How On Earth did Earth Survive Everything Again?
"In you flows the blood of the Moon Child. Given your lineage, it would seem I am destined to serve you." -Silvery White Knight
Django had no clue what the knight standing before him wanted. Doomy had come to the treadmill to announce that he was going to be done shortly, since his loan was bought out by another party. He was not sure what to make of the announcement. Doomy gave him back his few belongings. There was the broken Gun de Sol, the strange charm bracelet with the elemental emblems, and there was the headband.
Doomy brought him to a crumbling ruin that was only a few stories tall now. It could be called the Azure Sky Tower if one were optimistic. As things were, it was more accurate to call it the Azure Sky Mound. After Doomy had left, silence reigned. Django racked his horribly fractured memory for anything about this knight who seemed familiar.
The knight broke the silence first. "Adventurer. What dost thou recall?"
Django decided to be honest. "Not much. The first thing I remembered on my own was my brother and I don't know his name... Doomy had to tell me my own name. This stuff I woke up with seems important and there was a sunflower, and Father. There was a dress in some ruins that belonged to a girl. I don't remember exactly why but..."
The Silvery White Knight waited with a calm and expectant air.
"She offered me blood... it was important to not bite her? It would have been wrong."
Django fell silent as he tried to process the few fragments of memory he had and gauge what the tall knight was after at the same time. The knight stared back.
The knight decided to go against common sense.
It seemed like the universe conspired to make Lucian babysit this kid. He'd babysat the toddler Aaron when he was Sartana and had been basically the older brother or uncle or something. After returning from the grave, Bea had volunteered Lucian to babysit the kid going through a monster-infested sewer. Although pointing this out would shorten your lifespan drastically, Lucian was now the babysitter/brother of Aaron. As far as babysitters for 10-year old gunslingers went Lucian did a better job than he would ever admit, other than the part where he let a kid fight vampires and space aliens.
Today, Lucian was being a responsible adult. He'd dragged Aaron to the living quarters at the nearest Guild hideout this morning. Passerby could be forgiven if they thought the smaller boy was undead with how pale he was. Aaron was also moaning complaints at Lucian. Lucian rolled his visible eye at Aaron. "No, you can't come on this hunt. You are hacking up a storm."
"But I want to fight..." Aaron croaked.
"You get over that flu. You are worse than useless. You might as well sprinkle salt on your neck and wear a bottlecap if Dumas shows up. I'd rather go alone, but Bea is going to try and follow me out there. We'll see if she can keep up."
"I don't want to miss out on this mission. Stupid flu. You guys will tell me all about it, right?" Aaron gave his best pleading look to the Terrenials. Toasty stayed with Aaron while the other Terrenials followed Lucian's lead.
Django had accepted the knight's offer to work under him instead of for Doomy. The Silvery White Knight's new squire was a quick learner. This Moon Child was not as strong in Luna but his other skills were admirable. It was a shame Sabata had not had the chance to come train at the Azure Sky Tower.
The Silvery White Knight was considering having Django take the Moon Guardian Oath to bind himself to the tower. There were some reservations he had. First, Django had the habit of looking at the horizon when sunrise came. Second, it was a lonely position for one with human emotions. Unlike the other elemental guardians, the Moon Guardian was one not born into the job. The seals trapping the demons of the tower were woven into the vows. Technically, the knight could leave at any time. The Sllvery White Knight breaking his oaths would cause the seals to shatter. He could only leave during a full moon.
Silvery White Knight was a good title, but Django had taken to calling the knight 'Silver.' Silver had not asked the young vampire to take the full Moon Guardian oaths yet. His oaths were to protect the weak, not harm the innocent, destroy evil, and always conduct himself with honor. (He wasn't interacting with anyone but Silver, so not much use was made of the oaths.) More memories came back to Django over time.
