The Revolution

**Vanil** · 06/03/2008 17:34:39

The overhead lights swung as the bullet burrowed into the ceiling with a shower of chalky residue. The entire room screamed but none of the hostages dared move. Vanil's gunshot was answered by a series of faint percussive echoes and the Exile knew that they had run out of time. The Machines had ordered the police to storm the school. They were testing him, Vanil knew, believing he would follow through on his threat to kill the children and their teacher.

‘Fools indeed,' the Serpent heard the Lord of Nightmares remark inwardly. "Get up," Vanil spat.

The Masques' hostages looked up at their captors in confusion, and the Masques in turn looked at their Captain with the same. "Go on, get up. We're going to take a walk."

The Serpent had remembered this as well. Their instincts finally overcoming their reason, the children got to their feat and ran screaming to the door of the room as one. Turning back to SeventeenDead, Jico, and Alice, Vanil motioned for them to follow him, his Desert Eagle still hanging in his other hand. "Come. We're leaving now."

---

With a loud bang the C4 charge blew the front doors of Hammerville High open and through them stormed the heavily armed SWAT team, their many footsteps sounding over the distant shouts of confusion and cries of terror that filled the interior of the school that had only just become a war zone. Their gun barrels training on every nook and cranny present the gas masked Blues made their way quickly forwards, their orders clear even over their crackling radios.

Subdue the fugitives. Use of deadly force was preferable.

The Serpent followed the entry team through the dream and stopped as they did. The sound of a clamor coming from around the next corner of the locker-lined main hall, the Blues raised their weapons and waited with their fingers poised on their triggers, ready to tear apart whatever appeared.

And around the corner came the student body.

Running, screaming, and utterly without rhyme or reason the teenaged Blues were everywhere, running every which way, filling the vision of the SWAT officers. Lowering their shotguns and automatic weapons the policemen let bunches of terrified students pass without contest as they shouted for orders.

Then the gunshot sounded, and all Hell broke lose.

The Serpent chuckled as one of the flanking SWAT soldiers crumpled amidst a shower of his own arterial spray, his weapon discharging violently as its former wielder crashed to the floor. The sudden discharge sent sparks skittering across the thin lockers of faded blue that lined the walls and launched the already panicked civilians into a frenzied mob that stampeded towards the nearest exit they could see. The heavily armed policemen saw the tall figure amidst the innocents, clad head to toe in black, and realized with horror that the fugitives were in their midst and using the pandemonium to shield their escape. Some raised their guns but didn't dare fire them lest they hit one of the students.

Another gun sounded and another SWAT officer was incapacitated, crashing against the wall with a scream and smearing the lockers with his blood. The Serpent couldn't help but admire Vanil's craftiness. He had known exactly what the Machines had believed he would do.

Gliding through the chaos, Jico caught up with Alice and Seventeen, both of whom had already reached the fire exit off the side of the hallway. She noted that the students had begun to thin out and knew that their ploy, though it had worked, was also nearly up. Turning with concern the olive-skinned girl risked a glance and saw that Vanil was behind her, his pale face and flowing black croc skins easily visible in the middle of the stampeding students. Reassured, Jico stepped quickly through the fire exit and joined her fellow Masques, turning back just in time to watch with the Serpent as it filled with solid crimson brick.

---

Vanil's lips tightened even before the doorway had shifted to become a barrier. His Exilic hearing had picked out the hiss of running information in the architecture of the Matrix around him.

"Mr. Nihilson," a voice called as Vanil turned around, the last vestiges of his diversion fading as the last of the children fled the hallway. The Serpent could see that it was Agent Gray. The sentient program stepped from between the SWAT officers even as their sights followed the Exile by a hair's breadth.

"Gray," Vanil said conversationally. "It's been simply far too long."

"I think it will quite a long time after today, Mr. Nihilson," the Agent replied as he straightened his tie.

"You are a fool," Vanil laughed as he flexed his gloved fingers. "You all are if you think you can stop me."

Gray raised his eyebrows in what could only be considered a shrug before taking a step towards the Exile, his eyes narrow behind his shades. "I'm going to...enjoy...watching you die, Mr. Nihilson."

~V

**MatrixRefugee**

Vanil wrote:

Gray raised his eyebrows in what could only be considered a shrug before taking a step towards the Exile, his eyes narrow behind his shades. "I'm going to...enjoy...watching you die, Mr. Nihilson."

Someone check the Matrix feed, I think the Simulation is about to crash: I'm on the same page with Gray here...

Morraeon, why are you smirking like that...?

