The screen enlarges as everything fades. Something deep within you burns, roiling with anger and fear, uncertain in the face of what's to come. Unsure of how to react.
"You're on." The video begins, focusing on an image of a man you know all too well. Your heart soars despite yourself.
He's handsome, tall, with a regal face tending towards femininity, but still masculine. A smile curls his lips -- he was always smiling, wasn't he? Not the rictus of insanity, but a genuine, cheerful one, that showed how much he enjoyed his life. Blond white hair tumbles down in an unruly mop. His upper lip covered with a mustache oiled with the most delicate perfumes in the galaxy. Bright, burning blue eyes fix on the screen ahead.
"I am Alphias Sol, King of the Empyreal Pirate Fleet, and I come to seek petition with the Emperor." His face, through the magic of editing, comes to share the screen with a blank-faced guard- literally blank-faced, lacking all features, besides a mouth, with too-perfect teeth.
"The Endless Emperor does not recognize your position or rank. Withdraw your ships from the Walls of Eternity at once, disarm, and wait for arrest, or we'll take action."
"Then have him come out and tell me himself, and I will gladly stand down my armada."
No response and the faceless guard fades from the screen—the shot cuts, drawing out to show that image at the beginning: massive void-ships arranged in loose formation before an impenetrable wall of solid light. At the center is the largest of them all, gold and black wings are drawn all down the sides, surrounded by stars. Guns bristle, but that isn't what you focus your attention on.
At the front of the ship, a light flares forth, just as gunships begin to pass through the wall from the other side, coming to face Alphias' Armada. You can almost feel the presence, the sudden force of will that washed through the armada--
The light at the front of the ship, bright like a burning white-hot neutron star, producing enough radiation that even the shielded camera begins to have speckles of interference. Suddenly, the opposing gunships explode as they come through to face the pirate armada, black fire lancing out from that ball of light at its front. The ships shift as gravity begins to draw them closer to Alphias.
The burning heat of his energy, of his willpower, blackens until it seems to absorb the light from the wall itself, which dims in his presence. The explosion that follows leaves nothing for the camera to record...
When the image returns, a massive crack has formed in the Walls of Infinity, a void in the infinite light. A voice booms through the darkness of space, forcing soundwaves into existence. "Where. Is. The. Emperor."
Silence-- then, a flank of Alphias' Armada explodes in balls of bright superheat. A figure clothed in white robes stands on a platform within the wall, staring down at the burning ball of dark energy that is the Pirate King with his hands tucked into his sleeves. His face is masculine, old, and withered.
Fires the sizes of suns begin to lash at one another in the void of space, darkness, and light clashing, with waves of gravity causing the void-ships to shift back and forth, adjusting to deal with the ebbing and flowing of the monstrous storm that rages between them and the wall. Alphias begins to dim, growing dimmer and dimmer as the two continue to exchange blows that could rend worlds. Void-ships from Alphias' fleet begin to pull away from the combat as their brethren are caught up in the fierce melee.
The figure on the wall removes his hands from his coat, lifting them over his head-- and Alphias goes dim all at once, but his voice echoes through the VOID, recorded, recovered. "The Endless Empr[eror/ess] is dead. The Nobility her usurpers."
The explosion centered on Alphias rips apart time and space, a gaping void that devours everything nearby. Ships try to converge on his location, only to end consumed by the maelstrom of lashing energy.
The feed ends, and the titles drifts up upon the screen, 'BEGINNING OF THE EMPYREAL AGE OF PIRACY'.
"This was broadcast to the entire galaxy, from a relay station that was later destroyed by radio signatures matching that of the Empyreal Navy. That was ten years ago. I received it when I received news of you."
The next image that fills the screen is a picture of you, older, more grim-faced, fires raging around you. Beneath your laughing visage is 'ALPHIRA SOL, PRINCESS OF THE PIRATE KING ALPHIAS SOL.' 'WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE', 'ONE HUNDRED MILLION CREDIT REWARD', 'PIRACY, GENOCIDE, DESTRUCTION OF FIFTY EMPYREAL NAVY VESSELS, HIGH TREASON AGAINST THE ENDLESS.', 'LAST KNOWN LOCATION:FLEEING THE BATTLE OF THE WALL'.
"This was broadcast to the entire galaxy. Forty years ago."
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Topic: McCreary's Planet -- (FINISHED) (Read 240376 times)