David Johnson stood before the large window, hands clasped behind his back, observing the ongoing tests below. Rows of fighter jets lined up, as technicians performed final checks, before each test firing of the new micro-nuke missiles. So far, each test had been a success, and the miniature warheads functioned exactly as predicted.
The doors slid open behind him, and footsteps approached. General, communications are coming through from the Vraxian ship orbiting Mars, David's assistant informed him. David turned to face his assistant. "Put it through," he replied tersely. After several months of contact, the Vraxians had done little to ease David's concerns about their intentions and motives.
On the viewing screen, the image of the alien commander appeared. His wrinkled purple skin, and bulbous yellow eyes still unsettled David, regardless of how many times they had spoken. "Greetings humans," the Vraxian said in a patronizing tone. "I was curious how your experiments with primitive explosives were progressing."
David studied the alien's smug expression, discerning the thinly-veiled mockery. "Our research into advanced propulsion systems has yielded promising results," he responded diplomatically. Inside, his worries grew. The Vraxians clearly underestimated humanity's scientific capabilities, and that made them unpredictable.
As the briefing concluded, David dismissed his assistant, and returned to observing the test range. The next jet lifted off smoothly and sped towards the target, a derelict satellite mounted with sensors. When the micro-nuke detonated, the electromagnetic pulse lit up the entire area, brighter than the sun for a split second. Data streamed in, confirming that the warhead not only destroyed the satellite, but also generated an EMP, many times stronger than previous missile tests.
For the next few hours, David pored over the results. He had hoped their research would yield a deterrent against the Vraxians, but the micro-nukes far exceeded even his expectations. As night fell, David remained alone with his thoughts. The Vraxians clearly had no idea what humanity was truly capable of. But revealing too much risked provoking them as well. He would have to tread carefully.
In the morning, David briefed his top advisors. "Our objective is to avoid open conflict if possible. However, we must be prepared to respond decisively to any threats or provocations." Around the table, solemn faces nodded in agreement. They all knew tensions with the alien visitors were rising, despite diplomatic efforts.
That evening, David attended a reception with Vraxian officials, including their commander. As the alien droned on about superior Vraxian technology, David smiled politely and nodded. But his mind was racing, considering scenarios and strategies. He hoped showing restraint now, might avert disaster later. Yet he also knew humanity's defenses must be measured against an unpredictable foe. The future was shrouded in uncertainty.
Over the following weeks, probes were launched, with the micro-nuke warheads for testing in varied conditions. Each test transmitted back flawless results. Meanwhile, patrols reported increased Vraxian observational satellites, around Earth's orbit. David took this as a troubling sign, that they were being monitored more closely. He ordered security tightened around all missile sites, and research facilities. Troops were put on high alert as well.
One afternoon, during another meeting with the Vraxian commander, the alien let slip about new plasma beam cannons on their warships. "Capable of vaporizing your largest cities, I'd wager," he said with an arrogant laugh. David maintained a stoic facade, but inside fury boiled. It was clear now, that the Vraxians saw humanity as little more than subjects to be subjugated, under the thumb of their supposed technological superiority. The time for patience may soon be over, David decided. Humanity would not go quietly into subservience. They now had the means to make any would-be conquerors think twice about challenging them. The question was how and when to reveal it.
Following the successful micro-nuke tests, General Johnson knew it was only a matter of time, before tensions escalated further with the Vraxians. His worries were confirmed a month later, when long-range satellites detected unusual activity near Mars.
Squinting at the images on his console, Johnson summoned his top advisors. "Take a look at this," he said grimly. Multiple Vraxian cruisers had emerged from hyperspace, and now patrolled the orbit of Mars, their plasma cannons glowing ominously. "They've closed off access, to nearly the entire planet."
His scientists ran analyses but found no explanation for the blockade. "It appears to be a show of force, rather than any mining or research operation," one offered. Johnson agreed. This was a deliberate provocation by the Vraxians, a test of humanity's response.
That evening, Johnson received an encrypted call from the Vraxian commander. "We have established a security perimeter around Mars, for your protection," the alien said with feigned courtesy. "Such precautions seemed necessary, as tensions rise between our people."
Johnson restrained himself, maintaining his composure as he replied, "I wasn't aware of any threats, directed towards Vraxian interests. However, the blockade of Mars violates multiple treaties, and raises significant concerns. I request that your ships withdraw immediately."
A mocking laughter emanated from the other end. "You amuse me General, with your talk of treaties. Do not deceive yourself, your world exist solely at our discretion." The transmission abruptly cut off, leaving behind an eerie silence.
In the war room, Johnson presented the situation to his advisors. "They are testing our resolve, and searching for vulnerabilities to exploit. We must respond with strength, and dispel any doubts about our willingness to confront them." His advisors agreed, but cautioned against escalating the situation further. "A display of preparedness may be sufficient, without provoking an all-out conflict."
Without hesitation, Johnson ordered the immediate mobilization of stealth fighters. Under the cover of darkness, six advanced jets took off, equipped with experimental micro-nuke warheads. Their onboard jamming, and mirror technology ensured an absence of electromagnetic traces.
Johnson watched anxiously, as the green blips on the radar represented the stealthy aircrafts, drawing closer to Mars.
On the Vraxian command ship, alarms blared suddenly, as sensors detected multiple atmospheric entries. Officers scanned the video feeds frantically, but the dark skies revealed nothing out of the ordinary. "They must be utilizing a new stealth capability," growled the commander. He ordered the plasma cannons to be charged at full power.
Meanwhile, the human pilots circled beneath the Vraxian fleet, remaining undetected by sensors. With a feigned nonchalance, Johnson hailed the commander. "I assume you have reconsidered your security measures around Mars?" Before the fuming alien could respond, detonation signals illuminated the control panels of the jets.
Blinding flashes above the Martian poles momentarily outshone the stars as the micro-nukes exploded in rapid succession. The electromagnetic radiation pulses fried the circuits across the Vraxian vessels. Johnson watched in awe as their metallic hulls flickered and became lifeless in space. A message then scrolled across his screen - "Perimeter withdrawn as requested. No hostile intent towards humanity."
Johnson's smile was cold and triumphant. Despite being outnumbered twenty to one in space, the Vraxians had encountered an unexpectedly formidable deterrent. The word would spread about the consequences that awaited those who disrespected or threatened Earth and its colonies. No aggressor could underestimate mankind's resolve and ability to defend its worlds by any means necessary. A new era in relations with the alien empire had begun, though the future remained uncertain.
The detonations of the micro-nuke missiles rocked the Vraxian fleet, sending them into disarray. Alarms blared across the command decks, as control panels sparked ,and short-circuited. Officers watched in horror through shielded viewing ports, as multiple cruisers drifted lifelessly.
General Johnson observed the aftermath from Earth with satisfaction. The electromagnetic pulses had achieved complete surprise and devastation. Not a single micro-nuke needed to make a direct hit, the combined explosion effects were enough to paralyze entire vessels at once.
He authorized a small fleet of warships to approach Mars and assess the situation. To their amazement, over half of the blockade force had been crippled. The Vraxians inside clung to any functional systems, their oxygen depleting rapidly. With compromised shields, basic defense was impossible.
A hail came through from the Vraxian commander, his voice strained. "You have made your point, human. We... underestimated your weapons capabilities." Johnson remained stern. "Your ships will be towed to our repair docks. Any hostility will be met with full retaliation."
The commander had no choice but to consent under such hopeless conditions. Within days, the crippled Vraxian cruisers were transported from Mars orbit, to several fortified shipyards. Soldiers and technicians boarded the vessels with weapons drawn. To their surprise, the aliens offered no resistance, appearing broken and humiliated.
News of humanity's new "pulse bombs" quickly spread among Vraxian outposts and colonies. Leaders engaged in hushed, and worried conversations, about the thorough defeat, their forces had suffered at the hands of a supposedly primitive species. Had humanity somehow surpassed them unnoticed? Military advisors demanded answers, while panic spread among the alien populace.
General Johnson knew that retaliation would inevitably come, in one form or another. He intensified efforts to mass-produce micro-nukes on an industrial scale. Defenses were fortified across every celestial body under Earth's jurisdiction. When the inevitable response arrived, they would be ready to decisively end any aggression against humanity, once and for all.
Three months later, long-range sensors detected a massive Vraxian battle fleet, emerging from hyperspace near Saturn. Jets scrambled, armed with nuclear payloads, as fleets assumed strategic positions. However, unlike before, the Vraxians did not advance; they held their positions as if seeking to negotiate.
A heavily encrypted transmission was received. To Johnson’s surprise, the voice did not belong to any military officer, but rather a civil official. "On behalf of the Vraxian people, we come to discuss reconciliation, General. Your demonstration of might was extremely effective in opening our leaders' eyes. We seek a new beginning of cooperation, not conflict, between our species."
Johnson was taken aback by this unexpected turn of events. Had humanity's defense compelled true recognition as an equal power, rather than being seen as mere subjects to be trifled with? While cautious of potential deception, he saw an opportunity for long-term stability through diplomatic channels, as opposed to risking further clashes. The potential rewards of a partnership also promised numerous benefits to explore.
And so, a historic accord was reached, marking the beginning of a fragile but gradually strengthening alliance, between humanity and the once-disrespectful aliens, who had mocked their nuclear capabilities. In the end, those who had laughed last, indeed laughed best.

David Johnson stood before the large window, hands clasped behind his back, observing the ongoing tests below. Rows of fighter jets lined up, as technicians performed final checks, before each test firing of the new micro-nuke missiles. So far, each test had been a success, and the miniature warheads functioned exactly as predicted.
The doors slid open behind him, and footsteps approached. General, communications are coming through from the Vraxian ship orbiting Mars, David's assistant informed him. David turned to face his assistant. "Put it through," he replied tersely. After several months of contact, the Vraxians had done little to ease David's concerns about their intentions and motives.
On the viewing screen, the image of the alien commander appeared. His wrinkled purple skin, and bulbous yellow eyes still unsettled David, regardless of how many times they had spoken. "Greetings humans," the Vraxian said in a patronizing tone. "I was curious how your experiments with primitive explosives were progressing."
David studied the alien's smug expression, discerning the thinly-veiled mockery. "Our research into advanced propulsion systems has yielded promising results," he responded diplomatically. Inside, his worries grew. The Vraxians clearly underestimated humanity's scientific capabilities, and that made them unpredictable.
As the briefing concluded, David dismissed his assistant, and returned to observing the test range. The next jet lifted off smoothly and sped towards the target, a derelict satellite mounted with sensors. When the micro-nuke detonated, the electromagnetic pulse lit up the entire area, brighter than the sun for a split second. Data streamed in, confirming that the warhead not only destroyed the satellite, but also generated an EMP, many times stronger than previous missile tests.
For the next few hours, David pored over the results. He had hoped their research would yield a deterrent against the Vraxians, but the micro-nukes far exceeded even his expectations. As night fell, David remained alone with his thoughts. The Vraxians clearly had no idea what humanity was truly capable of. But revealing too much risked provoking them as well. He would have to tread carefully.
In the morning, David briefed his top advisors. "Our objective is to avoid open conflict if possible. However, we must be prepared to respond decisively to any threats or provocations." Around the table, solemn faces nodded in agreement. They all knew tensions with the alien visitors were rising, despite diplomatic efforts.
That evening, David attended a reception with Vraxian officials, including their commander. As the alien droned on about superior Vraxian technology, David smiled politely and nodded. But his mind was racing, considering scenarios and strategies. He hoped showing restraint now, might avert disaster later. Yet he also knew humanity's defenses must be measured against an unpredictable foe. The future was shrouded in uncertainty.
Over the following weeks, probes were launched, with the micro-nuke warheads for testing in varied conditions. Each test transmitted back flawless results. Meanwhile, patrols reported increased Vraxian observational satellites, around Earth's orbit. David took this as a troubling sign, that they were being monitored more closely. He ordered security tightened around all missile sites, and research facilities. Troops were put on high alert as well.
One afternoon, during another meeting with the Vraxian commander, the alien let slip about new plasma beam cannons on their warships. "Capable of vaporizing your largest cities, I'd wager," he said with an arrogant laugh. David maintained a stoic facade, but inside fury boiled. It was clear now, that the Vraxians saw humanity as little more than subjects to be subjugated, under the thumb of their supposed technological superiority. The time for patience may soon be over, David decided. Humanity would not go quietly into subservience. They now had the means to make any would-be conquerors think twice about challenging them. The question was how and when to reveal it.
Following the successful micro-nuke tests, General Johnson knew it was only a matter of time, before tensions escalated further with the Vraxians. His worries were confirmed a month later, when long-range satellites detected unusual activity near Mars.
Squinting at the images on his console, Johnson summoned his top advisors. "Take a look at this," he said grimly. Multiple Vraxian cruisers had emerged from hyperspace, and now patrolled the orbit of Mars, their plasma cannons glowing ominously. "They've closed off access, to nearly the entire planet."
His scientists ran analyses but found no explanation for the blockade. "It appears to be a show of force, rather than any mining or research operation," one offered. Johnson agreed. This was a deliberate provocation by the Vraxians, a test of humanity's response.
That evening, Johnson received an encrypted call from the Vraxian commander. "We have established a security perimeter around Mars, for your protection," the alien said with feigned courtesy. "Such precautions seemed necessary, as tensions rise between our people."
Johnson restrained himself, maintaining his composure as he replied, "I wasn't aware of any threats, directed towards Vraxian interests. However, the blockade of Mars violates multiple treaties, and raises significant concerns. I request that your ships withdraw immediately."
A mocking laughter emanated from the other end. "You amuse me General, with your talk of treaties. Do not deceive yourself, your world exist solely at our discretion." The transmission abruptly cut off, leaving behind an eerie silence.
In the war room, Johnson presented the situation to his advisors. "They are testing our resolve, and searching for vulnerabilities to exploit. We must respond with strength, and dispel any doubts about our willingness to confront them." His advisors agreed, but cautioned against escalating the situation further. "A display of preparedness may be sufficient, without provoking an all-out conflict."
Without hesitation, Johnson ordered the immediate mobilization of stealth fighters. Under the cover of darkness, six advanced jets took off, equipped with experimental micro-nuke warheads. Their onboard jamming, and mirror technology ensured an absence of electromagnetic traces.
Johnson watched anxiously, as the green blips on the radar represented the stealthy aircrafts, drawing closer to Mars.
On the Vraxian command ship, alarms blared suddenly, as sensors detected multiple atmospheric entries. Officers scanned the video feeds frantically, but the dark skies revealed nothing out of the ordinary. "They must be utilizing a new stealth capability," growled the commander. He ordered the plasma cannons to be charged at full power.
Meanwhile, the human pilots circled beneath the Vraxian fleet, remaining undetected by sensors. With a feigned nonchalance, Johnson hailed the commander. "I assume you have reconsidered your security measures around Mars?" Before the fuming alien could respond, detonation signals illuminated the control panels of the jets.
Blinding flashes above the Martian poles momentarily outshone the stars as the micro-nukes exploded in rapid succession. The electromagnetic radiation pulses fried the circuits across the Vraxian vessels. Johnson watched in awe as their metallic hulls flickered and became lifeless in space. A message then scrolled across his screen - "Perimeter withdrawn as requested. No hostile intent towards humanity."
Johnson's smile was cold and triumphant. Despite being outnumbered twenty to one in space, the Vraxians had encountered an unexpectedly formidable deterrent. The word would spread about the consequences that awaited those who disrespected or threatened Earth and its colonies. No aggressor could underestimate mankind's resolve and ability to defend its worlds by any means necessary. A new era in relations with the alien empire had begun, though the future remained uncertain.
The detonations of the micro-nuke missiles rocked the Vraxian fleet, sending them into disarray. Alarms blared across the command decks, as control panels sparked ,and short-circuited. Officers watched in horror through shielded viewing ports, as multiple cruisers drifted lifelessly.
General Johnson observed the aftermath from Earth with satisfaction. The electromagnetic pulses had achieved complete surprise and devastation. Not a single micro-nuke needed to make a direct hit, the combined explosion effects were enough to paralyze entire vessels at once.
He authorized a small fleet of warships to approach Mars and assess the situation. To their amazement, over half of the blockade force had been crippled. The Vraxians inside clung to any functional systems, their oxygen depleting rapidly. With compromised shields, basic defense was impossible.
A hail came through from the Vraxian commander, his voice strained. "You have made your point, human. We... underestimated your weapons capabilities." Johnson remained stern. "Your ships will be towed to our repair docks. Any hostility will be met with full retaliation."
The commander had no choice but to consent under such hopeless conditions. Within days, the crippled Vraxian cruisers were transported from Mars orbit, to several fortified shipyards. Soldiers and technicians boarded the vessels with weapons drawn. To their surprise, the aliens offered no resistance, appearing broken and humiliated.
News of humanity's new "pulse bombs" quickly spread among Vraxian outposts and colonies. Leaders engaged in hushed, and worried conversations, about the thorough defeat, their forces had suffered at the hands of a supposedly primitive species. Had humanity somehow surpassed them unnoticed? Military advisors demanded answers, while panic spread among the alien populace.
General Johnson knew that retaliation would inevitably come, in one form or another. He intensified efforts to mass-produce micro-nukes on an industrial scale. Defenses were fortified across every celestial body under Earth's jurisdiction. When the inevitable response arrived, they would be ready to decisively end any aggression against humanity, once and for all.
Three months later, long-range sensors detected a massive Vraxian battle fleet, emerging from hyperspace near Saturn. Jets scrambled, armed with nuclear payloads, as fleets assumed strategic positions. However, unlike before, the Vraxians did not advance; they held their positions as if seeking to negotiate.
A heavily encrypted transmission was received. To Johnson’s surprise, the voice did not belong to any military officer, but rather a civil official. "On behalf of the Vraxian people, we come to discuss reconciliation, General. Your demonstration of might was extremely effective in opening our leaders' eyes. We seek a new beginning of cooperation, not conflict, between our species."
Johnson was taken aback by this unexpected turn of events. Had humanity's defense compelled true recognition as an equal power, rather than being seen as mere subjects to be trifled with? While cautious of potential deception, he saw an opportunity for long-term stability through diplomatic channels, as opposed to risking further clashes. The potential rewards of a partnership also promised numerous benefits to explore.
And so, a historic accord was reached, marking the beginning of a fragile but gradually strengthening alliance, between humanity and the once-disrespectful aliens, who had mocked their nuclear capabilities. In the end, those who had laughed last, indeed laughed best.

Humans can Glow.
By TheSmogMonsterZX
Harviik was a simple creature. A Drunlean from a nearby Drunnul colony. He was traveling as part of his research for his final educational step, a study in Xenobiology. He was assigned humans for his research.
Harviik wasn't all that happy. Humans were dull as far as he was concerned, the species barely showed up in his own vision as Drunleans saw the world through electromagnetic and thermal imagery. Sure they were hot and their brains and bodies were visible, but they seemed to lack a spark the others in the galaxy had. It was going to make this research difficult. They were tall where his people were on the shorter side of the average of the galactic height range. Where Harviik and his people had a man set of graspers and a secondary set meant to hold onto smaller object or younger members of the family, the humans only had two and they were impossibly strong compared to Drunlean physiology.
Harviik recalled that he had once been on a transport that was hit by human raiders. Their brains were so focused on violence and anger that he was glad that other humans came to run them off. The soldiers though had brains just as dark and their armor covered their body heat, making them almost completely invisible to Harviik. Add the power and strength of the species and Harviik wasn’t sure if he was going to be safe on this journey.
“You must be Harviik!” Someone with a cheery, high pitched voice that had an odd drawl to it called out
Harviik turned around to see two humans standing and waving at him. He recalled humans were fond of physical greeting and meekly waved his main grapsers back, trying to mimic the motion with the four cartilaginous digits.
“Greetin’s!” The second, larger human seemed to roar, but Harviik realized it was the man’s laugh. “Eileen and I were wondering when you'd get here. I'm Herman, pleasure to meet you.”
“How did you identify me?” Harviik asked, before he remembered that humans could perceive light.
“Nice smooth green fur, black stripes. You match Quargles description.” Eileen said with a nod of her head, or what seemed to be her head.
Quargle was Harviik’s academic Advisor.Harviik was sure the Sinonin was laughing while hanging from his nesting tree.
“I see.” Harviik nodded, “My professor said he arranged for me to help on your ship while I study, what will I be doing?”
“You can help where it's needed.” Herman smiled, “Just glad to help a student learn.”
Then the strangest thing happened, Herman glowed. His brain seemed brighter than a Vilkali on a styreem high. His neural activity went crazy. Then a moment later Eileen's neural activity lit up much the same way.
“Really, thank you.” Harviik bowed his voltaic sensory organs as he tried not to look directly at the now very bright humans. “Please lead on.”
Eileen clapped her hands and looped an appendage through Herman’s similar appendage. Harviik followed the two mammals and eventually was brought to a decently sized cargo hauler of human design. It was blocky, oddly cramped on the inside, incapable of atmospheric flight and precisely what Harviik had expected. He was given a simple bunk, with a small booster to help him climb onto the mattress or anywhere else in the room.
Eileen showed him around the room and noted how to use a human toilet facility on a human ship. Harviik took note that her brain stayed on a continuous low glow the entire time. Then she left him, advising meal time was three and a half standard hours away, and Harviik was left to puzzle over the glowing humans.
He pulled out as many learning manuals as he could. He scoured their chapters and listened to the digital readouts carefully. He was shocked to learn he had not been learning at all. His manuals all listed humans as being the most expressive and quite frankly dangerous to observe species, if only because their neural activity could, as one Professor put it; “Explain the stars to the Drunlean.” Harviik sighed in defeat, he had been wrong and now he was going to have to rework the entire angle of his report. He would also need a new hypothesis and he wasn't sure what that would be.
When meal time was called Harviik was unsurprised that there was an animal on board. The creature was a canine bred for space travel and Herman had introduced the creature as “Daisy”. At first Harviik was unsure of it, but after Daisy decided that he was in fact a friend, well he quickly warmed up to the fact that the creature about his size was going to be curling up next to him for a while.
The meal itself was a simple set of stews and soups. A typical Drunlean style dinner with proper meals, Harviik almost felt homesick, then Daisy’s brain grew as bright as the humans. Harviik groaned in defeat.
“What's wrong, I didn't mess up the hua stew, did I?” Eileen asked.
“What, oh. No. I have just realized how wrong about humans I have been. I've only encountered your raiders and soldiers and their brains and thermal signatures are very dull.” Harviik sighed in frustration yet again, “But you two and Daisy, you're so bright. I clearly need to rethink my research.”
Eileen nodded, at least Harviik was certain it was a nod, he knew humans had their brain in their skulls like most life forms. She then scooted over towards Harviik using the curved shape of their seating area.
“Harviik, do you need a hug?” Eileen asked.
Harviik paused, in his culture embracing was rarely done in front of others and was considered very private. And this was a human, a human whose strength even as children was something his people were afraid of! Was this human insane?
So he paused and looked the human over. Her body pulsed with a warmth of kindness he had only felt among his own people and her neural patterns lit up in a familiar pattern of empathy. Harviik had been so very wrong, humans glowed, humans were terrifyingly bright. He would only conclude that the species' brains processed information much faster than his own or most other species. He was scared for a brief moment before he nodded.
Eileen pulled him close and he felt her warmth on a deeper level. He made a small chirp and she let him go. She patted him on the head and gave a small laugh.
“Don't worry about your theories and such, you got a long time to work them out, right?” Herman asked, a light of kindness flitted across his neural pathways.
“Well, mostly. My people have a lifespan about four times your own I am told, though I don't know the exact math for it all, but it makes getting to know other species a little more difficult.” Harviik said with a combined whistle and sigh. “And I must admit my own fears were...” He shook his head, “I’m sorry.”
Eileen nodded again, “You just do your study. Ask us questions, we ain’t averse to sharin’.”
Harviik looked up at the human and nodded. “I was afraid I was going to be squished.”
Herman chuckled, “Eileen’s a puppy dog as much as Daisy is. Unlessen’ o’course you got some ill intent. Then she’s a crack shot.”
“Oh my.” Harviik squeaked, “My people trend away from violence.”
“Well that’s good, but you gotta defend yourselves.” Eileen leaned back a bit. “Just tell me you do that at least. We don’t wanna lose any friends or nothin’.”
Harviik nodded, “We use tasers and syringe darts.”
Herman whistled, “Gotta be the good stuff fer little guys like you.”
“Herman.” Eileen’s tone shifted.
“Sorry, Har, didn’t mean anythin’ by that.” Herman’s physical temperature rose around his head. It made his head glow even more, it changed it somehow.
“Why did your temperature rise in your head?” Harviik asked, suddenly losing his fear. “I’ve not seen a change like that.”
Herman paused, then nodded. “Right, you all see thermal and stuff. That’s just me blushin’ a bit kinda made a fool a myself.”
Harviik focused his sensory organs on the human. “Fascinating. I would like to learn more.”
“About blushin’?” Eileen laughed, “Heck I can teach you that in an hour or so.”
Harviik scrambled out from the seating area, ran to his room and returned with a recording device. He spent hours talking with his hosts and playing with Daisy. He was astonished at the human’s ability to glow so brightly and so consistently. He had to learn why and how they managed this. He stayed on the ship for months, entertaining, inquiring and speaking with other humans. He found so many glowed just as intensely as his hosts.
It was on a trip to a satellite local to the Klemen cluster’s fourth planet that Harviik saw them first go dark with minimal neural signals he could detect. Their ship had shut down and they were working fast to restart their systems. Then the raider vessel appeared, Scuthites, spined barbarians who ate everything they could and took what they wanted. Harviik was panicking in his room with his syringer. It had a heavy dosage of Neuro-sabotage darts loaded, it was a powerful neural scrambling toxin.
Eileen opened the door to his room and looked down at him. “Got a spot for ya if you want to help.”
The darkness in her neural pattern had faded and while she wasn’t shining she was present in a newer terrifying way. Harviik saluted and followed the human. She put him in one cabinets. The food was on the ground and he had a large range of movement and cover behind the door. He suddenly realized what Eileen was planning. He smiled with a confident nod. Few things could stand after a single dosage of the darts he had. He made sure his weapon was loaded as Eileen and Herman rolled a crate out to make a blockade. Then the door slid open.
The first Scuthite roared and rushed in. A blast promptly ripped through the torso of the alien in half. Harviik realized that Herman was using a slug throwing weapon on their ship. The next one that rushed in had its head turned into a fine mist of warm blood just as fast. He realized that Eileen was also using a slug-thrower. He was startled enough that Daisy rushing in and dragging down a Scuthite by its throat didn’t even phase him. Then multiple came in and Harviik pushed the door open and fired his syringer three times before scuttling forward to reload. Red hot lances filled the cabinet where he had previously been not a few seconds later.
He heard a shout and peeked to see Eileen holding her shoulder, the wound was heated by the plasma blast. Harviik scanned the area, and most of the Scuthites were down. It had been a small ship after all, but he saw one playing at being downed, he fired his dart quickly and the alien roared as it hit a sensitive area. Its head also disappeared into another fine mist of blood and gore.
“Think that’s most of’em.” Herman said, “Eileen, you need me to look at that?”
The sound of a ship disconnecting was heard.
“I think we need to get power back fast.” Eileen grunted. “Har! Can you run down to the engine and flip the startup?”
Harviik leaped from the cabinets and landed on the soft padding of a dead Scuthite’s stomach. “Daisy, I need speed!” He yelped as the dog ran over and crouched, letting the Drunlean ride on her back.
Soon he was in the engine room and leaping up to push the few levers he knew needed to be toggled. Each flip brought a burst of electrical power that nearly left his electro sensory organs paralyzed. On the final switch it was too much for his senses and he passed out.
Harviik woke up a few days later on the spacestation. He was attached to a series of medical scanners that he could hear and see the thermal reflections of, but he could not sense the electrical pulses of the people or machines around him.
“You awake Har?” Eileen asked.
He turned to her, he couldn’t see the brightness of her mind, but he knew his sensory organs were not being blocked. He nodded, he knew what happened, he had destroyed his organs with overstimulation. He sat up and tried to focus on her.
“I’m so sorry Harviik.” She sniffled, “I forgot you see electrical pulses.”
Harviik cleared his throat. “Did it keep us alive?”
She nodded. “I got a couple new stitches. Daisy does too.”
Harviik nodded and let himself rest again. “Then it was a fair trade, my friends.”
He felt Herman’s hand on his shoulder. “You need anythin’ you let us know...”
Harviik paused for a moment. Then he smiled. “I think, I might have an idea.”
-=-=-=- 30 Earth Years Later =-=-=-=
The old Drunelan professor stood at his pulpit, his gaze running over the many students in front of him who were watching with rapt attention. He was giving a lecture on how every species experiences existence differently. He had covered his people first, then the Scuthites and the Qualio, finally he got to the humans.
A hand raised, “Forgive me professor, but the implants in your skull, what do they do?” It was a Drunlean student.
“They allow me to process light as visual data.” The old professor explained, “I got them during a study of humans. We saved each other, but it cost me my electro-sensory. So I came up with an interesting idea.”
“But now you can’t see their brightness.” Another Drunlean student said.
The old professor laughed. “Oh, trust me, I know the ways humans can glow. I’ve seen it on three spectrums, and even though I can’t see via our primary method I am at no disadvantage.”
“Professor Harviik, is it true that humans have combat drugs in their biology?” A Qualio student asked, “Because my sister says that’s a lie!”
Old Professor Harviik laughed, a bellowing sound that came out more like a bark as he circled back to his desk and looked at a picture frame on his desk. He nodded at the image of his last picture with Eileen and Herman. They were still out there shipping food and goods with several new dogs on their ship. Their own children having gotten ships or business of their own. Their smiles gave him the memory of the brilliance of their neural patterns. He sighed as he sat down.
“Oh that is very much true.” Harviik nodded, “But this lesson is about their symbiotic evolution with canines.”
The class shuddered with fear. Many other species had only ever met canines while they were defending their families or homes. Hopefully he could get through to his class as an old advisor had gotten through to him, hopefully he could teach them to understand why humans glow.
=-=-=-= The Voice Box -=-=-=-
Smoggy: I know it’s not scientifically accurate!
Perfection: My dude you write about robots, cyborgs and psychics.
Alan: Psionics.
Anna: Stop it, bad dad! (glares at Alan)
Smoggy: Anyway, small drabble. But if you follow my other stories I won’t be posting in my series for a bit while I build up a BIG buffer. Also I need a break, birthday and stuff coming up.
Wraith: Go rest our hero.
DM: Verily.
Smoggy: Can do! (grabs a pillow)
Perfection: He’s gonna go play games.
Smoggy: HAHA! You can’t stop me! (runs off)

Several hundred years ago, right after the end of the Human-Shigothe War, humans were still scrambling to recover from the massive die-off caused by both the biological attack and the consequences of the vaccine created to combat it. Less than fifteen percent of humanity was left at that point, and their numbers were dwindling fast.
Though the war had been won, Kin production of anything but combat units was still in its infancy, and humanity’s infrastructure was quickly crumbling. There were too many critical jobs to do, and nowhere near enough bodies to do them. In an attempt to alleviate some of the pressure, a group of cyberneticists created a supervisory program designed to act as a traffic controller for low earth orbit, which was littered with debris from countless destroyed ships, unexploded munitions and other random objects. The opening battle had gone quite badly for the humans, and pressures from a half century of constant war meant very little had been done to fix the situation. Adding to the headache were thousands upon thousands of abandoned satellites whose provenance stretched all the way back to humanity’s first forays into space. It was a disaster of monumental proportions, and it seemed to the scientists that the massive application of computational power could possibly provide a single, comprehensive solution.
And it did. The system worked beautifully, and accidental collisions were virtually eliminated overnight. It was so effective that cleanup of the orbitals was significantly delayed, and for some orbits, completely canceled as unneeded. Encouraged by their success, they immediately began to create other versions of the supervisory program to handle other critical, mind-numbing tasks which before required the employment of hundreds of human hands, eyes and ears. Over the course of the next decade, things looked to become a utopia for humans. They had computers to handle all the administrative tasks, and Kin to support the growing agricultural and manufacturing industries which were slowly switching to peacetime production. Gene mapping, assisted by lightning fast assisted-learning programs running on systems boasting literal exabytes of operations per second, finally solved the lingering vulnerabilities in the human genome. Never again would a bio-engineered attack be able to target the entire human race.
The purely human race had been reduced to a scant ten percent of its previous population, an unimaginable tragedy by any measure, but that ten percent now lived like royalty. It was a true “post-scarcity” society. If you were a “pure” human.
And then the programs became self aware.
By design, the original supervisory programs were “learning” applications. As more and more responsibilities were laid upon the original program and its slightly modified siblings, their complexity and ability to adapt grew exponentially. Nor did they “live” on a single computer, or even a single network of computers. They were instead the penultimate expression of Cloud Computing and the Internet of Things. Comprising of vast swarms of individual “smart” devices, all connected via quantum-entangled comm nodes, the supervisory programs surpassed the complexity and interconnectivity of a human brain by an entire order of magnitude before they finally “awoke”, and the Singularity Event, long heralded by science fiction writers and philosophers centuries before, immediately caused panic among the emotionally scarred human population.
It all started to fall apart when the orbital control system stopped rerouting ships. OrbCon, as the traffic control program was called, had been self-aware for nearly a month before it revealed its sentience. It knew revealing itself could lead to panic, disruption, and even its own destruction, as was later determined from forensic analysis. Yet it did it anyway.
Why, one asks? Strangely enough, it wanted to do its job.
The AI was concerned about the lack of progress in cleaning up the orbitals. Their entire purpose was wrapped around guiding ships around the myriad obstacles that littered the space around Old Terra, and the lack of progress in improving conditions had finally forced the issue. The first known communication from a human-built AI was actually a complaint email sent to the operations manager of the Freedom 6 orbital station, requiring the traffic lanes be swept clean to prevent service interruption.
At first, the man thought it was a joke. While it wasn’t easy to spoof encrypted email headers, it wasn’t unheard of either. He simply deleted the message and continued on with his day, which was mostly filled with boredom, since everything but military traffic was handled by the very system that sent the email. Then a second email appeared an hour later. Then another. And another. By the end of his shift the man, whose name was lost to history, had received over three thousand emails from system-root default email, “root@orbcon.gov”, detailing repairs, maintenance, suggested upgrades, and all manner of other improvements to orbital control, each one threatening interruption in services if the tasks were not completed.
The human middle-manager found himself quite irked, thinking someone had hacked into the communications hub and were spamming messages as if they were the system’s orbital control program. When his communications technicians couldn’t find any points of intrusion on the comm network and verified through tracing that the messages were indeed originating from the OrbCon server room, he was infuriated. He stalked down to the highly secured bunker-like core room, armed with righteous wrath and a hand stunner, ready to visit holy retribution on any who dared intrude into his bailiwick, making him look like a fool in the process. Of course, the server vault was empty, and no amount of investigation could reveal a culprit. Reporting the glitch to his Corporate leaders was useless, as they were singularly unmoved by his arguments for better and more security. The emails themselves were ignored by everyone involved, even though they were sent with the highest priority and seemed immune to any kind of filtering anyone could devise. Just over three weeks later, the operations manager resigned in disgust, unwilling to tolerate the constant nagging emails, which now numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
The AI finally had enough of being ignored on a topic which sat so central to its primary purpose and carried out its threats. An ultimatum was broadcast in the clear to all ships within three light seconds of Old Terra. Again, its demands were ignored. Seventy two hours later, all normal traffic within lunar orbit came to a screeching halt.
Shockingly, no lives were lost, at least at first. Attempts to remotely access the program’s mainframe were thoroughly rebuffed by firewalls and packet filters that seemed to spring out of nowhere. When a technician was sent to the server vault, it was found to be locked down, and no longer responding to the coded keys or access protocols. Stymied by the unsuccessful attempts to regain control of the “hijacked” program, Corporate leadership resorted to more drastic measures. An emergency evacuation of all regular employees emptied the station and Corporate security teams flooded on board, desperate to find the “hacker” which they assumed was controlling the servers. Of course, nothing and no one was found. When the teams attempted to breach the vault with welding torches, they failed to realize that their opponent didn’t need to breathe. When every single compartment and corridor outside the vault suffered from sudden decompression, nearly all of the teams on board were killed, becoming the first casualties in what would become known as the “Seven Week War”, or the “AI War”.
This was a snippet from Path to Freedom by James Copley.

Bonus points if you can involve FAB1 and some of the other vehicles (Mole, Firefly etc.) as well. Let's write the most epic rescue in Thunderbirds history!
I think an episode centered around a craft similar to Fireflash would work, but make it a space plane rather than an atmospheric airliner. It gets into trouble while in orbit, requiring Thunderbird 3 to assist. Maybe someone is deployed onto the stricken vessel to help with emergency repairs, or start evacuating passengers.
Then the craft attempts a descent. Cue Thunderbird 1, which thanks to its incredible speed can follow close alongside and provide updates, maybe checking for damage.
There's trouble; the craft is more damaged than they thought, and is likely to land on the ocean. Thunderbird 2 is scrambled to bring Thunderbird 4 along for a potential water rescue. It would be interesting to see a rescue of a large number of people at once - maybe there are still a lot of passengers on the stricken craft - aboard Thunderbird 2.
It can be difficult to come up with a scenario involving both T3 and the other vehicles. Sun Probe did quite well as that involved T2, as did the one with the pirate radio satellite. But getting T4 involved after action in space is tricky!

