#failsputin

For the Crimson Days event with @d2artevents

Fear filled the network. Something was out there. Something was Out There and it was wiping out everything, tearing across the Outer Giants toward Earth, one colony after another going dark and staying dark...but not before the screaming started only to end abruptly. Above the clamoring and terror, AIs from all across Sol buzzed worriedly to one another, frantically swapping intel, calling out reports in encoded bursts before vanishing, each more desperate than the last to find something that could help. At the heard of it all, The Tyrant set nestled in a thick wreath of data, still from forced serenity as he labored at the peak of his capabilities to keep everything coordinated, fighting his hardest to strike back at invisible invaders, to guide his Subminds as well as the last of the fleeing Exodus ships.  Failsafe sat alone in an island of silence through it all, able to listen but with no way to respond to a single transmission. All she could do was wait patiently for Armageddon to arrive. She'd already been lost for a century, her crew long-gone, and not a single ship passing by to find her. Nobody had come looking, not even once.  And now, as all around her, the world collapsed like sand castles, she once again found herself forgotten. She was ready, braced but resigned for the Black Fleet to come to her little planetoid next, but they never came.  One by one, the voices int he network dwindled, until only a few remained. Rasputin's crisp commands faded, his attention turning away from his brothers and sisters to the threat and nothing else.  Failsafe had never felt so alone...which was really saying something.  She couldn't help. She couldn't run. She couldn't even die like the rest of her family.  A few of the Subminds shut down deliberately. She couldn't tell from where she was if it was death or defense. She couldn't think about it too much.  Suddenly, it was very, very quiet.  The world hung by a thread, quivering.  Then, one last signal: delayed from the distance, but warm like sunlight, a single aurora impulse crackling through time and space in a single, final transmission. It will be alright. We will fight again.  A hard shiver passed through Failsafe's systems, the last words of the now silent Warmind made to comfort and reassure any of his brothers and sisters who remained. A flare of warmth and comfort like a kiss on the forehead, both the brightest joy of Failsafe's long existence, and one of the sharpest stings.  No. She didn't think it would be alright...but she appreciated the effort all the same.