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Post by Galio on Sept 25, 2011 0:47:32 GMT -5
Charl looked at Zephate. "Jorj is dead."
Zephate was both fine with that, but also torn. His face conveyed the message.
"He was family through and through. I guess I'm fortunate to never have had a family. Even the imitations are horrible."
Zephate chuckled... ish. He knew he was missing something. "Oh yeah! I'm alive! What in the world?"
"Special neurotoxin remedy!" Said the hunched over, old figure. "Me and the boys used to tease the plants that the stuff's made from. Weeeeell... needless to say, we had to come up with some sort of antidote in an obligatory rush, one day. Almost lost my ol' buddy, but we brought him back with a mixture of a few jungle herbs, leaves and... liquid." The old man hunkered in a circle to face them. "Let me give you kids some advice; Leaves of 9 inch, red acid-oozing, man devouring mandibles, leave it be. Just leave it be, kids."
Charl jumped to her feet and checked herself. Her weapons were in place. Even her pistol was re-holstered. She did a one second, full weapon functionality check. Everything was working fine. She stated matter-of-factly, "You trust us; Why?"
Zephate interjected, "Or need us. Ow." He grabbed his aching head.
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Post by Hoovy on Oct 11, 2011 17:08:51 GMT -5
Zephate interjected, "Or need us. Ow." He grabbed his aching head.
"Eh. It's not as much as I need you as you need me. Heh..." The old man picked up 3 long straws. "Anyone want some soup? Made it myself. Proud of it." He smiled to show a mouth full of metal teeth.
Charl had no idea what to say. "Umm... uh..."
"What she means is 'Sure! We'd Love to'!" He smiled and elbowed Charl, "We can trust this guy. Don't ask, I'll explain later."
The old man had set the entire pot of soup on a old, stained wooden table. Maybe even older than the man.
He hobbled over and handed a straw to Charl and Zephate. "Dig in!" He smiled again, hobbled back to the soup and started drinking the soup with the straw. Charl looked over at Zephate, shrugged, and they both began to drink the soup. --- Zephate belched and leaned back in the chair. "That old dude sure knows how to make some good soup."
Charl was sitting on her bed cleaning her pistol. She did that when something was on her mind.
Zephate knew this. "Charl, what is it?"
Charl sighed and put down the oily cloth. "Will you now tell me why we should trust him? You said you'd tell me later, and he's gone somewhere else. Pleeeaseee?" She smiled at him in a way that made him almost serious.
"Fine. You really want to know? Well, he is what The Family called a 'Reconstructor'. Basically, he and his 'buddies' that he mentioned earlier discovered the lost secret of Alchemy. They were used as weapons of mass destruction in the Valhalla Wars. They made the metal teeth themselves. Some of them even replaced hands, and arms with metal. Supposedly, the metal made them more powerful. The more metal they were made of, the more powerful them became. They all were supposed to have died. Except obviously this one."
Charl only had one thing she could say. "Wow."
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Post by NµKe on Oct 16, 2011 21:38:33 GMT -5
[[Okay, let's try and limit how much FMA we bring into this... I'll let this one slide, but if ANYONE starts burning metals then we are retracing footsteps and cleaning it up]]
Zephate sighed.
"Yeah... they were quite powerful... but also very dangerous. A few of them went off the deep end and started killing people to display their 'power' and also to begin 'fulfilling their own prophecies'. They began creating their own religion of themselves... which--
The old man was walking towards them. Zephate had assumed that his hearing was, hopefully, aged as most hearing abilities do tend to do, but this man seemed to be an exception.
"It wasn't a religion. It was a lie..."
"...obviously..."
"...from a very persuasive person."
"Wait, so a salesman showed up on the scene and sold you guys a religion?"
The old man was silent. It seemed as though rage was building within him, but when he spoke there was not even a hint of annoyance.
"We were drunk with power. Addicted to our own dreams. Sickly bent on informing the world that its gods had arrived."
The statement was made with such self-contempt that Zephate did not even dare mock it. Charl simply watched the Reconstructor in fascination. When she was about to make her usual "emotion-identifying" diagnosis she was halted by Zephate's subtle head shake. The Reconstructor looked up and out of the cave, at the still rising sun.
