Guess who wrote chapter-length fanfiction about three side characters who appear on a grand total of two slides in the latest chapter of Newlydead? /Totally/ not me... ――――――― Nꭼꮃꮪ Fꭱᴏꮇ Ꮇɪꮐꭺꭱᴏꭲꮋ This was awful. General Augustus Krell, a /Grand Surgeon,/ had been killed in the invasion of Migaroth. Fortunately for his eternal standing, it had been in battle against the devil menace. He would be remembered fondly by all, once the truth came out and the social order was reformed. In the meantime, one Riverside Delgado had just been nominated—nay, /ordered/—to inform the great Emperor Semduibal, on a holographic call with a different Grand Surgeon. He—Riverside, or "Riv," as he thought of himself—found the prospect absolutely terrifying. Normal A.I.D. men and women were never spoken to by the higher ranks, which included the Grand Surgeons. Delgado had known a wannabe Grand Surgeon once—short woman, name of Jerilyn Smithers—and if her imitation was anything to judge by, the real deal would be absolutely abhorrent. He did not want to be the one giving them bad news. Still, he accepted the task. What else could he do? He bolted out the door as fast as he could, intent on keeping the pace. All he could focus on after a few hallways was the air clawing his throat and chest until he thought he would cough up bits of his lungs. Still, his mind was set on one thing: Getting to the Hologram Chamber. He could not fail his Emperor. He finally arrived, ears roaring with the sound of his own blood pumping through his arteries. He collapsed against the wall of the train, completely unintentionally. As soon as he realized he had done it, he shoved himself upright. His saliva tasted like blood and mucus. He waved to two of his fellow red-cowled figures, who were chatting about something. If he'd been a little less exhausted he would've felt sorry for interrupting them. The rightmost turned toward him and beckoned him over. Cursing the exertion, he went. What little he could see of her—he felt sure from her hands that she was a female, and to him that meant she/her—was elegant, lithe, but oddly thin. Her skin, a beautiful dark brown, stretched over long fingers and hewed only a /little/ too close to the bone. It did look like it was pulling away from her nails, but hey, everybody had issues. "You, there," she said, clapping those gorgeous hands, "stop staring at my digits and tell me why you're here." Ah, yes, she must be on guard duty. Her partner—tall and muscular, based on the way the robe fell around him—had been slowly moving toward him as he had contemplated her elegant— The partner tackled him. "Hey! Hey! Stop it! I'm here with a message for Emperor Semduibal!" "Are you really?" asked the must-be-man on top of him. "Yes, really. A Grand Surgeon has died." "A Grand Surgeon? Hah!" The man's breath smelled of pineapple pizza and orange juice. It was making it hard for Delgado to take his situation seriously. "He's in there talkin' to one right now, and /he's/ not dead!" The elegant woman sighed. "There's more than one Grand Surgeon at a time, you absolute idiot. I should have you exterminated." She was clearly the brains of the operation. She circumnavigated the squirming pair and kicked her fellow guard in the rump. "Get off him, Louis. He really has a message—I've just gotten word." Louis rolled off him, laughing. "Why didn't they send it ahead of me?" Delgado asked, voice a whimper despite his best efforts. His ribcage hurt. His ribcage hurt and his tailbone hurt and his throat hurt and his lungs hurt and— Ugh, he felt like he was going to die. "Well," the woman said, coming to a crouch beside his head, "they probably tried. The holograph machine takes up a lot of bandwidth, you know. Regardless. What's your message?" Delgado wondered for a moment if he was allowed to tell her, then decided there'd be no harm in it. Everyone would know soon enough anyway. "General Krell is dead." The woman hissed. "No! That can't be! I—" "It is," Delgado said softly. "He died like we all want to die, in glorious battle, protecting our kind. 'En batalo, la aŭtenta viro trovas gloron.'" "What the hells does /that/ mean?" asked the woman. ("Don't worry, Carey, you're not goin' deaf," contributed Louis, "none of that was words." Delgado wanted to spit at him.) "Nevermind," Delgado said, "we've got more important things to worry about. I've got to relay the message, you know?" The elegant woman—Carey—said nothing, but extended a long hand toward him. He took it and gratefully let her lift him to his feet. His ribcage still hurt. If he could find out Louis's surname, he'd make his life miserable. *** Continued, like several a way-too-long Institute tale, in the Notes and Credits.
