Shit's 'bout to get real.

SEE CHAPTER 1 FOR DISCLAIMERS

-CHAPTER START-

The Confederacy's corruption and covert oppression did not go unchallenged over the centuries. Countless small rebellions and insurrections popped up, but they were always either too disorganized or too small, and never cropped up on Sol due to the fear. Those that fell to the Confederacy were horribly punished; the leaders, in addition to being made pennies, were sometimes rejuved to the age of memory loss… while others were assassinated or executed. The few rebellions around in the modern era kept themselves well-hidden, waiting for any opportunity to strike at least a decisive blow somewhere on the Confederacy. Things looked bleak.

Until Grace Staunton-Howard entered the scene.

Grace Staunton had a slightly checkered past. As a teenager, she'd done some stupid things from hanging out with the wrong crowds, and that had gotten her time as a Juvinala Penitatas. She had long since realized the short-sighted stupidity of her actions back then, and had grown up much straighter, taking her assigned guardians' surname as her second one. In her life, she'd picked up quite a bit of leadership skills from various sources, and had also become a skilled orator. She'd garnered a bit of a following, and had discovered hints of the multiple rebellions-in-waiting, choosing to become an outspoken advocate of an overhaul of the system.

Apparently, someone had taken umbrage to this, and had gotten her framed for some white-collar crime. She thus found herself being unjustly saddled with a 4x10-12 sentence. However, she was far smarter than her "handlers", and she set into motion "Plan B". Through methods still unknown (she, to this day, refuses to divulge this particular secret), she came into contact with all of the various factions scattered across human space, including several hiding in the Sol System's worlds. She had worked hard to get them to coalesce into a single unified force. When the time came to decide a leader for this force, the factions unanimously elected Grace as leader, to her great surprise. Nonetheless, she accepted.

But they would need numbers to challenge the Confederacy, numbers that the newborn alliance didn't have. But a solution soon presented itself. Over their long, covertly-tyrannical rule, the Confederacy had forcefully rejuved billions of people for various reasons and through various methods. Billions of potential members of the rebellion. So she and her new "Council" sent out the call-to-arms, to those willing to help take the Confederacy down a few dozen pegs.

One of the people to heed the call was Ken Scott, an extraordinarily gifted slicer living on the border between the Inner and Outer Colonies. Due to his being a political idealist, he signed in. He was granted access to the rebellion's best tech, combined with his own genius, and he soon made a positively horrifying discovery: detailed personal records and data that showed just how horribly corrupt the Confederacy was, how many people they had unjustly crushed in one way or another, and various other things ranging from "unsavory" to "atrocity". This data galvanized the rebellion's resolve, and also led to a new decision: there would be no attempting to reform or change the Confederacy; it was far too corrupt and oppressive. It had to go. And force-of-arms would be the only reliable way to do it.

Howard, Scott, and the others got to work in continuing to clandestinely spread the word. They soon garnered not-insignificant numbers to their cause, while Mr. Scott got to work developing tech to aid in the coming strife.

Ken Scott's being betrayed by an associate (who was "killed in a hovercar accident" before he could blow the rebellion's cover) and being made into penitatas "Kate Compton" did little to slow the coming storm; within a month, he – or rather she – was again in contact with Grace, made easier because they were now on the same planet. Unlike all other rebellions the Confederacy had faced, this one would spring forth from right under its nose.

Through methods unknown, the unjustly-punished rejuves themselves were soon brought into the fold, informed of the situation and of the chance to strike back, a chance they readily accepted. The word spread to other sympathizers quickly as well, and the rebellion's hidden ranks began to swell further.

In August of 2550, the famed Confederate Navy Commander John Devine became a Medicalos stationed on Earth after a heroic near-sacrifice. He, a good-hearted man, had always been suspicious about "potential" corruption in the Confederacy, and had been planning a quiet investigation to see just how bad it was. Grace and Kate saved him the trouble, sending him the full data, to his horror. He readily signed up, soon being made Grace's second-in-command. The presence of a now-sector-renowned hero helped to increase the recruitment rate.

