Shadowland - The Vanguard Issue #1A The mirror crack'd

OOC didn't see that coming!

Sentinel tossed the capsule containing the white lunarium sliver through space even as the dark form loomed large in his vision!

His suit was ill prepared to the cold hard rigours of vacuum - the metal was freezing cold, and the limited air supply seemed to freeze even as he tried to breathe it in! Gasping, he felt like he was drowning, and his vision seemed to blur...

He saw the Emissary level an arm and blast at Sentinel...

And everything went dark!

=========

"...me?" said a distant voice.

The light was intense, painful, and Steve Jenson groaned. A mask on his face provided oxygen, and his eyes were blurred. Every limb felt it was detached, and he knew something was wrong.

"You're alive!" said Sunburst, holding his hand gently. "You did it, you mad, foolish, brave man..." she said, though the tone of her voice suggested it had not been without cost...

All manner of pipes and tubes were jutting from Silver Sentinels body, and he saw strange machines suspended from the ceiling above him.

"They had to operate. The Dark Power blast... most of it was absorbed by the Lunarium. Some of it... some of it you caught." said Sunburst, voice trailing off.

Sentinel painfully raised himself up. He was covered by sheets, but could tell something was wrong. "The Emissary?"

"The Lunarium did the trick. It absorbed the blast, and more. It drained the Dark Power from the Emissary and left him an ordinary man in the vacuum of space. He died instantly. We recovered the Lunarium sliver when we recovered your body. You.. you were dead for a while. There is no reason that you should be alive, but somehow, you are..."

Sentinel flicked the sheets back.

All over his body, horrendous scars marked where the robotic surgeon had done its job... angry wounds, red and flared, criss crossed his body. Worse was to come.

He'd lost his legs from the knee down... All over his body he could feel pins and supports, a metal framework holding him together. His shattered body had been blasted by the dark power and exposed to the hard vacuum of deep space. He should be dead.

He wasn't quite sure why he was still alive. Indeed, he seemed to be as much machine as man now. Sunburst confirmed "You have cybernetic implants."

At his confused look she continued "There was so much damage... we ordered the machines, the ship, to keep you alive, to ... 'repair' you as best it could. It did. In doing so it tore out most of your damaged organs, replacing them with cybernetic - robot - versions."

Sentinel looked up at the ceiling, wondering if he'd be better off dead, then back at Sunburst. "We need to get the Lunarium to Earth!"

She smiled nervously. "You are needed to hold the ship together, with your older version. We've been drifting here and holding the ship together, but it won't work without you..." She looked helplessly at the bedridden hero, his body held together with metal pins, plates, rods and with tubes jutting from it...

OOC you made a heroic sacrifice... but nothing comes without cost! I'm sure a resourceful chap like you can find a way through being turned into a cyborg with no legs...especially when the fate of the Earth, heck the entire Universe, is at stake!

OOC: I didn't think Steve jenson would really risk any member of his crew least of all a close friend like Beth who he admires too for her strength.

IC: "How much of me is still human? ...no wait don't answer i don't think i wana know....do i? I mean some if this is temporary right? Until we get back to earth surely?"

"Uh Steve we.....

"ME" he exclaimed loudly " i mean the older me. I'm guessing the time lines are joining or repairing them selfs or something"

Sunburst looked at her horrificly scared friend with worry

"No hear me out. He has metal legs too but he's not 'robotisised' so there must be hope...right?"

OOC: Depending on your answer Steve could have hope or false hope and help repair the ship to get back home in the bid to become more human again or at least remove some of the scars. Or she could be brutally honest and sentinel could go all darth vadar and crush the nearest repair bot, metal table etc and harvest the parts for his body, he would still help but would be a lot darker and never want to see his face again.

Beth held Steves' hand as she looked on sadly...

"If I could, I would weep for you. You are a hero. You saved my ... existence ... by sacrificing yourself. I don't know how you survived. You were out there minutes before we could reach you. You should have been dead in seconds." she said.

