[spoiler]Experienced Bracket[/spoiler] [b]War Is Over.[/b] [quote] "The Fallen Houses are gone. The siege is broken. The stalemate we’ve had with the Eliksni for what, a hundred years? It’s over. We won." ---Sub Commander Sloane.[/quote] [spoiler]The snow fell softly on a battered field. The ground here was bruised, broken from years of war between the Fallen Devils and the immortal guardians of the city. There a thin vandal sat, and there he mourned, not for the loss of a battle or the loss of a friend, but for the loss of his pride. All around Devils walked past him, heads bowed, too ashamed to look up at each other. This field had once seen countless battles, some victories and some defeats, but today it served another purpose.  The remaining Devils, in fact all Eliksni, were laying down their banners in defeat. The war to take the Great Machine had ended in failure. Oh, Chelchis! If he could only see their failure, how horrified would he be? A roaring bonfire stabbed the sky, pouring its putrid, metallic smoke into the air. Armor, rifles, gear, cloaks...banners. All were tossed into the purging flame. In that flame the mark that had shown itself on the battlefield time and again against the guardians was burnt away, leaving only a dusky ash. Grivrak, devil vandal, watched sadly as the House that had sustained him crumbled before his very eyes. The House of Devils had always stood. They had lost kells, they had lost Archons and Servitors, but still they had always tried once more to take the Great Machine back for their people. Grivrak's whole family had been devils. All his siblings, all his kin from the time of their hatching had bled and shed blood for the red banner. For that banner his parents had laid down their lives at The Final Attempt and for it most of his siblings had done the same in the Cosmodrome. That same banner now was burning on a heap. To Grivrak, this was nothing like the fall of Skolas, for that wolf was mad and his ambitions an heretical failure. The Devils though had always stood in the gap, proudly fighting their enemy. The Wolves hunted and schemed, Winter pirated, Exile rotted, and the Kings watched from behind the scenes when they could have turned the tide. But not the Devils, no the Devils had tried at the cost of their lives. He sucked in the sweet, cool ether through his mask as he watched the burning of a culture, the death of an age. Not since the Whirlwind had such a massacre of Eliksni identity occurred. He unhitched his helmet and let the warm glow of the bonfire flush his face. His breath leaked residual ether as he sighed aloud. As each dreg and captain reached the fire, they would stoop to deliver an Ireliis bow, in honor of the past they were leaving behind. Then their armor was thrust into the open furnace, twisting and turning the metal and cloth to dust. Grivrak's demeanor continued to drop. He was Eliksni, he was a hunter, not the prey. It pained him to see all his people's pride bleeding out right before him, and him having no way to staunch it. Exasperated, he stood up and raised all four arms to the sky as he shouted out at his fellow soldiers, his family. "Skas volasu. Lirsoveks...skas sloats! Eliksni ok drekh! Ok drekh! Meliksnisk! Nama mra!" [--Translation from Eliksni-- "You are lifeless! I don't believe it...you are prey! Eliksni not pups! Not pups! We are Eliksni! Not gentle!"] He pauses as dozens of quads of eyes fall on him, all unblinking in the cold. They seem lifeless, devoid of the will to fight. As soon as they hear him, they return back to the pile, and dump the soul of what they are into the ashes.  In this moment they cease to be Devils. Across the system Winters and Exiles, Wolves and Kings all fall under the dusk of defeat. No more Eliksni, these pirates have fallen yet again, this time even further into despondency.  "Lirsoveks…" ["I don't believe it…"] Grivrak slumps in the snow, utterly bewildered at the acts of his fellows. In his right hand he grips his battered red cape tightly. Nothing could cause him to part with this now, now it was a symbol of all he had fought for.  The blood red of his cloak was his pride, its jagged symbol his credo. Though others abandon the ways of the houses, he would stay true. For the measure of an Eliksni is their will to endure. Perhaps this was just another test of the Great Machine, a test for the worthy to eventually pass through and regain their hope. Maybe even one day they could rally once more, not for survival, but for noble purpose. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Behind the Vandal a large captain stalked, their armor clanking and cloak kicking up the ashen snow. "Nakemrak" ["Come here."] Grivrak turned to see the towering figure behind him. He immediately noted that this captain had not burned his gear as of yet, and what's more, his armor and marks clearly displayed him as a Splicer. He had no improvements or SIVA injections, but this fallen had obviously been a part of the cadre who had worked on it.  "Skas Eliksni, ok kelekh." ["You are Eliksni, not little one."] The massive captain's voice boomed from his helmet, sending snow off his own armor at the reverberations.  The captain held out his hand to the shivering vandal and spoke his simple, but potent words. "K variisis." ["Be unrelenting."] He passed the Vandal a canister of ether, perhaps a reward for showing faith in the house at a time where all else abandoned it. "Me skas ok ra nas." ["We are never without house."] For the first time in days the vandal felt a glimmer of hope. He knew he couldn't be the only one who would hold true to their identity, to the house that had stood in the gap for all Eliksni kind.  "Ne hus kin...Kell. " ["I will fight strongly...Kell."] In that moment Grivrak knew this captain would be his Kell, for he was the only one willing to take up that mantle. What the future held he did not know, but he was an Eliksni of House Devil, and if there was anything that they knew how to do, it was continue the fight.[/spoiler]