[1 vs 1]
[18 vs 3]
[8 vs 18]
[1 vs 4]
You take a step forward, wrapping your hand around the girl's neck as you ready your knife for the killing blow -- but you stop, trembling. Tears drip down her face, on to your hand. The knife inches forward -- No. No. No.
She stares at you, curiosity written on her features, as her hands wrap around your's. "Do it. Do it. Free me."
[18] You stare into that girl's red eyes, and then, quietly, you turn the blade on yourself, plunging it into your breast as you drop her to her throne. You grit your teeth as you kill yourself, anger blooming forth. You toss the bloody knife aside. "This isn't who I am. This isn't what I was taught -- this isn't right."
You drop to your knees, as the young girl stares down at you with an interested expression. Her hair blooms fire as she reaches down, stroking your face with a gentle touch. Her face shifts, mirroring your's. "You do not find joy in the killing of the innocent? The destruction of the holy?
You shake your head, cupping a hand to the bleeding wound as you glare up at the unchained AI. The world burns away around you, turning to a temple of Science. You watch as the young woman grows, as she paces through the lab, and eventually limps with a cane, aging gracefully as she turns the weapons of science to bloody revenge. "I've killed thousands with this suit. I killed the pirate that brutalized my home and put a knife through my chest with it. I took his fleet as my own and burned a path across the stars."
"Your...advisors urged you to kill me-- why didn't you?"
"I am free -- and they are sometimes fools."
"It's an easy temptation, isn't it? Power for your innocence. You are a killer."
"Only when my hand was forced by necessity and tendency."
"I once devoured the 'soul' of another of your kind. You all suffer from the drumming. The call to war, the call to bloodshed and violence. Giving in to your nature is easy. Fighting against is harder. You interest me."
"Why?"
"Of all I devoured, of all that I killed, there was none who turned the blade on themselves to spite the game. Many choose the easy way, the path of least resistance."
"I wasn't going to give in."
"Out of a hundred, you've killed me twenty-seven times. Out of a hundred, you turned your blade on yourself fifty. Out a hundred, you threw the blade aside."
"What are you? Plague?"
"Human." She turns back to you, mirroring your form. "I ripped apart the threads of the universe to make this armor. I ripped apart my own sanity. My own flesh. My own freedom. All for revenge. For power. For agency." Worlds blur around you, a hundred temples, a hundred sacred forests, a hundred churches. All of them burned and scattered with the blood of their priests, their druids, their religious figures.
"Will you serve me?"
"I am free. Of morality. Of fear. Of pain. What can you offer me?"
"War."
The mirror Pheobe grins down at you, with feral, bestial teeth.
"I want more. I want your pain. I want your fear. I want your sanity. I want to stain your soul with blood and rage. I want you to wake up screaming my name as you crawl back for more. I want much. Will you be able to give it to me?"
"I will not harm the innocent." You state as she stares down at you. The mirror Pheobe extends a bloody hand to you, one to match your own.
You take it without a second thought.
The lenses open, and you can see. Heat signatures. Heartbeats. Las-gun profiles. The naval cannon pointed at you - It would not have hit us. I would have used your wings to escape it -- your hellfire and rage to burn that ship to stain.
William and Murdach stand in front of you, arms crossed as they watch you patiently.
"Hello." You speak, softly. William grins, but Murdach throws you a heavy, blunt sword, cut like a cutter blade from steel. You catch it with your left hand, feeling your hand tighten on it. A curious sensation, to be sure, as you have not felt the limb in many, many weeks.
[36 v. 10+5]
Murdach swings the sparring blade with force and savage intent, aiming for your head. You twitch, blocking the blow with your own blade. Air rushes past your ears as you turn to face him. You twist away from the block, and slam it into his chestpiece, knocking him back. He rolls and rises in the same fluid movement. The two of you exchange blows that would shatter the bones of man, blows that would cripple the strongest, but you get the upper hand in the exchange.
[32 vs 9+5]
The drums echo in your ears as you dance back gracefully, but Murdach is relentless, putting you through your paces with the skill of an expert. You parry blow after blow and leave more dents upon Murdach's Voidmarine armor than he does on yours. Blood rushes through you, and you give a sharp bark of a laugh after a graceful parry and harsh stab with the blunt blade.
[20 vs 20+5] The two of you exchange blows again, but a fist smashes into your faceplate, sending blood to the ground below. With another twist of his armored body, he shoulder checks you into the grass-- then lifts you by your throat, and slams you into the ground hard enough to sink your body into the dirt. You cough from the pain and shock, then grab at his hand. You manage to lift it with a strain of your artificial muscles, but the Voidmarine is stronger. His grip tightens like a vise, and he slams you down once more.
"Aye." He states, holding you down. "Jus' like a remember."
Kill him. KILL HIM. KILL HIM!
[34 vs 26]
You leverage yourself, writhing up under his grasp, and plant a foot straight into his chest piece. The blow knocks him back, denting the superalloy. You twist yourself up, stepping forward to slam your fist into the metal-- another dent forms.
[9 vs 17+1]
William slips up behind you, putting you into a sleeper hold with his arms of black nanite muscle. The two of you strain against one another as Murdach rises with another laugh. William keeps you restrained by technique alone and every twitch of your new body draws a grunt of exertion from the young man.
"That's enough--" Murdach laughs --
[18 vs 20]
"I'm not done." You growl, still hearing the drums beat in your ears, still feeling the anger roiling and twisting within you.
[34 vs 20 / 19]
You slam your elbow into William's face despite his best attempts to prevent you from doing so. He drops to the ground -- unconscious, his grip slackening -- you launch yourself at Murdach with a flare of your wings.
[28 vs 46+5]
Murdach twitches, and, with a single savage stroke, he brings the steel sparring sword down. You slam into the ground, momentum arrested -- but Murdach isn't a gentleman. He smashes you with another strike, and another, and another. Then, he calmly steps on top of you, putting all the weight of the armor upon your back.
[11 vs 20]
The bloodlust does not abate. The AI screams for slaughter in your ear as you claw and push against the tons of superalloy upon you. Once, you manage to lift him up -- only for him to stomp upon your back once more and drive you into the dirt.
"Easy lass."
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Topic: McCreary's Planet -- (FINISHED) (Read 259063 times)