Industrial Experiment
18-02-2005, 07:19
October 11th, 12:00 AM, AD 2005: somewhere in the north of the former Principality of Industrial Experiment
"Well, happy new years sir, it has now officially been 60 years since the Principality was destroyed. Quite humbling, really, I wish I'd been alive to see it; I've heard tales that it was a grand place to live", said a youngish looking man with dirty blonde hair to the much older man in the seat of the battered old US Army jeep he was driving. The elder man coughed a few times, trying to clear his throat of the phlegm that infested it constantly, knowing full well that such an ailment had been unheard of when he was a child in the Principality.
"If you've listened to a single thing I've said to you, Martin, then you'd know...you'd know--", the old man nearly doubled over in a coughing fit before grabbing a glowing crystal like device from his very faded military uniform's breast pocket and pressing it to his throat, "...You'd know that the Principality was only as good as one made it. They used to practice this thing, they called it democracy, where the citizens usually decided what to do about things. Of course, the good governer himself made most of the decisions, he knew what he was doing. There's a reason they kept re-electing him for centuries on end".
The sandy haired man, Martin, laughed quite light-heartedly, "Oh grandpa, when are you going to stop telling me children's stories?"
"They aren't any fairy tales, I tell you that!", the old man snapped back, "Now just keep your eyes on the road, these mountain passes are treacherous, especially since the weather isn't clear where ever you go anymore".
Martin rolled his eyes at his grandfather, sighed to himself, and surveyed the land spread out below him on the other side of the mountain road they were driving along. The early morning sun was just cresting a mountain opposite the plain Martin was driving over, silhouetting it and making the up-stuck crag look like some ancient demon's horn.
Might as well be Alex though to himself Where we're going, demons, no, Hell itself doesn't hold a candle.
The sun finally came over the top of the mountain and its rays poured into the valley below. Any man presented with this sight, in retrospect, would have preferred night.
Spread out below the mountainside road was a vision from nightmare. The entire plain was a massive series of craters, tortured landscape, and faint shadows of buildings burned into the ground by the very fires that had decimated the area. For once, exactly sixty years ago, there had stood a mighty city in this crucible. It had been a sight to behold, one of the most beautiful things in existance. Row after row of marble white buildings and skyscrapers shining in a clear sky's light, between which were gorgeous parks and footways. Hundreds of feet over head, gleaming aircars transported people from point A to point B in a literal interpretation of the word "highway". At the very center of the city stood a masterwork of art, the Imperial Tower.
Over two kilometers high, the building was the tallest in the entire Principality. Sitting atop it like the crown jewels on a monarch's head was the Principality's weather control center, a glowing blue diamond like construct that was responsible for the perfect weather throughout the inhabited parts of the Principality and the impassible blizzards throughout the rest of the mountainous mini-continent.
It was a dark night all those decades ago when the Tower's light winked out and the Principality was destroyed. All those still alive who recalled the night wished they couldn't, and those who weren't shiver in dread of the idea.
No one had ever quite figured out the source of the explosion that had so utterly destroyed the men from the stars after their thousand year long colonization of the place, but all still feared it happening again.
Of course, this wasn't a main concern of most surviving residents: the regime that had arisen on Ra-oold, the island adjecent to the colony's former land, occupied that position. Closely resembling what the end result of Hitler's Nazi Germany would have been had facism won, The Great Survivor, their unnamed leader, had managed to come into complete dominance over the island and the closest areas of the continent in only twenty years after the starmen's colony was destroyed.
As is natural, resistance had sprung up rather quickly. All resistance on Ra-oold itself was put down almost faster than it could rise, but groups on the Mainland, as it was called nowadays, could operate with comparitive freedom. Of course, they couldn't really accomplish much besides harrassing the Ra-ooldian outposts on the Mainland, for they had almost no actual military power to speak of. Almost the entire fleet of navy ships harbored in Mar Anglo had been snatched up by various parties within a year of the fall of the Principality, most of it consolidated under Ra-oold control by now. The few remaining ships, mostly frigates and the occasional destroyer, were now in service by the only other possible "state" in that portion of the globe, The Freehold of Mar Anglo, a nearly anarchist state of survivors from the city for which they were named.
The Freehold and Ra-oold were always at odds, but had never really come to blows. Most analysts were convinced that the Great Survivor would come and crush the Anglish once he managed to get a few of the surviving carriers or battleships from the Principality back into service, but the modifications the starmen had made to them over the years were baffling the Ra-ooldians. As it stood, the Freehold was remarkably anti-immigrant, not allowing even the occasional sputnik (wandering survivors) to come into their finely balanced community.
Of course, those two nations both hated the resistance groups for their own respective reasons. The resistance itself most ignored the Freehold, not because of any sympathy or even apathy, but simply because they didn't have the resources to fight both the Freehold and Ra-oold at the same time.
That would all change though. Today would mark the beginning of the return.
