Lord Zee
Goldeagle1221
wintersoldier
Snowdrops
LG
Timemaster
Damycles
Izurich
Villamvihar
wordcount: 4987 (+5)
Midna: level 9 EXP: //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (111/100)
Location: The City of Glass
Warp Charges: 1
In her dreams, the princess drifted over a lake lit up by a crimson moon. In the distance, but growing closer, was a castle, it’s dark stone tinted the color of dry blood by that crimson sky. Beyond it lay a city. A city she had never seen. A city that no longer existed.
A city she still somehow knew was called Redgraccoon city.
In between the two was a rather grotesque looking bridge, one made of everything from broken ships, storage containers to piles of furniture (anything that floated really) all of it tied together by a disgusting looking biomass.
At the city end of the bridge many of the structures were overgrown with the same biomass, creating a pestilent hive, while on the end touching the castle, Midna got a closer look at the creators of that particular brand of horror.
The mass of them where claw like Drones (some of which carried parasites on their backs) which where in the process of rushing breaches blown in the castle walls by acid spitting Mortarbugs. Stalking above the mass of drones were on their long legs where defensive Shieldbugs while at their feet scrambled much smaller Xenonites a stream of which were being spawned by pulsating eggsack like carriers that where hanging back with the mortar bugs.
”Smart bugs” Midna noted as she took in the fairly robust strategy of shield bugs covering for swarmers in front, while ranged and minion spawning support hung back ”Be a shame if someone flanked them.”
A moment later, the princess did just that, shadow hopping to one of somewhat intact boats behind the alien swarm’s backline, and then charging in for the kill on wolfos back. Her shadow hand rose, fell, rose, fell, and pounded the vulnerable support forms into paste, before she surged forwards into the breaches they had formed to help whoever they were attacking.
She expected to find beleaguered knights and foot soldiers, and though there were knights, they were by no means ones in shiny armor. A handful of skeletal blood grinder knights wielding chainsaw toothed blades carved through drones, while dripping hounds known as Gieremund rushed to meet them claw to claw.
After those monsters, however, things took a turn for the strange rather than horrible. Above bizarre harpy-esque creatures. who’s heads sat within large beaks, hurled feathers at foes below or clawed at annoying buzzers, while absurd elephant sized horned cats snarled and clawed at the shieldbug’s chitin barriers.
Ironically it would have been the giant cat that gave away what these were to someone in the know, namely demons. That, and a lone woman with a spade tail who was wearing, of all things, a bunny costume on the battlefield, and delivering swift kicks to her foes.
The princess, not in the know, and also not one to judged based on appearances given her own, did not see this as reason to be anything other than cautious while joining the battle.
Despite the infernal powers of the defenders, they were sorely outmatched, for while the swarm moved and fought as one, the demons fought as individuals, with little concern for coordination or eachother. Indeed, some were simply standing around at the far end of the entrance hall, and made no move to get involved unless the fight came to them.
As a result, even as the princess drove into the back of the bugs, the demons were falling one by one. The giant cat, distracted by the shield bug ahead of it, was swarmed by drones due to having no one to protect it flanks, while a harpy swooped to close to a parasite, and was promptly infested by the leaping horror, causing her to explode into a shower of them a few moments later.
Despite their sizes, said parasites turned out to be the worst, as only the undead knights were immune to them. That at least gave Midna the knowledge of how to beat them, as she summoned up an undead darknut to distract her foes while she struck from the rear.
Explosions of twilight energy blasted away hordes of drones, her shadow hand reached out and crushed the exposed rears of shield bugs, or swirled up miniature tornadoes that sucked in and blended up parasites, Xenonites and buzzers.
Despite her efforts, once the last invader was crushed there were only a handful of defenders left. Not that they seemed to care. They at least didn’t seem to care about her either, be it hostility wise or thankfulness for saving their skin wise, which she found odd.
”So, not even a thank you then?” she asked which got her a brief look from some of the demons, but all but the most human looking one looked away again. For her part, the bunny eared one gave quizzical look and asked “for what?”
”For saving you all?” she clarified
“Pff, the rest of those weaklings maybe. I’d have been fine” the demoness insisted, before scoffed “What, do you want a medal or something? Go ask the master then, you weird little imp, I’m suuuuuure he’ll care about all you’ve done to further his little human extermination plan”
That last certainly raised the princess’ eyebrows, before her gaze tightened and she asked ”And where would this master be at the moment?” tersely.
