The Justiceers - Part Six: Chapter Ten
the next chapter in my forthcoming novel
The Justiceers
by Daphne Garrido
Part Three: The Will to Choose
Part Four: Prefinished Business
Part Six: Death Rides a Horse
6.10
Arthur couldn’t believe what his senses pervading The Nebberath II were showing him, but it had been causing a strangest excitement to rise which he’d not felt in great lengths of time. This all seemed like some kind of strangest dream. Yet, it had to be real, he was looking right at it.
This moment was clearly made just for him, despite some clearest sense of divinity to it all, it made him feel a tad frightened. He’d known he was searching for some feelings of oddest duality through his life which were upon him all at once now.
Illith had materialized just outside the docking hatch most recently, its only message, interpreted directly into spoken words by Gary himself, with an added bit of his signature, creative flair, had made their point most plainly.
“Get in, loser.”
There wouldn’t be a moment’s hesitation for Arthur Katrinus to abide this request, despite the insult so laced within it, and that most intensely surprising way in which it had been delivered out of thin air. He was realizing now he’d never wanted to get inside anything more in his life than this sexy fucking spaceship which had survived so much.
For it to be here now, for him, didn’t make any sense to Arthur. He didn’t feel he deserved this. Yet, that would change in time, when Arthur came to realize what he could accomplish near this ship so tuned to assist his own soul’s purpose in Yemi.
Miriam had always seen something most clearly within him, even if it felt most bizarre indeed, and that realization he was more than just a man had made more sense to his gut than he’d ever admit.
He’d always known somewhere deep inside, this place was his to re-make anew.
Gary was setting a course for the Nebberath II to round out towards the farthest reaches of Yemi, allowing as much breadth as possible from the chaos so surely to ensue in the nearest future, holding a radius which would find it with the flexibility to return at a moment’s notice. Each one of the nearly six-hundred civilian refugee ships remaining in system, comprising about a hundred-thousand souls, would be led by Urina herself to do much the same, while Arthur and Miriam spearheaded this assault upon evil on separate fronts.
Both of their parts in all of this were of greatest importance, though, Miriam had not shared the details with Arthur. She hated it, but there was a lie she’d told him; that her survival was guaranteed. Within this newfound expansiveness, Miriam was seeing herself quite able to sneak those past even Arthur’s gut these days. It didn’t feel good, but he’d needed that one. The confidence she instilled within him by the foretold certainty of her survival was needed most completely, and she trusted her guidance at all times, beyond moralities long held against herself in judgement.
This bitch had always been the best liar in the goddamned Periphery, that was gift, and she was done pretending it anything but.
No matter what happened, there would be only one Miriam left at the end of this. Fate had not chosen which, that was un-written, as so much within the trappings of this great plan, and everything beyond the nexus point of awakening they’d recently passed.
People everywhere had felt it in their hearts on some level, that profound change striking deep inside, an alchemization they’d not known made by the divine union of Miriam’s soul healing with Grammaton itself, especially that visage so deeply bore into her crust which had survived so much and for so long to make this all possible.
Hope lived within her heart that this would not be the end of her time on this plane — but she was prepared for the cost regardless, as she needed to be — it was her purpose to move without attachment, and that would be the greatest boon to her power. Accepting the threat of death so wholly, fueled by that surest knowing of her right to live a most complete life in heaven, was allowing her to become the fearless warrior of God she was born to be.
The Lithos Miranos Infinity would be her stallion this night, and all would come to see its glory. Of the many legacies she’d leave in this universe, it was her baby, the highly-modified speedship of most unique design, which would make the greatest impact of change amongst The Periphery. Its graceful ways embedded within the hardened truth of Miriam’s own heartful wisdoms, and the adaptability it had to move in both space and atmosphere the same, would show more people how to live in freedom of joy than any single writing Miriam would produce and propagate. Those were mostly just to meant to break shit down. It would be Arthur, and this strangest little seed of legacy she’d leave behind, which would truly change their civilization.
Yet, tonight was for her, Arthur, and Illith too. They were family. Very, extremely, sexy-as-hell family.
Slipping inside the hard-shell encasement which had clearly been made just for him, utilizing those newfound abilities of his godhood to interface with the technology of Illith, Arthur could feel the perfection inside this craft.
The way his mind found peace within Illith’s most divine creative spaces, and through the receiving of its calculative notions, along with the vision born through it all, his ability to witness most completely in a spectrum never realized before, it just felt right. Not even his experiences upon the Nebberath II had been close to this intense, nor those with Miriam herself, but he knew the spirit of this ship quite well and was now believing what she’d always told him about it. This purest soul had always worked through Miriam, a more complete version of her own from some highest structure within this universe, a power of grace and light.
Illith was The Goddess, and it had chosen Arthur Katrinus to lead his people to salvation.
Before he’d a moment to adjust himself, just beginning to feel into the control he might have within the powers of this beast to wield his own, it took off at speeds he’d have never imagined possible for a manned craft.
The rate of acceleration itself felt as if it had taken Arthur’s stomach to the back of his abdomen, and it probably had. Yet something kicked-in just after, a field of energy surrounding him which relived all the pressure bearing upon and through his body, allowing him to feel as if he were resting entirely still.
He’d known he had time to digest, even if it seemed so little, there would be enough before the fight to come for him to find his bearings.
Its afterburners engaged, utilizing this newfound auric field to protect the beautiful man within its protection, opening itself most fully to him, so that sense of velocity he’d have means to interpret by Illith’s own could be experienced entirely. In fact, he might just have come his pants-off right then.
As they’d burned towards Grammaton on full, he could feel the weight of mistakes releasing from his body, knowing all would be well in time, that this was a part of some plan from on high, and this learning through war would be that reconciliation of spirit in which Miriam’s writings so spoke.
This evil present in Yemi would die at their hands, by the force of what they might accomplish together, one way or another, and the universe would be better for it.
His vision of timelines from which to choose had returned while releasing himself into this expansiveness available through Illith, and he’d found one in particular most pleasing, almost gleaming within his awareness. It was a path which he saw both the end to this most dreadful calamity facing down Grammaton, a new world reborn for its forsaken people, and one in which he might stand beside Miriam again.
He’d known she was lying the whole time about making it through with such assurance, her writing had always implying that something might happen in the future, and how if it did, there would be great importance to that. How it would change things.
Still, he could see a path, one where he might save her from that fate, while still accomplishing the goal both their souls had been sent here to make, and he was going to take it.
Miriam found her own bearing, one imagined for coaxing those three devil-ships from their slumber, currently orbiting that second sun of Yemi which Grammaton had become. She put on her favorite song, one which resonated within her heart most fully that very first time she’d heard it, to tears, in fact, and brought her home to her heart despite and sadness of it.
Volume on blast, letting go into the flowing of her breath, allowing herself to feel the waves which now came from the universe around, pouring in from the many experiences of herself and her visages which she could perceive through all of time, collecting such insights which would be hard to contain within the mind, creating a channel that any Scribe of The Justiceers would be proud to call their own, she’d found it at very last; peace, inside herself, needing no other. Even Arthur himself wouldn’t be needed for her to hold this feeling of found rightness through her insatiable trust in heart and spirit.
Miriam was the nearest thing to a pure embodiment of The Goddess which any human form could achieve while still holding onto a sense of individuality, and what she had left was pretty great.
Knowing this time ahead would be a challenge of her might, to face-down and topple a monster such as the one now holding control of this planet, realizing her own part to play much larger than ever imagined.
Miriam was fucking stoked.
