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| <blockquote>REPORT 17-ALPHA | | <blockquote>REPORT 17-ALPHA |
| :::- A VANGUARD: HELM COMPILATION</blockquote> | | :::- A VANGUARD: HELM REPORT COMPILATION |
| | :::- Compilation Authorized by '''Dark Watcher''' |
| | :::- Scientific Consultation by '''Steven Sheridan''', AKA 'Doctor Science'</blockquote> |
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| Makwa. ''Makwa.''
| | <blockquote>ABSTRACT</blockquote> |
| | | This report details information found at the ruins of a safe house managed by The Malta Group discovered in the ruins of Galaxy City. In particular, the following report describes one operative – a Gunslinger designated ‘Ursa Major 117’ – and their extensive genetic modifications. |
| Hear us speak in the winds, Speaker-of-Many-Names. One comes to you, to speak of the Unfinished Blade. He has questions. Hear us speak.
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| ''Pratorianskiye Lezviya!'' Hear us, Speaker-of-Many-Names, for our knowledge is great and terrible. He was born in the city of Saint Peter, astride the cold and deep waters, when the world was sane. We watched as he grew, a proud son of Praetorian Russia, strong and innocent. Yes, innocent… for a time, it was good.
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| With his dada and his mumma, they walked the broad avenues of the grand parks. See him! A quiet boy, with raven hair and eyes the color of slate. His mother’s eyes. He recited the park names as a mantra, to remember the serenity and shade they offered; the Summer Garden of Peter the Great, Moskovsky Victory Park, and the murals of Saint Isaac’s Square. Ah, the Square! See him, Speaker-of-Many-Names! Can you imagine our stoic, silent Blade as a laughing child, chasing birds through the square? Do you see him? Picture well that laughing, dancing boy with eyes of slate and hair of raven black.
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| For you will not see it again.
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| See! Hear! The screams began in the parks, on that fateful day. The slate-eyed child first learned betrayal as the places he loved became the death traps, and he would never enter again. See the thrashing of the trees as they rip themselves from their manicured prisons? The screams and the blood-soaked branches?
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| Hamidon! They cried in voices none could hear. Hamidon! Hamidon!
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| The once-stately trees of Saint Petersburg’s parks tore themselves free, and the bedrock itself rose to strike down the humans, to feed upon their fluids and water the parched ground. An almost ritual sacrifice to starving, ravenous gods. Then the great pine forests of Priozersk and Yuntolovsky, of Rzhevskij and Kovalovskiy poured themselves into the doomed city. Saint Isaac’s Cathedral was overthrown. The great Gates were torn down. The memorial headstones of Piskariovskoye were ripped free and desecrated.
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| Hamidon! Hamidon! Hamidon!
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| Speaker-of-Many-Names, did you know that Leningrad endured over 900 days of siege, once? Yet the once-proud defenders of Saint Petersburg were overrun in only weeks. Their machines were smashed by walking stone. Their barracks were crushed by grasping limbs. The city died, and so many died with it. Many were even… Devoured.
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| Into this chaos and death, the raven-haired boy was thrown. See him run, Speaker-of-Many-Names? See the tears on his cheeks, the blood of his parents spattered across his body? He saw, first hand, what Hamidon thought of the humans that infested Praetorian Earth. Right in front of him, for he was quick and fast, even then. His parents, were not.
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| The hours became days. Days became weeks. Weeks became months. Months became years. Can you imagine it? We stand Outside, but we watch. The great city was overturned, from the Nevsky Prospekt to the great Cathedrals to the Winter Palace. And the young ones ran from vanishing sanctuary to vanishing sanctuary.
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| Hamidon! Hamidon! Hamidon!
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| The incantation, the summoning, echoed in the little ones’ ears. Those who have ears, let them hear, as the saying goes. We have no ears, yet we hear. We hear the quiet sobs. We remember.
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| We. Alone.
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| The adults sought the little ones as impenetrable night fell across the ruined frescos of Saint Isaac’s Square. Hopes flickered and died like the lights as the rage of Praetorian Earth destroyed power lines and generators alike. At first, the adults lied to the little ones, saying that the Russian defenders would return, would rescue them and bear them away. Some believed. Some, like the raven-haired boy… did not. He knew better, even at the age of 6 years.
