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Post by Belle Starr on Dec 14, 2015 20:28:19 GMT
CHAPTER ONE: Otherwhere  Lady Christianna once saw as a child a cartoon where the wolf-like villain was tricked into jumping into an old fashioned clothes dryer. It then spun and spun until the villain was merely a swirl of primary colors. As a child, Lady had thought the situation hilarious, but even then had two thoughts: First, she wondered why the colors didn't end up as one big brown smear, as they did when she mixed all the primary colors on her artist's palette at elementary school; and second, she wondered if the wolf felt any pain. Lady perceived her current situation as being like the wolf's for all her mind's eye saw was swirling primary colors, but thought she now knew the answer to the second question. After Lady was drawn into the interior world of the singularity bomb, she saw the swirl of primary colors and felt only a somewhat pleasant twirling sensation. She was surprised she felt no pain, for she always thought her inevitable death would be a painful one considering her ark hunter lifestyle, but this just felt... discombobulating. She was sure she had died, for she had never heard of anyone or anything surviving a singularity bomb, and figured her earthly remains - if there were any - were probably at the bottom of a huge crater somewhere. She hope she didn't take anyone with her, but that wasn't her decision, as she had tried her best to make sure no one would share her fate and that her sacrifice would not go in vain. However, in the end all, she knew that it wasn't up to her, but merely up to the whim of some cosmic entity.  Lady was a little disappointed that she wasn't meeting the cosmic entity in question, for when her good friend Belle, who was Catholic, described her God, it was always a nice old man in white robes and a flowing white beard. Belle had blushed when Lady, who was several years her junior, said, "You mean Santa Claus!" Belle had sought to clarify with a bevy of words, but Lady had already lost interest and her mind had turned to other matters. Now, Lady wished she had paid more attention to Belle's explanation, but that was in the past, "Much like my existence," Thought Lady grimly. The Castithan gods of her father seemed more unfriendly and less forgiving to her, so she really hoped she wouldn't meet them here either - wherever here truly was! Lady watched the colors flow first one way and then the other in the singularity bomb's universe for minutes or maybe days, then realized with a start that maybe she wasn't dead. If she wasn't dead, she reasoned, she probably should take matters into her own hands and do something - anything really! She found that by undulating her body, she could move through the colors much like a fish swims underwater, causing colorful ripples as she went. She couldn't tell if there was an up or a down, so she decided to "swim" through the interior of the singularity bomb by always going forwards, but after a while realized that forward might extend into infinity. With no new scenery and no new experiences, she decided to stop, dead in the water so to speak, and that thought put the enigmatic smile back on her chalk white face. "I guess I'll just wait right here for something to happen," Muttered Lady to herself as she calculated the probablities of something happening to be greater if she stayed in one place. Math was never her forte, but as she remembered that she quickly realized that even her EGO psyche was not in attendance to her ponderings, which then made her realize how truly alone she was in her current predicament. "I wonder if anyone even knows I'm gone. Maybe I really was invisible to everybody," Thought Lady dismally, starting to feel sorry for herself. Lady's pink eyes grew wide and her smile grew bigger as she thought, "Not Atticus! He'll never forget, and he'll make sure our kids won't either! My friends won't forget - I just hope they all can forgive me some of the stupid mistakes I made in my seventeen years of life - especially those like Chase and Iri who I hurt so badly. I guess when I went all bad guy and chose that mantle of Mistress of Sorrow, it was an apt title, for I sure am sorry now." Lady sighed, which created a fresh instance of colorful ripples, thinking, "Well, can't do anything about it now... except wait... and wait..." Lady waited, for what seemed eons, wondering it she perhaps missed somewhere where she was supposed to take a number.  |
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Post by Belle Starr on Dec 15, 2015 18:44:06 GMT
CHAPTER TWO: Tripping  Lady suddenly realized that there was a throbbing on her chest. She probably wouldn't have noticed it at all, but she had not felt anything since she was drawn into the singularity bomb when she thrust her arms into it to stop it's countdown in Fortress Kshaa. Lady would have thought the throbbing her heartbeat, but she noteiced it was ON her chest, and not IN it. She reached her small alabaster hand to her chest, touching the small pendant there; thrilled not only to find she still had it but also because of the sensation of touching and feeling anything. The pendant was one her husband had given to her when they first met, and literally fell in love if not at first sight then at first kiss. At the time, she didn't know it was love, being a gangly girl of sixteen and largely ignored by persons of the opposite