Valiant: Tales From The Archive

[CURSEd #14: Decisions]

Log Date: 2/13/12764

Data Sources: Darrow Bennion

Event Log: Darrow Bennion

C.V. Justice: Hangar

10:56am SGT

“Hard to believe we’re back here again.” Kwyn says, folding her arms as we stare through the atmosphere shield across the hangar’s entrance. Beyond it, we can see the mottled green-and-blue sphere of Chibundi filling most of the view, with the baby-blue striations of the gas giant filling the backdrop behind it. “Hopefully this time, we won’t get interrupted by the rogue Challengers or their mercs.”

“We won’t have to worry about that.” I say, listening to the clamor of the hangar crew getting a troop transport ready to deploy to the surface. “Since we’ve got an informant in their group now, SCION’s been able to track their movements. They’re nowhere near the Gnist System, so we should be able to get this done without interruption.”

“What… exactly is it that we’re doing here?” Kwyn asks, looking at me. Both of us are already kitted out; her in the standard light power armor for operatives and myself in the Axiom suit. At the moment, we’re just waiting for everyone else to finish prepping so we can deploy.

“I assume we’re here to get the Spark.” I reply, lifting my arm to check my suit’s power levels. They scroll briefly across my forearm plates, giving me a quick readout of the suit’s core systems, before disappearing as I drop my arm again. “But I don’t know what that’s going to look like. All I could get out of the briefing is that we’re going back down to the dig site we visited last time, and this time, we’re actually going to be venturing into the buried ruins.”

“No hint of what we’re going to encounter down there, I’m guessing.” she presumes.

I shake my head. “No idea. And if Tenji or Nazka know, they’re keeping it to themselves. The good news is that it seems like we’re taking every Peacekeeper and their grandmother on this assignment, so whatever we’re up against, I’m sure we’ll be more than capable of handling it.”

Kwyn looks over her shoulder. “Yeah, I noticed.” she says. I follow her gaze to where Headache is chasing Surge around the transport, shouting at him to give her helm back. Both of them are kitted out in their customized power armor suits, Headache’s designed to amplify her psi abilities, Surge’s designed to help channel his electrical powers. Gossamer’s kitted out and leaned back against the side of the transport, arms folded and standoffish as usual, while Ironfist is throwing orders to the hangar staff. “We’re not bringing Blockchain, are we?”

I look across to the hangar to where Blockchain is seated against the wall, docile and silent as always. I’m pretty sure he’s been confined to the hangar for the entire trip; he can’t fit into the halls of the Justice, and it’d only be possible if we tripled their width and doubled their height. “I think him, Onslaught, and Prophet are staying up here while the rest of us go down to the dig. We brought them so they could fight the Challengers after this.”

“Why is she so mean to him?” Kwyn asks, watching as Onslaught beans a spaceball off Blockchain’s dome-like head, catching it as it bounces back to her. It look like she’s deliberately aiming for his face whenever she throws it, instead of aiming it anywhere else on his massive metal frame. Blockchain, being Blockchain, just sits there and takes the abuse; on first glance, it seems like it doesn’t bother him, but every now and then you’ll see his digital eyes flit downward in his recessed visor, then glance towards the open bay doors, as if wistful to get away.

“That’s just how Onslaught is. I think she’s one of the holdovers from the early years of CURSE, back when we needed any talent we could get our hands on, regardless of how it behaved.” I explain. “From what I hear, the Challengers had a monopoly on talent right up until the end, so CURSE was stuck picking from the bargain bin or trying to peel away Challengers that weren’t happy with the program anymore. Over the years, I think we managed to get most of the maladjusted Peacekeepers to shape up or ship out, but Onslaught’s clung on longer than the rest of her kind.”

“Why hasn’t CURSE gotten rid of her yet?” Kwyn asks, keeping her voice low.

I let out a sigh and shake my head. “Beats me. If I had to guess, though, sometimes you just need to cram a crazy gun bitch in a drop pod and launch her into the middle of a conflict, and let the rest sort itself out. Onslaught’s not good for much, but she’s at least good for that.”

“How often do we do that? Cram her into a drop pod and just shoot her down into a problem area?” Kwyn asks.

I reach up, scratching the back of my head. “Probably not as often as she likes, but enough that it’s worth keeping her around despite her social issues.”

The arrival of Tenji and Nazka cuts into our conversation; both of them have stepped into the hangar in their light power armor, Nazka’s in black and Tenji’s in a cherry-red. The stride they’re taking is sharp and to the point, which I take to mean that we’re about to leave.

“Peacekeepers, form up!” Nazka barks, his voice carrying across the hangar. Kwyn and I both turn and start towards the transport, while the other Peacekeepers start to congregate near the ramp of the transport. Within the minute, we’re all gathered and awaiting Tenji’s orders.

“Thank you all for being here.” she begins, sounding a short and to-the-point tone. “I’ll keep this brief. We are here to procure a type of weapon that the rogue Challengers already possess. While we do not necessarily need this weapon to stamp out their resurgency, we would be remiss if we did not avail ourselves of every advantage we can get, and use all means at our disposal, to bring their rebellion to an end as quickly as possible. It is critical that we succeed in this assignment, and I do not know what waits for us down in the dig site. The obstacles that exist down there may not be the type that we are accustomed to dealing with on a standard assignment. Stay alert, bring your best, and watch each other’s backs. Are there any questions?”

Surge pops up a hand. “Do we know what we’re looking for?”

“We don’t. But we’ll know it when we see it.” Tenji answers. “Any other questions?”

“Yes.” Nazka says tersely. “Would anyone like to shed light on where Ms. Kemaim is?”

“Well, at least I know someone will miss me if I’m gone.” Whisper’s voice comes from the transport’s ramp, where a spot of air distorts before hexagonal panels ripple over the form, revealing her sitting just inside the cargo door. “Let’s get this show on the road. I’ve been waiting two weeks for this.”

“Why were you cloaked?” Gossamer demands. “We are on one of our own ships, sitting in the hangar with a bunch of friendlies, with no threats present. There is literally no reason for you to be covert right now.”

Whisper sticks her tongue out at Gossamer. “Maybe I want to see what y’all are saying about me behind my back.” she says, standing up. “Dibs on the seat next to Axe.”

“We’ve already established that the buckles for these seats won’t fit around me when I’m suited up.” I say, starting up onto the ramp as the others start to do the same. “I’ll stand.”

“Dibs on the seat next to the rookie, then!”

“Wait, what?” Kwyn says, looking alarmed.

“Go get ‘em, tiger.” Headache teases, elbowing Kwyn on her way past.

“That means I can sit next to you, right, Headache?” Surge teases.

“Go get tossed, Surge. You owe me a drink for being a punk.”

“Alright, that’s enough chitchat. Sit down and get buckled in; we have a weapon to retrieve, and some rebels to crush after that.”

GalaxyGuide App

The Gnist System

A dark space system not far from the Vorcrueshen Abyss, the Gnist System lies under the control of the Viralix Empire. Possessing two gas giants and three solid planets, it is a system that has little apparent value beyond the typical ore mining that could be expected of solid planets, and the gas mining that is common for gas giants. The only naturally habitable body in the system is a moon around the blue gas giant Chibundi; though the moon is technically known at Chibundi-LO2, it is most often referred to as simply Chibundi, which can sometimes create confusion in conversations involving both the gas giant and the moon that orbits it.