Martin and his grandfather, both high ranking officials in the largest resistance group, were on their way to a secret location they'd heard of. Apparently, another group of survivors, miners from Mar Saxi's quadranium mines if they were to be believed, had stumbled across a large number of Phoenix-N jet fighters a decade ago and slowly sent out feelers throughout the emerging black market in an attempt to sell them.
Until now, no one had taken them seriously. They idea that a hundred or more of those advanced planes had somehow survived the holocaust that had devestated the entire Mainland was quite entertaining. Now, though, Martin had finally managed to convince his commander to allow him to send a scout on horseback to the "business" men's encampment. When he had arrived with the offer, the miners were overjoyed. They immediately led him to the hanger with the aircraft in them.
When the scout had been returned, Martin had gotten in his jeep to go consumate the deal right away. His commander had asked to accompany him. So it was that Martin and his grandfather now found themselves turning off the main road that ran up the side of one of the mountains, suddenly finding themselves on a large shelf cut into the mountainside.
Spread out before them was a beautiful green vale full of all the things that men have said paradise would have: tall green trees, glowing flowers, singing birds, and wispy white clouds in a deep blue sky. In the middle distance was a small grouping of white looking domes just large enough to house a few people each. The dirt road led right towards the tiny village. Martin continued driving along it, marvelling at the scene of beauty that surrounded him.
His jeep entered the village at a relativily slow pace, seeming a stain in this idealic looking community and Martin brought it to a stop in front of the largest and only obviously marked building. Drapped over the roof of the building was a red colored banner, the exact meaning of Martin couldn't determine from the ground.
He looked at his grandfather with a smile on his face, "Well sir, we're here. Do you need any assistance getting out of the jeep?"
The old man coughed several times to clear his throat, making to reach for the crystal once more, but stopping and muttered to himself, "Cheeky young bastard, just like his father was", and then continued so his grandkid could hear, "Of course I don't, now go get the package from the trunk".
"Yes sir!", Martin replied, throwing a crisp salute and, somehow, managing to open the door in the same motion. He jumped out of the jeep and hurried around to the rear. He popped open the hatch and reached in for two very heavy suitcases. He had to strain to lift them, but he avoided showing it. He heaved them out in front of them and went the rest of the way around the jeep to meet his grandfather who was just closing his door.
"Ok Captain Hues, follow me"
Martin fell in step behind his grandfather, the captain's stripes in his fatigues shining brightly in the sun. They approached the door to the large looking dome and, just when the commander was making ready to knock on it, it opened to reveal a severe looking man in a Principality general's uniform, looking to at least be in his high 60's but, knowing the Principality's technological abilities, could be as much as 200 years old.
"And...oh, yes, Hello, we've been expecting someone like you. You are with the Burning Angels, correct? Yes, yes, our watchers spotted the insignia on your jeep as you started up this side of the mountain. Why don't you come inside already?", he said in a very clipped but rushed tone.
Caught off guard, the old commander stuttered a moment, "Er, oh, right, of course". As they walked inside, they were presented by a rather large looking room that had to take up the entire dome that was surprisingly empty. Except for a large marble looking table in the center, it was completely empty. The strange man led them to the table, gave them seats, then walked around to sit opposite them.
"So? Did you bring the currency?"
Martin hefted the suitcases onto the tabletop as his grandfather replied, "Yes, we have it right here General...um..."
"Haden. General Haden"
"Yes, General Haden. If I might, I am the Fourth Commander of the Burning Angels resistance group, Jon Hues, at your service. We will take all of them, no matter how many it is you have, for a billion isolats"
"Hmm, yes, that is quite a sum of money. It would pay for power for decades. Fourth Commander, you have a deal, do you wish to inspect the merchindise before finallizing the purchase?"
"Of course my good General, lead the way"
Just as they were standing up, a voice came out of thin air, "General Haden, we have a walker starting up our side of the mountain from the Mar Saxi plain. I can't quite make his face out, but he appears to be in decent condition. Advise?"
The general went over to a wall right next to the dome's door and pressed on it, "Hold position sergeant and do not fire. I repeat, stay where you are and continue what you are doing. We will deal with this sputnik in the camp".
With that, the general proceeded through the door and Martin and Jon followed him. He led them towards the cliff wall that overshadowed the vale they were currently in. Un-noticed by Martin but noted by Jon, a group of men dressed in Principality Marine Battle-armor left some of the smaller hovels and headed along the dirt road towards where the intruder from the valley below had been reported. Martin heard General Haden's radio buzz faintly from one of his heavier pockets, but he chose to ignore it.
When they reached the cliff wall, Haden walked right up to it...and right through it. Jon and Martin starred at the spot he had disappeared into for a moment when the sheer rock face flickered rapidly and then vanished entirely. Revealed to them was a large part of the vale cleared down to bedrock and covered in tarmac. On the tarmac, stretching before Jon and Martin in all directions, was about a 100 F-35N JSF (Phoenix-N Variant) dual-role fighters. There was more power sitting in front of the two Angels than on the rest of the Mainland put together.
