NATION

PASSWORD

Tales from the Frencoverse [Canonical Anthology]

Where nations come together and discuss matters of varying degrees of importance. [In character]
Post a reply
User avatar
Blakullar
Senator
 
Posts: 4507
Founded: Sep 07, 2012
Corrupt Dictatorship

Tales from the Frencoverse [Canonical Anthology]

Postby Blakullar » Tue Jan 26, 2016 12:42 pm

~ "Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go." ~
~ Edgar Lawrence Doctorow

Hello, and welcome to the Frencoverse's official anthology thread, Tales from the Frencoverse. For those who do not know, the Frencoverse is a cyberpunk, grimdark, multiplayer science-fantasy canon named after one of its originators, New Frenco Empire.

The purpose of this thread is to form a collection of short stories, each one written by the six players in the Frencoverse (myself, Fren, Ardavia, Gigaverse, Auroya and Imperium Sidhicum), to expand and elaborate upon our little project as a whole.

ALT = Firmly established in the Alternative Canon only.
AFR = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the African Exclusion Zone.
ATC = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the Antarctic Commonwealth (formerly Ardavia).
CAN = Firmly established in both the Main Canon and the Alternative Canon.
CAL = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the Greater Islamic Caliphate.
CIN = Prominently contains themes that would be considered controversial in nature.
CHT = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the Knights Chthonic (Tricanon).
COM = Prominently contains themes that would be considered humorous/comedic.
DIA = Written as a diary/memoir entry.
EPI = Written in epistolary style (as a letter, telegram, email, etc.).
ESL = Denotes a story that is a part of an extended storyline spanning more than one post.
EUR = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the European Federation.
FED = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the Atlantic Federation (Tricanon).
FPP = Written from the first person perspective.
GCR = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the Greater Chinese Republic.
HEL = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the Helleonic Confederacy.
IND = Set in an independent spin-off from the wider Frencoverse (i.e. not a part of either MC2 or AC2).
JAP = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from Japan and its environs.
LUN = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the Lunar Union.
MAT = Prominently contains themes that would be considered mature in nature.
MCN = Firmly established in the Main Canon only.
MEK = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from Mechanocratic Russia and the Mechanocracy of Mankind.
MUS = Written in musical style, i.e. as a song.
NFE = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the New Frenco Empire.
ONT = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the Old Nations.
OWC = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the Old World Conglomerate.
POE = Written in poetic style, as opposed to the usual prose style.
PRO = Contains excessive amounts or extreme examples of swearing (profanity).
PWE = Set during the pre-war era (i.e. before the 2077 nuclear holocaust).
QHN = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the Qh'naazi Dynasty.
SID = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the Imperium of Sidhae.
SFW = Safe for work - that is to say, contains no controversial, mature themes or profanity whatsoever.
SKA = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the Skargh Empire.
TAR = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the Mechanists of Tartarus (Tricanon).
TPP = Written from the third person perspective.
TRI = Firmly established in the Tricanon only.
UEM = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the United European Mechanocracy.
UPS = Prominently contains themes that may be upsetting for some readers.
USA = Set in and/or prominently featuring characters from the Unified States of South America (an NPC nation - NTBCW the United States of America).
WAR = Prominently contains themes about war.

This modified key was permanently-borrowed from that used by Nex in his anthology. If you haven't already, go check it out!

~ STORY LIST ~


NEW FRENCO EMPIRE

MECHANOCRATIC RUSSIA

SS OMNICORP

OLD WORLD CONGLOMERATE

IMPERIUM OF SIDHAE

QH'NAAZI DYNASTY

BALTIC UNION

OLD NATIONS
Last edited by Blakullar on Sun Dec 30, 2018 4:43 pm, edited 88 times in total.
- - - MECHANOCRATIC RUSSIA - - -
From the dilettante who brought you Worlds Asunder!
Part of the Frencoverse.
Did you know I'm also a website?
NS stats not included.
Yes, I am real. Send help.
Top
User avatar
Blakullar
Senator
 
Posts: 4507
Founded: Sep 07, 2012
Corrupt Dictatorship

Postby Blakullar » Wed Jan 27, 2016 4:46 am

~ The Woman I Love, from the Memoirs of V. Golovkin ~
(ALT - DIA - FPP - MAT - MEK - OOC)

Elena Iosifovna Trotskaya, General of the Mecharussian Armed Forces, Commander of the Special Purpose Forces, Grandmistress of the People's Commissariat of Internal Security and of the Committee of State Security, Heroine of the Mechanocracy, The Red Tigress, The Red Bitch (as certain deeply unpleasant characters across the ocean refer to her) ... and, how dare I forget, my boss for the better part of ten years.

I find it most amusing that I decide to write about Trotskaya close to the beginning of these memoirs, for she is one of the hardiest and most hellishly difficult beasts that myself and quite possibly every other person to have ever lived and people yet to come has, had and will ever experience the (mis)fortune to try to wrangle. Yet, at the same time, she is one of the most important human beings in my life, not least because of our blossoming romance. I am as eager as ever to get this out of the way right now, before the fundamentally terrifying panel of judges that is literally the rest of the human race.

I am in love with Trotskaya.

So there you have it. Amidst the morass of rumours and gossips that would reward even the most unscrupulous Frenkish tabloid editor with a migraine, bathe your ever-searching mind in The Answer to life's biggest question. And with that off of my chest, I press forward.

Elena Iosifovna Trotskaya. One of the most idiosyncratic characters to have walked the solar system. Some describe her as evil, malevolent, sadistic, maybe even some combination yet to nestle itself in our dictionary. I find it difficult to blame them, honestly. She is the mightiest warrior in the Multiverse, on account of her being a cybernetic supersoldier, and not only that but she is also one of its finest torturers. All of the Mechanocracy's most feared inquisitors take pages from her grimoire of pain and misery. Torturers of old did what they did for the simple purpose of information extraction. Trotskaya can shape them as though they were made from modelling clay into completely new people, and then get them to give her the information she needs.

Quite apart from her prowess in that sphere, she keeps a handful of 'trophies' in her living room. I write it like that because her favourite leather armchair is made from the flayed hide of a wasteland warlord slain by her own hand, she keeps a collection of skulls inside of a cabinet belonging to particularly notable individuals she killed (making her one of the few people to literally have a skeleton in her closet), and she owns a belt made from intestines belonging to the same warlord as the chair. You aren't the only one here wondering what on earth that poor bastard did to find himself in Trotskaya's living room and wardrobe simultaneously. Did I mention that her first-born son, Alexei, happens to be a four-metre-tall genetic experiment that is just as likely to instigate a tea party with his best friend (who happens to be a pink teddy bear named 'Roga') as he is to throw a main battle tank across a football field?

Now that I have successfully painted for you an utterly unflattering picture of my commander, I should make it my duty to give you some of the context behind her macabre idea of what feng shui is supposed to be. To do that, I believe that it is necessary to tell a story of our first sexual encounter – in the year 2151.

Our story begins in Singapore. If you don't know by this stage, I refer not to the pre-war city state or to the metropolis that stands in its place within the UDAP. I instead refer to the People's Technocratic Federation of Singapore, a country outside of our home dimension that takes tropes from every video game you can think of. Portal, Half Life and Minecraft, to name just three. Then take that and add Asian efficiency and, of all things, internet memes, and you have the PTFS. What had happened was that the country had devolved into civil war and Trotskaya had been sent as part of a force-recon Spetsnaz platoon to Banyuwangi in Indonesia. After an especially embarrassing incident involving a teleporter, a football stadium and SS-Gruppenführer Hermann Fegelein (first rule for dealing with the PTFS: never try to explain anything that they do) that resulted in her being transported to Kuala Lumpur, she was forced to fight for her life against hundreds of thousands of angry Singaporean soldiers and combat-synths. Trotskaya was no stranger to battle, and I firmly believe she would have completely destroyed the city having been given the chance (like she did to Zamboanga a month later), but the horrifying thing was that she very nearly died that day. Were it not for the sudden arrival of a flight of beetle-copters and a team of PROMEK (pro-Mecharussian – think those 'little green men' I heard about from 21st-century history) defectors, she would have been killed by what can best be described as T-1000s. After the ensuing battle and ousting of the occupiers of the city (the 'Overwatch'), she had settled down in what was left of the Sheraton Imperial hotel – and I had been instructed to go and get her.

It wasn't long before I found the General in the luxurious bedroom to which I had been directed by the garrison commander. There our eyes met, for the first time in what had likely been weeks. She was sitting on a wooden stool at a desk and had been looking into a mirror before my men and I entered. In spite of her stunning victory against the Overwatch forces and the acquisition of Kuala Lumpur for the PROMEK, it was not a victorious or even a pleased look that adorned her face, but one of contrition. It was a look I observed in her so rarely that I nearly recoiled in surprise, especially given the current atmosphere of pride and happiness.

"Leave us," I said to the two Spetsnaz operators at my side, and they promptly stomped off downstairs to join their comrades in jubilation. I closed the door behind them and walked over to my commander.
Trotskaya still had her gaze buried into the mirror, despondent. I ever saw little emotion in the General, and what little I did see manifested as anger and hatred towards those who infuriated her. I never saw sadness in her, however, and the instant I saw her face in the mirror I knew that something was wrong. But what?
"Is everything alright, General?" I asked her, attempting to make my tone as sympathetic as possible to whatever it was that was bothering her.
"Twenty-two years."

I didn't see that response coming at all, but it wasn't nearly as strange as the one that my next question produced.

"What do you mean?"
"It's been twenty-two years since I was raped, Colonel. Prior to that terrible day, I was a virgin. (Technically she still was, since her boyfriend never officially existed.) All my friends before then had had sex in their teen years, and yet at forty I still do not know what it is like to come home after a stressful day to someone who truly loves me and cares for me and lose myself in pure pleasure as we cuddle up below the bedsheets."

So there I had it. A supersoldier who almost totally eschewed her humanity to transmutate herself into a coldly-logical machine, almost designed to the bolt as a mistress of death and suffering, was rendered unto depression by an issue that was distinctly human, even uniquely foreign. It was poetically comical, and yet I dared not laugh, for I had suffered the same. For me, it wasn't so much the case I hadn't had sex at all. I'd had plenty of it in my life. For me it was more that all of my sexual encounters had been either one-night stands, in which case the partner was too drunk, stoned or both to know love; or rapes, in which case any love was drowned beneath a torrent of screaming and desperation to escape – and this was without mentioning the night terrors we'd both suffer afterwards. Such was the life of a skinhead.

As far as I knew, however, Trotskaya had never been a skinhead, nor ever intended to become one – she was entirely a victim of circumstance. What little she had divulged of her past revealed the perfect recipe for a life of raging misandry: after the rape, she had been looked after and cared for by one General Anton Goremykin, then the commander of the Spetsnaz and her father-figure (I shan't reveal what became of her real father in that period, out of respect for my commander). Raised to be the perfect soldier, she later found out that Goremykin persuaded the Boyfriend to get his friends and do what they did to her, in return for freedom from prosecution and several million ration tickets of his choice if I recall correctly. He was looking for a supersoldier template, and she for some reason was the best fit. Trotskaya tracked the bastard down to a dinner party in Velikiy Sunikagrad and slaughtered the entire entourage – Goremykin included. I remember the incident well: I was a Lieutenant at the time and the affair was covered up as a gas explosion. My only source of Goremykin's death is Trotskaya herself, however. I desperately wanted to promise her that if I ever found that son of a bitch alive, Kuzma's mother would be the first in a long line of friends he would meet for what he did to her – irrespective of rank.

But Trotskaya wasn't one for flowery commiserations, so I settled with a comforting hand on her shoulder. Even this was dangerous to do: I knew how much she hated being touched in this manner, even when the intentions were benign. It reminded her too much of what she lost. Yet she did not turn upon me and snap off my hand, as I almost expected her to, nor even ask of me that I remove the hand myself. The response I got from her was a half-grin in the mirror. It was soon evident that she wasn't going to lash out at me. She appeared to enjoy it.

"Please stroke my arm, Colonel," the general asked, calmly but full of intent. Exactly what intent was unclear at the time, but I wasn't going to refuse her request. I simply complied, and my hand massaged her upper arm with utmost gentleness. Her expression changed in the mirror from one of despondency to a blissful image as I stroked her as though I was petting a beloved cat. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that her hand had gripped the desk, slightly but visibly shuddering. It appeared as though Trotskaya was trying desperately to hold back some form of temptation. Whatever she was doing to achieve that objective, however, ultimately failed her, as she soon shrugged my arm off and stood from the desk to face me.

The first thought that ran through my mind was that this was it. For the first two seconds I mandated that her gauntlet-blade would spring from her wrist and strike me down with one fatal blow. Yet her continual expression of pleasure did not contort to one of malevolence. Instead, she strode toward me with the grace of a prima ballerina, wrapped her arm around my back and pulled us together, our lips closing into contact. Again I did not refuse her – I couldn't refuse her. I meekly returned the hug and allowed our tongues to unify. I did not see this as an opportunity for carnal pleasure, a pathetic commodity that these days makes bread into gold. As Trotskaya's nearest equivalent to a real friend (in her own words) and her closest confidant, it was my duty to ensure her continued happiness – no matter the cost. What dignity did I, who had wantonly raped and plundered and savaged through my youth years and regretted every second, every inch, every breath of it, have left to lose?

For the sake of good form, I shall spare the prudes out there the lurid details of the rest of that encounter. But for such a long time we had been good friends, sharing only dark secrets instead of fluids. In a world of betrayal, Elena needed someone to trust. In a world where freedom is brutality, I needed someone to serve. Our relationship was not of a tyrant and her underling, but of a voice in need of ears. We had long feared that that purpose, and our ability to defend our motherland, would be compromised should that relationship transcend the platonic. But this was when it all was thrust upon me: this encounter was not additional to my duty of hearing Elena's voice, nor was Elena's submission to passion additional to that voice being heard. Both were a part of it. Both of us were ready for it.

It would later emerge that she had become so aroused because of a jaunt through a file-full of samizdat. In Singapore, that invariably would mean pornography, more specifically about Trotskaya herself. Genuine curiosity dictated that I look through the file personally – that encounter, magnificent as it was, was so strange that I physically couldn't restrain myself from seeking the context behind it. Knowing her as intimately as I did, it didn't take me long to find the culpable image, or rather video: it was of Trotskaya copulating with a young man, probably about half her age. From the very start, the veracity of their affection for each other was laid bare (figuratively speaking). Whether it reminded her of the Boyfriend, or what he took away from her, it is likely that I will never know. Nonetheless, the encounter between these two characters must have awoken a longing for her youth in her. A desperation for times that were happier for her. That would explain why she was so sad when I found her staring into the mirror.

I already knew that Elena Iosifovna Trotskaya was a lost little girl, trapped in a cocoon of reflection and agony. In terms of years since her birth, she may have been forty by this time, but her youthful appearance told an altogether different truth. I saw photographs of her from when she was eighteen, just prior to the Rape. In those photographs I saw a mirror image of her haunting beauty of the present day. Frozen beneath a temporal prison, her own hatred its warden. But that bizarre night in Kuala Lumpur was a watershed in her life and mine too. In this maddening world, where every semblance of humanity is being actively stamped out, subsumed beneath a pulsating shell of artificial skin, gold wiring and synthmetal, both of us finally experienced one night of normality. One measly night, but nevertheless beautiful banality in its most unrefined manifestation.
Last edited by Blakullar on Thu May 19, 2016 11:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
- - - MECHANOCRATIC RUSSIA - - -
From the dilettante who brought you Worlds Asunder!
Part of the Frencoverse.
Did you know I'm also a website?
NS stats not included.
Yes, I am real. Send help.
Top
User avatar
New Frenco Empire
Powerbroker
 
Posts: 7787
Founded: Mar 14, 2013
Ex-Nation

Postby New Frenco Empire » Wed Jan 27, 2016 2:31 pm

-Echoes of the Prophet-
(PWE - NFE - ESL - EPI - CIN - CAN)


INTRODUCTION

To the dear stranger across the way,

My name is Raymond Lowell. You don't know who I am, and I don't expect you to care. Actually, I don't want you to care. The less people who care, the less people who will be hurt after the following is released. I don't have much time, but what you are about to hear...might confuse you, maybe even disturb you, I don't know. The only thing I can promise that it will do...is open your eyes. Please, just...listen. Read the transcript below if you have to. Once it's done...continue on. I'll explain everything later.

