D'Argon, Sublime Destiny

[Oskmey]

Sub-lime, from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

Pronunciation:
\sə-ˈblīm\
Function:
verb
Inflected Form(s):
sub·limed; sub·lim·ing
Etymology:
Middle English, from Middle French sublimer, from Medieval Latin sublimare to refine, sublime, from Latin, to elevate, from sublimis
Date:
14th century

transitive verb
1: to cause to pass directly from the solid to the vapor state and condense back to solid form
2 [French sublimer, from Latin sublimare] a (1): to elevate or exalt especially in dignity or honor (2): to render finer (as in purity or excellence) b: to convert (something inferior) into something of higher worth intransitive verb: to pass directly from the solid to the vapor state
— sub·lim·able \-ˈblī-mə-bəl\ adjective
— sub·lim·er noun

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"Relive all that he's been through
last communion of his soul
rust your bullets with his tears
let me tell you 'bout his years"
- Iron Maiden, Paschendale

30 October 1917, Somewhere outside Passchendaele, Belgium

It was early AM as the troops started to assemble. Too early for any daylight but that did not matter for the artillery. They knew where the German pillboxes were and proceeded with a rolling barrage that would,hopefully, devastate those pillboxes and allow the Allied troops to swarm closer to their goal. Shortly before 6am the whistles blew and over the walls they ran. Artillery was in its final stages and threw mud everywhere. The rain and constant bombardment had turned the battlefield into a killing swamp, making progress slow and painful.

Slowly the once farm boy sloughed through the mud, trying to keep up with the members of his unit who were running through the muck with greater ease. They had been fighting since dawn had threatened to break through and had reached their first objective with little trouble. Now though,the closer they came to the old farm, the mud slowed them down and was certainly helping the Germans in killing off the Allied soldiers. Still orders were orders and the farm boy continued on, not knowing that this would be the last day of his life. Back home they said he was a bit touched, a little out of touch with reality. But he was healthy and had weathered tough times at home and now on the front lines of what would hopefully be the war to end all wars. He certainly hoped that was true but he had his doubts. After all one thing that humans like to do was fight and kill one another.

Humans. He turned the phrase in his mind, unsure of why he just did not think the word `people`. When he spoke he often did that, used words that were accurate but considered either rude or inappropriate. Others were always visibly anxious near him and would often steer wide. The men in his unit were the same. Well as much as they could when many nights were filled with being close to one another and sleeping whenever there was a break in the fighting. Listen for the whistles,follow the commands.

More shells started to fall out of the sky, these fired by the Germans.He tried to run and find cover but in the marshy wasteland there was no cover to be had. One landed somewhere behind him and exploded,throwing him and the mud up and over and into a watery pit. There was aflash of light from somewhere and as the cold descended upon him he thought that he heard an angel speak.

"Come, you do not belong here. It is time for you to be reunited with your people in a time where you are needed."

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"I close my eyes, and think of home
Another city goes by in the night
Ain't it funny how it is, you never miss it 'til it's
gone away
And my heart is lying there and will be 'til my
dying day"
- Iron Maiden, Wasted Years

15 January 2005, Suburbs of Paragon City

"Come on Adalia, get a move on it. We have got to go."

It was the typical cry of the parent and in particular a parent trying to get her teenage daughter out of the bedroom and into the car. They were running late, again, for school. Rose D'Arcy finished packing the lunches and put on her jacket.

"Now Adalia! I am not kidding, get out here so I can get you to school and then get to work!"

Sensing the promise of a grounding in her mother's voice Adalia quickly gathered her books from her desk and hurried out the bedroom door.

"God! I'm coming mom! You can't expect me to go to school without my hair brushed and clothes on would you?" she said while rolling her eyes. She quickly approached her mother by the front door, grabbed her lunch from her mother's outstretched hand, and grumbled all of the way out to the car.

Another day at school, a place that Adalia hated with a capital H. Her parents had relocated to Paragon city in search for work and it had paid off. Not too many "unpowered" people would live so close to those who were often thought of as the Superhero and villain infestation. There had been progress but, to Adalia, not much. The neighborhood seemed perfectly normal but the normalcy could be shattered at any moment from fallout from between whatever the heroes, villains, or run of the mill criminals conflicts. She thought it was so pointless. Villains and/or gang members would try to do Plan A. Hero types would counter and then the whole thing devolved from there. Sure the hospital transit system was in place for them, they could afford to go all out against one another. Hard to be afraid when only failure was on the line and not necessarily death. Sure, some deaths occurred here and there but they were rare these days.

So who had to bear the brunt of the battles? The people who lived near all of these maniacs. That is how she saw them all, crazy maniacs looking to stroke their own egos no matter what "side" they were on that day. What really drove her crazy was that her mom and dad would go on and on about the heroes and what they had done recently. When they first moved there, her parents actually clipped out newspaper articles. There were so many, every day, that they eventually stopped and only clipped the major ones which numbered just a little less. According to the media, the world was being saved every two hours or so. It was insane! At least she would be 18 soon and would be able to move away.

It was with this thought in her head that her time in the world ended. Ended in the way she always knew it would, by some costumed idiot falling out of the sky, bringing hell with him. The fire engulfed body slammed into the car and the car exploded.

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"There's got to be just more to it than this
Or tell me why do we exist
I'd like to think that when I die
I'd get a chance another time"
- Iron Maiden, Infinite Dreams

21 March 2008, Small hospital room in Paragon City

Lights. Brightly colored lights. They stared down from the ceiling, watching over the body of a young woman who was laying still on the bed. She was pretty by most human standards. The biggest drawback was that her body was thin and frail from years of disuse. Scars danced across the area of her eyes, eyebrows, and the bridge of her nose. A few ran down from the corner of her eyes, permanent tears that would forever mark her. Yet the body was mostly whole. It was inside that body where the true damage existed. Her essence shattered and her mind locked away.

The doctors did not know what to do with her. She was in a coma but they did not know why. Her body continued to run on its own but her mind refused to come back. Not quite brain dead but certainly not active either. The woman's relatives had even brought in a few lesser known hero types to try and bring her back. Nothing worked and so for years her mind slumbered.

The lights hovered and they watched. They knew what to do and soon the woman became a series of lights. Lights that were beautiful and shining, so unique and colourful that they would make one want to cry. This is how they could perceive the world, a vast array of particles that came together in a wonderful symphony of color. In her they sent a spark and that spark hit one tiny light in her and it glowed. It glowed brighter than any other in the hospital. After some time the spark leapt from to another point of light in her body and then on to the next. In a few hours her entire body shone. She was a star in the middle of the universe, a nova of light.

Now came the tricky part. The one that could undo them all and they had to act quickly. Tendrils flared forward and worked in the open space above the young woman. Where they traveled an afterimage would appear and then linger. Soon an image formed, a word from a mostly unknown language. That word hung over the woman, her own Sword of Damocles they knew because what would happen next would either kill them all or help lead them to salvation. The image that became a word now became something else and from that something else something was emerging.

A being emerged from the rift and shot straight for the glaring lights of the young woman in the hospital bed. It was dying and needed sustenance from somewhere.... anywhere. Upon entering into the body, the young woman shot straight up from the impact. Her eyes were wide but unseeing and a cacophony of sound erupted from the monitoring equipment that surrounded her. They screamed loudly to alert the hospital staff, shorted out, and died. The silence was quickly filled with the sound of running feet and the banging of a door.

The young woman blinked at the world once. Then twice and then screamed as the doctors rushed over to her.