OT: Hell is For Heroes.

[Puke]

pick the one on the right!

[AgentZero]

I was afraid you'd say that

[AgentZero]

Bring Us More Pie!

A champagne cork ricocheted off the roof and landed neatly in someone's outstretched glass. The room erupted into peals of drunken laughter as the victim of fate tried vainly to fish the bobbing cork out from his glass, his impaired co-ordination causing him to mostly spill wine all over himself. His antics drew more and more laughter until finally, a well aimed cork popped him square in the nose and he toppled to the ground. A brief silence descended upon the room, but only lasted as long as the first snort of poorly contained laughter. The unlucky man finally pulled himself to his feet, grabbed a bottle off the table and held it aloft.
“To success!” he declared loudly. “Beyond our wildest expectations!”
The cheers were punctuated by the sound of more corks popping as the champagne flowed liberally. The happy, drunken conversation ebbed slightly as the doors opened, then loud cheers erupted once again as a tall, stunningly beautiful young woman entered the room. She wore a full length white trench coat wrapped tightly around her that accentuated the curve of her breasts and hips magnificently, black gloves and matching black boots. Her olive skin offset her light blonde hair, and none were able to look away from her large, strikingly blue eyes. She entered the room confidently, with a sensuous sway to her hips, made her way to the table at the centre of the room and stepped up onto it.
“Gentlemen,” she purred softly. “If you will be so kind as to be seated, the... entertainment will begin.”
In all the years that they had been meeting, never had they assembled at the table so quickly as they did now, staring upwards with eager faces, smiling puppy dog smiles at her as her lips curved gently upwards. As soon as they were all seated, she began to move, swaying her hips slowly in rhythm to unheard music. She began to move faster and faster, her movements smooth and confident, graceful. Suddenly, she flung open her trench coat, and her audience gasped at the sight of two automatic plasma bolters strapped to her chest. Smiling broadly, she drew the bolters from their holsters, held them above her head and began to slowly gyrate her hips as she lowered herself almost to her knees, then raised herself up again, then began to move slowly downwards again. There was a smattering of applause as the audience recognized the bit: They were dangerous men, they enjoyed danger, and having their stripper armed just made the show that much more exciting. On her way back up again, she paused, threw her pistols into the air, let her trench coat slide to the ground and caught the guns again easily to another smattering of applause. No sooner were the weapons back in her hands than she suddenly launched herself high into the air, flipping head over heels and rotating around her centre axis at the same time. Her plasma bolters snarled viciously, and when her feet again touched down at the table, all those around it were dead, save the one at the head of the table, who found himself looking down a red hot barrel. His eyes slowly moved up to face the beautiful assassin, and his lips managed to form the words, “Why?”
The killer smiled charmingly back at him, and as she did so, her hair blackened, her dark skin paled to white and her liquid blue eyes decayed to the deepest shade of black.
“You know why,” she whispered. “Bastard.” And with that, she fired a single round into his heart, hopped off the table and strode out of the room.
The man known only as One watched her go, paralyzed from the shock of being shot, knowing he was dying, and knowing just as well that there was nothing that could be done about it. At first, he wondered if it was his dying mind playing tricks on him, but it soon became apparent that the table before him was indeed twisting and deforming itself, spilling plates and glasses and bottles onto the laps of those seated around it, except for one untouched glass of champagne that managed to stay upright as the table went through all manner of contortions, eventually resolving itself into the figure of a man, holding the glass of wine in one hand. One stared in wonderment at this apparition that stood before him, the face that most had attained legendary, almost mythological significance amongst the organization.
“Zero,” whispered One. “You're real... You're here... You're-”
“Terribly disappointed,” interrupted the other, sipping gently at the champagne. “I look around me and what do I see? Nothing but failure. The grand organization I brought into being reduced to nothing by it's own incompetence.”
“Not... our... fault...” whispered One. “Even we... cannot stop... a Deathchild.”
“No,” agreed Zero solemnly. “But I wouldn't have expected you to. I would, however, have expected you to avoid giving a Deathchild good cause for vengeance.” He shook his head sadly. “It's my own fault, really. I stood idly by and watched as you all drifted away from my teachings, as you became so blinded by your own greed and petty concerns that when the object of your entire existence was revealed, you couldn't even see it for what it was, instead branding a threat. You were supposed to protect her,” he hissed, then paused and took a good look at One. “Of course, you're not listening to a word I'm saying, seeing as you're dead and all, which is a terrible pity, really. You see, now there's no one left for me to share the delightful irony of this whole situation with.” He sighed softly. “I suppose I could always catch up with the Deathchild, I'm sure she'd appreciate the irony. Yes,” he said, taking a deep draught of champagne. “I'm sure she would appreciate it indeed.”

[dogscoff]

LOL! Nice one. It closes everything neatly, but at the same time opens up so many more questions.

Thanks AZ, I'm still smiling from that.