“What. Are you really going to do it?” the demoness asked, before breaking down laughing at the idea.
For her part, the princess merely rolled her eyes, and floated off to seek out this master who wished to end mankind.
For a time she drifted through the halls of the castle through which demons of dozens more shapes and sizes roamed free. Roamed, she thought, was very much the right word, for the monsters were just as aimless, unguided as the ones at the front gate had been. There were no leaders or even general consensus, and certainly no patrols or guards to stop her seeking out the master of this place.
She found him in a high up throne room, backed by a great window that exposed it to the moon, and would allow the master of this castle to survey all that lay before it.
It came as little surprise that the ruler, a man with alabaster skin, which in places was turning to a crystalline mosaic, a man she knew was Gebel, sat with his back to this view. Blind to what was occurring below.
Her arrival caused the man to start from some form of languishing contemplation, eyes widening with surprise and, for some reason, horror, before everything about him hardened and he locked his eyes upon her.
“Why do you disturb me, imp? Your rightful place is on the field of battle, is it not?” he questioned his unexpected guest sullenly. “Or have you perhaps come to bring me news that humanity has already been wiped from the face of this world?”
Minda was somewhat confused by this man, who looked human, wanted humanity’s death, but she certainly found his confidence amusing given the state of his forces, and decided she could afford to poke fun at this fact ”There’s not much progress on that front. Can’t even make it out the front door after all”
She directed a finger past him, out of the window, to where already a fresh alien swarm was surging forth from hives they had grown within the city. Whatever alien intelligence or instinctual collaboration guided those monsters from beyond the stars, it was going to carry them to victory against the leaderless demons.
”If I hadn’t come, it would be those things disturbing you instead of me soon enough” she told him as the man beheld the state of his forces.
“How truly ironic that the forces of hell, unleashed at last after such wanton sacrifice, turn out to be so…impotent,” Gebel bemoaned, his voice stricken by a crushing mixture of frustration and despair. “To think that my crusade of vengeance would come to such a bitter end, brought low by mere…insects.”
”The complete lack of leadership doesn’t help” Midna noted, before asking ”So … what are we even getting vengeance on humanity for anyway?” curious
“Is it not obvious? Look upon my blighted body, imp.” The patches of sanguine crystal stretching across his skin creaked slightly as he moved, gleaming with unholy light. “Look upon the conspiracy of the damnable Alchemists. Those mad fools, desperate to cling to power in a world quickly leaving them behind, infused myself and others with such shards of demonic power. To be sacrificed, and throw open the gates of hell, so that the world might need the alchemists again. And what you see before you,” he waved his hand at the decimated cityscape. “Is what followed.
”That’s … awful” Minda replied, genuinely appalled, before frowning and pointing out a slight logical consistency ”but you’re also still alive?”
“I do…and yet, I am human no longer. There is no place for me in this world. The greed and cruelty of humanity made me a monster…so a monster I shall be. Humanity deserves the hell they brought upon themselves.”
”All of them?“ she asked ”Aren't they also the victims as well as the perpetrators? Aren't you also human? Aren't there any you knew before who deserve to live?“
For a moment Gebel was silent. He could think of only one face he cared about, and yet she seemed so very, very far away. After a moment his face hardened, and he replied. “Throughout their lives, every human on earth is given the choice. The power to choose between heaven and hell. And what do they choose? Violence. Debauchery. Self-interest. They so the seeds of self-destruction. And so they shall reap. I merely expedite the conclusion of humanity’s sorry tale.” He slumped suddenly on his throne and muttered. “Or…I would. If only these demons could quash some wretched bugs”
”I see“ Midna replied, and really, she did. He was wrong, of course, but she could see what had driven him to this madness. She had not expected to feel bad about putting down this master of demons, but she would now, as there seemed to be something in there that could be saved. Yet there was no time, he was a threat, and if allowed to run rampant he’d eventually break out of this nightmare city and bring devastation to the rest of the world.
Or just be eaten by bugs, but then those bugs would get out and … the princess paused her thoughts, as she realized that should he fall, then it might break an equilibrium and allow the alien swarm to launch forth instead. When he fell, rather.
“Is that the extent of your business with me? I’ve entertained your quest for information, little hellspawn, but the novelty begins to wear thin.” Gebel told her, interrupting her thoughts, or rather bringing a conclusion to them.
