This confounded Lupus and the legionnaires in equal measure. It was not possible for someone to simply disappear like this. There wasn’t even any relevant data in the wider search. How is this possible? The question rang through Lupus’ head time and again without mercy or relent. His distress was plain for the legionnaires to see. Without another pause, he asked Olympus to scan the entire planet; he couldn’t give up on Calla yet, even if it was time for him to fulfil his real purpose.
“Commander, can we afford the power?” Olympus asked, not meaning to offend the Apostle, but aware of what the task would cost the fleet. Their journey, and the war before it, had already taken a toll.
Sabre knew Olympus was right to question it, but he knew how important this was to Lupus and insisted that the scan was necessary.
As the device began a fresh search over the entire planet, the Stormfalcon came out from between the river banks and glided over a group of residential districts before spearing over an industrial park to the east. The business of the outside rushing by the viewports in the transport failed to serve as a distraction to Lupus as his mind focussed solely on willing Olympus to find Calla.
The legionnaire looked shocked at what the device showed him as its final calculations were made. He was reluctant to say anything, and instead passed it to his commander for a second opinion. Yet, it was undeniable, and Sabre was equally moved by the result.
It appeared neither of them wanted to explain themselves. “Will you speak?” Lupus demanded, his voice just below a shout.
“My Lord…” Sabre began, with the gentle tone that he was fast becoming famous for, “There is still no trace.”
Lupus felt his heart crush with doubt, his ears outright denying what they had heard. An awkward laughter escaped his lips in disbelief. “How…how is that possible? How has she disappeared from the entire world?”
As he muttered these words Sabre felt the Stormfalcon beginning its final approach to the Senate House. “I do not know, my Lord, but we cannot dwell on this. For now, we have other urgent matters to attend with the Gothic Senate. Perhaps the device is faulty. I can keep a contingent of legionnaires here, if you wish, to update us on her status, but I am sorry; we cannot stay here and search for her…there will soon be a war on” Sabre felt guilty as soon as the harsh reality left his mouth, the legionnaire in him shaping his words into duty abiding intentions.
As the transport began its landing, Lupus felt the truth of the commander’s insistence sink in. “No…you’re right. I was a fool to ever think she and I were possible anyway” Lupus muttered. In his mind he knew they couldn’t look for her any longer; they had an Empire to prepare for war, but accepting the truth did not make his disappointment and longing for her any less great. He had been naive to think that his legion could save him from all his problems and cure all his troubles. Some things, he realised, could not be helped or solved even with the help of an army. Perhaps Calla truly had disappeared, maybe the device was faulty. For now, he had no time to find the answer.
As the ramp of the Stormfalcon opened and the legionnaires left their seats, the restraints lifting smoothly from their bodies, he felt a part of him urging to let go of her. Everything had changed in the last day; not just her fate, but his own. He had to overcome this hurt and focus on his future, on his only family that he knew were out there waiting for him. He had to be the Apostle that the legions needed him to be.
“WE’RE LATE; THE session has already begun Commander,” Arcadius informed Sabre with indifference as they departed from the legion transport.
“That is of no consequence. Even the arrogant Senate will not deny this interruption,” Sabre answered as they made their way towards the entrance doors.
The Stormfalcon had set down in the courtyard behind the gatehouse and several of the legionnaires remained behind to guard it. Though no-one but a legionnaire had the skill to use it, they were duty bound to protect it and keep watch for any trouble. Lupus had been seen, and despite the legion’s efforts to keep his new location concealed, it was only a matter of time until people corroborated stories and massed outside the Senate House walls to demand answers from the government.
“The Commander is right. The Senate cannot deny my existence. Despite appearances earlier, I can control my form enough to use it for convincing them, if needs be” Lupus insisted at Sabre’s side as they marched through the doors to the Great Auditorium.
Major Barclay once more stood guard outside its doors, but upon seeing the legionnaires and the new man accompanying them, he stood aside and thought better of making a resistance. It would have been folly, he knew.
“My lords,” he bowed, addressing all of them regardless of their individual rank. Since they had been inside the Senate House with his own men, he had come to both admire and venerate them. The legionnaires truly were as impressive as the texts foretold and he owed them his respect. Sabre nodded in response, but Lupus gave the man no more heed than a brief glance of curiosity.
Once inside the Auditorium, they witnessed the Senate in full session with representatives from several different legions, each serving a different purpose in the greater whole of the Black Guardian forces. The sight before them was of little surprise to Lupus; the Senators were allowing the legionnaires to speak and give their points, but would immediately deny them and cast doubt on their claims as the opportunities arose. Inevitably, many Senators argued there were more pertinent, present wars to fight.
After observing this pandemonium for a few patient minutes, Lupus chose to walk directly down the closest seat channel to the dais at the centre of the room. Seeing him do this, Sabre and the rest of the command echelon stayed back and let their Apostle do as he bid.
The Lord Governor, who was speaking from the platform podium to address the suggestions made by the legionnaires, noticed his approach and stopped his rhetoric with a blank look.
“I presume that you are…Lupus, is it?” he asked nonchalantly, as if all the esteem for the Black Guardians that Sabre had built the day before had been forgotten.
