Chapter 8: so it begins...
Pre comment: This is amazing. This area... I'm very proud of it.
Laughing, we walked through the portal. I was in the lead, and we came out on the far right of one of the four halls in a square that the 20 major portals that lined the outside and inside walls of the square, which was about 25000 yards by 25000 yards, with the portals evenly spaced and about 200 yards wide each, four portals were on each outside wall, and three were on each inside one about 500 yards away. The ceiling was about 2000 yards up, and there were so vastly many people here, it was mind boggling. You could probably say an entire planet's population came through here every hour. Anyone capable of it roamed the sky, and an incredible crowd of mostly human body mass was constantly shifting and flowing on the floors, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you were good at navigating a crowd, you could probably get from one end of the floor to the other in about an hour. If you hugged a wall, you could half that. Every inch of the area was under constant surveillance, and nothing could get done without it being seen, recorded, and then captured.
Where there would be a portal in the middle of the far side of the inner wall, there was a set of massive double doors leading into an indoor marketplace, about 15000 x 10000, yards of course, criss-crossed with shops of all kinds. On the far side of that there is another set of HUGE double doors. Through these is a hallway branching into three directions, forward, left, and right. Down the left, it branches in two directions, left leading to diplomat housing and right leading to the lesser, one or two world universe portals, there were about ten of these. If you went straight instead of turning left, you ended up in the chamber of the senate. If you continued on past there, you hit the council of five, which consisted of the commander in chief of the TUA military, the TUA official head of the Magical arts, the head of covert operations of the TUA high command, The master of TUA policy and law, and the head of social events and public relations. Despite anything anyone said, these five men controlled everything in the TUA, because only a 60/40 majority in the senate could overturn any one of their decisions. During a time of war, however, the Commander in Chief of the TUA military, often just called the Grandmaster of the military, had the most influence, and therefore power. If you turned right, however, you would wind up having another two way split, left into the residential district, and right to the military district, complete with soldier barracks.
Ark whistled really long, "I'm impressed, this was hard to make."
"I actually read something on that once…" Olevov began, gazing up at a flock of birds flying directly over us as we made our way counter clockwise through the crowd and towards the other side of the commons, "Apparently it took seven hundred mages vastly more powerful than me seventeen days of virtually nonstop concentration to isolate a place in non-space and create this to end the anarchy of the pre TUA days."
""Well, however it was done, I'm impressed by it." Mainad said, smiling and running the EVAPS along a wall, "This is fucking massive."
"I can't believe how many humans I see; there were never this many back home!" Locria commented jokingly, stepping over a passed out drunken man on her right who was asleep against a wall, "I'm just amazed by the size of it as well, you're saying this was conjured, not built?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying." Olevov responded, flashing a toothy grin, "This was why I started to study magic myself."
"I can see why." Z3 responded, chiming in, "You might be able to do something like this one day."
"Yeah right!" I said, chuckling, "Olevov, do this? He doesn't have the concentration!"
Olevov shot me a look, Mainad chuckled, and Moses punched Olevov in the arm, saying, "Whatever, I'm sure he could do it if he tried, right?"
"You bet I could. One day I will, just to prove you wrong." He said, returning to his usual, cheerful self.
--
We walked for a solid hour, still talking, until we finally arrived at the military district.
--
We waked up to the enlistment office. It was a large, somewhat impressive looking building with a gothic looking face and a few steps leading up to a large iron door about halfway into the district itself. I walked up to it and said, "You all know the plan right? Anyone have any objections to joining, after hearing Cropepsis is, in fact, insane enough to attack the TUA?"
Nobody said anything, until Mainad said, "Some of us are going to die before this war is over. Whether from old age, or some other reason, I just know it. Either quit now or risk getting shot as a deserter."
Nobody said anything still for what felt like hours, until…
"…I can't handle it. I don't want to fight anymore. I'm sorry, I've had too much!" Skyknight cried out, bursting into tears, "I've battled my whole life, my father, my friends, I'm done!"