*** Delgado walked over to the holograph room's door, heart inexplicably racing, then looked back. "I think it would be more proper if I were accompanied in, actually," he said. "Really keep the Emperor under security." Louis, as best Delgado could tell around the robe, looked incredibly suspicious. "It's not like I'd do anything to hurt the Emperor, of course," he added quickly. "It's just... it's just good protocol, that's what." Carey padded across to join him, waving at Louis to come with as she did so. It was odd that this made him feel better about interrupting a meeting. It really was. He had been a Catholic in his past life; trinities were important to him. That was why it was, yes. That /must/ be why. It absolutely /wasn't/ because he felt scared of the great hope of angelkind. That would be stupid and horribly unpatriotic. "Por Imperiestro kaj Nacio," he muttered softly, "por Imperiestro kaj Nacio." "What? I didn't catch that." "Little motto I made for myself. Translates to 'for Emperor and Nation.'" "Not bad. Mine's 'Hostibus odium perhibeō.' Louis?" Louis thought for a moment, then replied, "'Après nous, le déluge.' Nice and simple." "And right," Carey added. "After the angels there will /be/ only a deluge." Now, please imagine the entirety of Delgado's brain alight with typewriting monkeys and silenced klaxons, trying to conjure up some translation from what he'd somehow misidentified as Romanian that would work with what Carey had said. The brain monkeys didn't come up with one in the five seconds he allotted them, so he shut them up in their circus tent and, in the real world, refocused himself and the two guards on his mission. Delgado had intended to enter the holograph room subtly and quietly, to avoid disturbing the great Emperor Semduibal and his loyal Grand Surgeon doing their great and no doubt important job protecting the angelic people. Instead, Louis had parted the doors with the force of Moses splitting the Red Sea. Carey barely had time to get out a "Your Highness—" before the Grand Surgeon raised an imperious hand at him. "You have no business interrupting a private meeting!" "Yes, but—" Delgado fancied himself that he hid the flinching rather well, under the circumstances. "What," a voice boomed, seeming to come from all sides and yet also from the massive hologram in the center of the room, "could there possibly be that could be,"—and here he interrupted himself to praise the Ancients; his piety warmed Delgado's heart just a little—"so important that you would have the guts to interrupt a private conference just to—" "Lord and Emperor Semduibal," Delgado piped up, trying his best to not sound like a dying carp despite his aching throat. "We have just received word that Augustus Krell, Grand Surgeon of Migaroth, has lost his eternal life bravely fighting the invasion." The Emperor's awe-inspiring blue eyes were locked on Delgado, who felt his heart might melt at their beauty. For such a powerful, giving, /holy/ man to have such organs to see out of... It was only fitting. "I suspected as much," the great Emperor said, dull-voiced. /Probably unable to process his grief,/ Delgado thought. He wished nothing more than to find some way to comfort Emperor Semduibal. The Grand Surgeon, the not-dead one in the holograph room with them, broke the momentary silence. "But, Your Highness, was Krell not one of your best soldiers?" Really, this Grand Surgeon must be bad at people, if he couldn't see the pain in those emotionless blue eyes. "Indeed he was," the Emperor said, in much the way Delgado's wife would remark on a particularly interesting plant. Then he took a breath. "But a soldier is but a pawn in a game of chess. And a pawn can and should be sacrificed to take a knight." Perhaps Delgado had been wrong about the sorrow. Maybe it was only anger he'd seen momentarily flicker across the monumental holographic face. Louis tapped his shoulder and, when he turned to ask what the hells he was thinking, shoved a watch into his hands. He read it, tried to figure out who Grand Surgeon Rostrum was, decided it must be the as-yet-unnamed Grand Surgeon in the room with him, mentally composed what he was going to say, and then began. "That is not all. We have more news from Migaroth." He nervously adjusted his lapel. "Specifically for you, Grand Surgeon Rostrum." Rostrum. What an odd surname. "News?" the Grand Surgeon practically gasped. "About what, of all things?" Oh, Delgado felt bad being the one to tell him this. "Your wife. And it's not good." *** Fɪɴɪꮪ ――――――― Image: unsplash.com/photos/fKAXzOnXSgc Based on characters created by: @Daughter_Of_Thanos ――――――― Ꭺʊꭲꮋᴏꭱ ᴏғ Nꭼꮃꮮʏꭰꭼꭺꭰ: @Daughter_Of_Thanos Ꮯꮋꭺꮲꭲꭼꭱ Ꭲꮋɪꮪ Iꮪ Ᏼꭺꮪꭼꭰ Oɴ: Chapter 13. Fɪꭱꮪꭲ: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/639976316/ Ꮪꭲʊꭰɪᴏ: https://scratch.mit.edu/studios/31055377/