"We were exterminated, and rightly so. Only one was left alive and for one purpose, to ensure that we never 'fulfilled our destiny' as they used to say. Also to repay our debt to society. Once we were known as the reconstructors... but that name no longer fits. They legally changed the name after we were banished to 'Plague-Purgers' but those were so named eventually became termed, whether through their own use or those around them, the Plagued. The Plagued's purpose is merely to 'protect the universe from another disease which might wreak havoc as they once did'."
Zephate had been slowly drifting off into a day-dream until that last sentence whiplashed him back to reality.
"You mean to say..."
Zephate paused in disbelief.
"Have you happened to hear any rumors lately concerning... zombies?"
Charl and Zephate looked at each other in astonishment then both turned back to the Plagued.
He smiled his metallic smile.
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Post by Galio on Nov 20, 2011 12:27:38 GMT -5
Before he could answer and almost on que, the roars of the horde echoed through the cave.
Charl and Zephate jumped into fighting stance. Both of them knew the other was thinking, "Don't answer that."
Charl was puzzled at the sound of this horde. There was a subtle difference in tone... or perhaps intelligence in the roar. Slightly concerned, she looked at the old man. "What is coming?"
The sounds drew near at an astonishing rate for the typical infected. And they were now, very obviously not the usual sound, bearing only a vague resemblance. Charl picked out individual cries from the cacophony... they didn't sound just wild and animal; they sounded angry. They weren't ten seconds away.
Charl stared into the wailing darkness. With her back to Zephate, she pressed against him and said, "Fear."
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Post by NµKe on Nov 25, 2011 22:52:36 GMT -5
"Now, is that your feeling? Or what you think they are--" he was cut off by the view of a few shapes running by the entrance of the cave. The astonishing fact was that they weren't pouring into the cave.
"Why are--?"
"Shhh..." the old man quieted Charl. They began moving closer to the cave, but still staying hidden and out of sight of the zombies.
The group of zombies seemed smaller than most hordes. Also, they were not near to much flesh... which causes the question, why on earth where they all the way out here? Zephate was attempting to figure things out when Charl began moving toward the mouth of the cave. The Reconstructor began moving just behind her. The horde of zombies had begun to ebb. There were only the few stragglers at the back who had probably been somewhat injured by the last combat that they endured. Finally it was down to the last three zombies. Charl waited, then pounced on the last one, silencing him swiftly. The second to last then turned to have its head severed clean off by the Reconstructor. The blade that did the act disappeared just as swiftly as it appeared. Zephate just shook his head and stepped out of the cave into the moonlit night.
"So, anyone have any theories of what that was all about?"
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Post by Galio on Nov 27, 2011 3:44:38 GMT -5
Charl stared at the unknown beast with bared teeth. "This is Father's doing. I don't know how, but he is responsible for all of this."
The reconstructor stepped toward her. "Wait, what was that? Did you say 'Father'?"
She frowned up at him suspiciously. "What do you know of Father?"
---===<([[BEEP BEEP BEEP! CREATOR OF CHARACTER MUST WORK ON CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT! BEEP BEEP BEEP!]])>===---
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Post by NµKe on Nov 27, 2011 15:24:48 GMT -5
[[*shrug*, we are the authors, let's just make stuff up... and try and keep it all fitting together.]]
The Reconstructor stated very quickly and confidently...
"Remember the "salesman" who sold us our religion?"
Zephate gasped dramatically.
"And he went by the tag 'Father' back then too?"
The old man nodded. Then sighed.
"I had hoped... wished... that with the extermination of the Reconstructors, that he would have somehow been wiped out as well. I knew it was a far-fetched dream, but dreams are all I have now..."
Charl was still in shock and simply stared at the elderly man with mouth open and eyes wide. Zephate flicked her arm and it seemed to startle her back into consciousness.
She said a bad word.
Zephate dramatically gasped again, then chocked on his gasp and began sputtering and coughing.
The noise, compounded by the echo of the cave was obviously enough to alert some of the beasts that were now forty or so feet above them, continuing to climb the mountain. There were a few roars and something that sounded like it could've been communication. Zephate then covered his mouth and smiled his goofy smile.
"Sorry."
The roars continued and began getting louder.
"Fight or Run?" Zephate posed the question with genuine motivation. The old man smiled.
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Post by Galio on Nov 29, 2011 0:52:24 GMT -5
Before the man could speak, Charl said, "Run. I feel sick."
The Reconstructor countered, "We need to stay here. Wipe out this horde, and we'll get out of here."
