New Beginning 23: One for the Record Books

[The Mediocre Gatsby]

"Okay, well. I guess that if you're all resilient. I can try to shake hands."

He gingerly holds out his hand to Marv and quickly turns his head to the side as he clasps his hand and shakes. He looks over to his astonishment to find no swords, no buzz saws, no hammers. Just his hands!

 "Well, that's some good news. Now if only I could figure out who I was, or where I came from. Hell, I'd be happy with even just a name... yeah, even just a name."

[Celadon's Penultimate]

The name Itrisa Meriness on each of the books didn't even ring a bell in Blue's mind--that was saying something indeed. That knowledge, combined with the effort it took him not to concentrate on what came next in the books, it was all maddening. Along with that were mixed in the teenager's blaring music, the chaos of an undulating mass of dancers, the raucous cries of spectators hoping to win their bet on the Cyclops v Ogre wrestling match, folks trying to calm to panic of some maybe-android(?) who just came crashing through Marv's newly redone ceiling—now an exploding burst of confetti!—and about a thousand other different sounds swirling through the fray. It all felt like the mating calls of so many Choromandae canoodling with so many Maenads in the Echo Chambers of the Banshee Choirs on Planet Dynn that one time.

The Narrator's suggestion to play the Music of the Spheres came right on time. A wave of his hand, and the room began to repair into something soundproof, from all but the Musica Universalis. At least, soundproofing was the Penultimate's intention. And incidentally, such would have been the case, if not for just one...other...small bit of sound.

The most minor set of notes, really. Nothing that would have disturbed a child from sleep, or scared a cat from its place, or even rippled the air. Hearing it by psychic senses felt almost as though his own mind had remembered the random bit. In fact, it was one that The Penultimate recognized as a song with which he was very fond.

♪Whoa-whoa, starry eyed...♫

He tuned clairaudient senses, without disturbing the others, to perceive the source. Then he remembered that psychic sounds were sent through the Astral Realm, about the most chaotic and seemingly-sourceless place imaginable.

As though to accommodate his inner wishes, the sound now became much clearer, engulfing the whole of the party. Everywhere that the New Beginning Party was, even into all the nooks and crannies of numerous pocket dimensions which had been set up as VIP sections of sorts. The song overwhelmed all other concerts out in the distant yonder of the estate of the Marvelous Miscreant, until about halfway through the song.

For some reason, the longer it played, the fewer and fewer people danced, until everyone was either standing idle, or looking for a place to sit. And then, on reaching that halfway mark, there appeared with a loud, celebratory bang, a brilliant pink spotlight smack-dab in the center of the estate, eliciting a few gasps of awe and dismay. Smoke rose from the floor where the spotlight shone, and from the fog of the display, arose a beautiful woman. Her hair was shining blonde, her eyes a shimmering blue, and her dress an alternating display of yellow and gold.

The song continued, and the spotlight followed her as she made her way through the crowd at a gentle pace, as though inspecting the crowd for the perfect dance partner. Parting crowd after crowd like a Red Sea of faces, she did not stop until she reached just in front of where Marv had set his meeting for the The Group (which, coincidentally, was about the time the song ended). There, a satisfied feline smile crossed her face, as she seemed to speak into thin air.

"I told you I would find them, Witch." she said, before turning to see that the crowds were all now turned to look at her, her voice would now reverberate over every PA system at the party, "Oh, I'm sorry. Please do pardon my intrusion, folks. How about, to make up for it, I introduce myself. I am the one who has gone, for a while now, by Itrisa Meriness; the one who penned that lovely New Beginning series you've all been reading. And these... are my lovely new friends."

From a random spot in the crowd, a blue spotlight emerged, parting the people to reveal a familiar face: the witch that "Meriness" had addressed. It was plain to anyone who'd encountered her before, that this was none other than Darkess Faye.

And a green spotlight shone down, to reveal a third familiar face: a red-haired blue woman reared back and forth, as her hair turned back to its natural stark-white, and her cheap mink revived back into polar-bear skin. It was Tundra Cryos.

And the yellow spotlight would come from yet another random spot, landing on what looked like an old service robot who had gotten lost on the way to retrieve more drinks. With all eyes on it, though, it was soon revealed for H4RD-DR1V3 (Hard-Drive), an emissary of the Technari Queen Motherboard Prime.

"And now that we've got your attention", said Meriness, her voice still amped up to reach across every speaker, "You should all know that my true name isn't Itrisa Meriness. I am, in fact, deposed Queen-Maestro, Lilyria Rhapsodaria Song-Singer. That is to say, I AM SISTER SIREN. I figure that, if the lot of you are to perish pitifully at my hand, I should at least do you the courtesy of solving that little anagram for you first."

