Valiant

[Valiant #40: Apostate]

Log Date: 1/13/12765

Data Sources: Feroce Acceso, Kiwi

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Skies of Valcorria

10:58am SGT

“Weird to think that we’re back here again.” Kiwi says, looking out the window of the ferry cruiser. We’d arrived to Valcorria a day ago, and now we’re taking a planetside flight to one of Valcorria’s smaller cities that doesn’t have its own starport. “This is the world where we tangled for the first time. And the world where we fought CURSE together for the first time.”

“Feeling sentimental?” I say, looking up from my phone. I’ve been reading through Boaris’s profile to pass the time; with complete access to the Bastion database, Legaci’s been able to provide extensive profiles on the surviving Challengers, even those that went into the resettlement program.

“A little, I guess.” Kiwi says, still looking out the window and watching the islands beneath the scattered clouds. “It’s a pretty world. I wouldn’t mind celebrating our anniversary here.”

I smile a little at that. “Very sentimental, I see.”

She turns her head towards me, sticking her tongue out. “You get to be inscrutable and mysterious, so I’m allowed to be sentimental.”

I set my phone down. “You won’t catch me complaining.” I say, leaning over to bump my head against her shoulder. “When exactly is our anniversary, anyway? Is it when we met, or sometime later?”

“It’s when I tangled with you, obviously.” she says, ruffling my hair as she pulls the window shade down. “Even if we didn’t make it official until later.”

“Shouldn’t we count it from the time when we were like… actually a thing?” I say, straightening up. In the seats ahead of us, Quincy and Ridge are conversing with each other, while other members of the Valiant are seated all around this portion of the ferry cabin. Our group takes up a good number of the seats, and it’s nice to hear familiar voices murmuring in the background. “That was the Krysmis before last, wasn’t it? When we were at the Challenger Valiant outpost on Kittebar.”

“I count it from the time when I knew you were the one, and I knew from the moment I tangled with you.” Kiwi says, leaning back in her seat.

I give her a look. “You really want me to believe that you knew that early on, even when we were butting heads at the beginning?”

She smirks at that. “Oh yeah, I knew. I was just trying to figure you out. You weren’t the kind of puzzle I was familiar with.”

I lean an elbow on the arm of my seat, propping my head on one hand. “Oh, so you’ve got me figured out now?”

Kiwi stretches her arms over her head. “Took a bit of work, but I got it figured out. I’m not used to puttin’ that much effort in, but I’m willing to go a little further for a special case like you.”

That gets a snort out of me. “Says the problem child.”

She grins. “Your favorite problem to solve.”

“Songbird, my man!” Both of us look to see that Jetfire’s made his way over to us, the towering wolf leaning an arm on the headrest of my seat as he takes his sunglasses off. “I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit more about this Boaris fellow you’re running off to recruit. I hear he’s also a Halfie, and I was thinking—”

“That you might be a good person to convince him, since you’re also a Halfie?” I guess, doing my best to keep the boredom out of my voice.

Jetfire makes a clicking sound with his tongue, sucking in a deep breath as he shakes his head. “You’re good, man. You’re good.” He looks to Kiwi, nodding to her. “He’s good. Your man can read ‘em like a book. I see why they use him as a recruiter.”

Kiwi looks like she’s trying to hold in laughter. “Yes, he’s uh… very good with people.” she says modestly.

“I appreciate the thought, JJ, but Boaris is a prickly mark.” I say, aiming to shut this down before it has a chance to take off. “He probably won’t take well strangers showing up and trying to talk him into something. I’m not even sure he’ll be happy if people he knows show up and try it. For this recruitment, it’s just going to be me, Sierra, the kids, and maybe Kiwi. And the only reason we’re taking the kids is so they can see recruitment strategies.”

“Well, Sierra did say that taking younger people softens up our image.” Kiwi points out.

I glance at her. “Like we’re not young? I mean, agewise, only kinda, but I got that vampire immortality and you got that Maskling form control.”

“For the record, both of you look fantastically youthful.” Jetfire adds.

“You do have a bit of a resting bitch face, though.” Kiwi says to me, then quickly adds, “Not that that’s a bad thing! On a guy it comes across more like a brooding intensity. Point is, we might look like we’re in our twenties, but the attitude bleeds through a bit. I know I’m way more confident than I was when I was in my twenties.”

“Smarter too, although only marginally.” Tarocco mutters from the row of seats behind us.

“Hey pixie sticks, no one asked for your opinion!” Kiwi calls through the gap between the seats. “You weren’t the brightest bulb in the shed when you were that age either.”

Tarocco smirks. “Didn’t have to be the brightest. Just had to be brighter than you.”

“I will climb over this seat and give you a tiddy twister.”

“Point is, we’re keeping this one small and familiar.” I say, relegating Kiwi and Tarocco’s banter to the background as I refocus on Jetfire. “We’ll keep you in mind for other recruiting events, but this one’s a critical recruitment, and Valiant Command’s putting pressure on me to make sure it happens. We’ll see if we can slot you in on another recruiting hit, but we can’t have you along on this one.”

“Oh, if you don’t need me to be front and center, that’s okay! I can be a wallflower!” Jetfire says quickly. “Put me with the kids, I’d be happy to be a pretty face in the background learning about recruitment strategies.”

“No, it’s— look, what I’m saying…” I trail off as the seatbelt line comes on, and the pilot’s voice comes over the intercom, asking everyone to return to their seats in anticipation of some light turbulence. “Look, I appreciate your willingness to get involved, but—”

“Tell you what, let’s table that for now. Gotta get back to my seat before the attendants jump me.” he says, thumping the back of my headrest. “Let’s pick this up when we touch down!”

With that, he heads back to his seat, leaving me without a way to reply. I groan and rub my eyes, tilting my head back before buckling myself in.

“Seems like he’s used to getting his way.” Kiwi observes.

“Yeah, he might be in for a rude awakening at some point.” I mutter. “The Valiant’s a collaborative effort, and there’s a chain of command. He’s going to need to adjust his expectations for how decisions are made around here.”

“Honestly, I kinda want to see how he holds up in a fight.” Kiwi says thoughtfully. “Wonder if he’s as good in combat as he is at running his mouth. Wanna take a bet on whether he’ll fold the first time we throw him in the fire?”

“Mm, that depends.” I say as the cruiser shudders a little. The expected turbulence, probably. “What are we betting?”

“Wellllll…” she says, tilting her head thoughtfully. “If I win, you can take me out to dinner at whatever restaurant I want.”

“Hey, so long as we’re not breaking the bank, I’m down with it.” I say as another tremor rattles the cruiser. “Wonder what the weather is outside.”

Kiwi snorts at that. “Trust me, you don’t have to worry about me breaking the bank. Fancy restaurants drive me up the wall with their dress code and all the pretentious bullshit. And the people in them get so judgmental if you don’t get decked out like the aristocracy. And the serving sizes are always tiny. I’d much rather have a messy doubledecker Venusian burger; tastes a hell of a lot better, and with the kind of fights we get into, we need that kind of calorie intake anyway…” Reaching over, she lifts the shade on the window, revealing clear skies with nary a cloud. “Seems pretty clear, as far as I can tell.”

“Interesting. You usually see turbulence closer to the ground or when you’re passing through a storm.” I say, furrowing my brows as the cruiser rattles again. Feels like there’d a bit of a thud every time we feel the frame rattle. “Maybe the wind patterns over the islands are a little different.”

Kiwi frowns a bit as the cruiser shudders again, and again. “I’m not sure that’s turbulence; if feels kinda steady, almost rhythmic.”

“Feroce!” I hear Renchiko call from the rows ahead.

“Just a minute, ‘Chiko!” I call back to her, noticing that the passengers in the cabin are starting to murmur, presumably also worried about the regular ‘turbulence’. “Wonder if the pilots—”

“Songbird, on your left!” Sierra shouts, getting up out of her seat as the rattling suddenly stops.

I stare at her, then look to my left, and find that I’m staring at the embroidery of a white and gold robe that’s wrapped around a hulking suit of heavy power armor. Looking up, I see a helm with a yellow circle on it, and a mace-tipped staff with a golden light being lowered towards me.

