~ part three ~
Timepiece - Enters the house with a bag of groceries, throws the keys to the coffee table and flops with the groceries on the couch. She grabs the remote and on. "I'm in."
Lucretia - On comm, "And the owner ?"
Timepiece - "Hunting trip. I promised I wouldn't kill him if he cancelled with his friends called for a delivery instead."
...
Lucretia - "Did you ?"
Timepiece - Flipping channels ... "Did I ?"
Lucretia - "Hang on. Did you actually let him live ?"
Timepiece - "Sorta !" She settles on 'Gilligan's Island' with a giggle at a face-pie.
... laugh track as they argue ...
Lucretia - "I'm ... just going to trust you're judgement on that."
... pies in faces, a full on fight, the laugh track rages ...
Timepiece - Laughing uncontrollably, "What is the hell this !? I Love this !"
~ On a security monitor, the gate to the house opens, a car enters.
Lucretia - Watching timepiece through the house cam from the pool in her tree, "Here we go. Weekend delivery, just like clockwork."
Doorbell.
Timepiece throws the door open, grabs the girl in the overcoat by the throat and slams her to the wall, then shoots the two suited men, another shot through the car's windshield. She looks to the woman, "What are you !?"
...
Girl - Psychological shock and drugged, "Thank you."
...
Timepiece - "You were the target. Whomever they bring. Don't move." Gun on her she moves to the car and opens the driver side, pushes the driver over and pulls the keys. Walks to the trunk, opens it. Weapons and paraphernalia. "Oh for fuck sake." Annoyed, she one arms the load to the drive while sight watching the terrified girl.
Timepiece - "Get in this trunk while I deal with this mess. We take the garage entry, we watch television, and you talk."
...
Girl - "Television ... ?"
Timepiece - "We vacate in the morning before the house explodes, just after breakfast."
Girl - "Talk."
...
Timepiece - "Yeah."
__
The trunk door slams.
Girl - Inside, "This is really weird !"
Timepiece gathers the trunk's load and dumps it into the back seat. Off to drag the bodies back to their seats.
________
Aedera - Opens her eyes in bed to the navigator holding a plate of food over her ... "You made breakfast." She sits up. "That's new."
Navigator - "You never stuck around long enough."
She stretches and takes the plate suspiciously, looks around.
Aedera - "My god you cleaned my quarters."
Navigator - "I did. Could use a wash yourself." He smiles. "Eat. It's ... 'food'."
________
Girl - Eating breakfast, "They move us through the modelling networks. Through the magazine circuits. Sometimes they just ship them in crates ... but they like me. I guess in hollywood they do the same thing with the props ... I don't know about music industry, but it's all through the same circuits so I guess probably the same way ... why am I so clear ? I haven't thought this clearly in ... who are you ?"
...
Timepiece - "I gave you anti-toxins while you slept. Mine." ... "And my name was Esmeralda. Before ... I became a thing to survive."
The girl bursts out laughing.
Timepiece - Eyes clicking through, "What."
Girl - "My name is Zelda !"
________
The ship blots the stars along the way, inside the bridge changes to main crew, thirds arriving among them. The navigator and gunner adjust their stations, scanning ahead. Cycling through modes, in engineering the same ...
Stations fix operations across as the last go to work.
Navigator - "We approach destination ... oh no. Warn the other ships."
Nav Comm - "We're completely cut off."
A scan sweeps across and inside the bridge.
Navigator - "I know them. And they definitely know me. Prepare the airlock." He flashes like a picture taken to his true form Lucifer.
Aedera - Pulls her eyes from the view-screen ... "Oh my God."
Lucifer - Looks deep and honestly into her eyes, a note of fear, he grabs her and kisses her. Pulls back and stares again ... "Irony."
________
Zelda - "Is he dead ?"
Timepiece - Finishing a load check on the acquired guns, cash piled to the side. "No."
...
Zelda - "Why ?"
Timepiece - Slides a pistol across.
...