Lupus stopped at the steps to the dais and answered him without injury. “I am more than a name to be known by, Lord Governor; I am the Apostle of the 617th Legion, and many more are mine to command. I have come here with one purpose only; to convince you of the reality behind the Guardians’ words, for it seems that already you argue with them again. You can choose to accept my existence, or deny it, but we are the Empire’s only chance of salvation”.
The Lord Governor smirked slightly, bemused by the adolescent that the legionnaires claimed was their fabled Apostle. He needed something better than this if he was going to take them more seriously.
“You are barely a man,” the Governor told him bluntly. “We were expecting someone with more…presence.”
Cries of assent chorused through the Senate. They were picked up by member after member and soon the whole room was full of accusations that Lupus was a fake brought before them to subdue them to the Guardians’ wishes. Had Sabre not explained to him on the way in that agents of the Great Enemy, known as Corrupts, had infiltrated the Senate a long time ago and manipulated it into a bitter, cynical seat of power, he would have been caught off guard completely.
Nevertheless, he felt antagonised. He knew what he had to do to make them believe. At first, it was the insults and jibes that caused the change, much like it had at the Academy, but Lupus got over that and sought control as he focussed his anger at such blatant ignorance and channelled his energy into slowing the transformation. Where usually he would take his form instantaneously, he was doing so slowly, almost painfully so. It helped to demonstrate his power.
As his skin changed and his body moulded into that of the Lion, it was having the desired effect. Taking his form as the Apostle of the 617th Legion, Lupus cast the Senate into silence as he dwarfed both the Governor and the dais he was standing on. The man would have been crushed instantly if he hadn’t exerted the restraint he forced on himself, but now he w
as so massive that the politician had to step back until he was almost at the seats with his peers.
I will tell you once more, Senate of Gothica and her Empire; I am an Apostle of the Black Guardian Legions. I am one of twelve. Lupus began, his voice and message carried across on psychic waves to his audience. He panned his head around, showing his animal face for all to see. They were mesmerized by his new incarnation, by the abilities he had displayed.
Now that he had their attention, he continued. My legion is one of hundreds, but the enemy has hordes a thousand-fold. Heed our words today and the Empire you have spent centuries building may just survive. Ignore us, call our claims false and we shall have no sense of duty left to guard you from the evil that even now seeks to destroy you.
The psychic speech, spread to every mind in the room, was the final straw that shattered any doubt in the Senate about the power of the strangers before them claiming to be their saviours from a war yet to begin. Each of them in their hearts knew that every part of the Prophecy was true; not just the fraction that they had already witnessed, but all of it.
Recovering from his own shock, the Lord Governor regained his posture and wiped the sweat from his brow as he felt his heart hammering in his chest.
“Lord Apostle…we will hear you…” he declared.
Lupus retained his form and glared at the fickle man, a warning that was both terrifying and paralysing to behold. Sabre, take the dais, he ordered.
THE COMMANDER TOOK to the stage of the Auditorium with no hesitation under the direction of the Apostle, who had changed back into his human form. Sabre wondered how the transformation did not remove him of his clothes, the strange energies that surrounded him during the process seemingly preserving his state wholly, without affecting him in any physiological way; Lupus could change with no apparent sacrifice so that the transition was smooth and effortless.
Bringing his attention back to the audience around him, Sabre spoke with an authoritative tone not borne from arrogance, but from experience and wisdom.
“The threat we face, united as we offer our allegiance to you, should not be underestimated. For now, as the Prophecy foretells, the war has been stalled. Make no mistake, this was done with the ultimate cost; the death of a goddess”.
Sabre let the words sink in, making sure that no man was willing to disagree. Telling a race that a being of greater sentience than anything they could imagine actually existed was hard enough, but telling them that being had died was a different game. Surprisingly, the Senate raised no objections or opposition, so he was content that they were finally ready to accept what the Guardians had to say.
“You will know her only as Vermillion, but she was Auranair; the goddess Queen. She sacrificed herself, my dear Senators, so she could do two things; spread her Blessing to the Twelve Chosen, who became the Apostles, and to create a Reality Lock on Colossi. It is my understanding that you are aware of the latter, but only fractionally,” he said, with no condescension intended.
“The chosen became the Apostles?” a Senator asked. “Are you saying that this ‘Blessing’ has already happened under our noses?”
Sabre turned his head to direct his answer at the man directly.
“Yes, it has. We do not know who has been chosen; we know only which forms they will take and the Apostles they are destined to become. Since Colossi arrived in your dimension, we sent a small fleet to investigate its status. It is clear that, already, Vermillion has made her sacrifice and the planet in its prophesied stasis.”
The Lord Governor took a turn to intercede.
“Commander…you are talking in the past and the present tense simultaneously. You refer to events as if they are not within your timeline, yet you have knowledge of them as if you are here and there at the same moment. Explain your meaning.”
“My Apostle Lion and several legions, including my own, were sent back in time by Vermillion as her last act.”
There were, understandably, mixed reactions to that answer, but Sabre carried on regardless.
