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TimemasterPart III with @Sep
New Gift
Everything changed in pitch and fervour quickly, as everyone stood up and started rushing about packing everything away. The creature had called the ‘hoomans’ a bluff. Spoke of humanity, Disobedient Runt’s arm hung near the plasma pistol nervously, a bluff. The word was familiar but he couldn’t quite place it.
Pathetically Lame, while physically limited. Was not limited mentally, and he figured it out first. He hissed as his mandibles flared and curled, showing his fangs, most of the guards that had been present were now gone. At the centre of the field where only moments ago there had been many different diplomats and the one Tainted. His hand twitched by his side, near his own pistol. ”You, lie?” Pathetically Lame practically spat the accusation.
The Tainted were many things, one thing they were not was liars. Among the many sins listed by their gods, lying was one of the worst. Not only was it a sin, it was dishonourable. Even with his one limp arm, he pulled the pistol from its holster and tossed it aside, as he drew out a smaller knife.
”Perhaps you are an inheritor of the Demons dishonour.”
The Shogun snatched the book back in haste, grunting in surprise as he grabbed hold of his mare’s hair at the sudden threat. The ever-loyal steed went on its hind legs and sent a ferocious kick towards Pathetically Lame, sending him to the ground in a heap.
“Fool.” Todayashi muttered, taking a glance at Disobedient Runt who was getting ready to start something equally as foolish as his superior. He let out a keen whistle and his samurai, already positioned on their steeds and making haste towards their lord, diverted a part of his guard to apprehend the other alien. A chimpanzee leapt off his bareback steed and made to grapple with the reptile.
Disobedient Runt, while smaller in stature, had a distinct advantage in combat over Pathetically Lame. All his limbs were fully functional, he managed to get a stray shot off before he was jumped. The bolt of plasma went wide off the mark, striking one of the aliens in the side. Searing flesh and burning hair was likely a non-fatal blow, especially under treatment. Though the creature would likely always sport a scar. Disobedient Runt grunted as the creature landed atop him, their limbs flailing and twisting as they crossed each other.
Disobedient Runt had the raw strength, however he lacked combat training and military discipline and was soon overwhelmed.
The first Legion outriders started to arrive with the commotion, APCs and tanks surrounding Neo Nippon as the first landship came into view, cannons bristling and drones deploying into the air. The shadow of the purple ship hovered resolute above them.
The Shogun needed to take quick actions to save his face. He bellowed over the engines and stamping hooves. “BROTHERS! WATCH THE SKIES AND THE VESSEL ABOVE! WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT THESE INTRUDERS WANT YET!”
The Legionnaires, unaware of the context of the scenario, deferred their questions for later and turned their attention to the ship above.
The Shogun pointed at Pathetically Lame, who was wheezing himself to a stand. Two more of his samurai went to pin him down, the flat-side of their blades drawn to his neck.
The engines of Neo Nippon roared in the background, tracks starting to roll backward in retreat from the chaos on its doorsteps. Would diplomacy win the day or will fire come to his city? The Shogun merely peered at the alien in front of him, the one who would decide the next moments.
“Your path forward means destruction, friend.” Todayashi explains, soothing his mare with gentle pats. “I apologise once again for the deception but please, realise the situation. In the far reaches of the cosmos, you may have had an advantage but your ship is within reach of cannon and missile here. Calm yourself, think with your head, or you will only live up to your name Pathetically Lame.”
Pathetically Lame wheezed as he tried to push himself to his feet, aliens jumped and grabbed at him as he snarled, the knife knocked out of his hand as he strained against the two beings holding him down. “Demon-Spawn!” He snarled and spat. ”You truly have no honour, you invite us here to lie, then when challenged you have your underlings fight your battles!” The chimps felt secure in holding the Alien.
That was until Pathetically Lame bent his neck over, and clamped down all of his mandibles on one of the creatures’ hairy arms. The chimp roared in pain, as he tore through flesh and sinew till he met bone. Twisting his head, he spat out hair, blood and flesh. Swinging his now free arm towards the jaw of the other chimp roaring in frustration and anger.
It wasn’t long before a new alien took the place of his wounded brother, a third held his head still to prevent him from taking another bite. ”Do you fear facing me yourself Demon-Spawn? Without your lies and deceit to save you.”
“Honour?” The Shogun muttered, as if to no one in particular. If he was the fiery sort, an ape who charged blindly and yelled “banzai” with a sword in paw, he may have answered this challenge. If this was any other Shogunate on New Gift, the Nameless’ response would have been met with fist and rabid teeth. But this Shogun, labelled overcautious by many of his equals, cowardly when out of earshot, could not see himself stoop to such a disgracefully overdone response.