”Well, see, I could go out there and just punch bugs, but that’s a losing battle. The demons are leaderless, acting on their own, so they’ll get slowly whittled down one by one. Without a general, your vengeance will never be achieved“ she told him, before swiftly adding that" ”but lucky for you, I could be that very general you seek. All you need to do is make me your right hand woman, and I can take charge. Lead your forces to victory, bring order to this city. Crush all the monsters within and bring it under our rule“
“A bold suggestion. And an intriguing one. For no other demon has demonstrated such initiative, nor conviction. ” Gebel concluded “Very well. I shall give you the chance to serve as my field commander. Lead my forces as you see fit, if you can. Crush the bugs, take this city, and once you are done, sweep forth from its borders wipe out all humanity!”
”Should you still wish it, it shall be so“ The princess agreed with a bow, that in being the crux of her plan. To see if she could peck peck away at his anger and find the part of him that doubted that plan, and bring it forth into the light.
The first part of that plan was quite simple ”As your general, may I recommend that you yourself accompany me for a time, so that you can inform the others of my new position. Plus, a king should be seen by his subjects after all, not languish on his throne, if he wishes to inspire great deeds“
A look of doubt, then a nod of agreement before he pulled himself off of the throne, declaring “Very well. Let us hasten the end of this tragedy” before he and she went forth to do just that.
What followed for the princess was a blur, the greatest hits of a violent rise to power. She was proclaimed his general before a throng of demons (including one ever so shocked bunny-eared demoness) and immediately set about organizing and training them into an actual army under her thumb.
Soon after the forces of hell surged out of the castle once more, now drilled into a cohesive fighting force. Harpies scouted out targets, gieremund wolf packs struck swiftly at exposed targets, while cohorts of undead knights steadily advanced under the orders of demoness officers, and demonic cats crashed through the enemy’s defensive positions, along with close to 100 other kinds of demons, all of which she found a palace for in her forces.
Hellfire scorched clear the hives of the alien swarm, and then they pushed out into the rest of the city, crushing undead hordes and mutant scourges beneath her giant glowing orange fist, while subjugating the forces of other hells and incorporating them into her forces.
As for the human survivors, well, Midna’s rapidly growing power allowed her to squirile them away, or simply temporarily transform them into other forms such that they were no longer ‘technically' human any more and thus did not need to be exterminated. Babysteps and logical twists, slowly trying to worm around her “master’s” burning hatred, while she also delicately poked at it from other angles, trying to bring out the person beneath the stained glass corruption.
She even managed to slow the corruption that was still ravaging his body even now, amassing a library of tomes on dozens of different eldritch and demonic lores to draw dark knowledge from, yet a true cure was always tantalizingly out of reach, as if an unseen force was foiling her at every turn. All she needed was one more conquest. One more piece of the puzzle seized from monstrous hands. That was all she thought it would take, until, at last and in the blink of an eye, there were no more hands in the city from which to take.
The dream solidified once again, weeks, months, maybe years having passed in minutes of sleep, on the day of victory.
Gebel never truly cared about a throne. Nor did he intend to rule–only to avenge, and destroy. Rather than indulge in hypocrisy by affecting any sort of ostentatious royalty, he wallowed in solitary misery, the throne -and the limelight- ceded to the architect of the region’s conquest. So it was that in a grand hall in his netherworld castle, in which the victorious demons were celebrating their complete and utter victory, their general sat in a throne of her own making to enjoy the spoils of war.
It was good to be a proper princess again, rather than a wanderer with only the title to her name.
Yet it was all to an end. An end to the fighting. An end to the threat of this cursed city. An end to Gebel‘s suffering. All of them now at hand, or oh so close.
And then, like a nightmare, the doors to the chamber crashed open, bringing with it a chill night breeze that extinguished all light in the hall but the glow of the ever present moon, as a masked man showed himself inside.
Gebel turned away from the balcony, where the blood-red moon always beckoned. He watched in tacit silence as a huge man, clad in strange armor crowned by a tragedy mask and accentuated by a black satin cape, strode through the throne room. The heavy oaken doors lay open behind him, revealing half-melted demon corpses beneath the candlelight, massive trail of carnage left in his wake.
The shardbinder quickly moved toward the throne to join the Twilight Princess. His voice betrayed his wariness and confusion. “My lord Consul? To what…do we owe the pleasure?”