“It was intended that we were to arrive before the events of Colossi’s appearance and the Reality Lock’s activation. Our purpose, here and now, is to pave a path for the Empire to war and find the other Apostles. The Auranair, in Her selfless action, forced the lock into lasting thirty years, Senator, that is all. She used Her last remaining energy to do these things, so that when the war comes, and it inevitably will, we would all be ready,” Sabre replied, anticipating the response.
“Thirty years?” a Senator cried out. “Your goddess…Auranair…could only give us three decades to prepare for an apocalyptic war?” He sounded genuinely incredulous, as if he thought Her power should be limitless. Only a human would be naïve enough to think that.
Sabre looked at the man blankly until the latter deigned to explain his disappointment. “…We are already fighting a war, legionnaire. Several, in truth, and we cannot endure another.”
The commander had been expecting this kind of response. “We know that, Senator, but the conflicts you suffer against those you call the Ghoul Hosts and the Vorlan Conglomerate pale in comparison to what you will face against the Great Enemy. Even the Old Nights you endured against the Pariah Alliance will seem easy”.
The Senator’s mouth seemed to quiver at the thought of that reality. “How…h-how do you know so much about us?”
“Oh,” Sabre smiled, “We know everything”.
The insight the legionnaire had, the honesty in his voice, floored the argument of the Senator whose mouth now opened and closed like a fish desperate for air. He sat down in futility.
“This plan you had…it failed?” the Governor eventually replied, wary to see if anyone else would interrupt the conversation between him and the 617th commander.
Sabre nodded sadly. “Yes. This part is truly irrelevant to what you need to know today, but the Apostle was separated from us by unknown means. As a result, we have spent the past few years trying to find him. We had to search every planet, from the outer worlds to the inner, until we eventually found him here on Gothica. That alone should tell you how important the Twelve Chosen are to us” he told the Senate.
He was growing tired of the history lessons. “Please, we cannot dwell on the past any longer. We must discuss the future.” This was directed at the Governor directly, who gestured reluctantly for him to continue.
“You have no preparations in place adequate enough for the Deian War,” the commander said bluntly. “We know your history better than you know it yourselves. The Colonisation Wars you put yourselves through decades ago nearly tore apart the very Empire you were seeking to build. Your fleets have barely recovered, even now, and your military presence is simply inadequate for the threat you now face. You’ve practically admitted to us already; you cannot afford yet another war, not when you are caught in conflicts that you will no doubt bear for decades to come”.
The Governor blushed at this, more from insult than embarrassment, but there were those among the Senate who clearly agreed through various gestures of quiet assent. Others sat disgruntled and urging to rail against the offensive truth of the legionnaire’s words, but none had the courage with the looming presence of the Apostle in the room, not after seeing what he could do in the time it took for lighting to flash.
“What would you have us do?” the Governor asked eventually, the same question shared by every human there.
Sabre thought about his reply for a moment, considering how well it would be received, but knowing he had to suggest it anyway.
“Pull back what ships you have to the inner worlds. Protect only the closest sectors to Gothica; the Pantheon and Titan Sectors”. When he mentioned the second, he saw a score of Senators about to deny its existence. “Yes, we know Titan is active and there is little point trying to fool us. You need to relocate your people to its worlds and to Pantheon’s so we can defend them more easily. We still have thirty years until the Reality Lock expires; that will be enough time to fortify those planets
and evacuate the other Sectors to the strongholds. Train new armies, equip them with the best weaponry you have. The 701st Legion will stay behind while we venture out to find the other Apostles and their legions; they can pass on our technology to you so that, together, we can defeat the Phantoms.”
The Governor’s expressions gave nothing away but anger.
“We cannot simply sacrifice the outer worlds at a whim. We have given too much blood and endured too much loss to give them up and run behind the walls! Forts can be built in those sectors too, stands can be made. Why should we build a defensive curtain and minimize our territory when we can encircle what we have now? Can’t your legions protect all the sectors? That is what you were created for, isn’t it; winning the war against this…Phantom enemy?”
Sabre sighed, impatient at the way the Governor was still failing to comprehend the scale of the situation. It was the man’s arrogance that riled Olympus. “Just how many worlds do you still have, Lord Governor?” All eyes turned to the second-in-command of the 617th, but he hardly seemed to notice their attention. “You humans spread out into the stars in the name of discovery and adventure, not for war but for peace. Tell me, when you met the Old Races, who started the hostilities – you, in your fear of what you couldn’t understand, or them in their anger of your subtle imperialism? Your thirst for knowledge and understanding of the cosmos became a xenophobic hunger for conquest and dominance, nothing less.
The Empire conquered a thousand worlds, slew whole species because you were frightened by your own societal inadequacies. You destroyed the evil, not just the pure I’ll give you that, though I’ll never quite understand how you quashed the Pariah Alliance”. The Governor was glaring at him, but Olympus showing no sign of stopping. “Your own people made themselves independent against you when you abused their armies and gave them nothing back. A whole group of worlds rose up against you, the Usurpers you called them, and you annihilated every man, woman and child who dared to say something different to your belligerent regimes that you claimed were for the greater good. It’s no wonder you scared away the Ancients…”
The Deian War: Vermillion's Apostles Page 12