[b]Mosiac and Ember![/b] The best thing about punishing a Ceronian is that you know they'll [i]never [/i]forget it. Ceronians are traditionally hard to goad into open conflict if they do not wish to be - the Bitemark authorities would have drawn them out long ago if such things were effective. There is no shame for them in avoiding a conflict. But Taurus is impetuous and she has Gemini's ear, and Gemini is an eye-watering singularity of charisma within the context of the pack. And so the instinct to find easier prey is overruled. Beri will be theirs, by open force if necessary. This time the pack is concentrated into a phalanx. Outriders guard the edges, riding horses, or crabs, or other gifts from Poseidon. This is a formation that indicates they are expecting dedicated, armed resistance - not the loose, predatory hunting packs that would surround and contain a town with its military heart already captured. For all their legend, a Ceronian phalanx is a strangely indifferent thing - competent, yes, but still ultimately just a phalanx. Legends have a way of being exaggerated, after all - when the Wolves capture worlds it is due to logistics, awareness, stealth, cooperation, engineering, instinct and fundamental soldiering skills and not sheer individual prowess. The dreams of Alcedi kingfishers in their awesome displays of airborne might seemed more glorious than this formation of the battleline. But then, the Alcedi fought the wolves and lost. [b]Dolce![/b] Oh, it is worse than that, Dolce. She [i]does [/i]see you as a person. She sees the savage aliens on the planet she raised as people. You see in the eyes of the Crystal Knight the same playful malice she showed the Imperial Princess, a bona-fide society-certified Person a few minutes prior. The Crystal Knight has no illusions that you are robots, or puppets, or less favoured by the gods. If you were, what would be the point? There were those Azura who rejoiced at the fall of the Old Tyrants, those would-be deities of silicon and monstrosity who sought to control the very thoughts of their slaves. They were no democrats - they were the decadent. They wanted their prey to be unwilling. They wanted their subjects to have souls. They lived for the game of taking apart civilizations with their own bloody hands. They were those for whom digital tyranny had grown too efficient, too joyless, too industrial. The Crystal Knight is a devil but she is a devil who would torture every soul with her own two hands and delight in each unique squirming reaction. (And how she torments [i]you[/i], now that you have her attention. She knows how to shift to take you from your feet, to separate your limbs and leave you free floating and without leverage, she knows where to touch to send jolts of fear and excitement, and her complete attention is on every little gasp and squeak, which she savors like honey.) But there is an almost admirable catch to this - she has no interest in [i]impersonal [/i]cruelty. She would not harm the world of Bitemark in abstract - only those individuals who she has decided to torment. This has made her effective in her role as Sector Governor. "Tell me, Dolce," she purrs again. "Exactly what you think would be [i]best[/i] ♥." [b]Dyssia![/b] A Knight sat upon the moon. In ancient days he fought aliens - lesser creatures, mere shadows of the Empire and the Skies. They had been terrified of the power of divination. Knowledge received directly from the Gods, torn from flesh and rising from fire? How could there be victory against such revelations? Their will had collapsed before their prophecised end had come to pass. In ancient days, the Azura had feared the future too - but they were wiser now. His name was Sequenti Horatio Sansalar. In ancient days he had been the Dust Knight. Now he sat upon the barren lunar surface above the world named Hurricane Gem, as he had sat for eight years. He stared up, unmoving, at the world above him, and had there been the most gentle of winds he would have long since been buried in lunar sand. The oracle had said that there would be a great injustice done here. Here, on this lifeless and uninhabited rock. Here, in this ruin of a system, connected by not a single slipgate. Here beyond the dreams of Skies and Empire. She had not said when, nor whom, nor why. This was what the aliens had not understood. Prophecy was brother to patience and sister to honour. Because of injustice alone, the Dust Knight had come. Because of injustice alone, the Dust Knight had waited. And with a final tick of the clock an instant that had lasted an eternity came to an end. Colour rose into the sky of that distant world, a focused beam, each frequency layered over the top of each other. It found a gap in the clouds and struck the glittering gemstone that waited in orbit, a satellite of barely processed crystalline material. It caught at such an angle that the light bent and broke, splitting into a dozen smaller beams that spread across a radiant network of gemstone satellites. The same message glittering across dozens of nodes. The same simple code. And finally it reached those satellites that bounced that laser light directly up to the moon, to a spot a few feet from where the Crystal Knight coiled. +Coordinates locked+ pulsed Ico. She stirred, stiff and sleepy, light running through her glass scales like electrical dye. The crystal dragon had grown since they had put down together. She was almost as big as he was. +Distress signal. Warrior servitor species 'Pix' engaged against apocalyptic drone swarm.+ It had been a desperate prayer that had sent this cry for help into a sky choked with clouds, heavy with storm winds. But Zeus had, for love, given them one moment's blue sky in answer to that prayer. Such was the kindness of the Gods. The rest was simply looking for it. The Dust Knight raised up. He was as fluid and ready as the moment he had settled in eight years ago. +Armour functions?+ he pulsed with subvocalized words and diamond lights. +All systems are primed and ready. Charge stable at 98.2%. Stellar gravitational balances ideal, moon is in near orbit. Estimated transit duration eighteen hours.+ +Awaken the legion. I will go ahead.+ +Understood. Cleared for planetary jump. Follow the crimson light.+ +As ever, my friend.+ Zeus had, for the sins of the Skies, revoked her gift of electricity. She had invented it's antithesis, the Flux, and given it to any child who cared to ask. The galaxy had burned. The galaxy had forgotten. The galaxy had taken refuge in artifice and mysticism, cleaving to those few technologies too brutal to fail. It was easier to return to candles and parchment than to rethink society. But, the Dust Knight thought as he raised up in the glowing electromagnetic rings of the interplanetary railgun, power was not easy. He coiled - and jumped. Magnetism had not gone away simply because society had forgotten how to wield it. Gravity was not the superior force because it was the one easy to control. The Dust Knight accelerated at blistering speeds, even his advanced and ancient brain creaking against his skull as the massive acceleration sought to flatten him. He frothed in pain, but even as he did, he activated his Grav-Rail, improving his speed. Black spots danced in front of his eyes. His skull filled with fluids that pickled his brain, rendering it too inert to break. His capillary blood vessels closed lest they shatter. This was what it was to jump between planets. All he saw was crimson and black. He followed the crimson. With the crash of shattering sound he broke through the sky, wreathed in flame. With the crash of shattering chitin he broke through the swarm, haloed in ichor. With the crash of shattering stone he broke the earth itself, and he rose molten from the ruins of a Wayang operational command centre. His descent had been targeted precisely by the dragon on the ground, his mere arrival decapitating an entire flank. Up was down. Down was up. For the second time he arose. As he did the black paint burned off his armour. It surrounded him in a halo, each ember catching onto each other until at last they ignited into a roaring inferno that cloaked him. The fire settled and wove, stitching heat into carbon and carbon into a diamond latticework. Revealed for war, his armour was celestial white, and his cape was the richest red the galaxy had ever seen. He spoke aloud and his oration was prayer and oath. "Tyrants of tomorrow," he said. "Your perfect future is built with a wicked present and forgotten past. Awaken from your dreams and see that justice has come." Above his head he ignited his crystal energy sword. With it he cut away the clouds, the wind and storm. And from a clear blue sky came a legion in red and white.