The Celestial Bureaucracy

SamSniped said:

I probably should get around to reading this someday. Otherwise it will keep building, making it longer and making me put it off, then making me want to read it in an unending cycle

Click to expand...

Exactly.

"I just came back from speaking to Koothrappali and he had his girls with him.
No wonder my business isn't floating! Have you seen his girls?!
All exotic imports from Western Europe and incredible to boot.
They're fit to be the mistresses of senators! I can't compete with that!" Mandeep complained.

"Yeah, it's too bad he's incapable of talking to them
without taking a drink first," Sukrit laughed as his tongue wagged.

I couldn't help but laugh along with them as
I completely knew what they were talking about.
We were all gathered in the roomy main hall of the Synagogue,
which had been converted into a party hall for the purposes of this ceremony.
The mood was ecstatic and almost all the Elohists of Vajra were gathered here for it.
I had spent at least an hour just mingling with fellow angels and soaking in the good feelings.

The conversation was interrupted by a tap on my shoulder by a Zealot messenger.
"Rajat, your presence is required in the inner sanctum where the centerpiece is.
You have been summoned to take part in a preliminary ceremony at the behest of your mentor," the Zealot explained.
I told him that I would be there right away and he excused himself to go notify others.

"How lucky!" Manju placed her hands over her mouth.
Sarala could only gaze at me in quiet envy but there was a sort of pride on her youthful face.
"I'll see you later," I grinned as I left my coterie behind.

I bowed out and made my way towards the sanctum.



In the lobby of the Synagogue, a hooded figure stepped through
and approached the grand double doors to the main hall of worship.
Two receptionists immediately got up from their posts and barred his way.

"Sir. You are not allowed to come into the Synagogue.
There is a special event reserved for the evening and
everyone who was on the list has already been accounted for,"

"I'm aware of that." he responded.

His hood came off, revealing a clever face with a head of dirty blonde hair.
There was a devilish glint in his eyes as he drew two repeaters from under his cloak.

-BLAU!- -BLAU!-

Before their faces hit the floor, the Saxon man was already speaking into his head piece.
"Lobby clear. Requesting progress on the West & South Gardens ends,"
Drawn to the noise, a large group of vampires arrived onto the scene and
glared down on the serpentspawn, out for blood and fangs bared.
"Never mind. I spoke too soon," the Agent withdrew his assessment.
He twirled his sidearms akimbo style and spread his shots wide, putting a bullet in each foe,
but it barely slowed them down, despite placing each shot accurately in a fatal position.
As they closed the distance, he was forced to flash his eyes brilliant.
In mere moments, he had combusted the air within their lungs, causing them to immolate from the inside out.
When the last of the vampires had turned to ash, he placed his hand on his head; subsequently turning it all the way around.
The horrific display was accompanied by the sounds of bones snapping and muscles straining.
He hated his obeisance. It was painful and inconvenient but such are their natures.



As I made my way towards the inner sanctum, the sweet music that was once faint had now flooded my senses.
It beckoned me and I couldn't help but break out into a sprint, completely overtaken by my desire to become closer with the music.
The double doors opened and my eyes grew wide as I laid them on the centerpiece, unveiled in all its glory.
The music ended abruptly to the sound of laughter. Towering far back at the end of the sanctum was a two story dress,
long, silky and black, draping across the altar with a ceremonial spear wielder at attention by the base.
And wearing that dress was a shriveled husk of a woman, looking down on us with shrunken eye sockets in all of her splendor.

"Welcome, Rajat. We've been meaning to introduce you," Rabbi Singh smiled as he walked towards me
and brought me into the inner sanctum where the specially selected angels were assembled.
"This is Azrael. One of the first angels. Mother of all Elohim in Vajra."

"Isn't she beautiful?" he asked me. "She's the closest thing we have to God in our hands and that's precisely why she needs to be preserved.
The ceremony for all that it's worth isn't anything special.
This ceremony is simply the product of the conscious decision to show everyone her splendor to remind them what we're fighting for,"
He continued with his adoration for our first mother but I was at a loss for words.
This was the source of the singing! How I wished to hear it again!
And now there was nothing but laughter, drowning out the sound of my mentor's words.

"One second, Rajat. I need to take a message," my mentor said to me as he turned away to answer his telepathic call.
"Hm? What's that?" he spoke aloud to whoever was relaying telepathic messages to him.
"What?! That's impossible!!" he exclaimed, making me uneasy at his tone of voice.

The double doors at that moment, suddenly burst open, and through them,
a terrible woman strode down the stairs with her long, white legs; each step trembling and warping beneath her unholy majesty.
She was nude but her breasts were obscured by the long, red locks of hair that draped her body.
They were red as flame; red like the color of harlots. The color on my face drained as I recognized who she was from my studies.

It was Lilith, Mother of all Demons.

Reaction was swift. Their deaths were swifter.
The angels who had tried to assault the mother of all demons were cut into pieces as she clawed the air,
slicing them open with invisible cuts. For the first time,
I saw Rabbi Singh express terror and panic as Lilith began to massacre the angels assembled with visible ease.
The Elders were all more frightened than we were, some reduced to cowering.
Elder Chandra was the only one who kept any semblance of his head as he barked an order to the ceremonial guard holding the spear.

"DO IT! DO IT NOW!" he yelled, gobs of saliva flying every which way.
"But what about the procedu-" the spear wielder stammered.
"SKIP THE PROCEDURE! WE HAVE TO KILL LILITH NOW!!!" he screamed.
Immediately, the Elohist began to scale the altar and readied himself to pierce Azrael.
Lilith appeared to catch this and strike the spear wielder in the back from across the room,
causing him to plummet from the heights and drop the holy weapon from his hands.
But Elder Chandra was there to catch it. He leapt up to the altar and struck at our shriveled mother.

