Chapter 21.5 breakdown

(Hello everyone, This is coming to you far later then it should, executive dysfunction got the better of me procrastinator settling in with our newset family member, but with the deadline approaching like all good procrastinators the guilt about not being able to get anything done previously in the month due to exhaustion is fueling me through the last couple of days of October- also this new format of patreon may not be compatible with my work in the future since its struggling to handle 4k worth of txt. update to follow tomorrow and chapter after that. thank you ll for your paitence~squiggles)

These procrastinatorlast handful of chapters have been the hardest to write of my entire career, the time and care needed to get these chapters right have been on the forefront of my mind but due to life circumstances have had to settle for the back seat.

Action sequences have always been hard for me, this one especially needed to solve a few problems of how to end the conflict with the lady and reunite the pirates with the main group without feeling too tacked on.

This chapter went through extensive rewrites as I tried to balance narrative need and the rule of cool whilst keeping the action clear and concise.

The original chapter blurb:

there is a battle of wills, the lady of the arc can pull up nightmares out of thin air and produces human-like soldiers to defend her.

They one by one take out jas and co, and just as xant is about to be taken out, the pirates and the other humans show up. Xant's mind melds with jasmine one last time and with the pair working together (and breaking the limiters on her translator) they defeat the lady of the arc

This is the climax of the book, a lot is going on in a very little amount of time and I need to pay off as many set ups as I can. I really should have realsied this was a lot to put into ONE chapter… it turned into like 4.

Old Notes:

The lady starts rambling about Jasmine needing to stay in containment and more servants try to restrain her. Itsuki raises his gun and tries to threaten the lady but he is captured by the amalgamations and is scanned too.

Itsuki is planned to be a military commander type unit, using his hallucinations as a weapon on the battlefield. Xant does his best to fight off the servants and Letu is cutting down as many as he can but they are simply overwhelmed.

The action here was a little muddy, notes like this keep the action vague so i can just ‘fill in the blanks’, nobody in the party (aside from Letu) is actually battle experience, so in a fight they wouldn't actually ‘win’ but they're too valuable to be killed so the lady, even in this instance was going easy on them. Humans are valuable/sacred after all.

The lady starts talking saying that shes just following instructions from The Lord Fourth’s emissary that she should be contained. she plays a hologram of a human. He is distressingly handsome with cold black eyes, dressed in a sleek nerve suit with more conventional human armour over the top. He is detailing an incident report with professional, passive-agressive frustration.

(the character stated here, the emissary, actually had a very important part during the concept stages of the original Transcripts. When the whole thing was set on Essander station the emissary character was going to ‘collect’ Jasmine with all the subtlety of a Horror slasher movie villain. The original inspiration came from the HFY classic ‘humans do not make good pets’ an entire chapter dedicated to the human protagonist eviserating invading pirates bare-handed and being lauded as the hero afterward, my brain was buzzing how terrifying that scenario would be if we cared for the aliens being pulled apart… alas, my brain decided to create an entire universe instead of keeping this story more contained. I really hope to bring the element back in a later adventure when we get to see just how terrifying a ‘rajavan human’ is.)

“The organic-stock designated F18(double check jasmines number) was improperly sedated during the environmental processing procedure. It was during the final stages of acclimatisation, specifically repressuring the eyeballs, that the nerve endings of the surgery amalgamation were connected to F18. The candidate produced a Frequency pulse that was violent and powerful enough to cascade through the entire nervous system of The Lady of the Arc. The Lady was unresponsive and inconsolable. I have put the lady and F18 into induced stasis and stealthed their location, I will be returning to Shambala and return to claim the Lady with a proper escort fleet-”

(this is perhaps too clunky exposition here, it details exactly how the lady was stiffed and setting the events all in motion, but I do like how the human is insinuated to be the level-headed one, perhaps even in charge of this gigantic ship entity. I hope to use my expanding horror writing skills when this character appears in the next saga.

