Somewhere Someplace

Her head throbbed in sharp pain as everything around turned hazy and blurry…she was on the ground. Something had come lancing from the angry crowd ahead, smacking her right in the head with such force that she had tripped and fallen down. Odd…since her head and face especially…were more than protected.

She had her mask on…thus such impacts should not be so…potent and…painful. Yet, her head really did hurt…but no damage had been made; albeit her HUD screen was somewhat jittery…odd since it should not do that from such a tiny kinetic impact, yet…her HUD tabs and screens were so…flickery and hazy.

« Oké’șne, mi’amigè éternè? » so asked a transmission voice of sorts…though the asker was next to her…a hand reaching out to help her up; such a strange voice…it was…one so…alien and unfamiliar…yet so warm and…comforting; yet…she had never heard this voice before…yet something deep down within her felt that she had.

She replied…a reply; taking the hand…she stood back up. Raining…cloud-filled…so cloudy and rainy. Where even…was she again?

Oh…right…of course…she looked around this blurry haze…she was here…where else would she be?

‘Greatcoats’ and ‘shako’-esque…familiarities all around; she was in uniform. Yet…why did she feel so…strange…so…surprised? She shouldn’t be.

Wait…her uniform…her color…blue…right, of course…she was a Blue-Coat…yet why did that…make her feel so…strange…so…annoyed? What else…would she be?

Her ignited eyes looked around…the scene playing in motion, yet she was not in control; it was as if two hers were seeing all at once; everything was so…muffled, muted, and foggy…yet so clear and pristine in spite of the blurry haze.

Shouts and heckling screams from the angry crowd gathering and congregating around…banners flew and waved; so many banners…so many voices…so many shouts…so many screams…so many rocks and rotten things from species of all kinds…were being hurled, tossed, and thrown; yet they all held firm, paying no mind at all.

Why…were they so angry? She wondered…did they not understand…what was happening?…what was going to happen? Could they not see…that they were…that she was…here to help them? She wondered, despite knowing the answers, both then and now.

“[PROFLIGATES! ALL OF YOU! THIS IS OUR HOME! OUR LAND! OUR HISTORY! YOU CANNOT STEAL US FROM IT!]” thus echoed those hazy muffled shouts.

The hazy blur became somewhat more comprehensible…details emerging from behind the fog; glimmering green and shining sea…so many twinkling lights for all eyes to see.

“Mazhale-gha femielah-eha [may all-mighty in the planes above curse you and your kin!]” so shouted and ordained…a religious leader of sorts…standing on top of something…carried by the crowd; he whispered curses and prayers…breaths blowing along waving hands…so that the wind could carry the curses to her and them.

So many muffled and hazy shouts…from voices…so unreal and incomplete…in fury, they flared as words were declared. Yet…she did not know these words at all…even though…she could understand them all.

“[TO ALLOW AN ARMY OF WOMEN TO STEAL OUR SONS AND KIN IS AN AFFRONT TO OUR ALL-MIGHTY ABOVE!]”

“[GIVE US OUR PEOPLE BACK! YOU PROFLIGATES OF FALSE DIVINITY!]”

“[THIEVES! BUTCHERERS! LIARS! WE KNOW WHERE YOU TAKE THEM!]”

“[THIEVES! INVADERS! GIVE US BACK WHAT YOU STOLE!]”

“[LET OUR KING GO AND LEAVE OUR HOME!]”

“[NONE WILL STAND ANOTHER GENERATION OF YOUR PRESENCE! WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH!]”

“[LEAVE OUR LANDS YOU TALL-HAT DEGENERATES!]”

Muffled shouts…muffled shouts…shout after muffled shout…but her HUD-mask-obscured ears were filled with so much chatter…so many voices…transmitting across dozens of other masks…yet…why was their accent so…unfamiliar and…weird? Wait…why was…she speaking so weirdly?

« Le crowde’st les rockes lançend’étero izen-çeù auĵas obĵectas eșmallas »

« Where are those Green-Coats when they are most needed… »

« Sergeant of Section 7 to Platoon Lieutenant, all conjuncts standing ready for mandates »

« Hold for Company »

« Company Commandant 3 to Regiment Commandant, mandates? Necessary to disperse and detain? »

« Hold for verification with Brigade »

« Skip to Division, Regiment »

« Regiment Commandant 2 to Division Commandant; local hostilities rising; authorized for dispersion and detainment? »

« Que?! Negatif! Beto! Piû çhan çhinc ze la tempa’st z’oc ĵanya! Est çertmenzi lù temps ze façhendo quéda exempla z’ex-af eès. Seíque-ta sâ isșuaz thrés ze los monitos kai sâ préparaz â çeù’t deçimande par pyro lethale șeí no complyan n’ac dișpersan! »

« …seíque domin »

« Repeat that in Polymathic; we understood none of that »

« Regiment Commandant to all, new mandates given: issue three warnings and prepare to decimate by fire if they refuse compliance; lethality allowed »

« Seíque domin…Platoon to all sections: aghéti »

They began to move in closer…as so many rocks and…so many things…so many shouting words…were hurled and thrown, all equal in kind. They prepared and readied…as something floating…or hovering…began to echo…a voice synthetic.