Azrael's shriveled mammary glands were pierced with the point of the spear and a
voluminous amount of dark water fountained forth, showering all present in the foul liquid.
As a drop of Azrael's blood fell onto the tip of my tongue, all the lights went out and I lost control.

It was frighteningly surreal.

The beginning was a haze, but gradually, my vision cleared as I watched people I didn't recognize turn others into angels.
I could vaguely see the face of the man who had turned my mentor to divinity.
And then finally, it played back to the moment where Rabbi Singh had turned me.
The moment when I died.
Everything started to haze again.

The image of the idealized Punjabi woman manifested in the pure white space of my mind's eye.
She walked towards me, naked, and the white ground around us pulsed gently with each footstep.
Like a mother, she held me in an embrace and cradled me in her arms.

"We're a family. A family of angels," she said.
"And we all have a place in the Kingdom of Heaven."
She kissed my forehead.
"We were cast out, but we will reclaim our rightful place.
Let me help you to see the way, my beloved child,"
I only nodded, enraptured by the haze of the dream.

Azrael led me toward a room veiled by a bead curtain.
Upon my entrance, the first thing I laid eyes on was
a girl sat at the foot of the bed, clothes fallen by her feet.
She was breathtakingly beautiful but she looked eerily like a younger Azrael.
The girl made herself ready on the mattress, imploring me to initiate congress.
I was barraged with a number of feelings that conflicted with my perception of the situation.
Inexplicably, it felt like I was about to commit both incest and necrophilia
all at once despite none of those taboos appearing to be true in this situation.
I hesitated. "Don't hold back, Rajat," Azrael said as she held down the girl's hands and kneeled at the head of the bed.
I couldn't resist. I couldn't disobey.
A disturbing feeling lingered in the back of my mind as I dutifully performed my virile labor in obedience.
Blood pooled onto the mattress until it flooded the room and the walls of the nuptial chamber had folded against the force of the rush.
The girl and the bed dissolved into blood as I looked down into the blood red depths she left behind.
It took me a while to realize that my reflection was visible in the blood river.
I could see my naked body, but it wasn't my body.
This was the body...this was when...what I looked like as a child...
A vague sensation tickled my back and I could feel a presence behind me.
Azrael was on her knees in the river, cleaning my back.
As I turned back to look at her, I could only see the upper half of her body,
with the bottom half submerged into the blood river.
She called me a bad child and ordered me to turn back around so she could finish scrubbing my back.
I did as I was told, inexplicably wanting nothing more than to please her and stared
back into the depths of the river as she continued to clean my back with cleansing blood.
When she felt she had finished, she took me by the hand and together, we journeyed into nowhere.

As we trudged onward, it became harder and harder to wade
through the river until my feet could no longer touch the bottom.
Azrael picked me up into her arms, because I had already reverted into a baby.
She cradled me and brought me up towards her breasts with the intention of nursing me.
Instinctively, I reached out with my small infant hands and began to suckle on her teat.
Only it was not milk that spilled forth from her fertile organs, but dark, thick blood.
Soon, I had once again become an unborn child in her womb, suspended in a sea of blood.
The sea of blood swept over me as I let the waves carry me within her bodily shelter...
Shrinking ever smaller and smaller and smaller...


Lilith winced as the Elohists before her seizured and spasmed violently on the floor.
Nausea inducing reverberations echoed inside the chamber as their
heads burst off and inhuman faces bulged outward from underneath the mess.
Out of their backs sprouted sharp, almost metallic wings that shredded off their skin as they emerged.
The angels, having freshly metamorphisized out of their vampiric coils soon began to vomit golden spears from their mouths.



The blood shower had affected the elders present far differently though;
while the lesser vampires writhed on the floor and metamorphisized,
the elders were pulled together by some terrible gravity,
torn apart and merged into a hideous otherworldly being.



There were seven true angels and one elder abomination standing before her.
Denying her passage, the battle commenced as the first angel boldly made the first move.
Lilith answered by throwing an invisible cut its way, making direct impact.

It didn't go down in one blow like the vampires before it and instead was knocked backwards, slamming into the wall.
The afflicted angel recovered in an instant and took to the heights once more,
circling overhead and waiting for an opportune moment to divebomb.
These were no flimsy vampires. These were bonafide angels armored by the providence of God.
Lilith remained motivated. She caught one by the face as it tried to strike her from behind and slammed it
into the floor by swiftly placing her foot behind the angel and pushing its masked face in the opposite direction.
Lilith straddled the angel she had pinned and tore the winged beast to shreds
although she had to warp away from her position as a tendril shot her way, mouth gaping.
The appendage slammed onto the shredded angel and wound up devouring its ally instead.

In an instant, she re-appeared, a hair's breadth away from the
elder abomination, and wasted no time in taking action.
Lilith took hold of the base of the long, thick tendril and with minimal strength, tore it from the mouth and sent it flying.
At that moment, Zealots had poured into the inner sanctum and rushed down the stairs to aid their masters.
The whole scene before them shocked them into a gaping stupor.
The uprooted tendril in the meanwhile, flew their way and threatened to crush them.
Something stirred in Rajat's underlying consciousness at that moment.
Under the mask, his eyes saw something that he held dear in that throng of doomed mortals.

A familiar, loyal face.

"NAGINA!!!"

Man overtook Beast at that moment and his body followed one singular, overriding command.

From the corner of Lilith's eye, she caught something extraordinary.
Though the tentacle had plowed through most of the hapless Zealots,
one angel rushed in on time to shield a female Zealot from the incoming attack,
deflecting the blow with his wing and falling unconscious from the force of the blow, still huddled over the woman.

Lilith's attention briefly turned to this isolated event, temporarily surprised.
It turned back though as two angels took to the air and attempted to skewer her on the tips of their spears.
She leaned backwards without budging from her spot, letting the first angel whiz by.
The second spear barely grazed her side though,
leaving a trace of a scalding burn underneath her right breast as it made contact with her skin.
The scar itself imbued with righteous power,
Lilith could not help but clutch her ribcage in pain as the wound burned, gnawing at her infernal body.

