Book 2: akka
Chapter 1: fall from graceā¦
After Thomas's takeover, a young commander in the legions, by the name of akka, had not really cared. His mother had told him, don't get tangled in politics, just get a good job, and keep your head down. But he was once he met with the new archon, his loyalties were sealed. He would give his life and billions more to keep that face safe.
(Authors note: Here I only touch up on akka's journals. This is the documentary of what actually happened.)
Today we shipped out for hell. At least that's what the men call it. I personally don't mind war so much, but for most of the boys, it their first time into action. We are on the southern front of Raag war. This war is in the trenches. It was muddy, gritty, and bloody. The Raags, the huge, fur covered, relatively humanoid, monstrosities, had the upper hand. There were even more of them than there were of the furia. This was suicide. We were outnumbered ten to one. True we had guns, but they had horns, teeth, and muscle. We were barely holding our line, let alone advancing. But sure as hell, the archon wanted us to advance so we would advance.
The trenches were everything we were told they would be, and the Raag's were worse than the stories. Our trench ran along what was once a plain, but was now scarred by artillery, and small hills of dirt made by the soldiers had made for protection.
Today I was called back to headquarters, we finally got our orders to go over the top. We were to take the forest on the southern edge of the plain. We were supposed to do this, going into machine gun fire, in our shiny new specialized armor, and take down who knows what, in our first time into action.
(Author: here I break away to describe certain aspects of the furia military.)
The furia trooper is the basic soldier, and they carry a basic blaster rifle. On different fronts, the same troopers had different names. On the southern front, the troopers bearing mines and rockets, were called shock troopers. The troopers armed with auto turrets, and snipers rifles, were as anticipated, sharpshooters. The engineers carry acidic flak shotguns, and remote explosives. The officers carry mortar and sonic launchers.
(all of these changes were made under the rule of Thomas, and before all of the furia simple carried whatever they could find. Thomas later confessed to actually getting the designs for his armor out of a video game. But nevertheless they were efficient.)
I was nervous. Horribly nervous. We were nervous. The Raags had heavy chainguns that would mow us down as we crossed the open field. Our objectives were the guns, and some heavy AA guns that were keeping our flyboys from giving us support. It was moments away. We would go over the top. As I walked down the trench, my boys stand up, and salute me as I go by. I stop at the middle, and put my foot on the lowest rung of the ladder leading to hell, blood, and death. Would I do it? I didn't think I could. But I did. I led my men into hell. We moved across the field, keeping as low as possible, but the guns still took so many lives. We met our first Raag trench. "Shockers!" I screamed. "Bring up those RL's, thin out their forces," and to my other troops, "Grenades, thin the bastards out with grenades! engineers! Use those remo-bombs to take out their rapid-fire guns!" All my orders were carried out meticulously, and soon there almost no Raags in the trenches before us. We went in. Into a new kind of hell. Face to face with Raags and half-Raags we shot, we threw grenades, we died, but we pushed them back. we reached the final trench. "One more, One more boys, then it's smooth sailing to the AA guns." My voice was almost gone from shouting. I went in first, and found my self face to face with a monstrous half-Raag, looking vaguely like a human, in figure, it was otherwise covered in a thick carpet of hair. I put up my sniper rifle, and he put up his heavy rocket launcher. I threw myself left, and he shot right. As he hesitated to reload, I put blue plasma through his head. As I lay panting, I felt myself pulled up by the willing arms of my comrades. They set me on my feet, and I led them all the way. We accomplished all of our objectives, but lost over two-thirds of our strength.
I met the archon the next day. He took me by the hand and shook it heartily, "You and your men are the very reason, we have won the war." He said. "Wo-Won," I stammered "but sir, this is only one small victory." "oh no, you have not heard the news yet," he replied jovially. " we have scored victories on every front, in no small part due to your heroics, and the heroics of your men, the Raags have all but been eradicated." "That's great news sir." I replied. He whispered this to me, "Now that the Raags are finished we can concentrate our forces on a new foe, one far greater, smarter, and greatly more adaptable, the foe responsible for the assassination of our great leader, before me."
I was transferred the next day. To the first battalion, first legion. The Archon's first. We were his personal guard. With the Raag's exterminated, we were getting bored. And with twenty-twenty hindsight, I can tell you that he lied to us. He instilled in us a feeling of hate, he told us that we had been cheated and shortchanged by countless other races. But then there were his unexplainable absences. He was gone indefinitely, and no one knew where exactly where he went. When asked he would make no reply. He told that their was a greater enemy, one that had done us wrong for years, one beneath contempt. Humanity.
I still remember that night like it was yesterday. We were to accompany the archon on a routine mission. We weren't ready for what we were about to face. We got in the transport, and we went to him. We stood rigidly to attention as he walked along the row we formed. We were the best, the epitome of furia military greatness. He walked along the row and told us, "tonight you will accompany on my journey to greatness, after tonight, nothing will stand in my way, I will bend every race to my will, and kill those who will not join!"