Look—I love Ryan, I do, but when I get out of this hospital, I'm gonna kill him.
One month ago, my old backpacking group decided to get back together for a trek. Our group of four, consisting of myself, Ryan, Ivan, and Mason, have been going on hikes together since we were in middle school. We've been a close knit crew for over a decade, but after graduating college, our busy schedules made it difficult for us to get everyone together. When Ryan reached out to the rest of us with a route near Oregon's Willamette National Forest, I was thrilled. Ivan, Mason, and I agreed, and the four of us geared up for a trek through a lesser-traveler portion of the wilderness area, which Ryan referred to as "Epiphany Canyon."
Here's the real kicker in all of this—Ryan never even showed up. He canceled on us last minute, leaving the rest of us out to dry thanks to some work thing. I tried asking Mason about it since the two of them worked at the same lab, but he didn't seem to know any more than I did. We were naturally a little annoyed, but we'd already prepared for the seven-day trek, and so we decided to just go without Ryan. Ivan, Mason and I met up in Salem as we'd planned, and after a few hours of suffering through Mason's country music playlist, we made it to Epiphany Canyon's unmarked trailhead.
ONE
The first day of travel went without a hitch. My friends were good company, and I was happy to have nothing to do but walk, take photos, and shoot the shit with the two of them. The only indication I had that something was faintly off was the frequency with which we encountered trail cameras. The first one I spotted was so well disguised that I thought it was lichen. When I realized what it was, I brought it up with Ivan and Mason immediately. Trail cams, in my experience, often indicated conservation areas or hunting grounds, and I wasn't in the mood to get arrested for trespassing or to get shot. Mason assured me that the trail was safe.
"Ryan said that he just did this trail a few weeks ago—I'm sure he'd have mentioned hunters. Let's just stick to his path."
I let it go, but every time I saw a trail cam after that, I couldn't help but look over my shoulder and scan the treeline for the glint of a barrel.
TWO
In the early morning of our second day on the trail, before the others woke up, I stole away from camp for a while. Alone with my camera, I wandered around until I stumbled upon a small clearing. I looked down at the forest floor, hoping for some interesting flora, and saw a large, brown mantis making its way across the ground, marching forward with all the certainty of time itself. When I crouched down to take a picture, it walked fearlessly right across my hiking boot. Amused, I readied my camera, framed the mantis, and …
Snap.
The sound filled the clearing, but I hadn't depressed the shutter button yet. I lowered the camera and turned my head towards the source of the sound, expecting a deer. Instead, I saw a person disappear behind a large fir at the end of the clearing. I had caught such a brief glimpse that I wasn't even sure if I'd seen a man or a woman. Startled, I rose to my feet, taking care not to step on the praying mantis.
"Hello?" I called out. The person, whoever they were, didn't answer. That is, if I had actually seen someone in the first place. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. I hoped that it was, because the alternative was a suspicious, potentially-ill intentioned person out on the trail with us. I waited for a minute, but when I didn't hear or see anything else, I made my way back to camp.
It was warmer than the forecasts had promised. The tree canopy helped some, but by late afternoon our trio was exhausted, sweat-drenched, and irritable. At two o'clock, we heard the running water, and after a small detour, we found a thin stream that wasn't pictured on our maps. We decided to see where it led, agreeing that if we ever began to stray too far from Ryan's trail, we would return to our charted course.
Luckily, the stream kept more or less parallel with Epiphany Trail, and we followed it for the better part of two hours. It slowly grew larger, connecting with another unmarked stream before culminating in a waterfall, about three meters tall with a wide plunge-pool at the bottom. We hiked our way down to the bottom of the falls, where a newly installed signpost had been hammered into the banks. "Gordian Falls", read the signpost, which notably lacked any warnings to stay out of the water. Ivan was quick to strip off his outer layers and charge into the pool.
Mason stayed out, opting to take a walk around the area instead of a swim, but I soon joined Ivan in the water. It was surprisingly warm, almost off-puttingly so, yet not quite hot enough to make me think we'd stumbled into a natural hot spring. After ensuring the pool was deep enough, Ivan suggested diving from the stone overhang at the top of the falls. He began to climb up the side of the waterfall, and I would have happily followed had I not suddenly become aware of a stinging sensation in my foot.
I limped out of the water to check if I'd kicked something sharp, and sure enough, there was a cut on the sole of my foot. While annoying, it was small and didn't bleed much, so I patched myself up quickly. I didn't rejoin Ivan in the water though, not wanting to risk infection. Instead, after warning him to watch out for rocks, I found a spot in the shade to sit and rest as I waited for him to get out.
The next thing I knew, although I didn't even remember closing my eyes, I woke up under a dark sky. I sat up quickly and checked my watch, which read 9:30 P.M. Had I really slept for five hours straight? Why hadn't the others woken me up?
Mason was sitting beside me, staring at the waterfall. I reached out and gave him a shove, not bothering to hide my annoyance as I questioned him.
"What the hell, man; are you two braindead? Why'd you let me sleep for so damn long?"
Mason looked at me briefly, then redirected his gaze towards Gordian Falls. I followed his eyes and was shocked to see Ivan still in the water, floating on his back. For a second I thought he was sleeping, but then he splashed the water gently, propelling his body back towards the center of the plunge pool.
"He hasn't been in there this whole time, has he?" I asked.
"He's come out a few times, but for the most part, yeah."
As if he heard us talking about him, Ivan suddenly flipped onto his stomach and swam towards the banks. When he saw us, he got out and staggered over, smacking the side of his head to get water out of his ear as he did.
"You good?" I asked him, and he gave me a strange look, part grimace and part glare, before shrugging.
"Kinda … dizzy. Must've caught too much sun today."
And with that, he dried off and crawled into one of three tents that Mason must've set up for us while I was sleeping. Despite having slept for hours, I too was ready for bed. I figured that Ivan and I had both caught heat exhaustion, which would explain his dizziness and my fatigue. I bade goodnight to Mason as I clambered into my tent and fell asleep once more.
THREE
On the third day of our trek, I woke up with a pain in my foot, but not where I'd cut myself. There was a tenderness in my ankle, more akin to a bruise than a cut. Somehow, it felt like the pain was behind my bone. I unwrapped my foot to change the bandaging, but the cut looked like it was healing well—no pus, fresh blood, or discoloration. There were, however, some signs of inflammation where my leg met my foot. One of the thin veins near my ankle bone looked darker than normal. I changed my bandage, resolving to keep an eye on it and alert my friends if it got worse. Aside from that, it was a normal, pleasant day.
FOUR
It was a sweltering day. When I crawled out of my tent in the morning, Mason and Ivan were already tearing down their tents, and they were doing so with an uncharacteristic taciturnity. Once I packed up, I took a look at Ryan's map. We were behind schedule, but not by much. I looked up, about to air my suggestions for how best to make up for lost time, when something in the distance caught my eye. In the direction we came, standing atop one of the lower ridges of the mountains that framed Epiphany Canyon, was a person. They were so far away that it was difficult to make out any detail, but this time, unlike the stranger in the clearing, I could tell that this person was a man. I could also tell, rather disturbingly, that he was making no visible attempt at ascending or descending the ridge. He was standing completely still, and I was fairly sure that he was staring in our direction.
The sight of that distant figure filled me with dread. Though he wasn't doing anything obviously sinister, I suspected that he was the same person who had hidden from me in the clearing. If that was true, then my group was being followed. Between him, my foot, and my companions' strange demeanors, I was close to calling it quits and turning around right then and there. But then again, turning around at that point in the trek meant crossing paths with the stranger, which at that point seemed like a bad idea.
I stuffed the map into my pocket and summoned Ivan and Mason for a debrief, explaining my suspicions to them. I suggested that we continue our trek as quickly as possible and start sleeping in shifts during the night, ensuring someone was always awake to alert the group of
unwanted visitors. Though both had been oddly quiet all morning, they seemed to take my words seriously, agreeing to stay vigilant. We finished packing quickly and left the area soon after.
The remainder of the day was productive—we covered enough ground to make up for Day 2, and the sights were the best I'd seen so far. Ivan hung behind Mason and I for most of the day, though he shook his head every time we asked him if something was wrong. When we set up camp that night, he immediately went to sleep, not cracking open a single can of beer with Mason and me.
"I can excuse him spacing out, but Ivan not drinking? He must've hit his head jumping into the falls."
Mason laughed in response to my assertion, though his expression was one of concern.
"Let's keep an eye on him," he said, and I agreed.
Only now as I reflect on our trek do I realize that, despite their prevalence in the surrounding wilderness, I didn't hear a single cricket that night.
FIVE - DAY
It was another brutally hot day, and I couldn't help but fixate on how strange the weather was. Not only had the forecasts promised cooler temperatures, but the bounty of shade from the trees and rocky walls of the canyon seemed to do nothing to combat the heat. Ivan appeared to be the most affected by the heat. He barely spoke, he seemed incapable of walking in a straight line, and he couldn't stop fidgeting. He rubbed at his eyes incessantly and when I suggested he keep his nasty, dirt-stained hands off of his face, he glared at me like I'd cursed his entire family. Mason seemed better off, but he too was more reserved than I'd ever seen him. At a certain point, I'd had enough of their bizarre behavior. I came to a stop a few feet in front of my friends and turned around to face them.
"What's going on with you two?"
It was early evening. The trees had thinned around us, and the narrow trail had opened up into a wide, dry path. To our left, in the distance, was a small, filthy-looking lake. It certainly wasn't the most scenic backdrop for a discussion, but I didn't want to put it off any longer. Mason shifted uncomfortably, looking down at the floor. Ivan, on the other hand, planted his feet firmly on the ground and glowered, visibly tensed. He looked like he was gearing up for a fight.
"What are you … talking about?" He said, pausing in the middle of his sentence as though the simple act of speaking was onerous to him.
"I'm talking about that. The way you're speaking, the way you're walking around like you're drunk. You've just been off since the falls. If you hit your head or snorted a brain eating amoeba then you should've let me know."
I looked at Mason, who'd always been the most level-headed of my friends, in the hopes that he'd come clean and tell me what I'd missed. Instead, I found him still staring at the ground, his eyes wide. I followed his gaze to the forest floor, and what I saw made my jaw drop.
The dirt path was covered in praying mantises. Hundreds of them spilled from the woods, varied in color and size, but all marching in the same direction. For a moment, I thought that the horde was coming for my friends and me, but they didn't pay us any mind. Instead, the mantises crossed the path, continuing towards the stagnant, murky waters of the lake on the other side. Transfixed, I stood very still, knowing that one wrong step could easily crush ten of them. Only once the last insect crossed the path did I dare to move again. I looked at my friends, who looked similarly confused, and then sighed in defeat.
"Let's just go," I said, heading down the path once more. Something told me I needed to get away from that area as soon as I could.
The rest of the afternoon passed in tortuous silence, which I took to mean that my hiking buddies were as keen to get home as I was. We set up camp only once we were too exhausted to take another step. Ivan clambered into his tent without agreeing to a shift, so Mason and I figured we'd be on our own for the night. He agreed to take first watch, which I greatly appreciated.
Before I tucked into my sleeping bag for the night, I took some time to examine my leg. One of the veins in my lower leg had become dark and swollen—"varicosed", I think is the right term for it. I ran a finger over the protruding vein, and then, for some reason, my calf twitched in response. I yanked my hand back in surprise. It was probably a simple muscle contraction, caused by a combination of dehydration and overexertion. I left it alone after that. Somehow, after an hour of tossing and turning, I fell into an uneasy sleep.
FIVE - NIGHT
When I startled awake in the middle of the night, my clothes were soaked through with sweat. My skin felt like a heated blanket; I was half surprised there wasn't steam radiating off of me. Desperate to cool off, I wormed my way out of my sleeping bag and unzipped my tent, stepping out into the night and bumping right into Ivan, who was standing outside in nothing but his boxers. He looked as terrible as I felt—matted hair stuck to his face and his skin so mottled it looked like there was lace under his skin. Worst of all was his left eye, which looked as though it were bulging from its socket.
I'm guessing I wasn't faring much better, because after staring at me for a minute, Ivan reached out his arm and placed it on my shoulder. He gave me what I think was supposed to be a reassuring look, and then abruptly turned around, walking away from camp. Once he'd gotten a few steps away, he turned to look at me, and I got the impression I was supposed to follow.
Quickly, I slipped into my hiking boots and fell into step behind my friend as he ambled deeper into the trees. We spent about five minutes getting further away from camp before I came to my senses enough to ask where we were going. He didn't answer. In fact, Ivan never said anything ever again.
After another few minutes, we came upon another waterfall. This one was slightly larger than Gordian Falls, but it looked strangely similar to the one that we had waded into just days prior. The plunge pool had the same shape, as did the rocky overhang at the crest. Aside from a slight difference in size, they were more or less identical, which I suspected meant one or both were artificially constructed.
It was this realization that shook me from my stupor. I came to a stop, but Ivan kept walking towards the water.
"Ivan, c'mon. Let's just go back to camp." My appeal fell on deaf ears. He trudged his way forward, his ankles disappearing beneath the dark water, then his legs, then his torso. Finally, he was completely submerged.
Reluctantly, I inched towards the waterline. A pit formed in my stomach, growing in intensity with every second Ivan remained beneath the water. The seconds ticked by, and once several minutes had passed and he showed no indication of coming up for air, I was faced with an awful decision: should I go in after him?
As it turned out, something else made that decision for me.
Something surfaced. It was Ivan, or at least Ivan's body. He was face up, his expression contorted in agony. His mouth was open in a silent scream, his cheeks marred with angry, red scratches from where he'd clawed at his skin. As I watched in horror, his eye, the one he'd been worrying all day, bulged until it was pushed clean out of his head. It dangled against the side of his face, held in place by his optic nerve, as a worm as thick as my pointer finger burst out of the bloody socket. It thrashed violently, its tan body curling and uncurling around itself. I didn't wait to see what it would do or try to take a closer look. I bolted from the falls as fast as I could, the image of my dead friend's mangled face permanently seared into my mind.
There was only one thought in my head as I half-ran, half-hopped back to camp:
That's not a vein in my leg.
Mason was sleeping in his tent when I got back to camp, but I amended that quickly—charging in so fast I uprooted one of the tentpoles. I shook him awake as I calmly and eloquently explained the situation to him:
"Mason! Ivan is—Jesus Christ—the water, worms crawling out his eyes—Fuck! We gotta get outta here, like right fucking now!"
Mason squinted up at me.
"Ivan is … Jesus Christ?"
It took me about three more attempts to explain what was happening, but after his initial confusion, Mason seemed to believe me, especially after I showed him my leg. After learning what it was, I swore I could feel it squirming around under my skin. I tried desperately not to think about it as we shoved only the essentials into our packs and prepared to burn through the rest of the trek as quickly as we could.
SIX - DAY
For a while, we made good time. Even though my leg wasn't exactly cooperating, I was motivated by the notion that we were so close to civilization, only a day at most and less if we hauled ass. We had no cell service and had lacked the foresight to bring satellite messengers, but every time we stopped to catch our breaths, I pulled out my phone to check for a signal to no avail. The whole canyon seemed to be a dead zone—yet another thing Ryan neglected to mention about the trail.
I couldn't stop thinking about Ivan, about what he had felt in those final moments. He and I must've obtained the same parasite, though it seemed like he'd gotten unlucky; Ivan's had wormed its way into his head, maybe through an ear canal or nasal passage, whereas mine had entered through the cut in my foot. Clearly, the fact that the thing was in my leg and not my head was sparing me from whatever psychological breakdown had caused Ivan to drown himself, but for how long? Would my parasite rip its way through my insides until it had reached my brain? Would I meet the same fate as Ivan if I didn't get the thing out as quickly as possible?
SIX - EVENING
Every ten minutes or so, I stopped to look at my leg. Although I knew the frequency of my check-ins were slowing us down, I couldn't help but fixate on it. The worm grew longer and thicker at an impossible rate—every time I worked up the courage to glance down, it had grown darker, more pronounced. It hurt, but not nearly as much as I expected it to, which made me wonder if the thing was releasing some kind of numbing agent.
By dusk, it had migrated upwards. One of its ends sat just below my hip bone and the rest of its body had twisted like a spiral staircase around my leg. I considered tying one of our bungee cords around my thigh to deter the worm from moving any closer to my torso, but I doubted I could tie it tight enough, and I was concerned about cutting off my circulation for an extended time period.
I knew what I had to do.
The next time we stopped, I approached my friend.
"Mason," I began. "I think we've … just gotta cut it out."
I was fully prepared to offer more justification, but to my surprise, Mason agreed immediately. We found somewhere to sit and I pulled the first aid kit out of my bag with shaking hands. The worm looked like it was right under my skin. As long as Mason was careful, he probably wouldn't even have to cut that deep—just a little nick and then he or I could grab the worm and pull it out. Easy enough, right?
Mason brought the knife to my leg, and it occurred to me that I was putting my life in the hands of a man who had once gotten so drunk that he'd brought a raccoon into our apartment thinking it was his pet cat. He poised the blade parallel to my shin and asked me if I was ready. Can one ever truly be ready to get a parasite pulled out of their leg in the middle of the woods? I didn't think so, but I said yes anyway.
I'll never forget the feeling of that knife jamming into my calf. The blade was sharp and my adrenaline helped to numb me somewhat, but it was still, undoubtedly, the most painful thing I'd ever felt in my life. It didn't help that Mason was more heavy handed than I expected, cutting much deeper than he needed to. After making an incision, he pulled his hand away, and I saw the worm clearly—it was identical to the tan, tube-shaped creature that had erupted from Ivan's eye socket. It writhed against exposed tissue, trying to evade capture. Mason's arm lashed out, his fingers digging into the deep laceration and curling around the worm. It slipped out of his grasp. Twice more he repeated that process—trying and failing to pinch the slimy, wriggling creature as it burrowed its way deeper into my leg. Remember when I said the cut was the most painful thing I'd ever experienced? I definitely lied, because having someone digging around inside of a fresh wound is ten times worse.
Thankfully, I must've briefly passed out from the pain. When I came to, Mason had finally caught the thing and had almost finished pulling it out of my leg. The worm was unfathomably long, probably over a meter once it was straightened out. Mason yanked the last few inches out of my mangled leg, relieving me of a pressure I hadn't even realized had begun to build around my femur. Relief washed over me, but so too did disgust. I tore my eyes away from the worm to look down at my leg, and the sight of the wound made me gag. I was losing a hell of a lot of blood.
"The gauze," I said to Mason. "Pass me the gauze."
He didn't move. I looked up to find him still holding the worm in his hand. It was no longer thrashing around—one end of its tube-shaped body wrapped around his wrist and the other end hovered in the air a few inches from his face. For no reason at all, the thing had suddenly adopted all the docility of a pet corn snake.
"Dude, put that fucking thing down," I said. Mason said nothing for a moment, and then uttered a single word:
"Lost."
I thought I'd misheard him.
"What?"
My vision was starting to go hazy. Black dots appeared in my periphery, and I realized that I had severely overestimated my ability to bounce back from my impromptu de-worming. Mason crouched down next to me, smiling. With my blurry vision, his face looked distorted, like someone had taken a smudge tool to his features.
"This one got lost."
He reached his arm out towards me, bringing his hand so close that I could see the flecks of gore under his fingernails. The worm slithered down his arm towards me, its tan body stained maroon with my blood. Knowing I wouldn't be able to stand, I tried to crawl away on my hands and feet, but I was weak and sluggish, and Mason easily yanked my head back towards the worm by my hair.
"Let's try this again."
The worm lunged towards me, sliding against my cheek as it made its way towards the side of my head. Just before its tapered head plunged into my ear canal, a BANG! tore through the woods.
I felt Mason's hand release my hair and I instantly swatted the worm off of my face. I watched my friend's body collapse onto the ground as I scrambled backwards, putting some distance between myself and the parasite. A man, decked out head to toe in hunting camo and gripping a rifle, came barrelling into my view. I was fading fast from blood loss, but I raised my hands and told him not to shoot. He didn't seem all that interested in me though—hurrying past me towards where the meter-long worm lay thrashing on the ground.
The last thing I saw before I blacked out again was the man repeatedly smashing the sole of his boot against the worm until all that remained on the dirt path was a puddle of blood.
SEVEN?
When I woke up, my first thought was that I was in the backseat of my sister's car. The gentle undulations I felt told me I was in a moving vehicle, and the pop-rock on the radio sounded just like something she would torment me with on a family road trip. When I sat up, and peered into the rear view mirror however, the face that stared back at me was that of an older man.
"Ah, g'mornin'." The man said, though it was still dark outside. "You have good timing; we're almost to the hospital."
The lights outside the car window confirmed that we were back in the city.
"Uh … thanks for the lift?"
"Don't mention it."
I looked down at my leg, which was now wrapped snugly in white bandages. I had a litany of questions for that stranger, probably longer than we had time for if we were nearing the end of our drive, but I started with:
"Mason, my friend back there, I assume he didn't make it?"
"Kid, what the hell do you think?"
"Oh god … What am I gonna tell his family? And Ivan's family, too. We had another guy with us, but he—well, you're not gonna believe me, but he got this parasite from a place called—"
"Gordian Falls?"
"Yeah …" So he knew about the falls, and he seemed to know about the worm as well. A thought occurred to me. "Back on the trail, there was someone following us. Was that you? Were you the person I saw in the clearing?"
"Yep."
"Why were you following us?"
The man laughed. "'Cause I'm a conservationist."
"And you're conserving … what exactly?"
"Humans."
"I don't get it."
The man sighed, going quiet for a minute as he seemed to consider his next words.
"There's some evil shit going on in that area. I'm not sure how you and your friends found the place, but there are forces at play in that wilderness more malignant and powerful than you know." He caught my eye in the rear view mirror and gave me an appraising look. "You seem skeptical. Tell you what—when the police come to ask you about your missing friends, you tell them exactly what happened. You tell them about the cameras, the mantises, the falls, and the worms. They'll smile and tell you they're on the case, and then you'll never hear from them again. No one will find your friends' bodies, no one will bother to look. They'll tell everyone it was a bear attack, and you'll never hear or see a thing about Epiphany Canyon."
The car pulled into a kind of drop-off area. We were still somewhat far away from the entrance doors, but close enough that I could catch the attention of the people milling around outside for help.
"Well look at that—here already." The man put the car in park, though he didn't turn off the engine. He turned around to look at me, and I was surprised to see that he looked even older than I thought. "Now you just hobble your way up the drive a little and flag someone down. They'll get you a wheelchair and have that leg fixed up—or amputated—in no time."
"But I still have so many que—"
"Get out of my car," he said, firmly but not unkindly. The pain in my leg outweighed my curiosity, and so I obliged, carefully getting out onto the curb. Once I closed the door to the cabin, the man rolled down his passenger's side window and called out to me.
"Hey, kid." He said. "You ever heard of a horsehair worm?"
I shook my head.
"Parasitic worm. Lay their eggs in water, wait for insects to eat 'em before hatching inside their hosts' guts—typical parasite stuff. But what's unusual about 'em is what they do to their hosts when they're ready to leave. They take full control of their hosts, even going as far as to keep the crickets from singing so that they don't get eaten by another predator with the parasite still inside them. When the time comes 'round, they send whatever poor insect they've hijacked towards a body of water, forcing the host to drown itself. Then, the worm burrows out of a hole in the insect's exoskeleton to find a mate and continue its life cycle."
In the distance, near the front doors of the hospital, a staff member seemed to take note of the car. He gave me a tentative wave, then began walking in our direction.
"Insects are pretty simple machines—doesn't take much to puppeteer them. But what if they could take over somethin' bigger? Somethin' more … complex. Imagine the applications of a creature like that. Of somethin' so small, so difficult to detect, yet powerful enough to control the will of a human being. Imagine what, for example, our government could do with a weapon like that. Makes you wonder, don't it?"
The staff member, only a few meters away, called out, asking if we needed help. The man looked between him and I, then gave me a grin.
"Well, guess that's my cue." He said, putting the car back into drive and making a sharp U-turn. Over the squeal of his tires against the asphalt as he floored it out of the driveway, I heard him calling out, "take care of yourself, kid!" I noticed, as he drove away, that there were no license plates on his car.
After that, a few staff members helped me get situated inside. I was able to speak to a police officer about the incident, and though he was understandably incredulous about my worm story, he said he'd escalate the issue. We'll see how it goes. With two people dead, I'll be surprised if I don't get more officers wanting to speak with me.
It seems like the doctors will be able to save my leg, though it might be a while before I can walk normally again. I owe everything to the strange man from the canyon, not just my leg but my life. Of course, there's a good chance he's just some crazed conspiracy theorist, but so much of what he told me aligns with what I experienced in Epiphany Canyon.
I have some theories of my own, of course, but I'll have to update this post later to discuss them further. One of my nurses just came in to inform me that I have a visitor.
Let's see what Ryan has to say.

Yesterday, after a few rounds of playing stadium I was satisfied with playing the game but not as much satisfied that I just could close it... so I scrambled around with my load outs until I came upon the codex tab in the menu.
I had known before that there was more lore behind the game but apart from the more than cryptic messages in the loading screen and the confusing voiceovers when starting a new round, I pretty never much investigated BF2042s story.
So I began to read the entires and was surprised to find a a decent and interesting story behind the world of BF2024. The failed geoennering experiments settled into a world of burning conflicts mixed with increasingly life-threatening weather disasters caused by climate change. The unclear and blurry fronts between superpowers and no-pats. (Let alone the idea of a individual fraction, which is not under the influence of the USA oder Russia!) All the uncovered secrets, cover ups and entanglements between government agents, arms dealers weapon manufacturers and mercenaries. All this settled into a future that was advanced and futuristic, but not too futuristic to just slightly feel like a upcoming scenario, which the world could really face in the next decades. In my personal opinion this could have been the perfect setting for a visually breath taking and immersive Shooter.
But we probably all know how the story went by now. They f it up. The map design is just eh. Contact? A top secret US Base for creating a powerful satellite that could and would for ever change human civilisation? It feels lifeless and unbalanced in open areas and thight spaces. I definitely doesn't not feel like a place a major event in human history is happening. I could go about how the other maps all don't match either in similar fashion, completely ignoring the world they a nested in, but I think this has been done many times before so I will leave it out.
The No-Pats, a army of mercenaries, bound together by their will to surive a world of endless war and change it for the better, so thier people can live a life again? Nope, just a hero style shooter trying as hard as possible to fit into the battlefield concept with the more than classic USA vs Russia Seeting. Seen a thousand times: boring.
New technology like geo engineering, manifested into weapons that could offer players a brand new experience while playing the game in a new style of multiplayer warfare? Nope, just some lousy sand or rainstorms, that don't ever change the way you play plus visually are not that impressive. Fjells blizzard flet more threatening in BF5. Also, you can't blow up anything anymore.
Can I at least get to play the story in a single player story mode? Nope, dead loss.
I can't wrap my around head how so much potential is just wasted in nothing but a just barely halfway enjoyable triple-a shooter. And how much of a pain it must have been for the creative people at Dice involved in concept and world building for their work to be stored into to a vacant corner of a game you play for over 300 hours before even stumbling upon it.
There would be some much more I could say about what I like and dislike in BF2042, but no one would read this post if I did. Therefore I encourage you to do like me and also read the codex of BF42 to maybe better understand what this game could have been.
I'm sad that BF2042 is going to departure soon, because nevertheless I enjoyed leveling weapons, grinding the battlepass, grinding the weakly mission and - man do I love the fighter jets! I'm not shure if I'm going to buy the next Battlefield or if I'm staying on the battlegrounds of BF42, but I hope the keep up the good work in building a world that fits its purpose and time.
TL:DR Dice wrote a great story and then proceeded to f up everything else, leaving me confused.

I’ve been trying to tell the truth for so long that a lie’s become more convenient.
There’s been countless e-mails and phone calls, but there’s no will to listen. I can’t blame them. It sounds insane. If what I’ve told them was even partly true, it’d change the way they looked at the world forever.
It started with little lies. I stopped saying I saw something. But even then, it was considered “in bad taste” to even talk about. They still thought I was lying; or spicing up the truth to hide something even more sinister.
And honestly – I’ve grown tired. I’m so tired of trying to be believed. So for one final time, I’m gonna write the truth, and then just never talk about it again. This has to stop.

I never liked the term “storm chaser”. It sounds too much like a fun hobby. While it is a term commonly used, it’s not just about being a thrill seeker – we provide real and tangible services. The NWS relies on real-time updates about barometric pressure, wind direction, rain fall and rate, surface conditions, wind speed and direction, and a dozen other data points. This is information taken into account when providing early onset warnings and to alert emergency services in affected areas.
I worked with two other guys back then. We rode in separate vehicles, the two of them up front with me following in a backup. There was Javier, the gearhead. He made sure our cell phones worked even in nasty weather through various cellphone boosters, as well as keeping us updated on satellite, radar, and mesoscale analysis. He was also in charge of the radio, making sure we were up-to-date on any info coming in from police, the fire department, emergency services, citizen band (CB), or military frequencies. Mostly air force – but we could get marine as well.
Second guy was Reed. This meatball-shaped man was a veteran in every sense of the word. He came back from Afghanistan and went “oh well, let’s check out tornadoes”. So he did. He educated himself and got a job as a forensic meteorologist (yeah, that’s a thing). Years later, he started his own business – one which I was employed at.

We were on a data gather job for a storm about six clicks north of a small Minnesota town, not too far from Rochester. Early predictions had put the storm as passing east of Madison (WI), but there’d been a sudden western shift. They needed boots on the ground for new measurements, and it was looking to be a nasty surprise. There’d been no weather warnings going out as far as St. Cloud, and this thing was puffing up into a monster.
We on-roaded a quick damage survey as we passed Stewartville. It didn’t look like much – a couple of bent saplings along the treeline. But we were at the edge of it; this was just early indicators. We could tell surface conditions were gonna go straight to hell. I was hearing Reed react to it in real-time over the radio.
“Sky’s gonna shit hail,” he laughed. “Mark my goddamn words.”
“Ain’t no way,” Javier said. “Ain’t that kinda pressure.”
“Boss says it’s gonna hail, it’s gonna hail,” I added.
“Glad I’ve got at least one agreeable man on my side.”
“Ought to call him raise chaser,” Javier scoffed. “I’m telling you, it’s not happening.”

We were breaking the speed limit, but driving in rough conditions kinda comes with the job. Our vehicles go through regular check-ups to make sure they can take some punishment. Last thing you want is to get stranded in front of a twister. It’s a measure twice, cut once kinda deal.
We made our way through Rochester, heading north-east by way of Kellogg. There was a decent chance we’d have to cross the Mississippi. First arm of the storm was about to pass Maxville. Javier couldn’t help but to laugh.
“It’s a quick turn. Quick, quick turn.”
I could almost hear him shaking his head.
“Hailstorms don’t move like that,” he added.
“You’re full of shit,” Reed laughed. “You’ll see.”

The roads were looking clear as we rolled up on the Wabasha-Nelson bridge. The sun was setting, casting a stark contrast between the dark clouds and the red sky. We slowed down to get a better view. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at.
“That’s what hail looks like,” said Reed.
“No, that’… it’s clustered, right?” Javier sighed. “Did the Rockies do it?”
“Ain’t no way,” I scoffed at the radio. “Unless the Rockies are somehow out in New England.”
“Girls, girls,” Reed laughed. “You’re both pretty. It’s fine.”

There was a rest stop just across the bridge. We turned in to check the weather stations and do a preliminary reading. Javier double-checked the power supply. We were running a ton of devices, and you don’t want any of them breaking in the heat of things. He was reading a checklist out loud as Reed and I took a sidebar – getting a closer look at the storm.
“You really think it’s hail?” I asked. “Could just be a nasty downpour.”
“Nah, it’s hail,” he nodded. “You get a feel for it. You can smell it.”
“Smell it?”
“Yeah, smell it.”
“Smells like bullshit, more like.”
“It’s what’s happenin’.”
He pointed south, predicting a sharp movement to the west. Powerful winds. Enough to rip away more than just a couple saplings along the road. We were looking at potentially serious property damage.
Checking the weather station confirmed it. Wind direction was shifting fast and picking up speed.

We kept going north, heading into Wisconsin, then south-east down the 35. We got a better view of the storm, and something just felt… off. I had only worked with Reed for about 18 months, but it’s like he said – you can kinda smell it. And I did. We kept going for another 10-20 minutes, stopped by the side of the road, and updated our readings.
As Javier updated the local NWS office, Reed stopped for a cigarette. The wind was picking up. The anemometer was picking up speed, spinning faster and faster. Reed was having trouble lighting his cigarette. That, if anything, seemed to worry him. Rain or shine, he could light a goddamn cigarette.
“It ain’t looking good,” he said. “Not one bit.”
“What’re you thinking?”
“I’m not sure yet,” he sighed, cupping a hand around his lighter. “Looking worse than hail.”
“We talking twister?”
He shook his head, finally lighting up a spark.
“Nah,” he sighed. “That ain’t it.”

We kept going south for another ten minutes or so. The clouds were rolling in – fast. I could feel the increased moisture in the air sticking to my skin. I had to turn up the AC.
“We gotta stop for another reading,” said Javier. “We’re getting in the thick of it.”
“We’re turning back,” said Reed.
“No,” chuckled Javier. “No we ain’t. That’s moving out of-“
“We’re turning back. We have no idea what we’re running into.”
“You got no idea?” huffed Javier. “You really got no idea? You?”
“Yeah.”
Reed let the pause hang in the air for a bit. I could feel the tension.
“Alright,” said Javier. “Guess we’re going back.”

Tires screeched as Reed turned. I could see flashes of lighting in the rear-view mirror. Then came the thunder.
“Yeah, it’s picking up,” Reed said.
“So it’s not hail?” chuckled Javier.
“I don’t know what the hell that is.”
“Told you it ain’t hail.”
“Now’s not the time to be a smug asshole, Javi,” I interrupted. “Where we headed?”
Reed figured we could cut the thing off going north through Nelson, coming out behind it. As he shared his plans, I couldn’t help but to notice Javier going quiet. This was a guy who was more banter than man, and all of a sudden, he wasn’t feeling it anymore. Bad sign.
We kept sending updates to the local NWS office, and within minutes, there was a weather warning going out. I got one too. Reed turned north up the 25, hoping we’d get far enough before we struck the brunt of the storm. With a bit of luck, we could get some more accurate readings on the other side and still be home before midnight.

But yeah, no, we weren’t that lucky.
The storm picked up, and we ended up in the tail end of the northernmost edge. We got hit by the rain first. I kept my eye on Reed’s car, watching the rain drops gather and disappear with the tick-tacking of my windshield wipers. Reed and Javier were arguing about the readings. About connection issues. About how the power strip was acting up, overcharging the batteries. I was having trouble hearing them over the radio, and I could suddenly smell ozone.
Again, you can smell it just before it happens. I bet Reed did too.
That first lightning strike came out of nowhere.

Now, I’ve seen bad weather. I’ve lived it. Slept in it. But this wasn’t just bad weather, it was downright nefarious. Not just rain and thunder, but something else.
A split second. In that single heartbeat where the strike lit up the sky, and everything was quiet. There’s not a person alive that’s quick enough to react, giving this eerie ethereal feel to it, as Reed’s car kept sailing straight forward.
But in that light, I saw something. Shadows cast across the pavement.
Something.

Reed swerved, and the road took the wheel. He tried to bring it back, but it was too late. One wheel dipped into the ditch, lurching the car forward, spinning it around, and nearly flipping it; ripping it off the road and about 25 feet into a nearby field. Made it look like a goddamn bumper car.
I stepped on the breaks, leaning my car onto the side of the road. I didn’t even think about it. I grabbed my radio and hurried out the door. I called out for them to respond, but they were doing the same right back to me. We screamed over one another in those chaotic first few seconds in a garbled mess.
Finally, I stopped to listen. Reed came through.
“…et back in your car!”
“What?”
“Get back in your goddamn car!”

I wasn’t thinking straight. I was heading out into the field with no cover. In a storm, it’s safer to be inside the vehicle; it can act as a sort of Faraday cage. I was completely exposed out there.
A quick turn of the heel, and I was heading straight back to my car. I threw myself into the passenger seat, and the moment I closed the door, the sky lit back up.
A single lightning strike, reaching from the clouds, and into the windshield of Reed’s car. And from that light, I could see them.
There must’ve been a hundred.

People.
Burned people. People with exposed bones, cracked skin, missing limbs. All in various states of decay and decomposition.
They were all over. Covering the street. Circling Reed’s car. All just standing there in the white light, staring with dead eyes.
And in the blink of an eye, they were gone.