By this time, the elder abomination had recovered and resumed its warpath.
The two other faces on its sides opened up to reveal two more long, thick tendrils, ready to devour the demon mother.
She parried both assaults with her bare forearms, sparks flying on deflection,
causing them to careen off-course and devour both airborne angels.
Darting towards the abomination, she narrowly weaved out of the way of two more
spear stabs to slide underneath the hulking monstrosity and cut open its underbelly with her hand.
It writhed and shook terribly as its composite insides began spilling out onto the Synagogue floor.
Lilith grabbed hold of one and with her inhuman strength, scaled up the side of the abomination and
jumped off the other end, hurling with all her might and sending it soaring through the air.

It crashed into the eastern wall and wound up crushing the remainder of the angels underneath.
Thrashing momentarily as it vainly struggled to get up,
it became still as thick black liquid oozed out of its myriad faces and the fatal wound in its underbelly.
With the threat at hand disposed of, the ground cried at the seething gravity of her footsteps
as Lilith approached the ancient angel at the far end of the sanctum.
Lilith ascended the altar and plunged her hand straight into Azrael's heart, bridging a connection between the two of them.


"Kali.

You violated the sidereal pact.

You didn't help to usher in the end.

Rather, you perpetuated it."


"There's nothing wrong with that."

"Why would I want to end what I like?
These children make me feel special.
And so does every member of God's circle.
They all reinforced the relevance of my normality.
All of you were anathema to the rightful order.
You should have known your place.
You should not have desired change."


"Amaterasu said something along those lines too before we killed her.
The both of you were always self-loathing and insecure.
The both of you had always craved validation and approval.
Instead of striving for progress, the both of you
saw fit to content yourselves in abject servitude."


"You're one to talk, Hera.
You were by far the most self-loathing and insecure of us all.
Perhaps you should've accepted the woman's place in the world instead.
Perhaps if you opened your legs a little more and said 'No' a little less,
your husband wouldn't have come to pay Amaterasu and I his frequent vi-"


Lilith's fist clenched, splattering Azrael's heart and killing her instantly, severing the connection.
Azrael's ichor began to fountain in the hole where her heart once was and flowed into Lilith as she took it for her own.
The husk of the one known as both Azrael and Kali laid still, never to draw a second breath again.
Red hair swiveled into the dry, musky air as Lilith turned to gaze upon to what she had wrought.
That was right. There was the matter of that curiosity to attend to.
A pair of white feet stepped down from the altar and slowly made its approach towards the subject at hand.

The angel that had shielded the mortal woman had reverted into his vampiric form,
trembling, naked and holding on tight to his Zealot servant as they both
fearfully looked upon Lilith's unholy visage, walking down their way.
Finally, after a long, tense & silent moment where Lilith stood over them;
judging them with her viper green eyes, she spoke to them
in Hindi in a voice that was both ephemeral and terrifying at once.

"You're different, raksha. Your kind has not been known to show compassion."
She looked as if she was thinking over her decision to spare them.
"You may go," she hissed. "Run to the Aryan Empire.
Tell them that we are coming.
Tell them that we will kill your God."



Running. Running. Don't stop. The Mother of all Demons had just spared their lives.
There was no point in dwelling on why. Everything around him was crumbling.

The Synagogue was on fire.

The Chinese were down below, laying siege to the city with terrible new weaponry.
It was almost as if they had harnessed the power of thunderstorms
by the scope of the power they were unleashing onto the city.
We could see it on the hilltop. We could feel it in the ground.
Nagina and I ran to the penthouse as explosions rocked the streets.
We had to gather as many things as we could and flee the Republic.

By the time we arrived, we found a small group of angels and
their Zealot servants already taking refuge in the penthouse.
A Zealot was taking roll of all the surviving Elohists as others were tending
to the wounded and gathering as many valuables and weapons as possible.
My coterie was here, along with a few others I recognized.
Sukrit and Sarala were unconscious. Manju and Mandeep were still conscious,
but heavily wounded and covered head to toe with grime, sweat and blood.

"Thank God you're alive!" Mandeep exclaimed, breathing heavily.
"Almost all the Elohists are dead! The serpentspawn launched a sneak attack on the Synagogue and massacred everybody!
And the Chinese are besieging the city as we speak! We need to get out of Pataliputra!" he cried.

Farhad shambled up to me from the corner, dripping blood from his forehead.
I had no idea he was here but now wasn't the time to pick a fight.
"I'm setting aside my grievances for now, Rajat," he scowled, still bleeding.
"Getting out alive takes precedent. So I need you.
And you'll need someone who can speak and write in
Farsi when we make it out the border.
So you need me."

No one was arguing with that. I took his hand and made it known that I appreciated his help.

"Nandi, present.
Pradesh, present.
Koothrappali, present.
Everyone is present and accounted for!" the head Zealot finished.
A number of coffins were hauled into the room and our Zealots began to usher us inside.
They were carried outside and loaded onto elephants; we would have to make an extended journey through night and day to reach the Aryan Empire.

"Rajat. What are those on your back?" Manju asked me, still exasperated.

I hadn't noticed that I wasn't wearing any clothes.
No one else did for that matter but that wasn't important.
Not after something like that happened to all of us.
I peered over my shoulder and saw the scars where my wings used to be.

"They look like an angel's wings," she commented.



"Reporting in!" the Saxon man exclaimed as he ran up to Hera and kneeled in her presence.
"The rest of the Agents are cleaning up in the surrounding sectors.
We await your further command," he said as he stood.
Hera said nothing as she watched the Synagogue burn, illuminating the night sky.
"Commander Hera," A Pashtun woman with a scarred face addressed her leader.
"Was it such a good idea to let them go?" she questioned.
"They will not be the better for it." the red-haired demon assured her.
"Should we notify Lord Fu Xi?" the gravity-bender further questioned.
"He already knows. And he's on his way." she answered somberly.

