#☓ ⁞ did i build a ship to wreck ?. / ( downfall. ) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

kiruuuuu · 4 years ago

Note

Hey. So.. would you write something about Ace and Kali? (One shot or HC - whatever comes to your mind) Something rather serious.. I just woke up to the idea that Kali is able to look behind this Golden Boy facade and knows that Ace has his insecurities like everybody else. 🤔

Hi, thank you so much for this ask 💗 I’ve been carrying this thought around for a while and only just now finished writing a small snippet on it! I’m not sure whether it captures the heart of your idea but I think it at the very least toys with it :) In my head, Kali and Ace are well aware of each other’s flaws, which lets them bond yet fuels an underlying suspicion that could boil over if stoked... In any case, I hope you like this! (Rating G/T, ???, ~1.2k words)

The men are glancing at each other uncertainly, probably trying to gauge whether it’s more beneficial for them to snitch or keep mum, neither of them wanting to be the one who speaks up first regardless. Kindergarten behaviour, and it does nothing to quell Kali’s rage. She’s kneading the collar of the jacket she’s carrying, grateful she didn’t sling it over her shoulder so she’s got some outlet at least – it’s been a while since she last threw something breakable at someone, but the urge is still there.

“Who”, she hisses once more, not ready to accept this silence. She’s been back at the base for all of ten minutes and already she wants to step on someone.

“Don’t get mad at us”, says one of them and though he likely meant it as a request, it comes across as a plea.

Kali is not unreasonable. The fault lies not with them and they all know it, so she forces herself to take a deep breath. Though she keeps rubbing the fabric between her fingers. “I won’t.”

“It wasn’t our idea.”

Yet they’re hesitant to tell her whose it was. “I know.”

“We’re bored out of our minds here.”

The complaint is heard. To play nice with Harry, Kali has put many of Nighthaven’s operations on hold, aborted some of them entirely and gave orders to not lift a finger unless cleared with her. Some of it is explicitly stated in her contract with Rainbow, some of it heavily implied, some of it merely… encouraged. She remembers the way Harry paled at some of the names she dropped and she’s done more thorough research since then. There’s no chance anyone believes in an actual change of heart, she’s too opportunistic for that, but compliance surely is the next best thing. She asks how high to jump. She enjoys how her agreeableness is slowly turning Harry into a nervous wreck.

Still, the downside is downtime. Significant downtime. She’s just returned from a Rainbow mission during which comms broke down, meaning no clearance possible – so everything came to a standstill.

Was supposed to, at least.

“Is it really worth it?”

Kali raises a brow. “Answer me: have I ever let you down?” They shake their heads. They know better than not to. “I’m not going to. Remember the face of our Minister of Home Affairs when he realised he needed us? Hm? The way we tracked mud into all those official buildings, the way they were forced to treat us like esteemed guests?”

They haven’t forgotten. A grim satisfaction lines their features, a satisfaction Kali herself has felt many times. She’s worked hard to make herself invaluable to her home country’s government, and reaping the benefits made it a thousand times worth it.

“Imagine that rush of power, but now it’s officials from Russia you’re facing. European representatives. Americans. Rainbow has ties to everyone. Get it?”

They get it. They might not like it, but they understand. These are men refusing to lick boots – like her – and bowing to Harry’s authority doesn’t come easy. Reminding them of their goal, however, helps.

“It was Ace”, one of them mutters.

She turns around and leaves, no words necessary. Tracking him down is surprisingly difficult, he likes to hang around Aruni and drift aimlessly in her absence, so she has to ask a few people until she barges in on him trying to flirt with one of the newcomers, phone out, smile wide, eyes dead. “Out”, says Kali sharply.

The asshole leans back like he’s not even expecting to be scolded, while the other man scrambles to gather his personal items and hurries out of the lounge as fast as he can.

“Glad to have you back, Queen”, Ace greets her and she wants to punch him in his stupid face.

“You went on a brief excursion, I hear.”

The smile fades. If he hadn’t realised before how deep he’s in the shit, now he can definitely smell it. “Nothing out of the ordinary”, he replies, defensive.

“What was my one rule?”

“It was just a bodyguard job, nothing big. Nothing even happened.”

“My one rule?”, she repeats, unfazed.

“The whole thing was over in a few hours, and the guys needed it, you should’ve seen them afterwards, they -”

“No! Operations!”, Kali barks.

If Ace actually rolls his eyes at her right now, she’s going to skin him. He seems to resist the urge, if barely. “Is it really that serious?”

Is it ever. Once more, she pulls herself together with Herculean effort and tries hard to be reasonable. “We want to get on Pandey’s good side, understood? He is the one we need to butter up. None of his lackeys go and do some bodyguarding of their own accord, they know better than that. If you don’t receive any kind of official mission, you are to stay put and keep your fucking mouth shut like a good little boy.”

“Harry actually commended me after the fact.”

The casual remark gives her pause. He’s too clever to go against her without anything to gain – and while annoying her is indeed his goal sometimes, this is too significant to be ascribed to mere pettiness. Meaning he was fully aware of Harry’s future approval. Meaning he’s trying to get on his good side by himself.

A good rat makes sure there’s always another ship near in case this one capsizes.

She could crush him in a minute. Throwing him out of Nighthaven is the easiest thing in the world, and setting an ultimatum the second easiest: there’s no doubt Harry would choose her, Wamai, Aruni and all the resources her organisation has at its disposal. It’s not even a choice. And then there’s the photos. The kind from which an artificial personality like him would never recover because the internet never forgets. Five minutes, and his life could be ruined.

In a way, she finds his aspirations amusing. She’d never do it, unless he actually betrayed her, and he’s not dumb enough to do so. He’s crafting himself a parachute knowing full well its effectiveness relies on Kali not cutting it.

He correctly interprets her silence, revealing that he’s fully aware of how transparent he is. “Don’t worry, I’m on your side and I’ll stay on it. You know that. I saved your life, now I get to be a part of it.”

“Rumour has it that you decided to save me after you found out who I was.”

She’s met with a dazzling smile. “I did save you though, didn’t I?”

All she wants is to tell him to be very, very careful. One day, he’ll try to impress the wrong person. And either he’ll pay the ultimate price for it… or he’ll do something he won’t be able to reconcile with his conscience. It’ll be his downfall, and though she wants to witness it, she doesn’t want it to happen. Not really.

Still, she simply walks away without warning. This is something he’ll have to find out for himself.

#rainbow six siege #ace #kali #fanfic #oneshot #golden boy #honestly though thank you for this ask I relish being able to explore anything Nighthaven #♥♥♥#they're each other's significant bothers #this might be too Kali centric oops

15 notes · View notes

michaelmyersmalewife · 5 years ago

Text

LEVIATHAN | 11. Apotheosis | MASTERLIST

words: 6k+

A/N: you can probably guess why this chapter hurt my feelings

you can also support this fic on wattpad & ao3

After what felt like forever, lights flickered back on and air began to blow through the sub's vents again.

Jodie's heart was hammering, and she was pretty sure she had hit her side against something, the space just below her ribs throbbing with pain. Gill was standing up from previously being in a crumpled pile on the floor. Serizawa helped Graham up to her feet.

"Damage report." the commander said as everyone got back on their feet.

"Fire in the torpedo room is out." one of the men said. "Atmosphere is stable. We're pretty banged up but we'll make it."

"Make it where?" Mark asked.

"Can't fix our position," one of the control techs said. "But inertial says we're six hundred miles from departure."

Running the numbers in her head, Jodie's brows scrunched together in confusion. No way this sub could make six hundred miles in little over an hour. And the lights had only been out for about 30 minutes since the vortex. Despite everyone else's confusion, Stanton was beaming.

"That's impossible, unless.." Graham thought out loud, grasping her chin.

"I knew it, man!" Stanton exclaimed. "That vortex was a tunnel into the hollow earth!"

Everyone shot him a pointed look. He waved them off.

"Y'know, subterranean tunnel system that connects the entire planet - doesn't matter, I knew I was right - I told you, Chen!" he rambled.

"Shut up, Rick." she said, putting a hand to her throbbing temple.

The Hollow Earth was an old theory, up there with the likes of the Flat Earth theory and whatnot. It had been entertained by scientists back in the 1600s thanks to a one Edmund Halley, but in a few centuries it faded to nothing but science fiction. That is, until Dr. Houston Brooks proposed an updated version of the theory back in the 70s. He had tried to test his theory on the Monarch expedition to Skull Island, but at this point everyone knew how that went. While he had managed to gather evidence of cave systems deeper than usual, it just wasn't enough to prove the larger theory.

Until now, if Stanton was right.

Had Mothra known about the vortex? Was it encoded in the minds of all titans? That debate would have to wait, however, as they still had a mission to get on with.

"One-second emergency blow forward." the commander said.

The sub lurched ahead, dipping down into a crevasse.

"Doctor?"

"Launch probes." Serizawa said.

Ahead of them, a trio of probes flitted through the water, their floodlights illuminating the pitch black abyss around them. In the control room, the feeds from the drones appeared. As the sub followed their lead, they approached strange, twisting shapes that were still too vague to make out through the murk. But even then, it was obvious they weren't natural.

"Lights on, cameras good, range one thousand yards." Stanton said as he pushed the drones farther along.

As the sub and its guides continued through the darkness, Jodie could see the occasional flicker of life dart away from the lights. But one shape loomed, the shape of a woman's face - pale and ghostly - suddenly appearing on the feed. Jodie flinched.

"Jesus," Stanton said in mild shock.

As the probe pulled back, widening the frame, they found it wasn't some waterlogged corpse or a mermaid. It was the figurehead of what looked like a centuries old galleon. And it wasn't alone.

Dozens of wrecks were visible in the searchlights, many piled on top of each other. What looked like an authentic Viking ship raised its dragon-shaped figurehead from the remains of galleys, cogs, and frigates. The rusted cylinder of a submarine, covered in barnacles, lay near the broken remnants of a warship that had probably last seen the surface during the first world war. And they had all been drawn here by the vortex, thrown into the mouth of the abyss. And they could very well be next, just another addition to this graveyard.

But as they pushed forward, Jodie found that analogy had taken an all too literal turn.

Among the wrecks were immense bones - ribs, arms, legs, skulls, bony plates with spikes and spines and anything in between. And beyond that was something else.

"Pan right." Serizawa said.

There was a light in the abyss, but not the artificial blueish green light from the sub and its probes, it was almost a soft orange glow that emitted a reddish fog. It wasn't coming from the surface, but boiling up from a trench. It was lava, pouring out of fissures in the earth and creating a sort of underwater stream, flowing across the seafloor through giant structures that were definitely not natural. Gill leaned closer to the feed, eyes shining with fascination.

Through the muck were dozens of crumbling statues the size of skyscrapers, and alongside them were temples and other smaller buildings - the ruins of a cyclopean city. Breathtaking colonnades reminded Jodie of Roman architecture, but in some places the structure seemed more Egyptian. And in others they were more ornate, like Southeast Asian temples. And illuminating it all was the stream of lava.

"Amazing.." Gill said with a grin on her face.

Passing countless monuments, Jodie could barely make out what might be hieroglyphics, bas-reliefs, and murals of strange creatures and much smaller humans.

"Looks Egyptian, Roman maybe?" Jodie said, coming up from behind Gill to observe the feeds.

Chen shook her head. "No, this is something else, this is much older." She looked closer through the dim lighting. "Can't say what exactly, but it almost looks Mesopotamian at least."

Much larger murals came into view, and now Jodie could recognize what she was talking about. The strange creatures on the earlier hieroglyphics were much clearer now, and they all depicted the same four figures - Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan and Kong. And beneath them, smaller figures were arranged in various forms of respect, service, or worship.

"You were right." Gill breathed, looking over at Chen. "The legends, the stories..all of it. They're all true." She began taking stills of the ancient carvings.

"They really were the first gods." Graham whispered.

This changes everything, she thought. Emma, Chen, Serizawa, they had all been right. Although Emma had royally screwed up and gotten unknowable amounts of people killed needlessly, the link between humans and titans was inescapable.

What caught her attention the most was that there was nothing in the human figures' poses that suggested fear or intimidation. Piety, maybe. But also cooperation. This was the coexistence they had always spoken of. This was the connection.