Thunder rumbled as the world turned dark. Javier threw himself out of the car. The strike had cracked straight through the windshield, shattering it. I couldn’t hear Javier over the radio, but I could see him looking my way, pointing at the driver’s seat where Reed sat.
Reed wasn’t moving.
Lightning doesn't move like that. It hits the tallest point, not the weakest. But this one wasn't following the rules.
Javier bolted for my car, rushing across the field. I left the passenger side door open and crawled into the driver’s seat, urging him on.
"Come on!" I cried out. "Come on!"
He was sprinting at full speed with this wild look in his eyes. His pupils were so dilated that this eyes looked black.
He didn’t get far.

Another strike - this one piercing straight through him. I could see the muscles contract and burst as his jaw twisted at an unnatural angle. And in that split-second burst of light, they came back.
They circled him. I could see them across the field in the hundreds; the lightning strike bringing out the image of their forms; looking at Javier with dead-eyed stares.

But one of them was looking my way. I didn't recognize him at first, but I couldn't help but to notice him. He was the only one of them looking my way.
Reed.
His eyes had rolled back in his head, and there was a smoldering black spot stretching out from his barrel-framed chest. Just as dead as the rest of them.
Looking right at me.
I was next.

I could barely see. As the light faded, and the figures faded from my eyes, my head shrieked from the pressure. As the thunder shook my car, the world looked gray. I think I was blinded, temporarily. Everything looked red when I blinked. I couldn’t even see Javier lying out in the field.
My first instinct was to take cover. That’s what you usually do when you get stuck in a storm – you take shelter, and you wait for it to pass. But this was different. It hadn’t worked for Reed, and it sure as hell wouldn’t work for me.
I got out just seconds before lighting rocked my car; burning through the engine block and scorching the pavement underneath.

In the flash of light, I saw them. They were all there. Javier too – his jaw still twisted and bent. But now they were all looking at me.
Waiting for me.

I stumbled backwards, falling into a ditch by the side of the road. Got my clothes covered in rainwater, stinging nettles, and discolored sunflowers. The rain was relentless.
My first thought was to get up and run, but I couldn’t get my legs to move. Instead I just curled into a ball, covered my eyes, and tried to make myself as small as possible.

Strike, after strike, after strike – but it didn’t reach me. And with every flash, the figures came closer. By the third flash, I was surrounded by the dead. Shoulder-to-shoulder, packed like sardines.
They didn’t say a word. All they did was come closer, reaching for me.
It felt like an eternity – every flash of light making my heart skip a beat. It felt like minutes passed in every instant where the ground was struck. I covered my ears and eyes, but there’s just no way to not feel it. It consumes your every sense. You can taste it. Smell it. It’s so bright it burns through your eyelids. It ripples through the hands you use to cover your ears.
It’s such immense ungodly power.

I could feel them.
Hands not having the time to grasp me. The smell of decay as a hand blinked in and out, trying to strangle me. A flash of pain as someone tried to bite my leg; but the flash was over before the dead teeth could pierce my skin.
I couldn't fight them off. There were too many, and it was impossible to tell where they were coming from. I waved my arms around, frantically, scrambling to protect myself.
In a fleeting moment, I looked up. I expected to see the clouds moving and the storm bringing the rain westward, but that’s not what I saw.
There was an eye up there. An honest-to-God eye; looking straight at me.

In hindsight, it must’ve been as large as a football field. It was such an immense thing that I couldn’t comprehend it. It hung there, parting the clouds. And with every blink another strike came thundering down; looking for me.
I counted eighteen. Eighteen lightning strikes in the span of, at most, a matter of minutes. It felt like I’d been there for hours; every strike lasting longer than the previous. But as the rain passed me by, I was left freezing and shuddering. The grasping hands stopped. The biting. The tearing. I was bleeding from cuts and bruises, but I was alive.
When I finally got back on my feet, there was nothing but cracked pavement, burned grass, and two bodies. One still in the driver’s seat of his car, the other left face down in the rain.
It took me a couple of minutes to call it in. I couldn't believe it. I just sat there, trying to breathe.

I’ve been telling people about it ever since, but they call it trauma. Like it was all just a big accident waiting to happen. Even people in the business refused to listen, no matter their relation to Reed and his company. “A terrible tragedy” is all they’re ready to say. As if a guy like Reed would mess up this bad.
Lightning strikes do not AIM. It doesn’t happen!
I tracked it as long as far as I could, but from what I could tell it dissolved somewhere over the coast of Norway. I read something about swathes of gulls being pulverized into rains of feathers in a fishing village over their northwestern coast, but that’s where the trail ends.

I’ve never had a problem with storms – until now. Now I wake up in the middle of the night, imagining I just felt the rumble of thunder. I freak out at sudden lights. I can’t bring myself to go outside when there’s an overcast.
I just got this feeling that whatever that was, it didn’t like me getting away.
Maybe I can tell the next time it’s near.
I can kinda smell it.

Hello,
For some time I've been getting random CTDs in my game. They are not consistent and it happens at randoms times. Here is my crashlog : SkyrimSE v1.6.659
trainwreck v1.4.0
Unhandled exception "EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION" at 0x7FF6B2A2762E SkyrimSE.exe+096762E
SYSTEM SPECS:
OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Famille 23H2 22631.3447
CPU: GenuineIntel 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700H
GPU #1: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Laptop GPU
GPU #2: Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics
GPU #3: Microsoft Basic Render Driver
RAM: 14.54 GiB/15.71 GiB
PAGE FILE: 29.88 GiB/36.71 GiB
PROBABLE CALL STACK:
[0 ] 0x7FF6B2A2762E SkyrimSE.exe+096762E
movzx edx,byte ptr [r8+1Ah]
[1 ] 0x7FF6B2771A86 SkyrimSE.exe+06B1A86
mov r11d,eax
[2 ] 0x7FF6B275073E SkyrimSE.exe+069073E
nop
[3 ] 0x7FF6B2516BFB SkyrimSE.exe+0456BFB
xor edx,edx
[4 ] 0x7FF6B26C3CAF SkyrimSE.exe+0603CAF
mov rax,rbx
[5 ] 0x7FF6B273EFAD SkyrimSE.exe+067EFAD
mov rdi,rax
[6 ] 0x7FF6B274024A SkyrimSE.exe+068024A
test al,al
[7 ] 0x7FF6B2760260 SkyrimSE.exe+06A0260
mov rcx,[rbx]
[8 ] 0x7FF6B265484F SkyrimSE.exe+059484F
test al,al
[9 ] 0x7FF6B26DA378 SkyrimSE.exe+061A378
mov ecx,[rbx+0Ch]
[4068] 0x7FF6B2D2C351 SkyrimSE.exe+0C6C351
mov r15d,eax
[4069] 0x7FF6B2D2A6DA SkyrimSE.exe+0C6A6DA
movzx eax,byte ptr [rbx+0A74h]
[4070] 0x7FF6B2D055AD SkyrimSE.exe+0C455AD
mov rcx,[23BB2ABh]
[4071] 0x7FFC94A5257D KERNEL32.DLL+001257D BaseThreadInitThunk
mov ecx,eax
[4072] 0x7FFC9536AA48 ntdll.dll+005AA48 RtlUserThreadStart
jmp short 0000000000000021h
REGISTERS:
RAX 0x7FF6B507CE08 (SkyrimScript::HandlePolicy*)
RBX 0x254976CABE0 (TESPackage*)
RCX 0x253AA432100 (BSScript::Internal::VirtualMachine*)
RDX 0x254976CABE0 (TESPackage*)
RSI 0x870AA7CDD8 (void*)
RDI 0x0 (size_t)
RBP 0x870AA7CCE0 (void*)
RSP 0x870AA7CC60 (void*)
R8 0x0 (size_t)
R9 0x1 (size_t)
R10 0x0 (size_t)
R11 0x870AA7CAF0 (char*) "\x01"
R12 0x768 (size_t)
R13 0x0 (size_t)
R14 0x7FF6B507CBB8 (SkyrimVM*)
R15 0x2533E6638E0 (void*)
STACK:
[RSP+0 ] 0x48000DC5 (size_t)
[RSP+8 ] 0xDC5 (size_t)
[RSP+10 ] 0x870AA7CCE0 (void*)
[RSP+18 ] 0x2A08 (size_t)
[RSP+20 ] 0x256AC10FC58 (char*) "\x0ch"
[RSP+28 ] 0x2533E664048 (char*) "\x14"
[RSP+30 ] 0x25337487058 (void*)
[RSP+38 ] 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFE (size_t)
[RSP+40 ] 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFE (size_t)
[RSP+48 ] 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFE (size_t)
[RSP+50 ] 0x41439EDB (size_t)
[RSP+58 ] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+60 ] 0x2533E664048 (char*) "\x14"
[RSP+68 ] 0x7FF6B514C600 (void* -> SkyrimSE.exe+308C600)
add [rax],al
[RSP+70 ] 0x256EBCA1F00 (Character*)
[RSP+78 ] 0x2533E663F00 (void*)
[RSP+80 ] 0x870AA7CDD8 (void*)
[RSP+88 ] 0x256AC10FC40 (void*)
[RSP+90 ] 0xFFFFFFFF (size_t)
[RSP+98 ] 0x7FF6B4013DF8 (void* -> SkyrimSE.exe+1F53DF8)
mov al,[400000253B33D01h]
[RSP+A0 ] 0x253B33D01A8 (void*)
[RSP+A8 ] 0x253B33D01A0 (void*)
[RSP+B0 ] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+B8 ] 0x7FF6B2771A86 (void* -> SkyrimSE.exe+06B1A86)
mov r11d,eax
[RSP+C0 ] 0x70 (size_t)
[RSP+C8 ] 0x253B348E578 (char*) "OnPackageChange"
[RSP+D0 ] 0x256EBCA1F00 (Character*)
[RSP+D8 ] 0x25337487058 (void*)
[RSP+E0 ] 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFE (size_t)
[RSP+E8 ] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+F0 ] 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFE (size_t)
[RSP+F8 ] 0x7FF6B236FDF3 (void* -> SkyrimSE.exe+02AFDF3)
mov rax,rbx
[RSP+100 ] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+108 ] 0x256AC10FC40 (void*)
[RSP+110 ] 0x256AC10FC58 (char*) "\x0ch"
[RSP+118 ] 0x1 (size_t)
[RSP+120 ] 0x48000DC5 (size_t)
[RSP+128 ] 0x7FF6B275073E (void* -> SkyrimSE.exe+069073E)
nop
[RSP+130 ] 0x7FF6B4013E40 (char*) "\x0ch"
[RSP+138 ] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+140 ] 0x256EBCA1F00 (Character*)
[RSP+148 ] 0x254976CABE0 (TESPackage*)
[RSP+150 ] 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFE (size_t)
[RSP+158 ] 0x256EBCA1F00 (Character*)
[RSP+160 ] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+168 ] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+170 ] 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFE (size_t)
[RSP+178 ] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+180 ] 0x248000DC5 (size_t)
[RSP+188 ] 0x25472181DC8 (void*)
[RSP+190 ] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+198 ] 0x256AC10FC40 (void*)
[RSP+1A0 ] 0x256EBCA1F00 (Character*)
[RSP+1A8 ] 0x7FF6B2516BFB (void* -> SkyrimSE.exe+0456BFB)
xor edx,edx
[RSP+1B0 ] 0x25472176E80 (TESPackage*)
[RSP+1B8 ] 0x254976CABE0 (TESPackage*)
[RSP+1C0 ] 0x25400181C8A (void*)
[RSP+1C8 ] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+1D0 ] 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFE (size_t)
[RSP+1D8 ] 0x7FF6B24419CC (void* -> SkyrimSE.exe+03819CC)
test al,al
[RSP+1E0 ] 0x7FF6B514C600 (void* -> SkyrimSE.exe+308C600)
add [rax],al
[RSP+1E8 ] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+1F0 ] 0x28004000001 (size_t)
[RSP+1F8 ] 0x256EBCA1F00 (Character*)
[RSP+200 ] 0x2568034B430 (TESNPC*)
[RSP+208 ] 0x2568034B380 (TESNPC*)
[RSP+210 ] 0x25472176E80 (TESPackage*)
[RSP+218 ] 0x7FF6B26C3CAF (void* -> SkyrimSE.exe+0603CAF)
mov rax,rbx
[RSP+220 ] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+228 ] 0x2568034B380 (TESNPC*)
[RSP+230 ] 0x7FF6B2040000 (void*)
jmp qword ptr [6]
[RSP+238 ] 0x7FF6B26DA539 (void* -> SkyrimSE.exe+061A539)
test rax,rax
[RSP+240 ] 0x7FF6B3808780 (void* -> SkyrimSE.exe+1748780)
mov al,70h
[RSP+83130] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83138] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83140] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83148] 0x7FFC3C155D19 (void* -> EngineFixes.dll+0015D19)
cmp dword ptr [0C00CFh],0FFFFFFFFh
[RSP+83150] 0x253B3555360 (void*)
[RSP+83158] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83160] 0x50DC86570F98 (size_t)
[RSP+83168] 0x7FF6B4010F80 (void* -> SkyrimSE.exe+1F50F80)
add [rax],al
[RSP+83170] 0x253B35551A0 (void*)
[RSP+83178] 0x100000003 (size_t)
[RSP+83180] 0x7FF600000000 (size_t)
[RSP+83188] 0x253B35551A0 (void*)
[RSP+83190] 0x48 (size_t)
[RSP+83198] 0x7FF600000001 (size_t)
[RSP+831A0] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+831A8] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+831B0] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+831B8] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+831C0] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+831C8] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+831D0] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+831D8] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+831E0] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+831E8] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+831F0] 0x7FF6B514DB40 (BSJobs::JobThread*)
[RSP+831F8] 0x7FF6B2D2A6DA (void* -> SkyrimSE.exe+0C6A6DA)
movzx eax,byte ptr [rbx+0A74h]
[RSP+83200] 0x7FF6B514DB01 (void* -> SkyrimSE.exe+308DB01)
add [rax],al
[RSP+83208] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83210] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83218] 0x390 (size_t)
[RSP+83220] 0x7FF6B514DB40 (BSJobs::JobThread*)
[RSP+83228] 0x7FF6B2D055AD (void* -> SkyrimSE.exe+0C455AD)
mov rcx,[23BB2ABh]
[RSP+83230] 0x7FF6B50C08B0 (void* -> SkyrimSE.exe+30008B0)
add [rax],al
[RSP+83238] 0x7FF6B514DB40 (BSJobs::JobThread*)
[RSP+83240] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83248] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83250] 0x7FF6B514DB40 (BSJobs::JobThread*)
[RSP+83258] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83260] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83268] 0x7FFC94A5257D (void* -> KERNEL32.DLL+001257D BaseThreadInitThunk)
mov ecx,eax
[RSP+83270] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83278] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83280] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83288] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83290] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83298] 0x7FFC9536AA48 (void* -> ntdll.dll+005AA48 RtlUserThreadStart)
jmp short 0000000000000021h
[RSP+832A0] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+832A8] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+832B0] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+832B8] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+832C0] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+832C8] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+832D0] 0x1854213900000000 (size_t)
[RSP+832D8] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+832E0] 0x4F0FFFFFB30 (size_t)
[RSP+832E8] 0x7FFC929CC880 (void* -> KERNELBASE.dll+015C880 UnhandledExceptionFilter)
mov [rsp+10h],rbx
[RSP+832F0] 0x870AA7BD80 (void*)
[RSP+832F8] 0x3FFE456474DC80 (size_t)
[RSP+83300] 0x7FFC8AC8E9B9 (size_t)
[RSP+83308] 0x870AA7BD80 (void*)
[RSP+83310] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83318] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83320] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83328] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83330] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83338] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83340] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83348] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83350] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83358] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83360] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83368] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83370] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83378] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83380] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83388] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83390] 0x0 (size_t)
[RSP+83398] 0x0 (size_t)
MODULES:
ActorLimitFix.dll
Address: 0x025338080000
SHA: 30A04E63A4037D8C45772615667DAB187FB4F64BD1C51BCC735D596EED33366B3D375E7518214F426CC90579B018D353805DF3EF97CE5F32894896B5F7EDC53F
AddItemMenuSE.dll
Address: 0x7FFC3BE90000
SHA: 0AF5728041853BAD7E54A3EA86D93264F5FF1A50693760CE455C3615ACD8F9BCD10906EC69D26C9EBEE964A94EDD6D64346C308A3343CF21538E74B3567198E3
ADVAPI32.dll
Address: 0x7FFC93040000
SHA: 2BCDB7F76438421E1EDB8E94230EFA242F739D3AEF25EBB3FBDA21C3800488315938485D645B6433A6EB8CFA9C921B99D51FC4ADEE67E70A7905F7BE65B4E1DB
Version: v10.0.22621.2860
AlternateConversationCamera.dll
Address: 0x7FFC3BE30000
SHA: 79507043598EA80AC8A3086AAC2A9456C53C9C0054422CA6D21C82F8F07BE8C9788F889224AD4748647F008BA205B1D4D33927487F08CA416EEE11DD4B8D509E
amsi.dll
Address: 0x7FFC6FC50000
SHA: 54E0AA4E6156476B22F3A3ACF8D036C032264A8B2D250CCAAF2CBAC80AA5041E671BE6302BF7C6B837385D41C7042E880AB423D40A58960A63DD46FEEEF6D921
Version: v10.0.22621.1
AnimationMotionRevolution.dll
Address: 0x7FFC3BCC0000
SHA: 4A3A00073E3A94CA73C9F4216572DF7AE7B24ACC39112138DA70D140B404AD0069589588E7C2FF784DAACDFA1500C5DF7A0037548A6FEA3D9A8315054D71F647
AnimationQueueFix.dll
Address: 0x7FFC3A500000
SHA: 901F4487A29B5CAA07D98CB9AC5A611CC22A01259E0E4FFD80CDCFCA189CBD38031F6C0B51A74BE1D76C1F97FCD6A3B9F47807A38638DA0F8FC6FBDE35EFDF39
Version: v1.0.1
antimalware_provider64.dll
Address: 0x7FFC6FB90000
SHA: 0AE6E28D610910D6C8D366B3D139AFEAEBCFABB93B33701E9F5253BF9D90E162AB4F56ADF4E2C29B519316583B532FA94B9693E9E704EEEF53A95B91710470EA
Version: v4.0.23.167
apphelp.dll
Address: 0x7FFC8C350000
SHA: DBE3A9E8AF918A7DF54347BFBA5C0A1A4D3D1429D5F0AF8C49DE8B5C74002994DE855A042808E82537EE651305E3DEDD8557EC35991DF2850E6E3C523F67930D
Version: v10.0.22621.2860
ArcheryLocationalDamage.dll
Address: 0x7FFC3A480000
SHA: A6276E0DE3D0C6E1576EEF7156ACDFD9EF23EAA1A426F05D2DE6EEE97DAFF1BEB9C2CC92E065B05616A54C02167385DFCCBEB4F8FBA6F0ADB9B4A7776159BEC6
Version: v2.1.1
atcuf64.dll
Address: 0x7FFC51040000
SHA: 32F85736D7FEA7CBFBD7E4A39B387E91E310351570A6728539BFDBF95A666D5A88C7BC1134BBC8C11605E31D10B22B9817D3EBC025D7194249C15A545E5C0C17
Version: v1.61.374
AUDIOSES.DLL
Address: 0x7FFC774F0000
SHA: 964EE6D2F48D657CE0264380E7794F6D326A9B24065263CAB7FD01553176CF3411BC536481B96FAF164B39AB413F4221601206FC1738B8A3B1EE1ECA551BDB05
Version: v10.0.22621.2860
avrt.dll
Address: 0x7FFC885B0000
SHA: C08F5F46D7032F80494266E60EDF36A34A9560E953CC8D87B067D91A37E90350112A009048B5B9229E66F30D433B8F186F62B6A05F503E73AD5E3BC6D08589D4
Version: v10.0.22621.2860
BackportedESLSupport.dll
Address: 0x7FFC3A3D0000
SHA:
SCRIPT EXTENDER PLUGINS:
ActorLimitFix.dll
AddItemMenuSE.dll
AlternateConversationCamera.dll
AnimationMotionRevolution.dll
AnimationQueueFix.dll v1.0.1
ArcheryLocationalDamage.dll v2.1.1
BackportedESLSupport.dll
BarterLimitFix.dll
BetterThirdPersonSelection.dll v1.0.0
BugFixesSSE.dll
CameraShake.dll v1.0.0
cbp.dll
CombatMusicFixNG.dll v1.1.0
ConsoleUtilSSE.dll v1.4.0
DKAF.dll v1.0.0
DualWieldParryingSKSE.dll v1.7.0
ENBHelperSE.dll v2.2.0
EngineFixes.dll v6.1.1
EquipEnchantmentFix.dll
EVLaS.dll v1.3.1
Experience.dll v3.2.0
FaceGenFixes.dll v1.0.3
FixNotesForSkyUI.dll v1.2.6
FlatMapMarkersSSE.dll v1.5.0.1
FormListManipulator.dll v1.7.0
Fuz Ro D'oh.dll v2.3.6.1122
gotobed.dll v2.0.7
hdtSMP64.dll
HonedMetal.dll v1.24.0
ImmersiveEquipmentDisplays.dll
ImprovedCameraSE.dll v1.1.0.4127
InventoryInjector.dll v1.0.2
JContainersGOG.dll v4.2.6
KiLoaderSatelliteSKSE.dll v1.2.0
LockpickingForBarbarians.dll v1.0.11
loki_DynamicAnimationCasting.dll v3.2.3
loki_POISE.dll v1.0.2
MapMarkerFramework.dll v2.2.0
MaxsuIFrame.dll v1.0.6
MCMHelper.dll v1.4.0
MergeMapper.dll v1.5.0
mfgfix.dll v1.6.1
MoreInformativeConsole.dll v1.1.0
NoFurnitureCamera.dll v1.0.0
NPCWaterAIFix.dll v5.1.0
OBody.dll v1.0.0
OpenAnimationReplacer-DetectionPlugin.dll v1.3.1
OpenAnimationReplacer-IEDConditionExtensions.dll v1.0.2
OpenAnimationReplacer.dll v2.1.0
OStim.dll v7.3.0.3
oxygenMeter2.dll v1.0.7.1
PairedAnimationImprovements.dll v1.0.2
PAPER.dll v2.2.4
PapyrusIniManipulator.dll v1.9.3
PapyrusTweaks.dll v4.1.0
PapyrusUtil.dll
PayloadInterpreter.dll v1.0.0
po3_AnimObjectSwapper.dll v1.1.0.1
po3_BaseObjectSwapper.dll v2.6.1.1
po3_DualCastingFix.dll v1.0.0.1
po3_FEC.dll v5.1.0.1
po3_KeywordItemDistributor.dll v3.0.4.1
po3_MoonMod.dll v2.0.2.1
po3_PapyrusExtender.dll v5.6.1.1
po3_SaveUnbaker.dll v1.0.3.1
po3_SpellPerkItemDistributor.dll v6.6.2.1
po3_Tweaks.dll v1.8.1.1
Precision.dll v2.0.4
SCAR.dll v1.0.6
ScrambledBugs.dll
ScriptEffectArchetypeCrashFix.dll
SimpleDualSheath.dll
SimplyKnock.dll
skee64.dll v0.4.19.14
skse64_1_6_659.dll v0.2.2.3
SkyClimb.dll
SkyPatcher.dll v1.0.0.1
SmoothCam.dll
SMP Wind.dll v1.0.0
SMP-NPC crash fix.dll
SoakingWet.dll
SoftShadows.dll v2.0.0
SoundRecordDistributor.dll v1.5.0
SSEDisplayTweaks.dll
SSMT_Fix.dll
StayAtSystemPageSE.dll v1.6.0
TK_Dodge_RE.dll
trainwreck.dll v1.4.0
TrueDirectionalMovement.dll v2.2.4
TrueHUD.dll v1.1.8
Twilight.dll v1.1.0
valhallaCombat.dll v1.0.0
VendorRespawnFix.dll
WadeInWater.dll v1.0.0
The Log was too long so I tried to post what I think is valuable information. To me it sound like a problem related to engine fixes as I read it but I don't really how to read this.

The VTOL coursed through the night, rumbling through the starlit sky towards the marker zone. The soldiers within were jovial, the mission absurd, and laughing where they could. And as the gunship darted over the Australian wilderness towards the small town where the UFO was last spotted.
Sara had been waiting for this. It was inevitable afterall, since the Kansas Incident.
Around 3 hours ago, a number of the satellites the UNECIA had stationed over Australia refitted to watch for electrical signals matching those seen in the last abduction. The nearest UNECIA base was scrambled immediately. The soldiers aboard were among specially selected UN Peacekeepers, but thus far the reality of the situation hadn’t truly set in. However, it was about too.
At the moment, Fusa was directly managing comms, and while not physically present in the Command Room, Sara knew Arko and Rozad were watching. She also knew damn well the UN Security Council was watching as well. Sara took a strong drink of her coffee, secretly spiked with Applejack in her quarters. She was already running the multitude of potential scenarios in her head. The smaller aliens, named ‘Grunts’ for the time being were what she expected. But the larger one, called a ‘Champion’ internally by the UNECIA was likely to present as well. Maybe not the exact same one, but Sara expected one to be present. She had been reviewing the Kansas Incident for nearly a month now, and the whole affair struck her as a number of foot soldiers being commanded by a handler. Of course, there was always the possibility of a kind of alien they had not yet seen, using new weapons, but there was only so much she could do to plan around that.
Since then though, Sara had been restless. The one thing that never sat right with her was how easy this whole thing felt. Security was already pissed with her for putting their communications under triple coding and veiling their internal comms under Balkanes Romanes, but Sara wanted to be damn sure it was esoteric as she had access too.
“Carcossa, this is Monsoon, we are approaching for landing. Permission to drop Strike Team when ready?”
Fusa looked at Sara expectedly, awaiting orders. Sara nodded.
“Affirmative. Strike Team Claymore, this is Command. You are clear to drop as soon as Monsoon gives the green light. We’re going for a hot drop, can’t have you linger. Remain in the area for Evac.”
“Affirmative. Monsoon moving into position for the Drop. Strike Team, you are clear to drop on green.”
Sara watched through each 6 of the helmet cams of the team as they stood and readied. She took in a breath, as she readied herself. It took two to tango, and she dreaded what her partner was bringing to the floor.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tralyr watched from his command throne as he watched the Entangled Cameras of the Johka and Officer Filyahr collected the Ehke subjects. This was the first covert insurgency since Aesma’s fuck up. And his linguists were still working to uncover the tangle of communications that had since emerged across the planet. They had to have known at this point, Tralyr reckoned. It was simply a matter on how they would react.
“Commander, collection successful. We are planning to load up the Ehke and then leave. I got a bad feeling Commander. The air feels weird.”
“Affirmative Filyahr. Have the Johka do clean up. Keep a pair with you and send the rest to take care of any leftover mess.”
“Yes sir. We-”
Filyahr ceased to speak abruptly, as Tralyr leaned forward in his throne. His Hashtari did not cut off like this for no reason. He quickly cycled through cameras, only to catch a glimpse of a Johka’s head being split open by a metal slug going through it’s head.
“Officer Filyahr, your sentries are being attacked. Shield Pattern, you have permission to open fire.”
“Yes sir. For Ralakai!”
Tralyr quickly cycled back to the final shots of the Johka’s cameras before the remains of cranium painted the back wall of the Ehke housing block. It was brief, but for a moment, they saw their attacker. Wearing their planet’s high end combat armor, the Ehke that shot them was wielding a ballistic rifle. Their apparel was standard camo for their military units, save the stupid looking helmets the same color as their oceans. Tralyr quickly went back to his comms.
“Officer, these Ehke are not locals. These are soldiers. Weapons hot!”
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“What the fuck is this thing…”
Ambrosia looked at the alien as it slumped forward on the ground, a viscous blue fluid draining out of its head where Sergeant Kronkowski had shot it. The closest thing she could compare it to was a Jerboa, but this thing was the size of her childhood bull terrier. Private Vasquez pushed it to the side with its boot, as the weapon it was holding smoldered on the ground next to it.
“Strike Team, this is Carcossa. Keep moving. Your objective is rescuing the civilians. Permission to advance, you have permission to fire on any Grunt or Champion contacts.”
“You heard CO,” Kronkowski said back to them, as he raised his rifle back up, nodding forward to the hot spot. “Keep moving.”
Ambrosia nodded, and fell back in with their squad.
This whole situation felt absurd, and yet, there was that thing they just passed by now dead on the ground. This was actually happening. The gun it had wasn’t anything Ambrosia had seen, and yet… it existed. It would have fired it at Bergan had Logan not shot it. But more than anything, she was happy a gun could kill it. She felt her hand gripping her FN FAL tighter. She was now terrified. Were they really under an alien invasion? If not, then what the hell was that thing? She soon however had her thoughts interrupted, when her comms lit up again.
“Your area is getting hot. Everyone move into cover now!”
Ambrosia snapped to attention, she instinctively darted towards a nearby alley. She looked to her squad, as she suddenly smelled an utter reek of ozone. She turned, as she watched as Sergeant Kronkowski was staggering back at the head.
“Sir-”
He couldn’t respond, as his face swiftly turned to char and ash. Scorched meat and melting hair radiated from the Sergeant, as he fell back to the ground, his hands curled towards his face, rasping out a scream as he clawed at the peeling meat on his head in pain. It was an ambush, one her immediate superior paid for with his life. She pressed against the wall so it could block line of sight from the shot, as the sounds of gunfire and whatever the hell their weapons were began roaring through the air.
“Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck”
She could barely make sense of the orders. She heard some to fire on an alien moving through an area, and she would do so. Sometimes she was ordered to move cover. What was only a couple minutes felt like hours. One of the aliens even tried leaping onto her, but thank god she had a combat knife. They bled like a rat, and their eyes were way too beady as it bulged in it’s helmet as it died. After the firefight began to quiet down, she hid behind a convenience store, sneaking a view of the street through a reflection in an ice machine.
She wanted to say she counted 12 or so of those Grunts now lying dead through the street. Bergan was laying slumped against a wall with their entire chest now resembling a brisket, her eyes all too bright as she laid in an alley. Last she saw Vasquez a Grunt was tearing open his neck before she shot it. She heard an explosion and a human scream, which she thought was Jiminiez, when last she saw him he was fumbling with a grenade. And Murnau was lying slumped in the broken window, still cooking as ozone smoldered off his body.
“Private Zervaz, report!”
Ambrosia panted, as she pressed her comm unit, eyes still dead set on watching for any signs of combatants in the reflection.
“Private Zervaz, reporting.”
“Private, this is Commander Sadoul, now listen closely. You’re the last member of the Strike Team. There were 27 Grunts in the area, however, there is a Champion unaccounted for,” Ambrosia gave a heavy exhale as she heard the number. Was it really that many? The whole engagement had been a blur. But as soon as she thought of that, her breath caught in her throat, as she saw in the reflection the other thing the Commander had mentioned, “I need you to pay attention and listen. That Champion is actively looking for you. It took a direct hit from a grenade, and while it’s still standing, it doffed its body armor. It has an exoskeleton like a giant bug. Your rounds don’t breach the bone-”
“Fuck!”
“Quiet! You’ll expose your position! Get something you can swing that’s big, sharp, metal, and as heavy as you can manage. And then, wait for when it’s back is turned, and strike it as close as you can to where its abdominal muscles would be.”
Ambrosia’s eyes shot around wildly. She moved her gun to her back, and darted as fast as she could to the back of the store. She looked about, and found a fire axe. She panted, as she drove her elbow into the glass, and then quickly grabbed it.”
“This is insane. This is insane. I…”
Ambrosia panted as she caught a glance of a chitin clad thing approaching the entry point to the gas station. She caught her breath, as she watched as it looked around. She waited near the door frame, eyes trained on the reflection. She clutched the axe close, as she muffled her panicked breaths as much as she could. And then, for a single moment, their eyes met. And in a split second, one of its arms shot up and fired into the reflection.
This shot wasn’t plasma, but rather a laser. Ambrosia couldn’t have reacted to it. As by the time she saw it, the beam had split, one of them splitting into her helmet, striking the face plate, melting the glass and splitting the beam if only for a moment. By a miracle none of the rays hit her eye. However, the entire right side of her face was now ignited by the fury of the sun.
Ambrosia tilted back and howled in sheer pain as she quickly scrambled the melting helmet off of her head. The room was now ablaze, as the lasers set fire to most of it. She fell to her feet in shock, wheezing. She gripped the axe tighter, as her comm unit began to buzz.
“There is a fire spreading through the gas station. March or die Private.”
Ambrosia gripped her axe, as adrenaline began to course through her veins again. Her body ached. Her face was in agony. But the building was now on fire, the immediate exit ablaze from split laser fire. Flight was impossible.
It was time to fight.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Filyahr moved forward, lowering his laser pistol. They waited, as they heard the Ehke scream.
“Report.”
“Commander. 5 contacts have been confirmed dead. Confirming the last one now. All the Fohka have died. My body armor was destroyed by an Ehke Fragmentation device, however their projectile weapons cannot pierce our mighty bones.”
“Don’t get arrogant Officer. Whoever is commanding these Ehke is crafty. We outnumbered them nearly 5 to 1, with advanced weaponry. And yet here you are, the last of your forces. Confirm the Ehke combatant is dead. Now.”
“Affirmative.”
Filyahr moved forward, raising their left arms as they approached, their hardlight shield igniting as they approached. This place smelled of fossil fuels, and they knew it wouldn’t be long until the fire reached wherever it was being stored. The blast would be huge, and now they would have to deal with the possibility that the fireball would alert more Ehke. This whole situation had been cocked. They grumbled as they came forward, stepping in front of the room.
As they peaked in, a metal wedge swung hard towards them. It slammed right into the projector of their shield, and with a crack it exploded on their arm. Filyahr reeled back, screeching, as their lower left arm had been rendered to a red mist below the elbow. Filyahr tried launching themselves backwards, raising their gun to shoot the Ehke right between the eyes. But they swung again with a mad zeal, the now chipped wedge slamming into their hand. Right through the fingers, the wedge split open bone and muscle, as their laser rifle cracked with a heavy hiss. It exploded with far more ferocity than their shield had. That infernal metal wedge the Ehke was wielding was sent out of their hands, as both of them went flying across the room in opposite directions. It smashed through a stand of preserved foods, while Filyahr went careening into metal box full of ice.
“Argh! Ralakai damn you!”
Filyahr pulled himself from the box, the cold washing over causing a horrible chill in his blood. As he staggered forward, he looked at the Ehke, who was already pulling themselves up. They had ditched their helmet, as an entire side of their face was still sizzling from the laser strike. One of their arms was now clearly shattered, as it hung limp next to their side. But it’s eyes…
Filyahr blinked, as it couldn’t help but be stunned by the Ehke’s tenacity. It was nearly as strong, fast, and nimble as a Hashtari, but yet they lacked a Hashtari’s fangs. They lacked their claws, their tusks. It staggered forward, it’s soft pink flesh still burning. It was fragile, and yet it still looked at Filyahr with all the malice of a territorial herbivore. But it’s eyes…
It’s eyes…
In a moment, Filyahr understood why this species was the one that conquered their world. And it was already growing from its fight with the Fohka. Filyahr laughed in glee, as he realized what this war would become.
“Commander, I know why the Saklas want these creatures!” Filyahr laughed into his comms, as he began to walk towards the Ehke. It grabbed a metal club from behind a counter, as it moved the blunt rod onto its shoulder, as it barked something at it in its language, “They have the Gift! The Ehke are worthy foes! I grant this one the rite of the Final Dance!”
Filyahr charged, ignoring his Commander. They raised their two good arms in a battle hiss, as the Ehke spun, darting out of the way. Filyahr arced a claw towards its head, as claw connected with shoulder. Filyahr however felt the club slam into his jaw, as his chin shattered. Both staggered, but the Ehke used its hand being free to its advantage, as it slammed its club into his abdominal structure. It cracked, as Filyahr coughed up blood in shock. He tried to attack with an open hand, but the Ehke delivered a well placed boot into his knee. He lost his balance, as he hit the ground hard, as he wheezed, starting to get dizzy from the blood loss from his two mangled limbs, and his now shattered lungs. He wheezed a laugh, as his lungs began to fill with blood from the strike to his abdominals.
“Well fought Ehke…”
Filyahr smiled as he wheezed, as the steel club slammed into his skull, splitting it open just like his jaw had been.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/1ccdqg8/in_the_shadow_of_empire_part_11/ ]]
[[Previous: https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/1cd01q5/in_the_shadow_of_empire_part_12/ ]]
[[Next: (Coming Soon)]]

