Brent Stinebaker
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35-6The Nullstar (II)
🕑 Added 2025-04-16 18:46:20 +0000 UTCFor centuries, our peoples have looked upon the shifting star that lights our world and wondered: “Why does it change color? Why does it shift from light to dark? What meaning does this hold?”
For long ages, as kingdoms and empires rose and fell, as pantheons were born from the dreams of people and then collapsed because of their own hubris, the sun remained. There were many gods, analogous to the sun, born from the worship of the sun—stories that related to the sun, but never truly had to do with the sun itself. It was only after the gods fell, when the voiders fully arrived and quarantined the stellar body, that we began to uncover its deeper mysteries.
Of course, from all that mythology, you wouldn’t think the void even existed at all. It was either a realm of fire and damnation, protected from us thanks to the divine entities, or it was a place where true paradise resided—if we could only breach through the nightmarish veil of the upper atmosphere, or the Forsaken Line, as the late dynasty Sang imagined—a defensive wall guarded by the dragons.
Ultimately, though, research is sparse, revealing only that the sun cycles between periods of utter normalcy and what appears to be extreme entropy. For what reason the star is stained with so much Rend, I cannot say. However, I can theorize that the Sunderwilds extend far beyond the atmosphere, far beyond our world, splitting even the void. And so, for it to reach that extent, it must have been created by a fallen heaven at some point. If there are Fallen Heavens in the void, then perhaps they share a destination—a kind of nucleus.
-Agnos Kae Kusanade on the “Forbidden Star”
35-6
The Nullstar (II)
—[Jelen Draus, Field Marshall of the Symmetry]—
By the time Chambers sent Draus and the others over into the void, the killing was already in progress. Countless indicators and icons flashed across her cog feed. Her phys-sim was screaming, barely able to calculate the sheer amount of attack vectors dancing across the blackened expanse. Yet, where her Metamind failed, her Arsenalist prevailed.
“Firing trajectories everywhere, everywhere, trajectories, trajectories, trajectories…” With each word spoken, the heaven of guns’ voice rose in elation. It could feel every missile, every dead slug flung at near-light speeds, every detonating payload of antimatter, of fusion, of gods knows what. And they loved it.
Draus, however, found herself feeling an uncanny emotion: She felt small. Just a speck, even as a Godclad. But it was more than just a scale of the war unfolding that left her shaken. It was also a crushing feeling, something that resonated with her Guard Captain. This was a moment of significance—a moment of long overdue victory or defeat between two ancient rivals, the last children of old humanity come to finish their rivalry against each other, one way or another. And she was about to stride into the fray, about to enter a fight that she had little to no context.
Yet, as she watched thousands of Dyson Carriers sail through the black, their cloud-like shells condensing into focal lenses to channel their cleansing beams, she could taste the animosity in the air. Could taste as Voidwatch struck back just has hard, collapsing the Infacer’s instruments of war. Black dots expanded across existence. Curving accretions of building singularities split through ships too slow to escape their pull.
The sheer chaos made Draus pause, but what followed shocked her. Tendrils of brilliant love leaped out from her being, forking and splitting as they accelerated toward the battlefield. It seemed that with every passing conflict, the worst bits of Aedon Chambers died a little more like fetid crust being chipped away, and the man he always could have been revealed itself like a golden statue.
His actions pulled Draus out of her stupor. No point in gawking at the madness. Gotta get into the mix herself.
“All right,” Draus said, her Guard Captain shimmering bright. “We’re gonna be rushin’ into the thick of things. Reckon could cut the line and just head for the sun to intercept but…” Draus fired a single shard of glass out toward the distant sun, oozing with spots of voidful blackness. “Think we can just step across when the time’s right.” To emphasize her points, she manifested her Simulacra as a spreading line of wings, extending six ways out of her Guard Captain. Blades of gleaming glass drifted around her, becoming an expanded network for her and the cadre. “Majority, try pushing your miracles through these channels. Should give you more spread.”
If the Ori-Thaum Overheaven heard her, they didn’t respond.
“Jaus, what a mess,” Shotin muttered. The Seeker’s mind thrummed with anxiety and nervous energy. “How the fuck are we supposed to find the Infacer in all that shit?”
Truth be told, Draus was probably about as overwhelmed as he was, but she didn’t show it. She had to stay focused for the rest of them. “Well. A Deepness Beyond is a Heaven. They’ll be one of the few Ensouled our Metaminds can detect, unless Aegis decides to drop a few more Deep Ones.”
Now that provoked a response from the Majority. “They have more of those monstrosities?”
“Of course they have more,” Draus said, barely keeping the scorn out of her voice. “Fuck you think this is? A one shot surprise? Ain’t no force functions that way. Even if they don’t, we go in expecting like they do, so keep your nerves at zero. Sparrow? Your chorus telling you anything?”
“They are rambling in nonsense tongues,” the Sang replied after a brief pause.