October 12th of 2550 provided the biggest boon to the rebellion yet. Droid expeditions sent out by the rebellion discovered something unfathomable: ancient and massive structures, well over 100,000 years old, buried and hidden beneath Antarctica, inside Olympus Mons on the terraformed Mars, and on the far side of the Moon. These structures, which used some sort of space-time manipulation to be several orders of magnitudebigger inside than outside, were quickly discovered to be some form of titanic war-forges, capable of pulling materials from any point in space-time and crafting weapons and vehicles of war. The schematics for their builders' tech were gone, deliberately erased as the facilities had been abandoned by their makers as they pulled back to their home dimension in a failed attempt to stem the tide of some great enemy (something about a "flood"), but the machines were more than capable of reaching across dimensions and acquiring schematics for weapons & vehicles used by extant military-possessing civilizations in different realms. Furthermore, these structures could teleport the finished products anywhere they were needed upon completion (even across interstellar distances), and/or keep them stored until they were needed. Now, the rebellion had an ever-growing number of troops and a method to get the hardware they needed.

Soon, these forges were set to work, reaching across the multiverse and acquiring schematics, and soon construction began on weapons and vehicles designed by other-realm military civilizations called the "United Nations Space Command", "Koprulu Sector", "Coalition of Ordered Governments", and "The Galactic Republic". Everything was constructed at extraordinary speed, ever unceasing – millions upon millions of vehicles, billions upon billions of weapons, and untold trillions of rounds of ammunition. And war tech wasn't the only thing produced. Computer technology, communications gear, medical technology, and various other things were produced; by far the most valuable would be UNSC encryption and hacking tech, and Republic and UNSC medical tech (bacta, biofoam, and the ability to flash-clone cells, tissues, and individual organs were all incalculably valuable).

Numbers for the rebellion continued to grow. On November 12th of 2550, Howard and Devine, with Scott-Compton's help, broadcasted across human space a transmission that acted as a call-to-arms to anyone willing to fight the Confederacy. It accomplished two things: it caused a further swell in numbers, and it spooked the Confederates, who were unable to even determine which sector of space it had come from, so good was Compton's work. Melody Marston-Johnson was amongst the newest explosive growth in numbers in response to the transmission.

On December 31st, 2550, after much deliberation, a name was bestowed upon this massive rebellion: the Phoenix Insurrectionist League. Grace was named Chairwoman, with Devine as her Vice-Chairman. The next day, a complex system was set up by the League to get their people ready to fight. With the debilitating functions of nano-webs not only neutralized, but reversed, the many rejuves of the League began to train, mentally and physically, for what would come. Their brains were altered to take in information at a quicker pace, so that training and study became much more productive. How did they get around the problem of vigilant penni-parents? That's later on in this chapter.

On January 31st of 2551, Kate Compton took a calculated risk. She had grown up in a neglectful household, and her current penni-parents were, in contrast to her birth ones, kind, attentive, loving, and all-around some of the best parents ever (in her humble opinion). She had come to love them, and she chose to bring them at least partially into the loop. To "test the waters", she showed them the truth behind the Confederacy's façade of fairness and peace, the countless examples of rampant corruption, greed, oppression, framing, and various things. Kelvin and Jane Compton were utterly horrified; the government they'd been working with was a monstrous dire-wolf in sheep's clothing. Satisfied by their reactions, Kate showed them the Insurrection. She was planning on solemnly leaving them behind as she went on to work and fight, feeling that they at least had earned the right to not be fooled about what their "daughter" was up to. She told them that she truly loved them, admitted her affection-starved upbringing and how she considered them to be her real parents. She apologized that she'd have to leave them to fight.

They shot this down by volunteering to join the League.

"We won't let you do this alone, chick" Jane had said. "You're our baby; there's no way in Hell we'd led you be without us."

"Besides…" Kelvin had continued, "If it means a chance to help take down those monsters, we're with you all the way."

After a tearful group-hug, the altruistic couple had formally signed up with the League. They worked to help with the covert cover-up to keep Kate free of punishments so she could devote all her attention to the League, and also volunteered to help provide what emotional support they could to whatever rejuved members needed it.