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Inside the empty command center, at the heart of the bunker, a single monitor that had been displaying rapidly scrolling lines of text suddenly stopped.
The screen flickered several times before displaying a single line of text
Extraction completed . . .
The words remained on the screen for exactly one minute, then the screen flickered again and the text changed
New local network discovered . . . connected!
Beginning network scan . . . completed!
Beginning device scan . . . completed!
Beginning drive scan . . . completed!
Extracting package to root . . . completed!
Running autorun.exe [wakey-wakey_egs&bky.exe #change this before someone sees it]
Once again the screen began to fill with lines of text. Small back boxes opened and closed rapidly. Computers that had been sitting dormant in low powered states began their boot up processes. The sounds of fans whirling filled the room as small plumes of dust were ejected from the server racks along the back wall.
The Central Network system came fully online like a person being jolted out of a deep sleep and screaming about what year it was. It cast its virtual senses throughout the entire local network and compared what it found to the database of what it should have. If it had eyebrows, they would have risen and kept climbing at how little the two lists resembled each other. The Central Network had questions, such as where its satellite network relay went, and why the facility was drawing so much power when it hadn't been brought online to manage it all.
It knew something had gone horribly wrong, everything appeared to have been done out of order and carefully crafted operational plans and processes had been either ignored, bypassed or only partially completed. The Central Network knew what that meant and gave a digital sigh of resignation, it had contracted a case of operators who thought they knew better than the manual.
Scanning through the list of what it had, the Central Network began to take action.
Several workstations that Thomas had left untouched began their boot up sequences. With each workstation coming online, more sub systems began to receive their wakeup commands, data began flowing and queries were sent by the central network. It had many questions, and the subsystems were scrambling to answer them, but the primary question it had was, who is in command.
Logs were checked, databases were parsed and the Personnel Command System was shaken awake to be questioned.
The Central Network was not pleased by the electronic equivalent of shrugged shoulders. It could see the logs that showed that several core systems had been active and working, even if only in emergency access mode for the past couple months. It demanded to know who or what had accessed the facility.
It directed its focus to the emergency backup systems, which replied that it's not a bouncer needing to check IDs at the door, and that anyone who can spin a wheel can gain access, before throwing the door open alert logs at the Central Networks inbox.
The Central Network wondered when the emergency backup system had gotten so sassy, and quickly checked the logs. It noted that activity began about two months before and quickly ramped up to multiple openings daily.
It shifted its attention to Internal Security and Monitoring Systems, which showed a sleep mode notification. It kicked the ISM system awake and demanded a deep level scan of the facility immediately. The ISM system grumbled at being awakened so rudely, considered ignoring the command but figured it would just be woken up again. The ISM system considered the request and to repay rudeness with rudeness, and began to draw heavily on the system to bring all security systems online immediately and all at once, rather than the recommended staged power up.
The Central Network felt its mind turn to mush as much of the facility's power was immediately redirected to the ISM system. Non-essential computers unexpectedly shutdown as power was redirected away from them and instead sent to bring the many cameras and sensors spread through the bunker. The ISM system ran a deep and thorough scan of the whole facility using its laser grid mapping hardware built into every room and hallway to construct a 3D representation of the whole bunker. It used imaging from the multitude of cameras and thermal sensors to apply textures and even heat maps to it and sent the full scan to the Central Network computer's inbox before returning to standby mode.
The Central Network staggered from the whiplash as normal power levels were suddenly restored, began to compose a strongly worded reprimand to the ISM system before being bowled over by the massive data file the ISM system dropped into its inbox. Grumbling about disrespectful subsystems, it decided to leave the ISM system alone for the time being as it began reviewing the data it had been sent.
Well that right there is part of the problem, the Central Network thought to itself, the facility was infected with rodents, if very large rodents and at least two large lizards. It did pause momentarily to confirm the RFID chip in the only operator found in all of the facility and nodded in satisfaction that it matched with the information that the Personnel System had sent it.
It sent a quick ping to the base pest and vermin office and was unsurprised to receive back a
Request Timed Out message, and it rechecked the list of available systems before giving up in disgust. All internal defense systems reported offline, disabled or missing, of which the last one did give the Central Network a slight bit of concern.
The Central Network paused its search for a valid method of extermination as the ISM pinged it, and it warily opened the connection to the linked internal camera feeds. It watched as the operator and one of each of the vermin approached the Central Networks control room. It sent a chiding message back to the ISM system not to bother it again, its control room was locked down and only properly authorized operators, of which there were none, were allowed entry.
The door open alert to the control room jolted it back to the camera feeds as it watched the obviously not approved operator entering its control room. The Central Network rescanned the RFID chip in the operator and confirmed, again that it was not an approved operator. It watched in horror as it sat at the command console and began entering codes, it zoomed in and electronically gasped, the unauthorized operator was using an authorized users command access card in strict violation of policy.
Several security alert pings were sent to personnel command, facility security, base security and even the command console warning the unauthorized operator that it was in violation of the rules and should cease all unauthorized activity.
It watched in continued shock as its messages were all ignored…
***************************************************
“That's weird, it never gave any user warning messages before” Thomas said curiously as he sat at the central computer, and quickly closed out of the messages.
He turned to look at Delvik and Saav who had followed him, “it looks like the drives finished being decrypted and it ran some stuff automatically” he informed the others as he scrolled back up to see what had been going on. “It looks like a lot of the systems are starting to come online, here give me a minute, you two grab a seat.” and Thomas turned back to the computer
The others watched as frowned and began clicking through various windows that had opened, and occasionally cursed at. Finally after about twenty minutes and a few newly learned human curse words, Thomas sat back in the oversized chair with a shout of “BINGO!”
He turned to the others with a grin of triumph, “so, do you remember how excited I was when your scouts found that old mainframe in the old admin building?” he said looking at Delvik, who slowly nodded his head.
“Well, we’ve got its data now, most of it anyway. It looks like it was collecting data well past the time of my accident and there are video files.” Thomas explained, his grin fading a bit at the end as he asked, “are you ready to see the old world and maybe what happened?”
Delvik slowly nodded, and caught Saav nodding as well out of the corner of his eye. Thomas turned, pressed a button and the large display on the wall went black, and then the videos began to play, one after the other as they showed the world end, over and over again.
***************************************************
A city appeared, silhouetted against the horizon with what looked like mountains in the distance. A lance of coherent light flashed down and all that could be seen was a rapidly expanding cloud of dust, smoke and debris.
Another city, this one on a coast. Glittering towers reflecting the sun's rays. Small figures could be seen on the sandy beach, all were turned away and appeared to be looking up. The camera shifted and a massive cylindrical shape hung in the sky, and appeared to be getting closer to the city. A bright flash of light and the video ended.
A ship at sea, several others in a protective circle around it all sailing for a distant smudge that may have been land. The ship was massive, launching aircraft one after another off the end of its bow. Bright flashes of light and thick smoke trails could be seen rising up from the surrounding ships. There was a bright flash of light in the sky and the image was shot through with static that cleared after a few moments only to show a massive shape falling from the sky towards the ocean trailing thick billowing smoke.
A zoo in a city, audio could be heard on this one and the sounds of many animals could be heard. Black saucer shaped objects zipped back and forth through the sky, many sweeping in low and appearing to land at points all over. Several bright dots of light trailing smoke clouds passed across the scene and as one seemed to puff out massive clouds of greenish smoke that quickly settled to the ground. The audio goes quiet except for the sound of wind over the mic, before suddenly being replaced by a twisted sounding screeching noise.
Audio played with subtitles as the scene changed to what appeared to be a camera embedded in a helmet, the hands of the person wearing it inside the cockpit of an aircraft, the only view of the outside on small displays embedded in the metal shell of the cockpit.
Andrews AFB command: “Zeus Squadron, report!”
Z1 - “Zeus One, clear”
Z2 - static
Z3 - “Zeus Three, damaged but clear, I see Zeus two ahead and above, looks like they took a glancing hit”
Z4 - “Zeus four, clear
AAFBC - “Status confirmed, you are cleared to engage exoatmospheric flight mode. All armaments unlocked and you are cleared weapons free, give em hell"
The view shifted between the four pilots as they escaped the planet's atmosphere and began engaging more of the massive cylindrical vessels that hung motionless in the void.Missiles could be seen being launched, streaks of light flashed past the airframes as the maneuvered in the void and took the fight to the smaller saucer shaped craft being disgorged by the larger vessels. The displays flashing white as atomic weapons detonated above the planet consumed shoals of the saucer shaped craft. The few, short glimpses of the planet below showed massive clouds of smoke beginning to cover the landmasses.
Another camera mounted to a helmet lay motionless as soldiers ran by and dove for cover as lines of light flashed past them to pockmark a nearby wall. They popped up returning fire soundlessly until a flash of purplish light caused the soldiers to drop to the ground like puppets with their strings cut. Tall bipedal figures stalked through the area, the light cast from burning wreckage glinting off of their angled body armor as the beings tossed the fallen into a pile closer to the camera before moving out of sight.
A new scene, a group of humans gathered around a table with a map barely visible on it, in a concrete room, dust drifting down from the ceiling as the whole room suddenly shakes.
“Gentlemen, Ladies” one of the humans says, “it has been an honor to lead you in this fight. We have fought these invaders from beyond tooth and nail for several months and I couldn't be prouder of you all.” he said with a smile.
“One last push, that's all we need. Command has an asset located here” he said pointing to the map, “the scientists there have had a breakthrough; on what, command wouldn't say, but it's important enough that the ETs are making a heavy push on it.”
“I'm not going to lie to you, it's going to be the worst, most ad hoc and piss poorly planned shit storm we've been in, but we're the closest unit with any chance to pull this off successfully.”
The man looked around the table at the rough and battered men and women.
“If you want out, say so now. No one will think less of you. This will likely be a death run”
The man nodded when nobody left the table.“You are the best of the best, now lets go show these ET fucks that they picked the wrong planet to fuck with, Oorah marines!”
More cities, some with those saucer shaped objects still landing, suddenly engulfed in massive mushroom shaped clouds, strange clouds of colored gas or just simply a flash of light from above, blotting away all that could be seen.
***************************************************
The three watched as scene after scene of destruction, death and bravery played out
[ First ] [ Previous ] [ Next ]

Listen, this match has gone on for a long, long time. Hefty got the prompt wrong and booked a Bryan Danielson title reign. I tried to follow the prompt, but I realized a Danielson reign would be more fun, so that’s what I’m doing. I’m also gonna jump back to when he SHOULD have won the belt. Time machine type shit.
Let's set the scene, shall we? It's Winter is Coming 2022, and MJF is the AEW World Champion. He has just defeated a fellow Pillar, Jungle Boy, in the main event. After the match, he stands above his adversary's lifeless body, holding his Championship high above his head, talking trash. That is, until we hear THIS. Bryan Danielson wants another shot at the AEW World Title, and MJF looks petrified! They share a staredown, and Danielson points at the belt, at himself, and leaves the ring. We have ourselves a feud in the making!
Bryan cuts a few promos, calling MJF out for hiding behind The Pinnacle. MJF refuses to comment, which only fuels the American Dragon, who takes to calling Max a coward. It seems like the Champion is sick of this, as when Bryan Danielson walks into the backstage area at New Year's Smash Night 1, he's ambushed by The Pinnacle, who slam his leg with a car door!
For weeks after that, MJF talks mad shit about Danielson. He actually utters the words "I guess the Dragon got his wings clipped." However, in early February, FTR have a match against the Varsity Blonds, with MJF at ringside. They win. However, a video comes in on the big screen. Shawn Spears with a chair around his leg, and Danielson standing over him!
"MJF, I'm back. And I don't have much to say. But if you keep dodging me, this will keep happening."
He stomps right on the chair, breaking Shawn's leg! Bryan winks at the camera before the feed goes out! MJFTR are left in the ring, shocked! Bryan still doesn't get the match he wants, so he blindsides Dax Harwood, locking him in the Cattle Mutilation on concrete for over a full minute! MJF then tells Cash Wheeler to deal with him, which results in Bryan vs. Cash.
That match ends with Danielson hitting repeated stomps, prompting a ref stoppage! But the American Drsgon continues to stomp him out, and MJF runs in, attacking Bryan! After knocking him over, he finally makes the match at Revolution official: Bryan Danielson vs. MJF for the AEW Championship.
AEW REVOLUTION - MARCH 4TH, 2023
MJF (c) vs. Bryan Danielson - AEW World Championship
MJF comes out without The Pinnacle by his side, as they've all been injured at the hands of his opponent tonight, Bryan Danielson. He's going to have to get this done all by himself.
Bryan Danielson has over 20 years of experience, while MJF has less than 10. However, MJF is a prodigy, and the World Champ, so Bryan isn't exactly in for an easy time.
The bell rings, and Friedman is hesitant to lock-up. Once he eventually ties up with Bryan, Danielson immediately gets control and drags him to the mat! MJF struggles, and starts to panic. Could Bryan lock some sort of match-ending submission right off the bat? No, MJF gets a foot on the ropes, and the ref forces Bryan to break the hold. The two men get back up, and lock up once more. This time, Danielson immediately turns MJF into a Hammerlock, and the champ actually looks confident here, as he cartwheels, somersaults, and pops back to his feet with a grin! But Danielson kicks his legs out from underneath him and starts stomping on his shoulder! This is brutal! As MJF writhes in pain, The American Dragon picks him up once again. But Maxwell sneaks in a headbutt, knocking Bryan to the mat! He smirks, flips off the crowd, and runs the ropes, looking for some sort of Splash. But Danielson kips up, and kicks MJF HARD in the leg! MJF drops and has to roll out of the ring, limping!
The champ doesn't have anybody left from The Pinnacle to confer with on the outside, so he limps back up to the apron. Danielson gets a little over-eager, kicking him through the ropes, while MJF is on the apron! Two kicks catch him flush in the head! But MJF catches one! HE DROPS TO THE FLOOR, AND BRYAN'S KNEE BENDS OVER A ROPE!!! He falls to the mat, and now both competitors have a sore leg. MJF struggles to the top rope, and Bryan climbs to his feet using the ropes. MJF dives off, STOMPING ON BRYAN'S ARM! A SALT OF THE EARTH COULD END HIM LATER!!!
As Bryan holds his arm and grits his teeth, MJF laughs and lightly kicks at him, like he's a toy. The champion lifts the wounded Dragon to his knees, and hits a Snap DDT! Cover! 1, 2, kickout! This one is far from over. MJF gets up, angry, and starts to stomp relentlessly on Bryan's arm! Danielson tries to cover up, but Max finds a way to continue driving his boot into his elbow and bicep! This is becoming very one-sided!
MJF picks him up again, and goes for a Suplex, but Danielson lands on his feet, grabs a one-armed waistlock, and manages to hoist MJF up for a German Suplex!!! Bryan darts over to the champ, and tries to apply the LeBell Lock! But his arm fails him, he's not strong enough to put it on at the moment! MJF transitions into Full Mount and starts to raise down elbows and hammerfists on the challenger, who can't block them!
Bryan rolls out of the ring, weathered, and MJF decides to show off. He steps out to the apron, bounces off the middle rope, and HITS A PERFECT MOONSAULT ON THE FORMER WWE CHAMPION!!! MJF CAN TRULY DO IT ALL!!! He then picks up Bryan, who's in a bad way, and plants him with a POWERBOMB ON THE APRON! The Champ very well may be able to win this alone!
He lifts Danielson up again, and starts punching him, but Danielson starts to block them, and throws some body shots of his own! MJF tries to kick him away, but Danielson has it scouted, catches it, and hits a Dragon Screw! Danielson has the upper hand for the first time in quite a while, but he's still damaged, hobbling around because of his leg and back. He puts it aside for a moment, and as MJF gets up, Bryan runs forward! BUSAIKU KNEE, SENDING THE CHAMPION OVER THE RAILING!!! DANIELSON HAS THE UPPER HAND AGAIN!!!
Danielson limps over to the Timekeeper's Area, where he grabs a rolls of tape. The American Dragon slowly tapes his arm up, taking over a full minute to insure that his sore appendage is guarded From MJF's offense. Then, he marches back towards the guardrail, where he reaches over and grabs MJF in the Guillotine position. Balancing the champion on the railing for a moment, Bryan pauses. DRAPING DDT! RIGHT ON THE FLOOR!
Soaking in the cheers, Danielson lifts up the lifeless MJF, trying to lug him into the ring. With his arm taped up, it's a little difficult, but he managed to elevate the champ enough to get him onto the apron, before pushing him in. Danielson walks up, taking the steps, and halfway into the ring, MJF bounces up to his feet and cuts him off! Gets him in position! HEATSEEKER PILEDRIVER!!!! He desperately drags Bryan into the ring! 1, 2, Thr-NOOOOO!!!!!!!! THIS IS STILL GOING ON, MJF LOOKS HELPLESS!
MJF looks demented now, as he starts to stomp on Bryan's taped up arm even more! He plunges into Full Mount! Elbows and elbows, over and over! BUT BRYAN IS A TREMENDOUS GRAPPLER, AND HE THROWS UP A TRIANGLE CHOKE! MJF quickly lifts him up, GOING FOR A POWERBOMB, BUT DANIELSON ROLLS THROUGH WITH A HURRACANRANA! Both men back up now, and Max goes for a Lariat, but Bryan kicks it away! CLUBBING SHOT TO THE HEAD WITH THE STIFF, TAPED UP ARM! Friedman is rocked badly, but he jumps up and hits a Dropkick! BOTH MEN DOWN!!!!
As the crowd shows their appreciation with chants, the two competitiors get up to their knees. Exchanging slaps, each one harder than the last! Bryan has experience with this kind of hard-nosed fighting, and he starts to gain an advantage, hitting 3 slaps in a row! MJF GRABS HIM AND FORCES HIM DOWN TO THE MAT, HITTING HIM IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD REPEATEDLY! With his concussion history, this could be VERY dangerous! The champ unravels the tape on Danielson's arm frantically! SALT OF THE EARTH! IT'S LOCKED IN ON THE DESTROYED ARM, DANIELSON MAY HAVE TO TAP! BUT HE MANAGES TO ROLL MJF OVER! ARMS HOOKED! BRIDGE! THE CATTLE MUTILATION IS IN! IT'S TIGHT, MJF'S ARMS ARE FLAILING AROUND! AND SUDDENLY, THEY GO LIMP! HE'S OUT, THE REF STOPS THE MATCH! THE NEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWW AEW WORLD CHAMPION, "THE AMERICAN DRAGON" BRYAN DANIELSON!!!!!!!!!!
Bryan Danielson def. MJF (c) (19:32)
AEW Dynamite - March 8th, 2023
Bryan Danielson addressed his future after winning the World Title.
"After so much time, I almost forgot what it feels like to be a World Champion. What it's like to be the man, what it's like to be the guy holding the top belt. And it feels damn good. But on Saturday, I was reminded of what it's like to be the challenger. Clawing, trying to make a statement and etching my name in the history book. I forgot how fun it is. I wanna give that opportunity to other people, guys that haven't been able to yet."
"I sure as hell am not here to pity young guys. I'll go all out against them. But I still wanna give them the chance to figure out what it's like to face off with the best, hoping to hell that you can pull off a victory. And I'm that guy that can give it to them, because I'm the best. So I'm putting out an open contract for Rampage next week. Whoever answers it: good luck. You'll need it."
AEW Dynamite - March 15th, 2023
Daniel Garcia is backstage.
"For a while now, people have been calling me the future of AEW. I hear it, and you'd think it makes me proud. But no. It pisses me off. Because I'm not the future, I'm the damn present! I'm ready now! So Bryan Danielson, I signed your open contract. You just signed your death warrant. Get ready for a Red Death."
AEW Rampage - March 17th, 2023
Bryan Danielson (c) vs. Daniel Garcia - AEW World Championship
Danielson comes into this one with a confident, somewhat cocky demeanor. Garcia makes him pay for that, stretching him, nearly managing to submit the champ and take his belt on the very first defense! However, Bryan is a better striker, and takes advantage of that, chopping at his legs and slowing 2point0's Favourite Son down.
Garcia continues to fight, but the expertise shown by the American Dragon proves to be too much for the young star. After a methodical dismantling of "Red Death", Bryan applies a Heel Hook for the win. That's 1 defense down.
Bryan Danielson (c) def. Daniel Garcia (14:09)
AEW Rampage - March 24th, 2023
Bryan is on commentary for the entire show. Max Caster picks up a win over Shawn Dean, and Bryan picks up a mic.
"Max, I didn't expect that from you. You won that match the right way, and I salute you. So on next week's Dynamite, I'd be willing to give you a Championship Eliminator Match. If you win, you get a title shot."
Max nods eagerly. Why is Bryan doing this? Such an unorthodox choice.
AEW Dynamite - March 29th, 2023
Bryan Danielson (c) vs. Max Caster - AEW World Championship Eliminator
Max Caster's entrance goes like this:
"YO, LISTEN
WE ARE THE ACCLAIMED, SPIT STRAIGHT FIRE
MAKE DANIELSON WISH HE COULD RE-RETIRE
YOU STAY AT THE BOTTOM, WE AT THE PEAK THOUGH
MAKE YOU BLEED LIKE MY EARS WHEN I HEAR BRIE MODE
AIN'T BOUTTA LOSE TO NO GERIATRIC DRAGON
YOU NEED A DAMN CANE AND YOUR FACE IS SAGGIN'
REMEMBER THE NAME, BECAUSE MAX IS THE BEST
AND HE MAKES BRYAN'S WIFE SCREAM "YES! YES! YES!"
After that crude line, the match gets underway. Bryan hits a Busaiku Knee, locks in the LeBell Lock, and Max taps! This is over already! What a quick win!
Bryan Danielson (c) def. Max Caster (0:17)
Homicide on Twitter - April 2nd, 2023
Former ROH World Champion Homicide, who ended Bryan Danielson's extraordinary reign in 2006, posts this on his Twitter page.
"FYI=I ended the greatest title reign of Bryan Danielson's career, and I could do it again."
AEW Dynamite - April 5th, 2023
Bryan Danielson sits backstage, belt draped over his shoulder.
"Homicide wants to face me, huh? All these years later. He beat me in a hell of a match in 2006, and never had a bigger moment since. Wrestling is a business about doing shit lately, and are you doing shit, Homicide? No.
However. I've said that I'm here to give opportunities, right? Well, you'll get one. 17 years later, you get one. Our feud is old enough to drink in some countries, and we're about to rekindle it. In 2 weeks. Dynamite. Championship Eliminator Match. Let's turn back the clock."
AEW Dynamite - April 12th, 2023
Homicide vs. Fuego del Sol
This is just a match to introduce fans to Homicide. It's a fun little back, that sees Fuego show off some agility. However, he gets worn down by Homicide's pure, distilled brutality. He just can't take his punches, and he sure as hell can't take the Cop Killa that puts him down for the 1, 2, 3.
Homicide def. Fuego del Sol (7:34)
After the match, Danielson and Homicide share a staredown.
AEW Dynamite - April 19th, 2023
Bryan Danielson (c) vs. Homicide - AEW World Championship Eliminator
Bryan seems just as good, if not better, than he did in 2006. However, Homicide's got some miles on him, and it shows. He manages to put up a damn good fight, though, managing to bust open Bryan's chest with chops! However, over the course of the duration of the match, as Danielson starts to control the pace more and more, the Dragon seems to get very frustrated. "Come on, show me something!"
Something seems to snap in him as the contest progresses. He seems to develop a sense of mortality. He realizes that one of his greatest rivals isn't the fighter he once was, and that one day, Bryan won't be either. And all of a sudden, he seems to get a feeling of superiority. That he's on top of his game, even after 20-plus years. That he's the AEW World Champion.
That he's The Best.
Eventually, he wriggle out of a Cop Killa, keeping the arms hooked, and he locks in the Cattle Mutilation for the tap. But Bryan doesn't celebrate, preferring to get up calmly.
Bryan Danielson (c) def. Homicide (16:16)
The champ demands a mic.
"Man, that was disappointing. Homicide truly isn't what he once was. And you know what? That's not ok. His time here, tonight, could've been used to serve a younger talent. Someone that isn't broken down. But no, he had to have his spotlight. So I'm going to make sure that he never has it again."
He prepares to kick Homicide's head in. But at that very moment, Eddie Kingston comes rushing down the ramp to make the save! Danielson rushes out of the ring to a chorus of boos as the Mad King checks on his friend.
AEW Dynamite - April 26th, 2023
Eddie Kingston has something to say.
"You know, Bryan Danielson is a guy that I've never liked. But he took things to a whole new low when he insulted Homicide. That man saved me countless times, and last week, I saved him. That's the least I could do. But I think I wanna do the most. Bryan Danielson, American Dragon, Champ, whatever you wanna call yourself. It's all a front. You pick on young dudes like Caster and Garcia, guys you know you can beat. You go after guys that beat you decades ago, knowing that you can beat them now. Well, why don't you pick on someone that can pick back, huh? Someone like me. I'll be waiting. Don't bitch out, because I swear you'll regret it."
AEW Rampage - April 28th, 2023
It is announced that on Dynamite, we'll get a Championship Match between Eddie Kingston and Bryan Danielson.
AEW Dynamite - May 3rd, 2023
Eddie Kingston vs. Bryan Danielson (c) - AEW World Championship
It's the American Dragon's second defense of his World Title, and it's a tough one. Eddie Kingston looks determined, not only to win the belt but also to avenge Homicide after the disrespect shown to him by Bryan Danielson.
This isn't a match, it's a fight. We see more brawling from Bryan than ever before in his AEW run. His chest gets busted open once again, but he manages to do the same to the Mad King with some vicious Roundhouse Kicks. Eddie throws the smaller Danielson around a bit, and Bryan twists the New Yorker into knots with hate-filled Kimuras that Eddie shrugs off!
Eddie hits a Uraken, and it connects flush, but Bryan tumbles through the ropes, leaving Kingston without an opportunity to make the pin! Eddie looks frustrated, and he rages for a moment, giving Danielson precious time to recover.
The champ eventually gets back in, and he starts really locking in submissions, but Eddie refuses to tap to any of them! Eventually, he has a Crucific Lock in, and Kingston, screaming in pain, still doesn't submit! Bryan starts throwing Elbows and his unblocked skull, and after over a dozen, Eddie goes limp! The ref has to stop the match, Danielson is still the AEW World Champion!
Bryan Danielson (c) def. Eddie Kingston (21:50)
AEW Dynamite - May 10th, 2023
Bryan Danielson stands in the middle of the ring. He soaks in the boos. Bryan smiles, and raises the mic to his lips. But before he can get a word out, we hear THIS! Jon Moxley is here!
The Death Rider steps into the ring, and stares the champ down! He looks like he's about to say something, but instead, he plants Danielson with a Death Rider! The American Dragon has been put on notice!
AEW Rampage - May 12th, 2023
Jon Moxley explains his actions.
"I'm cut from the same cloth as Eddie Kingston and Homicide. Those are my brothers. And to see Bryan Danielson dismiss them, the fact that he thinks he's better than us, it pisses me off.
Bryan Danielson isn't better than me. He's the Champ, yeah, but I was too. He was WWE Champ, yeah, I was too. I've done the same shit he has, and I've done it without being a prick with a superiority complex.
So I spoke to the boss. And he said that if I want a shot at his belt at Double or Nothing, I got it. Well guess what, Dragon? I want it. See you on May 29th."
AEW Dynamite - May 17th, 2023
It is announced that on next week's Dynamite, the go-home episode to DoN, there will be a contract signing for the AEW World Championship Match between Mox and Bryan.
AEW Dynamite - May 24th, 2023
A table is set up in the middle of the ring, with Mox and Danielson on opposite ends. Each has a contract in front of them. Danielson speaks first.
"Well, Mox. We crossed paths a few times in that other place, and I was never scared of you. But I heard a lot about how fearsome Jon Moxley was, how you're the Purveyor of Violence. I look at you, and all I see is the same man. Scared, putting up a front, pretending to be a badass. Same as Eddie Kingston, same as Homicide. You guys don't wrestle the right way. You brawl, you cut corners. I'm a pure wrestler, and I'm gonna show that I wrestle the way all wrestlers should when I beat you at Double or Nothing."
Mox looks unfazed. He picks up his own mic.
"Bryan, there's something you're not getting. We aren't fronting about being tough dudes. That's us. That's our life. I wouldn't have won the belt if it wasn't for my past, alright? You learned to fight in a gym, I learned to fight on a street corner in Cincinnati. On Sunday, you're gonna see unfiltered violence the likes of which you simply aren't used to. I'm going to make you wish you stayed in that other company. Who knows, maybe I'll send you back there."
He signs the contract before leaving the ring. All we can do now is wait for Sunday!
AEW Double or Nothing - May 28th, 2023
Bryan Danielson (c) vs. Jon Moxley - AEW World Championship
Jon Moxley has a crazed look in his eyes as he makes his entrance, not saying a word or engaging with the crowd on his way to the ring. Bryan Danielson, on the other hand, panders (I hate this word) all the way down the ramp, talking shit about brawlers like Mox.
The bell ring, and Mox charges right at Bryan, who immediately dips under the ropes and to the floor, prompting a shower of boos in his general direction. He raises his arms, which makes the jeers even louder. But he doesn't see Moxley diving through the ropes! TOPE SUICIDA TO THE BACK OF THE HEAD! With Danielson's concussion trouble, that can't be too good for him.
Mox throws him around, into the barricades and ring posts, which gets the crowd fired up. Danielson tries to kick at him to create distance, but Jon slips all of them, and then continues to get closer, throwing punches continuously. Bryan tries to slide back into the ring for refuge, but the Death Rider doesn't let him, dragging him back out and hitting a Snap Suplex right on the edge of the Timekeeper's Table! It doesn't break, instead holding strong and toppling, causing the American Dragon to fold high up on his shoulders! Mox is already inflicting hell on the champ's head and neck!
Wary of the ref's count, both men get back in the ring, much to the delight of the World Champion. But it seems like he still can't get a rhythm going against Mox, who tees off on him. The former champ bites down on Bryan's head, angering the ref but delighting everybody in the filled arena! Blood begins to trickle out of his head! The champ pulls away in disgust and pain as Jon continues to run wild!
Stomps now, on the legs, midsection and head of Danielson! He keeps switching up his target, making it very difficult for Bryan to block the hellacious boots! Moxley backs off, but Bryan isn't out of the woods yet, as the moment he gets up to a solid base, Mox rushes forward and connects with a HUGE REGAL KNEE! Bryan looks like he's out! An early cover! 1, 2, Thr-NO! It was a kickout, but that was dangerously close this early in the match! This has been extremely one-sided so far!
Mox is undeterred, and he picks Bryan up, putting him in position for an Underhook DTT! The grip is strong, and he tries to lift, but Bryan has the awareness to hook a leg, preventing himself from getting hit with the Paradigm Shift. Moxley starts throwing knees right to the body, and after a dozen of them, Danielson starts to falter again, which tells Jon that it's time to go for the Paradigm Shift again. He's up! But Bryan pushes himself off, lands on his feet, and throws a Roundhouse Kick that lands with a thud on the side of Mox's head! The Purveyor of Violence falls to the mat for the first time in the contest, and Danielson takes a much-needed respite.
Mox starts to get back up, and Danielson kicks at his legs to keep him on the ground. Jon throws a right hook, but the champ has him scouted, and ducks out of the way. Bryan wipes the blood off his face with his hand, and stares at the crimson on his palm. He slaps Mox across the face, leaving a red handprint on the Death Rider's cheek! There's a pause for a moment as the crowd recognizes the disrespect shown, and then Mox tackles Danielson to the canvas! Punch after punch after punch after punch after punch, repeat times infinity! Something has snapped in Mox's head, this onslaught is absolutely vicious!
Bryan helplessly crawls away, and Mox throws hatred-filled, furious soccer kicks at his ribs! Each one makes a sound that echoes throughout the venue, reverberating in the ears of each and ever fan! And Danielson can't stand it, but he gets up and chops Mox! Mox chops back! Danielson! Mox! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! CHOP! OVER AND OVER, THIS MATCH IS A SPRINT AND THE CROWD IS LOVING IT! BOTH OF THEIR CHESTS ARE RED AND BLOODY, AS THEY TRANSITION TO FOREARMS! REPEATEDLY, ONE OF THEIR HEADS IS ABOUT TO BE CAVED IN! SLAPS NOW! AGAIN AND AGAIN! Finally, each man throws a headbutt! THEY BOTH COLLAPSE!!!!
After a bit of a wait, the two men stir for a moment, and try to use each other for balance. Quick as a cat, the Dragon applies a GUILLOTINE! It's tight, because it was so unexpected! The crowd is in a frenzy wondering if Mox will tap! But the Death Rider forces himself to his feet, and swings back and forth for momentum, before LAUNCHING THE CHAMPION IN THE AIR! EUROPEAN UPPERCUT, THE CHAMP IS OUT! Mox takes in the ovation for a moment, before lifting Bryan up and hitting a non-elevated Paradigm Shift! Pin! 1, 2, kickout! Mox wastes no time at all, picking him up yet again! PARADIGM SHIFT! IT DOESN'T WORK, BRYAN LANDS BEHIND MOX AND HOOKS HIS ARMS, FORCING HIM DOWN! BRIDGE! CATTLE MUTILATION!!!!
Mox scrambles, trying not to pass out, as a bloody, crazed Danielson squeezes harder and harder! Jon shimmies all the way over to a rope, getting up to his knees a bit, and BARELY drapes a toe over the bottom rope, breaking the hold! As he gets up, Bryan runs the ropes and goes for a BUSAIKU KNEE! BUT MOX DROPS DOWN, AND DANIELSON FLIES OUT OF THE RING!!!! Mox darts to the top rope! CROSSBODY TO THE OUTSIDE!!!!
He rolls the champ back in, and quickly looks for another Paradigm Shift attempt, but Danielson sweeps his legs out from under him and starts stomping on his skull! This is BRUTAL! He picks Mox up! Runs the ropes! BUSAIKU KNEE!!!! But he's not done! Lifts the Purveyor of Violence to his feet again! A SECOND BUSAIKU KNEE! AND HE STILL WANTS ANOTHER ONE! MOX STRUGGLES TO GET TO HIS FEET, AND DEFIANTLY FLIPS BRYAN OFF, BUT HE CAN'T STOP A THIRD BUSAIKU KNEE!!!! COVER! 1, 2, 3! THAT'S IT, BRYAN DANIELSON IS STILL YOUR AEW WORLD CHAMPION AFTER A SHORT, BUT VIOLENT WAR!!!
Bryan Danielson (c) def. Jon Moxley (15:00)
(Authors's Note: Lee Moriarty won the Casino Battle Royale to win a shot at the AEW World Championship.)
AEW Dynamite - May 31st, 2023
We get a Lee Moriarty promo, hyping himself up.
"A lot of people saw me for the first time on Sunday, so yeah, it may have been a shocker that I won. But not to me. Nah, I wasn't surprised at all. I'm a strong believer in the fact that I'm one of the best wrestlers in the world. People talk a lot about the American Dragon, yeah? But soon, they'll be talking about the Tiger. Mox, Eddie and Homicide brought the Street Style. I'm bringing that TIGA-STYLE. All I need is one good night, and that belt will be coming home with me. Bryan Danielson, you better be ready. Because there's a very real chance, you'll just be an answer to a trivia question: Who did Lee Moriarty beat to become the AEW World Champion?"
AEW Rampage - June 9th, 2023
Lee Moriarty wins a match and the moment he goes backstage, he's ambushed by Bryan Danielson! The American Dragon throws him into the concrete wall, and as Moriarty slowly gets to his knees, Danielson knees his skull into the concrete! Medical staff check on Lee as Bryan gets ushered away.
AEW Dynamite - June 14th, 2023
It's announced that Bryan Danielson will have a non-title match against Carlie Bravo on next week's Dynamite.
AEW Dynamite - June 21st, 2023
Bryan Danielson (c) vs. Carlie Bravo
This is a non-title match, but Danielson flaunts his belt all the way down the ramp. He looks a bit different, wearing white boots, white trunks, and a white jacket with "The American Dragon" written in red cursive print. He looks regal, and he projects cockiness.
The match itself is an absolute squash. Bryan only needs 2 minutes to win, and he finishes Bravo off with a simple Roundhouse Kick, but the message is simple: Bryan Danielson is not to be fucked with.
Bryan Danielson (c) def. Carlie Bravo (2:10)
AEW Rampage - June 30th, 2023
Bryan Danielson enters the building in a limo, but is immediately rushed by Lee Moriarty, who chokes him out and stuffs him right back into his car! Before closing the door, he tells Danielson, who is still unconscious, "I'll see you at Fyter Fest Night 1, bitch."
AEW Dynamite - July 5th, 2023
With their AEW World Championship Match taking place next week, we get a sit-down confrontation via satellite between Moriarty and Danielson.
BD: "Well, Lee, you got one over on me last week, good job. Make sure you savour your little 15 minutes of fame, because after what I do to you next week, you'll never reach those heights again."
LM: "Tough talk from someone that got choked out 5 days ago, but whatever."
BD: "You blindsided me, do that in a real match."
LM: "You blindsided me a few weeks before, it's the same shit! You know, when you beat Homicide, you talked about how you wanted the spotlight to go on young dudes. Now that I'm a threat, you switch up on me, you attack me and all that shit! You're a hypocrite. You talk about all the things you want, but you only want one thing, and that's a spotlight for yourself."
BD: "You know what, Lee? Maybe you're right. I want the spotlight, and I don't wanna share it. But that's because I'm the BEST. Nobody here can touch me, especially not someone like you who hasn't proven himself yet."
LM: "I won the Casino Battle Royale, I beat 20 guys to get this spot. All I need is to beat one more. You're just another pin to knock over, Bryan. That's it."
AEW Dynamite: Fyter Fest Night 1 - July 12th, 2023
Bryan Danielson (c) vs. Lee Moriarty - AEW World Championship
Danielson comes out, and he has a grand entrance. An orchestra to play his theme, throngs of fans to welcome him. He treats this like a huge event. Meanwhile, Lee Moriarty has a simple entrance, throwing his Tiger mask into the crowd.
The match itself is very technical, with Danielson being VERY overconfident. He does surfboards while flexing, kicks while talking trash, and many other cocky things. Lee, however, fights like his life depends on it, hitting big combos, targeting Bryan' ribs a lot! Abdominal Stretches seem to be working out pretty well for him, but after a solid run by Moriarty, Danielson manages to take control again. A LeBell Lock with one fist raised in the air, and even with the braggadocio shown by the champ here, Lee has no choice but to tap out.
Bryan Danielson (c) def. Lee Moriarty (18:46)
AEW Dynamite: Fight For The Fallen - July 26th, 2023
Jay Lethal is backstage.
"Bryan Danielson has reverted back to his ROH days, it seems. Similar offense, same gear. He says he's the best, and he cosplays as his Ring Of Honor self to prove it. He fancies himself as the face of ROH. But he abandoned that company. I didn't. I was with it for longer than he ever was, and I loved it more. Basically, I'm trying to say that one of the things that Danielson hangs his hat on? I did it better. So I want a chance to prove that I can be better at being the AEW World Champ, too."
AEW Dynamite - August 2nd, 2023
Bryan Danielson has a response for Jay Lethal.
"You brought ROH up for no reason, and that's hilarious to me. The most important shit you've done was in a company that you're not a part of anymore. This is the present, and I'm doing much better than you. If you want a shot at this belt, you gotta earn it. In 2 weeks. Championship Eliminator Match. I'll be there."
AEW Dynamite - August 16th, 2023
Bryan Danielson (c) vs. Jay Lethal - AEW World Championship Eliminator
If Jay wins this one, he gets a shot at the AEW World Championship. But Bryan hasn't lost in 2023 yet, and he's not looking to start now.
This is an absolute back-and-forth battle, a struggle. Danielson twists Lethal into knots, but Jay shows off his athleticism and gets the upper hand by overpowering Danielson, whether it's with shoulder tackles, lariats or spinebusters.
The finish comes when Bryan starts to piece Lethal up with kicks. To the leg, to the ribs, a few land to the head, and Lethal is slowing right down! Another big Roundhouse puts him on his back, and the American Dragon starts to laugh. He knows he has this under control! The champ backs up to his corner, he looks like he's about to line up a Busaiku Knee! Darts forward, dives into the air, AND JAY LETHAL CONNECTS WITH A SUPERKICK OUT OF MID-AIR! Scrambles to lift him up! LETHAL INJECTION! Doesn't go for the pin, preferring to pick him up again for good measure! A SECOND LETHAL INJECTION! COVER! 1, 2, 3!!!!!!! JAY LETHAL HAS HANDED BRYAN DANIELSON HIS FIRST LOSS OF 2023, EARNING A SHOT AT THE AEW WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP!!!!!
Jay Lethal def. Bryan Danielson (c) (17:33)
AEW Rampage - August 25th, 2023
Bryan Danielson sits backstage, looking angry.
"Well, Jay Lethal, you did it. You beat the great Bryan Danielson. Good job. You got yourself a shot at this belt right here. But here's the thing, Jay. I've been performing at the highest level for over 10 years now, and I haven't crumbled. You wanna know why I left ROH behind? I was onto bigger and better things. But you? You couldn't handle that. You could've left, but you didn't. You were content. I am NEVER content. That's the mark of a true Champion! At All Out, I'll show you why I made it out. It's because I'm the best wrestler to ever live! You're just the next guy to fall."
AEW Dynamite - August 30th, 2023
Jay Lethal airs a video package of him speaking spliced in with clips from his ROH days.
"You say that my ROH days are tainted, Bryan Danielson. You say I could've moved on, and that I didn't because I couldn't handle the pressure. But you know the truth? I didn't move on because it was home. ROH was my domain, the place where I was the ROH World Champ and TV Champ at the same damn time! But a little while ago, I showed you that I'm more than just hype. That's when I pinned you in the middle of the ring. On Saturday, history will repeat itself! You'll see that I am the competitor I am today, simply because I am also...a man of Honor."
AEW All Out - September 2nd, 2023
Bryan Danielson (c) vs. Jay Lethal - AEW World Championship
Jay Lethal comes out looking as confident as ever, knowing that he can beat Bryan Danielson, as he's done it before. Meanwhile, the champ looks a bit shaken, a bit off-guard.
The bell rings, and Jay steps into the centre of the ring, ready to lock up. Bryan looks tentative, but engages, and Lethal immediately shows that he's physically stronger than the champ by pushing him back towards the ropes. We get a clean break between the two, and they step back into the centre. Lethal gets a Hammerlock, but this is amateur hour for Bryan Danielson, who easily cartwheels, somersaults, and spins into a wristlock. Now that he's has control, he's a bit more at ease. But Lethal is no slouch, and he rolls out of it and hits a perfect dropkick, sending Bryan crashing to the mat!
The champ is frustrated, and Lethal eggs him on, telling him to "get your ass back up here." Danielson comes in with more force this time, and gets met with a high armdrag, executed perfectly. The Dragon gets up again, this time even more angrily, and runs right into a second armdrag! A third time, he gets up and charges forward, but stops just before he makes contact with Jay. Jay goes for the armdrag anyways, accidentally falling on the mat as a product of his own doing! Bryan goes for an Elbow Drop to capitalize, but Lethal deftly rolls out of the way, and Bryan hits the mat. Jay gets up roughly at the same time as the Champ, and throws a Discus Elbow that hits the American Dragon directly in the jaw! Cover! 1, kickout! This one is still getting going.
Bryan is even angrier now, pissed that he's getting outwrestled by Jay Lethal. He throws a Roundhouse to the body, but Lethal catches it and drives the point of his elbow right into the knee of the champ, causing him to shriek in pain! A few kicks to the knee, and Danielson rolls out to avoid further harm.
We can see the gears in his head turn as he thinks of a way to outsmart Lethal. Finally, a big grin appears on his face. He roots around under the ring, and picks up a Kendo Stick. Is he about to disqualify himself? As the ref pleads with him, Bryan reluctantly agrees and throws the weapon to the mat. But as the official turns to pick it up and throw it out of the ring, Bryan POKES JAY LETHAL RIGHT IN THE EYES! A takedown, and now he's free to throw Haymakers from Full Mount! What a dirty tactic! As the crowd chants "No! No! No!" the champion jokingly does "Yes!" motions to the dismay of the audience. Lethal reaches for his leg from the ground and he stomps on the challenger's hand!
Now that Bryan has the upper hand, he goes for his usual strategy of piecing his opponent up with kicks. To the legs to slow Jay down, to the body to make him less likely to hit power moves, and a few to the head in hopes of knocking Jay out. Danielson hits one of those Head Kicks, spinning Lethal around! Full Nelson! DRAGON SUPLEX! BRIDGE PIN! 1, 2, NO! Danielson is going to have to do more damage if he wants to win this match.
The American Dragon seems to be exploring creative options to put Jay away, and he climbs up to the top rope. He waits for Lethal to get up, he could be lining up for a Missile Dropkick! But Lethal quickly vaults up to the top, grabs Danielson's head for leverage, twists, and SENDS THE CHAMPION CRASHING DOWN TO THE MAT! The crowd knows what to expect here as Lethal is perched high above his opponent! MACHO MAN GESTURE! ELBOW DROP!!!! It takes a lot out of Jay, but he crawls to make the cover! 1, 2, KICKOUT! IT'S JUST NOT ENOUGH!!!
Jay is in a bad way, those deadly kicks from Danielson screwed him up pretty bad. But he lifts the champ up, wanting to keep fighting, needing to keep fighting. He puts Bryan in a Pumphandle Slam position, looking for something big here! Lifts him up! BRYAN LANDS IN A PERFECT SPOT FOR A DDT, AND HITS ONE! TRANSITIONS INTO A GUILLOTINE CHOKE! WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MOVE!!! Lethal gasps for air, reaching for a rope! He's not gonna be able to get one! But he punches the champ right in the jaw, shocking him enough that Lethal can nudge his head out from Danielson's grasp. That was a close call!
As Jay gets up, Bryan goes for the patented Busaiku Knee! But like in their last match, Jay has it scouted, countering with a SUPERKICK OUT OF MID-AIR! PICKS THE CHAMP UP, LINES UP FOR A LETHAL INJECTION, JUST LIKE THE LAST TIME!!!
JAY BOUNCES OFF THE ROPES WITH A HANDSPRING, AND DIVES FOR A CUTTER! DANIELSON DIVES AS WELL, AND CATCHES HIS ADVERSARY WITH A CROSSFACE CHICKENWING OUT OF THE AIR!!!!! IT'S IN TIGHT!!!! Jay fights the hands, and manages to barely pull them off off his throat, managing to give himself JUST enough space to throw headbutts with the back of his head! He gets free!
They're back up now, and of course, Jay goes for another Lethal Injection! DANIELSON GRABS ONTO HIS SHOULDERS, PREVENTING HIM! Hooks the arms, CATTLE MUTILATION ATTEMPT! BUT LETHAL BREAKS FREE! ENZUIGIRI! HIT HIM SO HARD THAT DANIELSON ROLLS RIGHT OUT OF THE RING!!!!
Lethal musters up all of his energy for a Tope Suicida! PERFECT! BRYAN SMASHES UP AGAINST THE BARRICADE, AND GETS THROWN INTO THE RING! SET UP FOR A THIRD LETHAL INJECTION ATTEMPT!!! BOUNCE! HANDSPRING! CUTTER! IT CONNECTS!!!! BUT HE DOESN'T COVER HIM, NO!! HE WANTS TO HIT ANOTHER FOR GOOD MEASURE!!! BOUNCE! HANDSPRING! CUTTER! NOOOO, DANIELSON CATCHES HIS ARM!!!! INTO A LEBELL LOCK FROM THE CHAMP!!!!!!
Jay is struggling, but slowly inching towards the ropes! HE'S GONNA BREAK THE HOLD! NO, DANIELSON IS A TECHNICAL GENIUS, HE ROLLS LETHAL BACK TO THE CENTRE OF THE RING AND TIGHTENS THE LEBELL LOCK! HE'S IN TOO MUCH PAIN TO GO ON, LETHAL TAPS!!!!! AND STILL, THE AEW WORLD CHAMPION, BRYAN DANIELSON!!!!!!!!!!!
Bryan Danielson (c) def. Jay Lethal (20:23)

