Good, that means I've done my job
((Mike casts Wall of Text!))
((Track 1))
When Valgar had wished for an army, he hadn't dreamed that his prayers would be answered in such a literal fashion. "Can't stand to let me hog all the glory, can you?" he asks of his siblings with a broad grin as they gather on the small hill overlooking the extradimensional horror. "It's just as well I suppose, I’m not half as good on my own as I am with the lot of you.”
Purpose and memory restored to him once more, Valgar turns on his heel, making a quick assessment of his available resources. While his analytical mind works to find a way to best exploit any advantage he can find, Jack offers his own assessment of the situation.
“Valgar,” the android advises, “the Eldrazi is assuming a more conventional shape in preparation to defend itself. It appears that it concentrating sensory organs in cephalic appendages. I calculate that these will likely hold the creature’s equivalent of a brain.”
“Kill the heads, kill the beast,” Stanley summarizes.
“Precisely,” confirms Jack.
“Well then, I know just what to do,” Valgar announces. Everyone looks at him expectantly as he gestures to Valerie. “We do whatever Valerie tells us to do.”
“Me?” Valerie squeals. “Why on earth am I in charge?”
“Because you’re the one who spent all her time reading military history when we were younger,” Valance explains, catching on to Valgar’s train of thought just as back in their glory days. “You’re actually in command of a military force. These are your men, not Valgar’s.”
Valerie bites her lip as she surveys the battle ground. Even as she watches, barbed tentacles are sprouting from the ground to form a defensive perimeter around the nearest malformed head. “But we’ve no flaggers. How are we going to coordinate?”
“I believe I may be of assistance,” Jack says as he plucks a quartet of metal buds from the side of his head and distributes them amongst the Fierno siblings. “These devices allow the two-way transmission of audio over a spectrum of the electromagnetic spectrum not in use on this plane of existence. It should allow us to remain in constant contact.”
Valgar examines the small metal bud before inserting it into his ear. “How long have you had this particular gadget?” he asks.
“I have always possessed this capability.”
“And you never thought to tell us?” Valgar exclaims.
Jack stares evenly at Valgar as he replies, “You never asked.”
Valerie ignores Valgar’s gaping expression as she formulates a possible plan of attack. “The first order of business is to get rid of those tentacles,” she decides.
“We could overwhelm them with brute force,” Valance offers. “The loss of life would be… considerable, however.”
“Moreover,” Valgar interjects, “they grow back. Slowly, mind you, but they grow back.”
“I have just the thing,” Valdemar says cheerily as he reaches into his bag and produces a bottle of smoked black glass stoppered with wax.
“Breeching charges?” Valance asks. “Useful for breaking down walls and cracking vaults, but will it be enough to kill that thing?”
“Oh, this is a special batch,” Valdemar explains. “You remember my adjuvant? If you thought its effect on poison was impressive, you should see what it does for explosives.”
“How many of those do you have?” Valerie asks.
“They say a man should have a hobby, and I’ve been busy,” Valdemar says as he overturns his bag. A seemingly impossible number of bottles spill out onto the ground, and Valgar realizes that Valdemar’s bag is a handy haversack much like his own. There is no telling how many of those explosive jars Valdemar had on hand.
Valerie steeples her fingers and nods, a strategy forming in her mind. “All right then. We will split the City Guard into three divisions. Valdemar, you will take a quarter of the swordsmen and distribute your explosives amongst them. You will be tasked with bringing down the tentacles. Valance, you will take half of the swordsmen and suppress their regrowth. Valgar, that leaves you with the remaining quarter of the swordsmen and the archers. You will lead the assault on the head once Valdemar clears a path.”
“Archers?” Valgar blanches. “Why stick me with the archers? I have terrible aim.”
“You’re not the one shooting the arrows, you fool,” Stanley sighs, “you’re just telling them when to shoot.”
“Oh. Well… I suppose that makes sense,” Valgar begrudgingly concedes.
