Did I just open the multiverse (again) to have the twins give TBB a mini one shot lecture on being good siblings? Yes, yes I did. Happy Star Wars day and May the 4th be with you.
This world is…strange. Unfamiliar. Almost dreamlike. “Where are we?” I ask, looking around. “A world very much not our own…” Anna mutters, trying to figure out how that portal spell had ended up well…here. Suddenly we are all dragged out of our thoughts by a strange noise and an even stranger sight “Farkas, what is that?” He shrugs in reply, it looks like some sort of dwemer airship, but smaller, more angular, and rather beaten up, with a skull and two numerical characters in an unknown language painted on the side. The ship lands and a door opens, with an armored man walking out of it. “Did Rex send you?” The bandana clad man asks. “Um…No. Who’s Rex? And, where are we?” Anna asks the man “You’re on a small planet in the outer rim, as for Rex…forget I said anything. You three don’t seem like you’re from here.” Having overheard the conversation a little girl pokes her head out from the ship, looking at us and as the man turns back to his ship talks to him “They seem lost, Hunter. We can’t just leave them here, they’ll freeze.” A booming voice comes from inside the ship agrees with her, and with a sigh the long haired man, now identified as “Hunter” comes back to us “Well, you don’t seem like you're with the empire, and you seem lost, so I guess we’ll help you get home.” The man waves for us the follow him and we do, the ship door closing and taking off.
The three of us sit in a small area toward the back of the ship, the little girl coming over and sitting down close to us. “You seem lost.” She says, and all of us nod. “But that’s okay, we’ll help you get home.” I ask the girl what this air ship sort of is, apparently it’s a “space ship” called “the havoc marauder” and is fully equipped with weapons we couldn’t even imagine. “And who are those people?” I ask, pointing to the four armored men each doing their own sort of thing toward the front of the ship. “Those are my brothers.” She replies, pointing out each one. “Hunter.” She says pointing to the long haired man, who seems to be the leader. “Echo.” A strange looking man with some sort of false limbs and unnaturally pale skin takes a nap. “Wrecker.” That must have been the booming voice agreeing with her that we heard earlier, for someone of his size he seems almost childish. “Tech.” The only one with white armor in comparison to the black painted armor and glasses looks over some documents. “And…” she goes to point somewhere but trails off. “You?” Farkas asks her. “Crosshair.” Wrecker adds, having been eavesdropping on the conversation. “But he left…” he adds sadly. “Not entirely willingly, after all, he was under the influence of the inhibitor chip, as Omega later informed us. She was, after all, part of medical personnel.” Tech adds to Wreckers comment. So that must be her name, Omega. “What’s an inhibitor chip?” Anna asks, curious. “An organic chip was added to all clones during development in order to make them more obedient, however, due to our mutations, some worked more than others. Nevertheless, crosshair has always been severe and unyielding in personality, even before the empire.” So an empire exists here too, lovely.
Having finished the initial conversation there’s a period of silence, until Wrecker points out, they’re trying to find their brother in order to bring him back, as they removed their chips with the help of someone named Rex, but Crosshair is apparently trying to kill them. “Why don’t you just catch him and tie him up or something?” Anna probes Tech, but Echo answers instead “Because he’d shoot us all before we could get close to him. That’s what happened on Bracca.” Apparently, Bracca is another planet in this very strange universe. And we are apparently on route for another planet to try and intercept Crosshair at a weak point. “How can we help?” Anna asks the group “These two can fight.” She points to my brother and I “And I can both fight and use magic.” She adds. Omega goes over to her “Are you a Jedi?” She asks, and Anna, confused , shakes her head “No, don’t know what that is, just a mage.” To demonstrate, Anna pulls up a small flame spell between her fingers.
“What else can you do with that?” Hunter asks, looking at the fire flickering in her hands. “Telekinesis, Larger versions of the fire spell, transmutation, some minor mind control things like courage, artificial light, conjuration, healing, etc.” Anna lists and Hunter looks at Tech “are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Tech adjusts his glasses “If you’re thinking we somehow use her telekinetic abilities to keep Crosshair still enough to either remove the chip or otherwise try to get through to him, yes.” Tech looks at Anna “It may be dangerous, Crosshair is known to be an excellent sharpshooter, but the decision is yours. As repayment, I’m sure we can give you a cut of our profits from Cid, as well as return you to wherever it is you are originally from.” Anna thinks it over a moment, before agreeing.
Well that’s great, we’re now caught in the crossfire between four lethal brothers and their little sister, lovely.
The ship lands on a remote planet, and Tech and Echo go ahead, taking out Crosshair's small squad of soldiers, drawing him alone back to the meeting spot, where Anna works her magic. Crosshair looks like what I'd expect someone with that name to look like, tall, thin, rather edgy, with a tattoo of a weapon Crosshair by his eye. There is some argument between him and Hunter until, having looked at each other, Farkas and I decide to interrupt. “From having known all of you for an hour to a few days at most it seems like you desperately need a lesson on how to be a good sibling.” The group stop shouting and listen “You, I know you feel hurt, betrayed even, but face it, you did try and kill them multiple times, no matter if it was under your control or not. That’s a break of trust.” I say to Crosshair who frowns at me. “And you, I get you have to protect the others, but you have to see it from both angles, and take into consideration that maybe he was hurt that you didn’t try to rescue him earlier, that he doesn’t want to come back. At least not yet. You need dialogue, not assumptions. Now I only have someone who’s a copy of my DNA rather than millions of people with various copies of it mutated and not, but the same goes for us. Disagreement is part of being a sibling, but in order to get along you have to talk to each other, and work it out.” Wrecker looks like he’s about to cry, Echo seems like he feels out of place having not originally been part of this squad, and lost his closest brother when he was still behind enemy lines. And Omega simply stares silently at Hunter and Crosshair, who refuse to look at each other. “We still would have taken ya if you tried to come back, and we still will.” Wrecker says to the restrained Crosshair sadly. “We want different things, Crosshair.” Hunter begins, gesturing for Anna to release him, which she does. “But if and when you want to come home, we’ll be here.” Crosshair dusts himself off and turns away from his brothers as they head back onto their ship, before flying away. As the ship takes off, I spot out of the corner of my eye that he looks back at the ship and turns away again. While not ideal, by any means, that look gives me a bit of hope that perhaps they will mend their relationship someday. Anna making a noise having been flipping through a book for hours draws me out of my thoughts “Can you drop us off at the next hospitable planet? I figured out how to get us back.” She tells the group of soldiers.
Having landed, and Anna bringing up a portal with the familiar sight of the outskirts of Whiterun we bid farewell to this strange group of soldiers. Omega in particular thanks us for the help, and waves as we leave. I hope we never see them again, as it was overall a very strange experience, but I am glad that Farkas and I despite being quite literally caught in crossfire were able to help them begin to mend their obvious distrustful relationship. Being a sibling can be challenging, but at the end of the day, even if it’s very deep down, you love them anyways.
No comments:
Post a Comment