The Void of Tesseract-19
{In hopelessness, either we find ourselves despairing or courageous... Yet cowards die many times before their actual deaths [Julius Cæsar], as sometimes even to live is an act of courage [Seneca]. As determination is not blinding hopefulness but the courage of hopelessness. So dear reader, whether thou hast came from 50-word tasker contest by @jayna or @bananafish's "FinishTheStory" in their 32nd iteration, take well to my street philosophizing section... Today's music-aide: "Seal the Deal Boss fight music" [1.] (A Hat in Time Seal the Deal OST).}
- Ashen spirits -
Ashen spirits, ashen spirits. Why must ye ashen haunt us? Oh ye ashen limp and moan, a sound that scares kids. If ye were innocent, why cannot a child see such? More-so, your death speeches invoke eloquence but your actions are eloquence’s Brutus. Oh stay away! Ashen spirits, ashen spirits.
{This part of the post was for the 50-word tasker contest by @jayna.}
Banner Created by @f3nix
- The Void of Tesseract-19 -
Prompt by @f3nix
The hoverbike lay abandoned on its side, the engine still warm. The fine black dust carried by the incessant wind was a snake that crept in every small recess.
From the top of the dune the Tesseract 19 could be seen with the naked eye. The column pierced the black sea of graphite and challenged the dark crimson sky. The awareness of his distance made him wince. That construction was enormous. That impenetrable artifact, Moloch's sharpest tooth.
Intertwined with dust, the warm wind brought an imperceptible howl: the bark of the monolith, an omen of death.
The man waited, a stiff exoskeleton bent over the black sand. The helmet lay abandoned beside him. Soon the team would have arrived.
"Soon you will arrive too and everything will be accomplished, one way or another."
He thought of her smile, her courage, her strength. "My life, how could I've been so reckless to have you involved in all this?" The tears were already kneading blackened as the memories of their happy normality swept over him.
"I can not let them find me like this". He stared at himself from outside: another tower on a dune, far more uncertain than the one that howled his feral wish.
These and other demons echoed within the chambers of his soul, when his eyes met a green sprout. The man stared that little miracle that, against every odd, was striving to affirm its existence. In the midst of that sea of bottomless despair.
The tear finally found its way lingering and bathed a leaf. The man managed to pull himself together and, now smiling, he put on his helmet.
"This Moloch will tremble, time has come for an awakening."
Ending done by @theironfelix
An alien shriek, boots clicked around, ashen-black puffs and out came a floating slug. Those boots then carefully squeaked around and away from the plant as the Grunt spoke:
"What is an advisor outta regs-?"
"Hast thou forgotten that oure species be disunited, 'specially-"
"Forgive my tongue, neck-haired Elder, but you see Tesseract-19?"
"Indeed, an ærial will be zapp'd."
Cocking his head, a speck in the pale-yellow sky was there. And both flew back as Tesseract-19 bolted and made ash of it. Relaxing his neck, the Grunt noticed the Elder's red-pulsing eye-tube and three metallic-limbs on each side. The Elder spoke as they attached a gas-mask on:
”In another time, these saplings were commonplace. Yet Moloch’s sin affects Fortuna herself and well... It and I stole the kill contract. Breathe easy, yer squadron be safe and be with the Legios... There be increas’d reports of vestiges near the border. Likewise, time’s runnin’ out and we must buy time for the Kunst Meister.”
The Elder floats down, covering the sapling in ashen-black puffs as it absorbs that in itself. The Grunt racking their laser rifle, spouted:
”Fly Elder!”
Metallic-limbs clutched and nested the Grunt as the Elder puffed while zipping across the desert. Alarms cried, Tesseract-19 hissed and ashes electrically punished for a speeding dark myst's existence. The myst arched up while Tesseract-19’s fire-rate increased; now electricity danced around the myst's trial. Finally reaching the flight's extreme, electricity was dispensed in one bolt that short-circuited the shields. Off in the distance, desert worms flew out and their voices made the surface fly.
Plummeting, the Elder and the Grunt re-materialized and bursted through. Yellow-lit androids engaged lasers down the line, yet the Elder mind-stopped the energy and mind-spoke to them. The Grunt dropped to the floor and advanced forwards, yet danced back as once-hidden spider-limb vestiges began stabbing the floor. However, that performance was ceased as the yellow colour flagged into red-light and rounds was fired. Soon disappearing, the Elder mind-forced the door away and spoke to the Grunt:
"Grunt, now the robots live. Disconnected from Mulloch, they reconnected back to life's Chaos and Order-"
Their euphoria was broken by sterile order of spider-limb strikes at anti-Mulloch agents. Soon the Elder and the Grunt flew through a robotic revolt against vestiges of spider-limbs and humans pouring from The Void. Reaching Mulloch's chamber, they re-materialized and began pounding; robots soon joined in the art project. With one final strike, the doors flew open and the Elder mind-pinned and mind-dragged Mulloch from his combat throne. With such, the Grunt picked up that the spider-limb vestiges disappearing while seeing the Meister planting charges while eyeing the screens. Meanwhile the Elder's metallic-limbs reformed to plasma:
"Spider of The Void, I banish thee from life. Thus we end the Anti-Void War!"
"Ha, The Void cannot-"
Mulloch's head flies off his spider-corpse and a galaxy hopper rips open, everyone rushes towards it and it soon closes. In Mulloch's final moments, he sees It walk towards Kunst and teleports him out before the electric-flame consumes the core.