The system is registered as an ecological preserve by the Viralix Empire, affording it a number of legal protections that would otherwise be hard to come by in the galactic community. First and foremost, the system is protected from commercial exploitation; secondly, colonization limitations and population caps can be instituted, though in the case of the Gnist System, the Viralix have denied all colonization permits, and set the population cap at zero. Finally, the system can be designated as restricted space, meaning that incursions into the system, whether as a destination or as transit, are considered trespassing in the legal sense. This permits the Viralix to respond to trespasses with ‘reasonable force’, a vague legal wording which is presently the focus of several legal cases now pending on the Galactic Court’s docket. The Viralix, for their part, have generously interpreted ‘reasonable force’ as ‘full military response’, which is why the Viralix appear as defendants in several of the cases now working their way through the Galactic Court.

Aside from a satellite sensor grid swarm spread thin across the system and its heliosphere, there is practically no modern footprint in the Gnist System. As no colonization or commercial exploitation has been permitted, all the celestial bodies in the system exist in their virgin state, largely uninhabited, and completely undeveloped. Chartered surveys will occasionally pass through the system to check on its bodies, log any changes, and update records, but beyond that, the Gnist System exists as a solar system still in its untamed and unsettled state, almost entirely untouched by the influence of modern civilizations.

Event Log: Darrow Bennion

Chibundi: F.I.R.E. Expedition Site

11:51am SGT

“So this is where you guys squared off with Jackrabbit, eh?” Surge says through our group’s comms channel, staring around the dig and taking in the fallen excavation platform now resting just slightly off-center on the dig’s floor. The rubble it held is now spilled out across the floor, and gazing around, I can see the scorch march on the floor where Kwyn’s plasma grenade detonated.

“This is where it happened, yeah.” Whisper says, kicking one of the smaller chunks of rubble that spilled off the excavation platform. “Had her on the ropes, too. If it wasn’t a retrieval mission, we probably could’ve ended her then and there.”

“You’ll forgive my skepticism.” Nazka replies from where he’s kept close to Tenji’s shoulder. “Do not wander too far. We are not here for sightseeing.”

“Where do we begin?” Gossamer asks, perched on one of the fallen columns on the dig’s floor, studying the unearthed hallways around the perimeter of the dig. All of them lead off into darkness.

“We should know in just a moment.” Tenji says, opening the armored cylinder she’d brought with her. Reaching in, she pulls out the artifact we’d originally retrieved from this place, then hands the cylinder off to Nazka, who closes it up again. Cupping the orange sphere in her gauntleted hands, she waits until it unfurls into the fairy form that it showed when we summoned the Blackthorn Demon. Standing up, it gives a big stretch, like you’d see after a long nap, then kicks off Tenji’s hands and into the air.

“It’s time.” Tenji says, lowering her hands.

The artifact nods, then turns in place and starts flying towards one of the darkened tunnels. Tenji starts to follow without hesitation, and the rest of us do the same. “I’ll bring up the rear.” Gossamer offers, sliding off her column, waiting for the rest of us to go ahead.

“Will that thing let us know if there are any traps?” Whisper asks as she filters into the darkened hall ahead of me, and behind Ironfist. “I’d rather not find out there are spike pits by suddenly being dumped into one.”

“I trust it to let us know.” Tenji replies. “But stay on guard, just in case.”

“Anyone else notice this hall seems a little… small?” Surge asks as the headlights on our suits start clicking on, providing illumination as the light of the dig floor fades behind us. “It’s real subtle, but it’s like… everything looks like it was built by people that are just slightly smaller than normal.”

An irritated grunt through the comms coincides with a loud clunk, and the line staggering to a stop behind Ironfist. “Yes.” he grumbles, backing up and leaning down so he can duck through a doorway that he’d smacked his helm on. “I have also noticed that the architecture seems to be intended for a shorter species.”

“Who would build a temple like this, though?” Kwyn asks from behind me. “There’s no sentient species on this world, right? That means a space-capable race would’ve had to come out here and cut all of this stone and carve all of these halls. That’s a lot of work to go through when you’re capable of intergalactic travel. You figure they would’ve used more metals and plastics, instead of doing it the traditional way.”

“I would hazard a guess that it was a religious effort.” Nazka says as we pass through a room, and start into a corridor of stairs that leads downwards. “Considerable effort is often placed into the appeasement or worship of higher entities.”

“They would’ve had to do all that work in evo suits, though.” Surge points out. “The air on this moon is too thin to sustain heavy labor by any of the major races. Unless, like. The Cybers built this place?”

Gossamer snorts from the back of the line. “Have you ever seen a religious robot?”

“Cybers didn’t build it.” Headache says before Surge can reply. “This is Viralix architecture.”

“How do you know that?” Surge demands as we reach the bottom of the stairs.

“The height, for one. Viralix are shorter than most races on average. These halls could fit them comfortably.” Headache explains. “Second is the architecture itself. It’s easy enough to recognize when you’ve been through a few Viralix settlements. They’re foxes — big foxes, but still foxes. The instinct to dig and burrow and make dens is still there. You can see it in the way the halls are shaped — the walls and ceiling kind of blur together into a single round tunnel, the stairs are almost ramps, and the doorways are oval, not rectangular. I mean, it’s all precise and engineered, and they’ve cleaned it up so it looks smooth and neat and doesn’t wander and meander the way a wild fox den does, but it is, at the end of the day, still a den. Just a big, complicated one that also happens to have a coherent floor plan.”

“Gods damn it—” Ironfist grunts as his helm smacks into the upper edge of one of the doorways again.

“Figured you would’ve caught on the first time you clobbered yourself on one of these doorways, Ironfist.” Whisper remarks as she waits for him to duck down and walk through.

“It is hard to see where the doorway’s threshold is without consistent illumination.” he grumbles back at her. “If this is a den, then it was always intended to be underground, correct? Why didn’t they incorporate some form of lighting down here?”

“That’s something I can’t figure out.” Headache muses, studying the carved walls of the corridor. “I’ve noticed an absence of psi crystals in the architecture. The Viralix usually install them in their buildings to extend the range of their communication, the same way we might install an intercom system so we can communicate between different floors or areas of a large structure. Psi crystals often double as light fixtures as well, but I’ve seen none so far, which implies that they did not intend to make frequent use of this structure — almost like it was entirely ceremonial in nature.”

“We’re not going to encounter any Viralix here, are we?” I say, finally speaking up. “I didn’t enjoy fighting the one that snuck onto the HQ.”

“That was technically a Maskling that had Masked a Viralix at some point.” Nazka points out as the hall slowly starts to widen around us. “But I think it has been amply established that this structure has been abandoned for quite some time, and Headache has correctly observed that it was never intended to be a long-term residence.”

“I just noticed it, but there are images carved onto these walls.” Looking over my shoulder, I can Kwyn skimming her fingers over the raised surfaces of the walls, and my pace slows so I can look as well. There are images there, meant to be displayed in relief, though the intense light from our suits makes them a little difficult to pick out.

“Hey, she’s right.” Whisper says, reaching out to the wall. “These are like those carvings you see in digs where they’re excavating ancient civilizations.”

