TA Chapter 10 Moving Pictures
Luthor Dugavu(POV)
The ceramic was a harsh cold, refusing to take on the warmth from my hands as I gripped it as if it could somehow absorb my panic. My eyes were up above, gazing at the fist sized object high up in this clear night sky. The stars were still the same, twinkling at their own pace, and the moon was a cold observer. The fist sized ball of golden light was enlarging within our eyes, a sign that it was hurtling towards this surface. Was it going to make landfall in Mazi city?
"Could we blast it apart with those self propelled projectiles?"
My eyes shifted to the youth who had asked that question. "Our aiming systems aren't advanced enough. You should know that, since those avian types had always given us trouble when we had been fighting the beasts."
How come we hadn't gained even a sliver of warning? I directed my eyes to Ril. She was clearly discombobulated. Those widened eyes, gazing up into the sky with equal parts of both fascination and fear, plus her slightly opened mouth already exposed the fact that she clearly hadn't known about the asteroid beforehand.
I furiously rubbed at my scalp even as my mind ran through all the possibilities of what could have happened for Milena's observatory to fail in picking up on such a threat from outer space.
"How could it be?!" a mumble tumbled out of her lips as her gaze finally lowered. "M-Mr. Luthor! Our equipment had been scanning every single day! Asteroids hurtling towards our planet should have a detectable flight path! We should have picked up on it, months, or even years earlier! This is abnormal!" she explained, her voice cracking in emotion.
"Oh! So, all the money we throw at you people was basically a waste. Is that what you're trying to say?" David threw out a sarcastic sentence, earning a himself a chilling glare from me.
"What do you know, you imbecile? You know nothing! And yet here you are, making light of my-of our efforts?!" roared out Ril, bringing my heart to my throat. I gazed at her with new eyes, albeit ones filled with surprise.
"Did you just insult me, woman?" asked David, his voice an eerie calm, yet the murderous intent in his gaze was unmistakable.
"And being a better fighter, one who could murder me in seconds, gives you the privilege to insult my job? And why have I never heard of any donations to the observatory from poor poor, Lutalo? Hmm?" she leaned forward, her eyes focused into David's.
"Both of you should break it off. We have far more important things to focus on." I said while pointing my right hand into the skies, which were now bright enough to have turned the night into dusk.
My eyes narrowed as they caught a glimpse of twisting lights appearing in the sky, as if air currents had somehow been charged with enough plasma to manifest a golden color. At first, they were thin ribbons, dancing in the sky by their lonesome before linking into bands which then extended upwards to become curtains.
"Auroras! They should only be visible in the extreme north!" exclaimed Ril, her face vibrant with excitement, with both her hands clasped upon her chest as in emotion.
"So, these are the fabled northern lights, the ones people have spoken about yet belief had failed to take hold." I said, breathlessly marveling at the beautiful scene.
Then I noticed a few others had also spilled out onto the balcony, enjoying the view, yet I still detected the subtle glances directed our way. Some were pretending to gaze up in awe, yet small slivers of fear were etched within their eyes and facial expressions. My eyes fell onto a young lady fanning herself even in this cold night air, yet her eyes were locked up into the sky, her hand moving with a subconscious cadence. A man had his felt hat hugged close to his chest, his face etched with fear in the golden light. I didn't even need to think hard to come to the conclusion that he was probably thinking that the world was about to end.
The curtains of golden light linked together before a stronger burst of light turned the night fully into day. The burst originated from the plummeting asteroid, now the size of a head.
The previously non uniform curtains of golden light were coraled into a gigantic rectangular screen of golden in the sky.
I marveled at the sight, yet a growing suspicion nagged at my mind. If I were to verbalize it... It would turn into the question of whether that thing, now obscured by the massive screen, was really an asteroid.
"Pardon me, but are falling asteroids supposed to do that?" an unfamiliar voice asked me, prompting my attention to shift from above, to my surroundings. The first thing I noticed was the fact that the balcony floor was no longer visible. People were everywhere, and I could even catch those still inside, having parted the curtains, with their faces plastered across the glass in a bid to capture whatever was happening.
