The observation arm of CRVIII was normally a fairly quiet, if busy, place. Loyal Caldari businessmen, eager to secure and enhance their place within the Kaalakiota Corporation went about their small, daily rituals. There they sat, in front of their glowing terminals, monitoring the status of various environmental and antagonistic forces rocking through the depths of Inverxe.
Orion Helugo sipped a hit from his cup of spiced coffee, and scrolled through the telescopic feed from the atmosphere of the moon's gas giant companion. There was a strange storm moving through the violet and lavender bands around the equator. A bit sudden, but nothing particularly out of the ordinary.
"How about these, they're new." came a voice from a few rows over. It was Sasha and Geryi again, discussing the recent specimen footage purchased from the latest Rock Raider excavation.
"Maybe. A lot looks new since this whole Unmaking business. Is it a new species, or just corrupted?" Sasha asked. Orion shook his head and started reading telemetry on the storm cell. Always over complicating things, that one.
"Ahh...gonna go with a new strain. The Unmaking is getting thick down there, but that doesn't mean the moon doesn't have new surprises for us. Speaking of which, any riveting reports from Ioun, weatherman?" Geryi called. The two exobiologists leered in amusement at the meteorologist. Orion shook his head, partially in response and partly in dismissal of the pointed question. The Kaalakiota weather exepert tended to be the butt of a lot of jokes, just because he didn't deal with the monsters or minerals so central to Inverxe's daily rhythms.
Actually wait...what was that?
There was a singular, shining beacon of gleaming pink radiating from the center of the gas giant's storm.
"Uh, hold that thought. Hang on, uh..." Orion's soft voice murmured as he began to type the chittering keys on his datascreen.
The entire eight kilometer station shuddered as a lance of rose light shot through its core. Several of the docked cruisers and freighters were immediately cleaved in half and detonated with the force of their stowed munitions, sending a second wave of rippling shockwaves through the Hub's very core.
Lights flickered and died within the observatory, and the transparisteel viewing panels depolarized, plunging the entire room into red-tinted darkness. Warning klaxons barked to life as the blast door sealed. A warning voice called out orders in an urgent monotone.
Station Hull Compromized. Shelter In Place. Initiate Emergency Protocols.
"Is this? What happened...?" blurted Geryi, picking himself up from the floor. He pulled Sasha to her feet. The poor thing was shaking, on the verge of a breakdown.
"Geryi...Geryi I can barely see, what's going on?" she pleaded. Her counterpart shook his head, clearing the fog from it. The situation felt so...unreal. The danger had always been far below them on the frozen moon. Nothing dangerous ever happened on CRVIII. To his credit though, the scientist was born with the heart of a leader.
"Everyone report in! Let's get our backup circuits online, just like the drills! C'mon people!" Geryi shouted. Responses echoed in from across the lab, and small lights began to blink through the darkness from various smartphones and datapads.
"Orion, you okay?" Geryi groaned, leaning over his terminal. A heavy shape lay on the floor, immobile. Something instinctual shifted inside of Geryi's gut, and he reflexively passed a hand over the slick, gleaming fabric of his silver jumpsuit.
"Oh shit, Orion! Orion!" he shouted. The man half vaulted, half stumbled over his unpowered computer station and moved to the floor where his coworker's body lay.
"He's not breathing, he's...what the hell?" Geryi gasped. He switched on his phone's light to get a look at the meteorologist's face. His mouth was open in a silent, paralyzed scream, and his neck was twisted like a child's toy. How...?
"Backup circuit is on!" called a voice from the back of the lab. All at once, the windows faded back into operation, revealing the limb of the moon below, and the looming purple sea of the gas giant beyond. Except...it wasn't purple any more. All of the clouds had converted to a pale, seashell pink, and were warped into what could only described as...
"...a rose..." Sasha said, absently. Everyone in the observatory turned to look at the unnatural spectacle, even as the metal plating beneath their feet continued to rumble and groan from distant cataclysms.
Geryi screamed, and looked to see a cold claw clutching at his arm. The dead man's eyes, Orion's eyes, had turned into smoldering pits of black. His skin convulsed and twisted as his chilled grasp pulled Geryi closer to a gnashing, fanged mouth. The creature's grip was like iron, and its violent contortions sent Geryi into a flailing panic.
"Fuck! Shit! Nyaaaargh!" the hapless scientist roared as Orion's corpse buried its clinging, mandibled face into Geryi's warm, soft chest cavity.
Meanwhile, Tibus Heth stood cornered in his personal office, high in one of the pinnacles of The Hub's executive towers. One minute he had been reviewing the newest shipment ledgers of supplies to Markov from his favorite Asari - the next minute there was an immense, pink woman with a sword standing inside his half-demolished suite.
