In particular, how anybody could possibly like glazed donuts.

My God, they're disgusting. You might as well eat a sugar coated turd whip. Donuts should stay the way they always were- thick, cakey, and mild. Something you can dunk in your coffee, not something to smother your hands in ultrasweetened muck.

1 comment | Log in to comment! | Share this!

A fictional research paper explaining a concept in a fantasy world in which a story of mine, in fact all of the stories posted here, take place. They are all practice for a single one that I cannot write down yet.

The Von Alennoe Report

Section 1

95 years ago, Jeremy Alegoise proposed that some sort of energy made life possible, "God's greatest creation". Alegoise's Reaction, better known as Life Energy, is the "driving force" of all living things. All forms of life are endowed with life energy, and this life energy allows the animation and consciousness of living things, depending on amounts.

Insects, for example, are barely conscious and are basically driven by instinct. It was though that because their forms are generally so small, they cannot hold enough life energy to become conscious. However, our research has proven this wrong. Life energy differs from life form to life form, because the species has warped the life force from the raw form it originally existed in when the life form was born.

A life form begins creating its own life energy as soon as it becomes independent from its mother, who had before donated their life energy to it. Therefore, the most theoretically transferable kind of life energy is that of those who are not fully grown, as their life energy is not refined enough to make it difficult to transfer to species other than themselves, since at its rawest form, life energy is universally transferrable.

The theory that raw energy is universally transferrable is the main step in creating the Life Creator, which is our primary project. We aspire to create a machine that extracts raw energy from a life form and can project it upon something else to give it life, or to increase its liveliness. In time, we discovered we could extract life energy from organisms in the soil, water, even in the air. There are two, simple steps to transferring life energy with the Life Creator.
1: Extract and concentrate life energy (the Life Creator does this in a part called the Synthesis Globe, which uses pressure to compact the extracted life energy into a form so highly compacted it is visible. It is interesting to note that Life Energy is colored a very pale, almost white green)
2: Project the concentrated life energy onto the object(s) in the Absorption Chamber. (The subject is exposed to concentrated life energy very briefly, as life energy quickly disperses and therefore would have no effect on the subject.

Section 2

The experiment was a failure, at the least. In creating the machine, we may have doomed all life. I'm terrified, and so is everybody else. We were able to create a life form we call ACE-LEE (Artificial Consciousness Entity Life Energy Entity) to control and guard the Life Creator...no, not the Life Creator. It is now the Apocalypse Engine, because if it were running for any longer, all life would have ceased to exist. We sealed the laboratory and buried it under bedrock, dirt, and forest. If ACE-LEE fails, we will all die, all of us. It is crucial that ACE-LEE is not damaged or that the Apocalypse Engine is not disturbed, or else the world will end.

The remainder of this report will explain what we have found out about Life Energy through the development of the Apocalypse Engine. Life Energy is not to be tampered with through machines. People die, and some things are not meant to be living. The Apocalypse Engine is our punishment manifest for not realizing this.

Every life form has, at maximum, 100% life energy. Any more, and a new, negative energy we have named Anti develops, which consumes life force, only discharging it after leaving the life form and exiting into a being or area of lower Life Energy concentration. The Apocalypse Engine had a high 100% mark, but it does not have a function to stop producing Life Energy, as all other life forms do. It created over 100%, and did not stop. It is all Anti now, tons compressed upon tons of it. The amounts of Anti ever created in nature are infinitesimal compared to life energy. The amount of Anti stored in the synthesis globe now is enough to spread over the entire planet and kill all life, and this world will become devoid of life.

There are people called Puppet Masters in this world. They are few, and this is because they control animated objects, which is exactly what we were trying to create. We do not know how the true Masters, which only two of we know to exist, create their runes and enable life force to be sealed into puppets. We do know that Puppets do not eliminate their life force in the same manner as others. Instead, they concentrate it and contain it in entities inside but separate of them, so that they never exceed one hundred percent. This may give new clues on how to create the machine we had aspired to make, but I recommend highly against it. The Apocalypse Engine is made, and nothing can be done about it. Tampering with God's Greatest Creation after these events may be disastrous, which is why the Apocalypse Engine now lies sealed forever within the world.

Updated: 10/06/08 8:18 PM 0 comments | Log in to comment! | Share this!

A short story written in spare time. I'm not psoting stories if I write them until they're finished.

Title

A normal human does not want to kill another human. Naturally, this would deplete the population. However, abnormal people are born all of the time. These abnormal people are destined to despise, to hate their fellow humans. They are people who smile an ugly grin in the face of torture of those they hate. It may be one person, it may be everybody, but it's always somebody.

Then there are people who simply do not care.

People such as me.

X-12-XX01

Today's customer was a rebel. An E unit had captured him while he was engaging them. The idiots probably missed all his friends, but that's natural. E units are self-equipped and have no uniforms. They're put together so they can die, so I don't blame them for wanting to avoid danger, but finding loopholes so that they can disregard the future is ignorant.

A couple of the grunts cuffed him to the chair. The chair is made of metal, so the person cannot escape. He glared at me when I entered, but his eyes immediately flicked to my briefcase.

"Greetings," I said. "Can you cooperate with us and tell us a few things?"

"What things?" he replied.

"The location of your rebel group, all of their identifications, your supplier, if you have one, and the preceding information of any other rebel group you may now of."

His face twisted into a snarl. "Suck it, goggles."

His comment was directed at my interrogator uniform, which we were required to wear so that we could not be identified and possibly assassinated.

I opened my briefcase in his sight. If the prisoner didn't cooperate, this was the next step. His eyes narrowed at my vast collection of screws, pliers, and other things that explain themselves but can't quite be described.

"I'm never going to talk," he said. My training could detect the fear in his voice. "You may as well stick me in prison now."

Prison? Idiot. I inserted a screw into my small drill and spun it several times. Everything told me his fear was multiplied exponentially. Saying he would never talk was valiant, but would he actually keep his word?
I lowered the drill threateningly to his right index finger. It was half a centimeter away from his fingernail when his eyes could not narrow anymore and he began thrashing in his seat.

"Stop! I'll talk!"

I slowed the descent of the drill, but didn't stop.

"Vas Tarrina!" he gasped. I raised the drill, halting its rotation.

"That's the town..." he said, a look of undeniable guilt shadowing his defeated expression.

"Repeat that," I said, switching on the recorder.

"Vas Tarrina..." he said again, his voice breaking at the end.

"Good boy," I said, packing up my tools. "Maybe you will go to prison now." I shut the door behind me.

So valiant in his defense, yet a coward. Nobody should make promises that they know they can't keep.

X-14-XX01

The local E unit went to Vas Tarrina, a small town, and flushed out the rebels. The fools managed to kill all but one of the rebels, but there were only 24 rebels and 45 soldiers, and yet the rebels killed 34 of the soldiers. I can now understand why the unit's here instead of on the frontlines.

The girl they brought back was around the drafting age of 17. She probably ran away as soon as her 17th birthday came, which is something that's become annoyingly common.

She was yelling something as they brought her in. Her gaze was a fierce and furious one as I stepped into the cell.

"I know how you found us," she declared, "I thought Renard was brave. I trusted him, I loved him," she continued, her cheeks flushing in rage, "I even gave my body to him the night he said he would stay behind," a tear rolled down her cheek, and she tried to shake it away. "I should have stayed behind! I never would have loosened my lips!"

"If you have something to say, young lady," I said, ignoring her rant, "say something you know I would care about."
"You're an asshole."

I smiled. What a funny girl they picked up.

"We know the Flags of Dove rebels have a base near Vas Tarrina," I said solemnly, "They probably supplied you with your equipment, as well as training. Your little band gave that unit a beating."

"That just shows that one of us is worth so much more than one of you government cocksuckers," she spat in my direction, a pathetic wad of spittle splattered on my shoe.

"I want answers, not opinions." I continued, opening my briefcase. I set it on the table beside me and took hold of one of her fingers. I bent it back and snapped it. She muffled her yelp of pain and simply closed her eyes.

"You don't want to begin losing these." I advised. I took hold of her right thumb and crushed it. Interrogators have sufficient amounts of strength to do that. Her eyes jerked and her teeth gritted, and I knew she felt it.

"I know how to make you talk." I said calmly. Her next finger was warmer, blood flow increased because of an increase in her fear. I didn't break it. Instead, I kept hold of her right little finger, and brought out my drill, revved it. Her finger pulsed with a sudden rush of panic, but she simply shut her eyes tighter.

I slowly plunged the screw into her nail. As the screw twisted flesh, she began to writhe in agony. She could keep her lips shut no longer and screamed. I apathetically plunged the screw into the chair, attaching her little finger to the chair. Several more tears ran down her face, she opened her eyes to blink them away, and saw her little finger.

"Aaaaaah!!!" she screamed, she looked up at me in hatred, her eyes moist with tears, then shut her eyes tightly, her lower lip fluttering with pain. A drop of blood from her ruined finger hit my shoe. A flash of emotion entered my brain. Was it horror? Sympathy? I quickly rejected it. It was not my job to investigate my feelings.

I broke the rest of her fingers. She was now shaking with disbelief, and panic, now that I had run out of fingers to break.

I decided to move up a level. I took my scissors and cut away the clothing surrounding her upper thigh. It was creamy, slim, and tight. Was it desire that I was feeling? I am young, at only 22 years old, even though few ever see my face. I looked to her face to see her eyes, bright and shiny with tears, look into mine in confusion.

