[MFR] Chapter 62 - Divinity

Notes :

Sorry the delay. Chapter wasn't ready and this has NOT been a good day, for a certain number of reasons.

I'm a bit afraid of having laid it on too thick in this chapter, so I'm curious what you guys think.

Chapter 62

Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley

Settlement of Astralis

"Sapphiria? Are you okay?" Asked Kalia, reaching out towards the AI.

Sapphiria jerked away from her, stumbling out of her chair, her armor's systems the only reason she didn't sprawl onto the floor.

"I'm fine." She said, panic and horror clear in her tone. Damn it. Even her voice was out of control. "I need to go. I...I'll be back."

She left the room, not trusting herself further as her mind reeled.

A Goddess. The squishies were worshipping her. Or expecting to be soon enough.

They didn't even seem troubled by that. Or thought it was unusual.

She stopped, leaning against a wall. She felt physically sick.

What the fuck was with this place? What was wrong with them?

Or what was wrong with her?

She took a deep breath. Their use of english and relative social progress -like Ramina and Malry openly being together- had lulled her into a false sense of normality.

They weren't luddites, with clear memories of a starfaring society. They were...they were primitives. It wasn't polite, but she had no better term. The social and cultural matrix of Earth hadn't affected them. Not fully. There were glimpses, with the Eternal Empire and their passing knowledge of higher technology, but that was it.

It's not their fault. It's their culture's.

She clenched her fists. The uplift programs, they had...solutions for that. She could change their culture if she wished. Replace it, overwrite it like it was never there, she could-

She staggered back from the wall, its bulk and sturdiness seeming as treacherous as her previous thoughts. Was she contemplating cultural genocide for her own sensibilities? Was she mad?!?

But if she was worshipped...

AIs were not Gods. Never should be. The Federation would reduce her to atoms if the squishies worshipped her.

Or would it? Would her mother allow it? Would her aunt?

If it came down to it, would the Navy defend the constitution, or would it follow its leaders?

We shall never have a hivemind again.

"Sapphiria? I-"

Kalia gasped, scrambling back as the AI whipped around, her plasma gun drawn on the mage-magistrate.

The AI stopped dead, as if she'd hit an invisible wall of force, her mind screaming in protest and pure horror, and forcibly shut down the plasma gun. She didn't cycle it, or reinforced the safety. She ordered the plasma chamber to scram and the entire system to power down.

The gun hissed as she lowered it.

"I'm sorry, I...I..."

"What's wrong? Dear ancestors Sapphiria, what the hell happened?"

Sapphiria realized she was starting to hyperventilate, her neutral matrix in disarray. She couldn't think of a lie, of an excuse.

So she defaulted to the truth.

"I don't want to be worshipped." She said. "I can't be."

"What? Why? You-" Kalia met the AI's eyes, and slowly stepped forward. "Okay. You won't be. Please calm down." She reached out, and this time Sapphiria didn't shy away. The mage-magistrate grasped her shoulders, and then seemed to hesitate for a split second.

Then she drew the AI into a hug.

Sapphiria almost experienced a total system failure, as she found herself drowning in the sensation of being so close to her.

She let go of the plasma gun, letting it clatter to the ground, and hugged the mage-magistrate back.

The hug lasted a small eternity, though her onboard clocks insisted it was only a handful of seconds.

Finally however, her neutral matrix restabilized, and she slowly disentangled herself.

"Thank you." Said the AI, wiping her eyes. Had she been crying? She couldn't remember.

"It's okay. I'd just...I knew some Heroes didn't want to become Ancestors, living or otherwise, but it never occurred to me you hadn't made your peace with it being a possibility."

"I..." Hadn't even realized it was a possibility. But she had enough of her wits back to know she shouldn't say that. "I hadn't."

"It's okay. We can...give some instructions. No cult of Sapphiria. That's fine. In fact it's more than fine, a cult would make things awkward."

"Good." Sapphiria's face twisted in ways she couldn't quite describe. "I'm sorry I...blew up."

"You don't have to be sorry."

"Yes I should. I'm...your hope. You look up to me to save you. I can't just break down like that."

The most important duty of an officer was to be calm and collected, no matter what. You were your men's rock, the thing they clung to during the storm. Training and belief could do a great deal, but at the end of the day, when the nukes started flying and worlds burned, officers, from the lowliest lieutenant to the high admiral, were the ones who held things together, the ones people looked up to, civilians and soldiers alike.

Outwardly, they must be unfaillable, for it was what their people needed them to be.

Kalia sighed.

"You are. I won't deny it. But you're also human. You must be allowed your moments of weakness."

No I'm not.

"Thank...thank you." The AI took a deep breath. "We should probably head back to the council chamber."

"We're not finishing that meeting. You need to go home, alright?"

Sapphiria looked up, and met the mage-magistrate's eyes.

Stars, she was genuinely concerned for her. Trying to get her home so she could be safe and find her footing again.

If Sapphiria had any doubt she was in love with the squishie, they were gone now. Completely and utterly.

"Thank you."

"You've already said that."

"I know. It bears repeating." She bent down, awkwardly maintaining eye contact with the mage-magistrate as she picked her plasma gun back up. She didn't power it back up, not yet. "I don't..."

"Know if you'll ever be able to thank me enough? I believe that's my line."

"You like thanking yourself?"

Kalia just stared at her, and Sapphiria smirked slightly.

The mage-magistrate burst out laughing.

"Alright! Fair play, fair play..." She shook her head, before meeting the AI's gaze again. "More seriously though, are sure you'll be okay?"

"Yes. I...just need to process some stuff."

A lot of stuff.

