Wrath

A Yarn From The Reef: Awakening Wrath

Aly (Pronounced Ally, as in a comrade) was mad. Her life was horrible, her job was horrible, you could count the number of friends she had on three fingers, and her boss hated her.

“ALY!!! THAT’S A THIRD DEMERIT THIS WEEK!! YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!!!”, her boss screamed from his podium over the work floor.

“Yes Mr. Alsoul. I will report to you tonight.” Aly stifled her rage to walk over to the man, and snap his spindly little neck, if he even had one.

“That’s right. Get back to work scum!” The short little man acted like he had complete control over the world from that pedestal, which actually meant he had complete control over about 500 square feet, AKA Aly’s section of the assembly lines.

Her line was making warship components, a necessary product for the near-insatiable desire for new territory The Kirn Empire has these days.

They weren’t anything massive like the interstellar superstate known around the multiverse as Offtopic, but they were a little patch of warmongers in the Unknown Regions of the galaxy, right next to the horrid mess that WAS the Chiss Ascendancy, the remnants of the Yuuzhan Vong, and the Sakaarans.

Aly was a barely loyal citizen of the Empire, her slim form, sharp mind, and no conscience regarding doing orders, was once a prized commodity in the Empire’s forces.

The Kirn Empire was feared all around their section of the Unknown Regions for their lethality of warcraft, selectively devastating strikes, soldiers that could take down thousands before they finally fell, one by one in a lightning fast staccato of attacks, and warships that glassed thousands of cities.

Until one battle changed all that. Aly was once a soldier, in the 33’rd Strike Battalion, a famous unit revered for silent, deadly assaults, and a perfect service rate.

The Alatarians were a fringe sect, mostly keeping to themselves, and practicing their unholy worship of their dread god, an undead sorcerer king.

The Empire wanted their territory, which was rather large since the Alatarians tricked their way into societies, proceeded to kill the leaders, and installed a puppet ruler in their place.

They decided to launch an attack on the homeworld of the Alatarians, Alatar. They sent the 33’rd, certain in their assumption that they would not fail. Oh, if they knew how wrong they would be...

Upon landing on the planet, the 33’rd, a group of several battalions of stealth technology equipped troops, infiltrated the capital city, and had no issues.

Their objective was to slaughter the Alatarian Senate, a group of sorcerers with the Dread God at the head. There was a mandatory meeting of the whole Senate, all 766 representatives from every province at the capital city that day.

The 33’rd surrounded the Senate dome, ready to cut down anyone who tried to escape, and rushed in, blades and concealable weapons drawn.

A wall of living fire met them, the full unbridled fury of the 766 sorcerers, the anger at them for thinking that they could sneak into THEIR city, THEIR world.

Nearly every single Strike Force member was incinerated, not having any power armor, or any armor for that matter. Except Aly.

She was 23 when she was accepted into the Strike Force. She was instantly mesmerized by the unit, their gleaming white armor, their flawless service record, the prestige that came with a posting.

Graduated top of her class at the Academy, receiving several awards for lethality and perfection in her specific style of killing, excelling in the Empire’s classes for killcraft.

On the day that she was accepted, she stared at her new helmet, losing herself in the gleam.

Then came the first mission call. Routine group assassination, code Black, no survivors. Head in, kill all the targets, head out.

They got in the planet with no issue. Aly was tasked with the most dangerous task. Killing the Dread God himself. She snuck up behind him, and listened and watched as her comrades were vaporized, screaming and clawing at the ground as the howling vortex of hungry flame consumed them.

As she watched them get incinerated, Aly was promptly captured, and forcibly used as a guinea pig to pry out secrets. She went through 2 years of torture, constant beatings, and downright slavery.

The Empire eventually freed her from the planet, but not before they dissolved all strike forces and replaced the lethal operatives that didn’t need armor with brutish, hulking soldiers in power armor that only knew how to commit genocide.

The failed strike on Alatar was living proof to the Empire, her kind was not what was needed anymore.

Her home of 1 day was gone. She was offered a teaching position at her beloved academy, but her training was replaced with tests of brute strength, not how easily you could snap someone’s neck with three fingers.

Since she denied the barely above the status quo teaching position, she was demoted to a common civilian, an expendable failure.

Aly was mad. Mad that she was once congratulated in the streets for her position, what SHE worked for, but now she was mocked and ridiculed as the last member of a failed strike force. She stuffed her rage down and believed she could work her way up again.

She found work at a factory, but she had to share a room with a roommate, someone named Keira.

She seemed nice, but barely held up her side of the rent. Red skin doesn’t help you in finding work on a mostly human planet.

* Position Shifts to Aly’s Apartment*

“Keira, did you tell the landlord that we’ll be a bit late in the rent this month?”

“Man. Sorry Aly. I’ll go tell him now.” The inept roommate gets up, walks toward the door, and heads down the hall.

Aly groans, this wouldn’t have been tolerated in the 33’rd. If there was a 33’rd anymore.

Aly began thinking. What if this could all go away? What if she could take revenge on her tormentors—Keira walked back in. Gotta stop thinking about killing people she hates.

“What did he say?”

“Said we pay by the end of the week, or we’re evicted.”

“Oh fun. Guess we’re getting evicted then. I have to go back to work.” Aly stands up, ready to head to her bosses place.

“Aly?”

“Yeah Keira?”

“If you could change all of this,” Keira spreads her arms out, indicating their current life and Aly’s troubles, “Would you?”

