Crash and Burn: Choices and Consequences (ch. 2) (Patreon)

Votes: The City (31), The Ocean (53), The Orbital Beam (92), Write in (23)

...

Atlas was hiding things from her, Azula noticed as her gaze swept over the odd looking room within the so-called Vault. Rooms completely made of metal were hardly uncommon within the Fire Nation -- she had toured foundries and frequently used the cutting edge vehicles of war created by the Fire Nation's war industry. But even so, everything felt strangely alien to her within the Vault. She felt like a peasant seeing a foundry for the first time, and it wasn't a feeling she enjoyed. "Should we really linger here? That man did inform this Dimitrescu that we are here before he was killed." She remarked, watching Atlas closely.

"We need supplies," Atlas answered, glancing at her, an odd bulge in a pocket that told her that he had tried to slip something in it without her noticing. "Food, primarily. We have no idea what's edible outside of this place. The planet should have been reseeded, but it may not have been seeded with anything we can eat," he answered, going through storage containers in search of things that would be of use to them. Thus far, he had only found something called a survival meal that was vacuum sealed in a yellow package.

That's why everything felt so alien. How Atlas spoke of such things as if they were common knowledge. He spoke of regrowing a planet with the same ease she might claim to do the same for a garden. For her entire life, the Fire Nation was the pinnacle of scientific innovation and advancement. Now she stood in a room, five thousand years later, and she couldn't recognize anything inside of it. It was galling. It pricked at her pride fiercely, and every time Atlas was forced to explain something to her caused physical pain.

Worst of all was the fact that it wasn't the Fire Nation that had led the world to an industrial revolution. Azula always had a fierce pride about that. The rest of the world suffered mud huts and stone, but the Fire Nation utilized steel. Yet, in this room, the most mundane item would outshine anything that the Fire Nation had created.

"You fought in this war? For how long?" Azula questioned, walking the room and only touching things that she had seen Atlas touch beforehand -- a hard case filled with what he described as glitterworld medicine. Articles of clothing that they were both wearing -- which felt like silk, but slightly off. All of which was being gathered in a pile at the center of the room that was filled with storage containers. All the while, she watched him.

Atlas struck her as a soldier, even before she knew he was one. It was in how he carried himself -- disciplined and focused.

"Nineteen to twenty years, I think," Atlas answered after a moment. That was surprising. Very much so.

"You're in your thirties?" She questioned, finding it difficult to believe. He looked to be in his twenties, mid twenties at the absolute oldest. And that was assuming that his empire followed the Fire Nation practice to allow children to partake in low-priority and low-danger roles within its military

He glanced over his shoulder, "I'm about twenty. I was grown in a vat over the course of about three months." He explained, sounding like he understood that she was ignorant and she felt a rush of irritation. But it was overshadowed by how… otherworldly that statement was. Azula couldn't even picture it in her head what that would look like.

Her brows drew together, her gaze running the length of Atlas. He was… "Meaning you've always looked like that?" She asked him, her gaze lingering on his face. Atlas was handsome. No, it was more than that. He was… beautiful. Azula wasn't sure if there was another word for it -- he had a face that made you want to stop and stare at it. In moments of weakness, she found that she did exactly that more than once before she had to force herself to look away. He looked like the man every girl dreamed about -- sublime perfection. The rest of him was no less appealing with broad shoulders, tall at six and a half feet, and a frame that was lined with perfectly defined muscles.

He was so good looking that Azula found it almost unnerving. Atlas didn't look real.

"I have," Atlas confirmed. He must have caught her lingering gaze because he nodded, "it's for propaganda. The Empire can't have ugly soldiers," he elaborated, telling her that he knew exactly how good looking he was. Good. Some might find value in modesty, but Azula wasn't one of them. One needed to be keenly aware of their faults and strengths.

"I see," Azula returned, playing with the thought. She could see the logic. And there was something deeply appealing about the idea of being surrounded by men that looked like Atlas. A quick glance at his arm showed that being good looking was hardly the only benefit. The slash on his arm should have been enough to render the arm immobile. However, within seconds of getting the injury, the bleeding had stopped and now the slash had scabbed over. Good looking, strong, and fast healers.

