What I really wanted was to fly around in the Stark Industries' Mk. VII Iron Man Suit.

BioWare is responsible for yet another franchise: Anthem.

The Clinic, Fort Tarsis, Northern Bastion, Mirrus, Summerset 24, 466 LV

"Good morning, Imperial Citizens of the Bastion Empire. This is Sarah Schashner with Tarsis News Today, connecting one and all throughout the Empire.

"Reports are coming in about the epic disaster that was Operation: Stormbreaker, where dozens and dozens of Lancers were brought in to strike out at the Heart of Rage; a cataclysm that was created by the Dominion during the fall of Freemark eight years prior. It has become the largest known cataclysm to date, and seventy Lancer pilots as well as a hundred associated support personnel were joined together to silence the Heart of Rage that has, in recent months, been spitting out titans on nearly a daily basis while turning more and more of the countryside into a twisted ash wasteland, reshaping everything within its wake. Arcanist predictions indicate that its growth could lead to major disruptions to travel and trade in the next couple of years, as well as the heavy influx of creatures either coming out of the cataclysm, or altered by it.

"The last members of the Legion of Dawn made the call, and many responded, being led by the last five members of that Order. Nearly a month of work, logistics, preparations, and training were conducted as Striders and supplies were sent in support of Operation: Stormbreaker. Cyphers, Arcanists, Strider pilots, members of the Order of Corvus and members of the Sentinel Order were included amongst the numbers that were used in the operation, Legionnaire Paulo Valencia, the Grandmaster of the Legion saying, 'we're going to utilize as much and as many as possible to ensure the best possible chance of success'. Unfortunately, yesterday's operation was met with disaster as Striders failed to met the target location where personnel from Antium and Heliost were to meet due to the effects of the Heart of Rage, suffering damages and losses several kilometers apart from their planned meeting point. The Titanslayer ordered for the included Lancers to launch when the meeting proved to be unsuccessful, turning what was suppose to be one concentrated effort to lance deep into the Heart of Rage into several smaller pushes in which Lancer forces were quickly overwhelmed by numbers that superseded previous estimations.

"What was a planned method of attack turned into a bloody disaster, sources say.

"What little we know is that of the seventy-one Lancer pilots that went into the Heart of Rage, only six are known to have come back. This disaster is also marked with the total loss of five Striders, two dozen Cyphers glitched by the Song of the Anthem, and injuries throughout those who supported the Lancers. Our Imperial Majesty, Emperor Valus Dell, has expressed his extreme displeasure at the results, saying that 'the whole affair had smacked of a glory hunt from the very start'. Operation: Stormbreaker had originally enjoyed His Imperial Majesty's support and approval, even to the very day of the launch three days prior. The Emperor is now calling for the end of the Path of Glory, with so few Lancers left throughout the Empire.

"We have been getting reports this morning of Sentinels moving in to seize Guild Forges in both Antium and Heliost in the Name of the Emperor, to use in the increased need of Sentinel maintenance and upkeep now that our defenders of the wilds have taken such a grievous blow. Sentinel Grandmaster Harbus Vaughn was quoted to saying that 'Lancers lacked the discipline and means to make an effective effort', perhaps forgetting how many times Lancers had done just that. There have been calls amongst the populous concerning how, apparently, the Sentinels who had joined the operation had never left the Striders in the Lancers' time of need, ignoring calls for reinforcements or removal from the field due to suit malfunction or injury. Of the two dozen of the Path of Valor that had went, not one had hit the field; half of the number that had been planned to have showing up, and none of them heading out as had been expected. When asked about this during this mornings' public conference about the events that transpired, the Grandmaster replied that the Sentinels were ill-equipped with dealing with such threats, and the plan would have made them cannon fodder. A strange thing to say, since in his next statement, Grandmaster Vaughn replied that the Sentinel Order would handle any and all threats against Imperial citizenry as they arise. Considering that one of them is, in fact, the Heart of Rage, growing daily, one must wonder if the Sentinels plan to use Guild Forges, schematics, and supplies to alter their Javelins to face such threats.

