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by BloodOfPhantoms
Chapter One
Planet Xuorgon. Fixed Xuorgon. Its beauty shall not compare to anything else placed within nature. The nagging insects dance about, parading in day's green and purple. The sky above...? Countless, gargantuan spanning trees. Planet Xuorgon. Domed Xuorgon. Leftmost portion broken by endless war, until the ground completely collapsed into the abyssal underworld. To enter the black is to die an astral body: to be reborn anew. The stars remain locked in motion across the firmament. There is no alteration from their path. Planet Xuorgon... Dead Xuorgon! The factions which guide the planet's alignment with the cosmos do not serve well! The bitterness of ash and sorrow lingering through heart and fire with countless screams and bloodshed grow wearier and wearier, until the songs that are sung in their name grow tired and old as those who carried their tunes! The spacious battlefields left behind of felled wood and the somber, lifeless yellow grass have not yet strayed in abundance... lands only to be plundered by the Ministry of Light! ------------------------------- A hot, massive surge of purple lightning crashed down from above, and burned its way into the middle of the conflict, setting dry grass ablaze. His eyes, resemblance in hue the same of that lightning, revolved around the battlefield instantly with instinct. The large, black and purple beast, furred in slight battle scars and bloodied scabs snarled, and pounced onto another quadruped, tearing apart his white fur through the silver armor in most blood-curdling cry. He spotted two more, but is faster. He bashed the left away therein with a blunt, scraping blow to the neck... pulling at the dead carcass still latched onto his claws, hopping as he electrostatically blasted it into the other using both fores and hinds with an agonizing, leftover scream. A bipedal, tribal reptilian attempted to stab at him with a spear, causing him to weave back against the numerous, swift strikes. He jumped behind and swatted him to the side with his charged, heavy tail... battering the creature's ribcage right in. He immediately started to run, seizing at a quadruped knight's shrieking skull with his claws as he dragged him into the ground from the sheer, twisted momentum... knocking into an entire row of the fighting before it tossed him into the air. Trails of that residual purple lightning bled all around him before the airborne body burst open like a grape. His ears perk. At once, he nearly dashed out of the way when a large, heaping hunk of metal embossed a bright, burning crater into the soil. The thing steamed off from the impact; the massive, white bipedal piloting the suit's fur sticking out from the seams. "My my," the large knight grunted, picking up his long, black spiked club from the splattered dirt and walking towards him, "What do we have here...? A rogue runt... causing *all* this trouble?" The other male only growled in retort, hissing at the response, "Oh I assure you... I am no meager *runt*." Dulled, hazel eyes seemed to stretch through his ocularium, before he feverishly slammed his club down at the ground, deepening the wound to the earth. "Oh, how could I forget...?! You're the one my lord is after! The one with that *pesky* lightning...!" he shouted, as he lunged forward with repeated, reckless blows, while the beast would dash away, latching at more of those in armor who tried assaulting him with swords and spears, launching them at the canine behemoth in front of him. The knight's sweeping tail continued to trail the ground with blood, while his men's bodies exploded into him. Each was infused with the intensely loud, booming violet electricity. "Veriette... you trash!" the knight heaved, eventually becoming winded after missing so many blows, and covered within a hissing array of blood and guts, "I'll have your head on a *fucking* spike for the king, by the time this battle is over... make no mistake!" The beast's eyes widened at once, seizing the opportunity of the dog's stamina steadily decreasing. He leaped upon his chest and kicked in the breastplate with both of his hind legs, sending a cry of pain with a bolt of current running along and into his body. The ominous lightning rippled at the giant's armor, actually cracking and tearing into the wounded steel as he knelt there, slowly being electrocuted alive. Veriette pursued, pouncing atop him as he bit off the then worn shielding around his neck and tore away at his vocal chords... ripping out the entirety of his esophagus with a fresh, sharp and harsh tug. He hastily climbed over, and kicked off of his back with a loud, deeply primal growl. Gerthald's heavy corpse landed with a THUD upon the ground, facefirst. The hole his body made quickly pooled with mass liters of blood while the residual, stray fleeing sparks ran and dissipated across the dead grass along the field's floor. On the battlefield, Veriette was anything but calm. He was angry, resuming to motion through the landscape like a storm's wind... tempestuous, and momentously slaughtering both faction and ministry ranks alike. Yet... his focus remained solely on the latter... the former just being added casualty, especially if they were the first to strike. Dancing with death at every interval... Veriette fought within a world without meaning, lost only to long spanning wars and reemerging battles for territory that never ceased... that never ended in a resource-stricken land. But... why? What was *he* fighting for? So brutally, so tirelessly, so precisely... for— What was the reason? The true reason? ...Was there ever any?