Yes. That was the ideal soldier. A perfect foundation to build an empire upon.

"This war," Azula began, hungry for information as she continued to add items into a container that floated off of the ground as if an earthbender was lifting it. She suspected it was magnetic in some way but she couldn't be certain without asking. "It wasn't fought on just this planet then," she questioned, trying to see the scope of it and understand her enemy. She was a Princess of the Fire Nation. She would not accept the mere idea that she had betters. The only man she was second to was her father.

Atlas paused before answering, opening another container. She peeked inside to see it was some manner of armor. Bulky, yet refined. A featureless helmet that obscured the face, black playing with gold accents -- a familiar combination. "Cataphract Armor," he informed her, a small smirk tugging at one corner of his lips. It was a dangerous expression. "It was worth coming down here just for this," he decided. "And the war has been across the galaxy for thousands of years now," he told her, hefting the armor out of the crate before setting it on the ground. Then he cursed. "Biolocked."

Hm. The scale of the war was greater than what she was used to, but Azula could do nothing if not adapt. "Locks can be picked, can't they?" She prompted, looking down at the armor. It was far too bulky for her, but it did seem like it was made for Atlas.

"Hacked in this case, but yeah. It'll just take me a bit. Until then, it's dead weight," he admitted to her. Perfect.

"Take it," Azula instructed, seizing the opportunity. Atlas was a soldier, meaning that he was used to receiving orders. Which worked perfectly because Azula was used to giving them. A hierarchy needed to be established between them and she intended to be at the top of it. If she could get him used to obeying her orders, then that will ease the transition into making him subservient to her. "If you believe it will prove useful eventually, then it will be worth taking."

Atlas nodded, accepting the logic before he deposited the armor into the floating crate. However, as he did so, she noticed that something else was missing in the crate. Three small vials that had been standing straight up in the foam the armor had been seated in. It matched the bulge in his pocket. He didn't want her to know that he was taking those vials with him. What did they contain, she wondered?

She was tempted to take one, confronting him about the secrecy, but she paused when Atlas' head snapped to the door, his expression growing tense. "Bugs," he informed. "Sounds like… five of them. Soldier class," he told her, his voice adopting a calm and professional tone.

"It seems we've overstayed our welcome," Azula remarked. "Push the crate. I will deal with the insects,"  Azula instructed, confident as she strode to the door. She saw his lips thin ever so slightly, but he nodded all the same, trusting her ability. Good. The first two orders were the most difficult and by the third, he will be used to obeying her commands. Azula allowed herself a small smirk as she stepped into the decrepit hallway that was covered in a dark substance that felt like wet stone.

His hearing was rather sharp because Azula saw five insects of the same variety of those that she had seen before. Azula grit her teeth and focused, drawing upon her anger and rage to create potent blue fire in her hands.

She lied to Atlas. Her last memories were not of her traitorous usurper brother arriving to challenge her to an Agni Kai. Her last memories were not even of her defeat at the hands of his pet waterbender barbarian. Her last memory was being in a cold cell that robbed her of her fire bending after a failed escape attempt from Boiling Rock prison. An escape that was foiled because the prison was so much emptier after the war had ended a handful of years ago.

The cold had become too much and she had passed out, unable to keep herself warm with her inner flame.

Azula had to hand it to Zuko -- she never thought he had it in him.

"Die!" Azula snarled the word, the blue flames growing in intensity as the filthy insects screeched and rushed at her. She jabbed out with a fist, sending a blast of dark blue fire into the face of one insect that scorched its chitin to the point that it melted. Hate flowed through her as she kicked out, sending a wave of fire that traveled the length of the floor, scorching their legs and filling the hallway with the sounds of their screams. For a precious moment, she imagined it was Zuko. His whore waterbender. The childish monk Avatar. Even her own father for his disgraceful defeat and the loss of their empire.

A snarl of a smile peeled back at her lips when she cocked up, grabbing hold of the flames and making them coat the entirety of the hallway before she pushed with both hands, scorching everything beyond the hall. The insects were screaming in pain, their legs collapsing underneath them as their appendages were reduced to charcoal. It felt good to use her bending again.

