Gisela hurdled through the empty void of space, suspended on a beam of incandescent sunlight. Her golden-white wings spread as far as she could stretch them, to pick up every stray photon, and make her journey just a moment shorter. Her eyes scanned the vast expanse of stars ahead of her, and fixed again upon the bright dot of Thalia Major.
How long had she been at this duty? Nearly seventy years now. She shivered in remembrance. Though her frame was as young as the day she ascended, she swore she felt the weight of every year.
Her eyes focused more carefully on her distant destination, crunching the numbers as she had been taught. Three more days. She was making good time, then. A smile lit up her face. Soon, shed reach the edge of the system, and begin decelerating from her unfathomable worldcrossing pace. Almost there, she thought blissfully.
At the edge of the system she sought, another force entirely was arriving. From a hole in space blacker by far than mere emptiness, Demons poured out. They were a terrible sight, with their skin mottled black and red, studded by the occasional flash of white bone. Their flesh was warped and twisted, with cruel hooks and sharp ridges reaching out to snag and tear anything that got close. Their gibbering howls were horrifying, even through the cold void of space.
Before the first demon had so much as exited their dark rift, alarms were ringing across the system. Alerts were sent out to nearby systems, battalions were rallied, defensive beams were aligned, civilians were escorted to safety. Thalia Major prepared for battle.
This commotion wa not lost upon Gisela. She beheld the demons with surprise, and then alarm. Thalia Major was neither a frontier world, used to the frequent assaults, nor an inner bastion, hardened over the centuries in expectation of an inevitable siege. Their defenders, though vigilant, would not be prepared for an attack of this magnitude. They would not be able to muster their forces in time to defend against this threat. The demons would overrun them, and would deal a critical blow to the worlds defenses. Millions would die before they could be repelled.
But there might be a way.
She was close enough to intercept the demons. She could fight them. She could stall them long enough for the defenders to prepare a counter attack.
This way, only she would die.
It took her only a moment to make her decision. Face set, she adjusted the trim of her wings to bring her path about, out of the sunlight - into the darkness. The demons, for their part, quickly began to sort themselves out, and it wasnt long before one of them sighted her with a shout of glee.
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Topic: Random Things you drew/shopped/made/etc. (Read 1282655 times)