sex; although in fact she was ignored by virtually everyone but her father and her friend and mentor, Belle Starr. Atticus Batman was certainly the first one to pay attention to her in a romantic way, but that was not why she loved him. She didn't love him because he was the infamous Harbinger of Death either. She loved him because he was himself and she felt she could be herself around him. Lady truly believed Atticus not only saw through her social invisibility but was the first one to actually see her for who she was. Furthermore, at that first kiss, she knew that she had been transformed from being a "me" to being a "we." Belle had described it as Lady finding her soul mate, like Belle had with Vo, but Lady felt that was over thinking it. It just was meant to be, Lady felt, and to put a label to it was to diminish it. Lady felt her relationship with Atticus was meant to be enjoyed by the heart, not the head, for to do anything else would belittle it. Of course, Lady would be the first to admit, and her friends would be the first to agree, that Lady rarely thought about long term consequences as to anything, but instead reacted in the moment, hence her present predicament. Partially it was because she was only seventeen, but only partially. As a Castithan, her culture encouraged the females of the race to be sensual beings, to emesh themselves with feelings, particularly those of a sexual nature, although Lady never thought of herself that way. Furthermore, Lady had lived most of her life with her father, living hand to mouth, never sure where her next meal may be, but that didn't totally explain Lady's short term thinking either. Lady had felt herself invisible most of her life, and therefore immune to other's attentions and action; unable to be affected and unable to affect others, so she could concentrate on the one person she could have affect on - herself. So that is what Lady did in the past, living only for herself, moment to moment, which some might consider being totally self-centered but which Lady had considered necessary for survival, when she considered it at all, which was hardly ever. All that was true, until she met and fell in love with Atticus, and then she thought in terms of two. When she had their twin children, Cosmin and Caprice, her consideration spread to four: But really it was still a consideration of the one; only the one was now one family as opposed to one individual. To Lady now, the pendant Atticus had given her was not only a symbol of their love but also of their family. He had put a piece of his blue outfit into the pendant that was made to hold a keepsake, but since the outfit was formed from his own strange Grid energies, he had in a very real sense put a part of himself into the pendant. And now the pendant was not only throbbing but also glowing with a cascade of colors that reflected his turmultuous feeling at believing her dead, which made Lady begin to worry about HIM. She knew he would blame himself for her presumed death, and that he would plummet into the depths of despair over it. That was bad enough, but she feared he might become self-destructive over it as well, and that would be terribly bad for her "one": Her familly. It was bad enough that the twins might have to be brought up without their mother, but she couldn't stand the thought that they might lose their father also. Lady decided she had waited long enough - that she had to do something constructive, that she had to do something to save her family - so she concentrated on the pendant, hoping that in some way it could show her a way out of the singualrity bomb that had become her prison. Surprising even herself, a thin blue string began to meander out of the pendant, soon becoming longer as it spread into the distance. At on point it turned back to her, waving gently as if beckoning her forward, then shot straight forward as if it had a mind of its own with a very clear destination in that mind. She began to swim after the blue thread attached to her pendant throught the swirling primary colors that made up the singularity universe, not sure where it would lead, but knowing in her heart that to take some action was much better than to sit and wait for something that might never happen.  |
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Post by Belle Starr on Dec 18, 2015 15:35:29 GMT
CHAPTER THREE: Exodus  "OWWW!" Exclaimed Lady Christianna as her swim through the swirling colors of the Singularity Universe was suddenly stopped short by her hitting an unseen obstacle - hard! Holding her small chalk white hands in front of her touching the unseen surface in front of her with long thin fingers, Lady noted that the blue thread that extended from her pendant and which she had been following had stopped at where she now felt was an invisible barrier in front of her. She swam for several yards to the right of where the blue string ended, then to the left, then below and then above, although those terms of direction had no real meaning in the Singularity Universe, feeling that she had found no edge to the barrier in front of her, even though she could see the swirling primary colors beyond it. She could see that the barrier curved slightly inwards from where the string stopped to where she swam, implying that the barrier was in fact a globe that enclosed her. "Great, I'm in a drekking snowglobe," Thought Lady to herself, missing more than ever the company her EGO psyche had always given her. "Wonder why I see the swirling colors outside? Maybe the barrier's surface is like a mirror?!?!" "Now how am I going to get through THAT!" Muttered Lady outloud, not expecting an answer. "Well, you could knock, but I doubt anybody would answer to open a door," Said a child's voice to the side of her.  