Azula had learned her lessons and she learned them well. Mai and Ty Lee had betrayed her because they didn't fear her enough. Because of some foolish notions of love. The idea was sickening, but it had been a lesson all the same -- if she couldn't make her own friends so afraid of her that they wouldn't think of disobedience, then there was precious little chance of subordinating an entire galaxy with fear alone.

She would use love as a weapon in her arsenal. Atlas would be the first step in her plans to ascend to Empress of the galaxy, leader of a New Fire Nation remade in her image.

She would make him fear her. So deeply afraid of her wrath that he would shudder at the mere thought of it.

Azula would make him love her. So madly in love that he would never even think of betrayal.

An opportunity to take back everything that was stolen from her was presented to Azula on a platter and all she had to do was take it.

"There," Azula remarked, schooling her expression into a teasing smirk as she glanced over her shoulder. "Nothing too difficult," she added, flicking a lock of her hair over her shoulder as she approached him. She suppressed a smirk when she saw his face -- his expression was calm, but his cold blue eyes burned with intensity. She wanted to shiver under his gaze because she could all too easily see his thoughts -- he was thinking about how he would beat her in a fight.

He didn't yet trust her. That was good. She had no use in a right hand that could be impressed and deceived so easily. The fact he was thinking like that told Azula that he was useful

However, her jaw tightened when she heard the sound of skittering and Atlas' eyes narrowed.

"Seems like you woke up the rest of the hive," he remarked before he resumed pushing the crate and moved with shocking speed. "Come on. We really have overstayed our welcome now."

…

I secured an explosive charge to the door -- it was part of a daisy chain of explosives that would blow the elevator shaft. Asset denial. I had no idea who all was down there if Azula was there. It should have been only essential personnel. I was the leader of a special ops unit and those caskets should have been filled with members of my team. Still, regardless, it was better for them to sleep for a little longer than to wake up with a bomb in their heads. Especially when Azula was proving to be a rather powerful pyrokinetic. I didn't need more of her falling into a potential enemy's hands.

"Stand back, cover your ears and open your mouth," I told Azula and her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. She really didn't care for being ordered around. Tough. I couldn't have her going deaf. Stepping back, I pushed the detonator and the first explosion sent a shockwave through me before I felt rumbling under foot as the elevator shaft was collapsing. Nothing that should impact the power, just make it difficult for anyone to get down into the Vault until I could come back.

"They'll hunt us," Azula remarked as I grabbed hold of the crate and started to push.

"I'm sure they will," I returned as we began our journey in earnest. What we found in the vault had tipped things in terms of our destination. My gaze found the pillar of light that burned away at the world, illuminating the sky like a second sun as the real sun began to set. I would have to keep an eye on it, but it seemed to have moved in the past hour. I don't think it was tied into a twenty-four-hour rotation with the planet, confirming my theory that the orbital laser was slowly carving the planet in half.

We had a significant haul. Fifty survival meals, twenty cases of glitterworld medicine, additional clothing, and a set of Cataphract Armor. The last one would take me up to a week to hack through, but once I did, my combat effectiveness drastically went up.

Most importantly of all, I had found four vials of Go-Juice. I'm not sure what the battle stimulant was really called, but Go-Juice was what I've always known it as. It numbed pain, drastically increased strength, speed, and cognitive function. It was also necessary for me to take it because it was a drug that my genome had been designed around -- my body was created to take full advantage of the drug, making it resonate with my biology so that the effects were multiplied several times over. However, as a result, I needed the drug to survive.

And it was a need. Just like a baseline human needed water and food to survive.

Cravings started within hours. I could go five days without any before the withdrawal symptoms kicked in -- headache, nausea, fatigue, and weakness. By day thirty, I would be in a coma, but by day fifteen I would in practice be nonfunctioning. My condition would worsen steadily until day sixty, where I would die of organ failure.

Four doses, if taken regularly, would keep me going for twenty days. Ideally. However, I had little faith that I would be finding more Go-Juice so easily. There had been shortages during the war and that was five thousand years ago. I would have to stretch it out by micro dosing until I found a steady supply of the drug. My experience in the war taught me that I could take a fourth of a dose every five days and still function at the bare minimum combat effectiveness levels to avoid termination.