They starred listlessly into the field of aircraft, thinking of all the things this meant. Ra-oold would fall, the Freehold would have no chance. The Principality would rise again; they both knew it would never reach its former heights, but they'd be damned if they just let it die.
As they began to wander amongst the planes, Haden's radio buzzed again, but this time a bit more loudly and certainly more insistantly. He took it out a moment, held a hushed conversation, then put it away.
"I apologize sirs, but I have matters to attend to with my troops. I will leave you to inspect the aircraft. You will find them in very good condition, I am sure of that".
As he was finishing up his speech, he was already moving away towards the dirt road, meaning to break into a run as soon as he was out of sight of the prospective customers. When they stepped behind one of the jets to inspect the engines, that's exactly what he did. It took him a few minutes of sprinting, but his body was in excellent condition from all the medical procedures he's had done to it over the last ten centuries.
You see, there was something very special about General Haden, the least of it being that he wasn't an actual general, he wasn't even an officer. According to Republic records, he'd died a thousand years ago during the Proge Wars in a training accident.
But no, deep down, in some black ops file, his existance was still followed. Somewhere in the darkest corners of the capital building was a room that only two of the officials living there had access to. This room held records and histories on all the Invisibles the Republic had ever employed. Somewhere on about a quarter of the way down the lists was General Haden's picture next to a single designation: I-G9-U7.
He'd been assigned to this backwater a little less than a century ago to watch over the research being done on a recovered alien artifact. Taking on the identity of a young security guard, the necessary surgery being performed back on the Republic's capital, he'd considered it little more than a baby-sitting job. Working under General Haden, the man in charge of the project, he hadn't been much more than a ceremonial guard for whenever they moved the object.
Considering the proximity he had to the research lab, he was still mystified as to how he had survived the disaster that had claimed the Principality and, with it, all chances of him getting off the planet. However, an integrel part of Invisible training was morale solidification, an Invisible would never give up home.
He changed his face and identity without any outside help, taking on the personage of his now deceased superior and gathered what little Republic military forces he could find. What remained of the Principality's military had devolved into the resistance groups that now ruled the Mainland, his was the last professional and recognized army outfit on the planet.
Using his knowledge of the Republic's technologies, he had built a large group of the Principality's premier fighter to attract the attention of whatever resistance groups he could, hoping to band them together and defeat the traitors on Ra-oold and the anarchists in Mar Anglo. From there he planned to build some kind of ship to take him and his fellow off-worlders back home, but that was a long way off, he had a lot of money to save.
Right now, though, he was just reaching his marines on the dirty path that went cross-stitch up the side of the mountain. Slightly in front of them walked a very strange looking man. He looked gaunt, mal-nurioushed, but very heavily muscled all the more. He was completely bald, his severely pale skin shining in the hot mountain sun, his shirtless torso only adding to the sheen. He had one a loose looking pair of pants that appeared to be tied by some kind of clothe belt.
An odd sense of recognition dawned in Haden's brain. He couldn't quite place it, but this man seemed familiar, somehow. He extended a hand towards the approaching sputnik and made to speak, but the commander of his marines shook his head futily and waved his hand at the vagrant.
"He ain't talking sir, he won't even acknowledge he knows we're here. Maybe he doesn't, there's an odd air about him"
"You never tried to stop him? We can't just have random wanderers coming into our camp commander".
"Well, er, he never appeared violent sir. Quite the opposite, actually..."
"Gah, I always have to do these things myself, don't I?"
"No sir! Don't worry about it sir! Yangley, get that sputnik under control. If he refuses to stop, detain him".
"Yes sir!", yelled a young looking marine from the rear of the group. Though he was very nearly 90 himself, he barely looked out of his teens. He ran up to the front of his patrol group, but slowed and approached the wanderer with caution.
"Excuse me, sir, I'm going to have to ask you to stop here. It's for your own safety as much as ours sir, if you would just stop and turn", he intoned as he very slowly came towards the man. When he was close enough, he reached out his hand grabbed the emaciated looking arm, "Sir..."
The stranger spun around, causing the soldier to jump and raise his weapon out of instinct. However, a very curious look from the vagrant made him pause and slowly lower his weapon. He stood transfixed, slowly moving his mouth, almost forming words but not letting any sound out. After a few seconds of standing like this, he finally shook his head violently, yelling, "NO!"
Exuding a sense of perfect calm, the vagrant extended his left hand right up to the Republican's throat, gripping it surprisingly strongly. As soon as he made contact, the marine started to scream. The sound of sizzling flesh quickly was accompanied by the sharp report of several rifles discharging straight at the wanderer's skull. As the bullets approached their lethal destination, they simply vanished, or so it seemed as tiny pile sof ash began to drift to the ground around the very strange man.
In a matter of seconds, the corpse of the unlucky soldier lay on the ground beheaded as the vargrant starred lazily at the remaining soldiers in the squad, seemingly unaware that directly behind him was the more threatening enemy: an Imperial Invisible.
