RadDidIt

So, my "gaming" HDD went down hard and I'm trying to download CoH onto the main OS SSD. I'll start by saying that I'm using a 3G Hotspot at the moment...

Getting a download speed of 47K. That seemed low, but I chalked it up to the connection. So, I went somewhere with a dedicated wireless network and got...

51K/sec.

Any solutions? Is this normal?

- Sharks have a week named for Dumpleberry.
- Dark_Respite runs a mean Khan TF.
- Golden_Girl is not a person, but a title. In every light there is a shadow.
- Santorican is contagious.
- Techbot once made my head explode from the sheer awesomeness of a post; he put it back together with Elmer's Glue.

RadDidIt once had a thread made in his honor for a nameless event of forum fortitude.

Wrote this in about 40 minutes. I was musing on the reasoning Ramiel was given his title (look up Ramiel, if you want to know), and also on the things he must've seen. Just... kind of hit me. This takes place in an alternate timeline in the future, if not THE alternate timeline the Menders are trying to change.



Broken Brothers


I am Ramiel. My original name is long forgotten in the annals of time and mind. Home is a distant memory that even now is hazy. All I know is that I will never see that place again, plucked from the apocalypse of my time by forces that even now mobilize to effect and affect the strings of fate that bring Calamity. They are my rescuers and prison guards, especially Tesseract; the way she looks at me, even now when our powers are equal, injures my very soul. She is a dark spirit, that one.

But, I write this tome, kept in secret under a waterfall on the northern island, merely to keep my sanity. Damned will I be if causality becomes a plaything, like it is with Lazarus. Burdened by the things I've seen, my consciousness is all I have left to hold onto... that, and the terrible energies gifted to me by the leader himself.

Do you, whoever you are, know why they named me Ramiel? I am to be a Watcher, an archival link to the past, present, and futures that will or will not be. Silos tells me that the name had meaning in the far past, another deity now dead or, perhaps, never existed at all. My name means everything, defines all that I have seen. Terrible things, whole nations consumed in violence and despair. As a Mender, I beheld the turning of a peaceful race into the epitome of insane aggression; watched as a mad-man made of metal drowned everything with his ocean of psychic force; shivered as the Dark From Beyond, streaming out of Cysts planted long ago, razed the entire Earth to the ground. And more, growing, a grim spike in my already ambiguous heart.

But the worst? The one that has forced me to write this, beyond any others, was the final stand of brothers, separated by ideology and the powers of gods, but reunited by the future Apocalypse. Even as their friends, neighbors, and strangers burned alive around them... they fought, back-to-back, for the very last time. My abilities allowed me to watch without interfering, document while remaining intangible. This is what happened....




The hulking monstrosity, twice the size of any previous undead thing, glowed with the otherworldy energies of Shiva. Fragmented bones, too large to be human but nonetheless styled after them, seemed to almost float inside the encapsulated form. Every step of it's flat, somehow clawed, feet caused small tremors. Behind it, the armies of green Death, a billion if they were one, plodded tirelessly along over the crests of collapsed buildings, crushing organic material underneath them; some was alive, most wasn't. Around them, everything burned. Still, they walked.

As this army, nothing but a small piece of Shiva's forces, came into what was once Atlas Park, they saw, with unblinking eyes, the battle of the final defenders.



“Stefan! Behind you!”

His helmet was long turned to dust, revealing a surprisingly normal face, save for the murderous red eyes. Their hue matched the radioactive fires that consumed everything around them. Without thinking, the man-god of a shattered empire turned his eight armored spider legs in a powerful swipe, dissipating the green force wave aimed at his back.

Stefan Richter stepped over the body of Ernesto Rodriguez, the Black Scorpion armor laying in pieces, some still containing their body parts. Barely jumping at the horde in front him, he tore a dozen of the beings into jelly, throwing their animated bones into the air. In one smooth motion, the same attack rent the air with a powerful crimson wave of destruction, annihilating nearly a hundred of the monsters. As they fell, five hundred rose to take their place, continuing to march forward.