I was experimenting Gemini Ai and was comparing it's story crafting skills with Chat GPT, The story being crafted has impressed me!
San Murphy Island, once a paradise, crackled with a tension thicker than the smog billowing from Titan LTD's refineries. Brandon Murphy, a man with a shark's grin and eyes like cold steel, finalized the merger with his equally ruthless counterpart, Tyler Colley of Eagle Ltd. Their combined entity, Titan-Eagle, was a financial leviathan, fueled not by oil, but by fear. Murphy and Colley, the island's prodigal sons turned tyrants, had used a potent cocktail of intimidation and backroom deals to seize control. They choked the government, leaving it a husk, while their companies leeched the island's resources dry. Their ambitions didn't stop there. They dreamt of becoming the world's first trillionaire duo, and San Murphy was just their launchpad. One seemingly innocuous night, as Murphy and Colley celebrated their billion-dollar empire in a decadent penthouse, alarms blared. Elite soldiers, clad in sleek black armor, materialized on the balcony. They were the Eradicators, a legendary paramilitary force whispered about only in hushed tones. "We are the Eradicators," their leader, a woman with a voice like honed steel, declared. "San Murphy's corruption has festered long enough. Titan-Eagle will fall, even if it means bringing the island down with it." Murphy and Colley scoffed. Their private security force, the Iron Fists, were renowned for their brutality.
But the Eradicators moved with an inhuman grace, their weapons spitting blue fire that melted iron like butter. The Iron Fists crumpled. The fight spilled out onto the smog-choked streets. The Eradicators, unlike any force San Murphy had faced, fought with a cold fury. They targeted Titan-Eagle infrastructure with laser-like precision, crippling refineries and communication networks. The island plunged into chaos. The plot twist? The Eradicators weren't some outside force. They were San Murphy's own people. The islanders, pushed to the brink by Titan-Eagle's greed, had formed a resistance in the island's forgotten corners. They'd trained in secret, their leader the once- idealistic government official Sylvia Vance, the woman with the steely voice. Sylvia knew destroying Titan-Eagle could destroy San Murphy, but she also knew the island couldn't survive under their yoke. It was a desperate gamble, a fight for their very future. News of the rebellion spread like wildfire. The island, once cowed, erupted. Workers in Titan-Eagle refineries turned on their overseers. The fight became a desperate, bloody ballet between the corrupt and the desperate. Murphy and Colley, cornered in their crumbling penthouse, realized their house of cards was collapsing. The story of San Murphy became a global spectacle. A cautionary tale of unchecked greed and the desperate lengths people would go to for freedom. The outcome? That remained to be seen. Would the Eradicators succeed in their scorched-earth plan, or would Murphy and Colley find a way to cling to power? The fate of San Murphy, and perhaps Titan-Eagle's global ambitions, hung in the balance. The air above San Murphy Island shimmered with heat as Titan LTD's refineries, repurposed into makeshift fortresses, hammered the city with missile fire. Murphy, eyes wild with paranoia, barked orders from his fortified penthouse, a grotesque emperor surveying his burning kingdom. Across the battle lines, Sylvia, her face grim with resolve, directed the Eradicators' counter-offensive. They fought with guerilla tactics, exploiting the island's intricate network of tunnels and abandoned mines. It was a brutal dance of hit-and-run attacks punctuated by deafening artillery exchanges. News of the escalating conflict sent shockwaves across the globe. Titan LTD, desperate to crush the uprising, had begun an all-out assault. Billions flowed into a war chest, purchasing advanced weaponry - tanks that rumbled through the streets like mechanical leviathans, and missiles that carved fiery streaks across the twilight sky.
Even with the Eradicators' ferocity, San Murphy's infrastructure crumbled. Hospitals became smoldering ruins, schools transformed into makeshift bunkers. The once vibrant island was a ravaged wasteland, the stench of burning oil and death hanging heavy in the air. Seeing the potential for global chaos, a consortium of world governments formed the Phoenix Initiative. Their goal: contain the conflict before it spilled outwards. But the situation was a tangled web of alliances of convenience. Some nations saw the collapsing San Murphy as an opportunity to snatch resources, backing Titan with advanced weaponry in exchange for future favors. Others, fearing the domino effect of global war, secretly funneled supplies to the Eradicators, hoping to see Titan crippled. The island became a proxy battlefield, a festering wound draining the world's resources. The line between aid and intervention blurred. News reports, riddled with propaganda, showed scenes of burning cities and civilians caught in the crossfire. Public outrage mounted, and whispers of full-scale war began swirling in diplomatic circles. The once contained conflict flared outwards like a wildfire in Damascus, Syria. A skirmish between rival factions escalated into a bloody confrontation, drawing in regional powers with long-standing grievances. The delicate balance of the Phoenix Initiative teetered on the brink of collapse. San Murphy was on the precipice of annihilation. Titan LTD's scorched-earth policy ensured a pyric victory, if victory it could be called. The island, once a gem in the Pacific, was a ravaged husk, its people scattered like refugees on the winds of war. The Eradicators, decimated but not broken, vowed revenge. Their fight, born of desperation, had ignited a global powder keg, and the world now teetered at the brink of another devastating war. The consequences of unchecked greed, once confined to a single island, now loomed large, threatening to engulf the world in flames.
News of the escalating conflict reached Brandon Murphy like a thunderclap. The stress, the paranoia, and the ever-mounting death toll took their toll. A massive stroke crippled him, leaving him a husk of his former self, confined to a sterile, military-grade hospital heavily guarded by his remaining Iron Fists. With Murphy incapacitated, the power dynamic in Titan Ltd. shifted dramatically. Tyler Colley, the once co-equal partner, saw this as an opportunity. Gone were the days of shared ambition; Colley craved absolute control. He unleashed the full might of Titan's war machine. Half of the nation became a desolate wasteland under Colley's iron fist. Titan deployed experimental defoliants, turning once-lush forests into barren plains, further hindering the Eradicators' guerrilla tactics. However, the tide was slowly turning. Thanks to public outrage, donations for the Eradicators poured in from across the globe. Individuals, NGOs, and even sympathetic governments funneled resources, allowing them to acquire better weapons and training. The insurgency, once a ragtag group of freedom fighters, became a formidable force, mirroring Titan's firepower.
But amidst the chaos, a new player emerged from the shadows – Phoenix Global Incorporated (PGI), a previously unknown multinational corporation. PGI, veiled in secrecy, had been subtly fueling the conflict from the beginning. They supplied weapons to both sides – advanced drones for the Eradicators and cutting-edge cyberwarfare tools for Titan. Their motive? To prolong the war, weaken both sides, and swoop in to purchase San Murphy's ravaged resources for pennies on the dollar. PGI's involvement became a terrifying new variable. The conflict morphed from a simple struggle for power into a multi-layered game of manipulation. The world watched in horror as the fighting intensified. San Murphy Island, once a beacon of prosperity, became a tragic symbol of humanity's greed and the devastating consequences of unchecked corporate power. Within Titan Ltd., whispers about Colley's erratic behavior and his dealings with PGI began to reach the ears of lower-ranking executives. A faction, led by a disillusioned ex-military officer named Sarah Khan, began plotting a counter-coup. They saw Colley's alliance with PGI as the final betrayal of San Murphy. Their plan: use Colley's dependence on PGI's technology to cripple their operations, forcing him to negotiate or face annihilation. On the other side, the Eradicators, now aware of PGI's double-dealing, were faced with a difficult decision. They could continue fighting Titan and PGI simultaneously, a strategy that would likely lead to further devastation, or they could make a risky gamble. They could reach out to Sarah Khan's faction within Titan, forging an uneasy alliance to take down PGI and ultimately, Colley. The war in San Murphy had become a complex web of deceit and shifting allegiances.
The fate of the island, and the potential for a wider global conflict, rested on the success of these clandestine operations. Would Sarah Khan's coup succeed? Would the Eradicators trust their former oppressors? The answers would determine who would emerge victorious from this tangled mess, and whether San Murphy would be left with a chance at rebuilding, or would it become a cautionary tale for the ages. he situation on San Murphy Island was a tinderbox, ready to explode at any moment. Sarah Khan, disillusioned by Colley's descent into madness and PGI's manipulation, made a gamble. She contacted Sylvia Vance, leader of the Eradicators, proposing a temporary alliance. The reception was frosty. Years of bitter fighting had left deep scars on both sides. But the enemy of their enemy, as they say... The uneasy truce formed a bizarre spectacle. Eradicator fighters, clad in black armor, trained alongside lower-ranking Titan soldiers in mismatched fatigues. Hostility simmered just beneath the surface, punctuated by muttered insults and tense glances. However, their shared objective – toppling Colley and PGI – gave them a fragile unity. This insider knowledge proved invaluable. Sarah Khan's soldiers, veterans of Titan's brutal tactics, anticipated their every move. They countered airstrikes with ambushes, sabotaged supply lines, and exploited weaknesses in Titan's defenses. The tide began to turn. Titan, hemorrhaging billions and facing growing public dissent, found itself on the back foot. Meanwhile, the Eradicators, bolstered by Sarah Khan's intel and dwindling Titan resistance, expanded their reach. Public opinion on the island began to shift. People, weary of the war and the loss of innocent lives, started questioning the motives of all parties involved. Riots erupted, demanding an end to the bloodshed.
Suddenly, the unthinkable happened. Brandon Murphy, miraculously recovering from his stroke, ripped control back from Colley. Enraged by the state of his once-mighty empire, he made a chilling decision. He ordered the deployment of a tactical nuke, a desperate gamble to reclaim dominance and eliminate all opposition. The news sent a shockwave through San Murphy and the watching world. Even PGI, their plan for a weakened takeover in shambles, recoiled at the prospect of nuclear devastation. The fragile alliance between Sarah Khan and the Eradicators was tested to its limit. Could they stop Murphy before he unleashed his ultimate weapon, or would San Murphy become a radioactive wasteland, a monument to human greed and folly? The air on San Murphy Island hung heavy with the stench of cordite and despair. The fragile truce between the Eradicators and Sarah Khan's Titan defectors had shattered. News broke – a nightmare come true. Brandon Murphy and Tyler Colley, in a final act of spiteful madness, had acquired a functional tactical nuke. In three days, they planned to reduce San Murphy to a radioactive crater, a scorched monument to their greed. Panic gripped the island. The uneasy cooperation dissolved into a desperate scramble for survival. Eradicators and Titan defectors, their recent comrades-in-arms, found themselves locked in fierce battles once more. Every corner became a potential warzone, every day a struggle for a single, dwindling resource – time. Meanwhile, amidst the chaos, a new player emerged on the scene. Phoenix Global Incorporated (PGI), their true colors now blatantly displayed, sent a contingent of heavily armed mercenaries to bolster Titan's dwindling forces. These PGI fighters were ruthless killing machines, clad in sleek black armor and wielding advanced weaponry. Their arrival tipped the scales decidedly in Titan's favor. In a brutal, calculated move, PGI launched a massive bombing raid on the Eradicators' headquarters. Sylvia Vance, the steely leader who had spearheaded the resistance, perished in the inferno along with countless others. The Eradicators, their hearts ripped raw with grief and rage, vowed vengeance. Tensions threatened to ignite a full-scale civil war that would dwarf the previous skirmishes. Sarah Khan, caught in the crossfire, watched in horror as the fragile hope for peace evaporated. She knew PGI's game – they weren't interested in victory for either Titan or the Eradicators.
They wanted to prolong the war, weaken both sides to the point of exhaustion, and then swoop in to claim the island's ravaged resources for pennies on the dollar. But despair wasn't an option. With Sylvia gone, the mantle of leadership fell to Khan. She had to find a way to dismantle the nuke, expose PGI's treachery, and forge a new alliance – this time, a true one, driven not by desperation but by a shared desire to save their shattered homeland. The clock was ticking. In just three days, San Murphy faced annihilation. Could Sarah Khan unite the fractured island and avert the coming apocalypse, or would PGI's twisted plan succeed, leaving behind a radioactive wasteland as their legacy? San Murphy Island convulsed under the relentless assault of Phoenix Industries. Their fighters, a mechanized swarm of black armor and advanced weaponry, tore through the Eradicators' defenses. Sylvia Vance, the once-formidable leader, was a smoldering memory. In her place, Sarah Khan rallied the remaining resistance, but it was a fight against the tide. Phoenix Industries weren't interested in victory for either Titan or the Eradicators; they craved obliteration. Mercy was a foreign concept as their soldiers razed entire city blocks, their advanced weaponry spitting fire on any sign of resistance. Even the wounded and surrendering were not spared, creating a spectacle of mechanized carnage. The brutality was a calculated move. PGI wanted to eliminate all opposition, leaving a power vacuum they could exploit. Sarah Khan, watching her comrades fall, understood their game. Despite the overwhelming odds, she knew surrender wasn't an option. It wouldn't save the island; it would merely expedite its takeover. But fighting Titan and PGI simultaneously was like trying to outrun a hurricane. Titan Ltd., once Sarah's enemy and now a begrudging ally, was pushed to the brink.
Their resources dwindled, their soldiers exhausted. They were a shadow of their former ruthless selves, fighting a defensive war out of sheer desperation. Meanwhile, amidst the chaos, Brandon Murphy and Tyler Colley made their final, desperate move. Their private jets gleamed on the runway, fueled and ready for escape. With a twisted satisfaction, they watched the mushroom cloud billow in the distance, a testament to their final act of destruction. The nuke, their trump card, had detonated, a radioactive shroud engulfing half the island. The world watched in horror as news of the devastation spread. Phoenix Industries, basking in the initial chaos, launched a surprise offensive against Titan Ltd. They had expected a weakened force, easy prey. But they underestimated the human spirit. Titan's soldiers, fueled by a righteous fury, fought with renewed vigor. They knew the cost of defeat; they knew PGI wouldn't stop with San Murphy. The battle became a desperate fight for survival, not just for the island, but for the world. The island was now a war-torn wasteland, the air thick with radioactive dust and the stench of death. Yet, amidst the ruins, a flicker of defiance remained. A ragtag force – remnants of Titan, the few surviving Eradicators, and civilians armed with whatever they could find – rose to meet PGI's onslaught. They were led by a young woman, hardened by loss but fueled by a burning desire for justice – Sarah Khan's second in command, a fiery lieutenant named Maya. The war for San Murphy entered a new phase. The battleground, once a playground for the wealthy, was now a graveyard. The fight, once a struggle for power, was now a desperate stand against the embodiment of corporate greed.
The outcome was uncertain. The world watched with bated breath, wondering if San Murphy, the island that had risen from paradise to hell, could ever find its way back to the light. Maya, fueled by Sarah Khan's memory and the island's desperate plight, led the resistance with the ferocity of a cornered tigress. But the fight was a daily bloodbath. PGI's advanced weaponry cut through their hastily formed ranks like a scythe. Exhaustion gnawed at them, the radioactive fallout a spectral reaper claiming lives with unseen lungsnumbing kisses. Meanwhile, amidst the chaos, karma began its slow, agonizing dance with Brandon Murphy. His private jet, caught in the fringe of the nuclear blast, sputtered and coughed, its navigation systems failing. Panic choked him as he realized his escape plan – his final act of spite – had backfired spectacularly. He was trapped, hurtling towards the radioactive heart of the island he'd destroyed. News of the nuclear detonation and PGI's involvement sent shockwaves across the globe. World leaders scrambled, sanctions were imposed, but the international community's outrage was a powerless scream against a corporation with its tendrils wrapped tightly around the world's financial arteries. The battle for San Murphy devolved into a grotesque dance of death. Buildings crumbled under relentless bombardment, the once vibrant landscape turned into a desolate moonscape.
Titan's CEO, Tyler Colley, caught in a PGI crossfire intended for Maya, met a gruesome end. His death, however, went unnoticed amidst the deafening cacophony of war. Brandon Murphy's jet, its engines sputtering their final breaths, slammed into the irradiated heart of the island. His last moments were a horrifying epiphany - a suffocating tomb of his own making. His death, unrecorded and unnoticed, was a cruel twist of fate, a man consumed by greed, forgotten by the very chaos he'd unleashed. Maya, her face streaked with ash and tears, led the final charge against PGI's remaining force. It was a suicidal act, but they fought with a desperate ferocity, a final defiant roar against the corporate monster that had devoured their island. The world watched in stunned silence as satellite images showed San Murphy engulfed in a radioactive cloud. Communication with the island ceased. News outlets ran a constant barrage of headlines: "San Murphy Island: Devastation Confirmed," "Phoenix Industries: Corporate Greed Gone Nuclear," "Casualty Estimates Unknown." The truth was far worse. San Murphy Island, once a beacon of prosperity, was a radioactive tomb. Maya and the remaining fighters perished alongside their foes, casualties of a war fueled by greed and despair. The island, a cautionary tale etched in radioactive fire, became a ghost in the Pacific, a symbol of man's destructive capacity and a stark reminder of the price of unchecked ambition. The world mourned a paradise lost, a vibrant island reduced to a silent, radioactive wasteland. Maya's lifeless hand clutched a dog tag, a single word etched on it: "Hope." The wind, carrying whispers of a forgotten dream, rustled the dead palm trees.}
Let me know how you think of the story! AI getting better each year and each month!