No. Not into my eyes. My eyes were concealed. I shook away the feeling. Yes, this girl was attractive. Finding a mate was, and never will be, my objective during work. I took the large drill from the case.

"Say something." I said. The words burst from my mouth; I did not intend them to escape.

"Please..." she responded, "I can't...I just can't..." her face was soaked with fresh tears, and she was gasping for breath.

I shook away my emotions once more and slowly plunged the drill into her thigh. She screamed, and screamed. I met bone and she screamed with a new agony. Her head thrashed around, and she shook, her hair continually fell into my vision. She screamed so much she would take in a short breath, a short scream, and created a sort of pathetic, panting scream.

I was almost through the bone, when several drops of swear and tears splattered onto my goggles. I stepped back quickly, letting go of the drill. I tried to wipe away the water, but I couldn't. Why!? I desperately wiped at my goggles. Then, I found out. I slipped my fingers under my goggles and wiped them away. It was my own sweat. And tears.

The drill was set into the girl's thigh. Blood had collected around it in a well, and was dripping down her leg. Her clothes were soaked in sweat, and her lips were dripping with spittle. She looked up at me with terrified confusion; her eyes were red from crying.

"Talk!" I said.

"Please!" she gasped, "I'm sorry! I want-to-but-I, "she lost herself in sobs. I drilled the rest of the way through her thigh. I drowned out her screams and reversed the drill. It was dark with her blood, and her blood now soaked her leg and ran down the chair.

I was panicking. I didn't want to, for some reason, but I the knife and slashed her cheek. I pried open the wound and watched the blood flow. I could see her lips moving with her screams. I twisted my knife in her ear, and she writhed, causing me to slice off a bit of ear.

She stopped screaming.

I called on my communicator. "The prisoner has fallen unconscious." With a quick look, I added, "Bring a medic with you."

I sat on my chair, thinking. Why? Why had I panicked, felt despair, shed tears? It couldn't have been the fact that she was attractive...her screams, her blood...

It was my fault. That was why.

X-15-XX01

The girl has been transferred to a mental hospital. She's gone insane, and can't be physically interrogated, the heads said. They'll still be trying to extract information from her, but any more torture would add to the damage. I felt a sudden rush of guilt when I heard that she had gone insane.

Why had she not given in? Her friends were all dead, and her beloved had betrayed her. She had nothing to lose.

Was it spite? Or was it simply...

Bravery?

X-18-XX01

There were no prisoners to interrogate today, or for the past two days. The rebel attacks have all stopped. All of them in the area. News got out that that girl had gone insane from torture, and I know why.

They're afraid of me. They're all unspeakably terrified of being tortured by me, because they know they can't win.

I'm not coming to work tomorrow.

X-19-XX01

I visited the girl. She's in terrible shape. She babbles at everything and when she saw me, she screamed and hid under the sheets.

To think that I did this to her...I've tortured women before, none like her...they all gave in before I could hurt them as badly as I hurt her...all of the ones that were her age gave in as soon as I revealed my tools.

Her name is Lorrie. I found that out.

I should forget about her, but I can't. I need to do something about that...

X-22-XX01

I've sold everything I have and donated it all to Lorrie's recovery. When she gets back to normal, she'll still hate me, but I'm thankful for that.

I also quit my job, so I'm just wandering now.

I'm still young, after all...I'll figure out what to do with my life.

Updated: 09/20/08 10:33 PM 0 comments | Log in to comment! | Share this!

Anger is like piss.

It only gets worse if you hold it in, hurts if you hold it too long,
and comes out no matter what you do, so it's best to get it out sooner rather than later.

Also,

Attacking without a reason isn't uncalled-for violence, it's simply a preemptive strike.

Yes, I made both of those up. Sue me.

1 comment | Log in to comment! | Share this!

I hope it never gets to that level, even though it seems like it now.

1 comment | Log in to comment! | Share this!

There is next to no current proof of my existence to any of you.

As far as any of you know, I am a name. An alias, behind which an unknown person types. That person may change, be automated, or might be even more mysterious than that.

I called a person. Some random person, I don't know who, on a public telephone. It was an old one, in a booth. Nobody would hear what I was to say.

The person picked up.

"Do you know who I am?" I immediately asked.

"...No, you don't sound like anybody I know."

"Do you have caller ID?"

"Yes-"

"You are recording this?"

"No, why would-"

"Then you have no proof we ever talked. Time passed by, you will remember the event, but you cannot tell anybody this happened and prove it. With sufficient time, perhaps even the memory will fade, and there will truly be no proof. Even if you do not forget, when you die, any sign that I called you will disappear."

I hung up.

Now I have wasted your time reading bullshit.

On that subject, maybe none of you exist and I'm writing something to absolutely nobody, and in reality I'm an insane fucker on an island in a sea of deadly land baptised by poison and radiation. In that case, fuck all of you nonexistent figments of imagination.

Updated: 07/29/08 2:51 PM 7 comments | Log in to comment! | Share this!

I decided I didn't need some shite writing taking the place of my opinion.

One gets used to moving around in a military family. Anybody who's in one would agree. It's like, "Hey, it's pretty cool around here, I think I could actually live here," and then "ZOH MAH GAWD WE NEED YA SOMEWARE ELSE LOLZ".

It also kind of gets on one's nerves.

Also, while I'm bitching about shit nobody cares about, let's go on the subject of dumpsters. I live in an apartment, and every time I take out the trash, I have to walk for ten minutes down to the garbage compactor, carrying a fat bag of trash.

In all honesty, it isn't bad, egts me outside, but it's also quite annoying.

1 comment | Log in to comment! | Share this!

continued

"Hey?" Snipe said, slightly disturbed. "Didn't know you liked video games."

"Er, actually, I was thinking-"

"Yeah? I was too." Snipe said smart-assedly, sort of off-put by the sudden appearance of Potpourri. "Even though all the movies right now suck, and the restaurants all suck too." His tone was harsh, and Potpourri shrunk away slightly.

Snipe sighed. "Sorry. I just had a random hallucination, and I didn't exactly...well, I say the only thing I can think of is to go to the Civilian Protection place and see if they have anything to do."

"Mm. I guess we can do that...would that be considered...a date?" Potpourri said hesitantly.

Snipe was flustered. "I guess, if you want it to be."

Snipe etered the door to the CP Headquarters. A sign up poster decorated one side of the lobby, which was filled with names.

"If you would like to sign up, sign that poster over there with your phone number. We'll call you when we want you to move here." said the receptionist. Snipe looked down at his street clothes and sighed heavily.

"I'm not signing up. I'm already in the military."

"Oh, I'm sorry." the receptionist said in a bored, dishonest tone. "I'm guessing she is, too?" referring to Potpourri standing behind Snipe.

Snipe ignored the question. "Are you guys doing anything interesting? Movies? Video games? Shooting Range?"

The receptionist stacked a set of papers. "Some people are in the hallway. I don't know what they're watching. Could be a skin flick for all I know."

"Alright, thanks."

"Just doing my job..." the receptionist said in a fading voice as Snipe strode down the hall, Potpourri behind him.

Snipe opened the door to a dark room with a single TV in it. The television showed a blue, blank screen.

"Potpourri, you think it's in another room?" Snipe said, confused.

"No." she said in a serious manner. "Look." She walked over to a peson lying slumped back in the sofa. He was dead, his face plugged with about three rounds. His hands were positioned in a masturbatory position. His genitals were under a blanket, thankfully, but it proved the receptionist had been right. Idiots watching porn. Another seemed to have been shoved into the couch cushions, but when Snipe tried to move him, the body fell away, half of a person.

"I am sorry for the mess, but you didn't give me any time to clean up."

Snipe stiffened. "So you weren't satisfied with your acts when we last met?"

"No," Michael said, crouching on his puppet's back as it creeped out of the shadows, "I wasn't satisfied with who I bagged."

"Well, you aren't gonna bag me." Snipe said, "We've got a fair fight now."

"Fair fight my ass." Michael snorted. "Grunts have varying skill and almost none are a match for me. No, I went after your oh so invincible sergeant. He's quite a head case."

"You're quite the head case, yourself." Snipe said.

"Heh, that's-"

Potporri had gotten behind him and slid over his shoulder. She held a grenade in front of his face.

"Oh, how big and strong you must be!" She taunted, dextrously twirling the grenade by its ring. "I've always wanted to know somebody who could survive a direct blast from a grenade!"

Snipe thought she had him. He was wrong. An invisible heat wave caused Potpourri to suddenly yelp and jump off, landing in a very clumsy manner. Snipe drew his sidearm and shot at Michael. Michael, without looking, caught the bullet in his hand. Flicking his wrist, a wave rippled down his marionnette manipulator, and the massive leopard pounced onto Snipe, crushing his sidearm in its jaws. It pinned Snipe's hands and feet, baring its fangs and exhaling dusty, humid breath into his face. Snipe furiously bit it on the nose. The beast decided to crack Snipe's face. Snipe's vision went blurry as blood began to trickle into his eyes.
As the leopard put on of its massive paws on his head, he feebly looked over at Potpourri. Michael had given her a a long cut with his saber, but it must have been shallow since it did not impair Potourri's flexibility or movement.

Potpourri rolled away from Michael's next slash. Michael growled with mock frustration, then picked up the couch and threw a curve at Potpourri, hitting her in the chest with the end of the furniture. She was instantly knocked on her ass, and the spin of the couch made sure that in half a second she was on her back. The couch embedded itself in the wall with a loud THRUCK. Potpourri exhaled heavily, groaning.
Michael calmly walked over to her and impaled the sword into the floor next to her throat. He drove the sword further until the hilt began to crush part of Popourri's neck.