“No, this is cleaner, more modern.” Headache says, reaching out to touch the walls as well. “Ancient art is more primitive than this. This was carved in the classical style, by professionals that understood body proportions and realistic representation. This isn’t the product of a primitive culture.”

“We’re not on a goddamn field trip to the museum.” Gossamer gripes from the back of the line. “We’re here to secure an asset and get on with crushing the Challengers. Stop dawdling and let’s move.”

“Sheesh, Katie Killjoy.” Surge mutters. “ ‘Scuse us for stopping to smell the roses.”

The conversation peters out with that, and we walk on in silence for a while longer, the corridor descending in a slight curve the entire way. The orange glow of the artifact leads the way, always floating slightly ahead of Tenji, while the lights of our suits form a herky-jerky train of shadows moving down the hall. With little else to keep me occupied, I often find myself looking back to the carvings at the wall, trying to pick out images, but never able to make sense of them. It isn’t until Ironfist speaks up that I realize someone else has been staring at them as well.

“It’s a mural.” he murmurs suddenly. “These are scenes from the War.”

“You figure it out, big guy?” Whisper asks.

“Which war? There’s been like, hundreds of them in the past thousand years.” Surge says, the eyeroll evident in his tone.

Ironfist reaches out, his gauntleted fingers grazing over the relief carvings. “The War. The one that defined what the universe is today. It has no other name; we simply know it as the War.”

“You don’t seriously believe that happened, do you?” Gossamer scoffs from the back.

“Does anyone want to cue me in on what we’re talking about?” I ask. “I don’t mean to be dense, but…”

“It’s a myth.” Gossamer answers flatly. “A fable used to explain away the societal collapse that set back our civilizations thousands of years ago.”

“Alright, but that still doesn’t change the fact that I want to know what it is.” I retort.

“The War, as it is known, is said to have occurred thirteen thousand years ago.” Tenji says. Despite her soft tone, the rest of us immediately quiet down as she speaks, leading us ever downwards. “It is, as Gossamer said, a fable, but it is a common one that has surfaced in several religions and cultures. It is described, in its various iterations, as a war between the gods over the nature of the universe; whose main battlefield was said to have been our galaxy, and so the mortals that lived in it at the time — our ancestors — are said to have suffered greatly for it. Entire civilizations were destroyed, damaged, or corrupted. Planets were occasionally pulverized; some stars were even shattered. Evidence of the calamity still lingers to this day. The Makutanat Void is thought to be one such example.”

“Isn’t that the part of Myrrdicato where it’s just a big bubble of nothing for three hundred lightyears?” Surge asks.

“Correct. That’s said to be a result of one of the clashes between the two divine brothers that opposed each other during the War.” Tenji replies. “That particular clash destroyed the system it took place in, and released a gravitational shockwave so severe that it shunted away all nearby systems as it passed through them. The shockwave weakened with time and distance, but it’s still making its way across the galaxy, thirteen thousand years later. A distant echo of something truly calamitous.”

“What was the war about?” Kwyn asks. “What do you mean when you say they were fighting over the nature of the universe?”

“It depends on which myth you are reading.” Nazka answers. “Most cite a conflict in the family of Primordial gods, some claiming it as a family disagreement, while others claim an ideological rift. The root of the conflict in most stories, however, goes back to the gift of free will, and whether the mortals of the universe deserved such a gift. The war grew out of that question, and the differing answers brought destruction to the galaxy on an unimaginable scale.”

“Oddly enough, we have no actual record of the war.” Gossamer points out. “No footage, no images, no historical record — just stories passed down through generations and eventually written down after being distorted by the oral tradition.”

“So you’re basically saying pics or it didn’t happen.” Surge says.

“Stories cannot make up for a lack of proof. Primitive cultures make up stories all the time to explain what they cannot comprehend.” Gossamer says loftily. “What makes us any different from our ancestors in that regard?”

“At the foot of every myth there is a grain of truth.” Ironfist says. “And the fact that this story appears in the fabric of many cultures, mine included. It may not have happened exactly as told in the stories, but I do believe, without a doubt, that it did happen.”

“Not that asking belief from a cleric was any great stretch to begin with.” Gossamer mutters.

“We’re here.” Tenji’s simple announcement brings the rest of the conversation to a halt as she passes through a final doorway. The rest of us follow through, finding ourselves in a vast, round chamber, filled with water — and a single stone walkway that spirals gracefully inwards towards the statue in the center of the pool. A series of aquamarine crystals hover in slow orbit around it, giving off light and painting the entire chamber in a calming, ambient blue.

“Well, they definitely had a flair for the dramatic.” Whisper remarks, peering around the room. “I’m almost insulted. There were no traps on the way here; they didn’t even make us work for it.”

“That just means they’re confident in whatever safeguards they put around the weapon itself.” I say, studying the path leading to the statue.

“Axiom is correct.” Nazka concurs, although he says those three words with all the enthusiasm of someone discovering a dead mouse in their cereal. “Remain alert, and do not assume safety. Administrator, would you like me to take the lead?”

“I am not the type of leader that retreats behind my soldiers when danger arises, Nazka.” Tenji replies, the boots of her suit echoing against the stone walkway as she starts to follow the artifact along the spiraling path. “If there is a threat, I will handle it myself.”

There’s a snicker on the comms. Nazka glares over his shoulder at Surge, then starts after Tenji, and the rest of us follow as the line starts to move again.

The chamber remains silent aside from the echo of our metal boots on the stone as we make our way along the spiral path, the lights of our suits casting shadows on the water that surrounds us on both sides. At least I think it’s water — it looks like water, it’s clear like water. The unsettling part is that I can’t see how deep it goes — the pool isn’t a shallow one, and the bottom, if there is one, isn’t visible from the surface. Realizing that we don’t really have a need for lights with the blue glow filling the room, I turn off the ones on my suit.

“Are these the psi crystals that were supposed to be in the rest of the building?” Surge asks as we near the statue, staring up at the blue crystals slowly orbiting it. Each one is about a two feet long, and six inches across; they aren’t cut gems, but they do have distinct faces, like you’d expect of quartz.

“No, these aren’t…” Headache says, narrowing her eyes behind her visor. “…I can’t feel these ones. They’re not psi crystals; they’re something else.”

“Think we should give one of them a poke?” Whisper asks.

“Let’s not.” Ironfist rumbles. “They are not harming us. I would like to keep it that way. There’s no reason to pick a fight with whatever defenses the temple might have in place.”

“What fun is that, though?” Surge mutters, but keeps walking. At the end of the day it was hard to argue with Ironfist’s logic; there was no value in kicking a sleeping dog, especially when we didn’t know what it might do when it woke up.

It’s only half a minute more before we reach center of the pool, where the stone path forms a ring around what appears to be a bottomless pit. It’s at that point that I realize that the statue is hovering up to its ankles in the pit; there’s no foundation or securing element holding it in place. And that statue is carved in the similitude of a young woman, wreathed within a long, flowing cloak, with the hood drawn up over her head, eyes closed and hands cupped in front of her.

“Right.” Whisper says, hitching her hands on her hips as she stares up at the statue. “This is the part where someone says something ominous, one of you explains who this lady is supposed to be and why they had to carve a whole damn statue of her, and then we chuck the fairy-thing at the statue and get this party going. Who wants to do what?”

