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SolarFlare Down
By Inferunus Lapse
Introduction:
They say that the heart is fragile, that the flame inside is just a conduit that feeds the drive of ambition. But what if it were more? What if the heart can give beings like me... Humanity? Power? Immortality, even? Perhaps all of our species have one heart, a giant heart that connects us all... I feel as if I knew the answers to this, but the only problem is... I don't remember anything.
The last thing I remember before waking up here was the crash. I felt like I was falling for miles before it all went black, the last thing I heard was "respond, Infernus, do you copy?!", then I saw the ground hit me before I collapsed. When I woke up, all i could find was a picture of a group of men with some words on the back... "Lapse, 2051". Who, or what, is lapse? How did I end up here, in this craft called the "Solar Flare"? I don't know, but what i do know is that I'm lost, alone, and I don't even know who I am. What I am. Everything I touch bursts into flame, and the people are scared of me.
Here I am, in a new world, new life, and no clue who I was or who I will be. This is my new start, my genesis. Welcome to Delteria, are you going to be with me, or will you end up like the smoldering, molten crater I woke up in?
Chapter 1: Awakening
I stumbled across the wreckage of my ship, luckily the heat from my crash was able to keep me warm through the cold winter night. As I climbed the crater into the outside world, My hand grabbed an odd item that has the texture of a leaf, yet it was as shiny as gold, how riveting! This odd substance was entirely new to me, yet I somehow knew to say "oh hey look, a gralat". What is this... Gralat? What could this be used for? I deposited it in my knapsack and continued on my quest for answers. After nearly thirty minutes of climbing, I finally reached a tree- filled grassland, a forest! I knew that I had known what it was before, yet I had never seen one. While I was admiring this beautiful new land, I was knocked over by a mysterious creature, it was entirely transparent and bounced around, and when it saw me its eyes flared up and it charged at me at full speed. Scrambling for something to defend myself, I grabbed a nearby signpost and engaged this creature in combat, swinging at it wildly, looking for a weak spot. Finally, after hitting it multiple times and taking a couple shots to the face and body, the creature finally ran back into the woods. I started running just to survive, windering if there were more of those creatures around. I ran for what must have been hours until I reached a clearing and tripped on a tree root. When I got up, I saw another one of the creatures in front of me, and another right next to it. Looking all around, I realized...
I was surrounded.
Chapter 2: A christmas Miracle
I look around at all of the creatures around me, looking for an exit. I hear a snap of a twig, and the ground starts to shake. I lay down my signpost and back away, with my hands up. Fighting them is hopeless, I was nearly beaten by the other one alone, how can I defeat a group? The shaking gets more frequent. Something is coming... Suddenly, My vision starts to blur. How many hits did I really take back there? The shaking gets more violent, and I fall. As I lay there trying to recover, that something arrived. After that, all i heard was violent. splashes, like someone is slamming water with a hammer. After that, I passed out from the dizziness and pain together. Am I really this weak? Perhaps it was just the crash that made me weaker, I thought to myself. Suddenly, I drift off from thought, into a dream.
The dream was vague, I was in a house of metal, floating in the sunny sky. As I looked around, I spotted a Woman, "My Wife" I thought. How did I remember that? What is her name? Looking over to the table on the other side of the room was a boy. My son? As I walked towards her, she looked up at me with a loving smile, offering me breakfast. As we sat down at the table, they began to discuss their day. Suddenly, there was a crash. We looked outside and saw huge flying metal machines sending down bombs on the neighbourhood. Looking behind me, I saw the door get smashed open, and armed men began flooding our house. Attempting to hurry the woman and boy away, they caught up and trapped them under a net, and pulled them away from me. Panicking, I ran into the glass tube labeled "S.F. ACCESS" and pressed a button. The tube shut behind me, locking me inside. After a few seconds, the tube began to rise, and the dream ended.
I woke up. Looking around, I saw that I was back on the strange world, in a bed. There was an old, bearded man and a hooded one holding a wooden bow and arrows beside me. Weakly, I was able to mutter, "Who... Are you?" To which the man replied, "This is our Field Medic, we call him Myst. My name is also of no importance to you right now, you may call me Christmas. And you, whoever you are, may just be the miracle we've been looking for,"
Chapter 3: The Delterian Initiative
Shocked, I tried to think about what that may mean, being their miracle, but had to stop myself as he continued,"I know this is a bit much to take in right now, but my men are at war with a great threat that plagues this land, to restore order to the land once and for all, and I'd like you to help. You may be weak now, but I have trust that, with time, you can become a great soldier." Intrigued, I simply replied, "What threat? Like those monsters in the forest?" Surprised, Christmas started laughing and replied in mid-laughter, "Your not really that clueless, are you?" he then studied me, raising his eyebrows "Oh, your serious. In that case, I'd better wait for you to recover before I lay all this on you..." He then got up, said something to the guard in front of the tent, and walked away. Rolling over to get some rest, I thought about what he had said. He must be very desperate to ask for a stranger like me for help. What could have possibly made him this desperate? What is it that he sees in me?
