity, and Urist tells Vanya that he loves her. She responds in kind, saying she never forgot him, and had always hoped they'd see each other again someday, and the two share their first kiss - a seeming fulfillment of Vanya's romantic subplot, and a high point of the story, pulling Vanya a little more out of what had been, only hours before, her darkest days.
Looking around at the blurred shuttlecar tube, and the shuttlecar platform on which he stands, Urist asks where they are, snapping Vanya back to the present, and then his gaze falls on Salaia. She, watching him, suddenly recognizes his face as her killer and is outraged that Vanya would love the one who killed her former self, while Urist is bewildered, recognizing Salaia as the "Ballpoint soldier" that he'd killed to save Vanya's life. Vanya steps between them, but Urist does the manly thing and apologizes earnestly for his deed, saying he hadn't
known it was Salaia when he'd shot her, and that as soon as he'd learned of his mistake, he had felt horrible... and then wonders how she's alive at all. Vanya, looking ahead and seeing the Parasol lobby looming in the distance, says they don't have time to discuss it, and the three try to figure out how to slow the shuttlecar down despite the ruined control console, so that they aren't all killed when they hit the end of the tracks. Not knowing what else to do, Vanya orders everyone into the shuttlecar's trunk (which was part of why I had her and Katie hide in it before, so it didn't seem quite so abrupt), and just before Vanya ducks into it behind Urist and Salaia, she sees a line of Parasol Security forces awaiting them at the shuttlecar docking station.
As it hits the end of the tracks at such immense speeds, the car derails, breaking the tracks and slamming into the ground, while the three protagonists lay huddled within the storage compartment, bumping against each other and the thickly padded interior. The car tumbles end over end once or twice, spinning about slowly, crashing through first one set of doors, down an adjoining hallway, and then the next set of doors, sliding into the Parasol megaportal lobby and leaving a huge, deep gash in the floor as it slows to a stop. Gingerly, shaken, they slide open the trunk's door and crawl out into the megaportal's lobby.
And all hell breaks loose.
The security forces (or those that didn't get flattened) rush out of the shuttlecar docking station, wielding various pieces of electric melee weaponry (as using ranged weapons is retarded when you're in an underwater facility). As one, they rush towards Vanya's position while Urist, danger-roomed trained by Mr Frog and Fischer themselves, pulls out his adamantine sawpike and spins it about, ready for combat, while he yells for Vanya to get Salaia over to the portal. Her sister in tow, Vanya and Urist fight their way over to the megaportal, fending off waves of enemies as even more arrive from the shuttlecar docks, and they're so heavily outnumbered that it begins to look hopeless.
Shaun Oborobok is hiding behind the U-shaped receptionist's desk, and Vanya greets him briefly, telling him they absolutely need the portal open or else they'll die. Shaun, as you might expect, freaks out, but Vanya is forced to leave the explaining to her sister as she rushes to help Urist, who is becoming overwhelmed from the sheer number of Parasol Security officers. Vanya herself refuses to kill any of them, instead knocking them out and using their security batons against them - at which point they pull out actual weapons and the defense of her sister turns into a full-scale battle. Parasol mechoids stomp in heavily from the docks, swinging gigantic swords - Parasol isn't trying to simply apprehend Vanya's crew anymore - they're trying to kill them. Now Vanya is fighting for her life, and all bets are off - she's all right with even wounding the enemy forces with her daggers, so long as she can keep Salaia alive. Vanya is wounded, her arm cut open by an electric mace, and Urist rushes to defend her, everyone huddled close to the receptionist's desk, and things look grim.
In the meantime, the whole event is caught on camera from a Parasol news team (as I already established it isn't uncommon to have news teams in the megaportal lobby), and various friends of Vanya's are rushing through the shuttlecar system to her aid, as the entire incident is plastered all over the news. (I know that Reudh had his character leave Parasol early, and I hate that, but maybe he could just leave a little later? Honestly, I don't know how to resolve this situation without Reudh's party standing by.)