Lady's pink eyes widened in surprise, then looked to her side from where she thought the voice came from only to see a small Iranthiant girl with bright green hair, electric blue eyes and a mischievious smirk floated in the colors next to her. Lady recognized the six year old child as the previously manifested avatar of her baby daughter Caprice, and wondered if if was indeed Caprice she was talking to or if it was just a construction of her addled mind. "If I told you, you would never know if I was telling you the truth or not, so it's a no brainer," Caprice answered Lady's unspoken question, "Just go with the flow - whether I'm real or a way for your mind to create a foil to bounce ideas off of really doesn't matter. The real question you need to concentrate on is how the hell are you going to get our of here?" "That's the question alright - and don't curse!" Lady admonished Caprice, just in case Caprice was real; for if Lady didn't correct her she felt she wouldn't be doing her motherly duty. As Lady stood looking in front of her, the blue thread of energy withdrew back into the pendant given to her by her husband long ago, imbuing in it some of the Grid energy housed in his body. She put one alabaster finger to her small pursed lips as she thought over what Caprice had said, feeling strongly that the answer to her dilemma was in the words Caprice had said to her. Suddenly, the enigmatic smile was back on her pretty Castithan face and her pink eyes narrowed as she realized what she needed to do to get out of her colorful prison. Lady's runaway train of thought went quickly as she said aloud, "Concentration is the answer - like you hinted at! Atticus put a link to his power in the pendant that was his love gift to me, and it's protected me from attacks and even healed serious injuries to me! If he can control it on his end, why shouldn't I be able to do so at mine? Just got to be careful not to use so much that I injure him or even kill him, as it weakened him terribly whenever he used it to help me. Have to use self-control. Problem is, I've never been much at self-control. Put a tub of chocolate ice cream in front of me with a spoon, and I'll eat the whole thing. Should I take the risk?" "Can you afford not to?" Asked Caprice, her smirk growing bigger as she spoke. "You know how Daddy gets when you aren't around - he goes all dark and moody, becoming more destructive the longer he isn't with you. It's only a matter of time before he either kills someone who doesn't deserve it or himself, whichever comes first. Daddy would want you to take the risk, just to be with you Mommy!" Lady gave a quick nod of assent, closing her big pink eyes tightly as she put both her small alabaster hands on the pendant around her neck, concentrating on what she wanted the energies it was linked to do. She pictured the bright blue energies as a knife, cutting a hole into the fabric of the barrier in front of her. As she did so, she took one hand off the pendant to reach out in front of her and pushed. Suddenly, Lady fell forward as the surface in front of her yielded, and she found herself floating in the cargo bay of the Protector's downed strato-carrier, Vigilant. There was a sucking sensation from in back of her that ended as soon as it starting, and when she turned she saw that the swirling globe of colors at the center of the singularity bomb remained unbroken. "Oops! That could have gone badly if it caused the bomb to explode! Didn't think about that!" Said Lady with a grimace, which was quickly replaced with her enigmatic smile, "But it didn't and I'm out!" Lady did a twirl as she literally danced in mid-air until she realized what she was doing, throwing both her hands up to cover her mouth as her pink eyes widened in shock. Her eyes got even bigger as she saw that she could see through her hands, and that in fact her whole body was translucent. "Aw, crap," Exclaimed Lady to no one but herself, for even the avatar of Caprice was no longer with her.  |
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Post by Belle Starr on Dec 22, 2015 18:14:27 GMT
CHAPTER FOUR: Ghost Ship  Lady Christianna had been floating above and staring at the teaspoon on the bridge's floor of the downed strato-carrier, Vigilant, for over an hour. Every once in a while she would furrow her chalk white brow in concentration and try to pick up the spoon, and every time her small translucent hand would go through the spoon and the Vigilant's deck, thwarting her purpose. Lady was now at the point of distraction, and knowing that she could never pick up the spoon by force of will alone, she began to wonder how the spoon got there in the first place. Did someone sneak a bowl of cereal for breakfast onto the bridge during their tour of duty? Maybe someone developed a cough, and there was a bottle of cough syrup she hadn't found still hidden of the Vigilant's bridge somewhere. Lady concluded that most likely someone had used the teaspoon to stir a sweetener into their cup of coffee or tea, most likely the captain, Kaj, for she suspected the big purple bio-man had a sweet