It’s Prophet.

A blue haze starts to cloud the edges of my vision, and I grab the staff to keep him from pointing it at me as the yellow light in the tip starts to glow. I know what’s coming, and the servos in his power suit start to crank up, forcing the staff back down towards me — I know I can’t let him discharge it here, so close to Kiwi, and surrounded by a mix of civilians and Valiant staff. Tearing my seatbelt off, I grab the staff with my other hand, a rush of impossible strength surging through me as I shove to my feet and force the staff upwards, pointing it away from the passengers as it discharges.

The discharge goes off like a grenade as it hits the ceiling, blowing a hole in the roof of the cruiser and instantly forcing emergency measures to kick on. The roaring of wind fills the cabin as as oxygen masks drop down from the ceiling panels, though the screaming of the passengers is muted as Prophet closes one of his massive, gauntleted hands around my head. Lifting me up, he throws me further towards the back of the passenger cabin; I twist in midair, feeling the Spark guide me through the movement as I pivot to land on my feet, sliding to a halt in the middle aisle.

“Tell the pilots to land the cruiser!” I shout as I stand up, sonic sorcery carrying my voice to the front of the cabin and past all the Valiant, so they can clearly hear it. “We need to get down! Everyone’s going to die if we come apart at this altitu— OI! STOP THAT!”

I rush forward a few steps as Prophet levels his staff at Kiwi, the tip glowing again. Lifting my hands, I arch my fingers and hook them together, forming a cage with my hands, and a sphere of blue energy likewise forms around the tip of Prophet’s staff, enclosing it before he can fire again. Twisting my hands a hundred and eighty degrees causes the sphere to wrench harshly to the left, yanking the staff away from Kiwi, then I shove my hands upward, and the sphere yanks the staff’s tip to point towards the hole in the roof. I release it at that point, the next discharge fired through the hole in the ceiling, with the cruiser shuddering as it detonates some distance behind the cruiser.

“Would it KILL you to LET ME have QUALITY TIME with my BOYFRIEND!” Kiwi snaps, throwing a displacement ripple at Prophet with every shouted word. Normally they’d send a person flying, but Prophet’s heavy power armor is basically a miniature tank on legs. The ripples barely shift him, and he starts to swing his staff back around at her, only for the swing to get knocked off-target by a piece of carry-on luggage slamming into it. On the other side of Prophet is Jetfire, shouting for Renchiko to pass him another piece of luggage. Past them, Luci is shouting at the flight attendants to tell the pilots to find a spot for an emergency landing.

Pulling my ninjato hilts off my beltline, I ignite them, pelting down the aisle as Prophet knocks away the luggage that Jetfire’s throwing at him. The tip of his staff starts to glow as he lowers it towards Jetfire, but by that point I’ve reached him and scramble up his back, rolling over the shoulder of his armor to plant my feet on the shaft of the staff and forcing the tip down against the floor. In the same motion, I slash one of my starglass blades against his helm, while jamming the other into the inside bend of his suit’s elbow.

“Kiwi! See if you can seal that hole!” I shout at her as she gets her shoulder runes active. “Ridge! Sierra! Anyone else, get everyone away from this area of the cruiser!”

“Noble, and misguided.” Prophet’s digitized voice filters through his speakers as his helm grinds against the blade pressed against it. The arm I’ve pinned with the other blade starts to push towards me, the servos whining as I strain to keep it pinned against the seat and keep that gauntleted hand from clamping down on me. “If you wished to protect these people, you would’ve submitted yourself to Anaya’s judgement long ago. It is your continued defiance and heresy which endangers them.”

I grit my teeth, taking one foot off the staff to stomp it against his pinned arm, so I can free up my second blade to jam it against the reinforced neck of his suit. “I am sick and TIRED of listening to you preach this BULLSHIT. You are corrupting the Anayan tenets, twisting and warping her teachings to fit your hatred of things you do not understand or do not like, and I am DONE dealing with it!”

Sparks fly as my spectrum-shifting blade grinds over the glowing yellow ring sunken into his helm. “I warp nothing. I am the orthodoxy. You yearn for a version of the truth that never existed, and it blinds to your mistakes. Including the one you’ve made just now.”

I suddenly remember that he still hasn’t discharged his staff, and I can feel it start to shift with the foot I’ve still got on it. Without thinking, I kick off the staff, leaning forward and bracing myself on his shoulders as I roll over his helm, landing behind him as the next discharge blows a hole in the floor of the cruiser. This one’s bigger than the hole that he put in the roof, probably because of how long he’d let the discharge build up. Staring at it through the gap in his thickly armored legs, I realize it’s probably large enough for him to fit through.

So as he starts to turn around to face me, I pull my arms in as I stand up, twisting into a a roundhouse kick that’s made impossibly fast and powerful by my Spark.

It catches him square in the massive chest of his suit, releasing a blue shockwave as it sends him staggering back. One of his boots goes into the hole, and he tilts backwards, falling into the aperture. His shoulders catch on the far edge and lodge against the torn and shredded metal, but he’s one good kick from being evicted from the cruiser without a parachute. And standing there, seeing him inches from being sucked out of the cruiser, Alice’s warning flashes through my mind.

He’s a corrupted, genocidal maniac. You need to kill him next time you see him. Trust me, you’ll be saving a lot of lives.

My fingers curl around the hilts of my ninjato. I could end this now, and never have to deal with it again. I would never have to worry about him killing Kiwi, or any of the other people that I cared about. But I wasn’t sure this was the way I wanted to do it; wasn’t sure that this was the right way to go about it.

“Well screw me sideways, she was right.”

I look back to see Kiwi making her way down the aisle with murder in her eyes, and in that moment, I also remember that Alice’s warning had come with a second part that had been aimed at Kiwi:

If he can’t bring himself to do it, you need to do it for him, even if he tells you not to.

“Kiwi, wait—” I say, holding up an arm to try and slow her down.

“I don’t like that she was right, but I’m smart enough to recognize good advice when I hear it.” she growls, grabbing my arm and pushing it down, trying to shove me out of the way. “No more excuses, Feroce. We need to finish this for good.”

“We are not pirates! We are not going to kick a man out of a cruiser so that he can fall twenty thousand feet to his death—” I say, wrestling with Kiwi to keep her from getting past me.

“Bag check, bitch!”

Those three words cut through all the wind and screaming, oddly clear and crisp, almost like a clean, pure bell tone. I turn to look back down the aisle, and see that Ridge is standing over Prophet with an obscenely large carry-on held over his head. He’s beginning to swing it down towards Prophet, who’s lifting one of his arms to point at me and Kiwi, a plate on the forearm sliding back to reveal a cabled harpoon underneath.

Looks like my Spark has a funny way of telling me shit’s about to get real.

I shove Kiwi to the floor behind me without a second thought, feeling the harpoon go through me a second later. I hear the fins on the harpoon click out into their lock position as it passes through my back, and as I stagger backwards, Ridge finishes swinging the carry-on down onto Prophet. It slams into Prophet hard enough to dislodge him, and he’s finally sucked out of the cruiser, disappearing from view.

And another half a second later, the cable trailing from the harpoon snaps tight, and the harpoon’s fins slam into my back, jerking me towards the hole in the floor at an obscene speed.

I can already tell, with how fast I’m hurtling towards the hole, that there is no way I can stop it, especially when I’m tethered to a thousand-pound deadweight that just got ejected from a cruiser. So I do the only thing I can do, and ball myself up, hoping I don’t break any limbs on my way out. I feel myself yanked over the edge of the hole, the torn and jagged metal ripping at my Agent jacket, and then sudden cold and weightlessness as I find myself in freefall from twenty thousand feet in the sky.

Well, this is not great.

My mind zings off in all directions, trying to get a grip on my situation and what I can do about it. I am falling; I have no parachute and there is no one out here to help me, so I have to figure this out on my own. I don’t have the presence of mind to do math right now, but I figure that even at terminal velocity, I should have at least a minute before we hit sea level—

And all of that goes out the window as there’s a yank on the harpoon line, pulling me down to Prophet can hammer me with a power-armored punch.

