Rebirth (Closed)

[Tyran]

2:47AM
August 24th, OE102
Egypt, Cairo

It was the dead hours of the night, when most sane people without night shifts were well asleep. And that went doubly so for those that were about to march into battle. And yet, despite still being sane - even if traumatized - Sigrid was not asleep. Far from it, she was messily tangled with her blanket that was practically glued to her skin by sweat. She twisted and turned around her bed, ever growing frustration bubbling and simmering inside her.

Ever since she and the company she found herself part of had crossed the Suez Canal from Middle East and into Egypt, Sahara’s eastern edge, Sigrid had felt like something was off. Though it took hours before she could accurately pinpoint just what; Ever since they had flew into Egypt there had been a steadily if slowly growing desire; A need, a compulsion to go into the Sahara desert. It had been largely imperceptible at first, just a small nagging at the edges of her senses. Easy to ignore. But it had grown until now, in the middle of the night, where it had grown into an overwhelming compulsion. A compulsion that was insistently battering at her head with every pulse of her heart, each beat just a tiny bit more insistent than the previous.

Finally, Sigrid had had enough. Twitching from fury, she growled, tore the blanket away from her and threw it away. Being a blanket, it barely flew and stayed on the bed, but it was enough to untangle her from its folds.

“Fine! I’ll go into the fucking desert, in the middle of the night, alone, to wherever the hell you want to me to go! Is that what you want, will you finally let me sleep afterwards!?” She yelled in to the empty air of her assigned room.

She wanted to sleep damn it!

And for a heartbeat, the persistent battering of the compulsion disappeared, but before she could as much as sigh from relief it returned. Though, while it likely was just a false thought brought about by her tired state, Sigrid could swear that it was… gentler somewhat, almost like it was sheepish.

Then again, likely not. If it would be that so easily it wouldn’t have kept bothering her well into the night. And while Sigrid couldn’t sense any hostility or malice behind the compulsion, it still was urging her to go to the middle of nowhere, which was foolhardy at the best of times.

Still, she had given her word, and the compulsion and whoever was behind it wouldn’t take no for an answer anyway. So, grumbling to herself under her breath all the while, Sigrid groggily rose up from her bed and clothed herself. Still fuming, she set out.

…Only to be accosted on her way to the hastily emergency repaired Legerior. The man approached her with clear wariness and reluctance, likely due to the groggy scowl on her face and her hair being a mess, bed hair that it was.

“...What are you doing?” He asked.

Sigrid blinked at him. She halfheartedly made a vague gesture to the west. “Oh. You know. Sensed something somewhere over there. I’ll go check it out. There’s-” A yawn interrupted her distracted explanation. “- nothing to worry about, it’s not hostile, I think.” And without waiting for a reply of any kind she continued shuffling her feet one after the other towards her Masouki.

The man let out a drawn out ‘okay’, before doing his best to drive the entire short, but weird and honestly kinda creepy encounter off of his mind. She was supposedly a witch or something, he wasn’t paid nearly enough to deal with them in the middle of the night when it had nothing to do with him. Besides, she said it was fine and he was pretty sure that as a pilot she was higher ranking than him. Nodding to himself, he went by his way. Best not to think about things that weren't his business, he wanted to sleep.

---

Alone in the night, Legerior finally set out of the base Sigrid and her companions had bunked in. It had received emergency repairs for their race against the time, and it was more or less in single piece and whole - though the emitters on the legs hadn’t been able to be repaired so they had been removed entirely. Nor was the Masouki uniform in color, far from it, the replacement parts that were used to attach the limbs and other pieces back into it being in numerous bright colors.

But it functioned, which was enough.

She started her journey with nothing but the vast, infinite and bright and indescribably beautiful sea of stars above her as her companions. She used no map or her sense of direction to guide her, her only guide was the compulsion, surer than any navigator, that was guiding her somewhere specific in the desert.

But she didn’t fly alone for long. The wind picked up around her, and intensified. Picking up sand from the vast desert below her, it didn’t take long for the wind to whip itself into a storm of wind and sand. But while Sigrid knew it was raging all around her, it did not hamper her in any way, if anything it instead gently nudged her further towards where she was being led. It simply obstructed her from the sight of others, it even allowed her to enjoy the starlight for the empty road.

