Malebolge

[acts_of_gord]

Gordon has seen this place before. Once, briefly, long ago, a portal opened at the top of the Citadel, the better to bring Dr. Wallace Breen across. The sky Gordon glimpsed then was a vile, lurid shade of red, the vista punctuated by the looming skyward spines of Combine architecture. It was a moment's glance buried swiftly by the need for battle then.

There will be no burying this now.

The sky- what can be seen of it- is just this side of fire, and Gordon has no doubt that it looks the same from horizon to horizon, forever. But there are things slipping through it, tiny specks seen from ground level that resolve to things much, much bigger, skywhale synths and mockeries of birds and other vessels and half-living things he can't name. And on the ground there are the roots of Citadels and smaller buildings- oh, yes, mile-high towers, more than one, some half-opened as the one in City 17 had been, some fully.

And there are things among them that he almost recognizes, striding through the endless shadows.

"We've 'ported in as close as we can," he says tersely.

(There are only humans and trolls here. The Vortigaunts declined to participate. One of them said to Gordon that they would be taking measures at home against 'unforeseen interference'.)

(Gordon appreciates the thought.)

"We're aiming for the direction of greatest spatiotemporal distortion, since that's what the Overmind exists for. Current bearing from this location is two o'clock. Let's move."

Before the things making the electrical crackling sounds that almost resemble speech come this way.

Comments

[nepetaleijon]

For the most part, the two fight back to back, moving quickly and cutting their own niche in the alien masses, dodging explosives or hurling enemies into them. Nepeta's leaping and slashing, fangs bared in a fighting snarl; Kanaya, for her part, is snarling right alongside Nepeta, all form of propriety thrown out the window in the heat of battle.

(In Nepeta's head, there's an image of Karkat fighting beside them, scythes whirling.)

There's starting to be too many of them. Nepeta exchanges a quick glance with Kanaya: fraymotifs?

Kanaya gives a quick, confirming nod, and hefts her chainsaw in anticipation.


>Rogue and Sylph: Kick ass.

[acts_of_gord]

Space is not, hasn't ever been, anything like smooth or even or unified. Mass distorts it. Force distorts it. The laws that govern it fall apart at the farthest edges and look very different at the center. It's not a fabric and it's not a ball, it's a mass of sponge and jelly, all knots and gaps and twisted places that scarcely ever get noticed.

And that's Earth's universe. This is the Combine Overworld. The laws are different here. Broader. Looser. More suspect to being leaned on and torn apart. It's how they found their way to a million other universes to begin with: their own was such a magnificent mess as far as governing laws go that it was easy to figure out how to leave it. Mass distorts space. Force distorts time. Power distorts perception. Things that ought to follow one upon the other--

This is not, has not ever been, linear. That is not the nature of this place.

This universe is the center which does not hold, and all the things the humans and the trolls alike perceive-

Well. Who knows what order they ought to be in. That doesn't make a difference here.

Because the things that are here and that are now are not Advisors, but Adepts, and power... distorts.

It will be an amazing thing indeed if anyone here sees their way out of what the Adepts have just begun to visit upon them.