“Yes. I’d do it in an instant.” Aly walls out into the street, and walks down it angrily, trying to contain her rage at her situation.

All that was in her head, was revenge. Possible paths, and outcomes.

Unconsciously, she accidentally slammed into a passing soldier, judging by his grey uniform, he was an infantryman.

The woman with a scarlet choker linked to his arm slapped her, and sent her sprawling to the ground.

“Stay down scum! You street cons don’t know how to treat our soldier boys.”

The surrounding passerby all laughed, and chuckled at Aly’s misfortune.

The soldiers and their escorts all walked away, probably back to their barracks.

As she was walking down the street hurriedly, trying to get away from the soldier area, she spotted something shining in an alleyway on a body, probably another drug overdose. “A-a Gun? How did this guy get one of these?”, she thought, as she picked up the metallic form.

She looked to see if it was loaded. It was. [i]A sick and twisted smile came across her face, an opportunity she had.[/i]

[i]

She had an opportunity there, to take her wrath out on one of the tormentors she’d dealt with for the last 2 years.

[/i]

She mulled it over for a bit, freedom from her oppressors, or the rest of her life tortured? It was no contest.

After she safely hid the pistol in her waist pocket, she headed over to Alsoul’s house, ready to splatter his cranium all over his house in pieces.

Arriving there, she walked in. Alsoul was dressed in a greasy suit, and had set a dinner for two, in the sadistic way he was.

“Mr. Alsoul. I’ve arrived.”

“I see that, come in, come in! Why are you covered in mud?” The grubby man beckoned her in, groping her posterior as she passed. [i]All that was in her head now, was endless, unending, WRATH.[/i]

“I’m sorry Mr. Alsoul, I was shoved.”

“That’s no excuse. Sit.”

The man walked over, and sat at the table, his barely under average length legs hanging off the chair an inch above the floor.

“Now. Aly, what shall we do with you?”

Aly decided this would be a good time as any. She whipped the pistol out of her pocket, and put a round through his head with a sickening “SLURP!”

She laughed, spat in his rapidly cooling face, and walked out, ignoring the screaming inside from a woman, probably a significant other.

She decided that she should probably go after the woman and the soldier that shoved her today.

After leaving the house, Aly went back to the soldier area, and snuck into a barracks.

Finding the soldier and the escort in the middle of shaking the bed, Aly snapped her fingers, as her other hand shut the lights off.

“Who turned out the lights? Is that you Janson?”

The soldier chuckles, pulling on pants in the dark.

A small [i]CRICK![/i] is heard, and something falls to the ground.

“Huh?” The soldier grabs a utility flashlight off of a nightstand, and shines it around. He finds a scarlet choker on the ground in front of his feet, and a dark shape slumped over in a chair in front of him.

He shines the flashlight on the shape, and finds the escort, her neck snapped at a horrific angle, balls of bone pushing against the inner layer of her skin.

“You street cons don’t know how to treat our soldiers boys...now you don’t know how to snap a neck with three fingers now do you...brute?”

“Show yourself....”

“So eloquent, I wonder...can you write an epitaph? Because after today, the last TRUE soldier of the Kirn Empire will be gone, and the art of Warcraft will be lost forever.”

“He won’t be dying. He’ll be killing you.”

“Oh my idiotic friend, I didn’t mean you! The proof is behind you.”

The soldier whips around, ready to fire off a punishing blow with a fist.

There is nothing in front of him.

There is something behind him, a quiet WHUMPH, and the vengeful specter drops down from the rafters. All it takes, is three fingers, and the soldier is on the ground motionless except for the bobbing of his head, with an unresponsive body.

[i]

Revenge is sweet...

[/i]

“Look at you now. Nothing without your armor.” Aly stands above him, watching the man sob.

“No magic, no experimental technology will heal you. You will be forever useless, an outcast from your band of merry men.” Aly laughs, and stomps on both of his kneecaps, breaking them in the way the old Academy taught her.

“You will be abandoned, a lost cause.” Aly shatters his unresponsive arms on the floor.

“You will be nothing.” Aly walks out, leaving the sobbing man behind, with his fractured limbs, and destroyed future.

[i]

Wrath. Revenge. Penance.

[/i]

She thinks, endlessly planning, conniving a way out of this. A spacecraft. That’s what she needs.

Aly turns, and heads to the spaceport. She somehow gets past security, and into a fighter, a hyperspace capable craft able to get out of the system, then takes off. Several ships take off in pursuit, and chase her into orbit.

A dogfight starts, with several dreadnoughts joining in, but they can’t track the fighter with their guns. Eventually, they land a hit, disabling her ship.

The traitor to her kin groans, let’s go of the piloting interface, and sits back, waiting for death.

The ship ruptures, sucking her out into space.

SEVERAL DAYS LATER...

Aly’s body is still floating in space, long dead.

She is slowly drifting into the middle of the system, dragged by the star’s gravity.

Aly awakes, in a dark and flaming place.

She doesn’t even get a chance to think, “Where am I?” before the pain starts. Nerve shredding tides of pain.

She barely manages out, “What is this?” in between the screaming.

A whispery voice answers,[i]

“This is you Aly. You made this. This is you burning in your own flame.”[/i]

“W-why?”, she mutters as her body is tortured by the pain, but with nothing or no one causing it.

“[i]Because Aly. You chose to let your WRATH overtake you. Revenge is a part of life, but WRATH is unnatural. Remember that.[/i]”

Aly’s view gradually faded to black darkness.

[i]

And Wrath awoke, wreathed in starfire.

[/i]