I just want to make it clear before you go any deeper...

I never hurt anyone.

~Raymond Lowell
Happy New Year, 2130

LOG #1-JULY 2043

The slight crackling of an audio log can be heard...two voices can be heard. One of which is the sweet, soft chuckling of a French woman. Film aficionados might recognize hers as the voice of Veronique Lussier, prominent Hollywood actress of the 2030s and early 2040s and lover of Joseph Hightower at the time. The other voice, predictably enough, was a serious, confident one, with the accent being trans-atlantic in nature...Hightower himself.

Hightower: Joseph Hightower, July the Fifteenth, Twenty-Forty-Three. Advancements in-...Veronique, please...

Veronique: Joseph, why must I wear zis...strange helmet? What do zese machines do?

Hightower: Dear...we have talked about this. You are helping me change the world. Anyway, advanceme-...

Veronique: Joseph...please promise me we can go out after zis! We have been cramped up in zis casino for days! I want to walk along ze strip! You promised me zat Vegas would be fun! Somezing new and exciting!

Hightower: Of course, dear...as I was saying...advancements in conscious stimuli while the human brain is kept in complete stasis were not predicted by either myself nor Doctor Simwell, but were welcome nonetheless. With careful application of the nano-based substance combined with this stimuli projects survival of essential brain matter for up to five hundred years with a forty-four percent success rate and a ten percent success rate of the brain remaining in a thinking state...*sigh* still unacceptable...five years of this project and results are less than anticipated, to say the least.

Veronique: Joseph...mon amour. You sound so sad! You will figure it out eventually!

Hightower: Most likely, but Veronique, please remain quiet. I'm still running the tests. After I'm done...I promise...we can leave the casino for a few days. We can do something...fun.
☆☆☆NEW FRENCO EMPIRE☆☆☆
Transferring information from disorganized notes into presentable factbooks is way too time consuming for a procrastinator. Just ask if you have questions.
Plutocratic Evil Empire™ situated in a post-apocalyptic Decopunk North America. Extreme PMT, yet socially stuck in the interwar/immediate post-war era, with Jazz music and flapper culture alongside nanotechnology and Martian colonies. Tier I power of the Frencoverse.


Las Palmeras wrote:Roaring 20s but in the future and with mutants

Alyakia wrote:you are a modern poet
Top Hits of 2132! (Imperial Public Radio)
Coming at you from Fort Orwell! (Imperial Forces Network)


Top
User avatar
Gigaverse
Postmaster-General
 
Posts: 12726
Founded: Mar 26, 2011
Civil Rights Lovefest

Postby Gigaverse » Wed Feb 03, 2016 7:36 am

Is Alt Hist, so I took liberties in altering parts of it.
Black Phantom: Allied Interrogation
(CIN - JAP - PWE - TPP - WAR)

Years prior to the establishment of Sakahara Holdings - the old name of SS Omnicorp - in 1952, its founder, Shinji Sakahara, had a different kind of reputation with Allied commanders and servicemen.

Before Pearl Harbor, the British reportedly had trouble with a Japanese flight formation led by a jet-colored Zero. This same group of Zeros were also present in several important battles in the Second Sino-Japanese War - the continental theater of the Pacific War. Allied forces gave the iconic jet-black Zero the moniker "Black Phantom" - it appeared suddenly, dealt severe blows to their war effort, then disappeared just as abruptly.

December 7th, 1941. The Japanese Empire was at the height of its power; its armed forces, rumored to be invincible. The sleeping giant across the Pacific, for the first time, was given the front seat to war; experiencing first-hand a very small demonstration of its devastation elsewhere in the world. There were no accounts of an unusually-colored Zero; yet several detached from the main attack, aiming straight for fuel tanks and supply depots. Supposedly, they ran low on fuel and ammunition, and was forced to retreat by superiors before any major damage could have been done to any part of the US Pacific Fleet.

Battle of Midway: US air power was pitted, for the first time, against the Black Phantom. Nearly half of everything thrown at the Japanese by US forces were downed by its enigmatic formation alone. USS Yorktown was among the casualties caused by this Zero formation. Black Phantom was quickly marked as a menace for US operations, requiring immediate attention so it would be destroyed in the nearest time.

However, the Black Phantom's reign of terror persisted: Guadalcanal. Coral Sea. The Philippines. Okinawa. Iwo Jima... Almost every major battle in the Pacific saw the participation of Imperial Japan's very own Red Baron in some form.

And yet, as Japan's myth of invulnerability was dismissed, so did the nightmare of the formidable black Zero. At the end of the war, the once-powerful formation behind the jet black Zero was reduced to two of its core members: Taku Murakami and Shinji Sakahara. War was a lost cause for Japan. With the Home Islands under occupation, Americans got to meet the dreaded Phantom - in the flesh - for the first time.

Allied Interrogation
February 10th, 1946

"So... you aaare..."
"Shinji Sakahara, personal name Shinji; refer to me as Shinny, if it's more memorable to you."

The American interrogator took his cigar out of his mouth, standing up to give the face in front of him a closer look. Was he suffering from some kind of mental disease perhaps? Is this dim light playing tricks on his mind? But no, it can't possibly...

"Are you... sure this is the right man...?"

"Why else would I be wearing IJN uniform, hmm?", the man before the interrogator raised his eyebrow, "No, you aren't suffering from any kind of illusion or mental disease, I stand at 6 feet and 6 inches, I sport blond hair, eyes bluer than yours will ever be, look whiter than most men out there, is everything Hitler ever asked of a man, speak English without a hint of accent, and I happen to bear a Japanese name without being an immigrant. Is all that a problem?"

"Ugh... no.", the interrogator sat down, "Because we have a surprising lack of images of you - despite your infamy among our ranks, I was mostly expecting to face a short, buck-teethed, sandy-yellow-skinned, glass-wearing Asian man to who wouldn't know a word in English. To be truthful, we didn't even know your name until several months ago. I was let down."

"That's some high-class HAUGHTINESSTM-brand cigar you're having there, Sir; mind if I have one too?"

The American was surprised by the sudden request. He then reminded himself internally that he wasn't working with a compatriot; not a Russian, not an Italian, not even a German Nazi: he could be dealing with a Jap so fanatically loyal to his emperor that he might be carrying concealed weapons to perform human Kamikaze on the spot, despite his many astoundingly Western features.

"No no, don't give me that look.", "Shinny" lightly waved his hands, "I'm not here to detonate any explosives, I'm here because I was asked to prove to the Occupational authorities of my track record."

Is this monster reading my mind? The interrogator wondered so. He hurriedly donned his "business face", finally opening the files available on this man.

"Shinji Sakahara... born in 1908, orphaned, next in line of the Sakahara family; so that probably makes your mother a Westerner...", he frowned, "Formally commissioned as second lieutenant upon graduation from Imperial Army Academy, 1928. Traveled to various locations around the world from then to 1933, when called upon again to serve in the Army; frequently interacted with Isoroku Yamamoto during this period of traveling... How was the man?"

"Like every good soldier. Loyal to the Empire, but ultimately a reasonable man. Most of the time."

"Hmm... 1934 to 1936, trained in military aviation. 1937, was deployed... to Nanking. Anything to say for yourself then, 'honorable gentleman'?"

"Continue reading my profile.", the giant glared.

"Fine, fine... Fiercely protested the treatment of civilians in Nanking; according to the locals, 'a blond man in Japanese uniform frequently fought against his own officers to protect the locals'..."

"Proceed."

"1938. Decided that he had enough with the IJA, resigned from the Kwantung Army and flew back to Japan, signing up for the Naval Academy. Occasionally given some missions in Southeast Asia. Allowed early graduation in mid-1941 due to display of good behavior and exceptional skill. Participated in the Attack on Pearl HarboooOOOU MONSTER!"

"Oh please, keep reading and stop demonizing me.", the "Monster" calmly retorted.

"Kill count since 1941: [DATA EXPUNGED]. Tried to stop the shelling of Okinawa, the firebombings and Hiroshima-Nagasaki. Most likely witnessed all of these events."

"Now, 'venerable interrogator'.", "Shinny" opened his eyes so wide he might as well have been staring at the interrogator's very soul, the face of the man reflecting in his blue eyes as he closed in, "I ask of you, which of the listed events, including Pearl Harbor, killed least eh? Okinawa? The firebombings? Either Hiroshima or Nagasaki? No?"

"OF COURSE IT'S... Err...", the interrogator slammed the desk and stood up. He still couldn't dwarf a bending "Shinny".

"Oh no, I'm not trying to justify my nation's army and navy for their deeds, I hate them as much as you and the next person.", the blond chuckled briefly, then changed to a pained expression, "But can you possibly imagine how it feels like to be on the wrong end of a war, knowing that all your civilian-protecting, bureaucracy-protesting, coup-plotting was for naught? If your hometown happens to be the emulation site of what war will look like in the future, will you be happy? All the good men who gave their lives to a clique of war criminals, profiteers and hawks; for what? For what?"

"Look. I'm sorry for your lo-"

"Don't say sorry about anything when you're not really feeling sorry.", the blond faked a grin, shrugging, "It's already happened.", he chuckled, "It's already happened. The war is over. I don't want to look in Americans' eyes as though I'm still their worst nightmare, there's no point. We all have more important things to focus on at the moment; and with communism growing stronger than ever just over that tiny pond to the west, we'd sooner or later see each other as friends-with-benefits."

"You mean the Russians?"

Shinny nodded, returning to the cold, indifferent look he showed up with, "Let's return to more pressing matters at hand, however. How long will it be until I can be proven clean?", he stated, seemingly very confident in his biography.

"We still can't reach any conclusion at the moment; but... I believe you, for now. Your case is persuasive until further notice."

"Thank you, Sir.", Shinny turned to the door. He left some final words before he left the room, "Oh, and, thanks; for whatever MacArthur is about to do tomorrow."

A day after, on what was the National Foundation Day of Japan, General Douglas MacArthur approved the draft for the Peace Constitution of Japan.
Last edited by Gigaverse on Wed Feb 03, 2016 8:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
Art-person(?). Japan liker. tired-ish.
Student in linguistics ???. On-and-off writer.
MAKE CAKE NOT ｓｔｕｐｉｄｓｈｉｔｉｃａｎｍａｋｅｆｕｎｏｆ.
born in, raised in and emigrated from vietbongistan lolol
Operating this polity based on preferences and narrative purposes
clowning incident | clowning incident | bottom text
can produce noises in (in order of grasp) vietbongistani, oldspeak
and bonjourois (learning weebspeak and hitlerian at uni)
Top
User avatar
The Nexus of Man
Diplomat
 
Posts: 695
Founded: Oct 11, 2014
Ex-Nation

Postby The Nexus of Man » Sat Feb 06, 2016 7:39 am

Image
Last edited by The Nexus of Man on Sat Jun 10, 2017 12:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Top
User avatar
New Frenco Empire
Powerbroker
 
Posts: 7787
Founded: Mar 14, 2013
Ex-Nation

Postby New Frenco Empire » Sun Feb 07, 2016 10:38 pm

[quote="New Frenco Empire";p="27510584"]
-Echoes of the Prophet II-
(PWE - NFE - ESL - EPI - CIN - CAN)


You recognize that voice, don't you? From all the historical videos and whatnot they made you watch in school? Yeah, that's the one. Joseph Hightower. Father of our Empire and savior of the western world. If you haven't caught on yet, he was working on something. Something big. You don't know it yet, but it's something that affects our lives as Frenks.

What do I need you to do, you might be asking? Just keep listening. These tapes...will reveal more in-time...and once I know that I can trust you, well...just keep listening.

~Raymond Lowell

LOG #2-DECEMBER 2043

The slight crackling of an audio log can be heard...two voices, once again. One of them, obviously, was Hightower, but the other...was a bit more obscure. Only someone with a deep education into the life of Joseph Hightower could guess who it was...the gruff British accent of Doctor Charles Simwell, young neurosurgeon (notable for being the first to successfully perform a life-saving brain transplant and being able to preserve a mouse's brain in an active and alive state for several weeks) and an employee of Hightower's, also thought to be a colleague whom he worked with on several secretive "side projects".

Hightower: Joseph Hightower, December the Twenty-Fifth, Twenty-Forty-Three *sigh* Veronique is...dead. There was...nothing I could do. Nothing I could fathom. The experiments, they...heated her brain to temperatures beyond fatal. And to think...we made such great progress these last few months...

Simwell: Progress? She's dead, Mister Hightower! Dead!

Hightower: As far as collateral damage goes, Veronique was certainly tragic, I do admit. I was rather fond of her, truth be told...

Simwell: "Collateral damage"? You're a sociopath!

Hightower: Calm yourself, Doctor. I have methods to protect us. You see, she experimented with that cheap chemical compound marketed as "Day Tripper" before she met me. Aside from being damn-near dangerous, it is highly addictive...it would not be be too hard to perhaps suggest she relapsed...

Simwell: Bloody hell, you're not serious...

Hightower: I'm a businessman by trade, Simwell. We make up rubbish and sell it. And when I in particular sell rubbish...people always buy it...we got into a fight, yes? Veronique wanted to make a surprise guest appearance at Disneyworld for the Christmas celebrations. I wanted to stay here and work. I'll tell the police and the media that I was being irrational...that I wouldn't fly the jet out there for such reasons. We devolved, words were said...she left. I found her dead in the roulette suite, overdosed...we can manipulate her body to seem as such, and a few of my friends in the LVPD can keep the coroner from digging too deep...

Simwell: Just tell the truth! Why all this...trickery? We killed someone! We can't live with that!

Hightower: And have my company investigated? And have you lose your license? I think not, Simwell.

Simwell: Then why record this?!

Hightower: I have taken to recording my thoughts as of recently. Worry not; this tape among others will remain in a secure place for longer than you or I could fathom.

Simwell: Whatever, it's just...Mister Hightower...what went wrong? I'm a doctor, dammit! My mastery is in saving lives, not...wasting them!

Hightower: Simwell, just...listen to me...Veronique was a beloved Hollywood figure. Her death will be mourned nationwide. The mark she left...was rather obvious. Do you not want to keep on and make our own mark? Think of it...think of what we're doing. Veronique was certainly a regrettable casualty in all this, but think of everyone her sacrifice could help, Doctor...

Simwell: ...fine. Fine, fine, fine...just, please...no more unwilling subjects...

Hightower: Of course, now...I know a man who specializes in forensics. He owes me a few favors and he knows how to keep things inconspicuous. He will help me take care of her. You prepare the Day Tripper compound...
☆☆☆NEW FRENCO EMPIRE☆☆☆
Transferring information from disorganized notes into presentable factbooks is way too time consuming for a procrastinator. Just ask if you have questions.
Plutocratic Evil Empire™ situated in a post-apocalyptic Decopunk North America. Extreme PMT, yet socially stuck in the interwar/immediate post-war era, with Jazz music and flapper culture alongside nanotechnology and Martian colonies. Tier I power of the Frencoverse.


Las Palmeras wrote:Roaring 20s but in the future and with mutants

Alyakia wrote:you are a modern poet
Top Hits of 2132! (Imperial Public Radio)
Coming at you from Fort Orwell! (Imperial Forces Network)


Top
User avatar
Blakullar
Senator
 
Posts: 4507
Founded: Sep 07, 2012
Corrupt Dictatorship

Postby Blakullar » Mon Mar 07, 2016 2:16 pm

~ A Song of Experience, Chapter One ~
(CAN - ESL - MAT - MEK - PRO - TPP - UPS)


IN AN APARTMENT BLOCK AT THE HEART OF UFA, a young woman, newly thrust into the threshold of adulthood, readied herself for a night on the town. Scouring the mirror before her with mechanised meticulousness and precision for imperfections, she applied her favoured onyx-black lipstick, careful to evade smearing it elsewhere. It was an expensive brand, costing three Commodity ration tickets for just one tube – which barely possessed enough for three days’ worth of glamour.

Next step was the eyeliner. As dark in colouration as the nascent ebony on her lips, she manoeuvred the pencil along the rim of her piercing emerald-green eyes, slowly turning them to the same inky colour that her lips possessed. All the time, her gaze clung onto the reflection of the pencil like a vice – heads would do more than just roll if even just one miscalculation were to manifest.