After resting for what must have been hours, I was finally feeling better. Getting out of bed, I walked over to the guard and told him that I was ready to go see Christmas. The guard looked at me, surprised, and said, "How is this possible? Your bruises, their... Gone! And it hasn't even been ten minutes! How did you do that? Are you some sort of priest?" What? Less than ten minutes, and I lost all of my injuries??? I was sure I at least still had my bruises, but when I looked, my skin looked perfectly fine. Not even a cut! Scrambling for an answer, I said, "Uhhhh, I'm... Not sure, actually." Then, in what looked like a mix of disbelief and shock, all he could think to do was brush it off and lead me to Christmas. His tent was fairly close to where I was staying, however I could see why he needed someone to bring me there, as he had set up his camp like a maze, I would have been lost had the guard not shown me to the tent. After a couple minutes of twists and turns, we had arrived at the tent.
"Well, here we are. He should be right inside. See you around, kid." Explained the guard, walking off to return to his post. From the outside, the tent looks fairly average, at just over my height. However, the inside was large, big even for a Captain's quarters. Walking in, Christmas immediately noticed me and walked over to greet me. "Hello, I wasn't expecting you so soon, and are your wounds... Healed?! That fast? It seems I was right, you truly are something else. Here, let's head over to the table and discuss the situation, your abilities we can discuss later." We walked past the rows of soldiers either swinging their swords at dummies comprised of hay and wood, or shooting a plethora of ranged weapons at targets, and arrived at a table with what appeared to be a tattered map of the kingdom sprawled across it, with various white and black markers placed in various spots across the map, with several more black markers than white.
Stopping to examine the table, he said "So here's the situation. Our kingdom is being attacked by the Baddies, a nation of barbarians who have trained most of the local monsters to become hostile towards us as well. As you can see, we are down to 3 camps here on Delteria. One here in Deltlite city, one in the desert town of Old West, and another in the lava pits of the east." Once again, I am Christmas, Captain of the Delterian Initiative and leader of the Deltlite City Militia. There may be many like you, but it is your choice to make a difference in this struggle. Will you help us drive off this threat, and to save Delteria from certain devastation?" Wow, I thought. For him to ask me something this big, he must really be desperate. Yet all I have is questions, but I knew one question I could answer. I decided to reply, "Christmas, I do not know who I am, how I got here, or what I can really do, but I won't be finding out anything more by sitting here thinking about it. When do I start?" Sporting a sly grin, he began to start showing me the grounds, and where my new home will be.
Chapter 4: The ropes
The Delterian Training Grounds were quite large, there were about five tents for each combat specialty; Melee Weaponry, Ranged Weaponry, The Arcane, Martial Arts, and Intelligence. For my first few months, I had to learn the basics of each craft, dividing my days into five segments, much like High School. At the very end of the nearly vast row of tents there was the dorms, which consisted of a repurposed tavern and some tents to house the growing number of recruits.
My first day was a bit awkward, with me joining in the middle of the course and all. Because I wouldn't be able to catch up with the current class, I was given special hours so I was the only one in my class. Most of the classes consisted of me learning what the subject was and how to begin training. While I was interested in the lessons,to be honest, I was only truly interested in learning how life there worked. Life between classes and the enforced curfew was short lived, most recruits would spend time studying, chatting about the day, or sparring each other in the courtyard with wooden swords.
I finished class just as the sun began setting, when the guards started lighting the lanterns placed cleverly around the camp. As I left class, one of the recruits suddenly appeared from behind me and whispered in my ear, "Hey, your that guy who Christmas found in the forest, right?" I jumped back in fear, dropping my training supplies and quickly snapping,"GAH! Who are you?" She replied, embarrassed, "Oh, sorry! My name is Kim, I'm a recruit here. I just heard that Christmas had found a guy being attacked in the woods and that he was enlisting as a recruit here. He gave you the lecture about being this militia's only hope, right?" She then started to pick up my things for me. "Yeah... I honestly don't really know where I am. Or how I got here. Kinda just... Eh... Crashed here." Her eyebrows rose in wonder, "Your not from here, I take it..." "I don't know, I could be. I just... Have trouble remembering my past..." Her expression dimmed, as if tired of the conversation, "Oh. Well maybe my friends could help you!" She said, shortly before grabbing my arm and leading me towards a green tent, the mess hall.
