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#Post#: 20440--------------------------------------------------
RIFTS Earth Story: Act III – The Roar of Freedom
By: Raven Tepes Date: October 17, 2025, 5:07 pm
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“You can burn the forest, but the tiger still hunts.” – Old
Great Lakes proverb
---
The ruins of Fort Purity burned like a dying sun.
Columns of smoke twisted skyward, glowing blue where the flames
licked the ley energy seeping from the shattered reactor. The
explosion’s shockwave had flattened the nearby Coalition
outposts, sending ripples through the ley lines themselves — a
sound that echoed for miles like a drumbeat of rebellion.
For the first time in decades, the Great Lakes night sky was not
drowned by floodlights or drone patrols. It was alive with stars
— and fire.
Feling Tigress stood atop the broken battlements, the wind
tearing through her singed fur. Her claws were still glowing
faintly from the heat of battle, her armor scored and cr@cked,
but her stance was unshaken. Every muscle hummed with the
low-frequency vibration of victory.
Behind her, her team emerged from the smoke. Ryn leaned on her
staff, her eyes dim but smiling. Tarn carried a wounded rebel
over one shoulder. Dax, covered in soot and laughing wildly,
slapped his metal arm against a still-smoking wall.
“Best fireworks I’ve ever built,” he said. “Fort Purity’s
officially Fort Paste.”
“Don’t get cocky yet,” Tarn grunted. “Coalition
reinforcements’ll come sniffing soon. We’ve got maybe an hour
before the sky rains metal.”
Ryn nodded. “I can feel the psychic backlash. Chi-Town’s
watching. They’ll send a response.”
Feling turned to face them, her eyes gleaming green through the
smoke. “Then we make sure they see what we’ve done. We make sure
everyone sees.”
They descended to the fortress courtyard where the freed
prisoners gathered — hundreds of D-Bees, mutants, and escaped
slaves huddled in the wreckage. Many stared at Feling like she
was a spirit out of legend.
A small child, skin shimmering with crystalline light, tugged on
her tail. “Are you an angel?”
Feling crouched, her gaze softening. “No, little one. I’m just
someone who decided not to stay in a cage.”
The child smiled, revealing tiny fangs. “You sound like
thunder.”
Dax chuckled. “Kid, she is thunder.”
The crowd laughed — the first sound of joy that place had ever
heard.
Ryn raised her staff, projecting a psychic field to amplify her
voice. “To everyone here — Fort Purity is no more! The
Coalition’s grip weakens tonight. We are not their monsters. We
are free!”
The roar of celebration that followed shook the ruins again.
Feling stood amid it all, silent for a long moment, her gaze
scanning the distant horizon. Far beyond the burning fortress,
she could already see the faint glimmer of Coalition ships
approaching through the night clouds. She could hear their
engines — a bass rumble beneath the earth.
“They’ll come for us,” Tarn said quietly, standing beside her.
“With SAMAS, Dead Boys, maybe even a Death’s Head transport. We
can’t fight them head-on.”
Feling’s tail flicked once. “We won’t have to.”
She raised a claw and traced a circle in the air. The sound that
came wasn’t a roar — it was a hum, low and ancient, vibrating
through the ground. The ley lines answered her, pulsing in time
with her resonance. The storm they had used for cover began to
churn again, stronger, louder.
Ryn’s eyes widened. “You’re… harmonizing with the ley field?”
Feling nodded, her voice echoing with layered tones. “The
Coalition built this place on stolen power. I’m giving it back
to the world.”
The ground trembled. Blue lightning erupted from the cr@cks,
coiling upward in serpentine arcs. The approaching aircraft
faltered as their instruments fried, engines sputtering from the
interference.
Dax stared in awe. “She’s turning the whole ley surge into a
weapon…”
“Not a weapon,” Feling corrected softly. “A voice.”
Her roar tore through the heavens.
It wasn’t a cry of rage, but a declaration — a perfect sonic
resonance that rippled across the ley network, echoing into
neighboring territories. Every being attuned to magic, every
rebel cell, every hunted mutant within a thousand kilometers
heard it in their bones.
The Tigress lives.
The Coalition bleeds.
Freedom roars again.
Hours later, the ley storm faded, leaving Fort Purity as nothing
but glowing ruins. The rebel convoy moved out at dawn, carrying
refugees and the wounded. Smoke curled lazily behind them,
marking the grave of oppression.
Ryn rode in the lead hovertruck beside Feling, who sat perched
on the roof, tail flicking in the wind. “You know,” Ryn said,
“they’ll put a bounty on you so big even dragons will come
sniffing.”
Feling smirked. “Let them. I’ve got speed on my side.”
“And sound,” Dax called from the back, waving a half-melted
detonator. “And one hell of a demolition team.”
Tarn, riding his hovercycle, grunted in agreement. “And a war to
win.”
Feling’s gaze drifted east toward the horizon where the first
light of morning painted the clouds gold. The Great Lakes
shimmered in the distance — ancient, vast, and alive.
“Not a war,” she said softly. “A beginning.”
She closed her eyes, listening to the world. The wind. The
waves. The faint heartbeats of thousands of freed souls moving
together.
She smiled, baring her fangs in quiet pride. “Kaede… you were
right. The world needed me. But it needed us more.”
And with that, she leapt from the hovertruck, racing ahead of
the convoy, her sonic aura trailing in golden arcs behind her.
The sound she left in her wake wasn’t destruction this time — it
was a melody. A promise.
The roar of a free world being born.
---
Epilogue – Resonance of Hope
Weeks later, in the ashes of Fort Purity, Coalition recovery
teams combed the wreckage. Their scanners picked up residual
sonic energy, still resonating through the twisted metal.
The field commander removed his helmet, listening. Somewhere in
the distance, faint and mocking, a tiger’s roar echoed again.
He shivered.
“Sir?” a soldier asked. “What is it?”
He stared toward the Great Lakes horizon. “It’s her. The Sound
of Death.”
He turned away, voice low and grim.
“And she’s still out there.”
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