“Stanley and Jack, you are rear guard,” Valerie continues. “I’m in no shape to fight those things off on my own, it will be up to you to watch out for any tentacle growths that slip past our lines. For now, we consider this position our command post. Everyone move out!”
---
((Track 2))
While not as well trained or experienced as a formal military, the Alydar City Guard are at least competent enough to understand and respond to Valerie’s plan. If they have any reservations about following the orders of the Fierno brothers, they are professional enough to not show it.
Valdemar’s contingent of grenadiers goes first, lobbing their glass bottles of explosive fluid at the bases of the writhing tentacles. True to Valdemar’s promises, they yield far more punch than Valgar remembered them possessing, tearing huge chunks out of malevolent offshoots and felling them entirely in short order. The guards dance outside the barbed reach of the unnatural appendages as best they can, but some are invariably lost in the assault. The momentum of battle is on the side of the humans, however, and in short order they clear the nearest batch of tentacles. Valance bellows the order to advance, and the swordsmen move forward to hack away at the nascent regrowth before the tentacles can regain their lethal potency.
Emboldened by the success of the strategy, Valdemar’s division continues to the next round. From Valgar’s position in the rear, however, it appears that the tentacles have adopted a different pattern to their movement. Instead of blindly groping around, they whip around purposefully as though building momentum. He is just about to relay this observation over Jack’s communication link when the tentacles swing violently, releasing a volley of their spikes and spines in a lethal hail.
“Warning,” Jack’s voice comes over the earpiece in the commanding brothers’ ears, “the tentacles are adapting to our method of assault.”
“Shields up!” Valdemar roars over the battle. “Phalanx formation!” With disciplined efficiency, the grenadiers close rank to form a many-legged turtle, the guards on the perimeter shielding those on the interior, those on the interior holding their shields above their heads. The projectile spikes ricochet harmlessly off the impenetrable steel surface as the guards approach, exploding bottles lobbing from the interior of the group.
The progress is slow and arduous, and more lives are claimed as the tentacles swipe at the formation and wipe out chunks of the group at a time. The guards close ranks to fill the gaps without hesitation as they open, and they press onward, Valance’s troops following behind to keep the tentacles from regrowing. In time, the pathway to the central mass of Emrakul opens for the final assault.
“Now Valgar!” comes Valerie’s voice over the earpiece. Valgar raises his rapier and points it at the Eldrazi, the signal to charge. Emrakul’s immense head stirs, rising above battlefield upon a neck composed of skinless, raw muscle. Its visage is the asymmetrical stuff of nightmares, a cancerous cluster of glowing red eyes on one side of its face, overgrowing its malformed tri-jointed jaw. Blood veins ripple with the pulse of a dark infernal heart hidden from view, the monstrous brain barely contained within a thin membrane of tissue. It bellows in challenge at the swarming mass of humanity that come rushing toward it, its fetid breath threatening to bowl over the men nearest to it.
Valgar drops his arm, and a storm of arrows flies forth into the face of the dread Eldrazi. Explosions from the bottles of Valdemar’s potions tied to the arrows pockmark the monstrous “face,” and Valgar realizes from the perspective that the head is much larger than anticipated, merely further away. “Reload!” he commands. “Take aim!” The damage from the first volley is disappointing, at best. “Fire!”
Another cloud of arrows describe a parabolic arc from the archers to Emrakul’s face, another cloud of explosions ripple across the face, leaving bloody, scorched flesh. Emrakul lets out an inhuman scream, and the titanic head falls to the earth amidst the cheers of the Alydar City Guardsmen. “Now!” Valgar shouts, giving the signal for the remaining swordsmen to charge and finish him off. The guards surge forward, blades at the ready, eager to claim their victory.