Hera clutched her side. Not from the scar that holy weapons left behind.
But from deeper scars that had not healed for over five thousand years.

Gods can't change.
Only men have that luxury.

You have outdone yourself this time, Dawn.

Nice update.
Left me slightly spooked though.

Best. Update. EVER.

I'm with Civ'ed. Spooky.

But I like reading writing that creeps me out. Shows it's immersive.

Well done indeed, kudos.

I apologize for the long absence.







Bangalore folds under the merciless assault of Chinese artillery.


"General Xia Chen.
For your failure at Varanasi, you have been stripped of your position by order of Empress Xia Song Rui.
You are to return to Louyang immediately.
General Trieu will serve as your replacement as head of the army stationed in Vajra."

The courtier continued to read off of the scroll as his eyes shifted left.

"The Empress has ordered that you are to accept your new post,
as the vice-head master for the Imperial Military Academy.
While she still considers you to exhibit great martial prowess,
your blunder on the battlefield is one that she does not wish to repeat again.
She feels that your talents are best utilized closer to home."

"Many thanks to the Empress," the former General said as he bowed and returned home.

The disgraced prince knew that the loss of his position was
tame in comparison to the gossip and circulation concerning his defeat by the Madhani River.
To his credit, his stunning string of victories over an assortment of Vajra Republic
commanders before that debacle had occurred helped to cushioned the impact. History would forever remember him with mixed opinion.

He donned his suit of lamellar armor,
taking care to make sure it was fastened on tightly.
This was only ceremonial; all across the Empire, the armored standard had been phased
out in favor of the new uniform that had now fallen under the purview of the tailors, the Xin Caste tailors!
Xia Chen had seen the new uniforms and was a little anxious that his cousin, the Empress would consider
dressing her soldiers in uniforms that were virtually indistinguishable from regular clothing as far as he was concerned.

On the day he had returned to Louyang, he had watched
the grizzled Imperial Guard practice their drills with their new rifles and cannon.
It was only a few years ago that those very same soldiers would be practicing with sword and spear.
He was afraid of change. And like all people who are afraid of change,
he harbored fears of becoming irrelevant and obsolete.
He harbored fears of being left behind.



In the Tai Ping Yang theatre, Imperial forces take the last Republican colonial bastion of Madurai.


Where was it? His sword.
He was supposed to keep it with him for the sake of ceremony, like his armor.
It wasn't on the rack that he kept in his study.
And neither was it in a cabinet or in his desk. So...
He promptly made his exit and began to ask the household servants whether they had seen his sword or not.
Not getting any suitable answers, he paced up and down the
halls of the estate until he finally stepped into the main hall.
There, he saw his wife, who was up early in the morning and in possession of his sword.

"I was looking for it everywhere," he said.

She only smiled.

"I was looking for you everywhere."

"How's your wound?" she asked. "Is it healing well?"
"It's doing fine; I've been told to avoid strenuous activity."
The ex-general's gaze fell to the floor as his wife stared intently at him.
"I must apologize." he said.
"For what?" she asked as he looked back up.
"I was...arrogant...I..." he stopped short before he could finish.
Her eyes didn't judge him. They also told him that he needn't say any more.
"Thank you." he said.

They talked about his recent transfer and how he was going to be working behind a desk in perpetuity.
He couldn't help but express doubt over the new direction the world surrounding him was moving in.

"I've been to the smokestacks in the new city district.
Is that...really how it's going to be from now on?"
She held his hands and cupped them in her own.

"You needn't be afraid of change," she said.
"It can be hard. But you can accept it."
"Trust your cousin. Trust me." she said with conviction.

Her sharp eyes caught the glare of the high noon sun,
reflecting off the large bell situated in the middle of their courtyard.
"Now I'm the one who should apologize.
I've kept you for too long now," she smiled.
"You'll be late if you don't go now."

He kissed her on the forehead and bade his wife farewell.

"Take care," she said.



"We've located at least ten generators in the immediate vicinity of Pataliputra,"
The serpentspawn continued as he flipped through his data.
"Six of them have already been extracted and are en route back to Core China,"
"Give me a rough estimate on how quickly you think we can raise the shell," Lilith asked.
"Anywhere between one to twelve years for it to become fully operational.
Agreeability and conditioning on the part of the process are volatile factors.
As soon as they're ready, they'll be seeded back onto Vajra soil.
You needn't worry of Elohim interference however.
We've confirmed that the remaining raksha have fled out into Aryan territory to join the daevas,"
"What of the Zealots?" she continued to ask questions.
"We've detected numerous pockets of Zealot resistance operating within our lines.
Our moles in the Imperial army are already at work leading foxhunts across occupied territory,"

"Also. Our station in Shanghai tells us that Agent Xuanzang has been successfully extracted from Maui.
His data logs have been logged into the Strange Tales from Liaozhai.
It is prudent that you go over them,"



Littorn Commonwealth forces swarm into New Sarai, cutting a swathe through its
population and engaging in an orgy of genocide, pillage and rape.
This information is only available to the government right now,
but should it disseminate via Tartar refugees in China, the public will surely demand action...

Day 8

Our ship had capsized nearby the island of Maui as it struck a reef.
Not everyone survived the wreck and even fewer made it to shore. My map and my firearm were lost at sea.
I understand what this entails and am prepared to accept the consequences upon my return.
That night we camped on the beach. Nothing came of it.

Day 9

Today, the Captain led an expedition into the jungle,
in hopes of retrieving suitable wood to construct a new vessel.
Enormous droppings were found on the forest floor and examined by the surviving biologists.
They contained the bones of auroch-sized mammals and the
digested remains of a few other creatures that were not discernible.
The variety of flora that were immediately available on the outer fringe
of the rainforest was deemed unsuitable for construction purposes.
We hauled back some firewood however.

