Sleeping Beauty (Ata)

[GEAR]

BGM:
youtu.be/_lOEapSk2j0

"It occurs that, if God didn't exist, we would have had to invent him."

Deep in the bowels of Hyperlight's Special Research Sub Colony "Cinyras", Outis of Siarnaq spoke, tufts of white smoke coming out into the frozen air before him as he did, his pale features and hair blending him in well with the frost that surrounded him. It curled at his feet, around his jet-black designer shoes, which he shifted about in, finding them... uncomfortable, not from the cold, but seemingly from their stifling formality.

"My brother used to say things like that. He..." - His features creased in concern at the memory alone - "...didn't have much of an appreciation for the divine."

He was wrapped in a dark blue parka, emblazoned with the logo of the Hyperlight Corporation. He walked forward over the raised white platform - essentially what amount to a long catwalk, specially textured for the low-temperature environment so that it would not send employees sliding to their deaths. He continued speaking into the room around him, talking to... someone, or something, in a clear, sincere tone, as lights began to flicker on above him, illuminating more of the chamber.

"If it was something that couldn't be quantified, couldn't be understood by his limited senses, crammed into this little box of existence as he experienced it then... it didn't matter to him. It didn't exist. He was... a very narrow minded man. Not unkind, just... Blinded by his own intellect."

He stopped now, features brightening as he looked up, motion-activated floodlights coming to life, revealing the bulky features of the room's other, primary occupant... or rather, prisoner.

"...But in your case, he wasn't wrong, was he? In absence of a God we could perceive, we crafted our own... Complete with angels." - Outis gave a soft smile, blue eyes glimmering in the cool light,

"Like you."

Before him, a great figure knelt, having long since been snapped and buckled into submission by some tyrannical act of cruelty. It was covered with sheet upon sheet of ice - clearly some manner of frozen chemical of unimaginable strength - but even that could not obscure a nature that could only be described as... alien. It was not so much as constructed, so much as appearing as if it had been sculpted out of purest alabaster - Gentle curves and smooth surfaces gave it an organic appearance not shared by any other mobile suit in the Earth sphere... and a mobile suit, it was indeed. It appeared as though an armless, headless winged being, adhered to the inside of the storage unit like some madman's mockery of the Winged Victory of Samathrace.

"I apologize for your... Poor treatment. It wasn't my idea, really." Said Outis as he gazed up at its splendid form, beautiful even in its current undignified state, "But... I'm going to need your help, you see."

He clasped his arms closely to his chest, as though in prayer, his gaze focused tightly on the floor before him. He recited his words as though they had been carved into his heart in some act of terrible, intimate violence reserved especially for him.

"To return divine light to this world. To bring hope... and peace. I want everyone to see that even a false idol, a fake angel, can be a sword of righteousness - as terrible yet miraculous, as the genuine article itself."

A small smile crossed his fair features, and he raised his eyes to the ice-encrusted head hanging over the room, long separated from the whole. Ragged and shorn, the halo atop its black visored face still gleamed brightly.

"I can't wait to meet you..." Said Outis warmly, extending his hand towards it, as if willing it to speak back to him in turn, to answer his crooning with its own.

"...My dear Galatea."

Silence, once more.

Eventually, the quiet was broken by the ringing of a communicator, which, irritably, he produced from his belt, flicking its holographic surface open. The face of a visored security guard appeared, giving a slight salute as he did. Outis, for his part, didn't bother to return it, simply... staring, waiting for the man to clarify his interruption.

"Sir Outis." Said the projection, "Article Two has become active."

"She's alive, then." He breathed, blinking in the frosty chill, as though he had suddenly become aware of its bite.

"Yes, sir. She's just starting to come to."

"I'll see to her right away. Good work."

He closed the communicator's surface with a flick of his finger, and deposited it back into his pocket. He gave an apologetic bow to the frozen figure, before turning and walking away, back over the catwalk, plunging the room back into darkness once more...

It was time to greet the sleeper.

[MightyDuck]

Article Two's room was a sight more humane than Tria's frozen prison. The room had the sterile quality of any hospital room and the floor's pale tile gleamed from the overhead lights that lit the entire space with white light. A small table sat to the left of the door but only one chair, a relic from when Article Two had been under near constant surveilance. The large hospital bed set against the wall across from the door was slightly larger than usual to accomodate the monitoring equipment arrayed around it and various wires and leads snaked up its sides and onto the bed's occupant. 'Article Two' was a woman with caramel colored skin and long hair that began as onyx black and gradually faded to a bright aquamarine. She was athletic and in excellent health by all physical standards. Her almond shaped eyes has remained closed in her unnatural slumber but the doctors who occasionally checked her health knew that those hidden eyes were a vibrant forest green. The entire room was quiet save for the quiet beep of the heart rate monitor on the right side of the bed. That sound had been constant and even ever since Article Two had been interred in the room some Hyperlight employees had quietly mused to actually be a tomb and even fewer had taken up the darker moniker of the 'Garden.' After all, its sole resident had been a vegetable ever since she had been removed from the frozen mobile suit deep within Cinyras.