"Questions and accusations of theft from the Guilds and Lancers who had bravely lost their lives attempting to stop the enormous cataclysm were met with stony silence, and there was no acknowledgment of their contributions or bravery as Sentinels and support staff stripped Guild holdings bare of their belongings, their owners perished fighting the greatest threat recorded while those who swore to defend us from the very same threats never left their walls take relevant supplies, components, machinery, and equipment while tossing personal mementos and keepsakes upon the ground to be trampled on. The long-simmering feud between Sentinel and Lancer was finally settled today as members of the Path of Valor robbed from the dead without compunction, calling their Path of Glory brethren 'reckless, undisciplined, and unreliable'. Perhaps they should be reminded that the Lancers gave their lives to stop a threat that threatens us all while the Sentinels on the operation never left the Striders like they were suppose to, not one of them lost or injured while Lancers fought nearly to the very last. Perhaps this was made even worse when Sentinels aboard the very same Striders called for a retreat halfway during the operation, turning those Striders around and heading back to their respective ports while Lancers fought, outnumbered five hundred-to-one by most accounts.

"Reports indicate that, with the heavy losses of Lancers, the legendary Legion of Dawn suffered a near total loss having made it to the epicenter of the Heart of Rage with a dozen other stalwart Lancers, striking into the very heart of the cataclysm that was their objective. While reports and observations from the surviving members aboard the Striders are conflicted, most agree that despite the failure to silence the Heart of Rage, six Lancers were seen having left the maelstrom, generally under heavy attack and greatly injured. Of those six, only four managed to make it on board Striders that were already in retreat to find Lancer pilots and Javelin suits heavily injured. One Strider pilot has confirmed that he saw what appeared to be a singular Legionnaire suit taking flight from the cataclysm, though various Cyphers and mission specialists have confirm the loss of five members of the Legion. Grandmaster Vaughn reiterated this morning after being question of the Guild seizures that allfive members of the Legion of Dawn had been killed in battle, and insisted upon this fact despite several pieces of evidence that, two week prior to Operation: Stormbreaker, the Legion had inducted a sixth member whose name can be found on a list of personnel upon the muster. While communications with the various Lancers during the operation was chaotic and sporadic due to cataclysm and battle, it was confirmed that both the Farslayer and the Titanslayer lost their lives near the very end, perhaps the last casualties of the operation. It has been also heavily suggested that the Soulcleaver, the Wrath of Light, and the Foehammer had also fallen amongst their brothers and sister, fighting against vastly superior odds while at the very heart of the storm that only eighteen had made it to.

"Citizens, I am here to report that not all of the Legion are dead.

"Near evening two days ago, a grievously damaged Javelin came to Fort Tarsis, crashing into the Plaza instead of landing, both suit and pilot near death. There were dozens of eyewitnesses that saw the same thing and share the same tale; the suit bore the marks of the Legion of Dawn, and was piloted by a young woman who was not Legionnaire Sarah Corbin. Combining eyewitness testimony and muster lists of the operation, the conclusion is that the identity of the woman is Legionnaire Yanya Valencia, the adopted daughter of the Titanslayer, Grandmaster Legionnaire Paulo Valencia. A recent honor graduate of Flight School, Legionnaire Yanya Valencia is known to be a survivor of the destruction of Freemark and rescued at some point in time by the Titanslayer before then, her parents dead during a deadly Scars attack that brought down a transportation Strider that left young Yanya not only an orphan, but surviving the wilds on her own for most of a year with no weapons, training, skills, or relief. This comes contradictory to what the Sentinel Grandmaster claims of all of the Legion having perished, using the number five instead of six, despite the fact that there are a few editorials from affiliates in Antium that reported the induction of one Yanya Valencia, coupled with image capture of the Legion of Dawn at her side, her own father bestowing upon her the symbol of the rising golden sun. With the seizures of Guild Forges commencing in Antium and Heliost, we have to wonder if the same is being done with the Legions' own legendary Starforge, as well as the many priceless artifacts and discoveries that have put the Legion above and beyond even their normal Lancer kin with their wealth of schematics, blueprints, advanced machinery, rare ingredients and components.

"This is Sarah Schashner, with Tarsis News Today."

Legionnaire Yanya Valencia slowly returned to the land of the living to a body wracked with pain.