He looked at the hand that he had used to decapitate the soldier, still extended. He seemed very curious about it, before he re-extended it, pointing it straight at the nine remaining men of the patrol squad. His eye's flashed, barely visible through the literal hail of bullets that always melted mere inches from his face.
A wave of heat flew out of his body, frying the marine's in their battle suits and melting them in seconds. Their death screams lingered significantly longer, bouncing around the mountains as the flesh sloughed off their bleached white bones.
He continued to stare at his outstretched hand, as if not really understanding what was going on. He was still starring when a knife was driven into his spine, or so the good Invisible cum general was hoping it would do. Instead, it turned molten as soon as it touched his skin, the heat quickly spreading into Haden's hand, causing him to let go in the split second that was his highly tuned reaction time. The vagrant turned slowly to face his latest assailant. He walked slowly towards him as Haden dropped into a defensive stance.
As soon as the man was within range, Haden tensed himself to block any blows he might make, but was surprised when he remained standing, completely motionless, directly in front of him. Haden slowly lifted himself out of his stance, thinking about pulling his side-arm and planting two right in between the bastard's eyes. Just when he went to reach for his weapon, the sputnik's hands shot out at speeds even an Invisible couldn't keep up with and grasped Haden's head in a bear-handed grip.
The pain was immediately unbearable and remained so until the skin had been vaporized and the skull had been turned molten and the myriad biological implants were torn away and Haden's now in-active brain was exposed. The man stared at it a moment before chucking the corpse off the mountain road to tumble down the cliff face.
He continued up the path, eventually cresting it and right away turning towards the village, ignoring the field of jet planes for now. One by one he concentrated on the domed buildings and, one by one, they burst into flames, killing those still inside.
Once his work was done, the stranger wandered towards the plans, directly at the gape-mouthed and frightened Martin and Jon. When he reached them, he worked his jaw muscles and, for the first time, spoke.
"You will serve me. Or you will die. Which do you chose?", his voice a raspy mockery of a human's tone.
Stuttering once more, Jon replied, "Ye-ye-yes-yes, si-sir. We're...we're at your ser-service...mi'lord".
The stranger eyed Jon very closely and then opened his mouth once more.
"Yes, yes, that sounds correct. Lord. But Lord what? Who am I?", he turned to Martin, "Do you know who I am?"
Martin could only stare for a full five seconds before it registered he was being addressed. Completely flustered, he answered with the first thing that popped into his head, "Purity, you are the Cleansing Flame".
As soon as the words emerged from Martin's mouth he regretted them, but he knew he could do little to take them back. The stranger thought for a moment on what he had said, however, and then smiled, an ugly and horrific sight indeed.
"Yes, the Lord Purgatio Flamma, Cleansing Flame of the World".
Instinctivily, Jon and Martin threw themselves prostrate, nearly worshipping the new god.
Purgatio decided he liked them doing that.
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August 21st, 10:30 AM, AD 2006: somewhere in the north of the former Principality of Industrial Experiment
The plain that had been Mar Saxi no longer stood desolate. It was still as fire-scarred as it had been a year before, but now it was the site of a major construction project. It had been only a few months, but with millions of tirelessly loyal slaves, Lord Purgatio had managed to construct his palace in that short time. Now, sitting upon his throne, facing out at the growing city that seemed to be directly under his seat, he could recall the last year with perfect clarity.
Ra-oold had fallen in less than a month to his forces. He had personally seen to the conversion of countless millions of the for-now-free populace to a new religion, a religion that was devoted to worshipping him. He had personally tortured the "Great Survivor" until he was just near death, then had him frozen to preserve his life, no matter how grotesquely skewed that now was. Now, the former dictator served as a wall decoration, the only cold thing in Purgatio's little personal corner of hell.
The Freehold had held out much longer, the war having only been finished last month. Of course, the results of his campaign had allowed for him to truely test his new disciples, who had performed admirably, slaughtering all resistance. Unfortunately, the frigates and destroyers of the Freehold had served as a vital lifeline. Only after a massive bombing campaign by Purgatio's airforce had managed to eliminate them.
The unification of the various resistance factions under his banner had happened virtually on his own. Once he had the Burning Angels under his control, a large number of the smaller groups had aligned to him, leading the few remaining large groups to follow suit as they quickly became outnumbered and out-gunned.
So it was that the Cult of the Purifying Flame took hold upon the Mainland and Ra-oold and, like all fires, it hungered for more. Now, all it could do was spread, and spread it would do. The world would never stand a chance.
BURN
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OoC: Clarifications
Invisibles http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=358430
NOTE: Yes, I'm trying to make a point about this guy in how casually he crushes an elite Invisible. No, not all of the soldiers will be like him, he is unique. However, they will all have a few special attributes, such as a resistance to heat and high pain tolerance. Religious fanatics and all.
Fall of the Principality http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=385790
Anyway, I hope anyone who reads this enjoys it and I look forward to RPing with this new guy in the future. You won't see much development beyond the subsuming of a few very small countries to increase population growth for a while as there IS still the small matter of a major disaster the recover from.
