Brent Stinebaker
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34-20 The Guard-Captain (I)
🕑 Added 2025-03-13 12:02:27 +0000 UTCAlright. Gather round, juvs. Those of you still alive, that is. Mallines? Are you bleeding to death? You are? Well, crawl over here and see if you can make it through the lecture before your phylactery triggers. Saves me from giving the speech later—someone cauterize her lower body with a fusion burner, c’mon, help your consang out.
[Sound of a gunshot]
Draus… What was that?
Yes, I told you to help—oh, you were helping her out. Heh. Fucking smart ass. You just volunteered to be the “rabbit” for tomorrow’s exercise again—we’ll see how many experimental nu-dogs you’ll cost them this time.
Ah. Anyway. Math.
By this point, you guys are… well, don’t let this get to your head… but most other soldiers don’t match up to you. They’re shit compared to you—and not the good kind of shit. Not the solid, reliable, good diet stool, but that sticky-wet coming apart shit you kind of have to scoop out or blast with a pressure washer. The point I’m making is that by now you are more than a match for any other soldier in existence. Maybe even two. But a squad… Nah. You got torn apart today for one reason—we spent time making you good killers, juicing up with the best guns and augs.
But now is the time we go past that. Now is the time you become more than just a bunch of armed psychos. We’re not making you the best Squires on Idheim after all, boys and girls, we’re making you the best soldiers.
And soldiers learn how to fight together. Fight as one. So. When the rest get back, we’re going to run this drill again. All of you are going to learn how to give orders and follow them. You’ll be able to follow and lead whenever the need calls for it, just like how we made sure you can use any gun, pilot any vehicle, fight any battle.
Right now, the math between you is just addition. A bunch of good warriors. Let’s change that into something that multiplies your combat efficiency, because when we’re done, a hundred Regs are going to be able to take a street, and ten thousand will hold a block, and one million will conquer an entire fucking Sovereignty.
-Commander Winston Nicoma
34-20
The Guard-Captain (I)
—[Jelene Draus, The Field Marshal of the Symmetry]—
“VICTORY!”
Such was the first declaration of the Guard-Captain, spoken at the moment of its full manifestation.
From within a single shard of glass erupted a column of Soulfire. The flames climbed high, spearing up and then wide to form something that resembled a crown. However, it continued to expand, to grow wider, until it became as if a bulwark—a fortress wall meant to hold by crashing tides and falling bombs. Upon the crown of this bulwark were three towering turrets. The centermost glistened with fusion-charged power, the energies of the sun itself focused through a lens. The one on its left was lined with kinetics—guns, missiles, bombs, and hangers opened, expelling a swarm of ordinance that circulated the bulwark. The one on the right, meanwhile, resembled a communication tower, pulsating with wavelengths across the tapestry.
Then came its body, manifesting as a grand and skeletal visage. Massive arcs traced the outlined form of a giant that bore a sword made of fire, corpses, and debris. Its shield it held in its other arm was of a similar aesthetic, and its legs were unsteady tendrils made from engines, tank treads, wheels, legs, but also supplies—logistical necessities that no military force could do without. Then, there was the substance of its body—or the lack thereof.
The Guard-Captain’s true shape was a gateway. An opening with thick, dense contours and a crown of highest authority, but no true meat. Instead, the core of its being was a channel superimposed over several other Heavens.
The first was a misted palm with a splattered god imprinted at its base. Naeko’s power loomed, spilling out from Draus in whorls and waves.
The second was a many-headed dancer treading on a metaphysical stage. Slats of wood extended out from the Guard-Captain, forming a protective zone around its ontology.
The third was a being composed of strange geometries, with countless planar dimensions within them shuffling, ready to fall.
The space within the Guard-Captain flashed, and suddenly, all these Heavens melted into one, serving as a Unified Front within the Guard-Captain against the wrathful void and the existential collapse plaguing its surroundings.