He knelt next to her and said, "I dont care how cute your little frame might be, how thick your mahogany hair is, or how pretty your big pink eyes are. If you stand in my way of Snipe ever again, I will stick you just like I stuck the floor next to you."

Michael got up and went to the center of the room, observing Snipe and Potpourri's pinned states.
"An important lesson, students, it is impolite to interrupt somebody when they are speaking."

...

"So you trap Sarge in your little mansion world, whatever the fuck that is, then let us bring him back?" Snipe sputtered, trying to lift the Puppet's paw off of his head with his free arm.

"I don't understand..." gasped Potpourri, not making any futile effort to free herself.

"It's simple." Michael continued, as if he were presenting a science project. "His conciousness is in a mansion built around the plan of itself. There, he can observe all of his flaws, troubles, and other things."

"Alright..." Snipe said, already tired from getting his ass kicked, he didn't need his brain bent.

Updated: 05/28/08 7:03 PM 2 comments | Log in to comment! | Share this!

Alrighty.

When one dies, their heart quiets, and stops. If the heart stops, a person is effectively dead. However, the most effective way to stop a heart is a war. A war can break hearts, harden them, but is most famous for stopping them altogether.

Heartstopper ch.5

"We're lost." Janus muttered to himself. Unlike many sarcastic travel philosophers said in many books, going on and on in one general direction wasn't getting him anywhere. The long wilderness grass had long gone, now replaced with dunes of red and white sand.

After a half an hour, something caught Janus's eye as the steamer churned its way up a particularly steep and high dune. The slightest shadow of a moving object flashed in his sight.

The situation was dire enough to check.

Snipe was thrown into a dresser with one of his other comrades as the steamer drifted Ninety degrees. The few that had kept their balance kept the shelves and other furniture from collapsing on their friends and rivals.

"What the hell is wrong with Sarge..." Snipe heard the person he'd slammed into say, under his breath.
The steamer had halted. A soldier started coming down the steps.

"Sarge is goWHOOP!!" she tripped over nothing and crashed down the steps. She slammed into the trash bin, her head buried in a pile of trashed papers.

"Goal!" another person enthusiastically yelled. Nobody laughed. This girl had landed conveniently near Snipe, who pushed himself up to help her.

"Thank you lord, for getting Snipe's ass off me." Snipe's cushion said with a deep breath.

Snipe pulled the girl's head from the wastebin, and recognized who she was. Potpourri, the girl with long, chestnut hair and big, naturally pink eyes, the girl nobody would ever make fun of or abuse. She was just too kind to do any of that shit. Steven, the last guy to abuse Potpourri, was caught molesting her in her sleep by a bunch of other guys.

Steven was hanging by his ankle over the rest quarter's doorway, and seemingly everybody punched him in his bruises on the way.

"You okay?" Snipe asked her, brushing a few paper balls rom her hair. She looked at him. Their eyes locked, but she immediately averted her gaze.

"Damnit." thought Snipe. She didn't even blush one bit."

"As I was saying,' she continued, "Sarge found somene to get us out of this mess."

"Fucking finally." somebody said. "Brilliant. I just hope it's a naked chick from out in the desert.

Sarge came back with a girl that seemed around the age of the majority of the squad. Squads were almost always of similar age, sometimes, they had even trained together. This wanderer Sarge had found wore a thin veil that extended barely past her upper thigh.

"Feast your eyes, faggots," Sarge said in a mocking dramatic voice, "This is one of your "nude" riders. See, out here, it isn't that damn hot, so the girls keep their decency."

"Aya," the wanderer said, "Net'r ave sero'wa er wedne."

"Sexy, she's foreign" a voice behind Snipe mumbled.

"Since none of you faggots know Mountain language, apparently, I'll translate that." Sarge said. "Aglae City is about forty miles away, or at least, where the 'burbs start. Of course that isn't exactly what she said, but you'd have to be even more of a faggot to point out that obvious fact."

Feckin' Later...

Aglae City: The largest city near a warzone. The Civilian Safety pact ensures that no major cities can be bombarded or bombed, so the population is not massacred.

That being said, Aglae city is an active place. Since volunteering for military service requires a good bit of paperwork, oddly, one of the prime occupations for the war-supportive and crime ridden Aglae City is working in the Civilian Protection. Civilian Protection (CP) has no training program, and therefore is extremely inferior to the Well-trained military or even better-trainer Police.

The steamer churned to a halt beside a motel. It was beginning to grow dark, and faint lights from the border skirmishes began to dim, signifying the retreat of regular soldiers to bed and the advance of stealth operatives.

The bored motel manager seemingly brightened when Sarge went through the door to negotiate for a few rooms.

"Ah, yes! What can I do for you, honorable one?"

"I wouldn't call myself too honorable" said Sarge dully, "But I would certainly be fucking thankful if you gave my platoon rooms for the night."

"Yes, sir, how many?"

Sarge cracked open the door.

"Regus!" he snapped. "How many we got?!"

Regus read a little note he pulled out of his belt.

"Fifty two. Including our "guide."

Sarge went back in and started talking with the manager. He soon came back out.

"Faggots," he began, "He doesn't have enough rooms for each of us to get one, or even four of us to get one." A few people groaned, but not many. "Therefore, four to each room. I get my own room, and so does the foreign lady. Now decide your rooms, and anybody who's outside in fifteen minutes, I break their legs. Get your asses moving!"

Snipe pitched his bag of assorted possessions onto the the writing desk, and heard the next person shove his bag off the desk and replace it with his own. Snipe sighed, and collapsed onto one of the two beds. At once, a pile of clothes whipped Snipe in the face.

"Don't slep weth tat falthy attare," said Kemal, the squad quartermaster. "You wal ruin ta bed."

Kemal was an odd person from the desert. He had stumbled into Aglae city right on his seventeenth birthday, and was promptly recruited. With long black locks and sandy skin of the desert, Kemal looked quite different, and spoke very differently from the rest of the squad.

"I get the shower first, then." Snipe said quickly. Before Kemal could say anything, Snipe shoved past him and ran for the bathroom, only to run into another person who had gotten there first.

"So sorry, but I was listing my priorities!" a voice said as it slammed the door into Snipe's nose. Snipe stepped back, swearing.

"Beh tankfol tat I am kend." said Kemal, slowly pacing up to the door. "Bot ef a laedy coms op...wall, you cahn sae tat you will naut be going next."

"He can go next." said a soft, hesitant voice. Snipe looked over his shoulder and saw the only person in the squad with gorgeous pink eyes.

"Psh. Peple kender tan me..." Keml muttered, shaking his head while unpacking his things.

"Why-" Snipe started but did not finish.

"Because...well, I wanted to repay you for..." Potpourri sputtered

"Yeah! Repay Snipe, but could you record it? Unless you want to repay me too, y'know, huh huh." blurted the voice from the shower. Potpourri blushed and looked at the floor, not saying anything else.

"Not that kind of shit, jackass! What the hell's wrong with you?"

"I got a face full of your ass, and I had to 'repay' you! Ha ha!"

Potpourri sat on the bed looking blank. Wuss, thought Snipe, but he really couldn't insult her after she had been trying to be nice. Potpourri didn't have any structure. She crumbled so easily that she barely passed Psychology training, which was a hellhole of embarrassment, humiliation and other inhumane shit that was one of the most important things in training.

Instead, Snipe let the pile of clothes soar from Kemal, over the bed, and land on the desk.

"Change into those when you're done with the shower. Kemal doesn't want anybody sleeping in the uniforms until they've been washed." said Snipe before Kemal could begin his broken record statement.

As Snipe said this, the person came out of the shower. Who was it but Mike, the asshole. Snipe remembered the strange marauder he had med at the battlefield, with the leopard and the sword, and incredible strength. He had no relation to Mike, who shared the name but not the personality.

Snipe stripped off his uniform in the bathroom and turned on the shower. It seemed that hot water was in massive supply, considering every every fourth person in the platoon was probably showering off now. The hot water was cleansing, and washed the weeks of accumulated filth and salt crust off of Snipe. He came out a new person, refreshed and reinvigorated, even though it was rather late.

Dressed in casual civilian clothes, Snipe came out and motioned for the next person. Kemal pushed Potpourri past him, not allowing her to try and go last. As she walked by, Snipe caught a whiff of her.

She smelled like fucking shit. Unsurprisingly.

Chapter Six. FUCKING FINALLY

As Kemal finished his shower, Sarge bellowed for everybody to get in the bunk or risk getting their eyes sewed shut.

Snipe jumped into the nearest bed, and gave Kemal and Mike each impressive donkey kicks. Potpourri strolled up and lay in the bed with Snipe.

"No fucking way." said Mike in mock disbelief. "So what next, are we gonna hear some bedsprings bouncing tonight?"

"Mike, shut the fuck up."

Kemal turned off the lights, punched Mike in the temple, and rolled him off the bed.

Snipe was awake all night. Thinking, and trying to keep Potpourri from rolling on top of him, to prevent ridicule from Mike in the morning. At one point, Potpourri was ready to roll Snipe off the bed, so Snipe reached out a tentative hand and pushed her over.

She woke up with a small gasp.

"Shit."

"No, no, I'm sorry..." she said, scooting over.

"Sorry for what? Waking up? You don't have to be sorry for that kind of thing, Potpourri."