We navigated through the maze of tables until we finally arrived at a table where a somewhat fit man and an average-built boy sat. Kim pushed me into the seat and quickly began talking again. "Alright guys, here he is. The guy from the forest, like I told you!" She turned to me and pointed,"This is John and J6, they're recruits too!" I waved to them, and they just glanced back at me, finishing their meals before introducing themselves further. J6 began, saying "Hey, my real name is John also but I use J6 so you can tell the difference, haha!" I didn't understand his reasoning, as the two looked quite different. John then also chimed in "Hey, you look pretty tough, we should spar before curfew!" Though I had little interest in doing so, John's competitive spirit made me want to at least try to test my limits. I also wanted to take it as an opportunity to learn how experienced the other recruits fought, as I had no style of my own and needed to learn one if I was going to defend myself. No doubt that I needed to make a name for myself if I was going to join the militia.
For the rest of supper, we talked about how our day went and what we expect tomorrow. They were actually really friendly people, despite their odd introduction. As we walked back to the living quarters, I had almost forgotten about the sparring challenge, however John didn't. Without warning he tossed a wooden training blade to me and said "You didn't think I'd forget about it, do you? Get me to my knees and you'll have won. I'm the best sparrer around, so don't expect to be getting me to cry uncle!" I quickly shifted into my fighting stance, and John knew I was ready.Within seconds, he was on me. We crossed blades and began in an intense struggle as to who would lose their stance first. Pushing with all my might, I felt myself slowly losing arm space. Acting quickly to recover ground, I quickly slid my blade off of his, jumped back and charged back at him, parrying his overhead slash and quickly striking him in the abdomen. After a quick recovery he came right back at me. Right slash, Left Slash, Overhead Slash, Low Sweep, Thrust, I quickly blocked his strikes and dodged his sweep. I took my turn, and swiped at the opening in his stance on the left side, but he somehow adjusted quickly enough and blocked it. I made the mistake of spending a split second in surprise that he adjusted that fast, which is when he broadsided my sword arm and began a flurry of strikes so rapid that I only saw a blur as the series of strikes slammed into my body. As the last strike hit, I felt my ribs crack as the brute force from the blows began to take their toll. As I recovered, I saw the other recruits cheering John on as his victory became more obvious, but he only stood and took in the victory for a second. He walked over, helped me up.
"Hey, good match! I've never seen someone pull off that kind of defense before! J6 will take care of your wounds for you, best healer in the recruit corps, you know!" He came over and held his hand to my chest, conjuring a spell that made my body tingle. "I see, just a couple cracked ribs and a bruise or two. Shouldn't take too long! Just hold still..." He began to move his hands to my head, and within a couple seconds, I was fine again. "Hey, wha- how did you DO that?!" John peered over, "Whats wrong?" Quickly turning to him with a shocked look on his face, he exclaimed "I didn't even do anything, he just healed on his own!" The crowd went silent and looked at me, some people whispered to each other for a couple seconds, before John finally said "So he's the real deal, eh? Some power you've got, uh... What was your name again?" "It's, uh, Infer-" Just as I was about to finish, almost as if to spite me, the curfew bell rang, and we all ran to our dorms.
Chapter 5: Memory flow
The next day began vaguely, I was so tired that I nearly fell off of my bunk, which is 7 feet from the floor, just waking up. The recovery from the slip quickly accelerated my brain to normal speed. I put on my training gear, refurbished my training sword from the Sparring Match last night, and headed off to my first routine of the day, strength conditioning. the Militia decided to always start the recruits' day with strength training because Myst convinced Christmas that working out your muscles right after you woke up would help with training performance. It apparently works since the instructor showed us a decade of results on initiation day, but it really just makes me feel like a sore piece of crap.
The strength training lasted for about an hour and a half each day, after that is a half hour of study for rest and extra studying, however concentration became difficult each day since I was so sore. Once that half hour is up, I go to my arcane studies class. It's unusually interesting, learning the workings of spells and practicing a plethora of spells out of my spell book on a feather for two hours. After Arcane Studies is Ranged Weapons, where over a two hour period I had to choose between the Crossbow, Traditional Bow, and the Musket. For some odd reason, I was quite accustomed to the crossbow, so that was my weapon of choice for the next two hours of the class. After Intelligence studies, I went to Melee Combat training, where we also chose between a wide variety of swords, staves, and axes. After thirty minutes of practice with all of them, the sword was my best, being the only one in my class to have been able to parry ten swipes from the instructor and deflect an arrow shot by a recruit looking to play a little prank on me. Classes soon ended, and we went to supper, where I met up with Kim, John, and J6 again.
