Chapter Eighty-Nine: Tipping Point
The Wrathful Veteran could only watch as Cass walked further away, slowly making her return journey across the no-man's-land back to military lines, where the Draconian Dignitary awaited news of the Veteran's surrender.
Every atom in the Veteran's body screamed that Cass should not be walking back into the Dignitary's grasp. Not even the trust placed by the Veteran in Cass's judgment could allay his anxiety. What was she thinking, playing such a dangerous game?
Deeply the Veteran inhaled a full breath, calming himself with a gentle and gradual exhalation. He looked at Cass's phone, clasped tightly in his right hand. The device was off, and there was little point in turning it on; the touch-sensitive screen would not respond to carapacian fingers.
Wishing he'd managed to read Cass's messages more thoroughly, the Veteran slipped the phone into one of his pockets and turned away from the no-man's-land. Quickly he walked back up the blood-soaked road to the burnt-out apartment complex where he'd set up a temporary headquarters.
Instead of entering the apartment complex, the Veteran took an adjacent alleyway and circumvented the building, emerging onto the next street over, where an impromptu supply depot had been cobbled together to provide ammunition for the dissenter fighters on the bloody road.
Frenetic activity consumed the depot; under the supervision of the Authority Regulator, dissenters were hastily piling crates of artillery shells into the back of a heavy supply truck.
The Regulator saw the Veteran approaching and stepped away from the activity. "We did a quick inventory," he said, cutting straight to the point. "All our remaining explosives are going in the truck."
"Is it enough?" asked the Veteran.
"Should be, if we blow them all at once," replied the Regulator. "It'll have to be, otherwise-"
"Time is very short," the Veteran reminded his old friend. "Will you be ready to detonate within thirty minutes?"
The Regulator's determined stare did not relent. "You can trust me."
"This is the last of 'em, sir!" hollered one of the dissenters on truck loading duty as the last crate of artillery shells was packed into the back of the truck.
"Double check," ordered the Regulator. "Nothing falls out, you understand? We will not be obeying any speed limits."
"I'll leave you to it," said the Veteran. "Good luck."
"Is the Sylph certain this will work? Will we have our chance?"
"She was very adamant in her message," answered the Veteran. "We need to create a spectacle. This will certainly qualify."
"Keep your luck, then." The Authority Regulator embraced the Veteran one last time. "I can rig explosives with my eyes closed, but you're going up against the Dignitary. You'll need all the luck you already have."
With that, the Regulator hurried over to the truck and hopped into the driver's seat. The dissenters who loaded the explosives climbed into the back, sitting among the crates as the truck's engine rumbled to life. The Regulator stomped on the gas and the truck roared away, tires screeching. Skid marks were left on the cobblestones.
In the relative quiet that settled over the depot after the truck's departure, the Veteran took a brief moment to rest. Soon he would be face to face with the Draconian Dignitary, and then likely with his mortality. Perhaps this was the last chance he would ever have to take a moment for himself.
In this quiet moment, the Veteran turned his gaze skyward.
Derse loomed overhead, silent and massive. The Great Chain stretched away into the sky from its lunar anchor, growing smaller and smaller and eventually vanishing into the distant textures of Derse's urban surface. The view was truly breathtaking, and the Veteran found himself wishing he'd looked up more in life.
The Veteran could feel the faintly warm glimmer of Skaia emanating from a small point of light in the opposite reaches of the sky. The very act of enjoying the skaialight, even from such an immense distance, was enough to send a quick tug of irrational disgust through the Veteran's abdomen. Even after shedding the ancient Dersite anti-Skaia imprinting, even after millennia of striving to think and choose more clearly, still the Veteran felt the twinges of old habits. Breathing through the reaction, the Veteran wondered if old habits ever faded away completely.
Before long, the urge to move returned, and the Veteran left the supply depot, returning via the nearby alleyway to his headquarters in the apartment complex ruins. Upon entering the complex interior, he was greeted by the chaos of startled headquarters staff trying to make sense of how a human had suddenly flashed into being in the middle of the room.
"Hey, hey, calm down!" the human exclaimed, trying to pacify the startled dissenters. "Friend here, alright? Friend. Calm down! C'mon, like I'm the strangest thing you've seen all day?"
"Everyone out," commanded the Veteran. "Now."
The headquarters staff immediately filed out of the room, leaving the Veteran alone with the visitor.
"You're in charge, then?" asked the human. "Cool. Quick intro: my name is Anna, I love chocolate, and a future version of me told me to meet someone at this particular time and place who has a message from Cass. Is that someone you?"