Being in a half trance as she followed her mysterious guide, time and distance lost all meaning to Sigrid, but eventually she knew to come to a halt. Somewhere, in the middle of Sahara she had been brought to a halt in front of a sand dune that looked like every other with no special shape or form.

Just a sand dune like all the others. That just so happened to be her destination. But she had no time to ponder on the mystery as the wind picked up in front of her, quickly forming into a tornado she somehow knew was localized entirely on that one sand dune. A tornado that she could feel and practically see the vast quantities of wind prana that formed it as it drilled into the dune. A tornado so intense it only took scant few minutes for the entire massive dune of sand to be gone, only leaving behind the sheer rocky cliffside that sand dunes form on over time.

And while Sigrid’s suspicions about her caller had arisen when the sandstorm had formed around her, only now were they confirmed - or close enough besides. All her simmering anger was long gone now, replaced as it was by embarrassment and nervousness.

She had cursed and yelled at what was basically a minor god. At Sylfis. Sylfis! The spirit she had loudly and frequently declared her favorite of them all, back in the academy and the simpler, happier times that felt like another life altogether now.

Blushing heavily, Sigrid leapt to follow as the compulsion bade her to leave Legerior and step on to the rock. The spirit that was leading her could have been some other powerful wind spirit, but Sigrid did not think so. And perhaps more pressingly, did not want to believe that, just like how she did not and did not want to believe that she had been led all the way there to die in a desert all alone after being tempted and lured to leave the relative safety of a Masouki’s cockpit.

Setting foot on the cliff, Sigrid could see that there was something on the rock, and even without being pointed to she knew to get closer to it.

It was a symbol of some sort, hidden below the sand dune for who knows how long, a place where no one would ever find it without a guide to its exact location and a way to clear the dune entirely. But, either having faded with time or perhaps because the lights of the night sky weren’t enough to illuminate it enough, Sigrid could not make anything of what the symbol was meant to represent or be.

She stepped on to it.

And yelped in surprise, as a light immediately surrounded her, and in a flash, Sigrid Korppi was gone. Leaving behind the colorful Legerior CL standing on the plain rock that clashed heavily with its surroundings.

And it seemed that the wind agreed, as it picked up again and steadily, though with a far more relaxed speed picked up sand and, over the course of several hours, covered the rock with sand to form the sand dune anew, burying the Legerior alongside it.

And if the will behind the wind took some small measure of glee at the unnecessary act of burying the Legerior into the sand as well… well, there were no eye witnesses to the deed, nor would any ever know of it.

 

[Tyran]

Sigrid found herself in a cave bathed in light from… somewhere, surrounded by clearly manmade structures. There was an all-encompassing yet calm silence in the air, and the stones, the cave, the structures and even the very air itself felt hallow. It felt like a holy place where even being looked at by those unwelcome there would taint its peace and spirit.

It gently wrapped around Sigrid, as if giving the woman a welcoming embrace. It was a sensation wholly alien and different, one that normally would have felt weird and uncomfortable, but here in this moment it felt right.

The compulsion that had drawn her there was gone now, but nor was it needed. Of her own volition and led by her slowly burgeoning excitement, Sigrid took the first step towards the only way forward she could see: the massive arc emitting a soft blue light from within.

She was not minding her steps, but despite her boots hitting the solid stone below her in a steady rhythm, the silence that shrouded the entire area laid undisturbed. So she walked in silence. Walked all the way until she met a double door shut solid.

There was a large embossing as decoration on the doors, and while the symbol that had led Sigrid here was faded, this was as if brand new. It depicted a human, a man in all likelihood, hammering away at what seemed to be a suit of silver armor far larger than the man himself. Just before she could reach out for the doors, a gentle breeze blew past her, and the doors opened without sound, revealing what laid behind them. Darkness. The final treshold. The girl who had ever excelled in only one magical practice, the art of sensing, knew it to be thus.

A thought came into her head. Did it come to her of its own volition? Or was it sent there by the spirit guiding her, or perhaps the temple’s own magic?

