Castala Melaidhrin's Story

"If it counts for anything, I didn't really have any solid theories on what they were to start with." Castala noted.

"Well, this is awkward," Castala said, tugging on the ribbon that had twined itself around her boots and lower leg, "I've never really been into the whole 'tied up' business."

The illusionist's eyes narrowed at the stretching hands, and she made to raise her staff -- only to find it too held in place. "Cunning." she noted, "But you underestimate the number of tricks a magician has up her sleeve."

Now she just had to think of them.

"You're a big boy, Emette." Castala said, "Trust me, I let you down lightly compared to some. You just lied to me about your age and appearance, attempting to weave a complex web of deception regarding your true nature that inevitably came crashing down over you. That doesn't even come close to some of the oddballs I've met in my time."

The magician shook her head, "There are plenty of fish in the sea that are, you know. More in your age bracket. Am I getting anywhere here, or are you set on the whole maiming path?"

Castala nervously eyed the silk that had now almost entirely removed her ability to move. "Because I'd really prefer that we used our words here."

"You tricked me into thinking you were twenty something, not twenty thousand and something!" Castala protested, "It's hardly unreasonable that I took issue with that. Try introducing yourself that way, everyone wants a cool grandpa figure, right?"

Ow. That was starting to hurt. "Alright, Emette," Castala said, "I'm sorry I hurt you." The illusionist lied through her teeth, but thankfully that was something she was good at.

"Hey hey hey!" Castala yelled, "If you're going to stab anyone here, stab me - are you just going to flail around and slash at whoever happens to be standing nearby when the one you supposedly can't forgive is standing right here?"

Castala narrowed her eyes, "I don't even know these people. You don't achieve anything attacking them. I mean, by all means, don't kill me - but randomly assaulting other people? Why? You know I'll get over the guilt pretty fast if you let me live, so what's the point?"

While Castala spoke, she had almost imperceptibly caught sight of a new arrival on the scene. Castiel, holding a fire extinguisher in his hands, crept across the stage floor towards where Emette stood. The man had his back to the approach, and Castala didn't doubt she had his attention.

The illusionist frowned, "Are we going to stop stabbing random people now, or is this going to get stupid?"

"Uh, hate to break it to you, but girls don't tend to like being assaulted with sheets. Even if they are silk." Castala rolled her eyes, even as Castiel swung the fire extinguisher at the back of Emette's head.

Castala sighed, "Well, that could have gone better." she said, "Didn't think the guy had it in him." Glancing down at Liesha, the illusionist frowned, "Are you alright down there? That looked like quite a nasty stab."

Castiel nodded numbly to Shad, having dropped the extinguisher to the ground where he'd stumbled forwards after Emette disappeared. "Right .. yeah." he murmured.

As the boy spoke, Castala seemed to start into remembering his presence, stepping forwards to put a hand on his shoulder. "Thank you, Tiel. I knew we could count on you to come back. I choose my students well."

"Really?" Castiel, "After all tha-"

Castala casually pressed a finger to the boy's lips, "Hush, Tiel. The show must go on - I've slotted that line in here at least twice already. Now, ready to be an angel?"

"I wasn't ever in the first place.."

The Town Square was full of activity when Cináed arrived in the area. There was a magician performing near the middle of the area, and a gaggle of children were running around her feet chasing dancing creatures that looked like something out of a cartoon.

Cináed laughed as the illusions disappeared one by one in a comical fashion into the woman's hat. He stopped by a van to buy himself an ice cream - a vanilla cone, of course, only the classics - and left the cheerful scene playing out behind him. Not every day in Wing City was a disaster, after all.

As the starship pushed its way up from the ocean, it wasn't met with an empty island. No, Gonthar - along with the other two of the three titans - was in fact a popular tourist destination. The glittering oceans bordered by tranquil beaches were lined with tourists who scattered screaming as the cybrans emerged. People watched in horror from skyscraper hotels as the soldiers set about their work establishing bases on the beaches and other places beyond the city limits.

The local police force held back, protecting civilians but not challenging the beach assault just yet - contact had been sent to the TNG and a military response would be en route. News crews broadcast the event to the world as it unfolded.

In one particular penthouse suite, a purple-haired woman leaned onto the balcony as she watched. A blonde boy walked up next to her, jaw still hanging as though dehinged from when the first ships had emerged.

"Well, Castiel," Castala remarked, "I suppose that's that for our vacation."

"I thought we came here to get away from this sort of thing." the youth groaned.

"I suppose that's lesson learned," the magician said to her assistant with a dry chuckle, "Next time I want a relaxing holiday, I'm going offworld."

From far in the distance, several people watched as the large ships pulled up and the starship ascended.

"This don't look good," said one, a woman with soft tanned skin and long hair pulled back in a ponytail. For as cold as it was, she wore little clothing, nothing more than a pair of baggy pants and a bandeau. She had a good amount of muscle on her.