"After all this time," Gill said, looking at a particularly large mural, depicting Godzilla - in all his glory - defending a city from what looked like MUTOs. "He never forgot."

"But we did." Serizawa responded.

As they passed through the sunken city, the ruins began to tell another story. It was slowly becoming clear that the city hadn't been peacefully abandoned. Nearly everything around them had been scarred, scorched, or blasted to pieces. The sea bottom itself bore the scars of some ancient cataclysm that had undoubtedly sent the city asunder. The last mural was of a familiar three-headed dragon, the wall cracked beyond repair. Seeing Ghidorah depicted on something so ancient sent a chill down Jodie's spine.

And with the wreckage, the murals of man and monster ended - but not because the artists had finished their story, but because their work had been wrecked beyond recognition. Whatever harmony had once existed in this place had been drowned in a single day of misfortune much like the mythical Atlantis. Had this even existed above, Jodie thought. Or was this all one big cave, once filled with air? Either way, who - or what - brought about its downfall was beyond her understanding. It very well could have been a war between titans fought with the aid of humans. If so, given the amount of giant bones, the end result didn't seem to have gone very well for either side.

Except, perhaps, Godzilla's.

"If the stones could only speak, the stories they could tell us." Stanton mused.

"Amen to that." Gill said, continuing to take photos.

"Dr. Stanton, any sign of Gojira?" Serizawa asked.

"Yeah, the probes are picking up a radioactive blob just past past that ridge." he said, pointing to the thermal screen.

"Set a course."

_____

Elena and the others pushed through the woods as fast as they could.

She kept imagining the Controller behind her, gun in hand, that same shock the Regulator had shot her with that first day surging through her whole body. Or maybe this time she wouldn't be stunned. Would she even feel it? Would everything just stop? She was determined not to find out, and she was determined even more so not to let Madison find out either.

After nearly an hour, they finally came across a winding two-lane road with hundreds of cars packed bumper to bumper. Through the windows, she could see people staring at them as they walked in the opposite direction, puzzled but not making any attempt to stop them. She couldn't blame them.

It wasn't long before the road passed into a suburban area where they could no longer see the skyline. The Regulator slowed.

"I suppose I should let you take the reins."

Madison nodded.

She knew Boston like the back of her hand, but it was more than a little eerie seeing all the empty houses. Every now and then they would see a family still packing up. At one point some people in an SUV stopped and offered them a ride, but once they learned they were going into the city, they shook their heads and moved on.

Then the road joined a bigger one, all bodegas, malls, office complexes, and finally an interstate that was just as bad - if not worse - than the road outside the city. It was practically at a standstill, and the drivers were definitely not happy about it. Elena could feel a headache coming on from the constant stream of honking and screaming, but what bothered her most were the people too frustrated to wait, weaving through cars and abandoning theirs altogether. It was like swimming upstream, and the ORCA was heavy. She could only imagine how much the backpack must weigh for Madison. She was already more than tired, and they still had a long way to go until they reached the ballpark.

Every now and then they would take turns carrying the loads, stopping to rest or eat or drink. But never for more than a few minutes.

At least Elena felt a little safer now that they entered the downtown area. The evacuation had already kicked into high gear, sirens wailing near and far. Jets tore through the skies, helicopters and Ospreys filled with military and civilians alike taking off in the distance. The odds of the Controller and his men finding them were significantly lower now, and she could only hope that Emma had kept her word.

By the time they got within sight of Fenway, the crowd had turned, no longer flowing out of the city but within the park. It was one of the evacuation hubs, complete with aircraft lifting hoards of people lifted off every other ten minutes or so. It seemed to be going well. A little too well, perhaps, but a small part of Elena thought maybe there was a chance they could survive.

No. They would. She would see to that. And with the ORCA in their hands, those chances were looking just a little higher.

But with all of the people pouring into Fenway, it was going to be a little trickier than they anticipated. Finding no other way in, they merged into one of the lines where people were being herded into the stadium by cops and soldiers like a bunch of sheep. Every few minutes the loudspeakers above reminded them all to remain calm, that the ships would be departing every fifteen minutes or so. A few places ahead of the line, a little girl was clinging her to her father. She looked terrified, tears streaming down her face as she saw the bustling stadium around her. Madison made a funny face, and the girl cheered a little and turned away. A small, hardly noticeable smile appeared on Elena's face.

Just a moment later, Elena saw their chance. No one official was looking, and the line had gotten as far into the stadium as they could go without reaching the helicopter waiting ahead. The trio sprinted across the field until they reached a door that lead to the broadcasting booth at the top of the stadium. But after jiggling it, she found it locked. She slammed a fist against the door.

"Damn it," she cursed.

Wordlessly, the Regulator nudged her back. Lifting her leg farther than she thought a human could reach, she kicked down like a hammer. Almost as soon as her heel connected with the lock, the door splintered from the impact, swinging open.

"After you."

Madison raised her eyebrows, trying to hide an impressed grin. As they slipped inside, there were stairs that lead to the booth. They had reached the easy part. Despite the massive crowds outside, in there, it was deserted. Madison looked down at her hand as it slid up the railing.

She wondered what her dad was doing, if he was still okay. She remembered coming here a few times with him, just the two of them. Neither her mom or Andrew were big baseball fans. And she had never cared that much about it herself, but she liked the atmosphere, sharing it with someone she cared about.

Please be okay, she thought.

He will be fine, young Speaker, the warm voice echoed. Just worry about yourself

That was going to be hard to do. There was so much to worry about that she could barely begin to comprehend it. And above it all, she hoped her mom was okay too, that the Controller didn't take out their escape on her. She knew there was a good chance he might. She shook her head, not wanting to think about it.

It took them a little longer to find the booth than she would've liked, but eventually they came to the door. This time, it was unlocked. Inside was a large table surrounded by dozens of tv screens and other broadcasting equipment. From there, they had a bird's eye view of the evacuation through the giant glass windows ahead of them. For a moment, she hung there, watching the events unfold. Behind her, Elena and the Regulator placed the ORCA on one of the tables, and they got to work.

Opening up the ORCA, they began hooking up cables to the stadium's speaker system, turning up the volume as high as it could go.

Looking away from the window, she found that whoever was here had left a screen on. Madison listened as the anchor droned on.

"Massive storms and other disasters triggered by the titans have forced millions to flee major cities. And with D.C. hit hard by a category six hurricane that has left the capitol completely flooded, this is the single greatest disaster in human history."

The news footage showed pure pandemonium. Dozens of tornadoes and waterspouts churned through the air and sea, sucking in everything they touched up into a sickly yellow sky. Madison could make out buildings in the distance, but it soon became obvious that only the tops of those buildings were visible, while others were completely submerged altogether. The summit of the Washington monument and the dome of the capitol building looked like they had been dropped in the middle of a lake. And all the while, lightning struck all around the area in thin golden bolts.

"It looks like the sky's alive.." Madison thought out loud.

Looking up at the screen, Elena shivered. "That's because it is."

Another chain of lightning flashed in the bruised clouds, and for an instant she swore she could see Ghidorah's demonic shadow.

"The grim search continues as people around the world sift through the debris of leveled homes in the hope of finding missing loved ones. And though this sight is heartbreaking, it is in no way unique. Cities around the globe have fallen under the wake of what many are calling 'The Rise of the Titans'."

The Regulator cleared her throat as the ORCA beeped to life, its screens flipping open.

"Should be ready for broadcasting. You know how to work it, yes?"

Madison nodded. She scrolled through a handful of signatures until she finally found one that looked familiar. Pulling up the bioacoustic waveform on the ORCA's main screen, the words 'Alpha Frequency Found' appeared beneath it.

Without hesitation, she hit the button.

Turning to Elena, the Regulator hooked up the headset to the ORCA, handing it to her in the same motion. She took it in her hands, turning it over with a contemplative look on her face before steeling herself and placing it on her head.

"Are you sure about this?" the Regulator asked.

Slowly, Elena nodded, closing her eyes as she entered the headspace.

_____

The sub continued to drift through the ghostly city at a steady pace. They were headed toward something large, far larger than any of the other buildings. At first Jodie thought it was a dead end, but as they drew nearer, she saw that it was a massive sculpture carved into a natural stone face. It was a doorway of sorts, but not on a human scale. A titanic one. Carved on either side of the structure's base were two huge three-clawed feet.

Through the chthonic doorway, lava cascaded along a tunnel that rose in a series of large steps, eventually forming a larger fall that poured into the river beneath them. At the far end of the tunnel, a faint but familiar blue glow lined the entrance into..somewhere.

"I think we should stop." Stanton said.

"Why?" Serizawa asked.

"Because I still wanna have kids one day." he said, tapping the top right corner of his screen. The geiger counter built into the drones flashed a dangerous red warning. "Preferably without flippers."

"Full stop. Hover the ship." the commander said.

The drones continued on without them, disappearing down into the tunnel as they all continued to watch their feed.

"Things are getting steamy." Stanton said. "Probes aren't gonna last long, but I'm picking up the big guy's radioactive signature up ahead. It's weak, but it's there."

He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when the feed from one of the probes ceased, quickly followed by another. The third pushed forward, and a moment later it finally entered the vast cavern.

"Okay, we got O2, CO2, and methane - looks like some sort of air pocket in there." Stanton said.

As the probe rose to the surface of the cavity, the red-orange glow became more intense. Illuminated by the falling lava, a vast temple complex was laid out before them. And although the video feed was already beginning to lose resolution from the radiation, they could see him clear as day. Godzilla, splayed out on the temple floor like a fallen deity in the heart of his own temple, lava breaching up from beneath him like ichor.

"Oh my god -" Mark breathed.

"- zilla." Stanton finished.

And with that the video cut out into nothing but static. "Aaand goodnight, Grace." Stanton let go of the probe's controls, leaning back into his chair.

"Pull up the last frame." Serizawa said.

He zoomed into the volcanic vents surrounding Godzilla. It stung Jodie's heart to see the still of the titanic lizard in such a state, a powerful being so beaten like that. Helpless.

"There," he said, pointing to the glow behind his scutes. "It's the source of the radiation."

"He's feeding. Regenerating." Graham mused.

"This is his home." Serizawa said.

The two shared a look of satisfaction. Serizawa turned away, taking his notebook out of his pocket and flipping through the pages while Graham continued to stare at the frame.

"That must be how he's been able to survive so long." Mark said. "Always adapting, evolving, it's incredible."

"Welp," Stanton said. "He doesn't really need our help, dude's got it covered, right? He just needs a nap."

"No," Chen interjected. "After San Francisco he was gone for nearly five years. After the Oxygen Destroyer, this process could take decades."

"We have to proceed as planned." Serizawa said firmly.

"Hang on," Stanton objected. "We're gonna launch a nuclear torpedo in order to revive a giant monster. That's not exactly like jump-starting a car."

"We have one more complication," the commander said. "Our weapons systems were damaged during the crash. We can't launch."

Jodie's heart sank. "Shouldn't you have mentioned this a little earlier?" she said.

The commander was at a loss for words.

"Can it be repaired?" Mark asked.

"I'm afraid not." he replied.

They had come all this way, followed Mothra, journeyed into the hollow earth and found Godzilla - all for nothing. But Graham wasn't discouraged.

"Could we attach one of the warheads to a probe? Set a timer so that it gives us enough time to clear the area before it detonates?" Graham said.

Stanton shook his head. "They wouldn't handle the weight. Besides, they'll barely make it past the cave entrance before the radiation eats it."

"Okay," Chen said, pacing. "So what if we go inside, set a timer, and detonate one of the warheads manually?"

"No way," Stanton said. "If the heat doesn't fry you the radiation will. It might be good for titans but walking in there would be like walking into Chernobyl."

The sub was silent. There were no other options, none that ended in either the death of Godzilla or the deaths of themselves. Jodie bit at a nail.

"I'll go." Serizawa said, breaking the silence.

Jodie almost thought she'd heard wrong.

"What the hell does that mean?" Mark asked incredulously.

"No, I'll go - Serizawa, you're too im -" Gill started before being quickly interrupted.

"What? No, what are you -?!" Jodie was silenced as Serizawa raised a hand.

He didn't speak, but his face said it all. He had skipped to the obvious conclusion: a life for a life. And he would be the one to take that leap. Once he made up his mind, there was almost no convincing him.

"There must be another way." Graham insisted.

"There's no time for a debate," he said. "I'll go."

