Yes, the long-awaited (possibly) sequel to Devil`s Whim has begun. Personally, I feel that my writing has improved since the last installment, but I leave judgement on that up to you. Only thing I`m not happy with at all is the sudden switch from present tense to past tense near the start, so advice on that would be appreciated. Also, this time, I`ve decided to name individual chapters. See if you can spot the theme in both the story chapters and the story title.
Without further ado, here it is:
TOGETHER WE CRY
Chapter One: Our Time is Running Out
This story takes place on a small and relatively insignificant planet. It is not the planet itself that makes this story worth telling, but rather the people who drift thousands of miles above its surface. Many of them lead normal lives, or as normal as is possibly while floating aimlessly thousands of miles above an alien planet. Their jobs are largely to ensure that the hollowed out chunk of metal they live and breathe in continues to allow them to live and breathe in it. Some, however, lead very different lives.
The ship they scud along in far above the clouds is called the Pioneer 2. Logically enough according to Euclidian logic, the Pioneer 1 came before it. In many other universes which will not be featuring in this story this would be considered a ridiculous state of affairs, and it would be considered logical for the Pioneer 2 to be preceded by the Pioneer thirty-nine, or the Pioneer Ketchup Bonsai, but here it is considered the norm for 2 to be preceded by 1. All of this bears no relevance to this story whatsoever.
In any case, before the Pioneer 2 came the Pioneer 1. The purpose of these two ships was an evacuation. The planet from which they set out from was decaying for an unknown and unresearched reason. A suitable planet, the one over which the Pioneer 2 now circled, was found by unmanned probes and the Pioneer 1 was dispatched to establish a colony. Seven years later it touched down and the planet was christened Ragol, because a name was considered important. A further seven years later, the second ship, the aptly named Pioneer 2 reached orbit, carrying the remaining inhabitants of the planet.
That was now nine months and twenty-three days past, and the Pioneer 2 still hangs in orbit like a giant bauble. The reasons for this will become apparent.
When the Pioneer 2 tried to contact the colony that was built from the dismantled Pioneer 1, via considerably more advanced methods than a pair of cupped hands and a shout of "hey, you!", a devastating explosion shook the planet, obscuring half of it from view. When it cleared, nothing had changed, every continent and island was unchanged, the plants were as luxurious and green as ever, the Central Dome that remained of the Pioneer 1 was unscathed, but every single man, woman, child and android from the Pioneer 1 was gone, vanished without a trace. Naturally, the occupants of the Pioneer 2 found this worrying, and decided to investigate. With what turned out to be remarkable foresight, a group of elite mercenaries, known as the Hunters, had been established several thousand years previously. These are the people who lead very different lives.
They are not necessarily very good at it.
Observe a Hunter. Like many Hunters, his outfit seems chosen more for the distinctive and bizarre looks than for any practical use. He wears a black, skintight suit that covers his entire body, except for his face. In fact, scanning upwards, his feet, torso and chest all look vaguely sinister, covered in skintight black latex, with occasional greyish-white highlights. The effect is slightly marred by the shoulders, one of which is covered by a piece of smooth polished metal, despite the fact that there are areas far more worthy of this meagre protection than the left shoulder, and every Hunter has, on a frame that covers the left wrist, an energy shield, which can block most attacks if used well. What finally kills the threatening air altogether, however, is his face. Or, more specifically, his hair.
His hair is a dark blond colour, and much of it is tied back in a ponytail. Many hunters have this hairstyle, since it keeps long hair out of the way. For no real reason, many also have a long fringe that dangles casually over one eye or the other. This Hunter does not. He has a fringe over both eyes, which extends down to the middle of his cheeks, leaving only his mouth and, through a narrow gap in the middle, his nose exposed. Theoretically, since it hides any distinguishing features from view, it is an excellent disguise. Since his hair is quite possibly the only one of its kind anywhere, the effectiveness of this disguise is questionable, to say the least. Strangely, his vision seems to be unimpaired. All Hunters choose their own name to go by when they join the Hunter`s Guild, which results in any number of amusing names. The name that this Hunter has chosen is Sylent.
