Off-duty With Gest
The Black Riders: United We Stand[hr][/hr]FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT | Sergeant Tyegëa“Damn you TBR! Even in death you weigh us down!” ― Gest
As per the words of the Field Marshal himself, the occupation of The Black Riders is still ongoing. As Ever-Wandering Souls from The Black Hawks, in the guise of Harenhime, and Knot from DEN, in the guise of Omusubi Kororin, vied for endorsements from both allies and their own, neither wanted to be the one watching for liberation attempts. With the occupation of Japan ending, occupiers poured back into The Black Riders, once again reinforcing Harenhime and NSA.
Ever since the seemingly-native delegate, Harenhime, unmasked himself at last as Ever-Wandering Souls at the advent of this year’s RaiderCon, rising stars such as Funen, Sanctum and Auralia have reinforced the Black Riders alongside pre-Influence era veterans such as The Land of Kings and Emperors, Lone Wolves United and The Black Hawks in a remarkable display of Raider Unity.
Disciplined unity in complete contrast to the roughshod and uncoordinated “unity” (if it could be called that) displayed by the initial hodgepodge native and fenda pilers who took The Black Riders, fuelled by years of pent-up rage, angst, hatred and fear: fleeting emotions fated to last long after The Black Riders are long-gone, but fated also to be scattered as soon as they start to wane, as ashes in the fierce winds of Raider Unity, and muddied in the age-old waters of discipline.
As the occupation now draws to a close, with Ever-Wandering Souls as Harenhime making the final preparations to turn the fallen region into a memorial of the past glory of The Black Riders, we know that this is the end. When one door closes, another door opens:
Raiding. Alacrity. Ingenuity. Discipline. Exemplar. Refinement. Unity. Neverending. Inevitable. Timeless. Years.
[/center]Off-duty with Gest: Exclusive Interview[hr][/hr]INTERVIEW | Sergeant Tyegëa (with Field Marshal Gest)
After a hard day of leading raids against native settlements, even a Field Marshal needs to go off-duty sometimes. I sat down today to interview the mastermind behind DEN. Here is a transcription of what he had to say:
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CoupWatch 2015: The West Pacific[hr][/hr]SPECIAL REPORT | Sergeant Tyegëa
Following in the footsteps of Empire and living a coup that Durk could only dream of, DEN, with Brigadier-General Knot taking the lead, pulled off a coup on The West Pacific, a region whose population once numbered over 5000, until Knot was entrusted as the delegate. He revealed his true colours with the passage of the Minor update on the 21st of September, and marked The West Pacific as DEN’s, causing widespread public outcry and horror at what unfolded before their eyes, while they could do nothing but watch.
Naysayers far and wide scoffed that Knot would not even be able to hold The West Pacific to the Major update, but they were proven wrong. With the aid of Sergeants Tyegëa and North Pacific Spy and Field Marshal Gest – who kept close watch on liberators as they came pouring in to aid the natives – as well as our very own comrades-in-arms – who helped reinforce Knot as delegate – we held them all at bay, quashed the resistance and even expelled the erstwhile emergency delegate, Elegarth. A Pyrrhic victory, but a victory nonetheless in the eyes of many, however fleeting it may seem, but enough to rouse Dalimbar of Empire from his retirement, as he was spotted aiding the natives of The West Pacific.
Morning’s End: The End of a Fictional Narrative[hr][/hr]by Sergeant Tyegëa
Never did we realise that natives were capable of such retribution, not even when they first took The Black Riders. With necromancy in the equation now, it was too dangerous to stay behind in Japan: we had to leave post-haste...
Japan was in chaos. Otaku had returned as a vengeful guardian spirit, and even consulting the high priest of Raideron had revealed no trace of how she managed to return, only that she had indeed returned and sought our blood. I need not seek to describe the confusion, for you will remember old romances that tell of maidens disappearing in the night, and of how it was the next morning, with foolish young men who escorted them home upon request, never to be seen again.
His first messenger having failed to return, Knot sent a second. “I left Japan while the natives were still mourning”, he said.
Knot’s wife and the other soldiers made no sense. They had no notion what might have happened or might happen, and they moved in utter confusion from one possibility to the next. 94 Block and North Pacific Spy, two soldiers among us who had known of the crisis, had heard rumours from the natives of Otaku’s growing moodiness in months past, and feared she might have returned vengeful. Fearing the worst, 94 Block opened a letter Otaku had intended to leave to the natives of Japan, but which he had intercepted:
“My worries have left me quite unable to sleep, and so I suppose I shall not see you tonight even in my dreams. Nightmares, rather; nightmares dominate my life and have driven me mad. I see, in my mind’s eye, raiders, marching under a banner so ancient, but with names and faces as young as the morning’s glory, who seek to burn Japan to the ground. Though I am young, I grow frail now with a mysterious ailment, and I cannot protect you in life as I once could. There is only one option: I must protect you in undeath. Do not mourn me.
Goodnight, sweet soldiers...”
Knot looked over 94 Block’s shoulder to read the undead girl’s note to the natives, and was rendered speechless, his brow creased with worry and panic. It had happened. There could be no other explanation for an impending bloodbath. But why had she not given the natives even a hint of it all? She had been their protector since she was a little girl. Otaku, in life, had not been separated from them for a moment, had not kept the tiniest mote of a secret from them, or so it seemed. Why, at the most important time of all, had she given no indication of what was coming? It was too much.
We had known, from listening to the natives wailing, that Otaku was despondent, but neither they nor us had thought her capable of such extraordinary, such frightening power. But how, exactly, and in which form, would the divine retribution come?
As a crimson haze slowly crept upon the mid-morning sky, Knot, raising his bloodied sword and gathering our forces, but first his wife, shouted his orders: “RETREAT!” He continued to give his orders, making sure everyone had heard his orders, and that they were followed without question. Those who resisted he personally ventured back to and dragged them off the tagfields in the general direction of Japan’s borders, sword in hand, though most heeded his orders.
As the last of our forces and those of our allies approached the border where Knot was shouting orders, his wife refused to leave him. No matter how much he pleaded with her, she would not leave his side. “What these otherworldly forces are capable of we cannot even begin to fathom! At least in death we will be reunited, but in undeath, there is no rest or reunion with the departed!” he muttered, desperate, and his eyes brimming with tears, as she continued to shake her head, clinging to him. “Grey... Please!” he pleaded one last time.
Stunned and hesitant, but slowly taking in his words, Grey slowly accepted Knot’s embrace one last time before she retreated with the rest of our forces, with our allies’ forces following close behind.
As the skies turned blood-red, almost black, Knot realised that those who had not yet retreated were all but gone to Otaku’s vengeance, and only then did he finally follow his own orders and retreat, barely managing to snatch his life from the jaws of death and from the very real doom and eternal torment of undeath.
Modified passage from The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu. Excerpt taken from near the beginning of Chapter 52: Kagerō (蜻蛉)
