Voltages stable. Infrastructure within nominal limits.
Compy...
COMPY: C--OMPY!!!
Lock on to Jutse. Engage auxiliary failsafes.
Jutse is currently marked "Ally."
Rescind classification?
Yes.
This action may kill the target.
Please confirm. Rescind classification?
Yes, confirm. Rescind Ally classification and lock on to Jutse.
Please confirm. Please confirm.
Jutse will be killed with near certainty. Please confirm.
I know you liked him, Compy.
Just do it. I'll explain later.
Classification of Jutse updated to "Enemy".
...
... Requesting promise of explanation when situation stabilizes.
I'll explain everything. I promise.
Cae stared at the indicator in front of him.
Every single system was completely green.
Every capacitor was charged. Every reactor was at maximum output.
Every gyroscope was up to speed. Every coolant pump was running.
The entire system was completely ready to be fired.
As he was agonizing over the decision of whether to fire or not,
His radio receiver crackled to life.
Cae! How long before you're ready to fire? We're mincemeat here!
Uh... 96%... Just fifty more seconds!
Cae switched off his microphone and stood up.
God damn it! Fuck! Fuck!
He pulled at his hair, pacing back and forth, breathing heavily.
Why'd you have to go and lose your mind, Jutse?
Why the hell did you have to go and do that?
Why the fuck did I just lie to Rimas?
I'm just... I'm just letting everyone down!
Cae.
Cae sighed and sat down.
What do you want? What?
You appear to be suffering a moral dilemma. Perhaps I can help.
Reminder of earlier conclusion reached during intoxicated state: Aim for X-halo of voidgripped entity.
Cae switched his mic back on and spoke into it.
Please note that the following dialogue exactly mirrors that audible in the above video.
If you are in a place where you cannot listen to the audio, or if you are hearing impaired, the following text conveys the same dialogue.
100%! It's charged! It's ready!
Grrr...! Do it before my arms are torn out of their sockets!
Cae disconnected the mic and spoke to Compy.
Compy...
C--OMPY!!!
Enter queue mode.
Mode changed.
First, adjust y-axis of aim positive 0.01 degrees.
Next, target focal diameter of 4 millimeters at target distance, to minimize damage to Jutse.
This being the culmination of months of work, Cae took a deep breath, pointed dramatically, and shouted.
Fire the god laser!!
His hair stood on end. This was the most excited he had felt in longer than he could remember.
He had waited so long for this.
Queued command.
He felt the tension and anticipation for the triumphant moment of firing the laser, his greatest engineering achievement, fall completely flat.
Processing...
Firing sequence initiated.
All tasks complete.
After all that, the moment came and went.
Cae sighed once more, pulling a hand over his face.
The roar of the laser's massive cooling pump engines coming to speed began to shake the room.
May god have mercy on us.
Compy buzzed unpleasantly.
Command unrecognized.
Cae realized his mistake and grunted. The moment was completely ruined now.
Argh! Exit queue mode.
(Mode changed.)
I said, may god have mercy on us!
Compy's own fear surrounding the firing of this laser became apparent through their now-freed voice.
May our souls find peace, Cae.
Far away, stretching across the desert, there are a massive array of cooling towers.
A gigantic nuclear power plant capable of generating 200 Gigawatts hides beneath the sand.
In a narrow band between the seemingly endless strip of cooling towers, laser rings are erected with lenses between them.
Between each laser ring is a giant lens, which adds each set of twelve beams to the primary beam.
There are over 13,000 such laser ring-lens pairs chained across the desert.
The instantaneous energy consumption of this laser is 31.2 Terawatts.
For scale, this is over half of the annual energy use of a large city.
These reactors have been storing energy for months.
Presently, that stored energy is being drained at maximum rate to fuel the laser.
Here, ten minutes prior to Cae's order to fire, a construction worker is welding an enclosure for some of the laser media in a single one of the 200MW gamma lasers.
The bright spark of the welding is barely a glimmer from this far away. His radio crackles to life, an urgent voice pipes in.
Radio: Keldus, keldus, are you still up there??
Keldus: Uh, yeah? Still got three hours left before quittin time. What's going on, Kexus?
Kexus: The big boss said we're firing the laser today! Main facility's closed, 'cept for Cae.
We're heading back to the breakroom to watch.
Keldus shook his head in disbelief.
Keldus: He's firing it?? But we're still building it!
Kexus: We're not at the business end of this thing, so no worries. Get down here. Quittin time came early.
Keldus descended the ladder, reaching the ground after a grueling five-minute climb.
But Keldus is not the focus of the story right now.
Back in the present, God's Laser Beam is about to fire.
I... Don't know how to feel right now.
Should I feel triumphant? Prideful?
Should I feel remorseful? Gah. I have no idea.
The laser streaks across the desert landscape, making glass of the sand it passes over.
Its light outshines the sun by orders of magnitude.
The air in its path does not merely heat up, it is reduced to quark-gluon plasma.
Outward from its beam a rising cloud of supercharged matter erupts, staining the horizon an artifcial purple.
Get behind something!
Ah, thank you for the warning, Cae my darling.
I think I will.
No, not you!
... Darling?
Cae... we're gonna talk after this.
Jutse's attempt to shield himself was insufficient.
Despite the fact that he, personally, assisted in the construction of this very laser weapon...
Even he could not truly fathom its devastating power.
As he fell, Jutse's void-given powers evaporated, and his color returned.
HIT!!
Cae, is that what I think it is?
Compy, shut down the laser! Immediately!
It is!! That's a black hole!
Cae, is this safe??
It's off. Scanning for vital signs...
Jutse has survived! Jutse is still living!
Oh, thank fuck.
And, yeah. It's safe. The black hole should evaporate in a few seconds now that the laser's off.
Oh, I'm sure you're real glad about Jutse surviving.
Well, Bryph, can you catch him?
Won't mean much that he survived the laser if he splats on impact.
Dang... Can't you do it?
If I touch that cheating backstabber, I might just kill him.
Two reasons I can't.
One, I can't run as fast as you.
Two, I'm completely burnt out after that beating he gave me with those guns.
Just go catch the stupid traitor cat so we can all go home.
Hah... Fine.
He's gonna hit the ground in twenty seconds. Get over there and catch him!
Okay. But if he gives me even a teensy bit of lip, I'm kicking his ass.
That's fine by me. Just don't kill him.
I do not trust that this is over.
I'm gonna keep trying to cast this spell until Jutse himself says he's done.
What are you even casting?
If we need it, it's best you don't know what it is.
