But our Defenders knew we were talking. Maybe that was it? Maybe 
that was why they didn't stick around for people's praise as long? 
Maybe they were beginning to see us as a burden that they had to 
defend, rather than their people that they wanted to defend? 


It wasn't until the Attack of... I'm so sorry, but to this day | can't say 
the name of that old city. You can look it up if you want. I'll call it the 
Attack of the Great Hole, since you know that place as the Great 
Hole. 


Our Enemy had attacked, as they had often did. The police, the 
armies, they defended us as well as they could. Don't believe that 
we, as a people, became complacent. Don't believe it for a moment, 
child. We never expected or assumed our Defenders would arrive. 
Ultimately, though, the police and armies were only stopgaps, 
keeping The Enemy contained until our Defenders arrived. 


Arrive they did, in their ships. But this time, it was different. | wasn't 
there, of course, but | saw the vids, just as you did. | saw the attack. 


Not from The Enemy. Our Defenders. They didn't attempt to combat 
The Enemy from the ground, as they always did. They didn't 
respond to the enemy's escalation by escalating in turn. From high 
in the air, they attacked with the greatest weapons they had at their 
disposal. 


In a moment, that sacred city became the Great Hole. Do you know 
how many people lived in that city? Millions, child. Men, women, and 
children. Innocents, all of them, and all of them dead. And our 
Defenders? A press release. "We do not have the time to focus on 
secondary goals such as removing civilians from the combat zone. 
Our primary goal is now our only goal: defeating The Enemy. Adapt 
to this." 


The nations of the world reacted as you think they would. They tore 
into our Defenders. To their credit, the Defenders attempted to 
explain their reasoning for their change in attitude, but it's hard to 
believe someone with the blood of millions of innocents on their 
hands. When the UN demanded that our Defenders defend us from 
farther away, they agreed. | think they were happy. They mentioned 
that they had other missions to accomplish. 


That was... along time ago. The Enemy still exists, and occasionally 
they get through Our Defenders. We've fought them off by 
ourselves, you know. You'll rarely see mentions of the Conflict of 
Chicago, the Delay of Oregon, or the Stalemate of Brazil, but they 
happened. | was there, and | have the scars to prove it. 


Sometimes, Our Defenders regroup and destroy The Enemy. 
Sometimes, they ignore the breach and let us handle it. There are 
some among us that still believe that they are helping us by making 


us defend ourselves. Most of us believe that they hope we get wiped 
out, so that they can defend elsewhere more efficiently. 


I'm an old man, child, and my time is short. | can't say I've lived a 
good life, because the memories have sapped my soul. You grew up 
seeing our Defenders raze entire cities to defeat The Enemy. You've 
seen them destroy our spacecraft to keep us in the solar system. 
You have Enemy Assault Protocols in your school, and you have 
Defender Guard Protocols. You won't blink or twitch when you're old 
enough to know that they are the same protocols. All of those things, 
though, child, hurt me more than you'll ever know. They haunt 
everyone my age who still lives. 


Even the name hurts people my age, child. Defenders? They used 
to be called something else. Everyone my age remembers. 


We remember when they were called the Power Rangers. 


| See a Great Beast within the Fires 


The young man watched as the bronze machine hammered down 
onto the golden metal. The loud clash boomed throughout the 
chamber, fading into the melting heat. Patina had taken over the 
machine's surface, coating it with a shade of dark green. But the 
piece itself was too grand for the flaw to be noticeable. 


It was unlike any clockwork device he had seen, its mechanism a 
mystery to him. He could make out a few gears here and there, but 
nothing else was within his knowledge. In fact, he could no longer 
claim to understand any kind of machine, not after he was picked up 
at the Mehkanite temple that was burnt down, and was led through 
mountains and seas, traversing the vast desert into this foreign land. 
The machines that were such a part of his life, a part of himself 
even, now seemed so alien to him. He could not even state with 
confidence that he understood his god, not towards the man that 
had brought him here. 


That man was now slithering through the dark chamber, pushing 
keys that subsequently lit up. His scales rustled against the heated 
floor. His clawed hands went through the intricate patterns that were 
engraved on the machine’s surface, their purpose unknown. They 
too were blurred by time, no longer sharp shapes and lines, but 
dazzling nonetheless. On the far end, between the wavering lights of 
the flames, automatons could be seen adding fuel into the machine, 
building the flames higher. 


The young man was not sure if they were machines built into human 
shape, or men reduced to the simplest kind of machine, and he 
dared not ask. After all, the man with scales and claws and slit eyes 
seemed so inhuman and sinister, so much like the flesh beasts that 
attacked their temple, the beasts that howled and laughed and 
slaughtered. The very evil he was supposed to fight against. 