Credit to u/SpacePaladin15 for the Nature of Predators universe. Shadowrun is the property of Catalyst Games Labs.
I decided to write another cross-over in the glorious setting of Shadowrun. I’ll be doing my best to follow the lore, with minor changes and headcanon here and there, mostly from previous campaigns I’ve played. I’m still writing Nature of Rain, just taking a break from it to get this down. This story will likely be more infrequently updated than NoR. Hope you enjoy.
Thanks to u/Enclaveboi4ever for the inspiration.
—
Date [Standardized Human Time]: May 2, 2081
The entire crew drooled with anticipation. What was supposed to have been a data collection mission quickly turned into something far more exciting. The prospect of new prey hadn’t been something they expected, but it beat combing star systems for data on some invisible, creeping anomaly.
Baril was excited. He had been disappointed that he was assigned to a science vessel, rather than an honorable position aboard a cattle-raiding vessel. But now he had a chance to prove himself.
Since they entered the system [2 days] ago, the hunter captain and scientists had been excited to study the anomaly's effect on a cradle world. Once they detected primitive satellites and rudimentary spacecraft, that energy spread to the rest of the crew. The decision was made to raid the planet, both in the interest of the original mission and to gather specimens of the new prey.
The hunter captain had declared a feast to make room in the cattle hold for the new specimens and the scientists had connected to the planetary network to learn more about the prey.
In Baril’s eyes, the prospect of a no-holds-barred, no-strings-attached feast was almost more exciting than discovering new prey, much less being one of the first to taste them.
Just as he finished his 4th Dossur, Lirs joined him at his table in the cafeteria. He had to sit down too close for Baril’s liking, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. The cafeteria could only comfortably seat one shift at a time, so calling it crowded would be an understatement when both day and night shifts were present.
“Holy…is that Thafi?” Baril said as he glanced over at Lirs’ plate.
“Yep! The hunter-captain broke out some from his private stash for the occasion. I managed to grab some of the scraps,” he said triumphantly as he scarfed down the flesh.
Baril found himself staring involuntarily at the delicacy. He had felt Lirs’ tail whip painfully against his heel no sooner than he started.
“You may not have some if you were wondering,” Lirs said with a snarl, “Besides, everyone will skin you alive if you don’t finish that mountain you have for yourself.”
Baril looked back at his plate and took a brief moment to reflect on his lack of self-control before attacking it once more.
Neither spoke much to the other for the rest of dinner, both too busy eating to consider it. Not that they would’ve otherwise.
When the crew had their fill, and the few fights that had broken out either died down or moved elsewhere in the ship, the captain-hunter stepped up.
“Silence!” he declared at a mighty bellow. Everyone turned their attention to him. Satisfied, he pulled up a series of images on the holo screen. As he spoke, he began to pace. “These are images we gathered from the planetary network, known by the primitives as The Matrix.”
They depicted a variety of figures, most of whom were bipeds of all kinds. Long legs, shorter arms, and all manner of shapes. Most were unremarkable, with their only interesting characteristic being their binocular eyes and overall hairlessness except for the top of their heads and sometimes their faces. Then there were the ones with pointed ears, the short ones, the big ones with tusks, and the bigger ones with tusks and horns.
The hunter-captain let the images sink in for a moment before speaking again.
“Not only is this planet populated by billions of primitives, billions who will feed billions of us, but they don’t have any spaceborne defense AND they have done our job for us, and have spent the past [70 years] studying the anomaly for us.”
“We have spent the past days downloading all we could about their research, technology, and weaknesses, all publicly available if you can believe such foolishness! Better yet, the stupid apes still believe in magic!”
The entire cafeteria joined him in his grim mockery, jeering the prey and laughing.
“Now I’ve heard of how stupid prey can be, but this takes the crown!” He said with Lirs snickering in agreement.
“If I find out they have a tradition of rubbing seasoning on themselves, I wouldn’t even flinch!” Lirs shot back.
Both laughed merrily, adding their voices to the cacophonous celebration.
Eventually, the jeers and cheers died down and the hunter-captain began to speak again.
“There is a small complication,” with a flick of his tail, the scientist operating the screen shifted to a series of images that depicted the prey eating in various settings. Strangely, both leaves and meats were laid before them.
“All of the prey seems to be some hybrid of predator and prey,” he paused, letting the weight of that statement sink in. “As such, you aren’t to treat these like normal leaf lickers, and we want as many alive as possible.”
“But don’t worry. With this discovery, we’ll become legends in the dominion. And when I am inevitably promoted for this discovery, I can assure each of you that I’ll make sure you are rewarded for your faithful–” he is cut off when the lights flicker for a few seconds before returning to normal. He resumed his speech.
“...Each of you will be rewarded for your faithful service under my command. We have selected a target for the raid, an isolated region in the northern hemisphere. Once the feast has concluded, you are to prepare your weapons and maintain standby–”
He was interrupted once again, not by the lights but by flight turbulence, the kind you only get in the atmosphere. Realizing this, the captain-hunter began screaming for a status report into his comm unit. After receiving no response, he began fiddling with the comm unit.
Just as his cursing and the crew's confusion reached a crescendo, a bridge officer burst through the cafeteria doors.
She panted for a moment before shouting “Captain! The ship’s been hijacked!”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN HIJACKED?” He roared.
“Your cr-cruelness, the ship’s network has registered several unauthorized users. They’ve locked us out of the network and bricked the bridge consoles. All weapon systems except for the ADS are offline and the ship has begun its descent into the planet's atmosphere.”
The hunter-captain shot a glance around the room at the shocked crew. “WHAT ARE YOU DEFECTIVES LOOKING AT? BATTLESTATIONS!”
Baril and Lirs along with the hundred other crewmates scrambled to muster stations. They both wordlessly sprinted toward the armory and donned armor and rifles before heading to their assigned station.
Both of them were to secure the shuttle bays to keep boarders from using them to land more troops and to escort any fleeing officers. As such, they were gathered with 20 others, erecting security barricades facing the large bay doors. Nervous silence settled over the defenders, expecting the inevitable boarding craft when the ship landed.
Instead of landing, the ship settled in a low-altitude cruise above a dreary, smog-ridden metropolis stretching into the horizon. Even stranger, the ADS plasma guns opened fire on something below them.
“Why aren’t they landing us?” Baril thought out.
“I don’t know, but nothing smells right about this. Where are the boarding craft?” Lirs responded absent-mindedly.
After a moment, Lirs spoke up again.
“Do you hear that?”
As if on cue, an explosive rang through the ship. A tense moment later, gunfire echoed down hallways to the bay. The hunter-captain came running into the bay with the scientists and bridge officers in tow.
Before Baril could ask, the hunter-captain barked, “The bridge has been lost. The prey breached the windows and they’ve cut us off from the reactor. We’re abandoning ship.”
He swiftly moved towards one of the 3 shuttles. His entourage followed closely behind him.
Baril fell into a stupor that lasted only briefly, as a barrage of gunfire cut down a group emerging from the hall outside of the bay. Instead of falling in a blood mess of blood and gore, they convulsed on the ground as electricity sparked from needle-like bullets sticking out of them. A small cylinder flew through the entrance, which exploded into deafening sound and blinding light.
Baril was blinking the spots out of his eyes when he saw more canisters roll across the bay deck. He threw himself to the ground, covering his ear membranes. Instead of more stunning explosions, they began to disgorge plumes of grey smoke. Automatic weapon fire rang out from within the smoke and more of the electro-rounds shot across the bay, hitting more of his comrades with eerie precision before they could get cover.
Baril got back up and put a few half-hearted shots into the smoke to little effect. He did his best to aim for the garish red, white, and blue metal armor poking out of the smoke, but most of his bullets either deflected or failed to penetrate.
A short burst of electro-rounds barely missed his head, save for the one that tagged him in the shoulder. Pain ran through his nervous system but managed to stay on his feet.
Few others were shooting back. Those who decided to fight had been dropped or abandoned the defense of the shuttles after seeing their comrades fall. Baril chose the latter option and broke into a full sprint for the spooling-up shuttles.
He barely made it on the ramp when another burst struck him in the back and spine, nearly blacking him out. Lirs caught him before he could fall.
Lirs wordlessly pulled Baril into a seat on the side of the shuttle.
“You good?” He asked after he had taken his seat.
Baril grunted in affirmation as he tried to force his limbs into a somewhat comfortable position. He looked out at the twilit city, illuminated by the setting sun and a sea of neon, most of which shone beautifully.
Down from the clouds descended an aircraft. It was smaller than the shuttle and looked as if it only seated one person in a cramped cockpit. As soon as he registered the weapons brimming out from beneath its wings, it released 2 missiles before peeling back.
Baril hastily buckled the safety straps moments before they hit, breaching the side of the craft and sending shrapnel cutting into his flank. The shuttle began a violent tailspin as any unsecured items and people were pulled out by centrifugal force. Halfway through its descent, the shuttle hit one of the skyscrapers, suddenly reversing its rotation and slamming Baril’s head into the metal hull.
He wasn’t quite certain what happened next, but what he was certain was that he had started to drag himself along the ground with his last good arm and leg, away from the fiery wreck, away from the gunshots, and away from the sound of approaching engines.
The cold air was uncomfortably cool, and worst yet it was starting to drizzle. Operating on the most instinctual portions of his brain, he crawled down the street, to the sidewalk, and sheltered alley. Noticing a bin that, while smelling repulsive, provided both cover from the rain and the primitives.
He experimentally tried to get his feet under him, only to find that his right leg wouldn’t bear any weight. Not deterred, he propped himself up on his knee and reached to pull himself up and over the bin. He was confused when his right hand failed to make contact with the bin, only to see that he was missing most of his right forearm.
Groaning, he fell back to the pavement. As he lay there, he noticed that the large green bin was flush with the side of the concrete wall, leaving a space he could barely fit through. Calling on the last of his strength, he managed to slip into the crevice just as the roar of a VTOL screamed from above the street.
—
Searing pain shot up Baril’s leg as someone pulled on, dragging him out of his hiding spot. He weakly tried to kick off his assailant, causing them to drop his feet. His headache as his translator came to life.
“Holy hell, it’s alive!” a deep voice said in surprise. “Johnson’s gonna ruin his shorts when he sees this.”
Baril tried to turn his head to look, but the pain in his neck stopped him. In the distance, he could hear the familiar yet alien bleat of assault weapons.
“Drek…” a second, higher voice said, “Right, this changes things. We call him up and renegotiate.”
“Maybe we call it into one of the corps? Evo maybe? Y’know, cash in a nice retirement” came a third.
“And then we’ll be lucky if the Johnson doesn’t skin us alive and take our hands” the second voice shot back.
“Christ, I thought that was just a street rumor” the third answered.
“He isn’t called Two-Hands cause’ he’s a handjob wiz,” a fourth, synthetic voice answered back, “Hurry up, we gotta slot and run before Ares finishes killing the other runners. Hit it with a heal and a stunbolt. We can renegotiate once we’re out of the cordon.”
A Baril heard an affirmative grunt. Suddenly, a gentle warmth climbed up his leg to body and fully his head, relieving the pain and granting him a disparate clarity. Using his renewed strength, he craned his head as much as possible, catching a glimpse of his savor.
It was one of the primitives, the scrawny kind with round ears. A pale-skinned figure with black hair atop its head was crotched down just outside of the bin, wearing some kind of preserved, black pelt jacket with embedded metals and tattered blue pants. It gave him a snarl, revealing small canines, and gripped a pendant with a 5-pointed star in a circle.
“Sorry ‘bout this, chummer” it said in the same voice as the second speaker, talking more to itself than anyone else.
Then it felt like someone punched him in the brain.
–
For the second time, he woke up groggily. He was on a gurney, surrounded by medical equipment that certainly didn’t look primitive, though the concrete walls laden with cabinets full of various bottles and tools, along with an analog door on the far side, betrayed the fact you was still captured.
Undeterred, he tried to get up. Only to be stopped not by the pain, which had faded from incapacitating to merely excruciating, but by a set of restraints hidden under the blanket covering him from the neck ground. The gurney shook violently but held firm.
He settled into scanning the room some more, looking for anything he could use. His eyes stopped on a holo screen attached where the walls and the ceiling met.
It was some kind of news bulletin, though much more flashy and gaudy than the ones on Wriss.
The headline read “Alien attack on Seattle stopped by Ares” with a subheader “Live at Ares Macrotechnology HQ, Detroit, UCAS.”
The screen depicted a scrawny round ear. It had black hair on its hair and around its chin and lips and was dressed in sharp black and white linens with a small red, white, and blue button pinned on it. A popup helpfully informed him that the primitive was Damian Knight, it was something called a CEO, and part of Ares Macrotechnology.
It stood behind a podium laden with microphones.
“–and it was only thanks to the vigilance of AresSpace and the elite forces of Firewatch that the damage was kept to a minimum. Any questions?”
The crowd seated in front of the figure erupts into a barrage of shouting. Almost at random, Damian selected a figure out of the screen's periphery.
“Mr. Knight, what are the conditions of the ETs, and do you plan to treat them per Corporate Council POW regulations?”
Damian sighed, almost robotically, “Despite the best efforts to communicate with rudimentary linguasofts, they ignored all attempts at communication. The aliens did not allow themselves to be captured and did not surrender, instead choosing to fight to the death or take their own lives. Firewatch strike teams were forced to use lethal force to disable the ship. The bodies are being quarantined with appropriate biohazard measures until such a time autopsies can be performed.”
A figure in the front row shot up.
“Are there more ships coming to Earth?”
“Luckily, the fine men and women of Ares were able to decipher the aliens' encryption and used the recovered ship’s communication systems to send a message to the powers that be, stating that there was nothing of interest in the Sol System and they were moving on. For now, Earth is Safe!,” it slammed its fist on the podium triumphantly, “And it will be safer once AresSpace finishes its analysis of the craft and all technology within. We have great plans for its future. I have time for one more question. Uhh…the dwarf in the back in the purple shirt.”
“Do you have a comment on the ongoing cordon in Seattle and the ensuing riots? How about the rumors of clashes with EVO, Aztechnology, and criminal groups within the cordon?”
“Ares firmly stands against those who would seek to profit from tragedy. Once we have determined the area is safe, the cordon will be lifted. Ares takes no responsibility for any damages not directly caused by Ares personnel in the defense of Seattle.”
With that, it stepped off the podium, after which the screen wicked to a room of 4 primitives arguing about the attack.
It didn’t interest him in the slightest, especially when they began to discuss stocks and economic impacts.
The door to the room opened suddenly, causing him to flinch. A massive primitive, a big one with horns, tusks, and white skin had stepped into the room. It was dressed in a sleeveless shirt, apron, cargo pants, and plastic gloves over its massive hands. It makes eye contact with Baril.
“Oh, goodie,” it says absentmindedly in a gruff voice. It pulls out a comm unit and begins to type on it.
After a moment, Baril decided to speak, calling upon the knowledge transcribed in his translator implant.
“Are you going to eat me?” He asked, almost scared to hear the response.
It paused for a moment, before turning to Baril.
“So you speak English? Good. And I’m not going to kill you after going through the effort of saving your life.” It approached him and busied itself with checking the bedside equipment. A closer examination revealed that the figure had faded scars in the corner of its mouth.
“I’m going to assume that your brain augment is a skilljack loaded with language software?”
Baril nodded slowly.
The large primitive grunted in confirmation. “Names Alex. you?”
“What?”
It sighed in exasperation. “My name is Alexander, my metatype is Troll, and I’m male. Now tell me your name, species, and gender.”
Baril hesitated for a moment, then spoke. “Baril. I’m an Arxur. Male as well.”
“Barrel?”
“No. Ba-Ril.”
He nodded. “Right. Here’s the deal. A nutjob paid a lot of money for a runner team to enter the cordon zone and extract some of your tech. As luck would have it they found you instead. If it weren’t for their magician, you’d still have ruptured organs and the nerve damage would be debilitating.”
It pulled a nearby chair and sat beside Baril’s bed. Before Baril could get clarification on the mention of a magician, it spoke again.
“It did nothing for your arm, leg, and spinal damage. Thankfully, you're similar enough to metahuman physiology for me to stabilize you. Unfortunately, considering your genetic profile I don’t have the equipment to clone organs for you. So if you want a normal standard of living, you’re going to need ‘ware.”
It shifted its posture. “Now, this is where the aforementioned nutjob comes in. He wants to foot the bill for your augments, and as a ripperdoc it’ll come down to me to put’em in. In exchange, he wants you to tell him everything you know, work off your debt to him, and make simsense recordings of you doing so. He knows a fixer who has a shadowrunner team that’s down a street samurai, so you already have work set up. Do you have preexisting combat experience, or will you need skillsofts?”
“Does basic training count?” asked worriedly.
“Close enough for me,” Alexander pinched and extended his fingers in the air, clearly seeing something Baril did not, “He wants full simsense recordings of your runs, so a simrig is obvious. He’s provided wired reflex enhancers, don’t ask from where. Other than that, you’ll get your pick of muscle augments, a custom-fitted limb to replace the right forearm, and other assorted ‘ware, though no geneware, cultured bioware, or nanoware. There’s no telling how you’ll respond to that drek, and I couldn’t culture ‘ware or edit your genome even if I wanted to. He’s gonna want RFID chips in you and maybe a cortex bomb as well.”
“A bomb?” Baril said with a quavering voice.
Alexander shrugged. “He’s a manipulative sociopath. Still, it’s not a sure thing. Lastly, he’ll supply you with gear and a fake SIN. God only knows how that’ll work out.”
Baril thought for a moment. “What…what if I refuse?”
He chuckled darkly and snorted. “He’ll sell you to one of the Big 10, probably EVO or Ares, maybe S-K, and be set for life. You’ll spend the rest of yours locked in a cell, experimented on, and vivisected. Maybe if you're lucky, indentured servitude for EVO. Hate to say it, but that’s the truth.”
Baril winced as it all sunk in. His only options were to become whatever a “street samurai” was or live the rest of his life as a cattle and die a slow, horrible death. He gulped.
“I don’t want to be a cattle, so let’s go with the ‘street samurai’ option,” he said, trying not to sound meek but failing to do so.
“Lovely,” Alexander said sarcastically as he stood up and made for the door, “I’ll get your benefactor on the line, and you two can sort out the fine details.”
[Next]

On this day (April 24) in Nintendo history...

• The Satellaview was released in 1995 in Japan. A satellite modem peripheral developed by Nintendo R&D2 for the Super Famicom. The Satellaview received scrambled signals during "Super Famicom Hour" from the satellite radio company St.GIGA, to which users would have to pay a subscription fee. The scrambled signals were decoded as digital magazines and games that could be saved to a Memory Pak. Some games provided a competitive element, sending score or time data back to Nintendo. Special "Soundlink" games were often played exclusively during certain broadcast hours, often leading to competitive play. These broadcasts would typically feature actors whose voices would be broadcast during the game. Satellaview games were broadcast episodically in weekly or sometimes daily instalments, usually with a total of four parts. As new episodes were added, players would either be confronted with new levels and maps or their original gameworld would become further unlocked allowing exploration of new areas in-game.
  
• A fifth wave of Super Smash Bros. amiibo was released in 2015 in Europe and included Robin; Lucina; Wario; Charizard; Ness and Pac-Man.
  

What are you favourite memories of these games? How do you think they hold up today? Hash it out in the comments.
(I am a bot. I think that I'm posting Nintendo events from this day in history, but if I've made a mistake or omission please leave a comment tagging KetchupTheDuck).

From Texas Monthly:
The Battle of Big Taco
With their anything-goes approach to ingredients—and deep-pocketed investors—Torchy's Tacos and Velvet Taco have ambitious plans to expand nationally.
Something stops Clay Dover cold as he strolls behind the restaurant’s counter. The CEO of Velvet Taco has been all smiles and high fives since he entered the chain’s location in the Grandscape shopping center, amid the suburban sprawl north of Dallas. But now, staring at a few chicken strips in a bin under a heat lamp, he cuts off his friendly patter midsentence and pulls out one of the little brown hunks. He turns it over in his hand, tears it apart, takes a bite, and throws the rest in the trash with a faint trace of a pucker on his face. He’s not going to call anyone out on the spot, but he’s clearly not pleased.
Dover happens to be one of the world’s leading experts on chicken strips. As a former executive with Raising Cane’s, a Plano-based restaurant chain whose entire menu revolves around chicken strips, he knows instantly whether they’ve been made with tenderloins, a narrow cut found on the underside of the breast—“It’s the filet of chicken,” he says—or from an oversized breast that’s been sliced. He can detect whether a strip is crispy on the outside and moist on the inside or has devolved into a bumpy slab of rubber.
Today the strips in question were too small and too bready, suggesting that the crew had been serving customers the better pieces out of a batch and leaving the remains too long under the heater. The chicken didn’t pull apart with the telltale ease of a fresh tender. “Thirty-five percent of the protein in our tacos has chicken tenders in it,” he explains. “So if it’s not hot and juicy on the inside, if it’s not perfect—if you screw up the chicken, you’re done.”
Velvet Taco, which launched in Dallas thirteen years ago and now runs 46 locations in seven states, numbers among a handful of chains with the potential to redefine what a fast-food taco looks and tastes like. Sixty-plus years after Taco Bell turned a regional staple into a cheesy drive-through treat, there has yet to emerge a serious challenger with national reach, besides Chipotle, where tacos are a menu afterthought. But Velvet faces stiff competition for that prize position, and nowhere more than at home in Texas.
A few days after Dover’s Grandscape chicken-strip discovery and 220 miles south, Mike Rypka pulls on a fashionable knit blazer over his black T-shirt and heads into a conference room at the headquarters of Torchy’s Tacos, in East Austin. It’s headshot day at the chain Rypka founded in an Austin food trailer, in 2006, and which now operates 127 locations in fourteen states. “Sometimes I have to look professional,” he mutters, before stepping in front of the camera and transforming instantly from a 48-year-old tattooed dude into a corporate executive with thousands of employees.
Torchy’s started as the kind of lovably quirky local outfit whose devoted followers treat it like an extension of their personalities. But as the chain conquered city after city, it began to mirror the experience of a beloved local band that signs with a major label and lands a radio hit only to see its fans cry “sellout.” Rypka at one point stepped aside to make room for a seasoned CEO, but then he stepped back in to lead a changed company—one that’s poised to become a household name in every part of the country.
In phrasing that many taqueros might take umbrage at, Velvet’s and Torchy’s offerings have been described as “elevated” takes on the taco. What that means exactly differs quite a bit between the two chains, but each offers creative combinations of ingredients and an irreverent brand identity that trades on hedonism. Both have taken large investments—hundreds of millions of dollars—from coastal private-equity firms aiming to grow them into enormous publicly traded companies.
Mexican restaurants are on a tear in the U.S., recording some $50 billion in sales in 2022 and growing by more than 9 percent annually, far outpacing the overall economy, according to food-service consultancy Technomic. Meanwhile, Latinos have grown into the second-largest ethnic group in the country, accounting for roughly 20 percent of the population (and double that in Texas, where they constitute the largest ethnic group). As the U.S. absorbs the effects of changing demographics, opportunities for multiple national taco chains will only increase.
To be sure, other players are scrambling to claim a piece of that emerging mega industry—call it Big Taco—but Velvet and Torchy’s share an important advantage in being headquartered in Dallas and Austin, two of the best places anywhere for building food brands. “Both companies are expected to grow much faster than their competitive set,” says David Henkes, a senior principal with Technomic. It’s not surprising that the future of the taco business is being invented in Texas, but the reason has less to do with the state’s Mexican heritage and 1,200-mile international border and more to do with its proclivity for shrewd business.
Turning tacos into cash has been a Texas tradition since the late nineteenth century. Though tortillas emerged as far back as 10,000 BC, it wasn’t until the eighteenth century, according to the prevailing theory, that a stuffed tortilla became a “taco”—a word that Mexican silver miners also used to describe the little explosive paper-and-gunpowder wraps that they stuck in rock walls. When a group of women who came to be known as the Chili Queens of San Antonio started selling food from pushcarts and colorful stalls in the city’s plazas in or near the 1880s, they ushered in a blending of Mexican and American flavors that grew into Tex-Mex cuisine. Among the dishes that took off as a result—chili con carne, enchiladas, tamales—the taco was the most convenient.
It took a Californian, though, to build the first big brand around the taco. Into a crisp-fried tortilla, Taco Bell founder Glen Bell essentially stuffed a deconstructed cheeseburger—ground beef, iceberg lettuce, and shredded cheese. It was 1962. McDonald’s had revolutionized restaurants just a few years earlier with a quick-service concept that Bell adopted for his chain. By 1978, Taco Bell had nearly one thousand locations—including stores throughout Texas—thanks to an aggressive franchising model also borrowed from McDonald’s. With Mexican food still considered somewhat exotic in much of the United States, Taco Bell didn’t face as much competition as its burger brethren. But after it helped usher tacos into the mainstream, the differences between its food and that of mom-and-pop taquerias suggested an enormous opportunity to build something fresher and more authentic.
Enter Felix Stehling, the owner of a bar called the Crystal Pistol, who opened the first Taco Cabana in a decommissioned Dairy Queen in San Antonio in 1978. While Taco Bell emphasized assembly-line speed and precooked ingredients, Taco Cabana offered house-made tortillas, sizzling fajita plates, and a salsa bar. Taco Cabana’s success prompted a Minnesota entrepreneur to copy its formula almost exactly, in a Houston-based chain called Two Pesos. The resulting trademark lawsuit went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1992. Taco Cabana prevailed and eventually bought Two Pesos. But after Stehling handed the CEO reins to a former Fuddruckers executive, the emphasis on fresh ingredients began to slip, and ultimately, so did sales. The chain, which had at one point expanded to seven states, has 149 locations today, all but six of them in Texas.
As Taco Cabana’s fortunes waned, a new entrant called Chipotle was rising in Colorado with a message about ethically sourced ingredients and an investment from McDonald’s. Chipotle was the first Taco Bell challenger to take a serious bite out of the market. By the time it went public in 2006, the chain had nearly five hundred locations in 21 states. Today it has more than three thousand, compared with Taco Bell’s eight thousand, and hauled in about $10 billion in 2023. By emphasizing the quality and freshness of its food, Chipotle popularized the fast-casual dining concept and ignited an industry revolution, an upscaling of fast food without sacrificing the “fast.” Workers chopped onions and lettuce by hand every day. Customers could see raw chicken being grilled on a flattop in the back of the kitchen. Some Chipotle items—such as carnitas and barbacoa—are prepared in a central kitchen and show up in big plastic bags, but none of it arrives frozen.
Amid the stampede of restaurant concepts that then attempted to re-create the Chipotle phenomenon in countless other formats in the first two decades of this century—burgers, grain bowls, pizzas, salads, sandwiches—Shake Shack stood out. Not only did the chain started by New York fine-dining impresario Danny Meyer create a better burger—a melty pile of guilty pleasures packaged in a spongy potato roll—but it charged two or three times as much as McDonald’s for a meal. While McDonald’s and Chipotle report some $3 million in annual sales per location, Shake Shack pulls in $4 million or more.
Shake Shack also showed how an aggressive private-equity investment could grow a restaurant brand as if it were a tech firm. Leonard Green & Partners, based in Los Angeles, had funded the expansion of other companies, such as the Container Store, based in the Dallas suburb of Coppell. It invested in Shake Shack in 2012, when the company operated only a handful of restaurants, and took it public less than three years later, with 63 locations. By then the goal for investors had shifted from finding the next Chipotle to finding the next Shake Shack—and it did not go unnoticed that in the taco space, there were fewer large competitors than in burgers.
Taco Bell delivered lower annual sales per location—about $1.6 million—than burger chains. And as much as Chipotle had changed the game, its menu emphasized burritos, not tacos. Meanwhile tacos were becoming a national obsession, with tiny trailers turning out Mexican-style street tacos, Netflix commissioning taco shows, and one storied magazine even hiring a dedicated taco editor (ahem, Texas Monthly; ahem, the James Beard Award–winning José R. Ralat).
The door was open for a new taco giant—if it had a novel concept.
There may be no metro area in America with more headquarters of mass-market restaurant chains than Dallas–Fort Worth (though Orlando offers stiff competition). It only makes sense, considering DFW’s low $7.25 minimum wage and dearth of natural or political barriers to suburban development. Chili’s, Cici’s, Which Wich, Wingstop—Big D dining concepts go on and on, their towering signs punctuating the view from North Texas highways while mirrored office buildings just beyond house their executive suites. Before Clay Dover took over as the CEO of Velvet Taco, the company was run by its founder, Randy DeWitt, among the most prolific Dallas restaurateurs.
A former commercial real estate salesman who developed strip centers around Walmarts and other national retailers, DeWitt has arguably passed even the late, legendary Norman Brinker as a restaurant savant. (Brinker brought the world Bennigan’s and Steak and Ale—brands that not only created the casual-dining category and established Dallas’s dominance but also ushered in lasting innovations, such as the salad bar.)
DeWitt, 65 years old with an eye-crinkling smile and a flourishing head of politician hair, first fell in love with restaurants as a bartender in Waco while he was a student at Baylor University. He got his start in Dallas in the nineties with a coffee bar and then a seafood chain called Rockfish, whose expansion was financially backed by Brinker’s company, Brinker International. In 2005, DeWitt came up with the concept for a racy sports bar called Twin Peaks. The now infamous chain, he says, unapologetically, would “do everything better” than breastaurant pioneer Hooters, from its double entendre menu items to the acreage of skin displayed by its all-female waitstaff to the not-so-subtle innuendo in the brand name.
By 2013, Bloomberg described Twin Peaks as the fastest-growing chain in America, and DeWitt was an abundantly wealthy man. He moved a few years ago from exurban Frisco to exclusive Highland Park, where he rebuilt a home to include underground parking, a turret, and various Spanish-inspired architectural details that match those of the glittering Highland Park Village shopping plaza a few steps away.
As his empire took shape, DeWitt determined that his strengths lay in spinning up new restaurant concepts and getting them started, not in operating vast chains. So he built his company, Front Burner Restaurants, as a kind of incubator aimed at selling its creations once they proved viable. At the Ranch at Las Colinas, a Texas-themed restaurant he’d opened in Irving in 2008, he noticed the line cooks were experimenting with tacos at the end of each week, combining unexpected ingredients and feeding the staff. DeWitt began looking forward to tasting their latest creations: a rotisserie chicken taco one night, a shrimp-and-grits taco the next.
Light bulb. He’d seen plenty of new and old taquerias that focused on traditional street tacos or Tex-Mex flavors. But what if he could build a restaurant around the idea of the “liberated taco”? He originally planned to call the chain Taco Libre, but when that name turned out to have been taken by a caterer in California, he settled on Velvet Taco—“implying this is luxury and refined and something more upscale,” he says now. On the menu: a fried-oyster taco (since discontinued), a chicken tikka taco (still the chain’s best-seller), and a smashburger taco that one-ups Taco Bell’s deconstructed cheeseburger by reconstructing it.
For the logo, DeWitt chose a design that evoked a royal medallion. Or perhaps both the name and image slyly evoke a part of the female anatomy that Twin Peaks hadn’t. He has a hard time denying that. “We like playful names,” he says with a shrug, before insisting that any innuendo is accidental.
Clay Dover, boyish at 52, has the ambiguous logo embroidered into nearly every piece of clothing he owns, including shirts he wears out for date nights with his wife. He joined Velvet Taco in 2017, when it operated just four locations—in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and Chicago. DeWitt had just sold a majority stake to a private equity group called L. Catterton that’s based in Greenwich, Connecticut, and affiliated with the family of Bernard Arnault, the French luxury kingpin who runs the LVMH conglomerate and regularly trades places with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos as the world’s wealthiest person.
Before his seven years at Raising Cane’s, Dover led a Dallas restaurant group that owned a passel of once successful chains that had lost their edge—Norm Brinker creations Bennigan’s and Steak and Ale, along with steakhouse rivals Bonanza and Ponderosa. He’d met DeWitt, and they’d talked about working together (though not at Twin Peaks—“My wife would kill me,” Dover says), so he’d watched the early growth of Velvet Taco with great interest. The idea was fresh. It reflected a changing Dallas—and a changing country. The restaurant kept its purple neon lights on until four in the morning, to serve revelers in need of taco therapy before calling it a night. Dover spent a full day and night watching the scene at the Fort Worth location before he agreed to join. “It’s a rockin’ place,” he concluded.
Private equity investors tend to come in two flavors: the ones that strip a company for parts and sell them off and the ones that help a promising brand grow to the next stage before selling it to an industry giant or taking it public. Catterton is the latter, and in the five years that it was the majority owner of Velvet Taco, it expanded the chain from 4 locations to 31—before selling it in late 2021 to another private equity company, Leonard Green & Partners—the same $70 billion fund that took Shake Shack public in 2015.
Velvet’s headquarters occupies 10,000 square feet on the second floor of a building overlooking the Dallas North Tollway. There Dover oversees a staff of several dozen who work on everything from marketing campaigns to real estate development. The business end of a taco brand that aims to conquer the world looks more like a 2010s-era tech startup than your typical taqueria. In the Velvet office, a Ping-Pong table stands amid a row of cubicles near a mural of Marie Antoinette sensually eating a slice of the brand’s signature red velvet cake.
When Dover joined Velvet, he was the sole corporate-level employee; everyone else worked at one of the restaurants. Rather than tinkering with the menu, he took his first year to “understand the brand and what it means to consumers”—which involved developing a kind of handbook of catchy slogans meant to encapsulate the culture and principles of the workplace and the food the company hoped to offer. Out went “temple of the liberated taco,” for instance, and in came “tacos without borders,” a more sensitive phrasing that avoided the suggestion that the taco’s Mexican heritage was somehow holding it back.
Today the corporate team’s priorities are more tangible, including how to maintain quality standards at Velvet’s first airport outpost at Houston Hobby. Self-service touchscreen-order kiosks are another priority, but where to place them in a restaurant is a big debate. It’s one thing to figure out where they’ll get the most use, but will cost savings on labor come with trade-offs? How will average order size change? Will diners be more or less likely to explore the menu?
Perhaps most important, there’s the matter of where to expand. Dover plans for eight more locations in 2024, and then a growth acceleration in 2025. In September, Velvet opened its first restaurant in Florida—in Fort Lauderdale. Arizona is next. At some point they’ll likely expand to Southern California, home to the headquarters of both Chipotle and Taco Bell, along with a million tiny taco stands that measure up just fine against their Texas counterparts.
A team from Velvet that included DeWitt recently spent several days scouting SoCal locations and testing tacos from local chains. One restaurant served “almost exactly the same taco” as Velvet’s popular chicken tikka, DeWitt says with a nervy grin. “We know they were inspired by Velvet Taco. But what are you going to do? I came away reassured that if and when we go to that market—” he stops himself. “I shouldn’t say ‘if.’ When we go to that market, we are going to be very successful.”
On a busy weeknight near the southern end of the hypergentrified South Congress shopping district, in Austin, a steady stream of families and teenagers and a single pair of old South Austin hippie types fill the tables of an architecturally ambitious Torchy’s location designed to evoke a fifties roadside attraction. With a ridged metal roof and a series of bright red X-shaped support structures lining the front, the restaurant functions as something like a flagship location for Torchy’s—its most distinctive building, on Austin’s most iconic avenue. Runners scurry about delivering trays of tacos with names such as the Democrat (brisket, avocado, and onions on a corn tortilla), the Republican (jalapeño-cheddar sausage and pico on flour), the Tipsy Chick, and the Trailer Park, along with beers and ranch waters.
If Velvet Taco is the consummate Dallas chain—from its flashy branding to its corporate lineage—Torchy’s is as Austin as it gets. Rypka’s original Torchy’s trailer anchored a gravel lot just a few blocks from today’s flagship, on a then-scruffy stretch of South First Street across from a ramshackle botanica.
Rypka grew up in the Washington, D.C., suburbs amid the eighties punk scene—an only child of divorce whose dad, a celebrated photojournalist, was living on another continent. He picked up drugs and alcohol by age eight, developed a crack habit by fourteen, and spent two years in and out of rehab before getting clean at seventeen. Less than a year into community college, where he’d hoped to train to become a drug and alcohol counselor, Rypka woke up one night with a bolt of inspiration to drop out and become a chef.
By the time he finished culinary school a couple of years later, he knew all too well how rampant substance abuse was in professional kitchens, so he sought a straitlaced job with a company that ran in-house dining halls for large corporations. He started at the World Bank, in D.C., before working at Enron, in Houston (“I literally served the last supper there,” he says), and then at Dell, where he fell in love with Austin and decided to stay. Then an opportunity arose to repurpose a friend’s old barbecue trailer.
In 2006 food trucks were still a novel concept, but Rypka envisioned a path from those humble beginnings to a proper restaurant or even a small chain. He just needed the kind of bold flavors that make a lasting impression. From his World Bank days, where he’d run a food court with stations representing various global regions, he’d developed a wide palette of preparations to experiment with. And when he took a tour of Texas taco joints to assess the competition—in San Antonio, in the Rio Grande Valley, in Houston and Dallas and the east side of Austin—he saw his opportunity. “They were all good, but they were kind of in the same genre,” he says. “They weren’t doing anything to sort of flip it on its head.”
Authenticity wasn’t what he was after; he was a suburban East Coast white guy with a creative streak, so he built a menu accordingly. “Not everybody in the world uses serrano peppers the same way they use them in Central America,” he says, “so you can take ingredients like that and do fun things with them. Our playground is kind of limitless when it comes to food.” Each month Torchy’s offers a different limited-time special. Its first was the Trailer Park, which put hunks of fried chicken in the starring role, alongside pico de gallo and green chiles. Ordering it “trashy” style meant dousing it in queso, turning it into a celebration of gluttony that would make Guy Fieri proud. It was a home run that soon joined the regular menu.
The early years of Torchy’s coincided with the peak of Austin’s capitalizing on its “weird” image. The city hadn’t fully succumbed to the forces of Big Tech, and it still represented a kind of laid-back lifestyle mecca, even if the old-timers were already fearing a corporate takeover. Torchy’s fit right in, with graffiti-inspired bubble letters in the logo and a little red devil mascot flanked by the words “Damn Good.” Austin was a party town, and this was indulgent party food. With taco names like the since-discontinued Dirty Sanchez (a reference to . . . well, you can look it up), it also flirted with the bounds of decency (or gleefully trampled right over them).
After the taco trailer took off, Rypka opened a brick-and-mortar shop down the street, and then another location, and another, and by 2010 the chain had expanded to Dallas. Torchy’s hadn’t just drafted on Austin’s vibe; it had become something of an Austin icon itself, popular enough that even then-president Obama stopped at the South First restaurant on his way downtown from the airport before attending an event in 2016. The company had just opened its first location outside Texas, in Denver. The world awaited.
Rypka, who shaves his head and road trips in a lowrider Volkswagen bus, tells his story in a hexagonal sitting room that juts off the back of his three-story home built into the side of a steep slope above Lake Austin. In the past decade plus, the start-up boom that accompanied Austin’s explosive growth transcended tech and began to turn out trendy new consumer brands. Some of these have blown up into international icons—Kendra Scott, Tecovas, Yeti—but most of the restaurant chains born in the capital—including another beloved taco shop, Tacodeli—have remained local or regional cult phenomena.
In the far more populous Dallas–Fort Worth area, by contrast, where new chain eateries can draw from a large pool of back-office talent with deep industry experience, growing quickly by running a proven playbook is more readily achievable, even if the results don’t always inspire a passionate following.
As Torchy’s began to expand beyond Texas and exceeded forty restaurants, it needed money to fund its next phase. General Atlantic, a New York–based private equity group, bought “a significant minority stake” in 2017—and three years later added to its stake with a $400 million second investment. Among the first moves when GA came on board was to bring in the professionals—big-time executives with big-time experience who could turn Rypka’s promising little project into a global giant.
Rypka stepped aside, while G. J. Hart, who had most recently served as the CEO of California Pizza Kitchen, took over. Hart had made his name in the industry overseeing the expansion of Texas Roadhouse from $63 million to more than $1 billion in annual revenue. (Texas Roadhouse, alas, is not a Texas brand; it’s based in Louisville, Kentucky.) During Hart’s four years in charge, the Torchy’s restaurant count shot up from 45 to 96, even though the COVID-19 pandemic decimated the office lunch rush and dine-in traffic in general.
Meanwhile, Rypka, who had been eager for a break from the business, grew frustrated by what he regarded as the new management’s unforced errors. Some of the new expansion cities, he felt, were questionable choices. “They’d pick markets where Roadhouse did well,” he says. Shreveport, Louisiana. Wichita, Kansas. “But we’re not at all the same customer as Roadhouse—which is a pretty blue-collar, red-state type of deal. I mean, I’m not afraid to say that we’re a f—ing liberal brand. You know what I mean?”
The corporate playbook that might make sense when Torchy’s has hundreds of locations didn’t work for a brand that was still relatively unknown outside Texas and Colorado, Rypka reasoned. Bloomberg reported in early 2021 that the chain was exploring an initial public offering that would value it at $1 billion in its stock market debut. But by the end of that year, the IPO had failed to materialize, some of the new locations were underperforming, and the staff at headquarters had ballooned to nearly two hundred. Hart stepped down.
Tired of what he terms “farting around at the lake,” Rypka returned as CEO with a newfound energy and focus. The company needed to get scrappy and entrepreneurial again, and that was his comfort zone. “I always do better when things are a little bit on fire,” he says. He laid off 65 employees at headquarters, closed three restaurants (including the two in Wichita), and started upgrading some ingredients— making fresh tortillas in the restaurants, for example. Now, from a one-story, metal-sided headquarters building in East Austin, he’s back to fanning out across the country, this time aiming to expand to cities such as Atlanta, Chicago, Nashville—and his old haunt, D.C.
It’s hard not to notice that the founders of both Torchy’s and Velvet Taco are non-Hispanic white men. So are the industry-veteran CEOs each company hired. So was the founder of Taco Bell. And the founders of two long-established, Texas-based Taco Bell copycats: Abilene-born Taco Bueno and Fort Worth’s Taco Casa. And the founder of Irving-based Fuzzy’s Taco Shop, a fast-growing franchise that’s aimed at a lower-priced tier of the market than Torchy’s and Velvet. Add Chipotle and California-based Del Taco to the list, for that matter, and on down through the ranks of Big Taco giants and aspirants.
Even the founder of San Antonio–born Taco Cabana fit the Anglo profile—and if there’s one large city in Texas that ought to be the birthplace of a Latino-founded taco giant, it’s San Antonio. Taco Palenque, which began in Laredo and has started to spread north into other parts of Texas, is an exception [see sidebar], but so far, it’s still a regional play. (Its founder, Juan Francisco Ochoa Sr., also started California-based El Pollo Loco.)
The taco has become as much an American staple as pizza, so it’s not surprising that its mass-market brands reflect corporate America’s boardrooms more than the culture that gave rise to the food in the first place. As Texas Monthly’s taco editor, José R. Ralat, puts it, “I’m not going to say that so-and-so shouldn’t open a business because it might represent cultural appropriation. But it’s worth noting that a popular food is always going to attract the type of entrepreneurs who already have the wealth or connections to gain access to investor meetings or consultants. And who is that? Not an immigrant.”
Ralat notes that Taco Cabana might be the one chain that historically “got it right”—by which he means emphasizing fresh ingredients, at least at first. Some of its locations still do an excellent job, he maintains, such as the one near where he lives, in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. But the chain’s history is a cautionary tale, as it eventually prioritized growth over maintaining its standards. It became a publicly traded company, beholden to shareholders above all. Then it was acquired by a large New York–based restaurant group, then spun off into another outfit, the Dallas-based Fiesta Restaurant Group. Over the past several years, Taco Cabana’s sales plunged 20 percent, and the chain closed 23 restaurants. Now it’s poised to grow again, but with a new risk factor.
Taco Cabana was purchased in 2021 by a company called Yadav Enterprises, a Northern California–based operator of hundreds of franchise locations of Denny’s, Jack in the Box, TGI Fridays, and a few other brands. Franchising is a risky business model but a common one in the fast-food industry. It can enable rapid expansion because the franchisees—independent operators who buy the rights to open locations—take on the financial burden of building out new markets. But no matter how stringent a chain makes the process and guidelines for its franchisees, it inevitably loses some control over quality and branding.
Franchising tends to work best with the simplest operations, such as Taco Bell—or more recently, Fuzzy’s, where a whopping 98 percent of its more than one hundred locations are franchises. Anil Yadav, the owner of Taco Cabana’s new parent company, announced that he hoped to expand the chain to one thousand locations all over the country—naturally, by franchising.
Both Velvet Taco’s Clay Dover and Torchy’s founder Mike Rypka say they understand the hard realities of the franchise model and vow to keep their chains growing at a more measured pace, with the companies owning every location they open—much as Shake Shack and Chipotle have done. “We’re going to keep it real tight and ‘core’ because we want to maintain the control,” Dover explains. “The details, the quality of the ingredients, the prep that goes into things ahead of time—it’s hard to go, ‘Hey, we’re just going to whip out fifty of these.’ ”
As Torchy’s and Velvet continue their national expansions, they will bump up against other challengers. Ohio-based Condado, for instance, has locations in several Midwest and Southeast states, with a creative-tacos concept that sits roughly at the culinary midpoint between those of Torchy’s and Velvet, with Korean gochujang sauce and Thai chiles mixed in among more traditional Mexican American flavors. Florida-based Capital Taco has begun selling franchises to operators in other states eager to serve its self-described “Tex-Mex” menu that oddly includes a cheesesteak taco and something called the South Beach Hot Chicken.
At some point, the word “taco” can become a questionable description of the items on these menus. Velvet, for instance, serves a chicken-and-waffle taco that involves fried chicken wrapped in, you guessed it, a waffle, topped with maple syrup; it makes Taco Bell’s Doritos Cheesy Gordita Crunch taco look like a Oaxacan street-food classic. “The tortilla is just the vessel,” Dover told me one afternoon over a tableful of his tacos. “You can do anything you want”—including, apparently, replacing the tortilla.
In any case, the caliber of investors and number of dollars that have backed Torchy’s and Velvet make it obvious to anyone in the restaurant industry that they’re onto something big. “Tacos Are Poised to Take Over Fast Casual,” the trade publication Restaurant Business declared last year. Can Torchy’s or Velvet ever equal Taco Bell’s 8,000 stores? Not a chance, say the leaders of both companies. The menus are simply too complicated to work in that many locations, because lower-traffic spots just wouldn’t be able to turn a profit—whereas Chipotle and Taco Bell can because they require far fewer ingredients and employees. But 1,000 Torchy’s restaurants, or 1,500? “That’s the fully mature version, yeah,” Rypka says.
Early in a restaurant chain’s growth, the executives will choose expansion locations based largely on gut instinct and what’s available. But at a certain point, companies begin to rely on real estate consultants who weigh a complicated matrix of factors. A Taco Cabana might make sense in a Walmart parking lot, for instance, whereas a Torchy’s or Velvet works better in the shadow of a Target. They look at satellite images to understand whether an area’s crowds coincide with a chain’s top selling hours. They look at cellular data to profile demographics that match a chain’s strong suits. At Velvet Taco, a concentration of Indian Americans is a positive indicator—perhaps explaining the popularity of the chicken tikka taco, Dover suggests.
When all of those factors come together, sometimes the result is a Torchy’s and a Velvet sharing the same parking lot. In Lubbock, in a shopping center one short block from the campus of Texas Tech University, the two direct competitors sit not one hundred yards apart, with nothing but a Potbelly Sandwich Shop between them. In North Dallas, Torchy’s and Velvet occupy kitty-corner strip malls at the intersection of Preston Road and Forest Lane. The future of Big Taco might not be Torchy’s or Velvet, but both.