**Vanil** · 06/04/2008 14:04:15

"Vanil!" Alice screamed, pounding her small fist against the barrier that had suddenly separated her, Jico, and SeventeenDead from their Captain.

"Panic is inefficient and ineffective," Seventeen growled simply.

"Easy for you to say!" Alice shot back accusingly, her fingertips still against the rough surface of the brick wall. "Vanil cannot survive a battle with an Agent!"

Jico wasn't listening. Quickly and keeping as calm as she could, the brown-haired girl straightened the black beret on her head and raised her cell phone to her ear, opening it with a snap and pressing the speed dial with her manicured thumb.

"Tamur4, we need some C4."

---

Knowing his only advantage would be that of unpredictability, Vanil lunged suddenly at Agent Gray and the SWAT team, his form a black blur as the Blues opened fire. Hot lead streaking past him, the agile Exile moved with incredible speed and roared past Gray. Placing himself firmly in the midst of the Blues Vanil became a whirlwind of destruction, cracking collarbones with powerful kicks and shattering gas masks with fluid open-palmed strikes. Columns of gore whirled around the Blood Noble as he tore weapons away from their owners and emptied their magazines into their former wielders.

It lasted only a few seconds but it ended when Vanil leapt into the air and broke the final soldier's face with a brutal pair of kicks. The Exile landed perfectly, his readiness apparent in his stance as the unfortunate man slipped backwards with the impacts over a few spent shell casings and breathed his last.

Raising his gloved hand, Vanil beckoned the Agent to ‘bring it on'.

With a scowl the Agent launched himself at Vanil and struck. Dodging low, the Exile avoided the attack and, placing one palm to the floor and swept with his leg in an attempt to knock his opponent off his feet.

But Gray was already behind Vanil. The Prince of Darkness felt the first, second, and thirds blows connect and lost his balance, reeling forwards with the attack. Wasting no time, Gray grabbed Vanil by his collar, turning the Exile around and smashing his fist into the malefactor's pale face.

Vanil had known that he had bitten off more than he could ever have hoped to chew before the battle had even begun. He was fast but Gray was faster, and the Agent's blows hit like battering rams. With Vanil reeling Gray hit him again with a brutal downwards strike that brought the Blood Noble to the floor. Vanil could taste his own blood in his mouth as he fell.

Sensing victory, Gray took hold of Vanil again and raised the shorter man off his feet with one hand. "And now, Mr. Nihilson, the chase ends," the Agent said with finality.

And then the wall behind them exploded.

Debris and flames showering the both of them, Vanil kicked off of Gray and out of his grip. Time slowed and the Exile suspended himself in midair, bringing his boots into Gray's torso again and again, kicking him like a pair of steel pistons. Reeling, the Agent stumbled back with his System shades askew and afforded Vanil a tiny window of escape.

It was all the Masquerade needed.

Gunfire filled the doorway that had only moments before been covered with bricks as the Masques sprayed a hail of bullets at the Agent. Gray calmly dodged the munitions, his RSI blurring as he stood his ground and avoided the bullets.

By the time the weapons fire had ceased, Vanil had already fled, SeventeenDead, AlicethePattern, and Jico with him. Without a word, the Serpent saw Gray straighten his tie smartly and raise his hand to his ear to report the escape of the fugitives.

The dream ended and, in the Real of the present, a pair of eyes snapped open, one of them an abnormally large rolling orb that saw all things that had been, were, and would be at once. Vanil was on the move once again, perhaps for the final climactic time.

The Great Wyrm had awoken.

~V

**Vanil** · 06/23/2008 17:46:30

The Present

The Draconigena was a very old vessel. Birthed hundreds of years before in some long-forgotten port of men, the hulking scarab-shaped craft ponderously made its way through the blackness of the lower tunnels of the Real, the lightning that wreathed its dozens and dozens of hover pads the only thing lighting its way. Sharply contrasting that of Vanil's Masquerade, the hull of the monolithic Draconigena was pitted in dozens of places and scarred in dozens more; in memoriam of a hundred battles as distant as the past that had seen the ship's construction. Along one side ran a line of peeling paint; frayed text that signified the dreadnaught as a flagship of the Devil's Advocates fleet, though the position it held was dubious at best when compared to the Draconigena itself: a fleet that had lived to see a thousand days led by a ship that had seen a hundred thousand more.

