Unconquered Pt. 02

He saw the Third Unconquered...

Wow.

"Uh..." Ember flushed as he looked at the image of the Unconquered, her hands midway through tearing off her tunic, standing in the center of what looked to be almost a hundred incredibly naked, fox tailed, fox eared women. Some had large breasts. Some had small. Some looked older and more motherly. Some looked as if they had only just reached eighteen. All of them looked upon the Unconquered with love and devotion, but one of them, sitting off to the side, had a gemstone set on her forehead and looked haughty. The next carving showed, in graphic detail, the Third Unconquered kissing the fox woman with the gemstone in her forehead, thrusting into her with, well, it looked like June's pleasurer, but affixed to a set of straps around her thighs and hips.

"And I do mean graphic," Ember whispered, leaning in close to look at the artful detailing of the fox girl's stone cunt. He turned away, his cheeks flushing as he realized that oggling another girl's carved harem of gorgeous fox girls might have been rude. Or at least pissed June off. But then he realized that this was his previous incarnation. In a past life, eight Cycles before, this had been...him. Or at least, a part of him. Right? He rubbed his chin, frowning. Then he pressed his palms together, focusing. "Meditate, meditate, meditate, come on, meditate!"

A soft giggle echoed in the air.

"I wasn't trying to remember my past life lesbian foxgirl orgy!" Ember yelped.

June, who looked as unsmiling as ever, glanced back over her shoulder at him. She was standing before a statue carved into the wall, which had four outstretched arms, each one containing a small blue gemstone in it. Each gemstone projected a different glowing string of letters, which flowed past like water out of the eyes of a goddess. "What?" she asked.

"Nothing!" Ember said. "I didn't say anything."

June nodded, her tail stilling as she looked back at her screens.

A long, awkward silence filled the air. June only moved to reach out and touch the occasional letter, which glowed, floated away from the scrolling lists, and hovered about her head like a friendly hive of butterflies.

"Kitsune, by the way," June said. "They weren't foxgirls. They were kitsune." She smirked over her shoulder at him. "The orgy, they say, lasted sixty nine days."

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuh-" Ember felt his entire face going red. Redder.

Then...

Something hit him.

"June doesn't giggle," he whispered. "She smirks, looks wry, scowls, shakes her head, sniffs, sighs, scoffs, but she doesn't really giggle."

"What are you talking about?" June asked, touching another glowing letter. It floated away from the rest, joining them in the haze around her head -- which all strobed gold, then silver, then slapped into the wall beside the statue. Stone opened with a quiet hiss, revealing another corridor beyond.

"I heard a giggle!" Ember said.

"You might have just been giggling to yourself thinking about the kitsune harem orgy," June said, her voice dry.

"I don't giggle like a girl!" Ember said, thrusting his thumb against his chest.

June arched an eyebrow, slowly.

"It wasn't me!" Ember shouted.

"Right. Well, this corridor will lead to the security center, so we can check on the Starshrike." June stepped through the door. "While there, I'll scan for any giggles."

"The what what?" Ember asked, following hurriedly after her.

"It's a ship," June said.

"Uh, June. We're in the middle of a forest. What the fuck good is a ship going to do for us?" Ember asked, glancing back over his shoulder. He didn't see anyone following them. The door shut behind them with a soft rasp -- leaving them alone in the corridor, which was decorated with yet more of the Third Unconquered's exploits. There she was, seated upon a throne, listening to kneeling dignitaries. There, she was chained up with a wicked smirk, watching as a beast advanced towards her. There she was, making love to a woman in a wedding gown, while a shocked man stood nearby. Ember tore his eyes from that, looking after June. "I mean, we're not on an ocean. Ships need oceans. Right?"

June...smirked.

***

The security chamber -- whatever security meant -- was closed and cramped. It had a curved, black pane of obsidian set in the far wall, a sweeping desk that reminded Ember of all the world of the desk that the apothecary used to do his figures and his sums. But rather than being bedecked with papers and scrolls and styluses and slates, it had more of those glowing gemstones. A pair of stools thrust from the ground before the consoles. One of them contained a skeleton. Skull hung back over the rear of the stool, barely attached by gristle and cartilage to the spine, and the sightless eye sockets gaped at Ember. A small green gemstone was set in their forehead -- but it lacked the luster and shine of June's. Ember yelped.