What time was it? Her eyesight darted frantically across the room in search of the atomic clock she kept on her wall. The timepiece arrived to the rescue of her vision, proclaiming eighteen thirty-seven in lucid teal digits. Below this, a reminder of the date pronounced ‘26/08/2129’. He did say he would be here by quarter-to, granting her eight minutes to prepare herself. This whole outing was her boyfriend’s initiative: the chaos of this semester of studies was near-overwhelming, and he invited her along with some of their friends to a dinner at the BeerBerry on the other side of town.

Withdrawing back to the task at hand, she returned the pencil and lipstick to their hideaway in the desk’s top drawer, withdrawing a hair straightener from the interior in their stead. Applying them to the discordant strands of raven-black hair on her head, they were soon forced back into line by the clamp of the straightener. Once aptly coordinated, she took the obsidian ropes in her hands and tied them at the back into a short pony-tail. With that was concluded the mission of making herself presentable for the night out.

By now the clock announced eighteen forty-one. Four minutes to go – more than enough time to select the clothes of the evening and put them on. She dragged the chair upon which she was sat outward, stood herself up and made her way to the wardrobe to the left of her modestly-arranged bedroom. Opening the doors, the first sight she caught was of a blue waitress’ uniform, the badge proclaiming ‘Elena Trotskaya’. She would have work in the morning, she remembered, so she would have to be careful not to drink too much if she was to arrive at the café on time. Not that she would anyway – while Elena was hardly a teetotaller, she was not as boisterous with the vodka as her contemporaries. She did, however, have a fondness for saperavi, the brand of wine that was made on the other side of the Caucasus Mountains. Shifting the uniform to the side, making a mental note of where she placed it, she dug through the wardrobe in search of what she was looking for.

There she found it. A Gothic-style synthleather overcoat, piceous as her hair, eyeliner and lips, was mounted at the very back of the wardrobe. Elena had a great fondness for the colour black, perhaps because it contrasted so well with her chalk-white skin. If she had her way, however, she would be ecstatic with a hood and a cloak, both as crimson as the blood that flowed in her veins. As she put the coat on, she grinned to herself at the thought of Vasiliy surprising her with a late birthday present, consisting of an affable scarlet hood-and-cloak.

It was then that a knock rolled through the house. She twisted her head back to the clock just as her hand emerged from her coat’s right sleeve. Eighteen forty-five, just as promised.
“I’m coming!” Elena called downstairs, her nubile voice betraying excitement. With the exam season almost out of the way, she looked ahead with glee to a night of remissive banality as she opened the door. Proceeding out of the room and toward the front door, there she laid eyes upon her love as he conversed with her aged mother, Varvara Trotskaya.

“Vasiliy, I’m here,” she announced her presence, and the chiselled features of her boyfriend turned toward her with a smile.
“Hi, Elena,” Vasiliy reciprocated the cheerful greeting, his cognac-brown eyes twinkling as he spoke. “Are you ready?”

“As always,” she replied to him, before turning to her mother. “I’ll be back soon, alright?”
“Stay safe out there, Elena,” Mum told her with an expression of concern. “And don’t get drunk, you have work in the morning!”
“You don’t need to worry about me, Mama,” Elena reassured the old woman. “I’ll be fine, like always!”

Neither of them saw the brief look of guilt expressed by Vasiliy’s countenance, before he straightened himself up again.
“Right, let’s get going then!” Elena cheerily said to him, allowing him to lead her to the car that awaited at the steps to her apartment.

Vasiliy Kuznetsov had been Elena’s love for five years. The couple met each other in primary school, aged ten, and became best friends almost at first sight. They had so much in common with each other, their love for gardening and fitness being just a drop in the ocean, that their romance appeared as an unbreakable fortress. Both often worked out together, granting the pair of them strong, well-conditioned builds – the immaculate beauty of Elena in particular was noticed by several other groups of people, and many had asked for a date from her. She, however, did not even think about romantic dealings with anyone other than her beloved Vasiliy.

As they made their way to the AvtoVAZ A7 car, there awaited two men and one woman, all friends of the couple. The two large, heavily-built young males in the back seat of the small green hatchback were Oleg Tolstoy and Arseniy Kirrlov, both friends of Vasiliy and fellow sports-science students. The pair of them were known for being rabid drinkers, having a fondness for the wild parties that invariably arrived with studentship, and both had recently gotten their first cyber-augmentations just a week ago. Even though she had no particular inclination toward subscribing to the same ‘skinhead’ mind-set that Oleg and Arseniy did, Elena hoped to follow suit someday to augment herself, acquiring the necessary ration tickets through her part-time job to join her comrades amongst the Machine Race. In the driver’s position was Elena’s own classmate, Viktoriya Orlova. The blond-haired girl was arguably more of a party-goer than Elena herself, at least if previous outings were anything to go by, but since she was the designated driver for the night it was reasonable to assume that she would avoid intoxication.

Throughout the drive, Elena would gaze at the stars from her shotgun position, unable to make conversation for the rowdy skinheads and Vasiliy in the back seat and Viktoriya’s concentration on driving. Every cloudless night, she could be found staring out of her apartment window and look up to the sympathetic black heavens, dreaming that one day she might take flight aboard a spaceship and explore the Solar System, joining her sparkling empyreal kin with her beautiful Vasiliy at her side.

“Elena?” Viktoriya’s silken voice jolted her back to reality from the other side of the car as it entered the parking lot. “You alright there?”
“Yeah,” Elena replied in her same upbeat tone. “Just looking out the window.”
“Well, enough of that Elen,” Viktoriya said back with a smile, before chirping: “We’re here!”

As everyone disembarked the car and made their way through the BeerBerry’s welcoming doors, the scent of the well-cooked dinners for many entered Elena’s nose. There was something about the smell of cooking that vended a smile to her each time she caught wind of it. Vasiliy, the first one in, approached the automated waiting machine and dialled in a few numbers onto its keypad, dictating how many people there were and how large the table would need to be. They were soon directed to a table facing out of the window, seating themselves on the comfortable cushions placed on the table-booths.

“What drinks do we want?” Vasiliy asked. “I’ll go order.”
“Vodka, with free refills for us, if you’ll please!” Oleg and Arseniy intoned simultaneously.
“I’ll have what they’re having,” Viktoriya followed.
“Just the one glass please, love,” Elena concluded the round of orders with her characteristic smile.

Vasiliy made his way over to the bar, and informed the machine of everyone’s orders, with his own vodka thrown into the mix. Once he got the drinks, he made his move. In a flash, it was gone, dissolved into one of the five vodkas, and nobody other than he bore witness. Half an hour to act, that’s what he said, burned through his troubled mind as he returned the drinks to the table with a feigned grin.

For the next thirty tense minutes, everyone talked as they drank. Within the first two, Oleg and Arseniy had demolished their first glass of vodka and were on their way to get a refill. This would repeat once every two minutes. Within the first ten they were slightly tipsy – their existing drinking habits, plus their new augs, gave them strength. Viktoriya exhibited greater temperance, finishing hers every ten minutes or so. Elena the slow drinker consumed her beverage over the entire course of the half-hour, laughing at the drunken antics of the troublesome two – who by now were inebriated beyond rationality.

Then her smile slowly warped into a dazed look, and a tired frown entered its place. Time’s up.

Was it the drink? Surely not after just one glass? How strong is this vodka? Can I go home yet? All of these thoughts ran through Elena’s quickly-faltering mind as whatever was in the drink took hold. Her faint status denied her the chance to spot the quick, barely-noticeable nod Vasiliy gave to Viktoriya. Soon, Elena and the drunken Oleg and Arseniy were hauled outside of the restaurant and returned to the car. As soon as everyone was aboard, Viktoriya drove the car according to Vasiliy’s instructions.

A ringing tone screamed in Elena’s ears as the world warped and fluxed before her eyes, shifting from psychedelic green to blood-red, pulsating for what seemed like ages. She wanted to throw up, but nothing was projected forth. Then she started to worry. What had Vasiliy put in her drink? Was it even him who had done it? Of course it wasn’t. This’ll be over soon...

Before she could answer her own questions, the car stopped and a chill irrupted as the door was opened. The intoxicated trio were removed from the vehicle and pulled to the bushes. Elena discovered a dark forest before her. This surely wasn’t the way home! What was going on?!

She turned her head to where Vasiliy was, only to discover that the drug that had spiked her drink had metamorphosed him into a horned, blood-red manifestation.
“Please know, Elena, that whatever happens – I will always love you!!” Vasiliy’s voice, almost broken by contrite grief, was the same as that of this horrifying demonic apparition. Just as she finally realised what the hell was happening, her voice was severed in an instant. Instead of the scream for help, a choking splutter escaped her mouth. Animalistic terror began to overwhelm her as her throat was almost crushed by the limb that was being forced down it.

Another demonic figure slithered underneath her, tearing off Elena’s coat and trousers with its razor claws and exposing her body to the frosty air. An instant later, her mind screamed in distilled agony as a fireball ripped through her, the only water to douse the rising inferno flowing from her eyes as a twin waterfall. But before the flames could be put out, a third monstrosity climbed onto her and added fuel to the towering blaze.

Powerless to escape, even the commiserating stars fogged away by her tears, Elena’s mind began to falter as the blackness of shock began to consume her. Every part of her was swallowed by a terrible, triumphant flame detonating inside of her, a poor heart immolated in it.

...

“There, I’ve done what you asked,” Vasiliy addressed an invisible character, a smartphone held to his ear as Viktoriya drove him and the boys back home. Only Elena was not among the group. “Happy, you fucking slimeball?”
“Very much so,” the crackle of a distant gruff, masculine figure replied. “You have done your nation a great service, Mr Kuznetsov, and I shall see to it that you are rewarded appropriately.”

“You people are bastards, you know that?” Vasiliy angrily pronounced. “Disgusting, sick motherfuckers. I hope you die the worst deaths possible, the lot of you.”
“That’s not how to talk to someone who’s rewarding you for your troubles, Mr Kuznetsov,” the voice chided.

“REWARDING?!!!” Vasiliy exploded, roaring down the phone at this figure, dangerously close to crying. “You fucking cunts took the love of my life from me, just so you and those sociopathic apes they call scientists can experiment on her!!! How will I explain this to her poor mother?!! She’ll be devastated!!!”
“Let me worry about that, Mr Kuznetsov. I know how concerned you are about all this...”
“To say I’m ‘concerned’ would be the understatement of the century,” Vasiliy interrupted.
“...but think of it this way,” the figure continued, ignorant of Vasiliy’s concern. “Thanks to your assistance, we are one step closer to the prophesised Emancipation of Humanity. With your help, we can rid this world of the disgusting Frenks, their European playthings and all other subhumans once and for all. One life, in exchange for billions more.”

That same argument that he had used to convince Vasiliy to commit this unspeakable act. He truly hated himself for what he had so far wrought upon his childhood love, but the meaning behind it was insufferably true. All for the sake of perpetuating his race.

“What kind of reward did you have in mind?” he resignedly asked.
“For a start, it will be necessary to relocate you from the Bashkortostan Oblast,” the figure answered. “Your continued presence here will arouse too much suspicion. Additionally, I shall personally see to it that you have virtually limitless access to this nation’s resource allocations. You will receive a compensation worthy of your hero status. For now though, I must leave. I will contact you in the morning to make arrangements for your departure.”

If there was anything that Vasiliy felt as he ended the call, it most certainly wasn’t like any ‘hero’ that he had ever heard of.
- - - MECHANOCRATIC RUSSIA - - -
From the dilettante who brought you Worlds Asunder!
Part of the Frencoverse.
Did you know I'm also a website?
NS stats not included.
Yes, I am real. Send help.
Top
User avatar
Ardavia
Senator
 
Posts: 4732
Founded: Jun 05, 2013
Ex-Nation

Postby Ardavia » Tue Mar 08, 2016 9:37 am

Image
Last edited by Ardavia on Sat Jun 10, 2017 12:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.
professional contrarian
for: whatever you are against
against: whatever you are for
Top
User avatar
New Frenco Empire
Powerbroker
 
Posts: 7787
Founded: Mar 14, 2013
Ex-Nation

Postby New Frenco Empire » Thu Mar 10, 2016 8:14 am

-Echoes of the Prophet III-
(PWE - NFE - ESL - EPI - CIN - CAN)


I only have one thing to say now...you're in too deep to quit. No, that isn't a threat; it's a warning and a recommendation. Hightower killed Veronique Lussier as part of some shady project, and you can bet that little tidbit is classified information.

I guess...since you've stayed with me so long...I owe you this much. My name is Raymond Lowell...more specifically Special Agent Lowell. Well...former Special Agent Lowell. I was with the IIA. I had a cozy position, sniffing out Ivan's spies behind a desk until...this all happened. You have to understand; I didn't ask for this.

~Raymond Lowell

LOG #3-SEPTEMBER 2049

The slight crackling of an audio log can be heard...

Hightower: Joseph Hightower, September the Second, Twenty-Forty-Nine. It had been...almost six years since the incident and my last recording. I had all intents to stop this...but I need this. I need to listen back. To see where I went wrong, and to see how I resolve it...Simwell is gone. Not dead, not...missing. Gone. He left with all the data I had diligently gathered over the years. He started his own firm. "Humane Labs" he calls it. Claims that the information gathered will go towards cancer research. He has been at it for a good few months. Maybe, just...perhaps...perhaps I was in the wrong. Many more people died over the years. No one quite like Veronique, no. Most were vagabonds who volunteered for an extra dollar in their pockets or patients possessing terminal illness who had nothing to lose. Always the do-gooder, that Simwell...it slowly got to him. He had often said that the progress we made should benefit medicine, not vanity. Did the fool really think I denied that? Did he not realize that I hoped to accomplish great things with our discoveries? *sigh*...it matters not now. He made his choice. No one crosses me. The time to strike is now...

A buzzing can be heard, indicating that Hightower had hooked his log up to separate devices.

Hightower: Winters, status report. Have you landed yet? Have you breached the compund?

Captain Winters: Affirmative. Light resistance from automated security. I've sent a team in to recover the goods.

Hightower: Hmm, good. And what of Simwell?

Captain Winters: We have confirmed he is in the main office. Moving to breach now...standby...

After a brief pause, a slight vibration can be heard, indicating an explosion.

Simwell: Bloody hell! Who are you people!

Captain Winters: Stand down!

Hightower: Captain, make my voice heard...Doctor Simwell? They're with me. It is a shame we could not have met under more circumstances. Regardless...I see you have been doing well for yourself...

Simwell: I should have thought...well...your boys have already destroyed my lab, killed whoever they could get their grubby mitts on...what do you hope to accomplish, Mister Hightower?

Hightower: You have the gall to ask that question, boy? You stole what was rightfully mine, despite common sense saying how foolish of a venture it would be. You made your choice and it caught up with you. Now you are here...at my mercy...

Simwell: I know what I asked! What do you hope to accomplish?

Hightower: What do you mean?

Simwell: When I started working for you seven years ago, I was under the impression I was going to help people! I've seen none of that under you! Yes, I've stolen it all from you! Yes, I knew you would come for me, but I did it anyway! I did it because I have integrity! Can you say the same?

Hightower: This planet is tearing itself apart, boy. You have no idea why I do what I do. Had you stayed and helped perfect my ambitions, you would have seen what good we could have accomplished. Impatience gets you nowhere.

Simwell: Liar! That's all you've ever been. A goddamned liar! I won't let you take it back! Kill me, torture me, whatever...I am not satisfying your greed!

Hightower: *sigh*...dispose of him, Captain. Goodbye, doctor. It is indeed a shame that it had to end like this.

Captain Winters: Solid copy.

Simwell: Wh...what? No! Plea-

The signature sound of a laser blast cuts off Simwell's pleas.

Captain Winters: Jackpot has been neutralized, over and out.

Hightower: Excellent. Clean up the mess and evacuate immediately.
Last edited by New Frenco Empire on Thu Mar 10, 2016 8:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
☆☆☆NEW FRENCO EMPIRE☆☆☆
Transferring information from disorganized notes into presentable factbooks is way too time consuming for a procrastinator. Just ask if you have questions.
Plutocratic Evil Empire™ situated in a post-apocalyptic Decopunk North America. Extreme PMT, yet socially stuck in the interwar/immediate post-war era, with Jazz music and flapper culture alongside nanotechnology and Martian colonies. Tier I power of the Frencoverse.


Las Palmeras wrote:Roaring 20s but in the future and with mutants

Alyakia wrote:you are a modern poet
Top Hits of 2132! (Imperial Public Radio)
Coming at you from Fort Orwell! (Imperial Forces Network)


Top
User avatar
Blakullar
Senator
 
Posts: 4507
Founded: Sep 07, 2012
Corrupt Dictatorship

Postby Blakullar » Fri Mar 18, 2016 2:33 pm

~ A Song of Experience, Chapter Two ~
(CAN - ESL - MAT - MEK - PRO - TPP - UPS)

This must all end at some point. No more demons, no more pain, no more fear.