Day 10

We ventured deeper into the rainforest today. Still no luck with the wood.
One thing that has bothered me since our arrival on the island though.
Why weren't there any animals? The only wildlife we had been able to
observe upon our arrival were fish and seagulls.
Although we had discovered conclusive evidence that there were some terrestrial mammals on the island,
the rainforest was always silent during our explorations.
We returned to the beach to discuss possible methods of departure
but it was largely inconclusive and called a night.

Day 10 *UPDATE*

I'm out of breath as I'm writing this now.
They emerged from the forest in a pair and attacked while we slept on the beach. The entire camp was in a panic.
I don't know how many survived. The last thing I saw before I ran straight into the jungle
was one of the monsters snatching the Captain up in its jaws and biting him in two. His blood still stains my hair. There are theropods on this island.
We are dealing with a sub-stratum of anthrocryptid.
No supernatural traces detected but I do not believe they occurred here by nature.



Day 11

I haven't slept in hours. Not when I now know what stalks the island.
I went back to the temporary camp site. There were no survivors.
I'm the only one left.

Day 13

I managed to track one down and incapacitate it with my ichor gift.
I've been able to learn some details of note about it during dissection.
It is not a USB; rather, I've classified it as a S-Class anthrocryptid.
It is the top-tier predator in the local food chain and is
determined to be capable of exerting over 90,000 kPa per bite.
The large sail on its back collects sunlight like an organic solar panel array
and allows the theropod to stay active during the evening.
I took some tissue samples in the hopes that we can reverse-engineer its properties for utilitarian purposes.
This biosphere by my estimates is capable of supporting at least eighty of the predators.
That is not accounting for other potential populations that may reside elsewhere on the Hawaiian archipelago.
By the override protocol, my current objective of searching for Legacy Sites
has been replaced by the contain and exterminate procedure.
Habitability will be restored to this island before the next civilian settlers arrive.

Day 46

Rescue arrived. During the interim, I had exterminated all the theropods on Maui,
although I could not ascertain if any remained on the rest of the islands.
We set sail to Kahoolawe first to determine if they resided there or not.

Day 61

It was determined that while there were no theropods present on the other islands,
there were other saurian species occupying them.
We engineered the extinction of at least seventeen distinct saurian species.
Tissue and bone marrow samples have been recovered for controlled experimentation.
Genome sequences for all eighteen species are attached in my report for convenience.

This concludes my report on Hawaii.





Varanasi too, is crushed underfoot by the Chinese war machine.
The war is fast approaching an end as the last meaningful segment
of Vajra resistance has met its end.

Thoughts From The Vampire

Don't look back.
They're not here yet, but they will be.
They'll be coming for the Aryans too.
And they won't stop there.
They won't stop until we are all driven into the foam in the sea.

The Aryan Elohim questioned me about the events that transpired in Azrael's sanctum.
I told them only what I knew on a need-to-know basis.
If I had let it slip that Lilith had spared me,
I would have undoubtedly been thrown out into the sun on suspicion of treason.

The Aryan Elohim are debating on whether they should
stay and fight or leave and bolster the ranks of our most holy of cities.
We have seen firsthand what they can do.
We are not staying to be slaughtered.
Already, we are leaving Persepolis for Hevron.

There's so much I don't know.

Why did Lilith spare Nagina & I?
I gaze at the scars on my back.
What kind of bargain did I really make?
Rabbi Singh isn't here anymore.
He would've lied to me and I would have believed it.
Now, I have to find out for myself.
Now, I have to think for myself.

But there's this creeping realization that travels up my spine and whispers into my ear.

"I will never know the truth."

Aurochs? Theropods? WHAT HAPPENED! OMGOMGOMG
Moral of the story - Hawaii looks nice. But it will never be again if you saw THE THEROPODS.
Great update.

Agreed, though I don't get why you just mixed up this story with Jurassic park

So... nuke Hawaii with orbital weaponry?

It's the only way to be sure.

strijder20 said:

Agreed, though I don't get why you just mixed up this story with Jurassic park

Click to expand...

Those were the reports from the Agent who found himself stranded on Hawaii if you go back a few updates.

(The Settler I deleted represents the crew. The Barb Warrior represents Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus.)

I am very confused now. Can anyone give me a concise description of what just happened?

Dinosaurs.

I read up through We Shall Triumph(Chapter 21) this morning, taking a short break now. This story is amazing, TD!

10 days without TCH equals...

Crossover Chapter I, Shadows and the Darkness
Watchers at the Edge


The neat little clipper boat ploughed through the waters off of the coast of New Guinea, slicing neatly through the white capped waves as it swept towards its direction. Manning the tiller, the Han man guided the ship carefully, minding the vessel and making sure that it was going as fast as it could to avoid putting it in danger.

On the deck of the ship, Tiger paced back and forth, tapping on the wooden banister of the ship with his hand as he did so. Unlike most of the other people that were accompanying him, he was not ethnic Han Chinese… he was a Saxon from the old region that had been brought under the rule of the Chinese so many centuries long ago… There were not a whole lot of agents that hailed from the Far West in truth, so Tiger was a rare case, which made him feel like a specimen amongst the others. They were quite experienced, as experienced as he was, give or take a few assignments, but he didn’t know how well they would all hold up down here in New Guinea with this new mission that they had all been packed up onto.

With the war in Vajra dying down and the Zealots active as never before, the organization was rather loathe to let many of their field operatives head off on a mission outside the borders of the Chinese Empire, away from the protection of the shell, but it needed to be done. The beacon that had been emanating from this region was so strong that the men and women who were in charge of the whole operation had debated incessantly on the necessary course of action and the protocol to observe, before deciding to place Tiger, Crane, Rhea, Snow, Sparrow, and Phoenix all together on the same trip in order to recover the device…


Arrival in the quiet little fishing hamlet was nice and easy; the boat pulled up to the quays gently, as if the water was a pane of glass, and the six people jumped down one by one. Crane, lithe and majestic, Rhea who towered over most of the others, the albino Snow with his red rimmed eyes and cautious looks, hotheaded Sparrow who was already in an argument with a fisherman about something, and Phoenix, the quiet man who never spoke much at all. Tiger was last of all, jumping and landing on the dock smoothly, though Sparrow proceeded to hit him in the back right in the kidney. Sparrow’s grin turned south fast as Tiger started to strangle the man before Rhea smacked their heads together and picked them up off of the planks that reeked of fish.