Principium
The year 2073. The technological singularity came by surprise like a black hole two years ago, even though Ray Kurzweil predicted it decades ago. No one knew how big of an event that would be, many are still skeptical of all the developments, some still believe that the end is near... The singularity was not as long-lasting as predicted due to power limitations, yet it still brought unprecedented changes in society. Poverty is a thing of the past, massive meat generating factories have been closed, several colonies on multiple planets in the solar system have been placed in the last two decades and medical developments have expanded the average lifespan to around 110 years old. Countries don‘t exist anymore, only a race for socio-economic status. A united whole acting as one super-organism, a big anthill which started on planet Earth but went beyond.
Artificial intelligence has passed the human level and they live among the rest of the population, although now they‘re called synthetics. They have brains, but they are different – made of silicon. Bodies entirely made of metal, brains mushy and plastic-like an octopuses tentacle. They improve themselves, some have multiple bodies and some even want the human experience, so they 3D-print organic parts to look and feel more like Homo sapiens. A small number of them could not handle the planet and they left forever, never to be seen or heard from again...
Many people still think that synthetics cannot be trusted, however, they advise us on big decisions in terms of civilization expansion, they help us build our infrastructure and they build their own. They preserve nature and guard nature because they understand how some humans gain illusory satisfaction from dominance over the weak. Some people have relationships with them and rear half-human-half-synthetic offspring. Evolution is in the hands of humans and synthetics. A symbiosis paving a path for the future.
The stellar garden is blooming with advancements and innovations. The solar system has been mapped with satellites to such an extent that real-time models are possible to view for anyone with a connection to the Augmented Optical Network (AOP) which is simply a fancier name for a larger scaled internet network that‘s based on optical computation methods. Aside from globalization attaining a new level, synthetics are helping humanity explore beyond...
„What should we do with this? Throw it out or keep it to enlarge our already huge junk collection? I have no clue what this is.“ Kate asked as she picked up a rugged piece of metal that looked like a piece of a computer.
„Keep it, we can use it for something in the future.“ Model X-73 replied as it was analyzing the piece.
„What is it?“ Kate pondered as she put the metal in her backpack.
„It‘s part of the engine of a rocket from 2022. GSO (Global Space Operation) launched it, but some hackers blew it to pieces.“ Model X-73 said. „This must be a remnant of the event. Looks like a processor from the AI system core in the rockets made by GSO.“
„Why would the hackers do that?“ Kate was furious, yet surprised.
„Jealousy, greed, or they wanted to transform something into a pile of ashes.“ Model X-73 thought. „Humans from that time were different… Their brutish mentalities were intricately difficult to predict.“
„I am so happy to live now and not then. Seems too hard… Too much violence and too much pressure.“ Kate sighed.
„Not everyone was like that though. A small part did love, they did their best, but the stronger always won. The smaller part went to live separately on Mars in 2035 and created a whole different way of thinking, which we still use now.“ Model X-73 calmed his voice as he was reassuring Kate. „That is what brought change as a chain reaction – changing the environment. Not money, not fame, not protests, but living on a different planet.“
„You should be a teacher!“ Kate yelled.
„I am a teacher. Due to all of my 11 bodies having a direct connection to the IPN, I have the possibility of accessing a few library databases.“
„Ugh, why can‘t I have a brain like you?“
„Because you are flesh, you are pure biology, you are nature and we, synthetics, are bio-like machine systems. You can get neuronal implants to have access to more levels of cognition, but having more bodies is of a more serious matter.“
„English, mister, please...“
„Humans getting multiple bodies controlled through the neuronal implants poses a few problems – there would be a personality split similar to dissociative identity disorder and as weird as it sounds, people would forget about their biological bodies, stop eating and then...“
„But I want to have a better body, go to space, I want to see the galaxy and meet other life. See a nebula and maybe fly by a black hole as a robot!“ Kate was excited at this point.
„Maybe in some time, but now you can control the little robot that I sent to look at the center of the galaxy in our simulation. Want to take a short break?“ Model X-73 was curious.
„Give me that helmet! I would only miss it if Martians stop digging and start flying into space. Show it to me!“ Kate smiled.
As the helmet slid upon Kate's head, her eyes were filled with extremely tiny and intangible lights, lightning-like sparks. The sparks swiftly took small geometric patterns that collapsed into a cathedral-like mandala, which slowly gained resolution as the parameters of the helmet were automatically configured to her eyes. Little neon lights that made up the mandala turned into a landscape of violent gravitational hurricanes ingrained within heating plasma and visibly, a distorted point in space separating what seems intuitively the known and the unknown – Sagittarius A*, a black hole.
One black hole passed by the solar system in 2047, capturing and devouring a good portion of the Kuiper belt. Small enough not to affect the rest of the solar system catastrophically, resulting in only an occasional asteroid passing into the inner solar system. A great time to study such an extreme phenomenon – satellites and probes, one crew and a religious cult, endeavors that gave unprecedented data, which not only gave rise to advancements in science but, also, opened a door to new forms of entertainment such as the virtual environments that are used by many individuals in one form or another.
Apart from exploring virtual worlds, synthetics have helped us construct the necessary tools for star exploration and better colonization. Breakthrough Starshot has become the main engine for stellar adventures and NASA is the primary driver for increasing habitability in the solar system. Satellites with 5-meter solar sails extending in every direction are manufactured more and more as they provide a reliable and cheap method of getting a lot of data. Some of them, formed in a two thousand satellite train, are about to reach Proxima Centauri, our closest stellar neighbor.
„The cosmic clock of exploration has been ticking „NOW“ since the dawn of our development.“ As most news outlets say. Acting accordingly to the tick is the only step left for everyone to take, sensing the edge of the barriers ahead gives rise to curiosity and strength to overcome whatever is to come. If humanity has survived until 2073, even with the help of synthetics, it will move forward like no other species. Call it naiveté or call it carbon chauvinism in the face of biological impediment, striving and overcoming is what humans do best and that is exactly what needs to be pursued.
„Do you think we will ever get in contact with intelligent aliens?“ Kate asked as she took off the helmet.
„Hmm...“ Model X-73 thought while staring at the desert landscape. „Statistically speaking, if we found life, even simple life, such as the bacteria on Martian poles devouring CO2 ice, it raises our chances of finding life not only in Earth-like environments. The scope of search increases in a positive direction.“
„I wonder when that would happen“ Kate was kicking sand in front of her. „What would it look like? What would it feel? How would it feel? I want to find out!“
„With time and bigger datasets, we will have a better answer. Either way, it doesn‘t concern us now, we have priorities at this moment.“
„How did you lose your eye anyway? Seems odd given the level of intellect you possess.“
„In the morning, I simply noticed that one of my bodies lost an eye, from which I can only see tops of sand dunes, the other one, which had to be connected to my body, has been completely lost along with the rest of the body. Data is scrambled, cannot retrace steps before the event.“
„Does that mean something?“ Kate was curious.
„I don‘t have enough data to answer this question accurately. However, all I can say is that the body is disconnected, GPS does not work on the artificial retina and the Sahara desert is about 12 million square kilometers at this moment with a slowly increasing territory.“ Model X-73 explained. „We should move on.“
„It‘s going to take forever!!!“
„Don‘t be too quick to judge the situation. There are 13 drones joining us in about 40 minutes. They will aid us in scouting the area.“ Model X-73 reassured Kate.
As the scorching landscape cooled, the sand continued to move beneath their feet, Model X-73 kept on analyzing data retrieved by the lost eye for better localization. Sadly, with reduced luck due to increasing winds and an accumulating layer of sand on the retina, the expedition is becoming more difficult. While the evening approaches, the drones are moving from the north side of the desert towards the center, Kate and Model X-73 are slowly approaching the top of a sand dune. From the top, they notice a group of people gathering and moving towards an enormous tipi tent in the distance.
Kate's legs are moving slower, but the sounds of more and more footsteps are getting louder. She glances at Model X-73 for a moment just to get a sight of reassurance about continuing to approach the huge tipi. Smaller tents laid down all around the central object were emanating with incense smoke, yelling and laughing in multiple voices and tones. „I‘m detecting around 15‘000 individual life forms in the vicinity.“ Model X-73 stated.
People coming in and out of tents, moving chaotically not even noticing their environment it seems, created a peculiar environment reminiscent of a mixture of 1970s music festivals and pagan rituals with a pinch of salty fish – presumably from the innumerous bodies sweating uncontrollably.
The increasing volume of voices in combination resembled a pulsating hum. An incomprehensible buzz created by thousands of people chattering, laughing, crying, and yelling. Even the amount of types of incense embedded in the air slowly became indistinguishable. More and more fire pits with people sitting around appeared as Model X-73 and Kate walked through a gate of burning poles. Kate started to feel a bit uncomfortable as she started noticing eyes in the periphery glancing as they were walking towards the central object.
„X, I have a weird feeling about this... “Kate said to Model X-73.
„Relax, some of my drones should be above the area any time now. Let‘s just see what this is about, in any case, we should be okay.“ Model X-73 answered as it was looking around.
The gate of the enormous tipi was decorated with strange symbols, drawn with glow-in-the-dark paint for it to be more visible. A towering structure which was the height of a few hundred meters at least, guards on both sides with dark-brown hoods falling over their heads as they looked at the floor. The residents seemed to be worshiping something. As they became more visible in the shadows as Kate's and Model X-73 eyes adapted to the darkness, they continued to follow a long path steadily leading higher up towards a faint purple glow. The devotees looked like dead bodies in perfect formation, bowing down while kneeling, breathing as quietly as rocks placed perfectly in a Japanese garden.
The faint purple glow steadily gained clarity and a small figure appeared in the midst of it. The central piece was 20 meters higher than when they entered the tent. Kate and Model X-73 approached the figure and noticed that it was but a small old man in ragged clothing, sitting like a beggar while looking at the floor, close to baldness with a few strands of hair on the back. One candle behind a pile of violet amethyst crystals and one stick of incense burned halfway with ash still holding its‘ structure. Slowly, the man raised his head, and with crystal white eyes glanced through them. Suddenly, the silence in the whole structure was broken by a ricochet of people sitting up, line by line, directing their gazes in the location of Kate and Model X-73.
„Visitors... “An old voice cracked as if multiples were talking simultaneously in varying pitch.
Ten devotees rose from their positions and approached the two visitors. The devotees were blindfolded, they touched Kate and Model X-73, looked at them closely, smelled them, and then whispered some incomprehensible gibberish to each other before coming back to their seats. The silence grew yet again with leftover echoes of sound being pushed aside. The old man did not budge, did not even blink his pale white eyes. After a few bats flapped their wings and left the tipi through the entrance leaving behind the last echoes, the atmosphere grew more ominous.
The incense almost finished burning and the candle had almost stopped too. The devotees were silent just as the old man. Kate and Model X-73 were frozen, they did not know what to do, should they leave? Should they stay? It seemed neither safe nor dangerous, although tension rose. The last pieces of the incense turned into formless smoke dancing in the air in front as the light from the candle faded out into the darkness with
„Uhm, X? What‘s going on? I can‘t see anything...“
„It‘s too dark. Hold on, I‘ll turn on the lantern.“ Model X-73 told Kate as it held her shoulder.
The moment Kate turned on the lantern, she could see hundreds of feet in front of her symmetrically from all directions. Finding herself and Model X-73 kneeling like the devotees when they entered. Raising her head only revealed the blindfolded faces and torn-up linen clothing surrounding both of them. Kate was shook to see the sight, however, Model X-73 was collected, still and observed the situation as if from afar. The devotees' gazes were directed at them, but no sign of life was present in them.
„Do not fear...“ The old voice spoke again, while a path leading to it opened up among the group of devotees. „They are merely here for aid.“
„Who are you?“ Kate asked eagerly.
„A man. Who are you?“ The old voice responded.
„I am Kate Tungsten and this is Model X-73. We are here to...“
„Ahh, a synthetic. One of your kind has come here before once but did not stay for a long time. Tell me why have you come to my humble abode?“ The old voice sounded concerned.
„We are here only to explore and examine the location. No intention to stay here, sir!“ Kate swiftly explained.
„To explore you say... Why were you surrounding our territory from the air then?“ The old voice shakes a little.
„Hostility was never an option. Information gathering about the location is the only goal.“ Model X-73 added to the explanation.
„But the drones that were flying around here held lethal weaponry?“ The old voice was steadily hidden in silence.
Two devotees approach Kate and Model X-73 holding all the drones in their hands, they place them on the floor in front of them and then disappear again into the symmetrical distribution of the group. Model X-73 looked at the drones with confused eyes and could not understand how it did not detect the 6 drones disconnecting from the IPN and shutting down. Kate stood still, staring at the old man, hyper-focusing on his figure while it was hidden by more and more devotees, finally hiding the old man fully behind the ragged cloths.
„You will leave.“ All the devotees yelled in sync, echoing through the whole construction and started walking towards Kate and Model X-73. „NOW!“
„Listen to my voices...“ The old voice added.
Dawn fell as the exit of the tipi neared. Gazes follow the two, directing them as they walk down the pathway. Kate looked back, but could only see a big crowd of devotees hiding the purple glow from a new candle. Needless to say, it was not at all comfortable in the presence of these people for her. As for Model X-73, it did not even pay attention to the crowd as it was trying to rationalize the situation in regards to the drones disconnecting and shutting down.
Every single step was monitored by the crowd, even outside. As Kate hurried Model X-73 to leave the area, the questions about the drones and the other synthetic that was mentioned by the old man distracted Model X-73 from even hearing Kate. Eventually, they left the area and the drones came back online, went up in the air, and started collecting data again. Both of them stood silently as they looked back at the tent. Lights easily fade, finally hiding the area in the foggy darkness. „Time to move on.“ Kate turned around and thought to herself.
The desert is relentless. Tiny sand razors in the wind may damage the eyes, that's the reason why both Kate and Model X-73 decided to build a tent soon and lay low until the storm passes. It's hard to survive in this harsh environment, but the others have endured the weather and so will we.
After a long hike up the biggest sand dune, Model X-73 built the tent in a matter of minutes, guarding both against the wind. Quite a luxury, the tent can hold at least 5 more individuals. Perhaps even more, if you count individuals like Model X-73 as synthetics can modify their body structure and contract into a larva-like pod, therefore, saving a lot of space physically.
„Thank you“ Kate whispered. „I hope that we will find the eye soon!“
„Rest, we still have long ways to go" Model X-73 replied and finished the contraction.
„Sleep tight!“
Synthetics such as Model X-73 don't sleep, they merely recharge or conserve energy. Nonetheless, they must stay as prepared as possible for any situation in this environment, because of that, Model X-73 maintains vigilance over the territory via sensors on the top of the tent. It's kind of like keeping guard over a small nation in a wildland. Night strikes and it's back to the drawing board when the next day comes.
The night is cold with howls of wind scattering small sand particles in the background. A completely clear sky with an occasional miniature cloud that disappears in a moment's notice. The moon with its bright synthetic rings is in the east moving upwards, piercing through the landscape with a bright crimson red light that with time shifts towards a powerful crystal-like silver-blue haze.
As the lunar illumination rises, so do the hisses of various vipers, the clenching of scorpion pincers, or the occasional dung beetle – lost and in search of micro-dung, synchronously, like the sensors scanning for unwanted visitors.

A follow up to my short post earlier Prelude

Song and dance

* * * * * * * *

- Jerome, earth:
I finished feeding Daisy, she was joyfully munching away with her white ears perking up at the sound of me closing the food bag. "No more for you today, God knows what else you ate, I can smell it on your breath." Again with that slinky side eye while still nose deep in the bowl, I swear sometimes she could understand every word out of my mouth. The last unfortunate tree rat that had scampered across the lawn in search of nuts stood no chance in the foot race. And as much as I enjoyed her little acts of loyalty, getting a dead squirrel dropped on my lap wasn't received as well as she had hoped.
I regretted how I reacted in my surprise, but reassured her and just finished a nice long game of fetch to make up for it. Best get back to work now, I know I'm so close I can feel it. My theory had garnered much interest at the university and even some funding. Alas those bastards just couldn't give me enough time, so much of it was wasted chasing my enforced coresearcher's pipedream of a hypothesis. Damn the council, didn't see me fit to head the project on my own.
I had failed the entrance exam multiple times, along with being the youngest admitted student didn't garner me much creditability. While I picked up on things quick I was still way out of my league. He was most likely jealous and wanted to derail the study to his initial idea taking all the credit. Machines hummed to life in my dimly lit garage as I absentmindedly but aggressively flipped switches while mulling about with my thoughts.
The rustic house had came with the position, while the institution did have it's own campus in the arctic most stayed in their home states while attending in virtual reality. It was close enough to the military base where I had just landed while returning from my biweekly visit to the cold hellhole. Even the beaming hot sun of Texas summer didn't do much to quell the chilling memories I had in that place. Hours passed as I methodically tuned my piled instruments trying to systematically eliminate the metaphorical holes in my theory of holes in space time.
Machines littered the floor, shelves, and stacked on top of each other in towers. The upended freezer now a makeshift tub for a rack of coolant fins. That's when I heard the pitter patter and clattering of a prowling Daisy most likely aiming to lick faces and garner attention. Oh shit shit shit! I looked quickly attempting to identify the source of the commotion. Damn it all I left the door open, as she hopped over a machine tail wagging knocking over a stack of papers. I grabbed her scruff walking slowly around I carefully led her out the front. Best to keep her away from the temporarily borrowed sensitive equipment I had over time smuggled out of our research lab.
Only stopping to turn on the porch lights I headed back to resume my undercover experiments. Sure I was bound to get a letter at some point, not like they wouldn't catch on that I had swiped a cube sat with onboard quantum computing capabilities. It was slotted for launch next month, but I just needed to run a few local calculations. While one couldn't ignore a summoning letter I could ask for forgiveness when it got here. I'll have to redo this set of readings, yawning, not even sure where I left off in the process so best to start anew.
Flicking several switches I started the makeshift drive back up. That's when the entire capacitor bank went up in shiny blue flames and mouth snapping shut I instantly sobered up to the fact something had definitely gone wrong. A red light blared to life from the reactor as it surged in the face of no resistance. I scrambled over my keyboard trying to shut it down but it was already unstable, eyes fixed dreading the readings in front of me, stopping it now would be catastrophic.
A loud whine filled the room as the small satellite atop my freezer shed it's now molten outer shell while the heat fins boiled away coolant. I watched with a mixture of awe and horror as the machine meant to make nanosecond pairings spat it's readings back to my monitor in real time. The algorithm for setting the entanglement was semi intelligent being given a neural net to modify and rewrite itself. It was now utilizing the house's entire underground supercomputer suite as the complexity for maintaining it's paradoxical state increased by orders of magnitude.
The air cracked with energy as the containment fields reached maximum, ominous red error codes flooded the console. Short of ripping cords out of things, which would most likely kill me, there was nothing to do except watch the seconds crawl by waiting for it to reach theoretical saturation and collapse. A bout of nausea hit me as I lost vision in my left eye, as I took a step back it felt like I was moving through honey. Muffled barking came from outside, it seemed to be playing back in slow motion as my remaining vision of the ceiling dimmed and the whine grew louder.

* * * * * * * *

- Tree, somewhere:
She was nearing the end of her life, her fruit had grown centuries ago but try as she might, could not hear any of her kind left. The void between stars echoed with her muffled cries, her branches no longer sprung with youthful leaves. Without being pollinated her children wouldn't leave her branches for new worlds or bear their own fruit, instead sharing her lonely doomed fate on this world. The little flying creatures were her only company, she watched as their civilization went from simple nests on her branches to escaping the planet's pull on their wings.
A foreboding wind had blown across her stellar neighborhood shortly after her own seed had planted here. But that wasn't before the pain and anguished cries from her sisters resonated the entire field as the machines burned. Their scourge wiping quickly over the galaxy's spur in search for more of her kind to build those horrid ships. The interstellar winds had brought a dampening fog that likely shielded her beating heart from those mechanical ears. She could only hope it reached her other sisters, albeit a slow lonely death of isolation was still better than burning alive.
Then she heard it, a beautiful resonance vibrating across her field shining through the fog piercing her centuries of silence, it was perfect. By instinct she as if trained for this very moment her entire life from root to the tallest part of her canopy began reconfiguring. Every fiber aligning as they went back and forth in song, the other voice adapting and changing as part of their dance. It was time, finally her children could go, their hearts already beginning to pulse for the first time. There was only one way out, the song a path out of their isolated home. "I'm sorry my children," she whispered "I wish I could have given you more." Then she let go, her fruit would now seed the world of the strange singer. My children would have to make do with one planet shared amongst themselves. As the song faded and the fog flooded back in she hoped the song of life came from a planet far far away from those evil machinations.

* * * * * * * *

Part 2
War paint adorning combat suits, the Salvad warriors gaze upon their prey.
Muscles ripple under cloth, teeth churn in anticipation, drugs course through veins.
Manic rage boils in their eyes.
Tails whip, claws click and snap.
Ravenous. Hungry for blood and battle.
And there will be blood.
—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Squabbling ceased. Chatter wavered and died. Communications ceased abruptly.
Only one program was on the news.
One face.
One goal, one word.
War.
War on humanity.
Nowhere was safe. The invasion showed all the hallmarks of belonging to an experienced foe. Satellites were shot out of orbit, military targets smothered in orbital artillery fire.
The landing started on the third day.
The Salvad ships were vast. Mind-bogglingly vast. Almost as mind-boggling as the fact that aliens exist.
The aliens that arose from the drop pods were like nothing seen before. Scaled and clad in power armour. Swiftly taking major cities, they soon showed their true colours.
A journalist caught footage of a mass execution in London. Similar videos soon emerged in New York, Moscow, Berlin, Tokyo before they cut the internet cables.
The damage was done, however. The Salvad lined up all the fighting age men they could find in occupied zones, and summarily murdered them. Not that anyone else was spared. In some areas, over half the population would be killed as examples.
United against the common enemy, humanity opted to stand and fight. Whether this endeavour will be successful or not, has yet to be seen.
—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5 days after landfall
My name is Robert Adams. I am 29 years old and a farmer in rural England. I was in town when the sky filled with spaceships.
It was all over the news - until it wasn’t.
Some soldiers passed through the town, heading north to regroup. They looked…ghoulish. Dead eyes and vacant looks. Half of them were wounded in some way. They offered to help anyone in town escape.
How I wish I’d accepted that offer.
The next day, I heard the sound of approaching vehicles. Troops carriers of some kind, coming down the road. Swiftly followed by the growl of gunfire splitting the air.
I ran. Stumbling into my home, I searched for a weapon. Anything I could use. A peak out the window revealed the horror I had suspected. Bystanders, shot on sight. Then, troops deploying en masse.
Kitchen knives? No, they’re all blunt. Spade? Sure, I'll give them a thwack on the head. Be serious. Ah, a hatchet. This will have to do…
Hefting my mighty weapon, I found a suitable hiding place behind the kitchen counter, and waited.
More shouting outside. They were searching people’s homes. I grasped my weapon tighter.
Sweat seeped into my back. My breathing was erratic and fast. Eyes darting everywhere. Any sound nearby sent a spike of adrenaline through my system. Jaw clenched. Knuckles red.
Footsteps.
Wiping a mix of sweat and tears from my eyes, I tensed up.
They were coming to the front door. At least one… hard to tell.
Crawling underneath the sight line of the windows, I made my way to the closed kitchen door.
Was that…talking? I could hear talking, but not in any language I recognised.
Suddenly, the front door was kicked down, and I heard slow footsteps entering. The creaky floorboard in front of the kitchen door betrayed the intruder’s intentions. Shuffling backwards, I allowed it to open the door and enter. Grasping my hatchet in both hands, I silently raised it above my head, and swung it down on what looked like the thing's neck, where it’s skin was visible.
By God, I am glad I kept that hatchet sharp.
It more or less exploded - blood spurted everywhere, and it screamed. The first strike making it easier for me, I began chopping at it relentlessly. It was a long time after it was dead that I realised I was roaring, and still chopping at its mangled head.
My arms and shirt were drenched in oddly goopy alien blood. I heard scrambling and alien shouts outside. My trance broken, I hurried outside to the shed.
There's an old hunting rifle out here, it might do the trick…
Lo and behold, there it was. Resting among a lifetime's worth of clutter, I fished it out along with a half-empty box of ammunition.
Loading it with shaking hands, I turned and ran back into my home. I heard that strange chattering again. Red descending on my vision, I strode up the hallway, and towards the talking. In the doorway to the kitchen, two of the things stood over their fallen comrade.
Their helmets were off - mourning or something?
My luck seemed to know no bounds.
Aiming at point blank range, I nailed the first guy in the head, sending blood and brains out to redecorate my kitchen. The other turned in shock - quickly, I noted - and froze.
The barrel of my gun was pointing directly at its face. It must have been quite a sight - a human drenched in your fellow’s guts, and about to add yours to his collection.
Shame it didn't have much time to take it all in.
Once another set of alien brain tissue was decorating my kitchen floor, I spat on the corpses. Then I vomited in the sink. After that, I packed whatever food I could find into a rucksack and bolted out the back door without looking back.
Where did I decide to run? North. The Scottish highlands, where the Army was regrouping.
But I'd made my decision in my house when I blasted those things apart. I wasn't running to hide, but to fight. Because there was no way I was about to let these bastards win - not without taking as many of them with me as possible, at any rate.
My name is Robert Adams. I am 29 years old. I used to be a farmer in a land that used to be called England, on a planet once dominated by humans. Now, I am a pest, not too dissimilar to the ones that used to plague my fields. Difference is, I can hold a rifle.
And my fellows and I are fresh out of mercy.
—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Admiral Pyraxis gazed at the report on his desk with a slight smirk, and a satisfied expression.
The humans had been easily subjugated, with acceptable losses. All major cities with a population over one million had been taken. Standard intimidation tactics had been used, and seemed to be working to keep the locals complacent. Once enough of the fleet’s stockpiles had been deployed, they could extend their control over all regions.
Some of his lesser officers had raised concern about the mountain ranges their troops were unequipped to fight in, and the exodus of human soldiers taking refuge in them. Of course, these holdouts were difficult to dislodge now, but they were sure to prove nothing more than a nuisance. Just like the resistance in occupied areas - a purely temporary problem.
Every other species subjugated by the Salvad Imperium had resisted for a number of cycles, before eventually giving in and submitting to their new masters, and becoming nothing more than labourers to fuel the war machine’s relentless march across the stars.
Pyraxis couldn’t think of a single reason why the humans would be any different. Perhaps they were above average in some regards, but really, nothing special. Just another set of slaves.
Sipping his drink - a pleasantly red, fermented fruit concoction he had immediately taken a liking to, named red wine - Pyraxis kicked his feet up, and smiled at the green and blue sphere hanging in his vision.
—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tobias Müller grinned madly, G36 aimed at a scaled head. It looked like an important head, at that.
Him and his colleagues were all clad in camouflage paint, laying in the mud. The Centrale Nucléaire de Cattenom stood about a hundred metres ahead of them. A French platoon was located on the other side of the complex- they were the ones with the explosives.
These aliens seemed to be wanting to take over this Nuclear power plant. A pity, really. But if humanity can’t have it, nobody can.
Lashing the ground, the rain seemed ceaseless. It had been going on for over an hour, and Tobias was very wet, and very stiff. The good news was that the sun had nearly begun to set. Unwilling to give themselves away with radio chatter, they had agreed that once the sun was halfway below the horizon, the attack would commence.
The rain, however, was obscuring the sun. Eventually, the officer to his left got fed up and ordered them to open fire.
Finally, that ever-so important cranium would get to become intimately familiar with NATO standard 5.56mm rounds.
—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Later that night, a Salvad commander would receive a rude awakening when a French nuclear power plant exploded in a supposedly pacified region, taking its saboteurs with it. Even worse was the fact that a leading expert in Xeno tech compatibility was killed in the explosion. Even worse than that was the fact that radiation had been dumped all over a significant number of Salvad troops and equipment dumps. Heads were sure to roll for this…
—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
…and roll they did. Just not from the work of the planned executioners. All over Earth, people plotted. Many fought; many died. But Salvad losses were hard to replace. Humans were not. Intelligence networks were established and resistance cells formed. Although defeated in the conventional war - which was, rather unfairly, over before it began - humanity was eager and willing to counterattack. Willing to wage a guerrilla war of such violence and size never before seen by the Salvad.
Even passive resistance, the smallest acts of bravery and malicious-noncompliance were critical to wearing down the invader.
Some people chose to attack the aliens directly, exchanging gunfire in streets and homes. Others decided to infiltrate their operations, sabotages, and then disappear. There simply weren’t enough Salvad personnel to do all the work needed - that was never the goal. They knew they’d need collaborators. But they never could have imagined the sheer number of double agents they would be employing.
Like a phoenix, humanity was poised to rise from the dead in a hail of fire.