And yet the promise of liberty from this bottomless nightmare never came to fruition. The vicious beasts, their red eyes blazing with ravenous delight, swarmed over her every minute into her hundred-night slumber. Again and again she was dragged through a multiverse of suffering as their dagger claws were dragged through her skin, bones, heart, soul. Not even in the waking world would the demons leave her alone: they simply took different forms before her. Demons with shining grey armour, demons with long white overcoats and teal surgeons’ aprons. Every one of them had the same burning red eyes as their nocturnal companions, seeking to ignite abyssal torment upon her with every jab and grasp. Throughout the night and throughout the day, she would devote herself to screaming the terror out of sight. She would scream until her own vocal cords were shredded and aflame with agony – but the demons never, ever stopped tearing into her.

By day one into the torture, she had come to realise that she had been betrayed. Not by the State. Not by her friends. Not even her own mother. The man who she had invested an infinity of trust into. Vasiliy. Mindless terror would conspire with animalistic rage to turn the impossibility of this event against her. At her very core, she knew the impossible to be laid bare before her – her omnibenevolent love for him savagely clashed with a brutal, infernal hatred of him. By day two, the latter had won the battle, driving her fear forward and crashing it through the gates of Hell. Fear as a pure, unstoppable monstrosity far more destructive than any hellhound and far more infinite than the worst depravities of the devil himself wrought rapture upon her soul.

By day three, she did not even know who she was any more, rendered to desolation. All she knew now was that whatever came through the doorway brought more suffering. Every night and every day in her bone-white prison, she would shiver and gibber with anticipation of the next monster to irrupt through the door and continue her endless cycle of torment, hiding beneath her bedsheet in the arrogant hope that it might serve as an aegis against the beasts as it had in her childhood. She had been taught by the State education system that the very idea of ‘God’ should be consigned to the dustbin of history as ideological degeneracy, and yet she prayed and prayed for some divine figurehead to descend from the heavens and carry her away from this world of pain. Death seemed to be the only relief from the rampaging madness.

They’re back!

That was what she thought the very instant she heard The Rattle coming from the door. Like a dog beaten to meekness with a stick, she learned to fear the sound of the bone-chilling jangle of keys that reverberated in her room. The Rattle was the alarm that screamed each morning, signifying the beginning of a new day. Then followed the Click as the lock was turned against her.

Slowly, almost silently, the door slithered open. She did not want to see the creature that would emerge from the outside world, hiding herself from its sight beneath the trembling duvet.
“Hello?” spoke a low, serene masculine voice.

Footsteps. Carefully, meticulously, whatever was lurking outside was entering the room. She childishly hoped that it would not see her terrified form beneath the covers, and for a second, she believed her plan would succeed. Lowering the duvet, just enough for her to get a glimpse at the devil...

It was staring back at her.

“Wait!” it spoke again, just as she tried to dive below the sheets again. “It’s alright. I won’t hurt you.”
She didn’t believe a word it said, but then why would it address her in such a peaceful tone? All of the other demons were much sterner and harsher with their language. She took this brief standoff as an opportunity to scan her adversary’s features. Definitely male, black hair that flowed down to his chin, chiselled features ... the eyes! Those same terrible, glowing scarlet eyes!!

“I’m sorry,” the beast told her with contrition in its voice. At once, the eyes darkened, their red hue descending beneath a whiter, almost sarcoline haze. “Was it my optics? Is that what’s been scaring you all this time?”
Was this a disguise? A ruse? Some other trick to get close to her and then claw at her when her guard was down? But ... surely it would have started its attack by now? Something else beckoned to her. This ... whatever it was, this human creature, was no longer so terrifying as it was interesting to her, in a curiously-twisted way. Gingerly, she raised her head from cover to get a closer look at the being that was standing before her.

“Please excuse my manners,” it apologised to her again. “My name’s Lieutenant Golovkin. I’m here to help you. What’s your name?”

She looked at this ‘Lieutenant Golovkin’ with little to say. She searched the mind-fields for the information he needed, desperately and awkwardly scrabbling through her own psyche for memories of what she had been called.

“E-E...Elena...” she croaked, her stammering voice struggling to escape the stranglehold of suspicion and agony. It had been so long since she had laid eyes on an actual human. Three days and nights, emerging as three protracted years.
“Well, Elena,” he said, after a short while longer. “I just need to do some checks on you...”

At once she shrivelled up as his hand drew nearer, her eyes wide with panic at the trepid thought of being probed and clawed again. Instead of pressing ahead with whatever foul misdeed he was planning, however, he suddenly withdrew himself just as she was poised to retreat into the corner, bedsheet raised like a shield.
“No, wait, don’t worry.” At all times his voice maintained an aura of serenity. “I won’t hurt you. I promise.”

Elena was not convinced. As if to sense her growing terror, he displayed both of his hands to her, opening the palms wide so as to reliably tell her that there was nothing with which to stab, scratch or probe her. No claws, no needles or thermometers. Just pure humanity. Or so it appeared that way.
“See? There’s nothing there. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Ever-so slowly, the reassuring hand attempted a second approach. Elena would sit up numb with wariness as the cold touch of two fingers rested on her neck, scouring for her pulse. Any second now the fingers would turn into razor claws and dig into her throat. The cycle had to continue. Three seconds, multiplied by orders of magnitude per mandate of her shivering mind, strolled by without any contortion to malevolence. Lieutenant Golovkin looked into her eyes with an analytical gaze, scanned every part of her with optics that at no point erupted into crimson.

It was finally clear that this was no demon here to perpetuate her infinite suffering. Elena couldn’t help but throw her arms around the Lieutenant and bury her head into his shoulder as she imploded into sobbing. Not with grief, or rage, or pain, but with emotions that she had dreaded would never return. Liberty. Happiness. Relief unchained.

Golovkin was surprised by this spontaneous gesture, but reciprocated the hug with a fatherly reassurance as the girl before him purged her bitter prejudice with tears. Drawing in the stagnant air of the cell for a stolid breath, he was reminded of why he was here.

“Everything’s alright,” he, for the next two minutes as Elena cried her hatred away, would repeat to the young girl he had charged himself with looking after. “Nobody’s going to hurt you anymore.”
As her hatred was wept from her system, relief at finally seeing another human being replacing it as a wave of verdant calmness, Elena had so many questions to ask this Golovkin that had freed her.
“Why ... am I here?” she bubbled discordantly, her speech haphazard from the seething pain of her vocal cords.
“We found you in the woods outside of Ufa,” Golovkin began to explain. “You were badly injured, naked and unconscious. Then we were ordered to bring you here after we patched you up.”
He drew in another deep breath, mentally preparing himself to explain something while trying to hide another.

“Some things are going to be happening over the next few days. The men and women that I’m working for want to make you better and stronger than you ever were before. They want to augment you and train you to fight...”
“Augment me?” Elena asked with a light, pained growl. “You mean, like the Machine Race?” She had heard all about the Machine Race, cyborgs that the government would tout in propaganda as the future of humankind.
“Yes, like the Machine Race,” Golovkin continued. “Please follow all their instructions and do as they say - they have your best interests at heart.”
“Wait,” Elena suddenly asked, her countenance signifying horrified revelation. “What about Mama? Won’t she miss me?”
“Don’t worry, Mama will be alright,” Golovkin said in an assuaging tone. “For now though, you’re probably hungry. You refused to eat for the past three days – we had to force-feed you artificial nutrient paste just to keep you alive.”

That’d partly explain the stomach ache, Elena thought to herself. Now that the matter came to mind, she could use something to eat.
“I guess you want something from the canteen, then,” Golovkin said. “I’ll take you there.”

Without any warning, Elena’s body language contorted to a fearful manifest again. Shivering with eyes wide, she stared with a horrified gaze at the doorway.

“I ... I don’t want to go outside. What about the demons...?”
“There are no demons outside, Elena,” Golovkin was very quick to reassure her.
“There are,” Elena attempted to refute him. “Big, red eyes ... claws ... needles...”
“Elena, they aren’t demons, those are people,” he spoke back to her. “Humans. They won’t do any more analyses of you anymore. All the big psych-tests are done. You don’t need to worry about any more claws, or needles, or any of that.”
Elena still whimpered at the prospect of actually walking through the door to the outside world.
“Please trust me,” Golovkin asked, almost pleading with her. “There’s no demons. None at all. Do you trust me?”

She audibly swallowed, on the verge of being consumed by fear again. Just as she was about to collapse into its jaws, however, reason dragged her from the depths. Were there really any demons outside? But she had seen them in such great numbers and forms. Maybe, however, Golovkin had scared them all away. It was such a childish thought ... but at this time of day, no demons had irrupted into her room as of yet. There was only one answer to Golovkin’s looming question.
“Y-y-y-...yes,” Elena stammered as she fought with herself to speak up, before finally coming to a resolution.
“Alright,” Golovkin said. “I’ll help you out if you want me to.”

That offer she eagerly took up, seizing the Lieutenant by the hand and allowing him to lead her out. With painstaking care, she set herself loose, to be withdrawn from her sanctuary and back into the wide world. As she stepped gingerly through the door, she remembered a phrase that the Westerners had come up with. Out of the frying pan, and into the water...

(This will be the last chapter I put up on here until I get the whole story complete.)
- - - MECHANOCRATIC RUSSIA - - -
From the dilettante who brought you Worlds Asunder!
Part of the Frencoverse.
Did you know I'm also a website?
NS stats not included.
Yes, I am real. Send help.
Top
User avatar
Blakullar
Senator
 
Posts: 4507
Founded: Sep 07, 2012
Corrupt Dictatorship

Postby Blakullar » Fri Apr 22, 2016 4:54 pm

~ The Infallible Shot ~
(CAN - FPP - JAP - MEK - NFE - WAR)

Wind speed, a gentle thirty miles per hour. Distance to target, seven hundred and twenty-one metres. My fingers coil around the trigger as though I were a youth yielding forbidden love to the girl in my nest. With movement so calm as to be impalpable, I pet the trigger. Thump. Another Naval Infantryman falls, his skull detonating into a haematic fog at the orgasmic expulsion of a flechette. As his comrades scour the area filled with stark terror, we have already made our exodus from our perch and move on to nest elsewhere.

My name is Atalanta. I am a Chthonia-class hypersoldier. It is Thursday, the sixteenth of April, 2139. Myself and the DGP I cradle in my arms, as a lover ever faithful, have been hunting together around Sendai for a month. We've been stalking this squad in particular for two days: I have already cleaved the squad in half. I know this because I have one flechette left in my magazine before I must reload. I'm called the Infallible Shot because I never miss, never have missed, and never intend to miss. Ever. For my record I have my supremely-advanced targeting augmentations to thank. They allow me to guide my Gauss repeater to face the enemy, and make our moments of ecstasy all the more magical.

I launch my grapple-hook to convey us up the ruined hulk of another skyscraper – it is here that I shall make another nest. I gaze down upon my antlike prey as I and my gun settle our gaze onto the head of the fifth target. Wind speed, a gentle thirty-one miles per hour. Distance to target, six hundred and eighty-two metres. Thump.

With the drumbeat of my love as I caress her once more, another Naval Infantryman falls. There are now three left. The paralysing fear, the dumb confusion of the pack of powerless wolves as their numbers are slowly, steadily chipped away, with no clue as to where their hidden predator may be lurking, is nothing short of an aphrodisiac. My gun releases a magazine; I slip another inside of her to take its stead; the cycle continues until all are dead. Relocate, fire, despair. Relocate, fire, despair. Relocate, fire, silence.

At the day's end, I take my army knife and carve another eight chalky-white notches onto the stock of my gun. Another day of hunting has drawn to a close.
Last edited by Blakullar on Sat Apr 23, 2016 3:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- - - MECHANOCRATIC RUSSIA - - -
From the dilettante who brought you Worlds Asunder!
Part of the Frencoverse.
Did you know I'm also a website?
NS stats not included.
Yes, I am real. Send help.
Top
User avatar
The Nexus of Man
Diplomat
 
Posts: 695
Founded: Oct 11, 2014
Ex-Nation

Postby The Nexus of Man » Sat Apr 23, 2016 2:51 pm

Image
Last edited by The Nexus of Man on Sat Jun 10, 2017 12:01 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Top
User avatar
New Frenco Empire
Powerbroker
 
Posts: 7787
Founded: Mar 14, 2013
Ex-Nation

Postby New Frenco Empire » Tue May 10, 2016 5:45 am

I'll get back to EotP soon...maybe...probably...
I just got the idea for this while doing a tiny bit of editing.

A Lullaby for the Bogeyman
(NFE - TPP - UPS - MAT - CAN)


Blood...so much blood. When the Ork's massive fist was finished with the Russian hypersoldier's skull, the maroon substance had burst out in all directions, spraying the dingy walls of the makeshift interrogation chamber. It couldn't have ended any other way, the Ork knew; C-class hypersoldiers never surrendered, so there was definitely an ulterior motive when this one threw down her arms and submitted to the Dragoons.
That ulterior motive, of course, being to assassinate the Ork responsible for the deaths of nearly a dozen of her brothers and sisters; Colonel Fred Harrigan. For all the talk of being superior to anything the Frenks could produce though, Harrigan had never met any who could prove a match to him. He saw the knife long before he started to grab for it, and the instant his hand darted in that direction, he put an end to him just as quickly.

The Hokkaido Campaign was nearing it's end, much to the relief of Imperial Command but to the disappointment of Harrigan. The Russians who invaded Frenkish soil...they wore no patches on their uniforms, flew no flags above their outposts, and claimed no ties to the Mecharussian state. What little information they gathered from what few prisoners they could capture indicated that they were all "volunteers" taking orders from Asian commanders, as though these "Asian commanders" weren't already puppets of the Russian commanders.

And if it weren't for Harrigan, they would still be here, free to continue their shady military campaign.

The navy garrisons were steamrolled by the initial blitzkrieg (spearheaded by the infamous Chthonia supersoldiers), and by the time reinforcements in the form of the Vanguard Corps could counterattack, they had become much too dug in to guarantee a quick end to the fighting in Hokkaido. The Empire figured that if the Russians wanted to play false flag, they'd match them for controversy and send in the Ork they knew all too well. In mere weeks, Harrigan's brutal offensive had laid waste to many Mecharussian positions and threatened to drive the rest into the sea. All the while, most of the Chthonians who had hunted Frenkish soldiers for sport at the start of the campaign soon found themselves as prey to Harrigan. If the so-called "Harrigan's Charge" (as the media was calling it) didn't wound Mecharussian pride and make it known that the Frenks wouldn't tolerate their encroachment into the conflict with Asia, nothing would.

There Harrigan stood, the ravaged, headless corpse at his feet; it's blood drenched on his right hand and splattered across the front of his armor.
"Get it out of my sight..." The Ork growled at one of the aides standing at the doorway, wiping the blood on the nearby wall.
The aide nervously complied, signaling for another attendant to help him with the body. As they dragged the heavy corpse away, the blood making a visible trail out of the room, Harrigan squatted against the wall. He looked down at the bladed gauntlets on his wrist, flipping the dull blades out so he could get a good look at them. They were starting to brown around the edges; an indication of the heavy use they saw these past few weeks. He never detested getting up close and personal, but he generally preferred to just gun the animals down. The damn Chthonians, though...they made it a point to fight tooth and nail when all seemed lost. The Ork would always oblige, savoring the moment when his prey's life was snuffed out...their eyes focused on him.

Harrigan always made it a point to clean his own equipment. Most of the older Orks under him weren't bright, and would march around with rusted-out armor and jammed firearms until one of the officers forced them to take their gear to maintenance. Many outsiders to the unit often made the mistake of assuming that Harrigan was more-or-less the same; a dumb brute. He was cruel, aggressive, and (yes, even) brutish, but there was a reason he was allowed command of his own unit instead of being a bit of sentient muscle on someone's leash. He worried about nothing, much less what others thought of him (knowing that if they made whatever complaints they had audible, they'd be silenced...painfully), but he still preferred to show these naysayers that he at least had the mental acuity to clean his gauntlets.