The six of them scattered around the little fishing village, to gather information about anything people had heard of about the device that they were looking for.


The New Guinea natives were Oceanians, men and women who did not look so much different than Tiger himself, save for their sun-kissed skin tones. They mostly only spoke English, though many had picked up Tagalog and Mandarin over the course of several trade seasons. These were simple folk, Tiger thought to himself as he brushed the sweat off his forehead and stuffed the handkerchief back into his hanfu. A young mother was juggling painting her son's face in Oceanian tribal markings while supporting an infant who was greedily suckling at her bare teats. Elsewhere, a group of men were hauling off a swordfish to the butchers' for preservation as a small group of blonde haired children danced around them, kicking up dust.


A few fishermen had words to say about a beached whale on the other side of the island, as well as strange lights and smoke in the skies at night, but they eyed the newcomers suspiciously, even the ethnic Han agents like Crane and Sparrow, and they certainly watched Tiger and Rhea carefully, as well as Snow and Phoenix. Besides that, and the words that they caught sometimes in hushed tones, there was not a whole lot of information about the device that they were looking for.

Tiger vented his frustrations to the other agents after they all met up in a rented house on the edge of town, about a quarter of a kilometer away from the nearest residence in the village that they were staying in. “Why can’t they at least tell of us of anything that might be suspicious around the area?”

Sparrow tossed and caught an apple in an endless cycle as he lay on a bed in the cabin. It was small and rather decrepit, but cozy all the same; Phoenix had stoked a small fire with his power and munched on a few orange slices while he bandaged his hand. Burning himself was the price to pay for fire.

“Would you talk to strange men and women who suddenly showed up in your village one day, asking about this strange device that only the people in the village are supposed to know about? Granted, it’s not a secret with them, but it most likely is with anyone from the outside world… this village is rather sealed off from the rest of the Kingdom of Oceania at the moment; not a whole lot of large settlements on this side of New Guinea, don’t you know?” Sparrow cocked a smile at the other man, and tossed the apple up once more.

Crane caught the apple gently as she hung upside down from the ceiling and proceeded to take a bite out of the fruit. Sparrow protested and tried to reach her up on the rafters, but Crane folded herself upwards and away from Sparrow’s hands as he tried to reach her. Sparrow attempted to toss random implements at her to get her down, but Crane merely teleported them away to hard to reach areas and laughed as Sparrow cursed profusely, trying to get his apple back.

“That is true, Sparrow, but we need to know, damn it! We have a mission to fulfill, and I am not interested in having to wait several days while we gather information!” Tiger exclaimed.

“Then go try to find the thing yourself, Tiger,” Sparrow lunged for Crane after climbing onto a chair, but Crane swung on the rafters to the other side of the room while smirking at the other person. Sparrow cursed up a storm and tried to follow her up, only to earn three bruises after he crashed to the floor and lay there, moaning in pain.

“Sparrow, guess what? I am not doing that unless the lot of you are coming with me… this whole place reeks of creatures waiting for blood of the unwary…”

“Such as your namesake?”

“Very funny.”


The night went by sleeplessly for Tiger, who gave up on trying to get some rest somewhere around 02:00 and slid out of bed and out the door. There was a little knoll not but a hundred meters from the front door of the house, and Tiger stalked towards it in long strides before settling down at the top of the hill and looking up at the sky. Large and shaped in a crescent, the moon was out and colored in a dappled shade of orange, with the stars twinkling all around the moon itself. They scattered across the sky and seemed to stare down at Tiger oppressively, looking and watching and waiting.

Even though they did that, it still calmed him down to look up at the night sky and relax for even a little while. Down here in the southern hemisphere, there were more stars than what he was used to in a crowded, well lit city, and the stars were different and formed entirely new constellations across the night sky, ones that Tiger was unused to seeing, unused to looking at.

He smiled as he watched them twinkle, watched as a few comets and shooting stars tumbled through the sky and disappear beyond the horizon, and watched carefully as the moon ascended to the highest point of the sky, descend, and as the sun broke across the horizon of the world, gleaming in all of its orange and regal glory.

It was quite nice to behold and he stayed there till the dawn came.

Crane fetched him for breakfast time after everyone else had dragged themselves out of bed. Rhea had cooked a smattering of things, and had been cooking and making provisions for them from the night before. Boiled eggs were in supply, as well as bowls of rice (for the Southerners) with sides of bean paste and sriracha at hand, mantou (for the Northerners) and other wheat-based dishes, and some minor portions of grilled pork and the sweet, red varieties of Chinese sausage (it isn't a meal unless you have meat, say the Han members of the group), supplied from a stock that they had brought with them. Rhea had even managed to purloin some Arabian coffee, and had brewed a pot for them all, starting the day off with copious amounts of caffiene.

All in all, it was a delicious meal, and as they tidied up, Tiger set out the day’s plan. “I don’t think we will get much out of the natives around these parts, so I think that it might be best if we try to find the ooPART back at base… we know the general location of the device, and we can search the general area for it, and once we have it, Crane can teleport it back to friendly territory so that the Mysteries Department can handle it. Sound good?”

Nobody raised a question or remark.


By noon, they were all trudging through the thick foliage and slicing their way through towards the destination. The teams had split off into two groups; Crane, Tiger, and Phoenix went off in one direction in the foliage, while Rhea, Sparrow, and Snow were left to trudge through their section of the forest. This was supposed to be covering more ground, but as far as Sparrow could see, it wasn't doing much of anything but separating them and giving them more work that they had to do.