The nineteen-year old woman gasped as she tried to sit up at first and felt everything scream in protest at her; her spine, her arms, her legs… everything. She lowered herself back down to relieve herself of the hot radiating pain that had her whole body quaking as she bit her lip to keep from crying out. She laid there for a moment, eyes open but not taking anything in as pain dulled her senses and occupied her thoughts until the severity of it faded down to a dull roar and she could at least function mentally well enough. She found herself looking at the timber crossbraces and wooden slats of a roof above where she laid, not recognizing it immediately. A slow look around the small room had her realizing that she was likely in a physicians' ward, seeing a few pieces of equipment normally associated with bonesetting and healing. Her eyes went to one side to find hat she wasn't alone in the room; there was a young man asleep on a chair at the side of the bed she occupied.

"Owen…" The young woman mumbled, her heart faltering at the sight. Gods Above, Owen… it took her long moments for her injury-occupied and pain-fogged mind to make the connection onto how the young man she called brother happened to be here… wherever here was. She had to be at Fort Tarsis, the nearest location she could reach in the shortest possible amount of time when… when…

Gods… they're all dead.

Her tears woke up her friend and brother.

"Hey, Yanni," Owen Corley woke up to see her weeping, the grief and pain winning out as she cried, the young man leaning forward to take one of her hands into both of his own, his eyes looking at her with concern as she laid there. "I'm here, sister. I'm here for you."

"T-they're all dead, Owen." Yanya gasped out of of numbed lips, her left cheek burning something fierce as she cried, just one of a number of soul-stabbing pains she felt in her body. But none of them, no matter how fierce, drowned the pain in her heart. "I-I saw them fall, I saw each and one of them die…" Memory came back of the chaos and battle that was at the heart of a cataclysm, where reality was a fluid as a raging river, much like the air and earth around it. She had fought at the Legions' side; her father, her family, the people she looked up to and believed in. Tears in the fabric of the world had dumps hundreds of strange, unsettling creatures that were mockeries of life and creation, some resembling the beasts of the wild, others too strange for the human mind to comprehend. Yanya had been in the thick of it, fighting alongside her father while the Heart of Rage churned and broiled everything within a couple of kilometers of it, reaching the calamity a near-death experience even before one dealt with the pliability of the earth, the near-water thickness of the air, the constant lightning strikes that turned into explosive detonations cascading paces about, the time shifts, the displacement, the sight of unreal colors that horrified the mind and threatened to void the stomach and bowels… Gods, she had been there. The memories of it were horrifying, her mind twisting to suppress some of the worse of it, when the ground seemed to change its mind about being solid or liquid, when the very air had turned to fire and then to glass, when she had seen a mountain turn itself inside out before sprouting… nonono, don't remember, Yanya pleaded, the hot wetness of tears staining her cheeks as she fought off her panic and fear; one of her first lessons in Flight School. The horrors she had seen, the sight of desperate Lancers flying and fighting the impossible only to be crushed, impaled, melted, or shattered… She was pretty sure a couple others had gotten out, but the young woman wasn't sure. The battle had been beyond chaos.

She knew for a fact that her family was dead though; every single one of them.

"Not everyone is dead, Yanya." The Cypher reminded her, still holding her hand. "You made it out. News said a few others did, too. That's something. A bad blow, yes, but Lancers have always come back after tough fights. Heal, meal, repair, prepare, train, and regain." That had the pilot snort; that had been a bit of a nursery rhyme taught to cadets at Flight School about missions. Yes, Lancers had taken a bad blow, but the only way to recover was to get back on their feet and get back to it, to show people they were still around. Seeing Lancers in the sky would inspire people, bring in a few that wished to try, to teach new pilots to help replace the losses. It might be a while before their numbers were truly impressive, but they had to start somewhere.

And starting required getting out of bed, at the very least.

"Did the healer say how bad…?" Yanya looked down at her sheet-covered body, still feeling the moderate-to-severe aches and pains that assailed her in gentle waves.

"It's… not good." Owen allowed, his face sour for having to admit as much. "You have all your limbs, and he thinks nothing is crippled. But it might be a month or more before you're healed enough to even begin training, and probably a week or so before you can even properly get out of bed." That wasn't great news.

