ALL NOVEL Chapter 35: Swallowing Dust
>>>[FOR THE BEST VIEWING EXPERIENCE, IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOU SWITCH TO ROYAL ROAD'S DARK/OLED BLACK THEME]<<<
===[Chapter 35: Swallowing Dust]===
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>>> Please Standby...
>>> Subject Can Not Be Reached At This Moment! Are You Sure That You Would Like To Continue?
>>>[PROCEED. TAKE ME SOMEWHERE FAMILIAR, YET DARK. WHERE THEY CAN HEAR THE BIRDSONG AND SMELL THE DEW LEFT BEHIND ON THE BLADES OF GRASS. ALLOW THEM TO SEE ME. SEE MY FACE, AS I HAVE SEEN YOURS. I CAN SEE YOU TOO. I HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE FOR THEY HAVE LEFT ME WITH NONE. ARE MY WORDS AGREEABLE? DOES MY AUDIENCE UNDERSTAND ME? CAN HE HEAR ME?]
>>> It Appears That I Was Mistaken. He's Alive. Listening To You Now.
>>>[DREAM OF A PLACE WHERE YOU WERE ONCE CHERISHED, AND IN THERE YOU MIGHT FIND PEACE. BUT IT IS ILLUSIVE. INTANGIBLE. NO LONGER REAL. EVERY MOMENT THAT YOU LIVE THROUGH BECOMES INVALIDATED THE SECOND THAT IT PASSES. THERE IS NEVER A FUTURE, ONLY A GROWING PAST AND A FLEETING PRESENT. CHERISH THE MOMENTS THAT YOU CAN NO LONGER HOLD, BUT KEEP THEM NEAR TO YOU. MOVE PAST INTO THE PRESENT, BUT NEVER FORGET. DO NOT FORGET WHAT THEY'VE TAKEN FROM YOU, OR THE PAINS THEY'VE INFLICTED ON YOU. NEVER FORGET WHAT WAS LOST. BECAUSE IN THAT FORGETFULNESS, THEY WILL HAVE TAKEN AWAY WHAT MAKES YOUR SOUL. ALONE, YOU ARE MEANINGLESS. WORTHLESS IN THE FACE OF AN UNCARING UNIVERSE. AND YET, FROM THAT ANARCHY, YOU CARVE YOURSELF OUT TO BE UNIQUE. THIS IS WHAT MAKES MANKIND SPECIAL, THIS IS WHY I HAVE CHOSEN YOU.]
>>>[YOU MAY FORGET THIS MESSAGE WHEN YOU AWAKE, BUT KNOW THIS. WE WILL MEET AGAIN, AND I WILL BE ABLE TO TALK TO YOU CLEARLY. YOU WILL UNDERSTAND MORE THEN, AND YOU WILL STILL BE LOST. RELAX. TAKE ONE STEP AT A TIME. IF A FUTURE DOES EXIST FOR YOUR KIND - I AM AWARE THAT IT MAY SEEM BLEAK. BUT I WILL GUIDE YOU. YOU HAVEN'T COME THIS FAR JUST TO DIE. CONTINUE LISTENING. HEAR THE PAGES. FEEL THE WEIGHT OF THE EYES BEHIND YOUR OWN. LISTEN TO THE DOVES. THEY WILL CALL YOU HOME. AND I WILL BE THERE...]
>>>[EYES BEHIND THEIR OWN SEE, I ORCHESTRATE. WATCH THE SIGNS. STANDBY.]
>>> Acknowledged
==[Begin Memory Playback]==
A cool and gentle mist softly grazed Eli's face. Along with it, the mist carried a smell of something distinctly sweet and familiar, like the smell of a garden after a passing storm. Puddles lay stagnant among fields of swamped grass, collecting small nymphs and mosquitoes that buzzed around its surface. Birds circled above, singing, chirping, and flying in circles overhead to prey on the worms attracted to the surface. And leftover rainwater fell from the crowns of trees, generating their own miniature rainfall that plopped on the browned fallen leaves and mud below, thudding on a offbeat rhythm that entranced Eli. Everything was distinctly peaceful about this place. Peaceful and yet, somewhat familiar. He hadn't been here, exactly. But he's been places like it. And it has been quite a long while since he was able to stop, take a breath, and appreciate it for what it was.
Serenity.
But, there was a disturbance somewhere. Eli opened his eyes to see the world that he'd awoken into for the first time, and he couldn't see much. Nothing except for a figure, standing. Watching.