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| Do you feel the biting cold of the Russian winter, Speaker? There was no power, and no warmth – save the small fires of survivors huddled against the howling night and the monsters, unshackled from the spaces beneath beds, which lumbered, seemingly impervious to the cold.
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| What was it, exactly? Was it the freezing cold? Was it the destruction of their monuments and desecration of their final resting places? Was it the vast numbers of dead lying among the cobbles which summoned them? Even we do not know. But above the ruined stones of memorial sites like Piskariovskoye, lights appeared. Above the ravaged Kresty Prison, the flickering lights appeared.
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| Cold, white lights. Hamidon’s minions investigated, but plant and stone and crystal were no match for the bitter whispers, the dread and the hunger of the lights. They whispered of Leningrad, of political repression, of their hatred for any who dared invade these lands. The minions of Hamidon withdrew, but the Corpselights of Leningrad followed. Hungry. Filled with a hungry rage equal to the Praetorian Earth’s.
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| The adults saw the flickering lights, and perhaps some had some idea of the danger they represented. Ah, Speaker-of-Many-Names, we can hear the panicked arguments of the adults. Too many had no more hope to offer, to keep the freezing cold, Hamidon and now the angry, hungry dead at bay. And in the flickering, dying light of cell phones, the final horrific decisions were made.
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| Do you see the raven-haired boy with slate eyes, Speaker-of-Many-Names? See how thin he is now? He no longer laughs. He no longer chases birds. See him and the other little ones quietly cut down their erstwhile protectors from the overhead beams. The hanging ropes were thick and heavy, and difficult to cut. But the knives they had found worked on the ropes.
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| And on their dead protectors.
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| And the hungry dead, the Corpselights of Leningrad, must have taken notice, for they drifted down to visit the little ones who had, in the name of survival, broken one of the greatest taboos; a taboo that had been broken before. And they whispered in the ears of the little ones; words that were both new and old. Very old.
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| ''Trupoyedstvo'', whispered from mangled lips in dark corners of the shattered remains of Nevsky Prospekt. What do the little ones see? Little ones should never see such things.
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| ''Lyudoyedstvo'', whispered from shattered jaws as they drifted across the ruins of Saint Isaac’s Square. What do the little ones do? Little ones should never do such things.
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| Do you see him now, Speaker-of-Many-Names? His hunger is lessened, and he refuses to think on how and why that is. It just... is.
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| The Corpselights of Leningrad filled the eyes of too many little ones. Too many. His too. Yes, his eyes of slate glowed with the horrible legacy of Leningrad. They didn’t have words for what happened there; Trupoyedstvo and Lyudoyedstvo were old and foul words of knowledge; too old for children. They were too young. Too tired. Too afraid.
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| Too ''hungry''. And he still remembers, you know. In his dreams, sometimes. Textures, flavors, sensations, smells. Or when he dares open those doors. In his mind’s eye, those doors stare back with stolen eyes. And when he remembers? Your horror cannot match his own.
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| For two years, humanity left the remains of the city abandoned and desolate before the Praetorian Guard finally fought their way to the ruins of Saint Isaac’s Cathedral. Two years. Can you imagine it, Speaker?
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| He survived. And just what do you think the Praetorian Guard found in the ruins, eh? Thousands and thousands of little ones, who had regressed so far that they didn’t run in gangs so much as packs. And their reports back to the Emperor were full of such sanitized, clinical terms; Separation Anxiety Disorders. Feral Child Syndrome.
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| But where were the adults? The Praetorian Guard whispered what they suspected; after all, they had found the pits, and saw the memorials built by hands too young and small to make such things… but never put in reports. Such horrible, horrible things they discovered in the ruins, Speaker. ''Trupoyedstvo. Lyudoyedstvo.'' The little ones licked their lips. And smiled. Do you see him, Speaker? Oh, how he smiles when he sees the Imperial Guards! What does he see, we wonder. What is he thinking?
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| Whispers of the corpse-lights of Leningrad filled their ears. But there were also new old words, whispered by a precious few Guards who knew their histories before Imperial victors rewrote them; the Lithuanian ''Vokietukai''. Or the German ''Wolfskinder''. Or the Soviet ''Besprizornye''.
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| Children only in physical age. Only in stature. Their eyes spoke of knowledge far older, and fouler.
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| Feral. Monstrous.
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