"Hey." The trio glared at me and all said "Hey" back in a heavily sarcastic tone. Odd, does my ability truly alienate me that much? How did I even obtain this ability, anyways? Clearing the curious thoughts from my mind, I started up a conversation with John. "Hey, John, nice technique yesterday. I'm surprised I even lasted that long!" John smirked, and replied "No sweat... Eh... Thats right, you never mentioned your name!" "My name is... Infernus. Or so I think. I dint exactly remember much about who I am." "Nice to meet you, Infernus. Do you remember hitting your head hard or anything? You may just need time, memories come back eventually" I remembered the crash site and nodded my head. "I was in a... Crash. Left a pretty big mark, if you ask me." Kim looked at me with a curious look "Big mark? Like... A crater? The Rangers found a gigantic crater in the forest where we found you, found the remains of a metal dragon in it. Do you mean to tell us that you crashed here on one of those things?" My heart skipped a beat. They found it? Will they think I'm an enemy? What will happen if so? I took a deep breath and said, "I - I guess so. I don't remember much of it though. Just waking up in the ship, and then being attacked by the slimes." Kim gave me a suspicious look, and just said "We'll see how much you remember... In time. I'd be careful, the D.I.B. will probably be quite curious as to why a man emerged in the middle of the forest at the same time as a giant metal dragon that crashed down from the heavens." She got up and left the tent, I could tell that she was leaving with a curious determination for something. Supper continued with awkward, but regular conversation.
As I slept, I had yet another dream. I was in the ship, flying through the heavens at the speed of light. By now I had already confidently inferred that the name of the ship was indeed the Solar Flare. It was a very luxurious craft, very different indeed. I sat and looked around at the void around me, amazed at this sight. After a couple minutes, a voice came through "Nimbus City has been lost, repeat, Nimbus City has been lost. All units retreat to the VoidRunner." I wondered what it meant, when I realized that this wasn't just a dream, it was no memory, I had control of my actions. I didn't have any weird hunches or odd knowledge of anything around me or happening, I had the same knowledge as outside the dream and the same clothing as I went to sleep in. I looked around for something to remind me of what's going on, what is happening here. I looked in a bookshelf in a bedroom, and found an oddly light book, almost feeling as if it were made of wood. I opened the book, and inside was a slip. All it said was "System Command Initiate Tutorial sequence" This is odd, what could it mean? I read it out loud, and a female voice responded "Initiating training sequence, all recruits report to briefing room" and a blue light illuminated across the hallway. I quickly dashed into the room, and there was a picture of the ship made of light on a table in the middle of a small stadium-like room. I walked down and held out my hand to touch it, and the voice came back. "Welcome, recruit. Initiating Training Protocol" the ship changed form into a schematic of some sort, and for the next 10 minutes I was told the workings of the ship. Once it was done, I suddenly remembered this. All of it, the ship, how it works, how to use it, everything. I regained my full fifteen years of experience with this ship in an instant with thanks to me from the past leaving a simple note in a book. I had remembered that, too. I kept the training code on the ship in the case that I had become incapable of flying the ship, so that someone new could take care of it. My mind instantly flickered back to the image of the ship crashed and in shambles, and I just thought to myself, "Dammit, What have I gotten myself into?" and looked around for some sort of way to fix her in the help program. Finally, I found it. There was a universal repair tool that could repair near any injury to the ship, and it displayed a cube in the ship's console. However, when I woke up in the crash there was no cube, just an empty square socket. The cube was made of hardened alloys from various craters, things that I would never be able to collect without a ship. I began to think to myself for a bit, trying to take all of this in and find another way to fix the ship. Before I could complete my search, I woke up.
I panicked, I knew how to use the ship, but I can't fix it. Yet with all this information, it still didn't answer any important questions. Why was I on the ship? What caused me to abandon my family and run if I had this healing gift? Then, I remembered what Kim had said about not being the only one, and I quickly got dressed and ran to Christmas' tent. I want answers, and I'm going to get them. If there's someone else like me here, then perhaps they can help me get the materials to make a new repair cube! These questions ran through my mind as I entered Christmas' tent to find he was not there. However I did hear a voice coming from a trapdoor in the floor under the table. I cracked open the trapdoor to see Christmas talking to someone... Someone made of light.