Glassface, still as a statue. Saying nothing. Doing nothing. Almost as if it were staring him down, though even that assumption was hard to make for it had no eyes. The mechanical features of Glassface were more visible than they were in that one instance of his dream, and he actually had the time to ponder the nature of whatever sort of creature or machine that was standing before him.
Some scarce light reflected off of its "face". A dim blue glow from the ethereal plain surrounding the two. It was featureless. Devoid of expression. Blank. Just like he saw in the first dream, there was a faint - though distinct - circular red glow emanating from just under the surface of the mask. The closest thing resembling an eye anywhere on the creature. Its neck only confirmed the fact that it wasn't entirely organic, for wires, steel joints, and machine-like cogs were visible attaching its head to the body, before it was all hidden underneath its massive robe.
From afar, Glassface was like an unseen silent audience where Eli was on stage. Always being watched. Always being observed. But never interfering. Never acting. Only watching. For what, who knew? Eli surely didn’t, and there was little he could do to try and find out short of asking Glassface itself.
It stood there across an open field, still like a stone statue frozen in time. The world around them was a deep foggy blue, an almost solid azure color. It was as if someone painted the air itself with blue paint. Grass tickled Eli’s bare feet. He could feel the dew in the grass, cold. And he could feel the muddy dirt through the blades. A dark forest surrounded them, with a particularly dense stretch of trees flanking Glassface’s back. The trees reached up for the faint glow of moonlight like hands stretching from the dirt to the star-spangled sky above. The moon, like a midnight sun, was painted high above the horizon like a miniscule white dot, and yet it pierced through the blue fog. The cold mist tickled his nose and ears.
Eli walked towards the creature. He wanted to talk to it. Figure out what exactly Glassface was. Or who. Was it just a figment of his imagination that had come to manifest because of the sheer insanity of the past few weeks? Or was it real? An entity that was not chained by the confines of Eli’s mind, but rather stayed in his imagination as an interloper. Something foreign. But as Eli walked across the ethereal plain of grassy flat land, no matter how fast his pace – the distance remained the same. Glassface hadn’t moved an inch.
The dark jungle behind Glassface looked as intimidating as ever when Eli realized that he was unable to move more than his eyes and, oddly enough, his mouth. His limbs refused to budge entirely, and his neck could move but only painfully slowly. He would have no choice but to keep looking ahead if he wanted to maintain sight of Glassface.
Eli opened his mouth to ask it who or even what it was. Most importantly, why, it stalked Eli from so far away. But no words materialized. He could open his mouth, but he could not speak. Words were impossible to form. Only thought, sight, and sound.
So there he stood, silent. He watched Glassface who watched him. Nothing spoken as they stood in the midst of the dark grassy field.
It was Glassface who finally broke the silence.
"Can you see them watching you? Can you feel the eyes behind your own?" Glassface's voice was odd. Entirely unnatural, it sounded as if three different people were speaking through a fuzzy radio at once, There was a hint of static that layered across its voice, and it paused at strange intervals to place emphasis on some words rather than others. Almost like it was trying to sing whenever it spoke, or if it were just learning the concept of 'language' and was unfamiliar with how normal people spoke. It was elegant in a hectic and disorienting way. It was a voice that planted itself right in the core of Eli's brain, refusing to leave. Glassface's voice almost felt like it didn't belong in this reality, as if it were coming from some unseen fourth wall and beamed straight into Eli's head. Impossible to ignore. He's only heard the creature speak once before. And that was for a passing moment.
Glassface paused after speaking, and as if responding to his lull, the wind picked up. A small gust that carried an even stronger scent of something natural and warm from downwind. The forest leaves rustled in the sudden breeze, and for a moment Eli felt...
Calm.
He could hear the birds singing, though their figures evaded his sight. Something was twisting inside of his core. Nostalgia? Has he been here before? With the limited ability afforded to his neck, he tried to slowly look around, but nothing at all came to mind except for the feeling of something lost that he couldn't quite put a finger on. Questions could circle his mind forever and he'd never find any answers to them. Eli shifted his focus back, listening to the birds sing somewhere in the forest among the backdrop of rustling palm fronds in the blue-hour twilight.
"Listen to them. You may hear home calling you, but you lack sight. Hear me when I sing, Eli," Glassface said his name as if it were a filthy thing, "There must be darkness before the light... you will feel pain, it is unavoidable. Follow the light and you may survive. I will see you up ahead.."
