Lottery Story 1- Recog's Picture

In all human interactions, there is a transaction of energy. Whatever emotion this transaction carries is up the people involved, yet one thing is constant: Share Energy.

The energy that powers the reigning ladies of my world is called Share Energy, and the sheer power of it is uncomparable. Even nuclear fusion wouldn’t hold a candle to the pure devotion of millions of citizens in the heat of the moment.

On this principle, dozens of goddesses had came and went, the most recent to depart, or at least that I thought had left us, was a unique case.

The believed late Lady Nepgear had ruled in an era where the other goddesses has become defunct for a reason or another and was soon the only one holding back the tides of chaos and evil. One by one, every nation had fallen but hers: Planeptune. It’s been centuries since that war, yet the massive relic of Planeptune City lives on. The city is impenetrable to anything but a sustained assault as robotic defence and maintenance forces will nigh instantly detect and eliminate any intruders. The shining exterior seems as if it was built yesterday, and indeed, many of the buildings still receive rebuilds to this day.

Anyways, for whatever, reason, the Lady was supposed to be the last Goddess to exist, ever. Her reign was to be eternal, yet she seemed to give up and allow another Goddess to be born. The new Lady was called the “Empress” and led her devout followers through the wastelands of the collapsed nations, purging with holy fire and great bloodshed, soon bringing peace and rebirth to vast regions of wartorn land. Planeptune had never capitalized on the destroyed nations which were so rightfully theirs, and we should’ve paid for it. Yet here I stand, on the DMZ of Planeptune City. The grass is maintained by our forces to help prevent sneak attacks and yet we found a peculiar feature: old game consoles from the war era in great piles. Some consoles looked as if they had been discarded recently, as if the robotic staff of the city cared not for our siege.

I stood overwatching the city, the gleaming white and glass spires, and wondered “Why?”. An archaic handheld flickered on as that thought dawned on the cloudy brain of mine in early morning.

A silhouette appeared over a generic background, yet nothing came of it. My intrigue was short lived; as soon as I retrieved the console the battery died.

Today was our great Crusade’s final machinations. As a battalion commander, I had no time to dawdle, either we conquered the final bastion or we lost our entire armed forces. The good Empress herself was on the field, even I found myself magnetized to her figure at times. Among the men there was awe and worship: the Empress that we swore by, charged into battle whilst crying the name of, was on the field, supporting our 2nd Army.

The sound of metal clashing rang out as the Good Lady switched to her CPU form from her Military dress. Armor and polymers clasped around her already heavily armored bodysuit as the tanks began to roll and the great batteries started to rumble. Continuous fire had proven to be useless as the entire city was guarded by a giant energy shield. Any damage that happened after we broke their shield was repaired by dawn. There were central dispatches for construction robots we had long pinpointed and were priority targets.

When one enters a city, they expect commotion, and in general, a deafening busyness; this was simply not the case in old Planeptune City. We seemed to walk right up to the gates of their great tower, which was visible over the horizon due to it’s 3.2 kilometer height. The sweeping buttresses ran like roots from the shining point of the structure to mountain sized bases on the ground level. Myself, the Good Lady and a few other commanding officers were accompanied by thousands of troops, swarming the thousand stories of the structure. Every man in the army was a rifleman, from General to footman, I was no exception. The holographic sights of my rifle found a closed door as I swept through one of the final levels of the tower. At this altitude, were it not for the sealed construction, the air surely would have been thin. A putrid stench invaded my nostrils, as if I’d found a mass plague grave. Though I knew that the air was plenty filling, I found myself unable to continue and even nearly hyperventilating, despite the horrors I’d seen in my past ventures. My gloved hand hovered over the door handle, rifle muzzle just off the surface.

As I breached, squadmates at my sides and off-front, I’d never dreamed of what we saw.

Four skeletons rested in chairs, all a different colored outfit. One was Green, with much slack in the chest region of her moth eaten dress. One was white, with a tremendous hat and a serious appearing brown and white great coat. Another was Black, with gothic features and a skirt length so scandalous my men dared not observe it. In the middle though-

In the center of the room, as if it was a throne room, a very alive girl kneeled in front of the skeleton of a girl who formerly wore a white and purple sweatshirt. The skeleton was adorned with flowers and makeup on the bare, bleached bones. Offerings of food and drink lay around the similarly flower covered throne. Despite the dozen rifles and near presence of my beloved Goddess, there was no comfort or leeway to be found in the situation.

“Look Onee-chan, we have visitors!” crooned the girl in a sickening voice. Her eyes were uncomparable and they imposed a weight that resides on my soul to this day. The madness of someone so lost in their own mind that they cannot tell reality from that which they’ve invented is sickening to a proper man. The Good Lady’s preachers would have scolded and whipped me a hundred times for my inability to relieve such suffering yet I couldn’t pull the trigger.

The sadness that screamed from the corners of her eyes was too much to bear. Red flowers split open and blossomed on her dirty white uniform, the young woman finally relieved of her greatest burden.

Goodbye Planeptune City, may we never meet again.