"That's why you have free will. You don't have to fight if you don't want to." I responded, "Anybody else?"
Froth, Enflare, Oneshot and Z3 all said, "Me."
I sighed, and Mainad facepalmed, before he said, "Look, we don't want to force you to fight. You've done more than we had the right to make you do already, and we won't keep you here."
I turned to Enflare and said, "Well… If you are sure… I guess this is goodbye."
Enflare frowned for a moment before saying, "Well, not really… I mean, I'll still be here when you get back."
"We'll keep in touch." I said to her, smiling, "Take care of yourself Enflare, go have your peace."
"I will." said Enflare, smiling, "You just try not to die Zephyter."
"Oh, trust me, I will." I smiled back.
Z3 turned to Locria and said, "Well, I'm gonna miss you Locria… I just wish we could have gotten to know each other better, you know, outside of life or death fights…"
"Me too, I'm sure we'll get that chance." She responded, smiling and pushing her hair to one side, "I trust you'll be here as well? No big plans right?"
"No plans." Z3 nodded and said.
Skyknight said a fond farewell to Glaze and Ark, as did Oneshot, Enflare, and Froth, before I walked into the building…
--
Three weeks later…
--
I was in the briefing room of the TUA light cruiser Romek, which was currently orbiting the sylvan planet of Hyrule. For those of you who do not know much about military classes of ships, here's the basic run-through. Civilian ships are the weakest, with an exceptional few. Then there's the frigate, the weakest military ship, followed by the light cruiser, heavy cruiser, and the dreadnaught. Alternate chains include the fighter, bombardier, blockade runner, flagships, space stations, and land vehicles, which you know most of. The TUA cruiser had three rear facing particle beam cannons, capable of accelerating a shot, generally metallic in nature, to .9999999x the speed of light (Guns in space), three forward facing plasma beam guns, outfitted to accept magical input, such as fire enhancements or electricity bolts, and two missile sots on the underbelly. It carried a total of 20 missiles and was painted TUA colors, silver and blue. It was V shaped, not too terribly large, but could comfortably hold about 300 people, and had a crew manifest of fifty. It was about time to start the fight. I was in the briefing room, getting my orders from the captain. The TUA, thankfully, did not enforce a soldier dress code, and had been kind enough to allow me to remain in command of my men, starting my off as a low rank fifth class infantryman, while they were sixth class. There were six classes of infantry before you hit officer, there were three classes of that, then commander, then captain, then Bastidor, then General. We had a few squabbles early on about the more immature side of being an actual soldier company, such as the group name. We settled on Endeavor company.
"So, here's the plan infant (infant is a common, slightly degrading, shorter term for infantryman). Your company is going to do covert ops for this mission. This will be the first wave of a stike to take back one of the founding planets of the TUA, Hyrule. The enemy has anti aircraft guns set up all over the vicinity of their bases, we could take them out from orbit, but they're shielded, and the shield is plasmoid in nature, not magical. We've traced the shielding signal for this particular base back to this building here. You will take three people with you and be dropped from orbit outside of the walls of the city Radion on the blindside of one of the watchtowers while we drop a diversionary small bomb or two to help keep them off you. Avoid the sentries. Find safe passage into the city by any means necessary where you will rendezvous with one of our agents in a bar called the Upp And Inn. He'll be playing chess. Choose to be white, he'll offer, and immediately try to move your queen to take his king. This will signal you are in. he's scouted the city and found the easiest way to infiltrate the building, preferably silently. I don't care how you do it, but find the shield control, and shut it down. Once the shield is gone, we'll blast the anti air to hell from orbit and land a few dozen snipers to lock up the area. From there, wait for more orders." My commander Koron bitterly said to me, indicating the places on the map where anti air, drop zones, pickup zones, movement, and the like existed, "We have twelve other areas like this one being taken down by groups like yours. I chose yours for this mission because you are the broadest skill ranged company we have not fortifying our borders or under other orders from higher up. Get this done, and you'll go far."