Observe Sylent.
He struts casually through what looks like a labyrinth of stone tunnels, one hand on the handle of the huge sword that he habitually uses as a weapon. The blade, which is composed largely of green photons, rests on the small piece of armour on his shoulder, revealing its purpose. The sword looks far too unwieldy to be of any use. The handle is a simple cylinder an inch wide and about four inches long, but the blade is easily four feet long and eight inches across, more like a cricket bat than a weapon designed for cutting. True, it is impossible to use with any kind of grace or style, but nevertheless it is an effective weapon. In front of him are a group of fellow Hunters, which can be split into three main classes. There are the Rangers, who use guns for preference, the Forces, who use bursts of mental energy to manipulate the ambient space and create fireballs or lightning bolts, and finally the Hunters, who specialize in the use of bladed weapons. Whether the huge sword referred to simply as a Sword that Sylent carries can be called a bladed weapon is a moot point. It occasionally causes confusion to have one of the subgroups of the Hunters also called Hunters, as will soon become apparent. Most of the group that Sylent wanders casually along behind carry weapons that, like his, carry a faint green glow when activated, indicating that they are the weakest, most basic weapon of their class. Sylent`s is the only weapon which is active, the others looking like plain pieces of metal. The exception is the leader of the group, a huge, hulking android, with an apparently purposeless spike in the middle of his head, over his perfectly circular eyes, which glow a calm yellow, like the headlights of one of the more friendly cars. He is all of eight feet tall including the horn, and while apparently composed of building blocks, he is solid metal through and through, and painted black and red. In one fist he grips the handle of a large metal shotgun. Unlike virtually every other weapon that has been devised by this particular group, it does not rely on high-energy photons to deal out pain, instead relying on high-speed lead slugs, which are generally more effective. He reaches a large open area and gestures to it with his free hand before turning to the group that tails behind him.
"Class, this will be your first encounter with..." He tails off and gives a robotic sigh.
"Sylent, I thought I told you, don`t activate your weapon until we get to the first combat area."
The fledgling Hunter looks up from examining a fragment of wall that sparks as he prods it with one finger and seems to shimmer in and out of existence.
"Hmm? Oh, that`s right, Professor Nova. You did." He replies, as if nothing could be less important, and returns his attention to the wall.
The android called Professor Nova, if such a thing is possible, seems slightly disconcerted by such a flippant answer.
"Ah...yes. So why do you have your sword active?"
The Hunter drags his attention from the wall and examines his sword carefully for just long enough for the android to start thinking up a prompt before replying.
"You also told us that we should always be ready for an unexpected attack. How can we be ready for an attack if we`re unarmed?"
The android sighs again. "Sylent, sometimes I have trouble decided if you have to plan these out in advance or if you just have a natural talent. No, don`t answer that." He adds as Sylent opens his mouth for a further retort.
"Yes, you should always keep your weapon ready when there is any chance, however slim, that you will be attacked. This, however, is a virtual reality simulation. We will not be attacked until I send word to the Lab that we are ready. Now, that brings us neatly onto this. Everyone, get ready."
A sound of energy weapons being activated, which is best described as "Pwang", indicated that the majority of the class was ready. All but one, in fact, a Hunter of no real relevance to this tale. Nova turned to him.
"Other way round, Jed."
The Hunter looked up sheepishly from trying to press the activation button on the handle of his weapon and turned it around. The weapon activated instantly, a single narrow beam of green light, and Sylent leaned over to whisper in his ear.
"Lucky for you they put safety checks on these things, huh?"
The Hunter called Jed nodded feverishly and tried not to think about what would happen to anyone who happened to activate a weapon with the business end pointed toward them.
Once the class was to his satisfaction, Nova spread them out around the wide room, into groups of three; one Hunter, one Ranger and one Force in each group.
"Alright, listen up!" He bellowed, trying to make himself heard all around the room, and with great success, "When I call in the first wave of targets, I want to see each of you in these groups supporting each other. Forces, beef up your friends, slow down your enemies, Rangers, I expect to see you picking them off from afar, and Hunters, your job is to stop anything getting to your companions! Alright! Three...two...one...GO!"