It was through the winding corridors of this veteran vessel that the one known as the Great Wyrm made his way. The man could hear the distant drip of moisture, fluid that served to lubricate some vague mechanic, as the rusted bulkhead creaked beneath the weight of ages over his head, to his side, and beneath his boots. The Great Wyrm strode a reasonable stride; not too fast and not too slow, and one he knew pleased the Draconigena. It had been revealed to him as Captain of the Draconigena that just as the crew of a vessel keep vigil over its many systems and subsystems, so did those vessels old enough to care keep vigil over their crews. Just as the Great Wyrm instructed his crew to pay heed to his ship, so did he expect his ship to do the same for his crew. It was an arcane concept, a Byzantine fusion of fleshy and mechanical thought, and to a typical human it would likely seem impenetrable; impossible. But the Great Wyrm was no typical human.

Finally the Great Wyrm came to the Draconigena's bridge. Unlike the cramped quarters the cockpits of newer hovercrafts presented the Draconigena's command deck was a gaping, two-tiered chamber lit only by the luminescence of the many monitoring stations that lined it. The corroded steel of endlessly-long power cables and pipes ran along the bulkhead and hung suspended from the ceiling like snakes. The vague, misty fumes of archaic apparatuses beneath the bridge drifted up from the thick deck plating, and a thin film of rust covered nearly everything, the deck itself a victim of the Draconigena's age. At the center and presiding over it all was a vast command throne, and it was into this throne that the Great Wyrm sat; he who presided. The Great Wyrm settled into his well-worn seat and rested his arms along the throne's own: it was from here that all things aboard the Draconigena were known to him and were his.

"Set," the Great Wyrm called in a voice like gravel down towards the front of the bridge, ignoring the masses of menials that manned their posts throughout the rest of the gloomy, cable-lined chamber like hunched homunculi. "How close are we to the rendezvous point?"

"Mere minutes, Captain," replied Set from his station, his hands holding the thrust levers before him as he carefully guided the vast bulk of the Draconigena through the last of the ancient sewer tunnels, perhaps as old as the Draconigena itself. Set had served aboard the hovercraft his whole life and ever since the Great Wyrm had taken it for his own, the Captain had come to know the boy as someone who held incredible loyalty to him and to the ship he piloted. The Great Wyrm valued loyalty above almost all things, and so did he value Set above almost all people.

"Very good," the Great Wyrm said as he sat up to watch the sewer walls crawl past the outside of the vast viewing window in front of him, his one good eye following the receding tunnel closely. "Take us in slowly and make ready for full stop."

With a nod Set brought the mass of the Draconigena over the lip at the end of the tunnel and watched as the claustrophobic space gave way to impossibly vast expanse. They had come to a massive murky vault deep below New Zion with very specific purpose. With a lurch, felt only distantly by the Great Wyrm from his seat on the command throne, the massive engines of his ship cut to an idle at Set's urging, leaving the Draconigena suspended over the seemingly-limitless expanse in which it now found itself.

"What now, sir?" Set asked as he swiveled in his seat to look up at the Captain.

"Now, Set," the Great Wyrm answered, "we wait."

---

"Hurry!" Iovai called to his dozen remaining SWAT soldiers as they rounded another indistinct corner of Neverwhere, their hurried footsteps and labored breathing offset only by the crack of gunfire and screams of the dying that seemed to come from all directions at once. It was as if the nightmare Construct were closing in around them, second-guessing their movements and watching with silent, perverted satisfaction as they neared its black heart. "We cannot leave until our mission is a success!" The Shades hounded their every turn, and as another of the crooked, pale dolls coalesced in his way Iovai raised his rifle and pulled the trigger with thoughts not to the mission but rather to his own survival. The barrage of gunfire ripped into the vile thing, exposing the rot within as it bled tarry shadows with a silent scream.

Kicking the death-automaton aside and leaving the Construct to swallow it up once more, Iovai and his men saw that they had come to the place they had sought. The Corinthian spires that lined the hall stretched ever upwards into a black infinity and at the looming chamber's center was perched the bladed throne of the Prince of Darkness. Flanked on either side by Aoide, Chemuel, and the Surgeon and with Morraeon's cavorting form slinking at his feet, Vanil rose to face his enemies. "I should congratulate you for making it this far, Iovai," the Exile said, his voice echoing from every which way at once, "but I should also tell you that this is far as you make it."

"Perhaps," Iovai retorted with as much coyness as he could muster, "but I'd say the same about you, Mr. Nihilson." Reaching into the folds of his olive green leathers, the Machinist drew the wooden stake, lined with carvings from the archaic age of the Second Iteration of the Matrix, and held it before him as one might hold a cross so as to ward a demon. It was Vanil's kill-code: that which had the potential to unravel all that the Exile was.