Chapter 6, Under Siege
I immediately started to run away, Christmas is probably defensive about his technology, and wouldn't want me knowing about it. However, as soon as I started out of the tent, I was immediately pinned with a knife to my neck in a split second. "This will remain between you and me, are we clear? If news that we have communication with above, it'll be hell for both you, me, and them. Understand me?" He took the knife away from my neck, and I began questioning him, but he didn't answer to anything I asked. "Look, Christmas. I'm only here for answers, I have no bias in your conflict. If I can just fix my ship, I can get out of here and be on my way." He thought, then pulled down a map and pointed out a region near where I had crashed. " Then you'll need a repair cube. There was talk of a strange cube just like it right there, locals say it's cursed, and my men can't get near it. Damn radiation poisoning coming off of that thing disintegrates them when they try to get near it. If you can get past the radiation poisoning, you can repair your ship. I'll get you a balloon pass to and from the area, if you keep quiet about what you've seen here." I nodded, and he reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a rainbow-colored ticket. "This will get you there, The village's official name was lost long ago, when the baddies first invaded. People just talk about it by the style of the area, Old West. I'll surely see you later, and good luck. Oh and before I forget, you have a week to come back with the cube, that's when we're dismantling the ship" After that, I was on my way.
The balloon ride was calm and relaxing, a nice change from the stressful studies of the past few days. For some reason, militia balloons actually resemble a zeppelin more than a conventional balloon. I sat in the deluxe suite right by the cockpit, with my own sofa, a fully-stocked bookshelf containing various magical tomes and spell books (I took a couple on pyromancy, which I was fascinated with, and one on how to tame giant Guinea Pigs, you never know when they might come in handy!), and a feast that could feed me for months on end. Looking out the window you could see the world below, the camp was the size of a city, with a large, mysterious castle which loomed in the distance. After a few hours of calm flying, with the occasional stop to shoot down a flock of flying monsters, we finally arrived. Before leaving, I was given a bandana for my mouth to keep out the dust and debris from the nearby warzone. Curious about the town, I decided to walk around a bit.
My first stop was in the tavern, where I walked in to nearly be hit in the head by the flying bottles from the enormous bar fight which had ensued. After watching the bottles of various liquors pelt peoples' heads, and even taking some to the skull myself, I left the tavern for the armorer down the street, I'd need protection if I were to venture outside this war-torn town. As I walked there, I noticed that there were hardly any people outside, and those who were didn't talk, they just ran about the town from building to building. I payed no attention to this at the time, as I was determined to get that cube, the key to my salvation, to finding out who exactly I am and what is all going on.
I entered the armorer's shop and was greeted by a hunched over middle aged man with green skin and a fancy suit, with two shiny-silver revolvers holstered at his side. I walked up to the counter and asked "Hello, sir. Would you happen to have any swords for sale?" He looked at me, slowly moving his right hand down for his revolver, and replied "Who's askin? I ain't no damn charity case!" I flashed my Militia recruit badge, and he went into the back. A minute or so later, he came back with a few selections of swords. One was a Cutlass, likely used by sailors, another was a broadsword, I could tell from the resemblance to the guards' weapons this was standard militia issue, and finally an oddly-fashioned kukri, sporting poorly-made fire runes etched into the blade. "What kind of kukri is that? It's unlike any I've seen before." The merchant laughed and proudly replied "This here is of my own design, unlike any other in the world. This baby works like an explosive boomerang. You throw it, activate the right spell and the thing explodes as soon as it lodges in the enemy's body, and whats more is that as soon as it does, it comes right back to the holster right here, like new." He picked up the kukri and held it out to me. "Wanna buy? Even with yer militia badge there, it'll be an extra 500 Gralats!" I checked my pockets and pulled out the gralats I had found in the forest, plus the military allowance I was given for things such as food and equipment. I handed the Gralats to him, and tried out my new sword. It felt nice as I swung it through the air, although I couldn't maneuver with it as well as I'd thought. I soon decided that I'd best get back to my search, and left the town in search of the cube.
Took me only an hour to find the cube, everyone within two miles was talking about the thing. When I arrived there was a crowd surrounding the cube, with one man in full plate armor approaching the cube. He got to about five meters away before he instantly disintegrated from the mix of radiation and pure heat energy. Am I supposed to be able to grab that? I didnt know, but I had to try if I wanted to get back to my home, and find out what the hell is going on. I hesitantly stepped toward the cube. As I approached, I heard at least a hundred merchants selling various goods to people in the crowd, and others in the crowd shouting at me, saying things like "Your gonna die!" Or "Does this guy think he's special or something? What a moron!", but I wasn't all too concerned. I was about fifty feet away when the heat became so intense that my breathing became difficult. At ten feet, I could hardly bear the heat, The rest of my brain seemed to scream at my conscious mind telling it to turn back.
