Chapter 39 – Return whence the Warmarch

 

In the 8 months that followed, Becca continued her long trek through the boltholdes, traveling by the train that the mysterious ringleader had

abandoned. Most of her crew had left, although the masked Lover remained onboard as a loyal steward, becoming a leader among the rabble that remained. The headstrong Astrid took no time taking command, but otherwise did not resuscitate the mirth and majesty of the mystical carnival. The occupants cooked, cleaned, bargained around the tunnels and kept the train’s schedule running tidy. Becca stayed on as both a fellow traveler and lover of the woman.

About two months into their travels the other Mask bearer, the Tamer had escaped. They’d broken into Croix’s old artifact bin and stolen the Drum she possessed, but otherwise was not terribly missed, outside the tight shift she ran and careful control over the remaining caged animals. The train would visit both thousands of miles of track and

great sights through other worlds month after month. One week Becca and Astrid would look over jungle safaris, to kingdoms on the Tower, to realms left alone from Xi within their vast universe. The two spent their time evercloser, reveling in their love for each other - Their bond growing stronger and closer over the miles. The two engaged in several passionate affairs, often in their private cars, other times in the passenger area. The girl grew to favor Astrid, and the Lover’s stewardship.

They would spend romantic nights off the train in highrise cities, pouring wine in cafes and over cityscapes. The two took rowboats, exchanging lips and looking out into the watery moonlight of whatever world the train had brought them to. Becca oft looked at her reflection, no longer recognizing herself with her slit-like feline eyes and pink-pastel hair going upwards like a mane, her hands ending with pierced fingertips that looked like claws.

"Astrid?" Becca wrote on a small electronic device, tapping and typing away with soft furred hands. "Yes my love?" "I am an animal now." "Of course you are. A beautiful one at that."

Astrid caressed her, "Are you still uncomfortable with the mask? I think rubber still looks great on you." "A bit." The ringleader’s former white jester would look out the window. "What is it?" Astrid pressed. "Nothing. Just... thinking." "About what?" "Do you ever get the feeling that everyone is part of some big circus show?" "Everyone? Maybe. I'm sure we're just a side-show." Becca giggled, showing her the device. “That’s so silly .” They returned to the train.

As the weeks became months, and months became years, Astrid continued to train Becca in the art of eroticism, introducing the girl to erotic literature and Orchid poetry, which she quickly grew fond of. Becca never fully regained her speech, but she was atleast cognizant most of the time and Astrid watched as Becca grew.

She didn’t grow any taller but her catlike features changed.

A feline muzzle, her new ears becoming longer and a tail growing from her hindquarters. A tiger striped kitty pelt growing through her skin, but not fully – Her human body still showing through.

Her mere body wasn’t just affected, but her mind received visions at night while she slept, dreams of another lifetime. A life of a Set, a warrior

raised by scientists and labs among other warriors, bred to destroy the Xi’ans. A life of tragedy and repose. These dreams were rare at first, but overtime they became more common and cumbersome, memories overtaking the back or Becca’s mind and fusing with her own, giving her a greater understanding of what Nine had been through. With every dream, she unlocked more of the Set’s memories inside her head. She’d wake up, poking at the red jewel still encrusted into her forehead.

One other change underscored Becca’s progress.

 

She’d kept the small Hairball from way back before she’d been recruited by Croix, even before she had spent time with Mother Hen.

This ball, she’d nearly forgotten its origin, for it was the last remainder of Nine that she’d kept when the great Set warrior died. In the time since she’d began traveling, it had grown considerably, eventually

becoming the size of a cantaloupe. One day, it vibrated on her table while traveling through the bolts and a small mewling kitten emerged,

whom Astrid and ‘Celeste’ as she went by these days decided to name ‘Purrin.’

Purrin soon became a member of the family, a miniature cat no larger than a hamster who typically hid in Becca’s jackets and

skirts, the cat loyally seeing to Becca as if she were some kind of mother.

Oft she’d reach for the red gem on Becca’s forehead, pawing at it curiously.

‘She must think its lucky! Cats can always tell good fortune.’ Astrid would say.

Almost two and a half years had passed on the train since they’d seen Croix and been on their own, when one day their home in the boltholde Tunnels came to a horrible screeching stop. The two felt like an earthquake in their luxury cart, a café. Slowly they got out and saw the tracks

Had been stopped by a crowbar, sparks still flying, the train completely halted.

