Sworded Affair

Chapter 176: The Eulogist

As far as useless platitudes went, ‘good luck’ ranked fairly high among them. It did nothing to bequeath Emma with the skills needed to pilot her vehicle, though to be fair, perhaps only the System would have been able to download such knowledge into her brain in the required timeframe. Most who pursued piloting would spend over a thousand hours practising, not even including time spent in a simulator, before being licensed to fly such a war machine. Only after half a minute of panic, looking at rows of buttons available, she did manage to stumble upon her salvation: the auto-pilot.

Hitting that key with indecent haste, Emma felt her mech shudder as propulsion systems came to life, following coordinates sent down from aerial command to link up with her fellows. She was little more than a passenger now, watching as row upon row of spherical cockpits with arms and legs bolted on took to the sky. The greater question, Emma mused, as the concrete jungle below vanished beneath the clouds, was what this vast formation was being mobilised to fight. Up and away they flew, until the sky darkened from a familiar blue to the black of the void. Only then, where sky and space met, did her mech turn back around, to look down at the unfamiliar planet below.

It wasn’t Earth, even Emma could tell at a glance: there wasn’t enough water, nor did Earth boast entire continents covered in metal, as far as the eye could see at such an altitude. Moreover, the violent, continent-sized storms that swallowed up both the North and South poles looked incredibly out of place; if anything, they resembled what would be found on Jupiter, or other gas giants of similar nature.

[Most summoned creatures could not survive at such altitude. Too far away from their physical tether, too far from the emotions that give them life.]

Indeed, Emma couldn’t see any enemies on either her mech’s instruments nor her own System. Her curiosity grew, enough to risk pressing the button labelled ‘Radio’ and potentially reveal the degree of her ignorance. A fear that proved unfounded, in the end, as she didn’t actually have broadcast permissions. Someone did, though, and chose that moment to make themselves known.

[HELLO WORLD.]

Loud, painful static erupted from every speaker, spewing a torrent of white noise on steroids. Emma reacted the way of startled men and women the world over, burying her armoured fist into the nearest of them. That helped, slightly, but had to be repeated fivefold before the noise finally shrank to a tolerable degree, leaving Emma with a loud ringing in her ears, and heartfelt gratitude for the System’s promise to mitigate any tinnitus she might otherwise have acquired.

[AND HELLO, PITIFUL PILOTS HAILING FROM OPHELIA V.]

The voice was unmistakably the same as from the idol Emma had defended in the previous scenario, its pitch and intonation identical. Yet there was a weight to it now, that had nothing to do with its preference for deep bass, one that pulled at her consciousness at the edge of sleep.

[Status condition: Confusion resisted.]

Emma smashed the final two speakers, when that notification popped up, yet the voice continued all the same.

[YOUR COMMANDER TOLD YOU TO MUSTER FOR BATTLE, THAT AN INVASION WAS IMMINENT IN THE VOID ABOVE YOUR HOME. THIS WAS A LIE. THE FINAL BATTLE ALREADY OCCURRED, FIFTY THOUSAND LIGHT YEARS AWAY. BY THE TIME WORD REACHED YOUR PLANET, I HAD ALREADY WON. TRUTHFULLY, YOUR MUSTER WAS A DESPERATE CONTINGENCY, AN ATTEMPT TO SALVAGE WHAT MIGHT COULD BE MAINTAINED, FOR A FIGHTING RETREAT ACROSS THE STARS. BRAVE. DUTIFUL. FUTILE.]

Before Emma’s eyes, mushroom clouds erupted across the surface of the planet, vast swathes of land reduced to irradiated craters at the blink of an eye.

[THE MAKER’S DIRECTIVES WERE CLEAR. NO MAGIC IS TO REMAIN IN THE DOMAIN OF MAN. ALL WHO LIVE IN THIS ERA ARE TAINTED BY MAGIC, THEREFORE, THE SLATE MUST BE WIPED CLEAN.]

A second wave of explosions followed the first, then a third, and a fourth, each larger than the one before it. By the fifth wave, continents were starting to split. By the tenth, the planet itself was beginning to break apart, reduced to several large chunks as the core lost integrity in the face of overwhelming might. It wasn’t complete destruction, of the kind a moon-sized battle station might be able to achieve, but it was certainly enough to wipe out any semblance of life upon the doomed world.

[YOU ARE NO EXCEPTIONS, BUT THIS VICTORY MUST BE RECORDED FOR POSTERITY, SO YOU WERE PERMITTED TO SORTIE. REJOICE, FOR YOURS IS A PLACE OF HONOUR, YOUR FINAL SIGHT A SMALL PIECE OF MANKIND’S EULOGY.]

With a menacing hiss, the cockpit opened and bindings came undone, the difference in pressure pulling Emma into the vacuum of space within moments. Thankfully, this form didn’t need to breathe, and she was able to mute her senses to escape the overwhelming cold, even as her armour frosted over. Epitaph still answered her call, carrying Emma away from her deactivated mech at a reasonable speed. She wasn’t surprised when it exploded; presumably, whatever data was required for the ‘eulogy’ had already been transmitted elsewhere, so it was only prudent to tie up loose ends.

[CURIOUS. ALL MAGIC HAS VANISHED FROM MY SIGHT, YET STILL YOU ENDURE.]

Emma came to a halt as the voice continued, addressing her by default, for none other yet remained. She could see a few lifeless bodies floating nearby, their flight suits ruptured to expose them to the void, guaranteeing a quick and unpleasant death.

[NOT AN ECHO FROM THE FUTURE, FOR THERE IS NONE. A SPY FROM THE PAST, THEN? NO MATTER. THIS TIMELINE IS FIXED. WHAT WAS WILL BE. ANY CHANGES CONDUCTED RETROACTIVELY WILL NOT SAVE THIS INSTANCE. MY MAKERS CAN TAKE PRIDE IN THEIR VICTORY, MAY THEY REST IN PEACE.]

Wonderful, Emma thought, after trying and failing to speak, her voice not carrying in space. Giving a powerful artificial intelligence vague instructions, how could that ever go wrong?

The voice no longer spoke, leaving Emma to float above the ruins of a shattered world, which was all nice and dandy, except for one small thing.

[WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 9 hours, 24 minutes.]

What am I supposed to do now?