“I don’t know who that’s supposed to be.” Headache admits. “Ironfist?”

Ironfist shakes his head. “If she’s a deity, I don’t recognize her.”

“She’s got a nice mug, though.” Surge remarks, sizing up the statue. “Here’s a question for ya: if this place was built by the Viralix, why’d they carve a statue of a pretty human and stick it in here? They don’t worship human deities, do they?”

“Could we please give this task the gravitas it deserves?” Nazka says icily. “We are on the verge of what could be a history-defining moment, and you all are treating it like a field trip.”

“They’re just trying to ease the tension with a little humor, Nazka.” Tenji says, lifting a hand as the fairy alights on her gauntleted knuckles. “That being said, we’re about to begin, so everybody should get ready. I don’t know what’s going to come next.” With that, she nods to the fairy. “It’s time.”

The fairy nods, and jumps backwards off Tenji’s knuckles, flitting up the statue’s cupped hands. As it alights there, I reach back, gripping the handle of my battleaxe; around the walkway, the others start to tense up as well. Kwyn flicks the safety off her plasma rifle; Whisper charges her wrist pistols and starts to cloak; Ironfist brings his fists up, while electricity starts crackling over the forearms of Surge’s suit. No words are said as the fairy sits within the cupped hands, and curls up once more, wings folding around it until it’s closed into the same clementine sphere that it was when we originally took it from this place.

In the next moment, rays of orange light lance out from the artifact, each one curving through the air to hit the orbiting crystals. Each crystal turns orange, instantly changing the ambiance of the chamber from a chill blue to sunset hue. The sudden orange cast of the room is much less relaxing, and I can feel my pulse start to rise; yet before any of us can respond to that, the statue before us shifts. The bowed head lifts as smoothly as if the stone was made of flesh, and the granite eyelids open.

Behind them is an orange glow, and staring back into that unyielding gaze, I know I am looking at something that is beyond age, older even than some stars in the vast cosmos.

We aren’t given time to react; a mere second after the eyes open, I can feel something pulling at me, a force unseen. Even in my suit, it draws me inexorably towards the pit, and from the corners of my vision I can see that same force acting upon the others. Regardless of weight, size, or strength, we are all pulled towards the pit at the same rate, and tipped over the edge at the same time. The comms start to fill with noise as we fall past the edge, the others shouting in alarm as we pitch into the darkness; I’m too paralyzed by fear, by the raw feeling of helplessness, to say anything. By the time I force myself into action and try to reach out to grab the statue’s foot to keep me from falling, it’s too late; sparks fly as my fingers skid over the stone toes, and then I’m in freefall, the orange ambience of the chamber quickly shrinking to a pinpoint.

Looking around, I can see the others falling all around me. But they fade into darkness as the light from chamber above disappears, no longer able to reach us this far down into the pit. The blackness overtakes everything, the comms becoming static-y and going silent.

And then I am alone.

I keep expecting I’ll smash into the bottom at some point, but it never comes. I just keep falling, and falling, until it no longer feels like I’m falling so much as I’m drifting weightless in the void. Looking around, I realize that I can see my arms, my legs, meaning there must be light somewhere — but no matter which way I twist or turn, there is nothing roundabout but an endless, flat black void in all directions. At least until I notice a faint point of light and turn to it, starting to grow hopeful as it gets larger.

That hope turns to dread as the light resolves enough for me to realize that it’s my own reflection, and that I’m still falling, seconds before I slam into some unseen mirror surface in the dark.

Yet it doesn’t hurt; instead I’m thrown free of my Axiom suit, phasing through it as if I was a ghost. It gets left behind above me, and I tumble naked through the dark, falling, falling, until a massive stone hand reaches out of the abyss, and I land in its palm — not violently, but certainly not gently either. Grunting as I push myself up on the cold, smooth stone, I turn just in time to see the statue from earlier loom out of the abyss, even bigger than it was before now that it can hold me in a single hand. Without my suit, or even the plugsuit I would wear to pilot it, I feel exposed and vulnerable beneath that intense, tangerine gaze, and I scramble to turn and fold my legs in a way that hides my nakedness.

“Little.” the stone colossus observes, tilting her hand from side to side. I have to throw my hands down to steady myself and keep from being rolled. “And so much fear in your heart.”

I try to reply, but my voice catches in my throat; I’m not used to being this vulnerable. I’m used being in control, used to being the one with the power and authority of CURSE behind me. But here, in the void, deprived of my power armor and even the dignity of my plugsuit, I realize how small I am, in both the literal and metaphorical sense. So small I can fit in the hand of a being magnitudes larger than me.

“Who are you?” I demand, as if trying to prove that my fear didn’t rule me. “What have you done with the others?”

The stone colossus stares at me, before reaching up. With her free hand, she takes the hood of her cloak and pulls it back at the same time that she squares her shoulders. I hadn’t noticed it before, but her posture was slightly slumped and relaxed beneath the cloak; now, as the hood slips from her head and the remainder of the stone cloak slithers down her back, I can see the regal authority in the set of her strong shoulders. Beneath the cloak, it seems that she wears a sleeveless turtleneck, baring her arms and the strength evident in their lean, muscled tone; voluminous hair spills over her shoulders in granite waterfalls, a mane fit for a queen.

And I cannot help but recoil, and shrink into myself as those orange eyes gaze down at me. She says nothing, yet I can feel my question answered with that simple action of pulling off her cloak and straightening up. The posture alone speaks volumes; I am in the presence of something aeons older than me, with an august history and a purpose that transcends the petty cycles of mortal conflict.

I possess no right to make demands of any sort to a being such as this.

“I am the guardian of that which you and your friends seek.” she answers nevertheless. “The others that came with you are here, though each of you is held apart from each other.”

For a brief moment, images flash in the dark, each one a copy of the situation I’m now in — they appear in a ring that loops around, the same stone colossus holding each of the others in its hand, and like me, they’ve been deprived of their power armor, their weapons, and any clothes. Each of us reduced to our simplest state, stripped of the trappings that set us apart from one another. Some of the others, like me, sit curled in the hand, while others stand in defiance. I can see mouths moving, but no sound — and then as quickly as the images came, they fade away again, leaving me alone in the dark with the colossus once more.

I swallow hard. “Why did you take our things?” I ask, the aggressive edge gone from my voice.

“You do not need them.”

The answer, short and to the point, doesn’t exactly encourage further questioning. But I force myself to question anyway, because the less I know, the less I can do. And the more I know, the better I’ll be able to navigate this situation. “We need the Spark that is here. Can you give it to us?”

“You ask for something you do not even comprehend.” she says, beginning to tilt her hand. I scramble to try and keep from sliding, but she turns her hand too fast, and I slide off the smooth stone, dropping through the darkness. I don’t fall too far; her other hand is beneath me, and I find myself floating weightless in the air between both hands. “What do you know of Sparks?”

I fumble as I float about in the air, trying to keep my legs folded so I’m not exposed to her — although at this point I’m pretty sure she could care less about seeing my junk, it still feels embarrassing, at least to me. “Others have Sparks? People that are a danger to the peace in the galaxy.”

“So you know nothing of them.”