The use of language here was deliberate, ‘organic-stock’ implies that not all humans are created equal and ‘candidate’ means that there is a screening process of sorts and that people are evaluated before the final fate is delivered. Shambala is the name given to the tibetan mystical kingdom of peace and good health, also the name of the hidden Rajavan colony near earth.)

Until Rynard bursts through the doors and All hell breaks loose, since they felt jasmine distress they have been destroying everything they can get his claws on..

( Rynard is awesome, no further note. Ha, but seriously, hes a veteran ranger/knight, i wanted to display some of that raw savage power ive suggested hes had.)

The lady’s laughing confused as to why ‘they are against her when she is only trying to help them,’ her human like thrawls attack the group, and they defend where they can, but they keep coming, they hear the commotion outside, the monsters have returned to attack their army outside.

The lady laughs that her supply of vassals is endless, she will wait until they are done. She summons more then a dozen human like vassals and they attack.

But there are hallucinations mixed in with the real vassals and they are on the back foot.

(this timeline of events was a little confusing, and i wasnt sure if i wanted the lady to be able to be so completely overpowered at this stage in the story. Its confusing how she would have all these powers and the heroes only manage to defeat here through the slimest of chances and plot armour, i didnt like it to be honest.)

Suddenly the doors burst open and Aralukia, the humans and more pirates burst in to help with the fight.

( this was absolutely tacked on at the end, Aralukia’s arc has been rush and kinda smooshed in these last chapters where, if i didnt have to write the story and could just beam it into your head, youd get more character development and bonding between her and jasmine. there was a whole arc where the pair were trapped in a jail cell together on the Praetors ship that was largely left of the cutting room floor. I will have to get that sorted later and do what i can to make her likible in these closing chapters.)

During the fight, Xant notices where the Lady’s freq pulses are coming from. He runs to the spot near the bridge and puts his hands to the floor, he calls jasmine over, she and rynard rush over to him. Xant says he needs her sword, Jasmine hands over Letu’s sword, xant activates the plasma node on the sword and drives it straight into the floor. He cuts a piece of the floor out revealing the Lady’s Ship brain.

(this was when it was more of a reveal that the rajavan was the ship and not the pretty flesh puppet(eww) that was talking to them, there was going to be more hints about the pulse beneath their feet but i cut it in favour for action in the re-do)

He calls for Rynard to defend them, he offers Jasmine his hand, theyre going to take the fight ‘to her’.

Xant connects with Jasmine and the Rajavan Shipbrain.

( an massive payoff moment! All those mind meldings have been leading up to this! Now with their powers combined Xant and Jasmine thwart the enemy!The section below was cut into an entirely new chapter in order to give the dream-fight sequence the weight and poignancy it deserves. )

Darkness.

Violent and silent darkness.

Xant is the connection between two powerful pressences, he does his best to bring them into one mind. He consentraits and when the darkness lifts, he is back at the black ocean beach.

Jasmine, with her long hair and power armour is lying beside her on the powdery sand.

The lady stands on the distant shore, the horrific collection of nerves and organs that make up her ‘real self’ and her ‘beautiful puppet’ self dangling like an angler fishes light in front. The lady crazy rambles about the nature of reality and lunges after both jasmine and Xant. the lady summons imaginary minions to attack the pair and dream logic means, they die in the dream they die in real life.

Xant tells jasmine to split up and run, jasmine refuses but xant insists that she trust him, Jasmine reluctantly listens. Xant disconnects Jasmine from the joint dream and stands to defend against the lady.

Xant lures the lady far out into the ocean, and when she is nearly on top of him, he manages to ‘break’ the water below them. They both fall rapidly into the ocean below, continuously falling into the darkness of the bottomless pit. The lady is heavier, screaming in fear as she is pulled into the depths. Xant accepts his fate, closing his eyes and letting his body drift into nothingness.

But something grabs him.

Jasmine, holding his wrist, swimming to the surface. Xant is confused but allows it to happen.

When he awakes it's a messy sight.

Jasmine's face is covered in blood, the metal connection on the side of her face torn off and his fingers cut open to allow a direct connection. She is holding his hand up to her face and crying while he wakes.

