An explosion of light in the cold emptiness above the world below. The entire surface of the planet awash in alien iridescence, thousands left temporarily blind and disoriented from the Administrative ranks to the lowliest Tradejack apprentice. It took mere microts for the order to be given before a flotilla of Imperial Gunships were sent to investigate.

Anthology Two Presents…
SERAPHIM WING: The Becoming
by Ashley Corgan

A chill washed over Schezerade as her lithe form cut through the sea water that held fast her mechs. She spent nearly 100 microts placing mining charges around the Assault Armor and her former Utility Mech, both having sunk to the sea floor less than a week ago. Already her life support was failing in her silhouette skinsuit, internal warnings from the replacement mech’s navicomp repeated its short discourse on hypothermia.

Her muscles stiffened ever tighter with every kick of her legs, she firmly gripped the last two flotation pods she needed to attach to the outerhulls of her plunder. The voice of the Navicomp began counting down the estimated time until her heart rhythm was too eratic to allow for any acts of self preservation.

Schezerade placed her next to last pod.

She strained herself beyond fathomable reason, her mind began to swim with thoughts of Meier’s crooked smile and clipped laugh.Kicking furiously to reach the lower half of the Helrot jr’s Assault Armor to place the last pod, Rade’s body began to numb.

* * *

The I.M.S. Una approached an alien vessel that took orbit above the planet. Orders were quickly transmitted for the rest of the ships to hold rank as the Una closed in to perform cursory scans. Techinical readouts showed the vessel was indeed registered as part of the Grand Imperial Fleet but as a Flagship, Experimental Classification, any further information was black booked to the highest security level.

The massive golden vessel’s hull shimmered for a brief moment before bursts of gas were released as pressure escaped from the hull before its mass began shifting and breaking apart. Warning klaxons blared in the bridge, some unseen force was destroying the Imperial Magistrate’s Flagship, the entire flotilla broke rank and fled in earnest.

* * *

The water around Schezerade shimmered, a moment before she blacked out she swore she could see someone just feet from her drowning in the waters before her.

A moment later she came to, still enveloped by her black skinsuit, she no longer was submerged in the Great Sea but found herself hanging from the ceiling of a large golden sphere. She blinked and her vision gave way from the opulence of the round room to a clear view of open space. Rade watched in disbelief as the last of the planet’s Imperial ships seemed to be fleeing from… her.

Strength returned to her limbs, fire seemed to surge through her viens burning a trail of warmth from her arms and legs into her body’s core until the warmth pervaded her brain, she tried moving her arms and instead of seeing her hand a large mechanical hand came into her field of view. The white-gold metallic appendage was polished mirror smooth and the star speckled heavens reflected off her metallic exterior.

Rade looked up in time to see the I.M.S. Una fire a hastily aimed salvo in her general direction. The small round hurdled past the transformed vessel, and impacted into a random rock formation in a nearby asteroid field.

* * *

“Hello”, a whisper piped up.

Schezerade looked around and realized she only saw her homeworld below her, the asteroid field, and the stars. She shut her eyes and concentrated on the spherical room.

“Hello, there”, the whisper intoned.

Eyes open, Rade was back in the room suspended by cables like a living marionette. Twisting and struggling with the cables she swung and spun around wildly, and sighted no one else in the room with her. An eerie presence prickled the back of her neck below her neural remote port.

“You are the newly chosen pilot of the I.M.S. Seraphim Wing”, the voice grew from a phantom whisper into a woman’s voice.

“New pilot?”, Rade asked aloud.

“Yes, the previous once took your place.”

Schezerade’s mind remembered the struggling, drowning vision she glimpsed moments ago.

“Who’re you? A Navigational Computer?”

“I’m-”

Rade cut the voice off, “I’m? Navicomp AI doesn’t use first person reference. Who ARE you? Where am I?”

The voice seemed to hestitate for a moment, “You’re inside the Free Movement Module aboard the Imperial Magistrate’s Experimental Class Seraphim Wing.”

“Hold on one bleedin’ second… whoever you are, I can’t be part of the Imperial Navy, I’m not a citizen or even conscript. I’m Tradeja-”

“Doesn’t matter none, really. The Magistrate is dead.”

Schezerade’s face dropped.

“Long live the Empire.”

* * *

The room shuddered.

“High velocity space debris-”, the voice reported.

Another impact shook the room and she felt an electric tingle in her left shoulder.

Shutting her eyes once again, she thought of the vast space and opened her eyes in time to watch a massive asteroid hurtling towards her face. Instinctively she raised her arms to shield herself and felt the space rock crash against her forearms. Light pressure and another electric tingle spread across her own arms. No pain was felt but her body honestly registered the force that propelled the space rock.

She put her arms down and saw the golden-white mechanical arms clear her view and spied a humanoid form in the midst of an asteroid field. Schezerade lost sight of it only to realize it was the Asteroid Field, its loosely based human form composed of the rocky debris that hung weightless in the black of space shifted about inhumanly.