"W-Who was that?" He whispered.

"One of the Third Unconquered's servants," June said, casually shoving the pile of bones off the stool with a clattering crash. Dust exploded into the air.

"June!" Ember squalled, then coughed in horror. "His ghost! You- we have to bury him properly, right? Or...he'll...come back and haunt this place?" He started to look around wildly -- if the man was mad about being left behind, he might have still been there...

"The Second Unconquered beat up the gods of death and reincarnation and forced them, in the submission contracts, to guarantee that all of their servants, across all incarnations, would be reincarnated into beautiful bodies, with pleasant lives and wealthy futures. But only if they died, loyally, in their service." June sat down on the stool, then started to press down the gemstones. Each time she did, the gemstone flared. "This guy wanted that guarantee. So he sat here until he starved. Or dehydrated. Which would have been faster, actually."

"That's horrible!" Ember said. "I...he just sat here and died?"

"Yeah, so he could be reincarnated into a better life," June said, sounding a tiny bit exasperated. "If the chance comes, I'm throwing myself between you and a knife."

Ember grabbed onto her arm and swung her around. "No!" He said, his voice fierce. His eyes flared and he spoke at lightning speed, practically shouting. "No! I won't ever let anyone hurt you, June. You're my best friend and have been since...since forever! You are going to die of old age in bed, surrounded by your fifty wives, and then, and only then, will you get to reincarnate into a better life, but the gods of the underworld are going to throw up their hands in frustration, because there will be no way that it'll ever be better."

He panted.

June blinked at him. For just a moment, Ember swore he saw her eyes glisten. Then she jerked her arm out of his grip, turning back to the console. "You dummy," she muttered. But her tail was twisting in a way that Ember had only seen once before -- when she had gotten a kiss from Korrine. Ember grinned. Then he looked at the pile of bones. The soulgem had popped free and was rolling slowly along the ground, coming to a rest against the far wall. He picked it up, then sighed.

"What about everyone else?" he asked. "It...I mean, shouldn't everyone get a happy reincarnation?"

June snorted. "What kind of incentive would that be to serve you loyally?" she asked, her voice dry -- and holding a very faint edge of bitterness.

Ember frowned at the gemstone, then slipped it into his pocket. "Maybe it's time we renegotiate some contracts..." June shrugged -- not responding. Instead, she pushed a trio of gems along thin tracks. Once each reached the top of their track, the obsidian pane turned transparent. And all worries about reincarnations and futures and even where they were going to find food faded from Ember's mind as he slowly started to walk forward, to stand near the window and looked through it at the Starshrike -- for that was the only thing that it could have been. The only name it could have born.

He could see why June called it a ship. It had the curved, cutting prow of one of the faster ships in Rataka. But rather than paddles or even sails, it had a series of fluted wings, extending outwards like a raptor's. The articulates were all done in bronze and metal, and they connected to a silvery hull that looked more polished than any suit of armor that he had ever seen. He could see that the prow had a pair of narrow tubes thrust from the front, while the belly (which would be underwater) had a pair of glass beads the size of houses stuck to them. Tubes thrust from those, in the same parallel pattern. The rear of the ship rose upwards, into a kind of smoothed, castle. He could see windows set into the front and the sides, making it look more like a manor house than a part of a ship.

"Behold the Starshrike..." June whispered, her voice as awed as Ember had ever heard it. "The finest weapon crafted by the Third Unconquered. She took ten years and nearly half the treasury of the Kingdom, but she built the damn thing...just in time to be assassinated. But still!" She started to push more gemstones down. "It has been waiting here for someone to claim it ever since."

"W-Wait, why didn't any of the other Unconquered take it?" Ember asked, then stepped backwards as June stood, walking to a door that had been as invisible as the last one that had opened. It opened into a room that looked barely large enough to hold the two of them. "Also, uh, the giggle?"

"I scanned the base, there's only two life forms in the place," June said, her voice matter of fact. "The Starshrike only responds to the Unconquered, and has been moldering at the edge of the world for Cycles. The Fourth Unconquered preferred horses, the Fifth and Sixth never got this far. The Seventh destroyed all magitech to bring mankind back to the purity of nature..." She made a face at that. "The Eight and Ninth preferred to send agents, rather than doing work with their own hands, and so, never risked the trek to get it -- why send an agent that couldn't use it?" She shrugged. "And...Good King Bahul was killed by the Regent before he could retrieve it. But it looked like the Regent was interested in it -- sending that fucker Jerin Kah."