Meaning my supply could be stretched to eighty days. A more practical, if daunting, timeline. I would feel like a warmed-over corpse, but it beat being dead.

"You intend to kill them," Azula observed as we started our journey, an odd note in her voice.

I wasn't sure why. "If they prove hostile. If they bring a vehicle, we could commandeer it," I voiced, thinking it would be to our benefit. If there were tribals, then they could be a mixed bag. The idea was that we would go to them, flash some advanced tech, and integrate ourselves within their society to find out more about the general situation. It was a classic tactic when dealing with tribal natives.

Provided that they weren't the technophobic brand of tribals.

"It would move things along," Azula agreed as we walked. The rough stone slowly gave way to gravel, then dirt, and some hours later we were within a forest. I kept my gaze on the treeline, searching for an ambush. As I did so, I looked for any signs of the previous terrain. When I last walked on this planet, everything was either dead or dying. The insect population had collapsed first, which had a huge cascading effect on the rest of the ecology. Animals died off, then the plant life did. The only plants left were withered husks of specifically cultured mosses that produced enough oxygen to continue the fight. But even those started to fail.

It made it odd to walk in nature again. I heard birds chirping off in the distance. There were sounds of critters in the foliage. It made me flinch at every sound, which was annoying, but it was incredible how much things had changed.

In any case -- every major trace of the previous landscape or buildings were gone, almost entirely. Orbital bombardments tended to have that effect. However, on occasion, I saw hints of something. An outcropping that wasn't entirely natural, or the crumbled remnants of a building. The most glaring landmark had been a parking lot of all things, because there was a clearing in the forest in a large rectangle.

We camped there the first night. The night had been a bright one because of the orbital beam that slowly marched across the sky. Azula was inquisitive, but she tried to disguise the questions to the best of her ability. While she learned a fair bit, I learned more -- she was from an early industrial world. Steam engines and coal, but little in the way of actual technology.

By the second night, the questions started to die down, leaving us to travel in familiar silence. Azula showed an ability for tracking -- something that I lacked. I was used to having technology do that for me.

By the third night, I had spent the longest amount of time in my life without an active engagement. If the city had sent anyone looking for us, they had failed to find us.

"It really is incredible," Azula observed, the forest thinning out to allow us to better see the pillar of light. “Such weapons… were they common?” Azula questioned, asking a rare outright question. There was hunger in her tone. I couldn’t say I knew Azula particularly well -- she was pretty cagey about giving me any information about herself. But one thing was clear -- she liked big guns.

“Very,” I muttered, squinting at the beam of light that was getting closer. If we had walked to where it was, then the trip would have taken a week, but it was meeting us halfway by the look of things. I could see the lip that it had carved out, and like I thought, it was much larger in person. Less of a small mountain and more of a big hill. It was colored black, the color of obsidian and melted stone.

“I imagine they would inflict significant losses to those unprepared,” Azula added, looking at the beam of light like it was a piece of a puzzle. I grunted in response as I saw one too many flashes of light in my mind. Orbital beams weren’t typically something that were sustained like this. More often than not, it was like a flashbang -- one moment everything is fine, then there's a flash of light, some noise, and heat… then everything and everyone underneath that beam that fell from the sky was just gone.

“Very significant,” I agreed. “Towards the end, both sides pulled out all of the stops. Started hurling everything they had at each other. It was only when we lost fifty million troops in the span of a year that high command started preparing the vaults,” I muttered, an edge of bitterness in my voice that I couldn’t quite keep out. I understood what I was -- a disposable super soldier. That didn’t make the complete callous disregard for our lives any easier to swallow.

They only accepted that the war needed to go on ice for a time because they couldn’t maintain the production of soldiers. There wasn’t enough left of the corpses to be reprocessed, and the destruction of the environment meant that the biological material to create more soldiers couldn’t be supplemented with plant matter. And even then, they kept dragging it out until all the preparations were made.

I was essential personnel. I was one of the first put in cryosleep. I wasn’t under any delusions that the millions that weren’t deemed essential were forced to fight to the death.