The creature swung an appendage in a wild arc only for a bit of itself to break free and come hurtling with deadly accuracy at Rade.

She was livid.

She lunged in her physical body held aloft by the subdermal cables penetrated her flesh. The Seraphim Wing reacted in kind as the stars in her view moved by, streaking, and the rocky projectile closed the distance at an alarming rate.

“Bestiary Report describes this as an ‘Imperial Elemental Creation’.”, the voice offered to Schezerade.

“What in the puckered pink star does that mean?” Rade yelled as she proceeded to detonate the rock in her path with a quick strike.

“It’s an experimental creature design courtesy of the Imperial Alchemists of the Apothecary Divis-”

Rade growled as the Elemental reacted by merely reaching into itself and retrieved an even larger chunk to hurl at her. Or perhaps to shield itself from her ever closing charge.

“It’s an abomination, that’s all I know, I can feel it. Feel what drives it, right behind my eyes.”

She paused and the voice seemingly continued her train of thought.

“It must be destroyed before it realizes your world and everyone in it isn’t part of the asteroid field.”

Utilizing Panzer-Kunst strike points, Rade quickly dissassembled the rock elemental. Arms, legs, what passed for a head was detached from its enormous torso. Only for it to spend less than a microt to reform.

“Okay, all the fancy brouhaha aside… uhm… Lady-”

“I’m not ‘lady’, Pilot. Call me, C”.

“The fuck? Fine, C, does this bitch have weapons?”

“Well the sub-class denomination for this vessel is ‘Naginata’.”

Schezerade felt a long metallic pole slide into her grip and before her eyes as the elemental once again reformed a flicker of energy crackled in the palm of her mechanical hand.

The creature spied the energy activity of its armored foe and threw itself with the full fury of a meteor shower. Like a giant fist the entirety of the asteroid field surrounded and swallowed up the Seraphim Wing.

And once again the silence of speace and the emptiness of the black won her over.

* * *

It had been a full half decade since she felt trepidation crawl across her thoughts. Her secret group, rank, and power fell apart in the months following the demise of the winged-whore and her Empire.

First the fleets were called away. Then the reserves and contingents guarding the palace fled without a word. Finally a late order called for the immediate service of the Seraphim Wing, its destination being Pacific City, New South Wales, Australia a city located on a rather infamous Lower-Earth 746387. It made its inaugural jump but was never to be hailed again.

The riots began when a band of mutineers tried to muscle their way into the Enigma Vestibule for rape and plunder. With the Apothecary Dragoon’s ranks splintered by the ex-Imperial insurgents, the Alchemists breached the nullifying barriers of the massive room.

3 Days later all that was left standing was palace ruins and 7 members of her dragoon

Lady walked out of the palace perimeter, the warm kiss of night air never registered on her flesh. No, her mind was elsewhere.

She broke her own rule: Lady of Shadows spoke her slave name aloud.

“Chery Torrance of Lower-Earth 771284, no longer Apothecary Dragoon Officer Lady of Shadows, nor Wife of Lord of Shadows British Rule, or daughter of Celia Torrance, hereby relinquishes any allegiance to the Imperium or the vestiges of honor bestowed by the Imperial Magistrate.”

Her eyes teared up as her words faded into the distance, swallowed up by the wind and echo.

Cheryl remembered the exact moment she lost it all. Her ward 830224 was serving dinner for the Dragoon ranks when Cheryl shot up out of her seat and howled in unnatural, supreme agony. Her troops watched her writhe at the head of the table and something curious occurred.

They could see Cheryl’s shadow materialize into view as it fell across the length of the table. Her power over the ever shifting dark was gone.

Cheryl barely survived the riots.

She touched the back of her neck and gold liquid metal oozed over her naked flesh. From her head to her toes, the former Imperial Officer was gilded in unholy riches.

A few discomforting moments passed as her eyes allowed the metal to coat them thoroughly. In the dozens of months that followed she helped her wards and dragoons off the barren planet, choosing to remain in the palace ruins, devoid of purpose.

In her self-imposed exile she recovered talismanic records and a small remnant of materia retrieved from her doppelganger’s room the last time she ever saw her beloved husband again. Thoughts of the Seraphim Wing, the armored angelic juggernaut that was both starship and weapon, pervaded her every waking moment.

Tormented by the colossal failure and the sacrifice of all the lives and souls lost in its creation, Cheryl taught herself the science of the Ars Magna and forged the halcyon skinsuit that now housed her form.

A final whisper escaped her lips, a spell - incantation ever so brief, bonded the golden sheath of metal to her flesh. Microscopic tendrils filled her pores and took root in the very marrow of her bones.

And with that, the newly born Talisman Hybrid took to the skies, breaking gravity’s pull and entered the emptiness of space.