“[Attention people of this vassalage: this is a none-allowed military location of the Loose-Bounded Empire, your actions are meddling with our duties and tasks and are becoming rebellious; you will be given three warnings to disband and leave, whereafter, in agreement with Loose-Bounded prerogatives, we will respond with killing force if there is a failure to comply]”

“[First warning: disband and return to your homes]”

« ‘[Loose-Bounded Empire]’? That does not sound translato correctmenti »

« All: first warning issued; enmovéti »

They moved in closer, increasing the pressure; yet the crowd held firm, their banners waving pride in the raining wind.

“[Second warning: disband and leave to your homes at once!]”

« All: second warning; praiparáti »

They prepared; intentions made very clear. Yet the crowd held firm; entrenched in place. Lancing rocks and objects…were only thrown in greater fury.

“[Final warning: leave right now or we will respond with fire!]”

« Warnante terți…all: aim and target »

They took aim. She took aim. The sky took aim. The ocean took aim. Even the very stars up high took aim. Everything, both alive and not, pointed their deadly stares at this single…large gathering, who encircled from all around.

Yet…the crowd held firm and stood their ground. Such was their willingness; such was their ire.

“[BOUNDED LEAVE US ALONE! BOUNDED LEAVE OUR HOMES AND SONS ALONE! THIS IS OUR LAND! THIS IS OUR HISTORY! THESE ARE OUR NAMES! NOT YOURS TO TAKE!]” thus those blurry hazy shouts from all those blank voices and faces…carried on.

“[WE ARE READY TO BECOME MARTYRS TO OUR CREATOR! WHAT SAY YOU?! WE DO NOT FEAR DEATH! WHAT SAY YOU?!]”

« Monito finale…expirato haüt, omnes secționes: pyroboláti »

« Seíque per ordin vua, domin nueștre! »

Her finger approached ever-closer to the trigger, lingering in place. Why was she…even out here, anyway? Time flowed so weirdly…so dizzy…she was so dizzy…her head…it ached so badly…was she…bleeding? How was that…even possible?

« Section 7 Conjunct 4, technical difficulties? 4-B, what is the status of 4-A? »

Time…was so…slow…slow…it was very slow…seconds, only a few seconds had passed yet…it felt like dozens of minutes…or rather…it felt as though she were frozen in time.

« Conjunct 4-A, status? Ordinances were given; carry them forward »

Yet…right…mandates, directives, ordinances…such were given…and it was her duty, her newfound purpose…to carry them out…yet…wait? She had a purpose…beforehand?

« Conjunct 4-A, follow your ordinances immediately; est solù propositù tuon, trüper »

Whatever…all she had to do was pull that trigger; she was…after all…just a fledgling Blue-Coat…this was among her first or second…affair…yet…what affair?

Memories…she had no memories of any of this…even though…right…how could she have memories…if this was the present? Yet…no…wait…memories, right…wait violet…not blue, she was a…Violet-Coat, not a Blue-Coat, and had been so for…so…so long? Yet…that did not seem quite right…even though…it was completely right…

« Lieutenant, just fire your weapon; this should not be a difficult task for you »

Voice…purpose…no hesitation…yet…always so bitter and hard…

« Nos la scuta d’eois somos; nos los wardatores d’eois somos; semper teinas én la memoría, soldate »

Voice…so much shouting, so much screaming…muffled and panicked…seconds…only seconds had passed…not minutes, only mere seconds…yet this shouting, her head…her mind…everything was hurting.

“NILIA! ARE YOU WEARING THE CROWN OF SMILES?! PUT THAT DOWN, GODS’ SACRED!” so clamored loudly in dread-filled panic…a familiar voice as everything so suddenly…came flinging back.

« …ehuid? » the foreigner’s breaths murmured out…as her mind began to realize where she even was…to begin with.

“EASY! ALL OF YOU! BE FUCKING EASY NOW!” so shouted the peer of that familiar voice, hands gesturing…with a signal of ease.

The foreigner stared…her eyes…her mind…returning…as all the adventurers in front stared her down…looking at her…with eyes of panic, fear, and more especially…alerted hostility, as if many of them…were ready to pounce.