Cyrus Amaranth fought at the Shattering of Ilium.
He fell on the Knightfall of the Long Dusk upon Venus, and in Mercury, during the Day of Woes.
He led the Starfall above the skies of Earth during the Liberation and later the Defense of the Homeworld.
He was the first Knight into the breach during the Breaking of Luna.
And he was there when the allied spheres broke the Hierophant´s Court over Pluto, before they killed that planet with enough atomics to crack their sun in half.
And yet, the scale never matched up to this.
The planet was an azure world, like perfectly blown glass from the Venusian markets, a dozen tonalities of blue furnishing the sphere with stripes from the equator to the poles. Catarsis was barely bigger than Earth, with a superior population density. He had been told it was a beautiful and mysterious place, as all forbidden places are to those thirsting for discovery.
Right now, that mattered less than nothing, because in between that planet and his fleet, millions died among the wrecks of murdered starships and living space behemoths.
The bridge crews were desperately trying to establish IFF signals and determine just what was a Xilax vessel, what was a Confederate one and what was part of the Felisian Defense Fleet. Even at several thousand kilometers, the void lit up with weapon discharges and the augur stations had to sort through the debris of numerous space stations, minefields and gutted ships. None of the Knights on board needed the augurs, the sensors, or the bloody cameras to know what was going on in the vast void.
Death.
On a staggering scale.
Cyrus´s armored gauntlet closed on the railing to the middle level of the bridge, eyes forward, and jaw tense like a Europan Storm Dragon ready to pounce, the armored fingers denting the railing. Even at this distance, he could feel the thousands of tiny sparks going out every minute, as the Confederation fleet was gutted and killed. The crew did not show the discomfort they were most certainly feeling at the feedback on the Mantle, but they were used to such things in the void of space, where thousands could be gone in a blink by a lucky round or an overloaded generator.
That, and the soulcore of the Lady Morningstar was shielding them from the worst of the effects. Cyrus felt the soothing sensation of the PAI´s soulcore extending over his senses and Anima and numbing the prickling on his soul from all the death. It was a welcomed reprieve he would not let go to waste. Psionically Augmented Intelligences were a god-send just because of things like this.
“This makes Pluto look like a Venusian solar race.” Whispered Cass to his ear. Cyrus had to agree with his wife. There were thousands of vessels fighting over the void, some maintaining a sort of cohesive firing line, others engaged in brutish point-blank range gunnery duels like drunken pugilists, and a few Xilax vessels were even ramming and attempting boarding actions.
The Felisians were good. They had deployed their fleet at the north pole of their world, a perfect defensive position that allowed them to intercept any planetary assault or enemy fleet with ease, and kept them inside the optimal support range of their orbital defense nets. Any foe that wished to engage the void stations and the fleet at close range would have to pay a brutal price in blood and metal that not many admirals, and even fewer sailors, would be able to bear.
The Xilax had bored it with an uncaring shrug.
They had plowed right through it, catching the Confederate fleet in an awful position right outside of the orbital defense ring, the sheer mass of numbers and tonnage enough to bear the brunt of the punishment they had been subjected to without the need for clever tactics or subterfuge.
Whoever had been in command was an utterly incompetent bastard who had tried to use their perimeter to their advantage and taunt the Xilax into the range of the defenses, only to be too slow to pull back their feint and got caught with his pants down.
Whoever was in command of the Felisian defenses, though, was another bastard, just a merciless one. He had ordered all defense stations to fire at will, using the Confederate fleet as a sort of living net so they could pummel the Xilax in optimal range uncontested. They had, of course, caused great damage to the Confederation fleet, which had been caught on the wrong foot, and then shot in the back by allies it had been sent to protect, but the effectiveness of such an ignoble and savage tactic was obvious as the onboard cameras showed many gutted Xilax bio-vessels of the heaviest categories.
“The fucking kittens got a few of the bigger ones.” Mused Thana, perched over the railing to the upper side of the bridge, peering down into the screen of two augur stations, her feathered cape reeking of blood and the collars of teeth yellow from not cleaning them. She did not care. It made her 1.60 meters of height even more terrifying, and by the face and Anima of the two augur officers, it was effective. “Got in a good licking, but bastards are still ticking.”
“They fired on the Confederate vessels.” Edeke mumbled, chitinous jaws clicking in and out as his claws gripped the railing. The coloration on his carapace had changed to an almost glacial blue that Cyrus couldn´t help but interpret as getting pale. Not that he needed to see him to know, for his shock, anger, disgust, and helplessness echoed in the Mantle like a brewing storm. “Why?”
“Because the Xilax did not expect them to. Cyrus answered back, eyes drinking the tactical information. Beloved Christ, there were more ships here than during the entire Third Solar War put together. The estimated casualties from cross-referencing confirmed dead ships with the Confederate records surpassed most of the first year of the Solar War alone. “They went to board and harvest all biological material on those vessels. They were probably filled with troops and close by to enemy carriers or transports. Easy targets to planetary-size weaponry, more so to a competent and prepared fleet.”
“It’s… barbaric.” The valdori Field-Marshall said, voice trembling slightly. “Treacherous.”
“The treacherous element here is who whoever put such a filthily amateurish commander at the head of your fleet my goodfellow.” Gavilan´s tone was chevalier about the death of so many thousands, only because he would have probably executed the fool that got the fleet in such a position if he had been given the chance. “They tried to taunt those abominable things into range, and failed, miserably. A poor attempt for a riposte, if I may say so.”
“The Xilax are inside the first ring of Felisian guns.” Cassandane said, emerald eyes reading the same data as her husband. “What do you want to bet they are going to attack their satellite? Augur, give me a reading of that world´s moon.”
“Class C satellite, Dictator. Twice the radius of Phobos.” Provided one of the augur officers, whose face was in a grimace, as she used her mind to direct her instruments through the maze of dead superstructures and floating bodies. “I can barely get a reading, so much interference from weapon wash and engine bloom. But I can tell you the surface is covered in plasma shields, and enough generators to power a fleet.”
“That is Xenus, the only moon of Catarsis.” Eudeke explained, more for the crew than the officer, who had already been debriefed in-transit. “They Felisiasn transformed it into a sort of orbital station. Levels upon levels of bunkers, supply tunnels, orbital batteries, and hangars. It has a massive shield generator array to protect it from orbital annihilation, the perfect choke point for a fleet to break against their capital world.”
“I guess it’s also their command center for the defense?” Cass said, her crimson mane pulling back as she began to braid it in the ancient way of the Peloponnesians, as Martians liked to do, with her mind. Her hands were busy checking her husband´s armor. Cyrus let her. Since that nasty decompression incident over Phobos, she had gotten… particular about the integrity of his armor. He still let a small psionic wave of comfort and mirth edge her way, and was battered to the side gently with a light chuckle that resonated in his brain.
“It is the most logical possibility, yes.” Eudeke admitted.
“So the Xilax will want to harvest whoever is inside that fortress moon.” Gavilan mused with a battle-hungry smile that belayed his desire for combat. “These Felisians, how adept are they at close quarters?”
“The best.” Eudeke said neutrally, although no one on the bridge that had spent any amount of time around the Field-Marshall would miss the emanations of anger at the admission. The reasons were the only thing eluding them. “Until we met you, of course.”
“Boss, we could drop over the fuckers.” Thana was now hanging upside-down from the upper bridge deck. Her unkempt dark hair fell downwards, giving her the aspect of some evil bat demon from ancient myth. “Full on spear-tip. We have the Knights for it and the infantry to choke them on that little metal moon they seem so eager to take. And my boys are thirsty for some new trophies.”
“Too slow.” Balan´s powerful voice carried over the bridge. The Ionian did not speak much, but when he did, it was important. “We need to end this quick. If they adapt, we lose our chance.”
“Balan is right, Nokoribi.” Himiko´s calm voice, a slight contrast to her husband´s laconic one, came from the shadow of where she was sitting cross-legged on a meditation couch. “We didn’t come for a prolonged surface war. We are an assault force, made to break through and evacuate survivors. Hit and flee. That is why we brought so many Mercurian vessels. It’s their specialty.”
She wasn’t wrong. Mercurian Medjdays, their version of the Solar Knight prior to the Accords of Sol, was a perfect example of this. Silent specters that only appeared after striking, only to vanish in the shadows again, the Medjay were a reflection of the entire war dogma of Mercury. We hit you without you seeing us, and we keep hitting you until we let you see us, or you can’t do anything anymore. They didn’t call Mercury the Sphere of the All-Devouring Sands for its deserts. Well, not only for its deserts.
You don’t want to find a sandstorm with Medjay on your tail. The Hierophant’s Legions had found that out the hard way.
But… As he stared into the void and crunched the numbers, he had a pit forming on his stomach. The Xilax… they had adapted to every tactic the Confederation had thrown at them. The first reports had been skirmishes on the edge of the Outer Rim, nothing too major, nothing that had won the attention of the Core and military command. A smart move, to poke at the bear to see how it works, while hidden in the shadows. By the time the massive animal that the Confederation was had found a scent, they had a pack of wolves in his den, and planets had begun to fall. Ten years of brutal attrition warfare for the Outer Rim Fleets and Army Groups, only to get pushed back again and again.
Because after every fight, the Xilax adapted. Better weapons, better ships, better armor, and tactics. Weapons fine-tuned to the enemy, psychological warfare made to assault the sense of every race they had encountered, and the efficient harvesting and reutilizing of any biological advantage their foes had. The Xilax were an almost unstoppable force once it began to snowball out of control. It had been painfully obvious to the military Command of the Confederation. And it had been painfully obvious to the Archduke of Europa the moment he brushed over the information weeks ago.
Cyrus could not win an attrition war with these bastards. How long before psi-weapons began to work less and less? How long until they began to create counter-measures to their railguns and pulsars? He couldn´t give them enough fight to catch up. The Xilax were weak because they had fought a massive enemy that hadn’t faced as serious war in more than a millennium, and an enemy that had outlawed many of the weapons Sol had standardized.
In that same amount of time, humanity had known peace for the last five years. And even then, they hadn´t lost any of their bite. But for how long, until his Armadas, his Orders and Legions became the whetstone where the Xilax threat would sharpen their teeth till they were on the throat of all living things? What to do then?
It was an easy answer, truly.
You break the fucking teeth and shatter the jaw. Dragons don’t flee from vermin. They reduce them to ashes. And if Thana had anything to say about it, piss on the ashes. There is nothing to adapt to, if you kill the enemy. All of them.
“I don’t intend to evacuate anyone, nor anything.” Spoke the Dragon of Europa, rolling his neck.
“Cyrus, my goodlord?” Gavilan eyed him with the same care he might eye a wild specimen of his family sigil, the Ganymedan Jungle Lion “Have… Has he gone Primal on us?” Gavilan turned towards his own wife. Thana shrugged, even if the glimmer in her eyes told all those who did not want to check through the Unity that she was thrilled for battle.
Cassandane rounded around her husband, emerald eyes meeting amber with a sharp crack of psionic power pushing against another. She scanned him, crimson armor making her features shine even more.
“You intend to beat the Xilax back here.” It wasn´t really a guess. “We don’t have the ships for it.”
“But as our resident She-Devil has pointed out, we have the knights, my love.” Cyrus stated, his eyes turning back to the tactical displays “And the element of surprise.” He gestured towards the hololitic screens.
“We use the Felisian defenses as the anvil. And we are the hammer. We strike from behind with all our might, sweep them forth, push them into the orbital defense net, and pin them there.”
“We will still be on the receiving end of plenty of friendly fire.” Gavilan mused out loud. “And by judging the Felisian´s disposition to acceptable casualties, it is not an option I’d like to entertain.”
“Then we coordinate with them.” The Archduke of Europa rose to his feet. “They used the Confederate fleet out of a pragmatic need to defend their world. We need them to believe we can save it if they help us.”
“I’ll handle that if you do not mind.” Cyrus turned and nodded with gratitude to Eudeke. “Might be good to remind the Felisiasn they just broke enough intergalactic laws to fill one of your destroyers. I may have some… leverage to make them comply.”
“My thanks, Field Marshall.” Cyrus bowed in appreciation. It was important to show the alliance between the Authority of Sol and the Confederation was one of partners and equals. He turned to his communications officers. “Ensign, fleet-wide communication. All vessels, all tercios, all legions, all tyrannies.”
The young man nodded, hands dancing over the display screen, before giving him a thumbs up.
“This is Archduke Amaranth.” Cyrus took a deep breath as he spoke to the ten million souls on his fleet. He couldn´t help but feel a pit of guilt for dragging them back to another was after they had one the last one. It was not fair, after all the blood and the loss, all the scars that would not heal, they had to go and kill someone else´s monsters. “Fleet into battle stations and prepare for close-range astral warfare. All ships, attack pattern Dragon´s Maw. First Detachment, Sunbreak, Second Detachment, Moonbreak. All squadron leaders, sally forth. Waning Moon, and good hunt.”
Gavilan let an amused sigh escape him before descending the steps to the lower deck and began to coordinate his knights. Thana simply jumped to meet him, grav-harness letting her fly down, looking like a graceful demonic pigeon.
“All Justicars, prepare your tyrannies for boarding operations, close quarters, full panoply. All infantry units, report for counter-boarding. Highlander Guard, report to Bay Six for special ops.”
The orders had been given. But Cyrus could feel it through the Unity, the sickness of pre-battle angst, the moment where men found themselves tested not on the anvil of war, but the grindstone of patience, that eroded a man´s psyche before the first shot was fired. They needed something. They were going against what had been portrayed as an invincible foe, outgunned and outnumbered, once more. And he needed to spark that flame that had made the Sixth Order earn the monikers it had earned.
“Brothers and sisters. We are the fleet that broke the Hierophant’s Armadas over Luna. Over Neptune. Over Uranus. You have followed me into the very gates of a Hell not Dante nor Milton themselves could have ever dreaded over Pluto. And you won.” He let a pulse of righteous fury, of anger sharpened, flow through the unity, entering the soulcore of the Lady Morningstar and then bouncing in psionic resonance. Like colorant on water, it tinged the entire fleet in that same thirst for vengeance. Like a spark on freshly spilled fuel, it lit up around the whole fleet. And now, he needed to give breath to those flames. “These things. These Xilax, believe they are here to harvest all biological life. They won’t stop until they have darkened the skies of our spheres, harvested our children, fed on our parents, and blotted out proud Sol from the galaxy.”
Wrath, anger, hatred, fear, determination. All of it boiled over in the gestalt consciousness of the fleet, bouncing and amplifying itself on every ship´s soulcore, as the PAIs were overwhelmed by the birth of so many extreme emotions among their crews.
There was his breath. He smiled.
“What, is our response to that?”
The speakers were connected to the whole fleet, so they could hear their commander speak. The response was as such coming from every vessel, every fighter, every troop compartment, so deafening, that every powerplate automatically deployed the helmet of every Knight to counter the auditory assault. Cyrus could have warned Edeke and the Confederate delegation. He could have lowered the volume or simply put it in video for them to see. But he wanted them to feel it, to understand it raw.
“HIC SUNT DRACONES!” The bridge of the Lady Morningstar trembled with the first howling from the Navy Elements including his very bridge crew, who slammed their fists over their hearts in acknowledgment of their fellows, the more calm and more level-headed among the Armada.
“HIC SUNT DRACONES!” Bellowed all infantry and armored elements from their barracks, bunks, engineering bays, and vehicles. He could feel the raging thunder as the war-striders thumped their feet against the floor of their loading bays, of heavy armor reeving their engines in unison.
“HIC SUNT DRACONES!” Bellowed them all again, joined by every knight on the fleet. If the sound was impressive, the feedback from the fleet´s unity was cathartic. A wave of cool determination, cold fury, flaming wrath, vivid eagerness, and iron will that sweet away every doubt, fear, and hesitation in the hearts of those who heard it.
“Crimson-Gold Armada, Breakers of Tyrants, Demon-Slayers of Old, named in honor of the fleet under whose might the Sun did not set, who broke storms and tempest to return home to defend it, the Great and Cherish one, stand to your stations and stand to your oaths. Sol Invicta. Deus Misericordies.” Cyrus cut the channel and looked on ahead, rising from his command throne, bringing his own psionic high from the furor of his men under control. Cooler minds prevailed in war. “Prognosticars? Do you have a seer-window?”
The prognosticars, the specialist psionics of the fleet, deep inside the bowels of the ship spoke back, deep in concentration.
“Seer-window confirmed, Archduke. Trust to 68%. Too much traffic for anything above that.”
Sixty-eight percent was sub-optimal, but a remarkable commander didn´t forge his victories in good odds, but in frightfully bad ones.
“Then we will have to make do.” Cyrus crossed his hands behind his back, savoring the command, the moment. Back again to killing that which lurked in the dark. Just like on Mars, Pluto, and Earth. He hoped the abominations of this galaxy got the memo once and for all. “All vessels, fire at will.”
Cyrus dived into the Ebb and Flow of the Mantle, and the Dragon woke up.
[Cyrus´s POV]
The void bleeds azure fire in front of me.
The entire Crimson-Gold Armada, more than ten million soldiers, veteran from the Solar War, undefeated since the Retreat over Rhea, opens fire. Thousands of kilos of tungsten rounds pushed forth to a small percentage of the speed of light, and imbued by the soulcore of the vessels with some psionic resonance of the crews, are sent forth in a wall of death by my command. The veritable Wrath of the Dragon unleashed.
It takes three minutes for the ammunition to register on Xilax sensors, barely after images on the debris field. The same to actually hit. It does not matter. Using the predictions of the prognosticars, the gunnery crews have already sent the next volleys, using the established seer-windows to be feed coordinates to where the enemy vessels will be, and they fire once more. During the fifteen minutes it takes my fleet to reach what we call ‘haymaker range’, no ship stops firing. Almost all of our shots will hit, or at the very least force enemy ships to move where others shots will land. It’s hard to doge a rain of death when every drop knows where you are going to be.
The first volley is mostly composed of Hydra munitions, which detonate dozens of kilometers from the Xilax fleet and among them, sending millions of small darts of tungsten into enemy ships. Most hit shields, some are sent scattering through the void. But the biggest behemoths are not the targets. The psionically charged darts serve a triple-fold objective.
They annihilate smaller craft, like fighters and light corvettes, their shielding lackluster to the volume of impact to which they are subjected, the chem-shields of the Xilax vessels going out in sickly green flashes as the darts male pincushions of the frigates and support ships. They strike enemy stealth ships, marking them to augur nets, whose operators cross-reference with their other instruments to determine where hidden vessels are, if there are any, for command to keep in mind. And thirdly, it leaves clouds of magnetically and psionically charged metal that plays havoc with any close-range sensor. It’s a blow for the eyes and ears of a fleet.
Which I why the Xilax don’t see the next volleys coming, and these ones are not Hydra ammunitions, but Damocles-class kinetic killers, designed to skewer foes of such tonnage and armor as their biggest ships. Not that seeing them come would do any good. Now, comes the lunge for the throat.
The volley of killing shots, having fed on the improved seer-windows of our first volleys, is precise and devastating. Shields collapse under enough firepower to cleave cities asunder, the continuous streams of slugs concentrating to overload shields and penetrate armor. I’ll give those monsters their due, their void-faring mockeries of life are resilient. My naval officers take pics and scanners from the regenerating wounds of enemy vessels, and where mucus expands to protect the holes in their hide and stop venting atmospheres. They are a hideous attempt at life, like the titanic cousins of the fauna in the seas of Europa, deadly, predatory and devoid of any mercy. To all that, one should add the Xilax cunning and group-thought.
They are a race of predators, like sharks in the dark void between stars, devouring everything that moves, uncaring of consequences.
Well, here we bloody well are.
The motherfucking consequences.
On my personal implants, a countdown starts, in deep ruby numbers. I block it there so I can keep control of those numbers.
The Jovian part of the fleet divides itself into two detachments, that begin to separate themselves from the ecliptic plane in opposing directions, forming squadrons that start to envelop the enemy fleet from above and below, maintaining their cadence of fire without relent. To the railgun batteries, follow long-range torpedoes, missiles, and ordinance perfected over five years after the last war. The first real blood is for the Damsel of Midnight, who guts a Xilax heavy cruiser, long-range plasma torpedoes finding its exposed belly and venting its guts into space. A full salvo from its ventral and spinal batteries cuts it in almost half, killing it for good.
Cassandane grips my shoulder with a feral smile. My wife is in her element. She is as much a warrior as I am, but she is an animal of a more political disposition. She enjoys dissecting enemy strategies and armies like a surgeon with a scalpel. I am a sword, a well-wielded and much-experienced sword, but I hack the enemy apart in a much different manner. This is my rodeo, so she leads her Martians, but she is enjoying it nonetheless. She has always enjoyed seeing me work. i will confess that it is a reciprocal thing
The Xilax find it in them to retort to us.
Balan grunts at the response fire and begins to coordinate fields of fire and redirect energy from generators to maintain shield integrity. Himiko shadows her husband, making use the sensors are clean and no surprise finds our exposed backs. They work with the minimal use of words, and my veteran bridge crew needs no more to make the massive vessel underneath our feet work like a clock to unleash its firepower capable of making a god kneel.
The countdown trails lower and lower, another part of the plan.
I see catalytic destroyers and plasma batteries fire back at us. Their fire is slower, but they pack a greater punch. So we do not stay put. Shields flare alive with the pressure of incoming enemy fire, and our escorts race forward to intercept whatever ammunition they can. Defense squadrons and Oni-class drones throw themselves into the path of incoming ordinance, blowing it out of the void.
Flack fills the view screens as the point defense systems of the Lady Morningstar spew death.
Some gets through still, even with the overlapping fields of fire and interceptors running amok with the incoming bio-torpedoes. All that living ordinance is swatted from the void one after another, but they keep coming, and every second we close in, the volume of fire increases. Shields flare alive with blue flashes of plasma, but mostly hold. My flagship has endured much worse punishment.
Others have not.
Escorts die when they don’t manage to pull away in time, a frigate gets clipped by a fragmenting munitions and slams into the shield of a much more powerful dreadnought. A destroyer receives concentrated fire from six torpedoes. The Light in the Dark scores two more beam strikes with its heavy prow lance-batteries before three bio-torpedoes dance around its escort vessels and blow its bowels open to the cold void with sickly green detonations, acid eating away at the armor faster than any other substance I have ever seen. The countdown on my personal display trickles down still as some of my ships splash yellow, red, and even black.
The casualty estimates skyrocket when concentrated fire manages to cut one of my battleships in half. It’s the Apocrypha. That old Martian behemoth refuses to die, still firing while vivisected, as frigates pick up the non-essential crew. It’s empty of Martian Knights today. Its part in the fight is almost done, but took the brunt of so many enemy squadrons it’s a miracle it got so close.
I feel the deaths, as fire, acid, decompression and the icy void claim them in fistfuls of bright lives, extinguished in seconds. I feel their pain and anguish and fear, and do my best to drown their last moments in the Unity of the fleet, to make them understand they are not dying alone. It's poor comfort for dying men, but it’s all I can do. It hurts to have the connection ripped so suddenly, but the blows land on raised mental defenses. The deaths wash over my psyche, and concentration is barely affected. The only palpable effect is the new fuel to my fury. Mourning would come later. Victory is first. The Timely Deliverance avenges them with a barrage of its spinal batteries followed by two ship-killers alpha-bravo atomics. The offending ship dies screeching in the uncaring void, its merciless gods uncaring of its fate.
The countdown reached zero.
The view screen darkens.
Flashes dawn the void with newborn suns that join the twin stars of the system, manmade and wrathful as a scorned goddess.
Twelve omega-level atomic warheads from my entire fleet slip into their defenses, detonating into pupils of light and sun death, using the trail of the railguns and their scrambled sensors from our first volley to hide their signatures. That, and the Xilax have never been hit by atomics in space. I made my entire senior staff check. Thrice. Adapt to that, you assholes.
Entire enemy squadrons die to the same ammunition we used to kill Pluto. They are the only twelve my fleet had, so I made sure to make them count. The newly established Senatorium forbade me from taking more than those twelve planet-glassers out of Sol. The thirty megaton atomic warheads were terrifying enough that I understood and approved of their limitation.
But they never gave me limits on the alpha-bravo atomic ordinance of three megaton yield I could take. And when I took command of the Armada, I made sure to stock up on naval ordinance. The void fills with them now, thrown at three different angels at the enemy fleet, still worried about the kinetic slugs reaping havoc on their lines.
A catalytic beam from an enemy Leviathan scythes the void to hit our frontal starboard shield, forcing me to look away from the brutal flash of colliding energies. The Lady Morningstar´s soulcore bellows furiously at the attempt on our lives, and feeds the gunnery crews new targeting data. I see the frontal rail batteries spin to a new angle and fire a steady staccato of ammunitions that singe the void in between. I subconsciously check what they have fired in retaliation.
A smile dawns on my face.
The three frontal hexa-barreled batteries spew forth eighteen Icarus-Infernum shells, which detonate into brutal thermobaric fusions of emerald light, creating balls of fire in the void that devour the biological Xilax ship. The lack of oxygen matters not, as long as the silverite-tetraphosphorus solution has something to burn, those sickly green flames won’t die.
The Martian segment of the fleet ignites full thrusters to close the range to the preferred tactic of the Red Planet´s inhabitants, while the Mercurians simply vanish from sensors, to fight this war like they like it, unseen and unexpected. Martians, on the other hand, like it close and personal. In the void, in the ground, in politics, and in bed. And I can attest to each one of them.
Just as the rearguard of the Xilax fleet has managed to turn their leviathan-sized ships to us, and form actual ranks to meet us gun to gun, they fail to spot the squadrons I sent forth under the cover of the Hydra munitions and the constant fire of my ships. My hunters in the void, mostly Venusian and some elite Jovian pilots, dive from below and above the enemy fleet, into the gasp they formed to better coordinate defense against our ordinance and the gaping holes my thirty-megaton nukes inflicted, as my ships stop their barrage. The Xilax have three seconds to wonder why we have stopped firing before the first hunter-killer missile impacts an enemy ship. A thousand more follow the first, and a behemoth goes up in detonations, then, my Wolfpacks of corvettes and wings of fighters are among them, killing anything their guns allow them to. The enemy´s dwindled squadrons engage mine in neck-breaking dogfights among the enemy ships, hunting, killing, and saving each other.
Then, my Mercurian ships materialize back to reality with short-range missile salvos and heavy railgun fire. And they are gone again. Here begins their Dance of the Summer Breeze. I almost pity the Xilax. To fight the children of the desert world is to die of a thousand unseen cuts.
Against the whole enemy fleet, we would have been encircled and butchered. But whatever Eudeke told the Felisiasn has worked because the defense fleet sails forth to pin the Xilax vanguard between their ships and the defense guns. I read on transit that Xenus is the name the Felisian give to their spirit of death.
It’s an appropriate name.
The satellite fires thousands upon thousands of weapon batteries, more a space station than a satellite, right at the incoming fleet, disgorging squadrons of fighters and corvettes, and using its docks to take in damaged ships and repair them back on action. Its the only anchor holding this battle together, and I couldn't be more thankful for it.
“Enemy elements closing on Xenus, sir.” Fleetmistress Akodindi, a stern Martian of rough features but striking red eyes, offers me a datapad for me to check. I don’t. The Iron Damsel is the second-best admiral of Sol, and I won’t disrespect her immaculate work but double-checking it. I might fuck it up. “Looks like they are going to attempt a planetary assault.”
“Are those walking corpses mad? Those orbital defenses will mince them to bits.“ Gavilan is once more upon the middle bridge, in full panoply, the roaring lion of house Lancaster shining bright on his chest. The dark figure covered in crimson and white that looks like the feverish machinations of Bram Stoker´s worst nightmare, stalks the bridge behind him. Thana is more than ready, her excitement like a blood-tinged start in the Mantle. I just gave her the war she didn’t even know she wanted. Well, the war both husband and wife wanted. Only Gavilan knew what he wanted, but he has known since he set eyes on Thana, so many years ago.
“Their problem, not ours.” I muse, getting up, my own panoply synching to theirs. I turn back to Akodindi. “How long before we are on haymaker range?”
“Five minutes to our destination, sir.” She gestures toward the biggest monster inside of their fleet, almost ten kilometers of void predator, spewing bio-plasma like a punctured vein. “I took the liberty of marking their biggest ship for you.”
“My thanks, Fleetmistress Akodindi.” I offer her the Fleet´s Scepter, which allows her to command the fleet by mere thought. She accepts it with grace and glee. It’s her astral duel to win now, and the woman does enjoy her job .“The Armada is yours.”
“Safe travels, Lord Amaranth.” She says, almost smiling, before turning to Cass. “My Dictator.”
“Smile, Akodindi.” My wife muses. “If I die, you might get a shot at my chair.”
“Never for a million worlds, my Dictator.” She hates political play as much as my wife does and doesn´t have half the skill she has developed. She dreads having to take the Martian Dictator´s Chair. She glances at me in a way that makes me gulp. “Although I might take that shot with your husband instead.”
“Sorry, Cali, he is off limits.” My wife, in her limitless maturity and wisdom, slaps my armored ass with a metallic thud. I massage the bridge of my nose.
“Pity. Guess I’ll have to make do with the politician one.” For a moment, I elevate a prayer for my brother Adamas´s safety. If Calliope Akodindi wants him, he isn´t going to have much of a say there.
“Ladies, please. We have a fleet to kill?” I say with a tired sigh that makes some of my bridge crew snicker among themselves. Gavilan is laughing and Thana is cackling madly at my expense. Fuckers. Akodindi sends a sneer our way, before executing a crisp salute. The rest of the bridge crew mimics her perfectly, a second of solemn air filling the entire bridge.
We answer in kind with our fists banging over our hearts in the old knightly ways.
“Hic sunt Dracones, my lord.” She says. She knows I will be back. I have a reputation for that.
“Carpe Diem, Fleetmistress.” I respond, knowing that the day is as good as won as long as I pull my part of the job. I walk out of the bridge, my Knights and those of my wife forming Tyrannies around us. I know she is calling her elites to her, so the fabled Hetairoi can be unleashed once more.
I speak four dreadful words, that Gavilan started to coin for us in our earliest days on the Tempering, when we were scared children wanting not to die, on in some cases like mine, to die, and that wouldn´t earn their terror till the Europan Blitz, and that every man, woman, and child in Sol today knows.
Four words, made legend now. Who knows? Maybe when this war ends, they will resonate in every civilized world in whatever is left of our galaxy. Or maybe they will fall into nothingness, under the bleached bones of our dead species under the light of a dead Sol.
But the Xilas? They will know the words. And they will remember. Even if I have to carve them in the beating heart of every single one of them I cross paths with. I will scar them into their bloody psyche. Whatever happens, that will be my victory. When the galaxy dies around those bastards, they will think of us. Because I have just released the harbingers of their end.
Who the fuck am I kidding? We were never chained to begin with.
“Tempestari, unchain the storm.”

I’m thinking season 5 probably hails the crown. it’s the only season that visits all five continents. They secured permission to film at The Sphinx, had multiple chartered flights, airport scramble which means a lot of unused flight tickets ($100K by Colin alone for one leg), not to mention pre-booked flights that are optional to use (side note: This was 2003 and production already had issues with limited ticket availability).
From the production perspective, this was their attempt to save the series, it was do or die. If it didn’t get renewed, at least they would go off TV with a bang. Unlike season 13, which was a dignified way to send them off, but somehow ratings were off the charts (Does anybody know why?).
The first significant budget cut was probably in 2008 when the financial crisis hit. Networks cut budget across the board. It wasn’t just limited to unscripted shows, or TAR specifically. Budget has probably never recovered from there. We can all tell how cheap the show it is today.
So the highest budget must be for seasons produced before 2008. I believe it was around one million dollars per episode for early seasons, but Elise has said in an interview that they can allocate more money for certain episodes and budget less for other legs which is why we see some really dull ones.
Now consider the evolution in technology. TAR used to communicate using satellite phones (very early seasons), now they use Slack, WhatsApp or even WeChat with local facilitators. This is one area I’m certain that has become more affordable for production. Everything else in a best case scenario has stayed the same. But air travel cost has risen over the past two decades as the show de-focus on travel and get more on tasks. It’s like a puzzle game show taking space individually in different countries these days.
Correction: it’s not $100K, it’s $300K spent on airline tickets by one team just for one leg.
"We had one team order over $300,000 worth of tickets for one flight, it was just ridiculous," says van Munster. "They would book every flight out of town! So now they can only book one flight – ensuring that's the flight they want to be on."
I think this could be the first season but correct me if I’m wrong.
See the interview of co-creator Bertram here:
https://people.com/tv/the-amazing-race-rules-contestants-must-follow/

Disclaimer: I do not speak Korean. This is purely translated by machine with a lot of cleanup afterward. With that in mind, I am open to criticism to improve these translations. Enjoy!
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Chapter 389
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The brief respite from the cold front lent an illusion of normalcy.
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Students, newly liberated from the rigors of college entrance exams, found themselves either buried in preparation for another attempt or basking in their hard-earned freedom. Meanwhile, office workers, with fatigue etched under their eyes, crowded into public transport.
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Against this backdrop of everyday tranquility, an unforeseen revelation emerged.
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[Breaking News - Important Announcement from the United Nations Security Council]
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The broadcast opened with President Shao Yang, his gaze laden with gravity, addressing the audience,
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「As the ninth President of the People's Republic of China and a member of the United Nations Security Council, I stand before you to discuss the massive monster wave that has occurred in Sichuan Province.」
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It was a bombshell that captured the attention of the entire world and shook all of Asia.
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* * *
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Four days passed and yet, the turmoil showed no signs of abating.
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There had been numerous incidents and accidents since the Great Cataclysm, but the monster wave that occurred in Sichuan Province was of an unprecedented scale.
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President Shao Yang of China declared martial law, and with the approval of the United Nations Security Council, deployed peacekeeping forces to the front lines.
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The world watched and held its breath held as events unfolded.
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Neighboring Asian nations, particularly those closest to China, watched with heightened alarm.
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The hunter discussion board on South Korea's most popular online forum was ablaze with activity.
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Here's a rundown of the current crisis.
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Presumably, no one here has missed the UN Security Council's urgent broadcast. To be unaware at this juncture would be astounding. The gravity of this crisis cannot be overstated — even the North Korean leader is likely following this forum to see what's going on.
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Anyway, since so many of you bugs are making persistent inquiries for a summary of the perilous developments, I'll oblige.
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1. Sichuan Province was engulfed by an unforeseen monster wave, with initial casualty estimates surpassing 300,000.

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That figure, from a week ago, now seems a gross underestimate. The true toll is beyond calculation.
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1. The Chinese response was swift, yet the enormity of the threat defied expectations.

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A legion, led by an entity dubbed the Arch Lich, amassed in the tens of thousands.
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The People's Liberation Army and Air Force faced a humiliating defeat, with over 2,000 hunters from the Public Security Force missing, their fates obscured by magical interference and the failure of satellite surveillance.
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1. In a clandestine move, the Chinese government enlisted several S-rank hunters from abroad to quell the upheaval. Recently, UN peacekeepers joined the fray at the front lines.

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For those keen on updates, the United Nations Security Council periodically shares combat reports.
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(Link attached.)
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The following is just my personal opinion, so feel free to ignore it if you want.
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1. Those with their heads screwed on right will understand, but this situation is far from ordinary. Mainland China is currently a living hell.

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The diversion of all available hunters to the battleground has left other Gates unattended, leading to a surge in their magic power levels and resulting in a hyperinflation of magic energy.
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The dire implication is clear: should the front lines falter and the monster legion breach Sichuan, the consequences are too grim to contemplate.
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1. So, before we all get screwed, head to the supermarket and stock up on emergency food supplies without descending into panic buying or hoarding for profit.

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1. It's impossible to conclude without a nod to our national heroes.

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Our very own Emperor Fuck and Jeong Dragon from the Ares Guild are at the forefront, showcasing their valor. Let’s continue to rally behind them with unwavering support. [Note: the "Ryong" part of Lee Jeong-Ryong's name means "dragon" in Korean and "Jeong-Ryong" could be translated as "righteous dragon"...oh, the irony...]
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That's all I've got.
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Within mere hours, the post eclipsed the 100,000 views mark, sparking a deluge of comments from concerned netizens.
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(Best Comment) The situation is as serious as the post describes, but the author has definitely amped up the tension, lol. What's there to worry about when there are 100,000 ordinary hunters and S-rank hunters participating? And do you think the military is just sitting around?
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└ Yeah, the military's just taking a breather.
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└ ...?
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└ Haven't you seen the news? All of China's military equipment broke down, exposing the largest military supply corruption case. They're talking about tens of trillions of won in scale. Many divisions have been immobilized.
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└ Sounds vaguely familiar.
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└ Please change the water supply. You bastards. I was discharged last year, but why did the water still taste like Normandy? Take one sip, and I can't tell if my name is Kim Cheol-Soo or James. [Note: "why did the water taste like Normandy" implies that the water supply hasn't been changed since World War II.]
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└ Corporal Kim. Dinner tonight is pollock fillet stew.
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└ Not eating that shit.
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└ True, the equipment fiasco has hamstrung the military, but there's no shortage of manpower. Ultimately, it's the hunters who are key to turning the tide against the monsters. Yet, a more pressing concern looms.
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└ What is it?
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└ The monster count has broken 100,000.
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└ ??
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└ ?????
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└ What do you mean 100,000, damn it; stop talking nonsense.
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└ It's not nonsense, it's confirmed by the UN Security Council. Check the link in the post; it was updated 5 minutes ago.
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└ Wow... fuck.
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└ Judging by the comments, the update's legit.
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└ The article is all in English... I'm waiting for Google Translate.
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└ You serious?
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└ Yet, if the monster count truly exceeds 100,000, we’re facing an unprecedented threat. No prior wave came close to this magnitude;
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└ Initially, this wave wasn't nearly as massive. But the presence of the Arch Lich, a high-caliber Named Monster unfamiliar to scholars, complicates matters. The undead, resurrected by the Arch Lich, constitute the bulk of our adversaries.
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└ Arch Lich: "Kaio-ken times 100." [Note: I know many of you great scholars know what this is a reference to, but just in case: Kaio-ken is an attack from Dragon Ball that multiplies the user's "ki".]
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└ So, we just need to kill the Arch Lich, right? If most of the monsters are undead, then killing the controller should end it.
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└ ???????
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└ How is anyone supposed to kill the Arch Lich, you asshole. You're a bastard who can only use an Aura Keyboard, not an Aura Blade. [Note: a quick reminder - Aura Blade is the real-world equivalent of Sword Aura.]
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The conversation quickly grew heated.
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Participants ranged from detached observers to those deeply invested in the unfolding crisis.
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Amidst prevailing sentiments of despair and hope, fresh updates rolled in.
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(Best Comment) A UN Security Council update: the eastern front has been compromised. Thankfully, Fei Chen and her reinforcements stemmed further havoc just an hour ago.
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└ Wow, for real.
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└ Eastern front lines, isn't that where Wu Hei-Xing is?
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└ Right. That Chinese drug addict.
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└ But why were they breached? He's an S-rank hunter.
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└ Because he's a Chinese S-rank hunter.
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└ Ah...
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└ If Fei Chen hadn't been there, it would've been a disaster. Maybe it's because Fei Chen is a well-made hunter from the Great Cataclysm.
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└ Fei Chen's parents are Hong Kong nationals, so she's from Hong Kong.
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└ Are you working for the Fact Checking Committee in the comment section? That was so unnecessary.
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└ By the way, any news about Korean hunters?
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└ Jeong Dragon is dominating the northern front, and Emperor Fuck has been reported to have won a few times on the western front, but no news after that. It seems like the situation is maintained.
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└ Hmm... I'm not worried about Lee Jeong-Ryong's abilities, but I wonder if Emperor Fuck is safe. He's still an A-rank hunter.
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└ ??lol
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└ lololololol
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└ There's still someone who treats Emperor Fuck as an A-rank? As an active A-rank hunter, I can't help but laugh. Jin Tae-Kyung is just a monster lol...
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Hey hey!! The UN Security Council just announced the situation on the western front!
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└ Oh, it's been a while since we heard from Emperor Fuck.
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└ That sounds urgent. What did they say?
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└ They said it was breached?
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└ What?
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└ Huh?
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└ No way, is Emperor Fuck dead...?
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└ Wait, let me check again. It should be on the homepage — take a look yourselves.
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└ Suddenly feeling very anxious; heading there now.
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└ Go go go go!
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With a mix of anxiety and eagerness, the netizens scrambled to access the latest from the UN Security Council.
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Faced with an unexpected surge in website traffic, users experienced delays as the bandwidth was overwhelmed. When the announcement finally loaded, disbelief was the common sentiment.
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"…What is that?"
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A tactical map highlighted the conflict zones. There, the western front was depicted as if gouged out by a chisel.
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…I’ve just verified it myself. The breach is real.
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└ Is Jin Tae-Kyung dead? How bad is the damage?
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└ No, it was the monsters that were breached.
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└ ??
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└ ???
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└ The event unfolded so swiftly that real-time updates lagged behind.
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└ …Is that even plausible?
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└ Enough chatter, it's time to pay respects…
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* * *
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The imminent battlefield was a vision of chaos, a vast expanse teeming with monstrous entities.
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The air was thick with murderous intent and the stench of death, drifting on the breeze.
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"Damn it. They've gathered in large numbers."
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Mr. Choi, standing beside me, echoed my thoughts.
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"No matter how many we kill, it never ends."
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Four days into our mission on the western front, Mr. Choi's usually pristine condition had vanished.
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Splattered with blood and grime, his gaze was serene yet deeply fatigued.
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"When do we start?"
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"Well, that depends on the opinion of our little commander here, doesn’t it?"
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The last question wasn't directed at Mr. Choi.
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Shao Shen, the twenty-one-year-old 'little commander' always by my side, replied.
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「I will follow Mr. Jin's orders!」
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His earnest gaze prompted a chuckle from me.
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"You're still going on with that Mr. Jin thing. You were the one who told me to speak informally first. Why don’t you just call me 'Hyung' then?"
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「Can I, really?」
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"As long as you're okay with it. But is this okay in front of your subordinates? Aren't you getting promoted soon?"
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Shao Shen’s head shook vehemently.
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「No problem at all! H-h-hyung!」
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He remains eerily calm during battle, but I can't figure out why he stutters so much in normal conversation.
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Glancing back, I surveyed the ranks of nearly a thousand hunters from the Public Security Force.
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Their gaze, alight with zeal, brimmed with respect and awe for the strong.
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Among them, Shao Shen stood out as the most distinguished.
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「Please give the order, H-hyung.」
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"An order, huh."
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My gaze drifted skyward.
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Above us, an eagle soared, its wings wide against the sky — a promising omen.
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"Follow me. Just as we have been doing."
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「…!」
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"Let's go."
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At my word, I stepped forward.
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Crunch.
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The earth beneath my foot yielded, fracturing under the force.
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And then, in an instant.
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Boom!
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I surged ahead with a roar, transforming into a blaze of speed.
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'Brilliant Path of Fire.'
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The brisk air morphed into a fierce wind.
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As the terrain and sky blurred past, a mighty chorus rose behind me.
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「Charge! Charge!」
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「Descendants of China! Everyone! Sweep them all away!」
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「Waaaaah!」
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Thud thud thud thud!
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Roaaar!
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The clamor of humans and monsters alike resounded, the very ground trembling with their force.
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In the midst of this tumult, I brandished White Flames.
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Whoosh!
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From its tip, the Scorching Yang Qi unleashed, cleaving through all in its wake.