"I see," Vanil hissed simply as he turned his head slightly to his right. Though the Blood Noble wore his shades, the Surgeon shuddered as he felt the villain's baleful gaze find him. Without hesitation Vanil raised a gloved hand and pointed it at his fellow Exile. Not comprehending what was in store, Chemuel and Aoide caught only the briefest glimpse of realization in the Surgeon's glazed, urine-yellow eyes as the Desert Eagle slid into Vanil's waiting fingers and erupted. There was a wet shower of red, and two girls felt droplets of the wretched traitor's blood kiss their cheeks. The remains of the Surgeon crumpled to the floor, a gaping cavity where his face had been. Morraeon yipped and scampered from the throne as the gore pooled at its base.

Her lip upturned in disgust, Chemuel was too busy wiping the blood off of her to notice Aoide as the dark-skinned woman licked away her own.

~V

**Darminian**

I'd tell vanil how good his writing is, but he already knows, moreover it's not like i can read.

~Darminian

**VSLL**

Prutty... Very...

Although, I have to ask... where is Links?! Wasn't he with the rest of the gang? Unless... you have something else planned? Ooooo...

/speculate

**MatrixRefugee**

VSLL wrote:

Prutty... Very...
Although, I have to ask... where is Links?! Wasn't he with the rest of the gang? Unless... you have something else planned? Ooooo...
/speculate

Morraeon: I tied you up for *NOT* succeedin' in killing Dragon-Guy.

**MatrixRefugee** · 06/24/2008 15:45:09

There is no double post...

**Vanil**

The lines of SWAT officers at his sides leveled their weapons at Vanil and his companions when Iovai raised his hand and opened fire when he dropped it. Engulfing the vast chamber in a cacophony of racket, the ballistic thunderstorm forced Chemuel, Morraeon, and Aoide behind cover; the first two streaking towards the pillars that lined the hall while Aoide leapt directly behind the Neverthrone; a vile abrasion upon the smooth floor of the black sanctum. Vanil, however, stood still, and Aoide shouted as the incoming gunfire struck him with full force. His flowing black coat caught in the updraft, the Prince of Darkness snarled and hissed as round after round tore into his pale, decaying flesh. Great splashes of red and fragments of meat jetted from the impacts, the stream of bullets seemingly endless as Vanil's knees trembled and bent, buckling beneath the weight of the brutal attack. Aoide could feel stray rounds chip at and ricochet off the edifice she crouched behind, wide-eyed as she saw her Exilic lover stumbling and looped by a corona of his own gore.

Vanil slipped in his own fluids and finally fell as his arm was blown off at the elbow, his chest split open and innards violated, his skull shattered, eyes destroyed, and jaw blasted and broken. And then, mercifully, the guns silenced at last, Iovai and his armored men lowering them and gazing through the smoke and debris as the villain they had been sent to destroy lay in a heap against the dark flagstone, stray pieces of him bathing in blood. What was left of Vanil's jaw was propped open morbidly, the long canine fangs pointing straight towards the unseen ceiling of the Construct as if locked in a silent mocking scream.

And then it was Iovai's turn to let his eyes widen as the broken bits of bone, bleached off-white and streaked with crimson, began to writhe and, impossibly, spoke with a voice that seemed to come from Neverwhere itself.

"You cannot kill...what is already...dead, fool."

Terrifyingly, the bullet-ridden corpse slowly rose to face the intruders once more. The hiss of running information the only thing Iovai could make out over the snapping of resetting bone and squelching of knitting sinew, the Machinist watched, slightly stunned as the Lord of Nightmares and Seraphim of the Merovingian took the most twisted of measures to cling to his immortal existence.

Nearly immortal, Iovai reminded himself, the carved surface of the kill-code still clenched tightly in his grasp.

Laughing as no human could, Vanil righted himself and craned his neck to Iovai and the soldiers, the demon-fires of his feline eyes flaring to rekindled life in his formerly empty, blood-ridden sockets. "And now, Iovai...you will die." With a hiss, the Exile raised the gun he still clung to and pulled the trigger twice. Twin hammer falls echoing about the inner sanctum, a pair of Iovai's SWAT officers lost their heads.

