"What do you have to say for yourself, Savant?" The thoughts of Resiliator Asalamir were projected with such force of will that his target could not help but let out a mental cringe. The Resiliator's emotions were past anger at this point - it was hatred. Clear, stark, merciless hatred. "You have slain your brothers, inspired traitors, and what you have done this night has quite possibly endangered the entire planet's population. What could you possibly have to say that would excuse your abominable actions?"

His feelings were palpable, and of the Resiliator had his way, they would be the last thing he felt - aside from a Psi Blade in his chest cavity. "Nothing I say will clear my name, Asalamir, nor will it excuse my actions. But hear my words regardless." The Savant was barely two-hundred cycles old, yet he felt as ancient as the Exarch whose forces now surrounded him. His thoughts congealed, and the Savant sought to defragment them. "It is my faith that has incurred your wrath. You have dealt with usurpers, uprisings, and rebellions before, but mine is different."

Asalamir's eyes burned white-blue with fury. "You are no different from the rest, Daesalos! You are a traitor, and a fiend. Your despicable nature does little to set you apart from those who preceded your dastardly occupation!" The Resiliator stepped closer. "Rastal had quelled life on six worlds before his life was claimed. Before him, the Temtalon faction destroyed an entire planet using an artificial singularity. The Moonrisers, the Tal-horus Collective, Ulrezaj, the events at Taltamör, even the ungodly joining of Executor Sri-Kahn and Cerebrate Urun. I have battled these foes. You are nothing compared to them. The only thing you shall share with them is their fate."

"I must speak first!" The Savant's thought was strong, despite the adversity he faced. "If you will not spare my life, a prospect you indeed have no business doing, at least hear my last words before you hear my death throes." The Resiliator's eyes burned hotter, but he made no motion to strike, and Daesalos began to speak once more. "You are correct, Asalamir. I am of little stature compared to the rebellions and insurgencies of those menaces who precede me. But I know why I fought." Daesalos stared into the white-blue eyes of Asalamir, no longer feeling the need to flee, no longer fearing for his life should it end. "I fought for a cause I truly believed in. I believed that our Conclave has failed us, and I sought to form a new enclave, to better serve our people. This is my cause." Daesalos stepped back slightly, standing as straight as his injuries would allow. "You have heard my thoughts. Now, strike me down. End my insurgency. Write it to the archives if you see fit to." His eyes grew colder. "My time has come."

The Resiliator's psi blade powered up, the ever-burning energy contrasting starkly with the quiet, rolling waves of the planet's dark ocean, and even more so with the soft rain that fell from the heavens. The only thing the burning energies didn't contrast with was Asalamir's visage. Truly, the psi weapon was as powerful and strong as the one who wielded it. "Your soul will depart now. Embrace the void as you should have your life, Daesalos." Asalamir's arm wound back slowly.

The Savant met his murderer's gaze without hesitation. "Adun be with you, Asalamir."

As the Resiliator's blade impacted with the Zealot cuirass, he felt a strange sensation wash over his body. Every muscle tensed in anticipation of a psionic attack, and his mind instantly fortified itself against mental barrages, but as his vision warped and transfigured it became obvious that what was happening had little to do with psionics. The Savant disintegrated into the white darkness, the emptiness that now surrounded him, and he felt a sense of cryosis as his form became despondent and his surroundings dissipated.

His blade found a foe and sank within its armour and tissue, and as Asalamir's vision returned to him, his senses screamed out in agony.

It was cold. And he had just killed a Terran.

The unfortunate victim of Asalamir's blade sank to the ground, his blood staining the snow-covered earth beneath him, as the other men steadied their rifles in confusion. "Protoss?! What the hell just happened?" One shouted and frantically looked about. Another snapped his visor down and took aim. "Man down! Open fire!"

The Zealots of his company made short work of the Terran squad, but both parties had been confused. As Asalamir, in a daze, stared up at the snow slowly falling from the cold heavens above, he couldn't help but wonder at his fate.

"Where... are we?"

Lol at first i was reading it i thought it was about a rich person... than read Psi blade and then it started to peak my interest. Overall good writing but it started a little slow for me.

cool, is there more?

Chaos rippled through the dreamworld - a never-ending storm, an onslaught of fears, and spine-tingling emotions, and oblivion. Purgation. Persecution. Perdition. Death by fire. These roiling waves of endless flames rose, crashed, sank, and rose once more within the mind of this human. He was alive.

He was restless.

And now, as the alarms in his complex blared unforgivingly and unmercifully loud, Nathan Pollos was awake, and painfully aware of the circumstances of the early-morning disruption. The beleaguered sergeant rubbed fatigue and dreams from his electric-blue eyes, trying to fathom why he was still stationed at this backwater station on the icy wasteland that had been his home for the past six years.

Nathan quickly arose from his vulnerable position and tossed the heat blankets off, throwing his legs over the edge of his cot and beginning to strap on the old pair of workboots. The soldier had no doubt in his mind that he'd soon be marching out into the cold wastes, suited up in full armour, but Nathan wasn't about to sacrifice his already-finite source of comfort for anything.

"Never a dull moment."