"Did you expect mermaids to be flipping onto shore today, instead?" spoke a second woman, this one more slim, more feminine than her companion. Light, draping robes flowed down from her shoulders and stopped at her knees. Upon her skin there were a myriad of painted designs, a few of them tattoos. Her eyes, normally a smokey grey, were covered in a black film as she projected a spell of far sight over into the area.

Behind them there was a town, a small place of many within Gonthar. Though Albertine had moved there within the last three years, it had been Aldarine's home since her birth.

And now it was being invaded.

Cheery.

Vast factories and housing buildings went up within hours, and with a few minutes of it going up, resources and people started to move in. The vast military force made a move towards the cities that were already there, starting to shoot at police and civilians alike. There was already a mass death camp in the sea waiting to be loaded with people for building the new weapons and tanks that were waiting.

A second set of starships took off from under the sea, moving towards the city before they raised themselves out the water. There was already a fleet down there, waiting for the orders from the high order, whom were miles offshore and under the groand in the deep rock of the earth. It had took years to plan, and the teleportation from Volaria was only set one of the vast plan to attack the world. Only Godheart was a living being, the rest of the forces automated.

Within minutes of the vast Cybran fleet surfacing from the depths of the ocean, the TNG made contact. Three Triremes descended quickly from the atmosphere above, positioning themselves between the Gonthar mainland and the fleets of Cybrans slowly looming in from the horizon.

At the head of the three ships was Nero's Fiddle, flagship of the Achaian Armada. Up on its bridge, Captain Aaron Vrail sat pensively in his command chair, technician and officers milling hurriedly about him as they prepared for battle.

"Confirmed hits, sir," one of the bridge technicians shouted, "they're landing on the shores and making a straight line for the nearby settlements."

"Multiple energy signatures, Captain," another technician shouted, his eyes glued to his screen, "they're landing factories and war machines on the ground. Establishing a forward base. They're also using the vantage point to bombard the Shintenchi isles from across the ocean."

Vrail's eyes narrowed, glaring at the Cybran positions displayed on his holo screen. "Form the perimeter around the nearest Gonthar city," he ordered, "the civilians lives on this island are our first priority until reinforcements arrive." His hand swiped across his screen as he gave orders, laying down the defensive line on his virtual map. "I need all power to forward shields. Have the capacitors in reserve to keep the long-range DE cannons online. We lay down suppressive fire from afar and phalanx the pass between the ocean and the cities." He reached over in his chair and pushed a button on the arm. "Lieutenant Blake, prepare your battalion for an immediate drop-strike into the nearby city. We need to get these civilians to cover and safety as soon as possible."

"And the guns they're using to attack the Volarians?"

Vrail growled. "We don't have the firepower to fight offensively right now, and those guns are far out of range. For now, we hold the line here."

"Yes sir."

Energizing their shields, the three Triremes quickly became a sturdy barrier between the advancing Cybrans and the Gonthar towns. As the Nazi war force approached, they would be met with a barrage of hot plasma and high-intensity pillars of pulverizing energy, the small squad of TNG ships doing their best to keep the invasive force at bay.

"Custodis Veritas to Terran Navy. We've contacted the NPA and the Invictus are sending teams to assist, as well as a few ships from the ground. They should be arriving within a few minutes, but The Ripper is already en route. Expect arrival within seconds." A voice said, broadcasting to Terran military and law enforcement channels.

Like clockwork something shot through the air towards the fighting, closer inspection would reveal it to be a person. A black military wingsuit covering much of their form, but allowing them, and their gear, to withstand travelling at such high speeds. The person was moving too fast,and possibly too small a target, for most SAMs and AA guns to accurately bring down.

The flying person would slam into one of the Cybran factories, the impact forming a crater and likely buckling the factory. The person shot out through one of the factory walls, coming to slam into as many SAMs and AA guns as possible before they could do any damage to the frinedlies.. The force and speed that they harnessed was clearly inhuman, but it was focused. Destruction with rhyme and reason.

It was clear that this person was trying to disorient or delay the attackers until backup arrived to put up a proper fight while civilians were moved to safer places.

The set of Starships that had came from the ocean fired a number of shots at the newcomers before they headed off towards the battle with the Cybran Anti-Nazism forces in orbit. The vast ships created a boom breaking glass in the settlements, their ion thrusters pushing the great bulks out into space, going away from the fleets so they could get behind the Cybran warfleet hopefully and cause losses. The weapons were fully armed and ready.

Meanwhile, on the ground, the forces went on a full out attack on everything, bringing wave upon wave of robotic tanks and soldiers into the island, going on a full out assault on the settlements. The factories were already rolling out vehicles to go to war with, millions on them.

