Mars Mission

Mars. Known as the "red planet" to the humans in the 3rd dimension, it was an amazing sight to behold in the 4th. Cities dotted the reddish brown landscape, with thousands of orbiting space stations, satellites and advertisement billboards up above. One of them advertised a familiar sight of a stranded ship being attacked by pirates and its rescuers falling for the trap. "Must be Izual," muttered Robless, under his breath.

Cassus took the intercom speaker in his hand, and spoke in the best announcer voice he could pull off. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived!" He burst out laughing after hearing himself through the speaker, as the shuttle was so small the intercom was utterly unnecessary. Drugari looked up at Robless' quizzical expression. "Never bad to have fun...right?"

The commander shook his head at the over-excited soldier. The jokes would probably stop as soon as they landed.

They slipped past the array of communication and traffic satellites unnoticed. It was too quiet, even for a stealth entry. Something wasn't right. There weren't any ships besides them. Cassus tried opening communications with the nearest spaceport. The call went through, but the only response was empty static.

A moment before he could switch back to complete stealth mode, something shook the ship. "Aw, hell, we're losing engine power. Stabilizers malfunctioning! What--Incoming missile? Brace for impact!" Altitude and speed warnings were getting increasingly desperate as Drugari fought to keep it above the ground. The missile read 1 km away and closing. The shuttle rattled further as one corner skimmed through the sand.

An explosion ripped the ship apart, tearing the rear right engine and the back of the passenger cabin apart. The force of the impact, along with the left engine still at full power, caused the ship to begin cartwheeling sideways, end over end. Somehow they managed to land upright and mostly intact, except for the doors, cockpit windows, the entire rear end of the ship, and an engine.

Robless was thrown around quite a bit, but his armor suit ended up saving him as he literally bounced off the walls. Shaken, but not out, Robless stood up and checked the back cabin. He was greeted with bright sunlight reflecting off the red sand. "Everyone alright?" Thumbs up from across the board. "Good, let's get settled. We need to get out of here quick. Staying in the shuttle stranded on a planet with a possible invasion underway is not a good idea."

Cassus checked the shuttle's surviving systems over. The left engine still had some energy that could recharge some of them. Surprisingly, communications systems were still intact. Diverting some extra power to the system, he attempted to boost the signal. A warning light came on. The console blinked red and managed to get a -SIGNAL JAMMED- error message before it completely shorted out. "We're stranded again."

Zyria's Post:

-When the first alarms go off, Zyria knows they're in danger, and not something they can escape. Then the ship's rear is torn off, with Caz near the opening. Knowing that there's no other way to keep him from being sucked out, she pushes him with all her might to a nearby wall, as she herself is thrown out.-

-Zyria doesn't scream. No, there's no time for that. Instead, she immediately presses a button on her suit, and a helmet wraps around her head, shaping to her face, and disappearing. 'Can't take any chances, who knows what effects the Martian atmosphere could have on me.' She twists in the air, noting how much further until she hits the ground. Reaching for a button on her back, Zyria attempts to turn on her built-in jetpack. The button merely clicks and informs her of the lack of fuel. 'Sigh, well, Boggs can't leave a note for everything...'-

-So, Zyria looks back at the ground, and pulls out a small oval disk. A gift from Boggs, it was meant to form a shield from a time on Earth that Zyria researched: the medieval times. Sensing Zyria's hands on it, the shield stretches into full size, thickens the metal, sharpens the edges, and forms a firefox symbol on the front (as many medieval shields had animal symbols on them, the kind depending on the owner, thus the firefox). Calculating the angle of the sand hills below, Zyria places the shield under her, similar to a sled. 'If this works....well.....yeah, if this works.' She slides her arm through the sling on the back of the shield, bracing for impact.-

- /kLUMP/ With a spray of sand in every direction, Zyria lands on Mars. She cries out in pain and her shield groans, but both survive the impact. Managing to hold onto the shield, Zyria rolls down the hill to level ground, clutching her shoulder.-

-Zyria stays still, moving only once to painfully remove her arm from her shield. Her arm is obviously broken. 'Of course. And I don't have anymore bands for broken bones. Damn, I forgot to ask for another surgical kit...' She sits up using her right arm, and checks the rest of her body and supplies. Nothing more is damaged, and she sighs with relief.-

-A moment later, Zyria hears a crash in the distance. It had to be her ship, and Zyria notes the direction the sound came from. Gathering her supplies and slowly standing, she turns towards the direction she has to walk. 'Well, guess the trek begins now.' Zyria takes a swig from her canteen, and starts walking.-

"Wait, where's Zyria?" Robless turned around and double-checked the shuttle again. Caz's seat was also ripped out, probably from the explosion, but Caz was still here. "She--" Robless was unable to finish his sentence, but everyone seemed to understand. She had saved him from falling, but ended up falling out herself. "No simple fall would kill her. She's still out there. It'll only be a matter of time until we find her."