Zelda takes it.
Timepiece - "Have you killed before ?"
Zelda - "Yes ... you have to ... and other things too. They put you in these ... situations."
Timepiece - "And then use them against you. I know. But have you killed before in your own right mind ?"
...
Zelda - "No."
...
Timepiece - "I found you better clothes in the security station. He's secured."
Zelda - Picks up the gun, watches Timepiece pack the duffel with the cash, then eyes and fingers the pistol. "Understood."
('The Mad Preacher' by Pain Teens)
The scene as they gather at the bridge to view, and as Zelda and Timepiece descend the stairs into the basement. The fleet moves in a standard patrol, craft like those of the Nibiru temples, but modern and ornate. Surrounding what registers on the screen overlay of the tear in space.
~
In the basement they walk, Zelda clutching her arms as they pass the
tortures and remnants of, a place where ceremonies and horrors occur,
hell's symbols smeared across the walls. She knows this place.
The
fleet dispatch from a ring set around the tear, to and fro, numerous
kinds each to task, before seen one porting though it. Hundreds.
~
At the basements far end, his cock severed cauterized before him on a
sacrificial altar, the man hangs from his arms over it, feet bound. Cut
and pouring, closed only enough to be still breathing, and only where
necessary, tourniquets bound usefully.
Timepiece - "He's already been questioned." She turns to Zelda, "Can you do th ..."
A shot.
...
Lucretia - On comm, "Is the target secured ?"
Timepiece - Watches Zelda turn back to the man. ... Without speaking aloud, "Yes."
Timepiece - Aloud, "The house is going to explode in three minutes."
________
As they head for the airlock ~
Lucifer - "I really did just want to explore !"
Aedera - "And me !?"
...
Lucifer - "Okay I didn't give a damn about exploring."
Aedera - "Did you lie then or now ?! What do I even call you now ?! I can't call you that and take it seriously ! FUCK !" She turns to punch the opposite wall before to lean facing it.
...
Lucifer - "When ... 'He'
created me, He first called me 'Prototype'. But I really do like it
when you call me 'Navigator'. I'm sorry. This is the only way."
Aedera - Slams him to the wall and puts her blade to his throat. Into his eyes, "I don't care about any of that. I know who you are." She slams him to the wall again. "I can't fucking lose you ! I saw the fear in your eyes." She pushes her blade to his skin in tears, "I can't lose anything else. I can't lose you too. I can't."
She watches the blade on his skin in sobs, teeth clenched and closes her eyes. Exhales and throws down the knife before storming off.
Lucifer - Watches until gone. He pulls the blade into his hand, it glazes over gold. "It wasn't for me." He looks up to the camera.
On the monitor, he hits the wall mounted pass for the inner lock.
____
Aedera - A breath and straightening from shattered to to perfect calm, she enters the bridge, nods to the concerned stations, the new navigator, "Navigator.", sits. "Screens up and prepare for battle." Takes a drink, "We're calling this good news today."
Actor's note
~ Showing specifically that she's showing no emotion when she just
broke her own heart twice calling the other 'Navigator'.
('When the Man Comes Around' by Johnny Cash)
~ The outer starboard lock begins sliding open, a bleaching white beginning to shine through.
On the bridge the view goes blinding before adjusted through many filters down until manageable, but barely visual. They begin their work to adjust.
A
light bursts through the nearest ship, going dim before blasting
through its engine's flame, angled to swerve it to its own nearest as
the light blinds again. To another.
The Rose drops sails and engages full to a swiveling dodge beneath a barrage from the fleet, many flying past with many more arcing to track as missile. The view-port dims again as another approaching ship's hit, then bright.
~ Lucifer pauses to observe the ships colliding into a chain reaction, then notes the new arrivals over his shoulder, moves aside to dodge it's missile, not tracking. Turns to it. Another series of colliding destructions.
