The Quickening
Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2018 10:15 am
The waves crashed upon the cliffside of the distant land, away from the auspices of Union and Spacenoid alike. It was a place untouched by war of the conventional kind. By chance or divine providence, this place had gone the past decades since the Cataclysm under the collective radars of those that struggled for control. Likely it had the good fortune to be a place few cared about even in their originating times, that it was able to go so long untouched by the violence of war machines clashing on its shores. But more recently, a different sort of issue had plagued it. A more unorthodox vector. And it came from the very waves smashing into the mountainous rocks that the metallic figure now found herself watching.
The time had finally come.
It was one she had long anticipated. Many parts of it, this included, had played in her mind countless times in her long periods of waiting. She had yanked at the strings, jerked the paddle back and forth and took joy in watching the marionette that was the Game dance to her whims. And with each rock and tug of the bar she plotted, took steps to decide what would come next. None could stop her. Not a headstrong Gundam Fighter, not a specter of her outcast past, not a damn interstellar interloper and certainly not the marionette herself. Even as that marionette had advanced herself, she could not get ahead of Kodoq's plans for her. It would all go according to plan, she reminisced. None of them had the mind she did for such a thing.
It was only fitting, she mused, staring into the spray of sea water that blasted towards the sky, that it would be another puppeteer that would get the better of her. The one thing she didn't expect - someone else who knew how to play the game for keeps.
Kodoq turned away from the cliffside to look at the one that had come to meet her on this fated spot. Just a man. A man in a space suit because his weak flesh and mind were vulnerable to every power at her disposal. And yet she could do nothing to him, because at his back was the Dark Horse. The child that had been granted the strength to compete in the Game, another little monster she had inevitably expected to be consumed in Madalen's quest to ascend, as was intended. But this man, with his shit-eating grin and space suit, had gone all in on the blonde little boy who was far too young and immature to shoulder the power he had received. And with his bet came a level of resources and ingenuity Kodoq could not have expected. Perhaps it was her fatal flaw in all this to think her manipulations would go ignored for so long by the other big fish in the sea. No matter. She was gone. None of it mattered now.
"This is where it will rise."
"I caught that. A fucking weather balloon could catch that at this point," Hizir said with a chuckle. He was not alone - his 'trinity' was at his back, the stable brought together to overthrow everything built up and make the come-from-behind win. The King of Hearts, and the Princess of Frost at the back of the gluttonous beast who consumed everything that crossed his path. Everything except this man, that got in his head like a damn stranger on the street with nothing but candy to woo him. "When?"
"Two weeks."
A screech filled the air, punctuating Kodoq's words and cutting through the tumbling ocean sounds. Sea birds suddenly cawed and cried as they fled the surrounding area, sensing something was awry. A beastly black thing made of tendons and ink dragged itself up from the shore, its body catching up to it in a motion that looked like every aspect of its form was alive and independent of the rest. Like a colony of slime - a giant Man-o-war that had come far beyond the sum of its parts and grew grand legs in the process to suffer the land as much as it did the sea. This place had seen much of the black spawn, but this one was different. A harbinger of the next fourteen days, the first of what would be many in a wicked advent leading to utter decimation. It screamed again, and Hizir couldn't help but laugh at it. But he did not shift his gaze from the avatar of the Bio Gundam, not for a moment. This was not the time to get sloppy, after all, and he fully recognized what she could do.
The time had finally come.
It was one she had long anticipated. Many parts of it, this included, had played in her mind countless times in her long periods of waiting. She had yanked at the strings, jerked the paddle back and forth and took joy in watching the marionette that was the Game dance to her whims. And with each rock and tug of the bar she plotted, took steps to decide what would come next. None could stop her. Not a headstrong Gundam Fighter, not a specter of her outcast past, not a damn interstellar interloper and certainly not the marionette herself. Even as that marionette had advanced herself, she could not get ahead of Kodoq's plans for her. It would all go according to plan, she reminisced. None of them had the mind she did for such a thing.
It was only fitting, she mused, staring into the spray of sea water that blasted towards the sky, that it would be another puppeteer that would get the better of her. The one thing she didn't expect - someone else who knew how to play the game for keeps.
Kodoq turned away from the cliffside to look at the one that had come to meet her on this fated spot. Just a man. A man in a space suit because his weak flesh and mind were vulnerable to every power at her disposal. And yet she could do nothing to him, because at his back was the Dark Horse. The child that had been granted the strength to compete in the Game, another little monster she had inevitably expected to be consumed in Madalen's quest to ascend, as was intended. But this man, with his shit-eating grin and space suit, had gone all in on the blonde little boy who was far too young and immature to shoulder the power he had received. And with his bet came a level of resources and ingenuity Kodoq could not have expected. Perhaps it was her fatal flaw in all this to think her manipulations would go ignored for so long by the other big fish in the sea. No matter. She was gone. None of it mattered now.
"This is where it will rise."
"I caught that. A fucking weather balloon could catch that at this point," Hizir said with a chuckle. He was not alone - his 'trinity' was at his back, the stable brought together to overthrow everything built up and make the come-from-behind win. The King of Hearts, and the Princess of Frost at the back of the gluttonous beast who consumed everything that crossed his path. Everything except this man, that got in his head like a damn stranger on the street with nothing but candy to woo him. "When?"
"Two weeks."
A screech filled the air, punctuating Kodoq's words and cutting through the tumbling ocean sounds. Sea birds suddenly cawed and cried as they fled the surrounding area, sensing something was awry. A beastly black thing made of tendons and ink dragged itself up from the shore, its body catching up to it in a motion that looked like every aspect of its form was alive and independent of the rest. Like a colony of slime - a giant Man-o-war that had come far beyond the sum of its parts and grew grand legs in the process to suffer the land as much as it did the sea. This place had seen much of the black spawn, but this one was different. A harbinger of the next fourteen days, the first of what would be many in a wicked advent leading to utter decimation. It screamed again, and Hizir couldn't help but laugh at it. But he did not shift his gaze from the avatar of the Bio Gundam, not for a moment. This was not the time to get sloppy, after all, and he fully recognized what she could do.