"Well, happy new years sir, it has now officially been 60 years since the Principality was destroyed. Quite humbling, really, I wish I'd been alive to see it; I've heard tales that it was a grand place to live", said a youngish looking man with dirty blonde hair to the much older man in the seat of the battered old US Army jeep he was driving. The elder man coughed a few times, trying to clear his throat of the phlegm that infested it constantly, knowing full well that such an ailment had been unheard of when he was a child in the Principality.
"If you've listened to a single thing I've said to you, Martin, then you'd know...you'd know--", the old man nearly doubled over in a coughing fit before grabbing a glowing crystal like device from his very faded military uniform's breast pocket and pressing it to his throat, "...You'd know that the Principality was only as good as one made it. They used to practice this thing, they called it democracy, where the citizens usually decided what to do about things. Of course, the good governer himself made most of the decisions, he knew what he was doing. There's a reason they kept re-electing him for centuries on end".
The sandy haired man, Martin, laughed quite light-heartedly, "Oh grandpa, when are you going to stop telling me children's stories?"
"They aren't any fairy tales, I tell you that!", the old man snapped back, "Now just keep your eyes on the road, these mountain passes are treacherous, especially since the weather isn't clear where ever you go anymore".
Martin rolled his eyes at his grandfather, sighed to himself, and surveyed the land spread out below him on the other side of the mountain road they were driving along. The early morning sun was just cresting a mountain opposite the plain Martin was driving over, silhouetting it and making the up-stuck crag look like some ancient demon's horn.
Might as well be Alex though to himself Where we're going, demons, no, Hell itself doesn't hold a candle.
The sun finally came over the top of the mountain and its rays poured into the valley below. Any man presented with this sight, in retrospect, would have preferred night.
Spread out below the mountainside road was a vision from nightmare. The entire plain was a massive series of craters, tortured landscape, and faint shadows of buildings burned into the ground by the very fires that had decimated the area. For once, exactly sixty years ago, there had stood a mighty city in this crucible. It had been a sight to behold, one of the most beautiful things in existance. Row after row of marble white buildings and skyscrapers shining in a clear sky's light, between which were gorgeous parks and footways. Hundreds of feet over head, gleaming aircars transported people from point A to point B in a literal interpretation of the word "highway". At the very center of the city stood a masterwork of art, the Imperial Tower.
Over two kilometers high, the building was the tallest in the entire Principality. Sitting atop it like the crown jewels on a monarch's head was the Principality's weather control center, a glowing blue diamond like construct that was responsible for the perfect weather throughout the inhabited parts of the Principality and the impassible blizzards throughout the rest of the mountainous mini-continent.
It was a dark night all those decades ago when the Tower's light winked out and the Principality was destroyed. All those still alive who recalled the night wished they couldn't, and those who weren't shiver in dread of the idea.
No one had ever quite figured out the source of the explosion that had so utterly destroyed the men from the stars after their thousand year long colonization of the place, but all still feared it happening again.
Of course, this wasn't a main concern of most surviving residents: the regime that had arisen on Ra-oold, the island adjecent to the colony's former land, occupied that position. Closely resembling what the end result of Hitler's Nazi Germany would have been had facism won, The Great Survivor, their unnamed leader, had managed to come into complete dominance over the island and the closest areas of the continent in only twenty years after the starmen's colony was destroyed.
As is natural, resistance had sprung up rather quickly. All resistance on Ra-oold itself was put down almost faster than it could rise, but groups on the Mainland, as it was called nowadays, could operate with comparitive freedom. Of course, they couldn't really accomplish much besides harrassing the Ra-ooldian outposts on the Mainland, for they had almost no actual military power to speak of. Almost the entire fleet of navy ships harbored in Mar Anglo had been snatched up by various parties within a year of the fall of the Principality, most of it consolidated under Ra-oold control by now. The few remaining ships, mostly frigates and the occasional destroyer, were now in service by the only other possible "state" in that portion of the globe, The Freehold of Mar Anglo, a nearly anarchist state of survivors from the city for which they were named.
The Freehold and Ra-oold were always at odds, but had never really come to blows. Most analysts were convinced that the Great Survivor would come and crush the Anglish once he managed to get a few of the surviving carriers or battleships from the Principality back into service, but the modifications the starmen had made to them over the years were baffling the Ra-ooldians. As it stood, the Freehold was remarkably anti-immigrant, not allowing even the occasional sputnik (wandering survivors) to come into their finely balanced community.
Of course, those two nations both hated the resistance groups for their own respective reasons. The resistance itself most ignored the Freehold, not because of any sympathy or even apathy, but simply because they didn't have the resources to fight both the Freehold and Ra-oold at the same time.
That would all change though. Today would mark the beginning of the return.