Deleted Draft from the original notes:

“Shes insane Xant!” Itsuki raised the gun towards the lady but his target vanished into the floor as Letu’s sword made quick work of the imposter.

Insane

Unreasonable, illogical and beyond understanding or compromise. A danger to itself and others. Xant gripped onto the aliminium bat he had been given, the realisation became so painful. Even with expanded knowledge and empathy from the arvas and humanity, the Rajavans had always been insane, their motives simply shifting with every DNA addition.

How careful the council had been to preserve and collect what data the rajavans didnt destroy. To know the reasons behind their genocidal turn made everything worse, at least before he was comforted that they were simply unfeeling machines.

So much destruction for nothing.

The faceless servants revealed their hidden jaws of sharp teeth, the line in their facesheilds below the jaw. Even with new DNA the rajavans had design preferences for their amalgamations.

“Collect the candidates for containment!” the lady’s disembodied voice ordered as the amalgamations descended upon them. The servants were quick and strong, human anatomy disguised their strength and even in his power aromour they were hard to fight off. Xant was able to cast off a few, the reach of his tail and bat in hand gave him a relatively safe circumference even while swingingly wildy. Itsuki was not so lucky, the youth fired the gun straight into the cranium of the closest servant, a bright flash of white lit up the darkness for an instant. The servant dropped down dead, skull blasted open of glass shards and red meat but the tool was no use against a horde with so low visibility. Three jumped him from behind and the pistol was clawed violently from his hands.

Violently was an acute descriptor, both he and Jasmine thrashed against the servants with an intensity Xant didnt know they had, it took nearly four servants to lift jasmine from her feet and into restraints. Xant heard the crunch of breaking bones as Itsuki aimed for servant joints with his strikes. Blood dripped from itsukis mouth as he was carried to the scanner, his code took longer to identify as the red error screens from Jasmines reading turned to data streams of information.

“Candidate (double check numbers) Military Grade: Dreamcaster, Sedate and Contain!”

Seven more servants rushed against Xant and finally brought him to the floor, dragging his cumbersome body over to the scanner, but the servants fumbled his awkward hemlit, searching for a code that didnt exist.

“Scan the candidate!” The lady roared again when they did not comply with her demands, he used their confusion to his advantage. Despite being amalgamations the servants were still human and their nerve count was still double that of regular vassals, allowing him to hijack their systems and give them a physical push.

It had been literal decades since his last physical freq assault, when he had been nearly eaten on Jothram. The experience nearly destroyed him, both physically and mentally, but, that was back when he was a citizen scientist model. He had received quite a few upgrades since then.

Xant unleashed a violent cry of anger and distain, knocking back all servants who had dared touch him or the humans. It took a lot of energy, more then he had ever put into a freq pulse, but he had no choice, their lives were on the line. The servants fell to the ground twitching in pain, Xant found himself standing, without the numbing or loss of sensation in his body, half surprised He hadnt stiffed himself from the blast.

Letu, cut his way through the ever increasing servant horde, swooped in from above to collect both humans and drop them near the Zenthi. Standing infront of all three, doing his best he could to protect them.

Thankfully, their stand didnt need last long.

Light tore open the darkness by teeth and claws. Captain Rynard burst through the holographic walls from outside, tearing the door from its slides and bringing with him the chaos behind. Crushing everything under his feet, smashing everything with his fists, the deafening sounds of destruction followed after.

Jasmine’s army had stayed true to their word, the second the lady had cut off her freq from the rest of the ship, Rynard had followed through with her orders, the gallery of horrors lay in ruins behind them and the captain had no qualms about laying waste to everything infront of him. The walls that projected the space around them soon had giant, fists sized cracks in the surface, more soldiers poured in pulverising the human sized servants, rushing to protect the Namegiver and her crew.

The lady’s voice returned, callous and furious.