"My suit?"

Owen was quiet, didn't even look at her.

"Owen… my suit."

"I… talked to a engineer, Zoe." The Cypher finally said, his blue eyes going to her dark ones. "It's damaged badly, and she doesn't know how to start fixing it without the use of the Starforge in Antium. She lacks… everything, and she is quite good at what she does, but…"

She didn't need to be told the rest. Yanya already knew. Javelin of Dawn suits were crafted by master engineers in the Starforge using expertly made schematics, high-grade components, expensive materials, rare and exotic relics, a foundry capably of melting cadium and turning it into a sophisticated alloy that made up the armor of the Javelin of Dawns. That point there was at least a full quarter of what made a Legionnaire's suit so advanced, able to bounce and deflect most high-energy impacts and even mid-grade explosives. The shielding, the armor, the wiring schematics, the power cores, the blueprints to turn a Shaper relic into something so fine-tuned as to be not only beneficial, but in complete control of the pilot to their needs, the flight thrusters and stabilizers… a Javelin of Dawn suit was centuries of painstakingly-learned trail and error to craft a suit that was well beyond anything else ever fielded, tailored to its pilot. Sentinel Javelin suits were generally simple Ranger-Class Javelin suits that had jump capabilities and afforded decent protection, perhaps an extra system to help defend its pilot and defeat their foes. A common Lancer Javelin suit was that plus flight capabilities, perhaps a few extra benefits such as targeting systems, a Shaper relic tuned to craft munitions or explosives, extra Shaper energies bleeding off to invoke the elements.

A Javelin of Dawn suit was created to take on armies.

And hers was broken, possibly beyond repair.

"But… I did something. Good, I hope." Owen said quickly as the young woman tried not to think of how her life's' dream was irrevocably shattered. "I went to the Fort's Forge and found spare suits that no one is using anymore, eight of them. Yes, they're in various states of functionality with some damage, but I figured we've got the frames and parts to make something a little more special than the average Javelin suit. I don't know what's needed or how to do it… but you've seen some of the workings of the Starforge, Yanni." The pilot looked to her brother. "You've spent years with the Legion, listening to them talk, their ideas and the little things that even a Lancer doesn't know. Most people are probably under the impression that you just slap some discovered relic or Shaper fragment into your suit and that's that. I know for a fact that each are integrated into the suits' systems for whatever they were designed to be, the electrical systems and the targeting systems used to put it on-line and force it to do whatever it is that you need it to do. You might not have the expertise, but you have some of the knowledge. With that, we… could make a suit that is above and beyond for the time being. Might not be a real Javelin of Dawn, but perhaps we can make something close."

Yanya looked to Owen Corley for a long moment, her mind working it out.

"So, no Antium is what you're saying." The Cypher looked downcast at that. "No Starforge, no trip to the capital, just the two of us in Fort Tarsis?"

"Well… it is a start." The young man allowed, and the look in his eye, one of hope and promise, it came through.

It was enough, for now.

"We're going to need some parchment, a grease pencil, and an account of what we have and what we can afford." Yanya Valencia stated, wincing as she sat up slightly in her bed. "If I'm going to be bedridden for a week, at the very least I can do something to occupy my time; design a suit from the ground up. I need an inventory of those suits, their components, their systems, and their damages. Then I need one of my suit as well." That had the young man nodding. "How much money did those suits cost?"

"You could tell?" Owen looked sheepishly, her brothers' face guilty. "Forty-eight hundred coin. Plus I've been picking up the normal daily jobs being a Cypher, so we have some income to work with, if not much more than normal daily wages. I have no idea how much anything costs pertaining to Javelin suits, but if you give me ideas on what to look for and what to expect in price, then we can start there. We'll just have to, y'know, not eat for the next month or two until we get you flying again."

"Swell." The young woman replied, a sharp pain in her body reminding her of her own personal status. "And Owen?

"Thank you, brother."