EveryoneDon't attack yet. Just engage them in conversation first, huh?

[The Mediocre Gatsby]

"AHHH!!!!" the teen screamed

"Okay, so does anyone want to tell me who these oddly attractive, but also frightening women are?" he asked.

[The Narrator]

*being that Narrator hasn't met the others, but recognized one of the techno brings that previously lessened his power, he decided

To play it safe. He quieted the music of the spheres, as his musical abilities seemed to flicker off.*

"Well Sister, it's so nice to meet you. I'm the Narrator, but I feel you know me better than it know you.  Want to sit and chat, maybe a glass of tea??" 

--
Derek A. Haynes
Lead Tutor
Destined for Greatness: Academic Services

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

"So then, the anagram was a bad rip-off of a villain from a child's series? Please, call back when you've either got something better or wish to buy a few magic items from my family. Thank you."

[The Mediocre Gatsby]

"OOO! Any way you could spot me a cup of Earl Grey? It's my favorite!" The teen asked The Narrator, hoping he wasn't being too pushy.

[The Narrator]

Narrator snaps his fingers, a box of Garl Trey tea appears in Gats lap. 

"Ehhh....close enough...."

--
Derek A. Haynes
Lead Tutor
Destined for Greatness: Academic Services

[The Mediocre Gatsby]

"I think I can manage from here." the Teen said.

The teen took a deep breath and formed what appeared to be a faucet from his finger. Soon after water began pouring out of this "Faucet Finger" and into a cup that he formed from his other hand. The water came out hot and he began steeping the tea.

 "Well, the good news is, I think I'm getting a handle on my powers. I imagine what I want to make, and my body just does it." he said. "Now about my name. Gats.... well, it doesn't really sound COOL enough, you know? What about... Aaron? I dunno, just sort of popped in my head." he said, sipping the tea.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

"Hush, you lot!" Hissed the witch Darkess Faye at the supers, "Ugh, see that? The goofy one is trying to distract us!"

Tundra Cryos scoffed and retorted dryly, rolling her eyes, "Which one?"

The two of them and Hard-Drive menaced the lot of them, and raised hands with powers at the ready. They began to approach, but Sister Siren put up a hand to stay their antagonizing.

"No need for that, folks." she didn't take her eyes off of The Penultimate, "We really haven't got any business here other than letting them know who all will be responsible for their destruction. I mean, really, it's not like there's even any use in explaining our plan to them. I already triggered it 35 minutes ago. Mmkay, bye!"

And with that, Darkess raised her hands; a plume of smoke burst up around all four of them, and just as quick as they had appeared, the villains were all gone.

Less than five seconds later, a sound pierced dismayed chattering of party guests, like the scream of a Balduvian Frost Falcon. In the distance, the explosion of the incoming Warp-Phase Bombs would be more than bright enough for all to see.

EveryoneThe Technari, and um, other forces, are now attacking Cykosha, Celadon, Aeon, Earth and numerous other territories colonized by any and all Listers.

[The Mediocre Gatsby]

"Ummm, excuse me? Did I hear the word detonated? As in, 'Detonation has already occurred'? That detonation?" the one calling himself Aaron asked.

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

"Oh, isn't that just peachy," I comment, rolling my eyes. "Suzu, do we happen to have any messages from home? I'd hate to be told that the maids had their daily routine interrupted by a bunch of nuisances."

Suzu salutes cheekily, replying, "None so far Mistress, though I don't doubt that someone will attack home. The stuff coming at us right now might be fun to dismantle and reverse engineer later though."

[Zaleramancer]

Four seethed as she heard the words echo across the city.

She wanted to murder them. Four wanted to tear them from this world and drag them screaming into the next, beat their broken bodies across the thousand hells and shatter their souls upon the roots of the world. They had spied upon her, seen her when she thought she was safe- when she thought she was alone. This was not something she was willing to forgive.

A thought crawled from the back of her mind and a part of her mind looked at her from the outside, staring objectively.

She was Four, a seventh of a greater mind and greater power. She was Four, sometimes Officer or Commander or Agent, and once, she was Gray. She was the defender of the homeland, the watcher and policer of the world-body of the collective intelligence. She was the guardian at the threshold, the anti-virus of the grandest computer, the three-headed beast before the river of death, the sword of Damocles hanging above the heads of the mighty, and the cherub with the fiery sword set to deny Eden to man. Such as how she had been made, been forged from the fires of failure and disaster- but time had taken it's toll. She had been the purest incarnation of will, of unwavering dedication and unbiased attention, but now she was a person- prone to thoughts and feelings and bias and emotion. Prone to regrets.