As he wiped the caked-on substances off of the dulled blades, his thoughts seemed to drift...Orks didn't need sleep, but the work of the past few weeks exhausted his mental state. He didn't get stressed, but all the killing...it got boring after a while...
"How did I get my name?" The Ork asked himself, as he drifted to the past.

What was the year? 2114...15...16? He never remembered. He didn't remember much from those days at all. He did remember, however...Molly.

When he was a boy, he was brought up to be a member of the Black Guard; soldiers bred for the sole purpose of serving as the militant arm of the state. They protected the offices of the Emperor and the Chancellor, and served as special forces for the Culture Office. Nowadays, the Black Guardsmen were created by flash-cloning a human template and programming them to be emotionless killing machines. But back then...technology wasn't that advanced. They needed to do a bit of manual "programming" to get the results they wanted...

Harrigan lived through the horrors...intense, Ranger-style training for twenty hours a day by the time he was seven years old. No form of entertainment whatsoever. Education delivered in a painful, brainwashing style, until "The Empire Above All" became the central mantra. Quite frankly, it was hell.

However, the child recruits did have one source of comfort...their "watcher"; a mother-like figure who would nurture them and see to their care. All of them were women, and all were state criminals; communists, anarchists, theists...the children didn't know it until the very end, though, Harrigan probably thought that none of the children really cared. At least, not as much as he did...

Molly Harrigan was her name. Sweet and pretty with a head full of red hair and the most lovely singing voice he ever heard. She was in her thirties and forties when Harrigan grew up with her. Harrigan didn't know it at the time, but Molly was a former nun in some catholic cathedral in the outlands. She became a watcher after the Zealots raided her home and brought her and all of her sisters to the state so they could be enslaved to do work like this. But again, to him, she was just a mother figure to help him cope with the weight of his upbringing.

The "Handler" (a moniker given to any number of trainers who communicated with Harrigan with voice distortion, making them seem to be the same person regardless) ensured that any number of "good" memories he had were limited, but he always remembered the finer details. The kisses she would give him, the extra food she would sneak him, the encouraging words she had for him...but most of all, he remembered her songs. She would lull him to sleep after a painful day every night. He forget many of them, but her favorite, he would never forget...

Dream, when you're feelin' blue...

That all changed though. He was sixteen...the age in which training would end. He survived it all. He was ready to become a Guard. There was just one last link holding him back...her. Fortunately, the Handler could break that link and make it one last exercise in loyalty.
When Fred retreated to his quarters for the night, the Handler spoke to him through the intercom in his room.
"Twenty Six...Molly Harrigan, your watcher, is a criminal. She holds a bond to the Abrahamic religion that isn't tolerated in our modern society. I need you to deal with her..."

Fred didn't know what it meant. He opened the door to his room, his puzzled expression replaced with a horrified one when he saw Molly, slumped by his bed, bleeding from a bullet wound in her leg.

"S-she's hurt! She's bleeding! W-what can I do!?" Fred asked, frightened.
"I want you to rape her."
"W-what?" Fred asked, his heart sinking.
"Rape her. Take whatever innocence this enemy of the state has from her. Her virginity serves as a bond to her heathen religion. Sever that bond."
"N...n-no..." Fred meekly said, tears swelling in his eyes. "N-no...please!"
"Rape. Her. Your Emperor commands it."
"No! I-I won't!" Fred cried out.
"Listen to me, Twenty-Six. If you continue to disobey this order, I will leak classified documents to the Russians. Including documents about you."
"What?" Fred asked, confused.
"You heard me. You will be the traitor. You will betray your country in more ways than that woman ever did. What did we teach you?"

It hit Fred like a freight train. His emotions took a tumble...he learned, all through the years...The Empire Above All...he realized that Molly wasn't his only love...the Empire was.
"The Empire above all..." He muttered.

While repeating the mantra with a near-religious zeal, he approached the wounded Molly Harrigan and proceeded to rip her jumpsuit off. With silent tears, she tried to say a prayer to her God while Fred did the deed, but by the time he had started, it was replaced with pained screams and pleas. Fred took no pleasure from it, and was as painful to him physically as well as emotionally, but he couldn't betray his country...

"Stop."
The Handler's voice echoed, commanding Fred to cease the act. Five minutes ago, Fred would have broke down, but now...he seemed not to care. A grin almost showed as he kept repeating the mantra.
"Very good. Now kill her."
As he made the command, a knife dropped into the room between the two.
"Secure the weapon. She might try to kill you, after all..."
Fred merely looked at Molly, naked and shivering like a lost puppy. The sixteen year-old boy dominated this woman of forty...she wouldn't try anything. The pain and sorrow in her eyes showed as much...
Without a word, Fred secured the blade, toying with it while Molly looked on in fear.
"P-please, Fred..." She whimpered. "Don't let them do this..."
"The Empire Above All, traitor..." Fred muttered as he drove the knife clean through her neck. He didn't fight the order he was given; he didn't even make it painless. He stared, emotionless as she choked on her own blood, locking eyes with the woman he once considered a mother.

Eventually, he drove the blade out, allowing Molly's blood-soaked naked corpse to stumble over. He threw the knife aside in disgust and turned around. He did it. At the realization...he began laughing, and laughing, and laughing...he laughed until his vocal cords ached and the laughs themselves were nothing but a dry cackle.

And the cackling didn't stop until the Handler removed him from the room.

Back in the realm of the 2140s, Harrigan merely growled...he was a fool. They made him do those things, his indoctrination to the state outweighing what bond he formed with Molly. Looking back at the documents of the project, most of the recruits simply "broke" during this trial; the conflicting choice making them flatline into monotony. Then again, Harrigan found it hard to believe that any of the other children had the love he had for her. When he went through it, it didn't just break him...it birthed a different demon entirely. One that they didn't expect nor really want. When they took away the only thing that gave him pleasure, and made him do the deed no less, it was from that moment on that he found new pleasures...Brutality. Cruelty. Violence. He never laughed again after he raped and murdered her, but the satisfaction he received for burning down some backwater village or torturing some Russian officer...it did the job well.

Weak. Harrigan's thoughts shifted to weakness. He was a weak child. What the Empire did, they did to snuff that weakness out, and rightfully so. Molly Harrigan was a traitor; a degenerate who rejected the cultural domination of the Empire who should have considered herself lucky that she could spend her last few years serving the Empire. Still, he considered, he was no longer Fred-26...he was Fred Harrigan. Harrigan. Fred Harrigan. Not Fred-26. Harrigan... When he was transferred to the Vanguards shortly after the event with Molly, they asked him for a name...a name the state never gave him. He wasn't sure what came over him that day, but the the words that came out of his mouth were "Fred Harrigan." Again, with the damn name! Why why why did he bear a traitor's name! Why did he immortalize that foolish, treasonous whore with his own damn name! Everyone knew him as "Colonel Harrigan"..."Harrigan" being the name of a traitor! Why not "Fred Orwell" or "Fred Buck" or even "Fred Hightower!" Why not name himself in honor of some of the state's greatest heroes!? Why "Harrigan"...?

Colonel Fred Harrigan, he guessed...even the monsters feel nostalgia. Even here, in this dingy room, surrounded by the blood of an enemy combatant he just slaughtered...he couldn't forget Molly's song...

Dream, when you're feelin' blue
Dream, that's the thing to do

Just watch the smoke rings rise in the air
You'll find your share of memories there

So dream when the day is through

Dream, and they might come true

Things never are as bad as they seem
So dream, dream, dream
☆☆☆NEW FRENCO EMPIRE☆☆☆
Transferring information from disorganized notes into presentable factbooks is way too time consuming for a procrastinator. Just ask if you have questions.
Plutocratic Evil Empire™ situated in a post-apocalyptic Decopunk North America. Extreme PMT, yet socially stuck in the interwar/immediate post-war era, with Jazz music and flapper culture alongside nanotechnology and Martian colonies. Tier I power of the Frencoverse.


Las Palmeras wrote:Roaring 20s but in the future and with mutants

Alyakia wrote:you are a modern poet
Top Hits of 2132! (Imperial Public Radio)
Coming at you from Fort Orwell! (Imperial Forces Network)


Top
User avatar
The Nexus of Man
Diplomat
 
Posts: 695
Founded: Oct 11, 2014
Ex-Nation

Postby The Nexus of Man » Tue May 10, 2016 5:27 pm

Image
Last edited by The Nexus of Man on Sat Jun 10, 2017 12:02 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Top
User avatar
Blakullar
Senator
 
Posts: 4507
Founded: Sep 07, 2012
Corrupt Dictatorship

Postby Blakullar » Fri May 13, 2016 3:09 pm

~ Lachrymation of a Machine God ~
(CAN - CIN - MAT - PWE - TPP)

Russian
Georgian

Power, in its glorious infinity. Immortality, long and true. Creation and destruction, fraternal twins at the command of a being eternal, a deity given physical manifestation. And yet, as the bicentennial of His earthly demise approached, there was still the feeling that something was missing.

Kato.

One little name, four letters and two syllables in structure. So humble, and yet even its mere mention tore through the very soul of the single most powerful entity in the universe. Two hundred and forty six years from that terrible day, a distinct recollection of her demise in His arms plagued his psyche.
"Kato? Kato?!" rang futile screams to provide salvation for the damned. "Talk to me!! DON'T YOU DARE DIE ON ME!! YOU'RE GOING TO BE OKAY!!! Kato?! KAAATOOOOO!!!!"

And even now, He remembered the funeral. Even now, He remembered His refusal to leave her side, dragged away from her open grave as Grief and Rage exploded from His eyes in a cryovolcanic eruption.

One little job. One stupid fucking bank job! It was that fateful robbery that forced the exodus of His family from Tiflis, two hundred and forty six years ago. The stress of running from the Okhrana's claws made her scared and weak, subjected her to the tendrils of the disease that claimed her for its own. He scarred her. He made her weak. All for what? So that a new nation, a socialist paradise, would form? Even when that goal was achieved, it would all account for nothing, Lenin's grand masterpiece itself destroyed by the nuclear revolution one hundred and sixty years later.

Pathetic couldn't even cover what He thought of Himself.

At the very least, He was able to make good on a promise of His.
"Kato, I want to bring another child into this world."

And he had never told anyone that Kato had been a month pregnant when she succumbed. In secret, His unborn child was removed, saved as one last request to a mortician. Hidden in the permafrost of Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa, the surviving foetus, frozen in a tightly-sealed jar, would remain until the time was right. Every year, He would return, alone, to its burial site. He would repeat His promise upon every visit.
"One day, my child ... I shall bring you into this world."

And not even death would stop Him. For two hundred and four years He would visit this timeless site, without fail. The Nazis, the Americans, the Islamists ... all of them passed on. Kato's last gift to the human race, however, would be eternal, released into the world when the time was right. And soon, it was. As the bonfire of war died down and an uneasy peace claimed planet Earth, Kato's final child would awaken to see paradise in terrestrial form. The perfect child, smarter than even Vasiliy, more loyal to the cause than Svetlana, stronger and humbler than that pretentious, weak idiot Yakov.

And perfect she was.
- - - MECHANOCRATIC RUSSIA - - -
From the dilettante who brought you Worlds Asunder!
Part of the Frencoverse.
Did you know I'm also a website?
NS stats not included.
Yes, I am real. Send help.
Top
User avatar
Blakullar
Senator
 
Posts: 4507
Founded: Sep 07, 2012
Corrupt Dictatorship

Postby Blakullar » Thu May 19, 2016 3:20 am

~ Dear Diary ~
(CAN - CIN - DIA - MAT - MEK - PRO)

Saturday, August 27th.
We’ve done it! We’ve got her! This will be the defining moment of my career! The only problem is that she’s hardly in the best state at present – physically, or mentally for that matter. Her external wounds are starting to heal up well, mostly thanks to Potemkin’s medical work.

And now I learn the hard way that posttraumatic stress disorder isn’t something you can patch up on a whim. For fuck’s sake! This will be a major setback for the programme – it could be five, six months, maybe even a year before we can get her into the training sims!!!

Still, we did it. Getting her boyfriend to cooperate wasn’t as hard as I first thought it was going to be – but then, I tend to underestimate myself and my ideas. From here, things can only go uphill for me...

Sunday, August 28th.
BAH! Another goddamn setback for the project! The subject’s PTSD is even worse than I or Potemkin could have imagined. The captain analysed her sleep patterns through the night – he counted four night terrors. She kept dreaming through the whole night of demons tearing her to pieces, so Potemkin tells me. Still, nobody expected her to rupture her own vocal cords by screaming non-stop for five whole minutes when the captain went to check up on her this morning. Potemkin thinks that the red glow of his optical HUD caused her to believe that he was one of the demons – this was what he told me when he asked me to let him put her out of her misery. In the same conversation, he asked me why we’re doing all of this to her!!

I’ll tell you why, you audacious twat. With Project Chthonia, we’re making history. This girl is to be the first of a whole new breed of supersoldiers, the mightiest warriors this upstart world will ever see. The survival of the nation depends on our success or failure.

Tuesday, August 30th.
Today was much more eventful than yesterday, I’ll give it that. Potemkin finally threw in the towel: he just couldn’t take it. That is a direct quote, by the way – he told me that to my face! He ‘couldn’t take it’!!! Devil take me!!! The hell with that coward, there’s plenty more competent physicians in the Mechanocracy to take that worthless cunt’s place.

His successor, a Red Army medical officer called Ivan Golovkin, joined my team this afternoon. He’s a far cry from Potemkin’s constant bitching – that much, I will accredit to him. But there seems to be something else motivating his work with the subject. Sympathy? Unlikely. Sex? Probably – I think I ought to keep my eye on him. He hasn’t made his move yet, but I’ll be there with a big metal club when he does. Dare to ravish my pet project, you bastard?!

Wednesday, August 31st.
The Supreme Leader demands a progress report. He wasn’t happy when I informed Him of the circumstances of our acquisition of the subject. Nonetheless, He seemed to be contented when told that we were working on restoring her mind to normality.

Thankfully, she seems to already be calming down – in spite of a near panic-attack when Golovkin went to undertake his afternoon checkup. The two seem to be bonding well – I’ll be sure to give him a commendation for his contribution to the project, assuming he stays out of her pants. Like I said, he hasn’t made his move yet, but he will – why else would he get so close and personal with her?

Saturday, September 3rd.
I’m still waiting for Golovkin to start hitting on her. He hasn’t yet – maybe he’s aware that I’ve been watching him and the subject for the past three days? He’s completely fixated with his work, and he knows what to do about her stress. She’s so calm, in fact, that the time required for her treatment has dropped to a mere four weeks, rather than the five-or-so months that I had projected.

Seems that I have something else to give him kudos for – as soon as I know that she’s not going to get raped. A second time, that is. We already broke down her fortitude once before. Irreversibly-insane test subjects do not make for good soldiers...
- - - MECHANOCRATIC RUSSIA - - -
From the dilettante who brought you Worlds Asunder!
Part of the Frencoverse.
Did you know I'm also a website?
NS stats not included.
Yes, I am real. Send help.
Top
User avatar
New Frenco Empire
Powerbroker
 
Posts: 7787
Founded: Mar 14, 2013
Ex-Nation

Postby New Frenco Empire » Fri May 27, 2016 10:28 am

-Echoes of the Prophet IV-
(PWE - NFE - ESL - EPI - CIN - CAN)


The Simwell Conspiracy is touched up on very often. Even today. The most widely believed theory is that Chinese infiltrators were responsible for his death and the destruction of his offices. What those reports never accounted for is why the Chinese would do what they did. Simwell wasn't working on any superweapons or miracle compounds for the United States; he had a charity dedicated to cancer research. At the time, though, no one would believe any different. The Soviet Union was increasingly losing power and influence to China. They didn't have the resources for an operation like that. All the major pharmaceutical companies were long-since nationalized as per the national war directive. They would have long stopped caring about the blow to their profits. So who else could it have been?

No one wanted to suspect it was Hightower. The world's first trillionaire was a big-time philanthropist. He had tons of government officials accepting money from him. Everyone seemed to forget that Simwell left his employment under shady circumstances, and that Hightower often claimed that Simwell had "stolen" from him...

Well...everyone except for one lone agent of the FBI...

~Raymond Lowell

LOG #4-JANUARY 2050

The slight crackling of an audio log can be heard...

Agent Nomanski: Special Agent Sarah Nomanski, January the Twelfth, Twenty-Fifty, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mister Hightower-

Hightower: Joseph, dear. Mister Hightower was my father.

Agent Nomanski: Joseph...what can you tell me about Doctor Charles Simwell?