“Friend.” Todayashi started, continuing to stroke his braying mare. “There is no honour in slaying innocent men, women and children. I can claim the same dishonour on your race hundreds of times over. ‘They all lay dead’, you said. Those are a murderer’s words, not that of an honourable warrior. My friend, I am merely attempting to save you and yours from the same fate.”
He raised and closed a paw. The samurai sent curled fists to the top of the Nameless’ heads, repeatedly, till their struggling halted.
While his guards secured their charges to their own steeds, the Shogun raised his gaze to the ship overhead. His other samurai had returned by now, a half-battalion of soldiers armed and ready. If he was anything like his predecessors, he would be charging into the fray, into the heat of the battle he sensed would come.
Instead, the cautious Shogun raised his voice to the Legionnaires around him. “Delay that ship at all cost, we have detainees for the Khan.”
The gorilla started his way in a gallop to the rumbling, retreating safety of Neo Nippon, followed by a stream of his personal guard and two helpless aliens.
A Legion captain stared incredulously at the fleeing warriors before snapping back to reality, sending out orders to his patrol.
“You heard the Shogun! C’mon baboons, secure a perimeter on the purple dildo in the sky lest the holy spirits decide to pierce your arses with it!”
Though the vessel resembled nothing like a human pleasure toy, this still elicited a few chuckles from the surrounding Legionnaires.The patrol vehicles went to a frenzied overdrive. They spread in a circle around the vessel, turrets pointed to the sky as armoured personnel carriers deposited Legionnaires bearing their own guns to the still purple ship.
The landship from which they deposited, officially termed a Cairo-class Mobile Drone Carrier, ran in a circle of a radius of two clicks around the vessel in the sky, a full broadside available at a moment’s notice. The dust kicked into the air by landships further afield signalled that backup was on the way. Its complement of Air Support Drones had already been deployed, its two squadrons split with one guarding the Shogun and the other zipping to Neo Nippon. Carnage could be wrought at any moment but under strict orders, they were not to fire first.
The spirits would look kindly upon their stayed paws and with the numerous cameras now pointed over the savannahs, it cannot be said that the Khanate did not try the laurels of diplomacy first.
For good measure, the Cairo-class beamed several quick communications to the ship above. To stand down, explain their underling’s hostility and to come talk as civilised peoples.
Relentlessly Reckless sat alone in the flight deck of the small scout ship. He didn’t panic when the audio feed from the planet surface started to change in pitch and tone. He wasn’t entirely sure what this ‘Shogun’ had offered Pathetically Lame, but it had earned him the name Demon Spawn. Before his spiritual ancestors had redeemed themselves by destroying the Demon city on the surface of their planet, that is what the Chosen had called the Tainted. That could only mean one thing, they were in league with humans.
He watched as best he could, as the fight progressively got worse. The Tainted weren’t warriors, and never got combat training. Pathetically Lame had done his duty in attempting to fight the beasts though ultimately it was a futile gesture. More demon spawn arrived, small craft surrounded the ship. He felt it quake in anticipation for whatever was going to happen next. He put a hand on the controls trying to sooth it, as various voices in various languages came through the communications station.
Relentlessly Reckless ignored it all, watching as his two comrades were rendered unconscious and dragged away unceremoniously. A low grumble came forth from his throat, to die at the hands of demons, he shuddered. There was no worse fate.
Slapping a hand on the communications he opened a frequency to all the local craft. ”On the final day, the Daughters and Sons of the Chosen realised their true purpose-” He moved his hand over to the weapons console, his long fingers playing over it as systems heated up and became live. ”-Long had they waded through the dark and murky waters-” He selected his targets. The cluster of aliens who surrounded his comrades primarily, though he threw in a couple of extra for the guns that couldn’t make that shot. ”-uniting together, they brought the light back to the world-”
Plasma spewed from points all over the ship. Multiple shots, roaring as it shot alone. It tore through his brothers and the apes surrounding them, turning them to ash. The shots splashed up, catching others who unluckily were standing nearby. The targeted vehicles he hit found their outer metal hulls molten and red hot, as the plasma burned through.
Frustratingly, these infernal Demon Spawn had spread themselves from a clustered mass of filth to a loosely arranged formation. His comrades were struck down, their captors melting in heaps of plasma-sizzling flesh but the rest of the entourage fled away to the safety of their moving habitation. He swore that the lead Demon Spawn gazed back at him through the console with a hatred that only a Demon could summon.