A shadow by the doorway attracted Sentinels attention and his older self stood there, looking on. "Your symbiote saved you. In doing so it probably attracted the attention of the Devourer but what you did out there will have made it really sit up and take notice. The Devourer is the single most powerful entity... anywhere! Nothing and no one can stand against it. Entire Empires have thrown themselves at it, and vanished from all of recorded history. What you did today served as notice to that thing that we're not going down quietly, and somehow that planet, the Lunarium we used as fuel, the time I spent on there, has given us hope." he held up the large chunk of White Lunarium.

"Using that to stop the Dark Power also did something to you, right?"

Sentinel looked at the space where his legs had been, then frowned. He glanced at the Older mans legs, and he raised his trousers some to expose real, living human flesh. Apparently in his own time he'd kept his legs, and most everything else. Well, all aside from his family, friends and everything he'd ever known. Seemed there was a cost for everything.

No. Something else was missing from Sentinel... The Dark Power was gone.

He wasn't sure whether to be pleased or gutted. The Devourer had no reason to come after him now, but he no longer had the power of a god, enough to level continents, destroy worlds or make a dent in the hide of the Devourer. He was Silver Sentinel, and he was ... broken.

Like the Justiciars had been on the battlefield of Northern France.

He sagged back until the older man dropped a broken machine (with a thud!) by the side of the bed. "Here." he smiled. "You and I are so alike in many ways, you can probably guess what I'm thinking?"

The older man glanced at Sentinels covered lower half, then at the metal. "Might take some getting used to, but the power can help with that. I need you back on your feet soldier! We have a universe to save, and this bucket won't hold itself together long enough for us to do that unless you get out of that bed and put some spring back in your step!"

"You're right old boy" sentinel said with a disheartened tone "Stiff upper lip and all that". Steve could of sworn his older self had metal legs on his first encounter but he was now putting that down to shock.

Perhaps this was a new start for him, for earth, he could b a better hero and not one who was limited by mere flesh for his legs could be stronger now and they couldn't tire.

OOC: What metal is around Steve, any spare fancy metal from MARO?

Sentinel looked about. The ship was made of metal, though sections of it still held the Dark Power, something he would not be able to access until he got back to Earth and drank in the misery there. The metal would do though.

With a thought it flowed like water, a thing alive, from panels, tables, the machines that the Older Sentinel had brought in onto his body, and down, forming lower legs. The shape wasn't right at first, and after a glance at the other two, then a tentative step forward he fell onto his face!

The older Sentinel stopped Sunburst from helping him up and muttered "Let the lad do it. He is stronger than he knows. He can battle through this, and win..."

Sentinel, frustrated, looked at the metal legs and half suit from his waist down and spread the feet out, like claws, with two at the front and one at the back. This time he stood, and when he walked the toes articulated making movement unsteady, but easier.

A few minutes later he was walking without aid from holding onto anything and he turned to the others. "It'll do." said the older Sentinel. "I'll bet with practise you can form lower legs and hinge them in reverse, like an ostrich. They run almost as fast as cars!" (OOC 43mph apparently! Take that Usain Bolt!)

An alarm rang out through the ship and the trio glanced at one another. Sunburst leaned next to a comm panel and activated it. "Report." she ordered.

A robotic voice on the other end replied "Long range sensors detect a spacial anomaly of greater size than that last detected. The ship is structurally unsound. Making a leap into hyper space would shatter it." the robot said, matter of fact.

Older Sentinel rolled his eyes. "Sheesh. Ye of little faith!" he laughed. "Come on! It's decades since I've seen Earth. This time I'll go down to the Engine room, and you hold the ship together!" said Older Sentinel.

OOC If you're ok with that, next post from me will wrap this issue and we'll start the final Darkening Shadows Campaign issue, which will be a team effort.

"You bet, we'll all see earth again.... I mean what's the worse that could happen" the exhausted young man joked, as least he still had his terrible sense of humor even if his legs looked look they belong to some kind of metal harpy.