Hightower: Charles was a gifted young man and a favorite employee of mine. The news of his passing has left me saddened. Fate had taken yet another talented soul well before his time, it seems...

Agent Nomanski: Indeed. Now, you called him a "favorite employee"? He has been out of your employment for almost a year, Joseph, is that correct?

Hightower: Yes. That is correct.

Agent Nomanski: Can you describe to me the circumstances of Doctor Simwell leaving your employ?

Hightower: Ah, that. Well, Charles was never really happy with the projects I had assigned him. He always wished to do more direct good with his talents. I respected him and I respect his memory for believing what he did, but the boy was never really one for forward thinking...

Agent Nomanski: What do you mean?

Hightower: Can I let you in on a little secret, Agent Nomanski?

Agent Nomanski: I suppose.

Hightower: Anyone can guess that my company and all my holdings exist not just to increase my monetary value. The truth of it is...I care little about trivial things such as "money" anymore. I have grown up during various financial troubles experienced by this great nation. The Wall Street Crash, the Second Great Depression...if there is one thing I have learned during my time in business, it is that my great wealth can do more for society than just sitting in stocks or overseas accounts. Truly, I care more about what good I can do than just how rich I can be. I am worth more than a trillion United States dollars, Agent Nomanski. I am worth more than many governments put together. Look at the world around you, Agent. This planet will be completely dry of resources by the next century. The political map of the Middle East changes every week. China grows more powerful by the day. Soviet tanks are crossing into Europe as we speak. But what of the United States, you may ask? We have been the most powerful entity on this planet for more than a century. Surely we can resolve the problems? Well, here it is, Agent Nomanski...I do not quite believe that we can. Our government is plagued with corruption and obstruction. They do not want to focus on the issues plaguing the world. Believe me, if I think any nation could survive the test of time, it would be ours. However, Agent Nomanski, the thing about nations is...they prove more and more to be fickle things as time goes by. It matters not how much artificial 'strength' it can muster throughout the years; even the mightiest of empires will crumble before the will of great men. And we need great men now more than ever.

Agent Nomanski: How does your little glory project fit into Simwell's case?

Hightower: Like I said, I am the single most resourceful man ever to have lived. And I like to put the resources at my disposal to good use.

Agent Nomanski: So you had Simwell working on some shady project he didn't agree with?

Hightower: You could say that. And before you ask, I would rather not get into it. The contact in which he was working under is classified.

Agent Nomanski: Right, well...according to Simwell's prior admission, he left your company under unfavorable circumstances?

Hightower: It was a pity. Simwell one day decided that my work was not for him. Words were said, and he quit right on the spot.

Agent Nomanski: So you had an argument?

Hightower: Charles would have believed we did. I merely told him the truth of it; that staying with me would have helped civilization more than he could have on his own. With his talent and my resources, well...

Agent Nomanski: Did he leave with, perhaps...any information you would have rather him not have?

Hightower: He had the knowledge of many of my pet projects that I would not want to be in the public sphere, yes. However, Charles was very respectful to his nondisclosure agreement. Even when he left, I was confident that, as a friend, he would not talk about it to unwelcome sources.

Agent Nomanski: Right. Now, when I and other federal agents investigated the crime scene, we couldn't uncover anything missing. On top of that, the various automated security systems and Simwell's own corpse were singed. We've determined that the burns are the telltale signs of laser weaponry. Evidence points towards Chinese sabotage, but...there are only two entities at that moment that utilize laser weapons; the United States Armed Forces and FrenCo Corporate Security. Foul play on the part of the military is not suspected, Mister Hightower...

Hightower: Yes, personal laser weapons are a specialty of my defense holdings. I have not made them available to the public or to foreign buyers as of yet. But, I will be the first to admit that, if any particularly dubious and resourceful organization wants a laser, they can probably get one. Not of my own accord, of course, but...several military contractors report that they have yet to receive the shipments, after all. I will not admit to having any stakes on the black market, but...

Agent Nomanski: You honestly think that whoever murdered Doctor Simwell utilized underground resources for this hit?

Hightower: That, Agent Nomanski, is for you to determine in your investigation, for which I wish you the best of luck. If anyone can bring Simwell's killers to justice, I believe in the fine men and women of the FBI. Now, if you will excuse me, I have an appointment at six...

Agent Nomanski: Mister Hightower-

Hightower: May I request a copy of your audio log once you have processed it? My attorney wishes that I bring all the evidence of this matter to him.

Agent Nomanski:...very well, Mister Hightower.

Hightower: It has been a pleasure, Agent Nomanski. Do forward your progress on the investigation to my office. As you can imagine, I have personal ties to this heinous crime...
Last edited by New Frenco Empire on Fri May 27, 2016 10:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
☆☆☆NEW FRENCO EMPIRE☆☆☆
Transferring information from disorganized notes into presentable factbooks is way too time consuming for a procrastinator. Just ask if you have questions.
Plutocratic Evil Empire™ situated in a post-apocalyptic Decopunk North America. Extreme PMT, yet socially stuck in the interwar/immediate post-war era, with Jazz music and flapper culture alongside nanotechnology and Martian colonies. Tier I power of the Frencoverse.


Las Palmeras wrote:Roaring 20s but in the future and with mutants

Alyakia wrote:you are a modern poet
Top Hits of 2132! (Imperial Public Radio)
Coming at you from Fort Orwell! (Imperial Forces Network)


Top
User avatar
Blakullar
Senator
 
Posts: 4507
Founded: Sep 07, 2012
Corrupt Dictatorship

Postby Blakullar » Tue Jun 07, 2016 1:22 pm

~ The Trail of Bones, The Exordium Day ~
(CAN - ESL - EUR - MAT - MEK - WAR)

January the First, the exordium day of the year Twenty-One-Forty-One Anno Domini. Darkness, interwoven with the deep howl of nuclear jet engines and the clatter of metal, penetrated only by a sea of crimson dots. Eyelights, affixed to lightweight powered armour. A full platoon of paratroopers, of the Eighth VDV Regiment, and another fifteen, warriors of the highest magnitude of power in the Mecharussian Armed Forces. Chthonians stood at the front of the assault that was preparing for deployment.

"Battle-sister, are you ready?" so asked a booming masculine voice, radiant of a strongman.
"As ever, Ajax," replied a woman, bearing a harsh voice accustomed to command. "And yourself, brother?"

"As ready as ready can be, sister," the male warrior answered.
"Good. Kalliopa?"
"Battle-sister, the soldiers of Europe, clad in azure; Shall again experience our might, wrathful and pure!" a feminine voice hissed in verse like a poetic serpent.

"Persey?"
"Ready and waiting, sister..." a harsh voice rasped with greater semblance to a growl than speech. The commander would continue to address each and every Chthonian aboard, with every one yielding similar if not the same response.

"Dedal?"
"Preparations are complete, sister."

"Tsirtseya?"
"Your orders, sister?"

"Akhilles?"
"Ready, sister."

"Odissey?"
"Awaiting your command, sister,"

"Antey?"
"Ready, sister."

"Kheraklz?"
"Ready and waiting, sister."

"Arkhantos?"
"Here, sister."

"Peley?"
"Waiting for the call, sister."

"Tesey?"
"Here, sister."

"Kadmus?"
"Ready to deploy, sister."

"Abderus?"
"Oh-fucking-yes am I ready, sister!" the final soldier, one who sounded younger than the others, loudly answered. "I've been itching for a fight ever since the Salvagings came to a close!"
"Patience, brother!" Ajax interjected. "Your fight shall come in short order."

As though to imbue his rhetoric with substance, a mechanical roar invaded the auditory sensors of everybody aboard the ship as the cargo bay door peeled open. A thin wall of light expanded into the interior of the dropship, unveiling its occupants in all of their armoured glory. The soldier nearest to the exit was the woman who had addressed the Chthonians. Armoured in black and silver and bearing a hood and cloak as crimson as blood, the pale-skinned, red-eyed warrior with hair, lips and eyeshadow as black as the umbra wielded a sword in her left hand and an AVS-38u shortened assault rifle in her right. The sword, bearing an Eye of Providence on the hexagonal crossguard and a ruby-eyed onyx skull-pommel, was Deymos – the personal primary weapon of General Elena Trotskaya, the Red Tigress – the most powerful of the Chthonian hypersoldiers, fresh from the killing fields of Siberia to wage war elsewhere.

Behind her, arranged in five wedge formations of three, were the Chthonians. Ajax and Persey, in the same formation as Trotskaya, wore hulking suits of heavy assault armour. The former had an ornate, platinum-coloured stormhammer in his right hand and a Saiga-30 automatic shotgun slung over his back. The latter carried a 6V24 Drakon Gatling laser in his right hand and a huge, polished-black aspis shield affixed to his left wrist. The two warriors also wore different decorations for their power helmets: Ajax had a faceless wendigo head mounted onto the top of his, while a tall red crest could be seen atop Persey's. Kheraklz and Antey, in the formation behind Trotskaya's, wore the same armour, the former carrying a giant monomolecular greataxe and no helmet and the latter wielding two huge Tesla pulse-fists on his hands along with a ushanka on his head. All of the other Chthonians wore the same armour type as Trotskaya, with black hoods and cloaks as opposed to red and ornately-decorated demon masks covering their faces. Various firearms straddled their backs as swords lay sheathed in belt-mounted scabbards.

"Colonel Andropov, you know of the plan, yes?" the Tigress asked one of the regular soldiers.
"Yes, Ma'am," the gruff commander answered. "You keep them distracted while we put the walkers down and set up a base camp."

"Correct," Trotskaya averred. "We will do your men a favour and not kill all of the enemy troops before you and your men arrive!"
"That would be much appreciated, General!"

She nodded but once in acknowledgement, before turning her head to face the Chthonians awaiting the call to be set loose.
"Brothers and sisters, follow me to battle!"

With the grace of a prima ballerina, Trotskaya took a running swan-dive from the bowels of the Tu-245 heavy dropship, leaping from the lowered loading ramp into the bed of clouds below, ignited a deep amber by the dawn sun. At her side were her ever-faithful battle-siblings, having jumped from the dropship alongside her.
Piercing the cloud-cover en masse, the tranquillity of the sky above was replaced in a flash with the sights and sounds of battle. Explosions from flak cannons and missiles exploded all around them, the deep rumble of heavy guns and the whine of aircraft engines filled their ears, the sight of destruction on the ground and in the air was evident all around the urban sprawl of Kosice under attack. To Trotskaya and her battle-siblings, what they were greeted with was the nearest concept that they had to home.

Two wedge-shaped aircraft, in deep-blue camouflage, could be seen surging across the sky below. Trotskaya noticed them turn upward and fly toward the airborne mass of soldiers. They were to be the first catch of the day...

"Eurofighter Tempests coming our way," she at once commanded through the CommNet. "All soldiers, maintain present course. Ajax, cover me – I am going to distract them!"
"Gotcha," Ajax acknowledged and followed as Trotskaya banked away from the airborne troopers to her right.

Powering up her fusion sword, she challenged the lead jet in a head-on attack. As the two charged each other, Trotskaya observed a flickering light from the Tempest's underside. Its laser cannon was charging up, and soon after she spotted it a beam of brilliant azure light surged from the jet in a pulse, forcing the Tigress to roll to her left to dodge the death-bolt. Readying her sword for a counterattack, she homed in on the fuselage structure. One thrashing upward sweep as the aircraft rocketed below was enough to cleanly carve it in twain from the nose to the tail, a light grin curling up her cheeks as the infernal heat of the Tempest's jet engine warmly bathed her face.

"One down, one to go," Trotskaya muttered as both halves of the jet spiralled to the ground and smashed into the skyline.
"He's coming around," Ajax announced over the comms.

Sure enough, the Tigress turned her head to face over her shoulder. The raging cerulean dot that was the Tempest's jet engine was taking a hard bank to its left – away from the Chthonian soldiers, who were on the right. Just as planned.
"Ajax, follow me into the city and await my command," she ordered as the strike fighter levelled out and flew in her direction. "All other soldiers, maintain your present course!"

Knowing that she could not simply fly around and perform the same trick a second time, a new scheme began to cook in Trotskaya's mind as the Tempest closed in. With its ability to break mach five as though it were brittle slate to a sledgehammer, the Tigress could not hope to outrun the aircraft – but escaping the craft was not her intent. Bringing her agility to bear, she swept to her right just as another laser blast seethed past her, carving a deep, glowing gash in the skyscraper before her. Weaving around the skyline of Kosice with the Tempest hot on her tail, trying to swat her out of the sky with furious lashes of its cannon, the net was beginning to close.

At the apex of the pursuit, Trotskaya called out on her comm.
"Now, Ajax!" she ordered.

From her starboard side Ajax would jet forth, stormhammer brought to bear as he flew around to intersect the attacking Tempest. With a mighty downward swing, Ajax's devastating power hammer smashed into the top of the jet fighter and detonated its unstable power core, completely obliterating the aircraft and sending it into a tower block as a blazing amber fireball.
"Excellent, brother!" Trotskaya commended him. "All soldiers, form up!"

As Ajax and the other thirteen Chthonians returned to her side, flying as a collective arrowhead navigating the skyline, their attention was directed to a large formation of trenches and fortifications in the central park. Bolts, bullets and laser blasts red and blue were being exchanged between this ersatz fortress and a struggling line of Mecharussian soldiers that had already made landfall.

"Sister, primary objective is dead ahead," the Chthonian known as Odissey announced.
"Ajax, Persey, on me," Trotskaya promptly commanded. "Everyone else, pick targets and adopt attack pattern Delta."
"Let's get to work..." Persey grumbled.

Flying into the valley of the shadow of death, the Chthonians readied their weapons and charged straight into the assembled mass of European Federal Army Corps troops. Each of them landed on the ground with a roll and launched at the enemy like a dozen mad predators set loose upon a field of rabbits. Trotskaya, Ajax and Persey flew further on before they made landfall, crashing to the ground just behind the fortifications. Trotskaya would proceed to carve through everyone in her path with tremendous abandon. Nothing that the EFAC sent her way could break her: everything that they had, she was always but one step ahead. Bullets bounced off of her fusion sword, grenades found themselves returned to the foxholes from whence they were cast, and every offender was cut down with impossible precision, either by her sword or by a barrage of flechettes from her assault rifle.

Persey and Ajax were not far behind her. The former would charge ahead, aspis raised and deflecting every shot fired at it with phenomenal resilience. Even the dug-in Panther 1A3 main battle tank could not even hope to penetrate the massive shield with its Gauss cannon. While it was focused on Persey, Ajax would leap onto its top and smash into it with his stormhammer, destroying the tank with but a single devastating hit from another core-detonation. The nearby troops, their attention fixed to Persey's invincible shield, would be suppressed by his Gatling laser, fixed to a mobile tripod and scuttling close to him to ward off any enemies attempting to shoot the supersoldier from behind or the side. When he reached the first trench, he brandished his telescopic plasma spear to lance the defenders with his right-hand weapon, and dashing the brains of anyone who approached his side across the wall with a mighty shield-bash from the left.

The other Chthonians were joined by the existing MAF troops in assaulting the park-fort as the azure bolts fired upon them began to subside. It was only a matter of minutes before the park-fort was overrun, the EFAC presence inside already beginning to withdraw where they were not cut to pieces by Trotskaya, Ajax and Persey. The fighting in this area was rapidly drawing to a close and the Tigress had already called in Andropov and his airborne troops – as the engine-roar of eight descending Tu-245 heavy dropships attested. Drop-pods were converging upon the city as the aerial assault took shape in full, and mechwalkers were being disgorged from each dropship's bottom hatches via cargo-rope – four SKPT-P infantry support drones and a single AST-N quadrupedal MBM from each. Two other dropships, in skycrane configuration, bore a huge AST-C heavy assault walker each, all six of its legs landing on the surface with a dull thud as it was dropped from a height of five metres by the dropships before they took off back to the Baikonur troopships high above.

Trotskaya observed four drop-pods careening toward the taken park-fort, landing on the opposite side to where her soldiers were. As the bell-shaped pods crashed into the fortification and ejected a full squad each, she noticed one of them bearing Andropov himself. Amidst the sounds of battle, he and his group came running to where Trotskaya was. She was on the fort's highest point, staring ahead toward the large roadway that would carry them deeper into the city.
"I told you that we would refrain from killing everyone before you arrived," she drily informed him. "We will use this fortification as a staging-point for our next assault."