She looked at herself and saw someone wracked with fury, uncontrolled and undisciplined- and Four felt a tinge of shame. Her fury redoubled, turned inward, turned cold. A tranquil anger sank deep within, held in check by a steely will.

Gray breathed deeply, sending out a cloud of steam. Above, the skies began to grey as stormy clouds started to fill the sky.

Putting away her gun, she pulled out a cigarette and struck a match against her prosthetic left arm, then began to smoke.  

She heard the sound of bombs exploding across the main gate of home, and smiled. Those morons had no idea of what they were getting themselves into. She nodded to the young man, reached over and grabbed Miss Blue on the shoulder and they both were gone.

[The Mediocre Gatsby]

"Oh, okay. So everyone's getting out of here. I should probably figure out away to leave myself. Okay... so maybe forming armor would be nice." Aaron said aloud.

 Aaron pictured it. Armor forming over his entire body. With a powerful thruster in the back, to propel him towards his next destination. A sleek design, all black, boosters on the bottoms of his feet, and a black helmet. As he pictured the armor, he noticed that a tingling sensation met the surface of his skin. He opened his eyes and saw what looked like a black, liquid metal was covering his skin. He focused even harder on what he wanted the armor to look like. After what felt like mere seconds, Aaron opened his eyes and saw that what once only existed in his imagination, was now a physical reality.

 "AWWW YEAH!" he shouted. His voice went through some sort of robotic synth effect through the helmet, so now everything was disguised. "What's up with this? Woah! The inside of the helmet is like a computer. It's picking up some sort of energy signal. Maybe that's where all of these people went off too. They said that someone named 'Penny' might be able to get my memory back. If I have any hope of figuring out who I am, I better stick with them." he thought to himself.

 "Alright, now all I have to do is think. C'mon just think. 'Follow the course made by the computer!' "

Before he could finish the sentence, the rockets on his back and in his feet initiated liftoff. Before he knew it, Aaron was headed right where everyone else was headed, wherever that was.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Wait, when you say test of might you don't mean I have to actually fight you right?" Vaultboy asks nervously. "Because honestly, that's kind of outside my comfort zo-"

It was then that he suddenly lurched forward, clutching his head with one hand and trying to steady himself with the other. Mental pressure slid between the crevices of his brain. He could feel the cold icy claw of control squeezing the thoughts from his head.  It was a familiar pressure. He had felt it last week.

He started to collapse when he felt the steadying arms of night lifting him up. This threw him for a second, because the boy was must stronger than he looked. Strong and... hard. Boney. It was so weird, he ate so much. It took him a moment to realize that Knight was speaking.

"....tboy, are you alright? Mr. Vaultboy, can you hear me?"

"They're here." He stammered out between deep breaths. "Robots. Robots are here. They're in my head." He shouted, throwing Knight off of him and stumbling away. "They're everywhere. Something's wrong somethings wrong somethings wrong!"

[Zaleramancer]

The War-Chamber of the Library/The World-Body
Now

Four stood staring at a large table that danced with strange symbols and glyphs. Several of them seemed to rise off the table and float through the air, indecipherable to all.  

Next to her stood Blue, now decked out in a set of blue plate-mail and a large crackling halberd, and a new figure- a genderless, featureless looking humanoid with skin the white color and texture of a standard apple product. It appeared to lack any joints, simply having each part of its body float disconnected in the proper place.

"Status report.", said Gray as she shifted a few of the glyphs on the table with her hands.

"Evacuation to the central citadels is going smoothly, the main routes should be clear in five minutes. We will be able to activate the main inner defenses by then.", said the pale figure in a smooth and impersonal voice.

"Abjurations around the main gate are holding strong against the bombs, auxiliary gates are sealed and obliterated- the main gate's the only way in now.", said Miss Blue, "I've isolated the danger zones-" she touched a small cube charm around her neck "-and Two is has shifted her patients into the citadels."

"Alright, we're going well. The bombs won't be able to break in by themselves, but we should be expecting company soon. I want everyone prepared for an interior attack- I don't trust the enemy to move through the main gate, even if we've got the whole world locked down dimensionally. Six," she glanced at the pale creature," I want you t-"

"Four, it appears that something followed you home," Six interrupted.

Four swerved on the spot, a knife appearing in each hand and saw Araon. She paused and the knives vanished into steam.

