More Futurisitic Fun Than You Really Wanted, part I of V

[Eater of Clowns]

I've enjoyed this thread more than anything else we've done on PD, I think.

Same.  It resonates with and brought out the best of everyone.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

Is anything gonna happen with this stuff? Graphic novel or the like?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Is anything gonna happen with this stuff? Graphic novel or the like?

I've started panelizing stuff for Pent, but there's a bit of a backlog of other stuff at the moment.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

Is anything gonna happen with this stuff? Graphic novel or the like?

I've started panelizing stuff for Pent, but there's a bit of a backlog of other stuff at the moment.

Gotcha. Thanks for the update.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

He creaked and clanked his way to the camp's edge. The metal holding his right leg together weighed him down, giving his gait an uneven stomp. If he'd been Below, the Nessies would have made him dinner by now, complete with metal toothpick. The idea was enough to cause a cold sweat and he sat down on a boulder by a stream before he could fall into the brisk-running waterway.

With one bum leg and one leg strapped to a bunch of metal, he'd never get back out on his own. And it was no way to train the kids how to survive if he ended up in a damn fool position that killed any chance of respect he had in their eyes.

Wearily, he rubbed the outer side of his bad leg, absently running fingertips over the raised edge of the saw-toothed round scar pressed into the side of his knee. The servos had gotten so hot, in that final battle. He'd been unlucky fifteen. His refurbished suit had smoked, then scorched, then burst into flames as it broke apart - in the middle of a mission. But he'd lived anyway. More or less.

The rustling along the trail behind him made him temporarily regret his survival. These kids would be the death of him. In a much less dignified and terrifying manner, but his death none-the-less.

"Come on over here, whelp," he said when the noise stopped a respectful distance away.

A reluctant grumble and trudging footsteps. One of his first years came into view, circling around in front of him to sit on a rock a few feet away. A rail-thin grubby girl with hair she'd probably cut herself, it was so short and choppy. Except for one thin, wire-wrapped ratty braid and a faded bit of braided yarn around one wrist, she was every bit identical to all the boys he'd brought along on this little retreat. And she was as dirty as the rest of them, from scrounging in the forest and climbing trees. Her tank top was torn and her shorts were tied at the waist and halfway down each leg with twine to keep them on. Her clunky boots were at least two-sizes too big, filled with grass and a knife in each one to make them fit.

He studied the petulant expression on her face. Payne help him if she started whining.

"I was being quiet," she said instead, crossing her arms and giving him a defiant scowl.

"Most certainly. As quiet as any elephant as ever I heard," he agreed, rubbing his knee again. "A little louder, some whooping and hollering, and you'd be as loud of those idiot boys you came up with."

She gaped, forgetting the tough act. "You aren't going to send me home? They said you were going to 'cuz I'm a girl."

He pointed a finger skyward and twirled it in a slow circle. "Whoop-d-do."

"So I can fight?"

"Girl, if you want to learn how to chase death in the Below, I won't stop you. Payne knows you wouldn't be the first female in the tunnels."

She nodded solemnly. "I heard the stories about Pixie. And Freeky. They were fierce."

"Yes they were."

"I'm not. Not yet." She gave him a sideways glance.

"Out with it."

"I heard another name. Of a woman who fought the Nessies. But no one will tell me any stories about her."

He raised an eyebrow, hiding the dread that filled his belly.

"Khara."

Rubbing his leg again, he sighed and settled into his seat on the rock. And he ignored the way the girl cringed when she said the name. He didn't wan to know where she'd heard it or why she didn't know the story that went with the name. "There's a reason for that, youngster. She didn't fight against the Nessies until the end."

The child's brow furrowed and she frowned at him. "I don't understand."

"Originally, Khara fought alongside the monsters."

She propelled herself off the rock and half into the stream before she caught herself. Swearing, she splashed out of the water and sat down again, taking off her boots to pour the water out. "That doesn't make any sense, old man. You're daft."

"If you think so then go back to camp and give a daft old man five minutes of peace."

"All right! Fine! Tell me the story," she grumbled, slamming her feet back into her boots and glaring at him.

"How gracious of you." He sighed and rearranged his seat-bones on the rock. "We don't know what brought Khara to the Below. All we know is that the Nessies . . . didn't listen to her, exactly, more like they watched and followed her lead if they thought what she was doing looked like fun. We don't know how the Nessies think so we don't know what the attraction was.

Our best guess, after we pieced Khara's story together, was that the monsters recognized a kindred spirit. Because Khara was full of rage and pain. Both things the Nessies understood. And she was out to inflict damage on whoever - we think the government - did her wrong. The Nessies understood that, too."

His listener stared in shock. "They didn't eat her on the spot? Didn't tear her to pieces?"

"Nope. The Paynites had several documented encounters with her. The first one came a few days after an experiment of theirs failed. A five man team was in the tunnels cleaning up a big mess and looking for information when they saw her stumbling towards them.  Her feet were bare. Her hair was wild and tangled. She had some sort of huge hook clutched in each hand. The Paynites told her to identify herself. She ignored them. Things got messy from there. All we got from the lone survivor was that first it was one crazy woman against five seasoned warriors. And then it was one crazy woman and a nest worth of Nessies against four suits filled with chum and one filled with a dying man.

He said her wailing screams were as terrible as the Nessies'. And that her hooks were dipped in something that burned when they ripped into him. Then he coughed up most of his internal organs and died. I saw the bits of footage we retrieved from the suits. It was savagery on a whole new level."

"But why?!" His student demanded, pounding the ground with a fist. "Why would anyone fight with the Nessies?"

He hesitated. "All we know is that she got separated from whoever she was traveling with. Her family, some friends - we don't know. We know everyone in her group made it out and to one of the temporary safe zones but she ended up in the Below. Back then we thought she was a suicider who just hadn't fallen over yet."

