Fort Geranium

Fourth Chapter: Admiral Mariana Von Ulysses

[Mariana von Ulysses's Point of View]

The crackling sound of explosions going off in the distance snapped me back to ‘reality’. Once again, I didn’t understand what I had been doing until just now but it wasn’t until I surveyed my surroundings did the feeling of being lost truly sink in. I feel like this has been happening far too frequently in my recently history and it’s getting a little worrisome. However, I took a deep breath as now wasn’t time for such concerns.

It was dusk, yet still perfectly visible due to the artificial lights around me. Setting my focus towards the distance I was met with the sights of navy clouds on my general altitude. ‘Huh?’ I was taken aback at the strange intrusion; normally clouds and I occupied different spaces. Shifting around to gather more information I concluded that I was currently on board some kind of ‘airship’, and by that I meant an actual sailing ship that was up in the air. A large, soaring wooden ark that carried with it hundreds of soldiers clad in leather and metallic armor.

The fun surprises didn’t stop there; it wasn’t just a single ark but to both my sides, even up and below me, I saw an entire fleet of these colossal flying arks sailing in dreadful unison. My ‘airship’ was the biggest one which led me to conclude that it was the flagship, but that wasn’t the main problem. Taking a closer examination I felt the anticipated gazes of countless soldiers eagerly awaiting my words, ‘wait didn’t this happen before?’ I asked myself. I saw it in their eyes, the fear, the anticipation and excitement as they held their weapons close to their hearts.

I turned back to examine the situation at hand, particularly below as I heard constant bombardments going off. With such powerful sounds I could only assume that a war had been waging on below us- I was right. I was met with the horrific imagery of complete devastation, a huge metropolitan city of impressive and elegant architecture, filled with history, was being bombed. From our own ships no less!

The malevolent orange pyres purified the city with ardent rage and pandemonium. The only thing I was thankful for was the fact that I was unable to make out any of the people who were on the receiving end of such brutality. ‘This is… war,’ though the context escaped me the imagery of true war was burnt into my mind. However the most important aspect of all of this was that I was the focus of everything right now. These men and women waited with bated breaths, for the words of wisdom I obviously did not have. “Ah…” I opened my mouth but froze up.

Perhaps to save me from this awkward situation a small black bird, a raven, flew by and rested its splintery legs upon my shoulder. “Psst, Mariana, what are you doing? They’re all waiting for your epic speech!” it chanted softly into my ears. “Ah, wait… you forgot again, didn’t you?” the black bird commented as it nodded its head to suggest understanding.

It lightly tapped my head with its beak, it hurt at first but the pain was soon forgotten. An extreme surge of memories which I never had came violently flooding into my brain, like an entire dam had burst open everything was being overwhelmed. It sent powerful concussive shocks to my brain with but with it I was driven to the backseat of my own body as I was placed into autopilot. I grimaced… now everything made sense, sort of.

“Ah… I see, so that’s what’s happening,” I whispered to myself. I saw in the raven’s deep black eyes a sense of excitement; an almost sadistic level of enjoyment from the carnage that played around us. Well, I shouldn’t blame him because for a while now I had the exact same kind of smile plastered all over my dumb face. As I composed myself in a more formal manner, I cleared my throat and turned to face the orchestra of soldiers. Yes, this was war, but more than that this was a simple ‘revenge’ story for the vast majority of us gathered here.

That was something I understood well.

“Knock ‘em dead,” the raven whispered. I nodded.

I took a deep breath and picked up a piece of sanguine-colored rock and spoke into it as though it were a microphone. It glowed in a deep rose color as it registered the vibrations of my voice, amplifying them so everyone was able to hear. In fact it was likely that even the people in the destroyed city below heard my voice though it wasn’t specifically ‘loud’. I think it was a magic spell to amplify and equalize my voice so everyone could register it on a comfortable level, but I wasn’t going to go into the details of how this worked.

“Comrades! We have fought long and hard for this moment to come! Finally, our combined efforts have brought us back to this place! This is where everything began; all of our misery and suffering, it was all because of these people!” I never knew myself to be a very emotional person and even as I spoke these words with violent and war-like fervor, I still did not consider myself to be so. I knew myself the best and that these words that came out of my mouth were nothing more than theatrics but it was different for the people hearing this message. To them this was the single greatest moment of their lives; a moment where they finally escaped the brutality of this unfair world to stand on the side of the ‘victors’.

“I will not mince words. Since the beginning I have been very open and transparent to you all! This is because I trust every one of you and respect all of your abilities! So I will tell you this now: I am not here to weave a better future, I am here simply to topple a violent, ruthless, uncaring, totalitarian government!” I continued on with flair. I felt a powerful rush of adrenaline crawl up my spine as the words left my mouth. Even killing that simulation of a boyfriend didn’t quite give me the level of liberation that I currently felt. “I am here today only as a destroyer of worlds! The city below us represents the single most corrupted, dictatorial, oppressive regime in this world’s history! I am here to erase it from existence! You will be left with the ashes of it, so if you wish to create a better future then do so with your own hands! The power now rests upon you to create the miracle that you had only in dreams.”

As I finished my brief speech, the skies trembled with the roars of countless soldiers. This powerful sensation shocked the skies and parted clouds so much that I feared these airships may not even have enough power to sustain flight from this tremendous outburst. My fears were unfounded, and we continued to sail valiantly across the clouds towards an ominously large, floating fortress. It dwarfed the size of this entire fleet, spanning god knows how many kilometers in height and length. My blood boiled as we approached. I unconsciously picked up that same blood rock and spoke into a final time, my unoccupied hand pointing towards the target with fierce accusation. “Witness Scarletheim! As the mountain of your own corruption comes crumbling down!”