Before my mind could formulate an answer...
"What is that?" an exclamation from Ril made me snap my gaze upwards.
The golden screen was flickering, then, as if a decision had been reached, images appeared, not just static photos in black and white but colored ones, and they were moving! I was amazed by it. Murmurs and exclamations of shock entered my ears, but they were ignored in favor of the unexpected above me.
"Humans...?" someone wondered.
Their faces were blurred, yet they had the same physical composition as us, except maybe for their somewhat shimmering bronze skin. They were all either running or fighting a familiar foe, the beasts. The species appeared different from ours, but I was certain they were beasts.
"Is that the tribal era? What are we actually watching?" a woman asked what everyone was dying to know.
But the images moved on without a care. There was no sound, yet just by watching the moving images, I could feel as if I was there, listening to the roars of frustration, of pain, of victory, of loss and most of all, those of resolve.
The moving images were showing us a people akin to our ancestors. They were fighting, yet mostly losing to the beasts.
Then, after an indeterminate time, something shifted, someone discovered something that changed the paradigm...
"Wow! Is this really another race? Or was it our ancestors?" someone's exclamation entered my ears.
"Don't be stupid! Do you see anyone here with bronze skin? Does anyone among us bleed dark liquid?" another, a woman, logically debunked those words.
"They actually discovered that crystal we use to make circuits capable of transporting dark energy? What are the odds?"
I tuned out the rest and watched as these people proceeded to master dark technology. They weren't like us, who had first gone down the mundane fossil fuel path. No, they doubled down on that technology, creating weapons that finally gave them an edge over the beasts. Though, I noticed the fact that they hadn't yet discovered attunement. They simply used it in its pure form, creating cartridges that concentrated it into projectiles that could be fired out of a muzzle. From simple 2 inch long bullets, to massive translucent blue energy shells fired out of massive canons.
They started winning their battles with the beasts, pushing them back and reclaiming land to build their cities. But unlike us, they finally found something we hadn't yet discovered, a beast powerful enough to decimate entire battalions with attuned energy.
It was a gross dark long snake-like worm that had dark clouds of fog obscuring it's form. Even though I was just watching moving images, I was still chilled by its presence!
This time, the faces weren't obscured any longer, which made me reach the conclusion of this being actual footage! The tribal age had been subpar, probably because it had been a reenactment of historical events.
Bullets were corroded by the dark fog-like substance. Canon shots lasted longer, but their momentum appeared to have been greatly weakened to even wound the creature.
"An evolution beyond what we have been dealing with, interesting. It seems like my proposal could still be on the table..." commented David, his eyes enraptured with the moving images above while a smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
I ignored him in favor of continuing with looking at the screen while also wondering whether that black beast was the next evolutionary stage after the stage where they could cast a coat of dark energy on their skin surface.
They only won after a new research direction introduced them to attunement. They discovered the frequency of white light and managed to finally put the beast to rest, but not before it had shown them a glaring flaw... Which was the weakness of their bodies relative to the beasts. The battle had cost them many lives because the dark fog-like energy had poisoned thousands! And even those who had only been exposed to a sliver had ended up retiring early. The moving images had shown them, weakening slowly, as if something was eating at their lives from inside, before they passed away.
So, just like me, they started experimenting on themselves. Cries of shock rippled around me as they gave up their own bodies for the brutal experiments. Most exploded, some died in raging throes, others simply disolved into liquid or gas, but their will was not broken.
It wasn't until someone accidentally brought a crystal piece of those circuits near his head, trying to observe it intently, only for something magical to happen! It started to sink into his forehead!
I gasped, taken aback by the phenomenon. Yet, as I was eagerly waiting for the moving pictures to show me more, the screen darkened before introducing a new picture, this one showing humans in various colored armor, which suspiciously looked like the previous crystal, clashing with the beasts, fist on body. No cold weapon, just martial arts skills, and various attuned energies blasting out because of certain moves.
I clutched my chest, opened my mouth to take in more air as I struggled to breathe from the fact that my heart was pounding in excitement. The key I had been looking for all along, had been found!