‘Was she prepared? Would, could she accept?’​

There was an offer there. She knew by instinct that she could step away, decline the offer given to her and scrape by with what she had, salvage a life for herself that would end in peace, either in an abrupt peace eternal or a life well lived.

Or she could take a step forward, accept the offer despite being in the dark about its nature, take the plunge into the darkness. The direction of her life would once again shift greatly. It would make her life even more uncertain, lead her into even greater dangers and challenges. She could well lose her life. It was likely even. These all, she grasped by instinct. But she also knew of the good she could do, should she accept, even at a cost to herself.

It was an offer. An offer between a life fraught with danger, but a danger that she could overcome, and one far more perilous, but one where she could help and save more people. It was a choice between a selfish road more likely to end in happiness for her, or a selfless one likely to end in her untimely death. And the decision was entirely hers, she would not be blamed for either one. That she was offered it was proof enough of her character in the eyes of the Spirits.

The woman gave it its due consideration, taking her time.

There was great power there, behind the darkness. And she made her decision.

She took the step forward, and plunged into the darkness.

It was not because of the power offered that she ended in the decision she did. Every time she stepped onto the battlefield she feared for her life, she still did not want to die. But she did not want to be the kind of person that was offered the chance to help people, to save them, simply because of the danger to herself.

She could not, would not be the kind of person to think of herself first at the expense of others. She did not know why she was chosen to be the one to be offered this chance, how she of all people was worthy for this instead of someone without her doubts, someone more valiant and heroic.

But she could never live with herself if she stepped back from this chance.

So she had taken the step forward, and it was like a spell had been broken, and the step echoed loudly, the sound spreading into every corner, every nook and cranny of the place she was in, like the temple itself had waited for her decision with bated breath, and now breathed out as she stepped into the dark.

---

The woman did not need to linger in darkness for long. As soon as she came to a halt after her step, two braziers on both flanks lit up, illuminating the place she found herself in. She was on a narrow, straight stone path. On both sides, there were lines of still but crystal clear water, separating the braziers with the fires from her walkway. When peering to the sides she could just barely make out the shape of the next braziers. But in front of her loomed a large monolith that completely barred her path.

She began to walk forward towards the monolith. But while outside they had made no sound now and here they echoed loudly and clearly like a clarion call. And just as the silence had felt like a mandatory part of the entrance, the echoing steps seemed to simply belong to the place she was in.

Once she got close, she saw that much like the doors behind her, the monolith too had a large embossing on it, and the scene depicted was a gruesome one. Gruesome enough to hitch her breath in her throat.

Several figures, gargantuan in size, were stomping on a village ablaze with fires, with tiny people littering the village. With one tiny figure, a human, weeping bitterly as he witnessed the scene. Of the gargantuan figures, all but one had their backs against the view point of the embossing, with the one visible face twisted in an ugly expression of utter hatred, loathing and envy. The light from the fires of the braziers seemed to reflect straight into and out of the fires of the embossing, making them seem alive like they were burning in front of her. Similarly, the shadows seemed drawn into dancing on the ugly demonic face of the gargantuan figure, and the woman could swear that the entity depicted was looking straight at and into her.

The weeping figure’s eyes shined with the azure hues of the crystal water, and invariably drawn into it, the woman touched one of the eyes, and just like that the monolith slid into the stone floor, and she was allowed to continue.

And she did, her echoing steps leaving behind the sizzling fire, their fading light and sounds vividly bringing the scene she had seen into life behind her. She walked past a beam of light from a hole in an unseen roof that illuminated an embossing on the ground: The weeping, azure-eyed man from the monolith in ragged clothing walking in a long line of likewise ragged, down on their luck people, the very front of the line entering shining castle walls.


The echoes of her steps led her past the floor embossing, and soon she came on another monolith, one awash with the light of the sun. There, the azure-eyed man was behind the castle walls, looking on countless others like him in sorrow. But as the woman got closer, the angle of the lighting made the man’s expression change: instead of sorrow there was now a steady, grim resolve.

Just like before, when she touched the azure-eyed man, the monolith let her pass, and so she did.