“I’m here about your debt,” Consul D announced, his booming voice resounding through the room. “You here in this castle have been living large on borrowed time. Working hard to earn your keep, filling up your Clock, shining ever brighter. I’ve been watching with bated breath to see just how high you’d rise.” Pausing, he lifted a glass to his mask. In it lay a vivid, rich red fluid, though it shone in a way that normal wine did not. What manner of spirits, Gebel wondered, was this man imbibing? Somehow, D managed to drink it through his mask, and he drained the goblet dry. Though he’d satiated his thirst, he seemed rather hungry too, for he was really chewing the scenery. “...Imagine my disappointment, then, when your splendid string of victories came to an end. Were you content with your achievements? No more foes left to conquer, no more mountains left to climb? I suppose it’s true, what they say. Once you reach the top, there’s nowhere to go…but down.” With a swing of his hand, D cast his goblet at Midna’s feet, shattering it into pieces with a noisy crash. His voice was low, menacing, laden with intent. “...And so I am here. To collect.”
For her part, the princess carefully set down the drink she had been enjoying, and then rose to face this new challenge.
”I wouldn’t be sure of that, as it seems like I’m looking at one more mountain, and this one’s a real pinnacle of arrogance by the looks of things“ Minda said as she drifted up from the throne while brimming with her arrogance, arrogance she was actively using to push down a primal fear gnawing at her gut ”one I am oh so looking forwards to mining the secrets out of once we take you down“
Her shadow hand shot up and made a clenching fist, ready to throw down, while the princess raised one of her mortal hands, fingers curling around a pulsing locus of power that called fourth the titanic drake Valac, who’s twin heads pierced in through the grand windows on either side of her throne.
Her exposed eye glanced to the side at Gebel, not forgetting about who this was all for, and then inviting him to join the dance with ”Let’s show this interloper who he is messing with.“
Only silence answered her, however. When she looked back, she found Gebel hesitating, his eyes narrowed and his face deadly serious. Slowly, he raised his hand and snapped his fingers. When he did, the undead dragon turned lowered its loathsome heads, bowing to the Consul before them. “Now, now. Let’s not be hasty. As their invoker, these demons are mine. Your authority is but borrowed.” Gebel then put a hand on his chest, and bowed his own head toward D. “Forgive me, my lord Consul. I allowed this foolish upstart to command my army, but I did not anticipate that she’d lose the will to fight, nor lose her mind, as well.”
”Lost my …“ Midna started to echo in confusion, eye opening a wide for a moment, before narrowing back down to a glare as her gaze flicked back to the Consul and demanding to know ”Who are you, really, and what hold do you have over Gebel? Tell me! Because you are both sorely mistake if you don’t think I have the will to fight for what matters“
“What matters?” D looked from Gebel to Midna, then back at Gebel, the annoyance and incredulity hidden by his mask made crystal clear through his voice. “As if prattling knave, an insignificant speck like you, could possibly know.” He lifted his cape, and within roiled an illimitable darkness, smoldering with hellish flame. “I see how it is, Gebel. You’ve made a high-minded friend, amassed a little power, and let it go straight to your head. Well, so be it. If you will not stoke the flames of war, your usefulness…is at an end.”
“Wait!” Gebel extended a placating hand, his voice urgent. “Lord Consul! My aim is as it’s always been: the annihilation of mankind. And I will stop at nothing, I swear.” His eyes landed on Midna, and he grit his teeth. “It was her. She is behind the cessation of conflict. You understand? She came to me in my hour of need and convinced me to put her in charge. Only too late did I realize that I had been usurped. Had I the power to claim the reins once more, I could give you war everlasting…”
”After everything I’ve done for you, you’d just cast me aside?“ Midna asked, half in anger, half in sadness, for surely this could have been avoided if only she had found the cure she had been seeking.
But it was too late for that now.
”Fine then. Call me a usurper? I’ll show you what usurpation really looks like!“ as she rises up her hands and a dozen twilight portals open, spewing out demonic artifacts and tomes of eldritch lore that all swirled around her in a mass of dark power that poured into the fragment of fused shadow she was wearing.
The princess became engulfed in dark power, re-completing the work of her ancestors using her amassed power, while around more portals unleashed a trio of twilit Argorok that took to the air, while before the throne a legion of undead darknuts rose up to defend their princess. Gebel, meanwhile, retreated into the shadows.