Before Relentlessly Reckless could shut those anger-filled eyes forever, his vessel came under cannon and missile fire. Those pesky drones strafed the bio-ship, opening up bleeding chasms in the ship’s structural body. The far-away landship spewed massive shells which brought deep scars, one of these striking through to the engines. The vessel began to spin slowly to the ground as the smaller vehicles scrambled out of the path of the listless craft, still firing their incessant guns to carve more canyons through the flesh of his vessel.
Relentlessly Reckless selected as many targets as he could, the vessel began to shake under incoming fire. It screamed in his mind, the pain intolerable. Yet its will stood resolute, as did his own. -”and Honour back unto themselves”
Flesh bubbling from the sheer heat, the Nameless pilot experienced severe agony for mere moments till he lost his senses. The overwhelming firepower of the Demon Spawn had brought the ship into a simmering, unrecognisable pile on the savannah floor.
And thus, here laid Relentlessly Reckless, in a flesh-coffin made by his betters, content that he made appropriate sacrifice. Having brought death to the Demon underlings, he allowed himself, for once in his pathetically short life, to smile in pure joy. Pure, unfiltered, unadulterated joy.
Great Ulaanbaatar
”Replay that message once more.”
The Shogun kept his eyes planted firmly on the jade before him. Though no one but him, his liege and his enormous guards were present, he had to follow proper procedure. He ignored his trembling hearts, nearly going into cardiac arrest with the terror flowing through his veins. He had to repress the pool of anger welling in his stomach, listening to the alien prayer echoing through the chambers.
He had been so close to reaching his pinnacle, to experience the relief of finally proving his naysayers wrong. Instead, all Todayashi could foresee from here was exile or death. If this had ended in any other way, he could have spun these events in his favour. Alas, it was not to be.
The silence after the recording played was so thick you could cut it with a knife. It near-strangled him, before his liege’s voice cut through it like butter.
”You greatly erred in not relaying these events directly to me, Tokugawa. When your father picked you from the trees, he told me he saw in you a worthy successor. You have only proven how wrong he was.”
All because of him, his father’s reputation lay in the dirt. Todayashi merely bowed further, forehead touching the cool ground.
“I am yours to use as you see fit, my Khan. Please, oh benevolent Khan, forgive this one’s errors. Let me restore my honour and festoon the ground in my useless entrails.”
All because of him, he had to beg for forgiveness, for light sentences given to his subjects and soldiers. There was a shifting in the cloth pillows, a cackle resounding through the air as the Herald danced over his would-be grave.
”Alas, it seems, that despite all the mistakes you made that day, that this can still be spun in our favour. Your city-state will be dismantled, your subjects sent to other Shogunates further afield. But you, Caesar-kin, will encounter these beings once more and you will use their blind hatred of the humans to our advantage.”
All because of him, his lineage would be struck down and made anew. His subjects would be spread across the Khanate and have to, under threat of death, make do in other inferior realms.
There was a clutter of an object falling and rolling on the ground. A scroll knocked against his forehead, never rising from the ground it was glued to.
”Rise, foolish ape, and read your new mission. This will be your new fate. Let these intruders come once more and treat them. Do not reveal our connection with the Demons they hate so much. Instead, send their hatred elsewhere, where enemies can strike each other down without realising the tune they are being played to.”
All because of him, he had to endure this eternal shame. Todayashi unrolled the scroll on the ground, eyes scanning the document. His twin hearts beat like drums in his ears.
”Send them to the jungles. There, they will meet Demons and their Demon Spawn that they hate so much. I want the fires in their bellies to direct themselves to our enemies and you, and your ashamed samurai, will guide them to the pits of hell. To your original home.”
A map stared back at him. All because of him, he and his loyal samurai had been given their final resting place. Todayashi knew it in his bones. The equatorial jungles, where Caesar and his ilk remain. Where, to the Khanate’s eternal shame, unguided humans frolicked in their own inadequacy, under the guise of supposed freedom. A place which would burn in plasma and hellfire, an inferno which he knew would grow into a full-on war not seen on New Gift since ages past.
All because of him, death and destruction would begin once more in the grounds of his forsworn homeland. Tears flowed and stained the scroll he clutched tightly in his paws, even as he was dragged away from the inner sanctum.
All because of him, a long forgotten, prospering community would be brought under heel. Led by none other than an orphaned ape, taken from the clutches of his mother much too soon. Foggy memories flooded through his brain, of trees and intelligent reptiles, of free apes, of happy misshapen humans, of times past.
All because of him, these memories would be replaced by bloodstained blades and raining plasma.
All because of him.