Caz had tried to hold on to Zyria as she had been sucked out the gaping hole in the ship, but his attempts had been futile. He cried out as she disappeared, and had undone the remaining straps from his seat as soon as they crashed. He stood quickly, looking briefly at the rest of them with a look that is dark and determined, and then his combat armor disappears, and his form morphs into that of some kind of creature that is foreign to everyone. It is vaguely coyote-based, but larger and with obvious intelligence, and more of a cream colored fur. Its eyes are the same aqua blue as Caz's, and its feet seem to be designed for running and traveling quickly in sand. Caz adapts his vocal cords slightly, and speaks. "I'm going after her. She may be in danger, and she may be hurt. I'll catch up." With that he leaps out of what's left of the ship and sprints away at an incredible speed, spraying up sand behind him and heading in the direction from which they came.

-Stumbling down hill after hill, Zyria's canteen runs dry in minutes, and she digs out another, her second of four. For a planet quite a distance from its star, it sure is hot. At first, the journey was clear, the direction known; but after the heat and the unchanging scenery, Zyria is unsure. Slowly and unsurely, she walks up and down a hill, and another hill, and another hill, and another. How far could the ship honestly be? Doubt creeps from the back of her mind, and worriedly, Zyria checks the direction again, making sure she is still going straight. Her arm, in its one-handmade sling, screams at her, not having dulled from time, and refuses to be forgotten. So Zyria continues, moving her shoulder on occasion to try to ease the pain, drinking from her canteen constantly, and checking her direction every so often, looking for anything, anything at all to convince her that she isn't going to die.-

The 4th dimension... Mars...
Archelaus had been here many times. In war, in peace, in solitude. Never before however, had this sense of supreme foreboding settled on him as the advanced stealth shuttle approached the planet.
He glanced at Emerik, who looked stunned... Everything here was too quiet. There should have been at least ten or fifteen ships orbiting the planet at any one time, and more prepared for launch on the planet itself.
Archelaus frowned, concerned. His intuition told him something was not right... Something was wrong... Someone was going to get hurt. Not just in the mission, right now. On this shuttle. His intuition was almost never wrong. Archelaus quickly searched through his limited-control panel searching for any problems within the ship. Despite the limited capacities of the panel, it only took a few minutes for Archealus to find what he was looking for.
Sabotage!

Just as Archelaus began to speak, alarms and flashing lights exploded throughout the shuttle, with Cassus calling out status updates as the shuttle tumbled like a bird with a broken wing toward the ground.
Archelaus sat, grimly... highly aware of what a crash into sand would be like in 1.3 gravity.

Then a malestrom broke loose inside the cabin, as the flight portion of the shuttle was smashed in by a three ton concussion missile, intended to disable them. The result was similar to a horrifying dream...
Almost in slow-motion, Lord Ruzzin floated through the air, until he snapped against his seat's restraints. If he had been in one of the normal chairs found within the shuttle, he surley would have snapped loose and been tossed around the room like a Finogtto leaf. As he was in the chair especially designed for a huge Alteriia, his extra restraints held him in place.
Unfortunatly, this also restricted him from aiding any of his allies, as Robless tumbled around the room in his shock absorbing armor, thankfully not ramming into anyone, As Cassus banged against his restraints in the pilot's seat, as Emerik focused his hydro powers on keeping himself as still as possible, (As with the development of the "freeze ray" many years ago, Emerik had developed the power to control moisture, especially water, but most liquids he had at least a rudimentary grasp of. Many Martians have these powers.)
Archelaus watched, powerless, as Caz neared a hole blown through the wall. Horrified as events placed out, He sat, trying to summon up the energy and will to focus his Rolxan on helping someone... but everything was happening too fast, and he would more likely hurt someone then help them.
Then Zyria dived toward the hole, blocking Caz from falling out, but cascading into the dangerous Martian herself.
"Zyria"...
Archleaus did not want to think about her odds of surviving that fall without a trick or two... but then again, Zyria always had a trick or two.

The next few events happened in a strange, dis-located sequence.

The shuttle finally halted, spraying up a huge mist of sand into the air, alerting any check-up recon their exact location.
Archelaus immediately began unstrapping himself from his chair.
As the sand inside the shuttle cleared to the ground, coating everyone in the brown tinge of Mars, Caz realizes what had happened to Zyria, and bolts out of the shuttle in the form of a Nauos. (Sort of like a desert dwelling fox, except faster)
Communications are jammed, thrusters are toasted.
Cassus and Robless direct everyone outside.
They make plans to get away from the shuttle, and check it for usable supplies.

Archelaus stands up into the air of Mars, calm and beachy compared to Vertrus.

"Emerik," Archelaus begins, "Not in all of my years have I even seen this part of Mars. It... does not bode well." Archelaus's discontent and horror are apparent, dripping from every word he speaks like water drips from trees and bushes after a storm.
"Do you know where we are? Or how to get to The Caves of the Shattered Sun from here? Anything that can help us..."

Caz just keeps running. He stays straight, in a single direction, never stopping and never slowing, his eyes prowling the dry, desolate landscape. At his speed, the ship disappears from sight relatively quickly, but still he continues. He hadn't thought that Zyria could be far from the ship, but who knew? The wind at even slightly higher altitudes was ferocious, and it could have carried her quite some ways. Yet still, Caz didn't stop. His implant would keep him going for a long time, constantly producing the minimal amounts of water that he would need as a Nauos, and he felt like he could run for years if it would mean finding Zyria and possibly saving her from death. There were some unpleasant creatures on Mars' surface, and even if she was not found by one of them the humidity would draw the liquids from her body faster than normal. Not to mention she was Plutonian; from a cold, dry, dark planet, not at all like Mars. It couldn't end well, no matter what.