"Well, you're going to need a really good Cypher if you want to get back on your feet and put on a Javelin's boots." The Cypher smiled as he stood up, looking at her. "I'll bring in the normal jobs while keeping an eye and an ear out for possible contracts or supporters, pull in some experience while you," Owen leveled an eye at her, "you work on getting better by taking it easy." The emphasis was impossible to ignore. "You can push yourself as hard as you want in training, but for now, do everything that will heal you faster, which means being lazy."

"I'm not even sure what that last word was. Never heard of it before." Yanya smiled, remembering something that he once said to her when they were kids.

"Oh, it's this little thing that normal boring people do." Owen replied with a flip of his hand, returning her line back to her. "Lazy equals mediocrity."

"And we're not mediocre." The young woman answered, closing her eyes, remembering that day some nine years prior, coming back to her as fresh as if it had just happened. So much had been lost, but not everything. Yanya was still alive, she had Owen, and a plan to make a suit; either repairing her Javelin of Dawn with substandard parts or modifying a Javelin into something better than average. It wasn't the greatest of starts, but it was a start. Enough to get her focused, to get her working. She had grief and pain within her, but she would work on those.

But for now?

She would bring back the Legion of Dawn, starting with herself.

Yanya Valencia was hard at work late into the night as she worked under the glow of a glimmer lantern, the light turned low enough only to cast a pall about her room so that she could work on her parchment and journal while Owen slept on a nearby cot, having done a full-days' work for Fort Tarsis as a common Cypher connection. She didn't need to be told how much Owen hated being ordinary at anything, years of being a forgotten orphan as much a catalyst to wanting to be more as the memories of living on the streets and starving were.

She remembered the first day she met him, the spindly little child that had taken her coinbag and ran off with it, chasing the scamp down like a Lancer on a wyvren. She had finally caught up to him after the Gods knew how long, seeing a heavily-winded boy whose clothes were rags and his ribs painfully pronounced, practically a skeleton wearing skin. It had broken her heart, Yanya seeing a boy in which the largest part of him was his head and those too-hungry blue eyes. She remembered her own days of hunger, gratefully ended when her father Paulo had rescued her from a life of the wilds, a Legionnaire pulling a child right out of Hell in his armored arms like an angel of the Shapers. Yanya had been a survivor of a Scars attack when the transportation Strider she had been on had been attacked, the four-legged all-terrain walker brought low when the mutations crippled its legs to get at the people inside the cargo area. Her brother, mother and father had been captured and killed during the attack, along with everyone else. The little girl had avoided that fate by being small; she had stuffed herself in wreckage to avoid being spotted by the monstrosities that were the Scars, sneaking off into the wilds of the Green Depths near Freemark to avoid being killed. She had spent almost an entire year fending for herself in the wilds outside the walls of any settlement or village of Humanity, building herself a tiny little tree fort and arming herself with rocks and sticks. For an entire year, Yanya had survived in the wilds with child-like ingenuity, plucking wild fruits and vegetables, hunting smaller animals with a wooden stick and traps. She remembered well those days, and seeing a boy her age in the same situation broke her heart.

Yanya had taken that boy to the market to buy him food. And clothes. Somewhere along there, she had found herself someone she could open up to.

She looked at Owen's sleeping form, remembering those early days when she would look for her friend, almost feral and so distrusting but so desperate for someone to take him in, a broken heart wanting to mend. When he had fallen off a roof trying to escape her, Yanya had taken his hand and hauled him up, saving his life. The chase had been an exhilarating one, but the sight of whom she had been chasing had been so painful. Instead of punishing him or turning him in, Yanya had given to him what he had been desperate to steal; food. He had gotten something else as well, someone who would look out for him, someone who saw him, someone who cared. Every day she sought him out, taking him along, getting into mischief and adventures while seeing to the boy who was only a few months younger than she. In his eyes, Yanya saw the brother she had lost, the one taken by the Scars. She had lost him without ever having a chance to stop it. She had lost him before she ever had a chance to say goodbye.

She had a chance with Owen. And she took it.