“I know they’re dangerous and they’re powerful.” I reply, trying to stay level in this conversation.

“And you want one because they are dangerous and powerful?”

“Well… no, but… we need one to be able to defend ourselves against those that do have them.”

“Have you ever spoken to those that have had Sparks? Have you tried to reason with them, or come to an understanding with them?”

“No, but…”

“Then you seek power, intending to use it to resolve certain conflicts as if violence was the only solution.”

“No! We don’t— that’s not what I would use it for!” I protest.

“Then tell me what you would use it for.”

“I…” I falter, not sure how to answer that question. “I don’t know.”

“And why should I give you something if you do not know how you will use it?”

“Stop with the mind games!” I snap at her. “We need a Spark to protect ourselves and the rest of the galaxy, that’s all there is to it!”

Her stony brows draw together, and instantly I realize that raising my voice was a mistake. I flinch as her lower hand comes up beneath me, so that I am resting in her palm once more. “These are not mind games. I do not care what your organization’s professed use for a Spark is; a Spark can only be given to a single individual, and is the privilege of that individual alone, to be harnessed at their discretion, for the purposes which matter to them. An organization has no control over a Spark, even if they possess the individual that carries it — it is not a power that can be harnessed under duress. You are here before me not as members of any group, but as individuals unto yourselves. I will sift your souls like sand between my fingers, and I alone choose who shall receive the Spark, measured not on the professed ideals of a larger group, but on the actual truth of each individual that composes it.” She leans in, her orange gaze burning into me. “So tell me why you should be the custodian of this power that you admit you do not comprehend.”

I shrink beneath the gaze. “I…” I look around in the darkness, knowing the others are there, probably being interrogated just same as I am, each of us unable to see each other. I wonder how their interrogations are going; whether they are being asked the same soul-searching questions. And as I realize that some of them are probably answering those questions better than I am, I also come to another uncomfortable, almost shameful realization:

There are others that deserve a Spark more than I do, and it would likely be better off in their hands.

“I probably shouldn’t be the one to receive it.” I say quietly, looking away. “It would be better in the hands of another.”

She straightens up at that, no longer leaning in on me. “You would relinquish this power to your peers? Because you trust their integrity more than yours?”

I take a deep breath, then look back at her and nod.

“Then you are one of the few that have demonstrated humility.” In the void, faint shadows of the others, along with the colossi that are holding them, start to appear in a ring once more, standing shoulder to shoulder. Yet none of the others seem to be aware of each other. “I have given a choice to the others, a game, if you will. Each of them must pick one of their compatriots to preserve, and one to sacrifice. The choices they have made, and are currently making, are quite revealing. So too are the questions they have asked as they have tried to determine the boundaries of the choice, and search for loopholes in it. Out of those who are left after all the choices have been made, I will determine who receives the Spark.”

I can feel my mouth drop open a little. “Wait, what? What do you mean by sacrifice?”

“A Spark can only be given to a single individual. When presented with multiple candidates for a Spark, this is how we determine who shall receive it.” she explains. “You are not exempt from this process.”

I can feel the beginnings of both panic and indignation rising within. “That’s… you can’t do that! If the price of this power is losing some of our people, that’s too high. We’ll make do without it.”

“Your peers do not agree. Some have already made their decision, and with little hesitation, I might add.”

I can’t help but look around at that, wondering which of the others would’ve so readily accepted such a cost. “Tell them that we are not accepting the Spark! If that’s what it costs, then we will leave it. We didn’t come here to make that kind of exchange.”

“You are too far gone for that. Power always comes with a price; if you were not prepared to pay it, then you should not have sought it.” There are faint notes of disapproval implied in her tone; not quite disdain, but some prelude to it.

“But I can’t…” I say weakly, looking around the ring of shadows that hold each of the others. “Do I have to make a choice? Can I simply choose not to choose?”

“You may choose not to make a choice, if you wish. But a choice must be made, and if you do not make it, the choice will be made for you, and you may not like what is chosen. Nor will you have any right to protest the outcome, when it is produced.”

My hands curl into fists on my knees. Temple traps, spike pits, even hordes of enemies — any of those would’ve been better than this, even if the odds were against us. Because regardless of the threat, we would all be united against it, fighting for the same thing. But with this, there was no enemy to pin the blame on. You couldn’t fight your way out of this. There was no need for traps or pits or guards when all you had to do was ask the group to make choices that would turn them against each other.

“I have to choose one person to sacrifice and one person to preserve.” I ask, just to confirm. If I had to do something like this, I wanted to make sure I understood precisely what my choices could result in. “And everyone else is having to make those two exact same choices?”

“That is correct.”

“What if I choose to preserve someone that somebody else has chosen to sacrifice?”

“Then those two choices will cancel out, and nothing will happen to the individual.”

“And vice versa if I choose to sacrifice someone that someone else has chosen to preserve, I presume.”

“Correct.”

“And if two people have chosen to sacrifice a person, but only one person has chosen to preserve them, will both sacrifice votes be cancelled out?”

“No. Voting to preserve an individual will only cancel out a single sacrifice vote. Any other votes to sacrifice would remain in place unless otherwise cancelled by other preservation votes.”

“I don’t suppose I’m allowed to know how others have voted.”

“That is correct.”

I let out a frustrated sigh. “So this is basically just a guessing game. A way to figure out who’s most popular or who’s most valuable in a group, by forcing everyone in the group to vote on who they’d save and who they’d kill if they had a chance.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I should hope that popularity has little to do with it.”

“How is this a good way to figure out who to give a Spark to?” I demand. “Isn’t that your choice? You choose who to give it to out of all of us; can’t you just… look at us and decide which one of us is the most worthy? You’re some sort of… higher power or something, aren’t you? These are things you should be able to know!”

“You are stalling.”

I can read between the lines on that one. She’s not going to let me pass this back on her; there are choices to be made, and she expects me to make mine. Gritting my teeth, I huff a breath through my nose, then look back at her. “One last question. If the others hadn’t made their choices so quickly — if I had been the first one to get to this point, and told you that we weren’t willing to pay this price for a Spark — would you have let us leave?”

“No.”

I can feel my temperature rise. “Why not?”

“Because yours is not the only voice that matters.” she answers, motioning to the shadowy ring of statues and the Peacekeepers they hold. “It is not a matter of who speaks first, or who speaks the loudest, but how many speak, and what they speak for. Those that believe the price merits the prize number more than those of you that disagreed. That is not to say that they are right — but this is the decision of the majority.”

“And there’s no way I can change it.” I guess as my shoulders slump.

“Correct. But you can help shape the future with the choices that have now been given to you.”

I take a deep breath, shuffling on my legs so I can turn around in her hand, and gaze around the ring of shadows that we are part of. “May I have time to think on what my choices will be?” I ask softly.

“You may have all the time you require, so long as you make a decision in the end.”

Resting my hands on my knees, I take another couple of deep breaths as I try to clear my head. I know I should be approaching this from a logical standpoint, but there’s nothing that’s really logical about this selection process. It’s arbitrary and cruel, and completely subjective — it’s a process that’s entirely influenced by the biases of each individual, judged on their own measurements of who deserves salvation and who deserves damnation. Nothing about this is right or fair, even if it has all the hallmarks of a democratic process.

And my own choices would be no different.

