The sole CIGEN 6 city open to the public: the shining jewel of human, aarde, and hemel cooperation. Population: 600,000. Home of five members of the 44. One of the two main blades of the Twilight Wars. Respected, feared, and in more than a few places, cursed behind closed doors and called the 'City of Dread Dreamers'. Current Chieftan: Kyrillos Maser.
March came in like a rattlesnake...
Perhaps it was fate that Ash and the man known as Philander would come to blows, as Ash had had interactions with a man that could very well have been his brother, at least in terms of appearance. General Ephraim Joffre had the same build, same type of mustache, and the same general posture; Unlike Philander, he had considerably less snooty arrogance, though it was there. That, and Joffre had earned everything that had been rewarded him. A skilled soldier and leader of men, he was one of the seven men and women in charge of Oriam's greater military and police forces for a reason...
Not that this helped him at the moment.
Technically, he outranked her; the woman had an honorary rank of 'Errant-Major', which was basically a made-up rank that allowed her to work with the military of Oriam without any red tape getting in the way. On the other hand, she was the daughter of Chieftan Maser, whose actions then and now were why there was an Oriam military then AND now, especially after the Twilight Wars. If he got into a pissing contest with her, at best it would probably end up a waste of time. On the other OTHER hand, this WAS technically his mission.
On the other other OTHER hand, she'd presented her case so that her desires had butted in. Joffre had wanted to sent his Runners, the special squadron he'd personally trained and equipped. There was no real nepotism: Joffre honestly felt they were the best choice for this mission. They were, per their name (their codename, their official name was Special Offensive Operations Squad 11) quick and more importantly, quiet. She, on the other hand, had felt that a squad would be too easily detected, especially with how isolated the mission grounds were, and that it was better to send in a single person. His peers had sided with her; Joffre honestly couldn't tell if they agreed, if it was politics, or both. At least he knew she wasn't trying anything; in her mind, her way would work best.
Laura Maser. If anything was going to force him to finally start on any sort of medication, it would be her. Her and her damned boyfriend the 44 member.
Joffre, for the most part, respected the 44, but in the same way he respected a good firearm. Intent meant everything, and too many of the 44 had intentions that rubbed him the wrong way. Lone wolf, step in and damn the consequences heroic nonsense, that was what drove too damn many of them, going around trying to direct wars and social issues and all sorts of things a lot of them didn't have the experience, understanding, or patience to really handle. Great when dealing with obvious dangers like that Incael fellow, not so great when dealing with more complicated matters.
Like this. What the viewing crystals of Oriam were viewing were events not happening in Oriam, but technically over the border to Oriam's immediate eastern neighbor, Pansoe. Whose relationship with Oriam could be said to be chilly at best; some (more like nearly all of the people in charge) felt that Oriam had grabbed all the glory during the Twilight Wars and left out other countries like Pansoe's efforts. Which was nonsense; the reason Oriam had glory was the sheer amount of work they'd put into saving the world, not to mention the ridiculous danger their city had managed to pull through. Other cities that had directly opposed Xaxargas were not as fortunate as they had been, and not for lack of trying, and they'd taken that immense risk willingly, Chieftan Maser willing to sacrifice every life under his command if it ensured the world's survival, a will that had thankfully not become necessary. They had not seized any credit that wasn't due to them, let alone from a jealous semi-backwater like Pansoe. Chieftan Maser had no time or patience for bullshit, and he'd told them to their faces.
Joffre really hoped that what they said was true and Pansoe really had no idea what was happening on their territory. It was hard to keep an eye on everything after all, and surely there was a line between bitter realpolitik and outright attempted proxy-harm out of envy and resentment. But as far as he was concerned, Pansoe's nonsense was enough that he didn't trust them at face value, and if that meant he had to do some technical violation of their sovereignty to keep his city and people safe, he would.
Which is why he'd wanted to send the Runners. Instead, we had...him. The thoughts on the murk surrounding the issue made Joffre wonder if that was part of the reason Laura had sent in her boyfriend. To many, save a couple of exceptionally bad apples and nutcases, the 44 were not just a force for good, but of optimism and simplicity. The idea that a complicated problem could be solved by the most rudimentary solution: apply force to it until the problem went away, was very much a 44 statement and general intent. The Godslayer was certainly fond of it, though at least he had the brains to have enough connections and allies to compensate where he was lacking. To Joffre, such a mindset was not philosophy, but poetry. Nice when it worked, but not worth the risk.