I go spinning and tumbling away from him, losing one of my ninjato and completely stunned as the sky and sea flip around about me. Part of me is desperately trying to figure out which way is up, but another part of me is just flabbergasted by the fact that we are falling to our deaths and all that Prophet cares about is beating me senseless for some convoluted, dogmatic idea of heresy. He’s not letting up, either, yanking me back in for another punch that sends me spinning away again — it hits hard enough to send black spots across my eyes, and that’s the point at which I realize there’s no longer a blue haze around the edges of my vision any more.

Oh great. Apparently my Spark decided to only be active long enough to get Prophet off the cruiser.

“Good goddamn, would you STOP IT!” I shout as Prophet yanks me back in again. This time I’m able to angle myself to the side, pushing off his arm as he swings at me. “You’re gonna die when you hit the ground, but you’re still trying to fight me? What is wrong with you?!”

“I have no intention of dying upon landing, and I know with certainty that you will survive, since you are a vampire.” Prophet says, bringing his staff around to aim it at me. “This will not end when we reach the ground. But that is where we will finish it.”

With that, he discharges a pulse of energy at me. I bring up my remaining ninjato to try and block it, but the pulse detonates on contact, blowing my sword out of my grip and sending me swinging around Prophet. Deprived of both of my swords, I fumble around in my jacket for my stunner, for all the good it’ll do against someone in a suit of heavy power armor. But Prophet hooks the end of his staff around the cable, giving it a yank and pulling me closer so he can ram the business end of his staff towards my face.

Since I’m not interested in getting my face stoved in, I grab the tip of the staff and use my momentum to twist around it, flipping over Prophet’s head and grabbing into his back. Snagging the cable with one hand, I loop it around the neck of his suit a couple of times and yank it tight — it won’t choke him, but it’ll make it hard for him to try and swing me around like he was doing before. Leaning out of the way as he reaches back and tries to grab me, I remain perched on his back, and use the moment of reprieve to take stock of our situation.

We’re still falling, unquestionably at terminal velocity now, and below us is one of the larger islands in this particular archipelago. The sprawl of a small city or a major town is visible, spilling over the island’s geography, and I’m fairly certain we’re going to land somewhere within it. If I had to guess, we have, at most, thirty seconds before impact, and if nothing changes, it’s gonna be ugly. Unless I’m somehow able to use Prophet to slow myself down, I’m probably gonna splatter when I hit the ground. It won’t kill me, but it’s gonna take me the better part of a day to regenerate, and I definitely won’t be able to defend myself.

Prophet tries to grab at me again, and I duck away from his metal-plated hand, noticing that when he tries to grab at the cable around his neck, the fingers are too thick and stubby to catch hold on the cable. I make sure keep the cable pulled tight around his neck, but notice the staff swinging in from the left too late; it clocks me in the head, knocking him off his back and sending me spinning out into the air again. By the time I manage to get my bearings back, he’s unwound the cable from around his neck.

But instead of going back to fighting me, he angles himself so that his feet are pointed downwards. On his back and around the boots of his suit, thrusters kick on, quickly ramping up to full blast, slowing his descent. I keep falling, but because I’m tethered to him, I’m only falling as fast as he is. Looking over my shoulder, I see the roofs of the buildings below rushing up to meet us, and we appear to be plummeting towards the rounded roof of a temple. But with Prophet putting the entirety of his suit’s power into the thrusters, we slow down enough so that when I hit the roof, it feels more like a drop from five feet rather than twenty thousand.

I let out a sigh of relief, even though I can feel the harpoon’s fins digging into my back. For a moment, I assume that Prophet’s had some sort of change of heart — then I look up and see him carefully hovering into place above me, about thirty feet up, and turn off his suit’s thrusters. A thousand pounds of heavy power armor starts to drop towards me, feet first.

“Oh C’MON!” I shout, rolling out of the way just in time for Prophet to punch through the ceiling like a rectangular wrecking ball. I realize too late that I’m still tethered to him, and the cable snaps tight, dragging me through the hole he just made in the roof. Hurtling past the snapped and broken rafters, I fall into a wide, open space, hitting the stone floor a couple seconds after Prophet, and hearing some of my bones crack as I land.

“It gives me no pleasure to do this.” Prophet says as his suit’s shock absorbers hiss and vent some air. “I would offer again for you to yield yourself up and come before the apostles to beg for absolution for your sins, but we both know how you’ll answer that offer.”

I’m too busy gritting my teeth and taking stock of my situation to answer. Currently we’re in a big room that looks like it might be some sort of sanctum or a contained garden in the center of whatever temple we’re in; most of the floor is stone, but there’s also large, stone-curbed mounds of dirt and loam where plants, trees, and flowers grow, like a giant terrarium, with the stone walkways winding between them. At the center of the room is a twenty-foot statue of woman with a sword in one hand and a conductor’s baton in the other; the garden spots are arranged so that the flowers and short plants are close to her, the shrubs and bushes are at a middle distance, and the trees and taller plans are close to or bordering the walls. It has the effect of preserving the open space and a good view of the statue from almost any point in the room. A recycling stream wanders through the room, feeding into a shallow moat around the statue, over which small footbridges arch. Sunlight spills into the room through the curved portions of the dome that are made of glass, sending alternating potions of light and shadow across the interior. Light is also flooding through the new hole in the ceiling, which is probably forty or fifty feet up — a height which seems to have broken some of the bones in my torso, which is currently making it hard for me to move without excruciating pain.

“I want you to know that my continued opposition to you is not an indictment of the Valiant’s goals or objectives.” Prophet says as I try to roll over so I can get into a position where I can get to my hands and feet. He takes his staff, slamming the butt of it into the floor hard enough to shatter the stone, and grind it into the foundation underneath. “Your new organization seems to have virtuous goals and intentions that I would generally support under any other circumstance. And it may comfort you to know that once I have erased your apostasy, I will have no more reason to oppose the Valiant, or remain allied with CURSE.”

“How generous of you.” I grunt, getting my arms to where I can reach inside my sleeve and pull out my earbuds. If I can keep him monologuing, then I might have enough time to get my earbuds in and find a song that can give me a fighting chance. “I doubt my friends will see it the same way.”

“If they choose to maintain enmity after I have completed my mission, then that is their prerogative.” Prophet says, letting go of his staff once it’s firmly seated where he slammed it down. “I do only what I have been called to do by Anaya, and if they wish to oppose her, then they will be dealt with in the same way that you will be dealt with.”

I’m in the middle of pulling my earbuds out when I see him grabbing the harpoon cable still tethered to his forearm. My stomach lurches and I hurry to get my earbuds in, but it’s too late — he grabs the cable with both hands, yanking and swinging at the same time. I’m slung off the ground as he twists in place, swinging me around him like a weight on a rope, and I see where the arc of that swing is taking me. All I can do is cover my head and try to curl up as I’m swung into side of the statue like a vampiric wrecking ball.

Unfortunately for me, the statue is much sturdier than a wrecking ball made of flesh and bone.

Hitting the statue comes with a crunch that officially makes me stop trying to count the number of bones I’ve broken. I think I black out for a moment, because next I’m aware, I’m on the ground in a heap of limbs, and I’m being flung into the air again as Prophet swings the harpoon cable up over his head. While I know coming down is going to be painful, there’s not much I can do about it; at this point I’m not much more than a bundle of broken bones and dislocated stuff. The pain’s getting to the point where it’s hard to think, or even stay cognizant.

Being slammed into the ground again doesn’t help with that, and I have a vague awareness of being swung back around again. This time it’s a little softer, because I get slammed down on the edge of the shallow moat around the statue’s base, water splashing everywhere. Evidently deciding that the twisted angle of my limbs and the lack of movement on my part constitutes a thorough defeat, Prophet stops swinging me around, reaching out to take his staff and pull it out of the ground.