He took a step away and met the familiar feeling of something he thought long dead. His friend slouched against him for a moment, catching his breath. “Stefan, it can't end like this.... not like this. Jessica...”

“NOT NOW, MARCUS!” Recluse, Stefan, elbowed him in the ribs. “We fight until they die! Until every last scrap of these demons is blasted from the face of the planet!”

Statesman, blackened from head to toe, managed a mirthful laugh. “You don't actually think we can win, do you?”

Stefan clenched his fists. “Brothers not in blood, but in battle. Don't make me stab you, Marcus.”

The alpha tanker himself stood. “For Monica, then, Stefan?”

The legions had paused, oddly, but now they raised their hands. Thousands of eyes stared the pair down, charging their attack. “It always was. And it ends with us.” Stefan turned towards his left, his eyes taking on a glow so hellish it was almost impossible to look at. “I AM THE EMBODIEMENT OF THE UNDERWORLD GODS!” He bellowed at the hordes and sky. “AND YOU MONSTERS DARE TO THINK YOU CAN TOPPLE ME? I will give you a message your master will never forget!” Power gathered in his fists, arms, and chest. Red and black met in a swirling hurricane of plasma. “This is my world! MINE! DO YOU HEAR ME!”

“It never was ours, Stefan. That is what you never understood.”

Recluse turned to berate his friend, but was so dumbstruck by what he saw he almost lost his gathered attack. However red and black his hurricane was, Statesman's was a titanic maelstrom of blue and white, like Zeus himself had come down in one final act of Judgement. Electricity flickered a dozen feet into the air. A deep pain suddenly struck him in the gut. “... What a world we could have made, Marcus. What we would have made.”

Suddenly, the Incarnate of the Lightning God collapsed his aura into a sphere of light in front of him. Time seemed to stand still as the Shivan monsters hesitated, the will of their master unsure what to make of the situation. “And yet, brother, look at our 'world.' It is dead, gods with no one to rule. Let's make them remember.”

Mirroring his friends' technique, the plasma arcing around him disappeared into a condensed circle with a pinpoint flicker of energy in the middle. Something fell from the sky and sizzled against their auras. Stefan looked up, only to find it was not raining. Another hiss. Lord Recluse was crying.

“I have one regret, Marcus.” He said sadly. “Monica... would have been proud of her daughter. I wish... I had gotten to...”

The Shivans finally reacted, firing what would have been the single most destructive assault ever seen on Earth. A nuclear bomb would have been but a drop in the pond.

Except Marcus Cole and Stefan Richter exploded. The entire, uninhibited fury of two gods burned a crater a mile deep and nearly caused the entire eastern seaboard to collapse into the ocean. Paragon, what was left of it, turned to ash. The colorless shockwave smashed into the Etoile Islands, the skeleton of Grandville Tower crashing into the architecture below.

The Calamity, hovering over the Atlantic, screamed with a thousand voices and tried to protect itself. Even it's impregnable shell was washed away. From horizon to horizon, the Shivan menace, watching with a billion eyes, saw the end of this world and their existence.

Somewhere, far away, where nothing stirred, a spirit of grim beauty smiled to herself. Arachnos had died; but it wasn't in the explosion. Stefan Richter had returned, if even for a moment. To save a thousand worlds they would never see, knowing his life was forfeit, Lord Recluse could do naught but be humbled. Ghost Widow evaporated, going to wherever the dead go.

I shall end this with a quote from the Honoree thread:

Sorry, sometimes you die. Sometimes, you need a team. Sometimes, you gotta use inspirs, think on the fly, use tactics. Sometimes you have to throw your keyboard at the screen, calm down, take a breath, and do the previously stated things.

Loved that mish. I actually felt really threatened by the one of the strongest factions in the game. You know, that faction specifically made to KILL YOU. Whose entire concept revolves around stopping you dead in your tracks.

Sometimes, you FAIL.