The Veteran was not used to being so flummoxed. "I-"
"C'mon, let's have the message. There is a message, right? Future Me was very clear about there being a message."
Wordlessly the Wrathful Veteran handed over Cass's phone.
"Well, would you look at that?" Anna turned on the phone, swiping to gain access. "Still over seventy-percent battery? Cass never uses her phone! I always thought she was born a few decades too late. She mention anything to you about where she put the message?"
"I-"
"Actually, never mind. I can just check and see which applications are still open… Ah." Anna grinned as a digital rolodex of active applications popped onscreen. "Looks like Checklist is the winner. Now, let's see…" Anna found Cass's message already open in the Checklist app. She scanned through the message, assimilating all the quick details. When finished, Anna glanced up at the Veteran. "I get how you're gonna do the explosion and all that fun stuff, but how are you supposed to contact Adam?"
"Who?"
"The Knight, silly." Anna gave a little chuckle. "We've been here an entire month, and you still don't know all our names?"
"The Sylph's strategy was hastily concocted," explained the Veteran. "Her hope was to have this message passed along to the Knight via-"
"Say no more. I got this," Anna interrupted, retrieving a small notepad from her sylladex, adding a little note at the bottom of a short things-to-do list. "Nothing like having a time traveling friend, right? Need something delivered by last week? I can make that shit happen!"
Before Anna could say anything else, a low horn was sounded from the roof of the apartment complex.
"I must go," said the Veteran. "The Sylph is returning. Whatever you do, please stay out of sight. If the military learns there is another Hero here-"
"Yeah, yeah, go do your thing." Anna winked at the Veteran. "Have fun, and stay hydrated."
"Seer…" The Veteran ordered the headquarters staff back into the room before making his hasty exit, eager to put some distance between himself and the strange human.
Knowing she could not follow the Veteran without being reprimanded, Anna instead chose to climb the nearest stairwell to the apartment complex's third floor, where the windows offered her a clear view of the surrounding area. Her stomach turned upon seeing the full extent to which the road below was choked with blood and death. Anna could see Cass traversing the thicket of corpses and crimson puddles towards dissenter lines, this time bearing a white flag.
A weightless slab of cracked stone, emblazoned with the symbol of a spiral, floating deep within the Obsidian Moon's very core, stained with fresh blood.
Anna inhaled sharply, blinking as the vision dissolved. She blinked again, apprehension clutching at her gut as she wondered if more weird shit was about to happen-
"Hey."
Anna jumped, startled by the sound of her own voice. She looked away from the window, turning around to face another of her temporal dopplegangers. "Aw geez, not again..."
"Yes again," said Future Anna. "Look, this should be the last one, I promise."
"We can't keep doing this," Present Anna protested. "It's gonna fry my brain or something. Is my nose bleeding?"
"It's just one more loop."
"I think it's becoming another addiction."
"No, no, it's just one last teeny tiny lil' loop. C'mon, ten minutes from now Cass will need our help. Things are about to get real fucky outside, so just sit tight and wait for Cass to come to you, and then follow the vision you saw before I got here. Got it? Cool. I'm gonna leave now before this conversation gets too long for us to remember. Auf wiedersehen!"
And with that, Future Anna disappeared, leaving Present Anna alone and agape.
Fuck this.
I was done.
Everything hurt, and the wounds I'd gotten from Gino felt like they were still on fire.
Isn't that just peachy?
Hey, at least I wasn't trapped in the dark, right? Perks of the sprite life: Never a truly dark moment when your body literally radiates light. All the time.
Too bad I felt like pan-seared shit and my luminescence right now was barely bright enough to rival weak candlelight, not to mention how fucking small this SEALED FUCKING CAGE-
My body flared a rich, vibrant crimson, filling the claustrophobic cage interior with a blaze of light, and for the briefest of moments I was no longer a wounded animal.
Immediately I sucked in a deep breath, closed my eyes, and sat still with the spurt of rage, allowing it to conduct through me like an electric current and dissipate. My luminescence waned once more to a pallid pink, my wounds hurt even worse, and now I felt like sleeping forever.
Can't afford too many more tantrums…
A familiar presence brushed against the edge of my mind.
Hello?
I breathed deeply and focused on the new presence, allowing it further access.
Within moments, through my mind's eye came flashes of a smiling old man with a shining indigo sprite body: it was none other than Gwen's prototyped grandpa, whom I had not seen since the Dersites invaded Cass's planet and started bombing the crap out of us.