“I do apologize that I had to confront you when and where I did. But I was commissioned with the grave responsibility of purging your corruption, which has proved alarmingly strong in the past. I could not afford the risks of granting you a dignified confrontation, or a fair fight. Not when I’ve seen the hideous power granted to you by your profane decisions.” he says, marching towards me with the tip of his staff starting to glow. My blood clouds the water flowing around me, and the blood still inside me is burning away as my body tries to heal itself, but it’s nowhere near fast enough to get me moving anytime soon. “I promise this will be painless, and quick. It is the only courtesy I can afford you.”

He closes in on me, the tip of the staff starting to lower in my direction, pointed towards my head. Hazily, past all the pain, I find myself hoping that my Spark will kick in and I’ll get out of this by some miracle. If I only had to worry about myself, I think I could accept dying, but it’s not just about me. I can’t die yet because Kiwi and Ridge and Renchiko all need me; they’re relying on me for different things, and I can’t leave them hanging. I can’t leave them in the lurch.

Cease and desist.

It feels like a pulse of intent or pure will, and a second later, something large and heavy slams into the ground next to me, severing the cable and blocking Prophet’s path to me. It takes a moment for me to realize that it’s the sword that the statue was holding, and that’s not the only part that’s moved — the entire statue has come to life, taking a knee as it leans over me, staring down at Prophet.

You have the audacity to bring the corruption of the Shyl-tari into my house; to spread violence and spill blood within my walls?

Prophet’s approach has been halted, even moving backwards a couple of steps as the statue leans down towards him. But he doesn’t back down, tilting his staff upright again and thumping against the ground beside him, the mace-like tip giving off an intense yellow incandescence. “I bring the light of Anaya to these forsaken halls—”

You come bearing the corruption of the ones who would’ve stripped this universe of the gift that the Inkling gave to all of us. I should unmake you for having the gall to bring that odious, sickening poison into my temple. The only reason I do not is because I can see you are deceived; you do not worship the goddess you think you worship, nor do you understand the forces that guide your hand. You will leave now, but only because I have pity for how badly your mind has been warped by the Shylter-rotted remnants of Anaya’s religion.

I can’t see Prophet’s expression because of his helm, but the way his fingers curl around his staff might as well be the gritting of his teeth. This is obviously getting under his skin, and he clearly isn’t used to having someone talking down to him, or flipping the heretic script on him. “I have not come all this way to be turned away from my calling. I was tasked with the cleansing of this apostate, and I will not be kept from it by a piece of granite that thinks it can lecture me on sanctity and corruption—”

I am Valcalia, the Rantheon’s goddess of music and valor. You have brought corruption and sickness into my temple, and still you have the nerve to disrespect me within my own hallowed halls. The sword, which originally rested at an angle, is now pulled up so it can be planted point-first against the floor, while the statue tucks its conductor’s baton behind its ear. You will leave now. Whether you do so in one piece or many is a matter of your choosing, but you are leaving.

Prophet thumps the butt of his staff against floor again. “I do not answer to the pagan gods of a far-flung wo—”

Whatever Prophet was about to say is lost as the statue backhands him hard enough to send him rocketing, heavy power and all, clear across the room, through the wall, and judging by the faint crash a few seconds later, into a building the next block over. The ensuing silence is almost startling, and if I wasn’t in so much pain, I’d be astonished that I’m somehow still alive after everything that’s happened in the last ten minutes.

As it is, all I really feel right now is agony, and bone shards in places where they shouldn’t be. The last thing I remember is the statue slipping a hand under me and picking me up, and losing consciousness to a surge of pain as my body’s lifted out of the water.

Encyclopedia Galactica

Valcalia of the Rantheon

Known as the goddess of music and valor in the pantheon of Rantecevangian deities, Valcalia is often the goddess of choice for Ranters employed in the musical industries. She is nearly universally portrayed as a benevolent force, and though her primary association in the modern age is as a patron of the musical arts, she was also worshipped in the past as a patron for those that ventured in battle as a matter of duty, in defense of country or cause greater than themselves.

In keeping with the tradition of many Rantheon deities, Valcalia’s mythos holds that she was once mortal, and achieved apotheosis by leading her people to freedom during their secession from the Begnion Theocracy. Her sacrifice in the siege of the secession’s capital earned her apotheosis at the hand of Alt, the creator of Rantecevang, and her subsequent resurrection and exaltation endowed her with the power to break the siege and scatter the Begnionese legions. Afterwards, she stayed on the mortal plane long enough to oversee the formation of the country that would be named in her honor, and once the nation’s foundation was laid, she departed the mortal plane to take her place in the Rantheon.

In the modern age, worship of Valcalia has declined, though also this holds true for the other deities of the Rantheon, and is a product of Rantecevang’s transition from a medieval society to a galactic civilization over the last fifteen thousand years. This is not to say that religions dedicated to Valcalia are dying; temples and churches to Valcalia are present in many Ranter colonies and some Colloquium worlds, and membership numbers tend to remain steady year over year. As with most religions in a galactic setting, worship of Valcalia has settled into lockstep with larger trends regarding religion and faith in the modern era.

Followers of Valcalia are generally regarded as mild and easier to interact with than followers of other religions. The religion as a whole tends to be fairly accepting; the limiting element is not race, politics, or culture, but rather one’s enjoyment and understanding of music. In the same vein, the dividing lines within the religion are also drawn along musical borders; some of the smaller denominations express a preference for certain persuasions of music, and sometimes the value sets within these denominations are influenced by these broad categories. There are also divisions drawn along the lines of whether one creates music, or simply listens to it; it has been noted that the religion’s leadership selection is biased towards those that actually have training or skill with a musical instrument. Within the largest denominations, however, efforts have been made to extend inclusion to those who enjoy music but may have no musical skill of their own.

In terms of tenets and core values, it is generally agreed that Valcalia represents connection, unity, and diversity through music. The act of creating or performing music is considered virtuous, especially when that music unites people through a shared experience or emotion. Worship within Valcalia’s churches does not revolve around the goddess so much as it revolves around the act of creating, performing, and enjoying music, using it to create community and convey experiences or truths. There are smaller branches of the denominations that still emphasize the valor aspect of Valcalia’s divinity, and with it, idealizes duty and courage in standing for causes which require combat or battle. These branches are not part of the orthodoxy, however, and they are generally dwarfed by the mainline denominations.

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Koiyash: Temple of Valcalia

12:09pm SGT

Waking up from a blackout is different than waking up from sleep.

There’s no drowsing period, no grogginess; it’s like a computer jolting back to life after being knocked offline for a few seconds. That’s how I wake up, opening my eyes and nearly immediately becoming alert and ready to go.

I find myself lying on my side on the stone floor, on the island in the middle of the sanctum. I’m not sure how much time has passed; it feels like it was only seconds between blacking out and waking up here, but I know it’s probably been longer than that. The statue has repositioned itself so that it’s now down on one knee in the middle of the island, sword still resting point-first on the ground, with one hand hanging on the crossguard. But it doesn’t appear to be moving anymore, and…

And I can actually turn my head without excruciating pain.

I blink a couple times, then look down. My body is intact — well, more than intact; it looks like it’s been restored to perfect condition, though my clothes are still soaked with blood and battered to hell and back again. I twitch my fingers, and find that they’re functional; after that, I move my arm around, and find the same. My legs don’t give me any trouble when I stretch and turn them; after a moment, I cautiously sit up, and find that I’m able to do so without any pain or trouble.

“You woke up faster than I thought you would, after a thrashing like that.”

I turn in place, and see a young woman sitting back against the statue’s kneeling leg. She’s got heavy-duty boots, a jacket, and jeans on; white hair pulled back in a messy ponytail with a lot of it left loose and falling how it may. In her hands there’s an orange peeler and an orange that’s currently being stripped of its rubbery exterior; her eyes are a bright, bright blue, and currently fixed on the orange.

I open my mouth, then pause and look around, remembering how I got here in the first place. I can still see the damage to the sanctum — my bloodstains on the ground, the hole in the ceiling where Prophet dead-dropped through, but I don’t see Prophet anywhere.