_____

It's cute -

- That you think whatever trick you pulled can stop us.

We'd applaud your efforts, -

- But we're busy

Elena's jaw tightened, trying to push through the voices in her mind.

Don't feel so down, Speaker.

When we're finished, we'll leave you alive last

So that you may see our wonders in full swing.

It's going to be beautiful.

"He still talking to you?" Madison asked, startling her out of her daze.

She nodded. "He doesn't know about the ORCA. Yet. But even then he's suspicious...he thinks whatever we're doing won't work." she bristled, rubbing her arms of the sudden chill. "Let's hope we can prove him wrong."

"Look." the Regulator said after a beat, pointing to the screen.

For the past ten or so minutes they had been anxiously watching the new stream in from around the world for any sign of change. Now, it seemed, that the tables were finally turning. Madison smiled.

"It does appear as if the attacks have ceased for the time being, with the creatures going from destructive to docile within minutes. Now, no one is sure how or why but this seems to be happening simultaneously around the world."

The titans in the news footage didn't seem docile so much as they did completely dazed, if not confused. Like they had just been dropped in the middle of a city with no prior knowledge of waking up to begin with. The two conflicting alpha frequencies were scrambling their massive brains, and unable to decide who to follow, they couldn't act out at all.

Take that, you bastard, she thought with a satisfied grin.

Somewhere at the front of her mind, Ghidorah laughed. Elena would've rolled her eyes if only his signature cackle wasn't so unsettling.

This is only a minor setback.

They are dull, weak. This was to be expected.

But we will manage.

You just keep thinking that, asshole, she responded.

It's funny, really.

Seeing you try so hard.

It's amusing.

But also sad.

You can't stop a storm, -

- how could you stop us?

Nearly growling from frustration, Elena's eyes screwed shut. Why? What could you possibly gain from all this? A dead kingdom with no subjects?

There was a long, weighty pause after that. It frightened her, but she would rather die than admit that to him.

If you're so confident, Speaker, -

- Then maybe we should pay you a visit.

It's only polite.

Shit, Elena buried a sneer, throwing the headset onto the table in frustration.

Those self-absorbed bastards couldn't be reasoned with, that much she was sure of. But even with the titans incapacitated, it still didn't seem to sway them. She knew it was all far from over, but if the ORCA confused the titans long enough, Monarch would have a chance to do their thing. That is, if they even had a plan to begin with. Madison seemed faithful in their endeavors, and that faith was becoming increasingly infectious.

Meanwhile, on the field below, the crowd had thinned out to almost nothing. Another handful of airlifts and the evacuation would be complete. If anyone noticed the odd pulses coming from the stadium speakers, no one had come to check it out. But they weren't going anywhere. They couldn't keep the ORCA out of their sight, not now.

And even if they could leave, they didn't have anywhere to go.

_____

Captain Ford Brody helped Serizawa into the dive suit.

He had already prepped the bomb beforehand, laughing dismally at the irony of the situation. But now, as he helped prepare the doctor for what was assuredly a suicide mission, there was no sign of humor in him.

It was all happening too fast, Jodie felt like she was slipping down a slope that was now nearly vertical. There had to be some another way, it was just no one could think of anything during such a time crunch. That had to be it.

"We've removed the warhead's lead shielding and inserted a mechanical timer, so it can function in the radiation." Brody explained.

"On first contact you'll start losing your long-range vision." he said, quietly. "After you surface your motor skills will start to fade, but I added a heliox mixture to your tank. It should help keep you stable longer."

Serizawa nodded with an unreadable expression as he took in the specifics of his impending demise. The captain was trying to be precise, clinical. Jodie could see the sadness in his eyes just below the surface of professionalism.

"Once you get inside, you'll have about six minutes," he said. "Before the radiation -" he stopped himself, taking in an unsteady breath.

Jodie could feel her eyes well up with tears. Nearly losing Godzilla was one thing, but losing Serizawa? It was too much. Everyone could feel it. He was part of the very foundations of Monarch, and most of their lives. He was their heart.

Brody sent him off with a quick hug.

"It was an honor, man." Stanton said, reaching out and shaking Serizawa's hand.

Chen grabbed Serizawa in a hug, gripping him like she didn't want to let go. But she did, her arms pulling back slowly. Gill and Jodie both went in for a hug, and as they pulled away with soft pats on their backs, she could hear Gill sniffle just a bit. Mark shook his hand.

"Thank you," Serizawa said. "All of you."

He walked over to Graham, who was standing near the back of the crowd. She was trying not to let it all spill out, Jodie could tell. But as Serizawa pulled his notebook from his pocket, handing it to her, she sucked in a sharp sob.

"I couldn't." she said.

A wistful smile appeared along his face. Insisting, she grasped his notes with trembling hands.

"He fought for us. Almost died for us. He's not only proof that coexistence is possible, he is the key to it." his smile started to fade, but his eyes still held that solemn determination. "Take care of them, Vivienne."

She was fully sobbing as she hugged him, wrapping her arms around him like he was the last person on earth. He reciprocated the embrace, closing his eyes.

"Sensei, aishiteimasu." she whispered.

With that, he turned the airlock, climbing into the small sub. Giving a nod, the doors sealed and the water began to rise. Jodie and the others could do nothing but watch as he entered the fiery tunnel.

_____

Serizawa tried to control his breathing as he entered the tunnel, trying to steady the heart that wanted to jump out of his chest.

It was getting hot. The bottom of the sea had been cold, even through the walls of the sub he came from, but the river of lava flowing down from above was warming the tunnel and sub he was in now. If it got any hotter, he might not even survive long enough for the radiation to kill him.

He had to keep a calm mind.

He thought of the others - his colleagues, his friends, Vivienne - leaving them behind hurt him more than they would ever realize. But if he didn't do this, in due time there wouldn't be any of them at all.

If he turned back now they could easily turn tail and find a shelter, survive until they could come up with some other plan. But he couldn't let Godzilla die. Once Ghidorah destroyed every other threat to him in the world above, he would surely turn his attention elsewhere. With Godzilla weak, it wouldn't take much effort to finish him off. Then it wouldn't matter how well hidden the remnants of humanity were. The dragon would root them out, use his subjects to raise even more destruction. And when he was finished, even the ones that managed to escape his hunts wouldn't survive. And then, perhaps, he would then turn on the titans that followed him as well.

Godzilla was their only chance.

As he entered the tunnel, he found himself becoming distracted by its sheer magnificence. It was hard to imagine how it might have been built, but given its size, it had clearly been made for Godzilla. He wondered how many people had entered this temple. Had Godzilla even been present to see them? Did he even care? At its threshold and up its steps, the architects had carved enclosures that each held statues within them. Each represented strange creatures. Although the style was a little different, he recognized them as Sumerian in origin. The figures were spirits of protection and guidance. Some said they represented the natural order. Whoever built this place seemed to have hoped it would provide the titan solitude, a place safe from the fighting and bloodshed on the surface.

Serizawa found them comforting, encouraging even. Although they couldn't protect him, he could use all the guidance they could offer.

Sweat was pouring from him now, the interior of the sub was unbearable but it wasn't enough to kill him. Not yet.

As he passed the last of the stone guardians, he knew he was past the point of no return. He could already feel his skin buzzing from the radiation, and he knew if he turned back now he would only spend the rest of his shortened life in pain. He had seen people succumb to radiation poisoning. It was no way to die.

As he approached the foot of the long stretch of steps in the temple, the light ahead grew brighter, almost like a sunrise. He was doing the right thing, he could feel it. But he was still human, and that part of him was terrified.

The sub broke the surface of the water at last, and as he surfaced it sparked and sputtered, dying at the shore of the cavern. As he climbed out, bones aching, he found himself surrounded by majesty. The drone's video had not done this place - the palace of a god - justice. Never in his life had he seen something quite like this, and he knew that not many people would. He allowed himself a moment, paralyzed with wonder, letting his eyes drink it all in before his sight would start to fail him. Looking at all of it surrounding him, Serizawa felt small. But in that single moment - the disorientation, the nausea, the pain - all of it disappeared, and his head was right.

He continued on, and as he walked he found that part of the cavern seemed to be natural, but the handprint of humanity was everywhere. Sacred carvings, glyph-covered monoliths, temples, statues - the prototype of civilization all laid out before him. It was fitting, this amalgamation of man and nature, as fitting as the relationship it signified between man and...

Godzilla lay upon a stone platform in the heart of the temple, at the top of a very long, very broad staircase. Rivers of molten lava sprayed up around him, some falling behind him in massive flows. The glow almost gave him an ethereal look.

Taking the first step on that staircase, Serizawa felt the presence of hallowed ground, that sense of being a part of something far bigger than you could comprehend. So many years of his life had been spent searching for him, from carrying on his father's work to finding his own place in the world. And over the years, he had come to understand more and more about Godzilla's irreplaceable purpose, and his own. A purpose he was fulfilling now. Looking up at the staircase, at the pulsing light that shrouded it in a ghostly veil, it felt like ascending to the afterlife.

And Serizawa found that he was no longer afraid to die.

Carrying the bomb in its case, he started up the stairs. He had only managed to take a handful of steps and already he was beginning to feel his limbs tremble, his vision blurring. Putting one foot in front of the other had become a herculean task. Feeling the darkness closing around his sight, the bomb feeling heavier in his arms, he took a deep breath. He had to keep a calm mind, and in the back of his mind, he remembered an old Babylonian poem.

Goodbye old friend. Your peaceful breath slows, Your eyes gaze upon your world. I offer to you My strength.

The lava splashed to the bottom of the cave, and in the encroaching distance Godzilla's scutes broke the flow of the light below.

Goodbye old friend. My hand reaches forth, Striving for divinity. I offer to you My love.

His breathing was getting heavier as the radiation permeated the suit. He stumbled for a moment, tripping over his own feet before getting back up.

Goodbye old friend. At the steps of your kingdom, We become one. I offer to you My life.

When he reached the summit, he did not realize it at first. But then his eyes focused, and he saw Godzilla only a few steps ahead of him. His lungs were burning, and the steam that wafted from the lava was suffocating. With a puff of air from the titan's nostrils, the steam cleared.

Serizawa knelt down, setting the case on the platform and opening the timer. With shaking fingers, he started it. Twenty seconds was all the time he needed.

Feeling around one of the suit's pockets, he took out his pocket watch, looking at it one last time, remembering his father. Suddenly, a vast groan of pain shook the chamber. Serizawa could hardly stand again, but he fought against the ache that covered his body. Using the last of his strength, he removed his helmet.

The air was thick and harsh with burnt stone and water vapor, it was nearly too much, but that was okay.

Up close, Godzilla's wounds were terrible, spanning almost his entire body. His dorsal spines were barely flickering with his signature blue light, but he would heal. And he would fight once again, bringing balance.

Serizawa could barely breathe now, as the slightest movement he took was agony. But looking at Godzilla, he felt some of that strength return. And the titan looked back. He couldn't feel himself move, but Godzilla's form was coming closer to him. Call it a hallucination, call it projecting - call it whatever you like - but as Serizawa came within inches of the titan, there was something intelligent in those eyes. Something so startlingly human. Recognition. Empathy. Heartache.

He stripped off one of his gloves, skin stinging from the contact, and laid a hand on Godzilla's scales.

"Saraba, tomo yo." Serizawa closed his eyes.

And then there was light.

#godzilla #king of the monsters #godzilla king of the monsters #kotm #godzilla fanfic #leviathanfic

2 notes · View notes

saltyscrouge · 7 years ago

Text

RWBY SPOILERS VOLUME 5 CHAPTER 13: WITH OUR POWERS COMBINE

ALRIGHT MY FELLOW HUNTSMAN AND HUNTRESSES TODAY MANY OF US GOT WHAT WE WANTED!

I’ll break it down as I go on this rambling post of shit that was going through my mind.

FIRST we got MVP of the Game by Jaune Arc! Not only did he help Weiss’ aura heal her, but he amped it up where she summoned a god damn Wasp! GG VILLAINS I DONT SEE HEALERS ON YOUR SIDE!

Then we got Ruby “Prepare to catch these hands” Rose with the stunning head butt to the asshole with the smuggiest face. “Whatever it takes to shut you up.” DAMN SON YOU BETTER RUN!

