Thread: Corruption (One Lost Soul x MellowYellow)

With a tired sigh, Caranifer looked down on the planet below her. A spinning marble of blues and greens and browns, with a species that thought itself to be the only important life, when in the grand scheme of the universe they didn't even make but a second on the clock of life. She had seen so many places like this burn under the harsh glare of cruel, dying stars. She had seen so many more that were burned in the hatred of war's flames. To see another place following that road, yet one so abnormally filled with those who could save, and still it was slowly working its way to destruction. Whether it was a testament to her own powers or to the stubbornness and destructive ways of the creatures below, Caranifer didn't know. Every passing day would bring this planet one step closer to it's fall - yet it wasn't fast enough for her liking. The animals below, these humans, were as resilient as they were destructive. For every new tool which was made to kill them, a new defense was made to stand across from it. With the advent of the sword came the armor plate. With the coming of the horse, the spear. The gun, the bulletproof vest. With superweapons? Superheros. Or so that was what she had heard those who lived below calling them. It seemed for every superhero, there was a countering super villain. It had not been three months after arriving to this miserable little squalid corner of the galaxy when she had met - Him . One of the true Superheros, with some outdated sense of justice and honor, and just the whole embodiment of every fake and hollow thing in the galaxy. There were no good people. In time, even He had realized this. The generations that followed him to fight evil were not even trying to pretend that they truly cared. They, in the end, were no better than she, and the only difference there was between them was that Caranifer didn't pretend to care what other, lesser beings thought of her. They would not truly care for any good deeds. In time, even Aleph realized this in his peers. They were uncaring and unmotivated, like those that they claimed to protect. She had watched him that day. From the comfort of a chair with a commanding watch of her ship's bridge, cloaked in the orbit of the Earth, she had seen the surge of power burning through the vacuum of space as he left. She had hoped in some part of her that he might leave this solar system, never to return, and simply let it fall as she knew it would. Yet some part of her felt - disappointed in a way. She reasoned it was not unlike the feeling a lesser mortal might have when they have lost a limb. Even after so many years, the commander of the Nightmare Child had never come across a soul as - interesting as him. Aleph was what he had called himself at the time, the birth-name of Adam kept secret so that he might protect his closest loved ones while they still drew breath. Others she had met were on only one extreme they would all stand against her until she had shown them the force of a two-dreadnought fleet brought to bare on their planet. Then they would either kill themselves or - well, it was safe to say that there were some among her crew that had once flown other flags and rallied against her. Yet now the Nightmare Child , the sister to the Dark Star , drifted through space as a vented hulk on which you would find no life save the ravenous drones that sought out to destroy any organic material detected aboard. Because she had thought Aleph to be no less a fool than those she had faced before and he was clever and quick enough to use that against her. Never before had she met somebody she felt not only to be a challenge but potentially . . . an equal? Maybe, had he not so ardently clung to his false ideals when they first met. He had not fled, she had found. Not out of the system as she had hoped, in part. Instead he was found on Mars. Few things lived on the sparse red globe, so few that the humans of Earth felt the whole place to be lifeless. The things on that planet were such low forms of life, with little intelligence compared to even the humans of Earth, that she paid the creatures no mind. Some day they might reach to the stars and there they would find on Earth the fading and dusted remains of a civilization long vanished from the surface. Should she have her way. Yet she knew that even as they were now, she was just one woman, with one ship. None could hope to leave the surface so they might match her in a standing war but they could still fight . And there were things about the planet she wasn't so eager to see burned away. Ebony hair curled around a single gloved finger, she closed her eyes, and heaved a tired sigh as she listened to the hum of the bridge. Darlotta. She kept her words terse, and heard a small questioning squeak from the young woman in question, Teleport me down to the surface of their red planet. I wish to speak with - Him . M-ma'am? It was no secret her once burning hatred for the man might still linger, at least so her crew thought. I did not ask for questions . Caranifer regarded the young woman with venom in her gaze, Now do it! With a snap of blue-gold light, she disappeared from her chair. In the everything-nothing between realities she barely had enough time to brace herself, with only good practice causing the next flash of light on the surface of Mars to reveal her standing primly with arms clasped in front of her at the waist several yards from her intended - target. Though part of her wanted to, she restrained herself from casting an invisibility spell over herself. She didn't want to seem hostile , after all.