He pressed a button on his wrist, and with a faint noise and a distortion in the air, the room was filled with creatures. They were largely bipeds, and were largely black, with sky blue cores and the same sky blue on their bladed arms. They had no face to speak of, having instead an overhanging hook above the blue core. The class stood stock still at first, not sure what to make of these strange apparitions. Sylent, predictably, was the first to move, after the black creatures, which raised their arms and made a sort of threatening honking noise and began to walk slowly forward on narrow, ice skate like feet. One was intercepted midway by Sylent, who smacked it over the head with his Sword. A fraction of a second after, a photon bullet whiffed past his ear, briefly disturbing his fringe, and impacted in the blue core of the creature, which fizzled out. The creature vanished instantly, removed from the VR program. Sylent turned his head to see who had fired the bullet. Behind him were the other two members of his group, a small girl with a blue outfit, clutching a short stick, at each end of which was a glowing green ball of photons, and a bright blue android of female design, who was holding a rifle against her shoulder, apparently leveling it at Sylent`s head. Surmising that she must have fired the shot, Sylent ran back over to the pair.
"Good shot. Just try not to cut it that close to my head next time, please. What`s your name?"
"The android girl, now that he could see her clearly, was a little shorter than him, but far more slender. Around her waist was a metallic skirt, and she apparently had hair in the same shade of blue as her body, which was tied back in a pair of bunches, although in reality it was the shape of her head. She waited patiently for him to finish looking her up and down before replying.
"It`s Surf. And I`ll try not to cut it so close in future."
Sylent nodded and turned to the Force.
"Okay. And you?"
The short girl seemed to snap out of a trance and blinked a few times before answering.
"Oh! I`m Serenity. And you`re Sylent, right?"
Sylent nodded again.
"That`s right. I see my reputation precedes me. Now that we`re acquainted, we have some work to do."
He turned to run back out to the shrinking circle of monsters, but Serenity called him back, bouncing up and down on her platform shoes as she did so.
"Oh! Um, Sylent, wait up!"
The Hunter turned back to her briefly in time to catch a red photonic glow, which surrounded him. It was closely followed by a deep blue glow, and a low hum that somehow managed to sound cheerful. Sylent examined his body and turned his head questioningly at the girl.
"It`s Shifta and Deband! It makes you stronger and tougher. Umm, look out!"
Sylent turned back to the approaching creatures to find one of them right up behind him, raising its photon edged arm for a vicious downward swipe. Sylent tried to raise his shield arm, which, unusually, was his right rather than left, but just couldn`t raise his arm in time. The blow came down on his unprotected right shoulder, but as it landed the blue photons that encircled him gathered under the blade and cushioned the blow, so that what should have left a nasty gash merely left a light scratch. Sylent retaliated with a hard, two-handed slash to what passed for the creature`s face, the red photons gathering in his arms and giving his biceps a little extra strength. The creature vanished instantly, and Sylent swung the sword back in a pendulum action, sweeping into the creature behind the departed one. The fight drew on, the kill count of each Hunter creeping slowly up. From time to time, Serenity would run out to deliver a burst of red and then blue photons to the creatures that kept on reappearing, delivering the effects known as Jellen and Zalure, the opposite of Shifta and Deband. After a full half hour of hacking, sniping and casting, the Professor pressed another button set into his wrist, and the monsters stopped appearing.
"Okay, gather round!"
He waited a few moments for the further away class members to jog back before lowering his voice to a more normal volume.
"Alright. In general, that was very good."
The class looked around at each other proudly.
"However..."
The looks of pride turned nervous.
"I do have one or two criticisms. Firstly, how many of you have a Mag?"
A Mag is a small, semi-robotic assist unit given to every Hunter when they join the Guild. Although they are robotic, they feed on healing or recovery items and evolve into different forms depending on their diet. They can bolster a Hunters abilities, and are also capable of healing them, casting a low level of Shifta and Deband, reviving them if they should fall in battle, and even making them briefly invulnerable to all forms of damage for a while. Despite this, not one of the novice Hunters had one of these faithful companions equipped.