As I ‘formally’ declare war on this mysterious nation a torrential gale rushes to thwart us. The smile on my face, which I didn’t think could grow any larger, expanded. Complete and utter chaos, this fantasy setting was just dialed up to eleven as I bore witness to the airborne creatures that had arrived to contest us.

I had only seen them in picture books or heard of them in legends, massive reptilian lords of t he skies. Their massive wings and powerful wings spanned several meters and their ferocious roars made even the heaven cower. ‘Dragons! Real dragons!’ I excitedly rushed to the spear-tip of my airship. ‘We’re fighting dragons!’ my excitement couldn’t be contained as I reflected on those words.

I turned back to the operators in my airship and shouted orders that I didn’t even understand myself. “Prepare the ‘Delta Relic’!” followed by the rushed footsteps of soldiers they dragged out a large red crystal which was connected to all manner of complex mechanisms. It was easily thrice my size and had a pseudo-technological magic weapon vibe to it. Various wirings were connected to and through the blood red gem as black strikes of lightning jumped across in a malevolent manner.

“Delta Relic ready, Admiral!” one of the soldier reported, but I withheld my reply. I gestured back with my hand to keep it steady until I gave the official order.

The enemy forces increased as airships of their own entered the airspace. Their massive scarlet painted vessels moved ominously towards us, threatening to attack without holding anything back, ‘just the way I wanted it,’ I smiled. Baring my fangs at the enemy vessels I ordered the firing of this mysterious ‘Delta Relic’, “Fire!”

“Firing weapon!” the weapon’s operator replied as he did something to make the gem angry. It glowed in a dreadful crimson color with the black lightning reacting even more violently as it launched a blood died energy wave at mach speed.

“Cromwell!” I shouted towards the enemy forces. I didn’t even know who this ‘Cromwell’ figure was but my body tingled with excitement as I loudly proclaimed their name. I knew nothing of the situation that played before me but the surge of triumphant emotions fueled my ignorance and desire to watch this bloody stage play.

The sanguine laser beam drilled through their airships like butter, instantly going up into flames a few of their ships fell down to the city below. It was obvious to me at this point that the enemy wasn’t going to just take this lying down so I quickly turned back to the operator and barked more orders. “Again! Prepare the Delta Relic!”

“Preparing! … Ready!”

The enemy ships were also about done with whatever they were doing. I could see the barrels of their forward cannons glowing brightly with critical mass. They were planning on lobbing everything they had onto us but that was how it should be right? This was war! I raised my hands to the sky then point straight forward. With precise timing I shouted, “Fire!” both of our magic based laser weapons were launched at the same time.

I didn’t know what happened after that but everything around me was encompassed by a shroud of blinding light. There was nothing but my own rapidly beating heart, slowly calming down with each passing second. Synchronizing with my increased adrenaline as I came down so did the dimness of the light. Eventually only darkness surrounded me.

It was a familiar feeling so, I closed my eyes. I was being brought back to the origin.

***

“What the-?!” I suddenly regained consciousness but lost my balance and fell backwards. I felt the murky dirt floor of a semi-familiar, purgatory-like graveyard on my behind. “This place is… Ah! Aegis, what the hell was that?!” I shouted at him, demanding answers to that incredibly vivid and lifelike dream sequence.

“Ah… sorry, you should forget that. I was going to send your soul to Terra, but I ended up fast forwarding instead of rewinding… ehehe~ silly me,” he sticks his tongue out, innocently winking at me. ‘Fast forwarding… wait so that was all real? Or like, it’s going to happen? Wait, what?’ I couldn’t even fathom how his powers functioned. He previously mentioned that he didn’t have the powers to change the past, so I was half and half on which way the dial spun. All of that could’ve just been an elaborate simulation… ‘Or it could’ve been a very real and very valid future sight, you should take note of that,’ however I didn’t have enough information to accurately test the theory.

“Whatever, for now I’ll do just that and forget about it but what were we going to do?” because of that little episode I was lost on what we were doing in the first place. I think he said something about bringing my soul to a place called ‘Terra’?

“Well, you’re familiar with reincarnation, right?” he asked with a malicious smile.

“You mean, like, in a religious context? I think Buddhists and Hindus believe in it. Not too sure on the details of it myself though.”

“No, no, nothing convoluted like that. It’s simply that your soul will be reborn into a new body in completely new and separate world from the one you used to know.”

“O… kay? Um, so I’ll lose all of my memories and start again from scratch? I suppose forgetting about my psychotic boyfriend would help a lot right now.”

“What? No, that’s boring and would make everything we’ve just done pointless. I mean sure, I am technically SUPPOSED to erase your memories before reincarnating your soul but… eh, like I said, no one actually does their jobs around here. Besides, I think it would be more interesting this way.”

“I guess it’d be nice not to forget about my previous life… but doesn’t this seem like cheating?” When I asked about the implications of reviving with my memories intact, all I got from Aegis was a careless shrug. ‘Right, no one does their job around here,’ I sighed and accepted it. Goody, it looks like I won’t be sent to heaven or hell but be made to continue on with these fantastic escapades.

“It doesn’t matter, no one enforces the rules so I can do whatever I want,” he childishly replied. Once more he placed those chilling hands over my eyes and closed them gently. “Then I’ll meet you on the other side.”

“Yeah… wait, what?”

Black.