Faintly I was aware of a few additional presences accompanying Mr. Twymann, caressing the edge of my perception. They seemed to be hanging back, letting Gwen's grandpa do the 'talking'.
Without knowing how long I would be able to maintain this kind of connection, I focused solely on communicating the idea of where I was. I visualized the form of Derse's moon, doing my best to imagine sending it to Gwen's grandpa, though I'm pretty sure it was heavily colored with pain, anger, and feeling like a caged animal.
After a few seconds of this, I could no longer sense the other sprites, and any further attempt to do so was met only with internal and external silence.
I nearly hit one of the cage walls in frustration, stopping myself even as my arm began to move. Whenever I touched the walls, they vibrated with painful frequencies of sound, forcing me to remain curled up in the middle of the cage like an awkward cat.
Did Gwen's grandpa get my message? He better have. No way to be sure, though.
Fuuuck!
C'mon, how long have I been stuck in this fucking cage?
My body began to flare up again, so I took another deep breath, but it did not calm me. Instead, my body started humming, and I could feel myself growing hotter.
Then I felt like I was being squeezed and stretched, and the cage seemed to fall away.
"Do you ever wish you could go back and do something differently?" Cass asked, carefully avoiding the puddles of blood as she and the Wrathful Veteran made their way towards the middle of the no-man's-land.
"Go back?" The Veteran sounded confused.
"Yes, back in time," clarified Cass. "If you could relive parts of your life, would you make different choices from the ones you remember?"
"I…" the Veteran's voice trailed off as he pondered. "I don't know. Perhaps I would have spent less time fighting? I could have tried my hand at learning to play an instrument, I suppose. Maybe I could have accomplished tenfold with music what I have struggled here to achieve with violence. Perhaps someone else could have chosen to fight." The thought made him smile faintly, though the smile faded again within moments. "But that is not what happened, and there is no going back."
By now, Cass and the Veteran had reached the center of the no-man's-land. They stopped and waited for the Dignitary to arrive.
"I think I'd have told myself to worry less," Cass admitted. "I worried all the time about little things that seem silly today. Maybe I didn't need to worry so much? I could have enjoyed my life more. I could have brought more color into each day." She paused to wipe her eyes, maintaining her composure. "Would've been a nice realization to have before this stupid game destroyed my home."
"I'm truly sorry for the loss you have endured, Sylph," the Veteran offered. "For what it's worth, over the millennia I've come to believe that home is not something that can be destroyed. It can be carried from place to place, remembered and forgotten, but never destroyed. In time, you may find that you never left home at all, not even during life's worst storms."
Cass was silent as she mulled the Veteran's thoughts, allowing them to resonate.
"Prepare yourself," warned the Veteran. "He is coming."
Flanked by four handpicked guards, the Draconian Dignitary emerged from behind military lines, bearing a small white flag of his own. He strode confidently into the no-man's-land, guards close on his heels.
Silently Cass and the Veteran waited, watching their foe draw nearer and nearer, until finally the Dignitary joined them in the middle of the no-man's-land.
With a brief hand motion, the Dignitary signaled his four guards to hang back several paces. Two remained close at hand while the other two fanned out and kept a steady eye on dissenter lines.
"Have you any idea," asked the Dignitary, "how long I have looked forward to this particular chat? Just the three of us? Much as I would love to keep things strictly to business, such constraint would only be a tragic waste of what could otherwise have been a fine conversation. Would you not agree?"
"Let's get this over with," said the Veteran. "Has anyone ever told you it's impolite to play with your food?"
The Dignitary looked at the Veteran as if he were gazing at a gnat. "You're rather demanding for someone who has just agreed to an unconditional surrender. You are in no position to dictate how swiftly or slowly I choose to set our tempo. Or anything else, for that matter. Why the eagerness for brevity? Is eternity within the Silent Dungeon's smallest cell something you look forward to?"
"I look forward to anything that will deliver me from your stench."
"Then I will be sure to visit your cell frequently." Irritation twinged within the Dignitary's chest, but he did not allow it to color his expression. "If you behave, perhaps we may even consider allowing you to die after the first five thousand years. Your present conduct, however, is severely whittling down your chances of being offered such a mercy."
Cass swallowed a bit more loudly than intended, frightened by the concept of millennia stuck in the same room. She swore silently in her mind; the Dignitary surely noticed. He noticed everything.