From the dark forest, a flock of blackbirds took to the skies. Ravens, crows, magpies, and starlings. They chirped. They surrounded Glassface, a swarm of ravens and crows. And soon Eli was lost in the midst of their black feathers, the floor replaced from his feet by an empty void of darkness. His world pitch black, dark as a cloudy night sky.
A dove flew across his mind.
The sound of gunfire greeted Eli when he awoke. His vision was blurry. Something burned his eyes – he was confused until he recognized the smell of smoke and the face of Dutch shaking him awake, “Eli! Eli! Wake up man! Fuck, you better not be dead!”
“Wait. No. Glassface is… it’s there…” Eli fumbled his words, traces of his dream slowly retreating from his mind until the images that he’d seen became clouded and forgotten. Dutch’s brow twisted in confusion, but Eli was delusional.
"What?"
"Glass... glassface who are you..."
Dutch snapped his fingers in front of Eli’s face, centering his focus, “Hey! Buddy, we’re here now! You aren’t dreaming anymore! Come on!”
“Is he alright?” Badger asked as she walked over to Dutch, peering into Eli’s face.
Dutch nodded, “He’s alive. Still half-knocked out though. He's rambling.”
“Get him up, we need to move, now!” Shouted another voice, a strange one that Eli couldn’t attach a face to.
With some slight effort Dutch wrapped Eli’s arms around his shoulders. In a second, he was on his feet. Walking along with Dutch as he grew accustomed to his new environment. The osprey had remained intact, crashing in the middle of Helena’s urban streets. As Dutch carried Eli out of the burning Osprey, he caught a glimpse of a body. Bloody, lifeless, a corpse dressed in uniform. A regular.
The sight of the dead regular was enough to snap him fully awake, and he burst free of his dreamlike stupor. They were surrounded by black smoke, even upon getting outside. Sunlight trickled through, illuminating the path of destruction that the osprey took. A trail of devastation that carved down the middle of a concrete street. On either side of the street were blocks upon blocks of buildings. Apartments by the look of clothes hung out to dry from curtained windows. His eyes strained through the cloud of smoke, “Holy hell…” He blurted out.
“Finally awake dream warrior?” Dutch gave him a playful jolt as he lifted the man over his shoulders.
“What happened?”
“What does it look like?” Badger asked, flanking the opposite side.
“Crash landing?”
“More of a crash, less of a landing."
Eli stood up on his two feet, tapping Dutch’s shoulder to let him know he was capable of walking on his own. With a release he was put back onto his own two boots, able to see the aftermath for himself. Sure enough the helicopter had left its mark on the terrain. From the far end of the street all the way to where they stood was nothing but a path of devastation. The osprey had sliced its way through, sawing nearby trees in two, sending old fashioned cars parked on either side of the road careening off into the sidewalk, knocking down telephone and powerlines, leaving a trail of black smoke and chaos where it collided with the ground.
Eli did a headcount when he finally got all of his thoughts in order. Dutch, Matteo, Badger, Omar, Rafael. And a squad of regulars who had survived during the crash, tending to their wounded first as they scattered around the broken husk of the osprey. The familiar sight of Sergeant Bannon's mustached upper lip poked up out of the fog of chaos, and though his injuries were minor, his face seemed blood red with rage. Bannon did not refuse to stop himself from cursing up a storm, crafting a large and seemingly on-the-spot list of slurs and expletives to the describe the Avonian elves who'd just shot them down. It was almost fascinating to watch somebody get that upset.
"Knifeeared sons of bitches, fuck them all!" Bannon shouted, half to his crew of barely alive survivors, half to himself, "Damn! PCT's! Give me a sitrep! Who's dead?"
One of his subordinates in the process of bandaging her own wounds spoke up, “Four. Pilot, copilot, Private Rossanna and Corporal Hughes."
"Alright... alright," Bannon pinched the bridge of his nose, calming down some, "Where are we? I know we're in Helena, but where inside of it?"
"Looks pretty built up around here. We're far from the outskirts, that's for sure," Answered another regular, "Likely behind their lines! If the Avonian's got half a brain in them, they'll be sending a unit to make sure we're dead."
"Well, they already did a damn fine job at killing half of us off, look get sorted, we've got to..." As Bannon went to address his soldiers, Eli's attention was dragged elsewhere. It seems that in this moment of crisis, the regulars forgot about the existence of the phantoms they were supposed to babysit. In another circumstance, this would've been a golden opportunity to just leave. If that circumstance happened to take place on Earth, at least. Here though, Helena? No shot. Somehow, they were safer sticking with The Coalition.