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Today I learned a new expression Ashen spirits, ashen spirits. May they never disturb us. Congratulations @theironfelix
I didn't understand very much because my English is limited. But it's a captivating story because I didn't follow the plot so much as the paraphrases and unusual expressions.
Here for example:
Extremely creative. The story as a whole seemed much longer to me than it used words. Quite a dense narrative.
Nevertheless, I believe that I am not a very worthy reader and would like to ask: Who won this fight or what was won?
Yours was the most heroic kunst meister in that edition, I remember him.
So I took my cue from your introductory paragraph, which I liked very much, especially this:
I think sometimes I have proceeded through life in exactly that spirit :). The phrase captures the epic struggle awaiting the neck-haired Elder (the name alone deserves a prize) and the Grunt.
I read this twice and listened to the sound track the second time around. That helped to foster the mood. I think this is a very visual scene--fast moving and cinematic.
Your terminology is impressively original. A very creative, emotive "ending".
Once again, you give us a glimpse of the Expanded "Felixmatic" Universe, quoting the Kunst Meister, "my" story about the border legionary and the inevitable final galaxy hopper, meaning that all the strange things you write are somehow connected. I don't know how you don't melt your brain, or more trivially how do you keep consistency despite the different tenor of the prompts, but you can!
UwU ~ Thanks for the compliments and thanks for reading! My previous entry to the Kunst Meister one and my entry to your Legionnaire prompt (which was already connected to the Kunst Meister one at the very end) finally got connected with this third wheel which explains the gap of the lack of problems for the Meister and why the Legionnaires were ready. Also I need an explanation of "do'ot" - never heard or seen that anywhere from academia, sport-life or even on the Internet (1 m3an I b3 70 1337, y0).
Regardless, sometimes the prompt itself inspires hidden elements that work to ensure the surprise of the prevention of random elements pouring in.
And sometimes, it works to keep count of behaviours and artificially space them out to later be filled by contingencies which upon their completion will retroactively presuppose their necessity (or look back and say "yeah peck you, I was needed despite being some random element).
Sometimes you must be ready to flip the script entirely and play up on the failure to reference the background elements (which that fails to be called sometimes in the pure "character-only" perception by virtue of the perception) which then justifies a previous entry, why it seems to "work" and repaints the entire scene. (Because let's be honest, my ending to the Kunst Meister prompt seemed a lil' too easy for the Meister, though the worms could be to blame. For which I still didn't deny here and in fact called them back here again - suggesting they have the power to be that annoying.)
Then sometimes, you must take a bold step to finally explain and explore threads that happen before and after any of your published pieces as of so far. (Or simply: the prequel and sequel that has to come out of necessity to continue a story. In my case here: the prompts serve as the primer which I internalize in order to justify this fourth cause. Particularly more, this prompt serves as a nice side-prequel to It and the Elder Shu'ulathoi as of far of what I published on the Net; which only runs parallel to It's brief mention in your Legionnaire prompt.)
Well...I think soon we'll read a whole novel about it! I'd like to have a greater mastery of English, because I sometimes struggle to follow all your links and verbal inventions and dialogues...
By the way "do'ot" means "I was typing quickly with inaccurate fingers", I wanted to write "don't". ;)
Also, better nae be lyin’ about that:...
Using "Grunt" gave it a Vietnam War movie feeling. However, your imagination leaps off the page in this daring Sci-fi ending.
I agree with @erh.germany. Dense. It's a very very difficult reading for me. Not in the @raj808's way, just to be clear, with his complex similes and descriptions, but in that Felix way where there's a plethora of connections and cross-references and unexpected tectonic twists and a lot (but a lot) of things happening in the span of three sentences. All of this with seasoned with slang and/or archaisms. Go back to a more linear/focused plot like in the Yayo Che prompt (there was also another, I don't remember but it was one for which you've been awarded) and your prolific never-ending imagination will have justice.
UwU ~ Thanks for reading and not dying! Does it make it more incriminating and sinful that I completely forgotten about the prompt, was drunk, was tired and forced myself to complete and cram the story within 500 words and in the span of two to three hours before releasing the story? If you’re wondering, my rough draft was 567+ words in the first hour and every necessary scene was done. Yet I had to cut necessary padding in between those necessary scenes and I forced actions to happen simultaneously even in such necessary scenes. So I managed to barely irk out 500 words when the second hour hit, and now we’re left with essentially a Madness Combat flash animation short... No I ain’t lying that things happen even before a finger snap in both this story and the Madness Combat flash short. Pretty much my story is pure ecstasy, and I probably would’ve fared better with a 1000-word limit. As then I could space the story out with the appropriate padding it needed and let things happen way slower. Oh well.
Heh, I had planned on making the official side-story to Kunst Meister’s story and was thinking of releasing the “official” version regardless of how this turned out. For the “official” version had an actual battle against Mulloch, the flight and battles inside the tower (there’s a giant lift!), It talking to the Grunt (which may or may not connect to the grunt’s in Mr. Pretzel’s apocalypse) and a scene where It spoke words to an unconscious Kunst Meister. (And maybe address the sprout scene since I pretty now added that to my “official” version. So far I am clocking in on 2000 words and could figure some more in.
ROFL.. sorry cmon! Don't take it bad friend! You can make 650? you know I don't mind and I hate being strict.. I'll read this again tomorrow tho
Hello @theironfelix, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!