As soon as Nora got electrified I was like, “Oh Hazel boi, ya done fucked up.” Nora “Hammer Time” Valkyrie fucking sends the behemoth of a man out the building.

Blake showing up with the Squad fucking wrecking Adam! Bitch boi deserved that for all the shit he did. And she finally saw Yang! Thank god, I’m so glad they will finally get closure to all the feelings they’ve held in from V3. Now I know y’all shippers were going crazy, but please do remember that Blake last saw Yang with a missing arm and she ran away without ever knowing what happened to her friend. I’m not saying that the ship shouldn’t happen cause I want all of our characters to be happy, but let’s focus on the fact that they finally get to see each other for now, also it’s during the middle of the showdown. Fight now talk later kind of situation cause we don’t know what the villains have up their sleeves. BUT WE’LL FINALLY SEE THEIR REACTIONS TO EACH OTHER. OUR SAD GIRLS ARE HOPEFULLY GONNA BE HAPPY!!

THE MAIDEN FIGHT! OH MY GOD THAT WAS AMAZING!!!! “The Spring Maiden made a mistake.” More like “Your birth was a mistake you power hungry bitch.” THANK GOD RAVEN WHOOPED THAT BITCHES ASS (with the great assist of Vernal, you will be missed. Support players don’t get enough love...or I’m still hoping for Jaune to save her. Probably not, but hope is good) AND LEFT HER COLD DEAD BODY TO FALL! LOOKS LIKE YOU LIVE UP TO YOUR NAME!! Raven got the final smug and she won. GG bitch girl. In the end all Cinder was without those powers was a weak and fragile human that craved for power and that was her downfall.

For a second I thought that the door opened to Vaccuo, but I guess each fault will contain something like that. Can’t wait to see what the relic does.

Yang about to settle some shit with Raven cause from her point of view she sided with the bad guys. Stoked to see what happens.

So in the end, we got what we wanted (well most of what we wanted). And that’s okay cause there is still more story to be shown and seen by us. Still more things CRWBY will come up with. I’m sad that the next Chapter is the finale, but we will finally get the reunion we’ve been waiting for.

The list of things we got.

The asswhoopingextravagenza that will be honored for generations of the FNDM.

Weiss being the sassy badass we all love.

Ruby showing us a small portion of her hand to hand training.

Blake and the Squad showing up.

Blake and Yang seeing each other for the first time since V3.

#rwby volume 5 spoilers #rwby volume 5 #Asswhoopingextravagenza #the current evil has been defeated #we did everyone #theSaltyScrouge

9 notes · View notes

magisterivm · 7 years ago

Text

Tracking down wraiths–corporeal or otherwise–was hardly on Dorian’s list of great ways to expend resources. He hardly considered himself altruistic, much less someone who overtly sought out trouble. But, of all the things to hound him, Varric’s stories had burrowed into his subconscious, an off-note to an otherwise dashing tale of recklessness, loyalty, and power.

The Champion of Kirkwall had gone down in notoriety, one more hero swallowed by the Fade on behalf of the Inquisition, but nobody from Hawke’s band of troublemakers had seemed at all vested in learning the fate of the elf that Hawke had callously betrayed. He’d only been mentioned in retrospect, when Dorian had pressed: how did, precisely, someone go from lover to chattel without anyone raising an eyebrow? Dorian had written to the few of Hawke’s compatriots who remained in Kirkwall, curious to know if there was another angle to the story, and yes, they had sounded appropriately disapproving of how things had turned out, but in their minds Tevinter was utterly inaccessible and Hawke the only one even vaguely capable of commencing any sort of dashing rescue. Not that he had been in any danger of doing so, considering. Not that they had the time, or the motivation, considering the state of things, to see what had become of someone they had fought and bled with. The world had, for all intents and purposes, been only too willing to let an escaped slave return right back to his Master, call it a tragedy--call it a transaction--and leave well enough alone. Such was the nature of things, was it not?

It left a bad taste in Dorian’s mouth, and gold-hearted Varric’s apparent acceptance that, as horrid as it all was, there was nothing to be done, stuck in his gullet.

It wasn’t that the idea of slaves was at all unfamiliar. Dorian’s childhood had been filled with them, tinged by the rosy-glasses view of a privileged child, and their genuine affection for their precocious young ward had filled in the hollows left behind by his parents’ clinical disinterest. When it became socially advantageous to do something risque, his parents had ostensibly freed all of their slaves–though nearly to a one they remained in the employ of the household as servants, albeit with greater freedom of movement and autonomy. Tabula rasa; a clean slate, and Tevinters were only too ready to sweep history under the rug. But the slaves-turned-servants in the employ of House Pavus had done well for themselves, and being freemen associated with a House of good standing offered protections and financial security.

Some of those very servants had welcomed Dorian home to the family seat in Qarinus when he returned, heartbroken and weary and alone, having closed a chapter in his life--having had chapters closed for him by the Inquisitor, and then by a Qunari, and so much for the autonomy he’d been so damnably proud of. The same servants had followed him to the re-opening of the Minrathous townhouse–a palatial estate in its own right, despite the humble descriptor–to ensure it all ran smoothly. They had not permitted him to wallow; had pressed him to find a purpose, anything to keep him busy. They had been his first port of call when seeking out information about Danarius and his ilk; about the white-haired slave with the lyrium branded beneath his skin.

They had been the first to warn him that he was treading in dark waters--and the first to offer solid advice on how best to overthrow a Magister.

Dorian had hoped the entire venture would be relatively straightforward: he knew what spy networks to engage, what slave underground to fund, who in Maevaris’s circle of contacts would be most useful. Danarius had grown more paranoid than Dorian might have bargained for, and the whole undertaking had begun to take on the air of a hopeless quest. Whispers began that his paranoia was leading to a worsening of atrocities; that not even his most trusted house slaves had been seen in the market for weeks.

Dorian had more-or-less bargained for a showdown with Danarius–had honestly rather been looking forward to it, constrained as he was by political intrigues and dreadful fetes, by the narrowness of a structured little world when he’d seen so much beyond its gilded walls. Duels among Magisters were par for the course, and while Dorian would have to construe some slight, some paltry excuse for calling him forth, his seat in the Magisterium gave him right to do so.

In the end, however, it was macabre banality that did the work for him. Danarius’s continued, reckless experiments with lyrium had turned him into a weakened, insane, blubbering wreck; and with so much of the lyrium having been shipped to meet the needs of the Inquisition’s Templars, sources were low on stock and prices had skyrocketed. Dorian discovered, all too easily once he found the right ears to whisper in, that Danarius had taken out loan after loan from increasingly impatient lenders, of increasingly worse repute.

Instead of a magefire-lit duel in a public square, Danarius’s grand downfall came down to a pen stroke and a family crest set bold in a blot of purple wax: an arrest warrant was issued, a delegation of Magisterium Templars were sent. There was a scuffle, or the attempt at one, and if the Templars needed to resort to deadly force, well, it meant the overburdened courts had one less judgement to hand down. There would hardly be tears spilled.

What was left behind was a filthy, crumbled pile of a building and a few petrified and horribly emaciated house slaves. The bodies of those not so lucky were found deeper within the mansion’s nearly bottomless warren of subterranean rooms. The debt collectors were to take anything of value; Dorian sent a servant as representative of the interests of House Pavus, and she made sure that, before the debt collectors could lay their hands on them, the contracts for all of Danarius’s surviving slaves were bought and their freedom ensured. A few of his more soft-spoken elven servants attended to them; some of the freed slaves, if they chose, would end up absorbed into the household, others returned to their worried families, and none to a life of further bondage.

But one slave was more difficult to accurately place value on: the very ghost Dorian had set out to locate, who’d been found, somehow--though barely--clinging to life deep in the bowels of Danarius’s cavernous laboratory-turned-torture-suite. Dorian had thought enough coin would secure his release, but it took six messengers scrambling across the city for the better part of what felt like an eternal day, and everything short of an edict, and finally Dorian threatening to light the most belligerent debtor on fire, to finally acknowledge that the elf was too unstable an experimental element to be allowed to trade hands to fill the collectors’ pockets, and that a particularly capable Magister was needed to ensure the safety of the populace.

Coin, of course, changed hands nonetheless.

The contract, weathered and actively bloodied, was delivered to Dorian’s desk in the Circle, as damning evidence as any that Tevinter was unwilling to allow any mage with political clout to remain unshackled to the national shame.

Dorian met with his servants late that night, having long since cast off any airs of formality. The elves sat around him, their exhausted faces grim. Dorian poured their wine himself as they recounted the horrors of the day, and the culmination of months of searching.

Fenris had tried to lunge at the debtors’ men, but once he’d been told that his old Master was dead and a new one set to replace him, Dorian’s servants had had no fight from him. He had remained silent when his shackles had been undone, attempted to rise to his feet when beckoned.

“And then he went down like a bag of grain,” the elf at Dorian’s left said, with a flat little shrug. “Good job we caught him ‘fore he hit the ground.”

“Kaffas. Just tend to him as best you can,” Dorian said, draining his third glass of wine. One of the servants was a healer; another, a grandfatherly sort used to helping former slaves make the difficult transition from captive to freeman. The elf couldn’t be in better hands--or ones more vested in helping him, because they knew all too intimately what it meant to be Elvhen in Tevinter. “I suspect a Magister,” the word was ugly on his tongue, had too much behind it to ever sit as a simple title, “would be the last person in the world he’d want to see, but wake me at any hour should he turn dangerous, or should you need me. Be on your guard; there could be some latent spellwork involved. I don’t think it likely, but it would be precisely like that filth to leave a legacy behind.”

#fadedancer #|| idolon vagus #||✧|| III (Magister)#|| wherein we continue to find increasingly fucked up ideas because yolo #|| wherein kai tries to write a thing and ends up with a fucking novel #||X|| apodixis

28 notes · View notes

sonofhistory · 7 years ago

Note

Also (I'm aware I was here minutes ago) what are your opinions on president Franklin pierce?

Despite all the tragic things that befell Franklin Pierce, he is seen as one of the worst American Presidents in history and it seems to be for good reason.

Franklin Pierce’s presidency began in tragedy. Weeks after his election, on January 6th, 1853, the President and his family had been traveling from Boston by train when their car derailed and rolled down an embankment near Andover, Massachusetts. Pierce and his wife Jane survived, but in the wreck found their only remaining son, eleven year old Benjamin was crushed to death and his body was nearly decapitated. Unable to hide the gruesome sight from either him or his wife, they both suffered severe depression afterward, which likely affected contributed to Pierce’s poor performance as president “You have summoned me in my weakness, you must sustain me by your strength.” he said in his Inaugural Address. Jane avoided social functions for much of her first two years as First Lady.

When he took office, the country was experiencing a great era of economic prosperity and relative tranquility. For the time being, the Compromise of 1850 seemed to have resolved the various sectional conflicts–primarily over slavery–that had been dividing the country. At this point, the fourteen president of the United States was the youngest president to ever be inaugurated. Unlike all presidents before him he was the first to memorize his Oath of Office and the second not to affirm it on a Bible (John Quincy Adams was the first) he did it on a Law Book. He avoided the word “slavery” but alluded to his wish to bring that “important subject” to rest and maintain a peaceful union as threat of Civil War had been looming in the horizon back even in seventh president Andrew Jackson’s two term presidency.

In his cabinet he attempted to bring figures from all stretches of American humanity. Much like fifth president James Monroe he tried to gather people who represented all parts of America. He decided to allow each of the parties factions some appointments, even those whom had not supported the Compromise of 1850 which was lowering fears. Pierce sought to represent all factions in government and federal positions yet could fully satisfy none of them. Party members found themselves unable to secure positions for their friends, which put the Democratic Party on edge and fueled bitterness between separate factions. Northern newspapers began accusing Pierce of filling his government with pro-slavery secessionists, while southern newspapers accused him of abolitionism. No matter what he did, he seemed to be struck.

Pierce made mistakes by not communicating with his Vice-President, William R. King, which was not entirely his doing. By the start of their term, King was severely ill with tuberculosis and went out of the country to Cuba to attempt to recuperate. He died at his home a few days after returning one month into the presidency–the office of vice president would stay vacant for the rest of the term and Pierce was left without a second in command. With the death of the president’s only child and the death of his vice president hovering above the splintering partisan, it was not looking very positive.