"And why did you decide not to equip you Mag today?"
The replies were many and varied.
"My Mag never does anything..."
"It gets in the way when I fight."
"My Mag just looks so goofy. I can`t go out wearing that"
"My Mag tends to scare little children."
The last reply was Sylent. Professor Nova would have raised an eyebrow, but due to his lack of any form of mobility in his face, had to settle for slightly dimming one eye and brightening the other for a second, but he decided to withhold judgment for the time being.
"Well, would you all equip your Mag now, please?"
Most of the Mags were the basic comma shape of a Mag before it undergoes any evolution, but a few were different. The girl who had complained about the look of her Mag had some justification, Nova had to admit. The Mag was in the form known as Kumara, which resembles a shellfish of some sort that hovers by the shoulder of the owner, opening and closing its shell aimlessly. He deliberately avoided looking at Sylent for the time being.
"Now, if you don`t like the look of your Mag, just change its diet. If it never does anything, try feeding it at all. Now then. Sylent..."
He turned his attention to Sylent`s Mag, and his eyes grew fractionally brighter in a fair imitation of surprise.
Sylent`s Mag was an orange ovoid body perched on a pair of stubby legs, and with a pair of pointed ears on top. It had a pair of glowing yellow eyes covering almost half of its "face". The lower half of it was dominated by a huge mouth, which was surrounded by sharp, triangular metal teeth. Indeed, some of the younger Hunters, some of whom were as young as 12 years old, were edging backwards away from it.
"A Kapu Kapu? Well, this is a rare surprise, Sylent. You actually have a legitimate excuse for once."
A few titters ran around the watching class.
"Thank you, Professor Nova. How good of you to say so."
"Hmm. Where did you get hold of the Mag Cell?"
"It was...a present." His tone suggested, very strongly, that there would be no more questions in this line.
"I see. Well, legitimate excuse or no, it`s worth scaring a few kids to have a Mag equipped. Especially if it was a present. Now, let`s see how you perform with your Mags equipped."
Three hours later and countless virtual victories later, the Professor decided that the lesson was over. Sylent, Serenity and Surf instinctively grouped together and looked at each other in embarrassment.
"Um...."
"Yeah..."
"You two fancy going out for a drink? Celebrate surviving our first lesson?"
The two girls looked at Sylent appraisingly, then at each other and nodded.
"Sure, why not? I know a great place that`s not too far from here."
A further twenty minutes later they were grouped around a small circular table in one of the more airy bars on the Pioneer 2. Surf volunteered to fetch the first round of drinks and returned to the table moments later, balancing a tray of drinks on one upturned hand, a barely alcoholic bottle of fruit-flavoured additives each for Sylent and Serenity, and an small diesel for herself. Having taken the drinks, she frisbeed the circular tray back across to the bar, where it was caught neatly by the barman, and took the only remaining seat. Sylent watched with interest.
"You look like you`ve done this before"
"What? Oh, the tray thing? Yeah, I used to work here before I joined the Guild. The owner of the place used to be...well, my owner. He bought me fresh off the production line. Two years I worked here before I decided to move on."
"How did you get out? I mean, you were property, right?"
"Yup. I made a deal with the owner. He let me go join the Hunter`s Guild and I used the money from that to buy myself off him for the price he paid to get me in the first place. I agreed, he signed me over to myself. I`m my own android now. Just one in heavy debt."
Serenity tilted her head to one side, giving her a quirky expression.
"You`re buying yourself? I`ve never heard that androids could do that."
"It`s not widely advertised. Tends to turn up in the small print of the buyer`s contract. So, how about you two?"
Sylent spoke up first, after a long delay with both him and Serenity waiting for the other to make the first move.
"I...my parents were killed, a year ago now. They were both Hunters, so I decided to join the Guild. So, here I am. Passed the Guild test after a year in training, decided to take this course. You know, saw the sign saying "Free Hunter`s Lessons, apply here."
"The one just by the Guild counter?"
"That`s the one, yeah. How about you, Serenity?"
"Me? Oh...It just seemed like a good idea. I`ve always had a talent for casting Techs, like Barta. I like Barta. It`s all sparkly."