"What's the plan from here onward?" Andropov enquired.
"Have the turtles move in first and suppress their heavier defences with their mortars. Keep your tanks close behind and the troops ready to push up."

"Got it," the Colonel responded. "What're you going to do?"
"We are going ahead," Trotskaya answered with a smirk. "We have yet to satiate our hunger for battle!"

"Alright," Andropov acknowledged. "I'll see you in half an hour then."
"We will be done in twenty," Trotskaya challenged her good friend, before turning to the massed Chthonians. "Brothers and sisters, on me!"
- - - MECHANOCRATIC RUSSIA - - -
From the dilettante who brought you Worlds Asunder!
Part of the Frencoverse.
Did you know I'm also a website?
NS stats not included.
Yes, I am real. Send help.
Top
User avatar
The Nexus of Man
Diplomat
 
Posts: 695
Founded: Oct 11, 2014
Ex-Nation

Postby The Nexus of Man » Wed Jun 22, 2016 12:45 pm

Image
Last edited by The Nexus of Man on Sat Jun 10, 2017 12:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Top
User avatar
Blakullar
Senator
 
Posts: 4507
Founded: Sep 07, 2012
Corrupt Dictatorship

Postby Blakullar » Fri Jun 24, 2016 6:11 am

~ The Trail of Bones, The War Horses ~
(CAN - ESL - EUR - MAT - MEK - WAR)

February the Thirteenth, Twenty-One Forty Two. One year, one month and twelve days it had taken to cross four hundred miles, traversing the E58 autobahn and then along the River Danube from Kosice to Vienna. Behind Trotskaya's advance, untold devastation lay strewn across the E58. Rimavska Sobota lasted a week before its defenders surrendered. Zvolen lasted two months. Bratislava never surrendered – the entire city was engulfed in hellfire for its defiance. The rain of incendiary rockets and mortar shells, bombs from the sky and missiles from the earth all tolled the deaths of the thousands of Federation soldiers assigned to guard the city against the brutal Mecharussian onslaught. The message of Bratislava's fall would be carried east by a Danube stained a crimson that once flowed through millions, yet now flowed only to the voracious confines of the Black Sea. Many hundreds of thousands had been slaughtered in the savage push to Vienna, carving a bloody trail of bones from Mechanocratic Ukraine to the pulsing heart of Europe.

It was Vienna where Trotskaya's story would continue: a mere two hundred metres due east from the central square of the Austrian capital, the Heldenplatz. She was accompanied in her mission by Ajax, Persey and Abderus, the remaining eleven Chthonians leading different platoons in the assault against the city.

Another soldier the four spotted, navigating eastward through the buildings. A flickering red laser light to identify the newcomer came from Trotskaya's assault rifle, blinking on and off three times. A red light returned. One, two, three times. He was friendly. The Chthonians made their way to him at once, careful to not attract enemy attention as they moved through the urban undergrowth.

"What is your name, soldier?" Trotskaya enquired.
"Lieutenant Golovkin, Ma'am!" the soldier crisply responded. "Fourth Shock Brigade, Twelfth Moscow!"

A brief pause, for about five seconds, as Trotskaya absorbed that information. The name ... how similar it was to her mentor, Ivan Golovkin. The lieutenant who had been with her for all of the time that she spent languishing in agony and self-hatred as she was transformed by the Chthonia Programme. Ivan and his wife, a populist by the name of Ekaterina, had mentioned a son of theirs. On the former's deathbed, Trotskaya had made him a promise. She would repay him for everything that he did for her, in the belief that she owed him a huge debt. Her next move was to be determined through a confirmation of identity.

"You are ... Victor Ivanovich Golovkin, correct?"
"Yes, Ma'am!"

And so the die were cast.
"Stay close to me, Lieutenant," Trotskaya commanded. "I will get you out of here."

"With all due respect, Ma'am, I don't intend to leave without my troops!" Golovkin protested. Now there was no questioning that he was the son of Ivan – noble and brave, just like his father.

"Just where are your troops?" Ajax asked, finally realising that the soldier had come alone.
"In the shop by the square, last I checked. They're trapped there. I came to get help."

"We're headed to the square now," Ajax informed him. "Can you point us in the correct direction?"
"Of course, sir," Golovkin's finger was raised to point back the way he came. "This way..."

Then a cacophonic racket assaulted everyone's ears and auditory sensors. A metallic clattering upon the stony cobble of the roadway, conjoined to the curt squeal of roadwheels and the growl of an engine.
"Something is coming!" Trotskaya hissed, ushering everyone into the nearby confines of a ravaged coffee shop and out of sight.

Just as Ajax squeezed his heavy armour through the doorway, the machines that had announced their presence in sound crawled around a street corner, passing right beside the coffee shop. Trotskaya, Abderus, Ajax and Golovkin observed as one, then two, then three and finally four tanks, painted in the dark navy-blue camouflage of the European Federal Enforcer Corps, rumbled by on four stubby leg-like treads. The whole superstructure was dominated by a wide turret bearing a heavy-bore, stout mag-cannon at the fore. Mounted atop the turret structure were two boxy missile pods and a remote weapon system that was easily discernible as a Rheinmetall MG38 heavy laser repeater.

"Schlachs," Golovkin whispered. "That isn't good..."
"What's a 'Schlach'?" Abderus curiously enquired.

"Panzerbefehlswagen Schlachtross," Trotskaya replied. "A very dangerous war machine developed as part of a joint Frenco-European project to create a next-generation tank. The Frenks have the M6 Edwin – the Europeans have the Schlachtross."

"The fecks must be fast running out of ideas if they're throwing a whole column of them at us," Ajax continued, using the MAF's nickname for soldiers of the European Federal Enforcer Corps. "The expense of producing just one of these things means you don't normally see more than one of them in a single sitting. Even then, you'll only usually catch a glimpse of it at the rear of the line directing the charge..."
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Abderus asked, eager to draw his fusion-sword. "Let's carve these glorified jalopies into scrap-metal!"

"Do not be stupid!" Trotskaya hissed, grabbing Abderus' arm mere moments before he leapt from the perch and pointing to the tanks. "Do you see those lines of bulbs around each tread-guard and on the turrets? Those are belts of directional smart-mines. If you even get close to them, you will be blown to pieces!"
"What do you suggest we do, then?" Abderus enquired.

"I know how to kill them, but I'll need you to distract them!" Golovkin stated.
"Then start talking, because we and your men are fast running out of time!" Ajax commanded.

"Spider-mines," Golovkin gave his answer. "They keep the ammunition stored in the tank's underside to keep it out of reach of incoming fire. We get a mine underneath it, it goes up like a firecracker!"

"I'm guessing this is the bit where we come in," Ajax stated to Golovkin.
The lieutenant confirmed the assertion with a curt "Yes, sir."

They all proceeded to follow where the tanks had gone. As luck would have it, they were proceeding to the square, so the plan was made to kill two birds with a single stone. They soon reached the tanks, which were all already advancing well into the central Heldenplatz. The Mecharussians trapped on the concourse had fortified the Neue Burg museum, troops poking their weapons out of the curved building's many windows as blood-red bolts danced through the air against the Federation counterattack.

"Persey, up front," Ajax commanded. "I've an idea to get the party started. Sister, can I count on you to keep them busy?"
"You can indeed," Trotskaya told him, Ajax turning to see that her flight pack was already powered up and ready to go. In an instant, she blasted into the sky, soaring over the battle-scarred concourse.

The tanks were quick to react to her presence, as was every other EFAC unit on the square – the laser MGs on the tops of the tanks blasted streaks of azure energy in her direction, trying to shoot her out of the air to little avail. While they were focused on her, nobody spotted a giant matt-black aspis shield charging toward one of the tanks, getting close. At once, the smart mines on the left side of the Schlachtross glowed bright blue and gave a vicious glare to the shield. Like an array of spherical serpents, they cracked and spat shards of shrapnel in an attempt to ward it away, only for the aspis to soak them all up. Once the mine-belts on the side had been expended, Ajax leapfrogged over the shield and smashed his power hammer into the hull. At once the Schlach was flipped onto its rear and knocked over. Persey readied his plasma-slavering spear and drove it deep into the tank's belly, striking the ammunition rack and causing a shuddering explosion. A lifesign scan showed that the entire crew of three had been killed instantly by this detonation.

Golovkin was nowhere to be found, and for but a split second Ajax suspected that he had fled. At least until a series of controlled detonations threw the remaining trio of Schlachs high into the sky, each tossed like a ragdoll by a combination of spider-bomb explosion and ammunition destruction. The lieutenant emerged from his hiding place behind a car to join up with Ajax and Persey, running amidst gunfire from the outflanked Federal troops to rally behind one of the statues on the concourse. Abderus was already waist-deep in hellfire, shooting to pieces Federal troops with a light machine gun what a distended gauntlet-blade on his wrist did not cut through. Trotskaya was not too far away, alongside him at the forefront with her fusion sword and assault carbine. As it was clear that the Federals were beginning to lose, Ajax, Persey and Golovkin vacated their cover spot and joined them as they prepared to enter the Burg and reinforce the Mecharussians trapped inside.

"Lieutenant," Ajax asked, "do you have any more of those spider-mines in case another Schlach shows up?"
"Hang on, let me check!" Golovkin dipped his hand into the pack. His expression quickly went cold, however.

The look immediately froze solid when he caught sight of a bug-like object crawling over the Ausseres Burgtor gateway, bearing what looked like tank treads arranged into stubby magnetic legs and missile pods arranged on a turret like the ears of an angry donkey. Another Schlach!

"I do not mean to rush you, but you need to make it quick!!" Trotskaya hissed as she too glanced toward the tank. Its menacing turret was rotating toward them...
"I'm looking as fast as I can, Ma'am!" Golovkin barked back, beads of sweat coursing down his face as his hands scrabbled through the pack.
"Too late!!" she pushed him down, Persey raising the shield again before she called: "Hit the deck!!"

The next thing that Golovkin knew was that he was in a hole inside of some part of the Burg, ears ringing from what was most likely a big explosion going off either nearby or on top of them. Trotskaya was next to him, body sprawled out onto the floor, heavily cut across her face and armour plating dented. She was out cold. How long had HE been unconscious? Five, ten, fifteen seconds?! And where the hell were those other Chthonians?!

At the very instant that Golovkin thought that this already-dismal situation could not worsen, the dull, grating racket that accompanied moving servos announced that wherever that Schlach was now, it was on the move.
"Ma'am?" he shook the girl at his side, to no avail. "Ma'am!"

She was not dead, that much he did know. What she was, however, was in a bad way, stuck down here with a Lieutenant with no idea of what to do. The severity of the predicament was affirmed once more by another legged thump from outside. Golovkin turned to his left to find himself well within the crosshairs of the Schlach's big gun.

"Fuck!" he belted out, shielding the unconscious Trotskaya with his body in what he knew was a futile effort anyway. Was this really how the story of Victor Golovkin and the Red Tigress was going to end – staring into the baleful gaze of a Rheinmetall M400 152-millimetre mag-cannon? Maybe it was the end. Well, at least he could die with the pleasure of knowing that he had not gone down without a fi-

The thunderous cacophony of an explosion irrupted into Golovkin's ears. Not the work of a high-explosive shell blasted forth from the Schlach's gun, but a different source. That much was attested by the sight of the offending Schlach having been thrown aloft by a massive explosion, before smacking into the ground with an iron clang. The next thing that he knew, a giant armoured hand was gestured to pull him forth from the hole. Hoisting Trotskaya over his left shoulder, Golovkin with his right hand seized the gauntlet, which turned out to belong to the supersoldier who had introduced himself as Ajax. Abderus and Persey were not far away, scanning the area for additional opponents.

"You two are lucky I have a good throwing arm," the Chthonian's booming voice announced to Golovkin. "Otherwise that spare spider-mine I found in your pack would never have gotten there in time."

Then he spotted the limp Trotskaya.
"How is she?"

"She's seen better days, sir," Golovkin replied as he hoisted the girl off of his shoulder, allowing Ajax to inspect her himself.
"She's also seen worse," the old Chthonian spoke.

"Ajax..." Persey voiced in a growling, almost infernal speech that was even deeper than the soldier whom he addressed. "Golovkin's men are safe and on their way back to the base camp. We should make our way back too..."
"Agreed," Ajax confirmed. "Are you coming with us, Lieutenant?"

"I think I should, sir," Golovkin complaisantly answered in the affirmative. "I'm good with medicine, I could see to it that she's alright. I think I owe her this much..."
- - - MECHANOCRATIC RUSSIA - - -
From the dilettante who brought you Worlds Asunder!
Part of the Frencoverse.
Did you know I'm also a website?
NS stats not included.
Yes, I am real. Send help.
Top
User avatar
Blakullar
Senator
 
Posts: 4507
Founded: Sep 07, 2012
Corrupt Dictatorship

Postby Blakullar » Thu Jun 30, 2016 4:03 pm

THIS TALE HAS SINCE BEEN RETCONNED AND NO LONGER APPLIES TO ANY CANON.
~ If Only You Knew, My Love ~
(CIN - FPP - MAT - MCN - MEK)

If only you knew, my love. If only I could tell you...

It's true. He did perish on that fateful day, when we were fighting against the Crusaders. But the monster that replaced him, the monster that inhabits this godforsaken shell of metal and myofibre...

Oh, my beloved goddess, I can't bear to even imagine your heartbreak if you were to lay eyes on him and see for yourself what a foul, loathsome horror he has become...

I know you miss him, and I know you hate yourself for letting him die. But it's better for you this way – the man who gave you his heart and soul was not the man who burned entire worlds and slaughtered whole families. Innocent families, targeted by my infernal, burning hate.

A raging furnace that is stoked by what those ... bastards ... did to our beloved vision. The Utans, the Frenks, the Neohumans, the Empyreals ... I will repay them in kind. Their worlds will be set aflame, rivers of blood will flow through their streets, and ... and...

GAAAAAAAAH!!!! WHY DO I LET THIS MONSTROSITY TAKE CONTROL OF EVERY FIBRE OF MY BEING!!! FUCKING ... FOUL, DISGUSTING ALIEN BEASTS AND THEIR PRETENDER FUCKTOYS!!!! THIS IS ALL THEIR FAULT!!! CURSE THEM!!! CURSE THEM ALL!!!! I'LL TAKE THEIR LIVES IN EXCHANGE FOR WHAT THEY TOOK FROM US, MY LOVE – WHAT THEY TOOK FROM YOU!!! THAT MUCH I PROMISE!!! WHOLE CIVILISATIONS WILL BE GLASSED!!! HEADS, BODIES, BLOOD EAGLES WILL COVER ENTIRE WORLDS!!!! THE XENOS WILL SUFFER!!! I WILL MAKE THEM SUFFER!!!! I WILL WIPE THIS ENTIRE GALAXY CLEAN OF THEIR FILTH!!! EVERY LAST EXTANT ALIEN SPECIES IN THE UNIVERSE WILL BEAR WITNESS TO THEIR BLOODY ANNIHILATION, EVEN IF I MAKE ITS REALISATION MY VERY LAST MORTAL ACT!!!!

...

It happened again, didn't it? I let Chernabog do the talking again. With every demonstration of the agonising chokehold that he holds over my mind, you know why you must never know...

The man you loved is dead, and shall remain so for all eternity. I do this not for myself, my love, but for you and you alone. May your memories of Victor Golovkin remain forever untainted by the abomination that is Artyom Madrek...

"High Commander, you're crying! What's wrong, sir? Are you having another bad memory about the war?"

Oh, Yulia. All your adult life you've lived with the knowledge that your father is dead. If I don't tell your mother, then it's only proper that I tell you...

