ENIS:Story/Episode 1: The End of the Beginning

Prologue: The End of the Beginning

"Well?" The fires lit the room with brilliant radiance, so bright that the features of the man were lost in shadow. The servant did not look up from his bow; even with his back turned, he was unworthy to look upon such a great visage.

"The moon-ship is crippled, lord. We are preparing to process the vessel and its population for unification." The battleship rumbled as another gout of cerulean flame erupted from the stricken monstrosity, so massive that even this great battleship was dwarfed by it.

"And the Gar crystals?" The thunderous rumble of that voice, the voice of the Supreme Emperor, whose voice could kill a star or create a billion lives, caused a shudder to run through Thanatos Zmakos Ronero’s body. It was the voice of a god, the sound of the universe given form, the will of an entire people encompassed within a single man. And he was the only man trusted to hear it.

"They have been surrendered, my lord. All but one." The temperature in the room did not drop a single degree.

"Where is the last?" The rumble did not change in its tone, did not express any sort of anger or disappointment. If anything, it seemed to be...waiting for something.

"It was not within the Vault. An unknown mecha was detected fleeing the local system a few moments ago. Given the power requirements of trans-spatial travel, the Tacticae have concluded that the Gar crystal must have been used. Captain Abrams is currently in pursuit." An unseen smile creased the face of the Emperor.

"Abrams will not recover it. Signal the fleet. They will prepare an invasion force; I want any resistance to be crushed. Our time has come, and we shall not be found wanting."

"Heh. A youngster...thinking...you could defeat...me..." The man speaks in a rustic growl that is only half as wild as he looks. His lab coat, once pristine white, is stained with blood and oil. His hand and face are both wrinkled and scarred, some scars are as old as the sun he was born under, others are fresh and scabbed. He sports a ragged, upturned moustache and a mess of shoulder-length hair, hanging raggedly from the remnants of a ponytail, more colorless than white. A metal plate sparks on the left side of his head, its lights flickering at an urgent pace. His eyes are his most defining trait; his left one is colorless as his hair, blinded in some experiment long ago. He stares intently with his bloodshot right eye, a tiny yellow sun amid a red vacuum. His form is frail and broken; only his spirit is keeping this old man alive. However, that appears to be more than enough, as his grip on the controls is firm and steady. Even if his body was dashed away and torn asunder by some torrential force, his hands would remain firmly gripped to those handles. Until the death of the universe, they would not let go; that’s how they appeared.

His opponent is in a similar state. Gritting his teeth, blood dripping through his black beard and hair, sunglasses with a hundred fractures and his armor pulverized and shredded, he still grasps the control spheres with the strength of a star. "Impossible! With just one attack..." Behind him, the fireball dies away, leaving a field of wreckage floating in the void of space. "Everyone...the entire cruiser...Now I see why you have to die. That much power..."

'I want it.' Is what Roneros had told him. Noland knew better than to believe that. However much that man pretended to be a scheming vizier, he spoke for the God. The Supreme Emperor of the Lion Empire, Lord Kijani, spoke through that man, and whatever Roneros wished for, Kijani received. After all the Emperor had done for his people, Abrams would not fail him.

"aaaaAAAAAAAAA!!!!" From the monitors, a childish scream rising in pitch and volume as a distant figure runs closer. Closer, closer, closer-!

"Stupidstupidstupididiot!"

"Fuck! Project Enis, my legacy, will live on! Your Empire will rue the day you crossed me!!!!"