DOMAIN (VICTORY/CORRESPONDENCE/MIND/SPACE)
CANON: UNIFIED FRONT - THE USER CREATES A UNIFIED FRONT WITHIN THEMSELVES, EFFECTIVELY ALLOWING MULTIPLE ENTITIES NOT ONLY OCCUPY THE SAME POINT, BUT INTERACT AS EACH OTHER, THROUGH EACH OTHER, MAGNIFYING EACH OTHER’S EFFECTS AND ACTIONS, WITH UNFETTERED ACCESS TO EACH OTHER’S CAPABILITIES.
HUBRIS: IF A HOSTILE ENTITY MANAGES TO BREACH THE UNIFIED FRONT, SIGNIFICANT THAUMIC BACKLASH (45%) WILL BE INFLICTED.
[Sorry about the hubris,] Kae stammered. [If we had more time I would have been able to—]
“It’s fine,” Draus replied, cleaving her blade down against the singularity trying to pull beyond its event horizon. The Sage’s mist erupted from her sword and suddenly, force was hers to compel. Gravity’s influence over Draus snapped like a frayed rope and a new authority spread over her body—violence and force were hers to use, on loan from the Chief Paladin.
At the same time, a constellation of masks erupted from within the hollow core of the Guard-Captain, only for one to be picked out from the many, before slotting against the underside of the Heaven’s fortress-shaped crown.
HERO OF THE TALE - YOU HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH EQUAL FORCE, SUPERIOR AGILITY, AND A PERPETUAL STRIKE-FIRST BLESSING. THIS IS YOUR TALE TO LEAD, AND VICTORY IS YOUR DESTINY TO CLAIM. BUT TAKE HEART, HERO, FOR STRUGGLE IS IN YOUR NATURE, AND SHOULD YOU OVERCOME FOES WITHOUT DIFFICULTY, THEN THIS MASK WILL DEVOLVE INTO THE MASK OF ARROGANCE.
“The hells did you just do to us?” Draus asked the Stormsparrow.
“Oh, nothing. Merely an additive to your present greatness. It is important for a rising champion to go into battle wearing a proper mask. And I do think we will be facing a most conniving foe even with such mighty powers. Oh—” And the Sparrow ended her word by flinging that crimson spear charged with destruction out from the Guard-Captain’s core. It sliced out at a speed that broke through a certain threshold of speed within A Deepness Beyond—a speed that turned matter into little more than expressions of physics and made light blossom with a pouring of impossible energy.
At the same time, the Simulacra flashed within the Guard-Captain—alongside the Arsenalist. They, too, were part of Draus’ “army” and so she used them in tandem with the masterpiece Kae grafted unto the Regular. A railcannon fired within her form, launching a massive slab of glass right behind the Stormsparrow’s spear.
The crimson lance tore a gaping wound across the Infacer’s inner reality. The world broke. The tapestry remained, and upon tumble tides of destruction came two shapes—shapes symmetrical to Draus in ontology, but not quite. Chains of time burrowed into them, composed them on a fundamental level. Sequences born of the original Avo’s Exo-Paracosm molded them from puppets for chronology into true metaphysical templates. It was then that Draus realized something: This was how Avo saw the world now. As patterns and expressions. Components that could be assembled and disassembled.
How he managed to remain even remotely empathetic toward the ephermals was a wonder in of itself. Even so brief a glance across the tapestry made her feel more disconnected than she already was.
“Because we aren’t separate. Not really. Everything is a structure expressed and interacting with something else,” her Avo said. “It’s like your current Heaven—like the Regulars and forces. We apart. Little islands and egos that perceive and think alone. But we are just nodes to a greater whole. A whole that seems to sing to the Sparrow.”
True to his words—and the Sparrow’s aim—her spear struck, and cataclysm followed.
One of the Deliverers broke apart, their ontology untangling into chaotic strands as the Heaven was destroyed on a fundamental level. Draus saw the Deliverer trying to constitute herself, but another pattern overrode her will, and the Stormsparrow’s spear fused to its target as a patch of existence turned black around it.