Valgar realizes his mistake almost immediately. Emrakul’s head rises from the ground and there is the intake of breath the force of hurricane winds. “Retreat! Fall back!” Valgar shouts, but it is too late. Emrakul exhales a miasma of toxins that spreads at frightening speed, consuming the majority of the city guard in its caustic cloud. The screams as the flesh is dissolved from bones is horrifying, the worst sound Valgar has ever heard, but mercifully brief. The acid vapor dissipates, leaving behind full suits of armor with no sign of their previous occupants. Emrakul’s head screams something that might possibly be some sort of incomprehensible taunt. The remaining guardsmen turn tail and flee, and Valgar cannot blame them.
“We… We’ve failed…” he despairs.
“Valgar,” comes Valance’s voice over the earpiece. “At least… at least we tried.”
“I’d have been happier if we had won,” Valdemar grouses.
((Track 3))
Jack’s voice interrupts the lamentations of the brothers. “Valgar, stand aside. I am inbound to your position.” Valgar looks up and sees… something… barreling down the hill at incredible speed. As it draws near, he can make out the forms of Valerie’s mechanical wheelchair with Jack standing behind it. No, not standing behind it… Jack seems to have wired himself directly to the propulsion system, all of his internal power systems coursing through the chair’s drive train.
Strapped into the seat is Valdemar’s haversack.
“Jack!” Valgar shouts into his earpiece, “What are you doing?”
Jack and his impromptu vehicle rush by in a blur, but Valgar can hear the android just fine over his radio communication link. “We erred in our calculations,” Jack explains calmly as he rockets towards the Eldrazi. “Valdemar’s explosive is potent, but Emrakul’s surface area is too great to effect the desired results. A concentrated application to a less reinforced area is required. I am delivering it.”
Valgar wants to shout at Jack, to tell him what a fool he is to throw his life away like this, but he cannot bring himself to do so. Because he knows that Jack is right. Instead, he can only watch helplessly as the android veritably flies down the malformed gullet of the monster before them. Emrakul’s head rears up high once more as though to swallow Jack and his payload, but stops halfway through the motion. The expression –if it could be called that—on its face is one that might be some warped and twisted version of surprise, right before the Eldrazi’s superfluous head explodes.
Something glowing blue and humanoid arcs across the sky, impacting into the earth amidst the severed tentacles and vacated suits of armor. Heedless of the potential danger to himself, Valgar rushes headlong through the battlefield in the direction of the crash. “Jack!” he screams into his earpiece, “Jack, come in! Come in, damn it!”
There is only static over the communication link, and Valgar throws the useless trinket to the ground as he runs towards the crater caused by whatever flew out of the explosion. There, in the center of the pit is Jack, or what remains of him. As Valgar scrambles down the side of the crater, Jack’s glowing blue arcane armor evaporates. Sadly, it does not seem to have been sufficient to save him for severe damage, with the ataxic flailing of his appendages, his chest more hole than breastplate. “Jack!” Valgar says as he grabs Jack’s shaking hand. “Jack, can you hear me?”
“C-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-catastrophic system fail-l-l-l-l-l-lure,” Jack says, his staccato voice dropping in timber as he speaks.
“Jack, you’ll be all right, won’t you?” Valgar pleads. “Your internal repair systems, they can fix this, can’t they?”
“I-i-i-i-i-i-i-insufficient power level-l-l-l-l-ls to enact aut-t-t-t-t-t-t-orepair sequen-n-n-n-n-nce,” Jack manages to get out, his voice almost obscured by white noise and static.
“So, what? You die now? You just… you just give up? Now that we’ve won? What kind of sense does that make, you illogical idiot!” Valgar shouts. There is something warm and wet flowing down his cheeks.
“Val-l-l-l-l-lgar-r-r-r-r-r,” Jack says, his trembling gaze locking eyes with Valgar. “My t-t-t-t-t-t-ime with y-y-y-y-you has been-n-n-n-n… educational-l-l-l-l-l-l.” Jack’s erratic trembling stops with the sound of metal grinding against metal. His luminous blue eyes flicker momentarily before going dark.