There wasn't an abrupt surge to consciousness when Article Two began to wake. Memories flickered to life as a herald to conciousness. A past love made the monitor begin to beep faster, a minute change that still drew the attention of the nurse assigned to monitor the comatose woman by nature of being any change at all. Article Two had been in love, deeply so, and those were what replayed in her mind first. Loss came next and her heart rate picked up noticeably so. That love had been lost abruptly and the pain made Article Two's serene face shift ever so slightly, her lips turning down as she turned her head away from an unseen and unwanted truth. That change prompted the nurse to alert her superior and that alarm was what disturbed Outis' communion with Tria. More emotions crept into Article Two's mind as if it were a rebooting computer ensuring individual programs were undamaged. Anger, determination, fear, and the countless other pieces that made a human mind the wonder that it truly was fell into place with increasing speed as her heart rate climbed further.

Peace and resignation were the final parts of the puzzle that made up Article Two's mind and they carried powerful memories with them. Memories of a storm and of two warring gods finally wrenched her from her slumber and her eyes snapped open with a ragged gasp that broke the heart monitor's spell of silence in the room. Her arm didn't want to move when she tried to shield her eyes from overhead lights that seemed far too bright so Article Two, Alicyn, rolled onto her side with a groan and buried her face in the sterile white pillow that cradled her head as she fought against an overpowering spell of dizziness that threatened to make her gag. It passed in moments that felt like an eternity and the woman sat up slowly and stared around the room in confused astonishment. "Where," she grated out in a deeply feminine voice that was raspy after her long period of silence, her typically musical tone temporarily banished, "Where the hell am I?"

[GEAR]

A scent, long since forgotten, may have made its way to Article Two, Alicyn's senses... faintly perfumed, yet one that suffused the soul with long faded emotions: Flowers.

"Welcome back to the world of the living."

A man entered the room, the automatic door sliding open near silently at his touch. He carried in his hands a bouquet, wrapped in wax paper and cellophane, of white roses, over which he gave a reassuring smile. He was clad in a white dress shirt with its sleeves rolled up, his neck adorned by a loose black tie, with him also wearing a pair of dark slacks, and matching leather shoes - like an off duty office worker who was trudging his way home, and had suddenly taken a detour to her room.

"How do you feel?" He said, his voice... calming, somehow, the tenor of a pastor or a priest, touched with a slight baritone.

[MightyDuck]

Alicyn was still trying to work the dryness out of her mouth when she smelled the flowers. She frowned as she looked up at the open door and the strange, broad man that had entered. Still wrapped up in a cloud of confusion brought on by a mind that had been silent for too long, the man's calming voice gave her something to focus on. She clung to that question and forced the whirling storm of conflicting thoughts and memories in her head back as she fought to answer. She opened her mouth to respond and abruptly closed it as she desperately attempted to work up some small bit of saliva to wet her lips and temporarily ease the desert that her throat had become. She tried again a moment later and her voice sounded more like a human and less like an ancient mummy out of a bad pulp novel. "Like I was run over by a truck. Where am I?"

She wanted another answer, several actually, and questions spilled out of her mouth unbidden as she sat forward in the bed. The thin hospital gown did little to hide the curves of her body or hide that she wore nothing else underneath it but Alicyn didn't seem to notice. "How am I even alive? Where is Tria? Did we beat the Imperator? Is the Earth safe?"
She spoke so quickly that one question rolled into another with the barest hint of puncuation. Her hands had balled up in the blanket covering her lower body and her heartbeat manifested through the leads attached beneath her gown as a rapid-fire 'beepbeepbeep' from the monitor beside her. Desperate for some control over her unruly tongue, Article Two reached to her side as if she expected to find something there and her final question came when her hands closed on nothing.

"Where is my mask?"

[GEAR]

"Ah...." - The man's face flashed with concern as Alicyn's heart rate increased, walking over to the side of the bed.

"Please, don't strain yourself. Your body hasn't quite fully recovered yet."

He placed the flowers in a waiting vase at her bedside as he spoke, hands moving deftly to do so. Once that was accomplished, he flipped open what appeared to be a small, holographic personal terminal of sorts, inputting some manner of instructions swiftly before pocketing it once again. He took a seat then beside her, turning the chair around so that he sat, arms crossed, over the back.

"To put it in layman's terms..." He said, raising a finger to scratch at the side of his head thoughtfully, "You're alive because you were entombed, for lack of better word, into that white Centurio. We were very surprised. We've never seen one with a human pilot before."

He straighened a bit in his chair. As he did, there was a chime, and the door opened once again. From Alicyn's viewpoint, nobody entered - but the sound of a small motor running filled the air, and she would have seen a small, wheeled robot come to a stop near the white haired man, who reached down to remove a small box from atop its frame. After which, the drone pulled away, and zipped back out the door to the Hall.

"...My name is Outis of Siarnaq. I'm... a researcher, you could say. You're currently on Cinyras Colony, a weapons development facility for Hyperlight Corporation... We found you in that machine when we... recovered it."