It was not that Pierce didn’t care or was unfit for the job. Pierce was up and at-em hoping to create a more efficient government than his recent predecessors. One of Pierce’s reforms was to expand the role of the United State Attorney General in appointing federal judges and attorneys, which was an important step in the eventual development of the Justice Department. On economic policy, Pierce charged his Treasury of Secretary with reforming the treasury department which was being managed unwell and Guthrie increased sight of Treasury employees and tariff collectors, many were withholding money from the government. Despite laws requiring funds to be held in the Treasury, large deposits remained in private banks with the Whig administrations. Guthrie reclaimed these funds and wished to prosecute corrupt officials, but with only mixed success. It was attempting to rid of brooding corruption.

Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, at Pierce’s request led surveying missions for possibly transcontinental railroad routes, increasing train tracks. Davis employed the Army Corps of Engineers to supervise construction projects in the nation’s capital which included expanded the United States Capitol and the construction of the Washington Monument.

The Pierce administration fell in line with the expansionist movement, and William L. Marcy lead the charge as Secretary of State. They re-negotiating provisions from the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which required the US to prevent Native American raids into Mexico from New Mexico Territory. It was negotiated and a treaty with Mexican President was re-created in December of 1853. It included now southern Arizona and pieces of southern New Mexico. The treaty brought more land.

Pierce’s presidency brought a new trade agreement with Britain after American fisherman began to feel assaulted by the increasing supervision by the U.K’s navy. The treaty was ratified in August 1854, which was seen as a first step towards the American annexation of Canada. Gaining control of Central America was another goal and the treaty of Clayton–Bulwer from 1850 was failing to keep Great Britain from expanding change. Minister to England Buchanan was not successful in getting the British to renounce their Central American possessions. Three U.S. diplomats in Europe drafted a proposal to the president to purchase Cuba from Spain but the publication of the Ostend Manifesto, drawn up by the Secretary of State, awoke scorn of northerners who saw it as an attempt to annex a slave-holding possession and bolster Southern interests.

Pierce favored reorganization of the military as well. The Secretary of War and the Navy Secretary found the Army and Navy in poor condition, with low forces, and a reluctance to gather new technology, and terrible management. Commodore Matthew C. Perry visited Japan in an effort to expand trade. Perry signed a trade treaty with the Japanese which was successfully ratified. The 1856 launch of the USS Merrimac, one of six newly commissioned steam ships, was one of Pierce’s “most personally satisfying” days in office.

What Pierce is best known for ans associated with is Kansas–Nebraska Act and it was ultimately his downfall. The bill formally organized Kansas and Nebraska into territories, opening them to settlement and railroad building; it also repealed the ban on slavery in Kansas mandated by the Missouri Compromise in 1820, declaring that the citizens of each territory–not Congress–had the right to choose whether the territory would allow slavery. Pierce was hesitant of the bill, knowing it would result in bitter opposition from the North. He was convinced to support the bill regardless. It was greatly opposed and rallied public disagreement. Northerners remained mainly suspicious of the Pierce administration and what he was accomplishing. The Whigs split and the conflict destroyed them as a national party. The Kansas–Nebraska Act was passed in May 1854. The political turmoil that followed saw the short-term rise of two political parties and the founding of the Republican Party.

The passage of the act startled so much violence between groups that the territory became known as Bleeding Kansas. Free-Staters set up a government, and drafted the Topeka Constitution, which Pierce called an act of rebellion and sent federal troops to break up a meeting of the Topeka government. After the passage of the act coincided with the seizure of escaped slave Anthony Burns in Boston, Northeners were in his support which Pierce was determined to follow the Fugitive Slave Act to the letter, and dispatched federal troops to enforce Burns return.

At the end of his term, Pierce expected to be renominated by the Democrat party. In reality his chances of winning the nomination were slim, let alone re-election. The administration was widely disliked in the North for its position on the Kansas–Nebraska Act, and Democratic leaders were aware of Pierce’s electoral vulnerability. This loss marked the only time in U.S. history that an elected president who was an active candidate for reelection was not nominated for a second term. Pierce endorsed Buchanan, though the two remained distant; he hoped to resolve the Kansas situation by November to improve the Democrats’ chances in the general election. He installed John W. Geary as territorial governor, who got the pro-slavery legislators. Geary was able to restore order in Kansas, though the electoral damage had already been done—Republicans used “Bleeding Kansas”.

In his final message to Congress, delivered in December 1856, he attacked Republicans and abolitionists. He took the opportunity to defend himself on policy, and on achieving peaceful relations with other nations. The final days, Congress passed bills to increase pay of army officers and to build new naval vessels, also expanding the number of those enlisted. It also passed a tariff reduction bill he had long wanted. Pierce and his cabinet left office on March 4th, 1857, the only time in U.S. history that the original cabinet members all remained for a full four-year term

Franklin Pierce’s administration only furthered the process of the oncoming Civil War and led to far more bad than good.

#Flood pressles box #sincerely anonymous

44 notes · View notes

occasionalfics · 7 years ago

Text

Cross the Stars, part XVII

part xvi

A/N: THIS IS IT! I managed to fit the last few sections all in one part, so this is the finale! I hoped you liked it, or at least gave it a chance :)

Summary: Just when Freedom is at her fingertips...