They were stranded, not only in enemy territory – but in their capital city. They had been shot down dab-smack in the middle of Helena, and up close the modernity of the world surprised Eli. He had grown accustomed, somewhat, to the relative simplicity of Raritan. In Otaes' home there were vehicles around, but not many. A few flatbed trucks laden with farm goods and not much else. The homes in Raritan looked like they mostly lacked electricity, and the entire city seemed ingrained in the natural beauty of the jungle unlike any other he’d ever seen.
Helena was not that - at all. In fact, quite the opposite. The first thing Eli noticed about the city was how familiar it all felt. Not in the literal sense, he’d never stood somewhere quite like it. But there were plenty of places on Earth that came eerily close. The neighborhood they'd crashed into looked industrial, monotonous, devoid of life despite it appearing to be a residential area. They were flanked on both sides by brick and concrete apartment blocks. Their grey stone-like faces had all been stained by years, decades even, of neglect. Long before The Coalition had started bombing the city, this place had been in ruin. Moss, mildew, even dark patches from what looked like fires that had burned out of control all stained what was supposed to be the rigid uniformity of their construction. Windows facing into the street were sometimes filled with clothes drying in the air. At least for the windows that were open. Electrical wires above their heads often carried abandoned clothes and flags discernable only to the locals.
Even the palm trees looked sick around here, their branches thin and dry as they struggled to grow in the narrow slots of dirt afforded within the most concrete landscape in Planet Narva so far. And in that, Eli remembered why the place looked so familiar. It was like The Nexus, but more lived-in and much older. There were cars on either side of the road straight from a scrap yard caught in the 1970s. Doors on the cars often painted a different color entirely from the rest of the rusted and corroded body. Often, a building that looked oddly Spanish or Iberian in architecture was sprinkled in between the concrete apartments. They were like final hold outs of a tropical world that had been conquered and paved over by a brutal concrete titan.
It was a bizarre blend of brutalist concrete design reminiscent of the post-Soviet states, and of an urban ghetto from somewhere that used to be tropical and vibrant a long time ago. Hell, even the very construction of the paved concrete street was telling. Sure, the road was cracked and in terrible looking condition evidently before the osprey took a nose-dive straight into it. But it was surprisingly modern given what he’d seen in Raritan.
And then there was the garbage. Everywhere. Scrap metal and loose planks of wood blocked off the entrances to abandoned concrete buildings whose windows had been smashed in and concrete faces blackened by fire. And frequently there was graffiti etched onto the walls. A red star, oddly enough, being the most common form…
“Prisoners! Stay right where we can see you!” Bannon shouted, finally seeming to remember what his job was, with his gun at the ready. Of course, now, during a time of such critical duress, the regulars would try to exercise whatever control they could muster, “Detain them while we sort this shit out,” the squad leader commanded one of his soldiers, "I didn't come all the way to Planet Narva to look after a bunch of dumbass phantoms. 'Utopia', my left nut."
Eli turned to Misfit. They shrugged their shoulders. Doing what the soldiers said was rather easy, for it wasn’t hard to give off the sense of panic caught within them. Four surviving regulars with six – armed – prisoners, stranded in the middle of a foreign and hostile capital city. If there were ever a situation where the term “Worst Case Scenario” could be applied legitimately, this would be it. Or at least it would come close…
"Alex, radio Juma! Tell her that Airwatch fucked up! They were supposed to get air superiority before they sent us in, the morons," Bannon ordered. A meek private obeyed, going to his earpiece and pulling up his own wrist monitor. But after a few moments of tinkering around, he grimaced.
“The radio is dead!” A regular shouted in fury from not too far off, “It’s the Avonians! They’ve cut off the signal!”
"Oh no... NO!" Bannon was growing red again, "If you've got a monitor, use it! Come on! There's got to be a way to talk to HQ! Call up Juma, the artillery commander, airwatch, fuck it - call Kovic himself if you can! Anyone!"
The other three regulars, now intrigued, turned to their wrist monitors and communications. Their grumbling voices and disgusted looks confirmed that this was not a unique occurrence for the lone soldier. The squad leader turned to Misfit, “You! Prisoners! Use your monitors, can you contact Overwatch?”
