Powers of the Dead

you’re a ghost.

au! yomiel from the game ghost trick

semi-selective

fandom and oc friendly

“I can SEE that, but what is this…did you drag yourself through every filth pile possible? I’m surprised you’re still functioning with this mess…then again, perhaps the work we did for this body might have turned out to be better then even we had thought.”

His visor slid over his eyes as he leaned over and began his meticulous cleaning and repairs.

“Yep; that’s your work talkin’.  You and Yomi and Elly really did the greatest job on me.  That’s what I have to thank for still holding together.”  I figured if flattery didn’t get me somewhere, nothing was going to.

But I sobered at that last comment, and pushed my shades up my nose.

“...does it ever?”  I paused, letting out a soft snort and giving a mirthless smile.  “Well.  Not that I’d know.  Being that this is my first one, and all...”  I let out a sigh.  I had to be sincere; I owed Vector that, and so much more.  “...it’s just like everyone initially predicted.  The Liash work in independent cells, so they’re hard to pin down.  It’s even harder when their Commanders can just jump ship at any time...literally.  Unless I’ve missed a report, I don’t think the Alliance has captured a single Commander yet.  We could really use that intel...”  Another sigh.

Yeah, Ruby.

Okay.  That explained a lot.

“He’s being controlled by necromancy?!  How’d you find this out?  Who is it?!  Who’s controlling him?!”

I probably needed to calm down.  But Ruby had just reminded me of Etros, and remembering that bout of necromancy was already enough to make my blood boil.  Hearing that he was the victim of a puppeteer again was...

At first, I didn’t recognize the name.  But by simple process of elimination, it wasn’t hard to figure out.  Who else could it have been; what other enemy would Ruby have cause to criticize me over.  Sensation was a luxury to me, one afforded by my android body, but...the sensation of fear was not.  It swept over me, gripping my soul, cold as the touch of the grave.  Oh, gods...him.  The nightmare I tried to forget...

I had nothing to say.  He was right.  I had stuck my nose into that business, not only to get it burned, but to hurt everyone around me.  Ruby ended up in the hospital...Seluna, not much better off...and I had become a true monster, possessing the body of another.  My rage had driven Etros away, but just barely...and at far too high a cost.  And I hadn’t even done any real good in the end...

I was done talking to Ruby after that, too.  He was right, and it was too hard to bear.

“Fighting.”

“I may not be on the front lines--for the Anti-magic reason I said earlier--but I am fighting in my own way, trust me.  As if I could do anything else after what I’ve seen.”

“As for my idealism?  That’s what keeps me going, Ruby.  You should know better than anyone how intolerable it gets, putting up with the stagnation of death--but I’m not done with this life yet.  I’ve got people to protect and people to help, and that’s what makes existence bearable.  I’ve got a long time yet before I’m ready to pass, believe me.”

“And you’re wrong.  You do need saving.  I can’t believe you don’t see that right now...after what you’ve been through, you’re back to this same belligerent bullshit?  What’s got you obsessed this time?  Don’t tell me it’s revenge; haven’t you learned your lesson already?”

No, seriously.

I don’t. Give. A fuck.

If there’s anyone you should help it’s yourself by praying we never fight because I swear on my fucking name I’m gonna experiment on you how to destroy a soul.

I couldn’t show it, though.  I couldn’t let him know how deep his words had cut.  I couldn’t have said which hurt more:  the fact that he was genuinely ready to die, his blatant threat against me, the fact that he’d joined with the enemy, or...what he called me.  It all hurt.

“...I wish I knew what I did to you to make you this angry at me, Ruby.  If I knew, I could fix it.”

“...But I mean to do that anyway, one way or another.  Even if you don’t want to be fixed...you need it.”

“Like I said.  Forget the Alliance and forget the Liash.  Whatever’s between you and me, that’s you and me.  I don’t need the Alliance’s approval to save my friend.”

Tell your friends at the Infinite Alliance that there’s a pretty little army of ghosts ready to welcome them any time. Having a walking Temsik fragment comes in handy in time of wars.

“...Oh Gods, no...”

Other colonies...he wasn’t lying.  They were colonies I didn’t know about, clearly, but he couldn’t be lying--he was too casual, too blase.  Too much of the ‘old’ Yomiel, back before the reset...I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t noticed it before.  The subtle glow to his eyes behind his shades; the subtle insanity in his words.  He’d stopped caring, just like back then.