There was blood - his blood - trickling from his nose.
The seasoned trader glared up at the looming alien as he leaned heavily against the remains of his priceless kraw mahogany desk.
"Who-"
"My name is Rose Quartz. The moon of Inverxe, and its precious inhabitants, are now under my protection," the woman sniffed. She lifted her shimmering, fuschia broadsword and pointed it at Tibus' chest. She was tall, of course, but also built like a power lifter. Endless locks of silky, pink hair spilled and coiled around her ample body like a willow tree.
"Protection? What is this, you're not the Arbiter-" Tibus started, but Rose took a step forward. The Caldari senior found a razor, crystal blade pressed into his throat just hard enough to silence him.
"I'm Hastur's replacement, courtesy of Darkseid. Get your shooting, pillaging people off of my moon, and no further harm will come to your precious little habitat up here." Rose said. Her voice carried cool, calm violence within it.
Tibus, ever the bargainer, began to formulate a counter offer. She might have had him cornered, but he had contingencies for this kind of thing, dammit. If he could just synchronize with the station defenses, or get one of his jump clones activated, things could be reversed on this...replacement Arbiter quickly. There was a reason that Hastur had always held an uneasy truce with him.
But before any more words could be exchanged, Rose was gone in a swirl of glowing, pink petals.
Tibus sat, alone in his office, as alarm sirens blared across CRVIII. Sparks dribbled from the lighting fixtures, and the floor shook in loose intervals.
Fucking unacceptable. Disgraceful. He stood up a bit taller and pressed the comm button embedded behind his ear.
"Captain Killy, are you still alive?" Tibus grumbled. A wave of static passed through his temporal lobe, but eventually, the voice of his Terran fleet commander broke through.
"Shaken, but ready for duty."
Tibus nodded, and bent low to pull a drink from his minifridge. Some fine Govermorne brandy - a rare delicacy these days - seemed appropriate for the situation.
"Excellent. When can my dreadnought be ready? This violence deserves a stern response."
"Agreed. Damage to the civilian sector is extensive, but the Leviathan can be ready within the hour, following minimal repairs." the chirpy captain replied. Tibus took a long pull from the brandy and sighed.
"Good. It will be nice to stretch our legs after so long."
Fifteen minutes passed. In that time, the largest Rock Raider's geode reclamation project had been systematically dismantled and burned to the ground. The corpses of nearly a hundred intrepid miners lay strewn around the Unmade Gem as she strode calmly towards an ominous bulkhead at the back of the cavern.
All around her, lush grass and flowers sprang up from the previously lifeless stone. Even across the blasted, windswept surface, her presence was already being manifested in a verdant bloom of idyllic, tropical foliage. Paradise followed in her footsteps, so long as her tears flowed freely, and right now she was weeping deeply for the wounds inflicted on her precious, precious moon.
"There there...you'll be alright..." she cooed, tapping the number pad keeping the blast door sealed. Warning sirens sounded out, adding to the growing collection of klaxons echoing through the crag, as hydraulic steam vented from the radial deadbolts.
"Warning. Parasitoid containment breached. All personnel, vacate the area.
Rose let out a sharp sigh. These poor babies, being called nasty names like 'Parasitoid'. It was so easy for people like Tibus and these digging men to condemn what they didn't want to understand. With one final, reluctant grown, the bulkhead door swung open. Only darkness loomed beyond the aperture, leading into some untouched warren deeper inside Inverxe. Rose took a step forward, with her arms held wide.
"You can come out...let me help." she smiled.
A small, melon sized blur flew out of the cave's depths like a hurled pumpkin. The Unmade Arbiter caught it on her bosom with swift, strong arms. A headcrab struggled and screeched against her skin, trying to claw its way towards her sumptuous skull.
"There there, shh. It's okay." Rose said. She held the small creature aloft, at arms length, and nuzzed her nose into its wiggling mandibles. More of the skull-digging aliens came scuttling out of the containment, some leaping towards the pink matriarch in front of them, others scattering off to utilize the bodies of Rose's dead victims.
In that moment, however, something happened. A strange, pink light began to pulse softly from their skin as Rose hugged her first headcrab close.
"See? We're all friends now. Oh...all of you are so precious." Rose Quartz smiled as she knealt down to pet the scurrying pests on their round little bodies. She stood back up, with the initial headcrab now eagerly perched on her broad, milky shoulders. The unmade arbiter looked hopefully towards the skylight leading into the geode. The soft, warm grass continued to spread up the walls, slowly turning everything around her into botanical verdure.