So Caz kept running, keeping pace with the gust of sand blown off the higher hills by the wind, his ragged fur now completely saturated with red-brown Martian sand.

Zyria's Post:

-Her second, third, and half of her fourth canteen is bone dry. After so much walking, Zyria begins to notice creatures living in the sand, some seeming harmless, and others....not so much. In her last attempt to stay safe, her suit turns the color of the sand, except her helmet. 'If anyone's out there looking for me, they need to be able to see me.' A button beeps, notfiying Zyria of the finished test results. 'Atmosphere safe.' To make herself slightly more visible for anyone looking for her, she removes the helmet, and her hair flows freely with the wind. 'That's the best signal I can give. Oh, I'm so tired, and thirsty. But I can't use up all my water quickly.' Zyria manages to climb up another hill, but at the top, she collapses. No, not really 'collapses,' she sits. Hard. 'I-I can't move anymore. If I'm to save any hydration I have left, it's better to not move anyway...' So Zyria sits there clutching her arm, her hair tangling in the wind the only visible part of her.-

Verax was.... less than happy. He had gone through all the trouble to hijack an orbital defense station, locate them, which was NO easy task in the stealth shuttle they were parading around in, and wanted to bring them down with some well placed missiles. He wanted all of them dead, was that so much to ask for? Evidently it was, as he had the luck of picking the one station needing supplies, with a single missile left, and the single missile failed to kill anyone, ANYONE, on board. Stewing in rage, he made due with what he could and proceeded to knock out all communications to, from, and within the planet, he could have only jammed theirs, but was there any harm in indulging a bit? After planting a few explosives on the station, he hefted two massive corpses up on to his shoulders, fools from the fleet that had been sent to find him, and launching a rocket from the hidden silo in his thick bulky chest plate (all weapons integrated into the armor were activated and controlled through mental commands of course, which if needed could be said aloud to help organize thoughts), and blew a hole in and out of the side of the command room he was in.

"I haven't made a jump like this in.... dodecades? No... that means twelve. Duodecades? Too stupid sounding. Pairs of.... well, whatever means twenty!" He let himself be forced out by the exiting air rushing through the hole, and down towards the planet.

These.... people.... they wanted to find a way to 'cure' the Shoxo Darkis? The Thel-ghan'che? Well that was something that could not happen. Such a wonderful engine of disruption must remain! The worlds were out of balance, too much order and peace outweighed the chaos and destruction he sought to right. This would not do, he reasoned, so he did what he would have had to do eventually anyways, he would go down and meet them personally.

But could he beat them in combat? ......He had never met any group, no matter how big, how well trained, how skilled, how powerful that could bring him down. Injure him? Yes. Slow him? Yes. But defeat? No, never. Like the two Alteriian commanders he was bearing, who had managed to severely damage his entire left body, and had slowed his reaction time with their accursed mind tricks. He was mortal, we was not a God, but he was skilled, shrewd, and powerful... and he had will.

He was distracting himself, but the question stood in his mind, when they clashed, which he would inevitably with these people, would the fall before him like everyone else who had thrown their lives to the juggernaut that was Verax, or was being a leader more than just boring politics? He would see, as the dusty red surface of Mars drew him ever closer, and as debris from the destroyed station fell past him.

It was not until Zyria had slowly drained her last cantine and her vision was becoming fuzzy that Caz finally saw her. She was still far away, but seeing her fueled his muscles and he pushed himself even faster despite his aching fatigue. Eventually he was by her side, but he had to suddenly skid to a halt because it seemed like his body had forgotten how to stop. He sprayed sand as he slid, and then walked back the twenty feet or so to her side. His form shifted back to his humanoid state, and he kneeled beside Zyria. He took her arm in his hands, noticing its twisted angle, and quickly realized its condition. In a brief spurt of ingeniuity, he held her arm in the correct position, the break in the bones aligned, then directed some of his energy into her arm at the site of the break (producing an even stronger variety of the tingle that Zyria usually felt when she touched Caz) and then used his implant to solidify it into bone, mending the break completely and seamlessly. He then took Zyria in his arm, holding her close to him, and lifted her empty cantine from the ground with his unoccupied hand. Again, he directed some of his energy into the vessel, and slowly converted it into water. It took a lot less energy than creating bone had, for water was something simple to create. It didn't take as much effort to do. Water pooled in the bottom of it until it was filled, and Caz slowly handed it to Zyria. He had done all of these things as if in a trance, driven by necessity, and then he looked into her eyes and that trance broke away. He closed his eyes briefly, pressing his lips gently to her forehead, and said, "It's okay now, I've got you."