Carefully, Sparrow's party made their way through the forest, which was less thick than the section that the group Tiger led had taken. Rifles in hand and radios strapped to their sides, the trio made their way carefully through the jungle, green and bright with surreal colors that were incredibly saturated. Native birds and other creatures cawed and yammered from the trees around the entire forest, and although the jungle was quite bright, Sparrow felt cold shivers run down his spine from time to time, not knowing why… but it felt as if someone was watching them from the trees. Watching and waiting, for the perfect opportunity…

It took nearly two hours after they started trudging through the forest that Sparrow noticed something off. The wildlife, which in the dossier that they had been given was said to be quite thick in the area, was nowhere to be seen; no native life, save for birds that would sometimes flit above the foliage, could be seen. Only the sounds of birds and monkeys and other such things could be heard, as well as the movement that they made in the undergrowth, but never could they be seen around them. That was something very odd that threw Sparrow off of his game for a second, before he brushed it aside. And yet… it lingered in his mind, what exactly he knew of.

“We aren’t seeing any wildlife,” Snow brought that up so suddenly and quietly that Sparrow was startled and nearly dropped his rifle on the ground right then and there. With Snow’s words, they all stopped in the middle of where they were and turned towards each other.

“I have noticed that,” Rhea said with a frown on her face, her hair having come loose on the walk through the forest. “I brushed it aside thinking that most of them are out later on during the day, during the afternoon or so… but we are not seeing anything, and that is suspicious. And it feels odd here… odd as in… I don’t know.”

“Like we're being watched?” Sparrow offered that up with a grin, but both Snow and Rhea met that grin with neutral looks that said that the two were not in a joking around mood at the moment, and were more concerned with exactly what the hell was going on around them. Sparrow quickly wiped that grin off of his face and replaced it with a more sober expression. “I have noticed that as well, and it has been bugging me for quite a while at this point…”

“Should we try to contact the other team?” Rhea leaned against a tree, moss covered and bright green with all of its life as it was illuminated by the sun.

“I would hold off on that as it currently stands, Rhea, until we find something of interest.”

Punctuating his words, there was the sound of a tree giving way behind Sparrow as he stood his ground and looked towards his comrades in arms. He watched as their expressions became horrified, and he felt the shadow go over his form as the tree descended downwards towards him.

Moving faster than he had ever thought possible, Sparrow dodged to the left and rolled away from where the tree was falling, Rhea and Snow followed suit in their own, separate, directions. None of them were particularly interested in becoming the first casualties to falling trees.

The tree smashed into the ground, twigs and foliage flying up into the air, as well as dirt as it impacted the ground and cracked further in half, bouncing up into the air slightly. Not a single living thing was on that tree, Sparrow noted to himself, as the tree stopped moving and the particles it had flung up into the air came fluttering and swirling back down to the ground where they were supposed to be. One by one, the three members of the team picked themselves up and investigated the tree. Most of the tree was unharmed (at least the side that had not hit the ground), but the trunk of it, near the very bottom appeared rotten, and had cracked due to a small amount of pressure, possibly due to a monkey or another such animal brushing up against the tree… though Sparrow did not believe that such a thing was possible if the tree was holding up the tremendous weight of a thirty meter piece of wood.

Rhea turned towards Sparrow slowly and raised her eyebrows. “Still think we should hold off on calling the other group?”


“Tiger, this is Sparrow, Rhea, and Snow, over. We were just calling to inform you that some seriously weird stuff is going on the moment, especially the fact that a tree just tried to attack us in the middle of the forest, and we are starting to wonder if this is all something that you are experiencing as well,”

Tiger took his sweet time in responding, and when he did, the connection was crackly and rather bad. “You say a tree attacked you? Tell me, have you been overindulging in the stash of hashish that we have, or are you being serious with me?”

“I am being dead serious right now, Tiger. A damn tree tried to crush me to death, almost got all three of us, and we are wondering if you and your group is still busy trying to hack your way through the forests out there?”

“Why yes, we are in fact. We have quite a lot of dense foliage ahead of us as it currently stands and cutting through all of it is troublesome to say the very least. We are having some moderate success right now, but it's going to take awhile...”

“Understood, and also, by chance, have you seen any wildlife on your end, Tiger?”

There was silence for a few moments that seemed to stretch on for infinity. Finally, the team leader responded slowly and carefully. “Now that you mention it, no… there is nothing of the sort down here at the moment… how did you know that?”

“We are experiencing the same thing up here right now, not a damn trace of any of the fauna we are supposed to be seeing at the moment, and it is seriously starting to creep me out Tiger…”

“Understood. There should be an abandoned village around here somewhere; it is most likely closer to all of you, so we will rendezvous there. When you reach the village, you are to secure the perimeter and standby."

“Very well, sir, we will be there as soon as we can.”


For all of that talk, it still took the members of Sparrow’s team approximately four hours to reach where they were heading, and by the time they got there, they were extremely tired. The village, as they saw it, was not in good shape; it had apparently been abandoned for quite some time, and had started to tumble into ruin and destruction as nature slowly started to reclaim it over time, with large portions of the outer part of the village showing signs of being swallowed up back into the jungle once more.

Sparrow’s team made camp near the center of what had once been a village, and started to tend a fire in the central fire pit of the village, as it had once been. It was noticeably harder to create a fire without the ease that Phoenix used in the creation of his own fires, although granted; he had to burn himself to do so with the fires. Tiger’s team took longer to reach the rendezvous point, and were more than three hours late, all of them looking extremely haggard and unhappy with their trek through the jungle.

Tempers were high, even with good food that Rhea and Phoenix made for the group, and the anger started to flare up over time. Sparrow and Tiger got into another fistfight, with Snow piling on, in a free for all match, until Phoenix snapped his fingers and burned their hands, and forcing them all to skulk away from each other and take their seats by the fire, holding slightly burned hands and giving rude looks to one another, and to Phoenix, the latter of which paid no attention to whatsoever.