“Your frenemy isn’t here, and he won’t be coming back.” the woman says, tossing a length of peel to the side. “I kept an eye on him. After he climbed out of the rubble of the convenience store he landed in, he decided against returning for round two.”

Looking around, I spot the hole in the wall created when Prophet had gotten the backhand of the century. Realizing that I must be safe for now, my shoulders slump, the tension going out of me. Sitting back a little, I glance at the woman, wondering how she knows as much as she does. “Who are you? Were you watching while I was fighting him?”

She looks at me, then lifts a hand, pointing to the statue above her. I glance up, but it doesn’t click right away — the statue is arrayed in partial plate armor, and it doesn’t match the attire the woman is wearing right now. But I realize that the face and the hair are the same as the woman sitting back against the knee, and my mouth drops open a little.

“Yup.” she says, starting to split open the orange as I look back down at her.

All I can do is sit there, dumbfounded. I can’t wrap my mind around it; it’s searching for another explanation, a more probable explanation. Because the explanation I’m being presented with is so improbable that my mind simply can’t accept that it’s possible.

She glances up at me as I sit there in dumbstruck silence. “You spent forty years praying to a goddess that never answered. That’s why you don’t know how to handle it when somebody does pick up the phone. No one’s ever answered before, so you didn’t even think it was possible.”

I lift one of my hands halfway. “You’re…”

“Valcalia Val Tein Verrakai. Most people just know me as Valcalia, though.” she says, starting to peel the slices of orange away from the split halves. Sticking one in her mouth, she starts chewing, staring at me. “You’re Feroce Acceso. The rest of the galaxy knows you as Songbird.”

“Yeah.” I say slowly, letting my hand drop. “I guess they do.”

She pops another orange slice in her mouth, still staring at me. “You don’t really believe I’m a deity. You think that deities are supposed to be more majestic; that they’re supposed to give off radiance and evidence of their divinity.”

“I mean… that’s kind of how you expect it to be, right?” I say, fumbling through my words. “What’s the point of being god if you’re just going to pretend to be like everyone else?”

“I’d rather not get mobbed by awestruck mortals every time I step onto the mortal plane.” she replies fluidly. “And they take it as a sign if you manifest your divinity in full view. Drives them into a frenzy, makes them think something big is about to happen. And you know what happens when people turn into fanatics. Your friend is the perfect example of why hypernaturals don’t like showing their divinity to mortals.”

I glance towards the hole in the wall where Prophet was ejected from the temple. “Yeah.” I say quietly, then look back at her. Even with what she’s told me, I can’t bring myself to believe it — it just all feels too casual. My mind just can’t believe that a goddess would be sitting underneath a statue, eating orange slices and carrying on a stilted conversation.

“You still don’t believe it.” she says, setting aside the intact half of her orange.

“I’m trying.” I admit.

“Let me help get you there.” she says, lifting her free hand towards me.

Without warning, I feel my Spark kick to life, flooding me with heat and an electric sensation; I’m yanked forward by an unseen force, dragged across the floor at speed. I only come to a halt when she plants her hand on my chest, a nebulous blue haze rising through my shirt and around her fingers. She pulls her hand back a little, a blazing core of lightning-blue brilliance partially phasing through my sternum before she curls her fingers shut, and the core snaps back into my chest, going dark and leaving me to collapse on the floor, curling up on my side and gasping for breath.

“It amuses me that you carry the shard of a god within you, but you can’t recognize when one is sitting right in front of you.” she says, going back to peeling apart the smaller half of her orange, sticking one of the slices in her mouth.

I’m still panting, trying to catch my breath as I clutch my chest. There was something about that which was startling, almost terrifying. The Spark was an incredible power, but one that I was barely able to control; the fact that she could wake it up at will was startling because it was more than I had ever been capable of, and I’d been living with the damn thing for the last decade. Trying to get my breathing under control, I look at her again, and find her staring at me, chewing silently on an orange slice.

“Valcalia.” I pant.

Valcalia smiles. “That’s me.” she says, offering an orange slice to me.

I stare at it for a moment, then carefully reach out and take it. As I push myself back up into a sitting position, she picks up the other half of her orange and starts separating the slices of that one as well. After a moment of quiet, I muster up the the courage to ask what’s on my mind. “Why did you help me? Step in and protect me like you did?”

“I had a lot of reasons.” she says, shrugging as she lines up the orange slices on her leg after peeling them apart. “I think the most obvious one is that I sympathized with what you were going through. The whole… heresy and persecution and extermination thing. Being an apostate of a religion you faithfully served for the first part of your life. Back when I was mortal, it’s basically what Begnion did to me and my people when we wouldn’t stop practicing sonic sorcery. Pretty much the whole reason I ended up where I am now. I lost some friends over that, and had some friends come after me, similar to how your friend was coming after you.”

Staring at the orange slice I’ve been given, the fuzzy memories of Valcalia’s myths slowly start to bubble up from my earliest childhood memories. “That happened to you too?”

“It did. And when I saw it happening to you, it… felt like history repeating. And something in me just snapped.” she says, popping another orange slice in her mouth. “I couldn’t stand by and watch someone go through that, knowing how it feels. So I decided to pop in and put your friend in his place.”

“You didn’t have to do that for me.” I say, the words coming out reflexively.

“Well no, I didn’t.” she says. “I don’t have to do a lot of things. But I chose to do it, because it was the right thing to do. Life is all about the things that we choose to do, even when we don’t have to do them.” Picking up another orange slice, starts nibbling gently on it. “Besides, I wasn’t going to stand by while some Shylter punk tried to murder a sonic sorcerer in one of my temples. I’m literally the goddess of music; he was basically asking to get clobbered senseless for even trying.”

I look to her. “You said that earlier when you were confronting him, something about a… Shylter? And the rotting remains of Anaya’s religion? What did you mean by that?”

“Oh. Shylter, it’s slang for Shyl-tari. They’re the collective of deities that want to create utopia by stripping the universe of free will. They captured Anaya a long time ago, and corrupted both her and her religion.” Valcalia explains. “She was rescued during the Serenity War, but she’s been in rehab for the past thirteen thousand years, recovering from what they did to her. The remnants of the Shyl-tari have continued puppetting her religion and followers, using it as a vehicle to try and carry out their agenda. They’re not very good at it, because we’ve exterminated almost all of the Shyl-tari survivors in this galaxy, but every now and then, Shyl-tari relics find their way into the hands of people that shouldn’t have them. Like your friend.”

I need a moment to absorb all that. “So Prophet…”

“Part of his staff is a Shyl-tari relic. And Anaya’s teachings were co-opted by the Shyl-tari and twisted to serve their agenda for… thousands upon thousands of years, actually.” Valcalia says, studying her next orange slice. “The Shyl-tari weren’t stupid enough to make it cartoonishly evil; they kept a foundation of good, wholesome, generally-agreeable ideals, like a focus on family, community, and good works. But they threaded in other bits and pieces of dogma to control the direction they want the religion to move in. The Anayan animosity towards the Collective and the Masklings is an echo of the battle lines that were drawn during the Serenity War thirteen thousand years ago.”

“Wait, if Anaya was rescued, why isn’t—”

“Rehab.” Valcalia says before I can finish. “She spent thousands of years being warped by the Shyl-tari; it’s going to take thousands of years to undo that damage. Just like it’s taken you the last two decades to unlearn the bad parts of the Anayan teachings that got pounded into your head during the first two decades.” Valcalia leans her forearms on her knees, looking at me now. “You’re not so different from the goddess you thought you worshipped. Both of you are recovering from the corruption of the Shyl-tari.”

It’s still a lot to soak in. Staring at the orange slice in my hands helps me feel a bit more grounded, gives me something to focus on so it doesn’t feel like the foundations of my upbringing are coming unmoored around me. “So it’s basically all a lie. The Anayan religion. A really complex lie that weaves together truth and good principles to get it further than a pure lie would’ve gotten on its own.”