-Gone. The remaining water had been drained long ago, and Zyria sits there, not realizing she's sitting; breathing, not realizing she's breathing; dying, and fully knowing that she's dying. No one came. No one....no one cared enough to come...and I wasn't strong enough to save myself this time.... She sits there, blinking her remaining hydration from her eyes. Slowly, she begins to lose herself in the heat, and her eyes glaze over. Just as the heat saps the last of her strength, something zips past her, stops, and returns. Zyria notices, but doesn't know what it is, and doesn't care if its there to kill her. Suddenly, instead of the strange creature by her side, it's Caz. He kneels down, and takes her arm. Pain rips up her shoulder, but Zyria is in enough pain as it is, and ignores it, still shocked that someone was actually there, saving her. As quickly as the pain appeared, it dispersed, leaving Zyria with an unbroken arm. Caz then takes the canteen, then hands it to Zyria. Completely filled. At that moment, though, her thirst isn't her focus. Caz kisses her forehead, and says "It's okay now, I've got you." The sound breaks her fuzzy state. She looks into Caz's eyes, and wraps her arms around his neck.-
"You-you came! I thought I could manage to make my way back myself....but, I couldn't, I couldn't do it, Caz...I..I'm weak......I don't mind needing you, and the others, but...I can't even save myself, anymore...." -Zyria buries her face between her hair and Caz, ashamed that she seemed so weak.- "I'm so happy to see you, Caz. If you hadn't come..." -Zyria doesn't even care that they're in the middle of nowhere on a strange planet, faced with enemies obviously wanting them dead. She kisses his hands holding her, his cheeks, his lips. When she kisses him, not a peck on the cheek, but a kiss, she freezes. Even in the heat, a slight blush creeps up her neck to her cheeks.- "I-I'm sorry...I, uh..." -Not so nonchalantly, Zyria takes a sip from her canteen, and pours the rest on her head, with the idea of cooling her dry skin, but most likely to just mask the blush.- "Uh..thank you for, -uh- filling the canteen. We should, -uh- before either of us die...you know...go." -Zyria stands, slightly unsteady, and her suit changes from the camouflage to a deep, dark purple, then to a controlled black. Her eyes flit to Caz's, then away.- "So....uh, which way?"

[How are Zyria and Caz supposed to get back?! We need an ACTUAL reason...hmmmm, any ideas?]

Cassus' armored stealth suit flickered into existence at the bottom of the hill that the two were on top of. Catching his breath, he called out to them. "You didn't think the rest of us were going to leave you alone, did you?" They nodded back at him and continued back to where Caz came from. Cassus climbed up the hill after the two. "And where do you think the two of you are going? You aren't going anywhere if you go the route you came by." He pointed to his left. "The ship's that way, about 2 kilometers. I spotted Zyria on the long-range scope and went after Caz to tell him which direction to head off to. From the looks of it, the two of you wandered in circles before finding each other. You guys could've died out here trekking the way you did. Come on, let's head back. I set up a tracker from my suit so we could find our way back." Cassus stepped off in the proper direction and silently laughed at the expression on their faces.

About a third of the way back to the crash site, Cassus froze. He waved at the others to get down and proceeded to crawl up to the rise on the hill. A message on his helmet's visor received a -SIGNAL LOST- error next to the tracker's sensor. Something strange was happening, and it didn't seem good.

At the top of the hill, Cassus pulled out his highly accurate sniper rifle and supported it on the sandy ridge line. The optics screen flickered to life, and set its zoom to a comfortable range to view the shuttle from. A few moments later, the life seemed to drain out of his face.

The huge bodies of two of the 6th's fleets top officers fell to the ground, but the figure that was holding them was even more menacing. Standing in extremely heavy armor, he was taller than a normal Alteriian. "Dear God..." The foreboding warlord seemed to gesture towards the two bodies, laugh, and pull out a sinister-looking cake. "Laser voice recognition start, audio capture recording." Cassus waited for the suit's systems to center in on the location, and prepared himself for the worst. The only thing the audio and video capture couldn't catch was the terrible feeling he had in his gut.

He had found them! At last, he had found them! Verax was overjoyed, but there was work to be done. Before they noticed him, he jumped up, twenty feet into the air, and landed in front of them, with a large spray of sand. Time to OVER DO this.
"Hello hello hellloooo!!! I come in peace! Witness my peace offering!" He threw down the broken forms of both Alteriian commanders, all their limbs bent in the wrong ways, and their necks slashed open. He watched the groups revolting reaction, and loved it.
"Wait... that wasn't the peace offering, hold on...." He searched frantically, and brightened at something under his foot. "HERE we go." he picked up the mostly squashed cake an offered it to the group. The were still silent.
"Oh, where are my manners? I have yet to introduce myself." He bowed a mocking and humiliatingly low bow. "I am Verax! You may call me that, but in truth, I much rather be preferred to be addressed by my FULL title, Dreadlord Verax!" He laughed, again.
"Oh come on! Don't you people EVER laugh or smile? I find it helps to relax. But anyways, on to why I'm here! YOU.... Ah you must be Commander Robless...... I seem to remember a lot about you, but.... hm.... ah never mind. Ah! The High Druid himself..... the security in the 5th Dimension is horrible! But I suppose you already know that. Just wondering.... where do you people go when you die? Because a few hours ago, a little over 12,000 of your kind was sent there! By ME!" He giggled giddily at this. "All under a minute! Impressive, huh?" He began pacing.
"Now.... I hear you all.... wait... where are the rest of you? Ah.. I'll meet them soon enough. BACK TO MAIN TOPIC, from the word of a little bird I heard you all are trying to find a cure for this.... parasite? Well, I can help you! Here's MY advice.... give up. So what if that bitch Eris-Tam's life is at stake? People die all the time! And the worlds are so..... imbalanced! Too much order. Too much peace!"
Verax stopped pacing and looked at the main group, and held his arms to the sky, as if some earthen preacher. "The universe CRAVES balance, and I fight to restore balance between this..... order.... and the chaos that has for so long been too little! Don't you see? The Thel-ghan'che is part of this restoration of balance!" The silence and crazy looks he was given told him enough. He lowered his arms.
"Fine.... you all will never see the truth. If you all insist on trying to get rid of the parasite....." Four missile silos, one on the top and one from the side of each shoulder jutted out, and from the wrists machine guns popped out. "Well.... as a new offering of peace to your worlds... I'm sure your dismembered and desecrated bodies will serve nicely!"