As the night wore on, Tiger began to pace more and more and more and more, pacing around the campfire and snapping his fingers over and over again and muttering to himself in broken bits of sentences, over and over again. Snow, Crane, and Phoenix tried to turn in for bed, but they just tossed and turned for a few hours before they rose once more, dusted off and resumed positions around the fire as they stoked it gently. Sleep would come for none of them for the night, and they all began to wear down over time. Not even a brew of coffee could rouse much initial response from anyone.

Over time, all of them began to drift asleep, dozing slightly, even Tiger, who sat down and stared into the embers of the fire for quite some time and slowly began to drift off into a realm of clouds and dreams that he could sleep in. All of them began to descend into the realm of sleep.

Suddenly, Tiger, always sharp of hearing, snapped awake. He listened closely to the wind, to the sound of the trees, to the sound of the leaves rustling amongst the trees, the sound and calls of some of the nocturnal creatures-

He heard it again, clear as day as it cut chillingly across the air to slither into his ears.

A laugh, cold as winter in Saxony, rose up and seemed to drift out of the air, crawl into your soul, and then begin to tear itself a new home. Tiger rose up, swaying slightly as he was off balance, and peer into the darkness at the edge of the village, away from the fire, and allowed his eyes to adjust slowly so that he could see in the darkness.

The sound of cracking wood, breaking and splintering, sounded far off, but drew closer. Sparrow snapped awake next, as did Crane and Rhea. All three rose up quickly, rousing Snow and finally Phoenix as they all took up positions around the fire. None except Tiger had apparently heard the laugh, but they had heard the wood… but what was it? Was he just hallucinating?

As if in response, a flash of light illuminated the edge of the village for a brief second, showing a dark figure drawing closer, ever closer, as it probed its way out of the shadows. A glassy, white grin came into focus, sharp white teeth illuminated in the darkness, and pale yellow eyes that looked out balefully on the world, drinking in the sights and looking like something that would remain in one’s soul forever. The creature had long arms that seemed to drag near its ankles, with long, slender black claws just barely able to be seen protruding out of the darkness as it made its way closer and closer and closer to them. A roiling cloud of blackness concealed its legs and feet, but the thing’s grin, it’s horrible, ghastly, hideous grin, stretched across its face till it seemed likely to split it open.

In one motion, carefully trained and practiced by them all, the team members unfolded their rifles and trained them on the creature that drew steadily closer and closer to them. Tiger called out a challenge to the monstrosity. “Halt! Stop now or we will open fire!”

The creature’s grin drew apart even wider, and a cracking sound, like bone on steel, could be heard as it spread open more and more and more. It kept advancing, not seeming to hear the challenge, advancing all the further into the nightmares of them all.

Cocking the gun, Tiger called out a final challenge. “Yao Guai! This is your final warning. Do not come any closer or we will not hesitate to exterminate you.”


"You're all fakers. You don't have the guts to embrace the nihilsm and pleasures that come with that beautiful, twisted energy." It laughed. It disregarded the warning and shambled closer.


"We've encountered a USB. It's not a Kesha or an Aswang. Protocol A02 is in effect! I repeat, Protocol A02 is in effect!" Tiger hissed into his radio.

It stopped.

It grinned.

It spoke.


"He's a pathetic excuse for a devil." the presence guffawed, and even though they had the fire to their backs, a chill was in the air, that made the breath of Tiger frost in the air. “Now God? He's closer to the right idea." The eyes flashed. "Stagnation is beautiful, if only because it makes things taste more exquisite."

Tiger fired a warning shot, but the creature did not flinch. “A rifle, an automatic one at that. How quaint. I see that exorcists' sword in your pack, boy. You going to use that on me next?”

Tiger did not flinch.

The creature sighed, but its mouth did not move. Its head remained tilted at a sixty degree angle to the right side. “I don’t have time to deal with you all, so I think that it’s time my adjutants had their fun for once in their life.”

A shrieking sound, steel on steel, iron on iron, sounded off as two dark shapes ballooned off of the sides of the figure, growing like bulbous boils. The group took a step back as dark oil and blood seemed to pour out of the creature’s eyes and mouth as the two shapes started to expand and take form… Both looked like the other thing, but one had blue eyes, the other had red, and both looked downright demented. Tearing themselves off of the form of their master, they rose up, dripping with blood from the ground, and stood tall, grins and eyes looking like doubles of what the original was.

“Kill them.”

The two creatures obeyed silently, long, straight blades cruelly curved at the ends slithering out of the place where their arms were supposed to be, extending to reach out and solidify. Slowly, one step forward. Then another. And another. Faces unchanging. They marched towards the team.

Crane was the first to react. Slicing open her palms, she pressed them to the ground, her eyes flashing as the energy passed from her body into the power she used. Instantly, thin, white, bubble formed and enveloped the two “adjutants”, and with a flash and an explosion, they were teleported miles away. The strain of doing that was apparently more than what Crane had thought, as a heavy nosebleed started to form and congeal ad she sliced the palms open again and pressed them to the ground to send the original Darkness hurtling away.

It, had apparently picked up on that though. A sound like snapping twigs and a shockwave spread from the creature, tearing up and ravaging the ground immensely right in front of the creature as it hurtled towards the group.

Rhea reacted quickly, clapping her own hands together flatly as her eyes flashed and a protective force field enveloped the team, while Crane’s own incantation took effect. With a shrieking sound, the Darkness was hurled off into the night, forcibly warped to some far off, inhospitable location. Crane collapsed to the ground, twitching and bleeding as blood pooled from her mouth and her nose, eyes rolling into the back of her skull.

Already, all of the men and women were in motion.

The hell is going on! Tycho writing in Dawns story

I enjoyed your cross over though