"Suppressing fire!" Iovai shouted as he darted right, snapping off cheap shots as he ran, but it was clear that Dante Nihilson, Vanil, this monster would be anything but suppressed. He could hear the pale Blood Noble's laughter as Vanil drew his other weapon and fired both guns akimbo, unsatisfied with merely the slaughter of one. The Captain of the Masquerade was joined by Chemuel and Aoide as the two sprang into the fray and struck back at the SWAT force, Iovai's remaining men struggling to use the surrounding pillars as cover and dropping left and right. Morraeon deigned to finally reappear as well and launched herself at one of the black-armored humans, slitting his neck open wetly with a flick one of her knives. What Iovai and his soldiers had turned into a killing ground had now turned against them.

Singling Iovai out amidst his prey, Vanil led the coated figure with one of his Desert Eagles, forcing the Machinist behind one of the pillars. "You can't kill me, human," Vanil taunted as he let the magazines fall from the handles of his guns and echo emptily against the floor. A particularly brave SWAT officer saw the opportunity as an advantage and rushed towards the Exile, wielding his firearm like a club. Vanil proved the interloper wrong by breaking his neck and sending him sprawling away from the Neverthrone with a vicious kick. "Not here. Not where my power is at its greatest." Calmly, Vanil slid fresh magazines into his weapons and cocked the hammers threateningly.

"In here, I'm God."

As Iovai lay with his back to the pillar between him and the battle, he couldn't help but ponder whether Vanil was right and whether Agent Gray had sent him on a suicide mission. Gray must have known of the awesome power fed Vanil by the Construct the Blood Noble had created. Had he sent Iovai here as part of some distant agenda Iovai had no knowledge of, or had the sentient program truly calculated that Iovai was capable of destroying Dante Nihilson? His worries creeping towards him as Vanil did the same, Iovai reloaded his rifle and felt the weight of the kill-code beneath his coat.

He was capable.

With an uncharacteristic roar Iovai left the safety of the pillar, his rifle blazing on full auto as he ran straight at Vanil. His only hope was to get close enough to strike Vanil with the kill-code he had acquired from the late Surgeon. Not even bothering to avoid the bullets, Vanil's skin was torn asunder and woven closed before Iovai's eyes. Rightly guessing what the Machinist was trying to do Vanil began to back away, back towards his Neverthrone. Tasting his own blood in his mouth, the Blood Drinker hissed and blazed wildly at his attacker in an effort to deter Iovai's reckless advance.

Iovai maneuvered around Vanil's own projectiles and finished off his magazine before bringing his empty assault rifle back like a baton. Thrown on his heels, Vanil was backed against the Neverthrone as Iovai swung his makeshift melee weapon expertly, bludgeoning the Exile with it. Dropping his guns, Vanil deflected Iovai's strikes, his gloved palms forming a desperate guard. Crying out Iovai swung at Vanil once more, the two of them nearly sprawling over the bullet-riddled Neverthrone behind them as the Machinist revealed the kill-code from his swirling green overcoat, sweat dripping from his shades and his earpiece long-since discarded.

Yelling for victory, Iovai threw his spent rifle aside and thrust the kill-code towards Vanil's chest. Neverwhere stood still.

His existence balanced on a razor's edge, Vanil snarled, grabbed Iovai's wrist, and ripped his hand off, taking the wooden stake with it.

Screaming in shock and pain, Iovai clutched at his wounded arm, drizzling blood, and fell forward, Vanil's palm the only thing keeping the Machinist from crashing into the villainous Exile. His exertion clear, Vanil's cat-eyes burned with the fires of Hell itself as he fumbled around the Neverthrone behind him before he found what he sought. Grasping the man by the throat, Vanil raised Doctor Walter Foxo of the MegaCity Department of Energy off his feet and drove the kill-code through his heart.

The whites of Iovai's eyes like ghosts in the red dark, the man's breath retreated from him and he found he could not take another. His neck still in Vanil's grasp, Iovai coughed up blood as more leaked from the great wound in his torso and dripped to pool on the floor from the soles of his boots. Forcing himself to look at the Prince of Darkness, the Machinist fought to speak. "I may h...have failed here...but this isn't over," he rasped towards the Exile. "They...they'll come after...you. All of them...will come after you."

"Let them," Vanil replied simply.

Iovai screwed his face up in simultaneous pain and mirth. "Then you...you've already m...made your choice...haven't you..." And with that, the man's eyes grew dark, as dark as the Construct around him, and spoke no more.

Finally opening his blood-slicked glove Vanil let Iovai fall dead from his grip, the kill-code meant for himself having pierced the man's heart.

~V

**Vanil** · 07/29/2008 10:43:16

by 3y3p0pp3r

about twelve hours before the death of Dr. Foxo

"Raise. Make it three-hundred."