 

 

Slowly Becca got out, seeing the figure of a woman she recognized once, her obsidian grey-skin over jetblack glossy flesh that made her appear like some sort of black diamond come alive, eyes swirling a multitude of color. Her hair was in two long ponytails. The girl looked back at Becca but didn’t recognize her, or couldn’t possible other than the red jewel on her forehead which caused a dreary cognitive dissonance.

“Jack?” Astrid said. The woman held a long metal bar with her hands, she looked like she was about to smash the train with it. “Who the hell are you, kid?” Jack asked. Even the voice of Becca had become completely different since, her identity now a fleeting memory in Jack’s wildest imagination. Astrid slowly got out. “Dearie! It’s you!” She said sweetly, skipping still in shimmering silky goldy jammies. The obsidian gem looked like she was here to crack open some secure vault, not start a mother-daughter reunion.

“So nice of you to join back with us!” Astrid said, “It’s your dear mommy, but you already know that. As for her… Don’t pretend you don’t know who you’re looking at.”

Jack squinted, seeing the whiskers on Becca’s face, the striped lines across her fur and her feline ears. “R-Becca?” She asked.

Becca nodded. “Well, say something!” Jack yelled. She was only vaguely remembering that before she last left her, Becca couldn’t even speak anymore.

Astrid went over to Jack, getting to business. “Well, it is good to have you back in the

fold. My crew is a little short from what it was. Are you game?”

Jack took her crowbar out of the tracks and pointed it defensively at Astrid. “What? No!

I’ve been looking for you for, years! Do you know how hard I’ve been searching?”

Astrid grinned, looking back at Becca. “Don’t you think you’re being a little cruel to us both?” Jack looked at Becca, now seeing the creature she once knew her as, she looked like she was remembering something that she wasn’t exactly sure of. Jack stomped her foot. “NO!

Becca you need to listen, Xi has, Xi has gone completely to hell since you’ve been gone. There’s been a whole civil war since, and now they’ve brought back-“

“Xi this, Xi that. Like I’d care about a universe I wasn’t even born into.” Astrid said. “Besides, shouldn’t you be happy? This is what Goliath wanted. To sow chaos, to build his throne with the sticks and stones he tosses at others. Cry me a river, why should I care? I’ve changed, I’m over him.” She leaned into her ‘Celeste’, nuzzling her closely, petting her cat ears as if she were a pet, and looking at Jet as if she’d try to knife anyone that came between her and her precious Celeste. Jack scowled, her crowbar transforming into a mallet. “You. Have not changed at all! Looks to me you’ve just replaced one obsession with another.”

Astrid raised one brow and smirked. “What, are you jealous? Of my darling Celeste?” She stroked the girl’s ears some more, scratching them. “There’s no need to be envious. My dear daughter, the ringleader didn’t assign me the Lover for no reason. There’s plenty of love in my heart for you both.

Jack looked at the pink-pastel haired girl who was still looking at the floor, completely unable to believe this is what Becca had become. She noticed Purrin, the kitten pop out of her hair and folded her arms. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe what’s become of the both of you. That I’m still expected to believe that you’re ‘Celeste’ anymore!” “We’re no one’s toys anymore, not Goliath’s, not even the ringleader’s.” Astrid snapped, pulling out a pair of silver scissors and

cutting a strand of Celeste’s hair and sniffing it.

While the two argued loudly, Becca quietly wandered off, like a stray cat through the boltholde’s chasm. Purrin danced along the edge of the rim, before falling in and Becca chasing them down it herself, deep down through the spacial temporal membranes of the boltholes vast expanse. The tunnels often diverged and went countless directions, she noticed a strange well near one and leaned in. Astrid turned towards her. “Celeste- Nooo!”

The two ran forward but it was too late, Becca and Purrin falling into the hole with a swirling blue energy at the bottom, perhaps leading into the great infinite mysteries of reality itself.

 

 

 

✰ ✰ ✰

 

Centuries into the Past

 

 

Becca arrived in the forsaken battlefield, one of Xi's lost strongholds in the civil wars that had plagued the Ximperium since the disintegration of the previous Elderdragon-backed dynasties. The coalitions that once kept the war orderly and tidy over the centuries had long since fallen apart, leading to numerous factions emerging and vying for both military and

diplomatic supremacy. Previously all it took to win the support and supply lines of the fledgling population was a promise of feudal projection and military security, but that maxim no longer held. Becca stepped out into the sight of a destroyed city, the streets rough with rubble and cratered at every turn. Numerous soldiers looking raggedy emerged to ambush her, holding bayonettas, bolt pistols and metal sticks. "Freeze!" A helmeted soldier said, his shades reflecting Becca as he pointed his rifle at her.