“I will not allow such inferior models to destroy my purpose, the emesary entrusted me with the candidates, they shall be returned and contained,”

The victory over the servants was short lived, they were mindless bodies, the next weapons the lady threw at them were far more sinister. The room itself shifted. Gravity failed them, as up became left and those who had made it inside were thrown and falling for what felt like hundred of meters.

When they finally landed, punishingly on hard floors,

New notes:

Jasmine's body is held to the ground as the error message blares around them in several human language fonts.

The lady’s voice talks about the error code and that jasmine needs to be contained before she infects the other candidates.

(I cut the emissary speech because i want it to be in one of the calmer epilgue chapters following the dream-fight. So i just had the lady insane ramble instead.)

The amalgamations jump on itsuki, who fires the gun in vain. It takes another four amalgations to hold him to the scanner device and read out the details of his identification code.

The red screens turn green as the details of his entire life and physical structure are displayed on screen, the lady is very happy with the results and orders the servants to begin processing the candidate immediately.

(this was also cut a little bit for brevity sake, Itsuki’s extra ‘powers’ dont factor in too much here and there were thoughts for a hallucination sequence but that was cut in favour of straight up action.)

Both humans are screaming and throwing their freq around, its painful and contridicting, it knocks Letu out of the sky and gives Xant the worst headache. He is scooped up by servants and watches as the servants bring out stasis pods for all three of them.

(I wanted to bring back some more offensive powers, the physical control pulse that Xant is capable of but rarely uses, I think the last time he did use it was in an elevator to pinch Rynard about a disatseful remark…the ‘freq aggression’ shifting emotions is painful and just the sheer terror both humans who go into instinctive mode give off would be exciting enough to write about.)

The lady gives orders to dispose of Letu, as the rest struggle against their captors, Jasmine gives out one more desperate plea and the walls burst open.

Rynard forced himself through the hologram screen walls, breaking limbs in the process. The rest of the army busy battling the monsters come to life in the gallery.

Its enough of a distraction that Xant is able to fire off a control pulse, to make the servants holding him to let go. He knocks them down and tries to help the others, Rynard scoops them up and runs out of the room.

(I love making Rynard a badass :D. A call back to him not having any pain sensation and how they just regrow limbs and replace them let me really just have Rynard go all out in the fight. Xant using his freq pulse and not dying from it shows just how strong he has grown over the weeks/months he has been with the humans. )

Aralukia proposes they fly off in the rajavan ship only for the ladys voice to interrupt with some insane anecdote.

(giving Aralukia a purpose and showing off her leadership/outside the box thinking…)

There's a short back and forth about their options, Beau asks if the lady woke up can they just put her back to sleep?

(...while showing off Beau’s practical and straight-to-the-point thought process. )

As they make their way out the pirates arrive and sway the battle in the gallery, but there isnt much time left as the engineers wing will still be destroyed.

(I'm kinda annoyed I put this countdown timer here, and I'm not sure I've properly explained exactly how the station pulls itself apart to fire on the ‘comprised section’. Hopefully, I can clear it up in Nako’s POV closing chapter.)

The lady roars in protest, but that gives Xant an idea, they need to get back into the ‘main’ chamber, he asks Rynard and Aealukia to protect ‘us’. Xant asks Jasmine to help him connect and shut down the lady of the arc. Jas tells him he didnt need to ask.

(Xant is smart and comes up with the crazy idea to turn the Lady off. A big payoff moment really, showing just how much hes gone through with everything and how he understands human logic, and the lack there off in the Lady’s case.)

During the fight, Xant notices where the Lady’s freq pulses are coming from. He runs to the spot near the bridge and puts his hands to the floor, he calls Jasmine over, she and rynard rush over to him. Xant says he needs her sword, Jasmine hands over Letu’s sword, xant activates the plasma node on the sword and drives it straight into the floor. He cuts a piece of the floor out revealing the Lady’s Ship brain. He calls for Rynard to defend them, he offers Jasmine his hand, theyre going to the Rajavan Shipbrain.

(no notes here, its pretty straight forward action, except in the final its Aralukia who protects them and not Rynard, again to emphasis her role a bit more in the closing sections of the story)