tooth, and then he left it as he walked off with their beverage to go do his routine duties, that is until the strato-carrier crashed. Lady ceased her ponderings with a long sigh, which if anyone was present would not hear. Lady could hear herself, or at least she thought so unless it was just the illusion of sound created by her mind, but soon she realized others couldn't when she was floating slowly from the cargo bay to the ship's bridge. During her trip, she ran into a group of three Votan rats in the ship's galley who didn't appear to see her. Lady herself was surprised and didn't like rodents as a rule, uttering what to her was a high pitched scream. The small purple and green creatures seemed to be unperturbed, busying themselves with continuing to eat the contents of the crew's lunch still on the galley's tables. Lady went so far as to wave a transparent hand in front of them and yelling all sorts of curses at them, but to no avail. The Votan rats just continues merrily munching away, completely oblivious to her presence. Lady was sure the Vigilant had landed, or most likely crash landed since it's floors were tilted and many things were askew. Papers and various accoutrements were littering said floor, and Lady was glad she didn't have to clean up the place. At least there is one advantage to being unable to touch anything thought Lady with a grim but otherwise enigmatic smile: No one could ask you to do anything that involved picking up anything! Lady had quickly seen that no one else would be cleaning up the Vigilant soon either, for she had notice in her travels through the ship that it appeared there was no one else was on board. She assumed the order to abandon ship was given, as the ship's escape pods were gone, but she had imagined that nothing short of a direct order from Atticus would make Kaj leave the ship, so was surprised that he wasn't present. Furthermore, although the landing wasn't perfect, it was good enough to keep the Vigilant in one piece, so she wondered where the crew were that helped Kaj keep it in that state, as she was sure he lacked the flying skill to do it by himself. "Hela! What should I do next?" Thought Lady to herself. "Guess go find them." Lady stared at the hull of the ship with wide pink eyes, then closed her eyes and held her breath as she raced towards it, instantly going through it and into the Russian radioactive wasteland beyond.  |
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Post by Belle Starr on Dec 24, 2015 16:48:32 GMT
CHAPTER FIVE: Desolate Destination  Lady Christianna didn't like what she saw when she exited the downed stratocarrier. Not one bit! Both the sky and the land was an unhealthy yellowish brown hue. The ground of the surrounding area seemed devoid of all life. Any signs of intelligent habitation looked ruinous to her, and there was virtually no sound of life. Only the wind made an ominous sound, and that put a chill up her spine. Lady sighed, then looked for any trace of where Kaj or any of his ship's crew that didn't leave in the escape pods might have wandered off to, and was soon rewarded with the signs of the tracks of a large mechanical device that had evidently driven right up to the crashed ship. Lady followed the tracks for some time, actually relieved when she saw several winged predators that looked dimly like the pictures of a harpy her teacher, Volodja Uljanov, had once shown her in a book of Greek mythology. At the time, she thought the picture was an eary attempt by human males to demonize women to keep them in submisssion, but when she mentioned her conclusion to her tutor, he merely looked at her strangely and went on with his planned lesson. She was never sure if he didn't address her comment because he was shocked by her observation or by the fact that she verbalized it, which was not her habit, but she was pleased that he didn't belittle it. Lady realized with a start that she missed her "Teach" and his lessons; and in fact she missed all of her team mates, her extendxed family, almost as much as she missed Atticus and the twins. As to the creatures that looked like harpies and were the only living inhabitants of the Russian desolation that she had personally seen so far, they seemed to either ignore her or not see her, so soon she was doing the same as to them. As Lady traveled following the tracks of the large vehicle, she saw several shadow people, who seemed to move here and there, then repeated the motion. She reached out to touch one only to suffer a mental explosion of vivid memory that was not hers. The memories didn't hurt her physically or mentally, but they were surprising in that she felt the emotions the person who had originally lived them did at that time. She touched several of the shadow people in curiousity, some of the memories were that of an apparent terrible or unexpected death, others were happy ones, such as an experience with a loved one or a celebration with friends. Lady wondered if anyone who saw her would see her only as a shadow person or would she be seen by them at all, but soon dismissed the thought as not only unpleasant but unproductive. Whatever the memory she experienced, Lady remained invisible to the shadow people, so she moved on to follow the tracks. Lady hovered above the ugly landscape as she moved on following the trail of the treaded vehicle, when she noticed a small lone flower growing in the middle of the wasted expanse. Lady