The story continued in the next ancient depiction, on the next monolith. There, the darkness was once again driven back by two braziers, but the light from them was much dimmer this time. Like there was significantly less hope now, like all that was good and free was on the backfoot. But the scene in the embossing itself was full of hope. Here, the man with the azure-eyes’ eyes were little orbs with mystical light dancing in them. The man himself was looking to the figure in front of him. A figure that the woman would recognize anywhere.

Sylfis.​

Behind Sylfis, the silver armor that was in truth a large silver knight, a Masouki, she had seen be crafted at the beginning loomed, its sword pointed to the ground with its arms resting on the handle. Considering the outreached hand, the spirit seemed to be offering something to the man. And as his successor after so very long came within touching distance of the monolith, the lights dancing in his azure eyes changed slightly, the edges gaining the same green hue as Sylfis’ own eyes, as a sign of their bond and covenant. For once, she did not immediately move on, but stood still, taking in the image and admiring the man it depicted.

Feeling herself lacking in comparison, she nevertheless continued on, and on to the next monolith, where the scene depicted was more dynamic than the prior. The silver Masouki was there, sword in each hand, but where its helmet should be now was the familiar man’s head, teeth gritted and eyes afire with blazing resolve. One of its blades was piercing into one of the gargantuan entities from the first monolith’s throats, while the other one was parrying a sword blow from an unseen enemy. Droplets of water were slowly sliding down into the floor from where the sword met with the throat. And suddenly the woman was forced to come to terms with the realization that what she was being led to likely was not a good fit with her way of fighting from range.

Likely to die indeed.

With a grimace, she nonetheless pressed on without hesitation. She had made her choice knowing full well the likely end it would lead to.

The journey this time was a longer one. Much longer. But she walked it in silence, silence that was only broken by the sound of her footsteps and their echoes. She had no reason to talk, and more than anything, it felt wrong to. There was no need for words in this holy place.

But eventually, for what felt twice as long as her walk since the threshold, something began to loom over her. Something massive. And it was not a monolith.

Confused by the sudden change, she approached it nonetheless. As soon as it was lit up however, confusion made way for awe..

There was no way a monolith would have ever done justice to the scenery that opened before her.

Instead of braziers, a single spot of light or the sun illuminating the view for her, it was instead a sea of small floating balls of fire, each illuminating a tiny part of the view in front of her. Instead of a monolith, it was a wide wall, with two massive doors blocking her path. And all of it was covered. But not with just embossings like before, though there were those. But they were joined by engravings, gems and images embedded into the stone, mosaics and frescos. All in different and distinct styles, yet together they formed a cohesive and full picture.

It was, in a word, war. But not a single, tiny piece of the full thing, nor the romanticized image it was often given. No, despite the artistical liberties deployed it still evoked a powerful sense of the real thing, enough that she could well imagine cacophony of different noises all going over one another. The war cries, the screams of both pain and death, the clangs of steel hitting steel, of steel biting into blood, terrified whimpers and weeping widows and friends and brothers and fathers.

It threatened to overwhelm her, and by their own will her hands went to grasp and clutch her head as her breath quickened as panic welled in her chest and threatened to take over completely. But somehow, she stabilized just before a full blown panic attack, and slowly, with deep breaths and over time she calmed down enough to look at the scenery before her again.

There were five figures who dominated much of it. They were larger than anything else in the wide depiction, and they stood side by side as they faced a seemingly endless horde of foes both gargantuan and small. Their backs were turned to the viewpoint of the depiction, and no discernible features could be spied on them, even their weapons were obscured and hidden. But even so it was clear that the man whose tale the depictions had been following so far was not one of them. No, even though the entire war that raged on for eternity in the depiction in front of her eyes revolved around those five, this particular tale told here was not.

The silver knight and her predecessor were found to the side, fighting several foes at once on its own, much of the knight and even half of the man’s face dyed and covered in crimson. But she did not have more time to study it, for a thin, golden line - like a straight, pure and flawless cut down the middle, opened between the doors barring her way. But rather than opening inside or outside, the doors instead began to slide back into the walls, the golden line widening as they did that, like instead of the doors opening it was instead the stone being cut in half and forcefully separated.

Taking a moment to recover from the blinding light if nothing else, it took a moment for her to continue past the doors, but when she did she almost collided with the next monolith.