“Yomiel, there’s a fine line between hurt and delusional.”  I never called him that, but I figured now was as good a time as any--Ruby badly needed a wake-up call.  “If you think for a single second that you’re safe from them, you’re wrong.  You think being dead again makes you invaluable to them?  Think again.  Nothing is more important to them than their psychotic ideals.  Magic is the reason why you exist right now, and eventually they’re going to realize that--and take you out.  One blast from an Anti-magic gem, and you’re gone.  The Temsik fragment will lose its power, lose its hold on your soul, and that’ll be it...no coming back.”  I didn’t know that for sure.  Anti-magic had never been tested against the power of the Temsik meteorite before, but I figured it was a decent enough conjecture that I could credibly use it to scare Ruby straight.

Double agent? Why should I.

...that’s not funny, Ruby.

Do you have any idea what those people are capable of?  What they’ve done?  If you had been there, on Z’ar...if you had seen the bodies...you’d think twice about what you’re doing.

Eyyy kitty cat. You still exist.

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| What is the Liash Conflict? | The Story So Far | The Main Blog |

It began with Project Guardian.  Albert and Vector approached the Council of Voices with the idea of creating the Guardians due to the losses suffered during the Reaper War. Despite some great misgivings at the implications, they gave their approval finally to take Terrans who were ill-adjusted and were likely to never fully recover from the Breaking to be converted into new super soldiers for the military.

After months of careful study and nurturing, they have finally managed to create the first generation of these new soldiers and they are currently undergoing field trials to be adjusted to their new augments and powers.

Elsewhere, Brigadier General X and Sissel Dering had accidentally gotten caught in a rift-warp.  Thanks to a malfunctioning rift-creating watch given to Sissel by Cycorp, the detective and the general spent a year being flung from universe to universe.  By chance, they happened across Cycorp Company again, where Vector deactivated the watch.  But then Vector got a call for medical aid on an colony outpost planet named Z’ar.  Sissel and X tagged along for the summons.

General Yen also found himself busy with offworlders.  Just before the word went out about the colony planet Z’ar, an Elf named Lorene dropped into Berlin and caused a stir.  He kicked up several fights before Yen finally defused the situation, only to have the Traveller Will drop in and another fight nearly break out.  The shenanigans were interrupted as Yen received the distress call from Z’ar.  Lorene and Will tagged along.

Just before the Z’ar incident, Liash Commander Jerind Orichalcos met with the Infinite Alliance’s Council of Voices to propose a trade agreement. The Liash would give the Alliance access to the techno-organic weapons of Bastian, if the Terrans and Technoar would agree to cut ties with the Draconians and Naga.  The offer was, of course, abhorrent to the Council of Voices, and Orichalcos was promptly asked to leave.  He responded by teleporting a Liash strike team into the heart of the Alliance’s Archives, where they proceeded to steal data.  The Liash hacker managed to get through half of her task, uploading a sizable amount of data directly to an unknown Liash location.  Unfortunately for her, the Archives’ defense shot her through the heart, along with all of her comrades except for one, who was taken for Psionic interrogation.

The Z’ar Incident itself was a massacre.  Six thousand Liash forces overran a compound of two thousand fresh recruits of the Alliance.  There was a Sectis colony and a budding Naga colony nearby; the Sectis managed to get all of the Naga civilians inside and seal the colony shut before the bloodshed got too out of hand.  But out of the over two thousand men and women stationed on the military outpost, only one survived:  Major Darius O’Connor, the commanding officer stationed at the base to oversee training and inspection.

Thankfully, the Liash never managed to get off their trump card.  On board the Liash warship-slash-science-vessel the Revenant, the Liash had been experimenting on Ikki (formerly known as Riku’s Replica), attempting to brainwash him to follow their orders.  Ikki managed to not only resist the attempts in mental conditioning, but convince the Liash that they had worked.  When they tried to “activate” him, he instead when on a killing spree, slaughtering those who had tortured him and escaping the ship to make planetfall.  He then proceeded to cut a path through the Liash occupying the base, making his way to the command center, where he found Darius trying to put out a call for help.  Ikki assisted him in making the call.

Help came within seconds.  Through the technology of the Alliance Gate system, Alliance soldiers (hardened veterans, no green recruits) overran the base, slaughtering the remaining Liash forces.  In orbit, the Alliance starfleet bombarded the Liash vessel Revenant until it was space shrapnel.