The tapestry became as if a page kissed by droplets of falling ink, and though the Deliverer tried to rebuild from ruin, a counter miracle clashed against it, absolute grinding against absolute until a paradox followed.
And through it all, neither Deliverer noticed the glinting spear of glass that glided on the periphery, slowly closing in.
WARNING: THAUMIC BACKLASH SUSTAINED
->DOMAIN (DESTRUCTION)
(UNIVERSAL) REND CAPACITY - 4%
Draus was about to curse at the Sparrow when she realized her Rend had barely crawled a single percentage upward. The amount of entropy she felt rippling across the tapestry would have strained her—overloaded Shotin outright. But between her Guard-Captain, their connected Soulscapes, and the Avo nodes interfacing each of their ontologies, Draus realized that they were a near replacement for the Burning Dreamer himself—a symmetrical replication of the Hidden Flame in function, though not form.
The metaphysical collapse expanded, and the surviving Deliverer tried to avoid certain death by opening another rift in space. But they were slow. Slow because the mask burning under the Guard-Captain’s crown demanded Draus strike first before any of her foes, and slow because they didn’t expect the Sparrow to land a hit so true.
“The weapon’s dream grows, from mere battle to wars end, but hark, and behold, what follows is something untold, unknown, to her heart, or the world as a whole. Stand, then, daughter of war. Stand, and shatter that which you were. For a sword is but a tool, but a general, a leader, a hero, and army might yet make your bleak dream be true…”
Quiet singing passed through Draus while the Stormsparrow laughed. The Regular felt like she was going mad. So many damn voices and noises—
“Filtering,” Avo said. And suddenly, her mind was a lot quieter. She only heard and knew what she needed for this fight.
“Thanks, consang,” Draus said, as she invoked her second canon while stepping through her Manifold Paracosmos. She crossed kilometers of broken space in an instant, materializing just behind the remaining Deliverer as her crown shone bright. Her Pathborn clone slashed out with a jagged limb, but Draus brought her shield to bear—a shield charged with Naeko’s power, just as she unleashed her second canon.
A blast exploded out from her shield in the shape of a wide cone. It washed over the Deliverer and caged them within a severed demiplane which bound the Guard-Captain in direct, inescapable conflict with whoever struck her.
DOMAIN (VICTORY/CORRESPONDENCE/SPACE/WAR)
CANON: STAND AND DELIVER - CREATES A DEMIPLANE BINDING ANYONE WHO STRIKES THE GUARD-CAPTAIN WITHOUT THE USER’S CONSENT. THE ENTITY THAT ATTACKED THE Guard-Captain WILL BE ALLOWED TO MOVE WITHIN A 100 METER CONE. THEY CANNOT EMERGE UNLESS THEY PARADOX OR DEFEAT THE Guard-Captain.
HUBRIS: IF THE ENEMY CEASES TO EXIST BEFORE BEING DEFEATED, THE Guard-Captain WILL SUFFER SIGNIFICANT (50%) THAUMIC BACKLASH.
The Deliverer recoiled off Draus’ shield. Her blade came down—and a stack fell with it. A blow infused with over a thousand plunging demiplanes impacted the Deliverer at the same time. Draus’ sword bit deep, as the totality of her being—and every Heaven within her—pressed down on the Deliverer.
A blast of ruinous energy gushed out from the Deliverer’s wounds. A canon birthed free from the Pathborn, and Draus felt the powers of certain destruction collide against Naeko’s unyielding dominance over all violence, but before a true paradox could manifest, Shotin’s Parallelist passed through the counterattack and pulled it into another space. All resistance vanished. Draus’ blade glided clean through her Pathborn self’s body, and the weapons upon her crown fired.
DOMAIN (VICTORY/WAR/MIND/MATTER/SPACE/CAUSALITY)
CANON: KNEEL OR BE KNELT - THE USER UNLEASHES A BARRAGE OF ATTACKS THAT WEAKENS THEIR ADVERSARY—BUT DOES NOT DESTROY THEM. EACH BLOW WILL RENDER THEIR TARGET MORE FRAGILE IN MATTER, MIND, SPACE, AND CAUSALITY COMPARED TO THE Guard-Captain. EVENTUALLY, THE TARGET’S BODY WILL TURN BRITTLE, THEIR MIND WILL SINK INTO MADNESS, AND THEY WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO AFFECT THE Guard-Captain IN ANY FASHION.