"I kn-"

"No, you don't know." Snipe said. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be doing it."

"...Thanks. I mean, for getting my head out of the trash."

"I don't need to be thanked for that."

"Yes, you do." said Potpourri softly. Snipe felt Potpourri peck him on the cheek, then roll back over to her side of the bed."

3:00 AM

Sarge strolled to the steamer. "So how long will it take to fix?" he asked the mechanics working on it.

"A week or more of this." said the head mechanic. "They really fucked it up, didn't they?"

"Yeah, and we need a driver too. Can you believe that?" responded Janus.

"Problem solved." said the Mechanic proudly. "We've been off-duty for too God damned long."

Morning

Snipe woke up with a raging erection, and Potpourri was smack on top of it.
"God damn it," muttered Snipe, and tried staring at the wall. In the act of turning his head around, he woke up Potpourri.

"Oh!" she yelped in shock, crawling off of Snipe. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry...sorry..." she said desperately, spitting as she tried to see how many times she could apologize in three seconds.

"Fucking relax." Snipe said tolerantly. "What are you sorry for, waking up?"

Kemal laughed.

"You tauk too domn loud." he said, laying down in front of the television, grasping the remote. "You bouth remend me of a faucking sop, or someting."

"Shaddup," said Snipe again. "It wasn't her fault or mine that she ended up sleeping on top of my boner."

"Ahhh...." said Kemal. "Must've been a pritty beg shock, eh?" Kemal laughed. Potpourri blushed harder.

"It isn't what you-"

"We know!" said Snipe. "We both know. Now stop being sorry and go see what Sarge might want, can you?"

Potpourri nodded slightly and left.

"Shees pafeteec." said Kemal bluntly.

"Meh," Snipe admitted, "She's cute, tho'."

"Awfolly petite." Kemal said, "She has faucking tiny breasts. No butt, either." he chuckled.

"How would you know that?" snapped Snipe.

"I own averybody's feesicals, remember?" said Kemal, pulling a chart from his pack. "Unfortunately, it seems meny of of tah sexy girls got keeled in our last fight." he said remorsefully.

"Well-"

"Mebbe it's beecauz zee leks you, and you are desparet to get into her paunties, you ass, you."

"Alright, so I like her. So? It's not like we were banging or anything."

"Oh, fauck no. I would have herd you. I was up all last night recording sheet."

"Wait..."

"Yesh. She gave you a leetle "geeft", heh heh."

"It was only a little kiss..."

"Go for it, you peemp." Kemal said, checking off a final box on the list.

"Sarge wants us out here. Now." Potpourri said as she opened the door. She then left as quickly as she came in.

Sarge was standing by a group of people in varied outfits of solid navy blue.

"Faggots! Today is your first patrol here. While we're staying here, we aren't going to just stay in bed and lay on our asses. No, we're going to need to work for it while our steamers getting fixed."

Sarge motioned to the group behind him. The front most person spoke.

"I am Moch, captain of Aglae City North Civilian Protection. We've been having a hard time lately, so-"

"They want us to go and help get rid of some crime." finished Janus.

"...Yes. We don't have much combat training, and we've lost alot of our people to criminals and gangs and...rebels."

A fleeting image of Michael passed Snipe's mind. He couldn't have followed them here, but he had to ask.

"Do...you know what the rebel looks like?" he asked suddenly.

"Rebels," Moch corrected. "No, we either are killed, captured or flee before we can get a decent mug shot or physical description."

Fuck, Snipe thought, these people are pathetic.

"So while we keep an eye out for" Moch continued,

"I'll tell them later." Sarge interrupted. "Question, faggots! How many of you got stealth training under your belt?"

Snipe groaned and raised his hand. He had been so close to completing training as a stealth operative, a much safer job than being a grunt. The tests he had failed were detecting poisons in air, liquids, and solids, and he had also failed spotting surveillance devices in a room. He had only found three cameras out of the fifty four hidden in the room.

"Snipe, Steven, and...Macbeth." Sarge said, counting each person.

Snipe nearly broke his neck snapping his head around to see Macbeth. How had he survived? He should have run into Michael, too, if not the enemy forces surrounding the steamer at that time.

He was there, stalwartly raising his hand. The look on his face was stone, expressionless, robotic. None of his siblings or relatives in the unit had survived the battle. Snipe tried and failed to understand the agony he was going through.

"This is the rebel facility" said Moch, standing on top of the building with Snipe, Steven and Macbeth. "We discovered it yesterday. A couple of CPs were passing and they got mowed down with a heavy machine gun. They captured one of our girls, and are going to start demands and torture at noon."

Snipe checked his watch. Twenty five minutes to haul ass through the air ducts and open up the entrance for Civilian Protection, and rescue the hostage.

Snipe climbed down the air duct first. He produced a torch from his pocket and led the way.

"Jeez, is there going to be a place where we can get out?" said Steven impatiently. "This place has, like, no vents. It's cramped."

"Steven, if I could turn around, I'd punch you in your bitchass mouth. I still need to get you for abandoning Macbeth and I at the battle."

"Hey, I-"

"Shut it." Macbeth said solemnly. They rounded another corner. The ducts widened greatly, and they came to a point where two ducts crossed Here, they got more comfortable and planned the next course of action.

"So what now?" Snipe asked the communicator that all three duct crawlers huddled around.

"Brilliant, you're in." said Moch, clapping his hands.

"And now?" said Steven irritably.

"Wait for us to attack. My unit of CP and I will storm the entrance, while you wait for the guards to leave, then you'll rescue the hostage and strike them from behind! Brilliant, isn't it?"

No, thought Snipe, "No, no. What are you thinking?"

"It's a perfect plan. Good luck!"

"No!" Snipe nearly yelled, as Moch turned the communicator off. "Fuck..."

The screen then flared up. The signal was being broadcasted from inside the building. Snipe looked at his watch. The hour and minute hand were directly on the Twelve.

Chapter Seven: Watching but not doing.

The signal produced an image of a girl, probably only sixteen, strapped to a chair with a gag in her mouth. She was struggling heavily, but the chair was bolted to the floor.

"That's...my cousin." Macbeth said in shock. The girl was dressed in an extremely tight, low cut tank top, with lower cut jeans. A person covered entirely in black attire entered the room. He pulled a sharp, cruelly jagged knife from his collar. The girl struggled more.

"We've gotta get her!" Macbeth said, starting to force open the vent.

"No, Macbeth." said Steven. "We can't. That's just how it is. Don't kill us all with a suicidal move, Macbeth." Steven took a gag from his pocket and gagged Macbeth, and tied his hands and feet. "Sorry Macbeth. I'm truly sorry."

Macbeth looked at Snipe with desperate, teary eyes. Snipe turned the communicator away from Macbeth. He wouldn't see his cousin tortured, possibly to death.

"This is so you will know the measures we are willing to take." said an electronically garbled voice from the communicator. The man in black took the girl's forearm and scratched it. She recoiled, and began to shake her head in desperation.

Snipe didn't want to watch it, but he had to. He had to know how badly he would hurt Steven for all of this. All the shit he had put Macbeth through, and things he had been doing to save Macbeth's life, but destroying it at the same time.

The torturer finished cutting up the girl. She was covered in scratches, and her clothing had all been torn or cut off. She was still shaking her head furiously, desperately, as the torturer pulled out a rough baton thing. The outside of it was like sandpaper, while the tip had several jagged points.

Snipe decided he would torture the torturer, too, but before he could leave the vent, he felt another rope tighten on his wrists. Steven again.

"I'm...so sorry..." he said again. He then duct taped Snipe's mouth.

WARNING
WARNING
WARNING
(This may get rather...graphic. Ugh...)

The torturer shoved the torture device into the girl's genitals. She screamed through her gag in agony, as the torturer raped her with the fiendish weapon. Blood began to pool on the floor as the girl continued to scream.

Snipe could feel traces of vomit in his throat.

The baton stabbed further into the girl with each thrust. She started to soil herself while struggling to get free, to end the pain. Deep abrasions carved her legs as she attempted to stop her violent torture. The torturer removed her gag.

Her screams pierced Snipe's ears.

The torturer shoved the baton down her throat. Blood began to pour down the sides of her neck and splatter on her cheeks. She tried to scream more, but her tongue was shredded. The torturer left the baton deep in her mouth, down her throat, and drew several wires from the chair. He positioned them all over her body, then went to the wall. He lifted a safety case and pushed the button behind it.

The wires sliced through the girl. Snipe could see her entrails pour our as her last look of agony went blank. Her limbs were chopped off and her blood poured all over the floor. Snipe got his wrists loosed and removed the gag. He barfed all over the floor of the vent. Steven looked over to him.

"Steven...I'm...going to fucking murder you for making me watch that."

"I never made you watch that." Steven said morosely. He punched through the vent.

"It's time. All those people are leaving the room. I think we are ready for some..." Steven's expression went from calm and blank to furious and bloodthirsty as he loaded a submachine gun.

"well-deserved fucking revenge." Steven finished, handing Snipe a few weapons, then jumping down from the vent.

Snipe grabbed Steven before he could fully descend, pulled him up, and punched him in the face.

"The fu-"

Snipe punched Steven in the face repeatedly. When Steven finally stopped responding, Snipe threw him further along the duct. Snipe's knuckles were bloody, but he had received his well deserved fucking revenge.

Feeling rather badass, Snipe leaped down from the ventilation....into a crowd of guards assembled by the sight of Steven's lower half protruding from the vent.

"...fuck." Snipe cursed to himself.