"You need not fear eternity, Sylph," the Dignitary assured Cass. "It is my understanding that Humans are lucky to last a full century. You will merely be confined for decades. Perhaps your friends could help me understand more about your human anatomy? I am dying to see how your internal organs are arranged. And if you behave today, I will not force you to choose which of your friends goes under my scalpel first, and I may even be persuaded to spare your sprite."
"What is wrong with you?" The dam in Cass's throat burst and the words came spewing forth before she could get a handle on herself. "What could possibly have happened to make you so fucked in the head? Were you created that way, programmed, or is it something you learned? It's not natural. You are not normal."
The Dignitary's mouth set in a hard line, his gaze growing icy. "For that, Sylph, I must exact a punishment. You will learn, in time, but only if you are taught." He produced a walkie-talkie from inside the jacket of his suit, tuning into a specific frequency before depressing the 'talk' button and hailing whoever was on the other end.
After a few seconds, the voice of a commando responded, exchanging quick authentication codes to confirm identities.
"Open the cage," the Dignitary ordered. "Kill the sprite, and be thorough. Report back when finished."
Despite having murder in her eyes and written all over her face, Cass fought the urge to leap at the Dignitary and wreak havoc. How much force would be required to crack his carapace? Could she shatter his head with a well-aimed kick?
"Weapons," ordered the Dignitary next, this time to the two commando guards flanking him. Immediately the guards took aim at Cass and the Veteran with their rifles, fingers now resting gently on the triggers. "What do you have up your sleeve, Sylph?"
"My shoulder."
"You are taking your friend's imminent death very much in stride," the Dignitary observed. "Seems rather out of character. I at least expected you to beg or scream. But stoic silence? No, something is amiss. You might as well tell me now."
Cass remained silent, exchanging a furtive sidelong glance with the Veteran. He shook his head ever so slightly. Wait. Not yet.
"Are you going to be difficult?" asked the Dignitary. "You of all people should know, Sylph, how fond I am of extracting information from unwilling sources." Before Cass could respond, the Dignitary's radio squawked again. He raised it to his mouth: "Diamonds here, go ahead."
Time slowed to a crawl as Cass awaited the radio's reply. Did her ploy work?
"Sir, the sprite's gone!" came the panicked transmission.
"Gone?" snapped the Dignitary, not immediately comprehending the new information. "How could he possibly-"
"I don't know sir, but the cage is empty!"
As it dawned on the Dignitary that he'd just lost his leverage over Cass, he knew it was time to stop playing with his food. He looked to the two nearby guards and started ordering them to shoot Cass and the Veteran, but even as the first words left his mouth they were snatched away by the sudden deafening thunderous roar of a nearby explosion.
The Dignitary felt the shudder of the entire Obsidian Moon tremoring underfoot, and for a moment he and his guards stood transfixed, gazing in shock to the skies as Derse slowly began to drift away.
Only for a moment did the Dignitary and his escorts let down their guard, but it proved fatal: within an instant, Cass had accessed her strife specibus and retrieved her M16 assault rifle. As the Veteran drew his knife and threw it at one of the Dignitary's two escorts, Cass fired a three-round burst at the Dignitary himself without taking the time to fully aim, causing her shots to go wide.
Rifles clattering to the cobblestones, the two escorts fell; one with a grisly hole torn through her right eye by one of Cass's wayward bullets, the other crying out in pain as he tried gingerly to extricate the Veteran's thrown knife from where it was lodged in his gut.
The Dignitary recovered from his surprise almost instantaneously as instinct kicked in, drawing a knife of his own and immediately throwing it.
As she fired a second burst at the Dignitary, Cass felt the weight of the Dignitary's thrown knife thwuck into the left side of her chest, catching her between ribs and bringing with it the intense electric jolt of her nervous system acutely realizing what had just happened and what was about to happen next.
Pain tore through the Dignitary's lower left leg and he collapsed to one knee for a few seconds, processing that he'd just been shot. Then came the adrenaline surge, and the Dignitary pressed on.
Cass stared, puzzled, at the knife buried in her chest, unaware that she'd already dropped her rifle. In a daze, she found herself flat on her back, staring up into the sky while blood seeped from her wound onto the cobblestones.
The Dignitary limped over to Cass and knelt next to her, gently wrapping his fingers around her throat and squeezing.
Unable to breathe, Cass gripped the Dignitary's wrists and tried to break his grip, but her strength was leaving. Faintly she heard several more gunshots and could see flashes of the Veteran's struggle with the last two remaining guards.