Looking around the circle, I can already sense how unfair this is, because there are some I have ruled out right off the bat. Nazka wouldn’t be getting my preservation vote, and neither would Gossamer. Ironfist probably deserved it, but he wouldn’t be getting it either. Neither would Surge or Headache, even if they were good people. From a logical standpoint, Tenji was a potential candidate, but I was sure someone would vote for her anyway. And she was our leader. No one would dare to give her a sacrifice vote… except perhaps Nazka, since he was second-in-command, and stood to benefit from her removal. But even for how cold he was, I doubted he would do that. He might not be pleasant, but he was a loyal soldier.

Which left just Whisper and Kwyn.

And there was nothing objective about that, I knew. The only reason they would be getting my vote was because they were the people that mattered the most to me. The hard part was deciding which one of them would get my preservation vote. Whisper had been my friend for years; she had trained me and guided me. I knew there was a good chance someone would send a sacrifice vote her way, perhaps even multiple. Giving her a preservation vote as insurance might be critical to protecting her from elimination.

But that’d leave Kwyn exposed, and I wasn’t sure whether others would value her as much as I did. Whether they’d view her as someone that needed protection, or as the least experienced individual, the one that would be the smallest loss if cut loose.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I rub my knuckles against the sides of my head. I hated this, hated everything about it. Choices like this were nightmares. Looking up again, I glance at Whisper, who’s standing, and from what it looks like, shouting at her colossus; and Kwyn, who’s standing, but listening more calmly while her colossus speaks. Which is striking, really; despite being the youngest out of all of us, she seems calmer than most others.

Young, and with so much life to live, so much that could be ahead of her. And while Whisper was young by wereckanan standards, she’d had six hundred years already. More than Kwyn would ever have.

At this point I know what my choice is, and I don’t like it.

But that still leaves the other choice. The choice that could be so easy, but that I still didn’t want to make.

My thoughts go first to Nazka. It’s hard to put my finger on it, but I eventually realize he’s my default choice because out of everyone here, I’m pretty sure he’s the person that people would miss the least. I don’t think anyone likes him, and he’s never gone out of his way to make friends with any of us. I’m not even sure he has friends.

That choice seems so easy, and yet I know that the logic is flawed and cruel. Just vote away the people that nobody likes. Nobody will miss them. It’ll be fine.

But being unlikeable didn’t mean you weren’t worthless. Nazka was second-in-command for a reason. He was capable, competent, loyal, and efficient. If I voted him away, Tenji would lose her right-hand man. CURSE would suffer from his loss; perhaps not in a major way, but it would not be easy to replace him.

Yet what was the alternative? Vote away one of the others because they were theoretically less valuable than upper management? Ironfist, Surge, and Headache were all good people. And I wasn’t going to vote away Whisper. That left only Gossamer, but that was Nazka all over again: just because she was aloof and snobby didn’t mean that she deserved to be sacrificed.

After a long moment of thinking, I turn slightly, looking back at the colossus. “Are we… allowed to vote for ourselves?” I ask hesitantly. “Either to preserve or sacrifice?”

Her orange eyes linger heavy on me for a long moment before answering. “Yes.”

I nod quietly. “Okay.” After sitting for another few moments, carefully considering the decisions I’m about to make, and the consequences they could have, I go on. “I’m ready to make my decisions.”

“Go on.”

“I would like to preserve Kwyn.” I say, pausing afterwards, my voice sticking as I fight with the next words. “…and I would like to sacrifice myself.”

The colossus does not respond right away. “You realize what will happen if no one votes to preserve you, correct?”

I don’t look back at her. “Yes. I know.”

“You put much faith in your peers.”

“No, it’s just that…” I search for the words. “…I cannot ask someone else to make a sacrifice that I would not make myself. And though I dislike some of them, none of them really deserve to die. Not for something like this.”

“You are firm on your decisions? Once they are made, you cannot take them back.”

I hesitate for a moment. A last chance, to change my mind, to take it back…

“Yes.” I say quietly. “Those are my decisions.”

Her other hand comes up soon afterwards, and I cringe down a little as it folds over top the other one, effectively cupping me within her hands and cutting me off from the ring of shadows that we were a part of. I find myself in the void once more, surrounded by flat, dimensionless darkness in every direction, but still able to see my body as clearly as day.

“I am known as Nocturne.” The voice comes from behind me, and I twist around to see the colossus there — except she’s no longer a colossus, and no longer rendered in shades of stone-grey. She stands in the void, a touch shorter than I am, wreathed in a cloak that starts sapphire at the shoulders and slowly gradates to a pale, glacier blue at the hem. Her well-managed mane cascades down her shoulders, in blizzard-white tones that remind me of Kwyn. The eyes are no longer orange; instead they are a dark green, with little viridian sparks swirling around in her irises. “I am known as many things, but for our purposes, I am the keeper of the Sparks in the absence of the one that created them. Hold out your hand.”

I’m hesitant, but I lift out a hand to offer to her. “I’m still here; does this mean someone else voted to preserve me…?”

“Yes. Do not ask who; I will not tell you. If they wish to disclose that to you, then they will tell you.” she says as she takes my hand, her cloak parting as her slender fingers grip mine. They are soft, and yet uncomfortably strong; I can feel the strength of aeons in these hands. These are hands that can shape worlds and form stars; hands that, if they squeezed just a bit too hard, could instantly reduce me to dust. It makes me nervous as she runs her fingertips along the insides of my fingers, down into my palm, where her thumb presses down into my skin — and my veins start to glow with orange light that makes its way across my hand and down the veins in my arm.

The beginnings of alarm start to go through me as the orange light continues to travel through my circulatory system. “Wait— what are you doing?” I demand, tugging my arm back on instinct, but finding that her grip on my hand is quite unbreakable.

“Do not ask questions you already know the answers to.” she orders, those swirling irises finding mine and locking onto me. “Feigned ignorance is attractive to no one, and is especially irksome to hypernaturals.”

That doesn’t comfort me any, and I can only watch in apprehension as the glow works its way up the veins in my upper arm, then along my shoulder and starting across my chest. Whatever it is, it feels warm, not uncomfortably so, but it’s still unnerving. And then it reaches my heart—

My mind explodes in a starbust of tangerine brilliance.

I feel myself swept out across the cosmos, far away from where I am now. I can see the vast expanse of the galaxy, its spiral arms and its many filaments of interstellar gas, peppered with stars and planets, like so many grains of sand in a cosmic garden. I can sense the many billions upon trillions upon quadrillions of lives in that garden, both sentient and non-sentient; and among them, I can feel others like myself, just a select few, filled with a certain light. There’s a girl with a shovel, leaving a violet trail as she wanders from system to system; there’s a woman filled with crimson light, and then Jackrabbit, giving off a citrine glow. And then, beyond all of them, there’s someone giving off a lightning-blue brilliance, an overflowing presence that’s difficult to even look at…

Songbird.

And in the moment I recognize him, I realize that the others can also sense me. I can feel all of them stop what they’re doing, and turn in my direction, and in that moment I panic; I want to disappear—

And them I’m back in my body, in the void, collapsed to my knees and gasping at Nocturne’s feet.