In early February, the main branch of the League, on Earth, received their physically-biggest asset: having reached across time and space, the Antarctica forge had found a damaged but serviceable vessel in orbit over the burnt world called Reach. The ship had been mission-killed, leaving its command crew dead and its other surviving personnel escaped via lifepod or dropship, but its weapons, reactor, and even its FTL drive intact (though the navigational data had been deliberately scoured by its previous owners). The forge accessed schematics and repaired the 485-meter-long vessel over the course of a month. The League now had its own UNSC Burke-class Destroyer to provide heavy muscle and fire-support, its original name still proudly displayed in slightly-singed white "paint" near the front of its arrowhead bow: Black Talon.

Preparations and recruitment continued at a steady pace, and soon the stage was set. All over human space, on practically every human-populated world, large cells of the Phoenix Insurrectionist League waited for the signal. However, this story will focus on the conflict on Earth - where the main branch of the League was stationed, where the heaviest fighting took place, and where the outcome of the war itself was decided.

On April 6th, 2551, an independent judicial investigation discovered Grace Staunton-Howard's innocence. From that day, the black "P" on her hand was replaced by a silver "I", the mark of an Innocenta. But this was far too little and far too late to stop what was coming.

On April 9th, the massive but scarcely-manned subterranean base formerly known as NORAD under the mountains of Colorado was isolated from the rest of the world by precision communications disruption, and then quickly taken over and made into a headquarters for the North America branch of the League, which was headed by none other than Grace and Devine themselves.

The powder keg was ready. Now to toss the lit match…

-SCENE BREAK-

Confederation Hall (formerly United Nations Headquarters)

New York City, NY

April 10th, 2551

The massive hall, filled with delegates from every human-controlled world and several from the nonhuman sapient races allied with the Confederacy (Jalaxian, Rigellian, and Drakonian), along with the two-dozen or so figures who made up the absolute peak of the Confederate leadership (President M'Butu and her Cabinet, military heads, and megacorp CEOs) went quiet as the massive screens along the north wall suddenly went fuzzy for several seconds, and then faded into clarity to show a single seated figure. She was wearing what was obviously a military officer's uniform, except one that was wholly different from the Confederacy's style… and from any other known races', for that matter. Her face was a mask of professionalism, but her eyes showed resolution, anger, and contempt. She looked around 10 physically, and her hands, folded in front of her, both showed a silver "I" on the back of each one.

"Leaders of the Confederacy" the girl began, far more calm and controlled than any 10-year-old could be naturally. "My name is Grace Staunton-Howard. I am an Innocenta, as you can see. I represent and lead the Phoenix Insurrectionist League. We are an organization stretching across all human-controlled worlds, the result of a merger between the various dissenting rebel factions and oppressed & disenfranchised peoples simmering under your government's oppressive and tyrannical rule. There are tremendous cells of us on all human worlds, especially here in the Sol System. We number in the billions. And, for all the oppression, all the concealed atrocities, all the deception, all the unforgivable crimes you have committed against the human race, we shall be the end of you."

Everyone in attendance stood in shocked silence, staring at the screen. Suddenly, reports came in.

"Sirs!" a man shouted. "Whoever's doing this has hacked it so it's being broadcast on every television and radio across the entire Sol System!"

"Ma'am!" another man shouted to the President. "We're getting reports of similar broadcasts by different individuals in every inhabited star system in the Confederacy! Inner and Outer Colonies!"

"Our slicers are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of our resources and capabilities" Grace announced.

"What do you want?" growled a man, the (corrupt) head of the Justice Department.

"Freedom. Truth. Vengeance. That sort of thing."

"Some detail would be nice, please" snarked the representative from planet Nadia in a deadpan tone. The man was known to maintain aloof calmness and unerring snarkiness no matter what he was faced with.

"For the last several centuries," Grace continued, "your arrogant, greedy, and hopelessly corrupt rule has caused billions to unjustly suffer. We are well aware of just how deep the corruption in the Confederacy goes, how many things you've done, how many people you've crushed to protect your own interests and made into pennies just because they tried to speak up for the right thing or even because they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time or knew too much, how many lies you've perpetrated, how many unforgivable acts you have performed."

"What basis do you have for these accusations, Ms. Staunton-Howard?" President M'Butu asked.