[Puke]

mmm... pie.

i dont quite feel wrapped up yet, though. it isnt revealed who the attacking fleets are, unless i just havent been paying attention. nor does it really explain what the purpose of our ex-supergirl was. again, unless i havent been paying attention.

I think this is just the prelude to the wrap up.

[TurinTurambar]

It can't be wrapped up:

She handed the pad to McArthur, and stood in silence as he read the report. As he reached the end, his eyes jumped ahead to a single word, the only word, really, that the report needed to contain.
“No...” he whispered.
Gomez nodded. “It's confirmed, sir. They're back.”

[AgentZero]

You were saying....



Kaelan O'Shea stared at his bedside monitor in disbelief. Barely half an hour ago, he'd received a brief, terse message from Saraea telling him that Kagan and Alice were dead, and now this. He shook his head and squinted at the screen, convinced what he was seeing was a trick of the eye, a sick joke, anything but true. But all the authentication codes checked out fine, no matter how unbelievable the news was, there was no questioning the authenticity of the message. Kaelan reached for the the glass sitting on his bedside table, and, finding it empty, cursed loudly and pushed himself out of bed in search of something with which to fill it. The message had been sent by a pretty, young comms officer aboard Admiral McArthur's command station. It was a copy of a dispatch being sent all over the fleet, but what was contained within it was-
“Hey...” The prone figure in his bed stirred sleepily. The petite brunette he'd picked up on his last port of call sat up on the bed and stared at him drowsily. “What's wrong?” she asked, noticing the expression on his face.
“End of the feckin world,” Kaelan replied, waving a hand at the bedside monitor.
“Can I look?” she asked.
“Yeah, work away,” he replied, trying to remember her name. Karen? Kelly? Kaelan? Yeah, that sounded familiar. Oh... Right. He groaned softly at the load taxing his mind and tried vainly to push his eyeballs further back into his head. He wandered out of the bedroom and stumbled over a bottle of scotch.
“Well look at you!” he declared happily, scooping it up off the ground and holding it up to eye level. “Thought you were getting away did ya? Back inside with ye!”
He marched back into the bedroom triumphantly to find Katherine? Kristin. Yes! That was it! Kristin was curled up in a tight ball, staring fearfully at the monitor.
“It can't be,” she whispered tearful. “Not again, it can't be.”
“Aye, but it is,” Kaelan said, pouring two large glasses of scotch. “So drink up and enjoy yourself, for only the Nine Whores know how much longer it'll last.
The girl took a glass with a shaky hand and drank deeply as Kaelan settled himself in beside her to run through the dispatch again. It started out with a thin line of text stating that the old enemy, that which had nearly wiped out the Second Dynasty, that which was supposedly exterminated, had returned. Following that eye-catching proclamation, there were several pages of sensor analysis, comparing recent scans of ships that had been attacking the Imperium all across it's borders to scans taken thousands of years ago, and if that wasn't enough to satisfy the reader, it ended with footage from a battle showing a gutted ship spewing bodies out into space, and whoever had taken the footage had managed to get a good clean shot of the faces of those being sucked out. One look at one of those skull-like, demonic faces was all Kaelan needed to convince him beyond a shadow of a doubt. That horrific visage was burned into the minds of all school children as the personification of all that was truly evil.
“What are we going to do?” asked Kristin, interrupting his musings.
“Well,” Kaelan said slowly. “We are first going to get very, very drunk. Then, when we wake up, we're going to stop off at the nearest spaceport, buy up a lifetimes worth of supplies, and get the bloody hell out of Terran space.”
“Where will we go?”
“Doesn't much matter,” he replied. “The Second Dynasty barely survived the last invasion and they were thousands of years ahead of us. The Imperium doesn't stand a chance, that report says as much, so the further away we get from here, the better.”
The following morning, Kaelan awoke to find himself on the bridge to the sound of a console beeping. He pushed himself out of the command chair, and stumbled over to the source of the noise, only to find that it was the communications terminal with a message confirming that all supplies had been loaded, and he was cleared to depart. With a fuzzy minded scowl, he looked over the manifest of cargo that had been transferred onto his ship. Several lifetimes worth of fine food, drink and medical supplies now filled his cargo hold. He scratched his head blearily and was still trying to figure out how this had all happened when Kristin strolled casually onto the bridge.
“You decided there was no time like the present after your third bottle,” she informed him after taking one look at the confused expression on his face. “So you came up here, sorted everything out, and passed out as soon as they told you it'd take seven hours to prepare everything and get it loaded.”
“Oh,” he said slowly. “Well, in that case, is there anything you want before we go?”
Kristin, a social outcast and only child to deceased parents, shook her head. “No,” she said softly. “I'm all done here.”
Kaelan reflected for a moment, then decided, “Me too.”
With that, he brought the ship into the air, rising higher faster and faster, blazing through the nighttime sky until they broke free of the atmosphere, and soon after, broke free of the constraints of normal space and into the limitless freedom of null-space.