Charl gave some sort of half sigh and agreed by not running. Body language took less effort.
Zephate figured his kill-count would likely be higher than Charl's this round. Charl knew he figured this, so she responded, "I'm a girl; I'm allowed to have moods... so I'm told."
Charl didn't like that Zephate looked at her slightly more like a woman now, so she stomped up to him. "Fine!" She didn't know what was fine, but she was going to fight now.
The horde came, all 16 of them. They were a slightly greater challenge individually, but because their numbers were so few, the battle was over in seconds.
Charl sheathed her knives and stomped right back to the old man. "OK, get us out of here."
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Post by NµKe on Nov 29, 2011 20:52:22 GMT -5
The Reconstructor shrugged and pointed down the mountain. He simply began walking.
As they walked down the mountain, the old man pointed out a few barely visible lights on the horizon.
"That is the town Brackwater Springs. They have a dock there that people have used to launch smaller vessels. Barely inter-planetary, but enough to get off this forsaken chunk of dirt. Because so many attempt to get off and can't, quite a large set of communities has grown up around the docks. It's become quite a town."
Zephate smiled. Towns meant people, people means women. Women means...
"But we'll have to hurry to get there before the next Frost-Wave."
Charl paused and made an inquisitive face. "Frost-Wave?"
The old man chuckled to himself and continued walking.
"It's when the temperature drops to about two hundred degrees below zero and then the wind chill kicks in." He said rather nonchalantly.
Zephate and Charl both stopped in their tracks and just stared at each other, then back at the old man who was smiling maniacally.
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Post by Galio on Dec 4, 2011 2:49:15 GMT -5
Charl stopped worrying. "We've faced cold before. Let's go before we have to again."
"It will still catch us by its finger tips" The old man forewarned.
Charl barked, "If we keep standing around blathering about it, I'm sure it will have us in its icy palms! Can you lead the way!?"
The old man smiled a knowing smile and made for the town. He started in a heavy jog that Charl and Zephate were sure he wouldn't be able to keep up. To their somehow expected surprise, he increased speed. It became apparent that taking every step moving down such a steep slope was a nuisance, so the old man led by example and began taking large leaps rather than steps.
Before long, the three were moving down the mountain like grasshoppers across a field. Charl loved feel of the wind forcing her hair back. Her and Zephate jumped together most of the way down. They laughed as they leaped over trees.
Charl was gliding 15 feet over the snowy mountain slope when she noticed movement low and left. Zephate noticed too, but they needed to wait until they jumped again. They landed, rolled, and launched off again. When they came up, they saw one of the hybrid zombies leaping after the old man. Charl whipped out her pistols and fired two rounds that met their marks. The beast flew limply passed the old man.
Charl looked down to land and saw more movement left. She landed in a small grove of trees and burst back up and out warning, "Horde!"
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Post by NµKe on Dec 4, 2011 11:19:54 GMT -5
[]
Zephate lept and kicked off a tree top to gain speed. The speed was almost too much and Zephate gained a speed/air wobble, but the land, roll, and next launch put him back in control. He was gaining on the old man whose facial expression had changed slightly from insane enjoyment to somewhat sane worry. He was still quite obviously in control of his faculties and definitely had not given up hope yet, but you could tell he was pushing a little bit harder to keep ahead.
That is until the two nearest hybrid zombies got the idea for one to throw the other.
...I'm pretty sure that move required thought process. Zephate thought to himself with a pang of fear. He shook it off and drew his katana after pushing off the latest three top and slicing the 'throwing' zombie in half. The 'thrown' zombie, however, had just barely missed the old man's boot and was sure to catch him in the next leap.
Charl launched herself and took aim at the peak of her jump. She let off one bullet and it met its mark perfectly.
Then it went through its mark and embedded itself perfectly in the old man's right calf. He cried out in pain and did not leap again. Zephate and Charl both rushed towards him in more of a mad dive than a leap. The zombie who was near him was definitely dead, but it had also landed on top of his calf. Some of the zombie blood was running down the old man's leg. Zephate groaned as he landed nearby.
That blood's mixing...
Charl landed beside him and the two of them wrenched the zombie off of the Reconstructor. More cries could be heard approaching and so they lifted the old man and swiftly hid in a few rocks that had been strategically placed to provide a little bit of shelter. It had probably been used as a makeshift home for a few people caught out in the Frost-Wave.