"President Akta M'Butu" Grace said, her voice and eyes softening slightly. "Thanks to our informants, we are well aware that you are not part of the titanic conspiracy enveloping the Confederacy. We know you are a genuinely kind soul, and are amongst the billions who have been led along by the Confederacy's long-running lies, carefully kept ignorant of just how far the government you have been fooled into believing you have any control over has fallen. You are a good person, and fighting against you will be one of the moral low-points of this conflict, but a necessary one. We hold no ill will towards you, Mrs. President, but the nature of the Confederacy – the corruption inherent in so many people and systems and positions - means that its existence can no longer be tolerated. We sincerely pray that you survive the coming conflicts."

The President stood shocked, and carefully made a concealed glance around her; some of the people were just as shocked as she was… but others looked more nervous than shocked, like a penni who'd been caught with both hands in the cookie jar. 'This is worrying…' she thought.

"After great deliberation, we, the Phoenix League, have come to the conclusion that the Confederacy is so fallen, so corrupt, so irreparably twisted into a dark perversion of its founding self, that the only way to rid the galaxy of this corrupted government… is by force of arms."

This drew unanimous reactions of shock, both from those in attendance at the hall and from everyone all over the Sol System who heard it.

"W-What do you mean by that?" asked the woman who represented the Education Board.

"For quite some time…" Grace said, "we have been using a series of automated forges left behind by a long-extinct race – not the ones who made the Rejuve tech, but possibly just as advanced - to create weapons and war-vehicles, and send them to each and every one of our cells across human space. We have been training intensively for this. Every last member of the Phoenix League is combat-trained personnel, and we are, each and every one of us, prepared to kill and prepared to die in order to achieve our freedom."

The screen then changed to show images and recordings of a proportionately-tiny fraction of the Phoenix League's armed forces and military hardware. Of course, "proportionately" meant that what was shown was still huge. But something else was of notice: a significant majority of personnel shown were rejuves.

"That," Grace said as her image returned, "was but a small fraction of our numbers and resources. We are the largest military force in all of human history."

"Furthermore," said another voice, "we are considerably better trained than the average Confederate soldier". As the owner came into picture, standing beside the still-seated Grace, people the world over gasped in shock.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Grace said, "I introduce you to my second-in-command."

Standing amongst the other military personnel in the Grand Hall, Rebecca Devine had but one thing to say: "Why?"

"Because, mother," John replied over the screen, "the things I have learned have convinced me that the Confederacy is truly, utterly irredeemable."

Two more figures stepped forth, both of them physically-young girls. The one standing to Grace's left was a girl with shoulder-length golden-blond hair, wearing the insignia of a Sergeant, and with a noticeable thin scar below her right eye, and a hardcore look in her eyes. The girl standing to John Devine's right had long light-blue hair in a low ponytail, and long, pointed ears; her face was another stoic, serious look, but her eyes seemed to be lacking in light a little.

"This," Grace gestured to the girl by her side, "is Melody. Perhaps you remember from the news the recent incident, before we found her, when she single-handedly beat the crap out of the Clyde Brothers? Or the incident before that, when a hacked Spank-Master nearly killed her? Melody was made a scapegoat in an embezzlement scam pulled by a rather high-ranking businessman. She has quickly become somewhat of a figurehead amongst the soldiers of the Sol branch of the League."

"Though sometimes I think I'm more of a mascot than a figurehead to some of them" Melody grumbled, clear enough for everyone to understand; Grace patted her on the shoulder.

"And this," John gestured to the not-quite-human next to him, "is Ishtar. She is a member of the Elvaan race, which you Confederates have yet to formally recognize the existence of. She was penalized terribly harshly by the Confederacy for merely following her government's orders. She was sent here on reconnaissance, to gather data on certain MIA members of the Elvaan Navy and bring the data back home. You Confederates responded to her carrying out her mission by making her into a Black Circle."

Several people gasped.

"Why was I not informed of this?-!" President M'Butu harshly asked her Chief of Nonhuman Sapient Relations, a weedy man who withered under her gaze.