"Soon, everyone on this world is going to remember love and beauty...all in the name of Darkseid."
Orion Helugo sipped a hit from his cup of spiced coffee, and scrolled through the telescopic feed from the atmosphere of the moon's gas giant companion. There was a strange storm moving through the violet and lavender bands around the equator. A bit sudden, but nothing particularly out of the ordinary.
"How about these, they're new." came a voice from a few rows over. It was Sasha and Geryi again, discussing the recent specimen footage purchased from the latest Rock Raider excavation.
"Maybe. A lot looks new since this whole Unmaking business. Is it a new species, or just corrupted?" Sasha asked. Orion shook his head and started reading telemetry on the storm cell. Always over complicating things, that one.
"Ahh...gonna go with a new strain. The Unmaking is getting thick down there, but that doesn't mean the moon doesn't have new surprises for us. Speaking of which, any riveting reports from Ioun, weatherman?" Geryi called. The two exobiologists leered in amusement at the meteorologist. Orion shook his head, partially in response and partly in dismissal of the pointed question. The Kaalakiota weather exepert tended to be the butt of a lot of jokes, just because he didn't deal with the monsters or minerals so central to Inverxe's daily rhythms.
Actually wait...what was that?
There was a singular, shining beacon of gleaming pink radiating from the center of the gas giant's storm.
"Uh, hold that thought. Hang on, uh..." Orion's soft voice murmured as he began to type the chittering keys on his datascreen.
The entire eight kilometer station shuddered as a lance of rose light shot through its core. Several of the docked cruisers and freighters were immediately cleaved in half and detonated with the force of their stowed munitions, sending a second wave of rippling shockwaves through the Hub's very core.
Lights flickered and died within the observatory, and the transparisteel viewing panels depolarized, plunging the entire room into red-tinted darkness. Warning klaxons barked to life as the blast door sealed. A warning voice called out orders in an urgent monotone.
Station Hull Compromized. Shelter In Place. Initiate Emergency Protocols.
"Is this? What happened...?" blurted Geryi, picking himself up from the floor. He pulled Sasha to her feet. The poor thing was shaking, on the verge of a breakdown.
"Geryi...Geryi I can barely see, what's going on?" she pleaded. Her counterpart shook his head, clearing the fog from it. The situation felt so...unreal. The danger had always been far below them on the frozen moon. Nothing dangerous ever happened on CRVIII. To his credit though, the scientist was born with the heart of a leader.
"Everyone report in! Let's get our backup circuits online, just like the drills! C'mon people!" Geryi shouted. Responses echoed in from across the lab, and small lights began to blink through the darkness from various smartphones and datapads.
"Orion, you okay?" Geryi groaned, leaning over his terminal. A heavy shape lay on the floor, immobile. Something instinctual shifted inside of Geryi's gut, and he reflexively passed a hand over the slick, gleaming fabric of his silver jumpsuit.
"Oh shit, Orion! Orion!" he shouted. The man half vaulted, half stumbled over his unpowered computer station and moved to the floor where his coworker's body lay.
"He's not breathing, he's...what the hell?" Geryi gasped. He switched on his phone's light to get a look at the meteorologist's face. His mouth was open in a silent, paralyzed scream, and his neck was twisted like a child's toy. How...?
"Backup circuit is on!" called a voice from the back of the lab. All at once, the windows faded back into operation, revealing the limb of the moon below, and the looming purple sea of the gas giant beyond. Except...it wasn't purple any more. All of the clouds had converted to a pale, seashell pink, and were warped into what could only described as...
"...a rose..." Sasha said, absently. Everyone in the observatory turned to look at the unnatural spectacle, even as the metal plating beneath their feet continued to rumble and groan from distant cataclysms.
Geryi screamed, and looked to see a cold claw clutching at his arm. The dead man's eyes, Orion's eyes, had turned into smoldering pits of black. His skin convulsed and twisted as his chilled grasp pulled Geryi closer to a gnashing, fanged mouth. The creature's grip was like iron, and its violent contortions sent Geryi into a flailing panic.
"Fuck! Shit! Nyaaaargh!" the hapless scientist roared as Orion's corpse buried its clinging, mandibled face into Geryi's warm, soft chest cavity.
Meanwhile, Tibus Heth stood cornered in his personal office, high in one of the pinnacles of The Hub's executive towers. One minute he had been reviewing the newest shipment ledgers of supplies to Markov from his favorite Asari - the next minute there was an immense, pink woman with a sword standing inside his half-demolished suite.