HUBRIS: [N/A]
[But I did manage to finish this on time,] Kae cheered.
The fusion turret slashed a thin line clean across the Deliverer. Her body groaned, but did not break. Fragments shot free from her cracking mind, and as she tried to swing again, she seemed to lag in time and space, as if moving against the Guard-Captain required her to overpower a hurricane. While it struggled, a rain of warheads and slugs punched into its body—followed by Draus’ shield. Her blow was magnified by an expanding palm that swatted the Deliverer like a fly.
More of the Deliverer’s being shattered. Her limbs grew too heavy for her body—and snapped free in bursts of Soulfire. Though the Deliverer began regenerating instantly, it still couldn’t overcome the ontological weakness inflicted upon it; only fought on because she was a Regular, and could resist a crumbling mind; grew slower and weaker before the Guard-Captain’s approach, becoming feeble in matters of matter and metaphysics.
The Guard-Captain slammed a leg into its Pathborn foe, and rivulets of gold and ectoplasm burst free in place of gore. The Deliverer twisted through the air—but was pulled back in. Because the Guard-Captain wasn’t done, and because they were causally subservient to that which was prevailing over her.
Draus pulled. Somehow, she pulled on causality itself—on a pattern formed between her and the Deliverer, all but defeated. As the Pathborn came tumbling back, Draus thrust her sword high, and impaled her twin.
Something fundamental broke. The Deliverer tried to move, but her body just came apart. She tried to act, but her mind was in ruins, and she tried to move, but that wouldn’t happen—even a section of her Heaven spilling down simply phased through the Guard-Captain rather than bouncing off the Heaven of Victory.
For a second—a surreal moment—Draus looked up at her Pathborn clone, and felt a sense of sympathetic peace. This was a good end. A violent end. Something her other self couldn’t stop no matter how well she fought. But then the Pathborn spoke, and Draus was real again. Realer than she ever was. She was alive. She was in the moment. And there was more ahead than just a righteous death.
“Hell of a fuckin’ Heaven,” the Deliverer said. “Kae do that for you?”
“Yeah,” Draus replied, a bit of somberness leaking over into her.
“That’s good. Wish mine could. Wish mine was whole enough to do that for me. But I wasn’t real. I wasn’t anything more than just a—”
“Weapon.” Draus finished her other self’s statement. “Wasn’t so far from you not too long ago. But the thing is… dyin’s for the defeated. Dyin’s takes you out of the game, stops you for deciding what’s next. Nicoma was right. We should’ve learned to dream sooner. Should’ve wanted more than to be someone’s gun. Fuckin’ Highflame—the Greatlings. All of ‘em. They don’t know what’s fuckin’ worthy if it slit their throats.”
“And… we are?” the Deliverer asked. Draus thought she heard a hint of something there. Maybe it was envy. Maybe it was hope.
“We always were. War was. War waited. And we were sleepin’: the ultimate practitioner pretendin’ all they had left to do was die. But that’s bullshit. I’m not done with my killin’. What I am done is losin’, and lettin’ someone else decide. No. I’m gonna try bein’ the hand that swings the sword now, see how that suits me.”
The Deliverer laughed. “Fuckin’, kill me now. You sound like him.”
Draus knew who her other self was talking about. “Yeah. But hey, someone’s gotta light my wick, right?”
And she flicked her blade up. And the Deliverer came asunder, dismembered Soulfire-deep as it splashed into halves beside Draus, too broken to fight, too broken to stop Draus’ Stillborn from drinking in its mass.
“Alright,” Draus said, looking ahead. “Let’s go see what sound a mind makes when they scream.”
CONSUMING HEAVEN-TEMPLATE [DELIVERER]...