Or rather, two halves of a monolith. It was cleanly split in two, a small gap several centimetres long dividing the two. On the left side, the silver armor stood impassive, while on the other hand the azure-eyed man, now older, bid it farewell.

Moving past it, she soon stumbled on another pair of monolith halves, these further apart. There, on one side the silver knight could just barely be seen from behind closing doors that looked like the ones she had first entered, she could even barely make out the first embossing she had seen here. And on the right, the man was there, tilling the fields with a satisfied, peaceful smile on his face.

Again, she moved between them further in. And she walked, and walked. Until the final stop before the end that she could see looming behind.

It was not a monolith, not really. It could have been argued to be such, but the very thought felt wrong. It was smaller, and gave off a sense of a memorial, not that of the monoliths. The style was also different, as was the stone itself that it was made out of. But the embossing was there, depicting a scene the woman looked at in naked, intense longing and hunger.

The man was laying on a bed, deep lines carved onto his face to signify advanced age, a peaceful expression on his face even as the bad was surrounded by people both young and old, expressing their sorrow as they cried openly.

She did not know how long ago he had lived. A long time ago surely, but just how long, and where she did not know. But… it didn’t really matter. She paid her respects to the memorial, to her predecessor of ancient times. It just felt right. And then, laying a hand on top of the memorial for a brief moment, she walked past it into the end of the road.

She had not given up on her dream, nor would she, however unlikely that it would come to pass. She would do her best, as herself, and see how far that would take her.



And there it loomed over her, standing in the middle of a perfect circle that was illuminated by several braziers and lamps both all around it.

The name came to her unbidden. Not its true name, for that would be kept hidden to everyone save Sylfis herself to guard against magical assaults, but the name it was known by, that it had always been known by and always would be.

Cybuster.​

 

[Tyran]

The ancient Elemental Lord stood still, facing towards her, vacant eyes staring ahead in silent, steadfast vigil. A vigil of endless patience, maintained for a millenia. To this very day, it still awaited for the moment it was needed again, until another Herald would come forth to it. And now, for the first time since the era of legends, that age of conflict between heroes and giants of yore, one was before it. An era of destinies and fates conjoined and twisted was upon the world once more, a time where heroes both old and new rose and fell. An age where Cybuster was needed.

There it stood, waiting for the words of its Herald, the young woman before it.

And answer she would. “I am not a hero.” She said, and despite the admittance her voice and expression filled with resolve, not resignation. “Whether the heroes seen before on the path, or kings and conquerors both great and terrible or even legends the likes of Gilgamesh, Hercules and Väinämöinen. I am not like them. This I know now, in my bones, in my heart, flesh and mind. The reminders haunt me every time I close my eyes."

There was a pause, as she exhaled heavily.

“But. I don’t think that it is destined heroes you seek and favor. Is that not why the tale of your chosen was told here? To reassure people you’ve chosen that they need not be like them, the born heroes, that they need only do their best and that that will be enough?” No answer came, be it in words or emotions or even phenomena, but she did not think she was wrong.

She let out a laugh. A weak little thing without bravado or confidence. “Besides, I already made my choice. You see something in me, something that led to me being here and to be offered this chance. My fears will be with me always, but that does not matter. I will reach out and grasp this opportunity, for those I can help save.”

As she spoke, her hand slowly rose towards Cybuster’s head. “For as long as you’ll have me, I will be your partner Cybuster. I will be your Herald until the end, whether it’ll be my demise or that faraway day when you are no longer needed and I can finally leave the hell of battle behind!”

And as her outstretched hand, with the fingers spread wide, finally closed into a fist in order to clutch something in the air, green flashed in the vacant, empty eyes of the Elemental Lord of Wind. And Sigrid Korppi, the pilot and herald of Cybuster, disappeared in a flash of brilliant and pure light.

---

Sigrid reappeared inside the Masouki’s cockpit, comfortably seated on the pilot’s seat with her hands on the controls already. The position was all but encouraging her to immediately get herself more intimately acquainted with Cybuster, but she waited a moment. Just for a moment though, enough to gather her bearings again. Despite the sudden transportation being expected this time around, it was still disorienting to be whisked into a completely different place in an instant.