The
bridge as the Rose takes a hit, outer view as it swerves turning to
respond with fore-guns working the incoming. Past Lucifer dimmed as he
spots the flagship. He glances to the port spotting Aedera looking
back.
~ Aboard the alien warship's bridge, the blinding light, the aliens different from those before but barely seen before bleached out in the light.
In
the Rose engineering the repairs are made, the engineering pausing at
the solar sail detector as a wave from Lucifer's attack on a ship wipes
the spectrum. A curiosity analysis before resuming the works.
~
In a corridor of the alien vessel a distant light approaches as an
alien looks over his shoulder, again barely seen before bleached out.
Amid the core of light, Lucifer passes the tunnels searching the bridge
lightly melting all around him, sealing the doors.
The Rose gunners work their stations, targeting the incoming while Aedera dodges the ship through another barrage from a flank behind. The Navigators plot a site to site jump, while Aedera watches the flagship ahead, light passing through the occasional port.
~ On the alien bridge, from dark, to light, and dark again. A flash of light as the bridge crew roars into death. A soft glow, Lucifer holds her knife dripping. He walks to a panel, passes a spark through then reaches to another, pausing to remember their workings before tapping away.
Lucifer - "Captain."
...
Aedera - "Navigator."
Lucifer - Setting what appears to be a tractor beam to structural components of the ring set around the tear in space. He moves to the other panel for navigation, taps. "You need to go. They can make them faster than I can destroy them, you don't understand. They're eggs."
~ Views across the bridge crews of the other vessels as they see the fleets ahead.
Aedera - "I know what what your going to do. The only thing you can do. And we're coming with you."
~ More crews turn, considerable fear.
Lucifer - Finishes the targeting at the gunnery main launch for the ring control. He turns to and slumps an unseen carcass off and sits in the captain's chair, not specifically made for 'human'. "Captain ..."
On the Rose bridge, the crew looks ready for it.
Aedera - "No. You'll resume your duties which are the same as ours. We secure this location. And no one gets left behind. Out." She switches off.
~
Across the last crew's faces as a light pours from the tear ahead among
the maintaining alien fleet the light fades to the intermission's
darkened theater.
____________
Film note ~ Technically Lucifer would by nature be the speed of light, but he doesn't think that quickly, so he's more accurately the speed of thought. The scenes here will be treated to the same visual styles of those concerning beacons used for teleportation.
Nerd notes ~ He has a switch. In one mode, 'casual', his at rest state is whatever form he rests on, from the when last in the other state, usually preferring the usual one, being what he settled on over eternity, to purpose. Like a thing one would settle on so as not to always have to think about it. For better or worse, he was created to be a social creature.
Later angels, less so. Most operate from intrinsically archetypal forms.
In Lucifer's other state, he's in every place his own light touches from his central core simultaneously, and he moves his core to wherever his attention goes therein. Technically again at the speed of light corrected by his own comprehension of what's in front of him.
Hence, if he want's the ship not completely broken, he still has to wander the corridors like an idiot looking for the bridge.
When he's hovering over the battlefield in The Rough Storybook, he'd be between these two states, barely the weight of a rising balloon and holding himself in place by sheer will. When he moves as such, he looks to objects and pulls them to him by his attention, which in turn moves him, to them.
The scenes between his states as such will be similarly filmed because the way his attention pulls him to objects physically through space is exactly how beacons work for slipstream travel.
PS ~ No he does not put his arms forward and yes his clothes are burned away.
Michael hovers and flies with his wings, I'd imagine that's why they traditionally had six. But still humanesque because (at least in these tales) the Angels were created to protect the Earth specifically.
! Intermission !
(the sound of Sanctuary's gate opening, the other intermission leaked)
A six minute loop of Saffron eating popcorn with 3-D glasses on in a movie theater, a hand reaching into the popcorn from the side with cigarette smoke drifting across, backlit by the projector.
Static glitch then repeated but the smoke continues normally without the glitch overlain, with game level projected into it, played badly.
After six minutes Saffron breaks out laughing and on to the next scene.