Words: 3,856

~~~

The President collects them on the day the disguises are ready. She comes to the penthouse, escorts the three of them to the ground floor, and shows them to an even larger hovercraft than the one she had brought Peter and Indriza in a few days before. They all get in and watch the city pass as they head to the Elector’s dock.

When they arrive and disembark, they see that the crew is all there, including Kraglin at the front, waiting for the captain. “Your crew were well taken care off, Captain Udonta,” the President says.

Indriza notes that that is the first time she has referred to him as such.

“I’m sure they were,” he responds.

Kraglin looks excited, though Indriza doesn’t know if that’s because he hasn’t seen Yondu in a few days, or if he has too many stories to tell.

“Your disguises have been brought onto the ship already. Isn’t that right, Kraglin?” the President asks.

The Xandarian child nods too fast, his smile huge. “Yessir,” he says.

“Good,” Yondu says. He turns to the President and bows. “Thankya so much fer yer hospitality, Madam President,” he says.

She nods and bows as well. “It was our pleasure,” she says, staring at Indriza rather than Yondu.

When they stand, Yondu leads the way to the crew. The file into the Elector a few at a time, with Yondu, Indriza, and Peter at the back. The march is slow, the heat is almost unbearable, and she is impatient. She just wants to be out of this section of the galaxy - forever. She wants to go somewhere else warm, but with a beach and tropical drinks. Maybe that planet she and Yondu went to that party on. She wants to go somewhere she and Yondu can be alone together for a bit, where she can take time to grieve Allura and learn to be happy again.

And then she hears the President say, “What is that?”

Indriza turns and follows the President’s gaze. The atmosphere far off ripples, and in seconds, the silhouette of a familiar ship comes into view.

Indriza’s heart stops. Her eyes widen. She hears the screaming, sees the shadows crawling - one is missing, because it’s on that ship.

She turns back to Yondu and Kraglin and says, “Get Peter on the ship. Now. Keep him safe.” She heads out into the field and watches as the Axion II moves into the docking area.

“That’s not…” she hears Yondu say from beside her.

“It is,” she responds.

“What is it?” the President says.

“My sister,” Indriza answers, still glaring at the ship as it nears. Her mother is coming for her, and so is her brother and her father. But she does not fear them now. It is sunny and they are weakened by the light. But Omara is real, and is unaffected.

The ship docks. The door opens. Omara steps out, dragging a body behind her. Indriza feels her fingers go cold. She can’t look away.

“Is Peter gone?” she asks. In the corner of her vision, she sees Yondu look over at his own ship.

“Yes,” he says.

Good, she thinks. At least he will be spared this time.

Indriza takes a painful step forward. Then another. Then more. She meets Omara in the field between the docks. Her sister is covered in dried blood, and Indriza can smell her from their distance. She’s dragging Allura behind her, but the Skrull is moaning.

Indriza sighs. She’s not dead, she thinks. Thank the stars.

Omara is breathing heavily. Her hair is matted against her face. Her cheeks are sallow, her skin pale. She is terrifying, but not in the intimidatingly beautiful way she had been. She looks like a dead woman walking. Indriza wonders if the shadows visit her, too, and if they’ve taken this toll on her sister. Omara cackles to herself.

“Here’s your precious little right hand,” she says, tossing Allura across the grass.

And there she is: Allura, bruised, swollen as she had been the day before, but barely breathing. Indriza wants to save her, to run away and finally see her dreams come true. But she can’t. If she leaves, Omara will follow her. Peter won’t be safe. Neither will Allura or Yondu. If Omara has any wits about her, she will report them to Stakar Ogord the second they leave.

“What happened to you?” Indriza asks.

Omara cackles again. “You have got to be kidding me! How do you even dare to ask such a question, Traitor?”

“I did not do this to you, Omara. I did what I had to do.”

Another cackle. “What you had to do? For who?! For that Centaurian exile?” She spits.

“Someone had to save innocent lives. That’s what we set out to do, if you remember.”

“No,” Omara growls. “That’s what you set out to do. I set out to keep my family together the only way I knew how, Traitor! I had to steal, lie, cheat, and murder for you! And you repay me by leaving, when we could’ve earned more units than we’d ever even seen! For him!”

Omara points, and Indriza remembers then that Yondu is next to her.

“You’ve ruined everything, Centaurian Prick!” Omara shouts. “This,” she points to Allura’s body, “is your fault. You’ll go to the stars with that wreck’s life on your hands.”

“No Omara,” Indriza says. “You hurt her. You tortured her. This is on you, and all because you have no compassion.”

“No compassion? Ha! I could’ve killed you for your little slip up on Ubraa-10! You put the crew and the mission in danger with your gamble over him,” she says, nodding at Yondu. “You’re lucky I let you live and continue to disappoint me.”

“Watch your mouth, Omara,” Indriza warns. She’s the older sister. At some point, Omara had to submit to her.

But that is not true now. Omara laughs so loudly, Indriza swears she feels the ground tremble.

“You wouldn’t hurt me if I had a loaded blaster pointed at your head,” Omara says. “Or if I had a loaded blaster pointed at his head.”

“What’d’ya want, Ombato?” Yondu calls, impatience lining his words.

“You. Dead. Your stupid fucking fin mounted on my bedroom wall, your Yakka arrow split in two. The end of the Centaurians.”

“I ain’t the last Centaurian, girly,” he says. “We ain’t as rare as you Axion.”

“You know nothing,” she says.

“You can’t kill either of us, Omara. We’re worth money,” Indriza says.

“I don’t give a Krylorian’s ass about the money. I care about ending the lives of the traitors who ruined mine.”

“No one ruined your life but yourself. You let your anger get to you-”

“Stop telling me how I feel, Indriza! You’re not my mother - you’re not even my sister! You ran away - for an exile - and you alone caused the downfall of the Axion II. And you’ll pay for it.”

Omara draws her gun, but just as quickly, Yondu whistles and his arrow flies.

“No!” Indriza yells.

The arrow stops just short of Omara’s heart.

“What’re you waiting for, Scum? End it!” Omara yells. “Or I will!”

“Don’t,” Indriza says, grasping his arm. “She’s my sister.”

“She’s fuckin’ crazy, Driza. She wants ta kill us.”

“She won’t.” She thinks: I hope.

“Watch me,” Omara says, pulling the trigger.

A blast of light, faster than Yondu’s whistle, is released from the gun. It moves across the space between them. Indriza has enough time to turn her face to it, open her eyes wide, and let go of Yondu’s arm before the light hits her chest, sending her flying back toward the Elector.

She doesn’t feel the ground as she slams into it. She doesn’t feel anything. The sun is gone, and so are Yondu and Allura. She doesn’t hear him scream, doesn’t feel his hands on her or his body heat up as his anger builds. She doesn’t feel the tears that fall from his eyes, even as they run down her face, or hear Omara laugh maniacally as Krylorian officers arrest her. Indriza doesn’t see her sister kick and scream and cackle as they take her away. She doesn’t feel the breeze in the grass as it blows past her body and Allura’s. She doesn’t feel Yondy put his face to her chest, the very spot where the light hit her, and cry. She doesn’t see Allura groan, turn over, and try to pick herself up. Or Kraglin, as he leaves the Elector and rushes to Yondu. Her Centaurian pushes his second away; Kraglin takes a step back, then tends to Allura, but Indriza sees and hears none of it.

She is gone. The shadows have receded. The running is over for her. But Yondu…

***

He instructs the men to keep Peter in his room until further notice. He enlists Kraglin to help him with the bodies - his beautiful, soft, affectionate, strong and strong willed Indriza and her companion, whom he never knew - the poor thing looks like a hoard of space bees had gotten to her. He and Kraglin bring them to his bedroom. He has nowhere else for them, for the time being.

For too long, he sits with them. Silently. Watching. He tells Kraglin to fetch a medic before they leave Krylor, and even promotes the teen to Interim Captain so he can sit with them.

She is gone. Her purple skin is just as gorgeous and scarred as the first day he laid eyes on her, but she is lifeless. She won’t wake him in the middle of the night with screams and tossing anymore. She won’t tell him she loves him again, won’t kiss him, won’t make him feel better than anything else in the whole galaxy ever has.

The pink medic patches up Allura and gives instructions for her safe keeping to Kraglin. Yondu isn’t listening. He hears their voices in mumbles and gibberish because her voice is not filling the void.

This is all his fault. Her sister was right, after all. He thinks of the night he slashed Indriza’s cheek - on accident...mostly - as he brushes the faded scar. She had been so intoxicated, and he’d just meant to help her. But she had lashed out at him, and his instinct was to call his arrow. He thinks of Knowhere - their dance, the first time his hands got to explore her body. She’d been drunk then, too, but just enough to enjoy herself without blacking out. And she was so beautiful in that dress, so confident in her body but insecure in her choices. He thinks of Contraxia - both times. She saved him from making bad mistakes, even minor ones. Her kisses felt like life itself, like he had something so fantastic that he’d be the biggest fool in the galaxy to let go of it.

And he is - if only he’d let the arrow go. Omara would be dead and Indriza would be angry, but she would recover. She would be his, and Allura’s. They would wear their disguises and continue to live their lives together, with the addition of her second.

He bends over, head between his knees, as he thinks of the second time she’d found him at the Iron Lotus. That was when she’d run away to him, to save him. He felt like she was his home that night, and every night after that. Even when he’d insulted her, and she had almost mortally wounded three of his men, she was still home. She was stubborn and tough, compassionate and wonderful. And she is gone.

***

Kraglin brings him and Allura breakfast the next day, but he doesn’t eat. Neither does she. The second is quiet and still, but breathing all the while. Yondu tells Kraglin to ready a funeral pyre.

“Should I notify Cap’n Ogord, too?” he asks.

Yondu shakes his head, and after a second he says, “I will. Thanks, boy.”

When Kraglin leaves, he goes to the comm pad and attempts to send Stakar a signal. He’s surprised when he sees his old mentor’s face on the hologram.

“I don’t have time for traitors with bounties-” he tries to say, but Yondu cuts him off.

“Omara Ombato’s slain her sister, Stakar.”

There’s a pause, and then: “What is it to me?”

“She deserves a funeral,” Yondu says. “She did nothin’ wrong.”

“I won’t,” Stakar says. “She betrayed the United.”

“Please, Stakar. She never broke the code. Did nothin’ wrong, ‘cept love me.”

Maybe it’s nostalgia, maybe pity, or maybe it’s the crack in Yondu’s voice, but Stakar considers what he’s heard. Yondu takes advantage of that, though he doesn’t see or hear Allura sit up behind him, in plain view of Ogord.

“Indriza Ombato was the greatest ravager I ever worked with, ‘sides you. She risked e’erything to save me ‘cause she thought I was worth savin’. I ain’t sayin’ she’s right or wrong, but she did a hellofa lot more than her sister.” He looks over his shoulder briefly, then back. “And Allura...I don’ even know her. Driza loved ‘her, though, an’ Omara nearly killed her, too.”

Stakar nods. “Did the she tell you I found her like I found you?”

Indriza he thinks. “She did,” Yondu says. “‘S why I called you. I don’ want this funeral for me. I want it for her.”

Stakar Ogord sighs. “Very well, Udonta. Send me your coordinates. We’ll have a ravager funeral for the fallen Axion II Captain.”

Yondu nods. As soon as the call ends, he takes a deep breath. Captain Indriza Ombato he thinks. Stakar called her Captain. He nods once, turns, and sees Allura awake, sitting up, but still looking like hell broke loose on her. “How’re ya feelin?” he asks quietly.

She groans, but makes no other answer. He nods. She has to be in a lot of pain, he figures. He gets up from the comm pad and does as he was told. He looks at Indriza’s still body and sighs.

He goes to his bathroom, wets a cloth with warm water, and uses it to clean off her body. He wipes away the blood on Indriza’s face and chest. He closes her eyes, to which Allura winces, zips up her jacket, and stands back and salutes her bodies with three pounds to the left side of his chest, biting his lip all the while.

The crew gets the funeral ready. Yondu leaves Kraglin to guard the women. He heads across the ship when a comm comes into his mini pad. It only says: FUNERAL 200 CLICKS PAST KRYLOR TO HONOR AXION II CAPTAIN, INDRIZA OMBATO. ARMISTICE WILL BE OBSERVED.

His heart sinks at half of the words, but lifts at the other half. At least this funeral will be peaceful. His next conversation will not be.

He goes to Peter’s room, doesn’t knock, but doesn’t need to. The second he’s inside the room, Peter stands. His face is curious, attentive, worried.

“Where’s Indriza?” he asks.

Yondu looks at the ground, unable to say the words that need to be said.

“Yondu,” Peter says. “Where is she?”

The Captain shakes his head, but still says nothing. He feels another tear fall from his face, but only allows that one. He’d never admit it, but his heart breaks even more with Peter’s next words.

“No,” Peter says quietly. “No. She’s alive. She had a talk with her sister and now she’s back. Tell me she’s back, Yondu!”

Yondu looks at Peter again and feels his throat close up. The kid’s lost both’a his moms in two years he thinks.

“No!” Peter says, throwing his hands out. “No. No. No. No.”

Yondu goes to him, pulls him into a hug for what feels like the first time, and holds him while Peter struggles to get loose.

“No no no no no! She’s not gone! She can’t be gone, Yondu!”

“She is, Peter. I’m sorry,” Yondu whispers.

Peter pushes in protest, but gets nowhere. After a few minutes of this, he relaxes and lets Yondu hold him. He doesn’t know it yet, but this is the last time they will hug for almost 30 years.

Yondu wipes his own eyes before guiding Peter to the bridge, calling for his men to carry the bodies behind them. He doesn’t stop Peter from crying, and neither does the crew. They may not have respected Indriza all the time or even understood her place on the ship, but they are all sullen now. They know, at least, what she’d meant to Yondu. They respect their captain’s feelings, especially since he had never put the crew in danger or lost anything because of her. Plus, she’d been another ravager, and so had Allura, who is being carried by Tulk. A ravager funeral is an event for them to put their differences aside and pay respects to the other factions.

The mechanical pyre is waiting for them. Kraglin stands by the pyre, his eyes red and wide with irritation. He nods to the captain when they approach, and together they stare out of the bay window, Tulk and Allura beside them.

“They came,” Kraglin says.

Yondu nods, taking in the sight of at least thirty other ships sitting stoic within a mile of the Elector. Stakar Ogord’s ship sits just to the right of the Elector, and Yondu closes his eyes. He’s grateful they came, and not even for himself. It would be wrong to have a funeral for Indriza without the other factions. Through and through, she was loyal to them, despite choosing him.

Too soon, they put Indriza’s body into the pyre. It hurts him more than he can say to see her so lifeless, so passionless. When the pyre is closed, he shuts his eyes and imagines her the way he wants to remember her. Smiling. Ecstatic. Naked, euphoric, and beautiful. Brutal at times, but real and honest nonetheless.

Peter is beside Yondu as he gives his eulogy. “Indriza came ta us to save me. Y’all know ‘bout the bounty - she an’ Allura here the reason we knew ‘bout it.” He points to the weakened, crying, bruised Skrull woman in Tulk’s arms. “Driza proved herself to be loyal, carin’, passionate, ‘n smart. All good things in a ravager Captain. Great things, actually. The best.” He puts his hand on the pyre as she starts to burn. “The best. We’ll honor her memory ‘til the end a our days. May she return to the stars.”

Peter shivers as her body glows, turns black, and flows out into deep space. Yondu shivers when he thinks that she is gone. Really gone. Physically gone. Just a memory. Allura weeps loudly, and no one stops her.