 

"We're not in the best of times. If you're with Star Charity or their shrill mercenaries, you're going to die!" He yelled. Becca couldn't speak or reply.

 

The mercenaries and soldiers advanced, slowly closing in on the girl who was surrounded by a handful of the soldiery. Becca slowly lifted her hands up and opened her arms, giving up to the soldiers who surrounded her.

The soldiers laughed and pushed her to the ground. "A sacrifice must be made to our dear lord." They pushed her against the ground and held her, a bolt pistol pressed against her head.

 

They fired the shot, but nothing happened. Becca looked up to see her hands and the gun. The soldiers looked down to see the bolt pistol vanish. The soldier looked up and around, the bolt pistol in his hand gone and the hand holding it gone.

 

The soldiers laughed. "Holy fuck!" A soldier said. They turned around, seeing a man wearing a red cloak and plumed hat clutched a cannister of liquid fire, the flaming oil bubbling and boiling at his grip. He shook it and unleashed the top button, a snake of fire curving and waving at the soldiers The man let go and the oil burst like a flaming jet, the fireball expanding outwards until it was the size of a car.

 

It blew up like an erupting volcano, the soldiery flattened under the shockwave of the explosion, the flames surrounding them and charring them, some flattened out and impaled on debris. Becca was largely unscathed on the floor, she slowly got up too surprised to speak. The man said nothing, he gave her one good look, then began walking away from her as if she meant nothing to him whatsoever. The flames continued to burn, the corpse of the soldiery strewn across the field like trash.

 

She looked around. With no one else nearby, Becca trailed behind him. He growled and turned towards her. "Get lost." He said. When she got a good look at his face, a memory flashed of a man she'd distantly seen before. From the circus? He looked at her in return, a spark of recognition dawning. "Well well. It's been awhile. Who'd've thought I'd run into one of these old acrobats after so long a wait, hm?" The tall man gave a surly grumble, his thick chest and torso covered in leathery armor. Purrin peaked out from behind Becca’s neck to get a good look at the man.

 

"I'm Pazak, if you've wondering." He said. She nodded. "I remember the circus. Croix's little sideshow hobby, before it became a real proper big time." He said, his expression darkening as he approached her. "I'm not sure how you're alive but I don't much care. Stay out of my way if you know what's good for you."

He began walking away, Becca following Pazak, much to his annoyance. "P-paz.." She managed to utter out. The two started trekking through the ruined city. The man looked at the

girl, slowly and curiously. He looked at her like the rest of them would look at a strange bird or piece of strange insect. "Why are you following me you?"

She said nothing, just shrugged.

"Bratty girls always like following me, I swear.." Pazak said.

 

"Pazak!" His radio comm cried out, his voice bellowing from all directions, coming out into the air as a grown. The voice of a shrill grown woman addressed him.

"Wha?" Pazak's lips curled and his brow furrowed, as if her voice was clonking him on the head. "You need to be coming back. We need your strength." Pazak said nothing.

 

"Now! If you don't get back here right this second I'll do something really bad to your sister!" He grumbled at the sound. "She's your sister too idiot."

"Don't backtalk me! We lost some of our scouts.. The Llavalite insurgents of the Black Rose Warmarch are on the move about 500km away. The researcher on your sister's order were on them and we've lost three scouts. We need you back, ASAP. Come back now to regroup.

Failure is not an option." The radio chirped out again. Pazak sighed.

"You know it's really not my choice. It's up to her what she wants to do." The voice of the grown man, growling with deep frustration, as he turned around to face the girl. "By the time we regroup, they'll have already either trenched in their tanks or long since taken off. I'll take care of the problem." He told the woman on the other end.

 

"You know what, what is this?" She demanded. "This is a war." The boy said nothing. "You're not allowed to stay out this long, the Black Rose Warmarch are a special military force with a special objective. If they're getting near the Xipherium's front lines, it is a problem I need to take care of." The woman said.

"Whatever Urs. It's just lead and ride-ons for me." He said as he crushed his comm angrily and kept walking. Pazak scowled as he looked down at Becca. "Whatever. You can come with if you want."

 

The two walked on. Hours went by as they navigated out of the city to a checkpoint where a Warpstation armory was held. Pazak was tall and hulking, his shoulders wider than the walls of the ruined Xi Empire, his arms like giant tree branches. Pazak sighed. The mercenary of PFU was annoyed, the sky above him was getting darker and darker as the heat was beginning to increase on the daytime, the heat was reaching intolerable levels and the air began to stink of sulfur slime and brimstone. He slid his fingers along the ground, feeling a revolting white-green slime along the ground. "Tanks smears." He said. "The Llavalites have been here."