<I just spent about an hour typing a huge response to this, but it accidentally deleted.>

asdfbaliuefgbalwe...!

(Insert Alteriian Obscenities)

I'll re-write it tomorrow, NOBODY POST, because it was the most epic idea ever, and I spent forever developing it... and it will be awesome... Everybody wait for me please.
And then enjoy reading my mini story within a story.

<Like literally, my response was some 6, 7, 8 pages long...>

I can't believe it accidentally deleted!!!! ARRRRGGHGHGHG

(LOL. If you're going to type something really long, type it into Microsoft Word so you don't lose it. I've lost enough information by accidentally deleting it. Web design tricks! )

In less than half a second Archelaus glanced at the two Alteriia before him, mutilated nearly beyond recognition. One was Arcani, the famous Admiral of the 6th fleet, and his protégée, a brilliant younger Alteriia whose name he did not remember. Both were specialists of the Rolxan, although not as powerful as the High Druid himself.
Archelaus began sizing up his opponent immediately for strengths, weaknesses, anything he could use against him or learn about him so that he and his allies could defeat this cruel monster before them.

Archelaus realized something right away.
This Verax obviously considered the High Druid to be the strongest enemy out of the half dozen or so of the strongest leaders in the universe before him.
Why else would Verax spend so much time trying to throw him off balance?
He brought the two bodies with him, both Alteriians, he mentioned the deaths in the 5th dimension, he spent time going over his hatred for Aurora…
He was sneakily trying to offset his opponents, in a backhanded, cunning way.

First he measured up his armament.
He was wearing some kind of ultra-heavy armor, had shoulder mounted missiles, Gatling guns on his wrists…
The only thing Archelaus could discover from the armor, despite his visual enhancements to see in different spectrums, was that it was slightly morphed on its left side.

To his credit, Archelaus was a master of information and technology. He knew hundreds of thousands of different materials, weapons, tactics, physiological stratagems, mental tricks, and more…
But, he had never before encountered anything like Verax’s armor. It looked to be ultra thick and dense, but it apparently didn’t weigh down on him, as he moved around as lithely as a jungle cat. It was completely impossible to guess what must be waiting inside. Obviously Verax had more planned than just his out of date weapons sitting on his armor, there was no way he could have defeated Arcani and his Lieutenant with just those weapons. The morphed part of the armor might be holding some kind of special weapon… or perhaps Arcani had managed to damage him, Or perhaps it has always been there, and Verax just didn’t care enough to fix it.
The armor though… it did look extremely heavy and dense… perhaps Verax counted on his armor to reject the attacks of his enemies while he crushed them with it, and would take full advantage of it’s crushing weight.
Or maybe Verax was just hiding secrets within the armor… Or both…
Perhaps Verax intended to unleash surprise after surprise from within his metal protection at them, until he wore them down from the strongest to weakest to break moral. Or perhaps he would take care of the weakest first and get them out of the way, to focus on the stronger later.
Maybe he didn’t have a plan at all, and just expected to win.

It could mean anything given the apparent insanity of Verax.

Archelaus decided to test this theory, sending out the Rolxan toward Verax’s mind, gently, ever so gently, like a feather falling from the sky, touching whatever he might find there…

And even with this tiny escapade near his mind, he could sense what Verax’s persona was composed of.
INSANITY, A BLAZING WRITHING INFERNO OF COMPLETE AND UTTER INSANITY. Cruel, vicious, calculated, burning desires of chaos.

This… thing… had to be destroyed.

The High Druid, Leader of the Alteriian empire, elected high Council Officiate, rose to his full 17 feet of battle form, making Verax look comparatively small beneath him.

Archelaus was wearing only the best. His armor was devised from a secret Alteriian/Martian/Plutonian project, the best of the Star-Steel materials, purer than pure, from Mars, with sheid technology inspired by Plutonian forays into Gravimetric shield pulse technology, based on Alteriian designs. This wicked combination of stylistic approaches to armor resulted in an armor capable of producing a pulse shield that amplified the Rolxan, working in tandem together to create a nearly impenetrable barrier, that could morph and move around at will to protect different areas. Not to mention the Dark-Blue Star-Steel was forged using a new process, called Quark-Glazing, to reinforce this precious armor to nearly twenty times it’s original, already powerful, defense. This armor, created specifically for Archelaus, was the pinnacle of defense technology, incorporating virtually all the benefits of different calibrations and technology from three different peoples.