"How did you guys stop her? What made her switch sides?"

"Ah, kid. We didn't stop her. She tore us to pieces, on her own or with help from the monsters, in the next ten encounters. Every man that went up against her went down. And while she left some alive, she and her monster buddies didn't leave anyone capable of fighting ever again."

"So what stopped her?"

"Pixie went into the tunnels one day. On her own. Without armor. Everyone thought she was mad. Payne stayed on the juice from the time she left until well after she came back. Ready to tear the whole Below down without help. But he didn't have to worry. Pixie walked in alone and came out with a woman more Nessie than human. We don't know what happened or what Pixie said but that was the end of it.

For awhile after that Khara fought with us. She knew all the hot spots. Patterns. She understood more about the Nessies than any of us did. She wrote the first books about it. The ones you had to read, actually. With input from Pixie, Pain, and the Old Man. She didn't need armor or juice. Just her hooks."

"Then what happened?"

He shrugged. "She came up against Nessies she knew. See, she'd been helping us wipe out the competition for the nest Pixie had pulled her away from. We'd always wondered why she refused to engage sometimes but thought it was nerves. But no. She'd been using us. And the Nessies had been using her. It was the most horrifying realization I'd ever had when I saw the cunning in those alien eyes as they stared at her."

"You fought with Khara?!"

"That last time, yeah. My last battle and hers. The Nessies ignored the rest of us like we weren't even flies circling their shit. Khara took out one, maybe two. But then she was gone beneath a pile of monsters. Their howls were eerie and sinister and knowing. They had learned from her. I never went Below again. I wouldn't have, even if my suit hadn't blown up half-way through an attempt to rescue her."

"She was fierce, too."

"She was batshit loco. No man has ever fought for or with the Nessies. It took a woman to be that kind of twisted."

"But she was fierce. AND she understood the enemy."

"At too great a cost."

"I don't think so."

"That's because you're an idiot kid. Now get back to camp. I'll be along in a few minutes to start beating sense into you brats."

[The Good Reverend Roger]

All I know is that I miss Sams.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

RIP Sams. 

[P3nT4gR4m]

[Luna]

You rock, Pent.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Fuck yeah

[Triple Zero]

I like how you named the image D/N/T

[P3nT4gR4m]

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

Holy smokes, P3nt.  That is awesome.

[Luna]

Holy crap... 

[Eater of Clowns]

The Hessian surveyed his diminished crew.  Even the other two healthy remaining fighters seemed less than themselves.  They wore their lack of wounds just as their comrade wore his freshly healing wounds.  The one with the chesspiece monster was alive, and for that they were all grateful, but he would never again fight in their number.  The Hessian invited him to the session because, like the rest of them, his body was merely one way his weaponized mind let free.

Their most recent excursion, several days gone now, they were lucky, he'd told them.  Recognized and outmaneuvered by the Nessies it was purely good fortune that stopped them all from dying.  As they hurried through the sewers half-dragging their downed men, they were even so lucky as to not encounter another enemy.  The Hessian kept his helmet on until the moment he lay in his bunk; anger and hatred and disappointment working their way across his features.  Others probably thought him half crazed that day, yet he'd rather they think that than know the doubt that plagued him.

Worst of their troubles was the mythology they failed to kill.  It was not the Nessies their attacks struck, it was the stories that surrounded them, that made them holy adversaries of the most brainwashed Paynites.  With failure, though, such tales only cemented themselves in the drug crazed vision of the Templars.

Four sat in the room.  The Hessian stood before them.  Behind him, in the corner where he was wont to observe, was the chaplain.

"Again we adapt," he started slowly.  "We're going to get rid of these little paintings, first.  Darling as they may be, they're another way for the Nessies to identify us.  I want them off of your armor by the end of the day."  The words were methodical, almost robotic.  He meant them to sound determined but they warped and twisted in his throat and came across, more than anything, as disheartened.

"We're going to randomize our positions.  I doubt very much there was a coincidence in Nessie attacking our greenest members.  Keeping them in the center isn't protecting them."  There was a finality to the statement common at the end of The Hessian's longest sessions.  Following it, silence, briefly, in a world of noise from the moving waters of the sewers to the raucous echoes of its inhabitants and even the songs of the Nessies.

"So what do you have for me?"  It was the question that he continuously hoped would be met with brilliance, something that would lead to the next crucial upper hand against the onslaught.

Four men held their breath, their leader staring at each other three in turn as though they concealed some bit of wisdom.  They did not.  The disappointment in the air was palpable when a voice, uncharacteristically meek, came from behind The Hessian.

"Mirrors," it said.

"What do you mean," he asked.

"One of our teams found a journal.  It documented that the Nessies appear to be confused by mirrors.  We're looking into their practical application," the chaplain revealed.  He rose and turned to leave.

"Wait.  How are you looking into it?"

"Mirrored armor is one possibility.  Mirror shields another," came the almost casual reply.  This time, he did go.

They watched him leave for a moment as though the weight of his words left a mark on the spot where they were spoken.  Finally, The Hessian addressed them again, "You may all go.  Think on this, and dig around to see if anyone will tell us more.  I want one use for the mirror suggestion from each of you at our next session.  And don't allow that to come in the way of your reflection on our general tactics.  Not you, Miller, you stay here."

"Yes?" Miller inquired.

"You were the first one I trained.  You've had the most experience Hessian or Templar out of any of us.  You're going to start having a bigger role in our foolish little family, starting now.  Scout around for recruits, start training within the week.  Three of them."

The younger man nodded and departed.  Blessedly, he didn't ask why three were needed to replace two.  The Hessian sat and, with a head in duress, thought.