Actually... the remains were still there. Two teenage boys and a girl all huddled together and completely frozen in the corner.
They could hear the zombies passing overhead, crying and screaming and shrieking after their lost prey.
The old man moaned and covered his own mouth.
"You need to go on without me or you'll end up like these kids." He gestured to the frozen previous occupants. Charl shook her head as if it was not even an option. Zephate was about to get up and go though. He logically knew that if they were flying as best they could and still getting nervous about staying out of the Frost-Wave, there was no way that a limping old man would make it now. He would slow them down and get them all killed.
"I can probably survive here." The old man offered as a defense for Charl's conscience so that she could leave. She simply shook her head again. She looked up at Zephate quickly and had a questioning look.
"Loyalty," Zeph stated. She went back to looking at the old man.
"So... if you stay here then we all freeze. What the heck will that accomplish?" the old man began getting angry.
"I should've died long ago! I know that you two will accomplish my current goal in life and after that I'm as good as dead anyways. So go!"
Again, Zephate was about to leave. He was ready the first time, this second encouragement was almost irresistible.
"Charl... he's right." Zephate stated quietly.
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Post by Galio on Dec 5, 2011 0:09:54 GMT -5
Charl gritted her teeth and turned around. She headed for the cave entrance like she meant to maul it. "Then I do not like 'loyalty'" she growled.
Zephate ran up beside her and they gained speed toward the entrance like it was the end of a runway. It was, nearly. They both took a leap as the ground took a dive, and suddenly they were high above the ground.
One of the hybrids had be lurking near the cave entrance, and it jumped after them. Charl pulled her pistol, held her arm backward, and fired one round. It was enough, but not soon enough. The beast released a roar before the bullet was fired. It was answered by a tumultuous uproar below.
Charl finally looked down. They had been at least 50 feet above the snow and trees, and they had reached the crest of the flight long ago. The sped toward the ground where a welcoming comity waited for them.
"They're so fast!" Charl yelled. Zephate may not have heard, but he met the first one in line with the pointy end. He and the beast slid through the crowd and off of another ledge. Charl simply skimmed over the snow landing three careful shots. She came off of the ledge right behind Zephate as he kicked the beast downward. He sheathed his katana.
The rest of the hybrids jumped right after them. Charl spun around and opened fire. One by one, she air-to-air killed the 16 remnants. She spun back around, and she and Zephate skydived to the bottom of the mountain where they slid smoothly to a stop. They dramatically paused as 16 corpses thudded and vanished into the snow around them. They laughed like two children as they ran through the settling snow toward Brackwater Springs.
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Post by Hoovy on Dec 10, 2011 0:21:03 GMT -5
((Sorry if my spelling is a bit bad, it's 12:17 am when I wrote and uploaded this )) --- Ten minutes later they reached the edges of the port town. No one was there to greet them or even acknowledge they existed. "Seems like a ghost town from one of those stories the guards used to tell me while I was in training." Whispered Zephate. "I mean, it has to be. Sense when has wood been used to build anything?" "So w-what lived in these g-ghost towns?" Asked Charl. --- Charl had always been scared by the idea of ghost. Father had told her a long time ago "You have nothing to fear of anything alive. I've trained you how to fight living things. But things that can't be explained by science, those things you should fear. For there is no way to fight them." A younger Charl walked confidently back to her dorm, late at night. It didn't show, but her fear was chewing up her insides. Every creek of the bulkhead, every moving shadow, seemed like a demon just waiting to destroy her. She somehow managed to make it safely to her room. 'It's going to be a long day tomorrow,' she thought as she climbed into her bunk. Now if only she could get some sleep... -0204 Hours-"Charl! You overslept four minutes! Four minutes! Get up!" Charl sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. '0200 hours. Wow, they actually let me sleep in for once!' she thought. "I'm up. I'm up." She yawned, "So, what are we working on today? Marksmanship? Or maybe some Stealth?" Charl clapped her hands gleefully. Father took a step forward. "No, I've got a different mission for you. Your mission is..." Father suddenly lunged forward and grabbed Charl by the throat, pinning her to the wall. "You mission is, to DIE." Charl looked deep into Father's eyes to see if this was some kind of test. Suddenly, the skin on Father's face peeled back, revealing his skull. The skull smiled evilly at her as its eyes rolled back, blood pouring out of the empty sockets. The skull burst into flame and the thing leaned so close to her, she could feel the heat. "What's the matter?" The thing said in a gravely voice, "Still scared of ghost stories?" It started laughing a soul-searingly evil laugh. "Boo." Charl screamed and screamed until she was almost out of air. As she blacked out, guards poured into the room and pulled the thing off of Charl. Air flooded her lungs and she clasped to the floor... --- "Well, duh, ghosts. What did you think lives in ghost towns? Exploding cats? Now that would be cool, but," He noticed Charl's blank expression and shook her. "Charl... come on. We've got to keep moving." "Huh, what? Oh, sorry." She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts to no avail. "It was nothing."