Barta, the ice tech she referred to, projected a wave of freezing ice and air, which was indeed very sparkly.
"Oh...so, your parents weren`t Hunters or anything?"
Surf kicked Sylent under the table for this, causing him to wince and glare accusingly at her, but before he could frame a question, Serenity replied, with a slightly dreamy look in her eyes.
"My mother...I mean, I`m a newman, silly. I don`t have parents."
Sylent cursed himself silently for his stupidity, trying to surreptitiously rub his shin where the android girl had kicked it.
"Oh...of course. Sorry, Serenity..."
Serenity shook her head as if shaking water out of her hair for a second.
"It`s ok. And just call me Reni, everyone does."
The two girls, naturally, wanted to hear a little more of Sylent`s story, but he suddenly had a very...spiky look to him. Serenity quickly changed the subject of the conversation away from parents.
"So...what do you think of Professor Nova?"
Sylent grinned, his spiky air gone as quickly as it had appeared.
"Personally? He`s a good teacher, I guess, but I can`t see myself hanging out with him any more than I have to. He just doesn`t understand my sense of humour."
"That`s probably because he`s the teacher and you`re a natural troublemaker."
"Touche, Reni. So, what do you think of him? He`s not likely to be able to teach you much about Techs."
"If you tried listening to him, you`d have heard him say that the next lesson is in the Forest, down on the surface, and he`s bringing a Force along to teach us about Techs."
"Oh...well, fair enough. How about you, Surf?"
"I like him. I`ve heard he`s the best Ranger on the Pioneer 2. Maybe even the best Hunter at all."
"Who told you that? I`ve never heard that."
"You hear a lot of gossip when you work as a waitress. You know that big thing when we first got here, and the government said it was an official secret?" She leaned in conspiratorially.
Serenity nodded vigorously, but Sylent just frowned, searching his memory. He could remember something, but before a few months ago it was all a little hazy. The two girls looked at him, both with same quirky expression that Serenity wore just a few minutes before.
"You...really don`t remember? There was a huge explosion! Why did you think we never landed?"
Sylent blinked. Of course, how could he have forgotten that?
"Oh...yeah, that. Carry on."
Surf nodded, trying to remember where she left off.
"Um, where was I? Oh yes, the explosion. Well, after that, there were a lot of rumours from drunk Hunters that everything down on the surface had suddenly gone nuts, tried to attack anyone that went down there. Then, they started changing, growing bigger teeth and claws and things."
She paused, waiting to see if anyone doubted her story. When they gave no sign of scepticism, she carried on.
"Well, I heard it turned out that there was some sort of huge monster at the bottom of it all, down in some big underground cave, and Professor Nova was the one that killed it, but it managed to kill his best friend."
The other two Hunters looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to carry on.
"So...what happened then?"
"Surf shook her head.
"I don`t know. I don`t think anyone ever told me. Or if they did, I forgot."
Now it was Surf`s turn to receive a pair of quirky expressions. She looked at them guiltily.
"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You forgot? I thought androids were supposed to have a perfect memory? Can`t you just check your memory bank or something?"
"I...don`t think so. I don`t know what a memory bank is."
The quirky expressions intensified.
"You don`t? How can you not have know how your own body works?"
"Well...I just don`t. I don`t know anything about machines. Don`t look at me like that, I bet you don`t know how your bodies work."
"What? Of course we do! How would we be able to do anything otherwise?"
"Alright. What does your spleen do? Can you point it out?"
Sylent and Serenity opened their mouths do reply, thought for a moment, and shut them again.
"I...guess you`re right. Well, anyway. Drink up. It sounds like we have a long day ahead tomorrow if we`re going down to the surface"
Sylent drank thoughtfully, filing away the rumours on the Professor under "possibly useful", and made a mental note to listen to drunken Hunters more often.
EDIT: Just a few corrections.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: shadowvincent on 2005-03-05 05:03 ]</font>
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: shadowvincent on 2005-03-09 06:43 ]</font>
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: shadowvincent on 2005-03-10 07:27 ]</font>
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