Despite his generally warm demeanor it was clear the man was picking his words carefully as he spoke. He reached into the box, and produced what appeared to be a clear-topped plastic tray, pulling a tab at the bottom of it as he did. He placed it on the table beside her, and the scent of baking bread joined the flowers as the self-cooking meal began to work its magic. He produced a second one, and conducted the same sequence of actions, presumably for himself, as he talked.

"As for a mask, well..." He trailed off, seemingly thinking for a moment, before shrugging his shoulders. "I've seen nothing of the like. My apologies."

[MightyDuck]

Alicyn sat back on the bed slowly and the monitor calmed as she listened to Outis. Her limbs felt heavier than they should be and she knew that whatever had happened to her, the stranger was right. Her vibrant green eyes tracked the flowers as Outis placed them in the vase and she raised one eyebrow in a silent question. Had he been doing that often? It was a charming gesture that provided her some measure of comfort. After all, if she was a prisoner then her jailor would hardly bring her flowers. She watched quietly but with obvious interest as he worked with some sort of hologram that was far more advanced than anything she had seen before her untimely demise on Earth. Then he was speaking and elegant eyebrows furrowed as her curiosity gave way to visible surprise and confusion. Everything he said didn't make sense. It was a simple logical leap to assume that the white 'Centurion' was in fact Tria and she was relieved to hear that the strange suit was still intact even if it only made her memories even more suspect. She hadn't been inside Tria when she had died. It had even apologized, briefly, about its inability to save her before bleeding away and leaving her in the shattered suit it had briefly restored. While it was easy to infer how she wound up in a weapon development facility, their ability to keep Tria in one place was puzzling.
"I'm Alicyn and tha-"

Her response was cut short as a ghost seemed to open the door to her room. Alicyn sat up with a quiet groan so she could watch the robot make its delivery. The level of technology, while less exotic than a holographic phone that likely had a better service plan than anything she'd owned, still surprised her and only filled her head with more questions. The overwhelming amount of answers she wanted fled at the first sight of what Outis removed from the box. The woman's stomach rumbled loudly when the smell of cooking food hit her nose, as if the sight of food triggered a response in her brain. She was so focused on the cooking food that she almost missed the fate of her mask when Outis delivered it.

Alicyn had worn that mask for so long that it had felt like a part of her. It had given her confidence and a name that acted a shield for all of the grief she had felt at her husband's death. The name, a terrible play on words that had started as a joke, had garnered her respect. By the time she had charged through Earth's atmosphere and into a storm straight out of myth it had felt more real than her true name. With her mask gone...

"I see. I truly am no one now," she said with a bitter laugh and dropped back onto the bed with a heavy sigh. She could hardly blame Outis for speaking as carefully as he clearly was to her. They had pulled her out of a sentient mobile suit and while they had cared for her, they had no idea who she was. It was probably for the best if only to keep the Vermilion Sovereignty from finding her. She closed her eyes and fell into her mind for a moment. Silence filled the air alongside the scent of flowers and heated food until, unless interrupted, she finally spoke with her eyes still closed. Confusion mixed heavily with weariness in her tone and her course throat made her words rough.

"I don't think you should be apologizing, Outis. It seems like your Hyperlight took care of me when by all rights, I shouldn't be alive. The last thing I remember is my suit, my original one before Tria occupied it, exploding on Earth after the Imperator left. I'm sure the Vermilion Sovereignty thinks I'm dead and are laughing back on Mars about one more mercenary they don't have to pay."

[GEAR]

At her words, Outis gave a small smile, though why was not immediately clear. He crossed his legs as he listened, head tilted slightly towards her at an angle, sympathetically. He seemed well mannered and polite at least, hardly the kind of attitude a jailer would keep, despite his guarded fashion of speech.

"The Vermillion...?" He muttered, once again consulting his handheld terminal momentarily. An entry of some sorts was displayed. His gaze went down to it, and then back to her in surprise, as if coming to some realization.

"...Ah."

He covered his mouth with his hand, slowly, seemingly thinking carefully as to what to say. Thankfully, he was able to distract himself with the food - he reached over and removed the top of Alicyn's meal container. As he did, steam poured out, and she could see chunks of meat, potatoes, and vegetables simmering gently in a rich brown sauce, over mounds of white rice. It had a faintly curry-like scent - but the exact spices would seem unfamiliar... at least, to a denizen of the Earth Sphere. From the lids, he produced from a pair of aluminum wrappers a pair metal chopsticks for himself, and a fork and knife for her - spotless in composition, as though they were brand new.

"Listen, Alicyn." Said Outis as he seated himself once more, his voice heavy with concern.

"What I am about to tell you may sound unbelievable... but it is not a lie, a hoax, or any kind of untruth."

Outis leaned forward and folded his arms on his knees, looking her in the eyes as he did. There was a strange kind of... dullness to his own gaze, like fogged up windows, and his shoulders seemed to sag with unaccustomed weight, giving him an unusual gait. He blinked, slowly, as he spoke, his voice retaining that careful calm.

"The Sovereignty, as well as the other powers of that time, are no more. We're currently in what's called the United Era..."

He closed his eyes, only able to think about how she would react.

"...Approximately twenty-three years since the event you recall."