But once that was done, she did feed her Prana into the ancient weapon. And for the first time in eons, Prana coursed through Cybuster once more, powering up its limbs, its thrusters, weapons and systems as it gently streamed through it. And in return, a flow of information streamed into Sigrid’s consciousness, the basics of the Masouki’s capabilities embedding itself into her mind.

And the flow of Prana came to an abrupt halt, as Sigrid jolted in her seat and halted it in her shock.

She had guessed, of course, that the Elemental she was being led to was one of great power. Connection to Sylfis made that clear. But the feedback she had received was still well beyond her wildest imagination. Even the basics of it was mind-bogglingly absurd from its speed to its magical defense and even regeneration. And that was without even taking to account the half-a-dozen or so black boxes and special systems she had felt.

Sigrid’s breath quivered, as she looked around, desperately trying to find some place within the cockpit that could hide something akin to a manual, only to come up empty.

There was another quivering exhale. “I… don’t suppose you’d have a manual to give to me? BecauseIreallyneeditverybadlyifIamtoflyinthisthing.” She awkwardly pleaded to the air.

For a moment there was nothing. A moment that simultaneously lasted for far too long and for far too little for Sigrid. For when something finally happened, her breath was forcefully driven out of her alongside an ‘oomph’ as an incredibly large and heavy book fell on her lap, and she could feel all her blood escape her face at once as she looked at it.

It was wide and large enough to fill her lap entirely. It was ever so slightly larger than that in fact. And when she went to pick it up, only then did she realize just how truly thick it was. Even when stretched to their limits, it was so thick that her fingers on one hand couldn’t hold to the front and the back of the book at the same time.

Cybuster
Elemental Lord of Wind
A Manual​

Silently, her face calm and neutral as if carved from stone, she raised her head and gaze to gaze straight ahead, as she fed Prana into Cybuster once more. And this time kept it going and flowing.

She was too tired to deal with that, she’d look into it for answers after she had slept for a day or two.

And at long last Cybuster moved, its arm moving forward, fingers clenching into a fist only to relax. The movement was hesitant at first, but quickly gained more and more confidence. Sigrid had no idea how to actually leave the temple she was in, but she followed her gut, and after some time of hazy moments that would turn into even hazier memories, she was back on the surface.

---

19:49
August 24th, OE102
Sahara


The sun had had the time to rise and set once more when Sigrid and Cybuster burst out of the lost sands of the desert. Standing atop a sand dune, Sigrid was tired, sleep deprived and lost in the desert without a map or anything to navigate with and in the controls of a machine that was using her own energy for itself. She could not sense anyone anywhere nearby, but despite it all she was not worried or panicked. There was a gut feeling, that was telling her to go to a certain direction. And trusting dubious thoughts and instinct had led her to Cybuster, so without hesitation she turned to that direction and jumped.

And even despite the sleep deprivation, or perhaps because of it, as Cybuster spread its wings, and began flying towards East, an elation and a joy burst forth in Sigrid’s chest. And she laughed joyously, reveling in flying so effortlessly at the speed with which she was going. There would be pain and suffering and sorrow in her future, likely including her own demise. But for now there was only joy… and bone-deep exhaustion of course.

---

Legends now walked the earth. Long forgotten figures, remembered only in dusty tomes of ancient myths and legends and the scholars who studied them. The truth of them remembered by even fewer.

Demons and gods now roamed the land. Some had been sought out by mortals, others had finally turned their attention to L’Isola and more still had woken up on their own or broken free of their imprisonment at long last.

It was a time of upheaval, an era of change; of destiny. Where men and women both destined and undestined for greatness traversed the thorny paths of fate laid upon and for them. Some would rise to the occasion, while others, perhaps most, would fall. But such was how it had always been, and how it would always be.


The Elemental Lord of Wind flew once more, and one more legend of yore had risen to join its fellow myths, its coming from the sands of time and history heralded by a gentle, comforting breeze all around the world.

…And as Sigrid flew towards East, towards Cairo where the comrades with whom she was destined to brave the den of the monster, for victory or defeat, awaited her, a gentle wind blew in the desert. Unseen by her chosen Herald, it picked up lone grains of sand, and out of them formed a faint outline of a smiling woman that looked fondly at the fast moving Masouki.