"Should we shoot you now, or later?" one of the guards said, prodding Snipe's back with his shotgun.

"I'd rather you not shoot me at all," said Snipe, turning to the guard.

"Shot now, then." he cocked the shotgun.

"No, I second that." said a familiar voice. The guard's head fell off.

"What the fuck?!"

"Shit, who's there?"

Snipe saw the odd leopard drop from the ceiling and latch onto a person. It left him a mauled pulp.

"It's a puppet!" said another criminal in realization. "It's master's hiding somewhere! Shoot it!"

All of the rebels turned their guns at the leopard. All of the bullets hit it as it hung limp for a hopeless second. The bullets fell away, smashed, as the leopard thing crushed a firearm in its teeth and spit the shards into the crowd. All of them fell, bloody bits of steel sticking into the wall behind them. The scene quieted, so Snipe stood up again.

"Michael?"

The figure with long, dark green hair dropped from the same duct that Snipe had dropped from. His sudden appearance startled Snipe.

"Brother, do not look shocked. I am not here to kill you."

"Stop calling me your brother," Snipe said wearily. "If I had a brother, he wouldn't be so lethal."
Snipe's expression changed. "What did you do with them?"

"They are visiting the mansion of their minds." he said simply as if Snipe would understand. Snipe noticed that Michael was a good two inches shorter than him. How intimidating.

"If you're going to try to be friends with me," Snipe said slowly, "Then at least tell me: what the hell is that thing?" Snipe's eyes wandered towards the leopard thing. It looked stitched together from cloth and other materials, like a stuffed animal.

"You don't know?" Michael said. He held up a cross. It was ivory, with bronze decorations on the ends. Blingy.

Michael bent the cross in one direction. The creature's head raised. Michael tilted the cross thing and the leopard thing responded appropriately.

"He is Mercedes, and he is my puppet." he continued. "I made him, and I injected him with my life force."

Michael pointed down the hall. "I will deliver your comrades to your base. I killed all of the rebels in this building, as well as the civilian protection surrounding it..."

"Holy shit!" Snipe exclaimed "You just slaughtered fifty people? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Fifty three." Michael corrected. "I fight for justice." With that, he leaped back up into the ventilation system, with Mercedes, his odd weapon and companion.

Chaptr Svn

A puppet is formed by taking an ordianry stuffed animal or something alike, and filling it with one's life force. However, not many know about puppets and far less know the technique to create one. It is neccessary to retreive a person who knows the written form of the ancient desert language of Natali, to construct the rune through which life force can be channeled. It is not known how they do it, nor will they tell us scientists and researchers, but puppet masters and their puppets are often the fiercest, most harmful thing a soldier could encounter.

Snipe walked rather untriumphantly back to the motel. He made sure to come back late. Very late.

Unfortunately for his sneaky return, Sarge was seated on a dumpster near he parking lot.
"You're alive." Sarge said, as if Snipe was suddenly the biggest thing happening at the moment.

"Yeah." said Snipe tiredly, "Is that a good thing?"

"Where's Steven and Macbeth? Everybody thought you were all fucked when that crazy bastard flew out and started slaughtering the clusterfuck of dumbasses."

"Believe it or not, Sarge, I've seen him before. He threw me."

"Great. Get to your room." Sarge commanded, with a more serious tone.

As Snipe went off to get some rest, he could barely hear Sarge swear as he walked away.

Michael tossed the limp body of a Civilian Protection officer onto the roof of a house. Let the detectives figure that one out. He comtemplated on how he would dispose of the rest of the ten corpses he had produced about fourteen seconds ago. As he picked up another body to shove into a storm drain, he heard a slight whoosh coming from the direction he had just thrown the other body. He turned around and chucked the corpse at the corpse now flying towards him at a viscious speed. The two dead people collided, forming a grisly tangle. Mercedes, his puppet, leaped for something behind Michael. Michael turned arund and pulled his sidearm from his breast pocket...to aim at nothing. Mercedes sniffed in suspicion and confusion, then looked down a dark irregularity in the road. Michael stepped over to look, but then realized.

He jumped into the air, and narrowly missed the arm coming up to grab him from underneath the asphalt. Sergeant Janus burst up from the underground, asphalt and dirt exploding upwards at Michael. He yanked on Mercedes' strings to pull him over to fight.

Janus huffed to himself. If it wasn't for that damned puppet, he would've at least taken the rebel bastard's foot off. However, they were both airborne now. The rebel wouldn't be able to dodge.

But he did! Janus looked over in confusion as Michael pulled himself over to his puppet faster than Janus could grab him.

"Why are you here?" Janus demanded as he landed. "Wasn't killing my soldiers at the border enough for you?" Janus drew a handgun. Massive barrel. Magnum. "Or did you come back for more of this?" Sarge said, pulling the trigger.

The explosion of the gun was massive. Michael felt a tremendous bullet whisk by his head as Mercedes tried to deflect the bullet. It bounced off of his skeleton, and left a massive hole in his exterior, but Mercedes wouldn't be able to repair himself at the moment. Michael stung unvoluntarily as he remembered the power of the gigantic gun blowing through both Mercedes and his own spine the last time he and Janus had confronted each other.

BOOM!! BOOM!!

Two more shots that sounded and felt like a cannon firing sent their deadly projectiles at Michael. He was ready, though. He dodged them, but not with ease. He swung Mercedes at Janus, wrapping Janus in the strings, and Mercedes' deadly power.

And he forgot to let go of the manipulator.

Janus flipped his magnum in his hand and bludgeoned the patchwork leopard in the forehead. He was instantly released, and he noticed Michael on his knees, holding his head with blood seeping between his fingers.

Damnit! Damnit! raged the invisible voice of pain, throbbing in Michael's head. He had forgotten to release the manipulator, so that he wouldn't suffer damage from the blow on Mercedes. It had been an extremely powerful blow: Michael was starting to fade.

"No choice" he said to himself, and he rushed at Janus straight on. A shot blew through his gut, causing him to tumble to Janus's feet. Only a touch was neccessary, though.

Janus felt the fiend touch him. Dark hazyness flooded his vision. The last thing he heard before regaining his vision was "Visit the mansion in your mind!"

Michael shivered as he grasped the manipulator and drew life force from Mercedes. His major wounds healed, but the pain wouldn't leave for a bit. Leaving the still, comatose body of Janus with the dead Civilian Protection officers, he stumbled off to recover.

*Note: I'm not going to type out Kemal's accent anymore. It's too annoying to go back and create spelling errors.

Sarge didn't come back next morning. Sarge usually did some kind of atrociously shocking act of scaring the shit out of everybody who didn't wake up in time, but today....nothing. Snipe was able to sleep until 10:00. Everybody had.

"So where the hell is Sarge?" Kemal asked, flipping on the coffee machine. "You were here late. Really late."

"Hell if I know." answered Snipe. "He just left."

"Macbeth and Steven?"

"Same." Snipe lied. He didn't need to say anything about the puppeteer, so he didn't.

"Everybody's saying shit about going out and living. Sarge isn't here, so they don't need to be."

"What do you think?" Snipe asked, himself wanting to truly enjoy himself for once.

"I'd say fuck the Sarge, I'd go off and not be a soldier." Kemal said, shrugging in mock innocence. "But if Sarge came back, he'd be pretty damn pissed."

Snipe thought the same about pissing Sarge off. Fuck 'im.

The local arcade was decent. It wasn't a crappy Pizza arcade, and actually featured a few pieces of hardware that were fairly new. Snipe saw a game themed after sniping terrorists. Interested, Snipe went to play it.

The lightgun was much smaller than Snipe's primary equipment. Snipe was afraid he'd tear it off.

"Meet up with your squad at the site. Get going!" the game said as the breifing appeared onscreen. Snipe read it carefully, then proceeded with the mission...

"Green Light" Snipe's cover said. The first target was a terrorist on the roof of the skyscraper, observing the area below. Snipe quickly adjusted his aim and put a bullet through the enemy's forehead. He could see the terrorist fall, but there was no recoil from the gun. Odd. Getting over this new oddity, Snipe swung his aim towards the next target in the building and blew his brains out. Another target! Blam! The terrorists had no idea what him them.

"Over there!"

Snipe swung his aim towards the ground. A terrorist had a hostage, but he was at the wrong angle. Snipe reached for his data transmitter to call a sniper from another squad in this area...

His communicator wasn't there! Snipe angrily took a round of powder nonlethal shot from his belt.

That wasn't there either. Snipe's aim shook with the little carbine he held. He took a breath and aimed at the target.

The hostage was suddenly released as Snipe's bullet slammed through the terrorist's head.

"Mission Success!"

Snipe could hear faint voices, but that wasn't important right now. He now had to guard a VIP's copter from being attacked by terrorists at an ambush point.

He was on the side of a helicoper. An easy target, and his aim wasn't helped by how the helicopter constantly performed evasive manuevers. Finally, the helicopter had to land, and an enemy copter rose up from the valley. Snipe couldn't call for air support. He searched for his sidearm, but it wasn't there either! All he had was this rifle and the ammunition. The helicopter rose into the air. Snipe altered his aim upwards...

Crack!

Snipe was thrown back into reality. He had broken off the plastic rifle. The game was continuing at the point where he had been, but the aiming reticule was gone. Snipe now held a plastic carbine in his hands. Little kids stared up in shock as Snipe slowly put the gun back down and walked away as if nothing had happened.