I arrived at the point of disintegration, where I stopped. I reached in with my hand to at least see if my healing abilities worked, but they weren't. The flesh on my hand instantly burned away into a seared combination of burnt muscle and bone. However, I felt something, as if the heat were trying to make me stronger. I felt as if I should just close my eyes and relax. I submitted to the awesome power of the heat around me, and wonders happened. I felt stronger, the skin on my hand came back. Not only that, but I felt a sense of home by the cube. Like it belonged to me. The crowd gasped as I walked in with twice the strength I did before, grabbed the cube, and walked back to the balloon. Before I knew it I was departing on the Zeppelin with a crowd of people staring at me from below with awe.
As we flew back, I investigated the cube further. It floated in my hands, continuing to give me power and comfort. After studying for hours, the cube seemingly wasn't of any relevance to this world, no text or scroll mentioned it. I was pondering it when we arrived within visual range of the camp. As we approached, I could tell something was wrong. Tents were on fire, and there were four metal pillars on each corner of the camp. I watched helplessly as an energy engulfed the camp, and tents slowly began to disappear, trees grew out of nowhere. My gear began to disappear and, after the last of my uniform vanished, I found it hard to remain awake. I couldn't remember why I was here or where I even was. I didn't have time to think as my vision slowly faded to the blackness I remembered so well.
Chapter 7: The Rubble
I awoke with a start. I was in my bedroom in the sky, everything was peaceful, almost as if nothing had even happened. I got up and pressed the button on my uniform pod, stepped in, and was instantly changed into my uniform, a dark purple armored suit with moonstone armor, the finest armor in use, with green glow on the trim. I stepped in my hangar pod and took off to the SolarFlare, there was a drill today and I wasn't going to miss it. I approached the ship and suddenly the events of the crash flashed back to me, including the final moments of my consciousness, as I began falling off the zeppelin. "There's no way they could've obtained it, that's impossible!" I thought. The Anti-Graalians Miltia couldn't obtain the Ultimate Siege Weapon if they tried. If they did, it'd be a disaster on our galactic security. The evolution of war technology allowed us to advance past killing and need only to use the USW to eradicate their memory of the army and the camp, and all opposition is gone. I laughed off the thought and entered the ship. I did a manual check of the ship, and strapped myself into the pilots seat. "Hello, SolarFlare. Initiate Systems Check then begin launch cycle, target equals Lapse Briefing Hangar" The A.I. Responded "Affirmative, initiating..." And, after a couple seconds, the ship had targeted the briefing center and had begun to launch.
The Briefing Center for Lapse squad was over the Alliance home world of Graal, like the others. Graal's surface was entirely covered in civilization, finding a spot of natural land was rare and the land could be sold for a small fortune. The Communications Tower in the Era City district handled my confirmation codes and landing authentication, and I landed in the Lapse hangar and greeted the squad. Our leader was Jester, a very stern and experienced leader who has quite the reputation in the Empire as a respected leader and strategist. Our Weapons expert went by the name Rain, but we call him Silent Rain for his stealth expertise. Our explosives Expert, Nico, always saw problems in his strategies and they never got along. Matt was our Trainee Expert, in charge of briefing temporary members and training new members for the Empire. Beary was our Medical Expert, although we were all trained to the same degree of triage as him, he had the equipment to make it work better. Then, besides temporary members the empire assigns us for assignments, there's me. Infernus Lapse, the Intelligence Expert and RecordKeeper. I was never the best with standard blasters, so I was commissioned a sword for defense, my suit helps to enhance that proficiency with increased speed, hand-eye coordination, and shield gauntlets for defense. We gave each other our greetings, and entered the briefing room. Jester turned on the holo projector and, with a look of either nerves or fear, began to speak.
"Hello, everyone. As you all know, it's been a while. While it's great to have a reunion, the cause is not. As you all know, the AGM has been growing intensively and is becoming a larger threat to our security. They've begun to recruit races of local outlying worlds and are constructing a space station Over the planet of Kalite. Our forces there have already had their technology disabled by their EMP Bombings and are in danger of elimination. Once we receive our shipment of fuel and ammunition tomorrow, we will launch a full scale invasion of Kalite to reclaim the planet. We will be leading the entire Intergalactic Fleet, though we will also be taking part in the land invasion. Further briefing tomorrow, You are all dismissed. I suggest you all train hard and say goodbye to your families, we've never conducted an operation like this before and it's not definite that we will all survive. Tomorrow we will meet on the details of this operation, and will be meeting our temps for this mission. Any Questions?" I asked, "Have they moved any forces toward us?" Jester laughed as if my question were the dumbest thing he'd heard "Infernus, our base is the most hidden in the galaxy, they wouldn't find it if they tried" "I may need to talk to you after this, then." "Deal. Any further questions?" The rest of the questions were mainly about equipment and unrelated topics. After the Briefing, Jester approached me. "What is it? I've got a meeting on the operation with SNK and Xor in an hour". I explained to him what I had seen in my dreams about the invasion and Deltlite. He looked at me, recognizing the serious tone of my voice. "When did you dream this was happening?" "I don't know, nothing in my dream hinted to it. However if this ends up being real, we have a serious issue on our hands." Jester took note of my findings in his Suit A.I, and took off to his meeting without giving me any closure as to whether he believed me or not. With my confidence in my instinct waning, I entered the SolarFlare and returned home to Sky City.