He turns himself and Peter to the window and watches as purple fireworks light up the space between the ships. He notices that the Axion II is conveniently missing, and is glad it is. He’ll get his revenge one day, but right now, he watches as Indriza’s dust flows between the fireworks, going further into deep space than he can see.

She’s free. Finally, he thinks.

***

After the funeral, Stakar Ogord sends a comm to all 99 factions of ravagers to let them know he is revoking his bounty on Yondu. He doesn’t give a reason, but most know it’s because the Centaurian captain has lost so much already. He carries Indriza with him everywhere.

He is still an exile, though. Ogord makes it clear that nothing will change that, maybe ever. Yondu lives with this proclamation, as does Allura for a time. She stays with Yondu, grieves with him, even. They remember they woman they loved together, heal together over time, and eventually part amicably. Stakar Ogord is the one that reaches out to her and offers her a place in his own faction, knowing what she has lost and that she did not necessarily chose to be an Elector crew member.

Yondu lives with his sentence even as he loses Peter Quill later. He’s prepared for that loss, though, since he closed himself from the Terran after letting Indriza go. Twenty-four years after Indriza’s death, Yondu looks back on his life with Peter and realizes how terrible he’s been. She had kept him compassionate, had held Peter in higher esteem than he had ever shown for Peter, regardless of his real feelings. Without Indriza, Yondu hardened and kept to himself. He ravaged, he ran, he barked orders, threatened to eat Peter, never told him how proud he was to be his dad, and never once told him the whole truth of his father.

He never found Omara, either. Yondu imagines that she passed not long after Indriza, or perhaps rotted in a Krylorian prison cell. That’s what she deserved, as far as he is concerned. Kinslayer, insane, and betrayed - that was how he will remember her.

On the anniversary of her death each year, he goes back to Krylor. The grass is no longer stained with her blood, and yet, he remembers just where it happened. The rest of the crew go to a bar, but Yondu finds the spot where she spoke her last words to him, sits, and stares at the sky until he falls asleep.

This year, Kraglin goes with him. And Yondu actually allows him to. They are no longer just Captaina and Second. Yondu is not as tender with the Xandarian as he was with Indriza, but he does love Kraglin all the same. For the first time in too long, he’s allowed someone into his heart, into his pain, and maybe that’s why this year’s visit to Krylor isn’t so bitter.

“Ya think Peter’d still be with us if she were?” Kraglin asks, his voice scratchy from wear and emotion.

Yondu stares at the stars. “Without a doubt,” he says. “You ‘member her. She was the best parta me. Said things to that kid I couldn’t.” Yondu often imagines - even dreams - of himself, Kraglin, and Indriza as a comprehensive unit, the way he knew she wanted Allura to be with them. Only now, his dreams are entirely impossible.

Kraglin nods. “You were a different person with her ‘round, Cap’n.”

There’s a silence between them for a while. They lay back in the grass together, side by side, enjoying the touch of another being. The stars from Krylor are bright, close, and illuminating. Yondu whistles mindlessly for a bit, his arrow taking flight with no target. It leaves its trail around them, but both he and it stop short when he sees one star, behind another, shine brighter for a split second.

“What is it, Cap’n?” Kraglin asks.

The star burns hot, seems to shiver in place, and he swears for a second it turns purple.

“Nothin’,” Yondu says. “I jus’ get the feelin’ she’s watchin’ us.”

“You’ve been sayin’ that for twenty years.”

Yondu smiles at Kraglin. “‘S how long she’s been with us. Longer, even. Just takes’er a while to find us, is all.”

#yondu udonta #yondu fanfic #yondu x oc #yondu/kraglin #cross the stars

5 notes · View notes

groigne · 7 years ago

Text

&. tag drop !

#&. —— anna regina. / self promo #&. —— out of crown. / ooc #&. —— those sinners at wolf hall. / promo #&. —— the vices and follies of women. / aesthetics #&. —— they could tell boccace a tale. / memes #&. —— the crown weighs heavy till it’s banging on my eyelids. / queen of england #&. —— did i build a ship to wreck ?. / downfall #&. —— no hope for me your last serving daughter. / the tower #&. —— i was just a card caught up in the stars. / court of france #&. —— i must become a lion-hearted girl. / court of england #&. —— not very pretty but we sure know how to run things. / modern #&. —— i’m teaching myself how to be free. / father #&. —— we are hard on each other and call it honesty. / mary #&. —— my love is building a building around you. / elizabeth #&. —— i’m counting up my demons. / musings #&. —— i'll cut your little heart out. / jane seymour #&. —— i’ll carry off your soul like a rich pretty girl. / harry percy #&. —— and she is lust. / wwii au #&. —— and this is me — anne sans tête. / starter call

0 notes

sithlordintraining · 8 years ago

Text

Ten Minutes Ago II

A/N: This has been sitting in my drafts since before that flaming hot cheeto was president of the USoA. And I’m heading into a downward spiral, I write and never finish like Prof. Calamitous.

Prequel I

The wedding wasn't much. Snoke thought all the money that would be spent on an elaborate wedding should be spent on helping build a new base. Not to mention my brother had chosen a bride, who wanted all the systems to be in attendance. I didn't mind. It was a simple set up in the garden. My brother, father, maidens, Supreme creeper Snoke, Armitage, and his parents were in attendance. It was the first time meeting them, or even hearing about them. He was a spitting image of his father, just slimmer with red hair, but his mother looked nothing like him. She was tan, dark hair with a gray swirl and a disgusted look. One thing all three had in common was there stoic, uncaring expression that they all seemed to carry. I stared out over the garden watching the setup. I was snapped out of my mind when I heard some choice words being thrown around. I glanced over to see Armitage and his father bickering; almost dismissing him Armitage flicked his wrist. When his father left, he looked around to make sure no one was around. He soon made his way to a secluded corner of the garden. Not caring if I looked presentable or not, I secretly made my way to the garden.

When I reached the corner, his back was turned to me. “Armitage?” I spoke softly. He stiffened up. “I-I'm, we are not allowed to see each other before the wedding.” His voice was commanding. “I know, but we can still talk,” I said with a little hope. He looked down to the ground. “I'm really nervous, I've never been married before.” I joked, earning a chuckle from him. I slowly made my way towards him. “There's so much pressure on us Y/N, don't you feel it?” He asked looking straight ahead. I gulped, “Yes, but I'd like to think that you out of all people would think this is almost nothing.” I was a wreck, I couldn't stop trembling and I thought he would be the one to be annoyed this non-existence speck of worry, he was the General of the First Order. “I wish my mother was here.” He whispered. My eyes widened, the lady I met must’ve been his stepmother. “The commandant says if she was, she would've ended my military career before it could even begin.” He sniffed so softly, you could almost miss it. “I wish my mother was here too.” I looked up at the sky and then to the back of his head. “I wish they both could be here.” The silence hung in the air, neither of us speaking just staring straight ahead. “They don't like you.” I gasped, taken aback by his blunt words. Tears pricked my eyes as he continued. “They think you're weak and coy. They think you will fail to give me an heir that will be strong enough to carry the legacy we've built. They think this marriage is a waste and my utter downfall.” I bit my trembling lip trying to hold it together. I knew by the last sentence he was talking about his parents and possibly Snoke. But it was Snoke who approved the union, guaranteeing the protection of my planet and our wealth. “That's what you and your father were arguing about wasn't it?” I asked. He simply nodded. My chest now faced his back. “I-i can prove them wrong.” My left hand wrapped around his. He turned his profile to me. He was taller than me so I'm pretty sure all he could see was my hair. The sun seemed to set his hair ablaze as it looked like wildfire in the wind and eyes pure and as blue as the oceans as he sent me a cracked smile. “I know. You will. I told them she'd be the reason that I would climb higher.” He wrapped both of my arms around me and I leaned my head between his shoulder blades. I closed my eyes at let our heartbeats lull me. They were offbeat and different, just like us.

I think he was trying to love me or show me that he could and it was nice. I wondered for a brief moment what it would be like if it was a mutual love. A shock throughout my whole body jolted me from his hold at the same moment the maidens called my name. I stood frozen waiting for him to question me, but only received the go ahead. The maidens led me back to my suite and I couldn't stop to thinking about shock in my body. It was all due to the thought of Ben. It's been almost two months and Armitage has visited 6 times. He really did try his best, but now I couldn't think of Ben. I wish it was Ben visiting and Ben possibly telling me about his mother. I couldn't help but have the feeling surge in my body as I thought about him. I shook my head and focused on myself in the mirror.

It was eerily quiet during the ceremony, the priest seemed to echo. Armitage hands tightly gripped mine, sweat dripping onto mine. After the ceremony a dinner was followed, it was very intimate. Armitage was silent during the whole entire thing. It didn't sit well, especially with the fact I couldn't stop thinking about Ben. I was ashamed. “What's wrong?” My brother pulled me aside. “I-I I'm just nervous.” I looked down. He laughed. “But you're married! Everything is over!” I didn't have the guts to tell him that I'm scared that I would be living my life fantasizing about life with another man. “Yeah I know, but what about after.” I trailed off. He looked me in the eye, hugging me tightly. “I love you and I'm proud of the woman you have become. Mom would be too. You know you will have to carry the family.” He let go looking me in the eye once again. “You'll be safe. Remember, I'm always here when you need me.”

Armitage and I made our way to our suite. He opened the door to let me in first. I walked in and stopped at the foot of the bed, turning around as soon as he closed the door. He slowly made his way towards me, placing his hands gently on my hips. Although, we have already shared our first kiss, a simple peck, his lips brushed against mine. The kiss seemed to linger as he pulled my body closer. I melted in his hand that was at the small of my back. Each kiss seemed longer than the one before. Stopping he looked down at me, pushing me down to sit on the bed. My breath hitched with the thought of the next actions. “I must leave. A situation has come up back on the ship and I need to deal with it.” He said. “I will return when it is best for you to come aboard.” I was speechless. He was standing me up! Regardless we only had one conversation this whole day and my mind thought of another man, this was my wedding day and I hated every moment of it.

P.s: If you didn’t know, I kind of like showing a “human side” of Hux. So expect Hux Family Drama, if you return. Plus, I’m trying to figure out why he’s being nice to her, but I’ll figure it out. And Kylo should be in the next one.

21 notes · View notes

tagnoob · 7 years ago

Text

I had not been out on a coalition fleet op for almost a month, since the camp of the Keepstar in 68FT-6 that followed Judgement day and the demise of Circle of Two.

But my activity tends to be a reflection of the coalition’s activity. I am not much for random PvP and gate camps and the like. I enjoy operations that have an objective, and after the downfall of CO2 there wasn’t much going on with the strategic front.

And then The-Culture started falling apart in Fountain, stepping aside to let coalition allies The Initiative land in their space, which started to stir things up in the central-west of null sec in New Eden. This also brought The Initiative into conflict with LowSechnaya Sholupen, which ended up losing their space in Fountain as a result.

Fountain as The Initiative moves in

Oddly enough, if you compare the current sov map (from which the above clip was taken) with the one from a year ago, LowSechnaya Sholupen was in the process of losing that very same chunk of space to The-Culture. Some things never change… or always change… or however you sum that up.

We have had an opportunistic relationship with LowSechnaya Sholupen, or LSH, over time. During the great retreat from Saranen to Delve they picked off… “sholuped” as it was termed… some careless Imperium capital ships attempting to make the run. But we have also spent some time allied with the and helped them fend of The-Culture before, cooperating to bust towers and citadels that were encroaching on what they saw as their turf.

However, when things settled down we reset each other, it being more fun to hunt us than to be an ally when times were quiet. LSH sat in Aridia and picked off people coming to Delve while we were up in Hakonen, and then picked off Imperium pilots attempting to return from the north when that deployment was done. We shot them, they shot us, nobody thought too much about it. And then we came into conflict over sovereignty in Fountain and we started hitting their assets.

Or that is my understanding of the situation. I’ve spent most of the last couple of weeks either at EVE Vegas or playing RimWorld and derived most of that from what I heard on Saturday night.

A Saturday night ping. A couple of hours in advance a ping went out announcing that there would be a strategic op forming up, with a guaranteed kill mail and a possible fight, at 05:00 UTC, which comes out to 10pm local time for me. That isn’t all that late, or it used to not be that late. I’ve become my grandfather, something or an early riser a lot of mornings, so I tend to be in bed at 10pm most nights. Furthermore, a strat op like that can possibly run for hours and I’d been up since 5:30am local time as it was. But I had taken a nap that afternoon and there were no plans for Sunday, so I decided to hang out and join in.

At the appointed time a ping went out for a Machariel fleet for the op. I was already logged in and so joined fleet right away and hopped into my Mach. I would normally fly logi for an op like this, but I bought a Machariel for a fleet a while back when they were short on DPS and now I am determined to fly it at every opportunity… and there aren’t that many… until I lose it.

Wilhelm Machariel

Our Mach doctrine has a large number of refits included so the first part of any op is getting everybody on board with the fit of the day. Usually the FC has a link to the fit in the fleet chat MOTD. Our FC, Dirk Stetille, was a bit behind on that. Not that it mattered. People will show up in a Mach fleet and immediately start asking on coms what the fit is without bothering to check the MOTD. It is one of the annoyances of being in main fleet, people asking questions immediately without checking in the usual places.

Anyway, I got myself fit and undocked. There I watched the capital fleet under Thomas Lear, which was going with us, undock and start heading out ahead of us.

Sitting on the Keepstar undock

As usual, the capital and sub-cap fleets were sharing voice coms, which adds its own element of confusion when one FC gives instructions that only apply to one fleet but fails to specify which fleet they mean. Still, despite the usual amount of questions and people showing up late or being in the wrong ships or asking if they can catch up, we did get our act together and get under way in fairly short order.

We moved off to a nearby jump bridge that we would used to get us to 1-SMEB, and from there into Aridia, where we were told to hold and wait. Of course, some people jumped anyway and the FC had a heavy interdictor put up a bubble around the jump bridge which prevents anybody from using it. Well, anybody besides interceptors and interdiction nullfied ships that aren’t affected by bubbles.

Held in place on the jump bridge

We stayed there until the capitals got far enough ahead. Then Dirk had the hictor pilot turn off the bubble and we jumped through and aligned for Sakht and the Aridia region where LSH lives.

We plodded along a bit with the capitals, then were warped to a perch off of an LSH tower that we proceeded to warp to and shoot.

Hitting an LSH tower

We successfully put the tower in a reinforced state.

