A Bird in Flight

Una's cry echoes over Geneva Prime. Her wings spread to their fullest extent, a gnarled staff with a vibrant blue Never Gem set in its head grasped between her talons, she rises at the crest of a wave, which rolls over the outer slums. Building after building, struck by the invisible blast crumble and spray deadly wreckage through the air. One, two, ten, twenty city blocks are leveled in an instant. Millions die or disappear beneath a sea of concrete and glass.

Karia weeps, a little. But her tears of sorrow are mingled with ones of joy because hope flies out of the rubble on those regal wings. A chance. A possibility. A riddle.

Three weeks and a day. That is the time which passed from the first explosion at the Goshi demonstration till today. Three weeks and a day during which the foundations were laid, the roots took hold, the wheels were set in motion. The fate or destiny of life in the universe begins to be revealed, though the fundamental question remains unanswered. The drama is in progress.

But now purple wings are carrying the plot in new directions. Horizons are beckoning. The clamor and ferment of Geneva Prime are receding into the past. Goshi Tower fades in the distance. Nestled in that mountain valley, within the haze of blackrock furnaces, memories remain...

A feast of broiled meat with greasy hands, hissing pistons, and generous hearts...
A wall of flesh and machinery riveted in place by eyeless malice...
The home of a surgeon torn from its moorings, tumbling into peril...
A train screeching to a halt against the exhausted form of a foolish Mechified savior...
An exhausted Vorax refusing to leave the surgeons side, tending to a wounded nest mate...
A horde of miners charging the barricade of the refinery, a rebel leader coming into her own...
A glass door and mysterious runes, which lead to an even more mysterious crystal...
A tribe of Gogajin fearlessly finding joy in the darkest recesses of the mine...
A desperate escape and a blazing sun which leaves living, breathing, Cheldrun in ashes...
A collapsed tenement, a sullen surrender, a bright pink blade blossoming from a samurai's head...
A flying purple banner and a force of destruction unleashed on Goshi Corp Soldiers...
A middle-aged woman lying slumped in her lab coat, a needle plunged in her heart...
Neon lights and cloying perfume at the entrance to a garish underground brothel...
Blood seeping down the dais from the enormous belly of an old warrior...
A wall of crackling lightning casting shadows over the enraged face of a murderous boy with a blackened skeletal fist...
A train full of the cost and stench of civil-war...
A rumbling voice announcing doom...

The sky becomes clearer. The countryside more vibrant. A Vorax flies over farms and villages, rail lines, and canals. The poison of Geneva Prime becomes less and less oppressive. It tastes like freedom. On the horizon a lush violet forest looms.