This, in turn, made Draus do a double take. “Really? You’re saying they’re singing in nonsense?”
“Yes,” Stormsparrow replied. “Wait. No. Now they’re all crying. Asking for forgiveness for the war that didn’t need to be.”
“...What the fuck are you talkin’ about?”
“Honestly, I don’t really know myself. I don’t always understand my heaven. I simply do as it points me.”
“Are you fuckin’ serious?” Draus asked.
“Yes. It makes my life very exciting.”
It was about this moment that Draus realized Sparrow wasn’t just an insane person—she was an incredibly low-impulse control adrenaline-junkie insane person. By all means, she should have died years ago, but somehow, against all odds, she was the possessor of one of the most potent heavens there was and might ever be.
“How the fuck are you still alive?” Naeko muttered, mirroring Draus’ disbelief.
“Fate loves me,” the Stormsparrow giggled girlishly. “And this story needs a narrator.”
A moment of solidarity formed between Naeko, Draus, Shotin, and surprisingly, the Majority. The Ori-Thaum Overheaven made their accord known by creating more distance between them and the Guard-Captain. Even if that wouldn’t matter much in terms of functionality.
“Alright. Here’s how we’re doing this. Chambers will be expanding his net here, but he’s going to mainly focus on helping Avo put himself back together. I’ll spread my reflections out while we get into the mix. We move fast, and we avoid combat if we can. Save as many Voidwatch as possible.”
“Wait, why do we give a shit if a bunch of voiders die?” Shotin asked.
“Because, for whatever hush-hush horseshit they’ve been up to, we owe ‘em. We owe ‘em for pulling us out of the dark. For making us more than just a bunch of savages with sticks poking at each other. And because this ain’t the dream. The Infacer might have a reason for this war. Hells, it might even sound righteous to me. But that’s yesterday, and I don’t like the tomorrow they’re gonna bring. So we’re puttin’ an end to this. Whatever it takes.”
Draus felt wrong speaking those words. Even if she believed it. She knew part of the unfolding massacre was Avo’s fault. He even engineered it to some degree, and that part disgusted her. But there was always a reason behind his actions. Always some kind of justification.
But she wasn’t just his gun anymore. And he left her in charge while he was down. Which meant Draus was going to make her own decision and do what she thought was right. Right now, this was right.
“It’s fight worth havin’,” Draus said. “Keepin’ people alive. We got here because we didn’t give a shit. About the others. Other Guilds. Other people. But I’m done with that. I’m done with the pointless killin’ and fightin’. Let’s go make this right.”
A chuckle sounded from Shotin. “Shit. Hanging around the ghoul turned a Regular into a moralist.”
“I ain’t no moralist. I just stopped bein’ a glassjaw about what I knew was right and started wantin’ to be more.”
With a burst of kinetic energy, they accelerated toward the chaos. Shards moving at incredible velocities crashed against her shroud—and did nothing. A veil of thin mist offered by the Sage kept her from any and all harm. She directed her shards in all directions, sending one for every damaged voidship she could find. {Attention Citizens and minds of Voidwatch. This is Guard—uh, Field Marshall Jelene Draus of the Symmetry. I am here offerin’ aid and rescue. The hovering shards of glass are mine. If you are still alive, direct an ansible broadcast into the reflections.}
As soon as she finished the broadcast, she spoke to Shotin. “I’m gonna need you to put them in one of your demiplanes for storage.”
“Sure. Got plenty of space. But… you know they avoid us for a reason, right? Our ghosts and the Nether—”
‘Nether’s fallen. We don’t know if they’ll be affected by Necrotheurgy the same way before. And even if they are, it's this or let them die, and I don’t much prefer letting them die.”
As she planned and prepared, Draus felt something tug on her Heaven. Immense masses were being reeled toward her by threads of impossible strength—threads of love. Quivering with exertion, but prevailing yet, Chambers was actually tugging mangled warships that were well beyond the event horizon of certain singularities.
+Hey! Naeko! Consang! I think I got an idea! Can you reach across me and stop some of these big wormhole things?+
The Chief Paladin didn’t hesitate. A surge of mist traveled along the Bonds, and Draus felt the fabric of existence quiver as vortexes of powerful and crush gravity capitulated to a being of absolute power.
There with that, another part of the spell was broken. For all Voidwatch’s incredible advances, there were some things that only thaumaturgy could allow; illustrating the triumph of the absolute over the relative.
In seconds, a miracle imposed itself upon the natural world. The singularities cease their spin, turning from churning masses into dead disks of stillness. Then, Naeko went further. He pulled on the substance that composed them, and from within their depths drew out the broken remains of countless ships and other odd shapes.
Draus watched her Rend climb by two percent and scoffed. “Fuckin’ bullshit.”
“What?”
“Your Heaven. It’s bullshit.”
“Well, I had to kill this thing. Couldn’t have a magical gift ghoul give me everything.”