"I know I can trust you with my life, Yulia, so I can trust you to keep this secret..."
Last edited by Blakullar on Sun May 14, 2017 1:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
- - - MECHANOCRATIC RUSSIA - - -
From the dilettante who brought you Worlds Asunder!
Part of the Frencoverse.
Did you know I'm also a website?
NS stats not included.
Yes, I am real. Send help.
Top
User avatar
Ardavia
Senator
 
Posts: 4732
Founded: Jun 05, 2013
Ex-Nation

Postby Ardavia » Fri Jul 08, 2016 1:50 pm

Image
Last edited by Ardavia on Sat Jun 10, 2017 12:07 pm, edited 3 times in total.
professional contrarian
for: whatever you are against
against: whatever you are for
Top
User avatar
The Nexus of Man
Diplomat
 
Posts: 695
Founded: Oct 11, 2014
Ex-Nation

Postby The Nexus of Man » Fri Jul 08, 2016 4:59 pm

Image
Last edited by The Nexus of Man on Sat Jun 10, 2017 12:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Top
User avatar
Mefpan
Negotiator
 
Posts: 5872
Founded: Oct 23, 2012
Ex-Nation

Postby Mefpan » Mon Jul 11, 2016 10:13 am

Brute Force Secrecy

MCN/OWC/UPS(?)/FPP


The man bearing the number [45] sat down in front of me, bones creaking with every movement, dry, age-withered flesh throwing folds with every labored move. So representative of this entire rotten council of smart men, and at the same time so unremarkable that he sat so far down the hierarchy he wouldn't even be called to rule if the current shadow leaders all dissapeared in an accident. A low-ranking bureaucrat, by all accounts. Disposable. Fodder. Chaff. Not missed if he oversteps his boundaries today. He grimaces as he turns to look at me, and then speaks.

"I may be old, but I am not senile. Let us not pretend that I do not see the contempt written plainly on your face. Tell me, [4], why are you here?"

So he is at least skilled enough to read people. It may be just paranoia on my end, however. I've never bothered with hiding my emotions. The ______s used to say that at my happiest, I merely wore a scowl on my face. I do miss them, I believe, despite my exile at their hands. He looks impatient - of course he's waiting for an answer.. I shrug at him.

"I am looking for someone. I have cause to believe that I can find him here."

He frowns, quite obviously not liking my answer. Especially given that his and my concepts of 'here' appear to be far removed from one another, and he's quite aware of it. Aware of the fact that I've given him something of a non-answer.

"Here? Where, here? And who? A friend?"

I don't think so. I've never truly understood this 'friends' business, but as far as I know, friends don't seem to attempt to kill one another during the period of friendship. Of course, I didn't mind that person's presence, not as much as that of most other people - having someone who can at least conceptually understand certain phenomena that better remain unmentioned for now. And these inquiries are getting annoying already. I'm more used to be the one doing the questioning, not the other way around. [45] is coughing. I should answer.

"Not a friend, no. An...acquaintance, for lack of a better term."

His face contorts into something hideous. A disgusting grin, getting the wrong idea, by mistake or by design. He's quite mistaken in your assumptions and insinuations, but I shan't fault him. He is a lonely old man, after all. I do kill for more professional reasons than that. Usually. I'm quite sure now that he'll deliver soon enough however.

"And you've not found him yet, after a decade of searching?"

Him? I guess that is the closest approximation, sure, though my own research into the matter was less than complete when everything unraveled not once, but twice. If he were forced to understand the true scope of the secrets he is scraping against at this moment, he would be clawing his eyes out. I know exactly where to look. I just have no access to it - or the resources to locate that person. If they don't want to be found, they are not found. Same as me.

"This world is a large place. Don't get me wrong, I can pinpoint their location down to a single country fairly accurately, but I am in need of special resources to locate and contact them."

[45] nods thoughtfully and pulls out a few papers, making a bad mockety of the concept of discretion as he pushes them over to me. Why the pretense? This room is safe. For me, at least. For him too, as far as he is aware. After all, he picked the location, didn't he?

"So we figured. You have been sending agents to Japan, to locations within Japan that hold very little military significance, but might still rile up the Frenks nonetheless. Europe does not need more enemies, and it appears as though you are poking hornet's nests intentionally, with the sheer volume of manpower dispatched."

Ah. So that's what this all is about? It appears as though I have made an enemy myself, though surprisingly within this 'Europe' everyone is obsessed with. Is the influence I wield becoming too terrifying for someone on the upper end of the political food chain?

"Which of the Big Numbers put you up to this? This, after all, is information someone of your rank normally would have no access to."

He leans back in his seat and dares to throw a smug grin at me. He thinks himself superior, simply because he's eating out of the hand of others at my level. Annoying vermin.

"Irrelevant. My order is to remind you of who your masters are-" Not you. Not anybody. I have been cut loose from all my oaths. "-and of their ability to strike you down like the stray dog you are. Your military expertise has made you indispensable for the duration of the coup, We are at peace now, which has drastically reduced your worth."

A direct message, then? Cannot dispose of him in a way that would implicate me - if the other majors are involved, then that would provoke a hostile response. I'll wait a week, and then set some of my other pieces in motion.

"In short, you are questioning my loyalty to Europe?"

You would be right to do so. I hold no greater love for Europe. It is a landmass as any other, although I do admit that having to whip the regressive zealots of the Middle East into something remotely useful would be a massive waste of my time. Christ-Computer only knows why the Mechanocracy is trying to do so. Regardless, I would not seek to harm this Conglomerate, seeing how important it is in my machinations.

"As of yet, no. We are, howeer, concerned by your tendency to overstep your boundaries when it comes to your responsibilities. Though that may soon change, given that you admitted to trying to contact what can only be a high-ranking Frenkish official stationed in Japan."

That must be what everyone meant when they said I am as subtle as a low-yield nuclear weapon. I've never been in a position where I could have been attacked like this before - usually, I have the chance to stack the deck in my favor. Plan C, then. What a hassle - I hadn't wanted to commit that particular asset so soon, and not for an extended period of time. I rise from my seat and walk past the old codger, one hand already going into my coat and closing around the gun I brought.

"I do not recall giving you permission to leave. We are not done yet, [4]. Sit back down!"

His hand falls onto my shoulder, and I whip around, bringing the gun to bear on this senile fool. At this range, it doesn't stop in front of his face as originally intended but outright smashes into his lower jaw, scattering pieces of the expensive prosthetic replacement all across the room, broken technology and organic remnant tissue clearing much of the room before they finally hit the ground. I glance at the pistol in my hand. Some mediocre, worthless .22 caliber handgun. No power, no worth in battle. But excellent for this situation. For catharsis. For making an example. I take aim. I pull the trigger three times. Lung, gut, leg. Weak flesh. Weak fool. Trying to outsmart me at chess when the gameboard isn't pinned to the table. I see the shock in his eyes. Betrayal. Incredulity. Astonishment. Fear. Awe. Yes, of course I shot you, you idiot. Even I know not to reveal intent to pin the person you speak to as a traitor. That, in fact, was the first thing I learned. Incidentally, for you it's the last. [45] slumps to the ground, gurgling and coughing.

"Maximilien. Please do make sure our number here is not disturbed during his death throes. And once he finally expires, clean up the mess and take his appearance. Well, before i ruined it, at least. You will impersonate him and 'die' in a month. Think of it as unexpected vacation."

I finally leave the room, not bothering to turn back to look at the figure that's stepped out of the shadows, approaching the quickly fading number. There's a gurgling noise, most likely a panicked scream that cannot quite get past the blood pooling inside the old man's lungs already. The door closes behind me with a click, and silence returns once more. One would think that they'd drop their fondness for mysterious ominousness and darkness and soundproofed rooms when meeting in person. Or being so blunt in their dealings with me.
No matter. I have my own objectives. The complaints of generations that have forgotten how to die are irrelevant to me, and eventually I'll have to dispose of them all anyway.


OOC: fuck digging up my Old World Conglomerate account for this.
Last edited by Mefpan on Mon Jul 11, 2016 10:15 am, edited 2 times in total.
I support thermonuclear warfare. Do you want to play a game of chess?
NationStates' umpteenth dirty ex-leftist class traitor.
I left the Left when it turned Right. Now I'm going back to the Right because it's all that's Left.
Yeah, Screw Realism!
☠Loyal Planet of Mankind☠
Top
User avatar
Gigaverse
Postmaster-General
 
Posts: 12726
Founded: Mar 26, 2011
Civil Rights Lovefest

Postby Gigaverse » Tue Jul 12, 2016 1:08 pm

God and Devil
CAN | FPP | MAT(?) | NFE | PWE | TPP


"So, I guess Alphonse has already showed you just about everything you needed to know about everyone here; hasn't he, Ellie?" Sakahara sat down and poured tea for his conversation partner, Elizabeth. "Mind if I call you Ellie?"

"Maybe, and no, respectively." The curious woman sighed. "There's probably one or two left. He never showed me much about you at all."

"Even said I operate on a more limited scale than him." The blond chuckled. "Guess he never quite understood how I worked until recently. But you don't have to so sneak on me by way of Alphonse, you'll understand me - eventually. I'm sure, however, there must be someone he didn't show you - other than yours truly - that's still bugging you."

"I don't know... Meimei?"

"For now, somebody else would be more preferable. I'll give you a hint: your old boss."

"Emperor Zane?"

"Your other boss."

"You don't mean..."

"Hightower does have history with me."

"Why? He doesn't even seem to pick up any sign on who you might be!"

"There's an interesting story behind that."

Both still properly seated, Sakahara transformed the scenery around them.

*****

Image Joseph Hightower
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

They said today was the end of the world. Eh. Might as well stay here and check this place out before shit hits the fan.

I thought to myself, as I aimlessly strolled in the hallways. The real reason why I didn't go home? People are probably killing each other out there right now, "knowing" that the end of days is upon them. But really, fuck knows. Maybe it was morbid interest that prompted me. There are rumors of paranormal activities happening around the corner, in this very place. If not, at least I'll be able to catch a couple making out or having sex.

Really. I'm bored.

The human world wasn't quite interesting to begin with. Nutcases killing each other in the name of their false gods every day. Humanity generally consists of greedy assholes, probably tearing themselves apart outside as I'm internally ranting. Everyone's either boring or using way too much meth.

If only something happens. Like a shower of meteors. Or nukes.

"The question is: What are you doing here?"

Shit. Did somebody find me out. I must hide. And fast, before I lose my hide.

Evading attention is something I've mastered. In a world surrounded by nonentities, guess it's better to be unseen and unheard. So I found a place to both conveniently hide myself watch who was it. I saw the shadow of somebody walking backwards.

"W-What are you talking about? I'm the cleaner here, for fuck's sake!"

A different voice than before. This is getting fun.

"Oh? Then how do you explain her?"

A chestnut-haired girl rolls over, stopping next to the apparent cleaner. Her eyes are closed. Is this a murder, a rape, a kidnapping or something?

"I wasn't trying to do an-"

"You were. You had a gun hiding in your uniform."

I only just noticed then that there was another figure in the dark. Whatever he is, he seems strangely more obscured by shadows than his surroundings.

"SHIT!"

The cleaner reaches for his firearm, only for a fist to make loud impact with his chin. He's knocked back, but is quick to get back up.

"Keyword: 'had'. It's a shame, really, to see someone with psychic potential abusing what little powers he has for petty pleasure."

Wait. I think I've heard this voice somewhere.

I tried to search my mind for a match to the voice I've just heard. It's very clearly a male voice. That of an adult, not any of the snotty fucking brats in this school. Is it the maths teacher? That idiot of a P.E. teacher?

BOOM.

There was the sound of gunfire. The cleaner sustains injuries on both shoulders and knees. He limped backwards before kneeling down before the figure, who walke-

What the fuck.

Is that the Com Science teacher? He looks so... murderous.

He grabbed the cleaner by the collar, and effortlessly lifts him into the air. What the actual fuck. I thought this guy was a big-ass weak ass who couldn't even handle a ball flying straight at his face. Now he's doing this. Is this guy some undercover CIA agent trying to protect his mask or something?

"I'm sorry, but you simply cannot be let to live, as this is far from your first offense. Very far, actually."

"N-No! Don't kill me, pl-please?"

"Who said I'm going to kill you?"

Then what is he gonna- FUCK.

Everything around the three - the unconscious girl; the cleaner; and whoever... or whatever... he... it, is - turns red. A gaping hole appeared in the latter's torso, and extended outwards. For a brief moment, I lost both my sense of reality, time and space. The thing held his victim closer and closer to the massive black hole-like thingy created on his stomach, which resembled something straight out of horror movies, with faces looking like they were made by CG, and eyes all over. I even caught a brief glimpse of bloodied tentacles at the back, extended all the way to where the girl was lying. An ear-to-ear smile full of fangs was visible on the thing's face.

The cleaner grimaced, as he was slowly brought closer to that black hole. There were whispers from the faces inside.

"You lived a life without purpose."

"You were the one responsible for making yourself unloved."

"Daddy... I loved you. Why did you do that to me... Why?"

"You have no place in this world."

"But through me," the face over the hole looked down upon its victim, "you will have a greater purpose. Than molesting and necrophilia."

The cleaner was sucked inside, and the thing returned to its human shape: the CS teacher I always knew. Only, he's clothed in some fancy shirt and pants I'd never imagine a guy like him to be wearing.

OK, that crept me out. Tell me this was a very well-directed stunt. I'm willing to buy that- "SHIIIIIIT!!!"

WHEN? HOW? HIS FACE IS STARING AT ME. SO HE KNEW. SHIT. SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT. I MUST GET OUTTA HERE-

"Fast? No worries, I'm not some CIA experiment trying to stop its cover from being blown. Nor am I an alien. You'll see all of those and some in the future."

"He-Heh. Heh?"

"What? First time seeing this kind of thing?" He asks me.

"Yes. No. Not in real life. Didn't expect to see that. Some advanced computer shit I didn't know about?"

"No." He shrugs. "He was just erased from existence."

Erased from existence? What?

OK, lemme try to remember who this guy was again.

Other than his imposing height and pretty boy face, there wasn't much to him. He seemed even more socially awkward than me, at least from my point of view. I'd probably never comprehend why he was so popular with the girls - or anyone, at all. He couldn't even resist slight pains. Was there something about his little lectures on life that made them so enamored? Perhaps the claims that he could wage a cyber-war against any gov in the world and singlehandedly win it - given that he knows stuffs in my own fields of interest that even I didn't know about? Or probably the monstrous true nature he kept well-hidden under that teacher facade?

"I'd say a combination of all three." He lightly shakes his head. "Joey, don't you have a more important place to be at right now? Home, for instance?"

"What? Are you going to give me a lecture on 'spending quality time with my family' now?"

"No, I know you well enough to realize that even if I tried to drill the most interesting information into that fuckin' gigantic rock you've got for a brain, you just won't learn if you're not interested. Huh. And to think you'd grow to be much more sophisticated and backstabbing."

"I'm sorry?"

"You've heard me." The blond stands up. "You're destined to be a big fish in history, Hightower, and I'm glad I have a part to play in the grand scheme of things."

"What are you talking about?"

"*You'd grow smarter too...* This."

He's lifting me into midair. Without even using his hands to directly touch me. Oh goody, today isn't the end of the world yet. It's the end of my life.

"Joseph Hightower... The events of today are going to be altered and a bit fuzzy in your head. All you'd remember is plenty of bloodshed and brutalities which occurred at the nearby alley. You just happen to be a witness. And you will keep living your life out normally, as an pupil of this little forgotten public school."

"Argh!"

"We'll see each other a century after your graduation. Until then, make sure you grow to be the historical bastard."

He puts me down to the floor.

"When I'm relieved of the burden of teaching you, I'd teach for a few more years before I retire and retreat into obscurity. You, ever the ungrateful son of a bitch, would soon forget me since I would merely be an insignificant teacher in your past.

Now then. Let's proceed."

...

...

Undisclosed Location
Unknown Date and Time

"Was that... Keiji, who did this?"

"No, the first Sakahara you were introduced to wasn't the one responsible for this." Sakahara calmly sipped from his cup as he explained. "Hightower's first taste of blood was my responsibility."

"So you indirectly caused catastrophe for humanity?"

"Hmm? What made you say so?"

"Ever since I entered this whole trans-dimensional business and being introduced to Hightower and his amorality... I got this crackpot theory that he was the one behind 2077."

"... Hmph. Funny, but excuse me if I won't elaborate on that for now. This whole thing is complicated. Regardless. Welcome back to Phantom Crusade, my dear. Now that you're free from the shackles of your world of origin and its own Hightower..."
Art-person(?). Japan liker. tired-ish.
Student in linguistics ???. On-and-off writer.
MAKE CAKE NOT ｓｔｕｐｉｄｓｈｉｔｉｃａｎｍａｋｅｆｕｎｏｆ.
born in, raised in and emigrated from vietbongistan lolol
Operating this polity based on preferences and narrative purposes
clowning incident | clowning incident | bottom text
can produce noises in (in order of grasp) vietbongistani, oldspeak
and bonjourois (learning weebspeak and hitlerian at uni)
Top
Next
Post a reply

Advertisement

Remove ads

Return to NationStates

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Varsemia

Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group

Advertisement

Remove ads