Hello, readers! I know I have been absent as of late, but summer has been just as busy as school! Weird, right? Anyways, this is something that came to me as I was playing Mass Effect and now we have Eltrion, the new raid boss, running around the NA server. So, I kind of put them together and came up with this new story. This is basically the prologue to a running series I will be starting up. I am calling it: Project Network. It will consist of three parts: Template, Points and Lines. This is just the beginning of what I hope will be an exciting adventure. If you want to see my inspiration for this particular chapter, I suggest you look up "Mass Effect 3 Take Back Earth Trailer." You will see where I am going with this story. Now then, without further ado, enjoy Template, Part I of Project Network!
The sky was clear and a brilliant blue color as Solace hung high, shining down on the glowing green fields of grass. The air was warm and only mildly moist, a perfect day in Elrios to be out and about in the solaceflowers, chasing beetles. A bright tone of laughter broke the chorus of singing birds and buzzing cicadas.
A streak of sable tore through the greens and yellows of the solaceflowers, chasing after a large coccinellidae. A shaggy, brown collie pursued it, barking as it went. The giggling song echoed through the cloudless sky, before being interrupted by cheery voice.
"Kokoro, where are you? It's time for lunch!" A female voice, filled with the stern intonations of a mother, called out to the black flash. The ebony streak finally halted and resolved into a young girl of the age of twelve. Her bright orange summer dress ruffled against the tall green stalks around her as she answered the voice.
"Coming, Mom! Let's go Hayate!" She turned to the dog and started running off towards the source of the voice, the dog barking happily in response as it faithfully followed its master. The huge flowers rustled as the little girl and her pet darted through them, and eventually they were greeted by a smiling woman with sable hair outside the field of the large plants, a quaint cottage behind her.
"There you are. Did you have fun, my little adventurer?" The woman crooned as the child flew into her arms.
"Yeah! Hayate and I saw a bunch of really cool bugs!" The child cheered as she told her mother of her little adventure.
"Oh? Did you catch any? Because I don't think we can afford another pet." The woman teased the little girl, who pouted in response.
"Aw… Why not, mom? It would give Hayate someone to play with." Kokoro argued.
"But he has you, my brave little adventurer." The mother countered, a playful gleam in her eyes.
"That's true… But then we would have another friend to play with!" Undeterred, the child pressed on and her mother chuckled as she set her daughter down.
"Ok then. Tell you what. If you can catch one of those bugs, you can keep it. Now let's go inside and eat some lunch." She lovingly patted her little girl on the head as she admitted defeat.
"Yay!" The girl jumped up and down for joy, her black hair following her motions like waves in the sea.
But then, the joyful conversation was broken by a series of angry barks. The sudden change startled the two females as they looked to their dog, who was furiously yapping at something in the distance.
It was then they heard… something. Like a low buzzing of a cicada, but synthesized. And then, a shadow extended from the field of solaceflowers as something blocked out the sun.
The mother was the first to look at this new presence and her face froze in fear.
It was massive.
The machination stood at an enormous seventy five meters and its body gleamed in a steely grey color with hints of ebony and electric blue. The wings extended at least twenty meters from its main body, giving it the appearance of a creature between a steel angel and a mechanical dragon. A frightening tail of cold steel whipped around behind it and its flat, crimson eyes in its elongated head were fixated on the two humans' home.
The girl turned to the gigantic entity, her eyes wide with terror and wonder. The dog continued to snarl and bark at the machine, but it soon degraded to pitiful whimpering as it darted into the cottage.
"Kokoro… get inside the house." The mother ordered her daughter in a shaky voice. The girl turned to her, her face showing unease.
"Mom…"
"NOW! Get inside the house!" Now she was shouting, and this was enough to spur the young girl away from the field and into the cottage, where she hid under the table in the kitchen next to the dog.
The woman, satisfied that her daughter was now in hiding, ran to the side of the house as the metal monstrosity grew ever closer. She skidded to a stop by a pile of tinder and she began to throw the pieces of wood into the yard, searching for something. Eventually, she pulled out a brown, leather sheath, and with a metallic sliding sound, a blade of brilliant steel shone in what light was left under the shadow of the colossal intruder.
She had practiced the basics of swordsmanship with the Elder garrison so she could defend herself from any bandits that decided to make her home a target. After she completed the course, she was given this iron blade to serve as her certification. But she never had to use those skills before. And now the enemy before her was something that a simple blade would likely not even scratch.
But she had to try. Or at least distract it while her daughter escaped, if necessary. This was the extent a mother would go for her child.
With this in mind, she let out as large of a battle cry as she could muster and sprinted around the corner of her home and towards the floating titan. Her cry echoed through the wind and…
She stopped.
Now that she was closer to it, it was even more intimidating; so intimidating that she could not move. She had felt fear before, but nothing like this. It was like gravity had skyrocketed where she stood. This was beyond simple fear.
It was witnessing a force so great in scope it could not be measured.
And by the time the juggernaut had floated over her head and come to a stop at the cottage did she realize that it was also intelligent.
"What are you doing?" She asked the metal giant as it floated over her home, hoping against hope that it would answer her.
But there was no reply. It merely raised a massive claw and held it over the roof of the house… where her daughter was hiding.
"What are you doing!?" She had finally started to overcome the overwhelming pressure that rooted her to the spot, but the entity before her seemed to not hear her, or just did not care. A great humming sound began to increase in volume as a sphere of blue light began to expand in the palm of the machine's outstretched hand.
"NO! STOP!" She began to turn to face the invader, shouting at it in desperation, but it still paid her no heed. This pressure kept her feet rooted to the ground and only allowed her pleading voice to escape her throat. The ball of energy in its hand increased in intensity and began to crackle with blue lightning, the titan's gaze still fixated on the cottage.
"KOKORO, RUN!" In a last desperate attempt, she called to her daughter just as the light exploded into a column of energy, engulfing the house. Her eyes could see the cottage disintegrate under the laser and she could have sworn she saw her daughter in the middle of the attack, vanishing before her eyes.
In the next instant, it was over. The pillar of light faded and where it struck was nothing, not even a crater. The now empty lot was crackling with linear arcs of what appeared to be electricity. Apart from that, nothing remained; even the foundation of the house was gone.
It was like it never existed in the first place.
Time froze around her, and the woman felt her knees giving way to gravity as she fell to the ground. She was powerless to stop it. Her daughter, her home, even her dog were all taken from her in an instant. And she did nothing but watch it happen.
As she struggled with her grief-stricken thoughts, the armored juggernaut finally shifted its gaze to her fallen form. By the time she realized it was now focused on her, it was already over her, its hand hanging over like a god about to bring judgment.
As she stared in to the expanding light in its palm thought blurry vision, she muttered pathetically.
"Why?"
However, the machine never broke its silence as the light engulfed her and she vanished from the plane of Elrios.
Kind of cliche in my opinion, but I had to do it. As always I welcome all kinds of reviews, except flames, which will be promptly fed to my delete button. If you don't have anything constructive (keyword: CONSTRUCTIVE) to say, then you are wasting my and the other readers' time. Anyways, Read and Review! I hope that this journey will be as cool as I envisioned it. COMMENCE PROJECT NETWORK!