“Well… I wouldn’t call it a lie.” Valcalia says, still looking at me. “Modern-day Anayans are still living a version of what Anaya stood for and believed in. It’s been warped and corrupted in some places, but the good stuff is still in there somewhere. You already knew that, though. You’ve been living that way for a while. Keeping the good parts while refusing to emulate the bad parts.”

I puff out a breath. “Yeah, for what good that’ll do me. Haven’t stepped foot in one of the churches for years because I’d be excommunicated on the spot. And that’s in a best-case scenario. Worst-case scenario… well, you just saw the worst-case scenario. Get ambushed on a civilian flight, sucked out of a cruiser from four miles up, and then upon somehow surviving that fall, get my ass beat into a pulp for having the audacity to reject some of the orthodoxy’s ideas.”

Valcalia doesn’t answer right away, tapping her remaining orange slice against her knuckles. At length, she poses a question: “If you don’t feel like you belong in your current religion — if they would cast you out and excommunicate you just for following your conscience and doing the right thing — have you considered leaving and finding something else that actually aligns with your moral compass?”

“I mean, it’s crossed my mind before, but never seriously.” I say, starting to peel away the skin of the orange slice I’m holding, starting at the seam. “It’s that thing where people stick to what they know, even if it makes them miserable. Because having certainty, knowing what to expect, is easier to deal with than being uncertain. Better than not knowing. Because we fear the unknown, even if it could be good for us.”

“Well, you’re not wrong.” she says, she says, sticking her orange slice in her mouth, then starting to gather up the remnants of the peel. “People are scared of the unknown. But if you ever decide you want to play for a different team, I’d be happy to have you.”

I look at her. “You… want me to worship you?”

She makes a face at that. “Not as such, no. That just feels weird. Besides, the point of being a deity isn’t to have people worship you… at least, that’s what I believe. Some of my peers disagree, but that’s a conversation for another time.” Lacing her fingers together, she turns her gaze towards me. “I believe that a deity stands for something. And their followers should be partners, and both the deity and followers should be part of a group that’s working towards the shared goal. I don’t want you to show up every Sunday to tell me how great I am. I don’t need that. I want you to actually go do something that makes a difference, makes the galaxy a bit of a better place. Whether that’s making good music or fighting for a better galaxy. And if you can do that, I’d be happy to lend you a hand or give you a push in the direction you need to go.”

I blink a couple times, looking down at the peeled orange slice in my hands. “Is there any, like… stuff I have to do? Prayers that have to be said, baptisms or sacraments or other rituals that have to be done?”

“I don’t run that kind of religion. It’s not about the rituals; it’s about the work.” Valcalia says. “What do you believe in, Feroce? What do you fight for?”

That question catches me off guard; it’s a big question. A deep question, a heavy question, one that goes right to the core of who you are. It requires you to look inwards — something that can be uncomfortable, and something that I haven’t done in a while. “Well, I…”

“What do you dream of? Your perfect galaxy, your happily ever after?”

I look to Valcalia and find that she’s staring at me with a demanding fire in her eyes. She doesn’t want trite aphorisms or vague statements of value or principle. She wants my answer — my answer, the answer that only I can give, not a sanded-down generalization. She wants to know what Feroce believes in, what he fights for.

Setting down the orange slice, I chew over my thoughts as I strip away the layers, peeling away the answers I’d give to a stranger. The answers I might’ve given as an Agent of the Valiant, or the answers I would’ve given as Songbird. I reach deep, digging past all of that to the reasons why I’m still here, why I keep doing the things I do.

“I want to…” I begin, hesitating, then pushing forward. “…I want to prove Nova wrong. I want to be the person I thought she was, the person I thought she could be. I want to prove that someone can be that person. A good person that does things because it’s the right thing to do and because it’ll help build a better galaxy, and without expecting anything in return. I do it because… because I don’t want other people to go through what I’ve gone through. With Nova, with Prophet, with CURSE. I do it because I want to live in a galaxy where I’m not afraid to take my girlfriend meet my parents just because she’s a Maskling, and where other people don’t have to worry about that either. I do it—” I cut myself short as I suddenly realize something. “Oh SHIT. Kiwi!”

I start to scramble to my feet, but Valcalia reaches over and grabs me, keeping me from running off. “Whoa, whoa hey hey hey! Calm down, calm down.” she says in a soothing tone.

“Kiwi, and, and, and Ridge, and Renchiko, and all the others, they were—” I stammer.

“They’re fine. I checked on them after you and your friend came through the roof of my temple.” Valcalia says, sitting me back down. “I traced your path back to the cruiser that you two fell out of. It was able to make an emergency landing the next island over. They’re safe. A little shaken up, but they’re safe.”

“Oh, thank god.” I sigh, my shoulders slumping. “I can’t believe I forgot about that; I was so fixated on Prophet that I didn’t even think about whether the cruiser made it…”

“Well, to be fair, you were getting absolutely bodied. So you had a few other things to worry about at the time.” Valcalia points out.

I start feeling around in my jacket. “I should text them and let them know…” I trail off when I pull out my phone, and find that it didn’t survive Prophet swinging me around like a ragdoll on a string. The screen is completely shattered, and the internal components are visible through a long crack in the back of the phone. “…shit.”

Valcalia smiles. “Don’t worry about it for now. You’ll be able to make a call to them later.” Reaching over, she takes the phone and throws it towards one of the garden spots, where it explodes into sparkling dust, settling over the flowers there. “You didn’t get to finish answering my question, but I think I heard enough. About the things you dream about, the things that you want to fight for. I’ve got one last question for you, just between you and me. As musicians, and sonic sorcerers.” She folds her arms over one of her knees, getting comfortable before she looks to me. “Do you ever wish for a galaxy where everyone can hear the music you can hear, feel the way it makes you feel when you’re amped up? Bursting at the seams with the hopes and dreams you’ve held within yourself since you were young?”

I open my mouth, then close it, thinking about what she’s describing. That feeling like you’re leading a symphony of souls by sharing your song; the feeling of connecting with hundreds or thousands of people, and knowing that they feel what you feel, and that you’re not alone. “Yeah. Yeah, I wish for that sometimes.”

“You don’t just wish for it. You miss it, because you know what it feels like. You’ve felt it before.” Valcalia says. “Haven’t you, Blueberry Bubblegum.”

That catches me off guard; I snap a look to Valcalia to see that she’s smiling. “Wait, what are you—”

“I know who you are.” Valcalia says before I can finish. “Goddess of music and valor, remember? You think I wouldn’t recognize you just because your form looks a little different?”

I suck in a deep breath, rubbing the back of my neck. “I… I can’t be that version of myself anymore. CURSE—”

“I know. They found out and forced you into the resettlement agreement. I know you were forced to abandon that life; I know you can’t really return to it at this point.” Valcalia nods. “But it’s proof of the life you could’ve led if you were allowed to. The difference you could’ve made if you’d been allowed to. I know you, Feroce. You’re a sonic sorcerer of singular talent and drive; I know what you’re capable of if you’re given a chance. I see a lot of myself in you, and that’s why I want to offer you the chance to be one of my disciples, my representative here on the mortal plane. The Anayans might consider you a heretic, but I’ve seen what you’ve done. I see the things you believe in, the kind of galaxy you want to build. I think it’s a dream worth chasing, and I wouldn’t mind helping you chase it.”

Those words settle on my shoulders with the weight of possibility. The possibility of something new, but also the fear of leaving behind a piece of my identity that I’ve carried for forty years. Looking down, I study the skinned orange slice on the ground, then pick it up, looking over at the cells that make it up. Take away one of those cells and replace it with something else, and it would still be an orange slice. The composition would be slightly different, but it didn’t change what the whole was at the end of the day.

“What would you need me to do?” I ask, still examining the orange slice.

“Keep being yourself. Never stop fighting for a better galaxy.” she says. “And make a little noise every now and then. I like it when you sing.”

“You’re making it sound so simple. So easy.” I say, weighing the orange slice in my hand.

Valcalia raises an eyebrow. “Is it simple or easy to be you?”