Suddenly, with a shout, Kenzon, Katie, Solnay (who used to be a soldier, but I would mention that earlier in the story), Trebor (and if I could get them, Reudh, Lurit and Tedaz), rush into the room from different sides (perhaps not all at the same time, but close to it) (also this opens the question - why would Kenzon protect Vanya? - which I would answer later). Vanya can hardly fight at this point, and resigns herself to hacking open the megaportal as Shaun assists her - the portal has been remotely locked, but Vanya thinks she can find a way to override it. She
has to, after all, and quickly, or Parasol will overcome them and they'll all be killed.
I would go into detail about just how epic this battle is, and I know I'd go all-out for something insanely epic, immense and cinematic, especially as
right here, Cronan Tames makes an appearance, as he too would obviously see it pop up on the news. (And come on, we all get news on our phones even with our 2014 tech, so it's not so hard to imagine they'd have something to alert them to the news as well, in whatever year it would be at Parasol.) Tames is hellbent on killing Vanya even at the cost of his own life, and right during the middle of this, Vanya faces the ultimate showdown against a man who doesn't really care if he uses ranged weaponry to bring the whole building down around them. To protect Salaia, Vanya is forced to abandon the megaportal controls and attack Tames head-on (keep in mind she's still wounded). At the end of an intense hand-to-hand fight, Vanya finally disarms Tames and forces him to yield, her daggers against his throat, but spares his life, saying she won't stoop to his level. He grins up at her wickedly. She wonders why for a split second before she hears a loud noise behind her and turns around to see a mechoid with its mighty weapon poised to strike, and she barely manages to roll out of the way before it's crushed the floor where she was standing moments before. Despite its size, it's incredibly agile, and she can see the operator through the front window, smiling mockingly at her as they fight, Vanya leaping about and trying to pierce the machine's heavy armor.
Things begin to look really,
really grim, and Vanya is just about to die, wounded and outmatched in both size and strength, when the megaportal opens, and someone yells loudly for everyone to cease combat immediately - it's Draconik Sankis, who's been keeping an eye out for any news of Vanya - and he's high enough rank at Parasol that everyone immediately falls in line. Vanya and the others managed to keep themselves and Salaia just long enough to save them - and unlike 48D, nobody died... except for Tames, crushed by the same stroke that the mechoid had intended for Vanya.
As Draconik and Vanya share a shouted conversation to explain the situation, all of Parasol, watching over the cameras at the Parasol megaportal lobby, finally realize the extent of the Everoc war, and Joseph becomes common knowledge. Finally, everything is taken seriously, and Parasol is finally ready to truly mobilize for war.
It needs to be well known by this time that not only are the forces of Ballpoint and Parasol fighting each other, but the gods from their separate universes - as well as those of Everoc - are fighting an immortal war due to all the portals in between the three dimensions, and Sankis himself is trying to overthrow Armok amidst the chaos. It isn't just a battle of men and dwarves, but a battle of the gods as well, centered around Spearbreakers and the adjoining blood plains - and it's all coming to a head. In the aftermath, Vanya, badly wounded, is moved to a Parasol hospital. Thanks to Draconik's intervention, as well as that of Mr Frog and Wari, it's decided that Salaia shouldn't be executed, as she's the only person with internal knowledge of Eris's facilities - she'd been a toy of Joseph and one of his favored spies, back before her mental reconditioning had worn off. Reudh's party, if they were around, head back to Everoc, potentially to rally the humans together. Vanya herself goes back to Spearbreakers with her sister, Vanya to rally Spearbreakers together and warn them of the timewar, and Salaia so Mr Frog could work his magic on her mind and discover all he could about Eris's weaknesses. Although Vanya wants Urist to come with her, Draconik enlists Urist in his service for special military operations, and he remains at Parasol, doing awesome Parasol battles and shit like Hanslanda originally wanted (For everything involving Urist, Hanslanda and I worked it out in great detail almost two years ago). As Vanya and Urist part, they promise each other they'll meet again someday, even though neither of them are sure if it will really happen - Vanya begs him to stay safe and Urist requests the same of her. And so they part, hoping against hope that they'll be together - thus continuing the romance arc instead of ending it then and there, and leaving open the question of whether or not one of them will get separated or killed off as I appear to be so fond of doing.
And the Parasol arc ends.I'll write the rest later... this is a lot to write in one sitting.
I've also been ridiculously busy lately. And I think I owe Mr Frog a PM.
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Topic: [34.11] Spearbreakers - It shudders and begins to move (Read 2259514 times)