A few more ships came from the sea, starting to give a full scale firing bombardment attack on the Terran Ships. The vast bulk of them armour, but as their shells and lasers headed down range, the entire assault stopped to see the damage, the bombardment was designed to clear shields and attack anything that was there. A mass of small robots was then launched with a number of interceptors also, going straight towards any new threat.

On fast approach, four contacts moved as one towards the Cybran beachead. They skimmed over the ground, two breaking off to continue their inbound vector, kicking up spray as they circled into the waters. In their wake, a distant contact was deploying, readying for its part in the assault. Dark Rain was with the Avorian response, and they had decided to send top of the line units as their response.

Armored Intelligent Mechs (A.I.M.s), all, the two approaching on direct vectors were Wildcat and Dragon Furor. Wildcat, a Rifle-class A.I.M., carried a long, menacing rifle in its hands, slit optics glowering as it began to paint targets, readying to fire. Dragon, Claymore-class, was its larger cohort, a quad mech, thus far relying on its thrusters to move the heavy, intimidating bulk of the mech, stylized after its namesake. Wildcat began to lag behind Dragon, the latter beginning to extend the heavy barrels of its cannons. The Rifle turned its head slightly, catching sight of the other pair. With both, munitions prepared to cut the air downrange.

Sparrow was a mass of blades, sharp edges gleaming the light reflected off the spray in its wake. Wakizashi design, it was almost skeletal in size, weaving circles around its partner, Fisher Hawk. Moderately armored, the aptly named Saber A.I.M. held in one fist a gunblade, keeping focused on the target. Missiles slid to ready position, almost as if eager to begin the killing.

And in the distance behind them all, hydraulic rams slammed into the earth to anchor the bulky, boxy form of Wizel. From its blocky body, very long barrels extended in mass, like a small stand of tree rising to nearly 40ft in the air. Smaller, hovering nodes detached, floating off on counter-grav drives to move to locations around the target zone with startling speed. These fed data right back to the Lancer, its multitude of very long range howitzers adjusting for windage, range, and targets. Siloes began to open.

All five seemed to be waiting for something, holding their fire and their fury.

And then eight beams lanced the air like a second sun, throwing a blinding glare into the sky. At their origin in the Astral Sea, steam plumed hundreds of feet in the air, vacuums caused by the passing of the titanic bolts were rapidly filled by water, hiding once more the lurking behemoth of the Apophis. The octad of shots pierced the air and the distance between the surface of Terra and the ships in orbit in all but a second, delivering crushing blows of 50 gigatons/second into the vessels launched from the Cybran base. Designed to simply shatter shields and pummel through armor like paper, the mighty bolt of the Abyss cannon was a force to be reckoned with.

And as one, the thunder began. Wizel began its long range bombardment, slamming shell after shell of hyperkinetic fury downrange to deliver heavy, 50mm tungsten slugs slamming into the larger structures and vehicles of the Cybrans. In their wake, dozens of missiles began to rise, splitting into smaller and smaller micromissiles until dozens became hundreds, all targeting points of congestion of troops and materials. Wildcat, Dragon, and Saber began to fire off, the former pairs heavy rounds simply aimed at concentrations of targets, screaming sonic booms as they hurtled from railcannons at Mach 8 speeds, each adding more to the payload of missiles as they launched splitter torpedoes from their internal magazines. Sparrow rammed its thrusters up several notches, sprinting inwards and weaving a dextrous dance of evasion, sparks flying from its bladed form as is sought to enter the fray with flashing blades, roaring short range guns, and sprays of blood and bodies.

However, the rounds fired missed the lone figure by substantial margins, striking for vital targets with uncanny precision. For each of the pilots were engaged in a simultaneous neural link with each A.I.M.s onboard AI, forming a union of man and machine that communicated instantly between each unit, and possessed the reaction times of the AIs involved in the attack. The only limiting factor was each A.I.M.s own functional capabilities, and they were designed to be the most mobile, agile, and armed mechanized strike unit in deployment.

On one of the gonthar highways an SEC convoy was suppose to be delivering standard security droids when the attack came. The lead truck was destroyed and the soldiers providing security fanned out. "We are under attack!" One of the men frantically shouted as the soldiers formed up. These men weren't trained for this type of combat and only fired back modestly.

A few minutes into the fight though something changed when the radio officer chirped up to the squad commander. "Sir your'e not going to believe this but I have general Williams on the line for you." He said as the squad leader opened his comm.

"General what a surprise."

"Cut the pleasantries, I have good news you're getting support the TNG has authorized full support procedures on the ground. I have an orbital drop company that's going to come down right on your position to set up an LZ, but I need coordinates of the nearest base that you can see so we can get some suppressive bombardment onto that thing." He said.

