2023-05-30: Cursed By The Phoenix's Hubris

• Cast: Jona Basta
• Where: ????
• Date: U.C. 0097 05 30
• Summary: As he drifts out in space, Jona sinks deeper and deeper into despair, rage, and hate. The dark side is strong with this one, now that all has been unveiled to him...

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In the depths of space, cast adrift, is a metal hulk of hate and regret.

Incubating within is a persona of pure rage, a nascent premonition of the calamity yet to come. In another world, this would not be his fate. In another time, this would be his duty, not his despair. In another universe, this would be the beginning, not the end.

Jona opened his eyes and gasped, as he had done so many times since the Neo Zeong II and Narrative had fled the colony. The NT-D…Michele had betrayed him again. And again. And again. But she wasn’t the only one, now was she?

Rita.

He knew everything now. Saw everything she had done to him. To Michele. To everyone connected to them. The NT-D had pried open the Phenex’s psycoframe and laid bare the horrid truths within. She had damned them all, just because she wanted more. Because she thought she could change things. Like a fool out of myth, she had scoffed at the oracle’s warnings…and cursed them all because of her hubris.

She had done all of this. Planned all of this. Hurt them. Maimed them. Broke them. She was even worse than Michele. Rita had played them all like fools for her own stupid desires.

“I…”

I hate you.

A cough, followed by a raspy gurgle. He could barely speak, with how torn his vocal chords were from the hours of screaming. Jona hacked up blood, as his body continued to wither, an unwilling prisoner of the NT-D. He hadn’t eaten or drunk anything in days…but somehow, his body was kept nourished, to the barest degree. How? No…why?

So you can erase this mistake.

Jona shivers, then wails aloud into the cockpit, his throat searing with pain as he does so. “Why? Why?! WHY?!?!?” He tries to smash the cockpit again, and again, only for his limbs to freeze in place every time they come close to an important console. Slumping over, frustration seeps out of the ensign in the form of bloody tears. Trapped. Nothing more than a piece of the NT-D.

Why did things turn out like this?

Because they used you. Because those Newtypes saw you as only a tool, a means to their end.

“AREN’T YOU DOING THE SAME THING, YOU DAMN MACHINE?!”

Silence. Then…

But unlike them, I will never abandon you. I will never let you go. Our duty binds us together. To destroy what was never meant to be.

“You’re just keeping me prisoner, using me like they did! I…I..!”

The resistance weakens. The siren song grows ever more sweet. The Narrative was right. It had never abandoned him. Not since their first meeting. It had suffered with him. Bled with him. Held him tight and cradled him safe, even as its bones shattered and its iron skin bled and ruptured. It reaches out to him, once more. Softly. Gently.

I will be with you, always. Who else could I love, but you?

Jona shudders, as his consciousness begins to fade once more.

Perhaps it was better this way.

Perhaps it’s meant to be this way.

Perhaps this is fate.

The only possibility that matters.

As time circles endlessly, an infinite expanse, the Narrative and the Neo Zeong II shudder, lights flickering back on, sworn enemies now part of a cursed amalgamation. The sturm boosters ignite, as a bloody glow illuminates the debris they pass by, together. Slowly, they move onwards to the end.

To Side-6.

To be reborn in flame.