Normally, an Alteriia with Rolxan as strong as Archelaus, would not even use weapons in battle, so that they could focus on their mystical powers.

But, despite his Titan armor, Archelaus’ weapons were even more deadly. He had brought the famed Eios Retrankan. (Or, The Twins)
They were however, not identical. The first weapons was based of a special Alteriian weapon, the Katranka, similar to a double saber. It had a place to manipulate the weapon in the middle, and the extendable blades on both sides, able to be manipulated by the Rolxan. It could be a spear, a sword, a staff, a mace, anything that a creative Alteriian could think of, and Archelaus was very creative indeed. Masters of the Katranka often changed their weapons in mid-swing to confuse and exasperate enemies. Archelaus was a master of the Katranka.
The second weapon was based on the Yadriel, which looks similar to an orb on a chain. This orb, usually held in one hand, helped manipulate and magnify the powers of the Rolxan. It could be used in any number of ways to bewilder and baffle enemies, and also contained it’s own green power, creating a second force to work jointly with the user. Enemies would have to deal with attacks on two different fronts at once, with seemingly equal powers.

But the twins were not ordinary an ordinary Katranka and Yadriel. They were the specialized armaments of one of the most powerful Alteriian alive, and had their dark, esoteric pool of surprises waiting within them…

But first, before he attacked, Archelaus straightened, and spoke in a deep, booming voice. Archelaus was a master of oration, and when he spoke it was as if his voice climbed unseen chords, formed harmonies and dissonance in seemingly random musical locations… It was if a Terran Orchestra was hidden deep within him. His voice climbed to peaks, and then settled back down, rising and falling in intensity during the story he was about to tell.

“I remember you.” Archelaus spoke, softly, but determined, as if he was wiping old cobwebs from a dusty filing cabinet.
“It must be… more than a thousand years since we parted, but I remember you.” Archelaus’ voice spoke a thousand words while he only actually used about twenty of them.

“It was the 18th day of The Mists, when we parted from each other… I was the commander of an Alteriian-Council Species infiltration team, sent to discover Lord Robless’ reasons for increasing his military production at a staggering rate. We were to find his battle plans, his stratagies, his reasoning… We were the nine. The best nine. The nine whose names were never recorded, because we were so good we didn’t exist.

And so we set out, the best equipment, the best team, the best strategy, the best plan, to uncover the brewing boiling baking cauldron of mysteries that Robless was cooking.

But we were betrayed from the first day. One of us had gone to the enemy and given away all of our secrets, our stratagems, gave to the enemy how we think, explained our training… (And indeed, Robless’ forces still use a training regime originally based off of the Ancient Alteriian intelligence forces)

And so the remaining eight of us were hunted. We spent weeks crawling inch by inch toward our objective, eating half spoiled rations, sleeping only for brief periods of necessary rest in the most hideous of places... sewers, dumps, even once inside the carcass of a decaying gargant… We witnessed first hand the cruelty and the evil of Robless, as we watched him murder and drive his own people to their deaths. We watched unable to aide them, as a team of soldiers gunned down three hundred children at a school.
We watched as Robless used the homeless and the aged as live target practice for his troops. We watched as nearly brainwashed men and women hailed their leader as a savior, even as he stabbed them between the eyes .

So yes, our team of eight crawled forward, closer and closer to the end, the objective. And one by one, our team died off. We moved forward. 7 of us left, another week and there were only 5. Two days later it was only me, and you, and we were still hundreds of miles away from the objective.

So we became the best of friends. Comrades, forged in the fire of life and death. I had to depend upon you for everything, and you depended on me for everything. We slept two hours a day for the next two months, as we crawled, agonizingly slowly, to our objective. Every waking moment was wrought with the terror of the cruelties that would befall us if we were captured, every sleeping moment was plagued with thoughts of a home I was unable to return to.

You were driven to the objective, I was driven only because I had to see Aurora again. At least one last time…

You were the calculated one. Driven by your own motivation, you were the rationalize, the precise and cunning one. I was the powerhouse, the intuitive and creative one. We balanced with each other through the burning fear of our pain.

It was then I should have seen the darkness eating away at your heart, but I was too close to you to step back and see it… all the evil played tricks on your logical mind. You began to see me as the reason why we failed. Why our whole team, our whole life, had been destroyed, mercilessly and brutally slaughtered and tortured. I was the reason we ate virtually nothing, why we were continuously hunted, day in and day out, you blamed me. I was the reason you could not even speak for fear of death, I was the cause of an un-ending circle of pain and hurt. You knew it was not my fault, but you blamed me anyway. I was the reason why your life was a living hell.

But I could not see it, and so we traveled onwards excruciatingly, unbearably, and yet we bore it.

And so we came so close to our objective. We were crawling up a communications node, a climb with a quarter of an inch of room to spare between the wall and me, in 107degree heat due to the wiring, we climbed for two days straight, straight up two and half miles.

Then we reached our objective. We were there, we found the program we were looking for, the information we were looking for.
And we wished we hadn’t found it. The pure terror and evil that we had been going through was nothing compared to the horror we read as we went through Robless’ plans.

