Decrepit Dakkanaut
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Reality twisted in my vision, a never-ending stream of nonsensical images and maddening recollections. I breathed heavily, feeling the spike of pain in my heart jab ever-deeper, the green-glowing metal insects that carried my agony traversing my body, burning the nerves they travelled upon. A high-pitched, repetitive noise, simultaneously infinitely far away and close, echoed through the cloud-grey dreamscape I found myself in.
I looked down at my torso. The wound oozed sick green light, the shade seeming somewhat wrong, as if it belong not to something of familar reality, but of some ancient, immortal evil. The faint tendrils of light coiled around me, illuminating the bizarre realm I found myself in with the malefic light. The tides of flowing, colorless-yet-dark liquid spun me around, and the greyness above coalesced into yet more shapes. A red blur of falling motion. A liason under the far-away stars. The blade spinning around, and-
Another spike of pain, worse than the last. The far-away (yet strangely close!) images curled up and vanished, like the clouds of mist on a dozen different worlds. A distant, soft blue light flashed, leaving dark afterimages in my sensitive eyes. Sounds of hushed whispers, and faint images of concerned faces, the same color as the clouds surrounding me, appeared, superimposed over my vision, like far-away mirages in a familiar desert. The high-pitched noise became louder, causing me to put my hands to the sides of my head and curl up, my senses overloading. I reached out to the rapidly-fading faces for support, and my hand met something, smooth and cold like sterile, polished steel. My flailing hand slipped, unable to grasp the mysterious object, and I fell backwards into a newly-opening void, blackness swirling around me.
Black-on-black became a spectrum of color, as I fell for seemingly eternity. More images swirled around me. Emerging from virtual light into true sunlight, the sensation as the burning hydrogen and helium of my home-star flowed into my ever-hungry maw...
Wait. No. That's not right. The thought echoed through my mind, eclipsing the ever-slowing high-pitched noise and less-and-less frequent spikes of pain.
I allowed the darkness to take me again, and resigned myself to the images that swirled around me, more and more appearing every second. A smooth, yet rectangular object falling from the sky, flares of light emerging from engine-pods to arrest its progress and set it down smoothly. Small, ochre, blurred shapes filed out, but before I could identify them, the image blew away like smoke on the wind.
I tried to remember my life before I entered this hellish twilight-world. How had I begun falling? Why was everything black, and blacker, and moving quickly? The blades swung again. The blade of the usurped master, stabbing into the heart of a white-armored figure. I almost recognized her. The curves of her armor lurched back, just in time to avoid instant death... The blade of the ascended slave, the same-yet-different, one made for shattered immortals, one made for ascended mortals, sliced through the air, wielded by... "Traitor! Traitor!", my mind screamed, itching to swing an arm around and-
Who am I? Why do I recognize that-
A door seemed to open in my clouded mind, sending clarity into it. A figure on a throne, his presence oozing serene dominance. A statue, exploding and melting, the metal on fire at my hands. My hands. They were different now. My right hand was surrounded by a gauntlet, the familiar weight of-
My hand was folded into my chest, my every sense designed to interface with the enormous... What was it? Why have I forgotten?!
Battlesuit. Battlesuit Battlesuit Battlesuit. The word echoed through my mind, soothing the pain of neurons screaming for a memory. My hand was folded into my chest, and also three meters from my body, remotely piloting the enormous servos without moving. The gun attached to my arm fired, utterly obliterating a black-armored figure...
A million metal soldiers marched to war, the aftertaste of their souls still echoing through my ethereal, grim form... My mind screamed again. No! That is wrong! You are not ethereal!
Ethereal. I had a word for my superior, the figure on the throne. I called out his name, screaming as loud as I could.
And then I saw him. A faint ghost of white in the blackness. He grabbed my hand and pulled with all his might, whispering the truths of the Greatest Good any being could do, to bring the galaxy under the benevolent rule of...
The Greater Good. The word became my anchor. A foothold. Something I could help the Ethereal to pull me up with. I screamed and screamed, and never stopped, my throat never getting sore, the rising crescendo of pain in my heart getting more and more severe, the spikes getting more and more frequent...
Light. Harsh and soft. A light-cream circular room, the tubes connected to my arm, the image of my face in a polished medical drone. Concerned faces surrounded me, their grey-blue skin like mine, but not the same. No, not the same. With monumental effort, I spoke a single word. The first word I had ever spoken to my superior when he had showed me the Truth.
"Aun'va..."
The faces turned dark, and saddened.
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I enjoyed it especially because I am writing about an Ethereal 