Martin and his grandfather, both high ranking officials in the largest resistance group, were on their way to a secret location they'd heard of. Apparently, another group of survivors, miners from Mar Saxi's quadranium mines if they were to be believed, had stumbled across a large number of Phoenix-N jet fighters a decade ago and slowly sent out feelers throughout the emerging black market in an attempt to sell them.
Until now, no one had taken them seriously. They idea that a hundred or more of those advanced planes had somehow survived the holocaust that had devestated the entire Mainland was quite entertaining. Now, though, Martin had finally managed to convince his commander to allow him to send a scout on horseback to the "business" men's encampment. When he had arrived with the offer, the miners were overjoyed. They immediately led him to the hanger with the aircraft in them.
When the scout had been returned, Martin had gotten in his jeep to go consumate the deal right away. His commander had asked to accompany him. So it was that Martin and his grandfather now found themselves turning off the main road that ran up the side of one of the mountains, suddenly finding themselves on a large shelf cut into the mountainside.
Spread out before them was a beautiful green vale full of all the things that men have said paradise would have: tall green trees, glowing flowers, singing birds, and wispy white clouds in a deep blue sky. In the middle distance was a small grouping of white looking domes just large enough to house a few people each. The dirt road led right towards the tiny village. Martin continued driving along it, marvelling at the scene of beauty that surrounded him.
His jeep entered the village at a relativily slow pace, seeming a stain in this idealic looking community and Martin brought it to a stop in front of the largest and only obviously marked building. Drapped over the roof of the building was a red colored banner, the exact meaning of Martin couldn't determine from the ground.
He looked at his grandfather with a smile on his face, "Well sir, we're here. Do you need any assistance getting out of the jeep?"
The old man coughed several times to clear his throat, making to reach for the crystal once more, but stopping and muttered to himself, "Cheeky young bastard, just like his father was", and then continued so his grandkid could hear, "Of course I don't, now go get the package from the trunk".
"Yes sir!", Martin replied, throwing a crisp salute and, somehow, managing to open the door in the same motion. He jumped out of the jeep and hurried around to the rear. He popped open the hatch and reached in for two very heavy suitcases. He had to strain to lift them, but he avoided showing it. He heaved them out in front of them and went the rest of the way around the jeep to meet his grandfather who was just closing his door.
"Ok Captain Hues, follow me"
Martin fell in step behind his grandfather, the captain's stripes in his fatigues shining brightly in the sun. They approached the door to the large looking dome and, just when the commander was making ready to knock on it, it opened to reveal a severe looking man in a Principality general's uniform, looking to at least be in his high 60's but, knowing the Principality's technological abilities, could be as much as 200 years old.
"And...oh, yes, Hello, we've been expecting someone like you. You are with the Burning Angels, correct? Yes, yes, our watchers spotted the insignia on your jeep as you started up this side of the mountain. Why don't you come inside already?", he said in a very clipped but rushed tone.
Caught off guard, the old commander stuttered a moment, "Er, oh, right, of course". As they walked inside, they were presented by a rather large looking room that had to take up the entire dome that was surprisingly empty. Except for a large marble looking table in the center, it was completely empty. The strange man led them to the table, gave them seats, then walked around to sit opposite them.
"So? Did you bring the currency?"
Martin hefted the suitcases onto the tabletop as his grandfather replied, "Yes, we have it right here General...um..."
"Haden. General Haden"
"Yes, General Haden. If I might, I am the Fourth Commander of the Burning Angels resistance group, Jon Hues, at your service. We will take all of them, no matter how many it is you have, for a billion isolats"
"Hmm, yes, that is quite a sum of money. It would pay for power for decades. Fourth Commander, you have a deal, do you wish to inspect the merchindise before finallizing the purchase?"
"Of course my good General, lead the way"
Just as they were standing up, a voice came out of thin air, "General Haden, we have a walker starting up our side of the mountain from the Mar Saxi plain. I can't quite make his face out, but he appears to be in decent condition. Advise?"
The general went over to a wall right next to the dome's door and pressed on it, "Hold position sergeant and do not fire. I repeat, stay where you are and continue what you are doing. We will deal with this sputnik in the camp".
With that, the general proceeded through the door and Martin and Jon followed him. He led them towards the cliff wall that overshadowed the vale they were currently in. Un-noticed by Martin but noted by Jon, a group of men dressed in Principality Marine Battle-armor left some of the smaller hovels and headed along the dirt road towards where the intruder from the valley below had been reported. Martin heard General Haden's radio buzz faintly from one of his heavier pockets, but he chose to ignore it.
When they reached the cliff wall, Haden walked right up to it...and right through it. Jon and Martin starred at the spot he had disappeared into for a moment when the sheer rock face flickered rapidly and then vanished entirely. Revealed to them was a large part of the vale cleared down to bedrock and covered in tarmac. On the tarmac, stretching before Jon and Martin in all directions, was about a 100 F-35N JSF (Phoenix-N Variant) dual-role fighters. There was more power sitting in front of the two Angels than on the rest of the Mainland put together.