Snipe tried to think of a way to explain that incident in case he ever got caught. While he was striding along, he noticed Potpourri almost staring at him. Snipe felt the hairs on the back of his neck prick up. Why the hell was she stalking him?

Updated: 02/09/08 11:31 PM 10 comments | Log in to comment! | Share this!

Remember all of my past BBS stories? The ones I never finished? I might get to those, but certainly not soon.

The reason was that while I was writing all those stories, I had been working on a universe for a series of stories. All those other stories were drained of their creative blood and blanded by the work I was putting into this other one.

The reason this will be finished, and in my opinion, will be much better, is because this story takes place in the same universe I have been working on.

Please continue to read my story.

Prologue- Twisted Point, Ess Aech Eye Tee of Florida University.

In a world parallel to ours, perhaps existent in another dimensions, time and or place, there was a war going on.
Only this war had been going on far too long. It was a war waged between two sides of equal numbers, locked in eternal stalemate for half a century since the war began. Technological advances had done nothing to tilt favor to one side, and no holy power was helping either side. This war was killing dozens by the week, but there were still many, many more.

About nine years into the war, the government and military of both sides realized that people weren't going to volunteer in numbers large enough to maintain large armies. So, to prevent their enemy from gaining the numerical advantage, they began to forcefully draft the firstborn of each family, male or female, on their 17th birthday. Morale dropped heavily among troops, but the war maintained its deathly stalemate. Neither power gained much land that was taken back within the month.

Nineteen years in, the first major riot broke out. The entire city of Raisen, in the southern country of Querea broke into revolt, and the city was bombed by a rogue government agent. Not realizing that the nuke had been launched unauthorized, the citizens were traumatized, not even badmouthing a cop, to prevent their destruction.

Twenty four years. The small northern country of Wedran began to break apart. It's allies could not prevent the tiny country's massive nuclear powerplant from melting down, as the engineers broke into protest. The irradiated countryside bore no life, and immigrants with severe radiation sickness came into the other countries and all died within a week. The low-population country did not slow the flow of recruits with its demise, however.

Forty five years, about five years before the current date. The southern countries have issued an act that requires that if a family's firstborn soldier dies in combat or is rendered unsuitable for combat, then they must send their next child, if any, to take the other's place. This caused a public outrage, and an armed rebellion captured a military supply depot. The act was quickly withdrawn, but the Rebellion was formed. The Rebellion spread internationally, fighting the police forces whenever the people were violated of their rights. Even though they are in small numbers, they are still there...

The Present Date.

Chapter One

Snipe was rudely awakened by the butt of a rifle.
"Get the fuck up, shithead!" said sarge. "And take a shower, you smell shittier than the fucking shit fountain itself!" The sarge jammed his carbine into Snipe's lower back once more, forcing a fart from Snipe's guts. The sarge stood speechless, then swung his gun in a wide arc and smashed one of the legs of Snipe's cheap bed. Snipe tumbled out of the broken bed, fully awake.

"Take a damn shower!" the sargeant barked, before walking away. Snipe sniffed his arm, and quickly recoiled. Sargeant Janus was right- he DID smell really bad. As much as he hated taking showers in the crappiest shower on any military base, the water, however dirty, would make Snipe cleaner than he was. He snatched his cleanest battle uniform from the depths of his laundry sack and lazily trudged off to the shower, clothed only in his breifs under his sheets.

"Snipe" wasn't Snipe's real name. Nobody alive knew his real name, since his great uncle had never told it to him, only telling the repeated story of Snipe coming from a town full of people who's hair was a strange, dark shade of green. This town had been recently obliterated by the opposing military, and Snipe was rendered an orphan until his spared great uncle found him under a collapsed house. Snipe was simply his nickname, due to his marksmanship with any firearm with a fairly long barrel.
He felt rather filthy still, as the cold, brackish water splattered over his head and over his shoulders. He had walked in on a couple in the shower, the guy performing rough anal sex on the girl. Many fellow soldiers had also reported walking in on shower sex, but the truth was ofen mixed, as Snipe was often accused of pleasuring the random woman in the shower. Or man, if the person telling the tale was a complete asshole. Snipe noted the handprints and occaisonal milky stain on the wall for future discussion.
Snipe turned off the shit shower and got dressed. The salty water quickly hardened his all of his hair into lumps of salty strands, but at least Snipe didn't smell of anything other than salt.
He saw other sleeping soldiers on his way out of the shower, and thought vaguely of doing the Sarge performance to make himself feel a little better. Sarge would laugh if he saw it, and Snipe was feeling rather grumpy that day. He advanced towards the first mildly attractive woman he saw, and reached towards her buttocks. Snipe rubbed them slowly and firmly, and she began to stir. Only then, did he spank her hard with the back of his hand. She only snorted and rolled over. Sighing, Snipe decided not to risk any further soiling of his reputation as a well-behaved person.

Snipe saw a few other drowsy warriors in the coffee room, Sargeant Janus sitting on a table fiddling with his gun's safety mechanism. Another person was struggling to extract coffee from the ancient coffee machine, only managing to get a tenth of a cup so far.
Janus looked up at Snipe. "Any other shitheads up, yet?"
Snipe shook his head. Sarge heaved himself up and flicked the safey of his gun. Marching out the door, one of the people reclining on the couch rushed over to the security station and motioned for everybody to come over. Snipe got himslef a first-row seat, feeling pity for the people behind him who wouldn't get a full view of Sarge's wakeup call. The sarge came into view on the first camera in the bedroom, and he pointed his gun towards the ceiling and fired off several rounds. The squad jumped out of their beds. Most of them jumped out of their sheets, scared shitless. The hilarious few flipped over their beds and hid behind them, and Snipe laughed to himself, loudly. The rest of the audience was cheering, chuckling, or otherwise holding their sides in laughter as Sarge began belching out swears not even known to them, swears not known to them in a different language, walked up to people, held them by their necks and gave the unlucky grunt a frank, negative summary on their bad qualities. As Sargeant Janus lifted a short guy two feet into the air and began yelling in his face, he suddenly disappeared, leaving the shorty to slam into the floor, facefirst. Snipe was suddenly pushed out of the way, and Sarge simply appeared in front of him, standing straight, looking down at the guy operating the cameras, who was still giggling.
"So!" said Sarge, "Was that recorded?"
The guy looked up at him, suddenly worried. "Er-er...."
Sarge grabbed him and slammed him through the ceiling, and the others began to laugh as they saw the unfortunate operator's squirming legs sticking through the hole.
"Ten-SHUN!" bellowed Sarge. The rest of the squad burst through the door, hastily pulling on their uniforms or strapping on their armor. The squad stood at attention, except for those still struggling to get their shirts on.
"You ready to go back out to that barren shithole!?" yelled Seargant Janus, recharging the clip of his carbine. Snipe was not ready to go, but he had to. Hey- maybe he would get lucky and see a hot nude rider from the hotter part of the desert.

Chapter One and a half

NFA- THe previous version of this chapter was gay, so I revised it.

In this land, there is a special breed of fighter, a two-in-one combat team that reigns supreme even over modern weaponry. These fighters are puppet masters, and use, command, and fight beside their semi-living puppets, animated by the very life force of the master him/herself.

Excerpt from Pone Rae City author Teo von McGeharth's Principles of Life Energy

Snipe felt the sting of the dead, non-condtioned air in his nostrils as soon as Sergeant Janus DeMelay opened the door. The very air of the Moush Desert was barren, so much shit blew in from the industry up north, and radioactive shit from the meltdown in Wedran.
Snipe's unit, the 52nd Dreaguars, was stationed in a cluster of several small towns twenty miles south of the current line of fire. They were supposed to be the second line of defense in case the first line was broken.
Today, however, they were supposed to reinforce the line.
"It's been getting heavy on the action up there," said Sarge, "There's less of a bigass stalemate there as there is everywhere else. If they break through, you might as well shoot yourself in the head, because I'd kill you anyway!"
The entire unit straightened and loaded into the APC, a small skiff. Skiffs were generally gigantic battle platforms mounted on skis, but it's word had spread to any land transportion that slid. The old engine putted to a grumbling start, and the paddle wheels began to plow away through the white sand. Soon, the machine was churning through the sand, Snipe could feel the wind blowing through his hair at ninety miles an hour. The town disappeared in the course of minutes.