Oriam wasn't called the City of Dread Dreamers for nothing. For all the good it had done, and all the amazing things the legions of brilliant minds had invented, there was always the bad seeds, the malignant intellects who were bent towards profit or worse, proving something that only made sense in their malfunctioning synapses. And of course, the worst, those who just wanted to see things burn. The ugly nature of war blurred a lot of lines, and one of Joffre's biggest regrets was how the Twilight Wars had forced them to legitimize far too many of those bad seeds. It was a war of annihilation; no weapon, no tactic was off the table. Except when the war ended in victory, there were a lot of genies that were not going back into their bottles.
Hence, their current issue. It was the equivalent of an illegal weapons bazaar, whose primary products would be Oriam's dark shames. Tatterdemalions. Rocksalt. Vehemence. Tinkertoys. Who knew what else, along with the smaller things like Pop Rocks and Sunsets, and whatever some nutcase Blackbirds had dreamed up, along with the more benevolent-save-for-intent items like Intricacies, Vassals, Millstones...
Millstones. That was going to be the problem. That rocky mountain corner was covered in them; no Stream-user was going to be able to summon any kind of strength or power without a Yoke counter, and Yokes were not something you could just swipe off some random stooge. They were activated by blood, and switching their user once activated (via further blood) could take hours. Anyone who went in was going to be doing so with one, if not both hands tied behind their backs. Something his Runners were trained in...
But his Runners were not there. He was. Joffre tried to be professional. No plan survived contact with the enemy; Oriam had endured and thrived because men like him had adapted to that fact better.
Not that covered other irritations. Like when the picture of said bazaar, viewed at a distance from a hidden position, distorted. Joffre cursed low under his breath. This wasn't the fault of his picture provider; Joffre couldn't get any sort of autonomous viewing equipment or process out there in the mountains (The Ienken Heights, they were called, though the locals just called them Grumble Peaks due to the constant mild volcanic activity that had only recently been sealed up), so he was stuck with one lone view, which came out of the patch that covered his (more like her) operative's eye. THAT was working fine and he was using it fine...but the weather was clear where the bazaar was happening. Oriam on the other hand was in the grip of a full-on thunderstorm, and they couldn't wait for it to clear up lest one of the criminals at the bazaar made a purchase and went off to kill people with Oriam's weapons. Or worse, kill Oriam's people with Oriam's weapons. So he'd put up with the image and communication snarls the storm was causing, if it meant a prompt resolution.
"All right agent...how long since the last new arrivals?" Laura said.
A gloved hand slipped into view. Four fingers, then a zero. Forty or so minutes.
"I'd say that probably means any more stragglers we get aren't worth waiting for." Laura said, addressing Joffre.
"Agreed. Close in, agent, but do NOT engage. Let's confirm the products." Joffre said. The picture distorted a few more times as their agent snuck in, and when Joffre tried to get one of the other divisions on the line to inquire about when the weather was going to clear up, he found that communique cutting in and out as well. When it rained, it poured. Literally.
"Bootlaces." Laura said.
"And I'm pretty sure I see Bottle Rockets too, sir." One of the soldiers manning the controls said. "Breadbaskets too. It's a literal B-show."
"Small time material." Joffre said.
"That one's selling blocks of Fire Clay." Another controller said.
"And that one's selling Wyrmblood, I suspect." Laura said. "A few vehicles too...there's a Bludgeon."
"The BLG-E10 is highly specialized, would be nearly useless to the average terrorist." Joffre said.
"And if there's a non-average terrorist?"
"A fair point. Especially considering that." Joffre said, pointing. "Reignmakers." Ultra-precise lengths of metal, glorified bullets, save you could fire them from twenty miles away and provided the target didn't have a few feet of hardened metal between them and the projectile, it would find them, ignoring all laws of acceleration and energy to do it save the fact that even it could come to a complete stop with enough mass. What happened when a Blackbird and a Dread Dreamer came up with a shared idea. Magitek, as Laura called it. Joffre hated it.
"Sir? Those too." The first controller said, having to fiddle with the picture as it again distorted. "Agent, look more to the left and up...there. Weeping Willows. And Locusts."