They starred listlessly into the field of aircraft, thinking of all the things this meant. Ra-oold would fall, the Freehold would have no chance. The Principality would rise again; they both knew it would never reach its former heights, but they'd be damned if they just let it die.
As they began to wander amongst the planes, Haden's radio buzzed again, but this time a bit more loudly and certainly more insistantly. He took it out a moment, held a hushed conversation, then put it away.
"I apologize sirs, but I have matters to attend to with my troops. I will leave you to inspect the aircraft. You will find them in very good condition, I am sure of that".
As he was finishing up his speech, he was already moving away towards the dirt road, meaning to break into a run as soon as he was out of sight of the prospective customers. When they stepped behind one of the jets to inspect the engines, that's exactly what he did. It took him a few minutes of sprinting, but his body was in excellent condition from all the medical procedures he's had done to it over the last ten centuries.
You see, there was something very special about General Haden, the least of it being that he wasn't an actual general, he wasn't even an officer. According to Republic records, he'd died a thousand years ago during the Proge Wars in a training accident.
But no, deep down, in some black ops file, his existance was still followed. Somewhere in the darkest corners of the capital building was a room that only two of the officials living there had access to. This room held records and histories on all the Invisibles the Republic had ever employed. Somewhere on about a quarter of the way down the lists was General Haden's picture next to a single designation: I-G9-U7.
He'd been assigned to this backwater a little less than a century ago to watch over the research being done on a recovered alien artifact. Taking on the identity of a young security guard, the necessary surgery being performed back on the Republic's capital, he'd considered it little more than a baby-sitting job. Working under General Haden, the man in charge of the project, he hadn't been much more than a ceremonial guard for whenever they moved the object.
Considering the proximity he had to the research lab, he was still mystified as to how he had survived the disaster that had claimed the Principality and, with it, all chances of him getting off the planet. However, an integrel part of Invisible training was morale solidification, an Invisible would never give up home.
He changed his face and identity without any outside help, taking on the personage of his now deceased superior and gathered what little Republic military forces he could find. What remained of the Principality's military had devolved into the resistance groups that now ruled the Mainland, his was the last professional and recognized army outfit on the planet.
Using his knowledge of the Republic's technologies, he had built a large group of the Principality's premier fighter to attract the attention of whatever resistance groups he could, hoping to band them together and defeat the traitors on Ra-oold and the anarchists in Mar Anglo. From there he planned to build some kind of ship to take him and his fellow off-worlders back home, but that was a long way off, he had a lot of money to save.
Right now, though, he was just reaching his marines on the dirty path that went cross-stitch up the side of the mountain. Slightly in front of them walked a very strange looking man. He looked gaunt, mal-nurioushed, but very heavily muscled all the more. He was completely bald, his severely pale skin shining in the hot mountain sun, his shirtless torso only adding to the sheen. He had one a loose looking pair of pants that appeared to be tied by some kind of clothe belt.
An odd sense of recognition dawned in Haden's brain. He couldn't quite place it, but this man seemed familiar, somehow. He extended a hand towards the approaching sputnik and made to speak, but the commander of his marines shook his head futily and waved his hand at the vagrant.
"He ain't talking sir, he won't even acknowledge he knows we're here. Maybe he doesn't, there's an odd air about him"
"You never tried to stop him? We can't just have random wanderers coming into our camp commander".
"Well, er, he never appeared violent sir. Quite the opposite, actually..."
"Gah, I always have to do these things myself, don't I?"
"No sir! Don't worry about it sir! Yangley, get that sputnik under control. If he refuses to stop, detain him".
"Yes sir!", yelled a young looking marine from the rear of the group. Though he was very nearly 90 himself, he barely looked out of his teens. He ran up to the front of his patrol group, but slowed and approached the wanderer with caution.
"Excuse me, sir, I'm going to have to ask you to stop here. It's for your own safety as much as ours sir, if you would just stop and turn", he intoned as he very slowly came towards the man. When he was close enough, he reached out his hand grabbed the emaciated looking arm, "Sir..."
The stranger spun around, causing the soldier to jump and raise his weapon out of instinct. However, a very curious look from the vagrant made him pause and slowly lower his weapon. He stood transfixed, slowly moving his mouth, almost forming words but not letting any sound out. After a few seconds of standing like this, he finally shook his head violently, yelling, "NO!"
Exuding a sense of perfect calm, the vagrant extended his left hand right up to the Republican's throat, gripping it surprisingly strongly. As soon as he made contact, the marine started to scream. The sound of sizzling flesh quickly was accompanied by the sharp report of several rifles discharging straight at the wanderer's skull. As the bullets approached their lethal destination, they simply vanished, or so it seemed as tiny pile sof ash began to drift to the ground around the very strange man.
In a matter of seconds, the corpse of the unlucky soldier lay on the ground beheaded as the vargrant starred lazily at the remaining soldiers in the squad, seemingly unaware that directly behind him was the more threatening enemy: an Imperial Invisible.