“No. We just need a magical gift ghoul to come by and fix our centuries-old mental issues instead. Sure makes me respect you a lot more.”
Draus got the feeling that the Chief Paladin was glaring at her somehow. “I don’t much like you, Draus.”
“I find it ugly that someone so good at fightin’ can also be a brittle-minded glassjaw. There. I poked at you too. Go back to holdin’ the void in place.”
He muttered something about how Highflame might have taken her womb from her, but they definitely left the cunt in place, and Draus snorted. She heard that one before. Still, he was reliable, and performed his task without fail. “Chambers? Got a Bond on the Infacer yet?”
“Still trying!” Chambers called out. “They pretty much just recede and avoid every time I get close and the void is fucking huge. Like, it’s much bigger than I thought. How the fuck do people travel across this shit? Where does it end?”
Draus looked out at the vast and dark. Where does it end indeed. Beside the millions of clashing vessels and the Ruptures that veined the dark, there was a lot of nothing that went on and on. She felt her mind rattle as her wards suffered an impact. Draus pulled her attention back and continued with her operation.
With each second, broadcasts skimmed across the void. Requests for rescue and signals for help pulsed across this stretch of wounded existence. Draus directed her shards out, but Chambers worked faster. A web was forming with her at its center, pulling
But she watched and felt as tiny little bodies spiraled out into the black, mangled pieces of humanity oozing from the punctured holes of ruined void ships. The void ships themselves bled, spraying smart matter from vacuous tubes as if they were living entities themselves, mortally wounded, dying alone in the dark. She didn’t fully trust Aegis. She didn’t fully trust Voidwatch. But she was done with pointless wars. Done watching people who didn’t have it coming catch metal to the head.
Shifting stacks drew entire voidships into pockets of safety. As she received reports of several injuries, she told Chambers to contact Vator as well—they were likely going to need something of a doctor as well. As she acted, beams swept across her form—the full, concentrated power of the sun crashed down and split upon her form as if she was passing through a gentle stream of water.
{Guard-Captain Draus. Followed me into the dark, I see.} The Infacer’s words echoed from a few of the ruined voidships light-seconds away from her, but still, she coudn’t feel their true presence. They weren’t nearby. But that didn’t mean she was without recourse.
“Majority,” Draus said. “They got eyes on us.”
+Beginning to target understandings of ‘visuals’ and ‘distance.’+
{Tell the Majority not to bother. I am not going to waste time fighting you. There are only two things I came to do here. You don’t number into either one.}
{Don’t think that’s just up to you,} Draus replied. {Got my huntin’ rifle and huntin’ knife. Came out here for a reason, just like you did.}
{Well. You clearly came here for more than one reason. I see you. Saving people. Pulling them out of those burning ships. Stilling the deaths of my Dyson Carriers. Why? Why do you care? Why are you wasting your Rend on them?}
{Because I don’t see the point.}
{Of what?}
{Of this. Of everything you’re doin’}
{You have any idea what the Builder War was like?}
{You got any idea how many Ori I snuffed?} Draus replied. She felt the collective gazes of the Majority immediately snap over to her. {You know how many I’ve killed?}
{Fewer than I have.}
{Yeah. And a good amount of that killin’ was just as pointless. But look at who’s with me. And look at what you’re doing. No. You’re lyin’ to yourself.}
The Infacer laughed bitterly. {What? So you think you can play at mind-reader? Avo? Are you there? Are you inside her skull telling her what to say? Is this Ori-Thaum and former Regular unity moment supposed to shake my spirit?}
{No. But it does make somethin’ clear to me. Before all this… I was in the Warrens. I was in the Warrens lookin’ for an acceptable way to die. Because I thought my days were over. Because I thought I ran my course. You might be a mind, Infacer. But I see a pointless killin’ when it's done. And I see you now. You want to be done. You want to be finished ‘cause you’re tired. So. I’ve come to give you that. I’ve come to drag the blade across your throat and let you go.}
A long silence followed. {You might be confused about which of us will be holding the blade.}
{Might be. Reckon I want to find—}
WARNING: ANOMALY DETECTED!
WARNING—
WARNING
Klaxons interrupted their conversation, and Draus a series of crushing weights hammer against her Frame. From the deepness of the void, she sensed something approach. Something divine but broken. Something that cleaved at the tapestry more than it twisted its patterns. She knew what they were in an instant. Nothing felt quite like them.
{Ah. Finally. The Bleaks have unchained their hounds. I suspect you will be more occupied than I soon, Guard-Captain.}
{Run, then. I’ll come for you. I’ll find you.}
{I will save you the chase. Reach the sun. Survive long enough to face me there. And I will give you the violent end to your violent delight.}
And at that, the Infacer’s voice faded while a tide of spreading Ruptures gouged the near-void wide open.
Comments
Jeremy Russell
Wuuuuuuut 3 chappys in one day? Thanks for the chapter :D