But the serpent man found him, dragged him out of the burning ruins 
of what he once called home, and healed him with some sort of 


miracle. "Medicine." The man had answered him, but no medicine 
could heal what was inflicted upon him, not even as parts of his 
body were already replaced with metal. The human body was weak, 
nothing compared to what their god could offer. He still remembered 
when bone spears pierced through his organs, the ones he was yet 
to, and maybe couldn't, replace with clockwork. He only 
remembered the laughter ringing through his ears, mocking the 
futility of their resistance, before it all faded into blackness. 


But now, he sat in this dark chamber, in front of a large piece of 
golden metal that was hammered down by the heavy machinery 
again and again. His metal arm was replaced anew; polished and 
lighter than ever before, so flexible that even his tortured body could 
command it with ease. The serpent man certainly knew the 
machines better than he did, maybe even better than the elders of 
his temple. And as they talked through the long journey, when they 
traversed the cold mountains, the lonely seas, and the lifeless 
desert, he learnt of a different tale about his god that existed in the 
Far East. Child of flesh and metal, the man that resembled snake 
more than man claimed to be. Children of flesh and metal, the man 
claimed that they all were. 


As the rhythmic booming sound rang through the chamber, as the 

fire grew higher, as the automatons worked tirelessly, the serpent 

man slithered near. He wore a strange robe, long sleeves covering 
his hands. Some sort of metal bracelet could be seen underneath, 
with the same shade of dark green as the machine. 


The scaled man stopped in front of him, and the young Mekhanite 
spoke: "You promised me vengeance." 


"Yes." The answer came with a cold hissing sound, one that the 
young man had grown accustomed to. "All is set, but you need to be 
ready first." 


Before he could answer that yes, yes he was ready, the serpent 
gestured towards the machine and the strange metal placed onto it. 
"Long ago,” He said, "Our empire was strong and prosperous, the 
land was lined with machines of miracle, we reached the stars and 
looked into the brass prison of the Dragon," His hand stroked the 
surface of the device. "These are but remains of the glorious days." 


SCP-874: Abyssal Fluid 


Item #: SCP-874 
Object Class: Euclid 


Special Containment Procedures: While not undergoing 
experimentation, SCP-874 is to be kept in a container such that no 
horizontal volume of the substance is shallower than 5 cm. The fluid 
must be in constant motion, such as being stirred. With the 
Foundation's current supply of SCP-874, this is to be a cylindrical 
steel vat of radius seven meters and height 10 meters. While 
SCP-874 is under study, no non-Class D personnel are to be within 
five meters of the liquid. Any lab in which SCP-874 is studied should 
be equipped with a winch system of no less than horsepower and 
with steel rope of 5 (five) cm thickness. All personnel who have been 
immersed in SCP-874 in its active state should be terminated after 
study. 


Description: SCP-874 is a black, largely unreflective fluid with 
30.87 cP viscosity and reflectivity less than a tenth of that of water. 
When it approaches a static depth of 2 cm, the fluid functions as a 
portal to a seemingly infinite space. Telemetry into the abyss has led 
to no conclusive results as to its dimensions. Audio readings and 
personnel report the sound of distant grinding of metal and stone 
from this portal. Occasionally, viewers and visual recording 
equipment can glimpse what appear to be immense rotating 

drifting aimlessly in the otherwise featureless blackness. 


Assuming, as evidenced, zero gravity, an object propelled through 
the portal can travel approximately 3000 km before being totally 
obscured by the very light fog that fills the abyss. Objects partially 
lowered into the surface cannot be retrieved by any effort less than 
the recommended __ horsepower. Later experiments (those after 
March _ , 20 ) revealed that objects left in for more than five minutes 
are quickly worn away by invisible 


For a moment, it was hard for him to imagine. A dark chamber lined 
with heavy machines, with fires maintained by robots, was but 
shadows of the past. What other things the man implied he dared 
not think about. They weren't things he could comprehend, or 
believe in. 


The serpent man continued. "But even before that, our ancestors 
fought against other tribes who too worshipped the Serpent and the 
Dragon, and united them to be a common kingdom. Such were the 
great deeds of the Yellow Emperor, the first king of Xia." 


Abruptly, the hammering stopped. The underground chamber was 
suddenly quiet. The automatons moved and clicked at the far end, 
but only the sound of the serpent man’s speech boomed throughout 
the heated room. 