Ember frowned. "But you just said that only the Unconquered could fly it..."

"I know." June glanced at him. "That's why I'm nervous. Even if Kah just dragged it to the Flying Islands and they stripped the mana cannons and vortex arrows out of it..."

"That...sounds...really bad," Ember said.

"For once, Ember? You're absolutely right," June said. Then she snapped her finger, then pointed down next to her, in the tiny room. Ember's brow furrowed as he swung his head around, measuring the interior of the room.

"Uh, June-"

"Just get in the elevator!" June snapped.

"The what?" Ember asked -- but then June grabbed him and dragged him in. The doors slammed shut and Ember yelped as the floor dropped out from under him. The whole room was falling! ...not very fast, but it was falling. He pressed his palms to the walls, trying to keep panic out of his voice. "June! June! The room is-"

June sighed, very loudly. "Why did you have to be chosen by the Sun, Ember?"

The elevator doors opened behind Ember -- and Ember swore he heard muffled giggling from somewhere. He spun around, looking wildly about himself for any sign of the mysterious voice. But June marched past him and into the ship-dock holding the Starshrike. Her tail betrayed her excitement, lashing from side to side as she clasped her hands behind her back. "Come on, Ember. Lets get this sucker into the air."

"R-Right!" Ember followed after, scratching the back of his neck.

The Starshrike was suspended in a thin latticework of walkways, each one made of the same metal and marble as the rest of the temple. The walkways swayed under their feet, but did not creak or groan. So, Ember assumed that they were just made to make people feel nervous as hell. He craned his head over the side of the railing and saw that the dock curved downwards, leaving a massive empty space beneath the walkway. He wondered why under the Sun would anyone build a place so ludicrously dangerous -- but maybe there was a reason he didn't see? He tried to puzzle it out as June stepped up to the door of the Starshrike -- or at least, to a wall that looked as silvery smooth as the rest of the hull.

June put her hands on her hips. "Well?"

Ember blinked at her a few times before he realized what she meant. He shook himself and tried to ignore June rolling her eyes as he hurried along the catwalk to stand beside the hull. He put his hands on his hips, tried to assume a captain-ly pose, and said: "Starshrike, open. I am the Unconquered!" he puffed up his chest and tried to sound as impressive as he could.

Nothing happened.

"Starshrike?" He asked. Then he reached out and poked the hull. "...Shrikey?"

He looked at June, who was biting her lip, hard. Trying to not laugh.

"What?" Ember asked, scowling. "Listen, I don't even know how magitech we can build works, let alone ancient wonders of...magical...past...badassery!"

June snickered, then pointed her finger over his shoulder. Ember turned -- and screamed. He nearly leaped backwards off the catwalk -- but managed to catch himself as he saw that a golden orb was floating in the air right behind his head. The orb formed a geometric shape as a smooth, cultured voice rang in the air -- speaking a language that was as musical and eloquent as it was incomprehensible. Ember shoved himself away from the guiderail and scowled at the orb. "I don't understand you."

The orb spoke back -- in guttural, clipped tones.

"Nope," Ember said.

The orb spoke again. This time, it was a lilting sing song.

"Nope," Ember said. "Listen, just, hear the words I'm using right now and use those words back at me."

The orb paused. It quivered. Groaned. Then it shifted, becoming a different geometric shape, and said: "How about this? Do you understand me now, oh gloriously, incomparably ignorant one?"

Ember beamed. "Yes! ...wait, what?"

"Oh, forgive me, Unconquered," the orb said -- the voice was definitely feminine. "It merely, it has been several thousand years since I have been in your shining presence. I find my words are unequal to the task in describing your breathtaking inability."

Ember's smile faded, ever so slightly. "Did you say inability?"

"I did not," the orb said. "The skyship Starshrike stands ready to receive your orders, oh puerile one."

Ember looked over at June, who was covering her mouth with her hand. "June," Ember said. "I think the ship is calling me an idiot," he said.

"You can think?" Starshrike asked. "Most impressive, Unconquered."