 

They moved on in silence for the night, the girl following after him with a sullen look in her eye, occasionally giving Purrin glances as they walked, the warmer of the afternoon giving way to a chilly night. The stars began to fill up the sky, the cold wind raking Pazak's brown hair as he looked up at the sky.

 

Becca looked up as the stars filled the sky, looking up and down. The man walked away as the wind picked up, the air cool and the light breeze whipping the grass and trees around, a black bird perched on a desecrated fencepost looking down at them.

 

The next day they continued through the city. The man Pazak looked down at the ashes of Xi. If you're with the Starlight that old acrobat troupe of Croix, I really don't know why you're

here." He said. "Can you speak?" He asked.

She pointed to his comm. Pazak handed it to her, and she started typing away. "Who's that lady with the shrill voice? You know her?" Becca typed on the device.. "My sister, Ursula. She leads our mercenary team here, along with about six hundred

other teams around this sector, and a thousand in the next one." He said. "The Xiperium's been

a mess since Croix almost went and got herself killed." He said, his expression grim, looking at a ruined casino, the once-neon sign collapsed onto the ground in disrepair building collapsed.

 

"Huh?" Becca typed out, Purrin peaking out to read the message.

 

"What, you don't know?" He asked. "The last Xiperium dynasty's been all fucked up since it got broken apart after Xi and her little warring families all squabbled about power and prestige, after the Elderdragons split Xi into pieces and those pieces split even further. Those two have been trying to keep Xi together but now the whole Empire's on the cusp of dissolving entirely. It's just a big power vacuum for now. And the Black Rose Warmarch is one of the mercenary companies who have been picking up speed since. They're a company made up of almost exclusively Llavalites, as much as the Ximperium hasn't really seen any of the Llavalites who were in charge of these territories before." He said, his expression grim.

The wind ruffled through his cloak and plumed hat, his armored shoulders creaking as he shifted them against the onslaught of cool air.

 

He said, looking up at a massive black tower of a casino that towered over the landscape, looking down at the two.

"The Black Rose Warmarch was always a mercenary group that did whatever they had to do, and now it's a lot more of them out there with the breakup of the Empire. They have Llavalite support, so now they're growing in strength, with more weapons, more troops, more people."

 

Becca nodded.

"This place, this whole part of the Xiperium, is a huge mess. Sisters think they can repair it with love and kindness. I am very different." He placed two hands on the ground and the surface started to tremble. A two-dimensional ring spread outwards from his pressing point of contact, its diameter widening and swallowing the entire casino and debris with a black void that seemed to swell outwards to the horizon. When it finally disappeared, a giant pit opened up in the landscape, the rubble below slowly falling away and down into the gaping sinkhole.

 

"I am Pazak, the Destroyer of Hells." He said, turning to the girl. "And I am in pain, dealing with the surge of bullshit everyone puts on me."

 

The two continued on in silence. He helped her climb down the sinkhole, and at the very bottom they found a square building the size of a trailer. "Xi's been a mess since the dynasty broke apart. It's just been piecemeal since then. We have to keep everything in line, else the whole Empire goes to hell." He opened the door to a closet-sized room with another door and operator panel, pressed several buttons but seemed to be frustrated for awhile. "C'mon, come ON dammit." His fist kept slamming on the console. as he pressed the hatch open and gave it a few whacks, then slammed the hatch. The Warpstation began to light up, a field of Cascade surrounding the metallic casing and then opening up the other entrance to the armory room, which was as large as a shopping mall.

"Warp hangups are the only truly fixed thing that's still reliable out here." He said, striding down the corridor into a mess of tanks and military vehicles parked in a long hallway. After coming back with a backpack not full of rayguns or rifles or bolters or blaster bombs, he placed dozens of starchy snacks and sandwiches inside a large sack and carried it along his back.

 

"Now all we got left is to get going with this job." He said, putting his hands on a console that opened a door to a huge armory. He let out a sigh of relief. "You must want to get home." He told the girl. She gave a shake of her head instead of a nod.

 

The two faced back towards the Warpstation's exit, when the lights flickered on and off. The lights kept winking continually, until they went dim and barely lit. Echo-y laughter filled the facility.

 

"We got trouble." Pazak said.

"T-trouble." Becca readied for the worst.