“But Chiyou rebelled against the great emperor. Like us, they were 
worshippers of Father Fuxi. He and his tribe sacrificed their body of 
flesh and blood to the Great Brass Dragon, and gained bodies of 
brass and iron.” The serpent man paused, and explained. “It was not 
‘augmentation’, as you would put it. They turned themselves not into 
machines, but living metal. Machines can be broken down, 
disassembled, but metal itself—” 


“An invincible body.” The young Mekhanite kept his voice calm, but 
a fire quietly burned in his eyes. 


“Not invincible, far from it.” Even on a reptilian face, the frown was 
visible. “Weapons were indeed useless against them. They knew no 
pain, knew no rest, an army unparalleled at the time. The metal was 
gifted by our Father, and thus does not rust.” 


He turned to look at the strange metal — it was no longer golden, 
heated to show a glowing red. “But the Yellow Emperor defeated 

them. He melted them down into liquid, and then forged them into 
metal cubes. As such, they were longer a threat.” 


The serpent man was not fluent in the young man’s language, but 
the words hammered down into him clearly. The young Mekhanite 
fell into silence as he now understood what he was looking at. 


The metal had completely melted now. The serpent man reached 
out, and pulled a lever. The machine shifted, and the liquid was 
poured down into a pool beneath. A feeling of unease rose from the 
young man’s stomach. As he watched, for a moment, it was as if the 
molten metal twisted unnaturally, before falling down into the pit. 


The serpent man turned back, the slit eyes met his gaze. “Some say 
their souls are still trapped there. Shattered minds fused into a 
vengeful, insane spirit, longing for freedom.” He said. 


The young man looked at the pool of metallic liquid that seemed to 
be withering and silently screaming. He couldn't tell if it really was 
there, or it was merely in his mind. The chamber seemed much 
darker now, even as the automatons worked harder and harder to 
put fuel into the giant machine. The intricate patterns, under the 
wavering light, now seemed menacing and shadowy. And the ones 
that glowed emitted an eerie light. The hammer hanged high above, 
its presence pressed against his being, like a dark cloud hovering. 
He looked at all these with silence, slowly taking everything in. The 
fire in his eyes grew. 


“lam ready.” He finally said. 


“Hundreds had joined Chiyou, yet only eighty-one withstood the 
ritual.” The serpent man said. 


“| will make it.” He said. 


The man only nodded as a response. 


Inside the pool, the liquid metal was boiling now. Steam rose, but 
was somehow confined within the pool. This machine was really 
something beyond his understanding, but for now, he stopped 
thinking about that. The heat was scorching, which his bare foot felt 
the most. 


The serpent man said something to him, but it slipped through. His 
mind wandered back into the night when the Sarkicites destroyed 
his temple and slaughtered his kind. Even the strongest of them, the 
elders that had fully converted, were no match for the unholy beast 


of the flesh. They were torn, pieces of gears scattered, their 
weapons broken. And the beasts laughed, their laugher so piercing, 
much like the bone spears through his body. But a wave of heat hit 
him, and dragged him back into reality. 


“| have tried this so many times before. None successful.” He caught 
the serpent man saying. “So maybe you, someone who truly 
believes in the Father Serpent—” He paused and corrected himself, 
“Truly believes in Mekhane, can do it.” 


“There are better candidates than me.” He said. 


The serpent man shook his head. “None of us believe in them 
deeply anymore, neither in the Dragon, nor the Serpent. We were 
never good followers to begin with; we call them Father and Mother, 
yet we fear them the most.” He forced himself into a smile, a rather 
eerie one with serpentine features. “I can only wish for your 
success.” He hesitated, but went on, “But tell me — what do you 
wish to become?” 


“A beast.” The word came out without thinking. He was unsure why 
he said that, but as the man looked at him curiously, he added: “The 
pain the Sarkicites have inflicted upon us and our holy land; | shall 
return the favor.” 


The serpent man nodded, and stood back. The young Mekhanite 
took in a deep breath, and slowly descended into the pool. The 
sound of the machine and the automatons seemed so far away now, 
as the liquid boiled and bubbled in front of him. 


There was no pain, he realized some seconds later, as his skin and 
flesh were instantly burned. In the next few seconds, his bones 
melted. He could no longer see, and no longer feel anything at all. 
Darkness had encompassed him. But it was not the cold, silent 
darkness of death people often speak of. An immense heat 
surrounded him; the same dark, ancient presence that loomed in the 
underground chamber was now closer than ever. The heat scorched 
him, but there was no pain. Bodily sensations no longer mattered. 


He remained in the darkness for a few more moments, before 
hearing a loud sound. At first, he thought it was the hammering 


sound he heard over and over again, but as the sound grew even 
louder, he recognized that it was something else. He was still in the 
darkness, but somehow, in his mind, he could make out fires 
furiously burning, and among them, a shadow stood there.