Tower shoot finished

That immediately led to questions about the kill mail we were alleged to have been guaranteed. At that point Dirk had to explain that we had indeed formed up more quickly than expected and were actually early for the timer we were planning to hit, so we stopped along the way to reinforce an LSH tower.

From there it was on to the main target of the night, the LSH Azbel in Yahyerer.

Arriving at the Azbel

We landed at a perch as carriers from the capital fleet jumped in with us. We then warped into gun range of the engineering complex and opened fire.

The LSH Logo on the Azbel

The structure was being gunned by an LSH pilot, but the defenses were not much compared to what we brought. We were fit for passive tanks and were using projectile weapons, so capacitor draining void bombs were of little use, and we spread out so that other bomb flavors were not much help. Fighters were launched, but between our light drones and the carriers covering us, those were dispatched quickly. The Point Defense System managed to catch a few support frigates that wandered too close to the structure in order to tag it and get on the kill mail, but other than that we just shot, reloaded, and shot again.

There was a minor bit of drama, as is usual, about people broadcasting for reps prematurely. (Or broadcasting for shield reps in an armor fleet.) Dirk asked us not to broadcast until we were down to 60% armor. That was more damage than anybody in a Mach was taking and so the logi discussion quieted down.

The Azbel itself was worn down until finally it exploded in the usual magnificent blaze, leaving a wreck behind.

Azbel Boom!

Then there was the question of looting the wreck. The kill mail shows that a lot of capital ship building components dropped along with a pile of fuel blocks. Thomas Lear brought a Rorqual to loot, but the sheer size of the loot… over 3 million m^3… meant that only a bit could be grabbed. So we shot the wreck instead, terminating what was left of LSH’s dreadnought construction operation.

As we were heading out a Raven had the ill fortune to stumble upon us as we were heading to a gate. He managed to jump just in time, but a few people ran him down and caught him, giving us our only non-structure kill for the night.

In the wrong place at the wrong time

You know that stumbling into 300 Goons in a system has to be a panic moment.

From there the capitals started back towards Delve while we hung about covering their departure. At that point Dirk said that anybody under 60% could broadcast, and I think we all had some armor damage. You could see some on almost every Mach. Dirk said he was mildly impressed that so many of us could hold off. We were then going to head back home ourselves, but first he had a couple more targets of opportunity for us along the way.

First was another tower to reinforce. This went more quickly when another group of caps and supers showed up to add their firepower to the mix. There was a moment of comedy when two Leviathan titans bumped on landing and went flying off. It wasn’t a huge bump, but they went pretty far off from the rest of the caps. But their firepower meant that the tower was reinforced in short order.

Second tower reinforced

The, finally, there was one last tower. This one had been reinforced earlier in the day, but had so little stront in it that it came out that night. So we headed to that with the capitals along as well and blew it up.

A True Sansha’s tower coming apart

With that second kill mail in hand, it was time to head home. Fortunately Delve was only a few gates away. We had gotten participation credit already, but Dirk gave us a second one as the three hour mark was upon us. And that wrapped things up for the night.

We will see if there is more to do in Aridia or if LSH will come to some accommodation with us.

Meanwhile, screen shots from the op collected up in a gallery.

Sitting on the Keepstar undock

Held in place on the jump bridge

Hitting an LSH tower

Fighters painted

Azbel starting to burn

The explosion is just about to hit

Azbel gone critical

Azbel Boom!

The Azbel wreck

Damage from the Azbel

Levi’s bumped

Revelation lit by laser figre

Caldari tower being hit

Jubliee skinned Avatar

Supers at the tower

True Sansha’s tower being hit

A True Sansha’s tower coming apart

An Azbel in Aridia I had not been out on a coalition fleet op for almost a month, since the camp of the Keepstar in 68FT-6 that followed Judgement day and the…

#Aridia #Azbel #Dirk Stetille #LowSechnaya Sholupen #Shafrak #Thomas Lear #Yahyerer

0 notes

groigne-a · 7 years ago

Text

everything which had once been so firm within her grasp was now slipping through her fingers, like SMOKE ; and she tried to hold onto that thin air, waving her arms about as if moving it would change anything. she was the QUEEN, wasn’t she ? then why must everything taste sour and final ? why must people allow themselves liberties towards her that they would have never dared years ago ? a title didn’t mean much when it wasn’t supported by the king’s LOVE, that much she had found out those last few months.

had katherine fretted as much when she had understood she would be cast aside ? she doubted it : she had had a powerful family ( powerful parents, powerful nephew ) that could raise ARMIES and the whole of europe to support her claim. what did she have ? a father who only worked for himself, an uncle too eager to throw her to the wolves to protect his title. wherever she looked there were only SHADOWS and no ally to be found.

cromwell was a dog and she wasn’t his master. a clever dog, mind you ; one who had ways with words, and indeed there was no fault of his to be found when spoken like that. the key word was YET, she knew that ; and he was right, she knew that too. her eyes kept their dark fires and she pinched her mouth into a thin line. " i want mistress seymour out of court " she doesn’t reply to his question because there is NO ANSWER. instead she shifts the subject and changes her approach : now it’s like she’s saying ‘ go on, tell me you can’t and disobey me ‘ rather than saying he already had. " i want her back into her rathole at wolf hall. i want her back to her father for that old man to do with her as he pleases. i want her out of REACH ! " whose : hers or the king’s ?

@threecardtrick | contd

#threecardtrick #☓ ⁞ those who have been made can be unmade. / ( thomas cromwell. )#☓ ⁞ did i build a ship to wreck ?. / ( downfall. )

18 notes · View notes

vitalmindandbody · 7 years ago

Text

Forgotten metropolitans# 7: how Nasa technology unveiled the ‘megacity’ of Angkor

Recent laser inspections have disclosed tracings of a immense metropolitan accommodation, comparable in size to Los Angeles, all over the synagogues of Angkor in the Cambodian jungle. The ancient Khmer capital was never lost it just got a bit overgrown

Clusters of giant stone yearn cones poke above the dense forest canopy in Cambodia, looks a lot like ancient rocket ships positioned for take-off, their peculiar silhouettes reflected in the mirror-calm moat below. Tree root tentacles stray along crumbling cornices, winding their channel around doorway chassis and strangling the serene stone faces of smiling god-kings, oblivious given the fact that their empire has long succumbed to the natural world.

When youre investigating the enigmatic synagogues of Angkor, together with the two million other tourists who come here each year, it can still feel like youre unveiling this lost territory for the first time. Whats more difficult to envisage as you wander between the ruined areas, each set apart in the profundities of the jungle, is that these headstones were once part of the largest, most sprawling municipality on the planet.

Its a impression that archaeologists have had for decades, but which was only recently confirmed in astonishing detail by an aerial laser investigation, which cut through the foliage for the first time a few years ago to expose the grid of a vast city settlement pulling for miles all over the moated compounds. It showed that the ancient Khmer capital, which flourished from the ninth to 15 th centuries, had more in common with Los Angeles than this series of tabernacles stand in splendid isolation in the jungle might suggest.

The laser technology has been a total game-changer, replies Damian Evans, the Australian archaeologist who has been contributing the airborne searching survey at the cole Franaise dExtrme-Orient, working with Cambodian APSARA National Authority and the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts. Our investigations have disclosed the specific characteristics of a settlement comparable in size to LA or Sydney, with an urban formation that resembles the various kinds of scattered low-density megacity characteristic of the modern world.

Lidar engineering discovered a system of canals and roads that connected the Angkor temple complex. Picture: Damian Evans/ Cambodian Archaeological Lidar Initiative

For centuries, expeditions of Angkor had been preoccupied with the temple compounds themselves, focusing on the religious symbolism of such structures and the cosmological macrocosms depicted in their intricate low relief. And its not hard to see why.

Grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, was the judgment of young French explorer Henri Mouhot, when he first stumbled across Angkor Wat in 1858, a composite he described as a rival to[ the temple] of Solomon, erected by some ancient Michelangelo. This central temple alone, built by King Suryavarman II in the early 12 th century, remains the largest religion complex in the world, four times larger than Vatican City, five specific conical towers rising above a 160 -hectare precinct.

As the only subsisting designs in the area, it was assumed that the temples must have controlled like medieval walled towns, each inhabited of staff members of a few thousand people. Perhaps they had been built by consecutive lords, as the royal family and their retinue moved from one complex to the next, leaving a series of separate metropolitans scattered in all the regions of the plain, each bordered by a defensive moat.

The synagogue of Banteay Top Lidar disclosed details of additional tabernacle locates and occupation areas in the vicinity of this synagogue. Photograph: Damian Evans

The reality, it is about to change, was nothing of the sort. The laser inspections, conducted in 2012 and 2015, has showed that these sacred walled districts didnt contain much at all. They were instead surrounded by a sprawling urban network, a grid of freeways, streets and canals that provided far into the bordering scenery, embracing an area larger than modern-day Paris. What archaeologists had been studying for generations was simply the equivalent of a European city with everything mopped away except for the churches and cathedrals.

At its pinnacle in the 12 th century, when London had a population of 18,000, Angkor was home to hundreds of thousands, some approximate up to three-quarters of a million people. So what form did this megacity in the rice fields take?

Im reluctant to use the word city, suggests Evans. Angkor doesnt follow the usual structure of an ancient walled metropoli with a clearly defined margin. Instead, we detected a extremely densely populated downtown city core, covering a zone of 35 -4 0 sq km, which gradually yields acces to a kind of agro-urban hinterland. It slowly dissolves into a world-wide of neighborhood shrines, mixed up with rice fields, sell gardens and ponds. It was the prototype of modern-day suburban sprawl.

Angkor locator map

Thanks to engineering devised by Nasa, all of this could be gleaned from a few hours of helicopter flight, as opposed to generations of hacking through the undergrowth with machetes( while keeping a picket for landmines ). Shooting a million laser beams every four seconds from the bottom of a helicopter, the lidar technology( which stands for light-colored likeness detection and ranging) earmarks a kind of virtual deforestation to take place, depriving away the tree canopy to discover what lies beneath on the forest floor.

The discovers were a discovery. The scanning uncovered a terrain inscribed with a precise system of furrows and embankments, the bones of the town etched into the landscape.

On the floor you just see lumps and bulges, suggests Evans, but this aerial view presents a highly sophisticated system of road networks, schemed communities and intricate waterworks. Angkor was a drive of geoengineering on an unparalleled scale.

Any evidence of these neighbourhoods on the soil has long since decomposed away. In Khmer society, stone was used solely for religion shrines, built of enormous cubes floated here from quarries 30 miles back along specially dug canals( as the wider laser survey discovered last year ). Everything else even the imperial palaces was make use of grove and thatch, with dwellings heightened up on stilts on top of earthen dunes, designed to keep them above the floodwaters in the rainy season.

Digital terrain model of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay, east of Angkor. Photograph: Damian Evans/ Cambodian Archaeological Lidar Initiative

The Khmers mastery over the natural landscape was perhaps their greatest achievement, and the lidar mapping has uncovered complex high levels of terraforming and ocean management systems that were way ahead of any other settlement of the era.

Once again, earlier archaeological studies focused on the symbolic role of water in Angkors cosmological order, reading the immense reservoir as epitomizes of the mythological oceans circumventing Mount Meru, residence of the Hindu divinities. While the watercourses apparently played a part in the hallowed geography of the town, they were fundamentally there to irrigate the rice fields, the source of the empires great money. Success in a tropical climate eventually is conditional upon the ability to mitigate flooding during the summer monsoon and accumulation enough water to irrigate the fields during dry season something the Khmer lords had clearly mastered.

Residential regions were arranged around millions of communal rainfall ponds, while the fields were irrigated by a pair of great pools, or barays, the whole system connected by an extensive network of canals and paths. The West Baray, which pulls five miles by one mile to the west of downtown Angkor, remains the largest hand-cut body of water on clay. Contained by towering earthen dikes, it stands as the steeple of the Khmer ability to harness the landscape for its own ends.

Two laser inspections uncovered suburban sprawl in Angkor. Photograph: Damian Evans/ Journal of Archaeological Science

But this hydrological virtuosity, Evans and his squad now speculate, might also have been at the root of Angkors undoing, shedding brand-new light on the eventual conclude for this magnificent metropoli decline.

Archaeologists have long theorized on why the Khmer capital descended into wrecking. One hypothesi is that the city was sacked by a Siamese invasion in 1431, prompting the princes and their people to flee en masse to an province near present-day Phnom Penh. But there is little evidence of the various kinds of agreements indicative of a mass migration.

Others argue that the transition from Hinduism to more serene Buddhism, in accordance with the predominate of Jayavarman VII, sapped the Angkorian civilisation of its war mongering, monument-building vigor. Yet that conveniently discounts the brutal swellings of other Buddhist lords elsewhere in the world at the time. Another tenuous show is that the Khmer depleted themselves with all the building campaigns and finally collapsed from statue fatigue.

Evans, nonetheless , now believes that environmental influences played an important area. Searching at the sedimentary registers, there is evidence of cataclysmic flooding, he remarks. In the expansion of Angkor, they had destroyed all of the woodlands in the watershed, and we have spotcheck downfalls in the water system, exposing that various parts of the network simply are broken down. With the entire feudal hierarchy reliant on the successful management of ocean, a break in the chain could have been enough to spurs a gradual decline.

While it might be inviting to dwell on the colourful vision of a mass exodus, Evans is keen to emphasise that there was no spectacular collapse at all. There was much of attest for continued vigour in Angkor, he replies. When Portuguese merchants inspected in the 16 th century, and French adventurers came here in the 19 th century, they encountered communities of several thousand people living in and all over the tabernacles. It might have disappeared from the consciousness of Europeans for a occasion, he contributes, but Angkor was never a lost metropoli. It just got a bit overgrown.

Please share your legends of other failed cities throughout biography in the comments below. F ollow Guardian City on Twitter and Facebook invited to join such discussions