Nighttrace looked at me over those sunglasses and through a cloud of smoke. I gotta hand it to the guy-- I've always thought the whole "Cuban revolutionary" thing was bullsh*t, but he does get some awesome cigars. That is, knows how to program good cigars.

We were in the beach construct surrounded by flashing lights, with a beer in each hand, playing poker. Puck had compiled a casino construct that we could go to without any loading, just a few hundred feet from the virtual shore. Every now and then, the smells and sounds and the feel of the blonde sitting on my knee made me feel like I always wanted to be as a kid: a high-roller, baby.

Trace glanced at his cards, looked at his chips, and pondered. This was a big game, the final two left after the annual Department poker tournament, which, up to this point, had been played in Sai Kung. Fenshire liked it there.

"You're lucky ol' Foxo's not here, my man," I said, putting the pressure on. Trace had gotten this far by being conservative, and I knew he had a better hand, but I had been wild and reckless and lucky. My three eights were no match for the straight I was sure he was holding.

"Eye, how about you let me think. And while I'm thinking, you should go brush your disgusting teeth." I was getting to him.

I turned to whisper in the woman's ear I was fondling underneath the table. I had programmed her to look like Vianne, who hadn't given me the time of day since I pinched her on her a*s that one time on that mission. I breathed deep, smelling the perfume my girl was wearing and when I opened my eyes, I saw the tuxedoed waiter bearing a telephone on a silver tray.

"Eyepopper." Trilateral's voice sounded distant, like he was talking through a cardboard tube. "You best get back here. The Two needs you."

I looked at Nighttrace, who was sitting there with a smug look that said "you have got to be bluffing and I've just realized it and you're going to be repainting the Transom's underbelly for the next two weeks."

"I've got to go," I said as my body began to dematerialize.

---

"Here's the poop. You will get your a*s to Neverwhere."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I asked. The Three looked at me with a mix of pity and annoyance. He knew I wasn't interested in details. Drop me in, man, I'll do what I do best and then get out. You don't get eight thousand charge quotients by sitting around planning sh*t. You get them by DOING sh*t. Trilateral had had his day, its true, but at this point he was in the planning chair. He talks too much, but I keep that to myself.

"You know that exile guy who takes the whole vampire thing too far? The black clothes, buddy-buddy with the Merf? Vanil? I know you've heard of him." I'd heard of him, which was about it. He worked behind the scenes, stirring up sh*t and making the life of a field grunt like myself miserable. Vanil farted bloodstains, the Merf boys blew up like it was the divine wind. Of course, they set 'em up and I knocked em down every time, but lately it was getting annoying.

"I've heard of him. About yay tall, kinda pansy, long nails?"

Thirty-Three ignored me. "We got some scuttlebutt from Trunkline about a disappearance of Iovai. Seems he was going to take this Vanil guy out, but he disappeared without briefing The Two. We think he's on an old Department hoverbarge here"--he poked a screen, his finger pointing to a spot about 150 miles from Washington Crater--"and jacked in to Neverwhere, the bloodsucker's personal construct. We've got a protocol that will let you jack in to the construct."

I shivered, not because I was scared, but because I felt a sudden case of butterflies, just like the ones when I stand on the roof of Mara Church facing down three cavemen, daring them to come ahead.

"War, baby," I said in a soft voice.

---

Don't get it twisted-- Vanil looked silly, he minced around too much, his whole cooler-and-more-evil-than-thou attitude was almost enough to make me laugh and give away my position, concealed next to a pillar in his throne room. A fu*king throne room, how big-headed can you get? The humor turned to respect as I watched him fu*king coming back to life after being made into confetti by automatic weapons, and then dusting off a SWAT guy with a kick to the face, blasting one-handed with a gun as big as he was. Are you kidding me?

Still, I don't give a sh*t how bada*s you are, I'm me. Eyepopper, the baddest cat that walked the land.

His lackeys presented easy targets as they cut throught the SWAT team, pausing to take a gulp or two of blood before continuing. Sick b*stards. I had to resist the urge to shoot at them. One shot from that huge sniper rifle I was carrying would burst their head like a ripe melon dropped from a Downtown skyscraper, knocking them off their feet and throwing them for a half gainer onto the floor, their blood squirting out with each beat of their heart until the flow became steady, then ebbed to a trickle, parting as they kicked and gasped and.... Patience. Breathe. Mission. Breathe. Calm--- calm. OK.

Iovai was behind a pillar when I saw it: a green stake, glowing with code, that was concealed beneath his coat. I figured that ol' Walt had the only thing that could take the guy out. Besides, my mission was done: I'd gotten eyes on Iovai and I could return to the casino construct. No fuss, no mess.