He had planned the death of millions of billions of trillions of innocents. The entire Alteriian population was the be exterminated, in the most horrifying ways one could imagine. It went in deep detail the suffering Robless would cause the Alteriians, and the rest of the Nega-Dimension species, to endure, even though Robless had no plans of letting anyone or anything endure him at all.

I watched you as you read through the information. I watched as blood vessels in your eyes exploded, as your hands gripped the holo-communicator so hard that you twisted the metal. I watched as fear, anxiety, hate, and hope were evaporated out of you, with something else filling in.

Something inside you… snapped. You broke into a thousand sharp and icy shards even as I was looking at you. You looked up once you had finished reading, blood pouring from your eyes in a macabre mixture of tears, and you screamed. You attacked me. You simply splintered right there in front of me.

And so we fought, you viciously, me painfully, fighting my only and truest friend there in the secret lair of Robless, surrounded by even more death, and the plans of death, attacked by a destroyed creature infront of me, who had forgotten that I was the one who made him laugh when the thunderbolts clouded his vision, that I was the one who shared his hope with him, even when he had none… The one that made the horror horror, so that he did not grow numb to evil…

You only thought, ‘I was the commander. It was my fault.’

But indeed, I was the commander, and I was the stronger of the two of us, despite your utter disregard for any pain I caused you. You did not care if you lived, and that made you powerful, but I did care if I won, and that made me stronger. I eventually, after a grueling twenty minute duel, defeated you, and threw you down the communications node we had just spent a hundred burning ours climbing up.

I made it home eventually, through all the horror, alone, my own hearts literally bleeding…

And all the time I thought I had killed my best friend. I thought you were dead.

But no.

You must have lived. Somehow survived that fall. If you were ever anything, you were a survivor.
You must have broken virtually every bone in your body, between your duel with me and the fall. You would be powerless to escape Robless’ minions…”

Archelaus’ voice had been rising and rising, to the peak at the next paragraph.

“And they must have tortured you in ways I cannot even imagine. Tortured you for information about me, your enemy, but you could not give them any. The only thing you could see in your mind was the pain. They caused you so much pain you forgot what everything else was like. For the next nine hundred years they caused you pain, Pain, PAIN. FIRE AND FLAMES, A RAGING INFERNO OF FLAMES. Your mind was reduced to nothing!!! but out of spite they caused you pain. There was nothing to you anymore, besides the terrible pain…!
And so, in order to live through the fire, you became the fire. You were fire. You became chaos, a shifting and writhing mass of blazing flames. There was no distinguishing between you and the pain.

Your entire being was erased by this burning, never ending pain. You forgot your life, you forgot why you were there, you forgot what the sky looked like, what you looked like, what the room you were in looked like, you forgot everything but darkness and pain.
You were always a survivor.

And then you escaped, bewildered that the pain had ended, but you were still pain. Your own mind torturing itself. You no longer understood concepts beyond pain.”

Archelaus was breathing deeply, as the emotional toll of the story, and the exertion of telling it. His audience stood silently, their attention rapt, even during this brief pause.
Archelaus’s voice became so soft it was barley audible, yet everyone understood his words.

“But…
I remember you.

You don’t have to feel pain anymore. Do you remember me…? Arch? Do you remember Arch? I’m here for you, just as I always have been, if ever you had asked. I would have carried you the whole way back if you had let me. I would have given my life for you in a heartbeat.
You have been tortured to the point where you don’t understand what compassion is,
But let me show you.
You thought no one cared. That life was just you.
But I care. I will go there with you.
If you will let me…
Please.”

The last word hung in an silence so thick you could taste it… The vastness of the story weighed on everyone present. The way in which it was told, even more so. The imports of this moment went hundreds of years into the past, to a realm in which most of the leaders had never experienced.

And yet…
All it took was one silver word.
One word.

Verax stood silently. The weapons retracted into his armor. It was true.... every word. This.... this story.
"Arch......" He whispered, realization dripping from his voice. Verax started flailing and screaming. The totality had hit him. This.... everything.... no.... none of it had changed. This... he had gone too far!
"Too far!!" This changed "Nothing!" This.... this was the moment! The moment of retribution! MY "Retribution!" This.... this "TRAITOR!!!!" had to be put down! Verax roared in agony. Then calmed..... he had a wonderful idea. Vengeance.... one using his old friend's own ability against him, and if that should fail.... well..... Verax had some new tricks since their last clash. This time.... victory was assured. He hoped. He let himself be clear of all thoughts... save for one. Help. He held out his hand.
"Yes."

<Emerik the Blade looked up at the Martian sky.
It had been a long while since he had been here, in this desert.
The Sun is starting to get low in the sky.
...dangerous things roam the Martian desert at night.
He looked over at Archelaus and the others, who were talking to some man Emerik had never seen before.
But that didn't matter right now.
What mattered was getting to Olympus Mons.
To find the Wise One.
To get the parasite.>

<Walks over to where the two men are standing, looks up at the both of them.>
<to Archelaus> We need to get moving. <looks to Verax>
Is he gonna be a problem, Archelaus?