Chapter 8: Meet Ignitus
That night, I pondered the possibilities of winning or losing, and how that'd happen. I sat and read books recounting records of our previous missions, and even ancient books from as far back as the Classic Era, recounting the tactics and bravery shown by generations of my predecessors. I find it funny that, after 25,000 years of technological advancement, we are still using swords for combat. We still have rush oriented tactics with little to no stealth, and we still lose comrades to the baddies, although nowadays we just respawn within a few hours of death. I fell asleep at about 1 AM, and the nightmares began.
I dreamt of the invasion again, my wife and kids being taken, escaping through the escape pod to the SolarFlare, where I took off and flew away as fast as I could. That wasn't enough, however. The baddies shot out my engine and right wing, and I went down into a nearby planet. The SolarFlare began to heat up, and the ship absorbed the heat energy to power the generators further to ensure a safe landing. But the Ignitustech I installed into my ship wasn't enough for the combination of the collision heat, enemy fire from sub-orbit, and the flock of creatures I went through during the descent, and they failed 10,000 feet above the surface. The surface grew closer and closer, until finally the ground hit, and I woke up to my son, who was quite shocked at how quickly I woke up and began hyperventilating, I could see in his eyes that he knew that I was terrified of something. He jumped back and said, in a panic, "Dad, whats wrong?". I sat up and recovered from the shock of waking up for a split second, then responded "It was just a nightmare, nothing more. Ready for breakfast, Joey?" He responded with a quick "yes" and ran downstairs. I knew it was just a nightmare, but it felt so real.
I went downstairs and prepared my son and I's breakfast, and we sat down at the table in the middle of the room and ate. My kitchen was fairly large, a decent bit bigger than my master bedroom. With my wife's job at the company and my CEO position, we earned enough wages to afford many luxuries. Our kitchen was entirely up to date, we had the newest Holo- Technology and sent our son to the best in education, the internet-run Ivy League school, Cortex Academy. Joey and I discussed current events, the state of the universe, and finally my military assignment came into question. "Dad, you said you had a mission, where will you be going?" "Just on a relief mission is all, I should be back in a week". He looked down in disappointment. "I have my semester finals next week, I was hoping you'd be there to see the results..." I gave him an assuring smile and said, "Don't worry, I'll be back to see it! Plus, your mother is returning today. You two can bear through it just fine!" He gave me a sarcastic smile "Yeah, I suppose. Just... Promise me you'll come back?" I reassured him that I would and we finished up our meals. I did come chores around the house while Joey went into his Oculus Chamber for school.
Around midday, My wife, Cianna, arrived home. We warmly greeted each other and went up to our room to unpack. We began packing when I started to tell her about my mission I'm to embark on tomorrow. "I can't help but worry about you, Niko. Last time you had a mission this long, you broke half your vertebrae! Promise me I wont see you in that regenerative brace again? ...Please?" I assured her, "Honey, I promise I wont. Ive updated the G.E.S.P.A. to prevent that from happening again." The G.E.S.P.A, or Genetically Enhanced Shock Powered Apparatus. My latest model of battle armor. When they say that mistakes power learning, this is a prime example. Since I joined Lapse squadron just over a decade ago, I became a bit of an inventor. I noticed the mistakes, successes, and accidents of my squad mates and me as being preventable, even when Jester said they weren't, and I decided to fix them. So I founded Ignitus Technologies to both fix the faults of our squad and make us better using the technology I make through these studies. Since I founded it, I received funding from the Graalian Military and several other private sub-factions around the galaxy to use our tech in training and fights, when small skirmishes or in the rare case of an actual war. I turned to Cianna and hugged her. "I know your stressed with the new job at SkyWorld News, just remember that problems like that are temporary if you just work through them. Stress is the catalyst for- " I was interrupted by my Communicator, it was a message to go to the Briefing Center for the plan. I gave Cianna a kiss goodbye, said goodbye to Joey, and entered the SolarFlare. I don't remember any time before that ride where Ive ever had a worse feeling about what was to come.
Chapter 9: The End of the Beginning, or The Beginning of the End?