The Doc was giving it good. The bloodsucker tried to shoot, but the big Deagle was way too slow and Doc danced around the shots easily. When he smacked that pale head with the buttstock of the rifle, I knew ol' Walt had this in hand. I turned and sneaked past Vanil's lackeys, recognizing one of them as the chick I whacked in Camon, the one with the hot a*s.

As I looked over my shoulder one last time as I sneaked back to the spot The Three said was the only place I could jack out from, I saw the bloodsucker waving Iovai's hand around like a toy, stabbing the kill code into Iovai's chest. I stopped and tried to listen as Vanil enjoyed Iovai's last words.

As I un-stealthed for the milliseconds I needed to get out, my eyes met his. They were cold and black, like a Sentinel, but with soul. Weird how I can live and interact with computer programs that look like people and every now and then one gets me just right and gives me the heebie-jeebies. I'll fight that fu*ker one day, but not then and definitely not there.

Sure, I could have tried to help, but in a four-on-one situation, there was no sense in giving up the ghost to some j*ck-off who wouldn't have the balls to take it to neutral ground. I wasn't scared, no, not me, but I can d*mn sure tell you this: you don't live as long as I have in this thing without knowing when to pick your battles.

**VSLL**

((Oh... my... good... lord... Did you just do what I think you just did?!?!

I'm speechless. Completely and utterly speechless. Bravo Vanil... Bravo.

/salute to Iovai))

**MatrixRefugee**

VSLL wrote:

((Oh... my... good... lord... Did you just do what I think you just did?!?!

I'm speechless. Completely and utterly speechless. Bravo Vanil... Bravo.

/salute to Iovai))

(( Yeah, my jaw was in my lap on that one... Utterly shocking stuff, but shocking in a *GOOD* way! ...BTW, Links, next time you're on Xfire and you've got a few moments, could you give me a ping? I'd like to run something past you...))

**Vanil**

In the Real the Great Wyrm leaned back in his command throne aboard the Draconigena, both his eyes closed. Even one such as he was barely able to keep the anticipation he felt at bay. He slowly and terribly drummed his fingers against the armrest of his imposing seat; the only sign of the marked twinge of impatience he felt somewhere deep within himself. They had been waiting for almost seventeen hours.

And yet the Great Wyrm was a very patient man, for all things were known to him, however vaguely so, through the existential fabric of the Pattern. The Pattern was not so much the way the universe was so much as the way the universe was to the Great Wyrm. Causality: action, reaction; cause and effect. Nothing happened anywhere, whether in the Real or the Matrix, without meaning and it was this meaning that the Great Wyrm had learned to interpret so masterfully. The man's perception of all things was beyond anything most humans could possibly imagine.

And it was from this sight of his that the Great Wyrm's impatience reared. He could see what was to come as it was to happen. All it had to do now was happen.

"Sir," Set called to his Captain as he made several adjustments to his equipment towards the front of the bridge, "I have something on holographics." The large, saucer-shaped projection plate behind Set and at the base of the Great Wyrm's raised podium hummed to life, the neon blue tactical display of what Set had found flickering clumsily to life. "It's a Sentinel. Just one of them."

The helmsman was right. The Great Wyrm opened his eyes and leaned forward to observe, one hand stroking his weathered chin in quiet contemplation. Even from his seat far below Set could make out the floating, three-dimensional shape of the squid-like killing Machine reflected in the Great Wyrm's normal eye. The other never reflected anything. It saw too much already to show anything back.

"Finally," the Great Wyrm said with a small self-assuring grin. "I knew he would come."

"You usually do," Set answered, watching as the distant speck that was the Sentinal through the viewing pane as it bridged the endless chasm beneath the Draconigena, approaching the massive vessel. As it drew closer, Set's brow furrowed as he squinted at the small Machine. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but the hunter-killer was moving in an odd fashion, unlike those Sentinels he had faced in battle before. Its steel tendrils trailing behind it as it flitted towards the Draconigena, Set realized that he could not make out the tell-tale crimson glow of the thing's many optical sensors.

They were all dark, dysfunctional. Could it have been flying blind?

The small Sentinel came to rest before the imposing hulk of the Draconigena, the two craft facing each other silently apart from the creak of armored hull and the constant droning thrum of the Draconigena's drive engines and hover pads. The size difference between the two was nearly comical but this particular meeting warranted anything but mirth. For this was the way of those who followed the Merovingian in the Real: silent scheming in the quiet of the deepest of tunnels. Deals in the dark.