Eventually, Django wondered if he would be able to leave. He wanted to go and fix things. He wanted to find out what happened to Sabata and Otenko. It was a slow process, piecing together the bits of himself over the days of training. It was a while before Django remembered about the Moonlight Change magic. Django had used it before, but he hadn't been quite as dead. Half-vampire was less change than that of a full-vampire to a human. Mani had successfully used the Moonlight Change as a full-vampire; Django did not have Moon Beautyism. (He did have the sun always in his heart?)
Silver and Django did not miss the destruction of the Vambery at least. Django, in mouse form, was dustbathing while Silver was mixing a new batch of mortar. They heard a low rumble before the tower started to implode with the help of Guild explosives. The show had been spectacular, even from the Azure Sky Mound.
It was not many days after that when the knight called Django to him. The curious squire saw a box held in the knight's gauntlets. It did not fit the atmosphere. The box was cardboard, wrapped carefully in twine and brown paper. The massive metal armor had even tied neat, serviceable, bunny-eared knots on the package. He stood with even more of a serious and important air to his posture than he normally did.
"My Liege."
That was a title that Django had not heard from the Silvery White Knight since death.
Silver said, "I entrust this Solar Seed to thy care. See to it that it is safely delivered, then return to me."
"I... can take this? You're trusting me?" He hadn't relearned the transformation spell yet.
"Yes. Observe the world as you travel. Much has changed even in the time since your arrival." Django had been the most recent source of news when he'd come here and it was all secondhand from Doomy. "Return before the full moon." Scrying on full moons was marginally helpful. Star readings were nice and informative compared to scrying except when people connected to Silver were involved, but Silver took what information he could get. He wished he had a star reader on call.
The vampire boy was determined to make Silver proud by acting as package delivery boy. He adjusted his chainmail, buckled his lunar shield, and made sure the Luna Lens was properly set in place.
The Immortals were not known for kindness. They used the Planet Eater Byron on habitable planets on a regular basis. It might have struck everyone as strange that the Immortals didn't come back with a large fleet of spaceships or another Planet Eater. There were a number of reasons why they did not.
The Immortals were arrogant and the materials to make the Planet Eater were rare, even with the vast empire the Immortals had conquered. The Immortals thought they would manage just fine with one Byron. They were perfect. They didn't count on Polidori's incompetent imperfection and destroying their only Byron.
The Immortals preferred not to engage in open combat when they could. In their minds, each of their people was far more valuable than every other living being in the universe. It was also more fun to try mind game manipulation first. Since they were so awesome, it should only take a single Immortal to conquer a planet.
This little backwater planet on the frontier of known space? It had not one, but two Eternals locked up. Even the Immortals did not want to see Jormungandr coming their way. It was a mystery to them how the humans on this planet had imprisoned an Eternal, much less two of them. They wanted to carefully research things and not unseal it. This little planet was ridiculously stubborn about surviving. Centuries of undeadening failed to stop it living.
Indiscriminate bombing of the surface might undo whatever security measures were in place. Polidori's notes on Jormungandr were lacking. Polidori had no interest in it and had been more concerned with vampire politics. (Polidori found vampire politics hilarious.)
Vanargand, they knew a little more about from Polidori's notes The Beast of Destruction, Vanargand, could be controlled. The key to it was, if their information was right, a sword. The sword forged by Ratatosk had the soul needed for Vanargand's awakening. They just needed the sword, a new moon, and the blood of a Lunar. It wasn't a stretch to conclude Lucian was descended from the Lunar Children given that people called him the 'Lunar Knight.' They could use this Beast of Destruction as a replacement weapon to rival the Planet Eater in keeping rebellious systems in line.
The Immortals didn't check to see if they were wrong about that assumption before sending their agent. Tolstoy was the Immortal best-suited for this job and he would crush the Solar Gunners and the Dark Swordsman. He would turn their precious sunlight against them. He prepared his robots with sol-absorption modules and retrieved his prized pets from the Lambda-Centra-578 cluster.
Tolstoy planned his execution and broadcast. They needed to get this done before the other civilizations scattered about the universe got funny ideas about rebellions, revenge, and alliances.
Notes: Hang on, I think I spotted something else inconsistent with the game lore. Somewhere.