As I docked, I thought about what we might be needing to do. There are Militia stationed there, our intel at least confirmed that, however there are billions of innocents living there too. The last thing I want is to see another planet like Ares Prime. It was the UGE's first mass bombing on suspicion of the return of the baddies, and it degenerated that once lush planet into a magma-filled waste land. After that massacre, the Senate passed new regulations to limit the bombings so fast the bombing squad had to turn back mid-jump from a second suspected planet. It's been five hundred years and the planet is still crawling with mutated life forms and radiation so toxic that, without a suit, it'll disintegrate any organic substance in under five minutes. I shook this thought off, and assured myself we weren't going to be pulling anything like that again any time soon.
I entered the Briefing room, where Jester was calibrating the HoloTable for the briefing. Everyone else was sitting in their respective seats around the room, and ten temps were standing at the front by Jester's side discussing something. I sat in my seat and Jester began the meeting. "Thanks for showing up, Infernus. Alright, let's get down to business. The enemy stronghold on Kalite is located here" he pointed to a roughly 100- mile large region surrounded entirely by mountains, with the exception of two narrow valleys parallel to each other, with one leading to a river spanning a quarter of the continent and one leading to a dense forest region to the east. "The stronghold is guarded fairly well by land, however our Ignitustech should allow us to maneuver through their orbital cannons and either clear out opposition in one of the passes to make way for the Strike Team, which will be lead by Me, with the help Silent, Nico, and Infernus." He motioned for me to get up and began introducing me to my temp team. "These are our temps for the strike team. Their names are Jagger and Joker. Be sure to get comfortable with them, because our squad was opened by Central for permanent recruitment this morning, and these guys are our top candidates." I shook hands with them as protocol intends, and looked on. "I realize this means that our Aerorbital Forces will be lessened, so I called in a request for a small garrison of air troops to help create a larger distraction. I was denied the Garrison but instead given some extra temps and a few extra gunships, just enough to fully occupy the twenty we currently have. Due to the larger number of temps taking the air for this operation, Matt will be heading the Aerorbital Assault." Makes sense for Central to deny his request for this type of operation, the UGE has strict beliefs in stealth missions being carried out by small teams and only small teams, to avoid political uproar. Jester Walked over to the remaining eight temps standing at the front of the room. "This, of course, is not our entire temporary pilot squad, however these are the main pilots who have earned top marks and will be directly assisting the rest of us in the operation." He began pointing them out " Matt, this is Blessing, PandaTiger, Kendama, Alpho, Novo, Mystic, Goat and Azek. They will be your eight main temps, the rest will be support. Now, on to the plan of attack." The HoloMap Spawned in a simulation of our fleet and what information our recon gathered on their defenses. "Matt and the temps will come into orbit through the north. Once you reach the Upper Atmosphere, you'll break into formation and neutralize their aerial units first, and if you need assistance we can send in the Strike Teams drop ship, which Infernus has retrofitted for combat." I nodded in pride, took me a week to get the armor plating on and find ammo storage that doesn't sacrifice cargo space. Jester quickly nodded in acknowledgement, and continued. "Once that is done, you'll activate your Solar Thrusters, take out their defenses at one of the valleys, and begin distracting the gunners once you break the sound barrier. While the guns are firing at you guys, Infernus will pilot the drop ship into the drop zone, and we will infiltrate the complex. We'll be sure to disable those cannons for you so you can maintain aerial dominance and fend off enemy reinforcements until we can eliminate all hostiles occupying the facility. Once we finish that, Infernus will enter the SolarFlare and contact Central for a garrison to occupy the facility. Then, assuming we survive the rigorous waiting period for them to arrive, we'll set off to take the other strongholds and outposts on the planet until we have full control, but not without our trump card. Infernus, is the weapon ready?" Everyone stops and looks to me as a Flaring, Bright orange light envelopes the room for about ten seconds, then dims. "Ready to rumble. Who ever said a guppy cant kill a shark?"
Come back in two weeks for the stunning, shocking, absolutely action-packed Volume one Finale of SolarFlare Down!!! The only question is: are you ready to find out why Infernus has his name?
Thoughts? Comments? Shoot me a response in the thread or shoot me a PM! I don't care if its criticism or generous compliments, I see both as valuable and helpful contributions to the story and its development! Chapter 8 coming out in the next week or two, I'm aiming for longer chapters and I am trying to be more careful with my writing as well, so it may take longer.
© Mr Fatnoob 2014
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No part of this website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied, modified or adapted, without the prior written consent of the author, unless otherwise indicated for stand-alone materials.
All Rights Reserved
No part of this website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied, modified or adapted, without the prior written consent of the author, unless otherwise indicated for stand-alone materials.