There was blood - his blood - trickling from his nose.
The seasoned trader glared up at the looming alien as he leaned heavily against the remains of his priceless kraw mahogany desk.
"Who-"
"My name is Rose Quartz. The moon of Inverxe, and its precious inhabitants, are now under my protection," the woman sniffed. She lifted her shimmering, fuschia broadsword and pointed it at Tibus' chest. She was tall, of course, but also built like a power lifter. Endless locks of silky, pink hair spilled and coiled around her ample body like a willow tree.
"Protection? What is this, you're not the Arbiter-" Tibus started, but Rose took a step forward. The Caldari senior found a razor, crystal blade pressed into his throat just hard enough to silence him.
"I'm Hastur's replacement, courtesy of Darkseid. Get your shooting, pillaging people off of my moon, and no further harm will come to your precious little habitat up here." Rose said. Her voice carried cool, calm violence within it.
Tibus, ever the bargainer, began to formulate a counter offer. She might have had him cornered, but he had contingencies for this kind of thing, dammit. If he could just synchronize with the station defenses, or get one of his jump clones activated, things could be reversed on this...replacement Arbiter quickly. There was a reason that Hastur had always held an uneasy truce with him.
But before any more words could be exchanged, Rose was gone in a swirl of glowing, pink petals.
Tibus sat, alone in his office, as alarm sirens blared across CRVIII. Sparks dribbled from the lighting fixtures, and the floor shook in loose intervals.
Fucking unacceptable. Disgraceful. He stood up a bit taller and pressed the comm button embedded behind his ear.
"Captain Killy, are you still alive?" Tibus grumbled. A wave of static passed through his temporal lobe, but eventually, the voice of his Terran fleet commander broke through.
"Shaken, but ready for duty."
Tibus nodded, and bent low to pull a drink from his minifridge. Some fine Govermorne brandy - a rare delicacy these days - seemed appropriate for the situation.
"Excellent. When can my dreadnought be ready? This violence deserves a stern response."
"Agreed. Damage to the civilian sector is extensive, but the Leviathan can be ready within the hour, following minimal repairs." the chirpy captain replied. Tibus took a long pull from the brandy and sighed.
"Good. It will be nice to stretch our legs after so long."
Fifteen minutes passed. In that time, the largest Rock Raider's geode reclamation project had been systematically dismantled and burned to the ground. The corpses of nearly a hundred intrepid miners lay strewn around the Unmade Gem as she strode calmly towards an ominous bulkhead at the back of the cavern.
All around her, lush grass and flowers sprang up from the previously lifeless stone. Even across the blasted, windswept surface, her presence was already being manifested in a verdant bloom of idyllic, tropical foliage. Paradise followed in her footsteps, so long as her tears flowed freely, and right now she was weeping deeply for the wounds inflicted on her precious, precious moon.
"There there...you'll be alright..." she cooed, tapping the number pad keeping the blast door sealed. Warning sirens sounded out, adding to the growing collection of klaxons echoing through the crag, as hydraulic steam vented from the radial deadbolts.
"Warning. Parasitoid containment breached. All personnel, vacate the area.
Rose let out a sharp sigh. These poor babies, being called nasty names like 'Parasitoid'. It was so easy for people like Tibus and these digging men to condemn what they didn't want to understand. With one final, reluctant grown, the bulkhead door swung open. Only darkness loomed beyond the aperture, leading into some untouched warren deeper inside Inverxe. Rose took a step forward, with her arms held wide.
"You can come out...let me help." she smiled.
A small, melon sized blur flew out of the cave's depths like a hurled pumpkin. The Unmade Arbiter caught it on her bosom with swift, strong arms. A headcrab struggled and screeched against her skin, trying to claw its way towards her sumptuous skull.
"There there, shh. It's okay." Rose said. She held the small creature aloft, at arms length, and nuzzed her nose into its wiggling mandibles. More of the skull-digging aliens came scuttling out of the containment, some leaping towards the pink matriarch in front of them, others scattering off to utilize the bodies of Rose's dead victims.
In that moment, however, something happened. A strange, pink light began to pulse softly from their skin as Rose hugged her first headcrab close.
"See? We're all friends now. Oh...all of you are so precious." Rose Quartz smiled as she knealt down to pet the scurrying pests on their round little bodies. She stood back up, with the initial headcrab now eagerly perched on her broad, milky shoulders. The unmade arbiter looked hopefully towards the skylight leading into the geode. The soft, warm grass continued to spread up the walls, slowly turning everything around her into botanical verdure.
"Soon, everyone on this world is going to remember love and beauty...all in the name of Darkseid."