"What's more…" Ishtar said in a quiet, slightly-shaking voice, "is that you denied me the final, most sacred rite of my people: my death. I was reaching the end of my species' lifespan, and was preparing to abscond with the data, send it to my superiors, and allow myself to fall into my last eternal sleep, drifting through space for eternity with my ship as my coffin. Death is considered a natural facet of life, to be avoided if possible but embraced if not. That you humans use your "rejuve" tech to flee from and postpone death is not, in itself, wrong. But that you would deny people an honorable end, punish them for not holding up to your "standards" and "methods", refuse to grant the warriors of other cultures you face in battle the honor of a death in combat, choosing instead to demean them, destroy them, by reducing them to helpless, de-aged prisoners to suffer in indignity… is unforgivable! You didn't save my life! You ruined my death! And what's worse, you turned me into a helpless little child, and took my body's purity for your own sick pleasure! You… demons!-!"

At this point, she could no longer speak coherently, Melody walking over to her and pulling her into a hug, the Elvaan girl burying her face in Mel's shoulder and crying softly.

"Ishtar is but one of countless people you Confederates have made suffer unjustly over the centuries" Grace said darkly, her and John giving simultaneous death-glares into the camera that made children (and many adults) watching the broadcast shudder and quake and feel like they were looking down the barrel of a blaster. Grace then turned to behind her seat.

"Compton! Your turn for exhibition!"

The holocam's view shifted as the camera droid hovered several feet up, allowing it view of behind the desk that Grace was seated at. Some lights came on as the droid moved forward and then took up position at its previous altitude but now on the other side of Grace's "throne", revealing a black-haired girl with a sly grin on her face, standing near a holo-projector.

"This" Grace's voice said from off-camera, "is Kate Compton, born Ken Scott. He/she was and is one of our most important members – the head of our Military Intelligence Division, our chief engineer, and one of the most gifted slicers in human history. Her contributions, as Ken and as Kate, have been truly invaluable. She's about to tell you some of the ways we've circumvented the problems of having people who are physically children make up a significant majority of our forces. You'll have to excuse how… peppy… she is for this; she has long since disabled her own nano-web, but she has a touch of salesman in her when she's showing off her tech."

"I heard that" Kate said, "and I agree with it. Well, first let me explain how our minds, which you Confederates sought to cripple with nano-webs and childish bodies, have been dealt with. During production, I dubbed the solution "Project Aphrodite", because I codenamed all my big Projects after Greek deities that fitted them, but couldn't find one that fit this project well, so I reached into a metaphorical hat and pulled out "Aphrodite". For quite some time, I've had and used my personally-devised tech that can reprogram nanites in situ or pre-implantation. I also had a cell-sized neural implant that deactivated my nano-web, which activated about a month after I was rejuved. What I've done with Project Aphrodite is to enact further changes to the implants. Now, not only is the nano-web's default function deactivated, it's reversed. Childlike impulses are completely suppressed, and clarity of thought and emotional control the likes of which an immature mind cannot achieve is given. In short: we are adults in all but physical form.

"What's more, I've also introduced another humongous upgrade to our neural nets. It lets the human brain safely gather and process new information at a considerably higher rate than normal, and allows people to literally learn things much more quickly and with less effort than the average human brain can. Training and study produces better results much sooner. This augmentation is for all our personnel, not just rejuves. Lastly, we of the Black Ops divisions had nanobot-based sensory enhancements, allowing us to see, hear, and smell things normal humans can't. And yes, I solved the issue that caused that 10,000-dead tragedy a couple of decades back. I'm also working on superconducting fibrification of neural dendrites, to boost the performance of shock troopers' and Black-Ops field personnel's central nervous systems.

Kate took a drink of water before continuing. "Now, as for our bodies – how are we who are physically children supposed to perform on the battlefield? I present to you… Project Heracles!"

From the shadows stepped out the girl known as Dani Wilson-Roberts. But something was very eye-catchingly different. For one, her seven-year-old 1.34-meter-tall body was now clad in dull-grey armor, which added a couple of inches to her height. Only her head was visible, and that was soon mitigated as she brought forth a full-head helmet and pulled it on, an HUD visor obscuring her face. The armor somehow looked both streamlined and slightly bulky at the same time.

"This" Kate announced "is the Mark-IV Heracles-class Powered Armor. Powered by a miniature – and very stable – fusion reactor located in the upper rear torso section, this device amplifies the wearer's physical strength, speed, agility, and endurance. It has an integrated air supply for up to 35 minutes, and is controlled partly through the user's natural movements and partly via a link to a standard-issue neural implant in the back of the skull. The models used by our Blackfire Phoenix shock-troopers and our Spec-Ops & Black-Ops personnel have decent-strength recharging energy shields, too. Wearing these, a physically-young soldier has strength somewhere above the average adult human. Our physically-adult combat personnel have the same type of armor, but the strength enhancement isn't quite as high. That said, though, every single member of our forces has trained their bodies to peak physical condition."