The talk continued for a moment and a few minutes later 4 large ships could be seen high in orbit. Two Ori Class Destroyers came a bit lower than the transports to unleash 6 missiles aimed toward the ground and a salvo of smaller guided missiles ahead of the six.
The larger missiles were short range emp burst effective up to a few 200 Meters they were aimed right for the base they would cover an area up of 1.2km. The smaller missiles that were ahead were unarmed but they wouldn't read that way on scanners these missiles would provide an AA screen for the larger missiles increasing the chances for more successive EMP hits on the cybran base.

As missiles rained down on the base many drop pods from the main transport ships launched. Over all 30 drop pods were launched toward the ground in groups of five. They came in fast each drop pod carried 10 man squad giving a total of 300 SEC Marines imbound. The numbers might have sounded small compared to that of the cybrans but it was all that could be spared at this point. The SEC couldn't risk a large landing nor did they want to the AA was still too strong.

Hopefully they would make it down alive given the EMP and Anodyne's efforts against the SAM's and AA.

The Cybran warships on the flat ocean started to open fire on the new targets while the smaller starships that were rising from the ocean engaged the Armored Intelligent Mechs. Their lasers hitting at them as hard as they could, aimed to destroy the Mechs, while a vast number of the Cybrans on the land were already getting ready to back into the seas. Godheart and the Old Order members had decided there had been enough killing.

With the arrival of the two Ori Class Destroyers, most of the Cybrans were away, but with the EMP blasts, the robots that were left had stopped working; their circuits totally destroyed. The warships in the ocean started firing at the Destroyers, sending new waves of missiles and lasers towards their targets.

Shields flared around the A.I.M.s as laser impacts hit, and instantly their responses were known, powerful boosters thrusting them in complex evasive maneuvers. Their returning fire was witheringly accurate, attention shifting from the inert drones to active firing units, hammering hyperkinetic slug after hyperkinetic slug to their targets, trailing thundering sonic booms the whole way. Sparrow quickly readjusted its inbound vector, darting back and forth over the waves, advancing ahead of its squad on thrusters tuned for speed.

Fisher Hawk followed in its wake, trading the headlong blitz of Sparrow for a angled route to flank its partner. With the Cybran force having cleared out of civilian threatened areas, drew forth a second gun-blade, unleashing searing balls of plasma bolts from the plasma cannon built into its twinned blade. These secondary weapons traded speed for power, erupting in gouts of solar-hot plasma on contact, while an overhead rail extended and settled into place, hurling rapid fire penetrating shells, each shell containing air-ignition fuel-bombs to scatter, should they penetrate the armored hulls of the Cybran Vessels.

Wildcat and Dragon veered course, the bulky Claymore unit accelerating massively with twin tails of prolonged boosters, kicking up a wall of water to either side as it raced after its support pair, side mounted tomahawk launchers opening and loosing torrents of fast, "lock and blitz" rockets, even as it changed ammunitions from impact to HVAP DU rounds, the thunder of its cannons growing ever louder. The Rifle wafted airborne, bringing to bear multiple long rifle barrels to add more weight to its precision firepower from hull mounted heavy rifles and cannons. Additionally, it opened its more basic artillery ports, launching on skybound trajectories lighter explosive shells to rain down on the Cybran vessels.

Wizel, for its part, was mainly just adjusting its long range bombardment, but was also extending from its frame inner box-like protrusions, each one opening at least half a dozen silo ports. The only unit cleared to carry heavy missile armament, the Wizel carried several hundred Jericho reaction-warhead missiles, which it now loaded en masse, carefully targeted with imaging and signature guides, and let loose.

Each missile raced across the ground for nearly a kilometer before curving towards the heavens, reaching a height of 6kms before pausing to turn, holding position on the counter-grav drive that had brought them thus far. Carefully, they aligned to their targets, the primary Cybran warships firing on the A.I.M.s and cruisers, before unfurling racks of smaller missiles, the prow of each missile extending as the inner warhead prepped for launch. Seven to each launch, each targeting its own point on the enemy fleet. What was initially hundreds became thousands, as powerful thrusters ignited and sent them racing across the sky, brilliant stars with a deadly mission.

Each warhead created a reaction, splitting apart the atomic structure of the target by generating a specific magnetic field that drew away the molecular bonds. Their explosive power was nonexistent, and individually, the damage they wrought was minimal, opening fair sized holes in a target. But stacked in the numbers they were, and with the precision of the targeting queue delivered into their computers from the Wizel, there was a margin of surviving impacts to allow for advanced degradation of the enemy hulls to initiate complete structural collapse, and a secondary margin to generate substantial enough collapse to generate casualties in the Cybran fleet's numbers.

The courses of the four assaulting A.I.M.s adjusted accordingly, not overtly holding back from close range engagment, but there was the hint of a stall in their attack. The timing between events was superb, however, the wide-band, instantaneously communication between the mechs operating on the lower frequencies, the bursts of binary communication virtually ghosts amidst the static.