"I'm actually impressed you managed to follow my trail. Of course, that doesn't negate the fact that you just stepped into a lock-down, and there's no way in hell you're getting out without walking through a hail of bombs."

[The Mediocre Gatsby]

"Well, as long as I'm here," Aaron said, imagining the armor deactivating and sort of... going back inside him, and watching in amazement as it did. "It seems you've got a little situation on your hands here, madame. So maybe I can help you out with whats going on here, and then maybe you can help me out with what's going on here." he said, pointing to his head.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

A man watched the explosion tear a hole in the middle of a Kethencian street. One was a small but well built man that looked to be in his late twenties, skin a light brown where it showed. It didn't show much, because all the places that could be seen between what wasn't covered by his leather jacket, jeans, and policemens cap was covered in crisp, white linen bandages as though he had been horrible injured and his dressings were changed regularly by an extremely dedicated nurse. He dropped his flagon of genuine Valhalla mead and let it splatter on the ground, something that thew person who had recommended it would never forgive if she saw it. Some small part of him was screaming at himself for wasting the greatest thing he'd ever tasted, but it was drowned out by the rest of him which was just screaming.

As people panicked and ran about him he just froze up, unsure of what to think. Until, that is he felt a tugging on his pant leg and a gargly, panicked voice shouting "Ammon! Ammon!" He looked down.

Standing there, wrapped in a little black cloak that tried to menace but only made him look more adorable, was a small imp like creature with no eyes and the biggest mouth Ammon had ever seen. Right, yeah, he'd been over at the buffet. Why waste time drinking when you could be eating.

"Gob!" He said happily, frantically gesturing around as more explosions rained from the sky. "Is this that Red Eye thing?"

The little guy shook his head. "Not red enough." He shouted.

Ammon considered that logic and decided it checked out. While he did that, the little guy was climbing up his leg.

"Hey, what-"

"Family!" Gob said, and Ammon understood. The little guy had a brother in this city, didn't he? But where would he be? Surly his bakery wold have set up a stand for the party, good as they were. He looked out over the fires that were rapidly spreading and felt his throat go dry. He lifted up a keg of the mead he'd been drinking onto one shoulder as Gob crawled onto the other one. Fire and him didn't mix, but that shouldn't e a problem so long as he kept hydrated. He could run, but Gob and Bill had done to much for him to let the little guy wander off into the middle of this warzone by himself.

"All right, buddy. Hang on and support me with your magic if you can." He said at the first wave of ground troops were dropped into the city. "And see if you can spot Val, I know she'll be flying around here somewhere."

It was hard to tell Gobs emotions because of his lack of eyes, but he faced forward with clear determination anyway.

(Now tell me what sort of forces are dropping into the city so I can start busting heads.)

[Zaleramancer]

"We'll take you up on your offer, but as of now- there's not a threat you can assist with, unless of course you want to stand in front of the gate and get hit by bombs. But later on, if the fight breaks in, then we will gladly accept assistance in the melee," the pale Six said, "For now, we will offer our end of the bargain, as it were-" a door unfolded from a nearby wall "-step through there and say that you were sent by Six to see Doctor Brown. Two is the best doctor this side of desert of death."

"If she can not mend it, then it is beyond anyone we are aware of."

[Philote]

"Knight, go!" Miss Shield says. "Take the Guardian, we'll meet you on the other side." She picks Vault up and begins weaving protections of various kinds over him to attempt to alleviate his trouble as she steps back outside of the gate.

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Back on Aeon, I get up from where I had been leisurely overlooking the hunting competitions and stretch my arms. Some precautions had been put in place for this sort of situation after the last invasions.

"Alright everyone, back in the door" I emit to everyone of note.

The gate to Aeon is summoned out of me and is placed to hand overhead. Aeon, the sun and moon, and all the surrounding space is drawn within. When the deed is done, the gate is returned inside.

All that is left is the remaining SPL space and the invading forces surrounding me. I summon my blade, Halo, and rest it on my shoulder.

"So, which one of you is first" I challenge.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Knight nods and looks up to the Guardian. "Sir, we have to go now. Quickly." He rushes over to the opposite door and pulls it open.

"They're gonna make me attack you they're gonna make me attack that's how it works." Vault mumbles to Shields, the wards indeed taking off some of the pressure of the control. But not all of it, and the strain was making it hard to move. What was strange was that it wasn't as bad as before. Before it was instant, just click; you're not you anymore. You're trapped in a little box watching everything you do while someone else tools around in your body. He was able to resist this time. What it some sort of power he'd developed recently?

"Where are we going?" he asked.