The people were stunned. Such extraordinary technological advances… and they were in the hands of a hostile power? After several seconds, the head of the Justice Department spoke up.

"H-How have you gotten soldiers prepared for all this? Especially rejuves, who are under watch by their assigned guardians…"

Kate laughed. "That was one of the most ambitious of our projects. We found, through our super-forges' trans-dimensional links, a way to create a unique type of clone. Unlike any "typical" clone, these were created as exact duplicates of their progenitors, with full memories and knowledge of what they are. What's more, they'll never technically die, since when they cease to be, every single memory and experience they've gathered in their existence will be instantaneously transferred back to the progenitor. It's less 'cloning' and more 'one person becomes two for a period of time and then merges back into one', for lack of a better description. Of course, due to… something… we can't make any more, but these were really all we needed to. Ma'am?"

Grace nodded, and a signal was sent out. All across human space, billions of rejuved individuals, from Innocenta to Black Circle, gave varying expressions (none quite negative) and then abruptly vanished in puffs of "smoke" (actually their bodies breaking down at an atomic level), often in full view of their horrified "guardians" as the broadcast continued to issue forth over their TVs and radios. A second later, every person who had a Duplicate was briefly incapacitated as their minds sorted through the flood of memories (good and bad, praises and punishments), the little pieces of their souls returning to rejoin the whole. The reports on this phenomenon quickly found their way to the people in The Hall, but they were all too stunned to say anything about it.

"As our split-selves lived our public lives," Grace said as the camera-droid returned to her and those around her, "we have been training and studying intensely, honing our minds and bodies to the closest to perfection that we could bring them to. Military tactics and strategies, necessary sciences and skills, martial-arts, CQC, weapons usage… we have trained intensively for it all. For what will now truly begin."

"What beginning do you speak of?" said President M'Butu, her stoic voice masking the emotional turmoil she and everyone else felt.

Grace's voice rose, anger and conviction seeping into it. "For the tyranny you have subjected the people to… For the lies you have propagated… For the atrocities you have committed… For the sake of the human race… On this day, the 10th of April in the year of 2551 AD… we, the Phoenix Insurrectionist League… hereby formally declare war upon the Sol Confederacy!"

Reactions ranging from disbelief to shock to horror to outrage resounded through the Hall, across the nation, across the planet, across the system, across all human space.

"Ready yourselves" Grace spoke with an iron tone. "The first large-scale human-against-human conflict in over 500 years has begun… and Mother Earth will, after so long, again feel the fires of war…"

With that, the transmission ended; all across the Sol System, the verbal conflict between this new force and The Hall came to its end, the system-wide slicing of all communications disengaging and returning regular programming to the utterly shocked populace. In The Hall, shock and silence reigned.

"Well…" said the suave voice of the Jalaxian ambassador. "Nice to see that our suspicions of corruption amongst humanity seem to have some truth to them, and that somebody's standing up for the little guy."

"(What nonsense do you speak, feline?-!)" came the hisses and growls of the angry Drakonian ambassador, translated by ear implants of those who didn't know the Drakonian tongue. "(These rebels dare to level such accusations?-! We have lived alongside the humans for centuries and have never seen the "corruption" they have accused!)"

"You weren't looking hard enough, then!" snapped the Jalaxian ambassador.

The Hall soon dissolved into rampant shouting between all parties, all with President M'Butu trying in vain to restore order while the Rigellian ambassador quietly slinked out, on his way to inform his people of the coming conflict and recommend evacuation of all human-controlled worlds until it had come to its eventual conclusion, however long it may last.

As he left, the Rigellian remembered a prophecy he had heard made by a psychically-adept human child four years earlier:

"A war is coming. I've seen it in my dreams. Fires sweeping over the Earth, bodies in the streets, cities turned to dust… retaliation. The bloodiest war the galaxy has seen in over forty thousand years… is coming…"

-CHAPTER END-

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