Having retrieved the abandoned rifle of the commando whom he'd felled with the thrown knife, the Veteran took cover behind the husk of an exploded truck and traded fire with one of the remaining commandos, shooting the soldier twice through the chest. By then, the fourth and final commando, charging at the Veteran from the opposite direction, closed the distance and tackled him.
Both went down in a heap.
Cass's body sorely missed its expected supply of oxygen. Her eyes bulged as she fought for air that would not come. Giving up on her attempts to break the Dignitary's steel grip, she struggled instead to wedge her feet underneath the Dignitary's stomach in an effort to kick him off, but her strength was fading and her efforts were easily rebuffed.
Locked in a vicious hand-to-hand fight with the last commando over control of a knife, the Veteran saw only fragmented glimpses of Cass's struggle, several yards away. It was enough to recognize the urgency of her situation, prompting the Veteran to struggle less for control of the knife and more to direct his brawl with the final commando closer to the Dignitary.
Cass gave up on trying to kick the Dignitary, her exhausted legs falling to the asphalt.
Was she going to die?
Sadness panged deep in Cass's chest. She did not want to die yet. Her life did not feel complete.
How could this possibly be her time?
The Dignitary's grip did not relent, and now Cass felt like she was on fire, every particle in her body crying out for more life.
By now, the Veteran's grapple with the final commando had brought him within close proximity to Cass and the Dignitary, but both of his hands were tied up in the struggle for the knife. Thinking quickly, the Veteran chose to headbutt the commando.
The commando, wearing a sturdy helmet and not expecting something so absurd as a headbutt, was momentarily surprised. Seizing upon the opportunity to reposition, the Veteran twisted himself around so that his feet were free to lash out at the Dignitary's leg.
Adrenaline surging through Cass's body as a result of the knife lodged next to her heart was the only reason she was still alive and fighting, but that adrenaline was nearly spent. The world grew tunnel-like as her peripheral vision lost color and began to blur.
Just as Cass started truly asking herself whether or not some piece of her would survive the death of her body, the Dignitary suddenly faltered, his grip around Cass's throat loosening momentarily as the Veteran kicked the bullet wound on his leg.
As sweet, amazing life poured down Cass's trachea, filling her desperately ravenous lungs, she did the only thing she could think of to save her life while in such a feral state.
Cass seized the surprised Dignitary's arms and used the last of her strength to yank him in close, baring her teeth and sinking them into the Dignitary's throat.
Before losing consciousness, Cass could feel a torrent of warmth pouring down her face, soaking into her clothing as the world dimmed and fell away into darkness.
Slowly the Black Queen sipped her martini and gazed into her fenestrated window, which offered her a delicious view of Prospit in flames. Already she could see columns of smoke and ash churning in the Prospitian sky, settling into dense clouds of smog.
How could life possibly be more perfect?
The Queen pondered for a moment before deciding life could certainly be improved by her fenestrated window including an audio feed. While the sight of a burning Prospit brought warmth to her day, she could not hear the screaming Prospitians, and that was disappointing.
How about a closer look?
The Queen changed the window's feed to a view of Prospit's downtown skyline. Visible in the near distance were the gold and white turrets of the White Queen's citadel, partially obscured by the gushing pillars of smoke.
The Black Queen closed her eyes for a moment, imagining the White Queen's head on a spike, wondering where a good place would be to mount it. Perhaps the bathroom? Certainly nowhere on Prospit, soon to be a smoking ruin with no one left alive to enjoy their Queen's head on a spike. How dull that would be. More and more, the Black Queen's bathroom seemed the obvious choice.
Before her ears even had the chance to register the distant explosion, the Black Queen felt a shudder underfoot. The glass in the windows rattled. Dislodged dust snowed down from the loftier parts of the throne room's ceiling. Within an instant, the Queen was up from her amethyst throne and hurrying to the nearest balcony to investigate, her fenestrated window abandoned on the floor.
That explosion was too close to make sense. How could the fighting on the moon possibly cause Derse itself to shake?
The Black Queen stepped out onto her balcony, saw in the sky what had just transpired, and time seemed to stand still.
Shattered fragments of what used to be the Great Chain tethering Derse to its moon now drifted across the sky in all directions, some still partially molten from the intense heat of the explosion. The Obsidian Moon, sundered from its mother planet, grew smaller and smaller, drifting slowly away into the yawning darkness of the Furthest Ring.
Rooted to the floor, the Black Queen stared in shock as half her kingdom took its leave without her permission. After a moment, the shocked reverie was shredded by a blistering rage which erupted from the Queen's throat and behind her eyes, causing her to quiver despite her usual composure.