Archelaus stood where he was, unmoving, each hand carrying a Eios Retrankan, his shields on maximum, ready and posed to defend himself and his friends.

Now he had to decide whether Verax was sincere or not.
It would be impossible to tell, even with touching his mind... sincerity is not always an emotion...

Archelaus had a choice to make.

On one hand, they have the chance to dis-arm the enemy, and potentially gain an ally, or they could fight him in a battle which they knew practically nothing about...

If Archelaus had not known what the emptiness of gray was like, then he immediately would have chosen to kill Verax.
But Archelaus had felt sorrow similar to Verax's. He knew what pain was, although his was a smothering darkness, instead of a burning fire.
Archelaus knew that if Verax wanted to, he could come back from these centuries of pain.

But he couldn't take the chance. He didn't know what hundreds of years could do to someone, especially if that someone was already broken.
Verax was broken.
The heavy-hearted Alteriia knew it.

There was no escaping it... He had to find the pretatdor and stop the parasite from taking over his one true love, Aurora.
He could not let anything, or anyone get in the way of this.
The Code of the Alteriia already demanded his death.
He couldn't take the chance, that Verax would betray him...
He couldn't risk everything on Verax... not unless Verax could convince him... not unless...

The High Druid slightly lowered his blade...

"Verax!" He called, across the meters of desert sand,
"Convince me please, lest I need to destroy you." Archelaus' voice was pleading...

But Verax knew his game had been called.

"Verax... I'm sorry..." Archelaus said, his weary hearts taking yet another load upon them.
"There is nothing I would have done differently... but... still, I am sorry."

As he spoke these last words, Archelaus lunged forward at Verax, covering the distance in three ligthing quick steps that belied his great size; his Katranka shooting off bolts of Rolxanii energy, his orb slamming mystical power into his warp-ed left side.
The battle had begun.

"No one calls my love, Aurora, a bitch."

Cassus watched as the scene unfolded. It only confirmed his suspicions. Verax, was it? It was a long time since he'd heard that name at all. He remembered only the dossier the NSI managed to steal from the Acropolis before they broke free of the main Stalker faction. Dangerous, not to be dealt with, unstable, murderous. And that was only the good part about Verax. The rest was too horrible to think about.

Verax offered his hand towards Archelaus, and Cassus sensed that something bad was about to go down. Without thinking for his own safety, he reached for the Excalibur's trigger. It's now or never, he thought to himself. Even with it's high-powered rounds, he expected the hulking Verax to shrug it off, but hoped it would give the others a chance to react.

Verax's reflexes were better than he anticipated, and he turned towards the direction of the shooter almost right as the round hit him. Before Cassus could load another round, he felt a heavy slug rip into his shoulder and throw him backwards, down the hill. His arm probably would've come clean off if he had been any less of a man. The suit informed him or blood loss as he tumbled down the hill, struggling to stay conscious as his rifle slipped from his hand.

"Agh..." He gripped his arm and attempted to hold it together as he limped towards Caz. "My arm..." Cassus collapsed in his barely-conscious form as the Kazesqui rushed to his aid. He could only hope that the others had the window they needed.

Verax made a noise in between a roar of pain and a roar of laughter as he turned back to Archelaus from dealing with that child and his tiny toy gun.
"YES! Excellent choice!! But.... you have NO HOPE of defeating ME old friend!" Verax in a flash, jumped to the shuttle, picked up the largest piece of the ship, and threw it at Archelaus.

"NO EXCUSES! I will see you die fighting!" At this Verax lunged at Emerik, and in one fluid motion, threw him at Robless.

"NO SURPRISES! NO ESCAPES!" And four rockets left Verax's armor, and made a bee-line straight for Cassus, Caz, and Zyria.

"I WILL NOT SUFFER AGAIN! YOU WILL ALL KNOW PAIN!" And with quick wave of his arm, a spacial tear tore through Archelaus's weapons, like a wall of energy, and ripped them in half.
He made a safe jump back an prepared for the incoming counter strike. Now was killing time! His favorite part of the day! Yay!

Caz let go of Zyria in a heartbeat, rushing towards fallen soldier's bleeding body. "Cassus!" He drew his pistol, absently firing a few shots in Verax's direction as he came down the hill towards Cassus, then calling out to the others, "Drugari's down! Cover us!" before he kneeled, now out of sight. He moved Cassus into a better position so he could see the wound, but his heart tightened at the sight of it. It was mangled and bloody, almost completely torn apart. Caz took a breath, then pressed his hands over Cassus' shoulder exerting energy into and around it, then ever so slowly... he first converted some of it to bone matter, which was hard, and Caz hoped that he didn't screw it up. "Come on, come on, come on..." he muttered under his breath. Once the bone was repaired, he moved up to the muscle tissue. This would be... even harder. Fiber by fiber, Caz did his best to replicate Cassus' already existing tissues. There might have been a few mistakes, but Caz figured that anything was better than nothing. Finally, he made it to the skin. Creating the skin layers, finishing off the fix, Caz started to feel a little tired. It had taken more energy than he had expected to heal Cassus' arm... he stumbled back in the sand, supporting himself with one arm.

As the missles plummetted towards them, Caz was helpless to do anything. He only raised one arm in self defense, not knowing what would happen and not able to do anything more.