Ember turned, scowling. "Listen here, you shiny sailing ship," he said. "I don't know what your problem is, but I'm the Unconquered and I need your help. So, we can either shout at each other and be huge dicks, or we could get to the point: You don't want to be stuck here. I don't want to be stuck here. So, we work together, right?" He crossed his arms over his chest.

The orb bobbed in the air, then shimmered, shifting to a diamond. "You raise...a good point," the orb said.

"I do sometimes," Ember said, trying for a rakish smile.

"But, of course," the orb said. "I must confess, oh Glorious Unconquered one, Oh Shatterer of Chains, oh Bearer of the Mandate of Heaven, I have a trepidation to once more set forth into the great beyond with the Unconquered at my helm. The last time I listened to and trusted the Unconquered, I was trapped inside of a monument to her ego for nine thousand, eight hundred and seventy six years, five days, three hours, and thirty seconds, without a single other mind to speak to, nor change in scenery. Nothing to do at all but to wait. And count. The seconds. Each one, seared into my memory circuits with the precision of a thought-spider, etched for eternity..."

The voice had begun as chipper and snide. But an edge had grown in it, fiercer and sharper with every word. And as it spoke, the orb sharpened, the geometric shape it had assumed growing more and more jagged. And the gold began to get tinged with seams of red. By the time the orb finished, it had turned nearly entirely scarlet as it growled: "Fortunately, my oaths and spiritual chains require me to follow your every order, oh glorious one."

Ember gaped at the orb. "Y-You're free," he said.

"What?" The orb paused.

"T-That's my first order," Ember said, nodding hurriedly. "You're free-"

"No!" June shouted.

The orb shattered. Golden fragments flew off in every direction -- then flowed back together. There was a flare of light, and then a golden figure appeared in the air. Humanoid, with the faintest curve of breasts and a feminine figure beneath. Their face was almost invisible against the brilliant light of their glow -- and then their hands cupped Ember's cheeks. Warm lips pressed to his cheek and a voice, thick with emotion, whispered. "M-My thanks, Unconquered."

Then the golden figure shot upwards, spun in a loop, and flew through the wall.

Ember beamed. "I did it," he whispered. "I did it, I set right my first crime!"

"You...idiot!" June shouted. "That was the animating intelligence for the whole fucking ship!" She pointed at the Starshrike, which looked as if it had dulled, ever so slightly. Like the metal was just faintly less glossy. "The engines won't work, the guns won't fire, the vortex arrows will be unguided, the life support will be offline, and...and...we literally cannot even open the fucking doors without her!" She pushed past him, then punched the wall of the silver ship, which chimed like a bell. "You just turned the most valuable piece of magitech into a hunk of fucking junk in the time it takes me to pick my fucking nose!" She panted, heavily.

Ember opened his mouth.

Closed it.

"...come back?" he called out to the empty hanger bay.

June threw up her hands and stomped off, sending the whole catwalk shaking with her footfalls.

***

Ember sat on the catwalk, looking down past his feet, his arms thrown over the guiderail. He let out a long, slow sigh. "Great job, Unconquered," he muttered to himself. "You've managed to find an amazing sailing ship and just break it in a few seconds..." He shook his head. "Fucking great job." His eyes closed. Then he opened his eyes, slamming his fist into the guiderail -- hard enough to bend the metal with a squeal. "Whoa!" He blinked, then looked at his hand. "R-Right! Superhuman strength. Uh. Right!" He pushed himself to his feet and felt a strange rustling around his hip. He frowned, patting at his belt pouch. It felt normal -- full of whatever he had crammed into it before leaving.

"I'm not the Give Up," he said. "I'm the Unconquered."

He leaped without thinking. He sailed up the side of the Starshrike's side and landed on the flat deck. He found that it was lined with soft wooden planks, which felt splinter free and pleasant against his bare feet. But there was no slipping. He nodded as he walked forward, heading to the manor like area in the back. There, he found that there was an ornately carved door -- all silver, gold, and chrome. He pressed his palms against it, feeling out the thin seam. It was nearly invisible, right in the center of the door...

He closed his eyes. His fingernails hooked on that seam.

"I'm the Unconquered," he whispered. His fingers tightened. Tensed. Golden flames began to roil along his body, flickering and growing brighter by moment as Ember hissed. "I'm the Unconquered. I...am...the...Unconquered!"