I chuckle at that. “I’ve been doing it so long I don’t really think about it any more, but I suppose it’s not.” Lifting the orange slice, I pop it in my mouth. “Alright. You’ve got yourself a Songbird, Valcalia. Dunno if I’ll live up to your expectations, but I’ll give it a try.”

“So long as you’re trying, that’s all that I ask.” Valcalia says, standing up and reaching into her jacket. “I also noticed that you dropped a couple of things on your way down.”

I let out a small gasp when she pulls my ninjato hilts out of her jacket, halfway reaching for them on reflex as I quickly bolt to my feet. “You saved them! Oh man, I thought I’d lost them for good… I’m so happy, seriously — you don’t know how much these mean to me…”

“I think I do, actually.” she says, looking them over. “Starglass heirlooms from the Valcalian side of your family, aren’t they? On your mother’s side. Very well made, and refurbished to extend their lifetime. I’ve seen the pictures and videos of you; you never seem to go anywhere without them.”

“I… really don’t, honestly. I always have them with me.” I admit. “It’s one of the few things I have left over from my family.”

“You’ve given these blades a good history, and they’re excellent weapons.” Valcalia says, igniting one of them and testing the swing and balance of the kaleidoscopic blade. “It’d be a shame to see them lost, stolen, or broken. Perhaps…” Her eyes stray to my chest. “…I think I could arrange something similar to your Spark. Turn these into something that can’t be taken by force, something that will return to you if it is lost. And you did agree to be my disciple, so I wouldn’t be remiss in consecrating tools for your use…”

“Consecration?” I ask, having a vague idea of what she’s talking about, but wanting to be sure we’re on the same page. “How do you… what do you mean by that?”

“Apostles and prophets in many religions are usually given tools, blessed by their deities, with which to perform their duties.” Valcalia says, resting the flat of the blade across her fingers, watching the colors ripple and swirl across the glassy surface. “Of course, their unique features are usually contingent on fidelity to the hypernatural that’s consecrated them. While I understand the reasons for doing so, it’s never really sat right with me, consecrating an object so that it basically acts as a loyalty test for a specific religion.” Turning off the ignited blade, she floats both of the hilts in the air over her hands, looking thoughtful. “I prefer that the consecrated tool is a reflection of the person meant to use it, and not the deity that consecrated it. In your case…”

Rings of light, composed of symbols in an unfamiliar and presumably ancient language, flare to life around the hilts. They appear to be writing themselves as we watch, with each ring contracting once it completes, and sinking into the hilt, absorbed like water into a sponge. New rings of script begin writing themselves as soon as the previous ones soak into the hilts, and with each ring that’s absorbed, a vein of silver traces through the black metal, forming geometric patterns across the handles. As the last ring of script sinks into the hilts, they drop back into Valcalia’s hands, and she holds them out to me.

“These swords are now consecrated for your use.” she says as I take them, weighing them in my hands to see if they feel any different. “If you lose them, they will return to you; if you allow someone to borrow them, then you can recall them at will. Masterwork enchantments are woven into them, so they withstand a hit from anything short of a hypernatural strike. There’s a couple other features, but I’ll let you discover those on your own.”

“This is… you really didn’t have to do this for me.” I say, running a thumb over the silver veins now tracing through the black metal. The inlay is smooth to the touch, completely flush with the rest of the metal. I feel almost embarrassed — I hadn’t come in here expecting to receive a favor or a gift from a higher power, and I’m not entirely sure how to react to it. Just saying ‘thank you’ doesn’t quite feel like it covers it.

Valcalia shrugs. “Well, if it helps, think of it as me investing in a piece of Valcalian history, since those blades are hundreds of years old. Bringing them up to standard, and making sure their durability matches yours. Because it seems like you get put through the wringer a lot.”

That gets a snort out of me. “Yeah, I can’t argue with that.”

“Didn’t think you would.” Valcalia says, pulling her phone out next. “Since your phone’s toasted, you can use mine to call your friends and let them know you’re alright. You might have to dial a couple times, since the call will be coming from a number they don’t recognize.”

“Thanks.” I say, taking her phone and pulling up the call function. “I really appreciate it; would’ve taken a while for me to figure out how to get in touch with them.” Plugging in Kiwi’s number, I start the call, while Valcalia bends down to scoop up the fragments of her orange peel. It shreds itself into a little pile of pale mulch in her hands, and she heads over to one of the flowerbeds to sprinkle it in among the mulch as I try to call Kiwi again.

It takes another few rings, but Kiwi eventually picks up. “Kiwi speaking. Whoever this is, you better be calling for a damn good reason.”

I smile a little at that. “If it’s your boyfriend calling to ask for a lift, is that a good-enough reason?” I reply.

“Where the HELL are you?! Why didn’t you call earlier! You left us waiting all this while, worrying that you were dead, and then you call like it’s a dandy afternoon at the beach acting like we haven’t spent the last hour trying to figure out where you might’ve fallen when you got sucked out of the cruiser! I am gonna bite you so hard when we pick you up!” She pauses to catch her breath, then goes on. “Where are you, anyway? And why aren’t you calling from your phone? I would’ve picked up the first time if I’d known it was you!”

“Yeah, my phone didn’t survive the fall.” I say, starting to hook my ninjato hilts back on my belt. “I had to borrow one to call you. I’m fine, by the way; had a bit of a rough landing, but I can tell you about it later. Currently I’m in a temple of Valcalia on one of the islands we were flying over…” I pause, looking around and realizing I don’t know the address. “…honestly, you don’t see a lot of temples dedicated to Valcalia, so you can probably look it up on the worldnet and it should show you which island it’s on.”

“You’re in a church? That isn’t because of Prophet, is it? Please tell me he didn’t try to convert you or baptize you or something sick or twisted like that.”

“No, it just happened to be where we landed.” I say, glancing up at the hole in the roof. “Technically there was a consecration, but that wasn’t because of Prophet. He actually ended up taking a detour into the side of a convenience store, so I don’t think he’ll be an issue for a while.”

“Good, that’s one less thing to worry about.” It sounds like there’s some chatter in the background of the call, and Kiwi talking to someone else nearby. “Yeah, he’s alive, and he sounds way more cheerful than he should be, so he’s probably fine. He’s currently in a church or a temple or something. It’s dedicated to someone with a name similar to the planet. Valor or Valcorria or Valkon or something like that. See if you can look it up on the worldnet so we can catch a ride out there to go pick him up. Feroce, can you hear me? Don’t you dare go anywhere. Stay where you are, it’s going to be harder to find you and pick you up if you wander off. Just keep a low profile. Once we get close to where you are, I’ll give you a call to let you know we’re about to arrive.”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course. I’ll stay here and keep my head down.” I assure her. “How about the kids? Is everyone alright? No one else got sucked out of the cruiser?”

“Yeah, they’re all fine. You and Prophet are the only ones that went skydiving without parachutes. The cruiser had to make an emergency landing on one of the islands, probably close to the one that you’re on. The civvies are safe, though they’re a bit shaken up. Right now we’re trying to get emergency services to let us grab our stuff and go, since we need to pick you up, and because we need to get under the radar. If Prophet’s here, that probably means CURSE has a team or a ship deployed nearby.”

“Mm. I hadn’t thought about that, but you’re probably right.” I say, grimacing. “Alright. I’ll keep my head down and wait for you guys to pick me up. If anything changes, I’ll text or call you.” After a moment, I add, “I love you, Kiwi. It’s good to hear your voice.”

There’s a instant of hesitation on the other side of the line, then: “I’m gonna bite you when I see you.”

The line disconnects after that, leaving me with a small smile as I lower the phone. After a small moment of silence to soak in the conversation, I turn around, looking for Valcalia so I can give it back to her.

But the sanctum is empty — she’s nowhere to be seen.

I turn around a couple more times, then walk around a bit, peering around the statue to see if she wandered somewhere else. But she isn’t anywhere that I can see, and doing another circuit of the island at the center of the sanctum, it looks like there isn’t anyone in here at all. Standing in front of the statue, I’m still wondering what I should do with the phone when it suddenly buzzes, and I look down to see that I’ve gotten a new text… from Valcalia. Opening up the messaging app, I pull up the text thread with the series of new messages.