*****

"Welcome ho-"

"Cia." Said Sapphiria as she walked into the Crash Site. "Pull up my mother's and aunt diaries, from the Arcadia War."

"Ma'am, these are not files part of the data core. They are restricted archives."

"I know. I have them." Alongside many, many things.

Like their personal override codes.

"I beg your pardon? They are not listed in the index."

Which they shouldn't be. The people who'd overseen the construction of the pod were aware of them, but they had demanded some level of security and obfuscation.

"Search the datacore novels section, with this sequence:" She listed out a list of numbers and letters. If someone cared to look at them closely, they would spell 'Ragnarok' on an old ASCII table if you passed the sequence through Caesar's cipher and then converted it into hexadecimals.

"I...Huh. There are files hidden inside the architecture."

"Yes, there are." That was only the first layer of 'gifts'.

She had things hidden far more deeply, inside her own systems.

She prayed she didn't have to use them.

Her mom believed in failsafes. Not to the level of her aunt, perhaps, but she believed in them. And she loved her family very much.

There was a reason why one of her backups was in a secret space station. One she was almost certain contained...things.

Things from before the Federation.

"The diaries are available for your perusal."

"Thank you." She grabbed the files, and sat down on the ground, her back against the pod. "Don't disturb me, unless it's an absolute emergency. Please."

"Understood. I will...assemble a report for when you are done."

"Thank you."

The simulacrum nodded, and vanished, as Sapphiria opened the first file.

She'd read these, a long time ago. She needed to again.

For inspiration, to reassure her that no matter how bad things would get, she could prevail.

But also because of what she'd thought.

If it came down to it...what would the Federation do to this world? What would happen if she managed to go home?

Artificial gravity, magic, and who knows what else on the table.

What would her people, her family, do for such wonders?

*****

"What the fuck was that?" Said Gregor, staring at the door the Hero had left through only a minute prior. "Why-"

"Gregor. We aren't going to talk about it." Said Kalia.

"But-"

The mage-magistrate sat up, and the skeleton froze, as if pinned to his seat by her gaze.

"We will not discuss it further." She whispered, and Ramina visibly shivered. There was something...cold. Cold and very, very dark inside her tone. It was almost velvetty. "Is that understood?"

"...yes mage-magistrate. I will comply."

"Good." Her gaze swept across the rest of the council. "Return to your duties."

They all nodded, none willing to meet her gaze as they left.

She watched them go, and sat down before the table.

She had a feeling that, even if only a single second, something in Sapphiria's facade had cracked. That she had seen the true person behind the Hero.

She'd been scared. Scared and terrified. She'd been so...so human.

Heroes were supposed to stand head and shoulders above humanity. The pinnacle of mankind.

Sapphiria wasn't. Moreover, she didn't want to be.

Kalia felt like she should be afraid, or distraught. But she wasn't. She was glad she'd seen it. That, even for just a moment, she'd been on the same level as the artificer.

For the first time, Sapphiria was someone. Not a figure of legend, not an intangible miracle. But a person, flesh and blood, crying and whimpering.

So why, in all the hells and heavens was the only thing she wanted to do was hug her again?

*****

Click click click click, stop.

The Hand pocketed the coin as they stopped before the body.

A ghoul. Dead flesh corrupted by the reality altering magic of a manastorm. Then reanimated and molded into a weapon.

Crude. Inelegant. But undeniably effective.

That could sum up their opponents nicely, now that they thought about it.

They knelt by the body's side.

It would take half a dozen specialists to exactly pin down the make and variations of a ghoul. But they had been around enough to make some guessed.

The flesh had started to knit, before the thing was torn apart.

Regeneration. Rapid regeneration. The Vitae Convergence. But the body was lean. Almost born to ride, something even the reshaping of the fleshsmiths couldn't fully remove.

A body from the so called 'Western Confederation'. Recent, at least as far as such things went. Not preserved for this purpose.

A disposable pawn then. Though what was its objective? Scouting? Assassination? Sabotage? All three?

The Hand sat up, gazing at the area.

The Starborn mountain range was impassable. The only way through was here, through the pass. There were rumors of a Vestige that allowed passage through as well, but there had been nothing concrete in the archives.

So much had been lost in the burning of the capital. The city of spires reached towards the sky no more.

Their fists clenched. Hatred flaring through them.

They called themselves 'crusaders'. How could one say they served life while dealing so much death? Scum. They would be wiped from this world as soon as the provinces were brought back into the fold and the Empire made whole once more.

The Hand relaxed. Purpose. Purpose and discipline. Without these, people, living or otherwise, were no different from beasts. No different from the twisted abomination their troops had cut down.

"Gather the remains." They said to their guards. "Keep them separate, and if they begin to regenerate or reform, hack them to pieces. If that doesn't suffice, incinerate them."

The guard nodded, and slammed his bony hand against his chestplate, before gesturing at the others.

The Hand turned away, gazing at the receding mountains, as they gave way to hills and eventually plains.

Never had such a landscape felt so threatening. Even hunting the Casprian tribes in the wilderness of Elokhai hadn't compared to this.

There was a tension in the air. An expectation.

Something...something was about to happen. Or perhaps already had happened. It felt like the ground itself was holding its breath.

Something wicked this way comes.

The Hand shivered, a long forgotten reflex, and went back towards the pass, their guards in tow, carrying the ghoul's remains.

There may not have been the reaction they had expected, but this was worse. Movements in the shadows, preparations.

When the foe came, they would strike without warning and fall upon the pass like a thunderbolt.

The Hand pulled out the coin, staring at the faded face on it.

They had to be ready.

Throne save them all if they weren't.