Azula looked like she almost missed a step, but I paid it no mind in favor of pointing something out. “Look, over there,” I said, passing her a set of binoculars since her eyes weren’t as good as mine. I pointed in the direction as she raised them to her eyes, “Looks like tribals to me,” I voiced, seeing them off in the distance. I nearly missed them in the glare of the light, but they were there, clinging to the side of the large hill. It seems that they had built into it as much as they did on it.

They were humanoid based on the sight of a woman marching up a staircase that was carved out of obsidian. Blonde hair, pale skin, average height for a baseline woman. Her clothing, however, stood out -- it reminded me of a uniform. Dark blue with gray accents. It stood out in contrast to the patchwork leathers and furs of the three women that were escorting the woman up the steps.

“They’re like ants on an anthill,” Azula observed, and that wasn’t an inaccurate comparison. Something clearly had them excited, and if I had to take a wild guess, it had something to do with the massive beam of light that would be passing by them within a few hours. It also seems that I was correct about the light having religious significants to the tribals.

“We need to do recon,” I voiced my thoughts, pressing onward to the hill, but in a wide arc away from the main settlement, aiming for a peak on the hill that would give a decent enough vantage. “I don’t want to walk into the settlement just to discover they celebrate the occasion with cannibalism.”

“I will never be shocked by what depravity commoners can indulge in,” Azula agreed, sounding like she had a few stories of her own based on the edge in her tone. “In any case, we don’t need to engage with the settlement at all. I’m sure they have hunters and gatherers -- we only need to capture one of them for interrogation.” She had a point there, earning a nod from me. Right now, the most valuable thing that the tribals offered was information.

If they proved to be untrustworthy or unsavory, we could use the information and move on to a different settlement. The entire planet couldn’t be all cannibals.

Slowly, and stealthy, we made our way up the hill to get a vantage, and I could admit to being surprised by what I saw when we reached the crest of the hill. The tribals had built into the hill, but that wasn’t the only thing that they had built. Across the gap I saw water. I couldn’t tell if it was an ocean or a very large lake, but I did recognize the flood controls that they had built. A quick look down into the trench itself showed that it went down a long way -- so far that I couldn’t see the bottom because the light didn’t reach that far.

“I see a ceremony,” Azula informed, looking through the binoculars. I saw it too. The tribals built a rope bridge that had a platform on it. It was richly decorated with primitive paintings and statues, but an altar was at the heart of the platform. Which didn’t bold well. Especially when I saw what the celebration was about. A quick count of the tribals proved that they were fairly numerous at well over a hundred people.

Most were crowding at the stairs carved out of the hill, cheering and shouting as they looked down at the platform. They were cheering for an old man -- gray hair, a face full of gray whiskers, as he was carried to the altar and placed upon it.

Directly in the path of the orbital beam.

“Human sacrifice. Not a good start,” I remarked, watching the tribals conduct the ceremony. I couldn’t hear them -- not at this range. And even if I could, I doubt I could hear anything of the distant humming roar of the laser that was creeping closer by the second. It moved so slowly in the distance, but up close, it was moving with lightning speed.

The old man knelt at the altar, his hands spread wide. I knew what was going to happen, so I paid more attention to the people attending the ceremony. There were tribals on both sides -- I imagine to reconnect the rope bridge after the current one was destroyed. Most of them seemed rough -- tribals were primitive by nature, but it couldn’t be denied that the people that lived that life were tough in their own way. Some had tattoos across their bodies, wearing simple clothing.

Except for those that weren’t. My gaze flickered between a handful that were wearing t-shirts and pants. They looked almost out of place amongst the tribals, but the face tattoos convinced me that their attire was a recent addition to them. Which brought my attention to those that stood out the most -- both in appearance and in reaction.

I saw the blonde-haired woman again, seated in a place of honor beside the village chief -- a middle aged man with a hint of gray at the temples. Her expression was one of steel, unflinching. The others that were near her were far more open with their disgust about what was about to transpire. Another blonde haired woman with long unruly locks, wearing a biker jacket, spats, and a half skirt. Her face was pinched as she was fighting to not look away, a hand on a golden bionic arm.

A third blonde had her lips pressed into a thin line. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail with a long bang covering one eye. Highly inconvenient and impractical. She was dressed in a dark purple top and skirt, leaving her midriff exposed and a high cut in the skirt revealed bandages acting as underwear from the look of things.