He looked at the hand that he had used to decapitate the soldier, still extended. He seemed very curious about it, before he re-extended it, pointing it straight at the nine remaining men of the patrol squad. His eye's flashed, barely visible through the literal hail of bullets that always melted mere inches from his face.
A wave of heat flew out of his body, frying the marine's in their battle suits and melting them in seconds. Their death screams lingered significantly longer, bouncing around the mountains as the flesh sloughed off their bleached white bones.
He continued to stare at his outstretched hand, as if not really understanding what was going on. He was still starring when a knife was driven into his spine, or so the good Invisible cum general was hoping it would do. Instead, it turned molten as soon as it touched his skin, the heat quickly spreading into Haden's hand, causing him to let go in the split second that was his highly tuned reaction time. The vagrant turned slowly to face his latest assailant. He walked slowly towards him as Haden dropped into a defensive stance.
As soon as the man was within range, Haden tensed himself to block any blows he might make, but was surprised when he remained standing, completely motionless, directly in front of him. Haden slowly lifted himself out of his stance, thinking about pulling his side-arm and planting two right in between the bastard's eyes. Just when he went to reach for his weapon, the sputnik's hands shot out at speeds even an Invisible couldn't keep up with and grasped Haden's head in a bear-handed grip.
The pain was immediately unbearable and remained so until the skin had been vaporized and the skull had been turned molten and the myriad biological implants were torn away and Haden's now in-active brain was exposed. The man stared at it a moment before chucking the corpse off the mountain road to tumble down the cliff face.
He continued up the path, eventually cresting it and right away turning towards the village, ignoring the field of jet planes for now. One by one he concentrated on the domed buildings and, one by one, they burst into flames, killing those still inside.
Once his work was done, the stranger wandered towards the plans, directly at the gape-mouthed and frightened Martin and Jon. When he reached them, he worked his jaw muscles and, for the first time, spoke.
"You will serve me. Or you will die. Which do you chose?", his voice a raspy mockery of a human's tone.
Stuttering once more, Jon replied, "Ye-ye-yes-yes, si-sir. We're...we're at your ser-service...mi'lord".
The stranger eyed Jon very closely and then opened his mouth once more.
"Yes, yes, that sounds correct. Lord. But Lord what? Who am I?", he turned to Martin, "Do you know who I am?"
Martin could only stare for a full five seconds before it registered he was being addressed. Completely flustered, he answered with the first thing that popped into his head, "Purity, you are the Cleansing Flame".
As soon as the words emerged from Martin's mouth he regretted them, but he knew he could do little to take them back. The stranger thought for a moment on what he had said, however, and then smiled, an ugly and horrific sight indeed.
"Yes, the Lord Purgatio Flamma, Cleansing Flame of the World".
Instinctivily, Jon and Martin threw themselves prostrate, nearly worshipping the new god.
Purgatio decided he liked them doing that.
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August 21st, 10:30 AM, AD 2006: somewhere in the north of the former Principality of Industrial Experiment
The plain that had been Mar Saxi no longer stood desolate. It was still as fire-scarred as it had been a year before, but now it was the site of a major construction project. It had been only a few months, but with millions of tirelessly loyal slaves, Lord Purgatio had managed to construct his palace in that short time. Now, sitting upon his throne, facing out at the growing city that seemed to be directly under his seat, he could recall the last year with perfect clarity.
Ra-oold had fallen in less than a month to his forces. He had personally seen to the conversion of countless millions of the for-now-free populace to a new religion, a religion that was devoted to worshipping him. He had personally tortured the "Great Survivor" until he was just near death, then had him frozen to preserve his life, no matter how grotesquely skewed that now was. Now, the former dictator served as a wall decoration, the only cold thing in Purgatio's little personal corner of hell.
The Freehold had held out much longer, the war having only been finished last month. Of course, the results of his campaign had allowed for him to truely test his new disciples, who had performed admirably, slaughtering all resistance. Unfortunately, the frigates and destroyers of the Freehold had served as a vital lifeline. Only after a massive bombing campaign by Purgatio's airforce had managed to eliminate them.
The unification of the various resistance factions under his banner had happened virtually on his own. Once he had the Burning Angels under his control, a large number of the smaller groups had aligned to him, leading the few remaining large groups to follow suit as they quickly became outnumbered and out-gunned.
So it was that the Cult of the Purifying Flame took hold upon the Mainland and Ra-oold and, like all fires, it hungered for more. Now, all it could do was spread, and spread it would do. The world would never stand a chance.
BURN
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OoC: Clarifications
Invisibles http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=358430
NOTE: Yes, I'm trying to make a point about this guy in how casually he crushes an elite Invisible. No, not all of the soldiers will be like him, he is unique. However, they will all have a few special attributes, such as a resistance to heat and high pain tolerance. Religious fanatics and all.
Fall of the Principality http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=385790
Anyway, I hope anyone who reads this enjoys it and I look forward to RPing with this new guy in the future. You won't see much development beyond the subsuming of a few very small countries to increase population growth for a while as there IS still the small matter of a major disaster the recover from.