Joffre inhaled through his nose. Worse than he thought. Weeping Willows were tiny little balls that, if they hit anything organic, induced rapid, fatal dehydration (to the point where another name for them was 'Wringers', like a wet cloth being wrung out). Dangerous enough, but with the microbots known as Locusts, a suitably angry or insane person could literally wipe out all life in a five-ten square mile area, and reduce the ground to dry, lifeless dust.
"That's enough, then." Joffre said.
"Sir?"
"Agent, withdraw. Lieutenant Harper, get me Sergeant Brooks." Joffre said, causing Laura's head to swivel towards him.
"Yes sir."
"Forgive me if I..." Laura said.
"Yes, ma'am. I do not care about plausible deniability or tensions any more. They're selling high end death and the ability to deliver it at long range. I'm utilizing the Accurser. Get your agent out of there."
"Sir, while I understand your concerns..."
"I don't have time for games, Miss Maser. As good a shot as your lover is, he's not THAT good. Scorched earth will solve the issue."
"I have Brooks on the line, sir."
"Sergeant? Prepare the Accuser. Harper, give him the coordinates."
Within the depths of Oriam, a building began to open, revealing a dull grey dagger-like structure of metal and wires. So named because it had been said to look like an accusing finger, the Long-Range Pinpoint Leveling-Based Blaster gathered kinetic and pyroclastic energies before firing them in an arc that reduced anything within five hundred feet of its impact zone to atoms.
"...Miss Maser, I told your boyfriend, your agent, to get clear."
"Yes General. I have conveyed the order. He received it." Laura said. Yet the pictures still showed the bazaar.
"...Mr. Rapanga, I am not joking around. If you do not vacate the area swiftly, I cannot guarantee your safety."
Still the bazaar.
"Paul?" Laura said. "What are you doing?"
A waving hand. Just wait.
"Mr. Rapanga I assure you..."
Then the Bludgeon, its wheels being tested, was driven away. Revealing what the man on the ground had seen that he wanted to show. A small table. A stasis field. And inside it, two scaled green orbs, the size of basketballs.
"...Is that...?" Harper said, and as Paul used his eyepiece to scan in, Joffre suddenly felt an even deeper chill.
"...Scans confirm. That's Peabody's Expanding Effluvium."
"Pea Soup." Laura said.
"....Will the Accuser blast destroy it?" One of the other controller said.
"I...I don't..." Joffre said. In the nearly forgotten past world, one of its greatest wars' greatest weapon sin was the use of gas-based attacks, clouds of death that so horrified the countries that had used it they had signed laws to outlaw them, said weapons not even making a return in the next great war, despite it being ten times as bitter. That was how deep the scars went...but in a war of annihilation, nothing was off the table. But in a world where people could summon winds and fire, gas was of limited use...unless the gas was magically designed to expand and convert whatever gases it touched into more of it. You didn't use Pea Soup unless you had thaumaturges with enough skill to neutralize it, or it would just keep expanding until it covered countries, continents, in theory the whole world. It would kill both you and your enemy, and who knew what else. Worse, its expansive rate was exponential. Without any magicians there...
"Sergeant Brooks, belay that order!" Joffre said. He'd almost made a terrible mi...
Static.
"Sergeant, respond! Can you hear me?"
Thunder boomed, incredibly loud. The picture, Joffre realized, was distorting so much that it resembled abstract art. Their communication network was completely scrambled.
"GET BROOKS ON THE LINE! ABORT THE FIRING PROCEDURE!" Joffre yelled, finding a lot of his soldiers were ahead of him. Good men, skilled men...
But no plan survives contact with the enemy.
"Sir?" Brooks' voice came through.
"SERGEANT, THE ORDER IS RETRACTED! DO NOT FIRE!"
"...fire...sir?"
"NO! STOP!"
"You are...confirming the order....fire?"
"YES! NO! Sergeant cease all acti-"
The echoing hum rippled through the air, and everyone in the room tensed up. They knew what that meant.
"...Sir?" Brooks' crackling voice said.
"...Sergeant, please tell me you received my orders to not fire."
"Sir, I believed you were confirming the order to..."
"STOP THE BLAST!"
"What? Sir, that is impossible..."
"DAMNATION!" Joffre cursed. "Rapanga, get out of there! You have six minutes before you either burn or choke to death on your own blood!"
There was a brief pause, and then the hand crept into the frame.
Thumbs down.
Then the bazaar started getting closer.
"...Miss Maser, what is he doing?"
"His job." Laura said.
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