figured the plant must be of a Votan origin, for its petals were a vivid almost florescent orange color. She floated for some time above the flower, just watched with wide pink eyes as it wavers slightly in the ever present wind, wondering how it had remained alive when so many others evidently did not. After several minutes of just staring at the flower, she finally reached out with a tenative pale and translucent hand, her delicate long fingers gently caressing the lone flower's petals - when suddenly it physically exploded in her face! The explosion didn't hurt her, but the conclusions she reached as to its cause hit her like a two-by-four smack to the face! She had once seen a pre-war human science fiction vid, in which an astronaut had returned home from another-dimension trip, but returned as what the show's writers called anti-matter, so when he hugged his wife on his return to his matter world, he caused his world's demise in a fiery explosion. At the time, she wondered why he and his world didn't explode as soon as he set foot on it, but that was fiction. This was real life! Lady couldn't help but wonder: Was she anti-matter now? Lady hadn't ended the world by touching the flower, but she had ended it's world! As her alabaster hands flew to her small agape mouth and her pink eyes widened even more in shock and dismay, Lady couldn't help but wonder to herself, "What will happen when I try to hug Atticus or the kids?" |
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Post by Belle Starr on Jan 10, 2016 1:13:17 GMT
CHAPTER SIX: No Returns  Lady Christianna hovered carefully above the desolate landscape as she made her way as fast as she could to the wreck of her team's strato-carrier, The Vigilant. She moved about as fast as a cloud does on a windy day, for she was terribly afraid that if she ran into any organic or possibly inorganic material, both it and herself would explode into oblivion, much like the flower had. Lady was pretty sure that she was safe as to inorganic matter even if she was made up of anti-matter, which she was assumed was true. Lady knew enough about science to know that even the air was made up of molecules and atoms, and if that could cause an explosion, it would have already. Unfortunately for her fearful mental state, she like may teenagers had slept through most of her biology class, or she would know that microscopic living organisms also lived in the same space with air molecules. If she were in fact anti-matter and could cause such an explosion if her atoms touched matter atoms, it would have happened already, but she was ignorant to such facts of nature. So Lady traveled slowly and carefully across the bleak Russian terrain, fearful the whole way, until she got back to the ship. She phased through the hull of the Vigilant back into the ship just like when she exited it, but this time she heard intelligent voices in the hallway. Afraid that she might touch one of the living beings that were the owners of the voices and cause an explosion that might very well end the world, at least in her mind, she made sure to avoid them as she made her way, not moving or even breathing until the voices began to fade into the distance. When she could no longer hear them, she moved on to the cargo back where the singularity bomb that had been her prison was stored. Lady's plan was to re-enter the bomb, that was a universe in itself, so that the danger to her reality that she felt she posed would be ended. Lady reasoned that only then would Atticus, her children, and her friends be safe from same fate as the explosive demise of the flower she had encountered in the Russian radioactive wasteland. Unbeknownst to Lady, unusual flora as well as fauna had evolved in the radioactive environment, including the flower she had encountered that exploded as a defensive technique and as a way to spread its pollen. As was often the case with her, what Lady didn't know led her to unfounded assumptions that would then lead to bad decision-making. It was a characteristic of humanity that transcended racial and gender boundaries, and even age ones as well, and a weakness many indulged in to their later regret. However, Lady's reasoning was based on youth and inexperience, unlike many others who shared the trait of making unfounded or perhaps foolish assumptions and therefore faulty decesions. Lady breathed a sigh of relief as she phased through the last hallway wall to the cargo bay and spotted the bomb, but soon that feeling was replaced with anxiety again as she could not phase back into the singularity bomb. She tried doing so from every direction and numerous methods to try to get in, even accessing her EGO power of decoy, but to no aavail. Finally exhausted, but afraid to settle on the ground, she hovered over the bomb, a distressed frown on her pretty chalk white translucent face. A new concern suddenly occurred to her as weariness from her road trip hit her and her eye lids started to droop over her wide pink eyes. "Hela!" Thought Lady with a start, "What if I fall asleep and drift to the ground? Even if don't explode on impact, someone may see me there sleeping and touch me - then KAPLOOIE! Oh Atticus, I so wish you were here! Or Belle or Teach or Erica or just about anybody who could tell me what to do now!" "DON"T WANT TO END THE WORLD!" Wailed Lady out loud not knowing if anyone would hear or not.  |
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