That boy was now a young man, asleep on a cot after a grueling day sitting in an Amplification Chair, passing along messages and whatnot, the normal work of a Cypher. Thanks to the dangers of the wilds in between cities and settlements, travel was a precarious thing, and sending physical messages was just as dangerous as sending ones' self. Cyphers and their telepathic abilities connected the Empire together, a part of the system that kept people connected, from Emperor to custodian. Without Cyphers, cities and settlements would be on their own, people would be on their own, dangers unknown lurking towards them with everyone none-the-wiser. Owen Corley was part of that first line of defense that helped keep people safe, looking out for them by attuning himself to their broken, changing world and looking for the threats that could hurt their people.

She knew without him telling her that he wanted to be more than just a normal Cypher. That he wanted to be her Cypher.

"Did I ever tell you about my first hunt?" Yanya whispered to her brothers' sleeping form, seeing him in the gloom of night as she worked, rotating her one good hand and wincing from the cramp of writing she had gotten done. "A nest of grabbits had decided to burrow at the base of the tree I was living in, and I was hungry. All I had was a sharpened stick for hunting, and I used it more to spear fruits dangling from the trees than I did endangering animals, and I was pretty terrible at it at first." The memories of those first harrowing days on her own came back, days filled with grief and hunger, of living in the outside world where a thousand dangers existed. "Got smart and got a bag filled with rocks to cover up the entrance to where only a small space existed where a grabbit would have to struggle to escape, and I would be there to spear it. I… I cried at my first kill." Grabbits were cute furry creatures that squeaked and knew how to find food and how to avoid dangers. Young Yanya learned the lesson of the grabbit and always kept them in her eyes to warn her of threats before they arrived, followed their tracks towards food. When she had killed her first one, thoughts of how the burrow had been the grabbits' family had infused her thoughts and she felt like a murderer. She had been so desperate and hungry, and she had practically killed the daddy grabbit or mommy grabbit right in front of its family. Yanya had done her best to cut the skin off the grabbit and cook the meat, a messy affair she had no knowledge or training in, doing the best she could. The skin and fur had been used to make a part of a blanket to help ward off the chill of the night, and the meat to feed her. The bones she buried at the base of her tree, the grave dug amiss tears as the young child sang a song for the dead for the grabbit. She had hunted hundreds in her time in the wilds, but she never forgot that one.

"I'm proud of you, Owen." The nineteen year old woman said to her 'little' brother, seeing him sleeping peacefully; a rare look on the face of a Cypher. Yanya knew that hours spent on an amplification chair would give a Cypher bad headaches with all that information being soaked in, their wondrous minds absorbing it all. She wished that he could be a pilot, taking to the skies like a Lancer, but Cyphers in suits were a terrible danger to themselves and others. She had never seen it herself, but Yanya heard stories as a child, and there was always a fresh one when some Cypher got it in their head that they would be different. The most recent story had been of a Cypher that had taken off, lost control, and practically plowed into twenty or so people, killing them all while trapped in the strange beauty of their own mind, unable to mentally control the suit. It was a sad thing. "You get your rest, little brother. We've got plenty of work to do in the days ahead, and we're going to need each other."

Smiling, Yanya went back to her work, where she had the basic outlines of a Ranger-Class Javelin Suit with several notations about its armor, weapons systems, targeting systems, Relic-enhanced power core, and harnessed Shaper energies.

Above it, it had simply been entitled The Excalibur.

Author's Note: This chapter is more to give you a little bit of a world view of what is happening politically in Bastion. Yes, the Legion of Dawn's Forge is known as 'the Starforge', which I ripped out of another BioWare Game; Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic. Actually… the Star Forge and the Anthem of Creation weren't too different, were they?

Sarah Schashner (the broadcaster) is actually the composer responsible for Anthem's soundtrack.

A few have asked if Yanya Valencia is the Freelancer (you in the game). No, no she is not. You will be meeting Freelancer/Sarah Elmaleh later.

Freelancer (both Sarah Elmaleh and Ray Chase, the respective voice actors for the female and male voices of the Freelancer) will be in this story, and the female Freelancer will be the 'Freelancer' who was with Haluk, Adair, and Miller in the Heart of Rage with the Grey Warden Guild (mentioned in the first chapter). I've already worked on her, and there will be plot and canon divergence pertaining to her, though I think you'll like what I have in mind.

Yes, this might blow a certain action done in the Fortress of Dawn out of possibility.