For a time, things stood still. Finally after these agonizing moments was the hologram of the strange Sentinel aboard the Great Wyrm's bridge riddled through with a fuzzy overlay of ones and zeroes that scrolled their way towards the deck below the Captain like raindrops. Binary. The Great Wyrm's normal eye moved quickly as he translated the streaming digits in his head, his other eye moving even quicker.

You have what I want.

Of course the Great Wyrm did and the man said as much. "It's been some time since last we spoke in person, so to speak," he spoke in that gravelly, sinister drawl of his. "It seems not even the Matrix can limit the Endless Void."

There was no reply. Oh yes, the Great Wyrm noted with silent amusement, this was indeed the Endless Void, the only other human along with Vanil to have ever traded his humanity for the computerized drudgery and immortality of Exile. But where the latter had no doubt exchanged his sense of reason for his power the Endless Void had seemingly given up whatever personality he may have once possessed. Indeed, this shadowy corruptor and at times broker of information was utterly without humanity, compunction, and pretty much everything else. The Endless Void was one to truly live up to his (or its) name and might as well have been nothing at all.

But this Exile was something, and that was what made him so dangerous.

"If you will merely tell me what I wish to know," the Great Wyrm went on, addressing the hologram of the blind Sentinel, "I will transfer the coordinates you requested to you."

Your vessel is tactically superior to mine. You will transfer the coordinates to me and then I will tell you what you wish to know.

The Great Wyrm had naturally known the Endless Void would have answered such but frowned nonetheless. If anything, this was the Merovingian's greatest weakness. Trust. Those operatives who served the Frenchman did not trust one another, and those who did never served the Frenchman for long. There was no trust amidst these disciples of causality and without trust there could be no unity. Hatred, greed, lust, petty scheming... the Great Wyrm was surely beyond such things and yet even he could not avoid what their manic pursuit wrought upon his Organization.

But the Great Wyrm had little choice. Such was the whim of the Pattern. With a nod to Set, the helmsman swiveled around in his seat and pressed a control stud, feeding the topographical data the Great Wyrm had agreed to trade to the Endless Void. The Exile had since left the Matrix and was searching for something... or someone... in the Real, although who or what the Great Wyrm could not yet say. Nor did it yet concern him. The Captain of the Draconigena interests for now lay elsewhere.

There was a momentary pause as the Endless Void absorbed the data given before an acknowledgement sigil adjacent to the holographic Sentinel winked its approval. Another chain of cascading binary followed.

You are aware that the Machines are amassing their Sentinels. You fear the Machines intend to flush the Merovingian fleet from the tunnels. You are wrong. The Merovingian fleet is sufficiently divided.

It was true. The Great Wyrm knew that Vanil's actions, though the Frenchman himself denied it, had created a schism amidst the Exiles of the Matrix. A civil war had erupted with those who aided Vanil facing those who remained loyal to the Merovingian. It was a quiet affair, as were most affairs of the Undersystem, but if left unchecked could prove disastrous for the balance, the Great Wyrm knew. He and the crew of the Draconigena had already observed its effects and many human operatives had begun to take sides as well.

The azure trails of binary continued.

The Machines have turned their attention to New Zion.

The Great Wyrm's eye widened.

The Machines have partitioned their Sentinels into two armies. The first army will assault the EMP mine field and the standing human forces. The second army will be hidden in reserve and will breech the human docks once the EMP mine field has been cleared. I will now transfer the coordinates of the two Sentinel armies to you as we agreed.

"G... getting them now, sir," Set acknowledged from the floor of the bridge, his fingers dancing over his control console. His voice was shaky. He knew what this meant. The Great Wyrm continued to watch the holographic Sentinel as it hovered silently, uncaringly, before him. The binary continued to scrawl mercilessly.

The human defenses are inadequate to cope and their fleet inadequate to stop both assaults. It will take the Machines approximately eight hours to position their forces. They cannot be stopped.

In twenty-four hours, Zion will be destroyed, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

~V

**VSLL**

((Figures... 2 hours after my post, Vanil posts the next chapter. Wonderful as always... but again I ask Where is Links?! :O

And Sieges, I'll be on next Monday or so, so keep your eyes out for me.))

**MatrixRefugee**

VSLL wrote:

((Figures... 2 hours after my post, Vanil posts the next chapter. Wonderful as always... but again I ask Where is Links?! :O
And Sieges, I'll be on next Monday or so, so keep your eyes out for me.))

(( That's sort of what I had up my sleeve, unless His Nibs has something else in mind...))