Beside them was a dark haired woman whose face was in her hands, obscuring her features. Her clothing was just as impractical -- a red and white shirt that left a substantial amount of cleavage exposed along with most of her midriff. A comforting hand was being placed on her shoulder by a redheaded woman dressed in a blue robe, her own expression sad but she seemed far more resigned to what was happening than the others.

A second dark haired woman seemed like she was seriously considering interfering with the ritual, and she was only held back by another woman who lightly held her hand. She was the oddest of the bunch, dressed in a black robe with a silver mask that covered her eyes while her ashen white hair was pulled back in a rough braid.

They were clearly outsiders, I noticed. And it was clearly the first time that they had seen this ritual, which was a promising sign. Though, it didn’t mean much. They could have just arrived today like we did rather than their reaction being an indication that they tribe rarely practiced human sacrifice. Still, I recognized the ritual for what it was -- the old man had became a burden to his family and the tribe, so he was sacrificing himself to spare them from having to care for him.

It didn’t seem to be forced, so it likely was voluntary. It’d be better if they didn’t practice human sacrifice at all, but that wasn’t a bad consolation prize.

My attention was stolen away from them when I heard the sound of rushing water. My gaze went to the flood control that were unleashed, allowing thousands of tons of water to flow into the trench in a huge flood. The water pressure behind the flood gate was so great that the water shot out with such force that it slammed into the far wall across the trench. I narrowed my eyes at the move… are they…?

“They’re terraforming,” I realized, blinking in surprise. It was a very rough version of it, but I saw the principle. The giant laser was going to dry out the area with the heat given off by it. I did think it was odd that this place wasn’t obsidian, glass, and sand. This was the answer. They pumped thousands upon thousands of tons of water into the trench just before it got hit by the laser. That, in turn, would create steam that would rise up into the atmosphere along with minerals that were blasted up with the steam.

That, in turn, would create clouds and they would make rain. It was primitive, but at the same time, it was ingenious. They were seeding clouds without the ability to fly.

“Perhaps they aren’t hopeless,” Azula remarked, lowering the binoculars as the laser made its approach. I felt heat on my face while the tribals began hefting protection to reflect the heat given off by the laser. The dull hum slowly got louder as it approached, making me squint my eyes to watch it drift closer. There was a dull explosion when the laser hit the water for the first time, sending up a huge cloud of it that only grew in size.

I nearly looked away by the time the laser struck the man on the altar, simply erasing him from existence to the point not even ash would be left. I had seen it happen far too many times before. However, because I didn’t… I saw it.

It was a perfect approach, I realized in hindsight -- hiding in the glare and the steam were people flying. I almost thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but I saw them clearly flying through the air without the aid of any kind of jetpack, simply ignoring gravity as if it didn’t apply to them. Seven of them in total, though the sixth was very easy to miss.

A woman with large breasts that were practically spilling out of a robe. A younger girl carrying a staff. A woman with white hair and a woman with blue pigtails was carrying a minigun. A black haired woman with her hair cut short and pined to the side and another that chose to have her long raven locks fly free. The most outlandish of them all was a small, tiny, spec of light that rested on the last woman’s shoulder as they flew in the glare.

The timing. The positioning. There was no doubt in my mind.

This was an attack.

...

[] Help the defenders (Major relationship boost with Olivia Armstrong colony. Minor decreased relationship with Yennefer colony. Chance to expend one Go-Juice vial.)

[] Help the Raiders (Major relationship boost with Yennefer colony. Major decreased relationship with Olivia Armstrong colony. Chance to expend one Go-Juice vial.)

[] Help yourself: During the raid, steal supplies and or people. (Major decrease relationship with Armstong colony. Minor decrease relationship Yennefer colony. Minor risk of expending one Go-Juice vial.)

[] Wait until raid is done to approach either raiding party or defenders (Neutral relation with both parties. No risk to expend one Go-Joice vial.)

     [] Write in which party is approached.

[] Wait until the raid is underway to pick off a waifu for capture (Major decrease in relationship with whatever party waifu belonged to.)

     [] Write in which waifu is captured.

[] Write in