”Bow down before the princess of twilight, or face my wrath!“
“And what is twilight?” D spat, his tone venomous as he stood, unflinching. “Nothing but a prelude to darkness!”
The Argoroks inhaled, preparing to let loose torrents of fire, only for two of them to be crushed and immediately killed in immense, hideous twin maws of Valac. D threw wide his cape, and from within erupted a fusillade of unholy fireballs. The hellfire rained down upon Midna and her legion, bursting into pillars of incinerating flame on hit. From parts unknown descended rays of ghostly green power, cutting through the inferno and any monsters yet to succumb to it. Midna strove to power through, pushing her monstrous form through the withering bombardment of dark magic to plunge her trident down upon the spot where the Consul stood, but before she could so much as scratch him he exploded into a swarm of bats. A blazing light shone down on her from above, and when she looked up she caught only a fleeting glimpse before a barrage of flaming meteors pounded her into and through the floor, smashing her all the way to the castle’s entrance hall.
Forcibly returned to normal, Midna lay half-senseless in the dusty debris, broken and bloody. Her Fused Shadow lay beside her, just close enough that she could weakly extend her throbbing arm in hopes of reaching it. Before she could touch it, her hopes were dashed as Consul D stooped to take it for himself, casting it into his cape to disappear. “What’s the matter?” he smirked. “I was told there would be wrath. Can’t you muster some up? Just a little wrath, as a treat? Ahh, a pity, muahahaha!” Chortling evilly, he reached down and picked Midna up, cradling her in his arms. “Well, no matter. You’ll just have to give me…” As he spoke, the mouth of his helmet unhinged, coming apart to reveal a real mouth underneath, filled with cruel, moon-white fangs. D bent down, reaching for her neck. “Something else.”
The princess gasped awake, bolting upright and clutching her throat.
”That … was different“ she eventually muttered to herself after she’d steadied her breathing ”Normally it’s … him, but. Instead. A Consul?“
She’d had dying dreams before. She knew exactly what it felt like after all, her life slipping away at the hands of another. At the hands of Ganondorf. But it was always him, always that moment when he had ended her life. Never another. Till now.
”Did… did it all get to me that badly? Or is my mind trying to tell me something“ she asked herself, trying to reach out and grab the already decaying dream and lock parts of it in her memory.
”The clock. Fueled by war. Eternal war. Maybe? That makes sense. Like the clockwork castle Chaos mentioned, feeding on the war“ she mulled it over, far too restless to sleep, and, by the time on her new watch, there wasn’t much night left anyway.
The desire to do something welled up along with her musings, and so when dawn came it found Midna full of milk and oats, and using an old bonesaw she’d retrieved from the clinic base to try and fix the mess Blazermate’s shield had made of her undead Darknut.
It also found her having settled on a mostly accurate, but obviously mostly baseless, guess as to the nature of flame clocks and the Consuls’ interest in perpetuating conflicts to fuel them, but obviously no idea as to why. Other than a plain lust for power.
The other was having second thoughts about her suggestion about working with Armstrong (working for a lesser evil hadn’t exactly worked out in the dream, and she assumed it had been her mind’s way of telling her that) a plan Goldlewis promptly came along and nailed into he coffin she had been putting it into with the news that Riden’s half of DepoRHado had gone to war with Vandelay over the announced replacement.
”I mean in a way I guess my suggestion was right though, if these people can be trusted, and it’s a big if“ Midna commented, but she’d go along with the plan no matter what, because it would mean they could get Tora into Vandelay with plausible deniability about what they were actually doing there, namely trying to find a way to counter the machine virus.
Yes, they needed a reset to fix Poppy, but keeping her fixed and stopping the other bots from being turned were also important.
Either way, she had no objection to opening up a portal, and sending them all on their way to what would likely prove to be an exciting start to the day.
Midna hoped the general public either got well clear, or were still in bed, as she took in the devastation of what had once been the gaudy city of glass.
It made the clean and stylish garbs of the ones who invited them to the party stand out even more.
Their leader, Sandalphon, said a lot of the right things, she had to admit, but the twili found herself asking ”Uh, huh, and what about the rest of us that aren't human?“ when the woman spoke of a way forward for humanity.
Still, she did have a point, and was offering a fair amount of support, so the princess was happy enough to go along with this for Poppy’s sake.
”I’m with Tora. I keep my promises after all“ she announced when they started making callouts about where they were going, before summoning her wolfos steed and riding into the fray by the nopon’s side.