Then the Queen took a deep shaky breath and removed her necklace, drawing from underneath her clothing the small eight-stone ring dangling at the necklace's end.
No more games. This ended now.
The final commando gurgled as the Veteran slit his throat, convulsing on the cobblestones as his body was emptied of blood by his own weakening heartbeat.
Finally, at long last, the Veteran was allowed a moment's rest. He rolled onto his back and took a breath, watching as ruined fragments of the shattered Great Chain drifted across the sky.
The Veteran's respite did not last. Within seconds, the sky filled with swarms of glowing energy bolts as the military and dissenters opened fire on each other once more.
Caught in the middle of the fray, the Veteran was forced to act quickly. He kept his head down and crawled over to where Cass lay underneath the Dignitary's corpse, holding in his vomit as he rolled the Dignitary off of her. Part of the Dignitary's throat had been horribly ripped away, exposing the dangling shreds of muscle and tissues underneath.
Cass was so drenched in the Dignitary's blood, the Veteran almost had difficulty recognizing her. He lay two fingers on her neck, relieved to feel the flutter of a pulse. Then, upon noticing the Dignitary's knife lodged in Cass's chest, the Veteran's relief immediately dissipated.
Forcing himself not to think about severity of the chest wound, the Veteran slipped his arms underneath Cass and lifted her from the cobblestones. As instinct and reflex took charge and the Veteran began to sprint, what happened next was an adrenaline-soaked blur.
Centuries upon centuries of warfare taught the Veteran in combat situations to partially ignore his own mortality in favor of completing objectives, his perception and focus narrowing to accept only those fragments of information that were pertinent to his goal of getting back home to friendly dissenter lines. Contemplating how life, with all of its color and nuance, would come to an abrupt and violent end with a single unfortunately placed energy bolt within the storm of crossfire, would not help the Veteran get to safety. Such thoughts therefore were held in abeyance.
How the Veteran was able to reach dissenter lines without being torn apart by the crossfire, he would never know. All he could remember was a disjointed string of memory fragments and impressions, slowly returning to coherency as he was welcomed by a small group of dissenter fighters into a makeshift foxhole.
"What happened?!" The leader of the dissenter squad had to shout to be heard over the chaos. "Has the Sylph died again?!"
"Shut up and help me dress her wound!" The Veteran tore several strips of fabric from his jacket, bunching one up and pressing it around the knife sticking from Cass's chest. "Put pressure on that!"
"Let's take the knife out, at least!"
"No!" snapped the Veteran. "Do you want her to bleed to death?"
"Forget that shit!" In a flash, Anna was at the Veteran's side, startling everyone in the foxhole. No one had seen her arrive. "She's past first aid! I gotta take her!" She started lifting Cass into her arms, but the Veteran moved to stop her.
"Her death is assured if she is moved before-"
"She's got a knife next to her heart, she's fucking dead already!" shot back Anna. "Now c'mon, help me pick her up! I'm out of shape."
"Where are you taking her?" asked the Veteran, helping Anna lift Cass from the ground.
"Not important, see you later!" Anna waved a quick goodbye and launched herself suddenly into the sky, flying off with Cass into the distance, far away from the battle, leaving behind in the foxhole a squad of dumbfounded dissenters.
"Are they coming back?" asked one of the fighters.
"Hold this position." The Veteran climbed out of the foxhole and kept his head low as he made he way off the bloody road and back to his headquarters in the ruined apartment complex. However, after entering the ruined complex the Veteran noticed an ominous change in the environment: Once again, the shooting seemed to have stopped.
Hurrying up the stairwell, the Veteran emerged onto the roof of the complex, enjoying a commanding view of the road below.
For once, the bloody road was not the object of the Veteran's focus. Instead, his eyes, and the eyes of thousands of dissenters and commandos alike, were glued to the sky.
Looming in the sky was a grotesquely prototyped Black Queen, over a thousand feet tall and several hundred feet wide. One hand had been morphed into a drill. Wings sprouted from her back. A santa hat adorned her head, nestled comfortably within her crown. A mouse-like tail extended from her coccyx.
She was barely recognizable. Her eyes, however, had not changed. Still she had a gaze of ice.
Slowly the Queen raised a clenched fist, displaying her ring of power, all eight of its stones blazing with white light.
From the light of the Queen's ring cascaded forth a sudden eruption of jagged, miles-long bolts of angry red energy, tearing through the air like lightning and reducing to rubble the tops of the first buildings to be impacted.