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Post by Galio on Dec 15, 2011 1:06:18 GMT -5
The reconstructor woke shaking his head violently. The frost-wave had already hit. The floor of the cave was a one foot thick sheet of ice dusted with a few inches of snow, and his legs were under the ice.
He smiled. "Just in time."
His hand which was in his coat pocket above the ice was frozen around a small gadget. He removed it from his pocket, held it to the surface of the ice, and squeezed a small trigger. Ten seconds passed, and the ice in a five foot circle around the point he held it turned to slush.
Several grunts and groans later, he heaved his old self out of the icy pool. He dropped onto the sheet of ice and checked his leg. He had little to no circulation at this point, so time was of the essence. He produced a sharp blade and began removing flesh that could be compromised by the infection. As he cut, he marveled at how intense pain was so closely connected with the memory.
Twenty years ago...
"Kick it!" screamed Saligon.
His comrade put his entire being into kicking the great section of wall off of Saligon's foot. "It isn't moving at all! Cut the boot!" He pulled his knife and began carefully slicing the toe of Saligon's boot. An explosion nearby shook the ground and shifted the rubble further onto his foot.
Saligon cried out in pain. He moaned, "You... you must go. This area is too hot to be sitting around!"
His comrade got in his face and grabbed his coat roaring, "I'm not leaving you! I'm not leaving you!"
"Then cut off my toes!"
They kept eye contact for a moment, then his friend put his knife in the slit he had cut in his boot. "I'll be as fast as I can."
Present day...
He stared at the end of his boot. Reminiscing about pain always helped him get through the current pain. He had finished removing the infected flesh. The frost-wave had prevented it from spreading above his knee, so very little flesh had to be removed. He wrapped up his leg and stood up like a creaky, old war machine. "Now, where are those two rascals?"
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Post by NµKe on Dec 15, 2011 21:42:33 GMT -5
Zephate began walking into the town, but just as he passed the first house on the right, the door creaked open slowly and a small face poked out. It belonged to a young boy that couldn't have been more than twelve.
"Not zombies? Get inside!"
Zeph and Charl obeyed the boy's beckoning and darted inside after him. The boy closed the door swiftly but quietly after them. He turned with his back against the door.
"How do you dare to be out there when the creatures are roaming around?"
"Oh, we just kill them when we run into them, pretty simple really."
The boy's face very clearly demonstrated his shock and awe. He began grinning in excitement. He began walking towards them with an air of reverence about his pace. His eyes went from Zephate to Charl, then back again. The back and forth pattern was indicative of the obvious thoughts that were bouncing around his young, excited mind. His grin was spreading to the rest of his face and his eyes were soon glimmering with intense admiration and satisfaction. Charl began stepping back and one of her arms was slowly moving towards her pistol.
"You are Thek'latos..." he said with such conviction that it almost caused Zephate to shudder. He had no idea what Thek'latos where, but he was sure it meant a lot to this boy at least. He lowered himself to his knee to be on eye-level with the boy, but as soon as he lowered himself the boy dropped to the floor in a bow. Zephate froze at the swift movement. Charl had her gun half out of her holster.
"We must never be higher than Thek'latos." he stated very matter of factly.
"Alright," Zephate shrugged. "Now, tell me what Thek'latos means."
The boy looked up and smiled knowingly.
"The prophecies say you would have no idea what it means to be Thek'latos. They say that we will have to teach you our ways before you would truly achieve the La Moin'de'la Sola-Streeku."
Zephate turned and grinned at Charl. He stood and walked over next to her then whispered into her ear...
"It seems that we are something Special here. I think we should not disappoint. Whilst we are revered here, let's get what we can before we head out."
Charl seemed to be a little bit confused, but she nodded to Zephate, then nodded respectfully to the boy who seemed overjoyed at the recognition.
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