Then…her eyes noticed…in her hands…was her handmortar. Loaded and ready to fire…pointed right at the crowd…her finger on the trigger…so ready to pull it.

« …q-quid l’absoluta nefas érrumata? » her breaths blurted out; what the ever-living fuck?! Her breathing immediately became twisted and contorted, heavy…her ignited eyes flashing with realization…genuinely widening.

She remained frozen in place, her arms and hands trembling…before quickly popping open the breech as she swiftly unloaded and disarmed her primitive grenade launcher…followed by doing the same to all of her firearms, dropping everything onto the ground and away from her own self.

She backed away…as so many…strange feelings began to burst and flare deep down within…until her back slammed into the quest-board and wall behind… “Sorry…I give sorry, I give sorry, give sorry; I have none the idea…about what just happened…I give sorry” her flat and hallow…yet distressed and alarmed…voice mumbled out and out…as she slid down against the wall.

Her mind fell to pressure, overwhelmed with so many things that ate away at her very being…as it struggled really comprehend…just how utterly close she had come to doing that one thing…she so truly…did not want to do…again. Her very essence…felt numb and disconcerted…almost violated…as if it too was lost as she much as she…a strange alarmingly familiar sense…flowing deep within, yet it was so diluted by all the rest.

Ah…she could infer what just happened…of course…all of that…of that…whatever, she had no recallable memories of those happenings, even though such had happened…all those so many eons ago; time…had eroded such memories into empty nothingness…decayed and withered, overridden, replaced…yet essence…essence imprinted from the mind…information stored…

Ah…leaking…her essence…a memory-flash bleed, then? That would…not be a good sign at all…if true; desynchronization…deharmonization…such could be an indicator of many…such unoptimal affairs.

The receptionist calmed as the breaking foreigner slid down against the wall…the threat standing down. It was apparent that the foreigner was clearly…disturbed and unsettled by it all; something was wrong with her in ways that not even she herself was in control of.

Everyone around…all relaxed and calmed in kind…to a point; they let out an exhale of relief…that none of them had been blown up. Indeed…given the cluster of persons and space around…one shot could have killed so many and injured even more.

“Thank the Hero’s blade…that was so close…” the receptionist’s breaths let out in relief, before she swiftly snapped her attention straight to the adventurers around, by no means amused; “Now! Who threw that?!” she interrogated sternly.

Immediately, an adventurer found themself smacked right in the back of their head. “You fucking moron” so lambasted the smacker.

“Yeah…I got caught in the moment…with that bitch’s smirk…” so replied the smacked.

Suffice it to say, it seemed, oddly enough, that suddenly staring down directly into a loaded handmortar’s pointed barrel…had humbled and calmed their ire…though, again, only to a point.

The foreigner remained against the wall with contorted breaths, her lungs…cramping and twitching with each breath; ‘throw’ had it just been said? Her head…pain…such a familiar pain…ah…she had been struck in the head with something hard…so detached she had been…that she could not even notice…and thus evade.

Her pale hand…moved and felt the spot that pulsed the most in pain…so sharp it was…indeed…this pain; yet…she noticed this warm feeling…she withdrew her hand…and saw…

Ah…she was bleeding…and not at all…unnoticeably…her radiant cyanic-infested blood…exposed for all eyes to see. Indeed…even as the air calmed, all those glaring eyes did not disengage their stares…for it was hard not to notice…when seen.

“…what…the…? Is that…blood? Is that her blood??”

“Her fucking blood’s enchanted or…what???”

“She’s got magic smoking off her head too?? I can barely see it…”

“Looks almost like monster blood, if ask me…”

“What even is she?”

“…is she even human???”

Thus began to flare so many whispers and voices…as eyes continued to stare with even greater distrust and guarded animosity. The receptionist had retreated back to her peer and along with a huddle of other lower receptionists…whispering among themselves in discussion; consequences soon to be levied.

Ah…there really was…no getting…out of this one…aye? Truly…this was such a bad idea…most indeed…though, so too was coming to this entire place…to begin with, to be quite frank.

Ah…memories in mind wither and fade, eaten away by time’s decay

Essence, however, retains all that which it imprints from the mind…largely and to a point

So fascinating, it is, how essence and the mind have come to be

Two sides of a very…one-sided coin

For the mind cannot access all that which essence had imprinted from it

All that which essence had copied and stolen from it

Not without considerable effort, at least

May it be from deep cogitations or by arcane practice and influences

Or…in this case…not without, perhaps, a slight little…meddling…nudge

At the most well timed and narratively convenient of moments

Not that I did anything, of course…