"Yes, sir" I responded, smiling, "No problem."
He lightened his tone and said, "You should go inform your men, and pick your team.
"I will." I responded again before walking out the door. I walked down a hallway to my right and to a deck jump teleport pad, going down towards Endeavor company quarters. I walked over to the speaker controls and pushed the button to broadcast to all of their rooms, saying, "Meet me in the conference room, now."
It was 2:00 in the afternoon by your standards, by ours, it was 2:00 aftermid. I will continue to use your system to not confuse people. I walked into the conference room to find them all already there, and waiting for orders. "Well…" I began, "Which three of you want to sneak around with me?"
"Why, may I ask?" Mainad chuckled back at me, "Would I want to sneak around?"
"Okay, count you out. We just got our first assignment, a silent and deadly strike at anti-air shield generators." I said, grinning, "And it looks to be an easy one."
"I'm in!" said Glaze from the back of the room, she sounded pumped, "I'm ready to go on the counteroffensive."
"Count me in too, I wanna get a piece of those cultist bastards." Ark cockily said, smirking and leaning against a wall.
Plats smiled down at me from the ceiling and said, "This is kind of my specialty, I'll do what I can."
"Alright," I responded, "We leave as soon as you're ready."
--
Ten minutes later we were ready to go. We walked to the interdeck teleporter pad and went down to the hangar. We walked up to the bay and saw what we were to be geared up in. I decided I needed to change into less obtrusive clothing to pull this mission off, so I walked over to the cue man and said, "I need about three more minutes, gotta change."
"Three minutes of the five you have?" He responded, smirking, "Just make it quick."
I ran into the nearest secluded area, behind the control tower, after grabbing a change for the more conspicuous parts of my outfit, and threw off my shirt, hat, and jacket, putting on a baseball cap, a green shirt, and my jacket back on. I left my clothes there, making a mental note of where they were, seeing as how nobody would go back there besides me ever anyway
I walked back out, walking down to the drop deck, to see Ark wearing camo slacks and a green long sleeved shirt, along with gloves that made his hands look human, but still in gloves, Glaze just wore a purple long sleeved shirt, and Plats, as can logically be expected, wore nothing.
Plats looked shocked for a moment, but said nothing as I walked in. The other two just thought I had changed clothes. The truth is, I hadn't actually changed my clothes (But I washed them), since I left home, at age 18, 9 years ago. This would be the first time anyone had seen me in anything else besides Mainad and anybody who knew me before I was 18. Ever. The clothes had been magically treated to always fit and never wear out, so why would I need anything else?
We chatted mildly until the doors were going to open in one minute, then put on the heat and pressure sealant wrist rings so as to survive the drop itself. For the landing, we had to use an ancient Hylian trick and a spell called feather-fall. We use feather fall to break the falling 100 feet from the ground, and roll when we hit to avoid damage, which only works in this universe really. Feather fall simply allows for a sudden stopping of momentum, but has to be used from at least 100 feet up. I grabbed a simple pistol as well, just in case, sticking it in my left back pocket and 12 bullets in my left front one, and I had resupplied myself with two additional vials of red potion, which were in my right pocket. I was prepared, Plats was prepared, Ark was prepared, and Glaze was prepared, we were ready to strike against the evil that surrounded us.
Five…
Four…
Three…
Two…
One…
DROP!
--
AC: Thus, the battle for Hyrule begins… Read and Review please. I like reviews, and I don't get many…
APRIL FOOLS IDEA: Tell your mother / someone who cares about you that you stepped on a tack and are bleeding. They'll rush over, and step on the tack you didn't, which you placed between where you are now standing and where the other person is before you entered the room. Good luck everyone, and happy April Fools Day.