But with those old, cold wastes came unparalleled beauty. Every moonset - and there were many a day - cast a wondrous lighting across the ice, each one brighter than the last until all nine moons had vanished into the empty darkness of space. It was only then that you found yourself so very alone, and found the world around you so very cold. The winds would begin to stir, the natural light would be extinguished, and, in all likelihood, you wouldn't see until the moons once again began reflecting the distant sun's light again - which took approximately twenty-seven hours.

Nathan departed his quarters swiftly, the iron-grey automatic doors closing and locking eerily behind him. The hallway was dark, and silent. A musty smell permeated both the long passageway and the soldier's weary mind alike, causing him to sneeze twice while on his walk through the hall. "Fuckin' ventilation must have been too much to ask." He coughed, and tasted the stomach-churning buildup that occurred during sleep. "God, damnit. Speaking of ventilation..." Nathan mused as he continued down the hall, passing doors to other quarters. "I need a smoke." The door at the other end of the passageway swung open and granted the sergeant access while he contemplated lighting a cigar while his CO briefed him. Sure-fire way to get in trouble with the boss, anyway. I wouldn't have to do a lot of physical work for a while... Nathan's foolish grin was short-lived as he shook his head, losing the idea of such an impudent action as he did so.

The sergeant's pace picked up when his eyes darted from one side of the central room to the other, finding no men or women at all. "Must be in briefing already..." Despite himself, the soldier's heart rate went up, and he passed through two more sets of doors without so much as glancing at anything that wasn't dead-centre in front of him before he came across his fellow soldiers - and his CO. The officer was a fairly tall and fairly bulky man of six-foot three inches and two-hundred and forty pounds, Lieutenant Major James Glasgow - known mostly for the infamous meaning behind his last name and his borderline-unreasonable requests of his men - stood tall, presiding over a miced podium that he used to address the two-hundred-something battalion stationed on this ice rock. There were a few other installations scattered about, but Fort Blur was the most notable, albeit not the most populous.

The officer gave Nathan a rather cold stare as he entered the briefing room before returning his gaze to the cameras that would soon begin broadcasting his briefing across all coms. As the sergeant filed in, he caught an attentive glare from Staff Sergeant Matthew Boore. Any glares from the staff sergeant generally meant something along the lines of, "If we aren't getting sent out on a mission, you're going to get it. And if we are going on a mission, you're gonna get it when we get back."

The very thought of that caused Nathan to groan inwardly. He knew that "it" happened to be the staff sergeant's constant, unending, inane berating of every little mistake his men made. It got old, and fast. Hell, I'd rather be outside fighting than inside hearing this asshole's drivel...

Nathan didn't appreciate the chain of command - especially when he wasn't on the top - but what the lieutenant major had to say was nothing of the ordinary...

"Our forces have come under attack."

Incredible. Insatiable. Incorrect.

You are incorrect.

As the two belligerents of a conflict sparked by neither participants gathered on the icy ravine, the universe opened and simultaneously closed itself upon the overlooking plateau - a desolate, frozen plain indistinguishable from the others that surrounded it. Every fibre of the plateau; every ridge, very snowflake, every ice-smothered blade of grass, was visually echoed as the rift bounced itself off of the icy wasteland. This was Rifter energy. The shift spawned from a universal darkness a horde of beasts, confused and self-ravaging in their sudden change of environment. Amongst the ferocious creatures and their dens that had been dragged along with them, a certain Dark Templar and Zerg Hydralisk assessed their situation with confusion and stark terror in their minds.

Yes, the dimensional shift that had rupture time and space had brought an entire Hive Cluster to the planet , but this fraction of a brood had been left dazed by their transmigration. Nathan cursed and oathed in fear and confusion, stepping back from his position, and Asalamir sank back to his forces slowly' equally unsure of how he should proceed. The Dark Templar known as Mikul'das and the Hydralisk known as Zuptiil had joined the fray, and now posed a great threat to all on this icy wasteland of a planet. As the former, the Protoss, turned his attention to the Terran forces that had begun regrouping in the wake of his own arrival, his Zerg counterpart addressed him through his unnervingly-accurate psionic language.

"Our brood is adjusting to the climate, but some damage has been done. Half of our cluster has been left behind, and some of our structures have taken adversely to the polar differences here. Truly, this world is absolutely nothing like Asaro..." The Zerg's thoughts were sensible, and normally, they would be responded to in kind - but this time, Mikul'das was not quite himself. "Your brain processes escape me, dark one. I am quite bereft of any such sensibilities. Have you even comprehended that we were in a system that had no ice worlds? We could be halfway across the galaxy right now and have no knowledge of it. Where are we, Zuptiil? By the very essence of Zuhl, how did we get here?"

His question would remain unanswered as a pair of Scouts flew overhead, firing missiles at an unlucky Overlord who would soon be very, very close to the frozen earth below. Zuptiil projected a quick, snappy response while simultaneously ordering his brood to react. "We will have no time to answer these questions if we don't secure our cluster and do away with any threats! To arms, dark one, and focus your psionic might on the enemy as you would a son of the Conclave!"

Battle had been joined, and with that, there was no turning back. Events had been set in motion that would propel these the four battle commanders across the chasms of life and live; there was no agenda to keep to, no outline or plan overarching above their heads. The pure anarchy that now existed within the Koprulu Sector would soon escalate and turn the galaxy inside out... or disintegrate it entirely.

To the end.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 12 2011, 6:09 am by Pr0nogo.