Keep the phone. You can use it to talk to me if you ever want to chat.

P.S: check the music app. I cloned all your music from your old phone onto this one, along with some recommendations I think you’ll like.

P.S.S: also, the storage on this phone is effectively infinite. Do with that what you will.

Soaking in the messages, I feel a bit of that small smile return. On the whole, today hadn’t gone the way I had expected or wanted, with some parts being violently unpleasant. And truthfully, it wasn’t something I wanted to repeat anytime soon.

But for all the blood and violence, it felt like I’d get to end things on a high note.

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Koiyash: Temple of Valcalia

5:18pm SGT

“Yeah, no, we don’t really do that ritual stuff, the way other religions do. If I’m being completely honest, all that stuff is kinda weird. Like the Christlings, with their transmutation sacrament and the bread-and-wine, blood-and-flesh thing? Can’t wrap my head around it. I know it’s supposed to be symbolic or something, but I just can’t get around the whole metaphorical cannibalism thing.”

“Yeah, a lot of those rituals are symbolism.” I say, my fingers roaming up and down the keys of the grand piano I’m sitting at. After getting myself together, I’d made my way out of the sanctum and wandered around the rest of the temple, trying to find my way around until I eventually reached what looked like the front lobby. There was a single guy there, a volunteer worker that was doing busywork — dusting off the display instruments in the front lobby, cleaning the windows, and organizing the temple’s music library. I let him know I would be waiting for my friends to come pick me up, and he seemed pretty chill with it. We’d been talking on and off since then; he didn’t seem to mind answering the questions I had about the temple, and Valcalia’s religion at large.

“See, the thing about the rituals is that they’re… how do I put this. They provide a framework, you know? For the enforcement of certain moral codes and stuff.” Josh says, his arms planted on the edge of the display piano while I run through my scales. He’s a decidedly lanky fellow, with a few piercings, a baggy t-shirt, and a laid-back vibe. Couldn’t be more than a couple years out of high school, maybe going to college. “A religion usually has a specific set of morals they’re invested in, and they use rituals and traditions to create a structure that enforces and reinforces those morals in the community they’re located in. Systems of control, man. That’s why you see so many religious types messing around in politics, and vice versa.”

“And that’s not something that worshippers of Valcalia do?” I ask.

“Nah, man.” Josh says, waving a hand. “We don’t do that. We’re just here to make some noise and have a good time and share it with others. None o’ this nonsense about who you can or can’t sleep with, or what you should eat, or what days of the week you should worship. It ain’t about controllin’ what other people do, y’know? It’s about the joy of music, bringing people together with a good jam.”

I consider that; the last part feels a little trite, but I find myself agreeing with the first part, in part because there was some truth to it. Religions were often systems of control, with rules and requirements that were intended to produce certain behaviors, or restrict and eliminate other ones. I knew that all too well myself, and while it wasn’t always a bad thing, Prophet was proof that it wasn’t always a good thing either.

“Well, it’s good to hear that Valcalia is a bit more accepting than other deities.” I say, pausing my scales as I feel my new phone vibrate. Pulling out, I see that I’ve got a new text from Kiwi — apparently she and the others are pulling up outside the temple now. “Looks like my ride’s here, so I should get going. Thanks for answering my questions — it’s nice to know little more about Valcalia and her followers.”

“Hey man, don’t sweat it. It’s why I’m here, after all.” Josh says, pushing off the piano as I stand up. “Always nice to have someone that’s curious about Valcalia. If you wanna drop by for one of the weekend meetings, you’re more than welcome to hang with us. We been thinking about doing a cookie drive for the local high school’s band department. They could do with a new xilaxiphone.”

“Ah. Sounds neat, but I’m not local, unfortunately.” I say, walking backwards towards the front doors. “My friends and I are headed for the mainland. If we pass by in the future, though, I’ll make sure to visit!”

“Yeah man, whatever works for you!” Josh says, waving his farewell as I push through the doors and out onto the stairs of the temple. Down the front walkway and across the temple’s grounds, I can see that there’s a local taxi pulled up to the curb, with Kiwi and Sierra disembarking from it. The moment Kiwi sees me, she jumps the hood of the taxi, pelting up the walkway and catching me on the stairs.

“You shouldn’t have stopped me!” is the first thing out of her mouth as she grabs me in a tight hug. “If you had just let me kick him out of the cruiser in the first place instead of always trying to take the moral high ground, then none of this would’ve happened! What would’ve happened if you hadn’t survived, yeah? Did you think about that? Did you think about what that would do to me—”

“I’m here.” It’s a soft interruption, the simplest reply I can give as I wrap my arms around her and hold her close. It might only be two words, but it says the part that really matters: that I’m here, and she’s not alone.

Kiwi’s jaw stiffens; for a moment I can’t tell if she’s going to shout or cry, or maybe both. But she doesn’t do either; instead she tilts her head to the side and gives me a quick bite on the neck, as she’d threatened to do earlier. “Listen to me next time. I know you want to be a hero, but killing people isn’t a bad thing if they’re a threat to others.” she mutters.

“Think you’ve got it a little backwards there. The vampire’s supposed to be biting you, not the other way around.” Sierra quips as she reaches us, pulling her lollipop out of her mouth.

Kiwi scowls over her shoulder at Sierra. “I am the one that does the biting.”

“Well, you got the teeth for it.” Sierra says, before waving her lollipop at me. “You’re looking pretty good for someone that dropped from cruising altitude without a parachute, Songbird. Where’s altar boy in power armor? Did you finally deal with him for good?”

“Valcalia told him to take a walk, and he didn’t, so she gave him a free high-speed ticket to the grocery store the next block over.” I say, pointing in the direction that Prophet was ejected. “He’s still alive, but he decided not to come back for round two.”

“Huh.” Sierra says, glancing in that direction. “Guess he isn’t as stupid as he sounds. A real shame that he’s still alive, but if he got put in his place by Valcalia, I ain’t gonna complain. Getting the smackdown from someone else’s goddess — that’s the best kind of poetic justice you could dish out to a religious extremist. It’s just delicious — gives me the warm fuzzies just thinking about it.” Sticking her lollipop back in her mouth, she looks thoughtful for a moment, then adds: “I had Valcalia on my bingo card at some point. Never got the chance to check her off, though. Damn shame. Now I’m curious — did you actually see her? Is she still as hot as she was thirteen thousand years ago? Because man, she was smokin’ back when I met her. Still takes my breath away thinking about it. Woulda sold my soul and then taken a loan out on someone else’s soul to take a roll in that bed.”

Kiwi squints at Sierra, then looks at me. “Who’s Valcalia?”

I draw a deep breath, biting my lip. “Oh, she’s, uh… that’s a bit of a long story. Why don’t we get going, and I can explain it on the way to… wherever we’re going.”

“We changed our plans. We’ll be heading to the Viktier estate on the mainland, the one we used as a safehouse last time we were on Valcorria.” Sierra says, turning and heading back towards the taxi. “Since CURSE is obviously here and trying to get the jump on us, we’ll lay low for a bit and figure out how we’re gonna reach Boaris and try to get offworld afterwards. Shouldn’t be too hard; Valcorria’s in the pocket for us. They liked the Challengers, and they probably like the Valiant, so they probably wouldn’t mind tying up CURSE in red tape while we go about our business.”

“That’s good to hear. I think that’ll be the first time a planetary government’s actually sided with us.” I say as Kiwi and I follow her back to the taxi.

“Hopefully we’ll start seeing more of that as the Valiant media office starts getting regular with the press releases. Also, you never answered my question earlier — is Valcalia still hot enough to set the church on fire?”

“I’m not gonna answer that.”

“Why, you think Kiwi’s going to be jealous?”

“I just watched her backhand a man in a suit of power armor hard enough to send him flying a full block away. I’d rather not test my luck by making flippant remarks about her looks.”

“Pffff, you’re so weak. Who wouldn’t want to get bitchslapped by a goddess?”

“ME. I’d like to have my bones intact, thank you very much…”