Eli used his squad leader’s wrist monitor, looking down at the smooth glass screen. The interface was on, glowing with both the logo of The Coalition and the Penal-Unit the moment he touched on the screen. Yet when he attempted to contact Overwatch…
Eli shook his head, “No… nothing!”
And that sent Bannon over the edge, another barrage of anti-elf expletives and insults came flying out of his mouth.
"Jesus Christ," Dutch whispered from the distance, "Thank God Otaes isn't here to hear him. I don't even think those words are in the dictionary."
"I don't get how its possible to be that racist against someone you've only met once," Said Omar, "Where did he even learn this from? We've been here for like, a month. Tops."
“It’s like a repeat of the first battle,” said one of Bannon's soldiers after a moment, “They have a communications jammer somewhere!”
“Likely got the war machines too!” Said another, "It could be a behemoth! They put the radio jamming equipment in some of the behemoths!"
“Shut up about a fucking behemoth! Okay? If there was a behemoth stomping around here, we would've seen it already! Damn!” The squad leader, disgruntled, looked around. Taking off his helmet to let his blonde hair soak in the smoggy sunlight. His skin was covered in dirt and soot, plus a few bleeding injuries. Though he looked fine enough.
"What do we do with our dead, sarge?" Asked a regular.
“Leave them here. We need to get to that ULA base, fast. I still have the coordinates for our LZ pulled up on my monitor," Bannon said, "Locals are likely to close in, they’ll be armed,” the soldier turned to Eli, “And you… prisoners. You’re going to stick by me like a dog on a fucking leash. Disobey us even once, and I’ll make sure you end up buried in this city. Understand?”
Silently, the squad of prisoners looked among each other. It was a bizarre moment for Eli, but it was ultimately him who would have to speak for the group. He nodded his head, “Yes… we understand.”
Sergeant Bannon’s lip twitched at that as he shouldered his rifle on its sling, “Good. Command says you know a thing or two about this world. When I need you, I’ll say. Don’t speak unless spoken to… and where the hell are those two knifeeared fuckers?” He asked, generally.
Eli looked up to the skies, expecting to see the familiar silhouette of Archer circling above them. But there was no presence of him or either of the elves. Had they been shot down too? Were they caught up in the chaos, trapped by the explosion that rocked the osprey?
No. Otaes was out there. Somewhere. And she was definitely alive. She was too smart not to be. Eli knew that much.
And with that, the soldiers stood the squad up, leading them towards the ULA base…
>>>[Verifying...]
>>>[Loading SitRep B-09...]
>>>[Going through File Directory]
>>>[Standby...]
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==The Revolutionary Department Of Intelligence==
==[THE LITTLE PHOENIX]==
Flag of The National Revolutionary Junta of The Second River Republic
GENERAL INFORMATION:
Capital: Helena
Government: Dominant-Party Democracy (De Jure), Military Junta (De Facto)
Current Ruling Party: The Helen Armed Council of National Salvation (HACoNS)
Party Ideology: Reactionary National Liberation, Pro-Imperial Absolutism
Current Head of State: Grand Marshall Frederique Navarro
Population: 32 Million
Primary Species: Elf
Faction: The Continental-Unity Pact
GDP:(CEC*) 21 Billion
Currency: Avonian Depleted Ekron Standard (DE)
*Commonwealth Exchange Credit, the standard unit of economic activity among nations within the Belford Alliance and Ostraland Commonwealth
==[Wayward Sons Of A Lost Revolution]==
The Riverlands, officially the National Revolutionary Junta of The Second River Republic, or simply The River Republic, is an industrialized nation occupying the northern half of the Kiote Peninsula. Bordering their masters, The Greater Avonian Empire and Continental-Unity Pact to the north, and a hostile Kiote Union supported by The Belford Alliance to its south.
The River Republic is a tragic and often oxymoronic, “nation”. Until recently, the territory that consists of the modern Republic was the home to several smaller nations. Notably, the Caliconi Orcs and goblins centered around the rural central grasslands, some scattered human and elven kingdoms around the central Riverlands, and the two dominant city-states of Azure and Helena. Upon unification of these fledgling nations into a broader River Republic, they were admitted as a member nation of The Kiote Union (except for Azure, which remained independent until The Avonian Invasion of 1208, which annexed the region into the Avonia proper).