The scene of fighting became visible. Snipe saw a rocket vanish into the sand beside the steamer (model of skiff).
"Nothing to worry abut!" yelled the navigator at the wheel. "Only danger is when we get there in a few seconds. Ho ho ho!"
The crude fortifications became visible. Snipe was floored by a mortar blowing up behind him.
"Daveed, slow down the ship." said Sergeant Janus. The ship did not slow down at all. "Daveed!"
Janus bashed open the door, and suddenly stepped back a few feet.
"Shit!"
Snipe ran over to the scene, did a few others. The Navigator was slumped over the wheel, a fragment of a shell embedded in the back of his neck. Sarge instinctively ran over and began pullin levers. The steamer jolted and turned ninety degrees, then started to roll. At about 100 miles per hur, with a vehicle that big, Snipe was launched ass-over-teakettle into a tree. Snipe felt blood rush up his throat and spurt onto his combat jacket. Just when he thought the worst had passed, he got an upside-down view of the steamer rolling towards him at an unreal speed. The steamer skipped on a small hill and soared over Snipe, slamming into the thicket behind him. Snipe heaved out a tremendous sigh of relief, and looked back towards the wreckage. A few people left intact, who hadn't jumped clear were left defending the hulk. Snipe heard rustling next to him and saw a squadmate suat down next to him.
"I'll look around. Keep your head down!" she assured him. Sniope's mate stood up, and a bronze slug caved in her face. A shower of blood and other fluid rained on Snipe's head, dripping onto his shoulders.
"Damn...such a nice ass, too...." muttered Snipe. A small group of the enemy ran out of the brush and cornered Snipe against the tree. Four people against him, he remained slumped against the tree.
"Do you want to come quietly?" said the biggest one.
"I don't want to be the one, the battles always choose..." Snipe said in a melodic tone.
"What the hell are you saying, dog?" an other soldier said.
"Cause inside I realize, that I'm the one confused..." Snipe continued.
"He's crazy. Put him out" said the same soldier. Snipe withdrew his rifle from its holder on his back slowly and silently.
"Shoot'im!" yelled another one. Snipe swung his rifle like an aze and clobbered him. He was on the ground before he could say "Linkin Park".
"I don't know what's worth fighting for!" yelled Snipe, turning his rifle and shooting another guy in the gut. He crumpled and fell back, the .78 caliber slug knocking him on his ass. "Or why I have to scream!" Snipe grabbed the biggest guy's shotgun and forced it upwards, to his chin, cocking it.
"I don't know why I instigate, and say what I don't mean!" Snipe pulled the trigger while he sang "mean". His head exploded as brains cascaded onto the tree. THe final guy raised his sidearm and shot three times. "I don't know how I got this way," Snipe span and kicked the guy in his knee pits, forcing him to kneel. "I know it's not alright!"
"What the hell are you!?" demanded the soldier, still parylized with shock.
"So I'm breaaaaakiiing the haaaabit," Snipe cocked his rifle, "Tonight!!" Snipe blew the enemy's heart out, the sheer impact of the slug sending him back ten feet. Snipe blew the smoke from his gun, smiled, and sat back down, planning what to do next.

Chapter frickin' Two

Snipe could hear the rattle of automatic weapons nearby. He had to move. Four recruits, maybe, but Snipe could not go up against a trained Assualt specialist right now, let alone more than one.
The assualt specialists had parked themselves and their vehicles in a ring around the wrecked steamer. Snipe was saddened to know that several of his fellow squadmates woul undoubtedly perish in the ensuing onslaught.
Snipe hacked up more blood, loudly. He guessed his injuries were worse than he thought.
The average soldier in this war is trained to hear any signs of human activity over the artificial noise of explosions, gunshots and engines. Snipe coughed several more times, and noticed that the machine gun fire had quieted. One Assualt gunman turned his SAW and fired off a burst. Snipe hit the dirt and narrowly avoided having his head split open. Snipe rolled backwards and proceeded to do what is insructed to do in boot camp if you're outgunned- run like hell. .32 caliber bullets sawed apart a tree where Snipe had been. The Assualtman was weighed down with the heavy machine gun and all of its ammo, but bullets traveled hundreds of times faster than he needed to go. Snipe saw bullets rip apart plants, wood, and the very dirt he was walking on.

Snipe considered himself lucky that none of the rounds had hit him. Tha feeling vanished in an instant. A rogue bullet blew through a space in Snipe's body armor and into his hip. Snipe slipped and fell on his face, his face abrazed by the sandy soil. Snipe rolled over to face his assailant, and waited for the end to arrive.
Shockingly to Snipe, there was no assailant chasing him.the last several shots had all hit Snipe, but they had all hit his shoulder armor, and the bruises were nowhere near as painful as his shattered hip. Snipe looked towards his wound. It was bleeding in short bursts, an arterial wound. Snipe apparently couldn't effectively treat his hip wound. The severe bleeding bandages he had would chemically fuse his wound, and he would be effectively put out of action.

Fortunately, Snipe didn't have to wait too long before three friendly heads popped through the brush. The medic of the group hissed at a fellow grunt, and crawled out to retrieve Snipe. The two grunts held their rifles at ready, watching for any sign of an enemy soldier that would ruin the rescue.
"Nice time to show up, Steven." mumbled Snipe.
"Save it for the bushes," replied Steven, the unit medic.
Snipe felt soft leaves brush his face as he went back into cover. He saw a fourth ally, wielding an assualt rifle with a grenade launching attatchment, covering the rear.
"So where's Lydia?" he asked. "Sis went out to find our missing people."
"She's FUBAR (Fucked up beyond all recognition)," Snipe answered, trying not to remember the nauseating sight of his fellow squad member's splattered face.
The assualt rifle dude went silent for a while, but Steven breifed Snipe. "We're about a quarter mile behind enemy lines. Everybody who jumped is there, or close, to our lines. Everybody in the ship is fucked- we can't help them."
"That isn't true!" the assualt rifler, Macbeth, burst out. A grenade flew over their heads and blew apart a tree. Snipe felt several daggers of wood flatten themselves against his armor.
"...well I'm not going to risk my ass. By the way, nice fucking going there, getting a nade tossed at us."
"You shut the hell up." responded Macbeth. "I just lost my baby sister, I'm not gonna lose my brother, too."
Steven shrugged. "As soon as I patch up Snipe, we're going back. I can't get shot out here. Yet."
Steve gave Snipe a stick to chew on, then reached into the wound with his forceps. It burned, and Snipe nearly bit the stick in half, but the bullet was out of the bone. Steven tightly tied a bandage around it and said, "You should be able to at last move on your own, now. Let's go back."
"No," said Snipe, "I have friends on that wreck, too." He looked over to Macbeth. "I'm coming with you."
Steven glared at them. "Fine, get fucked, but don't cry to me if you die."
Steven and the two other people vanished past a line of trees.

Snipe and Macbeth walked the other direction, towards the Last Stand in the crashed ship. The terrifying sounds of the assualt weapons were still there. The only positive thought going through Snipe's mind was that there was at least one person to rescue. He was about to go out when Macbeth held him back.
"Wait. There's something big coming." he whispered, groping for an imaginary grenade. A tank rumbled into the clearing.
"Shit..." Snipe said to himself. Neither of them had any heavy weapons, save maybe two grenades Macbeth had left, but tanks that could be destroyd by that number of grenades barely existed anymore. Most of the ones in service were heavily armored for battles against fortresses and other tanks. Antipersonnel grenades would hardly scratch the paint job. Macbeth blasted off a grenade towards the tank.
"What the hell are you doing!?" Snipe screamed, slowly watching the ghastly turret revolve towards their position.
"Don't just stand there," Macbeth yelled back, "Fucking run!!"
The tank fired. The ground exploded behind the pair, rocks bouncing everywhere. Off of trees and into people and their armor. One hit Snipe in the back of the knee. Flitting thoughts of his own grisly murder flitted through his confused and praying mind. Curled in the fetal position, Snipe waited for the assualt weapon fire to punch through his head, or a tank shell blast to vaporize his body.
"No." Snipe thought. He wasn't going to jus give up this time. He rolled, and was launched into the air by the explosion of a shell. Snipe twirled over the battlefield and over, on top of the wrecked ship.

Snipe fell through two ceilings and onto a wounded man. The wounded hurled blood and vomit all over Snipe, dousing his jacket, then lay still. The huddled, hiding survivors didn't even look at Snipe, for the most part. It was absolutely silent in the room.
"What the fuck?" Snipe thought, "I come crashing through the god damned ceiling, and nobody gives a shit..?"
Snipe looked around again. THe people weren't hiding, or huddled. Snipe could feel his ass beginning to absorb blood off of the floor. He leapt up in disgust. Everybody in this room was dead or dying. According to the number of people here, there was alot more people who didn't jump when the steamer was hit. Snipe could easily recognize five members of his squad here. However, Only one seemed to have been hit by gunfire. Everybody else had jagged slash and stab wounds. All were either dead or seemingly in a trance. No swordsman could have done this; they'd have to be of legendary strangth, agility, and skill. Not even Sergeant Janus could stand up to an experienced gunman with a blade, face to face; and Janus was the greatest soldier Snipe knew.

GREXXWERAR!!

Following the oddest natural noise Snipe had heard, a massive, sleek, leopard shape pounced in front of Snipe and split his jacket horizontally. Snipe jerked in reaction, and pulled the trigger of his rifle. The ensuing report caused dozens of bullets to fly into the room and tear apart the bodies of Snipe's fellow soldiers. The flash of light revealed tiny strings connected to the Leopard in many different places. The leopard, in this light, was also very different. It had stitched lines covering its body where patches of fur didn't exist. Teeth pointed like daggers in front of its mouth. Also, unlike a leopard, this peculiar creature was black.

"Mercedes, tank!" commanded an unknown, slightly softer voice. The leopard turned and jumped away towards the battlefield. Snipe crept out of the half-blown apart room, and was immediately impaled by a curved sword and lifted into the air. Snipe's vision blurred with pain as he slid down the blade, widening the wound. He could see the magnum places in front of his heart, and knew he was dead anyways.

"A brother?" spoke the same, soft voice, before letting Snipe fall to the deck.
Snipe's tears of agony cleared, and he could now see a dark, faded green haired person, slightly younger than him, kneeling on his face. He looked up to see Snipe's face, and his gaze hardened.
"I am Michael Reter'Erd. You come from the same place as I, and share my pain of having no true homeland or relatives. My purpose here is to end this bloody war, with the blood of both North and South, so no more people suffer as we have."
Michael yanked on a small wooden cross he was carrying in his hand, and the black leopard flew over. "With my sword, my sidearm, and Mercedes," Michael rubbed the head of his odd pet. It growled in a friendly way. "...I will end this conflict. Now begone, before you are sacrificed too."
Michael turned to leave. Snipe cocked his rifle, quickly, and fired a high-powered slug at the back of his former assailant. Michael flicked his wooden cross, and the leopard's strings shone in the sunlight. It sprang behind him and absorbed the bullet, but did not recoil at all. Michael whipped around and gripped Snipe by the throat.