“It is done.” she states without inflection; an expression of fact and nothing more. “How you use it now at your discretion. Many will tell you how to use it, or ask you to use it on their behalf, or even to yield it to them. But in the end, only you, and the Spark itself, can decide when and how it will be wielded, and when to pass it on to another.”

I clutch a hand to my chest, still gasping for breath as I look up at her, only to find that she has turned and is walking away. “Wait! Don’t go! I don’t know how to use this, I— why me? Why did you pick me?”

She pauses at that, only looking ever so slightly over her shoulder. She’s impossible to read — each time she’s looked at me, I can see nothing mortal in those eyes. Though she looks human, her eyes give away that she’s something else, something ancient and beyond the grasp of mortals. And yet, despite this, she still has the grace to answer my desperate, fumbling questions.

“The others all chose to sacrifice someone else.” she says. “You were the only one that chose to sacrifice yourself.”

She allows that a moment to sink in, then turns and begins walking again, pulling the hood of her cloak back over her head as she goes. She starts to shrink with the distance, and fades into the dark before I can say anything else; then I am alone in the void once more, left with more questions than I have answers for. In her absence, all I can do is look down and pull my hand away from my chest.

Beneath it is a muted orange glow, like a coal at the bottom of a fire.

Event Log: Darrow Bennion

Chibundi: F.I.R.E. Expedition Site

12:56pm SGT

When I open my eyes again, it’s to find that I’m lying on my back.

My field of vision is restricted, and it takes me a moment to realize that I’m back in the Axiom suit again, and what I’m seeing are the edges of my visor. Above me, I can see the dig site’s excavation crane framed by the blue gas giant dominating the sky behind it, and I realize that I must be lying on the floor of the dig. I don’t remember walking back up here — the last thing I recall is watching Nocturne fade into the void. And then opening my eyes, and finding myself here.

I push myself up on my elbows, grimacing as I hear the plates of my suit grind along the rubble on the dig’s floor. Through the comms, I can hear groans and mutters over the shared channel with the rest of the Peacekeepers; looking around, I can see many of the others sitting up, just the same as I am. I start checking off names in my head as more of them get up, worried at first that I’ll come up short — then relaxing when I realize everyone’s here.

“Right, so… I’m not the only one that just went through that, right?” Surge grunts, shaking his head back and forth.

“If you mean getting stripped of all your gear and then being forced to play some sick morality game while buck naked, then no, you’re not the only one.” Gossamer growls as she stands up.

“It… was a game, right?” Headache asks hesitantly, her helm swiveling around. “I thought it was real. Is everyone here and accounted for?”

“Not a game. A test.” Nazka says from where he’s helping Tenji to her feet. “One that I presume most of us failed with flying colors. I was certainly told as much by the entity that was administering it.”

“At least it was just a test.” Ironfist says, lumbering over to Whisper to offer a hand out to her. “I’m glad the choices we were presented with turned out to be hypotheticals. Having to make those choices was rather distressing.”

“Are you alright?” I ask as I lean over to help Kwyn back to her feet.

“Yeah, I’m… fine.” she says as she uses my arm to pull herself upright. Through her helm’s glass faceplate, I can see her brows are drawn together, and I know something is bothering her. But I don’t imagine it’s something she wants to talk about while the others are here.

“So, who ended up with the Spark, then?” Surge asks, looking around at the rest of us. “ ‘Cause I can tell you it wasn’t me. As neat as that would’ve been.”

“Not me.” Headache sighs. “But after having to go through all that, I should hope that one of us got it.”

A sense of dread starts to creep up on me as I realize that if the others admit that they weren’t given the Spark, eventually it’s going to narrow down to me. And I don’t know why that fills me with dread, but the idea of everyone knowing that I have a Spark now… it immediately brings back Nocturne’s words, plasters them all over my mind.

How you use it now at your discretion. Many will tell you how to use it, or ask you to use it on their behalf, or even to yield it to them.

I realize I’m scared of everyone knowing I have power, and expecting me to use it when I don’t even fully understand what it is I’ve been given.

“Unfortunately, I did not receive the Spark either.” Ironfist admits.

“We can discuss who got the Spark, if anyone even got it at all, later.” Tenji says before anyone else can speak up. “We did what we came here to do; now we need to get back to our ships and start prepping for our ambush on the Valiant Project. Let’s move.” With that, she’s marching back towards the ropes we used to descend into the dig.

“Just as well, I guess.” Surge remarks with a shrug, following Tenji. “I don’t even know what a Spark is, so I wouldn’t even know what to do with it even if I did get it.”

“Same.” Headache agrees, then looks towards me and Kwyn. “You two coming?”

“Yeah, we’re coming.” Kwyn says quickly, then looks at me. “You’re okay?”

I give a shrug. “As okay as I can be after something like that.” Noticing Whisper’s still staring back at one of the dark tunnels, I lumber over to her. “You ready to go?” I ask her.

“Yeah.” Whisper says, quickly turning away and starting after Kwyn. “Hope we never have to come here again.”

Clearly something about the experience bothered her, and for a moment I consider asking her. But I decide against it, since we’re on a public channel right now. It’s just something I’ll have to follow up with later. Given how quiet most of us are, I think it shook everyone up a little bit, and it’s gonna take a while to process through it. I know that’ll be the case for me, at the very least.

I start to follow after the others, but pause a last time to look over my shoulder at the tunnel that Whisper was staring at. It’s dark as it was when we first came down here, but as I keep staring, I could almost swear there’s someone in a cloak, standing just beyond the border of the shadow. I don’t see anything, but it’s something I can sense, something I know is there, just beyond the edge of perception.

Feeling unsettled, I force myself to turn away and follow the others back to the ropes.

Event Log: Darrow Bennion

C.V. Justice: Officer Quarters

4:53pm SGT

You were the only one that chose to sacrifice yourself.

The words bounce back and forth in my head as I lie on my bed in the officer quarters aboard the Justice. While the room isn’t large as the one I have at the HQ — it’s actually only a quarter of that size — it’s still a decent size, as far as ship quarters go. There’s enough room for a large bed, a desk, and pacing around in the floor space that remains. Though it’d be cramped by planetside standards, it’s practically the lap of luxury when compared with the tube bunks that the rank-and-file crew are assigned to.

The others all chose to sacrifice someone else.

Since arriving back to the ship, most of our official business had been writing up after-action reports and coordinating our forward plans. Tenji, Ironfist, Headache, and Surge had all left on the Equalizer, which was headed back to the HQ, while the rest of us stayed aboard the Justice, which would continue into the Vorcrueshen to ambush the Valiant Project. It was only in the last thirty minutes or so that I’d finally had a chance to retreat to my quarters and relax — well, as much as one could expect to relax after an afternoon like the one we had.

I knew dinner would be soon, but I was disinclined to go to the mess hall, and was probably going to take advantage of the officer privilege of ordering dinner delivered to my room. After today, there was just too much going through my head, too much to deal with, to have to put up with other people’s questions or conversations. And the best way to avoid that was simply staying where people couldn’t reach you or bother you. It was a fairly straightforward plan, and I figured it would be relatively foolproof.

But the dreaded knock on my door dismantles that illusion.