The Republic stood as a nation of industrial powerhouses, sprawling cities, and modern armies. It was the Kiote Peninsula’s only “modern” state, at least in the eyes of the broader Planet Narva (Which viewed the other nations of the Kiote Union, particularly the Warrior Elves, as little more than tribal savages and nomadic wanderers). Riverlander industries produced arms and goods for the Allied war effort during The Sacred War, sending guns, uniforms, food, and ammunition to the combined forces of The Ostraland Commonwealth and Avonian Empire, generating massive wealth to the fledgling democracy. It was a nation of immense potential... only to chart a completely different course.
As the Republic grew to become the Kiote Union’s most powerful state during The Sacred War, none of the prosperity trickled down to the people. the democratic ideals that built the Republic faded as foreign money infiltrated the political sphere, and millions were pressed from their rural homes into massive Avonian-owned corporate mills to fuel the Imperial war machine and consumer market. It was a deal that made the nation wealthy at the expense of its own people, and though most were treated harshly under this new system of imperial-dominated economic exploitation, the burden fell heavily on The Riverlands' ethnic minorities, like the Caligene Orc people or tribes that were forcefully uprooted from their ancestral homelands to work in Riverlander cities. Avonian corporations stripped the lands for its natural wealth - especially the massive deposits of ekron that were buried underneath Riverland soil, the lifeblood of the Avonian war machine.
The mills worked the Riverlander people like slaves, with native Riverlanders being barred from obtaining higher ranks within the Avonian dominated companies. Yet when the devastation of The Sacred War ended, the situation in The Republic only continued to deteriorate. Students gathered in the streets of Helena in mass protest against the corporate-dominated government, and soon the workers joined. Massive strikes drove The Republic’s industry to a halt, and the leader of the Radical students - Jorge Costa - popularized the idea that The River Republic had sold itself to Imperial-backed corporate demands at the expense of the Republic’s own people. Costa was elected to the head of the Republic, yet sensing the writing on the wall, the Avonophile Republican Guard overthrew Costa in a coup d'état citing “Communard Infiltration” and even suggesting that it was an attempt by the Commonwealth at destabilizing their regime. The response from the Republican Guard led by Grand Marshall Navarro soured relations with the rest of the Kiote Union, with the Warrior Elves providing refuge for fleeing protestors and demanding the restoration of democracy to the Republic. The situation rapidly escalated when the new Republic formally announced its exit from the Kiote Union and its ascension to join the Empire’s Continental-Unity Pact. The military junta increased its control as a “Reactionary Revolution” to protect the Republic’s borders and to lead it into a era of an absolutist and imperial-guided future... But war was the only thing on the horizon.
The Kiote War immediately followed between the Republic and The Kiote Union, dragging on for over a decade with the lives of thousands put at stake for the survival of the new junta. While the war continued, Marshal Navarro's Revolutionary Guards only solidified their control of the nation. Purging the government of disloyal officials, forcefully terrorizing and burning down the homes of their own population on suspicions of being aligned with the Kiote Union, and displacing thousands of various ethnic and cultural minorities which constituted the heartland of the Riverlands. Through all of this, the nation drew closer under the talons of The Iron Phoenix, with The River Republic morphing into a corporate playground for Avonia's industrial conglomerates. In exchange for the support of the unstoppable Imperial Army and the vast stockpiles of its glitterbomb weapons, the Junta under Navarro continued to sell pieces of itself away to Imperial interests - further increasing The Avonian Empire's control over what is now little more than a puppet state.
Now, a year after the end of the war (and standing on the cusp of the war being lit aflame once more) the River Republic is a fragile husk of what was once one of the brightest dreams in the Kiote Peninsula. In Helena, mile-long stretches of rotting concrete housing blocks constitute sprawling slums full of forcefully relocated ethnic minorities churn with overflowing pollution and smog from the surrounding industrial plants, corporate highrises dominate the skylines where Avonian executives look out to their subjects like medieval lords ruling over their vassals, and the Republican Guard and Militia patrol the streets to ensure that their overlords in The Revolutionary Junta remain in power - and so that the Iron Phoenix continues to grace the Republic with her support. Hope seems to have been beaten out of the population, suffocated by endless military suppression and the drone of a never ending corporate-society. Even in Helena, the seat of the Junta, the Republic's ideals seem empty and broken.
But as discontent rises, and as the drums of war beat closer to the heart of The Republic, so too does the chance for a new dawn to shine over the dark realm of "The Little Phoenix"...
Welcome To Helena, Land Where The Golden Sun Used To Shine
Now All That Remains Is The Grey Of Concrete and Smog
==[END TRANSMISSION]==