"I said..." he snarled, "Begone!"
Michael turned and threw Snipe over the trees. Snipe slammed into a trench and saw Sarge, looking bewildered into his face.

Snipe smiled, and said "Heh, reporting for duty, sir."

Chapter Three- Silence

"Regus," Janus said quickly. "Fuse that hole right there."

Regus, the Medic other than Steven, knelt down and pulled a small pen-shaped thing out of his pocket protector.

"Make sure you sit still." Regus said, "'Cause this is going to fucking hurt."

Regus switched on the laser. Snipe could see the orange beam burning the air around it, and only half a second later, intense pain coursed through Snipe's abdomen. He struggled with himself, but he couldn't keep himself from jolting upward. The laser charred flesh that did not need to be cauterized, and Snipe was breathless from agony.

"Sarge! I need help!" screamed Regus, trying to hold down Snipe with one hand while holding the laser in the other. Sgt. Janus put his knee on Snipe's chest while holding down his legs.
Snipe's vision was clouded with translucent patterns that all meant pain. Snipe observed the kaleidoscope, and was beginning to think about how beautiful it was, when a massive shock ran through his body. Snipe felt his face, numb and drained of blood. A vein in his eye had popped, bt that did not obscure Snipe's view of Regus standing above him with a scratched, stained panel.

"You ready for duty now?" inquired Sarge.

Snipe inhaled deeply, "Yeah."

"Good. Regus, tell him about this colassal fuckup of a fight we're having."
Sarge climbed out of the trench, blade in hand. Snipe stood weakly, turning to Regus.

"Yeah?"

"About half our unit is back here. According to the guy who says he jumped last, about a third of the unit was in the steamer when it finally stopped. Were you in it?"

"Nah," said Snipe. "I fell out, but I got inside it."

"And?"

Snipe paused, quickly deciding the truth was better than nothing for an answer. "Everybody I saw in there was dead or comatose. About a dozen and a couple people."

"Then a few got away." concluded Regus. Death wasn't exactly something that saddened him after his years of service. "The only question is where they are."

"I think I battled their killer," said Snipe. Seeing Regus's eyebrow rise, he continued, "After I entered the steamer, a large cat attacked me. It was being manipulated by this crazy rebel motherfucker who called himself Michael Reter'Erd."

"Just Michael? Not 'Michael the Magnificent' or 'Mike, savior of the people'?"

"Nope. He didn't seem to be the whacko kind. Just the motherfucker kind."

"Hmm. Did he give you that one in the gut?"

"Yeah. I shot his cat, but it didn't fucking care. It absorbed the fucking slug like it was a fucking marshmallow! That's almost as fucked up as Michael hurling me all the way over here."

"Well, that's...get the fuck down!!" Regus suddenly yelled, pushing Snipe over and then curling up. The blinding flash and heat of a napalm blazed overhead.
"Motherfucker!" swore Regus, covering his eyes. Snipe rolled over, blinded. His eyes were open, and the black ground beneath him was colored a dirty white. As his vision darkened, a rough hand grabbed him from behind. Snipe instinctively took a deep breath, feeling the hand tighten around his neck. Regus hobbled up, holding his sidearm with a shaky hand.

"Release him!" he commanded, "Now!" Regus's trigger finger squeezed involuntarily and shot a round into the side of the trench.
Snipe's captor laughed, and further tightened his grip. Snipe could no longer breathe.

"How about this, pansy?" he taunted Regus, "I hold your friend here for sixminutes, and then I release him, kay?" he said, attaching a timed explosive to his hand. "This is so I keep my promise," he chuckled.

Four minutes and a half passed, and Snipe wasn't even fazed. His assailant began to sweat. How could anybody not be able to breath for this long and not be harmed? He panicked, and glanced at the time explosive he had fit on his own palm.

"Big mistake, motherfucker!" screamed Regus. He dashed forward with his shock paddles and placed them on the enemy's stomach and chest. "CLEAR!!" he commanded to the device. The powerful shock blew the enemy back, releasing Snipe, who didn't even breathe after being suddenly released. Their foe writhed on the ground, twitching from shock as foam streamed from his mouth. His eyes focused on Snipe, torn with confusion.

"I'm from a clan of mountain people." Snipe said, flipping his foe on his back and tying his hands with steel cable. "My people were naturally adapted through years of hardship to have almost twice the lung capacity any normal person has. My lungs' air sacs are compressed, yet can fill every bit of themselves with precious air." He finished. Snipe then chopped his prisoner on the temple, knocking him unconcious.

Chopper catre

Another bomb hit, shaking the ground.

"We're boned." said Regus. "We don't have any air support. We can't get out of this godforsaken trench unless we want to get chopped in two by machine gun fire. Stupid-"

Regus didn't finish his next negative comment. The churning tune of a steamer skiff suddenly became very loud and clear. A large wheel paddle dug into the trench and excised the entire thing from the ground. The sensation of flying through the air was quickly replaced by the feeling of doing a bellyflop on a steel-plastic plate, which was then quickly replaced by more flying. The combined feelings were quite a pisser to Snipe, who was now perfrming his one hundred and eigth midair somersault into a paddle.
Regus, on the other hand, could not care less about the predicament. They had been saved from certain death, in a rather random manner, but still. Regus would always choose slamming facefirst into the ground every one point five seconds than die.

After a minute and a half of torture, the steamer finally grinded to a halt in front of a sandy hill. Regus crawled out from between the paddles, quite satisfied to be alive, while Snipe fell unceremoniously from the top of the paddle wheel, quite fed up with what life was giving him. Life had squeezed its lemons into Snipe's eyes, and was laughing at Snipe while he rolled on the ground.

"What the hell were you doing in there?" called Sarge.

"I'm a masochist. I'm in love with my pain." yelled Snipe back, in a sarcastic "no fucking shit" tone.

"Shut the hell up and thank me for saving your ass," snapped Sergeant Janus. "We're about a mile or two away from the combat. Any closer and we'd be getting bombed right now."

"How did you get the steamer back?" Regus asked, climbing up the ladder. Sgt. Janus ignored the question, and moved back to the pilothouse.
When Snipe had hoisted himself up, he was shocked at how many of his mates had been gathered.

"So that's what Sarge was doing while he was gone." thought Snipe. How had Sergeant Janus gotten so much of the unit in such a short time? Furthermore, Michael would have probably been at the steamer, so how did Sarge retrieve it?

Snipe stopped thinking about it before his head hurt.

Communication Log Squad Leader Janus DeSolonal no.94

<Reporting in, Headquarters. Total head count is fifty one. We have twenty causalties, and nine MIA.>

<Sergeant Janus, what is the status of your transport?>

<We have lost ourkrrrzzzzzzzzzz>

<Sergeant?>

<zzzorry, our radio is crap. The tower is near the Zone, so it doesn't get mOOOOOOOOZZZZIIIck, sorry again.>

<Don't you have internet connection?>

<No. There aren't many computers in this town, and there's no internet connection. Christ, there isn't even a RZZZevision network. The sticks don't have craZZZZZZm breakZZZZZZreZZZZZout.>

<Sergeant?>

<EEEEEEEEEEEEE>

end of communication log/

Read only for sense-making purposes.

In this alternate world, time, dimension, or whatever it may have, is, or will be, there are things from our world. This is because all sorts of things migrate to parallel worlds or dimensions. The Cheetah was blended over here from the other world, for example. Being parallel worlds, our world and theirs are very different, but also have many things in exact.

"Hell," Janus muttered, ceasing his efforts to make the radio work. The tower itself had been erected before the war had begun, and out here, the only people who stayed for a while were nomads. The nomads had no interest in public entertainment technology.

"Hey, Sarge," called Snipe, looking from the top of the steamer. "If you're done screwing around with the brass, come here and look at this."

Janus jumped up to Snipe's vantage point.

"See the cheetahs, Sarge?" Snipe said, "They're all the way up here, near the Zone. A whole bunch of them."

Snipe pointed to a group of roughly a dozen cheetahs trotting through the long grass. Occasionally, one would wander through a crater of blackened land, giving an excellent view of the beautiful animal.

"Huh." huffed Sarge.

"I've never really seen one before."

"See those patterns below their eyes?" Sarge asked, pointing out the dark stripes below the Cheetah's eyes. "They say those are the tears shed by all the cheetahs when people started taking their skin and destroying their habitat."

"No, Sarge. That isn't true." Snipe said stiffly.

"Why else would they be sad?"

"Sarge, we're in the middle of a war. One that's been going on for about half a century. The cheetahs don't mind that we're taking all their land, or how we used to skin them for stylish clothes. The reason they're crying is because we're all killing each other, and we don't even have a good reason why. The cheetahs feel sad for us, we were so great and we've turned into this; killing each other by the millions for no reason that we know."

Sarge and Snipe were silent for a while.

"Where did you hear that, Snipe?"

"My Uncle told it to me. It was about the only thing he told me that I thought so much about." Snipe said finally. "And I still don't really understand it.

Comments?

CHARACTER LIMIT!

Updated: 11/04/07 9:42 PM 20 comments | Log in to comment! | Share this!