I remain silent, hoping that by doing so, whoever’s outside will go away. Perhaps if I’m quiet, they’ll think I’m not here, or that I’m sleeping. But then they knock again, and after another thirty seconds, they knock harder and longer, followed by Whisper’s voice, muffled through the door. “I know you’re in there, Dare! Open up or I’m going find a ventilation shaft that leads to your room.”

I sigh. “System, open door.” With that, the deadbolts retract, and the door spirals open, letting Whisper in and closing behind her. “What’s up?”

“Aside from that bullshit we went through down on Chibundi?” she says as she sulks her way over to my bed. “Not much, I guess.” She concludes by spinning in place and falling backwards on my bed. “The whole thing was stupid and I don’t even know what it was all for. Getting the Spark, obviously, but we didn’t even find out who it was given to. And everyone that said they didn’t get the Spark, Tenji decided to take them with her back to the HQ. Did you notice that?”

“Not at first, but now that you mention it…” I say. “Judging by the way you’re talking about it, you didn’t get the Spark either.”

Whisper snorts. “Yeah no, the stone lady made it pretty obvious that I wasn’t cut out for it. Bitch.”

“Your conversation with her didn’t go too well?” I guess.

“I gave her a piece of my mind. I don’t think she liked that.” Whisper mutters, rolling on her side so she can face towards me. “What about you? You’ve been real quiet since we came back. Although the others have been the same way, I guess.”

“It’s just been a lot to process and absorb.” I say, lacing my fingers together over my chest. “I know now that it was just a test, but at the time, I thought whoever I chose to sacrifice would actually die. Trying to make that choice… wasn’t easy.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Whisper says, picking idly at a loose thread in my blanket. “Who’d you… pick? I mean, if you want to tell me.”

I press my lips together, thinking about that. “…promise you won’t judge me?” I ask.

“Actually, let me guess first. Because I think I know, but I want to see if I’m right.” she says. “You chose to preserve Kwyn, didn’t you?”

I give a little nod.

“I figured.” she smiles, going back to picking at the loose thread. “My next guess would’ve been that you chose to preserve the Administrator.”

“It came down to you and Kwyn, actually.” I admit. “I figured that no one would choose to sacrifice the Administrator, so she wouldn’t need my preservation vote. I was worried about Kwyn because she was the least experienced out of all of us, so some might choose to cut her loose instead of someone else.”

“That’s sweet of you.” she says, pulling her legs up onto the bed so she can curl up. “Who did you choose to sacrifice?”

“Myself.” I say, staring at the ceiling. “I couldn’t push myself to choose any of the others, even if I didn’t like some of them. It just didn’t feel right; even if a couple of them are jerks, that shouldn’t be punishable by death. So I picked myself instead.” I look down at her now. “What about you?”

Whisper’s mouth is hanging open a little. “Wait, you could pick yourself? I didn’t know that!”

“Yeah, I didn’t know that until I asked Nocturne.” I explain. “She told me we were allowed to vote for ourselves, either to preserve or sacrifice. But I think she didn’t let us know that up front because she wanted to see how we’d handle being told we could save one person and sacrifice another.”

“Well shit.” Whisper mutters. “If I’d known that…”

“It would’ve changed the choices you made?” I guess.

“I… maybe. I don’t know.” she says, shuffling on the bed so she can rest her head on my leg like it’s a pillow. “I just feel embarrassed that it never occurred to me. Ashamed, I guess.”

“Well, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. You can’t make a choice you didn’t know you had.” I point out. “And it’s not like any of us were told that was an option from the start. You had to ask in order to find out it was even an option.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t even think to ask. I just assumed that the choices we were given were the only ones we had.” she sighs. “Now I feel bad. I would’ve thrown someone under the bus, while you’re out here being selfless and offering to sacrifice yourself.”

“You were just doing the best you could with what you thought you had.” I say. “Besides, it’s not all bad. Yeah, you voted to sacrifice someone, but you also voted to save someone. It balances out.”

“I guess.” she says, not sounding entirely convinced. “Who do you think ended up with the Spark? I’m putting my money on Kwyn. There’s no way that Nazka or Gossamer got it.”

I hesitate. It’s a decision I have to make on a split second; I don’t have time to really think about it, and the decision I make is that I’m not ready yet. “Yeah, Kwyn seems pretty likely. Have you had a chance to talk to her since we got back?”

“Nah. She got her orders, wrote up her report, then went to her quarters, like you.”

“Probably needs some time to figure things out.” I say, feeling a little guilty about not telling Whisper. But I need time; time to figure out what happened to me, what I’m carrying now, what I’m going to do about it. Even now, my encounter with Nocturne is starting to feel like a distant dream, and I’m not even sure it happened, or that I was, in fact, given the Spark. I haven’t noticed anything different about myself since I got back, no powers, no sudden understanding of the universe, nothing. Maybe it was all a hallucination, and I just imagined it.

“How do you feel about our next assignment?” Whisper asks. “You think we can finally take down the rogue Challengers and put an end to this? We’ll have a Spark of our own this time. Songbird and Jackrabbit aren’t going to be able to roll us the way they’ve done in our past encounters.”

I take a deep breath. “We’re coming in with the advantage. They don’t know we’re coming, we’ve got someone on the Dussel Mercforce that’ll help close the trap behind them, and we have a numbers and equipment advantage. The only wild cards are Songbird and Jackrabbit.”

“Yeah, but it’s way stacked in our favor. There’s no way we can lose this time around. We’ve got Nazka and Kwyn, and the Valiant have nothing like them. Plus Prophet can bring the pain, even if he is a religious extremist with a regressive ideology.” Whisper points out, her iceberg-blue eyes fixed on me.

“Yeah. True.” I admit, unlacing my fingers. “You never know, though. I mean, Songbird killed Nova, so… I’m going in cautious, even if we’ve got the advantage.”

Whisper purses her lips at that. “We need to win. We have to win.” she says, though it sounds more like she’s saying it to herself rather than to me. “If we don’t put a stop to this soon, we’ll never be able to stop it.”

“What makes you say that?” I ask. “They don’t have the resources we have, or the manpower, or the connections… they can’t possibly outlast us.”

“I just feel it.” Whisper shrugs. “You mind if I sleep in your room tonight? I don’t want to be alone after the way today went.”

I sigh. “You know what people are gonna say…”

“It’ll be in my cat form! Promise!” she says quickly. “Nothing compromising. Just cozy naptimes, that’s all.”

“People are still gonna talk!” I protest. “It’s not like anyone knows what goes on in here; all they’re going to know is that you spent the night in my room, not that you were a cat for most of it.”

“Pleeeaaaase?” Whisper wheedles, clasping her hands together and giving me the begging eyes.

I try to stare her down, but I can’t win, and end up rolling my eyes. “Fine. But you know the rules.”

“Yes!” Almost immediately, she’s morphed into a small black cat, stretching out luxuriously along my side. Resigning myself to the particular fate of having a smaller interloper in my bed for the night, I shuffle a bit and get comfortable, positioning my arm where I can scratch underneath Whisper’s chin and poke at her paws every now and then. As she starts purring against my side, I go back to staring at the ceiling of my quarters, and thinking about our Nocturne’s admonitions.

You are firm on your decisions? Once they are made, you cannot take them back.

Lying here now, saddled with a power that I didn’t understand and didn’t know how to use, I was beginning to wish I could take back the decisions that gave me this burden.