As the older sentinel jogged off sunburst demanded a visual of the anomaly from the nearest enson whilst a tired Steve Benson collected himself and read structural reports to begin his work amedditaly.

Robots scurried about, tending to electronic systems, pipework and coolant leaks that the metal bending superhumans couldn't deal with

Truth was that the MARO was doomed - her maiden voyage had seen her take more damage than a ship a hundred times her size could manage, and it was testimony to Silver Sentinels power and the Dark Power (that he'd used to build the ship stronger than any man made process) that it was still - just - spaceworthy.

The schematics with the overlay of damage was... discouraging. Even as Steve tried to ignore the fact that his lower legs were gone below the knee, that he was doped up to the eyeballs with painkillers, and that the ship was ready to fall apart at any moment... well the added peril of more Dark Emissaries didn't seem to matter much. He felt cut off too - the Dark Power was basically drained from him. he couldn't communicate with the others or call on the dark power, only his own abilities.

Things looked bleak.

The radio crackled into life. "Things are ...skrrrzzz.. bleak down here..." said the Older Sentinel. "This thing could explode at any time! There's coolant spewing out, the electrics are nigh on shot and the forcefield containing the atmosphere keeps flickering. In addition the engine mountings are cracked, the ... well I think it's an injection manifold... anyway it looks like someone has taken a hammer to it and the vibration is so fierce my teeth feel ready to fall out!"

Sunburst glanced over at Sentinel, who shrugged. What could they do? He sat on the floor, crosslegged, and placed both hands on the floor of the bridge. He ignored the screen, cracked and split as it was, when it flickered to show the distant Emissaries crossing the space system and heading towards them at speed!

His power flowed outwards, into the ship, deep, down, into every gap, every crack and split... he became one, as much as he could with the ship, and knew it wouldn't be enough. Her back was broken, and every time Sentinel fixed it the spine of the ship flexed and cracked somewhere else. Sad, he continued to force the tortured metal to hold together, then managed a nod to Sunburst who leaned into the comm link.

"Alright, we're as ready as we'll ever be! And to think we never got chance to set up our mirror array! They must be freezing back on earth!" said Sunburst.

"It'll be colder for us very shortly if this goes wrong, and I can't see how it can go right!" crackled the Older Sentinel with a chuckle. "Ok... ready... becoming one with the engine... dammit.. .the fusion coils are knackered... Go anyway. GO! NOW!"

The ship shuddered, there was an explosion somewhere, it started vibrating... coolant spewed from an overhead pipe, and alarms blared! Interfacing with the computers Sunburst took on a vacant stare. "I know. Override safety protocols. Ignore restraints four A through 17. Eject the tesla matrix. Engage Warp.... NOW."

The nearest of the Dark Emissaries contained the building fury. one of their number had died. Such a thing was nigh on impossible to digest. The rogue Vanguardian was here, and they would capture him. For he could not call on the Dark Power without succumbing to the will of the Devourer! And yet they fought on, without it! Fools! He reached out a hand, aiming at the dot in space invisible to a human naked eye, but clear to the Dark Emissary. "Time to die, 'brother' " said an alternate version of Steve Jenson. He ignored the orders to drag the Vanguardian in alive. If he survived this blast he would take him in. If not? It was an unavoidable incident.

He blasted...

And missed.

The ship was gone!

"DAMMMMIT!!!!" he roared, into the vacuum of space!

=========

There was a blinding flash...

Wreckage spewed from the light, tumbling and sparking as it spun through the void. It had been a ship only moments before, now a collection of various sized fragments, smashed, torn and otherwise destroyed by the rigours of warp travel!

In the background, in the far distance, points of light started appearing as the Devourer steadily started to disperse, a vast cloud of Dark Emissaries heading lazily towards Earth, for the destruction of humanity and to seal the fate of the Vanguard!

OOC End of issue 1A...to be continued...?