In another part of the multiverse, an emergency council had been called by the planeswalkers, since the death of the mighty Urza, no one single walker could reign over the planes, but a council of the remaining ones had been formed. Led by the formidable Arbiter Roku, who had dominion over the elements air, water, fire, and earth. To his right, what had once been his daughter, a vampire named Mina. The human mage, Tsveh Szat. To his left the beautiful elf sorceress Eladmiri. Then the dragon Roaryx, now sitting in his human form. Then the elemental spirit Silvos. They convened together, and the topic of the rather heated discussion was none other than Thomas. "I tell you now he is the greatest threat we have ever encountered." Said Roaryx. "We cannot be sure of that," Said Roku. "Arbiter, I am sure, I have the vibrations, and surely you must sense the feelings we have all felt about the future." "Indeed, the future looks dark." Murmured Eladmiri. "We must act, we must destroy the boy!" yelled Roaryx. "Calm yourself Roaryx," said Roku with a deadly gleam in his eyes. This banter continued for several minutes until Roku, and Eladmiri finally gave in to Roaryx's plan. They would destroy the boy. They would split into three groups of two, and hunt him down. Eladmiri with Silvos, Szat with Roku, and Roaryx with Mina.
We piled into the transports, three of them, Phantoms the commander had called them. Two special ops teams consisting of ten members each, then a personal guard of six and Thomas himself. One team would eliminate the dragon and the vampire, another would kill the elf and the elemental, Thomas and his guard would kill the avatar, and the mage. So we set out. Thomas had told us the ambush sites. A canyon, a tower, and a bridge. I was with the canyon group. How he knew these sites, no one could tell, but no one dared ask. He had armed me and two others with energy swords, different from the sabers carried by his personal retinue. The rest were armed with high-powered beam rifles. We set the ambush, and waited. Sure enough along the canyon came the vampire and the dragon, still in human form. Me and one the two activated our active camouflage, which made us nearly invisible, and waited. The rest checked their weapons. When they came to point black, we called it, the trap was sprung. The vampire was brought to her knees by fire from three rifles from behind, and the dragon swung around, then realized he was to enclosed a space to shift. I leapt down and the two others followed. But the dragon heard, and the vampire was healed and on her feet again. We activated our energy swords, and the dragon charged. He shot lighting out his hands, and it hit one of us square in the stomach, he was dead before his corpse hit the ground. The dragon killed my other counterpart and I froze. He couldn't see me, and I deactivated my sword. He turned and went for the rest of the team, who were fighting the vampire. I crept up behind him, activated my sword, then the vampire screamed "Roaryx" and he whipped around, but not fast enough. I plunged the sword down, and with a shower of blood, the dragon died. I left the dragon in a pool of his own blood and went after the vampire. Thomas had prescribed a special remedy for her. Grenades that stuck. As I activated mine, the rest of the team followed suit, they say the only way to kill a vampire is to stick it though the heart, not true. If its head is damaged it can't regenerate. So when it got hit with four grenades, its head was damaged, well if anyone could find its head they might say it was damaged. There were four of us left, but we got the job done, both of the targets were eliminated. We retuned to the phantom, and relayed the message, the dragon and the vampire are dead.
I don't truly know what happened, but from the accounts of the surviving soldiers here is what I have assembled. They shipped out just like us, only they blue rinsed the bridge. They destroyed all organic matter on it. But the elemental and the sorceress somehow survived that. But they got it in the end. But this night had more than killing enemies, little did we know, Thomas had far greater plans.
He went to the tower, with the six. There he met Roku, and the mage and he fought them. But he slipped something around Roku's arm, and his veins lit up with a blue fire, and he fell dead to the ground. "What have you done to him?" screamed Szat. "I have removed his soul. Szat, my dear friend, we have no grievance, Roku was too weak to live, he did not understand the balance of power like we do. He cannot understand." Szat sobbed while Thomas was speaking. Thomas moved over to put a comforting arm around him, but plunged a hidden dagger into Szat's abdomen. Thomas stood over the dying mage smiling. "You have lost and I have won, and I shall use the power from all of your souls, to burn a path into the divine beyond, where I shall return from, and I shall know all of its secrets!"
The archon disappeared for two weeks that night. But it was not the archon who returned. It was the most powerful being in the multiverse. His skin glowed blue, and he had one of the items the soldiers confirmed had belonged to each that he had murdered, or had ordered murdered. The sorceress's bracelet, the mage's necklace, the avatar's boots, the vampire's sleeves, the dragon's skull, the elemental's earring. But most of all he had the sword that granted him unlimited power. He could do anything, which meant, with him heading our forces, we could conquer anything, father furion would pay humanity back all right, and rivers of human blood shall flow! We now follow into hell and back one being, the lord Dralnu!
